The Weekly Forum - 21 August
22 augustus 2025 | Forum for Democracy Intl
Thierry Baudet, Frederik Jansen and John Laughland travelled to Washington DC last week to attend the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s annual conference, this year entitled ‘Blueprint for Peace’. Thierry was one of the speakers, alongside Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Colonel Douglas MacGregor, Judge Napolitano and Max Blumenthal. Prior to the conference, which was superb, they were honoured to have a private meeting with the US Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who told them about his plans to Make America Healthy Again and much else besides. (Amsterdam Books has published a Dutch translation of R. F. Kennedy’s book about Dr Anthony Fauci, whence the connection.) There is a genuine wind of change in D.C., so unlike sclerotic Europe where nothing seems ever to change.
Mr Baudet goes to Washington – why? Not only because FVD has always wanted to have an international reach but also because such trips lead to immensely fruitful exchanges. Among other private meetings, Thierry, Freek and John also had dinner with Pete Marocco, Elon Musk’s right-hand man at DOGE. Pete is the person who shut down USAID, a state within a state and a cornerstone of the deep state and what ought to be known as the politico-corruption complex. It was an immense privilege to be so close to people who are making real changes – the sort of real changes we urgently need in Europe.
While FVD was in Washington, Presidents Trump and Putin were meeting in Alaska. This was followed by a strange euro-summit in the White House on Monday – strange because the Europeans travelled to Washington to be humiliated by Trump. Personally humiliated – ‘Keir Starmer, you are doing so well, everybody likes you’ (his approval rating is 13%); ‘Ursula, you have more power than any of these guys’ (she does); ‘Where is the president of Finland?’ (he was sitting opposite Trump) – and politically humiliated, as Trump trashed all of Europe’s red lines in Ukraine by proposing the cession of territory and negotiations without a ceasefire. The Europeans responded with rare obsequiousness and servility, an illustration of how far Europe has sunk and how far it will sink yet if there is no real change. FVD International director gave RT an interview about all this.
Watch John Laughland’s interview here
We discussed ‘Ukraine – what next?’ on The Forum this week, with Mark Sleboda and George Szamuely. The consensus was that the summitry is theatre and that the war will continue indefinitely. Afghanistan lasted 20 years. Why should the Ukraine war not last just as long?