RadixJournal - February 28, 2025


Was the press conference from hell a set up？


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

127.71849

Word Count

3,690

Sentence Count

267

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary

In this episode of the podcast, host Alex Blumbergert talks about the fallout from President Trump's press conference with Ukraine s foreign minister, Vladamir Zelensky, and Russian foreign minister J.D. Vance.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'll start talking. Well, today seemed to be a tempest in a teacup with world historical
00:00:13.460 geopolitical consequences. That seems like a contradiction in terms in many ways, but I think
00:00:21.860 that's what just happened. So my question is, was it a setup? Was it planned? Or are we really
00:00:32.740 changing geopolitical positioning and alignment on the basis of a press conference gone wrong?
00:00:41.200 Or the fact that J.D. Bounce was really, he was just very concerned that Zelensky didn't say thank
00:00:50.100 you. I'm beginning to think it was a setup. So just to lay the groundwork here, Zelensky was in town.
00:01:01.160 He was in Washington, D.C. He's meeting with Trump and company, Rubio Vance. The big news of the past
00:01:08.920 week to 10 days has been, first off, Trump bad-mouthing Zelensky in ways that are quite
00:01:17.920 surprising. And second off, his offering of a deal for rare earth and mineral rights in Ukraine. Now,
00:01:27.680 I am not a geologist, but I have looked into this. And these are, he's talking about, at least in this
00:01:36.060 instance, or mostly on the east of the country. Some of these territories are currently occupied by
00:01:42.560 Russia. Some are not. It's, you know, it's murky. It's complex. Trump is demanding a kind of
00:01:53.080 co-partnership or co-ownership partnership with these mineral rights and to the tune of 5 billion or some,
00:02:02.400 you know, otherworldly number like that. Now, many people look at this as just outright
00:02:09.360 exploitation. And it is to a large degree. At the same time, facing reality, Ukraine is in a very
00:02:19.980 difficult position. Maybe if they simply refuse to lose, they've got to make some deals like this,
00:02:30.300 desperate times, desperate measures, et cetera.
00:02:32.460 My point in analyzing the situation is that even though Trump is bad-mouthing Zelensky and his MAGA
00:02:42.840 followers are just outright at this point, anti-Zelensky and anti-Ukraine, that if a rare earth
00:02:52.180 and mineral deal is to take place, then that would imply a commitment with Ukraine. That would imply
00:02:59.340 that Trump is in it to win it. After all, he doesn't want Ukraine to lose because he would
00:03:04.720 also be losing those mineral rights. Now, Putin has also made an offer of, well, you know, I'll give
00:03:10.840 you the rare earths or something like this. It's murky to say the least. But anyway, Zelensky was in
00:03:19.060 town. And I watched the entire 50-minute press conference. And if you watch about the first 30
00:03:30.000 minutes of it, you would think that everything was hunky-dory. Now, there were a couple of situations
00:03:38.580 very similar to Trump's meeting with Macron, where he said something to the effect of, you know,
00:03:46.180 frankly, we have done everything and Europe has done nothing. It always hurts my throat to do my
00:03:54.660 Trump impression. And Zelensky is like, no, that is not true, Mr. President. And then you have this
00:04:00.840 kind of odd series of men, heterosexual men, touching each other's knees in a friendly fashion.
00:04:11.480 I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's European. Who knows? But very much like with Macron, you had that
00:04:17.140 same situation going on. So yeah, there was a little bit of tension. There's some disagreement,
00:04:23.400 but it did seem hunky-dory to me. And then J.D. Vance entered the chat and J.D. Vance went after
00:04:33.900 Zelensky. And I don't think there's any other way to say it. And it also is sort of psychologically
00:04:40.720 revealing about J.D. Vance, because he didn't really say anything of substance. He basically
00:04:50.100 reiterated a bunch of dissident right talking points that you find on Twitter. And if you want to call
00:04:58.920 them Kremlin talking points, you can. There's no real difference between these. So he made a sort of
00:05:07.360 free speech argument. I mean, I don't even know. It's a non-secretary. I don't even know what he's
00:05:12.840 saying. Basically, Europe is censoring conservatives on social media platforms in Europe. Europe likes
00:05:23.660 Ukraine. Therefore, we shouldn't like Ukraine. I mean, I don't even know what the hell he's even
