Speaker 1: All right. I want to talk about what I guess we're calling the
alt left on the topic of Ukraine and Russia. I got a question during a live stream recently,
which was basically how did I? And a streamer named Hassan Piker end up with such different
opinions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, I don't have the answer to that specific question,
but I want to more generally address that. There is a contingent of people who claim
to be on the left, and that includes folks like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Tulsi Gabbard
and others who have a very different perspective on Ukraine. Russia, from what I would call kind
of the mainline progressive left of which I am a part. Now some of you will say, David, your entire
premise is flawed. Those people aren't really on the left. I grant you. There's a real question as
to whether these people are actually on the left. I mean, they're they're extremely reactionary and
much of what they say. But let's put that aside for now, because they're ostensibly on the left,
they sort of claim to be and are considered by many to be on the left. Let's call it the
alt left and you decide whether they are on the left or are not. And for our purposes,
will be open to the idea that they are on the left. Also, I think it's important to mention
some some are like, why aren't you just talking about tank? Is the so-called revolutionary left?
This is a different group. The alt left. Like Tulsi is not what would pejoratively be described
as a tank. She's something else. And so that's why we're looking for a different name and we're
calling it the alt left. I believe there is often one real story, and sometimes terms like bias,
alternative facts and narrative are used to create doubt about whether you've been misled or sold the
fake story and that there is a true real story that you're not getting. And there's the usual
suspects that are blamed now. Sometimes there really are competing narratives with elements
of truth, and we have to be very, very involved in sort of ascertaining what the truth is. On Russia,
I believe there is one story and that that story can be detailed and contain nuance, and that's
fine. Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine is the principal aggression in this scenario.
Putin has had territorial ambitions for reasons of ego, economics and geopolitics for decades.
He hasn't made those territorial ambitions a secret. He is obsessed with Ukraine for reasons
we outlined on the Monday bonus show, including this sort of vague nostalgia for the USSR, as
well as resource and economy and geography related reasons. He's now acting on them, period. Russia
invaded Ukraine. Russia isn't respecting Ukraine's border sovereignty, and Putin is now pushing into
Kiev with the bombings that started overnight applied anywhere else. No one would accept the
idea that listen, it's legitimate to recognize the separatists in another country is independent
and then send in tanks to protect them and then start bombing Kiev. And it's not an invasion. We
wouldn't accept that in almost any other scenario. In addition. OK. In addition, the situation is
more complicated because it is true that Russia might in a real way, in a genuine way, see NATO's
willingness to defend Ukraine and NATO's NATO's eastward expansion as a sign of aggression.
I'm not denying that Russia could very well see it that way. It doesn't change that Russia invaded.
Ukraine is shelling all over the country, sending troops in through Belarus, Crimea, et cetera, and
not respecting the simple border sovereignty of Ukraine that they are supposed to respect. Great.
But the alt left doesn't agree with that. Now I'm going to do my best to accurately
represent different perspectives from the alt left, but they include, for example,
that the entire government intelligence and media apparatus is lying about what happened. This is a
very common theme from the alt left and again, the alt left has hammers, and so everything looks like
nails to the alt left. You can't trust the media generically, even though the media means a hundred
different things. You can't trust intelligence because sometimes intelligence has been wrong.
You can't trust world leaders about what's going on. And this often includes more specific counter
stories like this is actually Joe Biden's fault. Naito is to blame is an imperialist force that
has overreached. Putin is just defending his country, stuff like that. They said
the threat from Putin is overblown. He has no real interest in invading. He doesn't plan to. It's
a lie. You've been sold by the fear mongering, bloodthirsty government intel media apparatus for
attention posturing and the military industrial complex and clicks. But no invasion is coming.
We know that was wrong. These are very clearly bogus takes not based in evidence,
and we now have the benefit of hindsight to see how wrong they were. The Biden administration did
something smart. Counter to what happened in 2014 with Crimea, Biden came out and said for a while,
our intelligence shows a buildup of troops on the border, which signals maybe Putin wants to invade.
