[00:00] Hello everybody. I'm John Kiriakou and welcome back to the briefing room. Today I welcome you from Miami, Florida. It's morning where we are and we are filming this uh mid-morning and already I've been eaten alive by mosquitoes. Anyway, there's a lot to tell you about today. The White House is doing its best to distract from the Epstein files and the fact that it still has not complied with the Epstein files Transparency Act.
[00:30] But Congressman Thomas Massie, who co-authored the bill, is doing all he can to keep pressure on the White House. This week he proposed another bill called the Epstein files Transparency Act 2 and he decided to read the names of 14 Epstein co-conspirators on the floor of the House of Representatives. Listen to this clip. >> Speaker, it's been a year since the president signed the Epstein files Transparency Act and the government
[01:01] continues to withhold over 3 million files. That's why we've introduced the Epstein files Transparency Act 2 to bring the fight to the state courts, accountability to the Department of Justice, and closure for survivors. We want perpetrators of these crimes to be investigated and prosecuted. Men like Jess Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frederick Fekkai, Eduardo Teodorani, Jean-Luc Brunel,
[01:33] conveniently dead by suicide in prison, Daniel Serres, recently discovered dead in Paris, Ramsey Elkholy, and Prince Andrew, who committed sex crimes in the United States, too. And women like Leslie Groff, not a victim, who conspired with Epstein to traffic other women. Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice. I yield back. >> As he mentioned, Congressman Massie's new bill will take the Epstein files
[02:03] fight to the states themselves, giving state attorneys general access to the Epstein files. He wrote this, quote, "Beginning today, your congressman can sign a discharge petition to force a vote on Epstein Files Transparency Act 2. EFTA 2 gives state attorneys general access to Epstein files required to prosecute perpetrators under state law, and makes it easier for survivors to sue to get their files." Unquote.
[02:35] That is really important. Listen, Thomas Massie's a realist. And Thomas Massie knows but that for the next 2 plus years, Donald Trump is going to do nothing to go after people implicated in the Epstein files. So, if Donald Trump won't do anything, maybe state attorneys general will do something. And I think he has even more speaking out that he plans to do when he leaves Congress. There is another update in the Epstein Files Transparency fight, too. You may
[03:07] have seen the Epstein Files Reading Room exhibit when it was on display for several weeks in New York City and then later on in Washington, D.C. It's an amazing exhibit where they printed out and displayed all 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files which so far have been publicly released out of an estimated 6 million total. Thousands of people visited that exhibit, and it's going out on tour. On
[03:37] September 8th, the exhibit and their traveling bookmobile truck will be on display in Dallas, Texas for the Republican National Convention. Remember, the Republicans are doing a midterm national convention. It's never been done before. It's then traveling to swing congressional districts in Iowa. Personally, I can't wait to see what kind of reception it gets. And frankly, if you're a fan of the show, our show, and if you happen to be traveling in
[04:08] either Dallas on the 8th or later on in Iowa, please do send us pictures of your favorite parts of the exhibit. If you send pictures with your name and you say that you're okay with us using the photos on air, I'll feature as many of these photos from the exhibit as I possibly can. I wanted to give you another update, too. I was a little bit hard on Milo Yiannopoulos in our last episode. Deservedly so. But we've got a clip from the Piers
[04:39] Morgan show that we wanted to show you. To tell you the honest-to-God's truth, I was supposed to be on the Piers Morgan show yesterday morning, and it was canceled at the last minute because they wanted to put Milo Yiannopoulos on. So, check out his appearance on Piers Morgan. >> I didn't really I didn't really understand the physical reality of of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. That that the way in which the manner in which they arrest you, they put you in manacles, your hands, your feet chained together. I mean, like it
[05:09] is every everybody is arrested is like an MS-13 gang member, and it hurts a lot more than it looks like on television. Um you know, I was put from uh from from um you know, detention facility to a correction facility. Um you know, every 3 hours they were they were sort of trying to keep ahead of my lawyers so I couldn't you know, so whatever. Um but but no one would tell me anything. Um it was it I mean, I know it's designed to be like that, but it's it was Sure, it was humiliating and it was disorientating and the rest of it. It
[05:41] was physically degrading. It was it was frightening. It was frightening. I don't think I've ever been frightened like that before. Just not >> How how emotional have you been through this period? >> I've never been like this before. I I tripped and kind of tumbled down the stairs a night or two ago and, you know, I'm a clumsy person, so that it's not the rarest thing in the world, but it set something off from from when I'd been kind of, you know, uh shoved down a couple of steps and I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. Um and I was like, "Oh, I really have to got to get this out of my
[06:12] system." Um I I think maybe in the past I've been a little bit um >> [snorts] >> a little bit blasé when people talked about the trauma, a little bit kind of cavalier when people talked about, um you know, stuff kind of kind of lingering with them, but I I I get it now. Um and uh I wouldn't wish it on anyone. >> He's lucky he wasn't deported to Madagascar or Ghana or El Salvador.
