Title: #279 — Epstein, Bin Laden, China & Israel
Show: Julian Dorey Podcast
Date: 2025-02-28
URL: https://youtu.be/scrGRKVa-Q4
Duration: 163:00

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[00:01] hey guys if you're not subscribed please smash that subscribe button and hit that like button on the video and if you don't have time to watch this episode right now no problem but I'd really appreciate it if you would save it to your watch later playlist finally if you'd like to follow me on Instagram and X those links are in my description below thank you so I said to Carrie this is 2009 the pakistanis arrested that doctor they charged him with before he's killed cuz he's killed in 2011 correct right so I said we should get him out and bring it back to the United States oh cuz you knew that you were read in on

[00:33] the intelligence that they confirmed it was him you knew about bin L's whereabouts 2 years before it happened and you weren't even in CIA anymore yeah how do you [Music] know what about the other one though you know what one I'm going to ask about which one the files the ones that were just magically shut from everyone at the end of 2021 at the end of gilan Maxwell's trial oh that you know I

[01:06] almost forgot about that talk about literally no reason to be classified and another thing you know Epstein's black book do I know I've read it cover it's sold it's sold at auction the original sold at auction and the photocopy out there for people to see why would we be protecting a guy like him why he's a convicted pet first of all and probably way worse than just that yes I think the evidence is pretty strong that he was way worse than that

[01:37] bad bad guy I say all all the time and I'm going to repeat it here I think the reason why even in death he's being protected is I believe pretty strongly that he's a he was a mosad access agent as do I it it it all points to that so why are we protecting him yeah exactly why are we protecting him uhhuh that's why you were here please answer I mean well look look at why the Mad might be interested in somebody like him let's say you are the leader of the mad and

[02:08] you want really tightly held closely protected information from senior American leaders political leaders Business Leaders you can't recruit those people you're not going to recruit Bill Clinton you're not going to recruit uh Bill Gates or you know any of the other PE prince Andrew you're not going to recruit those people so you do the next thing you recruit somebody who has ready access to that that's right and then on top of that you give them an unlimited amount of money where he's got this

[02:40] private island in the Caribbean and a private jet where he can fly his friends down there you wire the house for audio and video so nothing is uh is overlooked and you ply them with alcohol and underage girls and you've got them you've got them so you can either do it the easy way or you can do do it the hard way you say to them look you just had 16-year-old girl and so you're going to tell me what I want to know

[03:10] or they know what the game is they know what they've done otherwise we wouldn't have people coming out and saying well I kept my underwear on remember that uhhuh so I think that that's what this was I think that this is because we all know that the Israelis spy on us I mean they're they're worse than the KGB or whatever the KGB we're going to talk about that yeah yeah they're they're for for the intelligence community of the United States Israel is ranked as critical threat for Counter Intelligence they are prolific spies and so um I I it

[03:44] just makes perfect sense to me that this would be an access operation so again though why are we the ones saying nope NOP nope closed up cuz let me let me paint a picture for you real quick and you tell me if I'm way off here I I don't I don't care if I'm off it's just what I think about sometimes and I've I remember my first conversation I ever had with Danny Jones on the phone we talked about this and that I've had this thought for probably four or five years I want you to imagine you're sitting in a room a back room in Israel in 1967 or

[04:18] 1968 okay you just had the whole 1967 thing pop off right you were just over 20 years removed from the Holocaust where your race was attempted to be exterminated from this Earth You are still four years out for the Munich Olympics where people are going to put their hands up and not help you or not let you even come in and help the situation when your people were kidnapped and the games actually continued they didn't even pause while it was going on that's right so that's not even on the table yet but you realize that there's a lot of support around the world that isn't necessarily coming to your Aid in your defense you

[04:49] are a small country in the middle of the Middle East where every at the time every single country around you would like you eradicated from the earth and in this room is only a hand full of people it's like golden my ear the leader maybe the the definitely the head of mad maybe the head of Shin Bet m one or two other people and you were sitting around and mind you in America we think about everything tomorrow the day after that maybe if we're a real long-term thinker we're thinking about next year

[05:20] Point good point other places around the world they think two 300 years out certain places around the world they're thinking thousands of years out and when you have something like you know the Jewish people who have been persecuted throughout time stuck together very well who just witnessed an Extinction event happen they are thinking thousands of years out to make this last their population have been decimated that's why the hdic Jews have so many children yeah it's to repopulate another great example so you have that thought in mind and mean and I say this because you're

[05:52] not thinking about what is Israel look like in 1987 you're thinking about what Israel looks like in 3027 and what your people the diaspora looks like around the world and you say to yourself it's not math it's now a mathematical analytical trade-off that's why you're in this job you say to yourself okay how do we ensure our survival thousands of years from now well we got one place that's a great friend America but they are geographically separated from us and we're having some trouble getting them to come over here and help

[06:22] us on certain issues we've had some tough back Channel Communications with them it's not really working as well as we want and we know the people in Europe are good for nothing so how do we make sure America is our best friend well you know this is the dawn of the TV age it's where pop culture kind of all comes together it's post Kennedy who was a pop culture president you have politics you have entertainment you have media you have you know business all these things are interchangeable and you say okay we need to make sure we get close to these people and we need to make sure that when we get close to these people you

[06:52] know we have some information that can make sure that they're there for us when we need them and so they sit around the room and they say right what's one thing people can't come back from and someone raises their hand and they say murder and they're like no no that's been done before people have come back from that you can come back from that and then someone in the room says and you got to bleep this cesie kid and everyone in the room knows that this is a first world country we're talking about and that's a big no no you don't come back from that you do that you're cooked it's not possible you're cooked MH and they sit there and they

[07:23] say maybe they don't say it like this but they say are we willing to sacrifice the lives effectively of 50,000 kids over the next five six decades to make sure that our entire race survives a thousand years from now and in the words Alo rain I'll make that deal right like that's the attitude that the people in those rooms have and that's not a deal I want to make to be clear I'm not saying about myself right I'm saying this is how they might think I could see that is that far-fetched no I could see that I could see that their

[07:56] calculation is far different than our calculation would be you're right about about long-term versus short-term we only look to you know the end of the the current president's term we don't do long-term planning we never have we pretend to like on nuclear stock piles and stuff like that but we don't really do long-term planning they do very long-term planning and that's why that's why there's such prolific spies um I remember on my first day at the CIA and I think I told you this before um we

[08:26] were in the it's called the bubble the cia's auditorium and all the new hires like hundreds of us and uh we were getting briefings like the the head of security would come and brief us and the head of HR and the head of this and the head of that and whatever and the head of Counter Intelligence came to brief us and said he explained what a declared officer was versus a unilateral officer so a unilateral officer is you're undercover overseas nobody knows your CIA a

[08:56] declared officer is somebody where like I was I was declared uh in in Athens the the my boss took me to the Greek intelligence service and said this is John kyaku he's a CIA officer and he's here to work with your people so they've declared my status so um he said that the Israelis have to declared officers here uh one mad one

[09:27] shinb they work in the Israeli Embassy missing 187 though and and the FBI had yeah the FBI had identified 189 yeah 189 Undeclared Israeli officers Intelligence Officers and they were they were in mostly in defense contractors all across America trying to steal our defense Secrets later on somebody told me well you know the Israelis the Israelis are obsessed with the idea that we're not

[09:58] giving them everything right and we give them pretty much everything but they want to make sure they're getting everything literally everything for example when the F35 came out they were the first ones to say we want the F35 and so we said okay we'll give you the F35 so we just barely degraded the avionics okay and we called it the f35i for Israel and the reason why we did did

[10:29] that is because we don't want anybody to have exactly the avionics that we have in case you know what happens if one of these crashes in Russian territory and the Russians reverse engineer now they have the F35 we did the same thing with the Emirates the F35 e for Emirates so they said no we want your F35 the same F-35 that that you have and we're like no we're not giving it to you and we sold them the f 35 I well they're trying to

[11:01] steal the avionics for the F-35 because we wouldn't turn it over it's very typical of what the israelies do and then you know at the same time they smile and they thank you and our friendship is is forever greatest Ally yeah another one he should have stayed in Philadelphia the world would be a better place yeah he's not great no it's here this is such a hard topic because people have such strong opinions and and I get yelled at by everyone on this like a lot of things I'm pretty down the

[11:33] middle on this one I fully I fully understand why it's a state I support that I would like a two-state solution me too I think that Hamas and Hezbollah are bad I also think the current leadership of the Israeli government is bad I think what's going on in Gaza is terrible I understand October 7th was was terrible and that's what started in the first place I agree with every word you've said Okay so let's keep going here first of all the million-dollar question let's start with an easy one the f35i example

[12:04] if the shoe were on the other foot will we not do the same thing probably okay yeah so you got to call it both ways on this that's fair second example not necessarily like a guy like Epstein himself who was just so prolific and really like he was over the top about it like he in your face about it it was really disgusting and pathetic and a lot of things at the same time the types of things he did though that involve tring human traffing let's call it what it is do we ever do that

[12:37] too not in my experience I ask when when I speak at universities as part of my standard speech I ask this question it's a hypothetical question um but I usually talk about ethics and I say imagine you are a CIA officer working overseas undercover and you have recruited a Bonafide terrorist Hezbollah Al-Qaeda Isis whatever it doesn't make any difference and you meet

[13:08] with him monthly in a hotel room let's say in Aman or Cairo and this guy has given you actionable intelligence that you have used to disrupt attacks against the United States the guy's the real deal and you go to meet him one day and he says you know what I've given you everything that you have wanted so today you're going to do something for me and I'm not giving you any more information until you get me a prostitute right now

[13:41] just a prostitute do you get him the prostitute I said I always ask show of hands how many people would give him the prostitute and usually about 75% put their hands up yeah I Pro I probably make that deal yeah and I say yeah yeah you would you give him the prostitute it's it's nasty it's ugly but you know this is the job that we've Chosen and that's her job as long as she agreed to it like on a business yeah okay what if he asks you for a child prostitute yeah I knew it was going there how many would

[14:12] give him a prostitute that's where I can't do this show and they all they all look around and then usually about 10% will put their hand up and I say absolutely not not under any circumstance let's talk about peptides for a minute if you're like me you're seeing them everywhere just because something says peptide on the label doesn't mean it's actually doing anything for you that's where one Skin's oso1 peptide is different while some peptides just sit

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[21:30] Brian it was he was on that article we pulled up earlier he's the guy who announced all these things all the US Aid funding Brian right man or it's short not man it's you have the linkas Mars one I texted you yeah that guy Mass what was it Brian m m yeah Mast he was wearing another country again I don't have any issue like there's a lot of positive about Israel but like if that were a British uniform everyone

[22:01] would be up in arms yeah they would be what the yes it's unacceptable yeah I couldn't agree more I feel exactly the same way and you know it's it's it pains me too that we are so willing as a country to just acques to genocide and even the act of even the act of moving Palestinians out of Gaza to develop the land that is an act of

[22:32] genocide ethnic cleansing yeah it's ethnic cleansing exactly why is nobody talking about this you can't do it I I was talking to an Albanian um documentary filmmaker just a couple of days ago and he said you know there's this idea being floated that they're going to move all the Palestinians to Albania because we're Muslims and I'm like Albania I hadn't heard that he said the albanians are up in arms right now secular Muslim too yeah there secular Muslims who don't speak Arabic by the way yeah and uh you

[23:04] know there was talk early on it came from the White House of moving them to this island that's owned by Indonesia and they could speak Arabic there and then the third idea was to split them in half and you put half in Jordan and half in Egypt and both the jordanians and Egyptians said absolutely not you know in in 68 uh in September of 68 Palestinians were fighting Jordanian troops literally on the steps of the

[23:34] Royal Palace to take Jordan for themselves fully half of the population of Jordan is Palestinian the king's wife is Palestinian the king's wife is Palestinian now what do you think of that guy let's start there I like the king I do too he's my favorite King he's my favorite King too I I know we like fought a war over that here I don't really [ __ ] with kings and queens but he's you know when I was living in London I used to see the Greek king the exiled deposed Greek king in church on Sunday the royal family gets the the

[24:06] first row in the church and I used to think you sorry bastards you're not even Greek you're Danish you were imposed on us that's right they speak German King Otto the first othonos which isn't even a Greek name they they heniz it uhhuh he never he was King for 30 years he never learned how to speak Greek get the [ __ ] out of here and let us have our democracy Prince Phillip his dad was like in charge Greece yeah yeah Prince Philip was he was born in Greece I'm Greer than yeah exactly he was born in

[24:37] Corfu crazy yeah well the reason I'm happy you bring that up is because I've been monitoring this one like crazy since the beginning because that Jordanian King I first got introduced to him through Joby War's books and I was blown away by him he's a very sweet guy one of the things and now I I know like several people who are like friends with him from different walk you know he's got a beautiful house in DC yeah he's got two actually he's got one in pic Maryland that was his dad's and then he's got a he's got a magnificent condo

[25:07] in the in the uh what is it the not the Waldo story the um in New York Four Seasons no the in in Georgetown okay yeah I'm less familiar yeah but you know he the thing that blew me away with Joby is that joby's first book was about El belly the guy who blew up the base the CIA base who was a Jordanian doctor I think I'm in that book you probably are yeah what do you remember the context you might have been yeah I sat next to uh Jennifer Matthews

[25:39] the woman who died yeah we were branchs together oh yeah yeah yeah I knew her very well we were we she was the chief of I forget what she was the chief of and I was the chief of Counter Intelligence in Alex station so we sat next to each other oh [ __ ] mhm you were the chief of int did you tell me this before I don't know I don't remember you were the chief of Counter Intelligence on the bin Laden desk yeah for how long

