Well, whiskey, come and take my pay money, Oh whiskey don't. From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia. I've gotta giving let that whiskey fla where you're being in love down in lod Well. I don't know about you, guys, but I think even Lucretia ought to be in a good
mood this weekend because of all the great news we got this week. First of all, John, ten thousand new McDonald's restaurants planned to be open in the next two or three years, and the stock has been rallying ever since you got back from Latin America, which is why I think we should confiscate your passport and start stopping. Let me just stop there for a second. I went to because of a whole series of disasters. Went to McDonald's for
dinner the other night. Two hamburgers, one without buns or anything, No French fries, no drinks, just two quarter pounders, double quarter pounders with cheese, twenty eight dollars, yeah, eight, and nobody waited on us. We had to do it all ourselves, and I said, no mayonnaise, and they slathered it with mayonnaise. Okay, first thing. Second thing. The next day, I took one of my colleagues to lunch. We went to a Mexican restaurant. We had drinks and she had an inch a
chicken enchilada platter. I had a taco enchilada platter. You know what the price was twenty eight dollars. It was crap. McDonald's is crap, John. I don't know how you eat that stuff. It was four Well, okay, McDonald's. You gotta have McDonald's and use the app. Usually get two sandwiches for the price of one, and two crappy sandwiches for the price of one. Last week, you were waiting a minute, Lucretia was like three, four or five years ago that that happened when I went to got
a quarter pounder and it probably hadn't been back since. And now I know why no, wait a minute, You know, John, so much for my attempt to try and infuse a sunny, optimistic, cheerful mood in Lucretia before a cage match. Last week, Lucretia you were saying how you'd had a double quarter pounder the best once, just once in twenty years. All right, let's move on to other cheery news and see us it's a great week when IVY League presidents have a run circles around by backbenchers in the House
of Representatives. I mean, that was a fun shot and freud inducing spectacle which we can come back to and due course. Is that's your truth, Steve, it's my context, you know, I've been I've been searching around for my context all week. I can't find it anywhere. It's somewhere buried in your truth. I'm telling you right, talk about what's the old first law of holes when you're in one stop digging. Claude Gay and the other
IVY presidents clearly don't know the first lave holes, Hunter Biden. I think she thought she was doing the right thing by saying that. I you know, that may be what other people think, but you know what's not my truth? Of course, of course, Christion moron, how did you I mean, other than the fact that she's black and ugly? Is there any other reason why he should be she is, she's ugly, and she's black. That's the only reason she's the president of Harvard because she's obviously dumb as
a board. Well, we know that, okay, hunter Biden wasn't dieted that I'll at least cheer you up, did you app that's a scam to make sure he doesn't have to he can actually get out of the subpoena next week? And well, I you know, I thought that. I also thought the you know, my as I put it yesterday on the Ricochet podcast, my tinfoil half the size of a Hershey's kiss wrapper, is that this was delayed until after all the deadlines passed for any substantial Democrat to run against
Biden. I don't know. I mean I wonder I was actually going the other direction with it, seriously, which was that Biden's really suffering. Maybe David Wise doesn't give a damn anymore and figured maybe he could possibly salvage his reputation a little bit by digging this up, you know, their possibilities. Well, finally we can come back to that too, and due course,
because that's not going away anytime soon. But finally, not finally, you should be at least happy that Kevin McCarthy is leaving the House of representatives, doesn't he guys, saw what I said about that? What a piece of you know what he is? Oh my god. So he's gonna be leaving the Republicans in the House with a majority of one. He cares nothing about anybody but himself and his million dollar donors to line his pockets. All right,
Maybe that that troll that does the that he lives with. Again, Ron, I'm gonna keep trying here, John, Well, we did learn two in interesting things this week. One is Trump. We realized that he still got it because he won the Tom Friedman vote this week. I don't know if you caught this. It was a little throwaway line, but it shows Trump's genius. Some questioners said, hey, everyone's out there saying you're
going to be a dictator if you're elected. And Trump said, no, no, no, I'll just be a dictator on the first day and close the border and start up energy production again, and then I'll just be a regular president. Well never, Tom Friedman always used to say, gosh, it would be great if we could be China for a day. Well, Trump has just embraced the Tom Friedman proposition. And I think this is hysterically funny. Uh And you know, and of course the left is going to
freak out about that. See anyway, and then one of the things we learned this week, we learned that the single most influential journalist in the country is Peggy Noonan. And why do I say that because two weeks ago she said Time Magazine should make Taylor Swift the person of the year, and I thought, oh, come on, this is preposterous. And Time Magazine this week made Taylor Swift their person of the Year. So there we go.
I suppose it's maybe a step up from Greta Thunderberg from two three years ago, but not really. I love that meme that says, how'd you fix my my stereo? It was making that horrible noise. We replaced your Taylor Smith CD with ah, I forget what it was, probably Eagles or something like that. Oh yeah, Genesis maybe. Oh no, that's sighting the words. No, the idea is Taylor Smith's fingernails on the blackboard. And it just shows how many millions of people across the world have really lousy taste.
I've got whatever, I've got my Genesis trick of the tail T shirt. They pay you to wear the T shirt. Steve well, all right, I will. Would you ever wear a T shirt advertising somebody unless they paid you, right, John Well, because you know brand loyalty. I don't know, uh I did. I'll try and find a link to it. I did an hour long podcast with a guy I actually you know him
too, Lucret Steve Gosney. You did one of his illegal clinic things online, right, he he he and I had an hour ranking the Peter Gabriel era Genesis albums and talking about why and we totally geeked out on prop rock. You would have hated it every minute of it. It was fun, all right. It does sound terrible. It sounds horrible, sounds well threatens, you know. By the way, I told these guys to have the
podcast without me, just so everybody knows. I'm still a little bit to what should we say, Jet lagged from anesthesia yesterday, so I'm feeling especially mean, and I said, you guys need to do this without me, but they wouldn't do it, so they deserve everything they get. I haven't noticed any difference yet. I love you, John Well. All right, one last thing, one last thing before we get to the promised cage match
from two weeks ago. Listeners. If you didn't catch John on c Spans in Depth last week at the he was great, You were great, John, But at the end a caller, actually it was not a ringer. It may have sounded like it because I've never met Dave Begley, but he called in and prompted John to say the following about the podcast, and in particular Lucretia. I like to say, Steve Hayward I and then the one our third host, is a woman who uses a pseudonym of Lucretia, who
is an important figure actually in the founding of the Roman Republic. We have a podcast we do every week on politics. And actually when you had Steve on a year ago, I hadn't joined it, and then afterwards they joined it because they the liberal. So in the podcast, I am the liberal. I am the liberal. Steve is the moderate, and Lucretia comes from I don't know where she comes from, but she's really conservative. I'm scared of her. Well, John, you should be. And here's why.
