We need to talk about ideas, good.

Ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking.

And entertaining review of what the hell.

Happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to.

To the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes.

I'll tell you what happened in the last seven days.

Donald Trump did not disappoint in terms of providing content for podcasts that discuss news and politics and sex and religion.

Podcasts like this one.

I'm Trevor, AKA the Iron Fist, and over there in regional Queensland at the bottom of the screen is Scott the Velvet Glove.

Welcome back, Scott.

Thanks very much, Trevor.

G'day, Joe.

G'day, listeners.

I hope everyone's well.

And Joe Tech guy like myself in Brisbane, battening down the hatches waiting for the cyclone.

Yes.

How are you?

Well, you're okay for a man with chronic Crohn's disease.

I'm treading water.

Yeah.

Joe's smiling because only a few days ago he bought a bulk pack of toilet paper and people in southeast Queensland are racing to the shops and buying toilet paper and Joe is sitting on a gold mine of toilet paper if he chose to sell it.

But I don't have my usual drinking water, so I'm having to do with tap water.

Yeah.

Couldn't buy bottled water.

No.

I'll have to put some rum in it instead.

Yeah, so, yeah, we're desperately battening down the hatches here in Brisbane, awaiting Alfred, see what happens.

So.

So, yeah, if you're in the chat room, say hello, John's in the chat room already.

Trump did say great tv.

Hopefully it makes good podcast content.

So, yes, we'll be talking about Donald Trump and that press conference in the Oval Office with Zelensky and his vice president, J.D.

vance.

What's it all mean?

What should we take away from it?

Also stuff about Orcas and it's all sort of international stuff, really.

Should we just divert briefly then, Scott, before we get on to the international Locally, it looks like Albanese might call the election early once the WA elections are over or something.

Yeah, I was, I was listening to that this morning, that they think that it's going to be called the weekend after next, so that the WA election will be over by about a fortnight or something like that.

Then Albanese is going to go on the 12th of April, so he's only a month early.

It just is what it is.

We'll just bring on a minority government even sooner.

Yeah, it's going to Bring on a minority government.

Sure.

You know, it's just one of those things as to who's going to end up.

Who's going to end up with the largest number of seats.

You know, I hope Dutton doesn't get the larger number of seats than what Albanese does, because that'll mean Albanese's got the first opportunity to form government.

Of course, one of the things that came out in the last seven days was about Dutton having bought shares in.

In banks just prior to a policy announcement that raised the.

The value of bank shares and also how he owns so many properties for a man of.

Well, do you know how much.

So when that came out about the sort of the shares scandal, do you know how many articles the Courier Mail ran the next day about that?

A big fat zero.

Not even one.

Except the political cartoon sort of insinuated that Albanese had run a dirt file on Dutton.

And that was it.

That was it.

So everyone runs dirt files on each other.

Yeah, I'm.

Damn.

I meant to look at the latest friendly Geordies, but I haven't got around to that yet.

Latest friendly Geordies is about that topic.

I think he was also talking about it.

So.

Yeah.

Okay.

Alice is in.

Alison is in the chat room.

Good on you, Alison.

And there we go.

All right, so look, no doubt if you're listening to this podcast, you would have seen and heard the press conference with Zelensky.

I'll play just a minute of it just to get us warmed up and in the mood and to remind us of what happened.

So here's just one minute of that press conference.

Your country is in big trouble.

Wait a minute.

No, no.

You've done a lot of talking.

Your country is in big trouble.

I know.

You're not winning.

You're not winning this.

You have a damn good chance of coming out okay.

Because of us, Mr.

President, we are staying in our country, staying strong.

From the very beginning of the war, we've been alone and we are thankful.

I said thanks.

You haven't been in this cabinet.

You haven't been in this cabinet.

We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion.

We gave you military equipment and you met a brave.

But they had to use our military.

If you didn't have our military equipment you invited.

You didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.

In three days.

I heard it from Putin.

In three days.

This is something maybe less.

In two weeks.

Of course, yes.

It's going to be a very hard thing to do.

Business like this, just say thank you.

I said a lot of excitement.

Except American people, except that there are.

Disagreements and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media.

When you're wrong, we know that you're wrong.

But you see, I think it's good for the American people to see what's going on.

I think it's very.

There we go.

That's a little taste of it.

He's an arrogant.

Well, you know, the thing that struck me was it was like, it was like a mafia stand over sort of bully boy tactics.

Like they've clearly, you know, they've got this deal that they want to strike where Ukraine hands over half of its critical resource wealth.

Yes.

Any sort of resource wealth, plus I believe it includes infrastructure and ports and stuff.

It does.

And if you actually read the terms of it, it was basically a joint capital fund.

The Americans were going to put up the capital to develop the minerals and in exchange they would get half of the revenue because they would own half the company.

Yeah.

And they would also be allowed access throughout the country as well for the purposes of extracting all this stuff.

And it was just, you know, handing over half the wealth.

And you could tell that they were trying to.

You don't need security guarantees because if American companies are in there, of course we'll take care of them.

Yes.

It's like nobody will dare attack you if America owns some of this stuff.

So that's your security guarantee.

Completely forgetting that, of course, American companies were operating in Ukraine when the Russians invaded.

Indeed.

That didn't stop them.

So.

So it just struck me as them trying to really ram it home to him to sign the fucking agreement.

And the fact that he had seemingly refused to without some sort of extra guarantees just pissed them off no end.

Did you see the previous question?

Yes, I probably did.

Which one was that?

So, Marjorie, Taylor Greene's boyfriend was one of the journalists in the room and he said, don't you own a suit?

Yes.

So he was criticized for not being properly dressed for an important meeting.

Yes.

Yeah.

And as people said, you know, if Sheikh, whatever his name of Saudi Arabia had turned up in his dish dash, would they have complained that he wasn't in a suit?

Yes.

And Trump complained as well.

So when he arrived at the West Wing wearing his dark long sleeve shirt, not a suit, Trump greeted him with a handshake and sarcasm and said, wow, look, you're all dressed up.

So.

And.

