Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/21/26: Houthis Bomb Saudi Capital, Yanis Varoufakis On Moscow Strikes And Petro Dollar Collapse

Transcript

9/21/26: Houthis Bomb Saudi Capital, Yanis Varoufakis On Moscow Strikes And Petro Dollar Collapse · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we
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  Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: Happy Monday. I have an amazing show for everybody today.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: What do we have, Crystal?
• 0:28
  Speaker 5: Indeed, we do. A lot going on with regards to
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: the Iran war.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: The Houthis were able to strike the main international airport
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: in Riyadh. Trump is apparently at a complete loss as
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to what to do about the situation. We've got new
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: inside details there. Yanis Varoufakis is going to join us
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: this morning to talk both about the latest with regards
• 0:45
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• 1:59
  Speaker 2: share this episode with a friend. But as Crystal said,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Trump indecisiveness is really kind of one of the major
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: headline stories this morning. Let's put this up here on
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  Speaker 2: the screen, breaking early this morning from the New York Times. Basically,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: they say Trump gets caught in a dilemma over a
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Saudi plea for military help. So obviously, the major headline
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: story of the last two weeks has been the extraordinary
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Houthi military campaign against the Saudi-backed forces in Yemen, where
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: they not only were able to seize strategic port of Mocha,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: but they were also able to take control of the
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: entire Bab al-Mandeb Strait. By taking control of the strait,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: they have effectively forced Saudi Arabia to no longer... be
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: able to move any oil via their port of Yanbu.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And instead, they have to move it through the Suez Canal,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: which is incredibly costly and very inefficient. In addition to that,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Iranian forces, apparently from Iraq, were able to dismantle at
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: least partially parts of the Saudi east to west pipeline.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So they're putting significant pressure on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: long has held the United States its main military backer, right?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: We'll remember that one of the main reasons we were
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: even involved In the first place, in the first Gulf War,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: it was to protect Kuwait and stop it from Iraqi invasion.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: But we also had all those U.S.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Forces in Saudi Arabia. So it's a decades-long military relationship.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And MBS has been lighting Trump up on the phone
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: ever since this prolonged Houthi campaign. It's like, you need
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to help me. You need to help me. You said
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: you were going to help me. This is your whole thing.
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  Speaker 4: You're the empire.
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  Speaker 2: We've bought hundreds of billions of dollars of your military equipment.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: We're your number one ally.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: You're supposed to preserve freedom of navigation. And apparently— Trump
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: was in Camp David over the weekend for a major
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: military deliberation over whether they should go in and strike Yemen. Now,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: why anyone thinks that's even going to work this time,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I don't even know, considering how many times we have
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: tried to bomb Yemen, bomb the Houthis. They were under
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: sustained bombardment for almost 12 years. The United States alone,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's like Operation Rising Lion or something like
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that back in 2025. Total disaster. Biden famously, we bombed
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the Houthis.
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  Speaker 4: Did it work?
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  Speaker 6: No.
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  Speaker 4: Are we going to still keep doing this?
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: So this is multiple presidents now who continued to try
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the bomb strategy. And Trump was apparently convinced to do it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Trump had met with advisors on Saturday, told them he
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: did not favor strikes, but after speaking with the Saudi
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: crown prince, reversed himself and told the Pentagon to prepare
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: for airstrikes against the Houthis. Midday Sunday, the president appeared
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: to have reversed himself again.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: There would be no U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Airstrikes, despite the fact that the bombs were literally being
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: loaded on the planes at the time the strike packages
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: and all of that had been drawn up. And just
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: to show you how real this was, let's put A3
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: on the screen. All of the signs were lining up
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: yesterday for major escalation.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: The U.S.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Mission to the UAE, in addition to multiple of the
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: embassies across the region, put out similar statements, basically saying
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: due to tensions in the Middle East, the.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: Security environment remains complex.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Americans should exercise heightened vigilance and be aware of potential
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: flight cancellations, aerospace closures, and travel disruptions. This was UAE,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: this was Saudi Arabia, this was Kuwait, Bahrain, all of
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  Speaker 2: the entire Gulf.
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  Speaker 4: In addition, the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Virtual embassy in Tehran basically said all Americans need to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: leave And it appears that Trump at the very last
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: second decided to pull back. And this shows the vice
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: that he is in. He can't protect America's allies, Saudi Arabia,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: without risking Iranian and Houthi backlash to even further constrain
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the price of oil. All this man cares about at
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: this point is the price of oil. And you and
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: I know at the same time, he also cares about
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: not admitting defeat. Admitting defeat would immediately lower the price
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: of oil and immediately get things flowing throughout the region.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: But the Iranians are like, yeah, for that to happen,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: there's a whole list of conditions, which is complete and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: total surrender. And in addition to that, we're in a
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: worse strategic position than we are. So we either abandon Saudi,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that's one option, which is bad, of course, you know, just,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: you know, strategically for the empire. But then the other
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  Speaker 2: part is that we continue on this course, the fecklessness
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and we, or the fecklessness and we go forward trying
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: some stupid Houthi bombing campaign, and still diminish the amount
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: of munitions and others. Remember, the United States is currently
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: in a ceasefire from 2025 onward with the Houthis. And
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: if that were to light up again, now the United
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: States Navy, which is trying to do some convoy system
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: through the Strait of Hormuz, oops, now we've got a
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  Speaker 2: whole other strait that we've got to start worrying about
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  Speaker 2: and protect shipping.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: We just don't have the munitions for it.
