Speaker 1: My views on the Iranian conflict. The Israeli Iranian conflict
Speaker 1: are starting to get more crystallized, and I'm beginning to
Speaker 1: think more and more that boy, I really don't want
Speaker 1: us to get more involved, and I think I am
Speaker 1: leaning in the direction of the don't interveners as this continues,
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing the fault lines begin to show. One
Speaker 1: thing that did happen that I thought was valuable, and
Speaker 1: I kind of Tucker Carlson seems like he kind of
Speaker 1: goes off the rails on a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: But one of the things he did was he had
Speaker 1: an interview with Ted Cruz where he asked Ted Cruz,
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is very pro Israel, pro wanting to get involved,
Speaker 1: pro floating even ideas about regime change. Tucker Carlson asks
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz what's the population of Iran? And Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: doesn't have an answer, He's not sure. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was really revealing. Here's the thing. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: know that I want regime change in Iran. I think
Speaker 1: the only thing I agree with is with what the
Speaker 1: President has said, we can't let Iran have a nuke.
Speaker 1: That I'm I'm fine with you can't have You can't
Speaker 1: let Iran have a nuke. They're the world's leading state
Speaker 1: sponsor of terrorism. It's clear that they want a nuke.
Speaker 1: They clearly are trying to enrich way more uranium than
Speaker 1: is necessary. That you don't really need uranium enrichment at
Speaker 1: the levels they're doing it for domestic energy production. You know,
Speaker 1: you want nuclear power plants, that's fine, you don't need
Speaker 1: to be enriching uranium for it. It's obvious that they're
Speaker 1: doing something sneaky and not good. Okay, if we want
Speaker 1: to just sort of tell them, you're a rogue state.
Speaker 1: You've attacked the United States a million times, You've killed
Speaker 1: hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq, you attack Israel all
Speaker 1: the time, you fund terrorist operations throughout the globe through
Speaker 1: your proxies like Hamas and the Houthis and whatnot Hezbollah.
Speaker 1: Then basically i'm that, And then all right, we want
Speaker 1: to we want to blow up your nuclear projects and
Speaker 1: stop you from being able to get a nuke. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's good. Regime change is a different thing. You can't
Speaker 1: just kind of take out the leadership and then not
Speaker 1: get involved. There's no way that that's gonna work. A
Speaker 1: regime change project is way more work, way more involvement,
Speaker 1: and I'm starting to see the fault lines between people
Speaker 1: who don't want to intervene and get involved and those
Speaker 1: who do so. Here was this exchange between Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: and Ted Cruz on Tuesday. The Hill has a right
Speaker 1: up on it. The conservative media personality. Carlson on Tuesday
Speaker 1: released a clip from the interview, set to be released
Speaker 1: in full on Wednesday, in which he grills Cruise on
Speaker 1: details about Iran and its demographic makeup. When Cruz does
Speaker 1: not know the answers Carlson is seeking, the host blasts
Speaker 1: a senator for failing to know the details of quote
Speaker 1: the country you seek to topple. How many people live
Speaker 1: in Iran by the way, Carlson asked, I don't know
Speaker 1: the population? Cruz responded at all. No, I don't know
Speaker 1: the population. Cruz said, you don't know the population in
Speaker 1: the country you seek to topple, Carlson retorted. When Cruz
Speaker 1: asked Carlson the same question back, the journalist replied quickly
Speaker 1: ninety two million, adding how could you not know that?
Speaker 1: I don't sit around memorizing population tables Cruz responded. The
Speaker 1: conversation grew increasingly heated from there, as Carlson argued, the
Speaker 1: numbers are kind of relevant because you're calling for the
Speaker 1: overthrow of the government. Why is it relevant if it's
Speaker 1: ninety million or eighty million or a hundred million. Why
Speaker 1: is that relevant? Cruz responded, before pushing back against Carlson's
Speaker 1: suggestion that he doesn't know anything about the country. Carlson
Speaker 1: then offered another trivia question, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?
