Description:
Cyrus Janssen interviews CIA analyst Ray McGovern on the Ukraine and Iran wars.
Timeline:
0:00 Intro: CIA analyst Ray McGovern
1:04 Why Trump can't end the Russia-Ukraine war
2:29 How the deep state controls Trump's actions
4:12 Why the United States started the Iran war
6:13 Is Iran working on a nuclear weapon?
9:03 Why the Ukraine war will end by the end of the year
11:00 Will Putin get a security deal with Trump?
12:05 Why NATO keeps making mistakes against Russia
13:05 The biggest mistake Washington made with Russia
15:45 How Europe and America walked away from a Ukraine deal
19:09 Did Trump's mistakes in Iran force him to pivot to Russia?
21:03 Can Europe get a deal for Ukraine?
21:45 Why NATO is effectively dead for the future
23:25 Will Trump or Netanyahu strike Iran before the elections?
25:45 Why Israel and Netanyahu are the biggest threat
27:05 Will Israel stop invading Lebanon?
29:10 Can Russia help end the war in Iran?
30:30 What is China's role in the Iran war?
33:00 Why Trump will visit China again in 2026
35:05 Is America's influence on the world over?
37:40 Final thoughts
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, with Danny Jones on Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, and on his claim that the public story about Russia is wrong.
He is the former CIA analyst who personally briefed Reagan's inner circle every morning, then spent the next three decades accusing the agency of lying the United States into wars.
Timeline:
00:00:00 Joining the CIA in 1963
00:04:21 Ukraine peace talks and the Minsk agreements
00:06:43 NATO expansion after the Berlin Wall
00:11:29 Bill Burns' warning about Ukraine joining NATO
00:13:00 Victoria Nuland's $5 billion and the Maidan uprising
00:19:51 Putin's missile warning and Biden's pledge
00:26:54 China's backing for Russia before the invasion
00:29:32 The Istanbul peace talks and Boris Johnson
00:35:03 The balance of power: Russia, China and the US
00:39:06 Ray's view of NATO without US support
00:42:51 Russiagate and the DNC email leak
00:49:53 Bill Binney and the challenge to the DNC hack account
00:56:49 Shawn Henry's testimony on DNC data exfiltration
01:00:58 Seth Rich's death and Ray's leak theory
01:07:37 The Columbia Journalism Review's Russiagate investigation
01:10:23 Ray's subpoena from Seth Rich's brother
01:13:03 Comey, Brennan and Trump's prosecutions
01:15:30 Oliver Stone's Putin interview and nuclear restraint
01:18:30 Ray's Moscow trip with Oliver Stone
01:25:45 Germany, Russophobia and Russia's threat perceptions
01:29:06 JFK's peace speech and assassination theories
01:35:40 Jane Roman, Oswald's file and JFK records
01:38:00 Fred Janney and Mary's Mosaic
01:40:29 Trump's orders and the federal bureaucracy
01:47:35 France's unrest and Europe's Ukraine spending
01:49:58 Iran, Israel and US national security
01:53:46 Ray's proposed Iran peace deal
01:55:53 Iraq's WMD claims and politicized intelligence
01:59:13 Tom Fingar and the 2007 Iran nuclear estimate
02:02:34 Nuclear weapons vs. uranium enrichment
02:06:58 Netanyahu's election and nuclear escalation fears
02:12:11 Arms sales, contractors and political influence
02:18:03 James Angleton and CIA reporting on Israel
02:19:34 Can analysts challenge the intelligence bureaucracy?
02:24:46 Intelligence failures and Iran war planning
02:28:04 The Houthis and Saudi Arabia
02:30:02 The USS Liberty attack and its survivors
02:33:57 Meeting USS Liberty survivor Bryce Lockwood
02:36:05 The USS Liberty SOS and recalled rescue planes
02:41:36 Ray's theories on why Israel attacked the Liberty
02:44:48 The 1967 war and occupied territories
02:49:16 Ray's account of intercepted Israeli communications
02:54:50 Ray's work and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Trump & Israel are scrambling to launch a massive strike plan but Iran has other ideas. New reports suggest that Iran has blown up the attack but that hasn't stopped the masters of war in Washington and Tel Aviv from building up toward a new round of war that could begin at any moment. Former Lt. Colonel Anthony Aguilar and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern join to break it all down.
Russia is selling the U.S. 300,000 tons of diesel fuel after a sanctions waiver to lift Trump's November electoral chances, infuriating Zelensky as Kiev suffers its most intense pounding. Trump says he won't hit Iran until after the election. And in the U.S. an execution victim awakes from a coma, while the government is planning to live-stream an execution by firing squad.
