CGR WEDNESDAY 062823 Part 2 Tucker Russia Civil War

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Our number two. Thanks so much for being here. If you missed any parts of our number one, David Shostakis, our constitutional originalist, was with us. We got into some deep conversations regarding SCOTUS, the decisions that they're about to make. Also, talked quite a bit about their decision regarding state legislature, state courts, who decides, how does that impact our elections, and how does it impact our rights as we the people. And so, I hope you'll take some time to give that a listen, especially as we approach next week and the celebration of independence.

So, do hope that you'll check that out. All right, I'm very, very excited to welcome my next guest to the program. He is the author of the new book, Tucker.

And no, it's not about the guy that made automobiles. This is about Tucker Carlson, and I want to welcome Chadwick Moore to the program. Chadwick, welcome. Good to have you. Thanks for being here this morning. Hey, thank you for having me.

It's great to be with you. You know, what a timely, I've got to ask, so when did you start putting this book together? This was a little over a year ago.

It was early last spring. And that's when my publisher contacted me and basically said, you know, we think Tucker Carlson is the most important and influential person in American politics. And, you know, we want to, we want a book about him. I think he deserves one.

You know, basically anything that had been out there at this point was just a series of kind of hit pieces in left wing magazines about about his life. And, and I agree, and they said they wanted me to write it. And I was, you know, flattered and honored. But I wasn't really sure if Tucker be on board with it. I was a regular guest on his show for, you know, basically the entire run of the show.

And and I called him up. And he was, you know, at first, in typical Tucker fashion, he was just like, Oh, you know, I'm not I'm not very interesting. I don't think anyone would read that book. And, you know, I don't read anything about me. And I'm kind of a boring guy.

And you know, I, of course, knew that wasn't the case at all. And then he sort of talked himself into it. And said, you know, he said, Well, you know, he felt that I was a great writer, he read my stuff before and, and, and then from then we were off.

And he, from then on, he just sort of trusted me and gave me access for anything I really wanted and let me spend a bunch of time with. And that was sort of the beginning of it, we were basically done with the book. When his show was pulled off the air, I submitted my my manuscripts in March, and we were going through the revision process. And as it turned out, the week his show was taken off the air, I had my final call with him scheduled where I had like literally a list of five questions laid out that was, you know, did I get this right?

Can you explain this more? And, and then the show got taken off the air. And so since then, I got to interview him twice. And I added two new chapters to the book, and updated the book and made it you know, current. So that's that's sort of the story of how it happened. You were a regular guest on the program, and then you moved from guest to biographer. Talk about what that transition was, was like. Because obviously, as a guest, and I mean, Tucker is, you know, is bigger than life, you know, he's all of those things.

And so you you've got to, in order to do a biography, you've got to pierce that. So talk about what that what that was like? That's a great question. It was trippy, to be honest, because I was sort of behind the scenes and nobody knew about I didn't, you know, we didn't tell anybody about this book. And we really shocked the publishing industry when we announced it, and I really kept it under wraps.

Not many people knew about it at all. And so I'd be you know, in one instance, I was flying home from Florida after spending a week with him, staying in his home and trailing him. And, and then when I landed one of his producers texted and asked if I could come on the show that night. And I'm like, well, I was just with your boss, actually, and I'm heading home from the airport.

And it was such a surreal, bizarre experience. Right. So like, I ran home.

Major change of hats, I imagine. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, cuz I can't slip.

I can't slip and say something that indicates like, what? What's back here? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm looking at you through the screen. And I was like, just hours ago, you know, sitting at your kitchen table, which is really strange. Yes. And which Yeah, I guess at first, like, you know, I've been concerned. So you know, if I'm being totally honest with you, no place before at all with anyone was, you know, I come from, I come from liberal media previously, you know, I was excommunicated from liberal media, because I came out as, you know, more conservative minded and right leaning.

Sure. But I was sort of got my start with these standards and practices from places like the New York Times, where I used to freelance that were there. And I don't think these really exist anymore.

