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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the In Good Faith podcast, where every week I talk to the most important and influential people in the world. And this week I spoke to Preston Stewart. He's one of the best analysts in the geopolitical space, putting out the most informative content on YouTube. And he went to West Point, served in Afghanistan and did nearly 20 years in the Army National Guard. The President also regularly fundraises for Ukraine and he also has his own podcast called Unclassified. And today he walked me through the three wars going on in the world and the domestic turmoil in the United States. Hey, if you enjoy this episode, definitely give it five stars on Spotify and Apple podcasts or give it a like on YouTube and leave a comment on what you agreed with, you disagreed with, or who you'd like to see as a guest. So, Preston, when I, when I first invited you on, it felt like we had one war on the horizon. Now there are three. We also have like trouble at home. So I'm going to give you dealer's choice. Right. Where should we start? Ukraine, Venezuela, Israel, the homeland? Where, where is your mind right now?
- [00:57]
B
Yeah, I appreciate the invite, Phil. Been looking forward to this. And as you mentioned, we were going to start really focused on, I think, Ukraine and maybe a little bit around Israel and Gaza. Since then, we're on the verge of war, maybe in Venezuela or at war, depending how we look at that. And then, of course, tragedy here in the US Yesterday. I think Venezuela is a good starting point, man, just because that is one where we are directly involved right now. And I think it's still up in the air to what degree we're currently involved and where this is going to go over the next couple of months.
- [01:25]
A
No, I mean, that's the thing is, are we, does it look to you like we're, we're going to one war with Venezuela? Like what, Is there a strategy here that you're seeing?
- [01:34]
B
Yeah, this is an interesting one because it's, the argument makes sense. There's, you know, Trump specifically campaigned a lot on border security and protecting the homeland. And a big part of that has been cartels and the impact of, of drug overdoses here in the United States. So it's a very popular view to go after organizations like drug cartels. All of a sudden Venezuela kind of popped up in the middle of that, which wasn't as clear how that came about. We've seen the connection to trend Aragua, which has a component that certainly does traffic drugs into the United States. The support for Coast Guard isn't all that surprising, the Navy traditionally does support the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is overwhelmed with the workload. They don't have enough people, they don't have enough equipment. And they're trying to patrol, you know, the entire Gulf. Right. The entire coastline of the United States. It's impossible. So the supplement of Navy personnel is not unique. But then we started to see destroyers going down that can carry Tomahawk missiles. We started to see submarines or a submarine. And then, of course, what is it, a week, week and a half ago, an actual, what looks like a drone strike against a cartel boat. So it went from pretty normal, maybe just a little above what we would generally see to, I mean, kinetic activity carried out by our military.
- [02:53]
A
Well, so with that boat specifically, did we. Was it reported recently that it appeared that it was turning around? I thought I saw something recently. But do you have more insight there?
- [03:03]
B
Yeah, that was the most recent I saw. This has been. There's not a lot of information, to be honest. They put out that strike, that strike footage the night of the attack or the day of the attack. My gut says there was, there was enough pushback on that that they've kind of walked back any additional release of information. So really all we have is that 20 to 30 second clip. To your point, it sounds like in Congress they just announced that the boat may have been turning back around, as in it spotted this military aircraft. So maybe it was a helicopter carrying out the attack instead of a drone, and they turned and started to go back where they were coming from. Which makes it even more complicated then when we start talking about the justification for this strike.
- [03:42]
A
Right, because. Yeah, I was going to say that the Pentagon, right, they haven't released their legal authority for the strike, or maybe they're refusing to name one. You've got JD Van saying didn't give a shit if it was. Well, I don't know if he said if he didn't give a shit it was a war crime. He kind of just didn't give a shit in general, he was just like the end results, just by the means or whatever, morality. And now like it's believed that maybe the boat wasn't coming to the U.S. i mean, do you have, do you have any other thoughts or insight? Like, I've seen some people say that it feels like rogue nation activity. I, I don't know, the words matter here. I just, I don't know what yours are here.
- [04:23]
B
It's a very, it's, it's very smart. I think it's, I think it's a smart political move by the administration because again, they understand how sensitive this subject is. And nobody wants to stand up for cartels and drug traffickers. And what we've seen in recent weeks is the framing of Maduro as an illegitimate president, a kingpin was terminology that was used. Narco trafficking, lord of Venezuela, illegitimate president. So we are framing this as a terror organization and nobody wants to be the person to raise their hand and say, hey, should we really be killing terrorists that are bringing drugs into the United States? So it puts any opposition in a tough spot. But to your point, I have not seen any legal justification laid out quite yet. What I'm seeing a lot of is kind of replacing the legal question is asked and it's answered in a emotional justification way. So what is the legal authority for killing cartel members off the coast of Venezuela? And you hear cartels are bad, there's been so many drug deaths in the United States, these guys are a foreign terrorist organization. Move on. But that's not really. It's. They're making good points, but it's not really answer that. Answering the legal question, do you feel.
- [05:33]
A
Like this is more about trying to maybe overthrow Maduro?
- [05:40]
B
They've mixed that in from time to time. And that's part of the challenge here is you asked about the strategy and it's been mixed. We've had some senior officials kind of hint at, they've walked the line, they've done a good job, as we should of we're not trying to overthrow regime, we're not trying to swap out Maduro, but if it happened, you know, we wouldn't be upset about it. I don't think you can half ass regime change. I feel like that's probably not the best way to go about it and just hope that it occurs and see what comes after. But it does seem like that's a degree of the strategy here. Add enough pressure, maybe the opposition will rise up, maybe the government or the military will turn on Maduro and that would potentially be a better scenario. It doesn't look like it is necessarily the goal, but I don't think anybody would be upset if it ended up there.
- [06:29]
A
Right. Well, because I mean to your, to your point, I mean there's, there's a number of factors at play. Yeah, you have the government, you have the, the cartels, there's a potential for destabilization. I mean do you, do you see like what the, the government is doing right now, whether it be with this strike or, or anything else, like do you do, can the US Successfully wage war on the cartels.
- [06:54]
B
What do you mean, like. Or can we. Can we do it? Would we be successful legally? Can we do it? Which. Which outside of.
