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Latest Interview of Elon Musk, Interviewing Senators! · Elon Musk Thinking

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They say that this is why we should not have any accounting of how the
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money is spent. Yeah, Elan, it's judy. And here's the basic
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argument. It's that we have to rush resources to Ukraine immediately or they're liable
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to fall to Russian aggression. And it's all basically an argument made under the
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gun that unless you approve this appropriation of resources and weapons, then you will
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allow Russia to win. So it's a kind of moral blackmail. And you
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know, every negative story that comes out of Ukraine, every item of corruption
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that David and Mike have just pointed to, these things sort of get brushed
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under the rug. And if you don't support this, then you want Vladimir
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Putin to win. And that's the moral framing here. So the other argument
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that you sometimes hear folks make, Elon is that the money has been entirely
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well accounted for. And even some of our Senate Republican colleagues, in private
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and meetings with a bomb administration senior sorry Biden administration senior officials, will say,
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well, well, this has been the most properly accounted for money in
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the history of any American conflict. It doesn't even pass the smell test,
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and they'll admit to you that it's a complete lie when you push them on
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it. But it becomes this sort of sunk cost fallacy where these guys can't
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admit that there is corruption, they can't admit that there's no strategy, they
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can't admit that this isn't going well because if they admitted that, it would
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cause too much psychological harm and it has to cut bait. Well, what
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about even retroactive examination. You know, if there's an urgency for the money,
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the one can understand, okay, the you know, if your crane's
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going to fall a pot without saying the money, then there should at least
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be a subsequent accounting and accountability for where the funds are sent and prosecution and
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where there is corruption. That's where they fall back on the argument that the
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money's already properly accounted for. It's a bit of a logical whack a mole
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where you say, you know, and you know, Mike and I and
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Josh Holly and I have had amendments to this effect where you appoint a special
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Investigator general because that similar figure uncovered a ton of corruption that was unknowned Afghanistan,
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and the argument is you need to actually embolden an independent accountant to David's
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point, to go in there and look at the corruption. The response you
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get then as well, you don't actually need it because the money's already properly
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accounted for. I think in reality what's going on is that folks appreciate that
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if we did have a Fullthome inquiry into corruption Ukraine, it would completely erode
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what little public will existed. So you're always sort of dealing with what seemed
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to be bad faith arguments because I think if people dealt with the truth,
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then the political support for this thing would evaporate. Say to Elon, this
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is the set of Ron Johnson. Can I just add a comment here?
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Sure? One of the depraved justifications for all this spending is that it's really
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not going over to Ukraine. It's helping build our industrial base and so it's
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creating jobs in your state. And I call that a deprave justification because that's
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exactly what it is in terms of accountability. I just read your the book
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from Walter Isaacson, and I was very intrigued by your idiot index and one
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of the things I've one of things I pointed out in to my colleagues and
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didn't have much of an impact. For example, the one hundred and fifty
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five millimeters shells that Russia can produce about four and a half million of them,
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We're not even up to a million a year. Okay, Russia,
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they're producing those a six hundred dollars shell, which I would say probably sales
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are pretty high idiot index in the US or in the West, it costs
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US five to six thousand a shell. So I mean, I've got more
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to say, have a different perspective having been to Ukraine a lot, But
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I just want to add that in terms of accountability, we spend and you
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know, we waste so much money in our military industrial complex, and our
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colleagues really don't want to dig into it because they're the ones voting for this
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eight hundred and eighty billion dollars. And that's one of the questions I asked
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too, is well, why don't what do we get for the eight hundred
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and eighty billion dollars? And if we're going to spend sixty on Ukraine,
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can't we spend less somewhere else? And that's just not even on the table.
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Can I ask a follo up question about the ammunition issue. What we're
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talking about here is artillery ammunition. The war in Ukraine is it's a war
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of attrition in which the main weapon is artillery. And one of the reasons
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why the Ukrainians are losing, really the main reason is that they're massively outgunned
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by the Russians. I've seen reports that the Russians are expending something like ten
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thousand artillery shells a day and the Ukrainians have at most about two thousand shells
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that they can use per day. This is why the Biden administration sent cluster
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bombs to Ukraine several months ago, because they said that Ukraine was out of
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the one hundred and fifty five millimeters artillery ammunition. I guess, I guess
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the Pentagon has been trying to increase production of artillery shells, but we still
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produce nowhere near enough. I think we've basically increased our production. I've seen
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reports from about fourteen thousand month to about twenty two thousand a month, which
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is really that's only a two or three day supply in the Ukraine War,
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And like you were alluding to, Senator Johnson, the Pentagon, I think
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they have a goal of twenty twenty to get production to about eighty five thousand
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shells a month. So we're nowhere close to being able to ramp up production
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to the needs of Ukraine in this war. So I guess my question for
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you is, even if we do appropriate another sixty billion, you know,
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we can print more money, but we can't print more artillery shells. That
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just takes years and years. So how is this money going to help Ukraine
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to win a war that, again they're losing because it's an artillery duel.
