Episode #211 -- Larry Johnson and the View From Moscow

Former CIA analyst turned commentator Larry Johnson joins the podcast for a post-mortem on his recent trip to Moscow to meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  We get into our first impressions of SignalGate and what Trump et.al. are doing right and wrong on the foreign policy front.

Show Notes:
Larry's Blog -- SONAR21

Tom on X
Tom on Patreon

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we'll do the thing all right. So it is
March twenty fifth, not twenty sixth. Here we go in
three two one. Well, and welcome to the Gold, Goats
and Guns Podcast from March twenty fifth, twenty twenty five.
My name is Tom Lulongo and we have a lot
to talk about it. It is episode two eleven, and I

(00:20):
have with me my good friend Larry Johnson, and I
think Larry needs no introduction at this point. Larry's been
on the podcast a couple of times, but it's interesting.
You know, Larry reached out to me a couple of
weeks ago before he went to Moscow, and I had
a moment where I had to, like about twenty four hours,
I was wondering whether or not I was going to
have to figure out how to get a visa and
go because he very graciously put my name in the

(00:42):
ring to replace Glenn Greenwall for that trip and it
didn't work out, which is fine, but it was it
was quite the honor, actually, Larry, when you did that.
So welcome to the podcast. I want to get your
take on a lot of what you saw over in
Moscow and then what you think is going on with
everything else. So as always friend, how are you.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I am, well, I've recovered from my jet lag. I
think finally good.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I think that's part of the thing. I think I
waited just long enough to they can do this, that
you are recovered from the jet lag and everything else,
because I get I guess it gets harder at the LDG.
A gat I don't. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, you know, I hit the big seven zero man.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Wow, that's true. Yeah, I mean, I've got I've got
to go to Calgary in a couple of about six
weeks for the Cornerstone uh conference that Sean Newman is
putting on, and that's going to be a fun time.
And even just two hours, you know, just that two
hour difference is enough to like screw me up, all right,
So talk to me about this. I know I've I've watched,
you know, some of the interviews that you've done and

(01:41):
some of the talks you've done since you came back
from Moscow, and I did watch your the most of
the the meeting you had with Sege Lavrov, the Russian
Forem Minister, which I was very impressed. I really enjoyed
how you were pushing uh uh, mister Labrov on a
number of issues and surrounding Ukraine. The little I wish

(02:03):
that had gone alonger and I kind of, I'll be
honest with you. At one point when the judge immediately
talking about the time I moved over to Gaza, I'm like,
we're not done talking about Ukraine yet, go back, you know.
But I was a little a little worried about that.
But you know, uh, and in general, I thought it
was a great opportunity for everybody to really, you know,
trying to get some stuff on on on the page

(02:25):
for for us to see. So was that your first
time meeting my Rov?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yes, yes, it was, I think the third time. I
was with Zakatva, the press spokeswoman Maria, and we we
had thirty minutes with her before lover Off showed up.
She could very well beat the first female foreign minister
in Russia. She's got she got those kind of chops.

(02:54):
She's actually probably a little harder edge than Saturgy. But
you know, it was very it was relaxed. You know,
we'd been asked to prepare questions in advance as if
it was going to be highly structured, but you know,
once we got in there, boy, the questions just went
out the window. I didn't ask a single one of

(03:15):
the questions I've written down. I went off on, you know,
first the to make sure that Russia is still following
that the policy enunciated by Vladimir Putin in June twenty
twenty four about coming to an agreement with Ukraine was
still in effect. And the lover of gave a good

(03:37):
linky answer substance of answer. But the short answer is yes,
no change at least for now, and if it changes,
it's going to be tougher conditions, not lighter conditions. That
came out, and also asked him about China as far
as there are a number of people I know in
the Trump administration and in sort of the world political

(04:00):
punditry and thank tankus that insists that, you know, the
United States would cozy up to Russia, split rush off
from China and then we can unite to destroy China.
I mean, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
That's the sea banning version of of the world. Right. Yeah,
notice that is not part of the Trump two point
zero at all.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Right, Well, but you've got Elberte Colby, who is a
grandson of William Colby, right, and he's he's very much
in that camp. And and I know a number of
other people that seriously talk about it. And then, you know,
so I asked love Rolf about it, and he, you know,
he very diplomatically said that's nonsense. And you know, I

(04:47):
was going to use stronger term, but I didn't want
to make it two crew. But you know, love Off,
he was a gentleman, but it was you know, it's
just like you and I sitting here talking. There was
no you know, I've been around, you know, people who
think that they're famous and important and they get that
self important air. You know, when I was on CNN's Crossfire,

(05:10):
I was on with Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak, right
you can and man full of himself, Oh my god.
Just you know, I didn't get that kind of vibe
off of love exactly the opposite. So, and I think
the Russians, you know, the Russians are trying to reach

(05:31):
out to, if you will, the bloggest sphere, the world
of the Internet, get outside of the releguet or traditional
media because it's fading. It's still it's still important in
some sectors, but it's fading, and things like even your show,
these kinds of alternatives become you know, or are seen

(05:53):
more as a threat now by the deep state.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Oh yeah, well that's very very clear. So yeah, you know,
it's funny you say all of that, and I'm gonna
come back to this in a minute, but yeah, I
never got the the feeling off of off of cerculver
Off that he was ever, you know, anything other than
kind of you know, down to earth dude. Like he
has his public persona and then the minute the cameras

(06:19):
are off him, he's lighting up a cigarette and joking
and having a you know, and and having substantive discussions
that are personal.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
He's just always seemed like that kind of guy. And
it's it's funny when you say about Maria Zacharova, like,
I've always been incredibly impressed with her her ability to
you know, to to toe that line between being the
press secretary of it effectively for the for the Foreign

(06:46):
Ministry and be you know, witty and and all that,
you know, and at the same time be unbelievably statesman
like and and really put a put a really strong
presence forward for the Russian precide of things. And know,
she just she's She's he's a really a very impressive woman,

(07:07):
and I've never really thought about her as taking over
for for for Lavrock, but yeah, it makes perfect sense
to me. Okay, so let's the into this a little bit.
So you guys had about an hour and a half,
right with uh? And so in general, I you know,
we can obviously watch the full interview on you know,

(07:30):
on YouTube or whatever. That's fine. The big thing here
is and in the time you were over there, what
is you what was your overall like the real impression
you got from all of this stuff, Because I mean,
we're gonna get into I want to get into some
of the specifics, but just in general, let's start there,
and then let's drill in a little bit. So like,

(07:51):
where do you think that I think I know the
answer to this already, but I want to ask it anyway,
where do you think the Russian headspace really is relative
to Trump? And I'll leave it open ended like that,
but I can and I'll pop in at some point.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Okay, So let me use the are you're familiar with
the story about how an elephant was you know, we
got a full adult elephant and its leg is tied
by a rope that it can easily break, but it doesn't.
It thinks it's trapped.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
The way that happens is from the very young age
they put heavy chains on it, and so as the
elephant grows, it becomes a custom that whatever's attached to
its leg means it can't move and it's trapped, and
it's sort of trapped in that narrative. But when the
day comes that that elephant discovers it can break the

(08:43):
rope and it's free, all of a sudden, it's a
new world. Right, That's what's happened in Russia. Until the
start of the Special Military Operation, Russia was still sort
of that elephant with a rope around it. It's one
leg only that it was trapped, that it was tied
to the West, that it had no other options. Since then,

(09:06):
it has awakened and said, we don't need those losers.
We don't we don't need them, right, we you know,
we can do this on our own. There's nothing that
the United States has that we actually need in order
to survive. Now, we'd like to, we'd like to be

(09:28):
friends with them. You know, they do have you know,
they do throw some good parties and you know, they're
you know, they do have some upside, but we don't
have to say, Okay, yeah, you're here to rate me again,
let me get my pants down so you can do
it right. No, that's over. That's what has taken place.

