Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah, regarding all of those federal I R S folks
that have been laid off, I just wondering if they
have any transferable skills. I don't seem to remember any
crying about all the folks who were laid off during
the Biden administration. Oil workers, Uh, you know, in the
in the like. Maybe they can all learn the code.
(00:21):
They should talk to Biden.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Wasn't that what they were told to do? The coal
miners and the U XL pipeline workers, go learn to code.
I wanted to move on, but there are too many
good text messages that I want to share with you
that let me refresh to see if there's any any
new ones in. Uh, Michael, Wow, all this about Trump
(00:49):
elon layoffs, But five seconds about Luigi Mangione hearing today.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I didn't, I didn't know what was going on. H
E eleven. Listen to this somewhat lengthy text message, Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I posted on Facebook about the same message you are
preaching about on air this morning.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
A half hour after I did this.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I got a text from Command Sergeant Major Jeff at
the Pentagon, my best friend since age twelve, telling me
that he is feeling hurt about my commentary. I love
and respect my friend, but it seems he has lost
touch all together with the plight of the people who
(01:35):
produce value for the market, only to end up paying
for the three million people who Jeff has to know
provide next to nothing for the money that they collect.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
What about my hurt, command, Sergeant Major Jeff.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
What about the seven figures of productivity stolen from me
to line the pockets of well over ten million government
employees at all levels, and to the grift that is
so pervasive that I can't even begin to describe it
with any sense of brevity.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I'm at the end of walking on eggshells.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's time to start shifting the respect to the taxpayers
who pay for everything.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yes, I'm angry as well. You should be.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Let's briefly go back, because there's even more news about
this today, which I'll get into later. Remember yesterday I
told you about the twenty billion dollars that Lee Zelden
had found parked at a bank, and that of the
twenty billion dollars this was part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
(02:41):
That part of that twenty billion dollars, two billion dollars
of it was going to an NNGO recently, and I
do mean recently set up by Stacy Abrams, the failed
fat candidate for Georgia governor who lost and continues to
(03:02):
deny today that she lost the election, a so called
election denier. But because she's a black woman Democrat, you
can't say anything about it. Well, I just did. She
had what was it yesterday? Like she had raised one
hundred dollars for the NGO. That was the most they'd
(03:22):
ever had in the bank account, and now they were
scheduled to get two billion dollars which would then go
on to other NGOs, her friends who had also set
up nonprofits and gigantic money laundry.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
There was another figure, and it had to do with
the amount of money that we've discovered has been going
to provide transportation, healthcare, housing, everything to illegal aliens. And
the figure was I don't remember the exact figure. I
(04:02):
just remember it was excess of two hundred billion dollars.
So we got two hundred billion dollars there. Let's just
say it was two hundred because I want to make
the figures work in your head. Let's say it was
two hundred and twenty five billion dollars or two hundred
to seat make this work, it'd be two hundred and
thirty billion. And then you've got the twenty billion that
(04:27):
was parked in a bank. That's two hundred and fifty
billion dollars. That is a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Just those two items get you a fourth of the
way to the trillion dollars that they want to try
to get to this year in cutting government spending.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Just two items.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Now, if they really continue down this path, the twenty
billion here and the one hundred billion and the two
hundred billion, eventually we're going to get to a trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I don't want that money. Honestly, my opinion is, I
don't want that money coming back to me. I don't
want to get my soul called fair share, because I
worry about that two hundred billion, or let's say it's
a trillion dollar. They get to a trillion dollars, I
don't want that trillion dollars coming back into the economy,
(05:24):
would I like, Don't get me wrong, if my fair
share is five hundred dollars, is six or six hundred dollars,
whatever it turns out to be, would I'd like to
have that money share I'd like to have I'd like
to have the money back. But I also understand that
if we take a trillion dollars that's already been collected
from us, that was going to be thrown back into
(05:45):
the economy and was going to start, you know, but
causing inflation again because most of us. If I get
a windfall of you know, six hundred dollars, well, I
might pay down, Oh, I don't know, I might pay
down a little extra on the jeep to finish paying
(06:06):
off the jeep. But that's goes back into the economy.
I'd rather see using that money to do things like,
let's start rebuilding the military. Let's use it for something
that's legitimate and good and productive and good for the country.
Let's take a little bit of it and pay down
some debt. Let's let's show the debt holders that we're
(06:30):
willing to pay something down. I think that would spur
the economy much more than me taking six hundred dollars
and oh, I don't know, spending it on dining out
or something. So let's let's start to think seriously that
they really might get to this trillion dollars I think
it's a little too early to celebrate right now, but
(06:51):
I think we may get to it. Back to the
text messages, man, is this one is tough? Seventy one
seventy one. Mike closed on my new house at eleven am.
Laid off at three pm the same day. Know what
I did? Got another job? Uh?
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Michael?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
If you're oh, nine three eight, Yeah, if you're getting
a refund, you probably did something wrong by giving the
government a loan. Uh, seventeen seventy six. That's a great number, Michael.
I recall nine News cutting their staff. In fact, TV
and radio has cut a lot of employees.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Dragen, did you know that it happens from time to time?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yeah, it does. It happens from time to time.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Regularly, almost yearly.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yes, Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Seventy two fifty nine. Mike always said when someone loses
their job. I agree. But I worked for a big
tech company here in Colorado for twenty years and I
got laid off just before my birthday and just after
my father died, and nobody cried or protested for me.
It is sad, but welcome to the real world. That's
(08:01):
exactly the point I want to make. It's just that
they and I'm dragon is still fibergasted by my answer.
But they do walk into these jobs knowing that they're
government jobs and that they're going to be secure. And
now that they're not secure, you have the gnashing of
(08:22):
the teeth. You've got the ringing of the hands, You've
got the television coverage, you've got the radio coverage, and
then you got a holes like me pointing out that, well,
sucks to be you, but welcome.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
To the real world.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And again, well, well, I do feel badly for anyone
who loses a job, because there's the excitement of the
new job. There's the excitement of, you know, getting a paycheck.
