Badlands Media - Geopolitics with Ghost Ep. 118: Assassination Plots, NATO's Turkey Pivot, Ukraine's Dark Side - 7/10/26

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Ghost tackles the week's biggest headline first: reports that Israel warned the US of a fresh Iranian plot to kill Trump, and why Ghost thinks that story deserves a heavy dose of skepticism (and maybe a raised eyebrow at who actually benefits). From there it's a full lap around the map. Ukraine strikes a Turkish-linked gas pipeline, Trump pulls Syria off the state sponsor of terrorism list, and NATO's Ankara summit exposes just how much the alliance's center of gravity may be sliding toward Turkey. Spain gets threatened with a trade freeze and then walks it back within a day. Erdogan hands out engraved revolvers like party favors. And things get genuinely strange with a Monaco car bombing tied to Ukrainian intelligence, a dead suspect, and a tangled money trail that Ghost can't quite stop pulling on. Buckle up.

The Badlands, one of the Badlands, explain those badlands. That's a hell of their name. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Jim Hodge and Ghost. I'm your host. Come on, let's talk about that. I'm your host, Gordon McCormick, the Ghost of Base, Patrick Henry.

Sorry, I got natural light here with the window. It's being a lot of the fuck. I will work with it. Happy Friday, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today is July 10th, 2006, this is Badlands Media.

And what a week it's been. It's been quite a week. Got a little bit of everything, I feel like. Got a little bit of war, a little bit of peace, a little bit of a little bit of coalition, or at least narrative coalition.

Got a NATO summit, got some humiliation ritual. We got some K-Fabe, and we got everything. We also got some breakthroughs, I think, and some old, old narratives, old issues that are getting resolved, specifically in the Middle East. So let's start with, let's just start with kind of the big story that everyone's kind of hyperventilating over. And then we'll kind of go around the horn. And that, of course, is this idea that President Trump is going to be assassinated.

Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. of Iranian plot to assassinate Trump's sources say. This is from CNN. Let me make this a little bigger for you. There we go. Let me make sure we're on the... Oops. I don't want to do that. All right.

So Israel shared intelligence with the U.S. that Iran had recently devised a new plan to assassinate President Donald Trump. two sources familiar with the matter told CNN adding another layer of tension as a ceasefire deal between the two countries comes under strain. One of the sources said the warning came this week. Another source said the U.S. had picked up a steady drumbeat of intelligence in recent weeks about possible plans to assassinate Trump, but the warning from Israel was new and concerned a specific plot. Other American officials suggested the Israeli report could be an effort to sway Trump's decision making as he weighs whether to intensify

American military action against Iran. Yeah, you think. The details of the plot that Israel warned about were not immediately clear. The two sources familiar with the matter said the U.S. had not vetted it themselves, nor were they tracking it before the Israeli warning. That is the key line right there. I want to read that one more time.

The details of the plot that Israel warned about were not immediately clear. The two sources familiar with the matter said the U.S. had not vetted it themselves, nor were they tracking it before the Israeli warning. The U.S. government has long warned that Iran may try to kill Trump in retaliation for the 2020 drone strike he ordered,

which killed a top Iranian general, Qasim Soleimani. Asked for comment on the Israeli warning, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The White House pointed to Trump's recent comments on Iran's desire to kill him and actually have that clip. Let's see. We have the quote right here, but I have a clip. I don't know if it's the clip,

but I have a clip. The first time I think he said this, because this is funny, because Trump is actually the one who I think baited this narrative, like he baited them into doing this. They've been saying this for years. They said that this was,

that like Iran was behind the Butler assassination plot. I mean, that's at least what Laura Lumer and Mark, 11 and them all say, which I think is nonsense. I would make the argument that Israel actually had much more a benefit from Trump being killed than Iran. And people would call me crazy for saying that, but I could lay the case out for you and I think make a very compelling case of all the reasons why everything Trump did was against the wishes of Netanyahu and his collection of friends. I would say the Israeli political elite in 2020. And that was the reason

they kicked him out. They stole the election and installed Joe Biden. Okay, so let's pull up this clip. I got it right here. So this was Trump held a press conference. I believe on Wednesday it was at NATO. And here's what he said at the press conference. I have this clip right here. Stephen Nelson from the New York Post. I'd like you to address speculation that you're leaving Ankara not in the new Air Force One because of security concerns involving Iran. You've spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful. Did that concern have something? Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a precedent is very dangerous.

It's 5.2%. You know what a raceguard driver is? One-tenth of one percent. A bull rider, that looks pretty dangerous to me. It's one-tenth of one percent. it's 5.2% is you don't make it. You should have told me you're an excellent reporter. You should have told me that years ago,

maybe I wouldn't have run. It's a very dangerous profession. No, I'm number one on the kill list for Iran. The lovely people, I'm number one. So I don't know. I can't tell you that, but I don't really care because I'm doing my job and I'm doing it. I hope better than anybody's ever done it,

because we have a country that's hot and really, really successful. But I mentioned it only because it's on the list. I mean, it came out. There was another list came out yesterday. And I'm number one on, I like being number one on TikTok better. But I'm number one on the list for killing. Yeah.

So I feel like he throws that out there. I mean, he was asked the question by somebody, you know, by one of the reporters. And I think it's hilarious how he says, well, you're an excellent reporter. If you had told me this, if I had only known they wanted to kill me or if I had only known how dangerous it was to be president that one in every 20 presidents gets assassinated, maybe I would have never run. I mean, when he says stuff like that, you just have to, like, you have to hone in on that signal and understand that he is being completely facetious there.

And so everything he's saying, I think, in that moment, is facetious. But, of course, the, you know, the media, which seems to be just, well, the very low IQ people are just running with it. And again, they could just be run. This could just be opportunism. But I think Trump throws these, you know, he chums the waters, right? And then these sharks just come in and just start gorging themselves on opportunism and just run with whatever they can. So here's Daily Mail.

Trump reveals grim assassination orders. He's left for AIDS if he is murdered as U.S. launches Operation Bitch Slap. Okay, this is how you know it's very serious guys. This is a really, really serious moment, a very serious military operation. Operation bitch slap is the name of the operation. And it says Donald Trump has left instruct. as quote unquote left instructions detailing the severe military retaliation that should occur if Iran successfully assassinations him. Quote, I've been there.

I've been on the West for a long time. That's what we're dealing with Trump told the Newark Post on Friday. The only thing is I've left instructions. If anything happens to just literally bomb them at levels that they've never seen before. Asked about recent intelligence reports and indicating that Israel had flagged an active plot targeting him this week. Trump dismissed the idea of a newly surfaced threat, emphasizing instead that Tehran's lethal intentions that have been on ongoing for years. No, no, this is the quote. No, no, Israel came up with nothing. No, no, Trump said. I've been number one for a long time, and it's the way of life, or it's the way life is, you know. So Trump says, no, no, they came up with nothing. No, no, they have nothing. Israel came up with nothing. So he's poo-pooing the whole idea that Israel actually, like, has something of substance. And remember, they haven't vetted it. Like even U.S. intelligence is saying they haven't, or the sources. who are saying all this said that they have nothing they've they haven't vetted anything they

weren't tracking anything before massad said this to them this is all obviously nonsense this aligns with um earlier in the week when bb uh when net yahu came out and said that uh it was chemical weapons like we like we you know it's really chemical weapons that we're worried about not nuclear weapons silly it's like yeah okay if it's not one thing it's the next thing that's just how this is always going to go there's always going to be another one so you know, Trump seeds the narrative and then on Wednesday and then of course, Massad goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They are trying to kill you, Trump. They are trying to kill you. By the way, Trump has made this comment so many times before. Like, if Iran tries to kill me, I've told people, you know, I've told my people, the instructions are just to take out everything, kill every, you know, just level them,

send them back at the Stone Age. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's you know and then we have this like a a failed terror plot this was a few hours ago meant to a failed terror plot on the UFC

like White House event through this investigation we learned the group allegedly planned to carry out a mass casualty attack involving the use of drones armed with explosives and firearms meant to shoot people fleeing in the crowds or command posts also

included membership of the Secret Service and other partners to share information in real time and to help ensure no violence occurred at the White House UFC event or any other high-profile events. Through this investigation, we learned the group allegedly. Yeah, so I think eight guys got charged in that. You know, let's see what their ties are. I mean, like, let's see where they're connected to because I'm going to be pretty certain that they're connected to the intelligence community. let's be honest. That's who does this kind of stuff.

So enough about that. I mean, this is just, I don't know. As Bernie Bright says, this is feeding the pigeons. We're feeding the pigeons here with this kind of stuff. This is just like goyslop, really. These kind of narratives. I think it's just a waste of time. It's funny.

It's amusing. It's not funny the idea of Trump being assassinated. It's funny that people actually think that when you stop and you unpack the whole thing, why would Iran want to kill Trump when he seems to be the one who's actually trying to de-escalate the situation everyone else wants a war with Iran

all the other neocons Israel you know if Trump were to be killed he would be replaced by who I mean JD Vance okay J.D. Vance says that he doesn't want a war with Iran he's the peace guy right okay but if they kill Trump no matter what J.D. Vance wants

we're obviously going to retaliate against Iran and as Trump said wipe the sent him back to the Stone Age. That's obvious. So if Iran doesn't want a war with the United States, as we're being told, and they, like, do they actually think killing Trump is going to prevent a war at the United States? Like, I don't think these people are stupid. Like, I actually have more respect for the Iranian leadership than apparently a lot of these other people do. Not only that, they are being advised by China. They're being advised by Russia. So I have a respect for all for all of them, that they're smart enough to understand game theory and that if the idea is not

to have a war with the U.S. and in Israel, then killing Trump is actually the worst possible thing you could do if that's your end game. Very silly. So I guess we'll just go ahead and talk about this other story too, since we're already talking about Trump and Iran. Trump says Iran talks will continue, but the ceasefire is over. This is from Barack Ravid. President Trump said on Friday that the U.S. agreed to continue talks with Iran but will not adhere to the ceasefire anymore. Trump's post on true social follows ongoing de-escalation efforts by general mediators over the past 48 hours to prevent the total collapse of the U.S. Iran deal. Trump announced on Wednesday that the ceasefire is over and he stressed he has very little faith that talks with Iran can produce a credible deal. He's allowing negotiators to exchange with the Iranians.

