PBD Podcast - Former KGB Official: Jack Barsky| PBD Podcast | EP 130

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick and former KGB officer Jack Barsky to discuss the Russia Ukraine conflict, Immigration, Putin's health, gas prices and much more... TOPICS Whats really going on in Ukraine The REAL history of Russia and Ukraine Putin's next moves Do Immigrants love America more than natural born citizens? Dictatorship in America 'If he doesn't find an off ramp, He's done' - Jack Barsky on Vladimir Putin Where do Putin's loyalties lie? American energy independence Does Vladimir Putin have cancer? Russian Spies  Are NGO's cover for spy organizations?  How do you stop Vladimir Putin  Who is happy with Russia's invasion   Gas Prices Jack Philip Barsky is a German-American author, IT specialist, and former sleeper agent of the KGB who spied on the United States from 1978 to 1988. Exposed after the Cold War, Barsky became a resource for U.S. counterintelligence agencies and was allowed to remain in the United States.  Check out Jack Barsky's official website here: https://bit.ly/3dWOZvC You can purchase his book here: https://amzn.to/3q0oL0S Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Connect with him on his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.   To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: [e-mail] --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

We are officially live. Before you start telling them you look like Chris Matthews or Bill O'Reilly. Let's first let the world know who's on here today. Former 15-year KGB member, I think 1973 to 1988, is here with us Jack Varsky. Jack and I had a zoom interview a couple months ago which was very entertaining to say the least. I think we had a good time together and I hear the background whoever's got it on someone's got it on. Jack, grab the mic. No, but somebody has the audio on this plan. Is that you?

No, just, okay, it was him. No, Tyler, I don't know. Just put the mic in front of you. Yeah. So, but it's good to have you on. We talked last time about Yuri Besnimov, Besnimov. We talked about the fact that he talked about the four stages, the moralization, the stabilization, stage three, his crisis, normalization, some of that stuff's going on today. Maybe you and I can go into that little bit more active measures, active measures, absolutely what we'll get into that. And then obviously with everything that's going on with Russia, Ukraine today. But before we get started, Jack, if you don't mind, for the audience that doesn't know your background, even if you just take a couple minutes for the shorter version so we can get in right into the story, I think it'd be a good idea for some of the audience to hear about your background. Yeah, the short cliff notes of a rather

lengthy biography. Born in 1949 in the part of Germany that was occupied after World War II by the Soviet Army grew up in the German Democratic Republic. That wasn't really the democratic, it was communist. Lived in East Germany for 26 years, graduated with a Master's degree in chemistry, and then the long detour began, the KGB recruited me. I was trained to be an agent. I was initially supposed to be an agent in West Germany, but it turned out that I displayed a phenomenal talent for language. And I studied English and I did it well enough that they decided to train me to become an American. Moved me to Moscow for two years, where I had interaction with born Americans,

studied a lot of English, and also got the best training that was available by the KGB was regard to trade craft, you know, how you operate as an agent. In 1979, I appeared in New York City and became Jack Barsky. So I took on the identity of a born American who had passed away at the age of 11, I believe.

He had passed away at the age of 11. Yes, he did a real Jack Barsky. And this was the typical way the KGB stole IDs. In those days, it was possible you could get a Brexit certificate from anybody. You didn't even have to show that you had a need or were justified in asking for a Brexit certificate. You just got it.

What a story right there. By the way, I saw you. I think it was on March 1st. On Fox News on an interview. a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a

bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a Just out of curiosity, did you have a chance to watch the documentary, Ukraine on fire by Oliver Stone, as well as winter on fire by the one that Sean was talking about? Have you seen those two documents? No, I have not. Yeah, I'm okay. So just an open other question. What are your thoughts about what's really going on today between Ukraine and Russia? What's led up to this? What led up to this was the formation of Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin was a KGB

agent in the East Germany in the town of Dresden. He was not much of an agent. He was mid-level bureaucrats, but you know, in those days when when you joined as a Soviet citizen, you joined the KGB, you were a flaming communist and a patriot. Okay, so and really KGB was what's, I mean, there was the elite of the elite, right? So he was a mid-level bureaucrat in Dresden, had the good life because he's Germany's standard of living with much higher than in the Soviet Union. There's pictures of him. He was pretty chubby.

He liked the German beer. And the German beer is pretty good. Yes. There's no bad beer in Germany. So anyway, and then there was a moment that pretty much shaped him ideologically. There was, in 1989, when the wall came down, East Roman citizens went stormed a bunch of of Stasi offices and in Dresden they went after the KGB office. And the KGB, the guards wouldn't let them in and they told them go away or else we're going to shoot. So they went away, they came back the next day.

Vladimir called Berlin and as Berlin, do we have permission to shoot if they come back? And Berlin said, we called Moscow, they're silent. That was the moment when Vladimir understood that Gorbachev was letting go of East Germany. And the idea that he belonged to the most powerful organization on the planet and he was fundamentally had no powers to do something that was the beginning of Vladimir Putin who is today because he sort of insights as we got it we got it we got to fix this meaning we can't let this happen because it was seven decades of control essentially yes we got to fix this is we are losing the greatness that we were and you know, and

then not much later the Soviet Union fell apart. And this is what Vladimir's goal was and still is establishing the Russian Empire. And so he's still a Patriot, mind you. I think he's not a communist anymore. Maybe there's some residual communist thinking. But he's a patriot, and he is, I believe, a huge narcissist. Because you know, you put that together. He thinks he's the only one who can do what he's trying to do

to establish the greatness of Russia and build himself a monument right next to Peter the Great. And that is the driving force behind what's going on in Ukraine right now. That's the driving force behind what's going on in Ukraine right now. Okay. Do you think the worst is here or do you think it's going to get uglier? I'm afraid it could get uglier. There's a very

fine line that the West must walk because their speculation that Putin is not entirely sane. Well, there's insanity in there's insanity. What he's doing actually by invading Ukraine is insane by itself. You know, if a sane person does not go after women and children, but there's A sane person does not go after women and children, but if he goes beyond that when he gets going crazy, he's got nooks. So we've got to be really, really careful. We can't let him get away with this. But hopefully some talks will happen and hopefully he finds an off ramp, because if he stays in Ukraine, he's done. He will not survive this, in terms of, you know, long-term, the Ukrainians will

not allow him to occupy the country without major damage. The fall of the Soviet Union started with the debacle in Afghanistan, right? This is going, if he occupies all of Ukraine, you're going to have an Afghanistan multiplied several times over. Do you think he watched how things were handled in Afghanistan and the Taliban got what, $80 billion or whatever the equipment was and the mishandling of it that was brought up both by on the folks on the left and the right so it wasn't like a political side that they're just disagreeing.

Do you think he saw that as an opportunity to say this is the time for us to invade Ukraine? Yes. Yes. I don't know if it was the deciding factor but clearly it looked like the American military doesn't know what they're doing anymore. It appears that the generals actually had a different plan and were overwritten by civilians in the White House who don't know what they're doing.

So how much is this documentary? Did you watch the one with Oliver Stone or no? No, I watched the first one. First of all, Oliver Stone interviewed Putin, God knows how many times. Like 1314. I don't know the exact number, but multiple times. And he did this documentary and he went to both sides, right? And it tells you the history of Ukraine and Russia. So one of the concerns for Putin is a lot of the countries that were part of USSR are now part of NATO and it's 13 surrounding

countries that are part of NATO, surrounding Russia that are not part of NATO and it's 13 surrounding countries that are part of NATO surrounding Russia that are not part of NATO So to him that's a threat because NATO keeps getting stronger around it. That's Oenia. And Yugoslavia, these all the Eastern block. Yeah, I mean just take these guys right and he's sitting there saying what is NATO's vision? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to control me? Are you trying to hold me? You know, those are the nations, right? Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro. All right. On their doors, there. Right there. So he's kind of like sitting there saying, what is going on here? So then you look at the history where years ago, Stalin negotiated a treaty with Hitler to prevent Hitler from invading through Ukraine That was kind of like the arrangement that they had but Germany broke its promise and attacked Russia anyways

launching Barbarossa which ended up being the largest military operation at the time and at one point Would Ukraine this is why Nazi keeps coming up at one point Ukraine was aligned with Hitler and Nazi keeps coming up. At one point Ukraine was aligned with Hitler and SSS, I mean with them in 1941 80,000 people from the Ukrainian-Ukrainian army fought for Hitler's army. Yes. So this is the part that gets a little tricky with what, you know, Putin's kind of like, you guys know the history of what's going on. What do you know about this? All right, rich history of the soul. Let me please go a few years prior to that happening. You're right on target here.

And quite frankly, this is not being discussed in the media at all. It's like I heard it, I forgot the name. I heard it centrally other day saying something like Ukraine has been a democracy for the last 30 years. That's not true. It was an oligarchy and it's still very corrupt today. It's not a democracy.

But let me go back to history. Ukraine was sort of annexed by, I think it was still under Lenin and became part of the Soviet Union. There has always been two populations in Ukraine. There was a Russian speaking, and the Ukrainian speaking, and the Ukrainians were more to under Polish side. So anyway, the Western Ukrainians, there was a separatist movement. They wanted to go get away from the Soviet Union.

The other thing that happened, and that's very interesting, the collectivization of the agricultural of the Soviet Union, you know peasants don't like to be collectivized. They want to own land, right? And once you take that land away from them, you take the way of life. So there was this phenomenal amount of resistance. And so Stalin found a way to starve them into submission.

