RFK Jr made some comments that have gone viral over the economics of the Ukrainian war. Today’s show gets into what's true and what’s fiction.

RFK Jr said that the war in Ukraine “should have never happened” and that the funds approved by Congress are “Not really going to Ukraine. It’s Going To American defense manufacturers."

In other words, a money laundering scheme.

He first claimed that Russia tried to repeatedly settle the war and that the major thing they wanted was to keep NATO out of Ukraine.

"It depends on who you are asking. If you don't understand the motivation then you are not going to understand the solution," Crowder said. "To act as though there is no legitimate grievance would be to ignore a huge portion of the Russian people and some of the Ukranian people who identify as Ukranian Russians. But you need to understand what their justification is.”

Reuters reported Kremlin spokesman Peskov saying that Russia would stop its operations ‘in a moment’ if Ukraine enshrined neutrality in its constitution, and accepted the loss of Crimea and the breakaway regions of Donbas,” according to The Wire.

To sum up: in the early weeks that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two engaged in substantial attempts to negotiate a peace settlement. These could have ended the war before the devastation of Ukraine’s infrastructure, the massive loss of lives, and the increased risk of unchecked escalation. They featured an offer by Ukraine not to join NATO in return for equivalent security guarantees. Crucial points of disagreement about Crimea and Donbas, as well as about the practicability of the non-Nato guarantees, remained. But on March 29, both sides apparently expected to go on talking.

Ukraine was willing to renounce joining NATO, but knew that equivalent security guarantees by the great powers would be hard to come by. Nor was there any real prospect of Russia ‘negotiating away’ its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Putin also said that the agreement was "not bad."

As Russian forces were driven out of the Kyiv region at the end of March, Ukrainians claimed to have discovered evidence of atrocities – rapes, murders, massacres, looting, indiscriminate bombings and other war crimes.

An even bigger obstacle to further talks may have been the arrival in Kyiv, on April 6, of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “Johnson brought two simple messages to Kyiv. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the NATO powers] are not”.

"We have been in a state of perpetual war and if you wanted to orchestrate a conflict of perpetual war with Russia, this is how you would do it," Crowder said. "It's not a conflict where someone has a very clear-cut end. We had this same kind of conflict in Iraq. And then you ask who are the constant beneficiaries of ending wars. That's a difficult line to draw."

RFK Jr also said that U.S. contractors did encourage NATO expansion.

"That is absolutely true," Crowder said. "When you look at something and there is an alarming amount of inconsistency and you say 'This is not exactly what's best for human rights.' There are certain people who are benefiting.'"

RFK Jr also said that BlackRock is the one getting the money, not Ukraine.

"BlackRock is one of the institutional investors when you talk about having a stake in these companies," Crowder said. "The issue is not just these companies. The issue is the unholy alliance with the government. When the government picks winners and losers it just means you privatize profit and socialize losses."