Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Foreign Policy, One Of The Most Important Challenges America Faces Today; K.T. McFarland Joins Us to Discuss This Critical Issue

Transcript

Foreign Policy, One Of The Most Important Challenges America Faces Today; K.T. McFarland Joins Us to Discuss This Critical Issue · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about foreign policy today here from Seapack,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and foreign policy is going to, i think will the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: number one issue of this presidential election cycle. Kat McFarlane,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: who was the former National Security Advisor to the President
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Night States of America, Donald Trump, is going to join
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: me in just a moment to talk about China, Iran,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: North Korea, Russia and any of the other issues that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: we may be missing this election. Right now, and what's
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: happening in Ukraine and the fact that we are on
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the verge of war three with an escalation is something
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that I believe is going to end up being probably
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the most important issue of the presidential campaign. What's happening
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: right now. And I had a very interesting dinner last
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: night at Seapack, a very interesting night having some guars
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: with some friends, some of them former CIA, some of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: them former intelligence officials through the Pentagon, some are former military.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: And what we have learned is that there are thousands
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: now that are dying every day in this war with
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Russian and Ukraine Krane. Let me say it again, there
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: are thousands that are now dying in this war between
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine. It is escalating. Iran is now giving
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: drones and significant technology that is being used by the Russians.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: China is now supporting and advocating for Russia and giving
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: them things they need. The Ukraine. The uk is obviously
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: coalescing behind Ukraine and Zelinski. And we're now talking about
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: escalations the point where we're dealing with weapons systems as
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: well as military aircraft. This is not getting closer to peace.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: This is getting closer to an all out war. Now
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you have two front runners right now in this race.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's clearly Donald Trump and then it's clearly Rnda Santis.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You also have Nicki Haley, which brings in an interesting
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: perspective because Nicky Haley, obviously, being at the UN, she
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: understands these conflicts and what's going on internationally with all
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of the different players. I do think people should be
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: listening very carefully to what Nicky Haley is saying right
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: now because she has unique insight. Is there a third rail,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a third lane for Nicky Haley? Possibly? Could it be
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: as the vice president? Possibly? Does she have an important
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: voice in this debate that I think will raise the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: level of the debate between Trump and De Santis. Yes?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Does that mean that, I let me be clear, I'm
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: endorsing her, of course not is she my first candidate, No,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: is she my second favorite candidate. No. But I do
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: believe she's going to bring something important to the debate.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And that's why a vig Or Risks debate is so
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: vitally important. Having a grand debate in this Republican primary
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: is not a bad thing. It is a good thing.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Is having a war a war war three a good
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: thing or bad thing. It's a disaster. It's bad for
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: American policy. There's something else that we were talking about
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: last night, and that's this. The sanctions that are being
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: put on Russia by the EU and by America are
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: actually making Russia richer. It was a complete consensus with
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: some of those brilliant minds that I was having dinner
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: with last night. The price of oil and gas has
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: gone up, and that gives him what he needs. And
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: when I say him, I'm talking about Putin. Putin needs
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: some leftover excess cash, and the leftover excess Cassid he's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: getting his hands on right now is what is supplying
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: him what he needs to fund this war. If we
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: want to bankrupt his war efforts, and I think that's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the only way to we win this war, and to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: have him go back and not take over Ukraine, it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: would be to bankrupt him through one way, in one
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: way only lowering energy costs, lowering the price of oil
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and gas. Now we are actually helping Vladimir Putin with
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the sanctions, and so is the UK with sanctions with
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: his oil and gas. We are helping the price of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: oil and gas go up, which means he makes more money.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He makes significantly more money. This is part of the
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: conversation for this presidential campaign that must we must have
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and we must have a grand debate about it. My guests,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: let me Katie McFarland, former Deputy National Security Advisor of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the United States under Donald Trump. I love SEEPAC, kat
