Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The Trump Assassination Attempt—Less Than an Inch from Total Chaos

The following is an edited transcript of the July 18, 2024, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Embedded links have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. This is Thursday, July 18, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host today. You can send your questions and comments by email to questions@schillerinstitute.org.

Helga, this has been another highly eventful week, and it’s provoked questions on a number of issues, but I’d like to begin with your assessment of the danger that was magnified by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13. Given the commitment made by Western nations at the NATO summit for permanent war, you issued the following call:

“We call on elder statesmen, religious leaders, former diplomats and elected officials, retired military and other civilian leaders from all nations, to step forward and create a Council of Reason, to explore the potential for a new international security and development architecture, which can take into account the interests of every single country on the planet.”

Now, the question is, how can such a council be organized and what would it do?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: First of all, the almost assassination, or the attempt on Trump, I think, has demonstrated to everybody who wants to see, on what an extremely thin thread world peace hangs. If the bullet which was aimed at Trump would have hit him, it’s anybody’s guess what would have happened inside the United States; the polarization which already exists would have been increased. I don’t know if it would have gone to civil war; many people have said that. Others deny that. In any case, it would have for sure thrown the United States into an incredible political crisis. And strategically, given the fact that there are all signs that Trump would try to end the war in Ukraine, not only when he’s re-elected and inaugurated as President, but immediately after he won the election in November, that option would have been out, and at least from the available candidates so far, would have almost written into stone the possibility of a Third World War.

Furthermore, if—and that’s again debated among experts—if Trump would not have made that accidental gesture of his head, by just moving it a little bit to the side—others say it was the bullet which maybe was deflected by the wind; I don’t care about the details—I think this image of Trump, if he would have not moved his head, he could have been shot in the head and be dead, demonstrates on what an accidental, almost, you know, one-in-a-million chance, this whole thing was hanging. And it demonstrates—and as I said, we should use this—people should imagine that that is how close we are to World War III.

And if you look at that, that the present leadership of the Atlantic West has not in any way tried to find a road to peace, that is why I thought we have to have something different; we have to have a change in the debate. We have to have a discussion where elder statesmen, and the other kinds of categories which you just read—people from all nations should step forward and appeal to the world to go on the road of peace. And in my view—and I said this already two-and-a-half years ago, after this military operation in Ukraine started, because it was clear what the potential was—I said at the time, already—and we have organized for that two-and-a-half years since—that in my view, given all the factors—NATO, the rise of China, the demonization of Russia, the many, many other things going on—that I think the only way you can have peace is to have, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, a new security and development architecture, which, indeed, takes into account the interests of every single country on the planet. Because whenever that principle was applied, as with the Peace of Westphalia, it led to peace. When you neglected that, like not taking into account the interests of everyone, it led to the next war: And the worst example of that is the Versailles Treaty, where both the interest of China was left out, the interest of Germany was left out, and therefore, it was only the prelude to World War II.

Now, given the fact that diplomacy right now is almost a forgotten word—the idea that you have to have negotiations to settle conflicts, in the age of thermonuclear weapons, is nowhere to be found: not in mainstream politics, not in the mainstream media—that is why I thought one should really try to appeal to those people who may be coming from an older generation who still have some memory of what the Second World War was, or who would have served in functions where they had to seriously confront what it means to be at war; to send your children, your grandchildren to the front and have them die. Because one very clearly has the feeling that the present cast of politicians in leading positions seem to have no such memory any more, and that is why I issued this call.

Schlanger: Now, I want to go through some of the questions on the Trump assassination attempt. Let me begin with the fact that there were three separate emails, saying that many Congressmen and commentators are pointing to the Secret Service, blaming it for incompetence and/or complicity, and people asking for your comments on that. A podcaster, Jim Hogue, asks, “How deep do you think this goes? Is it the Deep State?” And basically, the question is, what is your assessment of who is behind the assassination attempt? Was it really a lone assassin?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, there are so many signs about a security failure, that that is almost the understatement of the day: It’s a security disaster; it’s a catastrophe. Things like that should not have happened. You know, we had discussions with many security experts, and I’ve listened to some of the video podcasts made by some of the experts, and it is very clear— And I know it from my own knowledge about these matters, because, you know, I had a security problem for the better part of my life, due to my marriage to Lyndon LaRouche. And it is very clear that, first of all, there is no such— I mean, there are now many stories of attempted cover-up, like there was poor coordination between the Secret Service and the local police. That does not exist.

