[00:05] [music] >> Because of this podcast Julian and Dalton Mhm. I got picked up by that speakers bureau in London. >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Mhm. So, that went well until Meta just decided they didn't like me. And so, everything was canceled. I gave 15 speeches. >> Yeah, we were we were advertising on Facebook and Instagram. >> Uh-huh. And I I had 15 dates.
[00:36] Started in Belfast, went to Cork, Dublin, Waterford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, all over the doggone place. >> Right. Selling out weeks in advance. Every single seat sold out, sold out, sold out every venue. >> Mhm. And then I had a break of a week, and then we had five nights [clears throat] in London. Five different venues in London. So, I said, rather than go all the way back to Washington for just a week, I'm going to go to Greece. Mhm. So, my
[01:08] girlfriend and I went to Greece. And the guys called me in London, they said, "Hey, we have a serious problem." I said, "What kind of problem?" They said, "We've had 55,000 clicks on the buy tickets button. We've sold seven tickets." And I said, "Seven tickets? It's got to be a directed denial of service attack." He said, "That's what we thought. It's not it. When you click on the button, it just goes to a blank white screen." I was like, "Oh my god." So, they said,
[01:38] "Do you think it's the agency?" And I said, "No. The agency doesn't give a about me anymore. All my detractors are either dead or long retired. Nobody cares." I said, "What about MI6?" And they said that they have a an MI6 a retired MI6 officer in their stable of speakers, and he went back to MI6 and asked them. They said something interesting. They said, "While we are aware of Mr. Kyriacou's tour, we have done nothing to impede it." Mhm. And I said,
[02:08] "Then it has to be Meta, right?" Right. >> [clears throat] >> And he said, "You know what? My ex-wife is the assistant general counsel. I'm going to call her." So, he calls her. And he's like, "Did Did you guys do this?" And she said, "Yeah, we did it. We don't like him." And he said, "You can't just take a hundred thousand dollars in advertising and then just say, 'Fuck you.'" And she said, "So, sue us." So, I said, "You going to sue them?" And he goes, "No, because all of our
[02:40] business is with Meta. You're the only one that they're blocking." So, I sued them. In the Northern District of Texas. You sued Meta? >> Yeah. They put me out of business. This was a major source of income. I was making 25 grand a night. And you're are you allowed to use the information that your ex-wife gave up that they did? >> Oh, his ex-wife, not your ex-wife. His ex-wife. >> that's like the basis of the suit. Oh my god. >> So, I hired this who represents both the governor and the attorney
[03:11] general of Texas in their various lawsuits. >> Uh-huh. And he's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, this is we'll take this." I said, "I don't have any money to pay you." He said, "We'll do it on contingency. I believe in this." >> No way. Yeah. So, anyway, because of you, Julian and Dalton, it kind of lifted me to a higher level of podcast, right? That gave me better exposure in the UK and Ireland. They
[03:42] love me in Ireland. [clears throat] >> And Rogan, you went on Rogan? >> And then I did Tucker, and then I did Patrick Bet- David, and then I did Rogan. Rogan sort of broke the the dam. Right. And then Rogan led to Diary of a CEO. >> Oh, yes, I forgot about that. >> That was that made everything crazy. Really? >> [clears throat] >> How so? Um there is a kid in Texas, 20-year-old kid at the University of Texas. He took my Diary of a CEO um interview
[04:12] >> Mhm. and he chopped up the stories into shorts. Mhm. >> And gave me an Alvin and the Chipmunks voice. Oh, I saw those. lasers shooting out of [laughter] my eyes. My niece calls me one morning, 7:00 in the morning, she goes, "Uncle John, you went viral on TikTok overnight." I go, "Why?" And she says, "I don't know." And then the phone just started ringing off the hook. But I was leaving for Dubai the next day. So, I I fly to Dubai,
[04:44] and then I get a call from CAA, the Creative Artists Agency. And the guy goes, "Tell me you're not represented." And I said, "No." And they're like, "You are now." >> [laughter] >> You're a star, John. >> Life changed dramatically just in the last six weeks. Dramatically, but it started with this podcast. >> man. You deserve it. You deserve it, man. >> I allowed to put any of that in the show or >> I'll I'll >> The the stuff about the Meta stuff, the >> Yeah, I'll put Yeah, sure. That whole story about suing them and all that?
[05:15] >> Sure. Okay, cool. I just want to make sure cuz that was also a great story. We will leave out the other story, which was bananas. Oh, no, but I have one more [laughter] that >> we could keep that on there. >> I I have one more that I'll I'll protect the source of the story. Yes. >> But uh that you'll like very much. Okay. >> Very much. >> Okay, cool. We'll get into it. But good to have you back, man. Good to be back. >> I'm very excited to talk to you. You have the most deep analysis of everything that's going on in the world, which it seems
[05:45] like. >> there's so much going on. Yeah. >> There's so much to analyze, right? >> too much. Like I was telling you before we started, like I'm I'm like I don't know what to do because I'm just being beaten over the head with information every day. Too much information. >> tell you what's different this time than in previous conflicts. I'm thinking about Iraq, Afghanistan, even Syria, which is more recent. Libya, which is more recent. >> Mhm. Um we didn't have to deal with AI videos and that kind of disinformation and misinformation like we do today. Today,
[06:18] we read articles or we watch videos, we genuinely have no idea if they're real. Right. And so, you have to be very, very careful about jumping to a conclusion. You know, you've got to rely on on people on site, uh people you trust, not just, you know, a podcaster that you happen to like because it's easy to be duped. Mhm. So, I don't know, it's I I'm finding it very challenging to separate fact from fiction. >> Yeah, and not only like just analyzing
[06:49] whether stuff's real or not, but like the fact that I mean, I think Netanyahu's alive, right? That's pretty >> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was like a week or two where everyone was not sure, right? And there was these AI those videos, I think they were actually AI. I don't think they were Netanyahu. >> I'm confident they were AI. So, if they if why is Netanyahu releasing fake AI videos of himself if he's alive? Is that just to like confuse people and and draw attention away from something else? >> there were two different kinds of videos. I think there were videos that
[07:19] were not released by Netanyahu or his team that were AI. All AI. But then the ones that were released by Netanyahu, you notice they showed him >> Like in the coffee shop. Yeah. That was on his Twitter account. >> Yeah. I think that was AI. >> I think I'm pretty sure that was AI. Yeah, he's not going to go out just randomly to a coffee shop while his country's at war and being bombed. Yeah. Or he was at like a roadside rest, you know, in the Golan Heights. It's
[07:50] like, "What's that?" No, he's not. But his ears were weird, they were kind of sticking straight out, they weren't his normal ears. His head was a little bit more elongated than it is in real life. >> [snorts] >> And um He had six fingers. He had six I saw the one with six fingers. Yeah, he had six fingers in the one on his on his I guess it was his left hand. And um But there there were a couple of videos that he released where he's surrounded on three sides by Israeli flags. So, there's the podium,
[08:20] the lectern in the middle, Israeli flags on three sides. That could have been taken literally anywhere in the world. So, you know, there were rumors at the same time as there were rumors that he was dead, there were rumors that he was in Germany hiding, that he was in Cyprus hiding, or trying to get out of the from within the range of Iranian missiles. So, who knows? He may have been in a bunker in Jerusalem. We don't have any idea. And they're not And then they're not talking. Yeah, or I heard that he was just in his plane, just
[08:51] flying around on a plane the whole time. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. >> much. It's too much fake stuff going on right now. And like, man, I don't know what to make of the state of this country right now. It just it again, I've only been paying attention for so long, you know, the past less than 10 years I've really been checked into like the news cycle and what's going on in politics and like starting to like learn the history of all this stuff. >> Mhm. So,
[09:21] I'm very new. Um and obviously like back during like the Cold War and like leading up to where we are now, we didn't have social media and cell phones and all that stuff. So, it's hard to know what it's like now compared to what it used to be like. But at least in my lifetime, man, it feels like we've never been closer to like an actual revolution in this country or like at least the the concept of not not not the concept, but like the
[09:54] the reality of what how fake politics is and and how everything is a lie and how corrupt everything is. >> Danny, this is exactly why I'm not a member of a political party. Because they're two sides of the same coin. They're both corrupt as corrupt as the day is long. If if you if you don't like Donald Trump, you can't look to the Democrats to to be any better. Right. And similarly, if if you don't like
[10:28] whomever the Democrats happen to be, you know, >> [snorts] >> throwing at us on any given day. Lately, it's Pete Buttigieg, who I think doesn't have a prayer of ever becoming president. Worst transportation secretary in American history. >> Mhm. Um you can't go to the Republicans cuz the Republicans are in a state of civil war. You know, the neocons are ascendant again. John John McCain, if he were alive, would be dancing a jig. >> Right. And the MAGA people are like,
[11:01] "What just happened to us? Mhm. I thought we were running the place, you know?" Do you think it's possible that there could ever be a real revolution in this country? You know, I said to a a friend of mine the other day, >> [cough] >> excuse me, I said to a friend of mine the other day, "I have like some of my very earliest memories are of the spring and summer of 1968. I was 4 years old. I was 3 years old, almost 4. >> [snorts] >> And I remember sitting on my dad's lap
[11:31] and he was watching the news and I remember seeing fires. And I asked him why everything was on fire and I remember he said that a a very bad man killed Martin Luther King and black people were very upset. And then I remember my mom bawling a couple of months later when when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. But then having studied the spring and summer of '68, you know, between political assassinations and the Vietnam War and
[12:04] Eugene McCarthy being pushed out and Kennedy being killed and and then, you know, McGovern standing in for the Kennedy delegates at the '68 convention, but then the DNC imposing Hubert Humphrey on us, a pro-war, you know, moderate Democrat, >> Mhm. and then riots in the streets and all the at the same time the summer of love happening. Right. Like the the country was in a state of chaos, utter chaos, really from '67 to '69 if you want to include the Kent State
[12:35] shootings. So, I mentioned to this friend of mine, "This is like the summer of '68." And he said, "This is like the spring of '61, 1861." And I said, "You really think it's that bad?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "I don't. I'm not there yet." Yeah, I don't think it would be the the only good thing I can say about it is I don't think it would be left versus right. I think it would be the people versus the politicians. >> that's it. I think that's it. Yeah. I
[13:05] think people are genuinely frustrated with governance and they want something different, but we've given ourselves, especially over the last 100 years, almost exactly 100 years, um this two-party system that just simply doesn't work. You know, 100 years ago, we had five, six viable parties. You know, Eugene V. Debs ran for president uh from prison and got whatever it was, 2 million votes.
[13:35] >> Yeah. Uh we had the um Democrat far- uh Democrat Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We had the Progressive Party in Wisconsin, the Bull Moose Party that Teddy Roosevelt ran on. Like legit parties. I was reading an article just the other day about uh Salmon P. Chase, who was the secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln. Over the course of his political career, he had been governor of Ohio, he was secretary of Treasury, he was uh a member of the Supreme Court. Over the course of his political career,
[14:06] he was a member of six different political parties. Mhm. >> Every time his party would take a position that he didn't like, he would just leave and go to another party. That's what it should be like. >> Yes. And we're not like that. Well, now you can be a member >> or leave it. Now you can be a member of six different political parties. You don't have to change any of your ideas. No. They just They're all the same. >> Hillary was like super MAGA back in the early 2000s. She was so hawkish on borders and >> And then Donald Reagan was like, "Eh, immigrants. Immigrants." >> Right. >> Yeah, things have changed. If you've
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[15:39] today at shopify.com/dannyjones, all lowercase. Again, it's s h o p i f y.com/dannyjones. shopify.com/dannyjones. The other day I had Glenn Greenwald in here and he was saying that uh he thinks Tucker could win the presidency. I'm going to speak with Tucker in in a couple of weeks Mhm. and I'm going to I'm going to tell him, "Look, I it's none of my business to tell you what to do or what not to do, but if you
[16:10] run for president, I am all in." Mhm. 100%. Glenn says that he talks to him in private about it and like Tucker just brushes it off and laughs at it. He's like, "No, no." >> time I talked to him, he brushed it off and I said, "I'm serious." He said, "I'm not interested." He could win. Yeah, but goddamn, does he need some beefy security. You know, he lives out in the sticks. He lives a couple of He's a house a couple hours from here. Oh, does he? Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Um I I went up to Maine last time I saw him and he lives out in the sticks and I'm like, "Buddy, I said, you need
[16:41] security out here." And he's like, "Nah, not out here." Really? >> Yeah. In fact, I'll tell you a funny thing. He was a half an hour late for for our podcast >> Mhm. because he was fly fishing. He's an avid fly fisher, accomplished fly fishers fly fisher. And then when he pulled his his reel in to, you know, walk back to the car and come to the podcast, there was a moose standing there. And he said, What a great excuse. >> He said that they can be dangerous. They weigh 1,000 lb, right?
[17:11] >> Oh, yeah. >> spindly legs, [clears throat] they'll they'll jump up and, >> Yep. They're super dangerous. >> So, he said he just had a a face-off with the moose. He just stood there for half an hour and the moose is looking at him and he's looking at the moose and then finally it just walks away. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. What a great story for being 30 minutes late. >> [laughter] >> Better than my excuse, right? No, he um it's just crazy, man. It's just I was talking to Glenn about this. I was I'm like, I'm I'm kind of stunned how fearless [snorts] he is. He is utterly fearless and I'll tell you, I know a lot
[17:41] of really smart people. Mhm. He might be the most brilliant person that I've ever encountered. He's certainly the most well-informed person I've ever encountered. And another thing, too, in addition just being a sweet guy, he's a genuinely good guy. Um what you see is what you get with him. The way he appears on camera, that's Tucker. He's a genuinely nice guy. He loves the country. He's very
[18:11] um devout in his faith. He loves his family. And I think he would be an inspired leader. I I don't I'm conflicted on that because then we would lose the voice. >> Yeah, that's the only thing. That's the only thing. >> Can't be both. Yeah. That's right. And I'm afraid that you it takes a certain type of person to really be a politician or a president, you know? And you know, I wondered, too, if he would be necessarily comfortable in today's Republican Party or if he would
[18:42] have to run as an independent >> Mhm. or make his own party. You know, back you and I talked about this years ago. Back in 2016, I traveled to 12 states with Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee for president in 2012 and 2016. Um I consider myself to be a libertarian. And um and there was such upheaval in the campaign it not the Libertarian campaign, but the
[19:13] the presidential campaign that year. Donald Trump had the Republican nomination, Hillary had the had the Democratic nomination and um this guy from the agency, I forget his name, he was running as an independent. I forget his name. Um and so the polls were just in this weird state of flux >> Mhm. to the point where we really believed that Gary was competitive in both Utah and uh
[19:44] New Mexico. We ended up doing well in Utah. We got like, I don't know, 18% or 16% and he ended up getting a higher percentage of the vote 3% higher than any libertarian ever has gotten since the creation of the Libertarian Party. And I mentioned to him one time, you know, this is something we can really grow on and he said no. It's a it's a fluke. And I said, what makes you say that? He said because unlike the Democrats and the Republicans, we don't have a patron.
