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Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors, especially in names. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment in the audio.

0:00Welcome to Science Behind the Glass, where we explore how global decisions ripple through human lives and ecosystems. The current political climate is affecting every nation’s decisions. And here at Science Behind the Glass, we believe that sharing knowledge, not panic, encouraging critical thinking about how the dismantling of the legal frameworks impacts not just diplomacy, but the ecosystem’s biodiversity and the future of Earth.

0:29To help us unpack this, we honored to welcome Professor Gary Mayers, a legal scholar, constitutional expert, and the fierce defender of international law. Gary, thank you very much for accepting this invitation. It’s a pleasure having you here again. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, thanks. We want to know more about the current political climate that is affecting everyone’s nation’s decisions.

0:54And in Science Behind the Glass, we leave that sharing knowledge, no panic, encouraging critical thinking about how dismantling of legal frameworks impact not only just diplomacy, but ecosystems, biodiversity, and the future of Earth, basically. So with everything that is happening recently, but I think that it comes from quite way back.

1:21All that’s happening with the U.S., with Israel, we want to know recent events like, for example, the invasion of U.S. to Venezuela. And everyone is speaking about the U.N. charter and the violation of international law. Yes. Can you please explain to us in simple, plain words, what is the UN Charter, what does it mean, and why it’s so important and so symbolic now? It became just so symbolic.

1:54Sure. Well, the UN Charter is the fundamental document that underlies everything that the United Nations does. And it sets the tone for what is… permissible and not permissible within the international community. It is a treaty, okay? And when you enter into a treaty with other countries, you do a couple of things. Most importantly, you agree to be bound by that treaty itself, okay?

2:29So the provisions in the charter, for example, on the use of force, that in fact prohibit the use of force, okay, you agree to be bound by that as a nation state. So, for example, I don’t know whether to call it invasion, but anyhow, the attack on Venezuela, for example, is two things. One, it’s a violation of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force or the threat of the use of force. And I’ll come back to that one. in international relations, the use of force that threatens the political or territorial integrity of another country. But it’s not as if, unfortunately, effectively, in many respects, unenforceable.

3:18I suppose Venezuela could go to the International Court of Justice and say, look, the U.S. violated Article 2 of the U.N. Charter by attacking us, Venezuela, by bombing our ships and by bombing our ports and by kidnapping our president. So it’s possible that… That aspect of the charter could be enforced in the International Court of Justice. More interestingly, the crime of aggression has now been recognized as a crime that triggers the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In this particular instance, in the Venezuelan case, for example, Venezuela is a member of the International Criminal Court.

4:18The U.S. is not a member, but both parties don’t need to be members to have the International Criminal Court jurisdiction enforced. So the International Criminal Court then could indict. including probably Trump, the Secretary of Defense, in respect of its attack on Venezuelan territory, even its attack on Venezuelan ships, even though the U.S. is not a member. So Trump and the Secretary of Defense could both be indicted. They’re unlikely to face the court because the U.S. isn’t going to turn the president over to the ICC, or they’re going to turn over the Secretary of Defense to the ICC. But the important thing about the indictment is every member country of the court would then have to arrest and send to the court Trump or his secretary of defense if they traveled to that particular country. And that’s why you see, for example, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, they’re not traveling anywhere. They travel to the U.S. They travel to China because China is not a member of the court, but they don’t they’re not traveling in any any respect to any Western country. So what was a year or so ago when they were talking about having a meeting in Hungary and it was quickly, quickly, quickly canceled. Why? Hungary is a member of the International Criminal Court. And if Putin had showed up in

5:50Hungary, Hungary would have been obliged to arrest him and send him off to the Hague to face the jurisdiction of the ICC. And I have a question, more like a background to give our audience like an understanding of the United Nations chart. So how did this start? And the U.S. was part of this United Nations agreement or they are part of this United Nations? How did this start, if I’m not wrong, was after the Second World War? Yes. Well. And generally speaking, the allied powers, the US, the UK, France, China, and Russia thought it would be a good idea. And they gathered the other countries from around the world in San Francisco, and they had a bit of a talk fest for a couple of years. And we got the UN Charter.

