The Duran Podcast - 'Imminent defeat' and push for a deal w/ Robert Barnes (Live)

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

'Imminent defeat' and push for a deal w/ Robert Barnes (Live)

All right. We are live with Alexander McCurice in London. And we are joined once again on the Duran by the great Robert Barnes-Barrs. Robert, how are you doing? And where can people find you? Good, good. All the law politics, geopolitics, including a range of hush-hushes on the topic of Ukraine going back multiple years. Viva Barneslaw. Dotlocals.com. That's where great community, great curated content. Viva puts up videos there. I do. A lot of other folks. share their insight, important information from around the world. So second only to the Duran. Dotlocals.com for a great locals community. Robert, Scotland, qualified for the World Cup.

Yes, yes, indeed. That's so, you know, because the U.S. is hosting it, along with Mexico and Canada this summer, first time since 1994, second time in our history. I was hoping the Scots would qualify, the Great Trouten Army, the Irish, I'm hoping will still qualify, the Welsh, I'm hoping will still qualify. So along, of course, with the English, because that would be inappropriate to introduce people to the sport of soccer here in America. There's nothing better than the Tartan Army and the great Scottish fans. I think they're still calling out sick up there in Scotland from celebrating the game.

Awesome, awesome. Congrats to Scotland. And we will have all of Robert's links. They're already in the description box down below. I will have them as a pinned comment. a big thank you to our moderators on locals and a big shout out and thank you to everyone that is watching us on odyssey on rock finn on rumble youtube and the durand dot locals.com alexander robert are we going to get some sort of a peace deal in ukraine with the conflict in ukraine that is the big question we've gone from a 28 point peace plan to a 19 point peace plan and we have whitkov heading to moscow and we have leaked phone calls, Alexander, Robert, take it away.

Well, indeed, I've never known such a chaotic and confusing time, but I'm going to make a quick number of observations. First of all, whatever we may think of the events of the last week or so, 10 days or so, this does look like a serious attempt by someone in Washington to finally grapple with realities of this conflict. What I guess has happened, but you know, Robert is here to discuss this with us, but what I guess has happened is that those who were perhaps

never persuaded, fully persuaded, that the narrative that Ukraine was holding its own or was even winning the war have finally been vindicated, that events on the battlefronts in Ukraine itself have made it impossible any longer to persist or to claim that there's any possible reality to that narrative. I think that they've told the president, look, if you really want to avoid a fall of Kabul or a fall of Saigon moment, you need to act very, very fast because before long, you're going to find that the Russians are in control of Donbass and the Ukrainian army is collapsing and that we are without a plan and that we are without leverage. And what they've said to the

president and what the president, for the moment at least, appears to be accepting, is that that means that we have to put together a plan based on some of the understandings we reached with the Russians when Putin and Trump met in Anchorage, in Alaska, some kind of plan which has at least a chance of being accepted in Moscow. And all sorts of people were brought in. We had Wigoff, we've had Kushner, we've had Driscoll, who's now taken over from Kellogg. One of the good things about what has happened over this last week is that it looks as if we're finally seeing Kellogg's exit, or at least I hope so. Robert will confirm one way or the other. But anyway, they've tried I think to put some kind of plan together.

And what has been extraordinary, what has been really astonishing, is how in the face of what is now a gathering military disaster in Ukraine, there continues to be total denial in Europe, continued resistance in Kiev itself. Maybe that's predictable, and there are reasons for it, and Robert can discuss all that too. But also extraordinary denial in Washington.

We have tweets from people like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell, remember him. He's back apparently. Anyway, Warner, Senator Warren, all of these people saying, you know, this is Munich, 1938, all over again and all that. Words to that effect. So this attempt at achieving some kind of negotiation is now, being sabotaged. We've seen the Europeans come out. We have Macron talking about sending European troops to Ukraine again, which of course is something the Russians won't accept. We've seen attempts in Geneva to completely renegotiate the entire proposal, taking out all of the meaningful

points from it. We've had leaks in the media. And the leaks, by the way, remind me very much of what happened during Russia again, especially in the early weeks. of Russia. It seems to me exactly the same thing. And it's perhaps worth saying that assuming these leaks are true, and this is something I want to discuss with Robert because he knows it better than me, but assuming that these leaks are true and that they are real conversations that are being leaked, which I presume they are, then I would have thought these recordings, these transcripts, are classified. I mean, if Witkoff talks to Ushekov, that is the authorized representative of the President of the United States, speaking to the man who is in effect, the National Security

Advisor of the President of Russia. That is a diplomatic call. And I would have thought that that was a classified call if the U.S. intelligence community was conducting surveillance on Usherkhov, which, by the way, I could completely accept and understand, he is, after all, the national security advisor of an adversary power. Well, I would have said if it's even more classified, because then this is information obtained through what is in effect spine, in other words, through intelligence gathering. And yet we see it again exactly as happened,

during the Russiagate affair, that these strategic leaks are now being placed, planted in order to sabotage this entire negotiation process. We've had information provided to the media about a meeting that Dan Driscoll, who seems have taken over from Kellogg, and who, by the way, I think is trying really hard and who basically impresses me. Anyway, leaks about a meeting that took place in Abu Dhabi with security officials from Russia, which I again think should not have been provided. And I wonder who was responsible for providing that information. And we have unbelievable narratives and extraordinary things being said all over the place. So again, I ask myself, what is this all about?

Do these people want Ukraine to lose? do they want to destroy Ukraine? Are they, what do they think the United States will achieve from this? Is it their dislike of Donald Trump, which is taking them to these extremes? Are they in denial about the realities? Something very strange and very weird is going on. And there is no better person to discuss all of this with than Robert Barnes, who has his finger on the pulse,

who understands a lot of what's going on in Washington, who has knowledge of Washington, which, of course, I absolutely don't pretend that I have, who knows about leaks and conspiracies and intrigues in that most Byzantine of cities. And, well, here we are, Robert. What is going on? Can us give us some idea?

First of all, this does look to me like a serious effort, and I think that point does need to be made, and it should be taken seriously. I think Vance, I presume Vance, I mean, I don't know, but I'm guessing Vance and others have explained to the president finally that this has to be, we have to move forward because we're going to have a collapse in Ukraine if we don't. But tell us more, tell us what you think. Let's start with whether or not this is a real initiative, because I suspect it is. Yeah, what we have going on is something that makes, it's more analogous to 1962 in the U.S. than 1970. So the kind of normal channels of back communication, back channels of communication to help negotiate Degant and arms control treaties and global security architecture like President Nixon did

with the Soviet Union, that kind of thing. But 1962 was near impossible for the most part. The President Kennedy had to use his brother, Robert Kennedy's private home to get personal messages out through the Russian ambassador that there was all these, lengths that they went, Khrushchev, the same to some degree in the Soviet Union, so that you had these sort of insane generals who really believe, as Senator Roger Wicker from Mississippi, believes that we should be using nuclear weapons. He's on record saying we should use nuclear weapons against Russia. That gives you an idea of the degree of insanity in the United States

Senate. So you have this very corrupt deep state establishment in the national security power, military industrial complex that has seized control of most European institutions. of influence and the United States Senate, much of the United States House, much of the bureaucracy, the think tanks, the media, the experts, these lunatic generals that go on and say basically to be a good general in the United States or get a general that gets a lot of awards. It's lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, that's how you get all the awards. So these are the people that are out there commenting on Fox and other places.

So those people are obsessed with war and conflict with Russia and have been now, as a obsessed as Europe is for quite some time. Trump's great crime was to simply say, why don't we get along with Russia back in 2050? That launched by gate, which became Russia Gate 1. Then you got into Ukraine Gate, which was really Russia Gate 2, because it was all about Russia, not really Ukraine. And so you had the Mueller investigation, then you had the impeachment. And now you have the beginnings of Russia Gate 3. So behind the scenes, the people working for geopolitical realism who understand that peace is the only thing that makes sense aside of you. It's not because they're necessarily doves.

It's some of them are. But for many of them, it's just realistic that the, you know, continuing conflict with Russia does not serve U.S. best interest, period. And stop. Now, those people are Vice President in Vance under Secretary of Defense, Eldridge Colby, who, by the way, all of his assistants that are supposed to have already been confirmed by the Senate are being held up in the Senate, and the Senate's refusing to confirm them over this issue.

He's the one who put out the Pentagon report. Why don't we just focus on our continent first and worry about everybody else later? He's the one that repeatedly emphasized the members of Congress. We don't have the weapons, so quit pretending we can just send weapons that can solve something that can't be solved with weapons anyway, but we don't have them even if we did to be able to help. The others are Office of Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and Deputy Director Joe Kent, Joe Kent's wife died based on lies in the Middle Eastern

conflict as an example. I hope they're investigating who engaged in this illicit leak of who is spying on the president himself and the president's highest ranking personnel and then who is leaking it. So they're spying and leaking. I mean, just to ask it, I mean, is what we're looking at? Is it an offense? Is it a crime to do this? I mean, I don't know, but I would have thought it was.

But tell me what you think about this, because if it is a crime, that this is incredibly reckless. It is even more reckless, in my opinion, than the Russia Gate leaks, because these really are obstructing the diplomacy of the United States. Absolutely. These are crimes. Because, in fact, not only is classified information protected, any national security information is protected. And you can't disclose it outside of the United States. of appropriate channels without that being a 20-year prison sentence kind of crime. People forget, for Trump just keeping his own documents, this is what he was indicted for.

So they can indict the former president on this. So that gives an idea for its significance. It's as egregious is what John Bolton was doing, which is using his AOL account, which is still shocking to me. The guy had an AOL account, you know, 2023. And he ratted himself out because he thought the Iranians hacked him. And so he went and told him, and then they looked at it, they realized how much national security information he was sharing with his daughter with his wife everybody else that's what he's facing

indictments for this is more egregious because it's an attempt to sabotage an ongoing peace negotiation that could if it failed lead to nuclear war uh so i mean what's at stake is far more significant and substantial than even what bolton did or anything they accused trump of doing so the whoever did this was involved in whoever conspired to do it is involved in a high crime and misdemeanor if we were to use the constitutional terms so they can be impeached and removed from their office, but they should absolutely be indicted. And there should be a serious criminal investigation. And the only reason why they even have the cockiness and confidence to do this level of high crimes is one, because the media celebrates it and cheers it. It was only the dissident media that was like, what in the heck is this doing out there?

