Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Goo night. Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA
director of talk show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie,
You're doing a heck of a job the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning
on a Saturday. Merry Christmas. Everybody where he's having a
good holiday. I know. It's it's that time of year
where everything starts to kind of slow down a little bit,
(00:22):
and I love that time of year. It's also the
time when I start to think about taking some time
off and getting away from the news for a while.
I'm kind of looking forward to that too. But I
appreciate you tuning in this weekend. I really do. So.
We got to a couple of rules of engagement, you know,
the easiest one. If you want to tell me something
or ask me something. You know what. Now, I don't
respond to every text message, but I promise you I
(00:42):
do read text messages at least two or three times
a day, so sometimes during the program I'll read them
quite often. The text line's always open, whether you're listening
on to delayed broadcast or the podcast or you're streaming live.
However you listen, you can always send me a text message.
The number your message app is three three one zero
three and the keyword is either Mike or Michael. And
(01:04):
then again I'd ask you, just as a favor, because
it really helps us with our ratings, to subscribe to
the podcast. So on your podcast app, search for the
Situation with Michael Brown, the Situation with Michael Brown, hit
that subscribe button, leave a five star review to help
us build up in the algorithm, and then that will
automatically download all five days of the weekday program that
(01:25):
I do from Denver plus this weekend program. So subscribe
to the Situation with Michael Brown. Let's get started. There's
a pretty familiar argument that says you only need to
study the prosecution of Donald Trump and his supporters to
see just how badly and deeply the FBI and the
(01:47):
Department of Justice were corrupted during Joe Biden's presidency. And
I think that argument has some force behind it because
it also carries a pretty predictable burden. Now, some may
dismiss my thesis here as a partisan grievance, even when
the record shows clear departures from what is considered to
(02:09):
be neutral law enforcement, something that I believe is absolutely
inherent to the institution of law enforcement. I expect cops
to be neutral, to fairly enforce the law, to fairly
investigate cases, to follow the cases where the evid you know,
where the evidence leads them, not some predetermined, you know,
(02:33):
point that you want to get to, and then manipulate, design,
or just out of thin air, make up the evidence
to get to that point you're trying to get to.
There is there's a more disarming way to understand what
I consider to be a transformation of federal law enforcement
(02:54):
under Joe Biden. Don't look at the Republicans, but the Democrats,
because the Democrats are the ones who found themselves under
scrutiny whenever they obstructed Biden's political projects. And when you
look at it that way, you'll suddenly find there is
actually a pattern across the four years that Biden was
(03:15):
in office, dozens of Democrats at every level of government
were investigated, pressured, or indicted if they defied the White
House on Biden's policies. Now, again, as we talked in
the last hour about how investigations themselves can be the
punishment many of those inquiries that occurred during the Biden
(03:37):
administration never matured into prosecutions, but the hint of just
federal law enforcement attention was usually enough that whoever was
the target suddenly got right back in line and suddenly
supported the Biden policies. When the signal failed and the
(04:00):
and the stupid politician didn't get that the White House
is going to unleash the Department of Justice and the
FBI on them, that's when the hammer dropped. I give you,
for example, the cases of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey,
or Mayor Eric Adams of New York, Congressman Henry Quaar
of Texas, Congressman TJ. Cox, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Congressman Matt Cartwright.
(04:25):
They all are an illustration of that pattern that I
just described to you. The case of Congressman Quaar is
probably the most aggressive example, because in his case it
reveals how federal law enforcement became an informal tool for
enforcing all of the intra party discipline that the Democrats
(04:48):
and the Biden administration demanded. But the pattern started with
Bob me Mendez in New Jersey. He was the chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he stood between
Biden and a very central part of Biden's early foreign policy.
You see Biden's trying to loosen restrictions on financial transactions.
