US SLAMS Russian Attack On Nuclear Plant As WAR CRIME, Ukrainian MP Says World War Three Has Begun
US SLAMS Russian Attack On Nuclear Plant As WAR CRIME, Ukrainian MP Says World War Three Has Begun. But WW3 Has NOT Started, this seems like a desperate claim to convince NATO To intervene on Ukraine's behalf.
Russia seems poised to ultimately win they objectives as the west is not willing to start an international conflict.
But while many are pushing the most extreme predictions or outcomes it seems even Russia's own allies are backing away and not willing to engage.
Still, this is very precarious and if Putin is left unchecked there is no reason he will not push further in the future.
For now it seems Biden and the democrats are ill equipped to properly handle the conflict without making it worse.
#Ukraine
#Russia
#WorldWarThree
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Senator Lindsey Graham has publicly called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin, even encouraging Russian citizens to try to kill their own president.
It is horribly irresponsible, and it could cause a dramatic escalation.
I'll say it right now, Lindsey Graham should resign.
He won't, but this was disturbing.
In our next story, the U.S.
Embassy in Kiev says that the attack on a nuclear power plant by Russia was a war crime.
And a Ukrainian MP says World War III has already begun.
But it hasn't.
This is just seemingly Ukraine trying to get NATO to intervene on their behalf.
I'm not sure it will happen.
We want to avoid World War III.
And our last story, Joe Biden's State of the Union, the lowest rated in 30 years.
I think the internet plays a role, but still, the lowest in 30 years.
Now, if you like the show, give us a good review, leave us five stars, share the show with your friends.
Now, let's get into that first story.
Senator Lindsey Graham has publicly called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin and for this I believe he should resign immediately.
It's wishful thinking he won't do it.
This man is absolutely awful.
I remember not that long ago he was seen complaining about the Democrats and all that but then he goes down and he's fist bumping Kamala because this guy is duplicitous.
He is the epitome of swamp creature.
And him along with Adam Kinzinger, I believe, are contributing to the likelihood, I'll put it that way, that we do enter a nuclear World War III.
He's called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin while resign now began trending on Twitter.
And the strange thing is the factions who are in support of what Lindsey Graham has said versus who opposes it.
Because there are many leftists who support what he says, and there are many conservatives who are supporting what he says.
And they're all wrong.
But perhaps it's more of an authoritarian versus libertarian thing.
Let me show you what he said, but let me just stress this point as we get started.
When a senator, one of the highest, one of the most powerful politicians in the country, I know maybe it's silly to say, but Lindsey Graham is prominent within the Republican Party and in American politics.
When he calls for the assassination of a nuclear powers president, what do you think they're going to be saying in Russia?
They're now going to be coming out and saying the American people are advocating for calling on people to kill our president.
Could you imagine if someone said that about Biden in Russia?
What the media would be doing?
This guy's a lunatic.
And he prescripted this because he appeared on Fox News giving the exact same statement.
Senator Lindsey Graham directly called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin twice on Thursday, both on Twitter and during an appearance on Fox News.
So many people were shocked by a statement that Resign Now trended on Twitter in response.
He tweeted, is there a Brutus in Russia?
Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?
Pathetic statement.
I'm more successful.
Colonel Stauffenberg, sure.
The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.
You'd be doing your country and the world a great service.
The only people who can fix this are the Russian people.
Easy to say, hard to do.
Unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the rest of the world in abject poverty, and live in darkness, you need to step up to the plate.
Lindsey Graham is a disgusting piece of trash who should resign now.
Because not only Is he calling for the assassination of a world leader which could result in serious military consequences?
This is destroying any chance at diplomacy.
Mind you, Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine was very damaging diplomacy.
That I understand.
Putin is absolutely in the wrong.
But this ain't helping.
The second tweet from Lindsey Graham where he says, unless you want to live in darkness, he's trying to emotionally manipulate people.
He's trying to target Russian citizens to incite them to violence.
Donald Trump gets criticized for saber-rattling on Twitter.
The establishment says, he's gonna start a war!
Because he's like, I will not tolerate... They say it's inciting violence.
Lindsey Graham can advocate for, call people to action, directly telling them to kill the Russian president.
I think Vladimir Putin's kind of a bad guy.
And kind of a bad guy, well, it's maybe an understatement.
He's a bad guy.
He is a bad dude.
He was losing.
The EU and the West were gaining more influence, as can be expected.
And Vladimir Putin decided he was going to go in with military force.
Now look, you want to have an argument about the eastern regions of Ukraine, Donbass, you want to have an argument about regime change in 2014, certainly think there's arguments about what the U.S.
is doing and what's wrong.
Vladimir Putin wants to invade through Belarus, stage nuclear weapons in Belarusian territory, have Belarus actually aid and assist an invasion from the north into the capital, Kiev, and start actually trying to seize and take over cities to the west?
You know, man.
Vladimir Putin?
Bad dude.
But you know how we resolve these things?
We don't do it by advocating for, I don't know, killing the president.
We don't do it by pushing other nations towards World War III.
And it's not just Lindsey Graham, it's Adam Kinzinger as well, who has called for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Yeah, calling for a no-fly zone is essentially a declaration of war.
Because when you say that, what you are saying is, we intend to fire upon you.
It's not a formal declaration of war, but it's a weasel word kind of declaration of war.
It is a, the United States has decided we will control the airspace, we will use it as we see fit, and if you enter it, we will shoot you down.
That's a threat of direct use of force in a foreign nation against a nuclear power.
Graham made nearly identical comments during his appearance on Fox News.
Yeah, and they should absolutely be slamming him.
Fox host Sean Hennity, who has also been openly calling for escalation with Russia, brought up a law forbidding U.S.
government employees from engaging in political assassination and asked if it was time to revisit the rule.
I also have never been a big fan of Sean Hennity.
Oh, Paul Dano.
Trending as well.
Paul Dano trending almost as much as Resign Now because the Batman came out and he plays the Riddler.
and several other related phrases trending throughout the evening.
Oh, Paul Dano.
Trending as well.
Paul Dano trending almost as much as Rezign now because the Batman came out and he plays
the Riddler.
The calls for his resignation came from all over the political spectrum, as people demanded
that he was looking to push us into a third world war.
Jack Posobiec.
This was during Timcast IRL as we were wrapping the show up.
Somebody superchatted us, Jack also saw the tweet, and Jack tweeted, during the show, resign now.
And then I followed suit, did the exact same thing.
Tim Young says, resign now is trending because Lindsey Graham got a couple of Cosmos in him at happy hour and decided to start threatening world leaders.
Matt Gaetz says, when has Senator Graham encouraging regime change ever ended badly?
Bravo, Matt Gaetz!
Excellent tweet.
Chris Hayes has honestly gobsmacked at how reckless that Lindsey Graham tweet is.
This is the fascinating thing.
Chris Hayes?
In agreement with Jack Posobiec?
Why, hell must be freezing over.
We have the tweet here.
But let me show you my tweet.
I tweeted, resign.
That's it.
And people said, explain yourself, Tim.
Explain myself?
Resign?
Um, Lindsey Graham went on national television and advocated for the assassination of a world leader and called on people in the country to try and kill their own president.
You want to talk about destabilizing the planet and escalating to World War III?
How about that?
And the only way we save face when we're trying to diplomatically end conflict and prevent nuclear war would be for someone like Lindsey Graham to resign, but I must, uh, I will express, I understand.
It ain't gonna happen.
Look at this first response.
Burgess Boston says, Tim Pool is definitely writing fanfiction about him meeting Vladimir Putin.
Uh-huh.
There are a bunch of people.
Some people are agreeing with me.
There are a bunch of people who are saying that I'm supporting Putin or something like that.
No, I'm just not a fan of World War 3, which apparently is underway.
Man, I don't like to jam too much Too much into one segment, but there's just so much going on here.
Politico reports, can a wider war be prevented?
And they go on to mention, let me do a search here for Kinzinger.
Biden's first test is the no-fly zone, writes Politico.
The unified opposition to a no-fly zone, World War III.
Russia hawk, Marco Rubio recently called it, has started to crack.
Adam Kinzinger, every liberal's favorite Republican, has loudly called for Biden to defend the skies from above from Russian planes.
I fear if this continues, we will have to intervene in a bigger way, he said Thursday night, after a day of heightened Russian attacks on civilian areas.