Everybody else, you have Aaron Mante and Max Blumenthal and Glenn Greenwald, those Tucker Carlson asking the right question. But these institutional media was just jumping on it and running mostly with a fake headline, by the way. They said, oh, this was somehow a Russian plant. It was a Russian plant to come up with a peace deal that Russia is never going to sign off on in its current form. It's insane. So what's happening behind the scenes that they got surprised by

is that you have Vice President Vance, Gabbard, Kennedy, Kent, and Colby. But the other person that joined this effort, as you mentioned, Alexander, is Secretary of the Army Cabinet-approved, official Driscoll. Driscoll went to law school with J.D. Vance. He was an aide and advisor to J.D. Vance during his Senate days and vice presidential campaign.

Driscoll also, he comes from the same part of the country that is the most deeply anti-war part of America going all the way back, my part of the country. So, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green is just south about, you know, 20 minutes from where I grew up in Chattanooga. J.D. Vance's family grew up about a couple hours north. in the northern part of Appalachia and Kentucky and Southern Ohio. And Driscoll is just a little bit east of where I grew up. And that's the western hills of Appalachia, northern, western North Carolina.

These are regions that oppose the Civil War, opposed World War I, opposed World War I, opposed World War II. In fact, you can track their, they would often run, the turnout would often double in elections like 1916 or 1920 or 1940. to protest war. They're, you know, old mountain folk, you know, good members, Scotch, Irish, but others mixed in. Driscoll, his father was an infantryman in Vietnam. His grandfather was a draftee in World War II. So, you know, old military family, but not an elite military family, even though he himself went to, you know,

he was another 9-11 guy. So he was a lot like Hexith, a lot like Vance, that 9-11 inspired him to let Richard Barris, the pollster, people's Bundend Daily. A lot of these people inspired by 9-11 to volunteer for the country. And they feel a double deep level of betrayal more so than others that have served in the military because of the lie of weapons of mass destruction, the lies that get them involved. They saw their friends and family and others disabled and murdered for nothing, for nothing at the end of the day. And so that informs their geopolitical realist perspective and their propensity to disfavor war.

Driscoll is known for being the drone AI guy for saying, let's figure all this out. But he is in fact on the Vance side of the equation. About a month ago, Vice President Vance and others within the administration that are on the realist side, started to realize they had been lied to systematically and systemically by General Kellogg, by Ukraine and MI6 in Britain, by our own CIA director John Rackcliffe, by members of the State Department and others who were completely lying about the state of affairs in Ukraine. Some of you will ask, why don't we have seasoned diplomatic? rather than Whitkoff and Kushner.

It's because we have no seasoned diplomats Trump can trust. They are all ideological. It's like asking if von der Leyen was your only experienced diplomat, would you want a user? Probably not. So that's how we get stuck with honest to God amateurs who have very little experience in Russia, very little understanding of the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict, leading the negotiations because Trump trusts nobody in the State Department.

because honestly, he can't trust anybody in the State Department. So what has happened is Vance figured out that they were being systematically lied to. The whole administration, six weeks ago, believe that this was a stalemate, that Russia couldn't advance and that their economy was tanking. They honest to God believe that. So Trump thought, I don't got to do rush anything. I can just escalate now and then against Russia to see if we get anywhere. But he didn't have any understanding that, in fact, this was a war of attrition,

that this was a conflict where Russia's goal was to take apart the supply, literally the human supply, but also the munitions and other supplies, to take apart the foundation of that fortifications along the Donbass, so that once it cracked, you know, wars of attrition go slow, slow, slow, until they go real fast. And finally, a range of us outsiders were able to get information to the White House, to the realistic school of thought. And they started real. look for these things and what aided our side of the argument was this was back in late

September, early October. And what was pitched was, we'll just watch. Watch what happens in six weeks if something major falls. Because if what Kellogg's telling you is true, nothing will change. It will stay a stalemate. There will be no movement. There'll be no major fortifications that collapse. There'll be none of that.

And if we're right, something will in fact start to fall, something major, something substantial. So when in fact, town started to fall. fall so much so that Putin went in and said, hey, media, come on in and see how free this place is. The Welsenski was pretending, no, no, no, no. There's only 60 Russian soldiers there. Everything's fine. It's all good. You know, like that Monty Python character with all those legs and arms cut off, saying, ah, it's just a flesh wound. Finally, Vance realized it was about to collapse and realize how bad that would be for Trump and vicariously for Vance's own political future to have a fall of Saigon on Trump's watch, to have a fall of Kabul on Trump's watch.

That the, unfortunately, there's like people are thinking there's geopolitical 4D chess with Trump. There's none of that. Marjorie Taylor's resignation is absolutely right. Trump's, in fact, only paying marginal attention. You run into Trump on a random day and ask him, you know, say, hey, what about this issue or, or you give him advice about this. He'll go on a 15-minute soliloquy about how wonderful it is to play golf with Lindsay Graham. I kid you not. He does this with random people, by the way. But I have nothing to do. Lindsey Graham. And then he'll start telling you how Sean Hannity is his wonderful source for him. And he talks to him every night. This is the degree of delusional bubble that Trump is in.

So people are trying to save Trump from Trump, salvage Trump's presidency for their own geopolitical and political survival purposes. They figure out this is a shit show. The one thing Trump has always believed, and this was reinforced when Orban came and visited, is that Ukraine couldn't win the war. Like when he says this war never would have happened, he always pretends that, oh, Russia would have been deterred and all that nonsense. In reality, what he means is he knew Ukraine and felt Ukraine can ever win the war. It's like, this little guy ain't going to be this big guy. Why is the little guy?

I think he's going to be the big guy. So it's an easy pitch to Trump to say, hey, they're about to lose. You don't want to be a loser. You don't want to be a winner. That's his whole motivation, unfortunately, at the moment. So it's, hey, we got to get out of this thing fast. So what happened is Vance started circumventing Kellogg using Driscoll. Now, this has come out publicly.

Both Vance and Rubio have denied it. There is a massive. split. Whenever Rubio is anywhere near in negotiation, it fails. That's the guarantee. That's what happened. Notice Israel, Gaza ceasefire only occurred after Rubio was withdrawn from the process. So Rubio represents the neocon, the geopolitical national security establishment. They have a lot of allies in the House and the Senate and the institutional bureaucracy and the think tanks and the media. And so they had to kind of keep it on the low key and without a lot of attention and extraordinarily they managed to get pretty far without it getting disclosed.

What was proposed was not a peace plan at all. It was just meant to be talking points. The idea was let's go up with talking points. Let's incorporate everything that President Trump already agreed. That's the bull plus all the way back in Alaska and in August and then agreed again on a phone call in October and just couldn't get whenever Zelensky pushed back. Trump amazingly just capitulated. Not really does Alinsky. he's capitulating to the American deep state, the European power structure. Part of this is his own hubris. Part of this is his own insecurity, as you identified Alexander.

And then part of it's just the political and aptitude of the West, that we have all these so-called democracies that are very anti-democratic and have been now for decades. And the United States is no exception of that. And so in that vacuum, Vance and Driscoll steps in and decides, let's, at Wickoff and Kushner would incorporate what Russia had, what they would agree to with Russia. And we'd throw in some sweeteners to feel good for Trump. You can always tell the Trump's sweetener. So it's like, 50 million for this.

Profit, 40% profits for this. We're going to take these 100 million. We're going to get this business deal. None of that's for Russia. Russia's not looking to join the G7. Russia's not super eager to have the U.S. invest in the Arctic. All of this is sweeteners for Trump. Yeah, yeah, great.

This will be a great deal. He hates spending money. He hates being associated with a loser. and he hates it being a money thing. Those are his two, he has no overarching geopolitical vision beyond that. That's when he's like when Zelensky was showing him the map. He's like, what? I've never been there, whatever.

He's talking to Odessa, ocean front territory. Just not his thing. This is the good work of Vance and others who realize we've got to get out of this for our own sake. And then realistically, it makes no sense to be antagonistic to Russia in the broad geopolitical space. So they went behind the Kushner and Whitkoff worked on the terms. they shared it then with Rubio and Kellogg and what happened is Kellogg knew recognize what was happening

Driscoll was going to go in over low key just looking at drones that was the official narrative the cover story and he was supposed to then put the squeeze on Ukraine saying I've been to the front line and this is a disaster that that was the plan all that got blown up because and these were just talking points to get them to sign off on things the all they got blown up because Kellogg

gets it and he runs to the media and leaks it right away God bless Whitkoff. He's a total boomer. So he goes on and he plans on forwarding it as a message and he sends him reply on X. So the whole world, he's, oh, hey, this is Kellogg. They've been trying to pretend the Kay stood for the Russian guy

and other people know. Everybody in town knows it's Kellogg. Kellogg got fired. So there's this talk about, oh, he retired. He's going to step down in a month. That's just a cover story. He got fired immediately because it just tick Trump off. Not only had been lying to him all this time,

but here he was leaking to sabotage. Todd. East deal. That's how, that's what a traitorous treasonous person, the people like Kelloggard. Marjorie Taylor Green is the patriot. These people are the traitor. But Trump blames one rather than the other. The, uh, uh, blames one and it covers for the other. So that's how the deal then starts getting what all of a sudden you get the Senate. People like, Congressman Don Bacon. The guy's literally named Bacon. You're talking about a porky congressman. I mean, this guy's literally named Bacon. He's about to retire. He's Omaha, Nebraska. Oh, who in Omaha, Nebraska cares about Ukraine?

but he's going ballistic online about Ukraine. Fitzgerald from Bucks County. Buck's County that just overthrew the entire Republican Party from top to bottom just two weeks ago. And what is this? Jim Witt obsessed with? He's obsessed with Ukraine. McConnell comes out of his little turtle shell

to start screaming and shaking. How dare you betray the great Ukraine? Rubio starts running interference right away. He's like, ah, you know, this is somebody else's idea. I didn't even know what this was. Maybe it was the Russians. That story leaks because rounds from South Dakota, another state that has no interest in this war,

but he does because my Senate rounds as a war whore like all the other senators who just want to bring us all into their brothel of blood presided over by queen Lindsay uh lady Lindsay Graham herself uh the that's what the you get complete blowback the think tank blowback the all the talking generals on TV blowback so while drisco's over there under a Trump hey you got to sign this deal not any other deal this deal to authorize us to go back to the Russians to deliver what we promised them all the way back in August, you got to do it or we're out by Thanksgiving. All of a sudden, the sabotage by Kellogg works.

