RadixJournal - Was the press conference from hell a set up？

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 0.72

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 0.99

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, 0.92

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 0.76

00:07:18.080 shouldn't have. He probably should have just sat there and eaten shit, to be honest. But 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 0.93

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 0.53

00:10:47.060 bigger than that. Align with Russia and Israel to focus on the Middle East. 0.78

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 0.88

00:11:50.700 Zelensky, already doing these, you know, Twitter brained propaganda, dissident right bullshit 0.97

00:11:59.720 arguments against him the whole time. But again, my bigger question is, is it a setup? Now, 0.85

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 0.99

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 0.76

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 1.00

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? 0.89

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:21:15.400 e-grifter influencer types. I mean, that blew up in their face really hard. And, you know, 0.99

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, 0.86

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 0.70

00:23:27.940 is looking at the United States getting deeper and deeper in bed, aligning with Israel that has just 0.89

00:23:36.860 committed god-awful acts in Gaza, in getting in bed with Vladimir Putin, who just invaded a country, 0.69

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. 1.00

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 1.00

00:27:24.400 the government is going to their home, pulling out their wallet, taking all the cash out, 0.99

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.

RadixJournal - February 28, 2025

Was the press conference from hell a set up？

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