In this episode, Gunther Ferlinger-Jahn, who is the chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, joins us to discuss some of the things he's been saying on social media about the Trump administration.
00:07:46.000So just to be precise, when you said that Austria should seize by force, if necessary, US bases, you weren't literally saying that Austria should be doing this.
00:07:58.000It's more your European coalition, your European military partners.
00:08:04.000What I want to ask you is, basically, on the very day, I think about three days ago, on the very day that Ursula von der Leyen, again, your political family, the EPP, the President of the European Commission,
00:08:18.000was laying down to America the unacceptability of America taking Greenland, you had the curious sight in Paris with President Macron,
00:08:29.000and you had the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and what have you, along with the two envoys, US envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff.
00:08:44.000They were there underlining the absolute essential role of America in the European position, pretending, protecting Ukraine from Russia.
00:08:56.000How do you, can you say a little bit about how you juxtapose the idea that NATO could survive without America, on the one hand,
00:09:06.000and on the other hand, the absolute essential role of America in helping to police the eventual ceasefire in Ukraine?
00:09:19.000There will be no ceasefire in Ukraine, because this is all humbug. Russia wants war, and Russia must be defeated.
00:09:27.000And only once Putin is dead and dusted, we will have peace in Ukraine. So, ultimately, this is all a waste of time, the negotiations.
00:09:36.000So, it's very clear. NATO is about European freedom, European security, and America has guaranteed that and will guarantee that forever,
00:09:45.000because it's in your interest. It's in your interest to have stability here, because, as you know very well, in the First and Second World War,
00:09:52.000you had to bring millions of soldiers in order to sort out European failures, and you don't want to do that.
00:09:59.000NATO brings stability, security, and it's a very, very good investment for American taxpayers to have that.
00:10:06.000But you're already spending close to a trillion of dollars every year on your military budget, and so why not help us to win this war and kick the Russians out of Ukraine?
00:10:17.000Because they shouldn't have nothing to do there. And it was the weakness of your President Obama, who allowed them, actually, or did nothing to push back in 2014.
00:10:27.000If you would have a decent President, he would have contained the Russians back then, and we would not have all this mess and all this death and all this bloodshed.
00:10:34.000So, what we need to do, stand together, win the war, and liberate Ukraine.
00:10:40.000So, you don't see any dissonance on the one hand of threatening America with expulsion from NATO over an eventual seizing of Greenland on the one hand,
00:10:59.000and the dependence on American military to face off Russia. On the other hand, you don't see any dissonance in those two positions, holding those two positions at the same moment in time.
00:11:10.000Look, we are like neighbors and friends. We are like a family. But you don't come and fuck with us, yeah? You don't get this Greenland, yeah? It's not yours.
00:11:20.000Of course. You can base your troops there. You can have the minerals if you invest in it. It's very expensive, by the way. But you cannot take other people's land.
00:11:28.000In which American city you can take the house of your neighbor by force, yeah? Is this the new standards? You cannot do that, yeah?
00:11:37.000The Greenlanders don't want it. The Danish don't want it. And we Europeans don't want it. And it's a completely ridiculous idea to do it, yeah?
00:11:45.000We also—you remember Zimmermann when he proposed Mexico to attack you? This is a harebrained scheme. You cannot do that.
00:11:55.000And whoever has invented this debate is really trying to harm NATO, America and Europe and should be banned from social media.
00:12:04.000This is my response. And if you do it, don't underestimate us. We are serious people. We have honor. We have pride. We have patriotism.
00:12:14.000We are Europeans. We will not go down without a fight.
00:14:59.000Does the European People's Party have?
00:15:01.000What moral authority do you guys have to say this to the United States regarding Greenland?
00:15:09.000And yet at exactly the same time in split screen are absolutely essentially standing next to America in defense of Ukraine in Paris this week.
00:15:23.000Sir, I don't understand how if you feel, and many people do in the European People's Party, if you feel so strongly against the potential American seizure of Greenland, why are you standing side by side with America proudly in Paris to defend Ukraine against Russia?
00:15:46.000I have a 30 years of public record to be the most pro-American voice in the European theater.
00:15:53.000I've been standing with America at 9-11.
00:15:56.000I've been standing with America in Iraq.