Speaker 1: But that's not a trivia question. Well, see, this is
Speaker 1: all really relevant. So let me say this. I think
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson goes off the rails a lot. I don't
Speaker 1: really listen to him all that much on Russia Ukraine stuff.
Speaker 1: As much as I am not really I sort of
Speaker 1: join him, at least in being skeptical about American involvement
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, the extent to which Carlson over sells it
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, the Putin's actually maybe Putin's really
Speaker 1: the good guy. No, Putin's not the good guy. This
Speaker 1: was an unjustified aggressive war. The question is whether it's
Speaker 1: a smart idea for America to heavily invest in it,
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure that it is, and I continue
Speaker 1: to not think it is, and I think, actually we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that later in the show. Her recent events
Speaker 1: have sort of demonstrated how unwise it was to really
Speaker 1: commit to this. But the point Tucker's making with Cruise
Speaker 1: right now is a really good point and a really
Speaker 1: relevant point. Here's Ted Cruz saying, yes, we should seek
Speaker 1: to overthrow the existing ruling government of Iran. If you
Speaker 1: take that position, you got to kind of and you're
Speaker 1: a US senator, you should maybe know some basic facts
Speaker 1: about Iran. You should know the ballpark of their population.
Speaker 1: Probably you should know a bit about the ethnic mix,
Speaker 1: the ethnic background, something about the culture. Because I was
Speaker 1: talking about this on the show yesterday yesterday the day before.
Speaker 1: One of the things we really learned in Iraq and
Speaker 1: Afghanistan was well, certainly Afghanistan, was that that was not
Speaker 1: a place quote ripe for regime change. We went in there,
Speaker 1: we kicked out the Taliban, We faced twenty years of
Speaker 1: constant civil war, and guess what we went landed up
Speaker 1: at the Taliban being in charge again. Because a lot
Speaker 1: of these cultures are not ready for eager for wanting
Speaker 1: Western style liberal democracies, when you give populations in the
Speaker 1: Middle East the right to vote, sometimes the form of
Speaker 1: government that they democratically choose is an autocratic theocratic Sharia
Speaker 1: law mess case in point, the Gaza strip. Israel pulls
Speaker 1: out of it, Hamas comes in and becomes the terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: Hamas becomes the dominant political party. They win the elections,
Speaker 1: They forcibly militarily shove out Fatah, the other political party,
Speaker 1: with like a mini little civil war in Gaza to
Speaker 1: shove them out militarily, and they were democratically elected by
Speaker 1: the people of Gaza back in the two thousands, I
Speaker 1: think it was like two thousand and eight or something
Speaker 1: like that. Some places don't think don will not greet
Speaker 1: you as a liberator if you come in and topple
Speaker 1: their government. I've been hearing two different things about the
Speaker 1: Iranian threat my whole I don't know these past twenty years.
Speaker 1: One is that Iran was days away, weeks away, mere
Speaker 1: months away from getting a nuke. There was a story
Speaker 1: from two thousand and six about how Iran was sixteen
Speaker 1: days away from getting a nuke that someone posted. People
Speaker 1: have been saying Iran is about to get a nuke
Speaker 1: for a long long, long, long time, and they just
Speaker 1: haven't done it. Now. There have been interventions, Israeli strikes,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things to sort of stop Iran from
Speaker 1: getting a nuke. But there's a little part of me
Speaker 1: that's like, well, this is a kind of a boy
Speaker 1: who Cried Wolfe situation. How sure are we that Iran
Speaker 1: is actually that close to getting a nuke. I don't
Speaker 1: doubt that they're working towards that goal, that they want
Speaker 1: a nuke, I just don't know how imminent a threat
Speaker 1: it is. The second thing I've heard for a long
Speaker 1: time is people saying that the Iranian people are suffering
Speaker 1: under the yoke of the horrible Iyatolas, that they resent
Speaker 1: the Iyatolas, that they hate the suppressive government, that eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the Iranian people actually don't support Aatola komeni
Speaker 1: and the theocratic rule by the Iatolas in Iran, that
Speaker 1: they yearn for freedom. And then people will always bring up, oh,
Speaker 1: remember in the seventies when when the Shaw was in charge,
Speaker 1: how awesome that was. And I guess the Shaw's current
Speaker 1: I don't know the Shaw who got expelled in the seventies.