6:49And like I said, you know, one of the most important provisions is the provision in the charter, in Article 2, I think it’s Article 2, Paragraph 4, that prohibits not just the use of force, but prohibits the threat of the use of force. Okay, so now let’s think, what does that mean? Okay. Hey, Greenland, I’m coming to take you over. That’s a threat of the use of force, and it’s clearly unlawful under the UN Charter. So, you know, you’ve got another one. And there’s one more. You’ve got another one that could trigger International Court of Justice. A second one that could trigger the International Court of Justice is sending a flotilla of Navy vessels off the coast of Iran and saying, Iran, you will do X, Y, and Z, or you’re in big trouble. That’s threat of use of force. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. As the U.S. is part of the United Nations or was. So if they are violating the U.N. charter, who enforces this charter? Because the idea is of escalating a huge conflict. Then the purpose is like avoiding exactly what the U.S. is doing, right? Like they’re bullying the other ones, threatening like a… For example, what he’s doing with Greenland or like a U -Don’t Do This, we impose also tariffs. That is another

8:19way of like imposing a book in the other nations. So how the UN, what are the tools that they have to enforce this? Well, that look is a slightly complicated answer or complicated question. Maybe I’ll try and make the answer reasonably simple. Member nation of the UN could in fact. file a claim in the International Court of Justice arguing that the U.S. has violated the UN Charter, okay?

8:53And that would invoke the whole process of the hearing in front of the International Court of Justice. The difficulty with that one is that the U.S. would probably not, even though by joining the UN, they’ve effectively consented to be bound by the decisions of the ICJ. The ICJ itself has a provision in its own rules that allows a country to decline jurisdiction. So the U.S. would probably decline to be there.

9:25It’s done that in the past. The famous case, U.S. versus Nicaragua. The U.S. mined the Nicaraguan harbors. Nicaragua took the U.S. to the International Court of Justice. The U.S. didn’t even show up. The court found in favor of Nicaragua and the U.S. said, well, we’re not abiding by any ruling. So it’s a difficult proposition there. You could do it. It could be good PR, but the U.S. isn’t going to show up. The normal route in a situation like this would be for the Security Council of the U.N. to take up the issue of violation of the charter. Security Council resolutions are law. The declarations by the UN General Assembly are just sort of persuasive of what the international community thinks is a good idea or is law. The problem there is that the U.S. is one of the five original founding members of the UN, and along with China, Russia, the U.K., and France, has a veto in the Security Council itself. That means you could take everything to the Security Council and you could get a vote of 14 to 1, 14 countries, and then one country saying no, and that would be the U.S. Motion doesn’t pass.

10:50I mean, it is complicated and it’s messy, you know, and that’s the, I think. But it’s like saying, for example, okay, we are in this, we are in a… in a table sitting all together and then we agree that there is not going to be aggression. We just, you know, put some rules in place to try to avoid escalation, aggression, and all this that is happening. But then if I violate that, it’s like, oh, but those rules don’t play for me because I don’t want to take that. I don’t want. It’s like that. So there’s more like a formality. It’s animal farm in operation, okay?

11:39All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, okay? And the five permanent members of the Security Council are more equal than the other members in that respect. The General Assembly has the power to expel a member or suspend a member. but it needs the permission of the Security Council to do so. So everything keeps coming back to the Security Council. How can we change? Because we are seeing that this is like they are abusing the power and being part of the board, but not committed to do, like if I make a mistake and I’m failing to accomplish with this law. So what rules are we established?

12:29How this can change? Do you think it needs updates, a security board? Or what is the next step? Because the message that the U.S. is sending to everyone is just like, I don’t know, like rolling out or putting out down the U.N. Yeah, you would have to have those five members. Those five permanent members of the Security Council agree to get rid of the veto and replace it, perhaps, with something like a supermajority. Fifteen members sit on the Security Council, maybe to pass a resolution. If you get rid of the veto, maybe to pass a resolution, you’ve got to have 10 in favor. Uh, maybe you’ve got to have 12 in favor.

13:24I don’t know, but you know, somehow you’ve got to have those five members say we’re getting rid of, um, uh, those, uh, we’re getting rid of the, the veto. And once you’re rid of the veto, then the, the UN could operate like your basic legislature around, you know, if you get a majority, super majority, fine, two thirds, three quarters, whatever you want. Um, but no veto. that fundamental change would mark a huge difference in the way that the UN operates. The other problem that has the UN now is the defunding that the US is doing, right? So they are not funding or they just remove all the funding of more than 75 % of the funding. Yeah. What does it mean? Is it going to be dismantled completely because they are now in crisis and then all needs to change the strategy? How the UN works? Because I don’t think that a lot of people say it’s like a wolf without teeth. No, I don’t think it’s going to get dismantled in any way, shape, or form. Because, look, it’s temporary. For another three years while Rumpy’s in office, you’re going to have problems. And we’ve had this in the past.

