The Dispatch Podcast - Russia Starts a War

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Right before recording today’s episode started, news broke that President Joe Biden is nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Our hosts take a quick look at that and what it means for SCOTUS. Then the conversation moved to the dire situation in Ukraine. David cautioned against believing all of the information we receive in the fog of war and the group discusses how many people on the right have flip-flopped on Putin. Tune in, too, for a preview of next week’s State of the Union address.   Show Notes: -Ketanji Brown Jackson nominated to the Supreme Court -Sen. Graham on KBJ nomination -Ukrainian woman gives Russian soldier sunflower seeds -Snake Island audio -J.D. Vance’s latest statement on Ukraine -Garry Kasparov on Twitter -Mr. President, It’s Time for a Little Humility | NYT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by David French, Jonah Goldberg, and Steve Hayes. We will start with the latest news about the Supreme Court, President Biden, choosing to nominate Judge Katanji Brown, Jackson of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. And then, of course, we have plenty to talk about with Ukraine. Let's dive right in. David, I'm going to start with you. The front runner going to front run. Judge Jackson picked to replace Justice Breyer. She is a former Breyer clerk.

51 years old, she has served as an assistant federal public defender, commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the D.C. District Court, the D.C. Circuit Court. She will be the first African American woman in the history of the United States Supreme Court. We know that. But what you may not know, she will also be the first justice since Thurgood Marshall with criminal defense experience and only one of two sitting justices who never served as a prosecutor or other courtroom advocate for the government. She's 51 years old. And David, she had three Republican votes just a few months ago when she was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit, will they get Republican votes at her confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court?

Well, Lindsey Graham already has indicated that he's upset, and he was one of the three Republican votes when she was first confirmed. So that's some doubt. Lindsay Graham tweeted 12 minutes ago, if media reports are accurate and Judge Jackson has been chosen as the Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Breyer, it means the radical left has won President Biden over yet again, the attacks by the left on Judge Childs from South Carolina apparently worked. So, should we put him down as a maybe, Sarah? Well, what's interesting about that is there were three, you know, finalists, so to speak, Judge Jackson, Judge Childs, and Judge Kruger. And look, people tried to make distinctions on who was more progressive, who was less progressive,

who would get Republican votes. I'm not sure it was nearly that cut and dry, you know, reading some of Judge Jackson's opinions when she was a trial court judge, listening to some of her speeches. Judge Childs, though, in South Carolina was attacked for being too close to, you know, defense side work on employment cases. Judge Kruger was attacked for siding with conservative justices on the California Supreme Court. This didn't fall along those normal lines.

Right, right. It didn't. And, you know, but I will note, Sarah, that you said from the beginning, I asked you is Judge Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett level favorite? And you said more than that. So you called it right from the beginning. You know, I got to say this is, it's an important moment. But it's also in some ways it feels like one of the more least, one of the least consequential Supreme Court nominations and fight. in living memory because the ideological balance of the court is not at stake. The filibuster is gone. There's no indication that Judge Jackson has the slightest hint of scandal at all in her past. She completely fits sort of the career and qualifications profile for a Supreme Court justice. This could be one of the least sort of interesting newsworthy. confirmation fights we've seen in a really long time.

I think the big question that she will get asked even before we go into the hearings, she was on the Harvard Board of Overseers for the last five years throughout the litigation involving Harvard's admissions policy, race-based preferences, that the court will hear this fall. I expect them to put out a statement, probably next week even, about her recusing herself from that case.

I expect that she will recuse herself. You know, is the Harvard Board of Overseers, you know, litigating that case? No. But I'll bet they discussed it. They were there for discovery. I mean, just a whole bunch of sort of inside baseball that she would have potentially been privy to. And even if she wasn't, at the Supreme Court, it's also supposed to be appearance of bias or non-impartiality. So that's sort of the first hurdle that I think they'll need to overcome. It's a really low one. It's like three inches off the ground. I expect them to clear it, but you never know. Steve, you know, this is not going to get a lot of news. Even cables this morning, not covering it much. Is that good news for the nominee or is it bad news? Yeah, I mean, I think I agree generally with you and David. The one thing I would say relates to Lindsay Graham's statement today. I mean, if you look at what he's saying there, I think he will be used as someone

behind whom other Republicans can come and make their arguments. And if he is within, you know, an hour or so of the confirmation that she is the nominee making arguments that she's, you know, a tool of the radical left and that she represents that Joe Biden has been captured by the radical left, I think you can expect lots of those kinds of arguments from other Republicans. I think you're right that it won't be as controversial or as heated as other hearings for the reasons you suggest, for the numbers. And I think it's also the case that Mitch McCall and others, while they want to highlight Joe Biden's record and they're eager to have the midterms next fall be a referendum on Biden. Biden and his presidency. I don't think they want this to be a big part of that debate.

