TRIGGERnometry - Putin Vs. Tucker: Konstantin Kisin Reaction

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Konstantin Kisin discusses the Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin Interview Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Trigonometry. Well, I'll be talking to Constantine, all about Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin. If you want to ask Constantine any questions, send us through a super chat. and we'll be answering them in the second half of the episode. Welcome, mate. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Just before we get into the main body of the interview, the one thing that I found very interesting

was actually the response on social media to the whole interviews. It was quite interesting, wasn't it? Social media and the media. And I have to say, I think if whoever you are listening to or reading or follow on Twitter, Instagram, whatever, anyone who had an opinion on this before they saw the interview or before the interview was out,

you should stop listening to because these are people who are prepared to have an opinion on things they haven't seen. But we laugh, but it's actually quite a legitimate point because we live in this world where there's like this really crazy, perverse incentive structure for people to comment on things before they've even been released. And I just think it's so discrediting if you do that. So obviously, everyone has their own preconception about Putin, the world. war or whatever, but, and Tucker, and I certainly do on all those things.

I've been on his show a couple of times. I very much disagree with the positions he's taken on Russia and Ukraine, et cetera. But you have to listen to the thing before you comment on the thing. That's kind of basic, isn't it? It was about five years ago, mate. Not any more, really, sadly. Well, that's kind of it. So I guess what people, the big debate was, is it good journalism or not?

And that's the one thing you really cannot assess until you've watched the interview because you can dislike Tucker and think he's not a great journalist, but he might have done a great piece of journalism. Or you can really like Tucker and then, you know, he might not have done a great piece. You have to actually see the thing. So the question is, having watched it, number one, was it a good piece of journalism? And I actually don't know the answer to that because it really depends on what you mean, right? We watched it. It's a two hour and 20 minute interview. the first two hours plus, he asked a question and lets Putin answer. And that's all that really happens.

He tries to interject once or twice. Putin kind of steam rolls over it. I'm sure we'll talk about it. Yeah. And then at the end, when he asked about the American journalist who Putin thinks is a spy, then there's a little bit of back and forth

and actually they get into a bit of a more, more like answer pushback type of situation, which doesn't really go very far. So is that good journalism? Is it good journalism to let Putin talk for two hours without interruption? I actually kind of think it is because one of the things, as you know, I've been doing is translating Putin's speech is not because I agree with Putin, but I think it's really important for people in the West to hear his point of view,

not because it's necessarily a legitimate point of view, but I actually do agree with Tucker that most of it, not all of it, but most of it Putin believes sincerely. So whether he's right or wrong or whether he's right or wrong, whether he's a lot of him, what he's saying is true or not, you do need to know what your adversaries are thinking, right? So from my perspective, I have no problem with the way Tucker conducted the interview.

Would I have liked to see him challenge more? Yes. Would I have liked to see him be better prepared? Yes. Would I have liked the interview to be five hours instead of two so that could happen? Yes, are any of those things possible? Why I don't know, right?

So, but certainly the idea that Putin went up there to, like, big him up, didn't come across that way to me. However, obviously, not everybody sat there and watched the full two hour and 20 minute interview. Some people just liked, you know, hearing Putin look presidential and, you know, look more, less demented than Joe Biden

and whatever. That seemed to be like the rightoid talking point. You know, look how great he looks, which is a very superficial way to look at it, I think. And the left-wing talking point was, you know, Tucker is just giving him a platform was if Putin needed a platform. So it was kind of two very stupid sides arguing

and making very stupid points, in my opinion. One thing I think that can't be disputed, actually. And again, there's a human element where I look at Tucker, and it's very easy to go, oh, you should have done it, he should have done that, he should have done that. When the guy is in the Kremlin and opposite, one of the most powerful men in the world,

Vladimir Putin, in his country. In his country, literally in his capital. Where people do regularly fall out of windows, come down with strange diseases. Exactly. Exactly. But having said all that,

Vladimir Putin was in control right the way through. And he did something very interesting where you're saying, well, is this going to be a chat show? Is this going to be something more serious? Yeah. Which I felt that was a very interesting ploy. What did you think about that?

Well, I think what he was doing is he was essentially saying to Tucker, like, let me talk and let me lay out my serious points. Yeah. This isn't a talk show where you get to interject every three seconds and whatever. And you're completely right.

He was in control. By the way, a lot of people who may be watching him for the first time or reading a speech of his for the first time are like, oh my God, I can't believe he talk about the history of Russia for 40 minutes, which I'm sure we'll get to. Actually, every speech he does now is like a three-hour speech and the first hour is about the history of Russia. He's quite used at this point, having been in power for 25 years now, you know, to being listened to, to holding a court.

Yeah. And this is, you know, people will say. This is my anti-Putin bias, but it's just the fact when you've been in power for 25 years, your power is undisputed and unchallenged. You start to feel like you can take your time to explain things that people need to hear. And we saw this with Fidel Castro, you know, giving 12-hour speeches. Yeah. This is quite normal for people who have been in power for a long time.

It just is. And by the way, even in a democratic country, I mean, you know, Thatcher used to go on quite a bit. People would kind of say that. Do you know what I mean? People who are in those positions for a very long time are used to going on at length about their opinions. And so that's kind of what you saw playing out. Yeah, indeed.

And Tucker was, you could see he was quite surprised, actually. And he said in his opening address to Camry, he thought was filibustering on Putin's behalf. But it wasn't. So let's get into the history of Russia. What did you actually think about his description of the history of Russia? Was it accurate? Yeah, it was. So broadly speaking, what he's saying about the history of Russia is entirely correct. And what I found very interesting is how many people were saying that, oh, he was just saying all this irrelevant stuff.

And it's only irrelevant if you don't understand the point he's actually trying to make, which is very, very obvious. He spends half an hour basically making the case for the fact that Ukraine is not a legitimate country. It has no right to exist. And most of it is Russian land populated by Russian people. And it belongs to Russia. Now, what's interesting is Tucker actually does challenge him and says, well, you know, why, have you not said that for the first 22 years of your being in power? And Putin never answers, interestingly enough, which is telling.

And the point Chuck is making to him is you never justified your invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in these terms. And yet, as Putin has done in every big speech he has done, he keeps talking about this point, that these are our lands populated by Russian people, Russian speakers, without ever saying the thing that he actually is saying, which is basically it's my land, I'm entitled to it. Yeah. And what's interesting as well is that he even talks about the word Ukraine and says, like, it has no meaning in the sense of a country, which I found very interesting. Look, the fact is historically, the points he's making are not incorrect in that Ukraine

didn't really exist as a country prior to being formed during the Soviet period. Even during the Soviet period, it was given lands both from the Russian part and from what was Hungary and Romania. And it was kind of made into this artificial country, you might say. Then again, there's quite a lot of artificial countries. And this is not unusual. And in any case, even that or being true, that is not the justification for the invasion that he ever gave. If he said, you know, this is Russian territory, we're taking it back, we could then have a debate about whether that's a legitimate Kassos-Belai or not, legitimate cause for war or not. But he's kind of saying one thing while claiming a different thing as the cause for this war, which I'm sure we'll get to.

No, absolutely. And before we move on, he said Lenin inexplicably gave these territories away. Right, sorry to interject, but I'm so incensed about this point. And I have been for last two years because a lot of people in the West keep saying, there's right-wing stupid ways of looking at it and left-wing stupid. But one of them is, oh, yeah, Putin's a communist and he's trying to rebuild the USSR, which is just so stupid. Like, he keeps basically criticizing Soviet leaders and Russian leaders.

He keeps criticizing Lenin. He keeps criticizing Stalin. He keeps criticizing Khrushchev. And what he's basically saying is it's my duty to undo the mistakes of the past leaders, particularly the Soviet leaders. And so he's not trying to rebuild the Soviet Union at all. He's trying to rebuild is the Russian Empire. He's trying to recapitulate within the Russian state, the Russian lands that have historically Russian populated by Russian people. Absolutely.

And it was very, very clear when he spoke about it. And if you took the time to actually listen, you'd understand. But there was one point that we both found very interesting, and we've got the clip coming up here, which is him talking about Poland and in 1939. Before you play it, Alia, this is actually the entire point of the historical monologue. And this is like the quintessential bit

that tells you what he's actually saying. I really recommend people pay attention to this. So here it is. In 1939, after Poland cooperated with Hitler, He did collaborate with Hitler, you know. Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship. An alliance demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany the so-called Danzig Cardor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Koenigsberg.