14:47You don’t have to think back too far. During his first term, there were a number of withdrawals of funding as well from particular organizations like UNESCO because they don’t like what UNESCO does. It’s sort of interference. It promotes education, science, culture, kids, women, what have you. No, no, no. We don’t want that. And so it’s happened before, and it’s even happened before the first administration of this current occupant of the Oval Office. So, you know, next person in office will probably change that and refund the U.N. to all of its levels. And it’s not unusual for nation states, in some respect, to, you know, be late with their dues across the board. You know, it happens. But I’m not, you know, I’m not worried about losing the U.N. I think I’m more concerned about what’s happening just sort of currently and how long it’s going to happen. I’m beginning to see signs in the U.S. of at least some Republicans pushing back on some of this stuff because it’s just messy.

16:02You can’t have the news this morning, the U.S. and India. just signed basically a free trade deal, okay? And all of the tariffs that had just been imposed against India because India was buying Russian oil are gone. So those tariffs existed for what, a month? You know, that sort of transactional, I mean, he’s been described as a transactional president, and he is. You know, nothing’s permanent. Nothing is related to legal obligations. It just happens. But now it’s gone. No more tariffs against India. They’ve got a free trade agreement. Yeah. And also recently with the vice president of Venezuela, she’s the one now in charge of the country. Correct. U.S. is imposing over them. how they have to manage their resources, specifically oil. But this is also part of the bullying. It shouldn’t be allowed how the sovereignty is, how they run their own country. So what measures should be taken or would possibly to be taken to avoid this happening?

17:23That one was really, really, really messy because we don’t, really have any idea of what level of management the U.S. is exercising over Venezuela’s activities, its natural resources. We’ve got some idea of what it’s doing with the oil, but it’s not particularly clear. And again, one of the fundamentals of being a nation state is the capacity. to manage your own natural resources and that’s in that’s in the u.n charter and uh as i i mean i i don’t teach international law again until the end of the year but when i was teaching it last year in you know october november what have you um you know i kept saying to the students look it’s just it’s just messy and it you know it isn’t easily fixable um and there’s no you know uh you and i go out and commit a crime You know, there’s a police force there.

18:23They come and they get us and then they take us to court. We don’t get to say no to the police. When the court sends us a summons to appear there, we don’t get to say no to them. In international law, you get to do that, partly in part because there’s no police and in part because, you know, the court has no capacity to force you to turn up. Neither one of them, neither the ICC or the ICJ has the capacity to enforce you to turn up. Do you think that this should change, like how they are enforcing this? And how can we change?

18:55How can we change it? How can we change it? Like I said, I think the change begins with the change in that veto. Get rid of the veto, then almost anything is possible. And I don’t care what the supermajority is. I mean, you know, it could be 12 out of 15. That’s fine. I don’t care. Because most of the time you would get 12. Well, maybe.

19:21Maybe it’s better to have 10 because of Russia and China and the U.S. all vote together. Then you’ve got a problem. You’re right down to 12. So it gets a little bit tricky. That’s the fundamental change that has to be made. In terms of the ICC, the ICC struggles and it struggles in part because it’s a court of complementarity. In other words, the… International criminal law is supposed to be enforced by the country where the crime takes place. And it’s only when that country is unable or unwilling to send someone to the court that the court acquires effective jurisdiction.

20:06And then it’s a matter of, you know, perhaps a new administration. a new administration in the Philippines. The former president of the Philippines is now in the ICC. That’s because the new president in the Philippines said, we’re going to send Duterte there, despite the fact that his daughter is now the vice president in the Philippines. So you need the country that has jurisdiction over the individual to determine that, yes, we’re either going to try this individual.

