Decoding the Gurus - Lex Fridman & Douglas Murray: The Wise Man from the Land of Peace

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

In this very special decoding, Matt and Chris revisit the wisdom of the internet’s favourite philosopher-warrior/political theorist, Lex Fridman, as he dives once again into the complex realities of the Ukraine war. Joining Lex is IDW hero and conservative commentator Douglas Murray, who actually offers some sensible insights on the specific topic of Ukraine. Fear not, though, Lex ensures his signature 'non-partisan' approach remains intact, framing Zelensky as a potentially corrupt leader who is emotionally driven, and responsible for prolonging the conflict to evade the inevitable investigations. Meanwhile, Putin remains a tragically misunderstood patriot whose greatest crime is that he loves his country a little too much.Lex is in rare form, reaching new heights of weaponised naiveté, and bravely defending himself against the legions of online "grifters, drama-farmers, liars, bots, sycophants, and sociopaths." Expect generous servings of geopolitical delusions, questionable polemics, and heartfelt serenades to Joe Rogan—all delivered with Lex’s characteristic humility and wisdom as a love-filled Man of Peace. We are genuinely sorry to drag you back into Lex's world, but someone has to keep an eye on his Ukraine takes.Sources Lex Fridman- Douglas Murray: Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump, Israel, Netanyahu, Hamas & Gaza | Lex Fridman Podcast #463DTG: Lex Fridman's Take on the Zelensky Interview: The Wounded Bird and Ukrainian Bot FarmsDTG: Douglas Murray: Can indulgent dinner conversation save OUR civilisation?

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the credits minds the world has to offer. Should be an asterisk there next to credits minds, by the way. And we try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Matt Brown and with me is the wind to my rock or alternatively the Spider-Man to my Aquaman. Chris Cowan. Aquaman. Aquaman. Aquaman. There's too many, too many wah in those words. That's it. Yeah. Well, hello there, Matt. The red Guru phone was ringing. This is a decoding, which has jumped the line as they sometimes do.

Right. And in honor of that, although most of the people seeing this will be able to tell, but I've dressed up in a suit in honor of a decoding involving Lex Friedman. I am also in a black and white suit. You're not the administration in waiting. You're not sitting there waiting for the call. Well, I thought, you know, in case anybody calls, I just want to show them I can wear a suit. I'm ready to go. Just, you know, give me a buzz and I'm there. On the other hand, you're nibbling some yellow snack. Oh, no, it's an orange.

It's orange. Is that? There we go. So, you know, which one of us is going to get the call, Matt? Mac. Oh, no, it's an orange. It's orange. Is that there we go. So, you know, which one of us is going to get the call, Matt, but you, you are like, you know, the genius programmer in his slovenly shirt, eating oranges at the DEFCON meeting and he's like, what am I? That's right. There's all these stuff that's sitting there, all these generals,

with medals and stuff, and I'm like, I'm about to blow your mind. Yeah. How about we got to use ducks, lots of ducks. There's a countdown coming from the alien chip and I've detected that in my algorithms. Yeah. Yeah. So that is the way it is. And who we're talking about today, someone that we often talk about, or at least has unfortunately came up a couple of times recently, old Lex Friedman. He's done an episode with Douglas Murray, a political conservative pundit who I think it's fair to say Matt and I are not overly fond of. You can go listen to the episode we did on Douglas Murray, if you want to hear our opinion on, you know, his general output.

And this is a long episode that he did with Lex, but in particular, we are focusing on the section on Ukraine, Zelensky, and Putin. It's kind of a follow-up from our recent coverage of Lex and how he framed his interview with Zelensky. Okay, Chris. So as you know, we have our schedule programming. We have our upcoming gurus, often new gurus, people we haven't covered before. Yeah. Stuff that we prepare for stuff that is, you know, we know is coming up and we both

do our background research and we have a lot of great people that we have. So we have a lot of great people that we have. So we have a lot of great people that we have. So we have a lot of great people that we have we haven't covered before. Yeah, stuff that we prepare for, stuff that is, you know, we know is coming up and we both do our background research. Then we have stuff which is more of the form, oh my god, Matt, you got to listen to this, this sucks so much, we have to cover it. And I think this would fall into the latter category. Now, many people might be asking themselves, you guys have already covered Lex. We've covered, what's his name as well for that matter. Why are we returning to him today?

Justify yourself. Yeah, well, so I think it's worth, because in the coverage that we give of Lex, we kind of highlighted this way that he frames himself, you know, as an objective, nonpartisan, just promoting love and whatnot. And that there is rather clear through lines in this content, which suggests that he is not the nonpartisan that he presents himself as. And in this case, this is a very long episode. You know, it's I think in total three hours and 10 minutes. So Douglas Murray and Lex go on to talk about Gaza and Israel, right?

The conflict there where Murray is extremely polemical in favor of Israel. They go on to talk about the lab, like they go on to talk about other things. And inevitably the section about Ukraine will get lost in the mix. And Lex also has this habit of, you know, the way that he presents things in, like, I don't even know how to say it. It's not, like, it is not very hard to see, but I think it's something that if you don't isolate it and highlight how often he does it, how often the skew is towards Putin and critical of Zelensky and whatnot, that it might go by some people. So I see this as just part of our Lex Friedman is not a non-partisan love machine. He is a rather partisan and rather biased individual when it comes to various topics. And that includes the war in Ukraine.

Yes, yes, indeed. Yes. His unconditional, pure spiritual love seems to be extended, you know, mainly towards alphas, like Joe Rogan or Vladimir Putin. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. That's a half decent justification, I suppose.

So apologies, everyone, if you're sick of hearing from, like, Spreedman. You're going to get some more. You're going to get some more. I know I am. I know I am. I know. Well. Hit me with it, Chris. Let's see if these clips justify it or not.

So we'll start off with just the framing of the discussion and the topic. So here's Lex framing what they're going to discuss about. We talk about Russia and Ukraine and about Israel and Gaza. Douglas has very strong views on these topics and he defends them brilliantly and fearlessly. As I always try to do for all topics, I will also talk to people who have different views from Douglas, including on the next episode

of this podcast. We live in an era of online discourse where grifters, drama farmers, liars, bots, sycophants, and sociopaths roam the vast beautiful dark land of the Internet. It's hard to know who to trust. I believe no one is in possession of the entire truth. But some are more correct than others. Some are insightful, and some are delusional.

The problem is it's hard to tell which is which unless you use your mind with intellectual humility and with rigor. I recommend you listen to many sources who disagree with each other and try to pick up wisdom from each. Also, I recommend you visit the places in question, as Douglas has, as I have, or at least talk face to face with people who have spent most of their lives living there,

whether it's Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, or Russia. Let's try together to not be cogs in the machine of outrage and instead to reach towards reason and compassion. There is no Hitler, Stalin, or Mao on the world stage today. Plus, there are thousands of nuclear weapons ready to fire. Human civilization hangs in the balance. The 21st century is a new geopolitical puzzle all of us are tasked with solving.