It gets the entire Western Deep State up at arms, all the European vassals of the deep state come out and echoing the same line. And all of them, and maybe you can explain this, too, Alexander. They all live in 1938. Everything's 1938. I was even being told that America's anti-war instincts and anti-war protesters and isolationists as they were mislabeled. He goes, they're telling people were trying to tell me online.

This is why we got World War I and World War II because of people who opposed war. It's like, well, where do you even come up with this? All the Munich appeasement garbage. I mean, Newt Gingerts is out yipping again. I mean, so you get all the people who have failed for 30 plus years. And you can tell it's Vance's proposal because Vance is the one publicly defending it over and over again on social media. He's like, and he lays out very reasonable terms.

It's like something Ukraine and Russia have to both agree. to something that leads to a secession of the hostilities, but also something that won't lead to hostilities coming right back six months a year, 18 months from now, which is what a NATO security guarantee does. Instead, of course, Rubio flies right in. And as soon as Rubio gets in, it's poison pill after poison pill after poison pill, water it down, water it down, water it down. And so you still have Driscoll in Vance trying to get the original Instable Plus at some level through, but you have Rubio constantly sabotaging and undermining it with the full backing of the American deep state, the European leaders, and their corrupt vassal Zelensky in Ukraine.

So that's, and by the way, lurking in behind all of this, one of the things that Driscoll and others are presiding over is the Pentagon, as Larry Johnson has now gone public with, Sonar 21, former CIA analyst, his business partner filed a fraud claim with the Defense Department detailing over $40 billion in fraud in Ukraine. it not only implicates Zelensky and high-ranking Ukrainian officials, it implicates high-ranking EU officials. Reportedly, it went through bank accounts in Estonia. And apparently the Baltics decided to get in deep at this.

And according to Larry Johnson, some of the money went back into the pockets of high-ranking United States, members of Congress and Senate. That's how bad that corruption scandal that they're just letting simmer there. So you have some white hat good faith actors. I give credit to Vice President Vance for trying to get something done. year, but they are facing the whole deep state machine, which the peak and pinnacle of its power, unfortunately, is right here in America. Yeah, I completely agree with that last point. I have a lot of points to make it, first of all. The first thing to say is that if we're talking

about Witgolf and Kushner and people like that in this situation, being amateurs, they are the amateurs who have grasped the reality. That is the thing to understand. I mean, if all the professionals are wrong, that you need the amateurs. to step in because as exactly as you said, there is no one else. It is astonishing that people like Whitgolf and it's only people like Witgolf and Kushner and people like that who can actually see that which is really happening. Now, of course, if you're talking about people in the American military, I've no doubt that there are many, many people who can see what is happening too. I can also get the sense. I definitely get the sense that Driscoll knows

what is happening. And I'm going to suggest something else. I've been watching and seeing how Driscoll has acted over the last week. He's completely different from Kellogg. He's as night is different from day. I mean, they're completely different in the way that they work. Now, I I don't quite know what Drisco's role was in the Pentagon, but I get the sense that he has established some kind of relationship with one person in Ukraine, who is the chief of military intelligence there, who is Kirilo Budanov. Now, Budanov, who by the way started the war as a hardliner and who was every bit as radical as everybody else in Ukraine.

Over the last year and a half, he's become much more realistic about the situation. And of course, he's the intelligence chief. He knows what's going on on the battlefields, probably better than anyone else in Ukraine knows. And he's been making statements. He made a statement a couple of months ago, in which he said that unless things started,

unless there was peace by mid-sense, summer of this year, things for Ukraine would start to go downhill very fast. The result, by the way, has been that there's been many people in Kiev, including Yermak, who is, of course, Zelensky's chief of staff, deeply corrupt chief of staff, as we now know. Anyway, Yermak has been trying to get Buddanov sacked. Now, I get the sense that Buddanov has been too. talking to Driscoll and probably is telling Driscoll, don't listen to what all of these guys, Sierski, Zelensky, Yermak, all of those are telling Kellogg, who appears to believe it all, and tells it to the president. This is the real situation. This is what is really happening.

Now, the reason I think that this is, that this connection exists, is that there was this very strange meeting in Abu Dhabi, where it turns out Budana himself has a back channel to the Russians. He meets apparently on a regular basis. The Russians have now confirmed this with the heads of Russian military intelligence, probably a man called Kostakov, who is the head of that organization. We all know from our spies novels, which is the GRU, but I'm not sure it is Kostiakov.

Anyway, so Wadanav. Regularly meets with the Russians in Abu Dhabi. And it seems that he told Driscoll, look, if you want to speak to the Russians, if you want to establish some kind of contact with the Russians, I have this meeting coming up in Abu Dhabi. Why did you come along and why don't you meet them? And Risco got on the plane to Abu Dhabi, and he met Budanov, and then Budanov took him and introduced him to the Russians, who were apparently very, very surprised to meet him, but apparently responded warmly and well. Now, these are middle-ranking intelligence people. They're not the top political people in Moscow. they reported back to Moscow.

I suspect that this is what has created the whole situation where Whitgolf and Kushner and I presume Driscoll himself are going to go to Moscow next week. So this has probably been an important meeting in its own way and in its own terms. But the key point I want to make about Riscoll is that he is doing something that all the time

that Kellogg has been Trump's peace envoy. Kellogg has never done. Kellogg never spoke to the Russians. He never showed any interest in doing so. He didn't want to go to Moscow, apparently. He spent all his time in Kiev. He was talking to Zelenskyy. Riscoll seems to understand that if you're going to conduct a negotiation,

you have to speak to the other side. So I think this is a serious negotiation. I think there is a genuine attempt being made to move this thing forward. But exactly as you say, Robert, there is this enormous, enormous effort to obstruct it and to make it impossible to move it forward. And that's why we're getting so many different ideas and stories about what is going on. whether there's a 19-point plan or a 28-point plan. The Russians say that they only know about a 28-point plan,

and nobody has even given them that officially. So this is why there is all this confusion, because everybody is going forward. The Europeans are coming forward with their plan. Rubio is coming forward with his plan that he's working with, with the Ukrainians. There is the actual plan that Witkoff and Kushner and probably Vance have been working on. And they're all existing parallel with each other.

And I think Trump himself acknowledged finally that there isn't actually a plan and that there isn't actually a deadline. Now, the other thing to say about Griscoll is that he met the Europeans in Kiev. There was a stormy meeting. He said to them straightforwardly that Ukraine is losing the wall

and is going to lose the wall. The financial time said that one of the European officials who was there, found that repugnant, which I have to say is one of the most astonishing things I have ever heard. In other words, what is repugnant that Ukraine is going to lose or that an American official actually tells us that they're going to lose? Obviously, it's the last. Now, what these people in Europe are doing, talking all the time about Munich, 1938, I don't myself understand. It's trotted out incessantly.

I get the sense sometimes that all of these people, especially in Britain, are living inside a historical novel set in 1938, and that all of them, each and every one of them, is trying to play the part of Winston Churchill, which is ridiculous. And Churchill himself, who was an interesting man, Anyway, he would have considered it ridiculous too. I'm going to make a suggestion here. You've asked me the question.

I'm going to say what I think. 1938, 1939 was the last time when Britain acted on its own as a great power. From that moment on, it's no longer been possible for the British to pretend. even to themselves that they are a great power. So they cling to that last memory of when they did things by themselves that were important and which changed history. And I'm afraid they've infected the rest of Europe with this delusion. But anyway, you know, I could argue, discuss this at enormous length.

I'm not able to give you a full explanation about this. It's just that what I'm looking at is a serious attempt to begin a negotiation. The Russians have said they see it as a serious attempt to begin a negotiation. But all the odds, so far as I can still, are stacking up against it. Everybody, the deep state, the neocons, the fools that you've discussed, in Congress, the Europeans living their own illusions. They're all playing this game of Churchill, and they're going to wreck this thing. In Kiev itself, they have their own motivations, no doubt.

They want to keep the money flows going. 48 billion, by the way, is I suspect a fraction of the funds that have been passing through. So there's all sorts of things like that going on. And this is a last attempt, I think, to try to get this thing together before the end closes in. And one has to worry and doubt that it will succeed. But at least, at least an effort is being made. So that's my own take. Now, one very last point, one point which I just would slightly push back on,

but it's just a trivial one. I think that the Russians would be delighted if the Americans, if everything were to be sorted out between the United States and Russia, if the Americans came along and invested in the Arctic. I think on the contrary, the Russians would very much welcome a good, level, equal, successful, mutually profitable economic relationship with the United States. In fact, they've been wanting it for as long as I can,

remember. I don't think it's going to happen now, and I don't think the Russians are going to sacrifice on anything that they consider important to their security in order to achieve it. But I think that the Americans giving the indication that they might want it is certainly something that the Russians would notice and would probably welcome. Anyway, that's what I wanted to say. I wondered whether you had any further points. I'm sure you have plenty further points to make. But tell us a bit more about what you think is going on in Washington, whether this can be sustained there.

It's interesting that Trump doesn't want to meet Zelensky and doesn't want to meet the Europeans there. And can I ask, by the way, a question which a Russian official, Yuri Ushikov asked today, why are the Europeans even being consulted? Why are they involved? He actually asked that. Very interesting.

He said, I don't understand why we have to involve the Europeans at all. Anyway, over to you, Robert. Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, I think that it's the degree to which Trump is willing to stand up to the deep state is going to dictate whether we get a mediated peace or not, and whether we escalate or de-escalate towards Russia. because the Senate in the House are already trying to rush forward a 500% sanctions bill on everything Russia. Now that they put any thought to that at all, given all of the different implications.

