All right, David one ninety four hour two Sean Hannity Show, eight hundred and nine four one, Sean, you want to be a part of the program. Apparently, Sean penned, the Actor of all people is trapped behind enemy lines. He was seen yesterday, spotted, I guess earlier today in the front row of press briefing and Kiev with high ranking Ukrainian officials discussing the day's invasion by Russia. And apparently he's been working on a documentary about the escalating tensions in the country since last year, and he flew to Ukraine earlier this week. So obviously for business reasons, I didn't tell you that the you know, with all that we have just said and all that I've laid out about what this is really all about, and how if we had continued, if Joe Biden had continued Donald Trump's policies, well pretty much on everything. If every problem he's caused is not only preventable, but it's solvable. The problem at the border was preventable, we can solve it. Go back to the Trump policies, the problems with the economy. He inherited a good economy, we could solve it. Go back to the Trump policies on energy, you go back to energy independence and being a net exporter of energy on it. Just picked the issue and you would you would be in a much better shape. You go back to the Trump policies on COVID. We wouldn't have run out of tests over Christmas, of it's so predictable hanakka Christmas New Year's. Yeah, you're gonna have a rise in infections because people get together. It's a predictable spike that you're probably going to have as many years as the pandemic as a pandemic, and they ran out of monoclonal antibodies, and they ran out of tests, and they ran out of pretty much everything. But I keep saying that the answer to all of this should have been the speech that Joe Biden gave as the Russians started building up troops and when Putin laid out his Ukrainian is Not a Country manifesto on July twelve. He should have at that moment realized and recognized the severity of the problem of the dependency of NATO nations and Western European countries on Russia for the lifeblood of their economy. I don't think there were many of you out there in this audience that knew that in the year twenty twenty one that Joe Biden literally imported two hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred thousand barrels of oil from Russia, or a million barrels of oil that shocked me from Iran first time since nineteen ninety one, or the four million plus barrels from Saudi Arabia, or the three hundred and fifty million barrels from Opec. We wore energy independent, a net exporter of energy. And so what is his climate Czar John Kerry saying, you know about this Russian invasion of Ukraine. He's the climates are, He's Joe Biden's climates are. Remember this is a guy, and I don't begrudge him of having a private plane. I mean, it's a hell of a great thing to have. But don't lecture the rest of America about our carbon footprints while you're flying around the world in your private jet. That's called hypocrisy. We don't need your hypocrisy. And he's been flying around in his private jet with his carbon emissions, and he says, well, our job is more important to save the earth. This is what he said. No war with Ukraine is going to distract the world from the climate change crisis. What do I call him, climate change alarm alarmist. It's a climate change alarmist cult, new Green deal, radical socialist cults. And I'm concerned about Ukraine because of the people of Ukraine and because of the principles that are at risk in terms of international law and trying to change boundaries of international law by force. He said. The US presidential you know, as presidential lamboy for climate He told the BBC and others that I thought we lived in a world that had said noted this kind of activity, and I hope diplomacy will win. Then he goes on and says, but massive emissions are consequences of war. But more equally important, you're going to lose people's focus. You're going to lose certainly big country attention because it will be diverted, and I think that could have a damaging impact. So, you know, I think that hopefully the President Putin will realize that in the northern part of his country they used they used to live on sixty six percent of that nation was over frozen land. This is what he's worried that the war distract from climate change. Now, when Joe Biden didn't give the speech you should have given today, and he talked about the oil producing nations and that he is in touch with and petroleum reserves being released, he never mentioned the answer, we have more energy. We have more oil, We have more natural gas, more coal than the entire Middle East combined, as Energy Secretary Rick Perry said, for well over one hundred years, we could have ample supply for ourselves and our allies. And the announcement that Joe Biden should have made in the lead up to this at the very latest today is I just got off the phone with America's biggest energy companies and I told all of them that as of noon today, all restrictions that I have placed on exploration and drilling and extraction of natural gas and coal have been lifted, and I urged all of them to immediately ratchet up production to the highest levels of America's ever seen, so we can take care of the needs of our friends and our allies around the world and drive down the price of energy worldwide. Now, that would mean that when we got to that point that the straits of Horn moves would be meaningless to us because that's where a third of the world's oil supply pass us through. We wouldn't have to worry about it ran anymore. That means we wouldn't have to worry about importing oil from countries that hate our guts. Joe's been begging OPEC. They keep saying, now, Joe, we're not producing more. You know, Joe wouldn't have to import another barrel of oil from Russia. That's pretty pathetic. Our Western European allies will have all the energy they need that will strengthen them, and they're resolved against Vladimir Putin because, as I've been telling you, Germany and Italy and a few other European countries they don't want any of the sanctions on Russia. They're perfectly fine as long as they're not the country that's being annexed. They're not the country being