Hello everybody.

This is a bit of a surprise I think for a lot of folks that we have another episode of History Impossible so soon.

Well, the real news here is that this isn't This wasn't technically a History Impossible episode.

It was a panel discussion that I took part in on my friend Chris Stops and Driesen's Eastern Border podcast, and not just with him, but with our friend Jack Johansson from the Secret Police podcast and our friend Zach Twomley from the When Diplomacy Fails podcast.

Got a superstar lineup, I guess we could call it, but anyway, this was an episode split into two parts for the Eastern Border podcast that Chris Stops was kind enough to send over well all of our ways to put on our own feeds if we felt the need, and I felt that that just in case there are some of you who have not listened to Christophs show for that it would be good for me to put this out there on the History Impossible feed as well.

So this conversation was all over the place in a good way, where we mostly spent time talking about diplomacy, the future of Europe, the possible, I would say probable death of the I guess we could call it the post World War two order of things and it, yeah, it all kind of It was interesting because as time went on, our numbers winnowed down Zach and the Leaf first, then Jacket Leaf after him, so then it was just me and Chris Jobs at the end, and we you know, just got into our usual me depressing him and then trying to make him feel remind himself rather that, as he likes to say, happiness is mandatory.

So yeah, it was a very fun conversation and I was really happy to be able to put this on the History Impossible fee.

Many thanks to all of you who support the show, and if you would like to support the show, head over to Patreon dot com, slash History Impossible or Historympossible dot subseac dot com.

After this, I'm planning to put out We've had a lot of interviews obviously, but I'm going to put out a proper narrative episode or a be a part of the polemics slash research duologies that I've been doing based on grad school work I've been doing.

And we have another one coming up in which the theme is imperialism.

So look forward to that, and in the meantime, please enjoy this.

Like I said, freewheeling long conversation with Chris steps Andresen's, Jack Johansson and Zach Twomley, I guess we could call it an impossible panel discussion.

I'll let me to tell you what you would have seen and heard.

If we'll not be pleasant listening, if you were at lunch, or if you have no appetite now it is a good time to switch the radio.

An ancestor of mine maintained, if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however, incomable.

Rivation, lesson banji out of it.

You know, general one.

Who knows that I desire you.

I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is inside.

I don't feel the laughing dream.

I feel a laugh in.

The night wood.

If we hear rashi to guilt, if we share assure to guilt.

Some say the world will end empire, some stay anie.

From what I've tasted of desire, I hold of those of favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice, I.

Think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great, and would suffice.

This is history.

Impossible, Great things, comrades, and welcome to all sorts of podcasts.

To be honest, it's not just Eastern border this time here, because yeah, what happened with with Trump and Zelensky within that meeting, that's really changed a lot of things.

And and just so happened that my good friends from Secret Police podcast history impossible.

And of course when diplomacy fails, all are here to talk about this stuff.

I hope that we managed to manage to have a meaningful conversation because oh boy, that was rough and it still has long lasting consequences, and there are some some some weird things about all this stuff inside Russia is those of you who listen to my show now, and of course well within EU and the United States and all over the place.

So I don't I don't even know how to start this, because that was super chaotic.

When I watched that happened, I literally bought a bottle of gin and I called up my contacts in the Foreign Minustry because I know our aide to our president, and well everyone was basically drinking and super sad at that day because for a lot of people, no one had seen anything of that sort done in diplomacy.

Well, ever, I had not expected any of this.

Let's start with let's start with I don't know.

Well, Zach, maybe maybe you can start, because you're the one with actual education in the matter, and this is your specialty.

But I don't remember anything of this happening.

Well, thank you for having me on.

It's a real pleasure to be here with a little like minded folks I have.

I have listened to you guys talking about my expertise and experience in the plahomacy.

You may have been misinformed.

Well, I mean well in sofar as like my PhD is in history rather than anything like to do with international relations.

Though I do have a degree in politics with international relations from UCD, so maybe I'm somewhat qualified.

So what I see a lot of talk of is like pragmatism and realism and all this kind of thing and going out those like those theories of international relations to make it sound as though the crazy shit you're doing is based on solid, like scholarly ground, when it is in fact not.

So I could talk to their warping of pragmatism and neorealism if we like, but certainly in terms of diplomacy, I actually just released an episode literally today a couple hours ago.

A cast took so long to load and it was quite a big, chunky But looking in that episode, it was kind of like, to me, I just I couldn't wrap my head around the so called diplomacy that was being done.

It looked almost like reminiscent of like nineteenth century imperialist diplomacy, like we're bigger than you, we want stuff, you have give it to us now.

Or tariff tariffs were themselves quite a useful British weapon in the nineteenth century and they could offer their their more friendly partners free trade access if they wanted access to the British market.

So this use of tariffs doesn't seem to be really working.

So that's the that's that tool of diplomacy kind of out the window.

When you can't use economic coercion, normally one turns to military coercion.

But let's hope we don't wake up and see that such and such a thing has happened to Canada or Greenland or the Panama can Now, let's just hope.

But yeah, thanks for having me on.

Excited to be here.

Just all of these started bits like well, what worried me the most is that it it looked like they were just incompetent and ill prepared in general, because I watch a lot of these political commentators and everything, and Okay, let let's first disassemble this stuff and then we'll get to to what it means.

Did you guys agree to the fact that a lot of people have been saying that this could been staged intentionally?

And my theory here was that I thought I thought that Trump noticed that he couldn't solve the war in the day, and then he had to put the blame on something, and he liked put In personally, so he just tried to, you know, push ze Lensky to appear guilty and then blame everything on him.

That was my random idea, but I'm not sure he I really intended that.

But what I would like to say here is that even less slightly less so than Trump, because Trump, in my idea, is easily manipulated by everyone around him.

But I think jd.

Vance needs to take the line's share of the blame and all this mess.

That's so, yeah, Alex, do you and then.

Yeah, I'll let Jack jump in after I'll try not to dominate with my like like I don't know feeling stars JD.

Vance.

I'll just call him, uh, I don't know, a massive, colossal, lumbering prick.

Was I was?

I was.

I was years old when i've when I found out that I was actually changed his name legally.

No kidding, I didn't know that either.

Actually, I I don't know a lot about him beyond uh, well, it's so funny that Zach brought this up.

I didn't even know we were gonna But I shouldn't be surprised that the school of quote unquote realism is going to come up, because that has always been in the background of the world that JD.

Vance lives in, like politically speaking in the United States, like they really love John Meherscheimer in that in the in those circles they they he doesn't come up as much surprise, only because you know, he's such a big figure.

But Henry Kissinger was part of that school too, so we're kind of dealing with people like that.

But I do also want to point out something that Zach said that just really resonated with me too, is that this does feel a lot like nineteenth century diplomacy.

For lack of better it's very much and this is not an accident.

This is I mean, you know, Trump in his inauguration just gave big ups to President McKinley, who was sort of the og of I guess, the nineteenth century progressive presidents, followed of course by Teddy Roosevelt, who is very much somebody that Trump sees himself as a kindred spirit.

No, no, please don't.

I will take it as a personal insult because I actually.

I mean, Teddy Roosevelt is hard.

He is a hard one to sort of let go of, especially for a lot of US Americans, because we do like him.

He He's very much a personality, and I get this horrible feel that that's going to be how Trump is seen by a lot of people in about one hundred years.

He was a personality, is a personality, and it's in that same sort of like big sense.

Now, obviously there's no comparison when it comes to the actual beliefs, because I don't think Trump really has many, at least compared to Teddy Roosevelt.

But my point being is that Zach is absolutely right that Trump is handling diplomacy, or if you want to call it that, I guess you could say geopolitical awareness.

In a very nineteenth century capital p progressive kind of way.

I've been working on something about that with him, with somebody else, and it's a very interesting dynamic and you can really see it, especially with his interest in Panama and Greenland.

I mean, that's very much the same mos the as the Teddy Roosevelts and Woodrow Wilson's of their time, because especially Woodrow Wilson, he was very much involved in Latin America in similarly bullish ways.

But regardless, I think you're right to go back to the main conversation that sparked this conversation, and that is I don't even know if you want to call it a conversation, but the diplomatic reality TV show we can call it.

It really was something that jd Vance I think leapt on.

I don't know if I obviously I can't say it was an ambush from the get go.

It did feel just based on you know, the timing, the body language and the stiltedness of it all, it did feel very calculated, So I'd be willing to go that far.

I think it was essentially Trump letting his mini me, for lack of a better way of putting it, treating a very serious diplomatic meeting like it was a Twitter dunk on the campaign trail.

That's what I found so offensive about it.

And I mean, I'm not Crubio meanwhile, was also this soul was just dying as it was going on In what was that, Zach accidentally muted yourself when you started talking?

Please please sorry about that.

I just wanted to avoid feedback.

I just said, see Rubio, he looked like he was sinking into his chair in that one photo of him.

He looked like yet his soul had left his body and he was just a shell of his former self.

But isn't it isn't it just delightful to see someone sell himself out and then kind of realize that they're probably just being set up to be the fall guy all along.

Absolutely, and honestly it's one of those moments where I kind of am, like, you know what, I'm actually fine with Trump in the one respect of him throwing Rubio under the bus, because somebody who has that little self respect deserves that little respect from the rest of us, including the president.

But yeah, it was embarrassing.

Yeah, So that's basically my general thoughts.

I feel like we should let Jack chime into though, because.

What was your view on this, especially when it comes to the ambush theory that the people throw around?

Yeah?

Sure, and Christaps, thanks for having a song and this is always fun.

Look, I'm like Zelenski, I didn't think anybody.

I'm sorry, do you have the cards?

I do not.

I'm sorry, but yes, thank you for having me on as well.

I have a couple of I have a couple of decks of magic.

The gathering, oh very nice, perfect, perfect.

You know, I'm sort of like with Alex.

I don't know.

I guess I can't say if it's like if it was staged or not.

It definitely feels it felt calculated.

I have to admit I didn't watch the entire thing.

I really only like jumped in where probably most people jumped in, which is where jd Vance started to get combative with the Zelenski.

One thing I found really infuriating about the whole thing is at the very end, Trump's comment about saying this will make good television, That like really bothered me because I'm sort of thinking, like, man, this isn't this is this is real life?

Like this is serious?

Like this isn't this isn't funny, Like there are people's lives that's taken with his whole negotiations going on.

So that's what I found infuriating.

But also like what Alex was saying too, like that just totally matches like the whole like thinking, this is just like reality TV to Trump, which is it's disgusting in my opinion.

And Twitter to jd Vance because like that's seriously how he carries himself, like he's just having a Twitter debate.

It almost like his cadence feels like the kind of way he types on Twitter, and you know, maybe I'm overthinking it, but that's just what it seems like.

It's just an I mean, he spends his first like section of his comments that you know he made towards Lensky just dunking on the Biden administration, like I said, as if he was on the campaign trail, Like how is that helpful?

You know, right, like exactly, maybe Biden fucked up.

I don't, it's that's not this is not the place to air that, you know.

And maybe maybe jd Vance can't distinguished between like real life and online anymore.

Life is just like Twitter xts to him.

Yeah, I mean that's uh, I don't really know what about the matter.

I was just gonna say that Vance is just the most terminally online person.

That wouldn't surprise me if he sees everything through the through the lens of how many characters he might have in a given conversation.

Yeah, like many, but.

For for for us, not Americans?

Where did Vans come from?

Like, oh, he's he's a very from Ohio?

Right, Yeah, No, he has a very Honestly, if you just look at his backstory, it's very compelling from an American perspective, especially because it really is the ultimate rags to riches story.

He started as well.

He wrote the book He'll Billy Elegy.

I believe that came out in oh I don't want to get the date wrong.

It was like the mid twenty tens when that book came out.

They made it into a movie on Netflix even.

I mean, it was a huge book because he just talks about living in literal squalor in rural Ohio.

I mean, my family is from rural Ohio.

Half my family is, and so I can and and so they're big JD fans because he's their people, and it's very serious, like it's not a it's I mean, some people have accused him of just of it being a put on, but it's like it's not.

It really is a sincere thing for him.

However, there is that element of getting out of the ghetto kind of situation with him because he did transcend his you know, his upbringing.

He transcended where he came from, got in to Yale Law School, and it became part of the elite that he supposedly so despises.

That's sort of why I think a lot of people feel like his a lot of his story rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

I think both people who are from these impoverished regions of the United States, but also people who you know, feel like he's encroaching upon them.

So he really does have a lot of cultural power.

So I think we you know, I agree with you, Zach, that he is terminally online and that is his biggest, I think problem among a number of personality failings.

But that's just you know, that's my opinion.

I think his biggest strength, though, is is being able to produce that kind of reaction in people just by his mere existence of extreme love and extreme hate.

And I think we should take him seriously, I think that there is a very there's a very I don't want to say non zero.

That's almost like understanding it.

But there's a very real chance he'll be president in twenty twenty nine because of just that cultural power he possesses.

Trump's so hard act to follow, though.

True, and I agree with the person who put the puke emoji in chat.

I'm not saying it's a good thing.

I'm just saying I'm being a realist in this particular sense, but not in the geopolitical.

Sets, but talking about talking about what's what's what's coming from this this call situation?

Yeah, so, Zach, Zach, how does it look to you?

Are we are we now kind of how how percentage wise are we assured that put In actually you know that Trump actually is on Putin's side.

And there's this also a theory that now he's trying to rip away Russia from China and that's his big five D chessplot, which I don't believe it, but at least that because what would you how would you explain this called mess when you decide to you know, backstab your your all of your allies essentially and then you know, hang out with with the dictator a bud these or something.

Yeah, very good question with many multiple layers.

Like the episode I just released was called Trump Betrays Ukraine.

What is America thinking?

Or what is America doing?

Or something of that effect like it it is really it's such a it's such a seismic change that it's very hard to kind of now row down all the little all the little aspects to it.

But it doesn't really look coherent.

I think it's it's maybe they would say, oh, it's if you ask them, if you cornered them and manage them to get them to tell you the truth, they might say, oh, it's to separate Russia from China, but your CRUs steps.

I really don't really don't buy that, because Russia is far more tied and has far more reasons to be tied to China than it does to be tied to the United States.

I think Trump, if he has any thoughts about this matter at all, or if he's just going along with whatever latest thought came into his head, I mean, he just I think his idea maybe, and I'm probably giving him too much credit that in order to get Russia to the piece table, he has to flatter or Putin endlessly for that to actually happen.

And I'm sure that maybe those so called neo realists are what have you, in his cabinet, are thinking, yes, this is the ideal opportunity.

Didn't Didn't Mersheimer always hold that position that we should be more generous towards Russia because you know.

Russia will be key and yees.

So I think it's tempting to see a kind of straight line when there's probably a lot of squiggly lines actually not leading in any given direction.

One of the things that struck me was that a lot of this for us is so repulsive and so jarring and so alarming that whatever it is they are actually aiming at, in reality, we probably won't really know until not until it's too late, but certainly until they're much more further along.

So, although it's a very frustrating answer, I would say, we'll have to kind of wait and see what he actually does, because the real test will be the actual peace negotiations that are going to take a long time.