G I wonder why Hunter remittances and of course travel
(05:12):
with Cuba, something that his predecessor, Obama had been trying
to do. So Bob me Mendez, invoking human rights and
security concerns, blocked that move back in May of twenty
twenty two. Mendez's opposition lasted for about I don't know,
several months, maybe four or five months, and it left
the White House with no clear path forward of getting
(05:34):
those things done. Now, the FBI had known about Syndrome
Mendez's dealings with this Egyptian interest that he was convicted
of later on since at least twenty eighteen, yet there
was never an indictment until September of twenty twenty three.
That was less than a year after he refused to
(05:56):
budge at all on Biden's Cuban policy. And then, thanks
later some whistleblower disclosures, we now know that the decision
to indict Bob me Mendez didn't arise from an independent
prosecutorial assessment from the Department of Justice. It came from
direct pressure inside Biden's oval office, and so he suddenly
(06:18):
found himself because he is fighting Biden on those policies,
he now found himself charged with bribery, extortion, obstruction, and
acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Well, I think the
timing in that case mattered because once Menndez stepped back
from the Formulations Leadership Committee, the administration got the room
(06:39):
that it needed to relax the Cuban restrictions. Now, on
its face, the indictment does look to just a casual observer.
It does look like a corruption case. But with the
whistleblower reports now in complete view, that case looks even
more clearly like an enforcement action against a Democrat who
(07:03):
was trying to prevent the administration from enacting certain policies
at a very consequential moment. Never thought about it that way,
did you. Yeah. I know, everybody just thinks that Bob
Memindez was, you know, in cahoots with the Egyptians and
they got the gold bars and the gold watches and
all of that. Oh No, there's so much more to
the story than that. And I think the part of
(07:25):
the story is Paul Harvey would say the rest of
The story that really matters is this indictment of Bob Memindez.
While probably justified, the timing was done for political effect.
It was the process, like we talked about in the
last hour, It was the process in order to get
(07:46):
him to budge so that Biden could get his Cuban
policies enacted. Now, Mayor Erry Adams is actually a pretty
good parallel case because as mayor of New York City,
he confronted the consequence of Biden's border policies, probably more
directly than any other Democrat. By early of twenty twenty three,
New York City was completely overwhelmed by illegal crossings and
(08:09):
asylum claims, and Adams even said so in public. In
April of twenty twenty three, Eric Adams openly blamed Joe
Biden for the crisis, and then in October he took
the extraordinary step for a Democrat and he declared a
state of emergency in New York City's five boroughs because
(08:33):
of that unimpeded flow of illegal aliens uh OH. In
April of twenty twenty three, he then openly blamed Biden
for the crisis. Then came the declaration of emergency, and
by December, he was complaining that the White House would
not even meet with him. What happened nine months later,
(08:56):
a baby. That's next, Welcome back the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning
in so as I kind of teased in that last segment.
So here's Eric Adams, and in Eric Adams is complaining
(09:17):
about the immigration policies and how it's overwhelming New York City,
and he does so very publicly, and then he declares
the state of an emergency. Then he complained that the
White House would not even meet with him. Remember that,
why Joe Biden won't even meet with me? Nine months
after that, No, he didn't have a baby. But what
happened was federal prosecutors indicted him for alleged bribery and
(09:40):
campaign finance violations built around that he had received upgraded
airline seats and hotel rooms from some Turkish interests, valued
at around one hundred thousand dollars. Now, the upgrades had
been known for years, They've never been treated as a
criminal case. The theory of the case that such upgrades
(10:03):
somehow constituted foreign finance bribery. That's kind of a novel theory,
and that's quite a stretch too. What had not changed, though,
was not the evidence. That was still the same. They
know about the evidence for a long time. What changed
was the politics. You see, Eric Adams had broken ranks
(10:26):
at a moment exactly when the White House needed unity
on immigration messaging. Then what followed looked less like routine
prosecution and more like a reminder to other Democrats that
if you're going to dissent from our policies, you're going
to pay a pretty heavy cost. Another example, if you
think back to when these examples were occurring, you may
(10:47):
recall that everybody was like, oh, you know, Eric Adams
is in big trouble. He's been doing all these things
and he's been doing them wrong. Blah blah blah blah. No,
actually that's not quite true. After all that evidence was known,
but no action was taken. And as I point out,
it wasn't that the evidence changed, it was that the
(11:08):
politics changed. Then think about Andrew Cuomo. It's the same pattern,
It's just that the mechanism is different. In the early
months of the pandemic, Clomo's administration issued nursing home policies
that we know in hindsight resulted in a significant loss
of life. Well, the Department of Justice declined to prosecute
(11:32):
him at that time, but then once Clomo started to
position himself as a potential rival to Biden for national leadership,
a series of investigations, leaks, coordinated public statements from both
federal and state officials started to shift the political grounds
beneath Andrew Cuomo. The sexual misconduct allegations that ended his career,
(11:58):
those were handled with a man coordination across multiple jurisdictions,
and the timing of those allegations, as I've said, you know,
there are no coincidences in Washington, d C. Well, the
timing align with the White House's concerns about a challenge
from Andrew Cuomo if Biden were to seek a second term.
