Speaker 1: I don't want to give the OSCARS more cultural significance
Speaker 1: than it deserves. It's basically at this point because none
Speaker 1: of the movies that they're awarding, pretty much none of
Speaker 1: them are movies that anyone has seen. Like it's all
Speaker 1: these little, like kind of artsy flartzy films that were
Speaker 1: in the theaters for like five minutes and then zoop,
Speaker 1: they're out. And but but they're you know, presented at
Speaker 1: you know, like the con Film Festival and all these
Speaker 1: like fancy schmancy things. So, I mean, the reason why
Speaker 1: the OSCARS was in the old days a significant thing
Speaker 1: is because we were making and appreciating movies that had
Speaker 1: broad cultural appeal. Okay, you would have years where it was,
Speaker 1: you know, huge movies going up against you, Pulp Fiction
Speaker 1: and Forest Gump and Shawshank Redemption all up against each
Speaker 1: other at the same time, all three of them sort
Speaker 1: of classic, incredibly different, classic movies that people still remember
Speaker 1: and watch and appreciate today. No one's gonna remember any
Speaker 1: of these movies. Okay, nobody's gonna give a crap about Anora.
Speaker 1: There's one movie about prostitutes. There's another movie about a
Speaker 1: transgend with a transgender biological male portraying a woman who
Speaker 1: was up for Best Actress. Anyway, it was this. I
Speaker 1: think the Oscars could not make itself more irrelevant if
Speaker 1: it tried, But as a snapshot of what liberals are
Speaker 1: doing right now, there are a few things going through
Speaker 1: puberty on the air, a few things that I thought
Speaker 1: were kind of interest just reading about it after the fact.
Speaker 1: God knows, I did not watch the thing, all right,
Speaker 1: So what are some of these interesting things? First, it
Speaker 1: seems as though even Hollywood is like, all right, let's
Speaker 1: tamper down on the trans stuff just a little bit.
Speaker 1: They had nominated a biological male who is presenting as
Speaker 1: a woman for the Best Female Actor award. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is another weird liberal convention. Why do they hate that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of you have noticed this,
Speaker 1: but within the Oscars, like they don't say best actress
Speaker 1: anymore now it's best female actor. Why female actor is
Speaker 1: a word that has replaced actress And I don't really understand.
Speaker 1: And why is actress sexist? I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just in English, we have certain words that we
Speaker 1: can change them. The ending of it too, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a convention that's coming from Latin. In Latin
Speaker 1: third declension, nouns very often would end in octor or actrix,
Speaker 1: depending on if it's a male versus a female. And
Speaker 1: when that those words got englishized or stayed the same,
Speaker 1: but ix got changed, I X got changed to ess.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: temptor versus temptress or whatever. A lot of words changed
Speaker 1: like that. And we used to say actress all the time,
Speaker 1: but all of a sudden, it was like within the
Speaker 1: last like ten years that changed. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I guess someone decided it was sexist to call female
Speaker 1: actors actresses. Why do you think the work they're doing
Speaker 1: is inherently of a different category than the work that
Speaker 1: male actors engage in. I mean, you're the guys who
Speaker 1: have the categories that the Oscars for Best Male Actor,
Speaker 1: Best Female Actor. I mean you could just put them
Speaker 1: all in one pot, you know, best actor period, just
Speaker 1: pick between men and women for that distinction. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not the one who set the rules for the Oscars,
Speaker 1: but so I don't know. Yeah, we're going to keep
Speaker 1: the category separate on the basis of sex. But you're
Speaker 1: a sexist if you say actress, this word that I
Speaker 1: don't know, we've had and used within English for a
Speaker 1: really long time. Anyway, it's weird the sort of pathologies
Speaker 1: and hang ups that liberals have, all right, But basically,
Speaker 1: there was an opportunity the Oscars had to say that
Speaker 1: a biological man is winning Best Female Actor, and they
Speaker 1: didn't do it. And I don't know if that is
Speaker 1: that a deliberate decision on the part of the Academy
Speaker 1: that like, hey, clearly the trans thing is not very
Speaker 1: popular right now, We're gonna make ourselves look even more
Speaker 1: ridiculous to an enormous swath of the country if we
Speaker 1: make a biological man the Best Female Actor award recipient.