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First of all, I think we all have to understand that Vladimir Putin will
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not lose a swar I stayed bad way as opposed to Ukraine can win.
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Vlatdimir Putin will not lose. Losing to Vlatimir Putin is existential. To Vladimir
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Putin. They rush is four times the population, they have a much larger
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industrial base. Again, I said Russia can produce four point five million of
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those shells a year. We're not even up to a million a year.
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The average age of a Ukrainian soldier right now is forty three years old.
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And David, I heard you quote the Time magazine article. There are other
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quotes from some of the tops somestops aids say that even if the US and
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his allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, quote, we
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don't have the men to use them unquote. So the fact of the matter
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is, if you're worried about the people of Ukraine, you have to understand
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that probably about one hundred thousand of their soldiers have been killed because there have
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been about one hundred thousand Russian conscripts. I take no joy in that forty
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thousand civilians, hundreds of billions of dollars of Ukraine has been destroyed. The
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only way this war ends is in a settlement. And every day that the
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war goes on, more Ukrainians, more Russian conscripts die, more civilians die,
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more of Ukrainian gets destroyed. They'll have to be built. So again,
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sending sixty billion dollars has added few of the flames of a bloody stalemate.
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Makes no sense whatsoever. As evil a war criminals putin is He's not
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going to lose this war, and our colleagues here just aren't willing to accept
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that reality, and they're living in a fantasy world think that Ukraine can win
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this thing. They can't David, that's exactly right. I think that that
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is an excellent summary of the situation. When I raised this point, people
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of course accused me of being some sort of polity, when in fact my
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companies have probably done more to make I mean, undermine Russia than anything.
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I mean, SpaceX's has taken away two thirds of the Russian launch business,
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the overwhelmingly helped Ukraine. I mean, it's a such an episode accusation.
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My concern is exactly where you articulated. If you have an extended war of
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attrition, every day that goes by, there are Ukrainian boys that are and
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not even boyis Ingmo because they're running out of boys. That you're losing.
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Ukraine's losing people every day. And if you're going to spend lives, it
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must be for a purpose and not just you know, a mile here,
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a mile there. In fact, a mile and back forth. The lines
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aren't moving, so just every day people die for what purpose? And as
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you said, there is no way in hell that Putin is going to lose.
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If he were to back off, he would be assassinated. And for
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those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the
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person that should take out Putin, and is that person likely to be a
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peace neck. Probably not. They're probably going to be even even more hardcore
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than Putin if they took him out. So yeah, yeah, So I'm
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going to jump in with one freight just point that leaves up where you lined
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there was just I think there's an issue with our framing here. I think
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most of us here, and it is too bad because I think I publicly
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called, and Elon did, and others did. I think JD tried to
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get somebody in here to articulate the best of the other side. So hopefully,
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for as long as we go, that offer remains open. But with
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that being said, I think that the framing even here amongst those of us
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who agree on a post using this bill, is a little too charitable,
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actually, right, because I think that if there's good number of Democrats,
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good number of Republicans whore in favor of more funding to Ukraine, endless funding
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to Ukraine, but I think those who are generally against it point to what
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we think of as absence of what we will get from the added investment.
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Right, that's the argument that goes. Okay, the ROI is lower than
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the acceptable level of return for US taxpayer dollars, and what are we getting
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in return for the money we're putting it. I actually think that's the wrong
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framing. I think it is actually net negative for the United States to continue
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funding this war, irrespective of the financial cost, for some of the reasons
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Elon just laid out. First of all, if you are shooting for regime
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change in Russia, which I do believe is the ideological goal here, the
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net result you're likely to get is actually one that is far worse than Putin
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who's leading Russia. Play that out and the second result and the result that
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you're getting right now in real time. So regime change absolutely, and you're
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not supposed to say it out loud, but it's worth smoking out. That
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is the only ultimate stated goal of this project. So you're playing for an
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outcome that odds are is worse than the one you already have for the United
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States. But even worse is what you're seeing in the present is a daily
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strengthening of the military alliance between Russia and China, which when combined, is
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the single greatest increase for the risk of World War III that we've seen in
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the post World War two era, and is a risk that by definition then
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increases the risk of the continued existence of the United States should that world war
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actually, God forbid transpire. And I'm not saying it's likely to happen.
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Any risk or any more than minuscule risk of that happening is an unacceptable risk,
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and we are actively increasing the risk of that worst case outcome, not
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just through the loss of financial dollars for ourselves, but irrespective of that financial
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cost, we are contributing to the increase of that risk versus a diplomatic resolution.
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So then the question is, you know, and I know, it's
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too bad we don't have somebody from the other side here, But we can
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ask the question of why you know, We can ask the same question.
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We can pretend this was a discussion about the border right now and have the
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same discussion about why do we have an open border on our southern border.