Roger Wicker, Republican, is also on board, as are some big-name Democratic policymakers from the Obama years, such as Evelyn Farkas, the top official for Ukraine in the Obama Pentagon.
Zelensky reiterated his call for a no-fly zone.
How long do you need?
How many arms and legs and heads should be severed so that you understand?
He said at a press conference.
If you don't have the strength to provide a no-fly zone, then give me the planes.
Would that not be fair?
The planes?
You know what, man?
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We're talking about shooting down Russian aircraft.
Russia's invasion is wrong.
They are in the wrong first.
Do we respond by escalating into a third world war?
I think the answer is no.
I think the answer is absolutely no.
And it's a tough position.
I don't want to see Ukrainians die.
I like Ukraine.
I think it's an amazing country.
I'm not a fan of Russia, Vladimir Putin, invading into Ukraine.
I think he's wrong.
I think for all the points that are made about Don Bass and the separatists and all that, Vladimir Putin should not be invading and trying to split the country in half or whatever he's trying to do.
So it sucks.
But you have to show patience, resolve, and restraint.
We may be powerful here in the West, but I assure you, your children will learn of this war with their own eyes.
You want to know fly zone?
You want to see Russia escalate and push into Europe?
These NATO countries Mark my words, to quote one of my favorite movies, as I often do, this war will not be fought in some faraway land.
It will be at your doorstep.
Your children will learn of it with their own eyes.
In fact, for those in the United States that we may be spared from such a conflict, many of your children will be the ones deployed to go and fight in this war.
And if they do survive it, Perhaps one day you will come home and you will find your child has taken their own life after suffering trauma from experiencing a war of this magnitude.
I think, you know, I look at everything anyone could have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The civilian casualties, the failed regime change, and the trauma to our own soldiers, and for what?
U.S.
conquest in the Middle East.
Now don't get me wrong.
As much as we talk about how the media lied about WMDs, there were some chemicals there for sure.
And we've certainly had people on the show who have discussed actually being victims of certain chemicals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I'm sorry, in Iraq.
But that doesn't change, that doesn't change much.
The U.S.
sending our troops overseas, and the argument is, we fight them over there, so we don't gotta fight them over here.
We're not gonna fight them over here!
What does this mean?
Is Iraq gonna send U-boats to our shores?
No, we have security problems.
Al-Qaeda certainly infiltrated and targeted us, but these are real risks that we face, and we need to figure out how to be secure in this country while making sure we balance our freedoms.
Perhaps we need to navigate that.
But it's a difficult question.
I am very much in favor of freedom.
I am very much in favor of taking these risks.
And I would argue the risks are acceptable for freedom.
And if we weren't engaged in regime change in the Middle East, we probably would not be as at risk.
If we were not the world police with military bases all over the planet, With the gall to then criticize Russia.
As far as I know, Russia, their military, yeah, they've got Syria, you know, they've got Tartus, Crimea, certainly Russia has troops stationed outside of their own country.
But the U.S., man, troops in Europe and Japan and South Korea, surrounding Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, I'm not here to whataboutism or any of that stupid... It's a stupid word.
It's a manipulation, to be honest.
But I'm not here to just be like, you know, what Russia is doing is not that bad or the US is worse.
The US is bad.
What Russia did right now is the moral wrong.
But a no-fly zone to declare war on Russia?
We've been through this before.
It's one of the reasons that Donald Trump got elected.
During the 2015-2016 cycle, Hillary Clinton was calling for a no-fly zone in Syria.
And our general said that would be a declaration of war on Russia.
And I called that out, too.
Are you nuts?
Russia just fires off some nukes from submarines or uses nuclear artillery.
Who knows what they'll do?
It's getting bad, man.
Yesterday, we saw what may be one of the greatest bits of propaganda from the Ukrainian government.
Axios reports Russian forces seize Europe's largest nuclear power station.
Well, it's better than them shooting at it, but last night, We, um, this is what we led with, main story.
There was a firefight, uh, war breaking out at a nuclear power plant, leaving everybody rather worried.
Now the good news is, this is a more advanced power plant than just Chernobyl.
Chernobyl apparently was a test gone wrong, which caused an explosion.
This nuclear plant, if it melts down, the core will just melt down into the earth and that's it.
It'll just keep melting.
It's not gonna blow up.
So long as containment holds, you will not see radiation leaks.
So, this is people trying to scream that if this plant blows up, it'll wipe out Europe or something like that.
They're lying to you.
Ukrainian officials said Friday they've extinguished a fire near the Zaporizhia nuclear power station in southeastern Ukraine that ignited during shelling by Russian forces but confirmed that Russia's military has seized the plant.
Energotum, is that how you pronounce it?
Ukraine's nuclear power operator said in a telegram statement that the administrative building and the checkpoint at Europe's largest nuclear power station are under occupier's control.
The plant's staff continues to work on power units, ensuring the stable operation of nuclear facilities.
Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the Ukrainian defenders of the station.
The UN nuclear watchdog and U.S.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm both said the plant and the Energy Secretary Yeah, well, let's take a look at this one.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian forces of nuclear terror, according to a translation by the
Ukrainian embassy.
Yeah, well, let's take a look at this one.
Pedro Gonzalez says, The Ukrainian government, including Zelensky, lied about
Russians critically damaging the Zaporizhia nuclear plant in a way that caused radiation levels to rise, which they
used to justify getting US and NATO involved.
The Ukrainian government is actively trying to start World War III.
Well, I'll pull that back a little bit and I'll say, I think the Ukrainian government is desperately trying to
get the West to intervene to save their asses.
However, lying to get NATO directly involved in a ground war in Ukraine?
Disgusting.
No lie with Brian Tyler Cohen reported about the nuclear power plant.
He says, elevated radiation levels are being detected around the nuclear power plant, a Ukrainian official tells the AP.
Ukraine's Prime Minister is calling on NATO to close the skies over nuclear power plants.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted that the Zaporizhia plant's reactors were protected by robust containment structures and were being safely shut down.
In an emotional speech in the middle of the night, Zelensky said he feared an explosion that would be the end for everyone, the end for Europe, the evacuation of Europe.
Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops.
Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophic catastrophe at a nuclear power station.
But most experts saw nothing to indicate an impending disaster.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the fire had not affected essential equipment, and that Ukraine's nuclear regulator reported no change in radiation levels.
The American Nuclear Society concurred, saying that the latest radiation levels remained within natural background levels.
That's right.
Trying to lie to force us into a war.
I gotta say, man.
War is a dirty game.
Dirty business.
I don't think Russia's so stupid, but I can tell you Russia's really bad at information warfare and getting out messaging.
We're gonna see more stories like this.
We're gonna hear about children being killed.
We're gonna hear about more Russian soldiers crying and saying they didn't know how evil they had actually been, and it was all a misunderstanding.
It's propaganda.
And the funny thing is, take a look at who is advocating for the assassination of Putin.
And remarkably, you can see, like, Ilhan Omar, for instance.
Like, slammed Lindsey Graham.
Chris Hayes.
Yet there are many establishment leftists criticizing me.
You want to play games?
Sure.
I stand alongside Ilhan Omar and Chris Hayes in condemning what Lindsey Graham has said in his tweet and Jack Posobiec.
How about that?
You know, I think if you want to find who the real grifters are, you want to know who the real grifters are?
I'll tell you what.
Take a look at who is defending Lindsey Graham's statements.
I question them.
People are saying, but he's right.
No, he's not.
Vladimir Putin isn't the end-all be-all of Russia.
Either you're lying because you're pro-war or you're just ignorant.
If someone were to, first of all, if someone were to even try to take the life of Vladimir Putin, You would have chaos erupting.
The fact that Lindsey Graham said this can destabilize the region worse than it already is and make diplomacy impossible, considering it was already difficult in the first place because Russia's already invaded.
But if someone in Russia actually goes after Putin, do you genuinely believe that Lavrov or someone else wouldn't step up and say, we will not stand for this?
You've already got Lukashenko in Belarus, who's on board with Russia.
What do you think China would do?
It is a level of depravity and psychotic behavior and naivety.
I just can't.
It's just absolutely insane.
Russia would say the U.S.
called for, advocated for, or even aided and abetted the assassination of their president.
There would be international outrage.
Adam Kinzinger, the No Fly Zones, man, they want war, and you know what I fear?
I fear they're gonna get it.
And then, I mean, that's who they are.
It's insane.
These people, man, they don't care about human life.
They don't.
And so it's no surprise they'll try and smear me.
