Muck You, Putin! The Real Story Behind Ukraine's Fight with Dr. Jason Jay Smart!

David B. Wheeler: 00:00:06

This is the American Muckrakers podcast, MUCK you. I'm David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, here to gut the lies and spill the filthy truth.

My co host, Moe Davis is running to be the next congress dude from NC11 and coming to us from Asheville, North Carolina. Moe, let's start mucking.

Col Moe Davis: 00:00:24

All right. Oh, good morning, everybody, and welcome back. It's great to have you with us again on another edition of MUCK News.

You this one's really a timely one. We've got another in our string of great guest Jason J. Smart. Dr. Jason J. Smart join us today. He's a PhD in political science.

He's a political consultant writer for the Kiev Post. He has a book out called Character Assassination A Tool in International Politics.

And the focus today is going to be on the war between Russia and Ukraine. So we really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you for taking time to do do this.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:01:04

Well, thank you for the invitation.

Col Moe Davis: 00:01:05

Well, listen, it's been a an eventful last couple of days. I mean, this war's been dragging out for quite a while.

But in the last couple of days, there's been a lot of news made, I guess, starting with I think it's called Operation Web, the offensive that Ukraine just carried out. So could you, for our listeners, could you give give them a little background on what's happened in the last day or two?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:01:29

Sure.

So on June 1, Ukraine launched an operation after about a year and a half of planning, where they struck Russian air bases and destroyed or damaged significantly about 40 different airplanes. Now, these airplanes are significant because they weren't simply jets.

They're the ones that are specifically part of the strategic nuclear defense of Russia, both first and second. That is, the ones that are prepared for the first strike and the ones for second strike.

And the damage was done to the Russian aircraft, as I said, was significant. But what's important about that is that Russia doesn't have the capacity to produce more of these.

So about 34% of their strategic bombers were damaged by this.

,: 1941

But in addition to that, it appears that there was also a nuclear submarine that was hit in attacks as well. And what's incredible is that all these attacks were launched from within the territory of the Russian Federation due to a lot of reasons.

But one is the graft on the side of the Russians, the corruption allowed the Ukrainians to operate there much more openly than one could probably imagine. And to assemble this attack against Russia.

Col Moe Davis: 00:02:40

Well, it's been a, you know, there's been a protracted war this, this drug on for quite some time. So what's your assessment on, on Russia's current military capabilities?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:02:50

Well, Russia is significantly degraded. It's sort of funny is I think that Russia gets a pass on a lot of things because we think of it as this massive country, which physically it is.

I mean, it's the world's largest country, historically the largest country in the history of the world. But in fact, as a military power, it's very third rate.

d a half, Russia's burn about: 6000

,: 3300

ed through them. Russia since: 2022

I mean, their economy is smaller than Italy's, so their ability to actually wage war in the long term is quite reduced and much less than what we usually try to assume. I mean, Russia tries to project strength, but that's a projection, it's not the reality. Russia simply is against right now.

Russia, a country of 140 million people, is against. Ukraine, a country that's free territory, unoccupied territory, has perhaps 22 million people.

And Russia is under occupation currently, as you know, part of Russia is currently under Ukrainian occupation. Just shows you how weak Russia really is.

Col Moe Davis: 00:04:07

Yeah, you know, I spent 25 years in the military and for, for most of my career it was spent training for war with Russia. So, you know, bizarre times we're living in where suddenly, you know, Canada is our enemy and Russia is our friend.

How did we get in this state to where, you know, America has abandoned the principles and the allies that we've had for decades and embraced folks that we traditionally have viewed as our enemy?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:04:36

Well, you know, I think part of it, and I have contemplated that before, is that I think part of that comes down to the fact that there's such a contrarian attitude in American politics today that no matter what one Side says the other side tries to take the opposite view.

So because there is, as you recall, very well, just a couple years ago when the war started against Ukraine, Biden came out very strongly and vocally to support Ukraine. There's a lot of things that I will criticize about the way he executed that, but he did come out very strongly.

But I think that unfortunately some of the Republican party decided since he's in favor of it, we're going to be against and take the opposite viewpoint. And the, that's just sort of absurd.

This is not something like a bill that we're debating that sort of has not no serious consequences is non consequential. This is something that is America's national security concerns being put at risk due to political games.

Col Moe Davis: 00:05:18

Yeah. And to me, this debate over support for Ukraine, again I think from a strategic perspective, it's a very sound investment.

You mentioned the degradation of Russia's military capabilities and we're able to achieve that without putting U.S. forces in harm's way. And for, you know, pennies on the dollar, it seems like our support of Ukraine makes eminent sense.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:05:45

Well, you're absolutely right. I fully agree.

And just to put into numbers terms, we were spending during the Biden administration about 5% or actually less than 5% of the Pentagon's budget per year. Now keep in mind, we spent, you know, 50 years, the Cold War, 40 years, the Cold War up against the Soviet Union.

How many billions of dollars did we spend for that? It was a huge investment of money. I mean it also created other wars as we know.

We were engaged in Vietnam and Korea, we were engaged in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

These are all things that came as a consequence of being at a steady state of war, Cold War with the Soviet Union today we can degrade that ability where they're no longer be able to project strength globally. Keep in mind, Russia is a direct threat to the US's concerns outside of the context of Ukraine and Europe.

And I would cite specifically look at their strong support today for state actors that are enemies such as Iran and North Korea, Venezuela. But look at non state actors. Russia works with Hezbollah, they work with the drug cartel. This is not theory, this is a fact.

They specifically are supplying. They're overthrowing governments in Africa, they are trying to consolidate minerals there and rare earth.

