Tech entrepreneur, political activist, and publisher Ron Unz returns to the program to discuss whether President Trump has finally capitulated to the Iranians.
[00:00:00] You're listening to the Liberty News Radio Network, and this is The Political Cesspool. The Political Cesspool, known across the South and worldwide as the South's foremost populist conservative radio program. And here to guide you through the murky waters of The Political Cesspool is your host, James Edwards.
[00:00:30] Ladies and gentlemen, as the temperature is heating up across the country tonight, so too it is in our studio here at AM 1600 WMQM in Memphis. You're listening to TPC. I'm your host, James Edwards. Keith Alexander out tonight attending a wedding in Nashville. But boy, have we got the cupboard full this evening, starting right now with our first hour guest, Ron Unz, back for the second time. Of course, Ron is a tech entrepreneur, a political activist and publisher of The Unz Review.
[00:00:59] We're going to be talking about Iran and a lot of other things tangential to that, but let's first say hello. Ron, welcome back. It's great to have you. Hey, great to be here. I am going to very quickly blitz through your background again. We did a profile together for American Free Press, a Q&A, back in March. And for someone who is well accomplished, every time I said something or noted something that was praiseworthy,
[00:01:29] I took note that you were quick to deflect and talk about something else. And when someone who actually has accomplishments does that, I think you're dealing with somebody of very high character. And just to give everybody else a quick background again, you won the Westinghouse Science Talent Search when you were 17 years old with a paper on black holes. You hold a double major in physics and ancient history from Harvard, as well as additional degrees from Cambridge and Stanford. You were trained as a theoretical physicist.
[00:01:57] You built a very successful financial software company. And then you got into politics. And not just any politics, California politics, no less. In 1994, you ran a campaign for governor as a Republican against the establishment. In 1998, quite famously, your Proposition 227, English for the Children, basically at that time dismantled bilingual education in California and got passed by a landslide, despite fierce opposition from the powers that be.
[00:02:23] It just goes to show how much has changed in this country and in California in the last three decades. You've also sponsored ballot measures to raise the minimum wage. You helped finance the American Conservative magazine. Years later, you ran for Senate. But perhaps most famously, you are the publisher of the Unz Review, where you host some of the most censored voices on the planet. And I do mean all of them.
[00:02:46] And it always fascinates me, Ron, when I interview men like you, because you could have comfortably stayed within the elite academic or tech circles forever. But you didn't. Why? Well, I've always been somebody very interested in political issues. And obviously, I'm an American like everyone else.
[00:03:06] And seeing potentially the disaster that our country is facing on so many grounds has sort of motivated me to try to get involved and do something about the problems. And we talked a little bit more about your background, as I mentioned, in that AFP feature earlier this year. And when you were first with us as a guest back on the first Saturday of 2025 last year.
[00:03:28] So I wanted to quickly reintroduce the audience to you, although I doubt there are very many people listening tonight who don't know of Ron Unz. But you can learn more at Unz.com. That's Unz.com there at the Unz Review. And I'm reading from the masthead. An alternative media selection, a collection of interesting, important, and controversial perspectives, largely excluded from the American mainstream media and folks that don't even begin to scratch the surface. But again, our guest this evening is Ron Unz.
[00:03:57] And it is going to be a little bit different tonight. I have brought in, as a guest co-host, Patrick Martin. And I'm doing that because Ron sent out one of his pieces this week was centered around Iran. And I just thought it would be nice to pair these two together and let them take it from there. So with that having been established, Patrick, let's allow you to say hello. And first of all, my friend, welcome back yourself.
[00:04:24] And say hello to Ron and introduce yourself and perhaps quickly go through your own CV relative to the issues we're going to be talking about in terms of your education and your professional background. Yeah, well, again, first of all, thank you very much for having me back on the show. I love being on the show again. Dr. Unz, I have a great deal of admiration for you and what you've accomplished. Just going over my background, I formed a Marine Corps. After that, I wound up going back to school.
[00:04:54] I wound up going to ultimately Tufts, the Fletcher School, where I studied specifically issues revolving around Iran and strategic studies around Iran. More specifically on the Shia Islam and the Jafari School of Islam's unique characteristics as it pertains to the development of groups around the region. Worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency for a while. And then after that, I wound up going into government contracting.
[00:05:21] I've been involved in some way, shape, or form in the region. Worked in 78 countries on the ground in various matters revolving around the GWAT and other operations as well over the course of about two decades. It's mostly focused around the Middle East and Central Asia. So, again, what has recently occurred, transpired between Iran and the United States has obviously captured my attention.
