Trump’s Ukraine Strategy, Columbia Antisemitism Crackdown, and U.S. Military Readiness
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with yours Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone.

As always, fantastic lineup of interview guests today. We are leading off with Tim Stanley, historian, columnist, and lead writer for The Telegraph. Follow him on X at Timothy underscore Stanley. Chuck ran across his writing and sent it to me. He is doing brilliant, brilliant work, so we're very excited to have Tim Stanley on the program. Tim, welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. It's nice to be with you.

So, Tim, you wrote an article on March 3rd entitled Trump isn't un-American, he's just transparent. And you did a good analogy there. Zelensky basically had the same conversation with Biden, but it was behind closed doors, whereas Trump is just out in the open and says what's on his mind, right? Can you explain a little bit what is the gist of your article and what our European friends and Americans should understand about Trump and his foreign policy and America's foreign policy? Because, you know, we like to think

You know, we have this constitution, this Declaration of Independence, these high noble ideas. But at the end of the day, foreign policy is about your country's best interest. Absolutely. Diplomacy is a process. And that process is normally conducted behind closed doors. What's different about Donald Trump is he's doing much of what previous presidents did. He's just doing it out in the open. It's like we say with doing essays at school, you're working out.

Trump is actually allowing you to think along with him in real time. He's done this ever since he's been tweeting. This is what makes Trump different. He also approaches it strategically from a different point of view because he's a businessman. So he is a dealmaker. He's looking to get the best for both sides. He wants his own side to come out on top.

So you take all of that together, and the result has obviously caused a lot of alarm because when Trump had his conflict with Zelensky, that was out in public. And the third element that particularly made people hysterical was the media reaction to it. So you have this dynamic of, on the one hand, Trump is not behaving the way presidents normally behave, as in he is doing what he's doing out in the open. And the second problem is that he is not treated like other presidents. Other presidents, to some extent, are

some slack by the media. The media is willing to give them time to work things out. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It assumes they operate from a moral position. Very often what you find with Donald Trump is people begin with the assumption that he's a bad man doing something bad or even that he's mentally unstable. So when you're a viewer watching a movie,

and you see all these different elements combined, you think, what am I living through right now? This seems insane. But actually, if you have any knowledge of history, and particularly diplomatic history,

You realize that negotiation is a process. There are winners and losers. There's arguments. People very often walk out. And at the end of it, you might end up with something very different from what you expected before. It could be that we wind up with Donald Trump backing Ukraine in an ongoing conflict with Russia because Russia doesn't want to come to the negotiating table. But what you're watching right now is someone out in the open trying to bring peace to Ukraine. Tim, is Vladimir Zelensky a case of...

Maybe a world leader who didn't have the same type of interaction with Trump in Trump's first term, where a lot of them, Xi, many of the others around the globe are people he dealt with and have some understanding of how to interact with him.

But Ukraine was fairly quiet during Trump's first term. I don't remember if they ever even met during that period. They sat and spoke. And part of Zelensky's problem is that Trump sees Zelensky through the prism of U.S. domestic politics. As you know, in America, foreign policy is all domestic. And because of Russiagate and because of Hunter Biden and the perception that Ukraine was dragging its feet on investigating the corruption in Ukraine...

The impression grew with Trump and his inner circle that Ukraine is a uniquely corrupt country and it may even in some way be involved in the Russiagate cover-up. So that's part of the problem is that Trump has entered this with personal bias against Zelensky. The other problem is that Zelensky has had one strategy for the last three years, which is to show up in other people's capitals and whatever their leaders say to over their heads by making a strong moral case about

and pressuring them to back Ukraine by getting their populations to say, this guy's amazing, you've got to support him.

Well, Trump is the first person that didn't work with. That worked with Biden, and that often was the dynamic. Biden was cautious in his support for Ukraine. Zelensky would show up and say, you've got to support us. He would build a constituency of support in America, and that would push Biden along. This is very different. Zelensky encountered a brick wall, a man who said, no, you're negotiating with me, public. So Trump did not like the fact that in that meeting, he started pulling out photographs and trying to talk once again about the moral case for the war.

Trump is thinking at some point in time, I have to sit down with Vladimir Putin and I can't do that if you've goaded me to calling Putin a murderer. You know, it's, you know, so Sam and I, we've co-hosted the show for four years. I am more of an interventionist. I think olden days, they'd call me a hawker neocon. Sam's more restrained, but we both agree Russia is just an evil force in the world. I mean, you know, we just have different views of how to handle this, but we also agree that

We had Thomas Grover from The Wall Street Journal on a year ago. We said, how does this war end? He says, someone just has to win, which is a very stark difference than what you're hearing. And I think the frustration for Americans, especially a majority of independents and republicans, there does not seem to be coming from either when Biden was president or the European allies themselves.

What is the end result? What's the exit strategy? And I think that's a frustration for Americans. And we realize Russia's bad. I mean, even the polling still shows 70 percent of Republicans think Putin's evil. You literally had, I forget the woman's name, but an EU parliament member just say, oh, we just need this war to go on forever to keep Russia tied up. And Americans don't want to do that because we have lots to worry about. We have a southern border, which he seems to be doing. But

For example, I don't hear any European country saying we're going to come help the United States and South Korea with their troop deployment because North Korea is sending troops over there to kill Ukrainians. I don't hear anybody offering to help that. So is that a bad view on our part? They're just like, look, you guys just need to do your part of this. We can't do it all. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I mean within the first few weeks of the war breaking out, a win for Ukraine would buy it.

And winning the peace looks like Ukraine integrating into Europe and getting some kind of security guarantees, which we're all hoping is what the mineral deal represents. So the win for Ukraine is that Putin did not capture Kiev and did not occupy the entire country. And it could walk away with survival, which is a pretty impressive thing.

Correct.

There was even talk about putting Putin on trial right the only way that Ukraine does that is if you enters Moscow right Napoleon right it's it's it was never going to happen So the wind was producing the stalemate and Ukraine's thing now you have to come up with a peace Which means Ukraine endures in the long run and that's what Trump's trying to get and the weird thing is is European leaders are going weird

We agree. We agree. We just also really want to put our troops into West Ukraine. No one's quite sure why. They just really want to do it. But let me ask you this question. I read a – so I'm a subscriber to Telegraph. That's how I found your writings, and I love it. And there was an article about the fact that the British Army right now has – I think it was 78,000 troops, which it has not been that low since Napoleon.

What do they think they're actually putting out there? I mean, that's my question. They act like, you know, it's all hat, no cattle, as we would say in Texas. What are they going to put?

Yeah. Well, they talk about putting 10,000 troops in. You then have to have another 10,000 in reserve and you have to have 10,000 that are like support. So basically a third of our army, such as it is, would go into patrolling Ukraine. Now, having a small army for Britain is not a problem because what is important in modern war is lethality. It's not numbers. When it becomes a problem, it's claiming that it can do what America did in Iraq and occupy and rebuild a country.

