PBD Podcast | EP 130 | Former KGB Official: Jack Barsky
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PBD Podcast Episode 130. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick and former KGB officer Jack Barsky.
Check out Jack Barsky's official website here: https://bit.ly/3dWOZvC
You can purchase his book here: https://amzn.to/3q0oL0S
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Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list
About:
Jack Philip Barsky is a German-American author, IT specialist and former sleeper agent of the KGB who spied on the United States from 1978 to 1988. Exposed after the Cold War, Barsky became a resource for U.S. counterintelligence agencies and was allowed to remain in the United States.
About Co-Host:
Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Connect with him on his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: booking@valuetainment.com
0:00 - Start
3:56 - Whats really going on in Ukraine
9:36 - The REAL history of Russia and Ukraine
19:22 - Putin's next moves
26:37 - Do Immigrants love America more than natural born citizens?
33:41 - Dictatorship in America
36:33 - 'If he doesn't find an off ramp, He's done' - Jack Barsky on Vladimir Putin
44:06 - Where do Putin's loyalties lie?
49:58 - American energy independence
53:03 - Does Vladimir Putin have cancer?
56:11 - Russian Spies
1:02:09 - Are NGO's cover for spy organizations?
1:08:03 - How do you stop Vladimir Putin
1:15:41 - Who is happy with Russia's invasion
1:25:26 - Gas Prices
Before you start telling them you look like Chris Matthews or Bill O'Reilly, let's first let the world know who's on here today.
Let's do that.
Former 15-year KGB member, I think 1973 to 1988, is here with us, Jack Barski.
Jack and I had a Zoom interview a couple months ago, which was very entertaining, to say the least.
I think we had a good time together.
Lively.
And I hear the background.
Whoever's got it on, someone's got it on.
Jack, grab the mic.
No, but somebody has the audio on that's playing.
Is that you?
No, just.
Okay, it was him.
No, Tyler Hyderon.
Just put the mic in front of you.
Yeah.
So, but it's good to have you on.
We talked last time about Yuri Beznamov, Besmanov.
We talked about the fact that he talked about the four stages, demoralization, destabilization, stage three is crisis, normalization.
Some of that stuff's going on today.
Maybe you and I can go into that a little bit more.
Active measures, actually.
Active measures, yeah, absolutely.
We'll get into that.
And then obviously with everything that's going on with Russia, Ukraine today.
But before we get started, Jack, if you don't mind, for the audience that doesn't know your background, even if you just take a couple minutes for the shorter version so we can get right into the story, I think it'd be a good idea for some of the audience to hear about your background.
Yeah, the short cliff notes of a rather lengthy biography.
Born in 1949 in the part of Germany that was occupied after World War II by the Soviet Army.
Grew up in the German Democratic Republic.
That wasn't really Democratic.
It was communist.
Lived in East Germany for 26 years.
Graduated with a master's degree in chemistry.
And then the long detour began.
The KGB recruited me.
I was trained to be an agent.
I initially was supposed to be an agent in West Germany, but it turned out that I displayed a phenomenal talent for language.
And I studied English, and I did it well enough that they decided to train me to become an American.
Moved me to Moscow for two years, where I had interaction with born Americans, studied a lot of English, and also got the best training that is available, what's available by the KGB with regard to tradecraft, you know, how you operate as an agent.
And in 1979, I appeared in New York City and became Jack Barski.
So I took on the identity of a born American who had passed away at the age of 11, I believe.
He had passed away at the age of 11.
Yes, the real Jack Barski.
The real Jack Barski.
And this was the typical way the KGB stole IDs.
In those days, it was possible you could get a birth certificate from anybody.
You didn't even have to show that you had a need or were justified in asking for a birth certificate.
You just got it.
What a story right there.
By the way, I saw you, I think it was on March 1st on Fox on an interview.
You talked about the fact that Russian spies may be at it today, so there may be some Russian spies amongst us.
We'll talk about that.
Obviously, I want to get some of your thoughts with the history of what's going on between the two.
But just out of curiosity, did you have a chance to watch the documentary, Ukraine on Fire by Oliver Stone, as well as Winter on Fire by the one that Sean Penn was talking about?
Have you seen those two documents?
No, I have not.
You haven't seen them?
Okay, so just an open-ended question.
What are your thoughts about what's really going on today between Ukraine and Russia?
What's led up to this?
What led up to this was the formation of Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent in East Germany, in the town of Dresden.
He was not much of an agent.
He was a mid-level bureaucrat.
But, you know, in those days, when you joined as a Soviet citizen, you joined the KGB.
You were a flaming communist and a patriot.
Okay, so, and the KGB was, I mean, was the elite of the elite, right?
So he was a mid-level bureaucrat in Dresden, had the good life because East Germany standard of living was much higher than in the Soviet Union.
There's pictures of him.
He was pretty chubby.
He liked the German beer.
You can't blame him.
The German beer is pretty good.
Yes, there's no bad beer in Germany.
So anyway, and then there was a moment that pretty much shaped him ideologically.
It was in 1989, when the wall came down, East German citizens went, stormed a bunch of Stasi offices.
And in Dresden, they went after the KGB office.
And the KGB, the guards wouldn't let them in, and they told him, go away or else we're going to shoot.
So they went away.
They came back the next day.
Vladimir called Berlin and asked Berlin, do we have permission to shoot if they come back?
And Berlin said, we called Moscow.
They're silent.
That was the moment when Vladimir understood that Gorbachev was letting go of East Germany.
And this, you know, and the idea that he belonged to the most powerful organization on the planet, and he was fundamentally, had no powers to do something.
That was the beginning of Vladimir Putin, who he is today, because he sort of insight says, we got to fix this.
Meaning we can't let this happen?
Because it was seven decades of control, essentially.
Yes, we got to fix this.
We're losing the greatness that we were.
And then not much later, the Soviet Union fell apart.
And this is what Vladimir's goal was and still is, is re-establishing the Russian Empire.
And so he's still a patriot, mind you.
I think he's not a communist anymore.
Maybe there's some residual communist thinking.
But he's a patriot and he is, I believe, a huge narcissist.
Because you put that together, he thinks he's the only one who can do what he's trying to do to establish the greatness of Russia and build himself a monument right next to Peter the Great.
And that is the driving force behind what's going on in Ukraine right now.
That's the driving force behind what's going on in Ukraine right now.
Okay.
Do you think the worst is here, or do you think it's going to get uglier?
I'm afraid it could get uglier.
There's a very fine line that the West must walk because there's speculation that Putin is not entirely sane.
Well, there's insanity and there's insanity.
What he's doing actually by invading Ukraine is insane by itself.
A sane person does not go after women and children.
But if he goes beyond that, when he's going crazy, he's got nukes.
So we've got to be really, really careful.
We can't let him get away with this.
But Hopefully, you know, some talks will happen, and hopefully he finds an off-ramp, because if he stays in Ukraine, he's done.
He will not survive this in terms of, you know, long-term.
The Ukrainians will not allow him to occupy the country without major damage.
The fall of the Soviet Union started with the debacle in Afghanistan, right?
This is going, if he occupies all of Ukraine, you're going to have an Afghanistan multiplied several times over.
Do you think he watched how things were handled in Afghanistan and the Taliban got, what, $80 billion of whatever the equipment was and the mishandling of it that was brought up both by the folks on the left and the right, so it wasn't like a political side that they're just disagreeing.
Do you think he saw that as an opportunity to say, this is the time for us to invade Ukraine?
Yes.
Yes.
I don't know if it was the deciding factor, but clearly it looks like the American military doesn't know what they're doing anymore.
It appears that the generals actually had a different plan and were overridden by civilians in the White House who don't know what they're doing.
So I watched this documentary.
Did you watch the one by Oliver Stone or no?
No, I watched the story.
First of all, Oliver Stone interviewed Putin God knows how many times, like 13, 14, I don't know the exact number, but multiple times.
And he did this documentary and he went to both sides, right?
And it tells you the history of Ukraine and Russia.
So one of the concerns for Putin is a lot of the countries that were part of USSR are now part of NATO.
And it's 13 surrounding countries that are part of NATO, surrounding Russia that are not part of NATO.
So to him, that's a threat because NATO keeps getting stronger around Lithuania, Yugoslavia, all the Eastern Bloc.
Yeah, I mean, just take these guys, right?
And he's sitting there saying, what is NATO's vision?
So he's kind of like sitting there saying, what is going on here?
So then you look at the history where years ago, Stalin negotiated a treaty with Hitler to prevent Hitler from invading through Ukraine.
That was kind of like the arrangement that they had, but Germany broke its promise and attacked Russia anyways, launching Barbarossa, which ended up being the largest military operation at the time.
And at one point, with Ukraine, this is why Nazi keeps coming up.
At one point, Ukraine was aligned with Hitler and SSS.
I mean, with them, in 1941, 80,000 people from the Ukrainian army fought for Hitler's army.
Yes.
So this is the part that gets a little tricky with what, you know, Putin's kind of like, do you guys know the history of what's going on?
What do you know about this?
Rich history of this.
Let me please go a few years prior to that happening.
You're right on target here.
And quite frankly, this is not being discussed in the media at all.
It's like I heard it, I forgot the name, I heard a senator the other day saying something like, Ukraine has been a democracy for the last 30 years.
That's not true.
It was an oligarchy and it's still very corrupt today.
It's not a democracy.
But let me go back to history.
Ukraine was sort of annexed by, I think it was still under Lenin and became part of the Soviet Union.
There was always been two populations in Ukraine that were Russian-speaking and Ukrainian speaking.
And the Ukrainians were more on the Polish side.
So anyway, so the Western Ukrainians, there was a separatist movement.
They wanted to go get away from the Soviet Union.
The other thing that happened, and that's very interesting, the collectivization of the agriculture of the Soviet Union.
