Tucker Carlson: Americans have been trained to hate Putin, and will suffer because of it

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Tucker: How will this conflict affect you?

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host weighs in on the Biden admin's foreign policy response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Since the day that Donald Trump became president, Democrats in Washington have told you it's your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin. It's not a suggestion. It's a mandate. Anything less than hatred for Putin is treason. 

Many Americans have obeyed this directive. They now dutifully hate Vladimir Putin. Maybe you're one of them. Hating Putin has become the central purpose of America's foreign policy. It's the main thing that we talk about. Entire cable channels are now devoted to it. Very soon, that hatred of Vladimir Putin could bring the United States into a conflict in Eastern Europe. 

Before that happens, it might be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious: What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs? 

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These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that. So why does permanent Washington hate him so much? 

If you've been watching the news, you know that Putin is having a border dispute with a nation called Ukraine. Now, the main thing to know about Ukraine for our purposes is that its leaders once sent millions of dollars to Joe Biden's family. Not surprisingly, Ukraine is now one of Biden's favorite countries. Biden has pledged to defend Ukraine's borders even as he opens our borders to the world. That's how it works. Invading America is called equity. Invading Ukraine is a war crime. 

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So with every day, we move closer to some kind of conflict with Russia, a conflict that could easily spin out of control given that the people running us have no fine motor skills, the administration assures us this has nothing at all to do with ripping Joe Biden's personal debts to Ukrainian oligarchs. Not at all. It's completely and totally unrelated. 

The point here is to defend democracy, not that Ukraine is a democracy. It is not a democracy. Ukraine's president has arrested his main political opponent. He has shut down newspapers and television stations that have dared to criticize him. So in American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny. But Joe Biden likes Ukraine. So Putin bad, war good. How will this conflict affect you? 

Will affect you quite a bit, actually. Energy prices in the United States are about to go way up, and that means that everything you buy will become much more expensive, from the food you eat to the car you drive to the tickets you need to take your family on vacation this summer, assuming you can still afford a vacation by then. You're about to become measurably poorer. That's not a guess. Joe Biden has admitted this. 

A Ukrainian serviceman is reflected in a mirror as he smokes a cigarette on a position at the line of separation between Ukraine-held territory and rebel-held territory near Zolote, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022.  (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

On the other hand, you're going to win an important moral victory against dastardly old Vladimir Putin, who is much, much worse than Justin Trudeau. Just so you know. So you can feel good about that because…because…let's see, come to think of it, why would you feel good about that? It seems like a pretty terrible deal for you and for the United States. Hunter Biden gets a million dollars a year from Ukraine, but you can no longer afford to go out to dinner. That's not a bargain. 

So what are we missing here? What we're missing is the big picture, and that's why Joe Biden has dispatched Kamala Harris to explain that picture to us. Kamala Harris’ old job was to open America's border. She did that. Her new job is to keep Ukraine's borders closed. Kamala Harris was in Europe the other day to explain the whole thing. She began with a history lesson, letting the European peoples know about their recent past, which she assumes they've forgotten since so few of them speak English. She opened with a traditional salutation, "listen, guys," because that's the way real historians and states people talk. This is Kamala educating:

KAMALA HARRIS: I mean, listen, guys, we're talking about the potential for war in Europe. I mean, let's really take a moment to understand the significance of what we're talking about. It's been over 70 years and through those 70 years, as I mentioned yesterday, there has been peace and security. We are talking about the real possibility of war in Europe.

Listen, guys, you may be Europeans who live in Europe, but you don't fully understand the ramifications of war in Europe. That's your problem. The thing about Europe, you've had peace and security for more than 70 years. Kamala Harris just told the Europeans that. 

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And that, by the way, is true, if you don't count the breakup of Yugoslavia, which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 1990s or the Soviet occupation of half of the landmass, which you manage the enslavement of hundreds of millions. But apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, it's all been peace and security in Europe. Until now. The Soviets were fine. Vladimir Putin is bad. 

What do we do about that? Kamala Harris explains that too.

KAMALA HARRIS: And the allied relationship is such that we have agreed that the deterrence effect of these sanctions is still a meaningful one, especially because, remember also, we still sincerely hope that there is a diplomatic path out of this moment and within the context then of the fact that that window is still opening, although open, although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open, the deterrence effect we believe has merit. 

Got that. Take a breath and let it sink in. Here it is again: "we have agreed that the deterrence effect of these sanctions is still a meaningful one, especially because, remember also, we still sincerely hope that there is a diplomatic path out of this moment and within the context then of the fact that that window is still opening, although open, although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open, the deterrence effect we believe has merit." 

Well, of course it has merit. The only question is what the hell are you talking about? And the answer is, Kamala Harris has no real idea what she's talking about. She can't even point to the direction of what she's talking about. Her mouth opens and predigested chunks of language come tumbling out in no particular order. It's soothing to listen to until you try to understand what it means. 

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As Kamala Harris told us just last month, "It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day." To which we'd respond: That's right, Miss Vice President Person, today is the first day of the rest of your life. Learn it. Love it. Live it. And while you're at it, eat, pray, love. 

You could just imagine Vladimir Putin's reaction to all of this when an aide drops a translated transcript of Kamala Harris remarks on his desk. The Slovic mind is a hall of mirrors. It sees traps at every intersection. Clearly, Kamala Harris must be setting some sort of trap for the Russians here. Her words don't make sense, but she can't possibly be dim and childish. America is a superpower. It would never put a senile man and an imbecile in charge of the country. 

