Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
The weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, so weekeme with Michael Brown broadcasting Life from Denver, Colorado.
Really glad to have you joining the program today. Love
to talk about you know, if you want to send
me a text message, you know the number three three
one zero three, use the keyword Mike or Michael on
your message app. Be sure and follow me on X
at Michael Brown USA. Let's get started, because well, I
had a had a very early dinner, I mean, like
(00:30):
not even like five o'cli at a four o'clock dinner
yesterday that I had to go to, and it took
longer than I expected. And I you know, I I
admit that I'd occasionally kind of peek at my phone
to see what was going on in all of all places. Alaska. Yeah,
there was a meeting in Alaska. I don't know whether
you've heard about it or not, but there was this
meeting Alaska between Alaska between Donald Trump or somebody like
(00:56):
that and vlad Vlad Putin. Yeah, they they had a
little get together and the whole world. Everybody has a
take on it. Everybody. So I'm going to give you
my take, and I'm going, well, actually I'm not going
to give you my take yet, but I'm what I'm
going to do is I'm going to try to give
(01:16):
you a little bit of back and forth. So if
if you think you're going to get if you're susceptible
to vertigo, get ready for a little bit of whiplash,
because I just want to set the table, and then
I want to go into some specifics because this is
a gigantic game of chess that could easily easily blow
(01:42):
up into World War three, or it could just end
up with an ongoing conflict that's just going to continue
to see millions of people die. It'll be much work,
a much greater tragedy than World War One or World
War II, just in terms of the numbers of people
that are that are killed, mutilated, civilians you know, are
being targeted by Putin and it's just one of those
(02:07):
almost intractable problems that's going to take a long time
to resolve. But if we step back, we realize that, well,
holy crap, this is the first time since twenty twenty two. Actually,
to be really honest, in my opinion, this is the
first time since twenty fourteen that anybody has stepped forward
(02:28):
and said, well, let's try to do something. Now, even
Donald Trump may take offense to that, because Trump likes
to talk about remember, I gave them javelins. I sent
them javelins, and Obama sent them blankets. Now that is true.
But if you wanted to take Putin's side in terms
of the history, it goes back even further than twenty fourteen.
(02:52):
It goes back to well even prior to the end
of World War Two. But at least for our sake
of argument, it goes back to the end of World
War Two when we start dividing up Europe and trying
to figure out, you know, where lines are going to
be drawn in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe,
where we decide where all the lines are going to
be drawn all around the world, it's just boom. That's
(03:12):
that's the result of what the conquerors do. And yes,
the Allies were the conquerors. We're not imperialists, but we
were indeed conquerors. So it just depends on where you
want to start your perspective. It depends on what your
objective is. Do you want to end the war? Do
you want Ukraine to win? Do you want Putin to win? Well,
(03:36):
I should say you do itt Ukraine to win, Russia
to win? Or do you want to see a cease fire?
Do you want to see a peace agreement? Can you
roll back the status quo to something that's pre twenty
fourteen or do you have to deal in reality? I
deal in reality, and it's incredibly complicated in my opinion.
(03:57):
But let's just start with just kind of let's just
try to do an overview first before we get into
any details. The So, it's a summit, all right. You
can't describe it any other way than a summit. And
I think it ended predictably. Now. Trump kept talking about
he hoped he could get a cease fire, but then
(04:18):
afterwards he talks about, well, a ceasefire never really works
because they always get broken. We really need a peace deal. Well,
it ended ended, I think predictably, without a ceasefire. It
ended without a deal. It ended out with much agreement
on much of anything other than to continue to meet. Now,
as much as I hate meetings, I think that is
(04:40):
an accomplishment in and of itself. Trump said, quote, you know,
many points were agreed to and there are just a
very few that are left. But he didn't offer any real,
any read real details. When I got home from dinner
last night, I did watch I found online and I
watched the pre conference, which was just from a purely
(05:02):
political point of view, fascinating. And then as much as
I'm not a giant fan of Sean Hannity, which is
just no big deal, but I'm just not none He's
he's too much of a sick of him. But anyway,
I just I watched Hannity interview Trump because I just
wanted to say, not not because I cared about what
Hannity was going to ask him not ask, but because
(05:24):
I wanted to hear what Trump had to say. Because
Trump does this regardless, which is which I love. Don't
get me wrong, I think more people should do this,
particularly politicians, regardless what the questions ask. You know, you
you get your point across and then you get to
the point of whatever the question was ided you even
(05:46):
want to answer the question. Sometimes questions are too stupid answer.
But nonetheless, I think that Trump is pretty good about
getting across what he wants to get a recard across
regardless of the question. But even if true that many
points were agreed to and there are just very few
that are left. Even if that's true, the leftovers from
(06:09):
this summit are critical. And the gulf between the two governments,
not the US and Russia, but the gulf between Ukraine
and Russia is monstrously large. It's like a giant universe
of some sort. Most critically, Putin cares more about security
than image or economics, and I think understandably, being the
(06:32):
thug that he is, he believes that he would lose
leverage by agree agreeing to military operations before he wins
any concessions that he demands from Ukraine. But regardless of that,
the summit improved, you know, somewhat slightly, at least the
prospects for negotiating an end to the war. So what
you know, you know, what's the tripe phrase? Every journey
(06:56):
begins with a single step. Yes, that is true. You
have to start oftentimes, you know, if whether you're a writer, speaker, whatever,
you just got to start. And oftentimes we find ourselves,
I know you have found yourself in this position where
you just can't start. Whatever it is, psychological, psychiatric, whatever, physically,
(07:19):
whatever it is, you just can't start. Well. Here they
at least started, and I applaud them for at least starting.
So the summit did improve, however, slightly, the prospects that
we might negotiate an end to this war. Now Moscow's
on the offensive, and with Moscow on the offensive, a
peace that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and their independence is going
(07:44):
to require that Kiev, that Ukraine talk with the Putin government.
So in that sense, diplomacy has kind of kind of
like a oh, I don't know, kind of like a
a prairie dog. Those of you who don't know what
a prairie dog is, go look it up for kind
(08:05):
of like a prairie dog has kind of peaked its
head out of the hole. That's kind of what democracy
has done here. It's the diplomacy. Diplomacy has stirred. What's
necessary now is getting Ukraine in Russia to actually negotiate
while encouraging both sides to be realistic. And I think
that's going to be the hardest thing of all, is
(08:27):
being realistic about what's going on to end the conflict
that is costing both sides. Kiev, I think, is going
to have to lose some territory and endure neutrality, and
Moscow is going to have to accept that Ukraine is
going to lean west politically and economically, though maybe not
(08:49):
necessarily militarily, although I think ultimately it will lean militarily
toward the West, at least toward Europe. Since Battlefield's success
and it's minor, but nonetheless it is some success with Putin.