And that irked, I think, J.D.

vance as well.

At some point you know, it's one.

Of those things like Churchill was seen in the.

In the Rose Garden, that sort of stuff, wearing a siren suit, which is basically just a onesie that you pull on to get out of the.

Get out of bed and everything like that if the sirens go off.

True.

But the difference was Churchill was living in this White House for a while.

Yeah.

And over a long time.

So he wasn't there just for one important meeting.

So.

No.

But also, in Zelensky's defense, he said right from when the invasion started, he said he was not going to.

He was not going to change out of his shirt until the war was won.

Right.

So it's just.

He's keeping his costume.

It's his logo, it's his stick.

It's.

You know, but.

But this is part of the.

The whole scene of this thing was you have to show respect.

You haven't said thank you enough, and you haven't shown respect and you haven't dressed appropriately.

Like it.

It really reeked a mafia stand over.

You haven't genuflected enough to us.

You haven't kissed the ring.

Exactly.

We.

We're running a protection racket here.

Yeah.

We will protect you, provide you pay us off.

And you must show due respect at all times.

That's what was going on.

And, you know, J.D.

vance, sort of.

So the.

The meeting went on for quite a while.

It was like a 50 or minute meeting or something.

And the first 40 minutes were pretty good or.

Okay.

Right.

And then J.D.

vance was saying, you know, we're basically wanting to force a negotiated peace here.

And.

And Zelensky was trying to say, what do you mean by negotiation?

Like, he's trying to say, you can't negotiate with Putin, and it's just not possible.

But he wasn't allowed to get that out.

He was then just completely bullied by these guys.

And the thing.

Just listening, watching the video there again reminds you that English is a second language for this guy.

So as well as being who.

Or third, even third language, you know.

The second language he speaks is.

Is Russian.

He might have grown up speaking Russian.

He grew up speaking Russian.

He is a.

He's a native Russian speaker.

Right.

Okay.

He says Russian, Ukrainian, and then English.

Yeah.

He probably speaks German as well.

You never know.

So just, you know, going into a meeting where, you know, you don't have many cards to play, you're essentially begging.

You're on the turf of the.

Of these other people, and English is your second language.

Boy, oh, boy, what a tough, you know, A tough sort of.

Just in the lion's den with everything going against you.

I think he really appreciated the welcome that Kia Starmer, that Kieran Starmer gave him.

Well, afterwards.

Yeah, yeah.

Come anything after that.

So.

So, yeah.

And you know, of course, if you'd had your time and were able to think about these things, which no doubt Zelensky's doing, and thinking, what should he have said?

One of the things is that Trump kept saying is, we gave you $350 billion worth of stuff.

Worth of stuff.

Worth of stuff.

And if Zelensky had his wits about him enough, he would have said to him, well, it turns out it looks like you didn't actually give it to us because now you're demanding a payment.

Excuse my English, but isn't a gift where you give us something in return for nothing, whereas you guys are now demanding a payment for that gift and setting your own price tag for it?

So, of course that's impossible to ruin a fly like in that scenario.

And it's probably 150 billion, not 300 something billion.

And that's the cost of buying the new stuff to replace the shitty old stuff that they actually got.

Yes.

So that's money from the U.S.

government to U.S.

military contractors to build U.S.

government forces.

Yes.

So that the secondhand hand me downs go to Ukraine.

Ukraine, yeah.

Yes.

So to all those sort of companies, get rid of your old shitty, rusty stock to the Ukraines.

And yeah, so tough scenario.

Of course, you look at the commentary and you see rabid Americans saying, you know, this guy just didn't show respect.

And also saying that he.

Half of the stuff isn't accounted for and it must have been sold off by Zelensky to line his pockets.

And I'm thinking he's not Trump.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah.

What are they saying in the chat room?

Allison, didn't he say at the beginning of the war that he wouldn't wear a suit?

Correct, John.

War ended.

Yes.

A protection ring that offers no protection.

Alex, people making all this noise about Trump as deserving more respect are insinuating he deserves respect.

If he is a failed leader, then it's completely okay to treat him like he is worth nothing.

And, John, all but 90% of that money went to U.S.

arms dealers.

Indeed.

No, I think 90% of it, not all.

But.

Yes, that would be true.

Roger Dangerfield, I get no respect.

What's that a reference to?

So Rodney Dangerfield is a comedian.

All right.

Okay.

Pop culture reference.

I don't get that one.

So, yeah, it.

It was Just like the mafia coming in and saying we're offering protection.

Well, apart from its cut rate Mafia.

Yes.

Yeah.

Ah, so what does it all mean in the wider scheme of things?

Well, yeah, exactly like, I mean, you know, I like what you've written there.

Taiwan and Australia should take note about waging proxy wars for the usa.

Indeed.

You know, it's just, I just honestly believe that the way he has behaved towards NATO means that we cannot expect anything out of answers at all.

Absolutely.

The European leaders are very, very quickly looking at what they can do to backfill the American role in NATO.

Yeah, it's one of those things like, you know, I think the only European country that doesn't have to go into panic spending to beef up the military is probably Poland, because Poland's already got a very powerful military, you know, because they bought a Russia and they knew that this was going to happen one day.

Well, the Baltic states have ramped up over the last couple of years because they're very, very scared.

Yeah.

And I don't blame them.

And Finland is not sitting easy.

No, exactly.

Because they bought a Russia.

Well.

And also because they've had fights with Russia before and they lost half of their territory already.

Yes, I know that.

It's because Russia wanted a bit more border around Leningrad.

So anyway, certainly a place like Taiwan would have to be looking at that and going, gee, she's.

We rely on American assistance.

Yeah.

And fight their proxy war against China.

They'll abandon us.

This is no longer the League of Nations as was.

This is now powerful leaders carving up the world.

So Trump is demanding Greenland and Panama and Canada and Xi is going to demand Taiwan and Putin is going to demand all of the former Soviet empire.

So, yeah, it's basically strong men having an agreement between them as to which bit of the globe they own.

Well, that's all.

I mean, we're open, isn't it?

