The Wounded Bird Lex Fridman vs. The Evil Ukrainian Bot Farms
In this episode, we look at a recently released segment by Lex Fridman, where he reflects on his interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.We examine Lex’s self-presentation as a Christ-like figure—someone who is willing to suffer, feign naivety and ignorance, and even risk his life in the name of world peace—all while maintaining an eight-hour daily study regimen and enduring relentless, unfair attacks from Ukrainian bot farms and war-loving critics.Like true sensemakers, we also entertain an outlandish alternative hypothesis: what if Lex is, in fact, an arrogant and biased podcaster—dismissive of criticism, oblivious to his political leanings, and adopting a “wounded bird” persona to elicit sympathy from his audience?Join us as we sift through the Zelensky's (supposed) failures, the bot farms, and the wounded bird theatrics to determine whether Lex is a hero for peace—or just another podcaster lost in his own narrative.SourcesLex Fridman reflects on Volodymyr Zelenskyy interviewSupplementary Material 21: The emergency snake, thought = secularised prayer, and Love and WarChris' thread on Lex and his wounded bird poseLex Fridman Podcast- Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #456
Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about.
I'm Matt Brown.
Chris Kavanagh is my co-host in crime.
Today we have a...
It's a telex or a telegram or the bat phone.
There's a light.
There's a spotlight shining into the sky, Chris, and it has called you.
Not the hero we want.
God, no.
Not by any means.
But the hero...
We need.
You're bringing us important news.
That's one way to put it.
Yes, Lex Friedman has put out a remarkably self-serving segment reflecting on his interview with Zelensky.
And he helpfully shoved it in at the end of a three-hour, 40-minute interview with somebody called Jennifer Burns, where they're discussing...
Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman and various other things.
Something I did not listen to and I hardly discourage anyone from listening to.
But the segment at the end is of interest to us because, you know, you and I, we covered the original interview with Zelensky.
Our impression of Zelensky was good.
We didn't have such a strong opinion of old Lexi and his conduct in that, did we?
No, not a fond opinion anyway.
But yes, so you can go back and listen to the supplementary material where we break down that conversation.
But it was basically the criticisms were that Lex was not the unbiased, impartial love monster that he presented himself or empathy monster, but was actually asking questions in a rather slanted...
Fashion and showing a remarkable lack of understanding or appreciation of the situation.
Kind of presenting it very much.
Both sides are at fault.
Can't we all just get together and sit down in a room like men?
And anyway, what do you think about Joe Rogan and Elon Musk?
Yeah, I think it was the combination of being slanted towards an anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian point of view, but combining it with this sort of weaponized naivety and inanity, if that's even a word, just those sorts of vapid questions about love and so on.
Why doesn't Russia just join NATO with Ukraine?
Like, what if we all joined NATO?
That's right.
It's like if a 12-year-old child was conducting an interview with a world leader about a very serious war that's going on in Eastern Europe.
But that's that.
As you said, you can listen to the supplementary rituals if you want to.
This is Lex's opinion about how the interview went.
This is also Lex's response, because in the week of that interview, leading up to that interview, Lex received criticism for his public tweet, kind of demanding that Zelensky conduct the interview in Russian, which they then discussed on the episode.
But after the interview, it is fair to say that Lex also received significant criticism online for his questions.
Various things that he said in the interview and the various biases that he presented, right?
So there was a lot of criticism of Lex after the interview, including from quarters where people don't usually pay attention to Lex, right?
Because this was obviously significant for political commentators and whatnot, not just online Roganites.
And so he got a lot of criticism, but he also did get compliments in regards that he did allow Zelensky to speak.
Zelensky presented him quite well, and it was a long form interview.
So, you know, not not all condemnation, but Lex responds to the feedback that he's received.
Right. Then he wants to issue his fault.
So I'll let him frame what this is about.
Please allow me to say a few words about my interview with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Now that a few days have passed, and I've had the chance to think about the conversation itself, the response, future upcoming conversations, and what it all means for the war in Ukraine, for global geopolitics, and for us humans in general.
Okay.
Big thoughts!
Big thoughts coming!
A lot of important issues that he touched on there, and like sort of as usual.
Delivery, you know, the monotone gravitas that we've come to expect.
So, first of all, let's consider the feedback that Lex received from the interview.
How did people respond, who Lex knows and values their judgment, how did they respond to it?
I've gotten a lot of heartfelt, positive words from all sides, including...
Literally, all private communication has been positive and supportive.
This is usually not the case with me.
Friends usually will write to me to criticize and to disagree.
That's the whole point of friendship.
To argue.
And have fun doing it.
There was none of that here, at least so far.
So, thank you for your support.
In kind words, it means the world.
The most common message was please keep pushing for peace.
I will.
Okay, alright.
So, this is a private correspondence, but everyone who he knows personally says he did a great job.
Yeah, that's quite surprising.
It's quite surprising, given the level of criticism that he received.
And he mentions that everyone inside Ukraine that he knows, universally, Matt, not one of them, including soldiers and high-level or high-profile figures, they all were saying, what a good job you did, Lex.
Now, if you went online and looked at Ukrainian response to Lex's interview, you would get a rather different impression.
And it does perhaps speak...
To Lex's skew amongst this network, that it was only Universal Prius?
Like, that's quite surprising, given that I think an objective assessment of the response would be that there was a lot of criticism coming from Ukrainian quarters, but none that Lex seems to have encountered.
Yeah.
As you said at the beginning, the reaction to Lex's interview with Zelensky...
The negative reaction went far beyond the usual critical sphere.
People like Gus.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Internet obsessors, haters and losers.
It drew the attention, not surprisingly, of a much broader group of people who are invested in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And as he said, there has been...
A chorus of unanimous disapproval across the internet.
So it is quite a remarkable claim.
If Lex implies that he has a very, like a large network.
An extensive.
An extensive network, including people that are obviously pro-Ukraine in Ukraine.
And according to Lex, there is an incredibly large delta between their response and literally everyone else whose responses are available publicly online.
Of course, we only have Lex's.
Testimony here about the personal response.
I mean, it could be his personal network is three or four.
We don't know.
Well, yes.
Well, also, there's that line where he talks about the point of friendship and it's to have, you know, argue and have, like, constructive debate and all that.
And Lex famously, someone that welcomes debate and critical feedback, right?
Like, no, Lex is someone who has incredibly thin skin, avoids almost all He's never done an interview, like a critical interview.
He's never sat down with a journalist and had critical questions.
Never once.
I mean, I know that's a journalist, but the whole thing about Lex's sphere and the kind of Rogan sphere in general is it's got the pretense of being like a debate club or something, but really you need to align, right?
Like you need to agree on things.
There's very, very...
Little disagreement.
So just this pose that Lex has that, you know, he's really open to debate and he welcomes it and he's, you know, this is what he looks for in his friends.
There's just no evidence that that's the case.
No.
I mean, even if you look at the Zelensky interview, the pushback and the degree of argumentation that he is able to provide is actually incredibly weak.
Yes, he asks.
