The Duran Podcast - Q & A: Regime change escalator

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Q & A: Regime change escalator

All right, Alexander, let's answer the questions from the live stream with Robert Barnes. And let's start things off with Nikos, who has a four-part question. My friends in Iran told me that the people are okay with their religion, but they think religious authority in the 21st century is counterproductive. They want the supreme leader to have a decorative role like the king in Britain and the president to have the power. Peseshkian was elected for that. He was popular and he was elected for that transition, which I believe he could have done in peace at times. However, he is completely out of his depth. He is blamed for the economic failure. My greatest fear now is that the U.S.

has bought officials like they did in Venezuela and then regime change. Well, I think these are very entirely valid points. I mean, I'm not going to discuss the internal conversation that is taking place in Iran. I am sure that there are people in Iran, like your friends, who think exactly that way. And I suspect the constituency of people who think in that way is growing. I mean, but it is not for us outsiders to try to shape the future of Iran. This is an internal conversation. and the Iranians themselves will know left to themselves, I'm confident, can find their way. I have nothing to add to your points about Pesishkan. I suspect that you're absolutely right.

I definitely think he's way out of his death here. As with the US trying to bribe officials, I am sure that is taking place, exactly, as you say, all I would say at the moment is that so far it hasn't worked. I say so far, because not a single Iranian official has defected, not a single Iranian official has gone on over to the other side. We've not seen any sign of disloyalty or fracture on the part of the security forces. And that is important. And I suspect that given the kind of system of government that there is in Iran, and given the fact that it's a fairly sophisticated place, I suspect that for the moment at least, the security services will remain solid.

From Agu, there's no bailing out of Trump. His own words and actions condemn him of theft and kidnapping. Venezuela, theft, Greenland, attempting murder Putin, piracy, oil tankers, adding genocide, Gaza, Vance is no better. You know, what I'm going to say about it is simply this. Given a choice between a straightforwardly bad man who is running foreign policy in the United States, but he's in full control of the government and knows what he's doing and knows when to stop. And the situation which Robert outlined in his program, in the program we did, the

live stream, of a weak man easily manipulated, who doesn't really have full control, who gets incredibly angry when people tell him things he doesn't want to hear, and who is pushed to take the most extreme and violent steps. Well, I'm going to say it. I think the second is more dangerous in the end because a person like that who doesn't exercise proper control doesn't know when to stop. So assuming that the picture that Robert Burns gave us is true, and I'm no reason to doubt it, remember, he is there. Well, that is a time. terrible picture. It's about as bad as it gets from my point of view. And I think I know what I say. Haroku, thank you for that. Super Chat. From Nikos, a four-part question. I want to talk about Russia and

President Putin after the Marinera seizure. X and Telegram were furious with him, including supporters like Lord Bebo. People were saying that Stalin would have reacted 10 times over. I to look at the sea wars objectively and factually as history repeats itself. In regards to Stalin, he let multiple Soviet cargo ships be seized and one to be sunk by the Western countries in the 30s, trying to avoid escalation in the present. For every tanker, Ukraine is damaged. Two are being blown up by Russia. The ships seized by France, Sweden and Estonia were all returned. Absolutely. And I'm glad you've made that point because you're completely correct. I mean, there were many cases when Stalin did sit back.

and have tankers and ships seized. And I would add, by the way, and that people completely overlook this, that after the Second World War, on two major occasions, when there was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, Stalin backed down over Azerbaijan,

when he withdrew Soviet troops from Azerbaijan, after the Americans demanded that he do so. And, of course, he backed down during the Berlin blockade in 1948. People are not, I think, aware of this history. Now, on the Marinera affair, yes, it is absolutely true that there has been major criticism of Putin by all sorts of people, including people on the Russian side of things.

But I just don't think that they are fully informed about what actually happened, which is strange, because even someone like Medvedev has now come out and said what happened. Basically, what you had there was an old empty tanker owned by an oligarch or a businessman. Let's call him a businessman in Crimea. The tanker was flying a Guyanese flag, which apparently had no right to because it hadn't registered on the Guyana register. The US decided to arrest it. after the warrant for its arrest was issued, the ship owner rushed to change its registration.

