Paul Craig Roberts: Xi Humors Trump as His World Caves In (Inside & Out)

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:05]Hi everybody. Today's Monday, May 18, 2026 and our dear friend Paul Kerrick Roberts is here with us. Welcome back.

[00:00:14]>> Thank you, Nema.

[00:00:16]>> And Paul, let me just read some of Trump's tweets today. You know, he tweeted today that Iran is dying for is dying to sign a deal. They want a deal very badly. And later on he tweeted again said Iran talks Yeah. Iran talks about a deal and then sends me a completely useless paper unrelated to anything we discussed.

[00:00:50]It's just amazing to and the other point is moments just I think it's it was you know 50 minutes ago something like that he tweeted again and said that >> I was supposed to attack Iran tomorrow but I canled that attack because Saudi Arabia UAE all these GCC countries are asking me don't attack Iran so I cancelled the attack tomorrow there would be no attack on Iran And maybe he's he's you know he's he's trying because people are talking about he's again he's trying to they call it taco taco something like that but or the other point would be he maybe he's trying to do something he's trying to deceive people and he's going to attack Iran. By the way, what we know on the part of Iranians that that they're ready and they don't see these sort of tweets and they don't see any sort of reason to follow Donald Trump with, you know, one minute says something and the other minute just changes everything.

[00:01:55]>> Paul, how do you see the situation with Donald Trump? I think it's good to start with his visit to China and what he wanted from China and what is your assessment of that >> of the Chinese trip?

[00:02:10]>> Yeah.

[00:02:12]>> Well, um, as you know, I don't think there's any point to any of these tr trips or any of these negotiations because they never engage uh the real issue.

[00:02:26]Uh I did note that there was not a joint communicate after the meeting. There was not a joint press conference and I did note that uh Trump's account of the meeting was entirely different from the Chinese account of the meeting.

[00:02:49]So, we have no idea uh if anything Trump says that that was a result of the meeting is true because the Chinese don't repeat any of it.

[00:03:06]So, um who do we believe? Well, u depends on uh who you have the most confidence in.

[00:03:19]And I don't think u the confidence indicator is leaning very strongly in Trump's direction for the reasons that you said. Um he's got one position now and a different one in five minutes.

[00:03:39]and he's always blustering and he's always acting as if Iran is either already destroyed or about to be and um he's always threatening to attack and then he calls it off because somebody asked him to and it's nonsensical. I don't know what the purpose of any of this is.

[00:04:07]I don't know if there's anyone in his government that can talk to him about the u impact that he is making. He he he looks foolish and I can't see how that uh helps him.

[00:04:29]You know, one of the things politicians have always wanted to avoid was looking foolish.

[00:04:38]doesn't seem to bother Trump.

[00:04:42]So I think um the only significant element of the meeting between Trump and the Chinese leader was the Chinese leader statement to Trump.

[00:05:02]Do not mess with Taiwan or there will be conflict instead of business deals.

[00:05:13]I believe what the Chinese said that if the United States can avoid uh trying to interject itself between China and Taiwan, which is part of China and has been since 1970s when President Nixon acknowledged the one China policy, that if the United States can just leave that alone, at China I don't think will bother us and will continue to be a a good business partner but if the American impulse to hegemony or just to causing trouble intervenes in Taiwan we're going to pay a big price so I think That's the only important part of the whole meeting. I don't think anything else means anything or matters.

[00:06:20]And why it was held, I don't really know. I guess the Chinese just decided to accommodate Trump. It was Trump, I think, that requested the meeting. So, okay, let's accommodate him. and um they're not um confrontational looking for conflict.

[00:06:43]So that's about all I think there is to say about it.

[00:06:48]I mean I may be missing something but I think not.

