transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] Several days ago, we started this recording talking about how to conceive of the Iran War as instead a world war. Since that time...
Speaker 2:
[00:14] We changed the system.
Speaker 1:
[00:16] Several things have happened that hope to portray it.
Speaker 3:
[00:21] Today, Europe is Hungarian without any question.
Speaker 1:
[00:25] As we speak, as we're currently recording, Victor Orbán's foreign minister has locked himself in his office and is shredding evidence that he is a Russian spy.
Speaker 4:
[00:38] This is what's happening in Hungary. We know that people have been destroying documents, just like in the old communist age.
Speaker 1:
[00:48] That comes on the wake of Petr Magyar's victory last night.
Speaker 4:
[00:52] That shredders are working full time, not only in ministries, but also the other background institutions.
Speaker 1:
[01:02] Who will be prime minister of Hungary, and will start investigating all the corruption and all the Russian influence in Hungary. So Russia has lost its primary European puppet.
Speaker 5:
[01:16] I'm sad that he lost.
Speaker 1:
[01:19] Meanwhile.
Speaker 6:
[01:20] We have people who are struggling to get to work, struggling to get home from work, people at hospital appointments. I had an elderly woman call me today who missed a cancer appointment.
Speaker 1:
[01:27] For the past week, seven days, six days, Ireland has been facing a Trump-created rebellion by Trumpists in response to rising diesel costs.
Speaker 7:
[01:41] But it's very clear that the people that are organizing these protests are representative of a huge cohort of people in the market industry. Well, because we've seen the implications of it. We've seen that there are many people.
Speaker 8:
[01:53] We've seen a few hundred people in different locations. How is that representative of five million people?
Speaker 7:
[01:58] It's representative of the people that are out on the protest.
Speaker 1:
[02:00] A bunch of these are people with a real grievance, a bunch of we call them hauliers here, truckers and farmers, everyone who relies on diesel to do their work, started protesting rising fuel prices. But the protest was very quickly taken over by people with associations to Steve Bannon.
Speaker 9:
[02:22] As a nation, we have all just seen the behavior at the exact same time, and there is now no going back. The horse has well and truly bolted.
Speaker 1:
[02:31] And for days, where I live in Limerick, you couldn't use the freeway. There were three blockades on the freeway itself. There were blockades in the major tunnels around the country. But more importantly, they were blockading the fuel depots where you drop off petrol in Limerick, in Cork, in Dublin. And so literally, people claiming to be opposed to high petroleum prices had shut down the country, and it's still not clear whether I could go out and buy gasoline, petrol today, to protest rising gas prices. Their response to it not only created further pressure on gas prices, but it also meant that average people, like a woman, a server at a restaurant I spoke to the other day, who had to drive what's normally a 30-minute drive, took her two hours to get into work. Well, she blew a lot of gasoline trying to get into work because these people complaining about gas prices. These are the kinds of things you're going to see, particularly given Trump's insane response to the failure of the one-day peace effort.
Speaker 10:
[03:38] And I don't even know why people would do that. Why would they say how wonderful they're doing militarily? They're doing so well. They're totally what the country's wiped out.
Speaker 1:
[03:48] Trump has decided he's going to blockade Iran's blockade.
Speaker 11:
[03:51] The blockade in the strait, the opening up capacity in the United States for is this going to be enough to lower the price of oil and gas, sir?
Speaker 1:
[04:00] Which is first of all, stupid.
Speaker 10:
[04:01] Well, it's going to be eventually it's going to be lower. No, it might not happen initially, but it's going to it's going to go down. When this is all over. Look, the stock market, the Dow had 50,000.
Speaker 1:
[04:12] Second of all, isn't going to work because Russia has a back door to Iran via the Caspian Sea that the United States isn't going to be able to blockade. So they will be able to at least provide food and weapons to Iran.
Speaker 10:
[04:24] If I was president, by the way, we would have had the problem with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 1:
[04:28] But third of all, it doesn't fix the underlying problem.
Speaker 10:
[04:30] So the stock market has not gone down very much at all.
Speaker 1:
[04:34] You're adding to the economic woes.
Speaker 10:
[04:37] It's gotten down a little bit, much less than I thought.