Speaker 1: Maybe we shouldn't go down this path now, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Academy is not a single unifical voice.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a large number of people all voting
Speaker 1: for something. So instead they give the award to this
Speaker 1: woman who was in this movie that I guess in
Speaker 1: some way was detailing the lives of prostitutes, and the
Speaker 1: woman who wins Best Actress. She spends her acceptance speech
Speaker 1: talking about her solidarity with the sex worker community. Now,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to talk about. So much
Speaker 1: of left wing activism is focused around looking at some
Speaker 1: group that's engaged in some kind of practice the left favors.
Speaker 1: And I see this a lot with the abortion issue.
Speaker 1: There's the abortion issue, there's transgender stuff, and there's also
Speaker 1: there's also this push viewing this with sex workers, where
Speaker 1: you take the exceptional thirty twenty five percent maybe less
Speaker 1: than that, the exceptional five percent maybe, and ignore the
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of cases to act as though the positive
Speaker 1: attitudes that the five percent or the twenty percent have
Speaker 1: with something is the norm and that it outweighs the
Speaker 1: other seventy five to eighty percent. We know that, for example,
Speaker 1: like I talk about this in the abortion context, we
Speaker 1: know that seventy percent of women who have abortions feel
Speaker 1: like they have no other choice. They feel coerced into
Speaker 1: having an abortion because of their economic and other economic
Speaker 1: social pressure from a boyfriend, pressure from family members, in
Speaker 1: some cases outright coercion. They feel coerced into having an
Speaker 1: abortion by their situation. It's about seventy percent of women.
Speaker 1: But the left promotes abortion with you know, smiling accomplished
Speaker 1: young women. Oh, I just need to you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just not ready here. I got to finish my master's degree.
Speaker 1: The left focuses on the thirty percent of women who
Speaker 1: are like, yes, this is my choice and my option,
Speaker 1: and this is I'm exercising the full throes of freedom
Speaker 1: right now. They focus on that as if that's typical,
Speaker 1: and it's not. What abortion is for the most part
Speaker 1: in America today is people living in bad circumstances, the
Speaker 1: result of the breakdown of the American family, the result
Speaker 1: of the breakdown with healthcare provision through programs like medical
Speaker 1: et cetera, the breakdown with not having a lot of
Speaker 1: not having enough money because you're getting pregnant at a
Speaker 1: time when you're not stable and you're not ready. The
Speaker 1: proliferation of contraception, which I think gives people a false
Speaker 1: sense of security that they can engage in sexually risky
Speaker 1: behavior with people they're not committed to, much like with abortions,
Speaker 1: so with sex workers. It's a bizarre little pet cause
Speaker 1: that the Left has. They don't trumpet it too much
Speaker 1: because if you really try to make a big deal
Speaker 1: of it on the national stage, people will be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you mean like prostitution. Yeah, that's what they mean prostitution.
Speaker 1: So what the left does is they'll focus on the
Speaker 1: five percent maybe of prostitutes who are happy doing what
Speaker 1: they do, are successful selling whatever on OnlyFans are successful
Speaker 1: and happy. They'll find some situation of prostitutes in some
Speaker 1: enlightened European country that allows legal prostitutions, say see in
Speaker 1: the United States, where punitively punishing women for engaging in
Speaker 1: sex work and sex work is real work, ignoring the
Speaker 1: ninety percent whatever it is, of women involved in the
Speaker 1: sex trade who are desperate to get out, who are
Speaker 1: only doing it out of enormous economic or social duress,
Speaker 1: the enormous percentage of women who have substance abuse problems
Speaker 1: within the sex trade, and let's not forget the enormous
Speaker 1: percentage of women who are victims of sexual assault or
Speaker 1: sex trafficking who work within the sex trade. The overwhelming majority,
Speaker 1: and with no acknowledgment that inherently with quote sex work.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of quote work that within one nano
Speaker 1: second can go from ooh, consensual activity to rape like
Speaker 1: in a nanosecond, literally in a second. So I don't
Speaker 1: know where this came from. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: where this attitude came from. It's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: look where, you know, just you know, six seven years
Speaker 1: ago was when we had the me too movement start
Speaker 1: and all these women in Hollywood showed up to the
Speaker 1: Oscars wearing black, you know, insolidarity with women who've been
Speaker 1: me tooed. And now we're talking about how wonderful sex
Speaker 1: work is. Do they understand how totally out of touch?