00:15:59.000I was one of the last ones or the only one in European politics who has defended the Iraq liberation of George W. Bush.
00:16:07.000And I stand today to say that this was a rightful liberation.
00:16:11.000I stood with you in Kosovo and Bosnia, and I will always stand with America.
00:16:15.000But, you know, what is too much is too much.
00:16:17.000If you then start to attack us and take our land, I mean, we are not servants or not kind of pushovers.
00:17:30.000Atlanticism is fundamentally seen as center-right in name political groupings who are sort of rather too close to the American military industrial complex,
00:17:42.000which obviously huge swathes of MAGA and the America First movement are very skeptical about.
00:17:50.000No one's accusing you here of anti-Americanism, but it's your famous Atlanticism here, which is what makes us somewhat skeptic.
00:17:59.000Point one. The second point I want to ask in your advocating, agitating to get famously neutral Austria into NATO.
00:18:11.000Are you having an honest conversation with your fellow Austrians about the increases in taxes they will have to pay to shoulder the extra defense burden that will legitimately then fall on their responsibility?
00:18:31.000Yes. You know, I'm famous for also advocating the flat tax for Austria and for the United States, by the way, as well.
00:18:39.000So I advocate for 15 percent taxation, income and corporate.
00:18:44.000And of course, we have to reduce the welfare state and all this migration inducing kind of social spending, which Austria loves.
00:18:53.000This has to reduce. Absolutely. It's too much.
00:18:57.000We attract the whole world because we have such a generous subsidy system. That's not good.
00:19:05.000We must cut that and we must reduce welfare spending and we must cut taxes.
00:19:10.000And then we can definitely afford also increase of security related defense spending.
00:19:15.000And we shall, because why should only the Germans, Italians and Polish and Hungarians pay for our defense and the Ukrainians pay with the blood?
00:19:24.000We must also contribute financially. We are rich nation.
00:19:27.000We have fifty five thousand dollars of GDP per capita.
00:19:32.000We are one of the ten richest nations, so we can afford our defense spending and we shall.
00:19:39.000Can you tell me which country you think of if President Trump were to seize Greenland?
00:19:47.000From your perspective, which country represents the greater threat to the European Union? America or Russia?
00:19:58.000Russia is our enemy. You know, Russia is our eternal enemy. We don't like Putin. He has attacked us.
00:20:06.000He is evil and he is a genocidal maniac. And it's our common enemy of America and Europe and of everybody who is decent.
00:20:13.000So America will never be our enemy. We will still love you. But if you take Greenland, you will have a price to pay.
00:20:20.000What is the price? We will not shoot at your Navy. We don't even have the military assets and we will never shoot at America.
00:20:26.000You can go take Greenland. The price is Rammstein, Aviano and the other bases.
00:20:32.000You need these bases. But if you prefer to have it in Greenland, good luck with that one. It's your choice.
00:20:38.000But you will never fly from Frankfurt to Rammstein anymore. You will never have Aviano.
00:20:44.000And if you think about it, Naples in Italy, where your sixth fleet is based, will also not be yours.
00:20:51.000And we have several other less famous bases in Romania, for example, where America has considerable investments and you will never have access to them anymore.
00:21:00.000And it will be a completely legal process. It will be not a military thing. We will not shoot anybody.
00:21:08.000Also, we are our friends. We are your allies. But we simply legally will kick you out.
00:21:14.000I just wanted to underline the fact then that should America seize Greenland, you will still continue to believe Russia is the principal enemy to continental Europe.
00:21:30.000By the way, on the flat tax point, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm very much in favour of a flat tax.
00:21:36.000And if you can get it down to 15%, I think that would be excellent.
00:21:40.000Now, you mentioned the migration issue in Austria, which is obviously quite politically sensitive.
00:21:46.000You said a couple of things on re-migration, which is the term in Europe, what we tend to call in the Anglosphere repatriation.
00:21:58.000Now, you said on the one hand, you support re-migration of enemies.
00:22:02.000But on the other hand, you say that re-migration is racism.
00:22:07.000Firstly, about the latter point first, tell me what did you mean when you said that re-migration is racist?
00:22:13.000Look, I think that we should forcefully send out of our jurisdiction only our enemies.
