Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Trump Assassination Attempt,
Biden Withdrawal— What’s Next?

The following is an edited transcript of the July 24, 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 Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute. This is Wednesday, July 24, 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 or the YouTube chat page.

Helga, it’s been another week of head-spinning events, following the assassination attempt against Donald Trump: We had the withdrawal from the presidential race by President Joe Biden, his replacement by Vice President Kamala Harris, and a number of events spinning off from there. I’d like to begin by getting your sense of where things stand in the world today.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Let’s start with the message coming in that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is meeting in Guangzhou with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on a three-day visit to China, and apparently he indicated that Ukraine is ready to have negotiations for a settlement of the war in Ukraine with Russia. And at the same time, the chief diplomat of the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is the emissary of Pope Francis, is in Kyiv. And from there, I think he also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who indicated also a willingness to end the war as soon as possible, to save as many lives as possible.

Now, if these two messages, from the President and the Foreign Minister actually hold, this could be the long-hoped-for end of this war. As I said, still many steps have to be taken, but it’s extremely promising, it’s extremely hopeful, and the fact that this is happening with the mediation of China, very obviously— And I would not neglect the diplomatic mission of Prime Minister Orbán of Hungary, who on the second day of his Presidency of the EU Council, went to Kyiv and met with Zelensky; then he went to Moscow and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin; then he went to Beijing, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping; from there to the NATO summit, and from there to Mar-a-Lago. And naturally, this had a big input in this effort to get the negotiations to end the war.

I just want to say, this is very good news, and it just proves that those people who went absolutely crazy in the European Union, like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was trying to punish Prime Minister Orbán, they have been proven to be utterly wrong. And I think the role of China as a mediator cannot be underestimated, given the fact that not only did China on March 10, 2023, mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but more recently, [China mediated] between Hamas, Fatah, and 12 other Palestinian organizations, to unify—to build an interim, unified organization, a very important stepping stone, hopefully leading to an end to the Gaza war as well, and eventually even a Palestinian state.

So, I think the role of China in all of these cases is extremely noticeable, positive, and that shows, again, how absolutely wrong the NATO declaration of the July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington was, which described China as a “challenge to the Euro-Atlantic security order.” And they should really review their thinking, because obviously China is doing something important, positive, in several parts of the world, and NATO is on the wrong track. But given the fact that these people are sitting on the highest horse possible, I think it does require some more messages, before they get it.

Schlanger: Well, this changes a lot, because I hadn’t heard about the Kuleba meeting. The China role is obviously crucial. Let’s just probe this a little bit, because the EU has been toying with this idea of Global NATO, actually moving toward it, having to contain China, doing something to cut out Chinese goods shipments to Europe. This absolutely is a total game-changer then, for the NATO and European Union team, isn’t it?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, it just makes me very hopeful, because I have been—and, naturally, all of us from the Schiller Institute—we have been campaigning that in the age of thermonuclear weapons, you cannot have war as a settlement of conflict, but diplomatic negotiations are the only way to go. And I think that this recent development really shows that, hopefully, there are enough people of reason, to avoid a thermonuclear war before it is too late. So, I think this is really something. Obviously, we have to follow it, and see how it proceeds, but I think this is a very hopeful sign for all of humanity.

Schlanger: Now, at the same time, we see that China had a summit with Palestinian leaders, from Hamas, from Fatah, and 12 other groups, and they were talking about setting up a national unity of Palestinians—once there’s a ceasefire with Israel—to actually move toward establishing a Palestinian state. One of the questions that came in, they are asking: “Is China willing to participate in the kind of economic projects that Lyndon LaRouche proposed, like the Oasis Plan? Would there be a role for China in that, and would that be part of what’s going on behind the scenes with this Palestinian unity movement?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, the Oasis Plan has not been mentioned in any of the statements coming out of this negotiation in Beijing. But, I think the intention of China to extend the Belt and Road Initiative to the entire region of Southwest Asia has been indicated by Xi Jinping since his very important visits to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which already occurred in January 2016. And this is now almost nine years later, and in the meantime, different developments occurred: Some of the countries have joined the Belt and Road Initiative. The United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, have joined the BRICS; Saudi Arabia is still a little bit unclear. But I think if there is a motion towards peace, then China, for sure, will have a very important role in the region.