Speaker 1:
[04:41] There also was a sabotage attack that we just learned about this week from a key pipeline from Italy up to Germany.
Speaker 10:
[04:47] And frankly, the gas hasn't gone up as much as I thought.
Speaker 1:
[04:51] You are going to see this attack on the way of life, not just in Europe. You're going to see these kinds of things around the world.
Speaker 6:
[05:02] I repeat, we are interested in building good relations with Hungary, as well as all European countries.
Speaker 1:
[05:09] The Ukraine invasion by Russia has been going on since 2014. And that is something that Trump has tried very hard to basically to bless.
Speaker 10:
[05:22] We didn't start the war with Ukraine, but we helped them. I mean, Biden gave them $350 billion.
Speaker 1:
[05:28] But meanwhile, because Trump is such a fucking idiot, he has put himself where he either has to capitulate to Russia, to China, to Iran, which may be where this goes.
Speaker 10:
[05:41] I have a very good relationship with President Xi of China.
Speaker 1:
[05:45] Or he has to realize that the way of life for not just Europe, but the United States for the rest of the world is something that you need to solve.
Speaker 10:
[05:55] We work together very well.
Speaker 1:
[05:56] And he's going to need real adults to solve it with.
Speaker 10:
[06:00] I will tell you, you're not going to have a war with me and you're not going to have a third world war with me. That I can tell you.
Speaker 1:
[06:06] I want to argue that we should be thinking of the Iran War as part of a world war, a world war that started probably at least by 2022.
Speaker 2:
[06:16] Ukraine still under attack tonight. Russian forces launching a full scale invasion about 24 hours ago. And tonight, those forces are reportedly closing in on the capital of Kiev.
Speaker 1:
[06:27] Arguably earlier than that.
Speaker 2:
[06:28] Fast moving changes in Ukraine, signaling the Russians appear to have won this round, taking control of their prize, Crimea.
Speaker 1:
[06:36] And I say that partly because that is one way to understand the stakes of what is going on.
Speaker 8:
[06:45] Donald Trump may be claiming a total and complete victory over Iran after agreeing to a two-week ceasefire, but this morning's Russian newspapers don't agree.
Speaker 1:
[06:54] Why do I say it's a world war?
Speaker 8:
[06:56] Moskovsky-Kamsomolets writes, Only the feverish mind of the American president himself can consider this a triumphant victory.
Speaker 1:
[07:03] Because we've already seen that the Iran War and the Ukraine War have become one.
Speaker 8:
[07:11] In the Russian government paper, Rassiyskaya Geziata, this opinion piece suggests that in Iran, the United States saw the limits of its capabilities. Everyone else saw it too.
Speaker 1:
[07:22] By that, I mean Russia has helped Iran targeting US forces, US forces, Israeli forces, but primarily US forces and US forces on Gulf bases.
Speaker 12:
[07:37] A Ukrainian intelligence assessment claims Russia secretly helped Iran plan strikes on US forces and key sites across West Asia.
Speaker 1:
[07:45] So like in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Speaker 12:
[07:47] The report outlines how Russian satellites carried out detailed surveillance in the days leading up to Iranian attacks.
Speaker 1:
[07:53] It is highly likely that the missile strikes that Iran succeeded with on March 1st on Prince Sultan Air Base on Saudi Arabia, which were enormously successful, played a key role in being able to succeed with follow-up strikes there. It is highly likely that that strike came with the help of Russian intelligence. It is also presumed that that strike is what killed Benjamin Pennington, a Space Force's personnel from Kentucky. Well, hundreds filled the streets of Hardin County today, remembering a Kentucky hero gone too soon. Thirteen US service members have been killed since the start of the war with Iran. If those two presumptions are right, Russia has already helped Iran kill at least one US soldier.
Speaker 12:
[08:47] Russian satellites also increased their activity over the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker 1:
[08:51] But these two are combined for more reasons than that, right? Donald Trump started this war, probably he started this war because he's a narcissist and he has become addicted to the snuff films that Whiskey Pete Hegseth gives him from any kind of military action. He wants to see the boom boom boom.
Speaker 10:
[09:10] You saw what happened with Venezuela?
Speaker 1:
[09:12] It may be just that simple.