It is a standard routine, that once you have such a high-security situation, the Secret Service takes over everything. They clearly did not do what is the first thing, namely to check out the perimeter, where the speaker would be appearing, if there were lines of access [lines of sight—ed.] from higher buildings to the place where the speaker was; to secure those is the very, very first task, and that was obviously not done! Then, the story that some of the people who were coming from the local departments were not there—what is this? It was supposed to be checked. I mean, you don’t have an empty spot. And then, this whole story about the police being told by several rally participants that there is a man who looks suspicious. Several minutes passed—there was no alarm! The first thing you do when there is a suspicious person, is you pull the principal from the stage. All of these things were neglected, and probably a lot more things.

These things are so massive, and so incredible. Now, they come up with this story that Iran was supposedly plotting an assassination attempt against Trump. That looks like a very late cover story.

I think the only hope to get to the bottom of this, is that Trump, himself, will make sure that the investigation this time is not leading to a cover-up. You know, the John F. Kennedy assassination was a cover-up, as were all the other assassinations, as well. And one can only hope that Trump learned the lesson, because he, who was very critical of lots of these things, in his first term, for some strange reason, did not open, or have opened, the Russiagate file, which was haunting his first term for years! And he could have ordered that all of these files be published. He didn’t do it. I still don’t understand why he didn’t do it, because that would have revealed who was going after him, and who was trying to get him. In the same way, he did not take the final step to release the John F. Kennedy files, which, again, would have released a lot about the circumstances, the cover-up, the likely cover-up, almost certain cover-up of the Warren Commission, and all of these things.

So, I can only say that the people who vote for Trump to be President, want to make sure his second Presidency, if he gets safely to November—that’s a whole other extremely dangerous period—they should make sure that this time, these questions are answered in a satisfactory way.

Schlanger: There’s one more question on the Trump situation, which is an interesting one. It’s from another U.S. podcaster, who wrote that he’s suspicious that this occurred right after the NATO meeting, which had an unofficial mission of “Trump-proofing NATO.” And he writes: “Given what you’ve reported on Gladio and NATO, could NATO have been involved in the assassination attempt?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, that question has been asked by many security experts, because the Gladio operation, for sure, used very unholy networks, left from the Second World War. They worked with the Gehlen operation in Germany, they used former Nazi networks, they used all kinds of things. That is an established fact that has been written up in many, very thoroughly researched books.

Now, on later assassinations, we published, if you want to know more about that, we published several years ago already, a special report on the International Assassination Bureau, where we investigated the unclarified assassinations in the United States: John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X; then the African leaders, Italy’s Enrico Mattei, Aldo Moro; the 20 attempts on the life of Charles de Gaulle. In Germany, there were many outstanding leaders of science and industry: Siegfried Buback, Jürgen Ponto, Detlev Rohwedder, Alfred Herrhausen; all of these always were very, very targeted.

These were people who had a national significance. And I only want to mention the case of Alfred Herrhausen: He was the chairman of Deutsche Bank, and he was assassinated on Nov. 30, 1989, just weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And this was a complete shift, because he was somebody who was still in the tradition of industrial banking. He had made very important proposals for the development of Poland, and other Comecon countries, which were very much in line with what Lyndon LaRouche at that time proposed. Herrhausen was for debt relief for the developing countries. So when he was shot, that meant a shift in policy, a signal.

Fletcher Prouty, who was a Pentagon official, who appeared in the JFK film of Oliver Stone as Mr. X, he gave us an interview at that time. And he said the assassination of Herrhausen is as significant for Germany, in terms of the paradigm shift, as was the assassination of John F. Kennedy for the United States, leading to a complete paradigm shift, eliminating the unlimited optimism of John F. Kennedy, by telling people, “We can shoot your President, we can even make the cover-up, and you can’t do anything about it.” And it’s these kinds of things, which tend to induce serious paradigm-shifts in the history of a nation.