I mean, for example, Russia provides something like 35% of all fertilizer for the world, provides a large portion of the world's food supply, other essential goods, uranium to the United States that we depend on, for example. So it's like, are we going to sanction ourselves 500% when we buy that? the uranium? I mean, how's this going to work? So there's huge problems with it. Now, purportedly Lindsey Graham agreed with President Trump a month ago or so to withdraw the mandatory portion of the bill and it will only be discretionary so that it would be up to Trump whether to apply it or not. But you have members of the House and the Senate now saying that they want to force, make it mandatory again, because they care more about Ukraine than they do America. And it's a mask off moment for the degree of

corruption of our political capital. And I think it's a broader, deeper issue across the Western world, which is you have all these functioning democracies on paper, supposedly the beacons of representative government on paper, but they are the least representative governments in the world in many respects. Whether we're talking about France, where Macron is hated, whether it's my UK, where Starmor is hated, Germany, where Mertz is hated, Italy, where Maloney ran again because she hasn't kept their promises would likely lose, or the United States, where the will of the people represented in Trump, and who have been voting for detente with Russia and peace globally and against war now for 30 years in a row.

And the degree of dissatisfaction you can feel and sense in the undercurrent of American politics. First, it was Ross Perot and Pap Buchanan in 92 and 96, then Ralph Nader in 2004, then Barack Obama, hope and change, 2008. They quickly realized that was nonsense. So what do you get in 2010? Occupy Wall Street on the left, Tea Party on the right. What does that lead to? It leads to Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

This is an American public, desperate. They're willing to elect a reality TV star just to break the system up, just to have something change in Washington. And yet, when we get a chance for peace on very favorable terms to Ukraine, in my view, you know, under these terms that would be, I think the Axios report is closest to the original one. What got published in Ukraine was already being bastardized by the range of people. But that was at least took seriously Russia's security concerns.

So that was one good step. Took seriously Russia's concerns about the cultural rights of the Russian people in Ukraine. So that's a good step. No NATO ever in Ukraine. No NATO forces or foreign forces with the original language, my understanding, in Ukraine. It was all things that were about how do we secure both sides for peace, long term, Ukraine and Russia. This was the most meaningful effort

any Western government had ever done in the history of this conflict. Taking seriously, you know, people forget because the U.S. media never covered it much. Biden, you know, Putin reached out to Biden before February 2020 in December 2021 and laid out a lot of these security concerns and, you know,

the U.S. just shove off. And instead, we have all these, I've told people, just do confession through projection. And it's a useful filter, whatever Zelensky talks or Rack talks or any of these Western leaders talk, just replace, like if it's Zelensky, replace Ukraine with Russia, if it's Macron replaced France or Europe with Russia. And it's amazing what they're disclosing. I mean, they're like they're disclosing all the, that they're the ones opposing

peace, that they're the ones that are going to blow it up, that they're the ones engaged in illegal orders and unlawful orders and anti-humanitarian orders and anti-civilian orders and so forth. It's very revealing in that context. But it doesn't change where Trump's position is. So if it was up to van, Instable Plus would be forced on Ukrainians. The Russians would come back and say, no, here's all we're willing to agree to, which was the original provisions for the most part,

maybe slightly tweak. My understanding of what they met by slightly tweaking from the beginning was just that they would agree not to take immediately all of the four regions that had voted to be part of it. They would agree to a ceasefire along the two oblasts where they don't have all the land in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing from the Donbass. But that was not a permanent deal. That was going to be a temporary deal to get to a permanent deal,

which was going to be almost identical to Instable Plus. And that's what Trump agreed to, by the way. He agreed to it in August, agreed to it on the phone again with Putin in October, tried to get Zelensky and the Europeans to do it. He has finally come to realize two things that you guys were telling him always from the beginning, which was, number one, you can't deal with Europe or Ukraine. Zelensky will never be reasonable.

It's not in his own best interest to have peaceful resolution of this war. Then he's got a deal with the Ukrainian public that's enraged at him. Then he's got to deal with all the crimes that he committed. That's the number one priority when they first started changing the agreement was, we got to change that audit to an amnesty provision everybody. Let's make sure we get that right. So, I mean, that tells you where their mindset is. And then the Western media is so, such a hopeless set of liars.

They're like, oh, Putin put that in order to deal with the International Criminal Court. That's nothing to do with it. The International Criminal Court's not even party to the case. anyway. So the, that was entirely about Ukrainian corrupt leaders, you know, literally a golden toilet is a representation of where this money went and signified, manifested by it. So the, the realist wing understands finally, fully that this is an unwinnable conflict that inevitably will lead to disaster for the U.S. if we don't get a resolution by you. And they recognize that if the Ukraine can't get in or can't won't sign off, then just withdraw.

Get out. Get out. Get out. So that when it ultimately collapses, say, hey, they had a great chance. We gave them a sweetheart peace deal. They turned it down. That's on them. And it's not on us that it collapsed. See, we were right to get out because look at how it collapsed. They have a plausible defense. That is the one to punch of the geopolitical realist wing. And it's what Trump should do. What Trump has finally come around to is that Ukraine can't win this war. that that he is fully determined. And even Bessent and others and Rubio are admitting no new set of weapons,

no new set of sanctions is going to change it. Hopefully that leads to de-escalation, because if we do the 500% sanctions, it's not going to meaningfully change Russia's position in this conflict. What it will do is badly hurt us economically, which will escalate Trump's risk in the upcoming midterms, electorally and politically. And at the time where he can't afford that,

when people like Marjorie Taylor Greener would rather resign from Congress and continue to deal with the insanity of Washington, D.C. It is a screaming alarm, a red flag of red flags, saying there's something deeply, seriously flawed in the foundation of Washington's constitutional republic that a congresswoman like Marjorie Taylor Green thinks she would be better off resigning than bud, budding her head against a wall every single day. These are warning signs that the system is fracturing. And if they were smart, they would agree with Trump's slight,

moderation of the course of direction of the ship of state in this imperial empire, that they would allow him to at least pull back from its most egregious excesses. But instead, they are so obsessively delusionally committed to it that they would rather let the sink, the ship sink to the bottom of the sea than just let it redirect just a little bit. And that's the issue is can Vance get Trump to say, screw it, we're out of here? Because I think that's the most likely conclusion. I mean, the most ideal conclusion was real reprochement with Russia. But I don't think we can get to that stage until we get out of Ukraine. And I think what you guys suggested all the way back at the beginning,

due to the nature of the American deep state, due to the nature of Ukraine, European hostility, the best step is to get out of Ukraine, not stay in Ukraine. And in Russian reproachment, maybe it can happen six months from now, nine months from now, after Kiev is already in Russian hands anyway. I agree. Can I just say I was shocked when I heard that Marjorie Telegreen was leaving Congress. That was very unexpected to me. And I should say very disappointing to me because I think she has been an extremely important voice over the last couple of years.

And I'm sorry that that voice is leaving the scene. And I hope that she doesn't quit politics entirely and she's still there. Just a second. Anyway, a lot to discuss here, because let's actually get to a few of the more practical things. Well, not practical things, but some of some things, I mean, we've had leaks, and we've agreed that these are criminal offenses. We have these information about corruption, which is enormous. we've had information about corruption in Kiev. Let's just make a point about this.

Let me just make one point about this, which is that, of course, it is peace in Ukraine, which rids Ukraine of its present government, and a peace that enables Ukraine to survive and which closes down this incredibly corrupt operation in Ukraine. that will at last give Ukraine a chance to move forward and become a proper staple functioning country and society. Prolonging the war and maintaining in power this group of people in Ukraine. And Putin, of course, has just referred to them as an organized criminal gang, by the way.

It's a rather strong language, but that's what he said. Keeping them there is destroying Ukraine. So this plan actually saves Ukraine as a country, or at least seeks to save Ukraine as a country, and gives it a chance to a true, honest, real future. That's the first thing to say. But you talked about the money flow, and I'm absolutely no doubt.

We've discussed it on the Duran. And Alex has discussed this much more extensively than I have done because he's closer to the business world than I had been. All of this money going backwards and forwards to Ukraine, coming back to Europe, ending up in the United States. Why are there no investigations about this? Why are the no investigations about the leaks at the moment? heard of any i mean maybe they are going to be but i haven't yet heard that the fbi high or whoever

it is who's in charge of this kind of thing have opened a criminal investigation a serious criminal investigation to find out what is really going on um if people in congress start to know that investigators are coming after them serious investigators that might concentrate a couple of minds in congress If people who have been leaking find themselves being investigated too, that might also have an effect. So why isn't this happening? I mean, we'd heard that there were major changes happening in the Department of Justice, in the FBI.

Why aren't these agencies acting as they ought to do in the face of what looks like, as you put it, egregious, ingregious law-breaking. What you have is a couple of things. One is the everyday ordinary prosecutor in the Department of Justice, the career prosecutors. All ideologically are aligned with deep state priorities and mostly despise Trump and support as a hero,

anyone who attacks him. That is also true of most of the people who occupy the American federal judicial branch. That's why, like, for example, you can see it in the prosecution of James Comey. They ordered things that are never ordered, released. So normally, grand jury transcripts stay secret. They immediately ordered them all disclosed.

Normally, the internal attorney-client communications between the prosecutorial team as to whether they should or shouldn't prosecute, why or why not, that always stays confidential as government attorney-client work product. Not here. They immediately ordered it all disclosed. Then the magistrate started lying. We had federal district court judges, appellate court. judges, Supreme Court judges, magistrates are hired by the district courts themselves for 10-year terms to serve. The magistrate, although every magistrate fancies that they're going to be a federal district court judge someday. The magistrate lies about the prosecutor in the case, says the prosecutor

lied to the grand jury, didn't give her property facts. And have it's toll lies, made up, later proven to be lies. Despite all of that, they go out of their way to say that because certain, you know, eyes weren't dotted and T's weren't crossed, the entire indictment is illegitimate because somehow it wasn't properly appointed U.S. attorney, even though it was Trump's Attorney General who appointed it, which is supposed to be the process. So that's the degree of corruption in the judicial branch. You also have high levels of grand jury and jury notification in the Eastern District of Virginia, the District of Maryland, in the District of Corruption, D.C., where all of this takes place,

for the most part. So some of those are within the system itself. there are deep state allies and barriers to meaningful deep state prosecution. Now, Trump was elected, as you correctly point out, to fix all of this, to Deep Six, the Deep State wants it for all. I've never known whether Trump really understood what the deep state term meant. He understood it was popular politically, but I think he always thought of him as just bad faith actors who were trying to hurt him.

