2-28-25 - *FULL SHOW* Carbon Capture; Transparency Nonsense; Putin Playing Trump

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are going to keep an eye out at the
White House where we expect a joint not exactly well,
there may be a press conference later, but a sit
down meeting with a few reporters able to ask questions
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
These guys, along with.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
The Treasury Secretary of the US and the equivalent of
a Treasury secretary in Ukraine, are supposed to sign an
agreement regarding US participation in the cash flows from the
development and sale of natural resources in Ukraine. A lot
of talk about rare earth minerals, but you may also

(00:40):
see the agreement cover some other things, you know, if
there's natural gas, if there's oil, if whatever it might be.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
So, so we'll see the details on that. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
What I would like to start with today is Gina
interviewed Mayor Mike Johnson pardon Me, of Denver about his restaurant.
And I bashed the mayor pretty hard yesterday and again
on the air and again on on Twitter as well.
And I didn't have a chance to hear Gina's interview

(01:12):
of Mayor Johnston earlier this morning, so producer Shannon grabbed
the audio for me. It's just a couple of minutes,
and I want to listen to it. I may pause
and interject as we go as we go through this,
and I just want to say before we go into it.
And I'll share a longer version of this quote with
you later. But one of my favorite quotes about economics,

(01:34):
and from one of the great economists of all times,
Friedrich Hayek, who won a Nobel Prize. He said, and
listen carefully to this line, because I think it's brilliant
and it's always true. The curious task of economics is
to demonstrate to men how little they really know about

(01:55):
what they imagine they can design.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Shall I say that again?

Speaker 1 (02:00):
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men
how little they really know about what they imagine they
can design. Everybody should keep that in mind all the
time when listening.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
To politicians who are coming.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Up with plans to regulate businesses essentially and write laws
about businesses because they have no idea. All right, so
let's have a listen. I haven't heard this before. It
is gonna be my first time hearing in And if
you didn't hear it with with Gina a little bit earlier,
it'll be your first time hearing it too, So let's
just jump in and see how this goes.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
There's no proposal, there's no ordinance, there's no legislation.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
On the table.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
We've been meeting with restaurants for months trying to figure
out how to help solve the challenge they're facing, and
as people probably know, one of the biggest challengeses We
have significantly increased the tip minimum wage. So you see,
in the old days, if you were a waiter or
a waitress, you maybe made three or four dollars an
hour on salary. All your money was on tips. We

(03:02):
increased the minum wage, which was great. As a part
of it, we also increased the minimum wage that folks
received who also received tips. So now a server might
have have a fifteen or sixteen dollars an hour base salary.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Plus let me just interject here for a second. So
Mayor Johnston correctly identifies the problem, although he doesn't quite
word it as as forcefully as I would like, he
is correctly identifying the problem that one of the major
major barriers toward against restaurants success in Denver right now

(03:38):
and in Boulder and other places that significantly raised the
minimum wage and didn't exempt tipped workers from the new
higher minimum wage. Is that higher minimum wage this massive
cost to restaurant? So he identifies the problem. Now you
would say, for you know, okay, let's say there's a
guy who goes into the doctor's office and every twenty

(04:03):
nine seconds he hits himself in the head. The patient
is hitting himself in the head, and he goes to
the doctor and he says, doctor, I have a terrible
headache all the time. And the doctor would probably say
to him, then you should probably stop hitting yourself in
the head now, if we're really bad doctor, the bad

(04:24):
doctor would say, well, you have a headache because you're
hitting yourself in the head every twenty nine seconds.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And what I recommend you do.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Is in between each time that you hit yourself in
the head, take this hammer and hit yourself on the
foot with the hammer, and that way you won't be
as worried about your headache. That's what Mike Johnson seems
to be doing here. He identified the problem. The problem

(04:54):
is that these morons on city Council in all these places,
and the mayor's going along with it, raised minimum wage,
including for tip workers, to some crazy numbers. Even though
even though every restaurant owner and every non restaurant owner
with common sense like me, said this is going to
be disastrous for restaurants, they did it anyway.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Let's keep going.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Tips, which is great, but it means it's put the
earnings of the restaurant staff a way out of whack.
Some restaurant tours will tell me it means something. Maybe
a server might make one hundred thousand or something a
year now, but you might have a manager who's making
eighty and someone in the in the back of the
restaurant who's making forty thousand, and so on equity. It's
been very hard and on costs, and so that's that's

(05:42):
the challenge you're trying to solve as well. Let's pay
people more, and let's pay everybody more. And so this
idea just it just replaces what is a normal tip,
so it's no new charge to the customer. If you
had one hundred dollars tab before and you out of
a twenty dollars tip to tip twenty percent, that's the
same bills one hundred and twenty dollars, and that twenty

(06:02):
dollars usually goes all to the server and so, and
this instance, all it does is say, if you have
one hundred dollars bill, the instead of you adding a tip,
instead of there's no tip, you just would have this
service charge built in.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
All right, let me just interject for a second here,
Why the hell does he think government needs to be
involved to do this? A restaurant can already do exactly
what he's saying. And some restaurants have, right, not very many,
but some restaurants have said, we have a mandatory service
charge now, and whether you want to tip on top

(06:39):
of that is completely up to you.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
We are not expecting you to do so. And then the.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Restaurant can go ahead and distribute that money as you know. Again,
Johnston identified the problem correctly. Managers generally expect to get
paid more than the people they're managing. And because of
what the idiots did raising the tipped minimum wage so much,
now suddenly you've got managers who may be making less
than the people they're managing, which is an untenable situation

(07:05):
for ownership because the managers will leave, and so now
they have to pay the managers more, even though the
managers aren't subject to the tip minimum wage, and the
managers make more than minimum wage anyway, but still it
forces up all of their costs. Well, why does Mike
Johnston think that government needs to have any.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Part of this?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
And that service charge the restaurant could share across their employees,
so they could decide how much goes to folks in
the back of the house, how much goes to the servers,
et cetera. It would be voluntary. Restaurants could choose to
do it or not choose to do it. So I
think it's an idea. Some of the restaurants have sourced
for us as a way to try to make sure
they're paying everybody a fair wage, but that they're able
to spread it across the employees.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
It's not so unequal.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
So okay, let me jump in and give Johnston the
benefit of the doubt here. I don't actually believe restaurants
are telling them they should do this. But if there
were a reason that restaurants would say do this, it
would be that they could have the cover, the political
cover to tell their servers in Denver, hey, there's a
you know, there's a law now now. So Johnson is

(08:11):
saying it wouldn't be mandatory, But and if it's not,
what's the point restaurants can do it anyway. I just
don't get it.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And and so far, let me play the last few
seconds of the audio.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
No increase charge to consumers. It would be no increased
charge to restaurants. It would just allow them to spend
those dollars differently among their employees.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Okay, again, restaurants can already do this. We don't need
your help for that, Mike, what's the point. But the
other thing that didn't come up in that conversation that
Johnston said when he brought this thing out in a
podcast couple of days ago, was that he wants the
service charge. He would have the service charge quote unquote
above the line, meaning it would be taxed.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And so then the government.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Would be collecting tax on the tip.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Or tax on the service charge.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And then what Johnson said, well, he would maybe find
a way to redistribute that money. What you're going to
redistribute the money to the illegal alien?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Bus boy?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Sorry if that sounds harsh, And I don't mean everybody
working in a restaurant business is an illegal alien, but
this is an industry with a very very high turnover
or depending on the restaurant. How are you going to
decide who to return the tax that you collected on
the tips or on the service charge.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
How are you going to do that?

Speaker 1 (09:21):
And how much is that bureaucracy going to cost? And
how much confusion and mistrust is that going to cause
in the restaurants. And despite everything Mike Johnson just did
trying to explain what he's doing, in my opinion, his
answers to Gina this morning made him sound even more.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Out of touch.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
I want to give you the more complete version of
that quote from fa high X that I was reminded
of when I heard about Mike Johnston's ridiculous idea to
get government involved with how restaurants should deal with the
fact that government has made business restaurants too expensive to
operate in many cases, right, Denver down four hundred restaurants

(10:01):
in the past couple of years. Four hundred It is
because well it's it's because of more than one thing.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
The main cause.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Is because Denver City Council massively raised the minimum wage
and did not exempt tip workers from it.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
So this is caused by.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Government and the only legitimate solution is to undo that change.
And we'll talk about that more in a bit. Instead,
like a typical progressive. Remember Friedrich Kayak wrote a book
called The Fatal Conceit.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Think about that The Fatal Conceit. The idea is.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
That that progressives, generally progressives believe that they can outthink
the economy and come design solutions. So let me And
it's not just that that's wrong, it doesn't work out
very well. It's that it's it's very dangerous. It's very dangerous.

(10:54):
So here's Hyak's quote. And again, Hayak won a Nobel
Prize in economics, and he's one of the greatest economy.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Miss of all time.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
So I already shared the first line with you, but
I'm gonna share it again in case you didn't hear
it the first time, because it's fabulous. The curious task
of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they
really know about what they imagine they can design. Does
that not apply perfectly to everything coming out of Mike

(11:22):
Johnston's mouth about restaurants Right now, I'm gonna say it
now for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. The curious
task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little
they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
If you want to read that line for yourself.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I posted it on my blog today at Rosskominski dot com.
Now let me keep going though with the rest of
the quote. This is from his book The Fatal Conceit
to the naive mind that can conceive of order only
as the product of deliberate arrangement. It may seem absurd
that in complex conditions, order and adaptation to the unknown

(11:58):
can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions, and that
a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of
overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information
being taken into accounts. So his point here, And I've
actually put a link on my blog today to one

(12:18):
of the greatest essays in the history of economics, only
thirteen pages long, and I've linked to it on my blog,
and it's by Hayek, and it's called the Use of
Knowledge in Society.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
And his main point is that when you.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Have a person or a small group making decisions about
a large industry or even not so large industry, they
will never ever have enough information to make the right decision.
The only way you get to the right decision is
by letting individual business owners make their own decisions based

(12:54):
on information they have that the bureaucrats will never have,
and if it doesn't work out, they'll change much more quickly.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Than government would change.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
And other people in the same industry will say, Joe
just did something that didn't work. Jill just did something
that did work. I'm gonna copy Jill. You can't do
that when government is running the show. Now, I'm gonna
I'm gonna respond to one listener text here, just briefly,
could you use that statement from Hayek to discredit the

(13:29):
establishment of tips in the first place? Why don't restaurants
just pay people what they can afford to pay them.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
So there's two different theres, are very.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Different questions, and I'm gonna try to answer them both
briefly but as well as I can in just a
few seconds. Why not discredit the establishment of tips in
the first place? Well, tips were probably established in the
first place because restaurants decided that was a good way
to do stuff. First of all, it took a fixed
cost away from the restaurant and allowed them to show

(14:01):
nominally lower prices for food because they wouldn't have to
charge as much. Because they don't have to pay as
much in salary. It also incentivizes servers to do a
good job, knowing that their tip could be at risk
if they don't do a good job.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
I understand that the.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
US is really the only place that has a tipping
culture like this, and it frustrates a lot of people.
But there's a legitimate argument for it. There's maybe a
legitimate argument against it too, but there's nothing about Hayak
that argues against the establishment of tips. Now, the other question,
why don't restaurants just pay people what they can afford
to pay them? Since when is that the right mindset

(14:40):
to determine how much a business should pay an employee
how much you can afford to pay them? Are you
kidding me? That's socialist nonsense. A business should pay an
employee the least amount that the business can pay the
employee to get a good employee and keep them motivated.