You know, peasants don't like to be collectivized.
They want to own land, right?
And once you take that land away from them, you take, you know, their way of life.
So there was this phenomenal amount of resistance.
And so Stalin found a way to starve them into submission.
And it was mostly KGB agents and some others that went into Ukraine and stole all the grain for two years.
And so the folks that actually planted the grain and harvested it had nothing to eat.
There were four million Ukrainians that starved to death in those days.
That is the reason for the phenomenal hatred that Ukrainians have today, vis-à-vis the Russians, even though Stalin wasn't a Russian, but hatred is not rational.
It was hatred against something that came from the East.
And so as a result, when Hitler came in, there were enough Ukrainians who thought there was liberation.
It didn't turn out that way, but you were right, there were about 80,000 folks that fought in Hitler's army.
There were guards in concentration camps, Ukrainians, who committed lots of atrocities.
The most infamous nationalist was Stepan Bandera.
He was anti-communist.
He was pro-freedom to the point where he pissed a lot of people off.
But he was also anti-Semitic.
Yeah, he was.
And they hated Russians that much that they decided to side with the Nazis.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, basically.
Exactly.
But they were also fundamentally evil.
And so when Putin says, you know, there's Nazis in Ukraine, there's something to it.
In 2019, Ukraine issued commemorative stamps to honor the 100th birthday of Bandera.
That's not a good sign.
That's what I'm saying.
There's some stuff that the history that people, I don't know if enough proper investigative journalism has been done to know what's going on.
There's some guys that are doing it right now, but this is a lot.
But anti-Semitism is all over Europe, especially Eastern Europe.
It's not Europe, absolutely.
But do you know this guy, the Stephen Bandera guy?
You know who put him in jail?
You know who put him in jail during World War II?
Germany.
Hitler put him in jail.
Yes.
Oh, because he was getting too...
He was too independent.
Yeah, he was too independent and they feared him, so they just straight up put him in jail.
And from jail, he was still inspiring and moving people from jail.
He was jailed.
He was still sending messages out to people.
So this guy right here, if you look at the screen, I don't know if David, you can show it or not.
He played a very, very big role during that time.
But I'm sorry, continuing.
Well, bottom line is there's fascist Nazi ideologies still in Ukraine, but it's not prevalent.
You know, what we have there, there's a really, really good book that was written by Sean Walker, who was the correspondent for The Guardian in Moscow.
And he traveled all over the country.
The book was called The Long Hangover.
It's about Russia of today.
And he goes into the Russian and Ukrainian relationship.
And based on Sean's writing, there are no good people on either side.
Now, that book came out in 2019.
That was before Zelensky was elected.
I think he's a good guy.
Well, if I may, you know, the whole propaganda that Putin is using is that he's going into Ukraine to free Ukraine of Nazism.
That's right.
The ironic part about it is Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish.
The first Jewish president they've ever had, I believe.
And also, the number two person, the prime minister, is also Jewish.
So it's like, I'm trying to draw an analogy that you're saying, well, of course there's anti-Semites in Ukraine.
I'm sure that's everywhere.
That's like saying there's racists in America, but we elected Barack Obama.
So there's always going to be bad actors in every country.
Yeah, but what they're talking about is the fact that Ukraine flips so much from pro-Russia, pro-Western, pro-EU, pro-Russia.
Pro-Western, pro-DIS.
It seems to be like half and half, though.
If you're closer to the Russian side, you're going to be more pro-Russian.
If you're closer to the Polish side or the EU side, you're going to be more Democratic.
You have the battle of the victors.
You know, the two victors that went at it, right?
Victor Yoshkinov, Yoshenko, and then Victor pronouncing it Yanukovych.
Okay, those two went at it.
So Yochkinov, his wife was on Reagan's administration.
Okay.
Yeah, his wife was.
American?
Yes.
Was on Reagan's.
I don't know if she's American, but she was on Reagan's administration.
And then on the other side with Yanukovych, he was more on the other side.
He was more pro-Russia.
He was more, let's make it work.
So the whole documentary with Winter on Fire that Sean Penn talks about, these kids are all excited.
Students are excited.
You know, the victor that's on pro-Russia side saying, we're going to sign this treaty with EU, we're going to sign this treaty with EU, we're going to do this.
And then all of a sudden, last minute they're like, no, we're not doing it.
And then last minute we flipped.
And then they're not doing it.
So that led to the protesting, which led to ugly.
I mean, I don't know if you saw these, it was pretty bad with the protesting and the writing.
And then eventually they get this guy on where Pope Francis comes out and prays for Ukraine on January 26th of 2014.
Very interesting.
At the end of his prayer, they let two doves go.
Okay?
Very, it's a little creepy if you watch this.
They let two doves go when these two doves are flying.
No joke.
A crow and a seagull attacks the two doves.
Get out of here.
And the audience is there like panicking because it's all symbolism, right?
Everything's over there.
It's about symbolism.
They're like, oh my gosh.
And they're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Then eventually the seagulls and the crow leaves, which means that's symbolized before things get better.
You're going to make it.
You're going to survive.
But before things get better, you're going to get attacked by a crow and a seagull.
So that's how some of the folks there take that as, you know, things can get pretty ugly.
And then after that, January 24th, January 26th was the day when Pope gave that message.
February 24th is when they fulfilled their coup.
Victor was kicked out.
Victor called Putin.
Putin said, you can come.
And he went to Russia, and that's where it was at.
And then next thing, you know, Zelensky shows up in 2019, 2020.
Yeah.
And you're saying he's a good agent.
So going back to the question that we asked, there's a lot of skepticism right now about what Putin's going to do, what Putin's not going to do.
As a former KGB member yourself, in situations like this, right?
Like, you know, Yuri talks about demoralization, destabilization, you know, crisis, normalization, these phases you go through.
And he even takes it deeper.
Propaganda, disinformation, deception, sabotage, subversion, espionage, all these things that he talks about.
And that's the playbook of KGB.
Let's just say, if it is the playbook of KGB, if you could think to the best of your abilities on what the KGB was trained to do, the true believers, and you've heard Putin say there's no such thing as a former KGB.
You've heard him say that before, like there's no such thing as a former KGB.
What do you think his next moves are?
What do you think he does in a situation like this?
Because in the world right now, he's seen like the next Hitler.
I don't want to really disappoint you, but that KGB training that he brags about wasn't that good for him.
He was not a well-trained agent.
He is a masterful politician.
And clearly, everybody in the KGB was familiar with that kind of stuff.
But that doesn't mean that they were doing it very well.
Yes, active measures was particularly under Andropov.
Andropov actually issued a rule that every active KGB agent must be involved in some way doing active measures.
So he was very much for it.
And there were a number of successes that they had, but it was not on a large scale.
I think I told you it's the last time that they managed to put this big lie out there that J. Edgar Hoover was a secret cross-dresser.
And you're saying that was not true.
It was not true.
It was not true.
Vasily Mitrokin was a KGB archivist, and he smuggled a lot of material out of the archives.
And in his book, there's a section about active measures, and there's a number of things where he says, yeah, the KGB did this, that.
For instance, the Kennedy assassination, all the rumors that were floating around, they were initiated by the KGB and sort of placed into Western media, friendly Western media, sort of left-wingish, and then picked up by the New York Times and so forth.
That was successful, but this massive undermining of Western society, there's no such word in Mitrokhin's book.
He actually says that the department that was responsible for active measures was the least desirable.
You know, the agents, the good ones, all wanted to live in the West.
Surprise, surprise.
And so they had a lot of failures, but they succeeded in particular specific situations.
And disinformation, you don't have to be a trained agent.
Almost all governments do it, don't we?
You know, we have an agenda.
We have a narrative and we only talk about the stuff that fits our narrative, right?
We do it too, on the left and on the right.
So, and as I said, I think Putin is probably the smartest politician in the last 100 years.
Really?
Think about it.
He maintained power for 20 plus years in a country where the standard of living has not really improved.
That means he is a phenomenal manipulator of his own people.
They're buying into the tale that that's one of the major narratives, that Russia is constantly under threat from the West.
And by having ex-Warsaw Pact countries join NATO, we gave him some ammunition.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have let them into NATO, but there's some reality to it.
And as people who follow history know, that Russia has historically always been under attack since its foundation from everywhere.
And so in the Russian national genetic makeup, there is a desire for a strong person, strong leader.
This is succession.
There were some of the czars.
Then we had Lenin.
We had Stalin.
And now it's Putin because they're afraid of yet another invasion.
That fear, in my view, is unjustified, but how do you get this out of the most primitive part of your brain, fear?
Now, Jack, do you consider yourself German, Russian, American, all of above, just American now?
Where do you classify yourself right now?
So there's one answer I give to this.
Today I'm legally, intellectually, and emotionally an American, period, with German roots.
But I wouldn't even use the hyphenation because there's a difference between me and my wife.
She also has American citizenship, but she's originally from Jamaica.
When she says we, she means Jamaica.
When I say we, I mean the United States and us and them as the Germans.
Can you even go back to Germany?
Oh, yeah, I have.
Russia, no.
You cannot go to Russia.
No.
Not even close.
No.
Germany, yes.
Germany, I've traveled in Western Europe in several countries.
I also was in Poland.
Russia, no.
You see, when you show up there, accidents can easily be arranged.
And where?
Yeah, it's very very difficult.
Don't drink what they give you Yeah, it's very difficult to arrange an assassination in a foreign land.
It's very difficult.
And they don't have that many teams that can do that.
But once you show up in Moscow, and you know, Putin is a master in sending messages to the world.
Why did he go after Skripal?
This was, you know, the fellow that was poisoned in London.
He was already exchanged.
That's the end.
Normally in the espionage world, he was in jail and he was then exchanged by the Brits for some folks that they were holding.
That is the end of the game.
And he saw fit to just send a message.