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: because here is when I get to meet with a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: lot of different people that I worked with, whether it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was back in the Bush administration days. It's kind of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: like a homecoming. And there's a lot of guys that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I talked to and ladies here that work in National Security, CIA, FBI,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: you know, Pentagon, and I asked them every year it's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: almost like a check out of the doctor. All right,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: how are we on the world stage this year? Obviously,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: it was a lot to ask. We were having cigars
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: last night with some people that I trust, and we
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: were chatting about national security and the issue of War three.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that are saying we're getting
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: close to World War three. In your opinion, this conflict
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: between Russia Ukraine now all of Europe getting in the present,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: sending these blank checks to Ukraine. Now the idea of
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: F sixteens and missile defense systems and everything else. Could
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: this escalate? And how concern are you about it turning
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: into an actual War three? And your assessment of Vladimir
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Putin as well. I do think for the first time
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in my adult lives, time certainly since the Cold War,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: but probably even going back to the sixties worth the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: most dangerous moment. And here's why we You know, a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: year ago at Spack, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia thought
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: easy Piecy will be in in three days, the Zolensky
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: government will be toppled, we'll put a puppet government in,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: we'll control Ukraine. Didn't happen. Why Because it turns out
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the Russian military wasn't that any good despite their major
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: military build up. It turned out that the Ukrainian people
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: fought back, and it turned out that Europe, which everyone
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: thought had been sort of sleeping along and no longer armed,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: no longer worried about a Russian threat, they actually rose
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to the occasion, and so a number of things happened.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Now we are a year later, and what are we in.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: We're in a frozen conflict. It's like World War One
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in the trenches. You know, the Russians are going to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: take a little bit, then Zolensky takes a little bit,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: then the Chinese contribute, then we put stuff in, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: so it's escalating, but it's still at a stalemate. I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: think when you look down the road, how long is
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: this going to take to quote win? And what is winning? Yeah?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: What is the definition? What is winning? I mean, if
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you look at President Biden, who says, well, Putin's got
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to go. If you look at Zelinski, who says unconditional
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: surrender on the part of the Russians, if you look
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: at Putin who says I'm not going anywhere, and I'll
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: do anything I can to stay in power and to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: prevail in my objectives. Then add on top of it
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the most important factor that nobody talks about, which is
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: oil and natural gas. Putin could not have invaded When
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you said earlier that Vladimir Putin was kept in check
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: by Donald Chump, Yeah, he was kept in check, but
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: he was also kept broke Russia. If energy prices are high, Russia,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: which is a world exporter of oil and natural gas,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: they're rich. And what do they do when they're rich
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: for the last fifty years, They build a military, they
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: invade a neighbor, they have a proxy ward. Under Trump,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: they were broke because we had American oil and natural
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: gas fracking, we pushed and low oil prices per barrel,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: lowest oil prices per barrel. Vladimir Putin may have wanted
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to invade the Moon, he couldn't afford to do anything
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: because he didn't have the excess money. Biden comes in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and so we're in America, he starts, So we're in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: American fossil fuels. World production goes way, way, way, way
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: way to some pipeline. Everything that Donald Trump did, they
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: basically said, undo it when it comes to oil and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: gas and resources here. Yeah, so we're going to reduce
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the world production of oil and natural gas because we're
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: going to take America's hands and tie it behind our back.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: As a result, prices go sky high. Vladimir Putin says,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: why not. This is my mom and I've got a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: little extra cash. Let me go after Ukraine. So here
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: we are now, Vladimir Putin, despite the sanctions of the
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Biden administration, despite all the things they've thrown against, the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Russian economy right now is doing better than a lot
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of European economies. So Russia is not feeling. Russia can
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: fight forever as they have oil prices. Yes, Bingo, as
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: long as oil prices are up, Russia can fight forever.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So I look at that and say one side once
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: on conditional surrender. The other guy side says, I can
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: fight forever. I don't have any compunction about destroying Ukraine.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I think we're now increasingly getting to two alternative outcomes
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of this. One that Putin again fighting forever, all the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: money in the world, completely destroys Ukraine, kills every man, woman, child,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: flattens it. He has a history of doing that in