After World War I, this territory was transferred to Poland, and instead of Danzig, a city of Dansk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it anicably, but they refused. Of course. Still, they collaborated with Hitler and engaged together in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia. But may ask you, you're making the case that Ukraine, certainly parts of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, and in effect Russia has been for hundreds of years, why wouldn't you just take it when you became president 24 years ago? You have nuclear weapons, they don't.

If it's actually your land, why did you wait so long? I'll tell you, I'm coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things. So, when we both watched it, I watched it, and I went, there's something off about that, And I saw you have quite a visceral reaction. Why was that?

Well, first of all, notice that in the entire interview, he never actually answers this point that Tucker made, which is actually a good interjection from Tucker, number one. But basically, if you listen to what he's saying, first of all, I mean, the history of that period is quite complicated. He talks about how Poland cooperated with the Germans in the Czech thing. A little bit of truth to that. But what's interesting is he doesn't mention that the Soviet Union collaborated with Germany

to split Poland in 1939, and the Soviet Union actually got the bigger half of Poland in that process. But there's something even more interesting in this entire thing than that, which he says, Poland was given an opportunity to amicably give back to Germany, the land that it rightfully was taken from. And he's basically setting up the argument for his own territorial recapture aspirations, which is, you know, we made lots of peaceful, overtures to about this being our land and we were rebuffed and he's essentially saying

Poland started World War II by refusing what it should have done which is give the land back to back to Germany yeah and this is the core of his historical argument is we are entitled to our former land and that's why he's presenting Poland as the essentially the party that started world war two when in fact actually the Soviet Union held helped Germany to split Poland between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany under the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act, which people know about, the Nazi-Sovia alliance, which lasted for two years, during which time the Soviet Union provided food, grain, oil, and other supplies to Germany, including diplomatic help as well.

So this is the core of his historical argument, essentially. are allowed to retake their land. And if the other country which currently has it refuses to give it, we can come in and take it. But don't you find it quite interesting because that's clearly not correct. It's historically incorrect. So he's justifying the war and the invasion with a point that's historically incorrect. I don't know that it is historically incorrect. I mean, look, this is the point I've made.

people don't like hearing this, but it is true. Hitler had a stronger case for annexing the Sudeten land, reoccupying Czechoslovakia, the Anselaus, his claims to Polish lands were in these terms, on this basis, I'm not saying I agree with it, but on the basis that a country is entitled to recapture lands that are populated by its former populations, by its ethnic speakers who are being mistreated there,

I mean, the German, The Treaty of Versailles took massive German populated lands and gave them to countries that didn't exist on a map at that point. You know, during the period prior to the Treaty of Versailles, Poland didn't exist, as it is then or now. The Czechoslovakia didn't exist. These lands were populated to some extent by Germans, in the Sudeten land particular,

who were being maltreated, not least because of what Germany did in World War I. So it's not that it's historically inaccurate so much, is that if we operate on this basis, we would never stop having wars. You know, and from an American perspective, for example, I find it's strange that Americans could have go along with this argument. Half of America used to be Mexico.

You know, Calais used to be England. You know, we can carry on down this path forever. And in fact, you know, the two world wars in Europe, basically over Alsace-Lorraine, who owns this tiny bed of land between Germany and France. How long do you want to keep the shit going? No, absolutely. Absolutely. And it just, it seems that the people agreeing with this point are people who fundamentally don't understand history and don't understand conflict and don't understand conflict over territory.

Or don't want to. Yeah. Because we got to recognize, you know, you and I on this show have been covering the fact that there's a section of the extreme left that has become fundamentally anti-Western and anti-American in particular. Yeah. And a chunk of those people are big fans of Putin and what he's doing. For that reason and so they will believe anything that he says and there are also people on the extreme right I don't mean the far right But the people who are the anti-establishment right there's a section of that group It's hard to call them anti-American because they think they're patriots, but they are so Anti the American elite yeah that they see anyone who hates the American elite as much as they do as an ally Without realizing what will I'm sure talk about later what Putin wants for America which is decline and he talks about a course quite openly later on.

Let's listen to it later on. Yeah, yeah. So we'll come to that later on in the interview. Now, Putin was actually very interesting because this is the longest time that this is the only time I've ever seen him interviewed. And he struck a very conciliatory note. So when he was talking about the post-Soviet NATO expansion, he was saying, look, all we wanted was to be part of your club. And at every turn, we were rebuffed.

What were we meant to do? Now, how much of that is actually? And how much of that is him spinning a yarn to make Russia look like the victim? Well, the thing is nobody really knows because he keeps alluding to these conversations that he had with Western leaders. And he says, this is what I said. And Tucker says, well, what did they say back? And he says, well, I can't reveal private conversations.

You should talk to them. He talks about one instance in particular where he said to Bill Clinton, you know, what would happen if Russia applied to join NATO? And Clinton sort of says, oh, that'd be interesting. And then apparently later, having spoken to his team, Clinton's a lot of. and says, actually, we couldn't do that. And Tucker quite smartly says to him, well, would Russia have joined? And Putin gives this very coy answer, like, well, we would have seen.

So none of us knows whether his question was sincere or whether the answer was sincere, whether the conversation happened the way that he recalls it. But also, I think there's a truth to what Putin says, which is I don't think NATO would have welcomed Russia because Russia is too big a country to absorb with too strong a view of its own. And just the entire rationale of NATO

would not have made sense in that sense. So perhaps that may well be the Russia's experience, post. But whether that justifies everything that's happened since is a different question. Yeah, but it's a quite ingenious PR tactic to not come out as a strong man, which is everybody associates him with,

but to come out and say, look, we just wanted to be part of, of the club. But the thing is, this argument that the West was so hostile to Russia that he makes and he says, you know, the Cold War commentators just needed to continue their grift, basically, as what he was implying. So they kept

banging, you know, talking down Russia and saying it's a threat. Was that your experience of the last 20 years? No. Because it wasn't mine. You know, London has been overrun by Russian money. Quite a lot of illegitimate money being laundered here.

Likewise, America is infiltrated. had been infiltrated with Russian money. You know, Russia was not seen really as a hostile force in this country, certainly in this country and in Europe, not in Germany, not in other places. In fact, there was a lot of business being done. So this idea that the West had, you know, has been attacking Russia or rejecting Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, I don't think that's observably true.

Okay. Now, a lot of, so there's some people, people like John Menon, Shama have made this point who have said, you know, Ukraine was meant to be neutral. It was meant to be a neutral nation. It was meant to be a buffer in between Russia and the West. And then, and this is to quote Vladimir Putin, it became a satellite state. Yeah. And he talks about five rounds of NATO expansion. Yeah. And actually, I have to say on this issue, I think he has a pretty good point. Like this is an irritant for Russia for sure and we've talked about this before, right? I think when we first ever talked about he said to me, well, would Putin have invaded if NATO hadn't been expanding?

And the truth is we don't know, right? Certainly a factor in all of this and it is absolutely an irritant to Russia. But the difference is that I think Putin sees that as a deliberate ploy to corner and antagonize Russia. Whereas I think NATO expansion is largely a product of some very crude and peaceful. basic things like every time NATO expands, that means the weaponry of that country that has just expanded to is changed to NATO standard, which creates a lot of money for Western companies or American companies to be specific, to come in, rearm the entire country. So the American defense contractors are very interested in NATO expansion.

So it's not that people wanted to, you know, oppress poor little Vladimir Putin. It was more various things. Now, it doesn't excuse NATO expansion because promises were made. But the other reason, of course, is most of all of the countries that have joined NATO were terrified of Russia's renewed aggression, which they've experienced over centuries. And so they wanted to join. So it's like they wanted to join, and there was a lot of business interest in having them join.

And that's probably why that happened. But certainly, it's an irritant to Russia, for sure. Absolutely. And whilst your explanation of it sounds plausible, there is a certain amount, again, I'm not saying what Russia did was correct, but I'm saying NATO needs to take. some responsibility because you may do something which you don't think is an antagonistic gesture, but can be perceived at that. And that's partly your responsibility, isn't it? Agreed. Especially if you go against previous agreements, because then Russia will look at it

and go, well, how can we trust you? We signed the document. You've broken the document. Therefore, what's the point in having any agreement? And by the way, one of the, I think the big cultural differences here is obviously Russia is not a democracy. And so Putin doesn't understand that he's dealing with societies where the leadership changes regularly and that means the strategic priorities, decisions, you know, policies change over time. And so he's like, well, in 1997, they promised me this. Well, not 97 in his case, you know, 1999, 2000, 2003, they promised me this. And then six years later, they did that, right?