On the other side, we are continuously organizing for the implementation of the Oasis Plan. I’m not at liberty to tell you all the steps, because this is an organizing process, in which you have to organize a lot before something like that happens. But I can assure you that there is a continued, very vivid interest from some of the countries in the region to actually go in this direction. So, with all caution, I’m moderately optimistic that there is a way out, and it should give people the hope that if you mobilize and you activate yourself, a positive outcome is possible. And that goes diametrically against this cultural pessimism which is very widespread among many people, who say, “Oh, you know, the world has gone so crazy, you can’t do anything anyhow.” No! You can do something, and I think that is the most important message everybody should take home.

Schlanger: Here’s a question that just came in: “Do you think anyone in the Democratic Party is quick enough to pick up on this and break with the war policy, since that’s been the commitment of Biden and, presumably, of Harris?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I don’t know. I think that, talking about the Democratic Party, probably the closest—even though he’s formally not a Democrat any more at this moment—is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has even proposed that he should attend the Democratic Party nomination convention, and that the Democratic Party should nominate him. Now, I don’t think that the present Democratic National Committee, and also the big donors of the Democratic Party—which are the billionaires—would want to do that. There are reports that Kamala Harris, supposedly, has already enough delegates to win the nomination. That remains to be seen: There are still several weeks until the convention and a lot of things are happening, obviously, in the context of the U.S. election. I can only hope that there would be some more Democrats who would remind themselves of the tradition of John F. Kennedy and his famous peace speech; that this is what should guide the American population out of the current crisis. I don’t know if that will happen. I’m not so optimistic about that.

Schlanger: Well, it’s also the case that the U.S. has been locked into support of Israel. Today, we have a question that came in from Barry, from Cleveland, who writes: “I’m disgusted that the Congress has invited the genocidal war criminal to address them,” referring to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And he says, “I hear he may also have private meetings with Biden, Harris and Trump.” And he asks, “Is there no one who will stand up against the Zionist Lobby and its billionaire donors and demand that Israel stop killing, and instead, accept a Palestinian state?”

Of course, Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, pooh-poohed the China intervention and said that there’s no way the Palestinians will ever be able to be united. Helga, what do think about Netanyahu addressing the Congress?

Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s amazing, because the International Criminal Court, the court which has the legal reach to implement its decisions, did call Netanyahu a war criminal. And it is quite amazing that Netanyahu would be invited to address the Congress. There is also the statement coming from two dozen prominent Israelis, including very high-level former officials of the different Israeli institutions—from the Shin Bet, the IDF, the Mossad—some two dozen of them, who speak out against Netanyahu addressing the U.S. Congress, because they say that what Netanyahu is doing is actually the biggest threat to the security of Israel. So, it is out of Israel, very important voices who are protesting this. Maybe Netanyahu should just follow Biden’s example: resign and make room for a solution which would be in the interests of all sides.

Schlanger: You’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She just broke some extremely important news about a potential breakthrough in the Russia-Ukraine or Russia-NATO situation. Helga, in that context, we have a question here, about China and Europe: “Is there still hope for the Belt and Road in Europe, after Italy has dropped out? And what must we do to encourage its development?”

Zepp-LaRouche: I think so— Absolutely, yes. Because if you look at Europe right now, it’s in a state of complete chaos. There is no European Union unity, and von der Leyen and the EU Commission moved against Prime Minister Orbán very hard, trying to take the EU Council Presidency away from him— I mean, that’s a rules-based order that’s pretty unruly, I would say. But in any case, they shifted now some of the meetings which were supposed to take place in Budapest, to Brussels, and what happens? Several EU members don’t agree and don’t come. So, not only is the policy of trying to enforce a unity not functioning, its backfiring. But in any case, the same goes for the Belt and Road Initiative. Because the effort by mainly the U.S., Great Britain, and some figures in the EU Commission, such as von der Leyen, to try to follow the line of decoupling from China, “de-risking” from China, is not well received—for sure not by Hungary, not by Slovakia, not by Georgia for that matter, not by Bulgaria.

