Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 573 | Fact vs. Fiction on Ukraine & Russia | Guest: Josh Hammer

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Today we're talking more about the situation between Russia and Ukraine with Josh Hammer, opinion editor for Newsweek and host of "The Josh Hammer Show." Josh has been following the torrent of updates as closely as anyone, and together we try to figure out just what the heck is going on amid the misinformation that both sides are putting out. Turns out many of the viral videos and stories supposedly coming out of Ukraine are misleading at best and outright false at worst, and it's nearly impossible to verify much of the information we're seeing on sites like Twitter and TikTok. Then to close things out, we turn to a more theological note as we consider how Christians should react as times get tougher all over the world. --- Timecodes: (0:00) Introduction (13:12) Interview with Josh Hammer on what is true/false about Russia & Ukraine (1:08:06) Some encouragement --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers delivers steakhouse quality right to your doorstep, plus pre-trimmed & pre-marinated chicken breasts. Their packaging makes it easy to cook what you want & save the rest, which keeps you from wasting anything. Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE & use promo code 'ALLIE' to save $30 off your order. Patriot Mobile has plans to fit any budget & their 100%, US-based, customer support team provides exceptional service. Plus they share your values & supports organizations fighting for religious freedom, constitutional rights, sanctity of life, & our Veteran & First Responder heroes. Go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT & get free activation with the offer code 'ALLIE'! Veterans & First Responders save even more so make the switch today! Annie's Kit Clubs has a Genius Box for your young scientists — each month they'll get a new box bursting with 3 hands-on activities to explore an exciting STEM theme like geology, chemistry, aerodynamics & more. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first box! --- Previous Episode Mentioned: Ep 571: Russia & Ukraine: What's REALLY Going On? | Guest: Jason Buttrill https://apple.co/3Hv7nbi --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers, Better Than Organic Chicken, Kraft Beef, sit right to your front door, American Meat delivered. Go to good ranchers.com slash alley.

Okay, guys, as promised, we are going to try your best. to separate fact from fiction when it comes to what is going on in Ukraine. Now, to be perfectly honest, I just want to set pretty fair expectations. We're not going to be able to sift through every single theory, every single story that we've seen circulating on social media, every photograph, every video that has been shared. A lot of these things have been debunked. we would hear a story of Ukrainian heroism and we share it because, of course, we want to show our support. It ends up not being true or the facts are distorted in some way. And it's really hard

to know what to believe. And I don't have access to special knowledge or particularly special sources to be able to tell you exactly what is true in every scenario and exactly what is not. We're going to do our best today with Josh Hammer. He has been on the show before. I think, honestly, he is one of the most interesting and insightful political commentators. He is the opinion editor for Newsweek. He was on just a few weeks ago. And he's got a lot of interesting things to say.

We're going to learn a lot from him when it comes to the political context, but also when it comes to the historical context. I mean, he really is just a wealth of knowledge. I don't know how someone contains so much. information in your head and is just able to articulate it so clearly in an easy way to understand, but he's going to do that for us. But before we get into that conversation, I do just kind of want to validate all of the different things that you may be hearing, all of the mixed messaging, and the contradictory narratives that are going on, especially I would say on the right.

Now, on the left, there seems to be a fairly unified narrative and perspective about what's going on. Now, I'm speaking as a conservative, so maybe if you're on the left, you see it differently and you see, you know, competing factions about, you know, who's right in this conflict. But really, I see mostly on the right kind of an argument. And the arguments are manifold. There are arguments about how involved the United States should be, how much the United States should care. And then there's a conversation about potential nefarious motives behind the people who are calling for war. who are acting like this is where American values live and die in the survival of this Eastern European country. There are conversations about Joe Biden's potentially corrupt dealings with Ukraine, Obama and Hillary Clinton's support of regime change in Ukraine, or I should say political change in Ukraine all the way back in 2014. There is a side of conservatism that says basically America and the European Union provoked Russia into making the decisions that he is making now

by using Ukraine kind of as a pawn. They're not necessarily, they're not defending what Putin is doing, but they were talking about the American provocation aspect of this whole thing that it's kind of more complicated. And then, of course, you have people who dismiss that as pro-Putin propaganda, which I don't think that's necessarily a fair description, but they would disagree with kind of that theory that America really provoked this at all. And would simply say, look, Putin is an imperialistic monster. He is an erratic, unpredictable guy who just wants power at all costs. And he is taking Ukraine because he thinks erroneously that it is his. And America really didn't do anything to provoke this, that EU didn't do anything.

thing to provoke this. This is just Putin being crazy. Now, what I would say is someone who is still trying to sift through all of these different narratives and these messages and trying to figure out what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false, I think a lot of these things can be true at the same time. And I won't go into super detail right now because Josh is about to do that. But I think we can say, unequivocally, Putin is in the wrong, that he is wrong to do what he is doing, that the loss of life is absolutely tragic and that he is an imperialistic madman monster, that he shouldn't be doing what he is doing. Also, American foreign policy probably did play into this to some degree. That doesn't mean that it's ultimately anyone's fault but Putin's. But I do think that we can't

have a conversation and ask questions about how American foreign policy has possibly exacerbated what is going on right now. We certainly have asked those questions in the past when it comes to, you know, when it comes to different aspects of foreign policy, certainly in the Middle East. So I'm not really sure why we can't be asking those questions now without being accused of being like a pro-Putin puppet or something like that. Like that just seems entirely unintelligent and anti-intellectual. I think you can also point out, as we will again in this conversation in detail that, sure, Ukraine is and has been for a long time a very corrupt country. Now, I am seeing some people on the right saying that because Ukraine is a corrupt country, that we shouldn't care what's going on. We shouldn't care what Russia is doing. I don't think that's a good argument. There are a lot of corrupt countries out there. We can still recognize that Russia as a nefarious power, not as powerful or as nefarious or I shouldn't say as nefarious, but as dangerous as China, but still, like a dangerous power, we don't want them to expand. So we don't want them to expand. So we don't want them to get.

get more power. It doesn't really matter whether or not Ukraine is corrupt. We still don't want a more powerful Russia, especially if they are aligned with someone like China. So I know there's a lot of different conversations. And then you've got this whole theory about like bio weapons built by the United States over there in Ukraine. I have no information that validates that theory. But I think you can still ask those questions and independently say still, even if some of those things are questions and things to explore, which I think the truth is always worth exploring. We can still say without a doubt that what Putin is doing is wrong. And yes, there are, unfortunately, some Putin apologists here in the United States.

I don't understand that. I really don't understand what's behind it. Maybe they see him as, you know, an anti, you know, a mascot of anti-wokeness, which I think is like a really lame reason to support someone. And then, of course, as I will ask Josh about, there is the weird. aspect that George Soros, who is behind so much devastation and destruction in the West, especially in the United States, that he is supporting Ukraine. That doesn't mean that supporting Ukraine is wrong. That's, you know, not a good argument, but I understand why people are asking that question.

Let me go through just a few stories, seven stories in particular, that have been debunked, that started out saying this is something that happened in Ukraine and actually this didn't happen. So one of the stories is the ghost of Kiev. And so early on Friday, it was reported that a Ukrainian plane was patrolling the skies in Kiev. And the press called the unnamed pilot the ghost of Kiev and claimed that he had downed six Russian jets in air-to-air combat in less than two days. and that made him a fighter ace and one of the, you know, the fastest people to earn that title. But the problem is there's actually no evidence that the ghost of Kiev exists. So this is according to Newsweek. Neither side can confirm Russia has lost six planes in total, let alone to one man inside a single day.

