Пересказ: Ask the Inspector with Scott Ritter Ep. 300

For more information visit www.fema.org For more information visit www.fema.org And that long delay where we just had the background showing was because we aren't connecting to X. And I was trying to solve that problem and so far not successful. So Ryan is working on that now. And Ryan if you can hear me if you're not able to get it going on X maybe you can post something on Scott's page and the US Tour of Duty page directing people to go to Rumble or some such thing. What a shame for our 300th episode we're not on X. Hi Scott. Why is the flower episode? Well you know like when it's an anniversary or something. You want flowers? I thought you like wine. Oh alright. You talked me into it. I thought I would mix it up a little bit. Well I mean I mean I you know I'm already snake bit on flowers. I've been married 34 years and I found out that Siri doesn't like cut flowers. I got her flowers for Happy International Women's Day and she's like thanks but no. Stop killing flowers on my behalf. So I wasn't going to send you cut flowers but then I'm like I can't. I can't kill flowers anymore. The whole universe is out of order. You think the wife would want the flowers and you think I would want the wine. I don't blame you for being confused. But instead I'm the one whining. So. All right. Speaking of which. Our guest tomorrow on the whiners is our good friend Matt Ho. So he'll be giving us an update on the Iran war and such things. So check it out. Hopefully we'll have the X thing fixed by then. In fact hopefully we'll have it fixed by tonight.

Anyway Scott. We have one more episode after this before you leave for Russia. As the U.S. tour of duty ambassador to Russia. Looking forward to the trip. I am. To be honest I've been really busy and haven't had a chance to wrap my head around it. But I think the closer it gets the more it becomes real. I mean right now it's sort of this theoretical thing. And I've got every day is just full of stuff to do. But there's a lot of really cool projects. And one in particular that I hope we get to hit out of the park. When I come back I'll tell a funny story about it. I almost made a colossal mistake. I mean the kind of life ending mistake. So fortunately my quality control people quality controlled it. And we caught it before it became fatal. But just to show you this. What a tease that is. What a tease. I can't imagine. My God what could you have done. Trust me. Apparently the worst thing in the world. All right. I look forward to hearing that story when it is right. You know see I don't believe in the ugly American.

I mean I know it's true. We are ugly. But I believe in the sort of ignorant American. The happy-go-lucky guy that's just sort of floating through the world and thinking he's doing the right thing. Oblivious to the fact that maybe he's doing the wrong thing. And this would have been the ignorant American. This would have been the epitome of the ignorant American. I mean it was. But it's pretty funny. Well whenever I hear that phrase. Humor too. So they were like you're still welcome to come. But. Oh goodness. All right. I can't wait to hear what this is. When I hear that phrase the ugly American. I can't help but think back to my hidden camera days. I was doing a bunch of hidden camera shows. And we were pitching a show to the networks called The Ugly American starring me. And the idea was to send me around the world being you know an ugly American. But then 9-11 happened. And suddenly it didn't seem like that would be so funny anymore. Yeah you would have been the ugly dead American. Yeah. Now I'm America's sweetheart. And that's not working out so well either. All right.

Should we get to the questions from our beloved audience? Sure. All right. We're stuck at 20. Sorry to step on you with the intro there. Yeah because we're not on X. Oh. Well there you go. Well for the 21 people watching. We'll do our best. Okay. It's not what we want. But it's also not fatal in the sense that we can certainly put the recording up later. But we just don't have a live audience on X. And as I said I think Ryan hopefully will post. Give me a little thumbs up Ryan. Do you hear me? If we can't get X going you put a post there to direct people to rumble and so forth. Okay. Oh no. We're down to 20. We lost one. Rumble doesn't show up in that total that you're looking at. Alright so last week we I asked you about the Pick Your City audio clip and we had a question from M. McGee. I don't know if that's a he or a she. And I replied to him or her with a link to last week saying well we already brought this up. And then he or she replied to my reply saying well you know what it would be really more effective if we could see the video. And so if you approve Scott I will show that video. Would that be alright with you? Sure. I'm younger more handsome.

Okay well I don't know about more handsome. You're like Joe DiMaggio. You're very sophisticated as you get older. Remember people used to say that about him as he got older? Maybe you don't remember that. I don't remember. I just don't remember Joe DiMaggio. The nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Yeah. Right. All right this is from 2006 with your old friend Cy Hirsch at the New York Ethical Society televised by C-SPAN 2. It was a big venue as I recall right? Six, seven hundred people I think were there. Yeah. Okay. It's a really lousy world we're leaving for our children and grandchildren. I'll say this about nuclear weapons. You know I'm not sitting at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'm not in on the planning. I'll take it at face value that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Chiefs of Staff successfully eliminated nuclear weapons in the initial phase of an operation. But keep in mind this, that the Bush administration has built a new generation of nuclear weapons that we call usable nukes. And they have a nuclear posture now which permits the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment if the Commander-in-Chief deems U.S. forces to be at significant risk. If we start bombing Iran, I'm telling you right now it's not going to work, we're not going to achieve decapitation, regime change, all that. What will happen is the Iranians will respond, and we will feel the pain instantaneously, which will prompt the Bush administration to move to phase two, which will have to be boots on the ground. And we will put boots on the ground. We will surge a number of divisions in, probably through Azerbaijan, down the Caspian Sea coast, in an effort to push the regime over.

And when they don't push over, we now have 40,000 troops trapped. We have now reached the definition of significant numbers of U.S. troops in harm's way, and there is no reserve to pull them out. There's no more cavalry to come riding to the rescue. And at that point in time, my concern is that we will use nuclear weapons to break the backbone of Iranian resistance. And it may not work, but what it will do is this, it will unleash the nuclear genie. And so for all those Americans out there tonight who say, you know what, taking on Iran is a good thing. I just told you, if we take on Iran, we're going to use nuclear weapons. And if we use nuclear weapons, the genie ain't going back in the bottle until an American city is taken out by an Islamic weapon in retaliation. So tell me, you want to go to war with Iran? Pick your city. Pick your city. Tell me which one you want gone. Seattle? L.A.? Boston? New York? Miami? Pick one, because at least one's going. And that's something we should all think about before we march down this path of insanity that George Bush has his head on. Look at our favorite weapons, Inspector. Who's that angry young man? That angry young man, I tell you. Well, you certainly did look younger then. I would say almost like a baby faced. And the thing that struck me is that at that point, you had already been very well established and been around for years. It's not so much that you look old now. You're just really young. War does me well. I mean, I need more conflict. I need, you know, confrontation. I'm like, you know, I need to soak in the blood of my enemies and then I get a very young face. But now I'm peaceful.

I'm going for peace and I'm all leathery and gaunt. Leathery. All right. And still almost no gray. Almost no gray. Almost. Yes. I'm working on it, though. Trust me. I'm working on it. All right. You can get a U.S. Tour of Duty hat if it becomes a little too gray. All right. Let's continue with our questions. Next one is from Florian Giannain in Tournai, Belgium. USA propaganda claims there are only eight dead when it's clearly a lie. Many families won't hear any more about their related soldiers while the USA makes them believe he or she are still alive to cover the losses, ignoring them and using bureaucratic silence and abusive delays to reject their right to know the truth. How will things end up? I know I'm not supposed to read the comments, but the guy says, I look more army than Marines. Ban him immediately. Ban him immediately. I'm joking. Don't ban him. But my God, man, what an insult. I mean, you could say just about anything, but not that looks more army than Marines. Boy, that's just based on my question for that person would be based on what? When you're long hair, long hair. He's making fun of the fact that back then, 20 years ago, I was in my hippie mode and I had long hair. Oh, OK. Well, I almost I almost went ponytail on it. I think I could have gotten a little bit in the tuft and might have been able to put a rubber band around that little ponytail. But then I. That's long.