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, it would have been more out of
Speaker 1: touch if they had made an actual biological male the
Speaker 1: if they had made an actual biological male the winner
Speaker 1: of the Best Female Actress category, that would have just
Speaker 1: ramped it into overdrive. But maybe it shows even further
Speaker 1: their irrelevance that they choose to honor an award, give
Speaker 1: a bunch of awards to this movie that's apparently about
Speaker 1: sex work and about how wonderful it is. That that's
Speaker 1: front and center, something that I think has like no
Speaker 1: purchase with the American public. You know what it does
Speaker 1: actually have purchased with the American public. That does actually
Speaker 1: rev a lot of engines as far as people caring
Speaker 1: about it politically, willing to go to the polls for it,
Speaker 1: motivating even bipartisan support for it in a state like
Speaker 1: California is the evil of sex trafficking. Let's not forget.
Speaker 1: It was about two years years ago that Shannon Grove,
Speaker 1: are my state senator who has an enormous state Senate
Speaker 1: district that includes Clovis. Shannon Grove introduced a bill to
Speaker 1: classify sex trafficking of a minor as a quote serious
Speaker 1: felony under California law. Basically, there's this kind of many
Speaker 1: distinction in California law between there's a normal you know,
Speaker 1: there's the normal misdemeanor felony distinction. Misdemeanors is a crime
Speaker 1: punishable by less than a year in jail. Felony is
Speaker 1: a crime punishable by more than a year in jail.
Speaker 1: And then there's the sort of subcategory called serious felonies
Speaker 1: in California law. And basically it can mean a lot
Speaker 1: of different things, but one of the things that refers
Speaker 1: to is a crime, a felony that is subject to
Speaker 1: being one of your three strikes under California's three strikes law.
Speaker 1: Sex trafficking of a minor was not so classified Aliforny
Speaker 1: law wasn't deemed a serious felony, so Shannon Grove said, hey,
Speaker 1: I think few things more evil than sex trafficking a minor.
Speaker 1: I think it should be classified as a serious felony.
Speaker 1: And what happened, well, at first, Reginald Joanes Sawyer from
Speaker 1: the California State Assembly, the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Reginald
Speaker 1: Joones Sawyer usc grad by the way, buried the bill embarrassingly, shockingly,
Speaker 1: disgracefully buried the bill in committee after it had passed
Speaker 1: through all the committees in the Senate because he just
Speaker 1: basically takes the position with public safety, I'm not beefing
Speaker 1: up any criminal law enforcement at all. African Americans are
Speaker 1: disproportionately arrested, convicted, whatever, so therefore I'm just not I'm
Speaker 1: not going to pass anything that increases criminal penalties, period.
Speaker 1: And there was so much support for Grove and so
Speaker 1: much anger at what Joan Sawyer had done that Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom himself had to step in to tell Reginald Joon Sawyer, hey,
Speaker 1: you idiot, you're resurrecting this bill. You're gonna vote for
Speaker 1: this bill. All the Democrats are going to vote for
Speaker 1: this stupid bill. Gavin Newsom came in to salvage the thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's how much the American people don't like sex trafficking.
Speaker 1: So congratulations to the Oscars. I mean, they tried to
Speaker 1: pull people in with Conan O'Brien as the host, although
Speaker 1: I mean, I like Conan O'Brien, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that most Americans find Conan all that funny. You know.