[20:15] We don't have a billionaire who could just dump a hundred million dollars in the campaign. >> All right. There was a guy who was a donor to the campaign. I never learned his name. He was only described to me as the canned tomato king of California. That's where he made his money, canned tomatoes. And he he donated he donated money for us to buy a used Winnebago that we drove around all these states you know, in to go from campaign event to campaign [laughter] event. The only place we flew was to Alaska cuz
[20:47] it was too far to drive. But um Yeah, that's the problem with it. >> But he was he was right. You know, the libertarians went right back down to one one and a half percent and that was kind of the end of it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how you get rid of I don't know how you fix that unless you just demolish the whole thing and build it from the ground up. >> That's it. That's it. But I can't help it to think that there are enough people frustrated with the two-party system that with the right leadership a third party might be attractive.
[21:18] Although part of the problem is this this ongoing debate over whether or not you start at the grassroots and run people for the local water board and the city council and the school board and then work your way up to the point where you nominate a presidential nominee. Oh, interesting. >> Or if you get a big name like Ross Perot and you create this party around him and then work down from there. Huh. That hasn't worked. But then the libertarians I was on the
[21:49] Libertarian Party mailing list for years and I'd get these breathless emails like, oh my god we just had a libertarian elected trash commissioner of Green Bay, Minnesota of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Congratulations. I'm like, you guys, what are you doing? Mhm. Trash commissioner of Green Bay. >> [laughter] >> I I went to the Libertarian Christmas party in well, [snorts] I mean, being libertarians of course they couldn't get their act together. So it was in the middle of January, right? Seriously.
[22:21] It's in Alexandria, Virginia. We all have these name tags. Hello, my name is, right? I wrote John Kiriakou. And this guy walks up to me and he's looking at my name tag and he goes, oh John Kiriakou, I'm so glad I ran into you. I'm so-and-so. I'm the head of the Libertarian Party for Virginia. I said, oh nice to meet you. Shook his hand. And he says, listen would you be willing to run for governor? I said, absolutely not. Just like that. He said, really? Why not? I said, listen, I like you guys. You're all really nice guys, but you
[22:53] can't even get your act together to to schedule a Christmas party before Christmas. And I know it's going to happen. I'll say yes, I'll run for governor. Everybody will abandon me. I'm not going to raise any money. I'll end up being out of pocket for everything including my own travel around the state and then I'll get 1% and make an idiot of myself. Right. And he's like, well, fair enough. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that would be a good idea for Tucker to run. I mean, in theory it's a good idea, but
[23:25] I don't know. See, I think >> Yeah, yeah, I'd rather have the media voice that's pushing back against power. Yeah. I think. Yeah. You know, I don't know. >> He's very very effective and has millions of followers. People like him, they trust him, they understand his analysis. He doesn't speak down to people. >> [snorts] >> Like the average American I think can connect with him. I have a lot of dear friends who always question my friendship with him. >> Mhm. And I was like, you know, first of all, I never ever judge anybody on their
[23:55] politics, never. If you and I frankly, I mean, you and I have known each other for years now. >> I've learned all my politics from you, John. >> [laughter] >> I was going to say I don't have any idea what your politics are because we've never really talked about it. >> I've formed my idea of ideas from listening to you. I mean, that's that's how I you know, learn about all this >> were kidding. Thank you very much. That's very nice. Thank you. So you and I are friends first. If we agree on political issues, that's great. If we don't agree, I don't care. We're still
[24:26] friends. I like you. I have I have this core of of friends, my best friends from high school. Mhm. We're we're all in each other's weddings and we're godfather to each other's kids. It was five of us all together. One has passed away now, but but two Democrats, two Republicans and an independent. Yeah. But it never mattered cuz we never talked about politics or when we did, we'd kid each other. So um with with Tucker he's so truly independent that even my
[24:56] friends who questioned my friendship with him have told me recently now we've really come around on Tucker. Mhm. Yeah. He's a he's a truth teller. Yeah, that there's a there was a great skit that I saw yesterday. I think Joe Rogan reposted it on his Instagram story. Steve, I'll send you the um the link to it so you can play it. It's from um uh George Carlin talking about politics and ideal and identity and basically how, you know
[25:28] fusing your identity with your political ideas is always a bad idea. It's always a bad choice. Because then when people attack your ideas, they're attacking you and your character. Instead you should be more disconnected from it. And then when you when you start to be absorbed by your ideas or your political beliefs then you just it's just like you're arguing just for the sake of arguing cuz you're just defending yourself. Here it is. This is great. Just throw Can you throw it on
[25:59] the headphones or sh Yeah. Go ahead, hit it. Your identity is your ideology. Congratulations, you've officially screwed yourself because now it's not just an idea, now it's you. And when the idea gets challenged, you don't hear disagreement, you hear an attack. So what do you do? You build a bubble. A nice, soft, padded little bubble where everyone agrees with you, uses the same words, hates the same people and claps at the exact right moments. And you will defend that bubble
[26:31] at all costs even if it makes you sound incredibly stupid. Facts don't matter anymore. Logic's gone. Humor? Dead. Because admitting you're wrong would mean admitting you are wrong and that's unacceptable. So you double down, louder, angrier, dumber. And that's how you end up defending nonsense like it's sacred scripture. Not because it's true but because without it you'd have to actually develop a personality.
[27:04] So true. Oh my god. >> genius, man. What a genius. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. Yeah, I think people are I think people are starting to wake up to that because, you know now with independent journalism you know, becoming more and more popular and normal media like Fox and CNN starting to die down and people not taking it as seriously anymore. It's just like like sanctioned propaganda from the state. >> Yes. Um it's like I I see more and more people starting to
[27:35] admit that they were wrong about things, which is hopeful. >> I'm glad to hear that. That is hopeful. Yeah. I got I was attacked over the weekend on X by Linda Loomer. I'm sorry. Laura Laura Loomer. See, I don't even know her name. Linda We'll call her Linda. >> Yeah. So [laughter] somebody said she attacked you this morning and I said, what she say? She called you a communist. Oh, that's nice. I was like, yeah, I'm not a communist. I'm actually decidedly a capitalist. And are you going to respond? And I said, no. Why not? I said, I
[28:07] she's not important enough to respond to. Mhm. It's just not worth >> People get paid by X to post, you know. Like X will will pay you based on your engagement, I think. So like certain people, I guess if you're a part of the part partner program they serve more ads based on how many views your tweets get. So people are incentivized just to be more inflammatory and to repost more crazy or to pop off on people.
[28:38] So it's it's weird. It's a little incentive there for people just to get louder on there, so. My brother's got a friend who's like an A-list star. And um the first time I ever realized that people were getting paid for for tweets was when I saw this A-list star tweet just sitting home enjoying a cold Diet Coke. What? >> [laughter] >> What are you talking about? And I was like, oh no, of course it's an advertisement.
[29:08] >> Paid advertisement. That's beautiful. What year was that? >> Oh, it was It had to have been a long time ago. >> 10 years ago. >> Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, now it's now you don't even have to do an ad. All you have to do is just get more views because they bake the ads into everything. >> I see. Spring is here and I'm really excited this year to tell all my workout buddies about my favorite deodorant. Mando. You see, during the podcast breaks, I love to wipe down Steve with the Mando because he doesn't know there's a better option out there that doesn't dribble and drip down his armpits when he sweats. I love Mando deodorant because it's tough. It sticks
[29:38] to my armpits, doesn't sweat off on all my clothes and it lasts longer than I do at the gym and it's one of the healthier deodorant options I've tried. I used to like the bourbon leather, but recently I've become a big fan of the Mount Fuji flavor. And if you order now using my code, you can get 20% off. From your pits to your package and everywhere in between, Mando controls body odor for 72 hours, which is perfect for long workouts and running from the feds. It's clinical strength, two times better than the standard. And after 12 hours, sweat was reduced by 92%. It doesn't just mask
[32:43] might he might be trying to garner public trust um in order to do some sort of a misdirection or whatever. And she used the explanation she she referenced a speech that Elizabeth Newman gave during Trump's first presidency about um domestic terrorism and focusing on far-right uh anti-Semitic right-wing nationalists or whatever,
[33:14] focusing them on them for domestic terrorism. And I guess my best understanding of what she was saying was that he might they might be trying to use Kent to corral all those people together and trying to make it easier to target them or something. Is that That's just not real life. MK Ultra's over. Right. >> It finished in 1975. Mhm. That that kind of stuff just isn't it's just not a part of reality. Mhm.
[33:44] You know, I I um I'm a member of this group called uh VIPS, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. So, it's it's made up of retired CIA, FBI, NSA, some DOD um people, a lot of spies. And they researched the daylights out of this and decided to give him the Sam Adams Award for integrity in intelligence because they believe we believe that
[34:18] what we see is is what we're getting. >> Mhm. Yeah, that he resigned because of the because of his personal opposition to the war in Iran. He believes that the intelligence was ignored. Um he believes that the intelligence that was not ignored was given to us by the Israelis and it was false intelligence. And I say amen to that. Mhm. So, no, I don't believe that there's any kind of like behind-the-scenes >> Yeah. uh subterfuge. And Joe said, I think on
[34:50] Tucker's podcast, that he still had full access to all information before he resigned, which means that he wouldn't have been being investigated before he resigned. The investigation was more of a media narrative hit or something like that that happened after. Right. And you know, investigation is a word that is thrown around a lot [clears throat] inappropriately. What happens if if somebody if somebody goes on TV, let's say, and makes a revelation. Mhm. And the information may be classified or
[35:22] could be construed as classified. The CIA or ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will file something called a crimes report with the Department of Justice. 99% of the crimes reports are ignored. Right? Only if it's something egregious or it's seen as something egregious, will DOJ actually initiate a an investigation. And there's no there's no evidence that any serious
[35:53] investigation's taking place. Interesting. Yeah, it seems like it's standard operating procedure for the government against whistleblowers. They're they're they're Kremlin [clears throat] agent, basically, you know. That's how they treat them all, right? >> Exactly right. And he also said, which was wild, that he was sort of shooed off the Charlie Kirk investigation because he thought that he would >> That is wild. >> he wasn't able to do the the adequate research or analysis on whether a foreign asset He was He wasn't accusing Israel. He was very measured about that.
[36:23] >> just going to say that. He was not making any accusations. He was just saying that there were loose threads that he wanted to run to ground. Mhm. And he was not permitted to do that. >> What do you make of that? What do you think that is? >> That bothers me very, very much. You know, on the one hand, Candace Owens sometimes sounds like a crazy person when she says, "Oh, when Charlie Kirk was killed, the Egyptian Air Force was flying in this
[36:55] pattern and it coincided with I who who It's like, what are you talking about? The Egyptian Air Force did not kill Charlie Kirk. That just sounds crazy. That's not what Joe Kent was talking about. Joe Kent was talking about clandestinely collected information that did not easily fit into the general consensus that this kid shot Charlie Kirk. I mean, it looks like he did, but who knows? You don't know until you
[37:26] investigate. And so, you want to run to ground these little isolated bits of information that people are collecting, whether domestically or overseas. Mhm. And he wasn't allowed to do that. I have no idea why he wouldn't be allowed to do that. Have you ever heard of another case similar to this where people would be kicked away from the case >> no, I I I was just going to say even in the JFK case, the information was collected. It just has never been released. >> Mhm. But it was collected.
[37:58] Yeah. And the story just came out yesterday that the bullet that hit Charlie Kirk was not the bullet from that gun that they found that the FBI said was his. I didn't see that. Can you find that, Steve? Oh. Daily Mail. The bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did not match the rifle allegedly used by the suspect Tyler Robinson, new court filing claims. That's a court filing. A what filing? It's a court filing. It's not just some guy shouting it on the street corner. >> Zoom in.
[38:29] This was reported everywhere. Um Yep, his a defense attorney now argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was unable to identify the bullet recovered at the autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson. Wow. No, so they didn't say it was not. >> Right. It just says they couldn't identify it. So, maybe it was destroyed, you know, when it ended up hitting whatever, the ground, the wall behind him, whatever it was.
[38:59] >> Yes, but either way >> Okay, either way, it it says it's being seen as exculpatory. It could be exculpatory. Which is exactly why you need to run down these other allegations. Mhm. And um also, none of the story makes sense. I mean, No, it doesn't make sense. Like in the very early part of this when the stuff that Candace was doing, like the research that she was doing and talking about, and I mean, like I kind of get it from her angle. She's doing it live every single day. >> And she's going on again, like maybe a
[39:30] week later there'll be new stuff that will point out to what her recording a week ago Yeah. is false and she'll make it clear or whatever. She's doing the best she can. But like she's right. A A of this does not line up. There's a lot of stuff that does not make sense, that was not explained by the FBI properly. You know, and that's another thing, if I could interrupt you for a second. Why is the FBI involved in this? Charlie Kirk was killed in Utah by a kid from Utah who left his house in Utah
[40:01] drove to the university in Utah and allegedly shot Charlie Kirk. Nobody ever crossed a state line. There's literally nothing in this case that would make it federal. Unless there was a conspiracy. In which case it would be a federal case and the FBI would be involved. So, Kash Patel was asked this early on and he said, "We're just offering the FBI's expertise to the Utah State Police."
