Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/15/25 Larry Johnson on the Trump-Putin Summit

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Scott interviews Larry Johnson about the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. Although they spoke hours before the actual meeting took place, Scott and Johnson discussed the wider context and likely consequences of this meeting.   Discussed on the show: “The Putin Trump Summit: A Triumph for Putin, A Disaster for the Neocons” (Sonar21) Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA officer and intelligence analyst, and a former planner and advisor at the US State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. Follow his analysis at Sonar21.  This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated; Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, and author of Provote, how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. Sign up for the podcast feed at Scotthorton.org or Scott Horton Show.com. I've got more than 6,000 interviews in the archive. for you there going back to 2003 and follow me on all the video sites and X at Scott Horton show

all right you guys on the line I got Larry Johnson he used to be CIA but it was a long time ago he's a good dude long long time ago he runs this thing called Sonar 21 where he writes these really great articles that I read all the time and

of course he's obsessed with the Russia Ukraine war like the rest of us welcome back to the show how you doing Larry thank you Scott for the invite glad to be with you you know what? I think that was an illegitimate back. I think this is the first time I've ever interviewed you actually. So just welcome to the show. Yeah, actually,

I interviewed you first. That's right. I remember we used to write about you back in the days of W. Bush and the plane leak and all of that stuff, like way back. So I should remember you from those days. I were classmates at

CIA. We started off in the career trainee program in September of 1985. Oh, is that right? I knew her when she was a youngster. Interesting. So, well, let's just talk about that for a second. My old lady, Larissa Alexandrovna Horton, she had the story that Plame was working on Iran

and that the real reason that they outed her was so that they could close one eye about what was going on in Iran so that they could pretend to believe fake things instead of having their own lady debunk the lies of the danger of the program at the time. Would you think, go ahead. No, I don't think, you know, having talked to Valerie about this,

she actually, she was genuinely directly involved in the whole Iraq effort. The focus on Iran actually didn't really start until like 2006. Then the reason I know that is another one of our class. So the career trainee program, there are 53 of us. We were basically given a one-year orientation to the CIA. And, you know, we went to paramilitary camp together. We did 12 weeks at Camp Perry, you know, doing land navigation, weapons, you know. So you build up some good relationships and friendships over that.

One of our other classmates, though, was selected. He was put in charge at the Iran Task Force in 2006. And as he told me later, as he got into it, that he realized, we were going to go to war with Iran. That was the plan. And so he started asking questions like, okay, what comes next? And they went, oh, it'll work out.

And he went, okay, I'm getting out of it. And he left. He took a demotion, went overseas, was the chiefest station in one of the East Africa countries. But he got out in time because he's just, you know, the Bush Cheney folks are crazy. yeah they're well and certainly you know the big push was in oh seven essentially was the biggest push to try to launch the war that spring but you're saying that um bruster jennings and

uh and playing they weren't working on iran at the time that she was outed there may there may have been you know she may have had some tasking on that you know again working on the prolifer nuclear proliferation issues yeah but uh she got she got tasked fully with iraq yeah and uh yeah So I guess what Larissa's story said then was that it was just like reading about Russiagate, right? Where you have the agents are giving information to the bosses that is saying this stuff isn't true. Right. And then they're shutting those agents down and telling them, stop telling me what ain't true, right? And so this would be a good example of that.

They can kind of get two birds with one stone by making the debunking of the Niger forgeries look like a Democrat political hit. and also closing another eye on what's really happening inside Iran so that they can lie about it better, basically. Because, by the way, I mean, even though the real push for the war was in 07, during that whole time was this endless litany of claims of the secret illicit parallel nuclear weapons program that they were always claiming existed there, you know? Yeah, yeah.

It was, you know, I remember I was actually part of a panel at the Nixon Center in December of 2002. So Ambassador Joe Wilson, Valerie's husband, he was there. I didn't know that Valerie and Joe were married when I first met Joe. And so I hadn't really kept up with Valerie in the intervening years. Patrick Lang was there. Pat had been the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East Division. He'd been the Defense Attachian, both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Charles Krauthheimer was there.

So it was, and Dimitri Simes was sort of the chair of the thing. And what was fascinating is even, you know, we were all saying at the time, boy, there must be some really highly classified sensitive intelligence on this because otherwise, you know, there's no objective reason to be wanting to go to war with Iraq. and it was only later I had one of one of my buddies who had been at the time is the national intelligence officer for Latin America you got in contact with me he said no it's all bullshit this is all the there's nothing this is all made up and so I started speaking out in May 2003 became unpopular within the administration yeah I know I know it well I got to tell you out here in the world I heard

heard that so many times. I was a cab driver at the time. And we would always talk about, well, look, every claim they've made so far has already been debunked, like, the day they make it. The Washington Post already debunked the stupid aluminum tubes thing. Those aren't for centrifuges. We'd go down the list, and they would always default

with the same thing. Well, there must be something secret that they can't tell us, that they know that justifies why they're doing this. Yeah, and what was funny about that, I mean, at the time, I held top secret special compartmental intelligence, I was read into several what are called SAPs, special access programs.

But then he realized, no, man, they just scammed us. It was a complete, complete lie, complete fabrication. Yeah. And that's, I think that was sort of the beginning for me of becoming the ultra-sceptic, recognizing that almost everything you hear coming out of government, just reverse it. It's probably the exact opposite. Yeah. Well, we do have a lot of that for sure.

