Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / Russian Strategist Andrei Bezrukov, Trump’s Midterms, Ukraine Aid Corruption, Iran Blowback, and Latvia’s Nazi March

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Russian Strategist Andrei Bezrukov, Trump’s Midterms, Ukraine Aid Corruption, Iran Blowback, and Latvia’s Nazi March · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

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Sandy Trap, this is International Flavor.
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You are listening to Dan Radio, and I
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really hope that I am on the road
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today, and I'm hoping that the sound is
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coming in okay.
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It appears to be, but I was having
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a little bit of connection issue, so I
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wanted to jump right in here on International
0:29
Flavor.
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I have been traveling the last few days,
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taking care of some business and some personal
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issues in Florida, and I'm on my way
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back, and right now, where am I?
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I think I'm still in Florida, Western Interstate
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10, and on my way back to the
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old misery, and I watched, well, listened to
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mostly last night, two different, very interesting television
1:10
programs, and both of them in Russian, and
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it's an analytical program, kind of a political
1:18
talk show, but for young people.
1:22
Well, mostly young people.
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It's called Metametrica.
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Well, you know, it's like like metaphysics, measuring,
1:30
measuring, stuff like that, and it's, they were,
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I saw two interviews with a guy that
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I kind of follow in Russia, and the
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guy's name is Andrei Bezrukov.
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If you've listened to me for a little
1:48
while, you know that I've followed him a
1:50
couple of times, and Andrei Bezrukov and his
1:55
wife, I forget her name.
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I have it here.
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Well, he is a professor at MGIMO University,
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which is a diplomatic academy for the for
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the foreign ministry in Russia, in Moscow, and
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he's an international relations guy, strategic analyst, global
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economic systems, geopolitics, and he's a gave a
2:29
speech at the Valdai Discussion Club that I
2:32
covered for you, and listened to his speech
2:35
there.
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He's a pretty regular commentator.
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His wife is, I forget her name, but
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I really need to find it, because they're
2:46
both two extremely interesting people.
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If you remember me telling this some time
2:55
ago, I've referred to them a couple of
2:59
times.
3:01
They were spies in, well, they lived for
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20 years in Canada, Ilyana Vavilova and Andrei
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Bezrukov.
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They posed as Canadians, mostly in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
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until they were arrested and deported in 2010.
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They had two sons, and those two sons
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had no idea.
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They were born in Canada, and they had
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no idea that their parents were working for
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the Russian government.
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So, the interviews I want to give is
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a very interesting perspective from Andrei Bezrukov.
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I find this guy to be a fascinating
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person.
3:58
Let's see, he's kind of a relic of
4:02
Soviet intelligence.
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When the Cold War was over, but instead
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of coming back to public life, you know,
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he was a voice worth hearing, you know
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what I mean?
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From the old days, I guess, you know,
4:21
but him and his wife, they went to
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school together at Tomsk State University.
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He studied at York University of Canada, École
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des Ponts in France, and Harvard Kennedy School
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in the United States.
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Now, he's an MGIMO professor and commentator, and
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he's always listed as a fairly well-placed
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keynote address speaker at Valdai.
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He gave a lecture that I've followed, that
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I've shared a couple of times, and I
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like his perspective, but these were more the
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two that I watched last night, about an
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hour a piece, or listened to, I shouldn't
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say watched, I was driving, but I listened
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to them last night while driving.
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They were, one was more of a question
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-and-answer period, more of a television program,
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and it was a very interesting perspective.
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So we're going to follow his perspective and
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really point out the different ways that people
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think, and I'm telling you what I thought
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about, I thought about just translating it question
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for question, but I'm not going to do
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that.
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It was too long.
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I did translate it, you know, but I'm
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not going to follow it in that way,
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and I have the Russian transcript here to
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follow along, but I'm telling you their sons
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born in Canada really didn't know.
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Alexander Vavilov, which is I believe the older
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son, is the Toronto-born son, and he
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had his Canadian citizenship affirmed by the Canadian
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Supreme Court, and the other son did as
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well.
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So it's pretty interesting stuff, and anyway, I'm
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going to use their point of view, and
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so this particular interview was from the show
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Metametrica, and it was hosted by a young
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man and a young woman, young man Dmitry
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Igorechenkov, and the girl was, or woman, was
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Victoria Fedoseva, and you know, it was a
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pretty light-hearted show, and you know, it
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was a half-serious tone, because they were
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having a more of a conversation, and I'm
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going to go through everything that they want,
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because the perspective of how in general Russians
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think is very interesting, and what they think
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of Trump, what they think of war, what
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they think of a number of things, and
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Bezrukov is very well followed over there, and
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I want, you know, this is exactly what
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I talk about almost every day on my
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own point of view on some of these,
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but he and his wife lived in elite
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America for 20 years, and you know, what's
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more elite than Cambridge, Massachusetts, you know what
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I mean, and so, and that now he
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lives in elite political sphere, teaching the next
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generation of diplomats, and we should have a
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school like that.
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I wonder if we do, if we have
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a school like that teaching diplomats in the
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United States.
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I think diplomacy is dead in America, and
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you know, you basically, you go to, you
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know, whatever university you're going to go to,
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but I don't know if there's a diplomat
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school.
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I think it'd be cool to have one.
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Maybe I should start one.
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That could be a lot of fun.
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At any rate, let's talk about this a
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little bit.
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This interview came out not too long ago.
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The interview begins with Trump, the American, the
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calendar, whether Trump is about to lose the
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one leg or one of the three legs
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holding up his political stool, because that's talked
8:57
about everywhere.
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There are a lot of people that think
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some of the things he's done in this
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second term are just you know, really beg
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a lot of serious questioning.
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So it's, they talk about U.S. politics,
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but immediately this moves into Bezrukov and his
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own style of thinking, which is not gossip,
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you know, it's not you know, commentary.
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This is a guy who talks about the
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things in a very deep, a very deep
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manner.
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So he says that the key date coming
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up for Donald Trump is November, the congressional
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elections, and he says there are either two
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scenarios.
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He said that either Trump avoids becoming a
9:50
lame duck or he actually becomes one.
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And each one of these are going to
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be something crucial for Trump, for America, and
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for the world of these elections coming up
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in November.
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And I started pricking up at this because
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I have the same theory.
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I was thinking I don't think Trump has
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done himself any favors.
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If you listen to me often enough, I
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think you you know that, especially on the
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international stage.
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You know, I don't know why I have
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to justify what I think of Trump.
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I don't, but I think Trump is generally
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a positive, you know, the certainly in America,
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but I don't feel the same on the
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international stage.
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In fact, I feel somewhat the opposite.
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And so, you know, I'm one of those
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guys who who has always quizzed whether he's
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the right man on the international stage.
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I frankly don't think he is, but you
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know, I'm I keep saying I'm withholding judgment,
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but I'm not.
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I've judged.
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I think he's made too many mistakes.
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I also think what he's done lately is
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gonna be a serious problem for him.
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And the potential to be a lame duck
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is a pretty big deal.
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And if he wants to continue his make
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America great again, instead of trying to make
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Netanyahu great again, or the world great again,
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I don't know why we're involved in all
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those things.
11:31
And they're not doing him any favors.
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But Bezrukov described the American political system as
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a bit of a kind of a tractor,
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machine that keeps on moving and plows through,
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you know, muck and slug, but the real
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question being whose hand is on the wheel
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and how much steering actually matters.
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You know, I thought that was very good
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metaphorically.
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It was a pretty good a pretty good
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deal because, you know, he's talking about, you
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know, you slog through the muck.
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And nobody's in charge of our political system
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in America, but everybody thinks they are, right?
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And so every once in a while the
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Democrats tug at one way, the Republicans tug
12:23
at the other, but either way you're slugging
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slugging through the muck, right?
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And he explains what a weakened Trump will
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mean.
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He said, and we all know this, I
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mean, if he's a lame duck, serious legislative
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initiatives go to Zippo, you know, if the
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Democrats take control of both houses, there ain't
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a damn thing happening for the last two
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and a half years of, or two years
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of Trump's term in office.
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Serious legislative initiatives go to zero unless they
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have broad support from both parties.
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Congress can limit the presidential power, the courts
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can obstruct.
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Now, part of me wonders, Trump hasn't paid
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any attention to anybody so far.