Russia is engaged in a lot of nefarious behavior around the world against the US's interest. And right now we have the ability to degrade that or destroy that with, with an absolute minimal cost.

To put this in perspective, the start Agreements which were signed by Reagan, as you recall, with Gorbachev, that took you how many years of time in the 80s to get the START agreements yesterday. And that, that by the way, so you understand that took about away about 30% of Russia's strategic deployment of nuclear weapons.

Yesterday Ukraine destroyed a little bit less than half of that. And that was just in a few hours with drones that cost a few hundred dollars each.

So imagine how much went into the START treaties and versus how much went into yesterday's attack. What we're getting out of this is a great bang for buck. One could say.

Col Moe Davis: 00:07:26

Yeah, yeah. Which again, I think traditionally we would view as advantageous to the U.S.

but you know, in the last few years things have gotten kind of topsy turvy here. Yeah. You mentioned about how the contrarian political climate and how, you know, one party's for the other has to be against it. Yeah.

rrorism trial. And I remember: 2009

And I joke that had he really wanted to close Guantanamo, what he should have done is said, I love the place, I'll keep it open forever. Because if you recall, Mitch McConnell said our objective is to make him a one term president. So whatever Obama was for the other side was against.

Which is really kind of a sad commentary on the political state here in the US and again, you mentioned Reagan. We talked, you know, he had that vision of America as that shining city on a hill.

And I think if Reagan was alive today, he'd be shocked to see the state that we're in here.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:08:25

No, absolute, I mean, I cannot imagine something that would shock Reagan more to see that the Republican Party, which, I mean, and in my own background, I worked in the Republican Party, let me be clear about that as well. So you don't have any illusions. And it's obviously something that's today.

It's just I had great respect for Reagan and his view and his understanding of the Soviet Union, which I think was absolutely correct and history has proven that to be correct. But today it's gone quite the opposite direction, unfortunately.

And it's not something that I think that somebody who's rational and reasonable, a foreign policy could come to conclusion that what we see coming out, these statements that are very, you know, negative about Canada, very negative about the European Union, but extremely positive about Vladimir Putin, a terrorist, somebody who's wanted by the International Criminal Court for being, for trafficking in children during Warfare. This is pretty profound. And that's the guy who want to be pals with. It's a very sad state of affairs.

Col Moe Davis: 00:09:12

Yeah. Well, you and I have one thing in common. You had worked with John McCain and I did the same.

After the Supreme Court had struck down the military commission process that President Bush created and said that Congress had to get involved, I worked with, with John McCain and Lindsey Graham to draft legislation to reauthorize the military commissions.

And it's ironic that, you know, back in those days, McCain and Graham were the two Republicans pushing back against the, the, you know, the executive branch for their expansive view of the executive power. And then now McCain's gone and, and Graham is one of the leading cheerleaders for the current occupant of the White House.

It's ironic that he's flipped that way.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:09:59

No, it has changed and it is unfortunate. I agree with you.

But as I said with foreign policy, what is incredible to me is just to see the somersaults that have occurred in foreign policy between the two parties.

Historically, the Republicans were always the ones that held the mantle of being the tough guys on foreign policy, strong military support, and especially against the Soviet Union, etc. Etc. But today it's gone quite the opposite.

And it is quite alarming to see how many people in the Republican Party don't recognize this as a legitimate threat. I think this is just some sort of a political game. They treat this as one more thing.

It's like just one more political issue that they could toy around with. And it's not just one more political issue. It's their national security concerns. And unfortunately, they are treating this as just a toy.

And I'm very concerned is that we see in the Russian press, we can read what they write and how they perceive this. They perceive this as the United States is on its back foot.

The United States has been weakened and something that's in their national security interest. And anything that helps Russia's national security interest is probably safe to say not in our interest.

So it's, it's very worrisome to see this happen.

And unfortunately, the Republicans, you remember, I'm sure just a couple years ago, Rubio, for instance, Lindsey Graham, for instance, were extremely harsh on people in the Biden administration for not doing more to support Ukraine, to do more to stop Russia arming Ukraine, with more, taking restrictions off of Ukraine. They were extremely strong on these issues just a couple years ago, and today we've seen them take the opposite positions.

And that is truly sad is because it is true.

I mean, I think the last administration, and I think that the Obama administration as well could have done much more support Ukraine and the war would not have gotten to the point that it is today.

But unfortunately those people who back then talked tough and said that when they come to power they're going to really put things in order have done quite the opposite.

Col Moe Davis: 00:11:40

Well, I'm curious, I was reading, I guess you're originally from Connecticut, went to college in Virginia. So how did you, I mean this seems, seems to be Ukraine and Russia seem to be kind of the focus for your attention. How, how did that happen for you?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:11:53

I actually, I grew up outside of D.C. so I was born in Connecticut, but I was, I grew up in Fairfax County. I grew up in McLean, Virginia, Langley, Virginia.

And I went to Langley High School in Virginia. And so we had Russian school, as one might imagine. And sure enough, no, we had Russian school and I, I just seemed to have enjoyed it.

So then I took it in college and continued from there and as a national security scholar.

n opposition back in, I guess: 2005

So I had a probably disproportionate interest for a 19 year old to follow this up and well, what do you know, now it's been 20 years and I'm still doing it.

David B. Wheeler: 00:12:41

So. Jason, what, but what do you think the Russian response is going to be? Any, any indications today on where their, what their next move would be?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:12:50

Well, you know, I think that it's funny is it's probably one of the top questions I've gotten today is exactly that. But what I think frankly is that Russia is going to continue doing exactly what Russia's done so far.

