Health Ranger - Mike Adams - Scott Ritter Interview: Illegal War on Iran & Collapse of U.S. Power
Aired: 2026-04-10
Duration: 33:56


=== Lost War in Iran (01:39) ===

[00:00:01]  Iran just beat us in a straight up fight.
[00:00:03]  Good point.
[00:00:04]  I know there's going to be people out there that say, no, they didn't.
[00:00:06]  I say, yes, they did.
[00:00:08]  We didn't accomplish any of our objectives.
[00:00:10]  I mean, even Pete Hex said, pounding his chest and saying how he sunk the Iranian Navy.
[00:00:14]  Hey, Pete, Iran just beat two nuclear armed states at their own game.
[00:00:19]  Okay?
[00:00:19]  They compelled us to seek termination of the conflict.
[00:00:23]  It wasn't Iran that came crawling to America.
[00:00:25]  It was America that went crawling to Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan saying, please open up an avenue of negotiation so we can bring an end to this thing because.
[00:00:34]  It's gone bad for us, we haven't won this war.
[00:00:37]  Welcome to today's interview here on brightvideos.com.
[00:00:40]  I'm Mike Adams, and today we are joined by the one and only Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, a United States Marine, an intelligence officer, an analyst, and someone who I think demonstrates remarkable and consistent courage in being willing to call out stupidity and incompetence and evil while also helping us analyze what's happening in the world so we can prepare.
[00:01:01]  So, welcome, Mr. Ritter.
[00:01:03]  It's always an honor to have you on the show.
[00:01:04]  Thank you for joining me today.
[00:01:06]  Thank you very much for having me.
[00:01:09]  It's just, look, I'm a fan of your work and I've watched so many of your interviews over the last year.
[00:01:15]  It's been a while since you and I have spoken.
[00:01:17]  I'm really glad to have you back on the show.
[00:01:19]  But here we stand at the verge of this clearly sabotaged so called ceasefire deal.
[00:01:25]  Israel refuses to take part in anything that would lead to peace.
[00:01:29]  And Trump seems to, in my opinion, he's getting owned by Iran.
[00:01:35]  But what is your take of where we are right now as we record this on a Thursday?
[00:01:40]  What is it, April?

=== Illegal Aggression Defined (04:13) ===

[00:01:41]  Eighth or ninth, something like that.
[00:01:43]  What's your take?
[00:01:45]  My take is that we have lost a war we should never have been involved in.
[00:01:50]  There is no reason, no justification, no cognizable legal foundation of what we've done with Iran against Iran.
[00:02:02]  It's an illegal war of aggression.
[00:02:04]  And I always start this way because I'm an American.
[00:02:08]  I love my country, but my country is a constitutional republic.
[00:02:12]  Which means I must adhere to the Constitution.
[00:02:15]  That is the thing that makes me who I am and we who we are.
[00:02:19]  If you don't adhere to the Constitution, you're not an American.
[00:02:23]  You may live in the United States, you may call yourself an American, but with all due respect, you're not an American.
[00:02:28]  The only thing that makes you an American is your adherence to the Constitution, your loyalty to the Constitution, because that's what defines our nation.
[00:02:37]  And so when I start off by talking about an illegal war of aggression, I just want to remind people that that concept came from Judge. Jackson, who was later a Supreme Court Justice, but was the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crime trials at the end of the Second World War that put Nazi leaders on trial.
[00:02:58]  And he said, The greatest war crime of them all is the war of aggression, because from that, all other crimes are committed.
[00:03:06]  The United States went to war against Iraq without any legal justification.
[00:03:11]  People can come at me and say, But, but, I don't care.
[00:03:13]  I don't want to hear a but.
[00:03:15]  That's not how it works under the rule of law.
[00:03:17]  Right.
[00:03:18]  You don't get to say, You know, but no, we hear that it was justified because some groups chanted death to America, or that years ago a group they funded, you know, bombed.
[00:03:32]  US soldiers in Beirut or what have you.
[00:03:34]  I mean, those are the things that I hear from people.
[00:03:36]  But none of those are legal justification for war in 2026.
[00:03:40]  They're not moral justifications for war either.
[00:03:43]  I mean, you know, first of all, you know, I hear about, you know, they killed a thousand Americans, the Iranians.