Jonah, will we be ever talking about this again? Or is this just going to move forward and we'll have another justice on the Supreme Court? And we'll be like, oh, yeah. Remember that? I think we'll be talking about it again, in part because you and David will make us. But, um, true. Um, uh, I think, you know, look, I mean, under normal, under normal, under normal circumstances, this seems like a sort of an obvious one for Republicans to let go over the plate without much opposition, right? They've got bigger fish to fry. They've got midterms coming up. They want to be attractive to the suburban voters and really roughing up an African American woman who seems qualified is just not the best look. But that's, I'm using the

the earth logic from the old earth and the parallel timeline and the new logic of politics is it benefits you somehow politically to be clown yourself and be a jackass so it is entirely possible that some senators will be clowning themselves and being jackasses about this um and that alone may be the contrary may be the reason why we talk about this again is is there Republicans may set up a opportunity for the media to go into righteous Republicans pounce mode that will become a controversy about the non-controversy. But, yeah, except for the Harvard Overseers thing, I can't think of a reason why it becomes a big debating thing

without getting more facts about what we don't know about it already. I mean, unless Republicans think that they're on the winning side of the affirmative action issue, that that will somehow annoy win-over voters if they emphasize not about her, sort of what we actually saw with Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor. They tried to make it not about their records in particular, but sort of these larger problems. And in this case, the larger problem isn't, of course, you are very qualified, Judge Jackson,

but you weren't picked from everyone who was qualified, were you, et cetera, et cetera, as that line would go in the confirmation hearing. I do have one, and I'm not willing to say I fully endorse this theory, but it's a trial balloon theory about Lindsay Graham saying what he said, is, and I don't know this, but I assume he is going to speak at CPAC this weekend, and he may not have wanted to go to CPAC without having said something strident about how the left is destroying everybody, because if he had come out of the block saying something nice about her, you know, he may have to go to the Mike Lindelman. stage instead of the main stage. Well, you mean he would be rejected in favor of more conservative voices like Tulsi Gabbard? Exactly. Yes. He voted to confirm her 257 days ago.

Like, it just wasn't that long. Lots changed, Sarah. Has it? Has a lot changed? Well, 257 days ago is in units of grams, and I mean Lindsay Graham's. is time for at least 312 changes of heart in position. So who knows? So I don't think, I don't think Lindsey Graham is speaking at CPAC this weekend. There goes my theory.

I thought it was a pretty good theory. Steve, the White House went ahead with announcing this nomination, despite what's going on in Ukraine? A, you know, politically what do you think was the motivation behind that? And B, is this like, nope, we are going to continue business as usual. Vladimir Putin doesn't get to delay my SCOTUS nomination? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, look, realistically, the president's going to want to move forward on this and he's going to want to make this announcement and probably should.

You know, if he did it, whether he does it today or next week or the week after, there's still going to be a hot war taking place in Ukraine. So I don't think there was likely to be an opportunity, you know, a pause in the fighting where it would have made this better. Having said that, I do think the effect, when you combine it with the massive gap, in my view, on the alarmist way in which the Biden White House is talking about what's taking place in Ukraine with respect to Russia and their willingness to implement punishments that match their rhetoric, I do think. this exacerbates that problem. You know, you're hearing from the Biden administration from the president himself that what we're seeing on the ground in Ukraine means that Vladimir Putin wants to reconstitute Russia, that it could mean the end of the post-World War II rules-based order, that it is as significant as anything we've seen, you know, in most of the last century. And yet, there is sort of a business as usual message that comes from this.

I don't think it's a huge deal. I think realistically, you've got to go forward with something like this. This isn't something he'd done his interviews. It was a narrow field. I mean, when we first talked about the opening, it seemed pretty clear that he would likely be choosing between, three or four candidates. He, we know that she had been interviewed before for these vacancies. She is the safe pick. So in that sense, I think it makes sense for them to just go ahead. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how

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They sound far too high to me, David. You know, how much of this information that we're getting in real time due to social media, you know, but also due to the fact that we know that Russia uses disinformation And then there's an incentive to use disinformation against them as well, because obviously Russians will be seeing and hearing these numbers, not knowing what the true number is, and maybe not believing their own government's numbers. You know, how are we supposed to dig through anything that we're reading? Yeah, that's a really, really good and vital question.

And the answer is you literally cannot believe much of anything entirely right now. The casualty numbers announced by Ukraine of Russian casualties, if true, would already put Russia as suffering almost as many casualties killed in action as we suffered during the entire Iraq war from start to finish. Now, this is a different kind of attack. This is force-on-force to conventional militaries slugging it out, so you would expect some high casualties. but those are very high casualty numbers. How does Ukraine have the capacity to count them while they're in the middle of a fight for their very existence?

Yesterday on Twitter, I saw it blew up with the story of this MiG-29 pilot called the Ghost of Kiev who had shot down six Russian jets in one day. All of this is complete fog of war right now. You cannot trust anything that comes. out of the Russians. The Ukrainians are fighting for their very lives, falling back towards their capital. This is not a situation like Americans are used to when following and tracking

America's conflicts, for example, overseas, where even then it's been hard enough to find out what's going on. The way in which the U.S. military deliberately tries to keep its embedded reporters in the loop, the way it does comprehensive briefings, it's just alien to this kind of conflict. And I think the UK Ministry of Defense, who I've been following as a pretty good source, said it pretty well recently. It's very difficult to determine what exactly is happening on the ground. And so I would say, pay no attention to these nine second TikTok videos of helicopters flying overhead and there's explosions in Kiev. Well, of course, there's a war going on.

