Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 588 | What the Media Won't Tell You About Ukraine & Zelenskyy | Guest: Pedro Gonzalez

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Today we're talking to Pedro Gonzalez, writer and associate editor for Chronicles magazine, about the questions that we seemingly aren't allowed to ask about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. While it's clear as day that Russia and Vladimir Putin are the aggressors in this war, there are also concerns that Americans should have about the very real corruption in Ukraine. Pedro talks about the "Liberal Internationalist" ideology that wants America to basically be the world police and how these people have been involved in Ukraine for some time now. Pedro also exposes one of the powerful Ukrainian oligarchs who's pulling strings behind the scenes. While President Zelenskyy is portrayed in the media as a hero with an unassailable character, there are questions that need to be asked about his connections to this oligarch and his commitment to being anti-corruption. Lastly, we sort out fact from fiction on whether the U.S. has bio-labs in Ukraine that NATO doesn't want Russia to have. --- Today's Sponsors: Cozy Earth is renowned for offering the softest, most luxurious, environmentally friendly & ethically-produced bedding today. Go to CozyEarth.com/ALLIE & use promo code 'ALLIE' to save 35% off your order! If you're not completely in love, send it back for a full refund! Annie's Kit Clubs is celebrating National Craft Month right now & with 25 different kit clubs for you and the kids in your life, you can find the right subscription for you & get your first month of any club for up to 100% off, plus shipping. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE for their best deal ever! A'del Natural Cosmetics handcrafts & artisan-makes their cosmetics in small batches with only high-quality ingredients — no parabens, synthetic fragrances, preservatives, petrol products, etc. VIsit AdelNaturalCosmetics.com & use promo code 'ALLIE' to save 25% off your first order! --- 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 Thursday. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers, American Meat delivered right to your front door. That's Good Ranchers.com slash Alley. Good Ranchers.com slash Alley. Okay. Today we are having a fascinating conversation with Pedro Gonzalez. He is the associate editor of, of course, Chronicles magazine. He is a writer. He does not describe himself as a journalist and you will hear him say why. We are talking about Ukraine. Pedro has been very courageous in asking some questions that are deemed controversial, that you are not allowed to ask unless you want to be accused by the

mainstream media of being a Putin puppet. And yet he's asking these questions. He's going to talk to us about the history of Ukraine. He's going to talk to us about Zelensky. We're going to talk about some things that a lot of people just don't want to talk about, don't want to mention, don't want to dig into, because as we will discuss, you're only supposed to have one position when it comes to Ukraine and you cannot question the popular narrative or else you are unpatriotic. Now, as we've mentioned before, doesn't that line sound very familiar? If you're not for lockdowns, if you're not for Black Lives Matter burning down and looting cities, if you are not for kids having, you know, mandatory vaccines and masks when they're two years old, that it's because you want people to die

because you hate America. If you don't think that young kids should be chemically castrated in the state of Texas, if you don't think that teachers should be talking to five-year-olds about gender switching, it's because you want these people to die. It's because you're a horrible person. And that's the same kind of line that we are hearing when it comes to Ukraine. If you ask any questions at all about our involvement or the level of our involvement, you are accused of not caring about the Ukrainian people and of being pro-Putin. Of course, that's ridiculous. So we're just going to buck that narrative because, quite frankly, I don't believe that. I think as we discussed either last week or a couple weeks ago, that you can hold common sense and compassion in your brain at the same time.

We should be able to do that as thoughtful people, especially as Christians, right? We should be able to say that what's happening in Ukraine to the Ukrainian people who are caught in the crossfire here, that's really bad. We talked also about. how there is a huge traffic. There's always been a human trafficking problem in Ukraine. Of course, there's a problem throughout the world, but especially in Ukraine. It's kind of a hotbed for it. Human trafficking, not just in a sense of sex trafficking, but also in the human trafficking of the corrupt surrogacy industry that is there. And so Ukraine has been a hotbed of a corruption for a long time. If you just search on whatever your search engine is, Ukraine,

corruption, New York Times, you will come up with a lot of articles detailing this. And so it's really nonsensical and it's really worrisome that we are supposed to now be unconditionally lionizing the leadership of a country that we've known for a long time is not actually pro democracy so we can understand that while also still saying wow we have so much compassion and so much sympathy for the ukrainian people and also a lot of sympathy for the russian people who are not a part of this invasion and are also suffering because of sanctions that are actually them and hurting us and not actually hurting the Putin regime. So let's be a little bit more thoughtful than what the mainstream media is telling us that we can be. Let's ask the questions that we are

not allowed to ask because we are under an obligation as people, as Christians, to try to find the truth. And I'm not saying that we're going to come up with everything that is objectively true in this conversation, but we're asking, we're going into the territory that we are being told right now you're not supposed to go into. So I think you are going to find this conversation with Pedro very interesting and very enlightening. At the very least, it'll give you food for thought. And it should make us wonder, what is actually in Americans' interest? That's what we're supposed to be thinking about. That's what the leadership of any country is supposed to be thinking. What is in the interest of my people? Not the intelligence bureaucracy, not the military,

industrial complex, not just the leadership, not the bureaucracy in the country, but what is in the best interest of our people? And unfortunately, we've seen in a variety of ways time and time again, that the people who lead this country, mostly unelected bureaucrats and a variety of agencies, don't really care about what is in the best interest of the American people. So knowing that and seeing that throughout the years, that should make us a little bit curious, if not entirely cynical, about what we hear from the media about anything, including when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. So we know Putin is a wicked dictator. We know that the Ukrainian people are suffering.

