Trump's Iran attack claims fall apart after sudden denial from Gulf nations | Janta Ka Reporter Janta Ka Reporter May 19, 2026
In another major setback for Donald Trump, US media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, report that Gulf nations were entirely unaware of the US president's planned military strikes against Iran. On Monday, Trump claimed he was putting military plans on hold following a direct request from Gulf allies. Meanwhile, the US Central Command chief faced a torrid time in the Senate, struggling to explain the blatant inconsistencies in claims made by the US government and its armed forces. In this episode, Rifat Jawaid examines Iran's secret card in outsmarting the US in the current conflict.
Transcript
So, the deranged occupant of the White House wasn't telling us the truth when he claimed to have postponed his planned military strikes against Iran at the request of the Gulf countries. Now, the same Gulf nations have told American media outlets that they had no idea about Trump's planned strikes. And then Trump's military chief for the US Central Command is left tongue tied in the face of a brutal grilling in the Senate. The Zionist mayor of San Diego faces local residents wroth after an Islamophobic attack on a mosque leaves five dead. This will be the broad focus of my video tonight. Also in this video, makers of the Iranian Lego series pay tribute to the Iranian weightlifter. So, please stay tuned.
Last night, America's immoral and evil president, Donald Trump, stunned all of us by claiming that he had decided to postpone his military strikes against Iran. These strikes, he claimed, were meant to have started this morning. But since three Gulf nations, namely Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, requested him to put his military plans on hold, he had decided to not resume the war against Iran. This is what he had told reporters last night immediately after I uploaded my video.
Getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow. I put it off for a little while. Hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while because we've had very big discussions with Iran and we'll see what they amount to. I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and some others if we could put it off for two or three days, a short period of time, because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal. And if we can do that where there's no nuclear weapon going into the hands of Iran, I think, and if they're satisfied, we will be probably satisfied also.
Today he repeated his warnings for Iran as he spoke to reporters at the site of the construction of the new ballroom in the White House.
You know, we're negotiating with Iran and then you have the Dumocrats. I call them the Dumocrats, putting in a bill that Trump should immediately stop. You know how it is to negotiate with a country where you're treating them badly. They come to the table, they're begging to make a deal because they're begging to make a deal. I hope we don't have to do the war, but we may have to give them another big hit. We may have to give him another big hit. I'm not sure yet. You'll know very soon. But how do you feel when you're negotiating, you're winning every point and they say, "But in Washington, they want to stop you from negotiating. They want to stop you." And it's only political. It's the Dumocrats. They're dumb. It's a new name. It's a very accurate name.
So I'm in the middle of a negotiation. I'm saying you cannot have a nuclear weapon. And it comes over the wire that the Dumocrats want to stop Trump from further negotiations. They want to stop Trump fromgiving them another slap. They want to have a nuclear weapon to blow up the Middle East, and to blow up frankly the world. It's not going to happen.
JD Vance too told us today that US warships were locked and loaded -- his words, not mine -- to attack Iran if a deal could not be reached.
The president has asked us, has told us, to aggressively negotiate with the Iranians. Why did I go to Islamabad, Pakistan? Why did I spend I think probably on a plane going there, coming back, and then 21 hours on the ground negotiating with the Iranians, is because we wanted to show a sign of good faith. The vice president of the United States is willing to cut a deal so long as the Iranians are willing to meet us again on that core issue of never having a nuclear weapon. We think that we've made a lot of progress. We think the Iranians want to make a deal. The president of the United States has asked us to negotiate in good faith, and that's exactly what we've done. So, we're in a pretty good spot here.
But there's an option B. And the option B is that we could restart the military campaign, to continue to prosecute the case, to continue to try to achieve America's objectives. And we could talk a little bit about what that looks like, but that's not what the president wants. And I don't think it's what the Iranians want either. We have an opportunity here, I think, to reset the relationship that has existed between Iran and the United States for 47 years. That's what the president has asked us to do, and that's what we're going to keep on working at. But it takes two to tango. We are not going to have a deal that allows the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon. So, as the president just told me, we're locked and loaded. We don't want to go down that pathway, but the president is willing and able to go down that pathway if we have to.
But Iran has already made it clear that the Islamic Republic is not going to be intimidated by Trump's fake threats. Iranian President Masoud Pezeskian said this, and I quote,
"Dialogue does not mean surrender. The Islamic Republic of Iran enters into dialogue with dignity, authority, and the preservation of the nation's rights, and under no circumstances will it retreat from the legal rights of the people and the country. We will serve the people with logic and with all our might to the end, and safeguard the interest and honor of Iran.
End quote. And now much to the discomfort and humiliation of Donald Trump, two American newspapers, namely the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, have now reported, quoting the officials from the Gulf nations that Trump himself had quoted, by saying that they had absolutely no knowledge of Trump's planned military strikes against Iran. So if they didn't have any knowledge, where was the question of them asking or requesting Trump to put his military plans on hold?
One of the reasons why Iran is playing hard ball is because it knows it has all the cards. The blockade of the strait of hormuz is making the US economy bleed. The longer this stalemate continues, the more pain it is going to cause to American households. But as American journalist Rick Sanchez explains, Iran now also has another card, and that is its ability to disrupt internet services in the region by cutting the undersea internet fiber cable.
Look at that map. You see that map? You see those cables? Those are all the different internet cables. Who knew, right? That run through the straight of Hormuz. They have different names. They go to different places and some of them have different functions. But essentially it is in these cables that the world's commerce uh internet connectivity uh finance systems run and he who controls those cables or worse cuts or sabotages those cables i.e. Iran cuz at least two of these cables are in their territorial waters. Those two are called the Gulf and the Falcon cables. Right? So why am I showing you this map that you're seeing right here? Because it seems with every passing day, Iran realizes more and more about its own leverage. Controlling the straight of Hormuz is one thing and it doesn't seem like there's anything that the United States or anybody else can do to take that leverage of controlling the straight of Hormuz away. But little did we know that it also has control with these cables that you're looking at right there. Because these cables are the financial lifeline to places like Kuwait and the UAE and Qatar and parts of Saudi Arabia and even India to a certain degree. So much of the world's connectivity would be affected if Iran decides that it wants to either cut, sabotage or decide how these u internet connections can or cannot be used. There was another significant development during Trump's press conference today. After he finished speaking to media representatives, he revealed that he had arranged breakfast for reporters. And the way the reporters reacted to this news explains the cowardice of the US media. They couldn't hide their excitement at the prospect of enjoying breakfast in the White House. Thank you all very much. We have a little breakfast for you. Yeah. Where is the How do you expect the same journalist to hold this immoral and evil man from the White House and other rogue members of his administration to account? These reporters bravery is on display only if the Israeli lobby's interest is at stake. Just see the line of questioning of this Fox News reporter while interviewing Thomas Massie. Are you anti-Semitic? They're trying to tell you that it's anti-semitic for me to expose the fact that the Republican Jewish coalition has spent millions of dollars in this race. That a dual citizen, Miriam Adlesen, who even Trump says is more loyal to Israel than the United States, has spent millions of dollars in this race. Those are mere facts. And it's really It's a yes or no. Are you anti-semitic or not? Oh, hell no. I'm hell no. Anti-Semitic. But here's the danger that Apac runs. They've been too cute by a half. They've tried to get Mike Johnson and he's willingly done this. Conflate in resolutions on the House floor that anti-ionism equals anti-semitism. Or even worse yet, that if you don't support Benjamin Netanyahu's war in Gaza, then you're anti-semitic. That's absolutely false. And it does Jewish Americans a big disfavor to equate the two. Another example of the so-called journalism of Fox News was on display after we learned of the horrific Islamophobic attack at a mosque in San Diego. While the whole world was shocked by the barbaric Islamophobic attack on a mosque in San Diego where at least three Muslims were murdered by two white teenagers. Fox News was blaming Iran. Could have a similar situation right here. I'm trying to get some information about it. According to what I see here, it is a Sunni mosque location. Why do I bring that up? Because Iran is a Shia nation and some of the stuff that we've seen lately relative to Iran, like for instance, Hezbollah linked attacks that were planned to go off here in America that has a Shia footprint. And if you do count, I did 15 16 years count terrorism, you think in those terms. Local residents had far more courage than these sellout media representatives when they decided to give grief to San Diego's Zionist Mayor Todd Gloria. 13 minutesThank you. direct result of your leadership. Your leadership. Our Muslim brothers and sisters have been talking to you for how long? You have to listen to them, Todd. Just like you did the night, golden science propaganda and you'll keep doing it as long as it popping. Show something worse approval rating than a fascist dictator with in his hand. Today our city was shaken. You guys are responsible for all this All you guys are responsible and y'all want to come here and act like you show solidarity. You don't give. You don't care about us. Show solidarity before it happens. Shame on you. 14 minutesNow you know how many kids could have died. You know how many kids could have died. Shame on you. Shame on you. Get the you guys It's not okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. They promote hate, bro. This it's the they put on the media that justifies this This is what Trump and his politics of hate have done to the American society. These people are downright barbaric and bereft of any morality. Listen to the former Pentagon chief of civilian harm, West J. Bryant on Sky News calling out the pure savagery of Trump and his equally evil members of the administration for their crimes against humanity in Minab where 168 little girls were slaughtered in a single American bombing. As the president, if you're not completely heartbroken uh by this tragedy, if you don't feel compelled to address it as a nation to take 15 minutesaccountability, there's just something simply wrong with your soul. And I'd say right now for America, there's something truly wrong with America's soul. Uh, you know, it's beyond unacceptable. No one, I repeat, no one has faced any consequences for this ghastly crime. The person responsible for this order was Admiral Cooper who heads the US Central Command. He appeared before the Senate today and boy, his humiliation was simply extraordinary. The way Senator Seth Molton humiliated him over Trump's illegal war against Iran was remarkable. This is a long video, but you wouldn't regret watching it. Admiral Cooper, you keep using the term significantly degraded. Last summer, we were told that Iran's nuclear weapons program was obliterated. Can you clarify the distinction between obliterated and significantly degraded? Congressman, again, I I think appropriate uh to talk about anything regarding the Iranian nuclear program. No, no, I'm not asking you to talk about the Iran nuclear program. I'm asking you to talk about English language. What's the difference between obliterated and significantly degraded? Are they the same? Congressman, anything regarding the nuclear program? I'm not asking you to talk about the nuclear program, Admiral. I'm asking you to answer a question that applies to a lot a lot of things beyond the nuclear program. You've also said that their ballistic missile program was significantly degraded. What does that mean? The specific numbers are best uh as you know from your own President Trump's own national security strategy which he signed in December 5 months ago used the exact same phrase significantly degraded. So if this was true back then 5 months ago then why did we start this war? Was he lying to us then? Congressman, from a military perspective in regarding Admiral, are you familiar with General Are you familiar with General West Morland? I'm I'm very familiar, Congressman, he's well known for talking about body counts. Now, when I think about you in this war, I always think about how you always got up there and would say everything's going according to plan. So, so let me just ask, Admiral, where was closing the straight in the plan? I'm happy to discuss the specific operational aspects. Uh, Did you just not anticipate that? Do you not think that Iran could do that? Or was that part of the plan here? Congressman, uh, as the as for 250 years, the Navy has kept sea lanes open and free. Under every previous president, the straight of Hormuz has been open. So why is it closed under your watch, Congressman? I've traveled through the the street of Hormuz probably a hundred times. I'm intimately familiar with it as a combatant commission. Why is it closed? If you're so familiar with it, did you not anticipate that Iran I answer the question? If I may ask with respect with with kind with all due respect, my responsibility as a combatant commander is to lay out all the options uh present those to the secretary and the president. They make policy level decisions. So you present operational the operational aspect. So admiral, you presented the you presented the reality that Iran might close a straight to the president and the secretary of defense. Anything that I discuss uh with respect to uh Okay. Well, let's go back to the plan. Where was begging China for help opening the straight part of the plan? So, from a military perspective, there are multiple reports now public that Iran has already reconstituted many of its bombed out missile sites. Was that part of the plan, too? Those reports are inaccurate. Okay. I will actually give you credit for regime change. I know that was part of the plan. You've replaced an 86-year-old in failing health with a fought while against producing nuclear weapons with a more hardline guy in his 50s who in case he wasn't hardline enough, you killed his immediate family. Was that part of the plan? Is that the regime change you wanted, Congressman? We were given very specific military objectives to degrade Iran's power projection capability. That's exactly what we did. Okay. So in the course of doing that, you also lifted the oil sanctions on Iran, giving them about 14 to$16 billion dollars. They can buy a lot of ballistic missiles for that. Was that part of the plan? Lifting oil sanctions on them in the course of the conflict. They kill 14 Americans, we lift oil sanctions on them. As you know, sir, the US military does not lift sanctions. That's a policy decision. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out where it was part of the plan. on March 5th, you know, you talked about how you have you built the most integrated air missile defense or or air defense system in the Middle East and yet well into the war you had to ask Ukraine for help with defenses against drones? That's not accurate. Okay. What about oil prices, gas prices? Was oil prices going up 56% part of the plan? Congressman, as you know, from a military perspective, we don't deal on oil and gas prices. as I defer to the appropriate authorities within the government to Okay. So, so, so since none of that seems to be part of the plan, what's the plan now? What what's the plan now to actually win this war? Because it feels like we're losing. We don't have a nuclear deal. We don't have the straight open. The president has called for unconditional surrender. Is that part of the plan, Congressman? We achieved all our military objectives. We're presently in a ceasefire. Uh we're executing a blockade and we're prepared for a broad range of contingencies. Well, it doesn't seem to be going well. And I would like to know how many more Americans we have to ask to die for this mistake. Do you know? I think it's an entirely inappropriate statement from you, sir. Time to all With all due resp. Thank you. I will now leave you with this short Lego clip paying tribute to the Iranian weightlifter who broke the world record by lifting 261 kgs in the Asian weightlifting championship in India. He had later dedicated his victory to the martyrs of Minab. He had displayed the word martyrs and the number 168 on his t-shirt to highlight the number of girls murdered by Trump and his Israeli master Benjamin Nathan. The makers of the Iranian Lego series have now recreated that moment in this 10-second video. That's it from me. Thank you very much for your support of this platform and our journalism. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, please do so because that's one of the many ways you can support independent journalism. God bless you all.
Donnie Sugar Daddy of Tel Aviv Lego Rap Music Video Iran War Edition from @flowlego Explosive media videos May 19, 2026 UNITED STATES
Transcript
the [music] sugar daddy of Tel Aviv helping the billionaire robbery. But baby's a bunker [music] [ __ ] and a thief. Packing the money before they leave. Daddy's a sugar [music] daddy signing every single check while the American citizen is a financial wreck. No, I'm a stable genius, but the matrix has a glitch. [music] Now you're just a puppet for a basement bunker. [ __ ] your cash machine is broken and the numbers [music] never lie. The Red Sea is a trap and your free lunch is going to die. The hooty [music] block the water now you're freezing in the cold. The Zionist circus is a scam that's getting old. Every gallon and five bucks is a certified crime. You're running [music] out of money and you're running out of time. Johnny's up. Sugar daddy of Tel Avie helping the billionaire robbery. But [music] baby's a bunker [ __ ] and a thief. Packing the money before they leave. An effing [music] club member with an orange plastic head printing fake paper money just to feed the war. Bed 174 billion straight [music] down the toilet drain while the ambulance is stalling in the cold and the rain. Error 404. [music] America's spine is not found while 13 more soldiers are put in the ground. Transaction [music] decline your corrupt account. BB's on his knees crying at the total amount. No medicine for children. No [music] diesel in the tank. Just a brain dead pedal puppet saving Biby's private bank. Downy's a sugar daddy of Tel A [music] helping the billionaire robbery. But Biby's a bunk, a [ __ ] and a thief. Packing the money before they leave. The petro dollar [music] is a ghost buried deep in the sand. Pat and Matt are fighting over [music] a ruined land. The whole shipment's frozen. The economy is sick. The war pimp is desperate. Looking for [music] a trick. Your membership to the new world order is suspended. Go back to your hole. The clown show is ended. Please update [music] your brain or you're going straight to jail. The sugar daddy's bankrupt and the empire is ours, but I'm the [music] main character. Tommy, not anymore, piggy. [laughter] BB, [music] did you cancel the card? Tell me. I had to. BB, the Big Mac prices went up. It's a total disaster. You trade my [music] empire for a burger. Johnny's [music] a sugar daddy of tele helping the billionaire robbery. [music] Baby's a bunker [ __ ] and the thief packing the money before they leave. [music] Honestly, the service was terrible. One star on the app store. Shut up, Donnie. [music] Just grab the bicycle and pedal. Hey, baby. Do you have gas for the bicycle? It's a bicycle, you [screaming] absolute pig. [music]
Insurrectionists Hit The Jackpot | A Middle East Chill Pill | How The Ballroom Ties Together The Late Show with Stephen Colbert May 19, 2026
Donald Trump created a government slush fund for payouts to people like convicted January 6 rioters, the president decided not to resume attacking Iran, and construction is underway at the new White House ballroom.
