The Duran Podcast - Trump goes up the escalation escalator w/Garland Nixon (Live)

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Trump goes up the escalation escalator w/Garland Nixon (Live)

All right. We are live with Alexander Mercuris in London. And we have with us once again on the Duran and honor and the pleasure to welcome back. Mr. Garland, Nixon. Garland, how you doing? Great, guys. Thanks for inviting me. Great to have you on. And before we get started, Garland, where can people follow your work? Well, mostly on my YouTube channel, of course, I'm on, you know, like Facebook and Instagram and Telegram. I have a channel there. but I'm pretty much daily on my YouTube channel. All right, I have that link in the description box down below, and I will also add it as a pin comment. Definitely recommend following, subscribing to Garland's YouTube channel.

And a quick shout out. Hello to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey, Rockfin, Rumble, YouTube, and our locals page, the durand.orgals.com. And to our moderators, Zareel, I see that you are with. with us and I think it's just Zarayel for now moderating, but a big thank you to our moderators as well. So Alexander Berlin, let's talk about what is happening with the escalation escalator, Trump's Trump's ascendance on the escalation escalator. Yeah, the interesting thing about the escalation escalator is once you get on it, it is all but

impossible ever to get off. That is the nature of escalators. It's very, very difficult to walk down them if they're moving upwards. And this is what this is doing. There is nobody better to discuss this with them Garland. I would absolutely advise people to go to his YouTube channel and to subscribe to it. I think it's one of the most informative YouTube channels there and discussing international relations. We've privileged to have him again. It's a wonderful. It's a wild, by the way, Garland, since we've had you. And can I just say perhaps too long? And it is great to have you again on our program. So today, Trump meets Zelensky. A few weeks ago, it seems like an age now, but it was just a few weeks ago, Trump met Putin in Alaska. There was

Lots of talk about breakthroughs, about all kinds of movements forward. Now, instead, he is meeting Zelensky. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has given a gigantic interview to the Russian newspaper Commissants, one of the longest I've ever seen. And by the way, one that the Russian Foreign Ministry published, a translation of in incredibly short time. And my conclusion about that particular interview is that Lavrov was reading the funeral rights of Alaska.

The entire process of the discussions in Alaska, he appears to realize, even if his boss Putin is still in denial to some extent about this, that that is going nowhere and it has ended. And there was a particular, pointed moment in this interview, in which Lavrov said to the interview, he said, we came up with all of these proposals to the Americans about how to move forward, but we have had no reaction from the Americans to any one of them. And the interviewer said, you have had a reaction.

The reaction is he's going to supply Zelensky with Tom Hawks. That was the Russian journalist asking, putting that, challenging Lavrov. That, to my mind, speaks volumes about the mood in Moscow, in Russia at this particular time. Am I right? Are we indeed at the moment when the Alaska process has indeed ended? Was it ever a real process at all? and what is going to happen from this point going forward? Well, a couple of things.

I think what we're looking at is overall the loss of hegemonic dominance by the US, if they ever really had it, but for the most part, they believe that they had it. And a lot of other countries believe that they had it. So effectively, the US had some hegemonic dominance over most of the world. And what we're looking at on a grand scheme is the loss of that dominant and the attempt by the U.S. to hold on to something that they've already lost, pegemonic dominance. And that's being expressed in two ways. It's being expressed externally in both the attempts to bring Russia back under control, giving them commands that they don't

seem to want to follow, and attempting to bring China under control. There are three real world powers, Russia, China and the United States, and, of course, the United States, which is the one that is declining is trying to dominate the other two and reassert dominance. Externally, well, it's obvious what's happening between with China and Russia how they are trying to reassert certain dominance. By saying you have to do this, and of course, Russian China has to say, yes, we'll freeze the conflict or we'll do whatever you want economically. Internally, I think, is where the expression of this attempt at maintaining dominance has to really be looked at. And that's, That is you've got Donald Trump and his faction because we're looking at warring factions amongst the ruling elite, warring factions amongst the foreign policy leaders, decision makers, et cetera.

So Donald Trump will come out with what he believes should happen. Well, we should do this. We should make a deal with Russia, China, whoever. And then he comes back and then the internal factions start fighting for dominance. And so there's an external expression of a fight for dominance. Who dominates the world and it has to be us? Internally, these factions are fighting for dominance. And so I think that what we're seeing probably expressed itself is the internal war as Trump. I think, maybe I'm wrong, for convenience, if nothing else,

I think Trump tends to lean towards, let's kind of make a deal. He doesn't necessarily know how to do it. let's make some deals. He wants a deal. But the deal that he can never make is with the other neocons and the other people internally. So as soon as he leans towards some, let's do this or that, as soon as he sends out the message, I want to make this kind of deal or that kind of deal. The other factions internally go to work. How can we stop this? You know, I want to talk to Kim Jong-un. Let's send John Bolton over to threaten him and say, we'll take the Libya option, whatever he tries to do, or whatever his faction tries to do, internally, the wars start.

And I think China and Russia are coming to the realization that it's irrelevant what Donald Trump says. That the U.S. policies are kind of paralyzed, any kind of change in policy, any kind of nuance in policy. There's just internal paralysis. So instead, all you're going to get is they're going to punch. They're going to try to just continually to exert dominance. And that's how they go down. They're going down. They're going down swinging. I do think that. And, you know, I've been saying this for a while and a lot of people have been saying this for a while that they're going to keep punching at China until China is forced to take significant action. The big one really, I think, is this whole chips thing because here we are two months before Christmas when, you know, the country's, I mean, excuse me, when retailers make money, when countries, you know, many of these companies make far more money in November and December than they do the other 10 months of the year. And the government's closed down. That's paralyzed. And now we're in this war with China that, you know, is going to significantly affect the tariffs, all kinds of craziness.

So there is a potential now for an economic crash. there's a potential for a military clash, but I don't think there will be one. I think the Russians are very wise. I think that the leadership of Russia, though the people are trying to, you know, the people are obviously getting emotionally in Russia. They're getting angry. They're tired of being pushed around. But I think the leadership realizes, look, the U.S. is going down. We don't have to get in a fight with them. We don't have to beat them up. They're beating themselves up. So I think that though it will anger many of us out here who want to see a more pronounced response by Russia. I think they understand two things. A, that time is on their side. And B, the issue is not of just of escalatory dominance. It's control of the escalations. You know, there's escalations going on. If Russia allows NATO to control the escalations, they're irrational. So it'll go crazy. If they allow just nature to take his course. Well, that's the same thing as allowing NATO to control the escalatory ladder. So I think what Russia's doing, the Russian leadership, as best they can,

is saying, we're going to, we're winning on the battlefield. That's really all we have to do. And as far as the escalations, we will remain in control of that. We will not be reactionary. If we get to the point where they say, okay, we'll send this. And then the Russians will act this way. Then we'll do this. And the Russians act that way. Then now NATO, those in control of the escalations. All they have to do is punch and they're guaranteed that Russians will punch back. So I think the Russians are maintaining control of the escalations. And I think that's a wise move. You have just actually summarized Lavrov's interview probably before you've read it. He actually also talked about factions. He included the Europeans

and the Ukrainians in those factions. He mentioned, however, Washington as well. The Trump said that he had to consult Washington. He said some very unflattering things about Kellogg, too. The point was that Lavrov said that Trump and Putin met. They had a conversation. They seemed to be moving towards some understandings towards each other. Trump said, I have to consult and talk to all of these people. And then the moment he did that, it all basically came to a stop.

And if you read Lavrov, this is, I think, the important thing. Lavrov is basically saying, well, look, we've tried this. We've gone as far as we can. If the Americans aren't able to meet with us and talk with us and come to decisions with us, then what's the point of all of this? And the line that's going to be drawn is going to be over the tomahawks. If the tomahawks are indeed supplied to Ukraine, to Ukraine, then that's, That finally means that discussions with the Americans are going to lead nowhere and that they're not

serious. It's a very interesting interview and it's clearly been very negotiated. I think there are many different opinions in Moscow, some of them a lot more hard line than the ones Lavrov was expressing in that interview. But it was clear that a line is now being drawn. This is it. We've gone as far as we can. there's no point negotiating with Trump any further if he does decide to go up this escalatory escalator, this ladder that we've just been talking about.

And yes, maybe they won't overreact to the Tomahawks. They aren't scared of them. And they don't give the impression that they're scared of them. But if they are supplied, it buries the idea that there's going to be. discussions, negotiations with the United States. Now, what is very strange about all of this is that I've been reading in CNN that apparently Trump believes that the Tomahawks are going to buy him leverage. When I read Lavrov, it's absolutely clear to me that if anything, they're going to do the opposite. But what do you think? Well, you know, I'm not sure because there are so many things that come out now in the U.S. media that clearly originate from various factions that are fighting,

that put things out so that they can, you know, influence the conversation. So I read these things and I think you have to view them through two lenses. One lens being if it's absolutely true, then we should take X from it. The other lens is if it's one of the factions playing games and trying to influence the conversation, then we have to take something totally different from it, which leads us to the same conclusion that we get about Donald Trump, and that is you cannot focus on what Donald Trump says or tweets or truths or whatever on any given day. You have to evaluate the actions that are taken. And I think the Russians and the Chinese are both there. And that's the same way with these foreign policy or these media outlets that, you know,

claim to have internal access. And that is, you know, these things are said, fine. Let's look at how that translates into U.S. actions on the battlefield or in the field of economics right now. So I just think that I think that the Trump administration in both Russian China, I think you have to look at the reason I bring them both up is because this is one battle. The United States, there are three. There's three world powers. And one of them is declining. And that one of is trying to take the other two out, which means the other two have to come together. And I think that China is what China is doing now with the rare earth is they're kind of restricting the U.S. the military options of the U.S. and its allies, vassals, whatever you want to call them. They're forcing them to look long term, oh my gosh, can we get into a war? Can we

sustain it. What are we going to do? They're putting another, you know, they're punching them from one side while they deal with the Russians on the other side. I think it is, I don't think these, I believe that the Russians and the Chinese are talking about how they're approaching the instability of the U.S. and its allies. And so I think this is all one fight. But I think right now I don't see how the U.S. can continue with this attempt to assert domination. You know, because that's what we keep saying. tips to assert domination. China, you have to do what we want. And China says no, when China reacts. Okay, then Russia, you have to do what we want. Freeze the conflict. No. Okay, then do this. No. And they're making proclamations. They're making declarations. They're making orders. And they're in a situation now that every time they do that, it backfires. And rather than established domination, they're actually establishing to the world their weakness. But, But let me say this. If you go internally, these demands for Russia and China are attempts to establish domination over Russian China, from one perspective.

But internally, it's also attempt to reestablish to the various factions. Well, my faction is in charge because, look, we can order China and Russia around. Then the other faction says, no, your faction is weak. You're telling China and Russia what to do, and they're not listening. and you should listen to our faction and go along with what we want, which is harsher or more militaristic or whatever. And all of these things are reflected on both sides. This is a very good point, actually. And as somebody who's worked in bureaucracies, I know exactly what, I can absolutely verify that, that for when bureaucracies become

factionalized, even more important than the actual results is the battle, the internal battle. and winning the internal battle by selling the policy is more important than the actual success of the policy. So it might fail completely, but if it leaves you on top, then that is what really matters to the people involved. I've seen this play out time and time again, and I'm sure that you have as well in the bureaucracies that you've worked with. Now, let's actually talk a little bit more, actually,

about the situation with Ukraine, because, and I want to focus a bit on Russia at the beginning, because we will turn to China later. But let's just, because we started with Russia, let's talk about Russia. The Russians are winning the war in Ukraine. There's been more military use. The Russians also have debates that go on inside Russia too. There are some people who take a harder line and are very unhappy. And I don't think there's any doubt about this.