We understand those things. Let's hold those things in our head while also asking some interesting questions. Can we do that? I think that we can. I think that we can. And Pedro is going to help us. So before we have that conversation with Pedro Gonzalez, just going to tell you what is, what is coming up. So next week, we've got a few fun things that we're going to be talking about,

important things. We are going to finally be covering that those two abortion bills that you guys have been asking me about, one in Colorado, one in Maryland. And I'm also going to share, I believe it's on Monday, maybe Tuesday, we haven't decided yet, this really interesting statistic that I found about maternal mortality rates in the United States. And it just kind of made me realize that so much policy, whether it's the policy of hospitals or whether it's government policy, not only are children laid on the altar of bad policy, as we've talked about many times, but so are women. So what does this mean for the Christian? How should we be looking at this stuff biblically? And we'll also look once again at the Supreme Court nominee and what she thinks about life

and life inside the womb. And so we'll be talking about all of that on Monday or Tuesday. I think we are going to look at Ukraine, also from another angle next week. I've also got a fun interview coming out with Phil and Al Robertson. So lots to look forward to. As always, feel free to send me what you want me to talk about next week. 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, 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. Pedro, thanks so much for joining us. Can you first tell us who you are and what you do?

Yeah, so I'm the associate editor at Chronicles Magazine, and I am a writer because I don't like the term journalist, because I don't like journalists. Oh, can you unpack that for us just a little bit? I'm sure a lot of people have the same sentiments. Yeah, it's a weird place to be in because this is what I do, right? This is what I do for a living. It's my only job. But there's also this kind of conflicted feeling I have because when you look around, it really seems like a lot of journalists are not actually. truth tellers or how they like to describe themselves, they're actually just kind of repeating whatever, whether it is they're the people that own their publications or right now in the context of Ukraine and Russia, it's whatever the Pentagon is saying. Right. Right now, you know, you've got journalists from MSNBC and CNN basically demanding, not asking

NATO questions like, you know, would it be worth getting into a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine? I mean, would that make sense for the world? Instead, you've got journalists asking, would it be morally acceptable for NATO to stand by and do nothing? I mean, this is, again, these are journalists who are supposed to be asking tough questions, but instead they're kind of browbeating other people into doing what they want. So, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's a weird position for people like me to be in because I know I'm not alone in this, like guys like Glenn Greenwald, who's obviously more on the political left, but he feels the same way that a lot of journalists, especially in the mainstream, are kind of just,

for lack of a better word, bootlickers of one variety or another. Yeah, I think the journalist that you were just describing as Andrea Mitchell from NBC. I think that she's the one that recently asked that kind of just strange question. And we're used to this, especially over the past few years, we've seen a lot of journalists become sick offense for one side. And really just kind of unashamedly, that whole activist journalist. movement that has really become mainstream. And it really, I think it boils down to, well, there are a lot of different factors. The ones that you just listed are there for sure.

But I think in the simplest terms, like it's hard to write objectively about your friends. And journalists have become friends with these Democrat politicians. They've become friends with the people in our intelligence bureaucracy. It's really hard to distance yourself when you have formed these relationships and where these relationships are a little quid pro quo. and you feel like you've got a little bit of power, a little bit of maybe insulation from criticism or whatever it is, if you kind of cozy up to the people in power.

It's really difficult. It takes more integrity than most journalists have in this country to distance yourself from your friends and be able to write about things objectively. Do you think that's part of it? Yeah, that's certainly part of it. It's access. And you don't, like you said,

you don't want to fear losing access by, you know, doing your job a little too well. And I think that's certainly, a huge aspect of it, but there's also this ideological component to it where, again, journalists like to describe themselves, and I don't lie about this. Like, I have my prejudices. I am biased, in fact, toward the American interests, but I don't hide it. I guess the issue is that you have so many journalists who do hide it. They like to cast themselves as just objective truth tellers. You know, they're not picking aside, but they are. It's obvious they are. When they ask questions like that,

you know, don't we have a moral responsibility to intervene and possibly trigger World War III? That's not an unbiased question. That's all of these questions are loaded. Right. Yeah. Right. And so I think that's a huge part of it is, on the one hand, yes, there is this sycophancy, this desire for access, which the access part to a degree is understandable. But, you know, when it's informing all of your work, it obviously becomes a problem.

because you do need to maintain good relations with some people to do your job, but, you know, again, there's a limit to what that looks like, right? And then on the other hand, it's this ideological component that I've just been referring to as liberal internationalism, that we have a kind of, or as Andrea Mitchell said, we have a moral obligation to invade the world or intervene, to put a euphemistically, to intervene everywhere and invite the world. So basically, I mean, it's not a coincidence that many of the same people that are saying that we must intervene in Ukraine are also the same ones that you'll hear saying that we have an obligation. We have a moral duty to accept everyone who comes to our border illegally or not. We have a moral duty to allow them into the country.