[00:03:53]  Qasem Soleimani killed a thousand Americans.
[00:03:55]  Where?
[00:03:56]  I always respond.
[00:03:58]  In Iraq.
[00:04:00]  How far did Americans have to travel to Iraq to be in the position they were killed?
[00:04:04]  And how far did Iranians have to travel?
[00:04:06]  To assist the Iraqis killing them.
[00:04:08]  Right.
[00:04:09]  We had to travel thousands of miles.
[00:04:11]  The Iranians live right next door.
[00:04:14]  The other thing is, were we invited to Iraq?
[00:04:17]  The answer is no.
[00:04:18]  We were there illegally.
[00:04:19]  Again, another illegal war of aggression, no justification on the rule of law.
[00:04:23]  So we had illegally invaded and occupied a sovereign state, overthrown a legitimate government with representation at the United Nations, ambassadors here in the United States.
[00:04:34]  I don't care what you think about Saddam Hussein, I really don't care.
[00:04:38]  He was the legitimate leader of Iraq.
[00:04:41]  We recognized him as such.
[00:04:42]  We had diplomatic relations with his government.
[00:04:45]  So take your personal opinions and throw them away because they don't matter.
[00:04:51]  You know, we shouldn't have been in Iraq.
[00:04:54]  And so now to blame the Iranians for supporting Iraqi Shia co faiths to stand up to people who had invaded and occupied their home.
[00:05:04]  Put yourself in their shoes.
[00:05:07]  Imagine for a moment a foreign occupier in your hometown.
[00:05:10]  You didn't invite them here.
[00:05:12]  They're here.
[00:05:12]  And then reflect hard on how American troops behaved in Iraq.
[00:05:17]  The way we ran up and down the roads, the way we machine gunned anything that looked suspicious, kicking down doors, driving families out of their homes.
[00:05:26]  I think if you did that in this hometown, every single man my age would be trying to kill you because you're the enemy.
[00:05:32]  Yeah, you want to take umbrage at the fact that the Iranians helped Iraqi patriots evict an illegal occupier.
[00:05:41]  So, again, that's why I say your moral, I don't care where your morals are, where you feel if your feelings are hurt.
[00:05:48]  I have two questions to ask.
[00:05:50]  One, did Congress authorize this military operation?
[00:05:53]  No.
[00:05:53]  Because Congress is the one.

=== Self Defense Rights (15:32) ===

[00:05:55]  And the answer is no.
[00:05:56]  And two, is this authorized, is this operation justified under the United Nations Charter?
[00:06:03]  Now, people might say, well, Scott, that's international law.
[00:06:06]  That's not really the Constitution now, is it?
[00:06:07]  And I say, really, what about the Supremacy Clause?
[00:06:10]  See, I've taken an oath to the Constitution, and I understand what I took an oath to.
[00:06:16]  When the President of the United States signs a treaty, and the United Nations Charter is a treaty obligation, and it's been ratified by two thirds or more of the United States Senate, it becomes the supreme law of the land in accordance with the Constitution.
[00:06:31]  So we must adhere and abide by the commitments we made in entering into this treaty relationship.
[00:06:39]  And under the United Nations Charter, there's only two cognizable justifications for going to war.
[00:06:46]  One is you've been attacked, self defense, Article 51.
[00:06:53]  No, we weren't attacked.
[00:06:56]  We can't even talk about preemptive self defense.
[00:06:58]  That's something that the president has brought up.
[00:07:00]  But preemptive self defense under the Caroline Doctrine, again, guys, I hate to bring it up, but it is the Constitution after all.
[00:07:06]  A case under the Supreme Court dating back to the 1840s, I guess, when the British intercepted a U.S. ship, the Caroline, that was transferring rebels and equipment to rebels operating north of the Maine border in Canada.
[00:07:25]  And the Brits intercepted the ship.
[00:07:27]  And they made the case that they were authorized to intercept it under the notion of preemption, that the ship posed an imminent threat to the British security and sovereignty.
[00:07:39]  And they had no choice but to intervene, they couldn't wait for the ship to land.
[00:07:43]  The Supreme Court of the United States heard the case and found in favor of the British.