So, in all of these things, there was always the question raised, are these so-called terrorists, like the “RAF” (Red Army Faction), Baader-Meinhof group, especially the third-generation Baader-Meinhof group— There are many authors who have said, they’re a phantom, they never existed. And the suspicion that this was done with the help of secret services, maybe even using NATO structures in terms of hideouts and so forth, all of these things did happen. And I can only advise you to download, or order the special report where we wrote about all of that. At least, while we obviously cannot provide the definitive answers, because that would require opening the files, having Congressional and other parliamentarian investigations, we for sure have asked the right questions.

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. She’s also presiding over the emergence of an International Peace Coalition, and it’s meeting on Friday, July 19, so people should sign up with the Schiller Institute, to find out about joining the meeting.

Now, let’s just shift a little bit to the crisis around President Biden. This is an email from someone who signed “frustrated former Democrat.” She writes, “I think Biden’s removal or retirement is inevitable, but I see no alternative, other than Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who’s good except when it comes to Israel. Is there a chance, do you think, he could be convinced to drop his embrace of radical settler Zionism?”

Zepp-LaRouche: If I knew why Robert Kennedy, Jr. is promoting that, I would know the answer more certain. It may have to do with funding; it may have to do with— People think they need certain donors. In any case, I think Kennedy has made some very important points; I think he means seriously, especially when he talks about the peace speech of his uncle, I think he has a vision going in this direction. But, I think we are in such a crisis, I don’t think even a President of the United States will be able to remedy the full dimension of this crisis.

I think what we need is sort of a second American Revolution. What I mean by that is not some violent thing: I’m an absolute advocate of nonviolence. But what I mean by that is, the Founding Fathers were all—and I’m sure that there were many Founding Mothers, among them, as well, playing leading roles—I think they were all extremely educated, passionate, well-prepared for the job of creating a new republic. And I think that is the biggest problem we have today, that people have become so small—or, many people have become so small—they let themselves become distracted.

I mean, Germany just hosted the European championship for soccer, and for four weeks, you could see the stadiums full of adults, yelling and screaming, and going into fits and states over how the game would go, or their favorite or not-so-favorite crew would do. If people would develop the same kind of emotion over those issues which really decide over the fate of humanity, or even the fate of the nation, or whether we are getting out of the danger of World War III or not, we’d have no problem. But people allow themselves to be distracted, by ever-more banal entertainment, by vacation fantasies, by all kinds of distractions, allowing the cultural level to go down, and down, and down. And therefore, when it comes to politics, they basically leave it to those people who are the present establishments, and they are obviously very much in the pocket of big money, of Wall Street, of the City of London, and other such institutions.

So therefore, I think the answer to your question is, maybe Kennedy does have that potential, but for sure, not without an educated citizenry, because you need statesmen and stateswomen, state citizens, who could judge what is the job of the President and how could they do it better, or be a secretary of this ministry or that ministry, or that department. And then you could have a functioning republic. And I think that step has to be taken in any case.

Schlanger: Now, speaking of elections, there was a supposed election today in the European Parliament: Ursula von der Leyen was re-elected as President of the European Commission. And her basic campaign was anti-Russia, anti-China, and now especially, anti-Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary and rotating President of the Council of the EU. So the question that came in earlier today is: “What is so threatening about Viktor Orbán, about what he’s doing, that the European Union bureaucracy is moving to punish him and his country, Hungary?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think Prime Minister Orbán did something which any reasonable head of state would do, in a position of government. He recognized how close we are to an escalation on the Ukraine crisis, after all of these decisions have been taken—F-16s will be stationed in Ukraine this month; they may be there already, for that matter. The permission by the Western heads of state and government to allow the Ukrainians to use all weapons they receive, deep into the territory of Russia! This is an escalation which can bring us to World War III in no time! So, Orbán, whose country, Hungary, is naturally on the border with Ukraine—and there’s a large Hungarian minority in Ukraine—he is very concerned about all of this. So he does the only reasonable thing: On July 1, he became President of the Council of the EU; on July 2, he was in Kyiv talking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On July 5, he was in Moscow, talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin; another few days later, on July 8, he was in Beijing, talking to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and then he immediately flew to Washington to participate in the NATO summit, and from there, on July 11, he went to Mar-a-Lago, in Florida to talk to Trump.

