The Duran Podcast - Trump, JD Vance & project Ukraine panic w/ Larry Johnson (Live)

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Trump, JD Vance & project Ukraine panic w/ Larry Johnson (Live)

All right, we are live with Alexander Mercuris. And once again, we have with us a very good friend of the show. And one of the most popular guests on the Duran, Mr. Larry Johnson, how are you doing, Larry? Always good to be with you, gentlemen. It's an honor. It's great to have you with us, Larry. And before we get started, let's say hello to everyone that is watching us on Odyssey on Rock Finn on

Rumble on YouTube and a big shout out to our fantastic community on locals the duran.locals.com and a big hello to our

moderators, Alan, Zaryel, Peter and I think that's, is that everybody? Moderator Zaryl, Peter, Allen, yeah. I think that is everyone in the moderation. Thank you to our moderators for helping us out.

Alexander, Larry. We have some news to talk about. Not much going on in the world, but I think we'll be able to fill up a good hour of news. So Alexander, Larry, let's get to it. Yes, I mean, we have a certain incident, I think, in Pennsylvania, which we particularly need to talk about. Alex was talking about the fact that, you know, one of our most popular people on our show. And Larry, you were very kind to use the word honored to say about the fact that you're on our show.

The people who feel especially honored today are Alex and myself because this event that happened in Pennsylvania, I cannot think of anybody better qualified to discuss than yourself on a program like this today. Firstly, you understand the whole world of security in ways that we cannot because we've never lived in it. Neither of us have had that sort of contact. But also, you're a firearms expert. You're a person who actually trains people in the use of firearms, a fact which is particularly important now. And we have seen an absolutely.

astonishing incident take place in Pennsylvania. The survival of Donald Trump in the face of an assassination attempt. I find it incredible that some people are still calling it an alleged assassination attempt. And trying to pretend that things like they didn't really happen. I'm actually getting articles and people pointing them out to be saying this, which it seems astonishing to me.

But anyway, let's put that aside. We've had this extraordinary assassination attempt. There are many, many questions which are not able to understand an answer. I cannot understand how a thing like this happened in the way that he did. Not that there was an attempted assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Alex, myself, yourself, we've all, in many venues, in many places informally with each other, sometimes in public, discussed how the danger of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a very real one. But none of us can understand, these I cannot understand,

how it could have happened in the way that it did, how this person could have, in full public view, got so close to Donald Trump, what the Secret Service was doing, any of those things. So perhaps you can help us You've already discussed, I think, in many places your take of what took place. But I think the best thing to do is to say nothing more and just to hand over to you.

And you can tell us your thoughts here. All right. Well, thanks. And let me add just a couple more for my bona fides on this. So when I was at State Department, I was the deputy for the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Training Program. We put together programs for training foreign police. one of those courses was on executive protection, how you protect people like Donald Trump. I also carried out and conducted site assessments, both for one was with a Secret Service agent.

We did a school in Potomac, Maryland, where the son of one of the major politicians was going there, and they were concerned about possible attacks, as well as security assessments at airports, doing, you know, evaluating those. So I've got some background in this. So bottom line, there are only two possibilities here. An enormous screw-up of incompetence by the Secret Service or something darker that there was, they allowed this to happen because they wanted to kill Trump.

There is no, no middle ground here. The Secret Service failed on so many levels. It's just, you know, it's unbelievable. So for starters, whenever these kinds of events go off, the Secret Service will send out an advanced team that does a security assessment site survey. And that includes everything from figuring out, okay, where is the crowd going to be? How does the crowd get in and out? What are the access points? So you identify the access points.

You're going to put in access control systems. And then once you've got the access control systems there, you then also do a perimeter suite, 360, 360 degrees going out. Depends on the location, but anywhere from 300 to 500 yards or, you know, say up to 700 meters. Then you identify spots that could be where a sniper, you know, you've got to be concerned at that point at the perimeter where a sniper could be. set up. And then you make sure those are locked down, that there is no access. So here we are watching Trump. And when he turned his head, the moment that he turned his head, that the bullet fired from that AR-15. So it was probably a 5-5-6 round. What people heard was not the gunshot. They heard the sonic boom from the bullet passing.

That's what that snapping sound was. It just nicked his ear. Now, when I was sitting here in my office, and I actually had RT television on, and they had some story. And all of a sudden, they come through on breaking news. And I'm going, man, if they're doing breaking news, this must be bad.

What is it? And then they cut to this, and I'm watching it. I said from the outset, said. Initially, I thought maybe it was a 22 rifle. You know, the caliber on is not relevant right now. But I said it had to be outside the venue. Why?

Because number one, it's summer in America and you know what summer is like even you know, even where you guys live. People show up and flip flops. They got the shorts on, wearing the wife beater shirt, you know, the shirt with the straps or, you know, summer casual wear. But they're not wearing anything

where it would be easy to hide a gun. And number one. And number two, they had gone through these security screening checkpoints unless there was just a major failure there. But I was pretty certain it was not a gun. Now, as we as it progressed and we start getting more information, you realize that this building, which had direct line of sight to where Trump was speaking, was unprotected. Now, the story that's emerged overnight is that the local police,

police had a SWAT team that was inside the building. They were not up on the roof. It's unclear whether they were supposed to be on the roof and they decided all because of the heat they wanted to go inside. But regardless, that roof was still open and exposed and unprotected. And then you had all the bystanders watching the guy climb up on the roof. Get the ladder, climbs up with a rifle, they're hiring the police, nobody reacts. You've got the counter-sniper's that are sitting up on the roof. So if you're looking at Donald Trump, they were on a building behind Trump to his right, your left as a viewer looking at Trump.

And unless you've ever fired a rifle with a high magnification scope, imagine that you're it's like imagine like you're looking trying to look at the world through a straw so you're not going to see the panorama you're going to see just a very very small area and it's such a small because of the magnification you can't just look at a target and then get down and immediately look through the scope and have the target

in sight unless you previously have put those crosshairs on what you intend to shoot. And that's exactly what these guys had done. They had been observing this guy crawling up the roof. And I guarantee you there are radio communications out there between those guys on the roof back to what's called the tactical operations center, the talk, where the incident commander was a secret service guy or gal.

I'm not sure who was in charge, but it was incumbent upon them to say, hey, what are the rules of engagement? If we see somebody on a roof that's not supposed to be there, we're going to engage and shoot them. They didn't give that order. Now, I had an old friend Chris Whitcomb, who was a FBI hostage rescue team sniper and interviewed him the other day just to get his thoughts. And he pointed out that he thought, and this was before any of this other news had come out. He thought that one thing that would happen is when you get into these kinds of interagency where you've got secret service that's federal and then you've got state police and then you may have local police. So you've got different jurisdictions. There's always some assumptions made about, oh, this person's legitimate and this person's.

If they're walking around carrying a gun, you assume that they're supposed to be there. And that may have been very well much what happened with this kid that, you know, he was able to walk up with a gun. and they thought, oh, he's just part of some other team, but nobody checked it. Again, that goes back to the incompetence of the Secret Service. Because when you're into an interagency environment like that, one of the things you do is, hey, we're going to establish a way to identify who's on our team. So either everybody's going to wear a white armband or a blue, you know, we've seen the Russians and Ukrainians do this.

when they got those arm bands on their arms, that's so they know who they're shooting at. They want to make sure, because if you're just wearing a uniform, you can't tell if it's a good guy or bad guy. Well, the same thing that should have happened here, that they should have had a color of the day or a visible badge, something,

so you would distinguish between who was legitimate security and who wasn't. You know, that's a failure right there. clearly these counter-sniper's who are up on the roof, they had this guy on site. And once he started shooting, the fact that they were immediately able to go onto the rifles and press that trigger and fire shows that they had him.

They already had the crosshairs on him and had it for a while. That's not, you don't, you can't immediately put cross, crosshairs on somebody with that kind of rifle in two or three seconds. Can't do it. And the problem is we got so many people watching Hollywood movies where they pull that stuff off all the time, but it's just not realistic. So that gets back to the broader question. And then how the Secret Service, you know, they converged on Trump. Now, the problem there was the Secret Service discipline, what they're trained to.

What you're supposed to do is once there's been that shot at the principal, you get him down, you keep him covered, and you keep him covered. You don't let him stand up, raise his fist, and you know, fight, fight, fight. Now, iconic moment, and it was, you know, sort of showed that Trump had a lot of steel in his spine. He wasn't, you know, he didn't collapse into a crying heap. So, and you can't fake that. But that was still a failure on the part of those Secret Service people. And then you get the image of all these, at least three or four women on the detail.

They're all like five foot four. You know, part of you want to have guys that are like Alex, Alex's size, you know, to cover them up. And then not a great job, you know, you're a bullet magnet, you know. Yeah, here I'm covering you up so you can shoot me in the back of the head. But, you know, they failed on that. And so here's this direct, the current director of the Secret Service is this, this woman who was previously at Frito Lay. Okay. Think about that.

A part of the Pepsi Cola family. Frito Lake, corn chips. And she's doing now executive protection for the president and for other dignitaries. She should, she should be fired immediately. But that's not going to happen. So now we've got the problem of the Secret Service and the FBI are going to investigate this. Well, frankly, I wouldn't trust either of them. There needs to be an independent outsider to conduct the investigation because the failure of this on so many levels is really troubling.