We can't do that. The Europeans can't do that. You know who can? America. And that's why the last few weeks with Trump threatening to pull out, it's not really threatening to pull out of the lines, but America demanding that Europe actually put some money and some troops

this is we're all panicking because we know we can't carry out the kind of military interventions that America can. We're still dependent upon you to do that. And now we're talking about in the future we might build up to the point where we can do that. But no one believes that's going to happen because Europe isn't a polity. It isn't a uniform. I know there is the EU, but it doesn't function as one united political constituency. And until it does, we cannot compete with America.

We're with Tim Stanley. He's with The Telegraph, historian, columnist, and lean writer. Well, what's interesting about that, and I know Starmer has changed his course, but when they were talking about putting troops there and the military leadership of Britain went to Starmer and they said, we need an increase of 2.5, and he said no at first. Now he's agreed to increase it some. Let me ask you this question. I think this is something that this does not help Ukraine at all, and it frankly does not help them among Republicans who are again –

much more interventionist than Democrats by nature, right? Even though, again, the polling 70%, Putin is evil, right? They just, they hate him, right? And that's just what it is. What do the Europeans and Zelensky don't get about coming out and campaigning against Trump during the presidential election and think that this man, if you just follow his history, is going to forget it? I mean, you know, you had, you know, you had labor come out and campaign against Trump. I

and commerce, right? That's all they should want. So why would you come out, no matter who the president is, because I think Trump views him, and he has said, as our oldest ally, right? You know, he has ties to Scotland. He has, you know, the United Kingdom. So,

What is going through their minds to do that for a man who is seen as punitive? Yeah. They also have a problem, which J.D. Vance pointed out in Munich, that at the time is they're demanding an alliance. They're also shifting away from the values that America believes defines that alliance, which are commitments to things like Christianity, free speech, etc.

It's becoming less like that. Europe has a fantasy understanding of how the world works, that it's all institutional. Personalities come and go. But the United Nations, Davos, EU, they're resilient, and you can always negotiate with that. And in their mind, whoever is the president, even if they hate him, even if Satan were elected president of the United States,

going to be dealing with the institution of the United States, so it's going to be okay because he's still tied into things like NATO, etc. They don't understand that that's not how democratic politics in the United States

its works. And also they keep forgetting recent history. So Barack Obama came to Britain and told us that if we voted for Brexit, we would go to the back of the queue and negotiate. That was America intervening in European politics. We both do this to each other. We are human beings. We notice that we disagree with people and we speak out. And if you really believe evil, as some Europeans do, it would be odd if you didn't speak out.

But then there is a price for that. And it is very surprising when people are taken by surprise by that price. Britain at the same time and Macron have actually played a pretty good game of burying their past political differences and even pretending they didn't say things they had said. So there is an alternative. There are Atlanticists. Macron and Stalmer are the Atlanticists who are still trying to tie Europe

to America. But the other thing I just want to mention quickly is that Europe itself is changing. It is now the continent of Maloney. There's an election in Portugal which might benefit from the far right. Europe is no longer the liberal A shift is very much underway. We're going to be coming back with more from Tim Stanley here in just a moment folks so stay tuned. You can follow him on X at Timothy underscore Stanley or at the Telegraph. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're continuing on now with our interview with Tim Stanley, historian, columnist and lead writer for The Telegraph. You can follow him on X at Timothy underscore Stanley. Chuck, we're continuing on with the discussion about Europe, European politics as it relates to Donald Trump, Ukraine. But Timothy had a brilliant piece.

Few dare admit it, but Trump might be right on Ukraine. Probably a lot of folks listening don't know what you're talking about there. Tim, can you expound on that a little bit? Trump's analysis is essentially correct, that the war has reached a standstill. The longer it goes on, the worse Ukraine is likely to do. Therefore, this is the moment to do peace. And I know it's a cliche that he's playing 3D chess in a

with the lights off, right? And all this sort of stuff. But actually, it is true. He is thinking strategically. And often leaders don't do that. They think week to week. What he's thinking about is at some point, you have to come to an accommodation with Russia. I therefore have to get Russia to sit down with me and I have to persuade it that the survival of Ukraine does not throw Russia's survival.

So everything you've seen in the past few weeks, which has caused a hair-on-fire panic in the media and among many politicians, this is actually real negotiation that's taking place in the open, and it is with a rational end goal, which is peace and the survival of Ukraine. There's an aphorism in military circles that bad generals talk tactics, good generals talk strategy, but great generals talk logistics. Right.

And the logistics are fundamentally the biggest problem for Ukraine, particularly in terms of personnel at this point, right? Like without NATO or U.S. troops, they just do not have the personnel to continue this war or to supply and arm those personnel going forward for a long period of time.

And it might also be that they face structural problems as a country to do with corruption and lack of faith in the state. So the Trump administration has picked up on his videos apparently of him being compelled to be conscripted.

So this is part of the problem when you've got, as your proxy, a country on behalf of Ukraine, a young country with a great deal of corruption and low level of trust in the state. So that's one more thing. America's looking at this and is this a good long-term bet in its current form? That's another reason why they want rid of Zelensky, I suspect. Two questions here. If you had all the European countries say,

Well, we're going to have to put our troops in Ukraine for a decade plus as a peacekeeping force. Do you start seeing public supporting Europe decrease for the Ukraine conflict? I mean, right now it's just money, right? They're not really doing anything else. Do you think Europeans are willing to put their sons and daughters in harm's way in a peace zone?

Well, first of all, I would push back on Europe not doing very much because aside from the money that we've spent, we've also taken hundreds of thousands of… Yes, no, I'll clear. We've also taken a huge hit to our economy because we were also so dependent upon Russian gas supplies. And that point is important to make because it shows that…

the European public is pretty resilient. It does support Ukraine. It does loathe Putin. It wants to see the war brought to a successful conclusion. Let me ask you one question. The experience of Iraq is very bad, so we don't want to repeat that. So let me ask you one question, though, and that's very true. For example, for our listeners, there's been 8.2 million Ukrainians who have left the country, and they just didn't go middle of a boat on the sea. So Europe's done a lot that way. But if they are...

If they go and say we're going to have to send our sons and daughters on the front lines, would support for the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and I don't want to dismiss anything, money matters, taking 8.2 million refugees matters, that all matters, but would the public support decrease? I suspect it would, yes, because of the historical memories of Iraq, Afghanistan, and also things closer to the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland. Deployments like that, long-term open-ended deployments, the British people are very skeptical of.