All right, so we should cut to the chase because I think we could just sit here and reminisce and catch up about the last 25 years for the rest of the afternoon, but we don't have got time for that. I want to ask you about what you predict is going to happen in the summit that will be over by the time anyone hears this. Yeah, well, actually, so it's four hours behind. You know, we're talking here at 9 a.m. in the morning. So that means it's 5 a.m. in Alaska. and they're not going to hold their first meeting until 11.30 a.m. Alaska time, which, you know, so we had the four hours, that's 3.30 p.m. East Coast. Then they're supposed to have a, they said a breakfast, a working breakfast. I'm thinking, that sounds more like a working lunch, but whatever. So we're not going to get actually any sort of, the earliest would get some news would be at, say, 4.4.30 in the afternoon, East Coast time. And that would be, if Putin goes, Putin and Trump going to the meeting and Trump has a meltdown and walks out where this is, there's, this is not in good faith.

Now, I don't think that's going to happen. I think Trump's been engaged in some deliberate misdirection. He has been saying things to sort of pander to the neocon crowd. But behind the scenes, you know, there were some. planning that went into this. Right. You know, because they've, the fact that they already had the media center set up in Alaska. Now, they only have five days to pull this together, but they have the signs.

The signs are printed up in Russian. Some are poorly translated, but they've got a place to house journalists. The composition of the delegations is particularly fascinating. there is there's only one person on both teams that's connected with military efforts and that's the minister of defense for russia belusuf uh trump doesn't have a single military you know no pete heggs says no general from set com or jcs nothing it's all economic and uh the the fact that we've uh If you listen to the Russian side, they've been in contact and talking to someone on the U.S. side quite a bit. So there have been some behind-the-scenes negotiations.

And I think Trump was not in a position where if he would have come out and admitted what was going on, that it would have got all the neocons up into a screaming mask. They'd grab their pitchforks and torches. Now, let me ask you, because isn't that the way this always works, right? You have your lower down guys hammer out every last. thing that they possibly can before the bosses show up and just mostly do the ceremony, right? Yeah. Why do you think they call them Sherpas? You know, it's just like, you know, all these people are going, I climb Mount Everest. And meanwhile, you've got these, these Nepalese that are, you know,

having to haul all the, all the wealthy white people's crap up the mountain. Right. You know? So, and I, you know, having been in sort of a Sherpa rollback in my day's estate, Yeah, I'd love to meet the person that's actually had to sort of pull all these details together because they're going to, I think this meeting's going to focus on some economic areas of economic cooperation and even potentially restarting nuclear arms control. Well, you know, okay, well, man, hold that thought, and I wanted to ask you about that, and then I forgot to write that down. So we're going to definitely talk about nukes because I read a little thing, just tiny little old trial balloon and the Wall Street Jersey. or something this morning about that that maybe we could see them

go, you know, quite far with this. But so let's talk about the war though for a minute now because if they work anything out today then that means I'm wronger than hell, man. I've been just so pessimistic, Larry, about Trump just

essentially being, I probably said this on your show, right? I think Trump was just inaugurated at the wrong time. The Russians are in the middle of winning and they're not done winning yet as you know our military experts say they're fighting this very slow war of attrition rather than just seizing territory they're grinding the other guys

up and moving slow but that just means by this time they have not finished seizing even Donetsk much less Zaproja and Curzon where they still have like a solid third of those oblast you know remaining out of their hands and so the idea

that they're going to stop short of those goals regardless of what Trump does or says or threatens or promises I thought was impossible and then I'm also I have been I guess I still am worried that and I know that this they talk like this in the Russian press and in Russian politics I don't know if Putin has really addressed this other than like I know one sarcastic comment where he said like oh this is a very nice city or something when somebody asked him but it does make just logical sense that they would keep going and seize the jewel of the black sea and in fact they have all of these you know Russian

speakers and ethnic Russians east of the river, who are now going to be a much smaller minority in the country and under the rule of Western right-wing nationalists, to put it politely. And so it makes sense, again, from Moscow's point of view, to keep going in order to protect all those people, as they call it, as states call their rule, right? And so I would love to be so, so wrong about this. Is it really right, you think? that is, as they're saying in the trial balloons here, that the Russians are willing to draw the lines even where they are, or at least at least one report from the one administration official's interpretation

of what the Russians had talked to them about was even relinquishing control of Kersan and Zaproja altogether. That's just absolutely ridiculous. The Russians have gone through, you know, they're on the third phase now. First phase was the Istanbul talk. in March, April, 2022, where at that point, the peace proposal that was brought forward was actually brought by Ukraine. That's according to, you know, Sergei Lavrov told me that directly when Judge Napolitano

and Mario Nafal and I talked with him in March. He said, look, that was the Ukrainian proposal. We were willing to go with that, which would have left Donetsk and Lujansk as part of Ukraine. well the u.s managed to sabotage that agreement so then russia went and held wait wait let's let's dwell on that point for just one second two months into the war the russians were even willing to leave the donbass never mind the other two they were even willing to withdraw and that's in the book but it's nice to i didn't even know that you guys interviewed sergeant labrov i'm so negligent look you can see back here provoked oh there you

go that's a nice set piece you got there But yeah, so you guys interviewed Lavrov, and he reiterated from his side, too. Yeah, I mean, he just, he said, look, he said, and he held a piece of paper. He said, it was, we were working from a Ukrainian draft. He said, it wasn't our draft. It was theirs. And so once that was blown up by the United States and Boris Johnson, then the Russians said, okay, our next move, they held elections in Danesfahan's and Zaporizia and Kharsan. even though they didn't fully control any of those.

But the elections actually went off and like over, over, like over 80%, 85% of the people voted, hey, yeah, we want to be back part of Russia. So they took it back. So now those former oblasts are now federal republics in the Russian Federation. And that was also revenge for the Ukrainians big gains in September of 22, where they forced them out of Harki. and out of half or a third of Kerson with that brilliant faint. And then Putin went, oh, yeah, well, I hear by annexediprosia and Kerson entirely. How do you like that? Yeah, no, actually, they had planned that annexation before that.