There's been an almost open debate over the last week connected to the supply of the Tomahawk missiles. I mean, Putin has been criticized pretty much to his face in encounters with the media about the fact that he's being too emollioned to the Americans. do you think there's anybody in the United States who understands this and understands that in terms of Putin's own position, his maneuver space to try to come to a deal with the Americans is declining because that's also the message I took from Lavros' interview, which, as I said, I read through in great detail this morning. I think they can't.

even though it makes sense and it's quite easy to look at what's happening and interpret this, it's quite easy to understand. But because these people live in narratives and the narrative is that, you know, Putin is a crazy man, he's the authoritarian fascist. Remember, he dominates everything and tells everyone what to do in this narrative, which means no one could possibly push back against him. And that all you have to do is get, you know, Putin out of the way and some Navalny type will rise. up and he'll won Guido, Maria Conchato or whatever, you know, and be a traitor to his country

and hand everything over to the U.S. So because of this narrative, they can't look at it with a clear vision and see that what's actually happening is what's been happening all along. You know, all the way back to 2014, there were factions saying to Vladimir Putin, what are you waiting for? Go in now. And they're still saying, see, you should have went in earlier, that the real challenge to Vladimir Putin is the opposite to what the narrative says, and it always has been. It's always been, why don't you go in now? How come, what's taking so long? Why don't you be more aggressive? Why don't you be more assertive? Why are you holding back? Punch harder. That that's what he's always pushed again. Now, of course, because of the incredible success that Vladimir Putin has had

over the last 25 or 30 years, what he has is a legacy of success, though in Russia for the present. And as long as they're winning the war, I think his faction will be dominant and he'll be able to assert his will, or the collective Putin, as they say, will be able to continue to do things their way, which is a very long-term view of things. You know, the emotional, you punched me, and I have to punch back as kind of a more short-term view, where the Russian leadership has a very long-term, slow view. But no, in Washington, they have to live in a narrative. that allows them to continue moving forward. If they accept that there is, in fact, significant pressure on Vladimir Putin to act in a more assertive manner against an opposition to U.S.

domination, the entire narrative that they have crumbles. So they could never accept that. Because now he's no longer a dictator. Vladimir Putin doesn't have to worry about that. He's a dictator. He'll just poison anybody who opposes him with Novichak or something, rub it on their doorknobs let's let's turn to china because um i've actually had a lot of discussions with some people from china but also some people within the scientific worlds and what they have told me is that it is impossible to reproduce china's ability to reprify and process and refine rare earths It cannot be done in any remotely acceptable economic timeframe. This is a technology which only China fully understands

and which it has been working on basically since at least the 1970s and possibly 1960s. It's not just a question of technique, it's also a question of theory. And it's, you can apparently, you can apparently refine rare earths, everybody can refine rare earths up to a certain level, but it is going beyond that level that only the Chinese for the moment are able to do. What the Chinese have basically done is that they've created a system where they can monitor where exports of rare earths go and they can impose licenses. They have not yet banned exports of rare earths or even

restricted those exports, but they now can do so. They can make sure that rare earths do not go to the US defence industry complex to make F-35 fighter jets, which of course would be used against China. And they can also make sure that rare earths don't reach the Dutch manufacturers of lithography machines, if that's what they choose to do, or the people in Taiwan who are operating those lithography machines who actually need the rare earths to make the chips. Now, the Americans have no obvious response to this, but they are also faced with something that they do themselves all the time. They restrict. They restrict. They restrict. They restrict. they place restrictions on exports of technology.

China is simply replicating what the United States itself has done for as long as I can remember. Yet the Americans are furious about this. What do you make of all of this? And by the way, I do get the sense that this is a decision that is going to stand, the Chinese are not going to retreat from it. But what do you make of all of this? And what do you make of the American reaction? Two things. Again, if we get back to the concept of, you know, declaring dominance in a particular field and a particular genre of activity, the U.S. claims dominance, you know, full spectrum. And all fields of activity throughout the world, we have dominance and no one else can, you know, hinder us in any way. And what the Chinese are doing is they're exhibiting, you know,

they're showing that there is a field that there are fields that we have dominance in, and we're going to demonstrate that to you. But the other part of it is this. And the analogy I use is if someone says, hey, will you give me a ride to the gun store? We use that. Why? Because I want to buy a gun. And what are you going to do with that gun? I'm going to shoot you with it. Well, I'm not giving you a ride. Okay, fair enough. Then I won't shoot you. I'll shoot your best friend over here, Russia. Why? Well, because I plan to shoot you later and he'll get in the way. So give me a ride to the gun store. I'll then shoot your best friend and then I'll shoot you later.

I'm not giving you a ride to the gun store. It's as simple as that to me. China is looking at the U.S. They're looking at what's happening around the world, threats to Iran, threats to Venezuela. And they're saying, you know, these people are unhinged and dangerous. And clearly they intend to take some kind of kinetic action against us. And it would be absurd for us to help them build the missiles that will then, we're going to give them the rare earth and the rare earth will return to China in the form of missiles. We're not going to do that. It's a very rational thing to do. It certainly makes sense in the context of the trade war, but in the context of a potential kinetic war, it is something that they absolutely have to do.

And that was inevitable. And I'll just say that if I were China, I would say, sure, I'd like to make a deal with you. And I'd make a list of everything I want. Number one, get out of Taiwan. Number two, stop putting these typhoon missiles on our borders. I'd make a list of things that I'd probably know the United States wouldn't do and say, just do all of these things, not any one of them, no room for negotiation. And when the U.S. says, we're not going to do that. I'd say, I don't have a problem with that. You're never going to get these rare earth. But what's interesting is, you know, when you get into it, not just the rare earth, the machinery for processing the rare earth, the plans to build machinery, the parts for machinery, the technology, anything to do with rare earth is cut off the United States minimum and its allies are 25 years away. So the time will come where the U.S. will have to have no choice but the buckle. It may be months away, it may be years away, but it actually ensures that the U.S. that NATO, et cetera, the extended NATO does not have the industrial capacity to maintain a conflict against Russia, I mean, if I'm against China or anyone else. So I think it was inevitable.

I think it's something they had to do. And like you, I think it stands. I don't see how they could back down from that in the face of kinetic threats from the United States. Well, apparently they have no intention of backing down. And again, I had a long discussion with somebody who explained to me all the various steps, the United States has been taking over the last six weeks, by the way, including something I didn't know, banning Chinese airlines from accessing the United States by overflying Russia, which apparently infuriated the Chinese especially. Anyway, the point is that they're not going to back down, and they too have come to the conclusion that they have to start asserted themselves in this way.

And this is where I come back to the whole business of the escalator. Because if you get onto it, as I said, it's very, very difficult to get off. And one thing the Americans never seem to understand is that if you do escalate, others will take reciprocal action. Now, Lavrov, going back to that interview, he said, you know, this is very bizarre because Trump says that he doesn't want to escalate. the war and yet he wants to send tomahawks to ukraine he doesn't seem to understand that tomahawks are themselves a type of escalation i mean it's there and he's interviewed by the way and

you know if this is done it will do colossal damage it will mean that the entire process of dialogue with him has gone it means we can't even consider any way in which he could possibly set himself up as some kind of mediator in these discussions. All that's out of, you know, absolutely off. And if the United States does what Trump is now threatening against China imposed 100% tariffs on the 1st of November, then of course the Chinese have now got the apparatus in place, they will stop exports of rare earths and they will increase tariffs as well.

So again, it does seem very strange that the United States never gets this, that escalation actually works in the end to its own disadvantage because the United States should be trying to end the war, which it is losing in Ukraine. It should be trying to get out of an economic war with China that is going to work against it. But it doesn't seem able to do that. And I think it comes back to, you know, the failure to have a reverse gear and align that with the concept of hegemonic dominance, right? Those things are the same. If I am the hegemon, if I am in full control, I don't need a reverse gear because I just tell people what to do and they do it. Now, here's the problem you have. Let's say in that analogy, you're in a car and you're in forward. And someone says, put it in reverse. We're in trouble. There's a cliff ahead. We're going to go over the cliff, a thousand feet below is in. the ocean and rocks and it's not going to work out well for us. And other people are watching you. They're going to say, you might want to put it in reverse.

No, I'm never going to put it in reverse. Well, I think it's inevitable what's going to happen. If you don't, you're going off a clip. And so now what we see is a situation where they don't have a reverse gear, which is fine when you're on a nice flat and, you know, straight road. And you're going through the desert. You can go a long ways and forward. But when you start to see danger ahead, you put it in reverse to save yourself.

You put it in reverse. You know, the concept being a reverse gear would show weakness that we are going forward and we're going to run over everybody because we're strong. And if we put it in reverse, if we put on the brakes, if we slow up, that will show we're weak. But if you're heading off a cliff, it will show that you're prudent and it will show that you want to survive. So I think China and Russia, you take to China too, but they're looking at them saying, okay, we can take action. You can put it in reverse if you want to, but if you know, you're the ones that are going to suffer. And so what we're seeing now is the point where, as you said, getting on the escalator, the escalator means you never get off or the fact is once you're in forward, you never go into reverse is the same thing as we're heading for a cliff. And if we don't put it in reverse, it's not, we're not put in reverse to save them, to help them to look out for other people that the failure to have a reverse reverse gear for the U.S. is now becoming a liability. It's now becoming very, very, very, dangerous and more and more people, even in your car, you know, people in the U.S. are starting

to scream. The farmers that sell soybeans are starting to scream, hey, hey, hey, put this thing at reverse. We're going off a clip here. I think, again, internally, the question will be, what would drive the U.S. to a reverse gear, an internal voice, internal opposition. You know, I always say this. The one thing that the ruling elite are horrified of, more than anything else, is internal uprising. And that's why there's so much suppression going on right now. They're not really scared of the Russians. The Russians are coming against. They know they're not. But what they do have to do is suppress people in the UK that are protesting against things they don't want or Germany or France or what have you. So I think watch for the internal voices that start feeling economic

and other kinds of pain and other screaming. Put this darn, we're all on this bus. Put this darn thing in reverse before we go over a clip. That's the only thing that will cause it. Indeed. And especially the internal elite voices that start to be that start to push back can i just can we also just discuss india and this very very bizarre comment that trump made yesterday yet his telephone conversation with modi modi has been trying to soothe relations with the u.s he's had a number of conversations with trump he spoke he met with the u.s ambassador to india a couple of days ago this is the new u.s ambassador to India. He then had another conversation with Trump. Trump comes out and says the Indians have agreed to stop buying Russian oil. The Indian foreign ministry rushes out a statement basically saying that's

not true. I mean, if you have to pass it because they're very careful, that they're basically saying that's not true. The Russian Energy Ministry has also published a statement saying that's not true. We've been in touch with our Indian friends. That's not what they're planning at all. does he do this? Why does he? I mean, is this an attempt to try to push the Indians to do this, to say, you know, go out, dare to call me a liar? I mean, all that kind of thing. I mean, is this what this is? Or is he just listening, hearing only what he wants to hear? You know, Modi apparently said to him, yes, of course, we're keen to develop economic and energy relations with the United States? Is this what this is all about? What is Trump trying to do here? And does he understand

that maybe this isn't a good way to handle India either? I think it's the latter and a more simplistic assertion, and that is some level of confusion with Trump of hearing what he wants to hear. He talks to Modi and Modi says something and he listens, listens and he selectively listens and he cherry picks what he wants to believe. And then he's like, okay, I guess that That means they're not going to buy it. And he goes out and makes a proclamation. You know, one of the things that we've noticed about Donald Trump and a lot of people have not just me, and that is that, you know, he because of his, maybe because of his history

and entertainment, he likes these big proclamations. He likes the bright lights. He likes to come out, you know, like it's the red carpet and somebody's going to, you know, blow some horns, release some pigeons and unroll a scroll and he's going to read something important. hear ye, hear ye, come one, come all, and then he's going to make a great proclamation. Everybody's going to say, that's awesome. And I think he looks for opportunities to do that. He looks for opportunities to make the big splash. You're not going to believe this now, but now Modi said he's not going to, that would be a big deal if it were true.

