The Duran Podcast - Dangerous times w/ Larry Johnson (Live)

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Dangerous times w/ Larry Johnson (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander Mercuris in London, and we are happy to have with us. Once again, on the Duran, the one and only Larry Johnson. Larry, thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Always, always an honor. All right. And where can people follow your work? Sonar21.com.

Very simple. Very simple. That link is in the description box down below, and I will add it as a pinned comment as well. And thank you to everyone that is watching us on. on Rockfin Odyssey, Rumble, YouTube, and to the locals community, the durand.locals.com. A big shout out to our moderators as well. And Alexander Larry, we have a lot of ground to cover

because we are living in interesting times and dangerous times. And we can go from Pam Bondi's testimony to hearing all the way to Iran, to Ukraine, Venezuela. I leave it up to both of you to see where this live stream goes. So Alexander Larry, the floor is yours. Well, let's, first of all, can I just say, it's great again to have Larry Johnson on our programs. These are to put it mildly, extraordinary times.

And we have two simultaneous conflicts underway. And we are now seeing increasing, I think, escalation. or at least signs of escalation in relation to both. Personally, we had yesterday an extraordinary meeting between the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and his officials, and the Prime Minister of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu. It was an incredibly tough meeting, apparently.

It lasted for three hours. It then produced a very remarkable, true social, post from Trump, which seemed to suggest that there'd been an argument between him and Netanyahu. At least the way I read it was that Netanyahu was pressing Trump to conduct an attack on Iran. And Trump said no. And on Larry's invaluable blog, which is Sonar 21, you have a list of all of the people who attended. And one of the things that really struck me is that on the American side, apart from Hegsuth, they were all negotiators, Wittgoth, Rubio and Kushner, whereas on the Israeli side, they all appear to be military and security people. At least that's how it looked to me.

So for the moment at least, it looks as if Trump has drawn back. But then you get all of these other reports that suggest otherwise you hear about US carrier deployments and all of that going on. So there is that, that particular crisis. And then there's the other crisis, which is the crisis over Ukraine. And here it's the other side that is making the big noises. It's Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. He's been speaking day after day, one big interview and press conference after another. And the rhetoric that's coming from him looks extremely tough to me and very, very hard line. He's saying that the Americans went back on what they promised in Anchorage, that the situation is going backwards, that there's no real progress being made in the negotiations.

And of course, we see gathering signs of some great offensive beginning in Ukraine. So, Larry, we have this situation. Where are we? The thing that ties all these two conflicts together is the United States. The president of the United States is a key decision maker in both. He says he wants peace in both cases. but it looks as if we have some kind of pressure or drift towards further war in both cases. Has Trump lost control?

Yeah. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Yeah. We're in that sort of situation. Let's start with the talks regarding Iran. Because I was getting, you know, as I shared with you guys over the weekend, you know, I have a, a source, we'll call it, who alerted me that, hey,

you know, we're starting to rant. This is a person that had warned me about June 13th, what was getting ready to happen. And so he says, I'm starting to see basically similar activity. So the United States is clearly ramping up to do something. And then

Trump was under enormous pressure as a result of that last round of the talks with Iran in in Amman. and, you know, one of the indicators of that was Stephen Bryan, who you guys have had on your show. And, you know, you've talked to Stephen. He's a very, he's not a, he's not a ideological crazy.

He is a Zionist. And, you know, if you can describe that in a positive way, but he's usually very rational and analytical. Boy, he went, he went ballistic over that meeting. And so if he's going that, if he's that whacked out. about it. You know that Trump was really under some pressure. So I thought that yesterday's meeting would really have been a planning session for the next round of attacks, or at least coordinating what was going to be an imminent attack. Instead, Trump, to his credit, held the line and said, no, we're going to talk to Iran one more time. Now, I think part of that may be inspired

because from the fact that the United States really can't do anything of significance to Iran militarily, despite, you know, we've got this carrier strike group, but they're staying about 1,000 miles offshore from Iran. And the reason that's a problem is that strike force has Tomahawk cruise missiles. So if they're going to launch those, those missiles only have a thousand mile range. So if you're a thousand miles offshore, it's a little difficult to hit anything of significance.

And if they go closer, Iran definitely has the capability to sink those ships. They're not the Houthis. They're far more capable. And so that leaves them with using F-35s to go in and bomb various sites, including destroying, you know, destroying the ballistic missiles, which seems to be the new obsession. And I can't emphasize enough how out of touch with reality, the senior people are in the United States. I was on a conversation on Tuesday with a retired three-star admiral. And I can tell you guys off air who it was.

And he was saying the most outlandish things about, oh, yeah, we're going to fly into Iran and we're going to take out all these missiles. and I kept my mouth shut because he'd been invited as a guest to this conversation, but I wanted to ask him, how did we do with the Houthis? I mean, we were trying to take out mobile missile launchers with the Houthis, and we failed. The United States utterly failed. Now, they blew some things up, but they were not able to dismantle the Houthi capability. and here's Iran far more capable with underground missiles

with systems designed to be hidden and then once they come out of the ground they're on mobile launchers. We've never been good at finding them and blowing them up. So I'm beginning to think that somebody at the Pentagon finally woke up and said, Mr. President, you know, we're not going to be able to do much militarily. It looks good on paper. And then you step back and say, why the sudden obsession, particularly by Israel, with ballistic missiles? You know, because we were told during the, you know, 12-day war,

oh, we shot them all down. You know, we shot, you know, 90, 95 percent of them, a few things got through. Well, that was absolutely not true. In fact, Israel took a real beating. Iran fired over a thousand missiles and what was again we get the the Israelis are like the Ukrainians how we shot them all down and and and by the way uh irons running out of missiles you know i've heard that before uh iran is is anything but running out of missiles in fact ira i estimate uh that iran probably has a stockpile that in excess of 15,000 minimum. And the reason for that is it's all underground.

We don't have, unless you've got good human sources that have penetrated that system, they can tell you exactly what's underground. Western intelligence really doesn't have a means to pick up on it. So this is why now the new obsession, you know, we witnessed BB Netanyahu over the years, show up at the UN with the memory of charts, look here, this is the bomb and Iran's going to have it next week. now they want to get rid of the ballistic missiles. So it's going to be interesting to see whether or not Trump accepts the deal that Iran's willing to make.

Iran's willing to say, hey, yeah, you can come and inspect all of the sites that you think we're building nukes because we're not building it. Only this time they're going to have, I think, increased participation by Russia and China. And listening to Arakshi the other day talking with Rick Sanj, has, he seemed to indicate that, you know, Iran would be willing also to make some concessions with respect to enrichment of uranium. So that's, you know, Trump can have a nuclear deal with, you know, the irony being it's going to be JCPOA too. You know, he walked away from that. Now he's willing to accept it. Can we just unpack a few things here? I mean, first of all, if we're talking about,

about an attack on Iran by the United States. If Iran launches counter strikes against American bases in the Middle East and they are openly saying that that is what they're going to do, what can the United States do to counter them? I mean, we're talking about ballistic missiles and even missiles that the Iranian say are hypersonic, very high-speed missiles.

Does the United States as the ability to counter them? those missiles. No. And that's what we've seen over and over again in Ukraine with respect to the Russian missiles. And we saw it in the 12-day war. During that 12-day war, you know, the United States deployed the THAAD, you know, the, what is it, the theater, high altitude air defense system, and then also the Patriot missiles. And you had the Iranian Iron Dome. Well, you know, tactically, they've flooded the zone initially with drones and with some of their older ballistic missiles. And what that ends up doing is depleting the system.

It's not like these Patriot missile batteries and Thads have unlimited supplies of missiles. You know, once you fire something off, you've got to go with what you have in your inventory. And the United States doesn't have a wide inventory right. now or full full warehouses they've been depleted so very rapidly the with a with proper tactics and flooding the zone Iran can drain their ability to to fire back is is the United States psychologically ready for a situation where Iranian

missiles start impacting on American base and American casualties start to appear. Is this something that in the United States people can imagine and believe will happen, both at the political level and perhaps at the wider popular level as well? Well, you know, I know you're a student of the American Civil War. And so I'm sure you recall the attitude in Washington on the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, the first battle and how, you know, oh, we're going to go beat him easily.

And everybody wrote out the picnic and watched, you know, like it was a Wimbledon tennis match. The self-delusion in the United States about our military capabilities is just completely out of touch with reality. And because when you try to explain this to people, you know, I get shouted down. and you're looked at like you've got three heads on your shoulders. But the fact of the matter is the United States is living with this delusion that, oh, we've got this invincible, powerful military. But when you try to get people say, okay, let's walk through the practical steps.