Despite what Trump claims, Putin's already made a lot of noise about not wanting to not wanting to stop.

Essentially, even though as krus STAPs has pointed out he kind of he's kind of damned if he doesn't.

Damned if he doesn't at this point.

But I think if you know, really was the goal here, if weakening China was the goal, then I don't know, I don't see it working even if that was the actual aim.

Like, China has territorial claims in parts of Manchuria where there is a lot of fresh water that they would certainly be interested in.

So if China was to and it's very sparsely populated as well.

So.

Saying that China's going to invade Russia, but I mean, Putin has many more reasons to stay friendly with Hijing Ping than he does to stay friendly with Trump.

I think that the actual long term is the only way we'll be able to answer so many of these questions.

But of course I'm here to kind of to kind of try and figure it.

Out with you guys.

But really the main goal for Putin is to try and take as many scraps as he can while Ukraine has been stabbed in the back.

So I think that's what he's going to do.

And like the actual impact of whether this will affect China in any way.

I think it's really just a distraction, but it's probably something Republicans would try and claim if even if there's very little actual very little actuality in it.

Chris STAPs, can I mention something because it gets directly related to that, because one, Zach, I love the way you put that the squiggly lions bit, because I do think the squiggly lions actually kind of is the methodology to a certain degree.

I think, I mean, maybe I'm being not charitable enough, but I don't think Trump really cares about much else other than his legacy.

Like he wants to be the guy who ended the Ukraine, the Brusso Ukrainian War, Like that's what he wants.

He wants to be Teddy Roosevelt again negotiating the end of the Russo Japanese War in nineteen oh five or six, whatever it was.

But he wants to have that in his legacy.

I don't think he really thinks about it much beyond that in terms of the straight line.

But I mentioned before we're recording, and actually Jack can maybe jump in on this too, because he saw the same interview I did with this journalist for Vanity Fair named James Pogue.

Who spent a very long time embedded in MAGA world.

He got to know Curtis Jarvin, the famous neo monarchist troll.

I guess we could call him who you know, despite his you know, pretty in my opinion, not very well thought out views, is very interesting.

But also people like Peter Teel and of course JD.

Vance, who is in that world.

He's like a very sincere believer in what Alexander Dugan calls the multipolar world thesis.

I think it, and I think that that actually might be I'm starting to think that that might be more of a happy coincidence.

I'm sure he's read Dugan or at least as aware of him, but I don't think he's like some acolyte or anything like that.

But according to Pogue, Vance's worldview and his ambition are actually very oriented towards seeing China as the adversary, not Russia.

And what's kind of ironic about that is that there is this kind of notion that focusing on Asia and the Asian sphere was kind of the priorities of a lot of people that Vance would otherwise hate politically, I would think.

But I think that they might have been looking at it a bit differently.

His attitude, though, is one of euroskepticism, according to Pogue, where he sees the old Trope in Europe, of the dangers to Western Christendom, the Eastern Steppe, Barbarians, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the Russians, that all of that is a dated way of looking at the world.

Obviously, I don't think that that really holds up in the face of you know, reality stereootis in the face with what Russia did to Ukraine.

But that fits into his you know, so called neo real view that just by existing, NATO provoked Russia into making the choices, or rather putin making the choices that he did, which is silly because it takes agency away.

But anyway, Vance sort of sees this world, this new world that we're going into, as not something it's not about Europe not needing to be concerned about these sort of things, but it's something that America doesn't have to be concerned with.

He's basically sort of a let's cut the cord, let's emancipate ourselves, let's emancipate Europe from American influence, which, to be fair, there is a lot of American influence in Europe in a lot of ways, so one can't say that that doesn't exist.

But he's coming at it from this very like.

It comes off as like I would call it a neo isolationist view, but he doesn't believe in just isolating America from everything.

He just wants to reorient our I guess we could say our negative interests towards China, and therefore that sort of explains the sort of friendliness that he is willing to push towards Russia.

So to what you're saying, Zach, I think he would say that, and he would openly say that if I don't think he would need to be pushed into saying it.

That's it's something that he has basically gone on the record saying already.

So I think that's the worldview that we're dealing with in the future right now.

It's kind of hard to say because Trump is kind of a wild card.

He again, I don't think he really cares He's able to be influenced by this worldview though, So I think that, yeah, that's that's sort of the that's the big question mark is Trump, Because I mean, I was I remember Chris Hops, and I think talked about this last time I was on where we were talking about how like Zelensky and Chris Tops said that Zelensky is you know, he's an actor, he's a show biz guy.

He knows how to talk to somebody like Trump.

So I don't think this kind of thing would have happened.

Had Zelenski and Trump just had a nice one on one in the Oval office with no cameras on, or maybe cameras on, I don't know.

I think it would have been it would have gone very differently.

But without this like this ideological sort of elephant in the room that exists via JD.

Vans and the other people in the administration that adhere to all of this stuff, I you know, without that, I think we'd be facing a very the administration would be much more similar to its first incarnation, which was more I think defined by incompetence than anything else.

Anyway, that that was a lot, And like I said, I know Jack Read watched the same interview I did, So maybe I left something out I want to, but I'll turn it over to whoever wants to go off that.

Oh yeah, no, I was just I was gonna say that.

That are you.

Are you?

Thinking that with a sort of like re orientation towards like interest in Asia, that Taiwan would sort of be like treated differently than Ukraine in this case where we would actually take yeah, I don't know, security, security guarantees differently.

That's the funny thing is, I think they have to be very careful like people like Jdvans politically, because again, you know, we are a very volatile player.

To put it mildly to our European friends here, predictable, unpredictable.

I don't think it would be smart for them to suddenly decide to be hawkish about Taiwan after going so hard in the paint in their rhetoric about how important it is to avoid war.

But if it was, you know, what their interest was in curtailing Chinese influence, they would want to interfere.

They would want to live up to the treaty we signed with Taiwan back in nineteen forty nine or whenever it was they would be obligated to if that was their real interest.

So I think, you know, if the intelligence estimates are correct that China is going to make its move in twenty twenty seven, that'll be the real test on how serious this worldview is.

And if they don't do anything about it, you know they'll they'll find a way to make excuses.

I mean maybe they've already said that, you know they could.

I'm sure Trump has said things about how you can stop Chijinping from doing anything to begin with, just by virtue of existing.

But I don't know I would find it.

I just mostly find it to be very interesting to see where the standards are going to go, how the gold posts are going to shift, because they're gonna shift, that's my prediction.

I don't think they're going to do anything to stop China from invading Taiwan.

I would be very surprised.

Interesting And and to your point about Zelenski and Trump for that matter too, being somebody somebody who people who are quite showy, like they're both showmen.

Really, do we have any idea of like what happened after like the big kerfuffle in the Oval office when they actually met without cameras.

M I don't Knowleski left a really I remember that one he was basically thrown out of the White House in a way.

It was Rubyo and uh Rubio and Michael Waltz I think were told Zelenski or Zelenski's aid or what have you, that he had to leave.

They Zelenski, despite despite that shit showed, Zelenski did want to stick around, so he was legitimately kicked out, although it wasn't phrased.

Although actually I.

Think I saw called kicked out in some places.

But yeah, it was Rubio and Michael Waltz being the being the messengers in that case.

I mean, I know what happened over here because I got an I got a nice call from from our services who decided that yeah, well with this highbrid of thetaction coming and that's why I'm aa be a refugee for a while.

So it struck me very personally as well, which wasn't It wasn't good.

But yeah, I'll be away from Lavia for about two months or so.

Yeah, Yeah, it seems like they well I believe you phrased.

You phrase it to me when we were talking.

You were like, they can't guarantee your safety as much as they use.

Basically because because a lot of people are like missing out and lack of communication and stuff.

Because the United States have pulled off a lot of the stuff that they did here amazing, like weird stuff.

One thing that I wanted to mention is that I think I said that on the previous episode two, but one of the people that I know in the intelligence community decided to basically move his business away from DC as well because he didn't just trust he doesn't trust Trump.

He doesn't trust Trump with actual sensitive data.

So he decided to just go and go out and basically just move his whole business to Canada just so he wouldn't have to give sense of information to Trump, which.

Is just so silly.

Yeah, I had a question, But if you're planning to get to this later, you know, we can table it.

But a lot of discourse in the United States that I know Jack has also seen he and actually talked on the phone.

I think about this a couple about a week and a half ago or something.

But the big sort of debate in the day or two that followed the blow up is called the blow up was well whose fault was it?

Which struck me as like it I don't I don't understand, like what, it doesn't matter whose fault it is?

Like what exactly?

Yeah, it's the result that's the important part, not necessarily.

Right, I mean, now, granted, I think it's fine to talk about it from a diplomatic perspective, and that's kind of why I would defer more to Christops and especially Zach on this.

I mean, because I don't feel like necessarily qualified, like I have.

I have a lot to say about the Russia Russia parts specifically, but I wanted to talk to Zach about the EU things because I know only from like my region what everyone's bearing, and we're working hard and trying to do our best and get stuff in order.

But uh, but yeah, I just wanted to ask Zach, well, how does it feel like they're over there in Ireland and everywhere?

I was like, how does the Western Europe feel about all this nonsense?

Yeah?

Not good.

I mean to put perspective like, Ireland is as much as as much as the Trump administration wants to needle the EU for like fre riding American protection.

Ireland is the ultimate free rider in everyone else's military protection.

Like we're neutral, We're not in NATO.

We are, of course in the European Union, but we enjoy the protection of the RAF.

At times.

Our air force is infantiesmally small.

I think we recently purchased six I'm not even sure it was f thirty five's.

It may have been a French model.

I'm not a military analyst, don't at me, but they purchased that and it was like this big deal, look at us getting these six points.

But the real issue for Ireland security is the fact that all of those undersea cables run right past us and is about as as fearsome as our air force.

So all these things really need to be worked on.

They are at the moment.

I don't want to go too nitty gritty into Irish politics, but there's been this, There's been this kind of system set up called the Triple Lock, where Ireland can only deploy forces and can only engage in any kind of like military activities if three things happen.

If one it's voted on in the doll in our parliament.

Two I think is that the President approves it, and then the third one is in the UN IS if a UN vote approves that military intervention.

So the latest talk is about removing or downsizing the Triple Lock to remove the UN element.

So, I mean, I think that's long overdue, considering how dominated the Security Council is by Russia at the moment, and the fact that well America seems to be very happy to vote on the side with Russia for those very shameful resolutions that.

Will pass a little.

The overall EU picture, I think it looks like I kind of I flutter between feeling like inspired and encouraged, and then I'd see a video or read a statistic and feel grim again.

Like the bottom line is that there's nothing that will replace American force in terms of how like fast and efficient and just established it is in Europe.

And then you have the issue of all the American weapons as well, Like it's it's one thing to say, Okay, Europe, We're going to give you, like a couple of years to wean yourself off the American security umbrella.

It's quite another to do this kind of rug pull, even if it hasn't been like officially officially officially like legislated for I did see that they're going to stop American troops are going to stop doing military exercises in Europe, Like that is a pretty big red flag there, But I was particularly encouraged.

This is one of the few bright sparks I think that I can see.

Was on Thursday, I believe there was a European Council summit meeting and an eight hundred billion euro defense package was passed, which essentially means that that eight hundred euro, that eight hundred billion euro is available to EU nations that want to tap in for extra finance for their military forces.

I've also seen a lot of talk about France extending its nuclear umbrella, but there are of course issues with that if they want to help out the rest of Europe with their parents.

France has tactical nukes whereas Britain does not.

But France has fewer nukes than Britain does.

But Britain's nukes are carried on mostly American missiles.

In fact, it's more complicated than that, like literally different parts of the missile.

Some are from America, some are from Britain.

So even though Britain owns its own warheads, its delivery system isn't as as independent as perhaps France's might be.

There has been some take up from this though, with the Germans and the Poles making some noise about maybe like talking with the French about this nuclear deterrent.

I also saw that.

Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, wants to increase the size of the Polish army from two hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand men.

And he also wants to bring in like military training and instruction for all able bodied men.

So this is starting to look a little bit, a little bit scary, you could say.

A little nineteen thirteen esque, right, nineteen fourteen esque.

I just wanted to mention that in our end, Lithuania and Poland basically just work together, because the paper just Lithuitia, but they do not think without the rest of the Baltics.

In Poland they started to do liminitary stuff with U with strategic weapons building with UH, with Ukraine with their stuff.

They're they're doing things, and that that's called that can also be a kind of a concerning thing.

But yeah, well, and I wanted to ask, and Commonwealth is back.

Oh yeah, well the facto as fun as I know from our diplomats, we are working, you know, on all the stuff pretty much like Baltic's plus Poland plus Finland are doing everything together at this point, like we're we are we are if you if you've noticed, we always you know, when something happens, we we all hang out together basically at all times.

Which is pretty neat.

Yeah, well that actually gets to something.

And Zach, you just keep lobbying these things at me that are right out of my notes that I wanted to ask about too, because you brought.

Up no, no, no, this is good.

This is good because when it gets into something that Christaps and I have talked about a lot too.

And as you just said, Chrisaps, you got up in the in that region, we'll just say, the eastern and northeastern Europe region all tend to lump together and essentially start acting like an unofficial security pact.

And that is something that you have stated in the past that you would like to see.

I mean, that's the one.

It's not really a concession, but it's like the closest thing to an anti NATO I guess position you might take.

And in that sense, what is kind of happening right now?

It seems to me and it's something I haven't really made up my mind on.

I more defer to the people who it actually affects.

It doesn't really affect me obviously, except supposedly with my tax dollars.

But I don't think I think that that's bullshit.

But in the sense that I probably it's probably a couple cents out of my monthly income.

But the point being is that there has long been talk, and it's funny enough, been the realm of the American left bringing this up.

Democrats usually didn't talk about it, but people who were like left of Democrats Bernie Sanders types you can say, frequently talked about how we needed to basically divorce ourselves militarily speaking from the world, and that included closing military bases in Europe.

That included basically, without saying it, decoupling ourselves from NATO and so forth.

There was a lot of rhetoric about it, a lot of sentiment about it, And what I think is happening now is unfortunately not like what Zach you were saying that I really it's what I sort of would like if we were to do that.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of this sort of emancipation occurring.

Is a more prudent, you know, slow paced, thoughtful way of doing things, which is not what we're doing.

And what seems to be happening is Trump is taking a as you put in a rug polling method, I wrote it down as a ripping the band aid off method.

Which again the word I would use, does I would use to say or I would say this again, it doesn't feel prudent to do it that way.

But at the same time, I understand from a political perspective, there's been all this talk about it.

I mean, in the United States, this has been a topic as far as I can remember.

It's been going on since the Iraq Wars really when it ramped up, so I mean going on like twenty five years almost.

So it does seem to me that there's been all this talk and it was eventually going to happen.

So I guess what I'm saying is maybe there is reason to see some to feel some hope, especially if you're in Western Europe.

I think that there is a very different attitude between Western and Eastern Europe in that respect, because there's different histories obviously, in different interpretations of external aggressors and so forth.

But I guess what I'm wondering is like, is this is this sort of move kind of inevitable, like was this going to happen?

And it's just maybe happening in a less than ideal way.