[00:06:54]I think the point of the main issue for China is Taiwan which they wanted to talk with the Trump administration but with the statement of the White House we haven't seen anything related to Taiwan they didn't mention anything the Chinese part mentioned that that it was discussed during the meeting the visit they had and Paul do you see any anytime soon the United States decides about the Taiwan because China really wants, you know, the unity of Taiwan with China, the motherland, and they can do it by force in my opinion. And at this particular moment that we're in, they don't need to, they don't need to, you know, to attack Taiwan. They can, you know, do some sort of blockade or embargo on Taiwan and they would capitulate. There is no way to save them. It's an island. But is the United States going to facilitate that or escalate? Because Donald Trump has to sign a new sort of aid to Taiwan, which is more than 11 billion dollars of weapons. I don't know where do those weapons come from and because they don't have it right now, but they want to send it to Taiwan. And China knows that. China knows the time is on their side, is not on the side of Donald Trump. How do you see that?

[00:08:23]Well, I don't see um what the weapons can do.

[00:08:28]Um so Trump may want to send them just because it makes money for the United States armaments manufacturers.

[00:08:37]You know, we have this massive armorament industry and so we need conflicts or expectation of conflicts so that people will arm themselves and buy the weapons. Otherwise, it's hard to keep this system going.

[00:08:56]It's huge and it's expensive and has always thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands people employed and and the company stocks are valuable and so to maintain all that uh they need to move weapons. So they need if not actual conflicts, they need the expectation.

[00:09:20]Uh that's what NATO has been for. So, one of the reasons Trump is down on NATO is that they don't buy enough weapons and so it doesn't uh support our armament industry.

[00:09:35]So, the the point of the weapons going to Taiwan, they wouldn't help Taiwan in a war with China.

[00:09:46]There's no way Taiwan could deter uh China taking the place over by force.

[00:09:54]But China doesn't want to do that.

[00:09:56]There's no need to. The Chinese plan has always been we just gradually integrate their economy into ours and then they see they're part of us.

[00:10:12]So, I'm not sure what motivates the Taiwanese leadership. It may be bags of money from the Americans.

[00:10:21]It may be we're paying them uh to be sort of antagonistic to China, but I don't think Taiwan wants a conflict, not a not a military conflict with China. There's no prospect for them in that.

[00:10:40]Uh, I don't think there's any prospect of us being able to save Taiwan should there be a military conflict.

[00:10:50]For the same reason that our ships can't enter the straits of Hormuz, they can't get close to the Chinese shore.

[00:10:58]So, uh, what can we do? There's practically nothing militarily short of nuclear weapons. But the Chinese have nuclear weapons also.

[00:11:11]And it was some years ago when somebody in the Pentagon said something about how we could nuke the Chinese and all, the Chinese instantly responded and showed the routes into the United States they would use for their missiles and how we would disappear.

[00:11:30]They weren't the least bit intimidated.

[00:11:32]They said, "Okay, this is what'll happen to you."

[00:11:36]So I I think uh Nema this whole notion that somehow the United States has to control every country, everybody, everything. This sort of hegemonic approach. It's always been a part of the liberal American view that we are a a an indispensable country somehow endowed with privileges and rights over other countries. And this >> mean sorry for interrupting. You mean neoliberals? You're not talking about liberals because liberals like Ch Nom Chsky, he was totally against it.

[00:12:22]Well, he's not he he's not a liberal.

[00:12:24]Chsky is a left.

[00:12:26]>> Classic liberal. I'm talking >> uh I'm talking about the American political liberals of the 20th century.

[00:12:35]The political liberals of the 20th century.

[00:12:38]Um they believed in American exceptionalism.

[00:12:46]Um they they've written books about it. you know the professors in the universities they were represented in the state department and other uh important parts of the government. Uh now that view was hardened with the wolfwitz doctrine when the Soviet Union collapsed because at the time China was not uh what it is today in 1991 and the Soviet Union was the only constraint on American unilateralism.

[00:13:23]And when it collapsed and we started uh dismembering you know the Soviet Union you know we we broke off the entire u uh far eastern part or central Asia Kazakhstan Beckistan all broke that off we broke Ukraine off we broke um Bellarus off uh and of course the whole Warsaw pack was gone and the Baltics and uh So, you know, this allowed uh the American neoconservatives to uh very boldly state the doctrine of hegemony.

[00:14:05]So, this I think is the main problem everywhere. It's the problem with Russia, with Iran, with China from the American standpoint. Now the American problem with Iran is also uh influenced by Israel by the Israel lobby. You know Trump is very much uh in the hands of uh of Israel. We we attacked Iran for Israel. And this is officially acknowledged by the legal officer of uh the State Department who wrote in the document that I u posted the link to on my website that the United States attacked Iran at the request of Israel.