- [07:01]
A
Outside of, let's say, you know, outlier. Not. Yeah, I guess let's call it, like, standout, outlier situations. You see the boat, right? It. It's a. It's a story. It has an impact for. I mean, a lot of what the administration does. It feels like it's very much. It's made for social media and. And every screen, right? It's like, do not fuck with us is the message, right? Do not fuck with us. People die. There will be a crazy crackdown. Like, so do you think this is once again, is it more about regime change and the relationship between the cartels and Maduro or the perceived relationship? Whatever the reality on the ground is, is it us actually going, yeah, well, we're gonna take on the cartels and there's gonna be real change, or is it more pr. Bloody the nose and kind of then just let that be a message?
- [07:59]
B
I think there's a lot pointing to the bloody the nose. And Rubio himself has even said that this was a message they had. And this is one of the arguments being made about whether or not the legality was here because Rubio said, we could have pulled him over, but we didn't, or something to that degree, because we've done that in the past and it doesn't work. So. And he said that the goal here was to send a message that if you. And we've heard that from Hegseth and Rubio and some others saying if you traffic drugs to the United States, you will be a target. So no doubt this was intended as a message. And I think it's kind of a soft target in a way. So when you look at the volume of drugs coming into the United States, and this is not my area of expertise, but it's not from Venezuela. There's a lot more are coming through or originating with Mexican cartels. And when you look at the capabilities, military capabilities, it's the Mexican cartels heads and shoulders above trend. Aragua, even in talked with a Venezuela expert a few days ago, and he kind of laughed. He said, even in Colombia and Venezuela, trend is not like the preeminent threat when it comes to cartels or terror organizations. So maybe it's an easy target. It's a group you can go after that maybe can't fight back the way that some of these larger cartels in Mexico might be able to. And Again, who's going to stand up and say don't go after the cartels, Right?
- [09:17]
A
Well, I mean even you, you bring up Mexico, it makes me think to reporting that we've seen of, you know, the United States, whether it be through posturing or activity, it actually changing what's happening on the ground there, whether it, you know, the, the cartels as far as how they're operating and, and they're actually being changed there. And so that's where I do get into like, is this a bloody the nose? I mean, do you think that, you know, is it just strikes it. It seems like ludicrous to say, like is there an invasion of some sort? I don't. Anytime it starts talking about like actual boots on the ground, that feels like a different world. That could be because it's been so separate from our reality. But I don't know. I mean, with, with your history, do you think that's off the table?
- [10:04]
B
I don't think it is. I'd say it's a very low likelihood there's boots in the ground in Venezuela. Very, very low likelihood there's boots on the ground in me, Mexico, in terms of what we would consider military forces on the ground. Of course we have a lot of other government agencies there in official capacities working with at least the Mexican government. But again, I think we have to keep in mind the political aspect of this and I think it's politically popular in a lot of ways. The idea that we have not gotten a handle on drugs moving into the United States. I feel like there's probably a bigger conversation to be had there. And it's not as simple as drone striking a cocaine factory in Colombia. Like that's not going to stop it. It's not as simple as destroying a boat coming into the United States. This does not seem like something we're going to be able to handle militarily. Or maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like this is a solution that can be solved that way. But it's popular, no doubt. I see on videos anytime I talk about Venezuela or cartels, it is, it is overwhelmingly people saying at least we're doing something. And I think that's the sentiment right now that has opened up some room for this administration to take some sort of action is it's being compared with nothing or the perception of nothing.
- [11:18]
A
What would you say? Yeah, what would you. When you're making content on this and what would you say your audience consists of? Do you, do you know, do you have kind of an understanding There is kind of like a full, broad kind of Americana or worldwide audience. Do they feel like they lean one way or the other? Do they have more of a military history? What's that, what's happening there?
- [11:41]
B
It's interesting, man. It's really cool. Partially. One of the big parts is I get to see a lot of really, really smart people engaging in the comments and some really awesome emails from, from legit professionals in some of these areas. So it's a, it's a smart audience. It's mostly American, but a lot of what I talk about are foreign conflicts. So there's a substantial amount of viewership in Europe as I look around the war in Ukraine and then a pretty sizable group, you know, All Things Considered, from Israel. So you get a lot of commentary from Israeli viewers. I try my absolute best to. These are political subjects. I try to stay nonpartisan, but it's impossible to avoid the political aspect. I would say it depends on the subject almost. When I talk Israel, Gaza, I would say the audience tends to lean more traditionally right here in the United States. When I talk Ukraine, Russia, I think it draws in more now that are more left leaning. Venezuela, there's a sweet spot in talking about these conflicts where people don't know. We haven't decided yet what is my side agree on, what's the right thing to do. So we're still kind of there with Venezuela where I can just kind of put out the information and you're seeing it from both directions and people haven't written off yet that Venezuela is good, bad Republican, Democrat like they have with maybe Ukraine and Israel.
- [13:06]
A
Well, I was going to ask, so when you said your audience is a little more right on Israel, what does that look like? Because I mean we've talked about it with some of the past guests that there is like this interesting shifting sand of political opinion on both the left and the right. On the right it's a little more solid but still Pretty hefty split like 70, 30 supporting or against what Netanyahu is doing. What do you see there as far as support or fear or anything there?
- [13:39]
B
Yeah, and it's hard to measure this, right, because there's not a checkbox on the way in to figure out exactly where someone stands. But generally speaking, the replies in the comments are pro Israeli, supportive of the Israeli government, justifying Israeli actions or even questioning. For instance. I'll try to. It's incredibly hard conflict as you know, to get multiple sides of a story to just try to collaborate. Like what, what do we know from different points of view. And anytime I quote Al Jazeera, understanding the biases that come with that organization, I get a lot of pushback that it is not a viable source and it's a terrorist organization. It's all lies. So kind of reading into that, I would present that as more of a pro Israel leaning audience.
- [14:27]
A
Okay. I mean, if we're already on the topic, I'd say, you know, the strike in Doha recently, jumping from Venezuela to Israel, what do you make of that?