Description:
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu this week used the seat of world diplomacy -- established to pursue peace -- to spread their vile supremacist ideologies.
Description:
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and geopolitical commentator Garland Nixon join to react to Trump's hints at striking Pickaxe mountain and the signs that the Iran war is set to escalate big.
CIA analyst Ray McGovern and independent commentator Garland Nixon discuss Israel's Channel 14 reports that Iran is preparing to expand its offensive with a massive attack on Tel Aviv as Iran's missiles have changed the game in the Persian Gulf. The US Navy and military is in full panic amid evidence that the Strait of Hormuz is fully lost.
Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on The World This Week. Tensions soar between Tel Aviv and Ankara over their designs on Syria; would Trump really nuke Iran? Gaza and Ukraine updates and the Pentagon punishes Stars & Stripes by firing its editor and publisher.
Description:
Some NATO and Russian advisers think nuclear weapons are a viable option. Would a desperate Israel really nuke Iran? We speak with nuclear weapons expert Peter Kuznick, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and economist Professor Richard Wolff.
Description:
The NATO summit in Ankara this week recommitted to provoking direct war with Russia by 2030, with or without the US it seems. Meanwhile Trump's fruity Iran policy plays in a loop as Israel stands ready to again launch full-scale war.
Description:
Is NATO provoking a direct war with Russia? The ultimate aim of Project Ukraine has always been to weaken Russia and overthrow Vladimir Putin. To launch the economic, information and ground proxy war on Moscow, NATO needed Russia to invade Ukraine. Now it needs Russia to attack a NATO country to justify direct war on Putin.
Description:
Ray McGovern was a CIA officer for 27 years, he chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefs.
Description:
The Russian and Chinese leaders declare unilateral attempts to dominate the world “have failed” and “a new type of international relations” is emerging. Meanwhile Trump loses it over Iran, while he mulls invading Cuba.
Description:
Scott Ritter says Russia has no choice but to strike command centers in Kiev and German and English munition factories after Ukrainian attacks inside Russia have cut Russia's oil exports by 20 percent. Ray McGovern disagrees, saying Russia will continue to cautiously avoid hitting Germany or England to prevent a NATO-Russia war.
Description:
A brash, expansionist Donald Trump returned from two days in China, having been schooled by Xi Jinping in what global stability looks like.
In his January 2025 inaugural address, Donald Trump blared the trumpets of the American Empire, putting the world on notice that the William McKinley era of U.S. territorial expansion was back. Not that the American imperium had gone anywhere under preceding presidents. But Trump would no longer hide it.
“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons,” he said, not stopping at planet Earth. “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.”
At Munich last fall, his secretary of state Marco Rubio, stirred the ghost of Cecil Rhodes, loudly proclaiming Western supremacy was back in control.
“For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said.
“But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, [the territorial expansion] was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.
Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West’s age of dominance had come to an end and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past.
But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make. This is what we did together once before, and this is what President Trump and the United States want to do again now, together with you.”
Trump bullied Greenland. He bullied Canada. He took part in genocide in Gaza. He took control of Venezuela. He threatens Cuba. He twice attacked Iran.
And then he went to China.
This week Xi Jinping spelled it out for him: Put away the tough guy act. You’ve run up against China now. The two of us better get along or the world is in for a lot of hurt.
According to the Chinese readout, Xi asked Trump:
“Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major-country relations? Can we meet global challenges together and provide greater stability for the world? Can we build a bright future together for our bilateral relations in the interest of the well-being of the two peoples and the future of humanity? These are the questions vital to history, to the world, and to the people. They are the questions of our times that the leaders of major countries need to answer together.”
As a sort of reversal of the outcome of the Boxer Rebellion, which failed to expel Western imperialists from China, Xi echoed boxer Mike Tyson who said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Joining The World This Week to discuss Mr. Trump’s trip to Beijing, and the week’s developments on Iran and Ukraine, are Ray McGovern, former C.I.A. analyst and Oval Office briefer; and Scott Ritter, ex-U.S. Marines counter-intelligence officer and a chief U.N. weapons inspector.
Description:
1. U.S. Says Iran War Over, But Continues to Fire.
2. Whose Victory Day Is It?
3. Are We Already in a World War?
There was a strange series of events over the past seven days in the war in the Gulf. U.S. officials insist that the war is over. SoS Marco Rubio held a press conference on Tuesday to declare that Operation Epic Fury (some call it Operation Epic Failure) was over.
It “is concluded,” he said. “We achieved the objectives of that operation.” Something we will talk about on this show.
Instead a new operation had begun, the U.S. is now in a defensive posture under Project Freedom, said Rubio. This sounded like a Rubio Ruse to get around the War Powers Act, to pretend one war is over and another, separate one could begin with a fresh 60 days on the clock.