He got the crew to paint the Russian flag on the side, and he then tried to register it hastily in Sochi. This is all happening to repeat again after the warrant for the arrest was issued. then he set the tanker sailing towards Murmansk a huge distance. The Russians did act to try to protect the tanker. They told the Americans to back off. The Americans didn't back off, and there was no chance that they would. The Russians did send warships to try to escort the tanker. The warships didn't arrive, this is documented.

And, of course, before the warships arrived, the Americans with the help of the British, seized the tanker. They then released the two Russian crewmen who were on board. I don't see this as a sign of the Russians failing to protect their flag. I think they went way out on, you know, way of way further than they needed to do precisely in order to protect their flag and to send a message to the US. So that's my understanding of what happened. It's the understanding of other people, too. So, you know, I think this narrative that people have constructed around this incident, including in Russia itself, is wrong.

From Agu, it is known that the CIA financed, armed and trained terrorists, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Ukraine, neo-Naziis, this clearly backfired on 9-11.1. Why keep doing it? Do they think they can control them? Are they so afraid of not having a future enemy to fight, or is there another reason? Well, good question. I mean, you know, why do they do it? They've been doing it compulsively for a long, long time throughout many conflicts.

I think that they do this because, firstly, the people that they use are people who they assume are reliable because of their ideological hostility. and they imagine that, you know, they can use these proxies and they themselves can stay out of trouble. I think this is a huge mistake. I think these people are incredibly dangerous. And I think that trying to use proxies in that way guarantees failure in the end. From Nicos, a follow-up to his previous question, his fierce comments. These nations are weak. The U.S. is different.

They seized three ships, one of them. The Sofia is a Russian ship ensured by China and China failed to protect it. This is Trump's strategy. He realized that making leaders look weak, destroys their legacy and trust with their people. He did the same to Kim Jong-un. No one cared when Biden called Putin a dictator, remember? So my first question is, has Trump destroyed Putin and Zee's legacy and people's trust? Now that we see history repeat itself, because eventually Stalin was pushed enough to fight World War II.

now President Trump is being pushed to fight World War III. Russia and China need to stop staying idle. China should stop doing exercises in Taiwan for the 100th time, do exercises in the Baltics as a message. Russia should ask China to sell warships to replace the 11 lost in the Black Sea, and both countries need to stop selling resources that make drones. What terrifies me is this march towards World War III, which is inevitable. Alexander, I'm sorry, but I will say it. I miss Obama. He wouldn't go this far.

Well, perhaps you wouldn't. But I mean, let's unpack because there's a lot of comments, as always with you and Nikos in what you say. First of all, about tankers in the Caribbean. You're completely correct in one important respect, that these tankers that we've seen being seized in the Caribbean have very little actual direct connection to Russia. They are much more connected to China. in the sense that what was happening was that Venezuela was shipping oil to customers in China and India. Not a huge amount of oil, but some.

And some of these tankers were clearly Chinese owned. And by the way, the oil that there was in some of these tankers was oil that the Chinese had presumably bought and paid for, so it is Chinese oil. Now, China has shown, and it showed very clearly over the course of 2025, that in cases of a major economic conflict between itself and the United States, it is fully capable of pushing back, and it pushed back very, very strongly. We had the Chinese basically cutting off exports to the United States of rare earths,

and by the way of other technologies, the United States, the United States. United States had to back down. There was a humiliating meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea at the end of last year, humiliating for Trump, that is to say, and the United States had to retreat. So I don't think that China is unable to defend its interests. I mean, it did the same over the nextpedia business in the Netherlands. It stopped exporting chips. And by the way, I understand that a lot of the chips are still not being exported. And this is causing a significant problem for the European industries. What does need to be said is that in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean, because of the geography, the United States,

axiomatically is going to be militarily dominant. If China were to deploy warships, and China has a big name, but if it were to deploy warships to the Caribbean, given the balance of military force between the United States and China, however many ships, war ships China sent to the Gulf of Mexico and to the Caribbean, it would still be outmatched by the United States. So it is not militarily in China's interests to try to protect tankers there. And besides, given the speed of events in Venezuela and over the course of the Venezuelan conflict,

the Chinese had no shifts in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico, in which they could use to try to protect tankers there. So what you are saying about China protecting these ships in the Caribbean was at that time impossible. Now, it is not widely known that China has recently been seizing ships in the South China Sea, which had been trading with Taiwan, and which may have a connection to the United States.

