Ukraine MELTDOWN plus Trump's first State of the Union Address of the 2nd Term

That's why if you have any of that subscribe auto down with button, make sure you do that so you never miss when those big moments happen and we get together and do a show real quick, Senator, We've got a lot happening right now, including a joint session of Congress. It's going to happen on Tuesday. But Zolensky left the White House and he hauled it to Europe begging for money.

happening then because it was that consequential. So I will say, as Ben just mentioned a minute ago, if you didn't listen to Friday Afternoon's pod, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to it. I believe this will go down in history as the most disastrous Oval Office his meeting that has ever occurred. We're going to break that down. We're going to break down the fallout that has happened

in three days since that meeting. We're else going to talk about the fact that tomorrow is the first State of the Union address for the second Donald Trump term. We're going to talk about what President Trump is likely going to say tomorrow and how it's going to be received. All on today's pod.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported and continues to support the families of hostages and other victims of the October seventh terror attacks, and with your help, IFCJ has provided financial and emotional help to hostages and their families and to those healing and rebuilding their broken

homes and broken bodies. But the real work is just beginning, and that's why your gift is helping to provide critically needed support for families in Israel whose lives continue to be destroyed by terror and uncertainty is Israel remains surrounded by enemies. You can give a gift to bless Israel and her people by this support IFCJ dot org. That's one word support I f CJ dot org, or you can call to give eight a eight for eight eight

I f CJ. That's triple eight for eight eight I f CJ eight eight eight for eight eight I f CJ. Are all online at support I f CJ dot Org. All right, so let's give a quick recap of what you mentioned a second ago. But you think this is going to go down history. This meeting at the Oval Office is maybe the worst Oval Office meeting in history. It seems that Zelensky may be agreeing with you at

this point by the amount of backtracking he's done. He's done some interviews, he's saying, we can get this done with America. He ran to Europe begging for aid support, help money, and now there's basically the UK and France are like, you screwed up big. We're gonna try to help you put this deal back together and will be the liaison with the United States of America since you screwed it up so badly.

sent hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine. And so in any sane and rational world, Zelensky would come into the Oval Office hat in hand, would come into the office being grateful for the support that the United States has given, and to be honest, kissing Trump's ass. I mean that this is not a complicated dynamic. And by the way, it's also not a new dynamic. I've been in a lot of Oval Office meetings. Just about every foreign leader comes in and treats the President of the

United States with respect. That is incumbent on the office. The United States is the world's leading superpower, and so foreign leaders, foreign heads of state, whether they like the president or not, they treat the president with respect. I will tell you any president, if there were a foreign leader who treated them the way Zelenski treated Trump, would have been pissed off and the consequences would have been bad.

With Trump, the consequences were spectacularly bad. And listen, one needn't be a forensic psychologist to understand that it is a really dumb idea to go into a meeting with Donald Trump and insult him and condescend him and attack him. If you do that, Ben, I can actually give out the probabilities to amazing precision. If you attack and insult Donald Trump, the chances that he will punch back are one hundred point zero zero zero percent, especially in every instance.

hang around with they hate Donald Trump. They think Donald Trump is an idiot, So I should go in and treat Donald Trump like he's an idiot. And and it was I think he felt. I think Zelensky went into the Oval performing for The New York Times and believing that that that that the world be like, Oh, Zelensky stands up and puts Trump in his place, ha, And

it was truly absurd. It backfired enormously. And by the way, that this is the same political idiocy that led Zelensky last fall to go and effectively do a campaign event with Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania and to come to the United States in the middle of the presidential campaign, to come to the United States and do a New York Times interview attacking Donald Trump a month out from the election. And you and I did a whole pot at the time. God, what the hell is wrong with this guy? Is he

just an idiot? Look, I don't know who's going to win the race. Both you and I thought Trump was gonna win, but nobody knew for sure. At a minimum, Zelensky knew there was some real possibility that Trump was going to be the president. Did he think it made sense? Like what foreign leader comes. By the way, I wouldn't have advocated Zelensky should come campaign for Trump either. He's the president of Ukraine. He ought to be focused on

