The Great America Show - CHANG： WORLD IN TURMOIL

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00:01:14.940 Hello everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs and welcome to the Great America Show. It is great to have you with

00:01:23.480 us. President Donald Trump back in court in the New York civil fraud trial against the Trump

00:01:29.100 organization. The Trump legal team presented their last expert witness in the case, Eli Bartoff,

00:01:36.120 a New York University accounting professor who testified about the role of property valuations

00:01:42.000 and financial statements and how the Trump organization simply could not have overvalued

00:01:47.780 the Trump properties. President Trump talked with the press briefly after a lunch break

00:01:52.960 and said the trial is all about election interference and keeping him off the campaign trail.

00:01:59.380 This is weaponization of justice. This is something that nobody's ever seen to this extent.

00:02:06.200 It's called election interference. It's a sad day for our country that a thing like this can take

00:02:13.640 place. I'm sitting in a courthouse instead of being in Iowa where I should be, even though I'm

00:02:19.840 leading by about 40 points. Thank you very much.

00:02:22.980 This was Trump's ninth time at the trial and reportedly he'll be back on December 11th to take the stand

00:02:31.060 for a final time. The president facing an uphill battle as Trump sits before Marxist M. Judge Arthur

00:02:38.180 Ingeron, who has gagged him and his attorneys this Sunday right here on The Great America Show. We're

00:02:43.820 actually going to be joined by one of his attorneys, also under a gag order, attorney Alina Haba with a

00:02:50.320 Sunday. We hope you won't miss that. We've been talking a lot this week about FISA and the 702 that

00:02:56.620 expires at the end of this month. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders

00:03:02.160 have agreed to put a short-term extension of Section 702 in the National Defense Authorization

00:03:08.820 Act. That bill would extend Section 702 until April 19th. As of right now, it's unclear whether the NDAA

00:03:18.100 will pass with the 702 extension in it, and it has some more conservative members of the conference

00:03:24.580 simply furious with Speaker Johnson. Our guest today is national security and geopolitical expert

00:03:31.260 Gordon Chang. And Gordon, it's great to have you with us. I know you and your wife Lydia have been

00:03:36.000 traveling a great deal all around the world just back from Asia. Let's start with Beijing's accusations

00:03:41.880 that a U.S. Navy destroyer violated Chinese sovereignty, as the Chinese put it, in disputed waters. That's

00:03:49.560 peculiar timing, isn't it? And an awfully heated and unexpectedly heated statement by the Chinese, 0.79

00:03:56.600 particularly just after the Xi-Biden summit. Yes, this comes right after the November 15th summit

00:04:03.460 that Xi Jinping had with President Biden, where supposedly, according to Biden, things were going

00:04:10.060 very well with China. What Beijing is referring to is the Gabriel Giffords, which is a U.S. Navy

00:04:17.900 littoral combat ship, which sailed close to Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Second Thomas

00:04:25.260 is part of the Philippines, clearly within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, but China

00:04:31.060 claims it. And around Second Thomas, over the last, let's say, two or three months, there have been

00:04:37.800 extraordinary Chinese activity. And this has been dangerous. The United States has tried to warn China. 0.93

00:04:46.960 It has slowly ramped up our military presence there. But obviously, our tactics are not working

00:04:54.220 because China is moving very fast to take over Second Thomas and related shoals and reefs.

00:05:00.700 And at this point, no administration has tried to stop them, certainly blocking their development of

00:05:10.620 those islands and others in disputed territories in the South China Sea. Give us your sense of

00:05:18.780 what this means. Have they selected a new strategy? Are they accelerating an old one? What is happening

00:05:27.560 in the mines and in the halls of the capital of Beijing?

00:05:33.260 Well, China has territorial claims on the South China Sea. They go back to 1947, which is when

00:05:42.460 Chiang Kai-shek was ruling China. But clearly, Beijing has started to change tactics recently.