Look at the big landmarks. Who is controlling the big landmarks? And then over time, the actual information will start to filter out. And the best short version I've heard of the conflict so far is that Russia has not quite accomplished what it wanted to accomplish in the first couple of days. Does that mean that Russia's on the ropes? By no means, this is a fog of war situation, probably unlike anything Americans have encountered

in a generation of a consequential conflict trying to figure out what's going on. So, Steve, let's talk about a little bit about what we do know, President Zelensky staying in the country. I'm curious what you think are the options at this point, As in, does President Zelensky, will he survive this in any of the scenarios left? Sure. I think it's possible that he literally physically survives this in some of the scenarios left.

The question is about his government, and I think there are reasons to be very concerned that it will not. You have Vladimir Putin speaking earlier today, urging the Ukrainian military to take control so that they can effectively just pass the country off to Russia. You know, I think the way that Zelensky has handled himself so far has been magnificent and in some ways inspirational. The speech that he gave, if you go back and you look at the speech that he gave in Russian, addressing the Russian people about this situation, you know, just hours before we saw

the first action hours before Vladimir Putin spoke and said that he would be launching the invasion was, I thought, really smart, really clever and in its own way very powerful. I think his defiance, he's no doubt aware of this. I think he wants his defiance to be the defiance that is adopted by the Ukrainian people. And he is saying, in effect, no way, we are going to be independent. We're sticking here. This is improper. I am going to stay with you the entire time. You can expect to continue to hear from me. Even though I know that I am the number one target for this massive military force that's invading our country, I am staying and I'm going to be strong. We've seen similar acts of defiance. Some of them take outsized roles, I think, because

we're getting, you know, real-time video and real-time reporting from the battlefield, as it were. I mean, the battlefield is the streets of Kiev, the streets of a variety of other cities across the country. You know, we're seeing these stories. Now, of course, it's in the interest of the Ukrainians to push these stories in some ways to exaggerate them. And as David says, you know, we'll learn a lot more about exactly what's true. But in some cases, this could be a perception creates reality moment when you have the story. And in one case, the image of this old woman walking up to the Russian soldier and saying, you know, go eff yourself. Here are some sunflower seeds so that when you die, the sunflowers will grow from your dead body because we will bury you. And that's

Base, not cringe, as far as I'm concerned. That's a lot, man, from Grandma. Wow. Babushka. It was great. Look, it was a great moment. It was a great moment. There's a video of her that apparently she takes.

There's a video that somebody takes from a little bit further. And now there's a whole transcript of the conversation that we linked in in the morning dispatch today. And it is this just, it is this moment where you just think, she's going up to the sky. He could, he could shoot her dead. On site. And she's, you know, giving him the what-for, as we might have said 50 years ago. But there's also, you know, this story from Snake Island where the Russian ship comes up and says, you know, surrender. We don't want bloodshed. And they wait a second. They decide also to say, go F yourselves. And then they're all killed. You know, 13 soldiers are killed. There is this sort of defiance. You don't want to overstate it. I mean, this is, is a massive invading force. Russia, I think, will likely have its way, as David suggests. But there are, I think, in these acts of defiance, something about the way that this is likely to go

where it's probably never going to be easy. I mean, Ukraine has known this was coming, I think, for a long time, despite Zelensky's efforts to downplay it in the weeks before. And you've had them preparing. And I think they'll, they'll continue to give the Russians a difficult time. You know, it's funny. I'm not... These are matters of morale. I'm not a deeply superstitious person, but two great movies, 13 days of glory about the Alamo, 13 hours about the attack on Benghazi. And then these 13 people on Snake Island, all of those stories end tragically. But there's stories, as you say, David, that we tell as part of, of who we think we are.

And at this point, the Ukrainians as well, Jonah, you know, on the right, or parts of the right, there's a different reaction to some of this. It's not, I don't think it's as pure pro-Pooten. I hope he takes Ukraine as I think gets portrayed sometimes on Twitter. But I'm hoping you can explain a little bit about where different parts of conservatism, right-wing are at this point, and why? Sure. And first of all, let me just say, because I will not have the opportunity to use this word again for a long time on this bow jazz. Your Triske-decaphelia is really impressive,

which is, of course, love of the number 13. That's right. So, not to be confused with Triscadeca phobia, which is fear of the number 13. So, yeah, so I agree that there's, there's very, it's interesting to me because there are rich and serious arguments in American history that get called isolationist. Sometimes that's an unfair label. And as it's a point I've been making a long time about Trump that, you know, the isolation. which is the label we use for America first of the 1930s and 1940s is not the isolationism of Donald Trump. That isolationism, which has a rich pedigree going back to, you know, George Washington's farewell address and Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams and all this don't

seeking go around the world seeking monsters to destroy is based on this idea that America's so friggin awesome that we shouldn't sully it by getting involved in the muck of the old world or are from with stuff outside of our borders. That's their concern. We are the shining shining city on the hill. Let us be an example. And because we're just great. The modern America first stuff is almost the opposite of that.

Is that we shouldn't bother doing anything abroad because we suck so bad here at home. We're decadent. We're backward. We have no right to judge. As Trump once said, we kill people too when defending, you know, Putin. And so you see a bunch of people who are taking this sort of knee-jerk isolationist.