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  Speaker 3: We can't do it.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: And that's apparently what Trump ultimately decided, is that we
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: are not in any position to open up an entirely.
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  Speaker 5: New front of this war anymore.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Because we already are failing on the front that we
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  Speaker 1: have opened. So right now, these are attacking. Obviously, they're
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: trying to take all of Yemen. They're attacking Saudi Arabia.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: We can put A1 up on the screen. I mean,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: this is pretty extraordinary to see. This is the main
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: international airport in Riyadh. that was successfully struck by the Houthis.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: You can see the black smoke rising there. You can
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: see the fire. I can't even imagine. Can you imagine
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: if they hit DCA right here or even Dulles? That
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: would be such a shock to the system. And so
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: these Gulf nations have felt very insulated from any sort
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of regional instability. That's a whole basis of their economies,
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  Speaker 1: both in terms of tourism and as destination for global capital.
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  Speaker 1: All of that has been completely rocked. And so, look,
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  Speaker 1: the Saudis also were foolish in, according to the reporting,
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  Speaker 1: encouraging us at the beginning to get into this war
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  Speaker 1: with Iran. Oh, we've got your back. We want you
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  Speaker 1: to go ahead because they see Iran, of course, as
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a regional rival. They wanted Iran to be put in check.
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  Speaker 1: And so this is sort of, you know, them having
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to deal with the fruits of their own decision making
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: and pushing Trump in this direction as well. But it's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a wild situation. Right now, the Houthis are not attacking
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: American ships. We have had this ceasefire that has taken
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: hold after we basically had to admit defeat. OK, we're
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: not going to defeat you, even though we've been bombing
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you for years at this point. This is not taking
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you out. So we're going to have to come to
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  Speaker 1: some sort of accommodation. Trump was persuaded for a moment
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  Speaker 1: to undermine that deal and blow that up and open
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  Speaker 1: up this new front. And then at the very last second,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: after all of these warnings, he is like, oh, my God,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: we just we just can't do this. So there is
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: no strategy like that. any concept that there's some 40
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: chests going and we're going to squeeze them and we're
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: going to wait them out and this was what's.
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: Going to happen.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: No, he's flying by the seat of his pants because
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: after day two of this war, when the entire Iranian
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: regime did not collapse, he has been out of ideas
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and desperately scrambling to try to figure something out on
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the fly ever since then.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's used to a situation where we could do
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: this and there'd be relatively little cost. But when you
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  Speaker 2: control the Bab al-Mandeb strait, You said shoot at U.S.
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  Speaker 4: Forces.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, at that point, that's actually a secondary concern.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: We could probably shoot all those down. What if they
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: just shoot at every single ship that's moving through Bab al-Mandab?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Oil will probably go to $ 200 a barrel. Like, it's
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: over at that point. And that's the nightmare scenario, and
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: that's exactly why he continues to be stuck in this. Remember, too, though,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: there are secondary consequences. At some point in the future
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: or in the past, Saudi Arabia had denied the United
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: States use of its airspace and of its bases to
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: be able to launch a preemptive attack on Iran without
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: getting some of the requisite protection necessary.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: That they want. Well, are they going to do that now?
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: Because they're screwed.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're in a situation where they are genuinely
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: under attack from their oil infrastructure, the Aramco facility, East-West pipeline.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, the entire deal in Saudi Arabia, because Saudi
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: is not the UAE.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: It is not Qatar.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: They don't have a tiny population, a bunch of slave
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Indians and Pakistanis doing all their work. They have tens
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: of millions of people. Like, there actually is like a
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Saudi middle class, I guess, if you want. And for
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: the entire deal is the kingdom of they get to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: do whatever they want. Like the House of Saud, they
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: get the Monaco and the yachts and all of that.
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: In exchange, we all get to have.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: A normal, like pretty stable lifestyle. And we also, you know,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: we're hyper religious freaks, the Wahhabis, they get paid. It's
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a deal that we all make in society. Well, if
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the security breakdown of that goes apart and you start
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: to live in a world where the kingdom, the house
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: of Saud, you know, all of their deals and their
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: hated deals with the enemy and the West and all
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: of that, if that starts, it's not paying dividends in
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: your airport. I mean, your airport being on fire is insane.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: The fuel depot, like you said, here at Washington Reagan Airport,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: if the fuel depot there is getting lit up by.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: Drones, it's a 10 alarm fire.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Like it's that is that breaks. It's kind of like
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: what's happening in Moscow. I mean, that's completely changes. the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: strategic position of the whole situation. So let's go to
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: A2 now on Iran. This is Trump spoke with Trey
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Yinks over at Fox News while a lot of this
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: was all in the air about a potential attack. And
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: he's just right back to, he's like, oh, maybe I'll
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: just blow up the entire country.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Let's take a listen. Yeah, hey guys, good morning.
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: I just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran.