There's the excitement of you know, being able to pay
(08:53):
your bills and not having to worry about that. Maybe
you're going to get a few little bennies, maybe you're
gonna get some healthcare coverage. I get that, but nothing's permanent.
There'll come a time and I'll walk away from this,
or they may come a time when I get pushed
away from this. Things change. And if you walk into
(09:17):
a job expecting, you know, like you know, I was
at in Oklahoma, you no visiting my mom and we
were talking about my dad, who's been dead for quite
a while, and he worked in high school with a
couple of pals of his and they opened a print
shop and he worked in that same place for his
(09:40):
entire life. In fact, after he retired, he went back
to work for those same two guys part time and
worked his entire life in one place. And that's pretty rare.
I have a couple of friends who have done exactly
(10:03):
the same thing for their entire lives and a couple
one of them's retired. I'm not sure what he's doing.
The other is retired from his medical practice, but still
continues to work for a company part time, reading and
looking at medical records to give uh it's probably some
insurance company to give them advice about the medical records
(10:26):
and what the doctor's doing, are not doing. He's a
he's a pediatric neurologist, and that's and that's what he's doing.
So he's probably, in essence kind of still doing the
same thing he's always done.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Me.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I've zig zagged around. I've zigged and have always kind
of moved up and have always found things that I
love to do. But I recognize that nothing is permanent,
and these people are walking into a situation where they
truly believe that they're walking into a permanent position with
(11:00):
permanent benefits and nothing's going to change. Now, why do
they have that perspective, Because for the past hundred years,
since Theodore Roosevelt and others created the modern civil service system,
that's where we're at. That's exactly where we're at, and
we've got to get rid of that. When you have,
(11:21):
in only at the federal level and only in the
executive branch, some two million employees, and you're telling me
you can't cut some out of that. Back to Kevin
O'Leary's point, of course, you can. Because in the private
sector you can always find a way to save a
(11:44):
little bit of money. Now, I think that iHeart has
cut down to the bone. I sincerely believe they have,
and many people are doing they've doubled up on jobs.
But I could probably find a way to save this
company some money. In fact, I you know what, I
just thought of one because when I during the break,
(12:07):
I walked around and we have these balconies and all
of the doors well I shouldn't tell you that, but
all the doors on the balcony I often obviously didn't
Today but I'll often step out on the balcony just
to get some fresh air before I come back in
or start start yacking again. But today I stood next
(12:27):
to one of those doors, and it is leaking cold
air like a son of a bitch.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I mean it is. I'm as well the door.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
My door might as well have been open, and so
I jerked it closed, trying to see if it would
close tighter, and it doesn't, and the air was still leaking,
it was still cold. And so that's costing I Heart
some money in terms of I don't know what the
disagreement is, but maybe we pay up, you know, just
maybe heating and cooling is included in the in the
(12:58):
least agreement, So maybe it's not iHeart that would save
some money. Accept that the cost of heating the building
and cooling the building in the summer is built into
the amount of the lease agreement. So yes, iHeart could
probably save on the lease agreement or not facing increase
if they had building management actually fixed things like that,
(13:19):
or for example, here broken blinds that you know in
the summer, we won't be able to change the blinds
to keep some of the heat out because well they're
broken and they remain broken and all despite the promises
that I'm gonna get new blinds, I still don't have
new blinds, and that's going to cost the company some
money and replacing them blinds, of course, we would replace.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
The money too. So it's a trade off.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Are you going to spend are you going to go
home depot and buy, you know, a twenty five dollars
blind to fix this one that's broken, or are you gonna,
you know, forget about it, and instead we'll just wait
till the summer sun's boiling in here. And so now
I'm going to crank up the air conditioner to cool
it off because it's so damn hot in here. Because
I can't fix that blind. See if yes, I can
(14:03):
find ways. We can always find ways, and you can
do it in your household too.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
But at least they spent money on the new Hamster,
So that's good.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, that's right, because the Hamster was necessary though, to
make sure that we could at least, you know, it's true,
so that people could hear the commercials true. Yeah, So
that's we had that going for us. So enough about that.
I've made my point. I just want you to think
(14:31):
about when you hear these stories as you ask yourself,
why is nine News and these three ladies at nine
News so giddy about Oh my gosh, it's just so sad,
and look at them and and in fact, when I think, no,
there were two men, I was gonna say it was
all females. I think in the KDVR story they only
(14:51):
interviewed women. They didn't interview any men. I might be
wrong about that, but on nine News it was all
women talk looking about it, but they did interview I
think a guy or two. So a biological male, A
biological male in a main high school pole vaulting championship
(15:14):
might end up being the test case where we might
get some federal repercussions for the school district and of
course for the main Principals Association, which oversees high school
sports in the state. A male transgender athlete who goes
by the name of Katie Spencer. I'd like to see
what Katie looks like. I haven't found a picture ever yet,
(15:35):
or him or whatever won the state's Class B pole
vaulting championship, and that helps secure Greeley high schools, not
greedy Colorado, Greeley, Maine, helps secure real Greedy High School's
overall victory in the team championship. Now the inclusion of
air quotes here Katie Spencer in the pole vaulting competition.
(16:00):
It's an executive order signed by Trump earlier this month
which did what It barred males from participating in women's sports.
And Trump's executive order authorizes and permits federal agencies under
Title nine Authority to withhold funding and any other financial
(16:20):
assistance from organizations found in violation. In this case, it
would be Great Greedy High School, Greeley and the Main
Principals Association. Now, the only reason I know about this
story is because it drew national attention after a social
media post by a state rent by the name of
Laurel Libby, who noted that he had competed in the
boys' division two years.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Earlier girls sports. He wrote, girls is in quotes, Girls'.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Sports have come a long way, and I think we
have a responsibility to protect main girls and ensure they
have a level playing field. The Main Principals Association, responsible
for overseeing all the high school sports, has opted not
to implement Trump's executive order and to allow male athletes
to continue participating in girls' sports.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Despite the violation.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
I don't know whether the Trump administration is going to
move to withhold federal funding for the organizations or not.