Right now, Trump should use the prospect of improving political
(09:10):
relations and economic dealings with the West in an attempt
to pull Rush toward a compromise that might somewhere down
the road, not on Monday, after this meeting with Selensky
in the White House, or Tuesday or Wednesday, but at
least we've kind of taken the exit ramp, or at
least we see the exit ramp and we realize that
(09:32):
let's negotiate. That's the bottom line. It's the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Be sure and follow me on except Michael
Brown USA text lines always open three three, one zero three,
keyword Michael, Michael. I'll be right back. Hey, welcome back
to the Weekend with Michael Brown. We're gonna We're going
(09:54):
to try this hour to just kind of encapsulate everything
that took place in Alaska yesterday, just so as you
move forward through the next several weeks, you'll have a
little bit of perspective that is, I hope, longer term,
both backwards and forwards than everything that the cupball is
(10:18):
going to feed you about. I mean, you know, for example,
I looked at the New York Times today, this morning,
I looked at the La Times, the Denver Post, the
Wall Street Journal, and of course the Wall Street Journal
is out with you know, this is an utter failure.
You know that, you know, Putin got his way blah
blah blah blah. Well, to some degree that's true, but
(10:41):
that's not the entire picture.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
There was.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I think when you consider Trump, and I do believe
that Trump has and I know he's older than me,
but he has matured. And I don't mean mature like
you know, going from a you know, preep you best
and you know rug rat to a you know, puberty driven,
hormone driven teenager. But he has matured politically, and he
(11:09):
is matured. I think the four years in the wilderness
really did him a lot of good. So in that
press conference, yesterday, he had Putin speak first, and of course,
if you know, I may let you hear in a minute.
But Putin actually said, as I think he did deliberately
on purpose, that you know, I hear Donald Trump say
(11:32):
a lot of times that you know, if he had
been president of this war would not have happened. And
I want to tell you that it is true. I
think that is true on the part of Putin. But
I also think it's kind of throwing Trump the bone,
like you know, I'm going to come out here and
say something that I know your enemies don't like to
(11:54):
hear you say. But that's the signal that I probably
he would not have invaded had you been president, because
I know that you're tough and that you tend to
I mean, you gave him the javelins, and you had
if I had started doing this, so I may have
waited until you were out of office and to see
(12:15):
who the next person was, because someone like Putin sees
the longer term, and he's willing to sit quietly. If
he has to wait for four years, he'll wait for
four years. But he saw Biden come in, he knew
what he knew what Obama had done, he's an astute
study of character. Biden comes in and he saw a
(12:36):
weak sister whose primary diplomatic word was don't, don't, don't,
and thought, oh, look what they did in Afghanistan. Well,
I don't even thing to worry about, Boom, I'm going in.
So Trump, after Putin spoke, Trump summed it up this
way meeting.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
There were many, many points that we agreed on, most
of them, say a couple of big ones that we
haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway. So
there's no deal until there's a deal. I will call
up NATO in a little while. I will call up
the various people that I think are appropriate, and of
(13:18):
course call up President Zelensky and tell them about today's meeting.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
It's ultimately up to them.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
They're going to have to agree with what Marco and
Steve and some of the great people from the Trump
administration who've come here, Scott and John Ratcliffe, thank you
very much. But we have some of our really great leaders.
They've been doing a phenomenal job. We also have some
tremendous Russian business representatives here, and I think you know,
(13:48):
everybody wants to deal with us. We've become the hottest
country anywhere in the world at a very short period
of time, and we look forward to that, we look
forward to dealing. We're going to try and get this
over with. We really he made some great progress today.
I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin. With Vladimir,
(14:09):
we had many, many tough meetings, good meetings. We were
interfered with by the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It made it a little bit tougher to deal with,
but he understood it.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I think he's probably seen things like that during the
course of his career.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
He's seen it all.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But we had to put up with the Russia Russia
Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I
knew it was a hoax. But what was done was
very criminal. But it made it harder for us to
deal as a country in terms of the business and
all of the things that would like to have dealt with.
But we'll have a good chance when this is over.
So just to put it very quickly, I'm going to
start making a few phone calls and tell him what happened.
(14:53):
But we had an extremely productive meeting and many points
were agreed to. There are just a very few that
are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably
the most significant. But we have a very good chance
of getting there. We didn't get there, but we have
a very good chance of getting there. I would like
to thank President Putin as his entire team, whose faces,
(15:17):
who I know in many cases otherwise other than that,
whose faces I get to see you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
All the time in the newspapers.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're very You're almost as famous as the Boss, but
especially this one right over here. But we had some
good meetings over the years, right, good productive meetings over
the years, and we hope to have that in the future.
But let's see the most productive one right now. We're
going to stop really five six, seven thousands of people
(15:45):
a week from being killed. And President Putin wants to
see that as much as I do.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So again, mister President.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's it. And then he makes a few other comments,
and then they just leave the stage. They don't take
any questions. If you have seen that, particularly if I
think CNN and Fox both because there it was pool
coverage from the White House, although I think they had
sent some of their own people there also, so you
had the pool traveling on Air Force one, and then
(16:14):
you had those that they sent independently to cover anything.
If you watched any of that final report, you will
if you will, because it really wasn't a press conference.
It's more like two speeches. Here's what I find utterly
fascinating because I have dealt with Putin's former defense minister
(16:43):
Choigo on a one on one basis. And what I've
always found fascinating because you know, the people around any
sort of leader are representative of that leader and the
these people Vladimir Putin is a social path. He is
(17:06):
in many ways a modern day Hitler. He doesn't care
about live, he doesn't care about how many people die,
he doesn't care he doesn't care about his own people,
let alone Ukrainians. So here is a true social path
on the stage with the President of the United States
of America. And Trump is doing his best, in my opinion,
(17:29):
to deal with someone that you know, he's used to
dealing with somebody on a business basis, which I think
is why they brought some you know, Scott Descent and
the others, and why some of the Russian business people came.