[00:07:47]  And therein comes the concept of the imminent threat, the imminent nature of a threat, which now is what you have to address when you speak of preemptive self defense.
[00:07:58]  There was no imminent threat from Iran.
[00:08:00]  How do we know?
[00:08:02]  Because we were engaged in negotiations with the Iranians at the time, negotiations which blunt any argument of preeminence because we were addressing the threat.
[00:08:14]  An imminent threat means that it's happening now and there's nothing you can do to avoid it.
[00:08:19]  We attacked them, a surprise attack.
[00:08:22]  We committed a war crime called perfidy.
[00:08:25]  Perfidy is when you raise the white flag of truce and say, come in and let's talk.
[00:08:29]  And while you're talking, you attack them.
[00:08:31]  This is the second time we've done it within a year.
[00:08:33]  We did it in June and now we did it again.
[00:08:36]  So this is an illegal war of aggression that we're talking about.
[00:08:38]  So that's the first thing everybody has to understand.
[00:08:41]  There can be no debate, discussion about this.
[00:08:43]  Everything we're doing is illegitimate.
[00:08:46]  I also, I mean, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's an excellent explanation.
[00:08:49]  But also, there's a presumption among Americans and the American corporate media that Iran has no right of self defense.
[00:08:56]  For example, when Iran shoots down American aircraft that are engaged in bombing Iran, then we're told from the New York Times or others that shooting down our aircraft is escalation.
[00:09:09]  Things like that, which is just completely absurd.
[00:09:11]  And that, you know, we're told that Iran doesn't have a right to exist.
[00:09:14]  We're told that Iran doesn't have a right to nuclear weapons.
[00:09:16]  Well, determined by who?
[00:09:18]  Determined by who?
[00:09:19]  You know, by the US?
[00:09:20]  But we developed nuclear weapons.
[00:09:22]  It was who gave us the right?
[00:09:23]  I mean, isn't it a natural right for any country to.
[00:09:28]  Nuclear weapons, the right of self defense is a right.
[00:09:30]  Yeah, the right of self defense, exactly.
[00:09:32]  Look, we shoot down balloons that fly over our territory.
[00:09:35]  Balloons.
[00:09:37]  You know, we send up F 22 fighters and they fire multi million dollar missiles to shoot down balloons.
[00:09:43]  So, when the United States flies a reconnaissance drone and it enters an Iranian airspace, and we know that that reconnaissance drone is collecting intelligence to facilitate future targeting of Iran, Iran has a right to shoot that down.
[00:09:54]  No ifs, ands, or buts.
[00:09:56]  They have an inherent right of self defense.
[00:09:59]  Nuclear weapons is non negotiable.
[00:10:02]  Iran's not allowed to have nuclear weapons because Iran signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non nuclear weapon state.
[00:10:10]  So, in signing the treaty, they said, we will not seek to acquire nuclear weapons.
[00:10:16]  But in doing so under Article IV, now they are authorized to have the totality of the nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful purposes.
[00:10:26]  That means they're allowed to enrich uranium.
[00:10:30]  They're allowed to convert uranium feedstock into raw uranium into feedstock that can be enriched.
[00:10:39]  They're allowed to have nuclear reactors and make fuel for nuclear reactors.
[00:10:42]  They're even allowed to reprocess the fuel as long as it's done under international safeguard inspections.
[00:10:49]  But they can't.
[00:10:50]  Well, but hold on, Scott.
[00:10:52]  I want to push back on that a little bit here because number one, Israel has not signed the nonproliferation treaty, correct?
[00:11:00]  The United States has, I believe.
[00:11:01]  Is that correct?
[00:11:03]  Yep.
[00:11:04]  But the United States has already violated its own signature of that by providing nuclear weapons technology to Israel, which means the United States has broken the good faith agreement of that, the entire protocol, the structure of that agreement.
[00:11:19]  So why should.
[00:11:20]  You haven't admitted that.
[00:11:21]  Well, okay.
[00:11:22]  That's right.
[00:11:23]  Haven't admitted it.
[00:11:24]  So lying about breaking, about or not breaking the NPT.
[00:11:29]  But why should Iran honor an agreement that they made in good faith with countries that are operating in bad faith in deception in order to violate the spirit of that?