I'm with Tim Stanley. He is a historian, columnist, and lead writer of The Telegraph. Let me switch subjects here. We hear a lot about America, and, you know, it could be exaggerated a lot. What is going on with free speech in the United Kingdom? Is it really true what's going on? If they don't like what you post or something, cops show up at your door. I mean, what's really going on there? Gosh, what's really going on is it's –

There are some things, so some laws have been passed which are just inherently anti-free speech. So the one which gets a lot of attention is a law that was passed to block prayer near abortion clinics. And we're talking any kind of prayerful act, which is obviously prayer. So someone just standing saying the rosary, for instance, I'm a Catholic, that would be considered a breach and you could be arrested for that. And people have been picked up for the police. One thing that complicates this is

of what if your house happens to be next door to an abortion clinic? And so the Scottish government has found itself in the position of advising people that praying inside your house, if it's demonstrably prayer and it can be seen and someone takes offense, could be an illegal act. So part of this is about laws, but part of this is also about a kind of policing strategy, which has never been convincingly defined, which says that people are entitled to complain about other people's speech.

and the police become involved in asking you to desist from that speech. The police aren't necessarily going to escalate anything, but it's led to situations in which you might tweet something and someone will come and knock on your door. So to put it one way, and I find this is one mind-blowing way of thinking about it, I write for a newspaper. It is conceivable that I could have the police knocking on my door because of something I've said in my newspaper office that I've printed in my newspaper.

So because I printed it in my newspaper, it's like I understood that...

the newspaper has asked me to write it, it's fine. But you know, some individual could take offense and could ring the police, and the police could come and see me because they've had a complaint. Not necessarily going to escalate it, but it's to make you aware that a complaint has been made. And part of the problem is that politicians have failed to define for the police precisely what they should be investigating and what they shouldn't. And this has had a chilling effect upon speech, because we're all now kind of nervous that we're all listening in on each other, and that

could report you. One last question before we let you go here, because I'm actually not aware of this and I'm not sure, Chuck, how many Americans know. Just touching back on Ukraine, the current battle lines, how well do those align with the ethno breakdown of Ukraine, where the northern... A lot of Russians speak in versus Ukraine. ...were Russified areas to begin with.

How much territory would need to be negotiated to resettle Ukraine on Russian versus Ukrainian ethnic lines? Right. I am not an expert on that. The country is broadly towards the east, more Russian speaking towards the west, more Ukrainian and European facing. I think that that calculation has changed because of the war. And one thing a lot of our

and said when they went to Russia is that parts of the country that was sympathetic to Putin in 2014 when he stole Crimea now hate Putin and now sympathize with Ukraine. The consequence of the war is it's helped to develop a sense of Ukrainian identity and solidarity. So I'm not even sure one can see it as a straightforward ethnic war that is...

whatever it's called, revanchism. And Putin is just taking back the bits which are Russian. I don't think it's playing out like that anymore. Putin is now just trying to grab chunk order and have a land bridge to Crimea. I don't think that Ukraine would divide as easily down the Russian versus Ukrainian line that we thought it would.

Thank you so much, Tim. Timothy Stanley, Tim Stanley, historian, columnist, and lead writer for The Telegraph. You can follow him on X at Timothy underscore Stanley. He is doing great work. Highly recommend people follow him and subscribe to them. We're going to be coming back with more on the show here in just a moment. John Levine, frequent guest of the program today.

Formerly wrote for the New York Post, he's now writing for the Free Beacon, or about to start writing for the Free Beacon. We're going to have him on. He is a Columbia grad, and Trump, yesterday, for those who missed it, launched a missile at Columbia that generally requires two keys and a code to send. That was a heck of a shot. We're coming back with more on that breaking battlegrounds. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest up today, friend of the show, John Levine, formerly wrote for the New York Post and now is going to be starting with the Washington Free Beacon. We love the Free Beacon work, obviously, but he is also a former graduate of Columbia University. So we're going to start right there.

John, the Trump administration launched literally reading this. This is like a ballistic missile at Columbia about their discipline. I mean, I've never seen a letter like this coming from any government agency to any university. Give us your take as a Columbia grad. I like how you start off by embarrassing me that I graduated from Columbia.

Should I start with, like, he went to Columbia when it was still good? Yeah, exactly. No, you can't even say that, really being honest. You know, I'll use an expression from AOC, which is, we're not going back to brunch. And that's my take on the letter he sent. We're not going back to brunch. That was a serious, serious letter. We're talking about putting the whole Middle Eastern Studies Department into academic receivership.

No, I've never... I mean, look, it's promises made, promises kept. It's exactly what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail. He said repeatedly, I'm going to find these students who are not American citizens, and I'm going to deport them. And that is what he's doing. So I don't know why anyone is acting surprised right now. And it was obviously Department of Homeland Security was in Columbia's campus, on Columbia's campus, in dormitories apparently yesterday. And we still don't exactly know what

doing there or who is being targeted. But the president said more people are coming and it's good. This is a beautiful thing. Nature is healing.

You can't just go on a campus if you're not a citizen of this country and they death to America, death to Jews, and break into buildings and assault people. And then it's just, oh, well, you know, kids will be kids. Five years ago, these people would put your hand on a desk using a pronoun. But suddenly it's, well, you know, we have to support the free speech of these terrorists because it's our values. So, no, I'm sorry. If you're going to be in this country

I think if you're not a citizen, the basic requirement is that you love this country and you support our values. That's like a very low bar for me. That's a really low bar. And I suspect many more who will soon be in ICE custody do not. So Trump has taken out the trash exactly as he said he would, and I'm feeling great.

I mean, on that point, right, I don't know. How did Democrats get to the place where being an active member, participant, and supporter in an internationally recognized – every country accepts that Hamas is a terrorist organization essentially? Right.

And they're now saying, oh, it's okay if you're here advocating for that. That's just free speech. No, that's not. You've crossed a really clear line at that point. We're in a dark place right now because you probably saw that tweet from Senate Judiciary Democrats saying, free this guy and

And meanwhile, that account has never tweeted that we should free any of the hostages from Hamas, including the American citizens who are currently held hostage by that terrorist organization. So they're going up to 11. They're dialing up to 11 for a green card holder in support of Hamas. But our own people held in captivity by that organization? Not a word.

And I mean, politically speaking, too, what is the constituency for this Hamas guy? I mean, honestly, who they think I mean, when when you have primaries, when you have general elections, this is going to come up.

No. Why did you support this person? Why didn't you support the Americans kept in captivity? And I don't know what Democrats are going to say. And I worry that it speaks to larger demographic changes in the Democratic Party about who who they are representing and who they expect to be representing in the years ahead. Well, that that is a great point. That is a great point, John. And here's something you hear a lot. You keep hearing from the media that.

that the Democrats need to change what they're talking about and get back to X, Y, Z. The problem is they're beholden to these 25 percent of the public who think this guy should be here legally, who think it's OK to transgender kids under the age of 18. That's not going to change. And they control the party. Am I wrong? How far were they from accomplishing what politicians of their ilk in Britain have done with changing that? Mohammed, now the number one baby name in New York City also. Yeah.