A source with knowledge said another round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran is. expected next week, possibly in Switzerland. What he is saying, this is a quote from Trump, the Islamic Republic of Iran, has asked us to continue talks. We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them no uncertain terms that the ceasefire is over, all caps. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Trump wrote on true social, the state of play. Qatari negotiators traveled to Iran on Friday in coordination with the U.S. to meet with Iranian officials in an effort to de-escalate the situation to create, and create the conditions for negotiations to resume according to a diplomat with knowledge of the visit. The diplomat said, quote, it's clear both sides want to come back to the MOU. So, yeah, I mean, again, I was wrong. I thought that we had turned the page and that Trump would start talking about Iran being our greatest ally,

but apparently we're going to have a few more weeks a winner. The groundhog saw his shadow. I think a lot of this is bread and circus specifically for, you know, the Israeli diaspora and everything that they're trying to accomplish right now in this moment, which is, of course, a continued war with Iran. Let's see. So from there, you know, and again, we're just going to get more and more of this saber-rattling from everybody. Like everyone's just going to be saber-rattling.

Everyone's going to, like, all the people who want war are going to say, let's have war. all the people who don't want war are going to accuse Trump of being a Israeli puppet, right? And that this was always the plan. And then, you know, the next time that Trump announces a ceasefire deal, those same people will come out and, you know, with their shocked face on and be like, what? Yeah, it's like people are just getting jerked around, like the whiplash of getting jerked around from the narrative of like peace war, peace war, peace war. how have people not figured out that this is all that a lot of this is just an act I think a lot of this is just a theater

apparently the markets have seemed to figure it out because the markets have stabilized a lot compared to where they were at the beginning of all this they seem to have baked in the instability to the financial markets but I guess we'll see so let's pivot to something I think is a little more interesting

and that would be this story And by the way, if anyone does try to assassinate Trump, I'm going to assume at all moments that it's Israel. Because think about what Israel wants right now in this moment. Think about what they want to accomplish. Think about what their agenda is. Think about how desperate Netanyahu is, how desperate their diaspora is, the fact that they're a cornered animal. And the whole world has turned against them.

Nothing would benefit them more than the optics that Trump was assassinated by Iran. So I think facilitating that would benefit them way more than we actually benefit Iran. And I think Iran and Russia and China all know that. Okay, so this is an interesting one. Ukraine attacks Turkey, or I'm sorry, Ukraine attacks Turkey linked gas export facility. A drone strike reportedly targeted a pumping station in Krasnodar region exporting Russian gas via the blue stream pipeline. line. Ukrainian drones have targeted the compressor station that forms part of the blue stream natural gas pipeline supplying Russian gas to Turkey, gas prom said on Wednesday, adding that the attack failed to disrupt deliveries. According to the Russian energy giant, the Krasnodar Skya pumping station in Russia's southern Krasnodar region was targeted in a drone attack early on the morning of July 7th in an attempt to disrupt gas supplies to Turkey. So gas prom added that the emergency measures taking my person up,

prevented any interruption to gas flows through the pipeline while repair work is underway to fix the damage caused by the attack. And, well, this is, what makes this really interesting to me is that this seems to be a fulfillment, or it's starting to lean towards exactly what we talked about almost exactly a month ago on this show, which was this.

Here's what I think Netanyahu's going to do. Or here's what, let me just put it this way. here's what I would do or what I would think about doing if I was in the Israeli military, you know, strategizing for them. I would think about doing a tri-like a tri-lateral alliance, like a trilateral agreement between Greece and Ukraine and creating a three-way alliance against Turkey. Yeah. So, and earlier this week, we also had Netanyahu talking about the desire for Turkey to attack

Greece and how Greece is in their crosshairs. So we've already had the rhetoric about Greece and Cyprus. And now we have Ukraine attacking, ostensibly attacking a indirectly attacking Turkey. And let me just show you where this station is. Let's see, we have this station is located right here. That's actually not where it's located. It's located down here. Krasnodar.

And there, there. So that's where it's located. So it's located right there Let me just show you in context where that is So we're looking at Let's see if I can get a If I can drop a pin or something Krasidar. There we go.

Does not want to drop a pin? I guess it doesn't Whatever. It doesn't matter. So right there, just east of Crimea Right across the water from Turkey I'll show you what the Turk Stream and blue stream pipelines look like. These are pipelines

that run from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea. And obviously attacking infrastructure, like attacking a attacking energy infrastructure is considered a war crime.

Last time I checked, you know, but certainly it's an attack on Turkey. I mean, as much as it's an attack on Russia. So let me open up this. That's not a very high resolution image here. Well, here's one that shows you what the Turkstream gas pipeline looks like. So it runs from that station. It runs from a station here on the coast. It's unclear if the attack was where this pipeline is beginning here on the Russian coastline or if it's actually in the Krosnodar spot that I just showed you. But somewhere in that

region, it's right just east of Crimea. It's probably probably is along this coastline. But the pipeline runs right across the water and terminates on the European side of Turkey. So on the western side of the Straits, the sea of Mamana down here, because there's a Middle Eastern side and a European side of Turkey. And this is on the European mainland side, south of Bulgaria. And then we have this map, I'll show you. and it's really, really bad resolution. It's better here. Here we go.

So here is the, so it looks like it actually was, this is where they probably attacked. Was, it probably was about where I showed you. Because the blue stream is the pipeline that was attacked, not the Turkstream. The blue stream is the one that runs from Barra Govaya to Samsung. So I think it probably was the Krosnodar, like,

right up here is where it was attacked. Somewhere in this region, between Barra Govaya and where that are in Russia is, is somewhere in that area is where they attacked. But again, this is an attack on Turkey because they're trying to prevent the flow of natural gas to Turkey. That would cause an energy crisis. Again, this is what I would do.

If I was Israel, I would get Ukraine and Greece to attack Turkey and bring Turkey into a war with Europe. Zach, I was talking about this in the battle in the chat yesterday, Zach actually brought up, Payne brought up an interesting plot twist. What if Ukraine just straight up attacks Turkey and then Trump just being Erdogan's guy steps in and says, all right, Article 5 against Ukraine. Now NATO is going to war with Ukraine because Ukraine is not NATO. Ukraine's outside of NATO.

So you attack Turkey, you're getting Article 5th. That would be quite the plot twist. So we'll see. we'll see if that that ends up how this goes. But yeah, so let's look at some of the other developments because since the show last week, we did have some mentioning developments. We had Trump meeting with Al-Shara,

and this was on Wednesday. And the big news from that meeting was that Trump says he's going to remove Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism for the first time since 1979. So this is a big deal for Syria because what that does, being on that list that you're a state sponsor of terrorism, which I believe the list is Syria, Iran, North Korea, and who's on this list? They might have it in this article. I think it's those three in maybe Venezuela.

No, Cuba. So it's Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Those are the four countries that are on that list. So now they're going to take Syria off. a very big list, but because of that, it says it blocks the country from fully joining the international financial system. It blocks,

it has inherent sanctions so that investors from the West can't come and invest in energy, they can't invest in certain industries. There's a lot of things that prevent money from flowing into these countries because of that, which is why they're all ostensibly poor. And it

does, you know, Cuba and North Korea specifically, but it does speak to what Bashar al-Assad achieved in the 2000s. He came into office, I think, in the 2000 or 2001. And they made this designation in 1979, and I guess when the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian Revolution happened, and accusing Syria of being an Iranian proxy. And when Assad comes in, he really built up this really impressive economy in the 2000s.

I mean, I can probably find, let me see if I can find this article. I'll find this article real quick. Give me a quick second. I can find an article about, from find article from 2010 about Syria being a great economy and a great tourist destination. We've looked at these articles in the show before. Let's see if chat, TBT, can pull that up. But if you go and you look at articles from 2010, which is a year, you know, the year before the, the, the War started. There were all these mainstream media articles talking about, here it is right here.

Reuters, June 4th, 2010, almost exactly, well, a month removed, but 16 years ago. And the headline is, tourism, boom, boosts Syria's flagging economy. So exploiting the acoustics of a freestanding room in theater at Basra in Syria, two French women serenaded other tourists with an impromptu operatic medley. Not to be outdone, a Syrian family perched on stone. Terraces high above the stage, warbles Arabic songs to the beat of a drum. And just goes on to kind of give more examples of that. So it says international tourism earned Syria $5.2 billion in 2009 plus $1.5 billion from domestic tourism,

12% more than the previous year, despite a global recession, which saw worldwide tourism receipts shrink 4%. So despite the fact that the war, world was in a global recession, despite the fact that world tourism had shrank by 4%. Syria actually grew from one year to the next 12%. That's how many people were going to Syria just on vacation. And that's because Syria was like a pleasant place to be. It was a nice place to be.

There were plenty of Christians around. Assad was a protector of Christians. And then all of a sudden, ISIS shows up. We get the Arab Spring. ISIS shows up and the rest is history. So it does speak to what Assad was able to achieve without the benefit of, you know, the huge financial system that can come in and make or break your economy because you are a state sponsor of terrorism. Now Trump is removing that. Trump is no longer going to have them on that list.

And I have that clip as well. Because I do think the way that Trump was asked and the way he responded was kind of funny. Syria from the state sponsor of terrorism list? I think I will. Why wouldn't he's done a great job? Maybe he would have brought that up in a little bit. That's a good question. Yeah.

Any problems? I think I should. Yeah, I will. Do you still want Syria? Yeah, it's a good question. I agree. It was a great question. The question almost seemed to kind of catch Trump off guard.