[00:11:39]  It didn't make an agreement with the United States, and it didn't make an agreement with Israel.
[00:11:42]  Iran made an agreement with the international community.
[00:11:44]  The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is an international treaty, so it's Iran's commitment to the world.
[00:11:50]  Okay.
[00:11:50]  And, uh, Iran, you don't get to say because you're cheating, I get to cheat.
[00:11:58]  That just doesn't operate anywhere in the legal profession.
[00:12:02]  I don't get to say, hey, because Donald Trump cheated on his income taxes and has never been called out on it, hell, I get to cheat too, and you can't call me out on it.
[00:12:12]  No, if I cheat on my taxes, IRS comes in and puts me in jail.
[00:12:16]  But there is a legal premise for contract fraud and misrepresentation, false premise of.
[00:12:23]  American issue, not an Iranian issue.
[00:12:25]  Uh huh.
[00:12:26]  The Iranians don't get to claim anything based upon America's behavior.
[00:12:32]  Iran must adhere to its obligations.
[00:12:34]  If it doesn't want to adhere to its obligations, then Iran can withdraw from the NPT.
[00:12:40]  Okay.
[00:12:40]  Do you think that they would do that?
[00:12:42]  No.
[00:12:42]  Why would they?
[00:12:46]  I don't know.
[00:12:47]  I'm wondering.
[00:12:48]  At the very beginning, that it doesn't want a nuclear bomb.
[00:12:50]  It doesn't need a nuclear bomb.
[00:12:51]  A nuclear bomb would actually be bad for it.
[00:12:54]  And they've proven their point.
[00:12:55]  Iran just beat us in a straight up fight.
[00:12:58]  Good point.
[00:12:58]  I know there's going to be people out there that say, no, they didn't.
[00:13:01]  I say, yes, they did.
[00:13:02]  We didn't accomplish any of our objectives.
[00:13:04]  I mean, even Pete Hegseth pounding his chest and saying how he sunk the Iranian Navy.
[00:13:08]  Hey, Pete, it was Iranian Navy ships that just put mines in the Strait of Hormuz, shutting it down.
[00:13:15]  You didn't see.
[00:13:16]  You sunk big ships.
[00:13:17]  You didn't destroy capability because the Iranians know what they're doing here.
[00:13:21]  But Iran just beat two nuclear armed states at their own game.
[00:13:25]  Okay.
[00:13:25]  They compelled us to seek termination of the conflict.
[00:13:29]  It wasn't Iran that came crawling to America, it was America that went crawling to Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan saying, please open up an avenue of negotiation so we can bring an end to this thing because it's gone bad for us.
[00:13:41]  We haven't won this war.
[00:13:43]  Now, I know, you know, we have the spinmeisters out there pretending we won the war, but the reality is.
[00:13:49]  We didn't collapse the regime.
[00:13:51]  That was a stated objective regime change.
[00:13:53]  Trump can say we have a new regime in place.
[00:13:55]  We don't.
[00:13:55]  It's the same president, the same foreign minister.
[00:13:57]  That's right.
[00:13:58]  That's right.
[00:13:59]  Trump is just talking BS there.
[00:14:01]  It's the same system.
[00:14:02]  I mean, they have a supreme leader, and the constitution of the Islamic Republic still reigns supreme.
[00:14:12]  The regime is in place.
[00:14:13]  We didn't suppress their ballistic missile capabilities.
[00:14:15]  They're still able to launch missiles and hit targets.
[00:14:18]  They blew the crap out of our facilities.
[00:14:21]  And we didn't accomplish anything.
[00:14:23]  We.
[00:14:23]  Desperately tried to do a raid on the Isfahan nuclear facility, and that turned into a Desert 1 debacle.
[00:14:30]  Thank God we didn't leave any dead people on the desert, but we can't secure the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:14:36]  I mean, the bottom line is the military has had to tell the president, we can't free the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:14:43]  We can't secure it.
[00:14:44]  Iran has it, and there's nothing we can do to stop them.
[00:14:47]  Let's talk about the Strait there.
[00:14:49]  Again, sorry to interrupt, but I'm getting your point.
[00:14:52]  I think you're absolutely correct that actually control over the Strait is more powerful than any nuclear weapon.