Speaker 1: I guess it's either his son or his grandson. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, now that he's popping up on videos
Speaker 1: on Twitter saying oh, we are ready, we are ready
Speaker 1: to come back and free the Iranian people. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's okay. So just a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, I keep hearing this about also the
Speaker 1: majority of the Iranian people reject the Iyatolas. Well, they've
Speaker 1: been awful quiet about their rejection of the Iatolas for
Speaker 1: the last you know, twenty plus years, fifty plus years.
Speaker 1: They seem awful quiet about it because the Iatola is
Speaker 1: still there. He's still in charge, Ayatola Komane, he's eighty
Speaker 1: six years old. Nobody's thought to internally topple him. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe that'll happen in a week. I
Speaker 1: guess could happen, But it's only happening. If it happens,
Speaker 1: it's only happening as a result of the precipitating event
Speaker 1: of Israel blowing up all of their major military leadership.
Speaker 1: So clearly, whatever public support there is for getting rid
Speaker 1: of the Ayatola has not been able to materialize into
Speaker 1: actual effective internal reform within Iran. No one's doing that. Secondly,
Speaker 1: this people always bring this up about well, back in
Speaker 1: the seventies when the Shaw was in charge in Iran
Speaker 1: was such an open country. Okay, well that was seventy
Speaker 1: you know, that was fifty plus years ago. And let's
Speaker 1: remember it was the Iranian people who overthrew the shot.
Speaker 1: They kicked his rear end out and replaced him with
Speaker 1: a theocratic, crazy regime ruled by religious leaders, by the Iatolas.
Speaker 1: So it was the Iranian people who got rid of
Speaker 1: the Sha. Let's let's let's recall that. Okay. I prefer
Speaker 1: the Shah over the Iatolas too. I prefer, you know,
Speaker 1: pre revolution Iran to current Iran. I think it's nice
Speaker 1: that women were able to walk around without hit jobs
Speaker 1: and not get shot. But let's remember that it was
Speaker 1: the Iranians who overthrew the shot, who didn't like the shot.
Speaker 1: So this idea that, oh, yeah, the Iran's like they're ready,
Speaker 1: they're ready to just get rid of the Iatolas and
Speaker 1: just go right back to you know, being you know,
Speaker 1: the cool, groovy Iran of the nineteen seventies. Boy, I
Speaker 1: really doubt that. I do not feel like that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. So in short, I don't want
Speaker 1: us to be involved. I don't want us to be involved.
Speaker 1: I don't want us to be involved. If we want
Speaker 1: to be involved at the level of let's stop them
Speaker 1: from having a nuke, and if Congress authorizes that or
Speaker 1: something like that at some point ever happening, okay, fine
Speaker 1: by me. But what I don't want is the president
Speaker 1: just doing any kind of military strikes he kind of
Speaker 1: wants to whenever he feels like it, involving us in
Speaker 1: the actual work of regime change. And I get I
Speaker 1: understand the temptation on the part of the people who
Speaker 1: want regime change. The Iranian government is terrible. They are horrible.
Speaker 1: They are horrible, international sponsors of state of international terrorism.
Speaker 1: They funded Hamas who committed the October seventh attack, they
Speaker 1: fund the Huthis who've been constantly harassing our shipping. It's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 1: always around, no question, really bad. They're a horrible country.
