The Duran Podcast - NATO Summit Descends Into Total Farce. Trump Mocks Europe, Rutte Panic

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

NATO Summit Descends Into Total Farce. Trump Mocks Europe, Rutte Panic

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the NATO summit, which has now wrapped up from Ankara, Turkey. Your thoughts on the clown show. That was this NATO summit. I thought it was a complete cloud show. I thought there were a lot of big, big talk, a lot of big gestures made, not only with Project Ukraine, but also with Turkey and F-35s and sanctioned removal. And on Ukraine, there was talks about Ukraine getting a patriot license. Even Trump was mocking the whole thing. It was clear as day that Trump was mocking the whole issue of Ukraine getting a patriot

license. A little birdie told him, he said. The whole thing was just nonsense. Ruta was asked by a reporter if he has any self-respect because Trump was talking about Greenland and bashing Spain. and Enruta couldn't even answer that question. Anyway, the old thing was such a freaking clown show. Your thoughts?

I think you're absolutely right. You know, you took the words from me before I said them. This was a summit that really doesn't, it doesn't require analysis. It requires the skills of a comedian to describe it. I mean, you have comedic gifts, which I don't have. You're far better describing what to place there than I can. I mean, this was a total dissent into FAS. It was a total descent into the absurd.

Trump, obviously, I mean, he didn't basically even want to be there. He meant that pretty clear. He doesn't think much of these people. He, I think, I mean, he was talking about Ukraine, but his real mind was on Iran. I mean, that's the first thing to say. He was clearly very angry. He thinks that these Europeans are a bunch of useless non-entities. Where are they when you need them?

I mean, basically that, what he was saying? He had Zelensky popping up all over the place. He really didn't want to, I think, have very much with Zelensky. So he gives him this piece of paper, you know, these are the plans for the Patriot missile. I'll go ahead and build them. The United States can't build. The United States cannot make more than was it, 600, If they're missiles a year, Ukraine is going to stop producing them now.

I mean, people are being serious about this. I mean, this is so ridiculous. He actually said, I haven't told the defense companies yet about the license for Patriots, but I will. And so let's keep sitting next to the whole thing was such a joke. You know, the president of the United States is able to give away copyrights. Private coffee rights. It hasn't even talked about.

I mean, the whole thing was just, I mean, it was a total descent into farce. Now, I think we are, I mean, watching all of this play out in the way that we did. We are looking at an alliance, which is, I mean, it's disintegrating. And I think if you want to throw in a little bit, just a little bit of analysis.

The interesting thing about the dynamic of it was the US very angry, Trump very angry, with the Europeans. But the Europeans not getting the wider support across the United States that you might once have expected in the sense that when if we've been talking about this situation a year ago, you would have had people, you know, like Lindsay Graham, the Democrats, all. coming out, probably sending their own people to anchor a saying, you know, don't worry about this eccentric fool of a president that we have at the moment. The alliance is strong. We are all with you. You just don't get the sense that in the U.S. at the moment, they care so widely about NATO anymore in the sense that they did. Their focus is on Iran. Their longer term focus is on China.

What they want is the Europeans to look after all the problems in Europe by themselves and buy lots of American weapons and go on giving sending money back is a kind of tribute to the United States. This is not an alliance system anymore. I mean, it is an absolute vacillage system. what you've talked about many times, it is a pure vassalage system. I don't think anybody any longer seriously believes that the United States is going to rush to defend Europe, in the impossible event that the Russian tanks come rolling across the borders. I mean, that's all history now.

It's a pure extractive vassalage situation. The American take, the United States takes and it gives back nothing. It gives back overpriced weapons at very, very infrequent intervals, because, of course, it's going to want to keep most of its weapons itself. And that's all it is now. It's the fiction that we have an alliance here has gone. And if you want to see for yourself what a pure vassalage system it has become, Just listen and watch Mark Ruta's performance.