And remember, when the Russians, the Russians only went in with 125,000 soldiers in that initial phase. And that's that crucial lambridge to Crimea and the guarantee of the fresh water from the NEPA through that channel to Crimea. They really weren't looking at a military victory at that point. It was more they were using the military as pressure to get the negotiation. Then it actually succeeded. But then with that, when a right, those other four oblasts now became part of Russia. So today, Vladimir Putin in the meeting, he couldn't give up Zappar, or Kherson, if he wanted to, any more than Donald Trump could tell Putin.

All right, we're giving you back Alaska. You know, can't do that. Because there's just, we call it a sort of a constitutional order. It's part of the law. So that's not going to happen. But the Russians have made it very clear. Right now they are also occupying portions of Nipro-Kerthrofts, of Sumi, and Kharkiv. And they basically told the Ukrainians, here's the deal.

you recognize that these five, you know, Crimea and the other four oblasts that are now part of Russia, recognize those are now Russian territory, get NATO out of your country, stop your offensive over your fighting, get your troops out of these other oblasts, and we'll leave. We'll leave Neaprofenthroft, we'll leave Suu, we'll leave Karki. However, if you don't do that, then, you know what, we're going to keep moving and we'll start keeping what we take which is where I think they're ultimately going to take Odessa. Because

I don't see I don't see anybody on the Ukrainian side going to say okay, we give up. Yeah. Okay. Now, but one caveat would be, and I did quote that thing from the Wall Street Journal where

there were two different I guess interpretations of what the Trump administration officials were saying the Russians were saying, one of them was saying, yeah, they'll even give up all of Zabroshenkirskine. But the other one was saying that maybe they'll draw the line where it is now. That would

be their climb down. And it seemed to me quite possibly that was what Trump was implying when he was saying there'll be land swaps. Sort of like what you're saying here. We'll go ahead and I guess my interpretation, you know, based on just guesswork, was that what he

was saying was, you give up, the last of the Donbass and we'll go ahead and draw the line where it is in Zaproja and Kurson, right? Which would preclude them crossing the river and go into Odessa at that point, I guess, if they're not going to

cross the river and get the rest of Kerson. So that would seem like a way for a rung on the ladder for Putin to climb down too in order to make a deal with Trump if he's really interested in making one here. Well, actually Putin holds

Putin holds the Trump cards, not Trump, you know, even though he's named Trump. The Russian military, you know, there is so much misinformation being spread on the western side about all the Russian economies and collapse. It's terrible. Even going to some of the, you know, these different AI, like GROC and perplexity, and you ask him about the Russian economy and they present this very dire picture. And so I started arguing back with Gron. yesterday on it because, you know, they painted this horrible picture. I said, really? You're

saying inflation is going to 25 percent. I said, that's nonsense. Don't you recognize that they've already lowered interest rates because the inflation wage has come down? And Grok comes back, okay, yeah, you're right. You know, we admit it. And then the same thing about, oh, boy, the economy was really bleak. I said, wait a second. They have a debt, a debt to G. GDP ratio of like 14% as compared with the United States debt to GDP the GDP ratio is 120%. And I said, and you're telling me that the Russian economy is worship and then Grock comes back. Yeah, okay. Yeah. You know, so even our, even our AI stuff is pressing, pushing all this propaganda. That's funny. Boy, I mean, when you talk about that, I do see a strategic

defeat here but it looks like it's ours yeah absolutely i mean russia russia right now when you look at the way their military has grown over the last three and a half years uh it's it's more than doubled in size their defense industry has ramped up and they they are out producing you know just like with artillery shells they're out producing us and europe combined you know they produce you know they produce more in three months than we and the Europeans can produce in a year. So, and that's not me saying that. That's Mark Ruta, the Secretary General. So we recognize, you know, the CIA has been lying. And I base that upon watching what Cy Hirsch writes.

Cy's an old friend. You know, I've known him for, oh Lord, 44 years. But Sai has been, in two of his recent articles, he quotes an intelligence community official first saying that russia suffered two million casualties i i can show you that take you through the numbers no way in hell that they've suffered two million casualties they're probably closer to 150 000 dead maybe another 300 400 000 wounded but that's a far cry from two million because they've actually over the entire course of the war between conscripts and contract uh personnel they've signed up 2.2 million so you know that's You know what, please do go on and on and on about that because I do not know who to believe

because both sides, of course, always play down their own casualties and exaggerate the other sides. And I see numbers of all descriptions everywhere, and I don't know who to believe. Yeah, so it's pretty easy. The numbers for how many soldiers, the Russians are recruiting each month, the conscripts, so they send out draft notices. and then also the contract soldiers. Both Russian numbers and Western sources agree.

You know, there's a little bit of a spread, but it's not much different. Okay, so you take those numbers and add them up, which I did. I wrote an article on this, posted it at Sonart 21, and at the end, you come up with like 2.3 million total. And that's just assuming, I wasn't assuming at first, any casualties. I wasn't assuming that soldiers didn't leave after the tour of duty was up. I didn't assume any desertions. So then you come in and say, okay, what are the credible sources for Russian casualties? On the death side, media zona, an outfit in England, which is not exactly what I'd call

in bias, but their methodology is they go through the obituaries that show up in all Russian media, all the different republics. And they've had a pretty steady, you know, they may have a lag factor, but their number right now, last I saw it was between 130 and 160,000 dead. And I actually think that's probably pretty reasonable. But when the United States intelligence community is telling Cy Hirsch, I guarantee you they're also telling that to Donald Trump, which is why he said, oh, they've suffered two million casualties.

Well, if they actually, they're not suffering that many casualties. And what's actually happened this year is with a change of tactics, the daily losses of the Russians have dropped into single digits. And we've seen repeatedly exchanges of dead soldiers, you know, the cadavers that have been picked up off the battlefield. So Russia's turning, turning over, you know, 2,000, 3,000 body. and the Ukrainians are turning over 79, Russians. I mean, it's just a complete disparate.