[06:42] I don't mean to sound harsh, but I don't want to hear his crocodile uh cries and see his crocodile tears. He was in a holding facility for 3 days. 3 days. Listen, everything he said is true. Not just of these immigration detention facilities, but in all American prisons. I was in prison for 23 months.
[07:13] I broke my pinky finger one day. That's why I've got this bump in it right here, because I was denied medical care until months later. But when I was finally taken to a doctor outside the prison, I was taken out in shackles. My my ankles were chained uh to each other. My wrists were chained, and then my ankles and wrists were connected to
[07:44] chains around my waist. I was in a low-security prison. When we finally got to the doctor's office, everybody in the office turned to look at me. This, you know, I I mean, with all the chains and shackles, I I looked like I must have been a serial killer, a terrorist, or something. There was a little kid there who started to cry when he saw me. So, if Milo Yiannopoulos wants to have a bigger conversation about the US prison
[08:15] system and about prison reform and about respect, sure, let's have that conversation. Otherwise, I don't want to hear his complaints, because it was people like Milo Yiannopoulos that helped to make the system what it is and to justify the use of this system. I don't want to hear it. Every American with an IRA or a 401k should hear this next part. There's a number Wall Street won't talk about, and it puts gold roughly at eight times
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[09:16] That's what gold would need to be worth if China settles trade in metal instead of in dollars. And everything they're building says that's exactly where this is headed. Meanwhile, the national debt crossed $40 trillion. Annual interest payments on this debt now exceed the entire annual military budget. If your retirement is sitting entirely in dollars, you need to see this new report. American Alternative Assets put together a free report called The Day Money
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[10:20] Folks, we talked about settler violence in the West Bank uh on our last show after NBC News and a crew that NBC News was using was attacked by settlers in the West Bank. And we noted that that most of these settlers are American citizens. Even more specifically, they're mostly American citizens from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The situation though has gotten so bad that even the most right-wing, pro-Israel voices in the US are suddenly
[10:52] speaking out. That's partially because just in the last few months, the violence has escalated dramatically. According to the United Nations, Israeli settlers have injured more than a thousand Palestinians. That's just this year, and they have killed dozens. They just open fire on people and then steal their houses. That's more than twice the number of killings as in 2025 already this year. But the settlers almost never face any
[11:24] consequences for their actions because they enjoy broad support from the Israeli government. And in part because there's an American ambassador in Jerusalem who just does what the Israelis tell him to do. Because remember, God is telling the Israelis what to do. Don't forget. And the United States has hardly done anything at all to hold Israel accountable for this group of people that is assaulting, beating, and killing
[11:55] both Muslims and Christians alike. Now suddenly, staunchly pro-Israel Republicans and Democrats are putting out perfunctory statements condemning the violence while being far while being far from any action to punish Israel for backing this behavior. So I think it's worth asking, why now? What's changed? And what's the real motive behind these
[12:25] statements coming from both Republicans and Democrats? None of this is new. Settler violence is not new. These politicians have known about settler violence for many years. They've known about the support settlers receive from elements of the Israeli government. They've known Palestinians have been driven from their homes and villages for decades. So why suddenly draw a line? Well, it's probably because they know the settler situation is much worse than the media has been able to verify.