(09:50):
And if you listened to Putin's speech, I think it
was last Thursday to the to the industrialists. He had
this closed door session, but the reports have come out
about it where he said, look, you know, if you
think even though we improve relations with the United States
that they're not going to keep imposing sanctions on us,

(10:12):
think again, they can't help themselves. And he went through
the history, you know, the the Jackson Vanik amendment. Oh
you won't let the Jews immigrate, We're gonna punish you,
and then that stayed in place until Router's Mazinski, yeah,
you know, and then that goes into place and then

(10:33):
more sanctions. So Putin says, no matter what deal we reach,
it's never going to be good enough for him, and
they're going to continue to try to sanction us and
control us economically, which is why we're going to continue
on the road with bricks. We're going to separate ourselves
economically from the West. Then we're not going to be

(10:54):
dependent upon them. So you know that that's the change
that's taken place right now. While we were there chatting
with love Rolf, he got into this, you know, sort
of a brief history of all the times Russia's been
screwed by the United States since nineteen ninety five, betrayed

(11:17):
actually since nineteen ninety and he started with, hey, Jim Baker,
then Secretary of State, promised us to say, NATO's not
going to move on step east, and then boom, you
got Bill Clinton. And so as he went through this history,
he didn't paused, and he had a smile on his face.
He goes, sorry to do the history thing with you,
he says, but at least to not doing what Putin

(11:38):
did with Cocker Carlson had taken you back to the
thirteenth century, and he laughed. It was hilarious. It was
very funny, right, but it showed also self awareness.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
But they go through the history because they now they
remember and when you when you start laying out the
history of this and remembering it that we're talking the
fact that it was George W. Bush that walked away
from Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty it was Donald Trump that
walked away from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement, the inf
just not Russia breaking these and yet the United States

(12:14):
has turned around accusing Russia of always breaking agreements. And
Russia is going to be okay, we're not playing that
game no more. Right, we've been bamboozled, We've been fooled
a couple of times. We were too trusting. That's done,
and so that's I'm not sure that Trump and company

(12:35):
recognize or appreciate that, but that's what I came away with.
The Russia's not they're not playing any games. What Putin
has said is the word. And what he said, you know,
was about three weeks ago. He said, look, Ukraine, he's
got three to four weeks to accept this deal that

(12:56):
I laid on the table in June of twenty twenty four.
If they don't accept that, the next steal is going
to be more onerous. And that next feel includes what's
known as Novo Rosa. Russia will take all of the
territory east of the Napor and also the west bank
of the Nepor and the entire Black Sea coast, including Odessa, yep.

(13:18):
And there's not a damned thing the West can do.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
To prevent that, well, other than they can, but there
but other than like going to you know full you know,
going full I eat out. Like that's where we are, right,
that's when we start starting. We start talking about ushroom
clouds and all the stuff that nobody wants to talk about.
But outside of that and that framework, yeah, no, that's

(13:41):
where we're headed. And uh so it's very very interesting,
you know that we're in that person. And this has
been my thesis about the what the Russians have been
planning from the beginning of the war. I said, like
they want Odessa because they understand. And now to this point,
I'm going to bring the balance back into this conversation,

(14:04):
which is that to this point, the Russians have not
shown that they have the ability to do this. That's
not to say they don't have the ability to do it,
they have not shown to this point that they do
have the ability to do this. Those are two very
separate positions. This is not to say they don't have
the capability, but we haven't seen it yet and we

(14:26):
have to assume, right, So let's start there. But from
the beginning, when you really stop to look at all
of this and This is the big question that I
think we all have is we know who doesn't want
them to have Odeska. It really isn't the United States,
it really isn't Trump. It's the British, and it's the Europeans.

(14:48):
The Europeans and the British cannot do what they think
they want to do without controlling the Black Sea and
without controlling the Bosporus and the Dardanells. It's incredibly important
that at the end of the day, geogra Be still matters. Right,
So why Kalin Gerjescu in Romania is not being allowed
to run for president is because they're in the process

(15:09):
of doubling the big air base in the Rahinia to
point a big air base right at Crimea, because they
think five years from now they're going to be able
to take Crimea again. Odessa is a massive port system,
an incredibly important thing. And the Russians, I mean, if
I were putin, I would be like, you know, we
have to take all of it. Not because it's Russian
or traditionally or because of this, it's because geography matters

(15:32):
that in order to be able to secure Russia's future,
we have to kick NATO out of the Black Sea
and turn it into a Russian lake. You want the
Barren Sea, and you're gonna put Sweden and norwayian or
Sweden and Finlin in and bring NATO to our freaking
northern border right outside of Saint Petersburg. Well, I got
news for you. We're taking the Black Sea you want.

(15:54):
You know, We're going to trade here quid for you know,
quid for pro ultimately, quid for right. So the question
I have really when I think about this is does
Trump and do Trump and company understand this? Have they
had those do you get the feeling that those communications

(16:15):
have taken place ultimately? And and then you know what
the where we are downstream with that, because I'm sure
the Putins communicated a lot of this to Trump in
some way, either through Victor orbon or with Coffers or whomever.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, I saw a news headline within the last hour
or two that off of the Wall Street Journal that, uh,
what the agreement that's going to come out of ri
odd will be reopening the grain deal coming out of
the Desert. But Russia's conditions for that is, hey, you

(16:53):
got to lift the sanctions on our agricultural exports. Sure,
and fertilized. Now, the United States naturally would want to
do that because we are dependent in some measure on
Russian fertilizer, you know, So it's that would be an
agreement that works to the benefit of American farmers.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Well, let's put it. Let's let's put it in a
slightly different context. The global economy for fertilizer needs the
Russians to be a part of it in order to
keep general fertilizer prices down around the world. We make enough,
we make enough ammonia in the United States to provide
our own provide our own fertilizer for our agriculture. The
issue is that ammonia. You know, you take a Russian

(17:34):
fertilizer off the market, and now the general price level
rises because you've now restricted supply, which of course goes
you know, that's a and and and that's a Davos thing.
They definitely desperately want to destroy agriculture and bring and
starve everybody, because that's what these people actually want to do.
So but no, I saw that same thing this morning
as well, Larry. I was going to bring it up,
but I was hoping, you know, because if you hadn't

(17:55):
brought it up. I was going to bring it up.
The other thing I noted about that agree.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
In mind, think alike.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Well, and I also have a really good set of
Baker Street of regulars that find all the ship for
me on I just keep I keep tabs on it
on a regular basis. But what I what I also
noted in that uh the list of things that are
supposedly in that deal, is that there's going to be
very very strict monitoring of the ships to make sure

