Michael Weiss Goes Nuclear After Trump Says Russia Has Been “Fine” in Ukraine

Welcome to Bullwork Takes. My name is Mark Polymeropolis, 26-year veteran of the CIA. I'm joined as always by my good friend, partner in crime, fellow podcaster, fellow defender of freedom. Should I keep going, Michael? Michael Weiss, as everyone knows him and we're here, not necessarily on an emergency episode, it actually always seems like an emergency episode. Not only just to discuss my new swag, I got my VNN quarters up here, but on a serious note, some developments in Ukraine, which I think we're alarming, I think we have to kind of kind of couch this with the notion of have we hit rock bottom on U.S.-Ukrainian relations. And so let's jump into this first with a clip from Mark Rubio on Tuesday and Mumbai, pushing back a bit on the notion that the U.S. has abandoned Ukraine. I think the important takeaway for you is that there has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine. This is just not accurate. Even this talk about I think on the 13th and again on the 18th, there were airstrikes in Ukraine that were not detected. That is not because America did not provide information. I saw somebody associated with the Ukrainian government say that people in Ukraine are dying because the U.S. is denying them information. That's scandalous. That's outrageous. That's just simply not true. That's not accurate. Now that there was a problem identifying that perhaps there was an internal issue in terms of them being able to take the information that was being provided and systemize it and react to it, that's possible. We're looking at it. Our understanding is that to the extent that happened on the 13th and on the 18th, it was a technical matter. It was not the result of any sort of U.S. directive not to provide advanced warning of a strike. And we are providing the same warnings to them now that we always have. All right, Michael. I have some break news. An alien has taken over Marco Rubio's body. What in the F has happened to this man? And I think you actually made some kind of comment to that effect on social media. Everybody I talk to, all the European diplomats, everyone says, wow, he's lying. What's your take on this? Well, hello, and welcome from Bullwork HQ in Washington, D.C., where I'm here visiting, doing reporting. This is the cockpit of, I guess, the trotskiest wing of former Republicanism or the capitalist wing of Antifa, depending on whether you're a fan or a detractor. The frustration, I, and I think many people of my pro-Ukraine persuasion have with a guy like Rubio is he's not an idiot, unlike his boss. He is in command of the facts of this war, and he knows better. Now, I will say this. What he just said, he was asked a question about intelligent sharing. As far as I can tell, and I've checked it from the American side and the Ukrainian side, intelligence sharing with Ukraine continues. These air strikes that he referred to on the 13th and the 18th. I believe it was on the 13th. There were four waves of ballistic missile strikes launched by Russia into Ukraine. The first wave was not detected through early warning detection. The second, the third and the fourth were. So the American line is, there is a technical issue, whether it was weather or some kind of, sometimes these things get through. Now, in the summer, particularly the month of July, Russia launched a series of ballistic missile strikes in Ukraine, and there was no early threat detection then. So this is not anomalous. The problem is the timing could not be worse, because everybody is reading this as a form of punishment on Ukraine. And the question he should have been asked, but wasn't, was, is Starlink and Star Shield? Are they being throttled by the US government and by Elon Musk to basically show Ukraine who's boss? Because if that's the case, then this is costing Ukrainians their lives because Star Shield, which is the hard pentagon-run variant of Starlink. Same kind of system is from SpaceX, right? But Star Shield is what Ukrainians use to launch their drone interceptors, right? So they have created drones that literally take out Russian, particularly the jet-powered Jeren-5 drones, which operate more like cruise missiles. And just the other day, a one-year-old baby in a park was killed by a Shahid. So we are already seeing the impact of throttling Star Shield and Starlink, not just on the battlefield, but in population centers in Ukraine. So this is, I would put it, I mean, Rubio used the word "scambulous". This is that, that's a euphemism. He's admitting it. I mean, this would be an atrocity embedded by the United States. We are helping Russians kill Ukrainians. And Starlink and Star Shield also affect the battlefield. The Ukrainians rely on them for a command and control. The Middle Strike campaign, you know, they're launching drones that attack Russian supply lines, particularly in the south, blowing up a convoys of diesel, blowing up, you know, armaments and ammunition. And troops, these Middle Strike capabilities have ground to a halt, according to Russian mill bloggers, directly as a result of slowing down the speed of internet science. And Rubio did not deny that this has occurred. I mean, he's kind of dissembling and he's playing a little cutesy and footsie here, because I think he knows. And you also have multiple press reports. And again, we need an investigation on this. I think Reuters actually came out with the notion that we were up to no good on this. And of course, Trump and Elon Musk seem to be blaming each other back and forth over over X. The Rubio part of this, again, I say, you know, is an alien taken over his body. I don't know how people like himself, how Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and how John Rackliffe, the