That's going to be a long hair. I see your ears completely. Yeah, but I mean, still, it's long. Look at it. I look very bushy. All right. I guess it's all it's all relative, I guess. I forgot to get a haircut before that event. It's a bit of haircuts. I think I have to get one before I go to Russia. So so I don't look like a hippie there. Anyways, back to the question, which was. I'm sorry. I hit the button at the wrong time. Go ahead. That's OK. The question. Oh, back up there. Boom. Got eight dead. I hate to disappoint the people, but I think eight dead is eight dead. The only time that we're legally allowed to cover up these numbers is if we're dealing with covert operations, special operations forces, deniable forces. But under law, these guys have to be reported and we're not covering up the dead. What what you guys tend to forget that the Iranians aren't trying to kill Americans. If they were, we'd have a lot more dead. If you look at the targets they're hitting, they're hitting radars, communication domes, critical infrastructure. They're not hitting barracks facilities. They're not trying to live. They got a drone that hit a bunker. Apparently, there are a lot of guys in that bunker and a lot of people. It could have been a higher death toll. There's a whole bunch of guys wounded in that. But that I, you know, I just don't think the Ukrainians, the Iranians are out to kill people. I don't think they're out to kill Israelis, too. I, you know, they're blowing up critical infrastructure. They're blowing up, you know, targets that have many, all this stuff about, oh, they're cluster bombing us to death. If they were, there'd be more dead civilians. But I think Israel's lost 13 people. I mean, I'm sorry for the 13. I'm sorry for the eight. But this, you know, we've killed 1,200 Iranians. So, you know, one side's gunning for people. The other side's not. And by law, they have to report these casualties. You don't, I know people don't trust the U.S. government and all that kind of stuff. The one thing we sort of do take seriously is dead. And when we have a dead person, there is a legal obligation to report the casualty as soon as possible. You withhold the name until the family's notified. But unless you're serving in a classified unit, no, the government doesn't sit on this. Never has. Never has. There's no example in history of the government fabricating conventional debt, pretending that it didn't happen. If you're in a, like I said, a classified unit and your helicopter was gone where it shouldn't be, they'll delay that and have a training accident a week later in Florida, you know, because they have the deniability. But if you're a National Guardsman, which these people are out in the middle of nowhere and you die, the government reports a death. So all this notion that there's, you know, hundreds of American dead that haven't been reported. CIA may have lost some guys. They don't talk about it. You'll know when the new stars go up on the wall. But even DOD contractors, there's an obligation to report unless they're doing a classified job. So this idea that we're suppressing debt is, it just doesn't hold up. It doesn't hold water. And the reason is the Iranians just simply aren't trying to kill people. If they were, we'd have a lot more dead. And that speaks volumes about who they are.

Because even after we murdered 186 of their children, they still aren't gunning for, they're not looking for the casualties. They're looking for the effect. It's like a boy who cried wolf syndrome almost that's going on now in the sense that, you know, because the U.S. credibility has been so severely diminished, that opens the door for all kinds of crazy assumptions. And it just isn't true. I'm seeing, like, for example, all these accusations about Trump that are just unbelievably off the wall. And it's like, you know, just because he has killed his credibility, that doesn't mean we're going to buy every stupid accusation out there. Well, some of those accusations may come true. Some of them. Some of them. But I actually saw one today. It's this guy. It's something I'm going by memory. It was something like, it's obvious that every accusation against him is true. This is one post I saw. Obvious. Every one. I'll just stick to the obvious, like he's a dictator. He's, you know, he's leading a cult of personality and all that. But, you know, some of the other stuff. Yeah, I'm an evidence-based person. If you're going to tell me that something exists, then show me that something exists. And if it doesn't exist, then if it doesn't exist, you're not going to show it to me. It doesn't exist. Right. Yeah. It makes it less likely to ever hold them accountable because the people just sort of tune out when they sense that all this. Right. You're right. Because you're immune to it. I mean, I, you know, anyways, we have enough to worry about than to delve into, you know, fabricated information and conspiracy theory. All right. Next question is from Patty in the People's Republic of Cork. The Western media's coverage of the damage Iran is doing is minimal. Well, as America is looking for an off-ramp, can Iran negotiate a favorable situation in the Middle East, reducing American bases and maybe getting some deal to do with Gaza and maybe unite the Middle East in some Arabian peace agreement? I mean, Iran's already put out their conditions, which include the United States leaving the Middle East. We'll see. I mean, you know, first you got to get the United States to, you know, to say we quit, you know, and then you have to have the United States be told you don't get to quit because you started this, you know, and sorry, Iran's just not going to stop firing at you. And then the United States will escalate in an effort to intimidate, and that won't work. And the United States will pick up the phone, call the Russians and say, let's make a deal. And then we'll betray Ukraine and Russia will get everything they want in Ukraine.

And Russia will turn to the Iranians and the Iranians will cut a deal where the United States will say, you know, I mean, what I envision happening, to be honest, is that sometime in a couple of weeks, Donald Trump's going to say, I have brought the war to Ukraine in an end. And I have brought the war with Iran to an end. I am the greatest peacemaker that never walked the face of the earth. I alone brought these to an end. I have achieved glory and greatness. I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize right now. Print up a second one just for me. And the Russians will be like, cool, give him a peace prize. Meanwhile, because he is now the greatest peacemaker in the Middle East, he says there's no need for American troops in the Middle East because I, Donald Trump, have created peace. And therefore, our troops are leaving the Middle East. I am the ultimate. I promised you I would get out of the wars in the Middle East. I promised you. And here I have. It took a little. We had to convince them, you know, those pesky Iranians. And then we have a nuclear deal in the Russians. I think we're going to cut a nuclear deal for something, lifting the sanctions. And everything's good with Iran. We're all normal. And then the Chinese will jump in and try and broker rapprochement. Israel will be diminished. But I think we're leaving the Middle East. But Trump's going to turn it into a victory, that he's the greatest peacemaker in the world. And he'll combine it with the fact that he's cut the final deal with Ukraine. He got the Russians to do it. Now, people looking at the fine print will say, you gave in to every Russian demand. But that's the price of getting Russia to get Iran to agree for an off-ramp. I think that's the direction this is heading. Because Donald Trump is in a huge problem right now.

And so he's going to have to create the fiction that he's the greatest peacemaker in the world, that he actually has ended all wars in the Middle East. That's how this ends. With him declaring victory, I've ended all war in the Middle East. I am the best. And he'll leave. And the Iranians will, if they get the American forces out of the Middle East and things like that, they'll go for it. You know, but it's going to, it's not going to happen instantly. Because he's going to have to make, he's going to have to sell the Ukrainians down the river. And that isn't going to happen until we feel more economic pain. The more economic pain we feel, the worse off it gets for Ukraine. That's, that's a guarantee. We already see it. And Ukraine will just get stuffed. But then he'll say, I'm the greatest peacemaker that walked the earth. Two wars I ended. Two wars. Two, Jeff. Two. Two wars. Donald Trump ended. All by himself. So the gas prices are going up already. Are the prices in the stores going to go up too, since the price of fuel for all the goods that are driven there? If diesel goes up, prices in stores are going to go up. If diesel goes up way up, they will start running out of goods. Because there comes a point, there's a crossover point where it just, it doesn't make any sense to truck it. Because it's too expensive. And so truckers will stop trucking. And once the truckers stop trucking, nothing arrives. And then we'll see shortages of food. We'll see shortages of electronics. I don't think we're going to get to that point. I think, you know, when Trump realizes that he can't bluff his way out of this, that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. And when he talks about a boots on the ground opening operation, when the Joint Chiefs tell him it's going to take 80,000 Marines in six months. And that's six months before they can't even start it. And he's going, wait a minute. Then what about the Strait of Hormuz? Well, the price of gas, the price of oil is going to go up to $215 a barrel. Well, we can't afford that. I'm sorry, Mr. President, but we can't get 80,000 Marines there in less than six months. It's going to take 80,000 Marines. And even then, there's no guarantee. And when he gets that, in about three or four weeks, he's going to be calling Putin up, saying, please, we've got to do something here.