invaded. That's the speech Joe Biden should have given today. But that's the speech that he never will be able to give because he is controlled by the climate alarmist cult, the New Green Deal cultist socialist democrats in Congress, and he'll never have the courage to do that anyway, So what can Congress do? Congressman August Flueger of Texas is with us, and he represents one of the district that has the largest oil and gas producing region in this country. Also a colonel in the US Air Force Reserves. Flew F twenty two's advised NATO was the last Congressional delegation trip. Was on that trip to Ukraine with Foreign Affairs, with this Foreign Affairs Committee, Our friend Andy Biggs, co chair of the War Powers Caucus and the Freedom Caucus from Arizona's with us. Thank you both for being here. Congressman Fluger, let me start with you. I think this is probably in your wheelhouse. Am I wrong in my assessment of what Joe Biden should have done today? Well, Sean, thank you for having me. You're absolutely right, and you know he's got the biggest and most powerful asset that any leader in the entire world could hope for. And you're right. The Permian basin what we did under President Trump and got to in the beginning of twenty twenty fourteen plus million barrels a day, clean, reliable, affordable energy. Joe Biden has not only squandered it, but he's assaulted it. And when I sat across from President Zolenski just three and a half four weeks ago, I asked him what the importance of energy security was. I asked him what Nordstream meant to Putin and his ability to possibly invade. And he spent twenty minutes talking about the environment of weakness that we are in and that Putin's leverage because of Nordstream, them, because of his ability to strangle Eastern Europe, specifically Ukraine on energy, would allow him the leverage to invade. I mean, you know, I introduced a peaceful legislation called Midland over Moscow, and this was last week. But we've been urging the president to do this exactly what uses said for the entire year that he's been president, and you've gotten no response. I assume no response at all. In fact, they've gone the opposite direction, sanctioned nord String, unleash our own domestic production, help our partners and allies diversify away from Russia. That's how you deter malign actors like Putin being in the minority, Andy Biggs, is there anything that you see that Republicans can unite and do? Are there any Democrats that might be an alliance with this point of view. Well, there's certainly is bipartisan agreement that before Biden goes in and does anything with our troops, that he needs to bring it to Congress and make his case there. So that's a leverage point. That is a griefpon by both parties. But what you and August have been talking about is a home run. I mean, it's a twofer because if you unleash American energy, you're going to lower consumer price index in this country and around the world. But also let me explain what that means. That means the forty year high of inflation goes away, doesn't it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, and you see supply chain get better, et cetera. But you also you leverage up putin because when the guest per barrel price is somewhere around sixty bucks, also he can focus on is keeping his own government, non nation going, But when he gets above one hundred, which it is above a hundred right now as we're talking, that gives him a lot of extra cash to fund this kind of adventurism invading Ukraine, et cetera. So it's disappointing that Biden mentions it, but he doesn't do anything to deliver the goods. Is there any effectiveness that either of you see on these sanctions that Joe Biden outlined today, August Well, I think the bigger point is there may be some effectiveness on the individual sanctions, but where is his leadership around the world to put together a real coalition of our partners and allies who are willing to stand with us, join together and put some teeth into these And I think this goes back to Afghanistan and the environment of weakness that we're in. I mean, time and time again, he has demonstrated a weak leadership position. You don't deal with thugs and bullies from a position of weakness, which he has done. And so the rest of the world are partners and allies are really questioning the resolve and so no, I believe more needs to be done. And I think to really cripple their economy, to bring them to their knees, to teach them lesson once and for all, requires going much further than he is right now. Last word, Andy Biggs, Yeah, I would say that the problem with some of the sanctions is that Shin has reportedly agreed to backfill some of the sanctions that are going on these individuals in the government that is going to allow this to continue. Yeah, because they're about to take over Taiwan and it'll be uh okay, I've got your back, you've got mine, and you take your territory and I'll take our territory. That's that's the fear. That is exactly what might happen, the fear. I'd say the odds are likely ninety nine percent. But what do I know. I'm just a dumb talk show host. I agree with you to Sean, but not not agree that I'm a dumb talk show Thanks a lot. I appreciate that anyway, Thank you both. Eight hundred nine one. Shaun is on number all right, twenty five to the top of the hour. Senator Mark Arrubio. He's the one that cued us in last night while on the air that in fact, the full scale invasion had begun. Um, he'll join us. We'll get his take on all of this. Um. There was a moment today. So Biden comes out much later than they had originally said and and gives a statement. They took just a few questions. It was getting crazy. In there you could hear Biden staffs And one more question? Is it all all? I ask question? Anyway, Peter Doocey actually ended up getting two questions in. I guess maybe Joe felt bad for calling him a son of a bitch, and maybe that's why it was allowed. But anyway, Doocey, let me play Deucey's questions and Joey's answers. Markets are down and gas prices are up. I know you always stress the difference between Wall Street and Main Street, but everybody seems to be in for some economic pain. How economically painful is it going to get for people in this country? And I do