Maybe they didn't ever exist anymore. But my first concern with the book, and I said this, my publisher, and also the Tucker was, was kind of what I alluded to earlier was that, you know, I'm like, I guess on your show, I clearly like you, you know, as a person, and I agree with most of what you say, not everything. Is this some sort of, you know, is this is this sort of unethical for me rewriting this book, you know, and that was a sort of concern that I was thinking and everyone I asked, asked the mentors about this and other people and I asked Tucker and Yeah, all them said, No, I don't think so. I mean, if you're just sort of writing a book about someone's life, you know, and trying to give him a fair shake and trying to learn more about him, which is what it's not a puff. Right. It's not a puff piece. It's just a here.

Let me just tell you who this is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Gotcha. But that always through the process, because I still had those like standards in the back of my mind, like, right. That, you know, I've got to think critically.

I've got to think critically here. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right.

I'm just trying to present someone who he is as a human being to the, you know, sure. You're cutting in and out. You're cutting a strange experience still being on the show. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, you were cutting it.

You were cutting out for some reason. Go ahead. No, that's okay.

Go ahead. I Yes, that was, you know, as I got into it more, I realized that, first of all, you know, the way the media operates is, you know, look at, I was sort of, I had written some chapters, some chapters that we cut out eventually, but but sort of like, you know, the left does this stuff all the time, like, you know, see, like magazines doing these massive pieces about AOC or whatever. And I was like, well, I don't think this is one of those. It's not this.

I'm trying to blow smoke up someone's rear end. I'm just sort of trying to tell a human story. I'm not trying to convince you to like or hate him.

Right. You know, I just wanted to really present who he is. So that took like a few weeks for me to get more comfortable with.

But when I sort of had a bigger idea of what this project was, then it wasn't really much of an issue at all. But as I said earlier, it was still really trippy, kind of changing those hats between behind the scenes and then being on camera with them. One of the things that I think and I mean, again, I didn't watch him every night or whatever, but but one of the things that I always was struck with about Tucker was is that it seems as though he's pretty transparent. I mean, he's pretty, you know, he's pretty out there, you know, like, you know, when that thing with his wife was going on, he talked about it when, you know, when when things I mean, he would have heart to heart talks as if you were a one on one, having a conversation with him. And and did that transparency help you in writing his biography?

Oh, yeah. And that's a great observation. And he's certainly like that in real life. He is he's an open book, you know, and I think that he has this sort of he's an extremely present person. And it's something that, you know, he's been sober for over 20 years.

It's kind of if you know, a lot of sober people, a lot of them are like that, you know, they're just they have like this, this keen acuity to the present and to the people who are around them. And he doesn't really, you know, I never got the impression he was trying to hide anything from me. He's sort of an open book. And as a as a writer and a biographer, he's kind of a dream subject, because he's just lays it all out, you know, right. He's completely unfiltered. And he's, you know, he's very emotional.

He's very reactive, which, you know, I, I like that in a person, because there's an honesty to it. And with his wife, I think you're talking about when when Antifa attacked his home. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That was a big moment in their lives was horrific.

Washington for that, you know, they terrific forever. Yeah. Yeah. And he was completely honest about that.

Yeah. Now, we talked in the green room, I hope you don't mind. But we talked a little bit about because, you know, I, I respect a little libertarian view.

I like I come from a biblical worldview, that that's my that's my mindset, okay. But I've, I noticed that over the course of time, that it seemed that as certain events like what happened with his wife, and other things, seemed to reorient Tucker to his faith, and that that began to seep out more in his commentary, and how he presented perspective. What what did you find that in as you as you walked through his biography?

Oh, yes, certainly. I think that one of you know, I think that's probably one of a handful two or three major changes in him and who he was in his earlier life as a as a print journalist in the 90s through his early 2000s at CNN, MSNBC, PBS, his earlier television career was, I think that shift in faith. He's, I think now he sees the political battles in our country as good versus evil. And I don't think he saw that in the quite those terms earlier. He certainly does. Now, with his own faith, he he identifies as a he was raised Episcopalian, but not Sanchi. So he still calls himself an Episcopalian, but he certainly criticizes the direction that the church is going. I understand.

Absolutely. And he, he very much is says, you know, he, he's very spiritual, he certainly feels a connection with God, and he sees God in the world. But he doesn't have a theological language. You know, he can't quote scripture very easily. But he but he feels it and he sees it, you know, and that's and I think you're right to observe that that it has been a shift in how he approaches his work and how he sees the world in politics.