[00:14:55]So that's the source of of all the conflicts. It's the notion that we somehow have to be in charge everywhere.

[00:15:09]And to be in charge, we will try to destabilize other countries to block their initiatives.

[00:15:19]And this is all uh uh multiplied in the case of the Middle East because uh the Trump is such a total puppet of the Israelis.

[00:15:31]So we have the Israeli hegemony in the Middle East which they claim through greater Israel and Trump is a supporter of that. So these are the two problems and they don't get discussed.

[00:15:48]You don't see in the among the foreign policy community in Russia or China or Iran or Europe or the United States any discussion of the Zionist agenda of greater Israel and how destabilizing this is. You basically Israel has told all the countries in the Middle East, we're going to terminate you because you're in the way of greater Israel.

[00:16:15]This is an assertion of hegemony over the Middle East. And no one says anything about the American policy of hegemony over the world. It's the whole reason that we're using Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia. The neoconservatives were were determined to destabilize Russia.

[00:16:38]You know, they tried it first when they sent the Georgian army into South Oessia. I think that was 2008 and then they overthrew the Ukrainian government and built an army and was about to launch it into the Russian Donbos.

[00:16:58]Uh these are all efforts to destabilize Russia. We we had um a color revolution in Georgia, a former province of Russia and for a while it was hostile but the Russians overcame that they got a government that was not hostile and we tried to overthrow that government. That was last year or the year before I forget. You know, so much happens. Um but that uh American attempt to have a a second color revolution in Georgia failed.

[00:17:34]So all of the the aggression comes from Israel and from Washington. It doesn't come from China, Russia and Iran.

[00:17:48]Russia was forced into the intervention in Donbos. They didn't want it. It's clear. N uh Putin did everything he could to avoid it. For eight years he hid behind the uh Minsk agreement so that he wouldn't have to do anything.

[00:18:11]China aborts any kind of real conflict and Iran has has not attacked anyone except in response to being attacked.

[00:18:24]U Trump says it's a terrorist nation.

[00:18:27]But where's the terror? I mean, what terror do they commit?

[00:18:33]Um, they suffer terror. It's the assassination of their leaders, their scientists by Israel and the United States.

[00:18:42]So when you have a situation like that, which is so obvious that it's this hegemonic claim, the United States and Israel, that's the source of all the trouble. And no one will acknowledge it or discuss it or say, "Hey, look, how can it be peace or negotiation when one side is claiming hgemony over everyone else?

[00:19:14]That's that doesn't permit peace or negotiation."

[00:19:20]So that's the um that's the great frustration.

[00:19:25]Um, I've been stressing this for the longest time. And there's almost no response.

[00:19:32]People don't say, "You're wrong. Let me show you why." They don't they don't say, "Oh, this is an idea. We better start thinking about this. That's right.

[00:19:42]How can the Iranians negotiate with the United States and Israel when the United States and Israel doesn't think uh the Iranians uh have a right to sovereignty and the Iranians don't even say that.

[00:20:00]You know, we've talked about it before.

[00:20:02]Uh why don't the Iranians raise the question of the Zionist agenda of greater Israel?

[00:20:10]Why don't they? And they should say, "Look, let's negotiate that."

[00:20:15]Not whether or not we have the right as we do under the non-prololiferation treaty to enrich uranium or the right to control our coast, our waterways.

[00:20:31]Why are we negotiating that?

[00:20:34]We should be negotiating Israel's claim to the Middle East.

[00:20:41]So, you know, I'm just repeating what I said before. Go on to your next question.

[00:20:47]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:51]Donald Trump wanted, it seems that one of the objectives in his visit to China was to convince them to buy American oil and somehow replace Iranian oil with American oil, which it seems that has failed because I don't see China want to be dependent on the United States when it comes to energy because energy is so strategic for them and so important for their economy. That's why they don't want they they may want a lot of things with the United States, a lot of trade with the United States, but that's not going to go down to the with the case of energy and they don't want to be. Is it your assessment?