[40:32] Really? Is that just what it is? Because offering your expertise means sticking stuff in a FedEx and sending it to Utah so they can do with it what they want. Or maybe you put one FBI, you know, lab person at their disposal. You don't have the FBI director fly out there with a with a plane load of FBI agents. It's not a federal case. I don't understand. What if you could put on your tin foil hat for a minute what could you speculate
[41:04] that that really means? I think that it's bigger than they've told us. I think that there may be something maybe not Candace Owens, you know, Egyptian Air Force conspiracy but maybe maybe it was a conspiracy of some sort. Maybe there are others involved. Maybe this kid was duped or tricked or recruited or something. How come we haven't heard anything from this kid yet? >> that's another thing. Why haven't we heard anything at all? Not even from his
[41:35] lawyers. Right. In my own case the only way we could combat Justice Department leaks to the Washington Post and the New York Times was to leak our side to the Washington Post and the New York Times. But this kid's What's his name? Robinson? >> Tyler Robinson. >> Tyler Robinson. His lawyers aren't saying anything to anybody. >> [sighs] >> It stinks to high hell. >> Mhm. It really does. And again, you don't want to point any fingers, but like
[42:06] why is the second he's dead Netanyahu all over every news station? >> Yeah. We didn't do it. Talking about, "Oh my god, he was the biggest supporter of Israel." >> him. We're going to put a statue of him in Tel Aviv. Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time you have all this other information coming out that contradicts that. >> [snorts] >> Which is why I worry about Tucker. Right. Last time you and Andy Bustamante were here at the old studio
[42:36] we were talking about Hamas, the and the Gaza war and all that stuff and how it was being funded and how it all ties back to Iran. And uh now we are so deep into this Iran debacle I don't even know what's up, what's down. What is your take on everything that's going on in Iran? Yeah, the world's gone nuts. What's going on? I'll tell you Are
[43:08] we losing this war? Yeah. >> [laughter] >> And I'll tell you why. Because for us to win we have to destroy the regime we have to install a pro-American government or maybe even a pro-American, pro-Israeli government, which is just beyond the pale. To for the Iranians to win they just have to survive. And they've been there for 5,000 years.
[43:41] You know, we're going to have to occupy this country. Think of it this way, too. We had 170,000 troops in Iraq. That was at the height of the conflict, 170,000 troops. Um Iran is 3.8 times the size of Iraq with more forbidding terrain. Iran is the size of the whole of Western Europe. Well, we only have but 50,000 troops in
[44:11] the region and two carrier attack groups. We can't we can't occupy Iran and overthrow its government. Where where things to me were especially egregious and I can go on about this for some time was that Netanyahu convinced the president that as soon as we fire that first rocket the whole place is going to come down like a house of cards. And I guarantee to you, I base my reputation
[44:44] on it no CIA analyst or State Department analyst or Defense Department analyst bought into that. Anybody who knows anything at all, the most basic, rudimentary information on Iran would tell you that they're not going to see us as liberators. They're going to see us as invaders and occupiers. And not just that but the Israelis the Iranians believe that the Israeli government came out of the the fires of
[45:15] hell. They're not going to welcome them as liberators. And I don't care what these Iranian-Americans in Beverly Hills say because they're not mainstream Iranians. With their Shah flags You mean Patrick Bet-David? You know, I like Patrick. He's a nice guy, but he's wrong on this issue. Yeah. He's just wrong. Isn't it true that a lot of the Iranian population like Israel? No. It's not true? >> It's true that a lot of the Iranian Jewish population likes Israel.
[45:48] And they're very vocal. The the Iranian Jewish community in Southern California is gigantic. And it's very, very wealthy. Interesting. >> And so they have I was just in LA last week. They've got billboards, you know, welcoming Reza Pahlavi to return. I I've I've gotten a lot of threats lately because I said on a podcast, and I meant it, and I'm going to repeat it that Reza Pahlavi is a clown number one.
[46:20] He doesn't want to go back to Iran. He said so to Patrick Bet-David. He's like, "I've been here since 1979. My kids are Americans. I have my life. It's in McLean, Virginia." He doesn't want to go back. Third his wife is cheating on him with her French personal trainer. And everybody knows about it and it's in the the pictures of them together in the French media all the time. So, no. These religious people in Iran are not going to welcome him. And I
[46:51] said, "If he were to return to Iran he wouldn't survive the walk from the plane to the terminal let alone to come and, you know, here I am the Shahanshah to liberate my people." Why wouldn't he survive? Because they hate him. Why do they hate him? Because his father created SAVAK, the the dreaded, feared Iranian intelligence service that would scoop you off the street and they'd find your head on one side of town and the
[47:21] rest of your body on the other. Whoa. His father overthrew the only democratically elected prime minister in the history of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, 1953 with the CIA and MI6. Right. So, there's no love except for the royalists and these Jewish-American Iranians, mostly in Southern California there is no love of this family. The Pahlavis.
[47:52] And I mean they stole the country's riches, everything they could pack on their plane in in February of 1979 there's a revolution in the streets, the Shah and the entire royal family decide to go skiing in Switzerland and then they never went back cuz they took all their, you know, gold bars and their gems and jewels and Picassos and loaded it all on the plane. And what? Now after 50 years? Right.
[48:22] Or not 50, it's let's see, 20 Yeah, 47 years. Now they want to go back and take the country again. Sorry, doesn't work that way. So so did you see that the Truth Social that Trump did yesterday about um he said that all the other countries around there, including the US, they need to like stop crying and learn how to fight for themselves or something like that. >> Well, that's kind of rich because, you know, the whole idea >> Can you find that X post so we can find out what it exactly says? I I was working on the Gulf at the CIA
[48:55] before there was any American presence there, with the exception of Bahrain. So There it is. To all the countries that can't get jet fuel from the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in this decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the US. We have plenty. Cuz they got it from Venezuela, right? Number two, build up some delayed courage and go to the Strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. That's funny. The USA won't be there to help you
[49:26] anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part's done. Go get your own oil. Okay, so there are like several different war crimes there. >> [laughter] >> Mhm. Admitted. You can't take another country's oil. It's like quite literally written into the war crimes law. Right? You can't steal the natural resources of another country. It's the definition of a war crime. You can't do that. Number two,
[49:58] buy from us. We have plenty, the US. Yeah, that's true. Um it's more expensive, but sure, they could do that. Build up some delayed courage, go to the straight and just take it. That's also a war crime. It's sovereign Iranian territory. The only legal way for the United States or any country to move into Iran is if the Iranians invite us, right? If the Iranians attack us first, which they didn't, or with the approval of the United Nations Security Council, which hasn't
[50:29] even met on the issue because we would veto it. So, it's a war crime. You can't do it. Plain and simple, you can't do it. Now, Donald Trump, not even just in the same day, the same like part of the day, said, "We don't need NATO. They're weak. They don't do anything." Well, if you don't need them, why why are you yelling at them to come and take the straight? Why don't you take the straight? You're already there. >> Right. Just take it if you want to take it.
[50:59] So, you know, either NATO is weak or it's not weak. Either it's cowardly or it's not cowardly. He said something the other day about NATO that was also false. He said that NATO's never done anything to for us. They've never helped us. That is patently untrue. The only time in history where Article 5 was invoked and a country asked a NATO member country asked the rest of NATO to come to assist was on September the 12th, 2001.
[51:31] We invoked it and we asked NATO to help us fight Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and they agreed. It's the only time. They've never asked us for help. Never. >> Mhm. Never in history since the formation of NATO, 1949. So, he's just wrong. So, That's it. So, what what is like the the high-level What is your high-level takeaway from from his state of mind when he wrote this? What is What what do you think is happening?
[52:02] >> I think that he is Yeah. >> seeing? >> he's frustrated for two reasons. I think he's frustrated cuz Netanyahu lied to him. He lied to him and I'll get back to that in a second. But I think he's frustrated because he believed, mostly cuz Netanyahu told him so, and and we were taken in a lot of Israeli finished intelligence, written intelligence. We can talk about that, too. He really believed that as soon as we fire the first shot, that government's just coming down. Especially when we decapitated, we kill
[52:34] the Ayatollah, we kill the entire military leadership, we kill the entire nuclear leadership, and they just keep going like nothing happened. That's not what Netanyahu told him to expect. And I think you're on record saying the Joint Chiefs told him that this wasn't going to work. Yes. He ignored [snorts] them. Yes. It's been my experience at the CIA that the Joint Chiefs are the last ones that want to go to war because they know how hard it is. You know, this was one of the most
[53:04] valuable lessons I learned when I was at the CIA during the Iraq War. Um I was the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations. And so, we started planning the Iraq War a year in advance. And one of the things that I came to learn was that it's easy to invade a country. It's easy to overthrow its government. It is impossible to be able to get out intact. There's never an exit strategy. There's
[53:36] no exit strategy here in Iran. There was no exit strategy in Afghanistan. There was no exit strategy in in Iran. We're still in Syria, albeit, you know, in small numbers. There's never an exit strategy and the Joint Chiefs know this. They're like, "Why would we commit to fighting a war indefinitely? We just got out of two 20-year wars." Right. Why why would we want to do it again? And to what end? Let me add one other thing. I've said this before. I'm going to say it again cuz it's important. And this is not specific to Netanyahu,
[54:08] but every single Israeli prime minister from the mid-'80s onward, when they would come to Washington, and they come to Washington all the time, would ask every single president from Ronald Reagan onward, "Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran." And every single president said, "No, I'm not going to do it." Until this one. There was a story just a couple of days ago uh about um Bill Clinton, I'm sorry, not Bill
[54:39] Clinton, uh Barack Obama, where Netanyahu came and said, "We want uh we want you to attack Iran." And he said, "I'm not going to do it." And Netanyahu said, "We're thinking of using nuclear weapons." And Obama called his bluff and said, "Go ahead. We're not going to help you." And did the same thing happen with Trump? >> Mhm. That's the way I hear it from people in those circles. The same thing happened with Trump. And then he thought he was doing the world a service
[55:10] by bombing Remember we used the MOAB, the the mother of all bombs, the 30,000-lb bomb on the bunker last year? >> Mhm. I think the president really believed that he was doing that to save Iran from a nuclear attack from the Israelis. Mhm. Mhm. So, if all these presidents, including Trump, campaigned on not going to war with Iran, and on the at the same time you can play video clips and read tweets of Donald Trump >> Yes. talking about how stupid it would be to invade Iran, and you could play
[55:42] those videos and they would they wouldn't be done till next week. >> Yeah. Why is he the first one to do it? And in his first term, didn't he kill um Soleimani, is that his name? Uh Soleimani. Soleimani. He killed Soleimani. Yeah. And and what did they do in response to that? Um nothing. >> They did nothing. In fact, scholars uh created a name for that. It was um strategic patience. >> [snorts] >> Strategic patience. Sure, they could they could launch a
[56:12] rocket at, you know, some American military base in the Gulf, but they didn't. They could send a hit team out to do something, and they didn't. Now, remember what was it, a week ago, two weeks ago, there was news about these Iranian hit teams that are everywhere from Chicago to Honolulu, sleeper cells. All that shit's made up. That all came from Netanyahu and it was to try to to change American public opinion. He reads the same polls we read and the polls say that Americans don't want to be in this war.
[56:43] And so, he's like, "Well, you know, the intelligence shows grave danger." No, you're just making it all up. There's no grave danger. >> killed when he hit the the strikes that killed Soleimani, Soleimani, um do you think he was trying to start a war there or do you think that he knew they weren't going to retaliate? >> I think he I think he calculated that they would not retaliate. And I think the analysis coming out of the CIA probably was that they wouldn't retaliate. That they would be so so taken by surprise,
[57:15] yet reticent to poke the hornet's nest, that they would just let it go. And they did, they let it go. They about it all the time. There were demonstrations in the streets. Something like 700,000 people went to the funeral, but they didn't respond. I got to be honest, jeans have always been a problem for me. The cool ones feel like cardboard and the comfy ones make me look weird. That is until I tried the perfect jean. They stretch so you can move. Perfect for skateboarding.
[57:46] I can squat, bend, sit without pinching or fighting the material. No stiffness, no weird bunching, no situations where you sit down and you know what I mean. They still look sharp. That's the part that surprised me. You get the clean, fitted look, but it feels like you're wearing something way softer. I've tested these out in every situation. Podcasts, workouts, skateboard sessions, I forget I'm wearing jeans. They got a ton of fits, too. Sizes from 26 to 50 waist. So, you're not forcing your body into some random template. These are made for actual humans. And at around 80
[1:04:32] traffic cameras so you can actually watch the generals and the scientists driving you know, down the street. You know exactly where they're going to be at exactly what time. And that's when you rocket them. It's good tradecraft is what it is. >> Totally. But the thing is that's tactical intelligence. It's not long-term analysis. They don't have anybody in the Ayatollah's office to say, "Hey, listen, the Ayatollah, he just made that fatwa just for public
[1:05:04] consumption. What's really happening is this." There is no such person. There is no such recruited asset. And so the Israelis make it up. And then they send it to the CIA. >> though? Oh, I still have friends in the CIA. They tell me the Israelis send us this garbage intelligence all the time that they know is false because they act like we don't know anything at all that's going on. We actually do know some of the things that are going on. We don't have assets on the ground necessarily, but you know, we'll read this stuff and we'll say,
[1:05:34] "They're making this up." Mhm. You know, there was another service that did this. I'm not going to say which one, but there was another service that did this with Iraq back in 2002. And I remember going to a meeting one time is a bunch of analysts. I I went representing the Deputy Director. And And the intelligence report that this liaison service gave us, it wasn't even formatted properly. Like it wasn't even in the right font. And I'm like, "You guys, this is clearly a forgery."
[1:06:06] And everybody's like, "Yeah, it's clearly a forgery." And we just threw it away. Well, the Israelis aren't that stupid. They at least say, "Listen, we've got a source, very sensitive. We can't tell you who it is. Take our word for it. We polygraph him so we know he's telling the truth. And here's what he says." And it's just all made up. Next thing you know, you're in a war. Ah, [sighs] it's so it's so insane. Um You know, this is another thing. The Israelis always say that Iran is an existential threat. Yes.