And that's been consistent this year. So you've got that. And then, again, the economy, where they try to say that the economy's in the toilet. So it's just this constant flow of misinformation. The latest one from SAI was when he was talking to the intelligence official. And the CIA guy said, you know, this war between Ukraine and Russia, it's territory. It's over territory.

No, it's not. Territory has the last thing to do with it. The notion that Russia is seeking to gain more terror. For God's sake, they cover 11 time zones. You know, they got so much land, they don't know what to do with it. This is about the expansion of NATO to the east, and NATO's making Ukraine a de facto member of NATO, since going back to 1995. It really started in intensity in 1997.

That's what it's about. And if the intelligence community doesn't grasp that, certainly Trump doesn't grasp that, but that's what they're telling, that was what they're telling Cy Hirsch. So I have to go with that. Yeah. Okay.

So now by, again, just my, you know, finger in the wind kind of thing trying to guess the way things uh might play out based on the situation i mean it does seem you know again by the logic of government programs that the russians in doing what they've done to solve their problem have created new problems right uh one of them i mentioned that seems to be like the potentially the most important is leaving whatever amount of territory between the Donbass and the river where you have people you know it's a gray scale you can see from the election results and whatever demography where it's kind of a gray scale over from east to west from ethnic Russians and cultural Russians to more ethnic ruthenians you know and Ukrainians

in the west of the country and their different language and culture and whatever it's kind of an airbrush thing and the obviously in the donbass you would find people especially you know in done yet you to have people who really would identify themselves as Russians to a much stronger degree. And from my understanding, too, in Ukraine, people, it's almost like Afghanistan where people don't really identify with the nation state that much. They usually identify with their city and the way we do over sports teams and whatever. But it's, you know, anyway, point being, you have people east of the Nipa River who speak Russian and are whatever degrees of ethnic Russian, however loyal to the Russian Federation they

may or may not be, right? Who now their side, quote unquote, broadly defined, will never win an election again, right? They used to win elections, the sort of Russian-leaning parties. And that was why we had to overthrow the government there twice in 10 years, right? But forget that. It's going to be all right-wing nationalists running the place from now on. And so it just makes sense. again from the Russian point of view that like oh no these poor people need our protection too and it seems like if they draw the lines where they are now

it's still a frozen conflict and you got I'm sure you saw this the London Times did a big profile of Andrew Beletsky one of the worst Nazis in the country who is the big hero of the Azov Battalion which is now became the Azov regiment and the Azov Brigade and then the

third separate infantry division and they now call it the Third Army Corps and Colonel Beletsky is their leader and he's almost certain to be the next dictator of the country or they'll run for something and call him El Presente. So just extrapolating out a year or two, this is really a Pyrrhic victory for the Russians and they still have a lot of hell to pay and problems to solve.

Actually, this has gone better, I think, for Russia than they actually had anticipated at the outset. In the first year, they were genuinely concerned that they might face a real economic hardship. And what has happened, this has. Well, look, I would concede that point. I mean, the economic war against Russia is essentially nothing. But what about the situation that they're leaving on the ground, the time out here with so much still unresolved on the ground in Ukraine? Yeah, well, they're going to, you know, I believe they will handle that.

for this reason. They fought a 10-year terrorist war in Chechnya that was funded, supplied by the West. I mean, you know, you wrote about it in your first book, you know, about to get, you know, on terrorism. And the fact that all the, you know, the Mujah Hadin that we were supporting in Afghanistan, we packaged them up and set them up into Russia to destroy Russia. And they fought, you know, It was a brutal war for 10 years, but, you know, Putin fought and won that. And they did that in the midst of actually some significant economic hardship.

And so that's the reason I'm bringing the economy side of this is that Bricks has now emerged as a viable organization, an alternative financial system that is that really poses a direct, I don't would call it a threat to Western hegemony, but the U.S. control of the international finance, it's coming to an end. And neither Russia or China, I think, really expected that or could, you know, it was maybe a dream. They hoped it would come to pass. But what has what has transpired in the last three and a half years is Russia realized, hey, wait a second, we're the only country in the world that is completely self-sufficient in terms of natural resources. We don't need a single thing from any other country in order to get along. In fact, did you hear this line that was being put out in the last couple of days that Trump's going to offer them rare earth minerals? Russia controls rare earth minerals. Are you guys

morons? Yeah, they could trade with China right next door. You know, I don't know if you saw this one. I love bringing this up because it's so obscure, but meaningful to me that the war nerd. Are you familiar with the war nerd? Gary Brecher? No, no. Or John Dolan is his other name. He's a brilliant guy, not an anti-war guy, but just obsessed with war and foreign policy and things. He's good on everything important, you know. But he wrote this thing in 2014 that said, ha, ha, hey, guess what?

Look, everybody. Russia has just announced the grand opening of their natural gas pipeline to China. So game over Europe. If you thought that you could extort Russia with by boycotting their natural gas Germany under the control of America well you're wrong because now screw you all they got to do is turn east and sell the China instead

so Trump card played then that was 11 years ago right you were out of options then and then they tried to play this hard ball but they were not in any position to and isn't it perfectly fitting that it was senile like the absolute very worst version of Joe Biden that ever was

and he was always the worst. But that it was this idiot who accomplished the kicking of Russia out of Europe. And this, you know, major break between our societies in this way, in the just most inept way, right? Like if you were writing a satire of this idiocy. Well, you know, I've been fortunate in the last, since December of 2023, I've been at five trips to Moscow, to Europe, to Russia. one to St. Petersburg, Fort of Moscow.

