Larry C. Johnson and Mario Nawfal
– The “Asshole Test” of Free Speech
By Larry Romanoff
Image: Mario Nawfal; Source:
A video recently crossed my screen. In it, Mario Nawfal, described as an “influencer”, was interviewing Larry Johnson, a retired intelligence officer about US-China relations. At one point, Nawfal declared himself “one of the biggest fighters of free speech” and offered his proof: “At least in America you can call Trump an asshole. In China, no one would dare say that about Xi.” He delivered this line as though it were a smoking gun. Case closed. Western freedom, Chinese tyranny.
I have spent decades studying comparative political cultures, living in both East and West. I can say with confidence that Mr. Nawfal’s statement is not an argument. It is an advertisement for his own ignorance. The ability to shout a schoolyard vulgarity at a head of state is not a measure of free speech. It is a measure of low-class, juvenile stupidity. And the fact that millions of people accept this as proof of Western superiority tells us something far more troubling about the West than about China.
The False Metric
We are being fed a false metric. Nawfal’s “Asshole Test” of free speech is juvenile foolishness, a childish metric, a logical fallacy that equates vulgarity with liberty. The claim that free speech is proven by one’s ability to call a national leader an obscene name is not an argument for liberty. It is an argument for low-class, adolescent rudeness masquerading as principle. Name-calling is noise, not substance. Nawfal mistakes vulgarity for liberty, and juvenile insolence for political courage. Nawfal’s argument is not an analysis of free speech. It is a performance of adolescent bravado by someone who has never examined his own assumptions.
Free speech, in any mature conception, protects the right to criticise policy, to expose corruption, to advocate for political change, to publish uncomfortable truths, and to dissent without fear of state retaliation. These are substantive rights. They involve content, evidence, and consequence. Calling a president an “asshole” involves none of these. It is an act of pure performative rudeness, mere verbal graffiti. It requires no courage, no evidence, no argument. To elevate this to a first-order test of liberty is to confess that one has never thought seriously about what liberty actually means. If the best evidence American free speech advocates can offer is a four-letter word, their case is already lost.
Nawfal has confused the act of an obscene utterance with the condition of liberty. This is not a minor error. It is a category mistake that invalidates his entire framework. He has reduced a complex legal and philosophical concept to a single vulgarity. That is the hallmark of a shallow mind. His logic assumes that because Chinese people do not perform the specific act of rudeness he values, they must lack the underlying right to do so. He has clearly never considered that cultures might express political criticism differently, through tone, setting, hierarchy, or written form. He does not know that dissent is actually practiced in China, nor how it is practiced. He knows only his own street. Nawfal is simply a thoughtless dilettante who has never pressure-tested his own opinions. He is ignorant not because he lacks information, but because he lacks the intellectual discipline and personal integrity to question his own frame.
But there is something else important here – a fraud attempting to disguise itself as logic. Nawfal claims that in the US it is possible to call the President an asshole. Really? And where, exactly, would you perform this ultimate act of “freedom”? Would you address Donald Trump this way to his face? Not likely, if you value your real freedom. Would you make that statement on a national news broadcast or sign your name to it on the front page of the New York Times? Again, not too likely, for the same reason. So, where would you have the freedom to describe Donald Trump in this fashion? Exactly. In private, with your friends. The truth is that Americans have absolute freedom to say whatever they want – to each other. And that’s where it stops. But then, all people have that right in all countries, don’t they?
Cultural Consistency vs. Cultural Corruption
Here is the deeper truth that Nawfal and his fellow travelers cannot see because they have never looked beyond their own provincial horizon: In both Western and Chinese cultures, we teach our children to respect authority – parents, teachers, elders, police. We teach them that insolence and rudeness are wrong. And in both cultures, children generally conform.
But in the West, that lesson stops at the schoolhouse door. Adults are told that respect for political authority is optional, even contemptible. The same person who would never dream of calling his father a vile name feels entitled to call his president one. The same culture that demands politeness from a child toward a teacher celebrates vulgarity from a citizen toward a leader. This is not freedom. This is hypocrisy; a culture that privatises virtue and publicises vice. This reveals not the superiority of Western free speech, but the corruption of Western political culture, a culture that teaches respect for authority in private life but abandons it in public life.