Transcript
Welcome, welcome one and all and here out there to the late show. I am your host Stephen Coar. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm excited too. You can feel the excitement in this room. I'm excited too. This Listen, this is our last week and I have an exciting announcement. No, this is actually very exciting. We may be cancelled, but apparently the late showhouse outlived the Constitution of the United States because yesterday, without any congressional or court approval, completely unilaterally, Donald Trump gave himself a $1.8 billion taxpayerfueled slush fund. You might remember that in January, President Trump and his two sons, Ud and Cusay, filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, alleging that during his first administration, the IRS willfully failed to safeguard the Trump's tax information from unauthorized disclosure by a former IRS contractor, Charles E. Little John. Now, I I got to ask, Mr. Little John, did you actually do that? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Ivonne. Ivonne. Not that Little John. What? I'm I'm talking about the IRS guy, Charles E. Little John. Okay. Can we please just move on now? Yeah. Thank you. The judge in the case seemed highly skeptical of this lawsuit. So to get around the court's oversight yesterday, Trump's lawyers and Trump's DOJ, him on both sides, agreed to drop the case and set up this slush fund. And who exactly is this fund slushing? Well, one group of lucky slushies could be people prosecuted in connection with the January 6 capital riot. That means that means people who stormed the capital, rubbed their poop on the walls, assaulted police officers, and tried to hang Vice President Mike Pence could be getting this cash. But they won't cuz Trump's going to steal it all. Why is that, my educated guess? Because the funds are going to be managed by a fivep person commission appointed by the attorney general, though Trump would have the right to remove any member at will. So, I'd like to congratulate the inaugural commission for Donald Trump slush fund, Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio, and Marco Rubio. Now, he's from Venezuela. I think that last guy's from Venezuela. Yeah, that Rubio. Now, you might be saying, "Surely this can't get more corrupt." Shut up. I'm talking. And it can because most egregiously, the guidelines announced by the acting attorney general stipulate once the funds are deposited into the designated account, the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds. So, it's just an all you can fraud buffet. It's an it's an unprecedented level of grift because again funds of this scale typically are either created by an act of Congress or supervised by a court and this settlement is just some piece of paper they printed out saying that Trump can do anything he wants with a bunch of your money. Officer officer you can't arrest me for you see I've already laminated my homemade murder license. This is not just fraud is legal now. Today, the Justice Department posted an addendum to the original settlement which says that the IRS is forever barred and procluded from pursuing examinations of Trump related or affiliated individuals and related trusts in businesses. So, he just gave himself a get out of jail free card and a way better one than Jeffrey Epstein got. Yeah. Halfway around the world, somebody owes me money. Halfway around the world, Trump still got his ding-dong caught in the door hinge of the Middle East. Negotiations with Iran have totally stalled. So on Sunday, he went online and posted, "For Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them. Time is of the essence." You hear that? Iran, get Iraq together or next week. I don't know what will happen cuz I will be in a hammock ass deep in a pinina colada and and a and a fantasy romance novel about centaurs. It's called It's called Trampled by Passion. This time, Trump backed up his tough talk with some powerful AI slop. He posted this image where he's pressing the big red button that blows up the Earth. There's a whole bunch of stupid stuff in that picture. He appears also to be blowing up his own command console, which of course would endanger his teeny tiny generals on either side of him. Mr. President, there's a fire. Quick, everyone into this shoe. So, Trump is clearly ready to annihilate Iran. And I'm sorry, what is that? Oh, Trump says he's called off an attack on Iran to give talks more time. I got to say, these threats are getting less and less effective the more he keeps dragging them out. You want to step outside, bro? Oh, you do? Well, it's kind of chilly out there, so I'm going to grab my jacket from Coch. Okay, it looks like there's a pretty long line, so it might be a while. And I don't have singles for a tip, so let me just go to the bar. You want something while I'm in there? I'm buying. You can hang out with my girlfriend till I'm back. Then it is go time, bro time. I don't understand why you did that, but I accept. Today, uh, Trump let us know why he's decided to take a M East chill pill. Other countries have come to me and they've said we were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow. I put it off for a little while. Hopefully, maybe forever, but possibly for a little while. Fun fact, hopefully maybe forever, but possibly for a little while is also a direct quote from Trump's wedding vows. That's an oldie but a goodie. Yeah. Today, amidst the news that he's sucking up billions of tax player dollars like a shopvac, Trump headed out to the pile of rubble where the East Wing used to be to talk ballroom. I think cuz it was a little loud. Give that to me. As his polls get worse and worse, you know, he's just going to keep finding louder and louder places to answer questions. I will now answer your questions about Iran while I froth this latte. I can't hear you. I also can't answer cuz I'm making the sound with my own mouth. Don't know how the machine works. Trump gave us a preview of the state-of-the-art construction job. It's a very complex building. It's all knit together. The roof goes with the ground floor. The ground floor goes with the roof. The uh roof also goes down into the basement. Oh, really? That's fascinating. Mr. President, you may not know this, sir, but there's actually a special word for when the roof goes all the way down to the basement. And that word is walls. It has walls. You build a building. It has a floor and a roof and in between. Then he bragged about the classical architecture style. Take a look at this section. The different facade. So this is a Greek more or less. It comes out of Greece. This is the ultimate facade for Greece. Oh yes. Yes. Greece. I believe Greece is the word. Tell me more. Tell me more. What is wrong with your brain? Tell me more. Tell me more. Were you on Jeffrey's plane? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We got a great show for you tonight. Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg is here. But when we come back, John Stewart A
Trump Makes His Most Brazenly Corrupt Move Ever, Blabs About Ballroom & Backs Off Iran Deadline Jimmy Kimmel Live May 19, 2026
Trump began his day with a preview of his big, beautiful billion dollar ballroom, it was another awko taco Tuesday in the Middle East as Trump backed off his deadline at the last minute again, a strong majority of Americans are against the war according to every poll, Trump has now made what might be the most brazenly corrupt move ever by a President of the United States, Trump’s former personal attorney and current Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was grilled today about it by the Senate Appropriations Committee, Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding that was scheduled to be at the White House has had a change of venue, over the first quarter of the year Trump has benefited from thousands of personal stock trades for as much as $750 million, and Elon Musk is attacking Christopher Nolan for his casting of the movie The Odyssey.
Transcript
I am the host of the show. Thanks for coming. Thank you for watching at home. We are broadcasting from our studio in Los Angeles, California. In Hollywood, you know, here in Hollywood, we made some bad and expensive sequels in Hollywood, but nothing we have ever made is as bad or expensive as the sequel they are producing in Washington right now. There is there's just so much lying and stealing and grifting and cheating in the news today. I don't even know where to begin. So, we might as well start with the most important issue we face as Americans, and that is the fact that we don't have a ballroom at the White House. everything that's going on with the war, the cost of living, the election rigging, the constant money grab. Our president began the day with a preview of his big, beautiful billiondoll ballroom. You can see the uh very large uh piping and the other things that it's a very complex building. It's all knit together. The roof goes with the ground floor. The ground floor goes with the roof. The uh roof also goes down into the basement. Let me think about that for a second. How does a roof go down into the basement? I'm starting to get the idea. Blob the builder doesn't know much about construction either. Normally when you build a ballroom, you build it flat. You just build a ballroom. It would have been built. The complexity of this and again it's all knit. It's all knit together between the drone proofing, the uh missile proofing we have uh and the drone capacity upstairs. We can have all sorts of military up whether I I hate to use the word snipers, but we have great sniper capacity. It's built for our snipers, not the enemy snipers. Our snipers. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. That's As long as there are snipers and not the enemy snipers. The enemy snipers have to find their own spot. Okay. We're not building them a spot. And then uh his poster board started flying everywhere. The wind kicked up and the president dementia settled in. It's like an exercise game. It's so beautiful. See, I look so thin. They'll say, "Oh, it's gotten so thin cuz I'm holding this." You don't have to look at my waist. You can look at this. Smart, smart. Instead of horizontally, he built the columns vertically. It's more slimming that way. Everybody knows that. Can you imagine the Iranians watching that this morning minutes before his deadline to bomb them? He's showing off plans for the new dance floor where he's going to chaa YMCA. I mean, if he wasn't so dumb, it might be diabolical, but it isn't. He's dumb. It was another AO Taco Tuesday in the Middle East today. Trump backed off his deadline at the last minute. Again, he wrote, "I've been asked by the Amir of Qatar, Tamim B Hamald Alani, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman al-Soud, and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Muhammad bin Zed al-Nion, to hold off on our planned military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow." Somebody had to have typed that out for him, right? I could barely say there's no chance he knows how to spell common bin Hammad. And have you noticed he always seems to back down on Tuesday? Every Tuesday it's like a new episode of NCIS. You can he pulls out. I think it's because he has more free time on the weekends to make threats and then Monday comes he's like, "H, I don't want to deal. Just cancel until next week." This war feels like a series of millennial business meetings. Hey, Qatar's on the phone. They're wondering if we could push the attack on Wednesday. They want to do a quick collab and circle back on this one. But make no mistake, if the Iranians don't give up their nuclear ambitions, we will definitely possibly maybe hit them soon or at another time entirely. How close were you to striking? Uh I was I was I was an hour away. I had made the decision. So they called up. They had heard I made the decision. They said, "Sir, could you give us a couple of more days because we think they're being reasonable." How long does that take for Iran to come? Well, I I mean, I'm saying two or three days. Maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something. Maybe early next week, maybe Tuesday. This is This is how I This is how I threaten my children. I tell my kids, "No iPad for a week." And then later, I'm like, "All right, you going to play Roblox for an hour? According to every poll done by everyone, a strong majority of Americans are against this war he concocted, which is a fact that Trump both acknowledges and rejects. Look, everyone tells me it's unpopular, but I think it's very popular. Okay, that right there, that 5-second moment is all you need to know about this man. Everyone tells me it's unpopular, but I think it's popular. It's about as stupid a sentence as I have ever heard in my life. It's people. Everyone loves the HANA virus. If they didn't, why would they get it? Trump has no exit strategy for Iran. He only has one idea for getting out of a war. And sadly, his podiatrist is dead. And then we have what may well be the most brazenly corrupt move by any president ever. Back in January, Trump became the first sitting US president to sue his own government. He sued all of us because somebody at the IRS leaked the tax returns he'd been promising to show us for the past 11 years. For that, he demanded $10 billion. And guess who gets to decide whether we pay that or not? Him. Through his justice department. This is the legal equivalent of sitting on your hand until it goes to sleep. So it feels like a stranger is touching you when you masturbate. You've done that, right? No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Give it a try. I don't think so. Just sit on your hands for a little while. All right. All right. One or two. So, the judge raised doubts about whether this lawsuit was even legal. But fortunately for us, both sides, which were the same side, came to a settlement. The president graciously agreed to drop the lawsuit against himself in exchange for an apology and a fund worth 1.776 billion that he can use to pay anyone for anything at all, including the loons who stormed the capital on January 6th. Another part of the settlement says the IRS is forever barred and precluded from investigating claims against Trump or members of his family for past unpaid taxes and possibly even future ones, too. And that folks is what they call the art of the deal. The Justice Department has this new fund that was announced today, $1.7 billion. Why should taxpayers pay for the January? Well, it's been very wellreceived. I have to tell you, I know very little about it. I wasn't involved in in the whole creation of it and uh and the negotiation, but this is uh reimbursing people that were horribly treated. Horribly treated. It's anti-weaponization. They've been weaponized. They've been in some cases imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn't have. They've gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed. And they turn out to be right. Yes. Yes. The great patriots who urinated and smeared feces all over the walls of the capital building were right. They were horribly treated. Let's cut them a check. Let's give them our money. What do you say, you guys? Trump's I had a feeling you'd be against that. So Todd Blanch, who was Trump's personal lawyer, he's current acting attorney general now, got grilled on this today by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Has it ever happened that a sitting president sued his own government for $10 billion and then directed the settlement of the case and the establishment of a payout fund? Not that I'm aware, but there's a lot of things that President Trump's the first of. No president had been indicted 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven eight times either. Correct. No president's been indicted. And will you commit that none of this money will go to President Trump's campaign donors? I I am not committing to anything beyond the settlement agreement itself. That's right. We stole that money fair and square. Don't tell us how to spend it, buddy. The way they're going to determine who gets the money is with a fivep person commission. And guess who gets to pick who will be on that commission? That's right. Trump's own little multi poo. Todd Blanch. General, come on. So let me let me So you're not going to you're not going to submit this proposal to any federal judge or independent? There is no judge. Any independent authority that an indep What does that mean? An independent authority. It means not somebody who's getting to pick five of the members who was the president's former personal attorney. That would be somebody who would be independent. I'm the acting attorney general. Okay. The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact. But I'm the acting attorney general. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something. the acting attorney general will do. So, Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney. And that's the whole problem. That That was amazing. That That was like one of those those fake conversations you have with yourself in the shower where you you have a perfect comeback except it happened on TV. Good going, Senator Chris Van Golland. Now, I don't know what specifically prompted this decision, but the White House wedding that was supposed to happen uh between Donald Trump Jr. and his bride this weekend has had a change of venue. DJTJ and his new fiance Betina were planning to tie the knot at dad's house, but they reportedly decided against getting married at the White House over fears about the optics, which um I don't know, somebody marrying Donald Trump Jr. is worried about the optics. The wedding has been moved to a small private island in the Caribbean. You know, I think his, as I recall, his dad used to have a buddy who owned a a little island in the Caribbean. Right now, I don't know if that's available, but that might be a nice spot. Speaking of optics, according to a recent disclosure from the uh US Office of Government Ethics, which apparently we still have, over the first quarter of this year, Donald Trump has benefited from thousands of personal stock trades for as much as $750 million involving several companies that directly profited from decisions he made as president after he bought the stock. For example, Trump bought between $2 and $7 million in Nvidia stock, then gave Nvidia the green light to sell their AI chips to China, which made it go up. He bought stock in a number of companies who have deals with the government. It's like a smash and grab. You just can't keep track of what they're taking. There is so much garbage being thrown in our faces. And the trolls now have had to come up with random stuff to complain about to distract us. Elon Musk is now attacking uh Christopher Nolan, the film director, for the way he cast the movie The Odyssey. He's upset because Christopher Nolan hired Lupita Niongo to play a character he believes should be played by a white woman. Must posted Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey so that he would be eligible for an Academy Award, followed by who specifically is the ad who added DEI lies to Academy Awards eligibility instead of it just being about making the best movie. That's a good question. While we're at it, who specifically is the who thought this was a cool design for a truck? I mean, stay in your lane. And Elon isn't alone in this. This is a thing now. Rob Finery from Newsmax. This guy's a beauty. He was so upset he devoted a whole segment to it. Playing Helen of Troy, the woman who started the Trojan War. The likeness on the right, probably not great. She was beautiful. The woman whose face launched a thousand ships, whose beauty was unparalleled. A woman who was definitely white is going to be played by Lepita Nuango. You might be looking at this photograph saying, "I think Lepita Nuango is black." And you're correct. We haven't adjusted anything. And I've got nothing against Lepita, but I do have a problem with the complete rewriting of history. Helen of Troy was not black. That's not me being mean. That's me telling the truth. Well, here's something that might surprise you, Rob. Helen of Troy was also not real. The Odyssey is a mythical poem. There was no Helen of Troy. She was mythical like Santa Claus or election fraud. Perhaps that's it. Doesn't matter what color of myth is. And if you really want to get into it, Helen of Troy was half bird. Helen was the daughter of Zeus. And these rob are not photographs. These are drawings who disguised himself as a swan so he could mate with a human woman who then laid an egg and outh hatched Helen of Troy who again was not a real person. This is not history. This is made up. She was pretend. So it makes no difference to anyone but crazy angry people what color she was. Next week we'll do the tooth fairy. And by the way, if you're going to be angry about the casting of the Odyssey, be mad at the loser they cast the play Odysius because that's something you should all be upset about. And I'll tell you one other thing. If you didn't like Lupita Niongo, you're really not going to like who they got to play Adysius's sidekick. Tell me what you remember. a wife, a son. This kid is coming back. No, he's not. Holy, he's the cheapo. I think it's asleep. In Mexico, we call it Siesta. Congratul Congratulations. We have a fun show tonight. Jake Johnson is here. We have music from Dan and Shay. And we'll be right back with Wanda Sykes. So stick around.
Scott Ritter: Iran RESPONDS to Imminent US-Israeli Strike, GAME OVER for Trump Danny Haiphong Started streaming 42 minutes ago #iran #iranwar #trump
Former UN weapons inspector and US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter joins the show to discuss the rapid descent toward escalation by Trump & Israel, and how Iran has decisively responded amid massive geopolitical shockwaves.