[00:05:47] It was something that I have been deeply against for a number of years. I really feel the United States doesn't understand Iran, and I really have enjoyed reading what you had to write as it pertained to Donald Trump's capitulation to the Iranians, the article you recently wrote. As well as just simply following events, following essentially this kind of strange behavior of the president and the administration over the course of the last roughly three months or thereabouts, four months now, I guess.
[00:06:17] So, I really look forward to tonight's conversation because I think we've gotten ourselves into a strategic trap and one that I just don't think we're going to be able to get out of. Well, I certainly agree with you there. It's just a very unfortunate situation. Yes, it really is. Gentlemen, now that we're all reacquainted, let's keep the spotlight shining on our esteemed guest. Patrick, first question to you as we begin this interview proper.
[00:06:45] Yeah, I really, I mean, in terms of, I know that you have quite an extensive background on the finance side. So, I really, you know, I think what's happened is the United States has been so focused on bombing things from 30,000 feet in the air and, you know, launching Tomahawk missiles and so forth. But really, I mean, my question to you is, given your extensive financial background, I'm curious as to where you see this going long term.
[00:07:12] If Americans really appreciate how much financial damage may be done by the loss of our presidents in the Middle East, now it looks like we're going to be booted out. And, again, how it might impact bonds, how it might impact our interest policy, how it might impact the potential loss of the petrodollar, et cetera. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because I think this is something I think Americans don't really understand. And I think you might be able to put this in words that they make.
[00:07:40] Well, I mean, it's certainly true. I mean, really, for more than a half century now, much of America's international strength has come from the fact that the dollar is the global reserve currency. And one of the things maintaining its reserve currency status is the fact that America made arrangements with the Gulf oil states that oil would be priced in dollars.
[00:08:05] And that obviously forces other nations around the world to hold dollars to buy really one of the most important world commodities. One of the problems, especially in the last couple of decades and the last few years, is America, I think, has been misusing its dollar power. In other words, freezing the assets of other countries around the world.
[00:08:30] I mean, you know, notably, for example, when the Ukraine war broke out, we ended up freezing $300 billion of Russia's money. Which, you know, in other words, if you're a bank and you freeze the assets of those who deposit their accounts with you, you know, after a while, people won't trust you anymore. And I mean, that's very much the situation I think we've been getting into.
[00:08:55] You know, using our reserve currency status to really bully and control so many other, attempt to bully and control so many other countries around the world, that I think we're making it much more fragile than it would have been. And the fact that, for example, we launched this disastrous war in the Middle East. We attacked Iran for really no logical reason and ended up, you know, essentially losing the war in that we had our bases destroyed.
[00:09:23] We were completely unsuccessful in subduing the country, even though we launched a surprise attack. I mean, all of that, I think, weakens our presence in the Middle East tremendously. And, you know, in other words, it's the sort of thing that might not happen this year or next year. But I think down the road, we probably will lose, you know, the reserve currency status of our dollar. And I mean, right now we have, I think our national debt is up to $39 trillion.
[00:09:53] And there's very little hope of it ever being paid off. The only reason we sort of are able to keep the dollar as valuable as it is is because of, you know, the fact that oil is priced in dollars. And, you know, if that goes away, if interest rates rise, we might really be facing national bankruptcy. Yeah, I appreciate you putting it in that perspective because, I mean, as I've been looking at it as well,
[00:10:19] and I'd like to get your thoughts on this, you know, one of the reasons why Trump was essentially elected was, he was elected in part because he built this sort of coalition in 2024 of disaffected members in the United States to include as well individuals who just sort of a sort of conservative bent. And, of course, he's running against Kamala Harris, who was a terrible candidate just in general. But one of the big components of his victory were young males, young males who are largely Gen Z males,
[00:10:50] maybe younger millennials who are looking for a better economic future. They had been somewhat marginalized, statistically marginalized as a result of the EI and other policies over the course of the last five years. And they were really looking for that economic boost that they were really hoping for, not getting into a war, but rather having a president that would come and focus on these domestic concerns, and that did not happen. That being bad enough as it is, the only of the challenges here now that we have,
[00:11:16] we've had three successive months of the worst bond sales we've had in almost 50 years. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is something to the tune of about 110%, I think it is right now, continues to rise. And, of course, that's going to directly impact interest rates, especially if the petro dollar is dropped. And we need to entice additional bond buyers. We're going to have to increase interest rates, making it harder to borrow, harder to own a home, and harder to get that American dream.