But he's not taken into account as a different president by that point from a different political party, for example, right? So I think that's one of the big miscommunications there. He's sort of treating America in the West as one thing that speaks with one voice. Like Russia has spoken with one voice since 1999, since when he took over. And that discontinuity of leadership has been an issue here too. Absolutely. Let's just have a quick look at this clip because we're going to discuss that now.

Elliot, it's a 2014 clip. So in 2008, the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine. In 2014 there was a coup, they started persecuting those who did not accept the coup, and it was indeed a coup. They created a threat to Crimea, which we had to take under our protection. They launched a war in Donbas in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it all started. There is a video of aircraft attacking Donetsk from above. They launched a large-scale,

military operation, then another one. When they failed, they started to prepare the next one. All this against the background of military development of this territory and opening of NATO's doors. How could we not express concern over what was happening? From our side, this would have been a culpable negligence. That's what it would have been. Now, he uses the word coup, and that's a pretty strong word. And he also says, you know, that this was backed by the CIA, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What do you make of that? Is that a fair representation of events?

So this is the point where I think the paranoia, partly caused by NATO expansion, is starting to play its part because I can see why he would see it in this way. However, it really isn't what happened. So in the clip we played, we don't include the bit where he talked about the trade agreement, and this is the really important part. So he talked about the fact that basically... Ukraine was about to sign a trade agreement with the EU and then the president Yanukovych was basically a pro-Russian or you might say a Russian puppet whichever way you look at it he was pro-Russian

essentially Putin's argument is Yanukovych realized that if he did a free trade deal with the EU that would mean Ukraine's free trade deal with Russia would no longer be in place that would be economically not what Ukraine should do and so Yanukovovov went back on this deal, which is why those evil Westerners organized a coup. This is completely not what happened. What actually happened was Yanukovych promised to sign the trade agreement, and then he went back on it. Now, the reason for that may or may not be perfectly legitimate.

It might have been pressure from Russia. It might have been that he thought it was not a good deal for Ukraine. None of us know, right? However, what happened is a few students in Kiev went out on the street to protest against. It's because they were pro-Western and they wanted Ukraine to move in a pro-Western direction representing about half of Ukrainian society. But a small group of students, protests happened, right? They were brutally beaten by the police.

And when pictures on videos of this event went basically viral in Ukraine, people then came out on the streets to protest against what they saw is a tyrannical government brutalizing its citizens. And that is when the street protest started. started in Ukraine, right? So the Maidan, what ended up being the Maidan revolution, was started because of that rejection of the deal and then the police treatment of the protesters, right?

And the police continually kept aggravating the situation to the point where eventually over 100 people were shot and killed by Yanukovych, we don't know exactly which forces it was in those three protests that continued for a long time. And yes, eventually that led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government. That is what happened. So is that a CIA-backed coup?

Now, I think it's probably true that the West saw this as an opportunity to help Ukraine move in a Western direction. And this is, by the way, true of all revolutions. I mean, if you look at the American Revolution, something of which many people who are very critical of this are very proud of, American Revolution was basically funded by the French. Yeah. To the point where the French Revolution happened because the French state was so bankrupt After funding the American Revolution That they didn't have any money and the whole country went tits up

Yeah So every revolution in history has always been supported by the enemies of the superpower that was in the viz. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, of course That's a Venezuelan Revolution was exactly the same funded by the British Every revolution is like this, right? So but what I'm saying is the catalyst for this was not the CIA The catalyst for this was the brutal treatment of the protesters which then spiraled into street protests, which then got more brutal treatment, which eventually ended in this.

Now, what's interesting is two occasions in this interview, continuing from here, Putin talks about, well, in 2014, this happened, and then there was a threat to Crimea. Never says, what was the threat, exactly? Crimea was Ukrainian territory. What was the threat to Crimea? Never explains this.

And it's a pity that Tucker never challenged him because I would really like to have heard this. Now, what he actually means, I suspect, don't know, I don't know what Putin means, I wish someone had asked him, but the Sevastopol Naval Base has been a massive issue for Russia-Ukraine relationship since 1991 because it's basically the port in the Black Sea from which Russia is able to project its power into the Mediterranean. And the debate about, you know, who should belong to, who should be controlling it, whose soldiers should be and sailors should be stationed there, have been ongoing since, 1991. Well, basically, Russia is paranoid about that becoming, A, unavailable to Russia and certainly B, falling into American hands. So I guess what he means is there was a threat that Ukraine would become pro-Western, and therefore we would lose access to Sevastopol, so we had to take Crimea. But he never elaborates that, which is very, very telling.

And also as well, he alludes to the fact that the Ukrainian elections, they weren't honest. There was something fundamentally dodgy about... Well, he talks about the coup, I think that's what he meant. Yeah, the coup, but also he talked about Zelensky's being elected and how that wasn't particularly fair either. He talked, no, no, he talked about Yanukovych and Yushenkovich taking over from him. So his argument basically is, you know, I had my guys in Ukraine. Yeah.

And they were not getting reelected through various means. It was all the CIA. Yeah, that's his argument. Yeah, so he sounds like a Latino. Right. So we've got... And then moving on. John, he starts talking, and this is where he starts to get even more conspiratorial, which

is the whole denartification thing. He uses that word denartification, and he goes into the historical element of it. How accurate is a historical element? Again, his historical telling of what happened in history is accurate. So what he's saying is absolutely true. During World War II, there was a section of Ukraine. I mean, we can call them Ukrainian nationalists, and we probably should, because that's accurate. They were actually not part of Russia or the Soviet Union at the time.

They were mostly living in what was Polish territory, if you like, who were basically fascists. Yeah. You got to remember, they were not Nazis, there were fascists, there is a difference. People these days don't understand the difference. You got to remember quite a lot of Europe was fascist at this time. Yeah, absolutely. Spain was fascist, Portugal was fascist, there was significant fascist. movement, obviously in Italy, significant fascist movement in central Europe and southern Europe.

There's quite a lot of them about. I mean, one my favorite historical factoid is the people who defended the Reichstag was a unit of the SS called SS Charlemagne made up completely of French fascists, defending the Reichstag in the last days of the Nazi war effort. My point is a lot of Europe was fascist at the time, and these people were nationalists in that they wanted independence actually originally from Poland. And they saw Hitler's invasion as an opportunity to free themselves both from Poland and from the threat of Soviet occupation.

And these people were horrible people. And Putin's absolutely right. They killed Russians, they killed the Poles, and they killed the Jews, and they hated all of those people. And Putin is also right that in the attempt to build a Ukrainian identity, a lot of mistakes were made, including promoting some of these people, mainly because of the people. to a large extent because of historical ignorance, they're sort of seen as the only people

who fought for the independence of Ukraine, so their crimes are kind of ignored. It's not the same as saying Ukraine is now pro-Nazi or anything like that, because nobody in Ukraine is, no, sorry, not nobody. Every country has a small Nazi contingent. Russia, by the way,

I mean, Dimitri Rogosin, I always make this point, who was a deputy prime minister of Russia and headed Russia's equivalent of NASA until recently, if not still, he's on camera openly given the Nazi salute and saying Russia for Russians and all this other stuff. So there's a Nazi problem in all of Eastern Europe.

But my point is, Ukrainian society is not overrun by Nazis. And Tucker actually very effectively challenges him on this. And he says, look, whatever you say about these people, you're talking about Ukrainian nationalism. How do you deal with that? And again, Putin doesn't address it. Where what I thought was more interesting in terms of this kind of world view is Putin says we didn't start the war in 2022 the war started in 2014 when they attacked Ukraine attacked the eastern regions we saw it in the clip that we just played

and this is just nonsense factual nonsense it's like saying you know in the early 90s when I still lived in Russia Chechnya tried to break away from Russia So what did Russia do? Russia attempted to prevent that from happening by force. So what countries tend to do when a region, basically a bunch of armed men say, this is no longer part of this country, right? It's quite normal thing to do.

And that's basically what happened in the eastern regions. When this revolution happened in 2014, there were some people in the eastern regions who basically started an armed uprising, backed by Russia, who wanted to break away from, you know, And Ukraine attempted to suppress this rebellion, which is quite common in history, really. So it's not that Ukraine started a war. It's that it attempted to do exactly what Vladimir Putin tried to do and eventually succeeded in doing in Chechnya,

which is to prevent an armed rebellion and a breakaway republic from breaking away. And to say that then in 2022, he continued defending Russia by reinvading Ukraine after, you know, It's just complete nonsense. That's a bit where he's just not telling the truth. So, and it's very interesting that, because it is complete nonsense, which makes me think, why is it, why do you think he's saying that? Why, because he's given that way at the beginning of the interview, this is what I'm saying. He sees this as Russian land.