And I think Donald Trump looks for things like that that are big, big deal. And, you know, I've noticed something. When Donald Trump makes these grand proclamations, only about 50% of them are good for more than an hour. These grand prock, either, if that money, either one of two things, either, such as in this instance, the other party says, I don't know what he's talking about. We never said that. Or he makes these proclamations and say, we have a peace deal with this country or whatever, and it falls apart within hours. But he makes these big, grand proclamations, and it looks good, and he stands proud. And America's strong again, look what we're doing and things of that nature. But there's never a substance,

you know, like the peace deal. When you go below the surface, they're only a grand proclamation. They're only a show. And beneath that, the work that needs to be done to ensure that there's some substance there is never done. Does he understand that it is his own presidency

that is on the line from this? Because he is basically, wrecking any chance of a relationship with the Russians. Putin, as I said, has gone far, far out on a limb here. Opinion in Russia has never been really keen on this. By the way, and just for the record, there are plenty of people in Russia about the tarmacawks who say, bring them on.

Bring them on, precisely because they don't want to see the rapprochement with or at least a dialogue with the Americans because they don't trust or like the Americans very much anymore. The Chinese, as I said, they are now in a position where they can switch off rare earths to the United States and they have the toolkit to do it and they're probably not that far from doing it. If you create a toolkit, if you have something ready, the inclination to pull the switch is always going to to be very strong, just to say. And, well, the Indians, I mean, Modi must come away to himself and say, well, can I really conduct conversations with this man? I say one thing to him. He then comes and says something completely different from what I actually said. And bear on my, Modi is hosting Putin

in a few weeks' time with Delhi. And there's going to be apparently big arms deals agree. So how is Trump going to react to all of that then? I mean, it is not a wise way to conduct policy of any kind to make it up like this. I think a couple of things. I think we already know how the Trump team will respond, and that is with a temper tantrum, because that's the way they always respond. So there'll be a temper tantrum. Oh, we'll put five million percent tariffs on India and will they'll destroy their economy. We'll wipe them out. We'll destroy them. We'll take them out. So I think now, and the issue too is with this temper tantrum, that's the way I think most people that are, even people that are watching this are probably shaking their heads saying, yeah, it's always a temper tantrum, right? But the temper tantrum doesn't

do any good anymore because now people expect it. So it's like what form is this temper tantrum going to take this time. Before you do anything that the U.S. is a foreign policy establishment isn't going to like, you understand that the temper tantrum there and you just try to project what it might be. You look at your weaknesses, you look at what makes the biggest splash, and you project that their temper tantrum is coming. So therefore, it has no, it really doesn't have an effect on policy anymore because everybody knows it's coming. And of course, because you're projecting the temper tantrum and it's going to be projected towards the BRICS countries, towards this other alliance, now what's also happening is this, the projections for a temper tantrum,

there is a unified response prepared. So that now when India says, well, they'll probably come at us in this way, then they talk to Russia and China and they say, well, they snatch this rug out from under us most likely. Here are the areas of weakness. And then they say to Russia and China, hey, we've got an area. a weakness and Russia and China can then say we can plug that hole this way or that way. And I think what we're seeing is unified responses now. Look at the soybeans. You know, no soybeans or, you know, we've got an issue with soybeans. Where can we get them? Oh, we can get them from Brazil. Argentina. There's other places we can get them. So the other problem that the U.S. has here is that these continuous, outrageous, angry,

emotional temper tantrum style responses has created by necessity a dynamic where the other countries are coming together figuring how they can work together to plug holes. Everybody knows they're going to get hit with something, whatever their weaknesses is, and now they have to work together so that they can figure out how to plug the holes. The soybeans things in particular is itself extraordinary, because Trump is now furious that apparently China is trying to grow its own soybeans and is buying them from Argentina and Brazil. The reason that the Chinese are diversifying buying soybeans is because of the tariff walls that have been created by the US and China as a result of these steps that Trump himself initiated. So it is now cheaper for the Chinese

to buy soybeans from Brazil and Argentina or even to grow it itself. About this particular episode has provoked the most bizarre mockery in China, you know, the idea that we won't buy cooking oil. I mean, if ever there is a case of, I mean, this isn't escalation. It's stupidity. It's nonsense. I mean, talking it this way. I mean, it's something that governments and around the world,

I mean, they're not going to be intimidating. get about over it, they're going to be laughing at some of it. Now, let's touch briefly on the Middle East actually because again, it's hot and cold. So Trump goes to Israel. There's a ceasefire now in Gaza. He says this is a complete and glorious victory. I might often see how it is that at all. But of course, it is a ceasefire. And that is a good thing. He then says, what a great thing it would be if Israel and Iran could become friends again. I mean, but he himself says this a few months after the United States tricked Iran and carried out an attack on it. And a few weeks after the United States, together with the European powers,

imposed snapback sanctions on Iran. Why does he think the Iranians are going to trust him? You know, I think what we're looking at is, you know, this is kind of like what you see in Europe with these irrational leaders. We're going to do this to the Russians. We're going to force this to the Russians. And the Russians and outside observers look at it and say, that makes no sense. It's irrational. And that's the same thing. You know, if you look at the Middle East, you look at, you know, what Donald Trump is saying. saying it's not a rational argument based on the very recent historical context of what is clearly

under international law, illegal aggressions by both Israel and the United States against Iran. So it makes no sense. But I think it's one of the things that, again, if you look at it internally, one of the things that Donald Trump is facing now is a significant deterioration of support amongst his base, amongst the people who were, you know, 100% pro Donald Trump no matter what. This Charlie Kirk thing has dramatically eroded his support. The issue of Israel and Zionism is becoming far less popular amongst the MAGA people. It was extremely popular.

So Donald Trump now, they're making arguments and have been for a while. You said that you were going to bring peace. And a lot of the MAGA people were somewhat of a peace, anti-war coalition. And I think what Donald Trump is trying to do here is trying to use some rhetoric maybe to gain favor with his mega base that's drifting away due to his foreign policy. But all he's giving them is the rhetoric. These people are not stupid. They want to see concrete action, which Donald Trump doesn't appear able to do based on, as I said, the warring factions going on. So I think this is rhetoric for his base. I'm the peace president. Oh, we're going to bring peace in the Middle East, blah, blah, blah. And I think the MAGA people are there looking at Charlie Kirk, they're looking at all these things and saying, well, you're going to have to show me more than this, buddy. Absent mobilization of internal opposition, including, as I said, elite internal opposition, where does escalation stop? Let's go back to Ukraine and the conflict there. I mean, Zeletsky gets every single weapon system he asks for.

This has been the iron rule throughout this conflict. He's got his Haimars, he's F-16s, he's M-Triple-7s, he's Abrams tanks, he's Leopard 2s, he's Bradley's. Now he's going to get Tomahawks, or so it seems. He's also agitated. I remember agitating constantly for Patriot missiles. Now, the point is none of that has worked, not a single system that has been provided to Ukraine up to now, has proved the game changer that people said it would be. Now we have a situation where we're going to provide a weapon system

that people at the outset of the war, which is said it's inconceivable that the United States would ever give to Ukraine. We will have missiles launched deep inside Russia, a weapon system doing things which was never done by either superpower against the other at any time in the Cold War. Yes, the Russians have proved unbelievably disciplined and incredibly restrained in the face of this. But the fact is, however indisciplined and restrained they are,

the escalation never stops. Where does it stop? And can one not see the argument that is being made in Moscow that this restraint that we are showing, all it is doing is inviting further escalation. Because the escalation is the result of an internal conversation, rather than anything that Russia or China or Iran or anything else is doing, I would argue that those voices are wrong, that those voices are saying there's something we could do or not,

do that would affect the decision-making process inside the U.S. foreign policy blob. There isn't. These actions are as a result of the internal compensation, the internal fights for domination. The internal, and the fight for domination, I think, is this. This is the way we should do things to make the Russians and the Chinese and everybody do what we want. This is one faction. Punch them, strangle them, choke them, poke them in the eyes, beat them up and they'll do what we want. And there's another saying, well, let's do this another way. Perhaps let's do this. that so that the friction between the foreign policy factions are driving these things. Not anything the Russians are doing or not doing. So I would argue that, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you see a person who maybe, you know, certain maybe schizophrenia or what have you, that have a really, an unhealthy conversation going on in their mind and that drives them to do something, you know, externally that's very detrimental to themselves.

There's nothing that people on the outside could have done to affect that because there was a broken internal conversation driving them to, you know, I think the aliens are coming to get me. Therefore, I'd better do this. And I think that's where we are. There's an internal conversation going on, a battle for supremacy internally. I do think that where does it stop? There's one thing that's important, and that is this, and you'll notice this, you know, Iran, et cetera. U.S. presidents know, and I don't want to sound callous with this term, but this is a term that's frequently used in the U.S. body bags. You don't want dead soldiers coming home. You know, so they'll, oh, let's use, there's a reason they use proxy forces.

Yeah, well, you know, more dead Ukrainians, whatever, who knows, Romanians, Bowles, who cares, let them die, lots of it. But dead Americans coming home is not popular here, and that will, you know, as a result, they learned that after the Iraq war, Iraq and Afghanistan. understand is, you know, that everything, as a result of the Iraq war, really in 2008,

Obama came in and people forget he had these gigantic supermajorities. He had a veto-proof, you know, he had, what was it, what do you call it, a filibuster-proof majority in the, and he had 60 senators. He could do anything he wanted, sadly. He didn't, well, I guess he did, but they weren't good things. But my point being, he had immense power because there were body bags coming home from Iraq. That was what wiped the Republican Party out. And I think that a lot of people in the foreign policy establishment do understand that if they start putting American soldiers in harm's way and American soldiers start coming home, you know, unfortunately when flagged-drake coffins, that it could awaken and erupt that anti-war sentiment. I think that Trump knows that the MAGA people

will go ballistic because they do not want that at all. So that's now. The problem is they could get there by making foolish decisions, but that is the, I think the people in power know that's a red line for a lot of Americans. That at that point, particularly look at the polls as far as people under 30, when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to Israel, what comes to all of these things, they're the ones that would have to fight these wars, and they're the ones least inclined to support these things. And that's who you'd have to send. If they try to do a draft in the United States, they'd burn this country to the ground. Young people would burn this country to the ground at this point. It wouldn't work.

Garland, I just want to mention that Lavrock made essentially the same point as you did at the beginning. I mean, he was asked, why don't you have a meeting with the United States to explain the position on Tomahawks. He said, what's the point of the meeting? It's not going to make, basically the implication was it's not going to make any difference. The Americans just don't listen. Anyway, this is where I'm going to stop on that last point that you made. And thank you again for coming here and speaking to me and answering my various questions. You could stay, I'm sure we've got more questions to put to you from our viewers. And thank you once again, Garland Nixon and welcome again to these last dreams.

Thank you. It's always an honor. This is, you know, my favorite program. This is my go-to program for understanding what's happening on foreign policy, particularly in the Ukraine regarding the Ukraine conflict. So it's always an honor to come on this channel. Thank you. Thank you, Garland. You have 10, 15 minutes to answer a few questions? Yep, I'm in no rush. Cool, cool. Diamond Jump says good day, Alex, Alexander, Garland, and months. Thank you for that diamond jump. And we go to Ronald D.B. The whole West is in the process of purposeful decline. The question is, will Russia and China imitate that? Absolutely not. You know, one of the things that we have to take into account is the view of the world based on the

the civilizations versus a nation. The United States has been around for 250 years and, you know, it doesn't seem to have gotten its ideological footing over that period of time. Wherein Russia, China, Iran, these countries have been around for thousands of years. They view the world on a much, through the lens of a much longer, um, time, you know, perspective of time. They're not in as big of Russia as the U.S. And because they've been around for a long time, they've seen the rise fall of various empires and nations and world powers. And I think they understand the potential for the rise and fall of world powers. And I think they're just watching the U.S. They're watching the U.S. meltdown. And they are trying to manage it as best they can, in my opinion.

Ms. Texas G. has a question to ask Garland if he thinks Trump will lose the House and possibly the Senate. It's, you know, there's no way to project what's going to happen in the midterms. One of the things that I believed that seems to have becoming true in that coming true is, you know, our midterms really right around the 1st of January is when our midterms, you know, really start. But what happens? What's the big deal then?