Transcript
Okay, we are live. Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Hiong. As you can see, I am joined by former UN weapons inspector, US Marine Corps intelligence officer, current geopolitical analyst, independent journalist, uh, and friend of the show, Scott Ritter. Scott, good to see you again. Good to see you. How you doing? Okay. Okay. It's hot out here where we reside, but um, it's also very hot in the geopolitical sphere. So everybody hit the like button so more people can hear what we are about to dive into. Uh Scott, let's uh get going with uh the uh news that you know Donald Trump said he is postponing an attack because the Gulf countries Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE told him to do so and that negotiations are going splendidly. Abasarachi had this to say. He he fired back uh at this uh simply citing the recent congressional report. I'm not sure sure if you have seen it on the acknowledged losses of dozens of aircraft worth billions including Iran being confirmed as Arachi says here the first to strike down an F-35. Uh he said with lessons learned and knowledge we gained return to war will bring many surprises. And so here is that congressional report. Uh there are reports of about 42 aircraft lost. 24 of those were MQ9 Reaper drones. And then here's the uh larger list here which is four what was it? 37 days of active hostilities about uh it's it's sizable uh for uh especially in recent history for the United States. Scott, uh talk about your reaction to to where things are. Uh Donald Trump says negotiations are are going much better now uh that the Gulf countries have essentially I guess informed him so but uh uh what's going on for Donald Trump and the US administration when it comes to Iran and and the larger geopolitical picture and and foreign policy picture uh as we head into the long summer. The long summer it's the opposite of Game of Thrones. Winter is coming. No, summer is here. um a long hot summer. First of all, again, I I just have to start off by saying that trying to do geopolitical analysis when it comes to the Trump administration is a mission impossible. Uh using standard an analytical techniques because normally what you do is you take, you know, pieces of fact-based information and you lay them out. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, you know, where it's a thousand piece puzzle, but they hand you 35 pieces and they say, "Tell us what it says." Um, you know, and it's sort of an art form. You've got to evaluate the pieces, where they came from, try to figure out where they belong on the board, then step back and try and imagine a a bigger picture. Um, sometimes it's called connecting the dots, you know, trying to put the dots up, connect them to see what you get. Um I actually you know developed a reputation as a professional intelligence analyst of being one of the better people uh in the business at connecting the dots and um had pretty solid track record. But you know there's also a time when I had actually had access to you know real world intelligence and a real time basis. Now you're you know you're you're hampered by a couple things. One long distance sniping is what I call it. basically um I'm sitting on my butt at a desk um reading information that other people collect. Um I don't know the accuracy of their sources. I don't know upfront what their bias is and all this, you know. So you you've got to, you know, treat the information you have a little bit circumspect. Um and then the other thing is um you know, even if I sort through that and I start throwing the the dots on the on the map and start trying to connect them, what's the analytical framework? I mean, because I'm trying to assess Donald Trump. Um, Donald Trump doesn't exist in my world. Donald Trump exists in an alternative reality where fact-based data isn't necessarily what's running through his head. What's running through his head is the world of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist who suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. Now, this is at the point in the conversation where a lot of people go, "Con, Scott, you're not a psychiatrist or psychologist. you know, we we we were following you up until you said that you've sort of overstepped the boundaries. Um, I'm going to push back a little bit. In uh 2019, uh Scott Ritter, who is not a psychiatrist or psychologist, I don't play one on TV and I didn't stay in a Motel 6, so I can't claim any uh indirect expertise, but what I can say is that I was invited to sit on a panel that you guys find it, Google it, uh 2019. Um it was a C-SPAN broadcasted and and on that panel were board certified psychiatrist and psychologists and uh basically what they were doing is diagnosing the mental illness of narcissistic personality disorder of a most malignant nature on Donald Trump. Um I pushed back at the time not because I was a scientist but I said you know basically there it's a common uh practice that u they call the Goldwater rule. Barry Goldwater, a presidential candidate 1964, was diagnosed as being insane uh by people. Um and the in in the American body politic, it has been understood that uh unless somebody is actually sat down in front of a psychiatrist or psychologist, you can't make long-distance diagnosis. Except when you read the DSM, which is the manual that's used to classify mental illness, narcissistic personality disorder can be diagnosed long distance. There's five things can be done. The reason why I bring this up is I don't throw this term around loosely. For anybody who's sitting there going, I you lost pound sand, get the hell out. I don't care. But I'm telling you is that when you say that Donald Trump is a nar suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, there's no ifands or buts. He does um long range diagnosis. Bandy Lee was a uh board certified psychologist uh I think with Yale University um led the study. She's been maligned by people because of the Goldwater rule and others. Uh the vindication of bad Lee is real. Everything she said is right. Donald Trump is a mentally ill man, a very sick man. Um and and you see the disease manifest itself. Look at the golden idol that he built to himself in Mara Largo having religious figures come down and praise him to God. He hasn't read the Bible apparently because that's sort of what got the the Hebrews in trouble was building golden idols and you know worshiping false gods. This guy wants his face on Mount Rushmore. How do I begin to assess a man like this? What parameters do I use? You got to get into the mind of this sick man. And therefore, you have to assess what does he want more than anything else. He wants Donald Trump to succeed. He wants the legacy of Trump to be solid. He wants to promote Donald Trump. And so that's what you have to see. What is he doing and how does it promote Donald Trump? Not what is he doing? How does it promote the national security of the United States or the interests of the American people? He doesn't care. He only cares about Donald Trump. Um, and so he lives in an artificial reality that can be deconstructed almost immediately. For instance, I stopped it one hour before the bombs are supposed to fall. It's a straight up lie. Modern warfare doesn't allow that to happen. Um, just the complexity of modern war. Having planned uh and helped implement a strategic air campaign against Iraq back in 1990 1991, I have a an idea on how these things work and the complexity of putting together a strike package, what has to be done from an intelligence standpoint, from an operational standpoint, from a planning standpoint, how to bring all those pieces together. It's extraordinarily complex and you don't stop it with a phone call one hour before. So Donald Trump is straight up lying, too. He says that the reason why he made this very difficult choice is because he received phone calls from the king of or from Saudi Arabia. We're assuming MBS himself from Qatar. We're assuming the emir that um you know has been playing from the United Arab Emirates um that they're saying that if you attack Iran the blowback will be severe that we will suffer permanent damage to our energy producing and we don't want that. Okay. But the problem is you think they made the phone call an hour before or two hours before the president chewed on it. These are known statements of fact. Uh the these parties have never supported this uh the resumption of this conflict because they understand full well what the ramifications are going to be. Donald Trump never intended to attack Iran. Well, I'll just make that statement one more time. Donald Trump never intended to attack Iran because we can't attack Iran because we lack the capacity to attack Iran. Can it sustain a meaningful air campaign? And if we did so, we'd only get ourselves in a position worse than where we are today. Um, Donald Trump's tried to dig himself out of a hole, a hole of his own creation. But he has to do so with political spin. It's about creating perceptions because perceptions create their own realities and he lives in an artificial reality. So he needs to create the perception that he is in charge that he is the decision maker that the world gravitates around Donald Trump. He is the center of gravity of the entire world and that his decisions resonate out and because of him peace will break out because he made choices. He made decisions. Every decision was made by somebody else. All Donald Trump did is go with the flow because he has no choice. He cannot resume this war against Iran. Because the consequences of doing so will dig the hole even deeper. He won't get out of it. He can say things like he did today in a press conference. I'm not worried about the midterms. He is worried sick about the midterms. Why? Again, the world of Donald Trump. He's going to be impeached. The Democrats are going to win the House. It is a 100% certainty that if the Democrats win the House, Donald Trump will be impeached. Now, the danger is if he attacks Iran again, the global economy collapses and brings the American economy down. And Donald Trump needs to read history. Maybe somebody will whisper in his ear, "It's the economy, stupid." Of course, words put by James Carville on a yellow sticker on the war room of Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 telling Bill Clinton to stop talking about foreign policy, things the American people don't care about. They only care about one thing, and that's the economy. How much money is in their wallet, how much money is in their bank account, and how they're going to be able to pay for Christmas in the coming Christmas season. That's it. If you focus on that, you'll do well. And Donald Trump is forgetting that rule. I mean, he said straight up, I don't care about affordability issues. Well, you know who does care about affordab? 99.99% of America. People like me who live paycheck to paycheck hoping that they're able to pay the mortgage next month. Yet wondering how we're going to pay anything when the cost of living through gas prices alone has gone up to more than $450,500 a month per person. And yet there we are. So Donald Trump right now lives in an artificial reality where he's trying to spin disaster. He's going to have to make a bad deal. uh a deal that contradicts everything he says he stands for and he's going to have to spin it. He's going to have to become the ultimate snake oil salesman. How do you say uh no nuclear at all? You have to give it to me and then turn around and cut a deal, which he's going to cut, by the way, where Iran gets to keep enrichment. They might have a 10-year moratorum on it and the 60% goes to Russia, not the United States. How does he spend that? How does he spin the fact that Iran will continue to control the straight war moves in perpetuity that there's nothing we can do to alter that? He can't change that. He's going to have to say, "Oh, I'm the one that made it happen. I'm the one that allowed the oil to flow. I'm the one that did this and the other thing." But in order to do that, he has to operate from a position of perceived strength. And that's what he's doing right now, threatening to attack and then pulling back. Not because he's weak, not because he can't do it, but because he made the conscientious decision that America's not going to attack. I listen to my allies. See, he's casting the blame on his allies already. I listen to my allies. That's what's going on. That's my assessment of it. It's a very difficult assessment to make. As I said, in order to do this, you have to get in the mind of a malignant sociopath, a man who has a mental illness, narcissistic personality disorder. There's no debating this. That's what exists. Everybody knows this. It's just that the mouth breathing MAGA idiots continue to pretend that he's playing 5D chess when he's really just drooling into a cup. Yeah. I mean it look I think you're exactly right in terms of this uh kind of baiting switching threatening pulling back. Uh uh it's obviously that it's obvious that he and his administration and and and the US uh I guess in Israeli interests that are uh pushing war are in trouble. But um in terms of the the narcissism piece, it's like it it also is true that he's just not very good at this as a as a as a a political figure because I don't know if you see comments like this uh uh Scott. Uh this is what he said about those uh American troops uh US forces that lost their lives in this war that is extremely unpopular in the United States. He lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in these various wars. In two wars, Venezuela where we lost nobody. And here we lost 13 people. Now, 13 people is 13 too much. But we lost 13 people. In other wars, you lost hundreds of thousands of people. So, uh, people don't like it when you say, "Oh, do you know you've lost 13?" We lost in two major wars. We took over Venezuela. We essentially took over Iran. And we've lost so far 13 people. Some other some else would have lost a 100,000 people. Okay. But I get a So he's so good, Scott, that he only lost 13 and anyone else would have lost a lot more. And then this is what he had to say about the um uh uh the number the the comments he's made about the economy which are even worse in many respects. Numbers are you can imagine Democrats and political pundits uh jumped all over this statement that you made the other day. You were asked on the when you were leaving what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. That's right. That's a perfect sentence. I make it again. You can imagine how many people stop the sound bite at I don't think about America situation. So, what's your response to that framework? It's very simple. When people hear me say it, everybody agrees. Short-term pain. It's going to be short-term pain, but the pain is much less than people thought. So, uh, a bit of tonedeafness here. So, what's your reaction to all of this? I mean, it's it seems like, uh, there's this, uh, inability for the Trump administration to stop what it's doing. And you and you're right, he's they're trying to dig themselves out of a hole, but uh seems like Trump is really keen on digging it deeper. Uh especially in this regard. You know, when I was uh in the Marines, I I got involved in a situation where um I took certain actions that I thought were right. Um, and I ended up in front of a general who was asking me questions and I was uh, explaining my actions and um, I guess I just wasn't getting the message because I kept trying to explain to the general why I was right. And finally he stopped me and he said, "Lieutenant, I was a lieutenant." He said, "Let me paint the situation here. You're standing in front of a general explaining you lost." Because when you're explaining, son, you're losing. All right, that was the lesson. You don't want to be explaining. If you've done something and you have to be explaining about it, you lost. Especially in the political world, your action should be so focused, so tuned, so correct that you don't have to explain anything that everybody understands implicitly what you're saying, what you're trying to accomplish. That's the world of politics. When you're explaining, you're losing. What's Donald Trump doing right now? He's explaining. Now, he doesn't have a good story. He's spinning. Uh he's spinning. He's trying to, you know, you know, to to correct a huge mistake. But when you're explaining, you're losing. Donald Trump is losing. Like, he's lost the American people. I come back to just the basic fundamental thing with Donald Trump needs to have tattooed on his forehead or actually tattooed on other people's foreheads so he can see it. Uh because you know wait he probably looks in a mirror a lot so tattoo so he could read it. Um it's the economy stupid in the moment you downplay the economic because you got to understand this you know he may be right even though he's wrong because he doesn't know anything about Iran's nuclear program. But you know he says Iran can't have a nuclear bomb. Well Donnie they don't have a nuclear bomb. They don't want a nuclear bomb. They're not developing a nuclear bomb. You've made up the ultimate you know paper straw man. it it doesn't exist and it's not going to exist. To say you don't want it to exist means nothing. It's a meaningless statement. No, but that's the problem. The average American can't pick up on that. But the average American also doesn't understand anything about nuclear weapons, how they're built, all that. They hear the president say that. Now, normally if the president said Iran can't have a nuclear bomb, most Americans would go, I agree with that. They're not going to sit there and go, "Well, Skyraider says they don't have one." They're No, they're not going to get into that kind of depth. They're just say, "We agree with that." But when you say, "I don't care about the consequences for you or the financial consequences." You know, the problem is when the TV gets turned off, their brain erases the nuclear bomb in in Iran because that doesn't factor into their life on a daily basis. What does factor in is that they're going to go out, the mailman's there, I just did it. And you open up the mailbox and there's a stack of bills. They're going to bring those bills in and those bills are due. You got to pay them. and you get your paycheck and you start writing checks or you do it electronically, however you pay your bills. You pay your bills and you watch the money from your paycheck, that hardearned money from a paycheck where you have slaved away at a job, maybe two jobs, and you watch that money go d. And at some point, you want that thing to stop. So you can sit there and go, okay, with what's left, I can do X, Y, and Z. But instead, nowadays, it's going d even more. And it's getting close to that to that zero line where you suddenly get into where you have more bills and you have money to pay the bills and your entire reality is going. You think they give a fine you know what about Iran and nuclear weapons at that point in time. And the answer is hell no. They don't care. All they're knowing is that their bank account is zero, bills are due, and their life is about to come to a roaring end. And the president says he doesn't care. That's why Donald Trump has a political problem because he is totally out of touch with reality right now. He lives in a artificial world of his own making and you know the the the American public it's the economy stupid and come November if he hasn't turned things around he's going to get swamped. You you watch game I keep using Game of Thrones because I like Game of Thrones but you remember that scene where they've they've looted uh the the the the Tyrells and they they're coming back and here comes Danny on her dragon. But before Danny comes, you got the Dothraki and the cavalry running down and uh the the the one guy turns to Jane Lannister and says, "We're about to get swamped." Yeah, you are. Because you don't have enough infantry and they're going to swamp you. Donald Trump's about to get politically swamped. The Dothraki are roaring down on him. A dragon's coming behind and he's got a thin line of Lannister infantrymen that aren't going to hold. That's Donald Trump's political reality right now. game this out a bit about what exactly is the hesitancy about restarting this war with Iran because we know the Israelis uh have been the principal uh they've been clamoring for this the the principal cheerleaders for this uh every single day since the ceasefire the media in Israel has been consistently pushing and pushing and pushing and talking about how escalation they even said yesterday that escalation preparations are all ready to go and uh they're going to it could be any moment. It's just if it's it's when, not if. Um but the narrative gets really really strange. I don't know if you saw this uh uh uh piece, Scott, but you know, now you have uh US officials, these of course always anonymous US officials planting a story about how the early USIsraeli goal in the war when the strikes were initiated on February 28th, was to install Mahmud Ahmedinad, who I know you remember, Scott. um a very strange choice nonetheless if his political history uh was anything to factor in, but they're saying he was going to be the Deli Rodriguez of Iran, that he had changed and he was working with the Israelis and uh the United States and that the strike that Israel fired at his complex where he lives was meant to rescue him from IRGC uh and uh instead hurt him almost some say almost killed but hurt him and he hasn't been heard from ever since. Scott, what do you make of this and maybe you could help game through the reality of why there is so much uh hesitancy since the beginning of the ceasefire? Seems like there are major forces thirsty, especially on the Israeli side for the re restart of all of this with that first then we'll get to the interesting story of my um the Israelis have been pushing for a major confrontation with Iran for some time now. Um, and they have been trying to get the United States to participate because the Israelis recognize that they cannot engage Iran militarily by themselves and prevail. They must have the United States on board. Uh, on February 11th of this of this year, um, Donald Trump met with Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the MSAD and, uh, they sold him a bill of goods. They sold him on um not only the threat of Iran which you know Donald Trump has bought into hookline and sinker go back to um the spring of 2018 when Netanyahu came and old Donald Trump on um you know the concept of a MSAD raid on Tyrron that gained access to a nuclear archive and then he showed him a bunch of documents to prove the Iranians were lying about the JCPOA and they were pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program and Donald Trump is so stupid and he's surrounded by so many sickopants that they didn't do the obvious things such as, "Hey, at least three of these documents that you're presenting us as new in this archive are the same documents that you tried to sell the IAEA back in 2004 and 2009, uh, which were proven to be forgeries, forged by Israeli intelligence to try to do the same thing, create the perception of Iranian nuclear intent that doesn't exist. But nobody had the courage to tell Donald Trump that or he was just too stupid to understand that. And Daniel got away with it. There is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. Never has been and isn't going to be one. No matter how much people in your audience and elsewhere say they need to have a weapon. Well, they don't want one. So their need isn't manifested by your desire. They don't want one and they're not going to build one. Uh but you know, Trump made his decision. Now he was sold on that. But more importantly, he was sold on regime change that you know the Iranian regime is about to collapse. The inherent weakness of villaki, the supreme, the rule of the supreme juristprudent that having the supreme leader um the Islamic Republic uh he was being sold on the fact that the Iranians are increasingly secular that this notion of Shia faith doesn't dig deep. Uh the 12 vers Shiism is a fanatic religion uh that that exists on the periphery of Iran. it's not part of the fundamental essence of the modern Iranian state. And that if we simply just come in, kill the supreme leader, suppress certain military leadership, we can bring about regime change. And then when regime change happens, um we will be able to shut down ballistic missiles, shut down nuclear. In the meantime, we 25 minuteshave enough military force to prevent the Iranians from effectively launching missiles we can suppress until we can get a new regime to eliminate. Um the straight of horses isn't a problem. They'll shut it down. We'll reopen it again. We'll reopen it. The primary tactic is regime change. Remove the regime. The regime will open up straight or moves. Everything be good. Everything hinged on regime change. The Israelis sold the president on this bill of goods. And the president now recognizes that regime change failed. And um that they didn't accomplish this, that uh the regime is actually stronger today than ever before. And therefore all of the other objectives are are unattainable. Um you know, this is this is the reality. The Israelis sold this to the president. Uh, and the president now realizes the Israelis sold him a bill of goods. So, where is Israel today? Well, Israel still needs the United States to to be involved. Israel is operating under the assumption that it will be able to initiate an action and through Iranian response, the United States will be dragged back in. That's one of the the goals and objectives of this. The problem is the Israelis can't initiate an action without the Americans being complicit in this because Israel cannot carry out an air campaign against Iran of any significance without close continuous coordination with US Central Command. And right now uh Central Command is shutting that down because we don't want a war with Iran. So where are the Israelis now? Um well first of all understand that uh they're getting their asses handed to them in Lebanon. I mean, this is about as embarrassing, humiliating as it get. The Hezbollah is supposed to be defeated, can't continue and sustain the fight, is literally stomping the death out of the IDF. Um, they're beating him on the frontline contact, but now through the, uh, introduction of FPV drones, um, first-person view drones, many of them having fiber optic cable. They're bringing death and destruction, uh, 20 to 30 kilometers into the Israeli depth. The Israelis weren't prepared for this. Hint hint, America, this is your future if you want to go to war against Russia because you'll not get anywhere. The drones dominate the skies. Israel can't move without dying. Um, and so they're losing Lebanon before the Israelis were saying there could be no, you know, we we're going to finish Lebanon. No matter what you want to do with Iran, America, we're finishing Lebanon. It's over. And we played the game. We brought in Barack who sat down and negotiated with the, you know, it was supposed to be a Israeli Lebanon negotiation, but Hezbollah wasn't part of it. Hezbollah is the only voice that counts in Lebanon today when it comes to Israel because they're winning. They defeat Israel. And so you have Hezbollah winning, which is supposed to happen. Then Israel has no chance of defeating them. We're at the point right now where Israel has to very declare defeat. They can't win. They can't prevail. They're getting beat by Hezbollah right now. So that's a big reality. Um two, the United States isn't going to play this game anymore. 60% of Americans don't support Israel. And that number is going to get higher and higher and higher. Israel know. So what did Benjamin Netanyahu do? Benjamin Netanyahu said uh in 10 years we have to cut off our financial ties to the United States. That means the whole enterprise the whole Thomas Massie we will outspend you and buy American democracy enterprise is going away because Israel recognizes that while you may be able to vote out Thomas Massie in the long term the enterprise is going to collapse. Uh so they need an additional source of funding. Where are they going to get their money? Well, it's not going to come from the inherent economic strength of Israel, which was supposed to happen with the Abrams Accord combined with the India Middle East European economic corridor. That's not going to happen. None of that's going to happen. So, how how where does Israel get its replacement for American Large? Yes. The answer is the United Arab Emirates. Netanyahu has admitted he traveled to the UA during the war. Israel has sent troops to the UAE to protect them with air defense. And the UA has pulled out of OPEC plus and has gone it on its own to sell maximum amounts of energy on the market to do what? To underwrite the Israeli security architecture that will replace the failed American architecture over the United Arab Emirates. And this vehicle, Israel UAE, will be used to sustain the conflict against Iran. That's their theory. That's their bet. The problem is are the Iranians who have just basically come out and said we will terminate the UAE's existence as a viable modern nation state on day one if the conflict begins. It's very easy to do. You shut down energy production very vulnerable to that. You shut down desalinization plant. No water. Right now it's 50 54 degrees in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. You don't have drinking water you die. And uh and you shut down power generation which means no air conditioning. So basically the UAE which has sold itself as one of the most technologically uh society modern societies in the uh in the region will die. Um the Iranians said we'll bring you back to the age of the camel which is true. If you take out water you take out energy they got nothing. And this will happen instantaneously. Iranians have said that once this starts, they will begin wave after wave every hour firing non-stop missiles and drones against the entire spectrum of targets inclusive of energy targets and desolization plants in the UAE. It'll go for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and Iran has the forces to sustain this. America at best can continue a conflict on the scope and scale of the 37-day war for a week. Then we run out of everything. We run out of long-range standoff strike weapons. We run out of air defense. And the Iranians will not run out of it. This is the reality. This is why the United States can't attack Iran because to do so we take not it's not just a temporary reduction of uh energy production capacity going to market. It's the permanent elimination of significant quantities of energy going market and there's nothing to replace it in the global energy. So you will get a collapse of the global economy. And we're talking about when you cut off this much oil, refineries stop working.