I don't know what you're going to do now that you can't get any news for the next few days. I mean, the Washington Post went on strike, all those those incredible writers for the Washington Post. You give you all of your fake news. I don't why don't just go to the Babylon Bee for your fake news. But since you go to the Washington Post, what are you doing now? You just sticking with the New York Times. Oh boy, that's okay, it's altuy true. I confess she's nailed me again.
All right, we promised a cage match, but before we do, we're going to take one very quick break for a very short spot from a sponsor, lu Kresha, wrong on a whiskey, wrong on stemware, wrong for America, paid for by the ELAPD mult Supremacy Independent Expenditure Committee. All right, as promised, we are going to take up and I'm going to try and make some serious arguments on both sides of the subject, first about
Ukraine and then about January sixth. It's not quite true that I am exactly in the middle or a moderate on the subject, as is alleged by John. It's that I think there are points to be made on both sides and important questions that are being unasked. So let's start with Ukraine. The news this week is that the Senate Republicans, all of them, most of whom
support a Ukraine. Nonetheless blocked a standalone aid bill Ukraine this week because Biden won't compromise on security the southern border an easy compromise for him to make, but he wouldn't do it anyway for political reasons. But beyond this political theater, the main question is, and I'll start here, and I guess we'll start with you, John, and then Lucretia you can Rebut is what exactly
is the US national interest here? I mean, if it is degrading Russia's military, which you have mentioned a couple times before, isn't that substantially accomplished by now? Or by the way, can we actually degrade a military since they do seem to have substantial production capacity? So we'll start there. Well, first, I think it's a false choice to say we have to do
the border or Ukraine. I think we could easily do both, and the cost of either pale in comparison to the enormous amounts being added to the deficit by inflationary spending or the runaway entitlement program. So you hear these debates in Washington where I am right now, about how you can have to do one or the other. I think that really is a false choice. But I
would say this, here's how I think of it. When the United States has strategic goals, they have a priority, first priority protection of the homeland, territorial defense. So I would say, of course, protecting the border is part of that. I would be the first say protection of the border is a higher priority than Ukraine, Taiwan, the Middle East or anything. That's the first priority, second priority. We're not allowed to call it this
anymore, but it's the Monroe doctrine. We control the western hemisphere and we keep all the other European and Asian powers out. That's also maybe partially involved with protection of the border. The third priority, and I think this has been a priority of American foreign policy since World War One, is to prevent
any single power from controlling Europe or Asia. And the reason for that is because, unlike the nineteenth century, unlike the eighteenth century, in the twentieth century, with the technology and resources available, if a single power controls that much population and resources, they could pose a serious threat to the United States. I wish we could hide a behind the two oceans, but we can't
anymore. I think that's the lesson of World War two in particular, and so and then I think there's a fourth goal, which is lesson priority, which is to maintain this international system we've had since nineteen forty five, which has a large perimeter to it, but within it are a lot of market based economies and democratic nations and allies of ours. Leus Ukraine sits squarely in number three. I think one of the great achievements of the post war period
is we've made and democracy and market economies in Western Europe. And what we've got now is a Russia on the rise that is hostile to the United States, hostile to Western Europe, that is trying to restore the empire there through the use of force. And this is why I was actually teasing Lucretia two weeks ago. I don't particularly care about the regime in Ukraine, whether aritarian or a democratic. I hope it transitions to a full fledged democracy. I
think is kind of a quasi democracy. What's most important is that are on the perimeter with Russia, and Russia wants to use force to redraw the borders in Europe, which has led to two world wars in the past that have been a great harm to us. What happened to really Russia wanting to redraw the borders has led to two world wars in Europe or Aralia and Germany and Germany, Oh, when did Russia? So we never had a world war after the Soviet Union tried to redraw borders. Okay, we just sort of
accepted that and we had peace because of it. All right, let's just leave that aside for a moment. Let's take your affinity with the super moron idiot. We have excuse for a Secretary of Defense who says, if we don't fight in Ukraine, your sons and daughters and uncles and cousins will be fighting in Russia. That guy should be shot for treason, along with Milly.
By the way, if we're really worried about Russia, all we've done in Russia, I'm not quite sure I agree with Steve that we've totally degraded with Russia. I think we've done the opposite. I don't think we have had either. I think we've done that. I think we've empowered Russia to understand a lot more about modern warfare. There are ahead of us, for instance, in sophisticated AI drone warfare by a long shot, we're barely barely
catching up with him. How does that work? Number two, we are at one of the lowest points we've ever been in our ability to protect ourselves should something happen, because we've sent all of these ridiculous amount of weapons to Ukraine to fighter Russia that is posing right now no threat to us what's so ever, and it's not posing a threat to Western Europe. They're not looking to take over Western Europe. They're looking to take back what they consider their
own territory. That territory that you say has been caused two World wars, you know, to be decided, means it's very very new. They want back Russian speaking Ukrainians. They're not going after all of Russia. And because Ukraine decided to bring the United States in and make it a big fight, maybe it's gone further than it should have. We have no national interest there. If Europe has a national interest there or European interests, they should fight,
we should stop. I hope they don't change their mind. By the way, because Rampaul said that Ukraine was never going to get another penny regardless of the border. God, I hope he's right. Well, let me pose a couple of challenges to John and then Lucretia. I'm going to pose a couple of challenges to you. First of all, John Boy, I don't know if you say Russia's on the rise. I mean, I know the rhetoric is, but you know, a demographic disaster. Aside from their
energy sector, I think they're pretty weak. They're really a country in decline. Second thing, I'll just give three here and you can grab what you so because of the war though, well, okay, hold on. Second thing is you know I had Colonel Austin Bay from Strategy Page on a you know, interview conversation podcast what a month ago now and asking him all about this, and he said, in a certain way, Ukraine has already won.