00:05:49.740 So, for instance, they have switched away from Taiwan with these circumnavigation by ships and planes,

00:05:57.340 and they've moved hard against Manila. And we have seen this at Scarborough Shoal,

00:06:04.400 Second Thomas Shoal, and now Whitsun Reef. Basically, what's going on, and this is ominous,

00:06:10.100 we don't have a legal obligation to defend Taiwan. But we do have a legal obligation to defend the

00:06:17.460 Philippines, a 1951 mutual defense treaty. So what Beijing is basically doing is saying that

00:06:23.780 they do not respect the United States. They don't respect Joe Biden. And so, therefore,

00:06:29.100 they're going to pressure the Philippines.

00:06:31.940 And interestingly, is there really any real commitment on the part of this administration?

00:06:40.720 This is an administration that doesn't honor the Constitution, doesn't follow law, is unlawful in most

00:06:47.920 of it, seriously, in most of its activities and its initiatives. Would it be a surprise to anyone

00:06:54.020 if Joe Biden decided not to honor a treaty of military support, requiring military support from

00:07:01.620 the United States for the Philippines? At this point, you know, nothing's a surprise because the

00:07:06.740 world is in turmoil and the United States has got to choose where we're going to defend.

00:07:11.060 What's happened, Lou, if I can just back up a little bit to give some context. China was ramming 0.52

00:07:19.680 Philippine vessels at Second Thomas Shoal in early October. President Biden actually gave an oral

00:07:29.540 warning when the Australian prime minister visited the White House. And Biden said that the United States

00:07:35.840 was prepared to use force to discharge our obligations to the Philippines under that mutual

00:07:40.840 defense treaty. Well, the Chinese just ignored him because they then continued their course of

00:07:47.080 provocative activities. They then started to use water cannon on Philippine boats. And now we see

00:07:54.400 China swarming Whitsun Reef, which is not far by, also in the southern portion of the South China Sea.

00:08:01.860 So clearly, Beijing is ignoring American warnings, which means deterrence has broken down.

00:08:06.800 You know, we don't know what Biden's response will be. We have seen the U.S. Navy start to

00:08:14.200 show the flag at Second Thomas. They did that with overflights of U.S. vessels during provocative

00:08:22.680 Chinese activities. Now we've got that littoral combat ship that sailed close by. But we don't know

00:08:29.160 what Biden would do. And the Chinese, I think, obviously feel that he's not going to do anything.

00:08:34.960 So regardless of what we're going to do, the important thing is what the Chinese think we're 0.93

00:08:40.520 not going to do. And that really is driving events. And the number of disputed islands and claims,

00:08:47.760 whether it's Vietnam, whether it's the Philippines, there are a lot, there are lots of disputed

00:08:54.720 islands in the sea. And China is simply doing nothing, disregarding all of it and moving straight 0.81

00:09:05.380 ahead. There are no court proceedings that I'm aware of, international court proceedings.

00:09:09.700 There is no effort to negotiate. This is bullheaded straight ahead. Take what you will.

00:09:18.920 Yes. And, you know, this goes back to early 2012. And the reason I'd mentioned this is because Biden

00:09:27.020 was vice president in the Obama administration, and he was considered to be the foreign policy

00:09:32.900 advisor to the president. Well, in 2012, at Scarborough Show, also part of the Philippines, very close to the

00:09:42.480 main Philippine island in Luzon and very far away from China. The Obama administration actually

00:09:48.580 brokered a deal between Manila and Beijing for the Chinese to withdraw their craft from Scarborough

00:09:56.520 Shoal. Now, this was a U.S. deal. The Chinese dishonored it. They kept their vessels there. The

00:10:04.420 Philippines actually honored it. And that left China in possession of Scarborough. And the Obama 0.69

00:10:10.520 administration refused to enforce that deal. And so I think China learned from that, that they could

00:10:16.680 do what they want. And the reason why that's relevant today is because shortly after seizing

00:10:21.760 Scarborough, they then started to fortify those islands in the Spratly chain, which is where

00:10:27.860 Second Thomas is. They then ramped up pressure on Second Thomas Shoal, which is where there are

00:10:33.340 problems today. And they started to go after the Japanese in the East China Sea at the Senkakus,

00:10:39.420 which the Chinese claim as the Dao use. So China just went out and made the problem bigger. They 0.59

00:10:45.120 got away with it in 2012. They obviously think they can get away with it in 2023.