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And I think that there's a deliberateness to all of this, right, And
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if you miss I think the deliberate nature of this nothing makes sense. But
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I think if you understand that, I think everything makes sense. The question
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of David, right, why are we contributing intentionally without accounting for known corruption
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there's a certain deliberate goal here, just as there is with our own southern
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border right now. Right you can throw your hands in the air and ask
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why is it that we are purposefully or why is it that we're negligently allowing
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millions of people to cross our own southern border. That doesn't make sense unless
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you realize that's actually part of the objective. And I think the same thing
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goes for this Ukraine war. And I think that's why JD's finding in the
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last twenty four hours is so interesting, is that one of the apparently deliberate
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elements here is that and I don't think it's even the main one, but
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I think it's at least a feature that reflects a certain deliberate course of action.
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Is that they're planning the seeds for what does seem to be the third
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impeachment of Donald Trump. And so, you know, I mean, I'm
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going to lay out what my actual position is, which probably shouldn't matter because
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unlike JD and like Lee and Ron Johnson, who are actually successful in getting
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elected to the positions they ran for which I was not, you know,
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perhaps my view on this should matter less. But I'm going to lay it
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out anyway. I don't think that our position should be getting border security into
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the bill as a condition. I think we need to force border security and
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not send money to Ukraine without co mingling a compromise on either of those things.
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But I think the gambit or the play here that would be interesting,
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And I'd love to hear JD's and Ron's and Mike's reaction to this is like,
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just I mean, because you guys have a vote. What tonight is
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it, JD? Or is it tomorrow night? Right? Yeah, so
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just in the interest of the super near term, I mean, here's a
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gambit that you know. I don't favor this as a matter of policy,
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but I favor this as a matter of negotiation. Is you know, the
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play is here. Okay, we had this whole discussion about border funding,
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and what I found so ridiculous about that last Border Attached bill is they got
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to name it a border bill when actually there was three times more funding going
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to protecting the border of Ukraine than our own southern border. When in fact,
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even in our own southern border's case, the real failure is the failure
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to enforce the existing laws like remain in Mexico, which is still the law
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of the land. I wonder if the following would be an interesting wrench here,
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and I doubt the other side would go for it, but it'd be
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interesting to smoke out what the intentions are, what the deliberate nature of all
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of this is, say, okay, here's the border deal. We want
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not even more funding. A precondition for passing this is a commitment from the
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Biden administration to enforce existing laws, including remain in Mexico, tangible evidence has
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table stakes for talking about any further funding to Ukraine. And then on the
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funding to Ukraine, it's metered out over time and it is completely discretionary at
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the level of the US Commander in chief the US President that they know that
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if it's metered out over time, right, it's not going to go out.
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And President Trump is able to then be at the table to negotiate an
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end to this. He can use the withholding of those funds as one of
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the levers and what will be a complex negotiation. To be clear, I'm
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dead set opposed to giving another dime to Ukraine. I think we need a
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peaceful resolution right now. But pragmatically speaking, I think that's I think the
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way we bring the border into This is less about the token funding to the
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border, which really I think is likely to go to not be enforced anyway.
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If the current administration is not enforcing the existing laws on the books,
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I think that biloves us to wonder whether they're going to enforce a new law
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that we put on the books to say that's table stakes for having the discussion
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is seeing at least existing enforcement of the border laws of our own border,
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and if we are going to fund Ukraine and JD. This is the piece
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that I think maybe smokes out the gem of a finding that you fed your
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team or you found in the last couple of days, is to say that
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we're going to meter this out and if there is a new president that is
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going to negotiate piece in Ukraine as we think actually needs to happen, then
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we're going to actually make this discretionary of that president to actually do. So
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what do you think? This is very similar? This is Mike Lee,
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This is very similar to what all Republican senators agreed to do months ago.
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We're dragging like three months ago was just to say we're not going to give
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it another dime to Ukraine until at a minimum such time, we shouldn't even
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consider it until such time as the president's enforcing existing laws already on the books
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that already give him the power to enforce the border, just as they did
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empower Generald Trump to do it, and he used it to enforce the border.
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That's what we committed to three months ago. We were then told that
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we would see a bill that was being negotiated as soon as it was ready.
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That took three or four months to negotiate. We were demanding to see
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language the entire time it was kept from us. We saw it for the
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first time Sunday night at seven pm Eatern time. It was woefully deficient.
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In fact, he didn't even match the description of what we had added to
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begin with. It didn't do anything to harness the fervor in favor of Ukraine,
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aid to leverage that to put us in a position where Biden was forced
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to secure the border, and so we demanded that it do so before we
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proceed. What's tragedic here, Vivik, is that although every single Republican senator
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agreed to that, and every single Republican senator a post cloture on the motion
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to proceed to this a couple months ago, with that commitment under in mind
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that we made to each other and to our voters, team of our Senate
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Republican colleagues have now backed away from that and have supported cloture at various stages
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of this bill, supporting this bill without anything, without any commitment, without
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any promise, without any leverage over the President, without conditioning the release of
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any Ukraine funding on this, even though a majority of our conference supported that
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and expressed that apparently they were directed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell not to
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even bring this up in the conversations. The fact that we learned only recently
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this is exactly why we've got to get out of this. This is exactly
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why we have to oppose quoture on this, and we have to defeat this.
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So we look at the incentives, But why did these guys do it?