When they stop working, they go away. Pipelines cease to function. They go away. the entire infrastructure that the globe needs to survive starts to crash because we can't keep the energy in that the world needs and you start having these deficits, economies collapse and it's a spinning spiraling effect and we come back then to the United States and the American consumer. It's the economy stupid and the president better understand that and I think he does. This is why he's not going to attack Iran because to attack Iran is the financial collapse of the region, the world, and the United States. And it's the end of him politically. That's all he cares about. This is a narcissist. He needs when he finishes his presidency to be able to say, "I was the greatest president that ever walked the face of the earth." And he needs to surround himself with people who will repeat that to him. And he will build monuments to himself and all that. But his president is going to end differently. He's going to be impeached and he's going to be convicted and he's going to be put on trial. Uh he'll be he'll be thrown out of the White House in disgrace. And when that happens, the Democrats will go in for the kill. They will dismantle Trump's industry. They'll find out about all the crimes that are being committed right now. Every crime being committed. Jared Kushner is going to jail. His daughter is going to jail. Steve Witco's going to jail. Everybody who has profited from this corrupt enterprise called um you know the Trump administration will go to jail. The people who are betting shorting the energy market going long on the energy marketing it to the social media accounts of Donald Trump they will go to jail. It will be a total cleansing of the house and that's it for the Trump legacy. you know, he was upset with New York when after he got elected president. All you remember driving into Manhattan, you come down there, come down to, you know, the Hudson, Henry Hudson, and then it turns into river and you look to your left and they had a whole host of buildings. They all said Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And after he got elected, they all took it down because Trump didn't own a single one of those buildings. He just branded them. He said, "Put the Trump name up there and people will come." But the problem is he got elected and everybody went, "We hate you, Donald Trump." And so they took it down because it was a bad brand. The Trump brand is going to be over, finished, destroyed. He will go to jail. His family will go to jail. And he sees this. This is the writing on the wall. 33 minutesIt's inevitable unless he could get a miracle. And the miracle begins with not bombing Iran, not digging the hole deeper. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so much for all those uh those short that he said short-term pain, but a lot of these LG companies are looking at uh short-term uh maximization of profits and uh the scenario you just laid out that uh that is going to that's just going to lay on so many consequences that uh it'll be interesting to see whether that those short-term profits are going to be worth all of the long-term pain uh that's to come if it continues like this. But Scott, yeah, your comment on the I'm a Dinitch story now. Yeah. No, no, it's totally fine. I mean, just leaking that out there, it doesn't I guess it it doesn't really reflect uh an image of strength. Maybe the New York Times and the US official, so-called US officials wanted to do this to weaken Trump's image even further and the US administration's image even further around the Iran war on Iran. But I'm curious on your thoughts about it because it's a it's a very strange if it's all made up. It's a very strange story. If there's any truth to it, it's also a strange story. So your thoughts? No. Um first of all, um Mahmood Ahmedad was the president of uh Iran. He was very hardline president. under his presidency, Iran's um Iran forcefully confronted the policies of the United States and uh in Europe regarding Iran's nuclear program. Um he's the one who basically said, "We're not we're not playing by your rules anymore. We're going to um do what we want to do," which had nothing to do with acquiring a nuclear weapon. everything to do with expanding Iran's ability to enrich uranium to master the uranium fuel cycle for nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes. Um and you know he he um he caused a lot of angst in uh the United States and in Israel. Um, uh, Israel interpreted what he was doing as seeking to existentially threaten the existential survival of Israel by possessing, if not a nuclear weapon, the ability to produce a nuclear weapon by mastering enrichment, which means that you've you've solved the fundamental underlying technical problem of enrichment. Um, you know, he um he was a very he was a very hardliner though, and I forget who replaced him. Um, was um Kame, not Kame. Yeah. How many? I don't know. I drawing a blank here. But um in the election, you know, Ahmed Denjad um you know, articulated against this guy who was looking for more moderate policies and um and it got to the point where the Supreme Leader um Ali Kame um sort of treated Ahmedad with root. There's a whole ceremony that goes into transferring power and the former president plays a role in the current president and Akmad was seeking to assert himself and he was minimized. Um and many people saw it as a deliberate snub by the supreme leader on the former leader. Um Akmad though turned out to be a man who um you know he's not corrupt. Uh he doesn't have secret money. He he retired to a um a very marginal life. Um it was a former president and of course people pay attention to him but he stayed out of pol he tried to reinsert himself in the election got told he can't. Um and he just be again living a very simple life of a as a gardener and all that. Um no political ambition. But here's here's why we come up on this. The regime change failed. The efforts of regime change failed. the story that Yeah. Roani was a placement. Yeah. Former negotiator. You're right. Thank you for the note. Sometimes reading the chat pays off. Um the the the let's give you an example of how how the media today works. The Financial Times English paper published a story that said that Xi Jinping told Donald Trump that uh the Chinese felt that Putin was losing the war and that Putin knew he was going to lose the war and Putin was this and Putin was that and Jing he shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have done that. And the idea was of course to create a political problem on the eve of Vladimir Putin's arrival in China. Now the Chinese came out and said that's horse hockey and of course it was. But the point is the Financial Times and and I know this to give you an example going back to my time as a weapons inspector. Um I worked with MI6 um on what called a information operation and um the the goal was we took intelligence that we couldn't act on because it was crap. uh we had it in our files and they said give us the stuff that's in your file that isn't actionable meaning you can't do an inspection and we'll feed it to our sources in the media and they'll publish it as if it's real to create the impression in the global community that Iran or Iraq is developing and pursuing weapons of mass destruction um operator was called mass appeal Google it guys it's real it's real because I was there but the point is that's what MI6 does and as a result I found out that MI6 owns editors and writers at major newspapers in Great Britain. Any newspapers want to sue me for that? Please do. I love the discovery process because I can name you. We know who you are. And we now know that the guy who published it and the people who published this story are part of that process. This was an act of desperation designed to undermine, you know, Vladimir Putin's role because that's Britain's goal right now. The entire MI6 London station exists to do one thing and that's to undermine Vladimir Putin. and they're the ones who generated this crap story, plant it in British media, and they ran with it. So now we come to the New York Times. The New York Times 39 minuteshas now exposed itself that they are an active front of the CIA. Now, we always knew that um and it became manifest, you remember last December, uh at the moment when the CIA was working on a drone program to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Um remember the big launch? Um same time they did the launch, there was a story that was published where the CIA said, "We're the ones doing this. We're the ones giving them the intelligence. We're the ones who now it was supposed to be done either after Putin was dead or Putin was weak. It was a CIA power play. But the point is the New York Times was actively working with the CIA to create this perception. The CIA owns the New York Times. When I was a weapons inspector, again, the CIA worked with CNN to do the same thing, to make a major documentary about the the work of the inspectors using intelligence information that the CIA provided. That's what they do. It's an information operation. So this Akmad story is the cheapest kind of information operation there is. They've gone back. These are people with superficial knowledge of Iran and they've gone back and they said, "Oh, he got snubbed that, you know, they go to he got snubbed by the supreme leader." Um, and he was embarrassed and humiliated. He tried to reinsert himself into politics and they said no. So we can create the image of a frustrated man, a man who has an axe to grind, um a man who you know want can can be bought out. And so they've invented this whole story. It's just a total 100% BS story. And the purpose of the story is of course to create controversy inside Iran to start getting we've done this before. or the CIA back in the 1980s um got one of one of the Palestinian liberation groups in Beirut to start killing each other because they planted a story that they that that they had a source that this guy ratted out this guy this guy rat and they started they turned on each other and they killed each other. So it can work. You can mental warfare cause people to clash from within. This is an act of mental warfare. It's designed to inject a premise into a into Iran society to create a br a lot of people 41 minutescontinue to support Ahmed Denjad. So if the government regime was to arrest him, you create a division. Now they're not going to arrest him because the Iranians know with 100% certainty. This is literally BS. They're just like, do you think the Chinese lost any sleep, open up the Financial Times going or the Russians? You think Vladimir Putin went, "Wait a minute. What? What? Trump said this to and she didn't call. I'm not going there. Oh, We're g Ukraine. We're going against China. We're going to split up. give the CIA everything they want. He went, "No, because they know the truth. The Iranians know the truth. Everybody, this is just the cheapest kind of information warfare. It's it what it is. It's an act of absolute desperation. Just like planting the story in the Financial Times because again, think of yourself as a Financial Times. You were literally just exposed as an intelligence front. You're no longer a journalistic out uh out, you know, outlet. Uh and and people should seriously cease and desist all 42 minutessubscriptions to the Financial Times. It should ruin them. Except, you know, it it won't, but it should because they are no longer function as journalists. They are intelligence operatives. The New York Times has now been exposed as a paper that has gone away from journalism. We knew that a long time ago, but it's not just that they're bad journalists. They're intelligence operatives. They're working on behalf of the CIA to carry out regime change plans. Um, and so there that's what this is. It's total crap. 100% crap. And the desperation is incredibly uh I think uh highlighted here when uh one thinks that part of the assessment, if we can call it an intelligence assessment, is that uh the war that the US and Israel have uh ignited against Iran that has killed for example hundreds of over a hundred children in one strike. uh the very first day of it to insinuate that Amadinad betrayed the entire country with that kind of damage. Just that one single example. But you know, how about all the rest of it? How about the thousands of people who died before uh the strikes came who were killed and then of course all the infrastructure of people that have been killed by the actual strikes. Uh that must have been something they factored in like hey uh this will make people very angry if we say he's a you know he's basically our but they're they're they're insinuating themselves which is what I think is so interesting. They're saying okay they're basically saying the US and Israel uh you know have this ace in a hole which then underscores the actual reason why all of the consequences that have been born from this war uh have occurred. And it's not a great story to begin with, but any any final comments on this before we move on to the Putin Ca meeting which um uh you mentioned. No, I think you pretty much wrapped it up. It's the cheapest kind of uh of propaganda. 44 minutesIt underscores two things. The absolute people need to understand that the CIA has no insight into Iran. None whatsoever. Um, in the 1980s, the CIA still had networks that dated back to the time of the Sha when the CIA was very active in Iran, had recruited just about everybody there was to recruit and they had some u some some resources still in play. Um, and then a guy named Steve Richter, uh, who is the head of Near East operations, um, my nemesis when I was doing Iraq, um, he basically was told we have to start focusing on Iran. And so there was a way they communicated. These guys use old school communications. They would send letters uh with secret writing to a postbox in Munich where the CIA is a big station and then they you know that's how they would communicate. But the see that works if u if one or two letters are snuck in every week uh part of an overall flow of mail that nothing stands out. But then RTOR said we got to double the reporting triple the reporting set the word out. We need more reports. But he didn't change the method of communication. And so suddenly out of nowhere all these agents are starting to send secret writing in post to Munich and the Iranians are going, "Huh?" And counter intelligence guys went, "Well, we we're on to something here." Floated back and they terminated the entire network. All gone. Vast majority went up hung by the neck because it betrayed their country. They're dead. The CIA attempted to reconstitute that. And uh once again they had a system in place and the CIA had a um method of communication that involved Gmail. I won't get into the specifics but the bottom line is they you use a Gmail address and all this kind of stuff. And again the Iranians were able to break that and reverse engineer and they rolled up that network all gone finished dead. They shared it with the Russians and the Chinese. the Chinese were able to go in and clean up all the CIA's networks in China. And the Russians, I think, um, the CIA was able to dismantle what they did and the Russians didn't quite get get as far along as they wanted to. But, uh, the point is we have no human resources inside Iran. So, what happened at this time, it's a high-profile target. Um, give you an example. We we we the NSA built something called Stucknex, which is a virus that was supposed to go in and infect the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. They're centrifuges. Um, and it did it going through controllers, Seammens controllers, etc. Um, the Israelis cooperate. Now, to get it into Iran though, we don't have any human intelligence. We don't have any ability. So, we had to turn to the Israelis. The Israelis have a whole bunch of human intelligence inside uh Iran because the Israelis are patient. They're long-term. they don't do stupid things like make them double up their reporting using secret writing on postal or use a Gmail account that doesn't work. Um, and so we basically transferred the human intelligence aspect to Israel. We would provide operational oversight. We would provide conceptual work, but the Israelis would execute assassinations. We played a heavy role in that, but the Israelis executed. Stuck next, it was the Israelis that broke through the air gap to get the virus into the system. Um, and so we became hostage to Israeli control of the human intelligence uh, aspects of Iran. So what I'm bringing it up is that we don't have any special insight in Iran. Everything comes from um, Israel and uh, Israel has lost it. They burned through a whole bunch of resources this past December and January. They they they burned through those resources. Um, a little premature action exposed the Iranian shutdown. Very effective. Um so there there is very little human intelligence operations coming out of Iran. The other problem is human intelligence. Okay, let's say you have a good operator but has to come back to an analytical framework. In order to have a sound analytical framework, you need to have people who are up to speed on the reality of Iran. Generally speaking, that means you travel to Iran, you know the Iranians who work in Iran, you have this insight. CIA doesn't do any of 48 minutesthat. Um instead, the CIA recruits in their analytical same way they do with Russia. people who go to college and universities and they get a degree in Iran hatred. It's like if you how do you want to work for the CIA? Let me give you an go to a bigname university with a Russian studies program and write a thesis on Vladimir Putin being the worst man in the world and you'll be hired by the CIA because you're thinking right. You're aligned right. But you don't know any because you've never been to Russia. You may not even speak Russian. But you're going to be hired because you hate Vladimir Putin. Therefore, you're in. If you go to an academic institute and you say I hate the uh the regime, the theocracy is bad, is evil, etc., you will be hired by the CIA to run analysis, but your analysis is already openly biased. And the problem is you have politicians who are putting down policy options based upon that bias and you're reinforcing that bias. And that's where the CIA today, they don't have Iranian experts. They don't have any insight into what's going on in Iran. They don't interpret what's going on. And that's why they've gotten everything wrong about Iran. everything wrong. They've got nothing right about it. This is another reason why the Akmad thing is stupid because if you're at least going to come up with it, you've gota you got to be a little bit smarter than that and they're not. And the last thing, too, is um let's just say this is right. You know what the New York Times just did? Let's just say that everything is true. They just outed a major Israeli human intelligence operation, right? Uh, and if it was real, then scores of intelligence assets are going to be caught and executed. Now, fortunately, it's not real and all that, but if it was real, understand what the New York Times just did. They outed an intelligence network that would result in dead people. Yeah. Uh Scott, uh maybe in the last uh portion of time here we could talk about the uh Putin visit to China to meet with Xiinping. Um and it comes of course uh not a week after just days after Donald Trump left uh came and left Beijing himself. Uh one of the key striking parts about this is rather than the theatrics, it's more of the concrete character of what actually happened at this meeting. Uh 40 documents were signed and they were shown here uh you know um by China and and those uh organizing the summit. Uh so huge and then of course there were lots of interesting uh goodwill gestures like this uh 26 years ago uh when the treaty of good neighborliness was signed between China and Russia uh Putin met this family uh and uh he eventually became an engineer. He studied in Russia and Putin met him again on this anniversary of that treaty. So uh good neighbor you know uh uh goodwill gestures less theater but uh very concrete uh uh documents signed across all sectors of trade and cooperation. Talk about what the significance is and then maybe if you wanted to do some uh comparing and contrasting of of the two visits uh your thoughts on this. Well, first of all, let's set the trip up by looking at the Trump trip um which accomplished nothing. You talk about 40 agreements. Um Trump talked about 200 Boeing aircraft uh contract that doesn't exist. Boeing's still waiting for the Chinese to call and they're not going to call. Um you know, so nothing happened here. This was, you know, Donald Trump thought he was going to come in and and and and try to strongarm China into uh doing things, accepting things. It didn't work that way. The Chinese were very polite. But um nothing nothing happened here except the outright humiliation of the president. Not because of anything China did but because of what the president did himself. I mean uh Sergey Lavro has said that United States is uh agreement incapable. Uh well president proved that by when JJ Ping left and left his folder there the president reached over open up leaf through it. Now people can laugh that off. Don't. That was hugely insulting. Hugely insulting. It shows that pres American president has no integrity whatsoever. It's not his job to spy. He's the president of the United States. you know, he should already know what's in that binder if the CIA was doing its job. If the CIA isn't doing its job, so therefore, that's another exposure of the failure of American intelligence. The president feels a need to find out what Jin Ping's thinking because he wasn't properly briefed. But he wasn't properly briefed, not only because the intelligence community doesn't know, but because he doesn't want anybody telling him Donald Trump has to be the man that knows more than anybody else in the world about everything. So therefore, he knows nothing. Um, it was a total failure this trip. Um he was told by um Xihinping something very important about Taiwan and this is why it's relates to Russia. Basically he was told that Taiwan is of existential importance to China. China will not tolerate any aspect of any policy that seeks to create a divide between Taiwan and China and that anybody who seeks to do so um there will be conflict war. So, China put the United States on notice that if they continue to pursue the policies they're pursuing, there will be a war between China and the United States because Taiwan is of existential importance. Now, why is this important? This was done very publicly by Jinping. Um, Vladimir Putin is getting ready to visit. You want the best indirect communication possible. Define a scenario that says Taiwan is of existential importance, that China is willing to go to war to defend that. You have Putin coming in getting ready to expand a conflict dramatically against Ukraine and Europe. Um, and I believe we're going to be seeing a major military strike against at least Latafia and maybe Germany and other countries. That's just the way it's going to be. But Putin doesn't have to come in and ask permission or say this. Xiinping just told him, "We believe that Ukraine is to you what Taiwan is to us, and we're willing to go to war to defend our interest in Taiwan, and therefore we will accept whatever you have to do to defend your interests in Ukraine up to an including conflict with Europe. Um, you know, that's the signal. Then they back it up by sitting down and not distancing themselves or going to patient you know this by signing meaningful agreements strategic energy agreements. I mean how does the United States have any leverage? What the leverage Trump wanted was to say I control Venezuelan oil. I control Iranian oil. Therefore I control 23% of your energy market. And if you don't do what I want to do, I'll strangle you to death. That's why JJ Ping looked at Steven Miller. You know the long handshake and the stern look basically saying we're on to you. How's it how's it feel to be you right now? Not very good, does it? Because everything you thought you were going to get, you didn't get. Marco Rubio was there, you know, he had sanctions placed on him. But um my understanding is that the uh the the Chinese let him in not by lifting sanctions, but just by renaming him. And we weren't smart enough to pick up on the the significance because the name basically meant you're a loser. That's what literally they stopped calling him Rubio. I think Lubio and it means when you break it down, you're a man who's an absolute loser. You're you're disgusting. You're no good. And Rubio never even picked up on that. He just did what he, you know, went there and was humiliated because all the policies been promagating have turned out to be empty, shallow, ineffective. The same thing with Scott Bess, his goal to bring Iran to its or China through its knees by denying it energy, undone. And one of the ways it was undone, not just by Iran's continued survival, but the energy agreement with Russia. Now Russia, you know, the uh Trans Siberian 2 pipeline is alive and well and living. We're looking at, you know, agreements of unprecedented labor, unprecedented scope and scale. Uh Russia and China are not just neighbors. They're good neighbors with strategic interests that are mutually beneficial and in direct opposition to the strategic goals objectives of the United States under Donald Trump. That's the significance of this meeting. Uh there are people in the United States who apparently have read Henry Kissinger's works and believe that they can replicate his effort to divide China from Russia, from the Soviet Union. That isn't going to work. The United States isolated itself by not having any policies, having nothing to contribute and showing that they are agreement incapable and showing the inherent dishonesty and lack of integrity of the president of the United States. And they replaced it with a man who gets along with Xiah Ping famously. I mean, you remember the the scene where Trump is in the uh in the garden, he turns to Xin Ping, he goes, "You never brought anybody here before." I mean, it's like a lover turning, you know, you didn't bring your wife here, but you brought me. Well, it turns out he brought a lot of people there, including Putin. But, um, it doesn't matter. Um, you know, that's that's Trump's insecurity. Now, imagine how he felt now when Jin Ping brings Putin down, brings up and there's a giant portrait of the two of them together, smiling friends. You know, there was no Donald Trump portrait, you know. So, Donald Trump knows that he's the outcast. He he runs around pretending he has a special relationship with Xia Ping. He doesn't. He doesn't. Vladimir Putin does. And that's the that's the big takeaway. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the proof is in the the pudding. I mean uh Xinping and Putin are signing agreements. They signed literal documents that uh are binding and that will strengthen the relationship. Uh Donald Trump went in and didn't get a damn document. There was no document signed. Um we would have known about that. uh and uh and and as exactly as you said, whatever has been verbally agreed upon is all contingent upon the the relationship between the US and China, which we know is uh uh uh on rocky uh ground in large part because of a decade or so of US policy that's gotten only more aggressive, which Trump played a big role in. So, uh, unless we think the Chinese are stupid and China is stupid, uh, this was all all, uh, uh, you know, professionally and intentionally done and went the way it was supposed to go. Um, Scott, any final comments, uh, before we head out of here? Anything that we didn't hit on? Uh, what uh, please uh, you take it away. Well, I mean, I'm always hesitant to do predictive analysis in this day and age, especially when it deals with uh any policies that the United States is involved in, but um I would say that I think we're we're going to see um the Ukraine issue come to a head dramatically very soon. I think uh you know Vladimir Putin just signed off on what he called long range sanction plan for June and he said that basically that uh Ukraine is going to double down on stupid and expand the uh the drone campaign against Russia. Um the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum begins on June 3rd. Um I'm going to be there. Um I I'm appearing in a panel on June 4th talking about the future of diplomacy and international relations. Uh I think my report card will be bleak but um the the the point is um this is one of the if it's the largest forum of its kind. It swamps Davos in terms of size, scope, scale. A Davos gets hyped up in the western media by a bunch of speeches. But this one is where actual contracts are signed, business is done, tens of thousands of people show up. Um it's the most influential form of this kind. It's just a shame that the United States locks itself out because of Russophobic policies. But if you think for a second that this flagship of Russian economic development is going to be threatened by Ukrainian drones, think again. On victory day, May 9th, Russia made it clear that if Ukraine attacked Moscow during the parade, that Kiev, downtown Kiev, Bankova, the administrative sector would disappear. 1 hourUm, I believe that that's still on board and if Ukraine expands these these attacks, Kiev will disappear. But it now is apparent that um the Baltic states in addition to providing a corridor through which Ukrainian drones can be launched against St. Petersburg and the invers there uh Latvia is providing actual bases so that the drones can be launched closer. Um and the the the the reaction time is greater. You know this is a direct threat. Um look at the map understand that Vladimir Putin normally comes to St. Petersburg International Forum speaks on the last day, holds a very famous um you know open mic thing where he takes questions on a panel. You think the the the Russian president's going to go there and uh and say please attack me, please kill me, please try and do what you want to do. Um so I think that Latafia will literally be struck very hard. Uh it's a question about whether or not the um the extension goes into Germany. There's every reason to believe if certain kind of drones are used, FP5 Flamingos for instance, that the German production facilities might be hit as well. But the Russians are done playing games. Um, this war is going to come to a dramatic conclusion sooner rather than later because now instead of dealing with the war of attrition at the grassroots level, which Russia is winning, by the way, dramatically, um, don't believe me, just look at the special inspector general report issued on Operation Atlantic Resolve, I think they call it. Um, and you'll see that Russia's dominating the entire war for the first time. The truth is being told. All those other uh pro- Ukrainian uh social media sites out there saying the opposite. They're just throwing crap at you. The facts don't back up anything they say. Uh but Russia normally when they talk about attrition warfare, they they don't attach a calendar date to it. They just say that we're going to go as long as it needs to go to get the objectives. But now because of the long range sanctions that Ukraine is doing, these drone attacks, this is an existential problem for Russia that has to be resolved sooner rather than later. And I believe that the decision already been made to to do this. I think Latafia will be taken off the map. I think Kev will be taken off the map. And um I think Russia will basically say if anybody else wants to step up and play, we can up the game to them as well. Yeah, we didn't get to talk uh deeply about Ukraine this time around, but uh the actions continue to push uh Russia in this direction. So, uh Scott, thank you so much for the analysis. Uh we're going to head out together. I want to make sure everyone knows that your website is in the video description below. So, that's where people can support you and all of your work. Uh so, go there after the show, hit the like button as you do that. That helps keep boosting the show. Um and uh all the places to support this program too are in the video description. I'm on with Army Nwani tomorrow 12:00 noon Eastern time. So do come through for another program. Um until next time. Scott, any last words? No, I just again I appreciate all the support. Like I said, I'm going to Russia end of this month and um I have an extensive program uh involved. I was just invited to go to Ufa, which is the capital of Bashkir, the Bashkir Republic. Uh people might not know but my background is a Russian area studies kind of person. I've specialized in uh certain aspects of bashir history. Zechan is a guy I follow. So this is a thrilling thing. But the point is to go to Russia. I gain access to Russian information, the reality of Russia, bring it back and try to create antidotes to the disease of Russophobia so that we can deal with Russia more responsibly. That only happens uh with your support. So, anybody who wants to support this trip and other trips, uh, kindly go to, um, you know, scottra.com to my Telegram page, go to the site says donate and, uh, you know, whatever you donate, it all adds up. Um, but I'm a totally 100% self-funded independent journalist. Uh, I'm not Putin's puppet. I'm not on the Russian payroll and, uh, won't be. Uh, this is why you can, you know, I may make mistakes, but any mistakes that are made are mine, not because somebody tried to influence me or do anything like that. And uh you know I I I strive to be as mistake free as possible when I go to Russia and report on these issues. So u I appreciate the support that people have provided and any support that anybody wants to provide going forward will be greatly appreciated. All right everybody, you heard him. Uh we are heading out of here. Thanks to everyone who gave a super chat. I just put you all up. Uh all the moderators and of course everyone who viewed. Hit the like button before you go. Uh check out Scott's work and I'll see you tomorrow 12 noon. Take care everyone. Bye-bye.
Iran's DEVASTATING War Bombshell Shocks Trump, Netanyahu HUMILIATED | Sharmine Narwani Danny Haiphong Started streaming 64 minutes ago #iran #iranwar #trump
Editor of the Cradle Sharmine Narwani joins the show to discuss the major reversal under way in the US-Israeli war on Iran and the bombshell dropped on Trump that is precipitating a massive geopolitical shift in the region and beyond.
Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. It's Danny Haiphong here. As you can see, I'm joined by Charmaine Arwani. She's an editor and columnist at The Cradle. How are you doing, Charmaine? Good to see you again. I'm really good. Uh, happy to be back, Danny, as always. Yes. Yes. Everyone, hit the like button as you come on the program. That helps boost the show. And let's just get started, Charmaine, with uh the latest developments in the war in Iran. This ceasefire is of course hanging on by a thread, but we had the uh latest uh uh pullback from the brink of restarting strikes by Donald Trump uh claiming many things, but including that the uh uh United States was briefed by the Gulf countries not to go to war because negotiations are going so great. But uh top IRGC officials, as the cradle reported, are uh not so confident in the way things are going and are making some pretty uh dropping some pretty big warnings on the United States, including this one, saying that uh the uh Iranian military will take this war beyond the region should attacks restart. And uh this comes as there's a major intelligence assessment, another one. We seem to get these every other day now uh that Iran has rebuilt its military far quicker than the US was anticipating, especially since there's been about 6 weeks of a ceasefire. Uh so Charmaine, uh where are we right now in this war? And uh please take it where you want to go in terms of reactions to this and anything else you want to bring up. Uh, one of the things that's a bit overlooked, but certainly not in the Israeli media, is that uh, big unexplained explosion uh, that took place uh, some days ago, and it was allegedly, according to Hebrew news 2 minutesreports, that it was allegedly a um, facility for manufacturing and testing interceptor missiles. Um, so the Israelis think that is the underlying re reason for the delay or many Israelis are are wondering whether that was the reason for the delay. But we have some news out today that uh may clarify this to be a a much simpler reason. Um so Hajj is upon us the pilgrimage to Mecca that uh important annual event that Muslims around the world seek to get uh entrance gain entrance to. Um and uh apparently the Saudis because what Trump told us himself is that Gulf allies said don't go to war with Iran um now right? What does that mean in a week? In two weeks it's fine. I mean it's not like anything's going to change but he said uh they had asked him not to go to Iran to war with Iran now and this may be the most simple explanation for it. The Hajj season is upon us. The Hajj takes place in Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Um a war would not be good during that season for sure. It would disrupt all the flights going in and leaving as well to Saudi Arabia. But um importantly, one reason that was mentioned was that the Israelis and Americans attacked Iran during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which was noted upon in the Muslim world. And the Saudis argued that doing, you know, attacking again during the Hajj season would really turn a lot of Muslims against them. So, it's it's an easier explanation. We don't know what the real reason is ultimately. Yeah. Well, with that explosion that occurred uh in Israel, I mean, some were talking about uh you know, it was close to maybe a nuclear site, but it seems like it was a weapons manufacturer. Um any other uh what what's the significance of this though? Because, you know, recently Donald Trump uh is according to our uh I guess trusted source uh Barack Ravid, the uh former Israeli intelligence asset turned Axios reporter. Uh he claims that Netanyahu has reacted to Trump's delay on attacks like his hair is on fire. And I'm wondering, you know, we've heard this so many times before and Trump said that uh Netanyahu, Israel will do whatever the US wants them to do. We've heard this beforeh prior to February 28th. Uh what do you make of this, especially in light of this explosion and also in light of the fact that you do see we do seem to have the uh Gulf countries now reportedly on the let's wait uh for at least a very extended period of time to restart the war. And you have Israel on the other side of course uh since the ceasefire began pushing for a restart of hostilities. Well, um you can maybe divide these players into sort of categories. The Israelis under Netanyahu um always want war on. They want it to go till Iran is not even defeated and not even regime change any longer, but um crippled um you know infrastructurally, economically. This is I mean this is what right the Empire of Chaos does ultimately. It's like they don't even have to win a war in order to neuter a country's ability to project power and um uh and be sovereign for decades to come, right? Uh so that's that's one thing. I mean the Israelis always want a war on and Netanyahu's only way to avoid his domestic legal problems is war. It's it's nothing new. Then you have um you know the the Gulf used to be divided into uh in the earlier phase of the war into um the Kuwaitis, Amiratis and Bahrainis urging for more war against Iran and then the Saudis, Omanis and and Gataris um sort of taking a more uh restrained tone. I mean the the Omanis were not for it at all. Let's they they have their own category because they're obviously cooperating with Iran on the potential administration of the straight of hormones. Um but I would argue that the Kuwaitis and Bahrainis have maybe become a little bit more restrained as well. They don't see any upside. you know, they may be really angry and uh humiliated even by what Iran has done in retaliating um in their countries because they allowed US forces to launch attacks from there. But uh they they don't see any upside. All Gulf Gulf countries have taking taken some hits in terms of their domestic production whether it's energy or um refineries um and uh and and um some infrastructure but uh also in their ability to transport anything any of their exports and to receive imports as well which at one point looked to you know start becoming quite critical. So you kind of have most of the GCC now um not looking for uh the war to be prolonged or reinitiated by the Americans. And then you have the UAE which is which kind of stands alone in this. The UAE is very much with the Israeli project in the region. Um, part of the reason they're with that project is because, uh, Abu Dhabi believes it will give them all the armor it needs to replace Saudi Arabia, to replace Saudi authority in the Persian Gulf. This is a fight that is um, reared its head very publicly late last year and has largely been ignored because, you know, the war, etc., negotiations that followed between Iran and the US. Um but uh the UAE's uh desire to supplant uh the Saudis in the Persian Gulf region has endured. It's um been something the Saudis have not ignored during the war. And the more the UAE sides with attacking Iran, the less the the Saudis are eager for that. Because what can happen in a hot war is that uh projectiles allegedly from Iran, but actually from Israel, actually from the UAE, could be hitting Saudi facilities. Uh because of course these countries would like nothing more than the entire u uh Arab states of the Persian Gulf to go to war with Iran, right? because it would it would also deplete Saudi Arabia clearly and that is something that it's it's a it's a winning situation for the Israelis and Amiratis. That should never be neglected. The amirati problem is here in the region is a huge one but we don't see it in English outside as much because you know for the Americans the straighter hormones the daily reporting on that you know and nothing's fundamentally changing seems to be the only story in town it is not in West Asia right well uh I mean the the landscape is very chaotic right now uh you have on the one side Israel pushing for war and being unsuccessful up until this point uh at least directly and then I you know there are changing realities on the ground you wanted to discuss one of which has been very strange you mentioned the drone strikes likely coming from or attacks likely coming from Israel in the UAE against Saudi Arabia then you have the UAE almost every day uh Charmaine talking about their air defenses are activated because of uh drone attacks on them including earlier here uh you know just not a week ago an attack on their nuclear facility that didn't cause that much damage but it was an attack uh maybe you can talk about this there there this all came as reports that Israel has two bases with US help uh operating in Iraq and the UAE just happened to say that the latest drone attacks came from their western borders shocking shockingly enough that's the opposite direction from Iran uh your thoughts Yeah, correct. Correct. And what was notable about so the the major drone that got attention was um drones that targeted the Baraka nuclear power plant in the Emirates. And this nuclear power plant energy producing accounts for I read somewhere some somewhere close to 25% of its um electricity use domestic electricity use. a significant infrastructure target. But what was interesting was that the UAE did not publicly blame this on Iran. You know, it's it's their sort of knee-jerk reaction to everything, right? They not only didn't blame it on Iran immediately, they have continued not to blame it on Iran, they, as you mentioned, have said this came from the West. And to the west lies Saudi Arabia, lies Iraq, lies Yemen. um all potentially uh instigators for various reasons. But uh I think today the UAE's Ministry of Defense said the drones that targeted that nuclear facility came from Iraq. So they've now gone on the record blaming a country. But the distance between Iraq and the UAE is I think around a thousand kilometers. It it's like it doesn't make sense that a country like the UAE and the countries in between the UAE and Iraq, all countries now on the highest alert possible, right? Um you know that have advanced defensive systems and radars etc. were unable to detect slowmoving drones from Iraqi territory and it is a territory they're they are surveilling actively since this war began. So, not so sure. Maybe Iraq is a sort of an an easy u country to blame. Right now, we've just we're seeing the switch over into a new government in Iraq. Finally, after many many many many months, the Iraqis have uh reached consensus on a president and a prime minister. Um who knows? And yes, you're right. Yeah, there two alleged Israeli um bases in Iraq that came to light because a shepherd discovered one of them. He of course has now been killed. Um and it's causing a lot of tribal issues because he came from I think the Shamari tribe which is you know a significant tribe in Iraq and uh and the Iraqi government took reporters, Western reporters I I think I saw an AP video on this to the alleged site where they showed nothing. They just they just did some like um what's it called? special ops kind of moves like coming down from a helicopter. There's nothing there. It's like sand, right? So, who knows what that was about, you know, take them to a base that's non-existent uh when we don't actually know where the base was. So, it's a possibility. The fact that Israeli the Israeli military and special forces have infiltrated Iraq is not a surprise uh to anyone. It's partially why they sought to occupy the south of um the south of uh of Syria. Um but we don't know. The UAE is now saying they came from Iraq. And uh we shall see because in the last alone, um the UAE's Ministry of Defense says that they have had six more drones infiltrating, targeting what they say are vital areas in the country. We don't know what those are. Um and then of course they they um they uh made a statement on their initial investigation to the power plant attack over the weekend. Uh Charmaine uh in lie of changing realities on the ground in the region because of of this war. Uh there's also this that has been published by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority. the mechanism now that Iran has um uh 15 minutescreated to manage and regulate activity in the straight of Hormuz and uh a lot has been made of these boundaries of control including if we just zoom in here uh including a the port of Fujiro which is uh the UAE and so there's a lot being made about that as being a pretty big move made by Iran to demonstrate its overall uh uh growing power in the region. So, uh maybe we can get into now the changing reality on the ground in the region given this and of course all kinds of other developments that have I think put the Trump administration and Israel in a worse position than they thought they were going to be in uh uh over the course of this war. Yeah. I mean this map we've we've sort of seen this uh in the last week or so this map but it's um you know official now and um the areas and this this can present some legal argumentation for um the other side. Obviously the straight of Hormos was very clearly in Iranian territorial waters and Omani territorial waters and they could um do what they wanted particularly because there was a militarization of the region and a war right there were there was an act of aggression legal acts of aggression going on which include by the way the US blockade which is an act of war. Um but now stretching those waters uh going clearly into Amirati territory obviously poses a counterargument right because that would be infringement on their waterways. I think the Iranian argument may just be um that uh uh this is a country that has been attacking us and we're going to um exercise authority to prevent this, right? It's a it's a um retaliatory measure, right, for an act of aggression. I don't know you know um how if these will even get to courts or anything but certainly we have seen since the war began um the Persian Gulf countries left right and center file statements with the UN security council with the UN secretary general with you know um they're trying to um um I think make any headway they can through lawfare I don't know if they will succeed or not and these things take a very long time but this is critical because they have gone um so it's stretching from one of the seven emirates of the UAE um all the way sorry there's one to hold on I think there's two and then you know Russell Khima and then Fujiraa too so these emirates will maybe have something to say as well as the UAE as a whole. Um, Fujera is really obvious why that was done because that's the way the Emiratis and their allies, the uh, Americans um, and others will seek to get um, energy out of the the into the the the CFO man and then into, you know, to to trading partners. Um, and Iran, one of it's Iran's one of Iran's conditions during this war is if you attack us, uh, and and take out our oil, nobody's going to be able to sell oil. So, in this case, Iran may not even be looking at the legalities of it. I think they probably have argumentation for the legalities of it because there is a state of war and there's an active aggression conducted by our neighbors 19 minutesand we're going to administer these territories to ensure that doesn't happen. Um, but there is a strategic move for this because we're going to stop you, the most aggressive country in the Persian Gulf, against Iran. We're going to stop you from exporting. We're going to stop you from uh finding ways to circumvent uh our dictats, right? Because we are the winning party as the Iranians believe in this war thus far and you have to suffer consequences and you have to pay reparations, etc., etc. I'm sure over time if the the war is wrapped up and there's a new Persian Gulf security consensus and economic consensus built with Iran as a partner, right, without the intervention of foreign