have one more question. First of all, there's no doubt that when a major nuclear power attacks and invase another country that the world is going to respond, and markets can respond all over the world. So there's no doubt about that. Number one. Number two, the notion that this is going to last for a long time is highly unlikely as long as we continue to stay resolved than imposing the sanctions we're going to impose on Russia period. The next question is did you underestimate Putin and would you still describe them the way that you did in the summer as a worthy adversary. At the time he was I made to clear as an adversary, and I said he was worthy. I didn't underestimate him, and I've read most of everything he's written. Did you read the amount the Wise Guy? You heard the speech he made almost an hour's where the speech is why he was going into Ukraine. He has much larger ambitions in Ukraine. He wants to, in fact, re established the former Soviet Union. That's what this is about. And I think that his ambitions are are completely contrary to the place where the rest of the world has arrived. You're confident that these devastating sanctions are going to be as devastating as Russian missiles and bullets and tanks. Yes, Russian bullets, missiles and tanks in Ukraine. Yes, I am. I'd like to know how anyway. Rebecca Koffler's with US former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, currently strategic intel analysts with the Lindsay Group, author of Putin's playbook, Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America. I've been watching a lot of the commentary, Rebecca, and I'm not buying it. We saw Vladimir Putin in the course of a week. Why did the entire world we watched this July twelveth manifesto of his suggesting that and saying that Ukraine is not a real country and it's really Russia. We know what he did in Georgia in two thousand and eight, we know what he did in Crimean twenty fourteen. He's been building up all this troop strength, with all this military equipment now for months, and people are saying, I don't know if he's really going to go in, which I thought was pretty dumb. It was transparent that he had every intention of going in. And then he goes in under the auspices of we are here as peacekeepers, after acknowledging that these two independent republics exist within Ukraine breakaway republics, and then he surrounds the rest of the country and he's hitting him from all sides, including key of the capital of Ukraine. And if you look at the map, he'd bombed pretty much every single sector of the country that had infrastructure that he wanted to take out on night one. So they've underestimated him the whole time. And number two, he's lied about his intentions the whole time, and It's kind of bizarre to me that people have him figured out that this is real and this is the entire country. My only question is are the Baltics next? Yes? Sean excellent analysis. Joe Biden continues to be in a very reactive mode. Why does you at Putin control the terms of discourse? Joe Biden, when he was President Obama's vice president, was briefed on every single action that Putin took, modernizing his military, developing a very sophisticated new generation warfare strategy. We knew about his intentions, and Joe Biden did nothing about it. So that's the question that American people need to ask him because right now the Ukrainians blood is spilling, and his experts like Tony Blinkin, like Jack Stellivan and the rest of the Obama to that zero crew did not act when they actually had the window of opportunity. When you're talking about NATO members, the Baltics, I don't believe right now they are on the hit list because Putin is afraid of NATO's response. But why would he be afraid of NATO's response. Here's my question. But I don't have I don't know if I have confidence in NATO. I've never been confident of the UN for example. I mean, they've shown themselves over the years to be anti Israel, anti American at numerous times, even anti Semitic, and I've not had a lot of faith in NATO as well. Donald Trump just brutalized NATO's leader in twenty eighteen. I played that tape, you know, two days ago on television for five minutes and berating NATO nations that you know, here we're paying the bulk of money to protect all of these Western European NATO countries from Russia, and yet they're all doing business deals and they're all dependent on Russian energy and how idiotic that was and how they were making Russia rich again and it made no sense. So the reality is, I'm not convinced that anybody, you know, any of these countries in NATO. I'm wondering if NATO's just the paper tiger. Do you think Joe Biden is willing to sign off on a NATO American led war against Russia, a shooting war against Russia. So everything that you just said, Ashan is absolutely true, And yes, NATO is absolutely divided. You know, countries like Germany, which is one of the richest countries in NATO, don't even bother contributing the minimum requirement towards collective defense. There's still not a key percent. And actually, since we're talking about the Baltics, the Boltics are the ones that fully chip in into the collective defense kitty. So but the reason why Putin may not go after the Boltics, at least in this phase of what he calls the special military operations target in Ukraine is that because he is paranoid and he needs to first test out whether he can trust Joe Biden. When Biden says that, well, a small incursion might be okay. So he is testing our sponsors and trying to see how far actually he can push. We might come to the point where he would actually targets fall. But we're already seeing a fracture. And let me read from the New York Times, of all places, diplomats said that several EU members are concerned about other sectors of the Russian economy that could be penalized. Austria, Germany, Italy raised concerns about imposing broad sanctions on cross border financial transactions and banking operations. Italy was pushing to leave the luxury goods industry untouched so that it can continue to export fashion and other high end products to Russia. Belgium was seeking an exemption for its larger diamond sector. No EU country was seriously advocating for sanctions on the energy sector. So