And when the Russian people rise up to rejoin Russia. Yeah. It's his duty as the patriarch of all Russia to protect his fellow country. And he keeps saying this. These are our people. They speak our language. We've got to protect them. Yeah.

It's just very interesting because a lot of the time I'm listening to him and I go, well, I don't know the background of what he's saying, but it sounds plausible. There are other things that he's saying where I go, oh, I don't agree, but I can understand why you're saying that. And then there's other bits, like in that bit where I go, well, this is just completely disingenuous. And I would have expected him to have been a very, a lot more skillful when talking about that, instead of giving what was actually an outright lie?

Well, that is how he sees it. I generally think he believes it. I mean, I think that is how he sees it. And I think we talked about the paranoia of the CIA and all of this stuff may have some basis, by the way. You know, big, powerful countries try to influence each other. You know, they do all that. You know, is influencing how he sees everything.

And so when a bunch of Russian opposition. activist start something in Russia, he can't imagine that anybody would oppose his rule, and he sees that as a CIA asset. Like, you know, we've gone to Extinction Rebellion protests in this country, or anti-British protest, or pro-Palestine protest, but never occurs to me that they're being funded by the CIA or Mossad or, you know, the KGB or whatever, right? But in his mind, any opposition to him or to his country's interests or whatever is funded by the CIA. And that is how he sees the world, not least because he used to be an intelligence secret service operative himself.

And so to him, of course, everything is happening because the CIA is doing it because he knows that's how he operates and how his country operates. Yeah. So what it does, in a sense, is engender a quite paranoid way of looking at the world. And he's been in power for 25 years, which, as we know, is not exactly conducive to a kind of open-minded and... Yeah, and anybody who gives him bad news, I can't imagine he takes it particularly well or challenges a viewpoint.

Well, a lot of people have said, and I think there's some credibility to this, is one of the reasons that he actually did invade Ukraine in 2022, was that he thought it was going to be a walk in the park. If you look at what they had tried to do militarily, it didn't look like someone seriously who thought they were in serious, conflict. They went in with far too few troops. They were not well prepared. They and they took

very heavy casualties because I think what he was told is, you know, the Ukrainian people will rise up and welcome you because they're not Ukrainian. They're Russian. And he just told you that. There's no such thing as Ukrainian people. They don't have a national identity. They see themselves as Russia and they welcome back. And in fact, the very end of the interview tells us incredible story about how apparently these Russian soldiers encircled some Ukrainian soldiers and said surrender, lay down your arms. And apparently those Ukrainian soldiers said Russians don't surrender and were all killed. So in his mind, there are no Ukrainians. Yeah. There are like brainwashed Nazis and then there's the majority of them who are Russians who are just desperate to rejoin

the motherland. That's how he sees it. Which is very interesting that he could have got, Somebody so powerful could have got it so wrong, but then if you obliterate anybody who disagrees with you, you're going to get an echo chamber. And we've got an interview coming out with historian and I think, you know, well-informed guy called Mark Galliotti, who makes us very point. Absolutely. Now, he is at pains to say continually that he wanted peace talks. He wanted peace talks. He even blamed Boris Johnson for scuppering them. it's very interesting because again presenting himself not as a strong man but as this

conciliatory figure who's been put in this position where he has no choice but to behave in this manner well i i agree mostly what we're saying i would just maybe quibble a little bit with your analysis i don't think he's presenting himself not as a strong man i think what he's presenting himself as a strong man who's reasonable yes right so he's like we invaded and we got some progress and then we were willing to negotiate and then Boris Johnson's cup of the deal now in particularly in these kind of anti-establishment left and right circles this is a very popular conversation of Boris Johnson prevented peace naftali Bennett the Israeli prime minister had a deal ready it's actually Ellie are you about to pull up the article that I sent you um naftali

Bennett the prime minister of Israel who's basically uh who's allegedly was you know the deal was ready and it was all good basically came out and said this is not true the deal was really scuppered by the fact that when Russian soldiers pulled out of the area they occupied near Kiev a lot of Russian atrocities including Buccio were found and from that point on there was just you know the Ukrainian society was not gonna do a deal yeah and that's basically what happened in terms of Boris Johnson none of us know the details of that deal because it hasn't been revealed but my understanding is basically they wanted significant territorial concessions and all

kinds of other concessions. And Boris Johnson was saying, no, we'll help you fight and win back your land. Has that proven to be the right decision in the long run? Probably not at this point, because Ukraine, given the dwindling support in the West for continuing to support Ukraine at the level it would have needed to actually be able to do that, it hasn't turned out to be a good decision, I think. But at the time, you know, you don't know what the future is going to be. So I think Johnson's argument was, we're on your side, we'll have.

help you win the war or win back your land or wherever it is, which is not an unreasonable thing to say to somebody who's about to basically surrender. Yeah. And he also addresses this idea that Russia was going to take Ukraine and it was going to continue expanding. Yeah. And he said, look, I'm not going to do that. Why would I do that when actually that is going to bring us to the brink of global war?

I'm not crazy. I'll remind you that in 2014, he said Russian soldiers are not in. Crimea and then gave out medals to Russian soldiers who were in Crimea for taking Crimea, right? Not everything Vladimir Putin says is always true, right? Now, you also got to remember, right, we've talked about this in the past and I've said he absolutely has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. And he does, in my opinion, I'll explain to you why. However, does that mean that now after what happened in Ukraine, he's going to invade Poland? No, right? Because one of the things

that we've noticed is he's clearly didn't expect the result that he got in Ukraine, even though I would argue that he's winning, right? But the cost is very high to him and to Russia, etc. But if you play the argument that he's making right at the beginning of the interview for 30 minutes, there's a reason he spends that much time. He said he was going to take 30 seconds, takes 30 minutes. His argument is, these are our lands populated by Russian speakers. Ukraine the only country populated with some Russian speakers?

What about Latvia? What about Lithuania? What about Estonia? There's Russian minorities there. By the way, if you want to make the argument that they're oppressed, absolutely. You know, the Russian language is not permitted as the second state language. There's all sorts of things going on. So there's plenty that he could do if he found what happened in Ukraine.

If Ukraine crumbled in three days, there's no reason why he wouldn't, like, look, NATO is obviously a strong disincentive. My point is, you know, to say now that he's going to be like rushing into Poland is crazy. He's not. You know, even though I think he's going to get a form of win in Ukraine and therefore be disincentivized, he has an expansionist view of Russia because what he's trying to do is recapitulate the Russian Empire. Right. And because he was coming, his argument was that he didn't want to endanger the world

when that's something that I don't know. think you particularly care about when you invade another country illegally? Because that is already a destabilizing event. Right. And so if he saw Russian speakers be oppressed in Latvia, would he start a conversation about that? Would he see if NATO had entirely did nothing about Ukraine? Would he see, well, maybe NATO is not going to do anything with Ukraine?

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I think the challenge to his invasion of Ukraine was very important, not least because it It has deterred further aggression. Yeah. And he was speaking about the multipolar world and the world that we are now moving into. And at one point, it sounded like a trigonometry guest.

And it was very interesting to hear him analyze it in this way. But he was talking about the multipolar world and he compared the US to the Roman Empire in this clip. And it's a very interesting clip, actually. Elliot, if you can play it and we'll dissect it afterwards. My opinion is that the development of the world community is in accordance with the inherent laws, and those laws are what they are. It's always been this way in the history of mankind.

Some nations and countries rose, became stronger and more numerous, and then left the international stage losing the status they had accustomed to. There is probably no need for me to give examples, but we could start with the Kingis Khan and court conquerors. the golden horde, and then end with the Roman Empire. It seems that there has never been anything like the Roman Empire in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, the potential of the barbarians gradually grew, as did their population. In general, the barbarians were getting stronger and begun to develop economically, as we would say today.

This eventually led to the collapse of the Roman Empire, and the regime imposed by the Romans. However, it took five centuries for the Roman Empire to fall apart. The difference with what is happening now is that all the processes of change are happening at the much faster pace than in Roman times. And it was very interesting because he said those words and he had a, dare I say, a smug little smile on his face when he said it. Well, this is the one. thing that a lot of these, look, I don't like antagonizing people, but it does irritate me when people don't understand what's going on because they don't listen and they only listen

to the things they want to hear. Yeah. Right. For example, the Naftali Bennett thing that I brought up, like, you can Google it in three seconds that Naftali Bennett has basically denounced the things that are being said about what he said, but nobody does. Yeah. And the same with Putin's speeches.