[26:10] oh not long uh from when I got back from the Abu aate operation to when I went up to the seventh floor as the uh executive assistant okay so this is after 911 after 911 all right I think we did talk about this well but let's take a little side trip though we'll come back to the king what was that like at that point cuz he's in the weeds he's in the wind I should say yeah he was in the wind so my job was to was to counter um Al-Qaeda efforts to infiltrate the

[26:41] CIA Al-Qaeda was infiltrated was yeah did they ever successfully do it no um but the closest they ever came was unfortunately the host bombing where she was killed uh right so source infiltration got it all right you know may I finish a couple thoughts on Jennifer and this I told Joby this when he was writing the book um many of us were furious with the CIA

[27:14] not with Jennifer Jennifer [ __ ] up and it but it was not her fault the cia's got this rule stupid rule that in order to be promoted to the senior intelligence service you have to have done a rotation in the policy community and a rotation in another directorate so like for me I started in the DI I went to the do and then I did a a rotation to the state department where I was in the American Embassy in Bahrain for two years and then I was the Iraq

[27:44] desk officer at State legitimate State Department jobs so that made me eligible to be a promoted to the senior intelligence service she um had done a rotation at state but she had never done a rotation in Ops well post 911 everybody's like a chicken without a head right so if you're going to if you're an analyst a career analyst she'd been in for you know 12 15 years by then um you're an analyst and they want to

[28:16] move you into an operational position you've got to go through something called the operations course accelerated OCA so you skip all the CIA 101 silliness you know this is what a cable is this is what an operation is this is you know you already know all that stuff so you just skip it so instead of an 18-month class yours is six months and they teach you how to shoot and how to do the crazy driving and how to build a bomb and how to take a bomb apart and how to do all these different things in those six weeks and then you go out to

[28:47] the field so all of this the weapons the counter surveillance all this stuff is fresh in your mind but with Jennifer they're like oh my God we need somebody to go to host like right now hey Jennifer you need a rotation of the deal right so you can get promoted okay go to Coast can you go tomorrow and they send her she didn't know what the [ __ ] she was doing she didn't have any experience at all in operations zero experience in operations she was brilliant and a great analyst

[29:17] but they didn't train her to protect herself and the next thing you know we get this volunteer and he's been Laden's doctor and oh my God it's amazing El belly yeah belly and so this is going to be the greatest source we've ever had against Al-Qaeda and it just fell into our lap cuz he just volunteered and let's bring him onto the compound and then they learn well it's his birthday right so we're going to bake him a cake we're going to bake him a cake and sing happy birthday oh you know what would be a better idea let's meet him outside the Hardline let's meet

[29:48] him where we can't be protected because that'll show him how much we like him and how grateful we are for his information and we'll give him the cake so everybody leave your post and let's all go out to the car now as crazy as this is so far he gets out of the car and he's muttering to himself and that wasn't alerting to anybody what does that mean again in the name of God the merciful the compassionate there is only one God and he is God and Muhammad is the messenger of God yeah yeah that's not what you

[30:20] want to hear when they stand there with a [ __ ] birthday cake no and then he blows everybody up yeah it was the worst it was the worst deadly attack in CIA history we lost more people that day than in any other day in the history of the CIA this is like what like 07 MH so you were out I was out I was at ABC news then doing uh counterterrorism commentary got it

[30:53] that's where your timeline picks up but so you were with her though on that desk for yeah yeah what was that desk like busy yeah where where what kind of leads were you getting on them there no one knew at that time no most of what we were getting was [ __ ] you know you you get when I was in Pakistan I used to get these people all the time um walk-ins yep so a walk-in is somebody who literally walks in off the street and says I have intelligence that I want to share with the CIA okay

[31:25] 98% of the time is it's a lunatic right 1% of the time it's either what's called an intelligence Peddler which is somebody who actually has a nugget of interesting information and he brings it to you and you give him a $100 but then he goes to the British Embassy and then the French Embassy and then the Russian Embassy and then that's a month salary make a living yeah yeah yeah legit yeah the other half percent

[31:56] is what's called a probe so this is usually usually Iranian um it can be Hezbollah or North Korean and they'll come into the embassy like this they'll be like uh yeah I have um I have uh information I want to give to the CIA can you call a CIA guy down here for me and they're looking like where are the cameras um are the doors armored are the windows armored how many of the people

[32:27] on dealing with have guns can I see the true name of anybody on their badge or have they obscured their badge how many checkpoints do I have to get through before I'm actually inside so in the event that they want to attack our embassy at some point and blow it up they've got a design on how to do that that's why we keep them outside the Hardline only in the smallest embassies do you bring them in but otherwise you know I'll meet you at that Shack in the parking lot cuz you're not coming in here yeah but then the remaining 1% is

[32:59] the real deal and the oldtimers who worked against the Soviets will tell you that the greatest sources in the history of the CIA started as Watkins because they're so deep down into the weeds that you would never encounter them you're not going to meet those people at some diplomatic cocktail party right you're not going to meet them anywhere officially like are you going to meet a North Korean nuclear scientist at a cocktail party of course you're not

[33:30] but he may just walk up to the Embassy and knock on the door that's the that that that's a career making sure uh Recruitment and so when they saw balawi and he's you know pretending to be well I'm not sure I want to do this well but maybe I should because 3,000 Americans were killed oh my God I can't believe I'm doing this he played it just right yeah and they were so excited because this was the first major source that we had akin to what we once had against the

[34:00] Soviets this is going to make people are going to get medals they're going to get promoted you know this is going to be incredible hey guys if you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button it's a huge huge help thank you where did you guys when you were on the desk four whatever somewhere in there where did you guys think he was where was where was your inkling bin London y it was pretty well split I thought he was in Afghanistan and um I just didn't think he had the wherewithal to get out from torab Bora I

[34:32] thought that he was hunkered down in a cave I really did and then you know later on I said somebody said oh he's probably still in that cave and I said no that doesn't make sense we know that he's got kidney problems and it's cold in caves you can't be you can be in a cave okay overnight but not years in a cave I said he's probably in some little village somewhere in some you know mud hut and then the other half believed now he's probably in Pakistani probably like right on the border somewhere we didn't realize he had gotten so far in and he's

[35:03] staying at you know what was effectively the West Point of of Pakistan crazy yeah right on top of that's nutsy that can I go back to John Cary whatever you want you've just reminded me of something or I've reminded myself of something he asked me like I'm going to say no [ __ ] you one of the things I told Carrie early on he he told me hey we need to come up with some investigations this is when I thought he actually meant it before I learned better yeah and I said um are you planning any international

[35:35] travel and he said yeah I want to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan I said okay I'll go with you to Pakistan and Afghanistan but I think what we should do is the doctor that led us to Bin Laden do you remember the story of the doctor we recruited a Pakistani doctor to go to abadabad let me back up so so we've got drones and the drones are flying over abadabad we we had a source who said hey you know there's a guy in abadabad and he's really tall and he

[36:06] just walks in circles in the backyard never leaves just walks in circles in the backyard so maybe it's beenin Laden and we said yeah maybe it is maybe it isn't but another thing that's interesting about this house that he's in is most of the houses have um 8ft tall walls around them CU you don't want anybody to see your your women right you put walls around your house yeah you got to keep them protected but this wall around this house is 20t it's not 8T so and this guy this tall guy in

[36:37] white just walking in circles [ __ ] anaki someone's in there right somebody this is somebody whoever it is if it's not bin lad it's somebody so what we did is we recruited a doctor and a Pakistani doctor and we said we want you to go to abadabad go to this neighborhood and give free polio vaccines but as you're giving the polio vaccine take a little DNA test now somewhere RFK is going this is how they C you they come up with the polio vac and then you're [ __ ] got in

[37:10] Laden so um excuse me the bin Laden family was was deeply ashamed of what Osama had done so they offered us um they offered us their help and we said well what would be nice would be would be a DNA sample so in case we kill him and we blast him to a million pieces we can pick up a piece of meat and run a DNA

[37:42] test and confirm that it's him that was a nice Flex you just did by the way that was why I laugh they showed me something but go ahead I thought you'd get a kick out of it yeah I love how you just like don't stop the story just keep going he'll laugh so um so we had the DNA profile of Bin the bin Laden family in general so we recruit this doctor he goes in the neighborhood hey you know playing the music no there's no music like a ice cream ice cream truck G I

[38:13] would have gone um free polio vaccines for everybody and these women bring the children out and he gives the polio vaccine and he takes a little DNA we run the sample Bin Laden family so they had called him the Walking Man all this time and uh it was then that they were able to confirm it was him so Obama sends in the the uh the stealth helicopters they kill him they take the body they take the wives the

[38:44] rest is history so I said to Carrie this is 2009 the pakistanis arrested that doctor they charged him with espion say before he's killed because he's killed in 2011 correct right yeah so I said we should get him out and bring him back to the United States oh cuz you knew that you were read in on the intelligence that they confirmed it was him you knew about bin lad's whereabouts two years before it happened and you weren't even in CIA anymore yeah people talk how do you know people talk holy [ __ ] they get excited and they can't keep it to themselves

[39:16] yeah I'm going to tie you down later and [ __ ] get all the secrets out of you I've been out 20 years now pause so um I said to Carrie we should get this guy out I said you'll be you'll be a national hero if you can get this guy out and the pakistanis loved Carrie so he's like that's not reassuring no and he's like now he just starts cracking he's like I don't want to interfere in the uh you know the internal uh relations the internal politics of I said I said Senator there's no there's no downside to this there's no downside

[39:47] this guy risked his life to give us Osama Bin Laden let's just do him a solid bring him back wouldn't do it just wouldn't do it and did he give you a reason he legit didn't want to get involved and now he may have had the idea on his own and raised it with Obama and Obama said [ __ ] you or he said something to you know whoever whoever was CIA director at the time I don't even oh uh it was um Hayden 09 would

[40:20] have been hayen right after Hayden Morel Morel was acting um no it was uh what's his face from California the congressman uh Leon Panetta yeah it was Leon Panetta because then Panetta went on to be that's right he was in charge when the B L thing that's right that's right so maybe there was some some component here that I didn't know that he I already had the idea I said to Obama and Obama said no and Panetta said no I have no idea but I

[40:52] I thought you know we should we should help this guy out because he risked his life for us and Carrie's just like not interested did we ever get that guy out so he's still getting his balls electrocuted today that's terrible yep he sure is wow yes he is all right so we were talking about alelly with this though yes because so you this is wow what a great Rabbit Hole so you knew all the players involved here what was going on so you already laid it out he went on if you saw the movies Zero Dark 30 this scene was shown

[41:23] I'm still angry about that stupid movie why because it it perpetuated the lie that it was the torture program that led to Bin Laden's location uh yeah that was a lie great analysis led to Bin Laden's location they kind of showed both yeah but I see what you're saying they included that as torture had nothing whatsoever to do with his location nothing they recruited the right people they used the right technology and they found him yeah you

[41:55] and I talked about this a lot last time we here so people could check out 249 250 where we went through that so we won't go through that again but either way that scene was shown in that movie and from what I understand maybe you can give your input here it was pretty accurate that one it was it was generally accurate minus the torture part no no I mean the the scene the actual one the scene was was 100% in fact I I talked to uh who' I talk to Business Insider magazine couple of weeks ago they had me review like eight eight intelligence related movies you

[42:26] did one of those it was so so much fun I can't wait to do it again um but one of them was that scene yeah and it was right on Wow right on you know the only sad part is that three different um Navy Seals claim that they were the ones that did the kill shot yeah there's I'm not going to get involved with that yeah you can go online and look there's some interesting conversations in the Navy SEAL Community around that one of them has made a living off oh yeah yeah now

[43:00] yeah yeah there there's I don't like getting involved in the military drama cuz I don't know [ __ ] about [ __ ] that's Theirs to do but there are certainly like I I think that there's one guy we're going to have in here who I want to talk to about it off camera because he's had some things to say I don't want to personally get involved but yeah I I kind of wonder why that's not a louder story that there's multiple like it's talked about but there's one guy who it's like oh yeah that's who did it and then there's a lot of other people who are like no the [ __ ] he didn't no he didn't you know there's an auction house

[43:30] on Maryland's Eastern Shore Alexander auctions they they specialize in um military auctions and 75% of what they auction is um is Nazi right um they even had I they had an auction a couple weeks ago they had Eva bronze night gown did you go buy it like where the no it was like $50,000 John's like I wanted to I've fit on a couple things but um you can't believe the stuff that they have that's been signed like random stuff that's

[44:01] been signed by this Navy SEAL who claims that he's the guy the one who's made a living from it like a soccer ball signed by the guy I don't want to say his name and maybe he was maybe he was but is it really worth $500 for an autographed you know Time Magazine with Bin Laden on it that this Navy SEAL signed I just don't understand what because one thing about the veteran Community is godamn are they strong with The Stolen Valor stuff they we've seen it in here with with some stuff where they got it wrong and

[44:32] you know ran with stuff but you know you would think that's the that would be if that's the case the biggest Stolen Valor in modern history ever and you would think there'd be a lot louder push that's why I'm I kind of I'm kind of like maybe he probably did Kill the guy you know regardless of what you think about him because it's not loud there's some arguments but it's not like someone people every day like this didn't happen yeah I don't know it's CRA I don't know

[45:03] I don't know what the truth is I'm out I don't want anything to do with it it is one of the most one of the most incredible and compelling and exciting scenes that a person can imagine uhhuh but I don't know who imagine you put three in the head of Bin Laden can you imagine that' be [ __ ] awesome I would think about it for the rest of my life I know I wouldn't have any I mean yeah like what how do you top that in a career you don't no you don't I I don't think anything's ever the same after that no no way but so the scene of el belly accurate you told s too yes cool

[45:37] that let me add one thing about Job Joby book uh sorry joby's book is the most comprehensive account of what happened that is humanly possible yep he talked to everybody and the way he lays it out is very compelling and completely true so you actually took the words out of my mouth because that's exactly what I'm going to refer to his book that was published in 09 yes covered that scene specifically and what led up to it yes