You know what?
We can go after you no matter what.
So that's why would I, anyway, go back to Moscow.
I've been to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and there isn't much else to be seen in Muslims.
I think he wants to go and he wants to go with me because I think Adam likes the Russian ladies over there.
There's enough in Sunny Isles, Florida.
Can I ask you a question, though?
And this is actually for the both of you.
It's, I mean, you love America more than maybe anybody I know.
And you weren't born here.
You've been very explicit that I'm full-on American.
I don't even use a hyphen.
Do you think immigrants who have left other countries appreciate and love America more than natural-born citizens?
No doubt.
Listen, I was walking for about 10 minutes outside in the city here.
And as I'm looking left and right, and I'm looking, oh my God, we're such a rich country.
It is totally amazing because immigrants like me, we know where we came from, and there wasn't much there.
And opportunities are everywhere if you want to take advantage of the opportunities.
And the one thing that unfortunately is not playing as big a role as it should that I mostly admire is the U.S. Constitution.
I took a college course, multi-session course about the Constitution.
Absolutely brilliant document.
We're talking about how they constructed the government so that minorities would be protected, as opposed to when you have a democracy, if you have 51% of the votes, You can do whatever you please, and you can really run roughshod over the 49%.
Incredible structure on how they had it.
I mean, Hillary Clinton and some of the people want to change it to a different model, but you're right.
The structure is a, you know what it means by minorities.
He doesn't mean minorities like ethnicity-wise, minorities.
The 49%.
Yeah, Pat, where did your love for America really manifest?
Listen, you know, again, you have to, sometimes you appreciate a friend when you have a bad friend.
Sometimes you appreciate a girl when you have a bad experience with another girl.
Sometimes you appreciate a guy you date based on a different bad experience you have.
Some of the best things that can ever happen to you is something bad that makes you realize, listen, it's time to be super grateful.
What were you complaining about?
So the challenge with America, America has a gratitude problem.
That's what it is.
America's got purely a gratitude and a perspective problem.
Those two things is what's hurting America more than I can tell you.
We lack gratitude.
We complain too much.
We act like victims.
And we don't realize that this is the greatest country in the world still.
And rather than doing something with everything that's given to you, you complain about it.
That's the biggest thing with me.
That's the greatest country there.
But going back to...
Can I chime in just with one thing I want to say?
Americans, right?
Not all, but a large majority of Americans are either fat, dumb, and happy or fat, dumb, and angry.
We're fat.
We're the most overweight nation in the civilized world.
36% overweight.
We have dumbed down at least two generations of young people because we're not teaching critical thinking anymore.
And depending, we're either happy because we love entertainment, sports, and the TV and binge watching and all that.
And then we get angry when things don't work, when we curse at each other on social media.
That's a systemic issue in society that doesn't seem to have a good outcome if we don't find a way to.
No, I agree with you.
It's a very weird dynamic.
The other day, Westbrook is complaining because somebody called him Westbrick, and everybody's coming out and saying, well, it's not fair to talk to the person like that.
Whatever ever happened to, you know, Sticks and Bones, you know, yeah, so whatever happened to, you know, people can call you anything you want.
Go complain about $40 million your income.
Okay.
While you're going to your nice house, people are sitting trying to make 50, 60 grand a year, and they're really having to go through problems.
You're worried about somebody calling you Westbrick because you're not practicing and not shooting free throws.
Well, I'll give you one anecdote that sings to your story.
It's, you know, I went to the Freedom Forum on behalf of Gary Kasparov invited me.
I'm sure you're very familiar with Gary Kasparov, greatest chess player to ever live.
And I interviewed a lot of essentially freedom fighters, the one Iranian lady that you know with the big hair and the gentleman that I interviewed from Iraq, he basically hosts the daily show in Iraq, to put it in perspective.
He's like a comedian, satirist, political pundit, funny guy.
And to your point about being, you know, fat, lazy, and happy, or fat, lazy, and angry, and watch, you brought up reality TV and just sitting around and just whatever.
He said, I wish, I go, what's your one wish, if you could, for the people of Iraq?
I wish that we could just sit around and watch reality TV, and that's what I wish for the Iraqi people.
Meaning that there's so much drama and so much conflict and so much tyrannical abuse going on that they can't even just sit down and watch TV for a half hour and just watch mindless shit.
And that's what happens here in America is that we make our problems so much deeper than they really are compared to what's going on in the actual real world, to use a real world term.
The problem with America sometimes is that they're too consumed with entertainment and not enough consumed with education after graduating from high school or college.
Education stops for most people in America.
Not most people in America, period.
Most people, the moment they stop going to college or they go to high school, they don't read books anymore.
They don't finish books.
They go romance novels.
Let me see the best movie.
Let me see the best this.
Let me see the best that.
So entertainment has sucked probably 40, 50% of most people's lives where they don't put enough time to do it.
But at the same time, that is one of our greatest exports.
I don't know.
Rock and roll entertainment of the American culture.
You're talking to a guy who loves music, who's excited about Elvis' documentary coming out.
No, I totally get it, but I think there's also an element of being a little bit more educated about history of what's really going on.
That's what I mean by that.
Absolutely.
I now run into people, younger people, late teens or early 20s.
Whoa, KGB, what's that?
The biggest war in history, World War II, and this mass murder that happened in the last century.
People don't know.
And if they don't know, they might not see it coming.
It's not totally out of the question that the United States one day becomes a dictatorship.
Happened in Germany.
Yeah, you know, so let's go there.
Let's go there for a second.
So nobody thinks they're going to die from cancer until they have it.
It's always like the other person.
Oh, the divorce is never going to happen to me.
You know, I'm never going to get fired.
It's never going to happen to me.
America, it's never going to happen to America.
There's no way to happen to America.
What are five signs before something goes that way?
That's the real question.
Like, what happens to a nation that was a democracy, that was a republic, that led to the fall of that empire?
What are a handful of things?
Well, let me tell you, I think, in my view, the biggest sign is when reason leaves the public discourse.
And unfortunately, there isn't that much left anymore.
You know, go back to critical thinking.
We're being manipulated like crazy.
And, you know, are we ourselves immune?
We're not.
How many times do I find something that I believed in and when I check it out, it wasn't true?
Because you can't check everything, right?
So that, I think, is the most important thing.
The next one, believe it or not, I think humor.
When humor leaves society.
That's kind of to Adam's point.
A person who cannot make fun of himself is insecure.
A nation that can't look at its own weaknesses honestly and make fun of them is insecure.
But can't we also point to what's happening in Russia right now as an actual case example of where authoritarian regimes start to take over?
Because Russia was marketed as a democracy after the fall of the USSR.
Yeah, they had elections, let's put it sooner.
Right, elections, 90% voting for Putin.
A lot of air quotes going on if you're not watching this.
But here's some of the stuff that CNN covered on CNN politics.
Putin's autocratic vision for the Russian world.
Here are the highlighted words.
Censorship, information crackdown, mass arrests.
This is what dictators do.
Authoritarian, totalitarian democratic experiment has failed.
But I mean, those types of things, you know, you hear if you speak out against the Russian army or whatever, you know, Russians, you can go to jail for 15 years.
Those are actual examples of where democracy falls.
That's the extreme feature of cancel culture, right?
Beyond.
Yeah, that's the extreme.
We cancel you, not just your ability to speak.
Right.
Yeah, 13,000 people arrested on mass arrest.
Facebook and Twitter is now down over there.
You can't use Facebook or Twitter in Russia.
But I want to go back to Putin.
I want to go back to Putin.
You think what, like right now, half the battle of going up against the enemy is trying to figure out what his next three, five, ten moves are going to be, right?
And you said something.
You said this could get pretty ugly quickly, so we have to make sure we are moving accordingly with this guy.
What do you think are his, if you were to speculate, obviously nobody knows, we're not in the man's mind, but here's a former KGB member.
You're saying he's the greatest politician on what he was able to pull off.
What do you think are his next three, five moves?
Well, I do believe that he has as his primary goal the occupation of the eastern part of Ukraine.
That may include Kiev and may not.
If he's still reasoning and smart, he knows he can't occupy all of Ukraine without getting into an Afghanistan type situation that will eventually be his undoing.
And it's not because there's demonstrations and Russians.
I think the majority of the Russians don't want this war.
But it's, you know, interesting map right here, by the way.
Yeah, yep.
Dictators can be deposed.
There's palace coups in history all over the place.
And Putin needs to be aware that, I'm sure he is aware, that his inner circle, they're powerful people.
And he needs to find a way to stay at the top.
That means, you know, he showed proper aggression because they're looking for a strong man.
But he can't get to a point where his rule is eroded because of the quagmire in Ukraine.
So I heard this morning that there are negotiations going on where there is a little more realism in the demands on either side.
I think he needs to find an off-ramp.
If he doesn't, he's done.
Elaborate on he's done.
He's done as a person, as an individual.
Meaning someone's going to take him out?
Yeah.
Not immediately and maybe not necessarily killing, but taking him out because he has politically taking him out or literally taking him out.
No, no, politically.
Did you see that?
There's a picture in the media where he's surrounded by all his bodyguards.
I mean, they are the best trained commando in the world, I would think.
So he would be hard to take out unless, and I'm not advocating any of that, unless you know where he is and throw a nuke into that.
You brought up his inner circle, right?
The Russian oligarchs, maybe political.
The generals, the intelligence services, they all have power on their own.
Who do you think he actually listens to?
Nobody really knows that, right?
And there's also no clear succession plan.
You know, he's going to be 70 very soon.
It's not clear who would succeed him.
So he's going to be in power until 2036, I believe.
If he lives that long, that's a weakness of the state.
If you don't have a succession plan, it could be chaotic once he disappears.
The future of Russia doesn't look very good because right now, economically, he's getting killed.
Crushed.