Ukraine and stay the hell out of our elections. Like like it was an idiotic out of it.

is right. There is another view, which, if you spend your time on Twitter you could see as the sort of countervailing view, which is Zelensky is a corrupt, evil autocrat, He's a Nazi, he's a terrible human being. He started the war against Russia, and Vladimir Putin is a misunderstood kind soul who we just need to embrace because he's a giant teddy bear and we need to love. Unsurprisingly, that view isn't right either. And one of the things

look that I love about doing a podcast. If you do a TV or radio interview, both you and I have done a ton of Time Raider interviews. If you've got five or six minutes to discuss an issue, you got to talk about it in a quick, little SoundBite, You got to talk about it a sentence or two. This podcast, we can actually talk about issues and don't fall into the mistakes of believing the extremes on either

side my view of this. Has Ukraine struggled with corruption, Yes, it has for a long time been one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. There's been endemic corruption throughout the government, throughout the economy. Absolutely. Yes, is Zelensky implicated in that, I don't know, but given the history of corruption in his country, it's not reasonable to acknowledge there's some reasonable possibility. It's not unreasonable to acknowledge there's some

reasonable possibility of that. The United States has also been shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars to this war with no accountability. It's been dragging on forever, and people are tired of it. People want it to be over. Donald Trump campaigned on where going to end the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough. We're not sending our money there anymore. That is a mandate that came out of the election. Now you may not like that, you may not agree with it. But Trump was not hiding that was the

outcome he wanted. Kamala Harris was not hiding the outcome she wanted, which is to pay for the war forever and ever and ever, and keep shoveling cash to Ukraine no matter what. But by the way, not enough cash that they win, and not cutting off the money to Iran, which is making drones and sending him to Russia that it's using them to kill Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. So fund both sides in perpetuity to keep the war machine going. That was Kamala's position. The voters voted for Trump, that

mandate means something. But I will say, if you look at the aftermath of the Zelensky Oval Office meeting, it was a disastrous meeting for Ukraine. I actually think because Zelenski's performance was so bad, it was not a good meeting for America. Zelensky did harm to America too. Why because who was happiest in the world about that meeting?

And the answer is Vladimir Putin. I think Putin was laughing his ass off as he watched that because Zelensky was such a hirk that he did real damage to Ukraine. And the consequence of Zelenski's behavior is it benefits Russia, and benefiting Russia is not good for America. I do want to urge everyone who listens to this podcast, is I watch Twitter. We're so captured by tribalism that there are people on the right who are fed up with the Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's and the virtue signaling

on Ukraine that they've decided Putin is just awesome. Let me be clear, Putin is a KGB thug. He is a murderer. Putin is not our friend. And Putin's ambitions you don't have to intuit them, you don't have to infer them. He has told us his ambitions. He has said that he believes the greatest geo political disaster of the twentieth century is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He wants to reassemble the Soviet Union. In fact, he

said more. He said he wants to go back to the old Russian Russian Empire before the Soviet Union, but that was even broader, and that had Russia controlling much of modern Europe. That would be a disastrous outcome for America. My views America first, which means I want our allies to be strong and I want our enemies to be weak. It's the reason I've urged President Trump. Yes, you campaigned on we should end the war in Europe. Enough is enough,

stop sending money. But we want a negotiated outcome that is a clear loss for Russia. Why, because Russia is our enemy. Putin is our enemy, and we don't want our enemy made stronger. Zelenski's performance was so bad, so outrageous, so infuriating, that Zelenski increased the chances of an outcome that benefits Putin, and then that is bad for Ukraine, bad for America, and bad for the.

different countries are there. The summit includes France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Chez Republic in Romania, the Turkish Foreign Minister, the NATO Security General, and the Presidence of the European Commission and the European Council will also attend. Now you notice I didn't say the United States of America. This is part of I think the most interesting part of President Trump's meeting with Zelenski.