C.I. director, actually sleep at night because fundamentally they are Russia hawks. They always have in Jim Himes told us this the other day when it was on the pod when he said, hey, you know, Rackliffe's an old school kind of anti-communist. And so at the end of the day, they are associated with this. And, you know, are they staying in positions of power just because they think it's better than that they do that rather than they leave. But, you know what, Ukrainians are dying. American officials, of course, on the ground in the US Embassy in Kiev are put at risk. US citizens, too. I've kind of harped on that and screaming into the into the wind. No one seems to be listening. But ultimately, I just I don't understand how these people morally and ethically can can do this when Ukrainians are dying and it looks like the US is responsible. And again, we've said it a million times, you know, elections matter in two weeks. If the Democrats gain control of one, both, you know, either of both houses of Congress, there are going to be situations and with people like Marco Rubio are not going to be able to do this in a press gaggle in Mumbai, they're going to have to go in front of Congress. And we're going to have to get some answers. And so, you know, this story is not ending. But there's there's a there's a morality piece here that I find quite distasteful. I mean, look, the Daily Telegraph, which is a British newspaper published a story a few days ago saying Elon Musk went to Trump and prevailed upon him to slow down Starshield. Right. And what's interesting about that story, I mean, there's been a lot of, you know, sort of speculation and cross-chatter in the media about who did what. But what's interesting, but that story is nobody's denied it from the American side. So, I don't know. I mean, you know, is this happening for different reasons right now, all of a sudden, or is this in, you know, all of a piece of a new strategy, which is, goes beyond, I think, rapprochement with Russia, or reset with Russia. And really, the term for this is strategic realignment. And the United States under Donald Trump is trying to partner with Russia at the expense of our allies, not just Ukraine, but also NATO and the European Union, right? Because the Europeans pay the full cost or almost the full cost of supporting Ukraine across all sectors. The patriot missile interceptors, which now it's been reported by the key of independent and the Washington post. These supplies have been bought and paid for by Europe to be used in Ukraine to shoot down Russian incoming missiles. The order is sitting on Pete Hex's desk and he has not signed it. You know, follow my favorite time of year, although I did recently complain that we're getting less and less false kind of annoying. But between Halloween Thanksgiving and just getting it together with family and friends for the holidays, there's just so much to look forward to. The last thing I'd want is to get sick and spend that time stuck in bed instead of enjoying it with a nice cup of coffee, you know, walking in those leaves, crunching beneath your feet. That's also a good reminder that taking care of my health matters, even when life gets busy. And when it comes to finding a doctor, that's where Zock-Dock comes in. Zock-Dock makes it easy to search for in-network doctors nearby to compare reviews from real patients and to see actual appointment openings. There are more than 150,000 providers across 200 plus specialties in all 50 states. An appointment can often be booked within 24 to 72 hours, sometimes even the same day. Best of all, it's free to use. Taking care of my health shouldn't feel like another full-time job. And Zock-Dock makes finding the right doctor a whole lot easier. Ready to be seen? Head to Zock-Dock.com/BullwareTakes to get started and check that appointment offer to do lists. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com/BullwareTakes. Let's be very clear. These are not Patriot missiles that the U.S. needs for Iran. These are missiles that other countries have. The Hegseth just needs to give the OK to transfer. This has nothing to do with force protection for Americans, which to me again makes it even more immoral. And Rubio, by the way, didn't deny this. That part of it, too. And so, you know, there is something to be said for in the grand scheme of force protection measures. What Ukrainians need to keep themselves alive, Ukrainian citizens. And Ukrainian soldiers, that were withholding. There's no doubt about this now. I mean, and so they're stuck in this to the point in which the ultra-liberal, ultra-progressive national review and Wall Street Journal op-ed page, both of them have written the editorials over the last several days, saying, in essence, Congress is going to have to investigate this tilt Trump's complete change towards Putin. I mean, this is not us talking this. This is the conservative world saying WTF. - The Ukrainians have done everything that was asked of them. The Europeans have also done everything that was asked of, you know, MAGA campaigned on this whole cause, this war, this country that is embattled in under occupation. It's the welfare queen of Europe. It's just taking and taking and taking, and it doesn't give anything back, right? He's called Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, JT Barnum, just I think a day ago, the White House official account on Twitter, reposted a comment by Trump that we give Ukraine everything they give us nothing in return. I cannot tell you how factually inaccurate that statement is. Let's go back to not 2022, the start of the full-scale invasion. Let's go back to 2014, 2015, 2016. This is post-euro-medan. Ukraine is tilting toward the West, but basically it had a revolution waged on behalf of an association