China is different. In China, the cultural lesson is consistent. A Chinese citizen would no more insult President Xi with a crude epithet than they would insult their own father, their boss, or their teacher. Respect for authority is not situational. It is not turned off when one enters the political sphere. The same manners that govern the home govern the public square. The Western critic sees this and shouts “no free speech”. He is wrong. He is seeing a functioning culture of mutual respect and mistaking it for oppression because it does not conform to his own degraded norms.
The same cultural inconsistency appears in the West’s approach to criminal justice. Western parents teach their children to confess when they have done wrong. “Be a man. Tell the truth. Don’t make it worse by being a coward and lying.” This is private virtue. Yet the Western legal system punishes confession and rewards denial. An innocent plea and a lawyer’s maneuvering are rational responses to a corrupted legal system. In the West, confession does not receive mercy, and your honesty is used against you. Any rational actor pleads not guilty, hires a lawyer, and hopes for a technicality. Private virtue and public justice are at war. In China, the culture is consistent. The private virtue of confession is matched by a public legal culture that offers mercy for remorse. The same honesty taught in the home is honored in the courtroom. This is not authoritarianism. This is integrity. It describes a society that does not ask its citizens to be virtuous in private and cynical in public. Again, Western inconsistency versus Chinese consistency. The West has privatised virtue and corruption. China has not.
The claim that China has no free speech because its citizens do not insult their president is nonsense. That is not an argument. It is a tantrum. Real free speech concerns policy, corruption, and power, not vulgarity. And on those substantive measures, the West’s record is hardly pristine. But the larger issue is cultural. The West has lost its coherence. It teaches respect at home but celebrates disrespect in politics. It teaches confession to children but punishes it in adults. China has no such schizophrenia. Its culture is consistent from the family to the state. That is not a weakness. It is a strength the West can no longer recognise because it has forgotten what consistency looks like.
As for Mr. Nawfal: he should stop calling himself a fighter for free speech. He is a performer of cheap tricks for a cheap audience. And the rest of us should stop pretending that the ability to call a president an asshole is anything to be proud of.
The Psychology of the Fallacy – The Halo Effect
The public in many countries have a strange affliction in that they seem willing to believe that if a person has done one big thing, or knows one big thing, they know everything and can do everything.
This is a well-documented cognitive bias where a positive characteristic of a person like fame, wealth, or success in one domain, causes people to draw unjustified conclusions about all other domains. This is a cognitive distortion where success enjoys greater visibility than failure, leading people to systematically overestimate the value of what successful people say. This is especially true when a person has made money – regardless of how they made it. Audiences then assume he must be smart about everything.
As an example, I can recall an interview, I believe on NBC, where a young woman was talking with Steve Jobs about the problems and solutions for the Amazon Rain Forest. And she was solemnly hanging on his every word as if he actually knew something. But all Steve Jobs ever did was create a cute mobile phone. In real life, he knew nothing about tropical ecology or the Amazon Rain Forest.
Similarly with Nawfal. In that same interview with Larry Johnson, Nawfal solemnly pretended competence to judge the relative value of all the AI LLMs in the world, and judged that the US was ahead of China. I laughed out loud when I heard that, because it is starkly obvious Nawfal knows no more about the merits of LLMs than Larry Johnson knows about the sex life of fruit flies. Yet, because Nawfal apparently was a success at some small businesses, people listen to his views on every manner of things. He pretends to be an expert on the Iran war, on China-US relations, on virtually everything. But all he has is uninformed opinions, many of which are dramatically wrong. It is disturbing that anyone lends credibility to his offerings. He has no education, no experience, no background, in any of these areas, and can do a lot of harm.
What qualifies Nawfal to speak on any of these subjects? Nothing. He has no training in international relations, no background in computer science, no experience in military analysis, no education in any of the fields on which he opines. He apparently has a bit of formal education in finance, but his professional experience consists of selling blenders door-to-door and running a blockchain incubator that has been widely accused of murky and dishonest business practices. This is not the resume of a geopolitical analyst. It is the resume of a small-time entrepreneur who got lucky and decided he was a genius.