(12:22):
So the episode was not a conventional federal prosecution, but
it does illustrate how investigative attention just the you know,
just somebody from the White House, somebody from the Department
of Justice, somebody from US Attorney's Office, somebody from the
FBI leaked to the New York Times, to the Washington
Post or whomever that, hey, we're looking at Andrew Cuomo
(12:44):
over some sexual allegations, and thus the avalanche starts and
that's all they needed, and it's just drip, drip, drip,
and pretty soon it's just overwhelmeding. So again it's the process,
not necessarily the prosecution, but it does illustrate how just
(13:07):
the attention could be marshaled against a Democrat who became
inconvenient to a Democrat administration. Makes you think differently. I know,
I still don't like Andrew Cmo, still think he was
a horrible governor, still think he did horrible things as
as governor during COVID, But it gives you a different
understanding of what's really going on in the background while
(13:31):
the cabal's feeding you about, Oh, he's a womanizer and
he's you know, he's having sex with a staffer and
blah blah. Yes, all that indeed may be true, but
why do they want you to know that? Because they're
trying to cut his legs out from under him now.
Congressman TJ. Cox he faced an indictment in August of
(13:51):
twenty twenty two for wire fraud and some related charges
that tied to conduct that predated the Biden presidency, but
the indictment came only after he broke with the Biden
administration on a bunch of votes involving energy and border
security and Atlanta, right at the height of an election
cycle in which the Democrats were trying to purge internal dissenters. Likewise,
(14:17):
Congressman Matt Cartwright, who was a moderate Democrat, he had
a history of disagreement party leadership on energy regulation, he
found himself under the cloud of a federal investigation never
produced any charges. But what did it succeed in doing?
It succeeded in silencing his criticism of the Biden administration's
(14:38):
climate policies. These cases did not draw national headlines. They
didn't need to. All they had to do was within
Democrat circles. They were understood as reminders that the Department
of Justice will do whatever it is that Joe Biden wants,
and they could reach deep into the party when necessary,
(15:00):
and they could slap people around, And if you're a politician,
you don't want to get slapped around by the president.
Now I know that I don't know, but I will
argue that these examples show a pattern. But I think
the case of Congressman Henry Quaar shows it the best
because between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty four. Quahlar
(15:22):
was probably the most single most persistent Democrat critic of
Biden's immigration, energy, abortion, and gun control agendas. He is
a district in South Texas and it bore the brunt
of Biden's border policies. In March of twenty one, he
told the White House that he was He said that
he said that the White House was in complete denial
(15:44):
about the crisis, and he argued that the President had
lost control of the southern border. Remember at the same
time that Alejandra Majorcis was telling us how the border
was secure. Well a month after Kuahlar had told the
president had told the public that the president had lost
control of the southern border. He publicly demanded that Alejandra
(16:06):
Mayorcis deploy more border patrol agents to Laredo, Texas. So then,
over the next several years, Henry Quaar leaked damaging Homeland
security documents showing overcrowded facilities, mass release of immigrants, and
the processing failures that were taking place. Those leaks they
absolutely contradicted the White House narrative and embarrassed the administration.