[00:11:41] I think the long-term strategic challenge, really, here is that young people are – they don't see a future. They don't see hope in the American dream. There's a 250th anniversary, and this war may have actually completely crushed their confidence in the next Republican candidate. I'd just like to get your thoughts on that. Where do you see this going, not necessarily today or tomorrow, but perhaps the impact on essentially generational confidence in the American dream,
[00:12:11] American experiment over the course of the next, say, 10, 20 years? Oh, I agree with you entirely. I mean, Donald Trump got elected partly because he'd promised no more disasters, Middle Eastern wars. In other words, I remember when he was running the first time, when he was on that Republican debate, and he was the only Republican candidate to denounce the Iraq war and denounce what Bush had done and the disaster he'd gotten in our country.
[00:12:38] And, you know, the other Republican candidates were scandalized. They said he destroyed his chances of winning the nomination, and he ended up going on to a total victory because people were sick of these Middle Eastern wars. And that's why Trump was reelected in 2024. And, you know, almost immediately gets us into another one of these wars. In fact, a much bigger war than the Iraq war. It's ironic because, you know, John Miersheimer, you know, the very noted international scholar,
[00:13:07] just a few weeks ago was saying that, you know, most experts in foreign relations had agreed that probably the most disastrous foreign policy blunder America ever made was the Iraq war of President George W. Bush. And now the Iran war, with Iran being a country three times larger, has probably replaced that disaster at the top of the charts. I mean, when you think of, for example, it's just unbelievable.
[00:13:36] We ended up expending, for example, between a third and a half of all our extremely expensive, extremely sophisticated standoff munitions in just a few weeks of combat against the Iranians. And it did almost no good. Over the last decade, we spent $2 trillion on our Navy. Our Navy's primary role had been protecting the Persian Gulf, maintaining the waterways of the Persian Gulf.
[00:14:06] And it failed entirely in its task. In other words, I mean, in many ways, what Trump has done is demonstrate that America's a paper tiger in the Middle East. That despite launching a surprise attack against the Iranians, killing many of their leaders in the first wave of missile strikes, we completely failed to win the war. And Trump was then forced to sign really extremely humiliating terms.
[00:14:34] I mean, you know, the Memorandum of Understanding with the Iranians, in which we essentially got none of our original war aims as part of the agreement and conceded nearly all of them to the Iranians. I mean, it's just, it's a lot of people wonder what is going on when Trump is elected on one set of issues and he immediately turns around and starts another Middle Eastern war.
[00:15:00] And there are obviously some very dark suspicions as to what, you know, has caused Trump to suddenly move in that direction. Yeah, of course. And, no, I mean, and I, again, I think it's interesting you put it that way because you look at Iraq, you know, we had a country of roughly 30 million and it was, it was, you really had three separate Iraqs. You had the Kurds in the north, you had the Shiites, Arab Shiites in the south, and you had the Sunnis in the center. The Sunnis in the center were only about roughly 10 million.
[00:15:30] They gave us one hell of a time over the course of 11 years. I was on the ground multiple times in Iraq on different operations and so forth. Now you look at Iran, you have 95 million people with a relatively cohesive, at least cohesive theological background. Most of them are Shiites, specifically Jafari Shiites. And even though you have a different, you have a large, there's a Persian majority, but you also have a large Aziri sort of minority group, roughly about 20 to 25 to 30% of the population.
[00:16:00] And you wonder where was this, what were they thinking getting into this? You have to kind of get into the mindset here. And I'm just curious, if you don't mind, what do you think, because somebody had to have been in the room saying, Mr. Trump, this is going to be a mistake. Don't do this. I'm just curious from your thoughts, what could have possibly brought him to the conclusion that this would be a fast and easy war, which it seemed they thought it would be over in about a week. And anything I've ever studied on Iran, everything that worked on Iran,
[00:16:28] showed a very different Iran than the one that they were operating under this sort of pretense, entering into this. And I'd just love to get your thoughts on that. Exactly. I mean, according to the New York Times and all the reports that have come out, there were people in the room, but the people in the room were the Israeli leaders. I mean, for example, Benjamin Netanyahu was there. The head of the Mossad was, I think, on the line. They were the ones basically encouraging Trump to go ahead with the attack.
[00:16:57] Most of the American leaders, most of the top American figures, the head of the CIA, the National Security Advisor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President Vance, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I mean, they were, you know, many of them were sort of the sort of yes-men who were unwilling to stand up to Trump. But those who did take a position were certainly quite skeptical. In fact, I remember before the war broke out, a few days before,
[00:17:26] there were all these leaks by officials, by generals connected with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that our munition supply would probably be exhausted within a couple of weeks, that we simply didn't have the munitions for a long war, and raised all sorts of doubts about it, and we went ahead anyway. I mean, again, it's just unbelievable that a country of our size, you know, the world's sole superpower for decades,
[00:17:55] is being manipulated by, again, a small Middle Eastern country. And, I mean, that is exactly what happened in this particular case. I mean, it was in the New York Times. There were all these firsthand accounts of how it happened. I mean, the notion that, for example, we simply are, in a sense, puppets dancing on the string of a foreign government is really a very, very disturbing notion, I think, to any self-respecting American.