agreement to grow closer to the European Union. You're not joined the European Union, but have, you know, visa relaxations and study opportunities and so on, which was reneged upon by the pro-Russian president at the time, who he wasn't ousted. He literally fled in the night with billions of dollars in stolen Ukrainian taxpayer money and is now sitting in Russia. And you know what he's doing in Russia, by the way? He's signing orders to certify the kidnapping of Ukrainian children to be auctioned off to Russian parents. This is what the former president of Ukraine is doing. But anyway, 2014, 2016 period is critical because, and you know this, because you and I've discussed this on the show, we've discussed it in private, and it concerns your former employer, the CIA. CIA came in, put in the plumbing, as you like to call it, with the Ukrainian services, particularly their military intelligence service, and what the military intelligence service did to declare its bona fide and to actually convince the CIA that they were a worthy partner, is they started spying on the Russians. They started collecting intelligence, signals intelligence, running human assets in the field. You know, Ukrainians speak Russian, and they know the Russian culture very well, right, because they were part of the Soviet Union. And there's a lot of, I mean, not to give Putin too much of his do with his propaganda, but there is a cross-pollination between the two cultures. You know, a lot of Ukrainians have Russian relatives and vice versa. So the Ukrainians find it a lot easier to recruit people in the Russian special services and the Russian military, and one of the reasons they've waged this war successfully is they're able to do just that. There was a story in the Washington, the Wall Street Journal, which you and I both read with great interest. - The effector. - Oh my God. - About a Russian soldier who was persuaded over telegram to start spying on his own comrades, and then basically give geolocation so that the Ukrainians could blow up fellow Russian troops, and now he's fighting on behalf of Ukraine. Anyway, in 2014, 2015, the Ukrainians were collecting so much intelligence on the Russians that it was a windfall for the American intelligence community. - That is correct. - What kinds of things, what kinds of things were they doing? And I know this, and I'm scooping myself here, because it's in my forthcoming book on the GRU, but I sat with the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service, General Kondratiyuki, he said, "We were doing things like buying photo booths." I mean, the Russians love to take selfies of themselves, including the Colonel and General level in the military in occupied Crimea. We were smuggling these photo booths into Crimea. They were taking selfies of themselves, and we had spy cameras in there. So we anonymized the entire order of battle, and we knew who to pick off. All of this intelligence wound up at Langley, right? So the CIA is in possession of a welter of critical actionable intelligence on its strategic adversary, its main adversary, Russia, thanks to Ukraine. They give back as much as they take, correct, right? In different ways, and in ways unseen. So when we talk about intelligence sharing as of 2026 with Ukraine, what are we talking about? We're talking about the threat warnings, right? As you mentioned, force protection for our own people, but also for the Ukrainians. We tell them when missiles and drones are incoming. We talk about this collection that I referred to, which is a two-way street. We give the Ukrainians targeting positions of Russian troops inside occupied Ukraine. We also give them the positions of mobile air defense systems inside Russia, which enables them to take out refineries and now data centers and so on. But there's a third element, too, which I can't even report because we don't know the full scope of it. And that's covert action, liaison partnerships between the Ukrainians and the Americans. And somebody very high up in your organization once told me the Ukrainians are helping us in ways unseen, not just in the battlescape field of Ukraine and not just in Russia, but all around the world, okay? So the books will be written about this. So when Donald Trump, arrogantly and idiotically says they're not giving us anything, he's completely an utterly full of shit. And he knows it or he has access to that information because his CIA director would all too readily explain it to. - Well, let's go back to Rackliff again. And maybe I'm picking on the wrong people because there's plenty of really awful, I think members of the cabinet and national security team. But when it comes to Rackliff, I mean, everything that comes out of Trump's mouth when it comes to Ukraine is total horseshit. And so does Rackliff just endure this humiliation? Because again, he thinks that the best thing for him to do is stay and kind of fight the good fight from inside. But at some point, the men and women of the CIA, there's people on the ground in Kiev and others who are forward facing with Ukraine and counterparts, they're gonna hear things and we're gonna play a clip in a second. And actually, maybe let's play it now, where Trump literally says Russia has been fine on Ukraine. Let's play that clip. - Have you ever researched Rilateral meeting with President Putin and he talk about Ukraine? - No, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven't been doing much. And the same thing with China. We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons, the de-nuclearization. And any time I can have a meeting on de-nuclearization. So we have more, during my term, I didn't. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. Russia is second, China's third, but catching up. China was way behind it now. They're catching up, they'll take up probably five years. We would schedule a meeting based on the de-nuclearization. And that's a very positive thing for the world. So I would do it if they want to have a, I just sort about it. If they'd like to have it, I think it would be held in China. He just left here. If President Xi wants to have it, I'd have it. I'm sure we'd talk about other things like trade, too. But yeah, I would do that. - Russia has been fine on Ukraine. Kind of a moment where your head blows off. Because that's utterly preposterous. Again, I don't know how the Dan Keynes and the John Rackliffs or the Marco Rubio's listen to that. 'Cause it's not true. But one thing I got to just jump in, I know we're all over the place here. Michael, when I heard that, I was like, well, wait a second, I'm going back to the matrokin archives. This is Soviet KGB propaganda from a long time ago, this idea of de-nuclearization. Trump is actually parroting things that the KGB was parroting back in the battle days of communism. Did I get that right? Because all of a sudden it kind of generated something. This sounds familiar. And this is like Donald Trump, when he visited Moscow under the communist days, all of a sudden kind of parroting things that he heard there, or is he being told this now was kind of weird. - The extraordinary thing about this statement is the generous interpretation of it, which is the apologist interpretation. Mark Theson at the Washington Post said, "Oh, he meant to say Iran." And it was a slip of the lip. He didn't mean Ukraine. Well, let's take that at face value. Russia's been okay in Iran. - Well, Russia's providing targeting packages of American soldiers to the Iranians. We went in, one of the strategic objectives of that war, Operation Epic Fury, was what? To destroy Iran's missile program, right? Not only did we not destroy it at the outset, and not only are they rebuilding, but guess who is supplying them with advanced anti-ship missiles, with which they are chivying our tankers and our navy in the strait of Hormuz, Russia. Okay, so he's completely full of shit if he meant Iran and not Ukraine. Now let's assume he meant Russia's been fine in Ukraine. Mark, I don't even know where to begin with that. I was in a town called, it's a suburb of Kiev, Bodadyenko in 2022. Russian jets had done a double tap strike on an apartment complex. There's no military target inside, right? They knew what they were going after. They wanted to collapse a building with people inside it, and actually people below it because they had sheltered in the basement, so they had tons and tons of concrete falling on their heads. And not only that, when the Russians then occupied this town, I mean, I'm gonna get upset if I try to recount and vivid detail what I saw, including like children, stuffed animals, a little girl's diary, blown just out of the windows and apartment complexes, and you know, there were hundreds of meters away on the street where I was walking. But then the occupying forces, the Russian army, entered the apartment buildings of Ukrainian civilians, not military officials, not soldiers. In one apartment we went in, the Russians defecated on the kitchen floor after ransacking the place, stealing things, throwing wedding photos all over the place, and other apartments we couldn't enter why, because the outgoing Russian forces, when they were driven out of Kiev by Ukrainian resistance, mined the apartments, so that first responders would be blown up if they entered. - So anybody who tells you Russia's been fine in Ukraine? - That's it. It is not only an atrocity denialist, but the worst fucking piece of shit on the planet. You don't have to have traveled to Ukraine as I did during the war to know that. Open a newspaper, turn on the television. His own wife apparently is driven to distraction by Russian attacks and missile strikes, and apparently the one good thing she's doing is trying to get Ukrainian children out of Russia. How could you be fine on Ukraine if your own spouse acknowledges through her own good work that Russia is stealing children? You asked me about the metrokinarchon in the 1880s. Here is what I can say. I'm not going to relitigate 2016. I'm not going to relitigate Russia gate. I prefer, as a historian, I like to wait for evidence and sometimes evidence takes years if not deck is to come out. But there is a term of art in your profession, agent of influence. It's a grab bag turn. It doesn't mean you've been recruited. It doesn't mean you've been paid. It doesn't mean you've necessarily been compromised or that you are wittingly working for a hostile foreign adversary or their intelligence service. But an agent of influence is somebody who, whether they realize it or not, is prosecuting the national interest of a country other than their own. They have been manipulated and cajoled into doing so. The President of the United States, I think, meets the classical definition of a Russian agent of influence. That, I don't think, is a controversial thing to say in 2026, especially when you acknowledge that the national review, who else was it in conservative media? The Wall Street Journal-- The Wall Street Journal. The Appette page. Yeah. Are clearly, clearly, extremely concerned that the President is falling for an influence operation. All for a congressional investigation. Both of these outlets. Let me read something to you. And I'm going to borrow from our friend Joe Scarborough on MSNOW this morning, Joe this morning, basically, raised and showed a clip from 10 years ago to the day of Hillary Clinton. And of course, everyone's going to go crazy when we say Hillary Clinton. But she was right when she said the following. During a debate, in fact, Putin would rather have a puppet as President. You won't