I hope they do, because unless you put some teeth
and there's some enforcement behind the executive order, that will
what that will teach other school districts.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Oh, you can just ignore it.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Good morning, Goober's, Michael and Dragon. I know you guys
have nothing to do with ABC News being on your airwaves.
Here we go, tell us Coober's what we can do
to get rid of it. My god, that Sherry Preston
(17:49):
lady makes me want to puke.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I really don't know the background of how we because
at one time we had Fox News and then we
went to ABC News.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I don't know what the genesis of that change.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
We take the Fox News rundown between you know, five
and six in the morning, but the top of the
hour and bottom of the IRN news is are ABC feeds.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
And I don't but I don't know why. I don't
know there's some contractual arrangement or.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
What I'd be a whole iHeart Denver things where right
because across the hall, that's what they prefer to use.
So maybe it's kind of a bundled deal that well.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Well across the hall.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Okay, so they'll they give it to us for free,
so that we would have to probably pay to get
one of the other. Only speculative, only guessing. I really
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
But the only thing I know you can do is
there is a feedback uh somewhere at khow.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Dot com, usually at the bottom of the page.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, there's some there's some feedback, and.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
You can go to Michael says go here dot com
to find that as well. It's that it's I believe
it's on every page. I'll double check it.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Okay, But anyway, there's a feedback or a contact or something,
and you could you could.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, it's on the bottom of every page. It's just contact.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But trust me, it's going to take more than one
of you, because I've had conversations with management about feedback
and I don't Yeah, probably I shouldn't go into that
inside baseball, but if you want, if you want to
start a campaign to change it, good luck. I don't
(19:31):
think they will. But you know, the thing I find
fascinating about radio is the which is probably true for
almost any business. It's certainly true for the government. You
get something just kind of doing what you want it
to do, and then you move on to something else
(19:54):
and you just leave that to kind of keep doing
what it's doing. I've noticed that over the years that
at getting things changed, Like there's one thing on this
program that I very desperately want to change to emulate
something that's done on the weekend program. And I just
(20:16):
I boy, I get, I get looks just like you
just don't understand how much work that's going to be
to try to do something like that, Like, but it'll
be it'll be good, it'll change, it'll change the pace
and everything else, and and it just.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You can't expect people to work.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, and you and take guesses and how many people
will see out in the pit saying the time we get.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Down and talk, it's a Friday, Friday. You look outside, Joel,
and Bruce will be there. Brad might be there.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I yah, Bruce, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
He's a little hit or missed now because I think
he does a whole bunch of stuff up.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
North too, Right, he's doing stuff up north, Joel, I
think even well, Joe'll see.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Here, We'll see I have faith can place a wager
on it.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
No, No, because I'm that iffy about it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I'm too iffy about it.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I heard some astonishing numbers yesterday, but I'm gonna tell
you what they are. Yet, if you look at Europe,
their weakness economic and militarily has never been so openly
(21:44):
on display. Donald Trump has utterly shattered the existing framework
of Western support for Ukraine, and that some of you
may say that's a good thing, and some of you
may say it's a bad thing. I'm just making a
notation and observation that Trump has literally shattered the existing
(22:05):
framework of whatever Western support there is for Ukraine. America
has officially abandoned a hugely costly and a failed nineteen
year quest to expand NATO into Ukraine. And I think
(22:26):
any negotiations going forward, I don't think that'll be on
the table at all.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
The commitment to ensuring that Kiev regains its pre twenty
fourteen territory has been killed, canceled. That's done, and I
don't think that's unreasonable. Now we can quibble about whether
(22:57):
or not the territory that Russia has gained since the
invasion three years ago needs to be returned to Ukraine.
I think that it should. I also believe, I personally
believe that CRIMEA should be returned to Ukraine. But I
(23:18):
don't think that's I don't think it's even reasonably practical
at all to think that that's going to occur. It's
it's kind of like radio what once you've got you
you've gained it, and you've got it, and you've held
it now for eleven years. I don't think that's going
to be reversed. Now, the United States will neither send
(23:41):
troops to Ukraine, nor will it extend Article five to
any Western peacekeepers that might get deployed there. Article five
is that an attack on any member of you of
NATO is consider an attack on all of NATO, and
(24:03):
all of NATO will come to the defense of that country.
But notice that it has to be an offense or
an offense against a NATO member. If NATO puts troops
on the ground in Ukraine, that is the offense. Now,
(24:24):
I know many people argue, you know, Michael, putting NATO
troops or putting German troops or UK troops, French troops
into Ukraine, that's a defensive posture there, there's peacekeepers. It's
not an offense. They're not there to do anything offensively. Really,
(24:44):
are you certain about that? Because I think that's questionable.
But I do believe that, don't Well, I do believe
that this country will not send troops to Ukraine, nor
extend Article five to any Western peacekeepers that might get
the deployed there. And it's now even questionable whether or not,
(25:05):
you know, Macron once floated the idea of putting French
troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers. That seems to be doa
not because of anything Trump's done, but Macron is I mean,
he's a what twenty or twenty five percent support in
France right now, So the politics in Europe are going
(25:25):
to preclude French troops on the ground in Ukraine. The
same is true and will probably remain true. Germany has
an election this Sunday and Chancellor Schultz probably will not
retain power and some new coalition of right wing populist
groups will take over. And while they are some of
(25:46):
these members of this coalition are pro Russian Summer anti Russian.