Russia has made a strategic decision as of a while back that terrorism is essentially how they can win this war. Listen, the missile defense that has been given by the United States, the Patriot missile specifically, are fantastic at doing air defense.

That's why Russia, despite it talks about these great new missiles.

It has no, they've not successfully struck any major structures in Kiev where the military is located, intelligence services are located, for instance, or the president's located, the parliament's located. They have not hit them and that's thanks to the Patriot missiles.

But what they can strike because there's a lack of the Patriot missiles are things like civilian Infrastructure. It's probably not by coincidence that so many hospitals in Kiev have been struck by Russian missiles. That's intentional.

The children's hospital not get struck. The multiple children's hospitals.

And keep in mind, how many children's hospitals can you think of any city that you live in to actually just out of all of a city of 4 million people, find the children's hospitals, I don't think is a coincidence. Russia's engaged in terrorism because its idea is that it will force the Ukrainians to just throw up their hands and surrender.

Now, that's not going to happen. It's only, you know, I think furthered the resolve of the Ukrainians, but Russia will probably continue with more terrorism against.

David B. Wheeler: 00:14:01

The Ukrainian people, which is the worst possible case. But what about sanctions? Is that real?

And I think, you know, Colonel Davis actually served with Lindsey Graham in the military when they were both in the JAG Corps. I think Lindsey was in Kiev a couple days ago talking about additional sanctions.

What's the likelihood in your estimation that Senate would get some sanctions going?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:14:26

That's gonna happen. I mean, it's gonna happen. It's got 82 co sponsors. It's very strong. Those are Lindsey Graham's new sanctions.

And why these sanctions are important is that we have to understand that unlike the other sanctions, they had a different objective. Our earlier sanctions had the objective of restriction restricting Russia's ability to buy things more than anything else to so to import.

Now, what's different about this is that there's secondary sanctions on the countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, things like that. And who are those? Well, that's India and China. And why that's important. About 38% of the Russian national budget comes from selling oil. 38%.

85% or so of that comes from India and China buying them. Now, about less than 2% of Chinese trade is with Russia. Less than 1% of Indian trade is with Russia.

However, Russia's trade with in China is about 15% of all their trade within. It's a much smaller number. But how much is Chinese trade with the US how much is Indian trade with the US substantially more.

10 to 15 times more than it is with Russia. Simply for India or China, there is not a possibility to run the risk of U.S. sanctions.

Those sanctions are 500 tariffs on all the goods coming there from the, from, from India or China. Or for any country that buys the Russian goods, we, the Americans would put a 500 tariff. That'd be crushing to their economy.

You remember when Donald Trump just was a couple Weeks ago. So he's gonna put 145 tariffs on Chinese goods.

The Chinese asked for emergency meetings which were held in Switzerland to hold off on those tariffs because it would be so damaging to the Chinese economy. Command what a 500% tariff would look like for the Chinese economy. It'd be a total disaster. And so the Chinese, I think, are.

Do their best to avoid that. And the way that they avoid that is stop buying Russian oil and gas.

David B. Wheeler: 00:16:06

Do you think Trump would sign?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:16:08

He doesn't have to. There's going to be a. It'll be foolproof. People have more than 60 votes in the Senate, and I have more than 60% in the House as well.

So it wouldn't be necessary to have a presidential.

David B. Wheeler: 00:16:18

So they'd override him. That would be a first.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:16:20

But it's simply because, I mean, what is it the lawyer in the group would know better than. I think this is. What is it? Article 1 of the Constitution 7 that says that when a vote is taken by the House and the Senate, the numbers.

If there's a absolute majority, then. In which case it does no longer need a presidential signature.

David B. Wheeler: 00:16:37

Well, I. I'm interested in your background, your Persona non grata in Russia. What does that mean? And how did you find out?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:16:44

So back in: 2008

John McCain was the head of an organ, International Republican Institute, which was founded by Ronald Reagan. It's the counterpart for the National Democratic Institute, which are both chartered by Congress underneath the National Endowment for Democracy.

And their idea is to help promote democracy in countries that have authoritarian backgrounds. So. Or in developing countries, we could say.

sition in Moscow. And there's: 2009

or my visa before, in January: 2010

David B. Wheeler: 00:17:39

Well, that was quite an honor. I'm sure when you got it, I assume you framed it and put it on the wall.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:17:44

You know, it's true, quite literally. Yes, I have.

David B. Wheeler: 00:17:49

That's interesting. I was in Russia in the late 80s, early 90s, and it was certainly a different time.

Putin was not yet in charge, but there were elements of, you know, I Had a minder and my room was bugged and everything else, but I was able to come and go. I wonder if I'd be able to get back in today. Probably not, but so. So who. Let's fast forward.

Let's hope we somehow Putin gets struck in one of these drone attacks or something. Who would succeed him? What's the power struggle going to look like post?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:18:24

So it's a good question. Actually, it's one of my favorite questions, because the reality is that there's a couple things going on with.

So I'll answer your question, but let's step back first, because I think it'll help explain it better, is that overall, there's a serious power vacuum within Russia underneath Putin.

And where we see evidence of that is, you'll probably recall a couple years ago, a guy named Prigozhin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was the head of the Wagner group, started rolling from Kiev towards Moscow, and he got within 200 miles of Moscow. He's in Rostov. And what was interesting about that was there was a military couple taking place. I mean, part of the military was mutinying.

It was a pretty serious deal. That is not common in Russian history, certainly not in recent restaurant history. And what was interesting about that was what we saw transpire.