I completely understand. Thank you very much for that very, very thorough and clear explanation. I have to say one of the most depressing things about doing programs on the Duran over the last 10, 15 years, well, the time that we've been doing programs, but we were doing articles before, is the continuous revelation of how more and more institutions of the US government, which I had assumed worked efficiently, are not efficient in the way that I had thought they were. Now, you know, that has nothing to do with the kind of policies that the US government follows.

It might do all kinds of things that I don't agree with at all, or might be completely opposed to. But I always assumed, I had always assumed at one time, that whatever the United States set its mind to do, it did well. And one of the last institutions about which I still had that belief was the Secret Service. I assume that an organization like this, an institution like this in the United States, of all places, would be an institution that was meticulously trained, highly professional and which would know how to do its job and which would do it well. It's not, after all, as if it hasn't failed before.

We know about how it failed in 1963. And there's all the stories and things that we've heard ever since about that. But I would have thought that knowing that, and it's, you know, an event that everybody is familiar with, that the Secret Service especially, would work like clockwork. And I have to say, in spite of everything, in spite of the revelations about the FBI, the CIA, the way in which the United States can't build a pier in Gaza,

which isn't blown away by the wind, I was still shot yesterday to see, well, not the day before yesterday, to see the Secret Service fail so completely. And I have to say also, and, you know, this is my own completely an expert observation, see all of these people trying to bundle around Trump, they looked disorganized and frightened.

I thought they looked frightened and panicky in a way that I never imagined was possible. So anyway, that's the first thing I wanted to say. The second is, shall we perhaps look into the question of whether you think there's any possible credence to the series, that this was somehow arranged as opposed to just happening as a result of incompetence. Anyway, your thoughts about these things, Larry, because just to repeat quickly, again,

this was the most predicted and expected assassination attempt that anybody knew about. Everybody has been saying, everybody in the independent media community, we've all been saying to each other that sooner or later this attempt would be made. Yeah, I definitely cannot rule out the possibility that this kid was both encouraged to do it

and facilitated in a variety of ways. You know, right now the story is emerging that he supposedly on the day of went in bottle ladder and then so if he's got a ladder and you've got a long gun, you know, you're not going to carry both at the same time. And so how did that ladder get to that building? And how did he know that that was the best location for being able to identify where Trump would be standing? You know, that really, that implies that some advanced knowledge of,

it would come from a site survey. Somebody passed that knowledge. I think somebody passed that knowledge onto him. I could, you know, maybe wrong. But you've got to, I would proceed from that assumption. This, I don't think that this was just some lucky kid who woke up that morning and said, you know what, I, I hate Donald Trump and I'm going to kill him today. And so let's see, how do I do that?

Well, let me go get some ammunition and then let me get, yeah, I'm going to need a ladder. I didn't know you need a ladder. And how do you know what size ladder you? you need to get to the roof. Is it a 10-foot roof? Is it a 15-foot roof? Is it a 20-foot roof? And I apologize for using feet and inches as opposed to metrics.

But, you know, still, there are a lot of assumptions about what the kid knew that are not natural. You know, you can't collect that information. And then also have some idea of how are you going to get past security? you know this apparently this kid was just completely unconcerned about running into any kind of security there and the security that everybody just watches him walk past and he's able to get up in that position so and you got to put that against the in the context of the language that the democrats have used against Donald Trump now let me see up front I'm not I'm not some ardent Trump supporter I have defended Donald Trump by virtue of him being unfairly attacked by the CIA, by the FBI, by the deep state.

I think it is unconscionable. But the language has come out from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and other leaders of the Democrat Party, as well as people on the media have talked explicitly about killing Trump. And this isn't the first one. You had Kathy Griffin, a so-called comedian, used a severed head. You had Johnny Depp talking about, hey, it wouldn't be the first time an actor killed a president, you know, making a joke in that way. You had Shakespeare in the park in New York City where they assassinated Donald Trump as part of art.

So this whole meme out there about it's okay, it's good to kill, it's appropriate to kill Trump has emerged. And one of the reasons they want to kill Trump is he represents a fundamental threat to the incest, graft, and crime that's going on in part of Washington, D.C., that both parties, not just the Democrats, but there are many Republicans as well that are benefiting from this and enriching themselves. And we see it as well within the whole war in Ukraine economy that's by this blown up. So stopping Trump at any cost, and you think that nobody else was possibly involved in suggesting, but doing it in a way where their direct fingerprints wouldn't be there, yeah, I think that's definitely a possibility, has to be considered, and as long as the FBI and Secret Service are the ones conducting the investigation, will never get good answers to it, in my view.

Can I just add here something from my own expertise? because for about 12 years, I was working at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, and one of my jobs there was to interview and meet people who had come to the courts for all kinds of reasons, and amongst them were people who were in the cells, because the Royal Courts of Justice has itself underneath, and a lot of them were these incredibly angry, violent, very, very disturbed people that exist in every society.

And one of the things I very quickly discovered is that what these people do is often they don't have any proximate reason for their anger. They're looking for something to attach or someone to attach their anger to. And if they hear all constantly, incessantly about how this person is bad,

how he represents some kind of danger, They can quite easy. I've seen this. I've actually seen this myself many times, by the way, how they focus that anger on that person. This is, you know, might be anybody who is, you know, in the news for some reason. And of course, only a very small minority of those people,

even of those people, would be prepared to use violence. But some of them, some of those people that I myself interviewed, I could quite easily imagine them behaving in a violent way. So rhetoric, constant, unending rhetoric can have consequences. People who deny the fact are completely wrong. I know. I've spoken to people like this. I've seen it for myself.

You don't have to find someone, train them, put them in that kind of direction. If you're constantly talking in a certain way, someone somewhere will attach themselves and will do it basically off their own bat without any direct encouragement from you. Yeah. You know, that I can definitely say from my own experience. Yeah.

And so that's why I don't rule out that it was just, you know, the lone wolf, but they're also just there's so many, you know, the planning that has to go into something like this, to be able to, because what's your plan? Okay, I'm going to crawl up on the roof. Well, what people don't even recognize is, so that was a metal roof. And a metal roof in the summer,

the temperature on that roof alone can get upwards of 150 degrees. I mean, we're talking some serious, You could fry a burger up there, okay? So here's the kid crawling up there with a rifle, with skin exposed. He's wearing a T-shirt. I've heard some say he was also wearing shorts. Maybe true, maybe not. But, you know, again, you've got to think through the planning of how am I to avoid, you know,

getting second-degree burns on myself while trying to kill Donald Trump. So this is And And Call it a miracle Call it You know The fickle finger of fate

The fact that Trump Turns his head At the moment That the kid breaks the shot And it comes You know Knicks his ear And then continues down range

And you know It strikes somebody In the crowd otherwise we'd be having a different discussion today. Trump would be dead. The Republican Party would be an utter chaos. And let's think about that. The timing of this, too.

I mean, this was done on the eve of the Republican convention. And I think for the deliberate purpose of if you take Trump out before the convention, you've now guaranteed what are the Republicans going to do? Who's going to become their candidate? Oh, my God, you're going to have, you talk about a food fight because everybody would be pushing, you know, Nikki Haley and say, oh, you should be. So, you know, I think that this, you know, I'm inclined to believe with the whole weight of circumstantial evidence that there was more to this than some angry, mentally disturbed kit.

I think that this is much bigger, much darker. They wanted to stop Trump. but now, boy, they've created a hell of a problem for themselves because, you know, Trump's like the resurrected Jesus now. You know, he's come out or like, you know, after Gandalf falls down into the pit and Gandalf comes back as Gandalf the White, that's sort of Trump right now. He has, he's got an aura about it. It is.

It's astonishing. Can I also say that, of course, this comes after a whole succession of attempts to stop him, first becoming the candidate and then winning the election. We've seen a whole succession of court cases. The court cases are beginning to sag and collapse under their own weight. We've now had this decision from Judge Cannon to dismiss the documents case, which many people thought was the most dangerous for him. I don't myself think it was a particularly strong case.

I know others think otherwise. I agree. I also have to say that the reasoning that she has followed has been very, very much criticized. I've read her decision. It looked to me absolutely faultless. I can't see what was wrong with her decision. It seems to me that more likely than not, it will survive on appeal. So, anyway, I think all of the cases are beginning to, even.

before that decision, we're beginning to creak and collapse. The Supreme Court has just made a decision as well. Then there's been a whole litany of things, going back all the way to the day that he came down that escalator in Trump tower that they've thrown at him. He survived all of that. He survived this, this latest assassination attempt. He's behaved in a heroic way.

And, you know, Alex and I did a program yesterday. we pointed out as Greeks, that if you want to know what heroism is, what the word heroism means, what Trump did on Sunday exactly, is exactly what that word, that Greek word heroism covers.

It's what the Greek heroes and the Iliad used to do. That is exactly what he did. That's exactly what he showed. This incredible physical, and by the way, moral courage. and projection of leadership and strength and purpose that he gave on that particular day on that event.