Yeah, 60.
Crushed, absolutely.
40% currency is dropped in the last, whatever, 8, 9, 10 days.
And they want to get 60 trillion rubles back from the people.
That's insane if you do something like that.
What's this right here?
Lindsey Graham stands by call for someone in Russia to assassinate Putin.
I saw that a few days ago, right?
He should shut up already.
You can say that in private.
Lindsey Graham?
Yeah.
By the way, you saw the fact that an insider from Russia released information that there's already been three assassination attempts on Zelensky.
And then the question is ask, how many assassination attempts have been made on Putin, nobody knows, right?
Because it'd have to be from the inside.
Yeah.
Yeah, but there's already been three.
By the way, you know how many assassination attempts there was on Hitler?
42 plus.
Right.
And eventually he killed himself.
Killed himself.
Yeah.
So do you have an opinion on who you think Putin would listen to?
I think Putin's a true believer.
You have to negotiate with true believers in a different way.
Like, you ever talk to somebody and you say, but you don't understand what he did, but you will never understand it.
But you will never understand.
No matter what you say, that person goes to what?
But you will never understand it.
Like, there's so much emotion behind that.
How do you eliminate all that emotion?
If that's any, like, like, parents get a divorce.
My mom and dad got a divorce.
No matter what's said, the emotion is so deep between the two, nobody can do anything about it, right?
It's that deep of what that emotion is.
You just heard the history of what happened with Russia and how it went back and forth and how he views Ukraine and what he thinks of Ukraine.
You know what he thinks about him?
He looks at Zelensky and he says, this is not elite.
I would do laps around this guy.
How do you guys buy into an actor being your president who created a political party on a TV show and he starts a political party?
Look at Trump.
But to him, you got to think about to Putin.
To Putin is like, who are you to sit across?
Like, who do you think you are?
You're a nobody.
Putin's a true believer.
So, you know, for me, I already said it yesterday when we talked about it.
I think the best offense is what?
What's a good defense?
America had a good defense prior to Biden.
America had a pretty good defense prior to Biden.
Biden's not scaring anybody.
So everybody's playing offense because our defense sucks right now.
Defense is how you handle Afghanistan.
That's a terrible defense.
We did not have a good defense.
You don't intimidate anybody when you don't have a good defense.
So what do we do about it?
So he's being opportunistic about it.
My only concern is, again, it goes back to the same thing.
My only concern is how far is he willing to go out?
The reason why I called Jack this week and I said, Jack, we want to have you on.
And we just called you this week, by the way, or maybe Sunday or Monday.
No, it was Friday.
Actually, Monday.
It was Monday.
Okay, it was Monday.
So Monday, two days ago, right?
I said, I'm going to go.
Move quick.
Yeah.
And we flew him out because I want to know what he's thinking and I want to know what his moves are going to be.
What is a former king?
I want to know how much of it is a bluff game.
How much of a, we don't know.
That's what I'm saying.
You've used the analogy multiple times that he's got pocket twos and he acts like he has a straight in his hand.
You've used this analogy.
Yeah, I wonder, like, is he bluffing?
Because he's so into deep now that it's very hard to paint a picture for him to redeem himself.
History may be done with him.
Like, you have to realize, history may be done.
He's a pariah on the world stage, no doubt at this point.
Oh, but just three weeks ago, just two months ago, it wasn't, though.
That's my point.
Yeah, but history may be done with him.
So in his mind, is he sitting there like, hey, I was doing this for my dad.
I was doing this for my legacy.
I was doing this for Mother Russia.
I was doing this for this.
Who is his loyalty to?
Is he worried about the people around him that are upset with him, that he may lose power, that somebody that wants to replace him?
Because he's 69 years old right now.
Is he thinking that?
His loyalty is to himself, first of all.
Secondly, I want to add a feature here.
When you had Zelensky's picture up there, he doesn't look like a strong individual physically.
Putin has a black belt in karate.
Putin has cultivated an image of being a real tough guy.
You know that infamous picture of him riding a horse?
No shirt on.
No shirt on.
And for quite some time, I think he stopped doing as he got too old.
He would have an participated in a hockey game, annual hockey game, where he and four others took on the starting five of the national team.
And Putin always scored the goals.
Right.
He always had a hat-trick against the best players in the world.
Exactly.
So he's ridiculous.
This is so ridiculous, but he believes that he can pull it off.
And he actually seems to be pulling it off because I have a video of one of the games.
And he scored a goal in the first 20 seconds.
And everybody screams, yeah.
So that's the.
It's kind of like when you let the little kid run down the football field and all the tacklers move out of the way and the six-year-old scores a touchdown.
I mean, that's essentially what he's doing.
It's propaganda.
So he has created that image of himself as a strong man and he believes in it because, you know.
Well, more importantly than he believes in it, the Russian people believe in it.
Yes.
How do they fall for the propaganda time and time again, especially with him?
Well, I've been lately watching quite a few documentaries about how Hitler came to power and how he ran the Third Reich.
How did the Germans believe all that nonsense?
How would they all go like this in unison?
And that was an educated populace.
Do you think Putin is an extremely sensitive guy?
Yes, and I tell you.
I think he's hypersensitive.
Okay, so.
You know why I'm asking that?
I think you know where I'm going with this.
Do you think he's super hypersensitive?
Yes, and I tell you why I know this.
There's a fellow by the name of Oleg Kalugin.
He was KGB.
He was in charge of counterintelligence for the first directorate.
First directorate was espionage.
I was in the first directorate.
And at one time, he was Vladimir's boss.
And I met Oleg a couple of times.
He lives in the United States.
He's a citizen.
And he said, you know, he wasn't much of a good agent.
But he said, there's one thing I will not do.
I will not say anything.
I will not attack him personally.
Apparently, he may know something that would be Putin's undoing, talking about sensitivity.
And I'm not going to mention that on air.
So there were some hints.
But Apparently, it's a great sensitivity because of that ego, the narcissism, right?
And there has to be, there has to be something that to be at that level, you have to be hypersensitive about something.
And running around American politicians and calling them all kinds of names is not necessarily doing us any good.
And it could just make him more crazy.
I don't disagree.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Why do you ask that question?
Hypersensitive?
Yeah.
Oh, all I'm saying is if you're dealing with somebody hypersensitive, you have to the ability to tame political skill.
So the more sensitive he is, the more dangerous he is to the world.
And I think he's very sensitive.
I think he's extremely hypersensitive.
So I think whoever makes the next moves with him, they have to make it the right way.
By the way, props to Zelensky for not attacking back and doing any of that.
He's saying, listen, man, I'm just fighting you back, but I'm not hurting you.
They're taking the soldiers and they're holding the soldiers, and the soldiers are apologizing.
They're making a video.
I don't know if you've seen those videos where the soldiers who Ukraine takes from Russia and they're prisoners of war, they're saying on video, man, I'm sorry, I'm just doing my job.
They're just telling me what to do.
There's hundreds of these videos, by the way.
No, no, no, not propaganda.
Actual Russian soldiers.
No, meaning that's what they're using to win the hearts and minds of other people.
Yeah, so what is it?
Is it fear?
Do you fear it?
Are you worried what could happen?
Are you worried what he's going to do?
And so you said something.
You said his loyalty is only to himself.
I don't know if I believe that.
I think it is to himself, but I think it's a Lenin?
Is it a Stalin?
Is it a there's got to be something more than that.
And to be able to handle this guy, you got to do it in a very it's too late.
The strategy of Trump doesn't work with Biden right now.
You can't go from not being a tough guy to being a tough guy.
Like remember when Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all of a sudden started talking trash to Trump?
Yeah, it didn't work.
And everybody's like, what the hell are you doing?
That's not your identity.
Stop it.
You look funny.
You're not a troll.
Trump's a troll.
You're not a troll.
Yeah, don't try to play in the mud.
He's been a troll for his entire life.
He's a pro.
He comes from the streets of New York.
He's a tough guy.
You're not a tough.
What are you doing, Ted?
What are you doing?
So Biden cannot play the card of Trump.
Trump's been that his own.
I don't think he's trying to, though.
No, he's not.
He's not trying to.
And I think for the most part, especially with the address he gave last week, I think Biden has looked capable.
I don't think he's looked strong or tough, but it looked like he's making sense.
I agree.
I can't disagree with the way we have been handling the situation.
I cannot.
Now, the only thing that clear-thinking people disagree with is that we're not opening up the American oil bigot again.
Right.
Which I think is coming.
I think that's the next step because we just put a ban on Russian oil.
Right.
Right.
And we're too busy courting Iran and Venezuela and everybody else.
Why would we open up our own pipelines?
Yeah, I mean, that's that right there, if you think about that.
That is the matter of fact, I'll read that story.
Go to page two down by Gino.
Papa, which one is that, Banzo?
You think you guys understand?
Biden administration courts, Venezuela ran in Saudi Arabia.
Biden administration courts Venezuela Iran in Saudi Arabia for oil while ignoring U.S. producers has found themselves in a position where they need more oil production to lower gas prices, but can't do that domestically without alienating the large anti-fossil fuel portion of the base and breaking their own promises at gas prices top $4 nationally and $7 in some cities.
They're instead opting to beg Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for a bailout.
comes days after Biden proved the release of 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
For reference, 30 million barrels isn't even enough to cover two days of U.S. oil consumption with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia.
Biden would rather fund a list of America's enemies than boost our own oil industry.
So you got Russia, what they're going through.
You got us, how we're reacting to the economical crisis that we're having here today, right?
These are two different things that's going on.
That's Putin.
This is U.S. and Biden, every time he's asked, he was asked a question yesterday.
I don't know if you saw that, Tyler.
He was asked, are gas prices going to go up?
Yes.
What are we doing about it?
We can't do nothing about it.
It's because of Russia.
He said that yesterday in a question, a back.
