Ray McGovern: Nuking of Iran could start Sunday. Jeffrey Sachs: Trump’s stupidity is amply documented. Sergei Lavrov: Europe now openly declares war against Russia.

25 April 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

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“INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 24-April”

F. 24 April 2026, Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom

confirms Larry Johnson’s 20 April revelation that Trump was considering to nuke Iran; and McGovern says that on Sunday, it is possible or even likely that Netanyahu will nuke Iran, and that America will simultaneously bomb though maybe not nuke Iran.

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Interview Of The Year: Jeffrey Sachs Vs Donald Trump | Fiery Conversation That’s Gripping America

22 April 2026, India’s The Times Group’s “ET Now News”

00:00

SACHS: If you

00:02

take your credit card and you go

00:04

shopping

00:05

and you run up a large credit card debt

00:08

you’re running a trade deficit

00:11

with all those shops.

00:14

Now, it would be pretty strange if you

00:16

then blamed all the shop owners for

00:18

having sold you all those things. You’re

00:21

ripping me off. You’re ripping me off.

00:23

You’re ripping me off. I’m running a

00:24

trade deficit.

00:26

That is the level of understanding of

00:29

the president of the United States.

00:33

The trade deficit does not represent at

00:36

all

00:39

trade policies.

00:42

It represents spending

00:45

relative to production or earnings.

00:49

>> [snorts]

00:50

>> We call that an identity. I teach it in

00:53

the second day of my course in

00:56

international monetary economics.

00:58

Trump never made it to the second day.

01:03

So, he says

01:06

you’re running a trade deficit. Look,

01:08

they’re all cheating me. But all that’s

01:11

happening is the United States is

01:13

outspending

01:15

its national income. And you can look at

01:19

the national income chart. You can add

01:23

up consumption and investment and

01:26

government spending

01:27

and you could subtract off gross

01:31

national product and lo and behold, what

01:33

will that equal? Not approximately,

01:36

exactly. That will equal the current

01:39

account deficit, which is the

01:40

comprehensive measure of how much you

01:43

spend on goods and services versus how

01:47

much you

01:49

sell in goods and services.

01:52

So, the United States runs a current

01:56

account deficit because it spends more

02:00

than it produces. Why does it do that?

02:03

We have a big credit card in the United

02:06

States.

02:07

It’s called the national government.

02:11

The US government spends about

02:15

$2 trillion a year more than it takes in

02:20

in revenues. What it’s doing is making

02:23

transfers to the American people and to

02:25

American businesses. It doesn’t tax

02:29

Americans for those transfers

02:31

because

02:34

here’s another little fact. Because the

02:37

congressmen that vote on the budget

02:40

got into office by being paid for their

02:44

campaigns by rich people who don’t like

02:46

taxes.

02:48

So, the political system says spend, but

02:51

don’t tax us.

02:53

So, we run a chronic deficit in the

02:56

United States.

02:57

That spending goes out either as

03:00

transfer payments or goods and services

03:03

and that’s more than our national income

03:07

which is about $30 trillion and our

03:10

spending’s about $31 trillion.

03:13

And that’s our trade deficit. And for

03:16

that, Donald Trump blames the world.

03:21

Okay, I fail him for this if he were my

03:24

student.

03:26

He’s my president.

03:28

It’s a little weirder.

03:31

Because when he did this, in 2 days, the

03:35

world lost $10 trillion of market

03:39

capitalization.

03:41

By the way, where did it go?

03:43

Did it get transferred from here to

03:45

here? No,

03:47

it got destroyed.

03:49

Why destroyed?

03:51

Because trade, something also the

03:54

president of the United States doesn’t

03:56

understand, is mutually beneficial.

03:59

So, if you stop trade everybody loses.

04:03

It’s not that one side wins, the other

04:06

side loses. He cannot understand that

04:08

concept as a guy that traded real estate

04:13

in New York.

04:16

So, his idea is somebody had to win,

04:20

somebody had to lose. But what happened

04:22

when he made this announcement was $10

04:24

trillion was wiped out worldwide.

04:27

It’s not that the US went up and they

04:30

went down. No, everybody went down.

04:33

Because the whole world system is based

04:35

on a division of labor

04:38

and he’s breaking that division of labor

04:41

into pieces.

04:43

So,

04:44

then people said

04:48

this doesn’t make sense. Even the very

04:50

rich people that

04:52

gave him the money for him to get into

04:54

office

04:56

started saying this doesn’t make sense.

04:58

The hedge fund managers who are his big

05:00

campaign contributors, Elon Musk who

05:03

paid for his election to became prime

05:05

minister.

05:07

I he said this doesn’t make sense.

05:10

And then the markets said this doesn’t

05:12

make sense. Not only $10 trillion, but

05:15

as finance minister said interest rates

05:18

started to rise because people began to

05:21

dump US Treasury debt.

05:23

>> The safest thing in the world,

05:24

apparently.

05:25

>> So,

05:27

interesting what happened.

05:30

It’s not quite true that he reversed

05:33

things. First, he left on this 10%

05:37

tariff

05:39

except for one country.

05:41

For China. 145% on Chinese products.

05:45

>> the tariff rates. That’s because the

05:48

United States has a deep neurotic

05:52

attachment to China.

05:55

The US political system hates China.

05:59

Why?

06:00

Cuz China’s big and successful.

06:04

And so, that the US hates.

06:07

It’s a rival, it’s a competitor. And so,

06:11

this is the one thing he left on. Now,

06:14

he’s going to mess up everything with

06:16

this, too, because in a trade war

06:19

between the US and China, China wins.