And now we have this iconic photograph, the blue sky behind him, the stars and stripes. And of course, it's real. It actually shows something, it's not staged, it's not something, you know, that was put together with actors or anything like that. It's actually a real picture of what it. happen. Now, to me, I have to say, after an event of that kind, I can see why most people in America

must now think that he is a completely unstoppable force. You know, there is something of the quality of destiny about this. I mean, I don't want to start sounding mystical. But I mean, this is the sort of quality that it has. And I can't imagine that that isn't going to have a massive effect. on the election going forward, especially when the comparison with the incumbent, his opponent, is it stark as it now is? Oh, yeah. Well, if you were a Hollywood scriptwriter

and you took this in to pitch this story to say, hey, I got this great idea, and you pitched this, they'd probably toss you out of the room. They wouldn't believe it. They'd say, ah, come on, that's too far-fetched. And yet, as you said, we're watching this thing unfold before our eyes. Let me just make a comment about the, you know, the Jack Smith case in Florida.

You may or may not know that my business partner, former business partner, you know, we sort of were semi-retired on that front. He filed a complaint against Jack Smith with the Inspector General of the Department of Justice three months ago, alleging, and he had three affients in this complaint, that Jack Smith had been part of a shakedown and extortion campaign against Serbian officials, where he would extort millions of dollars from them in exchange for not filing charges against them.

And so it was very well documented. The affiants were all in there. The day after, Biden's disastrous debate. One of those affiants was approached by some folks with ties to, let's call it, organized crime in Eastern Europe, offering a $20 million bribe for them to withdraw their complaint.

So there's, and I do know for a fact that this complaint against Jack Smith is being investigated by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice, but that Judge Cannon also had received it and reviewed. So there's a lot going on behind the scenes, too, with all of this. But that overall lawfare project to destroy Trump, as you correctly note, that's breaking up. That's coming apart. And they're not, they enter the phase where everything they do on that front is just making Trump stronger,

making him more popular, feeding into the meme that the man's out that gets you, and look, they're even trying to get Donald Trump. And as wealthy as he is and as successful as he has been, that that doesn't even provide him protection. That resonates on a populace, you know, among the population that the elites just don't understand. And they're playing with fire. I do look forward. I hope you guys have Robert Barnes back.

on because he's always got some great takes on this. We very much want to, and I think this is actually becoming even more necessary now. Just to say, I'm sure you know, lots of people will no doubt quote it. Friedrich Paul Nietzsche, that which does not break you makes you stronger. That's what we've just seen. That, by the way, Nietzsche also understood heroism, and that was parts of what heroism is all about this ability to project strength and defiance and a will to victory, even in adversity, even, you know, in the face of the most impossible odds.

And Trump has it. I mean, you could disagree with him. You might not even like him. You may have all your queries about him, but he does project it. Well, and look, I mean, he stared death in the face. I mean, and that's no hyperbole. He literally came within just mere inches. If he had not turned his head to the side,

they would have probably hit the rear occipital region of the brain. He had been dead. He would have been completely incapacitated. But he's alive. And his reaction in that moment after being shot was not one of, oh, my God, this is too dangerous. This is too much at risk. I can't go through with this.

It sort of redoubled his effort. But it also, if you will, it looks like it brought a maturity to him. Now you're saying, how do you bring maturity to a 78-year-old guy? Well, you know, he's been a little cavalier in the past and shoots from the lip without, you know, sometimes thinking a lot. The fact that he went and said that he tore up the speech he originally intended to give that was going to be blasting Joe Biden for, you know, being the worst president in the world. and something a little more, if you will, presidential. And I asked actually Pepe Escobar this about an hour and a half ago. Because Pepe had actually watched, he was watching the convention from Thailand, if you could imagine that.

And noted, he said, already there are Trump for President T-shirts being sold in the malls in Thailand. You know, Trump vans, already out on the streets. but he said what he saw was, if you will, sort of a humble Trump, a Trump that has a greater appreciation of how tenuous life is and recognizing that he may have actually a bigger purpose, that he was saved for something important. You can't discount that as now being a factor in his persona going forward. So it's going to be fascinating to watch that.

These kinds of attacks have these unanticipated effects. And the unanticipated effect on Trump is actually making him appear more presidential as opposed to less. Indeed. Now, as I've pointed out in many programs now since this event, one of the parties, one of the groups of people who will be watching these events very, very closely indeed, are foreign governments. Foreign governments will have concluded from the events of the last three weeks that the United States is not being led by the present incumbent, that he is incapable of providing leadership. Friends of the United States will think this, enemies of the United

States will think this, that there is no strong, effective president in charge of the United States at this moment. They will also have been looking at the events to deploy. on Sunday and they will be concluding that the president, the next president of the United States is going to be Donald Trump. They do not follow the opinion polls closely. They might be wrong in that belief, but that I am sure it's what the overwhelming majority of foreign governments are thinking now. And they will be changing their policies and assessing their policies on that basis. One set of governments

are particularly interested and those are the European governments. If you look at the European media this morning, especially after J.D. Vance's appointment as vice president, as vice presidential candidate, alongside Trump, they are freaking out.

Go to the Financial Times this morning. Look at their lead headline. Go to Politico as well. But Politico, of course, is an American magazine. But go to the European media. They are horrified. They are appalled by what is happening. They are clutching their heads and saying,

what on earth are we going to do now? Are they right to be afraid? Yes. Yeah. You know, J.D. Vance is a fascinating choice. I mean, I was, I personally, you can ask my son, I told him I thought it would be J.D. Vance. Vance has some of youth appeal. His story, though, it's really the quintessential Horatio Alger story in America, you know, comes out of poverty, comes out of Appalachia.

And why does he gets into Yale Law School and has a, you know, the top of his class in Yale Law School, heads up the law review, served as a, Corporal and the U.S. Marine Corps has the military background. But he's not one of these political hacks that has worked his way through a political machine to get prominence and to be able to, quote, okay, you've earned your right to be shoved into this position. He's been sort of very much his own person. And he's very much, even though, you know, he initially in 2015 said that, you know, he hated Donald Trump, thought Donald Trump was.

bad. He's come out and said, hey, I was wrong. He's got another thing that you don't often see in a politician. He admits that he's wrong. I've been wrong. And he has become sort of seized on this, let's focus on making America better, taking care of Americans here instead of wasting money overseas. That's on the positive side. There is a, there's a negative side in the concern, though, if you look at his rhetoric with respect to Iran and China very much mirrors Trump's, and while basically they portray Iran and China as hostile to the United States, and they must be confronted as enemies. I think Trump's handling of his policy towards Iran was a disaster.

It exacerbated the situation. I think that Trump's potential, even though J.D. Vance has been on the record describing China as an existential threat, I think that a Trump presidency with J.D. Vance as vice president is going to be open towards a more, let's call it negotiate, an approach based on negotiations as opposed to threatening and coercion. But the era of Europe sort of being this dog that gets to lead the master, because I'm struck by how pliant and sort of subservient the Europeans had become. I mean, I remember back when I was at stake in like 1990, 91, and I was dealing a lot with the European Civil Aviation Convention and was involved with negotiations with the Germans, for example.

Back then, the Germans were pretty feisty. And they were not at all subservient and said, oh, whatever you Americans think, it's fine by us. It's just the opposite. They're very assertive and they're clear about what were German interests, French too. And now, you know, here what we've seen over the last two years is this, incredible willingness to portray

Russia as the reincarnation of the Soviet Union with imbued by you know under the guidance of as you guys call him the mustache man and that whole ideology that accompanied that dreadful

regime and so it's mystifying but yeah Europe's right to be alarmed hey wake up You're going to stand on your own two feet. The era of this, you know, let's call it the era of grift is over because that's the one thing that Trump and J.D. Vance share in common. J.D. Vance is not owned by anybody.

Trump can't be owned up by anybody. He's got enough money. Vance's position comes out of a genuine ideological belief that you're not going to be corrupted by this kind of money. And frankly, he's the first, I think he'll be the first vice president in that position. I can't even put Truman in that because Truman came out of a corrupt political machine known as the Pendergast machine in Kansas City. Actually, my grandmother worked in part for that organization and new Harry back then. But, you know, J.D. Vance really represents something unique in American political. culture. We haven't had a vice president candidate like this ever that I can boy to. He also comes across to me is very articulate and writes very well. And by coincidence,

I don't know whether this is chance. There's an article by him in the Financial Times today. And it's very interesting. He says, we owe it to our European partners to be honest. Our generosity in Ukraine is coming to an end. Europeans should regard the conclusion of the war there as an imperative. And Europe should consider how exactly it is going to live with Russia when the war in Ukraine is over. Now, none of that is going to be welcome in Europe. And I have another quote, also from the financial time.

And this is from Rob Johnson, who recently stood down as director of the UK Ministry of Defence Unit, charged with gauging the country's military strength, which is somewhere close to zero, by the way, but that's another story. Anyway, he's quoted as saying this. If Trump is elected and continues with the policy preferred by Vance, he may announce the abolition of NATO or US leadership of it. at least. That would be the signal for Russia to regenerate its power over a decade with China and apply more coercion against NATO. We are entering a very dark period indeed. I said that the

Europeans are freaking out. Well, there you are. We're entering a very dark period indeed in Europe. I mean, the contrast between the measured comments that Vance is making in his own. article and this hysteria that we're getting from a former top British Ministry of Defense official, to my mind says it all. And the hysteria in Britain is not as bad, I understand, as the hysteria in Berlin or, of course, in places further east. Alexander, the first quote was from the Financial Times as well. Yep, both of them. Both of them. Both of the financial time.