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I'm not sure he would after, you know,
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I don't think he gives a rip what
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goes on in the legislative branch, except for
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Lindsey Graham later on.
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But he gets to follow those guys and
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I think they got him somehow on their
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ridiculous engine of war.
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But on the Supreme Court, Bezrukov made one
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of the most cynical and interesting claims, which
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I agree with in many, many respects.
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He said that judges, he says that he
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doesn't pay that much attention to judges because
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they do not get to that level simply
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because they are conservative or liberal in some
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abstract way, but because over their long careers,
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they have shown that they fit what elite
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America wants from the system.
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Now, think about that.
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And I've felt this for a very long
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time.
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You know, the only people who get selected
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for this are elites, elite schools, elite connections,
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elite political, elite everything.
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And so in other words, the court doesn't
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simply describe ideology wearing a robe or two
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robes in our case.
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It is the filtration system of the elite.
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And that's very much how he frames it
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throughout the whole interview.
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That formal structure matters, sure.
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But the real power question is who cultivated
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the power, who placed these individuals into these
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positions of power and whose interests they serve
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once they get into that power.
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And I think that is interesting.
15:20
They touched a little bit about election procedures,
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federal force, you know, everybody showing their passport,
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the strange theater of American elections over the
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past decade.
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And Bezrukov answers in a pretty practical way.
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He said Trump hasn't been turned back completely
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because America's elections are pretty much state-based.
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So in a Republican-controlled state, you could
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type procedures, demand documents, check identity.
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And in Democratic-controlled states, you do the
16:03
opposite.
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Anybody could come in.
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You could have these you know, eggs on
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a napkin from the coffee shop and will
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accept that as an identity and allow you
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to mail in a ballot.
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There's no problem with that in a Democratic
16:24
-controlled state.
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They talked quite a bit about redistricting, how
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districts are redrawn.
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So this guy's He showed how much he
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knows about our system and how living here
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for the 20 years and being involved in
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the way that he was was It certainly
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makes him worthy of being a professor in
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a diplomatic university.
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He doesn't say that it's a scandal unique
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to one party, but as an old political
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art form in America used by both parties.
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And it shows him He's not some propaganda
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guy barking a slogan saying down with America
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or anything like that.
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He's somebody who talks about how the systems
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really function when you get rid of the,
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you know, the civics, 10th grade civics book,
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you know, how it's supposed to work, you
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know, fairy tale that we're told in our
17:27
10th grade civics classes.
17:29
So then after they asked him a little
17:33
bit about the backdrop and they made sure
17:36
to introduce him as a colonel in Ostavskaya
17:42
I suppose it'd be retirement, although an old
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colonel never retires.
17:48
He just kind of fades away or becomes
17:50
a professor at an elite university for diplomats
17:59
in Moscow.
18:00
But he started talking about Trump.
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They asked him quite a bit about Trump.
18:04
And he says that Trump rode in on
18:07
the wave of MAGA and he says MAGA,
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what he sees MAGA as, is a broad
18:13
conservative effort.
18:15
This was very interesting to me to restore
18:18
an America remembered from the 50s, 60s, 70s
18:24
productive, wealthy, internally cohesive, but confident.
18:30
And he is careful to say that MAGA
18:32
itself has quite a few different factions inside
18:36
of it.
18:37
One is the old Republican Guard, people who
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grew up at the height of U.S.
18:42
power, still think in Cold War terms, still
18:46
carry out what he calls the neocon agenda
18:51
and, in a sense, are finishing up that
18:55
old confrontation.
18:58
And the other one, and that'd be your
19:00
Lindsey Graham sensei.
19:03
And then he got, he said that the
19:05
other group is a younger group, the younger
19:09
generation that grouped around people like J.D.
19:14
Vance and Eldridge Colby, who do not live
19:18
and didn't live their political adulthood in, you
19:24
know, inside the Cold War.
19:26
And therefore they see the world differently.
19:29
For them, China is the central competitor and
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Europe is an aging burden.
19:37
They don't like carrying Europe.
19:40
And he says there's this younger and older
19:42
group.
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I think analytically this is quite interesting thought
19:47
process.
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If this is what they're teaching in the
19:50
diplomatic schools over there, I think it certainly
19:53
bears knowing about or listening to.
19:58
So Bezrukov says that the younger tendency is
20:03
far more important for the future.
20:05
But he's also blunt that it is still
20:07
not dominant and still depends heavily on Trump's
20:12
current wave to maintain its leverage.
20:16
That's why J.D. Vance isn't saying anything
20:18
these days.
20:21
He's basically, I don't think he's for this
20:24
Iranian deal at all.
20:26
I think he's kind of disappeared to the
20:30
sidelines to watch this stuff blow over.
20:33
He doesn't want anything to do with this.
20:36
And I don't blame him.
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I think he's correct in that assessment.
20:41
Assuming I'm correct about him.
20:44
He's certainly not out beating the drums of
20:49
war, that's for sure.
20:55
They also asked him quite a bit about
20:57
his personal...
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It was an extremely interesting program.
21:03
And I don't know if they jumped around
21:05
because it's young people and this is how
21:07
you keep a young person's attention.
21:10
Because they'd...
21:11
So right in the middle of interviewing, they'd
21:13
be interviewing him and go through a couple
21:16
of questions and the girl would ask a
21:18
question, the guy would ask a question, and
21:20
then it would either go to a commercial,
21:22
which I'm going to share one of them
21:23
with you too, because that was extremely...
21:27
That is something worth knowing.
21:31
And only to give you a perspective on
21:33
how these people think.
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And the other part was they were trying
21:38
to get to know him and say who
21:40
he is for the program.
21:43
And so, he was asked about in one
21:48
example, his morning routine.
21:50
Whether he wakes up easy, whether there are
21:53
multiple alarms, you know, do you hit the
21:55
snooze button a lot?
21:57
And instead of acting like some old iron
22:01
spy for, you know, who knows where from
22:06
a prior generation, he was speaking.
22:13
He has a real habit of waking up
22:18
immediately.
22:20
And he checks his phone to check telegram
22:24
to see what happened overnight.
22:26
And many of us do that.
22:27
I know I do.
22:28
And he even calls it a kind of
22:30
a chewing gum, a bad habit that once
22:33
acquired is, you know, hard to quit.
22:35
He always wants to know what the news
22:37
is.
22:38
He wants to know what's going on.
22:40
Made him sound contemporary, you know.
22:44
He went right back into the bridge about
22:48
the younger Americans.
22:49
And so when he got back to Trump
22:52
and when he was talking about Trump instead
22:54
of the younger group of Republicans, he he
23:00
says that the midterms matter matter so much.
23:06
I mean, this is a very big deal
23:08
because Trump doesn't want to survive.
23:12
Trump wants to enter history as the great
23:16
redeemer, the man who saved America.
23:20
And if he loses and spends the last
23:23
two years of his presidency limping, then that's
23:28
a personal and historic humiliation.
23:33
And now I also think that is why
23:35
he would completely ignore Congress and just keep
23:39
doing what he did.
23:40
Hell, he hasn't paid any attention to them.
23:43
They're on his side.
23:45
Well, except for Lindsey Graham.
23:47
He's listened to plenty of plenty of Lindsey
23:49
Graham and company.
23:52
He says something, he says a weakened American
23:57
president compensates with loud gestures, foreign drama, and
24:05
performances.
24:06
Nobody has abolished that possibility and sometimes foreign
24:12
enemies help that performance along if it suits
24:17
them.
24:19
And I think, you know, Netanyahu is doing
24:22
exactly that as are a number of the
24:26
European leaders right now.
24:31
So that was a sharp, a sharp analysis
24:34
of, you know, Trump Republican Party.
24:38
They asked him, they said, what about the
24:40
Democrats?
24:41
They switched over to the Democratic Party or
24:44
Democrat Party, as most people prefer to say
24:48
these days.
24:48
And I don't really give a crap, but
24:52
but he went to the Democrats.
24:55
He said that they are still not strong
24:59
at all, but that they remain dangerous because
25:05
their hatred of Trump is a very powerful
25:11
organizing, a very powerful organizing force.
25:17
And, you know, I guess it is.