states or states foreign to West Asia, then these borders that you just showed us will change. Yeah. And that gets me to wonder, you know, if Iran right now is kind of, and that's been my thinking about the whole straight of Ramuza issue from the 20 minutesbeginning is that Iran is building an architecture for obtaining the reparations that the United States now there are reports that the United States of course have been denying, denying, denying reparations. And then there are some reports now saying that the US might be softening its position on this, finding ways to uh pay Iran a a sum of uh money through some kind of uh uh you know wildly twisted justification that can somehow not look like capitulation. Most believe though that that's never going to happen. So um maybe you can talk about some of the other ways in which Iran out of this war has changed uh things on the ground because we have you know Pakistan now uh they are sending actually um they're sending their premier um u their prime minister to the uh to Beijing uh coming up and this comes after of course uh uh China just had Putin and uh Trump before him. uh this 21 minutesis uh you know Pakistan has played a big role in the mediation. Iran has spoke very glowingly of Pakistan. China has also commented Pakistan's efforts and I know that there are even bigger things fish frying in the region with regard to Pakistan regionally. Maybe if you want to talk about this because it seems to be a big part of Iran's overall strategy. you could say survival, but really of a consolidating control and the ability to um you know go forward uh in this region as a growing power. You're right, Iran does want to consolidate that and new realities in the region that they weren't able to achieve while US bases um were strewn across this region. and um I guess uh regional governments were constrained by their uh relations with Washington. So often times change comes always change comes through bad times and you have to take a crisis and make an opportunity out of it which is another reason why Iran sought to expand the conflict um as soon as they were attacked. They said that in the many weeks leading up to it, we know this from months before, you know, even years that this was a possibility. And they um acted according to their promise. They expanded the conflict to put enough pressure on regional states and its neighbors, right, to understand that a they would not be protected by the United States. They were a simply not a priority. be Iranian missile systems were able to bypass anything that the United States had to thwart projectiles, right? Um I think uh that has certainly sunk in. We have seen reactions from all across across the Gulf States um realizing that there is no guarantee that the Americans bring um but in fact that the Americans make these countries a target. Uh, and so the calculations have changed. And one of the most interesting things for me was to see the Saudis sit on the fence and be relatively quiet when the war actively started and Iran began retaliating in Persian Gulf states, right? They were relatively silent. They they did make statements for domestic constituencies, which one would do, but on the international stage and the regional stage, they took a step back. unlike the UAE, unlike Bahrain, like Kuwait. And the reason for this is because the Saudis had, don't forget, last year reached out to the Pakistanis to provide a more um I guess a more intense uh military uh military services for the Saudis, including the positioning of Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia for many reasons, including its very open conflict with the Emiratis. Okay. Um this development thrust Pakistan into the mix of things before anything really even you know before the war was launched in February. Um and Pakistan is what interests me really now. So so let's just say like in in the last month and a half we have seen this sort of um quadr group emerge of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, right? What have they been doing? There are no western countries sitting at that table. These are private discussions. Um certainly the um Pakistanis and uh well the Saudis are friendly with Pakistan and with Egypt. Um the Pakistanis are friendly with all three countries but Egypt is not friendly with Turkey and Turkeykey's not friendly with Saudi Arabia. I think the reason these four large Muslim countries um came together is because they individually have the ability to move the dial and together they have the ability to remake the map if they stay firm on things, right? And um they were looking at a post US security um situation. they all had an interest in this at the time because the Israelis were coming for whatever reason very viciously and aggressively um at least in words uh against Turkey as well you know alienating its silent ally in the region. So this was a time this war and the fact that Iran expanded it gave um every reason for these four major Muslim countries to come together and u maybe plot a scenario in which they could win 26 minutesright because that's what Iran has been promoting. I mean since it promoted I think in the late um 2010s I maybe it was 2017 or 18 that Iran the Iranians promoted their hope initiative which was for um actually providing Gulf security uh Persian Gulf security bilateral states and that was that was a really important step. The Iranians saw this as a win-win. The Americans saw it as a complete loss, right? because then they wouldn't have bases, they wouldn't have, you know, the the the clout, etc. And they wouldn't have the clout to force their Gulf um proxy states to continue trading in the US dollar, right? The whole yuan perspective, perspective of of trading in the yuan would become more likely if US didn't have bases there and weapon systems they were selling, you know, in their clutches. And so what's interesting to me is how Pakistan has suddenly stepped into the role of peacemaker. Okay. The Pakistanis are the negotiators between the Americans and and the um Iranians. All right. Um but they've they've also set up this quad on the sidelines which means the Pakistanis have the ears of the of Riad of Cairo of Ankara. That's huge. Okay. All vested now not just talks vested in coming up with solutions. And Pakistan then bizarrely um this is something we're following at the cradle by the way is um looking has offered Russia and this was not just Russia but Azerbaijan that has been very close to Israel and kind of against Iran right offered Azerbaijan and Russia before the US and Israel launched the war in Iran. They offered them a connection to the they wanted to connect Guadada, their big port constructed with the Chinese, the Pakistani port. You could probably put on a map at this point. they offered them before the war even started um let's connect our CPAC so China Pakistan economic corridors right and where Guadada port is a major waterway um uh trade route for for both um let's connect this to the international north south transportation corridor whose principal participants are India Iran and Russia Okay. Now, India months ago basically essentially withdrew from their port project Chabahar in Iran, which is just along the same coastline but in Iran where Guadada is in Pakistan. Okay, you could probably zoom in and see that or on one of the maps um I've sent you. and and so the Indians pulled out of that because of American pressure and they paid up what remaining uh dues they had for this project and you know kind of stepped out well Pakistan's now inserting themselves as a major major port hub okay and roadway hub through not just Barri with China but instran Okay, I cannot tell you. I mean, it looks really complicated. You're seeing all these lines. You can kind of find a lot of these maps of the cradle. Um, but it it looks complicated, but it's really simple. If you left Asia on their own, on its own, Asia would build railroads and dams and cor trade corridors and ports um and pipelines uh to do business with each other. All right. uh when colonialism came into this region, they came by sea, they came by waterway and they dominated this region and kind of inhibited them from building relations across borders with each other. But China has kind of blown that all up. They've said, "Okay, we have the money, the infrastructure, knowhow, whatever. We're going to connect Asia by land." And of course, there's a lot of sabotage activities going on. But this Pakistani proposal brings India on board with Pakistan as well. brings Iran on board with Pakistan as well. Brings Azarbaijan on board with Pakistan as well. Okay. Positioning Pakistan as a major now trading hub that everyone can be open to because it's friendly with everyone. Now, keep in mind, I'm sure you saw the drop site exclusive where they they actually published the US cable that showed that everything Iran Khan had said the US was doing, plotting to replace him, was true. And the main reason for this was because of the trip he made to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. Now Pakistan under the command of a much more powerful um army leader right who's in Washington all the time until this war started but really he was just you know Pakistan was what was Pakistan nobody was taking it seriously right then what did Pakistan do it kind of beat India in terms of global perception in their skirmish right um which suddenly gave it a lot of um uh perception clout and then it started to you It it intervened in the negotiations between Iran and the US and put itself on the map and then it became the central place for where the Saudis and the Turks and the Egyptians were talking and now Pakistan is offering to become the major trading hub in the region open to all parties. Now Pakistan I mean Imran Khan got replaced because he made a trip to Moscow and now Pakistan is saying let's connect the Russian and Iranianbacked international north south trade corridor with Guadada port right the other thing Pakistan has done since the negotiations began and I have sent you a map of that is also um we're map crazy at the cradle is to create six corridors for Iran to transport goods out of Iran and into Iran. So when everybody says the US blockade is going to suffocate Iran, it's not true. Iran is moving the most ships through the straight of Hormos and and those waterways, the Persian Gulf than any other country. Um Iran now has these land routes that Pakistan has opened for it. And Iran still has the Caspian Sea in the north, which is an essential route on the Instic, right? the international north south um transportation corridor. What's happening, you know, behind in the shadows of this crazy American assault on Iran and Israeli insistence that the insult keeps going on is the remapping of many things in the region. um affiliations, alliances, economic deals, um uh infrastructure uh and and and infrastructure roots. Uh I think this is this is, you know, and they're doing it kind of quietly. Maybe it's good it's not coming in western headlines because um the Americans would have to react to that. Basically, the region is slipping out of their control. What interests me is how a Pakistan that was so, you know, that was taking money from the UAE until recently and uh when the UAE yanked back its money, right, it's punishing Pakistan. Just for your viewers to know the um the Emiratis who have, you know, a lot of AI, Israeli AI uh tech, military tech, have basically offered that up to the Indians. All right? So in the next confrontation with Pakistan they could do better. They really taking punches at the Pakistanis now. So you're seeing a bunch of different alliances work out here. The Saudis are looking to talk with Iran. 34 minutesThey're looking to do a new security and economic arrangement in the Persian Gulf. Um we know we will have an article out I think it's today as a matter of fact on where those talks are and our writer in Iran is saying um look you know he's talking to Iranian officials saying look nothing is real yet we have seen proposals and um but you know we're seeing like one pagers not not extremely de detailed ones in the way the IRGC is issuing on the straight of hormos so but I think the grounds are there for a lot of the countries in the region to now looking at a post American West Asia um and opening their doors to the Chinese and Russians who were the obviously the biggest they're the major powers uh they're global major powers they're um but they're the major powers of the Eurasian um century right and of course Iran has thrust itself in there because after showing its capabilities and its ability to de facto establish lish facts on the ground. Um, Iran is, as many Western commentators have noted, the new world power. Sorry, that was really long and convoluted. I hope I didn't lose your audiences. I'm going to go look at the comments now. Definitely not. Definitely not. that that that was all necessary detail, especially since it alludes to, you know, I think the United States and Donald Trump himself a blockade obsessed um and uh very heavily dependent on the US Navy to try to choke um countries that it wants to destroy like Iran uh via the sea, via uh waterways. Uh uh some have even argued that maybe the US and Israel want uh the straight of hormuz to be entangled because uh not just of the higher oil prices can bring profits but also uh because uh it can uh reassert some kind of control despite the economic consequences to this. But at the same time this completely negates everything you just said uh which doesn't get factored in which is that uh there is a big push by China uh especially with the ability to build this infrastructure with other countries but now of course with Iran uh to heavily develop these land routes which are rapidly becoming more and more important and the fact that Pakistan now is fully on board with this and willing to use their port infrastructure to boot to assist Iran as well as to uh be kind of a central hub for uh trade uh through the China Pakistan economic corridor. I mean all that's really huge and I think something that uh may just go by the Trump administration's uh point of vision because that's something they really can't stop short of attempting to bomb everybody. And hell, they couldn't they couldn't sustain bombing Iran for more than a month. uh it was just over a month without having to stop and replenish uh you can't bomb everything you just can't. So especially if you want Pakistan to at all continue to be what it's playing now getting along with everyone you bomb Pakistan you uh lose Pakistan and so it's a it's a big it's a big problem. So any reactions to this because that's kind of what I'm seeing as uh as you were talking about this. Wait, my reaction to what in specific? Oh, just like the the the bigger consequences this has for the United States and Israel trying to get what they want out of this war given that Pakistan is playing and China and these land routes, all of this that you just outlined, there are things that they can't really stop as much as they try to with sabotage. No, I've I've often said that what comes after this war is pure terrorism. pure terrorism by the United States and its allies, including Israel, because they don't have any other way to stop these big projects because they're genuinely win-win projects militarily, economically, strategically for all these players in West Asia. So, how do you get people to shoot themselves in the foot? They don't. Eventually they realized and really this war helped the Gulf realize and a lot of countries a lot of Arab countries realized that the Americans were just were kind of paper tigers and um not ultimately going to um use their cards on uh or put all their military might behind any of their their uh regional allies. So, uh, you you now have, um, the Americans and Israelis who at best can, you know, what they did with, um, Nordstream 2, blow up pipelines. Um, the Siberia 2, right, pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, blow it up. Power of Siberia one, blow it up. the Turkish pipelines, you know, that are trying to connect Iraq and the Persian Gulf, right, to Turkey directly, railroads, um, and I think there's canal, a big, uh, national canal project, all these things, they'll just they'll just bomb. I mean, this is this is what they they're going to actually become terrorists. You know, if anyone has any doubt, this is what we're going to see. We're going to see terrorism. All right? because these countries can no longer afford to go to war. Um they can't afford to they can't afford to pay for it. They can't um they cannot they do they do not have the resupply capabilities that uh these eastern players have. you know, the costs are too oppressive for Americans and they're not even getting the rare earth minerals from China that they would need to power up all these things um that they need in in warfare um from technology to actual military hardware. So um the world is changing and I think the way these guys become spoilers is through acts of pure terror um targeting civilian infrastructure. I mean, just the threat to like take out all of Iran's bridges and all of Iran's water facilities, all of Iran's power plants. It was just like a month ago, right? To destroy an entire civilization. You think those animals would hesitate to blow up a pipeline, you know? No. It's it's uh part for the course these days, you know, but I mean just a general statistic here, Iran has 300,000 bridges. It has around 500 power plants, uh between 2 and 5,000 substations, 80,000 transformers, 130,000 kilometers of high voltage lines, and 1.3 kilometers of network. It would take what would it take? What would the Americans and Israelis have to do to get rid of this? So even those threats make no sense. Um yeah, that that's how I see things going because they they I mean what what the Chinese and the Russians and the Iranians have been saying for a really long time. Um you know, which is the win-win scenarios for all. Let's let's lead with soft power. Let's open our borders to each other. Let's have visa-free borders. Let's do trade. Let's let us help you with your infrastructure. Not rip you off and own it for the next century or two, right? But let's we'll build it. We get something out of it. You get something out of it. It's like the Nigerian refinery was built with Chinese help, right? Nigerian billionaire finally decided why is Nigeria oil rich country sending its oil to the US and elsewhere to be refined than buying it back at astronomical prices. Now Nigeria within just less than a year of it going online there were plenty of acts of sabotage by the way. Now the US is s sending oil to be refined at the Nigerian refinery. So everything's changing and it's mostly because of the perception that things can change that countries can take sovereign decisions and that's happening more and more because the US is becoming more isolated as it becomes more aggressive and they're seeing you know global south countries are genuinely seeing multipolarity come into being not through the bricks so much but through the actions of major states you know the Chinese are now tackling the you know much overdue tackling the issue of the US's um you know stick of secondary sanctions. Nobody was pushing back against it. They just rather not be blacklisted by the Americans and international markets, right? So they just would immediately back off if there was a threat of a secondary sanction even though they're not conducting their business in dollars, even though they're not doing business with the US. They would just back off business with Iran, business with Russia, business with Cuba, etc. Now the Chinese are saying, "Nope, you cannot." They're they're ordering Chinese companies not to respond to secondary sanctions or they will be punished, right? And so now Chinese companies are saying, "Oh, I can't do anything about it. Law of the land trumps, you know, US jurisdictional law." So um I just by the way for viewers, it's genuinely not a another plug for the cradle, but um we just today posted an interview with an amazing um uh international law expert. I mean, she's great and her name is Mariam Jamshidi and we tackle a lot of these issues like Iran's legal rights and the straight of hormos in the Caspian Sea in uh where sanctions are concerned and we were talking um to my point about how you know the fear factor is disappearing from tackling American threats, right? um global south countries are moving on. European partners are now moving on. Look at how Spain basically, you know, flips off Trump every day um and saying exact opposite of what the the EU, right, um is saying and what the Americans are saying. So um the fear factor is gone. Um, a lot of changes are happening and the only recourse the Americans, maybe even the British, um, maybe even the French and the Israelis and the Amiratis for that matter may have is to blow [ __ ] up. Yeah. Well, let's let's we can we can definitely talk more about this because I was thinking about uh how this is not unprecedented. you you mentioned Nordstream, but of course there have been attacks on uh China's Barri infrastructure in the region, including in Pakistan before in 2021, there was a suicide bombing uh that directly targeted a um you know uh uh you know a 45 minuteshotel area that had been built up. Uh the infrastructure around that had been what the heck I hate when this happens. Hold on one second. Uh this always happens here. Okay, this is it right here. Um so this uh there was a suicide bombing in 2021. There have been many like it actually uh so-called Baluchistan separatists attacking Bar infrastructure uh in and around economic zones where China has uh deep uh infrastructure projects, roads, uh trains systems, etc. And um then there was the report today. I don't know if you saw it in in Reuters. I couldn't get through the payw wall. So, I have this post talking about it where uh this is how unhinged US foreign policy really is. Uh this is a this is a Trump thing in the sense that uh Trump gets uh reported on in these ways because of his antics. But but really what we have is Trump when he shrank the national security councils on regular strategy 46 minutesmeeting started to disappear. officials were starting to look for clues and they started to keep his truth social feed open to on dedicated screens treating his post like real-time foreign policy directives and they say Charmaine that when he posted that uh you reference a civilization ending um uh a true social post that he had uh they said they had no idea what he was actually thinking in terms of what was going to happen from there that there was nobody in the administration that really knew uh because somebody asked hey would does this mean nuclear weapons I think it was European diplomat and they said we don't know we have no way so this is kind of uh anything goes for the United States foreign policy in my opinion u anything they can do at least there are limitations but uh destroy terrorism I mean this is something they've invested in the US foreign policy establishment has invested in for decades and decades uh and it seems like that will be a big part of the strategy but your your thoughts on this yeah look I mean We saw it with Nordstream. It's crazy how everyone went tutt. Everyone in Europe, in the West, they went tutt. Wow. Who would have done that? Oh my goodness. I mean, that's the kind of reaction they had. Right. Right. And then they blame it on like some Ukrainians on a fishing boat. And I'm just like ridiculous stuff. And um they didn't even they didn't even allow the Germans to do investigation, right? They thwarted that at every turn. Um and uh and then Trump said, "Well, you know, remember that interview I think before he became president?" Well, we know who did Nordstream, you know, just ridicul. They did it. They did it. They blew up a Russian German pipeline, you know, which billions of dollars had gone into. And by the way, you know, the British are still I think they're still on the board, not board of I don't know, but the the British are fully immersed in getting Russian gas. All right, they BP is still on boards of whatever with Russia. It's it's absolute lies we're getting. And then more recently there was, you know, when Victor Orban was still um uh the leader of Hungary before he got uh unelected, um he he was a real thorn on the side to the Ukrainians. And so the Ukrainians kind of blew up this pipeline that got energy to Hungary and they're like, "Oh, we're we're still working on fixing it." And the Hungarians and even the Slovakians, I think it was, came in and said, "No, there is no problem. This is a political decision by by Ukraine and then another explosion happened, you know, and then Victor Orban was kicked out because his country wasn't getting the energy they need. You know, it's th this is the way we're moving forward. I've been saying it for years at the cradle. When empire shrinks, what um it tries to shrink others with it, okay? Because it can't grow anymore. It doesn't have the money. It doesn't have the um the credibility. It doesn't have the resources. It doesn't have the human