TRIGGERnometry - LIVE Iran Update with Mahyar Tousi

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Mahyar Tousi joins Francis and Konstantin to break down the real situation unfolding in Iran right now. What started on 28 December 2025 as protests over a collapsing economy and skyrocketing inflation has rapidly morphed into the largest nationwide unrest since 2022, with demonstrators in dozens of cities calling not just for economic relief but for systemic political change and even the overthrow of the clerical regime. Protests have spread across nearly all provinces, markets and universities, and reports indicate dozens of deaths, thousands of arrests and brutal crackdowns on demonstrators, including gunfire and raids on hospitals, as Iranians voice deep frustration with corruption, repression and daily hardship. Meanwhile, the Iranian government is internally fractured, shifting blame and threatening harsher responses, even as external tensions with the US and Israel add another volatile layer to an already explosive moment. We’ll question the narratives, separate fact from propaganda, and explore what this could mean for Iran’s future and the region tonight with Mahyar, Konstantin and Francis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We are going to be doing something, the mainstream media, for some inexplicable reason, is failing to do, which is talk about events in Iran. And there's literally no one we could think of who's better to talk about this in Maya, Tuci, former guest of Trigonometry, Iranian himself, he's has family in the country. Maya, without wasting any more time, our time's precious here. What has been going on in Iran for the last 12 days? Yeah, well, thanks for having me, guys. 12 days now in case people haven't seen because the Western global media are not really

reporting any of this. There was initially a protest on the first day, which was triggered by everything that's been going on economically and everything else. But this has been boiling up and building up the people have been waiting for an opportunity for an uprising against the Islamic Republic, something that has been, we've seen waves every few years in Iran, but the regime have been very good at doing crackdown. And this time, they've been falling apart the regime. 12 days in a row, 12 battles, and the Iranian people have been having taken control of over 100 cities around the country. And I think that's partly one of the reasons they've been struggling because usually these protests or uprisings have been in one or two main cities.

So they've been uprising, obviously, it's been chaos. But it's still going on. And President Trump has been warning, has been warning the regime if you start killing. many people, then of course the United States will have to intervene. So we'll have to see what's going on. And what is happening so far in terms of the brutality of the attempts to crack down? I know that we've seen some footage of people being taken to hospital. Is the regime killing people at this point? Where are we? So the official numbers from the regime themselves over the last, well, the first 11 days was about 40, but the numbers could be higher.

but at the same time, it could actually be as low as that, which could mean that they've been terrified of what President Trump has said compared to previous crackdowns where you see hundreds getting killed in a couple of days. But people have had full control. Obviously, people are mostly unarmed. The regime security forces are armed, but every evidence videos that we are getting shows people chasing the regime security away. We, We have had a number of defections from the police, some from the IRGC passage units that they filmed themselves. But I think there's a lot going on internally that is paralyzing the regime behind the scenes.

And they have struggled. As of right now, we're doing this live. Over the last hour, the regime have officially withdrawn the security forces and the police, and they have officially declared war. They have brought in the IRGC military, the actual military that would go to fight. in other countries. They are now on the ground and there are some videos that we will be showing on TSCTV later. It's also on social media. Very, very worrying updates coming in about shootings on the ground and obviously tonight is huge because the crown prince of Iran,

Reza Pahlavi is the main opposition leader and people are calling his name and the return of the monarchy and everything else. He said to people come out tonight at 8 p.m. local time, which was about two, three hours ago, everybody united and they start chanting. So we had millions around the country. And if the military have started killing people, as we've seen, things are going to get very bad tonight. And everybody is now looking at President Trump. I mean, it was a really brilliant summation there, Maya, because President Trump has been

hypercritical of the Iranian regime and their handling of this particular crisis. There was also an incident with a hospital, wasn't there? Which was absolutely horrific. Could you just explain to the audience watching what happened with the hospital? So it's happened three times now over the last 12 days, three different hospitals. This is a tactic that they've used many times. So because, again, this is my observation. Because they didn't want to be seen openly that they're killing people on the streets,

they didn't want any evidence to be out there. What they do is they injure people. so they are forced to go to the hospital, then they raid the hospital and start kidnapping them. Obviously, they detained them. And the first couple of days, they did the same thing. There was a city in the western part of Iran. I forgot the name where the Iranian people managed to find where they were taking these people. There was a temporary kind of jail that they created.