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Czechnia throughout his career. Yeah, if I rather do that,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I can't. Yeah. This is like a jealous lover right
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: who says, if you, if I can't have her, I'm
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: going to shoot him, and so that's what Putin's objective is. Now.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, we have the United States saying
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: unconditional surrender. Unconditional surrender, where is an alternative here? So
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: on one hand, you got a guy who's willing to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: flatten the country, and then unconditional surrender as escalation goes on,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: means of an involvement of NATO in the United States
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: World War three. I don't like either of those options.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And what I learned in the Reagan administration where I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: earned my spurs, was you find a third option, and
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the third option is your bankrupt Russia. So what you
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: said a second ago, if you could push those prices
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of oil back down to where they were under Trump,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Russia's broke. They may want to fight forever, but they
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: can't fight it can't if art it, they can't even
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: if they're out of there. In a couple Charles Wilson
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to this in Afghanistan with the Russian exactly, he basically said,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: we can we can beat them by giving basic fighting
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: equipment to the Mujadine, to these guys that were on camels,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and as long as they can just aim and shoot
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: down the helicopters, if you've never watched the movie, it's
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a great movie, Charlie Wilson's War. You should go watch it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: But it was just being smart enough to realize you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: could bankrupt Russia. Russia pulled out of Afghanistan not because
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they said they were losing it, because they just couldn't
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: afford it anymore. There are a lot of ways to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: win a war. You don't have to fight to win
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a war, as we know with the Cold War, we
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: won it without firing a shot. You win it economically,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: which is our strong suit. So a new American president
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: comes in, stops the war, and fossil fuels energy prices
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: go back and go back down. Bootin's bankrupt, can't continue
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: to fight. Then he negotiates the solution, and then the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: next step, and this is where the important part is.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Ukraine can't win the war, they can win the piece.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Russia can't win the war, they can always lose the peace.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: So five years after the wharf stops, fast forward what happens.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Ukraine is fully integrated into the European economy. Europe is
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: in NATO, Europe is so it'll be like being Germany
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: or Poland. Nobody Vladimir Putin even if he had the money,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: couldn't invade. On the other hand, worse Vladimir Putin in Russia,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: they're broke, they can't do anything, pariah state, nobody invests
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in them. So then you may not have won the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: unconditional surrender that the Biden administration wants, but you've got
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the outcome you want. Let's talk about you mentioned run
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a Reagan strength through peace without ever firing a shot.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I worry about Vladimir Putin and the changing of his mindset,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and I want to talk about his health for a second.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I may be wrong, and I want your opinion on this,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: but my gut is he's starting to understand, he's getting older,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: he's starting to have some health issues, and he's like,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I want my man's best estimate, my legacy to be
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that I put the SSR back together. I don't think
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: he's rash and in this war with Ukraine. If he was,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I think he'd be doing it differently. And I think
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: he doesn't care for you bankrupts his country. If this
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: is his legacy's taking back and putting pieces of the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: pie back together, how much does it concern you with
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapons with Viderman Putin, if in fact, it is
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: more of a manifest destiny for him, where he's not
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: trying to hold onto power for twenty more years. It
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: may be a year or two that he has left
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to really do whatever it does he wants to do
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: for his legacy. Do you think he is at a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: point now where he would actually use nucrow weapons? Because
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't think he was five years ago, certainly ten
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: years ago, fifteen or twenty, because he was younger, he
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was more he understood like, if I do that, I'm
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: in deep trouble. Now. I don't know if there's enough
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: time to hold him accountable and as a human being
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: if he does go there are you worried about nuclear
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: war with him at all? I'm worried that Vladimir Putin,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: who does have this manifest destiny, has to achieve in
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: his lifetime, who understands that if he comes home an
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: unconditional surrender and defeat is abundant administration wants. He does
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: not stay alive. He gets either pushed out of office
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: or a bullet in the head. And for him, there's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: absolutely no restraint. There's all bets are off. If I'm
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: going down, I'm not going down alone. And that is
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a worry that I have not had. I've not had