[00:21:33]>> Well, yeah, I think you're right that China doesn't want to be dependent on the United States for anything. Um, but you see, Nema, uh, energy is fungeable.

[00:21:45]oil. Oil is funible like money. It's not quite as funible as money, but there's an oil market.

[00:21:55]And why does it matter where you get the oil from?

[00:22:01]Uh I'm not sure uh that the big American oil companies even know what part of their supply is American and what parts from Saudi Arabia or the oil emirates or or Nigeria or where it's coming from. They're not categorizing the oil they have according to the country. I mean they they do want to separate heavy oil from light crude u and and all of that because the refining process is different. But the notion that there's a supply of American oil and that's sold differently from supplies of other oil, that's not the way the oil market works. and the big uh the big powerful companies that that do the refining, they get they get the oil from the market wherever the hell it is.

[00:22:59]And so I don't quite know how it is that Trump uh would uh be marketing them only American oil. histo.

[00:23:15]It's um a curious thing. And why does he want that? Well, you could say the reason Trump wants that is it gives him some control over China and and they clearly won't accept that.

[00:23:30]So, it could just be uh Trump's expression of American hijgemony.

[00:23:37]uh it it it has been a policy of the United States for a long time to uh seek to control oil flows. That's the reason that's one of the reason maybe the it's not well I think the real reason we got so entrenched in the Middle East was the Cold War. We were trying to keep the Soviets out. But certainly a very important reason for American entrenchment in the Middle East is to control oil flows.

[00:24:13]And so this is a method of American control.

[00:24:23]But the oil is it's a world commodity and it's not compartmentalized.

[00:24:31]There's there's not a price for American oil over here and a price for Saudi oil over there and oil from from Iraq or Syria or the Gulf States or I mean it's just not like that.

[00:24:46]So um my own view is that um the United States uh cannot impose hegemony.

[00:25:02]Israel has been successful in using the United States to impose its hegemony in the Middle East. We destroyed Libya for them and and Iraq and Syria. We agreed to attack uh Iran which was a mistake and we have supplied them with the means and the diplomatic cover to destroy Palestine.

[00:25:31]So, Greater Israel is a real thing and it has progressed.

[00:25:38]And the first real obstacle it hit was when Putin sent the Russian air force into Syria to stop the invasion by President Obama.

[00:25:52]But then Putin pulled out and left and now Syria is gone.

[00:25:58]And the second obstacle that the Israelis hit was this attack on Iran.

[00:26:05]It wasn't at all successful like the Israelis and the Americans thought.

[00:26:12]It in fact was a defeat for Israel and the United States.

[00:26:18]Remember it was not Iran that asked for the ceasefire.

[00:26:24]So this is the first time that great Israel ran up against something and clearly Trump doesn't want to renew the war because how can he what can he do?

[00:26:40]We know he can't do anything.

[00:26:43]I mean other than nukes, uh I think that's pretty much off the table uh for Iran. It's just there's no threat that justifies using nuclear weapons. Iran is not an existential threat to the United States.

[00:27:04]It's a regional threat if we attack it.

[00:27:09]So Trump can't do anything and he's frustrated and so he blusters and threatens and acts as if he has Iran by the throat and at any minute they're going to realize their fate and do what he tells them. Well, that's not going to happen.

[00:27:31]That's not true.

[00:27:34]Um he clearly could not intimidate the Chinese.

[00:27:41]He may have more luck with Putin.

[00:27:46]Uh Putin has shown no inclination to fight about anything.

[00:27:54]So other than that uh I don't see there's much room for the Israeli agenda of hedgey or the neoconservative agenda of hedgemony. I think they've run up against uh the boundaries.

[00:28:17]It's it can't go any further, you know, unless Iran's political will collapses.

[00:28:27]Unless the Russians permit Putin to sell out the country.

[00:28:32]How likely is that?

[00:28:35]It's not very likely.

[00:28:38]But other than that, um Trump's frustrated, Net NYU is frustrated. They can't they're hope they're helpless. They can't do anything.