I don't know if you saw that or not.
Person asked him that question.
So lower and middle-income families are paying a price for this.
That's who's paying a price for that.
That's a completely different conversation.
This is another case where ideology is trumping reason.
And I'm not using Trump because of Donald Trump.
This is an ideology, the greening of the world.
No matter how you look at it, what we are doing here doesn't make any sense.
Because American companies pump oil cleaner and produce the derivative of oil much cleaner than all the other countries.
So it doesn't make any sense.
There's no clear thinking.
It's an ideology.
It's a religion with Greta as the...
Did you see the story about the saint?
Did you see the story from LA Times and all over the place whether Vladimir Putin is terminally ill and dying of cancer?
A former Russian intelligence officer and others believe so.
Did you see that story?
I didn't see it.
And I'll believe it when Vladimir dies from cancer.
Okay, so you think that's another story that's being made out of 101 reason why many people think in Russian President Vladimir Putin has executed the invasion of Ukraine so quickly and suddenly he's dying.
According to reports citing a former Russian intelligence officer who now works for the Pentagon, Putin could be suffering from terminal bowel cancer.
His puffy face seen in images this year could indicate he is undergoing chemotherapy treatments on steroids.
The Daily Star reported this in their story that quoted the source.
The source says this diagnosis could have encouraged him to be more aggressive and attack Ukraine so he can leave a legacy knowing he is dying.
He added that analysis have been studying Putin who think he has a terminal illness.
And here's another source quoted from the Daily Star in the past.
We've seen him smile, but in 2022 there are a few pictures of him looking happy.
His look suggests he is in pain and our people suggest his angry look is most likely as a result of being in agony.
Our people are confident he is ill.
He is concerned about COVID as he keeps his staff at a distance.
How much credibility do you think there's behind this?
None.
I mean, how would you ever even so this guy, the ex-intelligence agent, is a doctor, a medical doctor.
You can see this.
I could understand that Vladimir doesn't sleep very well these days, works really hard.
So that shows in your face.
And this is just wishful thinking, and you're muddling the picture.
You've got to deal with what you know is the truth.
Well, remember when they did this with Kim Jong-un for like a couple months, they were like, yeah, he's sick.
We found his twin.
It's not a strategy.
He's gaining weight.
He's got the gas.
Yeah, what is this strategy?
It's clickbait.
To do what?
Oh, it's just the story you're saying.
It's just to confuse.
I don't know.
Okay.
No, but what I'm saying is, why is an intelligence guy that now works at Pentagon, what is his motive to release that?
Not media.
He's not trying to do clickbait.
What's his motive?
To get his name out.
I mean, how big of an official is?
I would be so upset if you were working for me.
I'm like, what the hell are you doing?
What are you doing to get your name out?
You think this is one of the best things the chief disguise officer, CI agent, Jonah Mendes told me.
She said the best qualities about a CI agent, intelligence agents is what?
You're charming, you're charismatic, you're this, you're that, you're this, you're handsome, you're a great salesman.
But when you save the world from World War III, you don't tell anybody about it because you don't need the recognition.
She said, that's the quality.
What are you doing being an intelligence officer?
I get it, but you have all those great qualities and don't tell anybody.
My question would be is how high ranking is the official?
I mean, remember Anonymous?
That was supposed to be the super high-ranking Trump official that wrote the big paper back in what, 2017?
You saw Anonymous came out the other day.
Right, and he was a low-level staffer that nobody knew.
I would venture to say it's similar with this guy.
Okay, let's talk about Russian spies.
Here's a story about Russian spies, okay, on page three.
And I'm curious to know how much credibility you're giving to this one.
Russian spies among us.
A look at New York compound that houses Kremlin's intelligence officer.
The complex known as Russian Diplomatic Compound in New York City's Riverdale neighborhood has often been the subject of speculation surrounding the building's purpose and residence practices.
The building is home to Russian diplomats, many of whom work in the United States as intelligence officers.
There are two types of intelligence officers: those who pose a symmetrical threat and those who pose an asymmetrical threat.
Those working in New York and living in the compound and working at the mission in the United Nations are under diplomatic cover.
It's called a symmetrical threat.
We know they're here.
They're diplomats under diplomatic cover.
So they actually have all the privileges of diplomats.
And they've been caught conducting covers.
So they actually espionage against our country.
You can't throw them in jail because they're diplomats.
But they're different from undercover operatives who are not under the official cover and are in the United States.
Those who pose as asymmetrical threat, undercover operatives such as Jack Barski, who operate under non-official cover under false pretenses with fake names.
What do you want to say?
That article fails to mention the third category.
What's that?
People who are not undercover, they're not assuming another identity.
They work officially as journalists, business people, students, right?
They have an official reason to be here, but then they spy.
And I think those are the ones right now that we have to be aware of because we're a very open country.
How many Chinese exchange students do we have?
And I guarantee you, Russia and China and all those dictatorships know exactly who is going abroad, and they all will be talked to.
So there's a good reason to believe that there are currently more people in the United States, Russians, that are engaged in espionage than there were in my time.
Because in my time, there wasn't that free exchange of students and teachers and business people back and forth.
In those days, we had the two types.
The asymmetric threat, us, and there were very few of us, very few.
Undercover, you mean?
Yes, undercover, deep cover, yes.
Deep cover.
In the 80s, according to Mitrokin, there were early 80s, late 70s, there were about 10 of us that were trained and sent to the U.S. 10.
And there were a couple of other, prior to that period, there were a couple of other efforts to bring those types of agents into the U.S.
And they never amounted to too many.
So and here's one other difference between the KGB and Putin's intelligence services.
The KGB was very solicitous of their agents.
They did not like it when an agent was caught.
And if and when we were caught, they did everything to get us out.
Putin enjoys when we catch people because it scares us.
How many more of those are there?
I guarantee you quite a few.
Oh, he likes it when we catch people.
Why not?
Because it makes an intelligence.
It gives a message.
It gives a message.
That we got on the inside.
Yes.
That we're here.
It's gamesman.
We're not going anywhere.
It's gamesmanship.
How many reverse it?
How many people, how many Americans or people on the American side of things or on the EU side of things even are implanted in Russia or even China for that matter?
I would, this is an educated guess.
Far fewer.
Far fewer.
They're better at it than we are.
Yes, they are.
Or it's just easier to blend in in America.
How many people want to live in Russia?
Bernie Sanders.
Yes.
How many people would, you know, it would be a sacrifice as opposed to coming to the United States.
You get a good life and you do something patriotic for your country.
That also played a role for me signing up in those days.
But like you, how many people fall in love with the benefits of living in America and say, KGB life ain't for me anymore.
I'm just going to stay here for a while.
Yes, but you've got to be careful.
There's always relatives back home and you may be married and with children.
So it's not that easy to defect.
And if you want to play the double agent game, that's very dangerous.
And the people that – this category of official cover but not under diplomatic protection, this category is not well trained.
They don't get – in 2010, there were like 10 SVR agents, Russian agents were arrested by the FBI.
And they were like very poorly trained.
There's a – There's a short video, an FBI video on YouTube where you can see some of their operations.
And when I saw this for the first time, I was screaming at the TV, you can't do this.
This is wrong.
What role you think NGOs play?
You know what NGOs are.
What role do you think they play?
Like, hey, we're just a charity here.
Oh, not a governmental organization.
We're creating it here.
And humanitarian, we're here to save your country and help you out.
And meanwhile, behind closed doors, they're playing their games.
Yes.
Historically, even the KGB did a really good job infiltrating NGOs in those days.
Yes.
You got to be wary of those.
Why is that?
Well, because they operate under a cover, and many of them stand for a good cause, so they can attract people to do something for them under false flag.
Let's say some kind of a peace organization.
We are for peace in the world.
And then you can, under this flag, you can recruit somebody who has access to secrets.
State Department.
Just like help us out.
We need to have equality in the world.
How does the country that knows what the motive of many NGOs are, how do you say, oh, yeah, yeah, come on in here.
you guys want to do good come come help us out why why do why do they permit for that take take place this is a guess but uh you know if you you you attack the uh groups that are serving a good cause you've got a pr problem a big one right like i mean you know did you see what award hillary clinton got from forbes yesterday Can you go to Forbes' Instagram account yesterday, by the way?
Did you see it?
I think I sent it to you this morning.
Yeah, I sent it to you this morning.
Yesterday.
International what?
Oh, you didn't see this?
Obviously, she's known as the biggest sweetheart.
Go to Instagram and then type in Forbes.
Just type in Instagram Forbes.
I want to read this to you because then I want you to see the commentary.
So yesterday they posted this.
Go to right there.
Okay, click on that and make it bigger so we can see the comments as well.
Make it bigger in the comment section.
It's important to the world.
I think if you care about not this one.
No, not this one.
They gave the right.
Yeah, I think if you can't refer to our future, they gave her recognition yesterday and it was on Instagram.
Anyways, she got the recognition as a woman.
Let me see this here.
Where is that at?
Hillary Rado receives Forbes International Woman's Day Lifetime Achieve Award, right?
That's the one.
I don't know if you have that or not.
They posted that, but I want you to go to the commentary.
Is that the one?
No.
Okay.
Anyway, so if you go to the comment section with that and what people are saying, they're saying, wait, is this a joke?
Are you serious?
Is this real?
Are you really recognizing her for what she's got?
You remember when she was going through.
Go to comment section.
And I'm out.
Thank you, Forbes.
She got a puffed up face.
Maybe she has cancer too.
But she's smiling, so she's probably happy, right?
If she didn't win, Forbes would be committed suicide.
The point is this.
She was the one that went to Haiti for humanitarian causes, right, to help out Haiti.
And then all of a sudden, a few billion dollars went missing.
I may be wrong, but I remember reading that story.