Yes.

It's like you don't have to physically take over a country anymore, as we've seen with the IMF and the World bank, where you just cripple them financially and allow your companies to go in and virtually rape the economies and control them without actually having to take physical possession of them, so.

Or you just stick in a proxy leader who completely does whatever you tell them to.

Yeah.

It's just the easiest way, so.

Yeah.

So, yeah, Taiwan, there's a warning for you.

Australia, like Trump, is obviously only going to be around for four years, but it just demonstrates that when it comes to your own defense, you cannot rely on another country, especially the Americans who cannot be trusted.

No, it's one of those things.

I just hope that our government actually takes a long hard look at them and actually says, well why the fuck do they want us to buy these nuclear submarines?

And the only reason you want a nuclear powered submarine is so you can go under the surface at Sterling and you can go all the way up and then you can surface just off the Chinese coach to look to lob missiles at.

The only reason is were they, they.

Were hunter killers, weren't they?

Say again?

They were hunter killers, not missile subs.

I don't know.

So they were designed to take down ships, not fire missiles.

Anyway, they do have some of the.

Long range capacity is designed for fighting in the South China Sea.

Exactly.

Which is why it is absolutely ridiculous that I honestly believe that.

What?

Okay, this is what I think we should do.

We should start very serious negotiations with our near neighbor in Indonesia and everywhere else and try and get them all on, on the one page where we can say we will, we will look after you if you help look after us and everything else.

And then that way I'm not actually suggesting China is going to invade Australia because they won't, you know, but if they were to actually make that sea voyage, they'd have to go through a number of very friendly countries to Australia that would actually have their own equipment and everything else they'd be able to say to Australia, you've got to watch it, you've got an armada heading your way, you know, which would be a hell of a lot more useful to us than nuclear powered submarines.

And I honestly believe we should pick up the phone to the Japanese and say, yeah, there's 12 submarines you're going to build for a billion bucks each, call it $1.5 billion and you can have the deal, you know, and that's still going to be a shitload cheaper than what the American is, you know.

Do we even need any subs now?

Is the, is the technology working such that expensive?

It's one of those things.

I don't, I don't.

Submarines by the time they arrive will probably be obsolete.

So surely we just need some sort of anti naval craft missile system.

Yeah, and I think that we've actually.

Got, we've got to be done without subs.

I think we've got to invest, I think we've got to invest more in our air force and everything else so that we can.

Yeah.

Because after all it's far more attractive to find people willing to man that sort of stuff than A submarine.

Submarine, exactly.

Getting guys to actually volunteer to work on a submarine, not easy.

And then the sort of guys you're going to get, maybe you don't want them.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But you know, the fact that we've been in this orcus mess for so long indicates to me that despite this Oval Office fiasco, nothing's going to change.

Miles is so.

He's a dickhead.

Embedded albanese.

He doesn't care.

They're all just fixated with this, this arrangement with the Americans.

So even as something as obvious as this fiasco isn't going to change their minds, if you.

That's how the system works.

If you are the sort of person to question that relationship, you just don't make it into a position of power in one of the major parties.

You're doing that.

You know, that's where we need the Greens, Scott.

We don't need the Greens.

What else can we say about this?

Yeah.

When the US is finished with a servant, it throws him in the trash.

Client regimes should be, should be aware.

Bob Carr said behind the obscene beat up and bullying of Zelensky, this is the US destroying its alliance system.

You know that there's one country in the history of NATO that's declared Article 5.

What's Article 5?

Article 5 is where if we get attacked on our own soil, you'll come and defend us.

And which country was that?

Do you want to guess?

Well, the US.

The USA.

September 2001.

Right.

Okay.

So the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war were Article 5 of NATO.

Of course.

There we go.

Yeah.

So even, even after The Russians used WMDs on British soil, Britain didn't call in Article 5.

Yeah.

Gus, 577 says Trump is probably just bringing forward the inevitable regarding Ukraine.

The goal was never to help them.

It was to use them to try to weaken Russia like Afghanistan did to the Soviets.

Spot on, Gus.

That is right.

And well it's interesting with this like, as mad as Trump is in Vance, they are angling for a peace agreement with Putin.

Yeah.

Now the price they're asking and the EU is saying no and Ukraine is saying no, we do not want a peace agreement.

Trump apparently wants a Nobel Peace Prize because Obama had one and he will do anything, including sell out Ukraine to get his Nobel Peace Prize.

Ukraine was sold out.

Well, was it years ago?

It was sold out years ago.

So I, I don't think it was.

But you know, because, because the Europeans realize that if, if Putin is seen to win this, he will be emboldened and he will then go in for the next bit of Europe that he.

Feels probably get away with.

He will then probably take on those three Baltic states.

Yep.

And then after that.

Or Poland.

Or Poland.

Exactly.

So you guys are basically.

You can never have a peace agreement.

Not with this bastard.

Not the way he behaves.

It's ridiculous.

Putin has to be seen to lose.

That's the only answer.

Exactly.

Which is why I honestly believe that they shouldn't allow him to take any more pieces of Ukraine.

They should let him keep.

They should let him keep.

Oh, God, what's it called?

Crimea crime.

They should let him keep Crimea because he pinched that 10 years ago.

However, they shouldn't.

They should.

Because the Crimeans wanted him to.

I don't know.

And I'm not going to get involved in that argument with you.

It's just that I do not believe that he should be allowed to then take any further parts of that country.

And that includes any part of the Donbass that he reckons he's controlling, which he does control now.

But I do know.

But he's also claiming parts that he doesn't control.

Exactly.

Why do you think he's going to take other countries?

Because he's a prick.

Because he's a prick.

Doesn't mean he's going to take other countries.

Because he said that the Russian Empire contains these following bits of land, some of which are other sovereign countries.

But he's acknowledged also that that's historic as well, and that as we're under the bridge.

Yes, he has.

No, because he.

Russia agreed in 94 that Ukraine was.

All the borders were sovereign states, though all the borders as they were in the Soviet Union were going to stay and that all countries, all parties who are part of the.