You know, again, I don't like using the term because I understand that it's a much more complicated term, but for conversational purposes it works, taking this sort of an isolationist position, sort of like in the Seinfeld where he wants to return the coat for spite. I mean, it's just, it's not, like, there aren't serious arguments. I mean, when Tucker Carlson goes on TV and says, why do people hate Putin? He didn't call me a racist. That's not a grown-up person's argument. I mean, like, Hitler didn't call me a racist either.

I mean, like, who cares about that? And it's, there's a domestic myopia that says Putin is, represents forces of strength, manliness. he doesn't like almost sexuality and those are my issues here so and and Biden is president and he's standing he's trying to stand up to Putin so it is in my partisan interest and also my sort of culture war partisan interest to take the other side and that's why I think it's so shallow now there are serious people who are pro Putin and all that kind of stuff but they're not the ones that are kind of informing the debate instead it's this very skin-deep, sort of, you know, we should hate and fear the, you know, the warlord in the

north, Justin Trudeau, more than we should fear the paragon of white, you know, privilege, you know, Vladimir Putin or whatever. And it's just, it's, it's hard to take seriously. And I think that's in part, so you're asking to explain these different aspects of the right. The people who are most invested in this stuff are the people who are hard to take seriously on other things on the right, because it is all so much performative stuff. And it's interesting how many people who thought that this is what the base wanted are realizing, oh my gosh, I got up on the wrong horse on this stuff. So, you know, J.D. Vance, who said, you know, frankly, I couldn't care what happens to Ukraine

one way or the other, to Steve Bannon, you know, the other week, or six days ago, whatever it was, is now trying to sound all hawkish about Putin, Josh Hawley. who took a similar sort of view, is getting hawkish on Putin. Fortunately for Ted Cruz, he was already hawkish on Putin. But it turns out that Americans don't like when backward thinking

19th century style imperialists cruelly and viciously wage war on a neighboring country and they justify it through a bunch of lies. And so even the people who, you know, are less hawkish, the polling is pretty clear. They don't like what Putin's doing

and they don't like people defending it. And so I don't have, I mean, I'd love to argue about isolationism, all the kind of stuff. I just don't, there's just not a lot of worthy people to argue with about. I think that's the most notable thing. I mean, you point out the most notable thing. That's a dramatic, dramatic shift from where Josh Hawley was on Putin, on Russia, on this whole campaign, from where J.D. Vance was. I mean, he reversed his position.

You know, as you point out, Jonah, he said, I don't care about any of this. I don't care at all what happens in Ukraine. And five days later, he puts out this lengthy statement, as John McCormick from National Review highlighted, talking about just how much he really does care about what's happening in Ukraine. That is a dramatic reversal. And I think there are a number of things that explain it. But the most interesting takeaway is Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are out on a limb. And nobody wants to be out there with them unless they're sort of a long shot congressional candidate who is, desperately seeking Trump's endorsement and thinks by being pro-Pooten, he can get it. But, you know,

Mike Pompeo, who said less than a week ago, how much you respects Vladimir Putin, how clever he thinks Vladimir Putin is, has since come out with very strong anti-Pootman, tough guy statements. I don't think there's any constituents there. And I think part of the reason, and Joan and I were talking about this offline, I mean, I think this has to be a real concern for Fox News. And I don't want to get off on a digression about Fox and Tucker and something that's actually much more serious about that. But it's worth at least pausing for a moment to say, it's one thing to be pro-Pooten in theory when nothing's happened. It's dumb enough, right? It's like the stuff that Tucker has been saying where he literally has been saying, I'm on the side of Vladimir Putin, I'm on

the side of Russia, is idiotic and indefensible. And it is, as Jonas is sort of this juvenile attention getting thing. And I think the tell is that he constantly puts down anyone who disagrees with him on this as juvenile. I think he sort of understands how juvenile it is. But it's

one thing to be pro Putin in Tucker's sign of kind of, you know, I can take any indefensible position and make it defensible contrarianism. It's another thing when you are backing an authoritarian who

killing people on a daily basis and where we're going to see the video of him killing people on a daily basis. That is not sustainable. I don't know how Tucker gets, I think he's painted himself into a corner. I don't know how he gets out of it. I don't have, won't surprise anybody. I don't have a ton of confidence that the suits at Fox are going to tell him he should do the right thing because they've not done that before. But the difference between what Tucker did on January 6th and what he's doing on this is January 6th was one day. And he took the better. part of a year to just invent a new narrative about it and tell a bunch

of stories about it. This is happening. It's happening before us and it has major consequences on a daily basis. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. All right, Jonah. But I want to keep pulling this apart, but I actually want to read what J.D. Vance said because it was sort of characterized

and I think it's helpful. So J.D. Vance had originally said, I think it's ridiculous that we are focused on this border in Ukraine. I got to be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. He's an Ohio Senate candidate running on the Republican side. Trump is not endorsed in that field yet. It's part of the reason why it's kind of an interesting field, frankly. So this is the statement he put out then after the invasion. It's long, so I'm just going to read a few parts of it.