Speaker 11:
[09:14] The war is turning Iran into a major world power. That's the headline of a new op-ed in the New York Times by our next guest, Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.
Speaker 1:
[09:26] But he started this war.
Speaker 13:
[09:28] The escalation trap is when a strong country, the United States, uses military force, air power that can be practically successful. Bombs hit targets, bombs kill leaders, but it does not produce strategic success.
Speaker 1:
[09:45] And the things he dismissed, most importantly, that Iran would take control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker 14:
[09:53] Nobody expected that.
Speaker 1:
[09:55] But just as importantly, that Iran would target the Gulf countries that the United States is supposed to have been guaranteeing.
Speaker 10:
[10:04] We were shocked.
Speaker 1:
[10:05] Donald Trump's response was to demand help from them, which the Emirates are willing to give, the Saudis significantly less so, particularly after Donald Trump mocked Mohammed bin Salman.
Speaker 10:
[10:20] Now, he has to be nice to me. You tell him he better be nice to me. He's got to be.
Speaker 1:
[10:27] The guy who likes to chop up his adversaries with a bonesaw. Trump mocked him saying that he had to kiss his ass.
Speaker 10:
[10:34] He didn't think he'd be kissing my ass.
Speaker 1:
[10:36] Mohammed bin Salman had to kiss Donald Trump's ass.
Speaker 10:
[10:38] He really didn't.
Speaker 1:
[10:39] At the same time, Donald Trump has been making really misleading attacks about support from Europe.
Speaker 15:
[10:49] President Trump calling out NATO after meeting with Secretary General Mark Rutte yesterday.
Speaker 1:
[10:53] First by saying that NATO should be there to support him.
Speaker 15:
[10:58] He's saying, quote, NATO wasn't there when we needed them, and they won't be there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big, poorly run piece of ice.
Speaker 1:
[11:08] In this war where he didn't give them advance notice, he didn't give them any influence on the strategy.
Speaker 16:
[11:15] Joining us now to react is the host of My View, Lara Trump. Lara, good morning to you.
Speaker 1:
[11:19] He didn't give them an opportunity to prevent this insane rollout.
Speaker 11:
[11:24] Well, listen, Carly, I think every American has been shocked and highly disappointed by the lack of support we've gotten from NATO.
Speaker 1:
[11:31] He didn't put a competent, any competent leaders in charge.
Speaker 11:
[11:35] That's very frustrating.
Speaker 1:
[11:36] So in other words, he took the shit sandwich and he said to the Europeans, you have to get involved in your role as NATO.
Speaker 11:
[11:43] Again, NATO needs the United States a lot more than the United States needs NATO.
Speaker 1:
[11:48] Now, that's not how NATO works.
Speaker 11:
[11:51] And so we'll see. Maybe we move some troops around. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:
[11:53] But the other thing that Trump is trying to do is he's trying to get somebody else to put their bodies on the line for re-opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is not going to be easy if it can be done.
Speaker 11:
[12:06] We need your assistance to our allies in NATO to open up the Strait of Hormuz. They were nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1:
[12:12] He is very successfully ginning up this outrage, particularly among the right, but even among centrist commentators. They're like, oh, well, you know, NATO needs to step up.
Speaker 17:
[12:21] Secretary General Rood understands that.
Speaker 14:
[12:23] I think he understands the frustration the president has. Look, as a defensive alliance, we've asked them to pull their own weight.
Speaker 18:
[12:30] When we go through the Strait of Hormuz, a lot of that stuff goes to Europe.
Speaker 17:
[12:33] A lot of it goes to the Pacific.
Speaker 1:
[12:35] When, really, people need to take a step back and say, like, where is this going to go? And what has Trump already done? And meanwhile, what is Trump doing at this moment? One of the things, for example, that Trump did after Iran, probably with Russia's help, managed to take out a bunch of the radars in the Middle East.
Speaker 19:
[12:56] US artillery and anti-missile systems defending South Korea have been quietly redeployed to the Middle East, despite Seoul's objections.
Speaker 1:
[13:07] Trump said to South Korea and to Poland, hey, can we use your interceptors?
Speaker 16:
[13:14] The US wants to redeploy one of Poland's two-patron missile defense systems to the Middle East. Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita Daily reported on Tuesday.