Even the European media are becoming embarrassed by it. But nobody, nobody can come up with an alternative approach towards the Americans than the one that Mark Ruta has. Mark Rute reminds me of a CEO of a company who knows his company's products are dying. and he just wants to jack up the prices. Yeah. As quickly as possible, as high as he can. Let's just make as much money as we can from this soon-to-be defunct widget. And let's do it quickly.

3%, 4%, 5%, just jack up the prices. Yeah. And let's just squeeze the margins and then the profits as much as we can before we go bust. That is Mark Harouta. Yes. That's him. The whole thing is all about it. The whole thing's about money.

Just squeezing out as much money as we can. Exactly. Exactly. As I said, it's colonial. It's practically colonial now. Extract as much money as you can, basically from European taxpayers, European companies,

European businesses, European individuals, some of it goes to the US. UK, Canada, Europe, all of them. The money transfers to the US to the big oligarchies in the US. And along the way, some of it stays

with some of the people who collect it. So if you know about the Roman Empire, I mean, that was how it worked. There were all sorts of people who were sent by Rome to the pro. provinces to collect the money for the central government in Rome. And there were various tax collectors. And it was always understood that the function of the tax collectors and officials who were collecting all this money was to make themselves rich as well. And that was how the

system, that was how the Roman system functioned. And this is how the current American system is functioning. As I said, this is not an alliance anymore. Once upon a time, NATO actually was an alliance. I mean, there were armies, there were European armies, there were European economies, there were European statesmen, there were people like Thatcher and De Gaulle and Churchill and Schmidt and Brandt and people of that kind. And when they all used to meet, well, obviously the President of the United States was far in a way the most powerful. But he was first amongst, you could almost say equals. It was a joint enterprise.

It is not that anymore. It's basically an imperial, colonial, vassalage system, pure and simple. There is nothing more to it any longer. And the only thing that holds it together is the fact that the people who are involved in operating it, all becoming very rich on the back of it. Yeah, exactly. And you have people like Zelensky and Al Jolani hanging around the NATO meeting, just looking to collect whatever scraps they can from the table of the United States.

Exactly. Right? You have guys like, like what's his name, Rama in Albania, walking around with white tennis shoes. You have this selfie scandal between Maloney and Trump. I mean, the whole thing's a freaking joke. You have the Netherlands saying that they have no patriots. They have no more weapons to give to Ukraine. That was the Netherlands.

You have Bulgaria saying we're tapped out as well. You basically have the Czech Republic saying the same thing. You have Magyar of Hungary wanting to shake Trump's hand. Trump doesn't want to deal with Magyar because he was buddies with Orban. But then Hungary comes out and says, we don't have any weapons to give to Ukraine. you have this Polish-Ukraine fight that is unfolding as well because Zeletsky wants to honor the Nazis. I mean, the whole thing is a complete shit show. Absolutely.

Can I just say all these people who are coming along saying that they've got no weapons to give? All this in the middle of a great rearmament drive that has not been underway for two years, two years, and they still have nothing. I mean, they've got nothing. They've got no air defense missiles to give because they've run down their own. stockpiles. Zelensky says that they should give him everything they've got left. They should all be shipped off to Ukraine. Europe is not re-arming.

Europe is disarming. But what it is doing is it is spending an awful lot more. It's spending an awful lot more. But where that is going is in the direction that you've been saying in programs, after a program on this channel, on your channel. It's a grift. That is all it is. The fact that these people have no weapons to give tells you, proves.

You didn't believe it until now that what Alex Christopher who has been saying for, well, ever since we started that Iran, that this is a grift, this is a grift. The fear that I have, and then I want to get to Turkey, because I think there's some analysis with turkey that we can provide. with the F-35s and the sanctions relief. But I just want to make one point, which is that it's a grift, but the fear that I have, and I think everyone has, I think you have that fear as well, is that the European leaders, the collective West leaders, and even the neocons, they're still hanging around, all of these neocons and these Lindsay Grams, is that they will push Europe into some sort of

a conflict, even though Europe is completely unprepared for a conflict. By 2030, they're saying, and they continue to say this, we're going to war. The fear is that they may actually do it. Yes. And some of them are deluded enough to believe that they can win the war. And they still believe their own narrative about rearmament. And they still believe their own narrative that Ukraine is the initiative. You see, this is the other problem.