(15:03):
That's all, not more. The business owns the business. The
business owner owns the business. The business owner is supposed
to have a profit. Why start a business if you're
not going to have a profit. I realize there are
some people who don't care about that, but most business
owners do. Just the fact that you're asking the question
why not just pay them what you can afford to

(15:24):
pay them means to me that you should spend a
little more time studying economics.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Let me mention a quick thing.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'm doing something next Tuesday morning with the Common Sense Institute,
which has just taken me on for a year, and
I don't know if there'll be another year after that,
but for this year, I am their Loprino Fellow, which
is quite an honor, the Free Enterprise Fellow, And so we're.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Going to be doing this thing over.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
At the over at the Common Sense Institute offices, which
are in Greenwood Village next Tuesday morning from seven point
thirty to nine, although all probably leave around eight thirty
to come to the radio station and do my show.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
And it's called Eggs and the Economy.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
And you know, right now everybody's talking about the price
of eggs, and that's actually not what the event is
named for. It's been called Eggs in the Economy for
quite some time, and you know.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Because the breakfast thing.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
So if you want to come hang out with me
and the few other panels, it's gonna be a panel
talking about the cost of living in Colorado, and you can,
you know, say hi to me if you want anyway
next Tuesday morning. The information is on my blog at
Rosskominski dot com, and I will just give you a
little hint here if you go to my blog and

(16:42):
read right if you want to maybe join us next
Tuesday morning. Normally this event costs twenty five bucks includes breakfast,
but if you go read carefully on my blog, you
might be able to come join me for free.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
So go check that out. Go check that out.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
I want to I have gotten all your text I'm
going to take a break from the Mike Johnston restaurant thing.
I'll probably come back to it later in the show.
I'm reading all your texts, a lot of interesting ones.
I just want to take a minute and talk about
Russia right now, just for a couple of minutes. So
we are expecting, at some point here soon, we are

(17:22):
expecting Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelenski, the president respectively of
the United States and Ukraine, to sit down at the
White House in front of cameras. I think they're already
actually a meeting, but in front of cameras, make a
couple of statements, take a couple of questions, and part
of this will certainly be an announcement.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean, it would be shocking if.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
There weren't an announcement of the signing of an agreement
between the two countries whereby the United States is going
to basically be repaid and maybe even eventually make a
profit based on the revenue stream from the development of
Ukrainian minerals, especially rare earth minerals.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
By the way, right now there's.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Very very little mining in Ukraine, but it's understood that
these deposits of these valuable materials are there. These are
mostly materials that are used in high tech manufacturing of
things like phones and electric vehicles and all kinds of
stuff related to the generation of electrical power. So they're

(18:25):
going to announce that. I think it's a good deal
for both sides. Well, I think conceptually. I don't have
the details. Conceptually, it's a good deal for both sides,
which is why I've been telling you for about the
past week that I expected there to be a deal
within a week, because both sides need one.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
So that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
And I'm sure Vladimir Putin is gonna hate this because
it's going to give Donald Trump some serious interest in
the protection of Ukraine. Even if it doesn't mean American
soldiers will be there, it means suddenly Donald Trump will
care about Ukraine because he sees it as generating revenue
for the United States of America. Donald Trump is very
transactional in that way.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
So so we'll see now.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
The Institute for the Study of War, a great organization
run by General Jack Keane, who you probably see on
Fox with some frequency if you watch Fox.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
They put out notes pretty much every day, and.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
I saw this one yesterday, and I rarely take the
time to share them with you. They're very tactical, normally
very short term. This is what's happening on the front,
on the battle lines today, and I don't bother sharing
those things with you, but let me just share a
little of this. Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian
officials continue to reject us negotiating terms and demand now

(19:40):
listen carefully here, demand the Ukraine's surrender territory that Russia
does not occupy. Okay, So now you and I might
have thought that the conversation would be around, all right,
Russia invaded and took this piece of land, and that
piece of land, and that piece of land as part
of the piece. Which of those areas is Russia going

(20:02):
to give back?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well, that doesn't seem to be Russia's position.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Russia's position seems to be, if you want peace talks,
not only not only are we going to keep everything
we've taken, but we want more. I think even with
Donald Trump's odd fascination with Vladimir Putin, I don't think
Trump's gonna go down that road.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
I really don't let me keep going.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Putin stated in his address to the Federal Security Service
yesterday that that's kind of like their internal internal intelligence
not quite FBI, sorta that Russia will continue to strengthen
FSB operations in dawn Bass and an area that they
call Novo Rossia, which would be like New Russia, and

(20:49):
the Russians are claiming that those areas are an integral part.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Of Russia, and Putin.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
And other Russian officials are defining that Novo Rossia, or
at least they have defining that as all of eastern
and southern Ukraine. Oh, they haven't specified the exact borders,
but all of eastern and southern Ukraine, including big parts
of Ukraine that Russia doesn't control. So let's keep an

(21:16):
eye on that again, despite Trump's whatever with Putin, especially
with this deal, I think Trump's going to become more
neutral rather than more, you know, oddly kind of siding
with our enemy, which is what Trump has been doing.
I think Trump's going to become more neutral or slightly

(21:37):
only slightly pro Ukraine. He'll always word it in a
transactional kind of way, and he will keep American boots
off the ground there, but I think he'll become more neutral. Meanwhile, meanwhile,
ISW is also reporting that that Vladimir Putin is having

(21:57):
the media in row Tis Shah talk about Trump in
fawning ways to try to manipulate Trump by playing to
his ego, which probably does work, but it's interesting that
they're reporting it. All right, I'm gonna leave that there now.
But you know, I watched his foreign policy stuff very carefully,
and I just hope that President Trump is getting really

(22:19):
good advice from his foreign policy team about all this, right,
about what Putin really wants, how Putin can't be trusted.
I find it unfortunate that recently Trump was asked whether
he thought that Vladimir Putin would live up to his word,
whatever that word was in some upcoming agreement, and Trump

(22:41):
basically said yes. I don't know why he would say that.
There's no reason to think that. All right, one other
thing I want to mention to you, and this is
probably much more important than war and death and mayhem,
at least to some people. It's going to be more important.
I won't say it is to me. This is from
our news partners at KADIVR Fox thirty one.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
You ready for the Shannon.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
All Del Taco restaurants across the state of.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Colorado closed suddenly on Thursday.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Signs were posted on the doors alerting customers that effective Thursday,
all Colorado De Taco locations are closed until further notice.
We thank you for your patronage, the memories we've created together,
and we wish you well.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
And there's maybe there's nineteen of them, nineteen of them.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
The one that I have gone to one or two times,
and I'm more of a Taco bell guy than a
Del Taco guy, which might be the very problem was
over by Bellevue and Broadway, kind of near the John
Elway Star. And I've been there a time or two
and it's and it's fine, but it's I guess it's
closed now, and we don't know why. I guess, I mean,
I guess the answer is they they weren't making enough

(23:49):
money and maybe that has, you know, something to do
with what we've been what we've been talking about this
this whole time, regarding Mike Johnston and his stupid restaurant idea.
So there you go, let's do something completely different. You know,
I'm a science nerd. You know, I talk a lot
on the show about not so much about climate change

(24:12):
because I'm very.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Much of a skeptic.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Not that climate changes, but I'm very much of a
skeptic that it's important. I don't actually think it's important,
which my next guest probably doesn't want to hear. But
but it doesn't really matter what I think because lots
of people think it's important. Government thinks it's important. I
don't know that Trump thinks it's important, but government thinks
it's important, and a lot of people are trying to

(24:36):
do a lot of things to lessen some potential future
harm from climate change. So the fact that I'm skeptical
about all that is irrelevant because billions and billions of
dollars are being spent on it. Businesses are being formed
to address the problem in all kinds of different ways, right,

(24:56):
different sorts of engines and different sorts of fuels and
different sorts of or whatever. And one of the technologies
that's been talked about for quite some time, but frankly
I don't know a ton about it is carbon capture
and sequestration.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
So joining us to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Matt Rube is vice president of business development at Heimdahl
h E I M D A L. And they are
in this business. Matt, thanks for joining me here on KOA.
It's good to see you.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Goodness to you as well, and thanks so much for
having me. I appreciate the chance to come and.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Talk about it, very very glad to So I'm not
going to debate climate change stuff with you. Tell us what,
tell us how what your company does aims to address
a particular aspect of this issue.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, for sure. And I mean you touch you touched
on that and described it. I think pretty perfectly. A
lot of people care about this. There's a lot of
ways to the actually tackle this problem, and we're taking
one approach to that. And the way that we do
that is we basically build technology and industrial facilities that
pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then we partner

(26:12):
with companies that take that carbon dioxide and either use
it for something or store it away so that it's
no longer a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. That's essentially
what we.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Don Okay, so this is going to be a very
naive question.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
On power plants, there are often devices called scrubbers that
are supposed to take certain things out of the exhaust
that's coming out of the power plant so that then
the air that eventually comes out is clean. Now I
realize we're not talking about exactly the same We're not
talking about exactly the same thing. But in what ways

(26:47):
are what you are doing similar or different to the
concept of a scrubber.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah, it's very similar to that. You're spot on. So
there's ways of during carbon dioxide emissions or other types
of toxic gas emissions at the point of creation. So
a lot of power plants something called combined cycle power
plants to do this already, where they'll often they'll use
natural gas. They'll they'll capture all of the ambitions off

(27:16):
of that and then and then do something with it.
You know, CO two is used as a commodity. Sometimes
they sell it. Sometimes they store it. There's various things
that they could do with those emissions. What we're doing
is we're essentially for all of the power generation that
occurs that's not captured at the source UH, we're able
to basically capture those. So there's a lot of CO

(27:37):
two in the atmosphere. There's there's far more than uh
than than there needs to be, and as you mentioned,
there's there's some scientific thought that it's causing some harm.
And so what we essentially do is, instead of capturing
it at the source of generation, UH, we try and
find a cost effective and energy efficient way of taking
that excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Okay, I want to gently push back on a couple
of things. You said carbon dioxide and other toxic gases.
Carbon dioxide is not a toxic gas unless you were
sitting in a room that's all you know, full of
carbon dioxide. You're right, you're right, and you and you
said we have far more carbon dioxide than we need.
We've got like point zero four percent of the atmosphere
is carbon dioxide, and as it's gone up a little