One ship, one merchant ship that the Chinese did seize was a ship which they claim, and we only have the Chinese account of this, was actually trading in illicit weapons to Taiwan, and they're claiming that there were high mass mass mass mass on this ship. This happened just a few weeks ago, about two or three weeks ago. It wasn't widely reported, except within China itself, but it did take place. I think saying that these events are going to take us directly to World War III is a huge stretch. I think what happened in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico is a kind of policing action,

carried out by the United States, in what it sees as its own sphere of influence for China Taiwan is absolute priority. And, well, the Russians are probably militarily dominant in the Baltic, and they don't need the Chinese fleet there. And again, it would be difficult for the Chinese fleet to operate in the Baltic. But the Russians, I suspect, have the situation they're under control anyway, and they don't need China. From Spock 23, I took a screenshot of Alex and had Grok dress him in a... a bikini. You know, this is in reference to Stammer and him going after Grock and X, actually, Alexander.

I understand where Spock is coming from on this. Yes. And Stommer is trying to shut down X off com, right? Absolutely. Can I just say straight away, he's not doing it. Because of the AI manipulation stuff. I mean, that is the reason that it is being given. Being given.

That is not the reason why it is being. I mean, to be absolutely clear about this. Yeah, because chat, GPT and all the other ones do the same AI image stuff as well. Exactly, exactly. I mean, Stamos got himself into a battle with Elon Musk, which is going to lose, just to say. Elza says Trump is guided in his decisions by the morality of the last person he has spoken to. It's exactly what Alex has said. I think Robert basically said the same thing.

It's true. M says Gaza was the test. Martin Middle says, is it possible that Epstein was disappeared into witness protection? Who knows? There's so many unanswered questions about that. I could write a whole book just setting up for questions. Tish M says hashtag justice for Gonzalo Lira. Absolutely.

Paul Walker says, Alex, which Linux do you use? If not, why not? I can't say which one I use from Vincent, Alex and Alexander. What are your views on libertarianism? And would you agree with the argument that all governments are inherently evil, to put it simply things? I'm not a libertarian, and I don't think that all governments all the time always are inherently evil. I certainly think that governments need to be very watched very carefully indeed.

but I don't think that they're inherently evil, or that the people who there are necessarily always evil. What I would say is that government obviously involves the exercise of power, and I do believe that over time that can be corrupting. I think that it is possible to create checks and balances that can bring that under control, and the important thing is to safeguard them. It's what was said when the American Republic was set up. You know, you've got a republic if you can keep it.

Now, as for libertarianism, I'm not, I mean, that's not my political tradition. And I think that libertarians go wrong. Or I disagree with them on certain things, primarily on economics. but I do take libertarianism very seriously. I am attracted to many of the things that they say. I have many friends who are basically, well, who are libertarians. So it is a system of thought with which I have a great deal of instinctive sympathy. Sparky says best move for President Trump as far as Venezuela goes is to lift all sanctions,

saying it's because Maduro's out. then after a time, allow Maduro to win in court, return to office, and shortly retire. Yes, I think you should be the next person that Donald Trump speaks to. Maybe he might listen to you and do these things, because they're very wise ones. Judo Cilas says we were warned by the deep finance that it wouldn't matter if Trump or Kekl Mala won in 2024. Why is divided states so much agreement incapable? Do you know something I still believe that in spite of everything, in spite of how bad the situation is?

It would have been even worse had Kamala Harris won. I mean, I can absolutely see how that administration would have been even more chaotic and even more dangerous than the one we have. Why is the United States agreement incapable? Because some people in Washington, I'm afraid a lot of people in Washington, the political class in Washington became drunk with power, especially after the end of the Cold War. They had also become accustomed to doing all sorts of terrible things during the Cold War, which they rationalized by the need to win the Cold War, but after the end of the Cold War,

they found that the temptation of going on to doing these things was just too strong. And as I said, they became drunk with power. Now they are sensing that that whole structure of power that they assume they had at the end of the Cold War is tottering. And they're becoming more frantic and more angry and more dangerous because they sense that that moment and that power is there being away. And that is absolutely standard. That's absolutely how it happens when empires are.

start to fall. Martin Middle says, is Bricks developing a commodity-back currency called the unit? How dangerous is that to the U.S. dollar? Well, if that ever happens, it will be incredibly dangerous. My understanding is this. The Brazilians are very keen on moving directly to a BRICs currency. All of the other big BRIC states, China, India, and Russia are saying that this is premature. We have to set up the payment systems.

we have to set up the financial infrastructure. We have to think very carefully how this is done. And of course, if such a currency is set up in the future, and this is probably a 10-year project at the very least, it would, again, to be clear, only be a trading currency. It would not be a currency that would be used internally within these countries. So yes, I think overall, every one of these steps is a challenge to the primacy of the dollar, which is any way slipping.