So the first, the article in the financial time, just to say, J.D. Vance, Europe must stand on its own two feet on defense. The article that I quoted that British official from, Europe fears weakened security ties with U.S. as Donald Trump picks J.D. Vance. And that, by the way, this last article is the lead article in the Financial Times today. So why is it that both the United States and Europe have been, they've been like the three-year-old with a hammer, everything, it looks like a nail, they have to hit it, only in this case everything has a military solution, that there is no room for diplomacy, that there is no room for talking, and that anybody who tries to pursue a diplomatic angle is vilified and attacked? And at the last NATO summit, they came out. And so, you know, Alexander, I think you may be old enough to sort of remember Alex too young, CETO, S-C-A-T-M.

Okay. So what NATO basically proposed at this last summit was to revive the reincarnation of CETO, only they're not going to call it CETO this time. but it's the same thing except when Cito came into being, you know, that sort of its purpose was to help preserve the French colonial empire in Vietnam. Now they're setting their sights on wanting to go after China. But it's like you wanted to build up and expand this military organization so you can fight China and you guys can't even deal with Russia in Ukraine.

Everything you're doing is blowing up in your face. you don't have the military industrial capability to generate 155 millimeter shells, medium range missiles and rockets, tanks. You're not building your own modernized tanks. You've got limited air power, despite your claim that you've got all this U.S. aircraft in the pipeline. I mean, it's just, it's theater of the absurd because the, they talk, tough game about what they're going to do. But as you know, you rightly pointed out, Alexander,

Britain's got 70,000 people in the armed services. And that doesn't mean every single one's capable of picking up a rifle and going to the front. That means out of that 70,000, maybe you got 30 to 35,000 that could possibly be deployed to a frontline position to be wiped out. And so this is, I mean, this is. This is sheer madness. And, you know, I pray to God we're able to diffuse it in some way because the carnage that's

being inflicted upon the Ukrainian soldiers right now is just, it's on a scale of what they saw at Stalingrad during World War II. Absolutely. 2,000 people dead and wounded every day now, between 1.5 and 2,000 a day. And I believe these are casualty figures. course, coming from the Russians, I believe them. I think that they are true. I think that they are in line with what all of the other evidence tells us. And I don't have any reason to doubt them. For those who don't know, SETO Southeast Asian Treaty Organization. I can remember it.

Absolutely I can. And of course, it passed away around the time when Vietnam before Saigon. And who knows? Yeah, 19705. So maybe, maybe hopefully we will see the end of NATO in some form also, at least in some form, at least in its existing form anyway. Well, Larry, I think this is where I'm going to stop. I want to say thank you. You've explained a huge amount. There's one particular question that I did see asked, which I just like to ask, because it intrigues me.

I mean, somebody's asking a place, a location outside 150 meters from where Trump was speaking, is outside the security perimeter. I mean, was that actually the case? No, no, it shouldn't. Yeah. No. I mean, can't be, surely. Yeah, this question. You want to probably 500 meters out would be the security perimeter, at least 500 meters.

And what you're going to look for is any building that could provide a platform that would provide line of vision site to where the speaker is. And how do you do that? As part of your security survey, you've got somebody on your team. You say, hey, Smith, get over here. Stand at the podium. Stand there. And on the radio, we're going to be talking to you. And then you go out and sweep from the perimeter and get into different locations.

You stand on the water tower. You stand on the roof. You look and see. Can you see it? Can you not? And, yeah, I mean, that's how you do it. There's no, and you could also do it with drones. But, yeah, it wasn't just, it wasn't that this guy was outside the security perimeter.

You want to reach out for a sniper, you know, a military-grade sniper. Yeah, they can take shots beyond a thousand yards. Okay, well beyond a thousand yards. But, you know, that's unlikely in this kind of circumstance because you're not going to have a wide open arena that would provide that easy access. But you still have to go out to at least 500, 600 meters, 500 yards to verify that because beyond that,

no amateur is going to be able to take that kind of shot and hit anything. Recognize, you know, my FBI hostage rescue buddy, hostage rescue team buddy, Chris Whitcomb said that, you know, if you're, if you're shooting out at over like a thousand yards with a 308 round, which is, you know, it's a fairly big, big cartridge and the bullets fairly sizable, that's going to drop several feet. So, you know, most people think that the earth is flat and that when you fire this, the projectile stays flat, but it's not.

If anybody's ever thrown a ball, whether a soccer ball or an American football, when you throw it and you throw at any kind of distance or a frisbee, it travels up and down, well, the bullets do the same. And they're affected by wind. They're affected by temperature. So the greater distance you have to target, the more of those variables of wind, temperature, come into play. Forgive me, I'm going to ask one more question, actually,

which is about the rifle that was used. Again, bear in mind, I know absolutely nothing at all about rifles. But AR-15, it's been referred to, I think. Is this something connected to the rifle that Eugene Stoner produced in the 60s? Oh, exactly right. Absolutely. Because that's a big rifle. I would have thought that would be something that would be very, very, very,

visible that somebody in shorts and a t-shirt was carrying around. Yeah, well, it's it is a it's what you know a lot of people like to call an assault rifle. The the bullet so remember we call them cartridges. The cartridge is made up of four components. You've got the bullet, the shell casing, the primer, and then the gunpowder that's on the inside. Now the primer sits in if you look at the end of a of the bottom of the car. which called the head stamp. Right in the middle there would be a little silver thing. And that is basically, they call it the primer because if you strike it, it's going to explode.

It initiates an initial explosion which ignites the gunpowder. That's how the gun fires. So this AR platform was developed by Stoner. It was originally the M16. Now they've got a variety of designs. It's called an M4. but it's not the kind of rifle that snipers use. Snipers use a rifle which has a bigger cartridge.

Because if you actually take the bullet that's used for an AR, they've got what they call a 223 and a 556. The shell casings look identical, but the shell casing on the 556 is actually a thicker casing, which creates a greater pressure. It's called the NATO round. So the bullet will travel with a higher velocity down range. But the actual diameter of the bullet is the same as a 22 caliber.

And if you've ever shot at 22, that's a much smaller, you know, it's not a big, bigger round circumference of bullet. So this is not what you'd call an ideal sniper rifle. I've heard conflicting reports that he had a red dot on it. A red dot simply means it's like a little binocular, but when you look through it there, you will actually see a red dot. And when you set that rifle up,

you have to at a certain distance, you'll put the red dot like 25 yards. You look through and you put the red dot on the center of the target and you shoot. And you want to make sure that this is called zeroing the rifle. that where you bring the red dots down so it shoots where you're pointed. And there are always adjustments on those. You can do it so you can raise or lower the dot or move it right to left or up or down. Also heard that it was iron sights, which means, you know, they flip up and you've got a front post

and then a rear post and you look through those and, you know, align those. Either way, that's, you can make a, you know, someone who's a skilled rifle shooter can make a shot like that at 150 yards. But when you start pressing that trigger, and I've heard everything from three shots to eight shots. I don't know how many total shots he got off. But in that amount of time, he probably got off at least four shots. Well, when you're pressing that trigger rapidly,

the gun is moving like this. And over 150 yards, that creates quite a deviation in the flight of the the bullet. And so that people need to be aware of that. It's not like you're going to shoot a real tight group, you know, that's, you know, looks like inside that circle. I even, you know, I do training for people. I train rifle instructors as well. And one of the things you teach people that when you're shooting long distance, you've got to exhale and hold your breath. because if you keep breathing, you're going to create a natural movement

that it's called the natural arc of movement that is going to increase the deviation of the flight of that bullet. So, you know, there are a lot of sort of technical factors that come into shooting, plus how you press that trigger. Learning to properly press a trigger without jerking it and slapping it and doing other things that will, again, create deviations in that rifle

or other considerations. So this kid does not strike me as someone who was highly trained. You know, that first shot is the one that missed Donald Trump. And, you know, you can make that first shot. Anybody at 150 yards if they, you know, calm down, can come very close to hitting that target. But after that, he was wild. And then you got the counter-snopper fire started immediately.

A real gun battle. Larry Johnson, thank you very much for all these wonderful and complete and comprehensive answers to my questions. I get a hand over to Alex. We've gone on a little longer than I'd anticipated, but with a guest like yourself, I'm going to hold on to you as long as I realistically can. So, Alex, over to you. Let's do some questions. From Matthew, unfortunately, Trump won't change foreign policy.

What do you say about that, Larry, where a lot of people are saying that if Trump is elected, foreign policy will not change. Before the assassination attempt, I would have said, yeah, the same guy who selected John Bolton to be the national security advisor could be back. I don't know. I'm hopeful that he will bring now, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, he will, He will recognize that, you know, life is too damn short and not just his life, but the life of people around the world.

And with, let's say, with a new appreciation for life, we'll be willing to pursue policies that will promote life, not death. I can hope that because there's far more to be gained by figuring out a way to negotiate, you know, to cut the narratives that drive American politics. The narratives in American politics are based on so many lies, and they're fed constantly to the public, that Hamas is a massive international terrorist organization. And I can show you with the statistics from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

that that's not true, that Hamas is a minor terrorist organization by any measure that you want to do on terrorism. But that narrative lives on, that, you know, you can't negotiate, with Hamas, that Iran is this massive sponsor of state terrorism. No, it's not. And again, I've got the data to back it up and to prove that, that China is intent upon conquering the world. And it's like, really? Please give me that long list of countries where China's been engaged in military conflict over the last 40 years. It's a short list because it doesn't exist. So trying to counter that narrative is, you know, I don't see anybody yet around Trump that will lead him in that direction.

