A (62:08)
Yeah, there's a lot of great things about coming from a business background. But then there's like, the weakness of it is that he's always attracted by, like, you're like, hey, Gaza could be beachfront. You know, and he's like, ooh, you could just see him, like, come alive. Yeah, it's always this stuff. But then the problem is that, you know, and look, I've been very harsh on Donald Trump over the last few months, but I think he deserves it. And I think this administration is failing on so many levels so profoundly, especially given the opportunity that they had. But, you know, I heard him the other day, he called into a Fox News show and it was. He was like telling the story of the war in Ukraine. And it's like, it just seems like he's telling, like, it seems like you learned this on a TV show. Like, can we get some books in your diet? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, this is. We really need someone here who's read a book about this. Cuz he kind of had an idea of what he was talking about, but then he got it completely wrong. So he goes, he's trying to tell the story and he's talking about the corruption of the Bidens In Ukraine. And you're like, okay, yes, that is true. But like there's a whole story here that I don't think you're really understanding. Cuz he goes, he goes look, this goes back to 2 2014. And so I'm watching this and I got like so excited for a minute. Like I was, I was like yes, yes, it does go back to 2014. Thank you Donald Trump. And then he goes, it goes back to 2014 when Putin took Crimea and Obama let him have it. He just let him have it. Never would have happened on my watch. But Obama gave Putin Ukraine. And you're like no dude, that's not. Just go back two months earlier in that same year. The problem wasn't that Obama gave Putin Ukraine. The problem was that Obama, Obama took Ukraine away from Vladimir Putin. As I've played on your show and you played with Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence has sat right here where I'm sitting and watched Gideon Rose explained to Stephen Colbert exactly what we're doing here. Russia. As Gideon Rose, the editor of Foreign affairs magazine said, Russia is Batman, Ukraine is Robin. We are stealing Robin away from Batman. That's what the maid on Revolution was, was. That's why the USAID and the NED poured $100 million into the street protest, right? And so they overthrew the government and then a bunch of the former Ukrainian prime ministers started floating out that we should tear up the Sevestopol lease in Crimea because you know, this is Russia's only year long warm water naval port. They've always had it. This was their agreement. They had like a 50 year lease or something like that. But after the west backed a coup that overthrew the government and put in a pro Western government, they started talking big like well maybe we'll tear up that lease and we will. As if Vladimir Putin went no, I'll just take it. And that was like so anyway, so he goes back to that doesn't go back a few months earlier and then misses the entire point that no. So cuz like the point is that it's not just like me being like I wish Donald Trump was into the same books I'm into or something like that. The point is that when you don't get that piece of the chapter then you miss this, what's happening right now. So when you're talking about like these, essentially what Donald Trump was saying, the way he was trying to sell it to Zelensky was like, look, do this rare earth minerals deal with us. And this is kind of like a security guarantee. It's not exactly a security guarantee, but if we're in business with you and then Putin's trying to fuck up our business, hey, he's picking a fight with us, too. But the whole point is that that's exactly what caused this whole catastrophe. Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian election elite have been crystal clear about this, that they go, look, we can tolerate a neutral Ukraine. We could tolerate NATO up to Ukraine. Ukraine is neutral. And then there's Russia. We cannot tolerate Ukraine being part of America's military alliance. That's a step too far. But every time we try to let him be neutral, neutral seems like it's never good enough. And that never actually works. So if you're going to come in here and say, neutral's not good enough, enough, they're going to be part of the west, then we're going to say, actually, we'll take them as part of Russia instead. Now, he also believes, as he says all the time, which I just think is goofy and un American, but he also believes that, like, yeah, they're not really a real country and they're kind of historically ours anyway. And, you know, he's got his own views on that, but that's not what the war was about. And everybody, you know, and when I was here with when, which I was very excited to do because I'm, you know, a we weird, romantic and have a dash of autism or something like that. But what I was really excited because me and Douglas Murray are going to debate this issue. And I remember when he first goes, he goes, the war had nothing to do with Ukrainian entry into NATO. And I was like, okay, well, let me just hit you with two points real quick. Number one, the head of the CIA, you know, during all the years of Joe Biden, when he was the ambassador to Russia, he wrote the yet means yet memo. He literally said that this was all what it was all about and that Russia didn't want to do this, this, but they would if we kept pushing Ukrainian entry into NATO. And we did keep pushing it. And then I said the other one was Stoltenberg, who is not anymore, but was the head of NATO while this was happening. And he said that Vladimir Putin sent them in writing a draft treaty that all you have to do is put in writing that you will never bring Ukraine into NATO and I won't invade. And then he bragged that we said no, and then he invaded. But so I said this to Douglas Marshall, and I was kind of curious, like, I was like, what's, what's his response to this gonna be? Like, what is he gonna say back to. Maybe he's got something I've never heard before that I'm gonna have to be like, oh shit, I gotta consider that. And his response was a libertarian quoting the CIA. I say, and you're like, wait, so that's your pivot is to I'm a hypocrite somehow. Which isn't even hypocrisy. Like, yes, I think the CIA should be abolished. I also think it's relevant when the head of the CIA admits what the war was all about. Out.