(28:21):
bit in the last generation or two, we've had a
lot more plant growth on the planet. So I'm not
really you know, we we don't need to do the
scare mongering thing. You've already got the politicians on your side.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
But I so, but what Okay, so.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
It has on the politician, but I do hear you
on that side. It's a it's a it's there's different
science you could look at to talk about whether or
not four hundred and forty one ppm is too much
not you know, a fine amount. But that's a whole
different discussion.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
So my background is business, and what I'm really interested
regarding your your business is things change over time, right,
People find efficient ways to do things that couldn't be
done in the past. Or like fracking is a perfect example,
we could never efficiently, we can never cost effectively get

(29:14):
this oil out of the ground until someone figured out
how to do fracking and horizontal drilling.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
So just because.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Something couldn't be done cost effectively in the past absolutely
does not mean it can't be done cost effectively in
the future. And in the past, carbon capture has not
been cost effective.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I'm guessing, especially.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Since you're a relatively new business, You're not a hundred
year old company, right, I'm guessing you guys think you
have a way to do this that's fairly cost effective.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 4 (29:44):
Yes, absolutely, So we're not the only ones who are
going to make that claim, obviously. You know, all of
the new companies and even existing oil and gas companies
that are working on new technologies to do the carbon
capture approach more cost effectively will give you a different
answer on how they're going to solve that problem on
the cost effectiveness challenge. The way that we say that

(30:06):
we do it is we combine a low cost of
essential materials that we need to do it. The feedstock
of the primary process we use is livestone, which is
available everywhere and it's super cheap. And we also model
our systematic approach off of existing cost effective industries that
are already operating at scale. And the combination of those

(30:28):
two things is our value proposition for how we bring
the cost down from what it's been in the past.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Okay, and just to take a step back so listeners
know what we're talking about. I'm going to try to
word this as simply as I possibly can, and you
tell me what.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
I get wrong.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
What you propose to do is run the air all
around us through your systems, take the carbon dioxide out
of it, concentrate it, somehow, compress it, give it, I guess,
give it to a partner company that will then store
it somewhere so that then we have a lower concentration

(31:04):
of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Is that about right?
Even though even overly simplified.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
It's overly simplified, but it's just about right. Yeah, there's
there's the ways that you sort of do the whole
pulling the air through the system is different for different approaches.
Some of the like technical details are a little different,
but from the basics perspective, you've got it spot on.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Okay, So, and I know this isn't your business. You're
part of the business, but I want to ask this anyway,
just because I'm sure there's some listeners who are wondering
when when you get the CO two out of the
air and deliver it to your partner companies, where do
they put it to keep it out of our atmosphere?

Speaker 4 (31:45):
Absolutely, so, there's any number of ways that they can
do that. One of the most common in terms of storage,
just pure storage is what's called a Class six.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Well, there's a.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
Whole program and classification of underground storage well and there's
different classes like one through five. Class one or two
is you know, you know, toxic waste storage of some kind.
Class Class two is for enhanced or recovery. So it's
that that's the fracking you were talking about, essentially, so
different classes. Class six is purpose built for the storage

(32:19):
of carbon dioxide, which means it's deeper. It's only into
certain types of underground rock formations that have permeability for gases,
and it has to be beneath a impermeable cap rock
so it can't travel different places or contaminate water or
anything like that, and it has to meet a bunch
of requirements for it. And so a lot of companies

(32:40):
are building those wells that are purpose built for this.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
So you said purpose built.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
So of the carbon dioxide storage that's currently existing, how
many of them are like man made wells truely fully
and how many of them are man made access into
existing large underground caverns.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
Good question. So I don't have a specific answer for
you on that one in terms of like the ways
that the geology works in how you can either retrofit
for an existing formation if you can, you know, take
a pre existing well that just doesn't meet all the

(33:28):
criteria and retrofiting. You know, there's so many wells that
we're using oil production that have since been what's called orphaned,
so they're not used for oil production anymore. They're kind
of just sitting around. And I know that there's been
research done into how to make those productives, you know,
make them safe for storage so you can essentially take
something that was used to pull it out of the
ground and use it to put it back.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
We're talking about the productivity going.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
We're talking with Matt Rube, VP of Business Development at Heimdal.
Their website is h E I M D A l
CCU dot com. I literally have one minute left and
I want to go to the economics with you right now,
right right now. What are the economics of this? I
don't mean is it profitable or not? I mean who
pays for it? And why is anybody paying anything for this?

(34:14):
Is it all government funding? Does private industry care? Would
they care without government funding?

Speaker 4 (34:21):
Private industry would absolutely care without government funding. There are
a lot of companies that have committed to lowering their
carbon impact. Again, this gets a little bit into the
date on you know who cares and why So there's
private companies that care about this and reducing the missions
impact of their businesses, and they do that by helping
support businesses that you know, offset those emissions like what

(34:45):
we do. But even beyond that, this has become a
compliance and a global question. There are companies, there are
countries European Union that are starting to consider, you know,
carbon borderbatement management systems that are basically tariffs on the
car been impact of goods and services, and the EU
is going to be putting this in place. There are

(35:06):
other countries that are considering it. And so when you
talk about the value of lowering the carbon intensity of
goods and services through things like what we're doing, there's
a market for it.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Fascinating.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
All Right, There's so much more to talk about, but
we've got to leave it there.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Oh one, just very quick question. I saw on your website.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
That you were planning on having a commercial demonstration facility
in Oklahoma, and on the website it said by twenty
twenty four, did that.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Get is that running? Did that get done?

Speaker 4 (35:35):
Absolutely?

Speaker 5 (35:36):
We are.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
We have that facility in Oklahoma. We had a formal
launch event in August. We're doing a lot of processes
to get that ramped up to the capacity it could
be at. But it's out there and so anybody is interested,
reach out, folks.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Carbon capture and sequestration is a fairly big part of
the conversation regarding climate policy, and regardless what I think
about it, it's big business. Government cares, a lot of
businesses care, and Matt Rube is VP of business Development
at Heimdall they're trying to help help along that in

(36:13):
that process. Matt, thanks so much for your time. Really
interesting conversation. I appreciate it, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Thank you. Ross all right, glad to we'll take you
a quick break. We'll be right back on KOA.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
From one to six and a half of your favorite
breakfast items? And I don't know how you have a
half in that kind of list, but from one to
six and a half, where do you rank pancakes?

Speaker 2 (36:37):
You told me it's National pancake Day. It is National
pancake Day, Okay, So.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
I actually have two questions. Two questions from one to.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Six and a half of your favorite breakfast things.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Where do you rank pancakes? And number two is what's
your favorite style of pancakes?

Speaker 6 (36:52):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
You know, there's such as blueberry pancakes, or there's these
like German ones that are really thin, or anything you like.
But is there a is there a style of or
just a plain old buttermilk pancake? What's your favorite style
of pancakes? And from one to six and a half,
where do you rank pancakes among breakfast foods?

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (37:12):
Dragon, First off, that half can easily be found when
you think, oh, cereal, that's really good, soggy cereal. Yeah,
I can drop that half a point very easily. Six
and a half, you'd be confused as to how it
can be done easily.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (37:27):
The best pancakes yeah, the ones that I had recently
over the pancake house across the street.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
Yeah, sourdough huh, sourdough pancakes.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
They were phenomenal. Wow. Wow.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
I had something of a reputation when I lived in Chicago.
I lived across the street from the one you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Is the original pancake house right exactly where you're on.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
So I lived across the street from one in Chicago
now I'm talking.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
About thirty five years ago. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
And I would go there, I would I know, I
would go there for breakfast all the time, and I
would almost always get the same thing, and everybody would
make fun of me, including the waitress or waiter. Chocolate
chip pancakes with extra chocolate chips.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
So there'd be chocolate chips.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
There's nothing wrong with There'd be chocolate chips in them,
and then there would be chocolate chips on them that
I would spread on them the way you might spread
peanut butter on a piece of bread.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
That sounds perfect. What's the problem.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
And it doesn't even really need syrup? But that's fine too,
And uh, and I still love that.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I still love that.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
So is that that sour dough thing is a new
discovery for you?

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:39):
This was as like a couple of months ago. And
is that your that's your favorite?

Speaker 5 (38:43):
That would be my new go to? You ever go
there again? Like you and your chocolate chip. That's all
I would get over there, All right, I'll have to
I'll have.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
To try it.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
So text us at five six, six nine zero two
questions from one to six and a half in terms
of favorite breakfast foods, where do you rank pancakes and
what's your favorite style of style of pancake? So, guys,
they're still. Oh, here's the other thing I want to mention.
Next Tuesday morning, I'm going to be doing a thing
from seven thirty to nine am. Actually I'll probably leave

(39:11):
around eight thirty to come to the radio show in
Greenwood Village.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
It's called Eggs in the Economy.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
This is put on by the Common Sense Institute. If
you want to come join me for this convert it's
not just me. It's me and a couple of panelists
and a guy from the Colorado Springs Gazette, Vince, who's
going to be the moderator of this panel. But it's
gonna be nerdy fun economics with breakfast next Tuesday morning.
And normally it's twenty five bucks a person, but I

(39:37):
can actually get a few people.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
In for free.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
So what I need you to do is go to
Rosskaminsky dot com. Read the information just at the top
of the blog there, and if you want to go,
and you want to go for free, shoot me an
email at Ross at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
You don't need my last name, Ross at iHeartMedia dot com.
And the first several people who want to I realized
not easy for for everybody to, you know, go to
a breakfast thing. I understand, and I'm not expecting a
lot of people to respond to what I'm what I'm
saying here because it's fairly short notice and it's in
the morning. But anyway, if you want to go, I
can get some people in for free. So just just

(40:15):
email me at ross atiheartmedia.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Dot com if you want to come join again.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
It's in Greenwood Village next next Tuesday morning.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
All right, what else do I want to do here? Dragon?

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Let's okay, let's just do a little bit of Oh no.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
No, no, I'm gonna go back for a second.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
I'm gonna go back for a second and just offer
a couple of comments.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
About my last guest. I need to do that a
little bit more.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
You know. I write this complicated show sheet out and
then Dragon plays some music, and I'm supposed to actually
do what's on the show sheet, which is weird put together?
That yeah, that I that I put together. But you
know me well enough by now, Goldfish, what will we
talk squirrel?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (40:59):
What was I talking about pancakes? No, I wasn't talking
to guest. I wasn't talking about pancakes. I was talking
about the fact that I do the show sheet and
I look at it and I say, all right, I
plan to talk about that. And sometimes I don't spend
the time talking about what the previous guest said when
I really should. And I want to take a minute
on this because I got a lot of listener texts

(41:21):
on that last guest, and I actually I want to say,
I agree with most of you your comments about the
last guest. Now what listener said, I was nicer to
them than I should have been. Again, I'll just say
it's it's not my goal or purpose to be mean
or aggressive to guests. I push back when I need to,

(41:43):
and for the rest, I understand that my listeners are
smart enough to figure it out and read between the lines.
And if I have a guest on who's talking about
his business, I don't.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Think I need to bash his business.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I can I can ask questions, I can say I
have this concern that concerned, especially when he's on with me,
I think it would just be rude, and I also
think it wouldn't lead to the best conversation. So, you know, generally,
when people say to me, you shouldn't have been so
nice to him, I think that's wrong. Every once in
a while, I'll say, you know what, you were right.