00:10:51.380 Obviously. And let's continue this on the other side of these quick words, folks. We'll be right

00:10:57.660 back. We're talking with Gordon Chang about both Asia. And we're also going to bring up a little

00:11:03.980 matter of what is happening in Tokyo, in the Philippines, and throughout the Indo-Pacific.

00:11:13.340 And then we'll leap over to the Hamas war against Israel. We'll be right back. 0.69

00:11:19.880 We're back with Gordon Chang. And we want to talk about now, Gordon, if we may, let's turn

00:11:31.480 to what I think is a remarkable statement by the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in which

00:11:38.080 publicly he admonished the Israelis for their war strategy and basically said that they had

00:11:48.300 made mistakes. And I have never seen a Secretary of Defense treat an ally the way he did.

00:11:56.260 Absolutely. And really what we're talking about here is a war which is existential for Israel.

00:12:03.560 Israel is a friend. It's a democracy. It was attacked on October 7th.

00:12:08.300 Iran has continued those attacks through Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi militia.

00:12:13.220 And this is a fight that we have to win. And I think it should be Israel that determines what 1.00

00:12:21.580 they're going to do, because it's their country. The United States should support it. Unfortunately,

00:12:27.060 we have a lot of pro-Iran elements in the State Department and in the National Security Council.

00:12:32.520 So we have an administration that, from the very beginning, Lou, was off-key. Because if you

00:12:39.280 remember, right after the attacks on the 7th of October, the reaction of the State Department was

00:12:45.720 called for a ceasefire, which was absolutely wrong. You know, everybody wants peace, but the problem

00:12:52.760 was that Israel was just attacked, brutally attacked. And Israel has got to eliminate Hamas 0.85

00:12:59.740 if it's going to have peace. And so they were just the wrong instincts throughout this administration,

00:13:06.820 whether we're talking Defense Department, State Department, NSC, or Oval Office.

00:13:12.260 This administration, this regime, if you will, is befuddling in its ineptitude and its policies.

00:13:21.080 To think that Lloyd Austin would say what he did, I just, he would never have said that about

00:13:29.080 the Zelensky government. There's never been a statement, an analog of any kind to what he said.

00:13:35.580 What is, what makes Israel different that they would condescend to our greatest ally in the Middle 0.61

00:13:44.200 East in that fashion? I hate to say it, but the answer to your question is anti-Semitism.

00:13:50.680 There is a large block of the Democratic Party coalition that is anti-Semitic. And this has been

00:13:59.600 clear as we see the reactions of the administration to the attacks on Israel. That's the only explanation

00:14:07.460 that I can come up with, because what Lloyd Austin said and what other administration officials said

00:14:14.540 clearly could only have been motivated by a pro-Iranian government.

00:14:20.100 I think you're exactly right. And Iran is just not mentioned in the calculus that is

00:14:27.760 the Israel-Hamas war right now. Well, we know that they are driving the Hamas terrorist organization.

00:14:36.300 They are financing it. They are moving the strategy daily, as well as the tactics.

00:14:42.660 Why is Iran not even mentioned by this administration? Because if strategically,

00:14:50.840 as Lloyd Austin likes to speak strategically, big thinkers, big words, strategically, one has to,

00:14:58.120 I think, include the nation state for whom all of this is but proxy. Iran needs to be confronted 1.00

00:15:07.980 and be dealt with on this issue. It seems to me there is no escaping that.

00:15:13.080 You're absolutely right about that. And if we're going to think strategically and even with more

00:15:18.140 context, we'd have to include China in that as well, because China has been supporting Iran

00:15:24.300 diplomatically from a propaganda point of view and also from an economic financial lifeline point of

00:15:31.240 view, which means that Iran could not support its proxies, the three terrorist groups,

00:15:37.000 without the support from Beijing. Just to give you an example of this, in the first nine months of

00:15:43.780 this year, China's purchases of Iran's oil was 60 percent above that in the comparable period in

00:15:50.500 2017. 2017 is relevant because that is the last year before the Trump administration reimposed sanctions

00:15:59.340 on Iranian oil, which means that China right now is violating sanctions. The Biden administration is not

00:16:05.960 doing anything about it. Matter of fact, U.S. diplomats have been told not to mention Iran

00:16:11.420 because there are Gulf Arab friends are just perplexed by this. But U.S. diplomats have been

00:16:22.060 warned off of talking about this broader issue, which you're highlighting right now, which is Iran

00:16:27.240 fueling the attacks. Mentioning Iran's interest in the Middle East, are we seeing a new level of 0.93

00:16:37.500 expansionary ambitions in the Middle East on the part of China?