And it was mostly KGB agents and some others that went into Ukraine and stole all the grain for two years. And so the folks that actually planted the grain and harvested it had nothing to eat. There were four million Ukrainians that today vis-à-vis the Russians, even though Stalin wasn't a Russian, but, you know, hatred is not rational. It was hatred against something that came from the East. And so, as a result, when Hitler came in, there were enough Ukrainians who thought there was liberation.

It didn't turn out that way, but you were right. There were about 80,000 folks that fought in Hitler's army. There were guards in concentration camps, Ukrainians who committed lots of atrocities. The most infamous nationalist was Stepan Banderra, anti-communist, who was pro-freedom to the point where he pissed a lot of people off. He was also anti-Semitic. Yeah, he was.

And they hated Russians that much, that they decided to decide with the Nazis. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend basically. Exactly. But they were also fundamentally evil. And so when Putin says, you know, there's Nazis in Ukraine, there's something to it, and in 2019, Ukraine issued commemorative stamps to honor the 100th birthday of Banderra. That's not a good sign. So there are, I'm saying, there's some stuff that the history that people, I don't know of enough proper investigative journalism has been done to know what's going on. There's some guys that are doing it right now, but this is a dramatism is all over. Oh, yeah, especially isn't your

future. But you know, who prays, but do you know this guy this Stephen Bandera guy? You know who put him in jail? You know who put him in jail during World War II? Germany. Hitler put him in jail. Yes, I mean, all because he was getting too. He was too independent. Yeah, he was too independent and they feared him so they just straight up put him in jail. Yes. I mean, all because he was getting too. He was too independent. Yeah, he was too independent and they feared him. So they just straight up put him in jail. And from jail, he was still inspiring and moving people from jail. He was jailed. He was still sending messages out to people. So this guy right here, if you look at the screen, I don't know if David, you can show or not, he played a very, very big role during that time, but I'm sorry. Continue.

Well, bottom line is there are there's fascist, not say ideologies, still in Ukraine, but it's not prevalent. You know, what we have there, there's a really, really good book that was written by Sean Walker, who was the correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow, and he traveled all over the country. The book was called The Long Hangover. It's about Russia today, and he goes into the Russian and Ukrainian relationship. And based on Sean's writing, there are no good people on either side.

Now, that book came out in 2019 that was before Zelensky was elected. I think he's a good guy. Well, if I may, you know, the whole propaganda that Putin is using is that he's going into Ukraine to free Ukraine of Nazism. That's right. The ironic part about it is Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish. The first Jewish president they've ever had, I believe. And also the number two person, the prime minister, is also Jewish. So it's like, I'm trying to draw an analogy that you're saying, of course, there's anti-Semites in Ukraine. I'm sure that's everywhere.

That's like saying, there's racists in America, but we elected Barack Obama. So there's always going to be bad actors in every country. Yeah, but what they're talking about is the fact that Ukraine flips so much from pro-Russia, pro-Western, pro-U-U-pro-Russia, pro-Western, pro-DIS. So, you know, it seems to be like half and half though. If you're closer to the Russia side, you're going to be more pro-Russian. If you're closer to the Polish side, the EU side, you're gonna be more democratic. Do you have the battle of the victors? You know, the two victors that went at it, right?

Victor Yoshkinov, Yoshenko and then Victor pronouncing it Yanukovych, okay? Those two went at it. So Yoshkinov, his wife was on Reagan's administration. Okay, yeah, his wife was American? his wife was on Reagan's administration. Okay. Yeah, his wife was American. American? Yes.

I don't know if she's American, but she was on Reagan's administration. Okay. So, and then on the other side, with Yanukovych, he was more on the other side. He was more pro-Russia, he was more, let's make it work. So, the whole documentary with winner on fire that Sean Pentauks about, these kids are all excited, students are excited, you know, the victor that's on pro-Russia sites and we're going to sign this treaty with EU, we're going to sign this treaty with EU, we're going to do this and then also last

minute like, no, we're not doing it. And then last minute we flipped and then they're not doing it. So that led to the protesting which led to ugly the me I don't know if you saw this was pretty bad with protesting in the writing and then eventually they get the sky on where Pope Francis comes out and prays for Ukraine on January 26th of 2014. Very interesting. At the end of his prayer they let two doves go. Okay. Very interesting. It's a little creepy if you watch this. They let two doves go. Okay, very, just a little creepy, if you watch this, they let two doves go. When these two doves are flying, no joke, a crow and a seagull attacks the two doves. And the audience is there like panicking because it's all symbolism, right? That everything's over there's about symbolism. They're like, oh my gosh, and they're going

back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Then eventually the seagulls and the crow leaves, which means that symbolized before things get better, you're going to and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Then eventually the Seagulls and the Crow leaves, which means that symbolized before things get better. You're going to make it. You're going to survive, but before things get better, you're going to get attacked by Crow and the Seagulls. So that's how some of the folks there take that as, you know, things can get pretty up in. And after that January 24th, January 26th was a day would give that message. February 24th is when they fulfilled their coup. Victor was kicked out.

Victor called Putin. Putin said you can come. And he went to Russia, and that's where it was at. And then next thing, you know, Zalinsky shows up in 2019, 2020. And you're saying he's a good agent. So go back to the question that we asked. There's a lot of skepticism right now. About what Putin's going to do, what Putin's not gonna do,

as a former KGB member yourself. In situations like this, right? Like, you know, Yuri talks about demoralization, destabilization, you know, crisis, normalization, these phases you go through, and he even takes a deeper propaganda, disinformation, deception, sabotage, subversion, espionage, all these things that he talks about. And that's the playbook of KGB. Let's just

say if it is the playbook of KGB, if you could think to the best your abilities on what the KGB was trained to do the true believers, and you've heard Putin say, there's no such thing as a former KGB, you've heard him say that before, like's no such thing as a former KGB. What do you think his next moves are? What do you think he does in a situation like this? Because in the world right now he's seen like the next Hitler. I don't want to really disappoint you, but that KGB training that he brags about wasn't that good for him. He was not a well-trained agent. He is a masterful politician. And clearly, you know, everybody in the KGB was familiar with that kind of stuff, but that

doesn't mean that they were doing it very well. Yes, active measures was particularly on Dropov. Dropov actually issued a rule that every active KGB agent must be involved in some way in doing active measures. So he was very much forward. And there were a number of successes that they had, but it was not on a large scale. I think I told you, it's the last time that, you know, they managed to put this big lie out there that Jay Atkohuver was a secret crossdresser.

And you're saying that was not true? It was not true, it was not true. There's a Vasili Mitroken was a KGB archivist, and he smuggled a lot of material out of the archives. And in his book there's a section about active measures and there's a number of things where they say, yeah, KGB did this, that for instance, he Kennedy assassination, all the rumours that were floating around. They were initiated by the KGB and sort of placed into Western media, a friendly Western media and a sort of left-wingish and then picked

up by the New York Times and so forth. That was successful, but this massive undermining of Western society, there's no such word. In Metrokin's book. He actually says that the department that was responsible for active measures was at least desirable. The agents, the good ones, all wanted to live in the West. Surprise, surprise. And so they had a lot of failures, but they succeeded in particular specific situations. And disinformation, you know, this is, you don't have to be a trained agent. That's almost all governments do it. Don't we? You know, we have an agenda. We have a narrative, and we only talk about the stuff that fits our narrative.

Right? We do it too. On the stuff that fits our narrative. Right? We do it too. On the left and on the right. So as I said, I think Putin is probably the smartest politician in the last 100 years. I mean, really? Think about it. He maintained power for 20 plus years in a country

where the standard of living has not really improved. That means he's a phenomenal manipulator of his own people. They're buying into the tale that that's one of the major narratives that Russia is constantly on the threat from the West. And by having X Warsaw-packed countries join NATO, we gave him some ammunition. I'm not saying we shouldn't let them into NATO, but there's some reality to it. And as people who follow history know that Russia has historically always been under attack since its foundation from everywhere. And so in the Russian national genetic makeup, there is a desire for a strong person,

a strong leader. You know, this is succession. There were some of the Zars. Then we had Lenin, we had Stalin, and now it's Putin. Because they are afraid of, we had another invasion. That fear, in my view, is unjustified, but how do you get this out of the, you know, the most primitive part of your brain, fear?

Now, Jack, do you consider yourself German, Russian, American, all of above just American now? Where do you classify yourself right now? So there's one answer I give to this today. I'm legally, intellectually and emotionally in American period with German roots, but I wouldn't even use the hyphenation because there's a difference between me and my wife. She's also has American citizenship, but she's originally from Jamaica. When she says we, she means to make her. When I say we, I mean the United States, and then as the Germans. Can you even go back to Germany? I have. I have.

And Russia, no. Can I go to Russia, no? Not even close. Germany, yes, though. Germany, I've traveled in Western Europe and in several countries. I also was in Poland. Russia, no, you see, when you show up there, accidents can easily be arranged. In where Russia?

Yeah, it's very, very difficult to... It's a strength what they give you. Yeah, it's very difficult to arrange an assassination on foreign land. Very difficult. They don't have that many teams that can do that. But once you show up in Moscow, and you know Putin is a master in sending messages to the world. Why did he go after Skripal? This was, you know, the fellow that was poisoned in London.