25:20
Then he says that the old Clinton era
25:23
establishment, the Obama era, they are politically bankrupt
25:28
and are aging out.
25:30
But the new strategy, the new strategy, and
25:35
leadership going forward is completely unsettled in the
25:41
Democrat Party.
25:43
They're loud, younger voices, but shouting, you know,
25:47
is the same as building a national coalition,
25:51
he says.
25:52
We're building a nationwide political machine.
25:56
If the Democrats are organizationally in transition, there
26:01
are enough anti-Trump people, what that means,
26:06
there are enough anti-Trump people and enough
26:10
anger and enough pressure points that the coming
26:13
elections will probably be among the dirtiest and
26:19
unstable in American memory.
26:23
Those are his words, not mine.
26:25
The dirtiest and most unstable in memory, especially
26:29
in key districts and local battlegrounds where small
26:34
margins definitely matter.
26:36
And he, throughout the theme of his discussion,
26:43
he talks about America as kind of a
26:46
fractured system still.
26:49
And the real fights are happening in these
26:53
pressure points.
26:55
They're not just happening on television.
27:01
And I can't decide, you know what I'm
27:03
going to do, I'm going to, because he's
27:05
going to go back into 2020, but it
27:07
was right at this point that there was
27:10
a an extremely, a commercial kicker.
27:16
And this commercial, when I pulled over later,
27:21
I actually watched that commercial again, because it
27:25
was a government commercial there, well, a regional.
27:31
Commercial.
27:32
And here's how it went.
27:33
So, it's called Vologda, and it's an education
27:38
commercial.
27:40
And it's not some meaningless filler, you know.
27:45
It's a state-sponsored message about what kind
27:49
of country Russia is trying to build from
27:54
the government perspective.
27:56
Okay.
27:57
The ad says, education in the Vologda region,
28:02
which is northern, northern, cold, cold, cold Russia,
28:07
and in the Vologda region has reached a
28:11
new level, thanks to 67 billion rubles in
28:17
financing over the last two years.
28:20
They've received a ton of new financing.
28:23
It says 230 educational institutions in the area
28:28
have been rebuilt and equipped under this program
28:33
called the Children of Vologda, their comfortable learning
28:37
program, is what they're calling it.
28:40
And that by 2030, every school in the
28:44
region, well, and for them, it includes, it
28:49
would include your first, your daycares, your start
28:54
sorts of programs, stuff like that, that it
28:58
includes them all.
29:00
It says all institutions will be completely rebuilt
29:05
and redone and remodeled and modernized by 2030.
29:09
And they showed some of the videos of
29:11
this.
29:12
Wow.
29:15
They're pretty impressive, at least the ones that
29:18
they showed.
29:19
And it emphasized security systems, fire systems, they
29:25
put in, you know, everywhere to, you know,
29:29
to come in.
29:30
Each has security.
29:31
There are fire safety upgrades, anti-vandal, anti
29:35
-terror, surveillance systems, metal detectors, that it pivots
29:40
to teachers, that specialists under 35 years old
29:46
in their first three years get 8,000
29:52
or 10,000 ruble bonuses monthly while, and
29:56
that's a decent, that's not, it's not a,
30:00
it's not a ton of money, but that's,
30:02
that's several hundred dollars, you know, that they
30:06
get these extra amounts of money.
30:09
And while teachers in math, physics, information, technology,
30:15
chemistry, biology, who move to the logged up,
30:20
or Cherepovets, or Cherepovets, I'm not sure which
30:24
one can receive, I'm not sure where the
30:27
stress is, whereas Cherepovets or Cherepovets, I wouldn't,
30:31
it's one or the other.
30:33
They get a one million, a one time
30:36
one million ruble payment.
30:40
And a million rubles is, I think it's
30:47
ten thousand dollars, might be a hundred, but
30:50
I don't think so.
30:51
I think it's ten.
30:52
But those going to the villages or smaller
30:56
towns will get five hundred thousand.
30:58
And, but with some of the rural programs,
31:02
they also get it.
31:02
They said that nearly two thousand teachers have
31:05
already gone there and 90 million rubles are
31:10
allocated in 2025 for new labs, internships, scientists,
31:15
higher education.
31:17
So this ad is about teacher retention, regional
31:19
modernization, and they're trying to make sure the
31:24
provinces still get people, because that's where all
31:27
the capital is.
31:29
That's where all of the natural resources are.
31:32
So anyway, I found it to be an
31:34
interesting ad.
31:34
You probably think I'm a nut, you know,
31:36
for for including that in the transcript here,
31:43
but I don't think so.
31:45
I think, you know, I was watching it
31:50
with interest, you know, it's not like I'm
31:51
a teacher in my 30s.
31:53
I'm just interested culturally how they are, how
31:57
they deal with their own problems, you know.
32:00
And they do it nationally.
32:01
I heard some of the speeches, like Putin
32:04
in his annual speech, he talked a little
32:06
bit about that too, and how they were,
32:10
they focus on family.
32:12
There was another ad later that talked about,
32:16
and you see these all the time, families
32:19
with, once they get to child number four,
32:24
because they're experiencing the same demographic problem that
32:27
the U.S. is facing, then they're encouraging
32:30
larger families.
32:33
And they are, it's always been, if you
32:36
have 12 children, you are a hero.
32:41
And even back in the Soviet Union times,
32:44
you get an award just like a just
32:47
like a guy who, you know, took a
32:50
hill, you know, in the army, you know,
32:52
in a war, would be a hero of
32:54
the Soviet Union or a hero of the
32:57
motherland or fatherland.
32:59
Then those people also get their, a mother
33:04
can be a hero as well with her
33:07
12 children.
33:08
Anyway, after we get, after the ad is
33:11
over, we get back to Beziruku.
33:12
We talked about 2020 and the theory of
33:16
how Trump got defeated.
33:18
He says there were two decisive variables, a
33:22
functioning economy and democratic disorganization.
33:28
If the average American felt the economy was
33:31
working and the Democrats had no clear consolidating
33:35
leader, Trump was in a strong position.
33:38
So what changed?
33:40
Why did he lose?
33:41
He said that the Democrats, now this is
33:44
fascinating because this is what he is claiming
33:49
happened in 2020 and why the horror story
33:54
of Joe Biden came into being.
33:58
So average Americans were working, Democrats had no
34:02
clear leader.
34:04
Biden wasn't worth a, you know, wasn't worth
34:09
a crap and nobody wanted him to win,
34:12
but he was kind of the guy there
34:15
and Trump was in a strong position.
34:17
So what changed?
34:18
He said that the economy was switched off
34:24
through the pandemic panic and then the Democrats
34:30
consolidated through mass political emotional mobilization.
34:35
He and he brought up George Floyd, COVID
34:41
and George Floyd as two great pivots.
34:45
Why Donald Trump did not win in 2020?
34:48
One shut down the economy, the other galvanized
34:52
anti-Trump energy and brought people into the
34:55
streets in protest and new people into the
35:03
voting you know, whether you agree with this
35:06
language or not.
35:08
The structure of the argument, you know, is
35:11
pretty clear at least from where he thinks
35:14
it is.
35:14
He thinks that these big scams took away
35:20
the election from Donald Trump in 2020.
35:25
Whether you agree with, you know, sending in
35:29
your ballots and all the massive fraud that
35:32
I believe in the mail-in ballot, these
35:36
handwritten ballot and the Democrat war machine, well,
35:42
voting machine, but taking over, you know, it'd
35:49
be far better suited for this sort of
35:52
activity than the Republican version thereof.
35:57
He sees American politics not as a neutral
36:04
contest but as a struggle through which each
36:10
side uses whatever systemic shock they can amplify
36:13
at the time and repurpose to rearrange political
36:17
coalitions.
36:18
He mentioned something about Donald Trump being shot
36:23
at, you know, and having assassination attempts upon
36:27
him.
36:28
And so he says that and then he
36:34
went back to what happens at the end
36:37
of this election cycle in November wondering what'll
36:43
happen now.
36:44
They said, well, what'll happen if he's a
36:45
lame duck?
36:46
What happens if he's not?
36:48
And he says that Trump is fighting for
36:51
leverage over the Federal Reserve but he cannot
36:54
really control the real money that's behind the
36:58
curtain.
36:59
He just can't do it.