We saw that the National Guard did not stop him. The Chechens were there to defend Putin, did not stop him. We saw that the Russian army didn't really stop him.

The Russian police didn't, the national police, nor the local police, the border guards didn't stop him. Nobody stopped him.

And when he finally got to Rostov and he met the senior Russian military leadership, they sat around, drank coffee with him outdoors and smoked cigarettes. And they said, you know, you really shouldn't be doing this. It's probably not a great idea. And he was chatting with them.

And you know what they did not do, though? Despite the fact that they sat outside and they chatted with him, they did not call an airstrike. They knew where he was hours in advance.

They could have stopped him if they wished to. But why didn't they do that?

Well, for the same reason that Dmitry Medvedev, the former president, or Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said nothing during this whole period of time, they were silent is because they weren't sure if perhaps Prigozhin would take power. And if he took power, he'd be the new boss. So do you really want to get on his wrong side? Do you want to get on his bad side and so they were silent.

And so I think what we see in Russia is that below Putin, right below the surface, nobody's really sure, really clear as to what's going to happen next. And what we could probably assume is going to happen, though, is that the different oligarchical factions will start to fight with each other.

And one of the reasons that I think there's a serious risk to Russia's own collapse in the relative near future, which is a good thing, not a bad thing, is because there's three different things that could happen in the war in Ukraine. And I'm sorry, it's a very extended response, but there's three different ways that's.

David B. Wheeler: 00:20:21

Take your time, Jason. We got plenty.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:20:23

which is tanks free up to the: 1991

Now, in the current situation, I think it's very unlikely and I think everyone, even the Ukrainians, would agree it's very unlikely given the current situation.

But what's much more likely, and what I've been betting on for three years, is that there will be one of two things occur, either a major political change or a major economic change.

Change could be something like a Prigozhin scenario occurs again, that is, somebody tries to overthrow the Putin regime or tries to kill Putin simply as that that would change the war and probably would end the war. And why that is, is once you take power, the most dangerous part after you take power illegitimately is the counter revolutionary phase.

That is when somebody else says, well, who are you to take power? Who decide you're the president? I want to be the president.

And that's why you would need to have your troops in Moscow to protect your new regime, not in Ukraine for something that you don't really care about.

But there's another way that this could end, and I think that's probably the most probable in the short term is economically, the Russian economy is a complete disaster. I mean, it's a complete mess that I could cite statistics all day, but their, their current interest rate for the central bank is 21%.

Interest rate for mortgages and small loans is above 30%. Last, in the last month, 7% of people with credit cards defaulted on their credit cards. There's significant economic problems within Russia.

Significant. The average worker In Moscow spends 3/4 of their salaries on rent.

There's significant economic problems in Russia, and as a result, I think that could force a collapse of their economy or if the economy were to collapse or have hyperinflation that would end the war as well. But either way, if that were to occur, then somebody else in the circle around Putin would probably decide this is the moment that he's the weakest.

And even if I love Putin, even if I think Putin's great, and, you know, I've become a billionaire because of him, I have a vested interest in being the one that kills him. And why that is, is very simple, is that he's 72 years old. Eventually he will kick the bucket. It's a matter of when, not if, but one day he will.

And if he does kick that bucket, who's going to take power after him? If a rival faction comes to power, you know that they're going to kill you and your family. You know they're going to seize all your assets.

You know that all your friends are also going to get killed and their assets seized.

So if you're strategically wise, game theory would say you should be the one to make the move against Putin, which thereby would guarantee your own future security, your children's future security, because if not, and you just leave it to fate that one day he just doesn't wake up, then you're running a huge risk for your own future. The best thing you could do for your own security is to be the one that makes the move.

David B. Wheeler: 00:22:36

So what? So just one more question, and I'll toss back to Mo.

Are there individuals that are in waiting, like Prigozhin, or somebody that strong enough to wrest control from him, in your estimation?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:22:48

So, yeah, there is. I mean, there's. So there's huge fighting right now as there was in the Soviet period. Nothing's changed.

It's been the same for ever in Russian history, is the intelligence service and the military don't get along. They have a seriously tense relationship.

In fact, yesterday, when they had the drone strikes across Russia, the military started to insinuate that it might be the intelligence service that was responsible for it or them who dropped the dropped ball, and that they were the ones that should be held responsible for. For the attacks. And this is just typical, the infighting that occurs between the military and the intelligence service.

Now, for any coup to succeed in any country in this world is you need a couple things to happen, but one of which is you need to have the military or the intelligence service on your side. Better if you have both. But in this case, you can be sure that these oligarchs, who are the.

Have this vast wealth and have things like the oil companies or the minerals or the mining, metallurgy, these guys undoubtedly are already working on their alliances within the military and the intelligence services to craft that. Because you know that ultimately whoever comes to power after Putin, it's gonna be by force that they maintain that power.

And if you are not as powerful as them, your chance of being wiped out is just, simply just being liquidated and your assets taken is extremely high. So you've got to form alliances at this point with those who are currently in the military intelligence structures for your own ability to survive.

And so a lot of people sometimes ask, why is it the Russian oligarchy and now they have tens of billions of dollars, the rest of the country is quite poor. Why do they do this? Why they need so much money? And that's actually a central reason they need so much money.

It's because it's a war chest in a very literal sense. That's what will give them the strength to out survive or outspend their opponents.

Col Moe Davis: 00:24:19

What do you think? What, what motivates Putin? And do you think he, he underestimated what was going to happen in Ukraine?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:24:27

Oh, definitely. I mean, I think that Putin definitely over, I mean, he, I'm quite sure thought this would be a three day, you know, maybe two week operation.