He's been saying since day one, American dominance is over. The time for the multi-polar world is coming. And but what he means by it is what he's just explained to you and I wish people would just get it What he's saying is very simple There are natural laws of history which is Population and economy is destiny China India Russia Bricks as a whole

We are the new force on the block America Europe and the West is in decline and either you accept this and go gently and and go gently, quietly into the night or it's going to be a painful process like the one you're experiencing now, right? He's saying, your time is up. You're not going to be the world leaders anymore. It's over.

That is literally what he's saying over and over and over. And people are like, you're a warmonger. I'm like, that's what he's saying. And he just told you again. Watch the interview. He says this over and over and every time the idea of the multipolar world comes up,

That is exactly what he's saying. He's saying the American elites are clinging on to the power of the American dominance. They're using the American dollar. They're using this. They're using that to try and dominate the world. Your time is up. It's over. And he keeps referring to this conspiracy theory that is very popular in Russia and

and also in parts of the third world, which is the golden billion idea. Yeah. And so he mentioned the golden billion. And I was, I mean, it sounds like a rapper. What is the golden billion? That is a great name for a rapper, yeah, it's brilliant name. Look, the Golden Billion is an idea that's been popular in Russia since, like, even in my childhood and even Cold War times.

And it's basically the idea that what the Americans really want, Americans in the West in particular, is for there to be an elite group of people, the top billion people in the world, who are rich and comfortable, and for everybody else to be essentially enslaved to them, for them to profit off and to live in poverty for the rest of eternity. So the golden billion, they're going to be rich and prosperous and comfortable, and everybody else is going to live in mudshacks.

And that's what apparently the Americans want. And this is universal and he believes and he keeps repeating it and so did lots of people. Which is interesting given the evidence, not only the evidence, but what he himself is saying about how actually China, India, you know, Latin American countries are doing Brazil, obviously, are doing incredibly well, Indonesia. the world's population has been lifted out of poverty at a scale that is completely unprecedented in the recent decades for one reason and one reason in particular which is free market the spread of free market capitalism around the world that's why people are getting wealthier in those parts of the world so the idea that westerners want to oppress everybody else at their expense so that we can be rich is just factually and obviously an observability

incorrect. But when we talk about a paranoid conspiratorial worldview, if you think about it, there's nothing more paranoid and conspiratorial than believing that other people want to keep you poor. Yeah. Even though you can see the main thing, look, I'm not saying America doesn't want to be the richest country in the world, and I'm not saying American corporations don't want to exploit the wealth and the resources of other countries. But other countries also want to exploit the wealth and resources of America and of other countries too this is the global economic game right but what has happened with global trade it has been disruptive for all societies but it has also been massively beneficial to those societies around the world which is why everybody

is so much richer so much wealthy and so much more comfortable so this is just like a complete conspiracy that he and a lot of people in that part of the world believe and you know what's really interesting as well is there was a disingenuousness about it when he was talking about their alliance with China when from the people that we've spoken to, including Mark Galliotti, saying the Chinese, you know, they're not that friendly with the Russians. Look, the Chinese, they're very sensible and they have a very long view of history. But I can tell you, Russia is absolutely terrified of China. Absolutely terrified. Most of the far east of Russia is. increasingly being effectively taken over by Chinese people who are moving in on mass, taking

over local businesses, whatever. And as Putin himself acknowledges, China's a huge country, very, very powerful. And he says, we've been living peacefully together with a massive border for all. Peacefully is a very dubious statement given some of the things that happened around World War II and prior to that. So, you know, it's a complete misnomer. It's not an easy alliance. Putin has been pushed into it by events, but he would much rather be an alliance with the West.

Yeah, I completely agree. I think he'd much rather be in an alliance with the Western China. And let's talk just a little bit about sanctions. The sanctions that have been imposed on Russia. What effect is that having on the life of the average Russian and the Russian economy? Well, he made this point, actually, that despite the sanction, Russia was the biggest economy in Europe last year. Yeah.

And it speaks to something, you know, I've always been extremely skeptical about the way sanctions have been applied. I mean, the idea that you were going to, you know, degrade Russia's economy with Western sanctions was never true. And what we should have been doing is very specifically targeting the supplies of military equipment, which, by the way, there would have been way more support for around the world. People in India, really, I mean, you know, the people who run India, probably most of the population in India, people in Africa, people in China.

They don't really care that much about the war in Ukraine. They were never on board with, you know, slowing down the global economy to, like, punish Russia. They didn't see that way at all. But they might have well have been on board with sanctions, you know, to prevent missile systems being developed or being built or, you know, cruise missiles being produced. And the West and Western technology was used in a lot of Russian military equipment. So rather than focusing on the economic sanctions, which of her everywhere, but really haven't disproportionately hurt Russia, which is kind of what you'd want to do

if you were applying sanction in a smart way, just was not a good idea. And, you know, the West went overboard and a lot of stuff, you know, like banning Russian performers from ballet and stuff. It's just, what are you doing? No, absolutely. I mean, there was ridiculous, you know, instances

where people banned dead Russian composers. Yeah, I was picking up someone up at the airport, like three months ago, and a guy came up to me who just recognized me and was like, look, can you help me out? I'm Russian, have a Russian past, and they won't let me exchange money. Like, how does a normal person from Russia not being able to change money in an airport in England

stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine? So there was a lot of this moral virtue signaling which the West is now infected with that got concocted into strategy and suddenly we were doing all this stupid stuff just so that we could feel good about ourselves instead of being more strategic and practical. Yeah, before we move on to your questions,

so if you want to submit a question for Constantine, send a super chat and I'll put them to him after the break. Do you think, on reflection, the two hours, 20 minutes, what do you think that Putin hoped to get out of it? And number two, how do you think he came across? Well, this is something interesting because on your second point, how he came across, I think to most people in the West, he actually came across incredibly well, not least because of the contrast with our leaders.

Yeah. And part of that, to put it gently, is that some of our leaders are not up to scratch. Some of them have dementia, not mentioning any names. And some of them just not very capable. But also, you have to recognize another thing, which is something that, you know, as you and I, we do the show, our profile increasingly grows, we meet politicians from different parties and we talk to them, you know, in the backgrounds of TV shows. and all that sort of thing and elsewhere.

Actually, most politicians, many, sorry, some politicians in the West, actually quite impressive people who could also hold court about the history of the UK or the history of America for half an hour if they had the opportunity to be interviewed in the style that Vladimir Putin was interviewed about.

And if they had the opportunity to be in power for 25 years, right? Vladimir Putin didn't give interviews like this in 2001. He was not educated about Russian history. He couldn't talk about it in any authoritative way. A lot of Western politicians could, but they're not facing the same media regime.

They're constantly interrupted, they're challenged, they're misrepresented endlessly. I mean, look at, you know, an obvious example. How much was Donald Trump lied about, misrepresented endlessly by his own journalist? Vladimir Putin doesn't have to deal with that. Never has. He got rid of the independent media very quickly.

And, you know, whatever you think about that Tucker Carlson interview, It was actually quite in the style of Trigonominy's interview where you let people talk and you push back every now and again It was not a confrontational hostile interview So he comes across very well And by the way people will say I'm you know I don't like Putin and I don't but it's not because I don't think he's intelligent or capable or smart strategically He is all those things right so he comes across well people are not used to hearing from him

They've been painted a picture that he's some you know these that guy of Austin Powers Dr. Evil. Dr. Evil. Good name for that character. You know, he's sitting there stroking some weird cat. He's not. He's a leader of a country who has a strategic vision for his country. He's, I don't agree with a lot of what he says

or certainly with a lot of what he's done. But that caricature is what he's up against and it's very easy to look good against that when you're given two hours to kind of lay out your argument. So I think he's come across well, Well, what was your first question? Why do you think he's done that? Why do you think he's agreed to this interview?

So, but this is one of the things that I didn't like about what Tucker did, is Tucker tried to pretend that he's the only journalist that's basically tried to get an interview with Putin. He said, I'm the only journalist that's bothered to interview. And Putin's spokesman came out and said, this isn't true. We've been approached by Western journalists all the time. And so have a lot of Western journalists. Now, those people haven't got those interviews, and I think that tells you a story. First of all, he knows who Tucker's audience are. Tucker's been cultivating this audience for a long time.

I can tell you, as someone who's been on the show many times, or a couple of times, sorry, I can tell you as someone who's been in the show a couple of times, that when I suggested to his producer that we should talk about this issue on which I disagree with Tucker, they refuse to do it. And I got to, when it came to talking about the stuff that I normally talk about, I normally talk about, which is, you know, woke culture, which we're equally concerned about and whatever, very happy to hear my thoughts. When he came to this, very hostile immediately.