And a video alleged to be the ghost in combat shared by the Ukrainian armed forces is confirmed to actually be footage taken from a video game. nevertheless he already has his own Wikipedia page and so that's just one massive piece of misinformation and then there's another video that's circulating russian planes are flying over Kiev but it turns out that the video of the Russian planes flying over Kiev wasn't Kiev is actually Moscow and then you have this other video of Zelenskyy the leader of Ukraine visiting the troops but all of the all of the photos and videos are almost a year old So this is not something that's happening right now, as people were saying on social media. The Lujan power station explosion people were saying, oh, this is Russia bombing this power station,

while the video circulating actually shows a chemical plant exploding in China in 2015. Fact checkers found. Then there was video footage claiming to show Ukrainian ground forces downing Russian aircraft. It's actually from a video game. Russian warship, there was this question. quote that was going around. Like Russian warship, go F yourselves. And then there was like leaked audio or so we thought showing the Ukrainian border guards on Snake Island in the black seat communicating with the Russian warship. And they were told to surrender by the by the Russians.

And that's why when they said that and then all of the Ukrainian guards were killed, that's what we were told. Well, actually, they are all still alive and they are unharmed back to the mainland. So like, was that even real? What's really going on? And then there was another video that was shared, even by official Ukrainian accounts of drone footage, supposedly showing the destruction of a column of Russian vehicles by Ukrainian forces. But that was actually footage of a Turkish drone strike in Syria from 2020. So that's just a few of the things going on. There's a reason why on my social media, you have not seen me share really any footage or any photos.

And that's not because I don't want to because I do think that there's a lot of heroism that's going to. on right now in Ukraine. But that's because, like, I don't, I can't even, I can't tell you what's true and what's not because even official news sources and journalists are sharing this stuff. And then they're having to go back and say, oh, actually, that wasn't true. So I don't want to be a part of sharing that disinformation. And so I don't blame everyone who has shared things because we just don't know. We want to support or we want to support. I understand. There's a lot of confusion out there though and I don't I'm going to try my best not to add to the confusion while even trying to kind of like validate all of the competing thoughts that you may have and answer a lot

of those questions um with Josh today and then at the end of this I know this is a long episode but I am just going to leave you with some like theological encouragement to remind you of even while all of this is going on like what actually matters and what we have to remember and I know it's going to encourage you so make sure you stick around for that Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Stee Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Josh, thank you so much for joining us again. All right. I want you to help us separate fact from fiction, what's going on in Ukraine versus Russia.

The reason why I decided to have you on is because I saw your tweet thread, kind of doing that just in general terms. there's a lot of information out there probably a lot of misinformation and I have a ton of people asking me what is true what is real people are hearing a thousand different things about Ukraine about why Russia is actually invading Ukraine and how we should be thinking about this not just as Americans but as conservatives there's skepticism about the messages that are coming from the mainstream media that seemed to be coming from both Democrats and Republicans, then you have George Soros tweeting out his support of Ukraine. That has obviously made a lot of conservatives back up and say, hang on, are we missing something? What's going on underneath all of this? So I know that's a lot,

but just back us up a little bit, at least from your perspective, what is really going on and why? Sure. Yeah. So a lot's one path there, obviously. So first of all, I don't claim any particular your expertise in being able to sift out what is fact and what is fiction from various kind of, you know, like non-verified random Twitter accounts that I hadn't heard of until like a week or two ago, right? It's genuinely very hard. It's very hard to sit here in our living rooms half a world away and try to figure out what is actually going on. Certainly kind of there's a ton of Russian propaganda out there. There's also a lot of Ukrainian propaganda out there. I mean, that part of the world is kind of infamous or pumping kind of propaganda and trying to get messages out there in a ways that will

kind of manipulate very easily duped and deceived Western audiences. Like what? Like some of the, I know you said that you can't necessarily just distinguish every piece of propaganda from reality that's been put out there, but just some examples of what you're talking about. Like what some of the maybe Ukrainian propaganda that people have been duped by? Sure. So I mean, I've seen any number of tweets, right, that talk about how like XYZ, you know, Ukrainian made like a very, very courageous and her. heroic last stand against like encroaching Russian tanks, encroaching Russian shoulders. I personally suspect most of that is probably true, but I just genuinely don't know.

I mean, it's it's literally impossible to verify. So that's what you're saying is that basically we just don't know. There are images coming out from Russia. There are images that have come out saying, oh, this is a Ukrainian girl, like yelling at a Russian soldier. And it ends up, of course, that's not true. It's not the right time of year. that doesn't even look like Ukraine.

There are a lot of stories of Ukrainian heroism. Like you said, that I'm sure probably true or rooted in some kind of fact, but then end up not being true or there are actually videos from several years ago. So, yeah, there's a lot going on. So if we can't necessarily separate fact from fiction there, like, why is that? Like, why are there so many mixed messages and propaganda videos and images and images circulating on social media in the first place? So, I mean, Ali, do you know what to remind you?

you have obviously, it kind of reminds me of the invariable kind of Israel Hamas conflicts, right? Yeah. Invariable Israel has, I mean, it's not a perfect analogy because there there's a much more easily kind of morally correct and morally incorrect side here. It is a little more nuanced. But they're similarly speaking, right? I mean, the Palestinians in particular are noted experts that kind of playing Western media and easily duped Western audiences like a fiddle.

They tried out all these images of their civilians who are, you know, who are being used by government or the terrorist groups of the case may be as human shields. So we're seeing a lot of there as well. And one kind of concrete example of actually what seems to be kind of pro-Ukrainian propaganda, actually, is there was this one image that kind of went viral. It's a very, very kind of somber image of what looks like a young boy and his younger sister, the girl's kind of holding a teddy bear, kind of waving, like saluting the Ukrainian tanks as they roll by.

And as I saw my buddy Rahim Kassim pointing out, right? You know, Rahim pointed out this image was actually from like six years ago. It was from like 2016. So it is very hard to kind of sift through here. But like, let's kind of try to take it a little back and kind of go back to first principles, so to speak here, which is what I tried to do in that tweet thread that you're very kind to note. So look, at the end of the day, like the fact that George Soros seems to be taking aside in favor

of a Zelensky doesn't actually mean anything at all to me. I mean, that's not exactly much of a gotcha point. I mean, to take kind of one very concrete example, the very far left progressive chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, is a woman named Lena Khan, who I have no doubt whatsoever, if Lena Khan really had her druthers, Allie, you and I would both be in a Gula. She probably hates you and I. That doesn't mean that I probably don't, I probably still agree with her about the need to kind of bust up Amazon and Google on antitrust grounds, and that's okay. So the fact that George Soros is out there talking about the need to defend Zelensky against Putin,

that just, it's a non-sequitur, honestly. It's an illogical point. It just doesn't actually resonate with me. Well, I think, okay, so I think the. reason why people would bring that up is I agree with you just because, you know, a bad person makes a point doesn't necessarily mean that the point is wrong. That's absolutely true. But I think people would naturally, especially conservatives, you see someone like George Soros, who is constantly trying to undermine democracy and law and order and border policy here in the United States by the different campaigns that he funds and the organizations that he funnels

money into now stand for the sovereignty and self-determination of a country. I'm not saying that that alone means that people shouldn't be supporting Ukraine. Of course, that's not the side that I'm on. I'm just saying I think that there is some justification, some validity to people looking at that and saying, huh, why? Why would someone like George Soros, who is so intent on undermining all of these values in the West, why would he be supporting that in this Eastern European country? It seems a little bit weird. And that's just one of the things that I've seen people point out to say, is there something else going on here? what's up with this? Yeah, no, totally. And I don't mind people obviously asking those questions.