Because again, yeah, I'll let you answer to that answer that, yeah.

I feel like if that would be like a move away from the United States moving to more policies themselves.

First of all, I've always been critical of this because in my opinion, that encourages chot us to gymnastic things on their own.

Secondly, well, if it would have happened like not as super super suddenly you know.

Yeah, so just it's happened all at once, set of random and then that caused a lot of mess happening around mm hmmm, one thing any thing that.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, like, and to follow up with that, Alex too, like like in this is such a chaotic way of which this is happening, like you're saying or playing the band aid, yeah, and like I'm like, I feel like similar to you, to Alex, I'm sympathetic to the idea.

However, what is happening is instead of a like you said, thoughtful thought out Uh, well that's the same thing.

Thoughtful way and a pragmatic way of decoupling ourselves from Europe to a certain extent in a in a practical manner is not what's happening.

And I think there's a lot of suspicion of like what Trump's motivations are with this, especially considering just like the the the perception that he has some that he's just like very cozy with Putin, right, Like, it's not a this is not like a time or regime where where a president is doing this out of like self interest for the country, but maybe self interest for himself in some sort of like personal relationship that he has with with with a person that frankl is a dictator, and this is this is exactly what Putin wants it.

It's funny too, because I think when it's funny when people say that Trump is cozy with Putin, I think that that does ring a little hollow these days because of everything that happened in his first term.

But what I would agree with when with the use of the word cozy is that I think he cozily looks at Putin and mister she As my father in law who is Chinese likes to call him.

He sees them as friendly competitors, like like you know what I'm saying, Like it's he sees them not as enemies in the way that say the previous administration or I think pretty much every administration has in one way or another, though we can't forget that George W.

Bush that he looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul.

So I think friendliness to Putin is not unique to Trump in that respect.

But point being is that I think he sees them as great power competitors in again that very nineteenth century spheres of influence, multipolar world kind of west.

Sure, and that helps explain why he's like saying things that they are outlandish.

I was about to say Sea Mountain age, they are outlandish.

The Gulf of America thing is probably the least outlandish.

The Panama Canal thing is actually the least outlandish, ironically enough.

But Canada is the fifty first state or Greenland annexation, stuff like that, that kind of whiting.

What was that red white and blue land?

That is what that?

Yes, red white and blue.

Oh yeah, I love that.

Okay, now I support it.

I support it well.

I just want to distrow out there, like I think what he's doing is he's just doing this weird pale imitation of being like I'm gonna take Taiwan, so to speak, or Gaza al Lago.

That was the other one that he was gonna do.

That was very oh yeah, like that was very teddy Roosevelt ask in that respect, let's go to the other side of the world and just establish a weird colony that nobody that we don't really need.

Yeah, that's my point is that I think he's doing his version of saying of taking Ukraine, of taking Taiwan.

By taking these other territories, he's trying to show that he is like them, he's strong like them, and that's not a good thing.

I'm not saying that, saying it's understandable, that's all.

It's you can understand it that way.

I think, Yeah, it's like why I have fifty one states when you can have fifty two.

Or fifty four.

Well, put In, Uh yeah, because I don't want to I don't want to keep sitting behind me and reading stop book for too long.

But uh, before we move on to this stuff, two things are out there.

First of all, from what I see with with put In and his friendliness and all this stuff, he's just you know, that's what he portrays on the outside.

Inside the country, he's been always motivating everyone about how America is this evil, big beast, and he's been explaining why he hasn't been succeeding at this conflict by explaining that it's actually Americans who fighting against Rassia and they're using Ukrainians as their proxies.

So and then now they kind of have to switch it around, and that causes a lot of foster.

But we'll get to the FoST later on, because with the white Knicks and everything, because the hardliners are unhappy and they have a massive cognitive dissonance.

But yet two days two days before that whole mess happened.

Basically put In was like angry at Trump about about the idea of peacekeeping everything.

And then we've seen all all of Lovarov's statements and everything.

Yet yet and this is why I actually called called edit then because for her, Russian is a native language and she's a linguist.

See, the thing is that at this point we've reached the silliness, and I kind of wanted to do this separately, but I wanted to introduce some brevity to the show.

Basically, we have we have.

What we have here are our two poems for you, basically funded by the Russian government in a collection of poems by Kiril Semyonov, which literally was printed out in this collection of poems, and the whole collection is called Donald Trump is a Friend of Russia, a collection of poems.

So so we have I have two of them, and now now I invite it to come over.

She's gonna read, she's gonna read both of you, both of them to you and in Russian.

Well start with one and then you know she's gonna read one, and then we're gonna comment on this from the literally aspect.

And of course I have translations English as well for me, but the original Russian is important so that you understand that it doesn't actually rhyme for starters.

So honey, honey, please do say hi to the Nize people.

Over side.

So hi, ever one, Hello, I have been summoned to read some fine poetry.

I'm doing air quotes now and Christap sent me this while I was working, as I was not having it bad enough to work on a weekend.

I also had to say this, so now you will hear.

Now you will have to experience it as well.

So Donald Trump, natieresh Demira, Donald Trump, the Hope of this world, Donald Trump, natieja de mira, youradnui americi democratias amerki noki astraa was his Shenya paul Nea, but visited, I beat the crowd.

Noya please kiradesty, Yeah, marislov is niaga rust mm hmm, shasty is sorry.

Uh, I was just laughing a little bit chesty is kremn Glass.

There's just one Chilevich raskas Iliot streetch if Streechnoga streech Lutika.

The preaching of John ter Rich Lavani prost Galicia, special premier privately reci.

Okay, so so quick.

Ngish version basically is that because yeah, for first of all, it's really really in this poem.

America is rhymed with America.

But we'll get to that short version.

Donald Trump is the hope of the world.

Donald Trump is the hope of the world and native America.

I don't know why the democracy is forgot back all of America, grandchildren and children in the whole country.

Admiration is full.

You can't let your friends down, and our grudges are bloody.

Births of joy in the motion and hugs of joy, the sea of words and snow crunching and the or peaks, the happiness sparkling eyes, the I Am of the people, a human story and a cheerful face meetings, meetings, many meetings.

People are like relatives.

The speech is perfect in some way, but the words are not simple.

There is no tremor in your voice.

You save the country beautifully.

The rulers of Russia are an example to follow.

Yeah, I mean, now like original Russians.

It sounded a bit better and it's sort of sort of rhymed slightly.

And also Russians praising democracy that Trump somehow returned.

Yeah, it's just some oxymoron at this point, and all of this is just some picturesque bullshit.

Basically saw what they tries to praise Donald Trump and say some things that sound poetic and beautiful to them because Donald Trump, YadA YadA, Blue mountains, Yeah cool.

Yeah, but this this poem, this poem, it's not even the worst one.

We have another one which is which has like the title or title out there.

It starts with Pride of America, Donald Trump, you are the genius of the world.

Donal Trump, the guiney mirror, Donald Trump, the guiney mirror, the America miscli mirr ti imperius as well, give us Voidniba screw beligium shasta.

Yeah, very resim s platinum, very the kim slavam nimms a toilespor not jeta prostes to no readam toye.

Yet I would have rhymed it with its side note uh, Donald Trump or Lusha islovastat it was a Joshna Crutius nova.

So at least there is slight crimes.

But but are you ready?

Because if I just read this to you in English, you won't understand that someone actually tried to make this a poem.

So here we go.

Donald Trump, you are a genius of the world.

You raised America not from her niece, but to the heights of the world.

You created them.

You've built skyscrapers, you've made people happy.

And your enemies, well, they're told they're ugly bastards.

Basically, that's what what Rod says.

They say, you're lying.

I don't believe these rumors.

I don't believe such words.

It's not just summer afternoons.

It's only weirdos, whether it's the sun or the arguments.

Actually, the silence, only pitts and mountains declare war.

Somewhere there's joy, Somewhere, there's sotow Somewhere, there's just the beating of hearts.

Somewhere there's a puddle, somewhere there's a sea, and there is your father, Donald Trump.

Listen to your father's word, and you'll climb the hill again, and you will smile like you always do.

With this one, I actually agree his father in a puddle.

Probably at least this one tried to say something.

But about the father, what do you think christ is?

It's the big jay man.

The Jesus is called here.

I don't know.

It could be many thanks, to be honest, but well we'll get to that.

That's gonna be like my question to you guys.

But the short story is that if America had been the great enemy and they had been like yelling at America all this time, and now they're posting this and this is crange, not only when you read his English, it is crange all over the place, to the point where Igor Girkin's bodies in Maxim Colasnikov they are saying that the old man must have gone and sane, because yeah, this guy, I googled this one up.

He got to like for this collection of poems he got, he got about fifteen thousand dollars from this day.

Yeah, Esus, it's amazing.

Meanwhile, Meanwhile, by the way, the Federal Secret Service, like Trump like put in his personal guards, right.

I mentioned this in pres episode.

They make about nine hundred dollars a month, and that's if you've served for two months or something.

At this point, like this is so crange and awful and creates such a cognitive dissonance that, yeah, well you can rest assure that no one is going to be very much excited to just run back and do things, because they're already preparing to just one because always what I think's going to do is like they want to win, you cry, and that will somehow magically fix Russia because currently they're right now making militias to overthrow put In.

Once the war ends, they at least hope too.

But there's gonna be tons of repressions.

But yeah, this is the level of Russian propaganda about about Trump.

I think that it's important to to kind of notice.

It reminded me so much of the I'm pretty sure it was the O A N or one American news network person who is at the Zelenski Trump vance meeting.

I am maybe one of you guys know what I'm talking about.

But they literally ask like they were to you.

I'm sorry what I'm still sorry you had to hear this.

But this is what we deal with every day.

Also when I have free day, every morning starts with the Russian propaganda.

So it's family thinks you have just experienced it.

I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing like waking up with Russian propaganda in your cup, honestly, exactly.

I mean, if it's I it's like, if it's like this, I mean, I really wanted to ask, what's with Trump's father?

I don't know.

I actually don't.

I don't know.

I know, I'm not read into I've not read into the biography of Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, same, I haven't other than the military school, right, and he left him a chunk of money.

Yeah, that's the small inheritance, right.

Yeah.

But but like one thing though, is that Yeah, and this this is like I said, this isn't a parody, This isn't something that's freaked out.

This They write this with a straight face, and they read this on national television as an example of how America is now super friendly.

Well, and that's what I was trying to bring up, is there was this there was this guy that I believe it was one America News Network or somebody who asked Trump a question at the Zelenski meeting and said, and it was essentially like why are you so great?

It was something along those lines what you're talking about?

Yeah, asking the most like low ball questions.

I mean, are these poems going to be on Kanye's new album?

That's what I want to know.

Well, he said his new sound is anti Semitic.

He announced that what, yes, I won't derail us with Kanye.

I will promise I already know.

One other thing though, is that apparently they played enough money to our our good old friend Dulgan, which with with whom we have special relationships here with Yes, at Dugan, I also gave out praises, saying that this is exactly the sort of poetry that the new, reviving, glorious Russian world needs.

And if you had any reasons why not to want to live in the Russian world, then yeah, the poetry is really bad.

Well, you know who recently gave speaking of Vatniks, who gave basically Dugan a tongue bath on his show on Rumble, I believe was our friend Glenn Green, who I never ceased to regret.

Like the brief window of reassessment I gave him in twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two because I should have just gone with my gut.

I've hated that man since the mid twenty teens when he was being an asshole after Charlie hebdo happened.

The man is like whatever principles he has, I don't know where, like what they are beyond like being a contrariant asshole.

And like I said, I try, I want to promise not to be too spicy, but that's basically my view on that man.

And I don't know if you saw this, Chris stops.

Actually there is one thing to point out, and I think this is a good way to I don't know if votnik would be a good word for it, but it's a really good indicator of who actually cares about stopping the war, like who actually cares about peace or whatever?

Who cares about being America first quote unquote, you have someone like Greenwald on Twitter criticizing I believe it was the finish PM, but just basically criticizing Youruropean leaders for getting together and trying to uh no, it was Estonian.

Actually, I think it was the Estonian leader I forgot her name, but basically called her yeah and called her a warmong green pig, which I'm like, you know, these people have a right to defend themselves, and now you're criticizing them despite being off I'm more.

Offended about the big parts.

She's actually quite quite well.

Look, you guys have like incredibly leaders up there.

I'm just going to say that, but yeah, no, the but yeah, he's he's now not only content to say, well, America shouldn't be supporting Ukraine, no one else should be supporting them either.

And when I hear that, that's when I'm like, Okay, I don't like accusations of being a Russian stooge being thrown around as much as they because again, unless you're an American and you didn't hear it probably as much as we heard it for like five years straight.

But in the in in that context, when you're saying to other nations that have their own interests that they shouldn't defend themselves or be preemptively defensive against an via aggressor like Russia, that's when you're starting to just basically be a Russian stooge.

To me, it's just like it's there's no real subtlety at that point.

Yeah, right, like, how how dare they have agency?

Right?

Right?

Exactly?

Yeah, I mean I gotta say I saw glenderin Will speaking at my university in like twenty thirteen.

Okay, okay, that was when he was high on his high high on the the what's.

The nauffy snowdent supply?

It's all high on stdent supply.

Yeah, it's all white powder exactly.

Yeah, I won't say anything about snow dings.

I don't know.

I mean, yes, obviously it looks really bad now that he has taking refuge in Russia, but he took refuge when it wasn't the world's circumstances were not the same, at least not from the American perspective of things.

Yeah.

Sure, by the way, the had Americans.

I have another thing to throw it to you, because of Steven Seagull Russia.

So I've been down the rabbit hole about Steven s lately.

So yeah, he's a totally hordible person.

But but I don't know, Russia is now sort of using even him as a weapon because apparently he managed to speak with some Ukrainians and then those Ukrainians were afterwards bruly torture to find out.

But what did they say to him and all that stuff?

It's just that uh and then Trump Trump kind of reminds me of Sigal, except politically in a way.

That's it.

Yeah, Yeah, like he had a he had a time in the sun at one point, maybe a little too much, well in his case, yeah maybe, though I can't imagine a man that age having a real tan and not having some horrible kind of melanomas somewhere.

Yeah.

I love his like most recent sort of like action movies where he's just so lethargic and not agile whatsoever, but they like try to make him look like a tough guy.

It's honestly about this about this tough guy.

Look.

By the way, I want to want to come back to to what Zach said earlier here is that you know he'll be the Trump will probably be remembered for like the wrong reasons.

I I if Europe manages to pool it's shipped together basically, and if if like if Russian economy and all this stuff, because they're they're ready, they're they're going on for for a massive mess there no matter what, because hasn't been still hasn't been back home from everywhere.

You know.

I I have weighed the day, and I'm a hundred percent sure that trule say that.

Oh no, I did all this on purpose to goalvanize Europe one hundred percent, just one hundred percent, And that'll be one of the biggest lives ever because I'm sure he'll do that.

I'm sure he'll do that, because he'll find a way how to claim some sort of credit.

And the worst part is someone's actually going to leave all all this stuff.

And also that's.

