0:02Putting the Israelis aside for a second and just looking at it generally, is it even possible for you to trust anyone in the intelligence world? And when I say trust, I mean trust them like you're in a relationship with them.
0:15Yeah, you may fight once in a while. You know, every marriage has its difficulties and stuff like that, but even if like can you look at any intelligence relationship, whether it's with one of the five eyes or any type of ally around the world, and say, you know what, this actually is like a good marriage. and what we what they say we can always kind of take at face value.
0:33Is that possible at all?
0:35>> I just don't think we should we should do that. I I think with like the Five Eyes usually if we're talking about like a counterterrorism target or whatever.
0:41Sure. But even like us and you know the Five Eyes partners, we have differences of of policy opinion all the time. So I I just don't I think we do ourselves a disservice when we get so comfortable with a partner that we just take it, you know, face value. Whatever they say is as good as as if we collect it with ourselves. Yeah. Now, going back to the Israelis though and their intelligence that you were talking about, you know, I think one thing we've probably been guilty of here in America points over the last 20 years is not being able to read a room sometimes. So, we have our our own egg on our face with that.
1:14However, I can't even describe in words how much it appears the Israelis cannot read the room right now when it comes to how >> certain they are of what they need to be doing and more specifically what they need us to be doing and that we should never even be questioning it because they're just our greatest ally and everything when you know I I haven't checked the literacy rates in Israel in a while but I think they're quite high and you know I can read a poll I I'm sure they can read a poll too. It's It's not looking great.
1:45>> No.
1:45>> For him. And it's not looking great, including people in our own government in some cases. So, like, why are they still so confidently gung-ho saying, "Yeah, we're going to do this. That's what you're going to do." Joe, step in line. This is what we got.
1:59>> Uh I I think in many ways they're going for broke. I think I think they realize that that Donald Trump being a baby boomer is the last regardless of being an I mean, it just is what it is.
2:09regardless of being a Republican or a Democrat, Trump is the is the last truly pro-Israel president that they're going to get in the White House. So, I think they're like, "Let's go for it right now." Also, they think post October 7th, everything all the battlefield gains they've had, this is the time to just stay on the gas and and and keep going.
2:27I think there are some in Israel who are just like if we don't slow this down right now because of the polling and because of the way that the younger demographic in America is is voting and thinking if they don't slow down and check themselves a little bit that they're going to lose the relationship in the long term. But I think the people that are in power inside Israel right now party I don't think they give a damn. Uh, and I also think they they still very confidently, and there's, you know, they're not wrong in in thinking this, when it comes down to exerting raw political power inside of America, they
2:58can still do it with money. I mean, look at Thomas Massiey's congressional primary. I mean, they spent close to 40 million, I think, when it's all said and done. A lot of that money we can't even track to take out one congressman, right? Because it's Massie and, you know, he was saying things they don't like.
3:12>> Uh, and [clears throat] then the vote yesterday, which was which was pretty historic. You hadund I think it was 103 Democrats voted to to not fund Israel and Massie was the lone Republican which is a I think that's black eye to to my my party to the Republicans. Um but they only >> the yeah the only one. So they still think even though that that is significant because I think you know a couple years ago you would not have gotten four let alone 104 representatives of any party to say that.
3:38>> But that said they the bill still didn't pass. So I still think there's a lot of them back there. you know, Miriam Adlesen and these big donors that are just like, let them throw their tantrums on podcasts. Um, and we'll still win in the end because in the American system, you can flood the zone with endless money and we have endless money.
3:55>> Well, we saw what happened to I think his name was Frank Church back in the 70s when he brought up that commission.
4:01I believe it was that we can check this thief. It's been a while, but I believe it was the next election. He was primar with a lot of dark money and sent out.
4:09And so when people start barking up the wrong tree, they'll do that. That said, if there's a little silver lining here with the Massie thing, and we'll see what happens with Roan and his next primary, >> it's like the place where they could most do that is a closed primary because in depends on the state and the district, but in a lot of these states, it's like only people registered under that party can vote.
4:31>> It's not a November election, so it's lower turnout. It's also lower turnout because it's a primary, not a general.