I would think just off the cuff, I would think that some of that too has to do with because of who he is, the level that he's grown to, you have to be so careful about who you surround yourself with, and their motivation. Why are they here? What are they what do they want from me? And, and especially when it comes to the spiritual side of things, when you're trying to keep that pure, and you want that to be right, you're very cautious about about, again, who do you lean on? You know, to get those things?

Am I am I touching anything there? Am I your thoughts? Again, as the biographer? Yeah, um, yeah, another great question. This is this is one of the best interviews I've given to be honest. I'm not just complimenting you, but these are really good questions.

Thank you. Um, I see that for sure. You know, of course, you have to when you're him, especially you have to really protect yourself and those around you. I mean, certainly he and his wife, Susie, I mean, they met when they were 15 years old, and they've been together ever since, which is sort of amazing and beautiful. And they have such a beautiful relationship. Like I'd never been around a couple who'd been together for that long. And you could just see so much love between them and so much trust.

You know, certainly his wife, his father, Dick, who I got to meet and interview, are certainly, you know, to the biggest influences in his life. He goes through great lengths to, well, the whole family does, especially he and Susie to protect themselves from all of that outside noise. Yes, they don't own televisions. They don't watch televisions. They don't. They're not on social media.

Because they don't want all of that chatter. And not just the hatred, but also the overt flattery, you know. He goes through great lengths to really humble himself. And he came to that through not only his father and early mentors in television, that basically kind of warned him that as you get bigger, don't start thinking that you're God, because you will start to think that. And he has rituals, and he does things to remind himself that he's just another human being on this planet, like billions who existed before him, although not all of them were on television. He faces the same struggles, and he's no greater or lesser moral value than anyone else.

And if you, you know, if you meet a lot of people who work in cable news, that's certainly not the case. There could be a lot of egos in that environment, as you can imagine. Oh, sure, sure. Well, generosity is important when it comes to that, you know, because in order for your cup to stay clean, as it fills, it's going to overflow, and you've got to let it overflow in the right way.

Otherwise, it contaminates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good way to put it, for sure. What surprised you the most as you pursued this? What was the thing that was that was most surprising? I think it was, I guess, maybe what we mentioned before about how, I mean, just how incredibly open and available he made himself. You know, he was, you know, when the first time, so he lives in both Florida and in Maine, and the first time I went to Florida when, you know, I was asking about a hotel I should stay at.

No, no, you're staying with us in the house. I'm like, what? You know, and which, of course, was also like, I'm like, this is going to be so awkward, you know, like, I was a little worried about that.

Yeah, but it wasn't at all. You know, he, I just simply, I sort of love the fact that I didn't want to make the book too topical, although some of that is in there. Sure. When we originally started off, it was like, okay, do we have a J6 chapter? Do we have a UFO chapter?

Do we have a vaccine chapter? Right. And we kind of scrapped all that because I wanted it to have a longer shelf life and just be about, you know, this human being. Instead of about topics that he covered, actually about the person that covered the topic, which is going to give you a better perspective of why he had the thoughts that he had about those topics. You're trying to get to the root of what makes Tucker Tucker.

Yes, yeah. And, you know, with his show, you know, those monologues are 100% him. He writes all of them. And if you ever want to know what he feels about any political issue, it's all out there, you know. So that was one thing.

I lost my train of thought. But he, oh, so, you know, most of the time when we were talking, I mean, this would be like, first thing in the morning, he's waking up, walking out into the kitchen in his underwear, hair, messy, gravelly voice. And politics would almost never come up. We would just talk about any random thing. And of course, he could talk forever on any subject.

And you just want to get it all down. And I really enjoyed that and appreciated that, especially as you can get fatigued with the political situation in this country and dealing with the topical issues. I mean, there's a lot of transition that he went through as well. You know, his print side that he had major involvement in, and then he kind of sold that off, more or less. Still had a hand in the creativity side, but not ownership any longer. I assume that that was a strategic move relative to how involved he became with his program and the ability to want to be able to give 100% rather than trying to divide himself. Yeah, even when he was on CNN and making good money, he would still go off to Iraq and Afghanistan and write magazine articles for Esquire and places that honestly would pay like $600 or something.

He doesn't need the money, but he did it for the sheer love of the adventure. And journalism. And journalistic integrity.

Yeah, yeah. I think he pretty much stopped that. So after he was let go from MSNBC, he started The Daily Caller, where he did some reporting, but he was mainly running the thing. I think he probably, now it's very clear that his monologues fulfills that creative outlet.