And Putin will cut a deal. There's no doubt in my mind. Putin will cut a deal because the Russians, they're entering year five of this war. And, you know, while they can continue to win, their economy isn't collapsing. But their economy was, I mean, there were a number of issues with the economy. Balancing a budget was a problem. Getting cash, there's a shortage of cash. A lot of worry that the Russians were going to have to go in and start seizing savings and things of that nature to generate the cash. But now, thanks to Donald Trump, the Indians have to be the dumbest people on the planet. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but I will. Because they stupidly listened to Donald Trump. And they went, yeah, yeah, we're going to cut down buying or purchasing that old Russian oil. We got some deals that we're allowed to do where they can swap the oil off ships off the coast and all that. But we're good, compliant Indians, buona, because, you know, they literally are just becoming subservient to the white man, Donald Trump. He is now their master. And Modi did what Donald Trump wanted him to do. And they stopped buying the Russian oil because they were going to get the oil from the Middle East. And they upped the contracts and everything.

And now the Strait of Hormuz is closed down. The Indians don't have any oil. They don't have any gas. And now the United States said, you can buy Russian oil again. And the Indians are like, hey, Russia, what's up, man? You know that commercial, sup? What's up? And Putin's like, what's up? And they're like, oil. And Putin goes, yeah, we can do oil. And they go, $23 discount. And Putin goes, fuck you, 81 bucks, man, you're paying full price. And the Indians are like, what? Yeah, full price. 81, you're paying spot price. And the Indians have no choice. And so Russia is getting these great, I mean, if this continues, Russia is going to balance its budget, pay off all their debt, have tremendous cash reserves. Their bank's going to be able to reduce inflation. All these things that people are going, high inflation, a problem for Putin. He's going to collapse. He's not going to collapse. But it is a problem. The Russians are sitting there going, when's this going to end? When's this war going to drag on forever and slowly strangle? The United States just lifted all the sanctions on oil. And Russia's in the driver's seat. Putin's sitting there canceling European contracts, going out there, scooping up all the Pacific, all the Asian contracts. Because all the Asian people that used to buy oil from the Middle East, they don't have any oil anymore. And Russia's getting, and that liquid natural gas that was flown, it's a beautiful picture of ships heading up the west coast of Africa. So I'm like pivoting and going away. And the Europeans are like, no, no, no. Like being on a stranded island, you know, and you see the ship. Rescue us. Rescue us. No, come back. And there goes the Russian gas.

Because Russia's done. And now Europe, I think the market now, the Europeans may have no choice but to go to Russia. And you see Ursula von der Leyen saying, we don't want to do this. We don't have any choice. There's no other energy supply out there. And they're saying there's like a 33% chance now that Europe's going to have to start buying Russian energy at full market value, by the way. At full market value. And the longer the straight or moves stays close, the higher the market value goes. So Russia's is going to be swimming in money right now. I mean, it's time to hold on to some rubles. I tell you, look what I got here in my wallet here. There's got to be a ruble in here someplace. Oh, yeah, baby. 5,000 rubles. 5,000 rubles. Now, if I hold on to this long enough, who knows what this will be worth. But 5,000 rubles. I'm banking on it. True investment. Well, I don't know if there's anything like the equivalent in Europe. But what about here, the oil reserves? To what extent can we rely on that? And how much might that help with the price? Well, we didn't fill up the oil reserves. But what we got going for us is Venezuela. Because basically, and the good news for America is that our refineries in the Gulf Coast are specifically geared to Venezuelan crude. So we'll just bring in Venezuelan oil and all that. But the thing is, we're linked to the global economy. We can't separate the American energy market from the world. We can, you know, because we're going to have to buy that oil from Venezuela. Maybe we'll convince them to give us a discount or something like that. But the price thing gets transferred over. You know, we're linked to the oil market. We don't get to go, we're Americans. Can you imagine Chevron? Mr. President, my God, we're in trouble. We're going to help you out, Mr. President. Every barrel of oil comes out of the ground. We're going to give it to you for $16, $16 because we're patriotic. You're getting Chevron's going, full price, baby, full price. Because the shareholders, Chevron doesn't work for the president. Chevron works for shareholders. And the shareholders are going, Daddy wants a new Mercedes. Mommy wants a pool. My daughter wants to graduate and she wants a party. We're going to take her to, you know, some exotic island in the Bahamas. Because that's how oil people live. Here's their chance. Because they play, you know, I've watched too many episodes of Landman. And apparently the oil market is tough on oil people. You can go bankrupt quickly. So all the people out there doing that investment stuff, now they're making money. Oil's through the roof. So they're going to bank that stuff. Bank it, bank it, bank it. Bank it, bank it. No one's going to cut America a break, especially Americans. So the president's in trouble because normally we can dump the Strategic Petroleum Reserve out on the market and alleviate the stress. But he didn't fill it up. He lied to us. He said he was going to. But he didn't. So, yeah, we're not riding too high on that. But we're not going to run out of gas.

And it's going to cost us more. All right. Next question is from our friend Nemo. Where is Tulsi, he asks. She is missing. Yeah, I mean, gosh, I like her. Tulsi, I'm sorry. But you're missing in action, baby. I know you're the director of national intelligence. I know you're not supposed to speak to the public and you're supposed to be discreet and all this kind of stuff. But you were against this war. I mean, you were against it for a long time and nothing changed. You know there's no nuclear weapons program because you briefed Congress on this. At some point in time, I mean, is the president even listening to you? Did you tell the president this was a bad idea? Does J.D. Vance listen to you? I'm just trying to believe that she's holding on because there's some point of leverage that she has where somebody's listening to her. And there's a chance that maybe the right thing will happen. But, you know, this isn't a good look, especially when she made those videos. That's the danger of making, you know, I got these Ritter rants that I do. And someday if I want to run for office, they're going to come back and bite me in the ass because people are going to show her Ritter's rant. They're going to say, oh, you were pretty emphatic about this.

And then I'm going to be running for office and become political. Well, I believe this, that. Well, Ritter, your rant, you didn't believe that. Well, I'm a politician now. I'm going to say whatever it takes to get elected. I'm never going to be a politician. So you guys don't have to worry about that. But the point is, you know, Tulsi made videos about how bad it was to go to war with Iran, how stupid it was. There was no justification. And nothing's changed. So it's still a bad idea. But she's now silent about it. Maybe it's politics. Maybe her sense of duty. You know, she wore her uniform to greet the dead. So maybe she feels that she has this obligation, you know, to air her complaints in private to the president. And she does. That's the absolute truth. And we don't want her speaking in an official capacity. But at some point in time, she needs to resign. And then she can say what she wants to say. But she won't because she's loyal. She's a loyal soldier. It's a bad look. So what if she were to team up with J.D. Vance and the two of them resigned to set the stage for the next political era for Republicans? J.D. Vance, he would just be a quitter then. J.D.