[00:14:57]  Because control, please go ahead.
[00:15:01]  Yeah, well, so control over the strait, which is clearly in the hands of Iran, and as you said, they just there was additional mining of the southern portion of that strait now, which forces ships to sail right next to Iran's total control.
[00:15:13]  And and yet, I've seen so many, uh, you know, whoever's left in MAGA and Trump people claiming that you know, like Trump screaming in his in his social media posts saying Iran must open it immediately, and it's like okay, it's just words that doesn't do anything.
[00:15:30]  You can say all the words you want, but Iran still controls the Strait.
[00:15:33]  And that means they control the backbone of the energy of planet Earth, period.
[00:15:39]  No, this is why Trump is desperate for a solution right now because this is humiliating the United States.
[00:15:50]  We have been operating in the Gulf since the time of Jimmy Carter when the Carter Doctrine was first formulated, that said, in exchange for oil producing countries of the region to allow the interests of the United States to dominate their energy production.
[00:16:12]  Policies, we will secure them.
[00:16:14]  We will provide security guarantees.
[00:16:16]  They will subordinate themselves to us.
[00:16:18]  We will make sure that they are safe.
[00:16:21]  You know, we have said we can keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
[00:16:26]  It's long been recognized as a strategic choke point.
[00:16:30]  If people go back in 1987 on Operation Earnest Will, where the U.S. Navy re flagged the Kuwaiti tanker fleet and escorted it through the Strait of Hormuz to keep it from being hit by Iraq and Iran.
[00:16:45]  And we could do it at the time.
[00:16:46]  But the Iranians watched and learned.
[00:16:49]  And they now have developed the capabilities to shut that down.
[00:16:52]  And we don't have anything that can keep it open.
[00:16:56]  Our Navy can't do it.
[00:16:58]  Our Air Force can't do it.
[00:16:59]  We don't have sufficient ground power to do it.
[00:17:01]  So the Iranians own this.
[00:17:03]  It is theirs.
[00:17:03]  And they have declared it is ours.
[00:17:05]  And if they shut it down and continue to shut it down, this is going to cause permanent damage, permanent economic damage.
[00:17:16]  Around the world.
[00:17:16]  I mean, Europe is about to be hit with an energy crisis that it's not going to recover from.
[00:17:21]  Asia, you're looking at the potential for real economic harm to include China.
[00:17:26]  That's why China has intervened actually and put pressure on Iran to come to the table.
[00:17:31]  Iran didn't want to come to the table.
[00:17:32]  They're winning this war.
[00:17:34]  I mean, they're like, keep bombing us.
[00:17:37]  We don't care.
[00:17:38]  You're not destroying us.
[00:17:40]  You're not breaking our will.
[00:17:41]  We're destroying you.
[00:17:43]  We're humiliating you.
[00:17:45]  And But the Iranians were told by the Chinese that China needs this oil to start flowing because a significant part of their energy comes from the Middle East, comes from those countries who can't ship their oil now because of the closure.
[00:18:03]  So China told the Iranians they have to sit down and talk with the Americans.
[00:18:06]  And so the Iranians agree.
[00:18:09]  But you've said in previous interviews, and I agree with you, that the U.S., and I'm paraphrasing, but the U.S. really can't be negotiated with.
[00:18:20]  Because, or I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the problem is, you know, the U.S. will murder the negotiators or will use it, as you said, perfidy, as an excuse to launch an attack.
[00:18:33]  And so, and numerous Iranian officials have said that we cannot negotiate with the United States of America because the people that are serving in that role, Whitkoff and Kushner, et cetera, are not trustworthy, they're not operating in good faith, and they never keep their word.
[00:18:48]  So, my question to you, Scott, first of all, feel free to correct me if I've said anything incorrect there, but How does there ever become a diplomatic solution to this?
[00:19:02]  Because there has to be an alternative to war.
[00:19:05]  You know, that's just the fact that the Iranians despise Witkoff and Kushner is irrelevant.
[00:19:13]  I mean, because at the end of the day, the United States and Iran are going to have to come to some sort of agreement.
[00:19:20]  Iran has some leverage now.
[00:19:22]  You know, they may insist that they need somebody other than Kushner and Witkoff to be present or at least to conclude, meaning somebody like JD Vance will have to be involved.