Yeah, the thing is, the thing is yeah, and I just wanted to come like he also was fact checked by Macron, by Keir Starmer and say what you want about the British, but like, let's see, I was surprised.

I don't think Trump knows what the Commonwealth is.

Actually, no, I thinks Spain is in great.

I think most Americans, if you ask them what the Commonwealth was, they wouldn't be able to tell you.

They probably say Boston or Massachusetts, like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But but all those guys in Boston, though they think they're your people, they always love to tell you how they're your people, right, Zach oh yeah, Jesus.

Yeah.

I went there for saund education in twenty eighteen and a lot of had a lot of people tell me that they were in fact as Irish as me, So that was interesting.

The only American is allowed to say that, and it's been proven as Codin O'Brien who took the DNA test and he is one hundred percent Irish.

Exactly exactly.

At least they know, at least they know that your country exists, you know.

Yeah, you probably couldn't pick it out on the map.

Though, I mean, it's not that hard.

You're the island, You're an island over there.

It's carobably that difficult kind of well, we're bed, we're beside.

A big island, a big island that liked to try to make the small island another one of its islands several times.

Exactly.

Yeah, No, Ireland is the only EU country I've been to, so, I mean, I can pick it out, but I am not the norm I would think in that respect.

Where'd you go out Dublin?

I was I was probably looking at well, I don't know when you were.

You were at Trinity, right, yeah, twenty nineteen to twenty three.

Then that was okay.

Yeah, that was a number of years after I was there in twenty thirteen, so it was a while ago.

Oh yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, I do want to go back, and let's we can save that for another I the listeners are going to be riveted by us.

I'd be like, Oh, Dublin's also as much as.

Starting Alex just starting a travel blog.

It's an interesting spot because Dublin is if you fly to the United States from from here, then you want to normally you want to fly through Dublin because oh yeah, they have this pre check thing so you can do it, like all the paperwork.

Mm hmmm.

Yeah, see that.

That's another kind of awkward thing, Like even though we're neutral, the American military regularly stops in Shannon Airport, which is to the west, like on the western kind of side of the island.

That's where the American military often stops over while there on the way to like giving Israel military like equipment and ammunition and bombs and stuff.

But yeah, that's that's kind of a subject of controversy because we're supposedly neutral, yet we allow America to land and refuel and rearm when it goes back and forth.

So oh yeah, yeah, not to unearth like a more controversy.

But that's another area where some decoupling was looking like it was maybe gonna happen.

But you know, the Trump administration is even more pro Israel than the Biden administration was, so and a.

Lot of it.

Yeah, yeah, and again that was that was one of those moments I don't want to we won't dip into that subject.

There was a lot of miscalculations I think in the part of a lot of anti Biden pro Palestine camps in the United States based on that.

I'm just pointing out that there there's a lot of Israelis who have been clamoring for this kind of thing that we're sort of you know, we've been talking about in the relation to Europe, which is cutting the cord.

Jacob Siegel is one.

He's very much because Israel does not need the United States has help when it comes to tech or funding or anything like that.

And it sounds like, and I would defer to you guys in this that Europe doesn't really need the United States has help all that much.

It'd be nice to have it not be so chaotic though.

Likes the thing is that we we we need it in certain aspects because we we we don't we have the money, we don't have like the mandpower or the activity stuff and every right, yeah, and because if what we don't have right now is definitely sort of time.

But I think, I think what we really need to do to strengthen ourselves is we need to prepare for the worst.

Obviously, but what's really gonna happen is that we're gonna have to, you know, watch out for massive act.

Russia is gonna export tons of terrorism.

There's gonna be tons of chaos there anyways.

That that's sort of a big thing.

What I don't get mostly is how I mean, I understand why, because it's you have to be very very panicky and hardcore about this to get anything done, because otherwise, if if you're a paid leaders, wouldn't kind of overplay, overplay the Russia's current abilities actually you know, launch a massive invasion in Europe, then well then probably nothing would get done.

So I understand why they do this, but I don't think that the three years invasion time is anywhere realistic with with Russia everything, because they just don't have they don't have the second Army, or anything.

What they do have are are terrorists and lots of trouble and a bunch of people who are like who are not caring about anything anymore, who are not actually you know, the most competent of them, preparing to struggle with with leaders themselves.

However, Europe does need to re a massively and we need to invest in our own in our own kind of defense capabilities, I think right interesting, by the way, which is.

So that's one thing I wanted to ask when we were talking about like, well the great blow up, as Alex put it, it is if if there are serious peace talks or even some sort of piece that is achieved, is there any reason to think that these like terrorists or arson attacks that are happening in Europe will will stop?

And I don't really, I don't really, I've heard I've seen some reporting on it.

I think Zach and Christops would be better able to speak to like how how how serious, or like like upfront that sort of stuff is.

Well for for a while, cables are being caught constantly and and I'm being literally told to move away because yeah, well.

I was gonna say, when it comes to the attacks of you know, these grow this growing trend of Islamist and jihadist attacks, it's mostly seems to be affecting Germany above all else.

I don't, no, it's not it's not it's not that.

It's not that.

It's just like it's caught cables and in prime like tons of tons of propaganda.

It's being spewed all and all this stuffs to that to what.

I was trying to what I was trying to I was bringing that up because that that kind of thing.

I mean, I'm going to sound conspiratorial, but that is not, to my mind much of an accident, because what that does, especially in Germany as we saw, drives up support, especially in the East of alternative fer deutsch Land, which is the you know, the party that Elon Musk aims is the Savior of Europe or whatever.

I'm like, I think I've seen this episode before.

And they're more amenable to putin like a party deutsch.

Russia used to pay Taliban for kill the medical soldiers.

I mean, yeah, why isn't anyone talking about that?

That's that grinds my game.

I have literally never heard that.

There are many things that people are just not not talking about.

And in a lot of cases because it's like maybe too polite or something because I don't know, but Russia has been actively dealing with with UH with their own like with there is all the time, and then they have some some of their own issues to Jikistan is going to be a massive mess for this as well.

The Jikistan is is basically they have this ice k thing going on there and in them and they're just also migrating all over the place.

It's just that they're going to to Russia.

It's just just a mess.

The one one two things that I wanted to play like ask you about is one is concerning China, because we've now seen China being much more friendly to Europe.

They recently came out and officially stated that Europe is a friendly partner and everything.

Do you guys think that China might be trying to be more friendly to Europe so that in their own plans, if they want to go after Taiwan, then well then you know, Europe might might you know, close an eye on that one.

And secondly, we of course have one if one one could go full on mercenary enough to be you know, accepted in the EU, and then you have like a lot of its problems with military solved.

But but yeah, it's this one being ed.

The one is like the more normal thing.

I just really cared about China first of all from the photo and policy perspective.

Please please, Zach give it, give me your opinion, because I don't understand what China is doing, because, like you said, they've been doing with every they they've been dealing with everything.

But currently we had news that there were Russian officers in Ukraine, and people were speculating that Russia China might the China might send officers to to Russia, just as North Korea did.

But my theory is that they went there, saw how horrible everything was, and then they came back and said, no, no, we have the Europe's side on this one.

Or are they being reasonable?

Like what's going on there?

And then I'm gonna have some comments with Alex, but I'm leaving Alex for the end on this one because otherwise he'll just talk for three hours about this mess.

Yeah, I'll take that up.

Look, one of the things I wanted to I forgot to mention earlier.

It seems like all these these neorealist fanboys, if indeed they are that kind of of that kind of persuasion in the White House.

They never seem to have heard of the concept of a power vacuum like ever in their lives.

That's one of the things that really don't understand about this turn in American policy, because when we talk about america true presence in Europe, it's not just the common Defense and like, realistically, are they ever going to be used in war?

I mean, there's several thousand of them in Germany.

Is Germany going to be attacked?

No, not necessarily, But by being there they exert influence and by being there's a kind of a familiarity, and there used to be kind of camaraderie there that reminds European governments almost that America is like their partner.

And if America, abruptly, as it is doing, just vanishes from the scene, then I'm not sure how tempted Europeans will be to like welcome China with open arms.

I don't really see that happening.

I think this is more a move towards like genuine military independence, turning the EU from an economic kind of power union into a more military, hard power union.

But I do notice like the Chinese recently signed a deal with Ukraine to get peace, which prompt people to say, just give peace a chance.

So there's like there's some there's some strange stuff going on with that.

But I actually think in this respect, China is the real, nearly realist power.

They are looking at the situation.

They know that Russia is struggling despite the propaganda coming out from that, and of course they know firsthand how much actual assistance they have given Russia.

So they are probably looking to the European Union as potentially a place where they would have more of an opportunity to exert influence and maybe not even necessarily like malign It could just be mutual, mutual kind of interests.

And if America leaves the scene, that does leave an opportunity for not Chinese soldiers in Germany for that example, but just more to have more of a familiarity with China and to remove this idea that China is the big, bad kind of thing.

Like I don't know how successful that will be, but if they do, like if China expands say it's Belt and Road initiatives into Europe, like it's already done some stuff in Serbia and in Italy, so I know that it's gonna it's gonna have an eye on like assisting Europeans with their infrastructure, and that would be how China would exert its soft power in the EU.

I'd say there will probably be a bit of resistance, depending on how lightly or heavily China treads.

But that's one of the things that really boggles my mind about what Trump is doing.

It's because there is going to be like unintended consequences and for all the if China is to America the redep down that they're trying to get to by by detaching Russia from it, like you're actively empowering China and granting it new opportunities to build new relationships in Europe that it wouldn't have been able to build had America still been there.

Like the real question will be what happens in the next few months or so, depending on how successful the EU is with like rebuilding its mobilities and arming successfully.

If it can do that to the point where it doesn't feel like it needs any kind of bigger brother or even just common partner, then the China's success in the military sentence will be less.

But in the economic sense, and in building infrastructure and expanding Belton Road that could open doors which maybe wouldn't have been there before because they didn't want to offend the Americans.

So I think China's just taking the advantage of the fluidity and the suddenness of the situation, and it certainly does its reputation no harm to appear like a more calm and consider it partner than the Americans, like just by comparison they favorable at this moment, although of course I think you'd be hard pressed to find any Europeans who don't realize that there is a sinister element to what China is trying to do, even if it would probably cautiously and calmly and less kind of openly if it was to do something that would actively harm European interests.

But it's all about the about building influence, and by leaving this power vacuumen in Europe, Washington is making it actually possible.

And then of course you mentioned Serbia too, because that stuff might might blow up soon as well, because who's it always does Because Voci had signed the declaration like a cost of all might actually be a next next place of actual major conflict, as I see personally, Oh no, not again.

Because I'm not being funny that Actually the.

Funny comes back to the The funny part was someone, someone, somehow have has approved that Serbia and Albania will host together jointly the I think twenty twenty seven under twenty three like Youth Euros in football, which is just wow.

Whoever came up with this idea.

Envelope just gonna say, You're gonna have to explain this to those of us who call it soccer the.

Thing talking about talking about soccer.

You guys host the World Copped in twenty twenty six together with Canada Mexico.

How is that gonna go?

I that is just a question.

It might just be America at that point.

I don't know, I have no Yeah, that will be interesting.

Did Jack, did you want to say something about China?

Because I mean, I had a couple thoughts, but I wanted to respect Chris Hops's request I go last.

I mean, I guess like other than what Zach was saying about, some a sinister element to what China could do in Europe, at least economically speaking and with soft power, China at this point could could be certainly a much more predictable or do I say stable partner if that fills that sort of power vacuum, if that's what Europe desires and if that's something that we can't fill for sure.

But about the soft power, by the way, well I would like to they like point you out at a country that has actually very much used this soft power.

I'm talking about Rounda because if you remember their their current conflict with with d RC isn't the first one they happened to do one I think about twelve years ago and then they got thrown with all the sanctions and everything.

So what Rwanda did is that they just made themselves the good guys.

They are now in every peacekeeping like they're they're the second largest contributor to the Nations peace keeping things.

They are really promoting themselves in the Premier league as well with the with it Rondo shirts.

They they're trying to promote, you know, their friendship to the West and now everyone's just very much like very very slower to do any sanctions on them.

But you know that's that's their Hutu and Tutsi conflict ongoing.

But China could do something similar.

I feel like if they they could like cozy up and make it just more difficult when they want to do something, you know, just.

Like ethnic with like ethnic tensions within certain European countries, that kind of thing.

Not like when I'm talking about like China is going to do like rand the cozy adopt to EU and they and like, oh, I see that's type of thing.

And now now they're just basically mining their minerals, except they're doing this in DRC, right.

Yeah, I was gonna say China's has a pretty strong colonialist stranglehold on the DRC because of conflict minerals, specifically cobalt, which is partly why it's really hard to pinpoint what China is doing because, as you said, Zach, they are I would actually say they're kind of like the only true og neorealist like country in general.

They've been that way for I mean, I don't want to exaggerate it, but really since deng Hao PEG took over in a lot of ways, I mean, so they they've always had their eye on the ball in that sense.

But the problem with China is that they're kind of a black box when it comes to their internal governance.

So it's harder and I'm not saying that it's easy to say with Pout, but it's with China.

They have a very strong party apparatus in place, and the best we can really like guess about with them is, you know, comes from just observations that trickle out every now and then.

I mean at this point that you know, I spoke of mister She earlier potentially as if he has like unilateral power, but he doesn't.

They're actually in the last about I think it's been about now, like four or five months, there's been reports, at least in English language publications that he is no longer as unilateral in his influence as it might have originally seemed.

I actually first noticed this just watching a random Instagram real video, So of course I took that with a grain of salt because it's Instagram basically no better than TikTok.

But sure enough he is he mister She is now facing a lot more challenges from within, including from elder statesmen like wen Jiabao, who was sitting next to him.

Yeah, he was sitting next to him at a I think it was the New Year's Eve tea party or something.

I don't remember where it was, but yeah, him and I'm not I'm gonna butcher his name Lee ruij Juan, Lee Rui Huan.

It's definitely not right.

But also what this one publication I'm looking at called the Jamestown Foundation, Uh, they were talking about quote unquote princelings who are based overseas like Jung Yoshia, and also people in the military and people in the middle and entrepreneurial classes.

So there's a lot of pressure internally facing mister Shei.

So he is not as unilateral in his ability to make decisions.

Now, he's probably not gonna get overthrown.

I think that that's kind of clear.

I remember there was some speculation when there was all those tanks going down the Chinese Highway towards Beijing.

I have no idea what that ended up being.

I would just assume it was a military exercise, but I have no idea.

The point being is that I think what's happening with these with these worries that we have about China, is that we always have to consider that there is a certain like I guess tempering aspect that happens from within that we don't always expect to happen.

So it could be that they are taking a softer approach, and that's just going to be their approach now because they saw everything that happened with Russia and are kind of recognizing that maybe these kinds of bullish actions, including taking Taiwan, is too much trouble or more trouble than it's worth.

I don't think that that mister She has moved an inch on wanting Taiwan, but he could very well be be being quite pragmatic about it, especially because of the pressure of people within his government and within the upper echelons of Chinese society putting on him.

Because there's a lot of economic interest tied up between the United States and China.

Even with all this hostility coming from the Trump administration, it doesn't just make those ties go away.