Vance has blown it. I mean, he's not. I used to be high on J.D. Vance. I thought he was the future of MAGA. I still like him more than Marco Rubio. But Marco Rubio has done a better job of positioning himself to be presidential material. I despise him. I think he's horrible. But, you know, Rubio has been decisive in all the wrong causes, but smart enough because the guy that's going to take the fall for Iran and there will be someone who takes it. It's Pete Hegseth. Pete Hegseth is going to get fired like you've never seen somebody fired. They will drop him like a bad habit. He's already dying because they have to admit now that it was our cruise missile that killed those children. You know, they've done the investigation and we committed murder. That's on Hegseth. And if they start asking the right questions, like, why didn't we know it was a school? Didn't we have a directive that created this civilian harm and mitigation team that's mandated to go through each target before it's bombed to make sure it's not a school? And you canceled that directive, didn't you, Pete? Whoa, whoa, whoa. You start twitching. And then you're going to say stuff like, and then didn't you come out there and say, screw the rules? We don't need no stinking rules. We want to be maximum lethality. Kill, kill, kill. And then he'll start drinking. And then he's going to fall off. And then it'll be, Pete's going to get fired. What I'd like to see is Pete get fired, get arrested, prosecuted, and executed because he has committed a death penalty crime. He's violated the law of war. And we have a law that Congress has passed the War Crimes Act. And he's committed a war crime. Straight up. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. He created the conditions for a cruise missile to hit a school. He's the one that stopped the program that's supposed to prevent this from happening. He did it personally. Why? To be more lethal. There's intent. There's intent. What was your intent in doing that? To be more lethal. Well, damn, you're pretty damn good. You killed 186 kids. Pete Heggsett's a war criminal. Straight up. Easy to convict. So they're going to fire him, and then we'll see what happens. I doubt, I'd love to see him get arrested and prosecuted and executed. I mean, I'm not a big death penalty guy because we make so many mistakes in the justice system, but not this time. Pete Heggsett deserves to be put up against the wall, given the last smoke, and blown away. Because he's a murderous sack of crap.

Literally. The man is committing war crimes on a daily basis. Who's reviewing our targets right now? 5,000 targets we've hit. How many of those were mosques? How many of those were schools? How many of those were hospitals? How many of those were civilian targets? Pete don't know. And here's the drug. You see, under the law of war, you've got to know. It's called distinction. You've got to make a distinction between military and civilian, and you have a responsibility under the law to under... There he is. Look at that ridiculous Christian cross stuff. That's a good target, Pete. That's where they're going to aim. They're going to take their shirt off, and the execution squad's going to aim right there and blow that freaking thing off your chest. You moron. You drunken, criminal moron. He's a horrible human being. He's not a good person. I'm not talking about the multiple affairs he's had with multiple women and all that, or that he's an alcoholic. He has no moral compass, no moral conscience. He can sit there and quote the Bible. He sits there and quotes the Bible after he orders the death of innocent people. Quotes the Bible after he was the one responsible for the deaths of 186 children. No. Pete Hegseth, you're going to hell. Yeah.

He's a crusader, all right. Look at that. Crossed rifles. He's infantry all the way. Piece of crap. All right. The next question is from Milos in Serbia. After World War II, Germany underwent the process of denazification with the Nuremberg trials and so forth. Can you imagine that if Iran is finished with Israel and Israel truly ceases to exist, then Iran or whomever else in the international community would initiate the process of de-Zionization? Well, I don't know about de-Zionization, but Germany did not undergo denazification. I lose. Sorry. The Nuremberg trial was a show trial. They handpicked a couple of senior guys to go through the motions of de-Nazification. But at the same time that Nuremberg was happening, there were supposed to be other trials, about a dozen others, to bring all the Nazis to justice. But what was happening during Nuremberg is that the U.S. Army began whitewashing the various generals. You'll see, we needed them. We started whitewashing. We started having them rewrite their histories so that the Battle of Normandy wasn't a bunch of Nazi thugs defending stolen French land. But noble German soldiers carried out a military mission. And the Americans invaded, and we fought them. And they tell the story that way. No, we whitewashed them all. Some guys that were convicted. Then, you know, John McCloy came in as sort of the head commissar in charge of occupied Germany and pardoned them all. And then we made them generals, and we allowed a Nazi army to form up, a Nazi army that became the Bundeswehr. And they became the NATO army. So the Nazis, they were never denazified. We didn't denazify their businesses. Their businessmen sat there, took all their profits. None of them went to jail. None of them were killed, except, like I said, a token view. The bankers, no, not a problem. And the Nazis, no, no. We didn't denazify them. They joined the military. And, you know, we had literally Nazi generals being the inspector general of NATO. We never denazified. The head of the German intelligence service, Galen, Gerhard Galen, a hardcore Nazi guy, ran huge criminal operations. But we brought him and his entire organization in, and it became the new German intelligence service. All Nazis. We didn't denazify. It's a joke. And so if you're going to use that as the precedent, then I don't think that we're going to see any de-Zionization. They may take, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu and hang him by the neck until dead. Wouldn't that be nice? But the rest of them, no, we'll find use for them because, you know, everybody's in cahoots with everybody, and we'll find a way to employ them. We'll call them something different, still be Zionists, but they'll be an armed ploy. They'll work in another country. We're never going to get rid of them because they're part of a system of corruption. The deep state is transnational, and Zionism is deeply embedded into the deep state, just like the Nazis were deeply embedded everywhere. We didn't denazify. It's a frickin' joke. Some of us voted for Trump in 2024, believing his promises about ending U.S. imperialist wars. Isn't it ironic that he may make his promises come true by destroying, in the war against Iran, the U.S. Army's hegemony and its myth of invincibility? Oh, come on, Palman, didn't you hear what I said? We're going to win this war, and Trump's going to declare victory, and then it'll be the greatest peacemaker in the history of the world. And then his promise came true. And it is ironic, but no, I agree with you. I mean, you know, we're not doing well here. This is an embarrassment. It's going to have ramifications. Imagine, for a moment, if you're Taiwan, okay, and for the last decade, you've been allowing Americans to lead you on, because we're like, no, no, man, we need you. We really can't allow you to declare independence right now, but we need you to behave as if you're independent. You've got to get them Chinese pissed off and all that stuff. But don't worry, we're going to send weapons to you. These are really good weapons, by the way, Taiwan. The Patriot Missile. The best in the world. Shoot, sit down.

It's wonderful. Thad, right over there across the world. We're not giving it to you, but it's right there in Guam to protect you by extension. Thad shoots everything down. It's perfect, Taiwan. So go ahead and piss the Chinese off. And the Taiwanese are like, okay, we'll piss the Chinese off. And they bring over Nancy Pelosi, which really pissed the Chinese off, bring over other politicians. So now you're the Taiwanese, and you're sitting there going, time out. When you sold us these patriots that you told us we're going to shoot everything down, you gave us 150 interceptors. What if the Chinese come in with 200 missiles on day one? And we got 150 interceptors, and we shoot them off at three to four per missile. There's going to be a lot of Chinese missiles that we don't shoot down on day one. And then we're out of ammo. And you guys aren't here. Your ships aren't parked off the shore like they are off of Israel, you know, firing your surface air missiles. Your anti-air batteries aren't flying in because you can't because of the Chinese missiles. I think the Taiwanese just woke up for the fact that they're screwed, totally, 100% screwed. And what did we do? We've stripped all of our air defense from South Korea. So after telling the South Koreans, hey, why don't you put the fad in here and really piss the Chinese off? The Chinese are like, that's really going to piss us off. And the South Koreans went, America told us to do it. And the Chinese started moving missiles all around surrounding South Korea. And the South Koreans went, well, we can't have that. We have to have a deal with the United States and Japan so we can be involved in nuclear weapons planning. We're big boys now. And the U.S. is like, yeah, yeah, we've got you. Big umbrella, Patriot, FAD, Aegis, the whole thing.