It's often the same people. Yeah. Can you help me kind of understand because there are these same people who are saying that we have. a moral obligation to intervene. Uniquely in Ukraine, they don't seem to think that in every single area of the world, which is interesting. These are some of the same people, though, that say that they are anti-imperialism and they kind of demonize the history of the United States by saying America has, it's just been an evil imperialist force for wickedness and destruction throughout our history throughout the world. They would say that they are against that. But at the same time,

they are pushing for a form of imperialism, and also they don't care about China's imperialism in different parts of the world. So can you help me understand that? Is that just hypocrisy? Like they don't understand that they are contradicting themselves? Or is it more complex than what I'm explaining? I think hypocrisy is certainly a factor, but then I think that hypocrisy might entail a no, it's difficult, right? Because you have to wonder, is there any self-reliable? awareness here. Part of me thinks that to be a hypocrite, you have to be, a person has to be aware of the contradictions, but the fact that they're not aware of them or they don't even recognize them, I think, is what makes this more complicated. And so, I mean, this gets into the history of

Ukraine, right? Because like you said, we like to denounce imperialism in the United States a lot in recent times we like to demonize our own history now in schools and we have engaged in this systematic project of basically

deconstructing America and kind of recasting it as an evil empire but the same people are also like you said the ones saying that we actually have a responsibility to intervene in places like Ukraine and when you go back

and look at how we got here you kind of see this, I will just call it hypocrisy, you can see this hypocrisy at play, that basically the thing that's being left out of this entire discussion is that the West, and specifically Western liberal interventionists have, I mean, I've been putting this very bluntly, these people have blood on their hands. Yes, Putin invaded Ukraine in February. There's no disputing that. Russia is going to have to answer for, what's happening, you know, civilians are being killed in this. All of these things are obvious and tragic. But what's not obvious, and I would even say is just as tragic, is the fact that the

architects of this crisis have not been held accountable. Right now, they're doing a great job of reinventing themselves as the heroes of the moment. And they're even going so far as is saying that if you dare question, you know, if you even ask that question, like, for example, Tucker Carlson, You know, did Washington, D.C. have a hint in this crisis? If you ask that question, you're a traitor. Yeah. According to Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and other smart people like Adam Kinsinger. That's who you're talking about.

When you're talking about the architects, who are you talking about? And why do you say that they're the architects? Oh, boy. Ukraine is, I can't think of an analog for it because there are so many different competing factors and players from basically DC ideologues. to cynics at like the Clinton Foundation, to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs. It's actually, it's so, what we can just say this for certain, and I'll get into like a few key figures, but we can say this for certain.

Ukraine is not a battle for democracy. There is an actual nationalist sentiment in Ukraine, and there are people in Ukraine who want democracy, namely the civilians who are really caught in the crossfire. But in terms of like geopolitics, this is not a battle for democracy. it's a battle between like competing interest groups that are obviously just reframing it as a battle for democracy because you know it democracy is in high's buzzword you know who could disagree with democracy right who could be against liberal democracy right so yeah i mean we can we can focus on one set of of players and to kind of help understand why you know this is not actually like i said a battle for liberal democracy but instead this it's a kind of like hive of villainy and intrigue. And so one example that is kind of illustrative of the relationship on the one hand between the U.S. government's Ukrainian oligarchs and, on the other hand, NGOs.

This is a huge thing in Ukraine, is this relationship between the Clinton Foundation and a Ukrainian oligarch named Victor Pinchuk. and cut me off at any time. Go for it. So the Wall Street Journal published an article in 2015, and they looked at individual donations made by foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation between the 90s and running up to 2014. Because the article was published in 2015,

so that's the window they had to work with. And what they found was, is that the top source of donations of more than $50,000 or more to the Clinton Foundation by foreign contributors actually came from Ukraine. Interesting, right? And one of these key figures is, like I said, a guy named Victor Pinchuk. So how does Victor Pinchuk end up giving almost $10 million to the Clinton Foundation? Well, he was introduced to Bill Clinton by a registered lobbyist for Victor Pinckiuchner.

named Doug Schoen, who actually worked as a pollster for both Bill and Hilby Clinton. So Pinchuk is introduced to Bill Clinton by Doug Schoen in 2006. By 2007, Bill Clinton is doing speaking events at initiatives that are run by Victor Pinchuk. And by 2008, you have a significant amount of money that's moving between Victor Pinchuk and Clinton NGOs. And this relationship overlaps, this relationship between the Ukrainian oligarch and the Clinton Foundation overlaps with Hillary Clinton's time at the State Department. Doug Schoen has denied that him being a registered lobbyist for Pinchuk had anything to do with

the relationship between the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, of course, because he has to. But this is, again, really illustrative of the kind of dealing that you have going on in this country, which kind of helps explain why there is this incredible, like, powerful border. I mean, it is hysterical reaction to the threat of Ukraine kind of being taken out of the orbit of D.C. and its allies. I can move on or stay here. Yeah, I think, well, I'll just kind of enter, I think, some questions just that the common person has. I don't consider myself a foreign policy expert, but of course I pay attention and a lot of people do. And I think some questions that people have, but they're scared to ask because we're being told by the very journalist that we were just referencing that you can't have common sense and compassion at the same time that the two are mutually exclusive. So if you ask questions about our motivations and the level of intervention in Ukraine, that means. you don't care about the Ukrainians dying.

That means, as you mentioned earlier, that you're a Putin puppet, that you're pro-Russia, whatever. But I think most people actually do hold common sense and compassion at the same time. I think most people do say, you know what, what's happening there is really bad. Obviously, don't support Putin. And we're really sad for what's happening in Ukraine. The story's coming out of there of women and children being trafficked.

It's all just awful. We can be sad about that. And also ask at the same time, hang on. Like why are we so hyper focused on this? Why are the same people that believe, as you mentioned earlier, that we have a moral obligation to accept all people, that we basically have no sovereignty as a country? We have no borders. Why are they so hyperfocused on Ukraine's borders? Like the people who don't care about democracy at all here, they say that they care so much about democracy in Ukraine.

