Thursday Q&A: Zelensky Bends on War. Leaked Tapes Hint at a Midterm Meltdown Plan

Download Barbara briefing, The Real Revolution: The British and the Communists Are Trying to Kill Again, at https://prom.ac/realrev. Barbara Boyd opens with Senator Elissa Slotkin's remarks to University of Chicago students on October 13 about deterring young people from working for the Trump administration, and her background in the intelligence community, the National Security Council and the Pentagon. The episode follows the files Data Republican has been releasing on X about networks of former national security and USAID officials, including the United Democracy Alliance, National Security Leaders for America, Renew to Thrive and the Horizons Project, and their plans around the midterms, and the Washington Post's October 20 report that current and former officials with Defense Department experience have been advising officials from 10 states. It then looks back at the Transition Integrity Project's war games of June 2020, Susan Rice's warning to corporations, Lord Palmerston and Giuseppe Mazzini, and Vice President JD Vance on the charge that the President is profiting from his office. It closes with the Justice Department's election-crime prosecutions, including 28 people charged in California, the end of USAID, Mike Benz at the Institute of Peace, and making the November 3 midterms too big to rig.

Susan Kokinda opens with the more than $1.2 billion in penalties Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's Treasury imposed on Bank of America on October 13 for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws, among the largest in Treasury history, after FinCEN found the bank failed to report priority national security risks, including Chinese money laundering networks and illicit finance along the southwest border. The episode traces the bank's record from Countrywide, Merrill Lynch and its $45 billion TARP bailout back to the petrodollar loans of the 1970s, the 1980s debt crisis and IMF austerity in Latin America, and Tom Clausen's moves from Bank of America to the World Bank and back. It then turns to Bank of America's chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan, chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative founded by King Charles and of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance launched in April 2021. It closes with Secretary Bessent's statement to the IMF. World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok on growth, exchange rates and energy, including an initial U.S. contribution to the Nuclear Energy Assistance Trust Fund, and the gap in nuclear power between the OECD and the developing world.

Barbara Boyd opens with President Trump's remarks to reporters on Friday, before his Georgia rally, about Ukraine's President Zelensky: he knows the details of how the war began, and at some point he will release them. She argues that the real story of the war's origins threatens what remains of Washington's Deep State, and is driving Europe and Canada into acts of state suicide to keep the war going. The episode follows the President's push to bring down diesel prices ahead of the November 3 midterms, from the threatened U.S. export ban and the emergency diesel stocks of France and Germany to the Treasury license for Russian diesel, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on America First. It covers the peace plan Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff discussed with Ukrainian and European officials in Florida, as reported by David Ignatius, the restriction of Starshield, and the President's Newsmax interview. It then turns to the European and Canadian response: Anne Applebaum on the Ukrainian army, the EU summit in Brussels and Ukraine's €70 billion financing gap, Ukraine's shortage of Patriot interceptors, the IMF's growth forecasts for Europe, the polls in France and Germany, and Mark Carney's 100-Year Partnership Declaration with Ukraine. It closes with President Trump's 2016 ABC interview on Russia and Crimea, Scott Horton's book Provoked, and what is at stake on November 3.

Join us for a live broadcast, with your hosts Barbara Boyd, Susan Kokinda and Adam Sturman. Thursday October 15th at 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific every Thursday. We take your questions from both the Youtube live chat and our Newsletter Subscribers!

Susan Kokinda opens with the European Union's largest expansion of its Russia sanctions list since the war began, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calling Europe's objections to the U.S. Russia diesel deal "completely hypocritical", since Europe is still Moscow's biggest gas customer. The episode follows the reactions to President Trump's diesel deal, from Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and Boris Johnson to the EU's foreign ministers, set against President Trump's post on the European Union paying Russia $250 billion for energy and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak's figure of $320.7 billion since 2022. It then turns to the IMF. World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, where IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said growth alone cannot fix U.S. debt and deficits, the headlines that followed, and the IMF's playbook since Bretton Woods ended in 1971. It closes with Secretary Bessent skipping the meetings for "domestic engagements", and Peter Navarro's White House progress report on America's manufacturing investments: over 500 projects, more than $380 billion in announced investment, mapped across the country.