Title: Unfiltered With S.A.M.
Show: Unfiltered With S.A.M.
Date: 2026-05-07
URL: https://youtu.be/wSDydqdERPQ
Duration: 53:00

---

[00:09] Today I'm joined by former CIA officer and whistle-blower uh John Kiriakou and I'm hosting him live here in our studio in Nicosia (CYPRUS). A great honor and we're going to have a conversation which is going to be split into two parts. The first part will be on the geopolitical reality surrounding our region here in the Eastern Mediterranean. And the second part will be uh how well do you know John part. I'm gonna try and do my best and ask him questions that he hasn't been asked by all these other podcasters uh he's been going to. So John welcome. Good good to

[00:42] see you. John, regarding the situation around us, Americans are being told that there is a ceasefire with Iran and talks happening, but are we actually looking at um isolated conflicts or is it a single war unfolding across uh multiple fronts? Oh, I think very strongly that it's a single war. Israel thrives in regional chaos. It always has. It is stronger when Iraq is in chaos, Libya is in chaos,

[01:18] Lebanon and Syria are in chaos, and now Iran is in chaos. Uh the the Israelis couldn't bring down the America the uh the American that's a Freudian slip. They couldn't bring down the Iranian government by themselves. So they enlisted the help of the United States after something like six consecutive presidents refused to do it. this one finally agreed. So, I think that it's all part of the same big conflict and it's drawn in a lot of disinterested parties. For example,

[01:56] the Kuwaitis have no no desire to be in the midst of a of a conflict, nor the Bahrainis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, the Omanis, certainly because they're the middlemen between the United States and Iran. Uh even the Saudis, the Lebanese have seen enough war for two generations and yet here they are all embroiled in armed conflict because the US and Israel decided to attack Iran. True. Now there are growing concerns that the Iran war has already consumed significant portions of

[02:31] America's missile stockpiles. Is the US becoming overextended? And um what does that mean if the conflict escalates further? I do think that the US is overextended not just recently. This goes back to last year when Israel began, you remember the Israelis began by by launching missiles at Iranian military sites. The Iranians responded by sending waves of slow motion drones. The the Iranians

[03:02] were were practicing something we were calling strategic patience where they're hit by missiles because of public opinion. They have to respond. So they respond by sending 600 700 drones. They call the Israelis through the Jordanians and say, "We're responding by sending drones just so that they don't raise the stakes." And the Iron Dome is able to shoot almost every drone down. I think

[03:34] seven got through, which was valuable intelligence for the Iranians for later. But then the Israelis attacked again. And then the Americans said, "We're going to help the Israelis protect themselves." and sent Patriot missile batteries. And then the Iranians responded again. Well, a couple of the Iranian missiles got through. Again, valuable intelligence that the Iron Dome is not all that it's cracked up to be. The Iranian response was always far less than what the Israeli action u that required a response uh was. And the Iranians really really hoped that this would

[04:13] just go away. In the end, Donald Trump dropped a 30,000 pound bomb and uh in his words, obliterated the Iranian nuclear program back in June 20 25 years ago. Correct. Well, if it's obliterated, then we're done. It's finished. We win. But of course, the Israelis didn't like that because they need chaos in order to feel safe. And so when the Iranian government did not collapse, the Iranian

[04:46] people did not take to the streets to overthrow their government or to hang the Ayatollah from a a a light pole or something like that. The Israelis panicked and then Benjamin Netanyahu came repeatedly to the United States and succeeded in convincing Donald Trump that this needed to be a larger scale war. Mhm. But what about the concerns about America having an issue with its missile stockpile? Yeah. Well, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that the reason the conflict

[05:18] didn't continue last year is because we were out of Patriot missiles. We're just out of them. And then when we began moving naval assets to the region to carrier strike forces, we had enough missiles to protect them, but not to protect them and supply the Israelis. And so in places like Huntsville, Alabama, and Western Pennsylvania, and wherever these missiles are made, they went into overdrive to to try to make up the missile gap. Well, I don't think anybody

[05:51] in the administration expected this conflict to be ongoing now in May of 2026, and we just can't produce these missiles quickly enough. Okay. So, basically, it's um if the conflict u picks up again, then America has a problem. Yeah, I think America has a problem. Yeah. And I think we're right on the edge of that problem in a big way. What happens if what happens if there's another anti-American attack that has nothing to do with with Iran? How do we protect ourselves?