I mean, they stopped the invasion, the initial ambition, and it's clear that Russia is not going to take over the country, and it's now settled into a gruesome stalemate. You can put that aside for the moment.
The third thing is, you know, there was a moment at the k Vic summit with Reagan and Gorbachev in eighty six that one of things that got overlooked by all the nuclear weapons drama was all night long, the American negotiators were talking with the Soviet negotiators and making more progress than ever made in thirty
years of arm control talks. But one of the generals there, interesting guy, I've learned a lot about him from people who were in the room, was General at Cromiev, who was the last serving officer from World War Two still in the Soviet military hierarchy. And he said, look, here's what you Americans don't understand about the Soviet Union, or Russia says for you guys, don't you're against appeasement, You're against Munich in nineteen thirty eight. And
by the way I mean, i'd say this is Russia's territorial ambitions. Do sound like they include the balt and the Baltic states, you know, Lithuania, Stony, et cetera. He said, But you Americans don't understand is that you're worried about about appeasement in Munich nineteen thirty eight. What we're worried about in Russia is always June nineteen forty one, or to put it in
terms you'd understand Pearl Harbor. They don't want a surprise attack. This is why, by the way, Henry Kissinger, of all people, was opposed to expanding NATO eastward. He says, Look, the Russians may be nuts, but there's a reason for their paranoia that's rational. And so we're doing all this talk now of including Ukraine first in the European Union and then later perhaps in NATO. Look, I don't want to make a brief for putin all but on the other hand, you can see it from their point of
view that we're being encircled by the West. We hate them, they hate us. And sorry, I'll stop there and see what you think of those and then I've got a couple of challenges for Lucretia. So I think from the American perspective, you're right, it is a gruesome now grueling World War One style trench warfare. I hate to say it, but this is in
the national interest in the United States. For the loss of no American lives and something around fifty billion dollars, maybe running up to one hundred billion dollars, we have I think probably destroyed about one third of the combat power of the Russian land Army, which is an incredible bargain for the United States and our station. Do we need to keep going with that. Sorry, I
think our strategy has succeeded in the sense the rights. I don't think I disagree with Lucretia in the sense that this is just Russia trying to take back Russian speaking lands in Ukraine based on they already they already had, They already had some before the invasion, right, they already took these Luhanskin donations the farthest eastern areas of Ukraine. But then why launch a lightning strike on the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, Why annex not just Crimea, but push up
into the south. They truly their objective clearly was to conquer the political capital and the economic centers of Ukraine and change its government and then I think dismember the country. But regardless of what their aim was, we have succeeded and stopped being putin from taking over the country. And to the extent, who's going to keep fighting? He is just going to burn through more people than
material. And so I think that actually it's been a successful strategy. If the strategy is as I think it is, is to preserve our influence in Western Europe, maintain a balance of power that prevents Russia from trying to move farther west to overturn NATO. Whatever, even if we did make a mistake in going too far, and this is what Kissinger said too, He said, look, we shouldn't have gone all the way far and extending NATO in
the UEU that far into the former warsap Pac countries. But he also did say, once Russia invaded Ukraine, we've got to win, right, we have to stop putting. And this is what's in common I think with what's going on in the Middle East and what may happen in Taiwan. Is Yes, you could have territorial disputes, so you could have disputes about what population should be under what governments. But these are three countries around Russia and China
that are using military force to try to achieve their ends. They're not trying to negotiate. They're not trying to work within the Western system that we've created. They're trying to overturn the system. Why should they have to work in the Western system we created? Can you explain that one to me? Because it is this is the longest period of peace we've had in six seven hundred years, without any power wars between the great powers, without all the terrible
losses of life that occur since nineteen o came. So I won't tell all my friends why in the Iraq war. I don't know why you're laughing. This is not like controversial. We have not had a great power war since nineteen forty five. Oh but so what if it's not a great largest I'm not finished. That's what produces the largest mouth of death and destruct But instead we can we can just get a lure of attrition for forever. Can I just follow up on Actually I had this on my list, John you mentioned
I'll rephrase it this way. Deterring China were said, we need to see this through to deter China from invading Taiwan. I wonder if that's really true. But the extent that it is true, and it seems it's plausible in this rationality, then why isn't the answer then to equip Ukraine sufficiently so they don't just not lose, but defeat Russia decisively? Wouldn't And I know why we're afraid to do that and won't do that. And this is one of
my criticists, Biden. Is they so half hearted about this? Never mind the amount of money. So the point is is that if you really wanted to turch China, should we want Ukraine to win really fast. I think that Biden administration has made a mistake and that they have been pushing Ukraine to retake all those lands in the East, but then not equip them. I'm not really with a lot of the people I think who are supporting this offensive if we're not going to equip them for that. So I totally agree with
you, Steve. I'm not so sure, however, that that what we're doing now isn't still a good signal to send to President Ji and China with regard to it's not just Taiwan, it's also the South China Sea and that part of Asia. So I'm here Washington, Dahosta conference at AEI Lucretia favorite for Larry Silverman, the judge I clicked for who passed away last year, and we did a panel on foreign policy because Judge Silverman was very much a
part of the establishment foreign policy establage where I think Lucretia doesn't like. And we had a debate between General Jack Keen, who's a retired four star general I think very influential. Actually, one thing he mentioned during the panel was that he'd been offered the position of Secretary of Defense twice by President Trump and he turned it down because he doesn't think retire military officers should be in charge
of the Depentagon. It was very interesting, but I think one point that was and then he was The Lucretia side of the debate was taken by Chris Landau. Really, I think calling for withdrawal from Ukraine from American positions in the Middle East. So here's the problem I have with all of that. John, half a million people, half a million people. I know, that's nothing compared to this, say, the forty million people who died in
World War Two. But between two small countries fighting, half a million people have died in the Ukrainian Russian confert. How do we just what's Western values about saying those lives don't matter, negotiate a peace and move on. There is no reason on earth why we shouldn't allow Zelenski to negotiate with Putin. Figure things out us, stay the hell out of it, and stop the slaughter. Stop sending our money, our treasure, our weapons systems to Ukraine.