They thought they had a Minsk agreement.

And then 20 years later, after Russia broken.

After Russia had broken the Budapest agreement.

So Putin had already broken Budapest.

No, it was NATO.

It was the Americans and NATO.

So the Ukrainians were forced, at the.

Point of a gun with Russian troops on their soil, worried about a Soviet.

A Russian invasion, were forced into the Minsk Agreements.

No wonder they signed it under duress and went, yeah, that's worth fuck all.

But it was again the Russians who broke it.

But the Minsk Agreement was a unique agreement where France, Germany, Ukraine, America, Russia all agreed, we're going to do a Minsk Agreement.

But Ukraine, Ukraine didn't want to.

Ukraine no intention of abiding by it.

Ukraine had a completely hollowed out military because Yushchenko had fucked it over, basically taking all the money for himself.

And then run off to Russia.

So, yeah, 2014, with the country in disarray.

Absolutely.

They did whatever they could to keep.

You can't trust Putin on a peace agreement.

But Putin can say, well, we had a Minsk agreement.

Yes.

And people like Angela Merkel are on the record for saying, we never had any intention at all in obeying that Minsk.

Right.

And we saw it always.

So they'd already invaded Crimea and the Donbass.

Yeah.

And then suddenly this piece of paper was floated that the Russians broke within days.

And that was also after he had said to them, no NATO in Ukraine.

And there'd been promises that NATO would not extend.

What agreement was there?

There might have been some verbal statements, probably the same as the Budapesta Court.

Except that was written down, but that was the agreement.

Anyway, John says, I'm amazed you say you can trust Putin.

Well, more importantly, in 92, he did what he said was the largest percentage of people who voted for independence from Russia.

So in 92, they were definitely pro independence.

There's a range of different polls that show, you know, when you've got even admitted by Ukraine polls that show 30, 40, 50% of your population wants to join another country, you've got major problems with your country.

Like that's unusual.

So, you know, John, I'm not saying you can trust Putin, but you can reach a peace agreement and put things in place to try and ensure the peace agreement.

Short of boots on the ground, what's going to stop him invading again?

In that case, you can never have peace.

No, but you've got to give it a go.

Like he may.

Well, he has said, if you agree, you're never going to be part of NATO.

That's the major precondition.

Yeah, but he's just going to turn around in five years time when he's rebuilt his army and reinvade, there's nobody going to be there to stop him.

Everyone's going to go.

So we should just fight Russia forever?

Well, because we can never trust them forever.

Hang on, Scott's missing.

Yeah, that's all right.

I'll.

There you go.

Thank you.

So you're basically saying you can never have peace with Russia because you can never trust them, so you can never have peace with Putin, so you must always fight them.

You can't come to a deal.

There are two options.

You've got to either NATO between the two.

Either NATO are in there or Ukraine has nukes.

Those two things will stop Putin attacking again.

Anything else is worthless.

I'm just trying to think of an Example here, where we had Putin will.

Will lie and say whatever he has to to get time to build back his army and then we'll do it all over again.

Because as far as he's concerned, Ukraine is his.

So I'm just trying to think what.

Yeah, I found it absolutely hilarious that the first part of.

The first part of the country actually took was the Chernobyl power plant.

You know, it's just.

He's a magnet.

Well, no, they weren't even taking it.

They were shelling it.

Yeah, I know.

It's just the Russians were shelling the Chernobyl.

Yeah.

Because he's a.

Says the independent observers who were there doing work on the sarcophagus.

Okay, so there's.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, don't know.

What do we say, John?

Not a poll, Trevor.

It was a referendum, John.

There were multiple polls done in relation to Crimea.

Let's play a little bit of history from Jeffrey Sachs, put this in some perspective.

So Sachs is just not some commentator from a university who's just like a historian looking at things like this guy has advised multiple governments all over that region.

He's been involved in that region his lifetime.

So let's just see how he puts things in perspective.

You seem very reliant on accepting Putin's.

Worldview rather than perhaps the stark reality.

Of the barbarism with which he's executed this war.

Yeah, maybe because I know too much about the United States.

Because the first war in Europe after World War II was the US bombing of Belgrade for 78 days to change borders of a European state.

The idea was to break Serbia to create Kosovo as an enclave and then to install Banda steel, which is the largest NATO base in the Balkans, in the southwest Balkans.

So the US started this under Clinton that we will break the borders, we will illegally bomb another country.

We didn't have any UN authority.

This was a, quote, NATO mission to do that.

Then I know the United States went to war repeatedly, illegally, in what it did in Afghanistan and then what it did in Iraq and then what it did in Syria, which was the Obama administration, especially Obama and Hillary Clinton, tasking the CIA to overthrow Bashar Al Assad.

And then what it did with NATO illegally bombing Libya to topple Muammar Gaddafi, and then what it did in Kiev in February 2014.

I happened to see some of that with my own eyes.

The US overthrew Yanukovych.

Together with right wing Ukrainian military forces, we overthrew a president.

And what's interesting, by the way, is we Overthrew Yanukovych.

The day after the European Union representatives had reached an agreement with Yanukovych to have early elections, a government of national unity, and a stand down of both sides.

That was agreed.

The next thing that happens is the the opposition says, we don't agree.

They stormed the government buildings and they deposed Yanukovych.

And within hours, the United States says, yes, we support the new government.

It didn't say, oh, we had an agreement.

That's unconstitutional what you did.

So we overthrew a government contrary to a promise that the European Union had made.

And by the way, Russia, the United States and the EU were parties to that agreement.

And the United States, an hour afterwards backed the coup.

Okay, so everyone's got a little bit to answer for.

In 2015, the Russians did not say, we want the Donbas back.

They said peace should come through negotiations.

And negotiations between the ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine and this new regime in Kiev led to the Minsk 2 agreement.

The Minsk II agreement was voted by the UN Security Council unanimously.

It was signed by the government of Ukraine.

It was guaranteed explicitly by Germany and France.

And you know what, and it's been explained to me in person.

It was laughed at inside the US Government.