[00:18:22] And, I mean, that, you know, Benjamin Nato had been saying on a number of occasions that he had spent nearly 40 years trying to persuade America to destroy Iran, one of Israel's strongest regional rivals, for Israeli interests. He tried it with every president, and Donald Trump was the first American president who was foolish enough to fall for his scheme. I mean, none of the others were willing to do it.
[00:18:52] And it's, you know, it's just a very unfortunate situation when a country, you know, is not acting. Donald Trump was elected, allegedly, as the America first president, somebody who would act in the interests of the United States, in the interests of the American people. And that's exactly the opposite of what actually happened. I mean, all the polls showed that I think probably 20, 25 percent of Americans supported the war.
[00:19:21] We've never gotten into a major war that was initially so unpopular. And we've seen, you know, large rises in gasoline prices. They may go much higher in the future. Diesels in short supply. I mean, we've really done tremendous damage to American interest in the American economy because we have not acted with respect to American interest. This has been exactly the opposite of the sort of America first presidency
[00:19:50] that many of the voters were sold when they went into the polling booth. I really couldn't agree with you more. I think one of the issues, and this is something that I think really, again, you see these Fox News type analysts and so forth. You know, for three years we have been providing FADs, interceptors, tactical high altitude, aerial defense systems and so forth to Ukraine. So we've been providing this massive amount of material support to Ukraine over the course of three years.
[00:20:19] It's really been sort of bleeding it out as such. We have a rare earth elements issue that is in very short supply, both due to our own domestic policy. We're simply not developing our own RE, and we have no true international partners. The Chinese, of course, lock us out. We've ignored Africa for years, much to our detriment,
[00:20:46] because we've had China and Russia be able to kind of slip in to the void that has existed. And as a result, we've had none of the ability to replenish ourselves from a military perspective in general. And again, when you talk about America First policy, and I love that you were talking about the fact that you've got this sort of military armaments. Where are we with this? An America First policy, at a minimum, you would think, would try to do something from a pure logistics standpoint
[00:21:12] to prepare itself for the next big engagement, and it just doesn't seem to have happened. Oh, exactly. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Our annual military spending is more than 100 times greater than Iran's, and we were the side that ran out of munitions. We ran out of our advanced cruise missiles, our standoff weapons, and that's the reason we were so eager for a ceasefire.
[00:21:38] I mean, it's just the tremendous corruption that we have in our military procurement system is really just unbelievable. I mean, when you're faced with running out of weapons, when you're spending a trillion dollars a year, America's military spending is roughly the same as that of the rest of the world combined, more than 100 times greater than Iran's. And we were basically forced to sue for peace.
[00:22:04] I mean, that is not a government run in any sort of reasonable way. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I find it, again, it's interesting that the Israelis had such a power grip on this one America first president, as you pointed it out, essentially hired by our vote to prioritize our interests, especially, it is my belief, that had we had two years of prosperity that I think Trump could have delivered on
[00:22:32] with some of his economic policies, we could have had a lock of a future generation of conservative voters. And when I say conservative voters, I mean true, you know, we're talking populist right-wing voters, not what conservatives have become under the Bush one and two era, but ones that are more along the Buchanan bent of a true America first policy.
[00:22:59] And we just squandered it to placate a small country in the Middle East and a few financial backers here in the United States, such as Maria Maddelson and so forth. So it's a shame. Exactly. I mean, it's just unbelievable when American politicians, when American elected officials are, in a sense, under the control of primary. I mean, you know, again, when you can buy American politicians for $100 million or $200 million or $300 million,
[00:23:29] I mean, for a country, our economy is $30 trillion a year. And, I mean, our politicians are basically for sale for tiny amounts of money. I mean, according to some estimates, I mean, the direct money we've spent on the Iran war so far is apparently $40 or $50 billion. But the longer-term costs, according to some estimates, are closer to $1 trillion.
[00:23:54] So, in other words, if you can basically pay a few hundred million dollars to the campaign of the President of the United States, and he's willing to basically sacrifice up to $1 trillion of the national wealth for a military operation that doesn't benefit the American people but benefits a foreign country, I mean, that's an outrageous situation. I mean, it's basically outright bribery. Isn't it astounding?
[00:24:24] And this is, I'm going to tap into your tech background now, if you don't mind. You look at a country like you, Ron. We are. Actually, Patrick, if we can, we do have to take this bottom-of-the-hour hard break. Let's tap into that extensive tech background of Ron Unz when we continue with a very special hour. Patrick Martin, guest hosting tonight with us, Ron Unz. Stay tuned. Exposing corruption. Informing citizens.