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that since the called war, before the call, Yeah, my
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: biggest worry was Post nine to eleven. Certainly was a
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: dirty bomb, right, bad actor, And that's what when we
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: went to the Middle East, that was the argument, right
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: at a dirty bomb, you know, biological chemical weapons. Nuclear
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Iran brings me back to Ran for a moment. We
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: know Iran now is aligned with Russia. Iranian drones are
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: being used in Russia, and Iran is much much, much
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: closer than they've been in my entire lifetime to having
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: their own nuclear weapon, and no one seems to be
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: covering that in the media. No, it's not the bright
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: shiny object. The world is falling into two camps and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: on one hot set. Do you have China, Russia, Iran,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: North Korea. They have nuclear weapons, they have a lot
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of money, they have technology, and they have will. I mean,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they have a concerted effort that what their job is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is to control the world, dominate the world. On the
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: other hand, we have the United States, we have our
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Asian allies, we have our European allies. We don't have
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: an American leadership who says Okay, here's the plan. The
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: plan is, let's use what we're really good at technology, economy, trade,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: our economic system or political system, or freedoms. And that's
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: where I really worry. We've got a dangerous time in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the next year and a half until we get a
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: new American president who, like Reagan, says this is our time.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Let's bring everybody together and stand up to the bad
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: guys and fight them on the grounds that we choose,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: not on the grounds they want. But nuclear war is
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, we used to laugh
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, it was not a reality by Vladimir
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Putin faced with a bullet in his head and unconditional
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: surrendered demands of the United States. You remind people the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: history of Putin. You mentioned it a moment ago. Now
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I want, I want to fall up on it, and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: then I promise I'm gonna let you go. But this
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: is you said something you said, Vladimir Putin has a
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: history of going scorched earth. Literally, if he can't have it,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: no one can't. It's an inhabitable No one's gonna want
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to live there. I've decimated, destroyed, it's it's a non
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: livable condition for rebuild. In essence, you look at him
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: now with Ukraine, and if he did go there and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: you did have a nuclear weapon that went off there,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it's uninhabitable. That's a victory for him, even if he
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: gets isolated, and that is something I don't think he's
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: afraid of at all, and the Russian people are behind him.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: The thing that I find just a joke is that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: when they biden administration and people say, well, we'll get
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: rid of Ladimirputtin, everything's gonna be fine. No, it's not.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: You probably get somebody worse than Vladimir Putin. And anyway,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: he's quite popular in Russia right now. They think he's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: doing the right thing. They're all for Ukraine, they're all
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: for this Ukraine. Were weren't having some kind of a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: victory in Ukraine? What Vladimir Putin came to power so
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I've studied him for forty years. He
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: came to power so that he was in the KGB.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The Soviet Union collapse. He thought it was the greatest
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: tragedy in the twenty twentieth century that the Soviet Union collapsed.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: He has spent his entire political career after he left
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the KGB rebuilding mother Russia. He thinks this is the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: final jewel in the crown, that's got a Ukraine. The
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: way he actually got into the presidency twenty years ago
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was that Afghan that Russia had a war in Chechnia.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: The terrorists wore breakaway province of Chechnia, and nobody could
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: seem to win it. The political leadership at the time
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that was it just they weren't winning it. There were
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: bombs everywhere. And so Vladimir Putin's strong man. He comes
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to power by saying I'll solve it. And he did.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And what he did in the little country of Chechnia
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was he killed everybody here was I mean, it was brutal,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the inhumane type award. There was no rules of engagement
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: there were. They targeted civilian targets. And in the capital
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of Chesnia, Grosni that it was said that there were
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: not two bricks left on top of each other because
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: he leveled the entire city. It was he turned it
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to rubble. Then everyone said, Vladimir Putin, he's a strong man.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: We need to pull Russia back into greatness. He knows
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the template. He knows. If he doesn't win in Ukraine,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: there's some other guy who's gonna say, I'm gonna make
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of Ukraine what we made of Czechia. So I think
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin knows how to do it. He knows he
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: war always seems to consolidate power for leaders in Russia.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Russians like strong leaders if you look through it, if