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: He tells Fox News he's in a deciding mode and
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: that very big things are going to be happening in
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: the not-so-distant future. The president described the current choices on
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: the table as wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically,
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: or making a deal. He added, my question is, if
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: and when do I blow the entire nation up? They
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: better behave. Now, I asked the president about the U.N.
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: General Assembly this week. Iranian President Massoud Poseshkin is going
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: to be there. And I asked if he'd be open
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: to meeting with the Iranian leader. And he said he'd
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: probably be open to it. But described this weekend as
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: no different from any other weekend, despite these alerts that
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: went out to U.S.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Citizens.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Right, and that was in the middle of the war
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: planes literally having the bombs loaded onto them. This is
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the point, too, where you can't even keep any of
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: this stuff secret because they tried launching the secret attack, as.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: We'll all recall, and what happened?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: A million Americans were stranded in the Middle East, unable
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: to get out, so they have to put out the alerts,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: and the Iranians themselves remain very much on high alert.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Let's put A5 on the screen. This is from their
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: own broadcasting.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: They said, the general staff, according to intelligence received, the
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: United States has once again decided, with the green light
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: from certain regional countries, to resume actions against Iran during
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: a joint meeting in a European nation. We don't even
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: know exactly what that is alluded to, but it's very
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: likely that there at least had been some briefing or
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: something about the potential attack on Yemen, considering its consequences
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: to the global economy. And we're about to talk about
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Ukraine with the situation with Yanis, but the constraint on
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the diesel market at this point It's just not going anywhere.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: And this is the problem when you break apart.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: The entire US energy or the entire global energy infrastructure.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Even if things were to end, like when I say
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: gas would go down, it would go down to $ 384
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a gallon. The diesel price, it's not coming back down to,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what it was before the war.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah, before the war launched, $ 369.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: A gallon a year ago.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: So it was manageable.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the spread between that and gasoline, gasoline at that
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: time was only $ 3. And so the spread right now
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: remaining where it at the refinery capacity, the amount of
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: refineries in Russia that have all gone offline and the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: general price increases that we're seeing, you know, the $ 1
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: million a day is so insane. And we're going to
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: talk about that later with diesel, but it's mentioned just
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: right now. It is literally costing these, it's literally costing
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: $ 26 a barrel in just to charter the ships to
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: get these things from the United States to Asia. And
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that's just because of the constraints from Bab al-Mandeb to
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz and the general risk premium and demand.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: It's just craziness.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk more later in the show. But a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: big piece of this is refinery capacity.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: You know, the U.S.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Has not been building new refineries. A lot of that
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: capacity shifted to the Middle East and also to Russia.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And that's not working out well for us. But Sagar
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: has forgotten we do have some secret weapons in this
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: war that were just unveiled to the public.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: This is a six. Let's take a look.
• 14:04
  Speaker 7: We just got the pleasure and the privilege of getting
• 14:07
  Speaker 7: a tour of the Pentagon.
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: And what a cool experience.
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: We see all the men and women here who are
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: serving this great nation. I don't think there is any
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: greater commitment to sacrifice than those who are willing to live.
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: Die, and fight for their country.
• 14:20
  Speaker 7: So I think it's you guys who etch your names
• 14:24
  Speaker 7: in history as you fight for and allow us in
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: this country to have that freedom where we can prosper
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: and be happy and be the great nation that we are.
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: So a deep, personal thank you from myself, my.
• 14:41
  Speaker 9: Brother, and all of our fellow Americans.
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: Each one of you matters.
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: Take this moment and be proud of yourselves for what
• 14:49
  Speaker 9: you do. This is the greatest country in the world, truly.
• 14:54
  Speaker 9: We are blessed to be born here, come here, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 9: we should never take that for granted. That's what God
• 15:01
  Speaker 9: created us for, is to lift each other up in
• 15:04
  Speaker 9: the hard moments to be there for each other in
• 15:06
  Speaker 9: the hard moments and to come together as a collective
• 15:09
  Speaker 9: and fight for good that's why this country was formed
• 15:13
  Speaker 9: we should never forget.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: That Truly inspiring.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Department of War, Hyperio with Jake and Logan Paul there.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: I mean, what can you say at this point? We're
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: a joke of a nation.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: We should just let the AI overlords take us over.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Except they're about to get us in nuclear war with China.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll get to that later. Yeah, that's true.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: We should just let the Chinese take us over. I mean,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it's just like, so... I, you could not make this up.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Like you really genuinely couldn't script it for a movie.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It would be too preposterous.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: A friend of mine has a great take on this.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: He says, this is actually, there's a lot of talk
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: on the right about third world ism.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: And then he says, this is actual third world ism.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: By the way, Trump is our first third world president,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: pugilistic fights on the lawn of the national palace. appointing
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: family to do diplomacy, self-enriching via scams from elected office,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: losing an unpopular war, but making time for celebrity ceremony.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And by the way, when we say celebrity, we mean
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: like the D minus tier, where most celebrities People in
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: polite society are like humiliated that these people are filthy
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: rich and apparently represent the general taste of our population.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: We would all be better off if it didn't exist. So, yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's that is the reality of this situation.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I'd also note from my friends in the Pentagon press corps,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: that is the press room where that happened, where they
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: have not held a briefing in like, I don't even know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: 50 days or something like that.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: It also comes at a time. I just didn't even