Isn't that a little odd? Isn't it a little odd? How they are doing the same thing that they did with BLM. They're doing the same thing that they did with lockdowns. that if you disagree with them, it's because you want people to die. The same thing that they do with, you know, transitioning kids. If you don't agree with that, it's because you want kids to die by suicide. They do this and they're doing this with Ukraine.

And so the question I think that most people have is why. And I know that you kind of started to answer that, especially with the people who have, you know, actual monetary interest, financial interest there. But what is the interest of people like Mitt Romney? What is the interest of people like Adam Kissinger, these Republicans who want so badly for us to intervene and maybe start World War III. Why? I just can't understand the why behind it. Well, I think the, so let's say that these people are true believers. They're died in the wool ideologues. I think that you'll eventually go crazy trying to understand ideologs because,

I mean, ideology is a kind of self-contained thing. It's you can't really, we have this saying, right, or conservatives have this saying, facts don't care about your feelings. Well, with ideologues, feelings always trump facts. And so you can show them, for example, that you Washington-led sanctions against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait in the early 90s, that those sanctions resulted and again, I say Washington because obviously the American people, if they knew what happens as a result of this stuff, they wouldn't want anything to do with it. But the sanctions led by the United States government resulted in up to half a million children. in Iraq, starving and dying.

Again, that's the high end. And I think to give you some insight into how unrepentantant ideologues are, true believers, Madeline Albright, who recently passed away, when she was asked by 60 minutes, if she thought, and again, that number is disputed. Like on the high end, it's half a million, but some people say it's half that. What's indisputable is that a lot of children ended up starving to death as a direct result of the sanctions imposed by Washington, D.C., that they spearheaded. So when presented with the figure half a million,

I think it was 60 minutes during an interview with 60 minutes, she was asked, was it worth it? And Madeline Albright said it was. It was worth it. Wow. There's no, I mean, again, and it's important to understand that these are the same people that are telling you we have a moral obligation to intervene

because we did it in Kuwait, and it was worth it. that's insane. You know, what good, decent American would say, yeah, that was worth it. I mean, Americans have good,

and I think this is one of the good things about conservatism is that there's like a deep skepticism toward government and for good reason because these are the people

that are creating policy, the ones that'll just look you in the face and say, yeah, it was half a million, up to half a million children starving to death. Yeah, that was worth it.

No, it wasn't. Yeah. And, I mean, like, I'm a father. I'm a new father. I have a toddler and a few month old. Me too. We're in the same boat, in the same stage.

Yeah. So no, when I hear people talk like that, it was worth it. I mean, like, you know, obviously what I reacted was bad. But no, making it worse, you know, to satisfy your ideology of liberal internationalism. No, it's not worth it. Do you distinguish, because I saw this distinction earlier and maybe you don't, do you distinguish, between internationalism and globalism and if you do why? I think they're related.

I mean, it's ultimately this view of, well, I would say that the difference is that we're talking about globalism. In a sense, we're talking about just the internationalization of the division of labor. We're all now kind of interdependent on each other, right? Which is obviously, you know, on the one hand, you get like nice wine and cheese from around the world. But on the other hand, you send your factories to China and Mexico and stuff like that. So that's kind of globalism, right?

The, again, the internationalization, the vision of labor and global interdependency. I would say that the liberal internationalist or the pejorative form is liberal interventionist, which is the one I most commonly use, liberal interventionists, on the one hand, they think that the kind of global interdependence is a good thing, but they think that the United States and specifically Washington should be kind of leading it, that everyone should be kind of bowing to us and that NATO is kind of just an instrument for our interests and not actually like a, you know, like it's, I mean, it's a military alliance, but it's ultimately led by D.C. And it's kind of just whatever we want it to be, whatever we want to use it for.

So I think that's the difference is that liberal interventionists just think that D.C. should be kind of leading the show. And again, as conservatives, you know, or people on the right, I actually don't use a term conservative for myself, but a lot of people still, you know, obviously do. It's a different discussion. But the point is that I think it's important for conservatives to understand who are deeply patriotic to not conflate being patriotic with kind of like just going along with whatever Washington thinks is right. Right.

because I think that's one of the reasons why this the current crisis is kind of horrifying is because certain people, conservative pundits, Republican politicians, have done a really good job of kind of wetting basically what D.C. wants, which is not what is best for the American people, with these notions of American exceptionalism. That basically it's kind of with us or against us all over again. And if you're critical of what D.C. wants, of what these liberal internationalists wants, well, then it must mean that you hate America. You're like a Putin stooge or a useful idiot or something. It's Ann Applebaum recently used that term to describe people like Tucker Carlson, useful idiot because he's, again, asking these questions. Like, should we start World War

3 over Ukraine? You know, like, would that save lives or result in more casualties? Well, even if you ask that, you know, you're not patriotic. And it's not just, again, it's not just people like Ann Applebaum at the Atlantic. It's a lot of conservative pundits. And it's a lot of Republican politicians. Yeah. It's very bizarre actually watching Fox News going from Tucker Carlson's show where he's asking those questions and then going through the next to the next programming where those questions aren't asked at all. It is. I mean, I don't think people realize, and I know you don't call yourself a conservative, but how many different perspectives there are on this just on the right alone? or on the non-left at least.

I saw this really interesting study, and it was just, it was in Canada. It wasn't in the United States, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar here that the more vaccines you have, the more likely you are to support more intervention between Russia and Ukraine. I mean, that's crazy.