resources. And what do Americans know how to do anymore? I I don't mean that badly. Obviously, there are people who are trained in many vocations and many specialties in in the US. I'm just talking about, you know, it's a service industry. Well, you know, anyone can serve KFC. Anyone can um uh take um customer phone calls. uh you know so so basically when when empire shrinks what it'll try to do is cause chaos elsewhere to take the biggest powers that exist or the growing ones down with them right but the other alternative and we've written about this I talk about it all the time uh one of her authors Fad Lama wrote a piece I think it was in 2022 or 2023 and it was called um the west's plan B securing the realm And it's about as empire shrinks, what it will do is 50 minutesresource and geography grab because there are some things it's going to need um in order to protect itself and stay strong as this other world is developing outside of its grasp. Right? which is why the Greenland, the Canada, the Venezuela, the all these energy grabs are because of this securing the realm, the plan B as empire shrinks, you know. So, I think uh yeah, I think we're in for very difficult times. I uh these are countries that very very um cavalerely use false flags as well. If they want to sway the British public a certain way, you know, blame it on the Russians because the British now are tiring of the constant war with Russia, they'll put some bombs on, you know, public transportation. I don't put I wouldn't put anything past them. I'm not being dramatic at all. I'm just giving you clear examples of where these players, okay, Empire and its proxies have bombed actual infrastructure and tried to blame it on others. Okay. So, that's what you should be prepared for and don't think it's going to happen in just brown countries because to sway the perception of their publics, okay? Um, propaganda propagand propagandizing their own populations, which you all know they do, um, they're going to have to terrify you, which means terrorize you, okay? Um, into supporting ridiculous policy decisions. So I do think this is where things are headed. Meanwhile, um yeah, the the rest of the world is plowing ahead with sovereign projects and sovereign decisions. It's very exciting time, you know, but but yeah, I think there's a lot of hell we have to traverse through before we get to the good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, and you know, with that said, Charmaine, there's the, um, you know, there's the fact that, uh, uh, you have this very deep contradiction of the US Empire doing exactly what you said, uh, citing, um, uh, the article there uh, about the empire's plan B, uh, resource grabbing. What's so interesting about resource grabbing is that it actually is an incredibly backward uh form of uh I guess you could say economic terrorism. But if you want to just stick to economic development terms by uh resource grabbing in a period where the overall economy of especially the United States empire is this big capitalist empire uh it's actually shrinking. Its industrial capacity has shrunk incredibly over the last several decades. its growth has stagnated to such a high degree and it actually does rely upon uh finance, Wall Street and of course oil and uh uh uh really low value added but uh once critical to its own economic infrastructure uh uh kind of resources that uh it is both a of course a a a type of and a kind of attempt to power project But it power projects on this basis of actual decline and uh relative weakness and continued uh path toward collapse because all of the industrial power is going toward the east. That's where all of the development is actually happening from China and of course now uh Russia. All of the corridors you're talking about all of that is going to fuel industrial development. That's where all actually all the growth is that direction. Um and then you have a lot of what really is both of course inhumane, genocidal, disgusting, you know, morally, politically apprehensible, but uh uh reprehensible, but also uh wasteful in a sense. You have like Israel just to protect uh US power in the region, it gets green the green light to militarily, you know, absolutely devastate and destroy the lives of Palestinians, Lebanese. But all of that is very wasteful in many ways because it does not bring um a real development back to the core of the empire. Actually what it does is it tries to spoil through utter destruction uh the development of the east by you know terrorizing and destroying people's lives. That that is kind of where I see the empire at right now. And it does not some are saying wow look the US through its navy and Israel through its uh you know green light uh unaccountability is they're both uh able to through October 7th and then the Iran war you know reconsolidate power. I I don't see it that way. I actually see this is a lot of power projection out of a kind of desperation. But you know as we head into the last five minutes here what's your thoughts about this? Um I think in order to figure out where we're going, you have to look at the strongest players on the world stage and look at um how they will make decisions in crisis. And you can usually do that by looking at their core interests and their core interests only. No alliances, nothing like that. I just think it's become so obvious, at least to me, that um China, Russia, Iran, they're on the same page exactly with um the core interest preserving sovereignity and territorial integrity. And uh you know, I think Trump's trip to Beijing and meeting with Xiinping um was very telling in that you know, I feel like he got nothing. I know the headlines were like, "Oh, soya beans and like Boeings, right?" The Chinese came out and said, "No, no, no decisions have been made yet." Right? Number one. Number two, even on Iran, which is the other question people were asking consistently, journalists were asking Trump. Um he said, "We're on the same page on Iran." What did he say? He said, "Uh, we we want um the the war to end or the Chinese are asking for the war to end. we we both want um free passage through the straight of hormones. And then he threw in something about and the Chinese agree with us on no tolls. By the way, this is where language is meant to confuse us. Y there are no tolls. If you look at Iran's proposal, which granted is not out there. We at the cradle have a draft that was sent to parliament, but you know, it could be very different uh when it comes out of parliament. So, we didn't publish it. But um uh the the draft actually talks about what the charges will be for. They will be for securing passageway. They will be for environmental damage. Okay. They will be for actually checking cargo. They will be for services rendered. It's not a toll. It isn't a toll. He can keep of course the Chinese said no tolls won't be accepted because then uh they can do it in the straight of Malika, right? Then everyone can just charge tolls. No, tolls are not the way forward. There are actual services that Iran will provide. So, um I forgot the question, Danny. I always go on tangent is crazy being ADHD like this, you know. No, no, no. It's, you know, it goes along with the question of uh, you know, some people are seeing the US and Israel uh, coming into October 7th and the Iran war kind of this period from 2023 till now as uh, being in a better position because of all of the violence and destruction, everything that they're causing. Um, but it seems like there's these root there's this there's things happening in the background in the broader sphere that uh, show a different story. So the three main actors in Eurasia are on a different track and they have is it's not just now it's not just because of this war. They have been on this track for you know at least a decade and a half and um and looking for alternative situations much slower before but conflict always accelerates things. The Syrian war accelerated these three countries coming together and you know coordinated UN security council vetos and etc. brick statements and SEO statements. the coordination became and then you know it continues Gaza um the Ukraine war uh and now the Iran the US war Israeli war against Iran have all accelerated the coordination the understandings but in these 15 years so much has happened so much infrastructure has been built so many countries that were averse with maybe dealing too much with each other have seen the upsides right it hasn't been overnight and this just really is a slam dunk for so many in the global south seeing what the Americans and Israelis did with no reason violating international law not getting condemned by it right everybody wants a different outcome you know and the outcome doesn't make you pro-Iran necessarily or anti-American um but an outcome that ensures peace and stability maybe under the guardianship of different countries not necessarily Russia and China maybe Pakistan and Egypt make uh the Saudis feel better or the Kuwaitis feel better? Do you know what I mean? Um but overseen in terms same with uh nuclear inspections in Iran. Why does the IAEA have to do it? Don't uh two nuclear states, China and Russia have every incentive not to have Iran have a nuclear weapon? They have condemned it before um they've condemned and and sought to sanction Iran for any kind of weaponization. So they should be trusted by Gulf countries to I mean there's so many other ways to create win-wins for everyone. And the thing is the cat is out of the bag because people have now seen these over the last 15 years reap rewards and have been privy to one national destruction after another national destruction and there's no continent safe from American inter interventions now. So yeah, everybody's tired and now of course people, regular people are feeling the pain. Um, and it didn't just come from the Iran war, which is like a new level of pain. It came during the Ukraine war. It comes from all these things. The fact that nothing is being produced in the Western world. It's just finance, capitalism, deals on paper to help each other's um quarterly earnings, you know, the billionaire companies um where where where citizens can now see I mean they they when Trump did his China tariffs, everybody suddenly got to see on Twitter what China really was and people were like, "Wow, I want to go there and I want to buy my [ __ ] there." Do you know? So the world is changing so much and each of these conflicts accelerates that change and further isolates the US um to the point where it's isolated to a certain degree even in Europe, you know, it's most it's its base, its Atlantic base essentially. So yeah, I think hard times ahead and uh and then you know the age of Aquarius as they say beyond that. Yeah. and we'll have uh you know a lot of and Danny one more thing the the new actors they have strategic minds and they have efficiency um the Americans have neither okay and I think part of your last question is also like how will Israel react to this Israel like Trump the leader of the United States Netanyahu the leader of Israel are very much enscconced in domestic perception bubbles Okay. Which is why they keep getting everything 2 minuteswrong and they no longer have strategy and they no longer have efficiency and this is why um it's going to slip away from them. Yep. Yeah. And um you know a lot of of course because uh Trump has been president since uh what 2020 I guess Jan January 1 2025. Um uh so a lot of foreign US foreign policy focuses on his and his administration uh uh and because of the way he behaves and the way a lot of his administration behaves. Um it kind of it it a lot of that a lot of this like more like the personal the political figures uh Trump and his administration they reflect everything that you just said. They reflect this kind of desperation. they reflect this um uh uh real uh decline happening. But it's not it it is not a people thing. It's not a personal thing. It we will see the political madness of the US empire get worse and worse. I I think we haven't seen anything yet. Donald Trump, I think, is just the beginning. The madness will get worse and worse the more the developments that you just spoke of accelerate. And these are unstoppable developments. some say worry about the danger of nuclear war but even nuclear war I mean that's a major catastrophe on a level uh we haven't uh witnessed even uh because World War II was a particular nuclear uh question devastating and of course abhorrent but um this will be far different with multiple nuclear states and uh a different world order a foot so uh we are uh yes we're in for a rocky ride especially in the US and west and and the countries that are being targeted the most by them. But uh yeah, we are also in very interesting times and I think historic times as well. So Charmaine, I want to make sure everybody knows that the cradle uh is in the video description, your publication and the publication of your colleagues. Uh and everyone should follow it, support it. It's in the video description. Um hit the like button everyone. I want to thank everyone who gave super chats today. I'll pull them up as I give it back to Charmaine if you have any final words for our audience. I think we're going to have war back on. Um, that's a sad part. But I think, uh, Iran is also likely to merge even more strongly after this round because it has more cards to play than the Americans and Israelis. Um, so unfortunately, I hate to say that, but I think we're back on and also, um, things in Lebanon are going to get a lot more dire because the moment you're open to talking with the Israelis or Americans, they basically kick you to the corner and the Lebanese government has made the mistake of doing this. So, yeah, I don't think uh, conflict is going to go away in this region anytime soon. But I do think the next round of conflict will be even more decisive than this one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Hezbollah's in for what seems like they're in it for a very long uh resistance uh uh bout now. And Iran, I believe them. I think uh I I've been saying it for years. Believe Iran when they say things. Um but now yeah if if war restarts Iran's retaliation will of course be devastating and it will I think I I don't see any possibility for how uh restart of the of the war on Iran doesn't facilitate an almost immediate uh economic recession or depression worldwide that will focally if not more immediately hit the United States uh really really really hard. It will have global ramifications, but it'll hit the United States really hard because I don't think I don't think Americans and especially ordinary Americans are um going to be used to this combination of war and economic recession happening at the same time. But they just voted out the the Republicans that could show them a new way. I just I just literally I was like, really? Well, that how did that happen? It was rigged. Yeah. No. Yeah. Well, well, Thomas Massie for sure. that uh that that was that was Israeli US uh coordination there. But but yeah, no, it'll this will shake hopefully and I believe it ordinary Americans into understanding more so that you're not going to elect away this problem. Um but without further ado, Charmaine, uh thanks for coming out. We're going to head out together. Hit the like button. Uh the cradle is in the video description. Thanks to all the viewers and moderators who uh came today. the moderators who help moderate the chat. Go to the video description as well to find a place to support this channel. But most importantly, hit the like button. That's a free way of boosting the program after we're done. I'll be back tomorrow, same time, uh 12 uh noon Eastern, and I will let you know what's going on soon. All right, take care. Bye-bye.
Revealed: An Anti-left Influence Operation in France Leads to Tel Aviv. A smear campaign distributed phony AI-generated nudes of a left-wing French candidate. A Haaretz-Libération investigation has uncovered systems for building an army of avatars – developed in Israel By Omer Benjakob May 18, 2026 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/sec ... aecb1b0000
A foreign influence operation aimed at France's hard-left party is being investigated by the country's security services, which seek to thwart a scheme run by a network of avatars and bogus websites.
The operation was designed to smear two candidates for mayor, of Marseille and Toulouse in the south, depicting them as pro-Palestinian and pro-Muslim – and as rapists. The French authorities suspect that the entity behind the operation is a previously unknown firm called BlackCore.
BlackCore's website, now offline, described the company as a cyber outfit with 15 years of experience, specializing in influence operations and information warfare for government and political clients. It boasted a "100 percent" success rate, but no real entity seems to stand behind that name.
A joint investigation by the French daily Libération and Haaretz, which analyzed BlackCore's digital footprint, uncovered a toolkit of influence-operation systems routed through servers in Britain, Germany, Finland and Lithuania. BlackCore's systems appear to have shared web infrastructure with websites that housed the internal systems of two Israeli companies – Galacticos and SNI.
Galacticos developed a technology for producing and managing avatars – digital personas deployed on social media as if they were real people – that, among other uses, can make it possible to run influence operations. However, no direct connection was found between Galacticos and the operation being investigated by the French.
Galacticos and SNI are owned by Guy Geyor – a tech entrepreneur and former contestant on the Israeli versions of "Survivor" and "The Bachelor" – and by the commercial lawyer Doron Afik. Both told Haaretz they never heard of BlackCore and had no political activity in France. Less than two hours after they were asked for comment, the remaining digital infrastructure of both BlackCore and Galacticos was pulled offline.
[x] François Piquemal, left, and Sébastien Delogu, France Unbowed politicians who were targeted by the operation. Credit: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
The French operation was first exposed by Le Monde on March 9, a week before the country's local elections. The target was France Unbowed, the party of left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The first to be hit was Sébastien Delogu, the party's mayoral candidate in Marseille; "Sophie," a woman calling herself a blogger, accused him of rape and violence.
A separate site published phony AI-generated photos that purported to be nude pictures of Delogu, presented as part of an alleged Gaza fundraising campaign. A third site went after the party's mayoral candidate in Toulouse, François Piquemal. Another claimed to "help Muslim voters choose well" and steered them toward Mélenchon's hard-left slate. The whole package was amplified by a small army of fake accounts on social media.
After Le Monde's report, the operators behind the campaign tried to scrub their tracks, deleting avatars and websites, but digital traces remained online. A special investigative team from France's General Secretariat for Defense and National Security, the Interior Ministry, the election commission and Viginum, the agency tasked with detecting foreign manipulation and disinformation on social media, picked up the trail and identified BlackCore as the main suspect. BlackCore's name was first reported this weekend by Reuters.
Haaretz and Libération conducted an extensive analysis of BlackCore's online digital footprint, including its website and other sites that seem to be part of the wider effort. For example, there is the company's marketing website – a mini-site in Hebrew and English showcasing BlackCore's alleged flagship product, "political campaign management." It is built around the deployment of 1,600 avatars and fake social media accounts for the purposes of "infiltrating Facebook groups, manipulating trends, and skewing polls on TikTok and Instagram."
The investigation also turned up a "training program" for the Angolan government. It, too, detailed what seemed like an influence effort and was designed as a training program to teach content creation and the management of paid social media campaigns.
[x] BlackCore's presentation of what it called a training program for the Angolan government, designed to teach content creation and the management of paid social media campaigns.
On a dedicated BlackCore subdomain (angola-plan.blackcore.online), its operators hosted a Portuguese-language page titled "Campanha do Governo de Angola – Programa de Formação – Fevereiro 2026" ("Government of Angola Campaign – Training Program – February 2026"). In a sleek website probably designed using AI, a four-week course was outlined – it listed features including an active Meta Ads campaign, an active TikTok campaign and a three-month editorial calendar.
The investigation could find no legal entity called BlackCore registered in any country. Its website contained no identifying details about owners or executives, or a physical address. The domain blackcore.online was registered in an Icelandic registrar that allows owners to remain anonymous. The address was purchased only last August – by a company that presents itself as long-established.
Libération and Haaretz identified eight subdomains tied to BlackCore. One was active on a London-based server run by a Finnish cloud provider that hosted only a small handful of other websites that all had shared characteristics.
Analysis of the London server's activity shows that, since August 2025, it has hosted only four main websites, so-called network domains that hosted an array of subpages. Two of the main websites contained BlackCore's activity, a third was named Omri Systems and a fourth was called Electric Marinade.
Cybersecurity and disinformation researchers who reviewed the sites and web data connecting them found many technical indicators linking Omri Systems and Electric Marinade domains and subdomains, including those hosted on other servers. The names of internal systems found on the London server provide some insight into what they do: "avatar-generator," "agent-maker" and "fb-search," for example, with "fb" meaning Facebook.
[x] Avatar creation systems and other offerings offered on the Omri Systems and Electric Marinade domains.
The London server's domains, active until a few weeks ago, hosted a collection of different systems that required a username and password to log in to, tools through which an influence campaign could be conducted. For example, one login page was called "Galacticos AI Avatar Generator Login Page."
A source familiar with Galacticos told Haaretz that the company had developed a product that generates avatars that can be deployed both for influence operations and the monitoring of social media – as both require active accounts.
Galacticos AI, the investigation found, is the brand name of Galacticos Ltd., which according to Israel's companies registry was incorporated in Tel Aviv in April 2022 under the name Pagecorn Ltd. A year later it changed its name to Mycelium Intelligence Networks, and then to Galacticos in 2024.
Afik, the commercial lawyer, holds 51 percent of the company's shares, and Geyor 28 percent. Geyor is also the person who registered the galacticos.ai domain, where he listed the site as belonging to SNI.
SNI – Strategic Network Intelligence Ltd. – is registered at the same Tel Aviv address as Galacticos; its main shareholders are Afik and Geyor. One of the locked systems uncovered on the London server bore the SNI name.
Afik and Geyor have been joined by people with a background in intelligence or experience in technology, who together hold less than a 10 percent stake in the two companies. Nir Benita, according to his LinkedIn profile, served in the famed Unit 8200, and Daniel David Levy, Galacticos' chief technology officer, is listed as the contact person on the company's domain registration. Neither responded to questions from Haaretz and Libération.
Geyor has not previously been linked to business involving anything related to avatars or campaigns. He is best known as a reality show contestant and as the founder of the wedding-payments startup Easy2Give, also known as Going Dutch, a digital gifting service. In April, Easy2Give announced a merger with the shell company Axillion. The legal work on the merger was done by his partner Afik's firm.
One additional name has surfaced around Galacticos: Yigal Unna, the former head of Israel's National Cyber Directorate. Unna told Haaretz and Libération that he never played any role at the company, which he was told was in the business of social media monitoring.
According to Unna, Afik approached him two years ago about an "OSINT [open-source intelligence] and social network startup focused on protecting commercial brands" and used him to help find clients. "I didn't see any real company. There's no CEO and no full-time VP of marketing. I never met any employees – it was a kind of improvisation," Unna said, adding that he received no payment and had no contact with the firm this year.