Well, we just pulled it all out. There's nothing left. The South Koreans are like, wait a minute. Aren't we supposed to have a ballistic missile shield here? Nope. All gone. All gone. So they're sitting there. This is what it means to be an ally of the United States. We've just betrayed everybody. And the Chinese now have the upper hand. In the National Security Strategy document that was published in November, we kept saying, we need to have conventional military overmatch with the Chinese. That means we're going to overmatch them, intimidate them through overmatch. This is Pete Hegseth. I'm going to bench press 315 pounds. Let's see you little skinny Chinaman do that. You eat rice. You can't do it. I eat steak. I got a Christian cross. And so the Chinese are like, yeah, well, we do kung fu. And we just go to your ass. Because the Chinese are in the driver's seat right now. They own us. They own everything. There's nothing we can do. We've got nothing. And that's what Iran has proven. We've got nothing.

Imagine being the Europeans and suddenly waking up to the fact that everything you were told about American military power was a lie. Now, I know all you people in the chat room who hate me. And they're like, Scott, you've been saying that. Everything I've said is the truth. 100% the truth. I've never told a lie about American military capabilities. They're good when they're good. They're bad when they're bad. And I've been saying all along that all this stuff about what we're doing in Europe is unsustainable. And now with drones, we're going to die anyways. But we've never had air defense. And you try and get our air force to project power into integrated Russian air defense, they'll get shot down. They're not getting shot down in Iran because we're not going to Iranian airspace. You guys don't know what's really happening, do you? You think we're flying all over the place? No. We go right up and we release the missiles long range. They're called joint standoff weapons. And then we, hey, diddle diddle, get the hill out of the way. Except we're about to run out of joint standoff weapons. Ah, and now our air force has to go into Iranian airspace. And the Iranians are going, okay, all the air defense that we put away in the bunkers, bring them out. And it's going to be a different war altogether, guys. This is the reality of war. So, no, we've screwed ourselves. But this is okay because maybe it's time for America to wake up to the fact that we're just not the global superpower anymore. Maybe it's time for us to realize that rather than bombing people in the submission, because that doesn't work, we have to do diplomacy. It'd be nice because, you know, when cutting the State Department, Marco Rubio, the greatest secretary of state ever, apparently, has slashed the budget of the State Department. Slashed it. So they can't do diplomacy, but we don't need to because you've got Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War. He does diplomacy for us, peace through strength. We're going to have to go back to investing in diplomacy and get qualified people. Maybe Georgetown will stop being a propaganda institute and start producing real, honest to God, subject matter experts in the regions they're supposed to do. Instead of stamping out, you know, instead of stamping out, you know, politically correct, you know, robots who simply repeat the dogma of the day. It's going to be fascinating to see what happens. But we've we've we've we've been exposed as absolute frauds.

Absolute frauds. Did you give Siri your cough? I have. I've infected Siri. Siri has the Stuxnets virus. The Scott next virus. I've I've I've I don't know what she's she's OK. Everybody's worried about you, Siri. Don't apologize. All right. Charles Chevalier from Lyon. You can take that away. Oh, did I do that? Sorry. Putin offered yesterday to be a mediator between the U.S. and Iran. No, he didn't. Keep going. All right. I was I was so revved up. I took my breath so I could get through it. Could it be plausible that orange face begged Vladimir Vladimir Vladimirovich to help him out? With Iran, promising an exchange to finally and entirely step out of Ukraine. Well, what the Russians said is they had a frank conversation. And Russia said that they always have the door to diplomacy open. But Russia didn't offer. I don't believe Russia offered to be a mediator between the U.S. and Iran. Russia offered to provide whatever diplomatic assistance. But, you know, the United States is in a bind. And I don't think Russia is in a rush to get America out of this bind. I think to get maximum leverage on Ukraine, you got to let America stew in the pot a little bit longer. You got to turn up the heat. And so, you know, we don't have the full the full transcript. I've seen Ushakov speak about it. I've seen Peskov speak about it. Their version of events is completely different than the American version of events. So don't believe the American version of events. Remember, when orange face man talks, he's lying all the time. He doesn't know how to tell the truth. Even if he wants to tell the truth, he can't. So don't believe his version. Listen to the Russians. And they have a completely different narrative than the one that the United States put forward. But I do believe in the end.

Guys, you guys might think I was joking. I'm going to go back. I honestly think the way this ends is with a grand deal that allows Trump to say I'm the greatest peacemaker that ever walked the face of the earth. And I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, surrendering Ukraine and leaving the Middle East. All right. A Scott Ritter prediction. Jörg Zepek or something like that, I think, from Germany. Jörg. Jörg. The J is pronounced like a Y. Yeah, I think I said it that way. Jörg Zepek. Israel and the U.S. are constantly launching airstrikes against Iran, even though Russia and China are said to have supplied modern defense technologies. Are these systems ineffective or are the media giving us a false impression? I think the media is giving you a false impression. It's my understanding that most of the Iranian air defense has been stood down and that the air defense systems have been sequestered away. They're very expensive. You don't want to leave them out there, you know, for long range strike weapons to pick them off. The strategy here is to make the United States expend and make Israel expend the bulk of their long range strike weapons. These are expensive systems of long production lead times. Once we run out of them, we ain't getting any new ones anytime soon. And then at that point in time, we have to go to gravity bombs. And gravity bombs means that our airplanes now have to enter airspace and get over the target. And now the Iranians will pull their air defense out and begin shooting down our airplanes because we don't have the long range standoff capacity more. Now we've got to come in and we've got to hook and jab. So you don't want to leave your air defense systems out there just to be picked off and be degraded. The enemy is going to be launching from long distance. That's what they primarily are doing. And what are they blowing up?

Empty buildings. You know, I mean, literally, that's what they're blowing up. And did you see, you know, Ray, Raising Cain, you know, retired three star. We made a four star against everybody's wish because he's really not that smart. But Raising Cain gave a rousing speech about how good we were doing in the three major objectives of the war. Number one, we are going to suppress that missile production and missile operations capability. Except last night, the Iranians launched more missiles against Israel than they launched any time during the war. So we're doing a hell of a job suppressing it. Oh, wait a minute. We're not. We can't because we don't know what we're doing because you don't know what you're doing. And we can get into missiles anytime you want to. Sort of thing I used to do. I can tell you right now that the Iranians are kicking our ass on the missile thing. We're blowing up stuff that ain't missile related. They're decoying us to death, distracting us to death and launching missiles at will. So forget that. We sunk their Navy. Their Navy was really not a factor. I mean, yeehaw. Anybody who thought the Iranian Navy was going to stand up toe to toe with the United States and win or survive, you know nothing. But the Iranian Navy isn't a factor. The Strait of Hormuz is shut down with or without their Iranian Navy. And he said, we've gotten rid of the Iranian Navy, which gives us the ability to protect ourselves into the Strait of Hormuz and guarantee shipping. You ain't projecting anything anywhere, Kane. You get near the Strait of Hormuz, you're getting sunk by those missiles you can't suppress. So, end option number two. Three. This is the one. This is the important one. Nobody picks up on it. We're going to get ready, though. We're going to start moving inland. Moving inland. And strike those defense industrial places. We're going to start blowing up those factories. Wow. So, you haven't blown up the factories yet on day 12. So, now I'm an Iranian. Let's just assume for a second that they didn't between 2005 and now build 120, 150 underground hide sites. But they did.