And they went in and they actually liberated everybody. They rescued people. But they keep doing this. The problem is there are also just normal patients in the hospitals when they are attacking the hospitals, which is completely chaotic. They are alienating even some of their own, I would say minority of people who are supporting the regime, which, yeah, I mean, this is literally right now, crime against humanity, and we're not really seeing anything from the United Nations. And when you look at the reasons for the uprisings, why do you think they are? Is it because of the brutality and the cruelty of the regime? I was reading that last year, and these are the official figures, the Iranian regime killed more people than ever before.

Or is it the fact that economically, Iran has hit a point where the simple economics no longer work. What used to be a nice middle-class life simply doesn't buy new eggs, breads, the very basic essentials. So if you ask self-appointed experts and a lot of people who actually some of them have been on your shows before and you've challenged them. People want to analyze things, right? You know, and even the BBC would probably say economic protests. But all I would say is don't even listen to me. Listen to what people in Iran are saying from day one. What have they been chanting on?

Did they come out on the streets to say we are against high inflation? Did they even come out to protest against the president or the economic minister? Did they talk about high taxes or lack of jobs? No, none of those things were mentioned. Those things are the final trigger, but they're just part of the overall package. From day one, two chants. One is chanting against the Islamic Republic to go away, and secondly, for the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to come back to his country.

All the things that you mentioned, they are just part of the overall package of the Islamic Republic. Everything from lack of free speech, arresting journalists to not being able to run the economy and sending the taxpayers' money to Hezbollah and Hamas, these are just part of everything and it's just been building up. People in reality have been just waiting for an opportunity, especially since the end of the 12-day war with Israel. And, but they knew that at the beginning, they couldn't do anything because the moment a war ended, there were checkpoints in every city, the regime seemed in control, which is a massive surprise why from day one of this uprising, the regime immediately fell apart, which makes me wonder, obviously, there's a lot of

behind the scenes issues, obviously Mossad operatives, the Iranian community leaders and protest leaders, they become smarter, they've been working together, the Crown Prince's team. This is coordinated. Obviously, those who want to say, oh yes, somebody's behind the yes, of course. people have been waiting for this, people have been planning this, they've learned from previous mistakes, and so far they have been winning. It's not over yet, as I've been saying, the regime hasn't fallen, but it is falling.

Before we ask the next question, Francis, just make sure you have the right microphone selected, please, because it sounds like you're actually coming to us like from Iran at this point. So make sure you've got the Yeti selected, please. Maya, you mentioned that the eyes of the world are on President Trump. What options are actually available to him? Like what could the United States actually do? Has he said anything about what might be the consequences

if they continue to brutalize protesters in this way? So a few days ago, President Trump came and gave a warning saying, if you start killing people, then obviously we'll take action. It was just a very general threat. Earlier today, he doubled down again, and he said that we will hit them very hard, if they start killing. Obviously, there are a lot of Iranians who will tell you,

but they've already been killing because they've killed about 30, 40, maybe more. But I observe it in a different way because if a president of the United States is about to say something like this, he doesn't mean, I know sounds bad, but it doesn't mean if you kill 20, 30 people. He means if you start basically in a very uncontrollable way, start killing hundreds, which I believe tonight might be that night, unfortunately. But in terms of actions, right now, I don't know how we can see an action directly because there are millions of people on the streets.

Not that the US is going to hit residential areas, they're not Russia. But the two things that can be done, whether there's a partnership between the Mossat's side and the US to go and hunt down the leadership, and they also have some people who have allegedly defected from the top of the regime quietly and privately, they could do that or they could just hit the main bases, the main government buildings and the main IRGC basis and destroyed them, I think that would just put pressure. All you need is just put pressure for their leadership to start fleeing the country, basically. Even though the Iranian people don't want that to happen, they want to capture the leadership. But by doing that, you could just force them out to Moscow.