He was asked about that and called the Act “100 percent unconstitutional.” Getting a declaration of war from Congress is constitutional. But the Trump administration didn’t get that either.
A day later, Trump ended Project Freedom too, we later learned, because Saudi Arabia wouldn’t allow U.S. jets to fly over their country.
It’s been a strange ceasefire, which Trump himself still insists is in place, what with Iran and the U.S. shooting at one another nearly everyday now.
Trump is indeed playing with fire if he lets Israel talk him into restarting full-scale war, which is virtually guaranteed to destroy the Gulf’s energy industry and the world economy.
Meanwhile they are still shooting at each other in Ukraine in a war that Russian political analyst Sergei Karaganov says is linked to Iran: the European theater and the Middle East theater in a new world war. A war in which Trump plays with the flames of a potential nuclear conflict (which Karaganov says Russia must prepare for.
The end of the last world war was celebrated in Moscow today. The question is, Whose Victory Day was it? Is it only Russia’s? Where are its allies that helped the Soviet Union defeat Nazi Germany? How does Russia view Germany today?
The Red Square parade went off without incident after Zelensky had said the Russians “fear drones may buzz over Red Square,” which Russia understandably interpreted as “aggressive and threatening.”
From the Kiev Post on Friday:
“President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree excluding Moscow’s Red Square from Ukraine’s target list during the Victory Day parade. The move is framed as a humanitarian step linked to ongoing negotiations, including a prisoner exchange and temporary ceasefire. … The decree, published on Friday, authorizes the parade to take place in the Russian capital and designates a specific geographic area around Red Square as off limits for Ukrainian during the event. The temporary restriction applies during the parade timeframe, beginning at 10 a.m. Kyiv time, and outlines exact coordinates covering the Red Square area.” [Emphasis added.]
Trump then got into the act announcing a three-day ceasefire. But what role did he play in it?
Meanwhile, European Council President António Costa said he thought there was “potential” for the EU to negotiate with Moscow to end the war, and said Zelensky agreed.
“I’m talking with the [EU’s] 27 national leaders to see the best way to organise ourselves and to identify what we need effectively to discuss with Russia when it comes to the right moment to do this,” he told the Financial Times on Thursday.
“We cannot change the geography. We are in Europe, we are neighbours of Russia, and of course we need to talk with them about the future of the security architecture of Europe,” he added.
Is this a real diplomatic opening, to even mention the security architecture of Europe, or another illusion?
Description:
The U.S. is holding off Israeli pressure to restart the shooting war against Iran for now and is turning instead to economic warfare. But how long can that last?
Description:
Former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern and ex-U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter join The World This Week to discuss the latest developments in the Iran war as Donald Trump cancels his realtors’ return to Islamabad.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was already in Islamabad with a written proposal to end the war to present to the United States. The Iranian foreign ministry said the proposal would have been transmitted through Pakistani mediators and not directly to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the New York real estate agents that Donald Trump initially was sending to the Pakistani capital on Saturday.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who led the U.S. side in the failed talks earlier this month, was being held behind in Washington “on standby … if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.
But on Saturday, Trump abruptly canceled Witkoff and Kushner’s departure.
“I’ve told my people a little while ago, they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards,’” Trump said in a statement. “They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”
Having said he would not meet directly with Trump’s envoy, Araghchi had left Pakistan before the cancellation of the U.S. delegations’ flight, according to Western and Iranian outlets. Press TV reported:
“The Iranian delegation left Islamabad before US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, were expected to travel to the Pakistani capital to meet with mediators.
US President Donald Trump, however, later told Fox News that he had canceled the visit.
Tehran had previously said that there was no plan for the Iranian delegation to meet with the American representatives in Islamabad.”
Huge differences remain in the standoff between the two sides in a war that has been on hold since Trump blinked and extended a ceasefire “indefinitely” last Tuesday. Iran wants sanctions lifted and assets unfrozen; an end to the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports; a vow of U.S. non-aggression and the removal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.
The U.S. wants the Strait of Hormuz opened, an end to nuclear enrichment by Iran and a hidden stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium. It seems the U.S. is no longer demanding that Iran give up its ballistic missile defense.
There could be room for a deal on the enrichment issue. At the first round of talks, Iran proposed a five-year, monitored suspension of all nuclear enrichment, even though Iran is permitted to enrich under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The U.S. countered with a proposal for a 20-year suspension.
Before Trump had agreed to extend the ceasefire indefinitely, he threatened to destroy Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. Iran has vowed to retaliate in kind against Gulf Arab states and Israel. A resumption of hostilities promises to bring about extensive regional destruction that would plunge the world into a long-term economic crisis of historic proportions.