This is after the UN Security Council unanimously accepted it.

The Ukrainians said, we don't want to give autonomy to the region.

Oh, but that's part of the treaty.

The US Told them, don't worry about it.

Angela Merkel explained indesite in a notorious interview after the 2022 escalation.

She said, oh, you know, we knew that Minsk2 was just a holding pattern to give Ukraine time to build its strength.

No, Minsk 2 was a UN Security Council unanimously adopted treaty that was supposed to end the war.

So when it comes to who's trustworthy, who to believe and so forth, I guess my problem, Piers, is I know the United States government.

I know it very well.

I don't trust them for a moment.

I want these two sides actually to sit down in front of the whole world and say, these are the terms.

Then the world can judge because we could get on paper, clearly, for both sides of the world.

We're not going to overthrow governments anymore.

The United States needs to say we accept this agreement.

The United States needs to say.

Russia needs to say, we're not stepping one foot farther than whatever the boundary is actually reached and NATO's not going to enlarge.

And let's put it for the whole world to see.

You know what?

Well, so Russia hasn't overthrown A government.

I think they've got their puppet in power right now.

All it required was a, a bit of money from oligarchs to prop up his failing businesses, which puppets this agent Krasno, Donald Trump, who was propped up since the 90s with Russian money.

And we know that does make me.

Wonder whether or not that PP tape is actually genuine now.

Who knows?

We do know that there's a huge amount of Russian money that has gone into his business since the 90s.

Absolutely it has, yeah.

Yeah.

I feel sorry for Ukraine in the sense that they've been screwed either.

You don't think that 2014, the vast majority of Ukrainians were pissed off with a grift that was going on with Yanukovych, that basically they saw the same as Belarus, that they were heading into a oligarchy that was a puppet state to put in and they had enough of that.

Is what happened in Ukraine is that Ukrainians recognized they should be be neutral.

The US, they wanted to be part of the EU.

They wanted to trade with the EU.

The US through US Aid We Know has funded 6200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 media NGOs.

Nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine.

So is it possible that all of that effort propagandized some of the Ukrainian public opinion which up to that point had wanted a neutral position?

Has Russian TV that was sitting on the border with Ukraine and was watched by millions of Russian speaking Ukrainians propagandized them at all?

And who do you think's the most effective propaganda outfit in the world?

The fsb?

No.

The Americans?

No, no.

The Americans look at America right now and tell me that half of the Americans aren't watching shit that's been spewed out by the Russians, by their disinformation.

100% of them are watching shit that's been spewed out by the American propaganda.

The right wing podcasters that were taking huge bribes from rt.

So when you say what was the public opinion about whatever issue in a country when one has been as heavily subjected to propaganda, I would say all.

The time people probably cancelled each other out.

The Russians and the Americans were both busy propagandizing.

Well, now you're guessing, but, you know, so are you.

I'm willing to put some money on which one's the best propaganda outfit.

I would say the Russians, they've been doing it for longer.

Here's, here's a theory.

Have been doing it for hundreds, well, hundreds of years, certainly decades.

Here's A theory.

You Ukrainians, on the whole understood that it was dangerous to join NATO, but after enough propaganda, they.

They still voted in a guy who was neutral about.

Sorry, who got voted in.

That was Yanukovych.

And was that after or before the Russians poisoned his opposition candidate?

The.

The population there still voted in somebody who was sympathetic to a Russian relationship.

And was that after all the.

The Supreme Court had overturned the previous election where it was proved that ballot stuffing had gone on.

Yeah.

So here's my theory, though, is that the Ukrainians have been screwed over by having their public opinion massaged over a long period of time by an enormous amount of money.

And the US Engineered a coup in the Ukraine until they got a Western friendly government.

And it took a while, and it took some ugly things to happen.

And now they've been forced into a war where they've lost a generation of young men and they've been conned into it and they've had to suffer the loss of a generation.

Invaded.

What's that?

Was it just to roll over when Putin invaded?

What was the.

If they'd have not wanted to join NATO, he would not have invaded.

You don't know that, Joe.

He was worried that this was a burgeoning democracy on his doorstep.

He was worried that the protests, because 2012 had been protests in Russia against Putin's oligarchy, and he was worried that Maidan would spread to Russia.

You can quite easily argue that he observed NATO involved in regime change in other countries and was saying, you are not going into Ukraine and fucking doing that on my doorstep.

So NATO bombing Serbia after the Srebrenica massacre in 95.

It's entirely possible, Joe, Putin has an honestly held belief that the red line for him was NATO in Ukraine.

No, no.

The honestly held belief was he didn't want democracy breaking out in Russ.

And there are dozens of highly placed American and Western diplomats who acknowledge that's the case.

Yes.

There are also those who, from Kennan.

And Kissinger and everyone else, US Ambassadors who said, don't put NATO in Ukraine.

That's the red line for any Russian.

And Putin says that's the red line.

And despite all these people saying that's the red line, you want to say, well, of course that wasn't the red line.

He's just a megalomaniac who wants to take over other countries.

Like, it may well be the case that all those people are correct.

And it was so much a red line for him that Finland and Sweden joined NATO with nothing happening.

Yeah, well, Ukraine's Different.

Ukraine's different.

Finland is on his doorstep.

Finland is right next to St.

Petersburg.

Ukraine's different.

Is it?

Why?

Oh, that's right.

Ukraine is part of the Russian empire.

And these Western diplomats who were saying, don't put NATO in Ukraine about Finland, they were saying, Ukraine, you know, that's.

It's different.

You're talking as if it's.

The only difference impossible for Putin got.

There, Trevor, is that Ukraine used to be part of the ussr.

Yeah.

And he was actually trained as a USSR KGB agent.

Yeah.

And he said.

And that's exactly what he wants.

He wants.

He wants.

He actually said, yes.

What trip.

What Joe's about to say was exactly attributed to Putin where he said one of the greatest political catastrophes of the 20th century was the decline of the Soviet Union.

Yep.

Now he wants to recreate the Soviet Union.

He wants it all, including those three.

He's also acknowledged that, you know, what's done is done as well.

