«Сигарная дипломатия»: риск ядерной эскалации и ставка на посредничество России

Cigar Diplomacy

Источник: https://scottritter.substack.com/p/cigar-diplomacy

I will present you our guests. First, we will start from our guest. So, Garland Nixon, thanks for your coming. Like yesterday, news. And like we've spoken to with this coach, so for us, it's very important to understand everything and how we can resolve everything. I will tell our guests. Our and the best guest speaker, so it's Andrei Fursev, Georgievna Panemirova. So I think everybody knows them. Georgievna, she's the blogger and doctor of political sciences. Professor, I think that it's, so we have mentioned and distributed all of our guests that who will come here. So I think that everybody would read it. Scott, when you came here, so he asked me about Helena. So I think he knows very well here. So I will finish my opening remarks. I will give the floor to Scott.

First of all, thank you very much for inviting me here. It's such an honor and a privilege to be with you both. I've had, again, the privilege of speaking with you both on the internet through Zoom. It's a great thrill to be able to see you in person and to have such an important conversation. Historians always like to say we live in a unique moment in history. We live in a uniquely dangerous moment in history today. a moment where there is no arms control. There used to be a framework of strategic relationships between the world's two largest nuclear powers that no longer exists. Instead of seeking to reduce nuclear weapons, the United States today is increasing its nuclear arsenal and Russia may follow suit. Nuclear anarchy is where we're at. And then the put bad news on this news the united states has decided to initiate a war of choice against iran there was no legitimacy behind this conflict no threat this was purely about american power geopolitics and we went to war against a nation that has been preparing to fight us for over 20 years and they are winning and what happens when a nuclear superpower starts losing Nothing good.

We're in a very dangerous situation where the United States is confronted with the specter of defeat. And there appears to be no solution for this problem. How do we get out of this problem? And that's one of the things I'm hoping that we can discuss here tonight, because I personally believe that Russia is the answer. that the only nation in the world today that is positioned to resolve this issue is Russia. Vladimir Putin has a relationship with Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin has a relationship with the Iranian government. He has a relationship with Israel. Sergei Lavrov has put together one of the finest diplomatic teams imaginable. There must be a solution. And Russia has the chance for a grand bargain for whatever you want to call it. But Russia is positioned to resolve three big problems. The question of energy security, the question of Iran. But Russia can also resolve the question of Ukraine at the same time, because Russia now has leverage over the United States to put together a grand bargain.

And I'm hopeful that in this conversation, we'll be able to touch on some of these issues and maybe somewhere somebody will be listening and we could spark an idea in their head and move or because we don't have much time. We are literally in a moment, a window of opportunity. A week from now, this opportunity may not exist. A week from now, decisions may be made that pushes to a path where Iran decides to acquire a nuclear weapon. where the United States decides that the only way to resolve this conflict is to use a nuclear weapon. And ladies and gentlemen, I personally believe that once the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, it will never be put back in. And so we need to strike now while the fire is hot. We need to come up with a solution. And I look forward to having a conversation with everybody here around the table to see if we can find such a solution. Thank you again for inviting me.

I absolutely agree with Scott Ritter. Yes, it's obvious we're in a very dangerous situation right now. And we're in a position where the United States has abandoned the options of diplomacy. Certainly it was done out of hubris and it was done out of a feeling of extreme power, but I think there is a certain level of humility that has been injected into the conversation by the Iranians and I think that presents an opportunity at a dangerous time. I do believe that the Russian Federation is the best option and possibly the only option. One of the things that's important for you all to know about the United States and about the people of the United States is the issue of inflation and the issue of energy prices. the likelihood is that the biggest fear that President Trump has is concerning inflation and energy prices. If you understand America and the addiction to big cars and pickup trucks and things of that nature, particularly the people who supported Donald Trump, that's an important factor.

And I've been saying for many months that if the energy prices rise exponentially, that President Trump's position as president will become tenuous at best. So I believe that Russia's unique ability to address the issue of energy prices and its unique diplomatic relationships with, as Scott mentioned, Israel and Iran, but also the Gulf states. It's going to be extremely important to address the needs of the ruling class in the Gulf states. We may all have our beliefs about the power in the Gulf states, but they are important. And of course, they're very concerned about the loss of power right now. And I believe that Russia's relationship with all parties involved, may be the only way out for the region. The other thing that I think is important is that while Russia is uniquely insulated from some of these issues because of its ability to produce food and energy and other things that it needs, Certainly, if the world economy collapses, then Russia's ability to sell these commodities will also be dramatically affected.

I think we are in a position here to discuss this and hopefully for this conversation to expand and to reach people in the diplomatic areas of the world. Hopefully, this can become the beginning of something that ends up with a resolution to the conflict.

The great French historian said that the events is just a dust. What he said that some events can be understood within the frames on the longstanding and the shortstanding perspective. Every much that is happening today, that is just the final acts of that epoch that started in the 70s and 80s. That period is just about to end, and it is on the way to end what John Scott said. That is anarchy, nuclear anarchy, and some other issues. I just wanted to recap on those basic dates. The year of 1982, the Reagan received the forecast of his analytics that in the end of the 80s that there will be crises in the world, precisely in the socialist countries, and they will pass it not heavily. There will be collapse of the USSR. That was the main objective of the U.S. administration. I just want to underline they will be lifting out of the state, not destruction, but the lifting of the state. Then 1999 or 1989, the collapse of the USSR.

And that collapse that really allowed the Western states to rob a country and the actual USSR states that prolonged the crisis to 2007. 2007, the crisis came back again. And that economic world that existed 200 years is fading away. So two options out of this situation came out. The evolution option is to establish two transatlantic blocs. The transatlantic bloc and the second one is post-capitalism world. But one part of the world didn't like it, and the other part of the world didn't like it as well. So the other part of the world started in 2016, that Trump wave. Trump didn't make so many things that he promised. What he really did, he broke the judicial legal system for the trends. alliances that were modeled by the Indian company. And it became very clear that this evolution transition is not possible. The other side replied with the pandemic wave, and that was an attempt to radically solve this issue.

So that was the time of the special military operations started. The special military operation and the COVID, they made the line, they draw the line that started in the end of the 80s. And one of these brightest moments was the destruction and the collapse of the USSR. I do believe that Trump came to power in 2024, the same powers that were the ones to give up on him in 2022. Well, the main objective is to destroy the old world. I will give my explanation of this statement. to make Europe to be more weak, precisely with the middle class, to disrupt sovereignty of the most of the European states. But as we say, that one thing you see it on the paper, but on the other thing you can see it visually. And it comes out that the United States doesn't have so much power to solve this. One obstacle is the Russian Federation, then Iran and China. But I can see there's very big obstacles, and without solving those three options, Trump and those powers who support him, they cannot solve these issues without this.

That is why the main strategy that Trump is trying to realize that is in the maximum way to make chaos out of this. The danger is that they control chaos. The basis of this was laid by the scientist Gurdjieff, a very good friend of Stalin. So controlled chaos can be out of this control. Right now, we're in this situation which we call the nuclear anarchy. And at this point of no return, there can be different scenarios. The evidence and the situation to happen, they can be equal. We can take the scales and one part of this and the other part of this. A small part of this can affect on the other one, like the butterfly and just a small part of people. Now we are watching the situation where different scenarios can happen. Now we can think of this. And thank you.

Thank you very much, Vladimir Leach, Georgina. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to come back, as politicians tell, so it's to Cuban crisis. And so Cuba is a very small country, considerably to Iran, to Russia, but it's very, very close history. And Scott knew now than when we were spoken with him in January. The thing is, When I understand myself in my youth, so I've heard the name of Fidel Castro, so I've heard always the name of Fidel Castro. I've seen photos, I've heard a lot of talks about Cuba and how beautiful it is. And after these talks, I have never but fallen in love with Cuba. And thank you for today. When they tell us about this Cuban presentation, introduction, I mean, Thank you very much for this. And I'm very anxious about this Cuban crisis as of nowadays, because very proud but poor nation, but very resistant nation that is living in Cuba. I'd like them to, that American imperialism would break his teeth over Cubans.

But regarding the situation in general, in the world. I'm working with the youth, with the students, and so they're just very anxious about what world they're living in. And they have a lot of questions, what will be the future, what our reactions should be. I don't have a very, I have a general formula for this, for the answer, just to start this discussion as of today. So, you know, so the very, the So everybody has made all the possible that you youth will live a very interesting life. So now we live in very incredible situation when you don't know what will happen tomorrow. So this requires you a lot of efforts, moral efforts, and you have to be strong in everything. Maybe it's not appropriate today, but I think that nowadays we have the public here now very thoughtful in all of the cases, moral. But, you know, we should understand the situation very crystal clear, understand this. We are now living in the...

in the world or war. So, this was a proposal of Messner, world and peace. So, it was in the 30s. So, his ideology of war. It's very good characteristics of what we are having now. And sure, we will have this stability and instability maintained. But the situation will worse. And Scott was speaking about the Iran conflict, Iran crisis, the situation with oil. Mr. Nixon told about the prices on the oil. But in Strait of Hormuz, there are a lot of cables that are connecting Asia, Africa, with the signals and transmission. So it's not only internet, this is communication. This is financial ways and straights as well. So this is our lives. So all of our lives are now in the smartphones, and this is communication. So when this kind of communication is breaking, so it's another strike on the world framework that we are living now. This is menace as well, very strong, because if we will lose this signal, this will end in a very difficult situation.

And another factor, this is a huge number, the huge number of people, reckless people, I don't know what they are using, what mushrooms they're eating, but those rhetoric and their speeches that they are providing us with, this can incite very concrete actions. So they are speaking, speaking, and then something happened, then attack. attack on the station, on the station, oil station, I mean, oil pump station. And now Netanyahu is trying to make up a coalition to fight Iran. So because of the Iran behavior, so-called behavior, and this arms control absence now, and that there is no control for these politicians and these political scientists and for the presidents who are giving speech, there is no control for them. So these are my references and now we are waiting the Q&A part. Yes, we will give to Rick Sanchez some more words to tell.

I want to throw something into the conversation which I think is fascinating. As horrible as this situation is that we're all witnessing that's taking place in the Bronx, I think it's strangely enough created a vaulted position for Russia economically, and maybe even politically, and maybe even more so for Mr. Putin because of his potential relationship with Mr. Trump. So a couple of things have happened in the last couple of weeks. One, the United States pulled the sanctions on Russian oil companies. It's supposed to be temporary, but these things one never knows. More importantly, just in the last couple of days, Mr. Trump reached out to Mr. Lukashenko and told Mr. Lukashenko that he is lifting the sanctions on two banks and two fertilizer companies. Huge companies that work directly with Russia. So it seems to me, and this is why I like to throw this into the conversation, I'd like to know what you guys think about this.

Is Mr. Trump signaling through those deals And through dealing directly with Mr. Lukashenko, who he knows is very close to Mr. Putin, that although he's uncomfortable dealing directly with Mr. Putin because he knows he's going to get eaten alive if he does that in the press, in the United States, and with neocons, and Mr. Trump is not as courageous as he makes himself out to be, I think deep down Mr. Trump is, in fact, not a courageous man. I was going to use another term, but I think it wouldn't be the term to use in this setting. So I'm wondering if this is Mr. Trump signaling. I wonder if it's an opening. I wonder if really what he's trying to do is deal with Putin and the Russians, but he's too cowardly to do it, so instead he's going through back doors. And now, from a totally selfish standpoint, let me tell you that the reason I'm asking you this question is because I'm flying to Minsk Saturday morning to meet with Mr.

Lukashenko so I can interview him. Give me some background. I'll start. I had the... Just a little while ago, I was in Washington, D.C. for Defender of the Fatherlands Day, which is always a good time at the Russian embassy because I have good friendship with the Russian military attachés, and we tend to gather together and drink vodka and say, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, and such. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. But I also had the opportunity to be interviewed by the main channel of of Belarusian TV, Victoria. You may meet her when you go there. And she asked similar questions. Look, let's let's be clear. You're 100 percent correct on President Trump. He is not a military man. He knows nothing about military situations to him. The military is a game. It's about flexing muscles that he's never actually used. It's like me talking about fighting Mike Tyson, even though I've never been in the boxing ring against somebody like Mike Tyson.

I can talk about it, but I don't know it. Donald Trump doesn't know what it's like to bury somebody that died in combat or hold somebody in your arms as they bleed out. Donald Trump doesn't know what it's like to go to a home and knock on the door and tell a wife that her husband's not coming home. or to see what children go to school and tell the children your father's dead, because that's what war is. War is not a game. War is about death and destruction. And the people that should that are should be talking about the potential to go to war should understand it, understand what the consequences are, because if you do that, you will never want to go to war. Donald Trump is posturing about warlike situations because to him it's a game. And what we see in Iran is it's not a game. It's Awful. It's worse than you could possibly imagine. But before Iran, Donald Trump was playing Ukraine. And it's something that Russians should know very well.