[06:25] I don't know if they've thought of that, but anyway, see, but this is the thing. The United States has never been able to fight a two-front war. We should have learned that lesson the hard way when we were in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We can't fight two wars at the same time. And that's when we were at maximum production levels. We are not at maximum production levels now. And that now there's an energy shortage on top of it. Who would have predicted that, right? I mean, everybody would have predicted. The intelligence analysts, I'm sure, predicted that, but I don't know if Trump he heeds to No, he doesn't. In fact, a 60 Minutes reporter asked him a few weeks ago,

[07:00] uh, who are your closest adviserss? And he said, I have no advisers. I go with my gut. But his gut is frequently wrong. And he comes to decisions based on arrogance rather than on intelligence. There's not an intelligence officer in Washington who would have told Donald Trump that the Iranian regime would collapse with the launch of the first missile. Nobody believed that. So why did Trump? Because the Israelis told him that that would be the case. Yeah. And that's why you have the the big reshuffleling in the leaders of the armed forces in the US, right? You know, that's a very

[07:34] interesting event unfolding. So there are two there are two rumors going around Washington. One is that many of these senior military leaders, you're talking about the Secretary of the Navy, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The rumor is on one hand that many of them were opposed to the war in the first place. I can tell you from my own personal experience that's probably true because when we were attacking Iraq, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

[08:06] were adamant that we not get involved in that war. They're always the last ones who want to commit troops. Yeah. The last ones because they know what war is. It's the politicians who want the war. It's the State Department hawks because they don't have to fight it. They just have to watch it being fought. On the other hand, another rumor is that very simply Donald Trump loves turnover. You have to be 1,000% pro-Trump and proTrump policy to keep your job. General Kaine, the chairman of

[08:40] the Joint Chiefs, is solidly strongly proTrump. He was Donald Trump's deputy CIA director in the first term. Uh, and there are others who are not blindly proTrump. And as it turns out, their careers don't last. Now, I want us to briefly touch upon Yemen briefly. It is central to this conflict. Yeah. Most Americans have no idea about it, but it's not their fault, right? Um sitting at the Bab el Mandeeb Strait, one of the world's most critical critical shipping choke points connecting

[09:14] the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. How does Yemen's position, if you can just briefly tell the American viewers, how does it change its Yemen's position change the regional picture in ways Washington isn't fully explaining to its citizens? Yeah, that's a good question. So, if you can picture the the Horn of Africa in the east and the Arabian Peninsula, it comes almost to a close at the Bab el Mandib. The Babel Mandab is only something like 9 miles across or 16 miles across. It's very, very, very close. And so all shipping coming through the the Swiss canal has to

[09:48] eventually pass through the Bab al Mandab before it goes out into the Arabian Sea. Thus the problem with Somali pirates in in previous decades. Um I've spent a lot of time in Yemen over the years, a lot. I've been to Yemen five times and every time I go it's worse than the previous time. Worse in what way? The first time I went to Yemen, um, they were they were declaring unity. There used to be two Yemens, the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. And they

[10:22] joined together to form Yemen. Okay. The People's Democratic Republic was a Soviet satellite state. The Soviet Union fell apart. They joined together in one Yemen. People were literally dancing in the streets. That was the first time I've ever seen that in my life. People were literally dancing in the streets. And um and then the second time I went, the economy was failing. People were saying h this unity thing didn't work out the way we're we thought it was going to be. The third time

[10:53] I went, they were firing Scud missiles at each other. Yeah. And everybody was predicting they're going to split into two Yemens again. They didn't split into two Yemens. Something worse happened. So, the Civil War broke out. The the fourth time I went, um, I got in a taxi at the airport to go to the hotel and I said to the taxi driver, "So, how are things in Yemen?" And he said, "They're not bad. Uh, it's just that the Houthis are flying Scuds against us." I'm sorry, not the

[11:26] Houthies. Um, he said, "The Saudis are flying, not Scuds, flying drones against us and they're firing from drones." And I said I I chuckled and I said, "The Saudis don't have drones. This is 2009." And I thought, "Oh, but we do. We're involved in a war in Yemen, and it's undeclared. And our drones are based right there in Djibouti, which is just 16 miles away." So I thought, "Oh, the American people don't know we're involved in a war in Yemen." And I reported it to John Kerry. I

[11:59] was the uh the investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time. The last time I went to Yemen, 2011, it was so dangerous that they picked me up in an armored convoy at the airport. You're only allowed to stay at the Marriott. It has 30 foot blast walls all the way around it. And then the day after I arrived, there was an attack on a group of South Korean diplomats on the road from the airport to the Marriott. All six of them were killed. At the end of the week, a group

[12:33] of South Korean intelligence officers arrived to investigate the attack and they were attacked and killed. And then the South Koreans just closed their embassy. Well, Yemen's Houthi rebels have essentially taken over control of the government. They don't really control the country. They just control a part of the country that includes the capital city. They are Shia Muslim. They're the minority in Yemen and they are close to the Iranian government. So the conventional wisdom

[13:05] is that the Iranians are arming them. That's likely true. And the Houthis have expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. And so the Houthis have been doing several things. They have been harassing shipping coming through the Babel Mandeb. They've been firing on the uh the vessels, including American military vessels, which is a really really stupid thing to do. And then um they've been launching um missiles into southern uh Israel. They haven't done much