[46:07] and so when he wrote this book the guy was a Jordanian this was a very bad look for Jordan oh boy in fact they apologized to us yes and Joby wrote the book like he does fairily just reporting he's a great Storyteller but joby's not the guy who says [ __ ] you nothing like that just the facts so he writes this book and two things happen number one El Bello's father who did not feel the way El belloy did and was embarrassed of

[46:38] what happened put the book on his mantle because he said it was written fairly wow or whatever that's incredible the second thing that happened obviously this whole thing's a very bad look for the king and it was not written nicely to the king you know it's reporting things that are not good for the mukar and obviously the things that slip through the cracks here the king hit up Joby and said hey you could have been an [ __ ] about this you could have injected a lot of opinions in there this

[47:09] is a really bad look for me but you did this the honest way it is a bad look for our country you know we [ __ ] up this this or that I appreciate the fact that you know you did it in a professional way so if you are ever writing a story in the future and you need some help getting sources you call me and I I will do that for you which then ended up being the book on Isis which one of the pulit are oh my God and once again the first chapter really bad look for the king and the guy is still friends with Joby and everything which tells me he respects in some way the relationship of

[47:41] you know what's supposed to be like the fourth estate of Life yeah right and so I have followed the guy religiously since I read that book years ago and I just found him so interesting so what you know he speaks perfect English he's perfect he's Western English is as good as ours he's This brilliant guy he also I like this about him never wanted to be king never thought he was going to be no it was supposed to be his uncle yeah and his and then it was supposed to be his older brother MH and his father's on his deathbed and says no fam you're doing it switched it up and he was like what the [ __ ] and then his dad died that's that

[48:12] yeah it was shocking so the guy you know he's been King now for 25 years or whatever first of all every major event he has been the no seramis on he playby played how Iraq was going to happen when he was talking with the US in 01 and 02 right like he gets so much I'm sure he's got some shitong there but like he get a lot right he understands the Middle East so well and so right when October 7th happened I was turning right to him like all right what's this [ __ ] gonna say about this his wife's paladian so he's got a little feeling there she's stunning isn't she she is Queen Raina

[48:44] right that's what it is so he was at some conference or something this is like two weeks after October 7th and he gives these long comments on this and one of the questions that he was asked and we actually had a clip go viral where I was explaining this last year and a lot of people didn't know this but one of the questions that he was asked was will you commit to taking in Palestinian refugees right and he said I'm glad you asked that no I will not or I I think they said to him why have you said you won't do that I think it was

[49:14] like a leading question because he had said like he won't do that he said if I do that you know because he's he has an allyship with Israel but that doesn't mean just like you know someone might not like our president at a certain time it could be the same with him so he basically said if I did that I would be giving the worst parts of Israel's government the guys I don't like exactly what they want that's a great answer the smotes the Ben gavers and all that because they believe in this expansion and I would be ethnically cleansing these people from that plot of land and

[49:45] they'd never be able to go back and now like I was telling people about this and I felt like this was one topic on this issue people weren't talking about a lot and now it's being talked about all the time because now you're seeing it play out and there was like you know Netanyahu two things happen Netanyahu this is what I want you to respond to Netanyahu comes in meets with meets with Trump trump actually did something I didn't expect which we'll see how this turns out it looks like if you watch the press conference where they did publicly Trump shocked Netanyahu he hadn't told

[50:16] him this and said the us is going to handle it it's a very Trump thing to do I kind of like that it's it's like a halfway or it's like I still don't like this but it's better am I wrong no you're not wrong okay even Putin said um that he he preferred Trump to Biden because Trump was so unpredictable you never knew when he was going to do something or propose something that was really great and you just you knew not to

[50:48] expect anything great from Biden but netan who hated that when he did that cuz he wanted it yeah so maybe this will be a situ cuz I haven't liked the way Trump's talked about it after but maybe it's a situation where the people who live there will actually end up getting to stay there which leads to my second point that I don't know if you saw this but he then had the Jordanian King in they had a very interesting 19 and a half minute public press conference together Jordanian King's a real master and handling it he is he's a master

[51:19] Diplomat so he commits in that to Tak in 2,000 kids who have cancer and stuff like that which I think that's great M Trump liked that and Trump was kind of dancing around the whole well are we going to settle him permanently in Jordan or have discussions about that and the King was able to kind of stay away from the melee the media kind of kept him out of that but do you think he will be forced to relent on something like that no that is a red line for the jordanians that if cross could actually

[51:51] eventually lead to the collapse of the Jordanian government like I said there are already so many Palestinians in Jordan that do not have full the full rights of citizenship yeah right in fact they have they even have different color passports jordanians have green passports and Palestinians in Jordan have black passports so you can tell when they're Palestinian and they're second class citizens there now they know after 70 years they're not going to get their country back they're not going

[52:22] to there's no right of return that the Israelis are going to finally agree to they're stuck in georia Jord and they're pissed off for four or five generations now and so to make that worse you Jordanian is a country that has no money it's one of the largest recipients of us aid but people still live in poverty there for the most part um to Heap on the problems that Jordan already has where they've got Israel and the Palestinians on one border they've got

[52:53] Iraq on another border they have Syria on another border this is a very dangerous neighborhood right they have enough problems as it is they can't take another million Palestinians it's too much it'll tip the balance what if the United States leans on them to end up doing that though how do you even say no I think they they would have to say no because you know how the Israelis always say you know that it's either Victory or be pushed into the sea right it's kind of the same

[53:24] thing for the jordanians on this you know I think I I may have told you a story a very dear friend of mine one my first boss at the CIA um he became the senior director for the Middle East at the National Security Council under Clinton and the very last week of the Clinton presidency he and Al Gore were at Camp David with yaser Arafat and his people and whoever the Israeli Prime Minister was I forget now and his people whether it was rabine no rabine was dead

[53:55] by then yeah Dead uh Shimon Perez probably well I would it would have been Netanyahu noine not in 2000 January of 2000 no that no that would have been Epstein's buddy the hell's his name it had to be Shimon Perez right no what's the guy's can we google Epstein prime minister friend why the [ __ ] he he was in that movie they showed up in the one scene where they where they hit people because he used to be a special for yeah AUD Barack was it AUD Barack yeah yeah I guess it was yeah he

[54:25] succeeded in 2000 yeah okay so he said there there there's this enormous map of Jerusalem on this conference room table he said they're so close to peace they're literally dividing Jerusalem block by block with a sharp E and they finish and they come to an agreement and Al Gore says my God we have peace and Arafat says I can never s

[54:56] this to the Palestinian people and he starts to walk out yeah and Gore runs out after him and he said you can't just walk out if there's something that you're having second thoughts on tell us we'll renegotiate it we can't come this close to peace and just just let it uh fall apart and he said I could never sell any agreement with the Israelis to the Palestinian people and that was the end of it this is where and this is where I always defend Israel with this stuff these are the realities they do face

[55:27] these people will be like nowhere right you're right and what we're talking about here is a legitimate and viable two-state solution yes and it was the Palestinians that walked that's right and that has happened again and again that that now listen if there are a lot of Palestinians who live there who may not have voted for that leadership or were pressured into voting for that leadership I have tremendous empathy for that I know that's a real thing totally agree but the people who have been given the power or taken the power to be in charge whether it be Arafat and and the

[55:58] PLO or you know what we've seen in Gaza with [ __ ] Hamas yeah these are not good Representatives no you got you've got Mahmud Abbas who's 16 years into a four-year term as president and you've got a a Bonafide terrorist group uh in in Gaza so I mean what do you do now like the Israelis I went to Israel twice uh in 2022 for work both times it was you know I had never been to is before never been to 72 country r with the agency I had never been to Israel so I

[56:29] went uh as a journalist an incredible absolutely incredible transformative Place beautiful place I've been it's it's the best and the worst of what the Middle East has to offer it's a good way to put it and uh I mean I was just struck by it and the the you know I went for the for the uh election the Israelis are adamant about the death of the two-state solution right there will not be a two-state

[57:01] solution well there is already the one-state solution and that's not working out very well is it right and I was talking to a former Ambassador just the other day and he said you know why aren't we talking about the three-state solution he said the the Gaza Palestinians and the West Bank Palestinians have literally nothing in common yeah they're literally geographically separated yeah they're geographically separated they're even kind of ethnically separated right the the Gaza Palestinians have more in common with the Egyptians than they do

[57:31] with the Westbank and they don't really like each other and politically they're at odds yeah so he said I think we should be having a conversation about a three-state solution and I think he said that a three-state solution would look more like Bosnia heroina where you look at the map and it's all these little dots these little islands like here's you know Bosnia but all these little dots either belong to to Serbia or Croatia it's it's like a map made of Swiss cheese yeah but it works it works

[58:04] but there's not this is the whole here's where I'll push back on that this is the holiest land in the world that's the problem people get weird about it and it's like you know this is this is where I see it from Israel's perspective for sure it's my my friend Eric ziger has a great quote I say all the time you said people are not their governments I would never want to be [ __ ] co-signed to dict Cheney and George Bush and what they did right and I understand why other people might take the easy way out around the world and do that at that time you know when they were around but

[58:36] you you have a lot of Israeli people who don't support their current government and even people that may have voted for that because it was the least of what they viewed as two evils they're not bad people at all right so I'm thinking about Israel after that government when there's a more moderate government or something more reasonable the the most that Benjamin Netanyahu has ever won has been like 27% I didn't even know that they have so many uh political parties in that country that they have these these um governments that are made up of you know

[59:06] a half a dozen or more different parties yeah yeah but my issue there would be even though the two places don't see eye to eye I did know that I didn't know they were like ethnically different I got to look into that more but I I know the two areas don't see eye to eye you have poo and Hamas and very separate cultures now you have have two places that are on your borders who got a lot of people who don't [ __ ] like you and it's going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in fact and that's the Israeli

[59:36] argument and and but that's the thing they have a good argument here when you look at Gaza I almost from not now but back then I actually see it the way Netanyahu saw it in ' 03 and bear with me here he left the finance ministry he was the Finance Minister he's actually a very successful one he was good at that job MH in protest over giving Gaza up and he told them he warned them for you know the two years leading up to it if you do this I will leave and he left and

[1:00:07] you know he was an OG on this because he said all right you're gonna have a border with people who [ __ ] hate you imagine if instead of Mexico we had Iraq as our border in 2006 we'd have the biggest most beautiful border wall you've ever seen in your [ __ ] life yes okay but you created a 20 mile by accident prison because North border Israel east border Israel South border the Sinai which is owned by Egypt a run by terrorists who don't like the Palestinians right West border the [ __ ] sea which the coral reef is

[1:00:39] where you get all the fish is nine miles out which is Israeli territory so there's no [ __ ] fish that's exactly right right so you now you created knows that yeah but I I've heard this before true over the years it's true you can't fish so how do you if if you're Israel how how do you not create that you're trying to throw him a bone give them land but you then create a space where well there was an idea that came up in the early 1990s it was it was a Saudi idea um the Saudi idea was to use Saudi

[1:01:09] money to build a port and an airport so you can close them all off you can run a a border fence or wall you know a mile out into the sea you can mine the area around the Border do whatever you want have ships off the off the coast but let them at least trade you build them a port so they can have have Ships coming in with food and medicine and whatever you know going out with whatever products they they can make in Gaza I have no idea you know what that could be

[1:01:41] um and an airport that would connect them with the rest of the world and the Israelis said absolutely not why now that's stupid I know why' they say no CU they wanted it in [Music] 1991 I think they hadn't got gotten there yet intellectually you know what I mean but things have become so desperate in the intervening years I mean it's we're talking about 34 years ago things are so desperate now that unless you want to just complete this genocide that you've started you're going to have to

[1:02:12] throw them a bone what about 05 why didn't they bring that back up that's a good question I don't know see that there's not a defense for that that's the kind of stuff there's not defense for on on the broad basis I understand why they're like well we can't really let them in here you know you're letting in it's like SSS cheese in the wrong way yeah I get that it's just godamn that's that's one of the most cynical situations in the world it's awful just awful I just don't know if it'll ever get solved yeah I have to agree but you guys you started to say this earlier and

[1:02:43] it was very interesting you had a very telling 30 to 35 minute segment with Danny Jones and Andy boo Damonte where the two of you who were from different eras of CIA told the same story about how this is behind the scenes with you know the F the Frenemies kind of thing that's going on you already started to say there were red lights you know you're told that day one it's like you see China you see Russia you see Israel as like spy threats or whatever that's right so people at CIA I would

[1:03:14] imagine have a LoveHate relationship here is that fair to say uh it's mostly just a hate relationship I never met anybody at the CIA who is pro Israel never not one not a single person no no not a single person and it's because they make it so hard to like them you know if we're supposed to be their best friends we have this special relationship well I I'll tell you the

[1:03:44] same the same story I told Danny Jones I worked with this guy for years and he married a woman in the office really terrific people both of them terrific people and when I was going out to train uh on my rotation to the state department the wife was going out to Jerusalem because she got the same rotation to the state department so because she had worked with the Israelis for many years uh the station decided to declare the two of them to the Israelis so they they land and they go straight to mosad and the chief said these are my

[1:04:17] officers she's on rotation to the state department and he's just going to study Arabic at the University of Tel Aviv yeah right no harm uhuh so they're there for a little while they go to a party at the ambassador's residence and they come home and all of their living room furniture had been rearranged and they were like you know not cool but this is what the Israelis do they break in the house they rearrange all your furniture just to say ha [ __ ] you we can do anything we want so they're there

[1:04:48] working months past they're having a good time they go to uh the ambassador's Christmas party now they're living in Jerusalem the embassy at the time was in Tel Aviv and so it's about a 30 or 40 minute drive to get from one city to the other they come home at the end of the party and people had taken shits in all of their toilets in their house every toilet had had [ __ ] in it you know not cool they're not doing anything they're not working against the Israelis they're just doing normal stuff he studying