It's going to be a real cluster, you know what,
depending on what the elections in Germany turned out to be.
Britain at one time talk to about putting peacekeepers in Ukraine,
putting troops on the ground. But I think that Keir Starmer,
the Labor Party Prime Minister, I don't think he's going
(26:09):
to do that anymore. But Europe is expected to fit
the bill of defending and rebuilding Ukraine, while we're going
to try to recoup some of the one hundred and
seventy five billion or more that we spend on the
war with a deal that's going to grant it ownership
of some of the rare earth minerals that are in Ukraine.
I don't have a problem with that at all. And
(26:32):
I think Zelensky made a mistake in his overreaction to
the idea that we might say, hey, you know, in
repayment for what we've done, we want and you can,
you can legitimately complain that bush bush where that where
the hell that come from? That Trump probably went too
(26:53):
far initially talking about well, you know, we're just going
to take over these rare earth minds and we're gonna
just do everything. But that's Trumpian language, that's Trumpian, you know, boisterous.
But I think Zelensky got some bad advice and he
overreacted to it. According to Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia,
(27:18):
General Keith Kellow, Europe won't even have a decisive say
in the deal that American makes in the war. I
don't think Europe wants to have any part in any
decisive deal to end the war. At that emergency summit
in Paris calls straight after a traumatic Munique Security conference,
(27:43):
Europe's leaders cannot even agree among themselves on any new
common position to take with respect to Ukraine. And that's
a factor of two things going on in Europe right now.
The europe economy is faltering about to completely apart, and
the European defense abilities are utterly cratered. How many tanks
(28:13):
do you think Great Britain has on hand right now?
A country the size of Great Britain, how many tanks
do they have in their inventory today? Seventy seven zero,
that's it, and there are none in production. Meanwhile, the
(28:34):
French and the Germans, the EUS talked, the European Union
has talked about creating its own military. They can't even
agree on that because France wants to do I forget
what their tanks are called. The Germans have a tank
called the Some say Lebrets, some say Leopard. So the
Germans have their own tank, and the French and the
(28:58):
Germans can't agree on let's standardize some you know tank
that we all.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Build, which then brings up the next point.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Even if they were to agree upon a mutually designed tank,
they don't have the industrial capacity to build them. Europe
has completely decimated its military industrial capability to the point
that the UK is down to seventy tanks without the
(29:28):
ability to ramp up production, and France and Germany can't
agree at least as the two major countries on the
on the continent. They can't agree upon a mutually designed tank,
and even if they did, they don't have the industrial
capacity to then manufacture that tank.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Happy Friday, Michael and Dragon. This is Gouber four or
five to one to two. Engineer it rancher from the
Fort Lafton area. Now is the time when ranchers and
farmers are staffing up. They're crewing up in order to
get ready for they're planting. It would be an opportunity
for those ir S workers who are maybe a little
(30:05):
more motivated than.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
The other ones.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
The other ones won't make it have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Guys, are you suggesting they go out and work in the.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Field, physical labor.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Physical Look these lay where are they gonna put their
roller bags? Are they going to haul the roller bags
up and down the the rows as as they're planting hum?
And one lady had a bunch of clothes and things
packed on top of a roller bag. What's she going
(30:40):
to do with that? And then they got babies, you know,
you know the babies in town or they are is
there a is on the farm ranch? Well, put the
babies in the barn on a pile of hay for
a while or whatever. Good grief. I mean, people are
just so unsympathetic. I can't believe it. The Colonel Andre Ruschner,
(31:06):
head of the German Armed Forces Association, told Reuters an
interview that before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had eight
brigades at around sixty five percent readiness. Today, the German
army's battle readiness is less than when Russia invaded Ukraine
(31:27):
in twenty twenty two. They don't have the ability to
conduct a war in Ukraine. Chancellor Schilt promised that after
Russia's invasion that he was going to overhaul Germany's decrepit military.
But now we're three years after that invasion. Three years later,
(31:48):
a pledge to provide the Natal Alliance with two divisions,
typically around about forty thousand troops by this year and
by twenty twenty seven faces a major set back. All
these military officials, lawmakers, defense experts are saying Germany simply
can't do it. Poland's in no better shape whatsoever. I
(32:14):
point all of this out because Trump, you know, Trump's
getting accused of playing up to Putin. I read a
great article yesterday. I'm not gonna quoe it verbatim, but
the article talked about you know, he understands that Putin
needs to be you know, patted on the head and
told what a great person he is and everything else.
(32:35):
Because when you actually go into because there are no
negotiations right now, there are only preliminary plans to set
up negotiations. That's what Rubio and General Callog and the
others are doing, is they're trying to ascertain is Putin
really serious? Because Trump knows that Putin's a thug, and
Trump knows what Putin's ultimate objective is, and that is
(33:00):
he wants control of Ukraine. But we have to face
the reality of where Europe is and we have to
face the reality that do we really want to put
boots on the ground. I don't think that we do.
So we're in a quandary. We're truly in a quandary
(33:21):
right now. The Secretary General of NATO and Zelensky himself
have called for this rapid burst of defense spending, somehow
implying that Europe's GDP, which is ten times larger than Russia's,
can somehow be rapidly converted into an effect even a
deployable military force. But that ignores the basic facts on
(33:44):
the ground. The balance of power has swung in Russia's favor,
Ukraine's running out of men. The Lithuanians Defense minister admits
that the Russian army is three times bigger than it
was in February three years ago, and then Zelenski himself
admits that Russia is about to expand its army by
(34:07):
another one hundred and fifty thousand men. Now, of course,
I know that's going to cause political problems for Putin
inside domestically inside his own country. But Europe cannot ramp
up the fence production in time to save the situation.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Russia is simply outproducing.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Europe it's got to be negotiated. I got one more
thing to say about it. I didn't find it right
because of the talk back, but let me finish it
next
Hey, Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah, regarding all of those federal I R S folks
that have been laid off, I just wondering if they
have any transferable skills. I don't seem to remember any
crying about all the folks who were laid off during
the Biden administration. Oil workers, Uh, you know, in the
in the like. Maybe they can all learn the code.