That is the primaries, particularly with the Democrats. And that is that they will be primary. A lot of these Democrats that have been supporting the, you know, the Middle East policy will be, primaried, and my guess is some of them will lose. And it's potential that a lot of them could lose because they're so at odds with their base. Meanwhile, the Republicans, same thing. You've got a lot of mega people that are upset over the Epstein files, and, you know, various other things. And I think that one of the things is they had to, as best they could, whether or not it worked, they had to try to stop the conflict in Gaza for fear of, you know, if that was going on during the primaries,

Oh my gosh, what a position for these, particularly think about these Democrats who are saying, oh, yes, we're going to continue to support Gaza during a primary. And they're going to be running against someone who says, this is terrible. This has to be stopped immediately. They're going to lose. And now you're going to end up with a bunch of anti-AAPAC people, strongly anti-AAPA people in Congress. So I feel that a big reason for the attempt to stop this thing going in before the first of the year was, the potential political fallout on both sides of the aisle. I think both parties are extremely worried. You've got Marjorie Taylor Green who's starting to throw her way to get around and getting significant support from the Republican base because she's basically standing with what she said from the beginning and with what Trump said. She's saying, yeah, Trump and you guys said this. And I believed it and I stood with it, you're not doing it, and I'm still standing with it. I think they are pretty frightened about the potential for challenges in the midterms and don't underestimate how that's affecting foreign policy also. From Harry Serpanos, would Putin ever consider sending

hello? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah. You guys hear me? Okay, sorry, lost you. Yeah, I'm clear. Four seconds. One second, one second. From, oh, man, I lost my place. From Harry Sipanos, would Putin ever consider sending cruise missiles to Venezuela and Iran? Or is he keeping tensions down with the U.S. more important for him? Or could it be that he hasn't thought about it? I don't think that the Russians, you know, one of the things about Venezuela is it's a long ways away from Russia. And, you know, it would be difficult for Russia to try. Russia's military, you know, concepts, general concepts are foundations are not based on projecting power long distances away. It's pretty much a defensive perspective militarily. So I don't think they're going to be looking to project their power into the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela or whatever. I think they'll help Venezuela however they can. I think they understand that it would be foolish for the U.S. to, what are the U.S.

U.S. going to do with Venezuela. I mean, they could throw a couple of missiles at them from a distance, but you would have to put feet on the ground, and Venezuela has mountains and jungles and jungles with mountains. I've been to Venezuela, know it well, met with opposition parties. I've done a lot in Venezuela. I've traveled throughout Venezuela. I could do a show on that. I went to small villages and talked to the people in Venezuela, and those people are well armed. I mean, there are people, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who are armed with military weapons, machine guns, grenades. So how are you going to send troops into a country where everybody's armed and there's nothing but mountains and jungles and ambush points all over the place? It would be absurd

for the United States to try to put boots on the ground in Venezuela, or they'd be torn to shreds. So they could throw some weapons from a distance and maybe do some damage. What is Venezuela as the size of like Germany and France combined? It's a huge country. So it would be very difficult for the United States to do anything other than just throw some long-distance weapons from Venezuela. They couldn't go in there. They couldn't hold any ground. So I don't think the Russians have to do anything. It would be, you know, Vietnam on steroids for the U.S. to go into. It would be extremely difficult and it would weaken the U.S. to go into Venezuela. So let's hope they don't do it, but it wouldn't be beneficial. I think Iran, interestingly enough,

They have some area that they need had needed help from a defensive perspective, but offensively, they're extremely powerful and they're able to offensively defend themselves. And, of course, a big part of their defense is they were able to establish a deterrence with what they were able to do in the 12-day war. So there's a certain level of deterrence even now that those who would attack Iran, they're saying, we need to attack Iran, but if we attack them, we could have a problem. So they have a certain level of deterrence. I don't think the Russians, they'll help the Iranians where they need to and some defensive

purposes. But the Iranians don't need a lot of help. And the Venezuelans, it's a whole different dynamic. But it would be a disastrous for the U.S. to go in anyway. And it would be now, just from a perspective of foreign policy, I do not want the U.S. to go into Venezuela. I've been there, love the people. I don't want to see them suffer at all as they have been suffering.

But it would be a big mistake and it would be in a way beneficial for other adversaries throughout the world. Anytime the superpower, the U.S. power gets bald down in one area of the world and starts using up weaponry that they can't rebuild because they don't have rare earth. It's going to be beneficial to the entire world project that's trying to defend itself from the deterioration of U.S. hegemony. From Russell Hall, how is Charlie Kirk hurting Trump? What, you know, the real way it's doing is it's exposing some things that the people in power in the U.S. would prefer not to expose. You know, it's exposing that the level of control that the APAC and the Israeli lobby has over our political system, it is greatly exposed. been something else that has exposed that they don't want exposed. Because when you expose that, whether it's APEC or the military industrial complex, whoever, when you expose that they have a

significant amount of power over our government, it also exposes that the voters don't. So people start looking at it and saying, well, wait a minute, all we have is the illusion of democracy. If we're saying to the government, we don't want you to do this or we do want you to do that. And we find out that there are some entities, small entities that are attempting to hide that aren't good at hiding anymore that can steer the government away from us. We start feeling as though the only thing that we have is the illusion of democracy and you can't make the arguments anymore. We're standing for democracy. We're protecting the democracy, but what we're not doing is practicing it. And that's the biggest problem with Charlie Kirk. And also it goes from credibility, the Russian,

gate hoax was something that hurt the credibility of the traditional institutions that supported it. And now these institutions that are trying to make arguments that the Charlie Kirk assassination shouldn't be questioned, shouldn't be put under a microscope, that everything's fine, that we don't, nothing to see here. It further deteriorates the trust and faith in these institutions to the point where there's, there's, the traditional institutions of power, the media politics are disregarded. And now people are simply saying this. We go online and watch the Duran or Garland Nixon or this guy or whoever that's talking or Candace Owens or whoever. Now the institutions, particular of media, have completely changed.

Do you guys are an institution, an informational institution? And again, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, et cetera, people are turning off. You know, Larry Ellison's buying CBS. And I've heard a lot of people say, who cares? who watch CBS anyway, I'm turning on Tiger Carlson and the Duran. From Fuzzy Balls, at some point, won't the EU and NATO and the USA essentially be demilitarized with Ukraine consuming critical reserves at some point it's untenable? Absolutely.

You know, a point I've been making for a long time is, you know, you've probably heard me say it, I refer to Ukraine as a trash compactor, you know, and NATO just keeps throwing its stuff in there and Russia just keeps emptying the trash can, a compactor and saying, okay, throw more stuff in there. One of the things that, I'd just say this, if I were Russia, I would operate as slowly as I possibly could. I don't know what they're doing. I'm not saying they're doing this. This is one of the possibilities, but I'd operate as slowly as I could. I would drag this thing out as long as I could because my adversary is getting weaker. And if I have a strategy that's weakened in my adversary, slowly but surely, I'm going to continue with that strategy as long as I can because the ultimate

end to that strategy is that if it goes on long enough, my adversary will eventually be completely out of power. So if I'm the Russians and I drag this on, you just send them some more tanks, send them some more planes. Just keep sending stuff in here. Let's do this until you don't have a single tank left, a single plane, a single bullet. And if you combine the two things with Russia is saying send the stuff in here so we can blow it up and use it up here. And might I add, and that we can see how this technology works, that we can take these tomahawks or whatever we get back, reverse engineer them, share all of the technology with China and Russia and whoever else.

So we're all able to thwart these kinds of offensive weapons. If you look at that, then it's beneficial to Russia to continue this. And what they're doing is the combination, you have a, combinations now. They're destroying Western military war material. As China now puts a halt to the ability to replenish the supplies, there's an inevitability here where these two strategies no longer run parallel. At some point, they intersect. And where they intersect is you're out of war material and you can't build anymore. Okay, we're done. And, And that is an inevitability if we continue here with these two parallel policies.

They at some point intersect. Mama Alaska says, thank you, Duran, for having Garland on. Thank you for that. And from Paul Walker, who on earth advises Trump Garland? Everything he says is the polar opposite. What's sad is that the factions, this is going to sound crazy, the factions, the factions, in U.S. foreign policies are so irrational that Trump might be one of the more sane ones. You know, they're so irrational. Donald Trump occasionally says something that makes sense.

Let's not forget. Donald Trump is the guy who a while back said, look, the Russians, they defeated Hitler, they defeated Napoleon. You know, you're fighting a country way bigger than you. This is not smart. You're inevitably going to lose saying this to Ukraine. So Donald Trump knows what's going on. Regardless of what he says now, at some point he knew it. was going on, and I suspect he still does, and he's responding to the pressures around him. But I think that the, it's just that the entire process is very, very irrational and senseless. And what was, could you repeat a question one more time so I make sure I answered it? I just lost my place on that. Who's advising Trump?

I think was the question. It's simple. Who's advising Trump? Yeah, who are the people. That's a good question. That's a good question. And so who's advising Trump and how much power does Trump really have? If they say, Trump, you should do this.

Well, what happens if Trump says, no, I don't want to do that? So even if they advise him to do something and he says yes or no, how much authority does he have to say yes or no? And as we've seen in the past, if he says, no, I don't want to do this. Are they really going to listen? If Donald Trump says, okay, CIA, I don't want you to do this in Ukraine. What we've seen in the past, they'll say, okay, we're not going to do that anymore in Ukraine, sir, and they're going to do it anyway. So advising Trump, how much authority does Trump really have? Is he really the, quote, president and the understand that we say it,

in that he is an administrator of U.S. foreign policy, right? Or is he the president? We'll go with the word. Does he preside over U.S. foreign policy? Does he administrate for U.S. foreign policy? To some extent, he presides over it rather than administrates it. But I think the fact that even that ability of the president to control foreign policy to direct foreign policy has been

had significantly deteriorated over the last 20 years if it was ever even really there. I don't know. Yeah. Like what happened in Syria in his first term. Yeah. He literally sent a note and said, do this, this, this. And they said, sure, right away, sir. And they lied to him about how many troops were there. They just lied to them about everything. Yeah, exactly. All right, you have time for two more, Garland? Sure. Go ahead. I mean, no rush. Lee Levin says, does the overwhelming U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have an impact on the current suffering in Venezuela?

Absolutely. Yeah, Venezuela now it's better. The last time I was in Venezuela was like 2021, something like that, and 2020, 2021. And it was really, really bad. I mean, nothing was moving. They were, you know, struggling to overcome, you know, just like intense poverty throughout the country. However, let me say this. The people were defiant. You know, the plan, of course, was to make the people suffer and then they'll turn against the government. When you went and talked to the people, they were defiant against the U.S. They were very politically knowledgeable. They were very politically sophisticated. Even, like I said, go out to the littlest village way out in the mountains. Those people were highly sophisticated politically. And when you talk to them, they would explain foreign policy in a way that was shocking to me because Americans don't understand foreign policy like that.

And they had a very clear, open and honest understanding of it. They know who's at fault. However, my understanding from people who go to Venezuela now is that the situation is improving due to their relationships, of course, with Russia and China. And, of course, Venezuela has a very significant relationship with Iran. Very Venezuelan in Iran are very close. You have Iranian grocery stores there. I remember when I was there, there were a lot of murals.

They do big murals in South America, you know, beautiful murals that people paint all over the place. And there were murals of two things that you. you would see a lot of murals of one of them was like a venusuelan an iranian flag and hand shaking together right the acknowledgement that iran is a close friend of ours and uh barak obama with like horns and devil fangs and things they despise baroque obama in in uh in venezuela they absolutely despi he is the devil incarnate to the people of venezuela for a number of reasons T.D. says Alex Alexander and Garland, you are doing what matters. Your detailed insights are invaluable. Thank you for your thoughtful attention and tireless dedication to a better world. Thank you for that, TD. And the final question to Garland goes to Ms. Texas G. The West cannot afford to lose Ukraine. Number one, it means the defeat of NATO. Number two, every sin the West has been up to in Ukraine will be exposed to the world. And number three, money will be gone with the wind. Your thoughts, Garland. Oh, absolutely. The United States cannot afford to lose Ukraine and really in a way they've already lost it.