[1:05:19] Arabic she's just in the the embassy's uh you know economic section or whatever and um and then when their tour was over two-year tour the Ambassador threw a going away party for them which is a normal thing and they get back to the house and the dog is under the dining room table whimpering because somebody had cut the dog's tail off and they wrapped it with gauze and with medical tape now why why would you do something like that what do you hope to gain except to make us hate

[1:05:50] you you know if you're trying to Win Friends and Influence People that's really not the way you you're going to want to go so now here are these people who if anything were you know moderately supportive of the Israelis who came home only with bitterness and hatred toward the Israelis for this harassment that lasted for two years why why would you do that what do you hope to accomplish do you ever think that some of that is people who want you to think it's them I'm still Manning it but in a

[1:06:24] place like Israel though there's nobody else sophisticated enough to do something like that that's what I would think mhm yeah it's not it's it's not great cuz like again I understand where they're coming from they want our help on stuff but you got to actually like to hear you talk about the five eyes earlier and give me some surprising answers on that there's a different way you're talking about this one yeah and it feels like it's their game to lose and they're doing that because it's like they could

[1:06:54] be like the eyes with you could be and they're deciding to just be a pain in the balls going go It Alone mhm how do you see this current situation winding like the actual Gaza issue right now not the two-state solution that's not winding down anytime soon but how do you see this situation winding down I don't think the Palestinians are going to go anywhere I think that as as awful as things are you got a you got a territory with 2 million people probably a 100,000

[1:07:25] dead the Lancet the medical journal of the UK puts it at 100 to 180,000 dead because we don't know how many bodies are under the rubble yet they're just counting people who who are still missing it's horrible it's horrible so you got two million people not a single working hospital no water no food no medication it's the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the second world war and I read an article just the other day in the Wall Street Journal that said

[1:07:56] that it's going to take them 40 years just to clear out the rubble it's been so utterly destroyed the Egyptians aren't going to take anybody the the jordanians aren't going to take anybody the albanians are not going to take anybody and the Indonesians are like leave us out of this so those guys aren't going anywhere they're going to have to rebuild but at the same time you know before the fighting started the Israelis owed the

[1:08:26] Palestinians 2 hours of water and 5 hours of electricity every day not not because they didn't have the capability to provide the the water and the electricity just to screw them you know so every Palestinian would fill the bathtub up with water and they would use that for cooking for the remainder of the day because that's all they were allowed yeah the Israelis are going to have to treat the Palestinians as human beings because they've already lost most of the world and I can't help but think lot of the world yeah and you know kamla

[1:08:59] Harris's position on the Gaza warart cost her the presidency I firmly believe that it cost her both Michigan and Pennsylvania she she may have won the election if she had taken a principl stand you know you can still be pro-israel and be anti-genocide but you've got to put your foot down that's the problem though there are some people who do not speak for all Israelis by any stretch who just have the ility to get reach who are making that middle ground impossible yes I will be called names

[1:09:32] things I said today that are perfectly factual or we're perfectly leaving open the possibility that it's not something else and I'm someone who comes down the middle on this we've gotten to the point where if you criticize Benjamin Netanyahu as a person or as a politician you're branded as anti-semitic which is [ __ ] crazy outrageous I'll tell you my college roommate um I loved the guy like a brother and he's a very religious Jew to the point where he's become a very prominent Rabbi in uh in Atlanta and he told me that um he was

[1:10:06] having a political discussion with somebody who didn't know him and this person says you sound anti-semitic and he says actually I'm very Semitic I'm the rabbi of you know such and taking the hat off like you see it's like what are you talking about but this is this is where we found ourselves you can't criticize anything Israeli otherwise you're branded and that's just sick yeah but the tide will the

[1:10:36] unfortunately like you said people are so sick of that from a small group of people that they're going to ruin it for everybody else and the tide will it's going to change that's right which which is kind of wild so my goal is to have in people like you who can have who can have some Nuance on it and some experience with it and then also I'm working on doing two podcasts with some one guy that I have to get who is extremely pro- Israel and

[1:11:08] who I like a lot I think he makes some amazing points and then another guy who I would say is pretty strongly anti-israel who I also like a lot and I think makes some amazing points and I would like to find some Nuance in it because John I can tell you one thing that's not going to happen we're not going to make a two-state solution or peace in the Middle East on the Julian Dory podcast it's not going to happen you know I'm not under that delusion so if we're going to have any effect whatsoever it should just be that people get to hear the different arguments and

[1:11:39] see that this is far more complicated I'm gonna push back on both of those guys I think I mentioned to you one time I I ran into Dennis Ross who was the special Envoy for the Arab Israeli peace process for years across presidents uh across uh Clinton and George W bush I ran into him in the cafeteria at the state department one time and we sat together and I asked him about new ideas and he said there are no new ideas every idea has been thought of and it's been dismissed by one side or the other so

[1:12:11] we've got to get everybody to the point where they realize that there are no new ideas and that we go back to some of these old ideas and start to negotiate yeah we'll see how it goes I got to run to the bathroom real quick John we got to talk Russia Ukraine and some stuff on China we put a pin in sounds good all right we'll be right back we are back on now John you had a CIA joke I'm D I'm driving to this event and I'm on the way to the event I see the sign that's nailed to a telephone pole and it says talking

[1:12:42] dog I was like talking dog what could that mean I wasn't sure talking dog for sale I'm like okay all right I'm interested enough I'm going to see what this is about I knock on the door I said the guy I saw your sign you have a talking dog for sale he said yeah it's around back I said can I see it he said sure I go around back and I there's a dog there just kind of a mut and I said hello and the dog goes hello and I said you do talk and he said yes I talk and I

[1:13:17] said I've never seen a talking dog before and he said oh I've got kind of a long history I used to work for the CIA I said I used us to work for the CIA I said what did you do there he said I was in operations I said I was in operations too what division were you in he said I kind of went back and forth between divisions for example he said I went into Kim jong-un's office and I sat there and I listened to what they were saying and I went back out and I told the CIA they never suspected a dog would

[1:13:49] understand and then I went to Bin Laden's uh compound and I was listening to Bin Laden what he was planning I went back to the CIA and I told them what Bin Laden was planning and now I can go into any any president's office or Palace or whatever I listen and then I come back and report I said that's incredible so I said the guy how much you asking for this dog he says 20 bucks I said 20 bucks why so little he goes that dog's a damn liar he hasn't done any of that stuff

[1:14:25] damn it John damn it there was there was another joke he told us off camera too I wish you could tell on camera that one was good too God damn how do I even like transition into Ukraine after that like so not the war where [ __ ] a million people have died from talking dogs to the war all right yeah the war is not good yeah so another one that's like hard to talk about with people to me it seems like there's egg on every possible face involved with this obviously Russia

[1:14:55] Ukraine the people funding both the US right I empathize of course with all the people on the ground who are dying and awful terrible situation obviously Russia invaded very bad and I feel bad for the Ukrainian people in that way it seems like their government's kind of left them behind yeah I would agree so many different people so many different governments are at fault here we really do have to go back to the 90s you know once the Soviet Union fell apart Boris yelton told Bill Clinton that the

[1:15:26] Russians were interested in joining NATO and Clinton said I don't think that's a very good idea and then years later uh Putin told Obama listen we're interested in joining NATO and Obama said yeah I don't think that's really a very good idea not going to happen so what they ended up agreeing on in um in negotiations was that NATO would not to Russia's

[1:15:56] borders which it immediately did right okay Lithuania Estonia lvia Poland uh and they took it the Russians just took it they would protest diplomatically and they would get the middle finger so they didn't trust us they didn't have reason to trust us we promised them that NATO would not expand to their border NATO immediately expanded to their border it's it's an existential threat to the

[1:16:27] Russians then a pro-russian prime minister is elected in Ukraine and in 2014 we encouraged I'm using the word encouraged on purpose others would say we um implemented uh a a coup a soft coup yeah a change of government you don't have to call it a whatever it was can you explain what happened there you're

[1:16:57] talking about maidon and I'm talking about maidon it I mean it depends really on who you believe but there there was this pro-russian prime minister and we encouraged an uprising uh to depose him he was deposed and a pro-american prime minister took office the Russians responded angrily as you might expect by taking Crimea this is actually not as big a

[1:17:29] deal as the ukrainians might have you believe why not because Crimea was only a part of Ukraine since 1955 it was always a part of Russia but it was given as a gift by the Soviet leadership to the Ukrainian people why did they give it to them as a gift um for their steadfastness during the second world war so 10 years after the war uh it was to show the people people's quote unquote appreciation for those ukrainians who weren't Nazis or

[1:18:00] Nazi sympathizers um uh and because frankly it was the ukrainians that that withstood the brunt of the Nazi attack that ended with the the Battle of Stalingrad so it's ethnically Russian even though it belonged to Ukraine so when they gave it to them it's not like they said we're going to take our people out there as well and you guys can fill it up the same people correct because the Soviet Union was all one country so it was the Ukrainian SSR the Russian SSR the kazak

[1:18:32] SSR they were all part of the same country Soviet Socialist Republic right um that wasn't a problem until 2014 when the Russians go in and say now it's Russian again and there's nothing you can do about it that became a problem for the United States we started with the sanctions and you know the propaganda began and the the Russians were steadfast we're not we're not leaving we're just not going to leave and you guys overthrew the

[1:19:02] government of Ukraine and so shame on you for installing this pro-american prime minister you and I were talking offline before we started uh the podcast about the fact that so many Americans either ignore or don't know that every single year for decades the United Nations has ranked Ukraine as one of the most corrupt governments on the planet right they used to report it in the New York Times too yeah they used to they used to until it wasn't you

[1:19:34] know yeah politically correct I guess so um the Russians finally had had enough and uh three years ago they invaded and the way they invaded was they did it very poorly yeah in that they came in from belus which makes belus um a combatant it's a war crime in and of itself to use a third party to invade another country yeah

[1:20:05] um the United States responded much more quickly and much more severely than the Russians had expected uh Sergey lavro the so the Soviet the Russian foreign minister said that yeah same thing said that in the Inner Circle in Putin's Inner Circle they were surprised at how stinging the sanctions were they were surprised at how quickly the US was able to implement the sanctions now here we are 3 years later the sanctions mean nothing to the to the Russians of course they would like to sell energy in

[1:20:37] Western Europe but they've gotten around it because what the Europeans used to buy the Indians and the Chinese now buy so no big deal they've survived the sanctions just perfectly fine um in the meantime vadir zalinski gets him self elected prime minister he has a reputation as being not as corrupt as his predecessors and you know funny thing about zilinsky he was a very popular TV comedian yes he was an actor he was an

[1:21:07] actor and he had no political experience but people liked him because he was funny and so he won the election and immediately becomes a wartime prime minister does he really talk like that yes I am vmir delinski I don't know there's no way right seems funny to me yeah think it is he's like 5 foot too he is he's a little tiny guy that's why everybody makes fun of him where when he wears a military uniform he's never been in the military yeah he he didn't reach the you have to be this tall sign yeah exactly so the the real fight is over

[1:21:41] something called the donbas it's primarily the regions of donet and luhansk um now these are this is this is Ukrainian territory but most of the people who live are ethnic Russians and they speak Russian as their primary language um I know some of some donbass ukrainians my best friend is married to a donbass Ukrainian and they want to be Russians really yeah even now

[1:22:13] MH yeah they felt left out that they were sort of cut out of Russia when the when they cut out the when the borders were drawn when the Soviet Union fell apart like Hey Hey We're Russian we're ethnic Russian question how come we have to be in Ukraine so it's way more recent than Crimea even oh yeah no no no it happened in 90 1990 yeah but Crimea was 55 you said oh yeah yeah I thought you meant Crimea in 2014 yeah yeah yeah you're right so you know in the end to make a long

[1:22:43] story short something that many of us said analysts observers Regional experts was this work could go forever or the ukrainians can concede donbass and Crimea and then there's going to be peace and in the end whether they do it of their own valtion or they do it because they're forced to militarily that's probably what's going to happen Donald Trump last week said we're gonna have peace we can do it in one

[1:23:15] day donet and luhansk go with the Russians crimeia go the Russians pie is at hand and uh zilinsky is like whoa whoa wait a minute he's calling out Black's Freeman again get back in here yeah but you know I mean this is a very Trump thing to do he sees issues in black and white I see a deal ex it's all it's all about a deal but he will cut out the people that he don't that he thinks or doesn't think want to

[1:23:45] participate in the deal like for example the Abraham Accords peace in our time in the Middle East nobody told the Palestinians it's the same thing here he says like a couple days ago zelinsky's approval rating is 4% no it's actually 47% it is yeah it's not 4% it where he get in the four he just dropped the seven he just makes it up yeah yeah he just makes it up four 4% uh he better hope he makes it to the next election well that was a that was a shot at a

[1:24:17] comment that zalinsky made when Trump called him a a dictator the day before um he said I'm not a dictator and Trump said there are no elections in Ukraine well the answer is because the Ukrainian Constitution says that if martial law has been declared by the Prime Minister and approved by the parliament all elections are canceled so is he a dictator kind of but it's it's got the legality of of the

[1:24:47] Constitution that's a real loophole right there it's it's a loophole yeah um I was always one of these people who tried to be consistent in that look if if we're going to be peace activists right we're going to go out there saying oh we should all be at peace and work together and diplomacy and all this stuff then we really have to be for peace I was opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but I'm opposed to the continuation of the war too enough a million people have been killed yeah what do you want to kill another million and then really devastate the whole