(00:21):
They should talk to Biden.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Wasn't that what they were told to do? The coal
miners and the U XL pipeline workers, go learn to code.
I wanted to move on, but there are too many
good text messages that I want to share with you
that let me refresh to see if there's any any
new ones in. Uh, Michael, Wow, all this about Trump
(00:49):
elon layoffs, But five seconds about Luigi Mangione hearing today.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I didn't, I didn't know what was going on. H
E eleven. Listen to this somewhat lengthy text message, Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I posted on Facebook about the same message you are
preaching about on air this morning.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
A half hour after I did this.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I got a text from Command Sergeant Major Jeff at
the Pentagon, my best friend since age twelve, telling me
that he is feeling hurt about my commentary. I love
and respect my friend, but it seems he has lost
touch all together with the plight of the people who
(01:35):
produce value for the market, only to end up paying
for the three million people who Jeff has to know
provide next to nothing for the money that they collect.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
What about my hurt, command, Sergeant Major Jeff.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
What about the seven figures of productivity stolen from me
to line the pockets of well over ten million government
employees at all levels, and to the grift that is
so pervasive that I can't even begin to describe it
with any sense of brevity.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
I'm at the end of walking on eggshells.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's time to start shifting the respect to the taxpayers
who pay for everything.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yes, I'm angry as well. You should be.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Let's briefly go back, because there's even more news about
this today, which I'll get into later. Remember yesterday I
told you about the twenty billion dollars that Lee Zelden
had found parked at a bank, and that of the
twenty billion dollars this was part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
(02:41):
That part of that twenty billion dollars, two billion dollars
of it was going to an NNGO recently, and I
do mean recently set up by Stacy Abrams, the failed
fat candidate for Georgia governor who lost and continues to
(03:02):
deny today that she lost the election, a so called
election denier. But because she's a black woman Democrat, you
can't say anything about it. Well, I just did. She
had what was it yesterday? Like she had raised one
hundred dollars for the NGO. That was the most they'd
(03:22):
ever had in the bank account, and now they were
scheduled to get two billion dollars which would then go
on to other NGOs, her friends who had also set
up nonprofits and gigantic money laundry.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
There was another figure, and it had to do with
the amount of money that we've discovered has been going
to provide transportation, healthcare, housing, everything to illegal aliens. And
the figure was I don't remember the exact figure. I
(04:02):
just remember it was excess of two hundred billion dollars.
So we got two hundred billion dollars there. Let's just
say it was two hundred because I want to make
the figures work in your head. Let's say it was
two hundred and twenty five billion dollars or two hundred
to seat make this work, it'd be two hundred and
thirty billion. And then you've got the twenty billion that
(04:27):
was parked in a bank. That's two hundred and fifty
billion dollars. That is a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Just those two items get you a fourth of the
way to the trillion dollars that they want to try
to get to this year in cutting government spending.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Just two items.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Now, if they really continue down this path, the twenty
billion here and the one hundred billion and the two
hundred billion, eventually we're going to get to a trillion dollars.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I don't want that money. Honestly, my opinion is, I
don't want that money coming back to me. I don't
want to get my soul called fair share, because I
worry about that two hundred billion, or let's say it's
a trillion dollar. They get to a trillion dollars, I
don't want that trillion dollars coming back into the economy,
(05:24):
would I like, Don't get me wrong, if my fair
share is five hundred dollars, is six or six hundred dollars,
whatever it turns out to be, would I'd like to
have that money share I'd like to have I'd like
to have the money back. But I also understand that
if we take a trillion dollars that's already been collected
from us, that was going to be thrown back into
(05:45):
the economy and was going to start, you know, but
causing inflation again because most of us. If I get
a windfall of you know, six hundred dollars, well, I
might pay down, Oh, I don't know, I might pay
down a little extra on the jeep to finish paying
(06:06):
off the jeep. But that's goes back into the economy.
I'd rather see using that money to do things like,
let's start rebuilding the military. Let's use it for something
that's legitimate and good and productive and good for the country.
Let's take a little bit of it and pay down
some debt. Let's let's show the debt holders that we're
(06:30):
willing to pay something down. I think that would spur
the economy much more than me taking six hundred dollars
and oh, I don't know, spending it on dining out
or something. So let's let's start to think seriously that
they really might get to this trillion dollars I think
it's a little too early to celebrate right now, but
(06:51):
I think we may get to it. Back to the
text messages, man, is this one is tough? Seventy one
seventy one. Mike closed on my new house at eleven am.
Laid off at three pm the same day. Know what
I did? Got another job? Uh?
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Michael?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
If you're oh, nine three eight, Yeah, if you're getting
a refund, you probably did something wrong by giving the
government a loan. Uh, seventeen seventy six. That's a great number, Michael.
I recall nine News cutting their staff. In fact, TV
and radio has cut a lot of employees.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Dragen, did you know that it happens from time to time?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yeah, it does. It happens from time to time.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Regularly, almost yearly.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yes, Uh.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Seventy two fifty nine. Mike always said when someone loses
their job. I agree. But I worked for a big
tech company here in Colorado for twenty years and I
got laid off just before my birthday and just after
my father died, and nobody cried or protested for me.
It is sad, but welcome to the real world. That's
(08:01):
exactly the point I want to make. It's just that
they and I'm dragon is still fibergasted by my answer.
But they do walk into these jobs knowing that they're
government jobs and that they're going to be secure. And
now that they're not secure, you have the gnashing of
(08:22):
the teeth. You've got the ringing of the hands, You've
got the television coverage, you've got the radio coverage, and
then you got a holes like me pointing out that, well,
sucks to be you, but welcome.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
To the real world.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And again, well, well, I do feel badly for anyone
who loses a job, because there's the excitement of the
new job. There's the excitement of, you know, getting a paycheck.