Speaker 1: That's why he didn't get the Tonight Show. Ultimately, seemingly,
Speaker 1: or at least in the judgment of NBC. I mean,
Speaker 1: they tried to reel people in with Conan O'Brien. Conan
Speaker 1: O'Brien's pretty darn funny, but it didn't quite work. Didn't
Speaker 1: quite work because none of the movies have any sort
Speaker 1: of significance. All right, when we return, let me go
Speaker 1: through a couple of Oscars years and read you the
Speaker 1: names of the films nominated and all compare it against
Speaker 1: the names of the films nominated this year. That's next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: just how irrelevant the Oscars have become by let me
Speaker 1: read the list of movies nominated and see if you
Speaker 1: recognize like any of them. Okay, so first the movie
Speaker 1: that actually won Best Picture, Anora. I think we all
Speaker 1: ignored it. I didn't even know. I never heard of
Speaker 1: this movie until like yesterday, The Brutalist. No idea. Is
Speaker 1: it about architecture? A complete unknown? Okay, I think I
Speaker 1: know that one. That's the biopic about Bob Dylan with
Speaker 1: Timothy shah Alime didn't watch it. Conclave that's the ridiculous
Speaker 1: movie about that not too many of you probably saw about.
Speaker 1: Like a pope has died and it's about the cardinals
Speaker 1: going into the conclave to elect a new pope and
Speaker 1: they wind up electing a biological woman to be pope.
Speaker 1: That's that's the big twist at the end, which is
Speaker 1: the stupidest story I've ever heard in my life. Dune
Speaker 1: part two. Okay, I heard about that that a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Actually that's the one movie in this list. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's two movies in this list that a lot of
Speaker 1: people actually saw. Okay, Amelia Perez. That's the movie with
Speaker 1: the guy, the biological male pretending to be a woman.
Speaker 1: That's Amelia Perez. And that biological man was nominated for
Speaker 1: Best Female Actor. So that's Amelia Perez. No idea what
Speaker 1: it's about. I'm still here. Well, that's a name of
Speaker 1: a movie. I have no idea what it is is about.
Speaker 1: I'm not here for it. Nickel Boys, no idea, the Substance,
Speaker 1: never heard of it? And Wicked, Okay, I heard of that.
Speaker 1: That's again, there were two movies that were actually popular
Speaker 1: that were within the Best Picture nominating thing. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I had heard of four of these movies. Conclave for
Speaker 1: Being Stupid, Complete Unknown, Wicked, and Dune Part two. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'd only heard of four of the ten. Now,
Speaker 1: let me compare that against nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. Listen to some of the movies that
Speaker 1: were being nominated back then. In nineteen ninety four, the
Speaker 1: Shawshank Redemption, Fantastic Movie Quiz Show, Don't know too much
Speaker 1: about that one, pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction was like one
Speaker 1: of the most influential movies ever. Four Weddings in a Funeral,
Speaker 1: Don't know too much about it. Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump
Speaker 1: was the one that actually won. Okay, these are heavy hitters,
Speaker 1: like and they only had five nominees back then. Three
Speaker 1: of the five are like all time legendary movies. Let's
Speaker 1: go to nineteen ninety five, Sense and sensibility. Good movie Babe,
Speaker 1: the live action adaptation of Babe Apollo thirteen. Are you
Speaker 1: freaking kidding me? If you want to be proud to
Speaker 1: be an American? Go watch Apollo thirteen. Go on the
Speaker 1: fourth of July. Pop in Apollo thirteen. Look at these
Speaker 1: nerds with their button up, short sleeve dress shirts and big,
Speaker 1: thick rimmed glasses. All these engineers who probably had served
Speaker 1: in World War Two or in the Korea, who are
Speaker 1: figuring out how to get a space shuttle with a
Speaker 1: bunch of doomed astronauts in it back to Earth safely.
Speaker 1: You're never going to be prouder to be a freaking American.