37:00
And America is not yet is not yet
37:04
in a revolutionary situation, but they're not in
37:14
a good shape either.
37:16
So it's damn it, now I've lost my,
37:21
oh no, I hope I, I, my screen
37:24
just reset.
37:27
I very much apologize.
37:29
We gotta get back there.
37:31
Well, son of a nutcracker.
37:33
Anyway, he, his his speech and his interview
37:40
was, was very, very interesting.
37:46
He talked about the young Democrats, you know,
37:49
how he broke the, the, the old and
37:53
the young Republican into two, the two different
38:01
points of view.
38:03
He said that America isn't yet in the
38:10
territory of revolution, but if one wanted to
38:13
create a political, useful sense of crisis before
38:20
the election, so if Trump wanted to create
38:22
his own crisis like the Democrats did in
38:25
2020, you wouldn't need a total collapse.
38:29
All you need is about a 30%
38:32
market drop or even 40% and big
38:37
money people will be fine because they're diversified.
38:41
They got cash, they got real assets, they
38:43
got gold, but ordinary Americans would then panic
38:48
because their retirement, their family money sits in
38:52
their homes and in their pension fund.
38:56
That's a crucial physical point.
38:59
Market pain is definitely not evenly distributed in
39:04
the American system, not, not remotely, and elites
39:11
have foreknowledge and can profit from the ups
39:13
or the downs and the shocks that terrify
39:16
all the rest of us.
39:17
He ties this to possible social unrest, talks
39:21
about Minnesota as the mirror of what's going
39:24
on in the world of America and, you
39:29
know, Bezrukov says the modern American electoral struggle
39:34
is not about campaigns and speeches, but about
39:38
economics, media, market timing, social tension, and elite
39:44
positioning of all of it together in one
39:48
pot to control the masses.
39:50
Now, that's even more cynical than me.
39:55
That's, that's a pretty cynical view, but with
39:59
a lot of truth to it.
40:01
You know, that's, it's absolutely how many of
40:04
us think.
40:05
There's another human turn.
40:07
He says that, you know, one of the
40:09
places where he, where they stopped it and
40:12
they said, okay, now a personal question, which
40:14
I thought was a little distracting, but I'm
40:17
following along with what this is.
40:18
He, they asked him about what he does
40:21
on his weekend and he says that he
40:23
and his wife work constantly and that they
40:26
forgot their work-life balance at the age
40:28
of 25.
40:29
That's when they came over from Tomsk because
40:31
they both went to the Tomsk University and
40:34
then got married and came over to the
40:35
United States and lived for 20 years as
40:40
spies and then, you know, they made a
40:43
movie about him.
40:44
I think it was called The American and
40:47
I've seen, I, now, I'm sorry, it's not
40:50
a movie.
40:51
It's a a series, miniseries.
40:54
I think it went on for a couple
40:55
of seasons.
40:57
But he doesn't speak like a James Bond
41:00
type, not at all.
41:01
He speaks like a man who long ago
41:03
accepted discipline, secrecy, and constant engagement and work
41:10
as a normal part of his life and
41:13
for me, that's one of the things that
41:15
makes him so interesting and I think no
41:18
matter how you slice it, you know, I'm
41:20
not saying I agree or disagree with this
41:22
guy.
41:22
I have things that coincide with what he
41:26
believes and things that do not and so
41:30
he, he is a very interesting person no
41:38
matter how you slice it and the fact
41:41
that he's as important as he is inside
41:45
the Russian struct, well, maybe not as important
41:49
but as well-respected as a as a
41:56
think tank sort of guy.
41:58
I mean, he always is invited to places
42:00
like Valdai.
42:04
You know, though all, he's on the Valdai
42:08
Discussion Club.
42:09
Man, I'd love to go to that one
42:11
year and see what it is.
42:15
The hosts asked him after going through what
42:19
they think about what's going on in the
42:23
Democrat and the Republican party.
42:28
He says the young Democrats have currently been
42:32
absorbed into political struggle and they're organizationally attempting
42:37
to rebuild Democrat particles, but they may ultimately
42:41
have to arrive at some kind of practical
42:46
idea, some kind of a solution or conclusion
42:51
similar to what Roosevelt did.
42:53
He said if Democrats want America to be
42:56
strong again, they will have to do something
43:01
Rooseveltian and this is what Trump is attempting
43:05
to do also in my opinion.
43:07
This is what Bezruco said, but Trump is
43:09
trying, when Trump talked about make America great
43:13
again, I thought about not about war, not
43:17
about, you know, geez, we got to take
43:19
over Venezuela.
43:20
We got to steal Greenland from Denmark.
43:23
We've got to beat up Iran for many.
43:27
Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, it's a idiocy that
43:34
nobody would have supported had they known this
43:37
was the plan when they were going to
43:39
elect him.
43:41
We didn't elect him to take over the
43:43
world.
43:43
No, I didn't elect, you know, the brain
43:47
and the rest of us are pinky.
43:48
I didn't do that and nor did I
43:51
want to.
43:52
I thought he was doing something far more
43:57
pragmatic.
43:59
What I thought, what I always thought, make
44:02
America great again, isn't, gee, let's let's go
44:05
build a trillion and a half dollar annual
44:10
military budget to take over the world.
44:12
That is not what I thought.
44:14
I thought about infrastructure.
44:18
I thought about bringing manufacturing and doing things
44:23
like this.
44:24
Now, there's talk that all the people who
44:27
were claiming to bring the billions here are
44:30
waffling on that.
44:32
You know, certainly nobody's really done it so
44:35
far.
44:36
I don't see any money in it yet.
44:39
But he, Mazzucco, for his part, he says,
44:42
you know, Democrats are going to have to
44:44
do something like rebuild the middle class, launch
44:47
industrial and infrastructure projects.
44:51
I'm not a Democrat, never have been.
44:53
I don't believe in the federal government power.
44:57
I'm a much more of a states' rights
44:59
guy.
45:01
And that is the core difference between Democrat
45:03
and Republican for me.
45:06
And, well, for everybody, because that's the reality.
45:10
But the Democrats want huge central power and
45:13
control.
45:14
They're the ones who are going to control
45:16
the planet.
45:17
And Republicans, we want states' rights.
45:22
But something has to be done to kind
45:24
of, especially for infrastructure, industrial projects, social stability
45:32
of some sort.
45:34
And he names three core problems that America
45:38
has to resolve.
45:39
First, has to rebuild the middle class gutted
45:43
by deindustrialization, offshoring, and sending everything to China.
45:48
And that means investment in new infrastructure, new
45:51
transport systems, new technology, bridges, roads, and the
45:55
next production.
45:57
Build it and they will come.
45:59
That's absolutely true.
46:00
Second, it has to rebuild education.
46:03
He spent a lot of time on this.
46:07
And that's why I shared that last thing
46:11
with you.
46:12
Russia is half our size and produces double
46:17
the number of engineers.
46:20
Now, that's frightening.
46:24
Our education has a narrow elite layer.
46:29
And then, you know, the much weaker mass
46:33
base.
46:34
And that we're no longer even in the
46:36
top ten of education in the world.
46:42
And America cannot, according to him, and I
46:45
agree with this part, America cannot compete with
46:50
East Asia, with your Indias of the world,
46:53
and with your Chinas of the world.
46:57
It just can't.
46:59
It cannot compete with the educational system it
47:03
has now.
47:04
It has to produce far more technically trained
47:07
people of its own instead of importing them
47:11
from India and China.
47:13
Because India and China have projects of their
47:18
own, where these engineers are staying in their
47:21
own countries in order to do it.
47:24
Now, you want to paint it as if
47:26
they're coming over here to take over the
47:29
world.
47:30
And in a lot of ways, we're spending
47:33
a lot of money to get them here.
47:35
That $100,000 fee is making it a
47:39
little bit hard to do.
47:41
So the third thing, so the first is
47:43
some kind of infrastructure.
47:45
Second, what is education?
47:46
And third, healthcare.
47:48
He says healthcare is a cartel, and I
47:51
agree with him on this point too, is
47:54
a cartel of doctors, farmers, pharma, and insurers
47:58
passing money around between themselves.
48:01
And the public is the, this is another
48:05
good metaphor.
48:07
Is a is the, you know, the cash
48:11
cow being milked.