Speaker 1: And I can see how tantalizing it is that with
Speaker 1: a couple of air strikes Israel socked them much harder
Speaker 1: than I think even the Israelis might have expected. That
Speaker 1: they killed basically most of their major military leadership, most
Speaker 1: of their nuclear development leadership, and it seems like that
Speaker 1: Iotolo Komane's sort of isolated. He's eighty six years old.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're at the point where if we do one
Speaker 1: harder push, maybe we can take that old man out
Speaker 1: and allow something new to come in in Iran. If
Speaker 1: that's something new is going to be stable, then the
Speaker 1: temptation's gonna be well. America needs to come in, help
Speaker 1: us out and help stabilize things, help train our military,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. Like I don't know, man, Like,
Speaker 1: I understand how tantalizing it is if you could get
Speaker 1: rid of the Ayatolas. But presumably whoever Comani's successor is
Speaker 1: is already ready to go. It's not just a thing
Speaker 1: of killing an eighty six year old man. They have
Speaker 1: a whole kind of system in place over there, so
Speaker 1: I'm and backed by support of the military. So now
Speaker 1: a lot of their senior military leadership is all dead.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, if you want to do regime change,
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, you probably should have a sense of what Israel,
Speaker 1: of what the Iranian population is. You should have a
Speaker 1: sense of their ethnic background. You should have a sense
Speaker 1: of their cultural feelings about the shaw versus the current government.
Speaker 1: Without just resorting to platitudes about all the noble Iranian
Speaker 1: people chafe under the yoke of the audiotols do they do?
Speaker 1: They chase under the yoke? I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of them, what like the yoke? I think a lot
Speaker 1: of them are like, you know what, this yoke I'm yoking.
Speaker 1: We're yoking it up under the iatolas just an ox
Speaker 1: feeling very comfortable with my yoke of Sharia Islamist lunacy.
Speaker 1: A lot of people in the Middle East like that crap.
Speaker 1: They do. They vote for it when they get the
Speaker 1: chance to, they overthrow the shot to get it. This
Speaker 1: country overthrew the show to get it. Do you think
Speaker 1: they're less inclined that way after fifty years of indoctrination.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so. It's not like
Speaker 1: the I mean, it's not like the education system was
Speaker 1: teaching kids the last fifty years. You know what, back
Speaker 1: in the good old days of the Shah people, you know,
Speaker 1: people were able to buy cool Western clothes. Nobody was
Speaker 1: raised that way for fifty years. You've got like three
Speaker 1: generations of people brought up for this form of government.
Speaker 1: So I just don't believe this is like a country
Speaker 1: ready for regime change. Now when we return, why I
Speaker 1: feel like I kind of trust President Trump on this
Speaker 1: of all people. That's next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: I think I really trust President Trump on all this
Speaker 1: with one caveat one caveat now jd Vance. Jd Vance,
Speaker 1: being a millennial, is still willing to go on Twitter
Speaker 1: and debate with people and sort of defend the President's
Speaker 1: position on a lot of this stuff, including on the
Speaker 1: Run stuff, and he wrote that basically, Hey, President Trump's
Speaker 1: been really consistent out one not wanting to get America
Speaker 1: involved into destructive wars in the Middle East. He's still
Speaker 1: that guy. He's still consistent in that. But he's also
Speaker 1: been very consistent that Iran kan't avenuke and if the
Speaker 1: United States gets involved or doesn't get involved, I think
Speaker 1: that President Trump deserves a level of grace and a
Speaker 1: level of trust on this point, especially from conservatives. Okay,
Speaker 1: I find that to be a fairly compelling argument. And
Speaker 1: oddly enough, as much as you know, I've been frustrated
Speaker 1: with Trump on certain things with social conservative issues and
Speaker 1: sometimes on you know, his postured during the campaign on
Speaker 1: abortion was I think frustrating. He's governed pretty pro life,
Speaker 1: but there's still some very significant things that I'm hoping
Speaker 1: he acts on, particularly with the abortion pill and things
Speaker 1: like that. Honestly, though, with foreign policy, I trust Trump
Speaker 1: way more than I trust almost anybody else. I feel
Speaker 1: like the foreign policy blob of experts have been wrong
Speaker 1: about everything all the time, always. I feel like Trump
Speaker 1: was the only the first Trump administration was like the
Speaker 1: most successful foreign policy four years that we've had for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Started, no new wars, helped crush isis,
Speaker 1: fostering good relations between Israel and various of its Arab neighbors,
Speaker 1: thonging of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Israel signs treaty,
Speaker 1: you know, treaties with various other Middle Eastern countries, to
Speaker 1: exchange embassies and have international flights and trade agreements, the
Speaker 1: whole Abraham Accurts thing. Trump is wildly more successful, full
Speaker 1: then all of these other people who have been in charge.