(16:27):
He kept repeating the criticism through twenty twenty two. Twenty
twenty three than in early twenty twenty four, he called
for Majorcas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to resign and
to be replaced. Not one single Democrat had mounted such
a sustained public challenge to what I believe was Biden's
(16:48):
signature policy open borders. So Henry Quaar defied Biden across
broad policies. He opposed the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act.
He resisted Biden's plan to stop new oil and gas leases.
He pushed for an increase in liquid natural gas exports.
(17:08):
He rejected the federal methane rules. He broke with the
White House in abortion by voting against the Women's Health
Protection Act. In September of twenty one, after the Dobbs decision,
he again rejected federal codification of Roe v. Wade, and
National Democrats backed a pro choice primary challenger against him,
trying to get him out of office. On gun control, Henry
(17:32):
Quaar opposed key provisions of Biden's preferred bills, and he
supported only narrower Senate compromises. And then he started obstructing
Democrat immigration proposals that expanded the prole and asylum authority
without any enforcement measures. So by the time he got
to mid twenty twenty three, Henry Quayar had become the
administration's most significant internal obstacle on both immigration and energy,
(17:58):
and he had proven that he was not going to
bend the pressure. And that's when the fight started. I'll
be right back to night. Michael Brown joins me here,
the former FEMA director of talk show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie,
(18:19):
You're doing a heck of a job the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown.
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in.
Merry Christmas everybody, Hope everybody has a great holiday. Text
line of course is always open. You know, in fact,
you're leaving the open Christmas Day. Yeah, we don't even
shut down Christmas Day. So you want to send me
a you know, a Merry Christmas or something. Three three
one zero three keyword, Michael, Michael. So back to Henry
(18:41):
Klayar for a moment. So we're talking about how you know,
there are no coincidences in Washington, d C. And here's
Congressman quay Are from Laredo, Texas, and he's bucking Joe
Biden on everything, immigration, gun control, climate, abortion, you name it.
Because he comes from a conservative Texas congressional district. And
(19:02):
I also think that Henry Quaar is a so called
moderate yellow dog Democrat and he's not going to change
his stripes. Well, when the informal pressure failed by you know,
the leadership, I'm sure that you know, Keem Jeffries and
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and everybody you will put
(19:24):
pressure on him. I'm sure some of the donors put
pressure on him. But when all that pressure failed, guess
what happened next. That's right, they began an investigation. You see,
Henry Quayar's wife had business interests. Now they've been previously disclosed,
and they had been reviewed by the Department of Justice
(19:44):
and by you know, you had to file all these
financial forms and they get reviewed by you know, financial committees,
and you know, the White House Counsel will review them.
In case of a congressman, you know, the Ethics Committee
will review them, or staffers will. They filed all the
disclosures and they found no misconduct whatsoever. But then steps
(20:06):
in Biden's Department of Justice and tries to reframe his
wife's interests as a bribery scheme. When the investigators couldn't
establish a quid pro quo, then they tried to conduct
a steam operation, So the FBI created a dummy corporation,
They funded that dummy corporation with taxpayer resources, and then
(20:28):
they tried to route money through Quaar's campaign, his staff,
and even his family. But none of the targets took debate,
and despite the failure of the steam operation, the Department
of Justice still proceeded with an indictment in May of
twenty twenty four, and they alleged he had engaged and
his wife had engaged too. They charged both of them
(20:49):
with bribery, conspiracy, wirefraud, extortion, obstruction, obstruction, and again acting
as an unregistered foreign agent. The indictment, even on its
face and according to its timing, appears designed to make
re election for Henry Quaar next to impossible and then
to attempt to install a more obedient Democrat in his
(21:11):
place for the twenty twenty six election cycle. Events inside
the Department of Justice reinforced that interpretation because the US
attorney in Houston a guide name of Alamander s Hamdami,
not man Dami, Hamdani reportedly refused to prosecute the case
(21:31):
because he did not believe there was any evidence. He
recognized the US attorney did that this case was nothing
more than a political action against a member of Biden's
own party because he wouldn't fall in line. So when
the local US Attorney's office declined to prosecute Merrick Garland,
remember him, the Attorney General under Biden, he reassigned the
(21:52):
case to the main Justice Department inside the Beltway in DC.