[1:25:19] place nobody's going to win then let's just get this thing over with okay you're going to take a little haircut territorially all right you'll live you'll survive it all right so do you think that other people and I'm not talking like the worst aspects of like the military industrial complex I'm talking reasonable people who may be like I don't know about that do you think see that's that's the issue right there the the the Washington swells want to fight this thing to the last man you know this bad joke that the

[1:25:51] US wants to fight to the last Ukrainian well that's true all we want to do is kill Russians to to paraphrase gust avatus back in the 1980s all I want to do is kill Russians they don't care how long it takes and frankly and I don't mean to be cynical but this is a very good War for the for the military uh industrial conf oh of course very good we're going to get there people are making lots and lots of money yes so you you really want that to go away what are the shareholders going to

[1:26:22] think well that's the thing like the reasonable people want to push back because they feel like the precedent set of of cow to a little bit to a guy like Putin is bad because then where will he stop because he is a bulldog right and then on the other side you have exactly what you're talking about which is you know and there's there's two sides to this coin too maybe correct me if I'm wrong the one side is it is the military-industrial complex just coming in saying this is good for business we

[1:26:52] can make a lot of money Black Rock can come in and [ __ ] clean everything up cool everyone's happy the other side of it is in the cold war with like a China forget Russia for a second their GDP is the size of Italy no disrespect China's GDP is creeping up right up on us we obviously are competing on a lot of things around the world Ukraine in that area is a very strategic area to make and I hate this word but to make these words a client State well well it's the

[1:27:24] Bread Basket of Europe it it it produces much of Europe's uh grain and it also has rare earth metals yeah that we would have to either otherwise buy from the Chinese or from the Afghans I mean the Congo only has so much that we that we need we got to get the rest of it somewhere else and the ukrainians have it and you said this is and I've always heard this as I point out but like this is a place that was always called corrupt

[1:27:54] oh my God and why did they call it corrupt because Russia was involved in their politics or a lot of other things no no no it's about cash it's about it's about money I'll give you I'll give you a couple of examples I knew you would so I mentioned my best friend uh from college uh he's married to a Ukrainian woman of Russian extraction and her brother still lives in Ukraine so my buddy was doing relatively well in life decided to help his new

[1:28:25] brother-in-law out by going in uh with him on an investment they bought um they bought the first combination gas station car wash in donbass h first one novelty so place to launder money to well that's a different conversation so they buy it from this Ukrainian guy and as soon as they affect the deal and they pay the money

[1:28:58] and they get the the deed uh the guy Su them and says oh they stole it from me I want all the money back and he bribes a judge to rule in his favor oh boy so my my friend has never dealt with anything like this before he hires an attorney in in Kiev says what should I do the guy's like oh we're so corrupt here what you're going to have to do is Sue him back and buy a judge at the next

[1:29:30] at the appet level yeah at the appellant level so he does he bribes this judge at the appellant level and of course he wins but the original owner then sued counter sued and bought a judge in the Supreme Court oh my God so my friend enlists the American ambassador and uh the Ambassador writes a letter to the governor of the donbass and I'm sure they all laughed at him uh and uh

[1:30:02] because my buddy wasn't willing to Shell out another 25 grand for the for his own Supreme Court judge um he just let the thing go they lost everything they had wow second example and this is very controversial and it really hits me in the gut the Ukrainian Orthodox church has been in under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox church for a little bit more than 1,000 years okay in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church there

[1:30:34] is no difference between the Russians and ukrainians so Hillary Clinton when she was the Secretary of State asked ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew the of Constantinople if he would declare the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be what's called ailis it runs itself no longer subject to the whims of the Russian patriarch and the patriarch said I'm not sure that's a good idea they've been under Russian jurisdiction for a

[1:31:05] thousand years politically I really can't do that and Hillary allegedly said would $20 million help make the decision well the Greek Orthodox church is under the thumb of the Neo ottoman Turks and so he said yeah we could use the 20 million so she said we have to give it to you through Ukrainian Banks that's fine so the state department wires 20

[1:31:35] million probably through USA ID now in retrospect sounds about right they wire the 20 million to some Ukrainian bank they do whatever it is that they do behind closed doors and Ukrainian Banks and then they send 15 million to the patriarch and he says wait a minute where where did the five go this is supposed to be 20 where' the five go and the state department said oh well we don't know anything about that all we know is we paid so now you have to declare independence for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which he did and it

[1:32:07] immediately caused a near War situation between the Russian Orthodox church and the Ukrainian Orthodox church but even even for religious purposes religio religio military political however you want to say it I just made up a word um the entire culture is corrupt every level of it is corrupt so if we're sending 40 billion this time 8 billion that time 500 million the next time another 15 billion

[1:32:37] the next time where the heck is that money going now it's one thing when the Pentagon says look when we say we're sending this money we're not actually sending cash we're sending it in kind so we take $40 billion we give it to northr Grumman and lock heed Martin and then they send weapons weapon systems planes whatever yeah but how did this terrorist attack take place in Paris for example using a

[1:33:09] rifle that had a serial number indicating that it was assigned to the Ukrainian military because they're taking the weapons and selling them on the black market to gangsters and mafiosi and criminals and whatever and just pocketing the money you know it's it's like in Good Fellas you buy a case of liquor goes right out the back door yeah exactly exactly you that was in that's crazy that was in my head while you were saying this I'm picturing like that's it that's corruption yeah and I'll tell you as an

[1:33:41] American who really does not have a dog in this fight that's not what I hear John oh yeah I hear you're a Russian asset oh I've heard that yeah I've heard that I'm a Russian ass you want to deny that on the record yeah I'm not a Russian ass all right good I believe no I don't work for the Russian okay continue um but as an American I I resent my taxpayer money just being squandered like that when we've got you know Bridges here that are falling into the rivers beneath them and our our kids have to have bake sales to to buy school supplies and you know we've got some of

[1:34:11] the worst roads in the in the western world yeah how come the Chinese can afford all this stuff and and we can't how come the Chinese have a bullet train that goes 300 milph and we don't we have we haven't replaced our our rails since the Civil War did you know that well they are replacing them in Hoboken right now I'm not going to lie they've really torn it up haven't they it's happening wow we are they are fixing them they're just building a new tunnel north of Baltimore right now um the the tunnel that they're using presently was built

[1:34:42] just before the Civil War and they say that they've been unable to upgrade the Asel tracks because the tunnel is so narrow they need a wider space so for the first time in what 170 years we're finally going to upgrade the train tracks that's crazy MH but look at it this way too we spend more on the military than the next eight largest

[1:35:13] countries combined yeah that's not cool I think it's I think it's way past where needs to be and again once again I see a middle ground here because I see people who are like defund all this [ __ ] I for one will say if there's one part of the military-industrial complex that I like it's that we have bases all over the world yeah I like that if we need it the idea though that we have

[1:35:44] to say let's hit the war button instead of the let's hit the slow down button and the diplomacy button is where I have a real problem and it comes back to the funding that you're talking about if there's too much of it where you know we can't even track this stuff the [ __ ] Pentagon hasn't passed an audit since the Vietnam War ended you know that's that's an issue you're absolutely right you know year after year after year Congress appropriates more money for the Pentagon budget than the Pentagon asks

[1:36:16] for like we want to we want 750 billion dollar no we're going to give you 850 million dollar you get a car you get a car exactly you get a car thank you Oprah that's exactly right and then we can't understand why the Pentagon can't pass an audit you know they had price waterhous Coopers there two years ago they did a two-year audit and then they just walked away they said we can't figure this out we can't figure this out there's no

[1:36:47] excuse for that no there's not there's not but we've been fting now we we're literally recording just past exactly three years MH into this war because we're going to put this episode out literally right away next couple days but you know the the funding I can see where you want to take advantage of the opportunity I draw the line at we're at a million lives and and like no offense the fact that

[1:37:18] zinski thinks that this is his decision to make is [ __ ] insane because my money bought bought something and it bought our right to make the [ __ ] decision 100% you are right we should get a say you know I I I I made kind of say we need to make the decision I made a joke when we first started uh talking today um that you know this Lefty is becoming a Donald Trump True Believer uh Trump just said the war's going to end period like it or lump it the war's

[1:37:49] going to end make make whatever plans you need to make and he's exactly right and I'll tell you where he really won me he won me yesterday and I didn't it was just such a crazy push notification on my phone that I saw I didn't believe it um he's going to cut the Pentagon budget by 8% a year for the next five years show me one Democrat who's ever even even proposed such a cut well they used to it's come full circle in the olden days of of the 60s and 70s it's come

[1:38:19] full circle circle where there are liberal ideas that now comb that that are now like opted by the right and the left's like no we've seen yeah I mentioned this on a podcast the other day when I was in college in history class we studied what was then called The Watershed election of 1932 1932 was a historic election in American potic politics Roosevelt um because the Republican party was the Liberal Party it was the party of the north it was the

[1:38:51] the party of Labor and it was the Democrats that were the conservative Southern party the slaveholders and they switched sides in the election of 1932 um Franklin Roosevelt had been a republican he had been the governor of New York he had been the secretary of the Navy um and he was a republican of course his cousin Teddy Roosevelt was also a republican so he was economically a republican but the

[1:39:21] Republicans had led the country to the Great depression and so Roosevelt decided to run for president as a Democrat he was Democratic governor he decided to run as a a Democrat but to adopt a lot of the Republican party's policies especially on labor right and on poverty and so that election of 1932 caused the two parties to switch sides ideologically so we studied that for decades here we are

[1:39:54] my position is between 2016 and 2024 we've seen a slow motion Watershed led by Donald Trump where the parties are switching sides again maybe not all the way all the way like we saw in 32 yeah but it's the Republicans who are the the anti-war party for example it's the Republicans who are the labor party listen when 67% of organized labor families Union families vote Republican

[1:40:26] that's nuts that's pretty nuts I mean Reagan wished he had numbers like that and he won a majority not like Trump did not like that so couple that with the fact that the Democrats just have no idea what they're doing right now it's just a state of chaos over there at the DNC we don't even know who the Democratic party's leaders are right now there are four or five people who claim to be the leaders of the democratic party are they really you know it it's it's a handful of things M it's so F

[1:40:59] this is why I feel like it's a uni party system because if you gave anyone with a normal head the power to go like run the DNC tomorrow they they could win over the country immediately yeah cut the W [ __ ] cut the trans [ __ ] cut the vacine [ __ ] cut the [ __ ] don't look at the border [ __ ] cut the endless war [ __ ] which I will correct one thing there is still a contingent in the Republican party that does yeah and they came out they reared their heads this week yes and then there I forget what the sixth one is there's one

[1:41:29] more I have in there somewhere but these these are very common sense type things by the way stances that like Obama had 10 years ago yes you know and they don't do that and what's now now it's like people are so pissed off about it that I see the hard whipsaw back and that could have some reverberations that people including myself aren't going to like and it's just the equal but opposite action physics law of life like this is what happens when you go too far with stupid [ __ ] people are going to see

[1:41:59] through it so true you know when I see someone with a Ukraine flag in their bio I you know I can go through their next [ __ ] 40 policies word for word and they probably don't even know what these policies mean but that's what they were told to do absolutely right and you know when when you see on the Evening News Hillary Clinton literally kneeling in front of Henry Kissinger that's not a brag no Henry kissen is a war criminal yeah um when you see KLA Harris championing and announcing her

[1:42:30] endorsement by Dick Cheney that is not a brag you forgot the IRS too and the IRS and Diddy clients all the same week Trifecta yeah seriously seriously so you know I I I came I came from a democratic family my grandfather had a a framed picture of Franklin Roosevelt on top of the TV all the years I was growing up until he died I still have the picture I was a third generation Democrat and I quit the Democrats in in 2012 I'm like I I can't do this anymore I agree with you

[1:43:02] that on most issues we've got a unip party two sides the same coin you can sort of Tinker around the edges with some differences but for the most part they're the same that's they're getting farther apart now oh let me correct that because I explained that wrong then I'm not saying they're the same in what they say verbally no no I agree what I'm saying is the reason reason I think there's a unip party is because these people openly endorse the five or six dances I just gave and they know it's [ __ ] sure so why are and they know it's against the polls so why are they

[1:43:33] doing it sure it's the same thing with Israel yeah they'll tell you privately oh my God what's happening in Gaza oh my God all these 100,000 people they're almost all women and children oh my God how's this happening how's it happening you gave Benjamin Netanyahu 186 standing ovations in his last two speeches it was four times more per second than Kim Yun or something like that pull that can we get that stat yeah outrageous it's crazy it is it's crazy and you know another thing is corruption with the

[1:44:03] Democrats I use this example all the time I'm going to use it again how in the world can Bernie Sanders win 60% to Hillary Clinton's 40% in the West Virginia caucus and the Wyoming caucus and Bernie Sanders doesn't win a single delegate Hillary Clinton wins every single delegate yeah what H how was that democracy he got [ __ ] twice and he took it which really made me angry yes he took it cuz like you know I disagree

[1:44:35] he obviously has some extreme policies I'm not where he is for sure but like I respected him as a guy who he had his finger on the pulse he knew where the problems were with with the average American like he he and Donald Trump simultaneously in 2015 2016 understood that and it's like I think he still understands a lot of those things yeah but he won't you know this is a guy who's been listed as independent for so many years too like most of his life but it's like something stopping him from

[1:45:07] saying the quiet part out loud what is that when I worked uh in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I had this uh routine I I I'm an early riser so I get to the office early I put on a pot of coffee and then I would go downstairs to the Senate cafeteria to get a bagel and every single day there's Bernie Sanders sitting in the very first table inviting inviting anybody who wants to sit to sit talk about any issue they want to talk

[1:45:38] about didn't even care if you were from Vermont or not and the only thing he insisted on was that you call him Bernie I love that I loved it too and then you know you know that old phrase from uh Animal House uh thank you sir may I have another Well it's like that's what he said to the DNC yeah here let's give you a whack across the ass thank you sir may I have another something else is there something's going on something else is there because like I don't he to his