But Maya, I guess what I'm wondering, though, is given that for the regime to leave at this point is completely existential. I mean, the leaders of the regime, will likely if they leave power be prosecuted for their many crimes against the people of Iran, etc. Is there not a risk that effectively they really have no way out other than to continue to suppress and crackdown on the protests? But I would have said that in 2022, 2019, 2017, and even the first couple of days of this, because I thought they're going to start doing a crackdown and at least have a level playing field.

At this point, I don't think how they, I don't know how they can actually stay or temporarily win because President Trump has gone all out. So it's gone too deep now. If, for example, there's a massacre tonight and tomorrow everyone's going to President Trump saying, you know, you promised that, you're going to do something, he's going to have to do something. And President Trump doesn't like to lose. if it does something, it's going to have to do all completely fully. But they're going to have to go. But we did receive some update from the French media that the families of the RRGC have started seeking asylum to France. But because they will be considered as civilians, I guess. But the actual people are responsible, the leadership, they can't go to any country that the future Iran could ask for extradition.

So they could probably go to Moscow. But there are not many places left. They can't go to Venezuela, really, because that's still on the brink. And they can't go to Lebanon. So the only place is also Russia, but Russia is also in a very weird situation, as you know, because there are negotiations with Ukraine. So I don't know, as you said, nowhere is safe for them. They can't go to Qatar either because President Trump is keeping the Qatar is close.

So the only way is for them to get captured. But if not, then they're going to continue this basically turn us into a long-term civil war. until somebody wins. Well, very much with that in mind, you mentioned that tonight was a big moment, potentially the risk of lots of violence by the regime cracking down on millions of people who are now going out into the streets. Given that we're doing this life,

what can you tell us, I know you have family still in Iran, what can you tell us about what's actually happening on the ground tonight? I know that the internet's been cut off, the phone lines have been cut off, So what do we know? So as I said, tonight was the first night that the Crown Prince gave direct instructions said 8pm, wherever you are basically, start chanting. And so far, 11 days that we've had, people have been out, more cities have been coming out,

smaller groups in every city. So a few thousand people, tens of thousands of people in every city and towns and village. So obviously technically, if you put them all together to come to the capital, it will be millions. But they've been spread around. But tonight, before we got the update, which was about an hour ago, that they have withdrawn the police and the security forces and they brought in their IRGIS military. Every footage that we've been getting from Tehran to other smaller cities, they are hundreds and hundreds of thousands out because everybody got re-energized, everybody got motivated that they believe that President Trump is behind them. And the Crown Prince gave them instruction and they want to show loyalty so they came out. that they've been sending thank you messages to President Trump over the last few days.

Some people change their street names temporarily to Trump streets. So basically the morale has been high until, well, now. But as we speak, I can't tell you what the morale is like because we're not getting any more updates. Some people obviously have access to Starlink, thanks to Elon Musk. So there are still videos coming out. And the videos that we are getting is worrying because all we hear is just gunfire, massive. and but they are still out. So the main issue about tonight is more people are out than ever before,

especially the last 11 days, 12 days. But that could also mean a lot more people could unfortunately get killed, which could provoke President Trump to act quicker because they have been mobilizing their troops in the Middle East over the last couple of days. But if people, I don't think people can concede defeat now, they've gone too deep as well. They're going to have to stay out. And it's their country, it's their fight, obviously.

But it could get very, very robust in the next few hours. And tomorrow morning is going to be crucial, obviously, if they're going to come out again. And this may feel like a strange question to you with, you know, obviously your family ties and everything. But how confident are you that this is all for a good cause? And I'll explain what I mean because obviously the protesters are chanting for Reza Pahlavi. He is one of the people who's encouraging this to be happening. How credible of a leader is he and is he viewed as the return to the glory days of Iran pre the Islamic takeover? Or is he seen as a kind of person we haven't seen for a very long time?