Okay. He probably stopped in print, number one, because after the Fox show he wouldn't ever be allowed to write for mainstream publications ever again. But number two, he's raising a family, he's got four children, you can't really do that on a freelance journalist salary. But it's very clear to me that he needs that creative outlet, and he gets that through writing his monologues. To that end, since we talked about Fox in the end there for just a second, and so I'm just gonna ask your thoughts on this. Do you think that what Fox did was a surprise to him?

Or do you think that he saw it coming? I know it was a surprise, for sure. I happened to be on his last show, April 21st, which of course we didn't know.

And then that Monday, April 24th, that Monday morning, he'd already written his monologue for that evening's show. And it happened to be the six-year anniversary to the day of his show, moving into the 8 p.m. time slot. And Fox News president Suzanne Scott called him, and he thought she was calling to congratulate him. And instead she just said, we're taking your show off the air, goodbye, thank you very much. They still have not given him an official explanation.

And he's still an employee of Fox News, as we're speaking right now. Right. Which is the whole litigation thing that I think Dylan is involved in, right?

If I'm not harmony? Yes, she is one of his attorneys. Yeah.

And I don't want to weaken or divulge, or we're not asking, I'm not trying to draw anything here at all. No, totally, totally. Yeah, so he would like to be out of that contract as quickly as possible.

Well, sure. He's ready to get back to work. But he didn't see it coming. I think most of us thought like he's eventually going to get taken off the air, because we'd watch his show and be like, how can they continue to let him say these things? Well, but that was because Fox has moved so far center left. Right.

I mean, that's the issue. The problem is that, you know, Rupert cut everybody everybody that had what was the majority of the audience's view. I'll tell you a funny story. So years ago, when I had a church out in California, we took on taking care of an elderly gentleman who had actually marched with Patton. And when he went to war, he was a Democrat. When he got back, the Democrat Party moved and he became conservative. And when we started taking care of him, and this was in the early 2000s, he had a pistol that Patton had given him, pearl handled pistol that he kept under his coffee table.

He was I mean, he couldn't move off the sofa, we had to, you know, take care of him. But he told us he said, if you change the channel off a fox, I'll shoot you. He I mean, he was a you know, and this was a course back when you know, O'Reilly and you know, when Fox was really on the on the conservative seemed to be on the conservative right hand side of things. But he was just an A was like, look, you know, don't don't touch that dial, you know?

Yeah. And now it just seems like they've abandoned their viewership. Yeah, I mean, that was the the one what you just described was the network that Roger Ailes built, you know, that was Fox News. That's what made it the juggernaut that it was, you know, since Ailes left. You know, they, Fox, I'm not saying this is the exact reason, but coincides with Ailes leaving is, you know, because Ailes was, you know, subject to a me tooing. And Fox then elevated a bunch of women, and it became kind of a gynarchy. And now, like everyone in leadership, there's a woman.

I'm not necessarily saying I'm saying that's coincidental. But at the same time, they're moving so far to the left. And, and, and, I mean, committing suicide at this point, seems like they still have the programming is not there. And the personalities aren't there. But the attitude is still there that that they are indestructible. And that it's the brand that matters, not the personalities. And that, you know, that that they can survive anything, but I to their detriment. That's not the case.

And yeah, to their detriment. We're gonna we're about right at the end of our time. Chad, this has been wonderful. I really I'm so glad to have had you I do hope you'll come back in and and visit with us again. How do how do folks I you know, the book is out there, Amazon, what have you but how can folks follow you as well? Sure, you can. I'm mostly on Twitter at Chadwick underscore more.

And then if you which I tweeted, by the way, find that tweet and share that I did I tweeted you this morning. Yeah, check it out. I sure did.

I sure did. Okay, go ahead. Yeah.

Oh, and then if you go to tucker the book.com, you can order directly from the publisher or you can find links to anywhere you can buy it, which is anywhere you get your books. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, pick it up, folks.

Pick up Tucker and and support Chadwick and and and what he's doing as well. Thank you for this great conversation. I've so enjoyed it. Hang on just a second. We're going to take our break folks when I come back.