So prosecutors from the Public Integrity Section and the counter
Intelligence and Export Control Section took over the entire matter.
So the relocation of a domestic public corruption case and
turning into a national security prosecutors in Washington, that in
(22:16):
and of itself is highly unusual, and it suggests, in fact,
I think it's pretty good circumstantial evidence that the Biden
administration wanted to have absolute control over the case rather
than a US attorney that would provide a neutral assessment
of the evidence. What unifies all of these examples is
(22:39):
not a well, it is somewhat of a partisan motive,
but it's more of an institutional motive. The Department of
Justice and the FBI became instruments for controlling and punishing
internal democrat dissent. That mechanism and I don't I had
(23:00):
to explain this. Let me just try to explain it.
That mechanism can operate without explicit orders. You don't need
the president to say I want XYZ done. All you
need is to know the president's trying to accomplish something
over here. And you're the attorney general and you know
(23:22):
that Quaar's causing you problems, or Eric Adams is causing
you problems, or any of the others are causing you problems.
So you step in and as a good foot soldier,
you'll go do the dirty work for the president. Or
if you're Dnse like Alejandro Mayorcus may have been, or
as Merrick Garland probably is, you might need a little
(23:43):
nudge from oh maybe the White House Chief of Staff
or the White House Comms Director, or maybe one of
the staffers that used to work for Obama that was
working in the Biden White House to pick up the
phone and call Mayorcus or to call the Merrick Garland
and say, hey, listen, Quaar is giving us in trouble.
You don't even need to ask them to do anything.
(24:04):
You just tell them, hey, clar is giving us some trouble.
Because bureaucracies internalize the preferences of the leadership, they respond
to the political incentives, and under the Biden the incentive
structure rewarded actions that neutralized Democrats that were threatening the
(24:25):
administrations either legislative strategy or their public messaging. So what
do they do? They open investigations, leaks are issued, Prosecutors
generate novel theories of liability when the traditional theories didn't
have any support or evidence to them. And most of
those actions that I've talked about with these cases never
(24:45):
produce convictions. Yet they did not need to. That was
not the point. The point was to deter and get
those yahoos in line. These internal enforcement actions also explain
why come plaints about weaponization against Republicans so often fall
on deaf ears be many most Democrats assume that any
(25:09):
Republican under investigation is presumptively guilty. Yet when the same
tactics fall on Democrats and they hold mainstream policy views
within the party, the abuse has become harder to ignore.
It's not an answer to say that prosecutors occasionally bring
corruption cases against Democrats. The question ought to be is
(25:31):
why are these cases surged at particular moments when the
targets were obstructing Biden's agenda, and why many were built
on theories that would not have survived scrutiny under any
other president or any other administration. The deeper issue is
a structural issue. I don't know how many Democrats or
(25:52):
Republicans for that matter, were quietly investigated, pressured, or coursed
into conformity. The number is probably a lot larger than
the public record would show you. But once a pattern
of selective enforcement takes hold again, like we talked about
in the last hour with the Germans, that curb gets broken,
(26:13):
you know, the eighteen wheeler kind of bumps it, and
it kind of cracks. The next one kind of cracks
it further, and pretty soon those curbs, those guardrails are
just completely gone. That's how the bureaucracy operates. You don't
need a memo, you don't need an email, you don't
need the president to pick up the phone and say,
Henry Quaars being a butt head, would you please go
(26:34):
prosecute him? They know intuitively, instinctively that that's what they
need to do. And that's why once the pattern of
selective enforcement takes hold. That it does spread because officials
get the message that their careers, their careers depend on
cooperation with the preferences of the executive branch, and federal
(26:55):
law enforcement then becomes the weapon. Federal law enforcement then
becomes the tool for shaping party discipline. And you and
me in the public, we only see the completed prosecutions.