Let's not mess it up. Fine words. Fine words, Chris. Lofty sentiments. Yeah. Lofty sentiments. He is a platitude machine, isn't he? Like, he'll never get tired of platitudes.

And I query his position that there are no dangerous bad actors on the world stage today. Yeah, nobody like Hitler, Stalin or Mao. So it's true to say there's nobody that's generated the level of carnage and global suffering of those individuals, but plenty of leaders that are giving a good go of it and have not finished their careers yet. So yeah, but also that part, Matt, about it's grifters, drama farmers, liars, bots, sycophants, and sociopaths. That is true.

All those kinds of people are online. I wonder if Lex is talking about, you know, the kind of people that orbit around Jorgen or would he more be pointing towards the people that are critical of him? I wonder which he's warning people about there. And I also like that, you know, he's got these compliments for Douglas Murray. Douglas Murray is forceful. He's brilliant. He's a, you know, a genuine person. He's fearless. He was courageous enough to come up to Lex Fridman and disagree with him to his face. That, that, I mean, yeah, we talk about the people in Ukraine or whatever being brave, but that's, that's where real courage is at. That's true bravery. But you know, it's also that just if you don't like what Douglas is saying in

this episode, like if he's annoys you, because you'll hear that he's actually very clear sided when it comes to the conflict in your Korean Lex is out to reassure you he's going to have someone else on the balance it up, you know, mere shame or type person or someone like that. He's a guy with strong opinions and Lex is all about balance. That's right. But don't worry. Don't worry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, you know, this is just the start. Okay. I just wanted to play this to highlight, you know, as Matt said, platitudes or lofty sentiments or whatever, there isn't much to be in disagreement with, that you should listen to opinions from different sides,

you should look out for sources that are affected by conflict, speak to people who live in regions you know that are affected by ongoing conflicts. All of these are not bad sentiments in isolation, ignoring what Lex actually does. But like if you took it to heart what he says, if you did listen to people that live in the theater of conflict in Ukraine, there was very loud criticism of Lex's last interview with Zelensky, even though people appreciated him giving Zelensky a platform. But Lex dismissed that as all Ukrainian bot farms. So the sentiment is there, but the actual putting it into practice, what he means is not what I think most people would take it to mean. Because if he actually lived by this, his output and behavior

would look very different. Yeah, yeah. This is why I tend to call them platitudes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, so, you know, there was a rather famous recent event where Zelensky went to the White House and got into a fracas during a press conference with JD Vance and Trump, right? And the, the Republicans, well, not even the Republicans, the MAGA crowd were saying

he was being disrespectful and that kind of thing. But like the majority of sentiment outside of the MAGA cult was that that was a horrific performance by JD Vance and Trump where they were insulting a leader who is facing an invasion of their country. And so just, there were a lot of things, right? Now, Douglas Murray was actually there during this event. So Lex asked him about, you know, you were there, tell us about that situation. So here's Douglas Murray kind of framing, you know, about that meeting. situation. So here's Douglas Murray kind of framing, you know, about that meeting. But I think it was just one of those extremely, I mean, just awful political moments. Zelensky was obviously deeply irritated by the interpretation of the war that he was hearing from Washington. It was only a week after the Trump comments about Zelensky being a dictator and people in the administration

implying that Ukraine has started the war. I think that must be for Zelensky, a pretty Alice in Wonderland situation to be in. And I had significant sympathy for him in finding it bewildering because it would be bewildering. I think the sad thing to me also on the mundane details of that meeting and just the unfortunate way that meetings happen I think it's true that he was also exhausted yes there was a dickhead of a reporter that was asked a question about outfit in a way that listen Zelensky everybody has their strengths and weaknesses he's an emotional being for

better or for worse and there's a dumb dickhead of a reporter. Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend. Oh, right. It is. Yeah. The things you know. See, you're a real journalist. Oh, that was Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend. Yeah.

A journalist. Wow. How about that? How about that? So this was the thing about the suit, right? And I just got to say, Chris, since then, of course, many MAGA nutballs have visited the Oval Office. Most recently I saw Kid Rock, like wearing a literal clown costume, just there, bloviating away in the Oval Office. No offense taken. Anyway, anyway. Anyway.

Yeah. And, and JD Vance went to Greenland and was dressed in like a sweater. Sweater. Yeah. Sweater. So what? He doesn't have a suit. So yeah, the double, double standards.

I mean, Elon Musk prancing around in his, his Doge t-shirts and whatnot. Yeah. So it's absolutely inconsistent standards there. But the thing is, this is Douglas Murray very clearly saying, you know, this is a bewildering situation for Zelensky because he's having to deal with being called a dictator. He's a person who's been invaded and is now, you know, being treated like the aggressor so he can understand that this would be a bad situation. Lex brings up the reporter asking the question.

And you know, Zelensky, Matt, he's got his strengths and his weaknesses, but he's very emotional. I guess that's a weakness. Lex has pointed this out before, right? So yeah, this is Douglas Murray kind of laying it up that he doesn't think really Zelensky is primarily the person to blame here.

Right. And Lex Lex of course, responding with implicitly saying, Oh no, it actually is his fault because he's too emotional and he reacted badly. He was maybe he was tired. Yeah. Yeah. He played a role, right. And we'll see more of this, but then so Douglas Murray goes on a bit and he

introduces this concept of people from the realm of war, talking to people from the realm of this. Douglas Murray goes on a bit and he introduces this concept of people from the realm of war talking to people from the realm of peace. This is important for later. Listen to this. The problem with that interaction as I saw it was that guy asked that disrespectful question. I think it was disrespectful. I'll very quickly say why. I think that when a man comes from the realm of war into the realm of peace, the people in the realm of peace should have some respect or at least concession that the other man has come from the realm of war. And that if you're sitting in a political environment where you talk about people being destroyed and decimated and defenestrated and much more to a man for whom none of that I think that's extremely hard to accept. And I think that probably also at that moment,

there was a sort of sense of, you know, Zelensky is being disrespected by being asked about what he's wearing. When, as everyone knows, you know, Churchill during World War II used to wear his fatigues on foreign visits. It's just that, to remind people that you're coming from the realm of war. I think that probably in that moment, one of the things that would have been going through his head would be, but if this was Putin sitting here being assaulted by a journalist, you'd hope your host stepped in and defended

you. Let me try this one out. If a journalist in the Oval Office, if Putin was sitting there, or a putative journalist said to Putin, everyone knows you've had a lot of facial work done and word is you've used the same guy that Berlusconi used to use. Can you comment on that? You'd say, well, that's a kind of disrespectful question for journalists to ask and it's a little bit off of what needs to be gone over. And this is the same thing with Zelensky with his outfit. Yeah, I mean, well said again. Of course, this is all obviously

true. It should be obviously true to everyone. It's such like Zelensky with his wartime outfit is so well known. It is ubiquitously understood. The reasons for it are perfectly understandable, perfectly reasonable, as he says, what's the precedence for it? And it just makes the whole thing absolutely insulting. Anyway. Well, so Lex Matt, he had a positive interaction with Modi recently, the Prime Minister of India. Modi praised him on the fantastic interview. You might regard this as something of a puff piece if you listen to it, but in any case, he got on very well with Modi. And with Modi again, he lament, the online bots and the people online treating him unfairly and how

he doesn't really, you know, journalists are not doing their job properly, all this kind of thing. Yeah, the thing you speak of is very important to me because I admire great journalism. And unfortunately, in modern day, a lot of journalists seek clickbait headlines, make accusations because they operate under incentive because they want the headline, the cheap shot. I think there is room and desire and hunger for great journalists, and that requires deep understanding. And it saddens me how often one of the reasons, you know, I don't think I'm very good at this,

but one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you is because I don't see enough high effort, deep dive research. I don't know how many books I've read. I've read a lot in preparing just to experience, just to try to understand. It requires a lot of preparation, a lot of work, and I would love to see great journalists do that more. From that place, you can criticize. From that place, you can really investigate the complexity of a situation of people in power.

