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
He looks at it, if you had a club and only half to two-thirds of the members were paying their dues, what are the other ones going to do?
And I have to tell you, I mean, just my own experience as a Green Beret, a special operations officer with multiple tours in Afghanistan, when we were there with our NATO allies, we called them, we had the fighting allies. the British, the Canadians, the Danes. And then we had others, frankly, that were kind of in the more peaceful parts that wouldn't even allow us.
I tried to call a medevac from Germany where we needed help. They wouldn't allow them to come. We tried to call for air support for some other allies, and they weren't allowed to do offensive operations. I guess only if the plane was shot at. They have what was called national caveats. So you have kind of my generation with Secretary Hegseth and others
that have seen this kind of you know play out on the battlefield and that's not to criticize the troops they were constrained by their governments and if we're all in this together then we're all in this together so what's your advice to vladimir zelensky in trying to deal with president trump right now because to me it seems like he's gotten very provocative and may not fully understand who's calling the most important shots that's right uh number one
The first, second, and third thing coming from President Zelensky needs to be appreciation for the American people, to appreciate what happened after the 2014 invasion. The Obama administration literally threw blankets at him. Who was the first to actually arm the Ukrainians? President Trump. Russia has invaded a neighbor under Bush, under Obama, and under Biden.
It did not happen under the first Trump term, and he's going to end it in the second Trump term. So I think just an appreciation for that relationship. You are not going to criticize President Trump into getting your way. Seeing that kind of backfire, I think, pretty spectacularly. But thirdly, appreciate that this is the opportunity
the opportunity that this is to be co-invested long-term to really benefit all sides from the critical minerals and resources they're blessed to have. Let's view this as an opportunity going forward.
Well, look, I think that he is enormously frustrated with Zelensky. He sees that martial law has been in place. I do think elections need to happen at some point. And all of these things can happen once we get to a ceasefire. I think President Zelensky, again, needs to understand that this is a very different dynamic now.
This isn't just as long as it takes, as much as it takes, and you do whatever you want to do. We are determined to end this war. President Trump is going to do that. And what astounds me is the kind of these critical voices that were so demanding of
of a ceasefire and a stop to the fighting in gaza but yet are aghast that president trump is doing saying moving however it takes they don't want to see it so so what's the alternative solution that anyone has on the right or the left that's the good question because i i don't understand if there's no world in which we're letting ukraine into nato who's opposed to peace
I mean, that's almost laughable, Megan, that... President Trump is just going to give it all up to anyone. And if we look at what we had under Biden's lack of leadership, do you want that? Or do you want someone who is going to go toe-to-toe with Putin, with Xi, with Kim Jong-un? I'll tell you where my confidence, my vote is. Explain this to me. I think part of this was that we moved so quickly.
We had that confidence-building measure with the release of Fogel. That was in the works. That happened. That was great. And then, I mean, what was the last prisoner exchange we had? The world's largest arm dealer for a basketball player? That's right. So we essentially get that for nothing as a tremendous step forward.
We have a call with both leaders the next day, and then we're in Saudi Arabia, and the world— You know, it didn't feel like this was the normal process that happens over months and years. I'll say another underlying premise here is time is not on anyone's side. Right. The death and destruction is happening. The threat of escalation is always there. Zelensky's political situation is worsening.
And we have an issue here of we're not going to give endless aid and other hundreds of billions of dollars. So I think everyone— Russia's economy continues to worsen with inflation, with interest rates at 25 to 30%. So everyone should be incentivized to come to the table.
also stated that he is perfectly willing to tax, sanction, and tariff the Russians as well. They've demonstrated a willingness to come to the table. Not everyone's going to like all the terms. We now need Zelensky at the table. Not everyone's going to like all the terms. And how we get there is the process that's unfolding.
Who on earth? Any aspect of the spectrum thinks that China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran getting tighter in terms of military cooperation, technological cooperation, economic cooperation is a good thing. No one that I know of.
And so if we start having different relationships, and there is the prospect of a bilateral relationship with the United States and Russia that is very different and much less threatening,
Though the war should have not happened, it really shouldn't, and it didn't happen under Trump's first term, we can unpack how that deterrence failed. Everything from Biden saying, well, maybe if it's a minor incursion,
right then maybe it won't be so bad to the giveaways on nordstrom after the colonial pipeline hack i mean there are all kinds of things uh that that i think led to deterrence failing then we have this incremental uh just a little bit here a little bit there that essentially drug this war into a world war one style trench warfare endless stalemate uh
Again, if you don't like this approach, President Trump's approach, then what is the alternative plan? Right. To continue this forever? What will the war situation look like at the end of this year or next year?
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