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Fidelity does matter more than the facts and the internal reward from committee chairs
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and Pentagon elites to fill the void after Afghanistan. This is fertilizer for the
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ego of a precious few around here. Look, we don't say no anymore,
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in part because we've just taken to this nasty habit of printing money like
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there's no tomorrow, and it's yes to the foolish and yes to the frenzied,
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yes to the blind. We need to reset, and not a minute
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too soon. We need Senators to become aware of and willing to exercise yet
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again, their privileges, their prerogatives under the Senate rules. I've been working
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on a project to inform them of that, and I'd love to talk about
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that on another occasion. But look, no, no, it is absolutely
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the position. But I think if you're to just smoke out and isolate this
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sort of new issue, which I find pretty fascinating in the last day that
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Jaden, that memo that JD put out, what do you think would be
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the respon? I mean, I guess you guys have time to try it.
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You're in a position to say, all right, if the funding is
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if no, our position is we think a piece deal needs to be negotiated
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now. But that's up to the US president and that isn't happening. We
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are hopefully going to have a new US president in about eleven months, all
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right, so that funding is sufficiently metered out, then most of it doesn't
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go out the door in the next eleven months, and if the next US
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president is at the table, then at least he has the flexibility to use
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this as a lever. What do you think would happen. Do you think
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that those colleagues would say, oh, this urgent funding for Ukraine is so
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important to achieve our goals, which I haven't disagree with, but they would
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say it's so important to achieve our goals that we're going to say yes,
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and that yes, that's that important that even if Donald Trump can revisit this
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when he's the next president, he has the total discretion to do that.
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Make it discretionary rather than non discretionary. What would they say, you know,
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no, we're not going to go for that. They and they rehiques
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to do it as long as they have an open opportunity to do this at
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a lower price, as long as they don't have to jump through those hurdles.
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The Democrats are never going to have negotiate on that. And as long
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as we've got eighteen Republicans or more than ten in the current climate, on
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this bill, then we are never going to get to that moment because they
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can get what they want more cheaply from them. And that's why there's a
19:15
net what these guys are doing. There's both a procedural answer and a substance
19:19
answer to your question. To Mike's point, the procedural answer is that you
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can't even force the debate that you're suggesting unless some of these eighteen Republicans flip
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and join with the majority of the conference. So long as they're willing to
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end debate with the Democrats, which is what tonight's vote is, you don't
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even get an opportunity to present this to the conference, to force the end
19:41
of votes and so forth. So really, this is why the vote tonight
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is so important. Is you're just trying PRISTI give some space to breathe for
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the argument that we're making now substantively. Do I think they accept the argument?
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I actually don't think that they do. The vacant The reason is unfortunately
19:56
quite simple. There is a sub set of the Republican Conference that it's terrified
20:02
that Donald Trump actually means what he says, and that when he is the
20:07
elected president in January twenty twenty five and takes office, he will enforce some
20:11
measure of diplomacy and bring the war to a rapid close. I actually think
20:15
the intentional thing here is to handcuff him as much as possible. And I
20:19
think I made this observation before you joined VIC, but I'll repeat it because
20:22
it's important. The Washington Post is openly reporting administration officials leaking that they want
20:30
to handcuff the next president. That Biden people are terrified that Donald Trump will
20:34
win and that he will not pursue Biden's foreign policy or the Neokan foreign policy
20:40
on Ukraine. They are trying to constrain him substantively. I don't think they
20:45
would take the deal because they want to do the thing that we're terrified they're
20:48
doing right, And so that's why I think it's at least worth smoking that
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out so everybody can see it in plain sight. You'll have to sort of
20:56
publicly expose the eighteen Republicans rather than doing it procedurally with how the mechanics work
21:02
in the Senate. But that's the point I was making JDS with respect to
21:04
both the border, where part of what they're doing to borrow Elon's language is
21:08
they're importing votes and stopping and want to stop the export of votes. That
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explains what's happening in the southern border debate. And here with respect to Ukraine,
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it is about actually constrain the degrees of freedom that Donald Trump will have
21:21
as the next president in negotiating an end to this war. And so when
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you see that, it's actually each of these seemingly separate and otherwise inexplicable policies
21:29
like how could this be the policy in our southern border? How could this
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actually be the position that we're taking to Ukraine to fork over more money without
21:36
an iota of accountability for the one hundred billion dollars that we've already sent.
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It's actually all explained through I think a simple version of politics, not Republican
21:44
versus Democrat politics, non Trump versus Trump politics in Washington, d C.
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To say that, how do we a minimize the chance that he's elected president?
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That's what the border policies are about, and how do we actually ensure
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that the degrees of freedom, if elected, are as constrained as they possibly
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can be before he assumes office. And I think that when you just try
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that filter on right as like a lens, let's just say, it's like
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a different lens with like a different you know, filter. To me,
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at least, that seems like a more parsimonious explanation of what's happening, and
22:15
if that is correct, right, it sounds rather you know, conspiratorial and
22:18
far fetched to somebody wh's hearing it for the first time, but it actually
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just makes sense if you look at why exactly they're operating the way they are.