00:05:29.180 saying. He's just sort of, again, reiterating a kind of, you know, is it true? Is it sure to some
00:05:38.000 extent, I guess? But it's basically just a distraction, deflection, misinformation. Then he
00:05:44.580 said, you know, with respect, you haven't shown this president enough respect. You've been bad-mouthing
00:05:50.080 drunk. And it's just this pathetic demand for respect from Zelensky, which ironically demonstrates
00:06:01.780 J.D. Vance's own psychological complex, his feeling of inferiority, his feeling understandable in many
00:06:11.080 ways of not fitting in, of, you know, going to those dinners when he was at Yale and he didn't know what
00:06:18.280 to do with that spoon that it was above, you know, the plate. Is it like the spoon on the side? He'd
00:06:25.660 never knew. He had to call up Usha to get some advice on silverware. Anyway, he doesn't, he's not
00:06:34.800 comfortable in his own skin. He's, he has an inferiority complex, understandable in a way, because
00:06:41.780 I don't think J.D. Vance is a terribly impressive person. And he keeps pushing Zelensky,
00:06:48.280 and then Zelensky, this is a guy. Yeah. He's a comedian. He's a professional comedian. He was an
00:06:55.780 actor. He played the president of Ukraine before he was the president of Ukraine. He's dressed in
00:07:03.260 drag like almost every comedian who's worth his salt, you could say. But he's also faced down hell
00:07:12.460 on earth and stood tall against a Russian invasion. So yeah, he pushed back. He probably
00:07:18.080 shouldn't have. He probably should have just sat there and eaten shit, to be honest. But
00:07:24.580 he pushed back and then it started to get out of control. He said some things like, you know,
00:07:33.120 you have an ocean separating you from Russia and from Europe. This is, you know, the blessed state of
00:07:38.460 America, which we've enjoyed for so long, but you're going to feel it. You're going to feel
00:07:43.460 the Russian menace, is what he was basically saying. And Donald Trump, who has a very different
00:07:51.980 psychology than J.D. Vance, is like, no, no, you can't tell us what we feel. No, no, we're going to
00:07:58.860 feel great. We're going to feel strong. It's going to be fantastic. Trump, in his kind of crazy,
00:08:05.820 narcissistic way, you know, creates his own reality. Like you could never tell me what I
00:08:12.240 would feel. And so that was Trump's response, but things got extremely heated. Next thing you know,
00:08:21.260 the whole situation is blown up. Next thing you know, Zelensky is leaving Washington. Next thing you
00:08:30.540 know, there was a report that Hegseth is ceasing all cyber security, cyber attack strategy and planning
00:08:40.740 and operations against Russia. Next thing you know, whether it's reality or not, it really felt like
00:08:49.280 Ukraine had been sold down, sold down the river, had just simply been abandoned. And Trump is basically
00:08:58.500 like, you know, I can't make a deal with Putin if you're going to insult him like this.
00:09:05.200 The reason why Ukraine didn't fold, the reason why Zelensky didn't flee the country immediately
00:09:11.900 is because he has balls. And yeah, he was, and maybe still is a kind of celebrity among liberals and the
00:09:25.600 woke and the people who listen to U2 albums, remembering the glory days of the American century.
00:09:34.080 Sure, he is. But you don't do what he has done if you don't have a pair of balls. And he has them and
00:09:43.020 he stood up to this ridiculous man, Vance. So I guess my question is here, and I've been rambling a lot
00:09:53.740 before getting to the question, you know, right at the heart of this live stream, is what just happened?
00:10:01.300 Are we really to believe that geopolitics have fundamentally shifted due to a dust up at a
00:10:14.000 press conference? Or is all this a setup? That is, is the, did J.D. Vance purposefully antagonize
00:10:24.680 Zelensky. And was he antagonizing Zelensky before the press conference so that you could have some
00:10:33.300 startling disagreement like this so that the Trump administration could do what it already wanted to
00:10:39.620 do, which was sell out Ukraine, align with Russia. And I think it goes a lot deeper and it's a lot
00:10:47.060 bigger than that. Align with Russia and Israel to focus on the Middle East.
00:10:56.060 Is that what just happened? It just strikes me as hard to believe that conservatives or Trump and
00:11:04.560 Vance are such delicate snowflakes that they would blow something up just over some harsh words.
00:11:13.640 Now, Trump actually gave a revealing comment in the first 30 or so minutes of this, where he said,