But remember, you're dealing with a social path. I want
you to remember that, because let's walk through what these
objectives were, and let's look at let's look at the
(17:51):
ying and yang this side and that side of what
really took place. Coming up next. I'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Tonight.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Talk show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad
to have you tuned in. Appreciate you listening. I as
I was just contemplating during the break, I want to
say something personal. Frohm for just a second. If I
and I don't know how I sound right now, I
mean I know how I feel. If to you, I'm
(18:34):
coming across as a little blase or maybe not quite
as energized as I normally am, it's because of this topic.
This topic is incredibly complicated. It is as I said,
(18:55):
it is. It is a high stakes game of chess
that we are playing that involves two countries with a
long history, not necessarily a good history, but a long history,
and it spills over into European history, American history, it
(19:17):
spills over into the politics of a complicated I mean
if you were doing a venn diagram, it would be
I mean, this would be Kamala Harris would be ORGASMI
because she loves ven diagram so much. There would be
so many common and uncommon points. Because Europe's involved, Russia's involved,
(19:40):
You've got someone like Trump and his personality, You've got
Putin in. His personality is this is an incredibly complex situation.
And that's not even getting into it. And I even
I'm even reticent to get into the political aspects of
it because you can't discuss the current political aspects of
(20:03):
it without going back in time and thinking about the
past political aspects that got us to where we are today,
including the the Minsk agreements that Obama entered into, and
then you know, Putin just totally ignored our disarming of
Ukraine of all their nuclear weapons because we didn't you know,
(20:25):
that was all part of the agreement to bring you know,
as the Soviet Union collapsed, to secure Eastern Europe, the
NATO expansion and Obama's expansion of NATO bringing in other countries.
It's just all of these moves that occurred prior to
(20:47):
this very moment that have to be taken into consideration.
And most Americans are oblivious to those don't understand all
of the I don't, and I don't pretend to understand
the implication all the implications of those, But I at least,
having been involved in these kinds of negotiations before, I
at least understand how complex they are. And trying to
(21:10):
narrow it down into a really short segment and try
to get you to follow along, I just find I
just find it overwhelming. So let me see if I
can break it down this way. You had, you got
our objectives and Trump's objectives, and sometimes those aren't always
(21:32):
the same either. A ceasefire in Ukraine. Now, Trump made
a clear pre summit that he would not be satisfied
without some sort of ceasefire. But obviously he did not
get that, and now he has flipped and said a
ceasefire probably would not have worked anyway. And people will
take that in our domestic politics and say, see that
was a failure. No, I think he realized. If you
(21:56):
watch that those two speeches at the end of the
almost three hour meeting, you see the sociopath that I described,
and you see Trump over here. And Trump has gone
from this optimistic look that he had prior to the
meeting with not a downtrodden look, but a look of
(22:18):
Holy thess batman. This is going to take a lot
of work and a lot of people. And if I'm
going to do any sort of deal here, I've got
a thousand moving parts that I've got to deal with,
which is part of being president. The summit was expected
to set the table for these future meetings, which we
(22:41):
already know are now going to take place. But think
about it from Russia's point of view. For Putin just
the opportunity to appear on US soil after years of
just diplomatic isolation, that for him is a win because
that signals that he is now this social path, is
(23:01):
now back on the global stage, and at least he's
negotiating at least, you know, he may not be realistic
in those negotiations, but at least he's back on the table.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Experts a lot of experts out there that have highlighted
that Russia's main objective was to just stall the discussions,
project strength and potentially pull the United States away from
our European allies. Well that's been another failure because Trump's
already signaled that Zelensky is not only coming Monday, but
there are a few. I would guess that the Prime
(23:37):
Minister of Poland, the President of Poland. I would guess
that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President
of France, and of course of Zelensky. Those four big
players are probably going to be together. So Putin failed
in that regard. But now you have to look at
it from the European concern and the Ukrainian concerns, which
(23:58):
are not always aligned. Europe and Ukraine were concerned that
the summit could lead to concessions. Well, Trump was never
going to do that, but that was their that was
their fear. Now Zelensky I don't think should have been there,
but people will say, oh, but look he wasn't there,
that he has to be there. No, he should not
have been there because Zelensky already comes pissed off. He's
(24:26):
a war president, he's probably mentally and physically exhausted. He's
losing ground politically in his own country. So he should
not have been in the first meeting because it would
take Trump to find out where the social path Putin stands. What,
what is there anything we can we agree on anything?
(24:49):
And if we can, just let's go to the next step.
I personally, you know, Trump kept telescoping that within two
or three, four or five minutes he was willing to
walk out. I wouldn't have said that publicly, but he
was laying the ground work that if he had to
walk out within two or three minutes, he was willing
to do that. So maybe he knew that, maybe you know,
(25:12):
maybe he knew that was a good thing to signal
to Putin before they arrived, because you know, Putin's you know,
the Russian security services and the Russian intel services would
all make certain that Putin knew, Hey, Trump's already telescope
that he's willing to walk out if you don't do something.
So they did something. There was all this European officials.
(25:33):
You know, Europe drives me crazy. They really don't have
the unified strategy of their own. The Crohn's got a strategy,
Starmer's got a strategy. Poland has its own self interests,
which I think need to be taken into consideration, but
so does Lithuanian, you know, and Estonia, all these smaller
Eastern European countries, they have a stake in this too.
(25:56):
Because Putin the social path really does rethink that the
dissolution of the Soviet Union was one of history's pivotal points,
and you know, the biggest political disaster in the history
of humanity. That's his perspective, not mine, but that's what
he thinks. So we end up with a meeting that
(26:17):
lasted about three hours. Both sides said it was a discretive,
you know, productive. There was the red carpet, There was
all the pageantry, the state. The staging of the meeting
was brilliant on the part of Trump and the Trump team.
The wide red carpet for Trump, who is much larger
(26:38):
than Putin physically, the narrow carpet Putin having to walk
to Trump, the perfectly timed flyover of the stealth bomber
along with the with the raptors and the others. I mean,
it was all staged incredibly well, and Putin had to
notice it. If you watched he when he heard the jets,
(27:01):
he looked up, he looked up. Mission accomplished. Now there
were some key outcomes, you know, for Trump, no cease fire,
no concrete agreement, and Trump confirmed there was no deal,
although he claimed that there was some progress on both points,
and he told the reporters. We had a very good
chance of getting there, but we didn't get there yet.