And then Biden said, our intelligence is that Putin has made the decision to invade.
And then yesterday, they said we have intelligence that there will be a full scale invasion within 48
hours. It all happened, it all happened. And then Biden was on record saying This is the plan. And
that allows us to say, Hey, you know what? We were getting two different stories and one was correct,
and the alt left was very, very wrong. All along, the Biden administration was
detailing exactly what was happening in the expected timeline, and it came true.
Now, another alt left trope is Biden wants war. Biden did this, he warned us as part of
saber rattling to gin up support for a war, and everybody other than the alt left wants that war.
First of all, no, we don't. I mean, find one clip of me saying anything,
even indirectly alluding to the vague desire for any kind of war. No, we don't want war. Secondly,
Biden has said no troops on the ground. And he's sticking to it. Now, if he changes his mind,
I'll tell you. But people like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald and Tulsi have talked and alluded
to this desire for war that Biden and the media and everybody but them have which people like
them are again. So like Matt Taibbi tweeted, I have a long record of being critical of Putin.
This troll fantasy that I'm pro-Putin comes from reporting correctly that Russiagate was fake
and deposing U.S. intervention of Ukraine. That doesn't make me pro-Putin any more than
opposing the Iraq War made me a Saddam lover. He insists he's just against Ukrainian intervention.
Everybody else wants it. Well, Biden also, by the definition that we're talking about sending
troops is against intervention and is sticking to it. Now, of course, I am the first to tell you
we are increasingly engaged in a proxy war along along with our allies. But I just want to tell you
what things are. I have no interest in hiding that from you. We're arming Ukraine. We're sanctioning.
Yeah, it's increasingly a proxy war against Russia. Fine. But the idea of this bloodthirsty
ground war that Putin or that Biden is determined to launch? No Tulsi similarly pretending, you
know, there's some kind of bloodlust from Biden and Harris tweeting, Biden, Harris tell us we must
bear the cost to defend freedom in Ukraine. But while you and your family struggle with
higher gas prices, the power elite won't suffer at all. And if the conflict goes nuclear nuclear,
then they'll be safe and cushy, massive bunkers while you and your loved ones fry. Nope,
she was wrong about all of it. I mean, it's harder to find Alex Berenson was like the longest man
in the world on the pandemic. Tulsi has been like the longest American on Russia, Ukraine. And then
here's Glenn Greenwald, who tweeted, Whenever war emerges, there is an intense surge of nationalism
in the U.S. people across the spectrum unify the media speaks in almost lockstep,
so I'm sure the polls will indicate approval for now. But I really wonder how much Americans are
willing to sacrifice for Ukraine again. No one's talking about that. Certainly not Biden, certainly
not mainline progressive leftists like me. It was a lie. So the alt left is very misguided.
They got a big boost in 2016. That's when the alt left really started to get built up. The origins
of the alt left are heavily based on the idea that Trump is uniquely the fault of the left.
There are these folks who started saying in 2016, Hillary is just as bad as Trump.
Then Trump won, and they said it's the fault of the left for their narrative and their
selection of people like Hillary. They insisted the Trump Russia stuff was all
made up and that Trump's wrongdoing wasn't important. They never blamed the outrageous,
ignorant, reactionary, extremist right wingers who actually voted for Trump. They blamed the left,
but not those right wingers. And this has carried them through now to their takes on Ukraine,
Russia. So that's what's going on. They're wrong. I'm bored by them. If you want, you know, and I
say this because there's so many people telling me I should have those views, just go watch those
other shows. Read those other people. It's not what we do here. This just isn't an alt left show.
So rather than wasting time emailing me, telling me I should adopt Glenn Greenwald and tools, these
views just go, Listen, you don't have to watch this show. It's optional. It's a free country, as
so many people like to say, just tune me out if that's what you're looking for.
We'll have more coverage of this on our Instagram, which you can find at David Pakman show.