Putin Unhinged

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some of the things he's been talking about. He says,
Ukraine is an integral part of our own history. Eastern
Ukraine is ancient Russian lands. Modern Ukraine was created by
communist Russia. Ukraine was not able to achieve stable statehood
and has therefore had to rely on countries like the
United States. He says, it's riddled with corruption, uh, and

(00:22):
with the plague of nationalism and so on and so forth.
This has been quite the historical diet tribe here. Yeah,
Putin gave a long rambling a historical speech yesterday to
justify sending in troops that he's calling peacekeepers. They're not.
They're just soldiers invading a country to stop a genocide
that is not happening. Um, his rationale. According to Benjamin Witz,

(00:45):
who is a lawyer thinker with one of your big
think tanks, said, here's a detailed explainer on the international
law basis for Putin's actions in Ukraine. There is none. Yeah,
he's just making notice to you. You called at an
a historical description of Ukraine's traditional Russian nous, etcetera. That's
certainly the impression I've gotten. He he did a long rambling,

(01:10):
mostly fictional description of how Ukraine has always been part
of Russia, always should be, and that the very idea
of a country of Ukraine is fictional. Blah blah blah.
It reminds me of what we've said many times. Every
esquare into on Earth has been owned or controlled by
various regimes through history. And the idea that you cite
one specific moment in time and say there there's proof

(01:31):
that you know, whatever, Texas should be part of Mexico
or Ukraine should be part of Russia, that's just ridiculous.
It's it wasn't yesterday. You don't get to take it
on where this is going. Let's hear from Richard has
So at the Council on Foreign Relations Clip forty three. There, Michael,
then I have much more on this. One can easily
imagine scenarios where fighting breaks out between ethnic Russians there,

(01:56):
or they're now the Russian military who have gone into
eastern Ukraine a government forces. The real question is, and
this gets into the blink in diplomacy, can you keep
a bad situation from spiraling much worse. I'm not wildly optimistic,
so I think we have to keep our powder dry.
But we also then have to be prepared to use
it if and when things get considerably worse than they

(02:18):
already are. Things could get considerably worse than they are,
there's no doubt about that. It doesn't help when you've
got people buying into the language that Putin used yesterday.
Here's a Reuter's headline from yesterday. Putin orders Russian peacekeepers
to eastern Ukraine's to breakaway regions. Is pointed out by
the Dispatch. The Reuter's headline looks like it was written

(02:41):
by Russian media. There are no Russian peacekeepers or breakaway
regions in Ukraine. Putin ordered a foreign invasion force to
move into the sovereign territory of a country called Ukraine.
But you know, we often ask the question, why do
these dictators go through the sharade that everybody sees through,
Because you get enough people like you know, writers, and

(03:04):
I'm sure there are other media outlets, the NBC several
times I heard yesterday and Putin is sent in peacekeepers?
What why are you? Why are you going with his words?
I don't mind if you mentioned as part of the
reporting troops that he's calling peacekeepers, because that's just reporting
on what happened yesterday. But if you're just referring to

(03:25):
the news peacekeepers, you're doing his propaganda work. That's media
is just so terrible. Now, I just think it's that
it's a bunch of woke twentysomethings as opposed to grizzled
old cynical professionals ink stained hands, which has always been uh.
Now it's it's a bunch of kids who have no
idea what they're talking about. Um. One other interesting aspect

(03:49):
of yesterday. So of course Putin gives this weird speech
and it's clear that he's going in and starts to
go in and everything like that. So they have an
emergency U N. Security Council meeting on the Ukraine crisis,
chaired by Russia, which currently holds the presidency of the
Security Council meeting. Oh, it's just too good. So it's

(04:13):
almost laughable. I'm laughing. I guess that by definition makes
it laughable. Um, the the emergency U N. Security Council
meeting about Russia invading another country was chaired by Russia
because they're the current president of the Security Council and
you just you know, because there are certain permanent members

(04:34):
and you just rotate them around with the ridiculous unicorn
writing childish view that all countries are equal and should
be treated the same. Well, maybe we should kick it
over to the Human Rights Commission, where Iran and North
Korea preside. That is just hilarious, I know. Um so, uh,

(04:56):
here's something I found pretty interesting article in I think
the New York Times. The comedian turned president is seriously
in over his head talking about Zelinski, the president of Ukraine.
Now I take this with a giant grain of salt.
It's pretty critical of Zelinski. But I could uh find
you serious journalists who have written the same article about Trump, Obama,

(05:19):
Biden and Bush for instance, You know, right, absolutely well,
And although I'd like to hear what they argue, I
would argue that you could somehow genetically splice. Maybe we
could put Dr Fauci and Peter Dazak in charge. You
could genetically splice Winston Churchill, Abe Lincoln and Margaret Thatcher
together and they would be over their head. Ukraine's got

(05:40):
no cards. That'd be one weird looking beast right there.
Oh yeah yeah, um, as Russian threat looms. And this
was written by a Ukrainian reporter. But again, you could
find plenty of US reporters that would write very awful
articles about whoever. Um so, whether this guy is accurate
or not, but he he makes some point that I
thought were pretty interesting that I didn't know. We've talked