[00:28:50]>> Paul, what I see right now in Israel, you know, you've mentioned that Israel is progressing with their sort of agenda with greater Israel, but what I see right now comparing to what it was before this war started that they were talking about Abraham Accords. They were talking about improving the relationship between Israel and GCC countries. Right now Saudi Arabia is talking about non-aggression pact between GCC countries and Iran. They see how dependent because the outcome of the war so far is le is somehow changing the conditions of GCC countries because they're more dependent on Iran right now with the case of this form and they cannot send everything out of their countries by these pipelines.

[00:29:40]It's impossible. It's impossible to do that. That's why they're going to be independent, I think, for the rest of their, you know, sort of strategy. But don't you see that what Israel did, it was just destroying everything they have been trying to build up for such a long time.

[00:30:02]And I I see literally I see the United States is not going to get back the way it was in GCC countries. I see these Arab states getting closer. I don't I don't care that much about UAE because UAE doesn't have any sort of weight when it comes to the GCC countries. The more important countries are Saudi Arabia and Qatar together with Oman and how what is your assessment of that?

[00:30:28]>> Well, that's what I was saying. I thought that the the era of Israeli and American hegemony was over. It run up.

[00:30:37]It had run up against barriers. it couldn't penetrate um except possibly Putin who has created the image of a very weak person.

[00:30:52]Um so there's nowhere further for the US and Israel to go.

[00:31:00]Uh maybe they can destroy Lebanon, but uh not not if Iran takes a side of his historic ally Hezbollah.

[00:31:15]And I think of all the countries, the Iranians are they strike me as being a little more principled and a little more guided by a sense of honor in the old fashioned meaning of the word. So I don't think the Iranians see it in their interests to abandon allies, particularly if they have this opportunity of pulling what remains of the Arab world, which isn't very much uh back toward them. if they have this opportunity of pulling the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia into association with them instead of Israel and and the United States, then they can't abandon Hezbollah because then it shows, well, they're not reliable either.

[00:32:16]So, yes, I mean, that was the point I was trying to make. you you made it perhaps clearer than I did. U I think the boundaries are are kind of exhausted for the United States and Israel in the Middle East.

[00:32:36]Um uh the uh the whole appearance of drones and hypersonic missiles that can change course and have so many warheads, many of them dummies. And these are not things that uh traditional military force can deal with.

[00:32:58]And and so the whole notion of a superpower doesn't mean anything anymore.

[00:33:06]True, they may have more powerful weapons, but uh in in in a normal kind of a war environment, the United States has no advantage that Iran doesn't have. In fact, Iran seems to have more effective missiles.

[00:33:26]So, um, and I think this is a frustration for Trump.

[00:33:34]I think he really believed we're so powerful that Iran would collapse or, you know, and or the people would rise up and overthrow the government. I mean, how can you believe these kinds of things? I don't know. Um, they actually believe, they may not believe it now, but they actually believe that about China.

[00:33:55]And there's a a province in China that uh borders Kazakhstan, I think, if I remember my geometry. Um, and for years we were in there and they're Muslims in that part of that Chinese province.

[00:34:13]We've been trying to stir them up and cause trouble inside China that way. uh and just like me managed to earlier stir up the checkins inside Russia and cause a problem. Um but I think the all of that has uh reached its limit and I think Trump is uh sort of discrediting the United States.

[00:34:42]I mean, we were already discredited, but his behavior, it's really atrocious, isn't it? Look, the the demeaning language he's brought into politics.

[00:34:57]You see, today he's out uh on the campaign circuit trying to destroy Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman from Kentucky.

[00:35:10]uh a longtime Trump supporter but a critic of Israel. So net now you said get rid of him.

[00:35:18]This $30 million have been interjected into this primary.

[00:35:25]This is a primary. It's not even the election. It's a primary campaign.

[00:35:32]The Israel lobby came up with 10 million and then there's 20 million more that Trump and the Republicans have got to defeat Massie because he's a critic of Israel.

[00:35:46]Well, this isn't going to go down well.

[00:35:52]Trump's already run out of the Congress.

[00:35:55]Marger Taylor Green, who was a big favorite of Trump Trump people. Um, he's he behaves so foolishly. He makes so many absurd charges against people.

[00:36:09]It's u and also let me say this.