I mean, if you look at, say, the gold price and the dollar price, you can already see that people are shifting slowly, not so slowly, away from the dollar. But to be clear, we're not there yet. Fuzzy Ball says, question for Robert. all the American banks switch to long positions on silver and the European banks are stuck on short positions.

Does he think America planned this to destroy Europe? Robert answered that. Nico says this story is underreported, but Israel attacked an Egyptian ship near the Mediterranean, so apparently Greek and Cypriot ships will also be in danger. Can I just say something? The problem with ships

is getting worse and worse all the time. We have more attacks on ships in the Black Sea. The Russians are now taking to it. attacking merchant ships in the Black Sea. Everybody, the Iranians regularly sees people's other people's ships. The Chinese have just done it, just to say, it's not been reported, but they have just

done this. International trade, international, smooth operation of maritime trade is completely breaking down. From Ruhola Bayani, how do people like you know that foreign policies of neocons like regime change and wars? can turn into disasters, but neocons themselves don't see it. We answered that. Robert answered that, yeah. N.S. Mansour says, thoughts on Putin-Jolani meeting a while back,

do consistency principles not matter for Russia, or is that empty talk nowadays? Can't help but feel families of dead Russians and Syrians during the dirty war on Syria felt betrayed. Well, I'm going to say something. If you read the reports in Russia, that's exactly how most people in Russia feel. I think it was a massive mistake, by the way. I think that some level of contact with Jolani between the Russians and the Syrians is probably necessary for the Russians to maintain their bases

and for all kinds of other reasons. But I think granting him a meeting with Putin upset many, many people in Moscow. I think it did an enormous amount of unnecessary damage. And I think that pretty much everybody, perhaps except Putin himself, can see that that was a major misjudgment and a big mistake. Sparky says, Robert, in D.C., did you get a word to President Trump? He's being misled by people around him. Robert answered that.

Sir Mug's game says, as you Greeks are fond of saying, in the wake of great words comes even greater poverty. Rough translation. Thank you for that. Shin O'Billy says Barnes is losing credibility, saying the Epstein files exonerated Trump. Barnes answered that. And Lucas Manchin says Barnes is huffing more copium than a dam in 2024. Barnes addressed Robert addressed all those things. Yeah, pretty much.

Mark Hughes says, could the EU and British globalists possibly be in cahoots? It's with the CCP to establish lists a common system and take down the U.S. I think Robert answered that, but I'm absolutely. I mean, I just make one point. I mean, the point about globalists is not that they're British or EU. They are globalists. They may live in particular countries. They may hold the nationality of particular countries.

But by definition, they are a community of people who are more loyal to each other than they are to their respective countries. So by definition, European and British globalists work closely with each other. They don't just work closely with each other. They are each other. Yeah, Matthew says, will the UK board Russian tankers, then what? Yeah, I mean, this is now being freely discussed in London. This can only happen if the Americans agree to participate in it.

because the current condition of the British fleet makes it impossible for the British to do this if the Russians start defending their ships, which they've said they would do. And the forces that are supposed to be doing this, the special boat service and the SAS are very small. We're talking about a couple of thousand men and diverting them to chasing Russian ships around the world. with all of the other dangers, is a completely irresponsible misuse of resources and a misuse of these very valuable and expensive to train troops. So I'm going to say this. I mean, this is an incredibly bad idea at every level. And I understand that within the Ministry of Defense, there's already a pushback against it. Sparky says Robert President Trump's first anniversary of his second term

will be a nice, neat time for him to clean house and have some in the administration, pursue other opportunities, and spend more time with their families. I think that question was answered. Shin Fu Jujency says Trump's natural instinct is Neo-Con. He blocks out anyone who gives good advice.