So I have to wonder, like how much sort of behind the scenes venageling is going on.

So I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about China, but I am saying that we have to consider that they are indeed a more rational actor, despite mister She's best intentions to show himself as being anything, but.

This was talking about rational actors.

This is what I what I feel kind of weared out is I watch this William Williams Spanel Guy on YouTube, and he said that a lot of people speculate about how rational Trump is with all his actions, and that he started out by explaining game theory that it might be useful maybe for someone in global geopolitics to, like, if they're perfectly rational, to pretend that they're not or something.

And I want to again, Zach, is this like, how how much do you think game theory is involved in this?

And how much is just well more or less competence.

Yeah.

I actually ascribed to William Spaniel's channel, But the whole game theory thing, I would put it in the same drawer as the kind of near realist thing.

I mean, it could it's very possible that jd.

Vance subscribes to that idea.

But I don't think Trump.

I think we give him too much credit, like he's I really don't think he follows any prescribed theory or anything like that, because he probably see it as like too limiting for what he wants to do in the world, whatever that might be.

I think it is just incompetence, and I actually think even some of the reaction to it kind of shows that, Like the stuff with the tariffs, he rolled it back.

I don't think he's going to roll back what he's trying to do to Ukraine.

I think that's going to be a long, painful journey for everyone.

But I think that he he doesn't really he doesn't really think things through or like try and justify them in his head by any like any kind of theory before actually acting, and then when he faces the consequences, he seems often like surprised by that.

So yeah, I think it's more just Trump being like the usual Trump, the kind of guy who would just let hundreds of thousands of people die in COVID because he just doesn't think the virus is all that big a deal kind of thing.

Like it's just his kind of warped view of the world is always what comes back to buy them.

And yeah, I also have a question to Jack from Ukraine, by the way, because this is right up your ally.

I was asked if there's obviously there are people also in cigarete services and all this stuff which who don't like Trump as much.

And I was asked to ask you if Trump really manages to you know, start something horribly bad or or something, well, why don't why don't just like someone in Sacred Service organized a nice little accident.

I mean, in Russia, people fall out of the windows all the time.

Oh Am, I gonna I could get in trouble talking about this.

America.

Yeah, right now, I have no idea.

I mean, I guess like I guess like now.

But what I've heard, maybe not from secret services, but what I've heard is despite the support that Trump has in Congress because what he has been doing over the last month or however long it's been now it feels like it feels like it's already been years, that the Republicans are starting to try to like conspire against him.

I don't have any evidence for this.

This is what I've heard because, like the the Republicans in Congress are getting like hounded by their constituents because some of them are losing money because of tariffs, or they're facing like higher costs again because of tariffs, and some of them, some of these congressmen have even had to cancel like town hall meetings because they just I guess they just like don't want to hear from their constituents or from the districts that they actually represent.

And at some point that kind of thing has to give I don't.

I don't see like a like sort of a like Russia style sort of coup happening against Trump.

I guess I would see something more can to just like him losing support of the legislative branch if they would ever like stand up to him, I guess in that respect, I guess, Like again, one thing I did think about, maybe maybe this is sort of irrelevant, but I'm going to throw it out there.

One thing I did think about is if if Trump really wanted to go full dictator and have his own something more akin to his secret police, if he wanted to replace the Secret Service, and maybe justify that by like saying like, well, I was almost assassinated, like they are clearly not up for the task.

In fact, I was almost assassinated twice, so clearly they're not up for the task.

He just pardoned, like what a thousand and fifteen hundred people from the CAP that were involved in all the crap that happened to all that maybe feel like they owe him.

And honestly, like all the research I've done, you could do a lot of damage with a lot less than fifteen hundred people.

Secret police are supposed to hunch up way way up above their weight.

And he's got He's certainly got a group of people that would I and in my view, maybe most of them, maybe not all of them, but some, we'll say some some of them are probably willing to do what he'd want.

Maybe they feel like maybe they feel like they owe him something.

The question of advocacy comes in, especially when you look at you know, the shape a lot of them are in.

Though, yeah, great, I love those militia It's it's I love those like militia videos of like guys in Michigan.

I mean, it's like I'm watching Steven sigall right.

Like some exactly.

Yeah, why didn't I just continue paying this target on my back?

I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'm afraid I must step away and have my dinner because it is twenty to nine here.

I'm afraid.

Can you can you?

Can you quickly give us give us some some final comments that you think must be said on that tibile.

We'll edit out.

It be great because I still want to talk to to to Jack and Alex after you leave.

If you have any anything that that must be that we didn't mention at all, please please do now?

Okay, Well, put me on the spot.

Well, yeah, look, I kind of would just reiterate the general, like we all wherever we get our new sources from, I'm assuming it's not Fox News, and I'm sure we've read the satisfying takedowns of Trump and what he's doing.

The episode I just released goes into it in more detail.

But look, there's there's a moral case and a logical case strongly against what Trump is doing, and I really do think that there will be an increasing revulsion, and particularly if, as is very likely, these peace negotiations drag on, I think that Trump will be exposed and like more so than he has been, and not that that will make a blind bit of difference considering the way the media is and the amount of people he has supporting him.

But I do think that this whole peace negotiation thing has desire to get a Nobel Peace Prize.

I don't think it's going to work out for him in the way that he expects, and I think it's going to be far less smooth than people may have told him it would be.

Just like Putin assumed it would only take three days, Trump's idea that it will only take however, many.

Weeks or months.

I would be very surprised, considering the issues that have to be gotten through, and considering the fact that the EU is preparing itself to have more military power to give it the defaiat seed at the table and bring Ukraine with it.

And like you said, Christaps, you mentioned Turkey earlier.

I just think this has gotten a lot messier than Trump expected.

And like I pointed out before, he doesn't really think these things through, and he underestimated the solidarity many people have with Ukraine, just like he underestimated solidarity Canadians would have at being regularly attacked for no good reason.

So I think this will be another example of him getting his not getting his just desserts.

We live in an unjust world.

But certainly he's going to be exposed and there's going to be a lot of material that that can be used against him.

Hopefully the Democrats will wake the buck up and actually use that ammunition, but that remains to be seen.

But yeah, that that that's my two cents on it.

That these vaunted peace talks that Russia still hasn't agreed to attend are really going to become a headache for him in the near future.

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And we are back now without that breaking irishman polluting this place up uh like I love the irishman.

I love his work and I and I love Ireland.

Like I was saying when we got this tracked to be like, oh where did you go in Dublin?

Like let's we'll save that for another time, but yeah, we are back, and uh, I will just ask you again, Christops.

I just saw this.

Maybe you already talked about it, but like it seems to really be like going to Zach's point that there doesn't seem to be much of a coherent plan within the Trump camp, at least from Trump himself.

But he was threatening sanctions and and and a trade war on Russia, like as if we were all right he sanctioning them, I guess, but he was like threatening that because of I guess a bombing that was occurring, or the bombings that were occurring in Ukraine.

So I didn't even know that happened.

So I don't know.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Because of bombing.

The thing is with sanctions, he didn't even need to do anything that much.

He also just cut down Trump cut down on the whole bureau that was responsible for enforcing them.

So I don't I don't see how how that's gonna go well with new stuff.

I mean, he could just enforce the old stuff.

But yeah, it's a whole mess thing.

Again, I'm not even gonna speculate about any new sanctions or anything because might as well.

Like seems to me that it just as easily could go in the way that put In says, oh no, I feel bad and then nothing happened.

You really can't can't say, because again he's been He's been like my scenerio things and about constant bombings.

The problem here is that there are a lot of things that Trump finds out for the first time ever, like this, not on this show.

He also just just found out that Russia is kidnapping Ukrainian and children know that stuff.

So yeah, talking about the thousands of children who get taken from the war zone and then just disappear into Russia, right.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, so this is with messy.

However, I wanted to ask Jack because Jack Jack has a doesn't have a lot of time here, but in our chat, a person I I'm not sure if I can I can say the nickname loud on the show, but someone someone told us while we were talking about the whole secret Service thing that they could speak about this because they have a lot of family and law enforcement And I'll quote it here and then I want Jack to comment on this because he knows all this secret stuff more than I do.

Quote a lot of people in federal law enforcement that are generally principal professionals who believe that this Batchett scenario will be a transient thing.

There are people like my dad, who's a gray beard in the Secret Service, who are more able to able to recognize what this is.

But they see violent action as bad and against American principles.

They generally want the problems to be solved through democratic principal processes.

And also another thing to take into account is federal law enforcement has had stopping and recruitment problems for years now, and there has been a hollowing out before Trump.

With Trump now there has been a weakening of anti terror operations and at decentivizing of quality law enforcement recruiting.

So what's going on with this quality law enforcement recruiting?

Because I'm actually surprised by this because over here in Europe, which is why I kind of shame that the zach Labs, we just hear about the militarization of your police I thought, I thought you guys were like, out out of all the possible things, I thought your law enforcement would be, I don't know, the best equipped, best recruited, and best organized.

Well, like I guess, like with let me start with like local, like more local law enforcement, because because I know in the wake of twenty twenty certainly and like all the unrest that happened here, it was very difficult to recruit new police officers.

I think all the events that happened here in Minneapolis and then like across the country to like really deterred people from wanting to pursue law enforcement, especially at the local level.

I guess like in addition to that, I am in terms of militarization.

I'm not sure if this program still exists, but the Pentagon, at least like maybe ten years ago and maybe some version of this still exists, used to sell like oment, not old equipment, but like unused equipment, say from like the Iraq War or whatever, to local law enforcement.

And I remember I took a terrorism class or like counter terrorism class in college just just for fun, and remember the professor saying that for local law enforcement, the chiefs of police could could basically get anything they wanted, so long as in the proposal that they basically said it like we need this, like we need this armored vehicle for officer safety.

I guess if you put in the if you put in the phrase officer safety, you could get whatever.

I do agree with what he's saying.

Like a lot of people in federal law enforcement's just law enforcement in general, I think are oh the vast majority of them are principal professionals.

And I guess, like what I was saying about opposition in Congress, especially from the Republicans against Trump, would be what I think he's alluding to in the in this quote about want want problems to be solved through a democratic process.

I guess that's like what I meant by any sort of like actual proper ousting.

I guess put it that way would come from the legislative branch.

If that answers your question.

Yeah, But also about the whole law unformate some situation and all these secret secret service things.

I mean, is there like any idea because a lot of people have also seen people comment on the fact that you know that Trump might want to do something via via this Dodge think that they're comparing Dodge to basically some sort of private sort of they're basically thinking that Dodge is going to turn into some sort of brown shirt operation with actually people being you know, persecuted because of this, except using official democratic terms.

Do they know who the people in Doge are when they think that.

Yeah, I mean they're not really like law enforcement types, right, They're like so that they're like nineteen years twenty three.

They're like nineteen to twenty five year old doors, like they don't have like and and also I think there's a there's a growing realization.

Now this is obviously we don't know, but there's a growing realization or suspicion rather that this Doze thing is as performative as it comes across, and that there's actually a lot more chaos behind the scenes than people realize.

And yeah, let's not count out big balls, as somebody in the chat says, that is very true.

Never count out big balls.

Yeah.

And the other thing that I wanted to point out is somebody in the chat.

I was gonna message him because I wasn't sure we're gonna get around to it, but he pointed out that the vast majority may be good, but they don't stand against the ones that are bad.

The problem is again the scale of what we're talking about, because we are talking about the United States.

Federal law enforcement is distinct from local law enforcement.

A lot of the time they don't like each other, so and a lot of the time people within even local law enforcement don't like each other for political reasons.

And I don't even necessarily mean like left right split.

I just mean like workplace politics kind of situation.

So a whole other type of politics, internal effec is.

I mean, you know, how like people have said that HR is the most hated group in an office, I mean, internal affairs is the most hated group in law enforcement, and they are the ones who have to do the work that makes them hated.

Like there's no alternative, and there's really no incentive for the people who even believe in the institution to like internal affairs because they're budding into their business.

It's not right.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying that there we have a law enforcement system that isn't set up necessarily for a unified front, because I think our country, based on its scale alone, is not going to be a unified front.

I hope that addresses it.

I don't know if that's a sufficient answer.

I mean, I think like there is definitely something to the idea that uh and I would put the blame mostly on police unions for this of like basically becoming criminal organizations that cover up actual crimes.

I mean, living in Los Angeles at least, I can speak to that.

That is a problem that stretches back throughout pretty much the entirety of Los Angeles history.

So and how much of that is the union itself versus the department itself, you know whatever.

But the point is is that a lot of these organizations and institutions have no incentive to reform themselves, and so I do have a sort of sympathy in the knee jerk response of quote unquote defund the police.

I remember that like that if that was like the goal was to just basically gut it and you know, reform at it, that might have been a good idea.

But when it comes down to the realism of doing that, it was never actually tackled, and that's why it never really got solved.

And I don't know if that actually really gets to like what we were talking about in this particular case, But yeah, I think that there is also a very important thing to remember that a lot of these people probably are, like most Americans, as the commentor originally said, is that they hope it's a transient thing.

Because it is a transient thing.

We don't have a one party state, We don't have like a sort of like sense of continuity from administrative one administration to the next, especially these days.

So I will that happen.

Will there be you know, will there be a sort of transient property to how things are going?

I don't know.

I mean, I could not tell you, but I understand that as a reasonable feeling that a lot of those people might have.

The commenter did say something else interesting here about nationalist paramilitary organizations and a post election and then those groups trying to infiltrate local and state law enforcement.

That's really interesting because like I remember that being like pretty that sort of like militia group and like hate group stuff being like very prominent in the conversation even before the pandemic, like or maybe it was just yeah, maybe it was just me going down rabbit holes, but I remember in twenty nineteen like being like very like kind of tuned into what sort of the stuff that's going on out west, and I remember too, like with with infiltration, I remember also that there was some speculation that like the Klan infiltrated like the Minneapolis Police Department.

In fact, I remember I guess that was his name, that was wasn't that?

I think, Well, do you remember Bob Kroll?

He was like the head name ring.

He was the head of the Minneapolis Police union, and there was like speculation that he was actually a clansman.

I don't, I don't think anything.

Actually, yeah, I find it hard to believe that the Klan really has much of a presence in Minnesota.

But I could be completely wrong.

Yeah, I haven't lived in it.

I haven't lived in Minnesota for almost fifteen years.

Or no, it hasn't been fifteen years.

So yeah, I do know a guy.

I do know a guy.

He's not in the militia, but he's somebody that like would know people and as far as I as far as I know, like he's got a guy.

I've asked him about this and he's got he's got nothing.

And you know, like that, infiltration goes both ways.

I don't really know how effective sorry, infiltrating the cops, but like the FBI the FBI is like very good at infiltrating those groups, and typically like their agents are like they're they're very gung ho about providing like the resources and exciting people that the people in hate groups to actually like perform to.

The point I was gonna say, to the point where, yeah, exactly, it's not acceptable in a lot of cases, but yeah, exactly conversation.

So like if I mean, if I were I'm not, I'll make that clear.

But if I were a hate group member and there was like one guy that's like a very interesting membership, I'd be like, if this guy seems to always be Johnny on this, that would only.