[00:36:16]I think Trump is the first president in American history to be in business while he's the president of the United States. You you look that this ballroom he's building in the White House, it's his own construction company.

[00:36:40]>> He's going to make money from this.

[00:36:45]He his uh uh bitcoins, his electronic money. He made money. His wife had one.

[00:36:59]There are all kinds of big >> Yeah. His sons, his sons are producing missiles for >> Yeah. the family. But and Trump himself, I mean, the notion that the president creates companies to make money off of him being president.

[00:37:20]Uh, we saw some of this with Biden, selling influence and and Hunter, his son, getting paid uh $50,000 a month from the Ukrainians uh for protecting them. Uh, but Trump is making billions according to reports.

[00:37:43]Billions.

[00:37:45]Well, how in the world can I don't remember Eisenhower being in business or Nixon or John Kennedy or Reagan or Jimmy Carter.

[00:37:58]I don't remember George Herbert Walker Bush being in business while they were president. Now, I'm sure they they made they did favors for people and later they got something out of it. They got put on boards. They got they got something. But they didn't they weren't running businesses. They organized while they were president to make money from being president.

[00:38:27]This is I think the first time this has happened.

[00:38:31]Maybe it happened a long time ago.

[00:38:34]Um, uh, the railroads, I think, made a lot of money out of Abe Lincoln.

[00:38:43]But for the president himself to be acting as a businessman while he's also allegedly in charge of the country, this has got to be an amazing conflict of interest.

[00:39:01]and it doesn't get any remarks. There's no comment. It may be the Democrats are just saving all of this up.

[00:39:12]Uh and when they get back in, they may lure the boom on this guy. But I don't see how this can really be legal.

[00:39:22]You see, this is the this is the practice. At least this is what Americans were always taught.

[00:39:30]uh the practice in third world countries in Latin America and in Africa and parts of Asia the practice is person in control of government uses it to get rich.

[00:39:48]So the reason people want to be in power is to use the government to make themselves rich. Well, this this Trump has now brought this to America.

[00:40:01]Well, that's the way it looks to me. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I'm just beginning to think about it. I'm thinking about it out loud with you. But now, if you look at all of this is a sign of deterioration.

[00:40:15]>> I think the numbers are are on your side and they support what they think. the numbers, everything that you've just mentioned, it's it's in the news. Nobody can ignore that.

[00:40:29]>> But they are this.

[00:40:32]>> Yeah, they are.

[00:40:33]>> They are ignoring them. And so I can see why the Republicans would, but why are the Democrats? And maybe they're just collecting all of this.

[00:40:43]Uh if Trump loses the midterms, the Democrats may use this stuff and come after him.

[00:40:53]Uh the real question is, will he lose the midterms? Because what have the Democrats got to offer?

[00:41:00]If you look at the Democrat leaders, they're as bad or worse than Trump.

[00:41:07]There's no white knight out there in either party. there.

[00:41:14]It's uh it's horrific.

[00:41:17]It's not just the United States and no western country has a viable leader.

[00:41:27]You know, in in in Britain, uh the Labor Party wants Stormer to resign.

[00:41:34]He has a very poor public support. the same for the German chancel, the French president, wherever you look, there's no support.

[00:41:44]Um, and there's no and there's nobody in the wings waiting to come in and take over and do a good job.

[00:41:57]There's I mean, we're the Republicans don't have anybody. the good ones they got, they're trying to get rid of like Thomas Massie.

[00:42:06]>> Paul, Paul, how do you think if Thomas Massie, you know, defeat Donald Trump and his supporters because the Zionists are, as you mentioned, they're trying to put a lot of money in this campaign against him. And we we've seen Pete Haget, vice president of the United States, JD Vance, Donald Trump himself, they all all attacking Thomas Massie.

[00:42:31]And if he wins, if he overcome these difficulties that he is he has right now, what does that mean for the future?

[00:42:43]>> Well, it means the Israel lobby is weakened because this clout failed.

[00:42:51]And so others who are no doubt tired of being bossed around by Israel lobby, you know, if you you're United States senator and you got somebody from the Israel lobby telling you what you have to do, it doesn't go down well. you know, uh, so if if this attack on Massie, which is organized by the Israel lobby, because Trump is just a puppet of the Israel lobby. That's all he is. He represents Israel more than he does the United States. And he's more concerned about them than he is about Americans.