He has pointed framings, but then when there's a response, he basically lives as of that.
He can't...
He melts away.
Yeah.
Yeah, he cannot.
So, yeah.
In any case, he does address this delta, as you described, between the online reaction.
So, the personal network full of prayers recognize that they just want them to keep being a force for peace.
And he will, goddammit.
He will.
But what about...
The online people, Mark, what have they been doing to PearlX?
But online, on the interwebs, I saw a lot of attacks, sometimes from swarms of online accounts, which, of course, makes me suspicious about the origin of those attacks.
One of my friends in Ukraine, who, by the way, thinks the attacks are all propped up by Ukrainian bot farms, said there's no need to say anything extra.
Let the interview stand on its own.
Just keep focused on the mission of pushing for peace.
Basically, he's a Ukrainian version of my other friend, Joe Rogan, who to this day says, don't read the comments.
This is generally good advice, and I try to follow it.
But I'm also a human being.
I wear my heart on my sleeve, and this interview, this war, for me, is deeply personal.
And the level of vitriol, misrepresentation...
And lies about the conversation and about me personally was particularly intense and disingenuous.
So I thought I would use this opportunity to say a few words, just speak a bit more about how I approach this conversation with President Zelensky and conversations in general.
That's quite a framing.
But first of all, I think it's true what he says about always avoiding reading the negative comments.
The subreddit dedicated to the Luxury Podcast aggressively removes any negative sentiments whatsoever, helping him in his endeavor to read negative comments.
But yeah, the framing there is pretty clear-cut, isn't it?
Basically, the interview was perfect.
It was fantastic.
All his friends say so.
And the negative stuff that's been happening online...
Could be due to Ukrainian bot farms?
Yeah, well, that's what people in Ukraine are saying.
That's what his friend in Ukraine is telling him.
He would know.
He's the Joe Rogan of Ukraine, Chris.
His Sunday friend would know.
Yeah, and that's a big problem.
The world has a big problem with Ukrainian bot farms.
That's well documented, Matt.
They are known to be out there spreading misinformation.
No.
Ukrainian platforms.
I've never even heard that term until Lex used it initially, right?
And he's sticking by it here.
And the thing is, it isn't Ukrainian platforms because you can identify the actual Ukrainians and the actual people criticizing Lex.
And they include famous Ukrainians or famous Russians, right?
There's a whole host of people.
Yeah, like these are not anonymous accounts.
That's right, Gasparov.
These are not anonymous accounts.
A bot farm is relatively easy to detect.
If you are getting swarmed by a bot farm, automated accounts, AI accounts, whatever, then these are accounts that have either hardly any followers or are just followed by other bots.
They reply in a stereotyped fashion.
They have no public identity.
Yeah, the criticisms of Lex are from people.
Clearly, they are real people.
That we know.
People with a long history on the internet and who are not anonymous.
So it's a ridiculous claim to describe them all as bots.
Yeah, and also, but the clever thing that Lex does, which he did before as well, is that if you break a dime, he said someone else suggested that they are bot farms, right?
He doesn't say directly.
And in his framing...
Prior to the interview, he did the same thing.
He said, you know, other people are suggesting that the people criticizing me are, you know, it's Ukrainian bots.
But even if that's true, I still think it's good to respond as if people are real and whatnot.
So, like, he is doing the thing of saying, no, I'm not saying it's Ukrainian.
It's like the alien guy.
Many people are saying it was the biggest crowd in history, Chris.
Many people are saying.
Ukrainian friends.
And, of course, he gets mention of Joe Rogan.
Of course he does.
You have to work that in somewhere.
That's right.
It wouldn't be a Lex monologue without a bit of kowtowing to Joe.
Okay.
So this is where we are.
We have the framing.
Yeah, so he said he's going to respond to that, even though he knows it's not a good idea and all this kind of thing.
So we've often described Lex as taking a wounded bird pose, right, in order to garner sympathy for himself.
Let's just listen to that clip after mentioning that random fact.
This interview is something I poured my heart and soul into, preparing a lot.
I've described parts of the preparation process I follow in the outro to the Zelensky conversation, but in general, let me say that I've read a lot, listened to a lot, and had a lot of private conversations with people on the ground.
I have many flaws, but being unprepared for this conversation is not one of them.
Two low-effort attacks got to me a bit, if I'm being honest, though I am learning to take it all in stride.
attack is that I'm unprepared, uninformed, or naive.
I don't give a damn about the trolls, but I want people who listen to me, who
Yeah, I mean,
you would have to be a troll to think the...
Suggesting that why doesn't Russia just join NATO?
You know, that might sound naive and uninformed, but it's not.
He's read dozens of books on this topic.
There's some deep law that he's got hold of that we just don't understand.
But Chris, this is a good example of, you know, we've called it cultish behavior.
And, you know, it's not like he's running a cult or anything, but this kind of transparent appeals to emotion that if you love me, If you care about me, I'm trying so hard for you.
I love you.
If you care about me and the efforts I'm making to make the world a better place, to spread love in the world, then, my God, look at how I'm being treated.
Look at these evil forces that are arrayed against me.
Yeah, he plays this card in a very hand-fisted manner, but perhaps it works on some of his audience.
Well, you mentioned, Matt, that you were curious about that strategy of appearing to be a naive child when it came to discussing an ongoing brutal war, right?
Well, Lex addresses that, and perhaps you need to rethink what you saw there, Matt.
This is where humor and camaraderie was essential, and I would return to it often, though it was very difficult given the stakes, the heaviness, the seriousness of the topic of the war.
So, in this case, the approach I followed for this conversation is constant nudges and questions about peace, often using almost childlike statements or questions.
I generally like these kinds of questions.
On the surface, they may seem naive, but they're not.
They are often profound in their simplicity, like a lot of questions that children ask.
It was a child who pointed out that the emperor was not wearing any clothes.
I like the simplicity, the purity, the boldness of such questions to cut through the bullshit to the truth.
Right, right.
So when he suggests something like, why don't you and Putin just sit down together, talk to each other as men, and learn that you're both human beings?
It sounds stupid and childish.
To an outsider, but it's actually part of his crazy wisdom.
This is his approach.
It's deep wisdom.
Or that, you know, what if Russia and Ukraine both join NATO?
Like, that sounds incredibly naive and failing to understand geopolitical reality, but what if it's the wisdom of a savant child who can see free?
All of these posturing of adults.
And I also like the way, you know, like he talks there about, you know, the emperor's new clothes, right?
But he presents it as if that happened, right?
Remember it was a child in a fictional story.
That's so weird.
Like the eveny of, yeah, a fable child.
Aren't I like the child in that fable?
Yeah.
Again.
And that was an actual child.
Just to be clear, it was an actual child.
Yeah, and it also implies that someone like Zelensky is proceeding under some illusion, right?
Oh, yes, yes.
That he's deeply deceived and or deceiving in his view of events.
Yes, so I think this is a potential, you could read it as reading too much into the reference, but...
Lex scripted this, right?
He's reading a script quite clearly through it.