00:11:21.800 you know, Zelensky, he hates Putin, and I understand why. But I can't bad mouth either,
00:11:30.480 either fellow in order to get a deal, I'm going to get the greatest deal. And then he pointed to
00:11:35.500 Zelensky and Vance, and he said, these two don't like each other very much.
00:11:40.280 That seemed to suggest that before the press conference, Vance was already antagonizing
00:11:50.700 Zelensky, already doing these, you know, Twitter brained propaganda, dissident right bullshit
00:11:59.720 arguments against him the whole time. But again, my bigger question is, is it a setup? Now,
00:12:07.080 this is something that I've articulated in some other venues. But my feeling is that
00:12:16.880 what we're seeing really is the Seychelles Islands plan from 2017, that didn't take place in
00:12:29.460 in the first Trump administration is actually coming to fruition in the second Trump administration.
00:12:37.260 So in the winter, I think of 2017, Eric Prince of Blackwater fame or infamy, met with a manager of
00:12:50.520 the Russian sovereign wealth fund in the Seychelles Islands. And the thought there was that Russia,
00:13:00.320 why do you unlink with Iran, link up with the US, we are going to end the sanctions, we're going to be
00:13:10.240 nice to you, link up with the US in an antagonistic campaign, and maybe even war against Iran.
00:13:17.520 Now, this was reported in the Washington Post. And this sort of explains it all. Once you know this
00:13:24.720 little tidbit, it explains things that are otherwise illogical about the first Trump administration.
00:13:33.800 So Donald Trump pleased a lot of us, he pleased the alt right, he pleased the paleo conservatives,
00:13:43.180 he pleased the libertarians, and so on, by his seemingly peaceful attitude towards Russia. It's
00:13:52.080 like Russia is a big country, we should get along if they're fighting ISIS, Syria, let them. Why don't
00:13:59.480 we work with them? Why don't we help them, as opposed to treating them as an enemy? But also echoed,
00:14:07.140 and Trump wouldn't want to hear this, this also echoed so many of the comments that Obama made. Now,
00:14:12.340 Obama wouldn't use those words, exactly. But Obama, when he was running against Mitt Romney said,
00:14:18.880 listen, Mitt, the Cold War is over. Listen, grandpa, the Cold War is over. And Russia is not a strategic
00:14:26.400 enemy, we need to move beyond that. He also, when a red line was crossed in Syria, whatever you want
00:14:33.220 to think about that, he also punted to Congress and then just avoided any sort of war with Syria.
00:14:38.360 It was, in effect, the very least not antagonizing Russia, if not working with Russia. So we all saw
00:14:47.280 that. And the alt right, as it was called, or paleocons, or libertarians, whatever, we were all
00:14:55.540 like, oh, this is great. We've got a Bismarck in office. He is a realist. He is going to work with
00:15:02.560 other world powers. He's going to be sane, grounded, et cetera, et cetera. But there was another aspect
00:15:09.320 to Trump that I think all of us tried to avoid and not think about. And that was the fact that he over
00:15:16.860 and over and over again said that the Iran nuclear deal was the worst deal in history, the worst thing
00:15:25.480 ever. And he basically took Israel's side, tore up the Iran deal when he got into office, and had this
00:15:36.140 sort of angry but vague vehemence against the Iran deal. Which, I guess, arguably, if you think of it
00:15:47.740 in a way, if Iran is being paid off to not create a nuclear weapon, maybe you sort of, by tearing that
00:15:55.220 up, you might even want them to create a nuclear weapon. Certainly, being that antagonistic and not
00:16:02.500 offering any sort of mediation would logically lead someone to, in fact, get a nuclear weapon
00:16:09.460 as the one true way of preventing any sort of American regime change war.
00:16:17.620 So we didn't square any of these things. We, alt-right libertarians, et cetera, we heard what we wanted
00:16:25.120 to hear. It's just like, oh, yeah, he sounds like Bismarck or something. That's great. But we just sort
00:16:31.560 of avoided the hyper-Zionism that Trump also expressed. Now, in office as well, Trump almost
00:16:40.020 started a war with Iran. He kind of aborted it at the last minute, like one of those Mission
00:16:44.920 Impossible films, like abort, abort, abort, you know. But he assassinated a major figure in Iran and
00:16:53.080 bought us pretty close. He gave the Golan Heights to Israel. He moved the embassy. We all know it. He's
00:16:59.460 the most Zionist president in our history. According to Trump and according to his fans,