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: make the show just to show you. where things are.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: In the old days, we would have been able to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: ask the Pentagon Press about this. The Washington Post had
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: a blockbuster report that more Americans have died in the
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Iran war than they're letting on. This would obviously be
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: a crazy revelation because, I mean, I've even said this
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: on the show, it seems very difficult to assume that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: actual deaths could be covered up. And the reason why
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is that we have a system in the United States
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: where like within 24 hours of death, The family has
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to get notified. And once the family gets notified, you know,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: people post on Facebook. They have to have, we're not Russia.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Like you can't cover up whole funerals and all this
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: stuff and take things down, at least not yet.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: And so for that, you know, that report, I was
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: honestly stunned.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, to have, this situation happen like
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: in the pentagon press briefing room where it's like some
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: hype reel that they're putting out it's just humiliating it's
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: there's just no way around it like these antics look
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: if you're doing it while you're beating somebody's ass fine
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: but there's so many instances like this where they're trying
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: to pull out the ton of 2024 greatest hits they
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: have pat mcafee who literally dominates all of our airwaves
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: and he's like oh when you hear like during a
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: flyover McAfee had this take where he's like more during
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: when the NFL, maybe a college football game. He's like,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: if you hear that sound running, your ass better. He's like,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: you hear that sound, your ass better be running.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: And it was like, dude, it ain't 2002. Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Like the Iranians heard that sound and they shot the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: plane down.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: You know, and we had to go rescue Mr. Bravo.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Apparently like that. It's not we're not the big bad
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: military anymore. Like we're getting our asses kicked literally right now.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: And so that's why, you know, if anything, this is
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: a this is actually a good emblem.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I think for also just remember, you know, how many
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: times we freak out about all these leftoid, ridiculous influencers
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: in the Biden press room and their stupid little SNL
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: skits and, you know, whatever.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: They're trans topless. And it's like, OK, well, this is
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: just as humiliating. OK, so sorry.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Hyper online presidency, obsessed with influencers. Like remember all those
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: videos of like Kid Rock and RFK Juniors? Like, I mean,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Sean Duffy, who's the head of the Department of Transportation.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: filmed an entire reality show while he was supposed to
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: be doing his job. I mean, it's just completely bonkers.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And then meanwhile, Hegseth, who is literally just like a
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Fox News weekend TV host, is out there talking to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the troops and pumping them up with a bunch of
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: religious rhetoric, framing this as some sort of freaking holy war.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: It's so ridiculous and.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Absurd, you have to laugh, but it's also just deeply disturbing,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the way that they approach all of this. And this
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it goes back to what Trump told Tucker reportedly when
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Tucker was expressing all his like, I don't think it's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: going to go well.
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: You shouldn't do this. And here's the risk, et cetera.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: Trump's like, don't worry, it's going to work out. Tucker's like, well, why?
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: Because it always does.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: That was the rationale. That was the entire rationale. That
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: is how unserious these people are, how little they think
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: about the consequences for anyone. in this country, around the world,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: et cetera. So anyway, perfect emblem of exactly their approach
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to global affairs, I guess.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: Yep, that's right.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: All right, let's get to Ukraine. Joining us now is
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: our great friend, Yanis Varoufakis. He is the economist, politician,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: and as he said, a self-described bullshit artist, although we
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: do not think that is true at all.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much, sir, for joining us.
• 19:57
  Speaker 8: Well, thank you so much for being so forthcoming.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: We're going to go ahead and start here with the
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: situation in Ukraine. I know that you've been tracking so
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: much of this situation closely, and it has major economic
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: impacts for all of us. Start here with the first,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: which is a huge Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow, which
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: included targeted strikes towards oil infrastructure and specifically diesel refineries.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: We have some breaking news this morning of President Trump
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: reacting to this, where he apparently spoke with President Zelensky
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and begged him to stop these strikes. Yanis, what do
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: you make of Ukraine's now ability to project strikes, drone strikes,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: including cruise missile strikes, deep not only into Russia, into
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: the capital, to strike so much of their backbone of
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: their economy with diesel? What does this heighten the stakes
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: to and potentially lead us to some sort of troubling situation?
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Well, almost four years since the beginning of this all-out war,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: we ended up in an aerial stalemate. In the same
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: way that in the First World War, in the Great War,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: there was a stalemate of trench warfare. Two sides had
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: stopped and they were just throwing bombs and mortars at
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: one another. Now we have an aerial version of that.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: You mentioned this barrage of missiles and particularly drones fired
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: by Ukraine against Russia.
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: But, you know, if you read the newspapers two days ago,
• 21:34
  Speaker 8: it was the opposite.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: It was the jet-powered drones coming from Russia that was
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: devastating Ukraine. So I think, you know, this is pretty symmetrical.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: What is not symmetrical is what's happening on the ground,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: in the Donbass in particular, which is the number one
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: priority of Vladimir Putin. There, very painfully, with huge human costs,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: the Russian army is steadily making encroachments. It's only a
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: sliver of the Donbas that Vladimir Putin has not gotten.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: There's no doubt he won't stop before he gets all
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: of the Donbas, at least. And, you know, one hopes
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: and prays that the Europeans and the Americans and the
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Canadians are going to start having the conversation that we
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: have refused to have so far. Because, let's face it, NATO...