It's no surprise, like, the Young Turks will come out and attack me.
Why?
Well, because I countered their propaganda.
I'm not gonna be manipulated by emotional cries and, but think of the children!
Shut your mouth.
I am thinking about the children, you morons.
But they're lying to you.
The reality is, it's bad what Russia is doing.
More war doesn't solve that.
Let me tell y'all a story.
It's a story I was told when I was very little.
There was a party.
It was a family story.
And some guy, it was with his wife.
Some other guy walked up and started hitting.
Guy A is with his wife.
Guy B starts hitting on Guy A's wife.
Guy A tells him to back off and stop hitting on his wife.
And so a fight breaks out and Guy B punches Guy A. Guy A falls down and slams his head on a table and dies.
And that's escalation.
Any fight you can avoid is a fight you've already won.
Now, there are challenges, admittedly.
Vladimir Putin, will he stop?
You know, he's already engaged in some kind of extreme act, and the challenge is... Let's look at it this way.
A man armed with a fully automatic select fire Kalashnikov, AK-47, breaks into a hospital and starts smashing things up and destroying things, and him and his buddies are trying to lock down and take out the security guards.
The police arrive on scene.
Typically.
Will the police just storm in and engage in a firefight?
Not necessarily.
Why?
Because the concern is that entering could result in mass casualties.
And while it's already bad, you have a hostage situation, you need to find a way to shut it down.
Sometimes we would storm in knowing civilians and casualties could escalate.
Well, let's play another game.
The guy stormed into the hospital and he's armed with hostages.
The only problem is he's also lined bombs around a bunch of other buildings.
And so it's just like, man...
How do you handle a situation like this?
So, I don't even know if the analogy is necessary because it's a rock and a hard place.
Vladimir Putin's got nukes.
He's moved in, he's pissed off.
If the West gets involved, it goes from just having Ukraine be in trouble to the entirety of Europe.
Ukraine is trying to push that case.
World War III is already here!
Only if NATO is forced into the fray.
And it won't just...
That's tough, man.
Do you let Vladimir Putin do what he's doing?
How do you stop him?
This is one of the reasons why I think that the concept of mutually assured destruction, albeit a concept and a doctrine, I don't think it'll play out the way people think it will.
Because people don't want to escalate.
I don't know, man.
I don't have the answers.
I don't know how you stop someone like Vladimir Putin.
Sanctions, perhaps.
But he's gonna take what he wants.
And if the U.S.
intervenes, World War III.
So what do you do?
Do we accept that the world is just doomed?
The Great Filter is inevitable?
Or do we just say, maybe Putin's gonna win this one?
I don't know, man.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel.
Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you all then.
Last night we watched in horror as war was breaking out at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
In fact, it's the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Zaporizhia, as it's been... I'm told it's how it's pronounced.
probably pronouncing it wrong still. But at this power plant, there was reportedly shelling from
the Russians. Now, of course, it's war. There's fog of war.
And some people are disputing whether or not this even happened. But the reporting right now is
that the nuclear power plant is currently occupied by Russian forces and the people there are working
at gunpoint.
Now, the U.S.
Embassy in Kiev has said the shelling of this nuclear power plant is a war crime.
And we're also hearing from an interview on Fox News, a Ukrainian member of parliament has said this is World War Three.
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I've used nuclear war because that's kind of the framing in the news that's happening, but I am getting increasingly angry at hearing this, particularly from the Ukrainians.
We are trying to avoid World War 3.
This is why, right now it's being reported, NATO is rejecting calls for a no-fly zone.
A no-fly zone is effectively a declaration of war, telling Russia, we will shoot you down.
We don't want this.
It's bad enough.
Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
Unfortunately, the response would just be dramatic escalation, and it's hard to know how to deal with it.
But within Ukraine, we are hearing the most outrageous and sensationalized things, and it is infuriating.
According to international experts, there is no release of radiation from this nuclear power plant, no risk of a major explosion.
Yet what do we hear from Zelensky?
That this could be worse than Chernobyl and all of Europe is at stake.
I'm sick of it.
I'm sorry, Ukraine.
I think you're a fantastic country.
I actually like Zelensky.
To a certain degree, he's starting to get on my nerves with his constant fear-mongering.
Oh, the world is going to end.
Europe, or I should say, you know, he's a Europe will be destroyed.
It's World War 3, says a Ukrainian activist.
It's World War 3, says a member of parliament.
We're not there yet, and we don't want to be.
Truth be told, there's a real possibility we get there, and I hope that's not the case.
It's not being helped by the likes of Lindsey Graham, who is publicly called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin now says he's a drunk and other derogatory statements.
We don't want World War III.
We don't want an invasion in Ukraine.
And how do we deal with it?
Honestly, I don't know.
The sanctions, however, appear to be working.
As much as there is this escalation, even China now seems to be backing off, with the Wall Street Journal saying China's banks are not going to pick up the tab for Russia amid these sanctions because they're too severe.
We're seeing other BRICS nations, like Brazil and India, declare neutrality.
I mean, these are countries you'd expect to step up to support Russia.
There should be an alternative economic system, but apparently it's not happening.
Russia is becoming increasingly isolated.
Now, there's a risk there.
Russia is the most powerful nuclear power, and Putin is being backed into a corner when even his own allies are saying, yo, we don't know if we want to get behind this.
But it's not absolute.
Of course, Brazil, India, or China could change their tune.
It does seem, however, that while China is pushing the pro-Russia narrative, at least one China-backed bank is backing away from lending to Russian banks.
Or corporations.
This is to suggest we could be seeing a de-escalation.
Perhaps Russia can't handle this.
Even the children of many elites and oligarchs seem to be backing away.
They're posting online saying, no war!
It's Putin who wants this!
They've lost the propaganda campaign.
They've lost their own international culture war.
I don't know how Russia can continue to sustain this.
And it really is starting to feel like it may actually turn out for the best.
Now, there's a risk the war escalates.
Currently, based on what I'm seeing with Brazil, India, and China, I think Putin's in trouble, man.
I think he really is.
Now, I don't know if the U.S.
will get involved, but I think Putin is very much in trouble.
Now, on top of all of that, we're seeing an increase in censorship.
We are seeing insane war hysteria and propaganda.
Russian cats being banned from cat shows.
It's insane.
The war hysteria is dangerous.
We need to be aware of it and call it out.
And we need to be pragmatic and responsible as to what's happening with Vladimir Putin.
We need to stop him.
But I don't know if direct involvement is the right move.
I'll say it because I've said it before.
We're already involved in this war through propaganda, through resources, financing.
Even Latvia has voted for their citizens to be able to go and volunteer for the Ukrainian side of the war effort, which is effectively Latvia saying, our people will enter this war.
Why would Russia be like, well, that's, that's, that's totally unrelated.
Now, I think it is escalating, but maybe no one has an appetite for actual nuclear war.
Well, let's read the latest news and see what's going on.
Before we get started, however, head over to TimCast.com and become a member to help support our work.
We are constantly digging through the news, fact-checking.
We have original reporting, we have aggregation, we have boots on the ground.
We don't always get it right, but we try our best and we always make sure any corrections will have a correction.
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It's disgusting.
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They're a whole lot of fun.
We had a great episode last night and the day before.
Or maybe not the day before.
What is it?
Actually, yeah, the day before.
But we didn't have a members-only for the State of the Union because we went long.
But Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m., check it out now.
Let's read the first story from Daily Mail. U.S. Embassy in Kyiv calls Putin's shelling of Europe's
biggest nuclear plant a war crime. Operator says staff are working at gunpoint as Biden gives
Ukrainians in America protected status during barbaric invasion. They go on to say Russian
troops attacked the Zaporizhia plant in the early hours of Friday with surveillance capturing a
fierce gun between Putin's men and Ukrainian defenders that sparked a fire in a six story
training building just outside the main complex.
Moscow's men then stopped firefighters getting to the building for several hours while Russian forces continued their relentless bombardment of cities across the country.
Now, I want to stress, right now this is the reporting we have.
Take it or leave it.
I'm wary of any news report that claims Vladimir Putin is a comic book villain, like we're not going to allow firefighters to put out fires.
I mean, that just sounds weird to me, but possible.
I'm wary of these things, but recognize if there is an active firefight, a gunfight happening, And a truck pulls up and you're in active combat, I don't think someone's gonna be like, oh, those guys are okay.
They're gonna be like, nah, I don't trust you.