Claire Lopez, Rick Manning, my co host Americans for limited government. We're going to talk about Russia. Was it a civil war? Is Putin on the edge? Or is this a plan to stage an invasion of Poland through Belarus? We'll talk about it coming up right after this brief break.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, neither products do not treat, reduce, cure, or prevent disease. My passion is the fight for freedom. My father fought for a World War II defending our country. Today, we are no longer fighting with guns. Instead, we are fighting an ideological battle for control of our country by contributing to causes that support your constitutional rights.

I am Patriot Mobile. You can support Chosen Generation and make a tax-deductible donation by visiting www.chosengenerationradio.com. And now, back to Chosen Generation with Pastor Greg. And welcome back to Chosen Generation Radio, where no topic, soft limits, and everything filtered through biblical glasses.

And the host did a goofy, but we'll get it squared that way here in just a second. I'm sure Rick will be joining us momentarily. My special guest, our national security expert, Claire Lopez, is with us. And hang on, let me, let's see, recheck email.

And I gotta see, I probably need to just find it. Let's start with this. Obviously, there's a lot that happened over the weekend in Russia. And with the Wagner Group, with the decision that was apparently reached the involvement of the president of Belarus, who is a Putin puppet. There's a lot of confusion. A lot of people are wondering what really did go down. And, you know, was it, is he out in purgatory? Or is he, you know, what exactly really happened here?

Claire, what are your thoughts? Right. So it felt to all of us, I think probably most of us, that things unfolded very rapidly over this past weekend.

Friday the 23rd, Saturday the 24th. And in the space of those, I don't know, call it 48 hours, it seemed to be over. But the roots of what happened go way back.

I guess we should set the scene with some of the actors. Who are these people? So Evgeny Prigozhin began as the head of a catering company called Concord, which provided catering services to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and his circle in the Kremlin. From there, he was funded to start a private military company, as they call it, the Wagner Group. And that grew and grew, not just with Russian funding, although there was that, but an awful lot of the funding for that comes from enterprises, shall we call them, in Africa. Things like blood diamonds, and gold mines, and shipping ports, rights, and things like this.

Many things in Africa. And he is a huge force now, Prigozhin and Wagner. Well, the earlier part of this year, 2023, around about January, February, we began to hear how Prigozhin was complaining that the Russian Ministry of Defense, in particular, the Minister of Defense of Russia, Sergei Shura, and the chief of the general staff, the Russian general staff, Valeriy Gerasimov, were shorting him on ammunition, and supplies, and weapons, and so forth.

In particular, in the grinding battle of Bakhmut, down there in southern part of the Donbas, where the Russian military forces were really taking the brunt of the battle, and being just chewed up, losing thousands and thousands of men. That conflict, that dissatisfaction between Prigozhin and the Russian MOD grew and grew, it got worse and worse, until this ultimatum came down, just about a week or so ago, saying that the Ministry of Defense was now demanding that the Russian military companies, aimed, of course, at Wagner Group, incorporate into the Ministry of Defense, become part of the Russian Ministry of Defense and not be independent anymore. Well, that was the final straw for Prigozhin. He was stuck. Now, let's say right here at the beginning, Prigozhin and Putin are both monsters. They're war criminals, they're thugs, they're kids, they're killers, both of them.

There's nothing to choose between them. But Prigozhin felt himself trapped in a place that he didn't see a way out of. That's when on Friday, the 23rd of June, he began his march for justice, as he called it, towards Moscow, heading out of southern Donbas, crossing the border, taking over Rostov-on-Don, which is the rest of the border, taking over Rostov-on-Don, which is the Russian border city with Ukraine that is the headquarters for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, southern military command headquarters. Then he continued straight on north along a highway called the M4 Highway, and was within 120 miles or so of Moscow by Saturday, when Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus Vladimir Putin, and apparently Prigozhin also were working the phones all day long and eventually came to some kind of an agreement by the end of Saturday, the 24th. Prigozhin stopped his advance on Moscow, turned around, and headed back to cross back over the border of Ukraine, back to the southern Donbas, where he and the bulk of his 25,000 troops are.

He, Prigozhin, arrived in Minsk in Belarus yesterday, that being Tuesday the 27th of June, keeping the date straight here. So we don't know exactly where this is going, but that's the background. You mentioned about their march in. Rick, welcome, good to have you on board this morning. Rick, you were talking about, you know, how could this small army make such great advancements towards Moscow without encountering great resistance?