- [14:40]
B
Israel is. So there's a lot with Israel right now. They have shown incredible military proficiency over the course of the last couple years, in stark contrast with kind of the letdown that was security letdown that was October 7th, that kind of precipitated all of this. So since then, we have seen incredibly well planned and executed military operations against Hezbollah, against some of the militias in Syria, against Iran, that I don't think anybody really thought what they did against Iran was possible in that period of time. They just recently hit the Houthis. It looks like Israel is feeling unstoppable in a sense, and I understand why, because they kind of have been in the Middle east now for the last couple years. And the issue in Doha has been this weird dynamic of this conflict where Hamas leadership has been there. It's not even an open. It's not correct to call it an open secret. They were just there, and they would regularly appear on official TV channels and like, everybody knew where they were and they were kind of off limits. And it looks like Israel just said, enough's enough, we're going to do this. And tried to kill a number of senior Hamas officials. I don't know that it's confirmed yet if they got them Hamas right out the gate said, you missed. You killed a Qatari official and some other Hamas members, but not the leaders. But I understand it from Israel's perspective. It's a challenge that we had fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where you see the Taliban massing in Pakistan. You say, well, we just have to wait. Can't do that. Wait for them to come into Afghanistan and then we'll deal with them. Or foreign fighters massing moving through syria or manufacturing IEDs in Iran. They're gonna kill American soldiers and we don't go after them because the fight is here in this country. And that's frustrating. And I don't think that's probably the right way militarily to go about winning a war. But of course, there's a lot of strategic issues at play. And it looks to me like Israel has kind of brushed that aside and said, wherever these guys are, we're gonna find them, we're gonna kill them.
- [16:40]
A
And I mean, do you feel like that is, to your point, that they feel like they're untouchable right now, whether it be because of their precision and. Or the US Backing, knowing that there's kind of Trump, the administration having their back. And at most you get a Trump quote of nobody knows what the hell they're doing. And then things go back to the way they were. And you have him talking about turning Gaza into, like, a hotel, a giant, like, Disneyland factory. I mean, is that, is it, is it fueled, do you think, by the United States? And also, do you buy that the United States didn't know about this strike?
- [17:21]
B
Yeah. Interesting one. So I think it's hard to say. Trump is, I would say, probably the most pro Israel president we've had in a long time. Has certainly been more hands off, gloves off when it comes to how we're trying to influence Israel's operations, much more so than Biden. So there's no question there. But he's getting really pissed off left and right, and it looks like, again, this strike pissed him off. The story that came out, as you mentioned, was that we were notified of this strike essentially as the missiles are in the air, and we might not have even been told where the strike was going to take place. Just, hey, by the way, we're doing this in Qatar right now. That's not notice. That's hardly a professional courtesy at that point. My, my gut says that it's a mix of they've seen so much operational and tactical success outside of Gaza, inside of Gaza, that the tactical success would be the elimination of the location and elimination of Hamas leadership. But of course, still very much unresolved in the Gaza Strip. But going after Hezbollah, going after the irgc, going after the Houthis, and now going into Doha, I think they just feel like they can do it and there's no real pushback. I mean, what was. There really hasn't been any pushback from the United States on any of this stuff at this point?
- [18:36]
A
No. I mean, it ends up being kind of words and like a lot of, or like, maybe at most, finger wagging. So, but, but then I, you know, with that, I'll say, I mean, I've, I've never really had hopes in them because I do agree with your mindset, though. I think it comes from a different place of that Netanyahu is just going to continue this march. I also think that there's numerous other reasons with a lot of it being him trying to hold on to power and not having to face consequences at home for stuff that he's done. Allegedly. But how far do you think this, this sets peace talks back? Or is peace even really a chance at this point? If you're, if you're striking inside of Qatar?
- [19:17]
B
Yeah, there is a good, I wish I had the guy's name, but a Israeli journalist that was at this event, I was at this last week and he said it's off the table. Said it's off the table. He said October 7th took it off the table. But I think it's pretty fair to say that the actions that have followed Israel might be more secure. Right. Based off of the destruction of Hezbollah and going after some of the Iranian capabilities, we could probably have a debate as to whether or not Israel is safer today than they were on October 8th. But it's hard to imagine any sort of real peace talks happening anytime soon. I mean, the guys in Doha that were just hit were the ones that technically should have been negotiating. Yeah, I don't think peace is anytime soon.
- [20:00]
A
Yeah, I don't know. Whenever I hear the, you know, is Israel safer or not? I can't speak to, to Israel, but I do feel like it is. The actions there are potentially making it much more dangerous for at the very least Jewish Americans. It seems like it's, there's, there's, it feels like, you know, there's understandable criticism against the Israeli government. And then more and more it, I was talking about this last week with Ari Cohn. It feels like there is this horseshoe of then that leading more and more in people just straight down the anti Semitic road of kind of painting this broad picture. And so I don't know what's gonna happen there. But also, I mean, I don't know the whole situation, it has me, and this is not about me, but it has me up in how, how individuals are reacting to it. I mean, I, I don't know. I've seen people that I respect going to drastic extremes on, on both sides of this where it's like level headed people talking about like turn it into a parking lot and I'm just like, what the. Yeah, like it feels like, I don't know. I mean, but we're also seeing it maybe to a certain degree here where it's like, as long as you, as long as people feel like they can say that someone struck first, then any, any violence is, is warranted. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm still, yeah, I'm still dealing with a lot of my thoughts, even with it connected to here. But for right now, I'll say, regarding Israel, do you think if peace is off the table, does that also mean, do you think that the hostages are just never going to be released at this point? Do you think Israel will ever leave Gaza? What are your thoughts with those situations?