Speaker 1: So I'm very inclined to trust President Trump with all
Speaker 1: of this, with only this caveat, With only this caveat.
Speaker 1: One of the things Vance was saying was, you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to be up to President Trump whether to
Speaker 1: engage in military strikes or whatnot. Blah blah blah. Eh.
Speaker 1: This is a thing I've hated about military operations in general.
Speaker 1: It's not really up to President Trump whether to engage
Speaker 1: in strikes. If America is getting attacked, yes, President Trump
Speaker 1: can defensively initiate things. But if we're talking about America
Speaker 1: offensively engaging in something has to be involved. Congress has
Speaker 1: to be involved. The president is not unilaterally. Yes, once
Speaker 1: the military is engaged in something, the president has total
Speaker 1: control over the conduct of the military. Once Congress declares war,
Speaker 1: once Congress authorizes his use of military force, the president
Speaker 1: is in charge. The president is in charge of how
Speaker 1: the military conducts itself in battle. One hundred percent totally agree,
Speaker 1: no argument there. But the decision of going to war,
Speaker 1: Congress needs to be involved with that. Particularly the House. Okay,
Speaker 1: the House, as the representative of the American people, as
Speaker 1: the most directly proportional representative of the American population. The
Speaker 1: House has been involved, is involved, is mandated to be
Speaker 1: involved in the text of the Constitution because it's the
Speaker 1: American people deciding are we going to put our life
Speaker 1: on the line, Are we going to put the lives
Speaker 1: of our sons on the line to fight for this
Speaker 1: or that cause. Why has the US not ever directly
Speaker 1: engaged in the Ukraine War because the American people don't
Speaker 1: want it. Congress is smart enough to realize that they
Speaker 1: can't even put that to a vote. All of the
Speaker 1: foreign policy blob who would love for American time, treasure,
Speaker 1: and blood to be invested in the Ukraine Russian War,
Speaker 1: they don't even dare say it because they know that
Speaker 1: the American people think it's nuts. They don't want American
Speaker 1: boys to die for the DNBAS. So now, maybe President
Speaker 1: Trump can try to argue that he's got coverage for
Speaker 1: using military force based on the two thousand and one
Speaker 1: Congressional Authorization for military force that President Bush and President
Speaker 1: Obama and President Trump and all the present and since
Speaker 1: have used for fighting terrorism in the Middle East. Maybe
Speaker 1: he still has that. I find that to be a
Speaker 1: big stretch personally. I'm just saying, if we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to the point of regime change, especially, we need another
Speaker 1: authorized use in military force. And the problem is they're
Speaker 1: not gonna get it. All these people who want to
Speaker 1: top of the Iranian government. I just don't think the
Speaker 1: American people want a regime change war, which necessarily will
Speaker 1: require investment of more American time and treasure time, treasure blood,
Speaker 1: and American troops. I don't think people want that. I
Speaker 1: don't think the American people are gonna sign up for that. Now,
Speaker 1: limited air strikes, you get authorized used for limited air
Speaker 1: strikes just to take out Iranian stuff, or even just
Speaker 1: get giving the Israelis some of the bunker buster bombs
Speaker 1: that they don't have that we have that they might
Speaker 1: need for finishing the job with some of Iran's nuclear facilities. Okay,
Speaker 1: the American people might like that, but I do think
Speaker 1: Congress needs to be somewhat involved to the extent that
Speaker 1: they legally need to be. When we return, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about Ukraine. What's happening there next on the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1: The situation in Ukraine is getting worse and worse and
Speaker 1: is deteriorating more and more. And there's now that there's
Speaker 1: more and more of a rift developing between the American
Speaker 1: foreign policy folks who really want more intervention in Ukraine
Speaker 1: and those who don't. And the frustration on the part
Speaker 1: of those who want more intervention is why aren't we
Speaker 1: continuing to supply the Ukrainian Why aren't we giving them
Speaker 1: more aid? Why you know, Ukraine's gonna be suffer this
Speaker 1: terrible defeat and America's gonna look terrible. The reputation costs
Speaker 1: the United States is going to be terrible, to which
Speaker 1: all the people who said maybe we shouldn't get involved
Speaker 1: in this are starting to very rightly say, I told yousel.