He was already exchanged, that's the end, normally in the espionage world. He was in jail and he was then exchanged by the Brits for some folks that they were holding. That is the end of the game. And he saw fit to just send a message. You know what? We can go after you no matter what. So that's why. Why would I, anyway, go back to Moscow. I've been to St. Petersburg and Moscow and there isn't much else to be seen. And I think you I think you want to go and it wants to go with you. Because I think Adam likes the Russian ladies over there. There's a couple of people. There's a sonny isle. Florida. Can I ask you a question? And this is actually for the both of you. It's I mean, you love America more

than maybe anybody I know. And you weren't born here. You've been very explicit that I'm full on American. I'd be keeping you as a hyphen. Do you think immigrants who have left other countries appreciate and love America more than natural born citizens? No doubt. Listen, I was walking for about 10 minutes outside in the city here. And as I'm looking left and right,

and I'm looking, oh my God, we're such a rich country, it is totally amazing because immigrants like me, we know where we came from, and there wasn't much there. And opportunities are everywhere if you want to take advantage of the opportunities. And the one thing that unfortunately is not playing as big a role where if you wanted to take advantage of the opportunities. And the one thing that unfortunately is not playing as big a role as it should is that I mostly admire as to you as a constitution.

I took a college course of multi-session course about the constitution. Absolutely brilliant document. We're talking about how they constructed the government so that minorities would be protected as opposed to when you have a democracy. If you have 51% of the votes, you can do whatever you please and you can really run rough shot over the 49%. So, yeah, it's an incredible structure on how they had it. Hillary Clinton and some of the people want to change it with different model,

but you're right. The structure is a, you know what he means by minorities. He does mean minorities like ethnicity wise, my. 49% of me. Yeah. Pat, where did your love for America really manifest? Listen, you know, again, you have to, sometimes you appreciate a friend when you have a bad friend. Sometimes you appreciate a friend when you have a bad friend.

Sometimes you appreciate a girl when you have a bad experience with another girl. Sometimes you appreciate a guy you date based on a different bad experience you have. Some of the best things that can never happen to you is something bad that makes you realize, listen, it's time to be super grateful. What were you complaining about? So the challenge with America, America is a gratitude problem. That's what it is. America has purely a gratitude and a respect of problem. Those two things is what's hurting America more than I can tell you.

We lack gratitude, we complain too much, we act like victims, and we don't realize that this is the greatest country in the world still, and rather than doing something with everything that's given to you, you complain about it. That's the biggest thing with me. This is the greatest country there. But go back to the... Can I chime in just with one thing I want to say, Americans write not all, but at large majority of Americans are either fat, dumb, unhappy or or fat, dumb and angry. We are fat.

We are the most overweight nation in the civilized world, 36% overweight. We look at it. We have dumbed down at least two generation of young people because we're not teaching critical thinking anymore. And depending, we either happy because we love entertainment, sports, and TV, and binge watching, and all that. And then we get angry when things don't work.

And we curse at each other in social media. That's a systemic issue in society that doesn't seem to have a good outcome if we don't find a way to I agree with you. It's a very weird dynamic the other day Westbrook is complaining because somebody called a Westbrick And everybody's coming out and saying well, it's not fair to talk to the person like that. What whatever happened to you know sticks and bones to talk to the person like that. Whatever happened to you know sticks and bones, you know stones. Yeah so whatever happened to you know people can call you anything you want.

It go complain about $40 million in income. Okay, while you're going to your nice house, people are sitting trying to make 50, 60 grand a year and they're really having to go through problems. You're worried about somebody's calling you Westbrick because you're not practicing, you're not shooting a free throws. Well I'll give you one anecdote that sings to your story.

It's, you know, I went to the Freedom Forum on behalf of Gary Casperov, invited me, I'm sure you're very familiar with Gary Casperov, greatest chess player to ever live. And I interviewed a lot of, essentially, Freedom Fighters, the one Iranian lady that you know with the big hair and the gentlemen that I interviewed from Iraq, he basically hosts the daily show in Iraq to put it in perspective. He's like a comedian, satirist political pundit, funny guy, and to your point about being you know fat, and happy, or fat, lazy, and angry, and watching you brought up reality TV and just sitting around and just whatever he said, I wish.

I go, what's your one wish if you could for the people of Iraq? I wish that we could just sit around and watch reality TV, and that's what I wish for the Iraqi people. Meaning that there's so much drama and so much conflict and so much tyrannical abuse going on, that they can't even just sit down and watch TV for a half hour and just watch mindless shit. And that's what happens here in America,

is that we make our problems so much deeper than they really are compared to what's going on in the actual real world, to use a real world. The problem that America sometimes is that they're too consumed with entertainment and not enough Consume with you know Education after graduating from high school or college education stops for most people in America I'm not most people in America period most people right the moment they stop going to college or they go to high school They don't read books, and they don't finish books.

I'm as novels, and you see the best movie, and you see the best, and you see the best stuff. So entertainment has sucked probably 40, 50% of most people's lives were put in up time. But at the same time, that is one of our greatest exports. I don't rock and roll in. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, American culture. You're talking to a guy who loves music was excited about Elvis's documentary coming out who, no, I totally get it, but I think there's also an element of, of, of being a little bit more educated about history of what's really going on. That's what I mean by that. Absolutely. I mean, I, I now run into people, younger people, you know, late teens or early 20s, what KGB, what's that? The biggest war in

history, World War II, and this mass murder that happened in the last century, some people don't know. And if they don't know, they might not see it coming. It's not totally out of the question that the United States, one day, becomes a dictatorship. Happened in Germany. Yeah, you know, so let's go there, let's go there for a second. So, you know, nobody thinks they're going to die from cancer until they have it. It's always like the other person. Oh, the doors is never gonna happen to me. You know, I'm never gonna get fired.

I'm never gonna, it's never gonna happen to me. America, it's never gonna happen to America. There's no way to happen to America. What are five signs before something goes that way? That's the real question. Like what happens to a nation that wasn't democracy, that wasn't republic that led to the fall of that empire. What are handful of things?

Well, let me tell you, I think the, in my view, the biggest sign is when reason leaves the public discourse, and unfortunately, there isn't that much left anymore. And go back to critical thinking, you know. We're being manipulated like crazy. And are we ourselves immune? We're not. How many times do I find something that I believed in and when I check it out, it wasn't true? Because you can't check everything, right? So that, I think, is the most important thing. The next one, a believer or not, I think, humor, when humor

leaves society. Wait, that's kind of to Adam's point. A person who cannot make fun of himself is insecure. A nation that can't look at its own weaknesses, honestly, and make fun of them is insecure. But can't we also point to what's happening in Russia right now as actual case example of where authoritarian regimes start to take over? Because Russia was marketed as a democracy after the fall of USSR. Yeah, they had elections, let's put this way.

Right, elections, 90% voted for food. A lot of air quotes going on if you're not watching this. But here's some of the stuff that CNN covered on, CNN politics. Putin's autocratic vision for the Russian world. Here's the highlighted word, censorship, information, crackdown, mass arrests. This is what dictators do. Authoritarian, totalitarian was a democratic experiment as failed. But I mean, those types of things, you know, you

hear, if you speak out against the Russian army or whatever, you know, what Russians that you could go to jail for 15 years. Those are actual examples of where democracy falls. That's the extreme feature of cancel culture, right? Beyond. Yeah, that's the extreme. We cancel you, not just your ability to speak. Yeah, 13,000 people arrested on mass arrests. Facebook and Twitter is not down over there.

You can't use Facebook or Twitter in Russia. But I want to go back to Putin. I want to go back to Putin. You think what, like right now, have to battle of going up against the enemy is trying to figure out what his next three, five, 10 moves are going to be, right? And you said something.

You said this could get pretty ugly quickly, so we have to make sure we are moving accordingly with this guy. What do you think are his if you were to speculate obviously nobody knows we're not in the man's mind but here's a former KGB member you're saying he's the greatest politician on what he was able to pull off. What do you think are his next three five moves. Well, I do believe that he has, as his primary goal, the occupation of the eastern part of Ukraine, that may include Kiev and may not. If he's still reasoning and smart, he knows he can't occupy all of Ukraine without getting into an Afghanistan-type situation that will eventually be as undoing.

And it's not because there's demonstrations and Russians. I think the majority of the Russians don't want this war. But it's, you know, a dangerous thing to offer it here, by the way. Yeah, yep. Dictators can be deposed. There's palace crews in history all over the place and Putin needs to be aware that, I'm sure he is aware, that his inner circle, they're powerful people.

And he needs to find a way to stay at the top. That means, you know, he showed proper aggression because he, they're looking for a strong man, but he can't get to a point where his rule is rooted because of the quagmire in Ukraine. So I heard this morning that there There are negotiations going on where there is a little more Realism in the demands on on either side. I think he needs to find an off ramp if he doesn't He's done Collaborate on he's done on page. He's done as a person as an individual They think someone's gonna take him out Yeah, you mean not not immediately and maybe not necessarily killing, but you know, taking them out because he... Politically taking them out or literally taking them out?

No, no, politically. Did you see the... there's a picture in the media where he's surrounded by all his bodyguards. I mean, they are the best trained commando in the world, I would think. So he would be hard to take out unless and I'm not advocating any of that unless you know where he is and throw a nukin into that. You brought up his inner circle, right? The Russian oligarchs, maybe political intersub. Well, the generals, the intelligence services, they all have power on their own. Who do you think he actually listens to?