It wasn't clear to me he understood this was institutional rot going back to the end of World War II when these bureaucratic institutions he became deeply entrenched. the dual state, the old 19th century English construct initially, then borrowed by Germans and Italian scholars to try to explain the rise of fascism in their nations, which is that you have this administrative bureaucratic state that is immune from the elected state in the interest of the voters. So no matter what the voters decide, as people like to joke here, it doesn't matter which Republican I vote for, I always get John McCain as president.

So that's because the administrative state is so deeply entrenched. George W. Bush admitted this. He said to Glenn Beck, as Glenn Beck recently disclosed, he said, you know, as Obama's going to discover, it doesn't matter who you are when you get elected, you're going to be answering to somebody else. George W. Bush himself comes from a long family establishment political ties. He didn't feel he had the capacity to resist. It's what, you know, Putin said about 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, where he said in America, I think a lot of these presidents mean well, he goes, but then the men in gray suits arrive and they run the show. And that's been the political reality because they haven't been willing to break through. in some cases, either willing, some cases capacity, some cases intent to break through this deep state corruption. He was supposed to do that with the Justice Department here. As original nominee was Matt Gates to run the Justice Department. The establishment in Deep State have hated him for forever. If you're an anti-deep state person, your trajectory tends to be that of the history

of Marjorie Taylor Green. She gets elected in 2018. She kind of sees herself as Mr. Smith goes to Washington and the great Frank Frank Caprov movie of idealism and optimism and hope discovers Washington is a lot worse than Frank, you know, than Mr. Smith discovered when he got up there. And but season Trump hope. And so sticks with Trump, defends Trump, protects Trump, advocate for Trump, no matter any trial, trouble, or tribulation that he gets into, stands up for the January 6th defendant, stands up early critic of the Ukraine war.

One of the few people at the time when nobody in the house wanted to say boo, one of the the first people to be critical is Marjorie Taylor Green. For all the people to think J.D. Vance is a secret palantir plant and all that stuff. Well, the number one guy to be critical to the Ukraine war was J.D. Vance. Explain that to me. They usually don't have a good explanation. The, so, but Marjorie Taylor Green believes so much in Trump that she thinks, well, even though it's craziness up here, the corruption is off the scale. Once Trump gets back in in 2024, we're going to fix this. We're going to repair this. We're going to remedy this. And the, they, but they immediately, they had gone after

multiple investigations of Matt Gates just to derail any potential future political aspirational career because anybody who comes up who's an independent dissident is immediately put under massive scrutiny by the deep states allies and advocates in law enforcement and the CIA and the FBI and elsewhere and the justice department where they have so many allies and the and so he ends up having to step down in steps Pam Bondi who's who's known in Florida as pay for play pay him because the reason why all the real estate schemes and big banker scams of the robo signing that was taking place, before Biden's auto pen, you had robopenn banks operating with illicit loans under state of Florida law. All of them took a walk because if they made big donations to Bondi,

Bondi is Attorney General in the state of Florida and make sure the case didn't go anywhere. The first round of Epstein scandals happened while she was an Attorney General of Florida. She did nothing about it. Instead, she tried to help railroad George Zimmerman in a high-profile. self-defense case and pushed red flag laws and other proposals. She took hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pfizer right before she became attorney general, and now she's banning and blocking all criminal investigations and civil fraud investigations into Pfizer. So once she was there, some of us were skeptical that she was going to take on the deep state. So she did. Her deputy,

Todd Blanche comes from the sovereign district of New York, as they like to say, Southern District of New York on paper, longstanding Democrat, deep ties to corporate. institutional interest there cashed in on working for Trump privately saw this as his ticket to political power has no interest in taking on the deep state at all so that the there are good faith actors assistant attorney general gale slater at the antitrust division very ogy populist believes in antitrust marmee dylan civil rights division then inside the political wars old school populist uh legal advocate. And Ed Martin connected to Phyllis Shafley, who was tight with Pat Buchanan and Pat Buchanan's whole movement. People go read his book, Unnecessary War about his perspective on how World War

II became such a global war. A great populist advocate. People, I knew Pat. People misconstrue him and mislabel him all the time, stereotype him in the wrong way. The guy was an old school populist and one of the nicest human beings that ever meet, which is rare for Washington, D.C. The Ed Martin comes from that school, Phil Schaffley, Pat Buchanan, etc. He's running the lawfare weaponization division. But, oh, but they don't have the ultimate power, which is controlled by Bondi and Blaine. Then it's even worse at the FBI. Cash Patel is busy using the FBI's plane to do Johns to Vegas, Johns to see his girlfriend in various concerts, while he has a special FBI team providing personal security for her. Some people think it may be personal surveillance because

there appears to be a little bit of a mismatch between her dating capabilities, shall we say, and his. But so he appears completely distracted and then he and Dan Bongino had been busy covering everything else up. As we speak, they're covering up for the January 6 pipe bomber. There's credible evidence that this was a CIA undercover

Fed'surrection activity. The person who planted the pipe bombs on January 6th, who was magically never caught, was working at Capitol Police at the time, and then shows up at the CIA. But they're covering that whole thing up. The FBI whistleblowers are blown the whistle up. They're suppressed. Everything related

to the assassination attempt in Butler, Petrovanian, which had all kinds of deep state ties, which looks like the original plan, as Tucker Carlson has now put out, the original plan was to blame Iran. It was the original pretext to go into Iran was to blame Iran for trying to assassinate President Trump. But they had the deep six that when Trump happened to turn his head at the right time. So they're covering all of that up. They're covering up the Ukraine-connected assassin, who was just convicted of attempting to assassinate Trump out of Florida, who, by the way, currently is filing court papers asking Trump to get into a fist fight with him. So that guy's mind is a little bit gone.

But so that they're busy covering everything up. So rather and because of it, people like Comey, people like Clapper, people like Brennan, people that are their allies, their advocates or their acolytes inside the administration are getting Uber confident. And then you have these congressmen and senators who say, whatever you do, you can disobey in a legal order, which was a wink in it. It's totally constitutionally protected First Amendment conduct. However, it clearly was also a.

a wink and a nod to people inside the military hierarchy to disobey President Trump and to start to relaunch Russiagate 3.0 and now we're seeing it because you're absolutely right. My hope is that Gabbert and Kent at the Nadria and I are investigating who leaked this and are going to make criminal referrals to make sure finally we get real consequence because if we don't, this is going to be Russia gate 3.0 on steroids. Absolutely. Can I just say I actually anticipated one of my questions, probably my next question, which was about why the Pomey and Letitia James case collapsed because, well, why it was thrown out,

because I think you've already explained that in truth. Well, we are living through very complex times, but at least there is an attempt being made to try to negotiate peace. and we should not write off the chances of that before it fails, and it hasn't yet failed yet. And there is something I do want to say, which is I know that a number of people have been writing on our threads already,

on our comments already, saying, you know, the plan as it's presented is nowhere near going to satisfy the Russians and what about Adessa and all of those things. The thing to understand is that the plan is not, actually as far as I can tell even a plan. It's exactly what Robert said. A number of talking points intended to build on an understanding that Putin and Trump had reached in Alaska. And one should certainly not take the original ideas as they were developing two weeks ago

to be the same as this rather strange document that was published in Kiev, by a Ukrainian MP, Alexei Goncharenko. By that point, by the time we reached that publication of that document, I suspect that this had evolved into something quite different. In fact, the Russians are complaining this morning that as far as they understand it, there are multiple different versions of these ideas floating around, and they have only so far seen one

they are utterly bewildered about what is meant and what were the contents of all of the others. So that's what I wanted to say about this. Now, Robert, we could talk about this further and there's an awful lot to say, but I want to talk now, if you don't mind, about something that's happening in my own country, which you brought up in an email, and it is very disturbing and extremely ominous, and it has resonance in the United States too, because there is a major effort underway in Britain to do away with jury trials.

And the government, the Starma government, the most unpopular government in British, modern British history, is now coming forward with the proposal to do away with jury trials in the vast majority of cases. A few exceptions, murder, manslaughter, rape. I think that was it, actually. But otherwise, no more jury trials.

Jury trials was something that was fought for and extracted from the king, King John, in fact, and it's there in Magna Carta. He didn't want to grant jury trials, but he was obliged to. and you talked about the fact that in England we have two states alongside each other and this is a reflection of that because there is the parliamentary constitution, well, not constitutional, the parliamentary democratic system, which eventually evolved in the 19th, early 20th century, but which has a long, long backstory going all the way back to Magna Carta. And then you have the monarchy and all it's, it's,

which of course resisted jury trials back in the Middle Ages, but which is still there and from which the actual executive in Britain takes its power. And we see that the executive is moving forward to do away with jury trials. So that is very ominous. It's very disturbing for Britain. it is a massive attack on common law. And common law, of course, is also the foundational part, the foundation of the legal system in the United States, which in some respects you could argue through the American Revolution, took certain ideas in the common law to their logical conclusion.

They developed them. You could argue that the American constitution, Constitution itself has some of its roots in the common law. Though I wouldn't take that too far, because there are also differences. And you can get into all kinds of false turnings if you take that point too far. But anyway, are Americans aware of this that England, which invented jury trial, is about to abolish it? And what did they think about that there? And is there any risk of something like that happening in the United States?

So I can easily imagine that there would be all sorts of people in the United States who would be delighted to do it, but is there any risk of it? Well, remember seeing the headline, and it's not very detailed discussion at all, the legal academy here in the U.S. or in the legal news circles, because it came across like when I was alternative breaking 911, you know, kind of headlines on X, and I was like, oh, this can't be right. The Magna Carter Brits, the Brits, the Brits that gave us the jury trial for the world, is now getting rid of it. And then as you pointed out, you know, they're actually serious about getting rid of it. There were two things I was curious about.