Yeah, I mean, I met a diplomat a while ago from Haiti, and I asked him how much of that money went to the people who needed it, and he said zero.
But it was such a marketing campaign.
Yes.
And so Achievement Award, what did she achieve, reset with Russia?
You know, that sent the signal also to Europe that it was okay.
You know, Russia will be okay.
We can play together.
And that helped Putin to create this energy dependency that Western Europe has on Russia right now.
What an achievement.
What an achievement by Forbes.
I should have given this to Oprah.
Are you kidding me?
Like, why?
I don't understand the fascination with Hillary Clinton.
Legitimately, like, what has she done specifically to earn this award?
It's another word that starts with the letter F, but it's not fascination.
It's called fear.
Okay?
It's called fear.
It's not fascination.
It's why are people afraid?
Let's just give her recognition to get on her good side.
You don't know what's going on.
By the way, first of all, 95% of Forbes is not won by China.
Malcolm Forbes is right now probably in his grave turning, saying, why did you sell a company that's all about the capitalist tool to China?
Why would you?
What does Steve Forbes have to say currently?
With Steve Forbes.
I don't understand that concept.
I don't understand.
He's constantly on Forbes.
I mean, I'm sorry, on Fox giving his opinions.
I'd love to interview him.
I'd love to have him on.
By the matter of fact, can you have Rob?
Let's see if we can get him here because I'd be curious to know why you would do such a thing.
But let me continue.
Let me continue with a couple of other stories here that we've got going on.
Airfield, which one was it that we wanted to go through?
Okay, yeah, Russians offering Syrians $300 to fight in Ukraine.
U.S.-European allies discuss banning imports from Russia.
Obviously, U.S. already did it by banning it, but now other countries are also talking about they may be doing it.
Europe relies on Russia for crude oil and natural gas, but has become open.
The idea of banning Russia probably, they've already done that.
But then you got a few other countries that are looking at that.
Look, how do you stop this right now?
If you wanted to stop this right now with them, like if you were to say, here's this country is going to matter, that country is going to matter, this country is going to matter, this sanction is going to matter, this challenge is going to matter, this fear is going to matter, how do you stop Putin right now?
You got to stick to your guns and be consistent.
And I'm a little bit concerned with possibly the German government, for instance, getting too aggressive because, believe it or not, when I went back to Germany, and that was during the Trump administration, the Germans I talked with would have sided with Putin over Donald Trump.
The German population forgot what the United States did for them in World War II.
And so there is a significant, and I've had some emails coming out of Germany, significant segment of the population that is actually on Putin's side, and Germany has elections.
So now, see, this is where it gets really difficult.
Putin's side, why?
Why?
Oh, a friend of mine who, my best friend, who worked as a chemist in the Stasi, headed the forgery department.
So he still has some.
My generation has residual communist ideology.
They couldn't get rid of it completely.
And so they're looking at Russia sort of with a whole lot more sympathy.
And this friend of mine, who's very bright, thinks this whole thing has been engineered by the United States because the United States' biggest aim is to separate Germany and Russia, so to speak, because a union, sort of a coalition of Germans and Russians, could be a strong counterforce against the United States.
Germans don't like the United States.
That's a fact.
You know, we're the big bully.
And it's a shame.
So, and French, you know, the French don't like us that much either.
I mean, at least enough of them.
And so it's a difficult balancing act here.
You want to stick to your guns?
It's going to get painful for Europe, more so than us.
Yeah, when you look at the map, you know, the conversation we had yesterday about the fact that, hey, U.S., your neighbors are who?
Canada and Mexico.
What are you afraid of?
Nothing.
You got Canada, you got Mexico, everybody else.
You got to fly a long ways to come here, right?
Who's the neighbors of Russia?
Shoot, China, all these other NATO nations.
You know, if you just look at that map right there, Russia, can you make that bigger for us to see it?
Just make it bigger.
Okay, there you go.
So you got Russia, you got Ukraine, Belarus, surrounded by all sides.
Yeah, so it's but you're saying German is playing a different role now, meaning they're kind of aligning themselves with Russia?
No, I'm talking about the German population.
Oh, I got you.
I'm talking about the people who vote.
The German government surprised me phenomenally because, you know, what was supposed to be a more conservative government under Merkel was really weak.
And this socialist just made a radical 180-degree about face about his stance towards defending his own country.
That's what Trump wanted them to do.
And they hated Trump for that because he walked into Germany and told him, you know, come on and pay up, do something in your own defense.
So he's now committed to spending 2% of his GNP on defense.
And he's pretty aggressive with the embargo.
They're talking about even not buying natural gas.
That would be a huge problem because under Angela Merkel, they had a very, very poorly arranged energy policy.
When you go to Germany nowadays, you see windmills all over the place.
And their electricity is like three times more expensive than ours because they shut down the nuclear plants.
So what's the whole concept of the Nord Stream 2?
They're going to shut that off, Tyler.
I know you've done some research on that, right?
Well, yeah.
So Nord Stream 2 was a pipeline that would go direct from Russia to Germany and skip Ukraine.
Ukraine makes like $5 billion a year transporting oil from Russia to Germany.
And this would go straight to Germany from Russia.
And Germany buys, I think, 40% of their oil comes from Russia.
So everybody wants to talk about American energy independence, gas prices.
We were exporting oil to the rest of Europe.
Energy is a form of defense, and it can be manipulated into not a form of war, but almost, again, a form of defense.
So if we export oil to Europe, we can make Europe stronger by cutting off dependence on Russian oil, Saudi oil, Iranian oil, Venezuelan oil, et cetera, et cetera.
So it's so much bigger than just lowering the price at the pump.
I mean, we were a net exporter under President Trump.
And as soon as President Biden came in, that's switched.
And gas prices have been up and rising since the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency.
This didn't start with Russia-Ukraine.
I mean, at the beginning of his presidency, gas prices started rising.
And it isn't just the gas because everything else that we buy somehow is impacted by energy prices.
And if Biden thinks he can get a grip on inflation, it's going to get worse.
Yeah, yesterday I was consulting with this one guy who owns a construction company and they do not construction company, transportation company, trucks.
So he does loads.
And he says, I got a question for you.
I said, what's that?
He says, you know, prices for my loads that I'm delivering, it's gone up.
I said, by how much?
He says, gas, I mean, 25%.
And I don't know how to talk to my customers about it.
So, well, you got to be open about it.
They know what's going on with gas prices.
He says, but a lot of them are not open to the idea.
I said, it doesn't matter.
You've got to have a conversation with them, right?
Meaning, hey, he said this is going to cost $3,000.
It's going to cost now $3,700.
What do you mean you're going to increase it by that much?
So he, the person that's transporting, is going to say, what?
Well, I was normally paying $3,000 to transport.
Now I have to pay $3,700 to transport.
It's up 22%.
So this product that you normally would buy for $3 is now $3.75.
Okay, this product you buy that's $10 is now $12.
I don't have a choice.
Gas prices is not just about what it costs to go to the gas station.
No, it's about transportation.
Exactly.
Think about everything that's made with oil.
Over 6,000 products are made with oil.
Exactly.
That doesn't include everything that's made with adhesives, with plastics, with rubber, vests.
Everything is touched by oil.
I mean, prices, it's so much more than just a gas.
Medication.
Drugs.
By the way, with this going on right now, Jack, who is happy?
Okay?
Which world leader right now sitting around saying, I'm so glad this is going on because it took so much distraction off of me?
China.
I agree.
And why do you think they're happy?
What do you think they're doing?
Well, they're sitting back, right?
And they're watching this.
Fundamentally, the Western Alliance and Russia are weakening each other right now.
No doubt about it.
There's no clear winner.
China sitting back is not involved.
And they're just waiting to see when they can strike.
Against Taiwan, you're saying that?
Yeah, sure.
What's the likelihood that that happens?
I don't know.
It's probably more than 50%.
For them to get.
Theirs is going to be a lot easier, by the way.
Because they've been stating for the One China policy is official policy.
They're just waiting for the right time to do this.
And this looks pretty good right now for them, right?
I mean, we already, like, the United States, their main enemy, is already pretty much focused on Russia now.
So what are we going to do when they start taking over Taiwan?
Well, here, here's a different perspective.
Is there any doubt that China could just go take over Taiwan in a day or two?
Done, right?
Yeah.
People also said that about Ukraine, right?
And Ukraine is kind of holding their own, but the backlash is what I'm referring to.
The pariah that Putin is becoming.
China is kind of teetering, like they've been doing this balancing act where they're kind of like this bad actor, but people are still kind of doing business with them and buying products.
But if they invade Taiwan, where do you think the global sentiment will direct itself against China?
Well, basically as the big bully.
But it will be harder to boycott China than it is to boycott Russia simply because you would empty all the Walmart shelves.
Everything that I buy is made in China these days, right?
So, and including medications and stuff like that, things that are important.
We have let go of control, and I think it had something to do with unregulated capitalist greed.
Follow the money.
It's not a rosy picture.
And I don't know.
You've got to hope that the Chinese really like the way they're going now, you know, stealing secrets from the United States, and doing great business with the United States, which helps them controlling their own population, you know, by building these capability to supervise the population and centrally control everything that everybody's doing.
So that's a calculus that I don't know how strong it is, you know, whether they want to continue living the rich life, you know, the upper class, or not.
Well, here's the other part I've got to think about.
Go to maps.
Go to maps.
Just go to not that map.
Go to regular, put Taiwan, and then just go, yeah, Taiwan and map.
Okay, so here's a couple things you got to think about.
But go to the map on Google Map, not the images.
Just click on map, right?
No, no, just right there below it.
Just go to maps right there.
There you go.
So if you go to map and go to Taiwan, okay?
So go a little closer.
Okay.
So to the left, go a little bit out, a little bit out, a little bit out.
There you go.
To the left is Hong Kong.