(42:17):
I should have been shouldn't have been so nice, but
not this time. So he was talking about carbon capture
and sequestration, and the idea is simple. Some people believe
there's too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I don't think it matters.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
I'm not saying climate doesn't change. I'm not saying increased
CO two can't slightly change the temperature. You know, I'm
not saying anything. I'm saying it doesn't matter, all right,
But some people think it matters. I don't think this
administration thinks it matters. I think you're going to see
the EPA and the Interior Department and the Energy Department
do a lot of stuff to move away from this
very very expensive nonsense. But there are businesses who want

(42:54):
to virtue signal. And there was one thing, more than one,
but there was. One of the things that the guy said,
is that absolutely true, is that you have these insane
climate lunatics bureaucrats in the EU, in the EU, and
they are going to start penalizing companies based on some

(43:20):
measure of the carbon impact of producing whatever it is
you produce, and even second or third order effects. For example,
you use a certain amount of oil to make your thing,
all right, that's one level. You use a certain amount
of oil in the form of diesel ore gasoline to
transport your thing by trained, by truck, whatever, by ship

(43:43):
to wherever it's going.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
That would be the next level. And then how about this.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
How about this, You transport your stuff to market on
a truck, the trucking company has to buy tires. The
tire company uses oil to make the tires, and uh,
and so you have that, and they're gonna start penalizing
you for the amount of co two emissions that went
into making the tires that went onto the truck that

(44:10):
transported the.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Thing that you made. And so they are going to.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Force these companies to waste an immense amount of money,
which is gonna raise your cost of buying everything to
virtue signal. And it's there's no science behind this, but
they're gonna have to, you know, offset some of their
carbon by paying a company like that guy's company to
quote unquote capture some of it and stick it.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
In the ground. And it's it's all greenwashing. It's nonsense.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
It is a solution in search of a problem, and
it is and and even if you say that there
is a problem with CO two and climate and all that,
here's one thing I promise you that will always be
true unless and until we start massively increasing the amount
of nuclear power in the United States of America. That's

(45:01):
the only way that my next statement will not be true.
The cost of every proposed solution to climate change is
far greater than any potential benefit. That's quite a choice because,

(45:22):
first of all, it relates to what's next on the show.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Sheet, and it mentions pancakes. That's amazing.

Speaker 5 (45:31):
Did you know a few skills in the world, but
this is one of them.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Did you know you were going to hit both of
those with the one song? No, honestly, no, were you
going for the show sheet one or the pancakes? The pancakes? Huh?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
All right, Dragon and I are having a little debate,
not a debate, we're just kind of at clarify.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
We need clarification.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
So I asked, I asked you to to rate on
a scale of one to six and a half where
you ranked pancakes in your in your rating of breakfast foods,
and also what's the best form of pancake? And and
it occurred to well, it occurred to Dragon, not not

(46:12):
really to me until Dragon said it that I didn't
clarify whether the low number was better or whether the
high number was better, because normally, you know, like if
you're at the Olympics, you want a ten and not
a one, But if you're doing a top ten list,
the best one is the one, not the ten. So
I didn't clarify when I said, you know, from one
to six and a half, how do you feel about pancakes?

(46:33):
And you know, after listening to Dragon, I'm thinking that.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well, it was very shocking.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
And looking at the text line, I see somebody who
says ross six point four to three three, Okay. I
was like, okay, so that's pretty high up though, that's
pretty dog on close to perfect. Right then two texts,
three texts later, pancakes are a zero point zero zero
zero zero.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
One, right, So we were trying to figure out whether
for that person that means they're the best food in
the world or they're as as bad as a breakfast
could possibly be.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Right. So, so, so I don't know.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Now, Dragon, if you, if you want, you could share
a couple of emails of texts of people's favorite style
of pancakes. If there are some some interesting answers there,
and I and I do think there are.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
There's pretty much the average.

Speaker 5 (47:24):
There's a buttermilk pancakes, blueberry, pecan cinnamon.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Pecan cinnamon.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, a bunch of a few people said blueberry, and
I do like blueberry, but not as much as chocolate chip.

Speaker 5 (47:35):
Yeah, buttermilk, blueberry, tons, tons of those ones. See smothered
and maple syrup of corn.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
How do you okay, dragon?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
How do you feel about legit maple syrup versus like
Missus Butterworths and Jemima and all the stuff that's some
form of cornstars pretending to be syrup.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
I grew up on the fake stuff. Yeah, me too,
so that's what I'm used to.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (48:00):
So when I get the option to have the real stuff, yeah,
it just feels and tastes weird.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah to me, the good stuff feels and tastes a
little thin sort of yeah, you know, to me, Missus
Butterworth's nothing natural about it is comfort.

Speaker 5 (48:21):
Food, chemical after chemical after chemical.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
And it's delicious. And it's delicious.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
I mean, if there's anything that you would want to
sequester in the ground and keep it away from actual humans,
it would be that syrup, not carbon dioxide.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
And and yet, and.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yet here we are that the listener said, point, I
think it's the same.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Listener.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Uh yeah, point that point zero zero zero one thing
means it's the worst.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
It's the worst.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
So I think most people have said have gone your
way on it, saying the higher number, the higher number
is is better. My favorite pancake is the one that
comes with a pre cut middle hole for syrup. By
the way, I did try that with my family, and
my fifteen year old daughter thought I was nuts.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
I like it.

Speaker 5 (49:03):
This one here too, by far, the sourdough pancakes.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
They're delicious. Yeah, yep, absolutely right. Ross, thanks a lot
for saying squirrel, hold on, let me get to the
rest of this. My screen moved. Where did it go?
Where'd it go?

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Oh my god, squirrel. Thanks a lot for saying squirrel.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
I have dogs in the car and they started looking
all over and whining.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
That's really funny.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
That's like something I would never do on the show
because it's really annoying to people. If somebody on the
radio does it, and someone's like listening to the radio
on a speaker of some kind, on a computer, The
worst thing that you could do would be to do
something like Alexa play KOA on iHeartRadio. I would never

(49:48):
say anything like that on the air because I wouldn't
want that person's Alexa to play KOA on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
So I would never do that.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
And just the same way that I wouldn't never say
Alexa on the air, I would never say squirrel just
because we now know that somebody has dogs in the
car with them.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Who understands the word squirrels?

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Dragonwait, what was that thing that I'm never gonna say?

Speaker 5 (50:16):
I believe Alexa listen to KOA on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
And what was the other thing that I would never
say if someone's driving around with dogs?

Speaker 2 (50:26):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Ask a couple of listeners. Why do you hate me
so much? I got I've got multiple listeners now, multiple
texting in about pancakes with melted blue cheese and green pepper,
bell pepper. That's just not very nice, Andy says, I

(50:49):
like this line, Dragon, are you listening?

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I'm here.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Waffles have houses, but pancakes have international houses. There you go,
it's pretty good. It's pretty good. You got my dog's attention.
But they weren't buying it, since I didn't say it.
Since I didn't say it, Squirrel listener Scott, who's a
friend of mine too, Squirrel texted in to say, dude,

(51:13):
on all capital letters, dude, how many times can you
say Alexa? But I don't know why you're asking that,
because I would never say Alexa on the air because
it's annoying and it will cause people's alexas. It'll call
to play KOA on iHeartRadio or something like that. Or
you could say, Alexa, what's a good recipe for a

(51:37):
sourdough pancake? But then if you're playing this, you know,
on your speakerphone at your house, or on your computer
or some other some other way, and maybe even on
your Alexa. Like if you're listening on your Alexa and
you already said Alexa, play KOA on iHeartRadio, and then
I said ALEXO, what's a good.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Recipe for a sourdough pancake?

Speaker 1 (51:59):
It might in a row your iHeartRadio listening, and then
you'd be frustrated with me. And I don't want listeners
frustrated with me, So I would never on the air
say I might just in private conversation, but on the air.
I would never say, Alexa, what's a good recipe for
a sour dough pancake?

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Because that would be rude, right, dragon.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
Alexa listens to herself. I can't even get her to
listen to me. I wonder if that's Can we try this?
Let's let's try this.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
I want somebody right now to tell their Alexa to
play KOA on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Okay, let's let's do this right now in real time.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I'm not gonna waste long on this, even though I
do really enjoy wasting your time, especially on a Friday.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Let's just try this out. Okay.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Now, I bet some of you have this going all right.
I bet some of I bet some of you have
this going right now already. I bet you're playing along.
You're playing the home game, as we used to say
with the you know the price is right or whatever,
playing the home game. And so now I'm gonna say, Alexa,
what's a good recipe for a sour dough cake? And

(53:02):
now I want you to tell me whether your Alexa
interrupted itself to tell you the recipe for a sourdo pancake.
I would like to know, would it do both?

Speaker 5 (53:15):
Maybe like picture and picture on TV, because then you
get you know, the Ross Commits show on the background,
and then also you'd get the sour dough pancake recipe.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
It definitely won't do both at the same time.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
But I wonder if it would give you the recipe
and then go back to playing KOA on iHeart Radio,
pause ka on iHeart right, so that when you came
back to it would have missed anything. I don't know
that Alexa has that functionality, does it. This listener says
that I should never say on the air, Alexa play

(53:50):
Tom Sawyer by Rush.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I should I should never ever say that Alexa played
best of Neil Young.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
No, alexis stop Ross. You're gonna need dude wipes if
you eat pancakes with blue cheese and bell peppers. All right,
let's move on. Let's move on. That was as shocking
waste of time right there. Pancakes just shocking. Nobody has
said apple pancakes. It was a big thing growing up
for me.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
My dad would love to make the a little bit
of apple sauce in the batter.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
And apple slices. Okay, So here's the thing. If you
go over to the internet to the what's it called
what's the place we were talking about pancakes, the original,
not International, the original pancake house. They have you had
their apple pancakes. Have you seen their apple pancakes. It's
this It's almost like it's inflated. The apple pancake is

(54:45):
six or seven inches tall. It's a singular. Yeah, it's
a different thing. It's not like a regular pancake. And
it's freaking fabulous, absolutely fabulous. All right, let's do something
different as long as we're talking about food. So I've
been and I've been pretty rough on Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
In the past day or so because of this.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Thing that he mentioned on a podcast about possibly the
idea of adding a twenty percent service charge and now
he's kind of waffling, if you'll pardon the pun, but
adding a service charge above the line, so you would
pay tax on it to restaurant bills, like instead of tips.
And Gina had him on Colorado's Morning News this morning,
and I shared with you maybe two minutes of it,

(55:32):
and I just want to come back and share a
little bit more and just talk about this a little
bit because it's very frustrating, it's very local, and it's
in the context of a bunch of restaurants sending a
letter to Mayor Mike Johnston saying, you're killing us, especially
because of how badly the downtown reorganization or refurbishment or

(55:54):
whatever you want to call it is going.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
And restaurants are saying, you're killing us.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Man, between the costs and the crime and whatever, this
is terrible. And then Mayor Johnston comes out with this
idea that he's now sitting. Restaurants have given to him,
but he's come out with this idea that the only
possible outcome, the only possible outcome, is.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
To make things worse.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
All right, Before I get to that, I want to
jump into the news right here, because I told you
we're going to keep.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
An eye out for this.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
This is President Zelenski and Ukraine speaking with President Trump
at the White House and mar kill.