[00:24:54] Pursuing liberty. You're listening to Liberty News Radio. News this hour from Town Hall. I'm Mary Rose. The U.S. dispatched hundreds of rescue workers to help the Venezuelan government as the injured, overwhelmed hospitals and the death toll has risen to over 1,400 people. The Pentagon sent two ships, transport planes, and helicopters. Nazareth Jimenez is a La Guayra resident with missing family members. She says,
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[00:30:11] Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. James Edwards here for a very special hour with Ron Unz, and I must say, gentlemen, the execution is matching the vision that I had. I got this idea. I am one of the recipients that receives Ron's columns and features when he sends them out, and I saw it this week, and I said, you know, it's been a while since we've had Ron on, and it would be great to have him back on,
[00:30:39] and one thing that you do have when you've done this as long as we have over two decades on the radio is it's an embarrassment of riches in terms of the caliber of contacts that we have, and sometimes, once in a blue moon, I really relish in being able to bring two people together and just recuse myself and sit back and watch the talent cook, and these two gentlemen have not disappointed, and there's still much more to get to, and with that having been said,
[00:31:08] we'll toss it back over to Patrick Martin and Ron Unz. Patrick, take it away. Yeah, and it was a great conversation while we had in the break, and as I was getting into the lead-up prior to the hard break we had, was just tapping into your technological background, your tech background. You've got a heavy tech background, obviously, with the finance tech background specifically, and, you know, you look at what happened with Iran and the United States. The United States is supposed to be the tech driver of the world.
[00:31:38] We're supposedly leading in the AI race. We're supposedly the great inventors of just about everything that's come out, technologically speaking, the last 25 years, 30 years, and yet Iran was able to use relatively low-cost drone manufacturing facilities in Herat, Afghanistan, which is right across the border, very difficult to access. It's a large Shiite community there. Not very technically sophisticated in any level.
[00:32:06] You know, Iran's got a sort of a could-be-only-sense-breakaway republic as such within Afghanistan. And they were able to use a low-tech ability to really disrupt and destroy the U.S. capacity in the region. And I'd love to get your thoughts on that, because here we are, the Americans are supposed to be so great at it, at technology, and we weren't able to figure out their very low-tech system of drones and really not very sophisticated weapons.
[00:32:36] I mean, there's some hypersonics were used, but nothing that was really that extraordinary. It was just a, it seems like they kind of took us out in a way that was, that we were not anticipating. And I'd just love to get your thoughts on that, Ron. Oh, exactly. For example, you know, there have been newspaper reports in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that when the Iranians were attacking our bases or our, you know, units with $30,000 drones,
[00:33:04] we were trying to shoot them down with $2 million missiles. I mean, it's absurd. You know, you just, the incredible, you know, the incredible corruption in our defense procurement system. I mean, the fact that, you know, again, we're spending a trillion dollars a year, and we ran out of munitions after basically just about a month of combat, which is why we were so eager for a ceasefire. I mean, it's, you know, and many of these weapons,
[00:33:34] these sort of very fancy boutique weapons that we build, take, you know, four years, three years to produce, and the Iranians can crank out drones probably in a matter of, you know, a few weeks or something like that. I mean, you know, just the fact that we, you know, were stymied in this attack, you know, against, you know, what really is a mid-size, a very mid-size regional power.
[00:34:02] I mean, a power that, you know, had been under American sanctions for decades, you know, that had helped to cripple their industry. And, I mean, it's just, it's a very humiliating situation that we faced. And, you know, the fact that our, you know, many of our military commanders had tried to warn the president, had tried to warn Trump. Yes. That, you know, it really was a mistake that we were heading into. And, you know, he just basically disregarded the warning.
[00:34:32] I mean, there are a lot of, I think, very credible reports that Vice President J.D. Vance had been very skeptical of the attack. It tried to sort of dissuade Trump from going ahead to it. And he was basically just ignored. In fact, you know, according to some reports I've heard, you know, Trump was so angry that Vance was proven correct and that the war did not go well that, I mean, basically for a few weeks, you know, basically Vance was put in the doghouse that, you know, Trump just refused to sort of
[00:35:01] have anything to do with him because Vance had been right and Trump had been wrong. And it's, you really just have to wonder how, you know, something that I've sort of, has come to my mind, you know, a few years ago. You know, I, you know, when you talk about, for example, the Reagan era, I mean, I was basically, you know, I think the first vote I ever cast actually was for Ronald Reagan. I was exactly that generation. And, you know, at that time, I remember,
[00:35:30] you know, the Soviet Union seemed such a decrepit, decaying empire. In other words, I never really was very concerned about his military power because, you know, it had all these terrible problems. It was inefficient. It was corrupt. And its leaders were so old and decrepit. And, you know, when you look at, for example, when you go back and discover that most of the Soviet leaders who seemed so decrepit and elderly at the time were in their late 60s and early 70s.