I mean, look, I just got back from Hungary, George Soros's home country about a week and a half ago. I mean, George Soros is public enemy number one for Prime Minister Orban and the current Hungarian government. And I certainly have no love whatsoever of George Soros to put it mildly. I mean, with all kind of the horrific kind of district attorneys, he's putting up in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, these light on crime prosecutors. I mean, the man is fundamentally evil. So I don't blame anyone whatsoever for kind of making an observation that it's a little odd. I just don't think that it goes particularly far. But if we can kind of go back to first principles here, look, let's remember who Vladimir Putin is. Vladimir Putin kind of grew up during the Cold War. He was working in East Berlin

at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He was working for the KGB. He was literally a KGB operative. I mean, if you can kind of go back to like, you know, the old kind of like from Russia with love, like James Bond films, James Bond novels, Vladimir Putin is of that era. He is of kind of a Cold War mindset. And for time and time again, over the past 15, 20 years, he has continuously lamented the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest tragedies, you know, in modern world history.

And he makes common cause in this sentiment, obviously, with these radical progressive, far-left nut jobs out at Berkeley and other crazy college campuses who fly kind of the hammer and sickle communist flag, because that is what Vladimir Putin believes in his heart. He also, obviously, I mean, I shouldn't need to say this to, you know, But like, let's just say it, the guy murders political enemies. I mean, like, we saw what he did when he poisoned Navalny.

I mean, a Russian dissident, who if I recall correct, he was poisoned actually in Germany itself. He is a profoundly corrupt guy. But at the same time, this is kind of the point of my tweet thread. You know, Ukraine is not like a shining bastion of liberal democracy. At the time of the 2014 revolution in Kiev, Ukraine was among kind of like the bottom five countries, as far as like ranked in terms of most corruption in the world. I think some ranking, if I recall correct, it was actually, it was the most corrupt country in the world at that time.

This is the country of Hunter Biden and Prisma. I mean, this is the country, you know, that was at the center of President Trump's first, you know, farcical impeachment. So I mean. Can we pause? Can we pause there? Because there are people who don't necessarily follow all this quite as closely as we do or you do, especially, who may not even know exactly what you're talking about when you're

talking about corruption, when we go all the way back to 2014. So when you say that Ukraine is a corrupt country, what are you referencing? Yeah, I mean, blatant cronyism, right, as far as kind of how government contracts are awarded, I mean, like the mafia, frankly, the Ukrainian mafia actually is a very powerful force. It has been ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, possibly going back even further than that. Kind of the oil companies, the energy companies, have a profoundly outsized influence on how the government goes. And the other thing that I think the viewers should remember, and again, I just got back from Hungary, which is a bordering country of Ukraine about a week and a half ago.

I was actually also in Poland last year, which shares a border with Ukraine. The thing that you have to remember about these former Soviet satellite states in central and eastern Europe is that the fall of communism was not that long ago. I mean, I'm 33 years old. The Berlin Wall fell the year that I was born in 1989 here. So these countries are all kind of struggling with fairly new constitutions, even Hungary. Their constitution, I think, was, if I recall, was written in 2011. the Ukrainian constitution was dramatically amended, if I recall, after the revolution in 2014.

But as recently as 2014, in the second term of the Obama administration, there was a genuine kind of deposing of a previously duly elected prime minister or president, kind of the imposition of a new government in Ukraine. And he was deposed because he refused to sign this kind of pro-European cooperative agreement. He decided to kind of side with Russia. This is kind of like the major issue, obviously, in post-Surban. Soviet Ukrainian politics is whether Ukraine should kind of be more undercut the sphere of influence of Russia or more under the sphere of influence of the European Union and Europe in general. As it stands, Ukraine is neither in the EU nor in NATO.

But ever since kind of 2014, which Putin and the Russian government has always viewed as illegitimate, they have always viewed what happened there and the transfer of power as a totally illegitimate farce. Well, is it true that the United States was kind of behind that revolution? because they wanted a more EU-friendly leadership in Ukraine? Is that true? And is that part of Putin's beef or his alleged beef? It's definitely part of his alleged beef.

I don't claim any particular expertise to know the extent to which the U.S. State Department or various U.S. aligned NGOs were kind of on the ground in Kiev. It definitely would not surprise me. I mean, again, this was the Obama administration, right? I mean, during the Obama administration, the State Department and State Department aligned NGOs were trying to oust Bibi Netanyahu in Israel. I mean, we know that. I mean, like, there were people very close to Barack Obama and Joe Biden who were trying to oust Netanyahu in Israel. So it definitely would not surprise me. But that definitely is part of Putin's narrative

for sure, right? But, you know, Zelensky himself, who obviously has emerged as something of kind of like a Western media icon, and like, you know, let's, to give him credit here, I mean, like his line about like, I don't need a ride out, I need ammunition. That's, that's like hallmark stuff. I mean, that's like, you know, silver screen Hollywood kind of stuff. So kudos to him. And that's no propaganda or spin. That seems to be like just from the horse's mouth himself. So that's just awesome stuff, honestly.

But when Zelensky was running against Poroshenko was the guy that he beat for the last Ukrainian election, Porochenko tried to kind of paint Zelensky as kind of like a pro-Pudin, pro-Russia shill. It was kind of like a gotcha line actually in Ukrainian politics. So, you know, Zelensky, yeah, so Zelensky himself is kind of like an interesting character. don't think he's necessarily easily kind of in one camp or the other here. I think he basically just wants what is best for Ukraine. Yeah. That's interesting because a lot of people I've heard say that he was actually elected because he was anti-Russia, also because he was anti-corruption, obviously his background, which I've tried, I've seen some people on the right. And we'll talk

about this in a second, because there's this strange faction of the right who I actually do think is defending Putin. Some people are saying, oh, no, those people are saying, oh, no, those people are on the right don't exist. No, I've seen them. Like, I've seen them on social media. I've seen them in the comments. And there are, like this faction, I would say, is trying to say, well, Ukraine is corrupt, which we've acknowledged that's true and have even tried to go so far as to say that, you know, Putin's actions are in alignment with American interests, so we need to be okay with it. And then they've also tried to undermine Zelensky by saying, well, he's an actor. His background is an acting. His background, you know, he was a comedian,

and his political party is named after, you know, the party and the fictional show that he started, which, of course, is true. I don't think that's a good point to try to undermine what he's doing. But then I've also seen people on the other side say, well, no, he was this anti-corruption, anti-Russia, valiant candidate. And that's why we need to support him. Well, neither side seems to be completely accurate in trying to make. their case that we should support Ukraine. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Ukraine. But I don't know. It just seems like both sides are getting this wrong in different ways.

Totally. And that's the frustration. I mean, like, I have sensed that frustration. I mean, look, the dichotomy that large swaths of the mainstream media and I guess what we would refer to as kind of our right liberal friend, so to speak, I mean, the David French is of the world. I mean, like the portrayal that we have seen time and time again from everyone from the New York Times to kind of David French's Twitter feed and whatnot has been this kind of stark dichotomy between like, you know, revengeist Russian imperialism, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Cold War days on the one hand versus kind of the fate of Western liberal democracy on the other hand. I mean, you know, these same people like to say that this is the same thing

as Hitler going into Poland in September 1939. But at the same time, the people that are saying that this is like Hitler going into Poland are also saying, oh, don't worry, we're not talking on sending in armed forces. Well, pick one. I mean, you can't have it both ways. I mean, if this is literally the same thing as Hitler going into Poland, then, yeah, you're right. We really should be kind of rallying up the Western countries to send in the military battalions to push back against that. So they're being very logical, inconsistent, even on their own terms there. At the end of the day, Ukraine is not like a first order kind of stalwart American ally, the likes of which kind of like Poland, for example, has become in post-Cold War era.

It's just not that way, right? But our closest allies in the region, Poland's a good example there, but a lot of our other countries in the region, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the countries that were those also like formerly kind of Soviet satellite states, they strongly would prefer that Ukraine's stay out of Putin's sphere of influence. As Belarus, for example, which is, you know, is on Poland's eastern border and Ukraine's northern border, Belarus is under the dictator. of Lukashenko is technically a quote unquote independent country, but it's really independent

in name only. It is a pure kind of Russian puppet state. It looks like now the Belarusians are going to send are going to help Putin send in troops into Kiev. So for understandable historical reasons, our closest allies in the region, kind of like the Poles, do not want Ukraine to become the next Belarus. So I think that does militate in favor of U.S. support for Ukraine. Again, the question is how we do so and what the means of doing so are. And do you think the strategy that has been taken so far by this administration has been effective? Yes, there have been sanctions, but obviously the glaring carve out has been the energy industry in Russia. They can still sell oil anywhere in the world, basically.