48:12
You know, it's the new oil, if you
48:20
will.
48:22
Very strong commentary on these three points.
48:26
And his larger point is that 10 years
48:28
from now, a new American consensus may emerge
48:33
between parts of the younger right and the
48:36
younger left around the practical reconstruction of the
48:41
country.
48:42
Now I say that because, this is me,
48:45
not him, he didn't say this.
48:47
I say when I hear Donald Trump and
48:51
the Make America Great Again, I don't hear
48:54
it on the international level of we're taking
48:56
over the world.
48:57
I hear we're making America great again.
49:01
Not because we can bomb Iran for 17
49:05
days and still do nothing.
49:07
And we're not gonna win that deal.
49:10
It's a waste of time to get over
49:12
there.
49:13
We'll get sucked into some 20-year deal.
49:16
We'll suck away more money.
49:18
And then we put the same old money
49:20
in the same old people's pockets and create
49:24
a new the younger generation of elite based
49:28
on the old and not on these three
49:31
principles.
49:33
So then they talked about something very interesting.
49:38
A western hemisphere fortress.
49:42
Because they asked him, what about Cuba?
49:45
What about Venezuela?
49:47
And he said, if America can no longer
49:50
run the entire world, then it will do
49:54
what everybody else would do.
49:56
It would build a defensible house much more
50:00
locally and seize, he didn't say co-opt,
50:05
he said seize what it thinks, that is
50:08
it take it, S-E-I-Z-E,
50:11
take what it can allegedly protect.
50:16
So Greenland is naturally along that perimeter.
50:20
Canada, Cuba, Venezuela, and any other nearby space
50:26
that, you know, intolerable aberrations like Panama Canal,
50:32
Nicaragua, I mean picket.
50:34
And this is not romantic.
50:38
He says the rest of the world, of
50:40
course, doesn't agree with that.
50:41
And they said, well, what should we do
50:43
about that?
50:43
He goes, and he said, exactly how he
50:47
said it, he goes, what could we do?
50:48
He goes, what could anybody do?
50:50
If Trump wants to take Cuba, he's gonna
50:54
take Cuba.
50:56
No.
50:57
We disagree.
50:58
We speak out against it.
51:01
So do I, you know, as Samuel Trapp,
51:03
I speak out against him, not for this,
51:06
but as Americans, what the hell can we
51:08
do?
51:09
Donald Trump wants to take it.
51:10
You'll have people cheering for it, you know.
51:13
We're taking over the world.
51:17
Which I completely find hilarious and BS because
51:20
it's not what Donald Trump was elected to
51:24
do.
51:24
He's not supposed to take over the world.
51:26
We didn't even elect him to take over
51:28
Greenland or Cuba or Venezuela.
51:30
He certainly wasn't elected to take over Iran.
51:34
And here we are, we got all these
51:36
people, you know, marching the streets going, yeah.
51:41
What did I call him the other day?
51:44
Varsity, old varsity sweaterhead Seth.
51:48
You know, you just, I can't look at
51:50
that guy without thinking of the, of the,
51:53
you know, he's a varsity player, but he
51:56
rides the bench, one of those guys, and
52:00
he gets to travel on the bus, but
52:03
he doesn't get to hold the football on
52:05
the field.
52:06
You know what I mean?
52:07
Anyway, I mean, the fact is the majority
52:12
of Americans, vast majority, disagree with these forays
52:18
into a new international war, just like we
52:22
always have.
52:24
And he's saying that if, because he was
52:27
saying that he didn't think that nothing is
52:30
going to come of this Iranian thing, regime
52:32
change, none of it.
52:34
And it's just another quagmire, the same as
52:38
Afghanistan.
52:40
And that Trump would be better suited shifting
52:44
his focus to Cuba, which a lot of
52:47
people say he's already well on his way
52:49
to doing, and then he'll pull out, you
52:52
know, that his trip that isn't going to
52:57
take place to Xi Jinping, which many people
53:01
say he invited himself to see Xi Jinping,
53:04
and then he canceled it.
53:06
So Xi Jinping doesn't really care.
53:09
And I found that rather interesting too, to
53:12
hear about it.
53:13
Um, Russia doesn't agree with whatever Trump is
53:17
attempting to accomplish in the world, but really
53:19
what can anybody do about it, you know?
53:23
If the states themselves are weak, mismanaged, or
53:27
in Trump's view, in need of rescue, you
53:31
know, he's a he's a pretty cold realist,
53:34
this Bezrukov.
53:36
And you know, he's not, you know, sentimental.
53:39
Well, countries pursue their own interests, period.
53:44
They make their own mistakes, period.
53:47
When the interests overlap, they are allies, and
53:51
when they do not, they are not allies.
53:54
So this is, then they started talking about
53:59
economic partners, and Bezrukov says Russia's economy alone
54:04
is too small to generate the monetary and
54:07
technological mass needed for real long-term strength,
54:12
that it needs large markets, strong companies, technologically
54:17
driven companies.
54:19
He's pointing to aviation and aircraft payoff at
54:28
scale, which is, you know, because Russia is
54:31
selling quite a few of them right now.
54:32
They're selling things like the Superjet in India
54:37
to expand their market, and this is what,
54:40
you know, he talked quite a bit about
54:42
India partnerships that they are in.
54:46
And so this was, this is how he
54:48
thinks.
54:49
Russia survives not by isolating itself, but by
54:53
assembling its friendly economic mass through mainly countries
55:02
associated with RICs.
55:04
Okay.
55:05
But then they started to get a little
55:07
bit personal about it, on some of this,
55:10
and wanted to talk about some of this,
55:12
and I'm going to finish up with this.
55:14
I might tell you about his, the following
55:18
second hour of this, he was interviewed by
55:24
two other people, and it was pretty much
55:29
global leadership.
55:30
They were picking on Trump and picking on
55:34
Putin to analyze their different styles.
55:37
I mean, it was pretty cool.
55:39
But he was an intelligence officer, right?
55:41
So they wanted to get back to him
55:44
about some of these spy questions.
55:48
They said, well, what about your spy programs?
55:50
He says, a real intelligence officer never leaves
55:54
home without knowing where he is going and
55:57
why.
55:58
Doesn't leave without his documents, and doesn't leave
56:01
without a method of communication.
56:04
He jokes that without papers, you are nothing,
56:08
and getting a replacement while you're nobody, and
56:12
it's a big police operation.
56:16
And when he's teased about a special room
56:18
for making fake identities at home, they asked
56:21
him, they said, well, were you ever like
56:23
a Jason Bourne, having a lot of different
56:27
IDs in a suitcase under a floorboard?
56:32
And he said, no, that you keep them
56:35
elsewhere.
56:37
He said, no, you don't keep them at
56:39
your house.
56:39
You keep them in other, and you put
56:42
them in some other places.
56:44
So this is exactly what a retired spy
56:46
should say.
56:47
Then he talked about the risk of being
56:49
a spy, and he said that between intelligence
56:52
and counterintelligence, a counterintelligence counterintelligence trims the
56:57
risk, approaches contact, looking first for danger.
57:02
An intelligence officer has to move toward the
57:05
risk, because that's where the work is, which
57:09
was interesting.
57:10
He said he still thinks about danger, but
57:15
he looks at a person first as a
57:17
possible object to develop, to develop that person
57:23
as a source, is what he's talking about,
57:26
a source from which he can get useful
57:29
information.
57:31
And that's quite true.
57:35
You know, where a counterintelligence guy's one of
57:38
the guys out to kill people, he's more
57:40
of an information gatherer.
57:43
Then they asked him, they said, well, that
57:46
was in your day.
57:47
What's more important today?
57:50
Well, he said Russia has to both defend
57:55
and advance.
57:56
He said no melodrama, just calm statement.
57:59
You know, we both, we have to do
58:00
both offensive work and defensive work, saying they're
58:05
still spies, basically.
58:07
We all have to do what we've got
58:09
to do, basically.
58:11
So there are very few good intelligence films.
58:15
They asked him about films.
58:16
What are some of the good ones?
58:17
And one of them I watched when when
58:19
I was in my Russian school at the
58:23
Defense Language Institute, and the Defense Language Institute,
58:27
Monterey, California, that Institute, we watched a series,
58:36
and I think there were like 10, 12
58:40
10, 12 programs in there, or series in
58:45
there, and it's called The 17 Moments of
58:48
Spring, and it's a pretty good 60s, 70s
58:54
version spy show.