Be a caical member as a hobby strictly.

As a hobby, only as a hobby.

Yeah, you would fit into the Black Heber Israelites though.

That's it.

Yeah, Yeah, maybe maybe Kanye and I can start something.

I don't like the.

Kanye is something something else that I just need to talk about because the other later.

But Kanye is just Kanye confuses me.

But go on, Jack, It's just like I was just gonna say, like, like, if I were a member of one of those groups and somebody who was always Johnny on the spot with money resources and like riling everybody up.

I'd be like, this guy's a fucking FED because that's like when I read about these stories, that is like the common thread throughout all of these is the FED.

The the secret FED is the one providing the like the means and the knowledge and then know how to like blow up a post office or a.

Be Yeah, like say like we give an opportunity here, like he's the one had who has the opportunity that was never present present before.

That's usually a com indicator we're not getting tips to militia members by no, no, no, no, we're not We're not doing that.

But but yeah, and I want to mention something about militia though that like there, well, I'll defer to you.

Actually, because you said you were looking into this, I would assume, especially because of the proliferation that of social media and the people using it, the number of militia and the participation within militia have gone up over the years.

But anti government militia is kind of part and parcel our entire lifetimes.

I mean Waco happened in what was it, ninety three, ninety four, That was an example that I mean Ruby Ridge at the same time it was around well yeah, yeah, Ruby Ridge was precipitated the beginning of the outrage against what happened with Waco.

And we won't get into Ruby Ridge because it'll it'll turn into it'll probably get people mad at me in the in the comments who think that the guy was guilty.

I think that that Ruby Ridge is a pretty clear cut case of the ATF violating a lot of civil rights.

But and some people have even said that about Waco.

I have not looked into that one as much, so I won't speak on that.

But anyway, Yeah, my point is being is that I think that there is a sense that that we have a militia problem, and and that's why I'm wondering if it is it that we do have sheer and like relative and absolute increases in militia participation, then we do that then we did like back in you know, the nineties, because we haven't had in Oklahoma City.

I mean, people forget Oklahoma City.

I mean I I say that as if I remembered.

I was only like nine when it happened, but I remember, I remember the news, I remember the footage.

It was horrifying.

One hundred like I don't remember how many people died, but it's you know, it was a if.

He was the worst terrorist attack in United States history.

I think until nine to eleven it was.

It was a horrible situation, and we haven't had anything resembling that except the occasional horrific mass shooting, which I don't want to downplay, but those usually aren't political in the same way that Oklahoma City was.

Have you.

Been to Oklahoma City, Alex.

I've been around it.

When I did a road trip up to Minnesota a couple of years back, we ended up going around it just because it didn't make any sense to go through.

We were in an RV.

I don't know, so we didn't really go to many cities.

But no, I've never been right.

So, like that memorial, that whole there's a so for those of you haven't been there, there's a huge memorial there.

I don't know how.

I don't know exactly like what a like acreage would be.

I mean it's probably like a fraction, I'm an acre but it's a pretty big.

Yeah, No one goes to Oklahoma City.

There's a big memorial there, and it just like speaks to the size of like the building.

But then also like the explosion that that Timothy mc it was able to like concoct.

I mean, it's really like you read about it, but like actually like being the like again like I wasn't or not again, I wasn't there either, I was too ye little.

I don't even remember it on the news, but being at the actual site is like it puts things into perspective.

Right, the scale of the destruction.

I mean this in the literal sense of the word, not the quality.

But it was incredible.

It was It was something that I don't think Americans could have possibly imagined at that time, especially, but I think in a lot of periods in our history.

And it was done essentially by It wasn't alone person because he was associated with the Nichols brothers, but sure, but they had connections to militia and whatnot.

I wouldn't necessarily do the thing where I say, well because they had associations, as militia are responsible.

But I am just making the point that there is a lot of militia history in modern US history.

And it does strike me as interesting that we haven't seen something as crazy since then, as you know, visually crazy as the Capital riots were in twenty twenty one, there was nothing compared to something like Oklahoma City in a quality sense in terms of loss of life either.

Right, the sort of people who died at the Capitol died of heart attacks, because again I don't really care about making fun of them.

They're you know, they're trees and his pigs.

They fucking died because they got too excited.

But yeah, I don't know, I yeah, So I guess what I would wonder is if there was an infiltration within police departments all that I don't know how that would manifest, maybe manifest in like less convictions of criminals engaged in militia behavior or something.

But again that makes me wonder, well, then why haven't we seen more significant militia behavior?

Have we just not heard about it?

Because that is another big problem with especially our media ecosystem in the United States, is that stuff to just it doesn't get covered unless you know where to look for, you're never going to find out about it because it's just scale is just too.

Big, exactly.

I feel like we like, just if it's not in the news, people tend to think that stuff is like not happening or it has like gone away somehow, right right.

About the news things.

A lot of people only also over here at least a lot of people only see the things that are happening on the news just just just on the news, like a lot of people have their opinion about the United States again just because of some weird, weird radical people doing crazy things on the news as well.

So sure, that's right, and with this like malicious stuff for everyone listening.

The thing I would go to that like really made me aware about these kinds of groups is there's there's a very big series on the long Reads called Bundyville.

Maybe some of you have heard of it.

It's also a podcast.

Interesting, that's it.

It's a really good series that kind of covers like a lot of different aspects of this stuff.

In fact, there's like a well, there was a arch group out in Marble, Washington, Washington State, out in Stevens County, which is funny because my uncle actually owns some property out there.

But this little town hosts like this.

It's been described as like a basically like Christian nationalist kind of kind of week long camp essentially where they like in Doctrine eight kids, I don't know.

Sure, like Jesus like Jesus Camp.

Remember that documentary from a number of years ago.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's as it's probably not as bad or competent as it's made out to be, but it certainly it's certainly interesting.

I hit home for me because like that's.

My well, you brought up the whole idea of like this, and I'm actually going to tie this into the more international sphere of things.

And I would love to hear what Christaps thinks about this, because they're there is a sense I get that you can kind we're getting better.

I think I'd like to think so that we're getting better at noticing when something or someone is a little too successful for their own good and there's no possible way their level of influence could be organic.

And that's what has made me think that there probably are attempts of foreign actors and governments and organizations to instigate violence within Christian nationalist groups, but it doesn't seem to be as common, at least not as far as I can tell, because like, there doesn't seem to be this like sudden ground swell of popularity of groups like what you're talking about, there is a ground swell of popularity around figures that position themselves as dissident right wingers or just dissidents.

We'll just say that broadly, because a lot of them they don't identify as right wing.

But it really starts to turn out that a lot of them have ties to foreign governments.

I know Tucker Carlson has taken money from Katar are not a crime.

That is absolutely fine.

He can take money from whoever he wants.

But it does make me wonder, huh.

So he takes money from a government that he starts defending while also disparaging the United States, which I believe he did do in a speech I forgot.

I saw a link to it.

I didn't watch it, though, So maybe take what I'm saying with the grain assualt in that respect.

But but you have that, you have figures who like have at this point been I think pretty easily discredited, like Jackson Hinkle, the so called Maga communist wing of online radicals.

That's it turned out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's a completely stupid.

Podcasters taking money from Iran.

Sure, yes, I mean but Hinkle, though he was sort of revealed to have been in a relationship with a Russian supermodel, is that evidence of anything.

No, it's not, but it is weird, and he wasn't disclosing that very openly.

And then you have this suddenly out of nowhere guy, Ian Carroll going on the Joe Rogan experience, who just from what it looks like, appeared pretty much out of nowhere two years ago on like Instagram, TikTok or on Instagram, scuse me, YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms as his quote unquote independent journalist, no idea who he is.

Don't know anything about who he is.

I watched a video respond.

From this film independent something something.

I don't know.

He made it up.

It's his business.

I mean, he doesn't have any credentials whatsoever.

And he this this other security expert, I mean, who don't know.

I don't know enough about him, but I watched his video.

His name is Sean McGuire.

Over on X made a half an hour like rebuttal against this Ian Carroll guy who is now making the rounds because he was on Rogan and basically made that point where he said he's being charitable.

He says, ninety percent chance this guy is just an American dude, a zoomer who felled on the rabbit hole of you know, talking about Israel and just started to say things like he literally was saying things like Israel did nine to eleven and Epstein was absolutely masad things like that, just basic constiratorial stuff.

Yeah, it's all very.

Well.

I just well, I just wanted to make the well, can I I will jump back that I just wanted to make the point that what he did, like what this guy Maguire pointed out, is that there's a decent enough chance, because of the black box situation to use that term again, that that this Ian Carroll guy is in that where he hasn't revealed much about himself, essentially making him anonymous is very likely taking money at least from a foreign actor.

And one of the favorite methods, and this is something Russia has been very good at doing throughout its history, is whipping up anti Semitism.

They're very good at that with their propaganda efforts.

They did that.

That's what caused the Kishen of Pelgram to happen back in nineteen oh three.

So they have experience over many different regimes of doing things like that and a very good way to whip up a sort of a discord within American culture at least is to try to amplify anti Semitism as much.

And because this Ian Carroll guy is really good at positioning himself as some brave, dissident anti Zionist, he's able to have plausible deniability when he actually says anti Semitic stuff and gets people like Joe Rogan to I don't want to use word platform but to entertain him and then broadcast him out to other people.

So see what I'm saying, though, it's like there is that there is a reason to be suspicious of this kind of laundering that goes on.

It's very similar to what Russia today does.

It's very similar to what Al Jazeera does.

They're very good with about like ninety to ninety five percent of what they do, they're accurate, but then they use that to launder their propaganda efforts and that remaining ten to five percent of what they put out.

You know, It's like if I may just like shine a light on my particular niche in history that my show is about.

That's fascinating to me about Russia is is even though like now if we zoom out Russian history, it's gone through like what three christops correct me if I'm wrong, but like three kind of major three or four like major regimes from from like the Rhorics, through the Romanovs, the Soviets, and now Putin.

Even though it seems like sometimes like especially between the Romanovs and the Soviets, they.

Like yeah, they had like basically and everything it was mess like.

Like they discard, like they discarded almost everything like that, the church, the monarchy, the culture.

But what's so interesting to me is like the one thing that they keep is this like coercive apparatus.

It's like somebody's fucking taking notes and then just like passing it on to the next guy.

It's like the the like that the Lenin's Secret Police like took like the playbook from like the Okrana and then just like passed it on and ever and to the FSB.

It's like it's like a a lineage that's like you can you can solidly trace, And I just find that so interesting.

Yeah, I don't want to make it.

A point about about programs that happened in the nineteen oh three because like even like now, I mean there was I guess a more or less a program that happened like a year or two ago.

Now do you remember that or something.

I talked about that, yeah, Augustan, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well then I don't want to necessarily say that it's Russia.

I mean, it clearly could be anybody.

Fun for sure, these creators, it just usually happens to be Russia, That's all it's like.

But Iran has every I mean, Iran has every reason to fund somebody who's willing to whip up anti Semitism in the United States.

I mean, so does so does Qatar.

I mean that's where they that's where the heads of Kamas were were staying, you know.

I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of incentive, is all I'm saying.

And apparently if you if you're the if you're the mayor of New York City, you can get first class on Turkish airlines.

That's pretty cool.

Well, I guess that's the biggest benefit of you know, being the mayor of New York City.

Especially something else though, But I can't know, I can't, I can't think of anything.

Sorry.

Yeah, No, Alex mentioned Tucker calls and and I and I gotta say that the funniest thing I heard him say.

It was at the Trump rally in Georgia during the campaign where he was talking about he was talking about like, uh, I'm paraphrasing.

I'm pretty sure it was Tucker that said, like Daddy's coming home, right, and America.

I was like, what is God?

And what was even worse is like everybody was cheering.

It was so.

It was yeah.

That you're you're kidding, right.

No, I'm gonna read it.

I'm gonna read it to you.

Well, you you fill him in with the context, and I will, Jack, and I will see if I can find it to read it to him verbat him, just to make him uncomfortable.

Do you just want me to Oh no, yeah, Jack, can you give him a little further context?

Basically like like saying, if I'm not mistaken, like Trump was gonna be elected and like we're not having We're not going to have Harris By president, and like he was basically saying like, oh, America has been a like something along the lines of being like an undisciplined child and now the father figure is coming back, and he's like, Daddy's pissed, and now I.

Will not read this to you, Chris tops.

The situation, Carlson said, is very familiar to anyone who has children, which is, if you allow it, you will encourage more of it.

If you allow people to get away with things that are completely over the top and outrageous.

If you allow your two year old to smear the content of his diapers, just say shit, don't be such a anyway on the wall of your living room, and you do nothing about it.

If you allow your fourteen year old to light a joint at the breakfast table, if you allow your hormone adult fifteen year old daughter to slam the door of her bedroom and give you the finger, you're going to get more of it.

Those kids are going to wind up in rehab.

It's not good for you, it's not good for them.

No, there has to be a point at which Dad comes home.

Yeah, that's right.

Dad comes home and he's pissed.

Dad is pissed.

He's not vengeful.

He loves his children, disobedient as they may be.

He loves them because they're his children.

They live in his house.

But he's very disappointed in their behavior.

You know what he says, You've been a bad girl.

You've been a bad little girl, and you're going to get a vigorous spanking.

Right now.

And no, it's not going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

No, it's not.

I'm not going to lie.

This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.

And you earn this.

You're getting a vigorous spanking because you've been a bad girl.

I let the police cut.

The sparked out, we're really using this segment somewhere mean while boy.

Thankfully capitalized on that.

Yeah, I have to have to have a collection of things people.

But I mean, should I be surprised?

Probably not?

No, no, no, with Tucker at least.

I mean, yeah, I like I said, I there's only two people now who I think can be classified as Votniks at this point who have interviewed Alexander Dugan.

It's him and Glenn Greenwald.

I think that that I think maybe interviewing Dugan is is the best indicator of where things are, unless the interviewer is like doing something much more serious and in depth about who Dugan is and what he's tried to do.

I mean, I think, I think I have so many questions in my head.

I don't think you want the answers because I have questions too.

But I'm keep those to myself.

Yeah, you know what I want to see.

You know what I want to see.

I need to experience this.

I need to see taker Carlson interviewing bloody messil of Yow.

That would be interesting, like I want to see how like yeah, like what, well, what do you hope he would say to him?

Like what do you hope would happen?

See?

They both are are so insane that I think I think it would be just I don't know, but like that's the same, same total mess with with everything, because I just I look, you broke, I don't I don't even know.

I thought I've seen all sorts of bullshit from Talcer Carlson, right, all of it, except now I'm also seeing like this weird idiocy and and I just this this confuses me to point, like how does he keep his job?

I thought the United States was supposed to be, you know, full of competent people.

But oh, he made his own job.

He's living the American dream because he lost his job at Fox News or he quit.

I don't know what the circumstances were there, but he's not just doing all this independently.

That's why the crazy has really come out is because he has no guardrails anymore.

What's fascinating is if he had done this kind of stuff during the Cold War, McCarthy would have strung him up.

I just think that was mostly well, I mean, he's profoundly anti American in terms of his outlook.