Speaker 7 (56:34):
We signed seas fire cease fire. All of them told
me that he will never go. We signed him guess contract.
Guess contract, Yes, But after that he broken this is fire.
He killed all people and he didn't exchange prisoners. We
signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it.

(56:56):
What kind of diplomacy GGUS became about what what do
you what do you mean?

Speaker 8 (57:01):
I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to
end the.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Destruction of your country.

Speaker 8 (57:05):
But if mister president, mister President, with respect, I think
it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office
to try to litigate this in front of the American media.
Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts
to the front lines because you have manpower problems.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
You should be thanking the president for them to bring
it in Ukraine. That do you say, what problems we have?

Speaker 8 (57:25):
I have been to come, I've actually I've actually watched
and seen the stories, and I know what happens is
you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda to
our mister president, are do you disagree that you've had
problems like bringing people in your military have Do you
think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office
of the United States of America and attack the administration

(57:47):
that is trying to trying to prevent the destruction of
your country?

Speaker 4 (57:50):
A lot of questions.

Speaker 7 (57:51):
Let's start from the beginning, sure past wall during the war,
everybody has problems, even you, but you have nice ocean
and don't feel now, but you will feel it in diffusions.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
You don't know that. I'm bless you. I'm blessed.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
You'll know.

Speaker 9 (58:06):
You don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're
trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're
going to feel.

Speaker 7 (58:12):
I'm not telling you because you're in no position to
dictate that.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
You're in no position. Well, what we're going to feel.

Speaker 9 (58:20):
We're gonna feel very good, feel influence. We're gonna feel
very good and very.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Strong, feel influenced.

Speaker 9 (58:26):
You're right now not in a very good position.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
You've allowed you to.

Speaker 10 (58:30):
Be in a very bad position that he's apple to
be right about the very beginning of the war.

Speaker 9 (58:34):
Not in a good position. You don't have the cards
right now with us. You start having right now, you're.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
Playing capread You're gambling with the lives and billions of people.

Speaker 9 (58:46):
See, you're gambling with world War three. You're gambling with
World War three.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
And what you're doing.

Speaker 9 (58:53):
Is very disrespectful to the country. This country. It's back
to you far more. And a lot of people said
where they should have have you.

Speaker 8 (59:02):
Said thank you once that Larva know in this entire
meeting you said thank you. Went to Pennsylvania and campaigned
for the opposition in October, offers some words of appreciation
for the United States of America and the president who's
trying to save yours.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
This is amazing.

Speaker 7 (59:19):
Please, you're seeing that if you will speak very loudly
about the warriors.

Speaker 9 (59:24):
He's not speaking loudly, he's not speaking lovely. Your country
is in big trouble. No, No, you've done a lot
of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
I know you're not winning. You're not winning this.

Speaker 9 (59:36):
You have a damn good chance of weming out, okay,
because of some.

Speaker 7 (59:39):
President last stay in Nawa country, staying strong. From the
very beginning of the war, we've been alone and we
are samful. I said, thanks, you haven't.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Been giving it.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
You won't go.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
And he gave you, stupid.

Speaker 9 (59:51):
President, three hundred and fifty billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
You will.

Speaker 9 (59:54):
We gave your military equipment, you Trump, Trump just.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Like reached over and Lensky on his shoulder.

Speaker 9 (01:00:01):
Military equipment. You didn't have our military equipment. This war
would have been over in two weeks.

Speaker 7 (01:00:07):
In three days, I heard it from Putin in three days.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
This is how maybe less in two weeks.

Speaker 9 (01:00:13):
Of course, yes, it's going to be a very hard
thing to do business like this.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
I tell you to say thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:00:18):
I said it will there except for America.

Speaker 8 (01:00:22):
He said that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate
those disagreements rather.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Than trying to fight.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Advance is wrong to say that you that Lensky hasn't
said thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
He says it constantly.

Speaker 8 (01:00:32):
Image.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Some of this other stuff is right, but it weakens
Vance's point when he says stuff that isn't true.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I wish he'd stay with what is true. Let's keep
going here.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
I think he was also claiming that Fan said that
Zelensky didn't say thank you in this specific meeting.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Oh God, they're.

Speaker 9 (01:00:47):
Running slow, and soldiers it would be a damn goodness.
And then then you tell us I don't want to
cease fire. I don't want to cease fire. I want
to go and I wanted this on. Look, if you
could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you you
take it. So the bullets stopped flying and your ment
stuff courting.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
Kell goes, we want to stop the war.

Speaker 9 (01:01:05):
But I'm saying you don't want to see that you
I want to see because you get a ceasefire faster
than any bring.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Color people of all, it's just fire what they see.

Speaker 6 (01:01:14):
That wasn't me, That wasn't with me.

Speaker 9 (01:01:18):
That was with a guy named Biden, who is not
a smart person.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
That was that was with you'll excuse me.

Speaker 9 (01:01:25):
That was with Obama, who gave you sheets and I
gave you javelins. I gave you the javelins to take
out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact,
the statement is Obama gave sheets.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
And Trump gave javelins.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
You got to be more thankful because, let me tell you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
You don't have the cards. With us, you have the cards,
but without us, you don't have any cards. Well, questions,
it's gonna be.

Speaker 9 (01:01:52):
A tough deal to make because the attitudes have to change.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
Time they took into them.

Speaker 9 (01:02:03):
I said, what are you saying?

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
She's asking? What if Russia for extasies fire?

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
What if they?

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your
head right now?

Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
Okay?

Speaker 9 (01:02:16):
What if they broke it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 9 (01:02:18):
They broke it with Biden because Biden didn't respect him.
They didn't respect Obama.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through
a hell of a.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Lot with me.

Speaker 9 (01:02:27):
He went through a phony witch hunt, where they used
him in Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of
that deal?

Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
There was a phony.

Speaker 9 (01:02:35):
There was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam, Hillary Clinton,
shifty Adam Schiff who was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
A Democrat scam. And he had to go through that,
and he did go through it. We didn't end up
in a war. And he went through it. He was
accused of all that stuff he.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Had nothing to do with.

Speaker 9 (01:02:52):
It came out of Hunter Biden's bathroom. It came out
of Hunter Biden's bedroom.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
It was disgusting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
And then they said, oh, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
All right, let me interject, just put this down a
little bit, and we are going to come back to it.
I just want to say a couple of things here.
Uh So, first, God, there are a lot of things
I want to say. First, I've never seen anything like this.
I don't think this stuff when when these discussions happen
like of this kind of tone and this this stuff

(01:03:23):
happens behind closed doors. This is never ever done in
front of the cameras. This is really something. Uh jd
Vance being in the room and being the attack dog
really went after Zelenski in a way that I mostly
didn't like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
But Zelensky didn't handle it very well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Zelensky did not handle that very well, because Trump is
right when he says to Zelenski, right now, you don't
have the cards right to to win this poker game,
you know, metaphor, With Russia you don't have the cards,
but with US you could have the cards. Trump is
right about that. I don't know that Europe has the

(01:04:02):
wherewithal or the stomach or the whatever to give.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Ukraine everything that it needs militarily.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
If if Europe could do it without the US, then
maybe let's go. I've got more to say, but let's
listen a little more, all right, I think they need
let me see what's going on here. Usually that kind

(01:04:30):
of noise happens at the end of a press crincer. Okay,
that's what it was. That that was the end, So
let me come back then. So here's the couple other
things I want to say. Main thing is Trump just
said in public, like to Zelenski, you could have the
cards here, meaning you could be in a position to

(01:04:50):
win this game against Russia.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
But attitudes have to change and you have to be
more grateful. And he's not wrong. He's not wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I don't I don't need Zelensky to say thank you
every five words. And frankly, Zelensky has said thank you
a lot, and I don't necessarily need him to say
thank you a lot more.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I know they're grateful, but that's not the point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
The point is if he seems ungrateful to the people
who have to make the decisions that could determine what
happens with his country, he better freaking act grateful, even
if he's already been pretty grateful.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
His response there was just a little bit too.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Proud right too. I don't know what the right word is, dragon.
You look like you're pondering.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
I'm trying to figure out the right word as well.

Speaker 5 (01:05:48):
But yeah, I mean, he wants to present to be
as proud because he's strong.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
He is the leader of his country, so you know, maybe.

Speaker 5 (01:05:59):
Saying thank you overly enthusiastic makes him look weak, makes
him feel like he's grobbling.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
The other thing that was very interesting, So I said this,
this is really something. Okay, So first of all, listeners know,
I've been studying this stuff for a long time. Right
in college in the eighties, I studied Soviet politics, I
studied Chinese communist politics. I studied nuclear strategy. I studied

(01:06:27):
national security. This is the stuff that I majored in,
and this is the stuff that I love, and that's
why I probably talk more foreign policy than any other
local talk show host. You know, just about a week ago,
I said on the air, I bet you Trump is

(01:06:48):
still really pissed about Vladimir Zelenski having come to America
during the presidential election, and not just meeting with and
Harris at the White House, which you could.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Get away with.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Right You're the president coming to meet another president. You're
talking about stuff in your meeting at the White House
that wouldn't necessarily be seen as a campaign thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
But then.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Our military, meaning our government, paid for Zelenski's transportation, flew
him on military aircraft, I believe, within the United States
of America, to go to Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
For a campaign event with a couple of Democrats.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
And I said on the air, I bet you Trump
is really mad about that still. And I said at
the time, this is not twenty twenty hindsight on my part.
I said at the time when Zelensky did that, this
is a big mistake because Trump could win this election.