- [21:56]
B
I think at this point, it looks like now the possibility of a peace deal. The outlier here is if Israel is able to kill all of the Hamas leadership, you get new people in negotiating, maybe they take a different stance. I don't know if that's necessarily what they were going for. That could be a possibility. But the way it sits right now, it's hard to see a scenario where the hostages come home alive anytime soon, and it's hard to see a scenario where Israel leaves Gaza. I mean, right now, for Hamas to succeed, they just need to survive. And that's kind of been their goal from day one, is it's a traditional insurgency in a lot of ways where they just need to not die off and then they will have won. One of Israel's main goals is to, they say, demilitarize the Gaza Strip and make sure that nothing like October 7th can ever happen again. And if we're not there now, what's it going to take? So, I mean, they're moving into new areas of the Gaza Strip. For as small as that area was, Israel didn't go everywhere over the course of the last couple years, and they're pushing into some of those areas now. But I mean, we've seen it over and again. They move into an area, they clear it out and they shift over. People come back in and then there's another attack. And I don't know, it feels, I referred to it as a forever war the other day, saying it seems more and more like this is becoming a forever war. And I had some Middle Eastern viewers kind of laugh and say, you understand that this, that's what this is, it has been a forever war.
- [23:13]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, okay, so with that in mind, I mean, based off of the what's happened since October 7th, where do you think and where we are today? Where do you think we are in a year? Do you think, do you think that the forever war thing stands, or do you think that there will be an end result or something close to that?
- [23:35]
B
No end result. Israel in a year's time probably has the same presence in Gaza. They've established some semi permanent outposts to watch over some of the Hamas areas and there's probably unfortunately still a few hostages in Hamas captivity would be my feeling a year from now. But I'd be interested in your thoughts on what that looks like in the US Domestic scene. Because personally, I feel like for all of the attention it gets, and it's such a heated debate, it feels like nothing has changed politically here related to Israel or Gaza. So like it's a lot of noise, but nothing changed. Do you think another year of this is going to influence or affect.
- [24:11]
A
Well, so I guess the question is, do you mean, do you mean, okay, if you're talking about US Policy, that's a different thing. Do you think as far as US Sentiment like the, whether it be just everyday people or voter sentiment, or are you talking about US Policy coming from.
- [24:24]
B
The Trump administration policy? Because I think the sentiment is there and we see that on the Internet. It's loud, it's vocal, and there's some, you know, maybe outsized voices. But I don't think we've seen that translate into any change in policy. Do you think it's going to change?
- [24:37]
A
No, I don't think it's going to translate into policy. The only thing that could get there is if we see a bigger right wing shift. But that's, I feel like that's stayed pretty solid at 70, 30, the, the 30% of Republicans that have been against what Netanyahu is doing, they're pretty steadfast. And you see that popping up with like people sounding off on the president saying he's more make Israel for or make Israel great again or Israel first.
- [25:03]
B
Did he say that?
- [25:04]
A
No, no, no, he hasn't said that. I'm saying that right wing critics of the president have said that. And so that's where you see that split. No, I don't think I've seen, I don't know, I don't know when someone's listening to this or what happens. But no, I mean, I think there is, there is a world where that continues to, that opinion continues to eat away at the large group there. We've seen it drastically shift for young Democrats. But as far as it relating to policy, especially anything that, that Trump would back, I don't, I don't think so. I think to your point, Trump's been pretty much the most pro Israel president. It started in his first administration. I think it was also what was making me kind of slam my head against while I understood the, the, the criticisms and the anger that, that a number of leftists had with, with Biden, but I was slamming my head against the wall of it's going to be the same as far as like what a Biden or a Harris administration was and what a Trump administration would be or is now because it seemed pretty telegraphed and it seemed like, I don't know to me once again, it's like a lot of it comes down to words and perception and she was vice president, but I was like, it seemed like she was trying to, Harris was trying to find this line of not throwing Joe Biden under the bus when it came to Netanyahu, but also not alienating Jewish American Democratic voters. And I don't know. But so I think public sentiment is probably going to continue to shift depending on what happens and the, just like the horror that we are hearing and seeing online. Yeah. But yeah, I don't. That's what, that's where I was like do you think that there is, there is an end result? Like does, does the United States just whether it's writing a blank check or turning the other way enable Israel to a point where they do mass migrate people that there is the situation that we're seeing when it comes to starvation and aid and does it just continue to get worse? And I don't see anything changing. And I think because when everything's chaotic, I think it also causes people to look away and I think that removes political will for there to be a change from this administration. So no, I think, I don't think policy is going to change. But I'm always open to being wrong. Like I, who, who the, who the fuck knows. But before we move on to Ukraine, is there anything that you would want to add to the Israel situation?
- [27:55]
B
No, just kind of add to what you were saying is I think there's a loss of focus here in the United States. Before we hit record, we were talking about the attention span of people, all of us. And I think we're going to see the, I am seeing it, the attention span, Wayne, in regards to covering the conflict, there's the people that are very into it, very interested into. It's the wrong way to talk about a war, but very focused on staying up to date. They're still there. But in terms of a larger audience, I'm seeing few. And if you look at, you know, front page articles in major news organizations, it's getting less and less coverage. I would expect that to continue. It's just, it's as important as it might be for some people here in the United States. It is, it is just not a top Priority for the vast majority of Americans.
- [28:45]
A
Well, I think it's, I think it's also, it's. It's hard to pay attention to so many things at any given one time. Especially like this is our, these are our jobs. Right. So it makes sense that we're, we're so focused on it. I think so many people are just trying to figure out how they're going to continue to survive. So I always try and keep that in mind when it, when it comes to attention span. That also gets into like trying to consolidate my show. Right. Trying to like.
- [29:10]
B
Sure.
- [29:10]
A
The reason I talk a mile a minute in that and I talk like a regular human in this is, you know, I'm trying to jam in as much information as possible. Give you as much of the world news or information poison. My hope is that it. So that you're not letting it consume your day. But I think that is happening more and more. I don't know. Every, every time I look at my, my phone it feels like my, my usage has gone up and I'm just like. I don't know if I'm living a regular human life at this point. I'm so into the. Actually is that I was like, that's, that's a, this is a transition. I was like, would you, are you on your phone and would you tell me what your activity is as far as like your hours? What's. What is it called? What is it called?
- [29:55]
B
I'll look it up right now, but I can tell you ahead of time. It's going to be embarrassing. I spend all day on the phone. Where is it?
- [30:02]
A
I'm like looking. I'm like general. Oh, God. And also Ben, I know you're listening. If you know where it is right now. I just get that update screen time. Thank you, Ben. Okay, that doesn't even make sense. This is broken. Maybe it's because I have several devices open at the same time. It says my daily average is 30 hours. It's broken.