Their strengths, their flaws, the mistakes they've made, but that requires great, great, great preparation. So I wish there was more of that, of great journalism. But Modi was much more friendly to Lex than Zelensky was, in part because Lex was not doing the things that he did with Zelensky, with Modi, right? Like he didn't suggest that you're corrupt and all these kinds of things, right? So there's this element. So he makes a comparison. They talk for a bit about the issues and why the Republicans have taken against Ukraine and

have been due to people online falling into tribes and seeing Ukrainian flags and liberal profiles and whatnot, and the Republicans reacting against it and all this kind of thing. And Lex wants to make a comparison though, because even with that, he thinks there was an opportunity for Zelensky that he missed, and he makes a comparison with someone like Modi. So listen to this.

Yeah, so I think the memes can be broken through in meetings like the one that happened between Zelensky and Trump. There can have been real camaraderie. I've seen the skill of that just recently having researched deeply and interact with Narendra Modi. Here's somebody who has the skill of, you know, for his country, for his situation, being able to somehow be friends with Putin and friends with Zelensky and friends with Trump and friends with Biden and friends with Obama was very skillful and that while still being strong for his country,

and fundamentally a nationalist figure, who's very not globalist, not anything but pro-India, India first, nation first. In fact, nation first with a very specific idea of what that nation represents. And that, you know, Zelensky could do all of those things, but have the skill of navigating the Trump room because every single leader has their own peculiar quirks that need to be navigated. So Zelensky was a skillful leader like

Modi, you know, Lex's pal, he maybe could have seized this opportunity. Or if he understood the psychology like Lex does of world leaders. So, Chris, Lex Rudman interviewed Modi, didn't he? And you mentioned there was a softball interview. Now look, there are lots of issues with Modi's India, arguably sort of blurring the line between religion and the state in terms of pro-Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalism, that's right. So like there's a lot of anti-liberal issues, shall we say, that's going on with Modi. Now did Lex deal with any of those issues? Did he ask any hard-hitting

questions about press freedom, about judicial independence, democratic backsliding? No, no, no, no, none of that. I mean, what he did read was the Gujarat riots, which Modi is famously connected to. You have seen a lot of difficult situations in the history of India. One of them, the 2002 Gujarat riots. They're one of the most challenging periods of modern Indian history. When there was violence between Hindu and Muslim citizens of the Gujarat that led to over 1,000 deaths, it revealed the intensity of religious tensions in the region.

You were, as you mentioned, Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time. Looking back, what lessons do you draw from that time? We should also say that India's Independent Supreme Court upheld twice in 12 and 22, that you had no involvement in the violence of the 2002 Gujrat riots. But I was wondering if you could speak to the broad lessons you draw from that time. Look, regarding your first point, when you humbly said that you don't know what you're doing, that you're not good at this.

I disagree and personally feel you've put in tremendous care, you've done extensive research and have dived deeply into every small detail. So I think you've done very well and all the efforts you've put in during our conversation and in all your conversations are appreciated. And rather than simply interviewing me, I feel you're trying to deeply understand India. That's why I strongly feel there's genuine honesty in your sincere effort to uncover the truth. And for that sincere approach, I genuinely congratulate you. Thank you. He did raise them with the framing of the question mentioning that he had been exonerated twice in

the court. And so Lex did that for him before he answered. And he did also ask about the tensions with China and Pakistan. But again, framing it very much in things have been difficult, but what steps have you, Prime Minister, taken to show, can you say something nice about Pakistan? Can you say something nice about China? And Modi know, Modi is a polished leader, right? So of course he can. And of course he can talk about how they want peace and they're making all these overtures, right? And Pakistan so far have rebuffed his good faith efforts. China, yes, there was some friction along the border, but now things are starting to go back to agreeable relationships.

And, you know, this is understandable that there would be friction when you have these powerful nations and this kind of thing. So it was like that. And in regards to like the domestic front, it was more like Prime Minister, you have been so successful electorally, you're super popular, you know, everybody loves you. How is it that you are such a fantastic unifying Prime Minister and such a strong leader? So he was probably one of the greatest leaders

of the 20th century. You are one of the greatest leaders of the 21st century. Those two centuries are very different. And you have been masterful in the game, in the art of geopolitics. So let me ask you, you have found a balance. So when negotiating on the world stage with super powerful nations, is it better to be loved or feared? It seems like you are a masterclass

of being loved by everybody, but everybody knows and feels the strength. So finding that balance, can you speak to that balance? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Is it because of your spiritual power? He did spend a long time in that. Yeah. It must be easy to remain calm and non-antagonistic when you're

only asked questions like that. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's the way it went. Okay. But like in this kind of thing, I'm playing, you get the underhand denigration of Zelensky. He's not this skillful leader like Modi. That's a real, you know, leader who would manage this situation better that Lex has met recently.

There were disrespectful comments from a dickhead reporter, but you know, Zelensky is an emotional man and he was tired from the thing and so on. So there's just always this, almost every line that Lex says carries with it, an implicit criticism. And if you think that's too much reading into it, there are times where it's not so implicit, it's explicit. So listen to this. We're deeply grateful.

And because he for once forgot to say that. I think it's not that simple. I think there's a... It's not that simple. It's one reason. I think saying thank you, he didn't need to say thank you. That was what Vance leapt in on. He's just picking a thing to leap on. There's a whole energy.

You have to acknowledge in your way of being that you have been very Biden buddy buddy with the left for the last four years. There's ways to fix that. Listen, these people are complicated narcissists, all of them, Biden, Trump. You have to navigate the complexity of that. And you basically have to say a kind word to Trump, which is like showing there's many ways of doing that. But one of them is saying, feeding the ego by acknowledging that he is one of the world's

greatest negotiators. I'm glad we're able to come to the table and negotiate together because I believe you are the great negotiator, mediator that can actually bring a successful resolution to the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. As opposed to have an energy of like, it should be obvious to everybody that you're creating are the good guys and Russia is the bad guys. There's this whole energy of entitlement that he brought.