And so to me, it seems like the increase in price in oil is actually kind of paying for their invasion, paying for the war. I'm to me in my opinion it doesn't seem like the sanctions are um really that effective but I won't pretend to know what the best strategy is what's your opinion so sanctions to this day are still debated right among like international international relations types foreign positive types no one really actually knows to this day precisely how effective they are it did seem during the trump administration when Trump kind of had the maximum pressure campaign on the Iranian regime when they were basically sanctioning the crap out of the Iranian central bank and all kind of the oil assets there. It really did cripple the Iranian economy quite badly. And it did seem like Iran was in a

very weak position, ready to come to the negotiating table with respect to the nuclear program. Obviously, you know, this administration has kind of lost all that and flipped it on its head. So there was at least some kind of evidence that sanctions do work. For Russia in particular, which, you know, much like Ukraine is still kind of a largely oligarchic state, is dominated again by kind of oil and natural gas interest. He's fabulously extraordinarily wealthy billionaires. Once you kind of get sanctions that hit the oligarchs bottom line, and we've seen that with the swift sanctions,

we've seen that with terms of some specific targeting of Russian-aligned banks, right before we came on the air alley, I actually saw that even Switzerland, which is kind of like the most famously neutral country in all of Europe. Apparently Switzerland is starting to kind of sanction various kind of Russian banking and oil assets. Once the oligarchs in Putin's inner orbit start to get hit, once they can no longer go to their nice Mediterranean vacations in Greece or Italy or the south of France or anything that they can't enjoy their nice Bordeaux and Nice.

That's when I think the pressure is going to start to ratchet up on Putin a little bit here. And he'll be faced with kind of a stark choice at that point, right? He can basically try to get a quick ceasefire agreement, kind of declare victory and get the heck out of there. or he can double down and just start ransacking cities and massacring civilians. I do not think he would choose the latter, but he's a bit of a madman. So it's very difficult to know. It's kind of hard to know exactly what his endgame is at this precise moment. But I do predict this will be over within the next week, week and a half.

I think there will probably some sort of new ceasefire agreement would be my best prediction. Do you think that Biden's energy policy has in any way in a way? and exacerbated this to a degree. Obviously, it's not the driving force behind it, but he has made decisions that have made us dependent on Russian oil from the very beginning of his presidency, obviously stopping federal sales of oil, shutting down Keystone Pipeline XL. And he could, I mean, he could turn on the spigot tomorrow and he has chosen not to do that, I guess, in the name of climate change, what effect do you think that that has had? Yes, we've a really a nice op-ed actually at Newsweek today where I'm the opinion editor. We've been a nice op-ed from

Bobby Jindal, the former governor of Louisiana on this precise topic. So I would encourage your viewers and listeners to go check it out. But your point is absolutely sound, of course. I mean, look, I think it was literally on the first day of his presidency that Joe Biden canceled the Keystone Excel pipeline, right? I mean, he couldn't even wait until day two to do that, if I recall. And at the same time, of course, last July, Joe Biden teamed up with Angela Merkel, who at the time was still the leader of Germany to kind of, you know, bestow a blessing upon the Nord Stream 2. pipeline, which is this 764-mile pipeline underneath the Baltic Sea, connecting Russia to Germany. And what that does is that allows Russia to basically become the mother's milk

off of which the European continent can feed. And we've seen the tragic ramifications of that play out literally just over the past seven months. I mean, it seemed like the weeks building up to kind of Putin's ultimate decision to invade Ukraine, you know, every new cycle was like, When's he going to do it? When's he going to do it? I mean, it's kind of dragged on forever, right? And Germany was waffling all along. Germany could not figure out which side it was on because, you know what? I mean, it's January, it's February. It's cold. It's cold in Germany. And the Germans in Berlin and Hamburg and Stuttgart or whatever, they need their homes furnished. And they need like kind of their energy on and where they get that energy from? Well, they're getting it from Russia. So energy is kind of inherently a tool of international relations and a tool of diplomacy.

For the modern state of Russia, you know, Russia during the Soviet days, obviously it was a command to control style fundamentally authoritarian economy. It was not exactly prolific in a lot of ways, but they still managed to succeed in certain industries. In the post-Berlin Wall, post-Soviet era, the Russian economy is basically a petro state, honestly. I mean, it is basically kind of like a Saudi or Gulf-style petro state that is almost entirely reliant upon energy. They have a few. weather industries. Russian steel is still like a decent size factor on the global stage. But it is fundamentally an energy economy. And the way to combat Russia, the way to deter Putin's hegemony, has always been through the means of getting American liquefied natural gas and oil exports out there. So yes, getting the Keystone Pike Line back in order, getting drilling back on U.S. oil and gas lands, getting those permits back on, basically fracking. Once again, in Western lands, we have kind of ceased doing. And finally, yes, stopping this freaking Nord Stream 2 pipeline and working with Germany to kind of put a halt on that once and for all, that would be the

most effective way of pushing back against Putin. I would say even more so than kind of hard military assets, honestly. And Ted Cruz and Republicans in the Senate, I think it was back in January, tried to sanction the Nord Stream pipeline. And their version was, independent of whether or not Russia actually invaded Ukraine, they wanted the sanctions. Whereas the Democrats, version of the sanctions said, well, if, if Democrat or if Russia invades Ukraine, then we'll do the sanctions. And it was actually, I'm pretty sure Joe Biden, who was calling out the Democrat senators to say, hey, make sure that you, that you guys don't go with Ted Cruz is with the Republicans' version of these sanctions. So he actually fought against the sanctions for the

Nord Stream pipeline. Is that correct? Just a couple months ago or last month. Yeah, no, I think that's correct. Well, someone owes Ted Cruz a huge apology, okay? That's not going to happen. No, it's never going to happen because, and Ted knows it will never happen because Ted is Ted, and he blazes his own trail as he always has. But someone in theory owes him a huge apology. You know, Al, look, I was in Poland's last year.

Last May, I actually got to interview the prime minister, Matus Mourvieski, in Warsaw. And he was a fairly, he kind of, how should I say this? He kind of hedged a little bit more than I thought because he knew that I was a sympathetic. interviewer. He's a conservative guy, but he hedged a little more. I would say the one area where he head the least, and he kind of like really put it out there in very forceful terms was on Nord Stream 2. He was adamant about the fact that the Biden administration totally screwed Poland and totally screwed our central and eastern European allies when it comes to North Stream 2 pipeline. It was a total capitulation to Russia. It was a total capitulation to Germany. And frankly, from a geopolitical level,

what's going on here. And is, you know, Trump who kind of, you know, I think naturally kind of like the nationalist populist movement, which is kind of pro-Brexit, it was kind of Eurosceptical, was skeptical of the entire European Union enterprise. He naturally kind of found his allies there and kind of those more conservative former Soviet states in central and eastern Europe. But what's going on at geopolitical level is then Biden gets into office and he loves the European union because he loves globalism.