Ukraine is about flesh and blood. You're flesh and blood. Not just Russian flesh and blood, but Ukrainian flesh and blood, which at one time was Soviet flesh and blood, which is the same thing. This is about Slavic people dying, killing each other because the West got involved playing a game. And Donald Trump was one of the people playing that game. But for him it's not personal because he doesn't have to go to the Russian mother and say your son is dead or the Russian wife and say your husband's not coming home or the Russian children saying your father's gone forever or deal the same situation in Ukraine. It's a game he is playing. And part of this game was exactly what you said. He knows that he can't establish the relationship with Putin that he wants to establish because of the politics in the United States, the politics of Russophobia. So he chooses Lukashenko as the indirect approach.

And this was from the very start we saw this, the tentative reaching out. Who did he call on the way to Alaska? Lukashenko. Why? because he wants to put thoughts in Lukashenko's ear, knowing that Lukashenko will sit down next to Vladimir Putin and have this conversation. And this is what's happening today. He's he's putting this game out there. He's playing this game. It's a smart game, actually, in a vacuum. It's a very smart game. But when you contrast the game with the reality, Because now he's playing a game when they're the chips are not plastic, but blood, flesh and bone. And there are people right now that aren't going to play that game. Iran is not in the business of playing a game right now. This is about existential survival after bombs have rained down in their city. The first missiles that struck hit a school killing 175 children, girls the age of 6 to 12, murdered by American missiles because of a game that Donald Trump's playing in his head.

There's an opportunity here and I'm hopeful that Lukashenko understands this opportunity. If you can speak to him, please impart on him that this is not the moment for reflection. This is not the moment to sit back and think things over and mull things over. This is the moment for action. diplomatic action, political action, to hold off the forces of war that have been unleashed. Because if this war continues, too many people will have died for one side to be willing to play the game of diplomacy. And that's what Donald Trump's playing with Belarus, is the game of diplomacy. Do you think Mr. Putin and Russia is in a vaulted position right now because of all these circumstances? Well, let me put it this way. You're only in the position if you recognize it. I believe that Russia is in a unique position, that Russia actually holds all the cards. But the question is, and I don't want to get too far ahead of us, but in Russia, I see a lot of tentative pragmatism.

Russia is cautious. Russia moves slowly. Right now is not the time for caution, time for slow. Now is the time for speed, decisive action. And the question is, can russia take advantage of the moment in history that's been given to them where they literally hold all the cards to solve all the problems russia is the dominant actor but you're only the dominant actor if you're willing to take action you act

that's right i i think something important to understand here also is why is the conversation going to president lukashenko and president putin because the economic, legal, and political infrastructures that were created after World War II. The United Nations and the various swift systems and other economic systems have collapsed. As the power of the United States deteriorated, the power of these particular institutions deteriorated. And one of the reasons that these institutions deteriorated was because the US and its allies completely took over these institutions and utilized them to project power as opposed to what they were supposedly created for. so now uh wherein the president of the united states would normally should for international legal issues such as this go to the united nations security council or other institutions to address this because they discredited this and abandoned this that opportunity does not exist so now what we're trying to discuss here is how to navigate in a world where these institutions and confidence in these institutions has collapsed.

Another example of this is what's happening in the Straits of Hormuz, whereas Iran is using the leverage of oil, but not just of oil, they're saying that people who pay in the yuan, in the Chinese currency, can get through. That is in fact creating new economic institutions where the old ones have collapsed. And I think that's something in your conversation to keep in mind with President Lukashenko.

Yes, I would like to say a few words that, yes, we are making projects on the non-policy, Trump, Lukashenko, but we need to understand clearly that we need to talk about the collective actions of Trump, no matter how reckless, how sharp, how hard he is and willing to do. and what he projects on the issues. There is a very behind, very complicated machine of institutions and structures which are actively involved to fulfill these solutions. Before the 28th of February, before the strikes, I think there was a preparatory work has been done not only by United States, but only the work has been done by Israel as well. We need to understand, and Andre Leach said about this, there are certain groups, the clans, maybe delays the levels of people they want to destroy. There is the end of the globalism. But as to build a new world, we need to bring everything to zero. Yes, we see some burning points more or rather and in the most safe position, I mean, the military threat is the United States.

They have those internal issues, like immigration issues, but nevertheless did not have any military threats from the other countries. That's why they have all the levels to bring everything to zero. Well, we used to say, well, we had in 2008 a financial crisis. I think we reached that depth, but suddenly there was something else from the depth as well. We didn't reach that level of depth. We reached that depth, but there is something behind it, something from the very behind, from the very bottom on it. and that unfortunately is very sad on this i think we'll have to live over those tragic moments i would like to to put one more thing as elena georgian has been saying about the reckless generation the reason is that when we're analyzing elite powers you need also to dwell on the psychological portrait of those people well I think several years ago I was invited to a luncheon with Madame Kneisel.

She was a mistress of foreign affairs of Austria. Putin came up to her wedding, and then after the military operation, She had to leave Austria, now she lives in St. Petersburg. She said very nice words about European elites. European elites, nowadays, those are very angry teenagers. And when I asked her precisely about Berbock, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I mean even Ursula von der Leyen, with whom we are all of the same age. Then I had my thoughts on this, that elite level who is governing, who is ruling the European countries, I don't mean the Rothschilds and the other ones, those high-ranking clocks like the president, the prime ministers, those people, They were brought up in the situation where there is no world of wars. De Gaulle, Churchill, Brezhnev, those generations of De Gaulle, Schmidt, Brandt as well, they knew what the war is because they were taking part in these wars. Or when they were the children, they lived over those war conflicts.

Now we have the generation of children of 1968, those students of revolutions, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and the future generation, the generation of flowers, I mean the hippie generation. They are reckless. They don't have any responsibilities. That is Mr. Clinton. That is a huge wave of these reckless, with no responsibility, people, irresponsible. They see wars like computer games. So making forecasts on this, and when you're forecasting those people, These are the people that don't have any words or words. These are irresponsible people. When I'm watching the news and when I see how European leaders meet each other, the war in Iran, Ukraine war, they are cheering each other like they are visiting some kind of a party. That is why we need to take into account of this. The world we are living right now, this is not an escort. I think that is a squash playing game court, and it is engraving the situation.

That is why we need to take account the situation of the psychological portrait disability of the people. A few years ago, The dialogue of Mr. Susan Penn, Mr. Xi and Justin Trudeau. Trudeau was trying to make some facts about the rights of people. Mr. Xi was very stone-faced on this. He listened to the dialogue. Then he clapped on his shoulder. He said, OK, then.

And he left. Yes, I'd like to add a little bit what you're going to have told. So if I were translated, we were able to do this. So our interpreters now, so they're working for the first President and Minister, so they have a huge specter of all the metaphors to use nowadays. And so now we all come to our Q&A point, and I will just take the lead. And I will say the first question. So I'm very interested. I was wondering, just recently I've listened to Taki Carson, our common friend, who is speaking about the criticism, strong criticism of Trump. And he tell the version that is now discussed hugely with a high level of influence of radical kind from Khabarra as well. So the representative who is involved in the United States to the escalation, there is no needless escalation. There is no understanding of further circumstances. So how realistic this plan of Trump? You've told that he's no military man, but it's very interesting your evaluation about this.

Let me make sure I have the question right. The evaluation of... Who controls Trump? You want me to not be able to go home? But we are here. We agreed to honesty and openness. Donald Trump is surrounded by people. Let me give a quick background. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, I don't believe Donald Trump was prepared to be president. And as a result, when it came time to build his team, he had to turn to the establishment. He had to turn to the conservative establishment. And so what we got was a cabinet that looked like the exact thing that Donald Trump ran against. Because remember, in the primary, he went up against 17 traditional Republicans. And he beat them all because he said, I don't stand for what you stand for. I'm something different. Then he got elected and he had to turn to the establishment that produced the 17 candidates and say, I need your help to govern.

And so his first term was actually a chaotic term because Donald Trump was never able to match his theories with the people willing to execute them in reality. And it cost him the election.

He got Pompeo.

He got Pompeo. He got Bolton. He got everything. So now he gets a four year break. And during that four year time, he's reflecting on if I become president again, what do I want? He had to break free of the establishment. But you have to fall in on a power structure at that point in time. And the power structure he fell in on was How do you say this? American Zionism. The global Zionist cabal. Israel. Modern Israel. And I'm not being anti-Semitic here. Anybody who knows my history knows that I have worked very closely with the Israeli government to resolve arms control problems in Iraq. And I'm not anti-Israel. But I'm anti greater Israel and I'm anti any nation that believes they can control my country. My country is the sole purview of the American people to control. We have a constitution. We are a constitutional republic. It's we, the people of the United States of America, not we, the people who subordinate ourselves to the interests of greater Israel.

And yet this is what the Zionist experiment wants. It wants America to exist solely for the functioning of supporting a greater Israel. And there's a lot of money involved in this. And this money, one of the great weaknesses of American politics is our absolute dependence upon money as a politician. I find it curious when Americans, when they speak of Iran, and they say, I say, Iran is the greatest functioning democracy in the Middle East. They say, Iran's not a democracy. They absolutely are. They have elections. They have a constitution. They say, yes, but they have religion. And the religion serves as a gateway that prevents it from being a church. I say, oh, so now we're going to talk about gateways. Well, in America, we don't have religion. We have money. And if you can't go through that money wicked, if you can't bring a billion dollars to the table, don't even try to run for office.

And so the people that control the money in America are primarily the greater Zionist enterprise. And Donald Trump sold his soul to this enterprise. Miriam Adelson admits she bribed him with $250 million. she bought a president and then she bought a secretary of state and then she continued they when you have a pack talk about we're going to spend 100 million dollars to buy the u.s congress openly openly by the u.s congress and nobody does anything because everybody's bought by them i've been part of the media establishment they tried to bribe me i was offered a six million dollar bribe to become part of this uh crew i said no And I paid the price. But the point is, you know, there are things that matter more than money, but not in American politics. And Donald Trump has sold his soul to the greater Israeli project. And this is why things are happening in the United States that are insane when it comes to the interests of the American people, the true interests of the American people, the true interests of the United States are not being served.

There was literally zero justification for this war. Zero justification for this war. You can't even make one up. It's so weak. Iran was willing to do everything necessary to avoid this war. And yet we went to war anyways. Why? Because Israel demanded it. And this is one of the big problems we have. Because when we speak of solving a problem... You know, I've always said that you can't solve a problem unless you first accurately define the problem. And because otherwise, what are you solving? If you haven't defined the problem accurately, you're solving nothing. When we speak of this problems that we face today, these diplomatic problems, we can speak of diplomacy. And we've spoken that the role that Russia plays could play in resolving energy, etc. And this is another reason why Vladimir Putin might be the right man for the right time. He has said that 20 percent of Israel is Russian. Vladimir Putin knows Israel.

He's not ignorant of it. And I believe he has insights into how Israel controls the United States. Because if you're going to solve these problems, you have to address the issue that Donald Trump is beholden to a power elite that nobody wants to talk about, that they're afraid to talk about, and therefore we ignore them and we speak of other structures. But those other structures aren't really the power behind the scene. The United States of America today is 100% controlled by a pro-Israeli cabal that puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. And Trump has succumbed more than the other president today. He 100% sold out because he doesn't have a political base. The Democrats have their own political base that they've built up over time that doesn't include. Israel is influencing, but the Republicans have their own. The establishment, the deep state, is not an Israeli cabal.

It's a product of American history built over time. Donald Trump has literally sold his soul to the devil, and the devil is named Israel. I apologize if I insulted anybody.

As a person who has worked on Capitol Hill for a member of Congress, I can tell you that it's also important to understand that behind a president of the United States, there is a struggle for power. And that as the power and the direction of the United States becomes more unstable, that that struggle for power expresses itself more. And what you're seeing with the constant changes, one moment President Trump says, we don't need the Straits of Hormuz. The next minute he says, we must put together a group of countries to take back the straits of hormones so we see these things that seem to be disjointed and contradictory and i think that these are expressions of that power struggle behind the president of the united states so as we talk about president trump As an individual, there is the appearance that he has unlimited power as a king or some kind of authoritative leader would have. But understand that behind him, a lot of the statements that we're seeing is this struggle for power.

Whether it's the, I'll put it like this, all parts of the power for the most part are supportive of Israel and Zionist inclinations first. But there are those who would like to see another path to maintaining some level of dominance. That's what this is about. What path can the United States get to maintain or to get back to dominance? But we have to understand he's trying to navigate the struggle behind him. And in addressing the issues, again, Rick, you're going to talk to President Lukashenko, this is important to understand, that in addressing the issues through the lens of Donald Trump making decisions, we also have to address them through the lens of the various entities behind him that are attempting to control the direction of his decisions. Thank you very much for your very frank, very open dialogue.

Well, I would like to re-change the focus of discussion to Latin America, who has been introduced quite a lot during our meeting. I have a question. Well, within this offensive policy by Donald Trump in Latin America, do, I mean, if China, who is expanding in the region, does China have any chance to make the competition level against the United States or against United States in this region will take from the very beginning to the very end?