And so in the Emperor's clothes story, the whole thing is that the Emperor is demanding that everybody recognize his clothes as brilliant, right?
And is bamboozling everyone.
But there actually is nothing there.
So this reference in regards to his conversation with Zelensky and his questions...
It's not exactly a very nice comparison to draw.
I realise that Lex would immediately say, well, I'm just talking about the lesson from that story.
But it does imply, when he says to cut through the bullshit, the bullshit of Zelensky, I guess, would be the implication.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, you know, you could say that the...
The emperor in that fable is just as deceived or is just as befuddled as everyone else.
But the point is that there is a simple reality there that is nowhere any enclosed that the child can see.
So, I mean, this is typical, Lex.
On one hand, it sounds incredibly naive and guileless, but the framing is always one that is self-serving, right?
Simply, Lex himself, he's the child you can see clearly.
So again, half of the course, I suppose.
Yeah, well, but again, Matt, Lex's preparation for this.
So we are painting the picture of somebody who was naive and ill-prepared, like many other of the evil online Ukrainian bot farms.
But let's hear a little bit more about the work that Lex did to prepare for this interview.
Every conversation is its own puzzle, so let me try to explain my approach for this one.
As I've said, I read and listened to a lot of material since February 24, 2022.
There would be many weeks over the past three years where I would spend every day, over eight hours a day, of focused reading and research.
There were several rabbit holes that I consistently returned to and researched, but the most important line of inquiry was always peace talks, not just in this war, but in other wars in modern history.
For this specific war, as part of the background prep, I would take notes on every single perspective
I could find on every single major diplomatic meeting and negotiation that happened in Ukraine-Russia relations since 1991.
Ross.
Yeah.
Eight hours a day, Matt.
Sometimes, over weeks, he was studying, preparing for this.
While you were busy dancing around in America, Lex was studying the geopolitical situation and the history, the negotiations.
He knew them encyclopedically.
There was no evidence of that in the actual conversation.
But Lex says he did it.
So, there we go.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And my recollection of that, Chris, is that he fixated on just one of the various talks that happened.
And I think it's fair to say, like, he didn't understand.
He clearly didn't understand the history of peace talks and the degree to which Russia has been breaking those deals and conducting aggressive actions in spite of agreements made.
So it's...
It's rather insulting, I think, to anyone's intelligence for us to take that seriously.
Oh, well, now, Matt, hold on.
Lex has an example to illustrate the depth that he knows.
He's just going to pick a random example of a peace talk and how it might not match up with some of the presentations that people have provided.
It could be anything.
It could be any of them.
So let's hear Lex's illustration of the depth of his knowledge.
There is a lot of material to go through, and there are a lot of perspectives, even on the very 2019 meeting that President Zelensky spoke about in this podcast.
Just as a small but important example, Andrei Bogdan was interviewed twice by Dmitry Gordón and gave a deep inside look of the administration of President Zelensky, including that very 2019 meeting.
The two interviews are seven and a half hours, by the way.
And from my interviewer perspective, are a masterclass of interviewing.
Andrei Bogdan worked directly with President Zelensky as the head of the office of the President of Ukraine.
He was there for the 2019 face-to-face meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin at the Paris summit, along with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
This was part of the Normandy format peace talks.
In those two interviews, Andrei Bogdan gave a very different perspective on that 2019 meeting than did President Zelensky to me in our conversation.
The perspective being that the failure to negotiate a ceasefire and peace was not a simple one-sided story.
I don't think this is the right time for me to dive into that data point and be critical.
I'm not interested in being critical for the sake of criticism.
Once again, in productive conversations, critical or otherwise, that push towards peace, the kind I described earlier.
This is merely an example of a data point I was collecting in my brain.
There are many, many others.
Well, it sounds to me, Chris, that Lex Redmond has been pilled a little bit.
He's clearly got the idea, and it was quite pointed in his questioning of Zelensky, and it's implied here, that there was a serious and a good peace proposal on the table.
And essentially, Zelensky and Ukraine, you know, walked away from it or wasn't bargaining in good faith.
He seems to have bought into this interpretation of events, which, as far as I understand, is not a version of events that is endorsed by anybody apart from the most rabid supporters of Putin.
Oh, I don't know, Matt.
He's just talking about how negotiations are complex and people have different retellings.
And it was just a random example.
He's not going into the data points.
The fact that he's implying that Zelensky lied about the conversation when discussing with him and that he was aware of that and he could have pushed back on it, but he's too, you know, a pure servant of the conversation.
So that is just an example, Matt, of the depth of his knowledge.
The specific example that he chose, very brave of him to raise this now, when Zelensky is not there to say that this recollection does not accord with another representation.
And actually, aren't you responsible for, partly at least, failing to achieve peace earlier, many years ago?
So, Lex, he presents this here like he could have selected something about Putin misrepresenting something or whatever, but he just happens to have taken This one.
And it's just always, all of his framing is always like that, right?
It's always an implied criticism of Zelensky and always something which suggests that things aren't being forefrighted or this kind of thing.
So I just find this extremely cowardly off Lex.
And I think this is not a random data point.
I think he has a selection of data points like this that print.
The Ukrainian side and Zelenskyy as failing to take the opportunity.
And that's what he is communicating here, but without having the balls to say it directly.
I mean, that's right.
This is the cowardly aspect of it.
As I said at the beginning, he's not someone that can really deal with harsh interpersonal debates and disagreements.
But what he can do, and his way of, I guess, advocating.
Basically, for a Russian perspective on the history there, is so backhanded.
As I said, he didn't have the courage to address it to Zelensky directly.
He doesn't even have the courage to actually frame it now as saying, this is why I think that Ukraine and the Zelensky administration has not been serious about looking for peace.
Instead, he just offers it as if it's a random example because he doesn't even have that courage.
To support his convictions.
And it's that combination, Chris, of these insidious framings and these backhanded kind of points that aren't really points.
They're just examples.
And then it's combined with this studied naivete and this idea that he's just like a naive child that is looking for love and peace.
And it was just surreal at some points in that interview where he went straight from You know, asking something reasonable, like what kind of give and take, what kind of conditions is Zelensky prepared to accept at the negotiating table, to something ridiculous,
like asking whether or not he's personally ready to forgive Vladimir Putin as a human being.
Yeah.
Like, it's just that combination of childishness.
It's a child, but with an agenda.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a good way to pronounce it.
We don't like that.
So, you know, Matt, the framing there, though.
So, the first thing, just to remind you, because we went around a couple of clips.
So, the first thing was that he was not prepared.
And he wanted to rebut that.
He was prepared.
He has done all this research.
He knows about all peace negotiations.
He even could have corrected.
Zelensky on different points, but he let it go.
He was super prepared and well-informed.
Any questions that might have seemed as though he was badly informed or naive.
That was simply his tactic.
It was a tactic, yeah.
And that, much like with programming, he's very clear that he devotes a full-time job.
To studying and understanding these issues, right?
Like, we did the breakdown of the video of his day, and he was very clear.