[13:40] damage. They they hit Akaba's small airport once and um they injured a couple people. They may have killed a guy in Hifa, something like that. But it's more harassment than anything else. The Israelis responded and surprised everybody with this response by opening diplomatic relations with a breakaway republic called Somaliand. I've been to Somali land. The only country who have done that in the world, right? The only country in the world to recognize Somali land as an independent [clears throat] country. So I went to Somaliand in 2009. It's the northernmost state in

[14:18] Somalia. Somalia, of course, is a failed state. It doesn't have a central government. and it doesn't have a leader, not one that's recognized. It doesn't have a foreign policy. It's just anarchy, chaos. Somali land can actually function on its own. It can't feed its people, but it can function on a day-to-day basis. So, the Israelis have offered diplomatic recognition in exchange for the Somali landers offering the Israelis a military base. And they're

[14:50] going to use that base to attack the Houthis. So, but also control the Bab el Mandeeb. Well, that's the that's the whole key. Yeah. Entry and exit of it. Right. That's the whole key. If you if you can beat up on the Houthis, then the Bab el Mandeeb remains open. Have they built their base? No, not yet. It's going to take a little time. Now, I want us to shift to but it still has to do with all the dynamics in the area. What have you your views on the re recent flotilla raid by Israeli in international waters far from Israel but right off the coast of Greece still though

[15:25] it's international waters but it's close to the coast of Greece where the arrested participants the participants were arrested and they were made to walk through Crete all the way to the airport I don't know if you've seen images I haven't seen the images now yes yes so the Israeli army effectively operating inside Greece what does that say about Greece's compliance and sovereignty. I'll show you the images. I'm very disturbed by this. Yeah. You and I were talking

[15:55] off offline yesterday about this this new and very strong relationship between Greece uh Greece, Cyprus and Israel. Yeah. Over lunch. Yeah. I totally get it because Turkey's a common enemy. There's a lot of economic development at play. A lot a lot of natural gas. I get it. But then at the same time, you see these examples where it's like the countries are are losing their

[16:30] sovereignty. They're beholdened to the Israelis and the Israelis act like they own the place. I was surprised when I flew into Cypress the other day and I I happened to look at the arrivals board because I wanted to see where to pick up my luggage and it said Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Athens. Yeah. So, it's true. Things have changed in the Eastern Mediterranean. But this this thing, sorry to answer your question about about Kriti (Crete), this is utterly completely unacceptable. The Israelis have no authority to operate inside Greek territory or Cypriot

[17:06] territory unless the governments of Greece and Cyprus are conceding that authority and allowing them to do it. In which case, shame on them. Okay. Strong message, clear, loud and clear. Now, Trump and his family, there are claims, I'm going to say claims so that I don't get um um what say a lawsuit my way. There are claims circulating that members of the Trump family have deep business ties with defense and drone technology companies alongside reports of

[17:39] a sharp rise in their personal wealth uh net worth in the 15 months that Trump has been officially in office. What's your take on these claims, John, and how should viewers interpret them? Sure. Um I I I would go beyond calling them claims. I think that they've been they've been borne out. Um but but this is the difference between what the American government used to look like and what it looks like today. The Constitution is very clear, Susie. It it's that the American

[18:13] government is three co-equal branches. The executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Over the course of the last two generations, the legislative has weakened itself. um on purpose and has seated that authority, that constitutionally granted authority to the executive. Donald Trump maintained in his first term that a sitting president can do literally anything he wants and not be prosecuted for it. That was absurd to most of us. And it went all

[18:49] the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled in Trump's favor. And so now what? You want to do insider trading? No problem. You want to be a grifter? Go ahead and do it. No problem. You want to make money on drones or crypto or real estate in the occupied territories? Nobody's going to stop you because the Supreme Court said you could. And so we see these reports that Donald Trump's children are involved in high-end real estate deals, billions of dollars in real estate.

[19:23] They're involved in creating new cryptocurrency. They're involved in in um uh drone technology and and sitting on the board of directors of drone companies. Yeah. And they're getting rich rich rich. And apparently, according to the Supreme Court, there's nothing illegal about that. It makes us a far weaker country. Last week I hosted uh Dimitri Lascaris and he's You've heard of him? Oh, I follow him every single day. Great. Yeah. And my partner, after I I mentioned him to you

[19:58] like a month or so ago, it was independently of my of my partner. She uh she's been following him because he's been driving all over Iran and reporting from the, you know, on the ground from Iran. Um, but yeah, I only know him because of you. Um, he is a Greek American investigative journalist. He was a lawyer, class action lawsuit lawyer, extremely successful. and 10 years ago he said, you know, he had done what he was going to do and he's a very very good investigative journalist, always on the ground. [snorts] Uh I think he visited Iran five times so far and he's