And in Italy, there is a lot of opposition in which people want to reverse what Prime Minister Meloni did. Look at France: At this point, France is in a complete state of chaos. There is news today that they may have found a government coming out of the collective Left, that has not yet been formed, so that is a very iffy question. Any government which will be formed in France will be extremely unstable, given the composition of the votes; division between Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, President Emmanuel Macron’s forces, and the Left. And then, the Olympics will start, on July 26, continuing through August 11. But our colleagues in France are reporting that Paris is in complete chaos; traffic jams completely block the city; there are bomb threats already. Several people have warned that terrorism is a big problem for the next weeks of the Olympic Games.

If you look at the German situation— Well, you have now election campaigns in three East German states. Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to one, and he was booed by the population; Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was massively heckled. And the reason is that the German government, and Scholz in particular, made unilaterally the decision to accept the order from the United States to station long-range American missiles on German soil, and that does not find the agreement of the population! And I think we are still at the beginning of a protest wave, which I expect to become very, very massive.

So, if you look at Europe, it’s a picture of complete disunity, and I think the only unifying element would be to say, okay, why is Europe not joining with the Global Majority and helping to industrialize the Global South, helping to eliminate the terrible refugee crisis by helping these countries to develop their own economies, so that the people can stay home and help to build up their own countries? I think that debate in Europe, it’s beginning, it’s urgent. And I think, again, it will become bigger, because the fact is that you have one part of the world, namely the Global Majority, which is moving very fast to build a new system, while the so-called collective West is just putting their bets on military settlements in Ukraine, in Gaza. I think the tide will change: I think we are in for very turbulent times. The undefined situation in the United States, naturally, remains one of the big clouds hanging over the whole strategic situation, but I think that if things would follow their natural course, where countries would follow their self-interest, the Belt and Road Initiative will be a very important factor in the future of Europe as well.

Schlanger: As you were mentioning the French situation, I got an email from someone who heard that French President Macron has rejected the choice of the unified Left as a prime minister, Lucie Castets, but said he’s in no rush. And the person who sent this in says, “Isn’t it possible that Macron may do a pivot and try to put himself together with China again, given that he seems to have no principles except his own ego?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I don’t know. I know of a person who knows Macron personally, who is not totally against Macron, but he characterized him as a “chameleon”—that Macron has the ability to take on the colors of his environment and can do the opposite in the next moment.

So, I think we’re reaching in Europe, very soon, the point of no return, in terms of our economies. France will have a very rocky Autumn, because the EU has already put the screws on it, in terms of its deficit spending, and they will demand massive budget cuts. And that will be very much— If there is a Left government in France, they will for sure be confronted with the impossible task to implement what the EU is demanding. And Macron and others in Europe want to go for the militarization of the EU, which is naturally reaching the budget limits, which Boris Pistorius is experiencing in Germany.

These are all signs of a system which is really not functioning. I think it will get worse until either these governments are replaced by more reasonable ones, or, that some forces of reform step forward. I don’t think it looks like this right now, but I don’t exclude it.

Schlanger: It seems as though a number of people out there share the concern with what’s going on in the United States. I have a couple of questions for you on that. Someone wrote in and says: “As a former Democrat, it looks to me that the Biden withdrawal was preplanned, a kind of soft coup to get him out, to make sure that a New Age woke Democrat wins. The donor class was behind this. What do they want?” And someone else asks, “Cui bono? Who is behind the drive to get Biden out?”

And then we also have the question: “Do you have any idea who has the nuclear codes for launching an attack, given that it’s probably not Biden?” These are some questions for you from the United States.

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, that is a very worrisome discussion. We raised that already, immediately when the discussion around Biden’s condition took the headlines: That if it’s not Biden, who is running the United States? Then, somebody from the Biden team said, “Don’t worry, Biden has a very excellent team.” That is not exactly reassuring, because nobody knows who that “team” is exactly. Some of them are naturally known, but if somebody who does not have the constitutional power to have these codes, indeed does have access to them, then, world peace is in jeopardy.