00:16:44.020 Absolutely. We have seen, for instance, well, if I may go back, President Trump had the most successful

00:16:54.980 Middle East policy of any American president after FDR who stitched together the deal with Saudi Arabia

00:17:02.140 and created this friendship. The Abraham Accords are historic. They would have won an American president

00:17:10.360 a Nobel Prize if his last name weren't Trump. And what Biden has done is taken down, basically undermined

00:17:18.620 the Abraham Accords and supported Iran. China has seen this as an opportunity. 0.89

00:17:26.100 They put together that temporary deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and they are now courting the Gulf Arab states,

00:17:34.580 the other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. So, yes, China believes it can take over the region

00:17:39.380 to the exclusion of the United States. That's clear from what they're doing.

00:17:43.480 And also, they're starting to elbow their friends Russia out of the region as well. 0.58

00:17:48.960 It is remarkable what this administration, this regime is doing and where it leads. I don't think

00:17:58.880 we can contemplate without thinking about serious, serious setbacks for the United States,

00:18:04.020 not just in policy, but in terms of world standing. We're talking with Gordon Chang. We're coming right

00:18:10.280 back. Please stay with us here on The Great America Show.

00:18:19.500 We're back now with Gordon Chang. And Gordon, we were talking about President Biden, his policies,

00:18:25.440 and his standing now where he has bollocksed up Asia, the Middle East, Ukraine. We're running out

00:18:34.240 territory for him to foul. Your thoughts on his standing now globally.

00:18:41.220 Well, there's been a collapse in America standing globally. President Trump left a world in peace.

00:18:48.600 Biden inherited that when he took office. And since then, we have seen catastrophes.

00:18:54.300 There was the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021.

00:18:58.960 That, I believe, convinced Putin that he could invade Ukraine. We have heard from the Arab leaders

00:19:07.680 privately that the Biden administration's failure to deal with an Iranian attack on Bahrain forces

00:19:15.180 about three weeks before the October 7th attack convinced Iran that now is the time to move.

00:19:21.300 Because they saw the Biden administration not only failed to act when an Iranian proxy attacked Bahrain

00:19:29.420 forces, but they also failed to say anything at all. So that's, you know, the October 7th war

00:19:37.520 could have been avoided. And then another catastrophe is North Africa, where China and Russia are fueling 1.00

00:19:43.580 insurgencies across North Africa that look like wars. So we have a world that is falling apart and it fell

00:19:53.820 apart on Biden's watch due to Biden's policies. We're watching a 2,000 mile long border that's been

00:20:00.760 handed over to the Mexican drug cartels, which means it's also being turned over to China, who are their 0.99

00:20:08.240 strategic partners, both the government of Mexico and the cartels, their strategic partners and Venezuela now

00:20:16.720 rearing its its ambitions and and being very threatening to Guyana. Give us give us your thinking on why

00:20:26.320 there's no seemingly Biden policy for the Western Hemisphere.

00:20:31.920 Yeah, this is this is where it hits home, Lou, on the first point you raised, which was our open southern border

00:20:38.180 border. We're seeing coming across that border some very suspicious individuals. There are, for

00:20:46.180 instance, packs of Chinese males in groups of five to 15 of military age traveling without family members

00:20:53.640 pretending not to speak English. U.S. Border Patrol knows that some of these Chinese individuals have

00:21:00.240 links to the Chinese military. And the question is, why are they coming here? And I'm worried that they are

00:21:06.600 saboteurs. Remember that lab in Reedley, California, that secret Chinese biological weapons facility had at 0.78

00:21:13.800 least 20 pathogens, according to the official count, and had almost a thousand mice that had been

00:21:19.580 genetically engineered to spread disease. I can't believe that that's the only such facility in the U.S.