One is, or two responses. One question for you. The is, I imagine, I always conceived of the Magna Carta as like our Constitution. That for whatever reason in my head, I thought the idea it couldn't be broken, it couldn't be breached, couldn't be sabotaged, that guaranteed the jury. But obviously, I was mistaken about that. The given that, you know, never hear Keir is going to be able to try to get this through. And what salvages it in the United States, there's the threats to it, and then there's what

salvages it is it's constitutionally enshrined. So under the U.S. Constitution, if a matter arises that federal common law concerns monetary damages, any factual dispute is committed to the trial by jury. Now, originally in the U.S., that included legal, all disputes, the whole dispute, law and facts went to the jury, the great Patrick Henry case, you know, give me liberty, give me debt, the big tax case that only resulted. But when people forget, that person was convicted. The jury just only issued the lowest possible fine, which was a dollar. That was the led to help bring about the American Revolution. That's because our juries originally recognized the power to determine both the facts and the law. The courts have taken that away from them

over time. They reinterpreted both the federal constitution and the analog state constitution provisions, which sometimes the state provisions are much broader, by the way, in their protected. I mean, jury trial rights were seen as sacrosanct at the time of our founders. But the judicial branch did a very good job of usurping that power to themselves so that now the only thing a jury gets to determine are factual disputes. I just, you know, I had a trial earlier this year in Seattle, Washington in King County, named after where they honor Martin Luther King in the courthouse. They pretend that's how the county got named.

It's not. But they'll leave it to Seattle lefties. They just elected a socialist mayor, Democratic socialist mayor, who overthrew the Democratic Party incumbent there. But the one thing I was not allowed to talk about in closing argument to the jury in a case in which constitutional defense was a factual defense to the case, was the judge specifically told me, Mr. Barnes, you cannot mention the Constitution in this courtroom.

So that's the threats you still have. Judges doing everything they can to constrict and constrain the meaning of a jury trial so that those jury trials end up more fearing than substantive, more real than we just had a case up in Minneapolis. on the flip side of this, where a jury determined that somebody was running, connected to the Somalian immigrant community there, basically like a $7 million Medicaid scam. They said they were doing health services they weren't doing.

The judge just set the whole verdict aside afterwards, said, nah, I think they mean well, that kind of thing. So those are the ways that they sabotage the jury's control over justice in the United States, but at least they can't completely take it away because of the state and federal constitutional protection, but also because there's, and this is what I was curious about in Britain, you know, the Magnic Carter aspect, the other protection here is in America, everybody believes in the jury

Trump. It's part of their, it's part of TV shows and films. It's part of civic school from the time you're in third grade. What legitimates a case is a jury determined that, that's what they thought would work against Trump. They're like, oh, a jury determined. They just thought the whole cases were

votes. But how much is the jury as part of the public consciousness still present in the UK? And then why isn't the Magna Carta restraint on Kirst Armour? Well, that's an excellent question. The first thing to understand about McNacarto is that it is not a constitutional document. It is not a document like the U.S. Constitution, which is foundational and which is embedded at the core of the entire legal system.

It was a concession extracted from the king who retains ultimate power. That's the nature of monarchy. In English jurisprudence, the monarchy is still absolute. The parliament itself is there to advise the monarch. And if you go to acts of Parliament, they actually say that. The words that you find in all English statutes that are passed by Parliament, and I can't remember the exact wording, but the first words are by the King's most excellent majesty,

with the consent and advice of the lords and commons here assembled. But it is the king who makes the decisions, and it is the king who granted Magna Carta. Now, he had to do it because he faced a rebellion from the barons, and we now know that, in fact, or medieval scholars have found that this is much more widespread than just a few barons, a large part of the English population was also engaged in all of this, and we're talking about King John, who was perhaps quite as evil as people think,

but nonetheless was a pretty tough and ruthless man. But anyway, they extracted this concession from him, and I'll just read to it. It's still in theory operative law. No free man is to be arrested or imprisoned or deceased or outlawed or exiled, or exiled or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers, lawful judgment of his peers, jury trial, or by the law of the land. And the expression, or by the law, is not taken to be, in the alternative, the two provisions have always been known to be complemented.

to each other. So that was declared by the king. In theory, it is still operative law. It is still operative law. But, but I can tell you for an absolute fact, because I've seen it tried, go into an English court, bring up Magna Carta, and the judges just don't listen. Because as far as they're concerned, it's completely irrelevant to what they have to do. They follow what Parliament decrees and if there's a contradiction between a new law passed by Parliament and signed by the King and Magna Carta, they will always go by the current and existing law. So yes, it is supposed to be operative, but that is becoming a fiction. And frankly, I don't think it's going to be just a fiction anymore. I think this new proposal in effect annuls it. I cannot see how Magna Carta

We can continue to pretend Magna Carta has any role in English statute law after this change, which is coming. Well, I'm relieved to hear that in the United States there still value jury trials. Please go on doing so. It's just something that is extremely important. Anybody who tells you that the system cannot function with jury trials is talking nonsense. And I have seen the system from the inside for myself. And, you know, police protect it. and preserve it as best you can.

Well, we have a deep state in Britain. It's spreading its influence to the United States. I saw another comment that MI6 is now launching Russiagate. I think the role that the British are playing behind the scenes in this affair simply cannot be overstated. I really do believe this. I think they're always whispering to people's ears in Washington speaking as much as they can.

I don't know whether you have any thoughts. to make about that, Robert. But after that point, this is where I'm going to finish and hand over to Alex, just after, you know, whatever you have to say on that. Maybe we'll get some questions from Alex

for you as well. Yeah, we can definitely get to some questions. The, to wrap up, the, but there's no question the five eyes have been neck deep at this all the way through. I remember talking to Carter Page in a cigar cafe in London, of all places.

about explaining to him who the likely, you know, compatriots of the conspiracy against him were. And he filled in details for me and I filled in details for him that explained out all of this, that they're all complicit, that the CIA, like for it, what they love to do is they love to spy on their own citizens, but sometimes domestic law prohibits that. So what they do is the CIA will ask MI6 to spy on the U.S. and the MI6 will ask the CIA to spy on Brits. And the same with the Aussies and the French and all the rest. So you get this. And then the laundering of Intel, they love to, I recommend people, you know, the way with my Graham Green, whether you're talking about Jean La Cray, you know, you go back to forget what our man in Havana. That's the one with Graham Green. And then the, not Russia House, the Russia House also useful, but the Taylor Panama. And it will show you the template for how these Intel operatives work, like the mythology behind intelligence agencies that large number of politicians, the media has is just extraordinary to me.

It's like all these people do is BS. They figure out ways to BS. John La Corre was saying this since 1948 after, you know, this fire came in from the coal, I think published 1954. I mean, it's like, I mean, this is all they are. They're mediocre men coming up with grand tales in order to inflate their own power and influence. And that's what they do. They just laundered it.

I mean, like how it was amazing to me when I found out six weeks ago, high ranking members of our own U.S. administration, who otherwise wanted. you know, de Tant really believed all the nonsense about what was going on in Russia. And I was like, how is this pot? I mean, I tweaked a few of them and said an autist on telegram would understand better what's going on than the entire administration. Because by golly, it was true at the time. At least now, it's no longer true.

But it's one of the biggest problems is, I mean, like, why are we having CIA operations? And now, how covert is an operation that's announced on the front page of the New York Times? I don't know. But, you know, CIA covert operations in men as well. I thought this was an intelligence agency. I thought there was never supposed to be within a statutory charter, any covert operation of any kind. It was supposed to literally just be a centralized place to gather intelligence and report to everyone else, not be its own military, not be its own national security agency, not be its own everything else,

not be its own policing agency, not be its own regime change operation. And yet that's what it's become. I mean, it's clear Venezuela. Rubio wants to replace Maduro. The reason why he's obsessed with it, no matter what deal Maduro offers him will they take, is because Rubio is obsessed with freeing Cuba. So he can go in and be, ah, I finally freed Cuba, the old, you know, the paternal, ancestral obsession and ambition all the way back from time he was young.

Somebody asked in the chat why I call him Narco Marco. It's because he got rich and got political success in the first place because his sister married into the cocaine cowboys. I always find it hilarious. We're pretending. We made up this cartel. like been debunk for like 10 years that had old intelligence ties. And now we're pretending they're not only they cartel, they're narco terrorists.

And they were just going to make Maduro the head of it. I mean, we've skipped even like the lowest, the lowest levels of BS. The, we just make stuff up that everybody knows is garbage. The outside of, you know, your hardcore, you know, Fox boomer con type crowd, the, that believes whatever they're spoon fed. But Trump is nervous about going in and Parkas Tulsi Gabbard keeps warning. He said he wouldn't under regime. change, but also because Trump hates else. And, you know, I think Larry Johnson said Venezuela is Spanish

for Vietnam. It's just three times as big as Vietnam geographically and elsewhere. So the, so hopefully we don't go in, but who knows, Rubio is obsessed with the cause. The hope was we would at least get Russia peace with Ukraine because Rubio wants Venezuela more than he cares about Russia. So we'll see. I mean, it's similar like Nigeria. Like that's like all of a sudden we're pretending for all the things we can't call genocide we can call 3,000 people dead a year genocide? I was like, that's interesting. We're calling the Christian genocide in Nigeria, but it's definitely not genocide when we raise 83% of Gaza to the ground. Interesting standards there. But the, I mean, what's really going on is just it's two different groups that happen to be different

religions. One group happens to be Christian, one group happens to be Muslim in Nigeria, but they're fighting over resources because one's a farmer group, one's a herding group, and the hurting group is losing resource access due to local environmental change. That's all it really is. And on average, 3,000 people have died in that conflict a year since 2009. In a country of 215 million, how am I supposed to call that a genocide? Who are we going to go in and bomb?

Are we going to go in and bomb the herders and the sheep? The shepherds? I mean, what is this? So Trump is constantly tempted by all of this. And part of it is the Brits who, I mean, I'm amazed by this. They still think they're an empire. A century after their empire was gone, they're still pretending they're relevant.

Kier Starmor, I guess the Tories have, you know, they got their own version of DEI, affirmative action. I was like, who is this black woman talking like she's the Taurus? Oh, head of the Tories apparently. Okay. And it's all, you know, it sounds indistinguishable from Kayakales and all the other lunatics in Europe. So clearly the five, we should be out of the five eyes. Five Eyes has never worked to our benefit. Five Eyes only undermines peace and security around the world.