[12:57] Remember, and we said this on the last show, reporting on the West Bank has to run through Israeli military censors. They don't even let reporters into the region without an escort, and they are more than happy to green-light a settler attack on an NBC news crew. So maybe some politicians are getting out ahead of this. They don't want to be defending these people 6 months from now when the full extent of what's happening becomes impossible to ignore. They want to be
[13:28] able to point backwards and say, "You see, I issued a statement a few months ago and I condemned the extremists." But now there's another group sounding the alarm. A group that's not trying to get reelected to public office here in the United States. This week the New York Times published an extraordinary piece about senior Israeli military and intelligence officials warning about settler violence in the West Bank.
[14:00] Israeli generals including generals from Israel's political right wing are now openly warning that these settlers are becoming a serious threat to Israel's national interests. And if you're only beginning to follow this issue, consider how extraordinary this is. These are not human rights activists we're talking about. These are not protesters at Columbia University that we're talking about. They have written, these generals and intelligence officers
[14:31] have written that they find settler extremism more concerning than Israel's actions in either Gaza or Lebanon. So in the piece, which is entitled These Generals Fought for Israel, Now They See Jewish Terrorism as the Threat, the authors write this. Quote, Major General Amiram Levin spent his life fighting for Israel. He survived the Arab-Israeli War of 1973
[15:02] when his platoon was nearly wiped out, then went on to command a division in the West Bank and lead Israel's ground forces in the 2006 war against Hezbollah. But in recent months, he has returned to the Israeli-occupied West Bank touring the territory with retired generals and former Israeli officials like himself. He has walked through the remains of a Palestinian school looted by Israeli settlers and listened to Palestinian shepherds and farmers describe being tortured by settlers who seized their
[15:35] livestock and their land. Now, General Ben Reuben says he has an entirely different understanding of the risks facing Israel today. Quote, "This, what the settlers are doing here, is the real threat to Israel." Unquote. That's what he said, his eyes welling with emotion. He continued, "This is more concerning to me than Iran, Gaza, or Lebanon." Other former high-ranking Israeli officials touring the West Bank
[16:05] with him shared the same indignation. "This is ethnic cleansing, to put it simply." Ephraim Sneh, a retired Brigadier General and former Minister of Health, said of Israeli settlers' attack on Palestinians in the West Bank. Assaf Agmon, a retired Air Force General, went even further, comparing it to what some Israelis' forebears endured during the Holocaust. "Not in the scale of the violence," he explained, "but in the effort to erase
[16:36] the Palestinian presence from much of the West Bank." Quote, "Once a society behaves this way, that society is doomed." Unquote. That society is doomed. I could not agree more. And it feels even worse when you look at what Israeli officials are posting publicly for the world to see. I want you to look at this video from Itamar Ben-Gvir,
[17:08] the genocidal maniac who calls himself Israel's National Security Minister. Check this out. >> Yeah. I I don't even know what to say. As you
[17:38] probably figured out, these are Palestinian prisoners being sent into ovens? A gas chamber? A death chamber of some sort? There are still people arguing over what over whether Israel is acting with murderous or genocidal intent with what it's doing to Lebanon or in Gaza. Just look at what senior Israeli
[18:10] government officials are posting. These are criminals. Itamar Ben-Gvir has been convicted of felony hate crimes. Reveling in the ways they can continue to persecute Palestinians. They want us to see this. And they want us to be horrified at how how far they are willing to go. They want us to be intimidated. Remember, Itamar Ben-Gvir was in the United States 2 days ago.