So while it was the great disaster, there are some things that now can't be undone.

It's like the kleptocrats came in and took all the stuff.

Well, he basically said, that's enough, guys, we stop here.

So he's also acknowledged, he said, you.

Can carry on as long as 50% of it is held in my name.

No, he does not have that reputation at all.

He does not have that reputation.

Well, I've actually heard that story several times, you know.

Well, where do we get these stories from?

I don't know, Trevor.

I don't.

Western propaganda.

I do not.

This is like the, this is like arguing with the problem, Trevor, that you.

Have moved the Overton window so far to the left that as soon as someone comes in here with this is.

The leftist position, it's not a left wing position.

You are then attacking them as a right wing lunatic.

No, this is not a left wing position.

Like this is.

This isn't left wing.

This is.

I don't think Vladimir Putin's a leftist.

Sorry, but you're saying I've taken a left wing position.

This is not a left wing position.

On this, the right takes the view.

What you are doing is you are taking someone that is prepared to stand up to the United States, States of America.

You put them on a pedestal and you say, he's great, he's a misunderstood genius.

He's not a misunderstood genius, he's a nutter.

If, if you were operating, if you were the president of, of Russia, I.

Wouldn'T be the president of the Russian.

And you had watched NATO overthrowing governments.

And you saw them moving into Ukraine.

It is not inconceivable that somebody says stop.

And we know this from the Cuban Missile crisis where we thought JFK was perfectly reasonable to say to the Russians, don't put a missile in Cuba.

And we all think what a great patriot JFK was.

No, I don't think so.

I think he was a nut.

No, you know, when you ask pub.

General public opinion, they say, good on him.

Yeah, exactly.

But when Putin does the same thing, you can't accept the hypocrisy of the situation.

Like Putin has just done what JFK did.

He, he said, no, you're not.

UK didn't actually invade Cuba though.

No, but he was, he was sending ships there.

Yeah.

And he was getting everything ready to go.

But he was ready for World War Three.

Yeah, I know.

And the Russians backed down.

Correct.

And you know what, what happened as part of the deal, the Americans agreed to pull missiles out of Turkey.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, you're calling Putin a madman for objecting to missiles and NATO's NATO in Ukraine, yet you accept that that was a legitimate thing for JFK to do with the missile crisis in Cuba.

No, I don't accept that it was legitimate.

Well, people do.

So the people listening here, you know, a lot of people do.

And it's the same thing where you perceive a threat in your neighborhood and you say, well, you know, I'm not going to be there.

We, as Australia say to Papua New guinea, well, you can't have Chinese bloody stuff here.

Well, you know, we're going to give you a rugby league team so long as you don't let the Chinese in here.

And then we're going to abduct your children, take them to.

Because people indoctrinate them.

Countries all the time are saying, we don't want our enemy in our neighbor's property and we'll do things to stop that happening.

So it's, it's not the most extraordinary thing.

And particularly, you know, your solution to this is to continue to wage war forever because no peace agreement can ever be.

You have no.

A peace agreement that involves a boots on the ground from both the Europeans and the Americans, between the two sides, because that'll actually stop the bastard rolling across there again.

There was an agreement reached seven days after the war and it was, it was just, it was just ruined by the Americans.

And later on, Boris Johnson did a.

Similar thing, except it's been proved that he hasn't.

Didn't Boris Johnson?

Yeah.

Oh, so, so so when Zelensky thought that Putin was going to take Kiev, he was negotiating to see what terms he could get when they repelled the Russians from Keev.

He went, we don't need this peace agreement.

We will beat the Russians on our own terms.

Yeah, but the Boris Johnson definitely crude talks that were going on.

So the people who were in the room said that didn't happen.

No, I said the opposite.

Yeah, I'm sure you've heard from Western.

Dip like the Swedish diplomat said.

Said that's what happened.

Maybe, but I've heard that also that it never happened.

The former head of NATO said that he was a Swedish guy.

Anyway, what are they saying in the chat room?

I'll just go.

I should look at the chat this way in a second.

Let me find a chat on the side.

John says, do you go along with all that, Trevor?

I think that was in relation to Jeffrey Sachs.

Yes, I go along with everything Jeffrey Sack said.

So, Gus, 577.

Ukraine is different because of trade access and historical connection.

It's a core strategic interest to Russia.

Finland is not.

Thanks, Gus.

577.

John says, if you believe all that, I've got a bridge for you.

What if I believe everything Jeffrey Sachs said?

See, he didn't kill Cuban.

Said Chris.

Well, he was about to.

He was going to.

John, Putin is as mad as Trump.

Just a bit smarter.

Interestingly enough.

Was it Chris, Jeff, John again.

Yeah.

Okay.

Apparently he pulled the missiles without Castro's agreement.

Castro wanted to launch the missiles at America.

Yeah, I know.

It's one of those things.

Apparently Khrushchev actually read the letter that.

That Castro sent him and he said, if you need.

If you need Cuba to be the.

If you need us to be the first sacrifice in this war, let it be.

And.

And apparently Khrushchev said, this guy's a madman.

So anyway.

Yeah, anyway, where were we?

So I've put my case forward on that one.

I think you can choose to believe it or not as to what else we've got to get out of this before we go on.

What's going to happen next?

Moon of Alabama.

What will Trump do now?

Best guess, he will walk away from Ukraine, Europeans will be ignored and he'll make a deal with Russia for rare earth and he'll be lifting sanctions.

What do you reckon of that?

What do you think of that?

Putin has already offered him rare earths up in Siberia.

Yes.

To buy.

Oh, no.

I thought it was a joint development.

Yeah, joint venture.

Yes.

Pay a proper amount in a joint venture.

Type thing.

And basically it's in the middle of the Arctic.

Yeah.

So it's going to be really difficult to get it out.

Yeah.

Look out.

I was going to say Greenland, but I should say look out.

Red, white and blue land.

Because having lost out on the rare earth material in Ukraine, Trump's on the hunt for more rare earth.

So Greenland's.

Greenland's suddenly even more important to Trump as a possibility.