the reality is it seems to me that he's already fractured NATO. Am I wrong, absolutely correct. Not only has fractured NATO Sean, he has also Stanion proved to the con To me, the whole sanctions policy is absurd. You know, if Biden believes that sanctioning Putin is going to change his decision calculus, it won't and his behavior because all of it has been already baked in. Ironically, the same people who called Russia against station masquerading as a country and keep talking about the GDP as minuscale as Italy, those people have been minimizing the threat and somehow now they expect that the plan that Putin has been hatching for twenty years can be stopped with sanctions. That's just naive and foolish. So now we've got a factor in China here, because China now refused to condemn Russia for the attacks, and they improved importation of Russian wheat. You know, people are asking the question, well, China bail out Putin, and there's a lot of fear, I think legitimate fear that he would take on the extra staff presidency of buying Russian gas and oil to limit any impact of any financial sanctions. The Chinese media accidentally posted the Communist Chinese Party's rules on Russian Ukraine coverage, even hinting in that added a Taiwan takeover. Joe Biden, for this very day, was in the New York Times canceled Trump's program to ferret out potential Chinese spies in America. That was a bad idea. And on here we are, day two of Russia's Ukraine invasion. Chinese fighter jets penetrated Taiwan's air defense zone yet again, and they're flying all over China. I'm sorry, Taiwan's airspace. That would be what I would call a hostile act in a country. Just to add one final thought on this is that the Chinese government said, no, this is not a similar situation Taiwan and Ukraine, because Taiwan is always been a part of China. Sounds to me like they're ready for their territorial ambitions to be fulfilled. Oh. Absolutely. The Chinese also do have a plan, the hundreds of year Marathon, according to which they plan to overtake the United States as the leading military and economic power. So look, both Putin and She play a very long game, and unfortunately President Biden is no match to either of them. He keeps being in a reactive mode with regard to China bailing out Russia. We already see Putin redirecting some exports to China instead of the West. We already see Putin pursuing a d dollarization strategy to beef up Russia's sovereign wealth fund. They're dropping the dollar, They're zuring the dollar out in favor of the Euro, the Chinese yuan, the gold it's Putin is a very encryptocurrency. Absolutely absolutely, So, this whole the ancient policy is very foolish and naive, And unfortunately we don't have the leadership that is capable right now of developing a viable deterrent strategy that would have stopped Putin from acting up. Why do you why are you convinced that he doesn't have as part of his ambitious long term plan the Baltics. Why, um, well, now, now I would add that the Baltic States are members of NATO, you know, and Joe Biden did mention Article five of the NATO Alliance that says an attack against one is it an attack against all? That's fine, but does he mean it? I don't. I just don't see it based on what I'm hearing from. Let's see Belgium and Italy and Germany and some of these other Western European countries. It seems like they don't. It's like, for example, CRIMEA happens in twenty fourteen and the business went on as usual. He got away with it. He's going to get away with this invasion, and this invasions the entire country. So what's going to stop him from continuing on this path of taking over whatever country he deems part of Russia? Well, this is an excellent point, Actually, Sean believe I'm making a lot of making too many excellent points. And the problem is it's too dangerous for the entire world, and we have too This is what happens when you have a feckless, weak, cognitive mess of a president. I was gonna say the key word that you just told me is a long term and you know what, if Wooden gets away with this one, and if NATO is entirely fratured, I do not rule out the possibility that Putin is gonna go after the politics against Strategically, it makes sense to him because he always wanted to reconstitute the strategic buffer around Russia proper. So no, as a long term strategic goal. I did not rule that out. Well, even went as far as to say that the Baltics were a hostile regime towards Russia. He's gone out of his way to say the rhetoric rhetoric is you know, it's kind of hauntingly similar to what he's been saying about Ukraine. I'll give it the last word. Well, of course, Putin is a master a disinformation. In fact, Russia practiced disinformation and even strategic deception as a as a state crop. Everything is designed in order to aid confuse the Western leadership and intelligence services. And this is why we start Joe Biden in his administration engaging in negotiations after negotiation with Putin. Beginning they were they were the fact that every country with the gun to their head, meaning troops on the border two miles off the eastern Ukrainian coast. Oh, please sit down, let's have talks, Let's have peace at our time. The level of naivete is beyond anything I can comprehend. But we do appreciate your expertise. Rebecca Koflo, thank you, Thank you. Sean. All right, Nancy, Rhode Island, we have about a minute. You have a question, what's on your mind? I was wondering it's estimated between two hundred and fifty and almost as many as a million Russian passports given to Ukrainian separatists, and I was wondering, how much of a component do you think that is in Putin's justification. Well, I think it was a ruse. I mean, I think it was a pretext to oh, I'm going to recognize these Russian supporting independent regions and we're going to send him peacekeeping forces, and now we're going to disarm the entire country and go to war and start bombing the entire country. He's lied the entire time, and that's what dictators, authoritarians do. They lie. He's lied about the entire process. All his territorial ambitions are playing out right before our eyes. But after Georgia, CRIMEA, well, I would, and Belarus and Moldova. Why would anyone be surprised I'm not Rubio's next