Let's pretend that they hadn't evacuated all the material in the lead up to this war because we've been threatening to bomb them, which they did. But that's now day 12 in a bombing campaign. How much of that sensitive Iranian equipment do you actually think is in a building right now? Let's say we have a solid rocket motor production plant and they have a mixer room. They're mixing that ammonium perchlorate that they're going to put in there. Very sensitive stuff. I mean, high-precision mixing bowls. You usually buy them from Germany or something. Very expensive. You think it's still there? I can tell you that when we bombed Iraq, it wasn't there. I know because I'm one of the guys that picked that target and we bombed it. It bombed it to hell. I'm the only guy that did the BDA on it. And I'm also the inspector that went to it afterwards and went, we didn't destroy anything, did we? And we didn't. It was all evacuated because the Iraqis brought it back. And we had to go back to the facility. Iraqis said, here's that big mixing bowl you guys thought you destroyed. We're like, ah. We destroyed it anyways because we reclassified it as dual-use capable. We forced the Iraqis to blow it up. But we didn't blow it up with bombs. The Iraqis evacuated everything. Everything. The Iranians have done the same thing. So we're getting ready to go into a phase of operations. We're going to be blowing up things.

We're all going to be doing is blowing up empty buildings. That's it. Blowing up empty buildings. So I think we've lost this war. We've admitted we've lost it. We just haven't come to the right conclusion yet. We think we're winning. But we've lost this war. And that's that. Aildor in Bulgaria. It seems that most of the Iranian missiles are launched at night. What is the reason? Is it easier to hide the launch sites at night? Or do I have the wrong impression? Yeah, I mean, during the daytime, there's more sensors that can be brought into play. At nighttime, you got to go to, you can't use a standard electro-optical sensor. So you got to move over to radar. You got to use IR. Without the electro-optical, it's not going to be as high resolution. So, you know, you operate at night. Greater survival build factor. That's what the Iraqis did as well. They moved at night. They shot at night. So, that's what they do. Zenji from Chiba Prefecture in Japan. If Israel should fall, what is the plan for securing its nuclear arsenal? And if that arsenal is not secured, what would likely become of it?

Israel's not going to fall. So we need to stop this nonsense. The worst case for Israel, the best case for the Iranians, is that Israel becomes uninhabitable by, is considered to be uninhabitable by a significant percentage of the population. If Iran can get two to three million people saying, to hell with Israel, we're out of here, we're going home, because they're not born in Israel. That's the end of Israel. Once you get the demographics dropped down to a certain level, you can't talk about a singularity of a Jewish state. Now you have to deal with the reality that there's 10 to 11 million Palestinians out there. And you've diluted the Jews down to a point where, you know, you have to talk about a joint state, a singular, not Israel, but Palestine. And I think that's the goal and the objective. What happens to the nuclear weapons? The Israelis will do what the South Africans did. South Africa had a nuclear weapons program. I forget how many bombs they built. Seven, I think it was. And when it became clear that the black nationals were going to take over, the white supremacists went, we ain't giving them a nuclear bomb. So they called up the IAEA and the inspectors came in. They turned over the totality of the nuclear weapons program. And the weapons were dismantled and the material removed and all that. But I think what will happen here is if Israel starts to go under, they will declare their nuclear weapons program. The United States will come in together with the IAEA and then we will verify it and then dismantle it and remove those weapons and remove the fissile material because we're not going to let, we're just not going to give the Arabs a nuclear weapon. So I think that's what will happen to it.

Okay, next question is from, didn't we already have that name? We haven't been from Tornai, Belgium yet. Oh, yeah, there it is. Yeah, we did. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Where are we? Oh, my God, don't tell me. Okay, the next one should be good. No, you know what? I think I have to. Ryan, why don't you do a live chat question now and just put the question on and I'll get the questions. There's one from Ryan and I'll work on fixing this. Sorry about that. What is Scott's opinion on the missing general? Air Force Major General William Neal. I have no idea. I didn't know he's missing. I don't know who he is. So I have no opinion. He's 68 years old. Is he active duty or is he, I mean, he's got to be retired. We don't have any 68 year old generals out there, do we? I don't know anything about that. I need more information. One more storm shadow attack on Russia. One more shameful call with Trump by Putin. Demetrius back in Miami.

When will Russia learn? Got to give Iran credit for continuing, but Russia never learns. Why? Why? Why? Maybe because they're smarter than all of us. One more shameful storm shadow attack. What's the strategic objective here? Because, you know, seven storm shadows against the Russian facility. It's tough, tough day. But I think they lost six to eight dead. It's tragic. But are you trying to, A, here's the key question. Are we trying to, A, collapse the Starmer regime, or B, turn Starmer into the new Winston Churchill? That seems to be sort of the strategic thing, isn't it? To encourage the continued downfall of England, economic rot, societal rot, political rot, or give Starmer a chance to become the new, the man he always thought he could be, the new Churchill. You know, fight him on the beach and all that. So what do you want Russia to do? Blow up the storm shadow factory in England? It'd be pleasing. Hell, we'd sit here and have a field day on the internet. But then Starmer's not going away now, is he?

Suddenly we brought steel to the British. Suddenly the British get resolved. Do we really want to do that? Or are we winning by allowing the British just to decline, decline, decline, decline, decline? So maybe Putin's, you know, got a master plan here. You know, I mean, what do you want to do? Do something where you strike a NATO ally and the United States has to do something in return? Like maybe say, gosh, we're not going to, those sanctions we just lifted, we're not going to lift anymore. I just told you, Russia's winning. That was one of the big things Russia wanted, the lifting of oil sanctions. They went all sanctions, but the big one is the one that makes the money. It's lifted. Why aren't you sitting here saying Vladimir Putin's a genius in shaping the situation where he got the economic sanctions lifted, didn't have to do a damn thing about it? But you're not going to give Putin credit, are you? You're not going to give Putin credit for the fact that he gets to, he's literally going to balance the budget.

He's literally going to stabilize the currency situation. He's literally going to reduce inflation. Oh, Putin doesn't get any credit for that. No, we're going to sit there and let Gilbert Doctorow and John Heimer and all these other people out there just slap Putin around, bitch slap him around how bad he is, bad he is, bad he is, bad. Because he's, maybe he's a freaking genius. Maybe he's smarter than all of us. Maybe he understands that you don't take the bait when the enemy's trying to bait you. Now, again, I mean, gosh, what can we do to those dirty Ukrainians? Because, I mean, my God, they said the storm shadowing. We should kill Zelensky. Send them a message. Take care of Bankova. Remove it. Done. We're badass Russians. Except Zelensky's in a political free fall right now. I mean, his reputation's trash. It's just a walking joke. This is why the United States is backing Budanov in elections and the British are backing Zelensky in elections. So now we're going to have a Zelensky, Zelensky, Budanov, Mexican standoff as they blow each other up. And Ukraine, what's happened is there's no political legitimacy in Ukraine. And when you get that peace deal that Putin's now positioned himself to do, why? Because Dmitry is meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, you dipshits. Okay? He left the door of diplomacy open. So now Dmitry is meeting with them to create the potential for a peace deal where Russia gets everything. But what happens to a peace deal now? We take out Bankova. Boom! Because we're big bad. Well, first of all, that fucks up the extreme. That messes up the peace deal. So now you've got nothing. Now you're back in that deep hole. Right? But by taking him out, you also, what if Zelensky survives? Now you've made him the next, you suddenly made him Winston Churchill, attempt against his life. The noble Zelensky, and you've resurrected his reputation. Or you kill him. Now Zelensky is the man who comes in. Zelensky picks up the pieces. Zelensky is the man. And you suddenly made the Ukrainian leadership that you need to disappear, solidify. I think Putin's a hell of a lot smarter than we are. I think Putin understands that he's sort of winning everywhere. And you've just got to be patient and let victory happen on the terms you want. So, you know, when there is a peace deal and you basically are looking for the next government, there's a reason why Russia has a government in waiting. You know, they do. They've got a bunch of guys in Russia that are ready. And what you want to do is make sure the condition is good for them to move in during the elections and become politically viable. So you need to discredit Zelensky and Budanov and Zelensky. And the way you discredit is just let them keep doing what they're doing. But if you eliminate them, a new group of people is going to come in. And people are going to rally around them. That always happens when you bomb capitals, just letting you know. Rally around them, and it's going to be harder to displace them. Remember, root causes. Putin wants to resolve the root causes of this conflict. And the root causes can't be resolved if you have the same damn government that got you there, still there.