Really? And really didn't want to hear it. So it wasn't like we disagree, let's have a conversation. It's like, no, we're not talking about this. So he knows who Tucker's audience are. Tucker's audience are that section of the left and that section of the right that we've talked about before, who, for their own reasons, are either anti-American in principle, like former guest on the show, Aramette, who said America's the...

The death star. The death star, right? Or the sections of the right who are so anti the establishment that they will side with anyone who's anti their establishment, including enemies of America like Vladimir Putin. So he knew he was talking to a friendly audience who would lap it up. And if you open your Twitter and look at all the right-leaning and left-leaning accounts from those sections, they all lapped it up and they all spread it to their massive audience. So do you think Putin saw it as basically a very powerful PR exercise?

Of course. What else is in it for him? You think he liked, it's not like he's a podcast guest. He's not on the podcast circuit, is it? Maybe it should be made. You get a lot of views, clearly. But, you know, he's got a country to run. So he's not running around doing podcasts. To him, this was an opportunity to speak to the people in the West who already agree with him.

And he spoke to them. How many discounts does USA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Constantine, thank you very much. If you want to ask Constantine a question, please send us a super chat.

And then we'll put your questions to Constantine after the break. Thanks for watching. We'll be back in a couple of minutes. So this is from Claire. This is the first question. This is from our local. This is from our local. First dibs because these are the people that, Francis, come on.

Yes. Sell locals. Yes, of course. Sorry. Sorry, it's my left wing nature. Yes. So we're giving first dibs to the people from our locals. They're basically our patron.

We're going to give them first dibs to ask constant in questions because they're the ones who support us financially. So Claire says, do the boys think Tucker's interview is going to have any bearing on the direction of the war, i.e. will political leaders have to modify their plans? in order to placate the public. Well, one of the things that Putin did quite effectively there is he kept presenting himself as this reasonable guy who's willing to negotiate.

Now, you can tell what he's really saying is, I'm in a position of strength. Tucker keeps saying, why don't you call the American president and settle this? And he's saying, why would I call anyone? They should call me. He's basically saying, I've got you by the balls. And it's time, if you want to negotiate, I'm willing to hear it. And so I think that's another one of the reasons that he did this. interview, he's trying to present himself to the Western public in particular, you know,

there's no need for a war on Ukraine. Just come to the table and let's settle this. Yeah, it's very, like I said, it was very interesting the way he chose to represent himself in a way that actually took me by surprise. Should we do more locals? Yeah, we'll do more locals. So, Jenny says, thank you, Jenny, what is your opinion of Tucker now? Look, Tucker is what Tucker is. I agree with him on a lot of things. I disagree with him on some things, including this. Has my opinion of him changed based on this? Not particularly. Fair. So, Mick Trick asked, was Putin really describing the West's obsession with woke, et cetera, in a derogatory manner? What are the chances he and others are behind that propaganda in the first place? I don't think he talked about that much on this interview.

He keeps talking about J.K. Rowling and trans and whatever, because he knows again that Tucker audience will be interested in that. But yeah, look, he's a leader of a country with traditional values that's not pro-trans, believe it or not, and sees a lot of what's happening in the West as decadence, which, by the way, so do I. Yes. And so it's not like he's going to be a fan of that. But I do think he's talking about it because it appeals to the people who he thinks are listening.

Interesting. Can we scroll down, please, Elliot, so we can get more of our locals? Okay, this is very interesting. This is from Polysaturated, and they asked, who has a more believable story about the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline? I never bought the idea that Putin destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline.

I thought that was idiotic. Look, I have no idea who destroyed it, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was the Americans. Yeah, and I think that was pretty fair. That was what he said. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Exactly. Did he say, did he mention

the CIA again? He loves a bit of the CIA. Well, like, on some issues, he's got a point. Yeah. In this instance, in particular, I don't think Russia would blow up their own pipeline, but they spent billions building. Yeah. So this is quite a provocative question. Yeah. So, but I'm going to put it anyway. And this is from misanthropic. Put any provocative question if you want. Do you think part of the issue was that Tucker was woefully unprepared for what he was facing? I don't know how prepared he was because you didn't ask that many questions. He may have been. very well prepared what we don't know right but in as an interview we have to pick your spot

yeah we know this people often criticize us for not asking enough challenging questions or whatever you got to pick your spot you can't interrupt somebody every three seconds if you want to let them explain what they mean so should he have gone in and started debating the history of russia maybe should he have gone in and started saying well actually you know your rendering of the polish situation in 1939 isn't, you know, you've got to pick your spots. Yeah. So I don't know why he didn't challenge on certain things that I would have challenged on it, maybe because he didn't know or maybe because he chose not to, maybe because it's not

his priority. Maybe he sees himself as someone who's, this is one shot to bring peace to the world. And so he wants to focus on the negotiation instead of the historical argument. I don't know if he was underprepared. I mean, there's also the other argument that he could say is that he came in, he exposed to Putin, we've now seen the flaws in his thinking, the conspiratorial nature. Isn't that part of what an interview's role is? An interviewer's role is, not just a challenge, not just to push back, but to expose the

heart of the individual in front of you. I don't know, I'm going to say, I'm going to do a Putin line here and say you'd have to ask Tucker. Yeah, Tucker. We know you're watching, mate. Come on the show. Sal says, is Putin's historical analysis, which presumably lays a foundation, of his claim to section of Ukraine

going back to the 9th century, regardless of how much is debatable, sincerely held, do you think? Well, I not only think it's sincerely held, I do think it's accurate. The question is, do we want to renegotiate the borders of countries endlessly on the basis of historical claims?

My view, we don't. Yeah, and I completely agree with you. Archduke Albino says, I love Constantine Kistence. This is a great question, actually. Gut reaction to Putin's use of language. He's phrasing or cadence in those moments when I think we can all agree he was visibly annoyed by Tucker's question or interjection,

specifically whether he was putting on a show or whether it indicates he was genuinely annoyed. I didn't think he looked annoyed at all, to be honest. He was kind of his usual demeaner, nothing different really. His huffing and puffing is just part of his persona. It's very typical, typically Russian kind of like serious face and then someone who went, he didn't look annoyed to me at all. He didn't look in any way flustered or he didn't look under pressure at all. Look, when Tucker started asking him about the journalist, I think he was starting to get irritated by the same question being asked.

But apart from that, I don't think so. Yeah. Megan McKenzie asked an absolute belter of a question. Well done. Megan, thank you for sending a super chat. What would the one question be that you would ask Putin? Well, we talked about one of them. You said there was a threat to Crimea.

Yeah. What did you mean in 2014? Yep. And the obvious question is, you know, what is the settlement that you would be prepared to accept at this point? Yep. And that is both good questions. Marco says, is it me or was Putin found lacking?

Has he truly fallen so much to be reduced to this rambling to lecture for hours without substance? Was this all he ever was? I don't agree with the idea that he was rambling. Western viewers are not used to his, the way he is. Yeah. So when they see a politician talking for two hours,

about history, they automatically assume he's rambling. Whereas he sees himself as this, you know, polymath, he's educating you about the history of Russia and whatever. So I don't think he's rambling. I just think he's used to having, as I said, right at the beginning,

you know, three hours to lay out his case. Very good. So, B.J. Allen asks from locals, why now, why haven't we had an interview like this before now? So why at this particular moment do you think? I honestly don't know. I don't know whether Fox News would let Tucker interview with Vladimir Putin. I don't think this interview was anything crazy.

But, you know, I think it's fair to say that since he's left Fox, he's losing. the boundaries of the sort of people that he interviews. So maybe that's why it hasn't happened. I don't know. No. No. Okay. So we've got a few ones.

We've got one about aliens. Why didn't Tucker ask Putin about aliens? I mean, I don't think that would have been, because obviously Tucker is big into that. We'll have a look. I think Joe would have asked him about aliens. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

They would have got the cigars out. It would have been really good. It would have been a lot of fun. So let's see if we've got... There was one about the coup that kept coming up. Have you got that one? No, I haven't seen that now. Okay, let's do...

This is a good question. Eliza Wright now says, can Putin be considered a good leader in terms of being Russia first, as parallel to America first? Well, it depends on what... Look, Putin has overseen a period of extraordinary growth for Russia.

Is it all he's doing? No, mainly it's a product of the fact that oil prices went up and there was a huge economic boom. He didn't particularly take that money and rebuild Russia into a powerful manufacturing base or whatever. It's just basically a big petrol station, a big oil pump, whatever you want to call it. Does he put the interest of his country first?