- [30:30]
B
30 hours a day? Yeah, man. You're putting in those hours. See, mine says it's not. Oh, oh, mine wasn't on.
- [30:40]
A
Okay. No, no, it's okay. This is super weird. It's not.
- [30:44]
B
It wasn't on. I just turned it on. So I'm saved the embarrassment of it. It being over 30 a day.
- [30:49]
A
No, this week, obviously it's been different. Is 12 and a half hours and it's like, obviously a lot of that is connected to work, but still there's.
- [31:03]
B
Some toll involved there. Right? That's. That's no joke. And I'm right there with you.
- [31:07]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I, but. And so I guess to that point it's like, it's very easy, I think, for people to, to tune out because there's so much horrible happening and you're like, what can I do? What can I do about it other than I'm just taking, taking this in. And I think that is going to be like a big aspect of a lot of the coverage moving forward is what, well, what can I do about it, especially outside of like the two year election cycle of like, okay, I can vote for change even though more people are disillusioned about like, will the vote actually matter where. Yeah. Seeing gerrymandering become more and more of a very transparent tool. It's been a tool. But, but anyway, but anyway, I don't, I didn't bring you on to be super, super domestic. I did want to also then switch to Ukraine. Right. And that because when we're recording two days ago, Russia fired drones into Polish airspace. Do you think that it was done intentionally also? Does it matter? And do you think NATO should respond to that, should respond to this?
- [32:13]
B
Talk about information, overlord. Let's just take a quick minute to appreciate that we're passing the halfway point in the show before we get to NATO attacked by Russia. Right. So, my God, it's been a week. So it was intentional. It, the flight paths of the drones looks intentional. The drones that were downed inside of Poland looked like decoys. So they did not have explosive warheads, which suggests that they were doing this as more of a test. So Russia outfits a percentage of these drones with no warhead. And it looks the same to Ukrainian air defense and they have to expend munitions and it's a, it's a decoy, it's a distraction. And they mix it in with the regular drone strikes. It looks like right now every one of those that went into Poland was a decoy. So no explosive warhead. My gut says that the reason for that is if any of these were to get through or get shot down out of the sky, they would, they were less likely to cause significant damage or casualties, and they did not cause any casualties. It looks like one house was pretty severely damaged, but it looks like a drone flew through the ceiling. It does not look like what you would expect when something blows up. So Russia testing NATO, I don't think this was a test of their air defense because you're not going to learn a lot flying, you know, 19 drones or something into Poland. I think what we're seeing is Russia testing NATO's resolve. How do we react to something like this? Because Putin, for his entire life has been operating under this belief that an attack on one is an attack on all. And it is an ironclad agreement and nothing will come between NATO member states, especially when it comes to an overt attack by Russia. And I think rightfully so. He has seen what appear to be some cracks in the armor recently, and he's testing it out. What are we going to do? And a rational response is not going to be a nuclear attack on Russia for this. There's a lot of things we could do before that, but Putin's going to learn a lot and he'll be able to understand. Can he change how he's operating in Ukraine? Can he maybe look at the Baltics a little bit differently based off of does the coalition come together or do we fracture over this thing? And I think that's yet to be determined.
- [34:20]
A
So with it being 19 drones, you think this is definitely more about decoys rather than them in some way being like reconnaissance drones or something like that?
- [34:28]
B
There could have been some reconnaissance aspect involved there as well. We've seen one and two at a time. I think one at a time, drones fly off course for electronic, kind of jammed. Ended up in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland. So we've seen that mistakes happen. It's not, unfortunately, it's not out of the ordinary for all of these to be without warheads. Wood shifted away from the trying to destroy something. So this was not. And I think that's part of what Putin was going for is now it's harder to say this was an attack because nothing blew up, nothing was destroyed, nobody was killed. It makes it just a little harder to claim the term Russian attack reconnaissance, maybe. But again, in looking at some of the areas these flew over, I'm not entirely sure there would have been a lot of intelligence value gathered at the time. So possible. But even that sense, I would say, you know, if. If Putin was exclusively focused on intel gathering and did not want to run the risk of provoking NATO, you fly that thing into Polish airspace, spin around and come back and land in Ukraine. So I think there was a. I think the point here was, what are we going to do about it?
- [35:41]
A
And, I mean, it does look like NATO responded well. But also, is it accurate that the United States didn't respond at all? Like, is that odd for where the attack took place? Like, is there. What do you think of that?
- [35:55]
B
I don't know how much we can Read into this right now. So right out the gate, all of this public information, because they, you know, we had flight radar of aircraft going up to, to protect Polish skies. My understanding is that at least a US F35 was in the sky helping our NATO allies. And we have these air bases throughout NATO where there are multiple countries involved. So it's not like, it's not like German aircraft are flying from Germany and French aircraft flying from France. We have joint bases. So I believe we have confirmation that a German Patriot was involved. Polish aircraft, French aircraft, and maybe Dutch aircraft. The NATO statement didn't mention the United States. I don't know if that was intentional, if it was a mistake, or if maybe there weren't US Aircraft involved. We really haven't seen much from the US in terms of statements here. We've seen some pretty serious statements, especially coming from Poland. The US Essentially had the Trump statement saying, I. Some weird thing about, I guess, Russia drones. And here we go.
- [37:02]
A
Yeah, yeah. What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go. I mean, what do you. Yeah, I mean, what do you make of that? Because there's a lot of. There's, there's a lot of talk about where Trump actually stands with Putin and like, with this, this attack on, on Ukraine in general. What do you. What are your thoughts with. I guess not a tweet. Yeah, I guess that tweet. I don't know.
- [37:28]
B
I don't know that we take much from that at all. It felt. And from what I can tell, that's like, the only statement. Maybe I missed it. So I don't want to put out bad information here, but I don't think I've seen any official statements from, you know, the State Department, the White House, DOD, or the president outside of that. And I think this is probably the biggest test for NATO in my lifetime. So it seems odd that we're not doing anything about it, not talking about this. And don't get me wrong, I don't want strongly worded letters like, I'm not waiting for the condemnation and we have to get on board and make sure you say the right thing at the right time. We actually do need some sort of action here, but it seems like it's kind of being brushed aside as not much of an issue is. Is how I'm reading it.