Back in the deal again.

Yes.

And through all this, the eu, you guys are really.

The EU Part of this, in that they don't want a peace deal either.

Because they recognize that.

Well, not.

They don't want a peace deal.

They don't want to sell Ukraine to Russia in order to get peace.

So they wouldn't agree to a peace deal.

Well, not the one that the Americans are proposed.

Not the one that the Americans are proposing, no.

Yeah.

Yep.

Ah, S.

West.

Trevor, even if we accept all you say is true, it only validates Putin having hurt feelings.

It never justifies invasion and indiscriminate murder.

And abduction of children and ICC warrants.

So never justifies.

Look, I wouldn't have done it, but I can understand that.

Putin's motivation.

Yeah, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that because I can't understand him.

It's one of those things like, you know, there was a brief moment that perhaps Russia could have actually come out of the Soviet Union in being a fully Westernized democracy.

But no, it's not.

It's been completely crossed now and we've got a fascist over there.

So John keeps wanting to sell me a bridge, but, John, I'm in total agreement with Jeffrey Sachs on this.

And that guy knows shit much more than you and I do sitting back here in Australia.

So this position that I have is not unusual.

It may seem unusual if you're not reading widely enough, but it's a commonly held position.

So.

Yeah, what else can we say about this topic?

Yes, so what, you know, I guess America's going to walk away from it and leave it up to the Europeans to try and help out, and they're not going to be able to, and the Russian line will just keep moving forward.

I don't know about that.

I just think that if Europe gets its back up and that sort of stuff, it actually comes to a blow with Russia, then I think Russia is going to end up very much on the back foot.

Europeans will not put men on the ground.

Yeah, I know that.

They're not going to have the weapons.

They'Re not going to but they're not going to put them in there in harm's way.

And they don't have the weapons.

And so the Ukraine has run out of men and so the line will just keep moving.

Russia's run out of men.

Unless it does conscription again.

They've got plenty of them.

They've got.

Well, but they don't.

This is the problem.

They have a shortage of.

Are young men.

North Koreans?

Well, yeah, they do have a lot of North Koreans, but they.

So inflation is at 10% and interest rates are 20%, 21% at the moment.

Interesting.

I, I spoke to someone in Moscow recently and they said there's an awful lot of Asian goods in the shops.

So everything that used to be European is Asian now.

Yeah.

So they've bypassed the sanctions.

But, gee, if, if China doesn't make it.

Yeah.

What, what is it that you're missing out on?

Oh, they can only get stuff from China.

Well, what are they missing out on?

It'll be cheap stuff that falls apart.

Versace handbags or something.

You know, Guinness.

Well, they're missing out on that sort of stuff.

But I, I honestly, I understand that, but I just don't think their economy is as strong as you make it out to be.

Trevor.

I just think that those numbers that Joe has rattled off are true.

You know, they do have 10% inflation, they got 20% interest rates.

So I would be extremely surprised if they could actually pull out if they honestly believe that a peace deal is what he wants so that he doesn't have to keep.

Yeah.

Spending the amount of money on manufacturing their, Their missiles and everything else.

He.

Absolutely.

Well, in that case, he's likely to stick to a peace deal.

Like, thank you very much, you guys have just said.

I don't believe he said he wants to build up and build up and he'll fight again another day.

Exactly.

On the other hand, you just said it's really tough for him and he wants a peace deal.

Yeah, because this was, this was supposed to be.

This was supposed to be over a fortnight.

Yeah, we're supposed to be over in a fortnight.

We are now entering the fourth year of battle.

Yeah, because he told me that he.

Wants a peace deal because he didn't.

Expect them to last this long.

So that's a pause deal.

But then you say, on the other hand, he won't comply with the peace deal that he really wants.

Which one is it?

Well, no, no.

So he wants the peace deal now so that he can rebuild his arms and recover his economy.

And when he's in a position in 5 to 10 years he will do it all over again.

Exactly.

So, sure, he wants a peace deal in the short term.

I agree.

He's under pressure right now to sign.

If he signed a peace deal, it would probably only last 10 years.

Yes, exactly.

Gee, what's to stop him in 10 years doing it all over again?

What's to stop anybody to do it right.

What's to stop anybody in a piece of doing it again in 10 years.

Time because he thought he could get away with an army that had been hollowed out?

Because.

Let me get this straight.

You're against a peace deal because it could possibly only last 10 years?

No, no, I'm not against a peace deal.

I'm against a peace deal that doesn't offer Ukraine security guarantees.

Because in 10 years time.

Because in 10 years.

Yes.

So let's put some security guarantees that ensures that in 10 years he can't.

Like, without involving NATO.

Fine.

Give them nuclear weapons.

That's the other alternative.

You want to give Ukraine nuclear weapons?

Yeah.

Jesus, Joe.

Because hang on, Russia was sitting there with the nuclear umbrella going, oh, no other country should get involved.

Otherwise we'll consider that an attack on our sovereignty and we're going to lob nukes at Ukraine.

You.

So they were sitting there waving their nukes at everyone.

So the, the counter to that is to give the people around him nukes and they can go, well, if you attack us, we're going to lob nukes.

At you, the people around him.

Because that's the only thing that's going to scare him.

The people around him do have nukes.

That's the pro.

That's who, the French and the British.

Yeah, well, isn't that enough?

No, because they're not directly.

I can't believe you're arguing for an increase in nuclear armaments.

Well, no.

So you're saying, if we don't have NATO, what else do we have?

And the answer is nukes.

So my argument is we have a peace agreement with countries that can fight Russia.

The other alternative is to give these countries who are likely to be invaded nukes, which isn't acceptable.

So the acceptable answer is a peace agreement with an alliance of countries that together are big enough to fight Russia.

You know, this is.

I love having this dispute.

This is the only way that you can get a lasting peace with Putin.

It's actually him completely surrounded by NATO.

Well, it's the only thing that.

It's the only thing that actually scares him is NATO.

Now, he honestly believes that NATO is going to invade him, which I just don't see.

Yep.

But if.