admit the Russians engaged in cyber attacks against the US that you encouraged espionage against our people that you spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants you to do 10 years ago. And she was dead on correct. And that, to me, is rather incredible. And so, you know, there's an important kind of way we have to book in this now is where do we go on this? Where do we go collectively as a nation? I think this brings historic shame on the United States, this Trump shift towards Russia. But you bring up some good points. We talked about it before in the sense, you know, there are some guardrails left. There is Congress, there's legislation, there's things that can be done. And so, you know, we're both of us are trying not to get, you know, hysterical and get hyperbolic. And we're not kind of going over the facts now. The most important thing to do, if you are actually, you know, as serious about, okay, this is where we are right now, especially with a question to have we reached rock bottom in terms of U.S. Ukraine, kind of where the U.S. is in the world is. Where do those responsible elements in the U.S. national security apparatus in the press, in the chattering classes, where do we go on this? Because all actually, and I think you can kind of take this now, all is not lost. What are some of the things that can be done in kind of pushing back on what would be a historic strategic shift for the United States? Really realigning the United States with its Cold War adversary, and post-Cold War adversary, is a very heavy lift for a capable, young, competent, clever, Machiavellian president. For a guy like Trump, whose brains are mashed potato, 80 years old, he's showing his cognitive decline, he's not, he was never that clever to begin with. Two years left in office, so he's a lame duck, with headwinds of a midterm election blowing his way, where he will lose one, if not both chambers of Congress, with a European union, which by his own design, because he didn't want to pay for the defense of Ukraine, is now inherited the full custody of this war, it is very, very difficult for him to do what he's trying to do. Well, he and the Whitcock family and the Kushner family and his own rotten kids can make a lot of money, because they can open up Russia to some extent, they can do business deals and not just in Russia, Central Asia and so on and so forth. In fact, the New York Times reported that the people in Trump's orbit are trying to profit off of the sold-off assets, because it is a private company, of Lucoyl, which is one of the Russian oil giants that was sanctioned a year ago when Trump actually imposed sanctions on the Russian energy economy. They can do these things, can they do strategic re-alignment, can they do economic normalization with Russia? Well, here are the problems with that. Number one, the Graham bill, which everybody runs down, and I agree, it was not my version of strong legislation, right? But it does have one important thing in it, which is it codifies certain sanctions that were in place, including a lot of the sectoral sanctions, that requiring that congressional oversight and the language is very specific, by the way, it says that these sanctions cannot be lifted without consent of Congress and without a peace deal that Ukraine has accepted, right? So for Zelensky or the Ukrainians to say, we don't accept this, you're putting a gun to our head and forcing us to capitulate, Congress does not have to lift these sanctions, right? So that's one thing, second thing, Russia can benefit economically in a very negligible way if, even if, all US sanctions were lifted, which see above how that's difficult. They cannot benefit, however, to the extent that they would like, unless secondary sanctions imposed by the European Union are lifted, and the European Union has been clear time and time again, not only are they not lifting sanctions, they're passing more packages, right? So Trump would have to persuade Brussels to do this and remember the EU votes by consensus. No chance. Okay. Now, what else is wrong here? Again, we don't pay to support Ukraine, Europe pays, right? The Pearl Program, which Trump had up until recently, that was his one, you lamb of a policy with respect to this war. Every time he talks about Ukraine, he used to say in long winding interview, the New York Times, oh, and you know, we don't give him anything anymore. The Europeans pay and they pay in full. Well, the Europeans have paid. And now, coming back to an earlier point, we're not delivering what they bought. So transactionally, the very policy that Trump has tried to impose on the world, it's all paid to play. You know, Article 5 of NATO, you invoke collective security, we want to see the books first. What percent of your GDP goes to defense? Maybe you're a deadbeat. We're not going to come to the aid of a deadbeat. So now, I mean, GDP spending across NATO has risen. The Europeans have said, okay, you know, you have a point. You have to take our own security and our own defense in our own hands. And now, the Europeans have discovered, wait a minute, but if we're going to do that, and you ask us to buy American, we need to see some reliability in the relationship. Because if we buy all of your weaponry and all of your hardware, and you decide, because you're a capricious asshole, we're going to just turn this off with the flick of a switch. Wish it out of luck. Because there's a huge tail, by the way, on defense expenditures. Exactly. There's maintenance. You have to maintain the ongoing. Exactly. And this, yeah, I'm going to ask you a question that I know the answer. Where the defense companies located, what part of the United States, which would help those economies of certain states? This is the other point. And I was screaming