Michael Moynihan
speaker
842 appearances
21 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Michael Moynihan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And this is the reason that despite the fact they're in opposition, and as Megan, you know this very well, is that when you're in opposition network and opposition magazine, newspaper, whatever, you tend to have circulation and viewership numbers that go through the roof when you're in opposition. Theirs have cratered. And the reason is, is that people might not like this
You know, people might not support the way Donald Trump handled this and J.D. Vance handled this. But I don't think that the the instinct is to say they are under the control of the Kremlin. I don't. That's not why. And it's actually a pretty embarrassing and juvenile way of thinking of it at this point after it's been thoroughly researched and debunked. But there are other reasons.
that people can make, in my opinion, a desperately wrong call vis-a-vis Ukraine. And I don't think the only explanation for that is the man must be either a fascist or a Russian stooge. That is clearly our answer.
I think on that point, there's a language issue and a big language issue. I mean, Zelensky is a not a great English speaker. And what he was trying to convey in that moment where Donald Trump lost it with him is that Trump had previously said, you know, I watched all 45 minutes of it, had said the the ocean between us. And that had come up two more times.
And Zelensky brings it up that last time that kind of sets Trump off. And what I took him to be saying, and this is a kind of a boring thing that people have said for years, is he's trying to express that if we allow the Russians to do this, they'll be emboldened and that will come to other countries, including America. The ocean won't protect you. And I think that that was a more benign thing
than maybe Trump read it. And I've rewatched it a bunch of times. And every time I rewatch it, I realize the clumsiness. I mean, you notice right afterwards, he goes on Brett Baier's show. In about three or four pretty basic words, he has to consult with the translator off set. who yells what the words are. And he said, okay, okay. And he continues his answer.
And it's just like, it's the reckless thing, which I said previously on our podcast, is that doing that in that situation in such a kind of hinge moment when your language skills are questionable and not a hundred percent. I mean, anyone who speaks a foreign language understands that when you're not like a fluent speaker, you're going to miss a lot of tone and intonation.
And I think that that was a huge problem. I mean, I think if Zelensky grew up in Queens but happened to be the leader of Ukraine, much like the leader of Estonia grew up in New Jersey in the past, then it would have been a completely different exchange. I mean, judging those tones and everything, it became quite difficult. You should not have done it.
Well, I don't think it's offensive. I think that what Zelensky is... And again, I think that probably Rachel Maddow and I have pretty substantive differences on this. No, I know. I'm on the Ukrainian side on this, and I think that Putin and the gang in the Kremlin are horrible, monstrous dictatorship, and it's what it is. They are actually a dictatorship. But I will say this, that...
When it comes to what Zelensky was asking for, and he kept on interceding and saying this, and it's a frustrating thing for Ukrainians, is not getting a security guarantee because they've had security guarantees in the past. I mean, they made a security guarantee by giving up their nuclear weapons after the Cold War that we give up our weapons and we have the protection that we need.
And none of that has come to bear. I mean, you see that he mentioned- But let me ask, okay, but let's have a backup.
No, nobody does. No.
No, I don't want American soldiers over there either. I don't think that's the only way of doing it. I mean, Donald Trump, of course, is saying that there is a way of doing that, that it would deter people in the Kremlin if we had Americans working on the ground there, which I just don't believe because we had Americans working in Kiev when they were trying to surround it in 2022.
Well, there's no conversation about a number of things. There's no conversation about the status of various Ukrainian cities that are under Russian occupation. There's no conversation about the tens of thousands of children that have been stolen from Ukrainians. I mean, this is not a controversial thing. People understand that this happened. I mean, those are two huge things.
I mean, if the argument is you give us minerals and then what? What do we get for it? There's no negotiation there. It doesn't appear that there's much negotiation there.
Well, we don't know if that's I mean, there's the contours of that deal are unclear to anybody, both people involved and people like myself.
I was going to say, you know, it plays into the conspiracy theory when you said it's very abnormal for J.D. Vance to be there. And they didn't sign that beforehand when Zelensky said, quite frankly, that he was willing to sign it. So I do understand those conspiracy theories that he was baited into it in some way because it just, the chronology of it is kind of strange.
But that's all I want to say.
himself, who has always had a very, very negative idea of Zelensky and the war in Ukraine, where Trump has been a little more kind of, you know, not on one side or another, more willing to kind of negotiate a deal. I mean, the entire thing that he says is that, you know, until until you say we can promise peace, until you want to work towards peace, I cannot give you the weapons of war.
I mean, that is and as you pointed out, Megan, I mean, that is part of that deal is that we will give you the weapons of war if you promise peace. I don't think that that's something that J.D. Vance has ever wanted at all. So, I mean, that strikes me as more plausible, less plausible than it was Trump, you know, in some kind of nine. I hear you.
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