[00:36:00] And we've had Joseph Biden and now Donald Trump who just had his 80th birthday. I mean, it really makes you wonder, you know, where America's heading as a country right now. I mean, that we, you know, have so many difficulties doing anything in a competent way. And, you know, and that's despite, I mean, we certainly have some very, you know, advanced technological individuals right now. I mean, we're certainly leading the world in many areas.
[00:36:30] But when you look at our government, when you look at the tremendous amount of money we spend and how little we get for it, you know, I think in many ways we're recapitulating the trajectory of the old Soviet Union. And, you know, I mean, a lot of people, for example, joke about the USSA and what we've become these days. And I think there's a certain amount of truth in those jokes. It's fascinating. You know, it's, as you were speaking, I do find that interesting, you know, putting it that way.
[00:36:59] Because I do remember the succession of various Soviet leaders rather rapidly in the early 80s. I think, if I'm not on drop-off, I think it was maybe nine months or something like that. There was a few of them that kind of went back to back to back. And then, ultimately, you have Gorbachev take over. You know, interestingly enough, and this is, you know, going to the generational question here, you know, talking about the Reagan era and so forth as well, and then going into the sort of Trump era,
[00:37:27] I do wonder how much influence, one unique factor in American society that's kind of come out out of the baby boom generation in general was a different type of evangelical Christian, a different type of Christian identity that was linked to Israel. And the ability of Israel to have sort of weaponized that against a, nearly an entire generation, and really, in my generation's Generation X,
[00:37:56] a good segment of my own generation as well, have been influenced heavily by this sort of Christian-Israel link. And, you know, when you think about this, the ability to weaponize that and get a president who may have been thinking about this to potentially engage in a strategic blunder because there was some sort of religious dynamic there. Apparently, Paula White-Cain, I think is her name, is his spiritual advisor, Trump's spiritual advisor.
[00:38:26] And she was a big proponent of going to war in Iran and defending, she's one of these grifters from, I think, central Florida, but was a big proponent of the war on behalf of Israel. And this sort of religious dynamic, I'd love to get your thoughts on this, Ron. Do you think that, is there some kind of religious element here that may have been having a role or playing a role in the background? I don't think Trump is very religious himself, but his narcissism may have been weaponized against him in such a way
[00:38:55] where the sort of religious nexus between the religious identity part and his own narcissism may have come together. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Oh, I certainly think that's a very large factor in the Republican base, you know, Christian Zionism. I mean, as people pointed out, I mean, Tucker Carlson and others have pointed out, I mean, we have a situation right now where Israel is destroying churches in the Middle East.
[00:39:24] They're destroying, for example, the churches of Lebanon. They're attacking the Christians of Lebanon. They're attacking the Christians of the West Bank and Gaza. I mean, they're basically destroying churches. And when you have, for example, American allegedly Christian leaders who are wholeheartedly supporting attacks against Middle Eastern Christians, attacks against churches, I mean, that's a very strange situation. And, I mean, there are very disturbing elements to that. So, I mean, just as you say,
[00:39:54] I don't think Trump is at all religious. But I do think the sort of Zionist donors who funded so much of his campaign were successful in ensuring that all the people, the most of the people around Trump, most of the, you know, officials, most of the advisors around him were basically in their pocket. And, I mean, Trump basically, you know, he's 80 years old. He listens to the people around him. And if you control, if you can control
[00:40:21] all the people in his administration and weed out those who have independent thoughts, you can control Donald Trump. And that's, I think, you know, how we got into the mess we were in. I mean, when you think of a country of nearly 350 million people controlled by a country 2% of its size in the Middle East, I mean, that's really just a sort of bizarre situation that future historians
[00:40:50] will be writing about. Let's hold on right there. We'll put a pin in the conversation right there. How did that segment go by that quickly? Gentlemen, we're going to take a two-minute break. We'll be right back. One more segment. Hey, y'all. Do you enjoy great-tasting coffee but are tired of supporting companies that hate you? If so, let me tell you about Above Time Coffee. Above Time Coffee is a privately owned and operated small business. They hand roast coffee and ship it to customers throughout the United States and abroad. Above Time Coffee was launched because they saw a need
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[00:42:49] about extensive downtime again. Ready to level up your IT support? Call 801-706-6980 today and discover how great IT services can be with managed IT services. Well, as we were talking during the break, Patrick made the comment about how strong and stout-hearted this first 45 minutes have been. We have one more segment
