00:00You're talking about, would Russia use a nuclear weapon?
00:03They are already killing innocent Ukrainians every night with ballistic missiles into apartment buildings.
00:09So the Ukrainians actually are pretty sanguine about whether or not Russia might use a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere.
00:20And I think the Biden administration, despite all the good things that they did to help Ukraine,
00:25they also hesitated because they believed that Russia might use a nuclear weapon.
00:30And I think there's almost zero chance Russia would do it.
00:34When we heard about Russia threatening to use a nuclear weapon from the very first time we delivered a stinger,
00:40shoulder-fired stinger air defense missile to Ukraine, that people were worried that might cause Russia to escalate.
00:46And actually what happens is that the Russians see that the United States government and other governments are worried that
00:53this might happen.
00:54And so it's the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is actually the benefit to the Russians.
00:59Once they use a nuclear weapon, which I don't believe they will, but if they did, then that threat is
01:04over and they will have lost the benefit of that.
01:07The Chinese leader, President Xi, has told the Russians not to use a nuclear weapon.
01:12Prime Minister Modi has said the same thing.
01:14There is no benefit for Russia to use a nuclear weapon anywhere.
01:18The only benefit they have is from the threat.
01:20So I think that we should quit worrying so much about what if the Russians might do this,
01:28and we should encourage or help, I should say, help Ukraine to achieve what they want,
01:34which is restoration of their sovereign borders, which is, by the way, in the best interest of the United States
01:40and all of Europe.
01:41And we should remind President Putin that we have thousands of nuclear weapons, too.
01:47And every time he threatens to use a nuclear weapon or Medvedev comes out there and mumbles something about a
01:52nuclear strike against Warsaw,
01:54that's another shipload of ammunition going to Ukraine.
01:58So we should stop being deterred by these kind of threats from Russia.
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