All right, David one ninety four hour two Sean Hannity Show, eight hundred and nine four one, Sean, you want to be a part of the program. Apparently, Sean penned, the Actor of all people is trapped behind enemy lines. He was seen yesterday, spotted, I guess earlier today in the front row of press briefing and Kiev with high ranking Ukrainian officials discussing the day's invasion by Russia. And apparently he's been working on a documentary about the escalating tensions in the country since last year, and he flew to Ukraine earlier this week. So obviously for business reasons, I didn't tell you that the you know, with all that we have just said and all that I've laid out about what this is really all about, and how if we had continued, if Joe Biden had continued Donald Trump's policies, well pretty much on everything. If every problem he's caused is not only preventable, but it's solvable. The problem at the border was preventable, we can solve it. Go back to the Trump policies, the problems with the economy. He inherited a good economy, we could solve it. Go back to the Trump policies on energy, you go back to energy independence and being a net exporter of energy on it. Just picked the issue and you would you would be in a much better shape. You go back to the Trump policies on COVID. We wouldn't have run out of tests over Christmas, of it's so predictable hanakka Christmas New Year's. Yeah, you're gonna have a rise in infections because people get together. It's a predictable spike that you're probably going to have as many years as the pandemic as a pandemic, and they ran out of monoclonal antibodies, and they ran out of tests, and they ran out of pretty much everything. But I keep saying that the answer to all of this should have been the speech that Joe Biden gave as the Russians started building up troops and when Putin laid out his Ukrainian is Not a Country manifesto on July twelve. He should have at that moment realized and recognized the severity of the problem of the dependency of NATO nations and Western European countries on Russia for the lifeblood of their economy. I don't think there were many of you out there in this audience that knew that in the year twenty twenty one that Joe Biden literally imported two hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred thousand barrels of oil from Russia, or a million barrels of oil that shocked me from Iran first time since nineteen ninety one, or the four million plus barrels from Saudi Arabia, or the three hundred and fifty million barrels from Opec. We wore energy independent, a net exporter of energy. And so what is his climate Czar John Kerry saying, you know about this Russian invasion of Ukraine. He's the climates are, He's Joe Biden's climates are. Remember this is a guy, and I don't begrudge him of having a private plane. I mean, it's a hell of a great thing to have. But don't lecture the rest of America about our carbon footprints while you're flying around the world in your private jet. That's called hypocrisy. We don't need your hypocrisy. And he's been flying around in his private jet with his carbon emissions, and he says, well, our job is more important to save the earth. This is what he said. No war with Ukraine is going to distract the world from the climate change crisis. What do I call him, climate change alarm alarmist. It's a climate change alarmist cult, new Green deal, radical socialist cults. And I'm concerned about Ukraine because of the people of Ukraine and because of the principles that are at risk in terms of international law and trying to change boundaries of international law by force. He said. The US presidential you know, as presidential lamboy for climate He told the BBC and others that I thought we lived in a world that had said noted this kind of activity, and I hope diplomacy will win. Then he goes on and says, but massive emissions are consequences of war. But more equally important, you're going to lose people's focus. You're going to lose certainly big country attention because it will be diverted, and I think that could have a damaging impact. So, you know, I think that hopefully the President Putin will realize that in the northern part of his country they used they used to live on sixty six percent of that nation was over frozen land. This is what he's worried that the war distract from climate change. Now, when Joe Biden didn't give the speech you should have given today, and he talked about the oil producing nations and that he is in touch with and petroleum reserves being released, he never mentioned the answer, we have more energy. We have more oil, We have more natural gas, more coal than the entire Middle East combined, as Energy Secretary Rick Perry said, for well over one hundred years, we could have ample supply for ourselves and our allies. And the announcement that Joe Biden should have made in the lead up to this at the very latest today is I just got off the phone with America's biggest energy companies and I told all of them that as of noon today, all restrictions that I have placed on exploration and drilling and extraction of natural gas and coal have been lifted, and I urged all of them to immediately ratchet up production to the highest levels of America's ever seen, so we can take care of the needs of our friends and our allies around the world and drive down the price of energy worldwide. Now, that would mean that when we got to that point that the straits of Horn moves would be meaningless to us because that's where a third of the world's oil supply pass us through. We wouldn't have to worry about it ran anymore. That means we wouldn't have to worry about importing oil from countries that hate our guts. Joe's been begging OPEC. They keep saying, now, Joe, we're not producing more. You know, Joe wouldn't have to import another barrel of oil from Russia. That's pretty pathetic. Our Western European allies will have all the energy they need that will strengthen them, and they're resolved against Vladimir Putin because, as I've been telling you, Germany and Italy and a few other European countries they don't want any of the sanctions on Russia. They're perfectly fine as long as they're not the country that's being annexed. They're not the country being