So, I don’t know. We were looking at this Biden problem— You know, the big donors of both parties, of the DNC and the Republican leadership, they seem to have a very, very large role in deciding how things go. And in a certain sense, as long as you have a situation where a Congressman—I don’t know what the cost is these days—needs $5 million minimum to run a congressional campaign, normally coming from Wall Street, for a Senator it’s already significantly more, and for a presidential campaign, we are talking at this point, reaching somewhere in the billions—I don’t have the exact figures—but it’s an awful amount of money. And the people who are the so-called big donors, they are very much the same as what people call the “Deep State,” or the MICIMATT, as Ray McGovern calls it. And in any case, until we have a return to the principles of the American Revolution, the American Constitution, the idea of America as a republic, with a foreign policy like that of John Quincy Adams—that it’s not the purpose to go out and chase foreign monsters; that there should be a foreign policy based on a partnership of sovereign republics—until we reach that point, we’ll be confronted by situations where there are strong forces in the United States—and elsewhere, naturally—but in the United States very much, who want to maintain this idea of a dominant role in the world. Global NATO is an expression of that, as was sort of cemented at the recent NATO summit in Washington—and that just doesn’t work! Because the world is not a unipolar world anymore!

It’s already multipolar. I never liked that word, “multipolar,” because it still implies the presence of geopolitics, and I regard geopolitics as the real evil mindset which led to two world wars in the 20th Century, and it does have the idea that you have blocs against other blocs, and nations against other nations. And recently one of the best diplomats in the United States, Chas Freeman, made a speech public which he gave to the Chinese Attendees at the Cambridge Executive Leadership Program, where he said he has a better idea for describing it: not “multipolar,” but “multinodal,” meaning these different, what people call poles, are in reality nodal points, where many sophisticated and multiple relations meet, and each country that is the center of such a nodal point, has a variety of quite differentiated relations to other countries. So, each major country brings in a whole network of such connections, and therefore, it’s much more complex. And I think it makes a lot of sense to look at it that way.

In any case, I think that the biggest question of war and peace will be, can the United States find the pathway to its best historic tradition as a republic, or not? If the United States tries, by hook or by crook, to maintain a dominant position as the world hegemon, I think a clash will be inevitable and leading, in the worst case, to a thermonuclear war. So, I think a lot depends on whether there are Americans who are mindful and, hopefully, will step forward to speak out before it’s too late.

Schlanger: We just got a message that essentially anticipated your saying something like that. The person says, “The donors and the MICIMATT, they’ve all been betting that we’re going to continue with permanent warfare and defend the unipolar order. What happens if the decision is made to stop these wars? Could there be a Franklin Roosevelt, or the kind of leader who would say, ‘Let’s beat the swords into plowshares’? Could you see something like that emerging in the United States?”

Zepp-LaRouche: It’s not readily visible. I’m not an American, and therefore, I don’t want to meddle in American affairs in the middle of an election campaign. I can only say as an observer, and I have lived many years in the United States, I think maybe Kennedy has a potential to become that. I think he has good impulses. I think one could only hope that he could make that step, because he’s definitely trying to orient towards his uncle and his father. I think there are aspects of his policies which clearly need a change, and I don’t want to go into that at this point. I have not seen anybody else inside the Democratic Party. I think Trump has promised he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. I think he has an input into Prime Minister Orbán, and I think he would probably end that war quickly. Other aspects of his policies are obviously not in line with that, and again, I’m restraining myself from commenting here.

I think the problem is, one has to see what Trump actually does. Is he going to be somebody who relies on people who would go in the direction of what I said before: the American Revolution, the tradition of Lincoln, of Roosevelt, of Kennedy? There are always people in his environment who are neocons, who are China-bashers, and there are also big donors, big multibillionaires, who have mooted that they would be on his team. So, given the fact that this campaign is now getting into high gear, I can only wish that this question is going to be clarified before we get to the election. Because I personally think that the next six months—the three months leading up to the election, and the remaining time until the new President is sworn in—because of all the instabilities, are extremely dangerous. And I have said that despite these hopeful signs coming from China in respect to Ukraine, I think these six months will be the most dangerous in the history of all of humanity, simply because, never before was the danger—that if it goes wrong, it could evolve into a nuclear war—never has there existed a period like this ever.

So therefore, the stakes are higher than ever before. And given the fact that the Western establishment, at least, if you look at certain dyed-in-the-wool Atlanticists, on both sides of the Atlantic, they have not even mentioned the word diplomacy; they have not mentioned the idea that you could start to negotiate with Russia, with China. Von der Leyen, in her recent speech in the European Parliament, said again that Russia must be inflicted with a strategic defeat.