What are we going to do? So we've got these bases, at least 10 of them scattered out along the Persian Gulf, and they've got some Patriot missiles. okay, they're good at taking down some drones. But the ballistic missiles that Iran had, they got eight different types of ballistic missiles. So we don't really have a defense for that. And we've never in, you know,

we've never encountered this kind of threat to be candid. And then, you know, since the end of World War II, where you've got a country like Iran, which is, you know, they've got great engineers, they've got a sophisticated industry. So they're, and from launch to striking, you know, it's going to be five to ten minutes, maximum. So, you know, that is, if that, if we get to the point where we attack Iran, Iran is going to decimate these bases. And in the past, Iran always made sure they stayed away. They did not want to get into a fight with the United States.

but now I think Iran is being pushed into a corner where they won't have a choice and you know as you both have commented over the years that Iran has always been trying to demonstrate what their capability is hoping that that would dissuade that both Israel and the United States from pursuing military action

and it's had the opposite effect they've assumed that Iran's weak and you know that's that's the most dangerous thing you can do when you dismiss the capabilities of an opponent, assume that they're weak and incompetent, and boy, then you're going to find out the hard way. Why is the United States so interested, so focused, so single-mindedly obsessed with Iran? I mean, Iran is not in a position to threaten the United States. I mean, there was the enormous historic question of the Iranian hostage siege, which we both, no doubt, remember very well.

But that was a long time ago now. I mean, that was, I mean, most younger Americans won't remember it. And the Iran of today is not the same place than it was there. Why is that this overriding focus on Iran, as it doesn't threaten the United States? It is an important regional power in the Middle East, but most Middle Eastern countries now, other than Israel, have actually relatively good relations with it. I mean, its conflict with Saudi Arabia, for example, seems to be in the past. What is it exactly about Iran that makes the U.S. so antagonistic to it? Yeah, I think it goes back to the so-called hostage. issue started with the U.S. Embassy.

And again, the way the narrative is spun in the United States, we've been brainwashed. We were basically told that this was an unprovoked attack on diplomats. And I knew a couple of the hostages or the diplomats had been taken hostage. Anne Swift was won. but it you know back then that that's what launched ted coppel's career on nightline because we had every day this you know the day one day two day 10 of the hostage crisis and look i was in i just started uh my academic career at american university in washington dc and you know i i must confess, I drove past the Iranian embassy there on Massachusetts Avenue, sits directly across

from the British Embassy, by the way, and, you know, yelling and protesting against what Iran had done. America has never really been told the truth about Iran and about America's medley. We construct this narrative that Iran is this irredeemable terrorist state. And yet when I started finally looking into the facts, you realize that the narrative should be that here is the United States that has taken, done everything in its power to cause harm and damage to the Iranian people over the years. The Iran-Iraq War, which the United States basically incited, encouraged Saddam Hussein to do it, and then supplied him with the chemical precursors used to carry out, mustard gas attacks. And, you know, the upwards of 500,000 Iranians died in the course of that war. And I've always, I've asked some people recently, I said, hey, if Iran killed 500,000

Americans, do you think we'd be chanting death to Iran? Of course we would. But so we act surprised that the Iranians would chant death to America. But it didn't stop there. We, you know, the United States was hand-carrying. I knew Walter Patrick Lang, who's now deceased, but Pat had been the chief of the Middle East Division at Defense Intelligence Agency. He hand-carried intelligence to the Iraqis

and actually helped the Iraqis plan what was a final offensive against Iran. So the United States has had this hostility. And then the issue of terrorism, I really dug into this and was very surprised to find that if, you know, go on to into any of the AI engines and ask the question, how many of the Iranian proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, how many Israelis have they killed since 1982 in terrorist attacks? The answer, less than 5,000. Now, I don't want to pretend that 5,000 is an inconsequential number, but it pales and completely. comparison to the more than 70,000 Palestinians that have been murdered in the course of the war.

So again, and here's Iran who's been fighting Islamic extremism, the very Islamic extremism that the United States initially claimed attacked us on 9-11. And instead of the United States making a partnership with Iran to combat that, but, you know, in Syria was a case in point. we continue to peddle this myth that Iran is the threat. So we've been completely brainwashed, and I don't know how we're going to get over it. What is the chance of a diplomatic resolution?

I mean, I was hearing last week, and I think you were getting even more information last week, that all sorts of people were saying that a decision to attack Iran has already been made, that there was an actual decision to attack Iran, to Iran and all the indications seem to support that. Obviously for the reasons, some of the reasons you've explained, there seems to have been a pullback,

but we have these negotiations given the hard feelings, these feelings that you've described. I mean, is there any realistic possibility that we can actually come back to a diplomatic resolution? I mean, you said whatever we will get, it will be like the JCPOA. That's going to be very difficult for Trump himself to accept, given that he was the person who tore up the JCPOA.

So, I mean, is this a possibility? No, I actually, I do think it's a possibility. If a lot of it hinges, I think, on Susie Wiles, the chief of staff of Trump, if they're taking an honest look at the polling and at Trump's standing, he needs a victory so they keep putting the spend out

that things are great and we've never been better but we saw he suffered another setback yesterday with the Congress where they voted to rescind tariffs on Canada and Trump had been pressing oh we've got to keep the tariffs and at least six Republicans said no we're not doing that so this would give him a chance to say

hey, I've secured, made sure that Iran is never going to build a nuclear weapon, Israel is going to be safe from a nuclear attack. He could get that deal. Iran's willing to make that deal. That's what's so crazy about this. But the unknown is you've got this Zionist pressure. And when I talk about Zionism, I'm not talking about Judaism, because we've got Christian Zionists, Mike Huckabee is a case in point,

that are pressing for we got we got to destroy Iran and yet the problem they don't understand the lack of military capability on the part of the United States we've got you know we've been besieged by the the Air Force and Army Air Corps delusions since World War II you know during World War II there was the thought that the 8th Air Force along with the with the British Air Force could we could win the war. All I had to do was drop enough bombs on Europe. Well, that wasn't true. And we saw it in Vietnam, that, you know, air power doesn't solve everything. We saw it in 2003. We had complete air supremacy over Iraq, and we still had to put troops on the ground to try to bring about a

regime change. But now all of a sudden they think magically we can fly some F-35s. And this is, you know, sorry to deviate on this, but have you seen the reports that because of the cut off of China from rare earth minerals, that the gallium in particular, they're no longer able to build the radars that go into the nose of the F-35. So what they're doing is they're putting Jim whites. I mean, literally planes and the nose cone of these planes.

I mean, it's, and yet we're going to go take out all the missiles in Iran. It's delusional. Can we turn to the other? because again, we had all of these statements of Lovov. And, well, the sense I'm getting is that the Russians thought that they'd achieved some great breakthrough with the United States in Anchorage. And very interestingly, Lov is saying that they actually have a document that Wittgoff actually came to Moscow with some kind of written proposal from Trump. which set out what the Americans were proposing and which the Russians, with some qualifications,

said in Anchorage that they were accepting. Now, I have great difficulty understanding what this is because I haven't seen any visible sign that the Russians have conceded on anything. But whatever it was that the two sides agreed, the Russians are saying that the Americans have gone back on it, that it's not happening. And they seem to me to be getting increasingly angry. Now, at least Lavrov's comments, one after the other, in a procession like I have never seen, seem to be suggesting to me, that they are getting increasingly angry.

Is that, I mean, what are your thoughts about? Oh, yeah, no, that was my exact conclusion. We've never seen, you know, we've been following this war now for over the four years. and we've never seen LeBroff come off with those kinds of public statements. And they're basically the same statement over and over and over. He did it. He started with Rick Sanchez last Thursday. Then he showed up Monday with Bricks TV.

And then the next day with NTV. And then, you know, yesterday at the Duma. So the, you know, and this is not, this is not Love Rolf on his own I think he's doing so he's sending a message and it's Putin

sending the message as well that the the negotiations path has changed you know and we'd you'd discuss previously on your on your show

about the issue of you know the language that had come out where I had interpreted the word where they said they had a frank discussion with Witkoff and Kushner-Lashko round. And, you know, Ray McGovern and I disagreed on, well, with the implications of that. But I think this now demonstrates there's been a definite change in the Russian position. Partly, I think it goes back to the 91 drones that were sent on December 28th to try to attack Putin's official residence in Valdai.

And then the U.S. attack on Venezuela. and then taking out Maduro. I think it finally reached a stage that the United States has not done, offered one single concrete concession towards Russia. You know, for example, they could have said, okay, all that property that was confiscated by Barack Obama in December of 2016, we're giving that back. We're going to have direct flights now between the United States and Russia.