[00:19:34]  But there will also have to be other agreements that Iran will no longer trust an executive order like the JCPOA, which Trump pulled from.
[00:19:42]  So there will have to be a binding international agreement with security guarantees.
[00:19:48]  And the United States will have to have increased diplomatic exposure for any withdrawal.
[00:19:58]  For instance, they're going to have to make agreements with Russia and China and regional powers, et cetera.
[00:20:05]  You know, this isn't going to be a very simple thing.
[00:20:07]  It's going to be a very complicated, you know, agreement, peace agreement.
[00:20:12]  You know, in the United States, it's going to have to give up all leverage of control it had over Iran.
[00:20:16]  For instance, it doesn't matter if Kushner or Whitkoff are there.
[00:20:20]  What matters is that the sanctions are lifted.
[00:20:22]  What matters is that the Security Council terminates all resolutions.
[00:20:25]  Because once you terminate those resolutions, you can't go back.
[00:20:28]  Right now, the United States has resolutions on the book against Iran from the Security Council back when China and Russia were playing, you know, the game.
[00:20:36]  But now Russia and China are.
[00:20:38]  Aren't playing the game.
[00:20:39]  So once you wipe the slate clean, you're never going to get another Security Council resolution against Iran because Russia and China will veto it.
[00:20:47]  The same thing at the board of directors of the IAEA wipe the slate clean.
[00:20:52]  So Iran is going to come out of this with its economy fully under its control, unrestricted right to sell oil at fair market value.
[00:21:01]  This is what the Iranians care about.
[00:21:02]  They don't care about Jared Kushner.
[00:21:04]  They don't care about Steve Whitcock.
[00:21:06]  They don't trust the United States at all.
[00:21:08]  But what they want is You know, the lifting of sanctions and the international community rallying around their cause.
[00:21:16]  So that if the United States wants to do anything, it has to do it unilaterally.
[00:21:20]  Right now, the United States gets right under a facade of, you know, international law, but that will end.

=== Unilateral Sanctions Lifting (08:03) ===

[00:21:27]  Well, I really appreciate the detail in the description that you just gave.
[00:21:31]  And I think you're absolutely correct in that the critical component here is the lifting of sanctions because Iran has been under these economic sanctions for decades that have really hampered its ability to naturally grow.
[00:21:44]  And innovate, and yet it's still done well despite the sanctions.
[00:21:49]  However, so two points here, Scott.
[00:21:52]  One is that the process that you just described of the multilateral involving other nations, guarantees of this agreement, that process, including the unwinding of sanctions, is a multi month process, as you well know better than most because you lived a lot of this, right?
[00:22:15]  That's a multi month process.
[00:22:17]  And secondly, I don't think that Trump will ever agree to lifting sanctions because he will always be pressured by Netanyahu, at least in my assessment.
[00:22:25]  So, a two part question to you.
[00:22:28]  One is the Strait of Hormuz would obviously stay closed during this entire process of putting together this agreement.
[00:22:35]  That alone would cause severe global economic damage to the parties that you just accurately mentioned, such as Asia and Europe, et cetera.
[00:22:42]  But at the end of the day, I don't see the U.S. ever agreeing to lifting sanctions on Iran.
[00:22:48]  How does that ever happen, in your view?
[00:22:50]  Well, first of all, it won't be a multi month.
[00:22:52]  It can happen instantaneously.
[00:22:54]  The United States simply nullifies its sanctions, then goes to the Security Council with the Russians and the Chinese and passes a resolution that nullifies all the UN things, and then goes to the IAA and passes that.
[00:23:06]  It can be done in a week.
[00:23:07]  Really?
[00:23:08]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:23:09]  There's just absolutely.
[00:23:10]  If they want to.
[00:23:11]  Correct.
[00:23:12]  But the Strait of Hormuz is being choked up.
[00:23:17]  Trump is in trouble right now.
[00:23:18]  That's what people need to understand.
[00:23:20]  You know, he is watching.
[00:23:23]  Donald Trump is an egomaniac.
[00:23:25]  I hope people will understand.
[00:23:27]  He's a narcissist.
[00:23:29]  You know, we don't have a standard presidency.