[00:43:31]So if that fails, then the power of the Israel lobby has been jolted.

[00:43:38]is weakened and and it may be possible for others to resist it and it may break up and the United States might regain it its sovereignty over its own foreign policy.

[00:43:56]Right now the United States does not have sovereignty over its foreign policy in the Middle East. It doesn't it's not a sovereign country. is follows Israeli directives.

[00:44:12]I mean, why else was did we attack Iran?

[00:44:16]It's just like the legal officer in the State Department who wrote a report justifying the war said the United States attacked Iran at the request of Israel. Now, Trump denies this, but this is the official position of the legal advisor to the Department of State. So, u it it's true. We know why Trump attacked.

[00:44:44]>> Rubio said that on camera, Paul, you remember?

[00:44:47]>> Yeah.

[00:44:48]>> Rubio said that it was because of Israel we attacked Iran, >> right? and and this is now this is an official State Department document. It says it.

[00:45:01]So I think um if Massie can withstand this assault and it's all just wild accusations and demonizations and u and of course Massie hasn't got $30 million to fight the lies with.

[00:45:25]Um I think uh normally he would lose, but in a primary I who's going to turn out are going to be his committed supporters.

[00:45:38]A lot of other people aren't going to bother.

[00:45:43]So it may be he will survive this.

[00:45:48]If he doesn't, what does it tell us? It tells us that it's not possible for any member of the United States Congress, House or Senate, to represent their constituency instead of representing Israel.

[00:46:05]So if they get Massie, the power of the Israel lobby will solidify. Nobody will ever again criticize Israeli policies.

[00:46:20]And so the whole they will have on the United States will be total.

[00:46:27]You know, we've talked about it before.

[00:46:28]They have a fantastic hole. You know, we we talked about red states like Texas and Florida.

[00:46:38]the legisl the Republican legislatures have passed and the Republican governors have signed legislation that if you're a Texas resident, a Florida resident, and you criticize Israel, you cannot have a job with the state and you cannot have a contract to supply the state with goods and services.

[00:47:04]Well, if Israel can get state governments to pass laws like that, you you can see the enormous hole they have.

[00:47:14]And we've talked about it before, I think, the universities.

[00:47:20]Uh they they got the black woman who was president of Harvard fired because she let the students protest the Israel's genocide against Palestine. So we they fired they fired the uh president of the university as if she could do anything about the protest.

[00:47:41]And then Trump says, "Okay, uh if you protest Israel, you're expelled from school." Well, how can Trump tell the school how to that they got to expel students? That's not Trump's business.

[00:47:58]And then he says, "If they're foreign students and they criticize Israel, I'm going to deport them."

[00:48:06]Well, this shows the hole that Israel has. And and anyone who criticizes Israel, the the Israeli influence newspapers demonize you. You're an anti-Semite. You're a Holocaust den. you they they they try to get you fired from your job.

[00:48:29]If you're a school teacher, you get fired. I mean, it's an amazing power.

[00:48:36]So, if Massie wins, it's going to shake that power. And we'll know tomorrow.

[00:48:44]>> Yeah.

[00:48:46]>> If he loses, we know that the Israelis have us in an iron grip.

[00:48:56]Paul, Donald Trump before being elected, he said that he wants to separate Russia from China. He didn't want Iran and Russia to be the enemy of the United States. He said the sanctions are, you know, nonsense and we have to do something about it because they're killing dollar and the power of dollar right now. the situation we're in. He has the war in Ukraine.

[00:49:23]He has a new war in the Middle East.

[00:49:26]He managed to somehow bring all these players. I'm talking about Russia, China, and Iran together.