He forgot that there's a new guy. You got to convince the new guy that this global mission that this nation is on, this war that is in many ways the West versus the East, that there's ideals, there's whole histories here, that this is a war worth winning. You have to convince them, right? Right. Right, right, right, right, right. So, I mean, the main thing, his first point there was that what Zelensky needed to do was to be a sycophant and butter up Donald Trump because he has to compensate for the fact that they had good relations

with the previous administration. But now they had to show that- He was too buddy buddy with Biden, Matt. He was buddy buddy. I don't remember Zelensky ever kissing Biden's ass or anyone's ass. It's not what national leaders usually do. They usually express, you know, formal thanks and stuff like that, as he did on dozens of occasions for the various aid that's been flowing in, not just from the US, but from all over the world. But he doesn't then go,

oh, you've got such beautiful hair to the prime. You're the greatest. But it's so Lex always, again here, he frames it as they're all narcissists, right? Biden, Trump, you got to manage them, right? You got it. And it's like, well, are they both the same? Like would a meeting with Biden haven't evolved to what happened because he didn't praise Biden enough?

No, it wouldn't Lex and Lex is I'm sorry, but he is so painfully naive. Oh, he'd bodied up to the Biden administration. He is a wartime leader asking for help. So he has to appeal to whoever is the governing party. He wasn't on Biden's team. An actual fact, Biden withheld a lot of the military kind of support that they were asking for until almost the end of his term. So he he presented here almost like, you know, he was campaigning for Biden and no Zelensky was very careful. Like when he spoke to Lex, he was very praising of Trump, right? Because he has to be so it's that notion that like, oh, he just forgot, like he didn't remember that he has to, you know, play nice with Trump. And like, no, he did know that.

And also it's like moving the onus of that situation to it's all down to Zelensky kind of reacting wrongly to, you know, just not managing that correctly. And he should understand that all leaders are narcissists and you have to treat them like narcissists and praise them incessantly on say thank you to them personally, otherwise things are going to go pear shaped. That is such an insane distorted view of the truth, right? Because in actual fact, it's just the Trump administration that's like that. Or Putin. Yeah, or Putin. If you look at interactions between the various European leaders and the US

and other international ones, like normal democratic prime ministers and presidents, no, they don't go like that. They go like the standard meetings that happen in Brussels or in the White House when you have a Democratic leader. This situation is special. But he he's trying to present it like that thing is normal. It's not he he refers to it as an energy of entitlement. Now, just to remind everyone, the Trump administration was talking. They wanted to announce that they were going to

make a deal to extract the precious minerals from Ukraine in agreement for like helping to continue to support them in a range of peace agreements. So the sense of entitlement was almost entirely coming from the opposite direction from the Trump administration, which like JD Vance says, have you said thank you enough? And Lex here flips it. That Zelensky went in as the kind of pouting child. Like with a bad attitude. Yeah. And it's that or and that notion that he frames it again, Matt, you brought this up in the last content that we covered, that it's like it's the war of Ukraine versus Russia, the East versus the West. He actually talks about that Zelensky is trying to recruit Trump and America to his global mission, right?

Of the West versus the East, which is just framing it as if, you know, as if Zelensky is on some sort of anti-eastern crusade. Yeah. Whereas in actual fact, he was the democratically elected leader of a peaceful nation that was invaded on his watch, right? And then everything you've done since then has been a response to that. So again, it's these weird framings which are always in that direction of whitewashing not only the Trump administration, but also making these false equivalences between Trump, between Biden and Putin.

They're all reasonable people. They all want what's for the best. Some people are too emotional and entitled. Those people are Zelensky. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So just Lex presenting himself as above it all. No, like, when you are framing it as Zelensky went in with bad

attitude, he was too stupid and didn't realize the Trump administration was different from the Biden administration. Like, fuck you, Lex. Of course, he knew that. And of course, he didn't want things to go this way. And it was not his sense of entitlement that brought the whole thing down. So it's just, I think Lex's framing have to be understood here.

And you can see the contrast with Murray. So this is Murray kind of responding to that point. And then Lex asks him, could you meet the case that Putin is a dictator? And there, and Murray does a good job of answering that. So I want to hear that. Yeah, no, sure. And he obviously failed on that occasion.

Um, but as I say, it must be bewildering to have landed in a place where people were seriously talking about Ukraine starting the war and Zelensky not Putin being the dictator. I did the front page of the New York Post the day after the president's comments on that saying that, the big picture of Putin just saying, this is a dictator. And I think the people can be live enough to be able to recognize that you can make criticisms of Zelensky or the Ukrainians, but it doesn't mean you have to fall for Putin. And again, unfortunately, a lot of people in our time don't have that capability. Can we go right into it?

What is your strongest criticism of Putin? He's a dictator who's very bloody, as repressive as you can be of political opposition, internal opposition. He's kleptomaniac of his country's resources, has enriched himself as much as he could, as he has with the cronies around him. He's not just acted to destroy internal opposition in Russia, but has gone to other countries, including my own country of birth and killed people on their, our soil using, as it happens, weapons of mass destruction. The use of polonium in the centre of London.

Not good. But couldn't you still man the idea that Putin is actually dictator? Is actually bad? Is there any? Is he like, yeah, like, can you do that? Yeah, next is Lex's naivety. It's like weaponized naivety with pull level four. If it was pure naivety, you'd be naive about everything.

Right. But it's like a conspiracy theorist, right? He's hypercritical, hyper skeptical of particular things, and then totally accepting of others. Lex's like that, but this naivety is always pointed like, I don't understand why you're saying Putin is so bad. I mean, can you explain that to me? Doesn't he love his people? Like hasn't he ever read a newspaper?

The stuff that Douglas Murray is doing a good job, we have to hand it to him. But the stuff he's listing off are all, should become a knowledge to everybody. It's not secret information that are like only a journalist. Even that point, you know, Matt, the Marjorie Taylor Green thing where Lex is like, only a real journalist would know that factoid. I knew that factoid. I knew that factoid. But Lex acts like, how could anybody have heard that? That was very common in the coverage. If Lex had read anything in liberal sources, he would have likely come across it. So in any case, but I did enjoy this bit because it was a bit like having a

cathartic British man deliver responses to Lex that you wouldn't like when he's growing in one of his monologues. And there's a bit where they talk about elections. And you know the way Lex framed that, especially in the discussion with Zelensky implying that Ukraine is the anti democratic country because it's not holding elections during a war and Murray, you know, responds to these points. This is him still talking about Russia though, at the start. Yeah. I mean, that's just for starters.

What do you make for, uh, do you think he's actually popularly elected? No. Do you think the results of the elections are fraudulent? Yes, I mean. Do you think it's possible that it's just that the opposition has been eliminated and he's legitimately popularly elected? It definitely helps a chap if he's killed all of his opponents. Something about using the term chap in that context is just marvelous. But you know, I know, I mean, a brother of mine, seriously, you, uh, if, if, if people are worried about, uh, this is another of the sort of slightly Alice

in Wonderland things recently about Zelensky is people are saying, why, why hasn't he's a dictator because he hasn't held elections during a total war of self-defense. And it's like, well, you know, if you're really, really passionate about free and fair elections in that neck of the woods, you'd at least notice that Russian elections are not free and fair in any meaningful sense. You would, wouldn't you? You'd think you would. Yeah. He might be talking to someone that needs to hear that.