[1:46:10] credit he still when the when the DNC ran comma and they were embarrassed by that they ran from public a lot of you know non-mainstream media they're like let's not do it and it cost him the election he's the one guy who didn't he still went on these shows while this was all going on gave his like and I respect that but it's like what's the other part you know people ask me all the time who I like for uh 2028 and the answer is nobody yeah I don't like anybody join

[1:46:42] the club yeah I hate to say that but I really don't like anybody everyone's bought by somebody it's just how it is oh I'll tell you who's the worst the worst offender who's the worst it's got to be John fedman I'll tell you I I I was a True Believer in Federman because he's from bradock Pennsylvania I'm from Newcastle Pennsylvania they're very close I know where you're going with this John and and he you know I hate the I hate the shorts and the and the sweatshirts like dude have some dignity and put on a freaking tie when you go on to the floor of the Senate the the most important

[1:47:13] deliberative body in the world have some respect anyway I sent $50 which was a lot of money to me cuz you know I I don't have $50 I have five kids I'm still fighting legal issues I sent him $50 and it's like he became a neocon as soon as he got elected and I take my son to this Ohio State Michigan State football game last winter and he says to me is that John fedman sitting down there it's like 15 rows in front of us I

[1:47:46] said I think it is John F unmistakable so I shout fedman hey fedman and he turns around and he doesn't see me but he's like waving like this and I said I want my 50 bucks back you coward and he just waving and then he turns around and sits down again my son's like you send him 50 bucks I said yeah I thought he was a lefty and he's not he's a fake just like everybody else in the Democratic party he got bought on some issues he sure did yeah I remember not

[1:48:16] too long ago they were calling him you know Jelly Brain and all kinds of terrible things cuz he had a stroke and he couldn't get a word out and he got killed in the debate because he got confused and from his TBI and then no I will die for Israel I will stand with Benjamin Netanyahu it's like I want my 50 bucks back you liar I hear stuff like that and I'm like that's not natural it's not because it just it

[1:48:46] like I'm sure he was somewhat of a supporter but it got strong like there was like overnight and like wait a minute off the charts and then he meets with Trump and he's like Mr President keep up your support of Israel our Israeli friends need you it's like are you kidding me it's just strange who are you it's strange man and like and and the thing that sucks is like not just the the Israelis but like I have Jewish friends who like people ask them about this and I'm like the [ __ ] do I know I

[1:49:17] don't support this [ __ ] you know but we your Society is now turning in on itself and this is one of the thing and I worry about this all the time this is one of those things because of what some of these guys are doing and then what some of our idiots say about it I just look I am cynical on this I've never had a politician at the national level on this show one time I had a woman on who was running for Attorney General of a state but it was never discussed she was not on about that no

[1:49:49] one knows that that was the case and she didn't bring it she's awesome she didn't bring it up at all all you know it's probably why she lost because she's maybe not a full-blown politician like the rest of them right but you know I've always stayed away from it because cynically I'm like who wants that job MH who are the people who want to be in that role especially at this point in our history and the way these people act what they do they cute little club that you know a lot better than me down in DC this is what I tried to touch on earlier too in the 70s and even the 80s there

[1:50:21] were some giant on Capitol Hill true independent thinkers true intellectuals Daniel Patrick moan you know Barry Goldwater Ted Kennedy both parties and now they're all midgets all of them yeah and it's like you go on ops.com and you can see all the different companies paying them laid out in black and white it's crazy mhm like even with some of the UFO stuff like the like the Reps who were blocking it

[1:50:52] blocking like the Schumer Amendment and whatever were the guys who represent where rright Patterson Air Force Base is and I forget what the other one is but the one down in Alabama and it's like yeah no [ __ ] they're blocking this like look at who's you know what I mean like come on like there should be some sort of rule like all right we're going to vote on x today if you are funded by anyone that has to do with X you cannot vote on this yeah and then they all sit down and no one would vote there was a scene in the in the uh Simpsons movie

[1:51:25] where uh Congress is going to vote on um on the bill to save Springfield right and just as they're going to vote a congressman stands up he says Mr Speaker I want to add an amendment uh to uh appropriate $5 million for the perverted arts and so the speaker says okay all those in favor of the save Springfield fund the perverted Arts Bill say I the Nays have it the Bill loses that's Congress today yeah I was on a I was on

[1:51:57] a UFO podcast yesterday oh you were and what podcast um a guy named uh Chris Chris I'm gonna find it we're gonna get it yeah he's a good guy um uh let's see he's a former F-16 pilot and that's how I saved it in my oh is he the Air Force paranormal Chris yes is that it yeah yeah yeah I've seen him on Twitter nice guy so we were talking about this and he said essentially the

[1:52:28] same thing that you know just as it looks like this information's going to be released somebody kills it and he said I said well what about these what about these videos that came out two years ago he said no all of those were leaked none of those were part of the release there were documents that released but none of the videos were released somebody just proactively leaked them yeah you never saw any of that stuff when you were back in CIA did you no were you curious about it I I asked about it and

[1:53:01] who' you ask I asked my boss and he said oh he said that's the first question that all of us have when we get here and he said I'll tell you what they told me when I got here oh no all that shit's at the Pentagon we don't have anything to do with it I don't know I'll tell you man I saw something when I was young that I'll never forget what was that my my mom and dad bought a restaurant in uh in Sharon Pennsylvania now I grew up in Newcastle Pennsylvania it's about 20 miles away 15 miles away but to get from Newcastle to Sharon you have to go through Amish country and it's very very

[1:53:34] dark because there's no electricity the Amish live without electricity so my dad and I worked midnight shift on Fridays and Saturdays so we'd leave the house around 10:00 get there at 10:30 start working 11: 11 to 7 and we're driving through Amish Country just the two of us and there's this brilliant flash of white light we both looked up and then there's a second Flash and then a third Flash and then this trapezoid lights up it's got these

[1:54:05] bright orange lights in the four corners bright enough that it illuminated the whole thing whatever it was my dad pulls over he's like what is that I don't know we get out we're looking at it this guy pulls up behind us gets out of his car he's like what is that thing and we're like we don't know and it's just hovering there and it's completely silent so as we're looking at it and this lasted I'm going to say this lasted a good 10 seconds and then it goes like that in at this fantastic

[1:54:39] speed that I've never seen before since and then it was gone we get back in the car we start driving to Sharon I said to my dad should we call somebody should we like call the cops or something I was 17 at the time and he says and tell him what we saw a flying saucer and then it flew away yeah people are going to think we're nuts and so we didn't tell anybody I told my mom the next day and my dad's like yeah it's true that's what we saw

[1:55:11] you think that was a DARPA weapon it could have been yeah that's my ankling on a lot of this stuff you know at at first people said like my friends that first they want to know if I had been drinking which we did a lot of back in the day I said no I wasn't drinking I was with my dad they said what had to be it had to be a balloon right and I said well that's what I that's what I would have thought except this fantastic speed that it took off with I've never seen

[1:55:43] anything like it from a standstill making no sound just like that it was gone so I said I I don't know what the heck it was I'm not saying it was Little Green Men I honestly don't know what it was it very well could have been some DARPA thing I mean we don't have any military bases in the area but who knows I don't know did you ever have any look through or not even look through but did did things that were happening at DARPA ever come up in any of the work you did

[1:56:14] yeah uh only peripherally there was there was a point at the end of the first golf War where I had to get a q clearance which is a which is a nuclear clearance they're very tightly held uh you get a q clearance and it's only good for like a week or two weeks and it's only because you absolutely positively need need to have this classified nuclear information so I got this Q clearance and I uh they sent me out to vandenbberg Air Force Base in Loke California and

[1:56:44] so I was able to participate in this meeting seminar kind kind of thing about Advanced Weaponry uh and it was because I had covered the Iraqi experimental weapons program and the guy who was in charge of it so there were some DARPA people there they weren't they weren't very open with what they were doing they spoke in generalities even though everybody was cleared and we were all cleared for

[1:57:16] Q um but I remember that was the first time I had ever heard of DARPA I had been at the agency for a year and a half you never heard of it before n never I had never heard of it and I went back and I there was another guy in my Branch who had had AQ clearance he's now like one of the top six people in the CIA and I said I said have you ever heard of this DARPA and he's like oh yeah DARPA they're they're working 20 years in advance yeah they're way ahead of anything that you and I can even think of right now I've heard 30 to 50 from

[1:57:48] people before that wouldn't surprise me that wouldn't surprise me yeah they and it's funny too they've they've got these little nondescript buildings all over the Washington area there are no signs or anything like there's no sign that says DARPA headquarters right there everywhere there's a in in Rosland uh the Rosland neighborhood of Arlington Virginia near my house there's a a kind of an ugly 60s office building and um it's across the street from a a burrito

[1:58:19] place and a Starbucks and there's a little historical marker in front of it and it says in the historical marker that this is uh this was the headquarters of DARPA says what DARPA was in the 1970s and it was in this building that the internet was invented yeah in the 70s yeah maybe earlier they're just telling you the 70s I mean because you know well the first the first internet like thing that they came up with was like 58 it was early early what happened there I don't know about that it was just the very first

[1:58:51] programs they thought yeah you know maybe this computer can talk to that computer let's try to figure that out but it wasn't it wasn't ready for any kind of implementation until the 70s and then it went public you know what 88 '89 yeah if that M crazy yeah I just wonder about the [ __ ] that they got there and like yeah I think a lot of the I think a lot of the UFO stuff is related to that and it's and it's protecting that and I understand that and I say I hope we're the only ones who

[1:59:21] are 30 50 ahead maybe we're in a situation where China's you know so far behind in the race that they actually think they're winning and that's the goal here if so you know touche they're doing a nice job with with the disinfo but it's hard to it's hard to judge it all in here because I'm a podcaster in a studio in Jersey you know like I'm not sitting in these back rooms you got to do your best to just sit across from the guys and wonder what's [ __ ] and what's not yeah you know yeah even even with pretty much anyone but when it gets to the

[1:59:51] weird [ __ ] like that you know but to to go back to Ukraine one of the things that like I remember when this war broke out I did some content with my friend David sder who is that was episode 92 and then I had him in again for episode 133 and he he was effectively the preeminent biographer and psychologist in the Western World on Vladimir Putin he was assigned the bureau chief in Moscow for the financial times in 1976

[2:00:22] wow he was kicked out of the Soviet Union towards the end of the 80s still reported on Russia they had after it flipped over to Russia they he was like the last one to be let back in and then I'm sure this has changed now I don't know for a fact but I'm sure this has changed now since the war broke out but prior to the war breaking out he is the only Western journalist who was ever kicked out of Russia so Putin kicked him out in December 2013 he was in Ukraine headed back into Russia where he lived most of the time and the FSB said there's like a famous phrase I forget

[2:00:53] what it is and they're like you can't come back in Putin said no so you know it was because he reported on on the on the the bombings of of the apartment buildings in 1999 it was him and then the other guy who got whacked in uh in Britain what the hell was his name lit bko he was the FSB Insider guy they were the only two and he was the only one in the Western World reporting on on this so I say all this because you know the

[2:01:24] thing that gets lost in all the unfortunate stuff around Ukraine and like the corruption is that like I've always been on Team Putin's not a good guy you know and the [ __ ] he does is crazy this is a guy who's held on to power for Now 26 years he's Rewritten the Constitution a few times to do it he kills anyone that's a problem he created an oligopoly that's effectively like a different type of Soviet Republic afterwards and you know he kills journalists he kicks out voices that he doesn't like he killed his own people to stay in power and I really David's

[2:01:55] reporting on that is incredible I I highly recommend people go check it out so when David talks about this war like he's so team ukraini and I get it because he's lived in the middle of it this guy's killed his friends yes but like there still has to be the balance here between yes Putin's a bad guy yes Putin does all this bad [ __ ] yes NATO's right to push back against that but maybe NATO takes it too far that it causes a bad guy to be like do bad guy [ __ ] you know what I mean is that's my position yeah that I think that's very

[2:02:26] fair that's my position I agree Putin's a bad guy always has been I wouldn't trust any Former Intelligence officer with running a country in any country um I wouldn't want the CIA director to be my president not a chance uh but the United States does sometimes push too hard you know I saw um uh Richard Blumenthal this morning mhm Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut uh complaining on CNN that

[2:02:57] that Russia um has invaded Ukraine Russia has invaded Georgia Russia has invaded Afghanistan and I was like buddy don't you read the New York Times what about Iraq Afghanistan Somalia Libya what do you think we do all the time I agree he's a bad guy yeah but sometimes we do bad [ __ ] that push him to do bad things but in in our defense on those are is the objective supposed to be that

[2:03:29] we then own the land and call it USA versus this is literally on his border and he wants to take Ukraine and make it a part of Russia that is a difference no yeah sure there's a difference but if we put it into perspective if the Canadians you know occupied something that we genuinely thought was our believed was ours and and its residents said oh my God we wish we were Americans it gets interesting yeah yeah it does get interesting it's it's one of those things it's like there

[2:04:00] not really a great solution but I hope it is more towards like what Trump's saying which is like let's get this a [ __ ] over get it over with it's costing us a fortune and a million people have died already let's be done with it you know I mentioned to you in the last time in the last podcast that we did that at the CIA we used to we used to criticize the George W Bush Administration we used to to criticize the bush State Department specifically because we would say that we had never seen a state department work so hard to not talk to

[2:04:31] people right diplomacy was forbidden we're not going to talk to the Iraqis we're not going to talk to the syrians we're not going to talk to the libyans we're not going to talk to the Afghans who are we going to talk to right I mean isn't it your job yeah to be talking to these people to try to diffuse uh powderkeg situations Joe Biden was exactly the same way we don't talk to the Russians we don't talk to the Chinese we don't talk to the Iranians we don't talk to the Cubans you're showing your hand when you do that right I suppose I'm I'm an