I've read the National Security Strategy document that was published by the Trump administration in November of last year. And one thing jumped out at me, the concept of Fortress America, that the United States is going to be seeking to lessen its role in the Middle East, lessen its role in Europe. to contract on the Western Hemisphere, which we will turn into an American only zone. This isn't just rhetoric. Venezuela proves that this is as real as it gets. And tragically, I think we have Cuba in our sights as well. Whether we'll be successful in Cuba is another question altogether. But we are going to use every instrument of power available to us to kick China out of the Western Hemisphere. The question is, will we be successful? I do not believe we will. I believe that China has mastered the art of relationships between states. It's not superficial. I believe when China engages with a nation, it engages meaningfully across the full spectrum of relationships so that when China is in a nation, China is committed to that nation.

China knows they only have to wait two or more years and Donald Trump will no longer be the president of the United States. In fact, if things go badly for Donald Trump with Iran and no solution is found, Donald Trump's second term will be one of paralysis brought on by nonstop impeachment hearings. So China isn't panicked right now. China is waiting. They will maneuver as necessary to avoid decisive confrontation with the United States. But at some point in time, Donald Trump's vision will clash against the rocks of reality, and China will be left with the only nation having a long-term plan. The Chinese Belts and Roads Initiative is one of the more genius approaches to global development that's been put out there. Because it's not just theory, it's reality backed by capital with long-term vision. The United States has nothing to compete against that. We don't have the same level of capital investment.

Everything we do is superficial. We seek to destroy, not build. We seek to threaten, not engage. And I think China holds all of the advantages over the United States in South America and Central America. Right now, it may not look good because we have a president who blusters, who speaks, who pounds the table, who threatens. But this president will not be president forever. And the Chinese tend to have a longer... Again, Russia is blessed by having a leader that's been... in leadership position for 25 years. China is similarly blessed. The United States goes through the throes of political chaos every four years. And there's inconsistencies that are built into the American system that don't exist in China. I think China is going to do quite well. And I actually think that the region will benefit from that because when we speak as a purely human, perspective, not a national perspective, not as an American, but as a human being.

What the Chinese offer in terms of the development of society is so much better than anything the United States currently offers. I wish we were the nation that China is. I wish we were doing what China does. I wish we were engaging with people from a human to human perspective. I wish we would stop threatening people. But that's not who we are right now. But it is who China is, and I think China is going to do quite well.

Well, the problematic issues of this competition level, the United States and China, will depend on the internal situation, as in China and the United States. And, well, both of the countries, they have internal problematic issues. Well, the history of China is based on, I mean, historically, the more effective and successfully China was involved, the more socialist problematic issues appeared. I mean, we can see China after then, so reforms after the UK, the US support. I mean, that movement of China solved so many economic issues, but nevertheless, the socialist problematic issues appeared. I mean that the town is like the cities, the south and the north part of China, and there are different levels of the rich and poor people. And it also affects all of these fears. What we have seen that five of the high-ranking military officials were arrested in the last one, who was a close friend of Mr.

Xi. Well, maybe the intelligence has these facts, but we don't have any facts. But it is really similar what happened in China more than half of a year. And these are the... Well, shall we call that preventive strikes, not to have any future floats or any coup d'etat. Well, in this economic situation, everything will depend on the internal structures who has the most sharp interferences in the country. In other words, the one will fall who will fall the last one. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I have a question to our American guests. The question is freedom of speech. And Mr. Scott Rita witnessed this when the passport was taken away, which Sanchez told so many things about this. Right now, what we can see is that there is a legal case against Tucker Carlson. What can we say about this? That Zionists who are making this influence and taking this influence with radical actions for no one to say any other alternative point of view except military views.

Thank you.

I'll touch this one. I got a little bit of experience in this. Now it is. When it was happening, it wasn't funny at all. Look, in the United States, as I try to explain to people, the real America is defined by the Constitution. And it is the only thing that defines America. There's a movie, Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks movie. And there's a scene where Tom Hanks is talking with a CIA official who wants to put pressure on him to get a Russian or Soviet intelligence officer to defect to come over. And Tom Hanks is a lawyer. And the guy's saying, you know, come on, this isn't the law school. There's no rules here. There's no rule book. And Tom Hanks stops him and he says, what's your, your last name is German, right? I said, yeah. He goes, well, my last name is Irish. We have nothing in common whatsoever except the rule book. When we speak of America, there's only one thing that unites us. It's the rule book.

It's the Constitution. Now, the Constitution was formed And a great debate. And today, you know, here we are coming up on the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation. Now, I know for Russia, it's like, but for us, it's a big deal. 250 years of the United States. I mean, I'm already getting emotional thinking about it because I love my country so much. But my country is built on the principles that are set forth in this document. When the Constitution was written, if you go look, You always hear the Supreme Court talk about the Federalist Papers. And I talk about it too. When I talk about the dangers of happening today, I say, read Federalist 10, James Madison, the danger of factions, the necessity of strong constitutional republic. Read Federalist 51, the needs for checks and balances. This is critical stuff. But you know, there was another group of people who were arguing, they wrote the anti-Federalist Papers.

And from that we got the Bill of Rights. Ten amendments that said the power is not vested solely in the government. The power is vested in the people. We, the people of the United States. And one of the great things we have is freedom of speech. Now I know some nations don't like this, and I understand why some nations don't like this, but for America, it's what makes us great as Americans. Freedom of speech. That means I can say anything I damn well want to, and there's not a damn thing the government can do to stop me. They can't, the Congress shall pass no laws that infringe on the free speech of Americans. This is so critically important. This is why when 40 FBI agents came to my house, I didn't roll over and play dead. You know, it's pretty intimidating to have 40 FBI agents come to your house, seven of whom were an armed SWAT team, full body armor, machine guns coming in. I'm like, what?

I got a little Pomeranian. You're going to shoot him? But it's an intimidation factor. The job is to scare you, to get you to quit. They accused me of being a Russian agent. They said that I was working for the Russian government, taking instructions from the Russian government. Now, some people, many lawyers will say, don't say anything. We'll fix this. And the way they fix it is I plead. It doesn't mean that I'm guilty. It means that I plead. I go to the government. They say, we're going to put you in jail for 40 years if you go to trial. But if you plead guilty to this little thing, we'll slap your wrist, give you a fine, and it's done. But by pleading guilty, you acknowledge that they're right and you did something wrong. I refused to play that game. I don't have lawyers. I couldn't afford a lawyer if I wanted one. But I stared the FBI in the face and I said, you picked the wrong Marine to mess with.

If you want a war about the freedom of speech in America, you've got one. And I will take this all the way to the gates of hell. And they backed down. They backed down because they had nothing. Because I had done nothing wrong. All I did was my duty as a journalist to... They were mad at me because I met with Anatoly Antonov and talked about Russophobia. They were mad at me because I dared speak to the Russian ambassador about Russophobia in the United States. That's what they were angry about. They were angry at me for coming to Russia, daring to have the audacity to come to Russia and speak to the Russian people to learn the Russian reality and try and bring that back to the United States as an antidote to the disease of Russophobia. They were furious and they wanted to intimidate me. I'm too stupid to be intimidated. And I refuse to back down. Now, the reason why I bring this up is you bring up Tucker Carlson.

Understand this. Who's going after Tucker? Influencers. Do you know how much legal authority influencers have in the United States? Zero. Zero. If the FBI and the Department of Justice back down because I stood my ground and said, I will not yield on a First Amendment issue of freedom of speech. Tucker Carlson, with his resources and his lawyers, this is purely theater of American politics. This isn't about Tucker Carlson facing real legal jeopardy, because with freedom of speech, there can be no legal jeopardy. This is about trying to intimidate Tucker Carlson into silence. This is about trying to create the conditions where people move away from Tucker. This is information warfare. This is not a real legal threat to Tucker. Now, having said that tomorrow, he'll be arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of his life. But I'm joking. It won't happen. This is the kind of sickness that exists in America today, where the Internet gives voice to people who if we didn't have this ability to project, nobody would ever listen to.

But they get out there, there's an echo chamber of hatred, and Tucker's paying the price right now because Tucker's saying things that scare people. You know you're over the target when the anti-aircraft fire is exploding all around you. Tucker Carlson is over the target. He's dropping bombs, and they're trying to shoot him down. But there is freedom of speech in America. you have to fight for it you can't back down you can never surrender because the moment you surrender then the first amendment is meaningless the second you allow the government to intimidate you on this issue you might as well not have a constitution there's many people in america today who don't live their lives based upon the need to defend the constitution and that's why we're sort of in the situation we are tucker carlson is somebody who believes in the constitution tucker carlson believes in freedom of speech and i personally believe that tucker carlson will not yield an inch on this issue i think tucker's a tough guy he's a strong guy he's tough and he's resilient and i think he's he's very much true to and will continue doing what he's doing despite the pressure, Scott, that, as you mentioned, they're putting on.

And he and I are very good friends, so we talk regularly, and he just sent me a text this week, and he said, he talked about what I'm doing here, he loves Moscow, thinks Moscow's a great city, and he said, you and I are both too old to still be doing this journalism thing, but somehow it's still worth it. Like, we have to continue doing it. I think what he was signaling was that he knows that he's taking incoming, or whatever the military guys call this stuff, and that he knows it's all around him, and he's not going to put his head down. He's going to keep going. That's the sense I get from that text.

I'm glad you brought this up because it's an important question that has been floating around the United States probably since its inception, since the Constitution was written. And the question is, are the rights in the Constitution rights as interpreted by the masses, or are they privileges granted by the political class and the ruling elite? The political class and the ruling elite view them as privileges that can be revoked on any given Tuesday. The people view them as rights that can never be revoked. And again, I hate to sound like a broken record, but as the political stability in the United States deteriorates, as it gets very obvious that the government does not represent the will of the people in the way a traditional democracy or constitutional republic should. The perfect example is the people of America specifically voted for President Trump because he said there would be no wars And specifically, he said there would be no war in the Middle East against Iran.

And now that that's happening, all of these questions of contradictions and clashes between the masses and the political class and the ruling elite begin to expand and be exacerbated. One of the things, and I agree with Scott, that is obvious living in the United States my whole life is that if there was anything that could destabilize our government, it would be infringing upon the rights of the people and in particular the First Amendment. I think there are people in the government who have fear because they understand that that could break the stability of the government. of our country and cause the people to learn how to count. So they realize that 330 million citizens is far more than a few thousand politicians.

I just want to say one thing real quick. I understand what you say about there are people who say rights versus privilege. That's not a debate because the First Amendment speaks of an inalienable right that God has given we the people. And we're telling the government, you can't infringe on this. We never asked permission of the government for free speech. We own it. It's ours. That's why we will never give it up. It's not a privilege. It's a right given to us by God, by a higher power. And this is why it's so important. I know people maybe who don't live in America don't understand. And you probably think I'm getting a little too emotional over this issue. This is fundamental. Fundament. I'm not an American without this. I'm something other than that. And in America, because we lack, for instance, the thousands of years of history and culture that Russia has, you can fall back on your culture.

You can fall back on your history. I fall back on the fact that my relatives came over on a ship, kicked out of Europe for whatever reason. You know, that's what I fall back on. Religion, economics. The only thing that makes me American is my constitution. And the only thing that allows me to give voice is the First Amendment. God gave me this voice. The government can never take it away.

As we say in court in the United States, the prosecution rests.

Well, today Scott told us that it is really important for the people to hear that voice, that opinion, this point of view. Rick will pass our voice of support to Mr. Tucker. I hope we can see him with your assistance. We do hope to see him by the end of this year. And what really Scott says, all the words go from his heart. And you really want to join that. All right, we have the next question from Alexander. Scott, I have a very simple question. You do know that today in Russia, we do have a lot of the services which are blocked. Initially, Instagram has been blocked. Then YouTube got blocked. And we've been sad that we are not blocking. The equipment is expired. Right now, stage number three. Telegram is blocked or operates on really badly. Well, if we take an average citizen like grandmother or grandfather, they took away this opportunity to watch YouTube. to talk to her relatives via Telegram.

Well, there is an alternative, Rootube. It's like taking your car or giving some cheaper device. I do know that in the United States, TikTok has been blocked. Then also Kaspersky was blocked. It is a very useful, very vital program software. I know that Huawei infrastructure has been pressed on. That was the issue of the national security, and it was supported actively by mass media. What we have in our country, it hasn't been explained. So we're just making your life service worse. Logically, it is right. I can imagine that United States, you do have this messenger max. instead of WhatsApp. The servers of Macs are located in Moscow, and people are not using YouTube. They're using Routube. I do know what the United States would do. They would block this software. What is my question? What was the mistake how the governmental authorities expressed on this? As for an German man, I can see it really badly.