00:22:20.000So if somebody has committed serious crimes, if somebody has committed a crime of treason like Tucker Carlson and these people, we should forcefully send them out of our jurisdiction.
00:22:32.000They are like parasites living in our jurisdiction. They must go. Goodbye, Tucker Carlson.
00:22:37.000But if somebody is a peaceful migrant who just wants here to work and to make a little bit of income from Mexico in your case or from, let's say, Syria in Austria, I have nothing against people who want to work and have a normal life here.
00:24:23.000The center-right, European, supposedly Christian democratic political sphere has nothing to say about the invasion of Islamic third world invaders into Austria.
00:25:06.000Today's poor migrants, when they come even from a Muslim background, who are desperate because Putin has waged a war against them in Syria,
00:25:15.000and he has barrel-bombed Aleppo, and then they had to run away because Obama was so weak.
00:25:20.000Obama did all this disaster, and the American power was too weak to intervene in Syria.
00:25:27.000I don't think Jack Posobiec would allow your last statement to pass.
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00:33:59.000And then just moments later, he came back.
00:34:01.000She stood up, punched her right in the face, grabbed her, threw her down in the corner.
00:34:05.000That's when I stood up, had a short altercation with him.
00:34:07.000And unbeknownst to me, from my right, another migrant had come up from the side and was waiting for the ripe opportunity to slash me in the face.
00:34:17.000Now, when you said a migrant before, and I've listened to a couple of the interviews that you've given, these two guys were Syrians, weren't they?
00:34:28.000They weren't legally present in Germany, right?
00:34:30.000No, they were both illegal immigrants from Syria.
00:34:33.000Tell me, this tram that you were on, who else stepped in?
00:34:40.000So obviously you, as an American, immediately sees danger and steps in to help these girls, these young ladies.
00:34:59.000Even when my face was open, bloody, and pouring out on the floors of the tram, they were sitting down.
00:35:05.000And it actually troubled me a little bit, re-watching this video, wondering how it all went down, how it happened so quickly.
00:35:12.000And I couldn't help but notice even some people in the video, some German citizens, smiling as this went down, as this was something funny.
00:35:44.000You yourself, you're no stranger to Germany.
00:35:47.000You were living in Dresden for about a year, right?
00:35:52.000What's your perception of the violence, the immigration-based violence in Germany?
00:36:00.000Do you think that the media is truly reporting the nature of this?
00:36:06.000Because here's my instinct, and this is what I would like to see if you confirm for me.
00:36:10.000My instinct is, as I say, your story particularly had huge resonance.
00:36:15.000But if you had been German and not American, and these kind of things happen every day, and the press really, the mainstream press really doesn't like to touch it.
00:36:26.000The fact that you are American, the fact that you were doing something so typically American, which is stepping in to help someone who was vulnerable, quintessentially American if I might sort of put it like that.
00:36:37.000I think that sort of meant that even the mainstream media wasn't able to suppress this.
00:36:43.000Someone with experience in Germany, tell me what it's like there.
00:36:46.000Is it as bad as Americans at home are seeing and hearing through informal channels?
00:36:56.000And the mainstream media will do anything to not address these problems in this epidemic in Germany.
00:37:03.000They'll sidestep it. They'll push it to the side. Even me, after intervening in this case, when I recently went and visited the AFD, thanks to them, and the Parliament in Germany, the media originally just there switched up and called me a racist and a fascist and a Nazi, not understanding what's really going on in Germany, when just a few months prior, they were singing my praise when I stepped in to defend that woman.
00:37:26.000Germans here don't feel like they can speak, don't feel like they can connect with the AFD because they'll be labeled as exactly that, right-wing, fascist, Nazi, just because.
00:37:37.000And it's absolutely abhorrent that the mainstream media are attacking the own civilians this way to the point that they feel like they can't do anything, where if they were to stand up, nobody would hear about it.
00:37:49.000They'd push it by the wayside like they have done with all these other cases.
00:37:52.000And it's so sad. Us in the USA see this happening. And as Americans, we step in when we see something like that occurring. We stop that because that's not American. That's not European. That's not Western right there. But in Germany, it's slowly becoming the norm.
00:38:08.000You mentioned some of the criticisms and accusations made against you personally of being right-wing and all the rest of it.
00:38:18.000For simply highlighting what had happened to you, simply highlighting having your face slashed as you were protecting a couple of vulnerable girls.