[2:05:03] equal an equal opportunity hater people say yeah yeah but if we're going to if if we're serious about peace then we need to have a robust and healthy State Department that's engaging our adversaries in in diplomacy you know I was on I was on this uh Iranian uh news show a couple dayso damn John you're hitting all the ones that are giving you a bad name I talked to everybody because I hope I can help to to explain some things and and

[2:05:34] talk sense to people and I said the same thing but I I told them listen you guys are just as bad you don't want to talk to us and so we end up having confrontations in the Persian Gulf we have confrontations at the United Nations we have confrontations in in Lebanon or in Yemen we have certainly military uh confrontations in Iraq because we won't talk to each other that's what we should be doing talking to each other do you think talking to each other would stop them though from because like this is one place I'm going to see it from Israel for sure like they

[2:06:05] do fun Hezbollah sure they they do Fun open about it yes right like do you think that would stop if we talk with them no I don't but maybe talking could lead to real dialogue which then could lead to something that we could negotiate perhaps like a talking with kimun kind of thing where you just keep his hand off the button mhm do you think do you think Iran do you think we're trying to overthrow the Iranian regime right now I do actively yes you think we got people

[2:06:35] in there no but the Israelis sure do I know that they probably got the third ranking [ __ ] person in the government they probably do yeah the Saudi um the Saudi uh Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman just two or three days ago uh offered to mediate between the White House and uh and the Iranians which is great because president pesan has said publicly that he's willing to talk to the Americans but

[2:07:05] kamay has said he is not and he's the supreme leader yeah so presidents come and go in Iran just like they come and go in the United States it all depends on what the supreme leader says why is NBS offering that though when when when Saudi and Iran have been engaged in literally literally like a hot war in Yemen oh and elsewhere you this is a very MBS thing to do nobody hated the Iranians as much as the Saudis yeah now maybe the bahrainis too but the bahrain's pretty much a a vassel state of Saudi Arabia I love when

[2:07:37] you say B bahin bahin Al bahin means the land of the two Seas um so the Saudis and Iranians hate each other and the Saudis were reasonably petrified of the Iranians Iran the population of Iran would dwarf the population of Saudi Arabia the Iranian military is always a threat even if it's old even if it lacks spare parts just the sheer number of people in the Iranian military and the

[2:08:09] Iranians have a pretty decent Navy so the Saudis have been petrified of Iran this goes back decades and MBS when he became Crown Prince for better for worse said you know why don't we just make peace with the Iranians and then we won't have to worry about them and that's that's what he's done and now they've exchanged ambassadors and pesan went to Riyad and MBs is going to go to Teran and now they have cultural exchanges and you can travel

[2:08:40] freely back and forth between the two countries and they're not worried about the Iranians anymore like at all though it well no they'll they'll always be they'll always be a little bit reserved and this is why the SA have long sought nuclear technology um since the 80s they've been seeking nuclear technology just in case they need to to protect themselves against the nuclear Iran um but now they're in a position where their relations with the Iranians are good enough that they can offer up mediation with the United States I can't

[2:09:12] believe the Saudis don't have nukes all that money I would not be surprised if the Saudis had nukes right um they they don't necessarily have a delivery system but I would not be surprised if they had nukes we know that they've been seeking nukes since the80s we know that they've spoken to the pakistanis about it and the pakistanis are joined at the hip with the uh Saudis to the point where the Saudis have been so generous with the pakistanis that they named the city of fisel Abad fisel Abad after King

[2:09:42] fisel because he gave them so much money they love love love the Saudis in Pakistan and the Saudis see them as you know you Pat them on head and tell him to clean the kitchen good boy yeah exactly exactly so you know it's been worse between them certainly I read a book last year and I forget the name of it right now on Muhammad bin salambo was really good I want to shout those can we google books on NBS I'll be able to see the cover and know it Alie but about like his rise and the [ __ ] he does and

[2:10:16] like I was I've long been very familiar with the kogi story and what he did there I mean he's not a good guy no he's not he's murderous yeah but we seem to be somewhat cool with him now we are yeah why Joe Biden made a couple of major errors in relations with the Saudis uh MBS had ordered the the assassination of Jamal Kashi and they didn't just assassinate him they did it in the most brutal

[2:10:47] freaking fashion while he probably watched on the screen mhm I think I think he probably did yeah but there there were people in the Saudi Consulate in uh in Istanbul who could hear him screaming as they were chopping him up and then they never found the body they think that the Saudi intelligence service probably put the pieces of his body in separate bags and threw them in the trash or threw them down wells in uh in IST well they have video of them

[2:11:18] carrying bags out too and it could have been pieces of it I think probably was yeah so Joe Biden said he's a murderer he's no good you know any insult you could think of during the the campaign in 2020 Biden lobbed it at NBS and then he won and then oil prices went up and then he had to go hat in hand and I went to Saudi Arabia for his for for Biden's uh meeting with NBS I went to cover it I was working for Sputnik at the time so I

[2:11:49] went to cover I and I got in the meeting and everything and I'll tell you one of the things I reported I'm very proud of this um so they're in the Royal modulus right the this gigantic room where everybody's sitting in a semicircle and those of us in the media are standing against the back wall here so the king's in the middle next to Biden and then it's like the foreign minister the Ambassador the deputy foreign minister this guy that guy Hangers On and MBs is all the way over here on the side and I

[2:12:20] noticed that the King has an iPad on his lap it's discreet but he's got this iPad and he keeps looking down at the iPad and I thought that's kind of funny what the heck could he be looking at on an iPad while he's talking to the president and then I happen to look over at NBS and he's got an iPad and he's typing his father messages yeah and then his father would look down because his father's demented MH he would look down and just read what NBS told him to say you know it was MBS that was running the meeting are you like looking around like is

[2:12:50] anyone else seeing this I know right so I reported it that night like I can't be the first person that's ever seen this and then a buddy of mine at the agency called me cuz he had seen the report and he said you saw the iPad huh and I said I did how long's been that has that been going on he said since the beginning yeah I don't even think the king realizes he's the king yeah yeah I believe that I mean the whole thing about what he did with the with the Ritz Carlton Hotel right my ex-wife was in the Ritz Carlton then she happened to be

[2:13:20] there during the coup your CIA ex-wife yeah well no she's former CIA she's uh she's a with some defense contractor I'll bet yeah well take that for what it's worth but uh you're not allowed to talk about I'm not allowed to talk about her so she happened to be in the hotel when the coup took place and they moved everybody to the Four Seasons yeah everybody and that was he basically went after because it's exensive royal family he made it he arrested all of his

[2:13:51] cousins who could possibly pose a threat to him beginning with Muhammad bin naif this was important because Muhammad bin naif was the Golden Boy of the Saudi royal family why was he the gold Bo genuinely good guy smart educated I think it was Georgetown I can't recall now I think he went to Georgetown but anyway he was the head of the uh Saudi intelligence service and nobody worked as closely with the American government as Muhammad bin naif he was the son of Prince naif

[2:14:22] naif for decades was the minister of interior and then he became the Crown Prince did naif become king no naif died before he could become king to the best I think that's right I'm trying to remember is that right it went through yeah he died as Crown Prince this guy is alive oh no oh yeah Muhammad Ben I have alive he's in jail but he's still in jail yeah but uh his father uh was I forget what he was yeah put put

[2:14:56] naif bin abdulaziz there he is yeah until his death in June 2012 yeah he was the uh he was the Crown Prince he died as Crown Prince yeah and um so when he died um uh Salan became king well Crown Prince no Salon the father became King right became King right so the Saudis had this really [ __ ] up kind of uh succession so the founder of

[2:15:26] the country was king abdulaziz um they called him iban sa the father of Saudi Arabia um it's blood and oil by the way alessie that was the name of the book I just want to give those guys a shout out was two authors cool yeah that one right there Bradley hope and Justin schneck great book excent sorry go ahead so so there was no succession plan when the old man died but he had like 115 Sons

[2:15:57] so king um saoud was his eldest son king saoud became king but he had mental problems and so he was overthrown by his brothers and exiled to Egypt and then um fil became king and then fil was a assassinated by a deranged cousin and so Khaled became king and then after

[2:16:28] Khaled died Fahad became king after Fahad then came Abdullah after Abdullah came uh Su Sultan died before he became king and then naif died anyway and then uh Salon became king So for years Saudi Watchers were saying well they're going to run out of Brothers sooner or later right you can't just keep doing is brother to brother it's got to be father to son at some point so that point came when Muhammad bin naif was named Crown

[2:16:59] Prince people were like okay it's the Next Generation Now is is going to take uh Power Muhammad BF is the best possible choice in the west we love him he's smart he's shrewd he was the head of the Saudi intelligence service and and he went to Georgetown pretty sure it was George conspiracy brands are tingling go ahead he had a weekly magist do you know what a mudas is they call it a diania in

[2:17:30] Kuwait but all the other Arab countries call it a mudless where you have sort of an open an open house let's call it an open house okay so if I'm let's say I'm I'm a young Saudi guy and I'm gonna get married I don't really have very much money because I'm not a royal family member so I go to the mulus and I say your highness you kiss him on the hand and on the shoulder to show you're filty um your your highness I'm I'm getting married I'm a member of this family I'm a member of this tribe I'm getting married I don't have any money will you

[2:18:00] please buy my living room furniture and he'll say yes of course uh Muhammad talk to this guy and get him living room furniture the next guy comes up oh your highness thank you for seeing me my car broke down and I'm a taxi driver and I need a new car uh Abdullah give this guy a new car that's a modulus in Saudi Arabia I got to go to one of those [ __ ] well there's a guy waiting patiently in line unbeknownst to Muhammad BF or

[2:18:32] anybody else he had a bomb stuffed up his ass literally he stuffed the whole bomb up his ass and when he gets to the front of the line he detonates it oh my God he blows himself to a thousand pieces but he almost kills Muhammad bin nav oh he shoved it up his ass and didn't even get to kill the guy tough way to go he should have grabbed on to him yeah you know like they did with Gandhi but anyway that's a whole different thing um

[2:19:05] ch's like good kill good kill yeah good clean kill um so it made him a hero in Saudi Arabia the guy was Al-Qaeda he had come from Yemen they had been planning this for months the bomb was specifically designed to go up the guy's ass it was incredible with craftsmanship and it was oh my God they can't believe he survived so the Saudi people are like oh my God and then he gets named Crown Prince they said oh he's going to be the greatest everybody loves him he's a national hero

[2:19:36] this CIA invites him to the headquarters to give him the highest medal anybody can get because he survived this this attack from Al-Qaeda then he goes back and he becomes Crown Prince and then he gets overthrown by Muhammad B Salman and not just overthrown but placed under arrest yeah and then there were several other cousins that were like hey wait a minute Muhammad bin Salman you can't do this we're with Muhammad bin naif well one of them dies in an airplane crash a couple days later the other one dies in a mysterious one car accident on the Riad

[2:20:08] to to jeda Highway and now there's nobody that can challenge MBS how did a guy that young with that many other players who could be lined up against him including a dude who's like an Char of the intelligence service successfully get everyone on his side through fear is really what it came down to when it when it became clear in those early days that he was willing to kill his own cousins just because they might someday pose a challenge to him yeah everybody backed

[2:20:40] off um there's a a famous Prince um uh Al bin talal uh famous at least in the United States because he owns a a quarter of City Bank and he owns you know half of uh of Berkshire hathway and guys's a billionaire more than most people can count um he happened to be in Riyad when the coup took place and he was close to Muhammad been been naif and so they grabbed him too and

[2:21:13] they said you could be executed as a western spy you can be executed uh as a supporter of Muhammad bin naif or you can give us half of your money and he gave him half their money you bet he did and then he ran back to the United States as quickly as he could that is it's a whole it's like the Hunger Games over there that's exactly what it's like it's [ __ ] crazy and

[2:21:43] yet they have so much economic power MH see nobody expected there to be this kind of a psychopath in the Saudi line of succession why not and well because the Saudis historically have been very very consultative they were famous for this where it's actually written down in a family agreement where where and they have a name for it and the Name Escapes Me Now the the something Council I forget now

[2:22:14] um where the you know the 25 or 30 senior most princes the the King dies and then all the senior most princes get together and they say okay well the next brother becomes king so who's going to become Crown Prince because they have skipped Brothers some brothers have said it's not this isn't for me I'd rather I'd rather live in Paris you know or London I I don't want to be the Crown Prince and they say fine they just skip them over so they they consult on all

[2:22:45] these major Personnel decisions until NBS NBS said no I'm the Crown Prince and whoever doesn't like it is going to get a bullet between the eyes and then he actually did it yeah he grew up like they never suspected he was going to be that kid because he was like the spoiled rich kid who played video games all the time but what these guys were saying in their book is that when he was a teenager he would he had access to his father so he would start to just sit in on meetings and watch and he learned how

[2:23:18] power was wielded yeah and picked up on those things and the leap that I made with this is that perhaps cuz he play like he played a lot of video games like they were saying like a lot and perhaps because he went into these fake worlds and he didn't have any stakes in his life because he has everything he ever wants he's a [ __ ] there were some other weird psychological things going on with him like with punishments and stuff like that like he would act weird but like I think he got desensitized to the world my guess through the video games and

[2:23:48] kind of living within that and then saw the application of power in the real world and kind of mesh the two and he doesn't feel anything he has absolutely zero empathy he's he's a total sociopath that's exactly what it is sociopathy I was invited to a dinner once in Riad I was serving there in 91 and um there was this guy that I was friendly with at the foreign Ministry he was just a fun nice guy you know guy that you had a good time hanging out with he invited me to his house for dinner which was unusual