[1:06:38] >> Okay. To them. Not not to us. >> Right. Even if they had a nuclear weapon, which they don't, they don't have a delivery system for it. You know, they they they fired two rockets at Diego Garcia the other day. What they did to reach Diego Garcia because they normally cannot fire a rocket that far is they stripped it down so there was nothing in it. It had no payload. It was just an engine and a cone. Huh. Just to see how far it could go and it got to to Diego Garcia. Well Did it
[1:07:09] mess anything up? >> No, it was intercepted. They were both intercepted and shot down. But that was >> Diego Garcia is a creepy one. I heard somebody I heard somebody told me that once that that's the Area 51 of the Indian Ocean or something. Who knows? Cuz nobody's ever been there. Pull up Diego Garcia on a map. It's wild looking. It's like one of those atoll islands where it's like a big circular island and it's like all water in the middle. >> You know, it it belonged to the Brits for you know, 200 years and then we just sort of demanded it and they gave it to us. >> Fascinating looking. Look at that
[1:07:40] dude. >> yeah, place. >> Yeah. But if you look at like where it is on the world map, it's like crazy. There's an American military base in this in this place. Yep. It would be a great place to hide >> was talk about making that Guantanamo. What? >> Uh-huh. And then we decided that it was it was far easier just to do it in Cuba cuz we already had the infrastructure for it. >> Right. Quicker flight. Yeah, much. Yeah, I don't know anybody who's ever been there.
[1:08:10] >> Look at that. Yeah, talk about the middle of nowhere. >> Good lord. If you can, that's where you would want to hide UFOs, not in New Mexico. >> That's right. If you can, go to the southernmost point of Argentina. South America, Steve. Yep, South America. Keep going left. There you go. So if you can right at the very bottom, zoom in on that. Crazy as I am, I went there on my honeymoon. And you see the island? That That That one
[1:08:43] right there. Punch it on it, Stevo. I I I went to Antarctica by boat. Mhm. >> And I'm one of those cruises they do around the This was just a steamer. Oh, really? >> Yeah. I I'm not into the luxury things. I It was freaking freezing down there. No, yeah, but they have a yeah, it's not like a luxury cruise, but it's like yeah, one of those steamboats where like a bunch of people can go on there, like a couple hundred people maybe. >> Yeah, exactly. There's a prison on that island What? >> that the Argentine junta built. And they maintained it as a prison until
[1:09:14] the mid-1980s. You can take a tour. I took a ton of pictures in there. My My wife was so freaked out by it, she didn't even get off the boat, but I went cuz I wanted to check it out. We begged the Argentines to let us have that prison, so we could put uh Al-Qaeda prisoners there. Really? >> were like, "You guys really don't want to come down here. >> [laughter] >> It's so far. It's cold all the time. There's no way to land. You have to get there by boat." Okay. >> like, "Yeah, forget it. We'll just use Guantanamo." Oh, cuz the terrain. There's no airports there.
[1:09:45] >> No, there's nothing. There's There are no human beings there. Woah. >> All I saw were penguins, cormorants. Wow, look at that. It's so desolate, man. It's crazy. That's all mountains? >> Yep. It's rough. Wow. I've been to some funky places. I never felt as far away from home as I did there. I bet. Icebergs and floating around? I saw a whale. I saw a walrus. Wow. [laughter] Yeah, it's crazy. That's so wild.
[1:10:17] What do you think happens next with this whole Iran thing? Cuz it seems like the the the Strait of Hormuz seems to be like the focal point >> [clears throat] >> of all this >> not navigable. Mhm. Right? There's a very It's It's like 16 mi across the strait. That doesn't mean you have 16 mi to bring your ship through. The navigable part is very, very narrow, and most of it is in Iranian waters. You mean like the the channel where you can actually pull Yeah, right where the deep water is. >> Yeah, exactly. So, the Iranians just in
[1:10:47] the last like day um announced that they're going to start charging a toll. And that it could raise them as much as a hundred billion dollars a year. Wow. Yeah. Russia's getting rich as off this, too, right? >> are. Yes, they are, cuz all of a sudden, they can't sell their gas fast enough. And then, the the Iranians allowed an Indian ship an Indian-flagged ship go through a couple of days ago for two reasons. Number one, the ship
[1:11:18] was carrying oil from the the Arab Gulf states. I think it was from the UAE. Uh they're carrying it uh to China. And China's friendly with Iran. Mhm. And they paid for the oil in yuan, not in dollars. And that's like Oh, yikes. >> the nightmare scenario for the American economy. Because all of the all of the oil that passes through there has to be sold in American dollars. >> Correct. That's how we get the petrodollar. That's it. And that's what
[1:11:48] keeps America That's what keeps And all that money gets reinvested into the American economy. It's like this crazy cycle that props us up and keeps us like the number one superpower, right? >> It's exactly right. I want to make another point, too. I think this is important, and nobody's talking about it. Barack Obama, and you know my my feelings about Barack Obama. [laughter] Yeah. Yes, strong feelings. I have to say that the JCPOA, the joint um
[1:12:20] uh comprehensive plan of action. Mhm. The Iran nuclear deal is what it was known as. The JCPOA was a good idea. Give it to people who aren't familiar with it. Break it down in simple terms. And the Israelis [clears throat] hated him for that. They hated him for negotiating this deal with the Iranians, but it was a good deal, and it worked. So, the idea was that the Iranians said, "We don't have a nuclear program." The United States said, "We're not sure if we can believe you.
[1:12:50] We think you might have a nuclear program, or you might not, but we want to inspect it." So, that's where the two sides entered into the negotiations. The final deal, to make a long story short, was that the Iranians agreed to essentially the same deal that the United Nations had in Iraq during Saddam Hussein. Where you would get spot inspections by UN weapons inspectors. Mhm. No announcement. They just show up, and
[1:13:22] you've got to let them in. Like a random drug test. Like a random drug test. This is a random nuclear uh inspection. Yep. The um areas that could be used to uh to enrich uranium were closed and sealed with lead seals that the United Nations controlled. And then, security cameras were installed like 360, so that at the UN or the IAEA or Langley
[1:13:56] or Jerusalem or wherever, they could watch the cameras 24 hours a day and make sure nobody's messing with the seals. Okay? So, it was working. And Donald Trump in the first couple of weeks of his first term just tore it up and threw it away and said it was It made us weak. He's going to negotiate a better deal. And the Iranians are like, "We just now negotiated this like a year ago with Obama." He did that, and then he moved the He moved the embassy to
[1:14:27] Jerusalem. Yeah, that was Oh my >> [laughter] >> god. I blame Bill Clinton for that. Really? Yeah, I do. [laughter] Why does he got to catch a stray for that? Because Congress passed this stupid bill mandating a move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, provided that the president um signed a document saying that the Israelis were abiding by, you know,
[1:14:58] our demands for peace talks with the Palestinians. So long as there were viable peace talks, then we would move the embassy to Jerusalem. Well, there were no viable peace talks. And so, every year, presidents would say, "Nope, we can't move the we can't move the embassy. Nope, the Israelis aren't negotiating with Palestinians. Nope, we're not moving the embassy." Clinton should have vetoed that stupid bill when he had the chance. But he kowtowed to the Israelis and to the and to AIPAC and its its
[1:15:30] uh supporters in Congress. He's like, "Okay, I'll sign the bill, but there has to be an amendment in the bill that will allow me to delay the move of the embassy because the Israelis aren't serious about negotiating peace." Mhm. And then Trump's like, "Screw it. Move the embassy." Yeah. >> And Sheldon Adelson paid for it out of his pocket. He did. There's a big brass plaque at the embassy now saying, "Thank you, Sheldon Adelson, for paying out of your pocket to move the embassy." >> Mhm.
[1:16:00] Like, is there anything that the Israelis wanted that we haven't given them? It's so crazy. >> out of this? If they're I mean, if they're they're so effective at controlling the United States government, how are they so horrible at controlling the PR? Yeah. And if they are so powerful, and you have these people like Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel and all these other tech billionaires who won't say a one single
[1:16:31] negative thing about them. I mean, Elon hasn't said one thing about the SC >> then you're branded as a as a self-hating Jew. And nobody wants to be called that. So, how are are they they letting It seems like if you go on the internet, no one is on Israel's side. There's a few people like the Mark Levins and and whoever. uh Ben Shapiro. That's That's pretty much it. That's That's pretty much it. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Who's not even Jewish. Oh god. >> Yeah. Yeah, and his whole panel of people that he put I love how he does his podcast and he and he has all of his
[1:17:02] co-hosts sit in these little like kindergarten desks next to him. >> [laughter] >> He has this like giant like I I will say I a friend of mine who knows him warned me before I went on his show that Patrick can come out swinging. And I went on the show, and he was absolutely lovely to me. Mhm. Respectful. We had a terrific conversation, and um and we've actually stayed in touch. Not all the time, but we've stayed in touch. He was perfectly lovely
[1:17:34] to me. We just disagree with each other on on Israel, strongly. But I'll add another thing, too, if I can interrupt you for one more second. Um Piers Morgan. I'm on the Piers Morgan show all the time. I'm a fan of all of your debates on Piers Morgan. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. Especially with uh the the Alan Dershowitz. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, Alan doesn't like me anymore. What? I know, right? Anyway, that's I'm cool with that. But um
[1:18:04] Piers Piers likes having me on. I was on again yesterday. He likes having me on because I don't interrupt people. You know, I was raised to I was raised to believe that was rude to interrupt somebody. [snorts] So, I try not to. And when I do interrupt, I apologize for interrupting. But anyway, it's like smackdown on that show half the time. Three or four appearances ago, I'm going to say this is probably like six or eight months ago, Piers said to me, I was on this panel with Scott Horton, who was absolutely freaking brilliant. >> Oh yeah, he's insane. He's a really >> just sit and listen to him talk all day
[1:18:36] long. The guy is so smart and so grounded. Um he and I were on what was supposed to be the pro-Palestinian side. And then That's I love how they make it so binary. Yeah, yeah. And then the other side was um some former head of Mossad Mhm. and some journalist This was yesterday? No, no, this was six or eight months ago. And then some journalist, I don't remember who it was. Um but these guys were just killing each other,
[1:19:06] interrupting each other. Like, I I I expected that if they were in the same room We were all remote, [snorts] but if they'd been in the same room, they would have gotten up, and we would have seen fisticuffs. One of my favorite words. So, um at the end, uh Piers says, "John, you haven't said much." He said, "Do you believe that Hamas is a terrorist organization?" And I said, "Well, I believe that it was created as an organization of national liberation, but in terms of October 7th,
[1:19:37] if you're attacking a civilian population for the purpose of instilling terror for political goal, then yes, of course, Hamas is a terrorist organization." He said, "Do you believe October 7th was a terrorist attack?" And I said, "Yes." Again, if if you're attacking civilians at a music festival and you're just killing people and snatching them and taking them hostage, yes, of course, that's a terrorist attack. And he said, "Then what's your objection to the Israeli
[1:20:07] uh, response?" I said, "Pierce, you can't have as your policy kill everybody. Women, children, the sick, the elderly, bulldoze the hospitals, bulldoze the schools, the homes, the businesses. That is the very definition of a genocide. Like, has anybody here bothered to read the genocide law? It That's the definition of a genocide. If your goal and and and Donald Trump told us what the Israeli goal was. It
[1:20:37] was to push out all Palestinians and to develop the property. His words, it would be better than Monte Carlo. That is the very definition of ethnic cleansing. You can't do that. And then Pierce said, "I think this is the first time on the show that we've all agreed on something." And then later he told me that it was that response that made him change his mind on Israel. Really?
[1:21:08] >> Mhm. I was like, I get it. I get the Israeli frustration. I really do. People were slaughtered that day. It really was Israel's 9/11. I get it. But the response can't be a thousand times more Right. than what the Israelis got. Mhm. As good as Israel is at controlling us and control not us, but our American government and getting them to do whatever they want, specifically this administration, how is it How are they
[1:21:38] so terrible at PR? And how do they If they are so good, if the Mossad is such one of the most capable spy agencies in the world, how do they not foresee the next presidential election and the next I mean, I don't see I think it's probable and Glenn Greenwald laid this out for me how he he believes that the next presidential election in the US one of the biggest points will be not taking Israeli money. We're already starting to see it. We're
[1:22:08] seeing candidates for offices at lower levels announcing proactively, "I'm not taking any AIPAC money." I think I've got two answers for you. On the one hand, I think that the Israelis and not just the Israelis, but but American supporters of Israel, lobbyists, AIPAC people, I think they genuinely cannot understand why the rest of us don't see it the way they do.
[1:22:39] Like, I I know these guys, right? I know them from my time on Capitol Hill, from my time at the CIA. They really believe that if they don't do everything that they're doing now, they're going to end up either dead or scattered all around the world. Mhm. Right? They believe it in their hearts. Number one. Number two, I think they actually have a shorter-term view of the world. You know, as Americans, we have an incredibly short-term view of the world. That's why we keep losing these
[1:23:10] wars. Right. >> Right? I think the Israeli worldview is even shorter. They don't care who's elected president next. They'll deal with that when it comes. Right now, they've got a war to fight. They have a an Iranian government to overthrow. And as soon as they overthrow it, then they'll deal with the next election. But that's very short-sighted. That's shocking. >> Mhm. You know, you and I talked about something last time I was here that I think is important. We talked about AIPAC and and the the incredible political acumen
[1:23:43] that AIPAC exhibits. They have this down to a science. If you stray even one iota from the pro-Israel political line, they will primary you. Right? They'll run somebody against you. If you're 99% pro-Israel, they're going to run somebody against you that's 100% pro-Israel. Well, [snorts] you know, that strategy is not working out very well. And I'll I'll give you an example. >> Massie's one. There was a a congressional race in uh,
[1:24:15] New Jersey recently where an incumbent There's been some redistricting and incumbent congressman who's pro-Israel uh, was running in this uh, in this race and there were a bunch of other Democrats running against him. And there was one woman, her name escapes me now, who is not pro-Israel. Um, AIPAC supported a third Democrat who was like a little more pro-Israel than the incumbent. And instead the
[1:24:45] pro-Palestinian one won. Because the pro-Israel vote was split. Oh, wow. >> And there's a possibility of that happening in a district in Pittsburgh. There's a possibility of that happening in a district in St. Louis. And I think that maybe they maybe they got a little too big for their britches. >> Mhm. Do you see this new guy who's running for governor of Florida, this Fishback guy, young kid? I think Tucker Tucker did have him on
[1:25:15] his podcast. >> Tucker had him on. I'm smiling because on my own podcast one morning, somebody wrote in the chat, "John, what do you think about this guy Fishback in Florida?" >> And I said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "I know that guy." I said, "Tucker had him on." And I think that his position on on Israel is very well considered. And it's sort of emblematic of of how this new generation of political candidates is rethinking the the US-Israel relationship.