You know, they've lost it from the perspective of if you and I are playing a game of chess and at some point it gets to a point where we look at it. And I know if I move here, you're going to move there. You know, how it gets a well if I move here, you'll move if I move here. And at some point, the game's not over because there are still moves that can be made, but the winner, it has been determined. And so we can continue and, okay, I'll move this and then you'll take that and we'll get to a checkmate. But we both can look at it and determine this game's over. What do we do? Do we play these last few hands? What do we do? I would say that the Ukraine conflict is already lost in that the determination of the outcome of the winner is already there. It's over. Russia has won this. Russia is going to win this. And so right now, the West is struggling.

with the narrative, you know, trying to maintain the facade that this thing hasn't been lost internally, not to the rest of everybody in the world knows, but they're trying to maintain the narrative to internally. No, no, and it hasn't lost. We still have a chance of winning. And of course, that leads to some very dangerous circumstances. But I think you are correct in that We talk about Venezuela, Iran, Gaza, et cetera. But the one that is the big battle is Ukraine and that is lost. And once, you know, all of these other things to try to maintain hegemony are one thing. When they lose in Ukraine, when it is clear that they've lost in Ukraine, that is it for Western hegemony.

They've taken on, they've thrown everything they can at a superpower and they've lost. And at that point, the idea that they can somehow take over Russia and then take over China and all of that stuff is gone, Russia and China will be stronger. They will be more unified. And there will be no hope of, quote, maintaining the hegemony that's already gone. So Ukraine is the big one. It isn't China anymore. To the U.S., it's China. But once they lose in Ukraine, there is no China. There is no way. There is no path, as REM said, you can't get there from here. Once the Ukraine, conflict is lost, it's all lost. And they put all of their eggs in that basket, and that basket is the only question now is how they lose and how soon they lose. And if I'm Russia, it's going to be a long time. I'm in no rush. Carlin Nixon with an R.M. Quote, it's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine. Let's go with another song, but R.M. song rather than that one. All right, Garland Nixon, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much, Garlet.

Thank you very much. Where could people follow your work before you sign out? Certainly, I am on Telegram. I'm on like Facebook and Instagram and, of course, my YouTube channel. All right, those links are in the description box down below and as a pin comment as well. Thank you, Garland, so much. Thank you. Take care.

All right. All right. let's answer the remaining questions, Alexander? Absolutely. Great live stream, by the way. Yeah, that was a good stream.

You know, the last point, just to just to say, I remember way, way back, before the Ukraine conflict began, you said it was a very strange hill for NATO and all of them to choose to die on Ukraine, to be precise, and well, they did choose it.

Well, we heard what Garland just had to say. Yeah. Don't freak out over the, looking at the chat. Don't freak out over the R. It's the end of the world as we know. We should pick another song. Another song would be better. Everybody hurts.

All right. Let's go to the questions, Alexander. From, let's see, where are we? Let's go to Rumble. Let's go to Rumble. From S.S. Kobe, the Russian economy is beginning to suffer from anemic growth projections and demographic crisis labor shortages, while that capacity end at war, is time really on Russia's side? Yes, and I've explained this, and I've discussed this many times.

The issue with the economic growth race is directly related to monetary policy and to the central bank's decision to keep monetary policy extremely tight in order to bring down inflation. Now, many people would argue that trying to see... stick to peacetime levels of inflation in the middle of a war might not be the best and wisest thing to do and that you're going to get lower growth than you would otherwise do by keeping your interest rates so high in order to reduce inflation in that way. But it is what the Russian Central Bank does and it is what Putin also does. So they kept interest rates very high throughout 2014.

they started to reduce interest rates in the summer. Many people expected that they would cut interest rates faster than they did in September. I always had my doubts because I followed Nubulinna, the central bank chair many, many times. She kept interest rates very high. She only cut them by 1%. The next meeting is going to take place on the 24th of October. signals are that we're going to get more cuts, but Nebula and Putin want first and foremost economic stability. So living standards have never been higher, employment rates have never been stronger.

If the Russian government, if the political leadership in Moscow, decide that the moment has come to increase growth and to prioritize growth over inflation, they have the toolkit to hand. They just cut interest rates faster. So that is probably what they would do. So eventually, once this process has started to play out, they will do it. Now, on demographic issues, yes, these are a problem for Russia,

as they are for Europe, as they are for China, as they are catastrophically for South Korea, and Japan, as by the way, they are also for the United States. The Russians need to do with this, but it is not going to make a difference to the outcome of the war. And if you're talking about the actual number of people who are living in Russia now, it has probably grown, it has definitely grown significantly since the start of the special military operation because you've had millions of people come to Russia from Ukraine, you've had the expansion into the four regions which adds population as well, and you've had other people

coming from other places too who perhaps are not appearing the statistics of the same way. So demography is not going to cause the Russians to lose the war and neither is economic. Yeah, just on that note, Alexander, getting into Russia on this trip through passport control took me four hours. Wow. Four hours. That's how many people were in line waiting to get through the passport control. Well, there you know. I've never seen anything like it.

Well, there you do. Yeah, it was awful. But, I mean, just the amount of people getting into Russia, arriving into Russia. I've never seen anything like in all my travels. Wow. Anyway, from the Alchemist 19, could Putin grasp what his hardliners want and even agree, yet wait for national consensus so he isn't solely blamed, letting patients turn a personal choice into a shared decision?

There's been an enormously interesting and very lengthy interview that Lavrov has given to Commissant. I mentioned it over the course of the program. Unfortunately, like every comment and interview that Russian officials give, it doesn't require a certain degree of passing because their political language is definitely different from our political language. But my overall view about it, reading it, is that there's been some kind of understanding reached within the Kremlin, which is that, well, the Tomahawk decision is now done. There's nothing that can be done now to stop the Americans going down this track. that from this moment on

the relations with Trump basically ended. I mean the way that Lavrov talked about Trump that he's emotional and impulsive that he goes in all kinds of directions basically gives a strong impression

that the Russians have given up on him. Yeah, I also read the parts though where Lavrov was complimenting Trump again. Oh, I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. It is still It is still there. You can still see this from,

I mean, this is what Putin wants. But overall, as I said, the overall sense I got reading this interview is that the Russians are basically reached that point where they say enough's enough. I mean, and the interviewer, again, was much more aggressive and hostile. This is Commerzant, by the way.

Commissant is, you know, the newspaper of a business community. It's, you know, within the spectrum of Russian media outlets, it is very much on the liberal edge. So, I mean, you know, they, however, were challenging Lavrov. You know, you're telling us he hasn't reacted. He's going to send Tom Hawks. What do you mean he's not reacting? And then Lavrov launches again on a long explanation, which is what Russian officials tend to do.

But you can see that the mood, in this interview, I think, is, you know, it was the point where you can tell that they all came together, Lavrov Medvedev, perhaps Bellows, who knows who knows, but Prat Rousseff. And they came together, they said, like, this is the line we're going to take. It's going to be set out in this interview. We're going to still throw some nice things to Trump because we don't want to, the Russians never like. to make a complete swerve and change because if that happens, then of course it does open up questions that they don't want to ask about themselves, to have to answer about themselves. But anyway, but as I said, it clearly sets out the line, and it is a line that Alaska is almost exhausted.

They've had nothing, nothing came out of Alaska the way that they expected that it would. Well, Trump is, his rhetoric is getting more aggressive, towards Russia. I mean, yesterday's, or two days ago, his lashing out at Russia was, was as intense as I've ever seen him lash out at Russia. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he's getting very, very aggressive in his rhetoric, very aggressive. Yes. Yes. Well, I have no doubt that we're going to get an announcement that the Tomahawks have been sent to the Ukraine. I mean, I think we've now reached that point where that decision has been made. I don't think there's any changing of it. And I think the Russians understand that.

Yeah, well, they're also doing damage control, just the final point for we get to the questions. More questions. I think that there's a lot of damage control now in the Kremlin after Putin's comments about the Tomahawks, where Putin really messed up the answer to the question from the report. I mean, that was a huge mess up. And everyone understood it. That is a very good point, by the way. I mean, there is damage control being done, and it's been done because Putin, as you've correctly said, messed up the interview,

uncharacteristic of him. He didn't understand or he didn't get on top of the change in the shift in the mood in Russia. It was just a terrible answer. A terrible answer. Yes. Yes. Anyway. All right.

Nikos on that point. Nikos says, when this palace intrigue started, I dismissed it as Doctoros nonsense. However, when even the Russian media is challenging Putin this bad. One second, Alexander. Let me scroll down to the second part. Even you, Duran, especially you, Alex, and people in our circle are buying this logic of it's all Putin's fault without understanding the reason. We have to, you have to accept that the elites are willing to have a nuclear war, as they've said. They don't care about their citizens.

They have their bunkers. One more part. Putin is neither naive nor moderate enough, but he has understood that the West wants nuclear war, but has he understood that the West wants nuclear war to destroy Russia? Look at their response to fake drones. Right. I don't think it was a palace intrigue, and I think this is an essential thing to say. Russia, Moscow is the capital of an enormous country. there are, the political decision-making group is very large.

There are always going to be different opinions within it. Those opinions get discussed. There is always discussion and debate taking place in Moscow. This time, that discussion and debate became increasingly heated and it became increasingly obvious to me that Putin was becoming, isolated within the argument and the discussion that was taking place. It does not mean that there is any plot or intention or plan by anybody to oust him or that there is an intrigue going on. And intrigue implies that there is some kind of conspiracy.

There is no conspiracy. It's a straightforward publicly, public debate, or parts of it have got out there into the main, street but the russian political system still works in a very systematic and collective way Putin cannot disregard and said this many times the views of the various people who are there in the kremlin and within the political system and he's having to shift his ground as their opinions harden and shift as well now about Putin's own understanding of the West, I think generally Putin has understood the West very, very well. I think he's been under very few illusions, at least since 2022, about the hostility of the West.

And I think that the admission by Angela Merkel that there was never any real sincerity behind Minsk, I mean, that was for him the point where he stopped having any belief in the Europeans at all. Where I think he has been, and I get to say this, naive, is in thinking that with Trump himself, he could develop a relationship and find a way back. He should have perhaps realized earlier than he did that the interactions with Trump were going to lead nowhere because Trump is never able, in the end, to break with the hard line of the surrounding. They want to know what did Putin answer to the question, Alexander?

Yes, I'll tell you exactly what it was. It was the news conference in Dushanbe. He was talking, as he usually does, and somebody shouted at him, you know, and he said, you know, what is your question? Is it about Don Hawks? And the answer to the question was, what are we going to do?

if Tomahawks are supplied to Ukraine. And rather angrily, he simply said, we're going to improve our air defences. Now, that was not what people wanted to hear. I mean, it made it look as if the entire Russian response was going to be purely passive, that the Americans could just conduct strikes deep inside Russia, and there would be no response from Russia.

And that did not go down well with people in Russia at all. Matthew says, surely after all of these recent developments, after all of the USA policy papers, Alexander, you must now concede that a larger war is on the cards. Concede. I never looked forward that far. I still think at the end of the day that the U.S. military does not want to get involved in a bigger war with Russia. I mean, I think this would be a suicidal thing, and I don't get the sense that these people really want to commit suicide. If we're talking about the Europeans, they are not in a position to conduct a war with Russia. Britain, which has one of the strongest militaries in Europe, is down to 40 tanks. 40 tanks. It has no self-propelled guns left.

Half the Royal Air Force doesn't function. we're given away to Ukraine, practically our entire stockpile of Storm Shadow missiles. We're not able to fight the Russians. The Americans are short of air defense missiles. Apparently, that's one of the reasons why they're giving them Tomahawk missiles. They can't give them air defense missiles anymore. So if they can't give them defense missiles, give them offensive missiles instead. The kind of crazy logic that is being followed.