Boy, you know what, one of the outcomes, I think, looking ahead is after today's summit, the next meeting is going to be held in Russia. When all the U.S. journalists go to Russia for the first time, they're going to be knocked over. They will be, it is, it's amazing, absolutely amazing. The subway stations, it's like walking into the Louvre. I mean, they're like art museums, clean, pristine, this notion that, oh, it's an authoritarian society. Oh, please. You know, we, it was the exact opposite. The thing, in fact, with Judge Napolitano and I were there, we were commenting, the one thing you didn't see as you're driving around, you didn't see police.

You know, there was, there's not like there were policemen on every corner and, you know, heavy intimidate, wasn't around. There are a number of expats, Americans living there, that I've met and talked to. And a lot of them, they actually, some went there for freedom. One was a West, he was a West Point grad. He was actually classmates with Keith Alexander, you know, the former head of the NSA. And, but he now, he was a Russian Orthodox person. His family escaped the Soviet Empire. But man, he's back.

living in Russia, happy as can be. So when these journalists go over there, maybe the narrative that this propaganda that the American public are inundated with about Russia will dissipate, and they'll see that we've got so many natural connections with what Russia is today as far as being, you know, they are strongly nationalist, and they're very religious. But the one One thing that I saw that I think we could learn from here in the United States is the Russians have been able to navigate that issue of, even though they're predominantly Russian Orthodox Christians, they live and coexist quite peacefully with the Muslim population in their country. I mean, there's not that tension, and there's the absence of racism. They do not look at people and start immediately judging them based on the color of their skin. Hang on just one second for me here.

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with a little meadbedev in there so there's no fooling about that but like overall on the political spectrum if you were to put an American political spectrum on Russian politics he's on the center right yeah he's not even like a Buchananite

he's more of a W. Bush like on the in the I don't mean like that in the worst way of like the war mongeringness although there's a bit of that but just in terms of like where he is on the political spectrum there he is not an ethnic Russian nationalist at all and he

puts the Russian Nazis in prison and they hate him and they are terrorists. They cut Muslims heads off and all this kind of stuff. He's got his own problem with the Aryan nations there and they hate him and they often side with the Ukrainian Nazis

fighting against their own country and of course CIA has used them on cross-border missions in the past. Let me ask you a question. because I now know the answer of this. I look, I researched it. When did public opinion in the West turn against Vladimir Putin? I think it. And I don't necessarily think you should know this, but would I give you the answer?

I'm going to say like for sure, like the hard break would have been after the loss of Crimea in 2014. But they did start to like really worry about them in 2007. after the Munich speech, depending on who you're reading? 2003. What happened in 2003? Putin opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. So what I did, I went back and searched year by year and using some of the AR search engines and say,

pull up the article's favorable or unfavorable of Putin. And the turn comes. I mean, it's generally favorable. All Putin, look, reformer, great. you know and then he opposed us going into iraq in 2003 and then all of a sudden he's a demon we got to get him that's funny yeah so and then you watch after that point you know again in 2008 yeah you know cheney's Vilnius speech was in 05 right when he went to Vilnius and threatened the Russians about the the pipeline wars in ukraine and all of that so yeah that's 05 that's just the

very beginning of the second term there. Yeah. So it was because Putin actually opposed our imperialist visions and ambitions. Well, I mean, the attitude at best was always, we can do whatever we want and screw them. That was as charitable as the Americans under Clinton or Bush ever saw. I mean, Putin called Bush was a first foreign leader to call Bush on September 11th and say, not only do you have my heart, but I'm at your service. You need my own. airspace. You need my intelligence to help invade Afghanistan. You need my bases in the stands to invade Afghanistan. You can have them, dude. I'm your guy, Bush. And I know he had to face down politicians and military guys on his right in the country. He had only been president for a year,

year and a half at that time. And he had to really pull rank and tell them, no, I'm in charge here. You shut up. I'm making this bet on getting along with the United States. Two months later, Bush tears up the ABM treaty. Yeah. You know, just they don't give a damn. about these guys. And that, I think that's probably maybe, and I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that that's the case and that maybe that's more objectionable,

that they don't even hate the Russians. They just disregard them so badly. It's worse than hate. You know what I mean? They're willing to do anything at their expense and just never even consider what the consequences might be. Well, as you documented in your book, provoked, you know, Yeltsin asked to be part of NATO.

Putin made at least one request if not two and they're constantly you know Russia was looking to get along with us not fight us but God if we allowed that to happen how are we going to justify

a trillion dollar in the defense department right you know we got to have that enemy yeah and by the way so when was Putin's big break with the United States then on the other side Larry um February 2020.

Okay, well, yeah, that would have been the worst, but I was going to say it was in 2004 after Bezlin, where Bush took the terrorist side after the Bezlin school massacre and said, you should negotiate with these nationalist freedom fighters. And Putin was like, what? Because, of course, these were bin Ladenites. Now they may be CIA and MI6 and Saudi backed bin Ladenites, but Basiev and Katab were directly tied to bin Laden and Zawahiri

and been to Afghanistan numerous times, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, no, you know, that's what's fast, you know, Putin really is, man, he's eating a load of shit over the years. I mean, he's really things that, you know, other people would be, you know, deal breakers. I'm never going to talk to you again kind of thing. He would still stay at the table. Right. And I believe the reason for that is because of what the Russian people suffered in World War II. 27 million

casualties, not just casualty deaths. And, you know, I got some sense of this. When Napolitano and I were there in March, we had lunch at this one private school that our host had, you know, he'd put the school together, funded it.

And there were five Russians sitting around the table from us. And so I asked them, I said, hey, how many of you had family members, you know, fathers, grandfathers, uncles that died in the great patriotic war? Every single one of them raised a hand. And I looked at Napolitano. I said, how about you? And he goes, no. And neither are my family. And the difference was this, that in the United States, if you took one out of every 100 people and then take that one person, 20% of them, that's how many Americans died in all of World War II. Just, you know, basically two-tenths of one percent.