None of that. and instead started applying more sanctions and more threats that if if anybody buys Russian oil we're going to charge you know put more tariffs on you and I think finally the Russians just say okay you know the talk behind the closed doors with Kushner and Whitkoff are meaningless they don't have they don't have the juice to bring about actual substantive change and you know I I don't think the United States could be trusted personally. There is something else. And I'm again a surprise that people haven't spotted this.

And it goes back to that meeting between Putin and Kushner and Widgolf, the one where we're told the meeting was Frank, you know, the very point that you made, which is that, of course, over the last couple of weeks, months in fact, we've been hearing in the media across the West about the negotiations about the security guarantees, the security guarantee for Ukraine. And Lavrov is saying,

we haven't been consulted about that. Zelensky is talking about some agreement that the Americans and the Ukrainians and the Europeans have made with each other. He's suggesting there's even a don't. document, but we've never been shown it. And apparently they weren't even shown that in the meeting between Putin, Weikov and Kushner, the one that took place on the 3rd of January.

And again, if you go to the Russian readout of that meeting, you read that Putin asked lots of questions. It was all about questions. This is what Uschukov said. And I can't help but think that the questions that were being asked were specifically about this document. I've been worried that the Americans are doing the worst possible thing you can do in negotiations, which is that you have two parties in conflict. You tell each of them what they want to hear.

And I'm worried that this is what the Americans have been doing. And that is a disastrous way to conduct negotiations, especially at this level. What are your thoughts? No, look, I agree. It is one thing I've been struck by is Lavrov is continuing to return to history about what happened in April of 2022 when there was actually a tentative agreement between Russia and Ukraine. I mean, it really, a year ago March, Judge Napolitano and I, along with Mario in the fall, we were sitting at the, you know, basically the official residence of the foreign minister. It's a ceremonial house.

And Lavrov brought up, he said, look, he said, the agree, what we signed off on in April, he says, that was an agreement the Ukrainians brought to the table. we were willing to accept what they would offer, which would have meant Densk and Le Hansk would have stayed as part of Ukraine. It wouldn't have been incorporated into Russia. I mean, and he emphasized, you know, we had agreements on how to reduce Ukraine's military force to a level that we would not feel threatened. And that got blown up. So, I mean, he keeps coming back to that.

And I don't think that's just his own personal obsession. It is something that the Russians thought that they actually had, I think Putin's plan from the outset was not to militarily defeat Ukraine, but to put enough pressure militarily to bring Ukraine to the table to negotiate, which in fact that worked. It almost succeeded, but they failed to, I think Putin and Lavrov, they failed to calculate on the fact that the United States and Britain would intervene to prevent any such deal. from happening. So, and Trump's negotiating style from, you know, I've got a close friend who's actually, you know,

met with him several times in very, I'll call it semi-private sessions. He does, he does, he tells you what you want to hear. He does not like confrontation. He doesn't like having to actually fire somebody. You know, that television

character where you're fired, you know, that's not him. And so, So I could see with these negotiations, he thought, oh, we've got to, you know, we'll tell the Russians what they want. But he's not doing the follow through to actually implement it. I mean, there is something else, which is this. Does he understand, does the United States understand how critical Ukraine's actual situation really is? I asked this question because there's been this I find it very bizarre article

in the New York Times which came out I think was it two days ago in which they spoke about how the Russians are about to capture three Ukrainian cities Pekrovsk, Mernograd and Guglia Polia. They might capture them at some point within the next few weeks

and months or months And if they do, that will put them in a better position. I don't know anybody who follows the war closely and who is close to the actual situation, who is any doubt at all. I mean, I've seen, I'm not quite. It's an important. It's absurd to say this. That, in fact, all the three of these cities fell to the Russians weeks ago.

Yeah. I mean, so what is the United States really understand about this war? Well, the CIA is. lying, outright line. And we know that thanks in part unintentionally from Seymour Hirsch. Now, look, I've been friends with Cy for 45 years, for God's sake. But he's mad at me right now, because he's been writing just some ridiculous crap. But his source, he's accurately reporting what his source is telling him. And the senior CIA personnel are telling him what are outright lies, misrepresentations about what's going on

on the ground. I mean, such as, oh, the Russian economy is teetering. It's going to collapse, which, you know, you've done an excellent job of reporting on it. I've seen it myself in person. You know, it's anything but collapsing. It's quite strong. And to, again, persist with this myth that Russia is suffering massive casualties. So when you have your intelligence agency, and I know one of the reasons that's driving this is, and this goes back 10 years, 10, 11 years, when they used to be that the analysts were on one side of the CIA, literally physically on one side of the building at CIA and the operations guys and gals were on the other side. In fact, back in the early 60s, there were literally doors, a wall, separating the two sides. When I was there, they'd taken down the wall. You could still see the tracks of the doors. But what happens when you got an operation that's running, this

operation, you get promoted according to how well that operation goes. You've got no incentive to come in and say, like with the Contra project, that the Contras were not going to defeat the Sandinistas. Oh, no, no, you build up the capability. So that's exactly what's going on with Ukraine. Ten years ago, John Brennan brought the analysts into these operations centers, and all of a sudden now, if you're an analyst, you're confronted with the pressure to not do anything or say anything that's going to undermine the project that's underway. And so I think that's one factor that's contributing to this. But the reality is Donald Trump is being told outright lies and not being given the honest, objective picture about what's going on the ground.

And so when you're given that kind of bad information, it's no surprise that you continue to make bad policy decisions. I mean, this is not the first time this has happened. I mean, I think we both remember Vietnam when there was massive overreporting of Vietnamese casualties. I don't know whether you report this, remember this too. but during the 1980s, there was overreporting of Soviet casualties in Afghanistan

as well. I have never forgotten that. Again, I remember the numbers that were being given, and there were about 10 times greater than what turned out to be the actual ones. Now, I accept that today, intelligence gathering is much more effective,

one assumes, but still, given the track record, one should be suspicious. And I would have by the way the let's see more hush of all people or to be aware of that yeah well you know in fact i when i was went through the analyst my analyst training course was taught by george allen george allen was the he had been the senior uh the division director for vietnam during the vietnam war he was the one that was pushing presenting the analysis of a lot of it provided by Sam Adams that was disputing what the Pentagon was claiming that it had had these

the Vietnamese were North Vietnamese were losing that they were weak because they'd killed all these Viet Cong and North Vietnamese and we were on the cusp of victory and the CIA you know the analytical side George Allen Sam Adams were said no that's not true now at that time that they were still on one side of the building they were not faced with the direct pressure on a daily basis. But George, I remember him telling it with regret, he says, you know, I had two kids that were in high school, getting ready to go to college. He said, I needed the job. He said, I was getting calls on a daily basis from McGeorge Bundy, who was the National Security Advisor. He said, he even got calls from Lyndon Johnson saying, why aren't you being a team

player. And so that kind of pressure is still around today. The difference, I would disagree with you on the fact that the intelligence collection is better. It's probably worse. Back in the 60s, we had a higher priority on actually getting human sources where the CIA would actually recruit foreign agents to give us information. Today, most of the CIA activity is relying upon what's called liaison reporting. So we get information from the Ukrainians because we've got people co-located with them and they say, oh yeah, we've we've killed X amount of Russians. And so that's what it gets reported back at headquarters and put into the intelligence reports without any independent verification. So it's like the they're not doing the kind of work that MediaZona is doing in the

UK, where they're looking at obituaries and counting up, okay, how many people are actually getting buried? So you're not having that kind of independent attempts to corroborate what you're being told by the Ukrainians. Where is this all going? Because I do get the sense the Russians are very angry. We've had these meetings, these two meetings in Abu Dhabi. I think they have been, that they're importance has been overstated. You look at the people who are involved in them. I mean, on the Russian side, they are exclusively technical people. They are not there to do the substantive negotiating work. And people forget that Putin said back in December when he had his meeting with Kushner and Witkov then, that if we really do get into proper negotiations, it will be

the foreign ministry that will take charge of them. And they're not involved at the moment. So, I mean, we're not really in that situation at all. The man who heads the foreign ministries, of course, Lov, he's coming across as being very, very angry. I mean, that's my own sense of this. I agree. I mean, are we going to get negotiations?