(06:02):
a lot about how Zelinsky is a is a YouTube
actor that ended up president kind of like as a well,
what could be worse than what we've got, not realizing
that he would be involved in an impeachment and you know,
a war. As president. As Russian threat looms, Ukraine's government
is no laughing matter. President of Baltimore, Zelinsky, a former actor,

(06:22):
has surrounded himself with advisors from his old comedy troupe
No Kidding. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
I did not know that nations have chosen their leaders
from among many fields, including the military, academia, and others,
but Ukraine's government might be the first to draw heavily
from television and film comedy before turning to politics. President

(06:43):
Zelinsky was a television actor in comic and he has
placed allies with similar histories and key positions throughout the government,
including top advisors, legislators, administrators, and even an intelligence chief.
At a time when Russia has built up Forces of
Ukraine's the intelligence chief guy was at least from like
a spy show or something like that. Oh, the the

(07:08):
in the long article, it actually it gives the credits
for all these people, and it will point out like
his national security advisor is the guy who who wrote
the scripts for Mom's Got Three Kids, you know, the
hit TV show on the evenings and they and then
his and then his economic advisor is the star of
Dad's Home, which was also a hit show. I mean,
it's it's all like that. It's hilarious. Really, few have

(07:32):
any experience into diplomacy or warfare or government in any way. Um.
And whether or not you think that's a big deal,
I don't know. Um. Let me read a little more
from this uh Ukrainian investigative news site has counted three
dozen people with ties to Mr. Zelinski's comedy studio and

(07:53):
his family who are now in government, including in national
security positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is tasked
with monitoring the Russian build up. That's interesting, I didn't
know that aspect. On television, Zelinsky played a school teacher
whose tirade against corruption is filmed by his students, winds
up online and goes viral, propelling him to the presidency

(08:15):
in a campaign of life mimicking Art Zelinsky. Because people,
I think, thought this would be ironic and funny named
his political party after his televint show. His television show,
which was called Servant of the People. That's the name
of the political party. They named it for the TV
show he was in good name. Actors, filmmakers and media
executives led the party and followed him into power. So

(08:38):
if he'd been on How I Met Your Mother, that'd
be the name of the party. I guess so, um Zelinsky,
trying to avoid the criticism celebrity big brother go on,
this is deadly serious. Um. But the view that only
comedians run the government is a stereotype promoted by opposition parties,
according to one of his advisors, noting that many non

(09:00):
comedians also served. Well, that's good. I mean, I realized
that statement was was meant to, uh, to help you out,
but it sounded like it made it worse. Oh, there's
plenty of not everybody's a comedian here. To avoid playing
into the criticism, mr Zelinski has said he has not

(09:20):
told a joke in public for two years, and he
sternly declines to do so. Alrighty wow wow. You combine
that with undeniably weak American leadership right now, and that
you know, one of the disadvantages of h democracy, if
you will, republic and elected leadership is that, uh, leaders

(09:45):
come and leaders go, policies come and policies go. There
are upswings and downswings of competence. Um. You know, various
qualities of government, that sort of thing. And and you
know in in Putin's eyes and his cold dead eyes
of a shark. Uh, you've got week leadership in Ukraine
and very weak leadership in Washington. Now is the time

(10:07):
and was watching carefully. Jakov Smirnoff is a tank commander.
I think, Michael, if you're a wonder um. So one
note in in Zelinski's favor. First of all, Uh, that
was pretty bold move, leaving the country over the weekend,
given a strong speech that made sense to me. Then
coming back the Biden administration last night told him to

(10:28):
get out of the country. Had you heard that story?
Biden told Zelinsky to get out of the country because
Kiev could be overrunning any time. And and you know
he's almost certainly on the on the list to be
arrested or or assassinated UM, which, by the way, is
worth noting. Allegedly, according to the intelligence services of several countries,
Russia has a list of people who will be arrested, persecuted, executed,

(10:53):
sent to concentration camps, whatever, and Zalinski is almost certainly
on that list. But Zelinsky says he's staying so to
his credit as a comedian, he's willing to go down
with this country. And the argument from his side is
Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe behind
only Russia UM in that part of the world, and

(11:14):
he probably brought in the only people he thought he
could trust, that he believed. Weren't you know, gonna lied
to when we're take bribes right right? Wow, what a situation. Yeah,
he's under a lot of pressure. I'd like to get
more into the speech putin gave and the reaction to
it by by various authorities and thinkers, just because it's

(11:35):
such a great view of what propaganda looks like and
how if it presses the right buttons domestically, it doesn't
matter if it's complete hogwash. It doesn't need to be
truth based. So we'll we'll jump on that in a
little bit. I've really read the translation of a speech.
It's long, Okay, I skimmed parts of it, but man,
it is. It's nuts. Yeah, oh yeah it is. He

(11:59):
sounds like a crazy person. I think he might be. Well,
it's like when I say how long will Canada continue
to sit on our Yukon? I mean, it's it's that level.
But he was serious. I'm joking.