OK, he didn’t have a so-called mandate from the EU. But that was not the crime. The crime was, he was promoting and pursuing a peace option! He talked to the Chinese, and he said, the Chinese have made a 12-point peace proposal, already more than a year ago. In the meantime, they discussed that with President Luiz Lula da Silva in Brazil, and this Brazilian-Chinese peace option has been revived and is on the table, in various diplomatic interventions as well.

And that is what is not allowed.

Because, if you look at the policy of the EU, and NATO, naturally, for that matter, or the United States, or the British, they have at no point, for two-and-a-half years, pursued an option of settling the Ukraine crisis with peace, instead of war! And when, between Zelensky and Putin, with the mediation of Erdoğan from Türkiye and some other people, in March 2022, there was already a written agreement between Putin and Zelensky to have a compromise which could have ended the war then, in March of 2022—that’s almost two-and-a-half years ago—a few weeks after it broke out.

What happened? Boris Johnson, who was at that time the Prime Minister of Great Britain, flew into Kyiv, and in April confronted Zelensky and said, “Don’t sign any of this. Keep fighting, we will back you up all the way.” And they convinced Zelensky to do exactly that, and that is why an enormous number of Ukrainians have been killed and the country is completely destroyed. Naturally, a large number of Russians have been killed, as well, but many, many more Ukrainians. So, Ukraine has been the victim of this geopolitical confrontation by the West, by NATO against Russia. And peace from the side of the West was at no point an option.

There are many statements: Annalena Baerbock, this unspeakable German Foreign Minister, she said, “We have to ruin Russia.” That was the line coming from the White House even before February 2022. There’s a famous statement from two White House “senior administration officials” who said that the whole point was to prevent Russia from ever having access to advanced technologies, to reduce it to a raw materials exporting country—and naturally, that didn’t function so well. Russia now has hypersonic missiles and weapons which are superior to those of NATO.

But the idea was to ruin Russia, to crush Russia, and at no point did any of these leaders from the West pursue the possibility, the option of a negotiated settlement.

Now comes Orbán and shows through his actions that that is possible. Naturally, they freak out, because now what is exposed, in the most glaring way, is that they’re against peace! And I think that that is noticed by the whole world—by the Global South, by the vast majority of the people in the world. And I can only say, that it’s terrible that von der Leyen got re-elected, because she’s on a complete war path. She denounced Orbán, saying that the only thing he did was to pursue “appeasement.”

That’s not true! Orbán is pursuing the option to prevent World War III, by a diplomatic solution!

So, I think this forebodes very badly for the EU, and I can only say, there are many people who support Orbán: The Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said, if his health would have permitted— Remember, he had been the victim of an assassination attempt on May 15, about which he said it was a photocopy of what happened to Trump. He was on the infamous lists of the Ukrainian government’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), and Molfar, and Myrotvorets, and whatnot, all of which are financed by the West. And Fico said, if his health had permitted, he would have accompanied Orbán on his trips. Orbán also got support from President Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia; from Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, and many other leaders, and people in the world.

But what we are seeing right now is an absolute war path, and there are some factions in Europe right now that are absolutely mad, because they’re not thinking. They don’t think that Europe would be the first victim, if it comes to this war, which will be a global war; I don’t think it will be only Europe, but that Europe will be destroyed! So these people are not clear in their mind any more.

That’s a mild way of putting it.

Schlanger: And von der Leyen’s main base of support, what she had to do to win, was appeal to the two parties in the European Union that had the biggest defeat in the Parliamentary elections, the Liberals and the Greens. So it doesn’t look like it’s a particularly stable coalition.

Helga, we have two more questions that take up some of the matters involving China. A graduate student from Brown University sent in an email asking, “Why is Xi Jinping not more aggressively pushing China’s peace proposal for ending the Ukraine war? Is China backing away due to threats of sanctions and trade war?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I don’t know if that characterization is what I would support. I think China is doing a lot. The problem is that China, in order to be an honest broker, is trying very hard to not take any side. And if you want to win over those people who are right now on this absolute, insane, path to World War III, I think China is trying to somehow have a balanced view, and the fact that they’re supporting—and they have stated that clearly—that they fully support the Orbán initiative— I don’t know if they could do more. I don’t think it’s the question that they’re facing economic difficulties. As a matter of fact, I think that certain problems they have in the real estate sector, they’re really not that systemic. I think China has done an enormous job in maintaining a steady growth rate, by continuously investing in innovation; of making a continuous innovation the basis of the economy.