00:17:07.920 not the alt-right, not the paleocons, his real fans, the ones that hang on his every word and will go
00:17:13.620 with them anywhere. The most pro-Israel president ever. So that's the reality of the situation. And so
00:17:22.580 that's how I see all of this lining up in the future. We are going to decouple from NATO, perhaps,
00:17:34.180 but Europe, more or less, dump Ukraine. Europe, you take care of it. It's in your backyard. Who cares?
00:17:41.140 But, and that, from some, from the standpoint of, say, the anti-war right or the anti-war left,
00:17:48.100 for that matter, that's all great. But what's step two? There's no, I remember hearing,
00:17:56.000 I think it was Jerry Jones at one point, the owner of the Cowboys, and he was like,
00:17:59.820 it's like squeezing Jell-O. Like, you squeeze it over here and it comes out there. You squeeze it here
00:18:05.500 and it comes out through your fingers. I'm like, what I think you express is, is the fact that you
00:18:13.160 don't just squeeze the Jell-O and it, there's an indention there. It pops out some other place. So
00:18:19.380 you don't just become anti-war and then your overall anti-war, you become anti-war to focus the energy of
00:18:26.720 the American empire towards something. And I would suggest that post-October 7th,
00:18:38.240 the American empire is going to be backing Israel, perhaps backing Israel in a regional war that
00:18:46.140 eventually becomes a world war in the Middle East directed against Iran. It is very important to get
00:18:52.860 Russia on board. Russia is an economic player. I mean, its economy is the size of Italy, obviously
00:19:00.220 has a natural resource, wealth, you know, tremendous. It is a nuclear power. You want to take one
00:19:07.400 player off the field, a player that could hurt you, stand in your way, et cetera. That's how I read this.
00:19:18.200 So all of these anti-war types who think it's great that we're dumping Zelensky, be careful what you
00:19:26.660 wish for. The other thing I would say before my phone runs out of power is that I do, you know,
00:19:37.920 this gets back to what I was talking about before. Like, are we really going to engage
00:19:43.680 in geopolitical realignment on the basis of a dust-up between J.D. Vance, of all people,
00:19:52.140 at a press conference? I mean, who cares? If you want to sell someone your house and
00:20:00.140 insults you in some way, maybe you'll, you know, walk out of the room, but you'll probably call him
00:20:07.980 back the next day. I mean, if you want to do something and someone is willing to partner
00:20:13.520 with you, then why stand on some formality? Why don't you get over some slight that someone
00:20:21.880 perpetrated against and just do it? Are we really going to realign geopolitics? I find it just hard
00:20:30.420 to believe that this wasn't a setup. That being said, I see the Trump administration,
00:20:41.820 Trump 2.0, as devolving into a series of catastrophes. It seems like a hundred years ago,
00:20:53.400 but only yesterday we had this bizarre situation where Pam Bondi promised to reveal everything
00:21:01.800 about Epstein only to reveal nothing that we didn't already know. Actually reveal less than
00:21:07.720 nothing, to reveal redacted documents that are already out there and give them to a bunch of idiotic
00:21:15.400 e-grifter influencer types. I mean, that blew up in their face really hard. And, you know,
00:21:25.440 one could talk about why they did that, of course. And then we have this situation where you're
00:21:31.480 apparently engaging in geopolitics on the basis of whether someone does or does not insult J.D.
00:21:38.840 Vance. I mean, it's just insane taken from the standpoint of, you know, racism.
00:21:45.400 Alpine or standard diplomacy. So we seem to just be devolving into these series of catastrophes.
00:21:55.260 And we also seem to be devolving into the end of the American century, which a century that
00:22:04.120 stretched 80 years from the Bretton Woods Accords in 1944, the end of the Second World War in 1945,
00:22:10.320 of course, and the creation of all of these institutions. A little bit later on, NATO,
00:22:15.620 the, you know, International Monetary Fund, all of this stuff. America is the world reserve currency.
00:22:21.880 America is going to patrol the seas. America is the one true way. In competition with Soviet communism,
00:22:30.380 maybe they're going to end up at the same place. Maybe they want the same thing ultimately. But
00:22:33.960 actually, we found out America wins. It's the only thing going.
00:22:40.760 That century undergirded, is that the right word, undergirded? Buttressed by American military might