I certainly did not assume this to be three years. And looking at the preparations they made, they very clearly did not think this is going to take three more than three years.

There are no means prepared for this. I think Putin, his, he's, there's something we see that's happening a lot, which is that he's getting bad information.

He's surrounded by yes men, he's surrounded by people who don't want to tell him the truth. He's shot by people have stolen all the money that they've been given by the state to do things like build up the military.

And so they can't go to them and say, we're not ready for warfare, we're not ready to actually combat. They have to say, yeah, yeah, we got the best military in the world, we're ready to roll, everything's great. But the fact is it's not true.

The money's being stolen. So that's part of the reason why this war perpetuates, is that Putin probably only speaks to three to five people a day.

There's usually the same faces he talks to every single day. And they keep telling him that everything's doing great.

So I think that Putin at the end of the day, keeps continuing this war because he really believes fake news that Russia is leading, that's doing great. It's really getting ahead and it's simply not the case. But Putin's own personal motivations, like any dictator, is ultimately to maintain power.

It's the same with Ceausesco in Romania, Gaddafi and Libya. Ultimately, what does it really care about? Maintaining power? That's really what he cares about. I don't think he really cares about Russia.

I'm pretty sure he's an atheist. I don't think he really cares about religion. He's totally disinterested in these things. He's simply.

These are symbols that allow him to control the population better.

Col Moe Davis: 00:25:55

You had a piece a couple of weeks back. You did an interview with Thor Halvorson about the global collapse of authoritarian regimes. Do you think that's going to happen?

ean, you know, he's saying in: 2025

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:26:11

Well, it could definitely happen. I, I don't think that people appreciate how interconnected these regimes are and what essential role Russia plays.

And Russia is the big brother in all of this.

So if we look at how all these things tie together here is that a country such as North Korea is selling currently, as you know, the missiles to Russia. It's giving soldiers to Russia in exchange for cash. That's something that Russia is able to give them. Cash. The North Koreans badly need cash.

But imagine the cash were to dry up. Imagine that nobody's buying these. North Korea's got a lot of problems and how it's going to crack. North Korea is far away.

Not my research interest, but it's something that they're already under strain. What will be the final thing that is the straw that will break the camel's back? It's hard to say.

But look at countries that are more under strain and more important strategically, Iran, specifically look at Iran's ability to finance international terrorism via Hezbollah as an example. Now if the economy is really put in the straits and they have harder problems, they're not able to simply finance them any longer. Yeah.

That means there's a decrease in terrorism globally. I mean, this is something that Russia, we know cooperates with them.

Actually, it's sort of interesting is Latin America is one of the top regions in the world for Hezbollah to wash money. And where does it wash money? Via Iran, Venezuela and Russia. But whoever's money are they washing? Specifically the drug cartels?

I mean, there's always a surge of illegal immigration before European elections in major countries and in the United States. Where are those people coming from?

Usually countries where Russia is directly involved in Case the United States before the last election, specifically Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Why is that? It's because this is part of the strategy that Russia has globally to try to destabilize democratic countries.

Col Moe Davis: 00:27:37

What's your take on.

To me, it'd been kind of encouraging the, I guess, kind of the, the, the Trump backlash where nationalist movements, you know, like in Canada, the, you know, the far right had like a 25 point lead and ended up losing the election because of the Trump backlash. And we saw the same happen, you know, like Romania, but then yesterday, you know, Poland elected a nationalist leader.

So, you know, you, you keep a close eye on Europe. What do you think the dynamics are right now, you know, with this tension between nationalism and democracy?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:28:11

I mean, nationalism is something that historically, you know, comes and goes. And typically, you know, it's sort of actually interesting about nationalism. I think it works very similarly to isolationist views.

There's a period of time where people are, become internationalized against their own will. For instance, we saw in the lead up TO World War II in the United States that there was, and lead up to World War I the same thing.

Americans vastly did not want to join the war. They were not interested in this. They thought it was being foreign. Until there was something that provoked them to need to join.

They didn't really want to. And then it stirred. The nationalism grew up.

And when nationalism grew, the sentiment of what was nationalism was no longer America first as it was in, in the earlier wars or today. But it became America is the world's greatest and it has a role in the world that should be greater. And that's what it became.

And that's what the definition of nationalism became.

Now, if we look at Europe or any other country, I think that generally speaking, nationalism is a response to something and how they internalize that or accept what that means. Is that against other countries or is that your country will be greater? How do we define what is.

Nationalism is very important, but history would show that in the case of Europe, it also has incredible swings, incredibly dangerous swings as well. Not just the United States alone in that.

But I think that overall I'm not as alarmed by the European elections simply because European governments as a whole generally have parliaments and those parliaments generally have multiple parties. So it's not like absolute control.

When you have multiple parties and coalitions that you have to form for the prime ministership, it generally balances things out a little bit better, I would argue. And the reason is simple, because there's a few other options. You don't Want your coalition to collapse.

In the case of the United States, people will say, but, you know, there's radicals that win the prime ministership in Europe. That is absolutely true.

But the difference in the United States is if you win the presidential election and you win the House and Senate, as has occurred in the United States, there's no more checks and balances. It just ends. And that's where I think we run a higher risk than our European counterparts.

Col Moe Davis: 00:29:59

Yeah. Your book is. Is character assassination a tool in international politics?

here, if you look back at the: 2024

Their advertising budget went to positive ads about Harris, and 10% were attack ads against Trump. And then the Trump campaign was the exact opposite.