this from the rooftops, and big criticism I had of the Biden administration is they were the worst salesmen of their own policy. Right. So everybody thought, for however many years it was, two years in change, that security assistance to Ukraine, we were just giving them money or giving them weapons off the shelf. This is not how it worked. The majority of what was given, quote unquote, to Ukraine, basically draw down authority under Biden and acts of Congress, we were, we were using the money authorized to build our own arsenal, to modernize our arsenal, our own defense capabilities. And we were giving the Ukrainians basically hand me down weapon systems. So attackums, for instance, attackums are being phased out, why? Because the newer version of them are prism, better, right? Which by the way, we spent, I think we fired almost all of our prism missiles in epic fury. So our state of the art weapons are gone, thanks to our own stupid war, not because of Ukraine. But by the way, we were giving the Ukrainians, and the places that manufacture the weapons. Where are they? Are red states, red states, factories, Lockheed, Raytheon, that build new facilities with the money that we are spending and we are quote unquote, giving Ukraine. No, we're spending it here to hire industrial workers who would otherwise vote Republican. So now he's saying, now he's saying, I don't want to do this, or I'm not going to, I'm not going to sell weapons bought and paid for by third party allies. And I'm going to shoot the American military industrial complex in the foot and add it to which I have now convinced the Europeans that they should never buy American. There is an entire suite of policies, the EU has passed, basically known as buy European tea. Why? We cannot depend on this mercurial superpower anymore because look who's in charge and they could just turn everything off. And our own fortune and our own destiny cannot hinge on the whims of the American president. So we have sabotaged our own economy. And for what? This diesel scheme, I mean, we talked about in the last episode. It's, it's a few days worth of diesel. - Don't even work. - And any commercial. - It won't work. - It won't help. It's not gonna change the price of gas at the pond. - In the next 13 days, right? - The only people that benefits are sitting in Moscow and perhaps sitting in Miami, the Kushner Whitcoff Traveling Road Show, which is looking to do side action. - Jared's got the flu, he didn't go to Norway. - Oh, poor thing. I think they're actually in Oslo now. - I know, I know, Jared didn't go. Just Whitcoff went. - Everything about, I can argue this from, I hope I don't have to argue from the moral point of view anymore. I mean, I think that, that ship is safe. - Well, 'cause it doesn't work. I mean, it should work, but it doesn't work. - From a utilitarian perspective, you know, from a transactional perspective, everything MAGA pretends to give a shit about. They have sabotaged themselves. They have fucked this country. They have fucked their own campaign pledges by doing what they're attempting to do. And it ain't gonna work. I don't think it's gonna work in a long term. You have two years to strategically realign the United States with Russia against not just Ukraine, but all of NATO. Nice work if you can get a good luck to you, babe. - And I think that what you'll see with oversight and, you know, people might roll their eyes. You know, there will be subpoenas. There will be, there has to be congressional oversight with the Democrats' control of the committees. Then a couple of things may happen. They're gonna, these administration officials are gonna have to tell the truth. And, or they're going to depart. I think you might see a rash of departures based on the election results in the next couple weeks. Because at some point, this is indefensible. And history is going to judge people who worked in this administration, who oversaw, you know, despite all the hurdles, I think you correctly state, you know, we're not gonna get to kind of catastrophic levels of a real alignment, but they oversaw. They helped with this Trumpian policy, or excused it, or, you know, or dissembled like a Rubio. I just, again, the Ratcliffs, the Rubio's Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I don't understand once again how someone who is an old cold warrior can kind of sit and see this. I just don't get it. If I was in these positions, I was a, I was the equivalent of a three or four star, whatever, when I would have left. And all my friends have left, by the way, for these reasons, they could not stomach working in this administration. And, now, if you're involved in European affairs, if you're involved in a counter-Russia campaign, I don't know how you looked your liaison partners in the eye, unless you just take the line, everything that comes out of President's mouth is nonsense, just let's kind of keep at it. But at some point that doesn't work anymore. - Look, you know, we argue about this. We agree sometimes, but we argue, I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, the moral purist, you know, if I'm in the philosophy symposium, I say, absolutely, you know, we walk out, storm out in resignation, you know, have nothing to do with this. But the pragmatist says, would I prefer a cane, and a rubio, and a raccliffe in this administration, trying to gum up the works and stop a process, a gathering decline in American strategic wisdom, and whatever passes anymore for our values-based foreign policy, if we ever had one. Yes, I would prefer that they're there. Because if they're gone, guess who's gonna take their places? - Total crazies, yeah. - Yes. - So here's the thing, I guess, this first separate episode can rubio recover from this? At some point with his presidential