That's not what really matters. If they get a prosecution,
that's just a trophy to hang on the wall. The
(27:16):
real damage, the real coersion, is in the investigation. It
happens in the shadows. It happens behind the scenes. It
happens while you know they're being called in for a deposition.
It happens when they get a bill from their lawyer
for you know, a bazillion dollars because they spent so
many hours, you know, dealing with the FBI and the
(27:37):
Department of Justice. And that's why congressional oversight is so important.
I'll explain that next. Don't Go Away is I always
like to do. I always like to thank the audience
for tuning in, and particularly during this holiday season, the
(27:58):
fact that you take time out to listen to the
Week with Michael Brown means an awful lot to me.
So I just want to wish everyone, you know, a
merry Christmas. You know, I'll talk to you sim this
month and then I'll be back, you know, full time
again after the first of the year. But everybody have
a great Christmas. And again, you know, if you have
friends or even people you don't like that you might
(28:18):
enjoy the program, be sure to let them know about
the program. And if you do like what we do
on the weekend, I would remind you that I also
do a weekday program out of Denver Monday through Friday.
It airs from nine to ten, I mean nine to
noon mountain time, Monday through Friday. The station is KOA.
It's located on the dial at eight fifty AM and
(28:41):
ninety four to one FM, and so on your iHeart
app you can set a preset for KOA at either
eight fifty am or ninety four one FM, and then
you can listen to what I do Monday through Friday
on the weekday program in addition to the weekend program.
And our streaming numbers are great, and I think a
lot of that's because of you and to appreciate it.
So back to this story about these so called coincidences,
(29:06):
which are really not coincidences at all. It's all about
party discipline. It's all about making sure that people that
stray off the party line get pushed right back into
the middle of the of the highway. And that's why
you have to have congressional oversight. I think the Congressman
Jim Jordan ought to investigate the pattern of these investigations
(29:29):
that were directed at the Democrats during the Biden years.
All we hear about is how you know the the
Trump administration is weaponizing, going after against going against his enemies,
and doing all of these things. I don't see that.
I see legitimate cases. In fact, some cases I think
a legitimate have been thrown out by judges that I
(29:49):
think we're, you know, probably playing a little bit of politics.
But if Trump is going to weaponize, then I will
condemn him for that. You should not weaponize the Department
of Justice or law enforcement. But I do believe sincerely
that that is precisely what the Biden administration did, and
(30:10):
they did it to their own people. They didn't do
it to their enemies, although they saw their own people
as their internal enemies. Their useful idiots weren't doing what
they were supposed to do as useful idiots. So I
think that Congressman Jordan of Ohio ought to investigate that
pattern of the investigations directed at the Democrats by the
Biden Department of Justice and FBI. And I'm not trying
(30:33):
to gain some sort of pardon advantage. What I'd like
to see happen is a restoration of the norm that
law enforcement has got to become an instrument of should
not become an instrument of political conformity, because understanding what
happened to Bob Memindez, Eric Adams, Henry Quaar Cox, Clomo Cartwright.
(30:53):
Understanding that is essential for preventing the misuse of federal
power once party, once an individual learns that it can
enforce loyalty through federal investigations, the temptation to repeat the
practice grows, and a republic like ours cannot function if
(31:13):
elected officials fear that mere policy disagreements are going to
be met with federal investigations, because those investigations at that
point become what the process becomes the punishment, and when
it becomes the punishment, that's what you have to watch
out for. I want to move on to I want
(31:37):
to cover one more thing before I'm going to go
back to Europe for just a minute before we finish
out the program. Because I've talked a lot about totalitarianism
and authoritarianism these investigations and how they're used to coerce everything. Well,
the word totalitarian usually evokes an image of barbed wire,
secret police, a single party marching and luckstep. Well, going
(31:59):
back to your for a moment, that standard when you
look at the European Union kind of looks harmless because
nobody's being deported to a camp for criticizing the EU
that sits in Brussels, in Belgium, all the newspapers still
publish harsh editorials, their elections held in schedule, and that
familiar picture, comforting as it is, tends to blind us
(32:23):
to the quieter and what in a more modern form
of domination, when when the UK withdrew from went through
Brexit and withdrew from the European Union, they were essentially
trying to re establish their sovereignty. Now, there are pros
and cons to it, and the EU has pretty much
(32:44):
punished the UK for withdrawing from the EU. But when
you look at what the EU is currently doing, you
have to ask yourself, one are the accomplishing? Is there
anything at all that they're truly accomplishing, because I'm not
sure they are. Think about the Russian and Ukrainian war
right now, what is it truly? What is it that
(33:08):
Ukraine needs from Europe? Because if bear hugs were army
divisions or brave words were euros, Zelensky would have ended
his tour of the European capitals the best armed and
the best funded leader in the world. Prime Minister Keir
Starmer of the UK said that we stand with Ukraine.