He loves transnationalism. So, right, he loves Brussels. He loves Berlin. He hates those kind of nasty, icky countries in like Poland and Hungary, for example. So that's what's going on here at kind of a macro level. And I really felt that when I was interviewing Prime Minister Morvieski in Warsaw last May. And it's been nice to see the Germans kind of sort of go back. It seemed like now they're finally trying to kind of slowly kind of ease out of the Nord Stream

to mess that they have gotten themselves into. They're starting to pump more money back into their military. By the way, Trump was totally right on that too, by the way, right? About how our NATO allies in Europe have to bulk up their military commitments? He was totally prescient and correct on that one. The video that's kind of circulating on Twitter where Trump is saying, look, it's not fair that you are asking us to pay this money to defend you against Russia, but you are paying Russia billions of dollars for your oil. It just doesn't make sense. That's the video you're kind of referring to, correct? Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, it is hypocritical beyond words for Germany to be so reliant upon Russian energy and so reliant upon America for its kind of security and military umbrella. I mean, pick one. I mean, like you, you, you, you, you. You literally cannot have it both ways, right?

It is talking on both sides of your mouth. It is blatant duplicity. So, and look, kind of the other thing that's going on here, which I kind of mentioned in my tweet thread too, is that I think kind of in the American conscience, for numerous reasons, Europe kind of plays an outsized role, right? I mean, I think, like, wealthy Americans like to vacation in Europe. They like to go to, like, the south of France and Spain and Italy and Greece and all that stuff,

right? Obviously, as recently as kind of World War II, when the Cold War, Europe was kind of ground zero for kind of American foreign policy and international relations. But what's going on here at kind of a higher level is that the European theater is simply not going to be as relevant for American foreign policy and really geopolitics in general, I would say, over the next century, then I think the Far East is. We are kind of in the, we are kind of in the midst of kind of an epic kind of shift of power from Europe to the Far East with China, obviously being kind of ground zero of that.

And, you know, it's kind of like a low-hanging fruit point to say that I think is nonetheless correct, which is why I said it in that tweet thread you mentioned. A lot of this ultimately does end up being a distraction from the real thread, which is China. China, China, China, I mean, like when I was in Budapest a week and a half ago, a local Hungarian media person said to me, you know, from an American perspective, what are your top five foreign policy concerns? Well, I said, number one is China, number two is China. Number three is China.

I mean, you get the point here. Yeah. And it's true that Xi Jinping is kind of licking his chops, looking out of Taiwan as we kind of, you know, twiddle our thumbs in Ukraine. But at the same time, if we were to kind of send like a few kind of like perfunctory boots on the ground there and just like lose Ukraine anyway, that would only embolden Xi anymore. So the point is we have to pick our battles at this point. We are no, we are kind of past the unipolar moment. We are no longer the world's sole and exclusive superpower. And that time and energy is much better spent, I think, overall.

in the grand scheme of things, deterring China, then deterring kind of the 11th or 12th biggest economy in the world, a borderline failed petro state like Russia is. Well, I'm wondering how this whole thing between Russia and Ukraine actually benefits China, because we've already seen for a while before this conflict, the kind of alliance forming between Russia and China. And there are all kinds of complicated conversations going on, on Twitter about the U.S. dollar,

and the end of reliant on the U.S. dollar that has something to do with China's currency and Russia and all of that. And we don't have to get into the weeds on that. The point I think that people are making is that, look, you're seeing an alliance form that could very well become the world's superpower in a variety of ways. How do you think this conflict possibly plays into China's plans? So, look, I mean, right now kind of the, I think the fact that, I think the fact that Russia has not been able to kind of capture Kiev as quickly as Putin and his Politburo, his oligarchs probably thought possible, probably bolsters Taiwan. I mean, if I were, if I were Taiwan, I would look at that and I would feel overall a little better.

The Taiwanese military is no joke to the extent that I'm that I'm aware of kind of like the specific assets. They have higher order, high intensity assets than the Ukrainian military does. you know, the Chinese military is very much on the rise, but the Russian military, you know, going back to the Cold War days, because it has a lot of kind of institutional knowledge and a lot of hard assets that have still survived. So the slowness with which Putin has been able to actually kind of take over Ukraine and Kiev in particular, I think should give the Taiwanese people some hope. At the same time here, you know, I mean, it's hard for Xi Jinping, I think, not to look at the very slow, you know, plotting a long way with which the U.S. and Western Europe has kind of

tried to push back against Putin. And he must obviously be pretty happy about that. And China and Russia, as you just noted, over the past couple of years, have started to kind of openly talk about kind of the formation of a new world order. They're at this point basically openly allying in Iran. They're both kind of friends of the Iranian regime. I think they're probably coordinating in Syria with Bashar al-Assad to an extent as well. The kind of interesting thing, I think, for American international relations, kind of towards the end of the Cold War, President Nixon was actually quite a depth of this, believe it or not.

President Nixon was actually, he understood that Russia and China, they are such big countries and they share a massive border there, that to the extent that the United States can actually try to play them against one another, to any extent possible, whether it's on economic interest, diplomatic interests, kind of mutually aligned international interest. I mean, whatever. To the extent that we can kind of get them to be anything less than buddies, basically, that's a good thing. And I really worry that we have forgotten that lesson here. And we are kind of witnessing the emergence of kind of this great Eurasian continent power. The Chinese economy is so much more powerful than the Russian

economy at this point. And the military is very much on the rise. But we should not want Russia and China to get super, super, super cozy. If we can, at a bare moment, minimum, find a new way to try to kind of play them against one other, try to find some kind of micro issues that would be a wedge to separate them. That is what I would encourage our diplomatic courses to try to do. I don't know how optimistic I am about our foreign policy experts and elites in the administration doing that. They don't seem to kind of have the same intuition that we think would be obvious. I mean, we've seen that in several different ways, but especially in this conflict. And I'm curious what, well, there's a couple questions I want to ask. I'm trying to

decide which direction I want to go. If I want to back up really quickly, then move forward. I think I'll do that. So let me back up really quickly to something that kind of seems irrelevant, but it'll circle back to what we're talking about right now. And that is, you mentioned Burisma and you mentioned Joe Biden. A lot of people, whether it's legitimate or not, are saying that maybe there's some nefarious reasons here why Joe Biden and his administration are so adamant about defending what seems like to some people, almost a random Eastern European country, which I think you've already explained. It's definitely not random. Like there are certainly strategic reasons to protecting it. But they talk about Hunter Biden's involvement and all of that. Can you first explain what a

exactly is Burisma and that whole scandal for people who don't understand how does Trump's impeachment and that, you know, infamous phone call play into that? And do you think that has any impact on what's going on right now? So it's very weird, right? I mean, it is, it is very odd, if nothing else that the country and the president, Vladimir Zelensky, who was obviously at the focal points, who was at ground zero of the first Trump impeachment back in 2019, is now kind of in the headlines again, right? And, you know, the Burisma scandal basically, I mean, Hunter Biden, you know, I mean like a very troubled man to put a mildly Hunter Biden was doing business with Burisma that he was clearly not qualified to do. He has no particular expertise, no background

whatsoever in energy and oil and natural gas, let alone kind of Eastern European oil and natural gas in particular. And I don't remember what his exact title was with Burisma. He had the theme I've been like on the advisory board or on the board in general or something. But I think he was cashing out to the tune of like $50,000 a month or something egregious, egregious like that. And it ended up being basically that Burisma, which I have no doubt because of the corrupt nature of Ukraine is very close to certain kind of governmental interests, it basically amounted that Burisma does basically want a close access, right, to the then kind of Obama-Biden

White House. And that's kind of how it works in Ukraine. I mean, again, these post-Soviet countries in central, eastern Europe and, like, Ukraine, Belarus, maybe more so than any, and than anywhere else, honestly, maybe Moldova, I guess as well, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine. These are these are less developed countries. They simply, like, do not have kind of the economies or kind of the infrastructure, kind of like the basic kind of first world way of life, for lack of a better way of putting it, than even some

kind of kind of the other Central European countries do. So it is very curious that the same kind of, you know, as recently as eight years ago in 2014, the number one most corrupt country in the world on some rankings. It's very curious that that country is ground zero of an impeachment involving kind of the former vice president, current president's son. And now he, I mean, I have not fully put the pieces together. I'm not sure anyone has, but I have had much the same thoughts that you have had, Allie. It seems entirely plausible to me that there is something big out there with respect to the

Biden's family's involvement in Ukraine that we just don't know yet. Maybe some kind of enterprising, young investigative journey. will be able to kind of put it all together a little better than I can and reveal something for us in the next six to 12 months or so. But I think it's worth flagging, if nothing else, because it seems entirely plausible to me, for sure. Yeah. It does just kind of seem strange. So obviously for people who don't remember, Trump was accused of the quid pro quo by allegedly, you know, telling the Ukrainian president, hey, you know, we'll release these arm sales, right? Like, we'll allow these arm sales to you if you kind of investigate the corruption that went on with Joe Biden's

son Hunter, correct? And that's what he was impeached over. And then, but really, I mean, there's also the odd part that you alluded to that there could have been a quid pro quo while Joe Biden was vice president because didn't he order the firing of the prosecutor that was looking into the corruption of Hunter Biden's dealings with Burisma. Absolutely. Yeah, he absolutely did request that, yes. Yeah. So there's just, there's a lot going on here.