(27:23):
He then shifted responsibility for peace on to Zelenski, saying
that got to make a deal and it's up to
Zelensky to get it done, which is also incredibly important
because that's true. We have to, you know, in terms
of chess moves. Regardless of where you stand on any
(27:43):
of this, I think one thing is probably true. Zelensky
is on a short leash, both with his people and
on the international stage. He has stopped Putin, although they're
beginning to make advance. Putin's objective was and if you
(28:03):
go back, this was going to be a three week
war and they would take over Kiev, they'd take over
the entire country and it'd be, you know, one and done.
Zelensky has proved, and I think the Ukrainian soldiers have proven. Yeah,
they're a lot tougher than what Putin expected because they
love their country. They won independence, They threw out a
(28:24):
Russian puppet, you know, they threw out one of Putin's
puppets and elected Zelensky. By the way, that puppet ended
up in exile in Russia. So they're a proud people,
and we ought to recognize that. Putin, on the other hand,
barely referenced Ukraine talking about the relationship between the US
(28:45):
and Russia, and he didn't make any commitment to pause
the war. Well, of course, because the Russian economy is
in the crapper, totally in the crapper, and Putin knows that,
and he knows he can't rely he can rely on
the North Koreans for just bodies to throw into the
meat grinder. And China, well, what most people don't realize
(29:10):
is that Shi jing Ping, the leader of the Chinese
Communist Party right now and the president of China is
he's on very shaky ground. In fact, when they have
their congress in October, I think there's a better than
fifty to fifty chance that Hi jing Ping is deposed
by his own party, by the Communists, because he's pretty
(29:32):
much destroyed their economy too. See all these chess moves.
This is why it's so complicated, and I encourage you
to just let it play out. It's the weekend with
Michael Brown. The tax line thirty three one oh three
keyword Michael, Michael, go follow me on X It's at
Michael Brown. Usa'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to
(29:58):
the Weekend with Michael Brown. Goober number four, six seven nine.
I'm not gonna read the entire text message, but he
just says, you know, Michael, you're absolutely right, absolutely in
all caps, You're absolutely right for taking a serious tone
in regards to the Trump Putin meeting, because Americans today
are a lot more oblivious to what's going on in
the world today compared to the Cold War era. And
I was thinking, anyway, so I'm looking at my notes
(30:20):
and I have I've got four things that I was
going to do in this last segment about the objective
takeaways from this meeting. But I don't want to carry
this over into the next hour because there's a lot
of other stuff I want to talk about. So I'm
going to throw that out, and I want to talk
about one thing. And I think this is probably the
(30:42):
biggest negotiating point and the biggest hurdle that they're going
to have to cross, and that is whether or not
Ukraine gives up.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Some all or more of.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
The territory, then Putin has already taken control of And
let me tell you what I think and then explain why,
because again I live in the real world. One. I
think that what Putin has done is in violation of
international law. I think it's an example of how he
(31:22):
is a social path. He has disregard for international norms.
He has complete disregard for human life. I think that
if you're going to end this war in the real world,
Putin gets some of that territory. I don't know how much,
(31:47):
how little. I don't think he should get more that
he hasn't conquered. Although there might be a deal for
you give up some that you have conquered and we'll
give you a little bit that you haven't conquered. There
may be some of that going on, but I think
boom bottom line is Putin gets some territory. Now let's
play it out, because you may you may you know
(32:10):
real from that and say, oh, don't know, that's rewarding Putin. Yeah,
I understand that. I absolutely understand that. How are you
going to get the territory back? Putin's never going to
give the territory back. So the only way that I
see that you're ever going to get all of that
territory back is that you arm Ukraine to the hilt,
(32:37):
which Europe's not going to do, and quite frankly, I
don't think that we should do. We have been dribbling
and drabbling out little bits and pieces of equipment, equipment, equipment,
you know, ammunition, you know, all sorts of armaments, everything
(32:58):
that we can, and that is what has prevented Putin
from taking over even more territory. But at some point
the Ukrainian military begins to disintegrate because remember you're dealing
with the social path who doesn't care about human life.
So he'll take North Korean soldiers, he'll take people, he'll
(33:18):
take people out of prisons, he'll draft his people. A
dictatorship is very brittle, so he will take everything that
he can to one maintain his dictatorship and to keep
throwing human bodies into the meat grinder. So at some point,
if you want to stop the carnage, you have to say, okay,
well we'll give you, you know, these x square miles. Otherwise
(33:45):
this will drag on and on and on until one
of two things happens. Putin finally takes over the entire
country of Ukraine, and nobody wants that. Europe doesn't want it,
Poland doesn't want it, Estonia doesn't want it. Lithui. He
doesn't want The United States doesn't want it. I don't
want it. So in order to prevent that, I'll give
(34:06):
him some territory because I don't want to see this
thing devolve into World War three, because if we keep
putting more armaments in, he's just going to keep fighting back.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
More and more.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
He may at some point use a tactical nuke. I
don't know. I don't think necessarily a tactical nuke leads
to World War three, but it certainly does escalate the
danger that we could get to World War three. So
is it right or wrong that you concede some territory
to him. I don't think that you can make a
(34:44):
right or wrong judgment. I think you have to make
a realistic judgment that that is what's something that you
may have to do in order to preserve the sovereignty
of whatever part of the country you want to preserve.
And if we do that, then NATO, which includes US,
he's going to have to step up because Ukraine will
(35:05):
demand some security guarantees, which means, well, maybe we put
the blue Helmets in there, but who's going to comprise
the blue helmets? Those are the UN peacekeepers do they
come from France, Great Britain, Poland? Where do they come
from Germany? Are they willing to do that? Well, I
(35:25):
don't think we should put our people in there, but
this shows you just how complicated these negotiations are. Zelenski
won't want to give up any territory. He's already stated
he wants everything back, including Crimeria, including CRIMEA. I think
that is that's fantasy land. That's not going to happen
(35:49):
in the real world. Conquerors conquer, whether they're social paths
or where they're just pioneers going across the plains trying
to sell the Great American West. Conquerors conquer, and in
this case, Putin has conquered. That's just the real world.
That's the reality of the situation. I don't like it.
(36:11):
I don't imagine that you like it. But what would
you do to push Putin out?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What do you think about that for a moment? Because
every alternative to pushing Putin out unless there's some little
deal somewhere that you know, Otherwise we engage in all
sorts of sanctions that collapse the Russian economy. But collapsing
(36:44):
the Russian economy, well, I kind of like to see that.
I'm not sure that it accomplishes what we think it
will accomplish. So the weekend with Michael Brown. Stay tuned,
I'll be right back
To night.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
The weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, so weekeme with Michael Brown broadcasting Life from Denver, Colorado.