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It's advantage, it's advancing a political incentive. Then I think the question
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is how do you most effectively at least smoke that out so everybody can see
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it, actually name that problem, and then I think it becomes very difficult
22:37
for those eighteen Republicans to continue to hold on to their position, which was
22:41
far less grounded in anything else other than being terrified of really changing the world
22:45
order. After you know, Trump is able to negotiate an end of this
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war Bible, let me quit clarify this, Okay, Mike laid it out,
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but just very simply, when we entered this thing, McConnell, whose
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top priority was is funding for Ukraine, but public opinion and the very strong
23:03
political rhetoric that we ought to secure our own border before we spend sixty billion
23:07
dollars to secure Ukraine's was effective, and so McConnell finally switched and said,
23:14
okay, we got to let Democrats know we're serious. We're going to defeat
23:17
cloture on this bill, and we're we're going to demand the borer of security
23:21
is going to be attached to funding for Ukraine. Then secret negotiations occurred on
23:25
an issue that the public supports Republicans on, and we end up with this
23:30
monstrosity of a bill and the immigration bills, not a border security bill.
23:33
But during that timeframe, we repeatedly talked about making Ukraine funding contingent on border
23:41
metrics, you know, just like performance measurements in business. Right as the
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border was secured, you'd get five billion dollars a month. I mean,
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we had it all laid out, had a proposal, It had a great
23:52
deal support in our conference. But what Mike pointed out is unbeknownst to us
23:56
at the time, McConnell told Langford that's not even on the table. He
24:03
on his own, using his own authority, without telling the confidence, even
24:07
though he knowed that knew the conference supported tying border security or Ukraine funding to
24:12
actually securing the border. McConnell just took that off the table, and that
24:15
moment of leverage we had where we could use Biden's desire for Ukraine funding to
24:22
actually force him to use his executive authority to secure the border has been lost,
24:27
and that is why so many of us are speaking out against McConnell.
24:30
He was such a breach of his leadership position and it's such a just a
24:37
horrible thing to do to Americans who want a secure border. But that's where
24:41
we're at. So again, I think it has been smoked out. Now
24:45
the action moves to the House and I've been talking to the Speaker and to
24:48
Chairman Jordan. We need the House to step up the plate and say that
24:52
no, you're not going to get any funding for Ukraine until we secure our
24:56
border. They've got to stand strong, and as the messaging now has,
25:00
most of public pressure asks be directed toward the House. So Ron, I
25:04
want to jump in and go back to some of you and Elon were discussing
25:07
earlier, just because I think it gets to the strategy of where do we
25:10
go from here in Ukraine. And you know, it's always challenging to psychoanalyze
25:15
people, but I think much of what is going on with Ukraine policy is
25:18
you're trying to insulate neocons and liberal internationalists and the Biden administration from actually dealing
25:26
with the consequences of their decisions. And so if you just go back to
25:29
sort of eight nine, ten months ago, the consensus in the Biden administration
25:33
I spoke about this privately with Secretary Blincoln, was we are going to put
25:38
the Russians all the way back to the nineteen ninety one borders. The counter
25:41
offensive is going to be wildly successful, and that's what we're trying to do.
25:45
Of course, that didn't pan out. So now what is their argument
25:48
for the strategy. The argument for the strategy is that if we throw enough
25:52
money and resources and weapons at Ukraine, they will somehow reach a point where
25:57
the Russians are tired of fighting and we'll come to the negotiating table. And
26:02
of course we've learned pretty conclusively that they were. The Russians were at the
26:04
negotiating table in April of twenty twenty two when Blincoln and Boris Johnson refused to
26:10
negotiate with them. So we're witnessing the complete collapse of America's strategic capacity in
26:18
the defensive word. I mean, can you imagine in World War Two if
26:22
you had a president the United States saying we just want to throw weapons at
26:26
an ally until hopefully, maybe someday they can get their enemies to negotiate with
26:30
them. It's shocking that's where we are, and it's why, frankly,
26:33
I agree with Favek that it's not just diminishing returns. We're at the point
26:37
of negative returns with money spent in Ukraine. I am sort of okay with
26:44
saying no to both Ukraine, yes to the border. I recognize that we
26:48
have to have some negotiation here, but we really have to be honest about
26:52
how insane this policy is and completely divorced from strategic capacity. If your explicit
26:57
strategy is weight vladre Putin out until he comes to the negotiating table. When
27:03
you are outmatched in manpower and weaponry, you're clinically insane. So JD,
27:08
let me add one more piece of information. Because I was Chairman of the
27:11
European subcass End Formulations or ranking member for periody ten years, so I've been
27:17
over to Ukraine a lot. I was the only member of Congress that went
27:19
to Zelensky's inauguration. I returned a few months later with Senator Murphy and talked
27:25
to Zelensky at that point in time, Zolensky wanted to do a peace agreement
27:30
with Putin. This was when Putin already illegally an ex crimea and was in
27:34
firm control of eastern Ukraine. He knew at the time there was no way
27:37
he was going to dislodge Putin. He knew it wouldn't be popular, but
27:41
he wanted to do a peace agreement. His position's even worse right now.