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: we're out their history for five hundred years, the Russians
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: only got rid of people, only got rid of leaders
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: if they had a bad economy and they were weak abroad.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Now Putin is looking weak abroad. His economy is doing better.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: He cannot afford to be weak abroad and survive. Last
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: question for you, what keeps you up at night? And
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I say that with me telling you what keeps me
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: up at night? And I want to get your thoughts.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I worry that we're so focused now on Russia Ukraine
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and all of our arry efforts, all of our mind
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: is going to this conflict, all of our aids going
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: to this conflict. And what keeps me up at night
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: now is al Qaeda and ISIS and a nuclear ran.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Because we have an open border, we have a lot
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: of military age men coming across that border. I was
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: down at the border when we caught men coming in
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: from Turkey. They were released to a Catholic charity after
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: we witnessed them coming into America and two of them
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: after they were being interrogated by Texas Department of trans Transitation.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: We called it, are you know the guys that basically
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: aren't the border of guards? The border said let them go,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and then we called department you know Texas and said, hey,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: they came and got them, took them to Tatholic charities.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: They interrogate him, found out that two of the guys
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: were airline pilots from Turkey. They dropped all their papers
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: at the border, so they got a clean slate, right,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a fresh start, so you can't deport them right back
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to Turkey. We knew they were from Turkey because of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the language, and we found out that two of them
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: were actual commercial pilots. They taken the Catholic charity. They
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: dropped all their papers of the border. They're now in America,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: right now, they're in this country. I am terrified that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: this open border is allowing for another nine eleven to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: be planned by someone in the world. And I'm terrified
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: also of a RAM because we're not focusing on those
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: two issues. And we're out of Afghanistan, and I think
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: intelligence wise, we said we're gonna leave it, and we're
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: gonna literally leave it. We don't want to intel. We're
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: done with Afghanistan. You guys play there. That's what keeps
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: hip at night? Is that? The right or wrong thing
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to keep me up at night? Are you were good thing?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I had not heard about the Catholic charities, etc. But
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that certainly would keep me up at night. I think
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: the key thing that keeps me up the most at night, though,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is that for twenty some years we were focusing on
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the forever wars in the Middle East, trying to build
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: democracy in countries that couldn't build it, and we took
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: our eye off China and for twenty years the rise
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of China that now we're getting distracted with Russia and
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Ukraine and all of our sources and metal energy are
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: going to that again taking our eye off China. If
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the United States is continuing to prosecute a war militarily
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that we could win economically, but we choose not to,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: then I worry that at the end of it all,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: China is Once China's in charge, we never get it back.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: China becomes dominates the world. They'll deal with the nuclear
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: weapons in Iran and every other way the way they do.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: But once the United States is no longer the technological superpower,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the economic superpower, once it's China, we lose our peace
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and prosperity for our children and our grandchildren's generation, and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: we don't ever get it back. We've been talking so
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: much about Russia. We've been talking so much about China, Ukraine,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: World War Three. Who better to talk about it than
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: former debutational security advisor to Donald Trump KT McFarland. I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: love seeing you. It's like every year Sea I see
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: people like you're still alive. We're still I see you.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I'll see you in a year, right like I know
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna see my friends every year. You were former
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Deputy National Security Advisor, and under Trump, you guys did
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: an amazing job of keeping China in check, keeping a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Rand in check, keeping Russia in check. That nord Stream
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: pipeline was an issue where he said no to that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and told the world you don't need to do this.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: He warned Germany. You guys are idiots for taking this
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: cheap oil. You're propping up Putin. He warned the UK
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that you guys are dependent on them and this is
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: gonna bite you in the rear end. All of that
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: has become true. Now it's an issue of national security
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: on two fronts. We know now from Wuhan and our
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: government's admitting it. Okay, it came. COVID nineteen came from