(01:07:55):
And in fact, as you know, I made a bet
on the air that Trump would win the election. So again,
this is not twenty twenty hindsight. I'm not saying, oh,
I thought Trump would win. I've told you since the
since the election. I told you for months and months
and months, I think Trump's gonna win this thing, even.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
When Poles said he wasn't going to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
And for Zelenski, who already knows that Trump is skeptical
of Ukraine, to go to Pennsylvania to campaign with Democrats
was really dumb. So then what I said on the
air last week was I bet Trump is still mad
at about that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
But I don't think.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
We'll ever learn it for sure, because normally, when you're
gonna have that kind of discussion with the president of
another country.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
You wouldn't do it in public.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
You would do it in private, and you would sort
that stuff out behind closed doors, so that when you
come out and have a press conference, you put on
united front.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
And yet we just saw the craziest.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Preservation ability between the President of the United States and
another foreign leader that I have ever seen in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
That was absolutely nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
And then Trump said out loud, you basically did a
campaign appearance for Democrats. So now we know he remembers.
I mean, I knew he remembered, but it was a
question of how important was it to him. Now it's
we know how important it is to him. We know

(01:09:32):
how important it is to him, and Trump is still mad.
Trump's take on the Russia Russia Russia thing was wrong
in one It was right in one important sense and
wrong in one important sense. You know, the whole Russia
hoax and all that it was really that came from Clinton,
not from Biden. He keeps trying to blame it on Biden,
and I don't like Biden, and there's lots wrong with Biden,

(01:09:53):
and there's lots wrong with Hunter Biden, but that specific.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Thing that came from Clinton. Trump oddly spent time trying.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
To defend Vladimir Putin as part of that, like somehow
Vladimir Putin suffered some kind of harm from the Russia hoax.
Putin didn't suffer any harm, and Trump didn't need to
go down the road of sounding sympathetic to Vladimir Putin
for having been named in the Russia hoax. Was that
was kind of dumb. But he could have said something

(01:10:27):
about Ukraine and Hunter Biden that would have been true.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
He didn't really mention that. He sort of confused the things.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Nevertheless, the bigger point is that between Zelensky having come
and campaigned for Democrats and what Trump's what Trump's perceived
Trump perceives as the role of Ukraine in dirty political
tricks to hurt him or to help his opponents. Trump

(01:10:56):
clearly holds a grudge here, and if Zelenski knows what's
good for him, when they get back behind closed doors,
Zelenski will apologize.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Zelensky should apologize.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Zelensky should say I shouldn't have gone on that trip
to Pennsylvania. I shouldn't have done it. I'm really sorry
that was a mistake. Trump is right when he says,
without us, you don't have the cards. With us, you
might and that's all that should matter to Zelenski. That

(01:11:33):
was incredible, Ross.

Speaker 11 (01:11:34):
We want to bring you in here live. Have you
ever ever ever seen anything like this?

Speaker 9 (01:11:40):
That?

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
No, and I've been as you know, I've been watching
foreign policy for forty years. That was not only were
they yelling at each other, Kathy, but at some point,
more than one point, President Trump reached over and like
pushed Zelenski on the shoulder.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
It was incredible.

Speaker 11 (01:11:55):
I felt we were watching something that likely would have
happened in prior administrations behind closed doors, that this kind
of argument often happens behind closed doors, disagreements happen, but
we are so accustomed to in the United States seeing
everybody play nice in front of the cameras, in front
of the media. The news reporters in the room were

(01:12:18):
screaming questions and Trump was actually answering them. Also unprecedented
in terms of access to the president, the vice president
and a world leader in this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Situation, and also having jd Vance in the room like
that being such a big part of the conversation rather
than a spectator. Normally it's the president and the other
president or president the prime minister, but jd Vance clearly
a big part of this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
I think that went really badly for Zelenski.

Speaker 11 (01:12:48):
Do you think, though I heard you mention that, do
you think that Zelenski was hampered at all by you know,
honestly an argument live on TV that wasn't in his
native language. Is did we have a language barrier there?
Or do you think Zelenski got it and was trying
to fight back.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
I think it's the latter.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
I think he got it well and I think he
got it well enough, and I think he should have
picked up on the tone, and I think he should
have backed off a little bit. He acted to me
like I understand, he's a proud guy leading a proud
country during wartime.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
But I think his.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Standing up so aggressively against these two guys who were
making decisions about the future of his country wasn't very smart.

Speaker 11 (01:13:30):
What about the one eighty from my perspective anyway, on
Russia Ukraine policy when it comes to the United States,
have we now stepped aside from supporting Ukraine? Does this
represent a watershed moment in our foreign policy?

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
See, that's what's so interesting about this is that was
so ugly that you could see e turn away. You know.
I think a lot of people were hoping that maybe
this rare earth minerals deal, whatever else was in it,
would get President Trump to be at least neutral or
a little bit pro Ukraine because he'd see money coming
from Ukraine towards America, which he cares about.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
But boy, was that ugly and personal.

Speaker 11 (01:14:12):
And how if you're any part of Eastern Europe at
this point do you not watch this with fear?

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
You at least have to watch it. Yeah right, So
fear in two ways. One is America not gonna be
standing up for us anymore?

Speaker 10 (01:14:26):
Two?

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Does this in Bolden Russia?

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
And then I guess the third thing was, you know,
if the if Western Europe is thinking, all right, this
is going to keep the US away from supporting Eastern Europe,
can we count on France and England and Germany and
whoever else to give us the support we need?

Speaker 11 (01:14:41):
We both know that NATO support in places like Germany
is not what some people think it should be. So
does this even put pressure on all of those worldwide organizations,
the EU, the NATO coalition? Does this put pressure? Just
what happened here? Does this put pressure on all of that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
It puts an immense amount of pressure on them to
try to do the things that normally you would look
to NATO to do, but to do them without America.

Speaker 11 (01:15:10):
And what does Zelenski do now? Does he look like
a winner a loser? Does he go home with his
tail between his legs? What does Lanski do now?

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
He's got to go back behind closed doors with Trump advance,
settle things down, apologize for going to Pennsylvania back during
the campaign, and lower the temperature sign the deal and
say I really want to work with you. And if
he has to appeal to Trump's ego or whatever he

(01:15:39):
has to do, He's trying to save his country and
he should just do it.

Speaker 11 (01:15:42):
Is there anybody in the Trump administration that would tell
the president, wow, dude, shouldn't have happened in front of
the cameras or do you think this gets one thousand
percent support from people on Trump's team?

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
In public one thousand percent support and in private probably
close to one thousand percent support. I think that I
think Zelenski played it badly enough that even the Trump
people like Marco Rubio, who you might expect to be
a little bit more pro Ukraine, will not, even in private,
criticize Trump's reaction because Zlenski reacted so badly.

Speaker 11 (01:16:15):
Well, I think this is a watershed moment in terms
of foreign policy. It puts pressure on Rubio. You're right,
and how do we continue watching this throughout the rest
of your show?

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Well, you know, luckily, we have an unbelievable news desk
headed up by you here at Kowa, and you said,
one of the things you're gonna do after is get
even more soundclips beyond what you just shared. So when
you get me more of those, I'm going to share them.
I'm going to share some of the stuff you did already,
and we're going to keep talking about because you know,
you and I have been both been watching international news

(01:16:48):
for many years and neither of us has ever seen
anything like this, So we're gonna keep talking about it,
not ever. Thanks Ross, Well all right, you know, I'm
just going to pick it up from here. Thank you
so much, Kathy. That was great conversation and really important.
Never seen anything like it. And again, I'm a foreign
policy nerd. Like there's there's a picture of me in

(01:17:09):
college with former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick at her office
at the United Nations. I went down to the United Nations,
which is in New York, and I was in college
in New York.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
And I love this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
I have.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
I have never seen anything like it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
I've got Fox News on in the studio among other channels,
and they just keep playing it over and over and
over again and and and you have to you have to.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
This was this was really something that was It started
with jd Vance.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
I missed the first few minutes, but this heated part
started with jd Vance jumping in and uh, in fact,
let me, I'm not even sure that.

Speaker 7 (01:17:56):
I've been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?

Speaker 8 (01:17:59):
I have been to Come on, I've actually I've actually
watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens
is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour.
Mister president, are do you disagree that you've had problems
like bringing people into your military?

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
All right, let me let me interject. Now I'm gonna
do We're gonna do a bunch of this. I'm gonna
play some things and we're gonna talk about it. So,
first of all, the the idea that the president and
the vice president of the United States would go on
national which is to say, worldwide television and accuse the

(01:18:36):
president of another country that is something like our ally
and certainly fighting our enemy, and accuse him of, you know,
propaganda tours and say stuff about his military.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Again, say what you want in private, saying that in public,
that's that's.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Nothing more than jd Vance spouting I was gonna say
Soviet Russian propaganda that was wildly inappropriate for Jadvance to
do in public, wildly inappropriate and may or may not
even be correct. Certainly, it's well known that after a

(01:19:16):
few years of war with Ukraine going up against a
country that's four or five or seven times its size.
However much bigger Russia is than Ukraine. Certainly Ukraine is
having trouble, just as Russia is, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
Getting people to go fight in the war.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
And I'm sure there are some kind of unsavory things
happening and getting people to the front, not as unsavory
as what Russia is doing, but war as hell, and
people are doing what they need to do to save
their countries.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
And not all of it is pretty. But for JD.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Vance to go on worldwide television and accuse the president
of Ukraine for being involved in, you know, a propaganda tour,
that was pretty nuts and that was really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
That was wrong. Uh that said, it did happen.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
And Zelenski, as president of a country that needs America's help,
needed to pivot better and needed a better response than
what he gave. Where so much more that We're gonna
keep talking about this. This is one of the craziest
things I've ever seen. We're gonna take a quick break.
We'll be right back on kow. That was absolutely nuts.

(01:20:32):
Let me just share with you the headline that I
just got from the New York Times. Trump and Vance
berate Zelensky during testy White House meeting, and then sub
little summary.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
President Trump and Vice President JD.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
Vance castigated President Vladimir Zelenski of Ukraine in a remarkably
fractious meeting that featured raised voices and threats.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Quote, you're gambling with World War three, Trump told.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
Zelenski, Now we're gonna talk about this more. I want
to make sure you understand something. Here's part of the
reason that you love and need KOA. Right, we're live,
and I get I listened to lots of podcasts too.
And you might be someone who right now is listening
to me on podcast rather than at eleven eighteen in
the morning Mountain time on Friday February twenty eighth You

(01:21:20):
might be listening later. But if you're listening over the air,
over the stream right now, you're getting this live.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
You heard us take that press conference live that we
didn't have to. There was a choice.

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
We thought this could be interesting. Turned out to be
way more interesting than we even anticipated. And then and
then you get the KOA newsdesk, You get Kathy come
in here here talking about it, and you get me
a guy who probably I'll just pat myself on the
back very slightly.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I probably know more about foreign policy.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Than not any but most local talk show hosts, probably
more than most national talk show hosts. And you get
all of this because you're listening to us on KOA.
So I guess I'm patting the state on the back
more than more than petting myself on the back.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
Uh, our great team over there, Kathy and the team
out at the news desk has gotten me some audio clips,
some short ones, some long ones. In that last segment,
I got started into a two minute clip, and I
want to keep going with that, and then I'll come
back to some of the short ones to kind of
elaborate and emphasize.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
But this part here was toward the end of JD.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Vance's very aggressive, very aggressive half criticism and half questioning
of Ukrainian President Zelenski, Well her brand, Do you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:37):
Think that I respect I allowed to come to the
Oval Office in.

Speaker 8 (01:22:40):
The United States of America and attack the administration that
is trying to trying to prevent the destruction of your
kind of.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
A lot of a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Let's start from the big short fills to wall during
the war.