Whereas in Russia, it was like 16 out of 100. So that legacy, that memory, because remember, Putin's brother died in the war. And so he, you know, people say, oh, that's crazy that you think he, you know, because they like to portray him as a warmonger. You compare the casualties, civilian casualties in Ukraine after three and a half years of war with those that are what Israel's done to the Palestinians. Right. And just less than two years. Well, and luckily, people have been able to flee the war zone in Ukraine to the east and to the west and get the hell out of the way.

And it's mostly just combatants killing each other out there. They're conscripts. So we should never forget that. That they're really just one hair away from civilians themselves as enslaved fighters. You're correct. But one of the things that we've never seen, we didn't see even the Soviets do during World War II, bombing cities with, you know, using aircraft to just bomb cities and kill civilians. That was a U.S. British thing. You know, and it's just, that's never been part of even the Soviet doctrine, much less the modern Russian doctrine. So, you know, still this is, This is about fighting NATO, and Ukraine winds up as just a pawn on the chessboard in that regard. And that's until we come to grips with that, you know, the Russia is going to continue the military battle on the ground until, you know, I think they'll ultimately, they'll stop at the NEPA, they'll take Kiev, they'll take Odessa, they'll take Transnistria. But they're not going to occupy Western Ukraine.

I agree with that I mean I think oh because yeah again on the on the chain of logic of the government program if they have to take the east now they're right across the river from Kiev so geez that's kind of a tough situation to be in you know what I mean so then and again

Odessa if they take it first of all they're taking it back for Mother Russia that created in the first place back centuries ago but then also they're taking it away from Ukraine which is fun right and then as you mentioned Transnistri and this is so important and I try to mention all the time for people who aren't familiar

on Ukraine's western border with Moldova on the Moldovan side of the river there's a strip of land controlled still by Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and once you take Odessa then you can see Transnistria from here man Transnistr it's

sometimes called the Nister River there and so yes by the chain of logic they keep going and going until there's just a rump Ukraine run by a bunch of Nazis, which then is its own set of problems too. And then at that point, to me it only makes sense, if we're talking years from now

to just run them all into Poland then and just take the whole thing. Have you been to Kiev by chance? No, hell no, I'm not going over there. I don't think they like me very much, although I don't know. I was there in 1994. I was providing

protection to a CIA contractor, a female. I was her bodyguard. But Kiev is like Kansas City And in the sense that you got Kansas City, Missouri And Kansas City, Kansas got the Missouri River between them That's that's the Kiev's the same sort of thing So you can have the Kiev that's on the east side of the river But also the heart of it that was with the birth of Christianity in Russia

Took place on the west side Yeah at the river. But it is, hey, what about this? There's a bunch of tunnels under Odessa. Yeah. And a great place to fight an insurgency. So you can fill those tunnels of poison gas like the Israelis or something, or fight a hell of a fight to take that town from the locals. What do you think about that? Yeah, you know, the Russians have more experience at fighting and winning terrorist, insurgent, guerrilla. campaigns than any country in the world. I mean, look at us. We couldn't even handle the Afghans.

Yeah, they just wipe them out, is what they do, right? Yeah. Well, they go, you know. They don't do counterinserts, see hearts and minds. They just win. They got the advantage of the language. So it's not like there's, you know, like U.S. is in Afghanistan. How many people were learning, you know, Farsi or Pashtun, whereas, you know, it's native speakers.

I you know that's that's a risk but it you know frankly the United States has been stirring up and supporting insurgencies against Russia since 1947 and that was the plan here right was everybody assumed the Russians would destroy the Ukrainian military immediately and we would be right back to the CIA back in the Nazis in the Carpathian mountains like it was the Cold War right that's what that's why the Russian strategy which the West doesn't understand you know they You get a lot of these, I think it's rich and some of these generals that you've debated as well that talk about how bad the Russians are because of the slow progress they've made in three and a half years.

Oh, you mean like our great progress that we made in Afghanistan after 20 years? Shut the hell up. You know, I don't want to hear from a single former general say one thing. There are no position to criticize Russia after our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, please. I know. But the Russia has embarked on a very deliberate, attritional war strategy, which isn't dependent upon capturing territory.

What it is is bleeding the other side dry, which is, I don't think they anticipated it, but they found out, hey, we're bleeding NATO out too. Right. Okay, but now, so back to today, and it's funny, because everybody's going to hear this after we already know what happened and this and that, I mean, we'll see how it goes, but if we're right that the Russians are going to keep going here over the long term, then the big X factor and all that is Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America's humiliation,

that despite all his promises and his very best efforts, including showing up in person to try to get a deal here, he would then be unable to get that deal. and it would be his embarrassment at the hands of Putin then. And so then does he just turn into Joe Biden and start pouring in far more weapons and better intelligence help and CIA and whatever he can to escalate the thing back?

Well, we don't have it to pour in. You know, look, his big plan is we're going to sell our stuff to the Europeans and then they'll give it to the Ukrainians, except the back order on some of it, like Patriot missiles. Yeah, we can have that for you in seven years. seven years so no i listen i think what's going to happen and it comes to the nature of the two delegations the delegations are almost exclusively economic financial trade based i mean look trump's taking j d vans scott besant um Howard lutnik and then uh whitkoff and marco rubio of course

there's not a military guy in that crew. There's not a single person there are capable of intelligently discussing what's going on on the ground in the Ukraine. However, what are the things that Russia can offer? Well, one of the Demetriev, one of the Russian representatives that will be there, his big plan is let's build a bridge and or tunnel connecting Alaska to Russia. for commercial reasons. The United States is facing an electricity shortfall over the next 10 years because the AI, the expansion of these data centers associated with AI are like black holes for electricity.

