Fox News contributor and best-selling author Raymond Arroyo told the Todd Starnes Show Ukraine is a distraction from the real threat, China.
The following is a rush transcript of the Todd Starnes Radio Show, heard daily 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. eastern. Click here to sign up for Todd’s daily newsletter – the only way to avoid censorship of conservative news!
TODD STARNES: [01:21:48] But right now I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line, a great friend of this program, a great American patriot. You see him all the time on Fox News Channel with Laura Ingraham, our good friend Raymond Arroyo. Hey, [01:21:59][11.8] Raymond, good to have you back with us. [01:22:01][1.3]
RAYMOND ARROYO: [01:22:01] Todd, how are you? Great to hear your voice. [01:22:03][1.8]
TODD: [01:22:03] Well, likewise. And of course, coming to us from New Orleans. I figured you would be like on a parade float. You know, one of the crew’s [01:22:10][7.3]
RAYMOND: [01:22:12] Not yet tart, Todd. Not until I show up on Saturday. I am the grand marshal of the crew of Endymion, which is the largest parade of Mardi Gras. It’s 3000 members, so it’s going to be a big blowout. So I’m looking forward to that. It’s been already incredible. You know, what people don’t see of Mardi Gras is the private dinners, the supper dances, the queens cotillion, the Coronation Bowl, all the kind of private events that the crew members throw for themselves and their families. And you know, when you get involved in one of these crews, you find yourself on this kind of dizzying carousel of events for weeks and weeks. But it’s a neat look. I call it my Lenten Preparation time. This is going to all go away on Ash Wednesday, and I will feel the deprivation of everything. Now you see the lights, the Earth, [01:23:00][48.4]
TODD: [01:23:01] Now you see Raymond, and this is how you and I are different. I’m a good church going southern Baptist and we just have a higher tolerance level for sin. So we just kind of blow through Ash Wednesday. [01:23:10][9.0]
RAYMOND: [01:23:11] But well, we’re we get all of our meat in, we get all of our, you know, partying out of the system. So when Ash Wednesday hits, the brakes are on for 40 days. [01:23:21][10.0]
TODD: [01:23:21] I love it. [01:23:22][0.6]
RAYMOND: [01:23:22] Nice, long, quiet time of reflection and penitential days. a good prep? [01:23:27][5.4]
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TODD: [01:23:28] Do you get to throw stuff at people? I remember when I was a kid, we would go down. We lived in lipgloss. My dad got transferred down there and so our local crew was crude demand and that was more family friendly. But down in the quarter, stuff gets a little bit while un family friendly. [01:23:45][16.7]
RAYMOND: [01:23:45] Yeah, well, people. But then you know, Todd, and this is the misnomer about Mardi Gras for the locals. Mardi Gras is the largest organically, locally sustained communal celebration anywhere else in the world. [01:23:59][14.2]
TODD: [01:24:00] Oh sure. [01:24:00][0.2]
RAYMOND: [01:24:00] Family celebration In large part, families would create these crews. The members and their families take part, and millions of people gather in the streets, mostly with children and each other. It’s not until you hit the very end of the route where it nears the French Quarter that you get the people that come from other places in the country. You know that, and they think it’s like a license to misbehave. But that’s not really our Mardi Gras experience, and it’s not what Mardi Gras in New Orleans is all about. [01:24:28][28.2]
TODD: [01:24:29] No. And I just I remember, you know, the you know, they would throw things, you know, the beads, the balloons. But of course, they used to throw the coconuts. And we had a caller from Louisiana, from New Orleans who told us they really don’t do that anymore because of, I don’t know, I guess they show them off. [01:24:45][16.5]
RAYMOND: [01:24:46] They hand off the the Zulu, the Zulu that hands off those painted coconuts because people are getting concussions, you know? Yeah, here’s your throw. And then you know you’re a charity hospital for the night. [01:24:56][10.2]
TODD: [01:24:56] But at the same time, you got a great story to tell the grandkids, right? [01:24:59][2.5]
RAYMOND: [01:24:59] Well, I have, and they’ve made a whole sleeve of cups. I’ve got like 25000 cups with my ugly puts on it. So that’ll be good to ward off roaches, termites and any other varmints about the house. You just put that in the corner. [01:25:11][11.5]
TODD: [01:25:11] We need some of those with the Family Dollar store. Did you hear about that story? They had to shut down. Four hundred farm were upriver from you had Memphis, and they had to shut down 400 Family Dollar stores because of a rat infestation at the warehouse. So anyway, it’s it’s kind of a big local storage ward [01:25:31][19.7]
TODD: [01:25:33] Raymond Arroyo on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line. Raymond, you know the big story. We’re waiting on President Biden to come out and I mean, people are really starting to ratchet up the war talk. What are you hearing in your world? [01:25:45][12.8]
RAYMOND: [01:25:46] Well, what I’m hearing and what I’m seeing is I’m frankly amazed by the malfeasance of the Biden administration. I mean, they have mishandled this from the beginning. It’s a little bit like telling a child, Todd if you go. And torture entire arm and burn down the house, then you’re in time out, Mister. I mean, that’s basically what we’ve told Putin until he acted. We wouldn’t drop sanctions. So now they’re taking great umbrage and we’re dropping sanctions. Here’s my question, Todd, where were they back in 2014, when Putin indeed did invade Ukraine and Crimea? That’s when he invaded Ukraine. This is all after the fact. This is just a continuation of that invasion. The Biden and the Obama administration look the other way. When Putin moved in to two massive territories in Ukraine, handed out 700,000 Russian passports to those Ukrainian citizens, declared them Russian citizens and just took over the area. I find all this too little, too late. And the big question now should be, is there a United States national interest in Ukraine? They’re not a NATO nation. We’ve already permitted this incursion. Keep your eye on the ball and the ball is China. China, I think, is wagging this whole dog preparing for their own invasion of Taiwan, and they’re going to do it while Putin moves into mainland Ukraine. [01:27:12][85.6]
