PEACE PAUSE | Day 191 | From Putin to Zelensky | Strait strikes | Germany’s ‘most dangerous man’ P2

George Galloway (0:00)

And it's live, coming to you from Moscow, where, just yesterday, the most remarkable negotiations took place. They're now in Kiev, and the negotiations are not quite so convivial. And Banking Tyranny, after 39 years, as a pristine, flawless customer of the Bank of Scotland, now Lloyds Bank, without warning or explanation, my bank accounts were closed. Which is a part of a pattern, when you dissent in the Western world these days.

Liberty?

What liberty?

You'll read about it in my book, The Strange Death of Western Liberty. And in Iran, it looks like Trump is doubling down and major military upheavals. A thought to be eminent. We'll be talking to Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi about just that, in only a few minutes time. Stay tuned, it's the Mother of All Talk Shows.

SPEAKER_2 (1:16)

You are listening to the Mother of All Talk Shows podcast with George Galloway.

George Galloway (1:24)

The show is in Moscow because that's where the big show was this weekend. In terms of optics, it could scarcely have been better. President Trump's son-in-law and his real estate guy, Steve Witkoff, were both in the Russian capital, in the red room. What could be more glorious? Could it be more optically gorgeous is the only word I can think of. Opulent, almost. Tsarist. There was gold. There was mahogany. There was red upholstery and red wallpaper and paint. And there were the two American envoys from President Trump's home, never mind his office, being treated to a very comprehensive lesson on exactly what the situation is in the NATO-Russia war, being fought over the dead bodies and the ruined infrastructure and the devastated economy of the poor people of Ukraine. President Putin left them in no doubt as to Russia's resolve to finish this war not with a pause or a ceasefire, but a comprehensive peace settlement that will last so that this war will never have to be fought again. The Americans seemed mightily impressed. Wyckoff said he'd tell his grandchildren about the most significant event of his life. That's what he said. The Kushner comments are being closely guarded, but there's no reason to believe that there's any material or mark difference in the attitude of the two American negotiators. Now I want in parenthesis to ask you, did you ever think the day would come when a right-wing Republican president like Donald Trump would be desperately trying to bring a war in Europe that's cost the lives of well over a million people and cost trillions to the working people, not just of Russia and Ukraine but the whole of the European continent and the North American continent for that matter. Trillions it has cost them. Did you ever imagine that a right-wing Republican would be trying to bring that war to an end while the sniveling centrists, laborites, social Democrats, Christian Democrats, liberal Democrats would be tooling up and destroying their economies and their liberties, freedoms, their very USP in decades gone by, in order to demand that the war goes on? Because that's the situation we now have here. But all of that might be coming to an end as the AFD party scores a stunning victory in regional elections in Germany, winning well over 40 percent of the vote to the CDU, the governing party's 18 percent, and the SPD, its coalition partner, eight percent. And it looks like our comrade, Sarah Wagenknecht and the BSW, will enter that regional parliament, scoring considerably above the five percent threshold. It may be coming to an end for other reasons. As someone put it, I think Glenn Deeson perfectly. The Europeans are paying hundreds of billions of euros they don't have to order hundreds of billions of euros' worth of weapons from the Americans that they don't have and can't produce to go to a Ukrainian army, which doesn't have the soldiers anymore to use them, even while they do materialize. The rate of desertion in the Ukrainian armed forces now has reached such crisis proportions that even the Ukrainian government can no longer publicly ignore it. They drag people off the street, in front of their children, in front of their parents, they care nothing as to any exemption or any reason why the person they're dragging in the streets, in one case, killing in the streets, might not actually be at the front. But then the dies cast because within days, that person that you saw being dragged out of a taxi and packed off to the war will almost certainly be dead. They'll certainly be at the front without food or water. Even the mercenaries, a group of Colombian mercenaries, just this week was reduced to one single Colombian mercenary. The rest had died of lack of food and water. This is a catastrophe for the world, for everybody. And Trump is trying to bring it to an end. At least that's what he wants us to believe. Personally, I do believe it, but many that I know don't believe it at all. The circus moved on from Moscow after a remarkable 48 hours. I mean, Moscow was turned upside down yesterday by the presence of these people, and they left with the very clear determination of the Russian side ringing in their ears. We want peace, but we want a peace settlement that will last. Now they're in Kiev. And by all accounts, the security advisors of Britain, France, and Germany, amazing. Germany had time, given the catastrophe the government there has just suffered. They were in attendance, as Zelensky was told, by Wyckoff and Kushner, that they want this war over before the winter, which is, by my reckoning, quite soon. They were treated by Zelensky to his plans for continuing the war over the winter. Oh, no, said the Americans, we want this over before the winter. So we'll see how it goes. I'll come on to Iran, where the story is very, very different, in a minute or two. But I told you last week, I think, I've signed to write a book called The Strange Death of Western Liberty, which is published by Free Speech Press, which is doing very well in the United Kingdom, is busily selling very large volumes of quite important books. So I'm glad to be signed up with them. And I'm busily writing it now, and it won't take long. It's only a 20,000 word tract, and I can almost write that in an afternoon. But the strange death of Western Liberty has been going on for quite some time. In the very week I signed the contract to write that book, after 39 years as a flawless customer of the Bank of Scotland, now the Lloyds Banking Group, bailed out by the British taxpayer to the tune of billions of pounds, and with still a bit of British government influence in the bank, if you know what I mean, after 39 years, without notice, although they are obligated by law to give me a legacy customer six months' notice, everybody else they are obligated to give three months' notice, but someone who's been with them as long as I have six months' notice, I got zero notice, and worse, zero explanation. Now, I don't want to bore you with my personal details, but as I work in China, sending a check for the balance in my accounts to my house in Scotland leaves me up the Yangtze without a paddle.