What he said of MTJ and Gabbard showed his true colors. Well, I think Robert actually answered that question. I mean, you know, Trump going all the way back, the first, well, anyway, I mean, I won't go over what Robert said. Sparky says, Robert, wouldn't it be a good idea for President Trump to send Swampy Susie and Lindsay Graham to that infamous prison in El Salvador? It would be lovely, but I can't imagine it happening. And even if Trump wanted it, I still can't see how it could happen.

Sir Mug's game says Denmark had Norway and Iceland taken from them last century, losing Greenland is just par for Trump's. course Norway's 1.5 trillion SWF is next. Right. Well, my memory of this was that Norway was indeed part of Denmark, but a long time before. And in the 19th century, it was Sweden that ran Norway. But I might be wrong about these things. Anyway, the point is absolutely, I mean, the kingdom of Denmark used to be the dominant power in Scandinavian. and it's obviously not that any longer.

And if they do lose Greenland. I mean, it will be a big blow for them. I mean, there's no doubt about it. Unvaccinated guy says, Germany lost the war, but the Nazis kept keep on. They are parosites, parosites, banned word on YouTube. They pretend to be somatic. They are not real.

Israel does not allow genealogy tests. Erica Kirk is another pair-oh, pair-oh. Well, all I'm going to say about that, in response to this, is that I was astonished in February 2020 at how completely the mask fell in terms of feelings about Russia from all sorts of German political figures. The rhetoric in Germany over the last four years has been horrifying. and I'm not sure I agree with every point you're making, not by any means.

But nonetheless, I do think that the Germans clearly were keeping back attitudes and feelings, which they were careful before February 2020 to conceal, at least when I say Germans, I see some Germans, and which have now come out into the open. Paul Walker says 200,000 tons of uranium in Greenland. Well, those are the claims. We'll see how true they turn out. Nikos says, I forgot the awesome Oreznik strike. Keep in mind that one of that hit,

the Nipro was a prototype. The one that hit Laviv is faster and more destructive. So many are saying. Yeah. Robert says, Sparky says, Robert, will Greenlanders be thrilled with Obamacare? If not, perhaps the publicity will plant the seed for true health care reform. Well, indeed.

I presume Greenlanders have the Danish health system, which I believe is free. I believe they do. And I believe that actually I read somewhere that if they need further care, then Denmark pays to fly them from Greenland to Denmark. They need further hospital care. Nico says, stop excusing Trump, Barnes. It's him. It's all him.

He is a moron and a bully. And I should have listened to my instinct. He is as bad as his first term. Well, I've said what I think about Trump. I think his first term was better. Even though it had all the Russia gate stuff, Trump was definitely much, much better in his first term. John Roberts says,

after the recent announcements of the 50% increase in defense budget and the prosecution of FedShare Powell related, does the Trump admin need to get Powell out of the way to spend more? Robert answered. Yeah, absolutely. Answer that. N.S. Monsour says on a lighter note, if you could both go back in time and witness

be a fly on the wall for any major geopolitical events, which would you choose and why? So many. So, so, so many. Gosh, oh, I'd have to think about this one. Fly in the Wall, I mean, we'd want to be a fly in the wall in relation to many of them. I mean, obviously, we're in the middle of a major crisis

over Ukraine. I would love to be a fly in the wall of all the various discussions and debates that must have been taking place in London and Washington and Brussels related to Ukraine stretching all the way back to the early 2000s

from the time of the Orange Revolution. Yeah, that's a good one. It'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall with the Biden administration in Nord Stream. Absolutely. That would be interesting. I don't know that's what I would choose. That is also a good one, actually.

Anyway. I mean, I think one point I do want to make again is that people do, when people plot, they do meet and they do talk with each other in order to plot. Having had to deal with many conspiracies in my career, I can say that conspiracy and intrigue and all of that do indeed happen. And this is something which I think some people, are very resistant to accepting. Yeah, I mean, it's geopolitical is the question.