Nobody really knows that, right? And there's also no clear succession plan. you know, he's going to be 70 very soon. It's not clear who would succeed him. So that's going to be in power until 2036, I believe. If he lives that long, that's a weakness of the state. If you don't have a succession plan, it could be chaotic once he disappears. It's the future of Russia doesn't look very good because right now economically he's getting killed. Crushed. Yeah, it's 60. Crushed. Absolutely. 40% the currency is dropped and the last whatever, 8, 9, 10 days. And they want to get 60 trillion rubles back from the people. That's insane if you do something like that. What's this right here? Lindsey

Graham stands by call for someone in Russia to assassinate Putin. I saw that a few days ago, right? He should shut up already. You can say that in private. To Lindsey Graham? Yeah. But by the way, you saw the fact that an insider

from Russia released information that there's already been three assassination attempts on Zelinsky. And nobody in the questions asked, how many assassination attempts have been made on Putin? Nobody knows, right? Because it have to be from the inside. Yeah, but there's already been three, but we know how many

assassination attempts there was on Hitler 42 plus. Yeah, eventually killed himself. Yeah. So, yeah, do you have an opinion on who you think Putin would listen to? I think, I think Putin is a true believer. You have to negotiate with true believers in a different way. Like you ever talked to somebody and you say, but you don't understand what he did, but you will never understand it, but you will never understand no matter what you say, that person goes to what, but you will never understand it. Like there's so much emotion behind it. How do you eliminate all that emotion? If that's any, like parents get a divorce, my mom and I got a divorce.

No matter what said, that emotion is so deep between the two, nobody can do anything about it, right? It's that deep of what that emotion is. You just heard the history of what happened with Russia and how it went back and forth and how he views Ukraine and what he thinks of Ukraine. You know what he thinks about him? He looks at Zelensky and he says, this is not a lid. I would do laps around this guy. How do you guys buy into

an actor being your president who created a political party on a TV show and he starts pulling a Trump? I'm like a Trump. But I told him, you got to think about to Putin. To Putin is like like who are you to sit a crowd Like who do you think you are here? And nobody Putin's a true believer. So you know for me I already said it yesterday when we talked about it. I think the best offense is what what's good defense a good defense America had a good defense prior to Biden America had a pretty good defense prior to Biden Biden's not scared anybody So everybody's playing offense because our defense sucks right now. Defense is how you

handle Afghanistan. That's a terrible defense. We did not have a good defense. You don't intimidate anybody when you don't have a, so what do we do about it? So he's being opportunistic about it. My only concern is, again, it goes back to the same thing. My only concern is how far is he willing to go out. The reason why I call Jack this week and I said Jack we want to have you on and we just called you this week by the way maybe Sunday or Monday. Oh it was Friday actually Monday. Okay it was Monday so Monday two days ago right I said I want to click yeah and we flew him out because I want to know what he's thinking and I want to know what his moves are going to be. What is a former kid?

Yeah, I want to know what is, is, is how much of it is a bluff game? How much of a, um, we don't know. That's what I'm saying. Well, you use the analogy multiple times that he's, you know, he's got pocket twos and he acts like he's, you know, has a straightness hand. You've used this analogy. Yeah, I, I wonder like is he bluffing because he's so into deep now That it's very hard to paint a picture for him to redeem himself history may be done with him

Like you have to realize history maybe he's a pariah on the world stage no doubt at this point But just three weeks ago just two months ago. It wasn't though. That's my point. Yeah, but history may be done with them So in his mind is he sitting there like hey, I was doing this for my dad I was doing this for my legacy. I was doing this for my mother Russia. I was doing this for this Who is his loyalty to is it as he worried about the people around them that are upset with them that he may lose power That somebody that wants to replace him because he's 69 years old right now. Is he thinking that? His loyalty is to himself, first of all. Secondly, I want to add a feature here. When you had Zelinsky's picture up there,

he doesn't look like a strong individual physically. Putin has a black belt and karate. Putin has cultivated an image of being a real tough guy You know that infamous picture of him writing hours. Mm-hmm. No shirt on sure Yeah, and for quite some time. I think he stopped doing this. He got too old He would have been participated in a hockey game And you'll hockey game where he and four others took on the starting five of the national team yeah and put in always scored the goals right you always had a hat trick against the best players

in the world exactly so so he's ridiculous this this is so ridiculous but he believes that he can pull it off and he actually seems to be pulling it off because I have a video of one of the games and you know he scored a goal in the first 20 seconds and everybody screams yeah. So that's that's the it's kind of like when you let the little kid run down the football field and all the yeah the tacklers move out of the way in the six-year-old scores a touchdown. I mean that's essentially what he's doing. It's propaganda. So, so he has created an image of himself as his strong man and he believes in it because, you know, if, well, more importantly than he believes in it, the Russian people believe in it. Yes. How do they fall for the propaganda, propaganda time and time again, especially with him? Well, and I've been lately watching quite a few documentaries about, Hitler came to power and how he ran the Third Reich.

How did the Germans believe all that nonsense? How would they all go like this in unison? And that was an educated populist. Do you think Putin is extremely sensitive guy? Yes, I tell you he's hypersensitive. Okay, so you know I'm asking that. I think you know where I'm going with this. Do you think he's super hypersensitive? Yes, and I tell you why I know this. There's a fellow by the name of Oleg Collogan. He was KGB, he was in charge of counterintelligence for the first directorate.

First directorate of it was espionage. I was in the first directorate. And at one time he was Vladimir's boss. And I met Oleg a couple of times, he lives in the United States, he's a citizen. And he said, you know, he wasn't much of a good agent, but there he said, one thing I will not do, I will not say anything, I will not attack him personally. Apparently he may know something that would be put on doing, talking about sensitivity. And I'm not going to mention that on air.

So there were some hints. But apparently it's a great sensitivity. Because of that ego, the narcissism, right? And there has to be, there has to be something that, to be at that level, you have to be hypersensitive about something. And running around American politicians and calling them war kinds of names

is not necessarily doing us any good. And it could just, I don't disagree, make it more crazy. I don't disagree. Yeah, I don't disagree. Why do you ask that question? Are you hypersensitive? Yeah.

All I'm saying is if you're dealing with somebody hypersensitive, you have to, the ability to tame is a political skill. He's got the, yeah, the more sensitive he is, the more dangerous he is to the world. And I think he's very sensitive. I think he's extremely hypersensitive. So I think whoever makes the next moves with them, they have to make it the right way. By the way, perhaps to Zelensky for not attacking, back in doing any of that, he's saying,

listen man, I'm not, I'm just fighting you back, but I'm not hurting you. They're taking the soldiers and they're holding the soldiers and the soldiers are apologized and they're making a video. I don't know if you've seen those videos, where the soldiers who Ukraine takes from Russia and their prisoners of war, they're saying on video, man, I'm sorry, I'm just doing my job, they're just telling me what to do, there's hundreds of these things.

They're making that way. No, no, not propaganda. Actual Russian soldiers. No, meaning that's what they're using to win the hearts and minds of other people. Yeah, so what is it? Is it fear? Do you fear it? Are you worried what could happen?

Are you worried what he's going to do? And so you said something. He said his loyalty is only to himself. I don't know if I believe that. I think it is to himself, but I think it's, it's, it's a lennon. Is it a Stalin? Is it a, there's got to be something more than that. And to be able to handle this guy, you got to do it in a very, it's too late. The strategy of Trump doesn't work with Biden right now. You can't go from not being a tough guy to being a tough guy. Like, remember when Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, all of a sudden started talking trash to Trump? Yeah, I didn't want to.

And everyone's like, what the hell are you doing? That's not your identity, stop it. You look funny. You're not a troll. Trump's a troll. You're not a troll. Yeah, don't try to play in the mud. No, you're not.

He's gonna try for his entire life. He's a pro. He comes from the streets of New York, he's a tough guy. You're not a tough, Yeah, don't try to play in the mud. You're just going to jump. He's going to jump. For his entire life, he's a pro. He comes from the streets of New York. He's a tough guy. You're not a tough. What are you doing, Ted? What are you doing? So they're not a good looking.

So Biden cannot play the card of Trump. Trump's been that his entire life. I don't think he's trying to, though. No, he's not. He's not trying to. And I think for the most part, especially with the address he gave last week, I think Biden has looked capable.

I don't think he's looked strong or tough, but it looked like he's making sense. I can't agree I can't disagree with the way we have been handling the situation. I cannot Now the only thing that Cleared thinking people Disagree with this that we were not opening up the American oil to bigot again. Right. Which I think is coming.

I think that's the next step. Because we just put a ban on Russian oil. Right. Right. And we're too busy courting Iran and Venezuela and everybody else. Why would we open up our own pipelines? Yeah, I mean, that's that, that right there. If you think about that, that is the,

Matter of fact, I'll read that story. Go to page two down by Gino, Papa, Papa, which one is that? I'm sorry, you can't guess, much. All right, administration courts, Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia. By the administration courts, Venezuela, I ran a Saudi Arabia for oil while ignoring US producers

Has found themselves in a position where they need more oil Production to lower gas prices, but can't do that domestically without alienating the large anti fossil fuel portion of the base and breaking their own Promises at gas prices top four dollars nationally a seven dollars in some cities. They are instead Opt into big Venezuela Iran and Saudi Arabia for bailout. This comes days after Biden proved the release of 30 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve. For reference, 30 million barrels isn't even enough to cover two days of U.S. oil consumption with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia.

Biden would rather find a list of America's enemies than boost our own oil industry. So, you got Russia, what they're going through, you got us, how we're reacting to economical crisis that we're having here today, right? These are two different things that's going on. That's Putin. This is US. And Biden, every time he's asked, he was asking questions yesterday. I don't know if you saw that, Tyler. He was asked, are gas prices going to go up?