Great. Doesn't that make you feel great? Yeah. But the country's really going in the right direction. Look, Bill Clinton was in this... The Democrats, I think, were in a similar position in the early 1990s, who had 12 years of Republicans...

that the oregon and bush senior and then clinton sneaks by could also could ross perot and i think he understood that the democratic party would totally out of step with mainstream america and he worked very hard to all use the term triangulate a lot of republican issues and make them

issues that democrats could all be a key thing that we did welfare reform bill clinton famously past bottom a a buyout of federal workers which never get talked about it more but he had a dog boat right to the head of the vote you can google this and they trim the federal work force of the lowest level since john f kennedy

Never gets talked about anymore. Clinton famously declared the era of big government is over. That sadly was clearly not true. The era of big government has been paused. John, I'm going to pause you there. Also, we're going to come back with more from John Levine in just a moment. We have the long segment coming up, so stay tuned for that. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're continuing on now with our interview with John Levine, friend of the program, formerly wrote for the New York Post. Starting on April 1st, he is going to be writing for the Washington Free Beacon. And in the meantime, and all the time, you can follow him on X at Levine Jonathan. And thank you once again for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Always fun. I have a question, but first I'll make a point for our listeners as we were talking about what Clinton did. Clinton reduced the federal government workforce by 377,000 employees in an initiative called National Partnership for Reinventing Government, which I did not know. It was originally called National Performance Review or NPR, and they discovered that was not a good idea. So anyway...

Let's go to this question here. NPR is never a good idea anymore, Chuck. No, no, no. So you have Trump has sent out this executive order that universities can only spend 15 percent of grants on indirect cost, right? And that's for the National Science Foundation, NIH. I know like University of Utah, I have a friend whose daughter was let go because as soon as he announced it, they said we can't afford you anymore anymore.

But my question for you is, why do they think that is too low when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation allow a maximum of 10 percent indirect cost? I mean, why? Why is that? It's a good question. I mean, you have to you. I mean.

Doge right now has a mandate to trim federal spending wherever it can be. And I think that it's part of a much broader review of federal government contracts and where is the money going and what's the accountability. And I think that part of that is reining in indirect spending and unnecessary expenditures. And yeah, that'd be my answer to that.

You know, Sam and I think there's two legacies for Trump even after he leaves office. One is what he's doing on culture. So like, for example, there's a lot of parents who have woken up about Columbia, about universities, what they're spending money on, what they're supporting. I have a friend who sent her daughter to Columbia and spent – Transgender boys and girls sports, all this stuff. Yeah, and they spent the six digits on her education and they're just appalled by this, right? So I think that's one. The second one Sam and I have talked about a lot is –

We think Doge is going to have a lasting effect for a decade or so, because I think you're going to see more and more states. It will start with the red states start saying, here's a line item for everything. Here's what we're spending money on. And I think taxpayers are going to start demanding it more. Would you agree with that assumption? Yeah. I mean, the problem, the ultimate problem with Doge is that eventually Democrats will take power again. Yes. They will start.

rebuild these organizations and institutions. It's just going to happen with very little public notice or protest. But I think you can, if DOGE is done correctly, you can actually really rebalance this country and put this country on a more sound fiscal footing. I know Elon has talked about cutting a trillion dollars of spending, which is extremely ambitious. And I don't know how you do that without getting into some of the third rails, like entitlement for military. But, you know, Trump is obviously going to be a one-term president. He doesn't need to worry about re-election.

And it's a unique opportunity where his second term is really his first term again. He's getting a second shot at a first term. And he can do first-term level boldness.

and then not have to worry about the voters on the way out. And I think that's an opportunity to really rebalance things like entitlement and really rebalance the fiscal footing of our country. And if we can get to a place where, you know, our second largest expenditure right now is interest payments on the debt. That's crazy. That's really crazy. And that's essentially just a tax on the American people. If we can get to a place where we actually really dig into the debt and we actually really can pay down the debt,

and get to a place where we're not necessarily at a balanced budget, but we're on the road to a balanced budget. That would be one of the greatest contributions a president has ever done since probably World War II. Another one, John, that I think Elon Musk seems to understand, Trump maybe understands now much better than he did in his first term, but there are two really fundamental problems with our government that are preventing it, it seems to me, from delivering the services we're all paying for.

which is the regulatory state has just tied itself in knots. But second to that, government procurement and contracting has become this hideous insider game that Elon Musk clearly hates from his interactions with SpaceX and Tesla. Yeah.

Those changes, if they could affect them, would be fairly long-lasting because they would – it would be hard to argue that you need a more inefficient procurement process of those things. Are there indications that Doge or other elements of the Trump administration are starting to target those areas? Yes.

I think indirectly there's no way that that won't be targeted because Doge is just a wrecking ball throughout the entire system. So yes, obviously the crony capitalism you're essentially describing will certainly be on the agenda. But I mean, I'm very cynical. I hate to say this, but I don't trust that when you get the next Democrat in power that a lot of this won't come back. And I don't know how you make it more permanent. All I can hope is that the way to do it is just

There needs to be a robust media environment where when Democrats try to reintroduce a lot of these problems and these budget busting things that undo the work of Doge, they need to be very publicly held accountable. I mean, it's kind of maybe the only way you can stop it. But actually, you know, I hope we get to a place in a couple of years where it's

it's popular and and there won't be necessarily a will to bring back some of these inefficiencies because democrats will realize as bill clinton did a generation ago that these are issues that they should be leading on a lot of this stuff should be bipartisan yes having having federal workers sit around doing nothing should be a bipartisan issue israel should be a bipartisan issue you know gender reassignment surgery for teenage underage teenagers should be a bipartisan issue like there's a lot of stuff that's going to be triangulated hopefully in the next few years

Do you think – one thing about – was it 400, 800 million Columbia grants withdrawn? How much was it? 400 million a grant. So they have like a $14 or $15 billion endowment. Yeah. What are they using – It went up $3 billion in the last two years. And I know there's probably – that goes towards endowments, towards professorships that people have donated and so forth. Should we be taxing endowments, do you think,

Well, that's another sort of thing that's on the pipeline. In the first term, Trump talked about taxing endowments, and I think a small endowment tax was passed. You'll have to just check that. But there's talk now of, like, double-digit taxes on the endowments. By the way, why not? Why should they be exempted? If anybody else in this country was sitting on a pot of gold for $13 billion, they'd be taxed.

And why should these institutions be exempted? I don't know. When Harvard University comes out and rebrands itself from Harvard University to Harvard Corporation, that should give you a pretty good signal for where we should go. They're essentially a hedge fund. Yeah. And that's it. They're a hedge fund that also operates a university. And there's no reason why they should be receiving special treatment. No reason at all.

And I don't like taxes. I'm not going to say I am an anti-tax warrior, but I also am against special treatment. Israel, do you like what Trump is doing with Israel since he's been in office? Yeah.