And maybe that is, like you said, maybe it's totally separate from what is happening here. And I still think we can absolutely look at this situation and say, okay, well, Russia is in the wrong period. It doesn't even matter what happened. Then we can figure that out later. Absolutely. But I do think, like you said, it's interesting to think about it.

And I think a lot of people have legitimate cause for concern when they're trying to put these puzzle pieces together. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, that's absolutely correct. I mean, look, again, Ukraine is a difficult country because it is very corrupt. It is more lowercase D democratic than Russia. That's offering off a very low baseline here. But look, at the same time, you know, I mean, people will accuse what I'm about to say as being kind of quote unquote. pro Putin. I think I have demonstrably shown that I'm not. But I think I think I think Russia has

understandable grievances with respect to the fact that that the EU and the United States in particular has not taken Ukraine's ascension to NATO off the table. There is no there's no compelling reason why Ukraine needs to be a part of NATO. I mean kind of already they're kind of Poland, Hungary, you know, are various kind of central eastern European allies. Why would Russia care? Why would Russia care if Ukraine is part of NATO? I mean, they would view it as. basically, look, I mean, again, like Putin's a, he's a KGB guy, okay? I mean, he's an old world actor and the Russian people will be better when he is dead and gone. Okay. I mean, I can say that again if I need to to kind of show my not pro-Pudin Bonafetus. But the point is Russia,

for various reasons, I mean, again, it's only like the 11th or 12th largest economy in the world. It's an aging, decrepit, failed, oligarchic Petrosay. But it is, it doesn't have it like one-seventh or one-eighth of the world's, landmass is a gargantuan state. It has a nuclear arsenal and therefore it still matters to this day whether we like it or not. We have to be kind of prudent about how American statesmanship and diplomacy kind of affects it. And again, Ukraine for various reasons, not only are they not part of NATO, but they're not part of the European Union as well. And they're not part of the European Union for reasons that are as simple as what I just said, which is they do not live up to European standards

when it comes to kind of transitional democracy, transition of power, anti-consumerable. corruption measures, things of that nature. Ukraine is not Switzerland. I mean, Ukraine is not Austria. Ukraine is not even, again, like Poland by that measure there. So there's really no particular reason why Ukraine should be a part of NATO. I thought Senator Josh Hawley was totally right to make that point a couple weeks ago where he basically just said, like, let's make sure that Ukraine is not in NATO. And again, that doesn't mean that Ukraine cannot work with the West. After the revolution in 2014, team, they signed this big agreement with the European Union called, I don't remember the exact titles, like the European Union, Ukraine, Association Agreement to basically encourage kind of like

trade, diplomatic relations. So there are various kind of less official means. But, look, NATO in particular, obviously, because of Article 5 of NATO entails like a very, very serious kind of use of force requirement when any country whatsoever feels that it is invaded. The bigger points here on NATO, which is kind of the point that very few seem to be making, is legitimately whether or not is still necessary. I mean, kind of the, NATO was an organization formed with the purpose of bankrupting and destroying the Communist Soviet Union.

Well, that purpose was achieved 30 years ago. So query the extent to which NATO is legitimately still needed. This is kind of what I think Trump kind of intuited was that a lot of these kind of transnational organizations, whether it's the UN, the EU, NATO, the time for kind of globalism and transnationalism is kind of on the way down and U.S. diplomacy should really return to kind of bilateral treaties or maybe smaller multilateral treaties, kind of like the Abraham Accords and in the Middle East.

That is what kind of U.S. diplomacy should look like. The time to kind of expand a gargantuan kind of relic of the Cold War like NATO, the time is just not right for that. I think the error for that is fundamentally over. And Putin is threatening, well, he's kind of threatening nuclear war. He said it's on the table. What do you make of that? Look, I think Putin is a madman, okay? I mean, like, I do not think that he necessarily. is someone who fully has his wits about him. I, you know, I disagree with President Trump's comment that he is, that Putin is a genius for this.

Look, I mean, I mean, to an extent he's like an evil genius, I guess, but I think that he's, that he's more crazy than genius. And honestly, like, at this very moment that we're talking with every day that this siege of Kiev goes on without kind of a capture of the city, again, I think kind of Putin's inner circle, these multi-billionaire oligarchs are just going to get more and more and more pissed off at him because their assets are going to get more and more seas and not going to be able to make their banking transfers or not going to kind of travel throughout Europe, go their vacations.

So with each day that this goes on, the internal pressure on Russia is going to, I think, escalate and escalate further there. But with respect to Putin in particular, again, the guy just, he literally has said in no uncertain terms that he views the dissolution of the Soviet Union is one of the greatest tragedies of history. If he had his brothers, he would take all of the former kind of Soviet satellite states, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, all of them, and kind of put them back into kind of greater Russia. And I think he would view that as kind of the capstone of his legacy, honestly. Yeah. Wow. So how nervous do you think the average American should be about what's going

on? I mean, I know that you said, which I completely agree, that China is our main threat. but we also talked about how potentially either indirectly or directly this benefits China and is a threat to the West. So just for the average American that's living their life, should they continue to really pay attention to what's going on there? Or are you kind of like, you know what, we've got bigger fish to fry a lot closer to home right now. Let's keep our eyes here. So I think the latter is definitely where I come down overall.

look, America's not a good place right now, okay? I mean, like, I really don't need to be the one to kind of be like the doomsayer here or the Jared Maid or the, you know, the profit of lamentation or anything. But we're really not in a great place. I mean, like, we hate each other more than ever on the domestic front, obviously. You know, we look terrible on the global stage. Our economy is kind of tanking. We have 40-year high inflation.

We have supply chain crises. We are totally dependent on our arch geopolitical. foe, China, when it comes to kind of basic supply chain, industrial manufactured goods, when it comes to semiconductors and even kind of militarily sensitive equipment there. Russia matters basically insofar as the fact that it still has a large nuclear arsenal. Again, that is not kind of the world's most sophisticated nuclear arsenal because a lot of it kind of goes back to the Cold War, but it is a large nuclear arsenal nonetheless. And for that very, very simple and straightforward reason, Russia will always be a factor for as long as it kind of has that nuclear

equipment. At the same time here, kind of the upshot, I think the biggest thing that Americans are going to have to get comfortable with is that the post-World War II, in particular kind of post-Cold war era, like the kind of 20, 25, maybe 30-year era, basically my lifetime, I guess, where America was the sole and exclusive superpower, where we were operating in not kind of a multipolar world but a unipolar world where the U.S. was the sole and unambiguous kind of great power, kind of roaming the seas. Our naval ships are kind of securing free trade in the high waters and the Pacific Atlantic. You know, we were kind of the ones that were mediating all these great international treaties, the WTO, that kind of stuff. That moment, the unipolar moment, is over.