Now, I don’t understand that! How can she say a thing like that? Because this woman was Defense Minister of Germany before. Now, if you are a defense minister, the minimum you should have done is to study the strategy of your supposed opponent, in that case, Russia. Russia has a nuclear doctrine which says that Russia will only use nuclear weapons if the territorial identity and integrity of Russia is threatened; then they will use nuclear weapons. More recently, because of all of these escalations, they have mooted that they may change that nuclear doctrine—but they have not yet.

So therefore, if you say that you want to inflict strategic defeat on a superpower, which presently is the strongest nuclear power in the world, simply because they have a slight technological edge over NATO, over the United States, and they have said if their integrity is threatened, they will use nuclear weapons, you are talking about nuclear war! I don’t understand why von der Leyen doesn’t seem to consider that! Maybe while she was Defense Minister, she did something else other than studying strategy; I don’t know. In any case, this is extremely worrisome. And there is a whole group of countries and people, who seem to be dead-set to go ahead and cause that strategic defeat of Russia. I think that is a course which we have to get off, urgently, because this is the biggest Damocles’ sword hanging over the existence of humanity I can think of!

Schlanger: Helga, this has been fascinating today, because the changes that we’ve been seeing, that have been moving quickly— There are more changes that you caught me off-guard with in your opening. I just want to say there are a couple of people on the YouTube chat who say that the person who possibly could do that, would be Diane Sare; maybe Diane Sare should run for President. In any case, why don’t you wrap up the discussion here: What should people get coming out of the discussion, as for what they should do?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think the idea of Diane Sare running for President may not be the worst idea. Obviously, we would need an outpouring of support to really make it work, but she, for sure, is qualified, because she is a long-term pupil of my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, and she has proven in her campaigns so far, the quality of a stateswoman which is required. So, whoever asked that question, then get into her campaign staff and help her make it work.

I think we are still in mortal danger. This very horrible decision by Scholz, to declare that he will implement the decision of the United States to put long-range missiles into Germany, is just a—cannot be accepted! This is a revival of the middle-range missile crisis of the 1980s, but in a much, much more dangerous environment, where all the communications channels which existed then, no longer exist! All the disarmament agreements have been dismantled. So, we are sitting there, on the edge of an escalation.

Now, hopefully, these present developments around Ukraine help to defuse that, but these long-range missiles should not be installed! I think Scholz has no right to do that. The United States has no right to treat Germany as a colony. And, I think, hopefully, this can be stopped before it leads to an escalation which nobody can stop.

Let me just say this: I have issued a call for something I call a “Council of Reason.” This is the idea that we need, urgently, some people, mostly of an older generation, who have been in government in different countries, who have been in high positions, in the military, in civil service, in art, culture, science, who have some important contributions to resolve this present world crisis. And I am calling for people to help us find these people, all over the world, and create something which I have preliminarily called the Council of Reason; of people who should bring their expertise into the situation, by counseling governments, by bringing forward their views and their reference points. I’ve said, that over the course of history, there were many such bodies for different topics, different times, different issues, like the Council of Florence, which managed to get the unity of the Christian Church, at least for a short time; very importantly, you had the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, where representatives of all the war parties were discussing for four years to come to peace— This was the beginning of international law. Then you had the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which helped to resolve the wounds of the Apartheid period, and these are reference points where people can step forward and help.

Now, one important qualification would be that, for example, people of the older generation who still remember, either from direct experience, or from the stories they heard from their parents and grandparents, what the horrors of two world wars were in Europe, and why we absolutely must avoid anything which could lead to a third, and probably final world war. So, I’m asking you, the viewers of this program, help us to seek out such individuals, make suggestions; if you know them, help us to contact them, because I think the international discussion would greatly profit from having well-meaning, wise people from all countries of the world to step forward. I think we have a crisis like we’ve never had before, and I think we really have to look out for any moral and intellectual resource humanity has produced so far. That would be my request for all of you.

Schlanger: And people can find information on the Council of Reason in the report on last Friday’s International Peace Coalition meeting, posted to the Schiller Institute website. There will be another International Peace Coalition meeting this Friday, July 26, as we have been doing every Friday. Get in touch with your friends and the Schiller Institute to be a part of that. Write to questions@schillerinstitute.org to participate.

Helga, thanks for joining us. As I said, this has been a most interesting discussion, and I’ll see you on Friday.

Zepp-LaRouche: And there is also a new “Call To Create a Council of Reason” posted on the Schiller Institute site: Please look at that.