[20:30] gone multiple times south Lebanon. Anyway, he had spent 10 days uh inside Iran during the war in March, traveling across the country from north uh the Kurdish part all the way down to uh Minab where the deadly uh school um uh thing happened and even uh spent time in the Strait of Hormuz on on a boat. And then he spent five days in Lebanon a day after the eternal darkness operation took place reporting those five days from Beirut and from South Lebanon reaching Nabatieh. Now what

[21:04] stood out for me is that he described a sometimes he he stood up for me that he mentioned is that he described a reality very different from what western audiences are told about Iran and the existence of um other religious groups. He said that Jewish and Christian communities are practicing freely in Iran. They are not living under oppression. Were you aware of that? Yes, you were aware of that. Oh yeah. Yeah. In fact, uh Iran hosts one of the longest continuously operating Christian churches on the planet. It's it goes back to something like the fifth century,

[21:39] the sixth century. It's one of the oldest anywhere ever. And um I wasn't aware of that. Oh yeah. They've got a thriving Christian community in Iran. And there's also a small Jewish community uh and they're perfectly free to practice their religion. Specifically on on Iran's Jewish community, what the other thing that stood out for me is that you know Tehran still hosts uh the um they say it's one of the oldest Jewish populations in the world. Might be small but it's significant. It's one of the oldest Jewish populations in the world. And

[22:09] their synagogue in Tehran um the main one was as you know struck by the IDF. Mhm. And the IDF described it as collateral damage with almost no western coverage on on the matter. But this gives the Israelis the opportunity to say there's not even a place for Iranian Jews to to worship. Yeah, cuz you bombed it. You bombed it. But my question is why the silence when it happens? Why the silence? But when it happens the other way around, if if Iran had bombed a synagogue in Europe,

[22:42] what do you think the global reaction would have been there? Oh, world war. Seriously? Oh, yes. Yeah, it would have been world war. See, but the thing is is religious freedom doesn't fit into the western narrative on Iran. The the the Western countries don't want people to believe that there is freedom of religion in Iran. And there is, you know, Iran I read this just recently. Iran is is probably only about 55 or 60% Shia Muslim. It's seen as the world's largest bastion of Shia

[23:14] Islam. But in fact, there are so many different ethnic groups and so many different faiths that sure while it is the majority, it's barely the majority because there are still Zoroastrians, a lot of Zoroastrians, there are Sunni Muslims, especially in what in ihe Gulf we used to call Arabistan along the southwest coast. Okay. and in Baluchistan. So it's kind of like a hook that goes to the east of the border with Pakistan. Um there are Jews, there are Christians, the Kurdish also they're Sunnis, right? The Kurds, the Kurds are also Sunnis. Mhm. Okay.

[23:49] And now I want us to touch upon my fatherland. You know, it's a very sensitive topic for me, Lebanon. So South Lebanon, despite what's being called the ceasefire, villages are still being uh systematically destroyed and levelled through controlled detonations. Israel control controls a so-called uh yellow zone which spans 7 to 10 kilometers inside Lebanon and they've deemed any person now during the ceasefire people are trying to return back to South Lebanon. Any person who enters the so-called yellow zone is branded by Israel as a terrorist. We're talking residents of

[24:21] those villages and they're immediately um killed. So we're seeing daily footage coming out. It's all on X and it's mostly coming up from Israeli accounts and the IDF documenting the scale of the demolitions and the levelling of of villages. We're talking it's around a thousand homes a day. I read somewhere and there are reports which Dimitri confirmed to me that um the these demolitions are being incentivized by the Israeli government. I mean they're getting paid for

[24:54] according to number of homes they detonate or they demolish with their bulldozers on a daily basis. And alongside that, there's the footage that they're also using white phosphorus again, which is a chemical weapon not allowed. Um, so the 'Gazification' of South Lebanon is in full effect. Um, what's your assessment of what's happening on the ground in South Lebanon? The so-called ceasefire isn't in effect, and people need to know that. Yeah, just because Donald Trump declares that there's a ceasefire does not mean that the Israelis are going to stop firing at anybody. Uh,

[25:26] I think that the Israeli goal is to make it a a dead zone, a no man's land. Not to settle it. I think eventually eventually to settle it, but right now they they want to ethnically cleanse the whole of southern Lebanon. I heard something the other day from a friend of mine at the White House who who has told me things that have come to pass. Like he's told me in advance, he told me a week in advance, we're going to attack Iran next week. And then when I said on a podcast, I have a friend who's in the know who said we're going to attack Iran. People jumped all over me.