27:45
So I just point that out, that Zolensky wanted peace. I don't think
27:49
yeah, I think it's just tragic that the US is using Ukraine as the
27:55
pawns in their proxy war with Russia and Ukraine's being destroyed as the resulted.
28:00
That can I just as me to that. I'm old enough to remember when
28:04
the Senate and Congress passed the first one hundred and thirteen billion dollars for Ukraine,
28:08
and I remember very clearly that what was claimed about that funding is that
28:14
it would be used by the Ukrainians to evict the Russians from their territory,
28:18
that there would be a successful spring or summer counter offensive and the Russians be
28:23
pushed out of Ukraine. That was the objective, and that money was spent
28:27
and the Ukrainians were defeated in the counter offensive. It completely failed. Now
28:33
they're out of soldiers, were out of artillery ammunition, and the lines are
28:37
buckling, and like Jad said, were there's no clear objective for this new
28:44
sixty one billion dollars. No one is now claiming that this money will succeed
28:49
in getting the Russians out of Ukraine. No one's even proposing that victory in
28:55
this war isn't objective anymore. All they're saying is what we see to appropriate
28:59
this money because we want to avoid defeat, or we want to get to
29:03
a negotiating position with the Russians, which like you guys are saying, we
29:07
had at the beginning of the war, we had an Istanbul, a draft
29:11
agreement that was signed by the Ukrainians. David R. A. Kamiya,
29:15
who is a leader of the Ukrainian delegation, said they had a deal.
29:18
Alexei Aristovich, who worked for the Zelenski at that time, said they were
29:22
popping champagne bottles because they had a deal. And then Boris Johnson flew into
29:27
Kiev and all of a sudden the deal fell apart. So it seems like
29:32
all we're trying to do now is appropriate money to get back to the place
29:36
that we already had for free at the beginning of this war, which is
29:40
a negotiation with the Russians. I guess my question for all of you centators
29:44
is could we get a real investigation, like some congressional oversight, a congressional
29:49
investigation of what exactly happened in that sort of March April period at the beginning
29:56
of the war where again they had a draft agree in Istanbul and then Boris
30:02
Johnson came in and the Ukrainians walked away. I mean, I would love
30:06
for the congress field to ask real questions at the Administration in its oversight capacity,
30:11
asking what was your involvement and sabotaging that deal? Yeah, David,
30:15
so obviously that's suppoor congressional oversight. But we have to be honest here about
30:19
how many of our colleagues seem dead set against real oversight. And you know,
30:25
Ron john I'm very curious to your sort of take on this because I
30:27
have a number of conversations with colleagues with Department of Defense officials, and it's
30:33
really weird to me how they simultaneously say we know where all the money is
30:37
going. And also we refuse to do any independent oversight. You know,
30:41
if they know all the money is going, then they might as well just
30:44
acceed to the independent oversight, because it would make people like me much more,
30:48
you know, at least sympathetic to the fact that we knew where our
30:51
resources were going, even if I don't agree that they should be going there
30:53
in the first place. But I'm just curious, Ron, why are they
30:56
so resistant to this. We've tried to do it, We've tried to force
31:00
amendment votes. They are dead set against oversight. I don't get it.
31:03
Well, they don't want to admit they're wrong. I think an awful big
31:07
push of this administration is just get Ukraine past the election. You know,
31:11
House Republicans would have to be doing the oversight. You know, I'll use
31:15
COVID as an example. Nobody wants to admit what a miserable failure I response
31:21
was COVID. No nobody wants to admit that the vaccines that they pushed on
31:25
their constituents, that they did videos recommending mighty killed some of their constituents.
31:30
Sin. The same dynamic is curring here with Ukraine. Nobody wants to admit
31:33
that we completely wasted over one hundred and ten billion dollars. So the way
31:37
you don't have to admit failure is you keep pushing more money, pretending that
31:41
it's a success. So I got I think it's just that basic human Tennessee.
31:45
Nobody wants to admit they're or wrong. And again, one of the
31:48
ways you do it is just do keep doing the same thing over and over
31:52
again and hope nobody really causy on it. Yeah, I think that's exactly
31:56
right. I mean, again, no one is even proposing that victory is
32:00
the objective here. No one's claiming that we're going to win the war because
32:05
of the sixty billion, or that Ukraine will push the Russians out of their
32:08
territory. No one is even bothering to articulate an objective here other than not
32:15
losing. You know. But again, even if we appropriate this money,
32:20
the Ukrainians are losing an ammunition war. We can't produce enough to solve that
32:25
bomb for them in any reasonable time frame. And moreover, they're out of
32:29
soldiers. You know, there's videos on Twitter that I'll post in this room
32:32
of Ukrainian men being literally rounded up off the street. I read a case
32:37
of guy in his fifties went out to get a haircut and he was impressed
32:43
into service, and the next week he ended up in the front lines in
32:45
Ukraine. This is what's happening right now, is people are being rounded up
32:49
off the streets to fight in a losing war, to keep it going for
32:52
just a few more days or weeks or months, so that the people went
32:57
to this point don't have to take any accountability for the failure of this policy.
