News Reporter (5:07)

The far right candidate openly emulates American President Donald Trump. Nationalist and critical of elites in the media, he says he wants to restore Romania's greatness. In Bucharest, he, he sought to reassure businessmen that even though he has never been in government, he is fit to lead the aur, wants to remain in the European Union, but has proposed cutting off military aid to Ukraine.

Audience Member (5:39)

We need to take care of our.

Political Analyst (5:41)

Own interests and of our own citizens.

News Reporter (5:44)

If the far right received 40% of the vote in the first round this month, it's also thanks to Colleen Georgescu. The anti vaccine, pro Russian candidate won the first round of elections in November before it was annulled. Now under investigation for campaign abuses, Georgescu must report to the police once a week.

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Political Analyst (8:02)

Now on the other side, here's how they described Naksher Dan. Here, play this clip.

News Reporter (8:07)

The other side. Campaigners for the centrist candidate and mayor of Bucharest, Nikku Shordan, are worried the country is turning to the extreme right away from the European Union and towards the influence of Russia. The independent candidate presents himself as anti corruption. He says the campaign has been tough.

Political Analyst (8:32)

People don't have a lot of confidence in traditional media and are looking elsewhere. There's lots of information out there about me and there's no verification.

News Reporter (8:43)

The latest polls show the candidates in a near dead heat with a slight advantage for the far right.

Political Analyst (8:49)

Let's take a look at how the local Bucharest coverage has been describing this surge in young voter turnout today. Here, play this clip.

Local News Reporter (8:59)

The turnout has come to be a lot higher than people anticipated, especially among young people, the ages between 18 to 34. And those are really the numbers that everybody is here observing. Two types of votes, the votes of the young people who tend not to vote in as many numbers as they have chosen to come out this time according to the electoral registry here in Romania. While on the other side, we did see George Simeon already cast shadow over these elections based on basically stating that some 1.8 million dead people were still registered and eligible to vote, saying that he hopes that those People did not rise from the dead to cast their vote. While on the other side, Nicosar Dan has already said that as far as he is concerned, the votes that are coming in are being counted as they are coming in. And he sees no transparency issues in these elections. As of this morning, the polls will close at some 9pm but if these polls are challenged and additional doubts are casted on the electoral results, it may take days and possibly even weeks to get the results of this election.

Political Analyst (10:22)

I also thought one of the defining moments of this election was this clip that went viral right here of a Romanian woman singing the national anthem after casting her vote. A powerful moment unfolding at this polling station in Romania as a woman broke into song after voting, proudly singing the national anthem, recognizing that if the vote went for George Simeon, Romania would likely have been fully lost to Vladimir Putin. It would have become another satellite country of Putin. And fortunately, fortunately, Romania said not today. Here, watch this. CL now here's the iconic fountains in Bucharest lighting up the colors of Europe and the European Union to celebrate their hard fought victory over fascism. Long live Romania. Long live Europe. Slava, Ukraine. Play this clip. Now. It's also worth showing you as well this clip from earlier in the day of Bridget Brink, who recently quit her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. And here she talks about how what Trump was doing was basically sucking up to Putin and selling out Ukraine and treating the victim Ukraine suffered the unlawful invasion by Putin as the aggressor. Here's why the ambassador to Ukraine quit her post. And I think this all ties into what we just saw in Bucharest with the Romania election. Play this clip.

Bridget Brink (12:38)

You served this country for so many decades. What happened that made you say I can't take it?

Audience Member (12:45)

Well, maybe let me give you a little context. What I saw in Ukraine was horrifying. For three years, Russia launched missiles and drones at men, women and children sleeping in their homes, tried to take down the energy grid for millions of Ukrainians to take out the power, heat and light in the middle of winter, and committed war crimes and atrocities at a level we haven't seen since World War II. I resigned from Ukraine and also from the Foreign Service because the policy since the beginning of the administration was to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine rather than on the aggressor Russia. I fully agree that the war needs to end, but I believe that peace at any price is not peace at all. It's appeasement. And as we know from history, appeasement only leads to more war.

Bridget Brink (13:35)

And to be clear, you are a career diplomat. So that means you serve regardless of who is the president of the United States and what party they come from. And in fact, when you tried to leave post in January, Secretary Rubio asked you to stay on in Kyiv. As I understand it, you were there for a number of months, until April. What specifically with this policy is a problem for you? Because you did, you worked at post under the Trump administration. Was there a trigger that made you say we're getting it so wrong?

Audience Member (14:08)

Well, I would say it wasn't a harsh, a hasty, rash decision. It was one that I took over the first three months of the administration. But the first sign was the Oval Office meeting in February between President Trump and President Zelensky, where I saw that our approach is to put pressure on Ukraine and not pressure on Russia.

Political Analyst (14:27)

So, folks, a major upset, but an important one for the sake of democracy, for the sake of rejecting Putin and Maga, Romanian voters showed up. Despite the far right wing candidate George Simeon of the Aur winning the first round of elections early in May, which scared a lot of people into thinking that Romania was lost to fascism, to maga, to Putin. Young voters and other voters stood up for democracy, cast their votes in favor of Nicosia Dan, the centrist mayor, soft spoken man from Bucharest, who will go on to win this election. Now, we're going to follow up, of course, of what's going on with this claim, this lie, this kleptocratic playbook that's now being utilized by Russia and George Simeon and claiming that they won when they lost, trying to incite violence. Romanians are not going to stand for this. But this is textbook Trumpy Putin loser behavior. Great work, Romania. You stood up for the world. It's a great day for democracy. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers.

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