There's the excitement of you know, being able to pay
(08:53):
your bills and not having to worry about that. Maybe
you're going to get a few little bennies, maybe you're
gonna get some healthcare coverage. I get that, but nothing's permanent.
There'll come a time and I'll walk away from this,
or they may come a time when I get pushed
away from this. Things change. And if you walk into
(09:17):
a job expecting, you know, like you know, I was
at in Oklahoma, you no visiting my mom and we
were talking about my dad, who's been dead for quite
a while, and he worked in high school with a
couple of pals of his and they opened a print
shop and he worked in that same place for his
(09:40):
entire life. In fact, after he retired, he went back
to work for those same two guys part time and
worked his entire life in one place. And that's pretty rare.
I have a couple of friends who have done exactly
(10:03):
the same thing for their entire lives and a couple
one of them's retired. I'm not sure what he's doing.
The other is retired from his medical practice, but still
continues to work for a company part time, reading and
looking at medical records to give uh it's probably some
insurance company to give them advice about the medical records
(10:26):
and what the doctor's doing, are not doing. He's a
he's a pediatric neurologist, and that's and that's what he's doing.
So he's probably, in essence kind of still doing the
same thing he's always done.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Me.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I've zig zagged around. I've zigged and have always kind
of moved up and have always found things that I
love to do. But I recognize that nothing is permanent,
and these people are walking into a situation where they
truly believe that they're walking into a permanent position with
(11:00):
permanent benefits and nothing's going to change. Now, why do
they have that perspective, Because for the past hundred years,
since Theodore Roosevelt and others created the modern civil service system,
that's where we're at. That's exactly where we're at, and
we've got to get rid of that. When you have,
(11:21):
in only at the federal level and only in the
executive branch, some two million employees, and you're telling me
you can't cut some out of that. Back to Kevin
O'Leary's point, of course, you can. Because in the private
sector you can always find a way to save a
(11:44):
little bit of money. Now, I think that iHeart has
cut down to the bone. I sincerely believe they have,
and many people are doing they've doubled up on jobs.
But I could probably find a way to save this
company some money. In fact, I you know what, I
just thought of one because when I during the break,
(12:07):
I walked around and we have these balconies and all
of the doors well I shouldn't tell you that, but
all the doors on the balcony I often obviously didn't
Today but I'll often step out on the balcony just
to get some fresh air before I come back in
or start start yacking again. But today I stood next
(12:27):
to one of those doors, and it is leaking cold
air like a son of a bitch.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I mean it is. I'm as well the door.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
My door might as well have been open, and so
I jerked it closed, trying to see if it would
close tighter, and it doesn't, and the air was still leaking,
it was still cold. And so that's costing I Heart
some money in terms of I don't know what the
disagreement is, but maybe we pay up, you know, just
maybe heating and cooling is included in the in the
(12:58):
least agreement, So maybe it's not iHeart that would save
some money. Accept that the cost of heating the building
and cooling the building in the summer is built into
the amount of the lease agreement. So yes, iHeart could
probably save on the lease agreement or not facing increase
if they had building management actually fixed things like that,
(13:19):
or for example, here broken blinds that you know in
the summer, we won't be able to change the blinds
to keep some of the heat out because well they're
broken and they remain broken and all despite the promises
that I'm gonna get new blinds, I still don't have
new blinds, and that's going to cost the company some
money and replacing them blinds, of course, we would replace.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
The money too. So it's a trade off.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Are you going to spend are you going to go
home depot and buy, you know, a twenty five dollars
blind to fix this one that's broken, or are you gonna,
you know, forget about it, and instead we'll just wait
till the summer sun's boiling in here. And so now
I'm going to crank up the air conditioner to cool
it off because it's so damn hot in here. Because
I can't fix that blind. See if yes, I can
(14:03):
find ways. We can always find ways, and you can
do it in your household too.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
But at least they spent money on the new Hamster,
So that's good.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, that's right, because the Hamster was necessary though, to
make sure that we could at least, you know, it's true,
so that people could hear the commercials true. Yeah, So
that's we had that going for us. So enough about that.
I've made my point. I just want you to think
(14:31):
about when you hear these stories as you ask yourself,
why is nine News and these three ladies at nine
News so giddy about Oh my gosh, it's just so sad,
and look at them and and in fact, when I think, no,
there were two men, I was gonna say it was
all females. I think in the KDVR story they only
(14:51):
interviewed women. They didn't interview any men. I might be
wrong about that, but on nine News it was all
women talk looking about it, but they did interview I
think a guy or two. So a biological male, A
biological male in a main high school pole vaulting championship
(15:14):
might end up being the test case where we might
get some federal repercussions for the school district and of
course for the main Principals Association, which oversees high school
sports in the state. A male transgender athlete who goes
by the name of Katie Spencer. I'd like to see
what Katie looks like. I haven't found a picture ever yet,
(15:35):
or him or whatever won the state's Class B pole
vaulting championship, and that helps secure Greeley high schools, not
greedy Colorado, Greeley, Maine, helps secure real Greedy High School's
overall victory in the team championship. Now the inclusion of
air quotes here Katie Spencer in the pole vaulting competition.
(16:00):
It's an executive order signed by Trump earlier this month
which did what It barred males from participating in women's sports.
And Trump's executive order authorizes and permits federal agencies under
Title nine Authority to withhold funding and any other financial
(16:20):
assistance from organizations found in violation. In this case, it
would be Great Greedy High School, Greeley and the Main
Principals Association. Now, the only reason I know about this
story is because it drew national attention after a social
media post by a state rent by the name of
Laurel Libby, who noted that he had competed in the
boys' division two years.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Earlier girls sports. He wrote, girls is in quotes, Girls'.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Sports have come a long way, and I think we
have a responsibility to protect main girls and ensure they
have a level playing field. The Main Principals Association, responsible
for overseeing all the high school sports, has opted not
to implement Trump's executive order and to allow male athletes
to continue participating in girls' sports.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Despite the violation.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
I don't know whether the Trump administration is going to
move to withhold federal funding for the organizations or not.