(18:26):
that there's no weapons being smuggled in. I know what
happened to the last Grain deal, the last version of
the Grain deal, which is that you know, the the
British were shipping in freaking missiles left in right, Where
do you think the storm shadows came from? Like not
even like so I'm not even like nobody should be
confused about that. Even if I'm wrong about that, the
basic the basic framework is so correct.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, no, I think you're right. You're right. And in fact,
you know, Russia has been regularly destroying these ships that
have been bringing in armaments and weapons and through Odessa.
So you know they've got a they've got a good
intel network that is able to identify the target ships.
So let's add another dimension to this. I think this

(19:07):
is another reason why Russia signed the agreement it did
with Iran on January seventeenth.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Okay, it is trying to create a land bridge railroad
that can circumvent what needed to come through the Bosporus
and so that they're not going to be dependent anymore
on Turkey, because I think that they don't trust Aradawan
as far as they get throw it.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
You know, they're not reliable. So you know, putin in
his side. They're thinking about this and several different dimensions.
They're not just myopic looking at only one element where
I think in the United States we tend to get
pretty myopic on a lot of these issues.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Well, one of the reasons we do that is because
if you look at the map around the world and
this is again I'm going to like invoke my hatred
the British at this point to remind you that you
wind up with because the British are very good at this,
by the way, They're just incredibly good at it of
setting up single points of failure that are used as
flashpoints that they can just turn on with the flick
of the switch. The switch and oh look, Odessa is

(20:16):
an issue, or Taiwan or Pakistan, or the Chinese Indian
border or you know, Syria or whatever in North South Korea.
It's always that scenario with them. And you know, I've
been saying for a long time that that Russia's interest
in Iran has is clearly about the international North South
transport corridor, you know, about creating a trade route from that.

(20:38):
That's that's that's durable, multi modible, durable from Saint Peter's
Burn down to the port of Chabahar, which is outside
of the entire which is on the Indian Ocean by
the way, for those of you who don't know where
Chabahar is. And so that then circumvents all of the
mess in the Middle East. Now, if the Russians have that,
and they have good relations with Azerbaijan on the on

(21:01):
the Caspian along with Iran, then you know, they can
take care of They can do what they need to
do and lessen the importance of the Black Sea, Odessa
and everything else. And then the question then becomes for them,
you know, why would the why would anybody want to
have Odessa if for nothing, oh, no, any other reason

(21:22):
than to be able to threaten rush A with right, right, right,
because you take out the you take out the agricultural
you need, they need to move goods via ship through
the Black Sea and the Bosporus. Now to your point
about Ertigan again, whatever, it doesn't matter. This is a
man standing on at least four different islands right now.

(21:44):
Mm hmm, right, and I think again is desperately trying
to stay in power. So you can only stand on
two of them because he's only got two legs. You know,
man's trying to stand on four different islands at one time.
We're all moving in different directions. That's an impossible situation
to be in. But uh so, yeah, no, that's a
very interesting it's a very interesting point, and it's it's

(22:04):
an important one. So that tells me as well a
couple of things. So let's talk about this for a second.
What is your feeling about the limits, Like, Russia's relationship
with Iron is a flashpoint. There's a potential obstacle in
the US Russian negotiations over this entire region. It's like

(22:27):
probably the biggest one here. So now, did you get
any sense. I don't know if you talked to if
you and any of the people that you talked to
while you were over there. What you think is going on?
What's the limit there? Because you know, I owe what
I think, but you know I love the other your
opinion on it.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, No, this is again, this is part of Russia's strategy.
And actually it didn't just start in the last three years, right,
Remember that in twenty nineteen was the first year that Russia,
China and ra and conducted a full scale naval military exercise. Well,

(23:06):
that means if it was done in twenty that was
done in twenty March of twenty nineteen. That means the
planning for that started it at the at the latest
in January of twenty eighteen, and may have actually started
in late twenty seventeen. Because those kinds of exercises they

(23:27):
involve those all three sides got to come together. They've
got to put together what they call a scenario, and
then you get to put the create what they call
a master sequence of events ly less known as the measle.
Then you have to identify, you know, who's going to
be the players. Is this going to be a tabletop
is this going to be an actual field exercise? Which

(23:49):
this was, So Russia's been cultivating this military relationship with
a Ran now for seven years twenty nineteen team or
before that. That's number one. Number two. On January seventeenth,
when they signed that security arrangement, it's a massive deal
with Iran, this thing that had been negotiated extensively. They

(24:13):
chose to sign it on January seventeenth, three days before
Trump was inaugurated, in order to send the United States
a message because one of the clique. You know, there's
several several signals sent in that agreement. One that basically
Russia was going to hell have some deficance over Iron's
nuclear program. And that means if Russia is involved with

(24:37):
the Ron's nuclear program, Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, right,
Russia will not tolerate that.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
That's number one. Number two. They laid out both security
arrangements and agreements that in essence, Russia will come to
Iran's defense if for Ran is attacked unjustly m hm.
And to that end, there are other agreements that were

(25:07):
acknowledged but not printed because they're classified that deal with
intelligence and military cooperation, uh, you know, including weapons, systems,
electronic warfare, air defense.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Right. So I didn't now that's a that's that's a
that's enormous. That's really important. Now that the the feeling
I got from that agreement was that this was really
about protecting the Russian Iranian corridor, that north south corridor,
not necessarily the east west corridor, because it's about trade

(25:44):
and it's about trade and mutual defense. It's about ensuring
that Iran is not destabilized on its northern border, because
that's that's clearly on the on the table, and you know,
and this is this is very important because again it
gets back to your point originally, to the point you
made earlier about the de emphasizing Odessa as a commercial

(26:05):
port necessary for Russian for Russian commerce, right, So it
makes perfect sense again the international stat Transport order. I
really think people need to I've been talking about this
for years. That's an incredibly important thing that that gets
solidified in in a sense you can almost say that's

(26:27):
the east that's now the you know, the western border
of you know, the new trade system right right for
Asia in points east and UH and then of course
undoes a lot of the entire idea that we have
to patrol the entire world to keep you know, naval

(26:52):
assets to shipboard assets for moving around the world. And
I'd say that now there's a framework now for what
the United States is if you think about it, what
the United SIAS is responsible for and what everybody else
is responsible for. Right, So there's a number of signal
that's a really important point. So then when you start
to think about what Trump is trying to do by
de emphasizing Taiwan, by moving forty percent of TSMC's production

(27:15):
onto American chores, you're de emphasizing Taiwan as a flash point,
as a single point of failure. So now we can
de emphasize Odessa, and now we can get rid of Taiwan.
Like you start to see the picture here, that is
that there is a picture forming where everybody can basically
go back to their separate corners. The people who don't

(27:36):
want to go back to their separate corners are the
crazies and Brussels in London.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
And in Tel Aviv.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Keep going, Okay, so you.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Know which again I think are downstream My view of
the world downstream up both Brussels and London. But go ahead.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
So three weeks ago, if you would have asked me,
I was, hey Trump, I think Trump is well positioned
to deliver on his promise to be the peace president,
and that I think there was a good reason to
suggest that he was not beholden to Mariam Maidelsson and
and and sort of the Jewish cabal because he's not

(28:17):
facing reelection, so he's got some freedom to do what
needs to be done, and that was reflected in the
peace agreement to secure the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Right.
I think what's happened over the last week suggests the opposite,
now that the Zionists got their hooks into him so deep,

(28:38):
and it was reflected in Witkoff's interview with Tucker Carlson.
No notice when Witkoff was talking about Russia, you know,
and he talked about, hey, there's the one word communication,
the fact that both get both sides talk and even
even if you find it objectionable that we're talking to
the Russians, we're still going to talk to him. And

(29:00):
Tucker was like, yay, yeah, that's great, and I agree
that's great. Then when you look when early on in
that interview, when he's talking about Hamas, he goes, well, yeah,
I haven't talked to anybody from Hamas, Right, We're not
dealing directly with anyone from We're dealing through a cutout.
But anyway, there are a bunch of murderous bastards and
they're going to have to disarm, and they don't have

(29:22):
any legitimate claim to be involved with politics. What happened
to communication? Okay?