It is over. And we just have to kind of accept that and become comfortable with that. And that does not necessarily mean that America is going to lose a great war to China. I obviously pray every day that that does not happen. But we're going to have to get more comfortable with the fast that at a time where we are declining so much at home where we have failed to kind of keep and maintain our military kind of policies or military spending or hard kind of naval assets, we're going to get, we're going to have to kind of get reacquainted

with the notion of great power competition on the world stage, where China at a bare minimum is already a great power. Certainly the prospect of kind of a China-Russia alliance would be a formidable great power. And we're going to have to get more comfortable with kind of sharing various spheres of influence. But the notion that America in the year 2022 with all that we are facing on the home front can necessarily throw resources, whether it's kind of in the Middle East or Eastern Europe or Taiwan or just throw resources all over the world to kind of secure and defend kind of our idiosyncratic conception of Western liberal democracy, the point is that era is

over. We just, we have to focus more on getting our house together right now and we have to pick choose our battles abroad much more strategically. And I think that's the problem. The direction that we have to head in, which in my opinion is toward a healthy nationalism, is the exact opposite direction that our elite in this administration want to go in. Because, I mean, they are beholden to powers that I think are greater than the powers in the United States or the people of the United States. I mean, we won't get into all the world economic forum, build back better, great reset

conversation right now. but there certainly is a move in that class towards globalism. I mean, that is the play. And I do think as awful as this conflict, this war, this invasion is between Russia and Ukraine, I do hope that people realize that the only way out of this mess is to move back from reliance on, like you said, our greatest foreign enemies and back onto reliance on ourselves, self-reliance. Now, whether or not that's going to happen as far as the people that lead us, I'm not sure. But I do think that now more than ever, nationalism, localization really are the, our only options as a people. And the only way to solve any of this mess, at least for the United States. Russian and China are going to

continue what they're going to do. Their imperialistic powers that, you know, have their eyes on a particular prize. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be involved at all as Americans, but I just, I agree with you. We've got a lot of issues here, a lot of distractions, a lot of stupid. I love the culture wars. That's what I talk about. But I spend a lot of my time talking about things that, quite frankly, aren't distracting other countries like a woman being a woman, whether or not a man should compete against women in college. So we've just got, we've got a lot of issues basically here that I think weaken us. And I agree with you on that.

And I think that puts us at a strategic disadvantage, even if we are still the most powerful economy in the world. Yeah. No, I agree with you, Ali, certainly. I think you and I see I own this. The one kind of area policy that I'll, I allude to this briefly, but the one that I'll kind of really kind of put an emphasis on.

So there are two, well, there are more than two, but there are two things that stand out as far as kind of non-military ways to kind of make America more secure to kind of deter our enemies through kind of economic diplomacy or geostrategic diplomacy. The first that we've talked about a little bit is energy, obviously. That's Keystone XL. That's North Stream 2. America is so incredibly blessed to be sitting on the incredible oil and natural gas reserves that it is, whether it's in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, whether it's obviously up in Alaska with the Arctic, you know, wildlife and national refuge. So much of what we doing here has to get back on the table as far as just drilling again. I mean, just fracking

again and getting our own energy house back in order. But the other kind of bucket of policy, we have to start making things in America again, okay? We really do. Again, back in kind of the era of globalism, back when people thought that China could be like a player among the nations, when free trade was kind of rampant there, we were very short-sighted insofar as we thought that kind of the Francis Fukuyama hypothesis that kind of the world was kind of converging towards democracy. We really kind of took that and we kind of drank it like mother's milk. And what that meant was that we were kind of comfortable offshoring manufacturing, even very kind of technologically, militarily sensitive manufacturing like semiconductors and chips over two

countries that we thought that we wrongly expected would head towards democracy, kind of like China. And we were wrong with that. I mean, our elites were just fundamentally misguided and wrong about that. So we have to do whatever we possibly can to, bring some supply chains back home, especially obviously these very kind of militarily sensitive supply chains like semiconductors. So the time is now, I mean, and whatever options need to be on the table, whether it's strategic tariffs or subsidies or all sorts of things that may be kind of like the most absolutist doctrine of free marketeers might hate, I'm a free market guy myself, but those particular things have to necessarily be channeled through the means of the national

interest. And the national interest now in the year 2022 means that we have to start bringing bringing some critical supply chains back home, to disentangling from China, basically at any and all cost to make the American heartland and our manufacturing base more secure. That is a much, I think, easier thing to do than to necessarily try to kind of police the high seas and kind of defend liberal democracy on the beaches of Taiwan, for instance. And now we see, and maybe people will wake up to this, that manufacturing really is a national security issue. They're not two separate issues.

They really are inextricably intertwined. So I think you're absolutely right about that. There are apparently peace talks going, or talks anyway, going on right now between Ukraine and Russia. So just to end, how do you think that's going to conclude today, tomorrow, for the rest of the week? So I predict one week from now, this will all be over. That's my actual prediction. I could totally be wrong about that, obviously. I mean, if Putin decides to double down and start blowing up apartment buildings and massacring civilians,

then I will follow my sword. I mean, he is crazier than I would have ever thought if that's what he actually kind of does next. But I do not predict that that will happen. I think that there will be some sort of ceasefire agreement here. You might see kind of like a, you know, a redrawing of the maps to an extent, you know, the Donbass, certain parts of kind of eastern Ukraine. I mean, what Putin really wants, I think above all,

he really wants a land bridge to Crimea. You know, I mean, he took over Crimea in 2014, right, during the Obama administration. So he really wants kind of a landmass that, kind of joined some of these ethnic Russian parts of far eastern Ukraine, the Dombas region in particular, he wants a landmass that kind of connects that to Crimea. So I expect the most likely scenario that I would guess will be some sort of ceasefire agreement whereby Putin can effectively annex those parts and we take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table. If that is what happens and if Zelenskyy stays in power, if we do not get kind of a Belarus-style Putin puppet,

in Kiev. I personally would take that. I think that is a perfectly fine and adequate deal for the West to take. The question, obviously, is, is that enough for Putin? And I don't know. I mean, it's hard to guess, obviously. I mean, honestly, from my perspective, he just got incredibly greedy here from my perspective. He could have gotten that. I mean, he could have easily just stopped after the Dombas region. He didn't have to go all the way to Kiev. But again, he has these delusions of grandeur. I mean, the guy, again, is a cold warrior at heart who believes in kind of greater Russia. And I think his ideological fantasies have kind of, you know, interacted with pure greed to lead him to try to mount this kind of game of throne-style invasion of Kiev.

So we'll see what happens. But I guess I predict, this is a tough prediction. I do predict that he will not start mass-occurring civilians, which means that we will probably get a ceasefire roughly along the lines of what I just described. Wow. Well, we'll see. We'll see. There's obviously a lot that could unfold. There were a lot of predictions that, you know, all of us made a week ago about what we thought was going to happen. And as you said, I think he's kind of proven himself to be a madman, a little bit of an unpredictable person. So we'll see, obviously, praying for peace. We all do. It really doesn't matter the sins of either country. When it's civilians, when it's innocent people that are dying. It's just a lose-lose situation. So thank you. Thank you. you. Thank you for your insight. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Anytime, Allie. Have a great day. Thank you. All right, guys. I told you that I would leave you on an encouraging note. And so I am going to do that.

Now, I could spend a whole hour doing this and maybe we will because a lot of you guys have been asking me for just an exclusively theological episode. And so I'm going to do that this week. Maybe I'll do a most misused if you're interested in that or I just will take a break from the news. But it's important for me to cover everything that's going on because, I mean, these are real people that are being affected. And of course, we care about people. They're, if you guys follow a girl defined, specifically Bethany of a girl defined, she's been sharing that one of her sisters, Elisa, is in Ukraine with her Ukrainian husband. We don't have a lot of details about where they are now, but they've been driving for days, trying to find,

safety, a place of refuge, and I think cross into another country, here's the real kicker. Not just that these are people that we have, you know, just a little, just a few degrees of separation from. And obviously, Elisa is American, but also she is 39 weeks pregnant at this point. So she could literally give birth at any time. And from Instagram and the updates we've been receiving there, she hasn't gotten a lot of sleep. Obviously, this. This is a very stressful situation. I mean, and she's a first-time mom. So just imagine what she's going through right now.