My only hope is that Trump himself, because of this experience, will start asking some questions because I do know he is one. He will ask people a lot of questions and really drill down. And there's no telling, I am hopeful that this near-death experience will, awakening in him an appreciation and recognition that he needs to be a force for peace, not war. Larry, you love the shirts. Thanks for your insight, bless and keep. Thank you for that. And from Costa Juan, I was going to say Florida business casual.

Thank you for that. In a recent conversation with Peppa Escobar, Alexander Duggan said that the choice is between escalation. and death, Trump and Biden respectively, meaning Trump will still escalate, but not to an apocalyptic extent. I agree, but what are your thoughts? Yeah, no, I think Trump is more inclined to negotiate. He is the art of the deal. That's genuine. He's, I have a friend who held a very sensitive position within the intelligence community, He was privileged. He was there at the debates, both surrounding the attack, the decision to assassinate Soleimani,

as well as prior to that the missile strike to go after Syria for alleged use of chemical weapons. And he said in all those discussions, Trump, he was almost being browbeat by the different, you know, by the CIA, by DOD, because he was reluctant to use military force. He was, you know, you've got these people who at this drop of a hat, man, they're ready to fight and they're ready to start engaging people in combat. Trump is just the opposite even then. So I think I think Trump actually is a night and day different from Biden. Number one, Biden is not making the decisions. And he's surrounded by a bunch of inexperienced people who are inclined to do stupid things.

without understanding the consequences. And I think Trump will, if Trump is elected, I think we'll be on the threshold of maybe being able to de-escalate this thing in Ukraine, back out, not go forward with deploying medium-range ballistic missiles in Germany and other places, which was basically, it's going to, that will ignite Cuban missile crisis too. and put the world again on the threshold of a nuclear war. We don't need that. Zareil asks, Larry, have you seen the new standards for Secret Service applications to

freaking joke 20 minutes to run 1.5 miles? Yeah, I was going to bring that up. I mean, my God. You know, the standard for any kind of military, particularly special operations, standard and even in the, I think the Chinese, standard for running, you know, roughly two miles is like, or a mile and a half is 13 minutes, tops. So you ought to set the standard at a level where you're going to get the best.

And what they've done is they move the standard because they're not interested in hiring the best. They're interesting in hiring to meet quotas so that you can say, hey, we've got people of, you know, this particular racial or ethnic background. and, you know, that's just sickening. Because particularly in Secret Service, I mean, those guys and gals have to run alongside a car. And I always jokingly say when I'm, you know, giving somebody a ride. I said, do you want to ride like Secret Service?

And they go, what? I said, I'll drive and you run alongside the car. They go, no, no, no, I'd rather sit inside. But so if you're going to run this alongside the car, you better have some capacity to run for some distance. And it's not like they're, you know, wearing Adidas running shoes or, you know, or Nike or, you know, picture brand new balance. You know, you're running sometimes in street shoes. So, yeah, this state, Zareal is exactly right.

Crazy. Yeah. You kind of answered this question, but let me ask it again. Hello, gentlemen. Do you think it's, it's indeed an incompetence of the Secret Service or rather intentional failure to protect President Trump from Latimer. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's a little of both. Okay. Tisham asks so many questions. Will the event be used to change the narrative for Biden's exit? Boy, you know, that's what's, you know, what's fascinating now is before this assassination attempt, there were all these elaborate plans and a lot of, you know, I've been hearing, I've been hearing for six months that the Democrats had sat down. with Michelle Obama 15 months ago, and it has secured her agreement that she would become

the candidate when they forced Joe Biden out at the convention. So that was the sort of the behind-the-scenes narrative. And I heard that from two different people, well-connected in democratic circuits. Well, number one, Biden's not cooperating. He is suffering from dementia, most likely Parkinson's dementia, maybe a form of Alzheimer's, but there's a clear cognitive decline in the guy, and no matter, it's not fixable. It is not reversible. It's not like you've got a sprained ankle and you apply some heat and some ice

and wrap it in a bandage and it'll get better in two weeks. This is only going to get worse as time goes on. You know, my mother-in-law, she died of Alzheimer's, And we, you know, the last three years of her life, it was just, it was awful. So families that have, this is the thing that, why it resonates, you know, I think within a lot of Americans as well as people around the world. Everybody's had a family member or so they know somebody that has, in their advanced years, starts, you know, they lose it mentally. And they recognize it's a steady decline. So the Democrats now are stuck.

Because their only way out is if Biden's, if Biden announces, okay, I've decided physically, I can't do it, I'm not going to run. We're going to have an open convention. That's one option. Or he could say, okay, look, I can't do this. I'm going to resign. Kamala will become president and Kamala will be the candidate. Because the way the election rules work here, and I know Robert Barnes has spoken a lot about this and does a great job on it, is that. the money that has been raised for the Biden-Harris campaign can't just be transferred to, say,

someone like the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, or the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, or, you know, Michelle Obama, that that money is actually sort of walled off, has to be returned to donors. So then that means the Democrats have a financial problem. and the Democrats are also facing internally, even though Kamala Harris, when she first ran for Attorney General in California, presented herself as an American citizen of Indian, Southeast Asia Indian descent. She then later transformed herself into a black American. And so she does have significant support among the Congressional Black Caucus. And Kleibern, James Clyburn, specifically of South Carolina, has been an adamant advocate for her.

So they're not going to let her be turned away easily. You know, maybe they could be persuaded to if Michelle Obama came in. But I just don't see Michelle Obama having the stomach to do this. I mean, good Lord, it would be messy. And now with Trump having this aura of being a divine candidate, saved by the hand of God, and there are many people talking about it that way, I think this has changed the whole calculation for the Democrats.

From Trevor Mack, any thoughts on the FBI's inability to unlock the shooter's phone? Well, they got it unlocked. They finally broke into it. again, the problem I have with the FBI right now, and look, I worked with them on the Pan Am 103 investigation when I say worked with them. My job was to get country clearance for the FBI agents who were going overseas to conduct the investigation. But I also worked closely with the FBI when I was put in charge of the publicity for the terrorism rewards campaign. And, you know, you've got lots of friends in the Bureau, but old guys. What the Bureau is today is a disaster.

It is a politicized mess. And it has completely lost the confidence of most of the American public. So it's like, no matter what they do on this, it's going to be under a cloud of suspicion. Because it's going to be assumed that they're going to suppress evidence. Just as with the Hunter Biden laptop, they suppress that evidence. and have gone out of the way to try to destroy Trump. And so this, I think FBI is actually probably terrified with the notion, if Trump gets elected, there are going to be some big changes at FBI headquarters, big changes.

From Rumble, Ben Redward asks, Larry, if you were in Trump's shoes, would you be dispensing with Secret Service protection at this point in hiring your own? private security detail. Yes. Well, I would keep the Secret Service around, but I tell them, you know, boys, we're going to do this a little different now. You know, my guy's going to be in charge to make sure you're doing everything right.

And you can bring in some, you know, there are some excellent retired Secret Service professionals out there. That, you know, again, I know guys, They watched this clown show in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Horrified by it, absolutely horrified. Because they were trained to a different standard. You know, they know how the job's supposed to be done. They were just so, it wasn't like one failure.

It was a multitude of failures. And the fact that this head of the Secret Service doesn't even have the decency to resign. to offer her resignation, you know, this is a complete failure and a tribunal will impart to her policies. From Ben Redwood. Larry, what can we expect from the establishment in the deep state now that Trump triumphantly survived the first assassination attempt? They're trying to figure out what to do.

You know, I don't know if you, I'm sure you guys noticed and may have mentioned it wide after the attempt. So Elon Musk comes out, pledges $45 million for a PAC to help the Republicans get senators, members of Congress elected backing Trump's policies. Then Bill Ackman of Pershing Square. Now, I've done, I did, me and my partners did an investigation for Ackman some years ago. So I know Ackman. He was an ardent Democrat. boy when he came out and said hey my money's going to Donald Trump

is like holy smokes you know that and that's not a one-off you're seeing the same thing out in Silicon Valley so the support for Biden is it's eroding dramatically and Trump is now lining people up because they recognize

you know we've got some very very serious problems and at least they've got the optimism. And on an economic policy basis, Trump's not going to do something crazy. Trump's going to try to do something to stabilize the economy because anybody that knows anything about economics and financial affairs knows that the United States, man, we're dancing on a precipice that could collapse at any moment.

A Wired woman said, says, Just thanks for all you guys do. Love all your channels. Thank you for that. Wired Woman. And from Rumble, Ken Media Reader asks, did the attempt on Trump have a knockout effect of shielding RFK Jr? If something violent or suspicious happened,

would there be backlash in favor of Trump? Well, that was one of the other interesting aspects of this. So Trump immediately came out and renewed calls that, hey, you need to get secret service protection for RFK Jr. And finally, the Biden administration relented, and they are providing secret service protection to RFK Jr. They recognize, you know, again, these dummies, they can talk about, yeah, we're going to put Trump in a bullseye. He's an existential threat. We need to stop him.