For all they know, those guys in firefighter outfits are undercover or, you know, it's guerrilla tactics or something.
So it may be the case.
Now, of course, they tried pushing the narrative that the nuclear power plant was going to blow up and be worse than Chernobyl, and that is not true.
It does seem like there are NATO or like there's NATO affiliated organizations and Western organizations that are trying to say, calm down.
It feels to me like NATO is actively trying to stop Russia, but not with ground war.
Ukraine doesn't care.
They're like, give us the planes and come in guns a blazing.
And, uh, I can kind of feel the frustration of NATO in that regard.
Because it's kind of like, yo, Zelensky, NATO is going to provide the best support we can while avoiding World War 3, but y'all need to calm down.
The war effort on the West is propaganda, influence, and resources to avoid World War 3.
It is effective.
And annoying, mind you.
I'm not a fan of the propaganda.
I'll cut through it to the best of my abilities.
But if Ukraine thinks that by screaming World War 3 over and over again, or nuclear explosion, is going to sway us, the NATO or the West, to get involved, it ain't working.
Now, I say us, because that is the greater community of the West, but me personally?
I don't, I, there's gotta be some serious and dramatic escalation before I think the US should be involved.
And that likely includes, like, US targets being hit.
We already are involved.
Accept the war effort you get.
I'm sorry it's happening.
I'm not a fan.
I think Ukraine's amazing.
Vladimir Putin's the bad guy, but...
They say the U.S.
Embassy in Ukraine released a statement on Friday condemning the attack on Zaporizhia, and hinted it is further evidence the Russian leader should be investigated in the Hague.
It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant.
Putin's shelling of Europe's largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Russia on Friday NATO will defend every inch of its territory against a Russian attack, as he condemned Moscow's attack on the nuclear plant as reckless.
Now this is the next story we have here, and this is where I grow more concerned.
The US and NATO likely will not just say, at the request of Ukraine, we have decided we're going to war.
What likely will happen is that Poland will be hit or Latvia or Estonia.
I think Latvia is potentially a target here.
NATO will then say, due to Article 5 or whatever, we are obligated to defend and thus we are entering the war.
That's scary to me.
Scary because the U.S.
is not above using false flags to pull themselves into a war.
I'm referring specifically to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where the U.S.
basically was like, oh no, we've been hit, and we weren't.
And then we were like, now we have to go to war in Vietnam, and then we did, and it was kind of a catastrophe.
But it's also possible there's a much simpler potentiality.
Latvia recently voted to allow their citizens to volunteer for the Ukrainian war effort.
Russia might say, you are providing manpower from a NATO state now, not just planes or guns or bullets or money.
You have active NATO civilians enlisting in the Ukrainian forces.
That is Latvia.
And what happens if Russia then says, you are providing material support?
We consider that to be an aggression by NATO and they go into Latvia.
Now that would be scary.
We've already seen reports that Russia has invaded Swedish airspace near Gotland Island and Japanese airspace with a helicopter.
Perhaps Japan and Sweden are mistaken, or perhaps this is a legitimate reporting from two of our allies.
Perhaps Russia knows that they can saber-rattle, threaten effectively nuclear war, and it will keep these other countries out of the fold.
Maybe things escalate, maybe they don't.
My assessment, based on everything we've seen, it's likely that Vladimir Putin does not escalate beyond Ukraine.
It seems like he is making moves to cut the country in half, and that's it.
There is a real possibility they bring in troops through Odessa.
We have seen photos and videos showing the Russian naval forces outside of Odessa.
Perhaps they won't invade?
We don't know.
Based on a map put up by Lukashenko of Belarus, it looks like they might.
Now, some are saying that's an outdated map, but regardless, it looks like they might.
And if they do, the fear is Russia moves into Transnistria, which they already occupy, and use that as a staging ground for a Western assault on Ukraine.
I don't know where this ends, but Antony Blinken says the NATO military alliance is ready for conflict if it comes, but that the U.S.
and its allies are not seeking a confrontation with Russia.
Blinken made the remarks in Brussels, Belgium on Friday, where he is meeting with NATO foreign ministers and the alliance's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its ninth day.
Ours is a defensive alliance.
We seek no conflict, but if conflict comes to us, we are ready for it, and we will defend every inch of NATO territory.
At the same time, as the Secretary General says, we are preparing for NATO's future, and the events of the last few weeks as they continue will further inform that future.
Will this lead to NATO involvement?
I don't know.
Bluster, rhetoric, this seems to me like it is...
On a scale of 1 to 100, this is a 1 in terms of escalation.
It is NATO saying we're ready for war.
It's not a whole lot.
Interestingly, Vladimir Putin claims he's not even at war.
Well, so they report.
I'm exaggerating, mind you.
Putin says his forces are not bombing Ukrainian cities, as 100 people are feared buried under rubble near Kiev, Mariupol, while it's simply being destroyed, and missile fragment hits near Zelensky's second home.
Daily Mail reports a delusional Vladimir Putin has again insisted that Russia is not bombing Ukrainian cities, despite fears that 100 people are buried under rubble, after an apartment block near Kiev was struck, and after a cluster bomb attack on the city of Chernihiv, which killed 49.
Now, I have no reason to believe Vladimir Putin, let me tell you.
What is he suggesting?
Is the suggestion that the bombings we're seeing are actually false flags?
That Ukraine is bombing itself to get NATO involvement to go against Russia?
I don't believe that for a second.
I really don't.
There's, there's, like, look, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was like a U.S.
ship just said, oh no, we've been hit.
That was kind of it.
When people talk about false flag attacks, I am not a fan of the idea that a country would inflict upon itself such massive collateral damage when they don't need to.
You could have, like, one guy be captured with documents trying to do something, and that would be Cass's belly for, you know, for any nation for the most part.
Perhaps you, a cause for war, a justification of war, perhaps you want more than that.
You could have a handful of people and you're like, look who we caught and look what we caught them with.
You don't need to blow up multiple residential buildings across your own country to be like, ah.
So I will add as well, some people have taken issue.
With false framing from the media, which you're correct, happens all the time.
What do we know about the real context of Vladimir Putin's statements?
The problem is, I don't speak Russian.
I can only report as I see, so take it with a grain of salt, and I'll say this too, because I'll do the same thing.
Is Vladimir Putin really saying he's not bombing Ukrainian cities?
Or did he say something like, in this instance he didn't do it?
I don't know.
I gotta be honest, I'm less inclined to believe the people defending Vladimir Putin simply because he invaded Ukraine.
That's it.
Is Zelensky waving his arms in the air and screaming?
Yes, but he is being invaded and I can understand that.
We have this story from TimCast.com.
Ukrainian member of parliament, World War III has already started.
No, it hasn't.
You're just being attacked.
I'm sorry it's happening to you, but none of us want World War III.
Stop acting like it already started.
This assessment by these activists, journalists, members of parliament, when they say this, they're effectively saying, no matter what happens, World War III is here.
I don't agree!
I don't.
But of course they're going to say that.
Because if World War 3 has started, then NATO needs to be involved.
And that will benefit Ukraine.
Lawmaker Alexei Gontcharenko appeared on Fox & Friends first to urge the United States To provide his country with more weapons.
Host Trace Gallagher was discussing how the U.S.
was hesitant to put boots on the ground out of concern it could spark World War III.
The World War III has already started.
If somebody doesn't see it, it's their problem, Goncharenko said.
It's war not against Ukraine but against the whole free world.
Despite his assertion, Goncharenko claimed that Ukraine does not want the U.S.
to send soldiers, just weapons.
Though he would later contradict that claim.
We're not asking for boots on the ground, but give us possibilities.
Goncharenko went on to request Patriot missiles and a no-fly zone on the border with Poland, which would have to be enforced by troops ready to shoot down Russian planes.
He said he wanted a humanitarian air corridor to assist with evacuating children from conflict zones.
Additionally, the lawmaker asked for the U.S.
to ban Russian oil and gas.
Gontcharenko stated that if Putin invades Kiev, we will meet him there and there will be hell for them, I assure you.
While he predicts that Ukraine will ultimately win the war, he said that there could be a massacre if Russia takes any major cities.
Ukraine, I don't see winning this.
Not without serious international support.
They're getting some.
Russia is powerful, okay?
Many people are like, oh, their military is not strong enough to sustain this, and it's like, look at a comparison.
Compare the military might of NATO as a whole with Russia.