[00:43:19] with Ron Unz. I just want to be sure to take a moment to thank again Ron for his time tonight. Don't miss anything at the Unz Review at Unz.com, especially his American Pravda series. Just to give you a quick preview of what's coming up for the rest of the program tonight in Hour 2, our good friend Jared Taylor will be back. Jared is helping us with our second quarter fundraising appeal and that's wrapping up next week, so he'll be able to talk about that as well as his recent tour of Europe
[00:43:48] and what he saw over there at the Remigration Summit and Portugal and much, much more Jared Taylor in the second hour. Then we're really going to have some fun in the third hour. We're going to have a friend on from Chicago where the Obama Presidential Library just opened. He's going to give us the behind-the-scenes take on that and what's going on in Chicago, issues surrounding that piece of brutalist architecture. Gentlemen, I mean, this is another thing. I mean, the left really shows its soul. If you look at
[00:44:18] the SPLC headquarters, if you look at the Obama Presidential Library, brutalism lives. And then, closing out the show tonight, we'll talk a little sports with Don Wassel of Cast Football. They are trying to kill Caitlin Clark in the WNBA again, it seems, and by they, I mean the black lesbians that oppose her, and we will be talking about that. But first, we will wrap up right now this incredible, riveting conversation that Patrick Martin
[00:44:47] is having with Ron Unz. I asked Patrick earlier this week, I said, Patrick, I want you to be on with Ron Unz, but I don't want you to just be on, I want you to do the whole interview. And he has set forth this great line of questioning, very thought-provoking, and with 50,000 watts of power here at AM 1600, we are getting the voice of Patrick Martin and Ron Unz out to a great number of listeners, both here in the local area and through syndication on the Liberty News Radio Network. Patrick, back to you. Yeah, well again, and thank you, James.
[00:45:17] Ron, I guess with the 10 minutes we have left, I'd really like to kind of set the stage and get your thoughts on this. We've lost our military presence in the Persian Gulf for sure. We're out. The 5th Fleet Headquarters of Bahrain is gone. It's unlikely that Dubai is going to rehouse our tactical signals intelligence systems. looks like we took quite a hit in Qatar, our air bases in Qatar. Kuwait took an enormous
[00:45:46] amount of damage as well. There are reports now that the Taiwanese are sending peace emissaries to Beijing because they've lost confidence that the Americans would be able to strategically support them. South Korea seems to be having similar conversations with the Chinese and Beijing. Obviously Japan is being left alone to some extent. We're out of rare earth elements. We really don't have the ability to develop our weapon systems. We've got, NATO is reporting that it might be anywhere from 17 to 30 months
[00:46:15] before we can get back to where we were at the beginning of the Iran war from a munitions standpoint which is astounding. We have, again, a bond, potential bond crisis, potential loss of the petrodollar. We have lost confidence amongst our Gen Z future young millennials and Gen Zers who are probably not going, they're not going to vote for Kamala but they probably will not vote for another Republican again because they just won't trust them. With all this said, this is all out there.
[00:46:44] This is, again, this massive tragedy disaster. I would love to get your thoughts on how do we get out of this? How do we get back to who we are? Well, it's obviously a difficult situation. I mean, one thing that really is quite interesting is there seems to be more and more of a tendency of prominent people on both the right and the left to just become so disgusted with the establishment wing of both the Republican and Democratic parties
[00:47:13] that they're basically talking about leaving it. I'm sure, you know, you saw that Tucker Carlson announced that he would no longer be willing to support the Republicans because they were not a pro-American party. And, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene said the same thing. A lot of others have been saying the thing. And the interesting thing is the same thing is happening also among many Democrats, many sincere Democrats. They're just disgusted with the leadership of the Democratic Party, you know, which is so corrupt and so uninterested
[00:47:43] in supporting the interests of the American people. So, yeah, I mean, there is talk about possibly trying to set up some sort of third party, bring together whatever you want to call it, the more honest, the more patriotic elements of both the Democrats and the Republicans. You know, it's obviously something very difficult to accomplish in the American political system, which is so heavily stacked towards the two establishment parties. But when you look at what's happening, for example, in Europe, I mean, the establishment parties of Britain,
[00:48:13] almost all of them have collapsed. I mean, the Labor Party has collapsed, the Conservatives have collapsed. And, you know, that's happening more and more across the continent because, you know, many of the sort of problems that we're seeing with our political establishment are exactly the same as the problems that so many of the European countries are facing. I mean, their leaders basically just don't act in their own interests. And when you have leaders that aren't loyal to the nations that elected them, I mean, something has to change.