4:36So, like technically, you could flood the boomers TVs and maybe get enough people to go vote for a warm body.
4:41Trump's words, not mine. Anyway, but you know, I think if Massie went into say a general election for, I don't know, the Senate in Kentucky right now. Yeah.
4:52>> I think they'd be very surprised at how not far their money goes in that kind of thing.
4:57>> Yeah. And if you extrapolate it to onto a national uh scale, I mean, it took them 40 million for a congressional seat. Like, somebody else can do the math there, but there's 4 whatever 35 congressional seats. Can you spend whatever that 40 times? Can you spend that much on a national stage?
5:12Especially if the younger generation is is watching podcasts, they're on social media. The fundraising push that Massie did to fight back against that, especially the couple uh online campaigns that he had were very very significant. Uh and they they could potentially be game changers. So, I mean, for people who are frustrated with the political system and the money involved, the small dollar donor contributions that go to individual candidates and not packs, etc., that is kind of how we we we can potentially break break through a lot of that. And I think just the way that the demographics are are changing and as those
5:41demographics change, it's going to be harder and harder for Apac and other groups to come in and just straight up buy these seats.
5:47>> I agree. And I think it's also a matter of you know people are so focused on it because of the actual influence within legalized organ which is what it is like we got to we got to look in the mirror with that like APAC is a legal organization. They are doing [clears throat] what they are legally allowed to do and we don't change that.
6:04But like because there is that kind of influence happening obviously there's a massive sight on that because they're also in the middle of a big problem in the Middle East that people had large opinions about. But what ends up happening as well is then all the focus will go on that and I understand that.
6:21But then focus moves away from other threats as well. It moves away from hey what the is China doing here? You know, by the way, it's hilarious to see you get called like an Islamist or what or a jihadi online. You spent 25 years fighting them. Like I I think there's nobody who understands, >> you know, certain places that may not like us very much like you.
6:43>> What you seem to be attacked for is the fact that you are just pragmatically saying, unfortunately, the world has some evil in it. And as much as you want to be the good guy at all times and cleanse the world of all that, it's an imperfect place. And you can't just go invading places because you think they're bad and you know, whatever.
7:01There has to be stakes to it. Otherwise, we'd be invading China right now for how long have they been massacring the Weaguers since Vietnam.
7:09Whatever. I don't know. A long time, you know? But we don't do that because we can't do that. Exactly.
7:13>> You know what I mean?
7:14>> Yeah. Yeah, I've always said like if if the bar for us going to war and getting involved in a country is that country is doing something bad, they're they're they're oppressing their people, then you better start the draft because we we're going to need to, you know, put like thousands hundreds of thousands of millions of men and women under arms and we're going to need to invade, I don't know, throw a dart at the map and there's probably a government somewhere doing something that we we don't approve of here in America, right? And so the whole thing is just it's it's ridiculous. I mean, our founders had it
7:39right when they said, "Don't go abroad looking for monsters to slay." you know, have good trade and commerce for everybody, don't have alliances that get you sucked into other people's cousins wars, you know, and that's what we just have been we have been unable to uh resist that temptation for for most of the history of our republic. And if we don't change that here really quickly because of how spread thin we are with the empire and I think this this war in Iran because of the energy implications and all that, I I think this could be, you know, an event that jumpst starts a lot of the the downfall of the American
8:07empire. And I would just say like what I mean America's really blessed with what we have here at home. What has the empire the postw World War II empire that we're supposed to worship. What has that gotten most Americans? Like most lives have actually gotten a lot worse because we're trying to prop that up.
8:20What if what if we reverse that and we prioritized our nation's defense and then the prosperity of our country ahead of the empire >> just like every country around the world does.
8:31>> Everybody else. Yeah.
8:32>> You know, it's not like when people like, "Oh, it's a selfish thing." It's like, no, no. That's what every country is supposed to do. And then once you take care of something at home, if there's things you can work on friendly with other places, go ahead and do it. I don't know why this is so hard. But you raised a point at a really interesting time as well, cuz we just had the 250th anniversary of this country.
8:51>> I would imagine you're a guy that's studied the Revolutionary War pretty closely.
8:54>> Yeah.