[00:23:32]  We have a cult of personality, and it's all driven around Donald Trump.
[00:23:37]  He doesn't care about the American people.
[00:23:39]  I hope that's been recognized by those who claim to support him.
[00:23:43]  He doesn't put America first.
[00:23:45]  He doesn't even put Israel first.
[00:23:47]  I know that's a cute little slogan that's put out there.
[00:23:49]  He puts Donald Trump first.
[00:23:50]  That's all he cares about.
[00:23:52]  That's true.
[00:23:52]  That's it.
[00:23:53]  Yeah.
[00:23:54]  You know, so that means that his center of gravity for trying to define what it is, you know, isn't the national security of the United States.
[00:24:02]  He doesn't care about Iran's nuclear program.
[00:24:05]  He doesn't even know what it is.
[00:24:07]  You know, he's just been told to care about it.
[00:24:10]  He cares about Donald Trump and he cares about his legacy.
[00:24:13]  He wants to go down in history as the greatest president that ever walked the face of the earth.
[00:24:18]  And he's been telling us all along how great he is.
[00:24:21]  And, you know, it's hard sometimes to, You know, get past the loyalists, the MAGA base, who are just blind to everything because they've bought into the cult of personality.
[00:24:33]  I mean, they are living manifestations of everything that James Madison warned us about back when the Federalist Papers were written factionalism, the danger of factionalism, and how it can lead to a breakdown of checks and balances and the promotion of the tyranny of the executive.
[00:24:49]  Well, that's what's happened here.
[00:24:51]  We have a president who doesn't care about the Constitution, openly says so, says he's a dictator, said that at Davos openly, says that.
[00:24:59]  You know, the rule of law doesn't matter, only his sense of morality matters.
[00:25:03]  Ignores Congress, ignores the Supreme Court.
[00:25:05]  I mean, this isn't an American president, this is an American dictator.
[00:25:10]  But the good news is we still have elections for the moment.
[00:25:15]  And in November, there's a midterm election.
[00:25:18]  President Trump understands one of the reasons why he's pushing for a ceasefire right now is that this war is potentially fatal to his legacy.
[00:25:27]  He promised his base that he would not go to wars like this.
[00:25:30]  He said, I will not do this.
[00:25:32]  And yet now he's done it.
[00:25:34]  And he can't say he did it to get rid of Iran's nuclear program because it's still there and they're not going to give it up.
[00:25:39]  He can't say he did it to get rid of the ballistic missile program because it's still there and they're not going to give it up.
[00:25:45]  So he's going to have to come up with some sort of spin.
[00:25:48]  And that spin may be related to peace.
[00:25:52]  He did what nobody else could do.
[00:25:54]  He had to go to war to break the paradigm.
[00:25:56]  Now he's able to construct the framework of peace.
[00:25:59]  I'm the greatest peacemaker.
[00:26:00]  Give me the Nobel Peace Prize, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:26:03]  However, he spins this.
[00:26:05]  But if he doesn't spin it properly, The Democrats are going to take the House in November.
[00:26:10]  And that's the end of the Trump presidency right there.
[00:26:12]  It's over because they will impeach him over and over and over again.
[00:26:18]  I would anticipate that if they don't convict him, there will be at least four successful impeachments, meaning that he will impeach and be put on trial four times between January, when the new Congress comes in, and the time his term ends up.
[00:26:35]  Oh, yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that.
[00:26:37]  And that paralyzes the presidency, and nothing gets done.
[00:26:40]  It's over.
[00:26:41]  The worst thing that can happen for him is that he loses the Senate.
[00:26:45]  And he irritates people enough to where they impeach and they convict.
[00:26:49]  And now it's a whole different ballgame for Trump.
[00:26:51]  And this is a realistic proposition right now.
[00:26:54]  This is not out of the blue.
[00:26:56]  And Trump is in a panic, a sheer panic.
[00:26:59]  His staff, his advisors are in a panic.
[00:27:01]  JD Vance is looking at what was a sure thing into being that he may also get in legal trouble.
[00:27:07]  So Donald Trump isn't going to play stupid games right now.
[00:27:11]  He's not going to sit there and drag this thing out.
[00:27:13]  This has to be resolved quickly.