How did they man? I mean, do you have any thoughts on that? Does that seem strange to you? Claire? Claire?

No, it's not strange at all. Okay. Prigozhin and the Wagner Group's forces were heavily armed, by the way. They had T-90 tanks, they had armored personnel carriers, they had anti-aircraft air defense systems, they had MRAPs, all kinds of military armored vehicles. They advanced as quickly and as far as they did because the Russian people accepted them, supported them, backed them, and because a large number of elements of Russian, what you would think would be the defense, which included the Russian National Guard, called Roskvardia, Oman, the Russian special police, the FSB itself, the internal domestic Russian security service, and troops of the MOD themselves, all stood down. Whether that was by prior agreement or, I think the basis for that had been laid many months since, I think that was the groundwork that had been laid for months by Prigozhin and Wagner, but they all stood down, whether they supported them or not, or were simply unsure of their own chain of command and where it was going to be, backing them, not backing them, they stood down. That's how he got almost all the way to the gates of Moscow. Well, then Claire, the obvious question is, if all the different aspects of the military and the police state all stood down and didn't actually enforce the law and support the government, the Putin government, Putin's a dead man. Isn't he a dead man under this circumstance? I don't know about a dead man, but I do think his days empowered them.

I mean, think about it. How many people is he going to have to execute to be able to get control again? And it's given the fact that you've just named, you know, internal police agencies, you didn't name the whole National Guard, you named forces that weren't air strikes against Wagner. They could have wiped him out of the military, doing simple set of airstrikes, 25,000 people marching up the road. I don't care how much heavy equipment they have, they leave a pretty big footprint and they're pretty easy to hit. And without air cover, ground is dead. So they obviously had air cover, at least by lack of approach by the Air Force. How does Putin survive that? Well, for one thing, as I said, Prigozhin and Wagner had anti-aircraft air defense systems. And along the way, they shot down seven Russian helicopters and one command and control air platform plane. So there was some attempt to hit the columns as they moved northward, but not that much, as you say.

If there were a serious effort, they could have been stopped, but they weren't. This definitely weakens Putin, although he remains in power for now. What else weakens him, I think, is the fact that he had to rely on his puppet, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, to intervene and to work out this so-called deal under which, at least openly, pestering the spokesman for the Kremlin said this on Saturday, that there would be no insurrection traitor charges levied against Prigozhin and the Wagner forces. They would be allowed to go to Belarus.

We'll see if that holds true or not. But the fact that Putin had to rely on Lukashenko, his puppet, to work this out further, I think, weakens him. It also shows the example of the power of these private military companies. Wagner's not the only one in Russia.

Gazprom, for example, has another one, also very powerful. They've seen the example now of what can be done and how vulnerable Putin is, who no longer knows for sure whom is going to be no longer knows for sure whom he can trust and whom he cannot trust within his own, maybe even inner circle, chain of command, military, MOD. The promises about Shoigu and Gerasimov being dismissed, don't know if that'll really happen or not. But this definitely weakens Putin, although for the moment he remains in power.

Let me throw this out there, too, just to get your thoughts on it. This is something, a tweet that was put out by Velina Chukorova. She said, this is not a coup by Progozhin. This is an inner war between the St. Petersburg gang of Putin and the Moscow gang of Gerasimov and Shoigu.

I may be pronouncing that wrong. I don't think so. This is the beginning of Putin's election campaign to become reelected on March 17, 2024. His lap dog, Progozhin, is masquerading a coup to put the blame on Gerasimov and Shoigu for losing the war against Ukraine. Progozhin can always be scapegoated if he fails like this has happened in the past.

No. This was not truly a coup d'etat, okay, or even an attempted coup d'etat. It was a military, what, rebellion? And she says it's not a coup. She says that it's a pretend coup. It's not a pretend anything.

It was very real. It was a challenge to both or all Putin, Shoigu, and Gerasimov, and the senior leadership of the MOD because of the way that they were perceived to be prosecuting the war in Ukraine. Again, as I said, Progozhin's a monster.

He would level every city in Ukraine if he were given free rein and the ability to do so. Well, and that's the question. I think, Claire, you've come upon the question. A lot of people were, didn't know how to root on this thing. But the bottom line is, we don't know. Something we don't know is who would succeed Putin. This wasn't, you know, from a populist standpoint, we're being led to believe that people of Russia don't support this, the Ukraine war.