Where you probably remember, you saw the ad that, you know, the one about Kamala Harris is going to spend your tax dollars for sex change surgery for prison inmates. But is character assassination. Is that just the, you know, the name of the game now?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:30:46

Well, I mean, so if we want to look at character assassination as a term in US Politics or in political campaigns, why would you use attacks? Well, attacks are used specifically when you look at their soft positives for your opponent.

In the case of the last US Presidential race, I think that was probably not surprising if I don't know the numbers. But on that, what you say is because Kamala Harris had very soft positives. Her positives were not strong.

People who were voting for her were overwhelmingly motivated to stop Trump More than anything else, According to the polling, it was not because there was a huge love for her. As much as people were against Trump strongly, Trump elicits a very strong emotional response. Those who love Trump really love Trump.

There's not as many people who are fanatically in love with Kamala. So I think that that's probably why they had these attack ads.

David B. Wheeler: 00:31:27

Ads.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:31:27

It's just simply more effective to discourage somebody to do something than it is to encourage somebody to do something. I think it'd be very difficult to convince anyone to vote for Donald Trump if they hate him.

But if I don't really like Kamala to begin with and I see these attack ads, I go, you know, I better just sit at home. That's the objective that they ultimately serve.

Col Moe Davis: 00:31:44

And it worked.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:31:45

Of course it worked. I mean, attack ads, I mean, there's a lot of studies on this, a lot of academic research.

Attack Ads, by far the most effective investment of money in political campaign. And positive ads are very limited, even positive ads.

And since you're running for office, I'll mention my suggestion to you is that positive ads are very, very limited positives. They do very little for you. The best thing you can do is, and that's assuming that your name ID is high.

That is, if people already know who you are, to persuade them differently about you is going to be very difficult. But if your name ID is very low, people just simply don't know who you are. It's below 60, let's say 65% or so.

That means that you should run positive ads. Now, if it's above 65%, you should run comparative ads, contrast ads.

Contrast ads are a means of essentially doing positive campaign while also doing negative campaigning, because you don't have to necessarily say anything bad about your opponent. You simply say, you know, plan for schools. No. Plan for schools, yes. For this candidate. You know, plan for teachers, yes.

No, plan for, you know, whatever social issue, whatever thing it is, where you paint one guy as having a true plan for the future and the other one is being out of touch or not having a plan. That's a traditional contrast ad. That's very positive. Why?

Because the average voter who's low information doesn't really want to research or understand the issues better. They simply want to look at, let's say, a.

A report card where one guy gets A's for everything great that he's planning for the future, the other guy gets D's and F's and you go, oh, so that guy's a better candidate? And that's as simple as that.

Col Moe Davis: 00:33:02

Well, that's one advantage of doing this podcast. I get free. I get free campaign advice. Otherwise I'm. Otherwise I'm having to pay for it.

So we need to do more podcasts, but, hey, yeah, thanks, that's certainly insightful.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:33:17

But I mean, voters over 80 of voter decision making is based on emotion. Less than 20 is reasonable logic. So as long as you can elicit a strong emotional response.

And I don't know the specifics of the Kamala Harris ad which you referenced. I know which ad you're referring to, though, and I'm sure it tested really well in focus groups because it has a clear emotional response, people.

The average person goes, well, that's absurd. And there's a quote of her saying, yeah, you know, I don't remember her exact quote, but something rather sympathetic, let's say. She wasn't.

She did not outright reject the thesis that perhaps we should spend money on these prisoners. And that's why it elicits a strong emotional response. That's all you have to do. I mean, you have to elicit a very strong emotional response.

It's less about reason or logic or explaining the details. Voters hear something, they feel repulsed and that's what they remember is the emotional reaction to the information they received.

Col Moe Davis: 00:34:03

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. It's, you know, I think, you know, from a democratic perspective, you know, we tend to want to persuade people with fact.

And you got to give the other side credit.

I mean, on the democratic side, you know, we write 20 page position papers that nobody reads and the other side comes up with a three word bumper sticker that everybody remembers. And it appeal, like you said, it appeals to emotion rather than fact and logic. And emotion at the end of the day is what motivates people.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:34:32

It's absolutely the case. And you know, and I look at, you can look at this across any issue that you to want. Let's use Ukraine because it's a neutral issue.

And I assume that most people that listen to your podcast support Ukraine. When you look at people that do not support Ukraine, you look at the reasons for why they don't support Ukraine.

The top reasons are because they truly think that money, some sort of crazy stuff.

They believe that, you know, there's like billions of dollars that were printed and given to the Ukrainians which they're, it's been stolen or it's being embezzled. It's all false because there's more oversight in the money being spent on Ukraine than any other time in the U.S.

history of working with a foreign country, literally more than any other country in our history. So yet despite that, people have these false notions now. Why is that? They heard a rumor and they feel repulsed. Why is that?

Because they go, that's my hard working tax dollars. I don't feel that my quality of life's improving. I still have a pothole in front of my house. You know, my, the Social Security is a mess.

That's, you know, Medicare is a mess. What's it doing for me? How's my life improving by helping these Ukrainians, let them fix out their own problems.

And that's what it is, just emotional response. People feel that they're being cheated out of their money. And that's a very strong emotion. You feel that you've been cheated out of your money?

Col Moe Davis: 00:35:33

Yeah, well, yeah, and that's one of my, you know, I'm not sure how we address it.

But you know, one of the things that really, you know, as a former military guy, I'm a big supporter of, of like USAID and diplomacy, you know, the best wars, the wars we don't have to fight.