He is working a ridiculous amount.
He's doing AI research.
You know, eight hours of programming, all that stuff.
This podcast thing is just a sidekick.
He is having this focused time.
It's a bit like his friends in Ukraine.
We don't actually have tangible evidence of this work.
But, you know, he...
He says it's happening.
It is happening nonetheless.
And it is, like, I think it is possible that Lex did do a bunch of preparation.
But if so, he doesn't absorb anything then.
He's just like, he may have looked at books and listened to things.
I think he probably did do that, you know, to a significant extent.
Not the extent that he's suggesting here with eight hours a day of, like, intense study.
But it's also clear.
Almost none of it penetrated his fucking skull, right?
Like, what penetrated his skull was Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin's talking points and framing nothings, because that's what he presented to Zelensky, right?
When are you going to hold elections?
They've been delayed a lot, and what do you think about your opponents?
And all this kind of stuff.
So, it might even be the case, like, if you're extending a lot of charity, that Lex did this whole bunch of preparation that he's talking about.
But if he did, it...
It doesn't matter because he wasn't able to synthesize it.
So what?
Yeah, well, that's right.
It's very much like the AI research that he's continually working on.
He may well be sitting in front of his computer for hours a day.
Pushing buttons.
Pushing buttons, right?
But if there's no evidence of it amounting to anything, then...
Who cares?
You know, it's a bit like Jordan Peterson saying he's read these hundreds of books about climate change.
You don't just announce that you're super well-informed on a topic.
You demonstrate that you're well-informed on a topic.
That's the way it usually works.
Yeah, that's it.
So, well, so in any case, the first thing is he was definitely well-prepared, right?
We've covered that.
Now, he said there were two attacks that got to him.
What is the second attack?
Second low-effort attack.
That got to me a bit.
Is that I'm a shill for Zelensky or a shill for Putin?
Both accusations were hurled readily and freely by the online mob of all persuasions, by the left and the right in the United States and Europe, by the pro and the anti-Zelensky people in Ukraine or of Ukrainian origins, and by the pro and anti-Putin people in Russia or of Russian origins.
As I've said, Over and over, this is not the case, and will never be the case.
I'm a shill for no one.
More than that, I just simply refuse to be caught in any one single echo chamber.
It's an ongoing battle, of course, because social media algorithms and the various dogmatic groups and tribes out there want to pull you in to their warmer embrace of belonging.
And humans want to belong.
But the cost of the path I have chosen is that I will never belong to any one group.
In the end, like many of us must, I walk alone.
And I try to do my best to do what is right to my independent heart and mind, not what is popular with any one group.
Fuck you, Lex.
Fuck you, you...
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, but...
Get a grip, Chris.
Get a grip.
What's your problem with that?
Use your words.
Such a...
The, you know, wounded bird foes that we talk about, but this is somebody with a martyrdom complex that is stronger than actual martyrs, like actually people that were crucified, you know, and died.
This makes him sound like...
He is the savior that mankind needs.
He's one of the few, Matt.
The independent people, they'll take this.
And suddenly, by the way, the Ukrainian bot farms have suddenly got a lot of help.
He mentions people in the left and right in the United States and Europe, pro and anti Zelensky people, pro and anti people in Russia.
These are suddenly starting to seem like actual people that were criticizing him.
But, you know, surely anyway, they were all amplified by bot farms.
So, yeah, just that thing.
That's how I'm supposed to impose off.
I receive criticisms from all sides.
Maybe he does, right?
So you want charity?
Maybe he did get criticism from some hardcore pro-Putin accounts who are like, why are you even giving this fraud Zelensky the time to speak, right?
Or criticize them for like doing a bad job and pushing against Zelensky's lies.
But...
It is not equal 50 /50.
Lex presents it like everybody attacks me, but I'm willing to walk.
No, Lex, you're getting most of your attacks for being pro-Russian and for not acknowledging that.
And no, you are not.
In a group of one, how is Daddy Rogan or Daddy Musk?
Where are they?
Are they not in your tribe?
What about your friend Michael Malice?
What about all of the people that you give pandering softball interviews to?
He's just so clearly part of the Rogan sphere, so clearly part of that, you know, Putin-esque big man admiration club.
I just find it so incredibly...
It's self-serving and hypocritical to do this.
It's so annoying.
It certainly is a bit on the nose.
Like at the beginning, he framed his work as just fighting for peace and this kind of thing.
He's so brave.
He's such a martyr.
I mean, he's podcasting, making, I think, millions of dollars doing so.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Very comfortably in the United States and not...
Really doing anything, as far as I can tell, to further the cause of anything, unless it's perhaps Putin apologizing.
Yeah, so this framing of himself as someone who is so brave, so principled, and just so badly hurt all the time, simply by doing good.
It's not too much of a stress to say that he's describing himself as being Christ-like.
Someone who's suffering on the cross because...
Taking all of the slings and arrows from all quarters, all of these terrible people, either bots or they are just ideological echo chamber type people, when in reality he's doing incredibly low quality interviews with an agenda that's slanted towards Putin apologetics.
And he's rightly being criticized for it, but that is the one explanation that is a million miles away from something he would ever acknowledge as being fair or reasonable.
To counter that presentation, Matt, here's the goals that Lex said that the interview with Zelensky was about.
Here was his motivation for doing the interview.
My goals for this conversation were twofold.
First, give a large platform to President Zelensky to explain his perspective on the war and to do so in a way that brings out the best in who he is as a leader and human being.
Second goal was to push for peace and to give him every opportunity possible to signal that he's ready to make peace and to provide his vision for what that might look like.
And just to be clear, by peace I mean long-lasting peace that minimizes suffering of people in the region and maximizes the flourishing of humanity in the coming decades.
The war in Ukraine has led to over one million casualties and growing every single day.
For some people, torn apart by loss, tormented and forced into a state of anger and hate, peace is a dirty word.
To them, nothing less than justice must be accepted.
I hear this pain.
I've seen the bodies and the suffering.
It's true, peace will not bring back your loved ones, but it will prevent further slaughter of more people, each of whom are someone else's loved ones.
So again, the second goal of this conversation was to push for this kind of peace.
It's a small point, but people who refer to it as the war in Ukraine rather than the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And, you know, he doesn't need to define peace.
We know what peace means in the end of the war.
Like, Chris, as you're playing that, I don't know if there's much that he's saying there that sort of, it's more on the same topic.
But I was just looking at the Lex Fridman subreddit, which usually is, as I said, aggressively policed to remove negative commentary.
It is currently as well.
But what are you seeing?
It's just interesting to see replies to his post, Lex Fridman's post on this particular episode.
Some of the top replies, I guess, are at the top, most upvoted, is that Lex, this was cancer, do better.
Separate post, this is how history will remember Lex Fridman as a genocide apologist and an enemy of humanity.
They will be gone.
The next most popular post, Lex's complete naivete on full display, his ridiculous platitudes from a place of extreme privilege.
I like Blake, so I think he's a good dude.
But this interview really exposed his flaws.