Speaker 7 (01:22:51):
Everybody has problems, even you, but you have nice otion
and don't feel now, but you will feel it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
Infusion.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
Let me just let me just pause there because we're
going to get a reaction from from President Trump next.
But dude, I'm saying this to Zelenski. Now, Dude, what
were you thinking with that answer?

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
I understand that what jd Vance said to you was
wildly inappropriate and was basically Russian propaganda, and jd Vance
should should be ashamed of himself.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Really, jd Vance should be.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
I'm not talking about what American policy is here. I'm
talking about the way jd Vance spoke to Zelenski. Jd
Vance might as well have been Dmitry Peskov. That's that
is uh Vladimir Putin's uh sock puppet spokesperson.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Right. I was disgusting what jad Vance did.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
But Zelenski is president of Ukraine at a time when
Ukraine desperately needs America's help, and so Vance asks him,
says this inappropriate stuff and then asks him a question.
And Zelensky, instead of backing off a little bit and
saying yes, I'm very grateful to the United States, and

(01:24:04):
I'm looking forward to to enhancing my partnership with the
United States and turning this whatever comes next into a
win win for both of our countries. It's so obviously
the right thing to say. You don't need to be
a diplomat. You don't need to be somebodey who studied
foreign policy in college. You could be probably an eighth

(01:24:27):
grader or you know, a high school student in your
high school's Model United Nations club and figured that, Like
imagine you were taking some again Model United Nations thing,
and you've got a teacher who is kind of the
proctor for your club and teaching you about foreign policy

(01:24:48):
and about negotiation and about all these things, and about.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
A very very basic point that Donald Trump sometimes seems
to forget sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
But that everybody needs to remember. And this is part
of the reason that foreign policy is so much more
difficult than domestic policy, and that is that you want
to have this interaction between our president and you, if
you're the other president. Everybody needs to understand that both sides.
In addition to having the international thing they need to
sort out, they have domestic policies they need to sort out.

(01:25:19):
They have domestic concerns that they need to be aware of. Right,
So Donald Trump and JD. Vance are every bid is
concerned with American voters and MAGA and fundraising and all
this stuff, as they are with the war in Ukraine.
And Zelensky also has concerned for how people in Ukraine
are thinking about him, So he can't just do anything

(01:25:42):
that Trump and Vance tell him to do.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
And this is what makes foreign policy so.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
Difficult, because all of these people are balancing in the
back of their minds their domestic constituencies, where what's going
on on the screen at that moment appears to just
be out interactions between the two countries. So Vance said
the stuff he shouldn't have said, but Zelensky gave a

(01:26:09):
terrible answer and then says, well, yeah, it's easy for
you guys to say that you have an ocean and
you're not that worried about war that like I It's
hard to think of a worse answer than that. That's
as bad an answer as Mike Johnston's answer about restaurants,
And so Zelensky says, well, you know, it's easy for

(01:26:31):
you to talk you've got an ocean, so you don't
feel this kind of pressure.

Speaker 12 (01:26:35):
God bless You're not blessed. You don't tell us what
we're gonna feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't
tell us what we're gonna feel. I'm not because you're
in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you're in
no position to dictate what we're gonna feel.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
We're gonna feel very good.

Speaker 10 (01:26:55):
We're gonna feel very good and very strong, will feel influenced.
You're right now, I'm the word at the beginning of
the war, not in a good position.

Speaker 4 (01:27:08):
You don't have the cards right now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Okay, we're gonna have to We're gonna have to do
more of this when we come back. I'm gonna take
a little break. There's so there's so much more to
talk about that was said there. Let me just say,
in response just to those last twenty seconds of President
Trump saying to Zelenski, you know, don't tell us how
we feel, and you don't have the cards right now.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Trump's absolutely right about that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Again, this is stuff that's normally said behind closed doors
rather than in front of the whole world. But as
far as that last thirty seconds went, hard to imagine
a foreign leader doing a worse job than Zelensky did.
And I'm often critical, or it was sometimes critical of

(01:27:56):
Trump and foreign policy and especially Trump and you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
But everything Trump said there was right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Absolutely everything I say again, as I said five minutes ago,
that was absolutely nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
We'll keep going with it. Right after this, keep it
here on.

Speaker 13 (01:28:12):
Kowa for reaction and perspective, we go directly to Ross Kaminski.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Wow, never seen anything like that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
I'll just give you one quick headline here and then
I'm gonna bring Kathy Walker back into the conversation. I'm
seeing in the the Chiron on Fox News right now
that the news conference, which is usually a much bigger
thing where they take lots of questions in front of
one hundred reporters, the Trump' Zelensky news conference has been canceled.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
This is a truly truly shocking thing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
Kathy Walker, who heads our news desk here at KOWA,
you were you were telling me about a picture that
you saw that seems to capture what's going on here.

Speaker 11 (01:28:52):
Okay, so picture this. Everybody's in you know, the Oval office,
and they're watching Trump, Zelenski and Vans devolve into the
heated argument, and a photo of the Ukrainian ambassador with
her head in her hands during the confrontation is now
blowing up on social media. The photo of Aksana Maara

(01:29:13):
Markarova I hope I'm saying that night rightly was shared
by CNN's Caitlin Collins on x It was viewed two
hundred and fifty thousand times as of about fifteen minutes ago. Again,
this happened within the hour. I don't want to overstate this,
but that's pretty incredible for one reporter to share a
photo that has now been viewed that many times. And

(01:29:35):
it's so I think expresses ross what's going on in
the mind of you know, Ukrainian leadership. She has her
head in her hands, and she's the ambassador to the
US for Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):
I'm not surprised, Like I don't have a huge interest
or whatever in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
I don't like Russia, so I want I should lose,
And in that sense, I'm supportive of Ukraine. And as
I was watching that press conference, I would have had
my head my head in my hands too, if I
weren't so flabbergasted by how insane the whole thing was.

Speaker 11 (01:30:13):
And I'm trying to think about the backdrop of how
Zolensky has been treated essentially by the United States since
coming to power. I mean, he's spoken to a joint
session of Congress. I just think about that, and how
rare that is for anyone to get invited to do that.

(01:30:33):
And Zelensky's been that guy, like, have we welcomed him
with open arms until this moment has Does this moment
just represent such an incredible shift in terms of how
the US does foreign policy. I just keep coming back
to that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
Just incredible, it looks like. And I'm just trying to
keep up with this as it's as it's going on.
But I see a headline at the Hill dot Com,
which is one of the you know, major Washington DC
news outlets. Trump ends talks with Zelenski, accuses him of
not being quote ready for peace and and it sounds

(01:31:15):
like Trump is saying, you know, you disrespected us and
uh and and you can go now and come back here.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
I'll read this. Trump said, I don't want advantage, I
want peace.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished
oval office.

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):
He can come back when he's ready for peace. Oh
my gosh, you can.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
I'm not surprised by any of that, by the way,
And I think this picture that you described captures it
captures it perfectly.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
I haven't seen the picture yet, but i'd like to
see that.

Speaker 11 (01:31:46):
Will retweet it, reacts it. Yes, we'll share it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Thank you, Kathy. Wow, I'm just I'm just gonna keep going.
I've never seen anything like that. So, first of all,
we saw the crazy press conference, and I'll share a
little more audio with you from that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
But now at this point, at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
It looks like Trump has dismissed Zelensky like I'm not
talking to you anymore. You can go, you can come
back when you're ready for peace. Uh wow, Wow, that's
as bad a job as I've ever seen a foreign
leader do Zelenski.

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
And again I realized I said.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Before in no uncertain terms that Zelensky was ambushed by
jd Vance who was spouting Putin propaganda. And jd Vance
should be ashamed of himself for what he said and
how he said it. Really it was sickening. But this
is foreign policy, this is foreign affairs, this is life
and death, this is war in peace, and it is

(01:32:51):
Zolensky's job not to get sucked in to jd Vance's
odd pro Soviet positioning. It's Zelenski's job to do what
he needs to do to get the help for his country,
and he utterly failed. He utterly failed that. And I'm

(01:33:14):
not I'm not saying this by by way of saying
that I disliked Zelenski, or anything at all having to
do with my commentary here has nothing to do with
what I think US policy towards Ukraine should be. It
has only to do with the fact that Zelenski could

(01:33:35):
not have done worse in a situation that could have
been the single most important meeting of his life. Now,
at this point, I don't actually know whether the agreement
regarding US getting a share of cash flow from the

(01:33:59):
eventual development of Ukrainian.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
National natural resources. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
Whether that was signed. I haven't seen anything about that.
That doesn't mean it wasn't signed.

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
It might just be.

Speaker 1 (01:34:14):
It might be that it was, and the news is
overwhelmed by this, but I haven't seen anything about it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
If it wasn't signed, then.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Theoretically maybe it was supposed to be signed after this
thing and before the big press conference which has now
been called off. In case you missed it, here's a
little more of the sound from what happened in the
Oval Office today, and again, if you missed it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Before, what happened just before. What I'm gonna play for
you now is JD.

Speaker 1 (01:34:50):
Vance ambush Zelensky with a bunch of essentially putin propaganda.
Zelenski responded by saying, well, yeah, we all have trouble
during war our times, and you know, you guys have
it a little bit easier here because you have an
ocean that keeps you safe, and so you probably don't
feel much of this, to which Trump responded, don't tell
us how we feel.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
Trump was right about that, and it's just blowing up
with us.

Speaker 6 (01:35:18):
You start having right now, you're gambling with millions of
people seeing you're gambling with world War three.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
You're gambling with world War three.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
That, I mean, that's one of the big takeaway lines,
right You're gambling with world War three.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
And I'm not going to debate Trump on that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
We know that Russia has nuclear weapons, we know that
Russia has threatened to use even tactical nuclear weapons. I
don't know if it's going to go down that road,
but I will note that we have not had a
president this vertally anti war h during my lifetime. Donald

(01:36:08):
Trump campaigned explicitly his first time and this time on
getting us out of wars and not getting us into
other wars. The first time was more like getting us
out of wars. This time is, you know, not getting
us into other wars. And I sometimes, you know, slightly
critical of Trump by saying he doesn't have very many

(01:36:30):
actual beliefs. Mostly he's just a populist who blows with
the wind. And it's true, but I think one of
his actual beliefs is that war is really bad and
should be avoided.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
And I agree with him on that belief Let's keep
going a little bit.

Speaker 9 (01:36:50):
And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country,
this country, far more than a lot of people said
they should have.

Speaker 4 (01:37:00):
Have you said thank you once luckier times.