So I don't think we are in any real position to really threaten the Russians with a conventional war. And I don't think that anybody still wants a nuclear war. I think the plan is to continue this attempt to keep the war going for as long as possible because nobody can come up with an alternative, hope that something in Moscow changes, that the relationship between Russia and China cracks, that India will stop buying the, Russian oil, that there will be some crisis internally in Russia and that something like that will happen and that it will all come right in the end. Was it any different with Afghanistan? Was it any different with South Vietnam? No. Yeah, but if the Europeans could go to war with Russia, they would,

right? Well, some of them, if they could. Some of them, I mean, I was reading, I have to say, I think this is not just crazy but criminal that the governments of the Baltic states since May have been working on plans to evacuate their entire civilian populations from the Baltic states. Now, I mean, that is madness. I mean, a madness of multiple levels. We are Greeks. We know what happens when people are forced to leave their land, their homes. We know that that. they might never return. I mean, this is the tragedy that Greeks have experienced since the start of the 20th century.

To do this voluntarily to yourself shows how extreme the fanaticism of some people in Europe is. I still don't quite believe it will happen because I don't think the mood amongst the greater majority of people in Europe who would have to fight that war. there and I still believe that there are generally militaries that I don't want to do it. But that the fanaticism on the part of some to do it, to go to war, that certainly is there.

And of course, going back to what Garland said, there are other people, perhaps more hard-headed and hard-nosed people who want to use the war psychosis to tighten control in Europe. And of course, they're doing this every day. Rafael, member for 50 months, the Big 50. I love you guys, the best show. Thank you, Raphael, for all your support. Fantastic, and congrats. B for Boomer, welcome to the Duran community.

Dr. Philip Pandamu. Welcome to the Duran. Let's see. From we answered that one. From Paul Walker, who advises Trump, we answered that one. Eric Hatchett. Can I just say something about it? I just want to do out that and to what Garlane says.

I mean, one of the worst things about Trump as president is that he always does, and it's Alex assesses, he always goes back to those hard-line people that he seems to want to win over and will not realize or understand that whatever he does with them, they will always be hostile. to him. So he doesn't reach out to the very large expert community that there is of the United States, which could advise him properly. He never searches out that advice. He always goes for people like Kellogg and Mike Waltz, who's now been resurrected again. He goes back to those sort of people instead. And it is a disaster and it is going to ruin his presidency. Yeah, Fox News. Fox Hughes,

exactly. Rubio, that man who Mark Levin, who is on Fox. I mean, all of those sort of people. And, well,

there's no excuses to be made for this. He is the President of the United States. He can call and speak to anybody he wants. President Kennedy did. Yeah.

Eric Hatchett says, Me and mine live 20 miles from Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho, one of the biggest in the U.S. It will be targeted, as will be the one in Cyprus. Sorry, Alex. Let's not start drawing targets and, you know, planning the nuclear war before it happens. Yeah, man. All right, Fuzzy Ball says, for everyone, Modi never. told Trump that he wouldn't buy

Russian oil. The contract ran out. They will renegotiate a new deal this week. Modi has to be done with Trump. Admin telling lies about India. Well, I know. I mean, it's a stupid thing for Trump to say. And mind you, I mean, I think Modi himself, I mean,

we're talking about Putin, trying always to reach out to Trump. Modi does the same. I mean, he thought he had a good relationship with Trump. He was very angry about the fact the Trump sided with Pakistan over the course of the Pakistan Indian conflict of a few months ago.

Then there was this business of the sanctions of the tariffs and all of that. And then Modi has been trying over the last few weeks, even as he prepares to receive Putin to mend fences with Trump again. And what does he get? He gets his words misrepresented because I've no doubt at all that was what happened. He trashed India too, didn't he, one post on truth social? I forgot what he said. He said something about India.

A dead economy, I think it was. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. The fastest growing economy in the world, by the world, but I just say. Star Helix says, Duran is a staple in our house after a rough day in the UK, and there are lots of it. Thank you, love from Great Britain.

I know. Thank you for that. Paul Walker says Bloomberg, the EU, is considering forcing Chinese firms to hand over technology, to EU companies if they want to operate locally in aggressive new push, make the blocks industry more competitive. Still other people's technology. I mean, it's been pointed out to me that, of course,

there are far more companies, European companies, working in China than there are in Europe. So, I mean, this can easily get out of control. And I gather that the mood in China, and they're much more fiery in some respects than the Russians are, that the mood in China is getting very, very angry indeed. It's pathetic because the EU is doing it at the orders of the United States. Yes, I know.

That makes it a hundred times worse. Of course, you do. The US is ordering you to seize Chinese companies and you do it. Yeah. I mean, you can't explain it. No. Jung Gugul Jin says, why didn't China impose export controls on crucial rare earths years ago?

The war with China has been impending. for all to see for the last decade. Because the Chinese had an excellent trading and economic relationship with the United States, which they wanted to preserve. And of course, they were aware of all of these articles that were appearing. But they told themselves, as the Russians did with the Germans, that ultimately self-interest, economic self-interest, will bring the Americans to their senses.

Just as the Russians discovered with the Germans, so the Chinese are discovering with the Americans. that that calculation was wrong. Rational people always make the mistake of expecting others to act rationally. And that was the mistake the Russians made, and it's the mistake the Chinese made too. Rafael says, Alexander, do you think Zelensky knows we can have another Katyn massacre situation if Russia enters Kiev? People are tired of him in Russia. Well, who knows?

My own view about Zelensky is that he's planned, and I think Zelensky, by the way, despite everything that people say about him, does have a plan. I think his plan is that he leaves Kiev on the last train with suitcases full of cash and whizzes off to the south of France or perhaps the Florida and sets himself up there.

And that, I think, is his plan. He's not going to wait in Kiev for the Russian army to come. they come and get them. Fuzzy Balls says, question for everyone, Russia and North Korea will get all the rare earths that they want. How long before it critically affects U.S. national security? Well, I understand that during the previous cycle back in the spring, it was having an immediate impact. Because these things are never in very, very large supply. The stockpiles tend to be rather small.

flying boar says if you are the president of a country like russia then you can't afford to be a moderate because you have foreign enemies like the u and u.s who hate you well by russian standards Putin is a moderate it's important to remember that he's been around as president of russia for a very very long time he's been leading russia in one form or another for 26 years. And his views were formed during the later period of the Cold War, during the era of detente. And in the 1990s, when the whole outlook in Russia was that we get, we develop good relations with the West. So he still, I think, clings to some of that thinking. Others who are coming after him, I think take a much, much,

half of you of the West and indeed of the situation of the world altogether. Flying Boar says learn from China how they stood up to the West. Well, they did. Nico says, respecting President Putin, I understand his position. I also understand the frustration of people like you, Alex or Levan, but you haven't asked what's next? Well, what's next is that the Russians continue with the war and give up on the with the United States. I mean, that, we are, we go back, in other words,

to where we were this time last year, when there was no dialogue with the United States, no dialogue with the Biden administration, and the Russians were already advancing and winning the war. Many, many people in Russia wanted that way. They were much more comfortable with that situation, than with these discussions between Putin and Trump. Whenever Putin and Trump had a call,

whenever Putin and Trump met, you always got the sense at certain levels that people were worried that Putin was going to make unacceptable concessions. He never did, and I don't think he ever will. I do think that's what Putin is about at all, but people would much rather that there was, no dialogue and that they could just focus on the wall and just go ahead and win it. Fuzzy Ball says Donald Trump, 87% of the time, he's wrong every time.

Game of chair says Trump talks like a failed businessman, not a diplomat. He doesn't talk like a diplomat of any kind at all. It's strange because actually he has many of the skills to be a very good diplomat. He's funny, it's charming. he seems to want people to like him. People in one-to-one discussions generally do like him. If he worked at diplomacy, he might actually be good at it. Iranian kiddo says Alex was in Armenia.

You should have gone down south a bit, and you would be in Tabriz, a 100-year-old restaurant in Tabriz, old bazaar called Taj Ali Kabab, makes one of the best filet mignon's and lamb kebabs in northwest Iran. Thank you for that, Iran and Quito. Next time, next trip. I will definitely check that out. From Elza, I don't know if it's correct,

but Russian media reports that Trump didn't congratulate Putin on his birthday. I don't think that Putin really cares, but it tells a lot about Trump and Russians care. I think it does, and I think that is true, by the way, and the Russians do care. Modi did, by the way, Modi called Putin. Iranian Kiro says, Alexander asked me on the last show

if Kurds and Iranians have similarities. Yes, Kurds are considered Iranian people. Kurdish language is a West Iranian language, but it's not mutually intelligible. Right. Iranian Kido says Iranian Kurds, of course, speak both Kurdish and Farsi. Kurds not just Iran, but in Iraq,

and Turkey celebrate the Noru's holiday on the first day of the spring, which has its roots in Zoroastronism, the ancient Persian religion. Interesting. Thank you. Thank you for that. Stero neutrino, to find out if the U.S. is planning something nefarious, previously checked Pentagon pizza consumption, currently check cryptocurrency shorting activity. I never followed that.

This is this is one hundred and ninety million short. Yeah. Yes. This is one field where I'm completely, you know, it's beyond my knowledge. Well, someone knew Alexander about. Oh, absolutely. Somebody clearly did, yes. Yeah.

Sticky Marx says, our leaders, if they want to show up for a fight and stop hiding behind those who they sent to die, Ukraine and Russians dying on both sides. Putin says, hold my beer. Crazy in Yorkshire. Thank you for that. Thanks. Fuzzy Ball says, Edgar Casey in 1944 predicted that Russia would ultimately become a hope of the world, not through communism, but through a spiritual awakening where each man will live for his fellow man.

I should say that the Russians themselves find these kind of comments about them rather difficult. And I think I can understand why. I mean, we mustn't invest every, all our hopes in them in that kind of way, or expect them to be there for the whole world. I mean, Russia is basically about Russia. Russians are mostly about their own country and about their families and about their lives and things of that kind. Thank you, David Butler for the tip. Thank you so much for that. and from D.F.

Will Russia hand over Assad to keep its bases? No. No. In fact, people are getting this completely wrong. The Russians were on the brink of giving up their bases after Assad fell. And then O'Don said, you know, please stay, because we need you there to keep the Israelis back. And Al-Sharah, of course, Jalan, in other words, has just gone to Moscow. and he also wants the Russians to stay. There is never been massive enthusiasm in Moscow for the Syrian bases.

Some people, the Navy wants them. The Russian Navy always wants to have bases overseas. Putin himself obviously took an interest in this and would like to keep the bases. But others in Russia, the military, the army, people of that kind, see these bases as a point of. vulnerability, not as an asset, and would rather that they were done away with. Unvaccinated guy 5378 says maybe the U.S. exhausts weapon supplies and then has to decide

whether to use the skunk works, tick-tack to fake an alien invasion, Project glue beam, and forced to use the modern weapons to flex on Russia and China. Well, absolutely. I can understand. I mean, on that point, I think it was CNN. It may CNN. Anyway, they said that one of the reasons they're going to send Tomahawks to Ukraine is because they've run out of patriots. What kind of logic is that? So you run out of one weapon, so you're going to run out of another as well? I mean, it's just, to me, this is such infantile decision-making, if that is indeed what is driving things, that I just cannot, I just can't get my head around it.

Jungle Jin 1520 says Hamas and Hezbollah were winning their wars with Israel, but ended up being trounced by the ceasefires, the irony. Well, we don't know that this is going to stick. I was reading that there's a media outlet in Britain called the Free Press, which is basically dominated by the neocom historian Nile Ferguson. And one of their people went to southern Lebanon and was shocked. I say shocked because he's very hostile to Hezbollah. He was shocked to find that they were not only there, but that they looked to be as strong as ever and that they were reorganising. The article came out just a few weeks ago, by the way, and he gave a vivid description of how all the villages seem to be once again dominated by Hezbollah fighters

and that the organisation was clearly recovering and recovering fast. So what is going to happen in Gaza, I do not know. But for the moment at least, Hamas is not disarmed and it is still there and it is an organization. So one cannot say that it has been broken and defeated. And when Trump talks about a complete victory by Israel, for the moment, things fall significantly short of that. Elza says the first ship on China, Europe, Arctic route docked in Britain. Oh boy, more meltdowns for the collective west. Indeed so, yeah.