[25:58] I saw one of the comments, one of the comments I saw on YouTube was this guy wants us to think that somebody just walked up to him, a convicted criminal, and told him defense secrets. And I said, "Yeah." And that's exactly what happened. And a week later, we attacked Iran. Yeah. Yeah. So he told me that the administration is working with the Israelis to create something called uh the dead zone. Oh. Or dead zones in southern Lebanon. It's a combination of the area around

[26:32] the Iranian uh nuclear uh area. Yeah. where where the experimentation the the uranium enrichment was taking place and in southern Lebanon where the policy will be if anything moves in those areas it's going to be bombed and killed. They're already enforcing it. I think it's going to be an actual policy for the whole of southern Lebanon. They're calling it the yellow zone now. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing will be able to live there. The Lebanese Ministry of Health has published a

[27:05] report that since May 2, when they started their war with Lebanon, the toll has reached around 2,550 Lebanese killed civilians mostly and lots of members of the press and paramedics. They do this double, triple, and quadruple tap strikes and 7,800 wounded. And that adds on top to the thousand uh casualties that we registered from the November 24 ceasefire which they also never kept in effect. And they continue to bomb with missiles and use white phosphorus. I I heard a statistic

[27:39] just two days ago uh on the BBC that the Israelis have killed more journalists since October than were killed in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan combined. I saw it. The BBC, you're right. It's true. It's true. Their goal. And I was on a debate um on the Pierce Morgan show a couple of months ago and I was there with Danny Ayalon from the Mossad,

[28:12] uh Alan Dersowitz, the attorney of Jeffrey Epste. You had good company. the the great thinker uh Scott Horton and uh and Pierce and me and I did the least amount of speaking. The rest of them mostly just screamed at each other. And I said uh at the end Pierce said to me, um, "Do you believe that Hamas is a terrorist organization?" He still keeps asking that question. And I said, "I believe that for the most part Hamas is a is a national liberation organization." I said,

[28:44] "As it as it goes to attacking civilians, specifically planning to attack civilians, yes, of course, that's an act of terror." Agreed. Agreed. So, do you believe October um October 7th was a terrorist uh attack? I said, "Again, if the intent was specifically to to kill civilians, yes, it was an attack, a terrorist attack." And he said, "Then why are you disagreeing with Danny Ayalon and Alan Dersowitz?" And I said, "Pierce, the policy can't be kill everybody. That's not a

[29:21] policy. That's a genocide." And that's what the Israelis have decided to do. They're committing genocide in Gaza, genocide in in southern Lebanon, genocide in the West Bank, genocide in Iran, and we can't abide it. you cannot have as a policy to just kill everybody. He called me later and told me that I was responsible for changing his mind on this war in uh in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Well, let's hope he sticks to this change of mind. I hope so because he also said that someone else

[29:55] had changed um bas and then he's gone back to his old ways. So, yeah, he does. Yeah. It's like he can't help himself. Yeah. Yeah. Can't believe we discussed Piers Morgan on in our in our talk here. But I I have to make it a point that South Lebanon is has a striking feature. It's not just strategically important with the Litani River, which is the largest the largest uh natural water source of the Middle East. This is more important than oil. People think Oh, it's much more

[30:26] important than oil. And that's why the Israelis are so interested in it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. But also south Lebanon is religiously significant. There are some of the oldest these are some of the oldest Christian dance villages deeply connected to the Bible to early Christianity right and to the teachings of Jesus. They are levelling churches and religious sites and um cemeteries. The tomb of St. Peter that that was not now but it was in the 2024 uh part of the war. You know, this

[31:01] is a I'm going to say something that's going to be unpopular. You're probably going to get some angry uh angry responses, but I blame I blame American evangelical Christians for this. I believe that much of American-based evangelical Christianity is a cult. It's not a religion. It's a cult. And they're constantly trying to recruit people into their cult. And as a result, they've allied themselves with Zionist Israel at the expense of the original Christians. The original Christians

[31:38] in the region, the Palestinian Christians, the Lebanese Christians, and others around the region, I don't think they care at all about Christianity. I think it's all about their own diluted view of Zionism and of the apocalypse. If you if you speak one-on-one with an American evangelical, not all evangelicals, but these Zionist ones, they will tell you that they that they're close to Israel because they want all Jews around the world to return or to return to go to move to Israel to

[32:14] hasten the return of Christ. Because when all the Jews, according to the book of Revelation, when all the Jews return, that's when the Messiah comes and everybody lives happily ever after following the World War, the apocalypse. Yeah, it's all nonsense, of course, but everybody else has to pay the price. How many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands have died over the years because of this stupid cultlike belief that they can force the hand of God. True. Now, I'm shifting

[32:48] to 2028. I got to ask you all these questions because I have you here, [laughter] you know, and I want your views on all these matters. So 2028 crucial not just for America but for for the whole world and the region here if we're still standing that is. So who do you think the Democrats are most likely to you know push forward as their nominee? Same goes for the Republicans. Yeah. Well the Republicans are easier. The the conventional wisdom is that it's going to be JD Vance. I don't think it's going to be JD Vance. I think it's going to be Marco Rubio. JD Vance is a