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Wuhan and superology. This wasn't that they lied to us.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: They didn't help protect the world. China took advantage of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: that in many ways and said, hey, if we're going down,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: everybody else in the worlds They knew they had a problem,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: they knew they had an outbreak. They didn't protect the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: rest of the world. That's a problem from Ana from
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: an accountability standpoint, How shocked are you that our government
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: isn't trying to hold China accountable for all of their
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: lives just with COVID because it was a national security issue.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: In my opinion, you had an entire world shut down.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And even now people like, oh, well, okay, fine, it
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: happened from Wuhan. Who cares, it's China. We got to
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: move on because we need China. Are you shocked by
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the ignorance of that just mindset of its administration? The
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: irresponsibility of this administration. You know, China is presenting and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: has presented, the only strategic threat to the United States
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: probably in our history going back one hundred or so years.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: China is the only country that can replace the United States,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and it has every intention of doing it. It talks
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: openly about it, of shoving the United States aside and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: creating a new world order led by China. Now they're
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: doing it economically, politically, diplomatically, militarily, technologically, with trade, with everything.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: What I and others were concerned with when COVID started,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: when I was asked, I think when I first saw
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you here at Seapack two years ago or three years ago,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and twenty, what was it? It It was
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: just we didn't know what it was. It was some
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: kind of kind of plague coming around the world. We're
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: not sure from whom we knew that it was from,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: or I and others knew that it came out of Wuhan,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and it was the Chinese Biological weapons lab in Wuhan.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: The United States turns out we had a presence at
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that same lab, maybe in a different building or in
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a different wing. But it was a leak and the Chinese.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: It's not that they deliberately leaked it. What happened was
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: they realized once it leaked what they had because they
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: were seeing the deaths in the city of Wuhan. They
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: had created a virus out of nature. They had supercharged it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: It's called gain a function research. And once they realized
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: how lethal it was and how contagious it was, they
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: shut down China right away. They did not allow people
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: from the city of Wuhan to travel anywhere in China.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: They basically shut the country down. What they opened up, however,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that was travel in and out of Wahan. So Whan
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: is a city that has a lot to do with
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the garment industry in Italy. So they sent Wuhan residents
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: who probably were carrying the plague, and they went to Italy,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and then from Italy it's spread to Europe, and then
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: it came to the United States. So did they employ
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and let loose a biological weapon on the world. No,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: But once they knew they had it, they employed it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: as such. That should have been our wake up call
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to say, okay, now, let's look at everything else they're
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: doing in the light of the fact that they're willing
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to do that to the world you dealt with national
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: security issues. I think one of the things, and it's
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a question that I don't believe has been answered yet,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: is this president. Since he's become president, Biden has not
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: so up to China. In my opinion on one major thing,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: once correct, is that do you believe possibly because Joe
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Biden's compromise, the Biden Crime Families compromise, James Biden's compromise,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's compromise, and the amount of money and the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: funding and the billions of dollars and loans and the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: CEF I mean, let's be clear, when we were releasing
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: our strategical reserves, there was a tanker that was sold
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to CEFE of our old reserves that went straight to China.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Their filings, financial filings still show Hunter Biden as being
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a part of that company. Even though the White House
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: said he had divested all of his foreign investments. There
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: would be And now he's an artist, we also know
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: that a lot of his arts being bought by people
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: in China. From a national security standpoint, being the former
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: national w security with Trump advisor, when you look at this,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: do you think they are compromising? That's why they cannot
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: stand up to China. I do think they're compromised, but
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's even wider than that. I don't think
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: it's a bag of money under the suitcase for a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: bribe for a specific incident. The Chinese are all over
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the place. The Chinese are major donors to think tanks.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: They penn Biden Center where all those classified documents were found.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: That's a center that was paid for by the Chinese.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Now who was at that center? Who were the scholars?
