Jan. 9, 2024 - The Tucker Carlson Show
06:40
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| The war in Ukraine has officially entered its pointlessly destructive phase and of course anything that is pointlessly destructive is by definition evil, but that's where we are. | ||
| Ukraine can't win. | ||
| Russia has a much larger population and much deeper industrial capacity. | ||
| That was obvious within hours of the outbreak of the war and it's undeniable now. | ||
| That leaves the Biden administration in a very strange place because of course Joe Biden has pledged your support, your money. | ||
| Potentially your children to Zelensky for, quote, as long as it takes. | ||
| But that doesn't make any sense. | ||
| The United States has no more money to give Ukraine or anyone else. | ||
| And so that promise has to be walked back. | ||
| And slowly it is being walked back. | ||
| So the State Department spokesman the other day was asked, how long do we support Ukraine and what does that support look like? | ||
| And he said, well, actually, we're going to start giving Zelensky less money. | ||
| Here it is. | ||
|
unidentified
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We have always made clear that we want Ukraine to be an independent country, and that means that it can stand on its own two feet. | |
| We will continue to support Ukraine. | ||
| It is the policy of the United States government. | ||
| As long as it takes? | ||
| As long as it takes. | ||
| That does not mean that we are going to continue to support them at the same level of military funding that we did in 2022 and 2023. | ||
| We don't think that should be necessary because the goal is to ultimately transition Ukraine, to use the language that you repeated back, to stand on its own feet and to help Ukraine build its own industrial base and its own military industrial base so it can both finance and build and acquire munitions to stand on its own feet and to help Ukraine build its own But we are not there yet and that is why it is so critical that Congress passed the supplemental funding bill because we are not yet at the point where Ukraine can defend itself just based on its own. | ||
| Did you see that? | ||
| It's almost worth watching that twice. | ||
| Notice that he looks down. | ||
| Which is what you do when you're lying, which of course he is. | ||
| Here's what's not a lie. | ||
| And Ukraine's going to rebuild its industrial base. | ||
|
unidentified
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Really? | |
| An entire generation has been slaughtered. | ||
| The country is a wreck. | ||
| How is that going to happen? | ||
| Oh, well, BlackRock will rebuild its industrial base and lots of other donors to the Democratic Party. | ||
| That's the real point, of course. | ||
| So this is super obvious to anyone who's watching. | ||
| The weird thing is no one in Washington is saying it out loud, except really for one U.S. senator from the state of Ohio called J.D. Vance. | ||
| And recently he pointed out what has been, again, obvious for two years now, that Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe. | ||
| Nobody denies that, except in this country. | ||
| And that Zelensky, whatever his merits, is probably not the guy you should send hundreds of billions of dollars to. | ||
| Well, his colleagues went crazy. | ||
| They love Zelensky. | ||
| They love him on a personal level. | ||
| These are people with very weird sex lives who are transferring, in some cases, some of their personal desires onto Zelensky. | ||
| That adorable little bear. | ||
| So they got mad at J.D. Vance for saying that. | ||
| Watch this clip and ask yourself, does JD Vance deserve that rage or was he telling the truth? | ||
| We're getting easily a half a trillion dollars in the hole for the Ukraine conflict by the time this is done. | ||
| And Steve, at the very same time, you have people in this town saying we need to cut Social Security. | ||
| There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty. | ||
| Why? | ||
| So that one of Zelensky's ministers can buy a bigger yacht? | ||
| Kiss my ass, Steve. | ||
| It's not happening. | ||
| So they hated when he said that. | ||
| In fact, one of his colleagues who he gets along with apparently pretty well immediately denounced that as bullshit. | ||
| But of course, didn't in any way rebut it. | ||
| And of course, when they get mad, it's usually because you're telling the truth. | ||
| We thought we would ask J.D. Vance directly. | ||
| Senator Vance joins us now. | ||
| We're happy he is. | ||
| Senator, thanks so much for coming on. | ||
| So the most striking thing about that exchange you had was the number that you put, the price tag that you threw out there. | ||
| Can you just slowly explain what you think this war will cost the United States all in? | ||
| Yeah, so of course, Tucker, it's impossible to say because every single day this goes on, we spend more money, not just the money that's obvious and meets the headlines, but also the stuff that we're putting ourselves all in for, for rebuilding costs and so forth. | ||
| So let me just give you a sense of what I mean here. | ||
| The headline number of what we spent on Ukraine is $120 billion. | ||
| The Biden administration is asking for another $61 billion. | ||
| And a lot of Senate, even Republicans, seem hellbent on giving him that money. | ||
| That's $180 billion just right there. | ||
| Now, what that doesn't include is if this thing goes on for a year or two beyond that. | ||
| It also doesn't include what's called presidential drawdown authority, where, let's say, Joe Biden gives weapons that were manufactured in the United States or somewhere else, gives them to Zelensky. | ||
| We use weird accounting gimmicks to understate how many resources have actually been given. | ||
| So, if we've given $120 billion at a headline number thus far, it's probably closer to $150 or even $160 billion. | ||
| That is partially a guess, but it's an informed guess. | ||
| The other thing, Tucker, is that we're going to, we've already told people and know in certain terms that we're going to rebuild this country. | ||
| You hear things like a Marshall Plan for Ukraine, whether it's implemented by BlackRock or overseen by BlackRock. | ||
| We're talking about an additional $200, $300, maybe $400 billion to rebuild this country. | ||
| Already, Tucker, the Ukrainians are unable to pay their pensioners. | ||
| They are critical parts of the Ukrainian state. | ||
| You know, things like... | ||
| Fixing the roads, ambulance services, pension provisions that the Ukrainians can't provide for themselves at this point. | ||
| So when you take this all in, Tucker, I really think that even if the war ended, let's say, six months from now, the all-in cost to the American taxpayer is going to be about a half a trillion dollars. | ||
| Again, that is a guess, but it's an informed guess based on what we've already spent and what we might be expected to spend in the future. | ||
| It's a catastrophic sum of money. | ||
| When you think about, Tucker, what it's a... | ||
| What's accomplished, which is that we basically turned Ukraine into a rump state. | ||
| And this can't be overstated. | ||
| The goal here was always to turn Ukraine into an independent ally that could stand against the Russians. | ||
| Now, set to the side whether this is a goal worth spending $500 billion for. | ||
| I don't think that it is. | ||
| But even if you assume that goal as the policy of the United States of America... | ||
| We have not accomplished anything close to it. | ||
| The country has gone from about 40 million people to 28 million people, a ton of prime-age men. | ||
| I mean, men in the prime of their lives here have been killed or wounded or maimed. | ||
| They'll never be functional people ever again. | ||
| And that is what we have accomplished here. |
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