And the public has a perception that we're spending, you know, 30, 40% of our budget is going to other countries when and you know, USAID's budget was 1% of the federal budget.

But the perception is it's, you know, some vast amount of money and it's being wasted on useless programs in other countries when the reality is it's a, you know, pennies on the dollar and we get a lot of bang for our buck and it's in our strategic interest to spend that money rather than having to hopefully avoid fighting wars.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:36:20

Exactly.

And that's truly the tragic part about usaid, which I also support, is that yeah, of course there were some things that deserve to be or to be cut that were probably not great uses of our tax. Totally agree. But to cut the whole thing, it's insane. Do you understand how much this did to prevent terrorism?

How much this did to prevent civil unrest which would then destabilize regions where we have business? How much of our tax base comes from other companies that are operating there that would no longer be able to operate?

There's huge losses for America in the long term due to this and future wars will be fought because of.

So in the short term it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's cut off your nose despite your face, is that we are ultimately doing things are going to operate against our long term interest due to some sort of short term goal. That's I guess makes sense to Elon Musk, but only to him really. It is totally non strategic.

David B. Wheeler: 00:37:07

So Jason, politics seems to be obviously a love of yours and a profession of yours. Mo and I are probably amateurs compared to self, but you know, politics is a give and take game. It's about loyalty, it's about payback.

How is Putin going to pay back Elon and Trump when he decides he no longer needs them?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:37:33

So, you know, it's sort of funny.

I'm pretty convinced that Donald Trump, one of the things that's working against America's interest is that there's people around him who understand foreign policy really, really badly. Well, who I mean specifically is Witkoff? Steve Wykoff, who's in charge of negotiations with Russia.

Witkoff seems to have the impression that the Russians are a really serious country and they have a Lot of potential. And I'm sure that they go to Wyckoff and they say, listen, there's huge potential for business.

There's a huge potential for us working together in the future. And that's what appeals to him, because that's what Wyckoff understands, right? We're going to make a deal. And that's what they're doing to appeal.

I'm pretty sure that's the Russians approach, and it would make perfect sense. That's just the way the Russians operate.

Now, what's interesting about that, I'm sure that Wyckoff goes to Donald Trump and says, hey, listen, I'm going to make a deal. We're going to make billions of dollars and it's going to be wonderful.

We're going to build all these different things and these buildings and investments. The fact is, the Russians realize, I think, that they can play with the Americans. They don't view the Americans as being competent counterparts.

And we see that the Russians don't respect the Americans at this point. Specifically, Donald Trump.

I mean, the first phone call that Putin had with Donald Trump a couple months ago, during his second term, a couple months ago, Putin was on a stage in St. Petersburg, and the moderator said, you know, aren't you late for a call with the US President? And Putin said, it's okay. Let him wait. It's fine.

And so. So he knew that he was standing up Trump. He didn't care. But why did he do that in front of everybody? To make a point.

I mean, it is the Russian president. He could be discreet if he wished to be. He chose not to be. It was no coincidence. They would schedule that event right then.

So he would intentionally show up late for the event with. And likewise, when they had a phone call two weeks ago, Trump, sorry, Putin, was in Sochi, which is southern Russia.

And the Russian, The Kremlin released the Russian press that he was visiting a music school when he did. When he took the phone call. Now, why would they mention that? To show what a low priority it was for Putin. That's a reason they released that.

They're mocking him. They routinely mock Trump. They do not treat him at the official level as somebody with great esteem. Now, they go through all the right motions.

They never. They never would refer to him as an idiot or anything like that. And actually, it's so they've written a lot about.

Is that Russia's senior leadership never does things like that. In fact, they would do the opposite. They always say, he's working very hard.

You know, we hope that he, he's has good health, whatever sort of general concerns.

But it's, there are other people, there are other spokesmen who go through different motions, and we see that those around Trump, they generally, sorry, those who are speaking about Trump in the Russian press generally treat him as being the best hope for Russia, but also sort of as a fool, but our fool, somebody who we can work with.

David B. Wheeler: 00:39:54

So how does, how does Putin pay him back at some point? What.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:40:00

I think.

David B. Wheeler: 00:40:00

Yeah, what, what's the, when will we know that Putin's had enough of Trump and had enough of Elon Musk?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:40:06

Well, I think that, you know, the Russians are intelligent enough to continue playing with him. They keep petting him along for a while, and it's going to continue for a long while. I don't see it stop anytime soon.

The Russians will just sort of disappoint you. There's no need to have a contradiction with Trump or to disagree with him publicly.

They can always hold out a future promise that, you know, there's going to be huge investments. Trump isn't that yet.

David B. Wheeler: 00:40:26

That's true.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:40:26

And they could just say, you know, this, listen, we can't do it right now. There's too much public pressure.

Give it a couple more years and we're going to make these huge deals and they can just play with them like that, and they just keep putting it along. And that's what the Russians would typically do. To have a direct confrontation would just be unwise. Why would they do that?

I mean, he could offer future opportunities. He could offer a soft landing with, you know, creating tensions inside of NATO or splitting NATO apart.

Why would they possibly want to see him go to the wayside or turn against them? Totally.

David B. Wheeler: 00:40:52

Yeah. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. So give us your impression on the state of Ukraine at this point.

Obviously, yesterday was a victory for the country, and everybody's probably riding high. I assume they are preparing for the, the response. But what's the status of things in Kyiv these days, from your perspective?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:41:13

Well, the situation in Kyiv is quite stable. I mean, overall, we got to consider that the country is obviously in a very difficult situation, to say the very least.

That being said, you know, there's been public opinion polling in Ukraine. Actually, I've done public opinion polling in Ukraine.