8:55>> Fair to say. Yeah.
8:56>> I love it, too. And I've studied it for a long time. And obviously coming up on the anniversary, I got to do some podcasts on it. That was really, really cool. But, you know, it's amazing how preant some of these guys were. And you talk about like the foreign influence aspect. Washington famously warned about it in his closing speech slashwrittenout speech that he published in the paper about staying away from foreign foreign interests. And you know, you look at the people throughout history who were tested by the times too. George Washington was able to win the Revolutionary War in part because of the
9:31help of the French who came in with especially naval power and and and overall support to be able to work with them against the British.
9:40>> And just call it a decade later roughly, >> he's faced with the moment where suddenly France has an enormous problem with the French Revolution that is not in America's interest at all. And even though they had been this ally that he wanted to be friendly to, he was like, "Yeah, we can't get involved in that war." And you know what? It turned out okay. They were pissed. It took a decade or two, but then you know, Napoleon came in and did did his thing and suddenly things were fine. Like it feels like the hardest thing to do is nothing at all.
10:10And we always do something in postw World War II America. And we haven't learned that lesson.
10:16>> We haven't. And just the track record is abysmal. I mean, it's never worked out the way that we say it's going to work out. It always ends up being a long quagmire. Our country ends up with, you know, thousands more dead because of it and then trillions in debt. And that's what we have right now. I think the 250 the 250th anniversary is a good time for us to reflect on like where we are especially in the post, you know, World War II, you know, we're the global superpower >> in that era and and just see where we are. And at the end of the day, because you always hear, you know, when people try and justify this war or Ukraine,
10:44they'll lay out the risk board and they'll be like, "Yeah, if we, you know, if we choke off the straits here, then that's going to really hurt China." And it's always like this really involved, you know, game that they're playing. And it's like at at the end of the day whenever we try and play these games we [snorts] end up losing in some way, shape or form. You know, now I'm not saying if someone comes over here and messes with us, if they come over here and mess with us, then we do have to go take care of business. We do have to defend our borders. I'm, you know, I'll get labeled as a uh an isolationist, a
11:08dove or anti-war or whatever. Like I'm not. If someone screws with us, like we should go and salt the earth if we need to. Um, however, us going and trying to prop up all these different, you know, aspects of our empire, controlling strategic, you know, I mean, Trump the other day was talking about how like we're going to be the guardians of the Straits of Hormuz. Like, how absurd is that?
11:26>> How does that how would that even work?
11:28>> And even if it did work, like why how much would that affect people here in New Jersey? Hey guys in, you know, Hoboka, New Jersey, you're now the guardians of the Straits of Hormuz. Most of them rightfully would be like, where the hell are the Straits of Hormuz?
11:38[laughter] It's like, well, we we have to secure that so we can get the gas over here. It's just like the whole thing is absolutely absurd. So, I don't know. I think if if we don't re that in here really really soon and start like single-mindedly focusing on what's in our interest, >> uh a lot of the systems going to come crumbling down like with what's taking place with with the straits, what's going to start happening with the dollar. We're already seeing the end or at least the petro dollar being significantly threatened which goes after us, our status as a global reserve currency holder. Can you explain that to
12:08people like for we all hear terms like petro dollar and stuff like that if we're not in [snorts] the financial markets every day we're in intelligence a lot of people out there smart people I talk to are like yeah I don't fully understand that so like we're in fourth or fifth grade me included >> how would you explain that and how maybe close we are to a cliff with the petro dollar suddenly being point of no return >> yeah I mean so basically at the end of everything kind of goes back to the end of World War II we're were the the dominant power. And so most countries, world banks, they say that they will
12:40settle their transactions. They'll do trade big, you know, big uh the trade of natural resources, massive commerce deals. They'll do all that in the dollar, which means people want the dollar, which means basically here in America, we can print money. It's a bad idea, but we can just sort of print money. We can run these big debts because everybody needs the dollar. And so us having deficit spending here in America doesn't matter because the rest of the world is going to continue to use the dollar. Now when the pro market really came alive um the oil and producing states in in the Gulf said hey
13:13we will settle all of our oil transactions in the dollar. That basically means that every single bit of oil natural gas energy that gets pumped out of Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, etc. We're in that transaction. We didn't lift the finger, but we're getting a cut. We're getting a taste because they're all using the dollar.