[00:49:36]And Putin going to be in China tomorrow and the day after tomorrow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

[00:49:45]And how do you see the way do you think that Donald Trump is still think of you know petro dollar or the power of dollar or any of that sort anything of that sort when it comes to the economy or his main concern right now you know it's going to be you mentioned the situation with Israel in the Middle East but when it comes to China when it comes to Russia is it just you we you have to have some sort of grand strategy I don't see any of that sort is happening right now with the Trump administration and he knows that when he when he went to China he saw that he experienced that in my opinion >> I think the grand strategy with regard to Russia is to cut them all from Europe to have Europe uh purchase everything from America nothing from Russia especially energy uh I saw that Putin was entertaining the idea that the Americans would be allowed to take over the Nordstream pipeline and that Putin would supply the natural gas, but the Americans would have the pipeline and the Americans would sell the gas to the Europeans, not the Russians.

[00:51:08]So I think Putin is the weak element in the Iranian Russian Chinese triangle. I think he's very weak and his negotiator Dimmitri is uh a representative of the oligarchs and what he's really negotiating is not Putin's conditions for ending the war in Ukraine but business deals that give the Americans uh more of the benefit than the Russians.

[00:51:47]in the hopes that as the deals that the Russians make favor the Americans over the Russians, the Americans will be satisfied with the uh their larger share of the profits and give up on the sanctions.

[00:52:08]So I think this makes Putin a very weak figure.

[00:52:14]He's willing to uh sell out Russia's sovereign interests for business deals that please the oligarchs.

[00:52:27]So that's not a strong position.

[00:52:32]We see too that he does next to nothing to prevent Ukraine from continuing the war and the Ukrainian intrusions into Russia get more and more deep into the country. The other day there was a thousand drones hit far inside Russia, killing civilians, doing all kinds of damage.

[00:52:59]uh when when Putin has the power to end that war almost immediately but he won't use it he won't use the force so I don't think Putin is any longer taken seriously like he was say in 2007 when he spoke at the Munich security conference very confident person who spoke in a very firm Uh we've seen nothing of that anymore.

[00:53:33]Uh so I I think that um China is got its own way of dealing with things.

[00:53:46]Uh I think Iran in showing that it could withstand a combined American Israeli attack.

[00:53:55]not only with withstand it, but to prevail, which they did, to the point that neither Israel nor the United States wants to renew the attack.

[00:54:10]How long has Trump threatened to renew the attack? How long has this been going on? And he always backs off. He backs off because he cannot renew it.

[00:54:22]So I think this is a a big change in the world and it's probably you are correct in your reading that this may bring the Arab world into alliance with Iran and away from the US and Israel because Iran has shown that it's predominant and if Massie wins I think this will crack the power of the Israel United states, the more people will challenge it. And so we have to pray for tomorrow that Massie withstands the, you know, we've never spent uh $30 million on a primary.

[00:55:11]>> It's shocking. It's shocking.

[00:55:13]>> Shock. No, wait a minute. And that's just the that 30 million is just the money being used against Massie. Of course, he hasn't got any comparable money.

[00:55:27]So, it's almost all the money that's being spent is the Israeli money, the Israeli race money. So, it would be great because then we would have two defeats for Israel.

[00:55:45]uh big defeats and that would um hasten the kind of development that you were talking about.

[00:55:59]Uh so we can uh we can only hope. My own view is there can't be any peace ever if there are parties claiming hgeiminy over others.

[00:56:16]>> Exactly.

[00:56:17]>> This is inconsistent with any kind of peace. So as long as these two countries are claiming hegemony, Israel's is regional, the Americans is worldwide.

[00:56:33]As long as this is happening, no peace negotiation means anything.

[00:56:40]It's it's a contradiction of terms.

[00:56:45]And we have to get this into discussion.

[00:56:53]If if we don't, it's all of this is this mess is going to end up in a very bad way.

[00:57:01]You you can't go through life completely unaware of the facts on the ground. You can't do it. And that's what's happening though. We're we're going along as if these threats of hegemony have no effect on anything and we can still have peace and goodwill and we can get along and it's it's total nonsense.

[00:57:39]>> Yeah, exactly.

[00:57:41]Thank you. Thank you so much, Paul, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

[00:57:46]>> Well, thank you, Neymar. I look forward to this.

[00:57:50]>> Okay.

[00:57:51]>> See you soon.

[00:57:52]>> See you later. And send me the URL.

[00:57:54]>> Sure. Sure.

[00:57:56]>> Okay. Bye-bye.

[00:57:58]>> Goodbye.

[00:57:59]>> Goodbye.