Col Moe Davis: 00:41:25

Ukraine.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:41:26

And I can tell you that the, the strong. There's still a very strong support for the war, to continuing the war, to making sure that Ukraine is able to liberate its territories.

And the reason is simple, is it's more than the simple territories. It's not about land. It's that there's people living under occupation. And we read the stories about the.

The incredible human rights abuses, the rape, the murder, the torture. It's why they don't want to see their fellow citizens abandoned to that fate.

Keep in mind, there's also more than 20,000 Ukrainian children who've been kidnapped from Ukraine and sent to Russia to be indoctrinated. So there's. There's a concern about the humanity of this. Now. Support for the government still remains quite high.

Slasky support realistically is probably about 55%. Now if there's an election, you know, I think you would have a challenge if you were to be challenged by somebody like the head of the military.

But it's probably not going to happen. The short term, everybody's much more focused on, on the war.

The fact is, Ukrainians vastly, I want to say it's about more than 80% do not have elections in the near term. About 85%, if I recall correctly.

And the reason is very simple, is that they understand that one, it's a distraction from what's the greater priority, which is the war, which is all consuming. Secondly, there's no money for that. You would look bad as a candidate to be spending any money right now on a political ad or a poster.

If that money could be going to the veterans or to the soldiers or buying drones, why would you possibly be spending even a dollar for doing something else? People are all donating to help the Ukrainian military. And if you'll be spending money on political ads, you would. I can't imagine that helping you.

But second to that, I think that Russia obviously take advantage of any sort of election within Ukraine to force its disinformation narratives. And that would be something that'd be harmful to Ukraine as a whole.

So the population does not support elections at this point, Very strongly does not support elections. And there is no political party in Ukraine. Literally not one party that gets polls above 1% that supports elections right now. Now literally not one.

There's not one leader, not the former president, not the opposition parties in the parliament. Nobody. And the reason is simple. The population is vastly opposed to it.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:19

Yeah. And they support President Zelensky at this point.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:43:22

Exactly. There's, there's simply, there's. There's not a. People understand that, you know, the country's in this incredible state. There's.

I'm physically not in Kyiv at the moment. I usually am in Kyiv and there's bombings every night. I mean, there's explosions. It wakes you up most nights of the week.

So when you're dealing with this sort of thing, who's talking about elections? Who's about politics? We're talking about existential questions here of whether or not we will exist. How can that happen?

You know what's going to happen next? This is what people are worried about. Their sons at the front is what they worry about.

They're not worried about politics and what's happening in the parliament.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:54

Yeah. Well, God bless President Zelensky and all those troops on the front line and all the people in Ukraine. I think this is a nice way to tie this up. Up.

We generally talk about bourbon. Are you a bourbon guy or.

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:44:10

I like bourbon.

David B. Wheeler: 00:44:11

What's your favorite do you have a favorite bourbon or a favorite drink?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:44:15

I don't have a favorite. I, you know, it's funny, is that before the war, actually Ukraine, he was amazing. The liquor stores have better selection in the United States now.

In Ukraine, it's not like that anymore. So I actually, I haven't had bourbon in a while, but it's, it's, I do like bourbon. Yes.

David B. Wheeler: 00:44:29

All right. What's your, what are you drinking these days? Moe Bourbon side?

Col Moe Davis: 00:44:32

Well, I'm still it's not actually bourbon. It's Tennessee whiskey. Uncle Nearest, which was Uncle Nearest was a slave who taught Jack Daniels how to make bourbon.

And they provide some of his recipes. You know, right now that's pretty high on. Yeah.

Jason, just for our first guest we ever had on was was Denver Riggleman, former congressman from Virginia. And since leaving Congress, he and his wife started a distillery. So how we got oh, really? That's how he got on this bourbon thing.

This become a standard part of the of the podcast.

David B. Wheeler: 00:45:07

So, Jason, if folks want to learn more about you and your work, where can they, where can they see it?

Dr. Jason Jay Smart: 00:45:13

Well, you can check out my website, Jason J. Smart.com or you can I'm on on Twitter or on. You just type my name Jason J. Smart, middle name is J A Y Smart. And you can find me on YouTube as well.

I started a channel on YouTube about two weeks ago. We started publishing and we've we've grown 50,000 members in that period. So. Well, 48,000, whatever it is.

So if anyone wants to check out YouTube videos, talk a lot about Russian politics, why the regime is probably going to collapse and how it's been influenced by the current events.

David B. Wheeler: 00:45:43

Terrific. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jason. That's it for this episode of American Muckrakers. Podcast Muck you.

I'm David Wheeler signing off with my co host colonel Moe Davis. Enjoyed the show. Follow Us Share it check out americanmuckrakers.com for more or to support us with a donation. Thank you to our guest, Dr. Jason J.

Smart. Learn more about Dr. Smart at Jason J. Smart.com until next time, keep your eye on the long game.

Don't stop believing truth matters and whenever a maga. More on annoys you, just tell them muck you.

Jimmy Muckraker: 00:46:21

This has been Muck U co hosted by Colonel Moe Davis in Asheville, North Carolina and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Thanks to our guest today, Dr. Jason J.

David B. Wheeler: 00:46:31

Smart.

Jimmy Muckraker: 00:46:32

merican Muckrakers. Copyright: 2025

Follow us on Blue sky under American Muckrakers.com and on substack@american muckrakers.substack.com you can learn more and donate@americanmuckrakers.com David and Moe hope you all come back soon for a new episode. And remember to never take from anyone, especially Trumpers.