But nevertheless, this is the issue of the national security. the mass media collaborating with the government that this is the conflict that we are into what was the main issue for us and how you would make it out of this to talk to the people how to explain to them this thank you well first of all I'm

loath to speak about domestic Russian issues as a foreigner because Russia has It's reality, and Russian laws must conform to Russian realities. America is a unique environment where free speech is a fundamental part of whom we are. I've read the Russian Constitution, and I know the Russian Constitution speaks of freedom of speech. But the question is how we implement it. First of all, freedom of speech is not a communications platform. That's just a mechanism. And in the United States, understand that freedom of speech doesn't give us an inherent right to have a YouTube channel or to have a Facebook page or to have a TikTok. These are commercial enterprises that so far the Supreme Court has not extended free speech powers to. So my YouTube channel has been shut down. I've made a new one. I'm sure it's going to be shut down after this talk. I've been kicked off of Facebook. I've been kicked off of every place.

I was kicked off twice from Twitter and X. I'm back on, but I can be kicked off a third time. That's not free speech. That's a mechanism of control. And so what you're speaking of isn't an infringement on free speech. In the United States, we have an issue. We have independent media. Garland and I are part of some people called alternative media. To me, that implies a subordination to mainstream media. And since they're useless, I don't want to be subordinated to them. We're independent media, which means we're better than they are. That's my arrogance coming out. But the point is, there's no checks and balances. We are out of control. The only thing that controls what I put on the Internet is me. The only thing that controls what Garland puts on the internet is Garland. Now, Garland and I are part of what we call a family of podcasters. People like Judge Napolitano, Nima Rostami, the Iranian, Danny Haifong, and others.

who have set standards that we recognize as being good standards. We have no problem being with them because when they say something, we understand that there's been a certain reflection of quality control, but it's self-imposed. But the internet is out of control. I've had the privilege of speaking to a Russian gentleman, Andrei Ilnitsky, a former advisor to Shoigu, lieutenant general. He speaks of mental warfare. And General Gerasimov before that spoke of hybrid warfare. And there's an information warfare aspect to this where the West will seek to infiltrate into Russian society. opinions, voices, concepts that are designed to destroy Russia from within. Garland and I had an opportunity to speak to a Russian historian on film who spoke of the role played by the cinema in collapsing the Soviet Union by putting out movies that were critical of society and basically got people to believe that everything's bad, everything's gloomy, it collapses.

We know that the United States uses information warfare. We know this because this is what we do in the Middle East. We had a guy named Cohen who worked for the State Department, came up with the term digital democracy. Digital democracy is about going into another nation, instilling internet connectivity, and then using that internet connectivity to collapse society from within. This is what we do for a living in America. The CIA runs this. The demonstrations you saw in Iran in December and January were part of digital democracy. CIA, Mossad, MI6 driven information operations to achieve the result of bringing Iran down from within. We've done the similar things in other nations. So now imagine you're the Russian government and you've got the United States putting a target on you. And what we're going to do now is take advantage of the fact that in the 1990s, we had infiltrated your society.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And we still maintain connectivity in your society. There's aspects of your society that still view Hollywood as the greatest thing in the world in American cinema and American shows and American culture, what passes for culture. And people have a desire to be fed this. It can be entertaining, but it can be destructive at the same time. And when you have a United States government that uses information warfare in a targeted fashion to bring down a society, I think it's imperative on the part of the society to protect itself. I don't think that Russia's seeking to control free speech. I think Russia's seeking to control the ability of outside powers to infiltrate ideas inside Russia designed to corrupt Russia from within. That's my take on it, but I'd really be interested in what my Russian colleagues think about this idea. I think the gist of his question was more about the effect of Russia's point of view and others' point of view not being able to filter into the United States.

Because in the United States, we are going through a period where RT, for example, you're not allowed to watch RT. It's a crime to watch RT.

And the Israeli government just took over TikTok. and they just took over CBS.

Oh, so I misunderstood the question.

Yes.

Well, I gave a big, long answer about nothing then. And Israel is about to take over CNN, so they're now on TikTok, CNN, and CBS. So there is definitely at this moment an overt effort to go into the American mind and make sure that they don't understand China, the Middle East, and especially Russia. And that's actually taking place as we speak. And it's you guys and others among us who are doing everything possible to filter through that. And I think we're winning. I apologize for jumping in on that. Just a quick numbers game then, if that's your question. Take a look at the average CNN viewership of a given show.

71 years old.

But I mean, no, no, no, no. In terms of numbers, you look at their programming. When you put on a show, how many people watch that show? Last week, I was on with Danny Davies. All right. In a week's time, 1.2 million people watch that show. I just kicked CNN's ass. Excuse my language. Yeah. We independent media people. My show on CNN did 420,000. Yeah. That's it. And I was the highest rated guy. We beat Fox. We beat CNN. We beat everybody. Independent media defeats the mainstream media so they can play all the stupid games they want. But as long as we have freedom of speech and as long as we have people who have brains that work, we're not afraid of them because we beat them at their own game. We get better views than they do. We dominate. We get more people paying attention. And we're the controller of American public opinion right now. We, Garland, me, and others, we control. CNN doesn't control.

CBS doesn't control. They're playing stupid games right now because they're losing. That's my opinion. Garland, go ahead.

At the end of the last Trump administration in 2020, President Trump admitted, I guess if that's the right word, that he had authorized a CIA operation, a CIA group, and their specific job was to go after China online, to use all of the portals into China online to try to disrupt the Chinese political and economic foundation. And I think that if you look at What happened with TikTok in the United States? Was China-owned in the United States? Said, no, no, it can't be China-owned. It has to be US-owned. Israel. Exactly. Not US-owned. Right. Because the concern was, look who owns the platforms and look who controls the platforms. The work was to do the same thing with these online platforms, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, that they did with the UN, to co-op them, to control them, and to use them as instruments of power. So while this is not a defense of either the Russian government for saying you can't get on Instagram or whatever, or the Chinese government for saying you can't use any of these things, I certainly understand that when they are used as tools of power admittedly by a government that sees itself as an adversary.

Now, again, I'll say this. The people don't see themselves as adversaries. They are manipulated to believe that. But the government sees itself as adversaries. They see these things as tools. I would argue possibly the government could do a better job of explaining that to the people. But even then, that could compromise national security. So I think you do have to understand there is an intent to utilize these things as tools of power, imperial power, to destabilize countries. And I think that is the reason that some of these things are happening. And I think that what needs to happen, and it's just in its infancy, is that other entities such as Russia and China, etc., need to develop these platforms at a much higher level to fit the needs of their populations.

I will take a floor as well, a little bit. So just recently, just recent several words were written as a result for the so-called color revolution in modern times that were happening in was executed thanks to these social platforms and this Facebook, first of all, and in Belarus as well, in Telegram, using Telegram. So it's all very well understood. So this is very useful tool to organize all of these revolutions. But the question was in other things as well. There is not only a question of controlling minds of nations. and use as a platform to accumulate the huge number of people in one and other places to just giving them instructions. But now we're speaking about the rivalry of products, about the technological capabilities. of such country of this or other entities to create, to build platform. And another issue is money. This is the fight for financial resources. that is providing to build such entity or another.

Here, Russian Federation now has a lot to do regarding financial and regarding the building right and interesting platforms. Principles that we were living 30 last years, so we don't have anything starting from planes and cars. We will buy anything. So nowadays, we don't live like this. So, but when we are speaking about very... important communication tool. So we have started to think about this just now. So maybe we have some lack of good solutions on this platform. So this irritates people, yes, I understand this. My personal pain, so it is recorded, I guess, yes? It's recorded, yes, I'm sorry. Such a pity, such a pity, such a pity. So everything is being recorded, oh my God. So I have a small telegram channel. Russia, like a resistance to the activities that was made from Minsk. It was demanded by my students and the huge number, huge number of people, Latin America, Cuba and other countries as well.

Telegram channels, our Russian telegram channels, they are providing a huge opportunity to know about Russia from every point or from every side. It's very good resource. It's soft power. I don't like this term, but soft power that can build a huge number of information, political information, military analytics who are connected with the special military operation are using Telegram to channel their opinions. And this was built in the center of society. I know a huge number of youth Serbians who are now not speaking Russian. They started to speak Russian, to study Russian, thanks to just to read telegram channels. This was made not by Rostovnicist or another corporation and other foreign affairs agencies. And as well, so more... In other words, we are deprived of these resources, so it's very wrong to be deprived of these resources. Not to give people to conduct a state public job. So that's why we are just cutting ourselves and bleeding ourselves out.

So we have to think through it. I have a recipe. I have a recipe yesterday, just like I was thinking yesterday. I think, I suppose there's propaganda. will not make from a person a fool, so it is dedicated for the fools. And blocking some of the platforms is an issue. And if we have a control on our part as well, so can we just officially create a Russian VPN official and all the traffic will come through our Russian service and we have access to everything from this. We will make it even easier. are not free by paying, and we will have a currency flow as well thanks to this VPN, and there will be no need to block anything. So VPN as well, so this is completely other thing. We use information resources, so we have to have all these public structures, public entities, they use all of these banned platforms just to know what is happening in the world. Otherwise, you will be just in a vacuum.

You will not know about this information. Yes, from other sites, so they will always use this platform. This is the problem, existential problem, I mean, when we just rely on the truth of words. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I would like to say a few words about VPN and the other approaches, but I would like to get the theme very much obliged to the experts. And I would like to get on the group of interests in America to the American experts and to the Russian ones. We've been talking about the Republicans and how different the conservatives are, the mugger who is frustrated. And there is another thing as the Federal Reserve systems. Yes, and the changes will be in May after Jerome Powell will resign, and he says that he will stay in power. This is a very special structure. I wonder if there are any changes will be in the Federal Reserve System in May after Powell will resign. Any projections from Trav, and how do you find the Federal Reserve System, and precisely how global it will affect the U.S. currency?

I don't think they're going to cut rates. I'm a Marine, and I don't do... This is well beyond my pay grades, just to acknowledge. I'd be irresponsible, speculative. Garland does follow this issue, though, so I'm putting the pressure on Garland.

well i i'll start here and the view is getting more common in the united states that there is not as much difference between the republicans and the democrats as people would believe and that if that in fact is the case then the likelihood of some kind of a change from appointing someone new to the federal reserve is not very high Right now, the people who are in power are set on a fairly straight course. As I said earlier, what we're looking at is a factional battle, a battle between various factions to see who was able to guide the ship, but it's all the same ship and they're mostly going in the same direction. I would argue that at this point, The changes in direction, particularly economically by the United States, I think will happen as a result of the outcome of the current conflict in Iran. because the U.S. system is so much based on the petrodollar, on money coming into the Gulf states as a result of selling oil and being recycled into the stock market and into the U.S.

to bankroll so many of the various projects and allowing the United States government to live in such a highly indebted state. So I would say rather than the internal changes the external changes as driven by the foreign policy and the outcome of the Straits of Hormuz crisis is what will. There will be significant changes, but they will be as a result of the crisis in the Middle East.

I will just say, just shortly, if you're wondering what determines the economy of the world is in many ways what the Central Bank of the United States, which is the Federal Reserve, decided to do as far as cutting rates. And right now, given the inflation level of the United States and the peculiar way in which the U.S. economy is now adapting to this latest situation in Iran, the news that we got this week, first of all, is no, they are not going to cut rates. Neither Powell nor his successor look like they're getting ready to cut rates. The next rate cut will likely come probably in the first quarter of next year, unless, as we say, the proverbial shit hits really the fan, and things change dynamically to the point where it's a desperation move. So right now, everybody who thought that this new policy was going to be more dovish was wrong, they're going to continue keeping the race as they are right now, and the economy is just going to have to survive.

The big problem is, of course, the debt. We're going to hit 40 trillion very soon. And they just asked for another 200 billion to fight this war, to execute this war against Iran. That's an ungodly amount of money. And where the hell they're going to get it from is really difficult. And let me just say one final thing. As a guy like everybody else who has children, I've got children in their 20s and we're building families and going to buy their first home. Never before in the history of the United States has the cost of living so expensive for an average young person trying to start a family, trying to have children, trying to get married, trying to get an apartment, trying to get a home. It's ridiculously expensive. And that's what really Mr. Trump and others are going to have to answer for at some time. And that is also why at this point in the United States of America, the populace is very angry at the government, not just Trump, but the whole government.

And for the first time ever, they're actually pointing their finger at the administrative state And that is something we've never seen, something I've never seen happen in my lifetime. So it could bring about change it, but right now the way things look no way. If that's what you're wondering about that was going to happen.

Thank you very much for your comments and for your speech. It is a great pleasure to be here. I have a general question for everyone. I wonder to see your opinion on this. Mr. Ritter, you are the first one to answer. Andrei Illich, you are the second one. Well, sooner or later we've been talking about the operational issues in the future. From the point of view, well, the key difference, and is it so principle, I mean, the principle difference between the deep state of the United States and Russia? Which are they? I make a small comment. I'm not so preoccupied with this information. I mean, the religious base ground, which we can hear lately, I wonder if these base grounds are eventually serious. Your thoughts on this? Well, you see, for how long the United States presidents started to eat

Eat people? Yeah, I mean eating people. You mean the Epstein files?