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Right, and well this is okay, I want to push
back a little bit and not saying you're not wrong
about that. I agree. I hear I heard that from Cough,
but I've also heard like that there's another layer to
that that they are talking about Hamas saying, look, if
you disarm, you will be a part of the political process. Now, yeah,
but I mean the trust levels are so low that

(29:50):
no one would believe, no one, no one takes that seriously,
just making.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Sure they thought these ruelies to a standstill after fifteen months.
But just side arms and rifles. You know, Israel's got
the most modern military equipped mostly modern equipped military in
the world and they couldn't defeat this guys who were
armed with just rifles and handguns. Okay, And so that

(30:15):
they're gonna quote half the disarm, they're not going to disarm.
And uh, the the propaganda that it continues to be
put out about them. Is is shocking. But what has
happened since then is, you know, the Trump team decided, Okay,
we're gonna start bombing the Houthies and if they fire

(30:37):
any missiles, we're gonna blame it on a rod. Now,
notice that from the moment that Whitkoff negotiated that cease
fire with between Hamas Israel, the Houthi's in said, oh, okay,
we're gonna stop our attacks on ships because the ceasefire
is in place, so we don't want to do anything
to disrupt the ceasefire. Right, And the Trump decision to

(31:02):
launch the attack on the Houthies the other day was
it had no basis in the Houthi's doing anything. And
then they compounded the Trump people said, oh yeah, the
Biden people there, you know, they're essentially there are a
bunch of pussies. They didn't know how to act tough.
We're gonna be tough with the Hoothies. And what they

(31:23):
didn't realize, uh, and maybe now do, is that when
you put a carrier strike group there into the Red Sea,
it's the major defense against being attacked by missiles and drones.
Are the two destroyers and a cruiser, and on board
those ships are these vertical launch systems. So imagine you
got a bunch of you know, tubes that are built

(31:47):
into the deck missile or two in each one. They
can carry like ninety six and if any there's an
inbound on the ballistic missile or cruise missile or drone,
they usually have to fire two of those missiles out
from the ship to take out the inbound target. They got,
they got a limited amount, they got ninety six.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Right.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Well, what Biden's team discovered under Lloyd Austin, and what
Trump's team is now discovering, is that when you fire
off those missiles a you rapidly deplete your supply. There's
you have to go to a base, an actual port
somewhere to reload them. It's not like the old days

(32:30):
in World War Two where they had a ship tender
behind and the ship would pull up alongside a carrier
a battleship would offload more ammunition and are they get
to go. No, No, You've got to actually go to
a port somewhere like in Bahrain, which means you've got
a week and a half of sailing hither to reload

(32:50):
and then you go back. Well, the other part of
it is those missiles that go in those tubes limited
in supply. The particular aegis missile I think it's called
the sm iii IS. Of twenty eighteen, they only had
six hundred and sixty total total. Do the math, you know,

(33:12):
you don't have to have calculus to figure out that. Now,
if the houthis fire twenty missiles and drones had the ship,
and the ship in turn fires two missiles for every
one of those, that's forty It's right there, You're at
forty per You've already elimited forty percent of your arsenal
onboard that ship.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
If the houthis continue to do that for three more days,
you're out of ammunition. You got to pull out when
those destroyers and cruisers leave, so does the carrier. I mean,
these guys didn't think this through and it's insane. And
so this we've now reached what we call genuine asymmetric warfare,

(33:53):
where we got these very expensive missiles that are being
fired and i'd say at five thousand dollars drones. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, so nothing like tolling. There's no good return
on an investment there so Trump. But the Trump team
is made clear that this is actually a pretext to

(34:14):
justify an attack on Iran, and within that they've sent
the Iranian leader a letter basically saying, you agree to
a what's equivalent of new j C p O A
agree to that or else? You know, Hell, I know
the answer to this question. But how would your marriage

(34:36):
proposal to your wife have worked out if you said, hey,
marry me or else I'm going to attack you? M
m yeah, I probably would have shot you.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Well in my house. I'm not going to go I
won't go into that into that story on my end.
But yes, no, I get what you're I get what
you're saying on this. Now do you do you see
this in I'm I'm trying to square all of this
because I mean, it doesn't make any sense in the

(35:10):
long run if.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
That.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
I just I can't I can't believe that they're this dumb,
like after what they saw during the Biden administration, after
they saw what the Huthis were capable of during the
Biden administration, Because we know, I remember the first time
we ran into this, So now what is so I
mean this when I'm watching this play out like I'm
thinking about this at a higher order strategic level. I'm

(35:38):
not just not disagreeing with you. I know this is
a US I know this is a dangerous game of
breaksmanship that everybody's playing. Right, this is and it seems dumb, right,
But from my perspective when I look at this from
my perspective, but just from a greater strategic perspective, I say,
you can't have an Iranian access of resistance that's still

(36:02):
active and capable of destroying Israel if you want to
actually get something close to buy in for everybody to
basically stand down, right Otherwise we can't leave, we can't
stop supplying support to Israel. Ultimately, if the if the

(36:24):
axis of resistance is still in play, and it's in
any form or not in any form, but it hasn't
been brought low. Now it's been brought down. The hesball
has been brought has been brought down in potency, the
Hamas has been brought down in potency, no matter what
you you know, no matter what. Right at the end
of the day, now that and then Erdigan is now

(36:47):
situated in Syria, denying Israel most of Syria, which is
what they wanted because they wanted you know, they wanted Syria.
They wanted Syria under their control all the way to
the Euphrates river right and Ardigans, you know, put the
caabash on that. So we have this kind of unsettled

(37:07):
situation which is a lot less direct confrontation between in
you know, but through proxies and everything else, but between
Israel and Iran. So now the question is, I guess,
is this scenario laying out that at a certain level
that okay, if the Huthis are brought down in effectiveness,

(37:32):
and that sets the stage for some kind of negotiation.
Because the other thing I saw the other day was
that the Russians have now are being able to supply
Iran with a real air force, like the idea of
the Iranian air force is almost an oxymoron, and they
were still flying at force right right. I don't know
a lot about this stuff, but I know I know

(37:52):
enough to know that they have that. But now with
the Russians saying, you know, we're going to give you
I shoot thirty fives or I shoe fifty.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Seven something, I thirty five. Yeah, that's thirty five, not
the fifty sevenths.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Right, not the fifty seventh. But and so that's a
that's a different you know, between that plus Russian Air
Defense and e W and all the rest of it.
It's saying, look, there's not going to be a a
scenario credibly now where you know, if Ertigan is in
charge of for the most part, in charge of Syria,

(38:25):
you know, this is not an incredible situation where the
Israelis can use this as a pretext in order to
launch a first strike on Iran in a way that
they you know, because every day that you know, once
those planes are delivered, those pilots are trained, bobble, and
those systems are integrated into the Iranian defense system, you know,
the window of opportunity for Israel to do something really

(38:45):
fucking stupid, along with maybe backing from Trump or whatever, dwindles. Yeah,
Now the question is okay, so that's where that's that's
what I'm getting at here. I don't know if I'm
on base or whatever.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
So how you framed the question and the assumptions that
go into that question determine your outcome. Okay, So okay,
so let me show you how the Trump administration is
framing the issue and the key assumptions that they are making.