Jeff Bickford says, thank you. Hopefully a better world is being born. There's no alternative. Yes, there is. I mean, we are going through a very difficult period of transition, which is completely unsurprising. Many people say this, the periods of transition, than one world to the next are often traumatic.

And I go back to that article that Brian Belletic sent to us, four difficult years ahead, very difficult years, but provided we get through, and four years is not in historical time, such a long time, then things will begin to improve. From Iranian kiddo, Norris is also celebrated in other countries, including Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, because Central Asia was very much so Persian long before it became dominated by Turkomongal people.

A second part, Central Asia was very much so Persian culturally and linguistically by around the 11th century. They even looked like Iranians. I have met a group of people from Samakhan, which is obviously in Uzbekistan. And they tell me that the language, still, the dominant language in Sama Khan, is actually Tajik, which is a Persian, an Iranian language. And that, in fact, this continues to be the most widely spoken language, especially amongst educated people, in all of the big Central Asian cities, rather than the Turkic languages around them. Some of the governments in these places don't really want these Persian languages to be spoken, but that the culture remains very Persian. And he told me that Norus continues to be celebrated in Samakhan, too.

Keith says the markets in Canada are at an all-time high. Do you expect a crash or a correction? Is this a case of irrational exuberance or of war profits? I don't know, and I'm not going to try and make predictions. I'm never good at that. I mean, I didn't know whether Alex has any ideas. No financial advice. Who knows?

Who knows, man? Trump can put out a post on truth and everything could just go crazy. It's that messed up. Yes. Zaryel says Trump is a businessman and not a particularly good one. He treats the USA as such and not like a country. I wish this mess would just stop. Nope.

Thanks, gents. Well, I suspect we've got three more years of this, so we'll have to buckle up. Thank you for that. Ariel, seven-inch destroyer says, highly respect both of you, but highly disagree with many of your arguments and views. You guys, however, always keep it classy and are both incredibly gifted speakers. Love the channel. Thank you for that. Thank you.

Thank you. And one second, Alexander from Iranian Kiddo. A shift occurred when Turks moved into the region from the 6th century and the Mongols in the 13th century. people there started to develop more Asian features but kept their languages and culture as seen today. Well, I've told you what the person from Sama Khan said. He told me something else which is very interesting, which is the Samakand, which was absolutely an Iranian city, is the same place as Maracanda, where Alexander the Great went and killed his friend Plitis. So it's got all of these connections to history, which is extremely interesting.

and his wife, Oroksana, apparently came from that part of the world as well, and she also was Persian. So a very interesting part of the world and apparently very, very much connected with the Iranian intellectual world to this day. Yeah, AMT, welcome to the Dram community. And Sterrell Nutrino says, Emmanuel Todd writes, A crisis of nihilism exists worst in countries where the religion was Protestantism or Judaism, which are absolutist religions in their search for the transcendent. I thought it was one of the most moving and brilliant articles that he has written. It's a new preface that he's written to the book, which scandalously has not yet been translated into English.

By the way, I think there is a possible chance that we might be in contact with him soon. But I'm not going to say that's definitely going to happen. Jamila says, guys, American leaders don't have advice. It's collapsed. Yeah, I agreed. I think that's entirely about it. They don't get advice. They get told what to do.

But to repeat again, Trump is the president of the United States. He came in with a solid electoral base behind him. He could have sought advice from whoever he wanted. And he could have searched for it and found it. And it is there to be found in the United States. There were plenty of people who wanted to help him. And instead he goes for Kellogg and Waltz and all of those people instead. His second term added as well.

This is not his first term. And he got burned by those same type of guys in his first term, the Bolton's and all of these generals, McMasters and all of these guys. So he learned absolutely nothing from his first term. No. Yeah. And he made a whole lot of promises during the campaign about him. I remember it.

I remember it. They said that he had learned and that he wouldn't make the mistake again. And exactly as Alex said, he went ahead and did exactly the same thing all over again. Christian Delmar, welcome to the dread community or a member to the drag community for 20 months. Russell Hall says, Trump does it like being in the position? of trading horses without a horse to trade. His erratic actions are from trying to pull leverage out of his, you know what? Yeah, I mean, this is, you've actually made a good point.

I mean, he constantly makes this mistake because he thinks that in order to win in a negotiation, to win the deal, he has to get leverage. He's got to put aside completely this idea. This is not deal making. This is negotiating painstakingly agreements with people on the other side who are at least as sophisticated, when in fact in this case, much more sophisticated than you. Diplomatic negotiations are conducted completely differently from New York real estate deals. Iranian Kido says Tajik's have close historical ties to Iran.

They are the descendants of a mix of many ancient Eastern Iranian people such as Dactrian, Skithians, Saghdians, and even Greeks by the way. There are many Tajiks in my part of London. There's even a restaurant. And I've spoken to several of them. And as far as they're concerned, they're Iranians. I'm just to say, that's what they said to me. I mean, I don't mean that they don't feel a connection to their own country and their own nation. but they see themselves absolutely as part of the Iranian world.

Iranian Kido says Darius deported some Ionis de Bactria during the early 5th century BC. By the time Alexander got there, centuries later, then he conquered Persia. A thriving Greek community was already there. Interesting. I didn't know that. Thank you for that, Iranian kiddo. Unvaccinated guy 5378 says, Peser family is secretly flexing, one of the men behind. the curtain.

Interesting. Okay. Thank you. Pauli 7140 says, hope you all enjoy the marvelous NATO S.G. Mark Ruta, the lying Dutchman. Greetings from Amsterdam. Well, I think he's turning, he's becoming a clown, actually. He's worse than Stoltenberg. Absolutely, he's worse than Stoltenberg. I mean, this nonsense about the submarine, for example.

You know, there was a British Royal Navy officer, who is, I mean, as hardline in Russia as it gets. And, you know, it's critical of Putin and as supportive as Ukraine as you can find. And even he went on, off and wrote an article of the telegraph. So what is, what is Ruta talking about? No, there's nothing to see here. This look, the submarine doesn't look broken to me. I mean, what is he trying to do?

I mean, is he trying to cheer people up, tell them, you know, don't be scared. The bear is actually a paper bear. I mean, I just don't know. He thinks he's funny. I kind of like listening to Mark Putte. He thinks he's funny. He always throws out that line about how Lavrov is binfar and minister of Russia longer than Jesus. He likes to use that line.

And then whenever he refers to Putin, notice how he always says Putin's full name. He says Vladimir Vladimir Vadovich. I know. He doesn't say Putin. He says the full name. I know. Markeruta. He's more entertaining.

If you play the clown, you become one. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's what you are. And he turns NATO into a circus. Which is what it is. Which is what it is. Iranian kiddo says Sejuq Turks captured Persia in the 11th century. That's when the Turkification of Azerbaijan started.

Azerbaijan is a Persian name meaning land of fire. It has its meeting in Zoroastrian religion, which fire is sacred. I didn't know that. No, I didn't know that at all. I mean, I knew about the Russian resistance. I didn't know about the name of Azerbaijan. The name of Azerbaijan, yeah. No, I didn't know that.

That's that's Abarbaijan, Iranic. Or Cambodia. It depends which way you want to take it. Jamila says wicked European leaders, they came down. They look stupid. I'm embarrassed for all of them. Thank you for that, Jamila.

Let's see here. Lee Levin says, The more appropriate lyrics for our time is we're on the eve of destruction written by Barry McGuire. Oh, my goodness. I don't know these songs. Let's hope not.

Let's open up. Iranian Kido says Azerbaijan was named after a Persian general who after the fall of Persia became Alexander's ally and governor. His name was Atrapata, in Old Persian or Atropathis. In Greek, he created his own kingdom there after Alexander died. I didn't know any of this.

Thank you very much. Thank you. And Iranian Kido says after Iran, Turks then moved further west into Byzantine territory, creating the sultanate of rum, which nearly toppled the Byzantines. John, the second recovered most of Anatolia with the health. of the Crusades in the 12th century. True enough. True.

Lee Levin says, are ground-launched tomahawks nuclear capable? No, apparently. This has all been now very, very thoroughly explained to me. Apparently, a sea launched, Tomahawks launched from ships, from surface ships, are not nuclear capable. They, the tomahawks that would be ground-launched, would in Ukraine would be adaptions of these surface ship launched tomahawks.

Submarine launched toroch tomahawks perhaps can be nuclear capable, but they cannot be adapted for ground launch. Hi, Raphael says too much philosophy. This is what happens when you keep a coach for too long. Putin and Lavrov are too close to the West. Russia needs new coaches. Well, you know, I, I, They are people, as I said, they are people of their time.

Don't make the mistake of thinking, however, that they will not act in Russia's interests. That they will certainly do. Udvada 1 says, for four years, all we see is mockery of Ukraine and West and goofy expectations that this will calm down. It won't, and their timid response invites cruel defeat. this is on the western side defeat by the West I guess Russia's timid response

invites cruel defeat I mean I don't see I don't see any sign of this defeat they're winning I mean they're advancing steadily in the east and their army is getting

bigger and stronger all the time and I've discussed the situation in their economy I mean I don't see where this defeat the people are talking about is going to come from and their alliance with china is solid and their relationship with india looks solid so i i

think they are in pretty strong position actually uh maybe if you look at it from the west's point of view from the neocon let's say marketing point of view where if uh if they continue to to mock putin enough then you create some sort of discord in in the kremlin because Putin is seen as being too restrained and maybe the hardliners get upset with him. I mean, maybe if you look at it from that lens, you can see how they continue to pile on the criticism on Putin, hoping that this will create anger in the Kremlin from the hardliners, which may lead to some sort of action, like say, progoshin from way back or something like that. Yes, yes, yes.

I'm confident that's not going to happen, by the way. way. But I can see that. I think a lot of this mockery is probably, you know, trying to cope with the actual realities. And, you know, Mark Ruta, whistling in the wind, saying, you know, who's scared of the big bad wolf type thing? Now, what I think is a valid criticism

is that the Russians being diplomatic and restrained is interpreted in the West as weakness and it explains this constant pattern of escalation that we have seen. I think that is true and I think that a turning point came maybe last November when we saw missiles being launched into Russia which clearly did cross a red line and after the Russians launched the Ehrushnik. They basically didn't do anything much more than that. And I think that that probably was, you know, something that a lot of people in Moscow are going to say to Putin, that was a mistake. You acted with restraint. You thought that you could do some kind of a deal with Trump and look where it is led. He's now talking about supplying Tomahawks.

Yeah, I agree. It normalized the U.S. being able to attack Russia. That's the way I see it now. I mean, it's basically signaling, you know what? If we can shoot attack them into Russia, well, why not Tomahawks? Exactly. Yeah. That was a mistake, a big mistake.

Yeah. Think Pad 20 says, what are Putin's real alternatives? Full-on war with the USA is near suicidal. What would bellicose rhetoric help? Better to keep diplomatic high ground. Well, I think the first thing to do was to say, look, if you were going to take this step, then we, you know, forget about normalization, forget about negotiations. I mean, he's now been pushed to say that, but arguably that ought to have been made clear

much, much sooner. And the Russians did have a strong position way back in the spring, summer of 2024. They said if the West starts launching missiles at us, we will reserve the right to start using our own missiles or helping other people to acquire missiles in ways that might target Western facilities around the world. And I was expecting that they would do that, but they didn't. And I think that would have made the Americans very nervous. But again, they didn't do it. And instead, we had this long period starting from January of negotiations instead. Yeah.

