The Duran Podcast - Orban, project Ukraine and a return to diplomacy

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Orban, project Ukraine and a return to diplomacy

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening with Trump and Project Ukraine. And over the past couple of days, we had Trump in Paris meeting with Zelensky and Macron for about 35 minutes. We then had Orban traveling to the United States to meet with Trump, Musk, and Waltz. Maybe Kellogg was there. We don't know, but we have photos of Waltz. Musk and Trump meeting with Orban. And then the next day, we have a call from Orban to Putin, which lasted for an hour. And it is becoming very clear.

We also have a lot of Trump statements as well. He's making a lot of statements now about winding down the conflict in Ukraine and how there must be a ceasefire. So it is becoming very clear that the Trump administration, the incoming administration is looking to end the conflict in Ukraine or at a minimum is looking to remove the United States from the conflict in Ukraine. And it is also very clear, as we said in many videos in the past, that Orban is going to be one of the people that Trump is going to work with in order to try and get a ceasefire in Ukraine or try to get the U.S. involvement in Ukraine.

out of the picture. And it's a good pick. I mean, Orban is, I think, the right guy to work with when it comes to Project Ukraine. Absolutely. It is astonishing, by the way, how there's been a complete media blackout on these events because they are actually important and very, very consequential. Because for the first time since April 2022, we've been.

We have an actual negotiation going on aimed to at least de-escalate, if not end the wall. And for the first time since February 2022, we have proper contacts between the Americans and the Russians about it, because this is what's going on here. Now obviously it's the incoming administration. Trump isn't yet president. But we have suddenly, over the course of the last couple of days, seen a return to diplomacy. And as you absolutely rightly said, this follows directly from Trump's visit to Paris. Notice Biden didn't go to Paris.

Trump did. He attracted all the attention. All the people were around him, all of this. He was the person who was obviously the man of the hour. He met Zelensky, as you said, the meetings did not go well. He met Macron. I don't get the impression that the meetings there went on especially well either. Trump, as we discussed in previous programs,

made absolutely clear that he wants the wall, or at least America's involvement in the war to end. And he goes back to the United States and Orban comes and visit him and meets him in Mar-a-Lago. Elon Musk, as you rightly say, is there. And Elon Musk, as we all know, has been a consistent critic of the wall and of America's role in it. Mike Walsh is also there, and he's Trump's national security advisor. We went to Hungary, you know, two weeks, two plus weeks ago. We were there. We met various officials.

We met people from the foreign ministry. They made it absolutely clear that they thought that the war was a complete disaster, that the policy that had led to the war on the Western side had been disastrously mistaken. They wanted the war to end, that they thought it was in Europe's interest for the war to end. That is fully consistent with what Orban has been saying, basically since the war started. And we can be confident, therefore, that Orban and Trump discussed together some kind of negotiation strategy to try to do that, to try to bring the war to a conclusion. So, Orban then returns to Budapest.

He's met with Trump, Musk and Waltz. He telephones Putin and he speaks to Putin for a whole hour. And the Russians provide a readout. And it is a very, very warm readout, if I can say so. I mean, the Trump, the Russians clearly take Orban very, very seriously. Orban is obviously informing Putin of the things that he has heard from the Americans, from Trump, Musk and Walls. Putin is not compromising in any way.

I mean, if you look at the Russian readout, that is absolutely clear. He restates his own position. His terms, which were the ones that he set out in June. But it is quite clear that Putin is ready to speak to the Americans, to enter into some kind of discussions with them about how to wind down the war, how to move away from this situation of crisis between the United States and Russia, how to achieve some kind of de-escalation between these two countries. and he clearly is signaling to Orban that, as the Russian readout says, various countries should work together to develop a joint approach to find a way through. And those countries are obviously Russia, America, and by the way, and incidentally Hungary. so that we can see that

diplomacy is at last starting to happen and note the reaction Zelensky is furious he's outraged because Orban proposed a Christmas ceasefire this is just a temporary ceasefire for Christmas with a

large-scale exchange of prisoners he is absolutely furious about this he criticizes Orban to this. He's again saying that Orban is going completely out of line, that he's got no right to negotiate basically on Ukraine's behalf, that Ukraine is not interested in ceasefires at the moment. He's again becoming increasingly hardline and vocal and dogmatic in his statements. And I get to suggest that we have clear evidence that someone else does absolutely furious about what is going on. And that is Biden and his team. Because even as these negotiations

are underway, we see all kinds of steps taken by the administration, the current administration, which is still the US government, to escalate. So firstly, we have the attack and strike on on Russian territory, breaching again a Russian red line. Then we have articles appearing in Bloomberg, about which, by the way, I have no doubt that they are pushed by the administration itself, that the administration is now looking to impose further sanctions on Russia's oil exports. and to sanction its so-called shadow fleet of tankers and all of this. And we have authorization of a $20 billion loan to Ukraine by the United States. It's not been approved by Congress.