20:42Or we’re going to send this individual to the ICC. So if you look at the various, you can go to the International Criminal Court and look up indictments, for example. And you can see who is currently being indicted and the past as well. And you look down that list. And in many of the instances, it says at large, at large, at large, at large. In other words, that person is somewhere. probably in their own country or another friendly country, and they can’t get out. And on that one, I suspect there’s no way to change that. Yeah, that’s very complex. It is complex. It is complex. A week ago in Davos, I think that it was the Economic World Forum, Trump launched the Board of Peace. All the Board of Peace. Yes. A new initiative originally linked to gas reconstruction, new pitch as a broader peace mechanism that actually has a high fee.

21:50Yeah. I did take a few notes. The Board of Peace is a U.S.-led organization established by Trump. He’s the chairman. OK. With the stated purpose of peacekeeping around the world and particular in. overseeing the process in Gaza. He sent out invitations to others to join the Board of Peace. So far, not a large number of takers. There are some takers, including one… I think it might have been… Including Israel. Netanyahu. Accepted.

22:28Yeah, yeah. He’s accepted. And a couple of others have. What is it? The current right -wing president of Argentina, I think. Yeah, Millet. I think he has accepted. And there are a few others. We haven’t heard anything from the UK. We haven’t heard anything from France. We haven’t heard anything from Canada. Australia has been offered a spot, and our current prime minister hasn’t accepted that spot yet. So we’ll see about the Board of Peace. It seems to me I saw a video the other day, and the video showed Trump’s son -in -law, Kushner, standing in front of a…

23:20a projected view of what Gaza would look like in the future. And it was all of these fantastic, almost science fiction -like high -rise buildings. Without the Palestinians. Yeah, yeah. I didn’t see any Palestinians in the picture. I think the Palestinians had all been saying, can you guys move to Egypt or something like that? But no, there wasn’t. Look, the border piece is just another mechanism for Rumpi and his family to make a few bucks. A lot of bucks, in fact. Yeah, because he has a high fee to join. Yeah, I think it was, I mean, I think this projected plan for rebuilding Gaza was something like $50 billion.

24:00You know, it’s a lot of money, a lot of money. This is not like compared to the United Nations terms of legitimacy and authority. Yeah. I mean, it’s not going to replace the U.N. And interestingly enough, the Security Council actually passed a resolution welcoming the Board of Peace. But I think the understanding of the Board of Peace was that the Board of Peace would be specific to Gaza without getting it involved in any of the other conflicts, particularly, for example, the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.

24:40This is not undermining more the UN and also, well, the ICC, because Netanyahu was the ICC. Yeah, well, yeah, he’s got, Netanyahu’s got five indictments. I think three for crimes against humanity and two for war crimes or vice versa. I can’t remember which way it went. Putin’s got two. And like I said, they’re not traveling.

25:11You don’t see Putin traveling outside. He goes to China. He can go to North Korea if he wants to. He can come to the U.S. and talk to his buddy Don. But that’s about the only place he can go. And you don’t see Netanyahu traveling outside of the U.S. either. It’s just not happening. It will dissolve at some point in time. I don’t understand why the Security Council went ahead and sort of endorsed it unless they were just thinking, oh, limited. Yeah, let’s rebuild Gaza.

25:42Let’s use this Board of Peace thing. And Trump is the chairman of this thing. And it looks like a company. And the next thing you know, they’re going to make billions of dollars, billions of dollars out of trying to rebuild Gaza. The indictments against Putin are a number of years old. Even the indictments against Netanyahu are a number of years old. And I think the court, the ICC, has just given up because you could indict Netanyahu almost every day for a war crime. It’s just a series of war crimes, one after another, after another, after another. Yesterday’s or the day before, I think yesterday’s, was an attack on a civilian bus that was taking 20 miners to a mine. Why blow up a bus that’s taking 20 miners to a mine? You know, at least 70,000 dead there, almost a third of them children, more than 20,000 kids. And it’s just, you know, one war crime after another is just incredible. And the Ukraine’s almost as bad, almost as bad. The targeting of civilian installations, civilian buildings, apartment buildings, power stations, all of that stuff.

26:52uh is is a war crime and the icc i think well we’ve got two indictments here we got five over here there’s not much more we can do you know i mean we could sit around and indict these people every other day how needs to enforce or change it because this is nothing is happening and changing they are doing whatever they want and the idea is like a that nobody pronouns or they European Union doesn’t say anything nobody keep it very quiet they don’t make like a remarks or they don’t do any remarks directly to what is happening they just completely change it’s like oh just not the news anymore but actually this is continuing escalating so and and then together with this like a continue with this These countries that already reject or haven’t signed the border peace.