I think he was kind of surprised that somebody had. done their homework and was actually thinking critically enough to ask that kind of a question. I want to pull up the White House Syria video. So here, like listen to what Trump says at the very beginning of his meeting with Shara. Highly respected president of Syria and we are working together. We were right from the beginning. We were responsible along with actually President Erdogan. also felt very strongly. And he's done a really fantastic job as president. He's unified the country in a very short period of time.

I'd say like a year and a half, about a year and a half. And right from the beginning, it was a real mess. It was a very disjointed place. And he's brought it together. Yeah. So interesting, interesting. He, he, uh, huh. Yeah, he was able to, and maybe we did cover this, because maybe I did a show on Wednesday and we did cover this.

But if we did, I apologize. But I just wanted to revisit that because that is a big deal. So let's pivot away from Syria. But the thing that I wanted to clue in on there at the beginning is he said, we were there from the very beginning. We were there with Erdogan. And the deal he's talking about is he's referring to the fact that the Estana process, which was something, that began in January of 2017. It involved Russia, Iran, and Turkey.

And the three of them together were going to figure out how to fix the Syrian Civil War. And then they had meetings throughout over the years, throughout Trump's first term, throughout Biden's term. And then it all kind of culminated in October, November, December, really November, December, 2004, right after Trump gets reelected. They have like three meetings in the course of like two weeks. And then at the very beginning of December, they decide, they come out and they say, yep, I think it was December 3rd was their last meeting.

And they said, yep, we got it figured out. We know exactly what we're going to do now with Assad and with Syria. And then like four days later, I think it was December 7th, December 8th was when the war, like that was when the war started. That was when Shirat, like Jalani and all of his guys come to attack. And then Assad tells everyone to stand down. They just basically walk in and take over Damascus overnight. And then I think it was December 9th is when Assad is.

allegedly airlifted out of Latakia, I think it was Latakia, and taken to Moscow. I think all of that was orchestrated by Turkey, Russia, Iran, and Syria working coordination together with the United States quite backing them. And it was a big rugpole. It seems like it was a huge rugpole. So now let's talk about NATO, because NATO, I think, is at the heart of all of this entire, entire week. We have from Scott Ritter. Scott's kind of hit or miss, I think, in some of his analysis. But here he says, NATO is spinning itself into oblivion. I think this is, this seems to

track with everything else that we've seen. It says if block members continue to ramp up their spending, they will eat themselves from the inside and Russia won't have to lift a finger. on the eve of this week's NATO summit in Ankara, the block released a report titled Defense Expendager of NATO countries 2014 through 2025. On the surface, the report shows a staggering increase in the level of defense spending by several NATO members over the course of the previous decade with Lithuania, leading the way with an increase of some 777 percent in aggregate NATO members in seeking to meet the 2 percent GDP threshold for defense spending set by the U.S. decade ago has seen a 1.2.2.2. $364 trillion increase in the money invested in the militaries of the respective members over the past decade. That's a lot of money. Two questions emerged from this data, first and foremost, has the increase led to any qualitative or quantitative advantage on the part of NATO over Russia? And second, can NATO members sustain this kind of growth in defense expenditures over the course

of the next decade? It must be understood that NATO of 2014 was very much an empty shell when it came to the meaningful projection of military power overrelying upon the U.S. for its core defense needs since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. NATO had become a shadow of its former self, a far cry from the cutting-edge military organization that had been built up in the decade of the 1980s. The reality is that despite the massive increase in defense spending, NATO's military capabilities were not advanced in any meaningful fashion over the course of the past decade. This has become evident as NATO has in the past few years discussed the potential of deploying

military forces on Ukrainian soil as part of any peacekeeping arrangement, should the the Russia-Ukraine conflict reached a negotiated conclusion. It became obvious that the big three European powers, France, the UK and Germany, lacked any meaningful ability to project sustainable military power

of any appreciable strength into Ukraine. This remains the assessment today. Most of the NATO defense expenditure has been in the form of sustaining an aging, decrepit system out of touch with reality of modern conflict. And the degree modernization

has taken place, it has simply replaced an aging equipment set with a legacy system tied down in Cold War era doctrine with a newer equipment set, still hamstrung by tactics and operational theory ill-suited, ill-suited decision to create a one-off fund of 100 billion euros in 2022 to help revive a flagging, Benderzwar stands as a case and point regarding the efficacy of much of NATO's defense spending over the course of the past decade. By 2020, 25 the fund had run out with little or nothing to show for it, $100 billion, 100 billion euro down the drain in the Bundeswar, as broken and decrepit as ever. They're referring to the German army. There isn't a single national military inside NATO, including the U.S. that can prevail on a modern battlefield with an enemy of the quality of Russia.

Ukraine has fielded the most capable non-Russian military in Europe today, and its forces are being bled white, and the kind of war of attrition, NATO forces could never serve. survive. In short, the $1.34 trillion at NATO has spent an increased defense expenditures since 2014, has left the block treading water. NATO's task is to build and sustain a modern military capable of fighting a modern enemy such as Russia. In this, NATO has failed. The next question is, can NATO spend its way out of its current predicament? And a lot of interesting data points that Scott Ritter brings up there, one being, you know, the big three in NATO, The U.S. is the actual power projection.

The military is, you know, the U.S. military is the real power projection in NATO. But the big three, the ones who really, you know, are staffing, seem to be staffing NATO and seem to be, you know, I think running the bureaucracy of NATO are France, Britain, and Germany. And I would say that of those three, Germany is probably the most significant, it seems, in terms of its actual military. contributions and soldiers and whatnot. Without Germany, there is no, without Germany in the U.S., there is no NATO. Without the U.S., there certainly isn't a native, but without Germany, UK, and Britain are useless. And that brings up an interesting point because as we went over the other day on the last show,

I do think what Trump is doing with Maloney and others, Burning Bright and I recorded the Badlands Blitz yesterday. We were talking about this. That will air tomorrow morning on the substantiable. You all should subscribe to the substack for free, but you can also just go watch it when it comes out. I think it comes out at 10 o'clock in the morning. But we were talking about how it seems that the power center in NATO is shifting from Western Europe to Eastern Europe.

And really, in my opinion, it's shifting. He was citing Poland and Hungary. But I actually think it's shifting to Turkey. I think Turkey is becoming the center of power in NATO. And the proof of that comes from Mark Ruta. Let me open up this video. All right. So here's Ruda at one of the press conferences he gave from NATO's.

This is the NATO Secretary General. A couple of years after the start, Turkey joined NATO. You have one of the biggest armed forces in NATO, well-trained. And particularly the last five to ten years, you have rapidly developed your defense industrial base. You have now about 3,000 companies every day, churning out the kids, the defense industrial output, our men in the uniform, need to defend ourselves.

So for all these reasons, Ankara, Istanbul, Turkey as a whole, is really important. And your place on the map is important, your leadership in NATO is important, and the fact that you organize the summit, now this NATO summit here in Ankara. Yeah, so he brings up some good points. I mean, number one, I mean, Turkey was one of the first to join NATO in 1952,

and that was because of its geographic significance. It controls Russia's access to the Mediterranean. But it also has the largest military in Europe. I mean, it is considered a pseudo-European country. It has an observer's like an observer status in the EU. So it's like a junior partner in the EU. So it has the largest military in Europe. It has the largest military in the Middle East.

Iran is the most powerful, but Turkey is the largest. Trump pointed that out when he met with Erdogan the other day. And it also has, as Ruta just pointed out, over the past five of ten years, it's developed a massive military and industrial base. He says over 3,000 companies. It provides, he said, all of the uniforms for all the NATO soldiers now. It provides the equipment, a lot of the equipment that they use. I mean, if Turkey becomes the power center, like the military power behind NATO, where does that leave the rest of Europe? My speculation here, I'm wondering, is the plan here rather than Trump just dissolve NATO, which he could easily do, he could just pull the U.S. out of NATO.

He could defund it, which is basically what we're doing. We're kind of defunding that, like we're incrementally defunding NATO. but we're also kind of forcing these other countries to bankrupt themselves as they try to keep NATO afloat. But by keeping NATO afloat, they have to pull money from their social welfare programs, the programs that made their country's socialist, as we recall them. They're draining those budgets and reallocating that money to NATO because in their mind, fighting Russia is more important than funding these kind of silly social programs. social engineering programs.

So it's like Trump is using this, it appears that Trump is using this situation to force Europe to be more pragmatic and stop being so idealistic and stop being communists. But if Turkey becomes the military power of NATO because the U.S. backs out. Trump is now talking about pulling all the soldiers,

all American soldiers off the European continent. my guess is that we're going to see France, France, Britain, and Germany voluntarily pull out of NATO because why would they want to be second fiddle to Turkey? Why would they want to be in a block where Turkey's calling the shots? That kind of undermines the whole spirit of NATO, which is Europe kind of using its collective power against Russia, really using the United States against Russia

and centralizing control. But if that control, then shifts to Turkey. Turkey. I mean, I could see the Muslims taking over NATO and then inviting Russia to join NATO. I think that could be a way that this all plays out. But that would probably take years. And I don't know if NATO's going to last years. We'll see. But interesting development. We also have, I just saw this like right before we got started about like 30 minutes for the show. I saw this op-ed on RT, how Turkey went from problem. child to power broker in NATO. Ankara used the summit to prove it can deliver what others cannot access, leverage and channels to Trump, Damascus, and Moscow.

And so this, I read through this really quick. And yeah, I mean, this author is basically saying the same thing. I mean, in more specific terms and you know, going through more of the minutia of it, explaining how Turkey actually is becoming

kind of the power center of NATO. So it seems I'm not the only one who's noticed this. seems the Russians are noticing this as well. Michelle Bishkova from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Moscow. Okay. And then the last one I think I have from Turkey. I mean, I'm sorry, from NATO. Well, I have two more from NATO. On that note, let's look at this story about Spain.

So Trump comes out and he says that Spain is a joke and that Spain let's just stop let's just stop trading with Spain and this triggers a lot of people people are like you can't just unilaterally say that here's what he says we don't want to do any trade

Spain is a wasted cause we don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore by the way I'd like you to cut her up Spain is a terrible partner in NATO they don't participate they don't pay

I don't want anything to do with Spain cut off all trade with Spain please including visits. Okay, we don't want anything to do. Watch them come running back. Oh, they'll come running back. They treat this man terribly, and this man's a good man too, great man.