It's like, look, you take us for granted. You come in here, you lecture us, you have no plan for peace. You clearly aren't here for peace.

reports quote. British Prime Minister kir Starmer on Sunday laid out of framework for a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine, one where Europe will lead the charge for securing peace yay, while still relying heavily on US backing boo. The proposal is the result of emergency talks held by European leaders in London following President Trump's heated exchange with Ukrainian President of Vladimir Zelenski at the end at the

White House last week. Over the weekend, leaders from over a dozen countries got together to discuss a roadmap for peace and security for Ukraine as the country faces its third year of war with Russia. The emergency summit was also aimed at working to preserve Ukraine's relationship with the US and Americans involvement in the war overseas. Starmer said that Europe must do the quote heavy lifting to secure a lasting peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, and that

the UK should lead the front. He emphasized that quote this effort must have strong US backing, which if he means more hundreds of billions of dollars, the answer is no, thank you. But he continues quote. Through my discussions over recent days, we've agreed that the UK, France and others will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, Starmar sent at a press conference on Sunday. Then we'll discuss that plan with the United States and take it

for we're together now. It's interesting to do so. Starmar valve the United Kingdom would ramp up at support for Ukraine. That included a loan of what do you think?

billion euros of seize Russian assets. Maybe we should use that money instead of our own money to help them in Ukraine. And I'm like, wow, you turn off this picket in America, a brilliant, simple plan, and all of a sudden they find two hundred billion euros sitting around They're like, Okay, maybe we can give that.

That agreement was pre negotiated. I think the White House thought Zelensky was going to show up, sign the agreement and leave. He didn't. Instead, he put on this performance. And I actually want you to listen to this exchange on CNN because it's a striking exchange. The first speaker of Scott Jennings, who by the way. Scott Jennings is doing a phenomenal job on CNN, being a voice of reason and common sense fighting against a bunch of numb

nuts and left wing comedies. Really doing an effective job. And he's in this case talking with Josh Rogan. Josh Rogan is is a very smart reporter for Washington Post Intelligence. He does foreign policy. But look, Josh Rogan and Scott Jennings do not often agree. Listen to this back and forth as they're analyzing what happened with Zelensky in the Oval office.

So it would have been wise for him to understand the economic deal, the mineral deal is a security guarantee in and of itself, and he lost sight of that today in the arguments premedity.

And look, the posturing doesn't have to occur now. If he is serious about wanting peace and ending this war, you don't have to keep posturing as a tough guy. Everybody knows you're tough, all right. The Ukrainians are tough, they're brave, they're fighting a much larger country. Everybody knows. The question for Zelensky is can you take off the military uniform and put on the uniform of diplomacy. He failed to test it.

going to go down that road. It's amazing how fast Europe found cash when America said it no more from us, We're not going to be suckers, Which brings me to tomorrow night. Let's just have a little fun with this for a second. Because you mentioned earlier to State of the Union, others are going to say, well, technically, it's

a joint session of Congress. Can we explain very quickly why the first time the president addresses a joint session of Congress it's not technically called to state the Union, but afterwards it is okay.

necessary and expedient. And so that's the origin of it that the Constitution says he shall give to Congress information on the state of the Union. Now, traditionally, the first address the president gives when he's newly elected is not called a state of the Union address. It's rather just called an address to a joint Session of Congress. And traditionally the first state of the Union is the second address he gives. So a year from now that will

be called a state of the Union. In my view, the plain text of the Constitution is of the presidents giving Congress his views on the state of the Union. It's a State of the Union address, and so I think the tradition is wrong. Now it's interesting if you go and look at the history of it. Initially it started in writing, so George Washington set written messages to Congress instead of delivering them in person. So did John Adams to Thomas Jefferson. So it started out that the

State of the Union was delivered in writing. Then Woodrow Wilson in nineteen thirteen delivered his message in person, and Franklin Roosevelt did the same. The first radio broadcast of the State of the Union was in nineteen twenty three, and the first televised advised address was in nineteen forty seven.