13:28[snorts] And this has been a system the whole world has agreed upon. This is why you years ago heard guys like Ron Paul and Pap Buchanan say that us using sanctions against different countries and stopping them from using the dollar is shooting ourselves in the foot. And they're 100% right. And sanctions can be a decent tool to use against countries, but the sanctions we talked about with Iran were sort of working. Now, if you go and you sanction a major country like the Biden administration did against the Russians and told Russia, the world's largest natural resources producer that you guys can't use the dollar anymore.
14:00Well, who does that hurt more? Does it hurt more us more or Russia more in the long run? I mean, Russia has commodities that people want because it's natural resources. You know, they're not selling, you know, uh, intellectual property like we are here in America.
14:12They're selling real hard resources. And so, that transaction we're not in on anymore. We got cut out of it. Now the same thing is happening because for a long with because of the war in Iran for a long time that the petro dollar system existed because we said that we would provide the security guarantees. We would be the the the guarantors of the security of all those different Gulf states there. We'd put our military bases there and they'd be safe because Uncle Sam was there in their backyard.
14:36Well, we kicked off this war of Iran and what did the Iranians do? The Iranians hit our bases. Number one, we couldn't fight wars from our bases, which is absurd that we even have them over there in the first place. We had to evacuate the bases. But number two, because we had the bases there and we launched attacks against Iran. Iran hammered a lot of the infrastructure of those Gulf states. So now a lot of those Gulf states are saying like, I don't know, maybe we're going to start looking at some alternatives to the dollar because they're not happy with us. And you're even seeing a lot of the transactions
15:01now that are that are coming out of the Straits of Hormuz, those are being settled in yuan, crypto, and other currencies. And so you're starting to see the end of the the the the pro dollar, which between that and what we did in Russia. And we we've kind of created this this this alliance too by sanctioning different countries. You sanction Iran that has tremendous oil and natural gas resources. You sanction Russia, world's biggest natural resources producer. You've got China there in the mix. China can easily go to them and be like, "Hey, I've never started a war, a proxy war with you guys. Like, why don't you guys settle
15:33your transactions in the yuan? I'll help you guys convert all this onto the world stage." And that's what that is what we've seen China do in this conflict.
15:40And so if China is obstensively, you know, some people are really hawkish on China and they say they're our number one rival or the enemy we got to worry about. Someday we're going to end up fighting China. I don't agree with that theory the case. Um but if China is what we need to worry about and I think to a certain extent we should be worried about China, then what we've done in the Gulf has completely and totally worked against our own interests. Um so really at the end of the day, if we have enough countries throughout the world that say they're going to no longer use the dollar or if they don't even say it, if
16:06they just stop using the dollar, that erodess our system. And that means this deficit system that we have here in America, our entire financial system, it's not going to collapse overnight, but like it could slowly start to erode and that's where you're going to see out of control inflation. We've seen this before. This is what happened in pre-World War II Germany. I mean, this is what happened in Argentina in the 1980s.
16:24>> So, this is very dangerous. We've had a very good deal for a very long time. Um, and by us attempting to control other countries through the barrel of the gun and through sanctions, we're eroding our number one asset, and that was everybody using the dollar. Yeah, it seems like the typical group think scenario over time where people are like, "Yeah, we'll just we'll do it this time." Yeah. No, we can. No, we we can do it another time. We'll we'll stop this at some point. And then you just >> keep pressing that button over and over again and eventually Chernobyl.
16:52>> Yeah.
16:53>> Yeah. That's That's >> not great. But with the straight auror now we can get to theou in a little bit and what the is going on there. But did you were you a part of without going into anything classified were you a part of any discussions in the buildup to the war mapping out probable scenarios that the straight of hormuz could be locked off by the Iranian government in the event of of war. I mean, the the US government has has done these war games since the 80s, right? And that's always been the scenario. I mean, so yeah, I was, but that's not like Joe Kent wasn't sitting there with a map being like, "Guys,
17:30guys." You know, this has literally been DoD and IC war games since I was in grade school.