(33:30):
We support you in the conflict, we support you in
the negotiations to make sure that this is a justin
lasting settlement. Chancellor mergs we talked about earlier in the program.
He declared to Zelensky that nobody should doubt our support
for Ukraine and then added that Ukraine, the destiny of
Ukraine is the destiny of Europe. Macrone in France promised
(33:52):
that Europe has a lot of cards in our hands. Okay,
you got a lot of cards. What are you going
to do with them? So Zelensky goes from London to Rome.
He meets with Maloney and she offered more hugs. Pope
Leo got in the act, gave his blessing, and there's
no doubt in my mind that Ukraine really does enjoy
this sincere support of Europe in their struggle to resist
(34:16):
the Russian invasion. And I don't want to just minimize that,
but I want to be real about it. If we're
going to have a treaty or an armistice or even
a ceasefire, any one of those between Russia and Ukraine,
there will have to be some enforceable mechanism, security guarantees.
(34:39):
There may be demilitarized zones. And I'm curious about what
has Europe offered that would do any of that. Oh,
they've provided pats on the back, we love you, We're
behind you. You know, we're ten miles behind you, but
we're behind you. Europe hasn't given them anything, And now
I want to ask you. I want you to ask
yourself why. And I think the why is because Europe
(35:03):
doesn't have anything to give. Europe has so emasculated itself
with you know, woke policies, with what we talked about
in earlier in the second hour, about the speech laws.
You think about Germany and all their green new energy
deals they've completely eviscerated their economies, so they have nothing
(35:24):
to give Zelenski, and I think that you know, as
as Stalden once said, the Pope commands no divisions. Well,
the Prime Minister of Villi Maloney, she postponed a government
vote on further military funding for Ukraine while the peace
talks were going on. And then the Crone refused to
disclose the details of a twenty one billion dollar deal
(35:46):
with Russian Central Bank assets that are held in France
on the grounds of, oh, it's just confidential, we can't
talk about it. So they're doing all this talk, but
there's nothing really happening, and so that puts Trump, who's
really trying to end the war. If you wonder why
Trump keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, it's because Putin
(36:06):
has shown no signs whatsoever of slowing down. Zelensky has
shown no signs of slowing down. But Zelensky doesn't have
the weaponry, he doesn't have the armaments that he needs
to push back on the Russians, and Europe once again
proves itself to be a paper tiger. Hugs and kisses,
Oh we love you, We're behind you. Okay, show me
(36:29):
the cannons, show me the fighter jets, show me the
you know, the helmets that the people you'll put, the
boots on the ground, that you'll put in the demilitarized zone.
I tell you all of that simply because as we
enter into the holiday season, I want you to think,
what are they really doing? What are they And Trump
is the only one who is really willing to call
(36:50):
the reality of what's happening on the ground and say
that to the Europeans faces, and to say to Zelensky's face,
And I think that's precisely what we need. Doesn't mean
we're going to get anywhere, but it means that finally
somebody is telling the Europeans the truth. And then we
wonder why Trump demands that NATO, the European Nations, and
NATO step up and put in their fair share. This
(37:13):
is why, because I don't think they really have it. Again,
thanks for joining the Weekend with Michael Brown. Everybody, have
a great weekend and I'll see you next weekend.