But the people who are actually going to take over may believe that the problem is Putin's been too nice of a guy. He could have leveled the Kiev. He didn't. He could have taken out every city in Ukraine using air power and missiles.

He didn't. And so he hasn't brought Ukraine to his knees because he's chosen, he wants to leave infrastructure behind for him to have, to be able to have to bear the fruits of Ukraine. And yet others who are more just straight military were losing men, were losing women, were losing battles, are saying, well, why don't we just destroy them and then we'll rebuild?

Because that's the traditional military way of doing it, isn't it? Well, you know, I agree with you completely. We, the United States of America, our national security, we don't have a dog in this fight in Russia. And, you know, however this devolves and it's going to devolve, it's going to get worse.

It's not going to stay the same. Putin is wounded. He is vulnerable.

He's been shown to be vulnerable. There are forces demonstrated now within Russia that would cause chaos, put it that way. Our interest is Ukraine. Our interest is ensuring that Ukraine remains independent, free, and in control of the entirety of its internationally recognized sovereign borders.

That's what we need to focus on. What happens in Russia happens in Russia. Yes, we worry because this is an empire with the largest stockpile of various types of nuclear weapons on earth. And that's certainly a concern into whose hands might they fall.

But aside from that, and aside from hoping, working with allies and other partners and neighboring countries in the region to ensure that any kind of the upcoming strife, and there will be upcoming strife, does not spill across international borders. Those, I think, would be the limits of our interests in what goes on. We can't pick and choose who would replace Putin, nor do we want to. And you're right, absolutely. It could be a lot worse than him.

Can I get this in? Just from my read and background from my Cold War days, I guess you could say, but even up to present, it seems to me that there are communist hardcore that have allowed Putin to remain in power, but under the premise that he would advance the empire of the former Soviet Union, and that if he does not succeed in doing so, they will remove him. Is it possible also that taking Ferguson kind of off the table, if you will, now, you know, this is my thought process. In other words, he's been at the forefront, the only victories they've had have been Wagner victories, and for Goshen victories, period. Now they take him and they move him over to Belarus, where they have, you can say he's a Putin puppet, but he's a hardcore communist puppet. He's going to bow down and do whatever the hardcore people tell him to do, whether it's Putin or whoever else they elevate to be the face of their of the little monstrous task. Prigozhin now has the ability to build an army in Belarus off the radar.

Well, Prigozhin arrived in Minsk yesterday. His troops are still in southern Donbas. But does that really matter? Because he can raise an army wherever he goes. I mean, that's just that's just background.

That's just hard and battle tough. Claire, let me currently lies in southern Donbas. Okay, well, let me ask you, because you mentioned it, Claire, I wanted to go a different path.

But since this is where Greg's going, we're gonna go this direction. I was on map yesterday, a different place where Wagner has location. And it has extreme influence. There are places that have have, and they tend to focus on places with resources, money that they can, that they can either protect or they can grab. And so they have people all over Africa who are battle hardened, fighting in Africa. And given that, and maybe they're not battle hard, get hardened in the same way with tanks and the light, but they're trained fighters in Africa. And they can be brought to Belarus and be trained and take that training and merely bring the the cavalry piece of it together from an army perspective. And essentially mounted army very rapidly in Belarus based on the resources they have around the world.

I mean, this isn't some ragtag operation with 25,000 people were marching up. These are well trained, very with a very wealthy backing of an organization that is essentially an extension of the old KGB. And a significant military mind in Prigozhin. Go ahead, Rick, but I'm just saying in a significant military mind, they have money, they have to buy the best Russian military that exists, who aren't being paid because the Russian military didn't pay very well.

So we're really looking at is, you know, I know with him sitting in Belarus, a lot of people are counting the days before he's dead. But the other opera, you know, we saw from Belarus, they've also moved tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. So who's going to control the tactical nukes in Belarus, when Putin is now dependent upon Lukashenko from Belarus, rather than vice versa? Well, if we were Lukashenko, would we really want 25,000 Wagner fighters in our country?

That's not unless I control them to me. Well, if you're Lukashenko, you want them if you if you control them. Lukashenko was the person who brokered the deal. But you don't you don't have any I mean, Lukashenko, we got to understand Lukashenko is a puppet. Lukashenko is simply a face. And he is going to do everything he is told again by these hardliners. And you've got Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are which are easy prey, and they want them.