Peace and security, and particularly from the surveillance state in the United States. And hopefully that's the steps we take in time. But yeah, we can go to the questions. Well, before we do, let me just go back quickly and just going back a moment to what we said about the difference between England and the United States. I found the enactment clause in every British statute by the King's most excellent majesty and by the advice and consent of the Lord's spiritual and temperable. and commons in this present parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, be it enacted as follows. By the king's most excellent majesty. So that's the first part. That's where the power is. Compare that with the constitution of the United States. We the people of the United States,

in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish this constitution for the United States. In England, it is the king who has the power in America, according to the constitution. It is the people. Now, it might be a fiction, or at least not a fiction, it might not be fully honoured in the second case, but nonetheless the distinction is clear and it is there. No doubt. Thomas Jefferson had a way for that to be enforced,

but hopefully that's not the way we need to go to enforce that we the people clause of the U.S. Constitution for control of our own government. Exactly. Let's do some questions. Yeah, yeah. 20 minutes or so? Yeah, I have some good questions.

Agu says, thoughts on the U.S. plan to contain China through proxies, especially how the new Japan PM came to power. And the, it's a two-part question. And the Fed recently revealed that $1.5 trillion of treasuries were purchased through the Cayman Island funds. What was that? So two different parts.

I mean, I know people are concerned about like whether we're going to embargo China and whatnot. China has a complete ace, as they've proven over the last year. If someone like Trump capitulates on trade, we're not going to get into Connecticut conflict anytime of time. There might be people who want to, but we can't even get into a trade war with China. And we're not anywhere near. If you want to measure the risk of kinetic conflict with China escalating, look for the

degree to which the U.S. is able to completely replace the rare earth supplies we currently get from China. So that's the thing to track if you're worried about that risk. I can tell you, I don't think that's going to happen for 10 years. Now on Japan, you know, I know she ran as like the MAGA of Japan. and maybe the first female prime minister in Japan. I'm not sure. There's a little bit of immigration issue in Japan,

but it's like not a lot. At least when I was in Japan, I always saw it was Japanese people. And I made a bit, you know, I got an old wedding wing kind of engagement ring. It was in Bora Bora. But I didn't realize in Japan. Like, they think tattoos.

They think you're a kuzza. And I was like, you know, so I had to explain this at different places. So, but Japan's got its own economic problems. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, carry trade has all kinds of issues because of what's happening in Japan's internal economy. It's never really recovered since the 1990s. It's been in like permanent stagnation for 30 plus years. Not a lot of sign that's going to turn around anytime soon. I know they

were talking big and that that may have led G to call Trump. And I know that that's relatively unusual in modern China history for the Chinese to call the U.S. right and the other way around. And it may have been about Japan talking big. But I just saw that as talking big. I mean, the reality is everybody's dependent on China for rare earth. So people can talk big all they want. It's going to be talk big, carry a little stick is the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt. As to the treasuries, I think the main thing, a lot of people get wrong of misunderstanding about treasuries is they think that's really people buying up U.S. debt.

And so they assume how the U.S. debt goes will impact how much people buy or purchase treasuries because of the euro dollar system created in the 1950s, sort of a digital dollar system issued by private banks around the world. Richard Werner has detailed this in great detail. He was on Tucker Carlson a couple of months ago. Jeff Snyder has detailed this, a range of other independent people have detailed that really even centralized governments don't create their own money anymore. It's mostly issued by big private banks. But because of that, the number one form of collateral for the euro dollar system are treasuries.

So that's why you see unusual, if you will, on paper purchasers of U.S. treasuries. If you really don't want to understand that part of the system, I highly recommend Jeff Snyder and Richard Werner, the Eurodollar system, also Brent Johnson, the milkshake theory, some others, because they do a really they specialize in that niche space of sovereign debt because the euro dollar system kind of changed everything garland nixon says until leaking like a sip yep very true but i mean how egregious to be that aggressive right to say we're going to print a transcript of a of a of a presidential right in the middle of peace negotiations i mean the i mean part of it's they're desperate that's the other thing it's happening here that's why they're squealing like pig war pigs everywhere

But still, it's like, if you don't get your hate, like they were, Trump was annoyed by the senators and congressmen saying, hey, military, you can disobey illegal orders. This I find far more concerned that somebody is illegally, that either somebody illegally spying on the president of the United States and wiretapping his key advisors, or it's our own government doing so and then leaking the information. Either way, you have an extraordinary high crime and misdemeanor that could jeopardize any kind of negotiation for peace anywhere. There needs to be meaningful consequence of this, or this will get a lot worse. Yeah, agreed. USA now says, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Buzzy Ball says, questions for Mr. Barnes. Is there any way Russia agrees to stop the conflict before they reach the port of Odessa? Otherwise, Crimea will always be susceptible to attacks from the Odesan coast. I mean, I think Vance is coming around to recognizing this. I don't think Trump still recognize this. And it's definitely the case that nobody else in the U.S. recognizes that Putin is the most generous on this, that you will get the best possible pro-Ukrainian terms from Putin. Now, I don't think he'll capitulate in ways some people think he'll capitulate.

But when Putin is gone, none of these kind of terms would even be thought about. They would be happy. I think a lot of Russian nationals are not happy with any idea that they're afraid Trump is that Putin's going to do Minsk III. in the hope of so i think their perspective would be take odessa i mean i think russians with attitude said this would be a failed war if we don't take odessa so i think that's your russian nationalist russian patriot mindset the uh i think practically speaking i would rather we just get out i don't want u.s security guarantees for ukraine i don't want us to get dragged into something 10 years from now i have great respect for vance for trying to figure out a way to negotiate an outcome but i like

the second part of Vance's proposal too, which was, if you don't accept, we're out of here. Get out of here. We got a fig leaf to get out of here. Let's get out of there before we get blamed for the nightmare that is coming, that is inevitable and inescapable to Ukraine. And so that's, I think what you guys recommend at the beginning was the right strategy. I think it's still the right strategy. And I think it's probably the best interest of Russia is probably not to get dragged into something that's only going to lead this to, you know, Minsk three, and we're back here two years from now. Yeah, Iranian and Kido, this is a two-part question. Robert, the MAGA project is over. Barnes, can you tell us how Trump has good intentions, but he has had bad handlers, but that's not stopping the incoming blue tsunami in the midterms. He will be a lame duck president. He had 10 years to deliver for his base and good luck getting young right-wing voters who watched Candice Owens and Fuentes to vote for bans in 28. And why would they? The guy was yes man for teal and PayPal Mafia for years.

Two different components on that. In terms of Trump, it will always be interesting why Trump. If we looked at the first three months, he was in all of a sudden he was getting rid of USA for the first time ever. So it's like for those people that were like, oh, he was always a secret plant and a deep state guy, you know, for like the Whitney Webb's of the world. It's like, why do you get rid of USA? It had worked very effectively as a deep state operation for a long time.

Why do you let Doge do any of that? So there's, and why did they indict him four times, try to kill him twice and impeach him twice. The deep state has a weird way of showing its appreciation and trust of them. So I think that there's no question that Trump has not had the consistent ability to stand up to him, but nor has any president since President John Kennedy, to be honest, not even President Jimmy Carter could. The, as to Vance, there's the, all the problem is why do all the right people hate Vance? And it was if Vance is secretly working with Pallander and Peter Thiel, he's part of the deep state. Why did so many people in the deep state hate the guy?

Why are they terrified of him? Why do they despise him? And it's the same thing when people were trying to tell me Trump's really deep state. It's like Trump might not have the courage to take on the deep state. That's a separate question. But if he's really a deep state advocate, deep state has a really weird way of showing it. And so when you have to go through like 8D chess versions of how this planet person's really a plant, even though they're obviously kind of not a plant according to the people who are the true deep state advocates, then I'm skeptical of that perspective.

I happen to know Vance, know his history, no his biography, know the region of the country he came from. And it's far more consequential that he grew up working class in Appalachia than he worked for two years with Peter Thiel in forming his politics. That's my view. From Sparky Robert, shouldn't President Trump repurpose the infamous El Salvador prison from primarily housing illegal immigrants to primarily housing Kellogg, Graham, Wells, Ratcliffe, Patel, and Tal. I wouldn't mind it. You know, send Clapper down there, send Brennan down there.

Now, I think there will be ultimately indictments of Clapper and Brennan out of the Southern District of Florida. And nobody more deserving of criminal prosecution than John Brennan. Yeah. Also from Sparky, Robert, please get the word to President Trump to replace Scott Besant with Brown University's Mark Blythe. He knows how to resurrect an economy without subjecting regular people to crippling austerity. Key, there's, you know, I know people that are high up in Vescent staff that are good people

that also mean well that might be up for Treasury Secretary. The problem has long been that the president, for the last century has deferred to Wall Street to pick our own Secretary of Treasury. And we've just got to stop doing that. Pick somebody from Main Street, not Wall Street. And then we could have real financial freedom potentially in the country. From Jeffrey Summer, Robert, Tennessean here, love Chattanooga, will be married there in the spring. Your take on Buccahle and the homicide reduction.

I understand this is a result of collusion with Buckelai and gangs, e.g. Barry Bodies, not homicide. A follow up to that, Robert. from Jeffrey follow-up thoughts on Gryfter Buckelay, mass incarceration plus fake reduced homicide equals image of tough on crime, crush corruption, etc. Total farce, in my opinion. The, I mean, from everything I've seen, I mean, what's interesting about Buckele is that he started out a left populist, you know, has roots in, I think Lebanese immigrants, but when they went to El Salvador. And he kind of got radicalized by the process. And the first thing he did is take out the entire

judicial branch. And he managed to completely destroy the two-party system that had run El Salvador for a long time. So I see him as more of a Putin-like figure than a Malay-type figure. From Martin, Martin M.D., how did U.S. judges usurp power from juries? Are judges permitted to lobby elected legislators? They never changed the law. They just declared it themselves, much as they usurp the power to control the legal branch. So for example, it's on paper the licensure of a lawyer should have laws passed by the legislature enforced by the executive branch adjudicated by the judicial branch. But instead, it's the legislative, it's the judicial branch that writes the rules. It's the executive branch judicial branch that enforces the rules and the judicial branch that executes the

rules. So it's a sweet little gig they got going. So how do they usurp power from the actual jury pulls. They just declared it to themselves. I've been thinking about it, and I've decided I have this power. And then who's going to challenge it? It's like when you're trying to sue a judge for corruption, who do you go in front of? You go in front of the same judicial branch.