(39:20):
They take first of all, the lesson that what happened
to Bashir al Asade can easily happen to Iran, that
Iran is just as fragile, and brital As society as serious.
All it is just take a little bit of pressure
to overcome. Secondly, they genuinely believe we've heard this from Witkoff,
We've heard this from Mike Waltz, that the Iranian air

(39:46):
defense system has been completely stripped. It's naked. They are
completely vulnerable. They cannot stop the West if we choose
to attack. Third that we believe that Iran is building
a nuclear weapon and therefore we got to stop right Therefore,

(40:08):
the only solution out of that is either Iran's going
to have to completely surrender and stop any support for Hamas,
any support for Hesbalah, any support for the Huthis, or
if they don't do that, then we're going to attack them. Okay,
So once you have that construct, it's logical, and then

(40:30):
it leads inevitably to that conflict. Now sort of a
caveat to that. My friend Ray McGovern and I disagree
on this point. Ray believes that because the United States
and Russia is so keen to get into the subtle
a deal with the United States that they will be
able to mitigate any war against Iran. Okay, let me

(40:55):
show you where a lot of those assumptions are wrong. Okay,
the assumption that Iran's defense air defense system have been
strip naked, completely raw. It was barely dented by the
Israeli attack on October twenty seventh, and since then it
has been rebuilt and Iran of it in and of itself,

(41:20):
has sophisticated air defense and not depended upon Russia. They
are sharing information with Russia. Russia doesn't have some advanced
electronic warfare capabilities. But remember it was Aran that had
more sophisticated drone technology than Russia the Shahid drone, and

(41:41):
Iran came by that courtesy of the CIA because they
managed to down a CIA drone back in twenty twelve,
I believe, and they hey, they're good at copying.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
And reverse engineering. And exactly.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Second, Iran has under a fatwah since at least two
thousand and three by Ayatola Kamine, in which the floughtlall
was we cannot build a nuclear weapon because it would
be a sin against Allah. This would be an act
of evil, and so we're not doing it. Coupled with

(42:18):
the fact that they've signed that agreement with Russia, they're
in a situation where they've got no incentive right now
to try to advance. They're capable of building a nuke,
I'm not arguing that, but they're not doing it. But
that's being used by the West as an excuse for
attacking it. As far as the support to you know,

(42:40):
Hesbo Law and Hamas. Again, the Western assumption is, man,
I've got to just kill the top leader and that
weakens those organizations. Yet the fact of the matter is
both Hesbala Hamas is still intact. Hamas is just as
strong as it ever was, and all these attacks on
the Houthis have not weaken the Houthis not at all.

(43:01):
And they keep firing this, firing the missiles and shutting
them down. The wild card in this now is Russia.
And again, one of the things I did learn out
of that trip to Moscow and in the discussions with
love off the whatever, you know, the history again with
Iran was troubled. There was not always warm and friendly

(43:25):
between Moscow and Tehran, just as it was not always
warm and friendly between Moscow and Beijing. But the what
they perceive as the growing threat from the West both
Europe and the United States, has convinced Moscow to build
its alliances and to forge real alliances with Iran, with

(43:49):
China because they recognize if they don't do that, they're
at an existential threat from the West. So that's why
I say this thing. The problem is the assumptions guiding people.
And when I keep hearing Pete haik Seth and the
Steve Whitkoff and Trump, and they're all talking about that

(44:13):
Ron's nothing. Man, We'll roll over them easily. Hey, I
remember that kind of talk with respect to our rock
in two thousand and three before we invaded. Oh man,
We're going to be over them in a heartbeat. And
how about in Afghanistan. You know, the United States has
yet to actually step back and take an honest look
at the inadequacy of our military capabilities. Yeah, we got

(44:36):
a lot of expensive crap out there. We got a
two hundred million dollar F thirty five. Yeah, we got
the most expensive military we got. We got the Lamborghini
military with no wills, no wheels on the Lamborghini. But
it looks great sitting on blocks. But we fought twenty
years in Afghanistan. At the end of the day, we
got run out. And these guys they didn't have artillery,

(45:00):
they didn't have tanks, they didn't have an air force,
they didn't have that. They had none of the advantages
quote that modern militaries have. They had a bunch of
guys in uh you know, sandals carrying ak's, some heavy
machine guns, maybe some mortars, and frankly they beat us. Yeah,

(45:24):
we killed a lot, we killed a lot of farmers. Yeah,
that helped us. That built popular support, and the same
thing in Afghanistan in Iraq. So the point is American
Americans have this overinflated view of our military capabilities, and
you're going to make the same mistake with respect to
Iran if we attack it again.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
This is where I this is where I think. This
is where I'm gonna I'm gonna say I don't think
that's the plan. I mean, I just don't think that's
the plan.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
But I think I hope you're right.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
And I'll tell you what, because at the end of
the day, you know, you have to realize that well
I don't say you have to realize, but this is
generally I don't mean to be you know, is the follows.
I have a way of I have a way of
speaking in some ways that you know, I'm a dick
like it comes, it comes across badly. And what am

(46:15):
I say is this that you put the pressure on
in order to get the outcome ultimately, which is, oh,
you're all going to like hunker down and do the
thing great fortress Russia trying to Russia, Iran, China. Look,
we can't fight them anymore, but you put the pressure on,

(46:37):
You put the maximum pressure on in order to try.
And this is a type of very typical you know
trump zopa thing, right, you go outside of the potential agreement,
You push the pressure on them as far as possible,
and then you settle. And you know, the natural reaction
here is, of course, because look this couple of things here,
I think Trump is going to be willing to give

(46:59):
putin he wants in Ukraine, because I think Trump's real
target here is decoupling us, not necessarily from Israel, but
decoupling us from Europe. And again as and the bridge,
meaning the same way that the Russians are like, you
know what, we don't need you anymore. We don't need
the West. We don't need Europe to sell gas and

(47:22):
grain and tantalum and titanium and uranium and everything else.
We don't need it, and we can build this up ourselves.
It may take us time to replace all this stuff,
or we may still be at the fourteen animeters note
and building chips. But last night, last night checked you know,
who cares that the Russian smartphones is as good as
an iPhone? No one really cares, because they're all already

(47:43):
way more powerful than they freaking need to be. Okay,
what's important is that's what they're that's what they're doing.
That's what they're doing. Right, Well, I got news for you.
We have the same problem that's coming to like here
at home. And if you watch what Trump's doing domestically
and how he's handling Europe on all of this stuff,
it's very clear that his goal. I think that the

(48:03):
goal of the administration, and I think it was what
I think what was interesting about the signal conversation leak
for lack of a better term, and I'm personally I
think that that was purposefully leaked, which was the opinion
of JD. Van's, which is to say, Christ, I hate
the ballot fricking Europe again. That was the important takeaway