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: and in particular Europe, has no plan for peace in Ukraine.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: If you ask them what kind of peace they envisage,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: they only talk about the defeat of Russia, which is
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: not going to happen.
• 22:41
  Speaker 8: And they have no plan for war.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Because, you know, getting the Ukrainians to keep hoping that
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: they will take back Crimea, when there is no chance
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: in hell of that, or in heaven, it doesn't matter,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: So we have neither a plan for peace nor a
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: plan for war. And meanwhile, people are dying on both sides.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Infrastructure is being destroyed. Donald Trump is right to worry
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: that in addition to his folly in Iran, this war
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: is pushing up, is restricting the supply of diesel, the
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: supply of petrol, of gas, as you call it in
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: the United States. And that has detrimental effects on his
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: MAGA base in the Midwest.
• 23:26
  Speaker 8: So this is where we are.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: This is what happens when you start a war without
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: a plan and you don't have a plan for war
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: and you don't have a plan for peace.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Let's go and put B3 up on the screen. You
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: mentioned some of the Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. That's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the Financial Times write-up. They say Russia's new air campaign
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: seeks to destroy the Ukrainian economy. They talk in particular
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: about successful strikes on the steel industry. They have a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: quote here, as of today, Ukraine does not have a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: steel industry anymore. That's according to the head of the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: CEO's office at Medinvest, a steel mining company that owned
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: two of the three plants previously. that were targeted in
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the recent attacks. What is the reality of the war
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: economy in Ukraine? How able are they to sustain their
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: current efforts?
• 24:11
  Speaker 8: There's no doubt that there's an asymmetry.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: The Russian economy, and this is the great paradox, the
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Russian economy over the last few years has strengthened as
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: a result of military Keynesianism, of the war economy. The
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: war economy allowed Vladimir Putin and his government a lot
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: more control of the macroeconomy than he had before the war.
• 24:31
  Speaker 8: This is tragic, but true.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: In sharp contrast, the Ukrainian economy has gone backwards as
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: a result of this war. It's an asymmetrical war. There's
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: no doubt that Russia is far more powerful and can
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: inflict a lot more damage. It has inflicted a lot
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: of damage. It has taken 20% of Ukrainian territory. And
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: it's actually the greatest problem that Ukraine is facing. not
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: just the steady bombardment of its infrastructure, its lack of labor,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: lack of human resources, both in the military sector and
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: in the civilian sector. But I don't think that either
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: side is going to throw its collective hands up in
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: the air to surrender because of the economic damage that
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: is being done. or the damage to its infrastructure, or
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: the damage to its oil industry. Sadly, fortunately, unfortunately, depending
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: on your own ethical and political predisposition, this war can
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: go on for a very long time. What I think
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: is going to settle it is the usual thing, these
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: boots on the ground. So, for instance, I can envisage
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a situation where once he gets the whole of Donbass
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: steeped in blood, of course, Putin declaring a unilateral ceasefire.
• 25:57
  Speaker 8: I can envisage that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I cannot see what the Ukrainians could do as, you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: a government with its own agency. Just wait for the
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Russians to declare a unilateral ceasefire? The blame for this
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: continued attrition, which has repercussions for all of us, also
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: for the global south. Look at fertilizer prices, the price
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of food, the price of energy, and so on everywhere,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: from Bangladesh to Ethiopia. The blame, I think, goes primarily
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: upon Europeans, who are gung-ho about this Ukrainian war. They
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: keep egging Zelensky and his government on, Back in April
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: of 2022, a few months, a couple of months after
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Putin unleashed his invasion of Ukraine, the two sides had
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: approached a deal. It was almost a done thing. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: it was particularly the British and the Europeans who told Zelensky,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: don't sign this. You have to win this war.
• 27:05
  Speaker 8: And, you know, but we Europeans, we are European governments,
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: not the people of Europe.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: We've been absolutely irresponsible, because we're egging Ukraine to go
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: on and on, but we're not prepared to put boots
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: on the ground to support them, and we're not prepared
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: even to give them the money that they need. And
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the reason for that is, of course, that the European
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Union is bankrupt. If you look at the European Union budget,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: the budget of the European Commission, it's under severe strain.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And you've got countries like France facing a general election
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: and a presidential election. And you can see that it
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: is impossible to imagine the French government in six, eight
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: months agreeing to pay more to the European Union budget
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: so that Ukraine gets more support. So it's an all-around disaster.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Yanis, this is what's so difficult. Here in the United States,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: everything you're laying out is well within the bounds of
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: our discussions. You can correct me if I'm wrong. From
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: what I see, this is non-starter, even talking this way,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: in much of the higher echelons of the European Union.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: In fact, I believe we had, yeah, let's put B5
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: up here on the screen, where Emmanuel Macron is now
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: calling an emergency G7 meeting, or energy prices spike, Russian
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: hybrid attacks mount, or at least what they're claiming are
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Russian hybrid attacks on these German power plants. We also
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: had some reports out of Estonia, for example, put B4 up. please,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: on the screen, where it appears that the Russian or
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the FSB has put some sort of travel restriction and
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: curfew on Russia's border with Estonia. Again, very difficult to
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: suss out the reality of much of this. But how
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: exactly can Europe and the EU begin to grapple with
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: this reality if the reality has not been ever present
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: now for almost four years?