Speaker 1: This piece by Michael Brennan Doherty in National Review has
Speaker 1: been one of the leading foreign policy talking heads against
Speaker 1: more American involvement in Ukraine. He writes this Three years ago.
Speaker 1: Daherty wrote this on how to Lose Big in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: The mismatch is quite clear consistent with the theory that
Speaker 1: Russia ultimately cares more about this conflict. It is acting
Speaker 1: vigorously to achieve an acceptable end. Russia is acting chief
Speaker 1: vigorously to achieve an end that's acceptable to itself. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the United States, unable to rally the deep passions of
Speaker 1: the American people to take signs significant risks in this conflict,
Speaker 1: must satisfy itself with hoping that more of the same
Speaker 1: failed strategy will yield a marginally less humiliating outcome. Our
Speaker 1: policymakers in the executive branch and across the blob of
Speaker 1: NGOs are cut off from the people whom the constitution
Speaker 1: authorizes to declare war through their elective elected representatives. So basically,
Speaker 1: here's what Darty saying. In Russia, policy for their military
Speaker 1: operations is vested pretty much totally in Vladimir Putin. Putin decides,
Speaker 1: he completely controls the politics over there. He decides, and
Speaker 1: he desperately wants to get some kind of acceptable outcome
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. He wants some level of victory in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: whether even if it's not the total takeover of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: it's capturing a lot of it. And he seems still
Speaker 1: aligned with the Russian people on wanting to achieve that goal.
Speaker 1: So that's really important to them. The Ukraine situations the
Speaker 1: most important thing for the Russians right now. Well, Ukraine
Speaker 1: is just not that important to the decision makers on
Speaker 1: war and peace in America, namely the American people. The
Speaker 1: American people, through their elected representatives in Congress, who authorize
Speaker 1: the President to engage in military conflicts, who through Congress
Speaker 1: declare war. They are not willing to take the same
Speaker 1: risks that the Russians are. They just don't care about
Speaker 1: it at the level that the Russians do, and the
Speaker 1: Foreign policy Blob can rant and rape, but it's so
Speaker 1: critically important. Okay, you think it's important the American people, don't,
Speaker 1: you know how? I know. We're not even close to
Speaker 1: thinking about proposing to Congress the idea of America declaring
Speaker 1: war on Russia over Ukraine. We're not close. We have
Speaker 1: debates in Congress about whether or not we will give
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians money, and half of half are a very
Speaker 1: sizable minority anyway of Congress, half approaching a majority says no,
Speaker 1: we don't want to give them more money, like we've given.
Speaker 1: How much are we going to give? What's the end
Speaker 1: goal here? We're ambivalent about giving the Ukrainians money as
Speaker 1: a country, and frankly, it's just not something the American
Speaker 1: people care about. The Foreign policy Blob can rant and
Speaker 1: rap about this all they want. The simple fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is it does not impact the United States
Speaker 1: one wit who controls the DNVAS region. It just doesn't.
Speaker 1: It does not impact the lives of a single person
Speaker 1: who lives in Oklahoma or Illinois, or Chicago or Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't. It does not change the price of fish.
