Fox News' Greg Gutfeld calls on the world to show proper deference to Vladimir Putin and give him a “small victory”

Gutfeld: “You’ve got to give this guy proper deference because he feels he never got that from the West or Europe”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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From the March 9, 2022, edition of Fox News' The Five

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): What do we do? We're presented with a choice. And the obvious Ukrainian desire is the no-fly zone, but if you do that, you shoot down a Russian jet, then we're at a war with Russia. We might already be in a war with Russia. But if we don't do that, then this goes on indefinitely.

And then that raises the question from two weeks ago, do we want this as badly as Putin does? 'Cause, if so, then we have to go all in. Because we're going to be looking at these -- it's as you say about stealing -- we're going to have to look at these photos, these horrible images every day, every day, because as long as we sit here on the sidelines, the massacre will be prolonged. Right? But there is a solution and it's something I was going to ask you about before the show, but I figured I wanted to ask you here. 

We don't hear anything about a serious attempt at mediation. It's like -- it never get -- I mean, it's -- and I'm not talking about sending Kamala Harris, which we're going to talk about in 'B.' That is not a serious attempt, okay? Where -- something where world leaders urgently meet with Putin and Zelensky and they figure out a way -- a face-saving, small victory for Putin because he can't afford to lose. He's already a war criminal, which means if he loses, he's dead. So they have to give him some kind of -- as Avril Haines said, she's the Director of National Intelligence -- you've got to give this guy proper deference. Because he feels that he never got that from the West or from Europe.

So we have to, like, somehow pick a nice, little, small victory, a face-saving off-ramp. We need to have some kind of mediation, because, to echo what Jesse said, what else can you -- what else can you do except world war? Right?