I mean, is this war going to end in any other way than on the battle? No, I'm with you on that. This is, the Russians are willing to have a negotiated settlement, but it's going to be on Russia's terms. And as both of you have commented, you know, in various shows talking about June 2024, June 14th, I believe it was, where Putin laid out what the conditions were. And, you know, since then, he's now intimated that, you know, if they don't, if Ukraine doesn't take that, deal, the next deal is going to be tougher. And that deal will be that Russia will take control of Nipro-Pretrovs, Kharkiv, Sumi, Potava, and they'll hold another vote. They'll give the people in those regions a chance to vote. Do you want to become part of Russia or not? And if they vote that way,

they'll become part. I think Russia will retake Kiev, and I think they will also take Odessa. This is going to be settled on the battlefield because there is the corruption on the Ukrainian side. I don't know the specific list of names of who's pulling the strings on Zelensky. But Zelensky is not, he's not the political force. He's the actor. He's the highest paid actor in the world. And he's playing a role.

But there are other interests behind him that have, you know, profited from this war and that would like to see it continue. But they're simply going to run out of resources to sustain it. It's just, you know, I had a conversation yesterday with Danny Davis. And, you know, when I talked to him about how long did it take to train somebody to drive a tank? And, you know, you're looking at probably a year from basic training to what they call advanced individual training than to the actual training to drive the tank, you're looking at a year. Well, we don't see any of that training infrastructure in place in Ukraine.

And in fact, what you get is a bunch of guys grab you off the street, put you in a uniform, throw a gun in your hand, and shove you off on the front line. What do you know, they have no skill at that point. So Ukraine cannot continue to bleed out like this forever. there is a limit. And Russia, by contrast, has been building up its forces and its resources across the board. I think the news that has come out, was it Estonia that just issued a report detailing, boy, Russia is building seven million artillery rounds a year and they're building artillery barrels and, you know, they're not weak at all. They're surpassing any.

anything Ukraine can do. So, yeah, this is going to be a military solution. I don't see any diplomatic solution. Can we finish with what happened in Congress, which is that we had this extraordinary affair with Pan Bondi over the Epstein Fars? I mean, I have to say that we have this expression. I don't know whether you have it in the U.S. that if you're in a hole, you stop digging. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the spectacle of, I mean, she wasn't just digging. She was digging. She was you know, in a furious wreck. I was, my jaw dropped when I watch this. What is going on?

Why don't the administration that people get this? One, this is something that people care about. And secondly, that these answers that they're coming up with are so impossibly lame that they simply cannot be taken seriously. Yeah, if you're going to lie, at least be good at it. And she's not good at it. Yeah, with the same expression. We call it the first rule of crisis management.

When you're in a hole, stop digging. You know, this Jeffrey Epstein affair, it is a dark, dark chapter. And I think one of the reasons there's been such an effort by the Trump administration to cover it up, one entails Epstein's ties to the CIA. So it was clear he was working as an intelligence asset of Mossad, but he also had relations with the CIA that date back to, you know, the whole Iran-Contra affair. So there's no denying that. But then the fact that there are so many prominent people embroiled or implicated in this,

and these, you know, the, you know, the trafficking, the sex with underage women, and then even some darker, darker things that are coming out, which just defy people's imagination. And here was Bondi, you know, initially said, oh, yeah, we got the list, we're reviewing it, and then kind of, oh, there's no list. And now, of course, there's a list.

It's not so much a list. What there is is all of these documents which name specific individuals by accusers. The women who claimed they were trafficked and abused, they provided depositions and other testimony. I know that Ryan Dawson was one of the first ones to compile the list, and he did it the old-fashioned way. He just went back to the court transcripts and pulled out the names that way. So they're trying to pretend that there's nothing there. But, you know, Trump is implicated in this. You know, they keep saying, oh, there's no evidence that Trump was involved with some of the activities.

But there's no denying the fact that Melania Trump, a picture just came out out of this file, of her and just Lane Maxwell back in 2002. They were friends. And reportedly, Trump met Mulaniel. Melania via Epstein. So, and then Epstein, when is he arrested and incarcerated while Donald Trump is president? And when is he, you know, I believe he was killed in prison or, you know, I think he was killed. And who did it?

You know, there we get off into speculation. But this has been completely botched. It's not going away. And Bondi isn't incompetent. She has failed to follow through on any of the promises that Trump made in his campaign. And instead, you know, John Brennan and Jim Clapper ought to be in handcuffs and sitting, you know, sitting in a courtroom being tried, but they haven't put a glove on them. I just wanted to quickly say, I agree about incompetence.

I mean, this affair could have been handled in a completely different way, which would still have kept most. of the really important things away from the public. But you could have found various people you wanted to prosecute and you could have done all kinds of things and you could have given the appearance of action and that would have probably satisfied enough people to damp the scandal down. Instead, they tried to close it completely

and now it's blown up in their faces. We should be grateful for their incompetence because we now see what's happened. Anyway, Larry, unless there's anything else, wanted to say, this is where I'm going to finish my questions. If you could stay a little while, because I'm sure Alex has some questions for you, but what I wanted to say is thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I can hang out for a bit. All right, Larry, we have some questions for you. From Reaper Actwell, are China and Russia supplying to Iran? There's been a lot of fake

news on this topic over the past few years. Is there any hard evidence this time? Yeah, I think there is. And, you know, let's go back to when Trump walked away from the JCPOA, that was 2018. The next year, Russia, China, started doing joint naval military exercises with Iran. I don't think that was just a coincidence. And they've done that annually every year in February slash March. So you've got right now this military cooperation with this exercise. It's going to take place in a couple of weeks. So you've got Chinese and Russian warship headed to the area.

The Chinese have already deployed a spy ship that's sailing behind the Abraham Lincoln, the carrier, collecting information. And I believe the reports that China has deployed a radar, what's called a 3D radar, that it has a range of going out 700 kilometers. So that has been deployed. We had the reports that during this attempted color revolution that was launched on December 28th and continued through January 10th, that the shutdown of the Internet and the shutdown of the Starlink terminals, that that was made possible by Chinese assistance. In fact, I'm struck by the Chinese really seemed to be more active in trying to help Iran than Russia.

and Russia is trying to help Iran. I'm not suggesting Russia's not doing anything, but the Chinese have really, they're invested in this in a way that I've never seen before. From Ronald B, it's 100% Trump's fault. He's being given false information. Tulsi Gabbard's job is to coordinate and verify intelligence

and Trump sidelined her. Yeah. Trump did sideline her, huh? Yeah, this is, I mean, we can excuse that Trump is, Some of the things he does and believes are because he's being lied to, but the system's broken. John Ratcliffe is, I think, deliberately defying Tulsi Gabbard. And I don't think Tulsi's actually got, you know, she doesn't have the power to corral him.

And, you know, in fact, let me give just an example. Did you wonder why J.D. Vance just recently visited Armenia and Azerbaijan? I mean, I don't think we've ever had in the last 100 years a situation where a president or vice president went to either of those countries. And then you'd look back and say, why was Donald Trump hosting Paschignan and Aliev a year ago on peace talks? Because if, you know, Trump, if you'd asked him to point out Armenian and Azerbaijan on a map, he wouldn't be able to find. it. So what those are, these are CIA projects. I guarantee you. The CIA has, and this goes back to a covert finding of some sort that was signed off on, but to use Armenia and Azerbaijan as, if you will, launch platforms for both destabilizing Russia, destabilizing Iran. But just the fact that you've

got this other, I'll call it a deep state agenda that is still in place and it's operating. and Trump's not in control of it at all. And just this, like I said, I offer circumstantial evidence of it by the fact that here's J.D. Vance going to both Armenia and Azerbaijan this week before heading off to the Olympics. That people should be going, what's that about? Very true. Matthew says, what happens in 2007, 28, 29, 30, when the EU says it's going to war with Russia

Do they enter? With what? I don't mean to be insulting to Europe. You know, they're now the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They've, you know, we've seen in the case of the United Kingdom, trying to get an aircraft carrier out of harbor and put it to sea. They've had trouble with that. There are, you know, the, in fact, I think, I know that you two talked about it

Yesterday, that joint fighter project that was supposed to be underway between Germany and France, that's completely collapsed. And as you all commented, Germany despite its, you know, its industrious status as an industrial power, formerly industrial power, doesn't have the ability to produce a fifth-generation fighter. So it's just the world is changing. and the world in which Europe once dominated has moved on. And this has been the theme of what Lavros talking about. This multipolarity, this new world that's emerging with Russia, China, India.

That's where all the wealth is going. And the actual, you know, I think we're going to see a military dimension out of that eventually because they're not going to continue to be. be pushed around or threatened by the West. Elza asks, the collective West claims that Russia's red line is a bluff. It looks to be like NATO's Article 5 is a bigger bluff. Yeah. Well, getting all the governments to come together and into, I mean, you know, Hungary's

legislature has to meet. I guess each government has to make a decision, okay, yeah, we're going to go to war. Good luck getting all, you know, everybody to agree to that. I don't see Orban in Hungary or Fizzo signing on to something like that. So, you know, right now, Article 5 is just an idle threat. Thomas Peterson asks, giving callus his latest statements, Larry, do you think Brussels is living in a separate ideological reality? Or are they knowingly sacrificing Ukraine?