I mean, there's, and I'm only thinking like five or ten years back. We could go further. Oh, absolutely. But if you're talking about the events in Ukraine of 2014, for example, there will certainly have been discussions about them leading up to those events in all sorts of different places. And it would be very interesting to know exactly who met whom and what was said, what money changed hands and what agreements would reach and what kind of planning, if any, took place. The problem with, by the way, with furtive, concealed operations of that kind is that the planning is never very good. because as things are done secretly,

it's very difficult to work out long-term plans in secret because if you do long-term plans and go into the kind of detail that those kind of plans need, then almost certainly they cease to be secret. Tom Cahill says DJT is doing everything he was voted to do, awesome president. Eric Hatchez says, only God Almighty can fix this mess. Sparky says, although it wasn't the Navy or Coast.

guard, I'd imagine it wouldn't take a very experienced sailor to instantly recognize the rusty tanker was empty by how it sat in the water. Of course. I should say that there is criticism of this whole operation in the United States too. People like Jennifer Kavanaugh have written about this. I'm saying it was this whole eludicrous episode really worthwhile, chasing an empty, rusty tanker across the Atlantic, taking it so much time. to basically catch up with it. It cost more to do it than the value of the tanker itself. Nitz, which says, thanks Robert for being a regular guest, and thanks to you all, Alex Alexander, to bring always insightful to the viewers.

Okay, we read that super chat. Shin Inajo says, it's sad to see many Maga become neoccon like Joe from Good logic, Andrew Branca, law of self-defense, unsubbedem. I don't know. Well, I mean, to give an example, I mean, the Federalist, which is consistently opposed interventions around the world, gave it what I thought was an extraordinarily feeble defense of the whole Venezuela operation.

One could sense that they were very uncomfortable. But, I mean, they were without, I think, understanding what, well, maybe they did understand what they were doing actually. But they were repeating neocon arguments, which they have previously consistently opposed. Nikos says, and a personal question for the Duran, do you avoid Ritter as a guest

because of his opinion on Gonzalo Lira and how is Gonzalo's family? Well, as far as Gonzalo's family is concerned, I'm in contact with his father on a fairly regular basis. I think we both are. and he remains absolutely dedicated and committed to the rehabilitation, the spreading of the true story of what happened to his son. So he completely remains committed to that.

As to the rest of his family, I'll say straight away, I don't know them. I do wish them. I do wish them well. As for Scott, well, he is in many places. He's very active talking about many things. I think that we do our thing and he does his. And sometimes we cross.

But for the moment at least, I think we are able to, as I said, explain our positions fully, just as he is able to do. Sidestrius avoid embarrassment. Can the Trump admin be looking to execute NATO that the Greenland move before its defeat could be associated? to Russia. That's an interesting theory. I don't think it's true, by the way. I think that is putting things. That is expecting more sophistication, strategic sophistication from the Trump administration than they have. I think that the entire policy of the United States, of the administration relative to Ukraine,

to the extent that they have a clearly thought out policy, is to try to get the Russians to stop to find some way to get the Russians to stop before the whole thing in Ukraine comes crashing down. That, I think, is their real policy. Shin Inaho says, as Thai, Trump did not end the war between Thai and Cambodia. We might go for round three soon after the election. Quite plausibly. Sticky Mark says, sorry off topic,

but will Alex use this to feed the gorgeous limousal maggis? It's Yorkshire for cats, Alex. I'd only waste it. Oh, gas on gas, by the way, the green goblin jacket made you look pasty. Thank you. Sure. I'll use the super chat to defeat cats, absolutely. Thank you for that. Shino, Billy says, with all due respect to the Duran, Mr. Barnes is not a reliable arbiter of truth. Luigi did not commit any crime. Cops planted evidence. Well, I'm not going to get into the details of this. My memory of it, by the way, was thought that he said, He didn't discuss the case itself. He simply made the point that Maduro and Luigi are in the same prison. That's all. Tish M says,

I voted similarly as Colonel Wilkerson. Sadly, even after 45, imprisoned 100% truth, Julian Assange, there is 47 idiots. Oli Feist says, speaking of escalation, what do you think will become of transnist? in the end, can the EU integrate Moldova without them? Would Russia defend them?

There is going to be a major crisis over Transnistria sooner or later. By the way, I understand that Maria Sandu is now openly advocating union between Moldova and Romania, which is what I suspect has been the agenda all along, which is, by the way, if it happens, notice it's a way getting Moldova into NATO and into the EU without having an specific vote on it. So that, of course, is completely inconsistent with the current situation in Transnistria. So at some point, I think there's going to be a major crisis. There are still Russian troops there. There's attempts to prevent them getting military equipment and supplies from Russia.