aspirations, this, you know, his track record here, unless he wants to run on, I was actually the deep state. I mean, that's the argument. These are actually deep stateers, thwarting Trump's personal agenda of making Google eyes with Putin. - You know, I had this conversation with my friend, Tom Nichols, you know, it's with the Atlantic. I think you know him as well. - He's great. - Tom, he's great. - Tom, he's great, yeah, he's part of the mafia. He voted for rubio in 2016, right? And I mean, my sort of foreign policy orientation is more aligned with the old marker rubio than anything. But I have to be honest, and Tom, you know, he's also a true believing member of the Greek Orthodox Church. Tom goes to his Greek friends who were MAGA, and you know a lot of these people too, right? Yeah. And he's like, listen, it's a sin, right? I cannot reward these people, meaning Republicans who have tried to be sort of an internal exile or kind of quiet dissenters. I cannot reward them for going along with this mission and this program, even superficially, if they don't mean it. And I understand that point of view. And I think maybe for me, the reconciliation is, I'm glad they're there now, but once they're out, the bill comes due, right? You have a moral stain. And it may be inerratical, right? I don't know, I'm not giving enough thought to the future because it's hard enough to kind of wrap my head around what's happening in the present. But I've said from the beginning, Donald Trump, and you know, where the media goes back and forth, oh, this is a pendulous swing away from Ukraine. Yeah, that's not right. He has always hated Ukraine. He has despised Volodymyr Zelensky because he sees him as responsible for his first impeachment. And he's always had a heart on for Putin. And he wants reconciliation, I mean, reconciliation. I mean, he wants conciliation with Russia, right? He wants to have a relationship with Russia that frankly has never existed. At least not, you know, since World War II, right? And the Cold War. So he, this will never change. The best that we could have hoped for and what has happened in the last two years in change is what I've termed crisis management or crisis mitigation. Now, you asked me, I think last week, are we in a crisis? This is the worst crisis. Certainly since the Oval Office in February 2025, possibly even graver because the damage is not yet complete. They're going to continue to do things. So can they be stopped? Can they be deterred? Can they be, I don't know, watered down? That's the question. But as I mentioned, and this is another important point, Mark, Ukraine gets a vote here. You think the Ukrainians are going to stop fighting for their survival? No, of course not. Zelensky said that and one of his responses, he actually addressed this. Right, yeah. And as a result of their tenacity, and as a result of the fact that this war is carried on for as long as it has. And by the way, I would be the first one to agree. It needs to end tomorrow. If the Ukrainians decided, we will do it at whatever cost. They don't decide that. Every poll taken says we do not want to forfeit the rest of Don Boss, because we know what the Russians do when they occupy. Oh, by the way, okay, let's actually raise something right here, because Rubio made a big mistake. Basically said everything has to do with the Don Boss now. And boy, that was a mistake. I think everyone, I mean, again, how can he say that? That to me is mind-boggling. That's Russian propaganda. Because what the Russians have sold with cough is if we can, I mean, basically they think, "Oh, it's inevitable we'll take Don Boss militarily." No, it's not inevitable. Right. And in fact, they have lost more territory in the last month and change than they were able to gain. Why? Operation Vivaldi, a wonderful Ukrainian operation north of Lyman, but I mean, basically they're, it's not even in a stalemate, the Ukrainians are clawing back more territory. So what does Putin want to do? In the short term, he wants the United States to force Ukraine to give up that which he cannot capture on the battlefield, which is the rest of Don Boss. Now, why do I say in the short term? Because that is not the end of the war. That is the end of this phase of the war. That's right. Rubio, and again, sometimes it's hard to tell if he sort of has this kind of Straussian ability to try and smuggle in the truth even when he's lying. Because what did Rubio say? Well, you know, the Ukrainians rightly calculate that if they give up the fortress belt, the 11% of Don Boss that they continue to hold and hold ferociously. I mean, this is one of the most heavily fortified places on the planet that that puts the Russians within striking distance of Kiev. Aha. Now, why would that be a problem for Ukraine if we have successfully ended the war? Because the Russians want to be in striking distance of Kiev. So they can fucking take Kiev, right? So this is the issue. It's not 11% of territory. They want all of Ukraine. And they want it either through occupation or through political domination. Political domination is easier and cheaper. But it ain't going to happen. And I think they've now cotton down to the fact. It ain't going to happen in 2026 because Ukrainian nationalism has been revivified. Nobody wants to be on the Russian Union. How about this? Thanks to Donald Trump, Zelensky is now what? 10% is popularly went up by 10%. Always have. Always have. You know, look, the best work about Zelensky's flaws, the corruption scandals, all that is done by whom? By Ukrainian journals, Ukrainian news outlets. He is a flawed president, right? He's a good wartime leader. He did what he needed to do, particularly in their early years of the war. But he's a flawed man. And he may not win an election if it