And I, yeah, I also, I know it's a minor point, Matt, but like Lex jumping on the British, you know, the fact that he used the word chap and being, no, it's so delightful, but not the actual main point. If you see Murray's face and that he's like, come on, yeah, Lex, are you asking about the elections? Like seriously? Yeah, I know. Again, this is weaponized David to like Lex is like a puppy dog. Like when he encounters this resistance, when somebody absolutely forcefully says he's totally wrong and explains why, he doesn't have anything to offer in reply.

He usually just moves on like, okay, yeah, but then raises a different point, but then doesn't seem to have absorbed any of the points that have just been made to him. Now he's a wonder. And on another point, Matt, Murray has spent some time talking to children who were stolen by Russia, taken as hostages or whatever way. And there hasn't just been a few of these, has there? There's been quite a few. No, no, no. I think it's like thousands, if not tens of thousands or 20,000. I think it's at least in the tens of thousands, put it be a bit like. Yeah.

So he's he's talked to people that have escaped from the region. Murray has interviewed them and is very well aware of the horrors that are going on there, and he wants he's making this point again, dude, like an audience stand him right, because he's not saying to Lex Lex, you've made these stupid points. So let me just respond to you. But he is very much making the points in response to someone who's very Lex shaped, who's made these points about, you know, what if Ukraine just gave some of the territory to Russia and negotiated the peace, right? And he makes this point about what that actually entails, like the reality of it and the reality of speaking to the people

that have gone through that. But I mean, I think that, and I think the ease with which non-Ukrainians are currently speaking about the Ukrainian ceding territory is concerning because these territories include hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens who do not want to live under Putin's rule and people who have families in the rest of Ukraine and much more. I recently interviewed children who had managed to get out of the Russian occupied areas. It's brutal for the Ukrainian to be growing up in that territory. So when people say, well, obviously, you know, Donetsk has to be given to Putin, I think that that is not as easy a thing if you're in Ukraine as it is if you're sitting in New York, say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention the very large number of war crimes that are emitted in the occupied areas.

But he uses that as well, the treatment of prisoners and so on. And just lots of the things have been going on there. But now, so Lex has heard that, right? Lex has even heard reference to interviewing the children. Let's see what Lex's response is after, you know, hearing these points brought up about naivety and telling Ukrainians what they need to concede and ignoring the reality. So how does Lex respond? As a truth seeker, as a journalist, how do you operate in that world where, at least to me,

it's obvious that there's just a flood of propaganda on both sides? Now of course when you go there and directly experience it and talk to people, but those people are still also swimming in the propaganda. So unless you witness stuff directly, sometimes it's hard to know. Like I speak to people on the Russian side and they're clearly, first of all, hilariously enough, they almost always say that there's no propaganda in Russia. Of course.

Which makes me realize, I mean, you can be completely lied to. Maybe I am in the United States as well. And just be unaware. Maybe Earth is run by aliens. Maybe Earth is flat. So I don't know. Maybe you've taken mushrooms. I have before this. And I finally see the truth.

And it's you that are deluded, Douglas. Okay, but back to the rounder discussion, rounder shills that we are. How do you know what is true? You can tell it when the bare facts become not true. Like you can tell it when somebody is willing to claim that everything caused the invasion of 2022 except for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So Lex there is like the strong implication that Lex is attempting to make there is that, oh, these reports of whatever it is, it could be that the people in the occupied regions would prefer to be part of Ukraine. It could be massacres of civilians. It could be abducted children, indoctrination camps, that kind of thing, treatment of prisoners, you name it. But, Yana, there's so much propaganda. On both sides.

On both sides. We hear a lot of anti-Ukrainian propaganda too. Who could say what's real unless you actually see it for yourself? You can't really know, can you? People might have been confused. They might've been, you know, swallowed the propaganda. Yeah. You can't believe what anyone tells you either because yeah, they could have swallowed.

Like he sounds just like a flat earther there, because that is the flat earther credo. Who are also naive chumps, who fancy themselves as critical thinkers. And they also say, you can't believe any kind of third party information of any kind, because it all could well be propaganda and misinformation. You only believe stuff that you can see with your own eyes. I mean, it is a really dumb response to the real issue of misinformation and propaganda. Like the real issue is the real or the adults approach. A bit like what Douglas Murray said, you actually like use your critical thinking, assess whether or not things are plausible, are in keeping with like verifiable facts of various kinds and check for coherency. It's pretty easy to tell propaganda apart from the alternative if you do that, but Lex

is incapable of doing that. Yeah. And there as well, there was a telling point for me that Lex said, the people that he talks to in Russia, almost all of them say there's no propaganda in Russia. That's not the impression I've got from Russians in general. Like my notion of Russian people, and I don't have family and whatnot in Russia, is that they're very well aware that their government makes use of propaganda. Now, yes, there are nationalists and there's control of media and whatnot, right? So like, the presentation of the war is like strongly controlled in Russia. But like Russians in general strike me as like pragmatic people who are quite well aware and have a whole bunch of phrases and

whatnot. In all the books I've read about like Russian history, that they're skeptical of government control of media and official narratives and whatnot. And they might then extend that to other countries, you know, like every country is lying or what not to the same extent. But Lex's presentation of Russians in general don't think that they're being propagandized to like that just suggests to me that his network is either unusually nationalistic or strangely credulous. My read on that is it's simply a throwaway line because it fits in nicely with his both sides kind of.

Everyone thinks that they're right, you know, you know, Slansky thinks he's in the right, Putin thinks he's in the right. People on different parts are basically living in their own little worlds of disinformation so you can say we should have more universal empathy and level of understanding to sort things out. Yeah. Yeah. But you have to remember the point though, where he said that like he

has these networks in Ukraine as well. And everybody in Ukraine told him his interview of Zelensky, all the interpersonal feedback he got was that it was great and that he's doing the right thing and he's helping. I don't believe that either. Yeah, so that's the thing is like either Lex is lying or he has extremely skewed networks because it was very easy. He presented as Ukrainian bot farms, but you could see actual Ukrainians, known, famous Ukrainians criticizing him online who are not Ukrainian bot farms. You could see actual Ukrainians, known, famous Ukrainians criticizing him online who

are not Ukrainian bought arms. You could see political pundits and commentators and whatnot. Like Russian dissidents as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, but Lex presented it as it was all polemical. It was, you know, it's nobody really. It's all the online ne'ers, ehos, the polemicists and whatnot. And in this case in Russia, like people in Russia don't think that there's

propaganda and just like, that's a very weird. There are limits. I think there are limits to the degree to which anyone can be that naive. Right. So for instance, he was clearly familiar with the criticisms. He is quite sensitive about it. He can't not have noticed that the vast majority of it was not coming from bots, right? It was coming, like you said, from known figures. And there is no Ukrainian

bot farms, Matt. There's no Ukrainian bot farms. They don't exist. Yeah, so I do think he is untruthful. This naive kind of little boy presentation is an act. Well, I've got a good clip to follow that up by because you've heard Lex make naive suggestions in his interview with Zelensky. It may often go in one particular direction, his naive suggestions, right? They tend to be rather sympathetic to Russia. So here's Lex. You know, he's making the point which the Trump administration just happened to also make about economic collaboration with the US, granting them these mineral deals that would help to deter

Russia from conflict. So Lex thinks that's a potential good idea. But listen to his other ideas. He's got a bunch of, you know, those crazy ideas, Matt. He's got all sorts of ones. Let's see what they are. I'm obviously for economic cooperation. But my only caveat is not to think that that is something which is of ultimate interest or even at the top of the list of interests of death spots, tyrants, extremists who want something else. Yeah.