I mean, there's no reason on earth. What you say makes no sense from the point of view of national security or from the point of view of some world order that no longer exists. First of all, the United States has shown itself as under Biden, no longer to be the leader of the free world. It is absolutely being humiliated over and over again by our enemies. So the first thing we need to do is pull out of Ukraine
and regroup. We need to stay out of because we are so unreliable the whole Israeli conflict, and just let Israel do what Israel needs to do. They'll figure out a way to find the weapons and so forth that they need. We just need to stay the hell out of it. Our capacity to fight any war right now is practically nil. And it's not just because of weapons. It's because our military is a sham. Our military is an absolute
sham. It's you know, we're much more interested in making sure we have diversity, transgender surgeries, et cetera, et cetera, than we are about making sure people are ready to our military is ready to fight and knows how to fight. It's all of this is crazy to me that we are even thinking about giving one more penny to that corrupt government in Ukraine to do something really doesn't make sense to me, leave putin alone. Lot'll leave us alone.
That was pretty clear. That was pretty clear before all of this happened. But you know what, show weakness and guess what, petty tyrants will move on. They'll take advantage of it. And that's what happened. Can I jump in, sorry, yes, well I want to jump in with a couple of observations and objection observation of ones both ways. One for John, an objection for you Lucretia. So first of all, we don't know what are We don't seem to have a clear policy on whether Ukraine should be
negotiating or trying to negotiate with Russia. You hear all kinds of things. There's a reason why we keep our mouth shut. I suppose to preserve flexibility for the Ukrainians. It is their country. On the other hand, we keep our mouth shut. Sorry, Steve, I don't think you're right about
that at all. Well, it's unclear to me. However, you know, the senior Hungarians I met with in September, they said, look, and of course their policy is this war should end, it should be negotiated immediately, but to stop the killing, and what they said to US Americans, who they're sitting on the table with him, isays, look, here's the problem. They were flied about it, but they they spoke the blunt truth. You Americans have a habit of bugging out. You know, you
cut off aid to South Vietnam. You bugged out of Afghanistan. The current president bugged out of Afghanistan. We have no confidence you're going to see this through. And if you and Europeans decide to abandon Ukraine, guess what, We're still here. We're the neighbors. And likewise, if you escalate and
they use a nuclear weapon, guess where the fallout blows. Right, So they feel like very much they're on the front line, and so they speak more clearly about it and get nothing but grief for saying these kinds of things. That's one observation. The second one, actually, this is the I guess some objection for you. Lucretia is okay. Ukraine's a corrupt country,
I kind of want to say, compared to what in Eastern Europe. But oh, but equally, you know, the New York Times had a big feature a couple months ago or maybe more now saying, gosh, what do you know, looks like there really are some Nazis or Nazi sympathizers in the Ukrainian military. They've got these u that we're Nazi in Sydney is on their
uniform. My question is, so, what would not be the first time that we've illied with an authoritarian or corrupt country in a larger natural national interest. You know Churchill's famous line about the Soviet Union. If Hitler invaded Hell would at least make a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. So, I don't know, but that's all fine. If you've got
a larger national interest, you guys have not been. I mean, John's got this sort of theoretical, purely academic, wishful thinking idea about how Ukraine preserving its current borders is anything in our national interests. There's no proof that Putin has any intentions on the rest of Western Europe. There's none, there's zero. Well, there are his statements that he'd kind of like to reassemble the old Soviet Empire, and I think those things should not be dismissed myself.