(48:25):
from all of that. All the rest of it is nonsense.
What the important thing here is that the Vice president
of the United States, who may be the the only
slightly less popular at this point than Donald Trump, is
literally telling you I have no interest in being friends
with Europe because these people treat us like shit, and
we want and we remember, we're coming up on April second,

(48:46):
which is Liberation Day. Trump keeps calling it liberation Day.
It's not just about putting the tariffs on. I think
there's something else coming. I think he's got things coming
down the pipe that are that we haven't seen yet
in this and we're in a we're in a we're
in a moment of transition, and we're really targeting U

(49:06):
a shift away from we don't need Europe anymore, we
don't need the Brits anymore, and we don't need their
entangling alliances anymore.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Well, let me let's let me ask you a question
on that. On that, surely, sure it is. Is there
anything that Europe provides, produces creates that the United States needs.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Other than the uh, the lithography, the ultra fine lithography
over in Belgium in a couple of other places, not
really and now and we're already beyond that. We're becoming
we're going to beyond that as well, the lithography stopper
chips and and and uh and and seeing c machines
and whatnot. Like there's some technology. But dude, like Trump

(49:50):
is talking about brain training all those people and bringing
them over here. The Europeans are literally talking about bailing
in trillions of dollars worth of savings and launching a
digital year. These people don't share our value system here
in the United States, right, And so okay, So now
once you start to play that that game, it's like, okay,

(50:10):
we need to decouple from Europe when you really start
to think about Israel, clearly the people who really need
Israel and or because again, in order for the EU
and you're in the UK, whatever faction of the UK
decides to win over there, in order for them to
do what they want to do, they need to have
access to the Black Seat, they need to have control

(50:32):
of the shipping lines, they need to have their permanent
aircraft carrier in Israel, and they need to be able
to and the France needs to be able to subdue
re subdue the Sahel region of Africa. Otherwise they don't
have anything. They have no energy resources, they have no
mineral resources, they have no have none of these things.
They can't pull off what they want to pull off.
They have no collateral in order to reboot their system. Right,

(50:54):
So clearly they're the ones that want war, and clearly
they've got their fucking hands and their puppet masters and
their hands up the asses of Israeli politicians, British politicians
and everybody else all across the region like they're everywhere,
and the French are making moves and everything else. So
what I've been positing about this whole thing with Iran

(51:15):
and Israel is the following. If you want the big
boys to leave the region, the Russians, the United States,
if you want them to leave the region and force
everybody in the region to deal with each other, right,
you know, at some level, and let them figure it out,
you know who, whether they want to go to war

(51:36):
with each other, and if they do find whatever, we
don't care, well, we do care, but we don't want
that to If you want to remove those two their
massive influence from the region. The last thing you can do, though,
is leave a wounded but still economically viable Europe that's
about to go on a multi trillion dollars spending spree

(52:00):
and replace USAID and all of that money and the
CIA money and everything else, and replace that with European money.
Like because nature reports a vacuum. With the United States
and the Russians pull out of the region, then the
Europeans are going to come in bearing gifts and start
everything all over again. Yeah, or propect or keep it,

(52:20):
keep it going. And the same thing with Ukraine and
everything else. So whatever comes shakes. This is the way
I've been reading this or trying to read this map.
Whatever comes out of this has to be everybody leaves
the region, right, So you have to bankrupt Europe or
allow them to bankrup themselves and then don't allow them

(52:41):
to rebuild. Then everybody can leave. And between now and then,
it's a matter of just kind of negotiating such that
we say out of a war.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Yeah, because as I'm looking at Europe, they have they
are they have the aspirations to do what you're talking about,
aspirations to go the war, the aspirations to be this
economic power, the aspirations to be this political force. But
you know, they're like the guy confined to the wheelchair

(53:12):
saying his aspiration is to run a marathon. But he's
in the wheelchair, he's got a ls, he ain't running
the marathon. He's dying, okay, And that's Europe. Europe is dying.
You don't have a you don't have a single country
in which there is a political majority that has been

(53:33):
able to come in, with the exception maybe of Hungary,
right where the majority are said, hey, this is the
direction we want to go. The rest of Europe is
this fractured freak show is about the only way I
can describe it.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
In the right direction. But unfortunately, the other center right
parties other than the Brothers of Italy are you know,
they're they're all compromised, the leg of Italia. They're terribly
they're terribly compromised. Even that they a quote unquots say,
right so.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
But when you look at Starmer and my Crown and Merricks, no,
they're out of touch with reality. And they've seen despite
their you know, bellicos rhetoric over the last two three weeks,
they're not able to translate that rhetoric into you know something,
real world now, and that's why I've taken to calling

(54:23):
them Florida dogs. And you know what, I well, where
you live, I'm not sure you see what I see.
So every day on like my street, my cul de Sac,
you got these big, burly guys out and they're walking
this tiny, teeny little dog. You know, you got all
sorts of toy poodles and nasty little rat terriers. And
the reason I'm not saying, but I'm just saying, they're

(54:48):
these little dogs. And the reason they put them on
leash is not to keep them from running off or
attacking somebody, is that if the hawk flies down to
grab their ass, at least you got something to pull
them back in with.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Okay, yeah, there's not a rooster there to protect the dog.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah. So this is that's Europe and these little dogs
with no teeth. Okay, so they yappy and they make noise,
they can make a mess on your carpet, but in
terms of actually being able to do something, they become.
You know, they're they're entertaining. Maybe they keep you in

(55:23):
comfort in the companion, but that's where Europe is today.
They're you know, they're they're pretend, they're wanna bees. They're pretenders.
You know, here's the British Army supposedly seventy thousand guys strong. Okay,
they couldn't even fill the Manchester United football stadium, right,

(55:45):
you know, and there's still be tickets to sell. And
of that seventy thousand, that didn't mean all seventy thousand
or combat ready by any stretch of the imagination. And
they're wanted to go up against the Russian army, which
is one point five million guys now who are actually
combat trained.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Well, and combat and and and more and more appropriately.
This is the point that I've been making a lot,
which is that you know, you can, you can complain
about how the Russians have had I mean again I
pushed back about you know, Russian capabilities really in the podcast,
but you know, at the same time, the special military
operation has been conducted in such a way that the
Russians are rotating their troops through and their reserves are

(56:27):
now all have combat experience.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Yeah. Okay, In fact, that was I was. I was
with the General General Brazhinski and the show hosted by
Dimitri Simes, and the whole issue of the piece of
combat because a lot of Christs into the West is, oh,
see how bad the Russians are. They're moving so slowly.
And the general said, must doesn't understand. He says, look,

(56:50):
we're not like the Soviet era. Well, we didn't care
if we lost men. We're trying to conserve our personnel.
We're trying to minimize our cashees. And we're going up
against areas that have still a lot of civilians. To
speak Russian, We're not gonna decimate and destroy the area.
We want to protect those civilians too. So it says

(57:13):
that's why the slow pace, and we're under we're under
no rush. I went, oh, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Yeah. I mean, and again, if you can attenuate, even
if you want to attenuate that twenty twenty five percent
of you know that's Russian propaganda or whatever you want
to call it. I mean, you're going to attenuate that perspective.
But when you really look at it, and I've done
this with a lot of people, I said to me
a favor, go on YouTube and watch any any of
the channels that like cover the war on a daily basis.
We've union military summary, whatever your picker poison it doesn't matter,