Speaker 8 (01:37:02):
No, you went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition
in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United
States of America and the president who's trying to save
your country.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
Yeah, so I made him.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
I made a mistake earlier when I said that Trump
mentioned that it was Vance that mentioned it, and and uh, again,
my point with that is clearly the Trump administration remembers
that Zelenski went on a campaign appearance I think it
was in October to Pennsylvania kind of sorted to help
Harris and also to help Democratic candidates for office, including

(01:37:40):
a Democrat candidate for Senator in the state of Pennsylvania
who ended up losing too. Is his first name, Dave McCormick,
who is now a Senator from Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
So these guys clearly remember that. And I'm not going
to rehash all of.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
That as far as what a bad decision it was
by Zelenski to go do that, but Van bringing that
up again, bringing it up in public is really really
interesting now apparently.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
So I'm watching I've got television on in the studio here,
and the the suv.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
That has Zelensky, I assume has Zelenski because it has
the Ukrainian flag on the front with an American flag
as well, just right now pulling out of the White House.
So I'm guessing Trump said we're done talking, you can go.
Zelenski got his people together. Zelensky and his people probably

(01:38:33):
had some kind.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
Of rushed meeting or or tried to tried.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
To talk to some American officials, Hey can we please
restart this? You know, and the Americans probably said no,
you can go, and Trump posted on truth social his
you know, his social media platform.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
He said he.

Speaker 1 (01:38:51):
Meaning Zelenski disrespected the United States of America in its
cherished oval office.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
He can come back when he is ready for p
P wow.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
So one of the things that I that I wonder about,
and Dragon and I had the same thought on this.
If that deal regarding the revenue share from development of
natural resources, especially rare earth minerals, if that was not signed,

(01:39:24):
if it was agreed upon in principle but not signed,
willis insane blow up cause Donald Trump to tell his
negotiators to go back and ask for more. It would
not surprise me. Another thing, and I'm not going to

(01:39:48):
spend a lot of time analyzing this is that. But
while that was happening, the stock market went from being
up a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
To being down a little.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
Announced come back to words about flat. But the Dow
lost two or three hundred points and the S and
P lost to half a percent or three quarters of
a percent or something like that. While all that was happening,
the big winner today, by far, the biggest winner.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Is Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
And normally in the recent past you would say, well,
Putin was a winner because of Trump and Trump's odd
fascination with strong men. But today you really can't blame Trump.
You can't blame Vance to a certain degree. But again,
as I said earlier, foreign policy is so complicated because

(01:40:49):
all of these people who are negotiating international issues have
to also keep their home audiences in mind, such as.

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):
If they want to win another election. JD.

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
Vance, by the way, clearly thinking about running for president
in a little less than four years.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
So JD. Vance's commentary there was tailored to the hardcore
MAGA base.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
And putting himself even though it's almost four years in Advance,
in position to be the front runner when running for president.
Because remember, the people who choose the Republican nominee are
a small subset of the people who eventually choose the president.
And so Vance went down the full MAGA road, which

(01:41:41):
I have to say I don't like on this particular issue.
I think MAGA has lost their way and has come
to look at or talk about Russia as if they're
there are allies or the good guys, and they're not.
And I find it very disappointing that Republicans seem to

(01:42:03):
have forgotten who.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):
The enemy is. But I'm gonna come back.

Speaker 1 (01:42:06):
To the main point for today, and the main point
for today is Vladimir Zelenski needs a deal.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
He needs the.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
Support of the United States of America more than more
than any leader has needed the United States since World
War Two. That's not hyperbole. And so yes, he gets
this outrageous commentary and questioning in Soviet propaganda from JD.

Speaker 2 (01:42:37):
Vans. But instead of doing what a leader should do
and pivoting.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
And saying, yeah, we all have trouble, and I'm sure
there's some things even you know, there's some things I
could do better. Wartime is difficult on everybody, but I
really look forward to enhancing and extending my partnership with
the United States of America and doing this deal whereby
American taxpayers can get back some of what we are

(01:43:04):
so grateful that you have spent to help us. Again,
a high school student in model un would have known
to say that, and instead Zelensky said, it's easy for you, guys,
You've got an ocean protecting you and say you probably
don't feel very much. Are you kidding me? Are you

(01:43:28):
kidding me? Early in this war, I thought of Zelenski
as maybe not a great leader, but a guy who
did an incredible job given his really lack of credentials
and experience to be a wartime leader. He's a television
comedian actor, and he was incredible, and a lot of

(01:43:50):
people were calling him Ukraine's Churchill early in the war,
and I kind of got that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
And then things get a little trickier during the war
and he does some things that some.

Speaker 1 (01:44:00):
People don't like, and I get that too, but I
never expected him to be as much of a drop
the ball the way that he did today. He really
let down his country today. Im and say one other thing,
and I'm gonna bring Mandy in. My dad texted me
when you know, we're all watching this scene on TV

(01:44:23):
where the suv carrying Zelensky was waiting there. Now it's
left the White House and my dad, my dad texted
me to say, did you notice that the suv Zelenski
is being driven around in as a Chevy? Now, Look,
I love Chevy. I talk about John always Chevrolet all
the time, but I don't you know, I'm gonna be

(01:44:47):
honest about it. It does feel like a bit of
a diss to a foreign leader to put him in
a Chevy rather than you know, a Cadillac, like probably
most other leaders or an our leader get driven around
in the whole thing could not have gone worse for Zelenski,
could not have gone better for Putin. And I think

(01:45:10):
it's a neutral for Trump in Vance or maybe among
the Republican base or among the hardcore mega base, it's
a win for Trump in Dvance and so Zelenski gave
a win to Maga and a win to Putin.

Speaker 2 (01:45:26):
By doing such a bad job. Hi May Hello.

Speaker 13 (01:45:30):
First of all, I have a slightly different view on
what just occurred in that Previously, when where there would
be negotiations behind closed doors, after the negotiations were over,
certain things would be leaked to certain media outlets that
they knew would be favorable to whatever they were trying
to leak. So as the American public, we would be
left trying to sort out from these various leaks that

(01:45:52):
had come out of the negotiations about what actually happened.
So the fact all this happened right boom, right there,
we now know there's no quest question. We can all
decide for ourselves what just happened. And I got to
tell you, if Donald Trump and JD. Vance and don't
think for a second that jd Vance did not do
that because Donald Trump said, you're the heavy, You're the heavy,

(01:46:14):
You're the bad top in this show, and you're gonna
come out and you're gonna come out swinging. Zero percent
chance Jade Vance does that without Donald Trump's permission ahead
of time.

Speaker 11 (01:46:24):
Zero percent chance.

Speaker 2 (01:46:25):
So let's be clear about that.

Speaker 13 (01:46:26):
If they're trying to show Zelensky's unseiousness in any way,
shape or form, what a perfect way to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:34):
They set him up. He took the vight. He made
himself look really, really terrible.

Speaker 13 (01:46:41):
So if you're trying to convince, and it could, it
could in the White House, there could be two things happening.

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
I'm not comfortable with.

Speaker 11 (01:46:48):
The Putin warm up, right.

Speaker 2 (01:46:49):
I don't like that.

Speaker 13 (01:46:50):
I don't think any Americans should like Donald Trump sucking
up to Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
I don't like it.

Speaker 13 (01:46:55):
I've always thought it was a strategic thing to try
and yield a deal, a deal because I think you're
absolutely right that Donald Trump is an anti war president,
fully fully anti war president. He does not think war
is useful in any situation, right, So I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:47:13):
Not comfortable with that.

Speaker 13 (01:47:14):
But if you're trying to knock the feet out from
under the Democrats who are pros Lensky pros Lensky pros Lensky.

Speaker 1 (01:47:21):
Z Lensky pretty much just did that for you, right, Yeah,
I don't know, Yes, I don't know that that's a
smart thing to do, because this is about this is
about more than democrats in America, right, I mean, there's
there's a lot going on here, and if America lets
Ukraine lose to Russia, whatever lose means, that's an unbelievable

(01:47:42):
message to China regarding their aspirations.

Speaker 3 (01:47:45):
TI.

Speaker 2 (01:47:46):
Yeah, and to me, that's the biggest thing of all
of this.

Speaker 13 (01:47:50):
But I just I do think do you think that
Trump is sucking up to Putin in part so he
can peel Putin away from their alliance with China, which
has been growing over the past ten years. Do you
think is there a possibility because we all know the
Trump White House used China as a larger geopolitical problem
right now, they've been very open about that, and right

(01:48:10):
now you've got China cuddling up to Russia providing their
staunch support allegedly, but they haven't actually done anything through
the Ukraine. More so, if you're trying to peel Putin
away from China, the best way to do that is
to indicate to Russia that you're not exactly enamored with
his foe right now, which is Voldemort Violinskisky.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
So I can see that mindset, in particular coming from
JD Vance, who has said some things about that in
the past, trying to split Russia right and China. But
I also think that if if anybody there thinks that
that's actually going to happen, they're morns.

Speaker 2 (01:48:43):
I don't think that. I think Vladimir way.

Speaker 13 (01:48:45):
I think Vladimir Putin is a political expedient guy. He
doesn't have loyalty, as is the leader of China, as
is the leader of the United States right now, right.

Speaker 2 (01:48:54):
Okay, let's be real.

Speaker 13 (01:48:55):
This is the first time I can remember having a
president that is honest about political experience.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
It's in the interest of the United States regardless. I mean,
it would be great to split Russia and China, but
it's in the interest of the United States for Russia
while it's under this leadership.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
To be weakened, and we're not doing that.

Speaker 13 (01:49:13):
And but here's the thing where I was like, I
have a story on the blog today, Europe has now bought,
still under all the sanctions, they purchased more Russian oil
and gas still during the war than they've provided aid
to Ukraine. So Europe is funding both sides of the war. Sure,
So what are we supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (01:49:30):
Right?

Speaker 13 (01:49:30):
I mean, we have exerted our power in the sense
that we have issued, you know, the big things that
we're supposed to destroy their economy. But the reality is
Europe is still dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
And again, my commentary today and with you right now
isn't about what our policy should be. It's what an
unbelievable failure that was of Volodimir Zelensky and the most
important meeting of his life.

Speaker 11 (01:49:51):
Yep, I do not disagree with you about that at
all at all.

Speaker 1 (01:49:55):
You I assume you're gonna be talking about this. You
got other stuff you want to mention.

Speaker 13 (01:49:59):
No, we got a lot of stuff on the blog today.
Lading a visit from the Freddy Jones band, which I'm
kind of excited about because I have the funniest story
for these rock stars ever that I got this morning
via text message that I did.

Speaker 11 (01:50:09):
Not know about their band.

Speaker 13 (01:50:11):
But I also I am going to talk to Hadley
Manning Hadley Manning Heath from Steamboat about a tweet that
I put up about Brittany Paterson trying to d C
too and man, my right wing followers on Twitter let
me down hard. And here I thought we were the
Family of Value, you know, family values party. Uh huh, boy, howdy,

(01:50:32):
We're going to talk to Hadley Manning Heath about that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:33):
All right. Well, there's a lot of stuff going on
where I don't know. It feels like that party that
I'm not a member of is losing whatever values it
used to have.

Speaker 2 (01:50:42):
Everybody, have a wonderful weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:50:44):
Stick around for Mandy's fabulous and very important show today.

Speaker 3 (01:50:49):
And let's not.

Speaker 11 (01:50:50):
Oversel with with important.

Speaker 1 (01:50:51):
Let's just back that up, all right, her slightly important
show today.

Speaker 2 (01:50:56):
I'll talk to you Monday.