[33:24] child. The guy just turned 40 like two weeks ago. He's not equipped to run for president. He's no Barack Obama. Not that I'm pro Obama. I'm strongly anti-Obama, okay? But he's just not equipped. He was in the Senate for two years. Two years. That's the that's the extent of his involvement in government. Two years in the Senate, during which time he did literally nothing. And so now he's running for president. Donald Trump has tried to sort of uh school him. That's not really

[33:58] working out. Marco Rubio has already run for president. He's a very long-time senator. He was a congressman before that. He's been a successful attorney and investment banker. Um and this whole idea, Susie, of MAGA, make America great again. It's it's on the downswing. uh it had its time just like the Tea Party had its time in the first decade of the century and the Republican party is returning to the party of neoconservatism. Well, Marco Rubio is a neoconservative and he's

[34:35] not going to rest until the Cuban government is overthrown. It was his idea to overthrow Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. It was his idea to recommend to Donald Trump that we go along with the Israeli demand to attack Iran. He loves these wars. He thrives on these wars and he has Lindsey Graham whispering in his ear that these wars are good for America somehow. So I don't think it's going to be JD Vance. Plus, like I say, he's got 40 more years ahead of him. He He has plenty of time. It'll be Marco Rubio. The Democrats are far far more difficult. Gavin Newsome.

[35:10] I think he's so easily attacked. I don't think he can make it through a long primary season. Let me explain something and please forgive the uh the length of my response to you. In 1972, George McGovern was the Democratic nominee for president. He lost 49 of the 50 states. Okay? And the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, said, "We will never allow that to happen again." And so they instituted this policy in the Democratic primaries called superdelegates. So,

[35:44] if you are an elected official, a Democrat, you're a governor, a senator, a congressman, the head of a a state party, the deputy head of a state party, a guy that I like, a guy that, you know, I owe a favor to, you become a superdelegate. So, in your home state, you get to vote on the nominee for for president. Yeah. It doesn't matter who wins in your state. And I'll give you an example. There were two states in 2016 where Bernie Sanders got 60% and Hillary Clinton got 40%. And Hillary

[36:22] Clinton won every single one of the delegates. How is that a democracy? Because the superdelegate overrides the choice. Yeah. Yeah. That's not democracy. That's not democracy. The Republicans don't have that. The Republicans, whoever wins the primary is the nominee. The Democrats, they choose their person in the smoke filled back room like the olden days. That's the nominee. I don't think Gavin Newsome has that kind of support within the Democratic structure, but he's also very easily

[36:53] attacked. Gas right now is between $8 and $9 a gallon in um California. Well, why when it's $45 a gallon everywhere else in the country? because the taxes are so high Yeah. that it's $9. Um, California lost 2 million residents. Yeah. Between the last census and the census before. That's two congressional delegate uh congressional districts. People are running away from California. They're

[37:27] moving to Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Florida because taxes are too high. Yeah. And so there's another thing about him too. Gavin Newsome was a member of the San Francisco City Council. Then he was the chairman of the city council. Then he was the mayor of San Francisco. Then the lieutenant governor of California. Then the governor of California. Okay. So he's this is a very wellthought-out plan to move higher higher higher and become president. When he was running

[38:01] for governor of California, he asked his lifelong best friend, who was also his campaign manager, to represent him at a political function. The man did. It wasn't because Newsome was busy. It was because Newsome was having an affair with his best friend's wife and they got caught. What kind of person is that? If if your best friend and your own wife can't trust you, yeah, why am I supposed

[38:32] to trust you? Are you gonna screw me behind your back as an American taxpayer? So, I don't I don't like or trust Gavin Newsome at all. But the thing is is who's the alternative to Newsome? um JB Pritsker, who's the the governor of um Illinois, is trying to break out of the pack, but um he's Jewish. He's a well-known Zionist, and people are saying that's not going to work out so

[39:02] well having a Jewish nominee. Um another one is the the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. Josh Shapiro is a is a veteran of the IDF. Okay. He's an American citizen who served but he didn't serve in the US military. He went and joined the Israeli military. So sorry, no IDF soldier is getting my vote to be president of the United to be president of the United States. It's outrageous. Then you have Kamala Harris who's making noise about running again. Kamala Harris,

[39:36] she couldn't get elected to the local school board, let alone to get herself elected. Nobody wanted her to be the Democratic nominee for president. I'd be surprised if her own if her own husband voted for her. Uh, and then you and I were talking about this app earlier, Kelshi. It's a predictive app, and you you bet money on, you know, is it going to rain in Nicosia today? Yes. No. And it gives you odds. Well, if you look at who's going to be the Democratic nominee for president, and I looked an hour ago, okay, there are 46 people listed. They're