He has said that he thinks that the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the was one of the worst geopolitical events, and Russia has had traditionally a
sphere of interest over there. This is one thing I don't understand the cruciat So you don't want to you want to stop the slaughter as you call of civilians or just generally in Ukraine. If the United States cut off AID after Russia had originally invaded and tried to kill all these people and is continuing to bomb purely civilian targets throughout Ukraine, you really think the slaughter is going to
end? If the US off military ste there's the negotiated settlement, why why would why would the why would Russia not just keep going once we pulled down The whole point is to stop them, negotiate a settlement, negotiations. Why would why would Putin keep his word? We already had a negotiate settlement in Ukraine where actually Russia agreed to maintain the borders of clear weapons from the end of the Cold War, and Russia violated that one too. Why would you
why would we take Putin's word to obey any treaty he signed? If that's the case, and what's the point here, We're going to destroy all of Russia so that there's never a possibility that they can do anything again. We're going to kill all their people. And just I mean that those a think it's no, I think it's you restore. But Ukraine's losing along, you know that, right, I'm just saying you may the goal would be maintain the defense of Ukraine, maintain the borders of our other NATO allies. There
we've lost John again, We've lost him. Yeah. In that case, let's just take a quick break for a word from a sponsor. All I would say is that I wanted to go back to one thing he said at the beginning, which is the Republicans in Congress understand something that I think John doesn't quite, which is, yes, we're broke. He said that he understands that. And I know we're broke because of titlements, but hey,
we don't need to spend another penny. It's kind of like the person who's got two hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt manages to get another credit card because what's a few more one hundred thousand in debt. We need to stop spending where we don't need to be spending. A number two there is in fact a reason why we should put our own border security over and above anything that happens in Europe. If Europe cares that much about their own borders,
let Europe handle it. Get the hell out the United States. It's not our business anymore. I don't agree with John that you know, this whole idea that we kept the peace for all these years, that we're still in that situation. We are not. We are not capable currently of having influence on the international stage other than our money. That's it. Because we have an idiot, a senile, pedophile idiot in charge. Let maybe that's an
exaggeration. I think President Biden is not a great president. I agree with you with these crazy dei inities in the military, I don't think that means our military is completely how John is hiccupping. And I do think that there are some certain definite echoes that I see between the late nineteen seventies when we were short of ammunition, morale was terrible, and that was because of the
post Vietnam neglect, and I think the same thing's happening now. But I want to try and begin to draw us to a conclusion for this segment of things by saying that, you know, my discomfort about this is one of the many is we seem to be We've seen to be doing the same strategy we had in Vietnam, which is not lose you prevent a takeover of South Vietnam by North Vietnam. And here we're doing the same thing. We're not actually trying to win a war or have Ukraine win a war. Now that's
one thing. There's two or three other things I think you can say. One is this is again is a challenge for Lucretia, and we can come back to this. But I recommend highly listeners go find the article in Commentary magazine from a few months ago by Gary Saul Morrison at Northwestern University, who I know a little bit, and he had a fabulous article explaining, look
at you look at the sleep of Russian history and Russian thought. They're a naturally imperialist in warlike people that have spasms of the kind of thing we're seeing right now. And you know, it goes back to Peter the Gray and Catherine the Great and all the rest of that. And I think there's something of that that's true. Whether we have a good strategy to address that. I doubt, but I think that that is a fundamental fact that ought to
be kept in mind at some point. So you're saying there's something genetic in Russian that's so dumb. Also, I don't even imagine taking something like that seriously. That Russian DNA has spasms that caused them to be periodically imperialistic, Well they've been that way for centuries, so why not. But let us draw this one to Let's draw this segment to a club, and then after a couple of messages from our sponsors, we'll move on to an equally calm
and undivisive topic of how to think about January sixth. All right, our second item round two of our cage match, and the boxing scorers are writing away their points on the core cards right now for round one January sixth, I want to do a slightly round about introduction of this to set not a parameter, but a way of thinking about fresh questions. Something really interesting happened
this week. I don't know if you guys have seen this video. Our friends in Minnesota put together that Scott and John no called The Fall of Minneapolis, done by a very competent documentary crew, and what essentially shows is that the media did not portray and the truth did not come out in the courtroom about what actually happened with George Floyd on May twenty. So in their podcasts this week, Glenn Lowry and John mcwardur said, we've watched this video.
We're simply stunned. John mcwater said, we were lied to. They now say George Floyd was not murdered by a policeman. And you know, this
has been bubbling around with certain people in the right for a while. But when John mcwarder comes out and says we were lied to and everything you think you know about that is wrong, I said, don't pay attention because you know mcwardour, you know, is often critical of the left, but he pulls his punches because you know, he hangs out with a theater crowd New York, and I think he wants to keep his street credit Columbia University.
And so the two of them both to say this should change everything we think about George Floyd and Black Lives Matter in the summer of twenty twenty is I think quite a significant thing. Why do I bring that up in connection and connected to January sixth, I think something similar has happened. We got a media and political narrative from the beginning that has some merit to it, but I think also maybe gravely flawed, I'll put it that way, and maybe
quite wrong. I increasingly think it is you. We saw the revelations from the Durham Report of the way the whole Russia hoape was constructed by rogue elements of the FBI, and also John having been present on campus on what was it, February fifth, twenty seventeen for the Mile of Unapolis riot, and I was standing there at Sprout Plaza and watch the Antifa agitators come in from all sides with their pipes and masks on and walkie talkies talking to each other
and what was obviously a coordinated attempt to stir up the already agitated student crowd into rioting, which isn't hard to do. It's not hard to start a riot when you've got a crowd that's already running at high emotions. And I'm sitting here thinking, gosh, is it really that far fetched to say that agitators exploited a foolish idea by Trump? I think we should stipulate that to start a riot, and I think their intent was to ruin Trump once and
for all times. And I'll just stop here by saying that if January sixth hadn't have happened, Trump, who's now leading in today's polls by five points over Biden, would be ten points ahead of Biden. Gosh, she'd even be ahead of Nikky Haley if January sixth hadn't happened. So, I don't know. I have a hard time. And that's just on the spectacle a loan, and then some individual details I want to ask about too. So who wants to go first on this? John does? Okay? I put
on a small tinfoil Hatier gone. I'm surprised that you have gone so far over to the crecious side on this. I can't believe it. She's been working on you for decades and now we finally see the toll that's been taken. So this is so first, Is there any proof has there been any edge of these agitators who your singer from the left, not from the right.
These are agitators you clean from the left. He filtrated this movement and provoked and prompted people to attack the Capitol, tried to find say, hang Mike Pence, run through the Capitol, break into the floor of the house, stop the electoral This is all left wing agitators. Have any of them been caught, Have any of them been arrested? Is there any testimony under oath? I'm not talking about like security camera footage, which I think is
not clear. I mean, you could say, oh, here in this security camera, it looks like the police are not interfering, they're allowing people in. But you also have the video that everyone in the country saw of people climbing up the Capitol, breaking into it, and then engaging in pitched battles with the police. Even if there were left wing agitators, all those people still broke the law. The people who broke into the Capitol broke the
law. The people who tried to enter and did enter into the floor of the House and stop the electoral vote broke the law. It doesn't matter to me if there were left wing agitators or right wing agitators. Those people who did it still broke the law, and I should think should be prosecuted. The people who wanted up hang Mike Pence, find members of Congress and assault them, or I don't know what kidnapped them they all still brought federal law.