Speaker 1: It's the coolest freaking movie ever. And then, oh sorry,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention the Best Picture winner from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, Braveheart, Freaking Brave Heart. So again, like three
Speaker 1: or four of the nineteen ninety five nominees heavy hitters
Speaker 1: remembered forever the Best Picture nominee, and the Oscars used
Speaker 1: to mean something, but now the I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of freaking morons from the Academy Award. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the problem is. I mean, look, I'm a
Speaker 1: Johnny cum lately commenting on this. I'm not some grand
Speaker 1: film critic or anything like that, but like it used
Speaker 1: to be that they could make movies that were like
Speaker 1: artistically significant but also could generate mass audiences. Like nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six You Got Jerry Maguire and Fargo were both nominated.
Speaker 1: Those are great movies. Nineteen ninety seven La Confidential, great movie,
Speaker 1: Goodwill Hunting, great movie, The Full Monty I don't know
Speaker 1: much about as good as it gets. Oh that's Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 1: And then Titanic Okay, okay, like see the best picture.
Speaker 1: I don't know why the OSCARS have chosen to relegate
Speaker 1: themselves to just be basically being like a trade show,
Speaker 1: a trades awards show for a bunch of It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, It's like if the American Librarians Association
Speaker 1: had a Best New Novels of the Year award and
Speaker 1: it was a bunch of novels that nobody had read.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's effectively what the OSCARS is, and yet
Speaker 1: we spend as much ink and time and energy talking
Speaker 1: about it as if it's still you know, trying to
Speaker 1: decide between pulp fiction Forrest Gump and Shawshank Redemption. When
Speaker 1: we return, I talk about the Ukraine thing and how
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time finding much to criticize Donald
Speaker 1: Trump about. That's next down the John Girardi Show. So
Speaker 1: all the Ukraine stuff broke on Friday, kind of after
Speaker 1: I had done my show, which was great, so I
Speaker 1: didn't get to talk about it much on Friday. I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about it right now now. I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid to criticize Trump when he needs to be criticized
Speaker 1: on social conservative stuff and abortion related stuff. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I call balls and strikes. I've been very happy with
Speaker 1: a lot of Trump things, have been very critical of
Speaker 1: a lot of other Trump things. The IVF push by Trump,
Speaker 1: I think is really concerning ethically from a lot of perspectives,
Speaker 1: you know, about what are we doing with all the
Speaker 1: excess embryos that are being created via IVF? Are we
Speaker 1: going to result in more embryos created that way if
Speaker 1: Trump keeps pushing IVF the way he says he wants,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So I'm I'm willing to call balls and
Speaker 1: strikes with Trump, and I'm willing to call balls and
Speaker 1: strikes more generally with Trump administration. Stuff. I think the
Speaker 1: whole fiasco last week with the Epstein documents where they
Speaker 1: made this big deal there, oh, we got all the
Speaker 1: Epstein documents and we're gonna release them, and then they
Speaker 1: release them and it's all a bunch of stuff everybody
Speaker 1: already knew about. And then Pam Bondi's sort of trying
Speaker 1: to do a cya and so oh, I heard there's
Speaker 1: a bunch more documents to the New York Field Office
Speaker 1: of the FBI, and they didn't hand it over to me. Like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. Maybe Pam Bondi's trying to do a
Speaker 1: big cya here because you knows, she didn't release anything interesting.
Speaker 1: And also like maybe there are more documents that she
Speaker 1: wasn't given. But like, I don't know, if this guy's
Speaker 1: like a criminal genius mastermind, he probably doesn't have like
Speaker 1: a list of guys who engaged in prostitution on my island,
Speaker 1: Guys that I caught in the act having sex with
Speaker 1: underage prostitutes on my island. Here's the list. Dear future
Speaker 1: FBI investigators, I have left you a helpful list for
Speaker 1: my future criminal prosecution. Signed Jeffrey Epstein. I think I
Speaker 1: keep calling him David Epstein. Do I call him David Epstein?