I am convinced,

that there's a 13 or 14-year-old girl who, Mr.

Trump,

may have had a relationship with and according to the files that i've read and again to be fair to mr trump and to speak journalistically these are allegations but they're contained in the latest uh report that was released that came out of the epstein file she was 13 she was 14 she was brought to mr trump by mr epstein and that information has not been released in the United States. It was redacted in the report. The only reason I'm saying this is not to blaspheme Mr. Trump, but rather because Mr. Epstein worked for the Mossad. So whatever is in that report that Americans are not allowed to read, the Israelis have. So if they have it, Mr. Trump knows they have it. And that's almost an opportunity cost that keeps him from doing or not doing certain things based on the fact that he is being pressured. Some would say blackmail. So I do believe that that comes into play. And as far as the question about deep state versus Russia's deep state, I think at least, I'll say this.

We have many more oligarchs than you do. And our Lord knows

Then regarding your question with the deep state issue. Well, you see, I often say the deep state, the term is not correct because the state is a formalized structure. What we call it, the deep state is the cluster of informal interest used by the state. But we need to use the right terms for this. In any state, There is a group or a bunch that has more rights, and it leads. In the 30s, in the Soviet political forum, there were four people. I don't know if I can call it a deep state or a deep power. The same thing, if we take the England of the 16th century, well, you see the main difference of England and the other states. The state was evolved as the function was evolved, as we call it right now, deep state. The institutions in the 16th century were very weak, and against Elizabeth, there were so many plots. that they started to involve with the services. So the first depower, the first deep state was the state of the 16th century.

Then regarding what we've been talking about lately 30, 40 years, I don't know if my American friends will agree with me, but as I believe that deep power or a deep state started to evolve from the end of 50s, the beginning of 60s, and this was by the killing of Kennedy, impeachment of Nixon, 11th of September, and right now events. What do I understand about the current deep state? The epoch of the capitalist is fading away. The institutions are fading away even quicker. In 1982, there is another term fading away over nations. Right now it is happening with the market, with the monopoly market. Right now it is happening with the community, depolitizing of the community. So from the modern epoch there goes new post-capitalist structures of the authority. The most active and aggressive ones are the capitalist powers. The active ones are all the national ones. and the authority, bureaucracy, and the intelligence.

And this is what we gather all together. It is called the deep state. And I think that the deep state will have some more years on this. But nevertheless, deep state, this is the reject of the institutions of the state. There is no need, there is no something like the eternal institution. And what was invented by Machiavelli Lostata. And I think it will fade away with him. Right now we have the new forms of the government. So the entry and the exit, they do have the mirror ways. And the England with the 16th century really shows from the future what we are facing with. So the English, they were the first ones to form upon this. And the intelligence services will be the ones to make it.

I'll just address my understanding. First of all, I thank Professor Furso for the answer. I mean, I agree. We use the term deep state and the implication is a singularity. And there is no deep state singularity. My understanding of the United States, my interpretation of this is The deep state is the gradual accumulation of influence by certain sectors of society over time. When we started our country, George Washington was the first president. So who does he turn to for his cabinet? People who are serving for the first time. he hands off political power to the next president. George Washington goes into retirement. His political group dissipates. The other group comes in. But the group that dissipates is now being asked to give advice or comment on what's being done. So power is shifted from those who are doing it to those who question it. And you see a transfer of power and these voices have to be listened to because they used to have the power.

So you see an accumulation of power in nodes outside of the government. now where do we get people to populate academia so you have universities that produce men and women of intellectual capacity who then will go into advising government or serving in the government so the institutions now accumulate uh influence because they're the institutions that produce the leaders and so power now accumulates capitalism comes in people are able to fund the railroads they become power gravitates to them But during this time, the government is still the supreme power. The others are sort of influencing factors. Two things happen. One, you need a situation where the government transitions away from traditional democratic control, meaning the people elect people to office and they expect them to govern. And you need power to be dissipated amongst institutions to now accumulate sufficient power that they can fill a power vacuum.

And I think at the end of the Second World War, the United States hit a period of time where the government, you saw this with the national security reforms, where we create the CIA, we start creating institutions, we create a bureaucracy of national security. And that bureaucracy of national security now is taken away from the the norms of government that's done in the shadow. The CIA is designed to exist in the shadows. And therefore you now create opportunities for these spheres of influence to play a direct role in the government outside of the traditional framework of governance. And this is where the deep state becomes. And so now you leave government, you go into these institutions where you continue to govern. It's a revolving door, whether it's with industry, whether it's with academia. And so there's a blurring of the lines between government and the institutions of support that have accumulated power.

And I think that's what, in my opinion, what the deep state is in the United States, is this accumulation of power amongst nodes of influence. But it's not a permanent establishment. It's not a defined establishment. a reflection of the failure of American democracy, the failure of the way the system is supposed to work. And we see government all too often not doing what needs to be done because it's politically difficult. And so the deep state takes over and starts running functions, doing things on automatic without congressional checks and balances. Or what we found, for instance, with USAID, this institution, when they start digging into the money, they see that it's not about doing what it's supposed to be doing it's about creating avenues of funding for programs designed to sustain the deep state to sustain institutions to provide money that congress is an ally normally congress controls the purse if garland wants money i in congress will say i am giving garland this much money to do this this is you know and we pass a bill But what's happening here is that Garland wants money, but he's not going to do it publicly because too many questions would be asked.

So I create a venue to send money to this channel, and then that money makes its way to Garland. And Garland is doing things that's outside the framework of government control. That's the deep state. That's at least my take on it. I agree with what you're saying, but it's very frustrating as an American because how do you control this? And Donald Trump was coming up with the solution. You de-finance it. With USAID, you shut it down, you stop the money. But what we found is the powers, look, he shut USAID down, but they're still, USAID's still functioning. The money's still flowing because the deep state said, we need the money. And you can't shut it down because it's infected everything that it sort of revived itself. It's like the Hydra. You cut off one head and then seven grow. It's a big problem in the United States. It's a huge problem because it's very much the antithesis of what democracy is supposed to be.

I would add, and again from my experience in working with Congress, the issue of fundraising, there are layers of power that has to be understood so that these questions aren't easily answered. As an example, we may say the CIA is the deep state. These people in the CIA are there from administration to administration. However, there are people who contribute a lot of money to the presidential campaign so that at some point they can say to the president, I want you to pick the new chief of the CIA to direct the CIA in their focus of operations. So the question is, at that point, is the CIA the deep state or are the people who are giving the money to the president so that they can choose the director of the CIA and the direction of the CIA. Are they the deep state? Are they operating the deep state? Additionally, you have people who, and it's again a big discussion in the United States, the military industrial complex.

people who make lots of money from military conflict and or the threat of military conflict. Again, they're not necessarily a part of the government, but they can use their ability to contribute large amounts of money to direct the operations and who takes power in particular industries. So I think the deep state, it's hard to pin down exactly what it is because there are so many layers of power inside and outside of the government that utilize their financial abilities to influence and direct policy, particularly in the United States. I can't speak for the Russian government, but policy. Exactly, exactly.

I'd like to get back to geopolitical discussion. So there are two problems global for United States. The first one is their national debt raising, the refusal of a lot of countries to buy United States obligation. And the second global problem for United States is that... Russia and China is now going to multipolar world and the United States is not ready for this multipolar world and trying to pretend to be the leader, to be the hegemony. So we have to see to the real actions of the real actors. So what actions now? United States, so they are now trying to live out, to take out their allies of Russia and China. Venezuela, for example. Venezuela with his oil stocks and how now the situation is evolving. We're looking at this at the moment. If Iran would fall the first day of the attacks, or would fall in just recent days, what would further actions of the United States? One step, two steps, and the following steps afterwards.

And how these steps would address the problems that I've mentioned before? I'm very interested in this response for our American guests.

Well, I'll start off by saying this. American military power is not what it used to be. First of all, the nature of conflict has changed. Technology has become a major factor in this. The day of being able to mobilize a million American soldiers and send them overseas to fight a war, to defeat an enemy and declare victory, those days are finished. The world is far too complex and it's far too expensive to fight wars of this nature. This is why the Iran conflict will fail. because we can't afford to fight the war that's necessary, and the war that's necessary doesn't accomplish anything except create additional problems. The United States, I think, is making one of the greatest mistakes in modern history. We are an unmatched power. There is no nation on the face of the earth that has the power that the United States has. But we don't know how to use this power because we have people who believe that power is defined in military terms.

The fact of the matter is the United States is a leader in ideas. The United States is a leader in financing. The United States is the leader in executing big concepts. The Chinese are OK, but they're not as good as we are, although they build great high speed trains. I give them full credit for that. We have the potential. For instance, Russia is not a threat in my view. If I were the director of the CIA, I would be saying that rather than closing the door to Russia, we need to open the door to Russia. We need to open it as wide as possible. We need to flood American influencers into Russia under the guise of friendship. And it could be genuine friendship. I'm not saying it has to be disingenuous, but I would be seeking to undermine the kind of national identity that Vladimir Putin has engendered in here because that national identity creates a Russia that is problematic to American control of the world.

Remember, if I'm the director of the CIA, that means I believe in America controlling the world. The reason why I will never be the director of the CIA is because I believe America should live as an equal amongst the nations in the world. But if we're going to control the world, we need to stop using the military arm. We need to use the vectors of influence that we have, and we're throwing those away. The more we emphasize violence, the more we don't, if you don't use a muscle, it atrophies. And right now, America is a nation that only has military power, and we're not even good at that anymore. And we've lost the ability to win the battle of ideas. We've lost the ability to finance properly. China is a better financer of global infrastructure than the United States is. And this is why the United States will ultimately fail. Because at the end of the day, when we lose the wars that we're going to lose, we have nothing to fall back on and we will have been discredited in the eyes of the world and the world will be seeking other options.

But there is there was a period of time, a window of opportunity where and again, we need to be honest when there's a problem in the world today. Where does the world look for a solution? Be honest. The United States. The world always looks, or at least they previously looked to the United States for a solution because there was the belief that America could deliver. But today we've blown that. We no longer can deliver. There is no confidence in this. So even if Iran fell today, the next step is what? America doesn't have the ability. If Iran falls, America doesn't have the ability to step in and fix the problem because we don't have those skill sets anymore. We don't have diplomacy. We're defunding the State Department as we spend $200 billion to fund a war we're losing. We should be expanding the State Department. We should be expanding academic outreach. We should have American students flooding the world and going to universities around the world to bring, you know, Because what you have to do, it's like advertisement.

You know, you put the American students out there. The American students say, I'm from America. They show a good face. And then the people there say, oh, America, good people, good ideas. And when the time comes, they say, America, we need your help. That's soft power. And that's what we don't do nowadays. So it doesn't matter what happens in Iran. We got fooled into Venezuela. Venezuela was a unique, one of a kind opportunity that will never replicate itself again. It was about a society that never matured, a society that always maintained a social economic sector beholden to the United States financially. And the CIA went in there and bought every single person. Every single person was bought ahead of time. So we went in, kidnapped Maduro, and we owned the country because we had bought. But that was an intelligence operation that can't be replicated elsewhere. It's not going to be replicated in Cuba.

Cuba is not Venezuela. And we certainly didn't replicate it in Iran. And so I think what we're looking at right now is a superpower in decline that is not clever enough to use the tools available to it to manage this decline. If America was smart, we would seek to retract our size in the world today to that which we're capable of doing to learn to live in harmony with other nations and then exploit the soft power advantages that we have to be the leader the leader isn't the person around the table that pounds the table and says i am in charge if you saw game of thrones you remember the scene where joffrey is yelling at the m i am king i am king and his father says any man that has to say he is king is not king And here is America saying, I'm the biggest. I'm the baddest. I am America. If America has to say, I am the biggest and I am the baddest, we're not the power we think we are. The power is the nation that sits at the table quietly.

And when people put the problem on the table, all eyes turn to that power and say, what's your idea? What's your concept? and America has foregone that opportunity. People don't look to us for solutions anymore because we don't have any solutions other than violence, and violence doesn't solve anything.

Additionally, I would say this. Now, there's a famous quote. You will forgive me if I get it wrong, but I'll get it close enough that I can make my point. There's a famous quote where someone was asked or said or wrote, what are the three things that you need to win a war? And he said, Industry, military, and unity of the people. And when asked, if you only had to choose one, which one would it be? And he said, unity of the people. There's a famous book, General Giop. General Giop was the general who directed the North Vietnamese forces who defeated the French and threw them out. And if you read that book, one of the things that he talks about was providing even Even during the conflict, providing for the people as best they could and also providing a vision so that when the conflict was completed, when victory was finally brought about, that the people would have an expectation that things would be better for them and their children.

keeping the people on board, making the people partners in this, and making the people want victory because they felt that there was a moral and righteous cause and because they felt that it would benefit them in the long run. That's the problem the United States is running into now, amongst many other problems but one of those. Right now there's a conflict that the people didn't vote for, don't want, and materially it's affecting them in a negative way. there is no way that that can continue without massive unrest so i think that the issue of whether iran wins or lose at this point i think it's fairly obvious that iran will not lose in any way that the United States leadership at this point would want. But they have failed the American people in both representing them and in acting in their best interest, and probably most importantly, providing a righteous and moral cause and a vision for a future that will make their lives better if they would be victorious.