That government's got to go. So I think Putin's smarter than the average bear here. I think he understands you just got to let things happen. And you don't take the damn bait. Things will happen on their own timelines. We can't rush this thing. When you rush it, you make mistakes. And Putin has made many mistakes. I mean, because, you know, we can sit here and pick on them. But, again, I just want to point out that, and I've been very critical. I've been very critical. But, you know, the more I reflect on it, I'm like, he just got the Russian oil sanctions lifted at a time when he was discounting oil to $23 a barrel. And he's now selling it at $81 a barrel. That's genius-level stuff, guys. That's genius-level stuff. Even Donald Trump can't do that. So, you know, I think Putin's doing okay. Demetriyev, I've mocked him openly, openly. I've questioned his patriotism. And yet, he's a tool. He's a resource. And instead of dumping him, which would have been my advice, dump him. Putin held on to him.

Why? He's a freaking card to be played at the right time. And here the time comes. Trump is desperate for a deal. Desperate for a deal. So, the door to diplomacy is open. And Demetriyev is now meeting with Witkoff and Kushner. And they aren't, Witkoff and Kushner aren't sitting there making demands. They're sitting there going, can you help us? We're in trouble. We're really in trouble. We need your help. And Demetriyev's going to be like, yeah, there's some good things that can happen here economically. We can do all this. But, remember that deal that we had in Alaska that you guys sort of decided you didn't want? We want that deal. We're going back to the Alaska deal. And there's going to be some modifications to it to reflect the present reality. And the United States has no negotiation, no leverage. And we're going to go, yep. And we're going to turn to the Europeans. We're going to turn to Zelensky and say, you've got no choice. This is the deal you're going to take. And they'll take it. And Russia wins. So, all the things, you know, and I've been up there. I mean, trust me.

Siri knows. I mean, God damn it, why don't you do more? But now I reflect on it. I take, I look back and I go, you know, maybe there's a benefit to being patient. Maybe, you know, you don't want to be the angry young man jumping for action. Maybe you need to just sit back and let it play out. And look at what happened. Again, the genius move is the oil, lifting of oil sanctions. Because now Russia is just rolling the money and it's not going to go away. Russia is not going to, you know, sit there. Russia wants stability eventually. But when, when this war ends and all that, the sanctions will, will not be put back. The price of oil may come down from, you know, wherever it's going to end up being. It'll come back down to 68 bucks, 71 bucks, that area. But Russia won't have to sell in a discount anymore because Russia's taking control of global market share. You didn't realize that, did you guys? All those Arabs that were selling oil ain't selling oil right now. So guess who just took over? Market share. The Russians in there locking up contracts. And it's genius. Genius. So let's stop picking on Vladimir Putin because he's kicking more ass than anybody out there.

But he just does it Vladimir Putin style. And all you people out there that want more war, you got to tell me what happens after you send the Russian again. Because it's sort of sexy. It's really easy to hit that Russian button. Fire. Boom. You blew it up. Now what? What's your plan for the government of Ukraine? You got one? Who's your president you want? How are you going to get him there? Or did you just empower Zalusioni who's a Banderist to become next president? Or Donov who's a terrorist? Did you think about that? What about Starmer? Right now, England is, you guys take a look at the English political situation. It's horrible. Horrible. Starmer's in free fall. He's not going to win the election. It's going to be a disaster at the polls. And nobody has a solution because there's no good British politicians right now. George Galloway was the last honorable man. They kicked him out of the country where he left because they were, you know, basically raping his wife at the airport. So Britain's in total collapse. Do you want to save the British by giving them a cause to rally around? I think not. Europe. Europe's in free fall. They may have to go. Guys, the Europeans may have to beg to buy Russian energy really soon because they don't have options. And even Ursula von der Leyen says, I don't want to do this.

Well, you have no choice, woman. You're going to have to do this. And the Russians are going to be like, yeah, we'll do long-term contracts and you're going to pay full price because there's no more bargaining power. So Russia's going to lock in that market, too. This is just a win across the board because Vladimir Putin doesn't listen to stupid people like Scott Ritter who say, bomb them, get your revenge, be tough. Putin's a pretty tough guy. But he's also a smart guy. And I think what we're seeing right now is the evidence of this man's diplomatic genius. So let's just take off. Let our good friend Gilbert Doctorow criticize Vladimir Putin. What a fool he looks like right now. Let John Heimer criticize Vladimir Putin. What a fool he looks like right now. First of all, I'm a fucking friend of George Galloway, so don't tell me what George is going to like not. George has talked to me about how they treated his wife at the airport. I know what they did to his wife. You don't know what he did they did to his wife. So back the fuck off. Leave George Galloway out. Don't put George up there. He's my friend. I talked about it because he's my friend of mine. He's talked to me about what they did. I don't make shit up. So don't tell me what George is going to like or not like. Do you know George Galloway? Is he your friend? Now I'm in trouble. Siri's looking at me with deadly eyes and I shouldn't have done it. But no, fuck off, people. Don't get involved in my personal life, okay? When I'm here talking, I'm going to answer a question. I may throw some things out there. But unless you know something, don't pretend you know anything. Scott, what time did you say we have to end tonight? 8.25.

8.25. Well, I don't want to cut into Ryan's time, even though he's just committed a no-no by inserting that question. So why don't we go to the lightning round right now? Ryan Milton, also known as the U.S. Tour of Duty Ambassador to China, with some live chat questions. Scott, I've got to take the blame for that last message. I meant to click something else, and I clicked that message. My fault. I've just been doing this all day long, and my eyes are dying right now. If you can see, they're just basically bloodshot red. And with it, my brain is fuzzy, and I'm a little short time. I'm doing my best to maintain an even keel and keep a good sense of humor. But, you know, George is a very good friend of mine, and what they did to his wife is a crime. And if you don't know what they did to his wife, what I described is exactly what they did to his wife. All right, so don't pretend you know anything. You know nothing. George is like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm getting snapped fingers at me. Okay, I'm back to friendly mode. All right, I'm going to take a very difficult question for you.

Scott, when was the last time that you had Kachapuri? Kachapuri. And do you think the strike on Bryansk facility will have any big impact on Russian defenses? Will it be a cause for escalation? Do they have the right to send Mr. Oreshnik into the U.K. production facility for the storm shadow? It's three questions. It's nice. Well, the last time I had Kachapuri was over New Year's. Siri makes it. Siri makes a mean Kachapuri. And we had that last, I think we made it for the Orthodox New Year's. So it actually continued on into the middle of January. So I would say when we deal with, you know, the one that's in the refrigerator the last a week after, I'd probably say my last Kachapuri slice was sometime near the end of January. And it's a wicked good piece. But now I have to think. No, that's right, because that would have been after that. So that would be it. Do I think the branch, look, you know, I'm here. I'm not there. I know what the facility was that they hit. I know what they make. You know, could damage have been done? Yeah. Do the Russians have a backup plan? Yeah. Is this going to cripple Russian defense industry? No. So, you know, we just have to be sort of understanding that the Russians know a hell of a lot more about defense industry in a time of war than we do. And they've, you know, factored in these things. Legally, Russia has every right to send in a Russian after the British factory that produces a storm shadow. They are now a party to the conflict. But, again, we've already talked about why Russia shouldn't do that and why Russia won't do that. You know, I think Oreshnik will play. I think what Russia is going to do is probably start striking facilities in western Ukraine more violently and closer to the Polish border. I think the Ukrainians and the British have created a, they have a buffer of invulnerability. Is that a word, invulnerability? Can I say that? Yeah, that's a word. If not, I just made it up.