The Russians, however, are moving closer and closer to Transnistia. We'll see how it turns out. Sir Mug's game says the light from friendship won't reach Russia and the Anglo-Americanos for at least 100 years. Fuzzy Ball says, question for Robert. Does America view the EU as anything other than a customer of the military industrial complex? It seems America does not care about the economies of EU countries. I think you answered that. I think you answered that.

Yeah. Daniel Morgan says, Donnie Trump is the bank. bankruptcy king. Our economy is dead man walking. Well, I think he discussed the state of the economy very full. Tisham says he, he who owns the presses. Thank you for that. Sparky says, although useful as a rough tool, AI is hyped exponentially beyond its actual profitability. Well, I think, again, Robert made a lot of important comments about AI here.

Priscilla says Trump changes his mind according to the last person he speaks to. Will Machado change his mind when she meets with him? Very possibly. We'll see. We'll discuss that. He got a Nobel Prize. He did get that. Spark says $1.5 trillion military

budget only results in more F-35 boondoggles and upward wealth transfer. It works against how it's sold to President Trump. Well, exactly. I mean, can I just say not only will it not work as a military operation, but as I discussed in the program, it is not going to work

has a stimulus measure or a mechanism to increase manufacturing. This is a misunderstanding. It's based on a wrong understanding of what happened in the 1980s and what happened in the 1940s, by the way. In the 1940s and in the 1980s, using military Keynesianism made a certain sense because of that, time the manufacturing side of the economy was operating far below capacity. That is not true today. Just saying.

From the Hockey Goley, sorry, if already asked, could taking Greenland be part of a wider U.S. strategy to geographically isolate Canada? We answered that, yeah. Alex is answered that. Paul Walker says Alex Odyssey Feed has died. I think the Odyssey Feed was fine. maybe it went off for a little bit. John D. says a Pult of 50-year mortgage with the average home buyer's age is 40, is not a winning plan for young people, though.

Robert discussed that. Robert answered that one, yeah. Shifu Uginchi says Trump said what he had to say to get votes. Clearly his actions now show his words. We're all talk. Well, I think, you know, we've had a long discussion about Trump's motivations and whatever. The more important, I mean, let's put Trump to one side. For me, the major takeaway from what we were told over the course of the light street

is that there are still people in Washington who are opposed to these policies. We'll see how effective they are. L.J. Basgall says, Robert, what do you think of Vance's chances of becoming the next potist? Potist? Do you discuss that? Diamond Dangle says Trump's cheap appeasement of MAGA's real value. used by being openly cynical instead of morally right feels good in the moment, but is disastrous in the long term. Oh, absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. Yeah. Sparky, Sparky says, Robert,

too much industry consolidation took place in the last 50 years. Innovation comes primarily from small medium and regional businesses, break up monopolies and trusts and end the war on small business. Absolutely, which is, which was a Republican policy. I mean, I say a Republican policy. I mean, that Republican in the sense of it being a policy of a republic. It was what the United States was doing before the First World War when they started to bring in antitrust laws and all of those kind of things. Precisely to that reason. The revenge says the Maduro kidnapping was good geopolitically, legally it is bad. No jurisdiction over foreign leader.

Maduro could get scotis original jurisdiction. Well, certainly, I mean, I think he gave a very clear and detailed analysis of the legal case. Diamond Dangles says this is disastrous because once the gloves are off, they're off. If the public embraces removal of the masks, so will those who seek totalitarianism. It could move things into actual conflict. When a political system begins to become cynical and corrupt, it affects everything. That there is absolutely no doubt. That is the lesson of Hucydides and Athens. and what happened in the Malian debate, which I discussed in programs and which Robert alluded to. And finally, from the Hockey Goly, security of sea lanes can't be the reason as Denmark is in NATO, Greenland covered by Article 5 and U.S. can put more bases there already.

Well, indeed, absolutely. I mean, there are lots of reasons for Greenland, but security makes absolutely no sense. At least, security against the Russians and the Chinese makes absolutely no sense, unless, of course, It is indeed the case that the US is planning to break up NATO, which I doubt myself, but anyway, we'll see. All right. That is everything from the Q&A, from the live stream with Robert Barnes. Take care.