And so I think that at this point, the US is losing Most importantly, at home, even more so than abroad.

Well, I think when Scott says, logically saying about soft power, unfortunately, that is the reality. No other hegemonic country in this system never left without using the software. He was trying to... to put the wars, Holland, in the end of the 17th century, feeling that they're out of power, they started to make three wars. With England, they lost. The same with the United Kingdom, the failing hegemony state after the recession in 1896. What the UK is doing? They are provoking and making World War I. And as a result, It draws the line under the UK empire, and there is no other way that the US will use this way. But frankly speaking, the way the United States is falling, there are rules of game. There is a famous game, the Chinese game. It is called as Go, and there is an option. You can limit the action of your enemy. So no matter, once again, no matter how the world will end with Iran, one thing for the last decade the United States did in the China press, that meaning one path, one belt, one way, it is passed away.

The action of United States in all of the regions, I mean, in Iran, they will not easily well deal with Iran. They will not pay or corrupt as it was done in Venezuela under the Maduro regime. It is the Shiite country. There are some other things happening. In any case, one line, I mean, to limit the action, yes, they have it. So that concept, one path, one way, got ended. And it was very well functioned in Europe. So it also blocked China to use their actions in Europe. Yes, there can be the simultaneous actions against the United States. But nevertheless, you can make up the situation. When this breath, you can limit. Well, now I have two questions. Sorry.

was following the first one.

The first question is, should the countries like Iran be contained? And if yes, can be contained without any military force? That's the first question. And the second one, which was my original, regarding media, what role do you think media plays currently Considering the increasing polarization of the world, do you see that this could be the additional risk of long-term instability?

This is my second question.

Well, on Iran, I'll just start by asking the question, who has the right to contain Iran? I mean, to answer that question, how do you contain Iran, it sort of gives legitimacy to the concept of the necessity of containing Iran. Iran is a sovereign state. Iran is a signatory to the United Nations. The containment of Iran is done through international law, through the vehicle of the United Nations Charter. The containment of Iran is done through treaties that Iran has entered into with the international community. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Article 4 of which gives Iran the right to have full access to the full fuel cycle, to have nuclear power for peaceful purposes as long as they open up their facilities for safeguard inspections. Iran has never shown itself to be a nation that needs to be contained. The problem is that Iran is a nation of significant resources, energy resources, the monetary influence that comes right.

It's a big nation, 90 million people in a Gulf where you have a bunch of Gulf Arab states who are basically leftovers of British imperial power who serve as neocolonial outposts for the continuation of British and American power. It's a British and American power through these Gulf Arab states that needs to be contained, not Iran. Iran has done nothing wrong. Iran has done nothing other than reject having its sovereignty infringed upon by outside powers. 1953, Mossadegh, the legally elected prime minister, democratically elected prime minister, overthrown by a British American coup, replaced by a Shah who functioned as an American proxy until the Iranian people said no more. Nothing needs to be done to contain Iran other than allowing Iran to function as a sovereign nation in accordance with the same legal dynamic as the rest of the world. The charter of the United Nations, the treaties that they signed, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, that's the vehicle containment.

I just take umbers and I'm not picking on you because your question reflects a reality. But now you ask what is the role of the media? The fact that I have to answer your question by pointing out obvious things means that the media is not doing its job because the media is promulgating falsehoods, such as the necessity of containing Iran's peaceful nuclear program because Israel finds it offensive that Iran can enrich uranium. Why is there an exception? Why is there an Iranian exception to the enrichment of uranium? That's not international law. That's Israel imposing itself. The United States takes umbrage because the ally that we installed, Reza Shah Pilevi, is no longer in power. And we take umbrage that we can no longer control a nation state. So we find it that we have to define the Islamic Republic in a way that is continuously offensive to the American people. For instance, the American media's tendency to talk about Death to America.

47 years now, the Iranians have been shouting death to America. I've been to Iran. They've shouted death of America. It doesn't mean what they say it means. It's not death to me as an American. It's not death to my country. It's not death to my fellow citizens. It's death to the concept of American control of the Iranian government, the American influence through the Savaq, secret police. That's what they want to bring death to. And it's a rallying cry at a time when Iran was a nation at war. But the media has misrepresented this fact. the media takes note if I were to sit here and ask people who want to talk about the containment of Iran because they're an Islamic Republic and I asked people just to talk about who Ali is who Hassan is who Hussein is what is the Battle of Karbala what is 12 or factious and of the of the Shia faith Nobody knows because the mainstream media doesn't talk about these fundamental realities of the national identity of Iran.

The media has failed. The job of the media is to empower people with knowledge and information, fact-based knowledge and information. And when it comes to Iran, the media has failed across the board. It creates ignorance. And from that ignorance comes fear. And that fear empowers governments to do things like go to war with Iran when there was literally no justification whatsoever to go to war with Iran.

I would like to answer a few words on the mass media. Well, you see, it is really fascinating that the collapse of the Soviet Union passed away. It affected a lot of people in Europe. We call it mass information. Now it is mass media advertisement. You see, I started to read Western mass media in the end of the 70s, 1970s, and before the second part of the 90s, it was a very high level. What really happened next? It really decreased what I was reading at that time. Now I'm reading very heavy newspapers. Well, their level is degraded as well. It is Le Monde Diplomatique, number one. And the second one is New York Review on Books. Yes, they maintained the level. Financial Times, The Economist, you cannot read it for the last five years. It is like the Pravda, the truth new newspaper of the Soviet times. Yes, and comparing to the other newspapers, Le Figaro, the level, the intellectual level of journalism is decreased.

The second part of the 20th century, I mean, the US journalists of the extra class, top class, Hal Halberstam, a very exceptional author. Hendrik Smith, who wrote the article, The New Russians, but also The Absolute Power. This is the deep analysis of the four powers administrations of the United States. Politbyan, these are the journalism stars. Right now, for the last 10, 15 years, Not just the level of the journalism got decreased, but the journalism got turned into the mass media war. It's the contradiction of the Soviet Union and the West. There was some kind of the objective level. You need to hold that mark.

After 1991, it faded away. Regarding the media, I can't speak for the media outside of the United States, but I can name some names that you may have heard of. Judge Napolitano. When I met Judge Napolitano, it was in New York because he had a show on the mainstream media and I was a regular guest on the shows on the mainstream media. So he was on five nights a week and I was probably on three to four nights a week on Fox News, on mainstream media in the United States. Some other names you might have heard of, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern. These are people who are prominent now on the YouTube have been the internet shows. We are all people who were regular guests and many of us paid speakers on the mainstream media. And now we have all been forced. Rick Sanchez, CNN, had one of the top rated shows in the United States. We are all people who were prominent members of the mainstream media. But as the connection between US policy and the viewers of the media changed, people like us were no longer allowed or voluntarily, in my case, many of us voluntarily left the mainstream media because we were not allowed to say the things that we believed.

Look at this panel here. These are the types of panels that should be on the mainstream media, but instead we get just people who voice whatever they're told to voice. They're basically puppets for power. So I think what we have to look at now is in the same way that some of the traditional institutions, be it some of the international economic and financial infrastructure or the the United Nations, in the same way that these are losing their authority, losing their respect and beginning to collapse, and ultimately, I believe, will be reformed in other ways, I think the same thing is happening to the media. And I think it's important for those who don't know, who maybe watch YouTube shows or some of these people, to understand that these are all people that came from the mainstream media. Our message didn't change. the message that the mainstream media was allowed to project changed. And what we're seeing now is a natural and organic change in the structure of the media and the growth of people who traditionally were there.

We were there because that's what people wanted to hear. People wanted the truth, and they wanted people who were trying to be genuine. Now there is luckily, and fortunately for us, there is a space for us. And I would have to argue that this event is part of what we call the alternative media. Both people who are allowed to be here, who are fortunate enough to be here, and people who may be able to view this online in the future through watching the film of it. So I think the media has become something that people participate in much more. So it's been redefined. And I think that's much healthier.

Good afternoon, the experts. My question is to everybody. i will not just like ask scott or some other personally i would like to hear all four of you regarding their if it's possible to deliver a nuclear strike from the united states using israel or independently because yesterday there was fly um were detected some planes capable of nuclear capable planes and there are Another question is capability. So if it's possible or not? And if yes, so when?

Yes, it's possible. We have a nuclear triad that we've exercised. We have aircraft that are designed to deliver nuclear weapons. We have pilots trained to deliver nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons ready to be delivered. We can go to nuclear war anytime we want to. When? Hopefully never. I mean, hopefully sanity will prevail. Hopefully we collectively understand that the nuclear war is suicide. But we don't have the framework of treaty-based agreements that help solidify this notion. I mean, just real quick, I don't want to... The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 was one of the most important treaties that existed in the whole strategic arm framework because that treaty said you can't win a war. So therefore, a war should never be fought. But more importantly, there's no reason to try to defend yourself from a war. So no ballistic missile defense, mutually assured destruction. If anybody was stupid enough to go to nuclear war, they guaranteed their own death.

And then from that foundation, We had strategic arms limitation talks that turned into the INF Treaty, My Pride and Joy, where we actually got rid of an entire class of nuclear weapons. We, the Soviet Union, United States, making the world a safer place to live. This then turned into the START Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which had a good start until the Soviet Union collapsed. And then the United States started to believe that we were the sole remaining superpower on the face of the earth, that arms control could only be justified if it furthered American nuclear supremacy, superiority. One of the most telling aspects is when the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty, George W. Bush, and the government of Vladimir Putin said, hey, time out. If you withdraw from the ABM treaty and you start building ballistic missile defense, we may have to do things like put more multiple warheads on our missiles.

You know what the American response was? Do what you have to do. We don't care. You're Russia. You're weak. You don't matter. you're in that can do that led to Vladimir Putin continuing trying to remind the United States that the direct that what we were doing is destabilizing that Russia would eventually have to take action 2016 Vladimir Putin meets with American journalists and says you do understand the destabilization that's taking place here that if you don't reverse this we will have to do something the journalists ignored him in 2018 Vladimir Putin announces that Russia is building completely new categories of strategic nuclear weapons. Poseidon, avant-garde, Sarmat. And he said, are you listening now? And the answer is no. We withdrew from the INF Treaty and now we have allowed New Star to expire. This means we have Americans that don't believe in arms control because they believe that America has an inherent right for nuclear supremacy.

Our nuclear doctrine is premised on that. I say this and people don't Believe me, I guess, but you need to believe me. I was in Congress in the early December of 2024. And I talked to the most senior members of Congress about the briefing they received from the CIA. And that briefing said that the Biden administration is ready to fight and win a nuclear war against Russia right then and there. That means that we haven't learned anything. If we believe that we can fight and win a nuclear war against Russia, the nation with the most nuclear weapons, that means we believe we can fight and win a nuclear war against anybody, including Iran. So, yes, we can deliver nuclear weapons right now using not just aircraft. We can use anything. When? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Maybe next week. Maybe next month. But the point is, unless the American mindset changes, it's going to be sometime. And that's what nuclear anarchy brings to the table.

Nuclear anarchy means there will be a nuclear war. And if there's a nuclear war, it means we will all die because nobody will survive this. Every Pentagon exercise that starts with the premise of a limited nuclear war always ends with a full nuclear exchange. which is why we have to get back to basics. Nuclear wars cannot be won. Therefore, they should never be fought. And we come back to something we talked about. This is where Russia has to take a leadership role. America, I have to be careful what I say, because I said clearly that I will never criticize my president when I'm outside of the United States. The time for criticism as an American citizen is inside America. That's my role as a citizen outside of America. You know, I have to be guarded in what I have to say. But America is ruled by a man right now who has no appreciation of nuclear conflict. And as a result, doesn't have the inherent fear.

Every American president that was briefed on the Strategic Integrated Operational Plan, PSYOP, which later on became a different, the American nuclear war plan. John F. Kennedy, when he was briefed on it the first time, came out of the Pentagon and said, and we call ourselves the human race. He was shocked by what he was told. Lyndon Bain Johnson said, you have to give me options. You can't tell me that my only option is to destroy the world. Richard Nixon said, you want me to make a decision that's going to kill 80 million Americans. I can't do this. That is the rational response of a human being. And lately we have American presidents since the Cold War ended who say we can fight and win a war against Russia. That's insanity. Literally the definition of insanity. Russia needs to inject some reality into this discussion. We need arms control. We have to have arms control. And Russia has to impart on the United States the absolute necessity of arms control.