That tells you something about people's willingness. They're almost just desire, they're craving to find, narrative to find a different way to show that they're virtuous, to show that they're patriotic, which a lot of these people truly like hate the countries where they live. And so it's funny that they care about seeming patriotic. But man, shouldn't that tell us something about the messengers, the message itself, and the importance in asking the questions that are being demonized right now? Yeah. No, yeah, that's, it's funny because a lot of us were kind of joking about this,

right, that it's the new thing. And that before Ukraine, before our stand with Ukraine and like hashtag stand with Ukraine, it was vaccines and kind of just doing whatever people like Fauci said. Before that, it was BLM. And it ended up being, you know, empirically true that basically the more willing you were to go on, go along with the vaccine regime, the more likely, literally the more vaccines you have, the more likely you are to support. Ukraine. It's actually terrifying in a way. Yeah. Because you wonder like, you know, jokingly,

like, is it something in the vaccine or is this like, is it like a psychological thing that, you know, that, I mean, in a sense, that's setting aside some horrific dystopian thing that, you know, there's something in the drug. The easiest explanation is really just that. People are moving from one kind of way of identifying to another. So before you showed people, you showed, people that you were virtuous by, you know, putting a black square in your Instagram to show that you stood with BLM. And then it was, you know, bragging about how you're, you're vaxed and boosted. And now it's putting the Ukrainian flag in your bio and doing the hashtag staying with Ukraine. So I think it's a desire to belong to groups and which is human. And we're all, I mean,

we're all guilty of this. We all identify with things. But obviously there's a there's a line that people should be aware of, which is, you know, rushing into these into these fads that have tremendous consequences for society or entire civilizations. Like, you know, support for BLM was basically whether people want to admit it or not, like supporting BLM was a way to look away from what BLM was actually doing, which was all. on the one hand, just stealing people's donations. And you know, and you can look at the organizers of BLM and like they're all like fat, happy cats now with like mansions and stuff.

Yeah. After destroying poor communities with predominantly minority Americans and them. It's been exclusively a destructive force and a force for injustice. And yeah, there's no reckoning about that. But I think you, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say, but if you supported BLM, you didn't actually have to reckon with any of the things that you've just described. Yeah, exactly.

Because you're on the right side of history. Exactly. And no one ever tried to hold you. No one ever gets held accountable for getting it wrong in the beginning, as long as the position that you took in the beginning was what, you know, the, I don't even know if it's liberal, whatever it is, whatever the regime narrative was, as long as you took that position, then you were considered a good leader, all of the Democratic governors who, you know, inflicted the harshest, most draconian policies as possible.

it doesn't matter that people maybe died of isolation induced depression and suicide. It doesn't matter. The alcoholism went up. It doesn't matter that our mental health is deteriorating because of that. It doesn't matter that people's business closed. Like you're still considered a good leader if you inflicted those kinds of policies. You're still considered a good person if you posted the Black Square. You're still considered a good person.

If you go along with whatever the narrative is. And I think you touched on something about human nature that is really important and profound, that I don't want to gloss over is that everyone wants to be a part of something. Yes, that's part of human nature. But I think the sad thing is, is that because everyone wants to be a part of something and because we've become such a disjointed, hyper-individualistic society, I mean, the family has broken down communities, have broken down church attendances, less than it was.

We don't really have those communities and those close relationships that we seek, and we're more godless than ever before. People are seeking identification with groups that aren't really really, real. Like, it's not real. The Black Square community is not a community. The Ukrainian flag in my bio, you know, community is not a real community. It's all fake. It's almost, almost like the metaverse community. It's not real, which is really, really sad. Yeah, you already, it feels like we're already living in the metaverse because of how quickly people can be kind of programmed into going from supporting BLM to Fauci to Zelensky in Ukraine. Yeah, it is, I mean, that's a huge

part of it. And I think the conservatives kind of already understand this, or I should say Christians already understand this because of the saying that people have a God-shaped whole in their hearts. It's basically the same thing. People have a community shaped hole in their hearts. And so it's easy to move from one thing to another and look around you and see that you're part of a group that has solidarity for the current thing. And then for the time being, shaping your whole identity around that social community until the next thing. But again, well, tell me a little bit about you, you mentioned Zelensky, and I've heard you talk about this before and other interviews, but tell us about Zelensky because he is

almost universally lionized, maybe for a good reason, but maybe not. Like, who really is he and should we be, you know, louding him as a hero? Well, I've likened him to Fauci in the sense that he's a kind of media creation because until recently, Zolensky was actually taking a lot of heat because he had campaigned as an anti-corruption president. But surprise, he ended up being just as corrupt as pretty much all of his predecessors. So, I mean, this was a big deal literally until last year. How was he corrupt? He was like jailing dissidents, basically.

I mean, there's that stuff, but then also just the fact that he's connected to all Ukrainian oligarchs who, in special. specifically one named Ihor Kolomooski. I'll get into that. But the point is that within the last year, an investigative effort culminating in the Pandora papers looked at the secret offshore holdings of more than 300 politicians and public officials across more than 90 nations. And what they found was is that the country that had the greatest number of politicians and public officials hiding these secret holdings somewhere was actually in Ukraine. Number two was actually Russia. So in other words, you have more of this kind of like international financial crime activity that's happening in Ukraine than a lot of other countries. And according to the Pandora papers, again, even more so than Russia, in a certain sense.