Russia may be one of the most powerful countries on the nation, on the planet.
Now, when you look at Europe as a whole, or the US as a whole, Okay, Russia's not all that powerful.
When you look at, I should say, when you look at the EU as a whole, Russia's probably got substantial resources, more power than they do.
You throw the United States into the mix and Russia is like 60% or like 50% of NATO's forces.
Comparably, there's like different capabilities.
I think Russia is, they're the experts in winter warfare, icebreakers, etc.
Certainly, is a quote, certainly there will be guerrilla fighting and we will never accept the Russian government, he said.
We want peace, we want peace as soon as possible, but we're not going to surrender.
Putin is speaking about peace talks on the one hand, and another hand he is throwing missiles and bombs to our kindergartens.
It looks like all of these peace talks from Putin for the moment are just tricks.
Now who do you believe?
I am not on the side of Russia on this one, and I'm not going to be because they invaded.
I don't like war, I don't like instigators.
You can talk about the U.S.
and regime change, but I'm sorry man, if the U.S.
is buying and selling influence and it's working, that's basically how you do it.
They've figured a way to convince Ukrainians to accept this, and Ukrainians are in favor of it.
Russia doesn't like it, so they're using military force?
I think it's wrong.
World War 3, will we really see it?
The Philadelphia Inquirer says yes.
World War 3 has already started in Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S.
In Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S.
should wake up.
Trudy Rubin says, this is a war for the world.
A haggard Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN.
Ukrainians are fighting for us, the United States, for Europe and for you and for me.
Oh, quiet.
Russia doesn't even have support of their own economic bloc, the BRICS nations.
Brazil, Bolsonaro says, we're going to remain neutral.
India, we're going to be neutral.
China, which was supporting their narrative and still kind of is, is backing away.
I don't see where South Africa is.
So, Russia, their buddies aren't even getting their back.
You want to call this World War III?
We ain't there.
They say if Putin can openly threaten nuclear war to scare off NATO from halting its aggression, then much of Europe is in danger.
If this deranged killer can play dangerous games of cyber attacks and nuclear weapons, then the threat extends across the Atlantic to the U.S.
I want to say that outright.
Say this outright.
Vladimir Putin has a good chance of winning.
Why?
Because he knows we don't want World War III, and we know... It's like a poker game.
Vladimir Putin, we know he's got a good hand.
He does.
In fact, he might have pocket rockets!
Quite literally.
the United States might be holding, I don't know, Ace King suited, if you're familiar with poker.
We know he's got a good hand and he's pushing on us.
However, maybe he's not willing to play the hand he has. You know, we suspect he has a good hand,
nuclear weapons. But maybe this time, this conflict, it's not the one where he's willing to go
all in. Unfortunately for us, we have been screaming at the top of their lungs.
We are not going all in on this one.
We're not betting.
So Putin's just raising every go, knowing we're going to fold.
He's going to get what he wants.
He'll win this pot.
It's not the end of the poker game, but Putin knows he can press his hand this time.
I think he's going to win this one for that reason.
Of course, what does win mean?
I don't know.
You know, resistance and insurgency in Ukraine will be fierce.
And rest assured, you'll see the Ukrainian people are not going to take this lying down.
Vladimir Putin may end up controlling the country, and as long as he stops there, that may be it.
But what next?
If Vladimir Putin knows he's holding these cards, and we know he's holding these cards, so nobody wants to bet against him.
To put it simply, it's like imagine playing poker with someone you know every single hand has a pair of aces.
Eventually, you're gonna have to say, I'm gonna take my bet on the flop or whatever that I can beat pair of aces, pocket rockets.
I don't know, poker analogy, whatever the point is.
Eventually, someone's gonna have to say, you know what?
I will go all in to shut you down, and therein lies the problem.
Putin may or may not drop a more powerful hand.
You know what happens?
Putin's sitting there holding pair of aces, and he keeps getting it every single time because he's holding nukes.
And eventually someone says, look, I've got, you know, king, queen suited.
It's good.
I'm hoping I'm going to get the cards I need to beat a pair.
And then what happens?
Well, maybe we make that bet and we get two pair.
We beat Putin's hand with a pair of deuces and a pair of threes.
And we're like, we finally got him.
And then all of a sudden, the last card, Tenace, trips.
Putin gets three of a kind, and then we're like, now we're in serious trouble.
Therein lies the problem.
No one in the West is willing to take that bet.
And I totally understand it.
We're not talking about poker chips here, we're talking about, you know, nuclear annihilation.
But eventually someone's gonna have to say, I don't think he's got it.
And they're gonna have to push back.
I think what we're seeing is crazy, but let's move through some of these sanction stories as we kind of show what's going on, because I do want to say, I think Russia may actually, they may take Ukraine, but I think it's limited here.
Bipartisan lawmakers call on Biden administration to end Russian oil imports.
I'm always wary of the phrase bipartisan because it'll be like Adam Kinzinger and, you know, Liz Cheney along with, like, Chuck Schumer or something.
Yeah, not really bipartisan, but truth be told, I think even the populist right especially are like, sanctions are better than war.
I've seen a lot of conservatives and pro-Trump people say, arm the Ukrainians and GTFO.
We have Belarus strengthening its air defenses along the border.
Not a good sign.
But, you know, just another sign of some kind of escalation.
In terms of the more positive news, we have this from Bloomberg.
China-backed development banks halt Russia loans amid sanctions.
The multilateral center said in a statement Thursday that all activities relating to Russia
and Belarus are on hold and under review, as it strives to do the utmost to safeguard
the financial integrity of the bank, while expressing sympathy and offering support to
those who have been adversely impacted by the war.
The statement didn't condemn the war or announce any further measures against the two countries.
But this is an interesting pullback from China.
The Wall Street Journal reports, why China's banks won't come to Russia's rescue.
The risk of additional sanctions deters Chinese lenders, while a fledgling payment network relies on a swift global payment system.
They say on paper, China's banks and its homegrown payment system could offer Russia respite from crippling Western sanctions.
In practice, it isn't that simple.
The impasse shows how hard it is for Beijing and Moscow to circumvent the dollar-centric international financial system.
Despite the duo's shared interests, and even though China has some experience in helping other nations evade sanctions, Western countries have imposed an array of penalties on Russia in the past week, as we know.
China has long been concerned about what it calls dollar hegemony, especially as the trade war with the U.S.
worsened.
The two countries increasingly trade with each other without using dollars, giving Russia an important outlet for selling oil, gas, and other products without touching the U.S.
financial system.
Just over a third of Russia's exports to China were settled in dollars as of last September.
The most recent data available shows down from 96% in 2013, a little more than half of China's exports the other way were settled in dollars, down from 90%.
But this trade pales against the other markets now largely shut off to Russia, and while Beijing has also been vocal in its recent opposition to sanctions, big Chinese banks aren't likely to ride to Russia's rescue.
First problem is that Chinese financial institutions have been less keen on the idea of banking Russian clients than their political leaders are.
Professor Shi-Wu Chen, Chair of Finance at the University of Hong Kong's Business School, was involved in helping arrange early meetings between Chinese banks and Russian companies in 2014 and 2015.
At that point, Chinese banking executives really had no interest.
They did not want to do anything with Russia.
And I'll tell you what my thoughts are on this.
China likes to gut the United States and exploit our resources, IP, and wealth.
They need to suckle from the teat of the United States as long as possible to supplant us.
Jumping now over to a lesser player, Russia, with a very small economy, could cut them off from the larger economics of the world.
If China wants to win, they can't play that game.
And so, it looks like China may actually back away, which is surprising.
I didn't expect this one, but I can see the argument being made.
Now, I will also push back and say this is just an analysis and opinion of some people at the Wall Street Journal and some other outlets, and it's one bank.
China is actually embracing the Russian narrative.
The New York Times reports how China embraces Russian propaganda and its version of the war.
In much of the world, Russia is losing the information war over Ukraine.
In China, though, it's winning big.
I agree with the assessment.
I'm not a fan of the New York Times for a lot of reasons, but I agree.
Ukraine is doing way better.
You look at social media, you look at media reports, the stories are there.
Zelensky, war hero, big brass balls, all that stuff.
In reality, Ukraine is being crushed, as far as we can actually tell.
It's hard to sift through the fog of war and propaganda.
And while Zelensky does appear to be an effective leader doing things right to boost morale, He's being aided substantially by Western media forces.
That's war, baby.
Morale is everything.