I think the fact that now the Global South can act the way they do, in trying to build a new economic system with the BRICS, the BRICS-Plus; we will have the BRICS annual summit on October 22-24 in Russia, where I’m pretty sure that they have slowed down the pace of accepting new members a little bit, and I think that’s not a bad thing. Because, I think, if you try to unite different economic systems in countries that all have a different level of development— Some are more rural, some are more industrialized; other ones have lots of raw materials, others none; again other ones are small, others are big; many have large populations, others not. So you have very different economic parameters in trying to develop a new system, and if you’re doing it too fast, and too pushy, you get a bad result—like the euro.

The euro tried to put different countries with different economic parameters into one politically forced through currency, but it’s not a happy outcome. If you talk to the people in Greece, for example, they still are absolutely suffering from the brutal debt conditionalities which were imposed on them.

So, I think it’s more a realistic process of trying to do it right, rather than economic difficulties. And I’m pretty sure that they will announce in Kazan, Russia, in October, some new members, and the effort to have their own currencies; to have trade among themselves in the national currency, all of that is proceeding. And I would not answer what your question implied, that they are doing that for unreasonable reasons.

Schlanger: Well, we’ve run out of questions, Helga. Tomorrow, Friday, July 19, you’ll be presiding over another International Peace Coalition meeting. Do you want to say something about that briefly?

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. The topic for sure will be this new call I issued for elder statesmen and other officials, former military, former medical people, former scientists, to step forward and represent a Council of Reason. I think this is very important, because still you have a situation where you have many, many peace organizations, all over the world. Many of them have no knowledge about each other, or have no contact with each other, or are just isolated. And I think that you need it, somehow, and I would really hope that some extraordinary people would come together, and just the fact that such a process is occurring, will hopefully convince— Because my assessment is that you have, in many countries in the West right now, you have these bellicose war factions. Some of them are hopeless: They will just go to the bitter end of World War III, no matter what happens to the human species.

But that is not everything. You also have people who say, “Yeah, maybe. I don’t totally agree with this, but, you know, I have to toe the line, because if I now oppose it, I will lose my seat in the parliament; I will not be put up for election any more. So I go along to get along.” And that attitude, of being opportunist, and going along to get along, this is the most despicable of all. My late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, always blasted such a mindset, because it’s what the Bible calls the “lukewarm ones”: those who are not totally bad, but they also don’t have the courage to be good.

And then you have a lot of people who are completely ignorant, and just don’t have any inkling how close we are to World War III.

So, I hope with such an idea of a Council of Reason, where hopefully people from all over the world will step forward, and say: We are the intellectually most advanced species on the planet, and probably in the Universe, because we have not met anybody else from another star, who would step in and help us out. So, we are the species gifted with Reason, and if we do not show the capability to prevent our own self-extinction, then, we are just not morally fit to survive!

So, since this is a very serious matter, I would really hope that this is successful. And I appeal to all of you, to help us find such individuals. If you are one yourself, contact us; step forward. If you are somebody who has an idea of who could be in such a Council of Reason, tell us about it, and let’s work to find and contact these people.

So that whole thing will for sure be a topic of discussion. Tomorrow, naturally, there will be discussion about the implication of the assassination attempt against Trump. Where we stand strategically: The fact that now, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, (I have to watch my language), that he accepted the United States’ decision to station long-range missiles in Germany, which have ranges much longer than even the Taurus—these weapons can reach far beyond Moscow—and Scholz just said, “The United States made that decision,” and he agrees with it.

Where is sovereignty? Where is the self-interest of the German people?

And when a similar thing existed in the 1980s with the middle-range missiles, the NATO Pershing 2 and the Soviet SS-20, there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Everybody knew we were just minutes away from World War III! So that will be a topic of discussion.

And, naturally, the escalating situation in Southwest Asia; the horrible ongoing catastrophe and genocide in Gaza: That will be, for sure, discussed, and the need to push the Oasis Plan all the more, and the need to have a new security and development architecture for the whole world.

So that is very interesting, and if you want to know what the top experts in the world are saying, some of them, you should join us in the International Peace Coalition meeting.

Schlanger: And that’s an opportunity to participate in building this whole new architecture that’s essential.