Okay, now you got to realize Hong Kong for 156 years was part of a British, you know, the Brits had Hong Kong, right?
And in 19, what is it, 1997, late 90s, they get it back, okay?
All right.
So say Hong Kong asks for help.
Who do they call?
Say Taiwan asks for help.
Guys, help us.
Now zoom out a little bit.
Zoom out a little bit.
Okay, we're on our way.
Yeah, yeah, we're on our way, guys.
We'll be there in a minute.
We'll be there in six hours.
Oh, Japan, we're going to get involved and help you.
So Taiwan is going to be a lot different than Ukraine's going to be.
It was not that they're not going to have a hard time doing that.
But I do agree with the fact that this.
Now, here's the other question.
What are the chances?
What are the chances that there was a conversation between Xi and Putin where Putin and Xi talked about, hey, you're calling us the most important strategic partner, the foreign minister.
Russia is our most important, you know, strategic partner, right?
That's the word.
Now, what are the chances of Xi and Putin having a conversation together, saying, look, you know, no cameras, no nothing, no one's around.
Nobody knows this conversation.
I know what you want.
They talk in code, and you know what I want.
Do you think this is a good time for me to go do it?
Do you think there's any kind of a proxy type of thing where Xi is like, I think this is a perfect time to do it?
Like giving him cover.
No, you know what?
It's kind of like, Adam, I think you can be Tyler.
I think this is the time.
You should switch out that.
All day.
All day.
Tyler, you don't stand a chance.
I got my pen.
Do you think somebody poked him to do it?
Or no?
Do you think Putin didn't need anybody to poke him?
Like, Xi didn't try to create a proxy war.
It's a good guess.
It's a good guess that they had face-to-face conversation and off the record, so to speak.
You know, hint, hint.
Yeah, but do you think there is any chance that Xi would say, I would if I were you right now?
You know, I think it's a good time right now to do it.
Do you think that kind of a conversation would take place or no?
Plausible deniability would indicate that you don't say it directly and openly.
They just hint.
Got it.
I agree.
Like you, you, you, do you, do you do it directly or do you use a third party to go deliver that message to his camp?
Right.
Are you suggesting that Putin would want to get Xi's green light in order to invade Ukraine?
Yeah, I mean, I wonder, like, I wonder what is the level of unity between the two guys?
Because bring the map out, bring the map out, bring the map out.
Look at China, look at Russia.
They touch each other.
They're right there.
All right.
On the eastern side of the country, they touch each other.
They are not just everybody can't do it.
This is a marriage of convenience.
Ideologically, they're different.
Putin is also looking to retain influence in the former republics that have Asians living in them and that border on China.
I guarantee you that there's conflicts.
And there has been a history of shooting at each other at the border.
No major conflict, but they're not best buddies.
But when it comes to their main enemy, they are somewhat united against the United States.
That's very good news that they are not body-body.
If it's true.
If it's true.
They're almost more.
It's an alliance.
They're not natural partners.
I mean, they're almost, we covered this yesterday.
Russia's still selling weapons to India for India to prepare against the fight against China.
I mean, they're not partners.
Xi has bigger goals than just being friends with Vladimir Putin.
I mean, it's why I think the best thing we can do is really, which Joe Biden has done to his credit, is stay out of Ukraine and out of this conflict and not push Vladimir Putin into the arms of Xi Jinping.
Because the big question becomes, what happens when China invades Taiwan?
What do we do?
Do we put boots on the ground?
Is that when we step in?
I mean, I think it's inevitable.
So what happens when that becomes a reality?
Is World War III inevitable?
I mean, Taiwan makes 60% of the semiconductors in the world.
You think you have a chip shortage now?
Just wait.
You know, Taiwan, when it gets invaded, I don't think it's an if, I think it's a when, is going to be very different than what's going on in Ukraine.
And the answer, or the question is, what does Joe Biden do?
Why would the U.S. even attempt to step into a Taiwanese takeover?
That's not even anything that we would even want to meddle in.
You just heard him say the 60% chips, though.
Yeah, but that's, you know, there's alternative measures that we can take other than trying to get into a hot war with China.
You know, they have the triad that we discussed yesterday, Australia, Japan, United States, and what's the fourth country?
What'd you say?
Australia, Japan, United States, and it's not India, is it?
UK, you tell me the triad is, uh, and there's a fourth country involved in the triad.
But the point is, there's an alliance created to combat China's influence in the South China Sea.
It might be India.
But, yeah, I don't think the U.S. is looking for a hot war at all.
Do you think it's just sanctions like what we're doing with Russia now?
There's got to be alternative measures here.
War is not the answer here right now.
And back to the gas prices.
I had a conversation with my mom yesterday, and my mom is 0% knowledge about what's going on.
So I posed the question, I go, mom, how much does it cost to fill your tank?
She says it costs 40 bucks.
I said, well, you do understand now that gas prices are rising.
She goes, yeah, I know.
It cost me $50 this week to fill my tank.
So how often do you fill your tank?
Once a week.
So I said, it's going to cost you $10 more, you know, in general to fill your tank.
She goes, okay.
Like, to combat tyranny and to stand up against autocratic thinking like Putin, if it costs my mom, who's a nurse, $10 more a week, so be it.
You know, gas prices aren't the end-all-be-all.
Yes, there are bigger things like the trucker that you talked about and businesses or people who drive for a living.
You know, maybe you eat out a little bit less, but you're going to have to do something different.
But for my mom to spend $10 more a week, so be it.
So I will take a different position with that.
And I'll tell you this.
So right now, the crisis is so bad on the left that they have to figure out a way to either take a few different measures to not make the gas price a massive issue.
So they're facing a few different problems.
Why are we having so many problems?
We didn't have a war during Trump.
Why are we having so many problems under this administration?
Why is that?
First we have the Afghanistan.
Now we have this.
First we have inflation.
Gas prices go up.
Now we have this.
Why is this happening?
Well, we just had a worldwide pandemic.
So I mean, a lot of this is systemic because of that.
Right.
But again, so even with the pandemic, throw that in there as well.
So the left has to position everything to be normal.
It's okay.
It's gas prices just going up.
It's okay.
You know, it's inflation.
It's going to be okay.
It's going to go away.
No, it's not really inflation.
It's because of this.
Oh, it's really going on because they have to deflect, deflect, deflect because midterm security.
There's an element of it that's politics.
But the part of it that with your mom's story, I'm glad it doesn't affect her, the $10.
I'm fully glad it doesn't affect her.
It affects a lot of people.
Believe me, my mom is of the elk that it would affect the common person.
I get that.
And by no way means doing what.
But your mom is also not in the working environment where she has kids to take care of, where she has expenses to cover, where she has to drop off the kids, drive them to soccer, do all that other stuff.
She's a retired woman that is not necessarily have 50 different things to do when you were 12 years old and when you were eight years old.
It's a different life for somebody that's going through that trying to survive on a time like that.
But the price increase is going to be felt.
And it's not just going to be gas.
Gas is only one thing we're talking about.
Just watch all the other prices.
And FYI, if you think the gas prices are at the peak right now, people are lying to themselves or they're naive.
Wait till this thing gets to $10 and everybody has to have the real conversations about, listen, I was kind of okay at $4, but I'm not okay with $10.
But don't you think at that point a Biden administration will start opening up the floodgates of oil?
What's the difference between starting now and then?
What is the difference between $100?
And I wouldn't be shocked if they started now.
Well, yesterday they announced that they're going to ban Russian oil.
Okay, so where do we think we're going to get oil from?
We're going to have to, that's why we're...
No, no, no.
The negotiations are happening right now.
There you go.
So if you rush a ban with Russia, that's a very good strategy for PR.
That's great.
To say we're not doing it with PR, great.
Like McDonald's, we're shutting down 700 stores in Russia.
Starbucks.
Okay, this is good.
You have to do that because your customers are going to be like, what do you like?
You know, these restaurants, liquor stores are coming out and pouring all their vodka, you know, and then somebody came back and said the following.
They said, oh, really?
You're pouring all this stuff out of vodka?
Why don't you go throw all the stuff out that you have in your store that says made in China?
Because you're really not committed.
Why don't you go out and drop all the made in China stuff?
How come nobody's saying that?
Oh, you're only saying because this is cool to do that, right?
You wouldn't even think about doing it if you were supposed to drop all the stuff made in China because you do so much money.
So there's so much hypocrisy in this thing right now that you just have to kind of really see what's going on.
But this gas prices, if it hits 10 and Biden's still trying to negotiate his camp with Maduro's camp, Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or they're already in talks or Iran or all these other guys, we look so weak.
You're negotiating with the enemy.
Hey, can you please sell us some gas at a discount?
Please, things are pretty bad in America.
Why don't you go get it yourself?
And then they asked the...
Maybe we will, though, right?
The maybe is if they do, we will salute them on the podcast and say, awesome decision for you doing this.
Well, if you were Tony Blinken or in a national security advisor working for the Biden administration, you, just hypothetically, what would you recommend he does differently?
Or what advice would you, what counsel would you have?
You have access to all the intel.
If I had access to all the intel, if I had access to all the intel and I got people around me from both sides giving me feedback on why to or why not to, then I would ask and say, so we got 100 years of reserve.
Yes.
Okay.
How long do you think this crisis is going to last?
Say 90 days.
Okay.
100 years, 90 days means we got 400 more years of reserves.
Why don't we go ahead and get 90 days worth of supply right now, lower the gas prices by 25, 35, 40%?
And then 90 days later, we can go back and see what we can strike up a deal with somebody else.
Okay.
Maybe you can put a timeline on it that we're going to fix it for now.
But here's the other part that I'll flip it on you: there's got to be a long-term solution.
Okay.
There has to be a long-term solution.
These are all nice band-aids you're putting on there.
Okay, no, no, look.
Reactionary.
Oh, reactionary.