27:52Do you think that is a sign of dividing the global community about how peace should be pursued and how it gets lead that conversation? Do you think that this is more about how actually the things had to be done, like undermining what is the efforts that have been done? Do you think that it’s necessary to change things to work? properly because the UN and the ICC don’t have the tools to actually. Well, they have the tools. They just can’t use them. And like I said, I mean, we’ve talked about the Security Council veto.

28:31That’s got to go. That’s the most important thing that the international community could do is pressure those permanent members to give up that veto and change that. for a supermajority. In terms of the ICC, interestingly enough, in my view, I think that both Trump and Hegsbeth, the Secretary of Defense, and probably the admiral that launched that attack on a ship that had already been sunk, basically, and there were a couple of folks hanging on to what was… you know, rubbish in the sea. And then he went ahead and bombed them again. Look, that’s a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions on the rules of war.

29:17You don’t do that. You’re supposed to rescue people, whether they’re on land or at sea. But look, you might include the Secretary of State, although his… relationship to all of this stuff is less direct than Trump through the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, as he’s calling him now. But I would, if I was the ICC, I’d indict them, both of them, for their attacks on Venezuela.

29:47And then, okay, with that indictment, then Trump can’t travel and Hagsbeth can’t travel in any country that is a member. of the ICC, because then they’re obliged to arrest him and put him away or send him off to the Hague. So that’s all of Western Europe. And then most of South America, certainly all of North America, you know, couldn’t travel and talk to the president of Mexico, for example. So most of the world would be off limits. And that would seriously confine his ability to go. You know, for example, he was just at the World Forum, the Davos World Forum. He couldn’t have gone to the Davos World Forum because that country would have been required to arrest him and turn him over to the Hague.

30:37So I’d go ahead and indict him and, you know, put the pressure on. Yeah. And and recently I was reading that actually Trump and his administration were trying to impose like a. pressure over the ICC to avoid this indictment. Yeah. So how? So how is possible that he has to say it is not even part of that? He doesn’t have to be part of the ICC for an indictment to occur. If he is not part of that and to be indicted, but he why he can bully the ICC or threaten. If they threaten them, if they impose sanctions over the country or Trump. I don’t think that’s actually I don’t think that’s particularly problematic.

31:30I don’t think Iran is a member of the ICC. I’d have to go back and check. Venezuela is, though. So, you know, you’ve got one country that that’s a member, one country that’s not a member. You don’t need both countries to be a member. Because the attack occurred in Venezuela, the indictment could go forward. And I think it probably should. And like I say, that would limit the capacity of these people to travel most places around the world. That’s very insightful. I don’t think that everyone knows about that. You know, I don’t think anybody’s thinking about it. And again, I don’t know what would happen if the ICC indicted the U.S. Secretary of Defense or indicted the U.S. President. I think it’d be a good thing for all of us if they did. Yeah, that’s true.

32:24I’m changing a little bit, but not much of the topic. How these treaties, environmental treaties. How does this get affected with everything that is happening in this moment? Because, for example, Trump removed the U.S. from the Paris Agreement of climate change. For him, that doesn’t exist. And then he did it again. Yes, he did. Twice, yeah. But they can rejoin again. Yes. But then he’s also tried to ease. the law related to Environmental Protection Act in his own country and also trying to breach other laws that are already imposed.

33:14How this is affecting not only U.S., but other countries. I mean, I haven’t seen it. I don’t really think any other country. I mean, they care, particularly about climate change. I mean, the two biggest climate change polluters are the U.S. and China. And that’s significant. And so if the U.S. is able to, and China’s to some extent trying to move forward and into alternative energy sources. Interestingly, I mean, the U.S. is actually making progress in that area because states like California and other Pacific Coast states, some East Coast states, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, et cetera, are doing their own.

34:01I mean, California is rapidly becoming almost a net zero state in terms of energy use, which is good. But we do need those two largest polluters. And the EU is moving ahead very, very rapidly as well. Trains that run on solar energy, for goodness sake. They’re burning trash for power.

34:27They’re recycling tires for pavement instead of using asphalt. And they’re getting rid of the tires by putting them down as pavers as opposed to putting them in a landfill or trying to burn them up. So the EU is fantastic. It’s moving. pretty dramatically. Australia is not doing too bad. That’s low transition, I could say. Yeah, but it’s not doing too bad. But as a polluter, Australia is 1 % of global greenhouse gas emissions.