[00:48:45] Do you think that the political process in America survives? And what I mean by that is, obviously, these two parties are going to be, they're probably going to look very different in the next 10 years, five years. But in general, the idea that we would have a functional, well, that's questionable, but a functional constitutional public where voting somewhat matters at some point in time. I'm just curious about your thoughts on that.
[00:49:14] It's difficult to say. It's obviously very difficult to say. It depends so much on what happens with the economy and, you know, whether some of these, you know, economic crises really hit us very hard. I mean, the stock market right now, I think, is in a bubble. And once that bubble bursts, I mean, so much of the American growth in GDP has been due to, you know, some of these tech stocks. And I think they're massively overvalued. So if the bubble bursts, I mean, one might see, you know, a very severe recession. You know,
[00:49:44] the problem is, I mean, it's been years now. I think that since most of the people in Congress honestly represented the American voters who put them into office, I mean, you have a tiny handful of people. I mean, someone like Thomas Massey, for example. I mean, he seemed to be an honest person. He was certainly entirely in accordance with, you know, the principles that allegedly Donald Trump had followed. And he was basically defeated in his own primary,
[00:50:14] massively outspent, you know, very dishonest tactics were used against him. I mean, there's talk that he actually might run for president and, you know, if people are sufficiently disgusted with the leaders of both parties, who knows, maybe someone like him would have a chance. And it's, I mean, it's just a very, one thing that really is shocking is, you know, we're coming within days at the 250th anniversary of American independence. And I think people are probably
[00:50:42] more dissatisfied, more disheartened than they've been in decades. You know, the demographic changes we've had in the United States over the course of the last roughly 40 years, but especially the last 20, coupled with the mass political just simply disgust, I think, on both left and right. I think there is a, again, a young generation that looks at this and just hates what's happening. They feel they're not being listened to, they're not being heard.
[00:51:12] But I think that's, I think it's a common threat throughout all Americans. But I think younger people tend to be a little bit more reactive. It's my perspective that there is, there's a large demographic that has no vestment in heritage America, doesn't really understand or even appreciate the significance of the 250th anniversary, what those founding fathers went through, the development of this American really experiment that became an empire.
[00:51:42] and now we have a new generation coming in that does not see a political framework as a possibility. Again, they put their trust in Trump and Trump really betrayed them. I'm just, again, I'm looking at this and wondering, is there a potential for a, and God forbid this doesn't happen, a real hot civil war? Well, I mean, I would, you know, I would hope not. And, you know, it's the sort of thing,
[00:52:11] it's not even clear what sort of form a conflict like that would take. In other words, we'd be talking about, you know, individual states breaking aside from the country or, you know, conflicts within the states, conflicts, you know, within cities or something like that. I mean, I would hope nothing like that happens. But, I mean, in some ways, one of the ironic situations is there's so much disgust from all directions towards the political establishment that that's almost
[00:52:40] a unifying factor. I don't know if you saw it, but I mean, all those establishment Democrats were suddenly defeated in New York City. I mean, just because the ordinary Democratic voters were so disgusted with the leaders of their own party. And, you know, I think a lot of ordinary Republicans are very disgusted with the leaders of their party as well. So, I mean, that's a very strange unifying factor when you have everybody disgusted with their own leaders. But, you know, it's interesting
[00:53:10] to see how that'll pan out. Gentlemen, I just want to say as we are running out of time this hour that you know you've done a worthwhile job if you feel as though there's a lot left in the tank. And if I feel that way, I think a lot of our audience is feeling that way undoubtedly so. Ron, Patrick, again, thanks to you. Ron, of course, thank you for your time. And with just a few seconds remaining, I would like to give you, our featured guest, a final word. Anything you want to say in summation? Well, I just think, you know, it's, I mean,
[00:53:39] it's a very sad 250th anniversary of the United States we're facing. I mean, there have been so many chances in the last couple of years to move the country in a positive direction. Instead, we had another disaster's Middle Eastern war. And it's not clear how we're going to get out of it. Well, what you just alluded to, and that is the 250th anniversary, we will be covering that extensively next week as next Saturday falls on the 4th of July, or I should say
[00:54:08] perhaps the 4th of July falls on next Saturday and we'll be live. Patrick, final word to you. I just think this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you very much, Ron, for the exchange. It's really, I just really enjoyed this. And I wish everybody a very happy 250th anniversary of these United States and just hope that that constitutional Republican ideal is able to survive the next 250 years. Long odds on that one,
[00:54:37] but we'll see what happens. Gods will be done. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Patrick. We'll be back with Jared Taylor next. Stay tuned for hour number two.