[00:27:15]  It has to be resolved decisively, and it has to be resolved in a manner which allows Donald Trump to spin it in a somewhat positive step.
[00:27:24]  Iran isn't going to cave in.
[00:27:26]  They're not going to give in to his demands.
[00:27:28]  He's going to have to adjust to them.
[00:27:30]  They're not going to adjust to him.
[00:27:32]  And so that's why the Strait of Hormuz, the fact that the Iranians control it and aren't going to relinquish it, this is the death grip for this president because as the global economy starts to collapse, everybody will blame it on Trump, and then you're going to see everything collapse.
[00:27:47]  We're about to see NATO collapse.
[00:27:50]  Now, some people support it.
[00:27:51]  I do as well.
[00:27:52]  But if it collapses in a vacuum, meaning that it just happened because of incompetence, it's not a planned collapse.
[00:28:00]  We drop buildings with planned explosions.
[00:28:04]  We blow, down they come, implosions.
[00:28:07]  That's good.
[00:28:08]  We wanted to do it.
[00:28:09]  But if you're in downtown Albany and a building just falls out of the blue, that's bad.
[00:28:15]  That's unplanned.
[00:28:16]  That shouldn't have happened.
[00:28:18]  Right now, we're seeing the collapse of everything.
[00:28:20]  I call it the empire terminating.
[00:28:23]  Event.
[00:28:23]  We're seeing NATO collapse.
[00:28:25]  We're seeing relationships in the Pacific collapse.
[00:28:28]  I mean, Japan and South Korea, we just stripped away their air defense without even coordinating with them.
[00:28:34]  What kind of ally does that?
[00:28:35]  And now, because of the closure of the Strait of Hurus, they're going into energy rationing.
[00:28:40]  What kind of ally does that?
[00:28:42]  Their economies are going to collapse.
[00:28:44]  What kind of ally does that?
[00:28:45]  You know, the world is going to be turning away from the United States because we're literally the worst thing in the world.
[00:28:51]  You know, you talk about the Midas touch.
[00:28:54]  You know, Donald Trump.
[00:28:55]  He loves that gold.
[00:28:56]  I mean, you just take a look at the White House.
[00:28:57]  It's all gold.
[00:28:58]  It's toilets of gold.
[00:28:59]  Everything's gold.
[00:29:00]  The Midas touch.
[00:29:01]  Whatever he touches is gold.
[00:29:02]  But you know that the Midas touch isn't a blessing, it's a curse because everything you touch turns to gold, which means it dies.
[00:29:09]  And Donald Trump is touching our friends and our allies, and they're dying.
[00:29:13]  They're losing.
[00:29:14]  This man is a curse on the world.
[00:29:16]  And he will lose the election because of this decisively.
[00:29:20]  There will be a collapse of support for Donald Trump in the United States if he doesn't change the trajectory of what's happening in the Middle East right now.

=== Global Reformulation Power (04:25) ===

[00:29:31]  All right, Scott, well said.
[00:29:32]  I think your analysis is right on track with where things are headed right now, although possibly Trump could reverse course at some point here.
[00:29:40]  But I don't hear him listening to the American people at all or listening to reason.
[00:29:45]  Let me give out your website, ScottRitter.com will take you to Scott's Substack page, which is filled with many, many interviews and analysis articles and pieces there.
[00:29:57]  And Scott is one of the most prolific interviewees.
[00:30:03]  On YouTube and other platforms as well.
[00:30:05]  You do so much work, Scott, and it's greatly appreciated.
[00:30:08]  And Scott, please stand by because we're going to do another interview with you here.
[00:30:12]  So, this is part one of the interview with Scott Ritter.
[00:30:15]  You can find part two at brightvideos.com.
[00:30:19]  And in part two, we're going to talk about the global reformulation of power that Scott just alluded to there.
[00:30:26]  So, what happens?
[00:30:27]  What does the world look like when the U.S. is weakened, the empire's peak days are over, and Iran becomes essentially a superpower?
[00:30:35]  By controlling about 20% of the world's energy and other important products like helium and sulfuric acid, et cetera.
[00:30:42]  We'll cover that in part two with Scott Ritter.
[00:30:45]  So until then, thank you for watching today.
[00:30:46]  I'm Mike Adams with brightvideos.com.
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