33:00
There's one point I would add to if that makes it even worse,
33:04
David, because this bill allows an additional seven point eight billion dollars in presidential
33:08
draw down as shorty to set our own weapon stockpiles over there, and it
33:12
simultaneously lets the Department of Defense enter into contracts for another thirteen point seven billion
33:17
dollars. That's over twenty billion dollars in weapons we're going to send over there.
33:22
That thirteen point seven billion. A new contracting authority does not require the
33:25
Biden administration to prioritize our own weapons needs. Remember, we've depleted a lot
33:30
of our own stockpiles to use for our own national defense in anything that might
33:36
happen that might require us to use them. So not only are these weapons
33:39
as we stand today, those weapons are probably four or five years away from
33:44
being produced for US even if we don't pass this bill. If we pass
33:47
this bill, it could easily stretch years beyond that for some of these weapons
33:52
systems with a really long production time. That's deeply concerning because that directly impairs
33:58
our own national security. Yeah. Absolutely, And CSIS, which is a
34:01
military think tank, to an excellent report talking about the long lead times required
34:07
to replenish our arsenals of all these weapons. And we have substantially depleted ourselves
34:13
by giving so much to Ukraine. Like you said, even if the warst
34:15
stopped today, it would take us years to replenish all these thought piles.
34:21
So you know, I continue to give whatever little we make ourselves. Now
34:25
we're jeaparizing our own security and the story of other allies who we may have
34:30
long standing commitments to. David, I want to pick up on that point
34:34
because I don't think people realize how extraordinarily the defense industrial base is in our
34:37
country. But you know, Ron talked about this a little bit, But
34:40
if you look at the most critical weapons supplies for any potential conflict, whether
34:45
it's in Eastern Europe or Asia. There's a lot of overlap. It's not
34:49
complete, but you need things like javelins, you need patriots, you need
34:52
tomahawks, you need those are the missile systems you need one hundred and fifty
34:55
five million meters artillery shells. All of these systems are incredib stressed by the
35:01
Ukraine conflict, and all of them we're depleting. Even with the sixty one
35:07
million dollars worth of investments contemplated in this bill, we're all contemplating spending down
35:12
those resources much faster than we can replenish them under any scenario. It's especially
35:16
troubling if you start to look into the supply chain stuff. I mean,
35:20
I know you guys know a lot about this, but solid rocket motors,
35:23
which are one of the critical components of any of the missile systems that we
35:27
use, they're under an incredible amount of stress. We cannot possibly make enough
35:31
of them to support the missile systems necessary in Europe and to provide for our
35:37
own contingencies if God forbid, you know, some conflict erupted in East Asia
35:40
or somewhere else. So we're actually creating the circumstances where a work could break
35:47
out in some part of the world and we couldn't fight it because we don't
35:51
make enough bullets and we don't have enough missiles. And this is particularly pertinent
35:55
to the argument that Ukraine advocates make that if we somehow give up in Ukraine,
36:01
then she is going to march right into Taiwan. We're going to sort
36:05
of promote an aggressive China by not continuing to fund Ukraine indefinitely. One of
36:09
the classic formulations of foreign policy, to Terrence, is that it's a combination
36:14
of resolve and capacity. These guys are all talking about resolve, about bumping
36:19
out our chests and demanding that the Chinese do this or that, and showing
36:23
that we are going to be with Ukraine for the next five years if it
36:28
takes that long, the next ten years, if it takes that long,
36:30
the Chinese don't give it. Damn how much we thump our chest. They
36:34
care about whether we have capacity, whether we have munitions and missiles and bullets
36:39
that we would need. And that's where this war is such a huge train
36:44
on resources. Where As we speak, sending the critical weapons of war to
36:49
another country knowing that we can't replenish them ourselves fast enough. It's the height
36:54
of insanity. He Jadi. Let's go back to Elon's idiot index. I
37:00
wrote some figures from Hika for twenty twenty two defense spending. So the US
37:05
spent eight hundred and seventy seven billion dollars, China two hundred and ninety two
37:09
billion dollars. The next thirteen countries combined two hundred and seventy three billion dollars
37:14
less than the US did in total. So how well are we spending that
37:17
to produce a military industrial complex? You know? How effective are we?
37:22
What are we spending the money on? You know? My final point here
37:27
too is retrospectively going back and taking a look at all these foreign entanglements.
37:30
Fifty eight thousand Americans dead in Vietnam because the DOMINOI effect, right, if
37:37
you don't stop them there, they're going to take over the world. Fifty
37:40
eight thousand Americans. I was just recently Hanoi. What wonderful people. We
37:44
never should have been bombed Vietnam. What came of Afghanistan? Of Iraq?
37:47
What's again? The proxy war is destroying Ukraine. This isn't for the bent
37:53
for the Ukrainian people. They are being destroyed in this process. So we
37:58
as Americans, you know, listen, we are the good guys, I
38:00
have no doubt about that. But we are far from perfect. And what
38:04
we don't do we don't do oversight, but we don't retrospectively take a look
38:09
at what our actions actually resulted in because we really don't want to own up
38:15
to the reality of that situation. Well, and to the point about destroying
38:17
Ukraine, Ron, I hate when people don't talk about unintended consequences in war.