No, I think it's the former. or they refuse to admit that they're knowingly sacrificing Ukraine. They've really convinced themselves. And when you're told over and over that Russia is losing, that Russia is going to collapse any minute now, you know, we have historical examples. There was that painter from Vienna that created a lot of mayhem more than 80 years ago. That, you know, when he was locked in his bunker,

he actually thought he was commanding armies that didn't he you know they didn't exist but he thought they're you know moving around and he's given orders so and we saw it you know we saw it in a rock when the united states invaded in 2003 Baghdad bob became infamous for oh there are no tanks here so it's you know it it sounds impossible but that you know people who are well educated and you know kayakalus is you know she's she's gone to at least university and yet to be this out of touch with reality it's just it's mind-numbing. Ronald B says if Iran sends a U.S. aircraft carrier will it make the U.S. pull back or will it let the neocons have free rain? No it it's going to be shocking And I think that is a very serious risk of what could happen out of this conflict.

And because then you have to step back and say, what does the United States do? Send more planes to try to drop bombs? Again, we don't have unlimited inventory. We're not sitting with factories blazing away 24-7 and turning out these munitions. it's going to be a crisis because you know Trump assaulted as hey we're we're the greatest military in the world don't nobody's better than us and yet they say that and then look back at operation Rough Rider last March where the United States sent the navy to sent two carrier strike groups not one two sent five destroyers and you know four destroyers one cruiser into the red sea

and there was a specific mission of securing freedom of navigation, that any ship that wanted to sell to Israel could do so without fear of being shot or sunk. And after seven weeks, with the full power of the U.S. military, bombing inside Yemen, the United States declared victory and pulled out because we couldn't stop the Houthis. And yet these same people think that we're going to crush Iran,

I mean, it's just, it's crazy talk. But it's because people watch too many Hollywood movies and they don't understand the nuts and bolts of what it means to actually have to put a, get a plane up in the air and then find a mobile missile somewhere on the ground. You know, and we demonstrated it wasn't, we failed to do it in 2003 looking for scuds in Iraq. And the same back in 1990 during the first Gulf War. So, and that's why we lost seven Predator, MQ9 Reaper drones over that seven-week period, starting on March 1st, because those drones would fly out looking for a mobile missile launcher. And then if they spied it, they would be able to launch a harm missile.

Seven of those got shot down by the Houthis. And they had $35 million a piece. We were rapidly up over like a quarter of a million dollars. a quarter of a billion dollars in losses. So how are we going to do that in Iran? Iran is, you know, some physically like nine times the size of Yemen. And it's got active air defense. People haven't thought this through.

Twilight says regime change is not possible without actual boots on the ground in a country the size of Iran. It took 300,000 soldiers to take Iraq, a small country. Yeah, absolutely right. Sparky says Larry if Israel uses the Samson option destroying their present location will will Patagonia be their new promised land. Well I like I've I lived in Argentina for a year so I like you know Patagonia is not a bad place but you know no this is what is what is telling the pressure to get rid of ballistic missiles

from Iran lets you know how much damage was actually done during that 12-day war because the Israelis through censorship insisted, oh, it didn't lay a glove on us. Okay, well, if that's true, then why do you need to get rid of the ballistic missiles? If your air defense systems are so capable of shooting down everything, why care? Because the exact opposite was the truth. What they discovered is that Iran could rapidly deplete the air defense capabilities of both the U.S. and Israel.

And then we're completely vulnerable to hypersonic missiles, the more advanced missiles they have. And there's not an easy military fix to that. From true lies, hi guys. Are the British involved in the naval maneuvers? Not to my knowledge. I don't think they, you know, the last thing I heard about the British Navy

and the Persian Gulf was when, two of the ships collided. So the once-storied naval power of Great Britain is no longer. That's history. There's no word of our involvement in London. I haven't seen anything to suggest that we are. And it's for exactly the reason that Larry says. I did that we're in a position to be.

Wife's wandering asks, Fast forward a decade. Where do you guys see the collective West compared to the rest of the globe? Outside looking in, or at least, you know, the United States, China, Russia, India, they have a genuine new outlook and approach to the world. It's not one of who do we dominate, who do we control. It is a genuine, how can we build more collaborative? efforts. And the United States and to lesser extent, the UK, they're not going to go quietly into that dark night. They're trying desperately to hang on to control.

But what we're seeing, and we didn't even talk much about the economic volatility in the markets, particularly in gold and silver markets right now. But these are all China and. And Russia are moving away from the U.S. control of using treasuries to control the world. And as the U.S. no longer is able to control things, the economic strength already of the BRICS. outpaces the G7. And that's just the, it's a transformation in the last 10 years. That trend is going to continue.

Economic opportunity is in the global south, and it's with Russia and China. It's not in the West. And so I think there's, the West is going to pass to a pretty dark period in terms of economics. As, you know, the currencies collapse and the industrial, the industrial power of these countries has, you know, they've lapsed. China Expert Future asks, is Iran capable of hitting an aircraft carrier? Yes. Oh, absolutely. that the Houthis actually hit one of the carriers and caused some damage in March.

Iran has much more capable missiles, and they've already had drones flying by, and those drones can be used to target missiles. Paul Walker asks, tank driver training in the UK, including road, at night cross-country takes two weeks ex-armored core. That includes maintenance, but the entire crew works on. Thanks, Paul, for that.

From Elza, Larry, Trump can't say Azerbaijan, but he invented the discombobulator. What's your professional opinion on that weapon? Why didn't Russia steal it? Yeah, no, this technology has actually been around for a while. It's

just, it's a sound wave technology. It was called Less Than Leith. described the whole category of what are called less than lethal weapons, and the sound waves are used to cause nausea and disorientation. So that's not new. That's been around. A. Lurag asks, is the CIA launching all covert projects simultaneously around the world, thinking it will stop or slow down bricks? If so, will those projects burn out and the CIA become irrelevant at some point. I would argue the CIA is already on the road to being irrelevant.

I would not surprise me that a finding has been signed off on to try to destabilize bricks or specifically to go after countries like Brazil to try to sow division. but the the economics of it are so powerful, particularly with what China and Russia are doing in their leadership role. And it's set in motion. You know, we're witnessing the creation of a new economic order. And, you know, we weren't, none of us were around for the Bretton Woods regime. but that whole economic system that was constructed in the wake of World War II,

it took about three to four years for that all to come together. It wasn't just one decision and one meeting. And that's the same thing we're seeing right now with bricks that compare where they were even two years ago to where they are now. And with China building up gold reserves and trading on the yuan, it is, you know, all of a sudden, the preeminence of the dollar is definitely challenged. And so this, I said, this new economic world is unfolding.

I mean, what, the top, you know, China has the top five banks, four of them are Chinese. So this era where the West was in control of the world, it's over. and there is frustration that comes with that, but the reality is, and we've seen some hints of it in the Sahel in Africa, once in Mali and Niger, once they kick the French out, all of a sudden their economies are doing better

because they're basically not being raped. From Linda, what do you mean by Trump is not in control? His name is mentioned in the Epstein files for over a million times. Do you still have faith in him? No, I have no faith in Donald Trump. But he's not in full control of the government, is what I meant by that. There are other, again, he's, he is a political force, but he's increasingly, I think, out of touch with what's going on. You know, he's convinced himself that America is doing quite well.

and yet, you know, militarily, he's going to find out that we've got real limitations on our power. From Zareel, Larry, is it the same as Elrad or not? What does he mean by that? I don't know. I'm not sure. Come on, Chris. Anyway, I love Zareel, by the way. He's a tremendous guy.

Madeline, thank you for that. Super chat asks, question for anyone with data, has India stopped buying Russian oil? I have searched, cannot find a definitive answer. Times of India is being diplomatic. Indians seem to be diplomatic.

Cannot find any trades. Only knowledge, not speculation, please. Yeah. I can't say, I've got solid data. I can show you the invoice. But I don't think India is going to stop buying oil from Russia. Again, this is the other fantasy that the United States pursues,

that they think if we simply cut off Russia's ability to sell oil, that Russia's economy is going to collapse. And it's only, it's become a, it's actually become a less important part of the Russian economy over the last 10 years, not a more important part. From Ms. Texas G. question, what is the purpose? of the Iranians placing mounds of dirt at the entrance of the nuclear plants, were they expecting special U.S. ground troops near the facility? No, no.