Yeah. Does he want to make it strong? Yeah. Have all the decisions that he made been in Russia's best interest, no, but then that's probably true of a lot of leaders. Do I think his decision to invade Ukraine was a long-term benefit to Russia? I guess we don't know. Yeah.

It's the truth. Genuinely. Yeah. We genuinely don't know. I mean, you know, hundreds of thousands of Russian people have died and Ukrainians have died and it's caused all sorts of trouble in the world. Whether that benefits Russia in the long term, we just genuinely don't know. No, absolutely.

And no one does. And we'll see what happens. as we move on. Finally triggered on local, says, and by the way, if you haven't joined locals, you absolutely should. You get to ask our guest questions. You get extra content.

You get behind the scenes. It's fantastic. Finally triggered, says, at one point, Putin seemed to make the distinction between the practical West and cerebral cerebral intellectual Russia. Fascinating. Why does he think like this?

All Russians think like this. Basically, what he was saying politely is what most Russians think impolitely, which is Westerners are shallow and consumerists, and Russians are deep and meaningful people with, you know, real kind of, you know, seriousness. And they don't care about material possessions. And that's why there's such a strong patriotic spirit in Russia, as you said. Some truth to that, by the way. Yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely.

But the fact, the idea that, you know, Russians on consumerists, having seen Russians on Bond Street coming out of, you know, You don't remember that is a particular sliver of Russian society. Yeah, absolutely. Like if you go to Brighton on a Saturday night, that's not necessarily representative of all people in Britain. Well, it's my people, mate. So, Scott on Locals says, why is KK's response to the comments about the impact of BRICS and US influence in world politics? I don't remember exactly what he said on that,

other than that it's growing and can be. I think we kind of addressed it in the main interview. Okay. Glenn Schumann asked a historical question by sending in a super chat. There was also no discussion the Hollademort, not to justify this, but could this have been part of the motivation for Ukrainians becoming Nazi during World War II? Of course it was. Of course it was. The reason that a lot of these people thought Hitler was a liberator is the experience they had from the Soviets was believe it or not, Francis, worse than what Ukraine experienced under Hitler. So under German Nazi occupation,

somewhere around 4.6 million people were killed in Ukraine. Wow. Seven million people starved in a holiday. Only years prior. So if you've just seen your country, in their opinion, deliberately starved to the point where people were eating their own children, how are you going to feel about the regime that caused that.

And so the people who were, now look, I say again, some of the people who collaborated with the Nazis were fascists, they were anti-Semitic, they hated Jews, they were happy to kill Jews and Poles and Russians. But a lot of the people, they were stuck between these two terrible dictators,

murderous dictators, and they thought, they didn't know about the Holocaust at the time, a lot of them, because the Holocaust hadn't happened yet. And so they just saw this as, well, maybe these guys will be better than these, evil guys. Maybe these guys will be 3% better.

Yeah. At least we won't be starving to death. But I say again, there were also some fascists who were murderous, anti-Semitic and evil. Yeah. And people use history as a way to justify their own world view and also their own actions. And you can, that's the thing about history. And it's not just the holidom, or by the way, it's collectivization where essentially all the peasants had their property taken away. It's the purges in the end of the 1930s. It's basically the Soviets brutalized these.

entire country for 20 years. It's no surprise that quite a lot of people at the end of that didn't want to support that regime, didn't want to fight. It's one of the reasons the Soviet armies got so badly decimated in the first year and a half of the war because they didn't want to fight for Stalin, quite understandably so. And that's why Germans, the number of prisoners, Germans took so many prisoners, they literally didn't have enough German soldiers to convoy them to the camps. Yeah.

Why are you going to fight for someone who more than likely has either? imprisoned your family member or killed one. Or made you starve or your family starve? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay.

I know that this is a provocative one, but has Selensky failed Ukraine? Huge deaths for the dream of NATO EU membership when he could have courted the Russians, the Russian-leaning Ukrainians and work with Russia and the EU? I don't know the answer to that question. Nobody does. Nobody knows what the alternative would have been. I don't know that it was possible for him to do that. to do that because he was elected on a strong pro-Western position.

Yeah. So if he hadn't pursued that, he wouldn't have been doing what he was elected to do. Yeah. And also, you know, it lays the blame for everything that happened entirely on him, which I don't think is reasonable, given that it's Vladimir Putin who invaded. And it's very easy for people to sit in the comfort of their own home.

Yeah. When somebody is a leader of a nation at war. Yeah. I imagine that's quite stressful. You know, there's a bit of pressure on your shoulders. Ambroschumuchos says, who will Putin, and we talked about this for Mark Galiotti, but I'll put it to you because it's a good question.

Who will Putin chooses his successor if the time has come? How come that no one has asked him this yet? Well, we asked a historian called Mark Galiotti this very question and watch our interview and find out. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great interview as well. Mark is a splendid man. On locals, Krill Taran says, does Putin use Tucker Carlson as a useful idiot? And what would you say to someone who claims that what Tucker did is real journalism?

Well, we open the whole interview talking about this. I think that's really, the real journalism points up for debate. Putin is definitely using Tucker. It doesn't mean Tucker isn't using Putin. They're using each other. Oh, absolutely. Which is what all interviews kind of are in some way. Not this one, mate.

This is just love. Stay away from me. Paul says, you mentioned earlier about unilateral power, China and Russia coming, China and Russia coming rising in dominance and the West declining. What would that world look like with a dominant Russia or China? I always say the same thing to people. Look at Mexico. Look what happens when you take out one cartel?

Yeah. What happens? it's not good and then another cartel becomes a dominant cartel Yeah Or what's possibly even worse

Is that you've got multiple dominant cartels Well that comes first And eventually after brutal war After brutal war After brutal war Another dominant cartel matters Yeah So the

You know Is Chinese rule of the world Going to be better than American I don't think so No Not for us No I'm not fucking

learning Chinese, mate. No, no. Food's good. Oh, Bender, his name, I'm not saying those words, although someone will probably clip me. Can the lads discuss likelihood of Putin being a pathological liar and him being able to pass the polygraph test with flying colors? There is no such thing as an ex-KGB operative. Well, there's a famous line from a KGB agent who was asked, how do you pass a lie detection test? And you said, get a good night's sleep and tell the truth. And that's because if you're the polygraph test is complete bullshit by the way. You know this, right? Yeah.

Yeah. It only measures your nervousness level. So if you're not nervous when you're lying, which it's very easy to not be nervous if you're lying, if you've been trained to do this like a KGB agent might be or will be, then it's not very hard. I don't think Putin is a pathological lie. I think Putin sees the truth as a tool to be used for his. ends. In other words, how do I use the truth to tell the story that I want to tell and how do I not

tell the part of the story that I don't want people to hear? Yeah. And he's very calm about that because in his mind, the rationale will be, I'm doing this for the greatness of Russia. Yeah. And he's lied over and over, by the way. I gave the example of him saying, Russian troops annoying Crimea. Then, you know, a month later, oh yeah, it was Russian troops. And like, you can Google it. There's hours of evidence of him saying one thing that. They're he then contradicts or saying something that then turns out completely false and he knew it at the time. Yeah. By the way, where a lot of Western leaders lie a lot too, I mean, that's what politicians do. And Putin is at the end of the day politician. Absolutely. And a white man, so

terrible man. Left Leeling says, is he going to Nukas? No. Yeah, I think, I really dislike this idea that, you know, he's mad or insane and he's got his finger hovering over the I think it actually is demeans him. Well, one of the things that he tried to say, it was like, oh, the Western elites are scaring their populations by saying, you know, Russia is threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons. It wasn't the Western elites that said that. He was openly doing open nuclear saber rattling during this conflict from the beginning.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So we are prepared to use any means necessary and just kept saying this over and over. nuclear weapons to Belarus, left the treaty, or suspended Russia's participation in one of the treaties. So he's been nuclear saber-raddling himself, but I don't think there's absolutely, there's no intention of doing that.

No, those are... Not least because he feels very comfortable with where he is in Ukraine now. Yeah. And also as well, the moment you do that, you open a proverbial Pandora's box and you do not know what is going to be unleashed. And the chances are it's not going to end wealthy. And he wants to live. Yeah.

Look how far away he used to sit during COVID from people. Well, he knew about social distancing before all of us, mate. Yeah. Anyway. So, this is from George Nizharadze. If I haven't pronounced it, George, it's your fault, not mine. Should have had a simpler name. He says, KK, you mentioned the beginning that Ukraine is indeed an artificial country.