You know, is this, if he was to come back, would this have been worth it, so to speak? Yeah, if this question was happening in 2019 or like 10 years ago when we've had protests and uprisings, and if a couple of people in the crowd would say Reza Pahlavi, I would have told you, yeah, it's just a minority. It's, you know, it's probably, and we haven't heard from him publicly speaking. I don't think people are ready to think about monarchy, constitutional monarchy, but things have changed. And I do believe that this has been in the works for years. We started slowly seeing and hearing his name since 2020. And so 2019 obviously was the cost of living crisis protests.

And I was surprised. I was like, oh, I can see his name. They're being written on the walls. Some people are chanting. Then it just got more and more and more. And this year, again, just like my answer to your question earlier about, well, to Francis's question about what about these, what's the uprising for?

and I said, just listen to the people. Right now on the streets, they are only chanting his name. Everybody is saying Rasa Pahlavi. Nobody is saying the Mujahideen, who are a small group of communist Islamic opposition technically, but nobody takes him seriously. But nobody is calling anybody else's name. There is a massive unity behind one name

because he's finally obviously made it clear because obviously after a few years of waiting to see if there is appetite, and I think there is now appetite, and it's been led by the younger generation who weren't even alive before 1979. And they've done their homework. They've done their research and they've realized actually the best solution for the culture in Iran is constitution monarchy as a safety net and to be able to actually have stability and democracy, parliament of democracy. So the consensus is the crown prince and he's made it clear that yes, I've received your call, your request. I will be leading

the revolution and I will be leading the transition government. The idea is to avoid a power vacuum or anything like that, which won't happen in Iran because it's not Iraq or Syria. Lead the transition government and conduct a referendum on the future constitution. And the way it's going, it seems that if there is a question on the ballot paper about constitutional monarchy or republic or whatever else, well, based on the current feeling the constitutional monarchy would win But of course, that's about the campaigns and referendum and everything else that will happen afterwards.

And what about the regional players? We're welcoming back Francis here. He was temporarily kidnapped by his internet. Francis, try talking just to make sure you... Hello, 1234. You're a little loud, but apart from that, I think, much better. Let me ask another question while you just turn your mic down a little bit. I can't hear it.

Oh, you can't hear him at all? No. The same problem happened like that. Okay. Well, Francis, try reconnecting then. Okay. We'll carry on. Maya, so one of the things, obviously, is the regional situation. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and also Israel are all sworn enemies of the Islamic regime in Iran. They are all very concerned about the direction it's been taking in recent years,

their support for terrorism in the region. These countries, and historically speaking, have been natural, not Israel, but the Sunni and Shia divide. obviously very strong. Is there a role do you think here for Gulf countries and Israel as well in addition to President Trump and the United States? Well, in terms of action, well, I don't think that will be necessary, but there is an opportunity here because firstly, the Israelis, until now, until like last year for the past four decades, five decades, they never admitted any involvement on the ground. They never said, oh, yeah, of course,

we got Mossad doing things. But over the last year, they've been actually boasting about it. They've been, they've been bragging. Yeah, we've got over 100 Mossad operators. They were doing this. We're watching everything. And they've been quite open about it now. Everybody knew that Mossad has always been obviously doing disruptions in Iran over the last few decades. But the main thing here is that Saudi Arabia, for example, is a huge rival or enemy to the Islamic Republic, but they don't want to be seen as that sort of superpower in the region. They have been taking a different approach. They never want to be directly involved in any war apart from Yemen. But that's also so indirect, even though they're basically hitting the IRGC proxies. They never release any statement

against their Islamic Republic. It's a very cold, cold war between those two. Israel is the only one that is more kind of outspoken, mostly because since 1979, the Islamic Republic declared war on Israel, saying, you know, we have a bit of a problem with you. We just need to wipe you off the map. That's that, I mean, it's a tiny difference, obviously, in terms of opinions between the Iranian regime and Israel, wiping off. So, I don't think there's any need for any sort of coalition involvement in that sense, because I think Israelis, if they do anything, that's, that will be considered as a self-defense, because

they're in constant war with Iran anyway. The Americans, well, that's the American Empire. It's the world police, whether you like it or not. So the people would say, oh, boy, is America always involved? Well, somebody has to be. If it's not America, it's going to be China. And the Americans have bases there. They have interests in the Middle East.