And because this is American language, if we say it long enough, it'll go in the Webster dictionary. But, you know, a buffer of invulnerability because it's so close to the Polish border that Russia doesn't dare strike. And so they've created these warehouses where they assemble flamingo and where they do other things and they bring in materials. And, you know, maybe the storm shadows. Because, you know, this is a fresh load of storm shadows. And these are like improved storm shadows. These are storm shadows that have greater distance. You know, you don't have to come up to Sumi to launch them anymore. You can launch them further back. So you can literally hang out. And we don't know what's going on. I mean, there's a lot of rumors that some of these planes, these F-16s are in Romania and they fly, they fly to Romanian land in Ukraine, strap on a storm shadow, go up, go fire them. And then they go back and they hide in Romania. You know, but again, Russia knows this, but they're not going to hit the Romanian airfields because, again, Russia is winning. But the storm shadows are on Ukrainian soil. But again, in location adjacent to NATO borders, which makes targeting difficult. But I think what you're going to see is the Russians just basically start targeting these things. And Oresnik is a perfect weapon system for it. But again, I'm not a Russian target here. I don't know what they're thinking. We'll see what happens. All right. So I have this question kind of in two parts, character limit. So a question about missiles. If I understand in a week or so, the U.S. empire will be completely naked of air defense missiles.

After this, they will never, ever catch up again. What are the implications for the Pacific and European theaters? Does this mean in a twist of fate war criminal pedo trader Trump will be the president to bring the will be able to bring all the troops home? What do you think he said? This is sort of a question. Hold on. Hold on. I missed it. There you go. I hear you now. I think that, let's see, what's missile defense. Yeah, we're running out of missile defense. I mean, they just had a meeting now where they're talking about funding and increased production lines and all that. But that's a multi-year lead time. The missiles that are produced there aren't going to be ready for, you know, until 2030, maybe. Right. You know, and again, the missiles we're building today, understand, don't work. And so even when you build the FAD and, I don't know who's calling me, when you build the FAD and you build the, what time is it? The FAD, the FAD, the PAK-3, SM, you know, SM-3 Block-2, you know, SM-6, all these things. These don't work against the most of the missiles. So in a way, we're not really behind the curveball at all because our missile defense system doesn't work. And so, you know, expending all the missiles that don't work doesn't hurt you much. But we will be able to build them. But what this, again, guys, what we're seeing here today is playing out in real time why we had an anti-ballistic missile defense treaty, an anti-missile, ABM treaty back in 1972.

Because what's happening now is you're seeing on the conventional side what we realized on the strategic side. You can't shoot down these missiles. You'll never win that equation. We can build all the, you know, Nike Hercules. We want the sprints, the Spartans. We can have all that out there, radars and everything. Now the Russians fire it because originally it was the Russians will fire one missile. And we'll have a bunch of sprints going, okay, get them. And they'll use nuclear warheads. That's back when we had nukes. And boom, big old nuclear warhead and the Russian missile spins out of control. And we win. Yay. Okay. But those are expensive missiles that we just built. So what the Russians did is they said, all right, put eight warheads on this missile. Fire. Eight warheads come out. Oh, no. We need three or four per warhead. Now, I'm just a simple Marine. But if there's eight of them, you need three. That's 24. And if you need four of them, that would be 32. Eight, 16, 24, 32. And so now you need 32 launchers to get them. That's much more expensive now. And what happens if the Russians have 400 missiles, each one with eight to 10 warheads on it? We don't have enough interceptors. Game over. And that's what we realize is that we're in this thing where it doesn't – what we're realizing now is we will never defend against ballistic missiles. The ballistic missile technology – well, the Iranians haven't even come in with their good stuff. Right. We just got beat.

Okay. Okay. So last question here. If Putin requests the Iranians to stop the war, will the Iranians refuse? Putin's not going to request the Iranians to stop the war. Putin's going to request the United States to stop the war. Iran didn't start the war. Let's get that through everybody's thick skull. They were attacked, a surprise attack. And Putin understands, because the response the Iranians will give is the war stops when the root causes of this conflict are resolved. Where did you hear that before? Oh, yeah, that's Putin's condition. And that's the condition of the Iranians. And the Russians understand that. You can't stop this war only to have it start again five months from now. When this war stops, the root causes of the conflict will be resolved. That means America out of the Middle East, and Israel has to pay a price. Israel can't be allowed to continue to flex. Now, they may not be able to flex hard if America leaves the region, so that might be what it takes. But, no, Russia's not going to tell the Iranians to accept terms that will be unacceptable to the Russians. All right, it's 822. I am going to call it there. There are more questions, but your time is brief, so that is it for the lightning round. Thanks. All right, well, thank you. All right, we stick to our commitments. Scott has to go, so take care, Scott. We'll be back next week. We can talk for a couple more minutes after you go. To all 51 of the viewers, thank you. No, no, no, there's more than that. They're just in other channels. Yeah, and we'll get a big audience on X when we put the recording up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, guys. Well, thanks a lot.

Have a good night. Thanks. Happy healing to Siri. Yep. Yes, I think she's... Yep, Siri's here. She's alive. Wave, Siri. Thank you. Oh, she says thank you. Okay. Have a good night, guys. All right, good night. Take care. All right, bye-bye. All right. All right, let's switch to the two-person thing. There we go. All right, well, thanks, Ryan, for coming to the rescue with that X situation before I see the rumble. Yeah, we've been having some weird projects. It's a rumble X battle, maybe. It's a battle of the programs. Maybe. I hope it's just a one-time thing. Not for the least of reasons that tomorrow night we want to stream live on the whiners. And our old friend Matt Ho, who hasn't been with us for quite a while, is going to be with us tomorrow at 7 p.m. Eastern time. So hopefully everybody will join us. And then earlier I was talking about, I want to show what I meant. Duke Robillard is a musician that's somewhat well-known.

Some of you folks may have even heard of him. This is the post I was talking about. There is no denying that the entire Trump administration and the Trump family are guilty of everything that they have been accused of. New evidence comes to light every day. Lock them up. And then you see my smart aleck retort. I know you never do smart aleck responses, too. That's really so strange. Yeah, it was so out of character for me. Out of character. Yeah. Nobody remembers the boy who cried wolf. They just don't get it. Yep. Yep. Exactly. All right. Is that it? You feel complete, Ryan? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, by the way, before I go to China, and it's not 100% confirmed, President Trump is supposed to be there to meet with President Xi at a summit, March 31st to April 2nd. So, of course, that's going to get botched. So I will come in later and fix it. Oh, all right. If you go, it'll be after that. It'll be after that. Yeah, I was supposed to be there at the same time, but it'll be after. All right. And Scott's going to be in Russia right around when Putin may be negotiating some kind of a deal to get this all resolved with Iran and the U.S. and Israel. Yeah.

Well, look, the one thing I will say is that every time Putin and President Xi talk, it seems like sanity is at least out for about a week or so. You know, we have sanity. We hear clear messages. It makes sense. Things are going good for the United States then. So let's just see what happens. Either way, thank you for paying attention to this matter, Jeff. Thank you for your attention as well. And thanks to our beloved audience. Join us tomorrow night on The Winers on Tuesday, Probable Cause. Next Wednesday, Ask the Inspector. Our last episode before Scott goes to Russia and The Winers on Thursday. Every show starts at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Easy to remember. Good night, everybody, and toodles. Good night, everybody.