But can you read the mind of Vladimir Putin? No. A lot of the ideas I hear about peace is Putin bad, victory must be achieved, NATO membership required. There's this kind of like, but what's the, you have to come to the table to end the killing is one and to have different ideas of how to have a non-zero chance of peace. So that, you know, the options are, it seems to me the only option, not the only option, but the likeliest option is a lot of strong economic partnerships. There's of course other radical options. There's Russia joining NATO

or something like this, or there's flirting with World War III essentially giving nukes to Ukraine or something like this. There's like crazy stuff or a totally new military alliance with France and Britain and Britain and Germany and European nations and Ukraine or some weird network of military power that Threatens Russia in some way or maybe some big breakthrough partnership between India China and Ukraine something like this some really out there Ideas, I think that's how the world and Ukraine, something like this, some really out there ideas. And I think that's how the world, that's how the world finds the balance and

realigns itself in interesting ways. And no, it could be. I hope your, uh, I hope your idea is right. Um, I think it's about the, well, it's certainly the most peaceful way for this to be resolved. the most peaceful way for this to be resolved. My only caveat, as I say, is, and also never forget to factor in that people want different things in this world. And some people don't dream as you dream. Right. Yeah. So I'm stuck on him rattling off just increasingly, you know, out there things. And what was the point of it? And

he just goes, well, that's how things evolve. That's how the character is. I know, I want to highlight Matt, that one was needed membership for Russia, right? That's crazy. But then the next thing was, you know, and if you want to like kind of play with World War III, you could give nukes to Ukraine. But so like that would be World War III, right? Like concessions to Russia,

that doesn't lead to the bad outcomes. And again, like membership for NATO for Ukraine is this like, you is this article of faith, but nobody's talking about NATO membership for Russia. Just like, Lex, what would that involve? Think about what NATO is. Russia is the aggressor in this case. It's... No, it's...

Yeah, I think... I don't know. I keep flipping back and forth. On one hand is not even to is weaponized and it's like an ax, but on the other hand, he is incredibly stupid at the same time. Like that is just such a dumb thing. Like it doesn't matter how sympathetic you are to Russia, right? Like only a fool, which suggest NATO membership for Russia. Like anyone in

Russia's inner circles, in the Russian media sphere would laugh at you. That is truly dumb. It doesn't make sense on any level. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Like, how can you talk to this guy? Like, it's completely pointless. I know. Well, you remember that point, Matt, the framing of the man from the land of peace and man from the land of war, right? So Lex is the man from the land of peace who's making these, you know, naive suggestions. That's kind of what like Douglas Murray framed it as, right? Now, it as, right? Now, Lex doesn't like that because it presents him as this kind of naive guy, like asking insulting questions, right? So just listen to like the tone in his voice when he responds talking about, you know, the insights that the man from the land of peace can offer.

Matthew 18 It's extremely hard the way in which outsiders come in and others who haven't seen what you've seen or gone through what you've gone through and say, you know, it's time to get around the negotiating table and just, you know, you think you didn't see what I saw or you didn't go through what I went through. Who are you to tell me? Comes back to that thing with the visitor from the land of war and the visitor from the land of peace. The visitor from the land of peace can easily talk about getting around negotiating tables. But the visitor from the land of war has seen other things. And it's very hard for somebody who hasn't seen it to tell the person who has that they should

act differently. And the sad thing about humanity is both the person from the land of peace and the person from the land of war are right. Yes, that's a struggle. That's definitely a struggle. It's like asking somebody to forgive. I've seen that at a lot of ends of conflicts. People say, you know, the important thing is that we forgive and move on. And then the other person says, you know, your child didn't die of shrapnel wounds. I forgot this is the buildup, but you heard the initial thing there of, you know, but the important thing is like the man from the long of the piece is also right.

That wasn't Douglas Murray's point. No, no, it was not. Yeah, yeah. Always with the equivalent service. Very, very typically equivalent service. Yes. So you're going to hear now Lex's proper reaction to that point, right? He expands it a little bit.

This is, you know, I got a lot of heat for an interview I did with Zelensky. By the way, people privately, the people that messaged me is all love and support. Even the people that disagree, Ukraine soldiers, people online are ruthless. They're misrepresenting me. They're lying. People online are ruthless, misrepresenting me. They're lying. People online are ruthless. I know. Misrepresenting and lying? Yeah. Good God, Lex. You discovered a new phenomenon. I'm a real radical intellectual. Nothing misses your eye. I see the truth and I'm unafraid to point it out. No, there's a degree, I'm unafraid to point it out.

No, there's a degree, this idea that you need to compromise with the person, with the leader of a nation you're at war with, and in so doing, to some degree, are forgiving their actions. Because the actual feeling you have is you want it to be fair, and the definition of fair when you've seen

that much suffering is for him and everybody around him, and maybe even all of the people on the other side to just die because you've seen towards suffering. But the other side of that is yes, there's children that have died, but you coming to the negotiation table. Will stop other children from dying, yes, of course.

So like there is just you had this kind of way of speaking about it, embodying that perspective that it's naive to say to come to the negotiation table. And it is for a person from the land of war, but the very smart, intelligent, and not naive person from the land of peace that is often right in some deep sense about the long arc of history. For them it is the right thing to come to the negotiation table to end the more killing. The very smart guy who's not naive at all. The smart intelligent guy who's not naive and is often proved right by the arc of history. Like fucking hell, Lex.