TODD: [01:27:13] And again, this all goes back, Raymond, to what happened in Afghanistan. And there are political observers and international diplomats believe that was the moment when when he realized, You know what? Biden is not going to stop us here, [01:27:27][14.7]
RAYMOND: [01:27:30] No it’s already been said, we’re not sending troops. We’re not going to send any troops in to fight. Well, then why are we having this discussion? It’s a world away. This is Eastern European and a European problem. They need to settle it. And they should have. If we were worried about Russia in, you know, moving into Ukraine, we should have stopped it in 2014, when it might have made a difference. [01:27:51][21.0]
TODD: [01:27:52] No, you’re absolutely right. And we do have to pay attention to what’s happening and Taiwan. At the same time, Iran is back there and who knows what’s happening with those with those folks, they’re feeling emboldened. And that could lead. I mean, like Jennifer Griffin last night on Hannity was sounding the alarm that this this could very well be another world war if we’re not careful. [01:28:13][21.8]
RAYMOND: [01:28:15] Oh yeah, that that that remains to be seen. My sense is we have to tamp down all this rhetoric. I am very concerned about the overheated rhetoric we’re hearing from, you know, [01:28:27][11.8]
TODD: [01:28:27] it’s coming from both sides, too. The the establishment Republicans and Democrats, everybody said, [01:28:33][5.3]
RAYMOND: [01:28:33] no, no, this is the military industrial complex writ large, you know, doing what they do, which is saber rattle and say the end is nigh and we have to move the troops in now. The fact is, there’s no national security interest in Ukraine. And until you can convince me that there is, it’s not worth the blood of one American boy or girl. I’m sorry, it’s just not. And and put your sanctions on, you should have allowed the Trump position to stand. Biden, remember, lifted the sanctions on the Nord pipeline, the Nord Stream two pipeline that that’s that major pipeline that goes to Russia, into Maine, into Europe. And he said any country that joins this pipeline will be subject to sanctions. 18 countries in Europe backed off Todd. Well, the minute Biden came in, he lifted those sanctions doing what? Enabling Putin and strengthening the hand of mother Russia. So don’t cry now that Putin is doing what you gave them, the power and the energy and the weaponry and the and the manpower to do. I’m sorry, it’s all too little, too late. [01:29:38][64.9]
TODD: [01:29:40] RaymondArroyo.com, folks. He’s got all sorts of great stuff there. If you have a child or a grandchild, you need to have raymond’s boxes, storybooks in your child’s library. They’re just absolutely beautiful. The artwork, the storytelling is just unbelievable. And Raymond, I want to give a plug to a big conference that you’re going to be a part of. [01:30:03][23.2]
RAYMOND: [01:30:04] Yeah. [01:30:04][0.0]
TODD: [01:30:05] So Jim Caviezel is your backup act. You are the star of the Cincinnati Men’s Conference coming up. Am I understanding? Is the America’s oldest men’s conference going to be held there in Cincinnati? [01:30:16][11.2]
RAYMOND: [01:30:17] Yes. On on April 2nd, Saturday, April 2nd, we’re at the it’s on the University of Cincinnati campus at their arena, you know, 12000 seater. It’s going to be an a major event. But I actually think I’m the opening act for Jim. I think it’s the other way around. But here’s the great thing. It’s a moment for fathers, sons and men looking to strengthen their roles in their household, in their community, and to reconnect with what it means to be led by Jesus every day. And as we move into this season, as we move toward Easter, it’s such an important moment to stop and reflect and to do it with brothers in arms. So that’s really what we’re collecting to do. The theme is evil prevails when good and. And do nothing, and Todd, we are seeing that internationally, nationally and otherwise, but we have to do it with the eyes of faith and not move out of anger or spite, as we often see in our world today. So Jim Caviezel will be there. I’ll be there on Saturday, April 2nd and anybody in the area. You can go to Cincinnati Men’sConference.com Cincinnati Men’s Conference.com. And we have two special guests coming tight that I can’t quite mention yet, but they’re going to make. They will definitely make Jim and I kind of recede into the woodwork now, OK, and announce them just to the team. There’s at least one, you know, big special guest star, I’ll call them, and maybe two. So people should come. It’ll be a great day. [01:31:48][90.8]
TODD: [01:31:48] All right. Raymond, I’m going to try my best to get there. But if I can’t, if you could pick me up a couple of cans of that Skyline Chili, I’d be much appreciated. [01:31:55][7.2]
RAYMOND: [01:31:56] You bet. I’ll pick those up for you on my way. My son lives there now, so I can have that sent to you any time and I’ll send the beads and the balloons from New Orleans. [01:32:02][6.3]
TODD: [01:32:03] I love it. Just come on down the river or up, as the case may be. All right. Raymond Arroyo, ladies and gentlemen, RaymondArroyo.com. Got to take a break here, folks. We’ll be right back. [01:32:12][9.5]