If your soldiers feel like they can't win, they stop fighting and they run and hide.
The same is true for Russia.
So, Russia needs to maintain that, but it doesn't seem like they're doing very much a good job of it.
Now, in the West, to make sure that no one ever sees the arguments from Putin, we are seeing the most absurd shutdowns.
Look at this.
Reddit sides with Ukraine and bans all links to Russia's state-sponsored RT and Sputnik.
I find that absolutely disgusting.
Absolutely disgusting.
We have made such restrictions universal across the site in all geographies.
They say as far as RT and Sputnik are concerned, it's possibly the most complete deplatforming of those channels yet.
Because while Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, and many others have paused their ads or removed content, or restricted discoverability, stopped promoting, or both, Facebook and YouTube have blocked in the U specifically, none of those is the same thing as a blanket site-wide global ban on all links.
In a blog post, Reddit says, it's already been rejecting ads that target Russia or originate from any Russia-based entity, government or private.
Notes that the moderators of some subreddits have already blocked links to Russian state media on their own, and additionally says, it's spending to help assist and house some of its staff in Ukraine.
When it comes to North Korea, we drop pamphlets.
We do things like that.
When it came to the Berlin Wall, we would desperately try to get counter-narratives to these other countries.
We fancied ourselves as freedom-loving individuals who have a right to know the truth.
But was that really true?
These days, these companies want to make sure you, you do not have access To information.
Look at this.
Update.
Reddit may be blocking all .ru links, not just state-sponsored media.
So, does that mean, like, the Moscow Times, independent media in Russia, that can be critical of Vladimir Putin?
They don't want you to know the truth.
They don't want you to see these other people as human.
There was a meme.
Someone said, Russians, we aren't sanctioning you.
This is a special financial operation.
Putin said, the Russian government, that it was a special military operation.
The only problem is they're directing it at the Russian people.
I don't think regular people want war with each other for the most part.
I think in religious wars and ideological wars, you do see it.
But let me show you how insane things are getting.
We gotta call out the war hysteria, and I will not stand for censorship.
From TimCast.com, Russian man kicked out of Australian Q&A show for trying to explain why he supports Putin.
An audience member said that he had friends in Donbass, that he has Russian heritage, and he knows that Putin was trying to defend the civilians in Donbass that were being killed by the West.
Someone yells out, that's a lie.
I don't care if it's a lie.
This is someone who's making the argument.
You think it's a lie?
Don't scream at them.
They kicked him out.
You actually just respond and say, why do you believe that?
Here's the actual reporting we have.
It doesn't appear your claims are correct.
Well, he says, but I have friends who were there.
How do you convince them?
The show host says, amazingly, you know, I should have done this sooner, but we can't advocate calls for violence.
It's psychotic, it's disgusting, and it's evil.
War's bad, right?
Lying to people is bad too.
It's not a call to violence for him to say, my friends are being killed and are scared, and so he supports Putin.
That's not a call for violence.
I disagree.
I think he's probably getting, you know, manipulation.
As many of you know, I know people in Eastern Europe, in many countries, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine.
And I've heard a lot from them.
And one of them told me, oh, you know, Vladimir Putin bombed this specific site.
And I said, wow, I didn't know that.
And then a few hours later, I read, it was actually not true.
Because of fog of war.
This is someone I know who's actually from the country.
And several others who are from these countries.
They're hearing the same things we are hearing.
So if you have a friend in Donbass and they're telling you this is what's happening, maybe they're hearing it on the news.
Maybe there's some truth to this.
Russia was arming the Eastern separatists and there was fighting.
But everyone's gonna paint their own perspective and try and defend their view.
And they'll say, oh, they're killing us.
Well, and the other side's gonna say, but they're killing us.
What I'm saying is, I don't know who's right.
I would defend this person's right to stand up and speak out, and he should be challenged legitimately and effectively.
Instead, we get insane stories like this.
Paralympics bars athletes from Russia and Belarus.
Russian cats.
The United Nations of Cat Federations has banned Russian cats from its competitions.
Why?
Poor Russian blue.
Ridiculous.
Russian cats.
They said any cat bred in Russia.
So what if I have a Russian blue but it was bred in the United States?
Maybe it's not a real Russian blue then!
You know, just like Champagne's not really Champagne unless it's from the Champagne region of France.
Russian cats aren't really Russian cats unless they're from Russia.
It's so amazing everything is getting Google.
Suspending all advertising in Russia cites extraordinary circumstances.
War hysteria is scary.
And if this stuff carries on, they've already been vandalizing Russian-owned businesses in the United States.
Seizing a yacht from a Russian oligarch or whatever?
Taking property from a Russian civilian?
That's a slippery slope, yo.
By all means, Putin is a bad dude.
Running with some bad boys.
That I get.
But this is just a whole new level of insanity, man.
It's one of the reasons I hate war.
We want peace, we want development, we want prosperity.
We can't get it.
Now, by all means, blame Vladimir Putin.
He's the one who started the fight.
He can argue we did, but I'll tell you this, man, we're allowed to pitch, sell, and weasel.
I'm not a fan of what Joe Biden does, or what the U.S.
was doing with Ukraine, but weaseling is not murder, is not killing.
Invasion is collateral damage and destruction, and it's just too much.
I get it.
I do.
And a lot of people are going to cite Donbass and say that's why he needed to invade, but if that was the case, he would have kept it to Donbass, right?
Peacekeeping, as he tries to take Kiev, sure.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 8 p.m.
over at youtube.com slash TimCastIRL.
Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you all then.
Following Joe Biden's State of the Union Address, many lefties and Democrat activist types, establishment journalists started praising the president, saying, 78% of voters Approved of what Joe Biden had to say.
Well, there's a lot of problems there.
First, the poll wasn't showing 78% of voters.
It was 78% of likely voters who watched the State of the Union address.
That's a big difference.
I mean, how do you poll someone who didn't watch the State of the Union on their opinions about the State of the Union?
The reality is, Joe Biden's ratings were extremely low.
And naturally, you're going to have way more Democrats actually watching the State of the Union than Republicans, so in which case, the polling will likely favor Joe Biden.
Now, since then, Joe Biden's polls haven't really improved, and I'm not here to play any propaganda games.
The reason why we may not be seeing any direct movement in Joe Biden's polling could just be that it's too soon.
And also, Joe Biden getting the lowest ratings for the first official address in 30 years?
Well, the Internet could play a very serious role in this.
A lot of people didn't watch the State of the Union Address because, well, around like a million and a half watched me and Kian Bexte and Lauren Southern and Seamus Coghlan get drunk.
Well, not really, but Lauren got drunk.
A lot of people chose to watch that instead.
So technically, you could say, did those people really watch?
And the other big issue is obviously I have no problem with saying America loved that speech from Joe Biden.
It wasn't so much a State of the Union address.
It was more like a campaign speech, as many people have noted.
But I have no reason to come out and be like, people didn't really like Joe Biden's speech because he just ripped off MAGA.
It was Diet MAGA.
So if Joe Biden wants to come out and be like, we're going to secure our borders and we're capitalists and we're going to bring back American jobs, I'm like.
Okay.
I'm not surprised people like that messaging.
It's populist messaging.
It's what Donald Trump was saying.
Maybe now the Democrats are finally realizing Trump's policies were good, his attitude was bad.
And maybe if you bring about those policies, people might actually choose to vote for you.
The problem?
I would never vote for these warmonger psychopaths.
But let's break down the full context as to what we got here.
The Daily Wire says Joe Biden's SOTU got the lowest ratings for first official address in 30 years.
Factually true.
And it is my personal analysis that the internet plays a role in this.
But again, that is personal analysis.
What The Daily Wire has presented here is factually correct.
They're right.
Someone should tell Joe Biden's Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, who falsely claimed 78% of American voters approved of President Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday night, that Biden's address garnered the lowest ratings for a president's first official State of the Union in 30 years.
Quote, more than 38 million Americans tuned into President Biden's State of the Union address on Monday, on Tuesday, sorry, the lowest viewing figures For Commander-in-Chief's first SOTU in at least 30 years, the New York Post reported.
According to Nielsen Media Research, approximately 27.4 million households watched Biden's hour-long address live on 16 different networks for a 22.4 rating.
Moving from most recent State of the Union address forward toward the past, President Trump's grabbed a 26.9.
And they're going to say 45.5 million viewers.
President Obama had 48.
George W. Bush had 51.8.
