NATO's already off the table he's not they're not getting in NATO anyway and to think that literally they could have kept everything except Crimea they could would have lost Crimea kept the Integrity of the rest of Ukraine just agreed to not join NATO and all these people I mean the country wouldn't have had to be destroyed all these conscripted troops on both sides wouldn't have had to die it's just it really is like maddening okay so let's let's jump right into this uh um this the latest because this really is and it's you know we've been living through such a crazy few years in this country and I as someone who does a show I talk about this a lot but when you do a show about the news it's almost like there's something crazy every single day to talk about and there's always like a new thing and it's it's sometimes it's a challenge to kind of like zoom out and see things from you know like a a Transcendent position and like 10,000 ft above looking down this th this meeting with zilinsky and Trump in the Oval Office was one of those things where it's like this is this was really truly remarkable uh I've never seen anything quite like it in my life and it's just I was I want to get your thoughts on it and then we could get into the kind of what's come after but I you know I my first thought on it was just that this was I it's got to be like the greatest political strategic blunder I've ever seen and I I I don't you know I've I've read a lot about this conflict I don't necessarily have like a a good understanding of who zalinski is but I don't know like what your thoughts on that like who was in his ear why did he think this would be a good move and what when you're in a position where you're totally dependent on Donald Trump the idea that you would come in and try to like out Alpha him on live television and in a language that you don't really speak and to think that was going to go well for you I mean like what were you thinking when you first saw it well I mean yeah I was a bit just in disbelief fact the second time I watched it I finally found the clip of the whole deal the 40 minute long discussion leading up to it and everything um and you know I was impressed the first time but the second time I watched I was like wow I really had not remembered just how bad it was the him attempting to shout down Trump and talk over Trump in that way that's pretty remarkable I think well we got two choices right one is he just couldn't stand anymore and he had to blurt something stupid out and he's like kicking himself now which I think is the less likely explanation or that this was you know a planned political move that he made because essentially what was happening was Trump was saying we're going to call this ceasefire that's what we're going to do we're going to we want a deal where the fighting stopped implying of course then that everyone accepts that the lines are where they're drawn now right and potentially um maybe in negotiations they would even grow right because as it stands now Russia still doesn't control 100% of donet nor of um zpra or kerson although they do control I believe virtually all of luhansk um and some of arke but so this is zilinski I think had already decided that Trump was throwing him overboard and wasn't going to keep supporting him in war anyway and that I don't know what the deal the minerals is is hardly worth anything we can talk a little bit more about that but that's basically a red herring um for the most part but um so I think his decision was that instead of cut and running from the war he just wanted to cut and run from the United States and say fine because of course if America stops backing him we can't really make a a deal with Russia to end the war if Ukraine's not willing to end the war and we can call off all support and then they will be you know in a much tougher situation but it won't just be like the Tali walking right into Cobble or anything like that the Russians will still have a fight on their hands um at least for a time and so zilinski apparently is betting then that he can just turn to the Europeans and essentially bet on their Center left you know um last status quo position you know the the common call it whatever you want the the woke standard of the Biden Administration um and that they will you know distance themselves from Trump who who is you know oh he's the Rogue and the the right-wing Nationalist and so they are left they're calling um you know Kier starmer is that how you pronounce it they're calling him the leader of the Free World now because Donald Trump is the isolation is turning his back on Europe and all this which is you know vast hyperbole on both counts but you do have it it's kind of funny to see right the British the French and the Germans are talking about well and think the polls as well we're not going to sell you out we're going to continue to back you no matter what Ukraine and with the British prime minister even promising with boots and planes he said and I would be worried about that except that I just don't believe him I think Europeans have already all admitted that without the United States to guarantee their guarantees they have nothing to offer really uh the British can't fight a war on the continent and uh I don't think the Germans really are coming and and willing to risk that level of War over eastern Ukraine and without support from the United States and knowing that they don't have it so um you know I agree with you that it was ultimately a strategic blunder um I think it was deliberate but I think it was a huge mistake because just like um the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff uh the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff uh Admiral Mike Mullen and the then current chairman of the joint Chief's Staff Mark Millie had said back in September of or October of 2002 I guess even still in September they said this is as good as it's going to get for you quit now while you're only this far behind it's time to come to the table and negotiate and you know we already knew what happened but it there's a profile of Anthony blin the outgoing Secretary of State here in the New York Times where they call him Secretary of War and they talk about how of course it was he and the state department weenies that won over Biden and won the argument in the government that no we need to extend the war and remember then they were going to launch the winter offensive which became the spring offensive which finally when they launched it was the summer offensive and got nowhere and just got a whole bunch of people killed for nothing and this was the big gamble that blinkin had made to continue the war when the four stars were saying it's all downhill from here so you got a good then they did by the way you know the the occasion at the time Dave was that on the weekend of September 11th ukrainians had done this great faint and had made major gains in harke Province and or you know oblast and also down in kerson where they had essentially uh forc the Russians back to the Southern and Eastern side of the river there and so um that was you know to their credit but then that was all they were going to get and all the you know the actual reasonable pundits on this knew it at the time too everybody wise who you would turn to for any opinion on this kind of thing at all that you could find all said the same thing which was even Mark Millie is saying quit now which that should have been all you need to know yeah really I mean it's it's wild to think about and I guess this is just I'm like I don't know I'm I guess I'm old enough now that I've lived through like nine Wars or you know whatever it's it's been and it is amazing how they just all follow this pattern where it's like okay you first of all everybody uh hyperventilates about this imagined worst case scenario there never really seems to be an onus on you to to demonstrate that it's a likelihood or anything like that but you know whatever Saddam Hussein's about to give the weapons he doesn't have off to the terrorists that he's not friends with and then Kansas gets nuked and you know with this war it's been constantly you know Vladimir Putin's going to reconstitute the Soviet Union he's going to move on Poland he's going to do all these things then there's just lie after lie after lie uh you know Pro in this war there was I mean the ghosts of Kiev and you know Vladimir Putin blew up the nordstream pipeline and just all these things that Syria people in suits and ties say into cameras that're just all completely wrong yeah time on Ukraine's side that was the big right Ukraine is winning Ukraine is winning was constantly being said and then throughout the whole thing um that the Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and blink it all and said that even uh Crimea has to be retaken by the ukrainians as if that was like it even a kind of achievable goal and then as the dust starts to settle you start to look back at the thing you know I I don't know I've seen different estimates of the numbers of dead but it seems to be uh a consensus that it's in High hundreds of thousands at this point um at least well I guess we'll find out more over the years and then you look back and you think about uh how stron Stenberg I always butcher that name but the the head of NATO said himself that in late uh 21 Vladimir Putin actually sent a a draft to Nato to just be like listen here is a deal I will not invade if you just put in writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO and to think about that that that like how much better that deal would have been for zalinski than what he's like NATO's already off the table he's not they're not getting in NATO anyway and to think that literally they could have kept everything except Crimea they weren't getting Crimea back at that point but whatever they could would have lost Crimea kept the Integrity of the rest of Ukraine just agreed to not join NATO and all these people I mean the country wouldn't have had to be destroyed all these con red troops on both sides wouldn't have had to die it's just it really is like maddening when you when you look at it in totality