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see whether those comments stay up.
Absolutely will not.
But that is, in general, the response to both this segment and a lot of the initial response to Bill Zlansky interview.
And here I would say as well, Matt, that...
I think there's two things.
Well, there's a couple of things going on, but two things that I would mention here.
One is, of course, that Lex is framing this, that, you know, he had the most lofty goals.
He wants to promote peace.
He wants to give Zelensky a chance to outline his vision and to present his perspective on things.
But when he's talking about the suffering and all that kind of stuff, he's always very unclear about, like, who, right?
Who were is the majority of the suffering?
What is the cause of it, right?
Like, he despises war, Matt.
He doesn't like that there's so many injuries, so many casualties, and the whole region needs to be at peace.
And that is because Lex doesn't want to emphasize that this is an aggressive war from Russia invading Ukraine, right?
So yes, Russians have suffered as well.
There's been many young conscripts who have died.
But it is because...
Vladimir Putin is sending his forces to invade another country.
So, Lex, just in his wording, he manages to reference the suffering, but never specifically the kind of...
Yeah, who is suffering and what is the instigating cause of that?
Yeah, no, it's quite clear where...
This is both sides-ism taken to an extreme.
And I guess in a situation like this, it's just so obviously bullshit that, you know, people are seeing and reacting to it.
The other thing that I think that is going on there is that, you know, in the interview Zelensky brought up the kind of issues about parents with dead children and people who had their mullers killed, you asked them to just forget it all, right?
And he was saying there will be, of course there will be peace, but forgiveness.
It's much harder for the people who lost children and all this kind of thing.
So I think this is in part Lex wanting to...
He didn't like that, being framed that he's not empathetic enough about what had happened.
And you can see this, you're going to see this later, that he didn't like Zelensky taking the moral high ground to talk to him.
So in any case, Lex moves on to talk about, after detailing...
The peace negotiations broke down in 2019.
He also wants to talk about, like, other chances for peace that may have been squandered.
After the invasion of February 24th, 2022, I believe there were three chances where peace was most achievable.
First chance was March and April of 2022, with a successful defense of the North.
Second chance was the fall of 2022.
With the successful counter-offensive in Kherson and Kharkiv.
The third chance is now.
As he has stated multiple times publicly, Donald Trump is very interested in making peace.
It is likely that the U.S. financial support for this war will continue to dwindle.
So, the leverage and the timing for peace negotiation is now.
There is unlikely to be another chance like this for a long time.
So I wonder, you know, Ukraine, they didn't really take the opportunity to get peace immediately after the invasion or, like, after successful counter-offensives.
Like, so what field there?
Like, at what point is Ukraine the country that is preventing peace?
Like, Russia can withdraw, right?
Russia could withdraw at any point unilaterally, right?
So, but anyway, that for you, I mean, so two opportunities that were missed for whatever reason, unclear.
And the implication is missed by both sides.
Ukraine could have reached out and taken the opportunity for peace.
Who can say?
Who can say who's to blame?
And as he notes, dwindling support will be coming.
So now is the time to sue for peace.
That's not a great position for Ukraine to be in.
Just incidentally, now you're going to sue for peace without strong support from the US.
But in any case, setting that aside.
Lex was talking, you know, Trump is coming, and he wants to think a bit more about, you know, the broader implications and Lex's role in this in particular.
So just consider this, Matt.
Just to zoom out on the conversation piece of this, I interviewed Donald Trump and may do so again.
I interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky and may do so again.
And it seems likely that I will interview Vladimir Putin in Russia, in the Kremlin.
I understand the risks and I accept them.
The risks for me are not important.
I'm not important.
I merely want to do my small part in pushing for peace in a moment in history when there's a real chance for that peace to actually be achieved.
Wow.
So Christ, his sufferings, but his endeavours continue, this time by going to Moscow to...
Rescuing his life, Mark.
To bring a historic piece by talking to Putin.
Yeah.
Lex's life is in danger.
He's in danger.
I mean, in what world?
I mean, like, knowing Vladimir Putin, at least by second hand, by reports, as most of us do, and his modus operandi, which, by the way, is absolutely not above assassinating political opponents.
What are the odds that him having a softball interview...
With Lex Friedman, it's going to result in a change of heart.
Perhaps Vladimir Putin will hear Lex's childlike discussions about love and understanding and recognizing that we're all human beings and will realize that his invasion of Ukraine was a big mistake.
Yeah, well, I mean, there's that.
But there's also that issue that, is Lex in danger?
Like, I understand that...
Putin is a dangerous man.
And that if you were a journalist who was going to go and push Putin very hard and point out his involvement with crimes, the death of political opponents and whatnot, you would be entering risky grounds, right?
You have to be a brave person to do that.
I think there are many journalists who would be brave enough to do that if given the opportunity.
Is Lex going to do that?
Is Lex going to push Putin on uncomfortable points?
Is he going to raise criticisms of Putin, like the way he did with Zelensky and implied that Russia isn't a democracy?
Is he going to do that?
If he does do that, I will rescind this particular criticism of Lex and acknowledge that is impressive.
I cannot see that happening.
And if he is going to go to Russia and do what he's done with every other world leader that he's interviewed, bar Zelensky, it will be A verbal fellatio.
So no, he's not in much danger if that's what's going to occur.
So it's posing as this, I am a peace speaker.
You know, I go and I risk my life for this chance to contribute to peace.
But do you?
Are you?
I'm just very curious about the level of risk that Lex faces.
Chris, I would draw your attention to the latest addition to the Garometer, which is, of course, moral grandstanding.
And I think this is a perfect example of it.
I mean, the special thing about Lex is that his moral grandstanding is just so unsubtle.
It is so handsome.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so unwarranted.
As you said, if he does his typical kinds of interview, there is absolutely no risk to him.
Of course not.
Well, we're going to get to the section which is the worst.
Of this.
We're about to round the corner of that.
But just on that thing about, you know, the widow boy Lex pose, right?
The wounded bird, the martyrdom complex, all of it, right?
This is just a minor point.
But this whole thing is interspersed with stuff like this.
I may be speaking too long, I'm sorry.
But I can probably speak for many more hours.
So this is, in fact, me trying to be brief.
Just these things that, you know, Lex is...
Look, he understands he's not perfect.
He doesn't do everything right.
But he's trying.
Okay?
He's trying.
He's failed before.
He'll probably fail again.
But that's not going to stop him from continuing on his quest for peace and love and human understanding.
I know.
We know.
Yes.
Yes.
I've heard those asides before, Chris.
Okay.
Well, now, so, he talked about his preparation for the interview.
Now, he's going to talk about...
You know, what happened at the interview?
And with Zelensky, his assessment of the man having done the interview.
And this is the first part of that.
So listen to this, Matt.
Like I said, step one through 10 is prepare well.
I did.
But step 11 is the actual conversation.
There, the specific psychological and personality quirks and qualities of the guest matter a lot.
My job is to try to cut through the bullshit walls we put up as human beings and reveal...
Directly or indirectly, who the person truly is and how they think.