And this was actually a huge deal for Ukraine, or specifically Zelensky, because again, he had campaigned as an anti-corruption president. And here he's being outed as basically not much, you know, not being much different from his predecessors, Petro Poroshenko, or Viktor Yenkovich, who was ousted by a U.S. State Department back to color revolution in 2014 for. being, he was characterized as kind of like a pro-Russian puppet. I mean, the economist, I think, accurately described them as more of like a neutralist who kind of milked both sides. But then since him, supposedly Ukraine was like on track for becoming an actual democracy. Yeah.

That's, I mean, that's up for debate. But I think, yeah, if you want to understand Zelensky, you have to look at a particular oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky. So who is Kolomoisky? Wow, this guy is like, he's like a larger than life figure. In some ways, you kind of like admire how Machiavellian he is. But in other ways, when you accept that Kolomoisky is like the real power behind Zelensky, you also accept that Zelensky is not really in control. And so going back to 20, let's see, because we kind of have to go back

almost to 2013, but I think the, a good starting point is this, this, this, this, um, two billion dollar, what do we call it, uh, looting of IMF money that happens in the, the, the mid-2000s. So up until 2016, Kolomoisky was the co-owner, he was the co-founder and then up until 2016, he was the co-owner of, of Privat Bank, one of the biggest banks in Ukraine. In 2016, it was nationalized. And basically, he had taken about $2 billion of emergency IMF aid money and embezzled that, basically stole it through the Prevot Bank and the Prevot group of companies. But the United States looked the other way because Kolomoisky was kind of like he was useful to us in a sense. And specifically, we needed to kind of have oligarchs that we could work with.

And Kolomoisky was one of them. And so I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing a lot here. But basically, in order to get off of, because this guy was so corrupt that the United States actually put him on a visa ban list, right? So how does Kolomoisky get off the visa ban list? Well, he attempts to take control of a Ukrainian company that is in charge of most of the oil pipelines in the country. And this is a direct threat to then Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. And so basically, they come up with a deal to get Kolomoisky off of Poroshenko's back.

part of that deal involves taking basically having Poroshenko work with his friends in the United States specifically a woman named Victoria Nulland who has worked in every administration since Bill Clinton she worked under Bill Clinton under George H.W. Bush she was instrumental she was not George H.W. I'm sorry George W. Bush. She worked under Obama and she's actually working under Biden right now. But so Kolomoisky goes and tells Poroshenko, you know, talk to your allies in the United States and tell them to get me off the visa ban list so I can resume, you know, traveling into the United States and more importantly doing business there. And it actually works. Poroshenko manages to get Kolomoisky off the visa ban list. And Kolomoisky agrees to basically not taking over Ukraine's oil, oil production.

But that's not the end of the story. for Kolomorski, he basically decides that he's going to undermine Poroshenko. So how does he do that? Well, he takes Zelensky, who is, you know, remember he's a comedian, he's an actor, and he creates a show called Servant of the People, and he puts it on his network. And some people are basically characterized. I did not know the background. I mean, I knew he was a comedian and that he played a president in a show, but I didn't know the background. Wow. Yeah, I'm sorry. There's, I'm like trying to. paraphrase. No, that's okay. No, it's really interesting. Yeah, yeah, it is. So,

some people are basically likened this to kind of like campaigning by another name because, because on this show, Zelensky is a kind of like anti-corruption leader of Ukraine. And when he actually took, when he actually ended up becoming president of Ukraine, he basically tried to become the character that he had played in this show that was hosted on a network owned by Kolomoisky. And so when asked a few years ago, basically whether Ukraine could do without, basically, when it emerged that, you know, Ukraine is just as corrupt as it has always been, Kuala Morski was interviewed by the Washington Post and he was asked, like, well, look, do you think that if Zelensky had

to choose between basically you or the IMF, basically, international. aid, who would he go with? Or he said, who do you think would win? Like international aid agencies or you? And Kolomoisky said, I would. I mean, that kind of tells you that, you know, Zelensky, although I think he probably has tried to do some good in Ukraine and has actually tried to advocate to a certain degree anti-corruption stuff.

At the end of the day, he's a creation of Kolomoisky, literally a creation of the media. But all of this has been whitewashed. We haven't discussed it whatsoever because, you know, we seem to have an interest in Ukraine or a wide array of interest in Ukraine. And so now Zelensky is kind of just above reproach. We're not allowed to ask these questions. We're not allowed to look into this vast network of corruption. Kulamoyski also has a controlling stake in Burisma.

I was about to ask, where does Hunter Biden come into all this? Yeah. I know, we don't have to get into all of it, but. No, it's actually incredible because precisely because we don't talk about this. Yeah. So Hunter Biden actually ended up, this relationship between Hunter Biden and Burisma actually started in 20, I think April 2014, right after this U.S. State Department backed coup went into effect in Ukraine. So, I mean, I'm not an expert on the Hunter Biden Burisma story, but basically, it's just kind of, it's actually not unusual at all. Like, this is just how Ukraine is.

Like, it's just tit for tat, Ukrainian oligarchs and Ukrainian business interests doing favors for, basically for DC players. And they get something out of it. And in the case of Kolomorski, he managed to get himself off the visa ban list. But then in 2021, the State Department, Anthony Blinken, actually redesignated him as someone who was banned from entering the United States. Wow. But again, this, again, this is, this is Zelensky's number one backer. And we're not asking any of these questions. Yeah, I mean, you could go crazy trying to, like, connect all the dots and going down all the different rabbit holes.