I've seen the photographs, but I'm not sure why they're doing that. From a couple of more, Larry, from Ronald B. What would Israel lose by doing what it had to do to make peace with all its neighbors, including the Palestinians? Well, if they were rational, there is a way to live in peace with these other countries. But the problem is it's the Zionist ideology, which maintains that they have a divine right to control land and that anybody who's not part of that tribe are considered. evil and are entitled to be destroyed.

I mean, it's, it really is. It's a perverse mentality. And the fact that there are so many Christians that embrace that as well is, I find very troubling. But the, you know, the Israelis of all that were willing to negotiate, they're gone. They're in the throes of these ideologues right now. Zizelix asks, what if the U.S. uses nuclear weapons as a military solution against Iran? Yeah, they're not a solution. That's, again, I think that's where people are over-exaggerate.

I mean, for people who are under, you know, in the target area, yeah, horrific. They can kill millions. But it doesn't blanket the entire country. Yeah, I mean, Iran's a big place. And the United States is not going to get to use nukes. And with Russia and China sitting by saying, oh, well, no big deal. No, this is, that would be, it would be a nightmare if that, if anyone ventured into that, including Israel.

Because it's not, it's not going to fix it. We've got this mentality that we think, if we just kill enough people, if we kill the right people, well, we'll solve the problems. And that's never, never worked out. you know we got rid of basher al-Assad oh that fixed Syria didn't it just the opposite you know we kill saddam hussein kill muammar Gaddafi go back to vietnam DM so this this mindset this belief that if we just kill enough people we can solve the problem and you know here's trump killing guys in the Caribbean or in you know, in boats, allegedly carrying drugs.

Again, killing, this kind of killing doesn't bring peace. It doesn't bring a solution. And that's the one mentality I would love to try to change. Duabskanda says the U.S. has no necessity to end the war. Russia is being drained and Europe is buying U.S. weapons. Why should the U.S. want to bring an end to it? And Europe is buying U.S. energy as well. Well, hopefully Europe didn't pay up front for weapons that it's not going to receive for a long while

because with the cut off of rare earth minerals, the U.S. ability to produce those weapons is significantly hindered. And they're not bleeding out Russia. Just the opposite has happened. It has been, you know, Russia has awakened from a dream in which in the past, they thought their future lay with the West. And if only they would, you know, dress the right way or say the right things or that the West would like them. And I, you know, I'm in the Sergei Karaganov camp. You know, he told me before, he says, I used to be a sort of a urofile, but no more.

Our future is in the east. And I think once Russia awakened to that, it's found, it's got its mojo. back, basically. Klaus says I'm looking forward to the day when you three are invited into the mainstream media. You're going to be waiting a long time. Don't hold your breath. Thank you for that.

John Roberts, USA says if Russia does make big gains in Ukraine this year, won't this frighten Europe, will the fear be enough to push Germany to get its own nuclear bomb? No. You know, Russia's made it clear. They have zero interest in invading Europe. Lavrov has made that point repeatedly over the last week. Putin has also made that point in recent speeches. What is there in Europe that Russia would need?

You know, nothing. And they don't need extra territory. Good Lord, they've already got 11 times those worth of territory. They don't need to add one more. So, yeah, this is a red herring. It's always ginned up as to justify the expenses that go to the defense industries. That's really where the perverse influence comes, that these various defense industries throughout Europe and the United States,

they've got to be fed. And the only way you get fed is you've got to create an enemy to justify spending. you know what's going to be $1.5 trillion in the United States. Incredible. All right. Two more. And there we go. Two more from Raphael. Canadian PM is standing up to Trump. China president is standing up to Trump. Why is Putin allowed by the Russian people to not stand up to Trump? I'm being a little more polite than what Raphael said. Why is Putin not being allowed by Russia to stand up to Trump is the question. Well, actually, you know, I think Putin wisely has been trying to avoid a confrontation with the United States.

And to that end, he's tried to work things out diplomatically. However, I think, as we talked about earlier, Russia has now come to sort of a watershed moment and is recalibrating the relationship with Trump and with the United States. That they recognize that Trump doesn't have the power or the vision to actually achieve a genuine diplomatic solution. And so Russia is, they're going to go their own way. And they're going to pursue their priorities. And that's why Lavrov, I believe, is out there saying what he's been saying.

over the last week at the direction of Putin. Instead of Putin putting himself out there, he's let LeBrov do it. Can I just quickly, make one? I think absolutely obvious one. Three leaders have mentioned, Karni, C, and Putin. Of those three, only one of them is actually involved in a war in which the United States is on the other side. In effect, is a proxy.

Now, that surely is a sign that Putin and Russia are standing up to the United States. They're actually fighting them. I mean, they may be fighting them through the proxy, but they are physically fighting them. China is not. Canada obviously is not. This constant theme about Putin being weak, I know where it comes from. It comes from the fact that he is very open to negotiations with the American. but objectively there is no basis to it.

Yeah. Russell Hall says, is it possible that Trump is being given drugs to make him compliant? It seems like he jumps from stance to stance based on who recently advises him. There are two Donald Trumps. And I said by my friend who's had several meetings with him over the last 18 months, It says the Donald Trump, you see when, if you're in a room with like three or four of you with Trump, completely different person, both in how he talks and even in some of his decision making.

And, you know, my friend was not suggesting that Trump is some sort of brilliant genius behind closed doors. But it is, he's a strange person. He's not normal. But he is, I don't think he's on drugs, but I do think he's starting to suffer some of the effects of being 80 years old or close to 80. You know, you start, you start slipping as we saw with Joe Biden. And one of the things that's an early indicator of dementia is confabulation, where you say things that you genuinely believe are really true, but they're not true. such as he stopped eight wars. He really believes that.

It's not true, but he's got himself convinced that that's the fact. One final question for both of you, and then we'll let you go out. For Mood Dragon, when do you think the Ukraine war will end? I think there's a legitimate chance that Russia's going to push to end it by September. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. if not this year, not by this autumn,

then 2027 at the Lotus. Yeah. All right. One and only, Larry Johnson. So much for joining us, Larry. Hey, it's always, it's always an honor to be with you guys. You guys are legends.

Larry, where can people follow your work? Sonart21.com. Come there and we'll, I try to write something every day. Definitely check out Sowing. 21. Fantastic publication. The fantastic Larry Johnson. Thank you so much, Larry.

Thanks, guys. Take care. All right, Alexander. You with us? Absolutely. All right. Let's get to the questions. Whatever questions are remaining.

And let's start things off with one second, Alexander. Let me try to scroll up to the beginning. All right. From Nikos, you ask why Putin is still in these negotiations. because he trapped himself in them. What happens if he walks? Trump uses the media to escalate. The U.S. and Europe will persuade

there's zombie population to invade Russia and then World War III will happen, which will lead to the destruction of Russia. Listen to Alistair Crook instead of me. He says these people will either rule the world or they'll burn it. Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. Well, I think that you're partially right, Nikos,

but I think you overstate things. I think Putin trapped himself into negotiations. I think he did a very tough, made a very tough-minded calculation that negotiations at this point in time made better sense for Russia than not, and that it's always useful and productive to be speaking to the superpower on the other side. So I think from that point of view, I think that's what he's done. Now, what he has got to be very careful to do, and it's very, very difficult if you are in a negotiating process with a partner like the United States, is he's got to stick to his red lines in the negotiations. Up to now, all of the evidences that he has done.

He's not given away anything substantive that we know about, and I'm sure if he had, we would know about it. From Heroku, thank you for that super chat. From Nikos, I don't see Putin, who speaks through Lavrov, who gave the OK to Yerazim off of the military to keep fighting in November, now being at odds with them. He and the military treat these negotiations as theater seriously. Besides, taking out the Ukraine leadership, what hasn't he let the military do? I think there was a big debate in Moscow, which has been going on since about October, about where there. this process with the United States is going anywhere. And I think there was some criticism of Putin.

In fact, there was a public criticism of Putin. You saw that in some of the press conferences. He gave and noticed that apart from the Q&A that he did, which is very carefully controlled, I mean, questions aren't examined before they're put to him. He's avoided having press conferences for the time being, you know, direct one-to-one press conferences where he comes out and meets with the journalists himself.

So I think there is a discussion going on, and I think it has been going on. But I think that a consensus has now been reached. They're not going to walk out of these negotiations, because that is not what the Russians do. But I don't think they any longer believe that the negotiating track with Donald Trump is going to lead to anywhere. All right. Orionis says, I am not sure the U.S.