Really glad to have you joining the program today. Love
to talk about you know, if you want to send
me a text message, you know the number three three
one zero three, use the keyword Mike or Michael on
your message app. Be sure and follow me on X
at Michael Brown USA. Let's get started, because well, I
had a had a very early dinner, I mean, like
(00:30):
not even like five o'cli at a four o'clock dinner
yesterday that I had to go to, and it took
longer than I expected. And I you know, I I
admit that I'd occasionally kind of peek at my phone
to see what was going on in all of all places. Alaska. Yeah,
there was a meeting in Alaska. I don't know whether
you've heard about it or not, but there was this
meeting Alaska between Alaska between Donald Trump or somebody like
(00:56):
that and vlad Vlad Putin. Yeah, they they had a
little get together and the whole world. Everybody has a
take on it. Everybody. So I'm going to give you
my take, and I'm going, well, actually I'm not going
to give you my take yet, but I'm what I'm
going to do is I'm going to try to give
(01:16):
you a little bit of back and forth. So if
if you think you're going to get if you're susceptible
to vertigo, get ready for a little bit of whiplash,
because I just want to set the table, and then
I want to go into some specifics because this is
a gigantic game of chess that could easily easily blow
(01:42):
up into World War three, or it could just end
up with an ongoing conflict that's just going to continue
to see millions of people die. It'll be much work,
a much greater tragedy than World War One or World
War II, just in terms of the numbers of people
that are that are killed, mutilated, civilians you know, are
being targeted by Putin and it's just one of those
(02:07):
almost intractable problems that's going to take a long time
to resolve. But if we step back, we realize that, well,
holy crap, this is the first time since twenty twenty two. Actually,
to be really honest, in my opinion, this is the
first time since twenty fourteen that anybody has stepped forward
(02:28):
and said, well, let's try to do something. Now, even
Donald Trump may take offense to that, because Trump likes
to talk about remember, I gave them javelins. I sent
them javelins, and Obama sent them blankets. Now that is true.
But if you wanted to take Putin's side in terms
of the history, it goes back even further than twenty fourteen.
(02:52):
It goes back to well even prior to the end
of World War Two. But at least for our sake
of argument, it goes back to the end of World
War Two when we start dividing up Europe and trying
to figure out, you know, where lines are going to
be drawn in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe,
where we decide where all the lines are going to
be drawn all around the world, it's just boom. That's
(03:12):
that's the result of what the conquerors do. And yes,
the Allies were the conquerors. We're not imperialists, but we
were indeed conquerors. So it just depends on where you
want to start your perspective. It depends on what your
objective is. Do you want to end the war? Do
you want Ukraine to win? Do you want Putin to win? Well,
(03:36):
I should say you do itt Ukraine to win, Russia
to win? Or do you want to see a cease fire?
Do you want to see a peace agreement? Can you
roll back the status quo to something that's pre twenty
fourteen or do you have to deal in reality? I
deal in reality, and it's incredibly complicated in my opinion.
(03:57):
But let's just start with just kind of let's just
try to do an overview first before we get into
any details. The So, it's a summit, all right. You
can't describe it any other way than a summit. And
I think it ended predictably. Now. Trump kept talking about
he hoped he could get a cease fire, but then
(04:18):
afterwards he talks about, well, a ceasefire never really works
because they always get broken. We really need a peace deal. Well,
it ended ended, I think predictably, without a ceasefire. It
ended without a deal. It ended out with much agreement
on much of anything other than to continue to meet. Now,
as much as I hate meetings, I think that is
(04:40):
an accomplishment in and of itself. Trump said, quote, you know,
many points were agreed to and there are just a
very few that are left. But he didn't offer any real,
any read real details. When I got home from dinner
last night, I did watch I found online and I
watched the pre conference, which was just from a purely
(05:02):
political point of view, fascinating. And then as much as
I'm not a giant fan of Sean Hannity, which is
just no big deal, but I'm just not none He's
he's too much of a sick of him. But anyway,
I just I watched Hannity interview Trump because I just
wanted to say, not not because I cared about what
Hannity was going to ask him not ask, but because
(05:24):
I wanted to hear what Trump had to say. Because
Trump does this regardless, which is which I love. Don't
get me wrong, I think more people should do this,
particularly politicians, regardless what the questions ask. You know, you
you get your point across and then you get to
the point of whatever the question was ided you even
(05:46):
want to answer the question. Sometimes questions are too stupid answer.
But nonetheless, I think that Trump is pretty good about
getting across what he wants to get a recard across
regardless of the question. But even if true that many
points were agreed to and there are just very few
that are left. Even if that's true, the leftovers from
(06:09):
this summit are critical. And the gulf between the two governments,
not the US and Russia, but the gulf between Ukraine
and Russia is monstrously large. It's like a giant universe
of some sort. Most critically, Putin cares more about security
than image or economics, and I think understandably, being the
(06:32):
thug that he is, he believes that he would lose
leverage by agree agreeing to military operations before he wins
any concessions that he demands from Ukraine. But regardless of that,
the summit improved, you know, somewhat slightly, at least the
prospects for negotiating an end to the war. So what
you know, you know, what's the tripe phrase? Every journey
(06:56):
begins with a single step. Yes, that is true. You
have to start oftentimes, you know, if whether you're a writer, speaker, whatever,
you just got to start. And oftentimes we find ourselves,
I know you have found yourself in this position where
you just can't start. Whatever it is, psychological, psychiatric, whatever, physically,
(07:19):
whatever it is, you just can't start. Well. Here they
at least started, and I applaud them for at least starting.
So the summit did improve, however, slightly, the prospects that
we might negotiate an end to this war. Now Moscow's
on the offensive, and with Moscow on the offensive, a
peace that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and their independence is going
(07:44):
to require that Kiev, that Ukraine talk with the Putin government.
So in that sense, diplomacy has kind of kind of
like a oh, I don't know, kind of like a
a prairie dog. Those of you who don't know what
a prairie dog is, go look it up for kind
(08:05):
of like a prairie dog has kind of peaked its
head out of the hole. That's kind of what democracy
has done here. It's the diplomacy. Diplomacy has stirred. What's
necessary now is getting Ukraine in Russia to actually negotiate
while encouraging both sides to be realistic. And I think
that's going to be the hardest thing of all, is
(08:27):
being realistic about what's going on to end the conflict
that is costing both sides. Kiev, I think, is going
to have to lose some territory and endure neutrality, and
Moscow is going to have to accept that Ukraine is
going to lean west politically and economically, though maybe not
(08:49):
necessarily militarily, although I think ultimately it will lean militarily
toward the West, at least toward Europe. Since Battlefield's success
and it's minor, but nonetheless it is some success with Putin.