With Zelensky, he is a deeply empathic and emotional human being who personally feels the suffering of the people of Ukraine in this war.
This is a strength and perhaps also a weakness.
But it is an important part of the reason why I said many times that he is a truly historic figure.
Very few leaders in recent history would be able to pull off what he did, to stay in Kiev, to unite the country, to convince the West to join the war effort to the degree they did.
He is also a showman, to borrow the title of the biography I recommended, a man with many layers of humor and wit, but also ego and temper.
Sometimes fully self-aware, and sometimes losing himself in the emotional rollercoaster of a painful memory or a turn of phrase that he can use as a springboard for an angry soliloquy.
Add to this the fact that we didn't agree to anything, what we will talk about, or how long we will talk about it.
The interview could have easily been five minutes, or three hours.
So I had to quickly gain his trust enough to open up and stay for a long-form conversation, but push him enough to reveal the complexities of his thought process and his situation.
A complex man, Matt.
A complex man.
He's got, like, Lex has prayers for Zelensky here, talking about him being empathetic and emotional.
A strength and perhaps a weakness that he cares for Ukrainian civilians.
Okay, but...
Also a showman.
Also a performer, if you like.
Prone to bouts of anger.
Angry soliloquies.
What's he talking about there?
Would that perhaps be during the interview with Lex where he responded a bit angrily when Lex was suggesting, basically implying that the people in Ukraine should love Vladimir Putin or this kind of thing.
This is indicating Prius.
There is Prius in there, but there's also that he's a bit of an angry blowhard who goes on moral grounds.
But again, this is self-serving because I think part of why he's posting these reflections is that Zelensky demonstrated that he was irritated at various times in the interview.
And so he should have been.
Anyone would have been at such...
A childish line of questioning.
Like, just the kind of comments there illustrate what Lex is all about.
You know, he's someone who cares deeply and so on.
Like, it's so saccharine and empty.
So yeah, he responded in an irritated way and a lot of the audience picked up on that.
It didn't reflect well on Lex as an interviewer.
And I think this is Lex's version of it.
It doesn't reflect badly on Lex.
Actually, this is just an indication of his fiery temperament.
Yeah, well, also, immediately after this, he talks about the clip I played about him appearing to be naive, but that was actually a strategy, right?
So this is him saying that, you know, actually, he has these very clever ways to get through people's armor.
He's kind of presenting himself like he's Louis Ferroux, right?
Except the difference is that Louis Ferroux actually does through naive questions.
Like, Louis Ferroux is not a naive person, but he uses naive questioning in order to get people...
To explain their point of view and reveal things that they might not otherwise, right?
But that's not what Lex does.
Nobody mistakes Lex for an interviewer like Louis Verroux.
And also that part where he's implying like he could have pushed back.
He could have pointed out the contradictions.
He could have, you know, done that.
But he put his ego aside to let Zelensky shine, which is what he does in all his interviews, right?
Yeah, just the naked self-servingness of almost everything he says.
I know, it's really stomach-turning.
I think he sees, you know, he's always going on about Dostoevsky.
I think he sees himself as the idiot.
So Dostoevsky wrote a novel called The Idiot, and it was about an idiot who was kind of Christ-like, you know what I mean, pure.
He was like this kind of, a pure kind of idiot with this sort of deep wisdom out of his childishness.
Yeah, I think Lex would like to see himself as that.
Well, now, so here's the thing, Matt.
If people are listening along and thinking, you guys are taking a pretty negative line on this, like, you know, you can read Lex, yes, as hinting at all these things, but, like, he's been, you know, pretty even-handed, right?
He's been trying to slip in praise as well and this kind of thing.
Maybe you guys are just, you know, you're too mean to Lex and he doesn't actually have a strong bias to one side or the other.
Well, let's just hear this next clip, which is a bit more about Zelensky and what Lex's insight led him to see.
And that truth is that hundreds of thousands of people died in this war and are dying every day.
And all the other problems, from corruption to suspended elections to censorship, cannot be solved until peace is made.
I give the president every single chance to signal willingness to negotiate, knowing that both Trump and Putin will listen to this conversation.
I don't think he took it, and instead chose to speak very crude words towards Vladimir Putin.
This is fully understandable, but not directly productive to negotiation.
To clarify, I have hosted many conversations that were intensely critical of Vladimir Putin, from Serhii Plohi to Stephen Kotkin.
But this conversation is with a world leader, speaking about another world leader during a historic opportunity for peace.
Crude words of disrespect, while powerful, may harm negotiations.
Peacemaking in this situation requires compromise in order to avoid further death and suffering.
And I believe it requires treating the other leader with the seriousness you expect him to treat you with.
This is what I was pushing for.
All that while also putting my ego aside and letting the president shine, which is necessary to accomplish both goals one and two that I mentioned previously.
Right.
So while Lex did an absolutely admirable job in this interview, he was great, to be clear.
He was giving Zelensky every chance to shine.
He puts his ego aside.
He asks the naive questions as a child would to put Zelensky at ease and really get the most value out of the conversation.
Zelensky himself, he didn't do well.
He didn't do well.
One, he's got that fiery temper which led him to respond in an irritated way towards some of Lex's questions.
And two, he was not very respectful of Vladimir Putin, the dictator and autocrat that has invaded his country and caused all of this death and suffering on Ukrainian soil.
You know, the person that sent the army in that committed massacres like at Butcher,
No, I wouldn't.
I would say that this is...
An illustration of what a little worm Lex is.
I'm sorry to put it in blunt terms, but he thinks that Zelensky failed to take the opportunity that Lex is granting him to sue for peace.
Who does he think he is to lecture people that are leading countries facing an invasion about how they should behave to the aggressor in their country?
Is he going to take this tone?
When he speaks to Putin and talk about how badly Putin performed in the interview.
And the thing is, he didn't say this to Zelensky, right?
He's saying this now in the comfort of his podcast studio at the end of a three-hour interview he did with someone else and sticks it on the end of it.
So he felt that Zelensky had field his people, is perhaps botching the opportunity for peace, represented by...
You know, one hopes that he's referring to Trump coming in, not this podcast conversation, right?
But he clearly thinks this podcast is very important.
Trump and Putin are listening in.
You know, this was the opportunity for Zelensky to signal.
And of course, Zelensky did signal to Trump, right?
He spoke about Trump in a positive way, and he communicated about how much faith he has in Trump.
So he's aware of that.
What he didn't do...
Do you think Putin's going to speak nicely about Zelensky when he talks about him?
But also, do you think Putin responds to that?
Do you think Putin responds to love and kindness and people reaching out and offering the open palm in a gesture of friendship so that he can have a true and deep, meaningful relationship with him?
Do you think that's the calculus that's going on?
With a leader like Putin, it's just so annoying on multiple levels.
One, it's the self-servingness of it, which is that he wanted Zelensky to dance to his particular stupid little childish drum about love and connecting together as human beings and talking about how great Joe Rogan is and talking perhaps how his heart is open to recognizing that actually Putin really just wants the best and there's been a terrible misunderstanding.