[2:24:19] for a Saudi because I I got to meet his wife she was unveiled and that was a very big deal it really showed friendship so we're invited to this dinner and it's at one of the Palaces I don't even remember was she hot no no no I love how you said that no poor guy they were probably first cousins too in retrospect anyway um fad was the king he was not at the dinner but there were a lot of

[2:24:49] princes at the to dinner and he and I went out onto the balcony he wanted to smoke a cigarette we're out there laughing and joking and and then this big fat barrel of lard comes out onto the balcony and he snaps to attention my friend does and I recognized this kid as AO he was Prince abdulaziz bin Fahad the favorite son of King Fahad I had never seen Aus before I'd seen pictures of him he had to be 450 pounds it was

[2:25:21] disgusting whoa remind me to come back to that okay in a second so one of the things about Saudi culture is it's considered to be effeminate to wear jewelry men don't wear jewelry the only thing you're allowed to wear is a wedding ring that's it um so in order to show wealth or good taste all Saudi men have a really good watch and a really good pen so this guy had like a $1,000 Waterman you know whatever special pen he got in Geneva or

[2:25:51] whatever and isus comes out and uh he snaps to attention and he says your majesty and I said uh I said hello Prince uh Prince I didn't call him Aus that was his nickname I I said hello Prince Abal aiz I'm John kiraka from the American Embassy didn't shake my hand didn't even make eye contact with me and Aus says I like your pen and my friend says oh thank you and he takes it out you know and looks at it and isus saysi take it now and then just takes it puts it in his own pocket and

[2:26:23] then goes back into the dinner and my friend is looking at me and I said what a [ __ ] [ __ ] that you didn't say that too loud did you not too loud yeah I was gonna say and he just shook his head I thought he was going to cry but that's how these guys are yeah they're used to [ __ ] on people yep and and you have to just take it you said you wanted to come back to the fact he was 450 AO was so freaking fat they were all fat like this it was ridiculous so when they renovated

[2:26:53] dahon airport I was stationed in Bahrain at the time this was 94 so it was three years later when they renovated dahon airport they had to special order double wide escalators because when these Saudi royal family members would get on the escalators they would have to stand sideways because their asses couldn't fit on the escalator so they're all double wides oh it's a it's sorry and it's just I would recommend people read that book just cuz excellent yeah it's it's a

[2:27:25] wide it's crazy if you want sort of deeper background of the royal family as a family beginning with the fight to consolidate um the Arabian Peninsula the house of saoud is an absolute classic It Was Written in the 80s yeah absolute classic okay it was the first book I read before my first trip to Saudi Arabia when was your first trip there 91 90 90 you were and that was when you were the Saddam Hussein historian for CIA right

[2:27:55] were you going there on something related to that yeah the Kuwaiti royal family had been pushed out of Kuwait from The Invasion and they were relocated to TF right outside of Mecca so I went to okay it's coming back to me now babysit well John one one last thing before we get out of here today one topic we we can't leave hanging out there is China because it's so you know this one's like kind of a weird one because it was like one of those things you couldn't talk about like four years ago or 5 years ago it's like don't talk about China and then I'll never forget

[2:28:26] this I've told this story a few times but I was talking with Danny Jones this is like June 2022 so the Ukraine the Ukraine war it was three months four months in just gotten started and I said you know I saw something crazy today one of the one of the you know kind of old school General think tanks in DC posted a scathing paper on China like huh and this was also at a time where there were some podcasts that were happening on our shows where some guys were starting to

[2:28:56] talk about China who had some connections and they were doing it pretty loudly and proudly and I'm like I think this is going to shift and I'm telling you overnight like it had probably already started it suddenly became like YouTube wanted that content wow you know the platforms wanted that and they were pushing the [ __ ] out of it wow really I look at China and I see they got a huge GDP they got a huge population they got a crazy government they got a strong military and they're buying a lot of soft power around I might even call it hard power around the

[2:29:28] world and the these are all problematic but sometimes I do hearken back to the is this just like we're trying to overplay an enemy so that we have one so we have something to focus on or do you do you think that they're the full-blown legit like threat to American sovereignty through things like bricks and stuff like that I think maybe it's somewhere in the middle I hate to be I hate to be wishy-washy about I like that the reason I say that is because if you look historically Tibet aside mhm the Chinese have never invaded

[2:30:00] another country anywhere in the world they had a border Skirmish with the Indians they had a border Skirmish with the Vietnamese that lasted a couple of days H with the Indians it was longer a couple of weeks but Tibet aside I say Tibet aside because they the Chinese genuinely believe Tibet is Chinese right it's not inp depent shouldn't be an independent country so they took it in the 50s I think it was 53 and they kept it um but the Chinese just don't interfere militarily in other countries they do have a very small base that

[2:30:33] ironically they share with us in Djibouti and there's like a fence down the middle and this side is American and that side is Chinese it's the weirdest craziest thing that's got to be awkward the Chinese have all their hanger doors open and ours are closed and I said to one of the guys I said hey how come ours are closed what's in there and he's like dude I can't tell you what's in there I said I I know what's in there I'm just pulling your leg so um anyway we don't I don't think we need to worry about the

[2:31:04] Chinese militarily not the way you hear you know senators and congressmen talking about it why not because they just don't have an imperialist past Place yeah now what we do have to worry about very much is they are m Masters at the use of soft power yes Masters Belton Road initiative oh my God it's absolutely brilliant and talk about a country with a long-term view yes oh my God they look decades and decades out you know I'm a I'm a dual us Greek

[2:31:37] citizen right I take my greekness and my Greek citizenship very seriously so I'm in Greece and the Greeks are having these economic problems and people are like [ __ ] Chinese came and bought the the port of perus the port of Thessaloniki and the port of iron cre that's what all my friends said too all my Greek friends yeah they just they just come in and buy everything oh we don't want you guys to lose your jobs we know you're broke we'll buy it and you just keep working the way you work well

[2:32:07] now everybody's indebted to the Chinese yeah look every every Highway that's been built in Africa in the last 10 years has been built by the chines yes same thing in Yemen you know I remember I remember the first time I was in Yemen 1991 the Chinese were building highways there it's like thousands of Chinese and they're all doing road construction but they were using Dynamite to to Dynamite through some rock to build this road and the tribe that they still had nomadic tribes there

[2:32:40] they were they were furious at all this noise and so one day this Chinese I don't know what he was a corporate leader the Ambassador somebody some senior Chinese guy came in a helicopter and they're doing a ceremony and dedicating the you know cutting the ribbon and dedicating the highway and here the tribe had tied ropes to the helicopter and they tied the ropes to like a dozen camels and they're dragging

[2:33:10] the helicopter into the desert to punish the Chinese for making all that noise building the road whoa there's even a monument on one of the hills over looking saah uh it's a monument to the Chinese Road workers who were killed by tribesmen while they were building the roads the yemenese had it up to here with the Chinese sounds like it but then the Africans were like hey you're welcome to come here we're happy to take your money and that work and they can't pay it back no and the Chinese don't expect it back but instead if you can't

[2:33:42] pay it back how about yeah you let us stay or you let us process all of your rare earth metals cuz most of the rare earth metals that are that are mined are not processed on site there's so much waste involved that you can't make money but the Chinese have so much money that they're happy to take the loss on the ore processing because it sort of buys them an in with the countries that mine it

[2:34:13] you know you go to you go to Congo for example or whatever they're calling it now I guess it's Congo and the biggest Embassy in the country is the Chinese Embassy it's not the American Embassy or the Russians used to be but it's the Chinese yeah Africa is like Ground Zero with this it is it's everywhere when you talk with Shawn Ryan I want you to talk with this about him or talk about this with him we'll do because I I know like he feels really strongly about this stuff a couple years ago when he was on my podcast we talked about it a bunch he's like John is here John is there John is everywhere they are and they are

[2:34:44] and it's hard to deny that and it's like it happened without anybody noticing and then by the time the internet Community noticed it's too late they're everywhere and how do we roll that back we don't know well we also like accept the fact that they won't integrate our tech companies in there but they integrate all theirs here it's like this double standard it is a double standard and then there's even soft power with like the weapons of the mine like you know this is the one place where like the Communism works I it makes me sick to say that but like with their kids yeah

[2:35:14] on their Tik Tok it [ __ ] shuts off at 9:00 at night first of all and second they're getting science videos and they're getting like like good videos here it's 24/7 and kids are getting titty videos yes and and brain melting videos oh my God so they're using our freedom and democracy against itself and in this one anecdotal example they're using their lack of freedom for themselves in a long-term investment stuff like this bother and your earlier point about fenel should not be understated that's not an

[2:35:45] accident I'm going to have this guy Ben westof in here he did an amazing podcast like probably six years ago with Joe Rogan he wrote this book called fentel Inc you ever see this no guy was like a culture reporter not a reporter on any of this stuff he was assigned some story like in the music industry to cover and while he's talking to some Source in the story The guy offhand mentions fenel and like what a problem it is and Ben had heard of it but he's like ah tell me more about it and very quickly he realized holy [ __ ] and he went down the rabbit hole and he's a Savage this guy

[2:36:18] Ben bought a ticket to China like he's an author himself and said let's let's just see how easy it is to get fentel wow and he like I'm I'm gonna let him tell the full story when he comes in here but he goes to like this full warehouse and everything and they're like so you want it in that package or you want it in this package oh my God and then you see that these guys are also working directly with the cartels who can just Chuck it across the border it's a reverse Opium War oh my God and that's a big problem yeah that's a big problem mhm you think they're going to clean

[2:36:48] that up I'll tell you I think if anybody does it's going to be Donald Trump yeah you know a lot of people I think didn't understand the import the full import of declaring uh the Mexican cartels to be terrorist groups that opens up a whole bunch of presidential authorities and uh lines of funding that otherwise would have been unavailable to the military to go after the fenel trade can you explain that like how that would work because this is I have some

[2:37:19] guys coming in I was going to ask them about it I still will but sure um you know if if a an organization is declared to be a clear and present danger to American persons American installations or the American government the president can order can order programs to be implemented to oppose them without necessitating Congressional approval you can act quickly like Trump send the military well he can send the military without to get a congressional

[2:37:50] authorization because the cartels are now a terrorist group so it it opens that Avenue you don't have to get it bogged down in some debate on Capitol Hill where they attach the perverted Arts funding you know Amendment and you need 60 votes in the Senate to break cloer you just do it you got power yeah you got power just do it and nobody really talked about that which kind of surprised me especially the DC based press like Politico and the hill and

[2:38:21] even the post they're usually right on these kinds of issues but I they weren't on this no I think it was a good they were like oh my God what's President shine Shin Bal gonna say she's new and she's never had to deal with Trump before and oh my God they're not going to like us anymore in Mexico it's like that wasn't the point yeah that ship sailed yeah that was not the point also did you happen to notice that border crossings have gone down to almost zero yeah I got to get more information on it

[2:38:52] but certain the early the early reports are that it's a lot better than it was yeah pretty easy to be a lot better than it was to be honest but the Democrats just could not get it through their thick skulls that the American people wanted the border secure yeah and it's like the most common sense thing it's not hateful or anything I'll tell you when I was when I was in Greece uh two years ago um they they were having a serious problem with the tur the the Turks take billions of Euros

[2:39:22] from the European Union to house refugees okay they have refugees coming from Syria from Iraq from Kurdistan from all over the place Pakistan Afghanistan thousands and thousands of people so the EU gives them billions of Euros just keep them in Turkey but what they do is at night they push them across the border into Greece yeah in fact I was with my cousin oh my God my cousin's a DJ on the island of r heard by the way I've heard direct stories from my guys in the Greek military about that it's bad it's really

[2:39:54] bad so my cousin he finishes his his gig at this nightclub and he and I are standing outside the nightclub just closed it's like 2 2:30 in the morning we're standing outside and it's right on the beach and and this boat comes up it just the it softly just kind of lands on the beach and like 12 syrians get out and we're looking at these guys and I I I said to one of them and Wayne where are you from Mina we're from Syria I go

[2:40:27] are you refugees and they said yeah and my cousin he's he's a young guy he just turned 30 he's like are you hungry and they said yes and he said wait here I'll get you food I'm like what he goes in the club he comes out with these sandwiches John's coming out with a stick I know I'm like hey hey back to turkey with you so

[2:40:58] um we told them you know we we had to call the police because the police would have to process them as refugees and so the cops came down were very nice very welcoming and everything was cool because they they said it's not the syrians fault no it's not they're they're looking for a better life it's the [ __ ] Turks fault y because the Turks are taking the money and still pushing the refugees out so the point of this is what the Greeks did you know they don't have much of a land border with turkey it's all in the north everything is Islands the islands are hard to patrol because there are like

[2:41:29] you know 1100 Islands so what they did is they built a wall like an actual honest to God wall and the Turks jumped up and down like across the water no no on the land part of the Border in in northern Greece not a single person crosses that wall not a single one and here's me like ah Trump he's lying he's the Mexicans are going to pay for it and then the Greek wall oh the Wall Works I said I was wrong I was wrong about the wall yeah it's crazy yeah it's listen I

[2:41:59] got to give him credit on that the he talked about it so simply which I think was a turnoff but when you run the tape in 2015 of what he was saying he was right he was right on that for sure yes he was and a lot of other more importantly a lot of other people were very wrong that's right you know and [ __ ] got crazy but John we be here all night if we keep going across stuff I think we just did two again this time so this was [ __ ] great great love having you through glad to see you're getting some speakers gigs than much so we'll

[2:42:30] stick any links including to your substack down below substack and unified I do most my stuff in those two places and listen if you're in uh in the UK over the next two months I got like 44 speaking dates it's going to be at tigersan studios.com all the info is there we'll have that down below like make Mark for those three links a lesson we'll do that thank you thank you as always sir thank you buddy all right great everybody else you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace thank you guys for watching the episode if you haven't already please hit that

[2:43:01] subscribe button and smash that like button on the video they're both a huge huge help and if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X those links are in my description below