And President Trump, at least, one credit to him is that he's unlike other presidents, he's open about the fact that he's basically the king of the world. He basically, he will be honest. I'm going to go in there. I'm going to take the oil as well. Or I'm going to stop businesses there. I'm going to do this. I'm going to take over temporarily. So that's actually quite refreshing, rather than like people would say,

oh, yeah, we want to be friends with the whole world. We just have to invade that country for humanitarian reasons. Like, just be honest. So, but yeah, I mean, the region, there's just an opportunity for everybody, most power players to finally be on the same level playing field. Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE, the future Iran. So you could actually have a peaceful Middle East, which could also help the rest of the world.

And there have been rumors. Oh, no. Maybe I should go out and come back in. No. We can't hear Francis, unfortunately. Well, I was going to ask you one of the things that obviously is just mind-boggling. And we said this right at the top is, frankly, I think it's ridiculous that we've got over 10,000 people watching this.

That in itself is not ridiculous. But my point is something else, which is tens of thousands of people are. are watching a live stream with, let's be, you know, generous two former comedians and Mia Francis and a YouTuber and you. And because they're not getting this information on the mainstream media, I opened the BBC website as we were talking. It's something about a storm. It's this Minnesota officials talking about the FBI and the ice shooting. The fifth most red story or the fifth most ranked story on the BBC's weight loss jabs are affecting Gregs. And there's nothing about this issue for 12 days.

I am lacking in explanation, I think, is a very gentle way of putting in mind. Yeah. So one would have said, well, maybe after the third, fourth day, they will jump on a bandwagon. But I've realized the sickness in the media, the mainstream media, the profession as a whole, it's not necessarily even that they have some sort of like evil proactive agenda. They have a meeting, everybody in the mainstream media. This is an intellectual laziness. So we've created the world where back in the day,

and I'm literally talking about maybe 50 years ago before, probably it was not that long ago. Journalism, including newspapers and broadcast media, was about essentially they were all anti-establishment. They would find stories themselves. Obviously, they will do their due diligence, but they would find stories. They will verify themselves.

We created such a structured mainstream media, culture. So in the UK, we've got the Westerns the lobby, in the US, we've got the Capitol Hill guys and everybody else. Everybody is acting the same way, which is very professional, but very controlled and lazy, which means for the BBC and CNN, they have been reporting a couple of times. But what have they been reporting over the last 12th days? Statements from the Islamic Republic. So for the Iranian people, they would see it as you guys are the mouthpiece of the Islamic Republic. But the reality is, because of the world order of the media, they would only consider, they're just sitting in their offices on their computers, they would only consider official sources as states. So the health minister in Gaza or the IRGC, they are official sources because they go to the UN,

for example. So they have selected a very limited number of official sources. Instead of them going out to find stories like back in the day, they are just sitting back like Roe's, like Roe's, robots and they've been told the script, you know, it's not even just because they love the IRGC, but they're like, well, I can't verify this. I don't have a journalist on the ground. What am I going to do? So we're just going to report from the government in Iran. And that is just intellectual laziness that's been created by the media class in general. But I thought that with the rise of new media, that might wake them up. But no, they're not waking up. It's absolutely fascinating. We have now open source intel. We've got people that you can verify. If you get something rogue from Iran, just get in touch with two or three

other sources and it can verify it, not just one person, because that could be a rumor, absolutely. But there's evidence. Obviously, if there's something AI, you can tell it's AI. There are videos. When, for example, an IRGC base, there's a building with a road sign next to it, that you can see where it is. Go on Google Earth, go on Google Maps. You could check it. And it could check the date because most of the time when Iranians are filming these videos, They stay, because they're smart, they stay, this is Tuesday, the 6th of January, for example, at 10 p.m. Just check everything and then hopefully look for a different video from a different angle, and you can report it as news.