Russia's assault on Ukraine is unquestionably a tragedy, especially for the innocent people caught in the crossfire. It's also a stark reminder of our own failed leadership. For decades, elites pursued a policy of isolating Russia, which has only had the effect of driving Putin directly into the arms of the Chinese communists. We wouldn't be watching the tragedy we're witnessing today if Russia didn't have Beijing's backing. We've spent $6 billion on a failed Ukraine army. They talk about the nuclear weapons arsenal, David, from the 90s that we'll discuss. Trump deserves an incredible amount of credit for the strength and diplomatic engagement that kept Putin in check. And Biden an equal amount of blame for his lack of leadership.

Our energy independence gave us leverage. Biden squandered it. Putin is an evil man, but the foreign policy establishment that led Ukraine directly into the slaughterhouse deserves nothing but scorn. So, David, there's a few things here. And, you know, I think one of the arguments on the, it's not even necessarily the right, actually, but one of the arguments that deserve serious consideration is, do you take your eye off the ball now?

and focus on Ukraine and Russia, or do you stay on China? And that's what I'm hearing from a lot of, you know, what the argument really is at the Pentagon right now, for instance, is how much do you pull resources, energy off China? And to some extent, that is what J.D. Vance is saying that, in fact, the whole policy for the last decade or more should have been focused on China, but instead you focus on isolating Russia, that drives them to China, and then you've actually strengthened China. So I want to make sure that we respond to like what some of the actual arguments are. Yeah. Well, a couple of things. You know, we used to, the military used to have a what was called a two-war strategy that it could fight two major war simultaneously. And then it essentially

turned into sort of like a war plus strategy where it could fight and win one war and then could hold the other in place until it could shift resources. I think if you look at it from a pure let's just look at it from a pure military standpoint. From a pure military standpoint, I think the argument

that we have, we don't have the resources to deal with both of these powers in a way that can protect our allies, I think is false. I think from a pure military standpoint, we have the ability to deal with both of these powers in a way that protects our allies.

From a focus standpoint, I mean, look, okay, you have an actual invasion of the largest European country, the largest country that's entirely in Europe. It's an actual invasion. Armored columns are heading towards a European capital. Of course, we're going to focus on that. But to say that then, does that mean the U.S. Pacific Fleet

is taking its eye off the ball? I mean, this is a hyper simplistic kind of political posturing that is really kind of taking J.D. Vance and trying to dig himself out of a whole without abandoning everything that he said and everywhere he's been on this issue. So, look, are we focused on Ukraine right now? Heck, yeah, we are. Does that mean that there are not a ton of Americans who are right now watching China like a hawk also? Heck, yes, there are. So we have the ability to multitask. Now, going forward... Yeah, but David, just real quick, I think the point isn't that we couldn't fight a war or military strength, but rather that our approach to Russia has actually strengthened the Chinese, not from a military standpoint, although perhaps that also. The argument is that it has strengthened China from a empire hegemony standpoint. So which is... Wait a second. Just to be clear about this. When were we so

hostile to Russia? Was it when George W. Bush said that he could see into Vladimir Putin's soul and there was a good man and they shared warm words after September 11th? Was it during the Russian reset in the Obama administration when we gave concession after concession after concession? Look, the problem was it when Trump abandoned northern Syria? I mean, Trump is saying friendly things, saying publicly that he believes Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence agencies. I don't have any problem, even though this is a nakedly political argument to get J.D. Vance out of a horrible spot that his own undiscipline has put him in. I don't have any problem addressing arguments like that on their substance. This is not a serious substantive argument.

It's total nonsense, what he's saying, and he's hoping nobody will call him on it. It's complete nonsense. Think about the backflips that the foreign policy establishment has done in order to, you know, After the invasion, as the invasion of Crimea was happening, as the Russians were taking over Crimea, you had John Kerry and other senior Obama administration officials saying that we would give diplomatic off-ramps to Vladimir Putin. We've done nothing but send love notes to Vladimir Putin for two decades. It's absurd argument. So I just two things.

Okay. Go ahead, Jonah. Yeah. So like, first of all, just the point of one, want to make earlier, which I think is applicable to this, the bad faith of a lot of these pro-Putin or anti-anti-Putin arguments is best demonstrated, which David did really, really well in a newsletter last week, about how they have to rely on the straw man argument that if you are in favor of a hostile posture towards Putin, that means you want to send troops into Ukraine and

that's what you're proposing, right? And you see that always. You see that always. over the place. And no one, as of yet, I've yet to see anybody with maybe the accession of Alexander Vindman make anything like that argument. And, but I normally hate these kinds of accusations where you sort of use the language of identity politics and fragile masculinity to explain things. But, you know, Tucker has this line where he says that the reason why Democrats are against Putin because they want to see him fail, right? And that the West is against Putin because he stands for traditional values and all these kinds of things. They've made him, he's sort of like the replacement cultural war avatar during the Biden presidency that Trump once was.

And they want to make him as somehow some more of a victim of the international order when, as Steve beat me the saying, the international order, particularly the United States, has been clamoring to welcome Russia into the community of nations for 30 years. The internet, one of the reasons why the internationalists and the globalists and the, all the guys you see on Morning Joe most mornings cannot get their heads around what Putin is doing is because this isn't supposed to be happening anymore. This, the 19th century wars of imperial aggression are supposed to be from yesteryear. Like John Kerry in this interview where he said, you know, the real tragedy, he essentially said the real tragedy of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that's taking the eye off the ball of climate change said, I didn't think people thought this way anymore. Well, that's not a criticism of Putin.