Now that's one. The second thing I haven't seen any so now the answer your answer suggests it's because the FBI and the Justice Department are so corrupt that they have manufactured evidence, manufactured all these cases to conceal that. It's left with adjectives. Look, I think what you saw, maybe say there's five hundred people who participated in the capital attack. It's clear that some of them were very well organized, had these clear plans, were former military law
enforcement. Those I think are the ones who'd be should be arrested and punished the most. Maybe a whole lot of the others were just running in with the crowd, had no real agenda, We're just part of this kind of
mass crowd movement. I would punish them less. But if anybody, if there are anyone who are agitators who were taking advantage of the crowd, to me, it's right wing agitators who really did think that Trump had won the election, who really thought the electoral College account should be stopped and they should kidnap Vice President Pence and you know, the elected leaders of our country to stop them from carrying out the constitutional process of the peaceful transfer of power?
What stopped? I mean, actually, please explain to me what even could have happened with the peaceful transfer of power. That's we'll start there. What do you think that if you say five hundred protesters, two hundred of whom have now been proven to be undercover agents. So of the five hundred,
where is that coming from? It's coming from Congress. Congress Congress, I know, because you don't read anything but the Washington Posts and the New York Times, who have it and their interest to make sure that nobody two hundred who where did this two hundred number of agents shows based upon based upon the video that they've seen and identifying those people. And you know, we've seen
the video all over the place where they're showing their badges. But the badges are the you know, the names and the numbers are are are you know, blurred out two hundred undercover FBI and other federal law enforcement agents within the January sixth crowd. If they really were undercover agents trying to stop the horrible insurrection on that day, why didn't they do something at the time? Why
didn't they stop it? That they were there? So this two hundred number comes from members of Congress on the record, on the record, because they saw video where they were, they saw video, they they were able to identify the people that on the video as undercover FBI agents. And this is not like Marjorie Taylor Green or not Marjorie Taylor Green gets who said what congressmen have said this? Because I find that really implausible? Well, okay,
you do, I find it that's true. Than the House, than the House which has a Republican speaker, can appoint another committee to investigate this and let's have about let's have about the truth. The other thing is all these people who are being put on trial could bring this up as defense evidence and testimony and have a judge look at it and we'll see if it's true or
not. So you do know that that the committee destroyed all of their their depositions, right, all the people that came to give depositions to the January sixth committee, including all of these undercover agents, all of those tapes miraculously have been destroyed. Why would they do that? John? And that's I mean, that's on every every news. I mean, if you haven't seen
that, I don't know what to say. It's everywhere. They destroyed every single deposition that they took on January sixth, because they asked for this. Destroy them. I bet they've put them under some kind of lock and key. Well they say they've just good. You can still have a new committee
reinterview all those people there's really believed. Look, if you really believed, if the speaker really believes out of the five hundred people they are two hundred of them or under character undercover FBI agents, then I think he would be totally justified in reconstituting a new committee to investigate what happened. And you could
do exactly the same what the January sixth committee did. I know. I think that the amazing thing, though, is how much you don't understand about what the real purpose of all this is, and that is to make sure that nobody ever, ever, ever, ever questions a democratic victory again, and that there is proof all over the country now coming out in some of these different trials, even the trials against Donald tr that how much absolute voter
fraud was actually taking place Michigan, Georgia, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, you don't believe it happened. Why we don't investigate these things. If any judge or legislature in those states authoritatively finds it happens, I'm willing to change my mind. Okay, if any judge or legislator in those states that it was legislature, legislature or too crazy legislator. But yeah, if you have these legislatures, some of them are Republican, they had audits,
they've had investigations. Arizona had an audit. Arizona looked at the ballots that they had encountered them. Again, the ballots themselves were fraudulent, but they just recounted them. That's not an audit. Let me let me intervene here
with a couple of questions, bushes law. I think Lucretia is right, and there's a lot of political lawfare going on here, like the Trump on the other hand, And and here's I've heard a lot of these a lot of these claims also, and I always want to know more to be convinced about things, because sometimes even things that are true get the story or take on the life of the room and take wing and it's hard to sort out. However, there are some anomalies here, John, it is reported.
And here's another problem we hear a lot of things, and yeah, even reported sometimes in the Washington Post, which means they might be true. But it has been reported widely that the Secret Service increased their detail for Vice President Pants because they were worried about things maybe getting out of control. Again, I think the Secret Service won't tell you how they decide staffing levels and all the rest of that. And I get the general reason you'd say that.
But if they did that, why wouldn't the Capitol Police have been on a higher alert and called in more officers. Why did, as is reported, and I don't know if it's true. Why was a request or suggestion from the White House. Did Washington DC have the National Guard out to keep order? Denied? And turned down? These are the sort of kind of anomalies that way don't add up. Right. This is one of Rumsfeld's famous rules, which he got from Larry Silverman, which is you should not a tribute
to malevolence, which is just explained buying competence. And O Katie, Okay, I like, I could totally totally You're totally right, Steve. It would have been obviously much better if the Capitol Police and the National Guard had
operated effectively increased staffing got better, more people there in time. I don't know the reports I've registered that they were riddled with incompetence, but that doesn't mean there was a conspiracy to stop to the democratic election, democratic favorable election results to take place throughout the country. Well, there's no reason why they would do that now, is there. They weren't afraid a bit of Trump
getting re elected. So there's no reason whatsoever to because they're not doing that now either, are they. They're not going after Trump legitimately because they're not afraid. I mean, it's so dumb not to see the big picture. I can't stand it. Well for an over and over falling, you're following it over and over and over again. Please dear see that connects everything together into one giant, malevolent force that is typical of conspiracy filmings. I don't
even all told us that's what they did. Well, Mollyball told us they did it, and they did it on purpose. John, they did it and they did it on purpose being re elected. Well, you shouldn't take some columnists claiming this is why I take it as this calmnist who said, oh, we brought down Trump, we did all this stuff. She had no influencer power. She's just some Molly Ball is now a political reporter John for the Wall Street Journal news pages. And I hate to say it,
I met her a couple of times. Of course. Uh look, I mean it's not that. Here's what bothers me. Well, let's see, I'm gonna sort of come in in the middle in a certain way. Remember John, that on election Day in twenty twenty, downtown Washington, d C. Was boarded up, right, you know, our friends we visited that, older windows boarded up. And why was it boarded up? It wasn't for the Trump people. It was because the fear was that Trump was going to win, and who was going to riot? By the way, other
cities boarded up their downtowns. Right. So one of the one of the bitter ironies of this whole thing is that the riots that were expected from the left turned out to be from some people attached to Trump. So this is a huge catastrophe, I think, as politically, which is you know why I keep coming back to this point of January sixth hadn't happened, and Trump drove the initial response to gather all those people there, he'd be ten points
ahead right now, and cruising to a triumphant election next year. But then the second thing is so Lucretia you mentioned you know we have we've seen you've been able to identify two hundred federal agents. Yeah, they were there, but do we know what all of them were actually doing? That I'm much less clear about. I mean, it could have been there than Trump supporters.