You know, the rhetoric was such that it encouraged violence. But once the violence happened, and then all of a sudden they saw the political reaction and the flood of support for Trump, they finally realized, oh, my God, it's RFKU. RFK Jr. gets killed. We're dead ourselves politically. And Trump reportedly had conversations with RFK Jr. I think RFK Jr. is going to stay in the race as long as he can. But I would not rule out the possibility that you could see Trump asked RFK Jr. to become the attorney general, for example. Again, as a gesture, and Trump may try to do that, make that kind of,

announcement in advance of the November campaign to show, hey, I'm not just reaching out to Republicans. I'm reaching out to a broad spectrum of people on the ideological spectrum, that we're going to come together, try to come together as America and work first and foremost for the economy, for the security, and then to get us out of these useless and costly the international wars. Russell Hall says the kid would have also heard the crowd exposing

his position to authorities but wasn't spooked. He calmly took the time to position and line up his shot. Yeah, yeah, he did. So he was not, you know, unskilled, you know, someone who had never handled a rifle before.

Clearly he had handled a rifle before. He knew how to operate it. but apparently he did not have a high-powered scope on it. With a high-powered scope and a brace position, you're likely to get off a shot that definitely would have killed Trump. If he's using the red dot or iron sights, increases the possibility that has happened. Came close, but missed.

And, you know, that, again, the memes that popped up on among many prominent Democrats, after that was, oh, boy, it's a shamey mist. You know, feeding into this that the Democrats wanted this to happen. And so that's, you know, and that's why there's legitimate questions being raised. Was this a deliberate attempt to try to kill Trump? And then there are reports that there were, you know, multiple shooters. I personally dismissed that because if there were multiple shooters, then where are the other victims who were shot?

Because if you fire a bullet at somebody and you miss them, the bullet doesn't say, okay, I miss, I'm going home and stop. It continues on until it hits something. And with that number of people, and if the shooters were at different angles, there would have been other people in the crowd shot. Thank God, the casualties that did occur were minimal. Although one, you know, 50-year-old grandfather and father, a firefighter, he died because he caught one of those rounds directly in the head and killed him.

Larry, you have time for three, three, four more questions? Sure, sure. Yeah? Okay. Tisham asks, why does the well-funded NSA exist if ongoing crimes in the U.S. regime are not? stopped before they happen. Well, the, and I presume she's talking about the National Security Agency who's out there scouring up because they're not supposed to be scooping up the phone calls of American citizens.

But, you know, thank God to Edward Snowden, we knew that that's exactly what they were doing. But to scoop that up and then in real time be able to say, oh, you know, put out a warning message. So if this had been a foreign threat, I think that would make more sense that to say, hey, did the NSA miss this? Because this kid's domestic, NSA is not supposed to be collecting on him or me or any other American citizen. You know, we're still supposed to have some privacy rights, even though the security state has set up this apparatus that they can, you know, they can spy. again, and I say thank God to Edward Snowden for exposing that. From Nicholas, given security were aware of the man before he started his attack, shouldn't there be a code word or warning to get Trump off the stage immediately?

Absolutely. That's another, you know, thanks for bringing it up. Great point. So at the point that the counter-sniper is on the roof and they're communicating back to the talk, say, okay, we see this guy, we're not sure who he is. We can't confirm if he's friendly or foe, but he's got a rifle. At that point, the agent in charge of that operation should say, get the president off the stage, get him off now until we verify what the hell's going on. They didn't do that. So absolutely, yeah.

See, you've got all these smart listeners and viewers. Yes, we do. They are the best. Nova Storm says, we were less than one inch away from serious unrest in the U.S. Yet the tension can be felt right now. Yeah. But there's, you know, there's sort of a hopeful dimension to it. I mean, it is that defiance that Trump expressed as he got up off the ground surrounded

by that bevy of secure service agents where he goes, fight, fight, fight, fight. that has become sort of, I think, an energizing moment, not just for the Trump supporters, but people who were on the fence and Luke Warren about Trump, it's brought them over as well. And so there's this, there's this now commitment to fight, but not necessarily use violence, but definitely to push back and resist. And good Lord, the media, the mainstream media, what an embarrassment. I know both of you guys talked about it on your shows yesterday, which I watch on a day. You're like a daily devotion.

I have to watch all of your different broadcasts. I did figure out the best way to watch. I turned you out up to one and a half speed. That way I can listen to more quicker. But it really has changed. There was a change in the atmosphere. And I think you're going to see that, you're seeing that reflected this week

at the Republican National Convention. Because otherwise, this Republican National Convention without this sniper attempt, the media wasn't going to cover it. Now they have to. And yet, they're exposed with their bias by claiming that Trump falls down after hearing loud noises.

You know, really? You're that fundamental? dishonest and you know they don't realize it but they look as ridiculous as old Baghdad Bob did back in the day when he was declaring that there were no US tanks in Baghdad they're just only the they're worse than Baghdad Bob because this is across the corporate media yeah Ilya Kuryakin from local locals says doesn't all event security have some kind of identifier a color badge something it should But they didn't.

It should, but they didn't. I mean, he's exactly right. Okay. And Jeff Rook from Locals says, someone should be fired over this assassination attempt. Then they're saying someone should be fired over the assassination attempt. Me, well, obviously someone's getting fired. You don't fail in assassination that badly and keep your job.

Well, it wasn't, I wouldn't say that the assassination failed badly. I mean, it still nick Donald Trump's ear and still left the blood trail. It came close to killing them. So, but the head of the Secret Service right now, she needs to be fired immediately. And I don't think she'll be on the job at the end of this month. We'll see if she survives. The guy or gal who headed up the site survey for that scene, they need to be fired. or the one who was in charge of management.

If the site survey was correctly done, they can show that it was documented. And then it was the person who was in charge of running that site, didn't ensure that that plan was implemented. Then they need to be fired. I mean, this is the problem with Washington, D.C. The lack of accountability. It's been across the board. I mean, CIA, DOD, Defense Intelligence Agency, State Department. You know, the abandonment of Afghanistan in August of 2021 and the death of the 13 Marines, nobody got fired over that.

You know, the failures associated with the attacks of 9-11, nobody got fired over that. You know, we can go back to incident after incident under Bill Clinton. They bombed the Chinese embassy in Sudan, I think. Anybody get fired over that? No. So basically the message you get sent is you can be the best. biggest screw up in the world, you might get promoted. So, you know, no incentive for excellence. Yeah. Final question for you, Larry, if offered by President Trump, would you accept a position

in his cabinet from Trevelyde, Gale? No. I prefer being able to offer my opinions about what's going on and try to raise consciousness. But, you know, I'm 70 years. I'll be 70. I'll be 70 in four or five months. So I'm at that age where I prefer to do what I want to do without, you know, I'll be supportive. But younger person's game.

Larry Johnson, thank you very much. And a happy birthday to Peter, by the way, one of our awesome moderators celebrating a birthday today. Larry Johnson, thank you so much. Sonar 29, 21 is your website. Anywhere else where people can find you, or should they

go straight to your blog? Nope. That's, that's, If they go to Sonar21.com, they'll find all the links to substack and to countercurrents. I just did an interview this morning with Pepe Escobar that will be posted on countercurrents, either later today or tomorrow. But it's a great, we have a good extensive discussion. Talk a little bit about the assassination, but more about bricks and how the West is really missing the train on that. Yeah.

Sonar21.com is the site. I have it as a link in the description box down below. I will also have it as a pinned comment as well when the live stream is over. I highly recommend you visit Larry Johnson's blog. And Larry, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much, Larry. Thank you. Take care.

Alexander, are you with us? Absolutely, very much. So listening very intently to all the things Larry said. by the way. Fantastic. Let's knock out the rest of the questions. From Gene Kessler, welcome to the drag community. Matthew says the best independent media going.

Summer of 1970, thank for that super sticker. Wade says, St. Michael, pray for us. Summer of 1970 says, The hubris and corruption in D.C. is the worst I've seen in my life. I think this is correct, yes. is the more, is the more to the point. No, that's that's the point. That's the point. I mean, it absolutely is.

And, you know, people have been critical or, you know, humorous about the fact that I had a naive view about the Secret Service, as I've had naive views about every other institution in the American government. But I do remember an earlier United States, which was a much more efficient place than the one we have today. And yes, there's always been a certain amount of corruption in the United States. If you know anything about US history, you will know that. But it never affected the way in which the central institutions worked in the United States, or at least if it did affect them, never to the extent that we did now. the U.S. is coming very close to that point where corruption no longer becomes a problem of the system.

It becomes instead the organizing principle around which the whole political system functions. And when that happens, that is a disaster and it is all but impossible to change. Rand, welcome to the Duran community. R. Kaldi, welcome to the Duran community. Christos says, I think that the Don will back out from the race. Well, if you mean Trump, or do you mean Biden? We'll just have to wait and see. I don't think either of is backing it.

Well, why would Trump want to back out? And as for Biden, well, in his world, he's winning, isn't he? I mean, he thinks he's Napoleon or Caesar or whatever it is. He's moving from one success and triumph to another. After all, all these people around him are telling him as much. I mean, I've been reading article after article after article and comment after comment from all sorts of Democrats telling us that he's a great man, a great president, that he's achieved all these extraordinary things.

I'm not sure what these extraordinary things are. But you can find lots and lots of articles and comments saying that. So why should he pull out? I think he's confident that he's the right man at the right time leading the United States. and in his own mind, such as it is, that's probably what he obviously thinks. I'm convinced that his team gives him a different briefing of what's going on in the world than what we're seeing. I'm positive. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Elza says, happy birthday to Peter. Happy birthday, Peter. Absolutely. Let me just join in that also. Happy birthday, Peter. And thank you for all your support. E. Austin says, the guy at Trump. Trump's, Estachie, who stood alone wearing black on the stage, is a total hero.