invaded. That's the speech Joe Biden should have given today. But that's the speech that he never will be able to give because he is controlled by the climate alarmist cult, the New Green Deal cultist socialist democrats in Congress, and he'll never have the courage to do that anyway, So what can Congress do? Congressman August Flueger of Texas is with us, and he represents one of the district that has the largest oil and gas producing region in this country. Also a colonel in the US Air Force Reserves. Flew F twenty two's advised NATO was the last Congressional delegation trip. Was on that trip to Ukraine with Foreign Affairs, with this Foreign Affairs Committee, Our friend Andy Biggs, co chair of the War Powers Caucus and the Freedom Caucus from Arizona's with us. Thank you both for being here. Congressman Fluger, let me start with you. I think this is probably in your wheelhouse. Am I wrong in my assessment of what Joe Biden should have done today? Well, Sean, thank you for having me. You're absolutely right, and you know he's got the biggest and most powerful asset that any leader in the entire world could hope for. And you're right. The Permian basin what we did under President Trump and got to in the beginning of twenty twenty fourteen plus million barrels a day, clean, reliable, affordable energy. Joe Biden has not only squandered it, but he's assaulted it. And when I sat across from President Zolenski just three and a half four weeks ago, I asked him what the importance of energy security was. I asked him what Nordstream meant to Putin and his ability to possibly invade. And he spent twenty minutes talking about the environment of weakness that we are in and that Putin's leverage because of Nordstream, them, because of his ability to strangle Eastern Europe, specifically Ukraine on energy, would allow him the leverage to invade. I mean, you know, I introduced a peaceful legislation called Midland over Moscow, and this was last week. But we've been urging the president to do this exactly what uses said for the entire year that he's been president, and you've gotten no response. I assume no response at all. In fact, they've gone the opposite direction, sanctioned nord String, unleash our own domestic production, help our partners and allies diversify away from Russia. That's how you deter malign actors like Putin being in the minority, Andy Biggs, is there anything that you see that Republicans can unite and do? Are there any Democrats that might be an alliance with this point of view. Well, there's certainly is bipartisan agreement that before Biden goes in and does anything with our troops, that he needs to bring it to Congress and make his case there. So that's a leverage point. That is a griefpon by both parties. But what you and August have been talking about is a home run. I mean, it's a twofer because if you unleash American energy, you're going to lower consumer price index in this country and around the world. But also let me explain what that means. That means the forty year high of inflation goes away, doesn't it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, and you see supply chain get better, et cetera. But you also you leverage up putin because when the guest per barrel price is somewhere around sixty bucks, also he can focus on is keeping his own government, non nation going, But when he gets above one hundred, which it is above a hundred right now as we're talking, that gives him a lot of extra cash to fund this kind of adventurism invading Ukraine, et cetera. So it's disappointing that Biden mentions it, but he doesn't do anything to deliver the goods. Is there any effectiveness that either of you see on these sanctions that Joe Biden outlined today, August Well, I think the bigger point is there may be some effectiveness on the individual sanctions, but where is his leadership around the world to put together a real coalition of our partners and allies who are willing to stand with us, join together and put some teeth into these And I think this goes back to Afghanistan and the environment of weakness that we're in. I mean, time and time again, he has demonstrated a weak leadership position. You don't deal with thugs and bullies from a position of weakness, which he has done. And so the rest of the world are partners and allies are really questioning the resolve and so no, I believe more needs to be done. And I think to really cripple their economy, to bring them to their knees, to teach them lesson once and for all, requires going much further than he is right now. Last word, Andy Biggs, Yeah, I would say that the problem with some of the sanctions is that Shin has reportedly agreed to backfill some of the sanctions that are going on these individuals in the government that is going to allow this to continue. Yeah, because they're about to take over Taiwan and it'll be uh okay, I've got your back, you've got mine, and you take your territory and I'll take our territory. That's that's the fear. That is exactly what might happen, the fear. I'd say the odds are likely ninety nine percent. But what do I know. I'm just a dumb talk show host. I agree with you to Sean, but not not agree that I'm a dumb talk show Thanks a lot. I appreciate that anyway, Thank you both. Eight hundred nine one. Shaun is on number all right, twenty five to the top of the hour. Senator Mark Arrubio. He's the one that cued us in last night while on the air that in fact, the full scale invasion had begun. Um, he'll join us. We'll get his take on all of this. Um. There was a moment today. So Biden comes out much later than they had originally said and and gives a statement. They took just a few questions. It was getting crazy. In there you could hear Biden staffs And one more question? Is it all all? I ask question? Anyway, Peter Doocey actually ended up getting two questions in. I guess maybe Joe felt bad for calling him a son of a bitch, and maybe that's why it was allowed. But anyway, Doocey, let me play Deucey's questions and Joey's answers. Markets are down and gas prices are up. I know you always stress the difference between Wall Street and Main Street, but everybody seems to be in for some economic pain. How economically painful is it going to get for people in this country? And I do