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, almost since the.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Outbreak of the war, it was very obvious this is
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: where things were going to go. And despite kind of
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: the escalation and the ratcheting up, It appears that they're
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: even more gung-ho to support Zelensky, despite the fact that
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: they can celebrate a strike on Russian oil refineries. They
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: need to grapple with the fact the Ukraine just has
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: no steel industry now at all. That last part doesn't
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: seem to register whatsoever in any of the capitals or
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: in Brussels.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: You see, the tragedy is that our great and good leaders,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Emmanuel Macron in France, Andy Burnham in Britain, Friedrich Merz
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: in Germany, and so on, When they talk about the
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: war in Ukraine, when they prognosticate the eruption of a
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: war on the soil of EU member states or NATO
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: member states, when Macron called various politicians to the Elysee,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: to the palace, to the presidential palace, and he gave
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: them a briefing that... put the fear of hell into
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: the people who attended. When they do all that and
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: when they speak those words, sadly and tragically, they're not
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: thinking about the Ukrainians. They're not thinking about the people
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: who are actually suffering on the ground. They have their
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: own agendas. Let's take them one by one, shall we?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Emmanuel Macron is a lame duck president. He's very keen
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: to do whatever it takes to stop Marie Le Pen.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: from succeeding him in the Elysee. He has a huge
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: problem with the budget, the national budget, which.
• 30:36
  Speaker 8: Is now exploding.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: It's above 5.5% of GDP in terms of the deficit,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: when the rules of the EU stipulate a maximum of 3%.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: His own centrist minions, who should be positioning themselves now
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: to run in the election against Le Pen, are nowhere
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: near Nowhere to be seen in the opinion polls. So
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: to him, it is functional.
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: It is in his interest to.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Create a lot of noise, ruckus, in order to hide
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: his political and economic, how shall I put it, failures. Now,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: similarly in Germany, Volkswagen cannot sell cars. And they can't
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: sell cars because they haven't invested. in modern technologies, in batteries,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: and so on, over the last 15, 16 years. So
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: what are they doing? They are shifting production lines to
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Rheinmetall to produce tanks, Leopard tanks, that the Ukrainians don't
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: even want because they are death traps. It is functional
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: to the interest of the German government to warmonger, to
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: scare people to death, so that they accept increased expenditure
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: on Rheinmetall to build tanks that nobody wants. Because this
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: is the only way they can maintain some industrial jobs
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: to decelerate the pace of deindustrialization. I can tell you
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: a similar story about Andy Burnham. So in the end,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: these people are going into a warmongering frenzy for reasons
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: that have nothing to do with Ukraine.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Let's go and put B6 up on the screen. So
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Zelensky says he's meeting with Trump at the U.N. General
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Assembly this week. He says that they are going to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: talk about a peace plan. The peace track, he says,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: is our number one priority. There are ideas for de-escalation
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: steps for addressing fundamental security issues. We're working together with
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the American team and are ready to take really serious steps.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: He also applauds Trump. for signing the Lindsey Graham Russian
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: sanctions bill into law. He says, we all concur. There
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: must be peace. If we were actually serious, if Trump
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: was actually serious about doing what he promised would be
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: done before even day one of his presidency and bringing
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: this war to a conclusion, what is the sort of
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: deal that could be struck at this point? What is
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: in the realm of realistic possibility? What sort of things
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: would have to be given up on the Ukrainian side
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of the ledger in particular?
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Well, given that Donald Trump is not particularly interested in
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Europe or in Ukraine, he's far more interested in China,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: he's far more interested in the Middle East.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: He's interested mostly in his ballroom, Yanis, to be honest
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 33:19
  Speaker 8: And his bank account.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, all of that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: Ventures and all that.
• 33:24
  Speaker 8: The key is the Europeans.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: The Europeans should open up channels of communication with Vladimir Putin.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: However vile he might be, since you don't have a
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: plan to defeat him, you've got to have a plan
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: to find some kind of... peace deal with him that
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: will leave everybody dissatisfied, but it will be far better
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: than the never-ending war in Ukraine. And the United States,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: I think, would have gone along with that. My advice
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: to the Trump administration, of course, they are not going
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: to listen to my advice, of course, and that's not
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: such a bad thing, because then if they did, then
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: I would have an existential crisis. Setting that aside, my
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: advice would be, talk to the Germans, the French and
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the British, and tell them to stop You know, just.
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: Pushing the envelope further and further into the future.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: There has to be a comprehensive agreement between NATO and
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Russia on a common peace and.
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: Security agenda for Eurasia.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: I think that Vladimir Putin would respond positively to this.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: It would give him a way out. He would be
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: able to tell his own oligarchs, his own cronies, look
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: what I've done. I've invaded Ukraine. And now what Russia
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: has been calling for since the early 1990s, a comprehensive
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: peace and agenda security agreement has been railroaded. What would
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: that include? Well, it should include, on the one hand,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: some deal regarding... the Donbas, which is the, you know,
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: it is ground zero of this war. This is the
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: main battlefield. I think that some constructive ambiguity should be
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: included in this, in the sense that official sovereignty should
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: not be handed over to Russia, but at the same time,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: there should be an agreement that there is freedom of movement,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: but the area is controlled by Russia.