He very much plays in the pool, the masochistic chauvinism pool where there's really no meaningful difference between someone like him and well, frankly, someone like Trump, who seems to be embodying the no shud of manifest destiny these days in his own hyper modern way, where like, basically, the United States can do no wrong is what the regular chauvinis thinks.

But then you have someone like Tucker Carlson er Noam Chomsky, who he is very much influenced by at this point, saying that the US can do no right, and not only that, everything wrong that happens in the world is the responsibility of the United States.

That's where this so called neorealism mentality seems to come from these days.

It's very weird and sick, and it's people getting a kick.

As George Orwell talked about actually when he talked about negative nationalism or inverted nationalism is that they get a kick out of their country and their country's allies losing, and they get a real kick out of seeing their enemies win.

Because but I think it's in the case of someone like Carlson or anyone these days who likes to traffic in this kind of thing, they're very much animated by this idea that they are being the sophisticated ones morally, intellectually, and so forth by simply saying, oh, but it's the United States's fault.

Oh, it's the deep state, Oh it's this that, And it's like, no, you're just repeating another script.

There's really nothing unique about what Carlson is saying.

It's just this new sort of repackaged version of pap uken in paleo conservatism from like the nineteen eighties and nineties.

It's not original at all.

But recently, I'm like also watching all sorts of other commentary, and one of the things that I saw was that I just also saw that Nebraska is about to go bankrupt.

But that's like more other thing.

But people were saying that really a lot of people are seeing how, you know, how bad things can get.

Because again I heard that because of Nebraska, of its agricultural industry, which needs these migrants come in there, illegal migrants, what are like seventy percent of the workforce, and they're leaving.

And this whole thing with with Tarker Carlson reminds me of that.

I mean, you literally voted for the guy who told you that he's going to deport all the illegal migrants and you need them to survive, and then this happens, and then and then.

Then it's a tactical miscalculation on such a profound level too, because these people, a lot of them.

I don't think Trump cares, but I would.

I would.

I would ascribe this to Carlson least because he should no other indication except to believe him that he is probably a racist and that they're not realizing that.

If you want to build, if you actually believe in the great replacement theory, you should be very enthused about it if you're a supposed conservative in the United States, because the biggest gains that you're going to see in right wing votes are from immigrants from Latin America, especially from ex communist countries like Venezuela.

They will not only vote, they will not only vote Republican, they will enthusiastically vote Republican compared to pretty much any other recently arrived demographic at least, so it really shows to me at least that these people I don't even know would I wouldn't say most people who are against immigration are racist, but I would say the people who believe in the great replacement theory are.

But their bigger crime is being stupid because they don't know their racism has made them stupid, because they don't realize how much it would benefit them to actually encourage such a.

Alex dropped bombs.

Racist people are stupid?

Who would have exactly though?

The bomb is that I said that their bigger crime is being stupid while being racist racism is a byproduct of being stupid in that particular sense.

Like I I hate to kept the strict as, but I do have to go.

Okay bye, Jack, was nice having you on, but I still have some two Yeah, I'll tak you bye.

Right, So Alex, it's it's come come down to us now, and I want to do some sort of an ending thing here.

Sure, a lot of people are One thing that I see online a lot is the thing that you might be the best best for a lot of people are saying that this is like the lost election in the United States, that there's gonna be Trump is going to extent because mandate or something of that sort.

How realistic is that?

Could he do that?

I could eat my words at this point, because I've eat my words on a few things, not just praising Glenn Greenwall the number of years ago.

But I don't think that that's likely.

He has made comments.

I'm sure he'd be fine with doing it, but the path to doing that legally is something I can't imagine happening because you would have to pass another constitutional amendment in order to overturn I believe it's a twenty second amendment that makes that sets term limits for president to two and to do that you need to get through both houses of Congress, and I believe if memory serves with the Senate, it's like a two thirds majority, which like even with the majority that he has gotten in the legislature, as I think Jack pointed out, there's like some signs that there are there are Republicans working to try to undermine him or at least resist him quietly within the legislative branch.

So just putting that out there, as well as the fact that we have a midterm happening in about a year and a half, maybe a little more.

I'm getting the math wrong, which is a lot sooner than I think people think.

It just seems very unlikely that even by the time such an amendment could pass, he would be out of office anyway.

And on top of that, I think it's important to look at the sort of reality of the situation.

The man is about to be eighty years old in the near future.

He is not showing nearly the amount of cognitive decline that his predecessor did.

But does the simple, the simple physics of life itself are going to prevent that from really being much of an issue.

And in fact, I kind of was talking about this earlier.

I'm not really concerned about him.

I mean the chaos he unleashes is concerning the people he surrounds himself with, namely a guy who seemingly has a ketamine problem in the sense of Elon Musk, you know, people like that.

I don't think that that's a thing the celebrator to handwave, especially because we don't we're getting the sense that, like I said earlier, there's a lot more chaos going on than is being admitted.

But again, the sort of thing that should concern people in Europe especially is the prospect of two terms, not just one of President JD.

Vance.

Do you really think he'll be that popular.

I mean, I find it hard to believe, because I think a lot of people saw that meeting with Zelenski and were similarly put off by him, just in terms of how he carried himself.

There is a certain sort of gut factor at play in American politics at all times, where you just don't know what it is about somebody, but you don't like him, and that was kind of what happened with that.

I think he has a lot of room to fuck up over the next four years.

I mean, that should be clear.

Three and a half years, whatever it is till the next election, there's a lot of space for him to He could, for all we know, he could piss off Trump to the point where Trump just alienates him.

We just don't know.

I don't think that'll happen.

But my point is that if we consider the possibility of him being the front runner for the GOP, which again based on what we have now as far as you know, any indication he will be.

He will not only be a more serious advocate for this worldview that seems to be playing out under this second Trump administration, but he will be competent in a way that Trump is not, and more disciplined.

Because whatever one thinks about the guy, he is extremely smart and he is very serious.

He is not as crazy or chaotic or proto fascist as Steve Bannon someone like that, nothing like that.

But he has a worldview that's very antithetical to what was the post World War two order of things.

And again I think that there is there was a certain time LiLine limit on that post war order.

I mean, we we're at eighty years now since the end of World War Two.

I mean, world orders don't tend to last that long in general, I would think, especially in the modern era.

So maybe if we look at it from the perspective of, okay, maybe that was inevitably going to happen, how do we want to end it?

That would actually be a good way for our opposition party, the Democrats, to approach what's coming up next and maybe advocate for a softer, friendlier decoupling of of the two world powers.

If that makes sense.

I'm just I'm speculating out the top of my head right now.

I'm just making the point that people shouldn't be concerned about Trump as much as much as they should be concerned about Vance and the worldview that he holds.

That's basically it.

Yeah.

But why though, why the all Vance?

I mean, there's a question the chat about Mike Pence what he has been doing lately?

Mike Pence, I have no idea.

I thought he was just quietly retiring somewhere.

I have I have Actually, that is a very good question.

I have not seen Pence lately.

I think nobody has.

Has anyone done a wellness check?

Yeah?

Someone check?

Someone check on Pence?

So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I mean the question, and what what you're actually, uh, sort of what I was getting at without really saying it, and what you were essentially sort of asking, is, uh, if we're to assume at least that Trump is gone after twenty twenty eight, which again I'm more willing to assume that's going to happen just based on, like I said, the physics of life itself.

But uh, I think a better question is, does MAGA the ideology such as it is, does the the reorientation of the Republican Party of American Conservatism.

Does it live past Donald Trump?

And I would say if he's able to, I don't know, remain appealing throughout this term.

Jd Vance could keep it alive or turn it into his own brand of something.

I think that there's enough of a personality cult aspect of Donald Trump that trump Ism, whatever it is, probably doesn't last.

But the again, the sense I get is that JD Vance is kind of using maga populism trump Ism as a vehicle for his more sophisticated worldview.

And again my so sophisticated.

I'm not necessarily complimenting that.

I'm complimenting it as something that's serious, but I'm not saying that it's a correct one.

I'm just saying that maga populism is a sort of laundering operation, I think at this point because populism itself it's never sustainable, it never has been in American history.

It's good for winning elections, it's terrible for governance.

That's something that Elon Musk does not understand and something that it seems like Jade Vance doesn't really understand.

But again, I wouldn't put it past Vance to be being tactical about this and being somebody that the world should be watching very carefully.

He's been putting himself out there.

I mean he was at the that was what he did, the that lecture at the NATO Security Conference or something.

Am I remembering that?

Yeah, like where he actually ended up saying something that was kind of appreciative of where he was sort of talking shit to Western Europe where he was saying, you know, you know, you guys are basically you know, living off of our off of our dime, and you know, you haven't really been nice to us over the years in so many words.

And I was kind of like, Okay, that's that's feels nice.

But again, that's not really how I would do things, because it's pretty rude just to put it bluntly, And as much as he seems to be really into the hole, like when have you ever said thank you?

Bullshit?

Like I I feel like maybe he should be a little more grateful to Europe for tolerating the United States in a lot of ways too.

But that's that's just my attitude on it.

I mean, I know that he has his own way of looking at it.

He like I said, he looks at things through the lens of spheres of influence and rather than I guess, you know, one on one friendliness or something like that.

I mean, you know, just being polite and all this mess.

But yeah, it just seems so weird that all they just went out of the window.

I had this very feeling of unreality on that Monday, right, it felt so like, I know, I found out that my life is about to change and it was just a mess?

Is really right?

Yeah?

And just to turn the questioning on you a little bit, like is this one of those things where you are kind of operating by the seat of your pants right now?

Like do you not really know what comes after these next couple of months?

Like are you are you thinking ahead for I have potentially looking for refugee status elsewhere.

No, not really.

Well, I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to go back.

I'll just you know, spend some time out there, which isn't nice to be honest, I don't like yet it because that's the good baby to cut the quicker job for this after.

All, because it's a matter of life and death though, so I.

Mean, but like that's going to be it be difficult and hard, but of course, this is what it is.

I'll definitely keep keep recording into everything.

And it's in the EU.

I don't need to like like it's not all life on this car.

I don't think the refugee status there.

Also, going to the United States will be super expensive living there expensive, so that that is true.

Yeah, I didn't even think about the EU question.

Yeah, yeah, the the benefits of a super state.

Yeah, yeah, because I was gonna say the US.

You know, you you told me about the the cost of living in places like Latvia, and I just want to move there now because you just you should not live in the United States when it comes to that sort of thing, or at least not in California or New York.

I think you could probably find a decently priced place in the South or somewhere in the Midwest.

Egg prices are surprisingly surprisingly h like call competitive.

I'm talking to I don't know where at what, like sixteen dollars for a twelve pact now here in California.

It's not I remember that you guys were told that you need to basically grow your own leggs like go around chicken basically.

You know, Honestly, my partner and I have been wanting to do that for a number of years, just that you have to you know, you actually have to construct a coop and everything.

It's it's you know, it's a lot of work, and you have to have the space in your yard, which we probably do.

But yeah, I would at this point much rather have chickens that produce eggs every day than have to go buy stuff at a store.

But I don't.

And I blame Trump for a lot of that, not eggs really that seems to be a bird flu issue.

But I definitely blame him for all his tariff bullshit.

This is one of those things that has brought a lot of Democrats, liberals, leftists and libertarians nicely together because we all kind of hate that stuff.

We don't like things becoming more expensive, like.

The weird the thing is that again, and this is most mostly about mosca and everything.

These guys they sort of act, they act like thirteen year old kids would like, they act as like thirteen year old kids think a cool person would act that.

That's basically that, that's absolutely musk.

I mean Trump, I don't think I don't know about it.

I mean I must kind of.

Yeah, mister ketamine brain if it's something special going on there.

Yeah, he's well, I'm this is not my observation.

I would make this observation, but I'm taking it from somebody, this guy Michael moynihan from he's a journalist and he cost a Fifth Column podcast and he's really good, and he was saying a while ago at this point, but he's been repeating the point that that Elon Musk is an example of somebody who came to politics the same in his fifties, the same way that somebody comes to politics for the first time when they're like nineteen in college, and he just it's like, it's like the person who just discovered The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn without realizing that no, no, that's not a history book, that's a polemics.

Still has positive qualities, but you know what I mean, Like he basically comes into politics as a nube, and then because he has a lot of money and influence and people think he's super smart, thinks he can just become a master of it.

But there's I mean, the writer Richard Hannania recently wrote that he described Musk's politics such as they are as the lebotomization of everybody as opposed to censorship.

And I thought that was a really good way of putting it, because well, frankly, it doesn't sound like he reads anything.

He just goes off of vibes and memes, and that probably is what it has felt like, and it feels like that because that's exactly what it is.

He is a thirteen year old in that sense.

Yeah, but you can't.

That's a big issue because I feel it's a very big issue because you can't run a country like that.

It would be nice if you could, but.

Just yeah, just a mess.

I mean, how do you even like, I'm worried about what's going to happen after this, how that's gonna go?

Well again, yeah, it I do.

I do believe that there there is that.

Like I said, the probability is advances the heir apparent, but it does beg the question.

It's been begging the question.

And and Zach actually touched on this before he left, where he's saying the Democrats have to get their ship together, and I would tend to agree in the sense that I think that they need to do more than just hold up placards at the state of the union.

Ress interesting, interesting, and like.

Wear matching clothes or whatever, or make Instagram live videos.

I mean, I'm sorry, Like I said this recently to a friend of a friend of mine, that like, what little respect I might have had for the idea that we had a a millennial in the Oval office like as VP, because Jade Vance I believe he's only like a year or two older than me.

I was like, what little excitement maybe it's a better word that I had for that was completely crushed after watching this Zelenski meeting.

And then I realized, oh, so the two most noteworthy millennials in the American government right now are JD.

Vans and AOC.

I have no faith in my generation's ability to govern.

Likely live in amazing times.

Right, Like, let's just let's just require you to be gen X to run for president next and you can't be younger, you can't be older, Like that's it at this point.

You have to be exactly this many years old?

Exactly how old is your PM?

H?

Well, you have a lady PM, but I wish it all bet it'spos here because because he knows this stuff.

Oh, you have a lady here, and she's like letting her fifties or something maybe, and that's that's perfect.

Like, you know, Elon Musk is a perfect age.

He's just wrong in every other way most mostly be a foreigner himself.

He's because I have I make no bones about this.

He is the worm tongue of our of our government.

He's a scheming He's our scheming foreign born royal advisor.

Like that's what he that's the roles he's taken up.

But like, not again, it is sort of the realistic that he did this because he was just like really because of his son, as I've seen because people.

Muscumine, Yeah, oh right, like because his his kid became trans or something and that supposedly radicalized him or something like that.

Yeah, I have not honestly taken that seriously.

I think he just got addicted to being a I mean, I'm sure that is in his head at least.

That's probably a justification.

I think he just like being part of what he saw as a rebellious and cool subculture because he got in with Rogan, you know, and then he got exposed to you know, I'm armchair psychoanalyzing the guy.

Obviously, I don't know, but I'm just saying the sense I get.

You really said it earlier when you said this is like it's like a thirteen year old trying to do or it's like he's a thirteen year old trying to do what's cool.

Like that.