Speaker 1: That must be like a base that like a there's
Speaker 1: some other celebrity named David Epstein, And every time I
Speaker 1: think about Jeffrey Epstein, I always want to call him
Speaker 1: David Epstein. Anyway, Yeah, David Epstein was is a sports
Speaker 1: journalist of some kind, all right now. So I'm willing
Speaker 1: to call balls and strikes with the Trump administration, and
Speaker 1: I'm willing also to call balls and strikes when it
Speaker 1: comes to foreign policy stuff in the Trump administration. I
Speaker 1: don't think the Gaza solution that Trump and that Trump
Speaker 1: sort of trumpeted makes a lot of sense. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't know that anything makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense with Gaza, and I think Trump sort
Speaker 1: of introduces crazy, hyperbolic ideas to sort of get people
Speaker 1: to concede to other better kinds of solutions. I think
Speaker 1: you can sort of see that with the Gaza thing.
Speaker 1: The immediate turn from what you can't do that to
Speaker 1: Gaza that would be insane. Okay, well, you guys come
Speaker 1: up with a better solution, then all you Middle Eastern countries,
Speaker 1: why don't you handle your problems in the Middle East
Speaker 1: all these Arab countries around Palestine that want to cry
Speaker 1: big alligator tears for the plight of the Palestinian people
Speaker 1: and then don't lift a finger to freaking help them. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Egyptians who were like, you know, when Israel was
Speaker 1: about to go into Gaza and Egypt, which so Egypt
Speaker 1: borders the Gaza Strip. Gaza Strip is sort of the
Speaker 1: southwest corner of Israeli territory and it borders Egypt and
Speaker 1: Egypt basically said when the Israelis were starting they're bombing, Nope,
Speaker 1: we're taking zero Gosen refugees. Sorry, not taking them. Jordan,
Speaker 1: which is near the West Bank, is not. We don't
Speaker 1: want any of these palace dates. No, we don't want
Speaker 1: to give them a home. But you, Israel, you're a
Speaker 1: bunch of bad guys. So Trump's I think trying to
Speaker 1: sort of be like, hey, you don't like my idea
Speaker 1: of clearing all the Gosins out of Gaza and rebuilding
Speaker 1: the whole thing with a bunch of beach friend You
Speaker 1: don't like that idea, all right, you guys come up
Speaker 1: with an idea, you guys freaking fix it, all right. So,
Speaker 1: and I'm critical of American foreign policy. Why we keep
Speaker 1: providing military funding for Israel. I don't know why we
Speaker 1: necessarily need to do that. I don't mind Israel engaging
Speaker 1: in military defense, although I think they're conduct within wartime
Speaker 1: questions that are very thorny in Israel's case because of
Speaker 1: the way that Hamas operates. Anyway, I'm not basically just
Speaker 1: trying to give you the reviso. I'm not an unqualified
Speaker 1: Trump cheerleader in almost any field. Maybe nobody really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think all of us have. There are
Speaker 1: certainly some Trump diehards who never think that Trump has
Speaker 1: ever sneezed incorrectly, But I think all of us have
Speaker 1: enough of an independent brain in our head to be
Speaker 1: able to judge and discern between did Trump do this
Speaker 1: right or did he do that wrong? All that to say,
Speaker 1: I fail to see a single thing so far Trump
Speaker 1: is done wrong with regards to Russia, Ukraine, et cetera,
Speaker 1: including the blow up on Friday where all the people
Speaker 1: who actually watched the full fifty minute sit down press
Speaker 1: conference in the Oval Office between Trump Advance on one
Speaker 1: side and Zelensky on the other agreed that it was
Speaker 1: Zelenski who everything was super cordial and fine for the
Speaker 1: first forty minutes, and then Zelensky kind of blew it up,
Speaker 1: and Zolensky is wanting more security guarantees than we are
Speaker 1: willing to give. And Zelensky's mad because he's like, if
Speaker 1: you have a peace agreement with Putin, he'll break it.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well, we understand that Putin's a bad actor.