Mario Nawfal is the Steve Jobs of blenders. He sold kitchen appliances door-to-door. Now he pretends to understand the geopolitical balance between the world’s two largest superpowers. But success in selling kitchen appliances does not qualify one to analyse the strategic balance between the United States and China. It qualifies one to sell kitchen appliances. Mario Nawfal should return to what he knows, and the rest of us should stop pretending that a blender salesman is a geopolitical oracle. The world is too dangerous for such foolishness. Nawfal needs to return to the shallow end of the pool where he belongs.
The Larry Johnson Problem
Nawfal interviewed Johnson, several times. I have great respect for Larry Johnson. He clearly has deep knowledge on military affairs as well as on geopolitical developments. His knowledge is factual, from much direct and personal experience. And his opinions on international affairs, even recognizing they are only opinions, still merit considerable thought. The public record confirms Johnson’s credentials: former CIA analyst, former deputy director for transportation security and antiterrorism assistance training in the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism, co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and a recognized commentator on national security with over three decades of experience. He is a man of genuine substance.
However, the mix of Johnson and Nawfal presents a strange, uncomfortable reality that knowledgeable, accomplished people willingly submit to interrogation by the manifestly unqualified. I think Johnson is cheapening himself by submitting to interviews with people like Nawfal. Johnson doesn’t need exposure so badly that he affiliates himself with shallow incompetents who pretend to be his peers. By associating himself with Nawfal, Johnson is transferring his genuine credibility – and reputation – to a person seen by much of the world as a too-clever-by-half con-man who may be only one step ahead of the law.
I can understand that Nawfal’s platform offers a space where persons can speak to an apparently large audience without the mass-media filters they believe distorts their message. But when a man like Larry Johnson submits to an interview with a crooked blender salesman from Dubai, he is lending his own reputation to Nawfal and all his enterprises, whether he intends to do that or not. Nawfal’s reputation rises entirely – and solely – on the backs of the men who agree to speak with him. This is the strange economy of the new media landscape. Credibility is not earned. It is borrowed. And when men like Johnson (or Lavrov) lend their credibility to a man who has none of his own, they dilute it. They cheapen themselves. I am told that Jeffrey Sachs rebuffed approaches to appear on Nawfal’s platform. I wish other persons of value would do the same.
Who Is Mario Nawfal?
Mario Nawfal is a Lebanese Jew with close connections to Israel and the IDF, and who actively supports the apartheid of Israel and the genocide in Gaza. He is recognised by the Jewish media in Israel, and is a protégé of Elon Musk. [1]
Mario Nawfal shirt. Source: Hersmiles.com
From the historical record, Nawfal started some small businesses in Australia that made some money, and moved to Dubai. He then was so proud of himself that he began his new career as a pod-caster on international affairs. Nawfal is an “influencer”. That title is not a credential. It is a warning label. Influencers are not journalists, scholars, or investigators. They are performers optimised for engagement. Their arguments are designed to be clipped, shared, and cheered by people who already agree. They are not designed to withstand scrutiny.
From watching his videos, one cannot avoid concluding that Mario Nawfal is intellectually vacuous, rhetorically lazy, and provincially arrogant. He is ignorant not because he lacks information, but because he lacks the discipline and personal integrity to question his own frame. Nawfal is a thoughtless, ignorant influencer who spreads foolishness. He isn’t lying necessarily; he’s performing certainty. Mario Nawfal is merely one specific type of intellectual fraud. The man is a dilettante, with intellectual vacuity presented as fearless truth-telling. The evidence of this is everywhere.
Mario Nawfal, the Cyber-Criminal:
Crypto Scams and Legal Battles
There are many websites which make detailed reference to Nawfal’s many brushes with ethics, corruption and the legal process. One such source tells us “Mario Nawfal’s crypto empire hides a trail of scams, regulatory fines, and … Legal probes and consumer complaints point to a high-risk reputation and business. Beneath the blockchain buzz and high-profile interviews lurks a trail of rug pulls, regulatory fines. Is Nawfal a savvy entrepreneur or a serial scammer? Our probe reveals the red flags.” [2] It says further, “Our exhaustive review of public records, regulatory filings, former associate testimonies, and on-chain data paints a portrait of alleged financial chicanery, extremist platforming, and associations that raise alarms for anyone tracking money laundering or reputational hazards. We found no independent verification of his [education] beyond self-reported claims.”