Right now, Trump should use the prospect of improving political
(09:10):
relations and economic dealings with the West in an attempt
to pull Rush toward a compromise that might somewhere down
the road, not on Monday, after this meeting with Selensky
in the White House, or Tuesday or Wednesday, but at
least we've kind of taken the exit ramp, or at
least we see the exit ramp and we realize that
(09:32):
let's negotiate. That's the bottom line. It's the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Be sure and follow me on except Michael
Brown USA text lines always open three three, one zero three,
keyword Michael, Michael. I'll be right back. Hey, welcome back
to the Weekend with Michael Brown. We're gonna We're going
(09:54):
to try this hour to just kind of encapsulate everything
that took place in Alaska yesterday, just so as you
move forward through the next several weeks, you'll have a
little bit of perspective that is, I hope, longer term,
both backwards and forwards than everything that the cupball is
(10:18):
going to feed you about. I mean, you know, for example,
I looked at the New York Times today, this morning,
I looked at the La Times, the Denver Post, the
Wall Street Journal, and of course the Wall Street Journal
is out with you know, this is an utter failure.
You know that, you know, Putin got his way blah
blah blah blah. Well, to some degree that's true, but
(10:41):
that's not the entire picture.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
There was.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I think when you consider Trump, and I do believe
that Trump has and I know he's older than me,
but he has matured. And I don't mean mature like
you know, going from a you know, preep you best
and you know rug rat to a you know, puberty driven,
hormone driven teenager. But he has matured politically, and he
(11:09):
is matured. I think the four years in the wilderness
really did him a lot of good. So in that
press conference, yesterday, he had Putin speak first, and of course,
if you know, I may let you hear in a minute.
But Putin actually said, as I think he did deliberately
on purpose, that you know, I hear Donald Trump say
(11:32):
a lot of times that you know, if he had
been president of this war would not have happened. And
I want to tell you that it is true. I
think that is true on the part of Putin. But
I also think it's kind of throwing Trump the bone,
like you know, I'm going to come out here and
say something that I know your enemies don't like to
(11:54):
hear you say. But that's the signal that I probably
he would not have invaded had you been president, because
I know that you're tough and that you tend to
I mean, you gave him the javelins, and you had
if I had started doing this, so I may have
waited until you were out of office and to see
(12:15):
who the next person was, because someone like Putin sees
the longer term, and he's willing to sit quietly. If
he has to wait for four years, he'll wait for
four years. But he saw Biden come in, he knew
what he knew what Obama had done, he's an astute
study of character. Biden comes in and he saw a
(12:36):
weak sister whose primary diplomatic word was don't, don't, don't,
and thought, oh, look what they did in Afghanistan. Well,
I don't even thing to worry about, Boom, I'm going in.
So Trump, after Putin spoke, Trump summed it up this
way meeting.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
There were many, many points that we agreed on, most
of them, say a couple of big ones that we
haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway. So
there's no deal until there's a deal. I will call
up NATO in a little while. I will call up
the various people that I think are appropriate, and of
(13:18):
course call up President Zelensky and tell them about today's meeting.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
It's ultimately up to them.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
They're going to have to agree with what Marco and
Steve and some of the great people from the Trump
administration who've come here, Scott and John Ratcliffe, thank you
very much. But we have some of our really great leaders.
They've been doing a phenomenal job. We also have some
tremendous Russian business representatives here, and I think you know,
(13:48):
everybody wants to deal with us. We've become the hottest
country anywhere in the world at a very short period
of time, and we look forward to that, we look
forward to dealing. We're going to try and get this
over with. We really he made some great progress today.
I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin. With Vladimir,
(14:09):
we had many, many tough meetings, good meetings. We were
interfered with by the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It made it a little bit tougher to deal with,
but he understood it.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I think he's probably seen things like that during the
course of his career.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
He's seen it all.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
But we had to put up with the Russia Russia
Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I
knew it was a hoax. But what was done was
very criminal. But it made it harder for us to
deal as a country in terms of the business and
all of the things that would like to have dealt with.
But we'll have a good chance when this is over.
So just to put it very quickly, I'm going to
start making a few phone calls and tell him what happened.
(14:53):
But we had an extremely productive meeting and many points
were agreed to. There are just a very few that
are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably
the most significant. But we have a very good chance
of getting there. We didn't get there, but we have
a very good chance of getting there. I would like
to thank President Putin as his entire team, whose faces,
(15:17):
who I know in many cases otherwise other than that,
whose faces I get to see you.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
All the time in the newspapers.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're very You're almost as famous as the Boss, but
especially this one right over here. But we had some
good meetings over the years, right, good productive meetings over
the years, and we hope to have that in the future.
But let's see the most productive one right now. We're
going to stop really five six, seven thousands of people
(15:45):
a week from being killed. And President Putin wants to
see that as much as I do.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So again, mister President.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's it. And then he makes a few other comments,
and then they just leave the stage. They don't take
any questions. If you have seen that, particularly if I
think CNN and Fox both because there it was pool
coverage from the White House, although I think they had
sent some of their own people there also, so you
had the pool traveling on Air Force one, and then
(16:14):
you had those that they sent independently to cover anything.
If you watched any of that final report, you will
if you will, because it really wasn't a press conference.
It's more like two speeches. Here's what I find utterly
fascinating because I have dealt with Putin's former defense minister
(16:43):
Choigo on a one on one basis. And what I've
always found fascinating because you know, the people around any
sort of leader are representative of that leader and the
these people Vladimir Putin is a social path. He is
(17:06):
in many ways a modern day Hitler. He doesn't care
about live, he doesn't care about how many people die,
he doesn't care he doesn't care about his own people,
let alone Ukrainians. So here is a true social path
on the stage with the President of the United States
of America. And Trump is doing his best, in my opinion,
(17:29):
to deal with someone that you know, he's used to
dealing with somebody on a business basis, which I think
is why they brought some you know, Scott Descent and
the others, and why some of the Russian business people came.