58:55
It's really good, put on during World War
58:58
II, where there's a Russian spy sent into
59:02
Germany, and it's pretty good James Bond stuff.
59:06
He mentioned another one that I haven't seen
59:08
called Shield and Sword, because they both show
59:12
the process of how he said that 17
59:16
Moments of Spring was pretty much how things
59:21
were approached back then, but modern spy entertainment
59:25
is just empty pop junk, is what he
59:29
calls it, and I happen to agree with
59:32
him on that, but sometimes it's a lot
59:34
of good action that you get to that
59:37
you get to talk about, right?
59:40
There's plenty of good action to cover in
59:44
those shows.
59:48
Let's see, there was one more part of
59:51
his interview.
59:55
He jokes that, well, after he said that
59:58
the spy entertainment is just junk, you know,
1:00:02
that they're listening to, he says American politics,
1:00:08
internal Russian political chatter, geopolitics, and analysis, because
1:00:15
that's more along the lines of what intelligence
1:00:20
really is, and having been a military intelligence
1:00:25
person as well, you know, it's pretty dull,
1:00:29
you know.
1:00:30
I remember them debriefing and asking, you know,
1:00:34
what you know about this guy or that,
1:00:36
and I was like, ah, I gotta go
1:00:38
look that down for you.
1:00:39
Don't pay me to be a spy.
1:00:41
I'm a sergeant in the army, and I'm
1:00:44
an interpreter.
1:00:45
Nobody said I was a spy.
1:00:47
You're gonna make me be a spy.
1:00:49
You're gonna pay me as a spy.
1:00:51
Anyway, that was, you know, around the same
1:00:56
time that this guy was out being paid
1:00:58
to go to college in Cambridge.
1:01:00
Geez.
1:01:01
I think I took a wrong turn in
1:01:03
my own life there quite a few times,
1:01:06
and didn't go the right way.
1:01:09
The final part of the interview is pretty
1:01:12
much Russian, and he asked whether Russia is
1:01:16
really ready for, they asked him whether he's
1:01:19
ready for war with Europe.
1:01:23
Bezrukov says that the main blow against Russia
1:01:27
has already been taken, sanctions and stuff like
1:01:29
that, and Russia understands the world better, and
1:01:33
understands what is being done to it.
1:01:37
He said that Russia entered the crisis with
1:01:40
a system that was not designed for war,
1:01:44
and more deeply, not designed for a sovereign
1:01:46
Russia.
1:01:47
It was designed to be integrated into the
1:01:50
West.
1:01:50
Russia was nothing but a raw material appendage
1:01:54
and producer of talent for the global economy,
1:01:58
but that world is over.
1:02:01
Now think about that, because it's true.
1:02:04
We created, or tried to create, after the
1:02:07
collapse of the Soviet Union, tried to create
1:02:10
a farm for resources and talent.
1:02:15
Russians have a great education system in general,
1:02:19
and they have, certainly at the college levels,
1:02:25
but that world's over.
1:02:26
They're not going to share anything.
1:02:29
I think it's far more likely that make
1:02:34
Russia great again with the internal focus.
1:02:39
That is something similar to what I hoped
1:02:43
would happen, not through war, not through anything
1:02:45
else like that, but because it's the smart
1:02:48
thing to do.
1:02:49
Instead, we're still adventurers out trying to colonize
1:02:54
the whole planet and make the rest of
1:02:57
the world America.
1:02:58
That's just foolish, and that's not going to
1:03:03
change.
1:03:05
Well, it might change, but I mean my
1:03:07
thought process that it's foolish is not going
1:03:10
to change.
1:03:12
Anyway, I found these two interviews were very,
1:03:20
very interesting.
1:03:24
They asked him at the very end, I'm
1:03:25
going to share this with you, and they
1:03:30
asked him a bunch of quick-fire questions,
1:03:32
just this or that, this or that.
1:03:34
They started with power or money.
1:03:36
He says power.
1:03:37
His answers, you know, the question and then
1:03:39
his answer.
1:03:40
Power or money?
1:03:42
Power.
1:03:42
Cats or dogs?
1:03:44
Neither.
1:03:45
They said, any pets?
1:03:46
He said, I had a turtle once because
1:03:49
it required less work and it slept half
1:03:52
of the year, but the FBI took it
1:03:55
and never returned it.
1:03:58
He took his turtle and didn't give it
1:04:00
back to him.
1:04:02
That's pretty cool.
1:04:03
He said, USSR or Russian Empire?
1:04:06
He said, USSR. Mountains or sea?
1:04:10
Mountains.
1:04:11
Adam or ape?
1:04:13
Ape.
1:04:14
Logic or intuition?
1:04:16
He said, intuition, but intuition is just digested
1:04:20
logic.
1:04:22
Homeland or family?
1:04:25
First.
1:04:25
And he said, homeland, but not separable from
1:04:29
family.
1:04:30
And then he gave, they said, well, that's
1:04:32
going to be the end of the show.
1:04:33
And he said, I'd like to share something
1:04:35
with you.
1:04:36
And he said, he had a calm warning
1:04:38
for 2026 and the start of 2027.
1:04:41
He said, no matter how you slice it,
1:04:43
the year 2026 is going to be difficult
1:04:46
and turbulent and many things will still have
1:04:49
to be endured and thought through, but people
1:04:53
should keep their own internal stability.
1:04:56
We will get through it like we always
1:04:59
do.
1:04:59
Don't panic.
1:05:01
I found that interview to be very, very
1:05:05
well worth listening to.
1:05:09
And I did a reasonably good job of
1:05:13
translating it for you, I believe.
1:05:18
But I give as much of it to
1:05:23
you, perhaps you weren't as interested as I
1:05:27
am in it.
1:05:29
And, but I was definitely interested and I
1:05:33
wanted to share that with you.
1:05:35
I did want to get to a little
1:05:37
bit of the news as we go forward.
1:05:44
One of them is on, this was another,
1:05:49
another corruption deal in the old Ukraine.
1:05:58
Get this, the U.S. watchdogs are slamming
1:06:05
the lack of oversight and a $26 billion
1:06:11
U.S.A. payments to Kyiv, direct U
1:06:20
.S.A. ID payments to Kyiv lacked any
1:06:25
oversight, according to the inspector general.
1:06:29
Here's an American deal.
1:06:32
The U.S. sent Ukraine $26 billion in
1:06:37
aid with no oversight of how the funds
1:06:42
were going to be used, a government auditor
1:06:45
told lawmakers.
1:06:47
The flaws in the program managed by the
1:06:49
now defunct U.S. Agency for International Development
1:06:53
were highlighted and show that contractors hired by
1:06:58
the agency to monitor the assistance failed to
1:07:02
provide required reports on time or at all,
1:07:08
said Deputy General Adam Kaplan, told the House
1:07:12
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence on
1:07:17
Tuesday.
1:07:19
And he said that mitigating risks require more
1:07:23
than announcing costly monitoring contracts.
1:07:27
You have to actually do the monitoring.
1:07:32
Kaplan was referring to funding.
1:07:35
I don't know what all these notifications are,
1:07:37
but I can't find out where they are
1:07:39
to stop them.
1:07:40
So, if you're hearing them, I apologize for
1:07:43
that.
1:07:45
But Kaplan was referring to funding delivered to
1:07:51
the Ukrainian government through a World Bank trust
1:07:55
fund intended to compensate for social benefits for
1:08:01
people displaced by the conflict with Russia.
1:08:05
Why in the world are we funding people
1:08:08
to the tune of $26 billion?
1:08:12
You know how much $26 billion would cover
1:08:15
for people displaced in America from bad scenarios?
1:08:22
So the audit found that in some cases,
1:08:25
Washington reimbursed duplicate payments or payments to Ukrainian
1:08:30
citizens living in other nations who were ineligible.
1:08:34
Why the hell were we paying them in
1:08:35
the first place?
1:08:37
It was wrong.
1:08:38
International audit firms Deloitte and KPMG were contracted
1:08:44
by the U.S. government to provide oversight,
1:08:47
but both of them failed to deliver any.
1:08:52
The State Department took over USAID in July
1:08:55
of 2025.