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On the other hand, maybe so. And by the way, it's not just our country. A few weeks ago, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, met with his British counterpart, Liz Truss. Lavrov asked Truss if her country recognized Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Varonis, both of which are actually parts of Russia. So it was a trick question. But Liz Truss, who used to work in sales, had no idea. So she replied that Great Britain would never recognize these regions as Russian, despite the fact they already are Russian. 

So Liz Truss has no idea what she's talking about, either. But here's the thing: She wasn't embarrassed about that. None of them are embarrassed about that. 

John Bolton knows a lot. On the other hand, he spent decades weakening America with terrible foreign policy ideas and getting a lot of decent people killed for no good reason at all. So you think at this point, if justice were real, John Bolton would be living in isolation and shame somewhere, spending his days in atonement. That's what you would do. But that's not what he's doing. No. John Bolton went on MSNBC demanding yet another war, this one with the nuclear-armed power.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Do you US forces should go in to defend Ukraine?

JOHN BOLTON: Well, I think it's probably too late for that now, but I would say this the red line between being a treaty ally of the United States and not being one is significant. But the issue, as in all issues like this is would a Russian invasion and takeover of Ukraine adversely affect American national security and that of its NATO's allies? The answer that absolutely yes. … We did not act appropriately early. I think we should have had more American forces in Ukraine not to fight the Russians, but to train with the Ukrainians and to show those Russian generals looking across the border and seeing American flags, I wonder what that means. Biden took that off the table, saying there would be no American forces involved and he got nothing for it. 

So, the only problem with Joe Biden's Ukraine policy, says John Bolton, is that it's too weak. Your kids aren't fighting there right now, hunkered down in February, shooting at Putin. Let's try a winter war in Russia. No one's done it before, but we have high hopes. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin ((Photo by ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images))

Alexander Vindman is, in fact, demanding it. Unlike the British Foreign Secretary, Alexander Vindman knows quite a bit about Ukraine. In fact, he was born there. Alexander Vindman believes you have a moral obligation to defend his homeland, and if you don't, you're a murderer. He said so on MSNBC.

ALEXANDER VINDMAN: I think these folks, these right-wing pundits and the GOP that supports them really frankly have blood on their hands because they're encouraging and enticing this kind of opportunism from Putin. And it's not what, it's not just kind of plain rhetoric like you could say something without consequences, like too often happens in here in the United States. This has real consequences. And people are going to die because of this. 

Yeah, they're going to die. So your job is to take up arms in defense of Alexander Vindman's home country or else you're evil, your blood on your hands and that's effectively our policy. Ok, Alexander Vindman. You got us. It’s a compelling argument. We're in. What's this going to cost us to defend the country you were born in? Well, in fact, Joe Biden addressed that question today. "Defending freedom will have cost for us here at home," Biden said. "We need to be honest about it." Really. Biden went on to outline what he called the pain of our sanctions.

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JOE BIDEN: We're implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, VEB and their military bank. We're implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russia's sovereign debt. That means we've cut off Russia's government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade and its new debt and our markets or Europe markets, either. Starting tomorrow and continuing in the days ahead. We'll also impose sanctions on Russia's elites and their family members they share and the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies, and should share the pain as well. And because of Russia's actions, we’ve work with Germany to ensure Nord Stream two will not, as I promised, will not move forward. 

So let's put aside the question of why you would ever want to shut down any energy pipeline anywhere, ever, especially now crude oil is nearing $100 a barrel, it's the highest price since 2014. That's not a small thing because you need energy to live. It's not negotiable. So how does having less energy help the United States? Joe Biden didn't even hint at an answer to that. He didn't answer any questions. He ran away the second he had finished reading the script. 

Back in real life, every person knows nothing will tank our economy faster than cutting off the supply of fossil fuels, because despite what you may have heard from noted energy experts like Sandy Cortez, a country of 340 million people can't run on windmills and solar panels. And even if we had enough of those, which we don't, we don't have the transmission lines to get that power to your house, and we won't for a long time. 

So that's all a lie. But don't worry, says Kamala Harris. The administration has ways of fixing the spike in energy prices. They've got it under control because it turns out Kamala Harris is secretly in charge of global energy markets. 

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No, just kidding. Harris has no idea what a barrel of oil costs. She doesn't know how natural gas is measured. What she knows about is diversity, and that's pretty much it. Though she does sense that everything is about to get a lot more expensive for you. And so to warn you, she mentioned it today. 

REPORTER: The president has already said Americans will be facing some economic fallout or some hardships. Can you explain to Americans what exactly will they face if this happened? 

KAMALA HARRIS: Sure, as the president talked about in his speech, we are aware that, again, when America stands for her principles and all of the things that we hold dear, it requires sometimes for, for us to put ourselves out there in a way that maybe we will incur some cost. And in this situation that may relate to energy costs, for example. 

So, what are the principles were defending here? We're defending a regime that has arrested their main rival and shut down opposition media. What principles are at stake here, apart from rewarding the Biden family's patron? 

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But at least she's honest enough to say what's happening in Eastern Europe quote may relate to energy costs. That's a euphemism for: Good luck filling your truck this August. Does that bother Kamala Harris? Maybe it does in the short term. Voters aren't going to like it in November. The party will be punished. 

But they're doing it anyway. They're shutting down domestic energy pipelines here. They're picking a fight with Europe's biggest gas supplier. So maybe there's something bigger at work here. Maybe they're thinking long-term. Maybe they're not against rising oil and gas prices. Maybe there for them. Maybe expensive energy would be good for the many renewable deals their friends and donors are invested in. 

We don't know the answer. We do know that all of us are about to suffer. So we hope that hating Vladimir Putin was worth it.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the February 22, 2022 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."