38:22
One of the unintended consequences of this conflict is six hundred and fifty thousand
38:28
Ukrainians left at the beginning of the war. Those are largely the wealthiest people,
38:31
the people who would have gotten conscripted to have the resources and the connections
38:36
to avoid it. The death toll, if you combined civilian and military deaths,
38:40
is approximately four hundred thousand according to smestimates that I've seen. What does
38:45
it do demographically to a country to be depleted of four hundred thousand, mostly
38:52
young men, to the point where you're now tapping into middle aged men to
38:57
support your man power needs. Yeah, I sort to think about I'm a
39:00
conservative. Most of the people hosting are involved in this call or conservative like,
39:04
what does it do to your country? What would it do to America?
39:07
If we took four million prime age mid and suck them out of America
39:13
and threw them into space, it would radically transform our politics, it would
39:16
radically transform our economy. It would completely deathamate, I mean a generation of
39:22
young people. So just in moral terms, it's a disaster, and no
39:27
one's talking about it. Everybody's acting like the Ukrainians are gung ho to fight.
39:30
The data doesn't suggest that no. I mean, all the Ukrainians who
39:35
are down hoo to fight volunteered in the first year of the war. Now
39:37
they're rounding people up off the streets and it's very sad. I mean,
39:40
it's very clear that the people who are being conscripted and impressed into service right
39:45
now are they're not looking to fight. And it's the people who are the
39:51
poorest who have the least ability to bribe their way out of being conscripted or
39:55
bribe their way out of the country. And the people with money have already
40:00
left the country. I've seen estimates that something like ten million Ukrainia already fled
40:05
the country. They may be down to somewhere under a population of thirty million
40:09
are ready, and a huge percentage of them are pensioners, maybe as many
40:14
as half of them are pensioners. So we have with this war, I
40:17
think, pushed the country to the point of demographic collapse. And one of
40:22
the reasons for friction between Zelenski and Zelutiony is that Zelensky wanted Zeluzi to go
40:30
in front of the Rada, their parliament, and push for this new mobilization
40:34
bill. But the mobilization bill is very unpopular. Obviously, the people who
40:37
are there do not want to be conscripted, and so this was one of
40:42
the huge points of friction is that Selutioni did not want to do it.
40:45
Zelensky replaced him, and now it looks like they're going to push for this
40:49
new round of conscription and mobilization and it has no real chance of changing the
40:54
outcome of the war here. I mean, it's very clear that the Russians
40:59
are domin They have a lot more soldiers, they have a lot more weapons,
41:02
they have a lot more artillery, and they're going to win the war.
41:05
It's just a matter of time now. But Zelenski and Biden both have
41:09
the same incentive, which is to keep this thing going as long as possible
41:14
so they don't have to acknowledge the failure of their policy, and the hardship
41:17
here is going to fall on you every day, ordinary Ukrainians. You are
41:22
now going to get grounded up and press them to service and sent to the
41:27
front lines where they don't, you know, sadly last very long. So
41:30
this is where this policy of appropriating more money not with any objective of victory.
41:37
No one is even seriously arguing that this money is going to help Ukraine
41:40
win. The argument is just, well, we don't want Ukraine to lose,
41:45
so it's just this deferral of the inevitable. And the one thing they're
41:47
not willing to do is negotiate. They're just not willing to do what they
41:52
always should have done, to do what they frankly sabotaged in the first few
41:55
months of this war, which is negotiate as settlement. That's what needs to
42:00
happen here. Well, what needs to happen is we need all the listeners
42:04
on this spaces exchange here to contact their house members and make sure this thing
42:09
stops. I really do want to thank Elon for opening up X and making
42:14
it a platform for free speech again. I think there's been an excellent discussion.
42:17
David, thank you for moderating it. I certainly want to thank Jay
42:22
and Mike. They've been tireless being down the floor of the Center trying to
42:25
stop this. But in the end, it's we the people. It's going
42:28
to take public pressure. I think I'm afraid it's too late here in the
42:31
Senate to get through to these seventeen eighteen Republicans that are joined the Democrats to
42:37
prolong this war. But I think we can get to the House, get
42:42
them to stop this and insist on securing our board again. I just want
42:45
to thank Elon. I want to thank all of you guys for this opportunity,
42:47
and it's been an excellent discussion. Yes, he us welcome, and
42:52
I think the arguments were very well articulated by a number of people who spoke.
42:55
So hopefully the public, recon public is able to listen to this and
43:00
indeed contact their elected representatives. I think the really important thing to bear in
43:05
mind here is that the spending does not help Ukraine. Prolonging the war does
43:09
not help Ukraine. This is very important to appreciate. I think it's fantastic,
43:15
Like America wants to be the good guy. You know, that's actually
43:17
pretty rare. We actually care about whether we're the good guy or not.
43:22
Most countries don't