1:08:57
As we all know, with Trump taking over,
1:09:01
we're ending that scandal.
1:09:07
Wow.
1:09:08
Since at least November, and earlier, Kyiv has
1:09:13
been the focus of plenty of corruption scandals
1:09:19
involving senior government officials and close associates of
1:09:25
Vladimir Zelensky.
1:09:27
Businessman Timur Mindik fled the country hours before
1:09:32
being charged by the Western anti-draft agencies,
1:09:37
and he ran a multi-million dollar kickback
1:09:40
scheme of his own in the energy sector.
1:09:46
And there are plenty of other criminal investigations
1:09:49
going on in the U.S. as well,
1:09:51
with parliamentary workers and lawmakers declining to vote
1:09:56
for reforms demanded by the EU.
1:10:00
BBC Ukraine reported this week that Zelensky lost
1:10:04
the ability to push his own agenda, and
1:10:07
the MPs blame him for trying to scapegoat
1:10:11
them for his failed attempt last year to
1:10:14
strip the independence of these anti-corruption agencies.
1:10:19
And that was to shield his inner circle
1:10:22
from prosecution, because he's just as corrupt as
1:10:25
they are, most likely.
1:10:27
That's certainly what most people believe.
1:10:33
Let's see.
1:10:38
Well, Americans are struggling with AI, it says.
1:10:45
Has anybody heard about the Holoman Air Force
1:10:48
Base in New Mexico, where one person was
1:10:53
killed and another injured in a shooting on
1:10:56
Tuesday at this Air Force Base?
1:10:59
It's near Alamogordo, and it was on temporary
1:11:04
lockdown yesterday evening.
1:11:07
A convenience store where the incident occurred, where
1:11:11
people got shot, is going to be closed
1:11:14
until further notice.
1:11:17
And it covers 93 square miles, does Holoman
1:11:20
Air Force Base, and it's home to the
1:11:23
49th Aviation Wing, which carries out national security
1:11:27
missions.
1:11:30
So, I don't know.
1:11:32
But these are U.S. mass shooting in
1:11:36
Austin, Texas, is allegedly an act of terrorism.
1:11:43
Maybe we should go to war in in
1:11:46
Austin.
1:11:48
Somebody's funding me, saying maybe we should invade
1:11:52
or bomb.
1:11:53
You know what?
1:11:54
We could take out these terrorists' ability to
1:11:59
act inside of Austin by just bombing the
1:12:03
place, right?
1:12:05
We could just bomb it.
1:12:07
The gunman who killed two people and injured
1:12:09
a dozen in Texas may have been motivated
1:12:12
by the strikes on Iran that killed the
1:12:14
Supreme Leader and caused widespread civilian casualties.
1:12:19
The attack occurred in a busy nightlife district
1:12:22
of Austin, near the University of Texas.
1:12:26
The suspect, identified as 53-year-old Nidiaga
1:12:31
Diagne, if I said that right, opened fire
1:12:35
outside Buford's backyard beer garden, killing two people
1:12:41
and injuring 14, at least.
1:12:45
The naturalized citizen, originally from Senegal, drove past
1:12:50
the venue several times before stopping and firing
1:12:55
a pistol from his SUV, as people were
1:12:58
gathered outside.
1:13:02
Isn't that crazy?
1:13:04
So it turned out later that three were
1:13:06
killed.
1:13:07
Photos released by authorities show the suspect carrying
1:13:11
a rifle and wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with
1:13:17
the words, Property of Allah.
1:13:21
And he also was wearing an Iranian flag.
1:13:25
The incident occurred a day after U.S.
1:13:28
and Israeli forces launched a large-scale strike
1:13:32
on Iran, killing all of the people.
1:13:38
Combat operations continue, Trump said.
1:13:42
Yeah, they do.
1:13:46
Mistakenly, in my humble opinion.
1:13:48
But what the hell do I know, right?
1:13:50
Did you hear about this yesterday?
1:13:53
I think this, and if they haven't shared
1:13:57
the letter with you, they should.
1:13:59
I have in some way.
1:14:01
But the U.S. counterterrorism chief resigned, a
1:14:06
guy named Joe Kent.
1:14:08
Washington has been dragged into yet another never
1:14:12
-ending war by Israel and its powerful American
1:14:16
lobby, said Joe Kent.
1:14:20
Joe Kent, the head of the U.S.
1:14:34
National Counterterrorism Center.
1:14:37
That would be one of the things that
1:14:42
Bezruco was talking about, a spy.
1:14:45
This is another spy right here.
1:14:48
Joe Kent, head of the National Counterterrorism Center,
1:14:52
resigned in a protest move over Washington's war
1:14:57
with Iran, saying that Israel has dragged the
1:15:01
U.S. into another never-ending conflict that
1:15:05
does not serve American interests.
1:15:09
A former military officer who also served in
1:15:13
the CIA, Kent was nominated by Trump for
1:15:18
the position in February 2025 and was confirmed
1:15:21
in July of the same year.
1:15:24
He had completed 11 combat tours, mostly in
1:15:28
Iraq, before leaving the military in 2018.
1:15:32
He posted his resignation letter on X, and
1:15:36
I thought about finding all of them, and
1:15:38
I've heard it all, but you can look
1:15:40
that up yourself.
1:15:42
He said, I cannot in good conscience support
1:15:45
the ongoing war in Iran.
1:15:49
Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,
1:15:56
Kent said.
1:15:57
He also stated that it is clear that
1:16:00
we started this war due to pressure from
1:16:04
Israel and its powerful American lobby.
1:16:09
Washington and West Jerusalem launched unprovoked attacks on
1:16:16
the Islamic Republic late last month and blamed
1:16:20
Tehran for the conflict.
1:16:23
So he blamed them.
1:16:25
You bomb the hell out of them, but
1:16:27
it's their fault, right?
1:16:29
And because they're openly seeking regime change in
1:16:33
Iran.
1:16:34
The U.S. and Israel described the operation
1:16:36
as a preemptive strike aimed at preventing Tehran
1:16:40
from building a nuclear weapon, an ambition that
1:16:44
Iran denies, even if it's true.
1:16:47
It doesn't warrant bombing the crap out of
1:16:49
the West.
1:16:52
Kent claimed that Trump has fallen victim to
1:16:56
a misinformation campaign orchestrated by Israel and Lindsey
1:17:02
Graham, I'd say, that deceived Trump into believing
1:17:06
that Tehran is a threat.
1:17:09
Similar lies were used to drag the U
1:17:12
.S. into war with Iraq back in 2003,
1:17:17
he argued.
1:17:19
Everybody knows that now.
1:17:22
We cannot make this mistake again.
1:17:26
I cannot support sending the next generation off
1:17:30
to fight and die in a war that
1:17:33
serves no benefit to the American people, nor
1:17:38
justifies the cost of American lives.
1:17:43
The announcement came just a day after Axios
1:17:46
reported that Trump was considering the seizure of
1:17:50
Karg Island, the oil hub offshore, in a
1:17:57
move that would require a ground operation.
1:18:00
U.S.-Israeli attacks have already killed over a
1:18:04
thousand Iranian civilians, triggered retaliatory attacks across the
1:18:10
Middle East, and closed the Strait of Hormuz.
1:18:14
And now Trump is begging China and Europe
1:18:19
to help him reopen it.
1:18:21
Nonsense.
1:18:24
Anyway, now, let's see.
1:18:28
They did talk about, saw an interesting article
1:18:32
and listened to an interesting story about Ali
1:18:37
Larajani, who was most likely, looking like an
1:18:43
80 to 90% probability, killed in Israeli
1:18:49
strikes.
1:18:50
Now, from a human decency standpoint, or from
1:18:56
a, even from, hell, skip that.
1:19:00
From a, I don't believe you should be
1:19:05
targeting particular individuals for destruction.
1:19:12
I don't believe you should do that.
1:19:13
You know, there's a whole thing going around
1:19:15
about Netanyahu really being dead as well, that
1:19:19
his fingers, there were six fingers on his
1:19:21
AI, and on his AI-generated forms that
1:19:26
his brain kept, that there's been three different
1:19:28
videos.