Iranian Kido says his son, Manuel, failed to get the job done. Even though Turks were featured, he was busy fighting hungry. Otherwise, most of Turkey could be Greece today, if not all of it. You have a very good knowledge of Byzantine history. and of the Comnanian dynasty, if I may say, Iranian kiddo. Thank you for that. You're absolutely right on what you've said. Manuel was an emperor who the Western Crusaders thought very highly on,

but his policies were often very, very unwise and didn't turn out well in the end. Rafael says, what is next? Putin and Lavrov will end up in Siberia and put on trial for treason. they're going to find out that the two are compromised. No, I can't see that at all. I mean, to repeat again, I didn't see any sign of a political crisis in Moscow. There's no evidence at all that Putin's position is under threat or that he's been challenged in that sort of way. And besides, I mean, you know, all of the people that we're talking about are perfectly well aware of the point Alex was making,

that visible signs of political tension in Russia are going to be seen as weakness in the West. So the political system is going to remain solid and stable, but the mood around Putin is going to harden and he will be affected by this. Whenever one of the reasons for Putin's political longevity and his tremendous political strength in Russia is that he always listens to what the other big power figures within the Kremlin are saying. He has never put himself out on a limb in the way that St. Gorbachev did.

Yeah, the result is going to be that he's going to have to abandon the Trump, the Trump course that he took. Absolutely. And he did. That's another thing that he deserves. I mean, he deserves criticism on this in that he invested, he over-invested in Trump, which is something that he does do with Western leaders. He did it with Merkel. He absolutely did it with Merkel, and he did it with Trump as well.

Sovario Faloni says, shouldn't Russia prolong the war as much as possible in order to bleed NATO in the EU, or perhaps that's being their game all along? Well, this is also Garland's view. I think in Russia, they want to see the war one. And I think that's really what they're all about. I don't think that they particularly wanted to be prolonged. I mean, I think they say, well, look, it's our people who are dying.

We're having to fight. We want to see the war one. We understand maybe some of us, most of us understand why it's been fought in a certain way. It's keeping casualties down. It's not overstretching our economy. But we do want to see the war one. Others say, well, we should have gone, we should go faster, except more casualties, mobilized more.

You do get those arguments in Russia too. Samuel Maroni says, can you bring Scott Horton live? Absolutely. I've been very much in contact with him. And just to say, he said me his book recently, and I'm about to start reading it. So absolutely, we should have Scott. Very, very much would love to, in fact.

Iranian kiddo says, Alexander had two Persian wives and a Bactrian wife whose name was Raksana or Rochernak in modern Farsi. It means shining. Both names still commonly used for females in Iran. Bactrians were Eastern Iranians in North Afghanistan. Alexander also had two known sons. Both were half Persian. Iraqlis of Macedon was illegitimate, was an illegitimate heir, so he had no path to the throne. Roxanna gave birth to Alexander IV, his only legitimate heir. He was born posthumously. And apparently most accounts of him, Alexander IV, is that he was brilliant. You're absolutely correct. Alex, you do know your history of Alexander extremely well. And by the way, one of,

one of Alexander's wives, I believe I'm right in saying, was a Persian princess, a member of the a royal family. Double down says, if Trump had two consecutive terms, his ideas may work. Well, he's making life very difficult for whoever succeeds him. That's all I will say. Dirk Diggler-9975 says, what's the latest news on Odessa? Well, the mayor got sacked, and I get to say why. I think it happened.

I think that there's been all. kinds of rumbles from the Russians that they're going to cross the Nipa eventually. There was even an incident yesterday when they were supposed to have crossed the Nipa already and established some positions in Heson. But anyway, Gerasimov has appeared with a map of Adessa under Russian control behind him. And I think you can see that this is where things are going. So I think Zelensky wants to keep control of Adessa. He wants the leadership in Odessa to be completely reliable and loyalty himself.

Odessa is important because it's through Odessa that most of the trade goes, and that is enormously lucrative. And there's an enormous amount of gangsterism and smuggling that goes on around that. He's also where a lot of the weapons pass through. So he sat the mayor of Odessa, claimed that this man was. really a Russian and had a Russian citizenship and has now pointed to his own person. Iranian kiddo says the young king ruled along with Alexander the great's half brother. Roxanna and the young Alexander were protected by Olympia. Alexander the great's mother after

Olympia was assassinated. Roxanna and the 14-year-old king were jailed and murdered by a super named Cassandros. Cassandros, who also built, who's a strong in his own right and established the city of Thessaloniki. Just the same. Josh Winston says, do you guys think a grand new foreign policy posture and economic partnership could still be possible between the Trump administration and Russia? It seems there are back channel talks going on. Well, I don't think so, actually.

I mean, LaVroff confirmed that there are back channel talks, but he also said that they're going nowhere. Seven-inch destroyer says, honest question, I was expecting a massive offensive this summer from the Russians, but they have seemed to gain little to no land. Is it a stalemate now due to insane drone numbers on both sides? No, it isn't. It is not a stalemate. I mean, what has happened is that the Russians have reached the last big fortified line in Dombas, which is this row of cities. And they're in the process of breaking that line. I mean, they've surrounded most, they basically surrounded Bakrovsk.

They have completely surrounded the Ukrainians in, in Kupiansk. They are probably soon going to capture other places and they're breaking through. So, you know, if you're talking about speed and movement and that kind of thing, well, breaking fortified lines like this takes time. The Russians are very close to achieving it. It'll probably take them a few more weeks or months, but when they do, I think things will start to move a lot faster. Iranian Kido says a year before his death, around 100 of Alexander's generals, Mary Persian, noble women in the same ceremony at Alexander's encouragement in the city of Susa in Elam, which is now southwest city of Shush in Iran. Yes, I've heard that. I mean, that's a famous, that is a very, very famous event, not entirely uncontroversial. at the time amongst Greeks, just as so.

K. Trimbach says Trump's ideas are good, but he can't implement them no matter how many terms he has. Maybe Vance Tulsi will be able to. Which ideas? Because he changes his ideas from one day to the next. And I have to say, I mean, he does listen far too much to what people like Kellogg say. I mean, Kellogg ultimately is the person he goes to for advice about Ukraine. and it has proved a disaster.

Speaking to Kellogg is like speaking to Zelensky. Absolutely. And it's incredible. It's incredible the Trump doesn't get it. Yeah. I mean, he thought by now he would. Yeah, he doesn't know. He repeats the same stuff over and over again that Kellogg tells him.

Because Zelensky is telling Kellogg and Kellogg tells Trump. That's how it goes. Iranian Kido says among them was Selecos A, Nekhtod, founder. of the biggest Greek kingdom, the Salusit Empire, his son Antichos Asotir, was half Greek, half Persian. Absolutely, a very important dynasty indeed, and one unknown mostly in the West. And they produced, by the way, a fabulous coinage, which is to say is a major, very attractive to collectors. Keith says, a friend who was in Estonia recently said that the people were not preoccupied about the war? Are the leaders there out of touch with the people?

I would like to hope so. I mean, I've never been there, so I don't know. But to repeat what we said, I said earlier during the program, I mean, this idea of evacuating the entire population. I mean, to me, that's an absolutely terrible thing to be talking about and thinking about. People, leaders who think in this way are unfit to be leaders of any nation. Murot Timov says, remember, Russians saddle slow, but ride very fast. Absolutely. EW.A8755, the escalation scale keeps creeping up. I think within a year, any pretense for peace will be moot and will see F-15, F-22s, and F-35s in Ukraine's skies. What choice will the empire just walk away? Well, the Ukrainians wouldn't be able to operate them. So what you're

talking about is direct American military intervention, which of course Joe Biden said would be World War III. I don't think it will come to that. Elza says Rutha told the Soviet joke but didn't get it. Jamila says thank you to Iran. You're amazing. If anyone doesn't like you should be a warmonger. I really love you guys. Thank you, Jabila for that. from Iranian kiddo Greek influence in art and architecture is visible from the Parthian period in Iran. They incorporated Greek style columns in their architecture that remains today. Well, that's nice to hear. And Iranian Kidah says, yep, he named the city after his wife.

Yeah. And Iranian Kiddo says you won't find a sculpture of Iraklis holding a bowl carved in mountains in the West, but you do find one in Iran from the Greek period looks quite different than usual Greek sculptures influenced by Persian traditions. Interesting. And Alexander from Bonos from last live stream said, just a thought, when the EU collapses, thoughts on Greece, potentially being a transport hub of Europe,

belt and road, etc. History, rhyming, how many empires thrash themselves against us? The irony is delicious. We could have done that before. I can remember back in the 70s before we joined the EU. People were talking about the fact that Greece was well located to become a hub. But of course we joined the EU or what became the EU and it never happened. One day maybe it will happen.

But I mean, we've got a long way to go before we get there. We have to see the end of the EU first. Not in the next 20 or 30 years for Greece, that's for sure. Sparky says in the past gold was too small to see wasn't worth mining for the individual. Now it may be worthwhile. Thank you for that. And from double down,

no one could fix the Biden year's mistakes. They went for the king and got nowhere, pushed the Eurasian continent to integrate militarily and economically. Well, it's absolutely clear that Biden, who had no real agency, was just doing what the deep state wanted him to do. And it seems to me that ultimately the deep stage is still in control.

Nothing has changed. Iranian kiddo says, people should understand that the narrative about Greece being Western is a 19th century construct by the British. Greece historically has a lot more in common with our region. I bet if a foreigner listens to old Greek music or Aegean and Crete music, they would think it's Arabic or Middle Eastern music. That's how Greek music would have sounded.

like thousands of years ago. My grandfather, Theodore Stephanides, who was much a savant, very much of a servant, and was, by the way, for a time, Eleftherios Venezuelos, his secretary, used to tell me this all of the time. My father took a different view, and I can remember them having that argument all the time. And a couple of more, Alexander. From Raphael, to tell the truth, I was watching Russian TV, the discussion was Russia will not fight NATO or the USA because Russia knows they're going bankrupt soon and Russia does not want to have to take care of them soon. Well, I mean, they don't want to go into Europe and they don't want to take over all of these insolvent places. But assuming that the Europeans will not attack them, Medvedev said, you know, it's very unlikely that they will do this, but we've always got to take into account. the fact that there are some very strange and very troubled and very fanatical people over there.

And you can't always, you can't completely discount the possibility that they could do something crazy like that. And from Iran and Kido, Parthians minted their coins in Greek up until at least the first century AD. Greece was commonly spoken in the Parthian court along with Middle Persian, but started to decline with the rise of Sasanians in the third century. Indeed. And when, the roman general krasis was defeated by the parthians and they beheaded him they used his head as an as a prop in a performance of baccai by euripides just to say and murad says to secure its western border russia can't allow any parcel of land being a lawless mess such as the current Ukraine, do you think Ukraine survives the SMO? Well, Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus,

has actually come out and said that Ukraine is now risking its very existence if it doesn't come to terms. All right. That is everything. Wow. But normal live stream, if I can say. All right. Final thoughts as I do a final check. Well, we are on the escalator. I don't think Trump understands what he's getting himself into but he is there's no getting off it and when you're

on it you go all the way up that is the iron rule yeah he is not getting off it a building seven says at this point we should give iran his show their honey kiddo says my man alex been reading hundreds of comments painstakingly without censoring any words he could use a drink or two by now and no i don't mean h2 o steen alana Thank you, Ronny Kida. We should indeed have a program. Great on the road. Great questions.

Yeah, we should. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you to everyone from John Winston. My late uncle, Dino Yanakopoulos, was professor of Byzantine history at Yale and wrote many books about the East-West Schism. It's amazing how much still applies today. I agree with that.

Excellent comment. Josh, thank you for that. And that is the live stream. Thank you to Garland Nixon for joining us. His information is in the description box down below as well as a pinned comment. So definitely check out his site. And Alexander, we have some videos to get up. Thank you to our moderators, Valles, Zareel, Peter, Harry, and I think those were our, my, I'm moderators for today, right? Yes. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, thank you to our awesome moderators. And thank you to everyone that joined us on Odyssey, on Rumble, on YouTube, and v. duran.com. Yeah, that's everything. All right, we got some videos to put up. Absolutely. Thanks. All right.

Take care. Take care.