Yeah, there are lots of people who behave with great courage here. I think I know who you mean. But as I said, this was heroism. Exactly, as I said, as Homer and the ancient Greek tragedians would have understood it. The Greek word, you wonder what you want to want to be. you want to understand what it means as I said look at what happened look at what happened in this place

in Pennsylvania on Sunday Tim Gibson thank you for that super sticker Inga thank you for that super sticker Bobby LaForce says my dearest Duran thank you for that Peter says one must wonder if the Secret Service

is not a Praetorian guard very good point excellent point Praetorian Guard, as I'm sure most people watch these programs now, was the guard of the Roman emperors. It was sometimes actually did guard the emperors. Sometimes it was the greatest danger that an emperor might face. Several Roman emperors, Caligula was the first, Nero was the next. Several emperors, comidus, others were murdered or overthrothed by the Pretorian.

Don't. Nova Storm says world peace now. Benjamin, welcome to the Duran community. Jonathan, thank you for that super sticker. Commando Crossfire says, good day. Hope everyone is well on this lovely day. Thank you for that. Commando Crossfire.

Sir Mug's game says, Trump's team didn't twig to the sudden appearance of Secret Service onpah Lumpas to protect the big man. thank you for that sir mugs game uh let's see we answered that one mama alaska says i worry jd a venture capitalist plus one year in office well we can worry about many things um i would have said that the fact that he's only had one year in office actually it's probably a positive it means that he's not been assimilated into the system if he'd been there for 30 years i think we'd have

We'd have had more cause to worry, actually. Yeah, he would have been part of the system. Yeah, Matlis X says, who is going to be in charge of security when Netanyahu comes to Washington next week, the Secret Service or Israelis? Good question. I don't know. GL1416 says, how do we get such detailed information about the war, where troops are, et cetera? Why do governments or some soldiers publish reports about their positions? Isn't this a tactical disadvantage? If you're referring to the Ukraine war, it's not the defense ministries that do that.

It's these various reporting agencies that exist on both the Russian and Ukrainian side. They are able to get quite a lot of information from drone footage that each side does publish and the military units on each side do publish. So that does give us an incredibly detailed picture. what is going on on some parts of the contact line. You must remember, we get about, what, 15 reports, video reports in a day. This is contact line. There's, what, 800 kilometers.

We're already getting little bits and pieces here. And there, it doesn't give you the full picture, not anywhere. Doom 26464 says, Why is Hollywood and its actors so pro-democratic? That is an excellent question to which I have no simple answer. My aunt, of course, who had contacts with Hollywood, was also curious about this. And of course, her husband, Gilles d'Arsaint,

was a film director who worked in Hollywood. He didn't even have an answer to this because I once asked him, I don't know why that is so. Artists, people who are in the arts, tend to be towards the left. And this has been true in every society in the modern age. And Hollywood appears to be no exception. But I can't provide a simple explanation.

You know Johnny Depp when he was referring to the actor who killed presidents? Of course, the actor he was referring to was what is he's name, Booth, who murdered Lincoln. and in Ford's theatre in 1865. Now, of course, he was not on the left because he supported the Confederacy, so it has always been the case. Yeah, Honeybell, thank you for that super sticker. Cobban says, well, at some point,

enough people in the West see their leaders as emperors with no clothes. More and more are every day. We saw that in the British election, we saw that in the French election, We saw that in the election in the European Parliament. The point is that if we're talking again about this assassination, they didn't just see Trump, you know, by no means any sort of emperor without clothes.

They saw on the contrary a hero. Just saying. Paul Hunt, thank you for that super sticker. Khafan says Vance wants war with Iran. Well, Larry actually talked about that. I mean, on Europe, on things like that, Vance, I think, is just about the best there is. On Iran, it's a different story. All I would say about Vance is that he is someone who has shown an ability to think and to change his mind.

And that is the single best thing that you can say about him. Oscar N says, is it true that Biden said someone should put Trump in a bull's eye? And if so, wouldn't that be serious? He did say it. And I understand, I understand that today the White House has apologized on his behalf for it. Now, I'm not absolutely sure about the second, but there's no doubt that he did say. He said it in private to donors. Tish M says, so after this event, we're still left with A-PAC-supported candidates, or will this cause a 180 from the Republicans?

Well, I think they are all backed by A-PAC, but there it is. You know, you have to deal with the American politics that you have. I don't think this is going to shift that. What I do think is that on some issues, Trump and Vance are pushing back against the mainstream orthodoxy. And that tells you that whatever they are, they are not neocons. And neocons, their biggest obsession of all is Project Ukraine. So already that is a major, major shift, and we should not, you know, underestimated significance. Ralph Steiner says

Trump is the Quizatz Hatterack, Dune in 1984. I mean due in 2022. Extraordery books, though. I remember reading them at school. I remember reading them at school.

I remember reading them at school. They're absolutely wow. Ralph Steiner also says the Harkinin failed against the Kewatz Hederek. They certainly did. Life of Brian says, I'll bite. How big is Alex? Zahar, thank you for that super sticker.

Polly says perhaps this event was promised to Biden by Mark Rute in exchange for leadership of NATO. That would explain then why it failed. Brojo, Gen X says, YT censors this, quote, 713 was an inside job, thanks. Thank you for that. Brojo, Zareel says, I want DJT to acknowledge Christ's miracle publicly. Well, you might get that too. Jamila Asfu says, I am glad mighty God has saved him. Thank you for that, Jamila.

Ralph Steiner says Zelensky said Russia should attend the next peace talks, the second peace summit. Well, that tells you that he's under pressure. Bill Zitin says that he's now deeply depressed. He's issued a message on a post, a statement on X saying, oh, we'll be well, we've got all this money, we got all these people who are enthusiastically joining our army. We don't have enough places to train them. Well, there's a cat-handed one, by the way.

I mean, he's admitting that he's sending people to fight without training, but he did actually say that. So I think he's all over the place. And yes, he recognizes that the next peace conference has to be with the Russians, but he doesn't really believe in it. And he's going to fight every inch of the way to stop any kind of serious negotiation taking place. Ridiculous says, I heard the shooter's building was delegated to local police. Do you think that's because Trump was not granted the additional social,

Secret Service says SS Secret Service assets he requested. Well, I don't know, but all I would say is that I find it absolutely incredible that this building was not actually secured by the Secret Service.

If you see the pictures and the film, it is such an obvious vantage point for a sniper for an assassin that I would have thought that the secret service would not only secure it, but if they didn't put their own people there, would make absolutely sure that the police or some other security service involved in providing the protection

would have secured it instead. Latimerrao says, I think Larry was going not for the Earth's curvature, but rather for its gravitation. Earth's mass is greater than any item's mass, so everything eventually drops on the ground, just my two cents. Probably, yeah. Thank you for that. Tisham says, haven't heard this. Is it possible that there were practice attempts

previous to the actual event? Are there videos available? I haven't seen any. I haven't seen that, yeah. Sammy 295 says amazing conversation. Ralph says the Secret Service should have consulted with Annalina Berbach about 180 and 360 degrees. How do you know they didn't? It seems

to me, most likely that they did. That's why they behave with such exemplary efficiency in the face of all of this. Pamela Deme, thank you for that super sticker. Warlock Lander says, it was visible on Trump's face yesterday that his personality

is going through transformation at the moment. We might end up with a completely different Trump as before. What's possible? I mean, can I just say this event is one that could quite plausibly change someone. I mean, it is an astonishing thing to happen.

From the alchemist, my father has dementia. When he misplaces something, he will never admit it and shift the blame on kids. I'm afraid I've lived with people with dementia. And my grandmother went through it for three years, through very, very difficult years.

I know exactly what you're going through and I understand exactly the point you're making and anybody who doesn't unseed these signs in Biden is just closing their eyes. Sir Mugg's game says maybe he mistook the 25th Amendment for the high-velocity amendment. Don't bother Alex. I'll escort myself out of the chat. Thank you, sir, Mug's game.

The alchemist says they will investigate this as they investigated Seth Rich. Yeah. Tisham says, so if Trump designates his own to lead his security, in this event his guy picks off the threat of the roof what does this signal and of course the legal aspect

well I don't I'm not going to explore the illegal aspect because I haven't really thought about given any thought about this I mean the fact is he survived so I would have thought that he wouldn't want to bring court cases over this besides he's actually thanked

the security people so that would sort of jar with that in some ways. I don't know where this is going to go forward. The one thing I would say is absolutely the person who's in charge of the Secret Service should either resign at once or be dismissed. That seems to me obvious. And if this person stays in post, then I think the first thing that Donald Trump as president ought to do when he's elected in January. It when he is inaugurated in January, he should move to dismiss him. Russell Hall says, I'm sure RFK feels much safer now with protection. It was one of, it was the key reason he pulled out of the Democratic Party primaries, by the way,

was that he wasn't provided with protection. And it was intended, I know that this is what he thinks, it was intended to get him to quit the primaries and to stand as an independent. which had not been his original intention. Matlas X says the New York Post saying the shooter brought a five-foot ladder from Home Depot to climb the roof and possibly carry the ladder there in his Hyundai sonata. Well, can I just say, I mean, you know, this is my, again me, I would have thought somebody bringing a ladder to climb up this building with a rifle. I mean, this is so obviously, extremely, you know, tells you that something very seriously is going wrong. I mean, surely, security people come up and ask, you know, what exactly are you doing?