Speaker 1:
[13:23] We need them because we started this fucking stupid war in the Middle East, and now we need them to protect the Gulf allies whose radars have been blown out, probably with the help of Russia.
Speaker 18:
[13:36] The fact of the matter here is that the US produces about 750 patriots per year, missiles per year. They have burned through far more than that in the first month of this conflict.
Speaker 1:
[13:51] What happens if Poland takes its own interceptors and moves them to Saudi Arabia, which was struck with the help of Russia?
Speaker 20:
[14:03] Polish Defense Minister Władysław Koszyniak-Kamysz commented on the report emphasizing that patriot batteries belong to Poland and that Warsaw has no plans to redeploy them.
Speaker 1:
[14:13] It leaves Poland relatively helpless against Russia, which has made no secret of an interest in expanding the war in Ukraine as part of a way to win it.
Speaker 3:
[14:26] Poland's prime minister says the country is at its closest to an open conflict since World War II.
Speaker 1:
[14:32] Zelensky very smartly got on a plane and flew around the gulf and said, we can help you protect against drones.
Speaker 21:
[14:39] This includes all types of drones. Shahid, drones which cause serious damage to infrastructure, and FPV drones, which are now used for targeted attacks on military bases and equipment in the region.
Speaker 1:
[14:55] This is, of course, happening when Trump has continues to push Ukraine to capitulate to Russia to give up.
Speaker 10:
[15:03] I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear, never disappear in my mind.
Speaker 1:
[15:09] Some of its most important defensive territory.
Speaker 3:
[15:12] That was according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday. With Washington's focus drawn to its conflict in the Middle East, Zelensky says US pressure is mounting on Ukraine to bring a fast end to the war with Russia after four years of conflict.
Speaker 1:
[15:27] Which Russia has been unable to gain, which would be the equivalent of turning over the Sudetenland in World War II.
Speaker 22:
[15:33] In my view, the Russian side is shaping the atmosphere in its dialogue with the Americans around this very idea that Ukraine should withdraw from Donbass.
Speaker 1:
[15:42] Trump wants to do this partly for personal gain.
Speaker 19:
[15:45] Strikingly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are not the ones doing the negotiating. Instead, it's mainly Trump's businessman pal Steve Witkoff and Putin's money man Kirill Dmitriev.
Speaker 1:
[16:01] His quote-unquote negotiators Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, fucking incompetent, but also both themselves, they stand to pocket money off these deals. Steve Witkoff is not somebody who has any experience with Russia or obviously any experience with diplomacy. And I do fear that he has an idea that there will be some kind of U.S.-Russia pact that he might benefit or his son might benefit or Trump's family might benefit or that people around them will benefit. I mean, it's a really disturbing prospect or it should be for all Americans. Both themselves are the ones who were either too stupid or only feigning good faith in negotiations with Iran leading up to the war.
Speaker 11:
[16:46] The U.S.-Israeli attack was to prevent peace, not to advance it. The new article in Counterpunch details how President Trump opted to attack Iran despite progress made during last week's U.S.-Iran negotiations in Geneva.
Speaker 1:
[17:00] So, even if you just look at these two spheres, right?
Speaker 14:
[17:04] Well, I was part of any number of conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, conversations that took place in other countries.
Speaker 16:
[17:10] But of him pitching the US to strike Iran?
Speaker 14:
[17:13] Yes, he wanted us to strike. He came to President Obama. He made a presentation to ask to strike. President Obama refused. President Biden refused. President Bush refused. The only president who has agreed to this, obviously, is President Trump.
Speaker 1:
[17:30] Many people assume it's an accident that Trump took this stupid action in Iran, which really helped Russia.
Speaker 23:
[17:38] President Putin, will you agree to a ceasefire? Mr. Putin, did you underestimate Ukraine?
Speaker 24:
[17:51] President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?
Speaker 1:
[17:53] One of his first acts was to reward Russia for helping Iran to target American soldiers by getting rid of sanctions on oil, got rid of some of the sanctions on Iranian oil, the other day after, you know, in an attempt to claim that he has some kind of peace deal or some kind of ceasefire with Iran, he's like, maybe I'll go into business with Iran the same way I went into business with Venezuela.