There's been no agreement from Congress for a further appropriation. Remember, there was talk a couple of weeks ago that the Biden administration, had taken soundings in Congress about getting Congress to make another $24 billion appropriation. Mike Johnson said, no, it doesn't look as if there's any desire to do, move forward with that by the Republicans in the House. So that's been dropped. Instead, we get a $20 billion loan. I think any loan like that by the United States ought to have been approved by Congress. But never mind, You don't worry about those kind of things. You give the loan and you pretend that it's going to be paid for out of the interest from the

Russian assets, except, as you've discussed, there isn't enough interest to cover the loan. Not the $20 billion, not the $50 billion that other people are talking about, which the European Union is supposed to chip into. There is no way that the interest is going to be enough to cover it. So, nonetheless, they go ahead with that. They have a whole little ceremony, apparently, in the Treasury. Janet Yellen has her laptop there. The various officials of the Treasury Department are called in.

We're getting all of this in the New York Times. They all fiddle away and she signs off and off the loan goes. Except, of course, it seems that the loan has been approved, but there hasn't yet been any money sent to Ukraine. But again, it's clearly aggressive. escalatory move. It's handling or mishandling, if you like, Russian money because the interest is Russian money. It's definitely the sort of thing that is intended to provoke the Russians. And of course, even as that's happening, you have this drumbeat, the stories, Kayakales and all

of the others, all saying that, you know, actually we should confiscate the Russian assets. The pros and Russian assets after all. And again, I've no doubt that, you know, all kinds of people in Washington, but putting people like Cayocales up to that. So there we go. So you could see that there is negotiations finally taking place, but the Ukrainians are very unhappy. The Europeans are very unhappy.

And the old man in the White House, as I called him, and he's team. they're not only unhappy as well. They're doing everything they possibly can to torpedo this process before he gets moving. Yeah, exactly. They're doing their very best to make sure that Trump has a difficult time negotiating with Putin. And Arban has difficult time negotiating with Putin. We also have the 15th sanctions package, which has been approved by the EU,

which does go after the shadow fleet of Russia. the oil and the shadow fleet of Russia. The interesting part to me about these sanctions, the 15th sanctions package from the EU and the sanctions that the Biden White House is about to impose on Russian oil is that this is going to hurt us, hurt everyone, all of us, me, you, the people that are watching this video because it's just going to cause prices to go up. It's going to cause inflation. The oil is going to get delivered. Never in my life have I seen a a country or an entity say, I've got all this oil. What am I going to do with it?

Right? I mean, the oil is going to get sold. It's going to go somewhere. And they're going to find a way. Russia, maybe it's going to take some time. I'm sure Russia's already going to plant this out as well. But I mean, they're meeting with India. They're meeting with China, medevs in China.

So I'm sure they're discussing this. And they probably have a plan as to how they're going to deal with the EU and the US sanctions on Russia and oil in the shadow. fleet. But at the end of the day, it's going to cause disruptions. It's going to cause inflation and prices to go up. Now, in your video update, you made the point that the Biden White House doesn't care anymore. Maybe during the election, they cared if prices were going to go up. And that's why they were very careful not to sanction gas-prong bank and not to go after the Russian oil. But now that the election is over and Trump has won, they said, okay, let's sanction.

Let's go sanctions crazy and make it very difficult for for Trump to deal with all these things, not only to deal with Putin, but he's going to also have to deal with inflation and a price increase. But the interesting part is that most likely the Biden White House and the mainstream media is going to position these moves from Biden as a way to help Trump because it gives the Trump White House leverage over Putin, these sanctions, they disrupt Putin's war machine. And so it's going to be difficult for Trump to walk these sanctions back, because I imagine if he walks these sanctions back, which are at the end of the day causing inflation and causing prices to increase for everyday Americans, for everyday citizens, then he's going to then be labeled as Putin's stooge. So I mean,

they're trying to box Trump in. Yes. I wonder if you realize. is this? I'm sure he does. And they're doing something else, by the way, which is very obvious if you go to the economists and the Financial Times, but also other places. They're wheeling out Mitch McConnell. They're getting Mitch McConnell to make speeches about how important it is that America stands strong. McConnell is completely misrepresenting Ronald Reagan's legacy. By the way, he makes out that Reagan was an absolutely uncompromising cold warrior, which, as we know, No, he wasn't. But anyway, so they're doing all of that.

So they're basically trying to create the narrative that if Trump, you know, rose back on all of this as president, which he's fully entitled to do by the way, then you can imagine a media storm and people in the Senate, McConnell. And I don't know whether Romney is still in the Senate. But anyway, people like that will all come out and they'll say it's another proof that Trump is an isolationist, that he's not really interested in protecting the West, that he's engaging in appeasement of the Russian dictator, that he has some kind of connections to the Russians, all of those things. Now, I'm going to say what I think. I think Trump should ignore all of that. What we've seen as a result of the election is that the American people, who voted for him. And by the way, this also, we're now starting to see from many of the opinion polls, includes some people who didn't vote for him. The American people do not want this involvement by the

United States in the Ukraine war to continue. They've heard this story about Trump being in some way, some kind of involved with Putin in some fashion. They've been hearing it now for eight years, They no longer believe it. It's an old story. They're bored by it. They've never really taken it hugely seriously. And now they consider it an absurd thing. The one thing that the election showed is that the American people do care about is

living standards, inflation and high prices. Inflation is rising in the United States. The official figures, which probably understate the true level, show that inflation in the United States is now running at 2.7 percent, and it seems to be on an upward curve. I think that Trump needs to take steps to bring inflation down. That means that he has to end the confusion in the global energy markets. That absolutely means that he can't allow more sanctions that are going to make the cost of energy, including ultimately the cost of energy in the United States higher. So I think he should pay no attention to any of this.