have one more question. First of all, there's no doubt that when a major nuclear power attacks and invase another country that the world is going to respond, and markets can respond all over the world. So there's no doubt about that. Number one. Number two, the notion that this is going to last for a long time is highly unlikely as long as we continue to stay resolved than imposing the sanctions we're going to impose on Russia period. The next question is did you underestimate Putin and would you still describe them the way that you did in the summer as a worthy adversary. At the time he was I made to clear as an adversary, and I said he was worthy. I didn't underestimate him, and I've read most of everything he's written. Did you read the amount the Wise Guy? You heard the speech he made almost an hour's where the speech is why he was going into Ukraine. He has much larger ambitions in Ukraine. He wants to, in fact, re established the former Soviet Union. That's what this is about. And I think that his ambitions are are completely contrary to the place where the rest of the world has arrived. You're confident that these devastating sanctions are going to be as devastating as Russian missiles and bullets and tanks. Yes, Russian bullets, missiles and tanks in Ukraine. Yes, I am. I'd like to know how anyway. Rebecca Koffler's with US former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, currently strategic intel analysts with the Lindsay Group, author of Putin's playbook, Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America. I've been watching a lot of the commentary, Rebecca, and I'm not buying it. We saw Vladimir Putin in the course of a week. Why did the entire world we watched this July twelveth manifesto of his suggesting that and saying that Ukraine is not a real country and it's really Russia. We know what he did in Georgia in two thousand and eight, we know what he did in Crimean twenty fourteen. He's been building up all this troop strength, with all this military equipment now for months, and people are saying, I don't know if he's really going to go in, which I thought was pretty dumb. It was transparent that he had every intention of going in. And then he goes in under the auspices of we are here as peacekeepers, after acknowledging that these two independent republics exist within Ukraine breakaway republics, and then he surrounds the rest of the country and he's hitting him from all sides, including key of the capital of Ukraine. And if you look at the map, he'd bombed pretty much every single sector of the country that had infrastructure that he wanted to take out on night one. So they've underestimated him the whole time. And number two, he's lied about his intentions the whole time, and It's kind of bizarre to me that people have him figured out that this is real and this is the entire country. My only question is are the Baltics next? Yes? Sean excellent analysis. Joe Biden continues to be in a very reactive mode. Why does you at Putin control the terms of discourse? Joe Biden, when he was President Obama's vice president, was briefed on every single action that Putin took, modernizing his military, developing a very sophisticated new generation warfare strategy. We knew about his intentions, and Joe Biden did nothing about it. So that's the question that American people need to ask him because right now the Ukrainians blood is spilling, and his experts like Tony Blinkin, like Jack Stellivan and the rest of the Obama to that zero crew did not act when they actually had the window of opportunity. When you're talking about NATO members, the Baltics, I don't believe right now they are on the hit list because Putin is afraid of NATO's response. But why would he be afraid of NATO's response. Here's my question. But I don't have I don't know if I have confidence in NATO. I've never been confident of the UN for example. I mean, they've shown themselves over the years to be anti Israel, anti American at numerous times, even anti Semitic, and I've not had a lot of faith in NATO as well. Donald Trump just brutalized NATO's leader in twenty eighteen. I played that tape, you know, two days ago on television for five minutes and berating NATO nations that you know, here we're paying the bulk of money to protect all of these Western European NATO countries from Russia, and yet they're all doing business deals and they're all dependent on Russian energy and how idiotic that was and how they were making Russia rich again and it made no sense. So the reality is, I'm not convinced that anybody, you know, any of these countries in NATO. I'm wondering if NATO's just the paper tiger. Do you think Joe Biden is willing to sign off on a NATO American led war against Russia, a shooting war against Russia. So everything that you just said, Ashan is absolutely true, And yes, NATO is absolutely divided. You know, countries like Germany, which is one of the richest countries in NATO, don't even bother contributing the minimum requirement towards collective defense. There's still not a key percent. And actually, since we're talking about the Baltics, the Boltics are the ones that fully chip in into the collective defense kitty. So but the reason why Putin may not go after the Boltics, at least in this phase of what he calls the special military operations target in Ukraine is that because he is paranoid and he needs to first test out whether he can trust Joe Biden. When Biden says that, well, a small incursion might be okay. So he is testing our sponsors and trying to see how far actually he can push. We might come to the point where he would actually targets fall. But we're already seeing a fracture. And let me read from the New York Times, of all places, diplomats said that several EU members are concerned about other sectors of the Russian economy that could be penalized. Austria, Germany, Italy raised concerns about imposing broad sanctions on cross border financial transactions and banking operations. Italy was pushing to leave the luxury goods industry untouched so that it can continue to export fashion and other high end products to Russia. Belgium was seeking an exemption for its larger diamond sector. No EU country was seriously advocating for sanctions on the energy sector. So