Speaker 5:
[18:17] Mr. President, you are on with about 5,000 Hungarian patriots, and I think they love you even more than they love Viktor Orban.
Speaker 1:
[18:24] But as he's doing this, JD Vance is heading to Hungary and basically attacking the EU, right?
Speaker 10:
[18:32] You don't have problems with all of the problems that so many other countries have because they let their countries be invaded.
Speaker 1:
[18:39] So it doesn't matter whether it was intentional that Trump starts a war with Iran that helps Russia.
Speaker 4:
[18:46] They are currently destroying documents that have to do with the sanctions.
Speaker 1:
[18:51] It has the effect of shifting demands on Europe, making it a lot harder for them to defend against the Russian invasion of Europe.
Speaker 10:
[19:00] NATO is a paper attacker.
Speaker 14:
[19:02] Putin is not afraid of NATO.
Speaker 1:
[19:04] At the same time, and I'll get back to this, but at the same time, Trump is continuing his efforts to help Russia against Europe.
Speaker 10:
[19:11] He's explained it to me a lot of times. I got to know him very well.
Speaker 14:
[19:14] I know him very well.
Speaker 10:
[19:16] NATO is a paper tiger.
Speaker 1:
[19:18] That's not yet a world war, but when you throw in China, it becomes a world war, right?
Speaker 23:
[19:22] This resolution initially called for Article 7, which would have given member states authorization to use force to open up the Strait of Hormuz. Russia and China very much against that. They said, we will veto this.
Speaker 1:
[19:37] While the United States was invading Iran, China was building a new base in the South China Sea.
Speaker 22:
[19:43] China will absolutely not tolerate independence for Taiwan.
Speaker 1:
[19:47] It continues to make moves in Taiwan.
Speaker 22:
[19:50] That was the message from Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting Friday with Cheng Liwen.
Speaker 1:
[19:55] A Taiwanese opposition leader flew to China to talk about, you know, whatever reality with China.
Speaker 22:
[20:02] Cheng is in China on what she calls a peace mission, to reduce tensions at a time when Beijing has stepped up military pressure on Taiwan.
Speaker 1:
[20:10] And two key details. It's not yet clear how much military help China has been giving Iran.
Speaker 24:
[20:17] CNN reporting the communist nation is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran.
Speaker 1:
[20:22] But there's good reason to believe it has given some, and potentially very critical, military help.
Speaker 15:
[20:30] China is preparing to ship weapons to Iran.
Speaker 10:
[20:33] Well, if China does that, China is going to have big problems.
Speaker 1:
[20:35] Russia, by the way, of course, has an open sea, has the Caspian Sea with Iran.
Speaker 8:
[20:40] The Kremlin issues a chilling warning to Israel against this war dangerously spilling over.
Speaker 1:
[20:44] Israel, but not the United States, as far as I can tell. Israel bombed a base on the Caspian Sea via which Russia has been reinforcing Iran.
Speaker 8:
[20:54] Israel's Caspian Sea attacks may have targeted not only Iran but also the interests of its close ally Russia.
Speaker 1:
[21:01] But we know that Russia has been able to supply Iran.
Speaker 8:
[21:04] According to reports, it was not just Russia, as Iran was also said to use the route to move Shah drones for allied operations.
Speaker 1:
[21:11] The other key detail is the ceasefire the other night, which was negotiated by Pakistan, which has relations with both the United States and China.
Speaker 3:
[21:21] China's relatively muted response during the initial weeks of the West Asia War was the subject of intense speculation.
Speaker 1:
[21:28] It wasn't going to come together.
Speaker 3:
[21:30] In a big claim, the US president Donald Trump has told media agency AFP that he believed that China helped get Iran to the negotiating table to agree for a two-week conditional ceasefire.
Speaker 1:
[21:42] It looked like there was no way it was going to come together. And then, A, at the last moment, China intervenes, right?
Speaker 3:
[21:50] China's diplomatic heft cannot be understated. It is Iran's largest trading partner and purchases roughly 90% of its crude oil.
Speaker 1:
[22:00] So now China is backing this agreement to reopen Hormuz to basically allow Trump to concede to Iran.
Speaker 5:
[22:10] I've learned a lot about the Iranian system and a lot about the way the Iranians negotiate.