Geyor told Haaretz: "I and the company don't know who BlackCore is, and we never had any connection with them. We have no activity in France – certainly no political activity." He confirmed that the company is linked to Omri Systems but said that this network domain is an internal system, unusable, still in development, and has never been sold or operated.
Galacticos "has no affiliation, partnership or prior knowledge regarding BlackCore, and no connection to the party France Unbowed," Afik said, adding that his company has never worked with any French entity. He confirmed that his firm "has a product in development," but said it never owned, operated or used a domain called Electric Marinade.
BlackCore, meanwhile, continues an infamous lineage of Israeli influence-for-hire firms. In 2023 a Haaretz-TheMarker investigation, together with the Forbidden Stories consortium, exposed Team Jorge, which operates out of Modi'in halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Meta has exposed a long list of such firms in recent years, including one that a Haaretz investigation revealed also ran campaigns for Israel.
More recently, working with local reporters, Haaretz revealed that Slovenia's intelligence service is investigating an operation by Black Cube, whose people visited Ljubljana, Slovenia, this year – an incident that drew angry responses including from France, which has positioned itself at the forefront of the fight against foregn influence.
[x] According to the soldiers’ accounts, the war on Lebanon has acquired a hidden objective of collecting spoils and exacting revenge on Lebanese civilians.
Israeli soldiers occupying southern Lebanon have engaged in widespread looting of civilian homes and businesses alongside the systematic destruction of villages, with commanding officers turning a blind eye to the practice, according to testimonies published by Haaretz.
Five soldiers from different units described a battlefield culture resembling that of a “Viking army,” where discipline has given way to moral disintegration and a lawless environment prevails, the newspaper reported.
“For most of the senior commanders, it did not matter. Soldiers looted even when the brigade commander came to visit, and he turned a blind eye,” one soldier testified.
According to the soldiers’ accounts, the war on Lebanon has acquired a hidden objective beyond confronting Hezbollah: the collection of spoils and exacting revenge on Lebanese civilians.
One reservist described an “unofficial mission” as “taking out all the loot” – unloading stolen goods at outposts so they would be waiting for soldiers when they returned home.
The testimonies portray a systematic practice in which soldiers, after clearing homes of any possible resistance presence, would begin “locating valuable items.”
Shops were described as particularly lucrative targets, with soldiers emptying stores of food, cigarettes, cleaning supplies, stationery, and other goods for personal use.
Even everyday supplies consumed at military outposts were sourced from Lebanon, soldiers said.
“At any given moment, you could see soldiers walking around the village carrying with them civilians’ belongings,” one soldier told the newspaper. “It felt like the primary mission.”
One soldier described his battalion commander as “the most extreme,” noting that he “refused to go home, the smile never left his face. He was in a state of exaltation, like a die-hard fan whose team wins a championship after 20 years.”
“I felt that beyond the border, it is okay to be crazy,” the soldier added.
Another reservist told Haaretz that the military’s main mission in southern Lebanon was the destruction of homes.
He described a commander’s pre-invasion speech as “a pagan ritual” and noted that when his unit entered one village, “there were no militants. The houses were empty. There was no fighting there at all – only operations to flatten homes.”
“There was no reason other than revenge,” the reservist said, adding that homes, schools, and clinics were destroyed without stated military justification.
Much of the demolition work was carried out by private contractors, including “extreme settlers” as well as Bedouin and Druze workers.
According to Haaretz, the military believes the reported cases represent only “the tip of the iceberg,” given footage circulating on social media showing soldiers vandalizing and looting property.
[x] Hezbollah fighters vow no rest until Israeli occupiers are expelled from Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters have pledged that they will neither rest nor settle until every Israeli occupier is driven from the Lebanese soil.
Israeli historian Adam Raz, who has written about the looting of Palestinian property during the 1948 Nakba, said last month that while “looting was part of every Israeli war,” what is new is “the total indifference.”
“The senior command turns a blind eye, the criminality continues, and the crime achieves its goals,” he said.
The phenomenon extends beyond Lebanon. Human rights monitors have documented similar practices in Gaza and the West Bank, describing a “clear pattern of theft during Israeli military operations” that has become “an effective policy of the state and the army.”
Legal experts note that such behavior constitutes a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which absolutely prohibits looting in armed conflicts.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court classifies looting as a war crime, particularly when it acquires systematic or widespread characteristics.
The testimonies emerged as Israeli atrocities continue in Lebanon despite a US-announced ceasefire last month.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that approximately 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in recent days, with at least 3,020 people killed and more than 9,200 injured since the escalation began on March 2.
Trump gets Judge HE FEARED for SLUSH FUND LAWSUIT!!! Legal AF May 21, 2026
Popok is joined by the lead lawyer for the Public Integrity Project, Brendan Ballou, whose clients, Jan 6 Officers Harry Dunn and Danny Hodges, have brought the first lawsuit against Trump's deranged slush fund to reward violent MAGA supporters with tax payer cash, for an exclusive briefing.
Transcript
Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. We're just about since the Trump administration and its Department of Justice announced a a two-pronged uh settlement of their IRS case that Trump brought down in Miami. The the part that got the most attention was a $1.776 billion victim compensation fund. But that seems to have been a little bit of a smoke screen and a cover for the next day's part of it, which was the wiping out of over a hundred million dollars of potential tax liability for Donald Trump and his family. And we knew the lawsuits, you know, Congress is doing its thing. The Senate is looking at it. There seems to be no political or or uh, you know, public support for this at all. But the lawsuits needed to be filed. And the very first lawsuit, and I think this is so appropriate, is brought 1 minuteby two Jan 6 officers, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hajes, who brought the case and and the unique angle that they um which was like an aha moment for me when they in their complaint they wrote, "This fund will finance insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in Donald Trump's name." And who better to talk about this than these uh the head of the public integrity project, Brendan Belaloo, also a skilled trial lawyer himself, who just filed this lawsuit, and we have him on here. Brendan, you're going to brief our audience about what just happened. Thanks for being on Legal AF. Hey, thank you for having me. So, I get the suit. I've always wanted to have your organization on with us and to uh and to uh brief our audience. I've been following your work and at the end we'll talk more about your organization. But you know, we now see just since you filed the suit like ants at a picnic lining up all of these MAGA and white nationalist groups and the Proud Boys and the and the Oathkeepers just as you predicted in your lawsuit, lining up to get funds. And you have an administration that that is waffling about whether people who assault police officers are going to be entitled to obtain money from the fund, convicted child sex predators, are they going to be allowed? And your lawsuit predicted all of this, but from an interesting vantage point of two people who suffered to defend democracy, talk about your clients, the lawsuit, and what you're trying to accomplish with it. Absolutely. So, we can cover all of that. Let's start with the fund itself, which is, you know, blindingly illegal. You got at least two problems here. One is, you know, the government can't settle a case that can't exist. You know, the initial case that was brought, you alluded to it, was Donald Trump was suing the IRS, the IRS that he controls. So, he's on both sides of this lawsuit. That's not an actual, you know, you're a lawyer case or controversy that can be brought in court. So, there really wasn't a case for the Department of Justice to solve. But even if there was, DOJ can't functionally create a new department or agency that the president controls. You know, the attorney general who we work who works for the president gets to appoint the members of this sort of slush fund committee and the president gets to remove them if he doesn't like them. Um, so, you know, we always say as analogy, you know, Barack Obama couldn't use the a sham settlement to create the consumer financial protection bureau, for instance. And in the same way, Donald Trump can't create a new agency that's going to act as a slush fund for his friends and family and allies. So the the fund itself, you know, clearly violates the law. Now, to get to your question, and our clients, you know, Danny Hodgeges and Harry Dunn, our two January 6 officers risked their lives, could have died that day, and continue to receive threats from riders and their supporters for speaking out about January 6. And so what we've got going on is a situation where a fund could be used to pay the very people, the riers, the paramilitary organizations that are threatening to kill these officers. So if the fund's allowed to continue, it greatly increases the physical security threat to our clients. Yeah. And now that you've pointed that out, um, and and the and the media has has grabbed on to that, you've got Todd Blanch going back on television on CNN saying, "Well, it'll be a factor that if they beat and abuse police officers, that would be considered by the panel, but still won't rule out that they would be entitled to money." Right on Q, somebody you mentioned in your complaint, Enrique T Enrique Tario, a leader of the Proud Boys, says, "I won't be greedy." I mean, look at these people lining up and and just to remind people because you have a very interesting background, having been uh for a while a prosecutor of Jad 6, insurrectionist, and others. But I want to remind people, Brendan, about who your clients are. And we've got a clip of uh could have played either Harry or Daniel or but Danny Hodes, but here's a clip of Danny Hodes very emotionally talking about what happened to him on that day. Let's play that clip. I was beaten, crushed, kicked, punched, surrounded. Someone reached underneath my visor, tried to gouge out my eye. And all these people were just pardoned by Donald Trump who says that they were the real victims, that they were the patriots. I don't understand how anyone can believe that. Um, Donald Trump, everything he is, everything he stands for is anathema to me. So when you're putting together your lawsuit, how did it, if you can, without revealing any confidences, how did it come to be that the public integrity project got together and joined forces with Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodes in particular to bring this suit? Yeah. So, you know, I knew officer Dunn and Hodgeges because we've actually already representing them in an earlier suit from a year or two two before um suing over the Congress's failure to install the plaque that was meant to honor the officers from that day. you know, Congress has failed to comply with the law that required them to put up that memorial plaque. They're trying to, you know, Congress is trying to rewrite history here. So, we represented officers Hajes and Dunn. You know, as soon as the slush fund was announced, you know, for any of us that were sort of steeped in January 6 world, it was obvious, you know, who was going to apply for this money, who was going to get this money, and the danger that it posed. So, we reached out to both officers right away and, you know, told them about the situation. and they immediately understood the danger, you know, to themselves, uh, to other people and wanted to sign on right away. So, yeah, I think it's been consistent with both of their careers and both of their characters that they did not hesitate at all. You know, they understood the threat that it posed to them, but sort of the threat to everybody into democracy itself with a fund like this. And, you know, the fund was announced, I believe, on Monday and we filed on Wednesday. So, they were willing to move very fast. Yeah, we were champing at the bit for the first lawsuit to come and pleasantly surprised when we saw it was yours representing these American heroes. Let me read a couple of paragraphs from your complaint which we have up on legal AF Substack for our our audience to read themselves. It's paragraph three. The fund endangers the lives and safety of plaintiffs Harry Dunn and Daniel Hajes in two ways. First, by its very existence, the fund encourages those who enacted violence in the president's name to continue to do so. Dun and Hajes already face credible threats of death and violence on a regular basis. The fund substantially increases the danger. Second, if allowed to begin making payments, the fund will 8 minutesdirectly finance the violent operations of rioters, paramilitaries, and their supporters who threatened plaintiffs lives that day and continue to do so. for an administration that is currently prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center, claiming that their use of donor funds to pay off confidential informants to bring down terrorist organizations for them to then turn around and use these funds to fund paramilitary white nationalist and terrorist organizations is an abomination. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and and just think about if this was happening in any other country, and it has happened in any other country. You know, any number of illiberal regimes, what you see is the leader funding the militias and street gangs and paramilitaries who are willing to enact violence in the leader name, but are beyond the reach of the law. You know, we have seen that in country after country, and unfortunately, we're seeing it here in the United States. So, you know, I think the dichotomy that you laid out is really stark. you know, between the SCP, you know, the S Southern Poverty Law Center trying to fight white nationalism and on the other hand, the government trying to fund it. And here's what you say in your your lawyer, your lawyer team says on paragraph 11. The fund will grant their past acts of violence legal impromater. And most chillingly, the fund will signal to past and potential future perpetrators of violence against Dun and Hajes that they need not fear prosecution. To the contrary, they should expect to be rewarded. Our audience is concerned that Donald Trump right before a midterm election and 2028 is is funding and supporting these terrorist organizations and paramilitary groups because political violence is part of his toolbox. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's an entirely legitimate I think it's a very real concern. You know, Trump has talked about wanting to have an army of people supporting him at, you know, election integrity people at the polls at the midterms. You know, this is just part of, you know, the playbook that he has, which is to have people who are willing to do the violence that he cannot himself. And so, I think to sort of downplay the real physical risks that this fund is going to create is a form of willful blindness. And I think, you know, and I should say I kind of understand why people are slow to understand what's going on here because we don't have a long tradition of that of that sort of militia or paramilitary violence in the United States since the Kulux Clan. But people need to understand both our history and international history to understand this happens all the time and it can happen here. Go watch Birth of a Nation if you go back and watch DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation if you want to know what that's all about. Totally agree with you there. Let's do some inside baseball because our audience really enjoys that even though most of them are not lawyers, but they certainly um like being here at the intersection of law and politics. You've got your judge assignment. Uh it looks like it's Judge Richard Leon, who's for those that follow Legal A, which they do, he's the ballroom judge. Uh he of many exclamation marks. Um when is your first uh when do you think you'll be in court with Judge Leon? Yeah, we don't have a status conference yet, but you know, standard civil procedure. I imagine the Department of Justice is going to file a motion to dismiss as they always do. So that's, you know, when the ball really starts rolling. I think, you know, we're in a fortunate situation and that Judge Leon is, you know, a Republican appointed judge. I think has conservative bonafites, but also has a true independent streak and I think is really outraged by a lot of the recent illegal actions. The ballroom example is a great one. And so I think he's going to understand, especially as a judge that has served in the District of Columbia and has handled these sort of January 6 cases in the past, I think is going to understand the real physical dangers that a fund like this creates for our clients. Yeah. And you um you have your own bonafites. you know, you uh you testified um in Congress um and anticipated many of the arguments and allegations and the framing that you've done for your lawsuit when you gave that very uh heartfelt uh and succinct testimony. Let's play a clip from it so people know all about Brendan Belaloo. When President Trump pardoned over 1500 riers, now here I confess my own ignorance. I believed if nothing else than out of pure political self-interest, President Trump would not pardon those riers who attacked and tried to kill police officers. I was wrong. In fact, the president pardoned riers who attacked officers with pipes, flag poles, bear spray, and whips who dragged officers into the crowd, tased them, and tried to gouge out their eyes. He even pardoned rioters who had previously been convicted, as you noted, of manslaughter and charged with production of child pornography. And when his first pardon was insufficient, he reparted one defendant on an unrelated gun charge to set him free. After the pardons, like several of my colleagues, I chose to resign from the Justice Department. But since then, President Trump has continued to try to rewrite the history of January 6. He's fired or demoted career FBI agents and prosecutors, my former colleagues, who investigated and prosecuted riers. He appointed an election denier, Ed Martin, to be interim US attorney for the District of Columbia and appointed a literal writer, Jared Weiss, to a senior depart Department of Justice job. His appointees have tried to erase the public records of the attack on government websites and to create a false equivalence have used many of the same charging statutes used against riers against the president's political opponents. Why did you feel it was necessary to uh to give that testimony? You know, I think it was important for people to understand specifically what January 6 meant and what the pardons meant, which is this was not just about, you know, letting some people out who supported the Trump supported President Trump. This was about condoning the violence and setting up the potential for future violence. you know, really putting a group of people who had previously demonstrated a record of enacting violence in the president's name and uh endorsing their behavior so that they would do so again in the future. You know, so the real risk that we have to go back to what we were talking about earlier in the conversation is that we have a group of people who have demonstrated a history of violence, who have demonstrated loyalty to the president, who have been put literally beyond the reach of the law and are now encouraged to continue that behavior. that is incredibly dangerous for the midterm elections and it's incredibly dangerous beyond. Absolutely. Um and then finally or two two things I want to cover here at the end. um your lawsuit and the reason I say there's going to be other lawsuits is you your group and again I'm not trying to uh get into any of your litigation strategy but your your uh filing is uh very narrowly tailored right it's the administrative procedures act it's a de it's a declaratory judgment it's ultravar you know somebody went beyond their statutory powers but you don't touch the constitutional side you know the domestic amaluments clause you know that Donald Trump is lining his pockets beyond his salary with with some sort of benefit which we all know he has including this this wipe out which may have happened uh let's see you filed on the 20th no memo was out by the 19th so you knew about the wipe out of the tax liability and audit liability but chose not to go there um and if you could give our audience a little bit of your thought process there yeah absolutely so you know the APA the administrative procedure act is really the the core legislative um hook for this you know that's the law that says that the government has to comply with the law. We already laid out all the reasons why not. You know, we we briefly talk about some of the constitutional problems in particular the 14th amendment. You know, some, you know, this idea that uh the government can't pay the debts from an insurrection. So, that is an issue here. But you're exactly right. We have not yet raised the domestic imalments clause in part because we think that the statutory violation is so obvious here. You know, you know, you're you're a lawyer. You know, if you can if you can win on the easy argument, you don't need to make the complicated argument. Yeah. And others will follow right behind you. I mean, there's there there's just as there's been the domestic imalments clause lawsuit filed in Miami about the Trump library, there will be others, you know, uh that will, you know, in um either and be assigned to other judges, I mean, and uh and come at this from all the different angles. If you're successful based on your prayer for relief, it will deny the formation of the fund, the funding of the fund, the distribution of the fund. I mean, everything that people who are up in arms about this want will be accomplished by your lawsuit, right? Absolutely. We're seeking to get this fund disbanded. Absolutely. Talk here at the end, uh, Brendan, about your, um, the public integrity project. Very interesting group of people that founded it. You're the CEO of it. What are you focused on? What do you handle? Um, I love your website and its support for democracy. Tell our audience about it. Yep. So, we're a law firm that's raising the legal and reputational cost of corruption in the United States. So, we are all of four and a half months old. We are now brought three and a half cases. This is one of them. Our first was suing the president for failing to uh for selling uh Trump's uh sorry, Tik Tok's US assets to various of his allies. Our second one is a big one is suing acting attorney Todd uh acting attorney general Todd Blanch for failing to fully disclose the Epstein files. And we've now issued a books and records demand paramount for a potential quidd proquo that it made with Donald Trump in order to secure regulatory approval to buy Warner Brothers. So you know we are just getting started. There is an enormous amount of work that we need to do to raise the cost of corruption in the United States. So, if people want to find out more, if they want to join our listerve, if they want to support us financially, uh, publicity project.org. Yeah, it's a great group. I love your tagline. The fight against corruption is a fight for democracy and and our audience is always looking for for ways and organizations to put their uh money where their mouth is. I mean, to really support the groups. Mobilizing the vote really, really important right now. But, you know, we, you know, we collaborate with the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward, and now, you know, we want to work with, you know, closely with you as well. So, down in the notes below, you'll find a link to uh uh to uh Brendan's organization, and there's ways there to get updates, suggest a case. I like that button, right? That's a great way for the public. We'll crowd we'll crowdfund this, crowdsource cases for you and to contribute. Um, Brendan, I hope this is the first of many times you'll come on and brief our legal AF audience. So pleased to have you here. 19 minutesKeep keep in touch and uh, as the case develops, we'd love you have love to have you back to continue to update our audience. Will you do that for us? Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much. We got Brennan Belaloo is the CEO of the Public Integrity Project here on Legal AF. A