If all those countries around him were members of NATO, that would keep the bastard behind his borders.

He wouldn't actually roll the tanks in.

Don't repeat myself.

I'll just move on.

You can repeat what you've said because I agreed with what that guy was saying.

He says, you know, you don't want it to go any further east.

I agreed with him, but they've gone that far.

And now that.

And now that Putin has shown exactly what he's.

What he's capable of, then I honestly believe that they've got no choice but to actually leave behind some sort of military guarantee, which is, can you put.

Yourself in Putin's shoes?

In Putin's.

No, I can't.

And he can see what NATO is capable of.

He can look and see what NATO has done.

He can look and see the regime change that the Americans have done.

So you can't put yourself in his shoe and go, shit, that's dangerous to us.

You're all about the.

We can't trust Putin.

He's a crazy megalomaniac who wants to take over the world.

But you can't put yourself in Putin's shoes where he looks out and goes, can't trust NATO and the Americans because they're crazy megalomaniacs who want to take over Europe.

You just can't put yourself in that shoe.

No.

Yeah, it's one of those things.

I just think to myself that you've actually got to look at the history of NATO.

It was set up.

It was set up as a counterweight to the Warsaw Pact.

I don't know which one came from first.

But anyway, if the.

If that was.

I'm not sure if the Warsaw Pact came first or whether NATO came first.

Yeah, say again?

I think it was NATO came first.

Right.

Well, NATO was set up as a bull walk against the Communists.

That's why they set it up.

It was designed to be purely defensive.

Now, you know, I know you can.

Okay, you can argue about the Kosovo and everything else, but I would like to ask, what the hell was the west supposed to do when Serbia was doing what they were doing?

What was Serbia doing?

Genocide.

No, they weren't.

No, they weren't.

Oh, Shrebnica didn't happen.

So 2000 Muslim Serbs weren't murdered by the Bosnians?

No, no, no.

Well, who shot that?

Sorry, other way around.

Muslim Bosnians were murdered by the Serbs.

Just in the chat, John goes, which was the last country NATO invaded?

I think it was Libya was the last, but I'm not, I think that was the most recent.

Like NATO has had offensive operations.

John Joe Scott.

I suppose so.

But like when you've looked, what were they supposed to do with the war that was going on there?

It was your normal run of the mill rebel wars.

It wasn't a genocide.

It was a genocide.

There are mass graves.

There were international war crime tribunals.

No, they weren't.

This is like, this is like Tiananmen Square.

So Radcom Ladditch was never found guilty.

This is like Tiananmen Square.

There was not the genocide.

But anyway, when you want to take.

Homeland was not a convicted war criminal.

Found guilty of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

He's not serving a life sentence for his crimes.

I, I don't know the specifics of each individual.

Okay, well, the, the International Criminal Tribunal found him guilty of genocide, so therefore genocide happened.

Well, we will have to talk genocide next week.

It'll be like another Tiananmen Square.

And I don't think you want to give him another Tiananmen Square and Uyghur episode.

That's also required.

Well, but I don't think that what is actually happening to the Uyghurs is as bad as those Christian nutters in America make out.

But something is happening to them.

S West in the chat room says we need live fact checking.

Anyway, let's move on to a couple of other topics.

Look at that, 837.

We've got nowhere on this one so far.

It's time for bed.

Actually, hang in there, Scott.

For another.

Just while we're on this sort of area, we'll just quickly go.

Trump was asked about orcas.

Did you see this?

Yeah.

He didn't actually understand what orcas was.

It had to be explained to him.

I'll play this clip.

You seem very reliant on explaining that clip.

Putin's worldview rather than perhaps the stark reality of the.

Sorry back.

Yeah.

What does that mean in terms of orcas?

Okay, leaders get lost.

Black and white, stripy cetaceans.

What's that?

Orcas.

Orcas, yes.

When he finds out how much we're paying for how little that's being delivered, he'll really like orcas.

What else have we got here?

And also did you see the, the Trump Gaza clip, Scott, which won the AI.

Yes, the AI generator.

Yeah, I did see that.

That was quite amusing.

There's a picture of him.

Yeah, I know it's Bloody awful what he was actually proposing.

But anyway, it was actually amusing to see that him and Netanyahu selling themselves.

Yeah, I suppose there's no point showing the clip.

I think there is.

Oh, you okay?

I think for those who haven't seen.

It, Here we go.

All right.

The trumpet.

So this is what Trump played on his own.

Yes, yes.

Truth Social.

Here it is.

It's funky music as well.

To set you free Bringing the light.

For all to see no more tunnels, no more fear Trump Gaza is finally here Trump Gaza shining bright golden future A brand new life, feast and dance the deal is done Trump Gaza, number one Trump Gaza shining bright golden future A brand new life, feast and dance.

Joe, you were particularly keen to see that one.

Trump Gaza.

I mean, it was the statue, the golden statue of Trump.

As somebody has said, it just looks like something that's waiting to be toppled as the dictator is overthrown and beaten with shoes.

Yes.

So is it clit.

An AI generated music video envisioning.

Envisioning Gaza as an ostentatious resort town where everybody parties as Trump and Netanyahu sip drinks by the pool.

That's what the image was.

Caitlin Johnson says this video is simultaneously the most American thing that has ever happened and the most Israeli thing that has ever happened.

Fake Gordy, sociopathic, genocidal, emblematic of all the ugliest values that both dystopian civilizations have come to embody.

Just.

Just ridiculous.

It's beyond ridicul ridiculous.

It's just sick.

Like you've entirely wiped out tens of thousands of people and you, you just run a party type take to say how wonderful Trump Gaza is going to be saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, do we want to move on?

Any other topics or.

Scott, you've got to go to bed anyway.

Yes, I do.

We'll leave some of these for another time.

I think I've got some homework to do and we'll explore all that next week.

Looks like plenty of people hung around in the chat.

That was Good.

We've got 11 people watching.

Good on you.

Thank you for your comments.

We tried our best to incorporate them and join us.

Same that time, same that channel next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night from him.

Good night.