Bill on Secure Freedom Radio 3/7/22

Transcript 3/7/22 Frank Gaffney (00:00): Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide, for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. A man of uncommon intelligence, whom we are always delighted to visit with, but especially at a moment like this, when economic warfare is front and center in the efforts to penalize Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine and the horrors that he has unleashed therewith. His name is Bill Walton. He is a former, very highly regarded, capitalist on Wall Street. The CEO of a company called Allied Capital Corporation. He has gone on to other things, including, these days, the Bill Walton Show, a terrific television podcast program that I commend to all of you. He's been active in conservative political circles as the past president of the Council for National Policy of which I'm proud to be a member. He is a regular here, I'm also delighted to say, at Secure Freedom Radio. Welcome [crosstalk 00:01:01]- Bill Walton (01:00): Frank, great talking with you. Frank Gaffney (01:01): Lots to talk about. In the aftermath of the invasion, European leaders, I think it's fair to say, principally have taken point on imposing a variety of sanctions on, well, Russia, in general. Its Central Bank, other banks. Its capital markets. It's the leadership and the oligarchs that prop it up, even Vladimir Putin himself has been sanctioned. This constitutes, it seems sort of economic warfare, as I say, against the Putin regime. Unfortunately, it does not seem, at least as of yet, to be slowing or otherwise reducing the violence that Putin is meeting out to Ukrainian people. Your thoughts about what's been done to date and what effect it's having, if any, and what needs to be done. Bill Walton (01:59): Well, the immediate reaction of the EU was quite good. And they slapped sanctions on Russia, and they began to cut off access to its banks. And with the United States, we've severely limited their access to $600 billion of reserves they had. Cut Russia out of the SWIFT system, which is the way banks communicate with each other to transfer money, and pretty strong stuff. Germany announced that it was going to start spending $100 billion a year on its own defense, which is a jaw dropping thing to hear. The initial reaction had been quite strong, but the issue that we're really dealing with, that has not been addressed, is total sanctions on Russian oil exports. What's happened is the United States has talked about not buying Russian oil and gas, but it's clear that's only a drop in the bucket for us. It's 8%, I think, of our gas and 3% of our oil. Bill Walton (02:58): Europe by contrast, 40% of its natural gas comes from Germany, or comes from Russia, and I think, probably, 15, 20% of their gas comes from... Or their oil comes from Russia. So they're wildly dependent on it. And, at this point, that has not been and cut off. It's not been sanctioned. And it would... If we were to limit Russian sale of oil and gas worldwide, we can do it by cutting them off from the banking system, imposing even more stricter sanctions on moving money than just SWIFT. SWIFT, you might recollect, is just really like a messaging system. It's not really the wire transfer system. We've done that successfully with Iran and could cut them off from moving money at all now. If we did that, the effect on Europe could be catastrophic, in terms of its energy prices and what happens to their economies. Bill Walton (04:02): The effect it has here, in the United States, wouldn't be as dramatic, but it would be extremely dramatic. And we're already seeing gasoline at $4 a barrel for regular, or $4 a gallon for regular gas. That could easily go to seven, $8 a gallon, if we impose total sanctions on Russia fossil fuel exports. And we have not done that, and that's the elephant in the room, if we really want to be serious about stopping them economically. Frank Gaffney (04:32): Bill, there's a commentary, a narrative if you will, that has been rooted of late that something we know has happened, which has been Vladimir Putin's support for various environmental groups, championing this idea of weaning the West off of fossil fuels, specifically, coal. And even nuclear power, which is not a fossil fuel of course, but they've gone after with that as part of the incantation of the left and its energy advocates. All of which has had the effect of creating the dependency that you've just described in Europe. Notably, not exclusively, but notably in Germany on these Russian imports of oil and, specifically, natural gas. To the extent that the... Well, to put a face on it, the Greta Thunbergs of the world, have helped engineer this present vulnerability. It is striking that Putin stands to benefit dramatically, and continue to do so, because, as you say, the costs of trying to wean themselves by especially a cold turkey cutoff of these imports to punish Putin for Ukraine would be so devastating in western economies. Bill Walton (06:01): Well, the west is paying an enormous price for listening to a 15 year old with a personality disorder, telling us about how we ought to conduct our energy policy. The green agenda is a dagger aimed at the heart of the West, particularly, its economy. But of course, if you have not a strong economy, you don't have other strong things in cultural institutions, and politics, and military might, and freedom. This green agenda is just something that is breathtaking in that Biden and his administration, and John Kerry in particular, when they came in, one of the many things they did was they shut down the Keystone pipeline, cut off our ability to drill for fossil fuels in the United States, and all the different things they did to put a chill on fossil fuels. Bill Walton (06:55): Putin saw that, and he's been watching that unfold, and it's unfold in a way that's increased gas prices, gasoline prices here in the United States, even before he invaded Ukraine. And he saw us sitting with leadership that was intent on bringing about US strategic weakness. Remember, Lloyd Austin, Mark Millie tell us that white rage and climate change were the biggest threats facing the United States. Didn't even mention Russia. Didn't even mention China. We have unserious people in positions