What's that some of them were dressed up as Trump supporters. But the big deal actually is not so much that they were dressed up as Trump supporters and undercover within different groups, but that weeks prior to January sixth, they were aiding and abetting this sort of idea that we need to go in on January sixth and try to stop the electoral count. That's what's coming out more
and more and more. And as a matter of fact, let's see Proud Boys member of Pizzola, I forget his first name, his defense attorney has has clearly identified forty undercover agents involved in the Proud Boys and is using that as a defense strategy. So there's one example of what you were talking about. The problem is, you're right, I have a very hard time with this notion that that all of these things could be part of a vast conspiracy
theory that goes against everything. Believe it or not that I think makes any logical sense, John. What I do believe, though, is that Trump inspires in these ideological hacks and these government officials who want nothing but continued power. There's enough there to keep them doing what they're doing now. They may
not even need to coordinate in many cases. The idea that the same people responsible for Russia Russia Russia in twenty sixteen, and then the continued taking on campaign against Trump and these people throughout most of Trump's administration are not also capable of planning and executing something like what happened on January sixth, That to me is a little bit naive. These are the same people. I know you don't like the FBI. I don't like the way the FBI is currently structured.
But all those people who are responsible for the Russia hoax were gone by the time of twenty twenty. Chris Ray is the director of the FBI. I don't think Chris, and only the very top people are gone. Nobody lost their jobs because of the older people, the people who who could cock the struck and paid the people who we knew about fired. They're all suing the government now to get back and to get their back pay because Trump or
Chris Ray fired all of them. Yeah, we uh uh okay, So let me in just a couple other questions, and then we want to draw to a close on this too because John has to go. So here's I brought this up before, but let's crystallize it again. Was the entire Capitol building under siege or just parts of it? I mean, it's a huge building. I'm not sure. The whole perimeter is what three quarters of a
mile? I'm not sure. And so we now have enough video availab that we can see that some parts, you know, the police were letting people in and showing them around, and other parts you had people breaking windows and smashing doors and assaulting police officers and so forth. What's the exact timeline of events? It was reported early on that some of the bad behaviors started. Walt Trump was still speaking down at the ellipse. And there's no definitive word
in a lot of these questions. What proportion of the crowd was actually violent? Run ruly? Was it only five percent? Was it fifteen percent?
My guess is it's five percent or less. I know just recently ran into somebody, a neighbor out here in California who I didn't know this, who was present that day part of the stop to Steal rally, and when they started seeing trouble near the Capitol, they left exactly the same thing I did on Sprout Plaza on February five, twenty seventeen, when Antifa started, you know, setting fires and things. I left as quick as I could.
So, you know, where do we hear? We never hear by the way the media say, as the media said about the George Floyd riots, Well, it was mostly peaceful. So you know, even if you give full credit or you want to overweight the people who are breaking windows and climbing walls and all the rest of that, my guess is that's a tiny minority the total crowd that was assembled there. I don't know. But those are
questions that were not investigated by the Congressional Committee. They still haven't been, and so I'm very I remained very unhappy that we really know the truth of what happened that day. That's my summary. Last here's my one last redoubt. OK. Then we have the Bill of Rights, we have a judicial system. We have judges, and you can't be convicted except by a jury
of your peers. Ultimately, the defendants who are being prosecuted for January six have the right to bring all this into court, to call any witnesses they want. Right, they have the right to subpoena the witnesses. They right discibpoena of this information from the government presented in their trial. And that I think is the ultimate protection for Americans. Think this conspiracy theory really happened, then you have because we've seen how incredibly I'm sorry, I have to stop
it. Assume that it's going to override that. All the judges are in on it, all those juries are in on it, and they're all going to throw all these people and sentence them to jail. Well, judges, all the juries, where John are they going to? Where to try these people? You see? Where the location where it occurred? This normal procedure. I think d juries are pretty rough and j Yeah, judges, judges, Well, so these judges several of whom I think are fine, upstanding
people who I know personally, who are appointed by Donald Trump. You are claiming you are all corrupt because you know what they've made. So you're done. If you don't go for to me, you have no grounds on which to claim that the federal district judges in Washington, d C. Particularly ones appointed by President Trump, are corrupt. And how it out to throw all these people in jail. Well, I'll just make this let's just make that's just made up. I'll just make this point, John, is that you
know the legal remedies you point to. True, that's very expensive for a lot of people who are don't have a lot of means to pay for depositions to draw out a criminal trial. I thought Donald Trump was going to pay for all their defenses. Well, you know there's another thing. Why didn't Donald Trump preemptibly pardon all these people? I agree, we left office on January twenty, Right, he didn't do that, and I don't think he expected it to be the way it turned out. And I don't know expected
a hack like Merrick Garland to do the damage. He's done. But all right, I'm gonna declare to be continued as we finally get some more information out, as we get more of the videos analyzed, are the readers going to post comments with the scorecards? Yes, the judges, the fights yeah, I know, I know Lucretia has already bribed the East German judge for her to win. There'll be a putent judge, because there will be. I believe any of what you said was true, had they in fact gone
after the January excuse me. The George Floyd protesters who say tried to do very similar things in Washington, d C. Who I have been gone after the Hamas people. How many of those those those Cretans, those scumbags who were trying to get actually stopped. They were in Congress, they where everything else. How many of those people have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. How many of those people have been stuck in solitary confinement for