(57:41):
and they'll so I'll show you a map of the
Dawn Bass and you'll see, like you'll see they put
all the fortifications on the map, and when you just
back out, like a big map of Ukraine, this is
a big like streak of yellow that the Russians have
it swag through sixteen seventeen layers of entrenchments and defenses

(58:04):
and concrete and this and that and everything else. And
they're like, you know, sixteen layers through through like sixteen
to the seventeen layers. Why you're hearing such insane rhetoric
coming out of the British media, the Daminos and all
the rest of it. The fear you're hearing about we
have to do something now is because they can read

(58:25):
a map as well as I can. They know what's
is that the Marsians have already broken all that down
and now there's nothing left then that last line of
defenses to the Nebuer itself. That's it.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Well understand, they're fighting along the line that goes from
New York City, New York to Fort Lauderdale. Okay, yeah,
try to make that you can. You can make that
drive in one day. But it's about a eighteen nineteen
hour day.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
It's a very long asst I've done it.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Yeah, so the now think think about having to mass
true groups and try to defend along that whole line
or conduct operations. That's not easy. It's a huge area.
So again, it's just when I hear the likes of
the David Petraeus or Jack Keane or these clowns talking about, oh, yeah,

(59:20):
how inadequate Russia is for this, that and the other reason. Oh,
I got to say to them the two words rock Afghanistan.
All Right, the United States in twenty years in Afghanistan again,
with every military advantage a modern army could have, was
then able to conquer and subdue the country. Okay, and

(59:47):
look at the mirror, guys, I know, I agree.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
And the funny part about it is is that you know,
the Ukrainians are fighting on territory that for the most
part doesn't want to be ruled by Ukrainians anymore. The
Russians have no I mean, these are talking points that
we've all covered for a long long time, which is
that Russia doesn't want eastern western Ukraine. He doesn't really

(01:00:11):
want anything west of than the nepeer Why because those
people are because that would turn into their Afghanistan. Those
are people that do not want to be ruled by
Russians any more than the Afghanians wanted to be ruled
by the United States, or the Iraqis wanted to be
ruled by the United States anymore than, you know, than
then Texas wants to be ruled by Mexico. You know,

(01:00:32):
at the end of the day, right or if the
Chinese were to invade through Mexico, what kind of you know,
guerrilla war would we you know, would we would we
fight against them? It would be insane, right, Well, you
know it's all red dawn, Like it's red Dawn times
a thousand, right, just to put it in popular terms,
what's the same thing? You can't And this is part
of the reason why Israel is having a problem subduing Gaza.

(01:00:53):
And it's why they're you know, because they they are trying,
they're fighting against people who would rather die then be
governed by those guys. And this is you look at
how insane Canadians have gotten in the last month over
Trump's you know, braggadocio about them being the first state,
and all of a sudden, like there's this resurgeon of

(01:01:14):
Canadian nationalism we haven't seen since the War of eighteen twelve, right,
which in some ways is actually a good thing, because
now Canadians are actually standing up for themselves as opposed
to just rolling over for you know, the globalists like
they've been doing, like they've been sleepwalking their way into
into uh into assistant suicide pods and all the rest

(01:01:35):
of it, you know, for for years now. It's insane.
All of a sudden, they're standing up for themselves and no,
we're Canadians and that matters to us, like good supposed
to you. Fucking it is. Come on, Like I watched
Western hockey play, I watched Western League, Western Hockey League,
trained defenseman, I know how tough you guys can be.
Acting like, stop acting like a bunch of pussies.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
It's the same.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
But that's the same thing here is like the Russians
are are you know, they have no designs on Poland,
they have no designs on conquering Western Ukraine because they
don't want to. They don't want the headache of having
to manage and deal with people that don't like them.
Russia doesn't have the resources for that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
They have the resources to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Fight this war. But they don't have the resources to
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
That's so much harder it the West refuses to ask
the question, to do the proper analysis of why Stalin
sees those territories at the end of World War Two.
It wasn't because he was keen on conquering the world
to spread international communism. He wanted buffer states that he
controlled so that Russia would not be attacked again. For

(01:02:42):
the West, they just lost twenty seven million people. And
the other evidence that he was not keen on just
taking it, holding territory for the sake of taking it
holding territory was they negotiated a deal with Austria to say, okay,
we'll withdraw Soviet forces provided you get a firm play
of neutrality in the Australia. Austrian said absolutely nineteen fifty five.

(01:03:05):
The Soviets with true right. So I you know that
we we just don't under understand history. In the United States,
the ignorance is grotesque and out of our ignorance, boy,
we makes some pretty bad decisions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
Well, and this is and this is where I think
we have begun to turn the corner. If there's anything
to take away from excuse me the missteps of a
guy like Whitcough and if you touched on it in
the article that you wrote after the Tuck Carlson interview dropped,
and I thought it was I thought it was there,
which is that he's got a whole lot of blind spots.
He's got a whole lot of ignorance. But he seems

(01:03:45):
to be a guy who's going to get up to
speed if he needs to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
He's I don't think. I don't think he's deliberately playing games.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
He's not.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
He's not some monkey Velli and he's I think he's
a decent guy. You wouldn't mind, you know, him to
one of our dinners and sitting down with him at
the table, and you could have a reasonable conversation with him.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Right Yeah. I think that's where I think that's the
part that we have to you know, factor into our
you know, our analysis as we sit here in the
cheap seats trying to figure out what's going on, And
every and everybody would do well to remind yourselves that,
like sis what I try and do all the time,
because I mean, look, i'm as I'm as capable of
being radicalized and ab reacting as the next guy, maybe

(01:04:28):
more so, But I'm not unaware of my own trigger
points here. Guys like I know, I understand that, like
Fimy so I you know what I mean, I get it.
But when you you know, when you do this, everybody
who doesn't, you know, anybody who doesn't immediately like genuflect

(01:04:50):
to the Palestinian plight is a zion, a shill, is
not a that's not a rational position to take. Yeah,
because the Palestinians, you know, the whole region is nothing
but a mass of victims of vaster powers. Everybody is
a victim of vaster powers. The Iranian people, the past
Indian people, the Israeli people, the Lebanese, the Syrians, the Americans,

(01:05:15):
the I mean everybody, because what we're dealing with are
the imaginations of people at who think they control the
world and think they can control where the flow of
history is going to wind up, right, And then they
try and sell us these pigs and pokes, and you know,

(01:05:36):
we do well to take a step back and go
maybe where the ones being played here for their band.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Yeah, go ahead, Wells said, when the only option you're
given is more war, you know, That's why I used
I always referenced a lot the uh, the more Calbi
skit Saturday Night Live. Yeah, our answer is always more

(01:06:05):
cow bell as opposed to saying, you know what, maybe
maybe there actually is a peaceful way to resolve this.
Maybe there's a non violent way to solve this. Maybe
there's an alternative approach we could take. But you know,
look what's going on in our media right now here
in the United States. Can you name me a single

(01:06:28):
pundit that's on any of the major cable news networks
or the major networks or the rights and is allowed
to be published in the New York Times, Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, that is allowed to represent
the Russian point of vieview with respect to the war. Now,

(01:06:48):
we can't not a one. Yeah, when Tucker was on,
Doug McGregor would occasionally get on to make that case,
and Danny Davis has done it on maybe a couple
of shows. But those, those are those two are the
That's it. Everything else is this mass of propaganda to
shape the debate, to explain what you know, the putin bad, great, good,

(01:07:13):
et cetera, et cetera. And so you can't even you
can't even properly frame the problem. And I wait and
the same you know, we're seeing the same thing now
with respect to you know, I had someone accused me
of being quote pro homeas and I go, well, look,
I just I just look at numbers and facts, and

(01:07:34):
let me give you some quick facts. From August of
two thousand until last Sunday, the total number of Israelis
killed in Palestinian attacks and this is not Homas attacks,
all Palestinian terrorist attacks two thousand, five hundred seventy five.