Speaker 1:
[22:15] But also, JD Vance purportedly intervened at the last minute.
Speaker 5:
[22:19] The president told me last night the Iranians are better negotiators than they are fighters. I'm sure they don't like to hear that, but it's true.
Speaker 1:
[22:26] JD Vance is heading to Pakistan for the ongoing negotiations.
Speaker 5:
[22:30] The bad news is that we have not reached the agreement. And I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America.
Speaker 1:
[22:37] JD Vance is doing this having come directly from Hungary. I mean, he's stopping off at home, but JD Vance is doing this having just stood up in Bucharest and said, we are going to help Russia continue its influence operation in Europe.
Speaker 4:
[22:54] We know that people have been destroying documents, just like in the old communist age.
Speaker 1:
[23:01] And the United States.
Speaker 23:
[23:02] Donald Trump, JD Vance and the entire Trump regime are claiming they are free to destroy any of their documents and emails and internal memos and their presidential records.
Speaker 1:
[23:14] One of the things we're seeing right now in advance of the Hungarian election, April 12th, where Orban, who has been sort of the ideological godfather of this information operation in Europe and America, and also the money laundering vehicle for it.
Speaker 18:
[23:31] We have an editor at the Insider, Michael Weiss, who's reporting from Europe.
Speaker 1:
[23:35] One of the things we're seeing in advance of that is a bunch of intelligence showing that Orban and his top aides are literally assets of Russia.
Speaker 13:
[23:46] We were in receipt of a series of intercepted phone calls between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Cesaro, who basically was conspiring with the Kremlin to lift certain EU sanctions on Russia.
Speaker 1:
[24:06] They are literally going to Russia and saying, here's how we can undermine European democracy for your help.
Speaker 17:
[24:14] Your thoughts about whether it was worth it to go support Victor Orban in that race, considering he lost significantly and he's one of the only European leaders who supports Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 5:
[24:26] Well, first of all, Brett, I think that Victor Orban is a great guy who's done a very good job.
Speaker 1:
[24:31] Literal intercepts of these conversations are coming out in advance of the election between Orban and Peter Magyar.
Speaker 6:
[24:39] We have to adopt a lot of things on the first day, including anti-corruption measures.
Speaker 1:
[24:45] In the next week, we are going to see whether Orban can be replaced, whether this ideological operation will suffer a setback.
Speaker 6:
[24:55] We consider it very important to strengthen Hungary's position in the European Union and NATO.
Speaker 1:
[25:03] And if it does, what kind of response we are going to see from Russia and the United States, which are allied on this information operation targeting Western Europe. So the next big development may not be in Iran, it might be in Hungary.
Speaker 15:
[25:18] This sign is Ruski Kaza. It means Russians go home. Because Russian influence has been plaguing politics in this country. And honestly, most of the people that I spoke to in Budapest are disgusted with the Russian influence that has plagued society here, politics and media.
Speaker 1:
[25:33] So that ceasefire happens with the intervention of China and with the intervention of JD Vance, who is just explicitly part of this Russian project.
Speaker 5:
[25:42] The counteroffensive is within Ukraine. They're not seeking land from Russian. In fact, just today, I'm not passing judgment on the morality of what they're doing. Of course, it's their territory, Jake, but you have to acknowledge military reality on the ground. We've got to choose the strategy that might actually work. The counteroffensive is within Ukrainian territory.
Speaker 1:
[26:01] And what has happened with the military focus on Iran, again, this is accidental largely because Trump and Whiskey Pete Hicks says they're fucking stupid.
Speaker 18:
[26:11] I try to be nice up here, but you did listen to what I said, right? I laid out the objectives. We believe we've accomplished them, and it's a historic military victory.
Speaker 1:
[26:21] But what has happened is they've blown all of the military arms that they would need to defend Taiwan.
Speaker 20:
[26:29] According to Lockheed Martin, the US only produced around 600 pack-free MS-E missiles in 2025, meaning it would need more than two years to replenish the stock used during the first two weeks of war.
Speaker 1:
[26:42] And I've already talked about South Korea, right?
Speaker 19:
[26:44] The crisis is also reviving charge debate over whether South Korea should acquire nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1:
[26:51] They have made it literally impossible to extend their force in China.