Don't wait for the Islamic Republic official sources to tell you what's going on in Iran. Well, what's fascinating to me in this whole thing as well is we have seen with the conflict in Gaza that the BBC routinely reports stories that then turn out not to be true precisely because of the approach you described where they will take information from the Gaza Health Ministry, let's be honest, not the least unbiased media source in the world, right? And they will rush to publish it in order to get ahead of the story. So to me that they don't have anything on this at all. I just find that so strange.

And at this point, with the wide availability of information in the new media, it just looks, it's an incredibly bad look for institutions that, I don't know how you feel about it, but I've always made the argument that we need a good BBC in this country because we want to be well informed about world events. And the BBC has more resources than Trigonometry or Maiti, T2C TV, Maya Tusi, to go after and cover this stuff is just extraordinary. Well, yes.

So theoretically, what you always say about the BBC on paper makes sense, but that is an alternative. And people like me have been trying to push for this now. there's a there's a small handful of people who do when it comes to new media who do news and live news so what i've been trying to push and i'm trying to get hold of all the others as well around the world is you have resources so you mentioned the bbc having an army of journalists that is true but there could be a hybrid for example we we do work on tcdb we do work with uh some reuters journalists and who obviously outsource things we all we still have to verify things and we double check everything

But even if you know the BBC, there are basically credible sources out there that you can still work with as a small channel to do this. But we are working on creating, for example, an all-party parliamentary group, an APBG for new media, for news, because there's still a gatekeeping situation. But if there is a channel that's new media but does news and is actually doing okay in terms of their balance or objectivity, you need to be allowed to be let in into Downing Street, conferences and things like that, but that's not happening now. It's happening in the White House, but not, for example, in the UK. But the problem that we said, you mentioned the Galsa Health Ministry. To be objective, the same problem will happen for the BBC and CNN when they will get something from the Israeli government. And I also have a problem with that, just because the Israeli government says something about some domestic issue. Does that mean it's true. Go ask the opposition

if it's true. Because that's why some Ukrainians have a problem with the BBC, but also Russians have a problem with BBC because the BBC gets only the statements from the Ukrainian government and the Russian government. They don't really cross-check. So one minute, they're the propaganda for Ukraine, next minute the propaganda machine for Russia. They're like, just do your own journalism instead of just waiting for the press release to come to you. Am I coming back to the issue, one of the things we've obviously seen the last time Francis and I did the stream was just me and him talking about the events in Venezuela. I wonder, given that we know Mossack, has deep penetration into the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

They probably know exactly where everyone is at every moment and time. Do you think there is a Venezuelan-style scenario to be played out here where U.S. Special Forces go in, you know, capture several of the key people in charge, and that is the way this ultimately gets resolved? Well, theoretically, yes, but with Iran, you have to take out one main person, because if you somehow capture the head of the IRDC won't really change much, because that's literally what Israel did. The first day of the 12-day war, they just wiped out the whole leadership of the military and the RRGC, that doesn't really bring it down because it's a cultural personality.

It's like the Kim family, North Korea, with Khamenei. But on the other hand, if you take him out, That's still not finished because then you have to take out the head of their leadership of the IJC. I don't see how, despite the Mossad intelligence and CIA, I mean, the Iranian regime have been very incompetent with this performance of a crackdown until now, but they're not that stupid, right? Surely they're not that stupid. After seeing what happened to Nicholas Maduro, they do have good tunnel networks in Iran, sort of like Gaza. So surely they should be smart enough to move Harmony around because currently he's in a bunker, but we don't know which bunker. So surely he's not as stupid a Nicholas. Nicholas Maduro, like literally nine hours before that

happened, he was on a stage in public dancing saying, come and get me. But he was an idiot. But I don't think Harmony is going to make that mistake. But they can still technically, if they want to, I believe they can still get close enough to take him out to assassinate him. But these are, again, just strategic decisions that, you know, people right now watching some of the people who are against Harmony, they say, yeah, let's do that. But that's the not really how geopolitics works because in any moment a decision could be the opposite. So people were really angry at President Trump, for example, for doing the ceasefire in the 12-day war. But there are many other reasons that that had to happen. It wasn't just because Trump like saved the IRGC.