- [38:11]
A
So let's say, you know, we're in those situations where all of a sudden you have the, the power. What would you like to see?
- [38:17]
B
Yeah, I think we have to walk the line between so NATO Article 5, I think it's a lot of. Gets interpreted, misinterpreted a lot. It does not require an automatic nuclear strike on Russia, does not require that we go to war with Russia. There's a wide range there where it essentially just says member states need to do something to contribute to the effort to. And it does not mean marching to Moscow. So I think what I would like to see is invoking Article 5 to show that this is serious and every member state that then shows that 32 to 0 were together. And I think that's an important message to send. That message might be more important than the actual tangible actions taken following Article 5. I think we should invoke it. And then there's a wide range of defensive measures we could put in place. We could just through that increase aid to Ukraine or stand up additional training bases in NATO countries. We could provide NATO air defense assets to the western portion of Ukraine, maybe station them, you know, really ramp up air defense on the border inside of Poland. But on the border between Poland and Ukraine, maybe we go a step further and shut down some of the airspace, you know, 50, 50 miles on both sides of the border between Poland and Ukraine and say anything in this airspace we're going to shoot down. You're not going to run into a Russian manned aircraft in western Ukraine. Everything you come across is going to be a missile or drone. So you don't have to worry about accidentally having to engage and shoot down a Russian pilot. That's the direction I would go. Given the, given the. The decision at this point, I'd like to see something like that that shows we're unified and we are willing to take a step to deter this from happening, specifically launching anything into Poland.
- [40:06]
A
So you have that. And then compared to what is happening, how do you think that Trump is handling this war?
- [40:13]
B
Not great, to say the least. I think he's getting frustrated. I don't know where this idea came from, but it seems like he expected this to be simple and quick, like he just needed to get on the phone with the two of them and they would sort this thing out and everything would go back to normal. And that was never going to be the case. It didn't matter who the US President was. We're long past Putin and Zelensky being able to hammer this thing out in the matter of a couple hours. In turn, it looks to me like Trump has gotten frustrated and started to walk away. We've seen a significant decrease, essentially shutting off of US Military assistance. Old packages are continuing to Flow, albeit at a lower rate, but we haven't seen. Actually, I think yesterday they just added like 400 million for Ukraine aid, but it's a fraction of what's actually needed. I just think it's a very low priority on his list. And I'm frustrated that it seems like we're not taking any action to really force negotiations. We just pulled back sanctions on Belarus today. These drones that flew into Poland, some of them flew through Belarusian airspace. Tomorrow marks Zapad 2025, a major military exercise between Russia and Belarus. They will. And they have historically run nuclear launch exercises. They're not going to launch a nuclear weapon, but they're going to run through the protocol of showing what it would look like if that needed to happen. They're not launching those. That's directed at NATO and at the United States. And we just eased sanctions on Belarus today. I think a lot of that is heading in the wrong direction and not. I don't think it's. I don't think President Trump has done very much, if anything at all, to get to a peace deal. I think we've talked a lot, but in terms of tangible actions, I don't think it's there.
- [42:00]
A
Yeah, I mean, you saying that, it also makes me think, like, what do you make of Marco Rubio? Because he's kind of gone from being a Russia hawk his whole life to now being this other thing. I don't know even how I would put it.
- [42:12]
B
It's hard to understand that because we are there. No principles. It's a challenge I have, when I look at politicians writ large, is seeing how quickly they're able to change their opinions and their views and their stances on things. Rubio is continuing to be pretty hawkish towards Venezuela. Seems like he's really kind of leading the charge down there. But when it comes to Ukraine, you're right. He just completely took a step back. It's the same. We're seeing very similar language about just silly things at this point. We have to talk. We have to end this. We have to get both sides together. It's like, we got it, man. We know. And you knew this, too. But somehow, two years ago, he knew the problem was Putin, and that seems to have completely gone away now. I don't know what prompts that. The pessimistic side of me says he. It's just power. People want to be in power. They want to be in positions of authority, so they go along with what they think they need to do. But, yeah, I was optimistic that we'd See more from Rubio kind of pushing this even to a degree. Hegseth. I think that was a little more of a flyer, but there was a period of time, specifically at the start of the invasion, where he was coming down hard on Russia, and I was. There's a very small percentage of me thinking this might be the case, but who knows? Maybe this would be a. We want to flex and show how strong we are as a US Military and that you can't do this stuff. You can't mess with our allies. We will come over the top and provide Ukraine with everything they need, more training and put Russia in their place. It was a small possibility, and clearly that. That is not the route we went.
- [43:45]
A
Yeah, I mean, regarding, I mean, regarding strategy, I do want to talk about, like, Trump's national defense strategy, Right. Which every president does in the first year of their presidency, that reportedly faces domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow. When, when it talks about domestic missions, what do you. What do you think that means?
- [44:07]
B
I don't like that term for, For a defense strategy. I, I think national security, homeland defense, I think we can do a lot of stuff like that. And to me, that has always meant essentially keeping the bad guys out or finding the bad guys once they make their way in, maybe missile defense, things like that. That does not seem to be domestic mission has a very different sound to me, and it comes alongside the deployment of National Guard and then in California, some active duty troops. Those two together make me pretty uncomfortable. I. I'm in the camp that we should be overly cautious about how we use our military inside of the United States. They do a great job. The National Guard and to a little degree, the Reserves, when they're. When they're called for this purpose, do an incredible job protecting their communities, and it's what they signed up to do. And in times of natural disasters, it is such an awesome resource. And for so many of these people, it's the highlight of their career. To be able to go back to their hometown or a town down the road and save people from a flood, provide humanitarian assistance. It's awesome that we can do that. And it's historically been pretty well utilized by governors. Shifting that over to law enforcement operations, immigration operations, even when it's just tangential or just on the side, makes me very nervous. I just don't. I. I'm worried about the. How the military is viewed.