So they're very good at breaking through the separation of powers and irrigating power to themselves. The only thing that really limits them is they don't control the army and they don't control the power of the purse. Though they are busy trying to do that in the last six months, for alexander from geoffrey i tasted georgian wine it's delicious thank you that geoffrey from uh sparky king john's villainy is a historical fact we know this from his villainy even as prince john in roberthood ah it's very good thank you for that and from uh lessa henderson

Alessa Henderson, surely the pressures of the last 10 years has caused a Stockholm syndrome for President Trump. Is the true war between J.D. and Rubio, does Vance have a strong alliance? Vance's strong alliance is in the public, but he has a strong alliance outside. So he's got people like Driscoll in the Army, people like Gabbard at the DNI, people like Kennedy over at HHS. For example, Kennedy recently had a Maha alliance event. The main guest, J.D. Vance. So there's strong alliances there within the administration, but he's in the minority because the bureaucracy is so hostile to him in the State Department, Defense Department,

so on and Treasury Department, so on and so forth. But out there in the real world, he has the most support, like right now, there's a recent survey, the most well-like national politician in the country right now is Vice President J.D. Vance. He has a better net favorability rating than Donald Trump. So that gives you an idea. So the question is, can he survive Trump for the next three years, his president, keep him from making a major mistake, hopefully he makes some good decisions along the way. His effort to try to get peace in Ukraine is very good for Trump,

very good for America, very good for him. His ability to have the backup strategy being exiting the conflict is very good. The open question is, can he went, is what being reported NBC News and elsewhere, that there's a huge gap between Trump and Rubio is absolutely the case. Rubio pretends there isn't one, but there absolutely is one. Okay, with three, four more from the palenter. Can the negotiation strategy by Russia be seen to be similar to North Vietnam during the Paris peace talks, prolonged talks while making ground gains?

I think if Russia could avoid, and you guys could maybe comment on this as well, I think if Russia could avoid escalation from the U.S., they would be happy to have talks for the next 18 months while they just keep winning on the business. battlefield. Just to say a few things here, I think that if we're talking about this war and ending this war, I don't get the sense that the Russians want an enormous prolonged negotiation, that they would be interested in spinning it out in that sort of way. Because one of the purposes of a negotiation, the purpose, in fact, for the Russians, form from a negotiation is to come to some degree of understanding, long-term understanding with the United States on the security of Russia's Western borders.

And that's not going to be achieved by spinning out the negotiation indefinitely and creating worse relationship with the United States that would be the case if there were no negotiations at all. Remember that the Russians know they're going to win. They also are confident that they have seen off the pressure on the economic front. So why would they want to spin out negotiations? Why would they not just say, well, we're not interested in negotiations? We're just going to win the war and achieve a victory.

why would they not take that stance more straightforwardly than coming up with some kind of elaborate process to spin up the negotiations in order to achieve victory? The fact that the Russians are talking about negotiations at all, and there is support for that in Russia, it's not just Putin. It's clearly because they have made a tough-minded, very hard-headed, very unsentimental, practical calculation that if they can get a deal with the Americans that will stick, it is in their national interest. From Claudius, would it be best with the peace deal instead of surrender? It will maybe prevent Bandera, guerrillas and the West's continuous push at Roald. Russia, and the threat of Doge gave Trump bargaining power against the internal power structure. Perhaps he traded that leverage for something he thought he wanted. Well, I mean, I think he should have kept Doge going.

It was a major mistake to back off. My understanding is it was Treasury Secretary Bessent, who shut that down. And Bessent promised in exchange to deliver on Trump's tariff industrial policy, which mostly, in my view, Bessent has mishandled and mismanagan. and completely got wrong what the Chinese were going to do. Now, I think to Alexander's point into the chat question, it would be in Russia and U.S. best interest to have a meaningful piece, no doubt about that, that you could finally have a complete resolution of some European security on a go-forward basis,

the U.S. and Russia could have full reproachment, you could have nuclear arms control positions, you could work with Russia to solve any issues concerning Iran, for example, in North Korea because they have good relations with both. Russia also has a lot of rare earths to develop. in the Arctic and you've got the Arctic, you know, that's going to be a major shipping lane in the future. It makes absolute, I mean, U.S. and Russia, we're working together all the back at the time of the Revolutionary War. Our cultures are very culturally conservative heartland, you know, little, you know, some liberal professionals in the urban centers, but they aren't the,

the zeitgeist of the heartland of the culture. So a ton of reasons for U.S. and Russia to work together. All geopolitical realism screams for us to work together. You have two nations that can fuel themselves, two nations that can feed themselves, two nations that can defend themselves, that are continental-sized powers, that have they worked together, the Soros globalist dreams are over and finished. And that's probably why there has been more effort made to keep that natural alliance from coming about than any other. Can I just say about that? The natural alliance is not the one that people talk about Russia and Germany. That's never going to happen. A natural alliance, which has existed before, by the way, is one between Russia and the United States.

Or it is not an alliance, at least a friendship. The Russians supported American independence. They supported the Union during the Civil War. Relations between the United States and Russia in the 19th century were very good. And even during the Second World War, the Russians and the Americans got on a lot better and more easily with each other than the Russians got on with the British. So there is commonalities and understandings.

I'm not saying it will ever crystallize and gain solidity. But the Russians, who are very realistic people and who understand very much the problems that beset them on many sides, they've always shown an interest in coming to some kind of long-term understanding with the US. if it can ever happen. Many of them by now doubt that it will. But anyway, that's what I wanted to say. From Samuel, are the neocond and the deep state the same thing?

To agree. The deep state is just the institutional dual state that holds administrative and institutional power inside the national security apparatus at the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the NSA and the FBI and the Justice Department. That's their institutional official power. They're unofficial powers in the academy and the universities and the think tanks and the media hierarchies and the publishing houses and so forth. So the neocons represent an ideological wing with influence within the deep state, but the neoliberal also represent a wing. The biggest gap is the neoliberals are more concerned with Ukraine, the neoconservators are more obsessed with Israel, but otherwise there's not a big gap.

They both love foreign intervention. They both love globalism. They would just have slightly different variations as to what they would prioritize in that again. All right, let's do one more. The final question for today's live stream from locals, from boys, Mamaz. Question for all. What do you think of the pundits that say the Trump admin is playing 5D chess and Venezuela is part of that? Something about Venezuela being a giant money laundering machine for the global banking cartel and Trump and Bessent have this master plan to bring down the globalist elite. Yeah, I know. Our mutual friend, uh,

and disagreeing with lately Tom Longo. God bless him. You know, he was a great cigar smoker. Good guy, Tom. But no, I'm sorry. Marjorie Taylor Green is not secretly working for the city of London. You know, quit reading the new version of financial Qaeda. The, but the excuses they come up with Venezuela are impressive. So the narco thing wasn't working. So the next thing they came up with is they had Patrick Byrne running around saying,

oh, we've just found out Venezuela fixed the 2020 U.S. election. That that's where Dominion and Smartmatic, it was coming in there. working with China and the ballots were sneaking in and there were somehow connected to German servers at one point, but now it's all Venezuela. And this is Trump getting revenge for the 2020 election. This is just the deep state spinning out story after story after story to come up with a cover to go into Venezuela. It's not in U.S. interest. None of it is true. There's not even deep ties between Venezuela and China anyway. And Maduro said, fine, you want our rare earth, come on in. You want our oil? Come on in. Instead, because that's not what's really about. We want to we want to own

Venezuela, control ven as well, not just for its resources, but to dictate what goes into Cuba. But as you pointed out, Alexander, okay, let's say you cut off it as well in assets. How are you going to stop those Russian ships from coming in? I don't know what Rubio's second step plan is, but a lot of these people, they're like criminals, right? They always say criminals have low IQ. What they always tell people, it's not criminals have low IQ. It's caught, convicted, imprisoned criminals. They have low IQ because they're one-step thinkers.

They never think, they don't think, oh, I'm going to grab that purse. They don't think now, how do I get away with it? They just think, I'm going to grab that purse. That's the deep stake. They're like, I'm just going to grab Venezuela. Well, how are you going to keep it? They don't think through it long. Two quick questions, Robert.

What's going on with the USAID files? Anything going on with USAID? It was folded into the State Department, and since it got folded in the State Department, it's like everything's not clear what's happening because that's what happens when Rubio runs that show. And from John Winston, do you think J.D. Vance could find a way to thread the needle

by supporting all of Israel's objectives in the Middle East while strongly supporting Russia's position in Europe. I think he is trying to thread that needle. Remember, when he went to Israel, he did not go kiss the wall. He went to the Holy Sepulchurch, where he had the priest there. So that tells you where Vance is. Vance is branching his own course on geopolitical realism around the world. And that's why you will see escalating criticism of Vance.

All the anti-Tucker campaign is an anti-Vantz campaign in the state. guys. So expect to see more of that over the next three years. And Sparky says tell Putin to absorb all of Ukraine into Russia or else it will leave Ukraine for a Bay of Pig style invasion by the Ukrainian government in exile. I think if he had his brothers, he'd give Western Ukraine to the polls. That worked out so well for Poland last time. Well, can I just also quickly add to that? If all of those clever professional people in the State Department, the CIA, the Theriteef State in Europe, in MI6, if they were having. their way, that's exactly the outcome that we are going to get.

True. True. It's very possible. Anyway, any questions that we did not get to, we will answer them in a dedicated live stream, me and Alexander, but we got to a lot of questions today. Thank you, Robert, for answering the questions, and thank you for joining us on another epic live stream. Where can people follow your work? Yeah, for all the law and politics analysis, go to Viva barnslaw.com. There's actually a discount. You can get an annual subscription for hack, price. through the holidays.

So you just put in a discount code Christmas. Vibabarnslaw.orgos.com. That link is in the description box down below, and I will also have it as a pin in comment. Thank you to Robert Barnes. Thank you to everyone that joined us on Odyssey, on Rockfin, on Rumble, YouTube, and the durand.orgos.com.

And a big shout out to our awesome moderators. Thank you for helping us out in the live stream. Great Robert Barnes. Alexander McCuris, we are going to wrap this one up, and we will see everybody very soon. Take care. Thank you very much again, Robert. Oh, yeah, fantastic. I think we're still...