Yes. What are we doing about it? We can't do nothing about it. It's because of Russia. He said that yesterday in a question, the back, I don't know if you saw that or not. Person has to ask that question. So lower and middle income families

are paying a price for this. That's who's paying a price for that. That's a complete different conversation. This is another case where ideology is trumping reason, and I'm not using Trump because of Donald Trump. This is an ideology, the greening of the world. No matter how you look at it, what we are doing here doesn't make any sense, because American companies pump oil cleaner and produce whatever the derivative of oil much cleaner than all the other countries. So it doesn't make any sense. It's no clear

thinking. It's an ideology. It's a religion with Kveta as the... Did you see the story about saying... Did you see the story from LA Times and all over the place where there are Vladimir Putin is terminally ill and dying of cancer. A former Russian intelligence officer and others believe so, did you see that story? I didn't see it. And I believe it when Vladimir dies from cancer. Okay, so you think that's another story that's being made out of. Wanna know one reason why many people think in Russian President of the volume, Vladimir Putin is executed, executed the invasion of Ukraine so quickly and suddenly,

he's dying. According to reports, citing a former Russian intelligence officer who now works for the Pentagon, Putin could be suffering from terminal bowel cancer. His puffy face scene, in images this you could indicate, he is undergoing chemotherapy treatments on steroids,

the Daily Star reported this in their story that quoted the source. The source says this diagnosis could have encouraged him to be more aggressive and attack Ukraine. So he can leave a legacy knowing he is dying. He added that analysis, have been study important who think he has a terminal illness. And here's another source quoted from the Daily Star in the past. We've seen him smile. But in 2022, there are a few pictures of him looking happy.

His look suggests he is in pain, and our people suggest his angry look is most likely as a result of being in agony. Our people are confident he is ill, he is concerned about COVID as he keeps his staff as a distance. How much credibility do you think there's behind this? No, I mean, how would you ever even... So this guy, the ex-intelligence agent, is a doctor, a medical doctor. He can see this. I could understand that Vladimir doesn't sleep very well these days.

It works really hard, so that shows in your face. And this is just wishful thinking, and you're muddling the picture. You've got to deal with what you know as the truth. Well remember when they did this with Kim Jong-un for like a couple months, they were like, yeah, he's sick. We found his twin. It's not really him. He's gaining weight. He's got the gal. What is this strategy to do? What? Oh, it's just a story you're saying. It's just a joke.? Oh, it's just a story or say. It's just to give you. I don't know. OK.

No, but what I'm saying is why is a intelligence guy that now works at Pentagon? What is his motive to release that? Not media. He's not trying to do clickbait. What's his motive? To get his name out. I mean, how big of an official is he?

I would be so upset if you were working for me. I'm like, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing to get your name out? You think this is one of the best things that Chief Disguise Officer CIA agent, a Jonah Mendis told me. She said, the best quality is about a CIA agent. Intelligence agents is what?

You're charming, you're charismatic, you're this, you're that, you're this, you're handsome, you're great salesman. But when you save the world from World War III, you don't tell anybody about it because you don't need the recognition. She said, that's the quality. You don't be an intelligent, a pentegrin. So should you be a character by the way. I get it, but

we have all those great qualities and don't tell anybody. My question would be is how high ranking is the official? I mean remember anonymous that was supposed to be the super high ranking Trump official that wrote the big paper back in what 2017? You saw an anonymous came out the other day. Right and he was a low-level staffer that nobody knew I would venture to say it's it's similar with this guy okay let's talk about Russian Spies here's a story about Russian Spies okay on page three and I'm curious how much credibility you're giving to this one Russian Spies among us a look at New York compound

that houses Kremlin's intelligence officer. The complex known as Russian diplomatic compound in New York City's Riverdale neighborhood has often been the subject of speculation surrounding the buildings, purpose and residents but practice as the building is home to Russian diplomats, many of whom work in the United States as intelligence officers. There are two types of intelligence officers. Those who pose a symmetrical threat and those who pose an as a symmetrical threat, those working in New York and living in the compound and working at the mission in the United Nations are under diplomatic cover. It's called a symmetrical threat. We know they're

here, they're diplomats under diplomatic cover, so they actually have all the privileges of diplomats and they've been caught conducting covers, so they actually, espionage against our country, you can't throw them in jail because they're diplomats. But they're different from undercover operatives who are not under the official cover in our Indian out of the States, those who pose as asymmetrical threat, undercover operatives, such as Jack Barski,

who operate under non-official cover, under false pretenses with fake names. Do you want to say that? That article fails to mention the third category. What's that? And people who are not undercover, they're not assuming it's another identity, they work officially as journalists, business people, students. Right? They have an official reason to be here, but then they spy.

And I think those are the ones right now that we have to be aware of, because we're very open-country. How many Chinese exchange students do we have? And I guarantee you, Russia and China, and all those dictatorships know exactly who is going abroad, and they all will be talked to. So there's a good reason to believe that there are currently more people in the United States, Russians, that are engaged in espionage than they were in my time. Because there wasn't, in my time, there wasn't that free exchange of, you know, students and teachers and business people back and forth.

In those days, we had the two types, the asymmetric threat, us, and there were very few of us, very few in the undercover. Yes, undercover, deep cover. In the 80s, according to Metroc and there were early 80s, late 70s, there were about ten of us that were trained and sent to the US. Ten. And there were a couple of other prior to that period, there were a couple of other efforts

to bring those types of agents into the US, and they never amounted to many. Okay. So, and here's one other difference between the KGB and Putin's intelligence services. The KGB was very solicitous of their agents. They were, they did not like it when an agent was caught. They were, you know, they, and if we, if in when we were caught, they did everything to get us out,

Putin enjoys when we catch people because he, it scares us. How many more of those are there? I guarantee you quite a few. Oh, he likes it when we catch people. Why not? Because it makes him a more original. It gives a message. It gives a message.

We got on the inside. Yes. There were here. It's game not talking. It gives a message that we got on the inside. Yes, they were here. It's game not talking anymore. It's game'smanship. How many reverse it? How many people, how many Americans or, you know, people on the American side of things or on the EU side of things even are implanted in Russia or even China for that matter? I would, this is an educated guess far fewer, far fewer. They're better out of them we are.

Yes, they are. And, or it's just easier to blend in in America versus. How many people want to live in Russia? How Bernie Sanders? Yes. And how many people would, you know, it would be a sacrifice as opposed to coming to the United States. You get a good life and you do something patriotic for your country.

That also played a role for me signing up those days. But like you, how many people fall in love with the benefits of living in America and say, yeah, can you be life-a-and for me me anymore. I'm just gonna stay here for a while. Yes, but you gotta be careful. There's always relatives in back home. And you may be married and with children. So, and it's not that easy to defect. And, you know, and if you want to play the double agent game, that's very dangerous. And the people that this category of official cover, but not on a diplomatic protection, this category is not well trained. They don't get one. You say, but in 2010, there were like 10 SBR agents, Russian

agents were arrested by the FBI and they were like very poorly trained. There's a short video and FBI video on YouTube where you can see some of their operations. And when I saw this for the first time, I was screaming at the TV, you can't do this, this is wrong. What role you think, what role you think NGOs play? You know what NGOs are? I know. You think they play. Like, hey, we're just hit charity here.

Oh, no, no, no, government organization. We're creating it here and humanitarian. We're here to save your country and help you out and a meanwhile behind closed doors they're playing their games and Yes, and historically even the KGB did a really good job infiltrating NGOs and those days Yes, you got to be wary of those Why why is that well?

You got to be wary of those. Why is that? Well, because they operate under a cover, and many of them will stand for a good cause. So they can attract people to do something for them under false flag. Let's say some kind of a peace organization. We are for peace in the world. And then under this flag, you can recruit somebody

who has access to secrets. State the apartment. You know, just like help us out, you know, we need to have equality in the world. How does the country that knows what the motive of many NGOs are? How do you say, oh yeah, yeah, come on in here, we know you guys want to do good. Come help us out. Why do they permit for that take place? This a guess, but you know, if you attack groups that are serving

a good cause, you've got a PR problem, a big one. Right? Like, I mean, you know, did you see what award Hillary Clinton got from Forbes yesterday? Can you go to Insta-Gram account yesterday, by the way? Did you see it? I think I sent it to this morning. Yeah, I sent it to this morning. Yesterday?

You don't know what? Oh, you didn't see this. Obviously, she's known as the biggest sweetheart. You go to Instagram and type in Forbes. Just type in Instagram Forbes. I want to read this to you because then I want I want you to see the commentary. So yesterday they posted this. Go to right there. Okay, click on that and make it bigger so we can

see the comments as well. Make it bigger in the comments actually. It's important to the world. I think if you care about, if you don't, not this one. No, not this one. They gave the right, yeah, they said I think if you can't refer to our future, or so, they gave her recognition yesterday and it was on Instagram. Anyways, she got the recognition as a women,

let me see this here. Where is that at? Hillary Rado receives Forbes International Women's Day Lifetime Achieve Award, right? That's the one. I don't know if you have that or not. They posted that, but I want you to go to the commentary. Is that the one? No. Okay. Anyway, so, so if you go to the comment section with that and what people are saying, they're saying, wait, is this a joke? Are you serious? Is this real? are saying, they're saying, wait, is this a joke? Are you serious? Is this real? Are you really recognizing her for what she's got? You remember when she was going through, go to comment section. And I'm out. Thank you for her. She got a puffed up face. Maybe she

has cancer too. But she's smiling. She's probably happy, right? If she didn't win forbs would be committed suicide, that, that, that, the point is this, she was the one that went to Haiti for humanitarian causes, right? To help out Haiti, and in all of a sudden, a few billion dollars went missing. I may be wrong, but I remember reading that story.