I think President Trump is keeping his promises. And I think he's also showing willingness to really embrace outside-the-box thinking. Like, you know, Israel, I have heard, oh, a two-state solution my whole life. It's this zombie idiot idea that has...

never worked because the palestinian had never wanted a two-state solution they've always wanted a two-state solution as a way of getting a one-state solution which is them in charge and no more jews that's always been with the palestinians have wanted for seventy five years and always will be frankly

Always will be. You know, I call the Trump plan Gaza Lago. And the Gaza Lago plan is, I mean, like, I can just imagine these, like, State Department bureaucrats hearing it for the first time. And there was some reporting when he first talked about it publicly. All these people with their mouths open, a gate like Jimmy Carter at the end. They couldn't believe it. And he's willing to throw aside decades of received wisdom.

that's stupid and doesn't work when he hears a good idea. And he just, I don't know where he got the idea for Gazalago, who is, you know, I'm sure it was something where his real estate friends or he came up with it, but it's inspired. And the fact of the matter is population transfers, like the ones he's talking about, were commonplace in the 20th century. You can look at India and Pakistan. You can look at Greece and Turkey. When two people do not get along with each other and the differences are just irreconcilable, you

You move them apart. And you know what? It works. It worked in both of the two instances I just described, and it could work here. And I think Trump, unique among American presidents, has the political will to do it. And Gaza is a beautiful, vibrant land with a horrid population sitting on top of it right now. It would be the most beautiful oceanfront real estate or seaside real estate in the world. It's Mediterranean. It could be stunning.

And I hope the first thing they build is a Trump Hotel there. Really. Absolutely. I have said for years, the United States, let's say you had a population in Tijuana that was constantly shelling the people in San Diego. Does anybody believe we'd allow that population to remain in Tijuana?

You don't even need to finish that sentence. I mean, like, we would, we actually had a situation in the dawn of the 20th century, the early 1900s, where Mexican raiders and cartel members, Pancho Villa, led by Pancho Villa, the gangster, were doing cross-border raids into Texas. And the United States sent 100,000 men under General John J. Pershing to push them out.

Yeah. And we we will. America has always defended its sovereignty from invasion, whether it was invasion by Pancho Villa or hopefully soon the invasion by the cartel members. So, no, if you if we were being bombed, if a Mexican drug lord executed in October 7th in Texas, I mean, I don't the response would be very significant. I don't know what would happen.

It would be well above anything you've seen in Israel. You know, Israel's been fighting the Mosses one hand, five behind their back because of President Biden.

And because Democrats have refused to allow them to finish that conflict. And God willing, President Trump will allow them to finish that conflict. And there'll be no more Hamas. And Gaza can be beautiful. And we could all move on. Well, I'll tell you what would happen if that was the case. And they did that on October 7th, like in the United States. Mexico would become the 51st state. And we stopped talking about Canada for a while. And Cabo would be the capital. I mean, he just wouldn't allow it. Right. And all Americans would be behind it.

So it's – I am entirely fine with – We would close things out very quickly. Yeah, no. The rain of hell would come down on us. I'm entirely fine with us annexing Cabo. Quickly here. We've got about three minutes left here. We just interviewed before you Tim Stanley. He is the writer and historian for The Telegraph, and he wrote a great article called – entitled Few Dare Admit It, But Trump Might Be Right on Ukraine.

Do you think Trump is doing the right course of action of Ukraine? And do you think he ultimately does get some sort of peace deal done? Well, look, I mean, the first thing I would stress is Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Correct. Like we don't have any real obligations to Ukraine. I mean, there's a strategic value that I'm sympathetic to that why I didn't want Russia to be dominated. But the first thing everyone has to understand is they're not a NATO nation. We are not obligated by any treaty or anything to defend those people. Now, that being said...

Ukraine can't win that war. Everyone knows that. Everyone's been whispering that Russia's a nuclear power. Ukraine is not. And it's just not winnable for Ukraine. And you don't want to be in a situation where it's like Vietnam, where we're just flooding arms and flooding money, and it doesn't go anywhere, and it's just a drain. So I think a ceasefire is important.

is important. And the reporting now is Russia has sort of tentatively agreed to cease fire. If you can pause that fighting, really pause the fighting for 30 days, I think you can get both sides at the table

agree, okay, Russia's going to get this, Ukraine's going to get that, and we'll have an agreement. And, you know, the problem is Putin doesn't believe Ukraine has a right to exist. He believes Ukraine is a part of Russia, Putin believes it. So I don't... The question is, how can we really... What can we put in place to ensure Putin keeps his word on any ceasefire and any agreement where we don't just see the invasion start up two, three, or four, five years later? And that's going to be a challenge for Trump and his people, but...

We've got to work through it. But the first thing is you've got to stop the fighting. You've got to stop the killing. And then all things are possible. Is that kind of an underappreciated element of this minerals deal that Trump was trying to put together? Like, it's really easy for the United States at that point to say, oh, we have not a military, but let's say a security force there around the mines that we have an interest in.

That essentially would become a bright red line for Russia that they could not cross.

If you had, say, 10,000 U.S. contractors in eastern Ukraine working in the mines and that level of economic activity that that mineral steel would bring, Russia can't just be invading eastern Ukraine anymore. Because if Russia started killing American citizens, that would escalate things very, very quickly. I do think it's, you know, by linking our economies in that way, it would actually make Ukraine a lot safer, exactly as you just described.

So, yeah, that's why they should sign that deal as quickly as they can. Absolutely. John Levine, thank you so much. We always love having you on the program. Folks, follow him on X at Levine Jonathan. And very soon on April 1st, you can follow him at the Washington Free Beacon. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back. If you are a podcast subscriber, you get more content. That's why you need to go.

anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find Breaking Battlegrounds, Substack, Spotify, Apple, all the good stuff. We're there, and we're going to have a great segment coming up for you. Cameron Henderson, U.S. reporter at The Telegraph. Chuck has got us doing a lot of Telegraph because they're doing great work just like The Free Beacon and John Levine do. So, folks, make sure you are signed up and download for that. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back on the air next week.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our next guest up today, Cameron Henderson, is a U.S. reporter at The Telegraph. You can follow him on X at CamHenderson98. He's been doing some great stuff that we both appreciate, covering military pilots, why they're going so long without flying. That's actually becoming a problem here in the United States, and it's a big problem across Europe. And he's been doing some great stuff

and military helicopter pilots switching off life safety systems. Both of those articles caught our attention. So we want to bring him on to talk about those. Cameron Henderson, welcome to the program. Chuck and Sam, thanks very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on. Cameron, I saw, by the way, they extended you and they're letting you stay here and cover U.S. for 2025. Is that true? They're not sending you back? Not quite yet. You've not been called home. Trump isn't deporting him just at the moment.

Not right yet. Hopefully I'll come on for a little bit longer. No, no, no. It looks great at the moment. You know, there's so much going on in the U.S. Thank you for the news to cover. So they thought they'd keep me out here. Let me ask you a personal question before we get started on your great writing. What do you find the difference to be between the American people you come across and folks back home in the United Kingdom?

Ooh, that's tricky. I say American people are very open and friendly and willing to chat, which is a complete sort of disjuncture to the stereotype of Brits who will, if you try and start a conversation with them, turn their nose away and look down at their feet.

It's been nice to have some friendly faces to get to know whilst I've been here so far. That's fantastic. All right. So first article we want to talk about, you wrote for The Telegraph, military helicopter pilots switching off life-saving safety systems. Why are they doing that? What did you find out in this article?