Speaker 1: It does not change. The price of beef does not
Speaker 1: change the price of it. Just there are so many
Speaker 1: more issues that are so much more important to the
Speaker 1: American people right now. They just don't care about it
Speaker 1: to the level that the Foreign policy Blob wants. Hence,
Speaker 1: the American people are not willing to declare war. The
Speaker 1: American people are barely willing to fund the Ukrainians. So
Speaker 1: the idea that you're going to get mad that why
Speaker 1: aren't we wanting to fund it, Well, it's just not
Speaker 1: that important to the American people. So getting us involved
Speaker 1: in the first place, investing as much money as we do,
Speaker 1: as we did now it's like this is going to
Speaker 1: be such a humiliating defeat for the United States. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you guys were the ones who wanted us to get
Speaker 1: on the hook for it, knowing how anemic the support was.
Speaker 1: We can't. There just isn't the will. And that's the
Speaker 1: difference between our two countries. Again. In Russia, Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: snaps his fingers and the whole policy of the Russian government.
Speaker 1: Putin could end the war tomorrow. Putin could snap his
Speaker 1: fingers and say we're done, we're going back. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to take a vote, doesn't need to
Speaker 1: take a poll, He just snaps his fingers and it's done.
Speaker 1: In the United States, we don't do that. I might
Speaker 1: talk about it in the next segment. How similar it
Speaker 1: is to kind of the classical model, to Rome and
Speaker 1: Greece and the city states of the Mediterranean. That this
Speaker 1: feature of our constitution I think is brilliant and right
Speaker 1: that the people who are the ones who are going
Speaker 1: to go to war and send their children to fight
Speaker 1: and die in a war, through their most representative branch,
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, have the critical role in deciding
Speaker 1: whether we're going to war or not. So you know
Speaker 1: that this is the problem, is that this has always
Speaker 1: been much more important for Russia than it has been
Speaker 1: for the United States. So for the pro Ukraine types
Speaker 1: to get mad and angry, why aren't we investing more?
Speaker 1: Why isn't Trump investing more? Well, Trump was elected by
Speaker 1: a large number of people who don't want to keep
Speaker 1: funding Ukraine. He won the election in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: after years and years of the Congress and the presidency
Speaker 1: under the Biden era giving Ukraine more and more money.
Speaker 1: Trump won. Sorry like you lost that you lost that
Speaker 1: rhetorical argument. You can be upset about this, think about
Speaker 1: the reputational costs to America. Well, the whole point of
Speaker 1: this was for America not to be directly involved. And
Speaker 1: that's why I hate the whole concept of proxy wars,
Speaker 1: the idea that oh, we're we're not voting on war,
Speaker 1: We're just voting on you know, military funding for the Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: But then it's like we're losing a war. Our reputation
Speaker 1: is harmed. Look, if there's someone you want to blame,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's Trump for coming in towards the
Speaker 1: end of this and acknowledging this isn't working. They're not winning.
Speaker 1: We got to have some kind of peaceful resolution to it. Now,
Speaker 1: I think they're legitimate criticisms of Trump that he has
Speaker 1: failed to utilize maximum leverage, and to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: he needs to give Ukraine a bit more leverage so
Speaker 1: that he can actually affect some kind of peaceful resolution.
Speaker 1: Although we forget that Trump's only been on the job
Speaker 1: for a very short amount of time. So I don't
Speaker 1: know the idea that you know, we should judge Trump.
Speaker 1: I think by whatever the end result, what ends up
Speaker 1: being rather than where we are right now. I think
Speaker 1: there are some fair and legitimate critiques of how Trump
Speaker 1: has sort of negotiated this up until now that you know,
Speaker 1: he has not really allowed Ukraine to get much negotiating leverage,
Speaker 1: and he's not really giving you know, if the United
Speaker 1: States keep saying, like, you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: keep funding Ukraine, then it's not going to give much
Speaker 1: leverage to the United States to negotiate a peaceful settlement.
Speaker 1: If Putin thinks, well, the United States is just going
Speaker 1: to stop funding them, I'm going to keep this war going.