The Israeli defense was being overwhelmed and many other issues as well. So it's not really that black and white, but there are many options. I think the most obvious one is that the existing pressure because there are sabotage operations happening, defections and everything else. The message from Tehran was a few days ago that the backup plan is to send Khomey and 20 of his inner circle, including his wife and his son to Moscow, only if the uprising continues. And if we notice that some or a lot of our own forces are no longer following the orders, essentially some sort of defection. And by today, I can say based on observations

that there have been a few who have been seen not to be following orders and the uprising continue. So if tonight goes well for the people, because there seems to be a massacre right now on the ground, I think this could just finish it by itself in the next few days, hopefully. And, Mai, we talked about a little bit already,

but you mentioned Russia there. Russia has not been directly, backing the Iranian regime quite in the way that it has others in the sense that when the 12-day war was happening, Putin was basically saying we're staying out of this one. What is the role of Russia and China with the regime? And has that changed due to recent events? So this is quite interesting. Tucker Carlson said it's going to be World War III at the time. China will attack, Russia will attack. It was like, how? Why would they sacrifice everything and the world order for Harmony? Of all things, it makes no sense. Because the three top players, America, China, Russia make decisions on many things, but based on who is winning, who's got the upper hand.

If Harmony was right now strong, yeah, it might have taken the risk, but it doesn't have the upper hand. Putin also has the problem of negotiations over the Ukrainian situation. So I can imagine during the last few days and the 12-day war, the White House picking up the phone call to call Putin and say, don't even mention anything. But maybe there's no need for that phone call because that will just be the Kremlin decision anyway. But my personal theory is also the way Russia and China acts on the world stage overall, except for what's happening in Ukraine, is actually psychologically because they want to counter everything that the American Empire does.

And the American Empire over the last a few decades has been very interventionist, very open interventionist, especially now ironically with President Trump, even though it's not really a warmonger, but he's been doing interventions. And because they do the opposite, but they basically do the same thing because they all, if people keep saying Western globalists, but I call them the Eastern globalists, you know, it's not like they're, they're the savors of against globalism, they have their own agenda. But they, they want, they don't want to be seen as, like the West or NATO, that, oh, we will attack. We will do this. We will take over. that they are doing behind this thing. So China has been very quiet about their support for the

Islamic Republic, but they still have been sending equipment and support. Russia, earlier on, there were a couple of cargo planes that landed into Iran. We don't know what's in it, but there are some things in it. And they still do those things, but not publicly. They can't. It's not in their interests. They, they, especially the Chinese tactic or strategy actually is just wait for any sort of fallout and just play with the new players. So it's the same with Syria. Whether it's Assad or Al Jolani, the Chinese Communist Party will go and shake hands and say, do you want to do business with us? Same thing will happen with Iran. They would still try to come to Iran after the revolution to say, would you like some business contracts, for example?

They will still try to do that because they're doing this soft power influence manipulation, because I think they're saving that hard power for when it's needed for Taiwan, just like Russia's Ukraine war. But they can't afford to risk the world order over one tiny friend like the Islamic Republic. Can't go to war with America over Iran. That's embarrassing. Well, Maya, I know you're a busy guy and you've got your own show to do tonight as well and lots of other things going on.

I know it's obviously a sensitive time for you personally. I hope your family are going to be okay. and I hope the people of around get what they want in the situation. Really appreciate you taking the time. Everybody should, of course, like this video, subscribe to Trigonometer, and of course, subscribe to 2CTV. I look forward to seeing more of your coverage on this. And as the situation develops, perhaps we'd love to have you back if there are new things to talk about.

I really appreciate your time. Thank you guys for watching. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already for more content like this. Take care, everybody. She does a lot for your family. Mother's Day is your chance to show her you see it, with a gift from a brand trusted for generations to help people get the moment right. 1,800 flowers.

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