They're lucky they have them. But Spain doesn't agree to anything, and you shouldn't carry them. I mean, you sort of automatically carry it because you're protecting an area, so they're there. So they probably figured they have to protect us, right? But we don't have to. We don't have to trade with them.

I don't want to do any more trade with them. All right? Take it immediately. Don't even talk to them. They're hopeless. Bad people because, you know, they have everybody else going and paying and working. In particular, Spain, there are a couple of others. But in particular, Spain, they're open about it, they're hostile about it.

And let's see a hostile. They remain when they call up and they, please, please, we want to trade with you, sir. We want to trade with you, sir. It makes so much money with us. and we're going to see that they make a lot less. I want no business with them. Yeah. And so here's the aftermath of that is from yesterday.

Spain says Trump softened rhetoric after learning of Madrid's contributions to NATO. Madrid said on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump has softened his rhetoric on Spain hours after threatening to halt trade with the NATO ally because he had made, he had been made aware of a surge in Madrid's contributions to the alliance. in recent years at a NATO summit in Ankara on Wednesday Trump called Spain a terrible partner and ordered an immediate halt to alt-trade with the country after disputes over defense spending in the Iran war on his way back to the United States after the summit. He told reporters of Border Air Force One, quote, I did have issues and I still do, but Spain, they came back all the way today. Spain was very generous today. Asked what Spain had done, he said. They honored a request for lots of payments.

And if they didn't, we wouldn't have even talked to them. a spokesperson for the Spanish prime minister's Pedro Sanchez said this was understood to be a reference to Madrid complying with NATO's former defense spending target of 2% of GDP. At the summit, Sanchez highlighted that Spain would reach that goal this year after more than doubling nominal defense spending from 0.98% of GDP in 2017 to nearly 33 billion. He played down the rift and said that he had a very cordial conversation with Trump during the summit. But Trump has repeatedly criticized Spain for not agreeing to it. new objective for Native member states to spend 5% of GDP on defense by 2035. Spain's left-wing government says it wants to respond to real threats rather than increasing spending for the sake of it, as it would imply cuts to social benefits.

See, there you go, the social benefits, the social welfare. It was not immediately clear what the softening of Trump's rhetoric might mean for his threat to halt trade, asked about the next steps following Trump's directive, a U.S. official in Washington told Reuters, the relevant federal agencies would present Trump with a menu of Spanish products that may be embargoed. Trade lawyers told us, say Trump could invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose a full or partial embargo on Spanish imports. Trump's first administration imposed a 30% anti-dumping tariff on Spanish black olives in 2018.

Yeah, and so this is just an example of how Trump uses his rhetoric and uses narrative to drive outcomes, much like I think he's doing with Maloney in Italy. I don't think he's manipulating Maloney into doing something that she doesn't want to do. I think he's manipulating all the other Italian politicians into getting behind Maloney so that she can accomplish her agenda items.

With Spain, Spain has been one of the countries that really defected early from the Zionist agenda because while Europe has always really been firmly in Israel's corner, Spain is a devout Catholic country and the Catholics are not Zionists. And just like in the South America where the South Americans are all like, yeah, we don't,

we're Catholic, we don't care about Zionism. Zionism isn't a thing for us because we don't read the Schofield Bible. We aren't evangelicals like, you know, the people in America are in, you know, other parts of Europe. So that's why they were against the Gaza War. They weren't letting Israel or the United States to use their air bases to, you know, run weapons to Gaza. I don't think they allowed Netanyahu to land there to refuel when he was flying

in the United States or even to go over their airspace. So there was a lot of hostility between Spain and Israel. And of course, Trump is going to come to Israel's aid in those moments because those are easy brownie points to score with the Zionists. And I do think Trump is constantly trying to score brownie points with the Zionists while also humiliating them. There's this weird tug of war where he is simultaneously

doing their bidding, at least ostensibly, but also humiliating them. And I think they figured out at this point that Trump is actually not on their side. But I don't know. There's a lot of ego, I think, that blinds a lot of these people

to what Trump is actually doing. And I think Trump uses that, exploits that to his advantage. All right. Last thing on NATO. NATO slash Turkey. Last thing on NATO and then we'll talk about Turkey and that is where is that story right?

Yeah, here it is. Erdogan. NATO leaders came to Turkey to discuss security. Erdogan gave them each an engraved revolver. This is a cool story. Western leaders came to Turkey to discuss security in an increasingly perilous world. They each left with a revolver

in six rounds. The unconventional gift from the host of this week's NATO summit, Turkish president's receipt Taip Taipip Erdogan was meant to showcase his country's growing defense industry, but it left officials across the alliance scratching their heads. Some were forced to leave their gifts behind due to gun laws in their country. I believe that was Starmer. I think that was the British couldn't bring their guns back.

They had to leave them there. While others donated theirs to museums, quote, it struck me that my gift of maple syrup kind of, kind of undermatch Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters, adding that the firearm was now in police possession. I would like to reassure Canadians, they keep guns away from me. It's like the Canadian is sitting there, you know,

ew, get the gun away from me. This is why Americans don't respect Europeans, by the way. This is why we don't respect you is because you are afraid of weapons. You're afraid of guns. And we just can't trust somebody who's afraid to hold a pistol in their hand. Like that is sorry, not sorry. Sorry, not sorry.

Okay, Ruta Zelensky to attend the Ukraine Coalition of the Willing Meeting. Elisi says, NATO chief, Mark Ruda and Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky will join Monday's coalition of the willing meeting in Paris to support Ukraine.

The French presidency said on Friday, the meeting will be aimed at building on momentum to help Ukraine following the NATO summit in Turkey this week. Di Alisi, I believe that's in France, said that planning was still underway for security guarantees for when a ceasefire is reached between Ukraine and Russia. France's president Emmanuel Macron said in Ankara, he would use the summit of Ukraine's allies to unveil new defense initiatives and joint military exercises, presenting the

gathering as further evidence that Europe was assuming greater responsibility for its own security. But July 13th meeting will also focus on tackling Russia's shadow fleet, new military capabilities for Ukraine, greater mobilization of defense industries, and deeper operational cooperation among Kiev's backers, Macron said, in Ankara. U.S. President Donald Trump has shown a more favorable stance toward Kiev and its battle against Russia at a recent G7 and NATO summit. Two more countries, Moldova and North Macedonia have joined the coalition, the Ulysses

said. EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa are also set to attend Monday's meeting the French president said. So this feels like the quote unquote real NATO meeting. Like they went to Turkey. They were all kind of humiliated in Turkey. The agenda in Turkey was not the agenda they wanted to discuss.

They actually wanted to discuss, all right, how are we going to go fight Russia via Ukraine? None of that was really accomplished. None of that was really addressed. So now they're going to go have their own little, you know, losers' compensation, losers ball here in Paris. And of course, Trump isn't going. the Americans aren't attending that. So it's kind of a meaningless meeting.

But that's what I think they're trying to accomplish is they're just trying to have their actual NATO meeting now that the one in Turkey is over. And they probably are feeling a little insecure because they went to Turkey and saw how impressive the defense industry in Turkey is. That was all of the stuff I was seeing in the Turkish media, a lot of it in the European media about NATO, was about how many. deals were being announced. All these defense cooperation agreements and contracts were being signed with Turkish Turkish defense contractors. And I think that probably has the Europeans feeling a little, a little uncertain of themselves. They're like, oh, maybe we should be having maybe we should be having our own defense, defense industry. Okay. And then we, We have this story.

We'll finish up Turkey here. Turkey's first nuke plant to be commissioned later this year. Rosatum CEO says, Alexi Likachev says the project is a key task facing Russia's state atomic energy commission. The Akuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey will be commissioned before the end of 2026. Rosatom, CEO, Alexei Likachev said, as he described his project as a key task facing Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation. Certainly, Akuyu will be commissioned this year.

This is our key task. There's no doubt that the commissioning will take place before the end of this year. Lukachev said in a response to it to task reporters' questions. Akuyu is the first nuclear power plant being built in the Republic of Turkey. The project consists of four power units equipped with Russian design, Generation 3 VVER reactors. Each power unit will have a capacity of 1,200 megawatts. the construction of a Ku-U nuclear power plant is the first project in the global nuclear industry to be implemented under the build, own, operate, organizational, and economic model.

That's interesting because Russia is doing that model everywhere now. Like all over the world, they're doing this model with all these different countries. So that is pretty fascinating. All right. We're at a good point here. Let's take a little bit of a break. And we will be back here in a bit. Geopause the Ghost, the first half of the show in the books.

We can't stop for snack, and we have to deliver all of the soft disclosure gift cards. He goes by Zach Hay. The motion detective. It's officially a new era for gold and silver. Gold has broken $5,000 in ounce, and silver has surged to past $100. In 2025 alone, gold jumped 64% while silver skyrocketed at 150%. And with political and economic uncertainty ahead, 2026 could bring even bigger moves.

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all right so let's keep going we have the first half of the show we discussed really Turkey NATO the you know the all the storylines we didn't we didn't get to the last show so we can talk a little bit about Ukraine before we shift gears and look at some of these other

countries um here is the let's see Ukraine's right here ceasefire is a worst case scenario for Ukraine, the head of Zelensky's favorite arms maker says, speaking of defense industry and the

defense industrial complex. That was weird. Why is it doing that? There we go. Okay. Reaching a truce with Russia would prompt all Ukrainian men to flee the country while the West will forget Kiev. The head of corruption scandal plagued firm Firepoint has claimed, a ceasefire with Russia would

be the worst case scenario for Ukraine threatening the country's statehood, the head of Vladimir Zelensky's favorite. favorite arms manufacturer Firepoint has said. Dennis Stilerman made the remarks in an interview with Ukrainian outlet Ligonet published on Wednesday. The company which has recently been embroiled in the number of corruption scandals stands as a profit from the conflict. Stillerman argued that the fighting should continue regardless insisting that a truce with Russia would leave Ukraine in an even worse position. He also questioned whether Kiev's Western backers would honor any security commitments made as part of a ceasefire. quote, look, if a truce is reached, it would most regrettably be the worst case scenario for our state.