00:38:28.000You're not from, you're from a progressive household though, right? Your parents were both progressive. They brought you up as a progressive.
00:38:36.000Though I think you're now sort of slightly more open. Tell me about your current political inclinations and whether your experience in Dresden has changed.
00:38:47.000Originally, as you said before, I was raised in a progressive household. My mother worked in very democratic agencies.
00:38:54.000My father, more on the middle of the political spectrum, serving in the military for 20 years, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and many more.
00:39:01.000I was raised in a diverse environment, not only of, you know, sites, but of opinions, the most important thing, the diversification of ideas.
00:39:09.000And that's something that they're even clamping down here in Germany now, but it provided me with an opportunity and a new way to look at the global affairs that are going on here, specifically in Germany.
00:39:21.000But this is an epidemic in the EU at large. And honestly, the solution really needs to be circumferential in order for the problem to get away.
00:39:30.000You know, Germany is just a symptom. This is really just a symptom at the end of the day. And I'd like to see it fixed.
00:39:36.000Back with John Rudat, American hero of Dresden in just a quick moment.
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00:40:54.000Okay, back to John Ruder. Now, John, tell me a bit then about your modeling career, when it started, when it finished. What happened?
00:41:05.760So my modeling career quintessentially started a month before this event.
00:41:11.020And as you said and introduced with, it was cut short immediately pretty much from the knife attack.
00:41:16.560But that wasn't the only reason. The other reason, the bigger reason, actually, is my political opinions after this event.
00:41:25.300I had brands reach out to me right after it happened, right after the knife attack happened.
00:41:29.700And then, just a few days later, withdraw their statements and withdraw their invitations right after my interviews with some conservative media outlets and personalities here in Dresden and Germany went on air.
00:41:42.940And that just highlighted to me the discrepancy underlying, infested, integrated in the German society, not only politically, but culturally, in media.
00:41:54.140And that's actually why, funnily enough, I started my own clothing brand to give people that have been victims of that bias a platform to still work.
00:42:02.940Tell me a bit about that new project that you've launched, but I just want to underline here.
00:42:09.140Because when people heard that your modeling career was cut short because of the scar, no, when people hear that your modeling career was cut short, they think it's because of the knife attack, because of the scar.
00:42:22.280It's not. It's because of the political controversy that arose out of the context of the knifing, right?
00:42:35.840Okay. That's a strange thing. That's a strange thing. I think that will cause some dissonance in a lot of people's minds.
00:42:43.380I won't ask you to name names who the brands were, who disassociated with it.
00:42:47.300Just seeing as you mentioned it, tell me a bit about the, this project then that you've launched subsequent to that experience.
00:42:54.080Of course. So I've started my own clothing brand called Kosos.
00:42:57.780And my aim with Kosos is to do a couple of things.
00:43:01.140One of them is to give the right wing models that have been exiled, at least in the German sphere, possibly moving to the United States later, if this really takes off and builds a good foundation here.
00:43:13.060But give those people, those personalities, those, that image here in Germany, a voice, because they don't have it.
00:43:19.620It's being taken away. The mainstream media is just shunting it down.
00:43:23.360And it's terrible to see, because we all know where this goes.
00:43:26.820And the Germans don't want to suffer in a place like that.
00:43:29.660So I'm trying to, as well as, you know, come in the media space here strong in Germany and advocate for that free German speech and German safety.
00:43:38.120As much as I am in the political and media field, as much as I am in the fashion fields, just trying to send it home, man.
00:43:45.580Well, you're very coherent and very persuasive.
00:43:48.300I'm sure the attention that has come to you, the media attention that has come to you, you're going to be able to use that very convincingly to explain to people what's going on.
00:43:57.020Just tell me a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about that political reaction, certainly in Germany.
00:44:02.040I know you met Alice Weidel, right, the leader of the AFD, the Alternative for Deutschland.
00:44:07.460Just tell me a bit about that and what the general political response in Germany has been to this incident.
00:44:14.300Of course. Now, the Sebastian Mundenmayer was graciously generous enough to invite me out for a day in the Reichstag and take me around,
00:44:23.820have some interviews, speak about the future of Germany, talk about how we may be able to work together to bring about a better, safer, stronger Germany in the future.