1:19:30
And I think it was Grok that said
1:19:31
that the videos were AI-generated and weren't
1:19:35
real, and that you could tell because his
1:19:38
fingers were, there were six fingers instead of
1:19:41
five, that AI has a consistent problem with
1:19:45
creating the correct number of fingers in images.
1:19:51
That his ring kept moving or being removed
1:19:54
completely.
1:19:56
One of the rings that was on his
1:19:57
finger was gone and then back, gone again,
1:20:01
which shows that it's AI-generated because inconsistent
1:20:05
in that.
1:20:06
And so, the coffee shop deal that was
1:20:09
supposed to make everybody feel good, that he
1:20:12
was really alive, actually did nothing but generate
1:20:15
more questions when Grok said that, that that
1:20:20
video was fake.
1:20:22
So, I don't know whether he's alive or
1:20:25
dead.
1:20:28
I have my druthers, but anyway, let's see.
1:20:37
The other thing I wanted to follow up
1:20:40
on tonight is Riga.
1:20:44
This is unbelievable to me.
1:20:47
The Nazis are being honored in Riga, Latvia.
1:20:55
So, Latvia is one of the three Baltic
1:21:00
countries, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.
1:21:03
Hundreds of people marched in the Latvian capital
1:21:06
of Riga on Monday to commemorate Latvians served
1:21:11
in the Waffen-SS units for Nazi Germany
1:21:15
during World War II.
1:21:18
While the country's laws ban the display of
1:21:23
Nazi symbols and the glorification of Nazis, the
1:21:27
annual march is permitted to proceed anyway under
1:21:31
the pretext of freedom of expression.
1:21:34
At the same time, what are canceled since
1:21:38
2022 are anything regarding celebrations to commemorate the
1:21:44
victory against Nazi Germany.
1:21:47
So, the people who want to march and
1:21:50
have served him, most of their faces are
1:21:53
covered, by the way.
1:21:54
They cover their faces because they don't know
1:21:57
that they're Nazis.
1:21:59
But the official remembrance day of the Latvian
1:22:02
legionnaires, Nazis, held on March 16th, honor the
1:22:08
two divisions raised by Adolf Hitler to fight
1:22:12
the Soviet Red Army as it pushed through
1:22:15
the Baltics and to Berlin in 1944.
1:22:19
It has been held annually since the 90s
1:22:22
and definitely overlooked by Brussels.
1:22:27
Every year, Russians condemn it and say, you
1:22:31
know, Nazis, 200 people took part in the
1:22:36
heavily policed events.
1:22:38
You know, you got to police people, beat
1:22:40
the snot out of them.
1:22:42
Participants carried the national flag of Latvia, Estonia,
1:22:46
and Ukraine and laid flowers at the foot
1:22:49
of Riga's freedom monument.
1:22:54
The gathering included Latvian officials and representatives from
1:22:58
veterans organizations.
1:23:02
Isn't that nuts?
1:23:04
Critics argue, like me, that honoring a Waffen
1:23:07
-SS unit amounts to the glorification of Nazism.
1:23:12
93,000 Jews lived in Latvia before the
1:23:17
German invasion in 1941, and an estimated 70
1:23:23
,000 of them were killed, according to the
1:23:28
European Jewish Congress.
1:23:30
And Latvian authorities say that while the legion
1:23:32
did technically fight on the side of Nazi
1:23:36
Germany, the fighting for the country's independence, is
1:23:41
what they call it, was to prevent the
1:23:43
occupation by the Soviet Union.
1:23:46
And the Latvian SS was the last of
1:23:49
the Nazi forces to surrender in 1905.
1:23:55
But they banned any World War II victory
1:23:58
celebrating the defeat of Nazis.
1:24:02
I'm okay if you want to, you know,
1:24:05
a veteran is a veteran.
1:24:06
You don't usually get a pick which, you
1:24:09
know, what side of your country fights for,
1:24:12
right?
1:24:12
But while allowing the commemoration of Nazi collaborators
1:24:17
in 2022, Latvia said nobody could have gatherings
1:24:23
at Soviet-era monuments.
1:24:25
They banned symbols that linked the USSR's World
1:24:29
War II victory.
1:24:31
Like people would take their flags and take
1:24:34
it, like the videos of the Ukrainian soldiers
1:24:37
taking old ladies' flags and stomping them into
1:24:40
the mud.
1:24:41
They had relatives who died there.
1:24:45
These are horrible things, and yet they glorified
1:24:48
the Nazis.
1:24:50
It's mandated dismantling of memorials, leading to the
1:24:58
removal of the victory monuments that had been
1:25:03
in place for generations, and they got rid
1:25:07
of them.
1:25:09
The atrocities that these people conducted, that the
1:25:14
Russians declassified several years ago, FSB documents that
1:25:22
detailed war crimes and mass executions of these
1:25:27
people, of the Latvian members.
1:25:31
The Latvian Legion was formed in 1943 on
1:25:36
the orders of Adolf Hitler.
1:25:39
The documents published show that the Remembrance Day
1:25:44
of the Latvian Legionnaires, and according to the
1:25:47
FSB, their counterintelligence materials are reports from intelligence
1:25:56
officers, prisoners of war, compiled and shared into
1:26:02
the internal records of the Soviet Union, released,
1:26:07
like I said, several years ago.
1:26:10
The Latvian Auxiliary Security Police, the SS unit,
1:26:17
was notorious for its brutality and consisted entirely
1:26:22
of volunteers, including former Latvian army officers.
1:26:29
It was responsible for the murder of at
1:26:32
least 30,000 people.
1:26:37
30,000 inside of Latvia.
1:26:40
Isn't that crazy?
1:26:42
One of the legionnaires is documented as having
1:26:45
systematically executed anyone who was a Jew, including
1:26:51
women, children, and the elderly.
1:26:55
He took part in the killing of over
1:27:01
10,000 people, while investigators estimate that the
1:27:05
total number of victims was more than 46
1:27:08
,500.
1:27:10
Members of this commando unit destroyed everything in
1:27:13
their way, burnt entire villages, looted, killed women
1:27:17
and children without exception.
1:27:20
According to the documents, they carried out raids
1:27:22
into Belarus and Poland as well.
1:27:26
One member boasted about personally hanging two women.
1:27:30
The FSB noted that this commando unit gave
1:27:34
its loyalty to the Nazis through unprecedented brutality.
1:27:40
Hundreds were expected to march, and they do,
1:27:44
every 16th of January to commemorate these Nazis.
1:27:51
Many countries, including the US, have outcries about
1:27:55
these things.
1:27:56
This Baltic nation continues to permit this annual
1:28:01
parade of Nazis.
1:28:03
Moscow accuses Latvia, a member of NATO and
1:28:07
the EU, of whitewashing war criminals by allowing
1:28:11
this event.
1:28:12
The FSB notes that the event celebrates the
1:28:17
display of Nazi flags.
1:28:20
The day of commemoration is certainly incorrect.
1:28:27
I hope you've enjoyed the show and the
1:28:29
talk about Andrei Bezrukov.
1:28:33
I may share some information about him tomorrow
1:28:37
as well, because there was another extremely interesting
1:28:42
discussion about differences between Trump and Putin that
1:28:46
he gave, which I particularly liked.
1:28:49
But please join us.
1:28:52
Friday, we'll be doing Civic Outlaws.
1:28:54
I have another large group of information to
1:28:58
put there.
1:28:59
Today is Wednesday.
1:29:00
It is the greatest day in radio history
1:29:05
on damn radio.
1:29:08
We shall have the damn schwag coming up
1:29:10
right after me.
1:29:12
Gabby Hayes' show, a really big shoot, Search
1:29:15
for Solutions, and Ike Skelton's radio program later
1:29:19
in the show.
1:29:20
I am very glad you participated.
1:29:24
As soon as I can figure out how
1:29:27
to get where I'm going, we'll be able
1:29:29
to ease on out here.
1:29:33
Okay.
1:29:34
Well, thanks for joining us in.
1:29:37
The topic on Friday is going to be
1:29:40
pretty detailed, and I hope you do join
1:29:43
in for the Civic Outlaws.
1:29:45
I've written another article, and I intend to
1:29:48
share that with you.
1:29:50
It's got some pretty detail, all issues in
1:29:54
it.
1:29:55
Thank you very much.
1:29:56
Have a great Mid-Missouri day.