00:22:54.760 and the American dollar is the world reserve currency. Are we not seeing the end of it?
00:22:59.920 I mean, if the whole world is basically radically disagreeing with you and saying that they love
00:23:06.920 Ukraine, if the whole world is basically saying this guy to Donald Trump, if European partners are
00:23:16.640 like, well, we've got to go our own way then. The new German minister said, we've got to gain
00:23:23.140 independence from the United States. We've got to continue to support Ukraine. If the whole world
00:23:27.940 is looking at the United States getting deeper and deeper in bed, aligning with Israel that has just
00:23:36.860 committed god-awful acts in Gaza, in getting in bed with Vladimir Putin, who just invaded a country,
00:23:47.580 kidnapped thousands of children, blown up whole towns, etc. If they see that, then the American
00:23:55.380 century can't keep going. You know that idea of fiat currency, the dollar, it's not based on gold
00:24:01.040 anymore. What is it based on? It's based on oils, based on bullets. Yeah, that's true. But it's
00:24:07.900 credo. It's based on legitimacy. It's based on the fact that people believe in the United States.
00:24:20.440 Soft power is not some joke. Think about all of the soft power that the Soviet Union actually possessed
00:24:30.280 after 1917. It wasn't called the Soviet Union at the time, but you understand. The idea that they
00:24:36.200 were the one true way, that we're liberating the people from the oppressive capitalists. These are
00:24:42.440 all slogans, of course, but they're real. That kind of legitimacy is extremely important, as was the
00:24:50.660 legitimacy that the United States empire gained from blue jeans, rockin' roll, the Beatles, U2, consumerism,
00:25:01.180 some feminism, but not too much, family values. I'm going to own a two-bedroom home, have two cars,
00:25:11.960 have four weeks of vacation, and a gold watch when I retire. All of that, that vision of America is
00:25:22.120 soft power, and it's extremely important. And from some brutal, realistic way, you could say,
00:25:30.660 oh, none of this matters. Let's just be transactional. Pay me, bro. I might tariff your ass
00:25:38.400 if you don't do what I say. I mean, I get it. And on some level, that's how politics really is.
00:25:48.340 But to just dismiss the concepts of legitimacy, that is political theology, as Carl Schmitt delved into.
00:25:59.740 Legitimacy, credo, belief, credit. To just dismiss that as meaningless, and we'll just do
00:26:07.880 whatever the fuck we want, does represent the end of the American century. It represents the
00:26:16.980 undermining of the American empire. And I would fear that what comes after the American empire is
00:26:24.640 going to be much worse. Now, maybe on some level, it always had to end, and nothing can last forever,
00:26:30.740 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I actually sort of agree with that. Maybe on some level, you can't
00:26:36.840 have democracy and an empire. The democracy is going to demand too much. It's going to undermine the
00:26:46.400 empire. At some point, the democracy, the people, Demos, doesn't believe in the empire. I get all that.
00:26:53.260 Maybe it sort of has to end. But what comes after is no doubt going to be much worse. There are
00:27:04.960 consequences to this. And I don't think the Trump fans, the online right, the dissident right, MAGA,
00:27:14.040 I don't think they are contemplating any of this. I think they think in this very stupid way that
00:27:24.400 the government is going to their home, pulling out their wallet, taking all the cash out,
00:27:31.340 and just handing it to Zelensky, who buys a new car and throws a keg party. That seems to be what
00:27:41.380 they think. That's how Tucker Carlson thinks. Not in those words, of course, but you get it.
00:27:48.380 They don't understand that the value of their dollar is dependent upon the American empire,
00:27:55.720 that they are going to lose a whole hell of a lot by the United States empire declining.
00:28:04.380 They don't want to think about that. They think that they're just getting ripped off.
00:28:09.420 And thank God, Elon Musk is deconstructing soft power so that we can be rich again.
00:28:19.780 Look, on some ways, I get it. I think there have been declining expectations,
00:28:24.380 declining living standards, declining life expectancy. I get it in many ways. But that is a
00:28:31.760 fundamentally incorrect way of conceiving the American empire. And of course, that's how
00:28:38.200 conservatives think. Anyway, just some thoughts. Hope you enjoyed these. I will talk to you guys soon.
00:28:47.500 Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for listening. Ciao.