Oh, reactionary.
But what's the long-term solution?
The long-term solution is the one I'm really interested in because it's both ways.
To go green?
You know, the EV part?
You know, whether it's the nuclear, the fossil, the solar, there's got to be, there's like, for example, California.
Yesterday, Newsom posted something on Twitter.
I'm like, oh, my God, here he goes again.
He posted something on Twitter yesterday, bragging about how great California is doing.
I don't know if you saw that or not.
He said, California raised the minimum wage.
We increased paid sick leave, provided more paid family leave, expanded child care.
You know, and this year we'll be the first state to provide health care for all, regardless of immigration status.
That's the California way.
Did you see what I said to him?
And then I said, I wouldn't brag about it.
Your policies caused California's population to drop by 182,000 last year, making it the first yearly law since its founding in the 1850s.
Bad policies have consequences, right?
Bad policies have consequences.
The political system that we have today, the voting system, Adam, it's so reactionary that everybody is more concerned about being re-elected that you're not making good long-term policies.
But you don't, I mean, you lived in California, so you have obviously strong opinions on this.
I don't feel bad for Californians.
Why?
They chose this.
No question about it.
They had the opportunity to cut off Newsom, and they overwhelmingly, by two-thirds of the people who voted to keep him.
I guarantee you in the comment section right now, 40% are saying that they don't speak on my behalf.
Well, and let's not forget what California did.
They permanently enrolled or instilled mail-in balloting.
They're allowing illegal immigrants to vote.
They have a huge population of sanctuary cities.
It's like the city's discrepancy.
It's a very liberal state in the country, arguably.
So sanctuary cities, they're cute and all, but they're not swaying millions and millions and millions of voters.
Well, again, there could be some discrepancies in the actual voting process.
If it was a, you know, 55-45 vote, maybe.
70-30?
Not so much.
Go back to the fact that we're dealing with a population that isn't educated well enough to understand, you know, if I vote for this, somebody has to pay for that.
And how does it all balance out?
And, you know, the stuff that Newsom just bragged about, somebody has to pay for that.
So your taxes will go up again, right?
And, you know, I was recently in LA.
What a dump.
What a dump.
LAX is...
It's sad to say that.
That was a beautiful city, man.
There's homeless camps all over the place.
And the city is drab.
There's just nothing that looks inviting anymore.
Yet there's still people living there.
But my friends who have some means, they all live someplace outside of the city.
It's a shame.
And I've been given to understand that San Francisco looks pretty much the same these days.
San Francisco is worse than LA.
The prettiest city that ever was in the United States.
San Francisco.
Yeah.
Now it's a hot mess.
So why don't they connect the dots?
Did that just happen just sporadically?
And there's nobody to be held accountable for?
Where do you live?
I live outside of Atlanta.
Atlanta.
Okay.
Pretty good.
Atlanta?
Yeah.
Bad traffic, though.
Look at that real quick.
Look at that real quick.
What's that?
That's L.A.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, God.
That is L.A. That's insane to think that's L.A. See, I don't remember it looking like that.
I lived there 20-plus years.
I don't remember looking like that.
What they're doing is they're raiding the trains.
When the trains come in from Amazon, FedEx, the packages, gangs of people go up, rip the trains open, steal all the packages, steal all the goods, and take off.
Yeah, I mean, that definitely inspires people to say, I'm going to wake up and move to California tomorrow.
I'm definitely on my way to go to California tomorrow.
I just wonder how long this is going to go because nothing lasts forever.
You have to know.
Winning doesn't last forever.
You're eventually going to lose.
The Bulls, you know, dynasty six years, boom.
Lakers, Kobe Shaq, boom.
You got, you know, whatever.
So nothing.
It doesn't last forever.
I just wonder what's going to happen to California where some of them are going to wake up and say, you know what, I'm done with this.
Final thoughts here before we wrap up.
We got 10 minutes here.
Jack, Putin, with where he's at and what he's up to.
What level of optimism do you have that all of this is going to get worked out versus it all of a sudden getting even worse and us in the U.S. being affected by this?
I think I'm more on the optimistic side.
Assuming that Putin isn't really going crazy.
I mean, really crazy, crazy.
Because he has in the past shown realism that helped him stay in power and remain a player to be reckoned with.
He cannot, if he goes too far and then we escalate, then the worst thing might happen.
But I think this one will be resolved.
Not very quickly, but it will be resolved.
If you could speculate, what do you think are Putin's deepest, deepest, deepest desires?
To be recognized as the modern-day Messiah for the Russian people.
I think it's like that.
Yes.
And what does that mean?
Like, how does that play out?
The Messiah?
Well, he's rebuilding the Russian Empire.
Is he, though?
Because he's a dealer.
He's about to.
But that's his goal.
So what's the next step after Ukraine?
Because this is obviously an unmitigated disaster from a PR standpoint and possibly from a political standpoint.
What's the next move?
Because this seems like a failed move attempt.
Moldova is a sitting duck.
And for Moldova, he has also a good reason to attack because there is already a part of Moldova which is not governed by Moldavians.
The Russians live there.
There's an exclave.
I forgot what it's called.
And they could be asking for help.
Moldova is weak.
I don't believe he will go to the Baltic states.
So what's his intention to make USSR great again?
I mean, is that ultimately what he's looking to do?
The Russian Empire.
I don't think he wants to rule the world, the Russian Empire.
And in the course of his lifetime, he's looking to do this?
He's 70 years old.
Let's say he lives to 90.
You're saying he wants to accomplish this in the next two decades?
You know, as Patrick said, you know, we all believe we're not going to die, right?
So he still looks at the future.
So do I. You're not planning for your death unless you're deathly ill, right?
So, you know, he's got plans.
But ultimately, he wants to rebuild the great.
And what's the time frame that he wants to bring it back to when Russia was this great superpower?
Well, hopefully within his lifetime.
No, meaning, what does he look at and say the 1960s?
That's where we were at our peak.
What was peak Russian empire in his mind?
Oh, it was the Soviet Union, for sure.
There were two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Equal, particularly because of the nuclear tie.
And he wants some of this back, but primarily he's a Russian more than he's not a communist anymore.
When he says the fall of the Soviet Union, when he said that was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, he really, really, deep down inside, it meant that Russia wasn't strong anymore.
Because when you look at the map, the states, the republics of the Soviet Union that are surrounding Russia now, they provided half, at least half the strength of the Russian economy.
The Russian economy right now is what, number 11 in the world?
GDP-wise, right?
Right.
So there isn't much.
Less than $2 trillion.
What was it, Pat?
Litover $2.
So he wants to build this back up in some way.
And he wants to do it by force, by taking over NATO countries or Eastern Bloc countries?
In a clever way.
And I believe he thinks that he's been really clever in Ukraine because he's got Russians everywhere in other countries living in other countries who could be asking for help.
Look, there's two things.
So go to two places.
Say he succeeds with Ukraine.
There's 13 other nations that are shivering.
Okay?
If he succeeds with Ukraine.
If he succeeds with Ukraine.
Define success.
Meaning Ukraine gives up and they say, hey, we're going to be more Russian than we're going to be part of, you know, whatever may happen there.
NATO-EU.
If he succeeds.
If the Ukrainian people will not give up.
I agree.
That's why I say define success.
I agree with you.
I'm just saying if he does, if he does succeed there, the if is a very big if.
It's not a small if, it's a big if if he does.
But if he doesn't succeed, what does he do?
Does he re-strategize to attack again five years from now, ten years from now?
Or is he just going to sit there and say, guys, I'm done with that?
Let's just try to be friendly with the world again and let's not make Russia great, you know.
He's not going to give up.
He's on a one-way street.
You can't turn around.
He can't.
That would sort of deny everything that he has become and that he was and the beliefs that he has in his own strengths wouldn't.
Who do you think is his hero and who do you think is his foil?
Like, meaning he probably looks at Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev as weak.
Does he look as Stalin as the great patriarch or Lenin?
Who would you put in the hero column and in the zero column?
I'm not aware of any direct statements of him making a hero of some of his predecessors.
He has said some critical things about Lenin.
I forgot.
I read something, I forgot exactly what it was.
So Peter the Great.
Pre-USSR time.
No.
As an individual.
Imperial.
Russia.
Peter the Great put Russia on the map as far as Europe was concerned.
Before him, it was a real backward country with 95% of the population farming the land.
Every once in a while you drop a really good question.
It leads to a very good conversation.
Peter the Great.
However, we are coming to the end of the podcast.
Jack, appreciate you for coming out.
This was a blast.
Thank you, Mr. Bars.
I believe we're back at it again tomorrow with Liz Wheeler.
Go ahead.
May I put a plug in?
Absolutely, please.
Podcast.
Yes.
For sure.
Imperative Productions produced an audio drama based on my life.
It's available on all streaming platforms, audio platforms, Spotify, Apple, and so forth.
It's really well made.
It's professionally made.
And what makes, it's called The Agent.
What makes this better than the book that I wrote is because there's, besides me, there's many other voices.
So it gives this story an added dimension, stuff that I couldn't mention in the book because it's my voice.
And there's narration as well.
So it puts me into the context of history of the podcast.
I'm going to put the link below for people to see it.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah, we're going to put the link below.
I found the link.
I don't know if you did find the link.
We got the link in the chat, and we'll put it down below as well for people.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
Folks, go check it out.
Jack, thank you so much for coming on.
Tomorrow we'll have Liz Wheeler and there's going to be a surprise guest.
There's a guest that we'll have on Friday morning that we probably won't go live with, but we're going to put that only on Spotify for people to find it.
Spotify, Apple Podcast, Stitcher.
You won't find that on YouTube.
That's what I'm going to do.
Yeah, you'll find out why.
That's the only way we could do that one.
And then the other one on Friday afternoon, you're not going to want to miss it.