That's a criticism of Kerry. You know, he was the Secretary of State. He should have known that Putin thought this way when he was Secretary of State. The only person I'm aware of this sort of elite foreign policy establishment that is that the pro-Putin people hate who actually wanted to contain Russia in any sort of public-facing way other than John McCain was Mitt Romney in 2012 when he said, you know, 1980, when he, when Obama says the 1980s called and wants its foreign policy back, and the entire American foreign policy establishment, at least among Democrats, loved that line, thought it was hilarious and brilliant and on point. And the idea that I don't, I honestly have no clue what J.D. Vance is talking about because I don't think he's making it up. Yeah, he's making it up.

Okay. So David. So, David, there are plenty of smart people who think that we should not put any more resources into Europe right now, physically or money, that Ukraine is what it is. Wait, see what happens now, and not remove resources necessarily. Just look, the die has been cast here. At this point now, the world has just become a much more dangerous place. We underestimated Putin, what he was going to do, at least. And so now the last thing you want to do is move more into this, because what could happen next? Right. I mean, I think it's unlikely that Putin immediately moves on Poland, but in six years he could or China could do something. And so at this point, husband your resources, we're going to be asking Americans to make sacrifices. Gas prices are going to go up.

And when gas prices go up, everything else goes up. We were already dealing with inflation and that you need to be honest with the American people of what happens now. And what happens now is sort of a pre-reward. war situation. And I think some of the complaint then that you see from the right is about sort of the lack of honesty about that, that, you know, we're not going to put troops over there, but we're not going to mention gas, and we're not going to increase fracking, and we're not going to move to nuclear. And we're going to pretend, like, food prices aren't going to go up. And that, in fact, Americans want to or are willing to have a sense of patriotism. They don't want to be treated like their only cares are material and comfort. Look at the Ukrainian people

right now and the solidarity that at least we're seeing through what's being reported. A sense of purpose is important. So give Americans a sense of purpose. Okay. There's a lot there that you have to pull on multiple threads. Number one, do we need to husband our resources? We have presently resources that the American American military is very large. We have huge, powerful combat commands in the continental United States. Enormous striking power. But you're not saying that we should have like combat forces. You got to let me finish. Okay. So you have enormously lethal and capable formations in the United States. A removing a brigade combat team or two or three that does a couple of things. It reassure.

our allies in Eastern Europe, that we are there for them. It's a tangible demonstration of our capability and our power. And the Russian military knows the capability and power of an American brigade combat team. Do the same thing with a French brigade, with a British brigade. And what you're doing is you're not creating an offensive military force, but you're creating a tangible defensive military force that doesn't even, it's not even a rounding error on our resource allocation to move a brigade into Eastern Europe. It's not even a rounding error. So husbanding our resources is not even the calculation there.

The calculation is what is a tangible way that we can demonstrate to our Eastern European allies when there's an aggressive power right beside them that we are committed to our NATO obligations? And that's not a huge ask. It's not a heavy lift for the United States of America. And the second thing, I think, where I think this could potentially backfire on Putin is, I think the underlying a lot, and also China, I think underlying a lot of our debate prior to the attack on Ukraine was a sense that this can't really happen, that this is a lot of fearmongering, that this is the U.S. intelligence agencies going bonkers. They're completely wrong. This is not the way, you know, you're trying to distract from things that are here at home.

And I think when Putin went in, it changed the calculus and our approach to foreign policy in a tangible way in the sense that getting Americans to focus on foreign policy now and to think about it, which, as you know, Sarah almost never happens, and also getting the political establishment to reorient a bit of their attention towards foreign policy, I think we're going to actually end up being more intentional and strategic towards China. we're going to end up being more intentional and strategic towards Russia because we now know that this, the idea of aggressive great power warfare is not just theoretical anymore. It's not just an idea that just might happen where some scaremongers are out there.

I think this is a refocusing moment for us and it's an opportunity for real leadership. I mean, you know, that's a, you know, that's the $64,000 question is who can't step forward for real leadership. But number one, the idea that we don't have the resources to present a tangible defensive front in Eastern Europe is total fiction. And number two, I think this has a great opportunity. This is a better opportunity for a refocusing moment two hours after Kiev was bombed than it was two hours before Kiev was bombed. It could be a reset. Just one point on that, that you left out, though, David, that is important. And the Vancey and Pracey that Sarah read is this thing about, you know, not taking our eye off China and that's where the real threat is.