You know, who are you? Can we see your ID? Something ought to have been done. I mean, you know, I can't, if this person. really had been stay from the local police. Would he have needed his own ladder? Surely there would have been other ways that he'd have got onto the roof. This is, I mean, this seems to me obvious.

Yeah. Phantom of many topics says, Alex, please stop using J or J.H sounds to pronounce she. In Chinese, his name is the same sound as she as in female. In English, the J sound is slang for male body part to very insult. Well, okay. I think it's directed at me, but okay, thank you for that. Elza says, is it the end of Russia Gate after what happened to Trump?

I hope so. I think so, yes. I can't imagine anybody in their census would want to provide that. But then you never know with these people. One thing I can tell you, as night follows day, for about a week, they will sort of quieten down a little. And then maybe even less than a week, maybe a few days. And then they'll be back at it all over again. Absolutely. Warlock Lander, welcome to the drag community. Russell Hall says corruption works its way through a system gradually. Everything is affected by it. Likewise, regardless of whether you're able to see it.

I've seen corruption close up, and I can tell you this. Corruption is like what Mark Twain, was it Mark Twain said about bankruptcy? It happens slowly and then quickly. There comes a point when it just metastasizes and takes everything over. And when you reach that point, it happens. Very, very fast. And anybody who is not part of it gets pushed out. Yeah. Gift of the Gab says, you come at the king. You best not miss. Then what? Very true.

Very true, yeah. Yeah. Sparky says, instead of thanking the Secret Service and law enforcement for their quick action, Trump should have said, thanks for nothing. Well, he's trying to be at the unifier now, the presidential figure, yeah. A.H. says, would be interesting conversation comparing the U.S. government reaction to Navalny's death and the Russian government reaction to this past weekend. Well, they've said, they've come out, actually made statements about it, and they said that they expected it. They knew that they knew that it was going to happen. By the way, since you brought up the Russian government and assassinations and their comments about this, because the other story about assassinations that has been much talked about,

in Russia is the admission by the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirila Budanov, that the Ukrainians have made several attempts to assassinate Vladimir Putin. In other words, Ukraine has tried several times to murder the leader of a nuclear power. Just think about that. Matthew says, war with Russia. Yes or no? No, I don't think so. I think in the end, no. of truth says thank you Alex and Alexander you're doing great work thank you Larry you're awesome can I ask you guys to bring somebody on your show geopolitical economy report channel something I would like to ask Larry to tell judge but I was too late it's geopolitical economy report is the person that you

would like us to invite on the show if I got that right yeah let me uh take a look at the channel and we'll see what we can do absolutely uh from The hockey goalie, certain agencies knew the steel dossier was fake, lied about the Biden laptop, faked Pfizer requests, Biden demented, can't get Trump in jail. How else do you deal with Mustash Man 2.0? Whole thing stinks. So, so many people are saying that. And that chain of deduction might be true.

I'm not saying it is because I don't know, but I can see where you're going and where you're coming from. The alchemist says the left are saying it was a hoax. I know. I've seen it. I mean, I just, I'm incredulous about this. Sherry, thank you for that. People are, people have been killed here. And people are saying it's a hoax.

Yeah. Sherry, thank you for that super chat. Martin, MDL says artists are on the left because they deal with fantasy. Interesting. Tom Grail says, J.D. Vance is anti-deep states, so I think it will act as insurance against another try. Yes, I know. I think the other thing it will do

is that it will make, I mean, he's clearly now. Trump is also clearly picking the man who will succeed him, at least that's what Trump means. He's a young guy. Bear in mind, it's a young guy. Trump can only serve one term. So who will take the Republicans forward in 2028? It'll be probably the vice president who, you know,

if Trump wins the election, who will be J.D. Vans. Yeah. Sancha Rolaxo says, The lady in white behind Trump to his left is clearly giving cues to the shooter. Take a look. I think I know what you're talking about. I think I've seen that video.

Harry C. Smith says, it's weird. Secret Service was so useless initially, but had several agents up on that stage around and covering him under a second makes it even more confusing. Well, there's so many unanswered question. There should be an investigation. But then, of course, will there be?

Didn't a certain person die rather than mysteriously in a prison in, was it New York? Some of a year or so ago. A person who'd been involved in your case and we're involving all kinds of children and which are young people, which involved a member of the royal family. Did you ever see an outcome to that investigation, which provided a truly satisfactory explanation of what happened? Just saying, I'm careful about mentioning his name, by the way, because I understand that it's become very difficult to do in Britain. Tabernac asks, what were your impressions of Germany on your visit? I found the country depressed.

I found the people restive. the prices had risen significantly over when I was last there. I mean, it was visibly so. And I spoke to several young people, you know, a fair number of young people, people in their 20s, I found them deeply disillusioned with the Greens, very, very afraid about war and about the prospect of war,

very worried about their economic prospects. They're not in the part of Germany, I visited, which is in the Rhineland, a historic social Democrat area. They're not prepared yet to vote for the IFD or even, you know, Zarevagan-Ex Party, which is very East German for the moment. But they're very, very disillusioned and they were very unhappy. From EU Tech Health, 80 security agents and police there, public in the crowd were screaming about the shooter on the roof for two minutes.

The Secret Service reacted very slowly and poorly. It was a pure inside job. No? Well, so many people are saying this. Now, as I said, I mean, I don't want to exclude the possibility of total incompetence because we've seen so many examples of total incompetence from agencies of the United States government. But you heard what Larry had to say.

And he is the person who has done these sort of things. He seems to lean towards that possibility. And who am I to disagree? The alchemist says Ukrainian opposition leader sends letter to Trump saying Kiev had motive to kill him. Have you seen that? Have you seen that? I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that.

I haven't seen that. I haven't seen it. But I have read about Kiril Boudan of talking about how Ukraine has been trying to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Yes. That's everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. And they have lists, very threatening lists that they publish about people as well. And then you had the Hungarian publication, which talked about the car bomb of Orban as well.

Exactly. Exactly. Arcane Eclectic says, who stood to gain more than Netanyahu and Zelensky? Who did? Oh, lots of people. The numbers are enormous. the FBI, as you know, Larry was talking about in other parts of the deep state, amongst the various corrupt lobbyists. I mean, the swamp is huge. Yeah.

Sparky says, notice all of a sudden Biden's calling Trump by his first name, Donald, as if Joe has a guilty conscience. Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah, he does. Absolutely. Very good observation, yeah. Jonathan Ventura says, I love this show and a big fan.

Can I make a request for a guest, Martin Armstrong of Armstrong economics? He called Dow Jones 40K and Trump's assassination. Yeah, that would be a great guest. I don't know how to get in touch with Martin Armstrong, though. Well, yeah, that's a great recommendation. We'll try to find a way to get in touch with Martin Armstrong. Sparky says the fact that J.D. Vance has any connection at all with Yale makes me skeptical.

skepticism is you know something one should always have but don't take it too far lawyers also often make the point that you know unwarranted skepticism is actually a trap it can actually if you start doubting absolutely

everything then you end up believing nothing in which case you're you have nowhere really to turn and nothing to hold on to let's wait and see he said the right things He's done it in an intelligent and coherent way, at least about Europe and about Ukraine and all the rest. I don't want to anticipate a betrayal, if you like, before he's happened. Yeah. Russell Hall says, did you try the raw pork sandwich metbrachen, Alexander?

In Germany, no. In Germany, yeah. No, I didn't. Tristan says they have the breaky receipts. from JPMorgan 21C and Oswald from two weeks prior to JFK. Do we think this time it's the puppet master's money changers again? Who knows? Let's wait and see. Agreed. And that is everything.

Alexander, all the questions answered. Any final thoughts? Well, just to just make sure we didn't miss anything. Just to say thank you also to that person who put in $50, just saying. But also to say thanks to you for, Absolutely scintillated questions. You heard what Larry had to say, a community full of clever, well-informed people. And this from an expert, a particular expert in this area.

So, you know, that is high praise of the community. And it's, you know, I was bursting with pride when I heard him say that. Absolutely. Best community. on the interwebs. Best questions on the interwebs. Alexander, that is everything. Yeah.

Great live stream. Thank you to Larry Johnson. Once again, I have his link in the description box down below. I will add it as a pin comment. Thank you to everyone that watched us on Odyssey, on Rockfin, Rumble, YouTube, and the durand.orgals.com. Thank you to our moderators as well.

to Zareel. Happy birthday once again, Peter. Who else is in Tish? Tish M. Thank you so much. Gift of Gab, thank you as well. And Reckless Abandon, I think Reckless Abandon is also moderating. Did I miss any moderators? I hope I didn't. Thank you so much. Moderators. And we have one more question from one sec. Barbara, welcome to the Duran community. and Sparky. I imagine Joe and his cohorts shouting, he's still alive in astonished disappointment.

Like Salozo in the Godfather. Absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised. And Basil says Shenzzo and Imron Shinzo Abe

Imran Khan, Robert Fizzo, Donald Trump. William. Yeah, she, Abe. I forgot about Abe and Absolutely. Feet so.

Beets so. Five shots and he's back at work. Yes, I know, yeah. It's amazing. You don't stop. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely amazing. That's heroic.

Tristan says, World needs golden retrievers more than ever. Absolutely. As the owner of two, I can, I can convert, I can vouch to that. All right.

That's everything. Take care, everybody.