[1:25:47] >> Mhm. Within minutes, I see on X, "John Kiriakou endorses Fishback for governor of >> Oh, no. I was like, "Oh, no, I didn't." There's a video I sent you of him, Steve. Uh, yeah, I mean, first of all, he's he's polling like 3%. >> Right, he's not going to win. There's no way. >> There's a Who's the other guy who's going to win? This This was last Uh, when was this posted? Yesterday? Uh, energy to crowd the Fishback's rally in Orlando, Florida is insane. Fishback just said he will suspend the enforcement of unconstitutional
[1:26:18] anti-Semitic hate speech laws. >> Well, but he's right about that those laws are unconstitutional. I was in Miami the other day. >> Uh-huh. And in the Miami uh, what's it called? The Miami Herald, there was an article about this woman in Miami Beach who posted on Facebook um, "Free Palestine." Oh, yes, I saw this. >> Right? And then the cops "Did you post this on Facebook?" He's like, "Yeah, what is this, the Gestapo? We have freedom of speech in this country."
[1:26:48] >> Mhm. Yeah, that was crazy. I saw that story. >> You know, [snorts] But he also wants to the two other things he wants to do is he wants to put a moratorium on any immigration into Florida. >> Yeah, that's nuts. >> And he wants to put a 50% >> Yeah. tax sin tax on only fans people. >> Yeah, it's nuts. And and he's he wants to like, you know, execute abortion doctors. Yeah, it's crazy, dude. There's something I don't Maybe it's just the way I grew up in Florida. Like, you know, I grew up
[1:27:20] on the beach. I I I I and I I never I never paid attention to who the president of the US even was, probably until until my mom like forced me to watch some Clinton speech or something when he was getting when he when he had got impeached for the whole Monica Monica thing. Like, I was so young, but I didn't really care. I was too worried about surfing and skateboarding. And when I see people like as young as this guy Yeah, he's 31 years old. Yeah, it's insane. >> Yeah. And people like him, people like
[1:27:53] Nick Fuentes, who are just like political pundits in their 20s and 30s and running for office. It's like, what? >> Yeah. I I just I guess I just came from a different world than these people. >> country's changing. Yeah. Yeah, it's bizarre. But, you know, look at this line here. If you want to call Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, be my guest. The crowd went wild in applause. This is a sea change. Yes. >> We've never seen anything like this before.
[1:28:23] Yeah, and I think you're right. I think there's going to be an impact in the 20 Well, first 2028, but in the 2030 presidential race. I think there's going to be an impact. And this is going to affect the Democrats just as much as the Republicans. When Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington, not the most recent trip, just before hostilities, but the one before, Mhm. Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, was filmed literally running like running like O.J. Simpson through
[1:28:54] the airport in those old ads, running so that he could make the picture with Netanyahu and all the Democratic senators. He didn't want to be left out of the picture. Yeah. Yeah. It's insane, man. >> There's a guy running for Senate for US Senate from uh, Michigan. His name is Abdul El-Sayed. His actual name is Abdulrahman El-Sayed, but he just goes by Abdul because people can't remember. It's like an 11 syllable name. It actually is an 11 syllable name. He was joking about it the other night. But
[1:29:26] I went to a fundraiser at at a friend's house for him the other day. And what was interesting to me was that the whole night he talked about healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, healthcare the whole night. Not about this stuff. It was all about healthcare. He's like, "Yeah, I'm Palestinian. Yeah, I support Palestinian human rights. But I'm a medical doctor." He said, "I went to the University of Michigan. I I went to medical school at Columbia. I became a Rhodes Scholar and I studied epidemiology. We've got a serious problem in this country with healthcare
[1:29:57] and health insurance. We're ranked like 18th in the world in in quality of medical care. What's up with that?" And I thought, "You know what? This guy's talking sense. I like this guy." We've all seen the headlines lately about these massive data breaches, but the real danger isn't just a leaked password. It's the fact that your entire digital footprint is being sold to the highest bidder. And that's why I use Incogni. Most people think data brokers just lead to annoying spam emails. I wish that were the case. In reality, your name, address, and socials are
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[1:37:14] didn't resign?" And I said, "Honestly, I think she needs the money." She doesn't come from wealth. You know, I mean, she she was she was living on her paycheck when she was in Congress. But it's like on one hand, you stay in and you lose all the trust. >> Yeah. And you lose I guess any potential for like a future Maybe you don't lose the potential for a future like job in politics, but no one trusts you anymore.
[1:37:45] Or B, you save your reputation. What's what there is left of it. Even though you like you're still resigning after Kent. Like it's not as noble. Mhm. But at least you're still like being honest, right? You like you at least can save face a little bit. >> Yeah. In 19 um 80, the Secretary of State was Cyrus Vance. Vance was a prominent attorney. His son was most recently uh uh
[1:38:15] district attorney in uh New York City. Cy Vance was one of these like old school intellectuals, you know, a giant from the 60s and 70s. He'd been Deputy Secretary of State. He became Secretary of State. And then he just up and resigned one day out of the clear blue sky. And people are like, "What the heck happened? Cy Vance resigned as Secretary of State? Why?" Well, he resigned because Jimmy Carter decided to launch a rescue operation to
[1:38:48] try to rescue the American hostages that were being held by the Iranian government. And Vance said, "I think this is a terrible idea. I think the risk of failure is very high and in good conscience I can't support it." And Carter said, "I'm overruling you and we're going to go for it." And so just out of sheer [clears throat] conscience, he resigned. Two weeks before the operation. He didn't say why he resigned, he just resigned and then went quietly off to
[1:39:20] academia. But time was when people did that. You resign on principle. You resign because it's the right thing to do. And I think for the most part, I mean we saw that of course with uh with um Joe uh Kent. But um for the most part, we don't really see much of that anymore. >> Or you to a way more extreme degree. Not just resigning, but you know, blowing the whistle. >> I went to the mat. Like, you know, the like like again, I
[1:39:52] said this the other day, but the way you and Bustamante explained it to me when you guys were both here together, how like there's that 6 to 7-year limit in politics and in the agency and any other government agency where it's like you're either going to be a forever bootlicker or you're going to leave because of your your morals and you can provide you you have a certain skill set that's valuable in like the marketplace. Which is funny because the culture at
[1:40:23] the agency is that there's nothing else you can do. Your skills are so specific to [snorts] espionage that there's nothing else you can do. Unless you're an analyst. You can go be a journalist and make a third of what you're making at the agency. But yeah, but but that that idea is not true that there's nothing else you can do. There's a lot that you can do. Right. They just don't want you to leave and they want you to keep your mouth shut. Right. Right. Um
[1:40:54] Pause right there. I'm going to take a pee real quick and we'll be right back. Yeah, this is going to be a big split within the Republican Party between the MAGA people and the neocons. The neocons are ascendant again, you know, and Lindsey Graham's got to be Oh my god, yeah, that's awful. >> dancing. Yeah. This is going to be a a problem for the for the Republicans. There was a Did you see the photo of him at Disney World yesterday? >> Yeah. Oh my god. >> [laughter] >> Oh my god. >> And then he posted on his Twitter that he was out shooting clay or something.
[1:41:26] >> [laughter] >> There was a there was a he posted on his Twitter a photo of him shooting clay, uh you know, like looking like a tough guy and somebody used AI in the comments and like made it so he was shooting like a Disney wand with bubbles. >> [laughter] >> I almost wish I lived in South Carolina just so I could run against him. I think I sent you something about Oh, there it is. Lindsey Graham spent some time breaking clays in Edgefield County today. Doesn't [clears throat] get much better than that.
[1:41:57] >> Now scroll down. >> [laughter] >> Oh my god. Trying to get Mickey's attention at Disney World. Yeah. Oh god. The fact that he is like the big one of the biggest like cheerleaders for this war is just disgusting. And all those videos I saw all the videos of all the troops I saw yesterday on on I think it was yesterday. The troops that are like deploying over there and they were like their families
[1:42:28] were around them. They were like crying like >> I can't tell you the phone calls I've gotten from guys who have been ordered to deploy and they just don't want to go. Really? I've referred a couple of them to a group called Quaker House, which is at Fort Bragg, just outside the gates of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It's um it's a group of Quakers, but they um provide assistance to conscientious objectors. Like, you know, there are people who want to serve their country and they just do not believe
[1:43:00] that they should risk their lives for Israel. And you have >> the Israelis send in ground troops? Right, they said they're going to send them to Lebanon, right? Well, how many wars are you going to fight against the Lebanese before you finally come to the conclusion that you can't beat them? That's another example where you can't just kill everybody. There are 900,000 internally displaced Lebanese right now. 900,000 people. Like how much more human misery are you
[1:43:31] going to inflict? >> [clears throat] >> And what I wonder what the families are saying of the American soldiers that have died already. >> Exactly. Was it worth it? >> Hegseth is saying that they're they told me to finish the job. Bull. I don't believe that for 1 second. Yeah, I don't think I believe that either. I'm really curious to hear what they have to say. I had Judge Napolitano on my show the other day and I said to him, "Judge, you you co-hosted a show on Fox with Pete Hegseth for 10 years. What's your analysis, your assessment of his time as Secretary of Defense?" And
[1:44:02] he said, "Pete Hegseth is an incompetent boob and a serial killer." He says, "He's a nice guy, but he's an incompetent boob and a serial killer." Yeah. It doesn't seem like there's any any public support or like I haven't even been heard any I haven't heard any coherent argument for this, which is crazy. And like the worst part is is that the people that are doing it can't keep the story straight. >> No. There's so everyone is coming out with a different a different reason why
[1:44:33] they want to do it. >> Mhm. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Like that we did it because Israel did it first and if we didn't jump in, they were going to attack us. They were going to attack us and we would have suffered more. What what a crock. >> And then they they kind of walked that back afterwards and say, "Oh no, they were they were about to have a nuke. Do you want to get nuked?" It's like at least with the Iraq war they they kept their story straight. >> and that's another thing. Before the Iraq war, George W. Bush crisscrossed the country for months to drum up public support. Right? We didn't do anything for this
[1:45:06] one. We just like invaded, attacked. Right. >> There was no attempt to drum up public support. There were no speeches, no events, no explanation on the on the, you know, Sunday morning talk shows. Nothing. We're just expected to fall in line. And so so what does it mean that and and I I don't fully understand. I I I understand the high level that in order to declare war, Congress
[1:45:37] has to do it, right? >> Correct. And is this the first time we've done it without Congress? >> No, we we haven't done it with Congress since 1941. Oh, okay. >> declared war on the North Koreans or the Chinese. We never declared war on the Vietnamese or on the Afghans or the Iraqis or anybody else. Not since the day after Pearl Harbor, December 8th, 1941. Because Congress is is a collection of 535 cowards. That's why. Cowards.
[1:46:08] And then they came up with with um oh, half measures where the president can send troops for 30 days, the War Powers Act, but then he has to come back to Congress and ask for funding for them. Well, you've already sent the troops. What district are you running in where you're going to go back and say, "I'm going to leave our boys stranded over there with no funding. Vote for me for re-election." Come on. The fix is in from the
[1:46:38] beginning. So yeah, they're all cowards. >> That's so crazy. >> Mhm. Cuz it is they're literally going against the Constitution. >> Literally going against the Constitution and this is something that Thomas Massie talks about all the time. That the Constitution is crystal clear that if we're going to go to war, there has to be a congressional declaration of war. You know, another thing, too. Never in American history, and I mean this quite literally, never in American
[1:47:09] history has Congress so readily ceded its authority to the executive. The Constitution is also right? The executive, the legislative, and the judicial. But it's not co-equal anymore. The the leadership in Congress, both in the House and the Senate, uh simply does whatever the president tells them to do. Right. They they all seem to be cheerleaders for the president.
[1:47:39] >> You know, when when Jimmy Carter was president, Tip O'Neill, who was a liberal Democrat from Boston, John Kennedy's old congressional district, Tip O'Neill was the Speaker of the House. And Tip O'Neill was one of these old school, you know, cigar-smoking backroom Democratic dealmakers. Everybody loved Tip O'Neill. But Tip O'Neill's job, as Tip O'Neill saw it, was to keep Congress relevant. Right? The president, sure, the
[1:48:10] president can come and ask for, you know, them to create the Department of Education, for example. The answer is not necessarily yes. The answer is, "We'll consider it. And if we think it's good for the country, we'll create a Department of Education." But now, for example, it recently this is just a recent kind of silly example. The president announced that the name of the Department of Defense is changing to the Department of War.
[1:48:41] News flash. Presidents don't get to choose the names of the departments. Congress does. So, your party controls both houses of Congress. Why don't they just pass a law changing the name from the Department of Defense to the Department of War? They haven't. Yeah, he changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, too. Yeah, that he can actually do. Yeah, that he can do because >> day it was on Google Maps. You can go on there. >> That he can do, but in terms of a of a federal department, >> Mhm. no, he can't do that.