[40:09] in trouble. The Democratic Party. My other part of the question is do you think there's a possibility this time for a serious third candidate to emerge something like what Ross Perot and Ron Paul tried um to do but with much stronger momentum John this time from Americans on both sides who are feeling increasingly disconnected from the system. They've had it with with the uniparty system. It's a uniparty. It is a uni party and it has been for a long time. Would you like such uh very very much to rise? Okay. So again, forgive the long- windedness of my of my response,

[40:45] but you know, as recently as a hundred years ago, we had multiple viable third parties in the United States. We had a we had a viable socialist party. We had a viable progressive party. Um, in 2016 I travelled to 12 states with the nominee of the Libertarian Party, Governor Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico. And because Trump and Clinton were both so unpopular, he was running as a Libertarian. Uh, uh, Jill Stein was running as the Green Party nominee.

[41:20] And there was an independent, and his name escapes me now. He was a former CIA officer running as an independent. Um, and everybody believed that they had an honest shot at winning something. Governor Johnson said to me, "We were campaigning in Utah and he said, "The polls are showing we have a real shot at winning Utah and New Mexico. Can you write an op-ed in the Washington Post?" I said, "Of course." So, I wrote this op-ed about how we intended to win these two states with the

[41:53] idea being that you pull the eventual of the eventual winner below 270 what is it 270 yeah um electoral votes so that the vote goes into the House of Representatives. Of course, the the nominee who came closest would probably win, but it might it might be an event to encourage the growth of third parties. So, we did well in Utah. We got like 11%. The polls showed us at 23. Um,

[42:30] but Trump won most of the states. Clinton won the remaining states and the third parties didn't win anything. In the end, the libertarians got 3% which was a historic high. Okay. With that said, you compared you compared what might be in 2028 with with Ron Paul and Ross Perot and I'm going to add John Anderson. John Anderson was a liberal Republican congressman. No such thing exists anymore. A liberal Republican congressman from Illinois in 1980. He ran

[43:02] against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. And in the end, Reagan got 51%. Um Carter got 41% and Anderson got 7%. Anderson had no money. Wow. And he got 7% of the national vote. Well, Ron Paul got under 2% when he ran. Ross Perot got a good 20%. But he also spent, you know, almost a billion dollars out of his own pocket. This year could be different. This year could

[43:34] be different because if you look at the polls, yeah, people hate the uni-party for all intents and purposes. The Democrats and the Republicans are just different sides of the same coin. They essentially agree on everything. There are minor disagreements around the edges that they want us to think are grave differences. And they're not. Yeah. They're the same. Yeah. And so if you look at the polls, somebody like Tucker Carlson Yes. has an actual shot at winning this thing. So,

[44:08] yeah, I spoke to him about this recently. Okay. And he professes to not be interested. I Glenn Greenwald is another popular writer, podcaster, commentator. I know that Glenn has spoken to him as well. It's like, you have to run. And I and I told Tucker a week ago, I said, "You have to run and I'm all in." and he said, 'Well, no, it's yeah, I'm not a politician. Which is true, but that's exactly what America wants. They don't want a politician. They want someone they can

[44:39] trust. And out of everybody that's out there in the chattering class like you and me, he's the one that people trust the most because he says what he believes even at a significant personal cost. He has to have security now. He has to he has to have security because he's becoming so prominent, so important. He's he's getting threats and we're in this crazy period right now. Three different people have tried to kill Donald Trump. He said that his family members have received threats.

[45:12] Absolutely. Yeah. And he decides to run. It's it's going to really set his life in danger. Direct danger. So maybe that's what he's contemplating. I think that's exactly what he's contemplating. I think that that is I think that his primary uh concern is his family. Yeah. As it should be. And I think that he's probably thinking, "What do I get out of this? I get one headache after another." Yeah. He likes his life. He lives in a in a beautiful part of the country. He's an avid

[45:44] fly fisherman, so he can go fishing anytime he wants. Why change that? Is it really worth it? You know, when I was traveling with Governor Johnson, I asked him why the libertarians weren't catching on. Because libertarian philosophy is very attractive to me. Ronald Reagan once said, "Government is the problem. It's not the solution to the problem." That's in in a in a sentence, that's the philosophy of the Libertarian Party. And he said, "We're not catching on because we

[46:20] don't have a benefactor. We don't have somebody who can write a check for $150 million and, you know, put us on the map." AIPAC would never support and AIPAC would never ever ever support a libertarian candidate for president. Never. Because we're anti-militarist. And so, um, there was one wealthy man in California. I never knew his name. I never learned his name. He was described to me as the canned tomato king of California. This is how he made his money. And

[46:52] he gave us $40,000. And so we used it to buy a motor home, a Winnebago. And we drove from state to state to state campaigning. And then when we lost the election, we just sold the Winnebago. So yeah, it's it's all about the money. Yeah, you need at least a billion dollars to run for president. Now Obama was the first one to raise a billion. This last time both the Democrats and Republicans raised one and a half billion. Crazy. Yeah. So nobody else can compete. I want to end it