I'm fine with believing that in terms of, like, national security. China is the longer term, bigger threat to us. Fine. The best way we can defend Taiwan right now is making sure that Putin's seizure of Ukraine fails. And just the demonstration effect of that and the world just, beaten the dickens out of Russia for doing this would be the best thing possible for making sure that China doesn't try to do something similar. Steve, it's really striking to me that this is happening right as we lose the very end of

the greatest generation and how strange it must be for them to have fought for that piece in Europe and the world when they were so young in a war that was so brutal and in their final moments to watch that piece evaporate. And obviously, it's not just for them. It's for us. It's for those of us who part of our identity is, you know, my son is named after his great uncle who died at Iwo Jima. His GI Bill then provided the money that, you know, allowed his little brother to go to medical school that when then my grandfather died, allowed him to support our family. Like, there's so much that's tied to the sacrifices that they made. But they know and we know that in the coming, I mean, months, not even really years at this point, that there's no one left who remembers

what that was like firsthand. And now we're diving back into it. And so just in our last round on Ukraine, before we moved to State of the Union preview, what does that mean for Americans? Yeah, that's a really important question. I've gotten, as this has happened, as this has been in the news over the past week, I've gotten a lot of calls and emails, texts from people who don't follow this stuff on a day-to-day basis aren't as interested in, you know, their questions are, boy, this seems scary. Is this a big deal or isn't this a big deal?

I don't pay attention to Ukraine typically. And I think one of the hardest things to convey in our discussions about this is whatever he calls the post-World War II rules-based order that we created, the United States created with allies, that has had, as a primary beneficiary, the United States and its people, and democratic countries, I would say, around the world, liberal countries around the world. it didn't get didn't happen by accident and it doesn't it's it's not permanent its continuance is not inevitable it takes work this is the work that it takes right now and i think because we we have so few people who have seen the kind of sacrifice that you're describing sarah it becomes harder and harder to convey that to them, that this is not inevitable, that if Vladimir Putin is allowed to sort of run through Ukraine. And I don't, by the way, think it's crazy to think that he's got his eye on Poland or other places next. I mean, you know, to finish by going back

to the J.D. Vance argument for just a moment. First of all, it's a gross over simplification. say that the foreign policy elite all have the same view. They don't. There are lots of views. I mean, I think we talked about this before. Anybody who's covered, say, the State Department or the Intelligence Community or the Pentagon or a White House, there are vastly different views in all of those bureaucracies in our foreign policy and national security establishment writ large. But if there has been a mistake, as we pointed out earlier, I think it's been the inclination not to see the world as it is, but to see the world as they want it to be, which is what leads to somebody like John Kerry saying, boy, I hope Vladimir Putin helps us on climate, you know, the day

before he rolls through Ukraine with his tanks. I mean, it's a silly moment, but it also tells us something bigger that that would even occur to John Kerry to say in that moment. There was a similar comment from Michael McFaul, who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama's smart guy, very well respected, said earlier this week something about how Putin has a diplomatic off-ramp. It's not the exact phrase. And you just think, do you not see what they're actually doing? And, you know, the person who I think has been best about this is Gary Kasparov, who was written for the dispatch and said a couple days ago sort of out of frustration said okay after years of warnings were ignored and hearing Gary you were right all damn day today this was

the day that the invasion started I'll repeat what I said in 2014 stop telling me I was right and listen to what I'm saying now which is which is right and what he's saying now okay Cassandra. What he's saying now is this is who Putin is. This is what Putin does. And we should expect more of it. And I think that's the sort of reality that to the extent that you want to criticize the foreign policy blob, as I think Vance called it, of getting wrong, you know, it got it wrong in the wrong direction. And Gary Kasparov is right. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca. slash Y Annex. Okay, let's do a little State of the Union preview. It's coming on Tuesday. You know, I think President Biden had a tall enough order a month ago.

in terms of what he needed to accomplish in the state of the union, but a lot has changed in a month. Jonah, when the president says the state of our union is, what needs to come after that phrase? Uh, me. That would be one of the answers.

The state of the union is meh. No, I, uh, look, just table setting. I hate the state of union. I want to go back. It was one of the many reasons why I can't stand Woodrow Wilson is because we used to have a state of union,

which was in the form of a letter, and then he turned it into this spectacle. We also used to have quills and carriages, so other things have changed. Sure. But, you know, I have a heuristic that says that change in and of itself is not necessarily good. And when change is not necessary,

is necessary not to change. So I think that he's going to say the state of the union is strong because that's what presidents have to say and he will not say it convincingly and I think the right

the right word would be something like challenged but can you imagine a president actually saying something like that? I think it's going to be he's going to have very... I could see him saying something like that. Look, David Axelrod

wrote an op-ed saying that he should, like, don't try to gaslate the American people. If you say the state of our union is strong, everyone's going to roll their eyes and turn off the TV. I think the state of our union is challenged would actually be an incredibly strong statement from President Biden and one that Americans would acknowledge and, like, recognize as reality. Yeah, I just, I work from the assumption that Biden will say the wrong thing. And it's not, I'm not always right in that assumption, but more often right than

wrong and I think it's going to be it's going to be a very difficult political maneuver for him and I have some sympathy for him because a lot of the problems are are not of his making though some obviously are but yeah he should say something like if he was going to be truthful and I think truthful that makes some sense say it's challenged and then he could do his spiel about how when pressed Americans always win when we unify even though that's not true and um The fundamental problem is Biden just looks old, and he doesn't look forceful and in command. And simply offering a really loud stage whisper is not a substitute for the things that he lacks. And I don't try to say that to be cruel.