But remember, you're dealing with a social path. I want
you to remember that, because let's walk through what these
objectives were, and let's look at let's look at the
(17:51):
ying and yang this side and that side of what
really took place. Coming up next. I'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Tonight.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Talk show host Michael Brown.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad
to have you tuned in. Appreciate you listening. I as
I was just contemplating during the break, I want to
say something personal. Frohm for just a second. If I
and I don't know how I sound right now, I
mean I know how I feel. If to you, I'm
(18:34):
coming across as a little blase or maybe not quite
as energized as I normally am, it's because of this topic.
This topic is incredibly complicated. It is as I said,
(18:55):
it is. It is a high stakes game of chess
that we are playing that involves two countries with a
long history, not necessarily a good history, but a long history,
and it spills over into European history, American history, it
(19:17):
spills over into the politics of a complicated I mean
if you were doing a venn diagram, it would be
I mean, this would be Kamala Harris would be ORGASMI
because she loves ven diagram so much. There would be
so many common and uncommon points. Because Europe's involved, Russia's involved,
(19:40):
You've got someone like Trump and his personality, You've got
Putin in. His personality is this is an incredibly complex situation.
And that's not even getting into it. And I even
I'm even reticent to get into the political aspects of
it because you can't discuss the current political aspects of
(20:03):
it without going back in time and thinking about the
past political aspects that got us to where we are today,
including the the Minsk agreements that Obama entered into, and
then you know, Putin just totally ignored our disarming of
Ukraine of all their nuclear weapons because we didn't you know,
(20:25):
that was all part of the agreement to bring you know,
as the Soviet Union collapsed, to secure Eastern Europe, the
NATO expansion and Obama's expansion of NATO bringing in other countries.
It's just all of these moves that occurred prior to
(20:47):
this very moment that have to be taken into consideration.
And most Americans are oblivious to those don't understand all
of the I don't, and I don't pretend to understand
the implication all the implications of those, But I at least,
having been involved in these kinds of negotiations before, I
at least understand how complex they are. And trying to
(21:10):
narrow it down into a really short segment and try
to get you to follow along, I just find I
just find it overwhelming. So let me see if I
can break it down this way. You had, you got
our objectives and Trump's objectives, and sometimes those aren't always
(21:32):
the same either. A ceasefire in Ukraine. Now, Trump made
a clear pre summit that he would not be satisfied
without some sort of ceasefire. But obviously he did not
get that, and now he has flipped and said a
ceasefire probably would not have worked anyway. And people will
take that in our domestic politics and say, see that
was a failure. No, I think he realized. If you
(21:56):
watch that those two speeches at the end of the
almost three hour meeting, you see the sociopath that I described,
and you see Trump over here. And Trump has gone
from this optimistic look that he had prior to the
meeting with not a downtrodden look, but a look of
(22:18):
Holy thess batman. This is going to take a lot
of work and a lot of people. And if I'm
going to do any sort of deal here, I've got
a thousand moving parts that I've got to deal with,
which is part of being president. The summit was expected
to set the table for these future meetings, which we
(22:41):
already know are now going to take place. But think
about it from Russia's point of view. For Putin just
the opportunity to appear on US soil after years of
just diplomatic isolation, that for him is a win because
that signals that he is now this social path, is
(23:01):
now back on the global stage, and at least he's
negotiating at least, you know, he may not be realistic
in those negotiations, but at least he's back on the table.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Experts a lot of experts out there that have highlighted
that Russia's main objective was to just stall the discussions,
project strength and potentially pull the United States away from
our European allies. Well that's been another failure because Trump's
already signaled that Zelensky is not only coming Monday, but
there are a few. I would guess that the Prime
(23:37):
Minister of Poland, the President of Poland. I would guess
that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President
of France, and of course of Zelensky. Those four big
players are probably going to be together. So Putin failed
in that regard. But now you have to look at
it from the European concern and the Ukrainian concerns, which
(23:58):
are not always aligned. Europe and Ukraine were concerned that
the summit could lead to concessions. Well, Trump was never
going to do that, but that was their that was
their fear. Now Zelensky I don't think should have been there,
but people will say, oh, but look he wasn't there,
that he has to be there. No, he should not
have been there because Zelensky already comes pissed off. He's
(24:26):
a war president, he's probably mentally and physically exhausted. He's
losing ground politically in his own country. So he should
not have been in the first meeting because it would
take Trump to find out where the social path Putin stands. What,
what is there anything we can we agree on anything?
(24:49):
And if we can, just let's go to the next step.
I personally, you know, Trump kept telescoping that within two
or three, four or five minutes he was willing to
walk out. I wouldn't have said that publicly, but he
was laying the ground work that if he had to
walk out within two or three minutes, he was willing
to do that. So maybe he knew that, maybe you know,
(25:12):
maybe he knew that was a good thing to signal
to Putin before they arrived, because you know, Putin's you know,
the Russian security services and the Russian intel services would
all make certain that Putin knew, Hey, Trump's already telescope
that he's willing to walk out if you don't do something.
So they did something. There was all this European officials.
(25:33):
You know, Europe drives me crazy. They really don't have
the unified strategy of their own. The Crohn's got a strategy,
Starmer's got a strategy. Poland has its own self interests,
which I think need to be taken into consideration, but
so does Lithuanian, you know, and Estonia, all these smaller
Eastern European countries, they have a stake in this too.
(25:56):
Because Putin the social path really does rethink that the
dissolution of the Soviet Union was one of history's pivotal points,
and you know, the biggest political disaster in the history
of humanity. That's his perspective, not mine, but that's what
he thinks. So we end up with a meeting that
(26:17):
lasted about three hours. Both sides said it was a discretive,
you know, productive. There was the red carpet, There was
all the pageantry, the state. The staging of the meeting
was brilliant on the part of Trump and the Trump team.
The wide red carpet for Trump, who is much larger
(26:38):
than Putin physically, the narrow carpet Putin having to walk
to Trump, the perfectly timed flyover of the stealth bomber
along with the with the raptors and the others. I mean,
it was all staged incredibly well, and Putin had to
notice it. If you watched he when he heard the jets,
(27:01):
he looked up, he looked up. Mission accomplished. Now there
were some key outcomes, you know, for Trump, no cease fire,
no concrete agreement, and Trump confirmed there was no deal,
although he claimed that there was some progress on both points,
and he told the reporters. We had a very good
chance of getting there, but we didn't get there yet.