[47:23] coming back to our region here. Um and um and end it on asking you on what what is your opinion on the future of NATO, especially considering Israel repeatedly threatening Turkey primarily through its former prime minister Naftali Bennett, you know, spewing out threats at Turkeykey's necks. Oh yeah, that's going to be the big final war. Oh yeah, everybody's talking about it. But we all know that with the US in NATO and Article 5 in place, yes, Israel cannot realistically go to war with Turkey and go it alone. So what's your view of your projection? They want that war

[47:59] with Turkey. They do. They're actively seeking war with Turkey. Turkey is their last impediment to them um realizing their greater Israel dream. Yes. So what's your projection? How is that going to happen with the US in NATO? Is the US going to stay in it? Just your projection. I mean, you know, putting There are a lot of moving parts in this situation. I happened to have dinner recently with a with a Turkish deputy minister. He was in Washington. Oh. And reached out to me. I have I had never met the man before. Okay. And we ended up having dinner together. And I asked

[48:34] him exactly this question. Yeah. What did he say? He said, "We welcome an Israeli attack on Turkey. God has help us here in Cypress. We're going to seriously cuz Cyprus is stuck right in the center of it. Oh yeah. And you know all hell is going to break loose and 38% of our land is already occupied by the Turkish. That's right. 38% 40,000 soldiers stationed. That's right. They are unloading uh on a daily basis since February 28th at the port of Famagusta. Yes. Tanks, tanks, armored personnel, carriers, missile systems. Yeah. No one has come officially to uh say this,

[49:10] but um I've been fed this information and seen footages. So, we're going to be caught right in the middle of this. Yes, indeed. And where are we going to escape? We're on an island. We're going Yeah. Where are you going to run? Everybody runs here. The place is the place is full of of, you know, refugees and people sitting out war in the region. Where would you run? There's nowhere to run unless you go to Greece and Greece probably is going to be involved anyway. So, what's your projection? How is that going to happen? What? How's America going to react? Are they going to exit NATO? It depends on who's president. Donald Trump hates NATO. He hates NATO. He wants the US

[49:43] to withdraw from NATO. Um Donald Trump is only going to be president for two and a half more years. And I just can't imagine that an American that there will ever be a with an American withdrawal from NATO. The Americans are the kings of NATO. Um although the Cypriot president said last week that it was time for the European Union to start thinking about a formal military alliance in place of NATO just in case the Americans withdraw. That's a very very smart thing to do. You have to plan for every contingency. Um if the Turks were to invoke Article 5,

[50:19] that would be the end of NATO because there's no way. Can you imagine Israel attacks Turkey? Turkey invokes article 5. The United States is compelled to attack Israel. Compelled by treaty to attack Israel. That will never happen in a million years. NATO falls apart. And then NATO falls apart. So, I mean, it's kind of the goal of a lot of NATO countries anyway, to get Turkey out of the alliance. An EU military alliance would be the next best thing, and it wouldn't include

[50:49] Turkey. Yeah. But you're right, Cyprus is stuck in the middle. So what happens? Do the European Union countries rally to the side of of Israel? Do they rally to the side of Turkey? What would their militaries do if they're still in NATO? God help us all. It's it's the beginning of World War II. It really is while the Chinese and the Russians sit back like this and enjoy the show. Yeah. There was a pick up the pieces. There's a satirical newspaper in the United States called The Onion.

[51:21] Very funny. They had a headline the other day and it said, "China, Russia content to sit by and watch America destroy itself." That's what's happening. And that's what's happening. John, thank you for this first part of the conversation. And to everyone watching, if you found this uh discussion um insightful and valuable, uh please uh like, share, subscribe, tap the notification bell because you're helping this small channel from the Eastern Mediterranean uh push through the algorithm and reach out to more of you in the US. We're very thankful for our 11,000 followers

[51:55] on YouTube. Um I think it's tw 13,000 on X and uh 6 and a half thousand on Tik Tok. But we need another big push. So, we're counting on that. And uh John, before I I want to thank you truly for this first part of the conversation. But we before we close, just a final ask. I'd love to ask you what's your take on the channel and the kind of work that we're doing here. Oh, this is my third or fourth time on the on the show. Something like that. Fourth. Fourth time. And I come on the show

[52:27] because I believe in it. Uh, not only are you the only um womanhosted political discussion podcast in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, you're the biggest and this is an outlet that people need to pay attention to because you're sitting right in the center of of a major global conflict right now. And so I think people really should listen, it doesn't cost anything to like and subscribe. Nothing. And if you really want to stay up on what is happening in the Eastern

[52:58] Mediterranean, this is the place to find out. Thank you for that, John. Thanks. My pleasure. [music]