So I've been speaking to current and former military aircraft pilots. And what one whistleblower spoke to me about was this problem with not using ABS-B, which is effectively a more developed radar system and...

It's got two parts to it. It has an out system and an in system. Now, the first allows other pilots in the sky and air traffic controllers to know where your aircraft is at all times. And the other system allows you to know where other aircraft are in the sky. And it highlights them as little dots on a screen so you can be absolutely certain.

Now what I'm hearing from this pilot in particular is that naval air commanders are instructing pilots not to turn on the system because they're worried about security threats. Now under official guidelines

Basically, Navy pilots don't have to turn on the out system for missions that involve national security, etc. But basically, these guidelines are being interpreted in such a broad brush way that, in effect, all flights under certain commanders' auspices aren't using this safety equipment.

Now, the pilot I've spoken to said this is just an absolutely massive problem and said, you know, the system saved their life countless times. And they're really worried by this pushback they're getting. And one really troubling thing that makes this super important at the moment is reports seem to suggest that this ASB technology may have been turned off during the...

a crash between a Black Hawk military helicopter and a commercial airline over D.C. And my contact, I asked them about this, and they said when they raised the issue of pilots not turning on this ADS-B system, their colleagues rolled their eyes and said, you know, what are we worried about, airliners? And then they said, you know, this hasn't happened. Wow. Well, and that gives me the point. If you're turning off this life-saving safety system,

You have to be a pretty experienced pilot, correct, to be able to maneuver that? I mean, you have to have some skill. Would that be a correct assumption? I mean, I think it's a highly skilled job wherever you're at in the hierarchy, right? But experience matters. Experience matters. Experience matters.

As I understand it, these systems, obviously part of the reason it's not like hacking security, it's that it broadcasts the location of that aircraft. It's like GPS track. Right. So when you're in a combat exercise or in a combat theater of combat and executing a mission, yes, of course you want it off.

But I have a lot of A-10 pilot friends who will tell you those systems are not optional when you're flying routine training missions here in the United States. Like that to me is a shocking element of your story and reporting.

Well, yeah, I think that's completely a thing because, you know, it's important that pilots fly missions as if they were carrying out, you know, a real life, you know, war scenario. And I think a lot of stuff I've heard points to, you know, when pilots fly in sort of, you know,

airspace that commercial jets, et cetera, are occupying, it's because in an emergency situation, they may have to replicate that. So they want to be as up to speed as possible. But that obviously raises concerns about putting members of the public at risk by performing what are inherently risky maneuvers,

without the safety technology switched on. And you think, God, is this worth this risk? We now have this situation happen, and it may be a contributing factor that they turned off this safety system. Quickly, before we go to your next article, how did you – so this is a very unique article. It's very educational. How did you come up with this topic? Was it a whistleblower? I mean, how did you come up with it?

Right. So after the Washington, D.C. crash, we noticed some data online, annual reports showing that the number of military aviation crashes had actually – I think the rate had actually spiked last year in 2024 –

and it was a four-fold increase on two years beforehand. And so that struck us as odd because, you know, we, particularly in the UK, look at the US military as this absolutely, you know, cutting-edge force. And so the idea that there was this increase in pressures, you know, we wanted to look into it. So I got speaking on various groups with military aviators to find out, look, you know, this has happened. We want to find out more about it. Can you tell us what's going on? And...

I was immediately struck and startled by the number of people who got back to me saying, look, you know, there are problems and we want to talk about it, but, you know, we don't want our names to be in it, you know, for obvious reasons, because they don't want the repercussions. And then I had two, yeah, two main current problems.

serving pilots who spoke to me in depth about the issues they were facing. One who was very, very hot on the issue around military readiness and the other one who spoke to me about the issues to do with safety equipment and managed to back up that reporting with other accounts from current and former pilots and build up this picture of

Military aviation, which has historically been a mainstay of U.S. defense, really concerns about it coming under threat at the moment and something hopefully the new administration will push back against. U.S. air dominance and the professionalism of the U.S. Air Force have always been really the globe's leading military force. I mean, for many decades now. But one of the things your other article ties to, the

that we want to move on to, going so long without flying, they're forgetting how to. I started seeing, because I have a number of friends who are in the Air Force, like Air Force Times, some of these sort of lesser known publications back in 2022 started highlighting that there is a major breakdown occurring in Air Force maintenance and how they're able to maintain their aircraft. Well, in Cameron's article, he talks about one situation where a Navy pilot said,

says there's breaks as long as a month between flights. I mean, what are the pilots saying about this?

I mean, it's actually even worse than that. I know from speaking to my contact that pilots are placed on TAD when they're training, so desk duty in effect, for up to a year because there aren't the instructors and the helicopters and planes there to train them. So deeply, deeply worrying. And was your question about what are the causes of that? Because I'm very happy to delve into it.

Yeah, I mean, what are the causes there and what is driving this? Because this has always been an area where the U.S. really excelled previously. We did a brilliant job of keeping our Air Force ready to fight and fly.

Right, right. I mean, I know you guys have done some great reporting on this as well. But what looks to be the sort of core issue is always funding, right? But particularly post the withdrawal from Afghanistan, what experts have said to me is we've ended up in a situation where we have what's called a hollow force.

Now this relates back to the 90s era under the Clinton administration where in effect the US military to all outside observers looked like it was ready to go. But because of fewer flying hours and cutbacks to spending on new aircraft, you've actually gradually, gradually depleted the capability of the military so that it looks good on the surface, but in fact there are issues underneath.

And what we're finding now is allegedly post this withdrawal from Afghanistan, you've had fewer and fewer pilots being trained. That's partly being driven by a shortage of instructors. These instructors are leaving the workforce allegedly because they're overworked, because they're having to train this, you know, influx of pilots and there aren't enough of them.

There are fewer and fewer resources so that helicopters are allegedly breaking down more and more. My pilot said to me that they're having to sort of think of quick fixes on the fly to their aircraft, you know, things like welding the engines and so on. In one instance, they even talked about having to hotwire an engine because there wasn't a part available. So I think effectively...

Sorry, just to finish, I think effectively you end up with this vicious cycle creating a really, really sort of scary situation for some pilots. One of the things some of my friends have pointed to on this, and granted they're A-10 pilots and the Air Force keeps trying to kill off the A-10 and get rid of it. It's the cheapest airframe we have. It's highly effective.

But the complaint is the Air Force keeps spending all its time and effort, the Army does the same, on these very high-tech, stealth, extremely expensive airframes that they're having a tough time delivering. They're having all sorts of issues with them. And these guys are like, just give us more of what works. We know an F-15EX is still the dominant fighter in the sky. We know an A-10 is still the dominant ground attack fighter in the world. So...