Speaker 1: That's why we're gonna do this mineral rights deal. It'll
Speaker 1: commit the United States to being in there. You know,
Speaker 1: our national interests will now be implicated, which will deter
Speaker 1: Russia from invading. But you know what, there's a certain
Speaker 1: limit to what America is going to do. Okay, We're
Speaker 1: we're maybe not gonna put troops on the ground, our
Speaker 1: own troops on the ground, maybe a sort of piece
Speaker 1: king force to sort of deter any future activity. But
Speaker 1: the kinds of security guarantees Zelensky wants are a little
Speaker 1: bit more than we want to give. And to blow
Speaker 1: it up in public like that, like Zelensky did, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why Trump and Vance are at fault for saying,
Speaker 1: what the heck are you doing? We had a whole
Speaker 1: plan here for what this day was gonna look like
Speaker 1: we were gonna have this nice little press conference in
Speaker 1: front of the press for about forty minutes, then we
Speaker 1: were gonna have a lunch, then we were gonna go
Speaker 1: have a private meeting where we sign stuff. And certainly
Speaker 1: if Zelensky wants to be a little more forceful in
Speaker 1: private and discuss stuff more in private, but clearly Zelenski's
Speaker 1: trying to leverage things publicly. Now Zelenski wants to do that, fine,
Speaker 1: but understand that. You know, you're not dealing with Joe
Speaker 1: Biden anymore. You're dealing with Donald Trump. And Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has an independent brain in his head, and he's not
Speaker 1: gonna roll over for you trying to get all the
Speaker 1: European countries to rally behind Oh how terrible Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give a crap about that. Do you want
Speaker 1: this mineral rights deal or not? Do you want America
Speaker 1: to have some kind of economic investment in Ukraine that
Speaker 1: provides you with security guarantees or don't you? And Trump's
Speaker 1: not gonna sort of budge or be pushed around when
Speaker 1: it comes to these kinds of negotiations. So I guess
Speaker 1: I fail to see anything wrong with what Trump's doing,
Speaker 1: and just more broadly with regards to Ukraine. Okay, the
Speaker 1: idea that people are criticizing Trump for pursuing a piece
Speaker 1: deal with Putin. Look, what is the end goal for
Speaker 1: the more belkos pro Ukraine people. Is the end goal
Speaker 1: actually not one Russian boot on one piece of Ukrainian soil,
Speaker 1: Because if that's the goal, that's insane. Okay. I've looked
Speaker 1: at the mass of where the battle lines are. They
Speaker 1: haven't moved in two years. Okay, Russia conquered a lot
Speaker 1: of territory at the very beginning. The Ukrainians pushed them
Speaker 1: out of a good chunk of territory, particularly in the north,
Speaker 1: and the battle lines of you know, Ukrainian territory that
Speaker 1: Russia's in control in where the battle lines are between
Speaker 1: Russian and Ukrainian control, they haven't really moved in two years.
Speaker 1: Ukraine doesn't have the means to propel another big offensive.
Speaker 1: Russia just simply has more men. America has already poured
Speaker 1: two hundred billion dollars worth of funding into this thing.
Speaker 1: How much are we expected to pour in a trillion?
Speaker 1: And frankly, I don't know that the Ukrainians have the
Speaker 1: man power to really ultimately push the Russians back. So
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? Are you going to accept
Speaker 1: the reality that it's unlikely that Russia is gonna get
Speaker 1: completely kicked out of Ukraine and you engage in negotiations
Speaker 1: with some territorial concessions. How can you give concessions to
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin? He's evil. It doesn't mean you think he's
Speaker 1: a good guy. It means you're acknowledging the reality of
Speaker 1: what's happened. This big, strong neighbor invaded a small weak neighbor,
Speaker 1: took a bunch of its land. It was unfair and
Speaker 1: it was unjust, and it was wrong. And Vladimir Putin's
Speaker 1: a very bad guy, and he's an evil guy. The
Speaker 1: war wasn't justified. But what else do you want? Do
Speaker 1: you just want the war to continue indefinitely forever. Hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people, I mean, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what the casualty numbers are, but it's tens of thousands
Speaker 1: at least of people have died in this war. Where
Speaker 1: and right now, all we're fighting over is it's like
Speaker 1: World War One almost where we're fighting over moving the trenches,
Speaker 1: you know, a mile one way or a mile another way.
Speaker 1: And Trump. Trump is like the only guy on the
Speaker 1: international stage seemingly who's acknowledging this is a terrible thing.