months and months and months. Yeah, I'm just horrible conditions. The political double standards here does bother me. I think I think back to the I think it was. I forget which terrorist group there have been several of the years, but back in nineteen eighty three, some terrorist groups set off a bomb and inside the Capitol building. I don't even have to go back that way. Wait a minute, and those people were pardoned by Bill Clinton fifteen
years later. It's Bill See so this is why. Okay, law fair, all the rest of that. All right. I don't know if we have a Camelism handy or not. John, you've been on the road she was. Fortunately, no, no, unfortunately I have one. But again it's not a word Salad. I think what she says seriously is worse. Yeah, yeah, no, no. She appeared in the Middle East right
to make comments about the way Israel was conducting the war. You know, this will drive Lucretia crazy based on what she said earlier about letting Israel, and didn't stop in Israel, but chose to from an Arab country tell Israel how to conduct the war, and then issued a statement saying, under no circumstances, well, the United States permit the force relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the withdrawing of the
borders of Gaza. Didn't see anything in that statement saying under no circumstances would the United States prohibit anyone from invading, attacking Israel, and committing horrible war crimes against its civilian population. So sadly, our commonalism is all too serious. Again, for two weeks in a row, now she thought the same thing this week when I heard it, John, that you would say that
I do have to We didn't mention this. I know we're out of time, John, but I have to ask you what you think about what you think about your boy John Fetterman. Lately Three times now I've actually retweeted something he tweeted. I retweeted a John Fetterman tweet. Yeah, so stroke of genius, I'm calling it. But sorry, Yeah, maybe strokes make people more consumerable. Yeah, yeah, something along. He's responding to the Pennsylvania
to you know, internal political situation. Pennsylvania has a very large influential Jewish community, many of whom are my friends. And I'm glad he's taking the position he has. Where's the other Pennsylvania center there is what I want to know. Yeah, No, that Bob Menendez should be kicked out of the Senate. I mean he's been really quite Yeah, but we kicked out. We didn't even talk about that. George Santos for petty crimes and Bob Menendez
is still anyway, That's that's a whole other time. I get it. Give us a quick or two. A couple the Babylon b writers stand in solidarity with our fellow fake news writers going on strike at the Washington Post. No one was wonderful and we really didn't discuss this. I saw a lot of this on I think on Twitter, which was, yeah, we're all complaining about what it is. Hunter Biden spent his one point three one point six whatever it was million dollars on hookers and sex clubs and things like that.
But the point of the matter really is where do you get the money? And I and back to your hershey Hershey's kisses size tinfoil conspiracy. I sometimes think that all of that salaciousness is designed to sort of distract people from thinking, yeah, where did Hunter Biden get one point six million dollars? Right? Right? Remember about you? It's much more than that. It's seven million dollars. Yeah, really that's Drew. Yeah, he a million.
But it's worth looking at the indictment because what there is in there that I've never seen before is a breakdown of hunter spending over four years and the guy withdrew like a million dollars in cash from ATMs over four year period, Like, how do you even carry that much money? And what was he spending on? But you're right, Look, the real question is, and this is what the House Impeachment right proceeding investigationship to grill into, is where
did the money come from? And then where did he move it to? Because according to the irs whistleblowers, there's still another twenty million dollars that they haven't found. So again the Babylon b hunter Biden indicted for not paying taxes on his bribes. They kind of get to that that heart of matter, right, and then I suppose we'll end it with the UPenn President UPenn President White Special, please don't pull that one hundred million dollar donation, Menora.
That was something that made me feel good this last week when I saw that, I forget the guy's name, the CEO of some you know major AMNI alumnus of U Pen had already taken away one hundred million dollars a few years back in twenty seventeen, and now has taken away another one hundred million because he's just tired of this. And that wouldn't that be great to see that happen all along the place. See, it was sad about Penn. I'm
from Philly and my family has long connections with Penn and Pen. I think was not one of those schools. I could be wrong that enforce a Jewish quota like other fancy schools to like Harvard, and so penn has historically had a large number of Jewish. There's a reason why there's so many Jewish alumni who are cutting off donotions Pen because I think Jews were allowed at Pen in
much larger numbers. I mean, it's still a Quaker state, you know, Pennsylvania, and you know, so they don't believe in the kind of you know, racial bigotry that occurred in at Harvard and ye know other schools in the twenties and thirties, and so they love that school and they've been supporting it, and there's high number of Jewish students or that makes all the worse what the president has been doing. So John, I don't I couldn't find it. I looked all over for it because I thought I saved it.
But my favorite meme I saw in the last week was I hate to brag, but I didn't graduate from Harvard. Oh. David Bernstein said that, I think on Twitter. Yeah, that turned into a me right? Are okay? And John? You you actually graduated from Harvard when when one could actually get an education. And I do want to put that out to our listeners that I don't hold it against you that you're at Harvard Grad.
You had some good professors while you were there, Hervey, Mansfields and Huntington, and I mean I had Daniel, but I had the most amazing teachers. Actually, yeah, and so so before everybody makes sense, it makes fun of John. Just remember he was at Harvard when Harvard mattered. All right, boy, you guys are unruly. John. You gotta send us on our farewell launch. Here we gotta go. Well, always drink your whiskey. Eat. Let's go, Brandon and Steve, God save the queen
man by everyone. The priest have Lejuicio sending all the chance and they're all calling down name, even academics, such a printed word. My father to the left of me, my mother to the right, like everyone else they're finding. But no, you fight right. And I need someone to believe in, someone to trust. I need someone to believe in someone. Ricochet Join the conversation