(27:23):
He then shifted responsibility for peace on to Zelenski, saying
that got to make a deal and it's up to
Zelensky to get it done, which is also incredibly important
because that's true. We have to, you know, in terms
of chess moves. Regardless of where you stand on any
(27:43):
of this, I think one thing is probably true. Zelensky
is on a short leash, both with his people and
on the international stage. He has stopped Putin, although they're
beginning to make advance. Putin's objective was and if you
(28:03):
go back, this was going to be a three week
war and they would take over Kiev, they'd take over
the entire country and it'd be, you know, one and done.
Zelensky has proved, and I think the Ukrainian soldiers have proven. Yeah,
they're a lot tougher than what Putin expected because they
love their country. They won independence, They threw out a
(28:24):
Russian puppet, you know, they threw out one of Putin's
puppets and elected Zelensky. By the way, that puppet ended
up in exile in Russia. So they're a proud people,
and we ought to recognize that. Putin, on the other hand,
barely referenced Ukraine talking about the relationship between the US
(28:45):
and Russia, and he didn't make any commitment to pause
the war. Well, of course, because the Russian economy is
in the crapper, totally in the crapper, and Putin knows that,
and he knows he can't rely he can rely on
the North Koreans for just bodies to throw into the
meat grinder. And China, well, what most people don't realize
(29:10):
is that Shi jing Ping, the leader of the Chinese
Communist Party right now and the president of China is
he's on very shaky ground. In fact, when they have
their congress in October, I think there's a better than
fifty to fifty chance that Hi jing Ping is deposed
by his own party, by the Communists, because he's pretty
(29:32):
much destroyed their economy too. See all these chess moves.
This is why it's so complicated, and I encourage you
to just let it play out. It's the weekend with
Michael Brown. The tax line thirty three one oh three
keyword Michael, Michael, go follow me on X It's at
Michael Brown. Usa'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to
(29:58):
the Weekend with Michael Brown. Goober number four, six seven nine.
I'm not gonna read the entire text message, but he
just says, you know, Michael, you're absolutely right, absolutely in
all caps, You're absolutely right for taking a serious tone
in regards to the Trump Putin meeting, because Americans today
are a lot more oblivious to what's going on in
the world today compared to the Cold War era. And
I was thinking, anyway, so I'm looking at my notes
(30:20):
and I have I've got four things that I was
going to do in this last segment about the objective
takeaways from this meeting. But I don't want to carry
this over into the next hour because there's a lot
of other stuff I want to talk about. So I'm
going to throw that out, and I want to talk
about one thing. And I think this is probably the
(30:42):
biggest negotiating point and the biggest hurdle that they're going
to have to cross, and that is whether or not
Ukraine gives up.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Some all or more of.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
The territory, then Putin has already taken control of And
let me tell you what I think and then explain why,
because again I live in the real world. One. I
think that what Putin has done is in violation of
international law. I think it's an example of how he
(31:22):
is a social path. He has disregard for international norms.
He has complete disregard for human life. I think that
if you're going to end this war in the real world,
Putin gets some of that territory. I don't know how much,
(31:47):
how little. I don't think he should get more that
he hasn't conquered. Although there might be a deal for
you give up some that you have conquered and we'll
give you a little bit that you haven't conquered. There
may be some of that going on, but I think
boom bottom line is Putin gets some territory. Now let's
play it out, because you may you may you know
(32:10):
real from that and say, oh, don't know, that's rewarding Putin. Yeah,
I understand that. I absolutely understand that. How are you
going to get the territory back? Putin's never going to
give the territory back. So the only way that I
see that you're ever going to get all of that
territory back is that you arm Ukraine to the hilt,
(32:37):
which Europe's not going to do, and quite frankly, I
don't think that we should do. We have been dribbling
and drabbling out little bits and pieces of equipment, equipment, equipment,
you know, ammunition, you know, all sorts of armaments, everything
(32:58):
that we can, and that is what has prevented Putin
from taking over even more territory. But at some point
the Ukrainian military begins to disintegrate because remember you're dealing
with the social path who doesn't care about human life.
So he'll take North Korean soldiers, he'll take people, he'll
(33:18):
take people out of prisons, he'll draft his people. A
dictatorship is very brittle, so he will take everything that
he can to one maintain his dictatorship and to keep
throwing human bodies into the meat grinder. So at some point,
if you want to stop the carnage, you have to say, okay,
well we'll give you, you know, these x square miles. Otherwise
(33:45):
this will drag on and on and on until one
of two things happens. Putin finally takes over the entire
country of Ukraine, and nobody wants that. Europe doesn't want it,
Poland doesn't want it, Estonia doesn't want it. Lithui. He
doesn't want The United States doesn't want it. I don't
want it. So in order to prevent that, I'll give
(34:06):
him some territory because I don't want to see this
thing devolve into World War three, because if we keep
putting more armaments in, he's just going to keep fighting back.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
More and more.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
He may at some point use a tactical nuke. I
don't know. I don't think necessarily a tactical nuke leads
to World War three, but it certainly does escalate the
danger that we could get to World War three. So
is it right or wrong that you concede some territory
to him. I don't think that you can make a
(34:44):
right or wrong judgment. I think you have to make
a realistic judgment that that is what's something that you
may have to do in order to preserve the sovereignty
of whatever part of the country you want to preserve.
And if we do that, then NATO, which includes US,
he's going to have to step up because Ukraine will
(35:05):
demand some security guarantees, which means, well, maybe we put
the blue Helmets in there, but who's going to comprise
the blue helmets? Those are the UN peacekeepers do they
come from France, Great Britain, Poland? Where do they come
from Germany? Are they willing to do that? Well, I
(35:25):
don't think we should put our people in there, but
this shows you just how complicated these negotiations are. Zelenski
won't want to give up any territory. He's already stated
he wants everything back, including Crimeria, including CRIMEA. I think
that is that's fantasy land. That's not going to happen
(35:49):
in the real world. Conquerors conquer, whether they're social paths
or where they're just pioneers going across the plains trying
to sell the Great American West. Conquerors conquer, and in
this case, Putin has conquered. That's just the real world.
That's the reality of the situation. I don't like it.
(36:11):
I don't imagine that you like it. But what would
you do to push Putin out?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What do you think about that for a moment? Because
every alternative to pushing Putin out unless there's some little
deal somewhere that you know, Otherwise we engage in all
sorts of sanctions that collapse the Russian economy. But collapsing
(36:44):
the Russian economy, well, I kind of like to see that.
I'm not sure that it accomplishes what we think it
will accomplish. So the weekend with Michael Brown. Stay tuned,
I'll be right back
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