Despite saying the U.S. “holds all the cards,” the U.S. and Israel had failed to achieve all of its war aims: overthrowing the Iranian government, destroying its ballistic missiles, seizing a stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium and its capacity to enrich more.
1917 Again in Russia?
McGovern and Ritter will also discuss the battlefield in Ukraine and the domestic situation in Russia after the leader of the main opposition party, Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, told the State Duma: “If you don’t quickly take measures – financial, economic and other measures -then by autumn what await us is what happened in 1917.”
Description:
Shaky truces are in place in Lebanon and Iran as the belligerents plot their next moves. Can an uncertain war become a certain peace? Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter this week on The World This Week.
Just two days after Iran responded to a ceasefire in Lebanon by “completely” opening the Strait of Hormuz – prompting Donald Trump to declare the war all but over and himself luicrously as the victor – Iran's military said today they are reimposing control over the strait until the U.S. ends its blockade of Iranian ports, as ineffective as it may be.
What happens now in this uncertain war? (apologies to Tacitus) Benjamin Netanyahu is unhappy with both ceasefires and the Israeli public is behind him. They want more war.
Trump is acting all tough with the Netanyahu. On social media. He wrote: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!! Thank you! President DJT.”
But what is his word worth when he faces Netanyahu behind closed doors?
It seems unlikely more war will produce a better result for Trump and Netanyahu.
An objective assessment shows that none of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s war aims were met in 40 days of war: the Iranian government was not overthrown, its ballistic missiles are still intact, Tehran maintains relationships with its regional allies, it continues to enrich uranium and still maintains its 6o percent stockpile.
This unnecessary, unprovoked war of aggression may come down to whether the U.S. and Israel can find a way to gracefully accept defeat. Otherwise we may just see a total war of revenge for losing.
Description:
Ray McGovern was a CIA officer for 27 years, he chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefs. McGovern discusses how the US empire is collapsing and pulling down the entire US-led security architecture.
Description:
Ray McGovern was a CIA officer for 27 years, he chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefs. McGovern discusses why Israel may use nuclear weapons, as it lost the war against Iran and has no acceptable off-ramp.
Description:
Iran will retaliate in a deadly way to Trump's reported decision go to war says Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, who join this stream to break down the latest in the unrest that's been spreading across the Islamic Republic, as well as Russia's devastating Oreshnik missile response to Trump's failures in Ukraine plus much more.
Description:
Iran will retaliate in a deadly way to Trump's reported decision go to war says Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, who join this stream to break down the latest in the unrest that's been spreading across the Islamic Republic, as well as Russia's devastating Oreshnik missile response to Trump's failures in Ukraine plus much more.
Description:
Russia's devastating retaliation has triggered Europe in a major way, and NATO's threats won't save it says Scott Ritter, the prolific former UN Weapons inspector and marine corps intelligence officer. Ray McGovern also joined for a critical update on the bleak future of the West amid Ukraine's collapse.
Description:
SCOTT RITTER and RAY MCGOVERN BREAK IT DOWN: Trump keeps bombing boats in the Caribbean and despite denying war preparations, the US is closer to war now more than ever and Putin knows it. Has Russia sent direct support via what was formerly known as Wagner?
Description:
Scott Ritter and a major panel react to bombshell developments in the Middle East: the Israeli military is on the ropes after being forced into accepting a ceasefire in Gaza which puts Benjamin Netanyahu's future as Israeli PM in danger. As Israel's desperation grows, major global wars with Iran and Russia loom that could go nuclear. Watch this stream for the full story.
Description:
Ray McGovern discusses Europe abandonment of reason, diplomacy and peace as the continent struggles with remaining relevant in a multipolar world. How did Germany replace the US as Russia's most despised adversary?
McGovern was a CIA intelligence analyst for 27 years, chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and participated in preparing the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA's involvement in torture.
Description:
The phony scandal of Russiagate was already dead. Now it is decomposed. It was killed off by the Mueller Report finding no conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign; by the CrowdStrike president's testimony that there was no evidence of a hack of DNC servers; and by the revelation that the basis of the story was made-up opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign that was deceptively treated as serious intelligence by senior Obama administration officials and the Democratic-aligned media.
New revelations this month from the director of national intelligence shows that President Barack Obama and his senior intelligence officials intentionally suppressed dissenting intelligence assessments that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. GUESTS: Ray McGovern, former senior C.I.A. analyst and Bill Binney, former NSA technical director.
Description:
Ray McGovern discusses the lasting consequences of the war on Iran. McGovern was a CIA intelligence analyst for 27 years, chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and participated in preparing the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA's involvement in torture.