US is only interested in regime change in Iran. I think they want chaos and to split up Iran since a big Iran always remains as an opposing force. What do you think? Well, you may be right, but if so, you're just replacing one big problem, which is an Iran, which ultimately wants to have good relations with you, or at least stable relations with you, with a far bigger problem, which is the enormous chaos and violence that a fragmented and conflicted Iran could potentially cause across the Middle East. So I don't see that as a solution for what the Americans want, presumably, in the Middle East. I see that as making matters worse.

But I'm absolutely willing to accept that there are probably people in Washington who think in exactly the way that you said. Jujitsu Sela says, sadly Putin appears very weak. Russia suffers fear of the divided states, which is. completely unfounded. They have absorbed brutal attacks from Trump. Yet, why doesn't Russia incur proper consequences on Trump? Well, I think I've already answered this question now several times. I mean, remember, they are fighting, which is, you know, what others are not doing, and they're advancing, and they are winning. And there was a big article by Eli Lake, which was then used the basis of a further, very good article by Jennifer.

cabinet, which said that, you know, as a result of the Russians fighting, the US is now short of missiles, air defence missiles, and that might be affecting US planning in terms of attacking Iran. So, yes, you can criticise Putin on some tactical levels, but I can't really see that you can criticise his strategy because he continues to advance, his armies continue to advance westwards and he gets what he's looking increasingly like he's going to get what he wants whatever he has absorbed up to now whatever damage has been done has not made any substantive difference and as to his red lines apart from the one about missiles launching missiles into Russia, which he set back in the spring of 2024 and which Trump basically made him think in the autumn

he shouldn't enforce, which is, as we've discussed, a mistake. But in all other respects, Putin up to now has stuck to his red lines and shows every intention of doing so. Dark Horse says one of the last nuclear arms controlled treaties has expired. Huge win for Second Amendment rights and advocates of civilian self-defense nuclear bombs. Nico says, I am annoyed by people on our side. Why do they complain about the dirty war? You can't have your cake and eat it, but Russia didn't understand this. Apparently, the fear of nuclear war isn't limited only to the West,

as more and more Russians want Putin to level Europe because of what Ukraine did. Nothing will change if Russia takes Ukraine fully. The U.S. has a system of intelligence that can not be disrupted unless a nuclear war occurs. No, I think you're on one key point, you're wrong. I mean, if Ukraine falls, if there's a defeat of the Western Ukraine, if the Russians dictate terms there, then that is going to make a profound change. I mean, already the Ukraine war has changed the entire international environment. I mean, Larry was talking about the bricks and saying,

where were the bricks two years ago? Well, two years ago, they were meeting in Kazan. I mean, that was what happened. I mean, we've had this enormous push since Kazan. It was just this meeting in Russia. And what's driving the development of the bricks is precisely the Ukraine war. So, no, I don't think that this dirty war, I don't know that people exactly are complaining about it. I think that we all understand that dirty wars and bad things happen.

But some of the things that the Ukrainians do are extremely dangerous and very reckless and very ugly. And we absolutely should call them out when they do it. And on the Russian side, so far they've exercised a measure of restraint. And for that, I think we should be grateful. Reality pattern says, substack of Hadi for the real story of greater Israel. Thank you for that. Nikos says, I missed this for Larry, Nico, sorry. Mr. Larry, the U.S. is going to put missiles to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Finland.

What can Russia do, invade them? Why do all countries hate Russia so much? Well, I don't know that every country hates Russia and China does not hate Russia. Iran does not hate Russia. Brazil does not hate Russia. Most countries in the world don't hate Russia. India likes Russia very much. So, you know, let's not overstate things. I don't know what Armenia and Azerbaijan are going to do. But if missiles are stationed there, all it's going to do is make an awful lot of trouble for them in the long term.

It is not in their interests to be in conflict with Russia. And if you're talking about Armenia, my sense is that most people in Armenia still have good feelings about Russia. There is a strong middle class, which has imbibed much of the NGO talk. But I think that this is ultimately superficial. Nigel says, lads, the chats are struggling to hear Larry. We fixed to the audio. Thank you for that, Nigel. Paul also says Larry's audio, please.

Yeah, I fixed that in the beginning. Niko says India seized three Iranian tankers at the behest of the U.S. when Iran's existence is at stake. How dare they? We must stop pretending that India is friendly. Well, India has its right. I'm not fully informed about the story, by the way. But India has had its relations with Iran,

and it also has its own foreign policy. At the moment, it's keen to move forward with a trade agreement. agreement that is just negotiated with the United States. Now, what is known is that, just goes back to an earlier question, India has ongoing negotiations with Russia to agree a free trade agreement, and this is apparently going to crystallize in a few weeks' time. So the Indians of that negotiation, they've just done a big trade deal with the Americans, and they've done a big trade deal with the Europeans.

All of this taken together is, a big achievement for India. They don't want to rock the boat with anybody by coming out, for example, and saying no, Mr. Trump is wrong. We are going to continue to buy Russian

oil. This is, I think, the Indian calculation. So they're just going along with it. You know, let him Trump wants to say what he wants to say. Let him say what he wants to say. If India generally intended to stop buying Russian

oil, they would have said so. I am confident of it. Elsa says, Alexander is the author of a very true statement. The U.S. creates chaos and calls it freedom. Paul Walker says, Callis, after the meeting of defense chiefs, stated that the same rhetoric on X, Russia is losing. Economy is failing.

She got torn to pieces. Rusophobia exists, L.O.L. Yeah. Nikos says, Russia honored. Capodistrias for the 250th anniversary as the father of the Greek nation. Honestly, it brought a tear in my eye. That's a country. Not us. Well, the Russians. And Nicos, by the way, Alexander, Nikos for you, there's a great Greek film about Capodistria right now. You should watch it, Duran. Also, did you have the time to read my list? Greece and China are next. Oh, right. Okay. No, I haven't read your list,

and I will certainly look up this film, Kappa Thistu Kappu Theris. I am a great admirer of Kappa Thistrius. And as I said, my ancestor, on my mother's side, I should stress, whose icon is just there on my ball. He's just next to me. He actually was Kappa Thistrius' secretary. So I have a familial connection with him.

Nikos, please send that list if you can. Maybe you can post it into telegram, into the telegram chat. Yes. That would probably get it to us better than because in email I'm not getting it. Anyway, all right, thank you for that. Let's see here. From Ms. Texas, G., do you see Europe moving closer to Canada? No, actually.

I think if you want to talk about Europe at the moment, the general policy in Europe seems to be be as servile to Trump as possible in the hope that one day he will go away and then the next person who takes over will take us back to the happy days of Obama and Biden, which is, of course, where we all want to be. Sticky Marx says, so the stunning and brave, Kayakhalis says, we're going to get you Russia. Russia says, yeah, you and whose army, Kapau, just saying, says that crazy old Nana weirdo in Yorkshire, UK.

Well, absolutely true. I mean, you know, and that's exactly why. Paul Walker says, read on Euro News, don't hate me that Ukraine can't hold elections as their constitution changed in 22. So an auto stopping of support from the USA? Well, who knows? Zelensky has repeatedly said over the last 24 hours

that this story that he was going to call elections is untrue. In fact, today he seemed to be absolutely. furious that that story had even been circulating. Vesta Bailey says, believe it or not, world teacher will be seen. Ask AI. I'm not sure what that super chat is, but thank you. Vesta Bailey for that. Let's see here.

Arbu 8-3-1-4-5. The West has been great of propaganda for decades, but finally the reality is catching up. Well, the trouble with propaganda is if it's not, based on fact and the facts eventually in always break through. That's the key thing to always understand about propaganda. It can take you a very, very far, but it can't take you all the distance. From Greg, if the US Empire failed

and the military was brought back, would that be a crossing of the Rubicon moment? You would be one of the greatest moments in world history. I mean, it would be comparable, to the end of the British Empire, basically, and perhaps even greater than that in some ways, because, of course, it's much greater, in fact. I mean, some would say it would be an event

closer to the fall of Rome, actually, if the empire ended. Anyway, the American Empire ended. I would still say that for the United States itself, it would be a liberating moment. I've said this many times. I still maintain this. I hope one day Americans will understand it.

Martin MDL says, why is there no discussion of Ukrainian soldiers given drugs to remove fear of inquiry? Does this exist? I've not seen any report of it. But then if you're talking about the media in the West, at least certainly in Britain, I mean, they would never carry a story like that. I mean, inconceivable that they ever would. Cheshire, the Fats, says one question regarding the Epstein thing.

Nobody seems to be asking, who was or were, the photo videographers can't be many, and they must have had access to all the locations and seen and heard all. That is an excellent question, and you're quite right. I haven't seen anybody discuss it, and it does beg many questions.