Maybe all he needs to do rather than simply rescind the new sanctions package on Russian oil exports, which is bound to come by the way. I am sure that at some point over the next 40 days, the Biden administration is going to announce it. I mean, I'm no doubt about that at all. Maybe the best tactic he can follow is simply ignore it and refuse to enforce it. He's apparently filling up the Treasury Department, in fact, all of the various departments with all sorts of people who are more loyal to himself. It's been pointed out to me that even if there are question marks over some of the people who are being selected for the very top jobs, you know, Secretary of State and National

Security Advisor and all of that. If you look just below and you start looking at the middle level appointments, these are much more, these are much more America firsters, MAGA types, people who absolutely do take seriously the things that Trump has been saying. I'm not seeing the other step, by the way, but these people apparently definitely do. They're the people who are going to be day-to-day operational control of the departments, and they will be the people who will be in day-to-day operational control of the departments and the Treasury who will enforce the sanctions. So that may be a way out. I think the neater, simpler, cleaner, stronger thing would be simply to reverse this. But, you know, that's up to Trump.

Yeah, you're going to get all the Russia gate stuff. So maybe I think, yeah, probably the best course of action would be, at least in the short term. It would just be to ignore the sanctions on the Russian shadow fleet and all of that stuff. Yeah, but I mean, my final point is that when Biden makes these moves, I mean, the EU has already done it. So the EU has already gone after the Russian oil and Biden's going to do it. When these moves are made, people should not have any doubt about it. the cause of the next round of inflation is due to Biden and the European Union going after Russian oil.

Plain and simple. So when your prices go up, you can blame Biden and Ursula for that. Absolutely. That's exactly right. And what makes even more ridiculous, it's all been done in pursuit of a war that is already lost. In order, it's already lost. I mean, you know, we're not achieving anything practical.

by doing this. It's not as you correctly say, going to do, it'll just some limited. It will create some problems for the Russians in the short term, but they will absorb it. I mean, they will find ways around.

They always have done. And with every workaround that they come up with, it becomes easier to create the next one because they've got the contacts, they know who to talk to in Beijing and Delaware. and all of that, they've got the people on the ground who know how to do these things. As I said, it becomes easier for them, and the time to adapt to these things becomes shorter.

And that's putting aside, you know, the digital currencies and all of that in the pipeline, which will probably make all of these things meaningless when they're put in place, year time, two years, whenever. So anyway, the Russians, it will be a problem for them. But it'll be a significant problem for us. Energy costs in Europe are rising anyway. The winter is cold. There isn't enough gas.

Although the problems that were, we were told that been solved, have not been solved. So along comes Biden, despite Trump, because there's a big element of that there, to cause trouble for him, to kill. keep Project Ukraine, his beloved Project Ukraine going for as long as he can. Along comes Biden and he does this thing. Ossila goes along with it. In fact, is enthusiastically supportive of it. Let's be clear about this. It's the same self-destructive, nihilistic, reckless, self-obsessed, narcissistic policy,

which shows no concern for the people. people, the American people and the European people, who these politicians are supposed to really exercise power on behalf of. Remember what Annalina Bebock said all those years ago. So, I mean, that is all it is. You know, light the fires, hope that Trump gets scorched by the fires, the reality is that it's they who are lighting. Yeah, sore losers. Biden and Earth's all losers. What's a final question?

What's a shadow fleet? Well, what is a shadow? That word a lot. It sounds very sinister, doesn't it? It sounds like something out of the Pirates of the Caribbean or something, the shadow fleet. Absolutely. Absolutely. Exactly.

These are just, as far as I can tell, these are oil tankers that are not insured in London. That's all there is to it. They are obviously licensed in various places of the world. But the whole point about, if you remember, the original oil price gap was that it was going to be enforced because the London insurance market would refuse insurance to any oil tanker that was carrying oil, Russian oil, at a price that wasn't, you know, that was higher than the, than the, than the, you know, cap. Yeah, like $62 or $64.60. Exactly. The point was, as we said at the time, that this is a completely outdated understanding of the way the world works in the 60s, London, was the only place you could insured ships. It's not true like that anymore. So they're not insured in London. They're insured in, well, I believe in all kinds of places. The Russians ultimate.

backstop it. But there's nothing illegal or shady about the way this is being done. It's just not being done in London. That's all. I love the way they use words. Yeah, I know. Absolutely. Very cinematic, very manipulative and cinematic. Exactly. As you said, as he said, pirates of the Caribbean, you know. Yeah. Like these ships don't exist, right? These are real ships. These are shadow. Shadows The Shaddaish ships. Carrying, carrying ghost of Kiev oil shipments. Anyway, the durand.locals.com.

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