the reality is it seems to me that he's already fractured NATO. Am I wrong, absolutely correct. Not only has fractured NATO Sean, he has also Stanion proved to the con To me, the whole sanctions policy is absurd. You know, if Biden believes that sanctioning Putin is going to change his decision calculus, it won't and his behavior because all of it has been already baked in. Ironically, the same people who called Russia against station masquerading as a country and keep talking about the GDP as minuscale as Italy, those people have been minimizing the threat and somehow now they expect that the plan that Putin has been hatching for twenty years can be stopped with sanctions. That's just naive and foolish. So now we've got a factor in China here, because China now refused to condemn Russia for the attacks, and they improved importation of Russian wheat. You know, people are asking the question, well, China bail out Putin, and there's a lot of fear, I think legitimate fear that he would take on the extra staff presidency of buying Russian gas and oil to limit any impact of any financial sanctions. The Chinese media accidentally posted the Communist Chinese Party's rules on Russian Ukraine coverage, even hinting in that added a Taiwan takeover. Joe Biden, for this very day, was in the New York Times canceled Trump's program to ferret out potential Chinese spies in America. That was a bad idea. And on here we are, day two of Russia's Ukraine invasion. Chinese fighter jets penetrated Taiwan's air defense zone yet again, and they're flying all over China. I'm sorry, Taiwan's airspace. That would be what I would call a hostile act in a country. Just to add one final thought on this is that the Chinese government said, no, this is not a similar situation Taiwan and Ukraine, because Taiwan is always been a part of China. Sounds to me like they're ready for their territorial ambitions to be fulfilled. Oh. Absolutely. The Chinese also do have a plan, the hundreds of year Marathon, according to which they plan to overtake the United States as the leading military and economic power. So look, both Putin and She play a very long game, and unfortunately President Biden is no match to either of them. He keeps being in a reactive mode with regard to China bailing out Russia. We already see Putin redirecting some exports to China instead of the West. We already see Putin pursuing a d dollarization strategy to beef up Russia's sovereign wealth fund. They're dropping the dollar, They're zuring the dollar out in favor of the Euro, the Chinese yuan, the gold it's Putin is a very encryptocurrency. Absolutely absolutely, So, this whole the ancient policy is very foolish and naive, And unfortunately we don't have the leadership that is capable right now of developing a viable deterrent strategy that would have stopped Putin from acting up. Why do you why are you convinced that he doesn't have as part of his ambitious long term plan the Baltics. Why, um, well, now, now I would add that the Baltic States are members of NATO, you know, and Joe Biden did mention Article five of the NATO Alliance that says an attack against one is it an attack against all? That's fine, but does he mean it? I don't. I just don't see it based on what I'm hearing from. Let's see Belgium and Italy and Germany and some of these other Western European countries. It seems like they don't. It's like, for example, CRIMEA happens in twenty fourteen and the business went on as usual. He got away with it. He's going to get away with this invasion, and this invasions the entire country. So what's going to stop him from continuing on this path of taking over whatever country he deems part of Russia? Well, this is an excellent point, Actually, Sean believe I'm making a lot of making too many excellent points. And the problem is it's too dangerous for the entire world, and we have too This is what happens when you have a feckless, weak, cognitive mess of a president. I was gonna say the key word that you just told me is a long term and you know what, if Wooden gets away with this one, and if NATO is entirely fratured, I do not rule out the possibility that Putin is gonna go after the politics against Strategically, it makes sense to him because he always wanted to reconstitute the strategic buffer around Russia proper. So no, as a long term strategic goal. I did not rule that out. Well, even went as far as to say that the Baltics were a hostile regime towards Russia. He's gone out of his way to say the rhetoric rhetoric is you know, it's kind of hauntingly similar to what he's been saying about Ukraine. I'll give it the last word. Well, of course, Putin is a master a disinformation. In fact, Russia practiced disinformation and even strategic deception as a as a state crop. Everything is designed in order to aid confuse the Western leadership and intelligence services. And this is why we start Joe Biden in his administration engaging in negotiations after negotiation with Putin. Beginning they were they were the fact that every country with the gun to their head, meaning troops on the border two miles off the eastern Ukrainian coast. Oh, please sit down, let's have talks, Let's have peace at our time. The level of naivete is beyond anything I can comprehend. But we do appreciate your expertise. Rebecca Koflo, thank you, Thank you. Sean. All right, Nancy, Rhode Island, we have about a minute. You have a question, what's on your mind? I was wondering it's estimated between two hundred and fifty and almost as many as a million Russian passports given to Ukrainian separatists, and I was wondering, how much of a component do you think that is in Putin's justification. Well, I think it was a ruse. I mean, I think it was a pretext to oh, I'm going to recognize these Russian supporting independent regions and we're going to send him peacekeeping forces, and now we're going to disarm the entire country and go to war and start bombing the entire country. He's lied the entire time, and that's what dictators, authoritarians do. They lie. He's lied about the entire process. All his territorial ambitions are playing out right before our eyes. But after Georgia, CRIMEA, well, I would, and Belarus and Moldova. Why would anyone be surprised I'm not Rubio's next