[18:40] Walking freely around the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Meeting with senators. Meeting with House members. Being welcomed as a VIP and a friend to the United States. I don't know how long a civilization can last if people like Itamar Ben-Gvir are the individuals that a society chooses to elevate. And I want to add one other thing. Take a look at public opinion polls in advance of Israel's national
[19:12] elections coming in October. Itamar Ben-Gvir's extremist party is looking at doubling its presence in the Knesset from six seats to 12 seats. This problem is not going to go away in the near term. Another point that we made in our last show was how remarkable it was that CBS News was allowed to report on settler
[19:42] extremism. I said that was because Bari Weiss is a noted right-wing Zionist who is more than happy to shut down reporting critical of Israel. She's the head of CBS News and just look what she did to 60 Minutes. If you don't believe me in terms of how much she influences CBS News's editorial process, we just saw a remarkable example of that this week. Take a look at this tweet from CBS News. It says, "As the nation prepares to mark
[20:15] 25 years since September 11th, 2001, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack." It's for the article titled "Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's deleted tweets on September 11th attacks and renewed scrutiny of past remarks." Of course, the article left it very far
[20:45] down what his tweets were actually about and what they said about 9/11. According to the article, it says, quote, "In one post from April 2020, El-Sayed compared the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on September 11th to the mounting COVID-19 death toll and argued for a response commensurate with the nation's post-9/11 mobilization. In another, Abdul Sayed wrote that because more Americans had died from
[21:16] COVID than in the September 11th attacks, he hoped, "That means we'll spend the next 10 years fighting a war for public health and against poverty like we launched a global war on terror after 9/11. We could save lives rather than take them." Unquote. So, to recap, Abdul Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, an epidemiologist, PhD, and an MD, who was at that time
[21:48] the health director for Wayne County, Michigan, was posting that we needed to mobilize more health resources around the COVID-19 pandemic, similar to how we mobilized against the war on terror. Sure, maybe he could have worded it differently, but in April of 2020, that is hardly the most insane thing from a government in response to the COVID pandemic. And it is in no way a form of support for 9/11 like Bari Weiss's
[22:19] article implies. It's intellectual dishonesty is what it is. It's a blatant attempt to slap 9/11 in front of the name of a Muslim candidate. You will never guess who came up with this blatantly misleading Islamophobic article post. Shame on you, Bari Weiss. Bari Weiss did it herself. The article was written. Bari Weiss changed the article. But the good news is everybody saw the
[22:50] BS, and it backfired. She was caught in the act of manipulating the headline. That's what a lot of people in the media and politics don't understand. If you make it so obvious that you are trying to influence reporting and the headlines you write are so clearly misleading from the start, it's less effective than if you had just kept your big mouth shut in the first place. I wanted to also tell you about something terrible that happened in Ohio
[23:22] yesterday, day before yesterday. Um a Haitian a 20-year-old Haitian ROTC student who is in the United States under temporary protective uh status or protected status had that status revoked by the Trump administration and was due to be expelled back to Haiti. The Haiti is a failed state. It's run by criminal
[23:53] gangs. People are just shot and killed in the street, you know, on a on a hourly basis. This 20-year-old ROTC student parked his car. His name is Pierre Demasbell. Parked his car on the uh on the shoulder of Interstate 70, which is a major thoroughfare in Ohio, Springfield, Ohio. Sometime before 8:45 a.m. He got out of the car and he walked into westbound traffic.
[24:24] This is according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He was hit by a tractor trailer and he was killed instantly. His father Pierre Ronald Bell, who's 40 years old, wrote in a handwritten statement he felt like he was being treated like an animal. So, the poor kid committed suicide rather than to return to Haiti. As you can see from this Instagram post, it shows the father of Pierre Demasbell holding a note that his son was bullied
[24:55] by classmates at Wright State University after being outfitted with an ankle bracelet. Now, he hadn't done anything wrong. He was outfitted with an ankle bracelet just because he was Haitian. That's it. Not for any other reason. And the idea was to just send him back to the hellhole that is Haiti, despite the fact that he had volunteered to join the US military and to protect this country from its
[25:26] enemies. But that's the situation we find ourselves in right now. It's a different America from what it was, you know, a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. It's a different place. Well, folks, I want to thank you again, as I always do, for taking the time to watch our podcast. I want to thank JB and Victoria Fun Perts, our producers, for putting the show
[25:57] together. But I especially want to want to thank you. We are up to 275,000 subscribers. It's a number that I just never imagined we would ever achieve, especially at this early stage in the life of the podcast. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching it and for being with us. As I said in the last uh episode, if you're not sick of me already, you can find more on Facebook and X and Instagram and LinkedIn
[26:29] and Cameo and soon on TikTok. So, with that, we will see you next week. All the best. I'm John Kiriakou. You've been watching The Briefing Room.