- [45:36]
A
Right. I mean, well, because, I mean, we are seeing what we're seeing now. We're also once Again, it's like everything changes every 12 hours and it feels like we're in a moment of acceleration and escalation. But there is a lot of the enemy within talk that's being thrown around. Again, I mean, in your experience, I mean this is somewhat connected in your experience when it comes to the way that the military is viewed and then the actual people that are a part of it. I know that there's been more and more conversation about concerns about radicalization or where loyalties lie. Do you have any thoughts or experiences there?
- [46:17]
B
I mean I can tell my personal experiences, of course, pretty unique here. So I can't speak for the, for the entirety of the force and wouldn't. But in my time in the military it was always very diverse. So we tend. When I entered, I had in my mind that the army, the military was very conservative. It's kind of always what I had in my mind. But you get there and you find out that it's just everything because the 18 year old kid that signed up from Chicago maybe hasn't thought about politics at all. He just trying to find a way to make a living. So you end up with a pretty cool diverse range of opinions. Now, is it 55, 45, one side or the other? Maybe, but it's not some major change. Most of the units I've been in, those conversations don't even come up. So I couldn't tell you. Like it doesn't. People don't even hint at anything political and they've been very, very professional to make sure that there's not even a suggestion of like I've been in as elections have played out. And it's just been a very matter of fact like election happened last night. Here's the results. Let's get on with our day. Like very solid professional. I know there's been some concern of extremism in the ranks. And I mean one is too many when it comes to that. And I know there's been a lot of focus on clamping down on that in terms of loyalty. I think it'd be the same there. As you would see with across the rest of the population, the vast, vast majority are good people, they're good Americans. They want to do what they can to protect their families and their cities. But there's bad apples. Just some people suck.
- [47:49]
A
When you say clamping down on extremism, what do you mean there for the.
- [47:52]
B
Time I was in and I got out probably six months ago from the Reserve. So part time at that point, but acknowledging it, recognizing that it exists at all. There wasn't, I don't recall a conversation when I was on active duty. It was between 09 and 14 or even my time at West Point, the years before that, talking about extremism in the force. It really wasn't a conversation. Now it is. And it's like we spent a lot of time when I was in Afghanistan about identifying insider threats, an Afghan that might turn his weapon and try to shoot Americans. That was not a conversation in the years leading up to it. But during that, you know, probably a five to ten year period, that was a heavy focus. We got training on it and what to watch for and how to report it and how to protect yourself. It seems like that is the phase that we're at when it comes to extremism in the military. Be aware of it, know what to watch for, that kind of thing.
- [48:48]
A
Okay. Yeah. I'm going to be very interested to see whether it be perception or what happens in the, the next month, how, how things are going to develop because. Yeah, yeah, I, I feel, it feels like we are in this moment of potential drastic change. I don't even know what next week's going to look like. But on the more international stage, I mean, do you think that what we're seeing is the US Kind of withdrawing more and more from the world and maybe we're carving or maybe the world's getting carved up more into spheres of influence again?
- [49:19]
B
I think we're definitely seeing the United States withdraw. And again, when you look at what's popular here in the United States, it's not hard to get there. You and I and your audience knows that foreign affairs is never the top priority in any election cycle. It's not going to change. It was not the top priority this most recent election when there were two major wars ravaging the world. It didn't. I mean, I don't know that Ukraine or Israel cracked the top 10, maybe even top 20 of voter priorities. So I think for, for an administration or even an incoming administration or a challenger, I just don't know that the focus is going to shift anymore in that direction. And it does seem to me like the Trump administration. Well, you just mentioned the defense strategy. Focus more on the home front. I think that's what we're going to see more and more. There was talk for a while that we needed to focus more on China. Haven't really seen that play out. Like the idea that we can't do as much with Ukraine because we need to focus on China, which would kind of give the idea status quo. We're still going to spend a lot of money and resources overseas. We're just going to shift where it's going. We haven't really seen that shift either. The majority of the changes that we've seen have really been here at home.
- [50:29]
A
Are we. I mean, are we kind of just handing China the future? Does it feel like that right now? Is it already headed that way? And this is just kind of quickening things because it does seem, whether it's superficial or not, like whether it's just, you know, just trying to make Trump feel a certain way. It feels like America's. Some of America's sort of allies and America's enemies are getting closer than ever. And I don't know, I do wonder if we're headed to a place where it's not just spheres of influence, but the United States, through what we're seeing, becomes, I guess, just not a world leader. I've talked to people in finance, even, obviously, it's a different thing. Talking about is the dollar what it is in 5, 10 years as far as the thing that helps the world run? You know, I don't know. Do you. Do you think that it's going that way?
- [51:24]
B
Yeah, and I think it's. We generally tend to think of our adversaries as not smart. And China is very, very smart. So every little opening, they're finding ways to step in. And why would they not? I mean, I think a good example is the USAID programs anywhere around the world where we said, we are no longer going to fund this. There was an immediate vacuum and probably a need. I'm sure there was some that didn't need to be there. But in a lot of cases, there were, you know, local agencies and water purification and clinics that just are no longer operational. So China, no doubt, as soon as that came out, we started to get reports that China was stepping in to fill some of those gaps. And why on earth would you not? So I think that's what we're going to see in the military sphere. We're already seeing some concern about buying U.S. military equipment. We've seen some countries start to shift more towards European equipment. We haven't seen the shift to Chinese or Russian yet, but countries looking at more European providers. That's a way that we exert influence around the world. And we have our, you know, our current standing is in large part because of these alliances that I think we maybe at this point have just taken for granted and have not done a good job of communicating or articulating why it's important. So it's kind of easy to move away from them.
- [52:41]
A
Yeah, it does feel like there's been a complete abandonment of the idea. Well, mostly abandonment of soft power that it's all. It's all hard power, whether it be pure spending power, whether it be military might, and, I don't know, maybe. Is. Do you think maybe Trump is seeing something that at least half the country isn't seeing? That at the end of the day, it's whoever has, like, the biggest stick and the biggest wallet and that's. That's all that matters, or is. Is, you know, not using the carrot, not. Not having the handout to help ultimately gonna fuck the country.