That's always been the sense I got from him.

And you know, not to speak ill of people who have autism, but I think that's also very much in line with someone like that who is not regulated correctly.

I mean, again, I'm doing this from an armchair.

I'm not a professional, so people can disregard everything I'm saying in that respect, but I do not trust the man to be anything other than the proverbial thirteen year old in the room.

And I get the feeling Trump's not going to tolerate him the entire time that he's in office.

I mean, the thing that people need to remember, and it does feel like it's been years, and that's part of the design.

That's still one aspect of following the Steve benn In playbook of flood the zone with shit.

That literally is something Steve benn And has said.

Trump has only been in office for like forty five days or something like that, might be might be closer to two.

It's closer to two months now, but that's very a very short amount of time, and he's already managed to make us forget that Joe Biden was president for four years.

A lot of people I've talked to have been like, they said, I literally forgot that we had a president in between them, and I was like, yeah, that's probably by design.

That's how they do things, and it's it's effective.

It's not good, but it's effective.

Yeah, that's called strategy of just overwhelm everything and yeah, and that it's going to be good or something.

Well, it's very much Again, that's another reason why I would draw comparisons to our nineteenth century progressive presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and then later on Woodrow Wilson to a degree, the people who followed a very similar playbook where they just pushed through as many things as they possibly could without congressional authority, without any regard to the you know, judicial branch.

I mean, it was essentially this way to sort of get things moving so they could then be challenged in court and then possibly go on to the side of the people doing things.

That's when it started to become more of a formality to ask Congress for permission to go to war, because even though we did do that, after this period of time, at various points, there was plenty of overseas operations that occurred without any congressional authority whatsoever.

And it's it's a methodology.

And I've talked to our mutual podcasting friends C.

J.

Kilmer about this a little bit.

We didn't record anything about it because I was still kind of forming.

I'm still forming my thoughts, so I guess I'm forming them live here.

But the sense I've gotten is that we kind of had an inflection point at the early years of the twentieth century where we had our government could go in two directions, the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson or the progressivism of Teddy Roosevelt.

And we want the direction of Wilson.

I mean, if you want to look at a Wilsonian as president, Obama is probably the best example of it, of continuing that kind of tradition of firm executive power, like still tempered, still working within the system, very much rooted in idealism.

And then you have Teddy Roosevelt, who was much more of a man of the bully pulpit that hasn't really been used until now, not not in any meaningful way that I can think of.

Maybe you could say Lyndon Johnson was a bit in that in that direction.

But again, the major difference between someone like Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump is that Teddy Roosevelt actually believed in things.

He had an ideology.

I don't think Trump does.

But he's utilizing the playbook, and it's a very interesting playbook that hasn't really been taken advantage of in a way that we would find familiar.

No one alive now would find it familiar.

But if you pluck somebody from Washington, d C.

In nineteen oh two and put them in Washington right now, they would absolutely recognize what is happening, just maybe not the technology being.

Used well about recognizing what's happening.

This also reminds me of really so of its union.

Not kidding, Yeah, it's just it feels like a stagnation and just seems so strange.

I mean, like, did you read Ferguson's article about that.

He made that comparison.

Oh, well, I did it first, because I know I haven't like I did it first because I did it way earlier than everyone als.

But like, sure, sure, someone must have listened to me, because maybe no, but this, this is this weird stagnation is just I don't even know how do I cope with with with my own life.

I mean, I I used to be able to just make more more like, be more distanced from this fact that right now, right now, I'm speaking from a person that's practically physically affected by this whole mess, and yeah, it kind of sucks.

Yeah, and then you don't know how to react on everything.

I just all I can do is just well, if I'm seeing the time, I'm somehow managing to to not go utterly and saying, then then surely things are things are bound to get at least slightly better.

Hopefully they must.

I think they will.

I mean, I think that things tend to.

Get worse before they get better A lot of the time.

Now, obviously that is easy to say, and that is a big theme I think a lot of the time when you and I talk, is that it's much easier for someone in my position to say it's going to get better.

But exact that's what I was getting at, exactly, yeah, how bad does it have to get?

How much damage has to be done?

And that's always the open question.

But I think the American side of me that I know you appreciate, is the side of a lot of a lot of us, is well, let's not pretend that we can prevent the bad stuff from happening at all, because in attempting to prevent it, it's going to end up making potentially making things worse.

But that's putting it very vaguely.

I think it also is small comfort to say it that way, especially to somebody who is physically affected by such things, and those of us in the United States who, no matter what we might say, unless we have family in the line of fire, we're not going to you know, like we're not.

We can't honestly say that we're affected by this kind of stuff.

And I think that that's the best way to explain why Americans are so frustratingly flippant or fair weather is a better word for it, about these kinds of things.

Well, you're also a big in country.

But what everything's happening.

What would be your worst case scenario, like ultimate thwarft case scenario.

Because I always think about.

Those worst case scenario as silly as it sounds, is Trump very much seriously tries to annex Canada because from what I have heard, just from the statements made by Canadian politicians and who are not justin Trudeau, is they're kind of saber rattling, and it sounds bizarre to say, but the idea of any kind of violent conflict with Canada is the fact that that even can be discussed is terrifying to me, Like why would that even be an issue like it?

Or like like why would not not why would it be an issue?

Why would it even happen like that?

That?

I can't wrap my head around that.

But if you try to annex a sovereign country, as I think Russia has come to learn, it doesn't tend to go over like very well necessarily.

Like there's a very interesting aspect of Canada that I have a number of Canadian listeners and friends who have talked to me about this, where they they make it very clear they're like Canadians are not happy about this.

They would not consent to something like that.

And Canada's kind of weird because like they're different in terms of their national Like when you say nationalism, usually in the European or American context, you're talking about the far right.

Weirdly, in candidate.

That's the opposite the far left is the nationalists in their culture.

Yeah, I've heard about like Alberta happening or something.

Yeah, or Quebec is usually the big hotbed.

But yeah, like, I don't think that, Like, I don't think it's going to get that bad.

I can't allow myself to assume it's going to get that bad.

But I feel like such an ass saying this out loud.

A war between Canada and the US is the worst case scenario.

That is insane sounding, like I said, but it it is the worst case scenario that I can imagine, or even worse, Canada and Mexico align them together to go to war with the US.

It wouldn't go over very well, but for either of them, I don't think.

Well that would involve China too, sadly.

Oh yeah, yeah, and I at that point, that's if it got that chaotic, I could see a power like China or even Russia couldn't handle it.

But I could see there being a case made to have a sort of world alliance where various powers with the means to carve up the United States into vassals for themselves, just to keep US away from each other.

I could see that happening, But that's such a that's such a far off, fantastical kind of alternate history kind of like vision that I have.

I don't.

I mean, that would require a lot more things to go wrong.

I don't see.

We've talked about this before.

I don't see a civil war breaking out in the United States.

I think greater radicalism will lead to greater terrorism, like greater events of terrorism in our country, but not anything akin to what happened in eighteen sixty.

But then again, I don't know.

Like I said, I I have a barometer.

If someone gets killed on the floor of Congress, if one congress person kills another, that's when I'm out of here.

That's that's my barometer.

That's that's your thing.

Yeah, that's when Yugoslavia, that's what I look to.

Okay, let up with this, because do you know about happenings in Serbia?

I have, Well, you were mentioning it earlier, and I haven't been looking into it in the modern day.

No, But I okay, So what's happening there is?

Yeah, they they have who used to be one of who used to be like the information Minister, and their slov than Milashovic, no less like really he was into massive massive nationalis and stuff.

Then he mad because Serbace Serbian nationalists like, uh really view him as one of their own.

Huh.

In Bosnia, Republic of Serbska guy, you know, their Serbian Serbian autonomy guy made a congress of pan Serbian things and they wrote in like a big proclamations that that you know, Serbian needs to decline defense Serbians everywhere and all this alternationalist nonsense.

Yeah, and they're like, and really, people are worried.

People are very legitimately worried about this because not like Kosovo has been doing that well either.

Kosovo is doing the typical Balkan thing and and everyone's just pushing each other back and provoking each other.

But if if things go like in my worst scene, in my worst is scenario is that Serbia just looks up but everything because Trump's also friendlier to them or just doesn't care or know where they are, Europe might Europe just might not like even no to be honest like, or just pretend not to notice because we would need them.

That would be my worst case scenario when when we have a little nasty happening in the Balkans.

Again, I was gonna say that that very very very rarely portends well for the rest of Europe when something starts in the Balkans.

Yeah, but that's the problem is that it just might.

And I'm scared about this fact.

I am too.

I mean, I haven't looked into it, and I was going to eventually when I actually got to my final episode of my big series that I've been doing, because you know, but at the same time, like as you well know to the Balkans are not They are kind of the Gordian Knot of European history and of European politics in a lot of ways, because they all have so many competing interests that have become coded religiously or confessionally.

Rather and.

And ethnically in a lot of ways, even though they've managed to carve out their own states, Like what cost was there?

We know it was bad.

And as you said, there's people in other countries saying, or you know, in the home country say we need to protect Serbs everywhere.

Well, I don't, as you know, you know me, man, I don't like making Hitler analogies.

But that's literally the same justification Hitler was making, and I'll be also, it's the same kind of justification Putin was making about Ukraine, like, oh, well that section has Russian speakers.

Well, they might speak Russian.

But language alone does not dictate nationality.

It never has.

It's an indicator.

But there's a lot more to nationalism, to nationhood, to being a loyal subject of a state than the language you speak.

I think the Ottomans, the Austro Hungarians, all that stuff, like all those examples from the nineteenth century, if you actually look into their history prove that you don't really need to speak the same language to all feel loyal to the same central metropole.

Like even the smaller countries like of Europe have had that problem, where like they thought that language would be the unifying factor and it just wasn't.

There was other issues at play.

France had that problem up until like the eighteen seventies, really the early twentieth century in a lot of ways they tried to quote unquote civilize the outer boroughs because they weren't speaking regular French.

So it's just it's just one of those things where I just I don't buy the propaganda that's made in Faate like the nationalist propaganda that utilizes language.

But what's terrifying to me is that's usually enough to convince people because it's vague enough for them to attach their pet causes to it.

If that makes sense, Yeah.

It doesn't make sense because again, if you want to talk about langages, like we have issues of our language.

But then again, where there's like what barely two million of us in Latvia here and language has like a that's why that's why we're protecting of it because again, if people just stop learning Lafan, then then the language will just die out.

And we're doing pretty well with this because Estonians, mind you, are are very scared of this fact because they don't have like they don't have the same they haven't haven't been trying to protect their language so much.

And now like in laughing when something like we have a lots of the word for word for brand for example, like things new words basically we Latvia andize everything and then new words for that you know in Estonian they just use like English all the time.

Yeah, and that's just that just is very messy and that's that's where that's where you come from.

This from this language linguistical thing.

Then again not again for us, it's kind of I guess, I guess lithuating, and so I'm more and more obsessed with all this bald acunity stuff.

But then again it also has a point like we just don't we just don't view, which has just a language thing.

I think that's more of like, yeah, America, I think is here.

It's more about you know, actually feeling your like do you grow potatoes in your countryside?

Far?

Do you like?

Do you do you know all all of latviad traditional celebrations and dynasty and all that stuff, like.

You take you take your first date on a mushroom hunt because that's Latvia as hell.

Yeah, yeah, those those are those one of the great things.

Because we should should probably wrap this up on that.

It is going to to be angry at me anyways about this.

But uh I noticed that in the UK they are now reintroducing beavers into the kind of the whole ecosystem because they didn't have them, and and then it was so strange for me, and then I sort of fact check everything about how for us and everything here is and and about how people you know, I looked up this guy on the Blue Sky as well who's posting this and turns out he's some sort of ecoactivist who also stands for the right to rome, so that you know, people will be atually allowed to go and you know, big funests and big big mushrooms and fourth and stuff like that.

And then I had a reality check about how and in what's sort of a weird hippie place do I live in?

Because yeah, yeah, So then again, then again we're not in trouble if everything goes goes like you know, haywire.

We all know how to how to basically make our own food and everything exactly exactly.

Yeah, you should be worried about that.

Bar I was gonna say, Yeah, we have a very in America.

It's funny.

We we like to believe that we have this like unified identity, but we really don't.

We have very We have very distinct regional identities that are relatively unaddressed, uh in a lot of cases until it comes up in some kind of fight.

It's usually a fight or in argument where somebody say, well, you would say that you're from such and such or whatever.

We see it play out a lot more with our with American football like competition in that sense, like people will become very regional in that respect, and like Midwesterners, for example, they're only focused on particular you know, other Midwestern cities as their rivals.

They don't really care about the about other parts of the country in that respect.

But but yeah, I don't I think that.

Yeah, that is one thing that Zelenski said in that meeting that weirdly seemed to be what set off the whole argument, like because people, I guess Trump took it the wrong way or something where he said, you know, your people will have to fight.

You know, he was making a rhetorical point saying like you're getting complacent in so many words, right, and he he was making a point that if Americans don't actually like understand what's happening on the ground in a place like Ukraine and why the people are fighting the way they they are, what are they going to do when America, you know, despite its big beautiful ocean, you know, what do they get?

Like, you know, you always have to be conscious of like what's going to happen if some kind of calamity hits you.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a foreign power or anything like that trying to invade you.

But it does have to be a sort of thing that we need to be able to give ourselves a reality check.

And I don't know if that's what he was saying.

Maybe I'm reading into it a little too much, but it seems to me that Zelenski's right that America can't just pretend that we don't have a stake in things and that we are just totally fine on our own.

I don't think we are.

I mean, that's that's a big thing about this new worldview that is permeating the Republican Party specifically, but that's been there in a lot of other cases for a long time.

I've never understood it, the anti globalist stance.

I just don't understand it.

Not that it's wrong, not that nationalism is bad.

I actually think that globalism and nationalism, if there even is a distinction, but I mean there is a distinction, I suppose, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with either.

I think that having a balance of both is in a nation's best interest.

It enriches the most amount of people and makes the least amount of people miserable, as long as it's done within reason.

I mean, maybe that's that's that, that's my American optimism.

I guess I'm trying to I'm trying to put a positive spin on this before we come.

In and at this at this point, we have to put a positive spin on things because it just just again it felt so weird and scary.

But well, look, if if i'll, if i'll deal with this refugee stuff that I know that, I know that the tool manage hopefully somehow, please I think you will, I think I will.

But yeah, this has been a weird, weird, prolonged discussion and two parts, and I hope that something actually actually comes off of this.

And I would like to end this with a comment from my from a discord about about you here before I say my happiness, I think I just saw it, Alex is sounding sounding scarily, saying tonight it's in settling well, so that I can only respond that the happiness is mandatory, and at these points, maybe maybe it's better that Alex is slightly un settling because he's weirdly saying I think we should Weirdly.

Yes, I'll take that.

I'll take it as a compliment.

I mean that is really a compliment.

But yeah, thanks for coming over.

And I'm listening.

Well, if as you're listening to the second part of this, I'm definitely definitely already away.

But well, see how this goes.

Hopefully it's going to be somewhat fun, you know, with everything less Dania thought issue I remember, happiness is mandatory.

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