00:44:32.060And I was so excited for that. And I had an amazing time.
00:44:34.820Alice Weidel, as you guys saw, spent some time with me and took a picture.
00:44:39.460We spoke for a bit and then we went on our way.
00:44:42.040But the next day, when all this stuff aired, when all this stuff came out, when all this new information was presented to the public,
00:44:47.800there was still mixed reaction. But I'll tell you something. Everybody that reached out to me was positive.
00:44:54.320And everybody that reached out to me, whether it's on Instagram, social media, X, personally,
00:44:59.460all said here in Germany that they feel afraid to even support this publicly,
00:45:04.940that they feel afraid to even advocate for this brighter future in Germany,
00:45:08.700that the AFD now hold the majority popularity of.
00:45:12.540I believe it was 26.2% last time I checked. And it's only rising.
00:45:17.040And I'm very excited to see what kind of change they can bring to Germany here,
00:45:21.420hopefully, when they win this upcoming election.
00:45:24.440Were you political at all before this incident?
00:45:30.060No, I kept my political views to myself until a Syrian national decided to slash me in the face.
00:47:38.820And I'm glad, despite what happens here, I'm glad that Americans can see this, can see the German justice system
00:47:47.100treat one of their own, see the German justice system treat an American who had his face slashed
00:47:53.300while trying to visit his host father in Germany, because that's what it's come to here.
00:47:58.380And still, we're called radical, as you talked about before, when we point this out, even in the foreign country.
00:48:04.160And they're doing their best to keep that from getting any immediate outlet.
00:48:10.740In terms of an eventual conviction, have the prosecution indicated to you what potential sentence would be handed down on a crime like this?
00:48:24.000They couldn't get, like, attempt, katočlak, I think it's called, like, an attempt on my life, an attempt on murder kind of thing.
00:48:31.020So I think he'll get probably maybe six months, a year in jail, maybe.
00:48:36.380But at this point, he's already been coming on the end of this month, six months in custody.
00:48:41.800So I guess the German judge will subtract that from the larger sentence.
00:48:46.440So he may get no time, he may get six months, but I don't think he'll get anything over a year.
00:48:51.360Just on that point, and I think this is all going to have time to fit into the show now, just say in your own words exactly what happened with the knife attack.
00:49:01.200Because you mentioned attempted murder.
00:49:03.360I gather from hearing you speak elsewhere, if you hadn't turned round, alerted by the sound of the flick knife blade coming out,
00:49:10.540that slashing movement would have got you in the jugular, basically, that would have been murdered.
00:49:17.240You just happened to turn round at the right time, as it were.
00:49:20.900Just give me 60 seconds about exactly what happened on that.
00:49:28.080Going into the nuisance of it, sorry, the nuance of it, the really specifics of the event was I got on that tram, sat down in that tram seat,
00:49:36.540was talking with my host brother and my friend, when that lady behind me made a few sounds, sounds like cry for help,
00:49:41.800turned around, and that's when the man originally came towards her, aggressive, physically, verbally.
00:49:46.760She shouted at him, he shouted at her, I stood up, tried to defuse the situation.
00:49:51.120He took a couple steps away after shouting at me, she turned around and said, it's okay, it's okay, kind of clenching up against herself.
00:49:57.940It didn't look like anything was okay, and it didn't look like anything was going to get better, and it didn't.
00:50:02.080He came back just a few moments later, started shouting at her again, she stood up, he struck her in the face or in the upper body,
00:50:08.980grabbed her, threw her down into the corner of the tram seat, that's when I got up, had the altercation with him,
00:50:14.120and as we mentioned before, unbeknownst to me, that other attacker came up from the side,
00:50:18.400and right as I was open palm yelling, stop, stop, stop, at the first attacker of the woman, I heard that click.
00:50:25.820I know what an assisted opening knife sounds like, and it sounded to me like it was one,
00:50:30.780and if I hadn't, just like you said, turned to the right, that knife probably would have right been aimed at my jugular,
00:50:37.280carotid, and I would have been dead, 100%.
00:50:39.200I would have been dead on that tram within 90 seconds, the same way Irina Zulutsko got killed.
00:50:43.120And everyone else sat on the tram, watched some smiling, and no one came to your aid.
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