[1:49:12] >> Yeah. But Congress is like, "Oh, whatever he wants. Okay. Mhm. We work for him. We're here to serve the president." Actually, no, you're not. You're here to serve the American people and to represent the American people on that lower level, that constituent level, Mhm. which you're not doing. One of the things that scares me the most about all this stuff is right now we seem to be in this like little Goldilocks zone with free speech online, which feels crazy and it doesn't feel like it's
[1:49:44] going to last forever and I'm really afraid when the next United States regime comes along, I don't know what it's going to look like, but I I I I always think about worst-case scenario. We get another sort of Biden sort of media lockdown with the next president and they decide to take all the people who have been talking about this and exposing it and talking negatively about Israel, as you will, and now these people are suddenly getting flagged as like
[1:50:15] right hardcore right-wing anti-Israel people. Yeah. And now they are like they have some sort of a limiter on them. Like the the pendulum always swings. >> Yeah, it does. And [clears throat] I'm terrified. I have to agree with you. I uh I posted an article on Facebook yesterday about this new law that was just passed by the Knesset yesterday. Um calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in Israel. So, Israel did away with its death penalty in 1956 with the exception of Adolf Eichmann.
[1:50:47] Eichmann was snatched in Argentina and rendered back to Israel. He stood trial for for war crimes that he committed during the Holocaust, was convicted, rightly, and executed. But otherwise, there has been no death penalty in Israel since 1956 till yesterday. But it's only for Palestinians. Is this the video of Ben Gvir pouring champagne? >> Mhm. Yeah. >> [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah. So, only Palestinians will be
[1:51:17] executed. Jews won't. And we're okay with that as a government. And this was passed in the Knesset yesterday? >> Mhm. Ben Gvir outside the Knesset chamber celebrates the passing of the death penalty law for Palestinian detainees, describing it as historic. That's Ben Gvir in the red tie? >> Yep. And saying, "Soon we will count them one by one." Play it.
[1:51:58] For people who don't know about Ben Gvir, why don't you give a little background on who he is? >> is a convicted felon. He has been convicted on multiple counts of uh anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes in Israel. The Israeli courts convicted him of hate crimes. But now he's what, the national security minister? I believe is his title. And he's um specifically in charge of uh security
[1:52:28] security in Gaza and the West Bank. One of the craziest things to me about this is uh Lawrence Wright recently wrote a um a book about this. He went to he went to Israel and he was doing research for a for a a novel that he was writing. A novel? Yeah, it it wasn't a it was a fictional book. >> Interesting. Yeah, but he's he's one of the leading thinkers on on these issues.
[1:52:59] Yeah. Yeah, oh, yeah. Legend I mean, some of the work that he's done and the books that he's written are is just incredible. I think he he won a Pulitzer, didn't he, for going clear, the Scientology book? Um or not a Was it a Pulitzer or what? >> Or the National Book Award? >> What was the What was the award Lawrence Wright won? I think you're right. It's Pulitzer. So so one of the things he said to me when he was on the podcast was that it's so bizarre that these groups of people at war with each
[1:53:30] other for so long are quite literally sh- they share the same exact genetic Yeah, that's true. >> identical and have the same exact ancestors going back to like the Canaanites. >> Right. That's true. How crazy is that? >> It is crazy. Yeah, it's really Have you seen this video that's been making the rounds of this um evangelical Christian American woman, Asian woman. She goes to Jerusalem
[1:54:00] and she's filming herself and she's like, "Israel! Israel!" And and these young uh Jewish students spit on her. They spit right in her face. No, I have not seen that. >> like, "It's okay. It's holy spit. It's holy spit. It's It's Jewish holy spit." And then she she goes to the uh to the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, and um and she's trying to interview people and a guy like hits her hard, knocks her down. She starts crying. He's calling her a And she's crying. She's
[1:54:32] like, "But I love Israel. Why are you doing this? I love Israel." It's like, "This must be your first time in Israel." Why were they doing it? Cuz this happens all the time. There she is. So, why was this happening to her? Because this is how they treat us. Yeah, it's it's holy spit. It's okay. Kids? >> Yeah. Spitting on her? >> Uh-huh. They spit on Orthodox and Catholic priests all the time. See? Look. Took a swing at her. He
[1:55:04] punched her right in the face. >> Oh my god. Yeah. B- But because she's American? Yeah. Because she's not Jewish. Because she's not Jewish. How do they know she's not Jewish? Cuz she looks Chinese? >> I guess. Look at her. Now she's crying like, "How could this happen?" But she was also filming. So, we really don't know like what the context is of this, right? Like it seems like she's trying to like she knows what's going to happen.
[1:55:35] You know, like maybe she's out there doing some sort of stunt knowing it it like is she known for I I don't know who she is, to tell you the truth. >> I I don't have any idea who she is. I It's always important to understand like the context of these people and what they're doing. >> priests complain all the time of uh of being spat on. Really? >> Yeah, all the time. Mhm. One of the weirdest things about this whole conflict that's going on right now is the is the religious undertone of the
[1:56:05] whole thing. Like did you see this report of all of these um people in different branches of the military coming out and complaining about their Yes. >> their leaders telling them that Trump was anointed by Christ. >> Yeah, and he is Christ. He's going to ride in on like a white horse or something like this and Jesus Christ told him to start this war. Yeah, religion's a dangerous stuff. >> Seriously. Uh-huh. It's it's not just scary that it's happening, it's scary that senior military officials believe this.
[1:56:36] Yeah, but do they? Well, if they're if they're passing it down the chain. >> one of the reports was like saying that that the the the military leader who was telling his troops this was like laughing as he was saying it. Why why say it? I mean, if I'm if the Secretary of Defense orders me to say something like that, I'd say, "With all due respect, sir, the answer is no. Not doing it. You can fire me." Not doing it. >> Yeah. Mhm. Yeah, there's a the the That's one of the scariest th- scariest
[1:57:07] things to me, especially when you when you see people going in front of Congress saying that like Israel has a biblical right to this territory. >> Yeah. Like based on the Bible, they have this? >> Exactly. It's like the whole Israel has a right to exist thing. It's like special privileges based on on scripture, on some ancient scripture. >> it's never asked, "Does Palestine have the right to exist?"
[1:57:38] >> Right. Does America have the right to exist? >> we have the right to exist? Exactly. Who gives us the right? Like where do we get the right? >> Right. Exactly. Yeah, you know, Tucker's interview with uh with Mike Huckabee was so egregious. Huckabee first of all, Huckabee should have been fired for welcoming that traitor, Jonathan Pollard, into the embassy and fetting him like a hero. This is This is a guy who spied on the United States, not even
[1:58:09] just for Israel. That's bad enough. But the Israelis traded the top secret documents that he stole from the Pentagon, traded them to the Soviet KGB in exchange for a plane load of Jewish refugees. So, he was essentially spying for the KGB. >> Mhm. Did every day of a 30-year sentence. Sheldon Adelson sent a plane, a private jet to fly him to Israel. He
[1:58:40] got off the plane, kissed the ground, was met there plane side by Benjamin Netanyahu, and then he told an Israeli journalist that um American Jews should take up arms against the American government. The American government. >> that? >> Yeah. Now he's running for Knesset. Yeah. And he was welcomed into the embassy by Mike Huckabee. >> Mhm. Who then just a couple of weeks later gave this interview to Tucker and said, "Uh yeah, they can take all take
[1:59:12] the whole Middle East. I don't care." And Trump pardoned his handler? Yeah. >> right? >> um the handler. Yes, the Israeli Mossad handler. The Israeli Mossad handler who was >> even been charged with a crime. Just proactively pardoned him. >> Oh, so this person this handler was never imprisoned? Never. No, never. Oh my god. Never. Yeah, there you go. >> this? Oh, this is a different story. >> Pardon industry offers rich offenders a
[1:59:42] pass to >> in the Times. One inmate paid a lobbyist and lawyers with ties to the president's team and walked free. Others followed the blueprint. Oh, is this the guy that opened the nursing home or had like the >> Yeah, this is the nursing home guy. Yes. >> Yeah. So this guy had a nursing home that was like >> him fraud king. Abusing seniors. People were dying and getting >> dying. They were suing him because their family members were dying cuz he wasn't taking care of them. And uh Trump just pardoned him.
[2:00:14] Yep. Crazy. How much of all of the that is happening right now has to do with Epstein in your take? You know, I I find it hard to believe we launched a war just to distract from Epstein. Yeah, exactly. But it would have been If I'm on the fence, the Epstein thing, and if I have a a lot of Epstein blackmail on me and I'm on the fence whether I'm going to do it or not, >> Right. that could be the thing that pushes you over. You know, it to me it
[2:00:44] would have been far easier and would have involved far fewer people just, you know, in the dead of night to destroy the documents that you don't want to get out. Right? I mean, God knows the CIA has done that a million times over the years. >> Yeah. Um but I'm the least conspiratorial person I know. I I can see why why people believe that this could be the case. But I think that there were easier ways to you know, protect your friends, which is what he said. The the releasing the
[2:01:17] the the last tranche of three to three and a half million documents would embarrass his friends. Mhm. But it isn't it easier just to not not release the documents that would embarrass your friends? Right. That's what we've done with JFK all these years. Right. >> Just don't release them. Congress passes a law, "Nah, we're going to ignore that law. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to arrest me?" Nothing ever happens. Yeah. The well, with the JFK thing, didn't Trump say he was going to release the JFK files and then the CIA just said never did it?
[2:01:49] Trump said he was going to release them and didn't. And then Congress >> it his fault that they never got released or was it It's my understanding that there are still 10 to 15,000 pages that haven't been released. Okay. And the reason they haven't been released is that they point to one very specific foreign country. No. >> That we don't want to offend. >> For real? That's what my agency friends tell me. Talking about Cuba. No, I'm not. >> [laughter]
[2:02:21] >> You know, funny, if you go back in the >> Russia? in the original JFK documents, like within 20 minutes of JFK being killed, the KGB sends us a message saying, "We swear to God it wasn't us." And then like a minute later the Cubans send a message saying, "We swear to God it wasn't us." I had a guy in here. Who was it? There was a guy in here who was literally sitting in a meeting with Castro when it when the news came out. And he said he was sitting God, I wish I could remember who this was. We had somebody on the He He said he was a He was a journalist. He was sitting in
[2:02:53] in the room with Castro as soon as that news dropped. And Castro someone handed Castro the the memo or whatever. And Castro said, "They're going to blame me for this." >> [clears throat and cough] >> When I was in Pakistan, I was the chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after 9/11, just as background. And um I had a I had a group of um a group of seven guys working for me. They were all contractors. And they had all been senior intelligence service
[2:03:23] senior officials at the CIA. All of them had been either the chief or deputy chief of Near Eastern Operations at the time. At least one of them had been the ADDO, the Associate Deputy Director for Operations. So these are serious, high-level, high-powered guys. But because they were retired and they came back as contractors, they couldn't lead the branch. So I led the branch and they worked for me. Which just sounds odd. I learned so much from these guys. I learned more in that tour in Pakistan than I did over the rest of my entire career. But anyway,
[2:03:54] that's not the issue. The issue is we were talking about an operation one day. And one of the guys said, "You should ask Gately about that." And I said, "Gately, who's Gately?" He's like, "What? Gene." And I said, "Old man Gene? Is Gene Gately?" And he goes, "Yeah, you didn't know Gene's last name?" I said, "No." Gene was the oldest of the guys. He was about 80. And I said, "Gene Gately, the commander of the Bay of Pigs operation, is working
[2:04:26] for me." And he's like, "You should ask him at dinner." We all lived in the same guest house, so we all had dinner together. So that night I go, "Gene, I had no idea you were Gene Gately, the Gene Gately." And he goes, "Yeah, who'd you think I was?" I was like, "I I don't know. He's just an old man named Gene." And I said, "Gene, the Bay of Pigs? What's up with that?" >> [laughter] >> And he said something that has been seared into my mind ever since. He says,
[2:04:57] "Fucking Kennedy. We could have won that thing." Yeah. Well, Kennedy didn't send air support. I went to me and Steven went to a museum [clears throat] in South Florida in Miami. One of the only interviews we've ever done where we traveled Wow. >> to Felix Rodriguez. >> You did not. You interviewed Felix Rodriguez? >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> What was that like? So we the craziest part of honestly, the one of the things that freaked me out the most was the day before we went down
[2:05:27] there, I had Danny Sheehan on the podcast talking about the whole Kennedy assassination plot and about all the Bay of Pigs Cubans, the anti-Castro Cubans who were involved in that. >> Yeah. And I go, "Huh, I'm going to Miami tomorrow to interview a guy named Felix Rodriguez. What do you know about Felix Rodriguez?" >> Oh my god. >> "I deposed Felix Rodriguez." >> god. >> "He was on the team that killed the president." This is what Danny I didn't know I mean, this is what what Danny Sheehan is telling me, you know, legendary Harvard lawyer who defended, you know, all these people,
[2:05:58] was a part of the the Watergate thing >> Yeah. and He's a giant. Oh yeah. So we go down there. We get to the museum and it's like this old museum of all about uh you know, all about the Cuban history and the Bay of Pigs. And we walk into one office while we're waiting for Felix and one of his buddies, his war buddies, was there and he was showing me his book. And it was a picture of Kennedy's face with a bull's-eye on it.