35:03Even if you throw in the coal that Australia produces and sends to other countries, you’re talking 3.5 % to 4%. So I suppose if Australia stopped mining coal, then those other countries wouldn’t be able to burn coal. I don’t know what they’d do for power, but they’d have to do something. But the other thing to remember across the whole number of issues that we’re looking at, the current administration in the U.S. is temporary. It’s temporary. And it’s probably more temporary than just the end of a four -year presidential term.

35:39Everything indicates that the midterm elections coming next November are going to put a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Everything, everything leans that way. And, you know, and then in many respects, the president is stymied. And in fact, I mean, the whole system could just go nuts. because nothing might get done. You could have Congress passing legislation and the president refusing to sign it, and then it would come back to Congress, and unless you got your two -thirds veto -proof majority, then you get no legislation. So it could be a giant stalemate in two years. Lord knows what will happen in four or three when we have the next election.

36:26What would you recommend people with all this news, all this panic, all this misinformation? What would you recommend to people to read besides the critical thinking? Where should they look for information? Information. Well, you need, that’s a tough one. Hopefully people out there can look and see us and know that we’re not AI. People, if you’re watching, I am not an AI. I don’t like AI. I refuse to use AI. I conscientiously object to AI. But you’ve got to be careful. I think you have to go to your most reputable sources for information. You know, if you’re interested in international law, go to the UN site. It’s pretty good. in terms of providing, you know, direct and clear information. And, you know, and you’ve got some really outstanding news organizations out there. SBS is excellent. In the U.S., the public broadcasting system is excellent. And in fact, it’s so good that the Trump administration is pulling federal funding out of the public broadcast system. That’s how good they are. But look, they’ll survive. And they’ll do well because the public supports the PBS system. You’ve just got to find reputable sources for your information.

37:48I’m going to put some resources. Yeah. You sort of got to jump around, too. I mean, I’ll show you. We’ve got SBS. They’re very good. And we even get Al Jazeera. And despite it being Al Jazeera, they’re actually pretty good. They’re thorough. Do they have a bias? Yeah, they probably have a bias. I think all of them have bias. Yeah. But the reporting is at least thorough and largely factual. Largely factual. And I think that’s where you go. Yes. And also, to finalize, what gives you hope that diplomacy, justice, or shared humanity can prevail? What gives you hope with SOAP? with everything that is happening. Well, I actually think, despite all the stuff that’s going on, there are actually some hopeful signs.

38:44You know, I mean, both Canada and the UK have gone off to China to develop new relationships with China. Now, the UK’s adventures in China are not nearly. nearly as significant as China’s. China and Canada are becoming reasonable economic partners. And there’s some stuff that Canada is just turning away from the U.S. and saying, we can do that in China. We can do it with Chinese products. By all means, we don’t need U.S. cars.

39:15China, please send us some cars and some of those lovely SUVs that you’re making. And I think that’s a good sign. Despite the fact that the EU has not really committed a lot of, not prepared to commit troops at this point in time to Ukraine, it probably should, and just, you know, severely push back. They’re at least committed to commit security forces once some form of peace agreement is set. But the other thing that the EU has done is say, oh, look, sorry, U.S., you’re not coming to Greenland. No way are you coming to Greenland.

39:58And in addition to just saying, you know, you’re not coming to Greenland, the U.K., Germany, France, Norway, and I think one other country have already sent. military of one sort or another to Greenland to assist in any sort of defense of Greenland. Germany, I think, sent two naval vessels. So that response is pretty critical.

40:24And it says, say, look, Denmark is NATO, and you don’t mess around with NATO. And I think the pushback, even the pushback from the Republican Party, particularly in the Senate, uh has said sorry dude get your hands off of nato and quit messing around with you know what has been our essential line of defense for the last you know 80 years so i think there i think there are good signs out there uh you know on a daily basis that doesn’t mean that he can’t do something stupid um and that has an impact on all of us i wouldn’t go hopeful um i i’d like To hope I could be hopeful. That’s true. Let’s see what happens. Yes, we will. We will. Indeed. Thank you very much, Gary. It’s been my pleasure again.

41:20I always enjoy this. Thank you. Yes, that’s fantastic. Thank you for everything and for sharing your knowledge and updating people.