Because they've pushed so hard this initiative about Ukraine doing well on the battlefields, they believe again that Russia is winning. So all you have to do is kick on the door and the entire rotten structure will come tumbling down. I am quoting the words here of a German leader of times past who made a decision to attack Russia with disastrous outcomes. But I think that there are many, many people in Europe who think in exactly that way. So they think that this is something that they can do and that there's no. no real risk or danger to doing it. And of course, from their point of view,

talking this narrative anyway, because people always always want to believe that which is individually beneficial for them. So they want to keep spending high on weapons because, of course, the spending comes to them. So they want to keep the narrative of, Russia being aggressive and we must fight it. And they also want to believe that Russia is weak

because that serves their own geopolitical goals. So they may at some level, like Kayakales has shown, be aware that rearmament isn't working exactly as they assume. But they still think that war with Russia will be easy because we're the West, we're good, we're strong, the Russians are weak, incompetent, corrupt, so we will quickly win. And unfortunately, those ideas, those very dangerous ideas are out there. They're being promoted every single day.

They continue to gain traction. And of course, there's a real risk that some people will take us exactly to that place, which would be a disaster for Europe and the world. Well, Stubb, in an interview with the Financial Times before the NATO meeting, said that the strikes will, the point of the strikes is that, or they're hoping, people will rise up in Russia and remove Putin. That's pretty much what he said. And Rubio, not to put it all on the Europeans during the NATO summit and Trump agreed with

him, Rubio said, yeah, we're going to help Ukraine with long-range strikes into Russia because this will force, this will create so much damage and pressure on the Kremlin that it will force them to the negotiating table and Trump. Trump was like, yeah, that's a great idea. So, I mean, even have got, that's the Secretary of State. And he was serious. I mean, he wasn't joking around when he was putting that out there. He actually believed in this.

So it's not only the Europeans that are delusional. Marco Rubio is delusional. And the CIA, I think, is exactly the same because the CIA, remember, were the same people who were predicting that, you know, the event of sanctions, the Russian economy would collapse. And of course, they all want to believe in these things. So absolutely, there is this dangerous, this extraordinary illusion there. It's very like the illusion that we had about Iran before the 28th of February only on a much, much more dangerous scale.

I mean, there was all the narratives about Iran being weak, about the political system in Iran being broken, about the economy in Iran being broken, about Iran having no air defrable. offenses about Iranian missiles having been massively depleted. And the idea was, again, kick on the door, the whole thing will come tumbling down. They did kick on the door with Iran and they stubbed their toes. That's basically the story of the Iranian conflict. With Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, it is far more dangerous. But that is what they think. And the other thing to say, and this goes back. to the farcical, comedic quality of this meeting. You see all of these people there. Are they the sort of people who you would expect to judge risk rationally to make tough-minded calculations

about the future of Europe? If you put clowns in charge, what do you expect? I mean, Clowns, I mean, genuine clowns, are not going to be able to make decisions in a tough-minded, realistic and serious way. And of course, you have the arts clown, who is, of course, Zelensky himself, who was an actual comedian. He is there, and amongst the Europeans, he continues to be the hero of the arm. Yeah. Trump wants to put embargoes on Spain.

Anyway. Anyway, real quick. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, comment on that and also comment on Turkey because Trump made all these promises, but I didn't find Trump's promise is very convincing. I think he's going to run into a lot of resistance when he, if, if he goes back to the United States and says sanctions removed on Turkey F-35 program back on. This is very interesting because I, I, I, Trump.

said all of these things to Erdogan. He said, you know, you're going to get, you're going to be back in the F-35 program. I'm going to lift all these sanctions. We're going to make you the big ally of the future. And of course, this all links in very much to U.S. policies in the Southern Caucasus. I mean, this is an anti-Russian thing. I mean, just too bad. Just people should understand that.

Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Trump corridor. all of this, re-entry into Central Asia. There have always been these ideas circulating in the United States amongst a certain group of people. Trump is pinging them all up, and I've no doubt that this is the case, telling Erdogan, let's do it, let's all work together, let's dis the Russians, let's dis the Iranians together, I'll give you F-35s, I'll lift all the sanctions on you, we can work together. You've sorted Syria for us. Jolani is your person.

We know it. So, you know, let's let's, let's do it all together and sort it out. Except again, I don't think it's going to work. And the reason is, firstly, there is enormous opposition. The Israelis have come out straightforwardly and they've said, we do not want Turkey to have F-35s. It will change the military balance. It will mean that Israel does not have the undefed,

disputed, unchallenged air superiority over the Middle East that it has had up to this time. Beyond that, I think that some people in Israel worry that if this relationship between the United States and Turkey were to develop in the way that Trump is talking about, there might come a point where Turkey takes over as the U.S. is most important Middle East ally. After it's a much bigger country than Israel, it has far greater depth of resources than Israel. It has connections with many of the Sunni populations of the Middle East.

It's, in some respects, a more natural ally. But you're absolutely right. The trouble with the reason it won't work, firstly, as I said, the Israelis will oppose it and their friends in Washington will oppose it. And lastly, the neocons do not trust Erdogan. They understand perfectly well that what will happen if you start to get into an alliance,

a close alliance with Erdogan, is that he will use you, but he will never be fully loyal to you. He will always have a tendency to pursue his own. strategies and he will always also follow certain Turkish priorities. For example, with the Kurds, who some people in Washington and of course in Israel still tend to see as important regional allies. And of course the other thing is that whilst Turkey does have contacts and supports

with many of the Sunnis in the Middle East. Some of the major Sunni states of the Middle East, notably Saudi Arabia, don't like or trust Erdogan and have a history of being very mistrustful of Turkey. So in the end, I don't think it's going to jail. I think there's going to be too much in opposition within Washington to seeing this thing work.

But it's certainly something to keep an eye on, and it's certainly something which I think Erdogan would want to work with, at least with the short term. Now, this is your, you know, you're closer to the region than me. If there's anything you want to add or want to challenge, please do. No, I just, I agree with what you're saying. I think there's a more, a closer type of relationship between Israel and Turkey and Azerbaijan. I mean, I think there's definitely, especially with regards to Syria, there was definitely a cooperation between Israel and Turkey with carving up Syria.

I just don't know if they still have that closeness and that cooperation, if it still exists. And Azerbaijan is kind of a link between Israel and Turkey as well. Azerbaijan is very close with Israel. Azerbaijan is a client state of Turkey. That's absolutely correct. But the thing to say about this relationship is that it's a relationship which the Israelis are comfortable with, provides.

Why did they are the strongest of the three parties? If there's any risk that in time Turkey might become stronger than Israel itself is, that is not something that the Israelis want to see. So that's the ultimate source of tension. It's also worth mentioning just very, very quickly to wrap up the video that Greece is calculating on its alliance with Israel as a bulwark against Turkey. I think Greece is completely misreading and miscalculating the situation, as they usually do. Yes, unfortunately. And the price of Greek miscalculations is always paid by Cyprus, as my aunt used to tell me, many times, in fact, extending all the way back to the 1970s and even 1960s.

So she always felt very, very badly about Greek policy. And I think I've said this to you in programs that we've done. She thinks that Greek decisions were instrumental in creating the crisis in 1974, which led to the Turkish invasion. and she always found it very difficult within Greece to get any part of the political system here to understand that because every part of the political system, including people who purportedly were on the left,

always in the end, wanted to keep Greece aligned with the United States and with Europe, which meant that it was impossible, ultimately to develop a kind of policy towards Turkey, which served Greek and Cypriot interests, just to say. Yeah, all right. We'll end the video there, the durand.orgas.com. We're on X-Ran rumble.

We're on telegram. Go to Durandshop, pick up some merch. And you can also find us on Substack as well. Those links in the description box down below. Take care.