Zelensky didn't dance to the drum because he's not a fool like Lex is.
On the other hand, Lex seems to genuinely believe that this whole mess could be resolved by Zelensky showing more love and respect to Vladimir Putin.
And he does not understand.
I mean, I don't know.
I've got two minds, Chris, because part of me is like, Lex really is this naive and childlike.
Yeah.
Weird, studied naivety.
Both sides has gone mad and is purely self-serving.
And I think it's like a figure-ground illusion.
Both those things are kind of true at the same time.
Yeah, it's despicable.
I think they're both applying.
I think Lex is this arrogant and presumptuous and naive.
And I think he does generally have this notion that Joe Rogan and Elon Musk are very important to achieving.
Peace, right?
And their attitude.
So he is also extremely biased, right?
And he clearly has a slant and an affection for Putin that has stretched back many years before this conflict.
And he talked about how he wanted to interview Putin.
And he just, in general, has an admiration for strong men, right?
So I think it is both things.
Yeah, it is both things.
And just to remind ourselves as well, he also worked in the mention of these points he keeps coming back to.
There are these issues of there hasn't been...
Oh, corruption.
That's right, corruption.
There hasn't been scheduled elections.
What about the censorship, Chris?
I mean, he rattles off these, frankly, Putin-apologetic talking points just on the by-the-by.
Yeah, like...
Yeah, like, again, it illustrates...
What kind of information ecosystem he's bought into?
He doesn't acknowledge that.
He doesn't have a side.
He's just looking for peace.
He doesn't have any sympathies one way or the other.
He's researched this really well.
He's got a very clear objective understanding of things.
But he is responsive to Russian propaganda, frankly, and he has a distorted view of the relative problems within the domestic Ukrainian...
Administrations and the Russian administration.
Yeah, because there's no, in what he's saying, he doesn't make any mention about the various issues in Russia, right?
That never seems to come up about lack of democracy or persecution of political opponents.
The multiple amounts of corruption, the kleptocracy, like the assassinations, the politicalists, like there isn't mention of that, by the by.
And when he has mentioned it, he's suggested, like, for example, with Navalny, maybe it was a plot by Biden.
That's right, maybe the CIA did it.
I mean, again, you go, if he's stupid, or does he have these Putin sympathies?
And I think you're right, Chris, it's both.
It's just both.
Yeah, he cares.
So, in any case, a lot of people did respond to this.
I helped it along, Matt, by clipping this and putting it out of him telling off Zelensky.
But, yeah, that's just the level of...
This is also why I wanted the president to speak about Elon and Trump, to extend the olive branch for further avenues of peacemaking.
This is not about politics.
It is, once again, simply about peace.
Now...
All of this, my words, my attempts, were taken out of context and used to attack me by some online mobs.
As an example, President Zelensky said in a mocking tone that he thinks that Vladimir Putin is simply irritated by people who are alive in Ukraine.
And I answered, quote, If you believe this, it will be very difficult to negotiate.
If you think that the president of a country is completely crazy, it is really hard to come to an agreement with him.
You have to look at him as a serious person who loves his country and loves the people in his country.
And he conducts, yes, destructive military actions.
The president interrupted me at this point and said, who are you talking about now?
Who loves this country?
And I said, Putin.
Do you think he doesn't love this country?
And the president answered, no.
Again, this is not a podcast conversation with a historian or activist, and I somehow, out of nowhere, just for fun, waxed poetic about Putin's or Zelensky's or Trump's love of nation.
It is a conversation with a world leader discussing the opportunity to negotiate peace when a large number of people are dying every single day.
My God.
So, Lex Rubin there is on his moral high horse.
Because how dare Zelensky?
Interrupt him.
Yeah, interrupt him.
And also suggest that Putin isn't motivated by love, love for the people of Russia, and that he should make an illusion that Putin doesn't care and wants Ukrainians to die.
I mean, Lex should just look at Russian state TV and what the propaganda looks like.
Look at the actions.
My God.
And so Lex actually thinks this is a massive gotcha.
Like this is Zelensky showing himself to be totally disrespectful and totally having really quite poor motives and emotional, like having very distorted views of the motivations of Putin.
It is.
It's so arrogant.
It's so arrogant and conceited.
And it's just so annoying because he pairs it with these proclamations that he's the most humble person in the world.
I know.
It's just...
It should be illegal what Lex does.
And his defense that, you know, I mentioned Elon and Trump because I wanted to give him the chance to reach out to, you know, like to mend the bridges and that kind of thing.
Like it's just...
It's that self-serving thing where, like, of course you're going to talk about Trump, but the reference to Musk or Joe Rogan, no, Lex, it's because you mention him in every fucking conversation, not just with Zelensky.
It's not like, oh, you know, I rarely bring up Musk.
There is nobody that you interview that you do not bring up Musk and Rogan to.
So acting like this was part of a clever strategy for me to give him, you know, an opportunity.
I mean, I think that he believes that's true, but what is the difference from a normal Lex interview where people are asked to expound on the qualities of Lord Rogan and Master Musk?
That's normal.
That's what he does in every single interview.
And Zelensky did take that opportunity to try and say nice stuff about Musk and Trump because he understands he has to, right?
He's over a fucking barrel.
So Lex presenting this as if, you know, Zelensky failed.
To realize the gravity of the situation and kind of let things down by getting...
No, he responded as the leader of a country.
All he didn't do was kowtow to your man crush on fucking Putin.
So, yeah, this is extremely distasteful.
Distasteful is the word.
Yeah, I mean...
Lex has received more than usual blowback on this.
And it is so well-deserved.
He deserves 10 times more.
It should be disqualifying.
But I assume he'll go on.
Well, the last clip, Matt, the last one, his sign-out.
So this is immediately following that about the disrespectful tone that Zelensky dared to take and he doesn't understand.
How deeply Putin's love for the Russian people extends, right?
And now, just to make clear as well, in case people didn't listen to the actual original conversation, Zelensky very clearly said, no, I don't think Putin is motivated by love in his heart.
He might love his inner circle.
He might love power.
And he might love his dream about, like, you know, the Russian Empire.
He does not love the Russian people.
And that is a perfectly reasonable, very well-evidenced position.
That is precisely how autocrats and dictators work, right?
You should not assume that Stalin, you know, first and foremost, was motivated by love for the Russian people as individual human beings.
Or, look, I don't want to name Hitler because everyone goes to Hitler, but, you know, any number of autocrats.
Like, this is how they work.
And the way Zelensky framed it...
I think is exactly right.
They may well be in love of some sort of a grandiose vision they have for the country.
They may well feel some degree of affection for their inner circle, although history tells us they're quite willing to murder them if the need arises.
And this is very true of Putin as well.
There is absolutely no evidence.
If you love the Russian people, then you wouldn't be embarking on ridiculous wars of conquest.
There is no benefit.
To the everyday Russian person to invading foreign countries like Ukraine.
You wouldn't be arresting people for making protests.
You wouldn't be crushing democracy.