They require so much power. We no longer have the ability to generate that amount of power. Russia does. Russia can lay underground cable. that can come to the United States and actually provide power that the United States wouldn't be able to produce.

The Arctic, exploration of the Arctic. Russia's got 10 solid ice breakers and one is just a monster. United States barely has one and I don't even think it's working. So there's a whole area of cooperation. Oh man, and that's the huge one, right? It's because we could compete with Russia

over the Arctic. or not. We could cooperate with them. And instead of having a big Cold War with them and China over who controls these trade routes, we just all do it together. What the hell is to fight about? Yeah. So I think what's going to come out of this today is they'll say, well, we had positive talks. I can't see Trump wanting to go stomping off to an airplane and complaining about Putin when he can appear at a press conference with Putin. and, you know, sort of regardless of what happens, Putin comes out of this a winner.

Because if Trump goes stopping off, the Russians will have shown up with their whole first team. You know, they brought all their people to show that they were interested in peace. They're not the ones walking away. They're not the ones saying, you know, you question each other's mother's sexuality. They are taking the high road. But if it goes forward to the press conference, then all of a sudden, Putin no longer gets to be demonized as this evil authoritarian closet communists seeking to restore the Soviet control of the world, which, as I recall during the Cold War, actually the Soviets were not out establishing, you know, taking control of countries in South America, Central America, Africa. that was us, you know, on the imperialist side. So, you know, I think for the Russians, it's a win-win.

And then out of this, they get a trip of Trump to Russia. And then, you know, it starts breaking through the propaganda. Well, and also they get to, it's almost certain, right, or whatever, I don't know about that. But it seems like the idea, the plan going in would be to take something like a reasonable proposal to Zelensky and see whether they can get him to buy in you know like we talk about Afghanistan part of the deal with Afghanistan was

we can never make a deal because Kabul had to be included in any negotiations and they wanted us to stay and the war to keep going they preferred that to making a compromise with the Taliban so Trump had to freeze them out and just make a deal with the Taliban without them

and then just tell them hey tough this is the deal get used to it kind of thing I don't know if were in that strong of a position relative to Kiev in this one because whatever percent Kiev is

dependent on America for its existence at this point, the Ukrainian government the Kabul government was 100,000 percent dependent on the United States to prop it up. It could never exist. It was vaporware. It always was going to cease to exist the day we left.

And that was absolutely certain all along. So it's a different case here. We're like, there really is a government of Ukraine and everything. It was already there even before we did a coup to overthrow it back whenever. You know what I mean? So he doesn't have that much leverage over them. He has to still take the deal to them.

But then like you're saying, I think, is if it, I guess if it's a reasonable enough deal and Kiev refuses, then both Trump and Putin get to act like, well, that's Zelensky's fault. Now let's get back to our other talks about. resource development and the rest, right? Yeah. Which is fine with me. And I'm sorry for Ukraine. I really am.

Ukraine ain't Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine is a land of a lot of individual people, and what they're going through is completely horrible. But I'm sorry, America's relationship with Russia is just by far the most important thing. And despite the fact, hell, I wrote the book on how this is all America's fault. We got them into this. But still, what are you going to do? It's the same thing with South Vietnam.

It's the same thing with the coalition in Kabul. Yeah, we got you into this, but there is no way to get you out of it. We're just going to stop now. We have to. Yeah, we walk away. You know, what's fascinating, but there's some things going on behind the scenes. They haven't really become public. Department of Defense, Criminal Investigation Division has now opened a criminal case

that involves $48 billion that have been siphoned off from USAID. and it's been in kickbacks of that have come to 23 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. Wait, what was that report that says that? It hasn't been really reported yet. The reason I know this is my business partner or I call it former business partner because we're sort of retired doing different things now. But he filed, he started by filing a whistleblower case with the IRS because he had whistleblowers coming out of you. Ukraine to him. And they identified the money.

He's a financial investigator. He ran DEA's undercover money laundering operations in New York City for four years. He has identified $48 billion. One Republican senator, who's a very vocal proponent of Ukraine, has got $17 million funneled back to him. Another Democrat senator, who's also a big proponent of Ukraine, he got $23 million. But this is now in a criminal investigation. So we'll see if it leads anywhere or if these guys get a pass.

But at least 23 members of Congress have been benefiting from this financially and not just a few thousand dollars. We're talking millions of dollars. Wow. What a scoop. I want to know more as soon as it's published and available. Sonar21.com, everybody. I can tell you all fair. All right, good.

Yeah, let's talk more about that. I'm perfectly willing to listen to CIA. Former CIA guys say things off the record. Not that I'll necessarily believe you, but that is the job. Always be skeptical. That's right. Okay, so let's talk about nuclear bombs. Here's the thing that I know about Donald Trump is he's obsessed with this issue the same way I am.

and he's told the story a lot of times his uncle was the tallest, most handsome, wisest, most intelligent and most accomplished scientists who ever existed and taught at MIT. And his uncle taught him all about fusion

and how big that bang is and really scared the hell out of him, I think. And he talks about this, like, oh, you just don't understand the power of these things the way it's been explain to me by my uncle the genius from mit i mean he really has thought about this in a way that i think most people in dc have not really considered this issue at all um and then so i really really don't like it larry in that context when he says evacuate tehran because he knows what a bully

he's being when he makes statements like that that ain't okay that's terrorism dude that's evil to do that on the other hand he has raised the issue oh don't let me let me let me to mention that he tore up the intermediate nuclear forces treaty of 87 and he promised to tear up new start but it was unelected and so didn't get a chance to but at the same time he's talked about he wants to enter into a brand new grand nuke deal of some kind

with Russia and especially with China if he can get one he thinks and I think at the beginning of his term he even explained I read this sign it couldn't have been something he said but it must have been like his people talking about it like the idea was that we would try to get China to freeze their additional, they're just advancing their quantity of H-bombs now and missiles now from like 300 to estimated like up to 600 or right around there, whatever is their goal.

