Best of the Program | Guest: Manny Marotta | 2/28/22

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Hey, welcome

You know, Ukraine or whatever.

You know, Russia really wants it, and so they're we should do something about it.

And today, we're facing DEF CON 2.

DEF CON 2.

DEF CON 1 is nuclear missiles have been launched or nuclear war is imminent.

I don't know.

Did things get pretty dicey quickly?

We talk about on today's podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Blenbeck program.

We have Pat Gray joining us along with my executive producer, Stu Bergeer.

We're just talking about what's happening in the Ukraine and what are we supposed to do about it.

It's a hard question because the only thing we could do, really, to help them, actually help them remain free and independent is to send troops.

Now, we could send supplies.

Yeah, and we are.

We are sending supplies, but that's not going to stop the Russian invasion.

I mean, it might delay it for a while, but it's not going to stop it.

I think they'd need American forces to fight off Russia.

They're just, you know, they're one-tenth the size of the Russian army.

So

are there any Americans who want troops on the ground in Ukraine?

I don't think so.

Not very many.

I've heard many people arguing for that, though.

Have you?

No, it's just, but it's kind of just,

it's nebulous what everybody is.

I mean, what do you want to do?

Here's the thing we should demand that our government does.

Shut down the Russian imports and the Iranian imports of oil.

Yeah.

The one thing he has not done,

he hasn't touched their oil.

Neither has Europe.

I know.

And you know what would solve that is if he wouldn't have shut down all of our oil and gas.

He shut down all of our oil and gas.

So now we can't say to Europe, don't worry, we got you covered.

We can't do it.

It'll take us eight months at least to get back everything, get back up online.

And you know what Joe Biden did this weekend?

Besides going to Delaware?

What kind of ice cream did he have?

I don't.

I'm not sure.

It looked like chocolate from the picture I saw.

yeah.

It was really good.

Chips?

Chocolate chips?

Any of that?

Was it chocolate chip?

I don't know.

Any marshmallow in there?

I don't know.

Oh, I hope we find out for the media this week.

So once again, we have

shut down more oil processing plants.

We halted new drilling over the weekend.

Good.

That was a good move.

Another good move.

What the hell is that?

So the first thing that we should do, we're not doing anything until you start opening things up.

All of this bogus pain that the Americans are going to feel at the gas pump is not due to Russia.

It is all due to Joe Biden.

No, period.

Well, no, it's also due to Russia.

If it wasn't for Russia,

it would be worse.

Right.

You know, we could, we, if they're selling more oil to our allies in Europe, they're selling more oil than they did two weeks ago.

Right.

But without the invasion, we wouldn't need the extra supply, right?

Russia is still responsible for large chunks of this.

However, if you prepared for uncertainty by,

you know, having a supply of the basic fuels you need and able to export those fuels to help the global market, we'd certainly be in a much better position.

Everything that Biden has done has made this worse.

So that is a huge part of this.

I think, though, you get to this point where

what do you want to do?

Do you want to extend

the most amount of pain possible to the Russian economy to stop them here?

Is that our goal?

Is that essentially what we want to do?

Like, with these sanctions so far.

I would like to do everything.

Here's what I, here's, as President of the United States, if I are president, here's what I would be saying.

First of all, open up all of the spigots here.

100%.

First thing.

We should be doing that anyway.

Yeah.

Open them up.

They're not going to do that.

Today, the new IPCC report came out saying climate change was worse than ever.

It's already happening.

Shut up.

There's no chance of them embracing that philosophy.

Got it.

I'm saying if I were president, here's what I would do.

First thing, open them up.

The second thing I would do is I would be on the air all the time, like Reagan used to,

speaking right directly to the Ukrainian people.

And I would be saying, Ukrainian people,

you are being seen by the entire world.

We're watching you.

We're praying for you.

We're standing with you.

And we are sending as much aid as we can.

That means that we will help you with

systems and bullets, but it is also we are standing ready with the Red Cross to help you so your families aren't just slaughtered and left to die.

We are with you.

Continue to rise up.

That would make a huge, huge difference.

It did in Poland, remember with the collapse of the Cold War, with Reagan sending those messages directly into Poland.

That made a huge difference.

We don't have a Zelensky or a Beck, though, to make those speeches.

We have a guy who fumbles through every sentence and is lucky to get through his ice cream.

So

we have no ability to do that, which is a huge problem.

I'm not criticizing your approach there.

I'm saying it would be great if we had that ability.

We do not.

We do not.

Okay.

The next thing.

Do you disagree with that?

No, no.

But we're not even trying.

No, we're not even trying.

The next thing that I would do is I would be

trying to encourage anybody that is in a position to take the position in Russia.

I'd be just encouraging them, and it might be just through squeezing their financial accounts,

go kill that guy.

Go kill that guy.

You know,

what's his name?

Marco Rubio said over the weekend, I wish I could tell you more,

but all I can tell you is the old Putin wouldn't act like this.

There's something different about this Putin.

And what he's referring to is this idea that Putin may have a brain tumor.

You don't know that's what You're not saying that for him.

You're saying that's the speculation

referring to.

Okay.

So

if that's true, we should be out with that.

We should be saying that.

The guy we know through Intel has a brain tumor.

That in itself would help destabilize Russia.

Russia, the ruble, is about to collapse.

It's the worst day again today.

Yeah.

Since I guess 1998, they had that real collapse of the ruble.

It's worse than that today.

Okay, so

it's about to collapse.

The Russian people are already on the streets saying no war.

You release information that is credible that he has a brain tumor.

And there's a brain tumor

rumor intelligence, whatever it is.

Is that saying the tumor is affecting his decision making or

he's seeing the end of of his life and trying to make a move before it's too late?

Decision-making.

Although I think it could be both.

It could be both.

Could be both.

So what else?

I mean, so do you do the SWIFT

situations cut them off from international banking?

Do you launch a, yes, do you launch a no-fly zone over every week?

Are you out of your mind?

Are you out of your mind?

So you let Russian,

you know,

I don't put American planes up there against a nuclear power that has already said

they're engaged with nukes, that they are ready to use their nukes.

They're at DEF CON 2 as well.

We're going to put our guys to police that so then our guys are shooting down Russian planes.

That's World War III immediately.

What about Travis?

Do you?

Do you?

Well, is it Maverick and Goose?

Do we have our best out there?

We only have Iceman.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay, no.

He's pretty good, though.

He's pretty good.

He's no bad.

He's not even making through the whole movie.

He couldn't even inject properly.

Goose died.

He couldn't even eject out of a plane properly without banging his head on the ceiling.

Mora.

Sorry, rest in peace, guys.

Do you guys

do a no-fly zone?

No, I wouldn't.

I don't think we're doing any of that, right?

Like, the question is, are you letting,

you know, are aircraft prevented from flying over Russia?

I'm talking about not even military aircraft.

I'm talking about aircraft containing with all sorts of supplies and cargo and important things.

Like these things are

going all over the globe all the time.

They're all avoiding Ukraine right now.

If I were a pilot.

Exactly.

And we've seen.

We've seen

a tendency over the years for Russia to just have some incidents with aircraft crossing over there.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

So

we've already, Europe is already shutting down.

We're not letting any Russian flights go anywhere near us.

They're shutting those things down.

Eventually you get to a point where no one can fly anywhere, and we have all sorts of problems with the supply chain, which I might remind you, we already have significant issues with.

So that's another thing on top of all of this to consider.

You know, that's the problem with the gas and oil stuff, too.

Now,

I tend to be on the side of make this as difficult as possible and

quickly and hope that it's enough for internally Russia to rise up and say, get this guy out of here.

Because

if this goes poorly in Ukraine, it is not without, it's not

out of the realm of real possibilities that they will just get sick of this and

these oligarchs or just the people throw these guys out of, throw them out of office.

The Russian people are not for this.

Now, not that he cares about the Russians.

He doesn't care at all.

He doesn't care at all.

However, if the oligarchs and everybody sees that the population is going unstable and it is also hurting them,

yeah, they probably put a bullet in his head.

Let's stop this.

Okay.

You're making our business for what?

What are you doing?

Yeah, for what?

That's another part of this.

No one knows what he's after.

You know, I mean, yes, he's saying stuff like that.

He's after the collapse of the West.

I really do.

So you don't think this is about him putting the band back together.

This is, I just want Ukraine.

It's ours.

We should have it.

I think he'd like to put the band back together, but he, if he can do, remember, how did how did Reagan collapse the Soviet Empire?

Uh, part one was with the big lie about Star Wars, the Star Wars defense system, and he made them spend themselves into oblivion.

To oblivion, okay.

What would this do to the West?

What is just Swift doing to the West?

We're having to print billions, if not trillions of dollars more.

Okay, we're already having an inflation problem.

We have to now print billions, if not trillions of dollars more to bail out all of the Western banks that have any kind of loans with Russia.

So that's not going to help our economic situation.

If we do go to war,

Are we financially in the situation where we could afford an out-and-out war?

We would collapse pretty quickly.

Now,

they would say, well, so will Russia.

But if Putin is as crazy as it seems he is,

hell-bent on something we don't understand, that it makes logical sense to him,

that logic may be, yeah, but I'm the one remembered for taking down the West.

And then all of this will be...

will be easy to grab

because all we have to do is appeal to their nationalism and their energy needs and we got that

I mean

I'm probably wrong I'm probably wrong

I think the issue here is it's so hard to explain there there doesn't none of this seems reliable like I you know watching this stuff this weekend I started thinking is it possible we're just getting

sort of this pro-Ukrainian side of this right where not not not as far as like who's right or wrong I mean that's clear but the side of maybe Russia isn't struggling as much as

we're being told.

You are so pro-Putin.

I am not.

I mean, I hope that's not it.

But

it doesn't make any sense that Russia would be doing the things that they're doing.

So I wonder, are we getting the true story?

Now, that being said.

Unless he wants that Black Sea port so badly that he's willing to...

thumb his nose at the entire world.

No, but it's more than that.

He's not even fighting.

He's fighting like Joe Biden.

Biden.

He is.

I would expect this.

If Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump were going into war, it would not be fought like this.

Would you agree?

We would let him have it and take it as quickly as we could.

We'd use all of our resources.

You don't want to be, you know, you want to take the breath away from the Ukrainians.

Well, they're not doing that.

They're fighting like Joe Biden would fight it.

Now, maybe that's because Putin does have a brain tumor or is crazy or whatever.

I don't know.

But if he's not,

why is he fighting this way?

Why is he, why,

I don't know.

It just doesn't feel right.

Oh, I've talked a lot of times, though, and maybe it's just as simple as this is how wars are fought now.

And because,

you know, the elites got together 80 years ago and decided.

All those rules, I think, are out the window.

I think so.

I do.

I think we're we're headed to a new world order.

But let's, I'd like to hear your opinion.

888-727-BECK.

Can you explain this?

What's going on?

888-727-BECK.

Coming up in a couple of minutes, we're going to be talking to a freelance journalist who just escaped Ukraine on foot.

And

one of the brave parliamentary ministers from Ukraine that is still in Ukraine, we're going to be talking to them in about a half hour from now.

So,

where do we go from here, do you think?

Was anyone concerned about the

DEF CON 2 thing?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, the Russians basically came out and said, hey, we're on full alert for our nuclear weapons.

Putin said that.

Yeah, and he's threatened everybody that it would ⁇ if anybody intervenes here, that you're going to get the worst experience you've had in your history or something to that effect, alluding to the fact that, you know, you're going to get a nuclear launch against you.

And we didn't respond with that same standard, right?

No.

We didn't go to that level.

And, you know, of course, the press is like, look at the restraint from Joe Biden.

Look at this amazing restraint.

They can spit it, can't they?

Amazing restraint to not say back, oh yeah, well, our nukes are bigger than yours.

That's basically what that's.

That's insanity.

Right.

We do not want to get into a nuclear war.

Let's avoid that.

Yeah.

I'm throwing it out there, but let's avoid it if we can.

That would be great.

And I think that's, I mean, he launches one nuke.

Even if it was like a bunker buster nuke, you know, that we've talked about using in the past, that go deep in the earth.

They don't have the fallout and radiation, et cetera, et cetera.

Even if it was that, the world would go crazy.

He immediately loses if he does that.

And why would he do that when just, what, three years ago, he said the next war is not going to be fought with nukes.

It's going to be fought with ones and zeros.

Maybe he really has changed and there's something to these rumors of him becoming much more erratic.

I don't know.

And also, he could just be saying things, right?

He hasn't, he hasn't done this, but we saw last time, everyone was like, well, I don't, you know, know, in Ukraine was like, ah, he's not going to come across this border, and there he is.

So, yeah, you know, I mean, as you always say, Glenn, when people, when crazy people say crazy things, you should take them at their word.

And DEF CON 2 is taking him at his word.

DEF CON 2 means that our troops are at their highest level in Europe.

They have to be ready to engage the enemy within six hours.

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This is the best of the Glenbeck program.

This is the Glenn Beck program.

We're glad you're here.

Thank you so much for listening.

We have Manny Moroda on.

He is

going to, we're having problems with our phone system.

Our software systems have gone down.

Putin.

So we're trying to get our phones back online.

We'll have him on as soon as we possibly can.

You know, the one thing I think it is important to think of is that I think there's a lot of Democrats and leftists, a lot of people who just could, that have Trump derangement syndrome,

that see the Ukrainians as a substitute for them,

and Putin is Trump.

So I think they see themselves, because how else could you be for the Ukrainian people and this fight against the power, you know, or just across the border, and yet you'd be for,

you know, throwing people in from January 6th and not have them even see a trial yet.

How is it you're for Justin Trudeau silencing people and saying that a peaceful protest?

How can you be for the protesters in Ukraine?

And it doesn't make sense unless you see the Ukrainian people

as yourself and you're a Democrat or a lefty,

and you see them fighting against their

Donald Trump.

I mean, I guess they'd argue that they think their side is just in these matters, right?

Their side is right on January 6th.

Their side is right on Canada.

Their side is right on the battle between Ukraine.

And the big boogeyman there is their version of Putin, Donald Trump.

That would, I mean, because I'm against Putin.

Oh, yeah.

And I'm for the Ukrainian people.

And how is it that we're being told we're somehow or another for Putin?

We're not.

We're clearly not.

No.

What's going on?

Let's go to Manny.

The phones are working now.

Manny Mirota, he is a freelance journalist.

He actually flew from Pittsburgh

to Ukraine.

to cover the lead up to the war with Russia, and he got caught up in it.

He is now in Poland after a very long walk.

Hello, Manny.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Thank you for having me on the show.

You bet.

Glad that you're out safe.

Can you tell us what it

was like over there when the alarms first started going off and you knew, oh, man, we're in trouble?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, up until the invasion, nobody knew that anything was wrong.

And then suddenly on the morning of the invasion, we woke up to the sound of air raid sirens and it turned out that cities all over the country were being bombed, and our city could have been next.

I was in Lviv, which was a western Ukrainian city.

We went outside and we heard people speaking on loudspeakers saying, find shelter, help the elderly, stockpile water.

It was rather scary.

I mean, the whole country began at once to panic.

And it was one day, literally one day, nothing's really happening to, oh my gosh, here it is.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

For the longest time, the Ukrainians denied that anything was happening because they wanted to preserve, I mean, they wanted to preserve their sovereignty.

They wanted to preserve their country.

And so they said Putin won't invade.

And we all believed him.

And we all believed Ukraine.

And it really seemed like Putin would not invade.

And then this really came upon us suddenly.

It really suddenly

the Russian army was in Ukraine, bombings were happening.

And of course, now thousands of people have died in this war with Ukraine, war with Russia.

So

tell us, I mean, because we're seeing social media and we're seeing unbelievable heroism

on the part of the Ukrainian people and the president of Ukraine.

It seems like they're not willing to go anywhere.

Is that the truth of what's happening?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I mean, from what I saw from the Ukrainian people, they will defend their sovereignty until the very end.

Ukraine is a relatively newly independent country.

In 1992, they freed themselves from the Soviet Union, and now they are trying to defend themselves in the greatest possible sense.

It's only been 30 years since they've become newly independent.

And now Ukraine is trying to establish its own identity in Europe and trying to keep itself free from the reins of Russia coming back to retake it.

And so the Ukrainian people are going to defend every street, every home, every alley, every inch of Ukrainian soil they can, and they are enthusiastic about it like you've never seen.

Because they remember what life is like under Russia.

I mean, I can't believe that Putin thinks that they would remember things, that they would forget things like the Holodomor quickly.

Right.

You know what I mean?

You tend to have a long memory on stuff like that.

Absolutely.

And the Holodomor is part of the national memory of Ukraine, and they mourn it all the time and everywhere.

There are monuments to it in nearly every major city.

And of course, life under the rest of the Soviet times was terrible for the average Ukrainian.

There were oppressions.

You couldn't practice free speech.

You had to stay in line with the party.

You couldn't establish the Ukrainian identity.

You had to be a part of a Russian identity.

And so Ukrainians are worried about that happening again.

I spoke to several Ukrainians who had lived under the Soviet Union,

older Ukrainians, and they were just terrified that it would be something like that again, that Russia would exert power over Ukraine once again.

So when you're walking out, you had about 50 miles, right?

That's 70 kilometers?

Yeah.

Thereabouts.

It was like, I believe the exact amount was 43 miles and 74 kilometers was

the exact number.

But yeah, a very long walk.

And it wasn't just me, it was thousands of Ukrainians, oftentimes elderly, oftentimes children.

And they're the ones who are the true heroes of the story, that the vulnerable members of society who are walking out of Ukraine this huge distance.

And

what was your conversation like?

My conversation with the Ukrainians?

Yeah, on that walk.

What did you learn?

Well, I spoke with a wide variety of Ukrainians.

I spoke with children.

I spoke with young men.

I spoke with old women.

I spoke with a variety of people.

And they all had...

They were all, first of all, they were all unified by their fear of being taken over by Russia, and that's why everyone was walking out.

But everybody was, of course, committed to protecting Ukraine as well.

And their plan was to reform on the other side of the border and

to fight for Ukraine eventually.

And so the children, of course, were afraid.

The children didn't know why they were leaving.

The children didn't know why they were forced out of their beds by this invasion, why they had to march out into the cold, why they had to go without food and water, because these people didn't have food and water for the entire walk.

And it was just this long and grueling trek.

And so the elderly people, as I mentioned to you before, they remembered Soviet times.

They were mentioning that this could happen again, and that's why they were trying to avoid that.

And so

they were among, of course, the young men who would have to go fight.

Very soon into the walk, they were conscripted into the army.

And

it was just this wide conglomeration of people united by a fear and a hatred of Russian domination.

When you got to Poland, you're in Poland now, are you not?

I'm in Poland.

I'm speaking to you from Krakow, Poland, right now.

Wow.

When you got to Poland, what did that feel like?

What did the refugees go through?

It was just an incredible sense of liberation among the refugees to be in a country that, of course, was not being invaded, but also a country

that was still sort of living under the specter of Russian domination.

And now we're in Poland, which is a free country, a country that has its own long history of repression by Russia.

And there's a sort of solidarity between the Poles and the Ukrainians.

And the Poles have been very receptive to the Ukrainian refugees because of this brotherhood that they have, because of their shared past of repression by Russia.

And so the Poles are taking the Ukrainians in

in private homes, in hotels, in guest houses.

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are staying, and the Poles are welcoming them well, and it's just this great sense of relief.

But the job isn't done until the war is over, of course.

Tell me about two tweets that you made.

One, you said, we made friends with a 24-year-old named Max who was pulled out of the caravan as he talked with us.

I had time to get his number before conscription, and he left with a grin of utter disbelief.

I'll never forget that face.

And the next one was, a woman screamed for the army to spare her husband from conscription.

A soldier slapped her and took her husband.

Things seem really desperate.

Tell me about this.

Yes.

Well, first I'll tell you about Max.

So during the long walk, obviously, as I mentioned, I spoke to many Ukrainians, and one of them was this 24-year-old,

as I mentioned, 24-year-old named Max, Maxime was his name.

And we walked together for quite a long time.

We learned about each other.

He's pretty much my age, so we had a lot to relate to with each other, even though we grew up on, you know, opposite sides of the Atlantic.

And so we sort of made friends.

And then towards the end of the walk, in the last 10 kilometers,

a Ukrainian army officer came along and said, all men aged 18 to 60, step out of this caravan right now.

You're going to be conscripted into the army.

And at first, Max didn't believe he'd have to go.

And then the man yelled at him specifically.

And he just looked at me with this shrug, this grin of, as I mentioned, disbelief.

And he stepped out of line.

And

I didn't see him for the rest of the walk, of course.

But by the way, he did get back in touch with me.

So I've been in contact with him since then, and he is safe, and he's in western Ukraine right now, and he is not currently fighting the Russians.

So I'm glad to hear from him.

The second story, though, is the second story is a lot sadder.

As you mentioned, it's this brutal account of

a man being taken away from his wife.

What happened in that occasion is, as I mentioned to you, Zelensky ordered that all men aged 18 to 60 had to be conscripted into the Ukrainian army.

And so

this caused a lot of fathers to be taken away from their children, husbands to be taken away from their wives, brothers from sisters and sons from mothers.

And one of these couples, I won't forget, and it's the one that's mentioned in the tweet, the husband and the wife, they began arguing with the soldier, I don't want to go, I can't go.

I have to protect my wife because these men were often caregivers for their families.

They had to protect their families as they crossed the border.

And so this man was just trying to protect his family.

And the wife was pleading with the soldier.

She was on her knees at one point and she was standing up and she was crying.

And

he was pretty not empathetic about it.

And he hit her.

And

they took the husband away.

And

it was just this tragic scene.

and it was not isolated either.

This happened a hundred times in just the time that I was there, and I'm sure it's happened 1,000 more times.

It's crazy.

So is your feeling that most are going because they want to defend their country, but there are a few that are like, I got to protect my family?

Or are most of the Ukrainians serving because they have to?

I mean, they're caught between a rock and a hard place here.

They

want to protect their families, of course, and their families' safety is their top priority, but then also they love their country deeply and they want to serve their country as well.

And so some men have taken the choice where they prioritize the solidarity of their country over the

sovereignty of their country, may I say, over

the temporary

sav their their temporary safety, their temporary being alive.

So they prioritize the sovereignty of their country.

And then there's this other group who who wants to keep their family safe.

And these are two very different groups.

And they both have noble intentions.

And they're just caught in this tragic situation.

The best of the Glen Bank program.

I don't know if you have read

the lyrics of the Ukrainian national anthem, but I found myself looking them up this weekend.

They come...

The original line from a poet in 2003 is, Ukraine has not yet died, neither her glory nor her freedom.

And they've changed that just a little bit.

Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom.

Luck will still smile on us, brother Ukrainians.

Our enemies will die as dew does in the sunshine, and we too, brothers, will live happily in our land.

We'll not spare either our souls or our bodies to get freedom, and we will prove that we are brothers, brothers of Kozak kin.

That's pretty awesome.

Where ours is asking us, hey, does that flag still wave?

It talks about the past.

Theirs talks about the future.

And it starts with, hey, we're not dead yet.

That's pretty amazing.

I don't think I want to go up against a nation where they're singing their anthem and they're like, hey, we're not dead yet.

And we're not going to give up our souls or our bodies for this thing called freedom.

I think they they probably mean it.

They know the price to be paid.

They know how precious freedom really is.

I'm not sure we do,

but they certainly do.

They know how many people in their own country have paid the price, have been silenced by force.

You know, at the beginning of the program today, I said that I wasn't sure that I understood what was happening in Ukraine and Russia.

Something doesn't feel right to me.

But I do understand one thing that is happening in the Ukraine, and I think it's happening all around the world.

It's clear to me that the flame of freedom is now burning brighter

than ever.

The flicker of freedom always lives inside each human heart.

It was put there by God.

He fanned the spark of freedom.

In the hearts of the pilgrims, they first stepped off the Mayflower.

It was William Bradford that said, Thus, out of small beginnings, greater things have been produced, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many.

that candlelight that always

is so delicate and so close to being blown out

was burning when the rebels tossed the tea into the harbor was raging as the founder signed the declaration of independence and forged across the delaware broken and battered It was burning when brother rose against brother to free slaves.

It was alive

in the horrors of the trenches of the First World War.

It was alive as we stormed the beaches of Normandy.

It ignited a march against tyranny and fire hoses in the streets of Birmingham.

It gave courage to young women like Rosa Parks.

It was there when a lone man stood against the tanks in Tiananmen Square.

It was there again this weekend,

as a lone man stood against the tanks in Ukraine.

When truckers oppose tyranny in Canada

It was there and it is ablaze to day in the hearts of Ukrainians.

We see it as they gather their weapons and stand.

We hear it as they sing their national anthem, while cleaning the glass in their living room window that had been blown out by a bomb.

We admire it as young Ukrainian men flee

not away from their country, but back to it in the form of safety of their homes abroad.

We we feel it as thousands of Germans gather in support of Ukraine under the Brandenburg gate.

As Russians are sent to prison

because they participated in a revolt against their own leader's aggression.

Is that not

that flame of freedom bright?

The fight against evil is ongoing.

It has existed ever since man has been given agency.

But the thing that evil does not know

is that it never wins in the end.

Doesn't matter who wears the mask of darkness, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Soros, Klaus Schwab,

Biden, Talib.

Whoever tries to grab your security, whoever tries to grab your freedom, Trudeau.

We need to just remember one line that we've heard a thousand times and say it out loud.

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

You have to say it with a bad English accent.

There was a candle that was lit on this land.

And this candle, no matter who rules over it, that candle will not be extinguished.

There are too many of us, and too many of us around the world.

We're seeing them in Hong Kong.

We failed and we did nothing.

We're seeing them in Ukraine.

Personally, when I saw the tank roll over that car

and that guy lived, I thought these guys are being protected.

These guys might have some divine providence going their way.

There is nothing more valuable than the gift of individual freedom.

Nothing,

nothing,

not safety, not food,

not a guarantee for whatever it is you want.

Freedom is the ultimate gift.

It's divine, and it comes to every man and every woman, no matter where they were born.

That's what we fight for,

And that's what we fight against.

This weekend, I spoke at CPAC.

And somehow or another, I was labeled as a pro-Putin guy.

I don't understand that, seeing that I have said multiple times, Putin is an evil, cold-blooded killer,

and his death is something to celebrate.

Don't get involved emotionally in these things.

This is way too

important.

I know it's tough because you see what's happening on social media.

You see what's happening, but don't get swept up in the parade.

I don't know what the right thing to do is other than all we can do without committing ourselves to war.

But I would require, if I'm going to commit myself, if I'm going to commit that I will do all that I can do, the government should stop telling me how much pain is coming my way

while canceling oil drilling this weekend here in America.

while buying oil from Iraq, I'm sorry, from Iran, while buying oil from Russia, at a greater clip than we bought it two weeks ago.

It's in what people do,

not what they say.

And right now, the only people that I

see doing anything

are inspirational.

And they are the people, as always,

the people who are just like you,

just like your neighbors,

that actually believe in something.

Those people in Ukraine who didn't have a gun last week, but now have a gun

and will fight as hard as they possibly can so their children

have a chance at making their own choices

and further their own life the way they choose, not the way the state chooses.