I just, I think it's a real problem. It is not a reassuring presence. And his inability to say no to the left in a public manner, I suspect will be on display in the state of the union, and that will be a terrible political mistake that we talk about a lot after the state of the union. David, the state of our union is? Well, so Sarah, I'm a little upset that the advisory opinion hive mind just kicked into gear because I was going to say challenged before you say challenged. I mean, it's hard to think of a better word because it's both truthful without being necessarily pessimistic and negative. It's truthful without being dark,

if that makes sense. And the bottom line is, I think, if it's going to be effective, he's just going to have to level with us. You know, this is, we're in a hinge point in history. This is a momentous time. It is time for us to rally together to, as a, in a combination, it's not just, it's not just rally together to do what we need to do. And again, I'm not saying deploy troops to Ukraine. But as Jonah was saying, one of the best things we can do for the world order going forward is making sure that Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine. But it's not just that. It's not just that. We have a crime issue. We have a crime issue. I think if he's going to do a state of the union address, he needs to hit that hard and be so clear, beyond clear, that what he is

saying is we need more and better policing rather than less and more in more poorly funded policing. We have inflation. He needs to talk to American people that he understands what this does to their family. And even if he can't, he's not the puppet master of inflation, but even if he can't control it entirely to outline what he's doing to help make the situation and better. It feels to me you just got to level with us and you just got to say here we have a crisis abroad. We have crime at home. We have inflation at home. The story isn't all bad. We do have an economic recovery. We do have better job, you know, more, we do have more, you know, jobs coming back. We do have a, there are some good stories there. But the word

challenged to me is, it's an important word. It's a, it's a truthful word. Steve, what do they need to accomplish? What can they lose? I mean, I think he's in a difficult spot. The speech he needs to give, picking up on David's point, is something that closely resembles, you know,

it would be a more practical version of his inaugural speech, right? It wants to bring the country together, that these are challenging times, but Americans can overcome our problems, and as long as we come together, I think the difficulty for Biden is we've seen him as president for a year. And he hasn't acted that way. He hasn't brought us together. In many ways, I think he has, with the guidance of his, with Democrats in Congress and many people on his staff, push to divide us. I mean, think about the, think about the Jim Crow speech. Think about

the voting rights speech. You know, he has sought to make. his political opponents villains in many, many cases, as we've said many, many times, his political opponents make that very easy. Republicans have made that job a simple one and made that argument in many, at many times a believable one. But the fact is he hasn't brought us together. And I think the things that he sold the country on, the reasons that he offered for voters to elect him, he's fallen short on, whether it's, you know, getting important legislation through the Senate, whether it's getting us out of COVID in a more unified way that allows us to push forward, whether it's fixing the economy. All of these, I mean, some of these he can point

to, you know, he can point to better performance. There's, there were good GDP numbers out yesterday. He could point to that. But I think. think it'd be a mistake for him to spend too much time touting his own accomplishments and pretending that things are good because people don't feel it. People care much less about GDP growth at 7% than they do about the fact that they have a hard time buying ground beef or harder time buying ground beef. The gas prices are up the way that they are, that this, while it feels like a distant conflict, you know, is, something that that makes us uneasy, makes us uncertain.

So I think he's got a big challenge, and he's not going to fix this with a speech. So I think the smartest thing he could do, just thinking about this, maybe I'll write about this today, is, you know, apparently my wife was telling me that he reached out to the Saudis to up production to lower oil prices, and the Saudis said no, I haven't checked that, but it just puts in mind, he should, You know, we keep saying how, why can't you do a sister soldier? A great sister soldier moment right now, which would be the right policy, is to announce a massive increase in oil and gas production in the United States. Stunning increase that we will sell at replacement cost to Europeans so that they cut off buying oil and gas from Russia, which would not only hurt Russia directly,

it would also lower oil and gas prices globally, which would hurt Russia, but would also help fight inflation. And he can make the argument. He says, look, we're not adding any new usage of oil and gas to the world. This isn't going to be a net increase in carbon emissions. If anything, since we have better safety standards and production standards, by using our oil, there'll be less emissions, but that's not really the point. The point is we're trying to crush the Russian economy, so we don't have to send American boys. and girls to go fight in a foreign war, but we want to stop this aggression. And the benefit is it will actually help Americans here at home, too, because a big driver of inflation is high

gas prices. And since the consumption is going to happen anyway, we just think it would be better for America. I'm putting America first by saying let them use American oil and gas, not Russian oil and gas, not Saudi oil and gas, but ours. So it creates jobs here at home, helps fight inflation. And yes, I'll use some of the proceeds from this to keep spending on climate change hooey. And the left would scream at him. Everyone else would love it. It would be good foreign policy and there's no way in hell he'd do it. All right. Well, we'll see what's going on on Tuesday. You know, last note before we go, President Zelensky of Ukraine, as you may know, but maybe have forgotten in 2015, he was starring in a TV show where he played the president.

of Ukraine. He was an actor and a comedian before he ran for office. It must be strange as he sits in Kiev right now to think about his career trajectory and how unlikely it is for him to be the one sitting there, you know, playing the president on TV versus being the president of his country now. So President Zelensky, God protect you, sir. We're rooting for you. This episode, is brought to you by This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place.

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