- [53:19]
B
I. I'm an optimist, though, so I'm always trying to find not just, why.
- [53:24]
A
Do I keep having these optimists coming on? I got to last week, I got to just roll around in my. My own hate and horribleness of just my life and what's happening.
- [53:36]
B
So I want to find the thing. And one thing that Trump has done through more this administration, the last, is he's brought in a lot of outsiders with different points of view, and I think there's a time and a place where that can be beneficial in government or in private industry, and maybe you can make a change you otherwise wouldn't have seen. So with a lot of Trump's foreign policy decisions, you see that as the response of, give it time, let him work. You know, he's got this master plan. The problem is, in a lot of the arenas that I'm watching, there's no coherent plan. So if we pull out the Russia, Ukraine stuff, it is all over the map. Like, we have laid out deadlines and then let those deadlines come and go. We have turned, turned off weapons, supplies, seemingly without any authority, and not even telling Ukraine. It is chaos. It is not a plan. So I am open and willing to look at other ways that we could go about exerting influence around the world, or maybe the argument that we need to step back from certain areas. But to me, it doesn't seem like we're doing that. It just seems like chaos. So, I don't know. It's hard to trust that plan, man. It's different every day.
- [54:42]
A
Yeah, well. So, yeah, I'd be interested in your thoughts, then, regarding something that many people have credited Trump with, and some have said, well, that was going to happen anyway because of Russia, like with NATO countries saying, hey, we're going to put more money into defense. Right. That was something that Trump really has harped on, I want to say, since day one, like, you got to pay your fair share. We got to get these numbers up to 5%. Everyone said that's in. Or not everyone, but a lot of people said that's insane. Now we're in a world where people are like, we have to. Or you have NATO saying we have to do that. I think I'm going to add an asterisk. I feel like I saw something with Spain saying they wouldn't do that. I have to double check. Yeah, but is that, is that the Trump effect, or do you see that as more. Russia is so aggressive that that's what woke these countries up?
- [55:33]
B
Well, the Russian aggression plays a part. I mean, we can't remove that entirely. But at the same time, this didn't happen during the first few years of their invasion of Ukraine. We didn't see this spike. So I do think that was in large part or if not exclusively due to President Trump. I wish we could have gone about it a little differently. Maybe it could not have been done a different way, but it did seem to me like we really isolated a lot of our allies in the process and maybe even signaled that it was during those talks where we signaled that we might not support an ally that was not paying 5%. I understand where that's coming from, but that hurts the alliance. So I like that NATO countries have upped their spending. I think it's the right time to do that. And I do think President Trump is largely responsible for that. I just wish we could have gotten there in a little different manner.
- [56:21]
A
Well, also, I think what probably a big thing to keep in mind is it's also not going to be something that materializes overnight. This is, I mean, the infrastructure and the build that they're talking about isn't that, I mean, that's not something, Is that even something that takes five years? Is that like 10 plus years that we're looking at?
- [56:38]
B
Yeah, And I think we got to be careful here because it, it, it, you're right, it cannot happen overnight. It's the right move. We're heading in the right direction. So there's all these little things we can pull out that kind of, I think, decrease from the overall net positive. Like, they're also able to include things that are closer to homeland defense. So, like, we can roll in like Coast Guard and border security and things like that, that generally we wouldn't view that as defense spending under NATO. So everybody's defense spending automatically got this little bump because we're including things we didn't previously include. So in a sense, that kind of takes away from the headline. But I do think net net. It ends up being positive, even if it takes, you're right, three, four, five years maybe to get there. And we should stress this is not a requirement. It is a. Maybe pledge is the right way to put it.
- [57:32]
A
Well, yeah, I definitely don't want to get it across that I'm saying that it's maybe a good or a bad thing. I'm just. I just think that it is the time, the timetable. A lot of these things I do feel like is lost, whether it's on a smaller but still meaningful scale, like aid Ukraine. Right. It's like it's not. It's not like. And we magically materialized all of those things where they need to be right in that exact moment. Right. There's those things. But then even with NATO spending, I think it becomes a question of if there is some sort of conquest from Russia, is it too late already? Even if we're seeing the change, which actually, Preston, I think the last thing that I'll hit on is, you know, with what we saw. Excuse me, what we saw in Poland and just kind of what we've seen with the warnings from members of NATO. Do you think that this was Russia. Yes. Testing NATO's resolve because of the situation just in Ukraine, or do you think that there is a risk of them going further than Ukraine, that it just, it doesn't end there for Russia?
- [58:39]
B
Yeah. So this is an interesting dynamic because that's one of the talking points, is if we don't stop Russia now, they'll move into Europe. But at the same time, we. Russia has essentially been stopped by the Ukrainian military in eastern Ukraine. They're making very little progress. So how can we look at that military riding around on motorcycles and ATVs and say that's the group that's going to roll into Poland like, you know, in 2055 or something. But I think the. I think what we need to look at here is not a conventional military strike by Russia against NATO, because that would be silly for Putin to carry out. Think more about the little green men that they very successfully employed in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 and the possibility of doing that in some of the Baltic countries where there are small but still existing undercurrents of Russian support. Some of the nostalgia for the Soviet Union, again, very small, very minor. But there's a little bit there to the degree that Russia might try to rile that up and spark a fire there like they did in Donetsk and luhansk back in 2014. I think that's generally been off the table because we would view that, I think, as an attack on a NATO country. If Putin sees a bit of a fracture, that might be an easy place to start seeding some degree of discontent.
- [59:54]
A
It's going to be a wild one to see. Preston, I just want to say thank you for the time, man. I'm going to obviously stay subscribed, see your take, see, see what's happening while we're we're also trying to handle it as well. But I really appreciate you, man.
- [60:06]
B
Thanks so much for the invite, Phil.
- [60:08]
A
And to you, dear listener, thank you for watching or listening to today's podcast. If you haven't already, follow us on Spotify, Apple or YouTube. Also give it 5 stars on Spotify and Apple or give it a like on YouTube. And of course, leave a comment on what you agreed with, disagreed with or who you'd like to see next as a guest. Thank you for watching I Love Yo Faces and I'll see you right back here soon.