Speaker 1: All these people dying like we should stop this. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it might require some concessions to Putin, and yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: it also requires not bad mouth and Putin left, right
Speaker 1: and center. I mean, you know, if you're trying to, hey,
Speaker 1: let's try and work out a peace deal here. We
Speaker 1: don't agree with what you did, but this is bad
Speaker 1: for the world, this is bad for Ukraine. Let's try
Speaker 1: and stop this, Let's end this. Like, you can't do
Speaker 1: that if you're also saying you're an absolute mon certainly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I don't think it's sacrificing
Speaker 1: American moral clarity to not say that to Putin when
Speaker 1: we're actively arming the Ukrainians and giving them weapons to
Speaker 1: fight an ongoing war right now, which Trump is still doing.
Speaker 1: So I guess I just find it very hard to
Speaker 1: understand what exactly Trump has done that's wrong here. I
Speaker 1: don't want this war to continue. The only way that
Speaker 1: actual quote victory can be achieved if by victory you
Speaker 1: mean again, not one Russian boot on one piece of
Speaker 1: Ukrainian soul. The only way that's gonna happen is if
Speaker 1: American troops show up. And as someone who has a
Speaker 1: little brother who's an officer in the United States Army,
Speaker 1: let me just say, I don't want him to go
Speaker 1: over there. I don't want him to fight a war
Speaker 1: for the donbas I don't want him to fight a
Speaker 1: war for the sake of vindicating crimea. I just don't
Speaker 1: want it. I don't see how that is really clearly
Speaker 1: critically in the American national interest, and I much favor
Speaker 1: the approach, much more favor the approach of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: trying to get a piece deal. When we return, I
Speaker 1: do a little self promotion for another Peace of Mind
Speaker 1: that ran at National Review that's next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. Not to engage in self promotion, but that's
Speaker 1: precisely what I'm gonna do. If you go to my
Speaker 1: Twitter account Twitter dot com slash Fresno Johnny at Fresno Johnny,
Speaker 1: you can read my next piece that's on National Review online.
Speaker 1: It's about the abortion issue. As always. Basically, what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about is how to message the pro life view better.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of pro lifers over the last
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years or so, sort of thought, well,
Speaker 1: science is going to win the abortion debate, you know,
Speaker 1: as medical science improves, and you know, ultrasound imaging technology improves,
Speaker 1: and in utero surgical interventions improve and all these different
Speaker 1: science things improve to show people very clearly the distinct
Speaker 1: humanity of the unborn child. As long as that keeps improving,
Speaker 1: then abortion numbers will go down because people will see
Speaker 1: the humanity of the unborn it'll destroy all the ethical
Speaker 1: arguments for it. And I realize that that has not worked. Okay,
Speaker 1: over the last twenty years, We've had all these big advances,
Speaker 1: and the pro life position is less popular than it
Speaker 1: was twenty years ago. And I think it's because people
Speaker 1: view the abortion issue fundamentally as a question of burdens.
Speaker 1: Pregnancy future child rearing impose burdens, and people look at
Speaker 1: women in difficult economic or social or otherwise situations and say,
Speaker 1: that would be a very difficult burden for her to handle.
Speaker 1: So maybe the more compassionate thing is to let her
Speaker 1: have an abortion, which is a cheap form of compassion,
Speaker 1: I'd say, a cheap and phony form of compassion. I
Speaker 1: would say a more authentic form of compassion would be
Speaker 1: why don't I actually help this person to handle these burdens.
Speaker 1: And that's obviously a much more effective form of compassion,
Speaker 1: given that seventy percent of women who have abortions would
Speaker 1: rather keep their babies. They just feel forced into having
Speaker 1: an abortion because of the circumstances of finances, economics, whatever.
Speaker 1: So I really hope you'll give it a read. I'm
Speaker 1: super excited about my work appearing in National Review and
Speaker 1: them seemingly wanting to have me, wanting me to write
Speaker 1: more stuff for them, and I hope I can keep
Speaker 1: on pumping out good stuff. Anyway, give it a read
Speaker 1: and hopefully you can get past the paywall. That'll do it.
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show, See you next time on Power Talk