I hope they do, because unless you put some teeth
and there's some enforcement behind the executive order, that will
what that will teach other school districts.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Oh, you can just ignore it.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
Good morning, Goober's, Michael and Dragon. I know you guys
have nothing to do with ABC News being on your airwaves.
Here we go, tell us Coober's what we can do
to get rid of it. My god, that Sherry Preston
(17:49):
lady makes me want to puke.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I really don't know the background of how we because
at one time we had Fox News and then we
went to ABC News.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
I don't know what the genesis of that change.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
We take the Fox News rundown between you know, five
and six in the morning, but the top of the
hour and bottom of the IRN news is are ABC feeds.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
And I don't but I don't know why. I don't
know there's some contractual arrangement or.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
What I'd be a whole iHeart Denver things where right
because across the hall, that's what they prefer to use.
So maybe it's kind of a bundled deal that well.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Well across the hall.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Okay, so they'll they give it to us for free,
so that we would have to probably pay to get
one of the other. Only speculative, only guessing. I really
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
But the only thing I know you can do is
there is a feedback uh somewhere at khow.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Dot com, usually at the bottom of the page.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, there's some there's some feedback, and.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
You can go to Michael says go here dot com
to find that as well. It's that it's I believe
it's on every page. I'll double check it.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Okay, But anyway, there's a feedback or a contact or something,
and you could you could.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, it's on the bottom of every page. It's just contact.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But trust me, it's going to take more than one
of you, because I've had conversations with management about feedback
and I don't Yeah, probably I shouldn't go into that
inside baseball, but if you want, if you want to
start a campaign to change it, good luck. I don't
(19:31):
think they will. But you know, the thing I find
fascinating about radio is the which is probably true for
almost any business. It's certainly true for the government. You
get something just kind of doing what you want it
to do, and then you move on to something else
(19:54):
and you just leave that to kind of keep doing
what it's doing. I've noticed that over the years that
at getting things changed, Like there's one thing on this
program that I very desperately want to change to emulate
something that's done on the weekend program. And I just
(20:16):
I boy, I get, I get looks just like you
just don't understand how much work that's going to be
to try to do something like that, Like, but it'll
be it'll be good, it'll change, it'll change the pace
and everything else, and and it just.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You can't expect people to work.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, and you and take guesses and how many people
will see out in the pit saying the time we get.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Down and talk, it's a Friday, Friday. You look outside, Joel,
and Bruce will be there. Brad might be there.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
I yah, Bruce, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
He's a little hit or missed now because I think
he does a whole bunch of stuff up.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
North too, Right, he's doing stuff up north, Joel, I
think even well, Joe'll see.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Here, We'll see I have faith can place a wager
on it.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
No, No, because I'm that iffy about it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I'm too iffy about it.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I heard some astonishing numbers yesterday, but I'm gonna tell
you what they are. Yet, if you look at Europe,
their weakness economic and militarily has never been so openly
(21:44):
on display. Donald Trump has utterly shattered the existing framework
of Western support for Ukraine, and that some of you
may say that's a good thing, and some of you
may say it's a bad thing. I'm just making a
notation and observation that Trump has literally shattered the existing
(22:05):
framework of whatever Western support there is for Ukraine. America
has officially abandoned a hugely costly and a failed nineteen
year quest to expand NATO into Ukraine. And I think
(22:26):
any negotiations going forward, I don't think that'll be on
the table at all.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
The commitment to ensuring that Kiev regains its pre twenty
fourteen territory has been killed, canceled. That's done, and I
don't think that's unreasonable. Now we can quibble about whether
(22:57):
or not the territory that Russia has gained since the
invasion three years ago needs to be returned to Ukraine.
I think that it should. I also believe, I personally
believe that CRIMEA should be returned to Ukraine. But I
(23:18):
don't think that's I don't think it's even reasonably practical
at all to think that that's going to occur. It's
it's kind of like radio what once you've got you
you've gained it, and you've got it, and you've held
it now for eleven years. I don't think that's going
to be reversed. Now, the United States will neither send
(23:41):
troops to Ukraine, nor will it extend Article five to
any Western peacekeepers that might get deployed there. Article five
is that an attack on any member of you of
NATO is consider an attack on all of NATO, and
(24:03):
all of NATO will come to the defense of that country.
But notice that it has to be an offense or
an offense against a NATO member. If NATO puts troops
on the ground in Ukraine, that is the offense. Now,
(24:24):
I know many people argue, you know, Michael, putting NATO
troops or putting German troops or UK troops, French troops
into Ukraine, that's a defensive posture there, there's peacekeepers. It's
not an offense. They're not there to do anything offensively. Really,
(24:44):
are you certain about that? Because I think that's questionable.
But I do believe that, don't Well, I do believe
that this country will not send troops to Ukraine, nor
extend Article five to any Western peacekeepers that might get
the deployed there. And it's now even questionable whether or not,
(25:05):
you know, Macron once floated the idea of putting French
troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers. That seems to be doa
not because of anything Trump's done, but Macron is I mean,
he's a what twenty or twenty five percent support in
France right now, So the politics in Europe are going
(25:25):
to preclude French troops on the ground in Ukraine. The
same is true and will probably remain true. Germany has
an election this Sunday and Chancellor Schultz probably will not
retain power and some new coalition of right wing populist
groups will take over. And while they are some of
(25:46):
these members of this coalition are pro Russian Summer anti Russian.