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: These are people who left the Obama administration went to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a Chinese funded think tank and park themselves there. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: this is all the senior people who then became secretaries
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of State, etc. And the senior jobs in the Biden administration. Now,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: is that a bribe or is that? Gee, China is
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: our friend. China has paid for our salaries. China is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: so close to us. Let's kind of given the benefit
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of the doubt. Again and again and again. And it's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: not just those particular individuals, it's the think tanks, it's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the college campuses. The Chinese have been on a concerted
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: effort to infiltrate the United States intellectual community. The thought
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: leader of the high at the highest levels for twenty years,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and they've thrown around a lot of money to do it.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So it's not just one or two individuals, it's the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: whole gang of them. It's the whole Washington elite, Republicans
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: as well as Democrats, but most particularly Biden and the Democrats.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about China, and there's a headline that's not
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: gotten a lot of attention which is actually shocked me.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And that's the fact that there's basically Chinese police stations
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in the United States of America to keep track and
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to keep in check people from China and the US.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: How are we even allowing that to happen? Again, it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the Chinese of infiltrated so many aspects of our society.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: They do have police stations, Chinese police stations in the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: American cities to track Chinese citizens. That's not a conspiracy theory,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Like they're there, and like when that story kind of broke,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: like whatever, that's a conspiration, I'm like, no, it's actually real.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: They really are doing this and we're allowing it. In America,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: they have think tanks that they pay for in colleges
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and high schools around the country. They're called Confucius institutes.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Those are spy tracks. I mean they're recruiting spies. They're recruiting,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: they're putting their own people. They're two active spies and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: then trying to recruit Americans as spies. There's another example.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: If you want, if you have a company and you
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: want to listen on the New York Stock Exchange. In
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: order to have that privilege, if you have to show
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: all of your paperwork, your books, your account, you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: forensic account. They look through every inch of every nickel
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: that was spent anywhere. If you're a Chinese company, maybe
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a Chinese military company, what do you think you have
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to do to list on the stock exchange? Those rules
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: were all waived. China can list on the New York
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. Pension funds from American government pension funds they're
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: investing in those companies, so we have basically paid for
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the Chinese military build up. Look the Chinese. The thing
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: that is so upsetting because it's hard to wrap your
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: head around the idea that there is a country that
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: is using every aspect of its government and national and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: economic power to replace the United States, kick us on
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the ash heap of history, and then take over the world.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the documents that the president has. He
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: admitted in an interview I think was CBS or ABC,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the exclusive interview. It was recently that
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: he had classified documents dating back to his first years.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: His timeline he gave the American people in the Senate.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: This is forty plus years of documents, classified documents he's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: has hands on. How concern are you again, former debut
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: national security advisor, that a US senator had these documents
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: outside of a skiff and is admitting the timeline is
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: over his entire fifty year career in Washington, and there
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: seems to be really no accountability for this so far. Yeah,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: there's a special prosecutor, I get that, But these documents
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: were everywhere, and a lot of them dealt with the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: same exact company. Are countries which the Biden crime family
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: was profiting from. Documents were being told from place like Iran, China,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: about China should say about I ran about Ukraine, about Russia. Look,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the Biden crime family and that the people affiliated and
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the edges of it are committing an enormous crime
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: against the American people. They're getting rich on it. But
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: there the thing that I find I guess even more upsetting.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: It's like, I suspect politic as to be to lie,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: sheet steal and get bribed. What really is upsetting is
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that the Justice Department that's supposed to represent the American
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: people is treating this very differently. I mean, they created
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the whole Russia Gate spy thing, and then they prosecuted
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: President Trump. They now have direct evidence Hunter Biden's laptop, etc.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: And they're not doing a thing to go after those people.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And then the complicit media, so that the media, even
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: some members of the media who do want to do
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: their job, people like Ben Ferguson, what are you doing?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: You're shut down. And so it's a really scary time
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: in America. I mean, the First Amendment rights, you can't
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: even get up and speak about that. The New York
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Posts tried to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop. Right,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: they're kicked off of social media. They're going to be
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: prosecuted by the Justice Department. It's to me, the adversaries
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: are not Republicans versus Democrats anymore. It's the people of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the country versus the Washington power elite of both political
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: parties in cahoots with the mainstream media and social media
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and the corrupt influences that they all seem to be
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: part of. And hopefully some of our predictions are wrong.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: All right, don't forget to share our podcast. We'll be
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: back here tomorrow live from Sepack as well, So make
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: sure you download the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app Apple and makes you write a five star review.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And also download Verdict with Center Tech Cruise. As we
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: will be live on stage at Spack, you're gonna get
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to hear that live taping. Download Verdict with Tech Cruise.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I'll see you back here tomorrow