We must remember how the U.S. and other countries treat their obligations, Stillerman said. I'm talking about international agreements in which they guarantee the territorial integrity and independence of other states. And what do we see? Nothing. Okay. Stillerman also said Kiev would be abandoned and forgotten and its backers by its backers of a ceasefire has reached, echoing Russian officials who have warned that Ukraine is only useful for the West as a tool against Russia, quote, if there is any truce, any kind of truce, we will be forgotten very quickly. There will be no investment appeal, and there will be

no money here. The borders will open and all the men will leave. After that, the Russians will come in and seize the country, Stillerman said, Firepoint, which originally operated as a film scouting agency owned by Zelensky's associates, has emerged as a, quote, miracle

player in Ukraine's defense sector, producing an array of long-range drones and missiles used to strike deep into Russia. The company has been actively promoted by the Ukrainian leader during his regular overseas trips and has reportedly secured contracts worth up to a billion dollars

in a matter of months. The image of the company has been damaged by the corruption scandal related to Zelensky's inner circle and his former close associate, Tamir Mindinch, the central figure in an alleged $100 million corruption scheme

in the energy sector, surveillance recordings recently published in Ukrainian media suggests Mindinch effectively controlled Firepoint while enjoying preferential treatment from then defense minister Rostim Umaroff.

Yeah, so Firepoint was that company that used to basically fly drones around for like television shows and you know, television production companies, film production companies, and they would use drones to fly around

and scout out locations for, you know, filming. And then when the war started, they became defense contractors. They started putting, missiles on their drones or whatever bombs on their drones and militarizing their drones. I mean, that whole story just seems very, very, just seems very, very strange. That's a very strange story to me. I have trouble believing that this whole Firepoint thing is even real, that it feels very

cartoonish that, I mean, there probably is a company called Firepoint that is making drones. I'm open to that, but this idea that they were a film scouting company and then they just you know, they were foisted into the battlefield. They're, you know, it feels like the same kind of narrative from like World War II where the factories in America went from making refrigerators to making tanks. Like it feels like that's like that kind of narrative. I'm not sure if I'm really buying it, but anyway, it's right with corruption. Of course, the guy who, of course, the guy who's making all the weapons that the Ukrainians are using

against Russia doesn't want the Russian war to end. I mean, that I think it's pretty obvious there. So here's one that we didn't talk about, but I was kind of tracking on my own. I don't think we've covered this at all, but there was a bombing in Monaco. Monaco recently had, maybe like a month ago, had their big Formula One race.

So this would have been, I think, after the Formula One race, but basically some guy was walking out of his building and like a bomb went off and killed. him and I think killed a few other people. Or actually, I think he may have, did he survive? Let me see. It killed a bunch of people. Let me see if he survived. It says Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelenskyy and military intelligence chief Kareel Bundonov personally cleared the killing of a woman suspected in last week's Monica bombing attack, former Ukrainian diplomat, Andre Telazenko has told R.Telzenko suggested on Thursday, the orders were given by the office

of the Zelensky regime within Bundanov's quarters and Zelensky basically gave a green light for this to happen. The remarks came days after Ukrainian authorities detained a serving military intelligence officer and a former law enforcement official over the killing of Anastasia Berezochaya, the main suspect in the

Monaco car bombing that seriously wounded Ukrainian businessman Fadim Yuma Leof. Yeah, so he didn't die. So he was severely wounded, but I think other people were killed but he escaped. He was just very wounded. Prosecutor said the H-U-R, which is their military intelligence,

Ukrainian military intelligence officer initially confessed to the murder before changing his testimony while investigators said Berezokaya Zopskaya had been in contact with him before the attack and was later found buried outside Kiev with a gunshot wound

of the head. Okay. So the woman who was the main suspect in the attack was killed and then buried with a gunshot wound of the head. Got it. Telazenko said the woman was supposed to be used in a broader operation to implicate Russia, according to him, quote, she was supposed to go and cross the Polish-Belarusian border

and make her look as she was working for the Russian side. The alleged operation, he argued, was intended to shift the blame to the Monaco bombing. Everybody's being set up by somebody higher. This is how the system works, he said. Telazenko further stated the European government's bare responsibility because they financed this and they were helping Ukraine carry out attacks, not just in Russia, but all over the globe now. Oh, so you're saying that. You're saying that Ukraine is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and really by proxy because it's actually Europe and the United States that are funding Ukraine. So that means that United States is actually the leading sponsor of terror. Got it.

Yep. That makes sense. So who is this guy, by the way? This André Telazenka, they say he's a lawyer. This ex-diplomat, former advisor to Ukrainian prosecutor general. but when was he the former prosecutor or when was he the advisor of the former prosecutor general? Says this guy's sanctioned. He's a former Ukrainian diplomat.

He was, so he was the third secretary at the Ukrainian embassy in the United States from 2015 and 2016 and as an advisor to Ukraine's prosecutor general from 2014 and 2015. And so he is, as of July 2026, he is listed on the UFAC special, specially designated nationals list under the election EO-13848 program. Whoa, okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold the phone there. What is the election EO-3-848? Because the EO.13848, okay, I'm sorry, EO-13848 is, sanctions for foreign actors who engaged in foreign interference in U.S. elections. So this guy was allegedly engaged in U.S. elections or interfering in U.S. elections. He made unverified claims that Zelensky was recruited by British intelligence in 2019

to prolong the war with Russia and has allegedly alleged widespread corruption involving U.S. aid to Ukraine. Critics, including former Ukrainian officials, described him as a charlatan. whose narratives align with Russian interests, while supporters view him as a whistleblower. He currently operates as a political consultant based in Switzerland and frequently gives interviews to Russian-aligned media outlets where he condemns Western influence on Ukraine and accuses Zelensky's administration of profiting from the war.

His consulting firm Golden Lion Strategies previously worked with figures like Andre Arte Minko, who promoted a Russian favoring peace plan in 2017. Interesting. Well, that, I mean, a lot of what this guy is saying tracks, the idea that Zelensky was recruited by British intelligence in 2019 makes all the sense in the world to me. But what do I know? All right. So, like, let's just jump to this story.

Here's the story of this woman being killed. Ukrainian suspect in Monaco bombing attack found dead. A serving military intelligence officer was detained in connection with the woman's death. Police have confirmed. a Ukrainian woman identified by Interpol as the main suspect in last week's bomb attack. Millionaire Vadim Ermalayov in Monaco has been found dead. Ukrainian police have confirmed a serving foreign intelligence officer may have been involved in her killing. Anastasia Barazzo Berafsokaya, 39, was placed on an international one of the list on suspicion of planning the explosive device that seriously injured the Ukrainian-born businessman.

And members of his family in the European principality, her death was first reported on Tuesday by Ukraine-Ukraine Skaya Prabda, with an official statement corroborating with details. Ukrainian investigators said they checked the Burrasekia's contacts after she returned to the country on July 1st. Among them were two men, a former law enforcement officer and a serving officer of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, H-U-R, the her. Both made crypto payment to the woman's account, which made them suspects in the Monica bomb. When confronted the H-U-R operative, confessed that he and his partner murdered Barras-Avkaya. Her body with multiple gunshot wounds of the head and shell cases were discovered at the location. One of the alleged killers revealed, the police said one of the suspects in the murder had a basement room that, quote, resembled a torture dungeon. The authorities claimed the H-U-R officer went rogue and did not report his payments to Berescaia to who.

superiors yeah i'm sure uh ukraine skaya propta which is a news outlet said beros bera beraf skia they all have the same like last little sound of them in their name last left ukraine in march 2025 she reportedly had residency in germany where she obtained protection as a refugee several years ago according to media reports and chippel said she was fluent in german french media said investigators in Monaco suspected that the security service of Ukraine, the SPU, could have been involved in the bombing. The police statement identified the agency as a partner in its investigation and said the HUR collaborated with it as well. The CIA reportedly invested millions of dollars following the 2015 armed coup in Kiev to rebuild the HUR from scratch overall the SBU

and turned them into an intelligence agency's focused on Russia. Yeah, I'm sure they absolutely did that. So this guy, Vadim, Ormalaev, why would it be so important that he would be framed by Russia? I mean, why would it be so important that killing him and framing Russia for it? So here's an article that says, who is this guy? So he's suspected of running a major scam network. Officers of Monaco have described a bombing attack with three people. On Monday is the first terrorist attack.

The first terrorist act in the European Principality's history. It was the first terrorist attack in Monaco history. That's not surprising, but I mean, it is like an elitist enclave, so that kind of makes sense. The target was reportedly Veneem Ermalayoff, a Ukrainian multi-millionaire sanctioned by Vladimir Zelensky and suspected of links to organized crime. And it goes on to talk about the – there was a backpack with a shrapnel packed and improvised explosive device left near the entrance to a residential building. Next to the border of France. Monaco, by the way, I've been there, is a tiny little city. It's like a little tiny city.

You can basically see from one border, from one border to the other you can basically see. It's tiny. They still have a, they still have like a royalty, like a monarchy. It's like the, um, you ever heard like Prince Albert in a can?

It's like that, that's the same Prince Albert. Prince Albert comes from Monica. It's basically just like a tiny little city where billionaires go to, uh, park their yachts and host in a Formula One race every year. And then there's like a really big awesome casino, the Monte Carly. You may have heard of that.

That's in Monaco. But it's right there in between, on the coastline, in between France and Italy. That's where it's located. Okay. So why did Zelensky sanction this guy? He targeted Irmoleov for doing business in Russia's Crimea, a prominent winemaking region, which is legal under Ukrainian law. The personal restrictions were imposed in 2023, four years after Ameliof. renounced Ukrainian nationality and became a citizen of Cyprus.