I mean, bear in mind, one important thing to say about all of these pictures, all of these emails, all of these films that we are seeing, they are the ones that Epstein himself retained. I mean, we can only guess what other things that might have been over the course of his vast career. And just going back to the point, and bear in mind, I mean, the really, I mean, if this is bad,

think what might be in some of those things that he probably destroyed or never made, just saying. Now, I personally think that there are lots and lots of clues, lots of lots of leads here in all of this material that we're seeing, that a really tough, clever negotiator could pick up and work through and follow through and bring us to some answers. I've not seen any sign that that investigation is taking place. Of course, not after Bondi. I was going to make exactly, not after what Pam Bondi did yesterday. She clearly does not want to investigate this.

Yeah. Michael in Taiwan, Taiwan gives military cultural alliance to, China swears off U.S. arms, gives China security protection in exchange for independence. Would China agree? Yes, actually, I've no doubt of it. I mean, some people in China would not be happy. They would allow what they would want outright union right away, but the Chinese would accept that as a stepping stone to union. Absolutely. Not, not, I mean, they would never agree to Taiwan declaring itself fully, formally independent. But if Taiwan were to make that kind of a relationship with China

and seek to maintain its own independent autonomy, for the moment at least, I'm sure the Chinese would accept it. 87 processor says, are the current wars real or are these dying fields for working class men due to automation and AI? the wealth centers are not being struck directly. No, I think these wars are very real. I don't think we should think that they're not real.

I mean, they may seem far away, but they're real enough. And it's not just working-class people that are affected by them. Zareel says, at Elza, well, he's looney-tune, because that's where the word comes from. Marvin, the Martian, was the character. Thank you for that, Zareel. from, let's see here, clutch

cargo says, if age of Aquarius sounds like BS to you, maybe you've been misled by peeps who love money and power more than anything else. Ask any AI what Alice Bailey or Benjamin Cream said about it.

All I'm lucky to say is back in the 70s, we used to have a television show on the BBC, which was called the Age of Aquarius, and we were told that it was about to come. So I've often wondered to say, that whether it's actually started, whether we are now, in fact, in the age of Aquarius,

perhaps somebody could tell us. Let's see, one second, Alexander. From Joe Public, has the U.S. become a nation of pirates? Well, I think there is an element of this. I mean, you know, I think that's not difficult to see that. Of course, we can't talk about the nation because the vast majority of people in the United States, work hard, bring up their families, go about their normal law-abiding lives. But, well, we see that the elite is not like that.

From Sendev, super sticker, thank you for that. Sendev. Elza says, OK, Trump believes that he solved nine conflicts because of his 80 years. Does Kallis believe Russia attacked 19 countries during the last 100 years because of her 80 IQ points? Good point. Orio Deepup says, I think Farage pushes the Russia-Ebstein angle because it's politically convenient, tying labor to Russia so as more doubt about their intentions. Yes, but I still think it's a very, very bad idea.

And I think that, I mean, for one thing, it's not as if anybody really believes it. So pushing an angle like that makes you simply look untrustworthy and lowers people's estimation of them. Yeah. Cameron says Russia has no other option than working out with the United States. Putin is not weak. It's just that Russia is nowhere near the same power as the U.S. Well, it is not as powerful as the U.S. is, but it's still a very powerful country indeed. And it does have options.

And I think people who think it doesn't continue to make mistakes. And it is one of the big mistakes that Donald Trump himself makes. I think also a lot of people in the US still find it very difficult to believe that the Russians would actually prefer a relationship with China above a relationship with them. At the moment, they do. Russell Hall says, yes, we have moved into the age of Aquarius. Right. Matthew says, these are depressing times. How do you two maintain sanity?

With difficulty sometimes. Who says we do? Yeah, we keep going anyway. Thank you for that, Matthew. you. Joanna says the U.S. depleted military inventory to Ukraine, F-16s. Yeah. And as I said, according to Jennifer Canaver, Kavanaugh and Eli Lake, air defense missiles. And apparently the drain there continues, because as soon as Patriot missiles are made, they're sold to Germany, which then packages them off and sends them to Zelensky,

who then shoots them into the air and hits nothing. It's a wonderful, it's a wonderful game for someone. I mean, some people are making huge amounts of money out of this. Just to always remember that. Barvin Vargas says, Russia busy Ukraine, less conflict with Iran. Less help for the conflict with Iran. Well, except in an indirect way,

if it is true what Jennifer Kavana says, that the Russians have depleted America's air defense system to the point where the missile cupboard is bad, then they have provided a huge amount of indirect help for Iran if that is one of the things that is holding the Americans back from launching an attack on Iran. From Matthew, what is your best guest on how the situation in the Middle East ends? I have to say I am still very pessimistic about this.

I do understand all the arguments that we're going to get to a negotiated resolution with the Iranians, but I don't really believe this. I think the forces in Washington and elsewhere that want conflict with Iran remain far too strong. And I do think Trump is able to resist them, even if he really seriously wants to. Vincent says, why has there been such little discussion about the use of bio-weapons? Shouldn't they be taken as serious as nuclear weapons? Thanks. Well, in theory, they are. I mean, they are considered weapons of mass destruction.

And I believe they're conventions against them. But you're absolutely right. They never get the attention that they should. Samuel Moroni says, what do you think of the Saudi UAE split on Yemen? It's a very interesting one. And given that Saudi Arabia and the UAE generally are very, very close friends, I'm going to make a guess.

Eventually it will be patched up and there'll be best of friends again. I don't think this is a permanent break. Life of Brian asks, Have any of you felt the presence of the Epstein class in your travels, even indirectly, does it clarify anything in retrospect? I have never met anybody, any of the people who so far have been exposed as being involved in the Epstein scandal. I mean, looking out, because once upon a time, I did know some pretty elite people, but none of the people I've known have been involved in that. All I will say

is this, not in my present work, but earlier in my life, 20, 30 years ago, I did used to hear a story. about parties that take place in London, people who used to attend them, and some of the things that happened there. And I used to belong to a very, very prestigious and extremely respectable and very old-fashioned gentleman's club. And I once went there, and I saw their men in their 60s with young women of, I guess, about 17,

and I decided I didn't want to be a club, a member of that club anymore. And that was the last time I went. But that was a long, long time ago. So, and I don't, I think probably before Epstein. So, you know, I have had some sense of all of this. But I've never seen it to, I've never seen it myself. And I've never directly felt it.

Except, of course, in the sense that we all have, because we are all subject to the rule of these people. And if you think about it in that way, then of course that explains a great deal about our modern world. Legal Hawk says, yes, people disagree about the exact moment of the beginning, but we are at the first part of the 2000-year cycle, the board versus the individual technology and service of each individual. Interesting.

And Legal Hawk says sanity, deep, restorative sleep, good food with friends, uplifting beauty of music, meditation and prayer. All the great things. Brian T. says, Alexander, has Richard Blumenthal or Lindsay Graham been airing any more support of Europe or Ukraine since their first tour of Europe? As far as I know, they talk about Ukraine all the time. As for what they're doing about Europe, I really don't know, to be honest. I mean, I only follow what they say when I have to, if I can put it like that.

from Legal Hawk Level 4 Bio Labs, our gain of function labs, and should be banned by international treaty. I agreed. Agreed. Matthew says, is this all leading to a big global smash or has the financial system been agreed upon?

No, I think we are getting going towards a financial smash. I certainly think we are in Britain. Zeshaw, thank you for the super sticker. Nico says, I sent them as a message to telegram on this live. Okay. I'll check it out, Nikos, and see when the live is over. I'll find them. I'll track them down.

From T.T.H.13. Thank you for that super sticker. And Alexander, that's everything. Let me just check again and your closing remarks as I check. Well, a fantastic live stream. I mean, we've had a most difficult start to 2026. I mean, here we are in February. And we still, we're now looking at massive conflict.

in two places and we have this enormous scandal. I think scandal is even the right word for it. I don't think it's an adequate word for what's going on in the United States with repercussions in all sorts of places as well. So we're living through very, very difficult times. But just to repeat again, what I always say, despair is a bad counsellor. I don't think we should give way to despair, certainly not a design like this. We've got to keep going and we'll come through. Sparky says, I wonder if there's a mention of the missing Malaysian airliner, MH370 in the Epstein files. Well, I'd be very interested to know. Whatever happened to MH370?

Yeah. Actually, an interesting question. All right. Thank you, thank you, Sparky for that. And we will end it there. We've got some videos to get up as well. Alexander's channel, if you're not subscribed to Alexander's channel, please subscribe. And also check out my channel as well.

That's it. Alexander. Thank you to Larry and I have Larry's information in the description box so you can follow Larry as well. Take care.