He's such a child, but he's such a child. The thing that he continues to ignore, and Douglas Murray is going to respond to this is he's acting like Zelensky has no interest in peace. He's just as he said earlier, he's an emotional man. He just wants Putin to be punished and Russians to die because of the conflict. So he can't take the steps necessary to end the conflict. And you're like, no, Lex, Russia isn't beating Ukraine. It could end it at any minute by withdrawing its forces. It's not Zelensky that is feeling this like challenge. It's putting it every step of the way. That's right. And even in the most recent peace initiatives, Russia never stopped bombing, never stopped dropping missiles at Kiev and everywhere. They were even hitting the hotels in which the European delegates and stuff were there, said it's very difficult to conduct

the... there was supposed to be a ceasefire, but it's Zelensky that's standing in the way of it, is he? That's the problem with Zelensky, but you know, Matt, there's more, a little bit more about Zelensky because, you know, like Lex said, at the long arc of history, the insightful, wise, non-maïve man from the land of peace, whoever that is, whoever that could be referring to, he might be vindicated by the events of history. As for Zelensky or someone in the shape of Zelensky, maybe history will have a different take on him. So listen to Lex's headcanon on what happens in the far future when people look back on the Ukrainian conflict. I think the sad thing about successful wars, at least in the modern day,

in the modern day is it takes a great military leader, which I would argue that Zelensky really unified Ukraine in this fight in the beginning of the war. You have to be that and like you said, after you've amassed the army and have military success to be able to step back and make peace. able to step back and make peace. Those two just don't often go hand in hand because again, as a wartime leader, especially one who has seen the suffering firsthand, walking away is tough. Especially also combined with that, just the realities of war where there is probably corruption, that there is things, once the war ends war where there is probably corruption, that there is things, you know, once the war ends, there has to be investigations. Because the war wasn't won, you might not turn out to be, when history looks at it,

the good guy. And a leader doesn't want to, a leader always wants to be the good guy. So there's just all psychological complexities that are, and you look at this whole picture, uh, in, in the basic sense, if you want Ukraine to flourish, if you want humanity to flourish, you just ask the question, okay, so what is the thing I would like to see? It's pretty clear the thing that Lex would like to see. Um, let's make sure I haven't forgotten anything, Chris.

So he pushed together a few things there. First of all, Zelensky, he concedes, good wartime leader at the beginning. Like Churchill. Yeah. But the problem with the wartime leader is that they develop a kind of a lust for war. And power. And power. It's hard for them to then step back and say, hey, what about peace now? Let's just ignore the fact that Zelensky and everyone

has been saying repeatedly, withdraw from Ukraine, you'll have peace immediately. Just literally stop firing, stop fighting, and it will be done. No, Zelensky is somehow making the war continue. And he's, the other motivation he's got is that there has been corruption and the stuff has to be, it's going to be investigated. Like when the war stops, there's going to be a reckoning and Zyrnsky doesn't want that.

So he's got a motivation to just keep the war going indefinitely. He might turn out to be the bad guy, and leaders don't like to be portrayed as the bad guy after the investigations, because there has to be investigations into the corruption. This is like the mega alternative reality universe where it's all about the laptop or the emails or something. And it's not about any of the actual real things that are existing in the world that are actually relevant to the question. Worth noting that whenever this was floated for a while in the mega world, that Zelensky

is the obstacle. Zelensky said, I'll step down. If Putin agrees to a ceasefire, I'll happily set down, right? So what happened to his lust for power, Lex? He was willing to give it up. Has Putin said that he'll step down? Like no. So Lex is framing.

Just again, it's always presented as he's, you know, considering the best path out of peace. He's trying to think about things from different angles, but his different angles are always the same angle. It's always unflattering. Dzelewski, he's potentially corrupt. You know, he's an emotional man. He went in with a sense of entitlement. He's refusing to negotiate. He's not the leader that can bring about peace. Putin, on the other hand, misrepresented. He had genuine grievances.

He's loved by the people of Russia. Aren't all countries propagandizing their people? Yeah. Is he really a dictator? Explain that to me. Yeah, again, it's just this incredible selective application. But the way in which lex presents themselves, and this is, I guess, a standard thing amongst a lot of our political gurus, is that it's incredibly important for them to present themselves as

not being what they are, which is rather partisan and usually conspiratorial as well. But rather that they're detached, they just have these wonderful lofty goals. They want to see peace and love and flourishing for everybody. And they're talking about this political topic, this politically charged topic. But, you know, they're just applying even-handedly these rules of, of empathy. And, and intellect. And I think the same applies, you know, I mean, the mask has slipped a lot for Joe Rogan, but, you know, for a long time, he did the same thing.

I'm just an average guy. I don't have a, you know, a horse in this race, dog in this fight, but anyway, um, it, but I guess the thing is, is with his audience, I guess it still works. I guess it's still works. Some of them. His presentation. I mean, it works. It doesn't work because like, for example,

he deletes all criticism from a subreddit and he bans anybody posting any critical comments. He blocks anybody online that makes any critical commentary. So like, it doesn't work in the sense that people don't criticize him, but it does work that like Lex with a ruthless iron hand eliminates that criticism where he he can control it, right? And then in every interview, even here, like with Douglas Murray, who is raising counterpoints to him, he still concedes to Lex that, oh, it's online people and, you know,

misrepresenting what you're saying. But like Murray is right now dealing ideally the things that people are completely divided. So yeah. Yes. And obviously Murray is our boy in this particular discussion, but not with our criticisms of him on many other topics notwithstanding. But even he is playing by this podcast rules, which is you avoid any heated disagreement. You don't voice your problems with each other straight up. You don't actually have a robust discussion.

What you have to do is tiptoe around it and create these sort of third party stand ins and pretend you're talking about that rather than disagreeing with each other and saying, no, that's dumb, Lex, let me explain why. You're being naive. You can't do that. You absolutely cannot do that. And this long form friendly conversational format, it has to change. It has to be stopped. Well, no, Matt, the last clip, okay, you said, what does Lex want? He's going to give his view of how they could achieve, you know, the piece. He's given some ideas, but you're going to hear his frustrations come through.

Lex is a man of action. God damn it. You know, can these people not just stop? So let's listen to Lex and his passionate plea for things to get done, Matt, things to get done. There's so many historical analogy that you can give, but just surely not rewarding Putin's actions in any way would be a good way to deter him and other dictators from trying to grab land in the future. So, yeah, but this is nuanced because it's very probably good to be the boring person

at the party that says dictatorship's bad, democracies are good, many of the ideals of the West are good. Democracies are better. Better? Yes. That sounds like Animal Farm, but yes, two legs better. But yes, democracy's better. And invading countries is bad.

But World War III is bad too. So after you say something is bad, what's the next step? Because military intervention in a lot of these conflicts. It'll be about deterrence. Yeah, but what's effective deterrence? That we're going to have to keep going over for a long time to come. My question is, how can we achieve peace in April? In May? The adults at the table all seem to tell me,

well, it's a process, it's complicated, it just feels like this is a thing that might go into the next winter. And there's still maybe initial ceasefire and then ceasefire is broken and there's more people dying. And it's that mess. It seems like civility and politeness ignores the fact that people are dying every single day.

I mean, of course, like we were all, almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everyone would like the killing to stop immediately. Of course. No, like I think would like the Kling to stop immediately. Of course. No, like I think that is the boring thing at the party. Yes, but they don't say it often enough. Not often. There has to be a frustration.