This is a very common occurrence, by the way, to be a Ukrainian national and a Cypriot national, but then typically they are also in Israeli national as well. That was the case with Igor Kilimoisky. Igor Kilimoisky was the same thing. He was a tri-citizen. I want to look up at this. Is this guy also an Israeli national? that would be fascinating if he was.

Bear with me for a second. They're asking me if I'm a bot. So nothing in his bio would suggest that he is. But hold up. Hold up. Hold the phone. Here's his Wikipedia. Early life born in Denepro, Ukraine to Jewish parents.

Ledeem Lehmary layoff received his economic degree at De Nipro Petrov's College of Technology and Economics in 1987. So this guy's Jewish. Now, wait a minute. You're telling me this guy doesn't have Israeli citizenship. I don't believe that for a second. He's a citizen of Russia.

I mean, I'm sorry, he's a citizen of Ukraine. He's a citizen of Cyprus. And he doesn't have Israeli citizenship. And I don't know about that. I don't know about that. But it does say that this guy fled Ukraine and renounce his citizenship and then

started expressing pro-Russian views says in December 2020 he allegedly he legally tried to get the sanctions against him lifted Lemmyov has never I'm sorry he's never stated a publicly stated pro-Russian views he did condemn Russia's invasion in an interview

in 2024 stating I despise our enemies and believe they will bear responsibility for the grief they brought to Ukrainian land into my hometown okay so he's not pro-Russian but there does seem to be a falling out between him and Zelensky. You got to wonder, I mean, our boy Z, that theory is still out there. But this is following a very interesting pattern here. And now I want to know, just humor me for a second, guys.

I want to know if this guy, now you've got my, you've piqued my interest here. Now I want to know if this guy's connected to E. or Kilimoisky. Stand by for processing. Now hold on. Okay. So it says there appears to be no well-documented direct business partnership or ownership link between this guy, Ermi Elf and Kilimoiski. But what is documented, both emerge from the business environment of Denepros. They come from the same city. They have operated among the city's most influential business figures. They all have this, they come from the same circle of friends. Kilimoiski's principal network is the informal private group, while Ermayov built and controlled the separate Aleph group focused on property development.

Manufacturing and alcohol, Forbes lists him as distinct business groups and fortunes. Ukrainian reporting discussing Irmielov's relationship to Denepro's major clans as characterized him as having his own separate business direction, rather than being part of Prevot. Their companies sometimes appear in the same broad data sets, for example, lists of large Ukrainian corporate structures linked to offshore jurisdictions, but a leaf linked companies and Prevot linked companies are identified separately. Okay, so for a second there, I thought it said that this guy was connected to Prevot, and if he had been, that would have, I would have fallen out of my chair if that had happened,

but that was not the case. Let's look at this, a leaf group. What is this? ICT solution partners for your business. So this is like an IT architecture firm. Huh. Okay. All right.

Well, interesting. Why do they want to kill him? And why do they want to frame Russia for it? Obviously, it would be important enough where killing him and framing Russia for it would have provoked some sort of a response from the West that like, oh, we need to escalate tension. we need to escalate conflict with Russia over this. So there's that element of it, but interesting.

Okay. Let's go talk about now, since we're already talking about Russia, let's talk about Russia in Africa. Okay, so we have Russia going down to Africa. Now we covered, I think we covered this like a week ago. So here's from July. So we talked about the Burkina Faso stuff. I think that was on last week's show.

We now have some new developments in that. I think we talked about how the French were expelled from Burkina Faso. We talked about that either maybe on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure we talked about that on Wednesday. France pulls diplomats from your African state. Burkina Faso severed at Paris last month, accusing former colonial power backing subversive networks. And so, yeah, they severize in France.

They kick the French out. They're like, y'all are working with a bunch of NGOs. You're trying to overthrow our government. We don't like you. Get out. Done. Then we have Russian diplomats fly down there. And this is Lavrov.

Lavrov flies down there and goes on this Russian tour where he meets with a bunch of different countries, but specifically he goes and meets with the Sahil state. So he meets with Niger. He meets with, I think he meets with Mali. So it says, Russian. is the main partner against terrorism. This is Niger. Defense cooperation with Rup Moscow has strengthened their capabilities of the AES.

That's the alliance of Sahel State's armed forces. Niger's foreign minister Bakari Yao Sanghese said. Russia remains the alliance of Sahel State's main partner in combating terrorism. Niger's former foreign minister, Bakari, I'm just going to call him Bakari. Bacari said on Wednesday, speaking at the second ministerial meeting between Russia and the AES in Naimi, which is their capital. Sangari said that the AES was satisfied with the implementation of their previous agreements, particularly in the defense sector, where several accords had strengthened the capabilities of AES armed forces in the fight against terrorism. Lavrov said that Moscow and the alliance share a common vision of a multipolar world order and oppose neo-colonial practices imposed by West. Western countries. He added that the alliance had made significant progress in regional integration and building new security architecture.

Speaking about diplomatic missions, Lavrov noted Russia had completed its presence across the alliance with the opening of its embassy in Niger. The minister also said that the third Russian Africa summit would be held in Moscow and that President Vladimir Putin had invited the leaders of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to attend. The E.S was established in 2023 by the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. following a series of coups across the Sahil. Yeah, we know that. In April, the Russian military instructors and personnel from Africa Corps, a Russian defense ministry unit deployed in Mali. That would be Wagner Group.

You would know them as the Wagner Group, but they have a subsect called the Africa Corps. They deployed in Mali, provided air support to help Malayan forces prevent the militants from seizing key sites, including the presidential palace and both. and Bamako, official said. Beyond defense, AES members are also seeking closer cooperation with Moscow and other sectors, including civil nuclear energy and February Burkina Faso's foreign minister,

Karamoko Jean-Marie Treore, told RT that cooperation with Russia's Rissotam was underway under a signed memorandum and that Burkinaabe students were already training in Russia. So they're building a nuclear power plant. and one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, and they're going to, I mean, we're going to get a case study for how quickly a country can become first world with a nuclear power plant. This woman,

isn't a woman, Karamoka Jean-Marie Traore, is this guy like the brother of the captain? Maybe not. This could just be a really common, like, Traore could just be a really common name. I think I read that at one point that Traorre is just a really common name in Burkina Faso,

So like Smith. It's like the smith of Burkina Faso. Interesting. It doesn't say anything by him being related. But who knows? Maybe they are like cousins or something. Okay. So let's go back.

We have Lavrov arrived in Nigeria on Wednesday for his first official visit to the country. Naimi is the second stop on the Russian foreign ministers Africa tour, which began in Ethiopia. I have that article as well. That is right here. Russia and Ethiopia agreed as a deep in strategic partnership. Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiyahamed, have agreed to expand cooperation and trade, technology, infrastructure, and humanitarian projects. Let's just see if there's anything about nuclear.

Is there anything about nuclear in here? Always looking to see if we're building a nuclear power plant in Russia. I don't see anything about nuclear. But that speaks to the importance. of the AES, the Alliance of Sahel states, the fact that they're all getting nuclear power plants. I think all three of, as far as I remember, I think all three of them are. I think Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali are all getting that.

So then we get this article, Russia and Sahel Alliance agreed to expand military cooperation. Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and his AES counterparts held a meeting on Wednesday, condemning alleged destabilization campaigns involving Ukraine in France. I mean, isn't that crazy? Why is Ukraine in Africa? Well, it's because NATO is in Africa, and NATO once, you know, they want to reclaim all the territory that they lost. Russia and the Alliance of Seheal states have agreed to expand military cooperation, with Moscow pledging further support to strengthen the operational capabilities of the group's armed forces.

The move comes amid ongoing terrorist attacks in the region allegedly linked to foreign actors, including France and Ukraine. The commitment was made during the second ministerial meeting between Russia and the AES made up of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, held in Naimi on Wednesday to help deepen the excellent ties between Moscow and the Sahil states, according to a joint statement. The foreign ministers from both sides described recent attacks

targeting foreign positions in cities across Mali and the attack on Diori-Hamani International Airport in Niger as barbaric and ignoble acts threatening regional stability. That was when some terrorists rolled into the international airport in Niger, tried to take it over. My theory is that they were trying to basically lock down the airport long enough to fly planes in full of guys and equipment and then basically create a land bridge. If they could secure the perimeter of the airport,

they could then just start flying planes in with tanks and equipment and stuff and just take over the whole country. So like the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Nigerians mobilized and, and took back the airport, but I think that that was the strategy. Not a bad plan, frankly, but that's what I think they're trying to do. No confirmation to that. That's just my, that's just me speculating. That's what I would have done.

Okay, so it says, Russia and the AES claims. that external state actors were involved in the attacks, as well as what they described as economic and media terrorism in the region. The statement mentioned alleged collusion between Ukraine, France, and other countries and terrorist groups operating with Sahil, quote, but two sides firmly condemn such destructive actions

aimed at undermining the sovereignty of the AES and regional stability, they said. The ministers also acknowledge the efforts of troops from AES member states in repelling terrorist attacks, as well as the contribution of Russia's Africa Corps that's the Wagner group to counterterrorism operations in the Sahil. The AES was

formally established in September. Yeah, and it just goes and gives that background. So then there's another article linked here. This is from February, so we've already talked about this. But this is like a fulfilling of this prophecy, so to speak. This is from

February. It says France is plotting revenge on its former colonies. And that does appear to be what's happening here. Remember, These places are all rich in resources. You got Burkina Fosser is one of the top producers of gold in the world. You have, I think uranium is mined in Nigeria, if I'm not mistaken. Mali has a bunch of oil in it.

So there's a lot going on there that you would want in terms of resources. And then I think we have one more Russian. We have two more Russian Africa stories. We have African Union values Russia support. Moscow backs the continent's bid for two permanent and five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council. That would be pretty wild. The African Union values Russia's support and addressing African issues at the UN and welcomes Moscow's backing for expanding the financing of African peacekeeping missions, African Union to commission.

Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Yusuf said on Tuesday, speaking at a joint press conference following talks to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia, Yusuf said the AUU also appreciates the position of the Russian, of the, of the Russia on the reform. This is a translate, it's got to be a translation, on the reform of the UN Security Council and its support for Africa's legitimate aspirations to obtain two permanent seats on the Security Council as well as five non-permanent seats. That would be wild. And I remember them talking about that. I remember them talking about that for a few years now. I think Russia has been floating that idea that Africa should have a larger presence on the UN Security Council. If they got two permanent seats, that would be a game changer for not that I think the UN is like this great body that does good work.

But I'm just saying that the UN does shape geopolitics whether or not you like it. And the difference between the permanent seats and the non-permanent seats, the only country. that have permanent seats, there's five of them, are the winners of World War II. That would be Russia, England, France, the United States, and China. There's also happened to be five nuclear powers. So they, those five countries can unilaterally veto anything that comes up on the Security Council's agenda. I think I don't know what the necessary vote is to otherwise veto like how many non-permanent seats there's 10 seats that are non-permanent and they I think they they rotate out every like five years or so

I don't know how the veto works otherwise but the five permanent seats are important because one country can just veto anything they want which prevents a lot of stuff from happening which is probably for the best but to give Africa two seats I mean think about that they get two seats on the permanent part of the council and five more seats I mean that's that would make the UN

a very different entity a very different beast I mean frankly it probably would make the UN better because the UN wouldn't wouldn't be so globalist maybe it would who knows I mean I think the UN kind of sucks either way but it certainly would piss the cheeryos of the

of the globalists who run the UN All right, so let's see we have, I want to finish off the Lavrov tour because I know he went to Burundi. Where's the Burundi one? Burundi, Burundi, where are you? Let's look it up, Burundi. Okay, well, we got Mozambique. Okay, so let's look at Mozambique.

So Russia to assist Mozambique and fighting terrorism, according to Lavrov's counterterrorism will become a priority area of the strategic partnership between the two nations. Russian foreign minister has said Moscow is ready to assist Mozambique in combating the terrorist threat. Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, speaking after talks with Mozambican president Daniel Choppo, Lavrov stated that combating terrorism would become one of the priority areas. areas of the strategic partnership between the two countries. Russia stands ready to respond positively to request from our Mozambican friends regarding assistance that we can provide in eliminating the terrorist threats that persist in the north of the country. Lavrov and Chapo are also discussed ways to expand trade and economic investment cooperation.

Both sides agreed to prepare proposals for joint projects ahead of the next meeting of the Russia Mozambique intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation. So what's interesting here is the location. I want to pull up the map again and go to Mozambique because if we're looking at this river valley where all these resources are, check it out. Okay, so the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, right? This, the population centers of Russia, I mean, of Africa are the Nile, Egypt up here, Nigeria, like basically. to this entire coastline, but Nigeria specifically, this river valley in the Congo, I mean, these lakes are much bigger than they appear. These are huge. If you put these things in the U.S.,

they would run like the whole north-south of the U.S. And down here in South Africa, those are like the population centers of Russia, of Africa. A lot of Africa, other than that, is relatively sparsely populated compared to how big it is. So there's a high concentration of people living right here in the center of the Congo. And this giant river system, I mean, I don't know if this is a river system. There are lakes here, and you can see the topography would suggest there should be a river here. There's like lake, lake, lake, lake, and they all kind of seem to form a line going all the way down to Malawi and Mozambique. This whole area down here, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, this all used to be Rhodes,

which was given to Cecil Rhodes by the, by, was it the Rockefellers? I think it was the Rockefellers who built the railroads north-south, east and west, and Cecil Rhodes built them the railroad to the Congo and said they gave them this territory down here. They called it Rhodesia, and they renamed it Zimbabwe. But basically if they're fighting terrorists, you got to wonder if some of these terrorists that are coming in here and trying to destabilize DRC are operating out of Mozambique down here. Lake, what is that lake? Malawi. Let me see how big this is.

So this lake, just to give you an idea of how big this lake is, this lake is 350 miles across. That's a pretty damn big lake. This lake right here, the one that borders the DRC, is. is 400 miles across. And that's just two of the lakes and there's like six of them. So these are some pretty big lakes. And they cover, they touch a lot of countries. But anyway, so they're, they're going to be down there fighting terrorists in

Mozambique. There's fighting terrorists all over Africa. This is Russia. And I want to find this. I know I had that story pulled up. Here it is. Burundi and Russia discussed investments in chemical plants, Republic's foreign minister.

The parties discussed ways to find alternative financing mechanisms for joint projects. Burundi and Russia have discussed the possibility of investing in chemical plants in the Republic, as well as cooperation in the energy sector, Burundi and foreign minister, Edward Bizimani or Bizimana told a news conference following talks with the Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. The situation in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is affecting the African continent, including Burundi. The minister said, adding that the parties also discussed cooperation in the energy sector

and potential investments in chemical plants that would help avoid transportation issues arising from challenging international situation. The parties discussed ways to find alternative financing mechanisms for joint projects, he added. We all agreed on the need to seek new ways to improve the situation. Sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries are creating obstacles for the shipment of goods to Burundi. He noted, there are certain, quote, there are certain Western countries that are imposing sanctions on Russia,

thereby blocking the transit of goods to Burundi in the situation. we were discussing alternative options to avoid this problem. And then here's a related story. U.S. Congress agrees with the White House to tighten sanctions against Russia. The group of senators represent both the ruling Republican Party and the opposition Democrat Party. This is a Russian news outlet. That's how Europeans phrase it, the ruling party and the opposition party.

We have a two-party system, so you're either in or you're out. over there they have dozens of parties so um the parties all come together all all come together to form a coalition a ruling coalition and an opposition coalition a group of u.s senators say they might they have struck a plan agreement with um the white house on the adoption of a bill to tighten sanctions against russia quote we are proud uh we are proud to announce that we have achieved in an agreement with the trump administration to to move our updated russia sanctions legislation forward. We are very pleased

with this significant progress and expect to roll out the legislation very soon. Senators Richard Blumenthal, shocker, Lindsay Graham, who says is on the Russian list of on the Russian list of terrorists and extremists.

I love that. Jean Shaheen and Roger Wicker. I don't know who those are, but they probably suck too. They represent both the ruling Republican Party and the opposition Democrat Party. The key initiators of the bill introduced in April 2025 are Graham and Blumenthal. There you go. Under the bill, the U.S. will levy 500% import duties on any nations

that buy oil, gas, uranium, or other goods from Russia. Senator Rand Paul warned in a column published last year on the responsible state craft portal that the country would suffer that would suffer the most damage from the impossible approval of this bill will be the United States, both economically and strategically. U.S. Treasury Secretary of Secretary, Scott Besson said in January that the Washington administration considers this bill unnecessary since President Donald Trump already has all the relevant powers in the area. So this was a bill that was put forth by Blumenthal and Lindsay Graham in April of 2025 right after Trump comes into office. Clearly this is designed, I think, to drive a wedge between Trump and Putin. And remember, Blumenthal and Lindsay Graham are the two guys who go to Libya with John McKeown.

Kane in 2011 and meet with the future leaders of ISIS. So if anyone should be on a sanctioned list, it should be Richard Blumenthal and Lindsay Graham. Those guys literally helped create ISIS. They are terrorist financiers. They should be considered enemy combatants under the Military Commission Act of 2006. That's my interpretation of it. I'm not a lawyer. Certainly not a JAG lawyer, but I think under the Military Commission Act 2006,

both Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal are legitimate targets for the military. to take out arrest whatever, you know, lawfully because I think they are terrorists. I think they qualify as terrorists because they literally went and met with guys who a few months later became the leaders of ISIS over through the Libyan government, tortured and killed Ma'Mar Gaddafi

and basically plunged Libya into, I mean, it's like a slave state now. It's like a slave trader outposts now. I mean, yeah, so these guys are bad news bears. It's one of the reasons why I just don't buy into the idea that Lindsay Graham is a like a secret white hat or something. I think that that's, I think he's done too much in his career to be forgiven, frankly. It doesn't mean that he can't be coerced into doing something against his will, but the idea that he walks away from all this with with clemency, I take issue with that, I think. That's just my opinion.

Okay, so here's the actual article I was looking for that I was putting through my tabs. Lavaroff arrives in Burundi on last leg of Africa tour. And so we just read the aftermath, the outcome of that. But yeah, so this is the last leg of his tour. So I guess he went to Ethiopia. He went to Nigeria and then he went to Burundi. And so if we are looking at the topic of negotiation says Burundi is the current chair of the African Union. So we just read about him meeting with the African Union in Ethiopia.

I guess that was maybe where their headquarters are or something on allow, which determines the extensive agenda for the upcoming negotiations. The foreign ministers of the two countries will have good opportunities to discuss common problems in Africa. It says topics that Lavrov have already touched upon during his meeting with the chairperson of the African Union Commission during his visit to Ethiopia. Okay, so, oh, look, here it is. here it is. Look at this. Breaking 35 minutes ago, Burundi interested in constructing small

nuclear power plants with Russian assistance according to Sergei Lavrov. Burundi is counting on technical assistance from Russia for the construction of small nuclear power plants. Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov told a news conference following talks with Burundi's foreign minister, Eduardo Bizimana.

Quote, regarding the projects we discussed today, these are first and foremost the hydro power plants we proposed. We consider Rus Hydros, that's the Russian companies, like Russian state company, I don't know, state adjacent. Expertise to be the best in the world. And of course, the nuclear energy sector, nuclear power plants and small-scale nuclear power plants in which many parties are interested, including our friends from Burundi. They have signed a memorandum with our company, Rosetam. There you go. Roastatom again. And training for Burundian nationals is already underway at relevant universities in Russia to prepare personnel for Burundi's future peaceful

a nuclear energy program. So isn't that amazing? What Russia is doing is they're going around the world. They have this program set up where ultimately the country that they are helping ends up financing the construction of this power plant, of the power plant and the infrastructure themselves. It's like some sort of a Lindlease-owned, like lease-to-own program or something. I don't know the details of it, but it's not like Russia's just going in there and paying for everything themselves. that's what America would have done in years past. We would have gone in and been like, oh yeah, we're going to finance all of this. And then most of that money ends up getting laundered and stolen anyway.