No, you wouldn't be arresting...
Unless the view is that Russian people can't handle that, right?
Because that is not the kind of leadership that they seek out, which I don't believe is true, right?
But the thing with Lex is when he brought up some of these talking points with Zelensky and he was saying, you know, Russians will be able to see this interview and whatnot.
Zelensky said to him, YouTube is banned in Russia.
Do you know that?
He doesn't even know that.
I mean, if this is the amazing thing, like, Lex really is this naive.
Like, he clearly does view, as you said, Vladimir Putin as a great man.
As a historic figure, as a great leader of Russia.
And, you know, he might have made some mistakes.
He has some faults.
He has some faults.
We all have faults.
We all have faults, Chris.
You know, he's made some poor choices.
But, you know, he's fundamentally motivated by love of the Russian people and a lot of these bad things that are happening, like right now in Ukraine, is a result of misunderstandings.
It's a complicated situation.
You know, a lack of human connection between leaders and someone like Zelensky is just throwing the opportunity away to develop some sort of bonding situation with Putin that would somehow sort all this out.
It is absolutely insulting to the intelligence and just...
Ethically or morally insulting as well.
Anyway, so anyway, people are right to be upset about this.
I've gotten a little bit upset myself, but I'm going to calm down, Marcus.
I'm going to calm down.
Well, you're going to get the last sign out, so maybe there'll be a message of love to finish you off.
So this is how it ends.
This is the end of the segment.
And I put this as maximum martyrdom, ultimate wounded bird.
So let's listen to this.
Oh good.
Even.
If the heart boils over with hate, leadership now requires sitting at the negotiation table and compromising.
This may be painful, but it is necessary.
There are a few other places in the conversation where some online mobs took my words out of context and used them to call me naive and to call for more war, saying peace is impossible with a man who they claim is the second coming of Hitler.
My friends, If you make such attacks on this conversation, it is in fact you who are naive and ignorant of the facts of history and geopolitics.
Peace must be made now, in order for death and suffering to stop, in order for Ukraine to have a chance to flourish, and in order for the drums of a global war to stop beating.
A global war that would cripple humanity.
This was my goal.
Once again, to push for peace.
And I will continue this effort to the best of my ability.
Thank you.
I love you all.
Thanks, I'm going to go to Rob now.
Who does this work on?
I want to meet the people who this kind of spiel works on.
He turns my stomach, Chris.
We've covered a lot of unappealing characters.
Like, the interview with Zelensky was one thing, but this subscript to it has rocketed Lex Frutman right up there in just an A-tier of people I disdain.
I just have no regard for him at all.
What a fool.
Yeah, well, well, Matt, that...
Is a symptom of how much you want this war to continue.
That you would dare criticize this conversation.
That you would take Lex out of context and present his things as naive.
The only thing, my friends, my friends listen to me.
My friends who I love dearly.
You are the fools.
The naive fools.
You are the ones who are hit in your heart.
If you don't love Lex.
You want the war.
You love war.
You want war.
You want war.
You love it.
Hating your heart.
That's it.
That's the only position that is possible to criticize Lex, is you just fucking love war.
You want global war.
You want this war to continue.
More people to die.
That is the only reason that people would dare criticize Lex with his little boy heart, the boy that sees through the Emperor in all his geek finery, and is out there, Pushing for peace, risking his fucking life, day and night,
eight hours a day, reading books.
He's there in his very nice house with his millions of dollars, reading books all the time, pushing for peace, interviewing people, having conversations, asking softball questions.
That's not easy.
That's not easy.
It's not easy.
Do you think anyone could do that?
Do you think anyone could do this?
Well, thank you, Chris.
I had to absolutely turn my stomach.
Last thing to say, Matt, just, you know, you mentioned about this not going that well for Lex.
I will say that is true, okay?
So if you look at the YouTube comments under this, all of the top-moded ones are like, what the F are you talking about, Lex?
Like, this is embarrassing.
Who are you to lecture?
All this, right?
It's cutting through.
And the clips that I helpfully shared online for other people went around and people retweeted, including people in Lex's general extended network who are favorable to Lex.
And, you know, crypto bros and whatnot responding with love, Lex.
What the fuck?
Right?
And this kind of thing.
So I feel like this will work.
With some people, right?
I mean, Joe Rogan probably would eat this up, right?
Elon Musk would eat this up.
But for a lot of people, I think this has helped to reveal Lex's pose.
Yeah, that's right.
Because there is nothing new here.
It is more on the nose.
It is applied to a situation where it's absolutely untenable, and that's forced, I think, people to see it for what it is.
But all of the stuff that Lex is...
The self-serving stuff, this studied naivete, this blatant cajoling the audience into loving him and extending to him every possible benefit.
It's all on display, but it's not new.
This is just what it's been doing for ages.
It just hasn't really mattered that much before.
So it is good to see one little silver light there that more people will see it for what it is.
One other thing.
Do you know that tribalist Lex, the man that you can never pigeonhole him in the team?
He's not on your team.
He's just a lone wolf standing out there in the cold.
He did happen to make it to the inauguration and get photos with Linda Iaccarino and various other MAGA world people.
He is friends with Joe Rogan and a big Elon supporter and all that kind of thing.
But no team, Matt.
If Kamala Harris...
Had it won, he would have been there.
He would have been just as home at the inauguration of a left-leaning liberal president as he is at a, you know, MAGA-Trump inauguration event.
Like, that's Lexity.
Yeah, just amazing that I think on some level, like you said, he believes what he's saying.
And just out of lack of self-awareness is kind of oppressive to pull that off.
I'll grant him that.
It's certainly a remarkable quality.
That is true.
Remarkable.
That's the word for it.
Yeah, this has been a despicable journey for the world of Lex Friedman and his Putin apologetics.
I will also say, Lex, we are not a fucking Ukrainian bot farm.
Okay?
We're not a bot farm.
We are identifiable people criticizing you.
Along with many, many other people.
We are real boys, Lex.
Yeah, yeah.
But that is the thing, Matt.
We are the people that he is presenting as either our hearts are just filled with polemical partisan here and we love war so much or we are just being artificially amplified by Ukrainian bot farms.
That's it.
That's where the criticism comes from.
It couldn't be.
From actually genuine criticism of Lex.
Like, you might want to go back and listen to our previous episodes of Lex where we've criticized him plenty.
Well, Chris, I just want to reassure Lex if he ever hears this that I'm not getting paid by anyone.
There's no money coming from Ukraine to me.
The absolute disdain I have for it comes from the bottom of my heart.
That's good.
Yes, that's a message of sincerity.
Yeah, me too.
I mean with all emotional, pure sentiment that I do this for free, Lex.
Criticize you for free.
If nobody was listening, I would be yelling this into the void.
Screaming into the pillow.
Yeah, fortunately for us, some people do hear it, but I don't need to be paid to criticize Lex Friedman.
He deserves it, and this interview is a beautiful illustration of why.
Agreed.
All right, well, thank you for that, Chris.
I hate it once again, but not for the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.