And he's saying, let's try to get China to stop. And then let's try to get American Russia to negotiate our stockpiles down to China's level. Instead of saying, because China doesn't want to enter a deal with us when we're so far ahead of them, right? but he's saying no no no the deal will be we'll get down to your level because who the hell needs more than 200 hydrogen bombs anyway this kind or three or six or whatever it is so which would be a vast improvement since american russia hold about seven thousand each right now and so um those are big dreams we know that he has them i don't think we know how serious he is about that but it was raised and you mentioned at the beginning of this interview and it was raised in the press that i guess this was some kind i don't know if you'd call it a trial balloon or some kind of kind of leaked statement from the Trump government that perhaps they wanted to talk about nuclear issues with Putin today in Alaska. What do you know about that? Well, I don't know if they're going to do that, but I know what the, I think, what the motivation is. Russia now is

they're testing this week their first nuclear-powered cruise missile. And it carries a nuclear warhead as well. But the fact that it's nuclear-powered means it can take off and it can stay aloft for a long time. Unlimited range to go around your defenses. Yeah. So then Russia's got at least three variants of hypersonic missiles. And these are not ballistic missiles. These are missiles that can be steered while traveling at speeds in excess of Mach 6. You know, a nice States doesn't have anything like that. Now, we've got something called the Dark Eagle that has been tested finally had the, quote, a successful test, and I'd even question that. But we're nowhere near what Russia has. And then on the interim range nuclear front, the Erushnik missile,

which is actually, it could do damage without having to carry a nuclear warhead. So the United States is clearly behind on all sorts of technologies. And maybe the United States, it's the United States, that is finally dawned upon Trump, that, hey, we need to, nothing else, we need to slow the Russians down because we're getting left behind. Yeah. And this is all W. Bush's fault for tearing up the ABM treaty. Yeah. 100%.

Yeah. Remember, the Russians were like, what? No, let's just, but once they realized, okay, you're not going to do it, they then turned and actually did something practical in building the S-400, the S-500. These are the heavy businesses. Yeah. Yeah. And these are systems that are actually capable of defeating inbound ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

Now, not 100% guarantee, but it gives you a better chance. You're saying these are Russian nuclear anti-ballistic missile defenses. Yes, yes. Yeah. So my old friend Gordon Prather, the nuclear physicist, he told me numerous times, the only way truly to defeat incoming nuclear missiles is, with nuclear missiles. And what you would do is it would be what we call neutron bombs, enhanced radiation devices, where more of the explosion is released as radiation as compared to heat in order to knock out the avionics and destroy any electrical capability of the warheads when they're

incoming. You know, right the edge of space. You know, we're already seen. So, but you're saying that was what the Russians defense, that's the defense that they built is nuclear anti-ballistic missile intercept. Yes. Yeah, no, they've prepared that. And we've seen actually the last couple of weeks, it's a slightly different, smaller scale. But they've now got a drone that's carrying a directed energy weapon that is attacking other drones. Interesting. All right. Well, yeah, that's a whole other discussion about the evolution of drone war.

here um but yeah so i don't know man i i i'm uh i don't mean to be overly hopeful about the nuclear thing because of course trump is also in in his first term and so far in this one is continuing on barraq obama's giant nuclear expansion um in reaction to the russian expansion in reaction to bush tearing up the abm treaty which you know no one ever talks about this and i don't remember where i found it anymore but i have the footnote in the book where when Bush tore up the ABM treaty, that was what killed Start 2. And the Russians were ahead of us on they had signed it and ratified it. And they were like just about to start implementing it or, you know, supposedly like sometime soon.

The Americans had signed it but not ratified it yet. I think Bill Clinton had signed the thing or at least his government had agreed upon it and it was like awaiting it. No, I guess Clinton had signed it. And then. But the Russians had already. already ratified it. But then when Bush tore up the ABM treaty, they went ahead and tore up Start 2 and withdrew from Start 2. And Start 2 would have banned all MIRFs, all multiple independently target reentry vehicles. So in other words, one warhead per rocket per missile for both sides

everywhere, right? Just like our Minutemen are now. That was per a previous treaty that we just have one warhead on our Minuteman missiles. It would have been the same thing for all of our Polaris missiles at sea and all of our, you know, whatever. And so, I mean, that, no one ever talks about that, Belaria, I think that's that decision by W. Bush and Putin's decision in response to tear up that treaty has got to be the worst decision that any two men have ever made in history. After climbing down from having 70,000 H bombs down to seven, where we're like on the path to eliminating the arms race

almost altogether at least or getting down to bare minimums and being friends and they just I mean it's worse than Iraq as far as just unforced errors just stupid idiot things that you did not have to do at all

right there's no real pressure to do this other than like we just want to rub it in their faces that we can put anti-ballistic missile systems and dual use launchers in Romania and Poland if we feel like it and they can't stop it Like, what other point are they making than that? Yeah.

It's just nuts. Yeah, when you go out and you keep poking somebody in the chest with your finger and then they punch you, you shouldn't be surprised that you get punched. Yeah, and they keep saying this guy's the most dangerous psychopaths since Adolf Hitler, well, okay, you know, maybe treat him like he's a little bit tougher than the average Democrat then, you know? Yeah. Don't provoke him. Yeah, seriously. All right, I'm going to let you go. Thank you so much coming on the show. This has really been great.

everybody look at sonar21.com for all there's great stuff and sign up for his email list too like I did appreciate it man hey man appreciate it thanks so much thanks for listening to the scott horton show which can be heard on a ps radio news at scott horton dot org scott horton show dot com and the libertarian institute at libertarian institute dot org