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: Look, we've done this before.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Think of the Good Friday Agreement that ended the troubles
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: in Northern Ireland.
• 35:38
  Speaker 8: It was a messy deal.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Which effectively joined sovereignty over Northern Ireland between London and Dublin.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Northern Ireland stays formally within the United Kingdom of Great
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Britain and Northern Ireland, but Dublin has a say. And
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: the two communities that were at loggerheads, who were killing
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: each other and blowing each other up, now share.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Local government as well as regional government on a 50-50 basis.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: So imagine such a deal for the Donbass. As for
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Crimea and other areas, well, that could be kicked into
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the long grass. It could be given to a committee
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: of the United Nations to discuss over the next 50 years. Like,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: you know, the United Nations is continuing to discuss a
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: solution for the problem in Cyprus, closer to my home.
• 36:29
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, none of us are happy with this.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Here in Greece or in Turkey or in Cyprus, but
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: at least people are not dying every day. So that
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: could be the beginning of a comprehensive treaty between NATO,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: the West, and Russia that will include checks and balances
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: when it comes to AI-enhanced technologies for killing people, rolling
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: back the nuclear threat, which the United States' successive governments
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: allowed to.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: To become a clear and present danger with the ending
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and so on. So for me,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: that is what you do, even if the only thing
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: you want to do is to reduce inflation. Because, you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: having the Fed increasing interest rates is not going to
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: do anything to lessen the inflation burden on your people
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: when the price of oil is going up. because refiners
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: are being blown up in Russia or in the Ukraine.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: So end the war with Iran, end the war in
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: the Ukraine, and start looking after the vast majority of
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: people out there, whether they are in the United States
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: or in Russia or in.
• 37:46
  Speaker 8: The Ukraine, for that matter.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Let's also, while we have you talk about the bond situation,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you can put your economist background to use for us.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: We've had tremendous amount of trouble deciphering it. Wall Street
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Journal actually helpfully wrote this. They say why it's so
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: hard to work out what the bond market is telling us.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So we figured we would ask you what we can
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: generally say is it seems like it's a chaotic situation.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Doesn't seem to be good for the United States. appears
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: to be a pretty big failure on behalf of the
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, who's been single-handedly trying to push
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: these yields down.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: But overall, Yanis, what do you see within the U.S.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Bond market and what it tells us about both the
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: conflict and the state of the global economy?
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Well, let me preface my general view on the bond
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: market or the Treasury's market by saying that I'm astonished
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: by the incompetence of Scott Besant. Actually, I never liked
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: the guy, but I thought he was competent until very recently.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: This notion, the very notion that he's going to bring
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: bond yields down by getting the impecunious treasury, his treasury,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: which is running a huge deficit, to purchase long-dated bonds.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, you need to be an eight-year-old to know
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: that that can't work. If the Fed were to buy... treasuries,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: it could work. It would work.
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: It has worked before.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: It would work again. But if I have a huge
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: debt to you, I cannot solve my debt problems by
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: trying to borrow more in order to buy my debt
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: from you. That, for me, is simply a no-brainer. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I really don't understand why he affected shot himself in
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: the foot doing this. Now, more generally, since you asked
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: me my view about the bond market. Firstly, it's not
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: a crisis. Come on, folks. I was looking today, this morning,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: I was looking at the equivalent data from this period
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: in 2001. We had more or less the same yields.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: We had more or less the same inflation. We had
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: more or less the same overnight Fed rate. Okay, you
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: had the dot-com bubble bursting soon after that. But, you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: it's nothing unprecedented. All this talk that, you know, the
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: United States federal government is going to go bankrupt. You
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: have to be utterly unschooled. in basic public finance to
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: think that. Because, you know, your country, not only do
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: you enjoy the exorbitant privilege that is, you know, when
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I'm here in Athens, when I put gas in my car,
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: I create demand for the US dollar, even if no
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: American company is involved in the gas that goes into
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: my car.
• 40:38
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: So you still have the exorbitant privilege and you are
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: printing the currency in which you and the rest of
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: the world are borrowing.
• 40:45
  Speaker 8: You can't go bankrupt.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: What can happen is you can have an inflation bout, right?
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Which may lead to a precipitous decline in the dollar. Well,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: to begin with, this is an administration that supposedly wants
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: to reduce the value of the dollar. So that wouldn't
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: be a catastrophe on its own. Inflation would be a problem, yeah? But,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: you know, when you've got cost push inflation because of
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: the idiotic war in Iran, you know, price of oil
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: goes up, That's cost-push inflation. Now, how is this going
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: to be ameliorated by increasing interest rates? It just won't.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: The only thing you can do to push inflation down
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: through monetary policy is destroy businesses by increasing interest rates.
• 41:34
  Speaker 8: And then you're going to have another problem. You will have.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Destroyed output capacity, your capacity to manufacture stuff. So, you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: your supply will come down and your aggregate supply will
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: come down. And then, of course, that will make it
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: much more difficult to constrain the rise in prices. So,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: you know, if this administration wanted to reduce inflation, and
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: inflation is the only serious problem that your country is facing,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: not your country, but your financial markets are facing, then
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: end the war in Iran, end the war in Ukraine,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: find Modus Vivendi with China, you.