Yeah, I met a diplomat a while ago from Haiti, and I asked him how much of that money went to the people who needed it, and he said zero. But it was such a marketing campaign, yes. And so achievement award, what did you achieve reset with Russia? You know, that sent a signal also to Europe that it was okay, you know Russia will be okay, we can play ball together and that helped Putin to create this energy dependency that Western Europe has on Russia right now. What an achievement, what an achievement, by force. You could have given this to Oprah.

How would you kidnap him if you could use the other name? What an achievement what an achievement life was given this The other things like why I don't understand the fascination with Hillary Clinton legitimately like what what is she done Specifically to earn this award. It's another award that starts with the letter F But it's not fascination. It's called fear. Okay, it's called fear. It's not fascination. It's why are people afraid It's called fear. It's not fascination. It's why are people afraid? Let's just give a recognition to get on our good side. You don't know what's going on By the way, first of all 95% of Forbes is not owned by China and Malcolm Malcolm Forbes is right now probably in his grave You know turning saying why did you sell a company that's all about the capital is tool to China? Why would you do that? What do Steve Forbes have to say? Currently, Steve Forbes. I don't understand that concept.

I don't understand that concept. He's constantly on Forbes. I mean, I'm sorry, on Fox, giving his opinions. I'd love to interview him. I'd love to have him on. But if I can say to him on Biden, can you have Rob? Let's see if we can get him here, because I'd be curious to know what

why you would do such a thing. But let me continue. Let me continue with a couple other stories here that we got going on. Uh, uh, I don't know, I don't know, I'm going to be praying to Airfield,

which one was that we wanted to go through? Okay. Yeah, Russians offering serious $300 to fight in Ukraine. US European allies discuss banning imports from Russia. Obviously, US already did it by banning it, but now other countries are also talking about they may be doing it. Europe relies on Russia for crude oil and natural gas, but has become open. The idea of banning Russia probably have already

done that. But then you got a few other countries that are looking at that. Look, how do you stop this right now? If you wanted to stop this right now with them, like if you were to say, here's this country is going to matter, that country is going to matter, this country is going to matter, this sanctions going to matter, this challenge is going to matter, this fear is going to matter, how do you stop Putin right now? Now, you got to be, stick to your guns and be consistent, and I'm a little bit concerned with possibly the German government, for instance, getting too aggressive because believe it or not, when I went back to Germany, there was during the Trump administration.

The Germans I talked with would have sided with Putin over Donald Trump. The German population forgot what the United States did for them in World War II. And so there is significant – and I've had some emails coming out of Germany – significant segment of the population that is actually on Putin's side and Germany has elections. So now, see, this is where it gets really difficult. Inside why? Why? Oh, I'm in front of mine, who, my best friend, who worked as a chemist in the Stasi, for the Head of DeFortuary Department. So he still has some...

My generation has residual communist ideology. They couldn't get rid of it completely. And so they're looking at Russia, sort of of with a whole lot more sympathy. And this friend of mine who is very bright thinks this whole thing has been engineered by the United States because the United States, the biggest aim is to separate Germany and Russia, so to speak, because a union, sort of a coalition of Germans and Russians could be a strong counter force against the United States. Germans don't like the United States. It's a fact.

You know, we're the big bully. And it's a shame. So, in French, you know, the French don't like us as much either. At least enough of them. And so it's a difficult balancing act here. You want to stick to your guns. It's going to get painful for you in most of the lives. Yeah, when you look at the map, you know, the conversation we had yesterday about the fact that, hey, U.S., your neighbors are who?

Canada and Mexico. What are you afraid of? Nothing. You got Canada, you got Mexico, everybody else, you got to fly along, where you should come here, right? Who's the neighbors of Russia? Shoot, China. All these other NATO nations, you know,

if you just look at that map right there, Russia, can you make that bigger for us to see it? Just make it bigger. Okay, there you go. So you got Russia, you got Ukraine, Belarus, a country in the world, surrounded by all sides. Yeah. So it's, But you're saying German is Playing a different role now meaning they're kind of aligning themselves with Russia. No, no, no I'm talking about the German population. Oh, I got you about the people who vote the the German government surprised me phenomenally because you know what was supposed to be a more conservative government on the Merkel Was really weak and and this socialist just made a radical 180 degree

About face about his stance towards defending his own country that what Trump wanted them to do You know, and that's they hated Trump for that because he walked into Germany and told him, you know, come on and pay up and do something in your own defense. So, so he's now committed to spending 2% of his GNP on defense. And, you know, the, and he's pretty aggressive with the embargo. They're talking about even not buying natural gas. That would be a huge problem because, you know, under Angela Merkel, they had a very, very poorly arranged energy policy. You know, when you go to Germany,

you know, you see windmills all over the place. And the electricity is like three times more expensive than ours because, you know, they shut down the nuclear plants. And what's the whole concept of the Nord Stream 2? They're going to shut that off, Tyler. Now you've done some research on that, right? Well, yeah. So, Nord Stream 2 was a pipeline that would go direct from Russia to Germany and skip Ukraine. Ukraine makes like $5 billion a year transporting oil from Russia to Germany, and this would go straight to to Germany from Russia and red, excuse me, Germany buys I think 40% of their oil comes from Russia.

So everybody wants to talk about American energy independence gas prices that we were exporting oil to the rest of Europe energy is a form of defense and it can be manipulated into Not a form of war, but but almost again, again a form of defense So if we if we export oil to Europe we can make Europe stronger by cutting off dependence on Russian oil Sadie oil a radiant oil Venezuelan oil etc etc So it's so much bigger than just lowering the price at the pump. We were a net exporter under President Trump, and as soon as President Biden came in, that switched.

And gas prices have been up and rising since the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency. This didn't start with Russia, Ukraine. I mean, at the beginning of his presidency, gas prices started rising. And it isn't just the gas because everything else that we buy somehow is impacted by the energy prices. And that's what, and if Biden thinks he can get a grip on inflation, it's going to get worse. Yeah, yesterday I was consulting with this one guy

who owns a construction company, and they do not construction company, transportation company not construction company transportation company truck So he does loads and he says I got a question for you. I said what's that? He says you know prices for my uh loads that I'm delivering it's gone up. I said by how much he says yes I mean 25% and I don't know how to talk to my customers about so we got to be open about it They know what's going on with gas prices He says but a lot of them are not open to the idea It said it doesn't matter. You got to have a conversation with them right meaning hey instead This is going to cost three thousand dollars. It's going to cost now $3700

What do you mean you're going to increase it by that much? So he the person that's transporting is going to say what? Well, I was normally paying three thousand dollars to to transport. Now, after paying $3,700 to transport, it's up 22%. So this product that you normally would buy for $3 is not $3.75. Okay, this product you buy, that's $10. Now, $12. I don't have a choice. Gas prices is not just about what it costs to go to the

gas station. It's about transportation. Exactly. Think about everything that's made with oil. Over 6,000 products are made with oil. That doesn think about everything that's made with oil over 6,000 products are made with oil. That doesn't, exactly. That doesn't include everything that's made with adhesives, with plastics, with rubber, vest, everything is touched by oil.

I mean, prices, it's so much more than just a gamble. Medication, drugs. By the way, with this corner right now, Jack, who is happy? Okay, who, which world leader right now, sitting around saying, I'm so glad this is going on because it took so much distraction off of me. China, I agree. And why do you think they're happy? What do you think they're doing?

Well, they're sitting back and they're watching this, fundamentally the Western Alliance and Russia are weakening each other right now. No doubt about it. There's no clear winner. China sitting back is not involved and they're just waiting to see when they can strike. I guess Taiwan you're saying. No, sure. And that's unlikely how that that happens. I don't know. It's probably more than 50% for them to get there's going to be a lot easier by the way because because they've been stating for you know there's the one China policy is official policy they're just waiting

for the right time to do this and you know this looks pretty good right now for the night. I mean, we already, like, the United States, their main enemy is already pretty much focused on Russia now. So what are we gonna do when they start taking over time? Well, here's a different perspective. Is there any doubt that China could just go take over Taiwan in a day or two, done, right? Yeah. People also said that about Ukraine, right?

And Ukraine is kind of holding their own, but the backlash is what I'm referring to. The pariah that Putin is becoming. China is kind of teetering, like they've been doing this balancing act where they're, yeah, they're kind of like this bad actor, but people are still kind of doing business with them and buying products, but

If they invade Taiwan, where do you think the global sentiment will will direct itself against China? My own it basically has the big bully, but it will be harder to Boycott China than it is to boycott Russia simply because you would empty all the warm or shelves. You know, everything that I buy is made in China these days, right? So, including medications and stuff like that, things that are important, we have let go of control, and I think it had something to do with unregulated capitalist greed, follow the money. It's not a rosy picture. And I don't know.

You got to hope that the Chinese really like the way that going now. You know, stealing secrets from the United States and doing great business with the United States, which helps them controlling their own population by building the capability to supervise the population and like centrally control everything that everybody's doing.

So that's a calculus that I don't know how strong it is. Whether they want to continue living the rich life, the upper class or not. Well, here's the other part that you got to think about. Go to maps, go to maps, just go to not that map. Just go to regular, put Taiwan and then just go Taiwan and map. Okay, so here's a couple of things you got to think about. But go to the map on Google map, not the images.