(01:07:55):
Excuse me, two thousand, seven hundred and fifty five total
over twenty five years. Total number of Palestinians killed in
Gaza over sixty thousand since two thousand. Okay, I look
at that discrepancy, and I go, I understand, you know

(01:08:15):
it's I'm not advocating it's okay to kill you know,
almost twenty eight hundred Israelis. But at what point does
that bloodlust get satisfied when he say, okay, we've killed
enough Palestinians? Can we stop? Can we step Everybody get
back to your corners, the guns away, We're gonna we're

(01:08:36):
gonna stop this. And there's nobody doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
No, No, it's the same.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
It's the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
It's the same thing in the Ukraine and Russian. I've
been saying this for a long long time. When you
when you look at this from the European perspective, you know,
what do you call five hundred thousand dead saws fighting
over swampland a good start?

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Yeah, a good start? Yeah, the old lawyer joke.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Right, the old lawyer joe.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
But now just translated, just translated in the Limey speak.
And I'm serious when I say this, and and and
the numbers are larger. And this is where Trump's instincts
are correct. And and I've told people, you know, multiple times,
I'm like, I expect Trump to make mistakes in this
process because his instincts are correct. And again, one of

(01:09:22):
the thing that impressed me, I think most about wick
coth And again many things did not impress me, But
what did impress me was his statement multiple times that
they go in that Trump isn't as a results oriented
an outcome oriented negotiator, meaning he has an outcome in mind.

(01:09:45):
How do we get there? And they are going to
try whatever they're going to try based on the information
that they have and based on the the lay of
the land that they get right, this is and their
own biases and everything else. Those biases may have to
be purged, right, they may have to be broken down,
and they're replaced with a new set of biases with

(01:10:05):
new information. We hope is that that's where we are today,
as opposed to where we've always been in the past,
where it's just been okay, relentless propaganda for a particular
agenda to get to a particular outcome, to get to
a prior day and outcome. We're now into different outcomes,
but we're still working in the same with the same
set of biases that we had previously had not necessarily

(01:10:28):
the same people with the same biases, but you know,
we sell have legacy effects and aftershocks of that. I mean,
you're not going to get around that. Like, you know,
we've got officers being trained in West Point that you know,
our military doctrine is you know, Russia bad. Like, there's
nothing we can do about this. It hasn't changed yet
at the institutional level. And then institutional memory and the

(01:10:50):
institutional inertia is a very big problem and it's not
going to change overnight just because Donald Trump says outcomes
I want new outcomes, It's not going to happen. He's
gonna get fought at every level, right, And it takes
a long time for these things to to work themselves out,
and it takes buy in on the other side, who

(01:11:11):
doesn't trust us worth the dam because hell, we might
have an election in four years that brings the same
crazies right back to power.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
So all right, man, you got anything else you want
to talk about before we we we can't.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Boy, I think I think we've come up with a
good list for fixing the world today.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
I'll see, And that is that is ultimately the point
of every podcast I try to do. Hey, take the world,
go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
I will say this if you ought to get to
Moscow at some point. So the city is at least
twice the size of New York City. The official population
is like thirteen million, but the actual till the actual
number is closer to twenty. The city is immaculate, it's clean,
it's safe, and it is just it's a remarkable place.

(01:12:03):
And maybe it's good that there's so much anti Russian
propagandic as it keeps all the hoy poloi for flooding it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Maybe maybe, just maybe it would be nice. I mean,
it's it's funny, and you can trast that with you know,
with a variety of the cities that we have here
in the United Stations. It's very clear. And I think
I think that's the thing that actually drives Trump board
is I think it'll be good. Have you do you know,
I guess we're not quite finished yet. But do you
know if Trump has accepted the invitation to go to

(01:12:35):
Victory and day.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
I've heard actually rejected it, I hope that's not true, right.
I think that if having Trump go to that along
with she, to have she putin and Trump together would
be good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
You know, during while in Moscow, we were we were
hosted by Fella Constantine Alofia of he sanctioned for quote,
interfering in the US presidential election twenty sixteen. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.
But anyway, he's a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian. He's built,

(01:13:12):
he's a billionaire. He's built a school that would be,
you know, comparable to the most prestigious private school religious
school in the United States. And we had lunch. I
was there with Judge Napolitano and myself we're eating. And
there was at Alexander Dugan and Constantine, the dean of

(01:13:39):
the school and retired so a Russian diplomat and Soviet
he was active during the Soviet era, a guy named Michael,
and so I asked him. You know, this whole subject
of World War Two came up. I said, how many
of you around this table have a relative who died
in that war? All four hands, and I looked at Napolitano.

(01:14:02):
I said, how about you? Judge that? I said, I
didn't have any. How about you? And he goes, no,
none of my family either. That's the difference. The Russians
have this legacy where they lost twenty seven million people,
and they still remember. They haven't forgot it left them.
It left a scar, It left a mark on the
soul of the Russian people, right, and that's still influences

(01:14:26):
today a lot of the decisions. Whereas in the United
States we've never really suffered massive loss in any of
our wars. Now, there have been some people, a few
people have paid the price, but you know, we lost.
I think in Europe and the European theater in World
War two, it is like two hundred and seventy five
thousand in the entire European and North Africa theaters. Well, hell,

(01:14:50):
that was one third of what Russia lost in terms
of soldiers at just the Battle of Stalingrad. So and
I think it is in part because we've been so
cavalier about loss, they were eager to go to war.
It makes us more money, you know. So, uh, there's

(01:15:11):
that cultural difference that I think, you know, hopefully Trump
comes to capture and understand.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Yeah, and I would I would encourage him to go
to that, to take putin up on that offer. At
the very least they have to meet. And and I
think it would be very very symbolic for him to
show up in right in Moscow for that day, the
eightieth anniversary of that. I think it would be a
very important thing for him, for the world, for everyone

(01:15:38):
to say, this is serious and we want, you know,
we want to we want to move forward with a
with a different architecture. And I think he should be
statesman enough to understand that that's his that's his role
at this point. But we'll see, you know, politically, it
would be it would be challenging, but so what at
this point, it's what it's what the American people asked
him to do and with what we voted into office

(01:16:01):
to do. And it's a very gracious offer on the
part of Putin given the situation currently, and it would
be the right thing for him to do, so I
hope he If he has rejected it, I think that's
a that's a terrible set of optics for him. And
if he's gonna go meet with the freaking King sausage
fingers well and not meet with Putin, fuck him. Like,

(01:16:21):
I'll be honest with you, that is not acceptable at
this point. So all right with your brother, I fully agree. Yeah, no,
I think it's very important. All right, man, that'll be good.
I think we'll end it there and we'll do this again,
you know soon. As always.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Hey, thanks so much. Always a pleasure to be with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
All right, take care man, you have a good day now,
ok Bye,