I think it's fair to point out what is precipitating this gradual decline.
Well, it's not partisanship.
If George W. Bush got less than, you know, got a certain number, less than Bill Clinton, and then Obama got less than Bush, and then Trump got less than Obama.
It's the internet, man.
So when Donald Trump came out, and I believe it was Sean Spicer, and said, we had the most watched inauguration in history or something like that, the media, the establishment media started showing this like half-empty national mall saying, Trump's lying, Spicer's lying, and I'm like, He didn't say, on the ground, at there.
Was he referring to online streaming?
Because if that's true, like, if he was referring to streaming, and I think he was, yeah, he probably had the most viewed inauguration in history.
And I think it's fair to say, if we're going to factor in internet in this, then I think Joe Biden may have gotten a lot of viewers.
Maybe not more than Trump, to be completely honest, because people are obsessed with him.
I'll give you an example.
I like showing people this, um, there's this guy who made cover songs featuring Donald Trump, so he sings like, um, Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, but it's Trump's, it's clips of Trump saying words auto-tuned to the song.
His version of Havana has 130 million views.
Now, since Trump left office, he's done some songs about Joe Biden singing and doesn't really get it because people were obsessed with Donald Trump.
They love him or hate him.
I think Joe Biden probably got more than just, you know, his 30 some odd 38 million.
But I still think Trump probably got more in the long run.
So it is fair to say In my opinion, just assessing the data here, Biden probably had a miserable State of the Union.
I mean, we almost didn't even want to watch it, but we did.
They say, although Biden gave a State of the Union address last April, he had not served in office a full year, so that address is not considered an official State of the Union address.
It received a paltry 16.5 rate with only 27 million viewers.
The idea of not calling the first address the State of the Union is a relatively new practice in American history.
ABC explains, the Congressional Research Service stated, the past seven presidents have chosen not to give an official State of the Union address the year they were first inaugurated, having just previously delivered an inaugural address.
It continued.
In each instance, their first speech to a joint session of Congress closely followed their inauguration, but was not officially categorized as a State of the Union message.
On Tuesday night, following President Biden's State of the Union speech, Klain boasted that according to a CBS News poll, 78% of voters approved of the speech.
Look at this.
78% of voters approved of POTUS, blah, blah, blah.
In his haste to celebrate what he thought was a moment of triumph, Klain neglected to mention the true stat.
CBS News reported that it wasn't 78% of voters, but 78% of people who watched the speech, so maybe not even voters.
CBS News has admitted, as we've seen with previous presidents' State of the Union speeches, those who watch tonight are more likely to be from the president's own political party, boosting approval of the speech.
As the leftist site Vox wrote in 2019, Generally, a greater proportion of people who watch the State of the Union Address tend to be from the President's party.
I think it was fairly obvious, right, that that would be the case?
You know what?
I'm willing to bet people who aren't Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, etc., this big plethora of freedom-loving individuals, Well, I'm willing to bet they watch something else.
First, let's just say this.
I don't believe Nielsen is factoring in online views.
It's just talking about networks, 16 different networks.
Okay, well, what about the White House website?
The White House, with 1.94 million subs, got 1.8 million views on their livestream.
And it's currently unlisted.
I mean, that's massive.
This means the White House did not post this to their own subscribers and still got nearly 2 million views.
Well, that bumps Joe Biden's viewership up to about 40 million, right?
What about Steven Crowder?
1.2 million views.
Okay, now Biden's up to about 41.2 million views.
And then we can throw in the good old TimCast IRL show, just over 700,000.
Let's just round it up and say that puts Joe Biden around 42.
And I'm not factoring in any of the other live streams or shows that did something similar.
And they did.
I suppose it's fair to say you can't count Crowder or Timcast IRL as actual viewership for Joe Biden because we were interrupting, we were laughing, we were making fun of him, and we were drinking.
But I can say this, as far as the poll goes, this is important.
If viewers of Crowder, who naturally Tend away from Joe Biden and viewers of IRL.
Tend away from Joe Biden.
These are people who are going to watch the State of the Union and say, we don't like it.
But if they don't watch it because they'd rather watch me hang out with a bunch of people and see Lauren Southern get drunk.
Well, then they're not really having watched the State of the Union and they're not participating in the polls, are they?
Yeah, they're not.
When it comes to this polling, I think it's fair to say they're probably not polling people like us, making phone calls.
Who are they calling?
Online polls?
It's gonna be a bunch of Democrats who are supporting this, and I think when you look at the actual polling data, You can clearly see, as of right now, independent voters ain't have none of it.
But let's do this.
I've got Civics pulled up.
And the reason I do is because it's relatively real-time, right?
They go up, as of yesterday, they have up-to-date polling.
So Civics is constantly in the cycle.
There are many polling agencies that are going to poll a week.
They're going to say from the start of this State of the Union to like three days after.
Those will probably come out in the next week, maybe two weeks.
Civics is just real-time tracking.
So we can see that his approval rating hasn't changed among independents.
24% approval, 64% disapproval, going back over a week.
It does not seem the State of the Union has moved the needle at all.
Let's take a look at Republicans, and we can see here, Republicans just hate Joe Biden.
It ain't gonna change.
I don't know how much worse it could get.
But again, since Joe Biden gave his speech, no movement.
Now the question is, Democrats.
And we do see a little uptick, but not since he gave the State of the Union address.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, there's been a tiny uptick, but not even enough to move his approval rating one point.
Disapproval still remains at 12 percent among Democrats.
Approval for Joe Biden is at 73 percent and has been hanging out there since just about February 22nd, when it hit 73 percent, went up a little bit.
The State of the Union has not moved the needle So this was we're going on just about two or three days ago.
And so far, the real time tracking from civics has shown nobody seems to have have have likened warmed up to Joe Biden.
And I think it's fair to point out, I don't see why Democrats would agree with MAGA light or diet MAGA.
Something Seamus was saying.
I think it was Seamus.
He's not going to get leftist supporters from the speech and Republicans and libertarian types already don't like him and won't believe him.
So what's the point of playing up to MAGA light?
Take a look at this from Yahoo News.
Biden uses state of the union to rebrand dead build back better plan.
Oh, please.
Joe Biden basically just word vomited out some version of MAGA, but...
I've called it great value, MAGA, but I feel that's an insult to great value, which actually is a great value.
That's the Walmart brand, by the way.
I remember back when I was a kid, we had a supermarket called Dominic's.
And it was always funny because on the shelf, they would have canned goods, and the label would be yellow with like bullet font type that would just say like beans on it.
That's what I view Joe Biden as.
Imagine that.
Maybe that was like the store brand, how they used to do it.
Maybe that was just Dominic's, I don't know.
Maybe it was cheaper to do a yellow label and just, boom, beans.
So like, you'd find like a can of the store brand chili, and it was like a yellow, it was just like a yellow label, all yellow, and it would just say chili on it, and that was it.
Maybe they had to add graphics or whatever.
Great value looks like it's a brand, but it's the Walmart brand or whatever.
Great value.
Joe Biden is less than great value.
Joe Biden is like going to one of those knockoff stores where they have like the the X Spiderman's and it's like a lightsaber wielding Spiderman toy.
You've ever seen those absurd foreign counterfeit knockoff things?
That's what this was.
He's trying.
But I don't see how you as a president could come out and say in your campaign when you're when you're running for office on the debates, we're going to put a moratorium on deportations.
We're going to decriminalize border crossings and then come out a year later and be like, we got to secure the border.
You think I'm going to believe you?
You think you're going to convince me?
Yo, I tell you this.
If you come out and tell me that you want a moratorium on deportations, I say, okay, thank you for telling me your position.
I disagree with it.
If you then give me a year of an unchecked southern border, I'll say, I really find this president to be unfavorable and doing a bad job.
And then when you come out and say, I want to secure the border, you know what you're telling me?
One, you're a liar, and two, you're extremely bad at your job.
Because if you were being sincere that you want to secure the border and the border is this bad, yo, you're either full of it, You're either miserable at your job, or worse, both.
And that's what I take away from Joe Biden and his State of the Union address.
So come to me and tell me, 78% of voters appreciate or approve of what Joe Biden's doing, and I go, bleh.
Nice try.
I can read.
I have Google.
I know you're lying.
But you know what?
Unfortunately, there's probably a lot of people who believe it and are like, I want to be a part of the 78% that approve of Joe Biden.
Let me say it again.
Magalite?
Some people might buy into it.
