Judging Freedom - Alastair Crooke : Trump: The Self-Made Myth

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Alastair Crooke : Trump: The Self-Made MythSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Alastair Crook will be here with us in just a moment on Donald Trump, the self-made myth. But first this, while the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold that's not too late for you to buy yours. The same experts that predicted gold at $3,200 an ounce now predict gold at $4,500 or more in the next year.

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and you, people who watch these things, know that Donald Trump is not motivated by a set of values, a set of principles, but rather by his own, as you call it robust, others call it maniacal sense of self-worth, his own extraordinary ego. Do the Russians understand this, and do they know how to deal with it? Yes, I'd just like to explain a little bit to the audience what I mean by myth in this case, because I'm really talking about myths as geopolitics, not just myth as myth. This isn't a philosophical account. This is myth as geopolitics. And what I mean by the Trump is to an certain extent,

become mythic is in two categories. One is his extraordinary ability to dominate, to dominate the discourse around the world globally. Who is everyone talking about? Trump. He does this through the force of his personality, he claims, and that's why he does it. And you cannot any longer go on thinking of Trump is just being a standard political figure, a sort of, you know, narcissistic politician of the kind which we see all the time. There is something, there is a quality that is different. For one thing, I mean, he has just, you know, everything has been thrown at him. Any normal human being would be laid flat or gone off into retirement. He survived. And he comes back, and he comes back, still invigorated.

And of course, as you just said, I mean, he's in no way mythic in the all sort of sense of the world. He's an elderly, slightly infirm, real estate oligarch with low-brow taste and an unusually robust ego. But Steve Whitkoff has said, who's his longstanding friend, has often said, that actually what is special about him, if you like his magic, is his deep conviction in himself, that it is his dominating, commanding presence alone that is capable of bending people to his will and states to America's interests.

Whitkoff, incidentally, agrees, concurs with a self-assessment completely. Carl Jung, and this is where I want to introduce Mrs. Geopolitics, Carl Jung, the psychiatrist in 1936, pointed out that when you have such signs of such extraordinary power over the collective minds

of people, in the interwar era, this came boiling out, he claims, from the realms of men. myth and archetype. This is the driving force that allowed it to happen. For that era, not this one, but that era, Jung pointed to Wotter, who in myth is a restless wanderer, who creates unrest, does strife, now here, now there, but works magic. Right. You thought it pecan to a degree that an ancient god of storm and frenzy,

German god of storm and frenzy. The long-quiescent Wotan should come to life in the German youth movement. And we know what that led to in the years that followed his insight. The power of these deep, psychic, quasi-forgotten imagery is repeating itself today. It has huge implication. Is this an instructive comparison? And Young was talking about Hitler. Is it instructive to compare Hitler's ability to control the masses with Trumps? It's not the same, but it is dependent on using mythic imagery and digging deep into the psyche in that case of the German people in order to create that sort of control. But I'm not suggesting that he is following Hitler in that way at all,

but that they're using the same way of envisaging it. And I'll explain a bit further. We know that Trump faces huge pressures. We know the Epstein affair, the Western security state narrative of We are winning, they are losing, it creates a dynamic for further war in Ukraine. But we do not understand, and this is where I come back to the present and myth of today, we do not understand perhaps the nature, the actual conditions of Israel's hold, what hold it has over Trump and his imagination.

hold, the Trump seems impelled to normalize, to normalize the genocide that is within taking place there, within the Western sphere, to make it seem normal, to seem justified. The massacre of women and children taking place before our eyes. Quams about this are quashed. We are not allowed to complain. we do, in effect, become complicit and indeed accountable for these acts nonetheless because of their normalization into our societies. Bloodlust in Gaza has been awakened not by WOTOM, not by WOTOM, by something quite different.

Yossi Klein, who was writing in Horat, interestingly, only in the Hebrew version. I can't see it in the English language version. It's only in Hebrew, Harats. Says, the old Zionism is over. It's gone. The next stage is messianic extreme nationalism. He's talking here about Israel, of course, only.

The third stage will be, in his words, barbarism. Indeed, he says, barbarism is already here. Bloodlust in Gaza has been awakened from the ancient myths in the Torah by precisely these messianic nationalists. I was going to... This again is Klein speaking. They're the obligation to annihilate another nation, the Amalek. is mentioned twice. Inclines words, in their eyes,

fear of God is a license to kill. I was going to take you from your view of Trump as a self-made myth into the Russians and Alaska, but let's hold that for a minute since you... I have mentioned Israel. Senator Janine Shaheen, a liberal Democrat, from New Hampshire, and Rahm Emanuel, a Jewish-American, former chief of staff to President Obama, former mayor of the city of Chicago, both said virtually the same thing this weekend,

and it was a sound condemnation of Israeli policy. We'll play the both for you. Chris, cut number two and then cut number three. The Israeli Prime Minister's office on Friday had a very harsh statement about the famine designation, they called it, quote, a modern blood libel spreading like wildfire through prejudice. That suggests this is about anti-Jewish hate rather than starvation. How do you make sense of the Israeli defense? I don't think that's a good defense. The fact is this is not about anti-Semitism, which I abhor. But the reality is we have people dying because they are systematically being starved to death because Israel is refusing to allow in the humanitarian aid that people need to keep alive. Not only that, they're getting ready to do another,

or they've already started planning another major incursion into Gaza in ways that are going to kill more people. So this is not acceptable. The world needs to speak out. This is a product of the fact that he was, Prime Minister Njnau, who was told in the early days of the war, you better have a day after plan, and now there is no day after plan, and there's chaos there. And there is an issue as access to food, and there is hunger. There is famine. It's a war zone. Second is, we're coming on the two-year anniversary.