And more: “[His websites] rack up millions of views, but comments sections brim with accusations of bias and coordinated bot-like amplification. The investigation apparently revealed that Nawfal’s camp enlisted a specialty “growth hacking” outfit to supercharge his following and dominate audio Spaces, a strategic “inorganic engagement” where thousands of outsiders were paid to populate his online spaces and leave the impression of wide followings. Specifically, buying engagement through networks of paid “super-fan” accounts orchestrated by outside vendors.
From the record, there appears to be a long string of deceived partners and customers, and a long line of unpaid bills. “Former partners allege non-payment and IP poaching, with one Dubai civil suit claiming $500,000 in investor shortfalls. The pattern is far from isolated.” Many investors document funds paid in but never paid out. There are many recurring accusations of Nawfal creating “pump-and-dump” schemes similar to those so often done with penny stocks. “The scam dossier on Nawfal is thick, built on ex-partner affidavits, on-chain forensics, and regulatory nods.” No convictions yet, but probes proliferate.
Criminal reviews by the FBI and SEC are probing fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, and wire fraud. NBC published a report on Nawfal titled, “Dogged by scandal” and “Can’t shake scam shadow”. The FBI is apparently reviewing cross-border crypto flows to Russia/Belarus. One suit alleges illegal recordings to “frame” rivals, filed criminally. The same website said of Nawfal, “Expert Opinion: A Ticking Time Bomb in Plain Sight. The evidence converges on a figure whose ventures, while innovative on paper, routinely devolve into allegations of deceit and exploitation.” [3]
I cannot be certain, but it appears consistent and highly plausible that Nawfal moved his residence to Dubai to insulate himself from civil and criminal actions in Western countries.
Other investigative and crypto-currency websites repeat and document these allegations. A former chief marketing officer for one of Nawfal’s companies alleged Nawfal siphoned off $2 million from one crypto client alone without delivering anything in return. [4] An ex-U.S. Air Force analyst and IBC advisor, lodged complaints in 2022 with the FBI, the SEC, and the Calgary consulate, charging embezzlement from a past CEO position, and “brazen tax evasion”. The record indicates Nawfal is also subject to legal filings by Dutch and German authorities, in addition to Canadian, Australian, and US agencies. Complaints include epithets ranging from “dubious dealings” to “gutter profiteer”, degenerate loser”, and “Zionist troll”. They concluded that Nawfal is a high-risk contagion and a “reputational black hole”.
Yet another investigative website makes similar claims, with additional detail. [5] Particularly disturbing are the repeated accusations that Nawfal deliberately engineered situations where investors lost substantial sums of money. Some are calling him a “serial scammer” and accusing him of orchestrating “pump‑and‑dump” schemes. [6] [7]
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Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
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NOTES – Johnson & Nawfal
[1] Lukashenko to be interviewed by US crypto entrepreneur and blogger Mario Nawfal
https://www.sb.by/en/lukashenko-to-be-interviewed-by-us-crypto-entrepreneur-and-blogger-mario-nawfal-.html
[2] Mario Nawfal: Crypto Scams and Legal Battles
https://www.cybercriminal.com/123878/mario-nawfals-journey-through-crypto
[3] Lukashenko to be interviewed by US crypto entrepreneur and blogger Mario Nawfal
https://www.sb.by/en/lukashenko-to-be-interviewed-by-us-crypto-entrepreneur-and-blogger-mario-nawfal-.html
[4] Mario Nawfal: Revealing Crypto Scandal
https://www.cybercriminal.com/123879/mario-nawfal-revealing-crypto-scandal
[5] Mario Nawfal’s Crypto Controversies Unveiled: Scams, Lies, or Misunderstandings?
https://opentools.ai/news/mario-nawfals-crypto-controversies-unveiled-scams-lies-or-misunderstandings
[6] Twitter Spaces host Mario Nawfal’s dubious crypto dealings
https://cryptonews.net/news/other/21167556/
[7] Mario Nawfal: Online Influencer Dogged By Scandal
https://www.channelstv.com/2025/03/15/mario-nawfal-online-influencer-dogged-by-scandal/
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