It's also been an incredible testimony, watching their faith and seeing just kind of the peace and the joy and the steadfastness that she has demonstrated on social media as she's been trying to update people. And also the kindness of Christians that she has experienced in Ukraine and elsewhere, the connections that she has with the global church, it's really just been amazing to watch. It shows what the body of Christ really is supposed to be. That's what we do as Christians.

We run into trouble. We run into stress. We run into danger for the sake of vulnerable people, especially for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Because that's what God did for us through Christ. He ran into pain. He ran into death. He ran into our trouble.

He didn't have to, did because of his love for us. And we are called to love other people and to love our fellow Christians as Christ loved the church. And as Christ loves us. And obviously that means self-sacrifice. And we've seen that through Elisa's story and her husband's story. So pray for them, please. Pray for their safety. Pray for their protection. Pray for a smooth, miraculously, just smooth and easy birth. Pray for a healthy baby girl. Just pray that the Lord would be with them. And not just with them, but everyone who is suffering right now in Ukraine. And there's a lot of suffering in the world. So certainly we can pray not only for the people in Ukraine, but everyone who is suffering

from violence and oppression and tyranny and persecution and all of that. But look, we don't have the capacity, the ability to know everything that's going on in the world, to be able to feel everyone's pain as empathetic and compassionate as we might be as we want to be. We are finite human beings and we simply cannot carry the weight of the world. We were not made to carry the weight of the world. There are goods and there are bads to social media in our 24-hour news cycle. We have access to other people's suffering so we can pray for them. We can financially support them. We can help them with connections, whatever is needed for them. And that's wonderful. That also helps us connect to the global church. It helps us see how blessed we are here in the United States and be grateful for

that and to use the means that we have to help other people. So, all of that is a great benefit to social media and the access that we have the images of suffering around the world. One detriment to that is that we feel that we have to know everything and care about everything and everyone all at once. And we even feel and hear and see this pressure that if we don't say the right thing, do the right thing, say enough, show enough emotion and enough care about every single issue going on in the world, that it's because we're heartless, that it's because we're on the wrong side of history or we are pro the enemy or whatever it is. And that's not fair either.

The fact of the matter is, I mean, as the title of my book says, is that we are not enough. Like we're not enough to carry the weight of the world and God actually made us insufficient in that way. But we do have a large capacity. It's simply not infinite. But the large capacity to care and to help that we have, we have to simply pour out how God is calling us to pour out. So while we can acknowledge the suffering that's happening around the world, and I think that we all have enough capacity to pray for those people, the fact of the matter is is that God right now is calling you to the next right thing. He's calling you to where you are.

Now, maybe God is calling you to travel abroad, to be a missionary. Maybe God is calling you to some big step, to take some huge leap of faith that you didn't think was possible to start some organization to give away everything that you have to like i said travel across the world maybe that's true or maybe he is calling you to simply do the next simple thing that to the world looks really basic looks really small looks really insignificant or unsubstantial um but to god actually matters i'm talking about changing a diaper i'm talking about cleaning dishes i'm talking about having a conversation with a friend. I'm talking about sharing the gospel with someone that you know. I'm talking about praying or reading your Bible or doing a really good job in whatever work

project that you have or studying in an excellent way for the test that you have tomorrow. You have tasks that are right in front of you that are not arbitrary. They're not purposeless. God did not place you where he did accidentally. You are not in the country or city that you're in at the time that you are in it for accidental or meaningless reasons. God purposely puts you on the tiny speck of eternity on which he placed you and the tiny plot of earth on which he placed you in order to make the spheres that you occupy better for his glory and the good of other people. That's what you're called to do.

Sometimes we are called to do that through big leaps of faith and we pray for wisdom and discernment and direction. But even if that's the case, even if God is calling you to something that seems really big or really public or really scary, really risky, still your next responsibility is simply to do the next small thing, the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. And so, yes, we care about the suffering that's going on in the world. We do what we can to help the people that God has placed on our hearts. But our task is not to simply be anxious, to not be scrolling through social media every five seconds, and to be weighed down by the weight of the world constantly.

That can actually lead to disobedience. That can actually be a trap set by Satan to take us out of our present moment to steal our gratitude, to steal the joy and the contentment to which Christians are incontrovertibly and arguably called. And to make us anxious and worried. And we are specifically called so many times throughout scripture by Jesus himself, like in Matthew 10, not to be worried and not to be anxious and not to fear, but in everything with Thanksgiving, as Philippine as four tells us, to pray to God, to give him our burdens, to give him our cares,

and to allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts, the peace that passes understanding. I think I mixed a few scriptures there, but we are called to that biblically. So we care, but we don't allow our care to turn into burdening anxiety. We have to do the next right thing that's in front of us. And we can't allow what's going on in the world to steal our joy. Because we remember that God is completely sovereign over all of it. Nothing throws him off. Nothing scares him.

Nothing gets him up off his throne to see what's going on. He's not surprised or taken it back or thrown off or shocked by anything that's going on. He is completely and totally in control. Yes, things violate his moral will every day and that people sin and disobey him and things displease him and anger him, but nothing can violate his grand sovereign will. He works all things together for the good of those who love him. That's what Romans 828 tells us. As R.C. Sproles says, there's not a maverick molecule in all of the universe.

Nothing, nothing can surpass or circumvent God's sovereign. will. Yes, he even uses evil, even though he would never author evil or tempt people to evil, but he will use the evil of dictators to bring himself glory, and he will declare victory once and for all. That's our hope. That's why we can do the next right thing in faith with excellence and enjoy. That's why, because we know that Christ will claim ultimate victory, because God is totally in control and not even a hair can fall from our heads apart from than the Father's will. Not even a sparrow falls from the sky. A sparrow that's sold for a penny can fall from the sky apart from the Father's will. So you think that anything's going to happen to you

apart from God's will who he loves so much more than a sparrow or the lilies of the field? Of course not. So we trust him, knowing that absolutely nothing can happen to us, that God does not specifically will and we do the next right thing that he is calling us to. Let me read you a couple passages of scripture just to bring this home. Daniel 220 through 22. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him. There is no secret to God. And then let me read you part of my favorite Psalm. And that is Psalm 37. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the Lord. land and preferent faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. We did a most misused on that once. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring

forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. There is no dictator, there is no evil policy, there is no one at the World Economic Forum, there is no great reset, that is a match for God and his strength and his plans. There's just not. Now, I'm going to finish with a quote from C.S. Lewis about the nuclear age, the atomic bomb. And I've posted this, I've posted this quote several times because I love it so much because I think it speaks to

really every age that we have. And it's just a great reminder that while we look at this and we say, well, it's the end times. It's got to be the end times. Nothing has ever been this bad. Maybe it is the end times, but things have been this bad in different ways. So let me read you this and then we'll finally be done with this mega long episode. All right. He says, in one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. How are we to live then in an atomic age? Well, I am tempted to reply. Why, as you would have lived in the 16th century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age, when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night. Or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation.

Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love, were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented. In quite a high percentage of us, we're going to die in unpleasant ways. This is the first point to be made, and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us, when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying working teaching reading listening to music bathing the children playing tennis chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs they may break our bodies

even a microbe can do that but they need not dominate our minds so let that be our mentality Christians will be known by their love but we are also known by our courage so Be courageous in an age of chaos and confusion and absolute cowardice. That's our call for today. All right. We'll be back here tomorrow. See you guys then. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

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