They hear that and they say, I like the idea of securing our borders and doing these things, and I can totally respect that.
My favorite moment was when Joe Biden, he was talking about the Supreme Court justices nominated, and how she's like, you know, She's been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of the Police, and then all of a sudden he goes, and so we gotta secure our borders!
And I'm just like, wait, what?
And then Lauren just starts screaming, beast!
I thought that was great.
I was like, no, no, don't praise the man.
But I love it, because technically, yeah, like Joe Biden now reversing course.
With respect, I will say this.
Joe Biden coming out and pushing back on leftist narratives, a good thing.
A good thing.
If we can come out and be like, we need to secure the border.
Hey, maybe bollard fencing is a good idea.
Maybe Trump was doing a good job.
And Joe Biden now has to come out and push that same message because it's popular.
We're winning.
Now, I don't think we're winning with Joe Biden.
Vote him out.
But yo!
We have gotten Joe Biden to move from moratorium and basically open borders all the way to publicly declaring the need to secure the borders.
Is he doing it?
No!
Is he trying to pull our border guards off the borders and send them to Poland?
Yes!
Is that bad?
Of course it is.
But we won on messaging, which means the shift in culture is occurring, and those of us who believe in, I don't know, sound domestic policy are winning.
I'm not confident that we come out of this with honesty and a good leader.
People might just recoil and go for someone totally off the rails in the next four or eight years.
Maybe Donald Trump gets back in because Joe Biden's basically campaigning for Trump.
I'll put it this way.
If Joe Biden comes out and says, I'm a capitalist and we gotta secure the borders, would you vote for him?
Or you get Donald Trump who's like, not only am I a capitalist, I'm a billionaire.
Well, that was like a weird Bernie thing I just did.
Billionaires!
But if Donald Trump came out and was like, I am a billionaire and a capitalist.
I am the person who can lead this country back to a good economy.
Some people don't think so.
I can't actually impersonate Trump very well, so I just pretend to be Seamus from Freedom Tunes.
I impersonate him.
But if Donald Trump came out and said, I'm the guy who wanted to secure the border in the first place.
You know I'll do a better job because I'll fight for it.
Not only am I a capitalist, I'm a billionaire.
If this is the messaging that Joe Biden wants to go with, then you have an option between choosing Donald Trump, the cream of the crop, the top of the top, with a really bad attitude, or Sleepy Joe.
The president was strong at the start of his speech, denouncing Vladimir Putin's war in stark terms and leading the assembly in a standing ovation for the Ukrainian ambassador.
When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.
There was chest-thumping over the success of the severe economic sanctions that America and its allies have imposed on Russia, warmly received by both members of the parties.
He has no idea what's coming, Mr. Biden said of Putin.
Unusually, for any big political question, Americans of all partisan stripes are in broad agreement with the President's strategy.
Surveys taken by YouGov for The Economist after Mr. Putin launched his invasion show that sizable majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents support imposing economic sanctions and dispatching weapons to Ukraine.
That's a fair point.
I don't know about banning Russian civilians from social media or kicking Lee Camp off of Spotify for his personal podcast.
That's weird.
But I'm not a fan of sanctioning Russia in terms of SWIFT.
I do think there can be some sanctions.
A lot of this has to do with natural gas.
Maybe the US and Germany should stop buying it.
No.
That's not the sanctions they're going for, which makes me question what they're doing.
You know, they don't want to actually engage in a real conflict.
They're going to say, there were signs of cooling relations between the Democratic Party's progressive and moderate factions.
Having added progressive phraseology like equity and environmental justice to his administrative and personal lexicon, Mr. Biden is now pointedly distancing himself from his party's leftist flank.
The answer is not to defund the police, he said.
The answer is to fund the police.
He's correct.
I agree.
That is true.
True statement.
If you've got a problem with cops, cops need better funding, better pay, better, uh, cops need better everything.
I'm not a fan of corrupt cops blindly following orders.
We need some way to solve for that.
But if we're talking about police brutality, then police need more units, better technology, better tools, better weapons, better training, more money.
Here's what I mean.
You've got a call of domestic abuse, then you send out cops with the right tools to deal with domestic abuse, which could include lethal force.
You've got calls of a man sitting in the sidewalk who seems to be mentally disturbed.
Okay.
Well, in my opinion here, you dispatch community relations followed by patrol with lethal force.
Perhaps the community liaison could be armed with less lethals, followed by... So there should be like an escalation process.
I think we need police officers who respond to certain calls that are community enforcement like they do in New York or something like that.
Now, I don't mean like social workers.
That's kind of absurd.
No, I think the police should have some arms of some sort.
But we don't need to be dispatching cops with rifles or handguns to a call that's like a trespass in a grocery store.
That being said, I believe these cops should have vehicles that have weapons in them.
To put it simply, for the lowest of low-tier calls, You know, like a fender bender or something like that.
I think we'd be better served if officers were approaching these situations, specifically highlighting a specific unit, and if their weapons were not on their person.
And that is to say, if the police officers believe in any way they are entering a situation where their life is threatened, they then take weapons before they go out.
What I mean is, I think there are certain circumstances where we can de-escalate tensions by having more units.
We have SWAT, Special Weapons and Tactics, okay.
We have police officers who are not SWAT but still will come out with rifles and body armor.
We have your standard, you know, beat cops and patrol officers, they have their guns.
I just think maybe we add something, more money, more training, And someone calls in like neighbors are arguing with each other or someone saying someone shoplifted.
You don't need, you know, someone can go to a grocery store without wearing a bulletproof vest and a gun.
I'm not saying that necessarily is a solution to all of those issues.
I just think it may be a grain of sand dropped in the heap of the right direction.
Something to that effect.
And maybe that's overly simplistic.
What I mean to say is, maybe the solution is just more police units with more specialized tools.
More options for subduing threats.
I think that would be a good idea.
I also think we need to have harsh civilian oversight to prevent police from violating people's rights, as we've seen throughout the COVID pandemic.
That being said, there is, in my opinion, very little that we get along with, we get along over in this country between left and right.
And I honestly don't believe that there's any real solution, to be honest.
Maybe that's, I don't know if it's a bad thing or a good thing, that's not really what I'm trying to say.
But, you know, I'll give you an example.
Jack Posobiec tweeted out that Disney Plus had removed Anastasia.
I saw it, didn't think too much about it, but kind of felt like, no.
So I responded with, lolol dot dot dot, no way.
That was my intention.
It wasn't meant to be a grand statement.
It wasn't meant to be overtly like, this is false or this is true.
It was meant more of a like, come on.
Like, is that really true?
No way.
What did we get?
A CNN reporter took that tweet and claimed that I was supporting a narrative that Disney removed a movie that was not a Disney movie because of the Ukraine war.
And I'm just like, dude, I literally said no way.
I didn't put no way, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.
Like, no way!
Which doesn't even make sense in this context.
And the argument now is, well, you were trying to play both sides.
And I'm like, are you implying that I was unsure and possibly doubted the story?
I digress.
This one really frustrates me because it was a CNN reporter who did it, and I'm not a fan of CNN.
The reporter agreed and said, I DM'd him and he was like, okay, I'll add your thoughts to this.
And I'm just like, dude, if I'm saying something that can be interpreted as doubt, you need only ask.
And that's my point.
I was doubting the story.
The issue here is, the CNN reporter took the worst possible interpretation, added the words Ukraine, which neither of us said.
Jack Posobiec didn't say it, neither did I. Jack just said we are a stupid people, in reference to a story about it being removed.
Turns out it was removed or something over a contract, but I don't know or care.
Because I didn't even say anything about it.
I just said, no way.
My thought process was, no one removed Anastasia.
Whatever.
The article link from Jack was like Disney plus Informer.
I was like, it doesn't even look real.
I was like, but no way.
But we live in a world where it's tribal.
Meaning, CNN's reporter has to take the worst possible interpretation so that he can rally his followers to hate me.
Instead of simply DMing me and being like, you know, hey, this is not a true story.
And I would have responded with, yeah, I didn't think it was, which is why I said no way.
I thought it sounded a bit ridiculous.
And then he could have said, okay.
Instead, he quote tweeted me.
That's the name of the game.
And you know what?
This is mostly indicative of the establishment left.
Some people on the right do it, but not prominent individuals.
Now, I'll say this to the Daily Wire.
I think their article should have included that internet plays a role in the State of the Union ratings, but, you know, whatever.