We're not building those. Have any of the pilots you've talked to brought up those type of issues? Well, I think one interesting point that relates to that is that the helicopter pilots I've spoken to have particularly talked about, you know, cuts to budget, shortage of parts, you know, and feeling like they're effectively being overlooked in favor of other departments in the military. And some of the experts I've spoken to have said, look,

In part, the problem on the helicopter front is viewed as an aging technology that, you know, helicopters aren't going to play an important role in the theater of war in U.S. conflicts going forward realistically. And we've seen that in Ukraine because they're easily taken out of the sky by armed missiles on the ground, in effect. And what they've said is, of course, helicopters continue to play a logistical role in terms of ferrying goods around and so forth.

But when it comes to those frontline capabilities, they're going to be gradually phased out. What you end up with is this pinch in the middle where as they're being phased out, those pilots who are continuing to fly them at the moment experience more and more problems with part shortages, with having enough instructors there, getting the right flying hours. And so you need to be able to phase it out if you are to do so in a gradual manner so you don't end up with that pinch.

We're running out of time with you here, but I want to ask a question. So doing a little research, were 1,142 fighter pilots short in the United States and 100 fighter pilots in the Navy? To any of these pilots did you talk about, did they discuss how they think they can make up the shortage? Sure.

I don't think they really did have a solution to it is part of the concern, I guess, at the moment. I mean, going back to that idea of this vicious cycle, you have pilots, senior pilots who are leaving the force because they're overworked. You have junior pilots because...

since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, they're not able to get the same flying hours under their belt in an active conflict zone. You have parts shortages because of the phasing out of various aircraft and, you know, cutbacks in defence spending in the past. You have helicopter shortages because, one, there aren't enough instructors to...

captain them and enough parts to get them on their feet so you have these so-called hangar queens which are in effect aircraft that are being gutted for parts so i think there's just such a sort of array of different problems all coalescing at the same time it's difficult to say how to fix one of them i mean i think the central thrust to all of these pilots and concerns is look funding we need funding

Absolutely. Cameron Henderson, thank you so much for joining us today, folks. You can follow him on X at CamHenderson98 or obviously at The Telegraph. Cameron, anytime you have new stuff on that you want to talk about, please let us know because we love the work you're doing and would love to have you back again. I will do. It's a pleasure being on. Thanks very much, guys. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you.

All right. Well, before we go into Kylie's corner, Sam, there was a congressman that passed away yesterday. Yes. I'm not mourning.

Yeah. No, and I hate to be that guy. I get it. But I want you to explain to our audience how basically this was a press cover-up of his health. They let a man run that they all knew was dying. Raul Grijalva, 77 years old. He's been in Congress I think 27 years or something like that. Everyone knew he had terminal cancer about a year and a half, two years ago.

And they let him and covered it up. It was not talked about in any of the Arizona media. It wasn't talked about in any of the national media. And he basically has been absent for most of the last two and a half plus years from Congress. He's shown up, I think, one day there to cast one vote in this term, but otherwise has not been. And they just all ignored it. This guy should not have run for office his last time, period. Right. And...

This follows a long pattern, quite frankly, where they covered up a lot of his behavior and things around him. The guy has been a raging alcoholic. Everyone knew this in southern Arizona politics. But the press never covered it. The public never covered it. We literally – I tweeted about it. I'm normally really sensitive even if I don't like someone in politics about saying nice – or just not saying anything when they're passing. Yeah.

Raul Gujalva I have a kind of personal beef with or had. I mean he literally – we were at a debate in 2010 with him and Ruth McClung and a Green Party candidate – or not Green, a libertarian and independent. And he literally passed out on the table in the middle of this debate drunk.

passed out there's five cameras in the room from tv no one covers it doesn't print reports me being that you know you knew in politics i was like we had made that close it was the only time of republicans come close to him we were gaining ground gaining ground he did that and i'm like oh my god this is going to be amazing everyone's going to have to report that the guy passed out drunk on the debate stage and she's going to and my candidate's going to win and

Not one peep anywhere in any media about it. Do you think we – we have the 25th Amendment, which Democrats try to get used against Trump and it was talked about using it against Biden, right? Which Democrats should have made come out of the president, right? Do you think we need sort of that type of amendment for Congress? I think Congress and the Senate, yes, because we keep seeing these incidences of members who are not there. Right. Like for example –

I think Republicans are nuts how much they criticize Mitch McConnell. Absolutely true. They absolutely don't do it. But it's time for him to go enjoy Kentucky. I mean, I just – what it is, I'm not being mean about it. I just don't think his health is there to do it anymore. He's almost – It's not. It's not. There just comes a time. What was the California congresswoman who had dementia? Oh, yeah. I mean, like just stop, right? Yeah.

And I honestly blame staff, whether it's the Biden staff, whether it's Grijalva staff or these folks for aiding and abetting this. It's a good gig when you can get it. Right. And you keep as long as you get. You get benefits. I mean, it's good pay, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? I mean, honestly, I think there has to be – if you're covering up that kind of deficiency or infirmity in a principal, I actually think you should bear some legal liability. Right.

I agree. I agree. So anyway, folks, he has passed away. We need to rethink about letting members of Congress stay in office where they're incapable or unable to do the job. And I don't love the idea of an age term limit. I don't either. Because you see Trump and he's 100 percent there. He's sharp as a tack. There are people who are 90 who are who are a heck of a lot brighter than I am. Yes. And a heck of a lot more capable of intelligent thought than I am.

It is what it is, but there has to be a point where when this type of decline happens, there's a mechanism to get them out. Exactly. Well, folks, get ready to sway with the music. We're going to have Kylie's Corner here starting now. You can start humming along with us. Kylie's on the road.

Listen in.

So Kali and I exchange crime stories a lot. So I'm always interested what she decides to do for this week's segment because there's so many nutty people out there. So many. Well, I'm kind of – Captivated? Captured. Captured. You're captured. By the missing student in Dominican Republic right now because when I first heard it, I just totally assumed it was a drowning.

Yeah. I mean, just drinking a little too much, go swimming. Which still maybe it could be. It's entirely possible still. Yeah, still possibly, still a possibility. But I do think it's interesting. And I want to talk about the fact that the Dominican Republic has, so the, for those that don't know, Sudaki, Sudaki, Sudaki, Sudaki is missing.

in the Dominican and she was last seen walking to the beach at 4.15 in the morning a.m. Which means she had been drinking all night. Yes, they just left a disco that was happening at the hotel. They were walking to the beach. If your story is about 4.15 in the morning and it doesn't involve running to the airport to catch your flight, it's not a good one. Exactly, yeah.

So walking to the beach with four other girls and two guys, she's seen on camera and there's a guy with her, with his arm wrapped around her. And they're like taking a selfie. You can tell he's walking and stumbling and they're drunk. Um, so he's been identified as Joshua Rive and he's from Iowa, but he's, um, he's going to school in Michigan, I believe, Minnesota. And, um,

The Dominican authorities say he's not a person of interest, but the U.S. authorities say he is. And he's lawyered up. And he's lawyered up. So his story has now changed three different times, which is interesting. So it first started with the fact that he said they were in the water, they were hit by a big wave, and she drowned. He said that.