Speaker 1: He has to give the Ukrainian some kind of leverage,
Speaker 1: and I think there's some legitimate critiques that he has
Speaker 1: not done that. But in short, this is the problem
Speaker 1: with Ukraine is people get mad that the United States
Speaker 1: is going to suffer a horrible reputational loss if we
Speaker 1: allow Ukraine to lose. Well, you know, you sell this as, oh,
Speaker 1: we're just funny, We're just giving them a little bit
Speaker 1: of money. We're just giving them, you know, forty billion
Speaker 1: dollars to help, you know, massively deteriorate the Russian milita.
Speaker 1: It's a small investment. Now, it's our reputations on the line, Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't want our reputation to be on the line.
Speaker 1: You sold it as let's just give a little money
Speaker 1: to deplete the resources of the Russians. I find the
Speaker 1: whole thing frustrating. I feel like we kept giving money
Speaker 1: to a losing cause, and I feel terribly for the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I don't want Ukraine to be conquered by Russia. I
Speaker 1: don't think Vladimir Putin's a good guy. I think is
Speaker 1: a horrible guy. But we're in this sort of lose
Speaker 1: lose situation when we return this function of the constitution
Speaker 1: as putting the people in charge of decisions to go
Speaker 1: to war and peace. How it relates to the Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman models that's next to close out the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show. One of the interesting thing things about various
Speaker 1: different Greek and Roman political constitutions that got embodied into
Speaker 1: our American written constitution, the unwritten constitutions of those Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman city states, Greek city states and the Roman Republic,
Speaker 1: is they basically allowed a lot of the Greek city
Speaker 1: states had some kind of democratic assembly, an assembly of
Speaker 1: the citizens that would decide certain kinds of questions. Now
Speaker 1: it varied from city city state to city state in
Speaker 1: Greece and the Roman Republican model also was a little
Speaker 1: different from the various Greek models, but one of the
Speaker 1: things that seemed consistent was that it was usually in
Speaker 1: an assembly of the citizens that questions of war and
Speaker 1: peace were decided, and the property qualifications for being a
Speaker 1: citizen in many individual Greek city states and in Rome,
Speaker 1: a lot of it had to do with did you
Speaker 1: have enough money to pay for your own sword, spear armor.
Speaker 1: In Rome, actually you were a different kind of class.
Speaker 1: If you had a horse that you paid for, you
Speaker 1: were an equestrian, and that was like a property status class,
Speaker 1: and it changed sort of the level of the weight
Speaker 1: that your vote had and the idea of being basically,
Speaker 1: we are going to extend to you the right to
Speaker 1: make laws, to vote on laws, to decide on governmental
Speaker 1: policy to the extent that you're invested in this project,
Speaker 1: and we're not. We are as a city state, we're
Speaker 1: not going to go to war unless we all sitting
Speaker 1: here together decide yep, we're because we're the we're the
Speaker 1: ones voting, and we're the ones who're going to go
Speaker 1: to war. And that's why citizenship was usually limited to
Speaker 1: adult men. It may have had something more to do
Speaker 1: with that than, you know, just pure misogyny. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly there was a certain kind of chopanism that existed.
Speaker 1: But the guys all voting were the guys who themselves
Speaker 1: were gonna go to war and fight and possibly die.
Speaker 1: It's probably why Athens had a much broader democracy than
Speaker 1: most of the other city states. Athens had a navy.
Speaker 1: The qualifications to fight in a navy are less than
Speaker 1: to fight in hop light battles because you're just rowing
Speaker 1: an ore. You don't necessarily need enough money to pay
Speaker 1: for armor or swords, you know, all that hoplight armor.
Speaker 1: And this gets incorporated into the American Constitution by if
Speaker 1: we're going to declare war, then the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: which is the most representative body that the directly proportional
Speaker 1: representation of the people as a whole, the citizenry as
Speaker 1: a whole, which is going to have to go to
Speaker 1: war itself and fight and die, the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: has to okay it. And it's this cool feature of
Speaker 1: our constitution that it's if when the people decide to
Speaker 1: go to war, the people decide to go to war,
Speaker 1: and I think that needs to be first and foremost
Speaker 1: in our foreign policy blobs. Eyes that'll do it. John j.
Speaker 1: Already shows you next time on Power Talk