It's going to be a real cluster, you know what,
depending on what the elections in Germany turned out to be.
Britain at one time talk to about putting peacekeepers in Ukraine,
putting troops on the ground. But I think that Keir Starmer,
the Labor Party Prime Minister, I don't think he's going
(26:09):
to do that anymore. But Europe is expected to fit
the bill of defending and rebuilding Ukraine, while we're going
to try to recoup some of the one hundred and
seventy five billion or more that we spend on the
war with a deal that's going to grant it ownership
of some of the rare earth minerals that are in Ukraine.
I don't have a problem with that at all. And
(26:32):
I think Zelensky made a mistake in his overreaction to
the idea that we might say, hey, you know, in
repayment for what we've done, we want and you can,
you can legitimately complain that bush bush where that where
the hell that come from? That Trump probably went too
(26:53):
far initially talking about well, you know, we're just going
to take over these rare earth minds and we're gonna
just do everything. But that's Trumpian language, that's Trumpian, you know, boisterous.
But I think Zelensky got some bad advice and he
overreacted to it. According to Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia,
(27:18):
General Keith Kellow, Europe won't even have a decisive say
in the deal that American makes in the war. I
don't think Europe wants to have any part in any
decisive deal to end the war. At that emergency summit
in Paris calls straight after a traumatic Munique Security conference,
(27:43):
Europe's leaders cannot even agree among themselves on any new
common position to take with respect to Ukraine. And that's
a factor of two things going on in Europe right now.
The europe economy is faltering about to completely apart, and
the European defense abilities are utterly cratered. How many tanks
(28:13):
do you think Great Britain has on hand right now?
A country the size of Great Britain, how many tanks
do they have in their inventory today? Seventy seven zero,
that's it, and there are none in production. Meanwhile, the
(28:34):
French and the Germans, the EUS talked, the European Union
has talked about creating its own military. They can't even
agree on that because France wants to do I forget
what their tanks are called. The Germans have a tank
called the Some say Lebrets, some say Leopard. So the
Germans have their own tank, and the French and the
(28:58):
Germans can't agree on let's standardize some you know tank
that we all.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Build, which then brings up the next point.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Even if they were to agree upon a mutually designed tank,
they don't have the industrial capacity to build them. Europe
has completely decimated its military industrial capability to the point
that the UK is down to seventy tanks without the
(29:28):
ability to ramp up production, and France and Germany can't
agree at least as the two major countries on the
on the continent. They can't agree upon a mutually designed tank,
and even if they did, they don't have the industrial
capacity to then manufacture that tank.
Speaker 6 (29:45):
Happy Friday, Michael and Dragon. This is Gouber four or
five to one to two. Engineer it rancher from the
Fort Lafton area. Now is the time when ranchers and
farmers are staffing up. They're crewing up in order to
get ready for they're planting. It would be an opportunity
for those ir S workers who are maybe a little
(30:05):
more motivated than.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
The other ones.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
The other ones won't make it have a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Guys, are you suggesting they go out and work in the.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Field, physical labor.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Physical Look these lay where are they gonna put their
roller bags? Are they going to haul the roller bags
up and down the the rows as as they're planting hum?
And one lady had a bunch of clothes and things
packed on top of a roller bag. What's she going
(30:40):
to do with that? And then they got babies, you know,
you know the babies in town or they are is
there a is on the farm ranch? Well, put the
babies in the barn on a pile of hay for
a while or whatever. Good grief. I mean, people are
just so unsympathetic. I can't believe it. The Colonel Andre Ruschner,
(31:06):
head of the German Armed Forces Association, told Reuters an
interview that before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had eight
brigades at around sixty five percent readiness. Today, the German
army's battle readiness is less than when Russia invaded Ukraine
(31:27):
in twenty twenty two. They don't have the ability to
conduct a war in Ukraine. Chancellor Schilt promised that after
Russia's invasion that he was going to overhaul Germany's decrepit military.
But now we're three years after that invasion. Three years later,
(31:48):
a pledge to provide the Natal Alliance with two divisions,
typically around about forty thousand troops by this year and
by twenty twenty seven faces a major set back. All
these military officials, lawmakers, defense experts are saying Germany simply
can't do it. Poland's in no better shape whatsoever. I
(32:14):
point all of this out because Trump, you know, Trump's
getting accused of playing up to Putin. I read a
great article yesterday. I'm not gonna quoe it verbatim, but
the article talked about you know, he understands that Putin
needs to be you know, patted on the head and
told what a great person he is and everything else.
(32:35):
Because when you actually go into because there are no
negotiations right now, there are only preliminary plans to set
up negotiations. That's what Rubio and General Callog and the
others are doing, is they're trying to ascertain is Putin
really serious? Because Trump knows that Putin's a thug, and
Trump knows what Putin's ultimate objective is, and that is
(33:00):
he wants control of Ukraine. But we have to face
the reality of where Europe is and we have to
face the reality that do we really want to put
boots on the ground. I don't think that we do.
So we're in a quandary. We're truly in a quandary
(33:21):
right now. The Secretary General of NATO and Zelensky himself
have called for this rapid burst of defense spending, somehow
implying that Europe's GDP, which is ten times larger than Russia's,
can somehow be rapidly converted into an effect even a
deployable military force. But that ignores the basic facts on
(33:44):
the ground. The balance of power has swung in Russia's favor,
Ukraine's running out of men. The Lithuanians Defense minister admits
that the Russian army is three times bigger than it
was in February three years ago, and then Zelenski himself
admits that Russia is about to expand its army by
(34:07):
another one hundred and fifty thousand men. Now, of course,
I know that's going to cause political problems for Putin
inside domestically inside his own country. But Europe cannot ramp
up the fence production in time to save the situation.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Russia is simply outproducing.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Europe it's got to be negotiated. I got one more
thing to say about it. I didn't find it right
because of the talk back, but let me finish it
next
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