And we can only do that if we have stability. And so we have to bring it into the conflict in Iran. We have to bring it into the conflict in Ukraine. And we have to have the Russians and the Americans sitting down, taking a leadership role in redefining the necessity of nuclear weapons. There is no role in nuclear weapons today, no legitimate role. I know the Russians will say without nuclear weapons, the United States would seek to impose itself in Ukraine, perhaps. But Russia needs to also understand that it's a double-edged sword, that having nuclear weapons at a time when the Americans believe they can fight and win a nuclear war against Russia, it's not a defense, it's not deterrence, because you're not deterring us. We have to inject sanity into this process. And I pray that Russia finds a way to do it because, again, not to get too personal, but my daughter is giving birth next month.

I'm going to be a grandfather. First of all, I don't want to be a grandfather because it means I'm old. But that being said, how can I bring my granddaughter into this world I mean how what world am I bringing my granddaughter into and this is this is one of those fundamental points this is deeply personal to me because I was an arms controller I did this for a living and I failed I failed because the thing that I'm good at the thing that I was successful at is no longer being done And as a result, the skill set that I possess can no longer be used to help my granddaughter as she enters this world. So we have to do a better job. And this is why I'm in Russia. I mean, I keep having people say, why are you in Russia? Why are you going back to Russia? I just told you why. Because my daughter is giving birth to a granddaughter, my granddaughter, in April. And by coming to Russia, there's a chance to make the world a better place, a safer place, so that she can grow up into adulthood, and she can raise a family, and we can continue the cycle of humanity that has kept us all going since the beginning of time.

Thanks.

Thank you, Scott. Thank you for your very personal and comprehensive vision of the world politics. But I would like to dwell on some other issues in the cinema. Cinema is one of the directions of my research. Cinema also reflects so many functions as to making forecasts and making scenarios. We can give different examples on this. When a certain event is given in the cinema and then it happens in the practice. Well, the most famous one is about the movie that started the war in Yugoslavia. Then, also, the servant of the nation is one of the brightest examples. Then, when it comes up to the nuclear threat and the nuclear attacks, there is a very unique TV series. It is called Billions. It really goes deep into U.S. culture, literature, music, the confrontation of old money and Yemeni, and it really shows the U.S. power. I do recommend it has some suspension on this. So you should really watch it.

Well, in the last season of this TV series, there was a very close meeting somewhere in the woods. I mean, those deep state persons. So they're making decisions. Who's going to be the next US president? So the person wins is the candidate by answering the question, can you use nuclear weapons? So he says, yes, definitely yes. I'm ready to use nuclear weapons. The person by the surname Prince. this is why I'm telling you we're all human beings we don't want this scenario not to be fulfilled and realized and in the TV series these candidates didn't get the promotion so he didn't get that post of the president but the idea of what is really put into this tv series so those uh deep state authorities they do need those persons who are trying to promote this person this is one thing uh secondly everyone knows literature and we do know that the the check of uh phrases that said there is a gun on the wall once in a year it will shoot there are many examples on this well i cannot agree with scott that the answer the strike on the run would lead to the massive nuclear collapse the reason is that we're talking about the attack when the aggression is on nuclear state Iran is one of the states that is not considered as a nuclear state.

So if it has the weapons, yes, it's the choice. No one is giving the upper hand the support for Iran. Who's going to give the support? It is my personal view. Who's going to give the support, the hand, to Iran? among the nuclear states. Then using technical nuclear weapons, yes, it is widely spread and you do know the role of the debate issues. that it is being discussed. The capabilities of using tactical weapons, we've been explained by the experts, military experts. You can easily do this. This is not a big harm on this. With mathematical calculations, why do you think the United States will use this nuclear strike? Maybe it will be Israel who will do this first. And there goes another question. Now I remember expressions 2015 from the Syrian crisis when Kessinger said within 10 years there will be no Israel. These are the words by Kessinger. Can you imagine the situation that within this collapse, pause, In the Middle East, there is the objective to use finally to solve the issue with Israel in return against the nuclear strike.

There are so many options. What I can definitely agree with Scott is that tomorrow it can happen. In a month, we don't know for sure, but it is possible, unfortunately, when it comes up to the tactical weapons. I also have a question, if I may.

I understand what you're saying, that a nuclear strike by nuclear arm in the United States against the non-nuclear arm in Iran doesn't automatically trigger a war. You are familiar with Sergei Karaganov. Russian expert who talks to the president on occasion. He has advocated openly that Russia should use nuclear weapons preemptively against European nations as a way of demonstrating this. What has held it back is that the Russians have said, we will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. What happens if the United States drops nuclear weapons on Iran to resolve this problem? What does that do to Russian nuclear doctrine? Does Russian nuclear doctrine suddenly say it's okay for Russia to use its nuclear weapons preemptively against European powers in order to promote a solution? That's my fear, is that once you use nuclear weapons, the temptation will be for other nuclear powers to use nuclear weapons to solve problems as well and that can lead to the war.

Dear Scott, I will say it more than three times. Dear Scott, I can assure you that the opinion by Sergei Karaganov is not completely united by the Russian authority and the Russian public. Why not? seriously get into this to use the weapons. This is not normal when in the community people are seriously talking about the possibility of using nuclear strikes. Well, it gets down the degrees. Shall we get back to the cinema again? If it happens in the cinema, if there is a lot of violence in the cinema, so many murders, it degrades the values. The same thing goes with the nuclear weapons. The more we talk, the more we debate, the more we threaten, then we decrease that threshold, that fear. And this is extremely dangerous. I can definitely agree with you. We also have the expression that everything that has been said about communism, these were lies. But nevertheless, what was said about capitalism, it was true.

Within this, what the Soviet journalism said about nuclear threats, it is true. All these documentaries, documentary movies. This involvement is quite topical. It is quite true to draw the line that there is a limit. There is a limit to this, that you cannot use the nuclear weapons in any case. But nevertheless, the reckless politicians can use it. Yes, we have two last questions. Well, to answer your question, there was a sharp one. Can the United States use tactical nuclear weapons? Yes, they can. In what case? Can you imagine the situation if the war is prolonged in Iran? There is quite a few people who do not agree in Israel. People can go to prison, precisely Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States. There can be impeachment and the imprisonment of Trump. This is how Israel and the United States can use nuclear tactical weapons as the last resort,

as the last resort for the kings. I would add this. I think it's interesting that you brought up nuclear weapons in the context of the conflict with Iran because Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. But when you talk about nuclear weapons, we talk about deterrence, mutually assured destruction if both sides have it. In Iran's case, they have what could be considered a form of nuclear weapons, an economic nuclear potential that they can utilize that causes the United States to take pause. You know, there was a famous discussion about nuclear war, where others in here would probably be more familiar with it than me. But the question was about what would happen in nuclear war. And the quote came out, and the dead will envy the living. Because the people who die immediately, they're gone. But the people who live, they are going to suffer and starve or whatever the case may be. And Iran's effective nuclear potential is, yes, you can use nuclear weapons against me.

But I can then destroy all of the economically, financially needed structures in the region. I can take out all of the gas and the oil, and then your people will starve, and you will have famine, and you will have misery, and you will envy those of us who died in the nuclear weapons as you live in a horrible, deteriorating society that's put back in the Stone Age. So they do have. And the billionaires and the very, very wealthy people who are behind all of this, when the stock market completely crashes, they'll just be poor also. So it's an interesting time because the Iranians do have a very powerful strategic deterrence that is very effective, particularly against the United States and against these really wealthy people who are accustomed to being worth $400 billion who stand to lose all of it in an instant. if they use nuclear weapons. Now, I don't have the answer to this. And again, you would have to argue that the people who are making the decisions are acting rationally, and we don't know if that's true or not.

But I think it's effective looking forward to the issue of nuclear and strategic deterrence and deterring adversaries from using nuclear weapons, how countries who are not nuclear capable can use other potentials that they have to deter a larger, more powerful countries from attacking them and certainly from deterring nuclear capable countries from using those weapons against them.

Let me just say, because now we're getting into my specialty. Let me tell you the discussion that's taking place right now in the United States. Tulsi Gabbard, just the Director of National Intelligence, just gave a briefing to the United States Congress. In that briefing and in the discussions in Closed Door, she has made the case that Iran today has nuclear weapons potential, that Iran can rapidly turn this potential into a functioning nuclear weapon, and she has identified the location where she believes with high degree of probability this capability resides. It's in a location in Iran that can only be struck by an American nuclear weapon. There is no conventional military strike. So the United States, as we speak right now, is planning a nuclear attack on that facility. Now, when they do that, because of what Garland said, we can't just hit that facility because then Iran will turn out the lights.

So we will simultaneously strike that with another four or five command and control targets designed to totally eliminate Iran's ability to function as a nation state. We will attempt to decapitate their leadership in a decisive blow. So we're talking about a nuclear strike of less than 10 nuclear weapons. This is happening right now. This isn't fiction. This isn't a movie. This is reality right now. As we speak, the United States is planning a nuclear strike against Iran. It doesn't mean we're going to do it. But when the director of national intelligence tells Congress and tells the American people that Iran has nuclear weapons potential in a given location that can only be neutralized with the nuclear weapon, the scenario writes itself. It becomes a Hollywood script. This is why I'm scared to death, because we have insane people thinking this is a solution. when that potential that we speak of steve whitkoff sat down with iraqi the foreign minister and the very first thing iraqi said is we have 450 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 60 percent and whitkoff's take was you're threatening us with nuclear weapons what a stupid take what iraqi said is the same material that the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed we possessed before you bombed us in June.

We have today. We have done nothing to it. We have not sought additional enrichment. We have not sought to progress the program. We have not sought anything and we're ready to give it up. This is where I hope Russia can come in because there is a nuclear deal that was negotiated that would have closed the door on any potential of Iran having a nuclear weapon. That deal was ready to be signed when the United States and Israel bombed Iran. If we can get back to that deal, we can eliminate this insanity, this insanity that's taking place right now, where we have people saying Iran can produce a nuclear weapon. Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but we know Iran was willing three weeks ago, four weeks ago, to give it all up. How can we get back to that situation? How can we get back to that starting point? That's really, to me, the fundamental question. Because if we don't answer this question, we have people in the United States right now preparing a nuclear strike on Iran that can happen tomorrow, next week, next month.

We don't know, but it could happen. And when that happens, again, once we start using nuclear weapons in the age of nuclear anarchy, because that's the age we currently reside in, I believe that the temptation for other nations to use nuclear weapons to solve their strategic problems will be manifest. And then eventually we'll get into a scenario where the missiles start flying and my granddaughter won't be here.

Good evening, dear friends. So very glad to see you here in this room for the first time. So I have a very huge question. What we are now, I see now, is just like sort of expansion of the campaign, military campaign, attrition campaign, I won't say. President Trump made three steps, very clear steps, expansion to Central America, Latin America, to the Middle East, Yeah, a little bit to the arctics. It's sort of for expansion of East India campaign. So the fights for the resources for the key regions So Middle East, so it's oil, Arctic is uncalculated resources, stockpiles of resources. And Latin America for them is very strategically important region. So where will America succeed, have success, I mean, in capturing region, in taking it over, where will have success? Thank you.

Real quick, have you heard that story, the emperor has no clothes? You familiar with that story? The one where the emperor is running around trying to convince people that he's the best dressed person in the world and his entire kingdom, because they're afraid of the emperor, says, my God, you're a beautiful man. Those clothes are good, but he's buck naked, buck naked. And finally a kid comes out and goes, you have no clothes, you're naked. And that's the reality. The United States has just been exposed as an emperor with no clothes. There's no way we should lose a war with Iran. We're losing a war with Iran. We're losing a war with Iran because it's turned out that everything we thought we could do, we can't do. We spend so much money on defense, but we buy weapons that are extremely expensive. And then we build a mechanism of warfare that's dependent upon these expensive weapons. And when we deplete these expensive weapons, we're left with nothing.

And this is what Iran exposed. Who's going to be afraid of us in the future in a non-nuclear environment? We'll never be able to recover from this. Our defense industry is not the Russian defense industry. We don't have a Vodkinsk. We don't have plants that are producing munitions at a war level capacity. The United States has plants that produce peacetime levels of munitions. Very expensive. And we can't expand this. And we've used all these weapons in Iran. So when you speak of America expanding, unless we can bribe our way into a country like we did with Venezuela, America is going to have to fight our way in. And we can't do that anymore. The emperor has no clothes. So I'm not worried about the United States going into the Arctic with what? First of all, if it gets cold there, we don't have any icebreakers. We'd have to ask the Russians to help us out. And so, you know, Russia would have to help us invade the Arctic.

I don't think that's going to happen. central america cuba what are we going to put marines across the beach we can do that but then marines are going to die in high numbers american people won't accept this iran has shown that the american emperor has no clothes which is why this is the issue that needs to trigger a comprehensive reset i think you spoke earlier about the need to go to zero you know if we're going to rebuild this is the moment It's time to bring America to zero in terms of the nonsense that we can impose our will on other nations through military force alone. Iran has proven the lie to that. The emperor has no clothes.