And then they just don't end up building the nuclear power plant and the country just ends up remaining poor. That's pretty much been the model for the past 75 years. What Russia is doing is they go in, they develop this economic model. They build up trade. while they're in the pre-construction and the construction, the pre-construction process for a nuclear power plant, I imagine is many years long. So I would think that the years that it takes to plan the project,

to build the project, and then to get it up and operating, they're then bringing scientists from that country to Moscow to train and how to run a nuclear power plant so that when the power plant finally opens, they then go home and run the nuclear power plant. the fact that the United States doesn't already have a program like that in place that we effectively implement. Maybe we have something that we claim works like that.

But I mean, how many nuclear power plants do you see around the world? Not very many. So if we do have a program like that, it's a tremendous failure. It's pretty sad that Russia is the one doing this and that we're not the one doing it. But I don't think the world at this point would trust us enough to do it because we have behaved in such a terrible way. and we've been so subversive and so despicable, frankly, in our foreign policy objectives

and our foreign policy behaviors, I don't think anyone would trust us. And I'm not talking about the Trump administration. I'm talking about the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Clinton administration, the Bush administration won. I'm talking about all that stuff.

There's people were, I mean, Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State. Hello. Yikes. I look at that You got Xi in North Korea is talking to each other Isn't that special

I don't want to go to China though I want to go to Cuba Because we didn't talk about Cuba the other day So we mentioned it at the end of the show It's like a lightning round kind of way But let's talk about Let's talk about What's going on with Cuba

So we have Right here this story Which is boom right there okay this is from the other day July 6th so this is from Monday yeah Monday

Castro Air wants a Trump deal his exclusive first U.S. interview so this is Raulito Castro the crab as they call him his name is Raul Castro but they call him Raulito because he's the grandson of Raul Castro

the corded phone near Raul Castro desk buzz inside his wood panel office like it was 1984 this time someone else answered raoul castro cuba's former president brother to fidel was instead waiting at home for news from his lunch from his lunch date his favorite grandson is right-hand man raoul giermo rodriguez castro 42 the man cubans call el congrejo the crab is now one of the is now the one in the seat of power in that very office tall and thick thick set with piercing like green eyes a butt all right i don't need all the pomp and circumstance just give me the give me the facts here says piercing light green eyes a buzz cut designer clothes and a deep raspy voice that echoes his great uncle fiddles he was too busy at the moment to speak to his 95 year old grandfather quote i've never been interested in politics it's never been a calling of mine rodriguez castro said during an exclusive series of interviews with the USA today over the course of two days in june and havana quote but if at some point the revolution needs me to step up i will do it he stressed he would never sacrifice the principles of q

Cuba's 1959 revolution of the nation's sovereignty. Rodriguez Castro is unknown to many outside of Cuba. He holds no formal government office and rarely appears in Cuba state media. He had never before spoken to a U.S. media outlet. He is a back channel operator who has undeniable status, authority, and clout, much of it derived from his last name. Now the younger Castro is the one in a position to negotiate for the future of his country. The former bodyguard to his grandfather wants to deal directly with President Donald Trump.

quote, I can negotiate with anyone designated by the United States, Rodriguez Castro said. This is Raulito. Quote, if given the opportunity, clear okay con Trump. Of course, with Trump. So I think he's, I think clear okay con Trump means clearly with Trump. We got any Spaniards in the audience. I speak a little bit of Spanish. Translate it.

Translate it. Sure, of course, with Trump. Yeah, that's what it means. Done. There's no time to waste. Cuba faces a created economy, a humanitarian crisis, and an oil blockade from the Trump administration. It wants to avoid being an ex-Fin Venezuela as the United States levels sanctions and raises a military threat unseen between the countries since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Rodriguez Castro could be the bridge between the both sides. USA Today spoke to more than a dozen people who have had personal dealings with Rodriguez Castro. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because their exchanges were private. or they were not authorized to speak on the record. All right, is what this guy looks like? Let's see what this guy looks like. One man holds the keys to Cuba in USA Today,

an investigative editor at USA Today. So that's him. I'm really disappointed. This guy doesn't have like a pincor for a finger. I was really hoping he was going to have like one giant finger and like a thumb. And he like kind of like a crab. Haven't seen that though. At the height of their power,

Rarigas Castro's grandfather and great uncle Fidel were, rarely seen without their olive green military uniforms Rodriguez Castro or light blue skinny jeans a tight black Hugo Boss t-shirt and hermese sneakers Hugo Boss Nazi did not see that coming sitting in his grandfather's old office atop Havana's convention center home to Cuba's parliament

Rodriguez Castro discussed his vision for the future of Cuba and why he believes he is the one to achieve it so he says He says he only recently emerged from his grandfather's shadow but was groomed for leadership. He is Raou Castro's eldest grandson, son of the late general Luis Alberto Rodriguez-Lopez-Coleja, the man who ran Geisa, the opaque company run by Cuba's military that underpins swaths the Cuban economy. Rodriguez Castro grew up in the same building as his grandparents and moved in with them. When he turned 18, he spent many of his former years surrounded by senior regime officials,

general security official security officers intelligence agents and of course his all powerful grandfather it became his entire world and so he just goes on to give quotes about being a bodyguard and then says raoul castra made sure from time of time his grandson was a teenager he sat in on important meetings on cuban state affairs including hours of heated discussions between fidel and raoul it is for this reason that that he developed a second moniker raoulito little raoul he's el nieto preferido i think that means the preferred grandson so he says yeah he's the favorite grandson um raoul castro ruah uh raoul castro nicknamed his grandson el crangrejo because he was born with six fingers on his right hand so he does have six fingers yes okay okay he was born with yes the name stuck

he had three surgeries on that hand before he said the age of eight as he spoke he tucked a misshapen thumb under his four fingers. So he does have a claw. Okay. Yes. I mean, I'm not rooting for the, I'm not cheering for the fact that the guy has a messed up hand. I'm sorry to hear that.

But we need like, this, this story needs real characters. I mean, the names are fantastic, but we need some, we need some theater here. We need some, you know, we need some characters here that are more than just a name. And if this guy has two thumbs or something or whatever it is, an alien hand, that is fantastic. This is groundbreaking. I'm breaking news right now to, I think, the world that El Cron Congrejo does have six fingers. Wow. So I got a little too excited about that.

But this guy just went way up in the power rankings of like the best characters in the story. So we're not going to read through this whole thing, but the fact that this guy has done his first interview with USA Today, it says that he's the guy that six months ago they were saying was a back channel. It says he's a back channel operator. They said six months ago he was a back channel for Marco Rubio. Markerubia was talking to this guy through back channels. And the fact that he was raised inside of the Fidel Castro regime and he attended. like a lot of their meetings and he sat in and he's he understands the politics on the ground of the existing party that's someone who i think based on what general cost is said about how

president trump likes to find people who are from you know who are dual citizens who are from um the country that they're dealing with and grew up there and then get their opinion on stuff like make them an advisor so he actually has the insight from people who who have been on the ground who understand the culture and not just just people like me who've just read about the places. This is a guy that I think you would want to clean this place up because he understands the problems. He understands the politics. He understands how to maneuver who the people are.

This is a, and he's young. I mean, he's like, he's in his 40s. So you got to think that he's probably seen enough to know that, hey, communism doesn't work. And, you know, markets are markets. markets and we got to open up the markets. We also need to understand that like the way we've been presented, you know, communism and capitalism is also a lie because we haven't lived under capitalism. Our system has actually been very highly regulated where the states, the states, I'm sorry, the state, the government picks winners and losers. I'm sorry. I think we kind of have to

like end it there. I don't know if we're going to be able to top the fact that Raul Castro has six fingers. And has like a misshaping thumb or whatever. That's groundbreaking stuff. So I think we'll land it there for the day, guys. I'll let you off early for the weekend. It's 359. I'll let you off a minute early.

Go ahead, take the rest of the day off. Let's see. I haven't checked you on the chat. So I don't know if y'all are killing each other or what, but the Cuban bug man, the tobe 1A5, the Cuban. The Cuban bug man. Yes. Dude,

New Lady T. Love it, Claw, Ghosts has been hoping for so long the crap. Yes, I am excited about this. I mean,

you have that guy in Columbia, El Tigray. Like, that's a cool name. But, I mean, does he have tiger stripes? No.

I mean, maybe if he goes and if he gets his whole body tattooed in tiger stripes, like, then we can talk. But that's a little bit of a try hard move

because being born with six fingers, like God made you that way. God made Raul Castro the crab. So he is the crab. This is awesome. So this guy is very high up in the power rankings now. And I love it. Let's check the boost. Let's see if we have any Badlands Boost. If you're listening to this on replay, go to Badlands Media. TV and get in the boost section of the top. And you can leave a boost. It's like a ramp at any time. I think we're probably caught up. But always want to check in on our friends. Oh, we got one from today. Okay.

From Eileen. Eileen Meshad 17. Thanks, ghost, for all your insight and working, keeping us up the date and inform- Wait, that's from June. It's June 10th, not July 10th. Fake out. But thank you, Eileen, for that from a month ago. All right, guys, hit the thumbs up.

We are going to get out of here for the weekend. And y'all can, let's see. We'll be doing the Book of Trump on Monday. trying to get CanCon to join me. I don't know if he's going to be able to. He's been really busy. But I have a backup plan if CanCon can't join me on Monday. So we will have a book of a Trump no matter what.

And we'll be back on Tuesday with the daily in this show. You have a great weekend. Hit the thumbs up. Thank you so much for joining us. And don't forget to hit the thumbs up on this video. And a special thank you to all of our advertising partners. Please remember to shift your dollars to support those businesses that support Badlands media.