But I think the color revolution is probably the most. fascinating thing because Ukraine was really kind of ground zero for using social media and NGOs and so-called civil society institutions to affect regime change. I mean, it had happened before we'd seen it in the Arab Spring. But to the degree that it happened to Ukraine, I think, was, I mean, there's a reason it's called the Facebook Revolution and the journalist upright. Right, right. I think a lot of people probably don't know that. That's another conversation for another day. I'm sure we can spend a lot of time talking about that. Something that I want to get your thoughts on. You mentioned Tori Neulen. And she admitted for people who don't know,

I'm sure people did hear about this in exchange with Marco Rubio a couple weeks ago. She admitted that there are bio labs in Ukraine and that it would be bad if Russia had access to those biolabs. But at the same time, we're hearing, well, no, they're nothing. It's insignificant. And yet, if Russia got control of them, it would be a problem. To me, it needs to be one or the other. Tulsi Gabbard. She put a video out saying, look, there are bio labs there. We're funding these bio labs and it's risky research that's going on there. And then Mitt Romney, the ideologue, one that we mentioned earlier, said this is Russian propaganda. But it's actually factually accurate what she says. She said that there are 25 to 30 U.S. funded bio labs in Ukraine, according to the U.S.

government. These biolabs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens. So just what's your take on that? What's the truth about all that? Honestly, I thought that was a conspiracy theory in the beginning. And I was kind of stunned to figure out that there's truth to it. Yeah, no, I mean, there's what we do know. And I really appreciate Tulsi because her bottom line is like, look, there are labs there. It's just indisputable. And the talking point that are only real involvement in these labs has been to basically kind of dismantle like Soviet era systems and kind of like we're not doing any kind of research and development there. Tulsi has just pointed out like, look, that's just not true. Like we've been investing money in research and development in these biolabs in Ukraine.

They're there. We don't necessarily know exactly what's going on. We just know that there are dangerous pathogens in these biolabs that we've invested millions of dollars in R&D there. And that's the extent of what we know, which is why that whole exchange between Victoria Nulland and Marco Rubio was for a lot of people alarming. Because up until that point, basically the line was that, you know, we're not doing any kind of any kind of research there. Like it's just absurd to suggest that we are.

And then you get that interview. And Rubio asks, it was basically a softball question, right? And all she had to say was no, but she didn't. She didn't say that we weren't, you know, experimenting with dangerous stuff there, doing research development with dangerous stuff. She said that there is, and it would be bad if they're, she kind of, it was a beater on the Bush answer, but more importantly, she said it would be bad if the Russians got their hands on it. And then Mark Rubio's follow up is, well, you know, any, you know, the, any,

uh, suggestion that, that, uh, that the United States would do something. like a false flag is just Russian misinformation, right? And then that kind of ended up becoming the talking point for the media. Weird. What an interesting way to ask that question. Yeah. I mean, because it seemed like Rubio was expecting her to just say no and kind of deny it. But then when she didn't, he was like, well, anything to the contrary is Russian misinformation,

right? And I mean, this gets into the question of like, would the United States government ever lie to us? Which is yes. Right. Yeah. So I think that, I mean, the biolab stories is, it's, I mean, it's only alarming in the sense that right now you're hearing again and again that the red line for NATO intervention is the use of chemical weapons. Yeah. That's alarming because we apparently do have things like chemical weapons in Ukraine. Yeah.

It's alarming because it's impossible not to speculate. Like, would basically Ukrainian forces attempt to do something with that stuff and make it seem as if Russia did it in order to get us involved? Like, we've seen examples of this. Right. Well, I mean, we've seen examples of this debate. I mean, this is extremely controversial. There's still tons of debate over it. But, you know, the question of whether or not Assad used chemical weapons in Syria.

You know, on the one hand, you have people that say that he did. And on the other hand, you have people that saying that, like, actually, it was rebels that used chemical weapons and then attempt to, attempted to put it on the Assad regime in order to spark international outrage. And just the fact that that argument exists and that debate is still ongoing should inform what's happening right now in Ukraine. Because, again, it is extremely concerning that we're drawing the red line at chemical weapons when we've established that there are, in fact, chemical weapons in Ukraine.

Right. It's alarming for a number of reasons. The most obvious one is that it would trigger basically World War III. And on the other one, the only thing that you could do in the event that chemical weapons are used in Ukraine and everyone is saying it's Russia, is saying, well, how do we know it was in Ukraine that used them? And then attempted to peg them on Russia, right, to get us involved. that is an extremely difficult position to find yourself in

because then you start sounding like you're just repeating like whatever the Kremlin is saying. But on the other hand, we actually have seen Ukraine lie about things that Russia is doing. Like, for example, on more than one occasion, Zelensky and his officials have claimed that Russia was deliberately trying to blow up nuclear facilities. Not like there's fighting nearby,

this is caused for concern. it was like Zelensky used the term nuclear terrorism and was suggesting that Russia was deliberately trying to destroy nuclear facilities, which is not true. I mean, incredibly, Reuters in the Associated Press actually did on the ground interviews of people at the plant who on the one hand confirmed that there is no imminent, you know, like, yes, this, unfortunately there is fighting going around nuclear facilities, but like it's under control. control, the fires are under control, the facilities are basically safe. And at the same time that you have these officials on the ground saying that, like basically dismissing the idea that Russia is actively trying to detonate like a nuclear power plant or something like that, Zelenskyen officials are saying like Russia is engaging in nuclear terrorism and we need to close the skies over Ukraine right now. Every time that that they can, they've used or played up some event in a,