There has to be a frustration. I don't understand why Putin, Zelensky, and Trump can't just meet in a room together without signing anything. Leaders meeting and discussing and like the human connection. There's so many layers of diplomats. It's the problem I have with a managerial class. They schedule meetings really well. They don't get shit done and I would love it if people got shit done. So the soldiers get shit done. They're fighting the reality of the war.

And then the leaders have the capacity to get shit done on the scale of nations and geopolitics. But like these diplomatic meetings and... That's such an odd thing. So yes, you can hear his anger, frustration, or whatever you want to call it, coming through there. But the thing that he's so angry about is that he seems to think that if you just could get these three people in a room, they've never had a couple of drinks, played around a golf or something, then they could knock this out.

They could sort it out. But Matt, Zalansky was in a room where fucking Trump and JD Vance, right? Not even the people in Vietnam. And the competition broke down. The people that are meant to be his allies. Yeah. Like, like he, again, the, the naivety is just amazing in, in his world, like in his alternative reality that he lives in, right?

This war has come about through a kind of a misunderstanding. Everyone wants the best for their countries. You know, some mistakes were made. There's been a misunderstanding with, with accidentally had this invasion of Ukraine. And, you know, everyone, everyone wants it to stop, but nobody likes it, Kerry, including Putin. It's probably breaking Putin's heart. The number of Russian casualties.

And, uh, you know, he, he would love it to stop too, but he's prevented from doing so just by the layers of diplomats and the protocols and all of this managerial stuff. And Zelensky's emotions. And it was all, we all know about the problems with Zelensky. He's got, he's got his own reasons, right? For wanting the war to, to go on. Um, just, he's just such an idiot. He's such his own reasons for wanting the war to go on.

He's just such an idiot. He's such a fool. And by the way, that stupid thing with the animal farm quote, it's two legs bad, four legs good. That's the quote from the thing. That's what he recognized when Murray said the thing. And then he changed it to four legs better. Doesn't make any sense because that doesn't appear in the book. Anyway, just a dummy.

Sorry. And the bit that's frustrating about this, man, is like, you have to bear in mind who this is. Like, this is Lex Friedman, the guy that does podcasts, mostly with the Rogan sphere. Recently, he's done interviews with like world leaders and whatnot. But hard hitting interviews, they are not. They are sycophantic except with like a select few like Zelensky. And all Lex does is sit and blather and talk about how much he loves peace at the same time

that he's on Twitter talking about how great Doge is heading to the inauguration of Trump and all this kind of thing. And you're spending Thanksgiving with the Kershners, but acting like he doesn't have any particular bias in it. So all he does, he's not a man of war. He's not a soldier on the battlefield. He's a heterodox podcast millionaire who shills supplements and has indulgent conversations where he says, what if everybody just sat down and came together and talked it out? And then hints that Zelensky is a corrupt politician who's extending the war. That's all Lex does. And yet he presents himself as if he's fucking Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King or something. Yeah, he's there working away for peace and justice all the time. I know he's not. It's just, it is amazing. I don't know what to do about someone like this because I'm just less speechless.

It just really bothers me that it works. Like you said, yes, he does get criticized. What are people on the full putt before they get censored on the subreddit will say something. But the fact is it does work in terms of his career, right? Like his profile has increased. It's increased. That's why he gets these interviews. One, you know, it's because he's guaranteed to give a softball long format interview that is going to portray someone like Modi in a very positive light. So why wouldn't you? Right? Yeah. But like, why, why is he even in this position in the first place? Like, why? Why? Why does this work with people? It really upsets me. Do you want to the most depressing thing, Matt, that the main thing that gave Lex a big boost initially

was because he wrote a paper justifying or promoting that Tesla self-driving was actually safer than in contradiction to all previous studies. And then Elon promoted it. And then after that, Elon went on this show and that increased his profile. So Lex's sycophancy towards Elon Musk helped promote his show. Then the sycophancy to Rogan helped promote his show. He went on Rogan multiple times. So his career is a studied demonstration of the power of absolute sycophancy

towards Rogan and Elon Musk and the people. And highly powerful people generally on the right and Lexus is 100% on board. I mean, that is incredibly upsetting. Depressing. Depressing. Like, like these billionaires minting new influences that then go ahead and their entire careers, um, you careers, rationalizing and justifying their

benefactors' policies. Like I'm just going to insert here, Lex played Joe Rogan a song that he had written for him on one of his appearances. He brought out his guitar and he serenaded him. I feel that fitting way just to highlight, if you think we're being a bit mean by the level of sycophancy, that is what we're talking about.

["Sick of Itzy"] This is the stupidest thing I've ever done. So this is a story, okay. So this is a story, okay. In the desert I met a man with an eagle perching on his hand and he asked me, son, what can I do for you? Definitely the stupidest. Father I said I'm looking for

the meaning I should be living for. He put a finger to my lips and said shh, let the old man speak They call me Brian Callahan In this cruel world there is a man You should listen to as you journey on through life His name is Joe Rogan Joe Rogan Shoulders for days and a really wide back. Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, barrel of snakes for a back. Then he mounted his horse and he looked to the sky. And he rode to the sunset with a tear in his eye

And the legend goes the old man rides on Singing the words to this terrible song Joe Rogan Joe Rogan And I really went back I already regret this Joe Rogan, showed this for days and I really went back. I really regret this. Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, a barrel of snakes for a bag. You fucked up.

You should have never done that song. It was terrible. That's what we're talking about. Somebody writing. It's something that people usually reserve for their high school crush. And Lex is doing it on a podcast platform, you know, going out to millions of people. And yet it didn't hurt his career, right? He continued to flourish.

It should be incredibly embarrassing for a grown man to be serenading another one about how wonderful they are. And yeah, you know, there we have it. So yeah, well, that's that's a good that's a good note to end on. Thank you, Chris. I thought listening to this would upset me and I was right. It's probably upset the audience. I'm sorry, it's Chris's fault. He does this. It is what we, look, I'm right, right? I mean, I'm not right. We could ignore this, but I feel like it's worth highlighting this is what Lex is doing, like, weekend and week.

And I also want to highlight that, like Matt said, Douglas Murray, in the rest of the interview, he goes on, he's extremely polemical. He talks about the lab leak and what that, and he speaks with the same level of certitude when he's promoting whatever position that he speaks on. So here, like it's cathartic to hear him pushing back at Lex, but this doesn't mean that Murray is like, he's got a reasonable take on Ukraine, but that's such a low bar. But you shouldn't think from this that Douglas Murray is a reliable voice, you know, in the

wilderness. It's just like in comparison to Lex on this issue. On this topic. That's right. Yeah, he's good. Like he is good. So I want to make that clear that like, this is not a broader endorsement of Douglas Murray's output because he's just as guilty as Lex of like being a polemicist. Yeah, you could have just as easily had Constance M. Kirsten here talking to Lex and he probably, he may well have done a similar job and wouldn't make me like him anymore.

But yeah, in this context, he was, he did speak for a lot of us. Okay thank you Chris well no fuck you Chris and fuck Lex too. Thank you very much Lex, see you again soon Ukrainian Bot Farm over and out. I'm going to be back. You