They want them. And Belarus is is the staging ground for those. Well, and Belarus was the staging ground for the northern attack on Ukraine that went that went to the suburbs of Kiev. Well, and it came south from Belarus, and they could stall in Ukraine and still use Belarus to push through into Eastern Europe.

The the camps that they're building right now, apparently they're saying for the Wagner forces inside of Belarus are many hundreds of kilometers north of the Ukrainian border. I think that's pretty deliberate. Okay. Yeah. So what's your take? How is does Putin a year from now is Putin going to be the head of Russia? No. Six months will be six to 12 months.

Yeah, maybe. Remember what happened to Gorbachev. After the attempted coup there, he lasted he stayed in power for about six months, and then he was out. Well, who? Well, right now, I mean, the question is, are there going to be people who are going to want to pursue the continue to pursue Ukraine in a more aggressive way? Or are there gonna be people who say this was a stupid venture and made a mistake? Which, you know, who's going to replace it? Both of those currents or trends are now visible inside of Russia. I'll recommend a very good source for following these events.

Hudson Institute has some really good experts that that I've been reading and watching. But but have a look at their coverage of all of this. I think it's very so I'm going to shift gears over into the into the Asian part of the world for just a minute. What does a change in regime in Russia mean for Chi in China, who also is somewhat in a precarious position, if he's not successful in continuing to advance their interests? Well, I mean, look at the statement that came out of Beijing over the past few days. This is an internal internal affair for Russia. They don't, they're not going to dive into this. They can see that that Putin is is wounded.

They don't want an albatross hanging around their neck. But they're also watching very carefully how things unfold because you're right, Greg. You know, things inside of China are not as solid as as might be sometimes viewed from the outside. And then all of that would have an impact also on Iran, because that's a triad at this point. And Iran has been dependent on Russian support. And I saw a tweet also and underneath the tweet by Velina that says a view that should be further researched by us Indians. If Putin goes then secret deals of Tadaka and Modi with Putin could embarrass India. Well, remember, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just had a very successful, positive visit to Washington DC over this past weekend. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, the one thing about Modi is since they're all in the bricks, you've got Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa bricks, and they're dedicated to destroying the US currency and growing their numbers.

Yeah. India, Russia, and China are original partners of that. And so they are tied, even though China and India are fighting on their border. Even though Russia and India have off and on relationships, although in the Cold War, India was a kind of silent partner with Russians, the Soviets is a you know, so there's a lot of moving parts here. The interesting part on this, I think, is India's, their interest as a country, is for China and Russia to fail. Because, particularly China, because all that industry, all that all those resources will be poured into India, for manufacturing, like India, which is already the fifth largest economy in the world, becomes a, becomes number three without even trying hard if China begins to falter, and Russia faltering as well.

That's it. So it's in India's economic interest for them to, for Russia and China to falter. Yeah, agreed.

Good points. Yeah, the greater issue there is the human rights issue. And of course, our administration wasn't going to support it. And I'm absolutely sick as a member of the International Religious Freedom and being on that round table, that everything became about Muslims. And there was absolutely no mention of all of the slaughtering of the Christians, in spite of the fact that there were 360 churches that were burned to the ground by Hindu nationalists right before Modi arrived. Yeah, well, I mean, never mind the hundreds of millions of Hindus slaughtered over the centuries by the Muslims in India. Well, and yeah, I mean, you know, and what I'm watching in Punjab is, we just had one of our services was interrupted by the RSS. So, you know, we're battling, we're seeing persecution from both Hindu and Sikh populations there. And Modi refused to tell any questions.

But the only thing that was raised is, what about the poor Muslims? Anyway, there you go. Hey, thank you.

We've run out of time. But thank you all so much. This is, I mean, great conversations, folks.

And I hope you will go back and listen to the things that have been shared here. Because it's important as well. We are facing an evil axis, Russia, China, and Iran. And so in as much as we don't have a dog in the fight, we do have an interest in keeping our eyes on what our enemies are doing, and who's running the ship over there.

It's very important for us to understand the battle that we're in. Thank you all both very much. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we're gonna take our break. We'll be back. Hour number three coming up right now. And Michael Morris is joining me, and we'll be talking to Michael about news issues coming up right after this brief break.