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March 3, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
08:02
What Happened in the Oval Office?
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I do want to talk to you about what transpired at the Oval Office.
And obviously, Zelensky admits, basically, he needs the U.S.'s help in order to defeat Russia.
But he's going to have to come to the realization that a new sheriff is in town and the new sheriff wants peace.
And I do believe that Zelensky had some people speaking in his ear.
He doesn't understand the times, I believe, that we're living in.
But at the same token, I give him some grace.
I think there's more nuance to the story.
A lot of conservatives, and rightfully so, go back to 2014 when under the Obama administration, Obama tried to wage a coup, if you will, in Ukraine.
And Putin didn't like that.
And that makes a lot of sense.
That's true.
You heard Zelensky in the Oval Office go back all the way to 2008. Frankly, I think both of those timelines, if you go back and read Putin, are a little off and need more context, frankly, even though they're both right.
I mean, obviously...
You have the 2008 assault on Georgia or taken to Georgia.
And then you had 2014 with Crimea.
But honestly, if you go back to Putin, and I think this is true.
I think this can be true.
And frankly, I think it is true.
I think that it's okay, even for Trump, to call.
Now, I understand what Trump is trying to do.
And honestly, I'm like...
Trump, do your thing.
But I do think there is area for nuance where it's okay to say, hey, Putin is a dictator and Ukraine is corrupt, so Zelensky, I don't trust you.
Frankly, they're both corrupt, some of the most corrupt countries in the entire world, frankly.
But just like Ronald Reagan did back in the day with Gorbachev, I think Trump has the...
He has the...
What do you call it?
He has the gravitas to be able to say, hey, Putin's wrong here.
Hey, I also see I also see where Zelensky is wrong.
Here's what we're going to do.
Frankly, it doesn't matter.
I see what in the scheme of things.
I don't think it necessarily matters because I think Trump is right to seek peace.
It is the Biden administration and his voters, quite frankly, that are now trying to scapegoat Donald Trump.
They got us into the Russia, Ukraine, Russia, Ukraine war.
And And you have Trump faced with a heavy burden to be able to get us out of the war.
And I think he has the best recipe out there.
And that is simply bring about peace.
But going back to Vladimir Putin, just real quickly here.
I remember interviewing Rebecca.
Thank you, sir.
I remember interviewing Rebecca Koffler of, I think it was called Putin's Playbook, when her book first came out several years ago.
I had her on the program was Putin's ambitions, even as a young man while he was in, I can't remember if it was college or graduate school, but he had penned some type of dissertation where literally way back when he was writing on his goal.
His goal was to bring back Russia as they knew it, you know, prior to Reagan.
That was his goal.
That was his life's ambition to do so.
And that Vladimir Putin was going to take advantage of any opportunity he got to be able to take back Ukraine because, quite frankly, that's what he had written about doing all the way back in his 20s.
I mean, literally, you can go and research the paper.
Listen, we're all political.
We want to take sides.
I get it.
But it's okay to say that Putin is evil.
It's also okay to say that I think Zelensky totally missed the moment.
And I'm now convinced that, well, I shouldn't say that I'm convinced.
But I'm nearly convinced that I don't know if Zelensky is the man to negotiate this deal anymore.
I don't.
I don't.
And I give him some grace.
Because I think for those of us that are in America, we can look at America, we can look at what's transpiring here, and we see all of our tax dollars going out.
We don't have an accounting for those tax dollars.
We see nearly a million dead on the Russian side.
We see nearly a million dead on the Ukrainian side.
And we're like, what the heck are we doing?
So I kind of understand why Zelensky would fall prey to...
But Biden's staff, not Biden's staff, excuse me, Obama's staff, former staff coaching him up.
I'll get into that in just a second.
Alan Estrin brought a piece to my attention from Molly Hemingway on X, and I want to read it for you.
But I think he made a horrible, horrible mistake.
And I argue that part of the reason is Valensky.
Actually, let me give you my reasons, because I think there's so much more nuance to this.
And I think...
I think Trump, frankly, I don't think he gets enough credit for trying to undertake what is almost an impossible task.
And to come up with such, frankly, a brilliant plan, no matter how you feel about Trump, this is a brilliant plan you may not like.
That is the minerals deal.
You may not like the way that Trump has gone about it.
You may not like the things that he said.
You may want him to outright call Putin a dictator, which I already admitted.
Frankly, I think Trump could do it and still get the deal.
But if Trump wants to play, come in as the moderator, he wants to be neutral.
That's his tactic.
I'm completely okay with that.
His tactic is, listen, I'm not on your side.
I'm not on this side.
We're here in the first place.
This thing would have never started.
So I'm going to remain neutral, no matter what the naysayers say, and I'm going to try to get this deal done.
And what Zelensky is dealing with, that we have the comfort of being in the United States of America, and again, we can be upset about our tax dollars, and as well, I believe we should be, frankly, once we learned that this war wasn't going anywhere, that there was absolutely no plan whatsoever.
However, only part of the money was getting to Zelensky and to the Ukrainians.
And yes, there was a lot of corruption there, but I believe that there was a lot of corruption as well on this side of the pond, quite frankly.
So I'm not even convinced that all of the money made it to Zelensky.
We know all of the weaponry didn't make it to Zelensky.
No matter how you feel about it at this point, we know that to be the case.
But you're dealing with, I think, more nuance.
And here's what I mean by that.
I wrote down some notes here, and I just want you guys to think about it, because on this side of the pond, we're not being shelled.
So I expect...
I expect Zelensky, frankly, to act more emotional.
And I would expect this guy has been getting his way with Biden for the entire time.
Now, there was a piece in Real Clear Politics over the weekend where even Biden had gotten sick of Zelensky, berated Zelensky.
Over the phone, get exasperated, get tired of him, and basically said the same thing.
Dude, you're not showing your appreciation.
But it doesn't count with Biden because Biden gave him the money anyway, and Biden was going to give him the money because Biden's staff didn't know what to do except to try to use the Russia-Ukraine war in order to bolster his own campaign and then run on being this wartime president that could...
Crush Vladimir Putin.
But he didn't get the sign of the times either.
And Americans were totally fed up with it once we learned that there was no solution, that there was no plan, and that we just kept sending money and sending money and sending money.
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