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: Know, stop the idiotic... spat.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Whether it is between the two big techs or tariffs
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: or whatever, and move on.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: So you referenced the position of the dollar as the
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: world's reserve currency, the so-called exorbitant privilege, which is partly
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: undergirded by the petrodollar, so-called petrodollar, which you also referenced
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about filling, putting gas in your car here,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: sort of undergirding that financial system.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: Is there any risk.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: That the dynamics of the Iran war serve to undercut
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the stability or the longevity of the petrodollar system?
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Well, the petrodollar is dying and it will die.
• 42:51
  Speaker 8: And it will die because of electrification.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: As we speak, 85% of Pakistani families are no longer
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: connected to the electricity grid because they all have Chinese
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: solar panels and inverters and Chinese batteries.
• 43:07
  Speaker 8: Same in Ethiopia. It's going to happen in your country too.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: We are going to electrify and turn to solar and
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: turn to renewables, whatever Donald Trump says. And therefore, the
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: petrodollar aspect... of the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: is almost gone. Within the next 10, 15 years, it
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: will have gone completely. However, that doesn't mean that the
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: reserve currency status of the dollar, the exorbitant privilege, as
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: I called it before, is going to go. Because if
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: you are, as we speak, if you are a German
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: manufacturer or a Japanese manufacturer or a Korean manufacturer, and
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: you're exporting, you're exporting to the United States primarily, And
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: you're importing dollars. What do you do with your dollars
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: in Korea or in Germany or in Japan or, for
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: that matter, in China? They still have $ 4. 5 trillion worth
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of savings. Well, you have to take it to Wall
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Street in order to buy federal debt, treasuries, or to
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: buy real estate or whatever, or some equities if you're
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: allowed to. So that is what recycles the exorbitant power
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: of the dollar. It's not so much the petro aspect anymore.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: That was the case in the 1970s and 1980s. But
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: that has been waning. And there is another source of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: strength for the dollar that the Trump administration have been
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: very keen to enhance through the Genius Act.
• 44:33
  Speaker 8: Stablecoins.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Every time somebody buys Tether, effectively they use money to
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: buy U.S. dollars, even though they are privately minted, and
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: that is very dangerous for financial financial stability, but that's
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: another matter. And then Tether takes that money and buys U.S. Treasuries.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: So that's another way of recycling other people's money into
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the dollar system and therefore maintaining American hegemony. Now, even
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: the Chinese, the Chinese don't want to undermine the hegemony
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: of the American dollar. The greatest supporter of the U.S.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: dollar is China because, you know, they have four and
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: a half trillion dollars in Now, if you have all
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: your savings in, let's say, a Swiss bank account, would
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: you want to undermine the Swiss banking system?
• 45:18
  Speaker 8: I don't think so. They're very smart, the way they're
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: doing it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: What they're doing is they're creating in parallel, because they
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: don't trust American politicians to know what's good for them
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: and for America. What they're doing is they're creating their
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: own financial network, their own financial system. It's like building
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: a superhighway, you know, eight lanes on each side, which
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: is not much used. You know, if you look at Enbridge,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: the blockchain-based international payment system, it's magnificent compared to Swift.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: You know, Swift is a terrible road full of potholes.
• 45:48
  Speaker 8: It's a dollar road.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: The Chinese have, you know, a multi-lane highway, but nobody's
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: using it. They don't want to use it themselves. They
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: just have it there if needs be. If, you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: the United States tried to squeeze them. If they try to,
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: let's say, impose sanctions on them for buying Iranian oil,
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: as this administration claimed they will be doing, but I
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: don't think they will dare do it, then they will
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: start using the superhighway that they've built. But they're reluctant.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: As long as they're reluctant, the reserve currency status of
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: the dollar is going to be preserved.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: My last question for you, Yanis, is President Xi is
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: coming to our country September 23rd.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: 25th.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: There's a lot on the table. Some of it is AI.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: A lot of it will be about tariffs and potentially,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: like you said, some sort of detente style policy. What
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: are you looking for in that meeting? What do you
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: think that the most interesting results could come from it?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: And what's realistic also to expect?
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a very simple game of chicken
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: between the two sides. what the United States has, the cards,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: the strong cards, the aces of the United States, of
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: the administration, is their capacity to reduce aggregate demand in
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: China by blocking their exports to the United States, but
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: also indirectly to Europe through tariffs, through various other means.
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: And what the.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Strong cards of the Chinese side are, of course, is
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: rare earths, rare metals, and other products which are essential
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: for the AI boom in the United States, for the
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: military procurement process and so on and so forth. So,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: you know, they are entering a room, each one of
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: them carrying a big stick, a different big stick. And
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: if they're smart, they're going to set the big sticks
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: on the floor and find a mutually advantageous agreement.
• 47:51
  Speaker 8: That would be the ideal outcome for all of us.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Yanis Varoufakis, author, journalist, politician, and co-host of the Econoclast podcast,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: which I highly recommend and which is so aptly named
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: because you always bring a different perspective to things. Thank
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: you so much for joining us this morning.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: We appreciate it.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you, sir.
• 48:08
  Speaker 8: Pleasure.