There's also coming on, in 30 days from now, Russia Shah. And I think the Israeli government, as they send their delegation to Cairo, negotiate, has to make a decision. Will these young men, mainly men, who are taken hostage, spend the Jewish holiday the second year in a row in a tunnel or in a temple? Will they be with their captors or be with their community? And it is incumbent upon the government in Israel to choose a temple over a tunnel. The IDF says it, the Israeli public says it, and the parents of these children say it. And this is a product, in my view, of a prime minister, who refused to make the political strategic decisions

in which he has degraded the Hamas, destroy their capability, but doesn't have a plan for what to do next. Does Netanyahu have any interest in making a deal to release the hostages or is his steadfast goal, the utter genocide, destruction, or removal of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip,

no matter what the public reaction might public reaction might be. Well, he does, and he has a positive public reaction within Israel. But I wanted just to say that, you know, we have to, you know, look on this also without a sort of superiority to it. James Hillman, in his book, a terrible love of war, attempted to address bloodlust, an impulse so terrible, yet one that ignites a Mars-like fury that bombs men in battle.

I felt like a god, says General Patton, in the eponymous film. The general walks the field after a battle, churned earth, burnt tanks, dead men. He takes up a dying officer, kisses him, surveys the havoc, and says, I love it. God help me. I do love it so.

I love it more than life. So we have to, I'm just, understanding this to underline more than anything the power of these sort of myths in creating these lusts for killing and for it not justifying it I'm just explaining that simply societies have found and continue to find meaning in life through war Israel is doing this somehow to find meaning from its biblical roots its myths from the biblical in the churn desolation that it is visited in Gaza. But this is a profoundly dangerous impulse that is seizing not only Israel,

but is now affecting and turning much of the Middle East to desert. But these dark impulses, psychic impulses, once awakened, easily replicate, because not only have we normalized, genocide. But Washington today, enthusiasts over decapitation strikes, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, assassinations find their justification and model gold exploding pages and cell phones are thought to be a cool gift to give to a president. This is how it spreads. This is how it sort of moves and moves on elsewhere. And there are other deep psychic impulses that seem dangerously close to awakening. One prominent member of Trump's close circle, Peter Thiel, is due to give a series of four

lectures next month on the role of the catacon as somehow a bulwark against something far worse, the Antichrist. This, no doubt, will be a biblical explanation. But clearly, the ancient but still potent image of the Antichrist is now in the air. This is what Macron had to say, quote, exactly. Putin has been a constant destabilizing force, he said. Russia has become a threat to many, including us. Now listen to this. It has to eat to survive. So he's a predator. That's Putin. A threat to many, including us, a cannibal at our doorstep. I'm not saying that France will be attacked tomorrow, but Putin is a threat to Europeans. Let's not be naive.

Well, there it is. The imagery evoked of the beast at the door, the cannibal needing to eat. I'm thinking of William Butler Yates. One rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem. I think I've quoted that properly. You stirred something I had to memorize in high school in my brain. But back to what you just said from Macron. Here's the American version of this.

Here's Lindsay Graham last week saying, we must crush Russia. Chris cut number four. Putin fears Trump, and he's been a, I think he's been tough. And my advice to President Trump and Marco is if you've got to convince Putin that if this war doesn't end, justly and honorably, with Ukraine making concessions also, we're going to destroy the Russian economy. We have the ability to do it.

To Europe, why don't you put tariffs on India for buying Russian oil? To Europe, why don't you threaten China with tariffs for being the largest purchaser of Russian oil? To Europe, you can do more. If Europe and the United States banded together and we told Russia that if this war does not come to an end, we're going to destroy your fossil fuel economy, this war would come to an end. I think we have the ability to crush the Russian economy through putting tariffs on people who buy Russian oil and gas, buying cheap oil to prop up his war machine. and I intend to push that until I can't push anymore.

Well, I really don't think he knows what he's talking about, but he does manifest this neocon belligerence and hatred toward and fear of Russia articulated more potently by the quote you just cited from French President Macron. Well, you asked me a little earlier, what about the Russian view of all of us? this. And what I think Putin at Anchorage, seemingly he understood the psychology that underlies Trump and paid attention to the psychology and the sudden request to meet with him. The Russians treated Trump in a very respectful, courteous and friendly fashion, despite all of the comments that come out of Washington and from Europe. I mean, some of them extremely ugly,

like the ones from Macron. Less notice, perhaps, but psychologically crucial, is that Trump seemed to recognize in Putin a fellow from the pantheon of putative mythic leaders, also, a Polonian, perhaps, rather than diocesanus, would Trump. Yet how striking, unlike it was, the treatment of Putin by Trump and Trump's and also Putin's treatment of Trump, to Trump's completely disdainful treatment of the Euros, treating them like sniveling children. I just want to sort of conclude on that part and say, you know, really does she, Any awakening of these manichaean deaths, such as I've just described, can be more potent even than the coal possession of nuclear weapons, more dangerous.