Do you think Ukrainian culture, identity and language are artificial? No, they're not artificial, but Ukraine as a country is made up of pieces of other countries and was created quite recently. That's a fact. Yeah. It doesn't mean that, like, I have family who are Ukrainian. It doesn't mean I think their language or the culture or whatever is artificial. But the country territorially is, but so are a lot of countries. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I was going to say Belgium, but that is definitely a fake country. Yeah, it is. It's not a proper country. country. We're joking. There are a lot of countries that are formed in this way. It doesn't mean that other countries are entitled to invade them. No, absolutely. And, you know, the term artificial is quite loaded because you go, you know, what country isn't artificial in many ways? There are some. Yeah. There are some. There are some countries that are just pure nation states have been, always are, have been and will remain that way. But there are some countries that are not.

Yeah. And it doesn't mean that there are any more valid or have any more, any more, any, less right to exist in other ones. So we've got one, we've got a question from locals, it's Paulie Marsh, it's quite literally being typed up now. I can hear Jack's fingers or Elliot's fingers moving furiously as it's coming up on the screen. He says, You tell yourself, no one wants your college-era band teas, but on Deepop, people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now, a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Dpop.

Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste will be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Dpop, where taste recognizes taste. Looking forward to your take KK as you have first-hand experience of the culture. So thank you very much. We've had loads of supportive messages, by the way. To me, Putin comes across as far more pragmatic than most Western leaders.

Am I getting sucked in? No, what's happening is you're misreading. Putin doesn't have to have popular support. So he doesn't have to sell his views to the public. Therefore, he doesn't have to virtue signal, therefore he can say what he wants in a way that a normal Western leader can't. Yeah. It doesn't have to virtue, second.

That's what's happening. Yeah. And he doesn't have to pander, and he doesn't... No. Because he's not worried about opinion polls. He's not worried about getting reelected. Yeah. Yeah, you can just shoot from the hip in a way that our leaders can't.

Gary says, what do you guys think of Boris Johnson literally intervening to prolong a war that could have been halted? Well, we've already talked about this. Yeah, we have talked about it. Go back early in the interview. We discussed all this. So B.J. Allen says... Why now? What haven't? So we've already come across that have we got any other questions boys or is that pretty much it? We've got a couple more coming in super chats.

No, there's no there's no there was definitely one I saw one about somebody trying to challenge me which I wanted to pick up on which was about We've got 50 quid from Oggrods for example that I can see Can you see that one? No, I can't If Hitler was similarly interviewed one might have concluded legitimacy with some of his positions But clearly evil was able to manage through that godless man. The key question to Putin was whether he recognized higher forces at work He didn't. Yeah, I guess that's not a question. Yeah, thank you for that, Ogrodz I'm sorry if we've missed a bunch of super chats. There is a lot there are a lot of messages coming in

So we haven't been able to pick all of them up for sure We've got a couple of pull cherries says how do we stop the decline of the West and stop the rise of China and Russia? Well We've been talking about this for quite a long time the West needs to rediscover itself confidence and stop being divided. Judge Chicken has a question. I don't know. Maybe you'll be able to answer it. Will there be advice on extracting yourself from a deep coma?

Is that? No. Okay. Int Boom says Putin uses a land claim from the year 800 to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Does this mean that any progressives who think this makes no sense should stop using the history of slavery as a tactic? They should stop using the history of slavery as a tactic because their interpretation of the history of slavery is moronic. That's why they should stop using it. So James Berlow says, here in America, so no, it says the words, you know, and I think this is, you know, let's put it kindly.

It's a less mainstream narrative. James Berlo says, no, here in America, Washington, D.C. has been hostile and determined to keep Russia crippled and prevent Germany for becoming truly independent. That's probably a good idea. Eric, by the way, says, please don't use business inside as a credible source, which is why, Elliot, I put in a link to Naftali Bennett's own Twitter in which he dismisses the claims

that are being made about what he said. Can we pull that up? Because I knew somebody would say this. Yeah. So. Can weircumotry, please check Diesel Baby Superchat. I'm sorry we've been able to miss it. I really wanted to get to it

because I wanted to talk about the stuff that people wanted to challenge me on because that's really important. Yeah. Okay. So guys, we've got the Eugene. He says, how do you feel about Putin use? If you can bring that up for me, then I can ask Constantine. K-Files says, this feels like a coded message. We're ready to talk. Well, that's what he was saying. Yeah. We're in a very strong position. And we're ready to talk. Okay. So, Eugene, can you just clarify the last word? please, gentlemen, because it doesn't make sense. Thank you. So, how do you feel, and this is from Eugene Geis, I think it is, how do you feel about Putin using the phrase, a job is a job when referring to the CIA's choice of Russia as an opponent,

and thus supporting the Ukrainian maiden coup? Well, what he's saying is, I'm a KGB agent, I can't exactly slag off the CIA for doing their job. Yeah. Justin says KK is so desperate to both sides. this interview. It's almost like you're trying to be nuanced, mate. Well, you are nuanced, mate.

To tell the truth, yeah. Yeah. So, there we go. I'm sorry, we didn't pander to your particular predilections, Justin. We will try it better next time. No, we won't. Yeah. In Bloom says, Putin uses a land claim from the year 800 to just...

Yeah, we've done that one. Okay. I think that's pretty much it. No, we do have that question that I'm desperate to get to from a guy who sent a super chat in about four times. I don't want to let go of that. And also Megan McKenzie has sent one. Oh, is it why you claiming Midan was a bunch of students?

Is this one? Right, okay, we've got it. Diesel Baby says, why you claim in Midan was a bunch of students and ignoring downplaying role of far-right paramilitary groups like right sector? Tons of RS flags in crowd during John McCain's speech. It's on video. So you misinterpreted what I said, Diesel. What I said is the reason Maidan started was the students who were protesting.

Once they were beaten up, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people went out into the street. I have friends who were on the streets of Kiev during that period of time who were not right-wing or far-right or anything the kind. There were just decent Ukrainian people who objected to the way those students were treated. And as in any protest, you're going to get some people who are, you know, it's like this thing with Kelly J. Keene, the guy turns up to her event and he's some kind of Nazi or whatever. and suddenly everyone's a Nazi.

There wasn't an element of the far right there. If there was a revolution against the Rishi Sunat government, I bet there'd be some far right protesters there too. So, you know, January 6th, were there some far right people there? I'm pretty sure they would have been. Yeah.

You know, this is kind of what happens. Absolutely. Megan says, what do you think the results of the Canadian government inviting a Nazi into parliament were for Putin, Zelenskyy and the West? Well, right. This is one thing we didn't talk about. Putin kept presenting this is like Ukraine.

is this Zelensky didn't know this guy was a former Nazi Yeah Neither did the people in the Canadian parliament It's just

What happened was As we talked about Before The West went into This moronic Virtue signaling phase They were just so desperate To be anti-Russian

In every way They did lots of stupid stuff Yeah And so yeah And they weren't thinking strategically Etcetera etc In Bloom says

Thank you Constantine It's surprising to me how few otherwise smart Westerners understand how Russians think. You're the best. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, but... My voice is going, mate.

So a lot of people are now commenting on my voice. A lot of people commenting on your voice. Sounds sexy and husky. Sexy and husky, right. Francis is now attracted to me. Yeah, exactly. Stay tuned. This will be on locals. No. So let's wind up with this.

The difference between the way Russians think and the way the Brits think, because I don't think people understand this enough. And I think it really helps to clarify Putin's character and the way he's behaving. Since we have like 10,000 people watching live, rather than giving you my take, I'll actually refer people to a talk by a former guest of ours, who is the first guest of us who's passed away. Oh, yeah. Marty Carey. Yeah, bless him. Absolutely.

And he gave an incredible talk. It's in Finnish, but there are subtitles and there's also a voice of the third. I wish I could remember the exact title, but it's something like Finnish intelligence Colonel explains why Russians think the way they think, or something like that. And it's the best explanation of how Russians think and how it's different to the way people in other parts of the world think that I've ever heard. Literally, like 99.99% of what he says, in my opinion, is exactly true. I really recommend people check it out.

Absolutely. And Marty was also on the show and gave a brilliant interview. as well, and he also provided some insight there. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for commenting. Thank you so much for sending super chats. Thank you to everybody on local, who is supporting us, and put forward your questions, and we'll see you very soon with another fabulous interview. Take care and see you soon. The right window treatments change everything, your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million

and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 50% off with minimum purchase, plus get a free professional measure at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply.