The REAL Reason Joy Reid Was Fired From MSNBC!
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Come see us on tour. We're going to be in Baltimore, Hartford, Connecticut, Syracuse, Atlantic City, Levittown, New York, Cohoes, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. Go to JimmyDore.com for a link for tickets. Hey, this is Jimmy. Who's this?

Hello, Jimmy. This is Kevin Spacey. Well, well. How are you, Mr. Spacey? Well, well, well, indeed. Indeed. And to answer your question, I'm also well because I finally started to fight back against my detractors and their scurrilous slanders. Is that so?

Yes, it is very so. Jimmy, I don't know if you heard, but fellow actor Guy Pearce said in an interview that during the filming of L.A. Confidential almost 30 years ago, I behaved inappropriately towards him and gave him trauma or some such bullshit. And you deny this, I suppose?

Oh, no, I sexually harassed the shit out of him. Are you kidding? That little Aussie twink was a snack. But he never once asked me to stop. Never said at the time that it made him uncomfortable. Would you have stopped that he asked? No. Snack. Okay. Don't you see that this is extremely inappropriate abuse of a co-worker?

Okay, I'm going to tell you what I told Guy Pearce in my response video from yesterday. Jimmy, grow up. And Mr. Pearce, again, grow up. You're not a victim. People flirt at work. Oh my God. And besides, he wanted it. He loved it. If he didn't want to be sexually harassed, why did he give me every possible indication that he did? What are you talking about? What did he do?

Well, let's start with that name. Just walking around in front of me with that name. Guy Pearce? Don't mind if I do. Yeah, he's not named that in order to seduce you. Well, it sure felt like it at the time. Also, he would look at me, the eye contact, when I was talking to him. That's a signal. Okay.

Yeah, lots of abusers delude themselves into thinking that their victims are somehow inviting the abuse or that it's welcome. You're out. You're one of them. The whiny people like you are so dangerous. Oh, grow up. He was a grown man. He could handle a little grab ass or grab crotch constantly. If he didn't like it, he would have said something. Was he a grown man? How old was he? He was in his 20s. What? What?

What? Did you think he was a kid? Yeah, he's in his 20s and he's... Oh, yeah, he played a cop in the movie. A rookie, but still a police officer. Mike, if you were in your 20s and some dude was playing grab ass with you, what would you do? Well, you'll find out. I...

Sometimes people are shocked and frozen by what is happening. Also, you were a big star then. This was his first big U.S. It still doesn't...

All right, let's pretend he was. Okay, I'm just saying this is a sketch. Just so people know, this is a sketch. So this is not my words. As they always are. These as they always are. These are words written for me. So you had a lot of power over him and you go ahead.

And you abuse that power. Oh, cry me a river. If gay peers... It's guy. Gay guy? Yes, please. Fine. If man penetrate is so traumatized by what happened in 1997 to this day, I guess that means that 14-year-old Anthony Rapp didn't want what happened to him either. And that he's traumatized too. Yeah, well, that's exactly what he said.

Oh, that's right. He did say that. Well, whatever. He's lying. They're all lying. And I beat them all in court and some of them mysteriously died. Unrelated incidents. I need to take a shower after talking to you.

Let me know if you need help with the loofah. Okay. Don't even start. Fine. Besides, I also had a fun, flirty relationship, that's what I call it, with Simon Baker on the set of that picture. He's never publicly whined about it. Russell Crowe was in that movie, too. Did you sexually harass him? Are you kidding? Are you being serious right now? What? He's not your type? Oh, he's everyone's type, sister.

But you know how my head faces forward instead of backwards? I like keeping it that way. Look, every smart homo knows which straight men you can get flirty with and which ones would beat you to death with a tire iron. That slab of granite would have ended me and you know it. Remarkable instinct for self-preservation. Another hallmark of sexual predators.

I'm just proud of my video that I put out where a person I abused a long time ago was publicly vulnerable about their trauma, and I flatly told them to grow up. That really took some balls. I'm surprised it wasn't received very well on the internet, I have to say. It's because it came across as cold and cruel. Huh.

Huh. Interesting. Well, they all need to grow up. Everybody needs to grow up. Maybe that will be my next video. Everybody grow up except Anthony Rapp. Please stay tiny. Okay. I've had about as much as I can handle of you. We got to go do our show. I'm hanging up now. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.

I'm Aaron Maté sitting in for Jimmy Dore here with Americans comedian Kurt Metzger. Let's turn to some media news. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC.

MSNBC cancels Joy Reid show as part of overhaul under new administration. MSNBC is canceling Joy Reid's evening news show as part of the network's overhaul under the new presidential administration. Reid's final show is planned for sometime this week. She's hosted the readout on MSNBC since 2020 discussing political news and events.

And she'll be replaced by Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, who currently hosts the network's The Weeknd, which will now be reread. I'm looking forward to Simone Sanders Townsend. I cannot wait. Yeah, she should go Joy and Joy Behar. They should team up and do a show called Joy to the World.

Here's Ryan Graham of Dropsite News. You thought MSNBC was totally in the tank for Democratic Party leadership, but you didn't realize they could get even more in the tank. They just canceled Joy Reid, a reliable Democratic supporter, but who was willing to criticize Israel and sometimes the party. She's being replaced by a Biden spokesperson.

Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez, the daughter of Senator Bob Menendez, Bob Menendez, who recently sentenced to prison for corruption. Oh, but he did have those gold bars. I guess he knew he knew to get gold. And Alex Wagner, who was also willing to criticize Israel and sometimes the Democrats, is being replaced by Jen Psaki, the former Biden White House press secretary. Jen Psaki. So MSNBC, yes.

is becoming even more of a democratic party apparatus it's hard to believe but it's true an apparatus of the military industrial complex whom the democratic party is an apparatus of uh and so that i mean msmc obviously as soon as they have a raytheon commercial on it you know that's one of the funniest things jimmy's to say like well are you gonna buy a fighter jet why would they advertise why would they why is she given uh you know rachel giving speeches at raytheon so it's not even for democrats are a tool of a tool you know

Absolutely. Here is some reaction from Rihanna Joy Gray, the host of the Bad Faith podcast, former spokesperson for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Speaking about Joy Reid, he once blacklisted a booker because they suggested me for a segment, but I'm sorry for everyone else's loss. Whoa. Too many Joys in the kitchen, Joy Reid said. We don't need another person with Joy in their name. I'm the only Joy in this book.

You pick me or middle name Joy. Here's one from Brianna Joy Gray. For folks who don't know what this means, a booker for MSNBC, who I don't know, suggested I participate in a segment. Joy Reid responded to that person that their services would no longer be needed. I only know about this because the booker sent the screenshots of the conversation to someone who happens to know me and who passed them. Post them. Post them. Post them.

Here's Nick Cruz of Revolutionary Blackout Network. Joy Reid is being replaced by Simone Sanders, the person who was the mole in the Bernie campaign in 2016 and an extreme Biden sycophant. Reid being fired is hilarious, but her replacement is worse. He's dead on about that, but it's going to be, I think, very hilarious.

All right, so listen, we're going to play some of Joy Reid's greatest hits. And before we make fun of Joy Reid, I want to actually acknowledge, I want to acknowledge something positive that she did, which is Ryan Grim said she did sometimes criticize Joe Biden on supporting the genocide in Gaza, which I think is worthy of at least acknowledgement before we make fun of her. So this is one of Joy Reid's statements on Biden and Kamala Harris's support for the Gaza genocide. Bombings are being done using R&D.

tax dollars, perhaps we should ask some questions. For example, how does bombing a densely populated land strip filled 50% with children constitute self-defense? How does bombing hospitals, churches, mosques, and UN schools constitute self-defense? Well, you say if Hamas fighters are hiding in the hospital using the civilians as human shields, okay, let's say they are.

Are you arguing that flattening the hospital and killing newborns in their incubators and their moms in the NICU, cancer patients, someone with a broken leg, the doctors, nurses, and just the women and kids hiding in the hospital, that that's not a war crime? Yes, they're saying that. According to international law. No, Israel's saying, yeah, no, you do that. I mean, just the Hannibal Directive alone.

What do we do to our own people if they get grabbed hostage? Open fire. Yeah. No rules, I guess.

so that's joy reed you know calling out u.s support for gaza and i have to wonder if that certainly made her more expendable in the eyes of msnbc even though she was a very loyal democratic party partisan she was critical of biden on gaza sometimes more than certainly more than the vast majority of other msnbc yeah well are they do they you know bbc's got that guy that's directly like from mossad overseeing uh certain stories do they have a person like that there at msnbc or

Because I always think they're like the designated one that can say stuff. Like, Mehdi Hassan couldn't. He had to go. You can't be Arab and say nothing. But she was like the one who's allowed to sometimes have a little bit of criticism, you know? I don't think I was bad when she said it all, by the way. But it seemed like allowed to me. But maybe I'm wrong.

Well, that's Joy Reid calling out U.S. support for the Gaza genocide. And again, I think she deserves to be commended for that. And I wouldn't be surprised if that played a role in her finally being let go. But that said, there is a lot that we can mock her for. And we're going to go through some of her greatest hits. Her wig shrinking? Her incredible shrinking wig? Yeah.

No, we're not going to go there. We're not going to go there. But we are going to go to the time when she brought on a body language expert to tell us during the Democratic presidential primary in 2020 that Bernie Sanders is a liar. Really? Between the two of them. Is that...

Scandals hurt you more when they seem plausible, right? I mean, Bernie Sanders does have a sort of physicality, you know, when he talks. There's a shaking your finger at Hillary Clinton, shaking your finger, shoving, weirdy. You know, his physicality makes me think, yeah, he could have said, you know, listen, I think in this environment a woman can't win. That doesn't seem like a crazy thing from his head. Well, first of all, I think Bernie's lying. We see him. He slouches forward anyway, Joy, but here he turtles. If you look

at his eye level where he normally answers questions when he makes the denial his whole shoulders come up like a little kid getting caught his eye level is below his shoulders this is trying to hide in plain sight and many of us we don't know what to look for so if you look for this right out of the gate and the strongest denial is simply saying no and I think of women in particular we want to believe human beings so we're like yeah I would I

would say that he literally said well as a matter of fact I didn't say it that's nine words unnecessary no did you vote for Donald Trump in the last election absolutely no right so no did you dress up as an Easter Bunny and Easter absolutely not right so it's no we say no absolutely is actually not the strongest and now you're you're playing with me here in the game but least you're getting the no in here we're not hearing the no with Bernie also with Bernie he has numerous hotspots he says well liars like to start with well

So this was back when Elizabeth Warren accused Bernie Sanders of telling us that women can't win presidential elections. Bernie denied this. And so now Joy Reid and this body language expert are telling us why Bernie, because he wags his finger and he says, well, was lying. Objection, your honor. I would like a Jewish body language expert because this lady does not know. He hunches his shoulders.

He's got a case of the Woody Allens. That's like a classic, oh, what are you going to do? Like, that's a corrupt body language expert. Like, Joey Henry got them on purpose to poke holes in him because who would feel physically threatened by Bernie Sanders ever? Okay, so there you had Joey Reed bringing on a body language expert to tell us that Bernie Sanders, because of his, you know, Jewish gestures, mannerisms. Some of these guys got three full pairs of underpants. Remember? Yeah.

Larry David did them. But speaking of lying, Joy Reid got accused of lying herself when she was caught having her, when people found out that her blog, her old blog, had a lot of homophobic material. She's a virulent homophobe. And so what did Joy Reid say? She said that she was hacked. The only thing that I support and that I deeply care about is hurting because of some despicable and truly offensive posts being attributed to me.

Now many of you have seen these blog posts circulating online and in social media. Many of them are homophobic, discriminatory, and outright weird and hateful. When a friend found them in December and sent them to me, I was stunned. Frankly, I couldn't imagine where they'd come from or whose voice that was. In the months since, I've spent a lot of time trying to make sense of these posts. I hired cybersecurity experts to see if somebody had manipulated my words or my former blog.

And the reality is they have not been able to prove it. That's because you wrote it. All these MSNBC type chicks, they all have a homophobic whatever against them. It turns out like a Caitlin Collins. Same thing. I don't even think her tweets were bad, but I know Joanne Reeds were very hostile to gays. The Caitlin Collins ones were like, whatever. But they always are like that. These are mean, like shitty people who like to talk like that.

I'll bet she has all kinds of other awful stuff that she said. Everyone she works with. They were hackers. Yeah. They're all hackers. But here's what I know. I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me. That's insane. She genuinely believes she didn't write those hateful things that were on her blog and that she claims was hacked, even though she can't prove it. I saw a hypnotist for it. Yeah. This reminds me of a statement.

from the Iran-Contra era. With the part that is the most controversial. A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. So Joy Reid having a similar moment. They both are. They're both senile? Yeah.

Wait a minute. She has Alzheimer's? Let's turn to how Brian Stelter, you know, reliable cheerleader for pundits like Joy Reid because he's also a Democratic Party loyalist, how he handled the news of Joy Reid's alleged hacker.

back when this was happening. MSNBC host Joy Reid apologized again on Friday for old blog posts that have been found and republished. These are blog posts that are full of embarrassing comments and language. Some of them are homophobic. Others have been insulting public figures like John McCain. One of the most disturbing to me was when she suggested people check out a 9-11 truther documentary. Now, she published these blog posts more than a decade ago, but the issue...

That's weird. But Brian Stelter is more offended by a 9-11 truther documentary than he is by homophobia. I find that hard to believe because I'm a Brian Stelter truther. Yeah, that is a weird thing to hack Joanne Reed and say, check out Loose Change. What was the thing she was recommending? Check out Loose Change. She was recommending Loose Change. Oh, do check it out. I didn't want to check it out back then. She's smarter than me if she checked it out.

The reason why it's relevant now is because of this claim that maybe she didn't publish them at all. It's a credibility issue involving her claim in April that she was hacked, that there was a breach of her blog and that some hacker had published some of these posts in order to make her look bad.

Now, she's not claiming she was hacked anymore, and she is apologizing again for the posts. MSNBC is standing by her. In this statement, the network is saying that some of her posts were obviously hateful and hurtful and not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known for the past seven years. Now, again, what's missing from MSNBC's statement is any reference to the earlier suggestion she was hacked and that the claim was being investigated by the FBI.

Oh, I forgot about that. She also said that she had called the FBI to investigate her fictional hacker. Some homophobic 9-11 truth broken into my Twitter. All right. So there was that. I mean, it just, you know, whatever it happened. Warning from Stelter, Brian Stelter doing really going in. He was like Candace Owens with a Macron lead the way he doggedly pursued that.

This truly was unprecedented. Everyone knew she was lying about the hacker, but they all just were like, okay, we'll let it slide. I would never question a black woman or any woman of any color. You know how that works. It's called the progressive stack, and it's been instituted ever since Occupy Wall Street, and with good reason, because it's horseshit that distracts from more important things. Let's turn to more hits from Joy Reid. This is how she covered the nomination of Joe Biden back in the 2020 campaign.

- The thing that Donald Trump pretended to be in 2016, the regular Joe. He's literally called Joey throughout all of these videos by his family members. He's Joey. He's a guy you know. He is a white working class voter. - Let's hear that one more time. - Is he? - Let's hear that one more time. - The thing that Donald Trump pretended to be in 2016, the regular Joe. He's literally called Joey.

He's literally called Joey. Bam. Elected as president. Hey, it's just David Joe with 18 shell companies in his name. He's literally called Joey who has to pardon all his family members when he leaves office for their corrupt. It looks like a family reunion they had of pardons. I never heard of most of the Bidens on it. What did they do? What did he even do? He's literally Joey. He's literally Joey. Literally. Literally Joey. That's a great show. Literally Joey with Joe Biden. Yeah.

Hey, it's me. Hey. It's me, Joe Palma. Here's Joy Reid, literally Joy Reid, with AOC, talking about the nomination by Donald Trump of Tulsi Gabbard, who was recently confirmed as director of national intelligence. And we haven't even gotten to Tulsi Gabbard potentially having access to national security information. And Russia loves it. Loves her. And I actually think almost more than Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard's appointment is...

devastating. And Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, as much as she says that she's an anti-war person, she's not. She supports very pro-war individuals. Including in Syria. And let's be very clear, a Tulsi Gabbard nomination is a pro-war nomination globally, point blank, period. As is Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Point blank period should be the name of their show. Point blank period with AOC. AOC calling someone else pro-war after AOC has voted every single time to fund the Ukraine proxy war to enrich the military industrial complex and fuel Europe's worst ground war since the Second World War. Refill the Iron Dome, which is a tear in her eye. Yeah. All right. Let's do one more. Here is Joy Reid speaking about inflation.

For her year here, use the word inflation are journalists and economists. Right. So that is not part of the normal lexicon of the way people talk. So it's interesting that Republicans are doing something they don't normally do. Right. Which is not use the common tongue. Right. Not use just common English to sort of use do on their campaigns that they're doing with crime.

But what they've done is they've taught people the word inflation. Right. Most people would have never used that word ever in their lives are using it now because they've been taught it, including on TV, including in newspapers. They've been taught this word and they sort of wrap this word around whatever it is that they really want to vote. You know, the reasons they really want to.

All right. So people don't use inflation. Yes, I was taught the word inflation. I was actually taught many words in school as a boy, and everyone brought it up all the time as long as I've been growing up because it's been going up. All right. We actually have one more bonus one. I can't believe. Oh, I can't wait. As great as she is, this new one coming in is going to be a real doozy. I almost forgot this one, but thankfully. This is...

This is Joy Reid on election night 2024 as the returns were coming in, not looking good for Kamala Harris and pointing to a Donald Trump victory. This was Joy Reid's analysis of the Kamala Harris campaign. And I think it's important to say that, you know, anyone who has experienced or been in the United States for any period of time and experienced this country's history and knows it cannot have believed that it would be easy to elect

a woman president, let alone a woman of color. Let's just be clear. And nothing that was true yesterday about how flawlessly this campaign was run is not true now. I mean, this really was an historic, flawlessly run campaign. She had Queen Latifah never endorses anyone. You know, I mean, we had every prominent celebrity voice. She had the she had the

breaking news breaking news a democrat had liberal celebrities endorsing flawless wow i was gonna say did she have enough liberal celebrities endorse her oh she did no there's no flaws i mean it was a perfect campaign except for the candidates you could not have run a better campaign in that short period of time and i think that's still true

And I think it's important to say that, you know, anyone... She had the Swifties. She had Queen Latifah. Flawless campaign. It was a billion-dollar campaign. It was a generic billion-dollar campaign, I like to call it. Yes, it was. They had Zach Alphanax as a personal shopper.

Yeah, a billion dollars it cost to lose in that short of a time. It was a short time. How do you spend a billion dollars like that? Because she's what they call in crypto a shit coin that was a pump and dump. Everyone cashed in, right? That worked for her because they knew it was a disaster. They got as much money as they could, so they'd be nice and, you know, because they should never work again, frankly, these people.

And according to Joy Reid, that was a flawless campaign. Second only to Zelensky's flawless war in Ukraine. Hey, you know, here's another great way you can help support the show is you become a premium member. We give you a couple of hours of premium bonus content every week, and it's a great way to help support the show. You can do it by going to JimmyDoreComedy.com, clicking on Join Premium.

It's the most affordable premium program in the business, and it's a great way to help put your thumb back in the eye of the bastards. Thanks for everybody who was already a premium member, and if you haven't, you're missing out. We give you lots of bonus content. Thanks for your support. Let's start off with Ukraine and go to our first segment. Here's the headline.

In a stunning turn away from allies, the U.S. sides with Russia to vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Moscow's war against Ukraine. This is right. You are not seeing things. The U.S. has voted with Russia at the U.N. against a measure authored by Ukraine to condemn Russia's invasion, which, as we're recording this segment, has turned three years old today.

the Trump administration declining to join Ukraine. What a sea change. And there's the rundown. The US joined with Russia, China, and India abstained. And this is a remarkable change in US policy, of course. For the last three years, it's been the US, but it's been leading the way

in condemning Russia and refusing to negotiate with it. And now under Trump, we are seeing a dramatic reversal to the point where the U.S. is voting alongside Russia against a Ukrainian sponsored resolution condemning Russia's invasion. And then

We had the U.S. and Russia again siding with each other to pass a measure at the U.N. Security Council calling for an end to the war, but without faulting Russia for the invasion. And this is a dramatic reversal of U.S. policy, and there is no one better to discuss it than our guest. John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Director.

Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, leading political scientist and international relations scholar. And more than a decade ago, he warned that the U.S. was leading Ukraine down the primrose path and Ukraine would ultimately be wrecked. So let's bring in our guest, John Mearsheimer. Thanks for being here on The Jimmy Dore Show. My pleasure, Aaron.

I first would love to get your response to this top line news at the United Nations, the U.S. voting against a Ukrainian-authored resolution and voting alongside Russia.

It's stunning. I mean, I never thought that the Trump administration would so quickly do a 180 degree turn away from the Biden administration's policy toward Ukraine, which would end up putting us at odds not only with

a huge chunk of the American foreign policy establishment, but also with Ukraine itself and with our European allies. But Trump has done that. He's clearly decided

that he's going to settle this one, settle this war in Ukraine, at least with regard to dealing with Russia. And he's going to accept, in all likelihood, all of the demands the Russians have made for achieving a peace settlement,

This is truly remarkable, but this is where we are. And of course, the problem is, as I alluded to a minute ago, that the Europeans and the Ukrainians are adamantly opposed to what Trump is doing. And of course, all the usual suspects in the United States or in the West more generally are adamantly opposed to what he's doing. But the truth is Trump just doesn't care.

He's going to go ahead and work out a deal with the Russians. And we'll see what happens after that. When you predicted a decade ago that Ukraine was going to be in bad shape, I mean, could you have predicted that one day the U.S. and Russia would be voting together at the United Nations against a measure condemning Russia sponsored by Ukraine? No, I thought, Aaron, that what would happen here is that we would get a frozen conflict

that eventually the Russians would win. Ukraine would be a dysfunctional rump state, which is another way of saying it would be wrecked, but there would not be a meaningful peace agreement. And I didn't think we lived to see the day where an American president was out in front

on shutting this war down and trying to achieve a genuine peace agreement. It's very important to emphasize that both the Russians and the Americans are not simply interested in stopping the fighting and creating some sort of ceasefire. They're interested in a genuine peace agreement.

And the principal obstacle that the Americans face is getting the Ukrainians and the Europeans on board. But the Americans are fully in favor of working out an arrangement for a meaningful peace agreement. And I did not foresee that.

So in terms of the areas where the U.S. would not need a European and Ukrainian buy-in for a peace deal, where do you think Trump might be giving ground? I mean, Russia's proposal to the U.S. back in December 2021, which Biden basically refused to discuss, was a rollback of NATO, especially in the former Warsaw Pact states, a declaration that states like Ukraine will not join NATO. That seems to be already on the table from Trump. He's basically already

promised that. And also Russia's concerned about the so-called missile defense sites in Poland and Romania. I mean, do you see the U.S. giving ground there?

I'm not sure. I mean, most of what has been talked about, at least in open sources up to now, has to do with Ukraine. And there you have the issue of genuine neutrality for Ukraine. In other words, Ukraine not only will not be a NATO, there will not be meaningful security concerns.

excuse me, meaningful security guarantees from the West to Ukraine. And then second, the United States and hopefully the West will accept the fact that Russia has annexed these four oblasts plus Crimea. And then I think finally, the third most important point

dimension of a peace agreement involving Ukraine would be that Ukraine be demilitarized in a significant way. It could have some armaments, but it can't end up being a military threat to Russia. And I think as best I can tell that the Americans have agreed to those three demands. Now, then the question is, what about Ukraine?

NATO forces that are located in Eastern Europe. And this, of course, gets to the missiles that are in Poland and Romania and assorted other forces as well, which have been moved eastward. And as you pointed out, Aaron, in the December 17th, 2021 letter that Putin wrote to Jens Stoltenberg and to Joe Biden,

he insisted that that military equipment and those military forces be moved back to where they were before 1997. I don't think he was saying that the Baltic states could no longer be in NATO or Romania could no longer be in NATO. I think he was principally concerned in December of 2021 about the location of NATO forces in Eastern Europe.

Now, very importantly, Putin has emphasized that he not only wants to settle the conflict with Ukraine, he wants to devise a security architecture for Europe and certainly for Eastern Europe that will guarantee peace or maximize the prospects that the peace will hold over the long term. And if that's the case, then I think they're going to have to reach an agreement, I think,

on those NATO weapons that have been deployed eastward over time. I want to go back now to the prediction that you made 10 years ago. This is our guest, John Mearsheimer, speaking in 2015 about the war in Ukraine. But I actually think that what's going on here is that the West is leading Ukraine down the Primrose Path. And the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.

And I believe that the policy that I'm advocating, which is neutralizing Ukraine and then building it up economically and getting it out of the competition between Russia on one side and NATO on the other side, is the best thing that could happen to the Ukrainians. What we're doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We're encouraging the Ukrainians to think that they will ultimately become part of the West because we will ultimately defeat Putin and we will ultimately get our way. Time is on our side.

And of course the Ukrainians are playing along with this. And the Ukrainians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the Russians and instead want to pursue a hardline policy. Well as I said to you before, if they do that, the end result is that their country is going to be wrecked. And what we're doing is in effect encouraging that outcome. I think it would make much more sense

for us to neutral, to work to create a neutral Ukraine. It would be in our interest to bury this crisis as quickly as possible. It certainly would be in Russia's interest to do so. And most importantly, it would be in Ukraine's interest to put an end to the crisis. Thank you. So that's our guest John Mearsheimer speaking in 2015. That's a clip that's now be seen millions of times around the world because it was so prescient. I'm curious, Professor Mearsheimer, what would you say now to someone who sees that clip and says, well,

You might say that this is happening now, but it wouldn't be if Trump simply wasn't walking away from Ukraine. This is Trump who's abandoning Ukraine. And if simply, if we just held out a little bit longer with some more weapons, we could turn the tide and Ukraine could regain all of its territory and kick out the Russians for good. Yeah, I mean, this is...

completely wrong. The Russians are winning on the battlefield. They've already conquered about 20% of Ukrainian territory. And if the war goes on, they will conquer more. They will take more oblasts than the four oblasts they've already taken. Furthermore, Ukraine is a red state. It's on life support. And

There's no way the situation can be turned around.

I don't know how these people can make the argument that Ukraine can rescue the situation with help from the West. First of all, the biggest problem the Ukrainians face now is a manpower shortage. They're greatly outnumbered, I would argue, by more than two to one on the front lines, and they can't cover the entire front. They're too spread out.

So the Russians are finding places that they can penetrate along the Ukrainian front lines. They're just in real trouble, the Ukrainians, and they don't have the manpower. Furthermore, we don't have sufficient weaponry to give them to match the amount of weaponry that the Russians have. And this is especially true with regard to artillery. So the military balance has

It's markedly shifted against Ukraine since 2022 when the war started. Remember, 2022 was a good year for the Ukrainians. But after that, the Russians began to mobilize in a serious way, and they are now on the march. There's just no question about that.

And what are we going to do to rescue the situation? Nobody has an answer to that. And people who say that, you know, Ukraine is holding the Russians off and with just a little bit more aid, you know,

we can help the Ukrainians turn the tide and get back the territory they lost are delusional. This is just nonsense. But you hear this kind of talk all the time in the West. And that's in large part because the discourse in the West, as you know well, Aaron, for a long time has been disconnected from reality.

I'm Aaron Maté sitting in for Jimmy Dore, and we're here with John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, leading political scientist and international relations scholar. And John, Steve Witkoff, the top Trump envoy, made some really important news this week on CNN, when he not only said that he believes that Russia was provoked in Ukraine, but he also said that the peace talks

that Russia and Ukraine had in the spring of 2022 could be a guidepost for the new peace talks that the U.S. wants to see happen to end the Ukraine war. This is Steve Witkoff.

have indicated that they are responsive to an end to this. There were very, very what I'll call cogent and substantive negotiations framed in something that's called the Istanbul Protocol Agreement. We came very, very close to signing something. And I think we'll be using that framework as a guidepost

to get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia and I think that will be an amazing day and the fact is the president understands how to get deals done deals only work Jake when they're good for all the parties and that's what that's the pathway that we're on here so

Professor Mearsheimer, that to me is a really significant clip because he's not only saying that we already have a framework in place, which is the Istanbul peace talks, which were held between Ukraine and Russia in the spring of 2022. The fact that he's even acknowledging those peace talks to me is seismic because their existence has been completely whitewashed.

by our political media establishment, which has refused to basically report on what happened then in a significant way because it undermined this narrative that Russia can't be negotiated with. There's no possibility for a settlement. So therefore, we have to keep flooding Ukraine with weapons. And here is a top Trump official saying that those talks actually were productive. They were close to a deal and we're going to return to them. So

Your reaction to this acknowledgement and this vision being laid out by Steve Whitcough? Two quick points, Aaron. One is I think Steve Whitcough is an impressive individual. He is a no-nonsense person. He's not rude. He doesn't blow V8. He just tells it like it is. And it's easy to see why Trump trusts him.

And I think in very important ways, he is Trump's principal foreign policy advisor. And when he speaks, it's actually quite impressive. I don't always agree with everything he says, especially regarding the Middle East.

Second point I'd make to you is I think that those three parameters that I discussed before were all front and center at the Istanbul talks in March, April 2022. And just to refresh your memory, they are, number one, that Ukraine has to be a genuinely neutral state.

Two, there has to be a significant amount of demilitarization in Ukraine so that it does not have much offensive military capability. And number three, the question of territory. I think on the first two, you'll have no problems moving forward.

I think that you're going to get a neutral Ukraine. The Americans are not going to provide a security guarantee. They're not going to allow NATO to provide a security guarantee. You'll get a neutral Ukraine. And I also think it will not be that difficult

to get some demilitarization. And of course, it was not difficult to get some demilitarization at Istanbul, and the Ukrainians agreed to neutrality. So those two issues are taken care of. I think the tricky issue is territory. At Istanbul, it's not perfectly clear what the Russians were asking for, but they were certainly asking for more

The Russians were certainly asking for less than the four Oblasts plus Crimea. And the Russians are now demanding those four Oblasts plus Crimea. And it is possible they could even ask for more territory.

So I think the tricky issue moving forward, and I'm not saying that the Trump administration won't be able to work out a deal with the Russians, but the tricky issue moving forward, I think will be territory. And my argument there, just to embellish a bit on this point, is that the Americans and the Ukrainians, although the Ukrainians don't know it, have a vested interest in getting a quick settlement.

And the reason is you don't want the Russians to conquer any more territory. Because if the Russians conquer more territory besides the territory included in those four oblasts, it'll be very hard to get them to give that territory up. Odessa is a good example. Ukraine now controls Odessa. And it's in Ukraine's interest to make sure the Russians don't take Odessa.

But the longer this war goes on, the greater the likelihood that the Russians will take Odessa. And the territorial issue for settling the war will then become much more complicated. So I think territory is the key issue. And I think what the Trump administration wants to do is shut this one down as quickly as possible so that the Russians are content with merely controlling for

for the foreseeable future or annexing those four oblasts plus Crimea. But if the war is not shut down quickly, there's a serious possibility the Russians will end up with a lot more territory. And then figuring out exactly how to end this one and maybe get the Ukrainians and the Europeans on board will be much trickier.

So that's my thinking about how Istanbul relates to the deal that Witkoff is trying to work out now with the Russians.

What Wyckoff didn't mention is why those Istanbul talks were undermined back in April 2022. And we know now from multiple sources that Ukraine was told by the U.S. and the U.K. that they would not offer Ukraine the security guarantees that Ukraine needed to underpin that agreement with Russia. And Boris Johnson personally encouraged Zelensky to walk away. And only recently did Victoria Nuland

a senior State Department official under Biden, acknowledged after a long bout of silence that, yes, the U.S. encouraged Zelensky not to take that deal. This is Victoria Nuland. There's a story first told by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that both sides were really close to the end, to the successful end of the negotiations. And then Prime Minister Boris Johnson interfered and stopped

Ukrainians prevented Ukrainians from signing the deal. And then Ukrainian Representative Arhami kind of confirmed it, that yes, he said in an interview that there was some kind of advice from Boris Johnson to stop negotiating and to win this war militarily. Where is the myth? Where is the truth? Relatively late in the game,

the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going. And it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others, that Putin's main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on. And it included limits

on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have after the deal, such that Ukraine would basically be neutered as a military force. And there were no similar constraints on Russia. Russia wasn't required to pull back. Russia wasn't required to have a buffer zone from the Ukrainian border, wasn't required to have the same constraints on its military facing Ukraine.

And so people inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal. And it was at that point that it fell apart.

So people outside of, inside of Ukraine and outside of Ukraine, by which she means, presumably the U.S., started asking questions and then it fell apart. So Professor Mary Schirmer, what do you make there of her explanation that if Zelensky had accepted this deal, it would have neutered Ukraine in her words? And what do you make of the fact that, you know, or the possibility that if this is the guidepost, as the Trump administration now says for future talks, that

Where does that leave Zelensky, who will have walked away from a far better deal than he will ever get now?

Well, I think she's basically right that it would have neutered Ukraine. I don't like the word neutered, but the thrust of what she's saying is correct. As I said before, the Russians insist that Ukraine not have significant offensive military capability. There's going to have to be some significant demilitarization of Ukraine. That was on the table. It wasn't hidden. It was on the table.

in the Istanbul negotiations and it's back on the table again. So I think she's correct in that regard.

But that still leaves the question, why did they walk away? I mean, it's quite clear that Zelensky was willing to go along with the deal as it was developing. It wasn't Zelensky who said this deal is terrible. I'm going to walk away. It's Boris Johnson and the Americans who came in and basically told him he should walk away.

So the question you want to ask yourself is why did that happen? Especially given where we are today. God, it would have been so much better if the Ukrainians had gotten a peace deal back then rather than take the one that's coming down the pike now. The answer, I think, Aaron, is that we thought, and we, I'm talking here about the West and mainly the United States and people like Victoria Nuland, we thought that we could beat the Russians.

We thought the Russians were in real trouble. The Ukrainians had stymied them on the battlefield. And furthermore, we were very optimistic about what we could do with sanctions. You know, we recently had the Munich conference where J.D. Vance gave his famous speech.

Well, there was a Munich conference in February of 2022. It went from February 18th to February 20th, 2022. And the war, of course, was launched by the Russians on February 24th, four days after the Munich conference back then ended.