Moscow perhaps understands better than many may think. If I'm going to go back to Israel, what will it take to stop Netanyahu short of Iranian superior firepower when he again foolishly attacks Iran? I think I've been trying to chart at some point that, you know, that many in Israel see this as a state that has lost its way, that has no future, except, if you like, in allowing the sort of bloodletting in Gaza and West Bank. The Iranians are preparing for a conflict, preparing very urgently because they suspect that Israel is preparing urgently

because Israel fears that the Chinese are sending advanced air defense weapons to Iran, which they probably are. So both sides are moving very quickly. I believe that there are big changes taking place in Iran, big shifts taking place at all levels, and that it is getting ready. And I don't know that it will necessarily await on Israel the choice on timing of a conflict. the language that is being used from the supreme leader is very clear he thinks this is a waste of time to talk to the Americans or to the Europeans because they are simply trying to trick us and he sees us as the inevitable big conflict is coming and it's coming quite soon and so they are preparing for that and they claim that this will have new unsuspected weapons

will be used in this occasion. And as I say, Israel is preparing also. This is not about the nuclear program. It's about wanting to topple the Iranian state and wanting to decapitate it, topple it, and turn it into a balkanized country like Syria, is as present. a disaster.

I'm going to put, before we go up on the screen, a statement from Trump on Truth Social, suggesting, well, look at this. It is very hard. This is the President of the United States late last week. It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders' country. It is like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning. It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked

and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would never have happened if I were present zero chance interesting times ahead, President D.J.T. Is he intimating to the Kremlin that he might authorize? Ukraine to use offensive weapons that can reach Moscow? Is this any way to negotiate? I believe there is something happening. I can't tell you the details, but on the Russian channels, they are suggesting that there are preparations afoot

to prepare long-range missiles for eventual handing over to Ukraine. And that the plan, the playbook is unchanged. Can't win the war on the front, on the battlefield. But at least you can make it appear that it's not a defeat by blasting Moscow and St. Petersburg with long-range missiles. It won't change the course of the war. Even in Washington, I think that's understood. But how to prevent it becoming seen by the American public as a defeat, one way of doing that is to show the capacity of Ukraine to fire off missiles into the civilian areas of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

That seems to be what Russia is expecting. So they're preparing also against some form of escalation and expecting that may well happen. very soon. And that true social seemed to sort of underpin it to an extent that, you know, the volatile, the pressures that Trump is under and the pressures that are coming from, you know, parts of the security state are pushing him. I mean, we heard Lindsay Graham just now, pushing, pushing, pushing for escalation. Why? Because, you know, as I say, I mean, this is deeply connected to myth and things. Russia is now being seen and become seen as the anti-Europe, the anti-Western civilization, standing for everything other than our type of civilization. It's totally wrong and a misunderstanding of the circumstances. But that is sort of deeply being

entrenched and Macron and others in Europe are perhaps not as crudely as Macron just did it, are still underlying the sort of sense that, you know, Russia represents this existential threat because it stands for everything that what liberal Europe stood for, the opposite to that, the opposite to Europe, the Antichrist. The Macron's statement was extraordinary. Do you know when and where he said? that? Oh, I've got a clip of it, so I can send it to you. Oh, that would be, that would be wonderful. One last thing, Colonel McGregor reports that over the weekend,

the Russians destroyed the entire fleet of Taurus missiles that the Germans had sent to Ukraine and have characterized Berlin as a co-belligerent in the special military operation. So I guess you're right, this is going to get worse before it gets better. Yes, and he's quite correct. I mean, what the Germans were trying to do

was to not send Taurus missiles from Germany, but to have them assembled and put together in Ukraine and sort of distanced from Germany, rather precariously in that way. And early in the week, just before the talks in Anchorage, the Russians destroyed the three factories that were engaged in preparing the warheads,

the missiles, and the electronics of it. So they've been completely destroyed. Is Chancellor Mertz an idiot? Did he think that the Russians, would just sit back and wait for the Ukrainians to fire off the German missiles? I'm afraid to say that all of Europe, I mean, seems to be extremely, I mean, all I can say is their behavior is very stupid. I mean, they keep going on about a frozen conflict. They keep going on about more sanctions, more pressure on on Putin. But what is the end game?

What do they see as a solution, apart from escalation? They don't have a solution. They don't have an outcome. They just go on with the same process. You know, no, Zelensky can give up not a single kilometer of land. No, there will be no recognition of anything. No, we will go on supplying weapons and money to Ukraine. I mean, this is no solution.

It's just, you know, asking. and pining for an escalation. Alastair Crook, thank you very much, my dear friend. Gloomy and dark, but illuminating. If you can accept those words in the same sentence, and as always a pleasure, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Wow. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson at 3 o'clock this afternoon on all of this, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.