order to get us involved. And I think that one was actually for, I mean, people have already forgotten about this, but for a while, that was actually the scariest moment that we had. It's a nuclear power plant. I think it's actually the biggest one in Europe. I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of the town that it's in, but that plant became kind of like the rallying point for Zelensky and his officials and for a lot of journalists that like, okay, Russia is trying to blow up the biggest nuclear facility in Europe, we need to close the skies over Ukraine, which would entail shooting down Russian aircraft and destroying Russian anti-air systems on the ground. In other words, a full-scale intervention by NATO bringing the United States into direct conflict

with Russia. That is what Ukraine tried to trick us into doing already. Why wouldn't they do it again with something like chemical weapons? It's not insane to say that we should be extremely. extremely skeptical of anything like this that comes out of Ukraine because they, I mean, it's, it's in their interest to get us involved. In a sense, it's rational to get us involved. It's catastrophic and would get tons of people killed, but it's understandable that they would do that kind of stuff to bring us into the conflict. So that's why. Right. Ukraine seeks its own interest

better than the United States is looking after its own interest. Yes. I mean, for sure, whether we agree with the tactics or not. And maybe we give the Biden administration a little credit. I don't if you agree with this, but I did hear Jinzaki when she was asked by a journalist, like, why don't we do a no-fly zone? I honestly think a lot of people don't know what a no-fly zone entails. There's this very popular Instagram influencer who says that she's unbiased, but she definitely leans to the left and so does her audience. She asked people, you know, what do you think we should do in Ukraine? Almost every comment said, no-fly zone. We need to go in there. We need to intervene. I don't think people even understand the level of casualties that we would have in what that

actually means. But anyway, back to the Biden administration, Jinzaki said that. She said, look, we're basically declaring war if we do a no-fly zone. And they haven't intervened as much as Republicans and Democrats have asked them to, as much as the media has asked them to. Do you think they'll hold the line on that? I, this is, this is what work gets. Again, this is one of the things that you can go crazy thinking about. But I think Biden personally is kind of doveish. And he doesn't, He actually think he's genuinely afraid of a full-scale confrontation with Russia. Which is good. That's one of the most, like, sanest thoughts that he probably has. Yes. It's one of the only redeeming qualities of Biden is that I think he's deeply afraid of an actual U.S.-led war against Russia.

For good reason, Russia's only real recourse, if that happens, is the use of its tactical nuclear arsenal, which, again, I think is something that a lot of Americans and Westerners don't understand. They think of like these massive ICBMs that are just so destructive that people don't use them precisely because of the concept of mutually assured destruction, right? But then there are these lower yield nuclear weapons that are designed to like take out smaller targets. I mean, they're still extremely destructive, but they're not like doomsday level destructive, right? And Russia has a massive arsenal of these tactical nuclear weapons that it would use if, faced with, I mean, they've already said, if faced with an existential threat, we will use our nuclear arsenal. They have more of them than we do in Europe.

And they've made it clear. And it makes sense from Russia's perspective. How else will they handle a unified NATO led by the United States going to war with them by itself? Nukes. And that is being totally omitted from the discussion. I mean, you have some people that are actually honest and they're saying, well, it's worth it. Like Madeline Albright moment, right? It's worth nuclear wars worth democracy in Ukraine.

There won't be anybody left alive in Ukraine, but there'll be democracy there. The smoldering ruins of democracy. So I think Biden is doveish, which I'm grateful for. But I think there are also people in the administration like Victoria who are extremely interventionist. And are, I mean, these people, it's important. understand that these people like Noland were instrumental and kind of taking the Obama administration and pushing it more in a liberal internationalist direction. You know, there's debate over whether or not Obama would have done certain things on the

foreign policy level were not for the fact that you had people like Victoria Noland working for him, who kind of hijacked his policy or nudged it in a certain direction. I mean, these people really are determined to get what they want, regardless of who the president is. I mean, that's actually a really useful way of looking at this. Like, again, Nolan has been, she served under Clinton, she served under W, she served under Obama, she served under Biden. All of these presidents and all these administrations have gone, but she and her friends have remained, and they have been really effective at getting their way, regardless of who's president, Republican or Democrat. And that's the really terrifying thing is just in the same way that Zelensky is not fully in control, I think you could argue that Biden is not fully in control.

And that although he might actually be a, you know, thank God a restraining force, there are people within his administration who absolutely want to take us in the direction of war. And I don't think Biden, I mean, if Obama couldn't overcome these people, I think Biden's chances of doing it are not great, which is why in a really, basically, like, the best possible outcome is that Putin and Zelensky actually come to an agreement and end up partitioning Ukraine, basically like the eastern parts of Ukraine end up becoming part of Russia,

and then the western parts end up just, you know, actually just remain part of, or remain, as Ukraine. I think that would actually be probably the best possible outcome and the only way to avoid because the longer this conflict drags on, the more likely our intervention becomes.

Yeah, and they're just scary implications. Scary implications for that for sure. Well, I appreciate your insight so much. Thanks for having the courage to ask a lot of the questions that people won't ask. I think it's a good reminder. I like this conversation because it's a reminder that this isn't essentially a left

versus right thing. It's really not. It's about people who are seeking American interests and people who may possibly have interests beyond and outside of the United States. And I just appreciate how you are always interested in putting America first. So thanks for that.

And thanks for coming on. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the platform. And I'm sorry, I couldn't go more into detail, but there's just like you could do, you could write a like a mini series on this stuff. And maybe you should. Maybe you should. Maybe that's your next project. Okay, thank you so much, Pedro. Thank you.

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.