And it wasn't until nineteen sixty five, which is not really that long ago, that President Johnson began delivering the address in primetime, and then in nineteen sixty six the opposition party began offering a televised response to the president's speech. So today we think of it as a national speech that's covered on TV on every one of the stations. It didn't start out that way, but tomorrow we're going to see exactly that, a national speech given to the country,

given to a Joint Session of Congress. I'll be sitting there on the floor of the House listening to it, and as will millions of people across America and all across the world.

you know, are we winning. Yes, here's what we're doing, Here's what we promised we were going to do, and keep supporting and backing us because we're all in.

he gave that speech. In this instance, we have seen the most consequential first forty days of a president in history. There's never been a president hit the ground running the way Donald Trump has. There's never been a president issue as many executive orders do as much as Donald Trump is, and so I expect the speech to be number one.

I expect a lot of focus on the border. So on the border, I think the President is going to say, we had chaos, we had open borders, we had twelve million illegal immigrants, we had the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country. We had an invasion at our southern border. The American people said enough is enough is enough. I expect the President to point to in the gallery victims of illegal immigration. I expect to see the families of people who were murdered by illegal immigrants,

whether lacoln Riley or Joscelyn Nungary or Rachel Morin. I expect to see the families, uh to highlight this was a tragedy, it was wrong, and Americans were suffering every damn day as I put it at at the RNC convention this year, and we've seen in just forty days the number of illegal crossings plummet over ninety percent. I fully expect President Trump to say, you elected me to

fix this problem, and we are fixing the problem. If you're a murderer, if you're a rapist, if you're a child molester, if you're a Venezuelan gang member, get the hell out because if you do it, don't We're going to find you. We're going to arrest you, We're going to deport you. We will secure the border. And that's a promise made and a promise kept. I think that's going to be a major major theme.

my real time assessments of how it went. But look, I think the President is going to do a terrific job with it. And I don't know that it matters. I don't know that it will change anything fundamentally other than I think a lot of people. You will have tens of millions of people watching, and you will have even more globally watching. And I think the basic message the American people voted, they elected us, they gave us

a mandate, and we are on that mandate. We are producing results, We're doing what the voters sent us here to do. I think that message is really important, and I think that message will be conveyed. I'm glad of that. I think that's really important. By the way, I'll say one of the things that I'm looking forward to so later today I'm going to do an event in the Capitol with the First Lady with Melania Trump. I'm going to do an event with the First Lady on my

legislation to take it down. Legislation to take it down. Legislation protects young girls, protects women from so called revenge porn, protects them from deep fakes. So we've seen multiple instances.

We've seen teenage girls who won from Texas. Elliston Berry, who was a freshman in high school, and she woke up one morning and a classmate of hers, a boy in ninth grade, had taken a perfectly innocuous picture of her from social media, had used AI to create a deep fake to make it look like they were naked pictures of her. They were not real. They were fake, but if you looked at them, you thought they were real.

The AI technology is such that you can't tell. And this boider class had sent it to her classmates, and this poor girl woke up in tears. If you can imagine you and I are both parents, it's hard to be a teenager anytime, but for a young girl to have all your classmates think they're looking at naked pictures of you, or in some instances, you have deep fake videos where they can create pornographic videos of real people that look like they're engaged in lude and explicit acts.

And my legislation that Take It Down Act makes it number one a crime to post non consensual intimate images and number two, whether real or deep fakes made using AI. And number two it puts an obligation on social media place platforms, and tech platforms to take this garbage down when the victims notified them. In Elliston's situation, I met

with her. She reached out to me as her senator and raised this And it's actually how I encountered the issue because it was it was it was a concern raised by a constituent, and I drafted this legislation in response to her concerns. I met with her and her mom. At the time, the pictures had been up on Snapchat for nine months, and I asked her and her mom. I said, well, what's the story with the pictures now? And her mom said they're still up and they said.

Her mom said, I've called Snapchat, I've emailed them, I've gone round and round and round. They will not take them down. And I turned to my team, I said, damn it, I want you to get the CEO of Snapchat on the phone right now this afternoon, and I said, those pictures will be down today.

Lady of Milania Trump. We're gonna have Elliston, Barry Is there, We're gonna have other victims who have been victims there to highlight this legislation. My bill has already passed the Senate one hundred and nothing. I believe we'll get it through the House, and I think you could see the President talking about issues like that at the State of the Union as well, laying out we have a mandate we're going to deliver and here's what we're delivering already.