were held tomorrow. However, however, the one thing people should learn. And if they haven't by now, they are utterly hopeless. Ukrainians don't like to be pushed around by foreigners. What are they doing? They're fighting against that, literally, on the battlefield right now. And the final point I'll make about this is, and I mentioned earlier, they're not going to go away. They're not going to stop fighting. They're not going to forfeit their agency just because, you know, Agent Orange and the White House told them to. And in 2026, I mean, they have a NATO interoperable military, which we and the Europeans built for them. They fly F-16s. They operate high-mars. They shoot gimmlers. They fire Patriot missile interceptors when they have them. All of those things, plus a homegrown fleet of drones, cruise missiles, and now ballistic missiles. This is one of the most militarized countries in the world. This is not what they were in February 2022, when even Joe Biden said, good luck to you. The best you can hope for is a government in exile in Poland and partisan warfare. So the Russians have another thing coming if they think that we, the United States, Even the all-powerful United States can somehow force a surrender, categorical surrender. It ain't gonna happen. - I think there's a way to kind of put this in context. So, you know, have we hit rock bottom in terms of the US moral standing on this? The answer may be yes, but it's not rock bottom in terms of Ukrainian capabilities, Ukrainian resolve, whatever, as you just outlined. I gotta read what we're gonna do. Start doing Michael, I talked about this before. I'm gonna start reading comments from some of our fans and the listeners. And by the way, I wanna thank everyone who's subscribed to the boardwork, everyone who's listening that response has been overwhelming. And we don't have to talk about metrics and anything like that, but the views and how many people are tuning into this is something that is humbling and it has been extraordinary. But I gotta read this one here because it has to do with you. Are you ready for this? - Oh God. - You know I sent this already. This is from Karen, it's @KLSMD12. She'll be very happy. - You're literally reading a Karen today. - Oh yeah, and she said, need a really angry pod with Michael, please. I think we have delivered. - I think you got it. - We got it, Karen. I had to take a break because I get too close to the subject matter. It happened to me in Syria for 10 years. And I said, never again, I have PTSD from that. Then Ukraine started and I get sucked into it. And you know, the best thing I did this weekend, I took Julia, my 11 year old daughter to go see the Harry Potter show on Broadway. We spent the day together. We were in F.A.O. Schwartz. I didn't look at my phone. - Yeah, you didn't answer my fucking phone call. - You called me like eight or nine times. I said, sorry, not responding. And it was a good emotional cognitive reset for me. - I think it was probably at the VNN. So I wanted to kind of go over this. But I think this has been, well, first of all, good on you for doing a little kind of mental health break. Very important. - And it also, it's important to have analytical clarity. - And give it a couple of days too. I mean, what the Greek, but the Stoics, my people, the Greeks always used to say is, you know, when you're pissed, give it a couple of days before you respond. And something that, by the way, I never adhere to. But by default, it was smart for us to give 48 hours or so for the record this pod. And you're still angry enough to respond to Karen's plea for an angry pod. - For me to have any kind of dispassion at object, I mean, I'm half Irish and half Jewish. So good luck to you now. Like you have the plate throwing Mediterranean background. I've got the ethnic New York one, right? - Let's do one thing just before we break. We're not gonna have time for this, but I want to do a teaser for the next episode because Iran is still always on the agenda. And I just want to note for the listeners, I think you've probably seen reports that Pete Heggseth made a surprise visit to Israel, met with the Israeli leadership. There were also reports that there was a member from the United Arab Emirates at this little confab in the desert. Nobody really knows exactly what was discussed, was this signal, was this noise? We're not gonna get into it now, 'cause we're running out of time. But I think for next episode, we've got to jump in to back into the notion of Iran. Ukraine has obviously dominated thinking, but the Iran, the war in Iran is not over. Certainly possible rooms for miscalculation, but we'll dive into that next week when we do the bulwark takes once again. I want to thank everyone for listening. If you love the show, please do subscribe. As we say, every week in November, the debut of the reporter and the spy. Who's the reporter and who's the spy here? I'm the spy, you're the reporter. We gotta be careful on that. - Slap that on my Wikipedia page, that's fine. - We gotta have some, the bulwark's gotta do some swag for us by the way. - I'm still in one of the hats, it's the least I can get. - I'm still a reporter in the spy swag. That's gonna be, that's gonna be some lectures. - Oh yeah, that's cool. - And so that will start at debut in November, but we will be back next week for another episode of bulwark takes. Michael, thank you so much. Good luck in DC. You're down at center of the resistance. I'm back here at the deep state headquarters at the Vienna Inn, so we actually need a little, probably need a cove, some covert communications. We need a little cove comm link between the bulwark and the Vienna Inn to kind of, you know. - Carry your pigeons, man. - There you go. - Yeah. - Thanks everyone. We'll see you next week.