A very important statement was made by the CEO of German's powerful industrial corporation Rheinmetall within the last week. And what the president of this corporation said is that if this conflict in Iran goes on, it was either 30 days or 60 days, all of the countries in the West, all of Europe and the United States, The statement was the cupboards will be bare. They will be out of weapons. What does that mean? Even if Europe gives Ukraine 90 billion dollars, 90 trillion dollars, it won't matter. There will be nowhere that they can buy weapons. So the issues in Iran, if this continues, will be that Iran will still have weapons and the United States won't. And the United States knows that. Ukraine, within a month or two, by the time summer gets here, they will not be able to replenish their weapons. Stop. We see the United States now going to South Korea, going around the world everywhere they can to get air defense, to get anything they can, because they're running short.

They did not plan for a war of attrition, and they're industrially incapable of executing a war of attrition. So can the United States win? I don't think that's the issue now. The issue is we are at a point where the United States is going to face military desperation here very shortly, both in Iran. and obviously in Ukraine, and I think, again, we'll go back to what Scott's saying, knowing that it is as dangerous as it appears to be, it is also an opportunity for the Russian leadership to provide an off-ramp. Because we all know, we read, there are a lot of bragging and bluster from President Trump, But we also keep reading in the American press that he wants out. He's looking for a way out. Yes, he brags and he threatens, but he also wants out. So that was a great question because it takes us back to a level of military and industrialization. a desperation for the U.S., that presents an opportunity if the, hopefully, the Russian leadership can approach that in a way that provides both an off-ramp and a road back to some level of international stability.

So that means there is no way without Russia?

So there is no way without Russia?

So do something. Dear American, yes, I would like to congratulate you first and foremost to the 250th anniversary of your country. And it's been a meteoric rise to where you are in the world. I would say it's a critical point for the future of the United States because you're moving from adolescence or young adulthood to maturity and let it be a smooth sailing. I have a question about American society, because you're very close to it. You live there, and you also communicate with American society, with American people all the time. There are some assertions that American society is as polarized right now as it has ever been, let's say now all the time, since the Vietnam War. There are also assertions, and it could be political, social, economic levels. There are also assertions that it's not sustainable, it's very threatening, and if you slap the On top of it, economic roles,

and you mentioned today the literary price in cost of living, and it's hard to hold two good jobs just to make ends meet,

and that's valid for a lot of people. You as Americans living there, breathing there, and your children growing up there, and your grandchild coming up, obviously you probably feel very uncomfortable about it.

And I'd like to hear your comments, and maybe with my friends as well.

where it's gonna take us. And it's not just a question out of curiosity,

because whatever happens in the states affects the whole world. It is one of those. Thank you. You know, when the Constitution Convention was going on in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was staying at a home of one of the elite Philadelphia, and the wife was a socialite there. And Franklin came in after the final day of debate, and she said, so, Professor, What kind of country do we have? And he said, a republic, if we can keep it. But it's not, you know, we created something, but it's not automatic. It requires work. When you start a document, a founding document that says we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, that means that, first of all, the responsibility is we, the people. And when you say a more perfect union, the implication is we don't have a perfect union. We need a more. So it's a work in progress. The Constitutional Republic is a living, breathing thing.

It's a work in progress, and it requires we the people to be engaged in this. This is why Madison's Federalist Ten is so important. It speaks of the danger of factionalism. Factions exist. There is always going to be people who believe in something very powerful, very personally, and they inject emotions into this. So they create a faction. If you allow factions to go unconstrained, then you get literally the law of the jungle. The purpose of the Constitution is to create a framework of laws that are governed by concepts of checks and balances between three separate but equal branches of government. I'm sorry for the American civics lesson, but it's important to understand this to answer your question. And again, Federalist 51 speaks of the importance of the separation of powers. Where is America today? Let's just be honest here for a second. The average American has no clue what I just said.

They don't understand it at all. They don't know what Federalist 10 is. They don't know what Federalist 51 is. They will have time telling you who James Madison is, who wrote both of those. They know there's a Constitution, but they don't understand the role that the Constitution plays and what their obligations are to this Constitution. The American people are asleep at the wheel. And because we don't respect the Constitution, we're falling victims to the very factionalism that the founding fathers warned us about. You know, if you don't have checks and balances, Federalist 51 makes the outcome quite clear, tyranny. If we don't have a Constitution that creates checks and balances in governments, we will get an executive that absorbs all power to itself. That's what exists in America today. We have a president who said that the Supreme Court doesn't matter. The Supreme Court has passed findings that he disagrees with, and he says it doesn't matter.

I will do what I want to do. There goes checks and balances of the judiciary. The president went to war in Iran without seeking congressional approval. And the Congress decided that the president doesn't need to seek approval. He can do anything he wants. There goes congressional checks and balances. And it's gotten to the point where the president, a sitting president of the United States, could go to Davos in front of the entire world and say, I am a dictator. And nobody did anything about it, especially here at home, where those words can never come out of the mouth of a president. Today, we're a nation that's defined. You know, George Washington warned us about political parties. He said, don't do it. But at least political parties have built into their reason for being the Constitution. Today, we have movements. We don't have parties. We have MAGA, Make America Great Again Movement. that says this is what I voted for.

And they point to the president. So what they say is this is what I voted for. I voted for a man who doesn't believe in constitutional rules. I voted for a man who says the Constitution is not only not necessary for America, but that America functions better without it. As the president said, I am not controlled by any law. No law applies to me, only my sense of moral authority. And when you take a look at what Rick said earlier, that's problematic. So where's American society today? Lost, adrift, ignorant, dangerously so. We are a nation of sheep. No, I'm not going to use that. We're a nation of cats, kittens. You know how kittens react when you put a laser beam on the wall? You ever done that? Shine a laser beam, the cat chases it. That's what we are today. We're a nation of cats. Herding cats means you can't hurt it. We are people that can be distracted, moved around at will by people wielding the laser.

The Constitution protects us from this laser, but we no longer believe in the Constitution. And when the people of the United States, we the people stop doing what is necessary for citizenship, empowering ourselves with knowledge and information, holding our elected representatives accountable for what they do in our name, then we aren't the United States of America. So get used, you know, stop calling us Americans. American means something. America means that I believe in the Constitution. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in checks and balances. I believe that I have a role to play in the creation of a more perfect union, that this is very much a work in progress, that America may not be the best nation in the world, but we have the potential to be one of the greatest nations in the world, one of the greatest nations in history. That's what an American is. We don't have a nation of Americans anymore.

We have a nation of people who have surrendered to the whim of the faction, who've allowed a man to declare himself dictator, independent of the rule of law. And that's where American society is. And I don't know how we wake them up. This is one of the biggest problems that I have because I feel like I'm shouting into an empty room. I say this to people and they don't understand. Again, if you immigrate to the United States, and you become a citizen, you have to take a test on the Constitution and pass it. The average immigrant is more knowledgeable about the Constitution of the United States than an American citizen born in the nation. And that just speaks volumes. Anyways, I'm sorry to get emotional, but this is very difficult for me because I love my country.

I'm going to make some positive statements here because I think there is potential for something positive as a result of the Donald Trump victory. Here's why. I know people in the United States who look like me, they have my color skin, and they have a particular view of politics. And people that I know that said, I don't like Donald Trump, and I don't think he likes me. I don't think he likes people who look like me. I think a lot of people that are voting for Donald Trump don't like people that look like me. And I said, well, who are you voting for? Donald Trump. People who didn't like him and thought he didn't like them, who voted for Donald Trump. Why? because they knew what they wanted. Well, why are you voting for Donald Trump? You don't like him. Oh, it has nothing to do with that. He said he's not going to start any new wars. And he's saying, well, America first, they're going to stop spending all of that money overseas and they're going to bring the money home.

Now, of course, they didn't get it. Fair enough. But I think it's very positive because it shows that people who have disagreements about politics, different understanding of politics, all know what they want. and they're willing to overlook their differences if they feel that the ultimate outcome that they can achieve is there, it's available. I think that's very healthy and it's politically positive. So though people may be angered and dismayed that they didn't get it, it still shows that if the opportunity arises, that the American people have the ability to come together and make rational decisions if they see that the opportunity is there. that they're smarter than those who try to keep us separated based on any number of things be they're our religion or our race or background or whatever they try to keep the masses of working-class people separated that ultimately the masses of working-class people have the ability in the united states to come together and make decisions in their best interest and that's what happened now they learned a very painful lesson about american politics but hopefully i believe in potentially that creates an opportunity where rather than recoil in horror and anger and walk away that if the opportunity is presented to them to go down that path and to achieve that that we can because we'll be unified as a nation um to achieve those goals so i think we can take some positivity away

from that garland can i ask a follow-on question i hear what you're saying and i don't disagree with you the fact is i agree with you but you're only making my point If the American people are voting for a president to keep us out of war, when the Constitution says that the war powers authority solely resides with Congress, aren't we making the wrong decision point? it's not the president's choice to lead the nation to war it's congress so if you're voting for a president to keep us out of war you're missing the point and the same thing i'm voting for a president who's going to control monet money congress has sole control of the budget sole control of the money so if you're voting for a president to do that that means that right off the bat the american people are voting for a dictator voting for a tyrant voting for an emperor and that's what they got And if they don't change their outlook, even if they feel disappointed in Trump, what you're saying is they're going to vote for a new dictator.

Because the American people have to believe in the Constitution if we're going to function as a constitutional republic. And what you said proves my point, I think. The American people don't know what a constitutional republic is anymore. And we're trying to find a dictator. And we get back to... Federalist 51, and the dangers of operating without checks and balances, it automatically leads to tyranny. And we replace what might be an inefficient form of government, but at least it has checks and balances, to the efficiency of tyranny, the temptation of tyranny. And that's what I hear what you're saying, though. I understand. But I don't find anything positive in that. I find that to be deeply depressing, that we seek to replace one tyrant with another.

I think that the important thing to take from what you're saying is this, and that is that view of politics can't only be applied to the presidency. Because in the United States, what's also important is this, because we have the so-called what used to be the separation of powers, right? And so the Congress was supposed to make sure that the president did the right thing. Since our president, our executive branch, not just the president, made a decision to go to war outside of the standards of the Constitution, the requirements of the Constitution, that would mean that the Congress now is duty bound to address that, to say to the president, you didn't do that right. And we have to take action, which the Congress is not doing, which means that people will then have to apply the standards that they're applying to the president to members of Congress. Now, whether or not that will happen, I don't know.

But I'm just saying, we did see that people have the capability to overlook these things. So we know the potential is there. I can't guarantee that it will happen. But we know that the potential exists for people to make those kinds of decisions at various levels, not just the presidency.

I believe the potential existing, but when Congress ceases to function and ceases to matter, who cares who you vote for? You only vote for the president. Ain't a real firefighter.

I would like to ask Deb the series of the quick questions. As a specialist in Latin America, last time we discussed Venezuela. Cuba, what will happen with Cuba? Don't you think that this policy of suffocating plus genocide, so many parallel issues as to destroying, demolishing the state and its population. What will happen next?

Nothing. I think the United States is a naked emperor. We don't have the power to go into Cuba. I don't think the CIA can bribe the Cubans the way they bribed Venezuela. And the United States is not ready to put 150,000 Marines across the shore to fight our way into Havana, which is what it would take. We don't have any more ammunition because of what we did in Iran. So it would require my Marines to go across the shore. We could do it. And I mean, if we're ordered to do it, we will do it. But fortunately, we have an American public that's not ready to receive 10,000 body bags, because that's what it would cost. The Cuban people would fight, and they would fight tooth and nail. And it wouldn't be easy. And this president no longer has the political capital to do that. I think right now with Cuba, it's a big bluff. I'm sort of happy that Russia's sending a tanker to Cuba to solve their energy issues.

I wish Russia would do more of that. because the emperor has no clothes we're not going to go to war in cuba that's my

opinion we're not going to go to war in cuba well i think what happens in cuba is inextricably linked to the crisis in the middle east particularly because of the american people getting angry upset about the direction of foreign policy and i think that a lot of americans what's happening now is this a lot of americans did not connect foreign policy to domestic policy, traditionally. They just said, oh, I don't know what they're doing overseas. You would be surprised how little Americans traditionally know about US foreign policy and what they know. We have a joke in the United States that if you don't watch the mainstream news, you're uninformed. And if you watch the mainstream news, you're misinformed, right? So most people either didn't know anything about American foreign policy or what they knew was incorrect. And the questions, people like Scott and I and the people that you probably know, the Larry Johnsons and the Judge Napolitano's who are involved in this, we're often surprised when friends and family members come and ask us questions that are so far removed from reality that it's difficult to answer them i think one of the things that's happening now particularly with the decisions that are being made directly within days changing the um the price of gas inflation and and and living standards of the people is finally the american people are able to connect foreign policy to domestic policy and their day-to-day living standards And I think that Americans now will become more informed and will be more concerned about anything that the United States government does overseas because they'll be asking the question, Well, how's that going to affect me?

What's in it for me? How's that going to hurt me? Don't make any moves. Sudden move. So I think that, yes, the Iran conflict has finally connected the economic views of the Americans to U.S. imperialism, imperial foreign policy. Well, I suggest that we should give a really big applause to our experts.

Many big thanks.

Thank you very much.