[2:06:29] And he had like pictures of Kennedy on the wall with like bull's-eyes on his head and like like slashes through his face and stuff. They all hated Kennedy. >> Yeah, they did. They hated Kennedy. [clears throat] Every one of them. There's I'm sorry to say there's a Greek American, George Joannides, um who was a He was the chief of Miami station at the time. And there are a lot of fingers that point right at George, too, as having been involved. One of the crazy things that I I took away from from Felix
[2:07:00] was that like he when he got into the I mean, the first thing he did was Vietnam, I think. He was in the Vietnam War. >> Yeah. Didn't he also kill Che Guevara? Yeah. Yeah, he told that story. That was crazy. >> his fingers as a souvenir. Uh he had denied that. I asked him. I thought I I I asked him like, "I heard you kept his Rolex." He's like, "No, no, no, no. I never kept his role." >> Yeah, I heard that, too. And uh you know, he was in the Vietnam War like mowing down civilians and Mhm. And mowing down people from helicopters,
[2:07:31] like the same that Billy Waugh was doing. Like him and Billy Waugh, like when you're that young and you're just slaughtering people, >> Yeah, mass murder. >> what does that do to your psyche? >> Mhm. You know? And and and going to do that assassination on Che Guevara, like Yeah. like I don't know what it like there's certain There's two types of people. There's people like Billy Waugh and Felix Rodriguez who like either they have this predisposition
[2:08:03] to be able to kill with without thinking twice about it and not have a conscious about it. And there's like the other group of people which were like they went to the go do the Iraq War and they didn't have that in them. It's just like they had couple options. I could go to college or I could go get a job or I could go, you know, fight this war. This seems like a cool option. And then they go out there and then they end up being traumatized because they weren't built for that. >> That's right. >> come back with like insane PTSD >> [gasps] >> and and trauma and things like that. And
[2:08:34] um with We I forgot where I was going with this. We're talking about We're talking about the Bay of Pigs and Felix Rodriguez and all that stuff. And the museum. >> And the and the museum >> I went to the on the flip side of that, I went to Havana 2 years ago. And I went to the CIA museum in Havana, which has all the that they confiscated from the likes of Felix Rodriguez No way. At the Bay of Pigs. Uh-huh. Yeah. >> That's crazy. >> It's nice, too. It's a nice It's It's in a It's in the best part of Havana. It's
[2:09:04] across the street from the Tunisian Embassy. Mhm. And it's in a mansion, and they've converted it into a museum. Wow. Mhm. Has their CIA IDs, their weapons, and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, so like you know, I I feel like Felix Felix and Billy Waugh were kind of like very similar people, you know? And I feel like the war like like just their experiences really did that to them, you know? Like I've never heard the stories that Annie Jacobsen tells about Billy Waugh, like in his late 70s going to
[2:09:37] going to the CIA trying to see if they could send him back overseas. They did. I [laughter] know. I heard >> I I went with him. That's how I met Billy. He and I did an operation together in the Middle East. We were there for months. Months. You know, he would tell these stories, too. I mean, the guy's a legendary figure. He would tell these stories. He had a He had a personalized license plate on his car. He lives He lived in Niceville, Florida. Mhm. And he had this license plate on his car that said 17 hits. And then it had a purple heart next to it. It was a purple heart vanity
[2:10:09] plate. And I said to him, "Billy, there's no way you have 17 Purple Hearts." And he said, "Oh, yes, I do." I said, "That has to be some kind of record in American history." Mhm. His His mouth was filthy. He says, "No, there's some sorry ass son of a in North Carolina has 18." >> [laughter] >> Yeah, and then Crazy, man. >> I I ran into him. We came back We came back from the Middle East on
[2:10:41] September the 9th, 2001. [clears throat] >> [snorts] >> And just on my second day back, 9/11 happened. Mhm. And so, you know, people are busy. You're doing stuff. You lose touch. And then I see him in the hall at the end of October. And I go, "Billy, I said, where have you been?" And he goes like this. He looks around. He goes, "Been in Afghanistan." I said, "What are you doing in Afghanistan?" And he goes, "I've been killing people. What do you
[2:11:12] think I've been doing?" And I was like, "Oh my god, that's why they haven't sent me." I kept volunteering over and over and over again. I'm like, "There are 16 people in the CIA that are fluent in Arabic. There are two of us in the Counterterrorism Center that are fluent in Arabic, and you won't send me. Why won't you send me?" It's cuz they didn't need a translator. They weren't translating anything. They were just killing everybody. >> Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> Wow. Billy, he used to tell these
[2:11:43] stories. You know, he was in He was in Korea, he was in Vietnam, he was in Grenada. He did all this stuff, right? >> first stories in Annie Jacobsen's book about Billy Waugh, surprise kill vanish, which which I can't forget, was how I think it was I don't want to get this wrong. I'll just say it was it was one of her sources. It may have been Billy. I don't remember it was Billy or not. Explained to her how his first kill was using his serrated dagger to cut
[2:12:15] the throat of a woman in Vietnam. You know, he He told me that same story. >> Oh, that was Billy? Yeah. Okay. Um He told me another story and I cracked on him. We were We were We were driving. We were in the car at one point for hours. God, he used to play this uh Who is this piano player in the like late 60s, early 70s? It was like like Liberace kind of music. It would drive me crazy. Anyway, Mhm. um
[2:12:47] So, hours. So, just to get him to shut the piano off, I I would turn it down. "Hey, Billy, let me ask you about Vietnam, right?" And then once he starts talking, there's no stopping him. One of the princes came up to me and he says, "You're friendly with Billy." And I said, "Yeah, I'm friendly with Billy." He says, "Please, please tell him no more F word, and please never never GD." Mhm. And I was like, "I'm sorry. He's got a filthy mouth. Nothing's going to stop him now. He's
[2:13:18] almost 80 years old." Anyway, [snorts] he he used to tell these stories over and over and over, and they would always get a little bit more exciting with each telling. And then finally, he was telling me about his Silver Star. He got shot down behind enemy lines in Vietnam, and the pilot was killed. Right. Right? So, he just starts the trek south. He's trying to get to the front line so he can slip across at night. And his I remember the story, his leg was like riddled with bullets, shredded. And he's walking. He walked
[2:13:48] like 25 miles. But then, like the third or fourth time he told me the story, he he comes up upon this this uh cow or ox or whatever it was in a rice paddy, and he had a knife, and he cut the the cow's leg so he could cut an artery, and he's drinking the blood to get nourishment. And I was like, I go, "That was a scene from Apocalypse Now. >> [laughter] >> You didn't do that." And he starts
[2:14:18] laughing. He goes, "Well, I I did all kinds of that was like that." >> [laughter] >> Billy, oh my god. Never had kids. Yeah, never had kids, yeah. Yeah, he the the government was his life. The military was his life. >> After that first I read in that first deployment in Annie's book, she said after that first deployment when he got his leg shot up and he came out, they got That's when he got his first Purple Heart, and he had to have surgery on it, and he was like they said, "You're disabled now. You're Congratulations,
[2:14:50] you're disabled." Like you're good. Yeah, he freaking like hitchhiked across the country again and got like tried to like lie to them and tell them, "I'm good. I can sprint. I'm full speed. Send me back out there." He meant it. Yeah, he wanted it. Yeah. I asked him one time if he was going to write a book, and he said, "Nah." He said, "I'm I'm not much for writing, but he said, 'My niece My niece is going to write my my biography.'" And she did. It came out I guess just before he died. It's out there on Amazon. I've seen it. I've not bought it. Interesting. Annie Jacobsen is a
[2:15:22] absolutely fantastic writer. The Surprise Kill Vanish book was amazing. >> Yeah, she's she's really great. >> Mhm. She's working on a new one right now. Supposedly about I don't know if I can talk about it, but it's going to be similar to her latest one about nuclear war, I heard. Great. Um So, how much of the in this in these Epstein files have changed your view on 9/11, if at all? On 9/11, no. My My view is
[2:15:55] generally mainstream. Um I believe that the Israelis had advanced notice and that they made a strategic policy decision to not tell us. Because [snorts] they they knew what the response would be. They knew we would just go out and just start killing everybody, which we did. We killed 2 million Muslims in the next 20 years after 9/11. Um and that was good for Israel because it led to the invasion of Iraq and the
[2:16:25] overthrow of Saddam Hussein. And remember, Saddam Hussein was an an existential threat to Israel. You know, they would come and beg us, "Please attack Iraq. Attack Iraq. Attack Iraq." >> Even with these emails like about the Shadow Commission and all the missing emails. >> me very very much. >> the missing tranche of emails right around 9/11. >> Yeah, it's missing. Yes, all of that bothered me very much. I mentioned the Shadow Commission on on a podcast I don't know, a few weeks ago, three, four, five weeks ago, whatever it was. And somebody wrote to me afterwards and
[2:16:56] said, "The Shadow Commission is It was private. Nothing ever came of it. It never turned into anything." Well, how the do you know? Who are you anyway? Mhm. Reaching out to me. It's some name I don't know. I don't know how the guy got my email address. Mhm. But >> from Ed Epstein. Glenn was talking about him. Yeah, Ed Epstein. You know about him? >> He's not related to Jeffrey Epstein. He was like at Harvard or something like that. >> I think so. >> Yeah, and he's not talking. No. Mhm. Huh.
[2:17:26] >> No. Another thing that bothers me very much is is the the depth with which the the Rothschilds had a relationship with Epstein. Yeah. Do they do no due diligence? I actually get it that Les Wexner I personally believe that Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein had some sort of sexual thing. Yeah. Um That's just my belief. I don't have any proof. But I get that maybe Les Wexner had a crush on him and Mhm.
[2:17:57] >> sort of, you know, seeded his career and gave him a hundred million dollars and got him started and whatever. But the Rothschilds are the Rothschilds. They've been filthy rich since the 18th century. Right. >> They do no due diligence to see that this guy his credentials are that he was a a seventh grade math substitute teacher? And that he never went to college? Well, there's the email that he sent to um Elie de Rothschild where he sent her some something from Harvard, that Harvard professors were teaching the
[2:18:28] students that um Hitler was taking care of in like a homeless shelter that was owned by the Epsteins and the Rothschilds. And then she comes back and she's like, "Oh, is that a conspiracy theory?" And he's like, "No, this is 100% true. The Epsteins and the Rothschilds." So, it's like So, it's like maybe he you know, he came from some big noble family. I've spoken to his brother. His brother's just like, you know, Joe normal guy. Yeah, I don't know. His brother seems
[2:18:59] His brother something seems off about his brother. I think the brother's been traumatized. Probably. His brother's the one that's like saying I saw his body, right? He's definitely dead. >> the body to the crematorium. So, would it be fake? Would would there be a possibility if the brother did see a body could his brother be fooled by a body double? >> And he said, "It was my brother. I identified the body." Okay. Okay, I'll give him that. But if you are his brother and you know your
[2:19:30] brother if you know Jeffrey is still alive, wouldn't you want to just tell the public that he's really dead to protect him? Sure you would. But also if if you're doing this in cahoots with your brother, don't you think your filthy rich billionaire brother would have at least given you a couple of dollars before he decided to vacate the scene? Yeah, how do we know he didn't? I mean, the feds have confiscated everything. Everything's tied up. Oh, you think there'd be there would be proof that he gave him some money or something? >> Yeah. I [snorts] don't know. It just does seem weird, you know, the
[2:20:01] photographer was out there and ready to go. >> adamant that this was an assassination. And that it was, you know, the CIA in cahoots with the Bureau of Prisons in cahoots with this one and that one. It's this big conspiracy. >> Mhm. But that he's dead. Yeah, and then it's also crazy that that um Wexner and Bill Clinton in both of their their recent uh video tape depositions are giving up the Rothschilds when they're not even asking them about the Rothschilds. >> Right. What's up with that? That's kind of wild.
[2:20:32] >> Yeah, I I interviewed uh David Boies a couple of weeks ago. Uh he's the the legendary criminal defense attorney. He's represented We represents Hillary Clinton right now. Um and he said something that was very interesting. He said that he's got this huge staff at uh Perkins Coie, I guess this is the name of the firm. Um he's got this enormous staff. They went through every page of those 3 million documents. And he said there was no evidence of any crime having been committed by Bill Clinton
[2:21:02] or by Donald Trump. In the released files. Right. >> So then why not release the rest of them? If there's no evidence of any crime whatever happened to transparency? Mhm. Let's just release them. You know, have we learned nothing from Watergate? It's always the cover-up that's worse than the crime. Yes. >> Always. Yeah, and some of the people that have been just completely exposed for stone-cold lying to the public about
[2:21:33] their ties to Jeffrey Epstein with no repercussions. >> Oh, yeah. Nothing. Look at Katherine What's-her-name? Remler? Katherine Remler. >> Oh, man. This woman >> know about her until this. Neither did I. And I heard you guys talking about the kill list. >> Yeah. Yeah. Why would this woman, this random woman the the White House counsel that nobody's ever heard of why would John Brennan give her the CIA's highest honor, which is normally reserved only
[2:22:05] for officers killed in the line of duty? Why would she seek repeatedly to connect John Brennan with Jeffrey Epstein? She apparently failed. There's no evidence that they ever met, but she tried repeatedly to get them together. And then lie about her her relationship with him to Goldman Sachs, which then made her general counsel. General counsel, can you imagine what she must have been making as the general counsel for
[2:22:35] Goldman Sachs? It had to be eight figures. What is the story of this kill list that she was a part of? So, this was a story broken by I think it was the New Yorker back in 2009 2010. It might have been Atlantic Monthly. I can't remember. But anyway, John Brennan when when he became the Deputy National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism in Obama's first term. Remember he was Obama named him CIA director and the liberals went crazy and they said, "Oh, no, you don't. He was one of the
[2:23:06] founders of the torture program." And so Obama made him the Deputy National Security Advisor, which doesn't require Senate confirmation. After he got fired when he asked for a raise, then he went around and found a new job and then ended up Deputy Director. Exactly. >> Insane. The became director. Director, yeah, yeah. >> Yeah. So uh he convened this group that they called the Tuesday morning um kill list meeting. It was mostly lawyers, the White House
[2:23:37] counsel, Deputy White House counsel attorneys from the um uh OLC, the Office of uh the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice the CIA General Counsel's Office um and then CIA Counterterrorism Center operators. And they would come up with a list every week of people to kill. Right? So, all the lawyers would agree, yes, we're going to kill them. And Brennan had been Who specifically is killing people? The CIA. The CIA.
[2:24:08] >> Uh-huh. So, Brennan was seconded by the president to sign on the president's behalf on the kill list each Tuesday morning. They fan out the teams around the world. They kill the people on the list. And then they all meet up again the next Tuesday and come up with a list of the next group of people to kill. It's sick. Is this still happening? I I don't think so. But keep in mind, none of these people had ever been accused of a crime. None of these people >> All foreign? All foreign, we think. They
[2:24:41] won't say. Uh in fact, at the very end of the Obama administration uh Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was questioning uh the Attorney General at the time, Eric Holder. And he asked him "Are you saying you're talking about these kill lists? Are you saying that the president has the right to kill anybody he wants?" And Eric Holder said, "If that person presents a clear and present danger." Right? That's the terminology that they use. A clear and
[2:25:11] present danger to the United States, to American citizens, or American installations then yes, the president can kill that person or order that person to be killed. And then Rand Paul says "Does that include American citizens?" Well, the answer was yes. Because we had already killed Anwar al-Awlaki the spokesman for al-Qaeda and his 16-year-old son and 16-year-old nephew. None of whom None of them had ever been charged with a crime. And then Rand Paul says
[2:25:43] "What about an American citizen on US soil?" And then Holder's like, "Well, we can go off the record or we can you know, behind closed doors in closed session. We We I'll answer your question, but not in front of the media." What the is that? Either we're a a nation of laws or we're not. Pick one. Another thing that's really disheartening about all this is that
[2:26:15] it's coming out after all these files about all these people are coming out only after the statute of limitations is up. >> You know, that's I think that's the thing that makes me the angriest about this whole Epstein situation is that no matter how terrible the revelations become no one will ever face justice. No one. And is the statute of limitations do they only cover specific crimes?
[2:26:48] Yeah, there's no statute of limitations on murder. Um I believe that there's no statute of limitations on terrorism or on the use of a weapon of mass destruction. And then somebody told me the other day that I was wrong about conspiracy, that there is no statute of limitations on conspiracy. I haven't researched it, but I think they're wrong. I think there is a statute of limitations. For most federal crimes, it's 5 years. Some it's a year, 2 years, you know, making a false statement or whatever.
[2:27:20] Failing to fill out the far form online. >> Right. And what a coincidence that we're a just over 5 years since Epstein died. >> Isn't that interesting? >> So, theoretically now it's safe. Which is yet another reason to release the files. All right, your friends are going to be protected. They're not going to They're not going to go to prison. And if your friends are files, society needs to be protected from them. So, I'd like to know who the files are.
[2:27:51] Thank you very much. Key aspects of the conspiracy statute of limitations uh general federal limit. The standard federal statute of limitations for conspiracy is 5 years. >> 5 years. So, I was right. He was wrong. Interesting. And um you know, that whole Bannon interview with him was crazy, too. And I don't know I think only a couple hours of it got released. I think there was like over 10 hours he filmed with him allegedly is what I heard. But we only got like that one or two
[2:28:22] hours. >> [clears throat] >> Where like some people say that you know, Bannon was trying to do some sort of uh like a PR campaign to like revive his public perception the public perception of him when he did that. But I don't know. If you watch that, like Bannon was really like coming at him. Wow. I wonder why he would do something like that. I mean, why Epstein would agree to something like that. Uh maybe just cuz they were friends. Did you happen to see this piece in the New York Times uh last week about this society woman
[2:28:54] um that he was giving money to and she helped to reintegrate him into New York society. Oh, yes. She wore stripes the day that he was released to show solidarity with his time in prison. >> York socialite lady? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, she was trying to help him find a baby mama. Mhm. So he was allegedly >> whole other, you know, issue that came out in these files. >> Yeah, yeah. There was kids and kids. >> It looks like he's having kids. It looks like he has kids out there.
[2:29:25] >> Yeah. Yeah, they had to be perfect specimens. Looking for Ukrainian girls. >> That's what he was telling her, yeah. Like telling her this is the kind of girl I want, but she's like saying, "Oh, well, you got to you got to find a girl who's not going to get too attached, not going to, you know, try to get any of your money. Like we got to find the right girl. We can find her." Yeah. It's not good. >> [sighs] >> It's crazy. And the whole Trilateral Commission thing, how he's telling Steve Bannon about this Trilateral Commission. Yeah, they invited me to the Trilateral
[2:29:55] Commission. >> they did. All these other big people and Mhm. had the, you know, huge backgrounds, world leaders, and then this young kid from Coney Island. Just a good kid. >> [laughter] >> Someone to whom I used to be very close has attended these kinds of meetings, Trilateral Commission, Shangri-La uh summit, Davos, all of these major and she told me that um
[2:30:25] they they all take place just to sell weapons and weapon systems. That's all anybody ever talks about. He said she said, "Yeah, the the the politicians think the big thoughts and, you know, this is what I'd like to do and what do you think of this idea with uh you know, clean energy or whatever." But when it comes down to it at the end of the day, it's all about selling weapons. The Trilateral Commission, it's all about selling weapons. Trilateral Commission of of all of these different groups is the one that's most highfalutin, right? The Henry Kissingers and Hillary Clintons of the
[2:30:56] world meet with the Tony Blairs and, you know, people from the CEOs of the world's biggest corporations and stuff. And yeah, they they talk about international policy and what would be best for the United States or best for the European Union or best for international banking or whatever. But in the end, it's really all about making military sales. Why would gun sales be of such high importance? Oh, cuz that's that's how the American economy
[2:31:28] runs. Uh post-9/11, we're in a full-time permanent wartime economy. So at the highest level of the pyramid of society is arms trafficking? Yeah, listen. The Pentagon, it took him it took him 75 years to to do this, but the Pentagon has manufacturers with which it does business in literally every one of the 435
[2:31:59] congressional districts. >> [snorts] >> Literally every one of the country's 435 congressional districts has something to do with the manufacturing of weapons, weapon systems, or, you know, associated technologies. Woah. So there are jobs at stake in every congressional district in America. That's why the the votes for the for the Pentagon budget are almost unanimous every time. And where do like the world bankers fit
[2:32:30] into this whole equation? Like the Rothschilds and Soros and all these folks. >> I don't know and I I think most people don't know and that's why these conspiracies take root. Mhm. And don't forget, too, that almost every conspiracy has a has a kernel of of truth at its at its basis. But I think we we really don't know how it all works. Mhm. Did you see this story that just came out where um one of the the board members of the Rothschild bank
[2:33:01] just got a job, just got hired to oversee the Vatican bank? Oh my god. No, I did not I did not see that. Find that story today. >> the world? It's like all the craziest QAnon is coming true. >> Yeah, it's like they're sitting around a table saying, "Oh, you know what we should do? Let's pick the most egregious uh conspiracy and we'll make it happen." Right. Right. And we'll release documents >> Yeah. >> that shed a little bit of evidence to all this stuff and not give you any
[2:33:32] answers. >> Yeah, no answers at all. >> out all these little weird kernels out there that freak people out, set the internet on fire, and we will just shut our mouths and let chaos happen. Vatican Bank appoints François Pauly as president of the supervisory board. What the heck? The Vatican Bank has confirmed the appointment of former Rothschild director François Pauly as the next president of its board of superintendees. I think it's François. François Oh,
[2:34:04] François? >> [laughter] >> François. Tomato, tomato. >> Board of superintendents. Yeah. Sounds high-level. Mhm. It's the Illuminati. Yeah, seriously. He's a Luxembourg national. Three decades of experience in European finance. Yeah, man, all this stuff is just it's too much. Career began in late 1980s. Makes me
[2:34:35] feel like an underachiever. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Yeah, man, like like people like this, you know, like and people like the Rothschilds and and the Rockefellers. Previously it was like if you talk about them, you're like Alex Jones, you know, you're crazy. >> right, right. Or you're anti-Semitic. Right, right. >> Yeah. And, you know, like even the stuff that like Rockefeller was a part of, like being the back channel to Saddam. Like what?
[2:35:06] >> Mhm. It sounds like something from a science fiction book or like something from like some sort of crazy conspiracy. It's it's insane that it's real. And then it comes true. Yeah. What's next, John? What's going to happen next? >> know, man. I'm not optimistic. I think this Iran thing is way worse than people realize. I think we're we're in it. Unless You know, one of the things that Donald Trump sometimes does is he just declares victory and then that's the end of it. That would be the best case scenario if he did that. >> we're going home. It's all over. Nothing to see.
[2:35:37] He kind of hinted at that yesterday. He said that that the uh Iranian government has been decapitated and that we have already seen regime change. It's like, okay, that's one way of looking at it. >> Mhm. But then the the Washington Post reported this morning that that multiple Gulf royal families are asking him to see it through and make sure that the whole thing collapses. What do you think? Do you think that's Do you think that's that's really You think that?
[2:36:08] >> Really? >> Yeah. They hate and fear the Iranians. Huh. >> Mhm. All of them could be pissed at us. I think they were for the first couple of days. But >> [sighs] >> you know, it's one thing to hit Al Udeid Airbase, for example. That's embarrassing to us. But to start sending suicide drones into hotels in Dubai, that's just going to piss them off. Right. You blow up the Kuwait
[2:36:38] airport runway, Bahrain airport runway, that just pisses them off. Mhm. The Saudis spent at least a decade trying to normalize relations with Iran again. They finally succeeded and the Iranians sent an ambassador Riyadh, the Saudi sent an ambassador Tehran, and now by all accounts, American media accounts, when when uh Mohammed bin Salman was at the White House last week, um he begged the president to just go at him with both barrels and not to
[2:37:10] stop until they're done. That's bonkers. It's a Iran is a huge populous country and, you know, talk about existential threats, I spent almost 5 years in the Gulf. And every one of those GCC countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, they are petrified of of uh a strong
[2:37:40] and offensive Iran. They're petrified. There are 92 million people in that country. But if they had if if the Ayatollah made some sort of a religious declaration of not to make nukes, why would they be so afraid of him? Because of just the religious >> Because the religious No, no, the the IRGC and the MOIS, the the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Iran, actively seek to overthrow the Gulf governments. The Gulf royal families. Actively
[2:38:12] initiating um active They're called active measures. You know, coup plotting. When I was living in Bahrain, twice these these, you know, pallets of weapons in these big waterproof containers, like washed up on shore. They're like, "What what the are these for?" All these weapons and explosives and mines and bullets. Like who's supposed to pick these up on the beach and miss the connection? Wow. >> Mhm. Yeah, the Iranians are not naifs in this
[2:38:43] whole thing. How much of a threat do you think Islamic extremists are to America? I think that self-radicalized homegrown Islamic extremists are a problem. You're going to get some kid who radicalized himself by watching YouTube videos who's going to go into, you know, a shopping center and open fire on people or into a church for example. >> false flags, too? You know, I'm not I'm not one of the
[2:39:15] believers that false flags are common things. More common examples of false flags, I'll give you one that that we studied at the agency. Before you could just, you know, go on to Google Earth and look to see what, you know, whatever you want to look at. >> Mhm. It could take 6 to 12 months to move a satellite from one place to another. Right. >> Right. That's why we didn't liberate Kuwait until February of 1991. The The Iraqis had invaded August of of 1990 cuz
[2:39:47] we had to move a satellite from over Moscow all the way over to be over Iraq and Kuwait. And it took months to move the thing. So some countries didn't have satellites at the time. So, as this example of a false flag, the Israelis really really wanted to know what was going on in the port of Benghazi in Libya. Well, they don't have a satellite to look at the port of Benghazi. So, what they did is they had a a Mossad officer
[2:40:20] call the harbor master on the phone in Benghazi and say, "Hi, I'm a wealthy French businessman and we do a lot of uh of uh work in Libya, a lot of trade and I represent a a consortium of European businessmen and we have lots and lots of money and we're looking for somebody to represent our interests in Benghazi, somebody who has access to the port and understands how the port works and and
[2:40:50] we have tons of money that we're willing to spend." Well, what's the port master going to say? Harbor master. He's going to say, "I could do that." "Oh, you would do that for us? You would be our consultant. We're going to pay you a lot of money. All we want to know is the names of the ships that come in every day and everything that's on the manifests." Okay, that's protected information. Does the information include weapons for
[2:41:21] Palestinian training camps in Libya? Of course, they do. What about technologies from North Korea or from Pakistan or, you know, any other any other country that might be willing to to sell nuclear uh information? And so this harbor master reported to Mossad for years. He never had any idea that he had been recruited by Mossad. Wow. >> flag.
[2:41:51] He thought he was working for a consortium of French businessmen. That's crazy. But that's the that's the more likely false flag. >> Right. >> Mhm. Right. Yeah, I just see the people who are the advocates for this war, a lot of them trying to paint this fear-based narrative. >> That's exactly what it is. >> How Islam is going to be the majority religion in the world by like 2030 or something like that. And it's already like it's it's a it's a
[2:42:21] it's the second biggest religion in the US right now, second biggest in Canada, Australia, uh the UK and all this stuff and by 20 by 2030 they're going to be the the it's going to be the Muslim majority and we should all be terrified. But it's like I don't know, from my perspective it seem it doesn't seem like the Muslims are a huge threat to us. >> They're not. No. That's why I get a kick out of these these state legislatures that that pass laws banning Sharia law. Mhm. Like
[2:42:54] why? Right. They're not imposing it on anybody. >> Do you know what Do you know what Sharia law is? Right. So, Sharia law is, for example, if if the head of the household dies Sharia law says that the wife gets half of the estate and the sons get the other half. Mhm. That's Sharia law. Sharia law says Yeah, that's it. Sharia law says you can't charge interest on a loan.
[2:43:26] Right? It's a sin. So, you charge a user fee. You can call it interest. I'm going to call it a user fee. >> Right. I see. >> That's Sharia law. >> Okay. Sharia law says that um if you have multiple wives, which of course are not recognized in the United States, you have to treat them equally. Right? So, if you do something for all one, you have to do something for all four equally. That's Sharia law. So,
[2:43:56] what these morons in places like Oklahoma City or Austin are so worried about, I have no idea. It's just they they just exhibit their own ignorance. They hear, "Oh my god, Sharia law. Oh my god, we have to stop it. Muslims, they're going to blow us up and" Mhm. Come on. Yeah. >> What are you doing? It's crazy world, man. John Kiriakou, I always appreciate your insight. >> Always great to see you. I I so enjoy coming down here and doing these. >> I really appreciate it. And um I will link your Substack, your YouTube, your
[2:44:28] X, all that stuff below. Is there anything I'm missing? No, I'm on YouTube and Rumble. Rumble? Rumble, too? >> lots of good stuff happening. Fantastic, man. Thanks again. Appreciate it. Good night, folks.