Speaker 24:
[27:00] For more on the state of the war or this quote unquote ceasefire, we're joined this morning by Yanis Varoufakis. He, of course, is the former finance minister of Greece.
Speaker 1:
[27:08] At a time when China is openly saying, I'm just going to take Taiwan.
Speaker 25:
[27:11] There is no doubt whatsoever that a great winner out of this awful, murderous war is China.
Speaker 1:
[27:19] Of course, this comes on the background of where Trump tries to take on China with tariffs and China, in response, basically holds Trump by the rear earth's nuts and gets him to capitulate to China on that front.
Speaker 25:
[27:33] For the moment that Tomahawk missile hit that school in southern Iran onwards, China has been winning. They don't need to do anything.
Speaker 1:
[27:41] China, by the way, still is not buying soybeans. China has won the tariff war.
Speaker 25:
[27:46] They just need to sit back, relax, to the extent that it is possible to relax these days with the massacres that we watch, and just take the credit for being the adults in the room internationally, for being reliable partners to anyone that they have done business with, of not flip-flopping, of not threatening with Armageddon, a civilization like Iran or any country for that matter.
Speaker 1:
[28:05] China, Iran, Russia are about to win the Iranian war.
Speaker 25:
[28:10] Let's not give them too much credit for it because it is as if Washington DC is doing its best to lose every diplomatic brownie point America has ever won since 1944.
Speaker 1:
[28:21] The big question now, and this is how I think Europeans, this is how I think the rest of the world, and frankly, Gulf partners need to think about it, the big question right now is which side is Donald Trump going to be on?
Speaker 10:
[28:35] Look, regardless, we win, regardless what happens, we win.
Speaker 1:
[28:46] In the wake of Orban's loss, Russia has basically declared, it's a minor flesh wound.
Speaker 19:
[28:52] Victory is mine.
Speaker 1:
[28:55] And instead said that with Orban's fall, they still would destroy the EU in a matter of months.
Speaker 6:
[29:04] We believe that any steps aimed at continuing to fuel the militaristic and pro-war ambitions of the Kiev authorities do not contribute to efforts to find a peaceful settlement.
Speaker 1:
[29:14] Senator Konstantin Kassachev described, Orban's leaving, but the problems remain. In fact, they're snowballing. The EU now has to, I'm not quoting here, now has to find 90 billion euros for Ukraine, which Peter Magyar will now permit the EU to spend.
Speaker 4:
[29:31] It is the job of any Ukrainian government to protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty. And no one should tell them that at the, hopefully at the end of a four year war, what, under what conditions they should enter peace or sign a peace treaty.
Speaker 1:
[29:50] This is a quote, second, fuel and utility prices will continue to rise due to events in the Middle East, which is distant from the EU, offering little optimism either in households or in the corridors of power. He's not saying this, but you're also going to see more refugees again, which is what has stressed the EU in the past. And then importantly, Kirill Dmitriev.
Speaker 19:
[30:11] Putin's special envoy has arrived in the United States on an urgent visit. The official goal is peace negotiations, but the reality is far more mundane. It's about money, oil and sanctions, which are set to expire as early as April 11th.
Speaker 1:
[30:26] Who is effectively Steve Wittkopf's handler, through the time when Wittkopf has undermined an actual settlement in Ukraine and represented Russia's interest and Russia's demand that Ukraine sacrifice its best fortifications and has been Wittkopf's handler. Well, he bollocks any attempt to get peace in Iran.
Speaker 17:
[30:50] You are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace, this noble award was ever talked about.
Speaker 1:
[30:57] Dmitriyov said, check if I'm right in four months. Orban's defeat will just accelerate the collapse of the EU.
Speaker 19:
[31:03] Dmitriyov's visit is just an attempt to trade vague promises of peace for very real dollars from oil sales. Russia is trying to exploit global energy dependence to ease the pressure of sanctions.
Speaker 1:
[31:16] Russia at least believes that with Trump's invasion of Iran, they have created the conditions that Orban used to have to work for. Now it has just fallen into their lap because Donald Trump has destroyed the world economy and has no way out.
Speaker 20:
[31:30] Produced by LOLGOP Studios.
Speaker 16:
[31:33] Find out more at patreon.com/lolgopstudios.