Just click on map right, no, no, just right there below it. Just go to maps, right there. There you go. So if you go to map and go to Taiwan, okay. So go a little closer. Okay. So so to the left, go a little bit out, a little bit out, they go to the left is Hong Kong. Okay. Now you got to realize Hong Kong for 156 years was part of a British, you know, the bridge had Hong Kong, right? And then in 19, what is it? 1997, late 90s, they get it back. Okay. All right. So say Hong Kong asks for help. Who do they call? Say Taiwan asks for help guys help us now zoom out a little bit zoom out a little bit. Okay, we're on our way. Yeah, we're on our way guys. We'll be there in a minute.

We'll be there in six hours. Oh, Japan, we're gonna get involved and help you. Oh, we're gonna get involved and help you. And then, oh, no, it's not, right? Now go to Ukraine. Now go to Ukraine. So just go to the other side. Just move them. No, no, you don't need to put the name there.

Just move the map. Yeah. So keep going left, keep going left, keep going left, keep going left. Okay, now look at Ukraine. Go down a little bit to see Russia and Ukraine. Hey, guys, I need help. Boom, we're there.

Yeah, okay. So the the Taiwan is going to be a lot different than a Ukraine's going to be. It was not that they're not going to have a hard time doing that. But I do agree with the fact that this, now here's the other question. What are the chances? What are the chances that there was a conversation between G and Putin, where Putin and G talked about, hey, you're calling us the most important strategic partner, the foreign minister of China just said two days ago, Russia is our most important strategic partner, right? That's the word. What are the chances of G and Putin having a conversation

together saying, look, no cameras, no nothing, no one's around, nobody knows this conversation. I know what you want. They talk in code and you know what I want. Do you think this is a good time for me to go do it? Do you think there's any kind of a proxy type of thing where G is like, I think this is a perfect time to do it like giving them cover No, you know what it's kind of like Adam I think can be Tyler. I think this the time

Oh Yeah, but either you don't stand a chance Do you think somebody poked him to do it or no? Do you think Putin didn't need anybody to poke him like she didn't try to create a proxy war It's a good guess It's a good guess that they had like face-to-face conversation and Off the record so to speak you know and hint Yeah, but do you think do you think there is any chance that she would say?

I would if I were you right now, you know, I think it's a good time right now to do it Do you think that kind of a Conversation what take place or no plausible deniability would indicate that you don't say it directly And openly you just hint got it I agree like you you you Do you do you do it directly or do you use a third party to code deliver that message to his camp? Right are you suggesting that Odin would want to get she's green light in order to invade Ukraine? Yeah, I wonder, like I wonder what is the level

of unity between the two guys? Because bring the map out, bring the map out, bring the map out, look at China, look at Russia. Where are they? Where are they? They're right there. All right. On the eastern side of the country, they bring the map out. Look at China, look at Russia. They're right there. All right. On the eastern side of the country they're touching. They are not just separated by the caliphate. This is a marriage of convenience. Ideologically they're different. Putin is also looking to retain influence in the former republics that have agents living in them and that

border on China, I guarantee you that there's conflicts. And there has been history of shooting at each other at the border, no major conflict, but they're not best buddies, but you know when it comes to their main enemy, they are somewhat united against the United States. That's very good news that they are not body-body. If it's true. Yeah. If it's true.

They're almost more, it's in alliance. They're not natural partners. I mean, they're almost, we covered this yesterday. Russia's still selling weapons to India for India to prepare against the fight against China. I mean, they're not partners. G has bigger goals than just being friends with Vladimir Putin. I mean, it's it's why I think the best thing We can do is really which Joe Biden has done to his credit is stay out of Ukraine and out of this conflict and not push Vladimir Putin into the arms of

Xi Jinping because the big question becomes what happens when China invades Taiwan? What do we do? Do we put boots on the ground? Is that when we step in? I mean, I think it's inevitable. So what happens when that becomes a reality? Is World War 3 inevitable? I mean, Taiwan makes 60% of the semi-conductors on the world. You think you have a chip shortage now? Just wait. Taiwan, when it gets invaded, I don't think it's an if, I think it's a when, is going to be very different than what's going on in Ukraine. And the answer The question is what does Joe Biden do? I would the US even attempt to step into a Taiwanese takeover. That's not even anything that we would even want to meddle in.

You just heard him say the 60% ship still there's a good deal. Yeah, but there's alternative measures that we can take other than trying to get into a hot war with China. They have the triad that we discussed yesterday, Australia, Japan, United States, and what's the fourth country? When you say Australia, Japan, United States, and it's not India, is it? UK, you don't know the triad, is the... And there's a fourth country involved in the triad. But point is there's an alliance created to combat China's influence in the South China Sea. It might be in there.

But yeah, I don't think U.S. is looking for a hot war at all. Do you think it's just sanctions? Like what we're doing with Russia now? There's got to be alternative measures here. War is not the answer here right now. And back to the gas prices. I had a conversation with my mom yesterday. And my mom did 0% knowledge about what's going on.

So I posed a question, I go, Mom, how much is it caused to fill your tank? She says it costs 40 bucks. I said, well, you do understand now that gas prices are rising. She goes, yeah, I know. It cost me $50 this week to fill my tank. So how often do you fill your tank once a week? So I said, it's going to cost you $10 more, you know, in general, a failure tank. She goes, okay, like to combat tyranny and to stand up

to stand up against autocratic thinking like Putin if it costs my mom who's a nurse $10 more a week so be it you know gas prices aren't the end all be all yes there are bigger things like the trucker that you talked about and businesses or people who drive for a living you know maybe you eat out a little bit less but you're gonna have to do something different, but for my mom to spend $10 more a week, so be it. So I will take a different position with that, and I'll tell you this. So right now, the crisis is so bad on the left that they have to figure out a way to either take a few different measures to not make the gas price a massive issue. So they're facing a few different problems. Why are we having so many problems, we didn't have a war during Trump.

Why are we having so many problems under this administration? Why is that first we have the Afghanistan now we have this first we have inflation gas prices go up now We have this why is this happening? We just had a worldwide pandemic So I mean a lot of this is systemic because of that right, but again, so even with the pandemic throw that in there as well Why so the the the left has to position everything to be normal. It's okay, it's gas prices just going up. It's okay, it's inflation, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna go away. It's not really inflation, it's all, it's really going on because they have to deflect, deflect,

deflect because midterm cheerleaders, an element of it that's politics. But the part of it that with your mom's story, I'm glad it doesn't affect her, the 10 bucks. I'm fully glad it doesn't affect her. It affects a lot of people. Believe me, my mom is of the elk that it would affect the comic. I get that. But she's in by no way means doing well. But your mom is also not in the working environment where she has kids to take care of, where she has expenses to cover, where she has to drop off the kids, drive them to soccer, all that other stuff. She's a retired woman that is not necessarily have 50 different things to do

when you were 12 years old, when you were eight years old. It's a different life for somebody that's going through it, I'm trying to survive on a time like that, but the price increase is going to be felt and it's not just going to be gas. Gas is only one thing we're talking about. Just watch all the other prices. And FYI, if you think the gas prices are at the peak right now, people are lying to themselves or they're naive. Way till this thing gets to $10 and everybody has to have the real conversations about, listen, I was kind of okay at $4 but not okay with $10.

But don't you think at that point a Biden administration will start opening up the floodgates of oil? What's the difference between starting now and then? What is the difference between the low and then? I would be shocked if they started now. Well yesterday they announced that they're going to ban Russian oil. Okay, so where do we think we're going to get oil from? But, but, but, we're going to have to, that's why we're, no, no negotiations are happening right now. Yeah, there you go. So if you rush, a ban would rush it. That's a very good strategy for PR.

That's great. So say we're not doing it with PR. Great, like McDonald's. We're shutting down 700 stores in Russia. Starbucks. Okay, this is good. You have to do that because your customers are gonna be like, what do you like?

You know, these restaurants liquor stores are coming out important, all their vodka, you know, these restaurants liquor stores are coming out and pouring all their vodka, you know, and then somebody came back and said the following. They said, oh, really? You're pouring all this stuff out of vodka? Why don't you go throw all the stuff out that you have in your store that says made in China? If you really don't commit it.

Why don't you go out and drop all the way to China? If I come to nobody saying that, oh, you're only saying because this is cool to do that, right? You wouldn't even think about doing it if you were supposed to drop all the stuff in made in China, because you do so much money. So there's so much hypocrisy in this thing right now that you just you just have to kind of really see what's going on but there but this this gas crisis if it hits 10 and Biden's still trying to negotiate his

camp with Maduro's camp Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or they're already in talks or Iran or all these other guys. We look so weak. You're negotiating with the enemy. Hey, can you please sell us some gas out of this camp? Please, things are pretty bad in America. Why don't you go get it yourself? And then they asked the maybe we will though, right?

The maybe is if they do, we will salute them on the podcast and say awesome decision for you doing. Well, if you were, if you were Tony Blinken or in a national security advisor working for the Abbot in administration, you just hypothetically, what would you recommend he does differently or what do you, what advice would you, what counsel would have advised us to all the intel? If I had access to all the intel, which is a lot of... Based on, you know, if I had access to all the intel and I got people around me from both sides Giving me feedback on why two or why not to then I would ask and say what so we got a hundred years of reserve Yes, okay. How long do you think this crisis gonna last say 90 days? Okay a hundred years 90 days means we got

Four hundred more years in reserves. Why don't we go ahead and get 90 days worth of supply right now? Lorde gas prices by 25 35 40 ahead and get 90 days worth of supply right now? Lorde Gas prices by 25, 35, 40 percent. And in 90 days later, we can go back and see what we can stack up a deal with somebody else. Okay, maybe you can put a timeline on it that we're going to fix it for now. But here's the other part that I'll flip it on you is there's got to be a long-term solution. Okay, there has to be a long-term solution. These are all nice bandages you're putting on there. Okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, there's like for example, California, yesterday in Newson posted something on Twitter.