00:21:26.180 And I think that the males that are coming across our border are going to link up with those facilities.

00:21:31.500 We also know there are Syrians and Venezuelans coming across who appear to have very, very dangerous 1.00

00:21:41.760 ties. So this is an open season on the United States. And just one more other thing about terrorists as a

00:21:49.720 part of that September 11th deal that Biden had with Iran, where we released hostages and unfroze six

00:21:57.560 billion dollars. As a part of that, Biden issued clemency to Iranian operatives who were not sent back

00:22:06.740 to Iran. They were actually released into the United States. And this is important because there are 1.00

00:22:13.640 actually low level Trump officials who still have Secret Service protection because there is a threat

00:22:19.300 that Iran might assassinate them. So this is just there are no words to describe what's going on.

00:22:26.440 With regard to Guiana and Venezuela, on Sunday, Venezuela held a referendum. About 95 percent of

00:22:34.540 the people in Venezuela said that the government should annex two thirds of Guiana, their neighbor to

00:22:40.660 the east. That's an oil rich, mineral rich area. The answer, the reason why this is important is not

00:22:47.980 only because it's the Western Hemisphere, but it's also, I believe, another symptom of the collapse of

00:22:53.180 Biden policy because Venezuela would not threaten to militarily invade a neighbor if it thought it

00:23:01.340 could, you know, they wouldn't do this unless they thought they could get away with it. They couldn't

00:23:05.960 get away with this under President Trump. But they're thinking that right now, American policy is in

00:23:11.780 collapse. I hope Venezuela is just posturing. One can make an argument that this is just huff and puff. 0.56

00:23:18.200 But the point is, they are threatening to invade their neighbor.

00:23:24.420 And for what purpose? There just seems to be no strategic, logical, rational reason for them to

00:23:33.200 be threatening in this way.

00:23:36.780 Because they can, I suppose. I mean, there has been a territorial dispute between Guiana and Venezuela

00:23:43.640 Venezuela that is, goes back more than 100 years, I think. And the question is, why is it becoming

00:23:52.540 such an issue now? I think the answer is because they see American policy is in collapse. They don't

00:23:59.520 believe the United States can maintain peace and stability around the world like we did up until

00:24:05.540 Biden became president. And the world is now falling apart. You know, we've got wars and

00:24:13.120 potential wars all over the place right now. And this reminds me of what happened in the 1930s,

00:24:19.380 where, you know, we had separate wars that eventually merged into what we now know is

00:24:24.840 the Second World War. Well, we've got the same situation right now. And I'm just concerned that

00:24:32.920 these conflicts are going to merge into a much bigger global fight. So this is the Biden administration

00:24:41.020 is not prepared. And Lloyd Austin is certainly not prepared to deal with this because he's much

00:24:46.100 more worried about diversity and stuff like that. And one can say that, you know, issues of diversity

00:24:51.820 are important. I don't. I think right now we have to emphasize unity because we have common enemies

00:24:59.080 and those enemies mean us great harm. They mean to take away our country. And so we need to be united

00:25:05.520 as a people to confront this. Well, Gordon, thank you for saying that. And I wholly support you in those

00:25:12.660 sentiments and agree with you 100 percent. And as always, it's been an instructive discussion. We thank

00:25:18.540 you so much for bringing your insight, your knowledge and your wisdom to to what is a lamentable

00:25:25.780 American foreign policy at this this moment in history. Thanks, Gordon Chang. God bless you.

00:25:31.360 Thanks, Lou. And God bless you. Thanks, everybody, for being with us here today. Our guest here

00:25:36.700 tomorrow on The Great America Show is Kyle Rittenhouse on what life and politics have been

00:25:41.920 like for him. Well, over the past three years, since the 2020 summer of riots, murder protests

00:25:48.140 and arson all across the country. Kyle was 17 when he was forced to defend himself from armed attackers

00:25:56.020 in the midst of a Kenosha, Wisconsin riot. We'll let him tell you about the rest. Please join us each

00:26:02.280 and every day for The Great America Show. Thank you, everybody. God bless you. And may God bless America.

The Great America Show - December 08, 2023

CHANG： WORLD IN TURMOIL

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