of leadership. Russia sees that. He's taking advantage of it. Putin's taking advantage of it. And China, with Xi, is just laying back a little bit, like Jabba the Hutt, waiting for his next move. Frank Gaffney (07:43): Well, if un-seriousness were the extent of the problem, Bill, I wouldn't feel so bad about it. You can get more serious fairly quickly, especially if you're mugged by reality, as they say. The problem really seems, to me, to be that this administration is known by these adversaries, both Russia and China, to be compromised, to be seriously compromised by the corruption that Peter Schweitzer has now helped document on the part of Biden and his family, among any others in senior ranks of the US government. And I think that's operating here as well. And, at some point, the Chinese, certainly the Russians, may miscalculate on the basis of some of these assessments, but so far I have the feeling that they think they've been vindicated in their calculations that they can do what they will with, more or less, impunity. Bill Walton (08:42): Well, can I agree that if you look at their individual biographies, backgrounds, many of them have been compromised, are compromised. But the biggest source, I think, is their belief system, and the things they believe that just are not true. And they're ignoring the fact that we are up against an axis, not just of Putin, but also of Xi in China, Iran, North Korea. And while this is going on, the Clinton, or the Biden administration, is eagerly trying to get another deal with Iran, which would do a couple of things, but both of them bad for us. One of them that would help Iran accelerate its nuclear arms development. But also it gives them a backdoor way to provide Russia with its own source of oil and gas, should they need it. And so, these actors, these bad actors are working together 24/7, and Antony Blinken doesn't see it. Lloyd Austin doesn't see it. Jake Sullivan doesn't see it. And certainly Joe Biden is clueless, and so for all the people I hear saying, "We got to get tough now. Putin has murdered people, we got to murder him." Bill Walton (09:56): Well, you got to think about who we have in our positions of power in the US government, who would actually bring that about, and this clown act is not able to execute. Frank Gaffney (10:08): Well, you neglected the ace in the hole, and that is Vice President Kamala Harris, who we're now sending off to Eastern Europe to try to navigate all this. Bill Walton (10:21): I shouldn't laugh. Frank Gaffney (10:22): And again, I thought when you were listing bad actors, you were going to go through that batting order on our side, as well. But Bill, one other that I just want to mention, you touched on him a moment ago, who is unquestionably playing a very substantial role in this administration's malfeasance is John Kerry. And he's a guy who negotiated, substantially, that terrible first deal with Iran, and on had thought it couldn't possibly get worse. I think, with his help and encouragement in that portfolio, probably, but certainly in others, notably with respect to China and the whole green new deal enterprise on the international stage, this... Well, a man who has serially betrayed his country in the past is still at work inside this administration, and it's just chilling, as you say, that our enemies have taken their measure. And, I think, are quite confident that they can do what they wish, as I say, with impunity. Frank Gaffney (11:30): Bill, one other piece of this that speaks to the access you're describing is, the efforts that the Chinese are now making to give expression to commitments that they clearly made to Putin. Well, certainly on the 4th of February, when they signed this joint statement, he and Xi, but almost certainly long before that, to have each other's back. And I just wonder, as you look at the Chinese stepping in to try to help mitigate the impact of these sanctions and pull the Russians along on this so-called SPFS program, which is a Chinese alternative to the SWIFT system, and otherwise advance their shared agenda of trying to de-dollarize the world economy. Frank Gaffney (12:22): Are you sensing that they have the wind at their backs, and that they are now, not only confident they can get away with murder, literally in their respective territorial ambitions, but that they have got a working partnership that is likely to appeal to lots of others around the world, and advance their own economic warfare strategies against [crosstalk 00:12:52]- Bill Walton (12:52): Well, this can only serve China's interest. There's an attention economy, or an attention strategic world, we live in, and that we tend to look at the things that are in front of us that are the biggest threats. And what Putin's done by going into Ukraine is, he's changed the subject. And, in a way, Biden's been a beneficiary, because he's at 35, 37% approval, and I'm surprised it's that high, with all the catastrophic policy moves he's pulled off in the last year. China is really also a beneficiary. I mean, you've got, of all people, Rahm Emanuel, who's the American ambassador to Japan, has now been over there for a while, and he's recognized how egregious the Chinese loan-to-own program's been, and how they've taken control of a lot of the strategic infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region. But not only there, Africa and South America, so we have Rahm Emanuel, who seems to be the clearest thinker in the Putin administration, or in the Biden administration, and he's sitting over in Tokyo. Frank Gaffney (14:04): We'll be watching him and the rest of this with your good help. Bill Walton, as always, thank you, and thanks for the great work you do with the Bill Walton Show, and I commend it to all of our listeners. I hope they'll check it out. Bill, we'll talk to you next week. Next up we'll speak with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a friend of Bill's and mine, and a great expert on a threat that is now being rooted, possibly coming Vladimir Putin, nuclear EMP. That and more straight ahead. Bill Walton (14:31): Frank, ask Peter about where he believes Putin is physically, right now. It's a very interesting answer to that question. Frank Gaffney (14:40): All right friend, thank you so much. Thank you-