I'm like, oh my god, here he goes again. He posted something on Twitter yesterday, bragging about how great California is doing. I don't know if you saw that or not. He said, California raised a minimum wage. We increased paid sickly, provided more paid family leave, expanded child care. You know, in this year will be the first state to provide health care for all, regardless of immigration status. That's the California way.

Did you see what I said to him? And then I said, I wouldn't brag about it. Your policies cause California's population to drop by 180, 2000. Last year, making it the first yearly law since it's founding in 1850s. Bad policies have consequences, right? Bad policies have consequences. The political system that we have today, the voting system, Adam, it's so reactionary that everybody is more concerned about being reelected that you're not making good long-term policies. But you live in California, so you have obviously strong opinions on this.

I don't feel bad for Californians. Why? They chose this. No question about it. They had the opportunity to cut off Newsom, and they overwhelmingly by two thirds voted to keep them. I guarantee you in the comments section, right? Now 40% are saying that they don't speak on my behalf. Well, and let's not forget

what California did. They permanently permanently enroll or instilled male embelleting. They're allowing illegal immigrants to vote. They have a huge population of sanctuary cities. It's like the the the yeah that's still not gonna that's still not gonna change the vote whatsoever. Well, I mean, there's some is criminal season in the country arguably so sanctuary cities are cute and all but they're not swaying millions and millions and millions of voters well again there could be some

discrepancies in the actual voting process if it was a you know 55 45 maybe 70, 30, not so much. Go back to the fact that we are dealing with a population that isn't educated well enough to understand, you know, if I vote for this, somebody has to pay for that. And how does it all balance out? And you know, the stuff that Newsom just bragged about somebody has to pay for that. So your taxes will go up again, right? And, you know, I was recently in LA.

What a dump. What a dump. LAX is sad to say that. That was a beautiful city, man. There's homeless camps all over the place. And the city is drab, and there's just nothing that looks inviting anymore, yet there's still people living there. But my friends who have some means, they all live in some place outside of the city.

It's a shame, and I've been given to understand that San Francisco looks pretty much the same these days. San Francisco is worse than the land. The prettiest city that ever was in the United States. San Francisco. Yeah. Now it's a hot mass. So why don't they connect the dots?

Did it just happen just sporadically and there's nobody to be held accountable for? Where do you live? I live outside of Atlanta. I have a land. Yeah, I'm cool. Pretty good. Atlanta? Yeah. I had traffic, though.

Look at that real quick. Yeah, look at that real quick. What's that? That's LA. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. That is LA. That's insane to think that's LA.

See, I don't remember looking like that. I love their 20 plus years. I don't remember looking like that. That's what they're doing is they're rating the trains. When the trains come in from Amazon FedEx, the packages, they, gangs of people go up, rip the trains open, steal all the packages, steal all the goods, and take off. Yeah, I mean, that definitely inspires people to say, I'm gonna wake up and move to California tomorrow. I'm definitely on my way to go to California tomorrow. I just wonder how long this is gonna go, because nothing lasts forever.

You have to know, winning doesn't last forever. You're eventually gonna lose. The bulls, you know, dynasty, six years bomb, Lakers, Kobe, Shaq, bomb. You got, you know, whatever the, so nothing was, it doesn't last forever. I just wonder what's gonna happen to California where some of them are gonna wake up

and say, you know what, I'm done with this. Final thoughts yet before we wrap up. We got 10 minutes here. Shaq, Putin, okay, would work his out and what he's up to. What level of optimism do you have that all of this is going to get worked out versus it all of a sudden getting even worse and us in us being affected by this? I think I'm more on the optimistic side, assuming that Putin isn't really going crazy. I mean, really crazy, crazy. Because he has, in the past, shown a realism that helped him stay in power and remain a

player to be reckoned with. He cannot, if he goes too far, and then we escalate, then the worst thing might happen. But I think this one will be resolved, not very quickly, but it will be resolved. If you could speculate, what do you think are Putin's deepest, deepest, deepest desires? To be recognized as the modern day Messiah. Tell the question, I think it's that.

That's like that. Yes. And what does that mean? Like, how does that play out? The Messiah? Well, he's rebuilding the Russian Empire. Is he though? Because he's about he's about to that, but that's his goal. So what's the next thing after after Ukraine? Because this is obviously an unmitigated disaster from a PR standpoint and possibly from a political standpoint

What's the next move because this is a seems like a failed move attempt? Moldova is a sitting duck and he for more Moldova He has also a good reason to attack because they has already in Part of Moldova which is not governed by the Mavian. Some of the Russians lived there as an exclave. I forgot what it's called. And they could be asking for help. That's a Moldova is weak. I don't believe he will go to the Baltic States.

So what's his intention to make USSR great again? I mean, is that ultimately what he's looking to do? The Russian Empire. I don't think he wants to rule the world. The Russian Empire. And in the course of his lifetime he's looking to do this. He's 70 years old. Let's say he lives to 90. You're saying he wants to accomplish this in the next two decades? You know what Patrick said.

You know, we all believe we're not gonna die, right? So he still looks at the future. So do I. You're not planning for your death unless you're deathly ill, right? So he's got plans. But ultimately he wants to rebuild the grid. And what's the time frame that he wants to bring it back to when Russia was this great

superpower? Well, hopefully within his lifetime. No, meaning what does he look at and say the 1960s? That's where we were at our peak. What was peak Russian Empire in his mind? Oh, it was a Soviet Union. For sure. It were two superpowers the United States and the Soviet Union equal particularly because of the

nuclear tie, you know. And he wants some of this back but primarily he's a Russian more than he's not a communist anymore. When he says the fall of the Soviet Union, when he said that was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, he really, really deep down inside, he meant that Russia wasn't strong anymore. Because when you look at the map, the states, the republics of the Soviet Union that are surrounding Russia now, they provided at least half the strength of the Russian economy.

The Russian economy right now is what? Number 11 in the world. G.E.V.Y.. Right. So there's much less. Two trillion dollars. What was it, Pat? It lit over two. So he wants to build his back up in some way. I can't do it by force by taking over NATO countries or Eastern block countries in a clever way. I believe he thinks that he's been really clever in Ukraine because he's got Russians everywhere and other countries living in other countries who could be asking for help.

Look, there's two things. So go to two places. Say he succeeds with Ukraine. There's 13 other nations that are shivering. Okay. If he succeeds with Ukraine. If he succeeds with Ukraine. There's 13 other nations that are shivering. Okay. If he succeeds with Ukraine, if he succeeds with Ukraine, a defined success, meaning Ukraine gives up and they say, hey, you know, we're going to be more Russian than we're going to be part of, you know, whatever may happen. You know, if you, if he succeeds, if you're a Ukrainian, people will not give up. I agree. That's why I say the fine success

I agree with you. I don't I'm just saying if he does if he does succeed there. This if is a very big if It's not a small if it's a big big if he does but if he doesn't succeed What does he do? Does he re-strategize to attack again five years from now? 10 years from now? Or is he just gonna sit there and say guys? I'm done with that Because he re-stratigized to attack again five years from now, ten years from now, or is he just going to sit there and say, guys, I'm done with that. No. Let's just try to be friendly with the world again, and let's not make Russia great, you know.

He's not going to give up. He's on a one-way street. You can't turn around. You can't. That would sort of deny everything that he has become and that he was in the belief that he has in his own strengths. Who do you think is his hero, and who do you think is his foil? Like, meaning he probably looks at Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev as weak. That he looks absolutely.

A Stalin as the great patriarch or Lenin. Who would you put in the, column and in the zero column? I'm not aware of any direct statements of him, you know, making a hero of some of his predecessors. He has said some critical things about Lenin. I've read something, I forgot exactly what it was. So Peter the Great. Pre-USSR time, as an individual. Imperial? No, Russia.

No. Peter the Great put Russia on the map as far as Europe was concerned. Before him, it was a real backward country with 95% of the population farming the land. Every once in a while you drop a really good question. Leads to a very good conversation. She did agree. However, we are coming to the end of the podcast. Jack, I appreciate you for coming out. Thank you, Mr. Marsle. I believe we're back at it again tomorrow with Liz Wheeler. Go ahead. May I put a plug in? Absolutely. For my podcast. Yes. For sure. In part of production's produced an audio drama based on my life. It's available on all streaming platforms, audio platforms, Spotify, Applone, so forth. It's really well made, it's professionally made in what makes,

it's called the agent. What makes this better than the book that I wrote is because there's besides me, there's many other voices. So it gives this story and it adds dimensions, stuff that I couldn't mention in the book because it's my voice. And there's narration as well, so it puts me into the context of history of the book. That's the one. I'm going to put the link below for people to see. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, we're going to put the link below. I found the link.

I don't know if you did find a link. We got the link in the chat and we'll put it down below as well for people. Fantastic. Fantastic. Folks go go check it out Jack. Thank you so much for coming on. Tomorrow we'll have Liz Wheeler and there's going to be a surprise. Yes, there's a guest that we'll have on Friday morning that we probably won't go live with but we're going to put that on the on Spotify for people to find. Spotify Apple podcast. Stitcher. We'll find that on YouTube. That's not going to. Yeah, they'll find out why that's the only way we could do that one.

And then the other one on Friday afternoon You're not gonna want to miss it. That's all I can tell you right can't give you name to podcast on Friday To more than one of them but not on YouTube only one of them will be on YouTube the other one's gonna be on Spotify Having said that will see you guys tomorrow. Take care everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye you