Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
When Big Brothers Stop Fighting Your Wars: Europe's Nuclear Awakening
Dramatic VA staffing cuts announced by the Trump administration will eliminate 88,000 jobs, returning to 2019 staffing levels before PACT Act implementation and primarily targeting "non-mission critical" positions.
• 15% workforce reduction at VA represents largest cuts to any federal agency in modern history
• Approximately 30% of affected VA employees are veterans themselves
• Republicans claim $90 million savings from eliminating "duplicative contracts"
• No clear metrics established to measure impact on veteran care quality
• DEI positions specifically targeted for elimination regardless of actual duties
• France's President Macron announces shift in nuclear doctrine to protect Ukraine
• European nations reconsidering security arrangements as US commitment wavers
• Nuclear deterrence strategies evolving with potentially destabilizing consequences
• Debate over proper role of America in global security frameworks
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Left Face. This is the Pikes Peak Region Veterans Podcast, where we talk about politics and local issues that affect the veterans here. My name is Dick Wilkinson, I am your host and my co-host is Adam Gillard. Hey, dick, how you doing buddy? Hey, adam man, today it's all about veterans. Today we got really prime topics, for you know, this is the sweet spot for us as far as bringing it home from the national level all the way down to our neighborhood, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last 24 hours or so has definitely been a lot of changes coming down the pipe. You know straight from the VA secretary's mouth. You know he's been putting out videos on this stuff.
Speaker 1:And the president has made public comment about it, so that means they understand that the visibility is very high. I think that job cuts in the VA are something that are a political lightning rod Right.
Speaker 2:And they just agreed to 88,000 cut cuts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw a number that said 70, and I saw a number that said 80. So yeah, sounds right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the video that I just watched from the secretary of the VA. They said our numbers right now are at like 470-something thousand and it's going to go to below 400,000. 15% of the workforce is the number that he gave pretty clearly, which is drastic as far as cuts.
Speaker 1:Now we say drastic, that's within the modern history, era of federal government, we'll say the last 50 years. That any agency would take a double-digit cut at all is almost unheard of really.
Speaker 2:Well, and this is kind of a double whammy on the veteran community, because 30% of those folks are going to be veterans.
Speaker 1:No, that's absolutely true. So many of the employees of the VA are veterans, so, yeah, it's a double whammy. And we thought about trying to find somebody who sort of had voted for Trump not necessarily that they had soured on their vote, but that they were now being impacted by their choice, right? Well, cnn has found a few people that fall into that category, which makes sense. You know that that's the kind of story they want to highlight, and I'm not surprised by what I've seen the folks that they have talked to have said well, I didn't necessarily think it would happen to me, but I'm not upset about it. I still want Donald Trump to do exactly what he said he was going to do, and if that means me and most of my friends all lose our jobs, I believe the grass will be greener on the other side of whatever he's trying to deliver, and so they're not reluctant about their vote. Yet I don't know, wait until a year from now, when they still don't have a job and the economy is upside down.
Speaker 2:That's where I kind of question, like, where is the line that's going to draw people out to actually stand up for themselves? Because, like you said, right now everybody's okay with it and if you know, obviously people are asking for, you know, democrat leadership and stuff like that. They just lost an election. Half the country doesn't believe in them. Right for sure, and half of the country is way better armed. Yeah, so Democrats can't stand up and lead some kind of revolution here.
Speaker 1:No, it has to come from the Republicans. There is really no recourse. No, not from a political perspective.
Speaker 2:No, it has to come from Republicans that actually stand up for what we know, for what we actually believe, used to believe.
Speaker 1:as you know, a country the perhaps where the rubber meets the road in this argument, and I mean we don't have this long to wait. Unfortunately, that's the problem. We need to talk about the impact of these losses of people. But Senate and Congress, right, like the actual legislators, their job is at risk. If you know, big, giant swaths of people are unemployed when it comes time for election two years from now, the people who are on those election cycles, they're at risk, right, and so it doesn't matter how Republican you are or how well you can walk the walk or talk the talk on the Republican side of the House, the Republican side of the house, if, two years from now, if a lot of your constituents don't have jobs, you know that's. That's where, if there was any opportunity for Republicans to internally put pressure back towards the white house that's it Right.
Speaker 1:But so far time has proven in instances too many instances have proven that those lawmakers will sell out their constituents to support.
Speaker 2:Donald Trump. Jeff Crank just had his first telephone town hall yesterday, which I guess has gone come down from, like the Trump administration too, is to not do any more in persons because people have been too many photo ops, yeah. Well, yeah, and just things have just bad photo ops.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean even like the democratic County chair you know was on chair was in the paper yesterday saying how cowardly it was for Crank to do a telephone call because it wasn't like video or anything like that, it was just a telephone call. And like even the Republican chair said that too though, yeah, but like from what I understand, like both sides were like this is pretty cowardly.
Speaker 1:Shady, yeah, like you're not even going to have a video that we can even see you here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shady, yeah, like you're not even going to have a video that we can't even see you here, yeah, Well, so yeah, let's get to this 88,000 less people at the VA and, to give the listeners right, that gets us back to 2019 manning levels, which the news that I've heard is that most of the hiring since then has been to support implementation of the PACT Act, to increase the amount of people who can process claims and care providers in certain disciplines, because the PACT Act covers, you know, a lot of different medical issues automatically. Now, so this, you know, rollback is a rollback to numbers to support the VA pre-PACT Act and from you know, I'm not saying there's a strategy or some kind of logic behind that, that's just the dots that the Republican side of the House is connecting for us right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, the PACT Act is something that helped over a million people get benefits in the first year, and these are people that are exposed to toxic, noxious chemicals that they have no control over. You know we're all at risk of having, you know, cancers earlier than everybody else. You know, and these are the things that he's taken away. And this is another one of those just spiteful things that, you know, President Biden put through and was proud of and they're just taking it away just to be spiteful. This is just straight up vindictive, hurting veterans.
Speaker 1:I can see that, that if you tell the story that way that we're going to roll back to these numbers, it's hard to deny that vindictiveness is part of it In my mind, I guess. For me, I am always interested in, I don't believe in we're going to do less with less. I heard that back when we were. You heard that at a point in time in the military when back around 2017, 2018.
Speaker 1:It was like the thing we're going to do more with less. We're going to do less with less. We're going to do whatever, and it was all these just pejorative terms. That was like not attached to reality, right, like no. Like not attached to reality, right Like no. If we have less people and less equipment, guess what? We're going to do? Less work, right Like? That's all there is to it. We're not going to do more with less. That's stupid right Now. Can we do the same with less?
Speaker 1:That's where I want to, you know, debate the topic a little bit, because I believe, I do believe that one. The federal government in general is horrifically bloated as far as like money spending and bureaucracy. I believe that I don't just believe it, I've seen it, I've witnessed it, I live it, you know, every day. So no question that there is bureaucracy and that money is oozing out of the seams in places where it does not need to be. So I would want to say, I would like to say that if there was any level of care and strategy going into removing a certain amount of people from the workforce of the VA and we'll just keep it right to the VA, not the rest of the federal programs I would like to believe that there is a way to deliver both things have less employees and, at the very least, maintain the same level of quality of care and service. I think that's possible. I don't know if you can improve quality and care with less people, and that's one of the things that the Republicans are trying to paint the picture of right now.
Speaker 1:And the secretary? There's a video out of the secretary of the VA and I guess Adam tells me that he does this often where he's kind of the apologist for Donald Trump's policies and he comes out and says, oh, nothing bad's going to happen. And then something bad happens and he says, well, it's not as bad as you think. It is Right.
Speaker 1:And you'll just have to deal with it and you'll be fine. Yeah, just stop complaining, quit your bitching, right, you know? So the takeaway from all of that for me is he says well, we're going to save $90 million because we had these duplicative contracts, and that's $90 million that's going to go back into veteran care, right? I don't believe that. No At all. No, there's nobody that's bean counting that and saying hey, I got my abacus out, and if I slide this bean over, it goes from the contractors who are ripping us off to the soldiers who need care. Yeah, that shit does not happen, right? Especially not under a program like Doge. Like they don't have an abacus, they don't have no clue how many beans they have or where they're trying to move them to. There's no idea.
Speaker 2:All of these numbers that they're coming up with. They never show where those numbers come from or prove anything at all. They're just hacking and people are just buying it up. Prove anything at all. They're just hacking and people are just buying it up. And by the time those numbers come out, they've been rolled back significantly and people have already moved on to the next.
Speaker 1:But we acknowledge on this show that a headline is basically that can be the entire win as far as a political movement right, just the headline getting printed is all that really mattered. Anything that happens after that does not matter at all, and so right now that's a big part of the game for the you know.
Speaker 2:But when you talk about like service to the VA, like tomorrow or yesterday was a good example for me. I've been having some knee problems. I called the VA, I had an x-ray done. Actually, I stopped by the protest at the VA, then went and got my x-ray done, got an MRI scheduled now and this is all within 24 hours that this service has happened. Sure, so anybody complaining about these shots that people say they take at and things like that there's problems in every medical system out there. The VA has worked fine for me. I agree. Just right now I had an x-ray done. I'm on schedule for an MRI, got my follow-up with my primary care. Things are going to happen for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've been retired a few years longer than Adam, so I retired back in 2019. So, at the numbers that they're talking about, that's when I got out and went into the VA system and I agree, I agree, even go out of my way. When I'm at a VA center and I know that I'm talking to, you know a nurse or a doctor in there, or just you know an admin worker in there, and they are able to do what you're talking about, where it all goes tick, tick, tick, and it seems like, hey, this is what is what's always supposed to be right, like. This is just how care is supposed to work in a medical facility.
Speaker 1:When that happens, I tell everybody. I say, hey, don't worry about an outside of even this churn, right, because there's always bad news stories and there's always people that want to walk around inside the VA hospital mad at the VA, right. And so I tell those employees hey, for me, today, right here in this room, you met exactly my expectations and I want to say thanks for what you're doing. And I know the next person might come in here and not act that way, but the system can work and it worked for me and I've done that 10 times in the last few years. Well, what's?
Speaker 2:funny about yesterday. Yesterday worked so well because I stepped out of my, because I hate the telephone interviews stuff but my knee's not doing great, so I needed it and they set up the telephone, they set up a video call for me and the IT stuff just flowed through and I let go of my little preconceived notion that everything was going to suck about it yeah. And it worked beautifully.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Then I went outside, saw the protesters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree, I've had a good experience no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Everybody's operating at 60% to 80% of what their manning needs to be able to keep numbers or those claims down and everything, because there's so much back support that goes into these medical care service centers. So when you drop those numbers it's going to affect everything, right down to appointment times, everything.
Speaker 1:And I think this is the you know. My crux here is I want the system to work. I want to believe that 100,000 people can go, 15% of the workforce can go, and that quality of care can remain similar. But the question that really stands is how would the Republicans themselves or the Secretary of the VA right now, who's telling you things are going to change, just deal with it? What is he going to use to make decisions, to make data-driven decisions, which is what we expect our government to do now? We're talking about numbers. We're talking about people. We're talking about money that's data-driven decision-making on one side of the coin. What are you using to measure success, Secretary? Money that's data-driven decision making on one side of the coin. What are you using to measure success, secretary? That's different than you're saying. Things are going to change around here.
Speaker 1:All right, tell me how you're going to measure success, right, and don't cherry pick the thing. You know, whatever it is. We spent less money. That not? No, there's no veteran is sitting around going. I'm glad my surgery cost $5,000 less. They don't. That doesn't matter, you know it's. How long did it take, Right it's. How many trips did you have to go to? You know, to different facilities? Right, Can you get it all done in one place? How far did you have to travel? Right, how you know all the things? How long is your overall course of care for a certain type of you know illness or injury, what? What are we going to use to measure these things? Right, I have, they don't know, I don't know and they for sure don't know Right. So that's my where I want to believe it can succeed.
Speaker 2:My concern is that nobody knows what they're going to measure. Um, one big thing that's uh kind of going around too is with the DEI cuts where, like, everybody with a DEI title associated with them is getting cut. Yeah, a lot of folks have it as like an additional duty Cause, like when you're a GS, you grab other things, sure, but it doesn't matter. They're using that DEI acts and just cutting people that you know believed in equality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And the fact that that you know that happens within the single digit percentages as far as like removing people with those in their titles. So even if that was again a vindictive movement by a political agenda, you still have. They went next to, as we've got on the board over here, non-mission critical or non-mission essential. So it was easy for the president to say nothing that's related to DEI's mission essential. All right, fair, that can be. I'm not going to argue with you there, whatever right. But if you want to just do things in big blocks, go for it. But now, what right? How do you use any kind of scrutiny or strategy to understand really what's mission essential and what's not? And again back to no measurement. How do we know? Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know these, uh, the way that they're just shooting blindly into like so many directions right now. Uh, we have Canada, you know, threatening tariffs, or we just we just backed off on the tariffs to Mexico, so that still has to play out, but you know Canada's going to shut down power to a million and a half people or something like that. There's something crazy up there, these long-term repercussions of just bully tactics. What do you think, on the big world stage, how that's going to play out?
Speaker 1:Well, that brings us over to the almost you know, almost State of the Union, the address to the joint session of Congress yesterday. You know it was exactly what we expect Donald Trump to do with that type of pulpit and with that type of you know, audience. Did you see?
Speaker 2:he gave a kid a secret service, like he made a kid a secret service agent.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's like one of his, like last wish, final wishes things yeah, but then he cut cancer research funding Of course, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:How can you do that?
Speaker 2:And people are applauding. They're like, oh, he is such a great, he's a great guy. That kid lived on his wish. Yeah, yeah, but he has to die because of him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, the next kid is not going to be any better off. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, right? I mean, he knows how to put on make good television, as he said last week in the Oval Office. We're not even talking about what happened last week in the Oval Office. Oh, no, kidding, that's not even on the board. I mean it's you know the whole Russia-Zelensky thing which you know. I guess we're going to hold on to it for now.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I kind of want to hit that too, because Zelensky's, like the rest of Europe's, really rallied around him and they're going to like they're going to Okay. Yes, Because you threw this out there earlier.
Speaker 1:Europe is going to rearm themselves and folks in this room think it's a good idea that we're going to have nuclear powers, like regaining nuclear weapons here, I think that, if you are, if you ever had them at all right, like there's a club of people that have them. You have one, you have 5 000, it doesn't matter, you're in the club, right? If you are france, I'll call out france. I don't care, from texas they have. I don't like france, right, I mean it's, but I'll call them out.
Speaker 1:How? How can the president of France say well, because America, who's thousands of miles away, decided that they didn't necessarily want to deploy a bunch of their citizens over here to protect us. Guess what? I got a secret for you guys. Oh, oh, we have nukes. Oh, that's right, we have our own nukes. I forgot we could protect ourselves. Oh, okay, cool. So you guys want to be protected by France. All of our neighbors that touch us want some protection. Well, why would you want that? Like? Macron acts like he has just opened the treasure vault and is going to be the most benevolent leader to Europe, because something he's always had that should have always been offered to the other NATO allies there, he's now going to offer them what? I'm not going to clap for you. They only have seven, I don't care. Make more. England has some too. I don't care.
Speaker 2:They do have the capability and they'll have resources, so they're going to. But the whole point of Bretton Woods and the US becoming the security badge was to stop the nuclear proliferation, and the seriousness of this cannot be understated that once all these nations start rearming themselves. And I do want to point out that, out of all the nations that created the nuclear weapon, one did give it back South America, they made it. Or South Africa, south Africa, excuse me, yeah, yeah, south Africa, yeah, so they made it. Or South Africa, south Africa, excuse me, yeah, south Africa. So they made it, they created it, and then they gave all this information back to the international community. I think that's where Israel got theirs too. Oh, they bought it from them.
Speaker 1:And again, you either have one or you don't right.
Speaker 2:But for the world to work that way it was and for the US to be the backbone of the world economy, we provided a nuclear umbrella that protected everybody from Russian and Chinese aggression. Yeah, and now we're siding with them and saying like, no, oh no, the big boys want to play. Yeah, we're taking land, we're going to take Greenland one way or the other. He says, yeah, we're taking Greenland, panama, we still got our eye on you down there, like that's still gonna happen, yeah.
Speaker 1:But see, here's the thing. Let's say, and let's just get in our imaginary, you know time machine. And we do. Take greenland now, where's dick's position on nuclear deterrence? Now I'm like, hey, we, I'm a lot more interested in umbrellaing europe with our military might because we're there now. Right, greenland is basically it's in between North America and Europe, right?
Speaker 2:No, it's not. It's in between us and Russia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on the northern latitudes, yes, even better, right, I mean. But I agree that if I'm just happy that NATO Is interested in protecting themselves on their side of the ocean, to some degree, like and again I put myself in the leadership of any one of those countries to go, I understand that I inherited a seat where we're little brothers compared to the big brother in the room. So why? Why? I don't? I can't imagine being the leader, the supreme top president or prime minister of any country and saying, well, all of our policy is going to hinge on the fact that another country that doesn't have any contiguous contact with us is going to fall out of the sky and protect us if something bad happens.
Speaker 1:I can't, but doesn't, doesn't. Stop with you. If that's how you live, right? If you're president McCrone and you say, well, I'm going to wait for America to tell me what to do, how can you be the president? Because the buck stops here for the president of any country, unless you live under the nuclear umbrella of some other country and you have to basically kowtow and say, mother, may I, to your big brother every time you want to do a policy decision? No, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2:We want Greenland, because Greenland is owned by Iceland, a piece of Europe and we have strategic assets on Greenland. Sure, yeah, like those would not like that. Protect us from Russia, but now we don't have to worry about.
Speaker 1:Russia, yeah, but I don't care about Greenland. I'm saying why would a president in mainland Europe be cool with the fact that their big brother controls everything they do? But you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:No, I'm drawing like the. How easy it is to be, you know, connected there because you know you want the contiguous or a connected landscape, but but like the like. Our missile warning systems in greenland are still like that land, still owned by iceland. That's part of our north Atlantic Treaty there. Sure, yeah, yeah. So like all those things matter, like you can't just like, tear all those things down because I'm not saying we should, but I'm saying why, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's take America out of the conversation for a second. I want to talk about a European leader. Why, if you own nukes, do you have to make an announcement that you will protect your neighbors that border you with your nukes? Why is that an announcement in the year 2025? That these were only for us, this was our baseball and we never played baseball with anybody else in the neighborhood. And you guys can suck it. I'll play catch by myself.
Speaker 2:No, because we told them to play catch by themselves, because we were in charge and we kept the nuclear nonproliferation. And why, if?
Speaker 1:you. That's an American, yes, why? If you were the France president, why would you be okay with that? Why?
Speaker 2:Because then you can spend your money and have socialized healthcare and clean streets.
Speaker 1:You rely on someone that you're not in control of and have basically no lever to pull against to protect you. Yeah, that's that kind of sucks, right, Like that's what I'm saying. If you're in that position as a leader, stop thinking like an American. Think like the little brother who can't do his job unless he asks a big brother for permission. How can you call yourself a president of anything if you have to ask somebody else for permission to do your job?
Speaker 2:There's no need for the permission if you're not trying to be aggressive, like when the UN stood up, like the basis of the UN was that we would not take land forcefully anymore.
Speaker 1:That hasn't stopped yet, right?
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying but that doesn't mean it's not a fucking good goal. It was written down, but nobody.
Speaker 1:It hasn't stopped is what I'm saying, right Like that goal has not been achieved and we can say this clearly on your three years of war in Europe. In Europe, no less, not in some proxy war location. The true Eastern Front is hot right now and UN has nothing, can't do anything about it, right, right.
Speaker 2:Right, right but that's still.
Speaker 1:those alliances still need to be formed and strengthened, not torn down just because they didn't meet their requirements. Yes, because you, as the desire of an American, want to be the big dog. I do too. I want to be in charge. I want to tell all my little brothers in Europe to sit down and shut up and be socialists, because once all this shit goes down.
Speaker 2:These nukes are going to get out. There's already loose nukes out in the world.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:There's going to be more. It's going to be bad, all right, and so nuclear deterrence again.
Speaker 1:So your goal is nuclear deterrence, because you're the American that has all the weapons, so you have some control over nuclear deterrence, right?
Speaker 2:We believe we have some control over it.
Speaker 1:It's more the training that I've seen Right, but I mean we believe we have some control over it, so we want to maintain that position Right. And again, if I'm the president of Italy, nothing you just said matters to me at all. How do I defend my country? I'm the president of Italy, not America, not France, not Germany. I'm going to wait for America to come and save me. That's my plan. That's going to be my base of all things. Government policy is that my big brother will show up if I ask.
Speaker 2:No, we were already there, because they let us keep our nuclear weapons there to point them at Russia, like that's why we are there.
Speaker 1:I don't care about the American presence and the benefit of it at all. I care about the downgrading of quality of purpose of a European country. If you're not in charge of yourself, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:They are still in charge of themselves. Are they, though? Because they just don't have to spend money getting their nuclear weapons? I think they should.
Speaker 1:I don't care about nukes, but I think they should spend so much more money, time and effort on defending themselves from Russia. They need to do that because Russia can drive to anywhere in Europe. Russia cannot drive, not right now. We have to get the earth a little bit warmer and then they can drive to America, right, but right now they can drive on the ground, they can walk on their feet to anywhere in Europe. Wear in Europe and the idea that a country that's an ocean away is going to be your savior and protect you from everything, so that you can have socialized health care. I? I'm sorry, but I think Winston Churchill would roll over in his grave if he was like we're just, we had, we had no agency until the Americans showed up, and we were never going to be. We would never survive. The crown was going to fall unless the Americans showed up, right?
Speaker 1:That's basically, what you're saying that every European leader is okay with is that the Big Brother umbrella is the basis of their everything right, and if I'm in charge of any country on earth, I cannot wrap my brain around the Big Brother being the thing that dictates how I do life. I just can't do that, you know, and that's Europe To me. The fact that Macron wants applause because he has offered to protect his neighbors with his weapons 50 years after he should have already been, you know, 70 years after the aggression happened, and he knows why they all were.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. Like every time we've gone to war, they've all protected us, They've all stood with us.
Speaker 1:Why did he to other Europeans, not us, take America out, this is a European-only conversation.
Speaker 2:They're doing a ton of stuff for Ukraine right now.
Speaker 1:No, I'm saying that it's a European-only conversation. Just completely take America out of it. He's helping Ukraine. He said I am just now willing to protect Ukraine with my nukes, just today, like two days ago. Three years they've been invaded and he was like these nukes are for France only, not even no Germany, nobody, it doesn't matter England, I mean Ukraine, you're already out of the EU and NATO, you're on the edge anyway, but this nuke is for anybody in Europe. Now he just made that announcement and I'm saying, why, why?
Speaker 2:Because that's a doctrine thing.
Speaker 1:And I think it's a really shitty doctrine is what I'm trying to say. But again.
Speaker 2:You don't just change doctrine on the drop of a hat.
Speaker 1:Why would you ever have a doctrine that I have a nuke and someone who doesn't touch me, I'm going to rely on their nukes instead of my nukes to protect myself, because you let them shoot theirs off before you get rid of yours.
Speaker 2:Doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't let somebody else.
Speaker 2:Shoot their ammo before you shoot yours.
Speaker 1:I would not be okay with my big brother telling me what to do if I was a president of any country. Period, right, I just wouldn't. That's not how the nukes work in in other countries at all you know what I'm saying, so no, yeah, because like our nukes are there, like, like we're not talking about american nukes, we're talking about french nukes, dude, so like whoever's nukes, like yeah, their countries handle them, yeah, they always have them, like they've still always had them.
Speaker 2:But the doctrine change is that we always, we all had a first strike doctrine saying that we would not strike first.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, but like it was always up to the, and France's doctrine was I won't strike anybody unless I'm protecting myself. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So like that's a huge like doctrinal change to say like, and I'm saying we're a shitty, we're warming up the buttons.
Speaker 1:Position to live in, to go. I just I'm not gonna use, I'll never use my name. That's. That's russia and america. Right like no, you'll never use it first no, you'll never use it.
Speaker 2:I'm saying his policy shift, I'm not talking about first. He didn't change.
Speaker 1:First he didn't change. First he said second use, 10th use. He said it wouldn't matter who shot first. My nukes were only for France. Just go read the article, dude. On Monday, because it's Thursday now. On Monday, macron said please clap for me, because on Sunday they had their meeting in London, right. And on Monday he said I want applause because after our meeting yesterday, I decided that I would be willing to protect Ukraine, where I was not okay to do that yesterday. On Saturday, I wasn't willing to protect them in this way, but today I am.
Speaker 1:Why on Saturday was your mentality around protecting a contiguously connected neighbor to you? What happened between Saturday and Monday that you believe that, like this, lifelong change in doctrine is now required? And I know the answer is America said they weren't going to play, and I think that I get that you. The American supremacy is the goal here, but my point is is that France has responsibility for Europe more than America does, because France is fucking in Europe, all right, and America is not, and so France has a requirement to protect their neighbors. And on Saturday he would have said no, I won't do this, but on Monday he would. And the fact that Big Brother said you guys actually need to learn how to fight and protect yourselves. Big Brother said you guys actually need to learn how to fight and protect yourselves. I feel like, if that's what prompted the doctrine shift, what a terrible position to be in as a president, that on Saturday you were like I'm not going to fight this fight, it's somebody else's fight. But then somehow on Sunday you grew some sort of backbone or courage or I don't know what, and said, oh, I guess I've got a different view of the world now and I actually would protect you.
Speaker 1:I'm mad at him that on Saturday he wouldn't protect them. I just don't get it right that his offer was not equal to the American offer. He was not willing to take as much damage, put in as much effort, try as hard or just care, even vocally, back them in the way that America would have. On Saturday he wasn't willing to do those things. That's what he said. That's why he had to make an announcement on Monday that something changed. He said on Saturday I wasn't down to protect you. On Monday I am why. On Saturday, why would they ever in a position to say I'm not down to protect you? That's the problem I have, and I'm not talking about America. I'm talking about why would a European country look at another European country and say I don't care about you, because America's got your back, not me. That's so fucked up.
Speaker 2:I think that's quite a bit of a stretch for him to say I don't care about you. They're giving so much money and effort into the Ukrainian war. They've given so much more than we have already To.
Speaker 1:They've given so much more than we have already. To say that they wouldn't protect them is so disingenuous. Then why did he make the announcement on Monday? What was the point of it? What was the point? I wasn't a nuclear protector of you on Saturday and I am now on Monday Because he had to be then. He had to be on Saturday too, that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:You know, their funding of the war, like who knows what, came out in uh intel channels. Well, actually, we told uh great britain to no longer provide intel to ukrainians yeah, so we've even cut off our five. Yeah, yeah, so so we we do know that that we're cutting intel and things like that, sure, so big things change over the weekend. Yeah, he needs to ramp up nuclear production.
Speaker 1:He didn't say he's making nukes. He didn't say that he's going to have to.
Speaker 2:I don't care.
Speaker 1:He didn't say that we're not putting words in his mouth. He said what I will do is repeat him On Saturday I was not your nuclear protector. On Monday I am and I'm saying what kind were you in that on Saturday you did not care about that he probably had intel saying like we got you.
Speaker 1:Day one. He should have said my nuke backs you the day Russia invaded them three years ago. That's the day that Macron, who was in charge back then, should have said Eastern Front aggression is unacceptable. We don't need to wait for America. We're going to be European leaders, I'm going to be the president of France and I'm going to do my job and protect my neighbors, and I'm going to step out here, right here, the first day that Russia shot something into a European country and rolled over the border.
Speaker 1:I'm going to offer you my own blood and my nukes and everything I can to stop them at your Eastern border. I'm not going to wait for them to show up and I'm for sure not going to wait for the president of the United States to tell me what to do. The day that Russia invades, you have my nukes, ukraine, not three years later, not after Donald Trump shows up and messes around that I'm going to decide to grow a spine and do something to make a presence in the fight. No, the day that Russia invaded is the day that Macron should have stood up and said my nuke backs you. And the three years later it's too late is what I'm saying. It's too late.
Speaker 2:Okay, I heard you Want to wrap it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, there we go. This is this week's episode. Thanks everybody.