And then his story changed and said they were in the water. He got sick and started throwing up. So he got out, laid on a lawn chair, and he saw her walking in knee-deep water, walking down the shore, going home or leaving him. And he passed out and he's seen on camera walking back around like 8.59 a.m., walking back to his hotel. And from 5.55 a.m. to then, they both weren't seen.

He's now saying that they were kissing in the water and a big wave came and hit the both of them, which then took them under and tried to sweep them to sea.

And that he is the hero. And he took her under her arm and swam her into shore and was inhaling a bunch of seawater. So by the time he put her on the shore on the sand, he started vomiting from all the seawater that he had taken in. And he heard her saying, I'm going to go grab my stuff and go back.

So then he said when he was done throwing up, he looked up and she wasn't around anymore. And she asked or he said he yelled out, are you OK? And he didn't hear a response. And she just assumed. OK, I believe not one word of that. That version. And here's why. We all know women.

Women are not going to – have you ever met a woman who a guy she's kissing and whatever on starts throwing up because he's drunk? Yeah. Let's skip the seawater story. And just says, I'm walking away. Just walks away. Yeah. No woman does that. No. No, they all stand there and like want to be empathetic. Yes, I agree. So her clothes – A guy. I buy that. So there is something with the lawn chair because her clothes and her bathing suit were found on the lawn chair.

And he has been questioned extensively. So after he, these are his various stories, he's declined to answer the following eight questions. And he has said, my lawyer advises me not to answer the question and I'll follow or, and I follow their advice. So the questions go, how can we verify everything you have said that corresponds to being the truth? He said, he's not going to answer that. Could you tell us what you told your friend Carter Joseph when he asked about the missing girl?

So he didn't want to answer that. What do you think about her disappearance? Um, did young, Oh, did she know how to swim? Do you remember if she had made any gestures or crying while you guys were out at sea? Did you inform the authorities at the hotel? What had happened, um, to you and the girl on the beach? He didn't want to answer that. Did you tell your friend what happened with you and the girl on the beach? And how do you feel about the situation? So he, the authorities have his phone and his passport, so he can't leave the Dominican. Um,

But the authorities have not gone through his phone yet, which I think is interesting because the question said, what did you tell Carter Joseph about the missing girl, which he was not answering. So they obviously know something there. Well, his family has come out and they –

His aunt has said he wouldn't hurt a fly. He's never done anything wrong. A neighbor said that she's in total shock and that Josh would never hurt that girl. Another neighbor said that she's known Josh since he's a young boy and he would never do anything to harm someone and he has nothing to do with this disappearance. His uncle Richard says he does not know this girl and would have nothing to do with the disappearance because he has a girlfriend back at home. So he literally got caught

because he is the potential suspect of a murder investigation. You know what? I...

I believe the family believes that. I believe that's his personality. And I believe that you don't. But when you're binge drinking at 4.15, I'm not going to say if he did this. We don't have to say he did it maliciously. It could have been a stupid accident. I also believe that when you're in college and your boyfriend or girlfriend goes to another country to go party for spring break without you, the cheating is assumed. It's probably, yeah. It's like when you know a guy, say, what are you doing for vacation? I'm going to Philippines. Oh. Right. Right.

Yeah, you're not going for the beaches. Yeah, no. Well, hopefully the parents of this young woman... Yeah, they don't believe his story and they think there could be a potential like she's buried in the sand or she's kidnapped and they want them to start looking in that way and not just in the water because authorities did say two people drowned on the same beach in January.

And it takes about a week. It's apparently a normal thing down there. The waters get rough and the bodies float up and the bodies float up and then they show up on shore after a week. And it's been two weeks now and there's been nobody. And there's 300 people searching the entire,

the entire area. Well, that was when you were trying to find the smiley killer here. Yeah. It takes a week for the body to float up. Yeah. We know that from our investigations. I have another gruesome story if you want to hear it. Yeah. Please tell me. Have you guys heard about the preppy Princeton murders? No. Oh, is this like an HBO series forthcoming? Probably this just happened. Just based on the title. I know. That's what I, that's what intrigued me. I was like, well, okay, let's see. So there's two brothers. They were living, um,

They did not go to Princeton, but they're living in an apartment that's pretty much on campus, like right off campus. They're wealthy brothers. They come from a wealthy Connecticut family, Matt Hurtgen and Joe. Matt played soccer at Westland University and Joe played at the University of Michigan.

So they're living together. Matt's 31. Joe is 26. And Matt killed him two weeks ago with a knife in a golf club, beat him to death and then caught their caught their cat on fire. So Matt sat there with his brother's dead body for about 45 minutes and then ended up calling the cops on himself. And then when the cops showed up, they said, what happened here? And he said, I went in a fit of rage about 40 minutes ago.

Was he drunk? Was he on drugs? I think he's just losing his mind. So the authorities saw next to his body's body was by the dining room table, a cup of blood and a plate with bloody knife and fork. And his brother ate his eyeball, ate his brother's. Oh, oh,

So the terrible thing that right before this... Thank God I haven't had breakfast. How old were these young men? 31 and 26. This just happened like two weeks ago right around Princeton's campus. So the terrible thing about this is they have an older brother who had just met with Matt and...

Right prior to this, and Matt was expressing that he's been experiencing depressive episodes and terrifying visions. So his older brother took him grocery shopping, hung out with him pretty much all day until about 10 p.m., and then he left. Joe wasn't home at this point, and he texted Joe and said, I'm worried about Matt. If you have any issues with him, you need to let me know because he's worrying. I mean, he's seeing these visions. And Joe responded with, will do. He then texted Matt and said, hang in there. We're going to get through this. Let's go on a hike in the morning. And then an hour later is when that murder happened. Wow.

Yeah. So was the table set with a nice Chianti and some fava beans? It sounds like it. It sounds like it was set up for a nice evening dinner. But he tried to kill himself in jail. It was unsuccessful. There's a little bit of a genius in that line from The Silence of the Lambs when Anthony Hopkins is saying, I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Those are the two things you could not take.

If you're on the antipsychotic medications that they would normally prescribe. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's prohibited if you're on those medicines. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So it was a way he was telling her in the movie that he didn't take the medication that. Oh, that's brilliant. You're like one of a hundred people that probably know that. Well, there are two now. Now we do. All of our listeners. Well, Jeremy, too, if you're paying attention. Yeah. So that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Kylie, that's depressing. I know. Yeah. Well, his family's cut the ties, not letting him use the family attorney, and he's using the public attorney. I sort of don't want a movie on that one. I thought it was more of a string of preppy murders. No, that would have been more... That would have been a better movie. This one we just need to...

Put it on the right. Folks, by the way, Alan Simpson passed away this morning. Famous senator from Wyoming for our MAGA friends. You probably wouldn't like him much, but he was a true statesman of the Republican Party when we were a minority all the time. He was a very good leader for a very long time. And kept America safe. So we bid him adieu.

So, Kylie, thanks a million. On behalf of Jeremy, Kylie, Sam, myself, thank you for joining BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can get us wherever you get your podcasts or join us and subscribe on Substack. Have a great weekend.