If you go back and look at what was said at the Munich conference in February of 2022, and you listen to how the leaders from the West are talking about a possible conflict with Russia, we really believed that we could bring them to their knees with our sanctions. We believed we had the upper hand. And of course, this is why we made no effort to avoid a war.

on February 24th, 2022. This is why we basically ignored the Russian efforts to try to figure out how we could avoid a conflict. We thought we had the Russians right where we wanted. And then when the Ukrainians did well on the battlefield, and they did surprisingly well on the battlefield right after the conflict broke out, we were convinced that we had the Russians right where we wanted them.

And we told Zelensky to walk away. Now, to take this a step further, Aaron, I'm sure you remember that that fall, fall of 2022, after the Ukrainians had had two successful offensives, one in Kherson and the other in Kharkiv, where the Russians had given up a lot of territory,

General Milley, who was then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, the Ukrainians are at their high water mark.

And now is the time to cut a deal. I think this is either in September or October of 2022. It's the fall of 2022. And Ukraine has done well, right? And the sanctions are on. But Milley understands that this is the high watermark for the Ukrainians because he sees the Russians mobilized.

Remember, Putin mobilizes 300,000 soldiers in the fall of 2022. And he has a much larger manpower base, a much larger industrial base. And if this war turns into a war of attrition, the Ukrainians are in real trouble. Milley, of course, understands this, says, let's cut a deal.

He says this publicly. The White House moves in and basically tells him to close his mouth. We're not going to get a deal. We're going to continue to prosecute the war. So it's very important to understand that we in the West

and here we're talking mainly about the United States, acted foolishly not only in March, April of 2022, but in the fall of 2022 as well. And then, of course, as I've said before, in 2023 and in 2024, the tide turns. Milley is proved correct. The Ukrainians had reached the high water mark. And then as the war dragged on,

And as it's dragging on now, the situation just gets worse and worse for Ukraine because they did not have an industrial base that could compete with the Russian industrial base. And the Western industrial bases couldn't make up for the lack of a powerful industrial base in Ukraine.

So there they're in real trouble. And in terms of manpower, the Russians have a population that's about five times bigger than Ukraine's population. That means they could produce a lot more soldiers. And with a lot more soldiers, a lot more artillery, a lot more air power, Ukraine is doomed. And then along comes Donald Trump, and Donald Trump wants to cut his losses and get out of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians are really doomed. And that, of course, is why they should cut a deal.

Is there a historical precedent for the nation's top military officer, General Milley, breaking with the White House openly, openly advocating against the White House policy and urging the White House to negotiate with another power, but instead the bureaucrats in the State Department, Antony Blinken, who's supposed to be a diplomat, winning the argument that there should be more war, so basically...

the diplomats want war and the top military officer wants peace? No, I know no instance of that happening. I think the only thing that comes close is Douglas MacArthur's misbehavior during the Korean War where he crossed with...

Harry Truman, but he was not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was just the US commander in Korea. And of course, he was quickly fired. But I think there's no analogy that I know of to what happened to Milley. And it just would have been very helpful for the Ukrainians and for us and for the Russians.

if a deal had been cut in late 22 or in early 2022. But this war could have been shut down. I mean, what we're saying here, Aaron, and you know this because it's an old story in the circles we move in, this war could have been prevented, number one. Number two, it could have been shut down shortly after it started, right?

And by the way, Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister who was also involved in a separate set of negotiations in March, April 2022, effectively says the same thing. But then third, we could have shut it down in the fall of 2022 in all likelihood.

But the Americans and the Europeans, but mainly the Americans, had no interest in shutting this war down. They had no interest in preventing it to begin with, and then no interest in shutting it down. And instead, we encouraged the Ukrainians to fight on in the mistaken belief that Ukraine would prevail. And if you look at what's happened to Ukraine now, I think the really big question is who bears responsibility?

for this catastrophe, catastrophe for Ukraine? Who is responsible? And of course, our argument is the people who pushed this war and then did nothing to shut it down and instead up the ante. They're responsible. They're the ones that have blood on their hands.

But of course, people in the establishment want to say that Vladimir Putin is responsible. He wasn't provoked. He just was interested in creating a greater Russia, conquering territory in Eastern Europe, restoring the Soviet empire, dominating Europe. These are all nonsensical arguments. Putin had no such interest. And furthermore, he doesn't even have the capability to conquer all of Ukraine.

much less conquer Eastern Europe and other parts of Europe. Just not going to happen. But that's the story that people in the establishment tell. And the reason they tell that story is they want to blame Putin for this catastrophe.

when they should be blaming themselves. They made a colossal blunder in provoking the Russians and then not reaching some sort of accommodation with the Russians when they could have, and leading to this catastrophic situation where Ukraine has effectively been destroyed.

Hey, become a premium member. Go to JimmyDoreComedy.com. Sign up. It's the most affordable premium program in the business. All the voices performed today are by the one and only, the inimitable Mike McRae. He can be found at MikeMcRae.com. That's it for this week. You be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me. I freak out.

Do not freak out.

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