06:23

China does not depend on the US market

06:25

very much. It’s about 12% of China’s

06:28

exports. China will do just fine.

06:33

It’s just

06:35

dumb policy.

06:38

That’s there’s no more, sorry to say it.

06:41

There’s just no more explanation to this

06:45

than that.

06:47

It makes no sense.

06:49

Now, it raises, if I could, just one

06:52

last point.

06:53

How can this happen

06:55

when it makes no sense?

06:57

And that people should understand, we

07:00

are in one-person rule in the United

07:03

States.

07:04

Our political system is in a state of

07:08

collapse.

07:10

What President Trump did is an emergency

07:14

decree.

07:16

Everything he does is an emergency

07:18

decree. Literally, you can go on to

07:21

whitehouse.gov

07:23

and then type

07:25

follow the menu to executive decrees and

07:29

there are dozens of them. And each one

07:31

starts the same way with the powers

07:34

invested in in me as president of the

07:37

United States, I hereby declare A,

07:41

nonsense. B, nonsense. C, nonsense.

07:45

Because he’s king.

07:48

Those powers are not invested in the

07:50

president of the United States. They’re

07:52

invested in the Congress. You read

07:55

Article 1, Section 8 of our

07:57

Constitution. It says that all duties

08:00

originate with the Congress and

08:04

specifically in the lower house. All

08:06

legislation has to start in the House of

08:09

Representatives.

08:10

But the US,

08:14

starting in [25 July] 1945 after World War II,

08:18

became a military state to a large

08:20

extent.

08:22

And so, it sprinkled in its legislation

08:25

emergency, emergency, emergency. And

08:29

Trump doesn’t have to prove anything’s

08:31

an emergency. He just has to say

08:33

something’s an emergency. So, suddenly

08:36

the trade deficit became an emergency

08:39

and on that basis, he issues a

08:41

one-person rule. Even his aides don’t

08:44

know what he’s doing.

08:46

You raise one final interesting issue,

08:49

which is that the market recovered about

08:52

$4 trillion when he reversed.

08:56

Anyone who knew that 5 minutes before

08:58

made billions.

09:01

This is not the cleanest government in

09:03

the world, I can tell you.

09:05

I’d be hugely surprised if some people

09:07

didn’t know just a bit ahead of time.

09:10

Starting with members of the US

09:12

Congress, by the way.

09:15

——

https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2099030/

https://archive.ph/5i2Ve

“Opening remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with leaders of non-profit organisations, Moscow”

24 April 2026 17:05

…

Every day we observe — we are, in fact, shown in real time — that in order to preserve their hegemony and to achieve these unseemly goals, illegal sanctions, plunder, the theft of other countries’ sovereign assets, blackmail, threats and, of course, the use of military force are employed, as we saw in Venezuela and now in Iran – all of that in blatant violation of international law. …

The unprovoked aggression by the Americans and Israelis against Iran has seriously destabilised the situation in the Middle East [and their ‘news’-media] don’t even begin to cover it, because the situation is now becoming destabilised globally.

…

This persistent push, which in recent years has openly manifested itself in the slogan of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, reflects a long-standing, indeed, as it now turns out, centuries-long strategy.

…

A war against us has been openly declared. The Kiev regime is being used as the tip of the spear. However, everyone is aware that this tip is unusable without Western supplies of weapons, intelligence data, satellite systems, training of military personnel, and much more. The Kiev regime and the Ukrainian state are being openly taken advantage of as a geopolitical battering ram. Some rather outspoken individuals, I believe in the Belgian General Staff, publicly stated that they were getting ready for war with Russia and that Ukraine was helping them buy time. As they say, they couldn’t be clearer.

In order to justify their policy, the West - above all the international bureaucracy in Brussels (both EU and NATO, which are increasingly becoming one), as well as Berlin, Paris, and, of course, London - are attempting to demonise everything Russian, and openly speak about gearing up for war with us in the foreseeable future. Chief of Defence of the Belgian Armed Forces FrederikVansina stated that they still have several years to go, and Ukraine is buying time for them. The same line of thinking transpired in a statement by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz when he described Israel’s attack on Iran and generally everything Israel is doing as the Israelis doing the dirty work for them by fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, and other “terrorist” organisations disregarding the history of their emergence. That history is directly linked to the outright refusal to implement the UN decision on the creation of a Palestinian state.

Despite the difficult circumstances, we will continue to pursue our foreign policy and to defend our vital national interests, creating the most favourable external environment for our country’s sustainable development as a multi-ethnic sovereign state strengthening our sovereignty in all areas. This is almost a verbatim quotation from the Foreign Policy Concept, which was updated and approved by the President of Russia in 2023. It remains in force and continues to stand today.

Our priorities include promoting equal and mutually beneficial partnerships with all those willing to cooperate on an equal footing, based on the universally recognised principles of the UN Charter and international law in general, and on the search for a fair balance of interests in order to achieve the goals of domestic development and to strengthen our sovereignty. A contrasting example is provided by our US colleagues, who are promoting their national interests as they understand them, and they understand them as their dominance which is currently reflected in their policy of gaining control over almost the entire global energy sector. We observe this every day.

The logic of the Americans in relations with most countries (I have not heard anyone say this in dialogue with us, and I hope I never will) is that if you do not do as I say, I will punish you. In other words, I do not promise anything, but you must give me what I want; and if you don’t, I will punish you. This is not a balance of interests, and certainly not an honest conversation.

…

——

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.