17:37>> Um, so this was known. We led ourselves to believe because of the 12- day war and I think some of the hubers from Venezuela that the Iranians were a paper tiger because after the when the 12- day war kicked off a lot of us and I was in this camp too. I thought the Iranians were going to use their proxies and I thought they were going to hammer us.
17:55>> Yeah. Yeah. The guys in Iraq but basically what they did in February I thought they were going to do a lot of us thought they were going to do when the Israelis attacked in the 12-day war.
18:03Now, we stayed out of that and the Iranians were like, "Well, we're not happy that we're being attacked right now, but we know the Americans are like, they're helping Israel. They're paying for all this, but they're not attacking us, attacking us."
18:14>> Right.
18:14>> So, I mean, we we saw it after we did Midnight Hammer. The Israelis shot back a volley of ballistic missiles to an empty quadrant of one of our bases in Qatar. They let us know ahead of times they were going to shoot at an empty quadrant of one of our bases in Qatar.
18:27And then they wanted to get right back to the negotiating table. Now, a lot of us breathed a sigh of relief and we're like, "Wow, that could have been a lot worse. Hopefully, the negotiations can work." The Israelis and the people who are more hawkish went to the president and said, "See, they're a paper tiger.
18:39They can't do anything." But we had a pretty I think we had pretty clear eyes at the time of like their proxies are still intact. They still have ballistics. They still have drones. If they wanted to, they could make this thing really really bad. Um and and like like like I said for years we knew that the worst case scenario if Iran was truly threatened they would play their geographic trump card which is the straits of Hormuz. Like you don't need to be a genius to look at that and be like wow if you don't need a lot of technology to really be a menace there in the straits just because it's so narrow and it's so critical.
19:09>> Did you discuss this with Pete Hegth?
19:13>> I mean he's the secretary of war. He knew he knew he knew. So when he was saying though towards the beginning of the war and has continued to say we've totally obliterated all of Bup and I'm sure they've obliterated some things but like I don't know 1 plus 1 usually equals two. If you're policing the straight of Hormuz something's not obliterated, right? The problem is we I mean we we we speak and we say that we destroyed their navy, their air force, their like yeah we control we destroyed their conventional forces [snorts] to a certain extent but their conventional forces were never the real power. the
19:45real power was in the IRGC, which is different than their military. It's also in a lot of their the besiege, but then the way that the Iranians uh dispersed a lot of their capabilities, especially ballistics, the production of ballistics, drones, the way that they dispersed a lot of those capabilities.
20:02When we went and we hit their conventional navy, I mean, it's pretty easy for us to see satellites like where those naval assets are. They don't have a they have a lot of coastline, but it's not that big. So, yeah, we blew it up.
20:10But the Iranians aren't dumb. They knew we were going to do that, right? So, they weren't going to use those capabilities to go shut down the Straits of Hormuz. They were going to use what they're using right now. Like, whenever the whenever a tanker goes outside of where the the Iranians say the tanker can go, they don't hit all of them, but they they hit enough of them to to slow down the the shipments. It's usually a drone. It's usually a low tech drone that they're they're hitting them with.
20:30So, it's almost it's dang near impossible short of us occupying, you know, the vast majority of Iran militarily for us to stop that capability because literally, you know, you and I could go 3D print some drones and we could sit up on the hills there >> with some binoculars, you know, and we could probably have a run at shutting down the streets of horses, too.
20:50>> Kind of fun, right?
20:50>> Probably be kind of fun. Yeah. I mean, and the same thing fishing ships, too.
20:52Like you you throw enough dows out there and all every single one of them has one mine. you drop those mines in like okay well now the shipping industry is like well I'm not going to have one of my ships go to the bottom like we're just not going to send the ships through.
21:04Yeah. So I mean because it's so small the train etc. Like it's almost impossible to shut down. So we can we can come out every day and we can be like last night we bombed x amount of whatever boats military targets and it's really not going to affect the problem.
21:18This is why and this leads us into theou. This is why we got into theou and you saw Trump come out and say this. He basically he didn't say there was no military solution but he said like we got to come up with something because we're up against you know an [laughter] economic cliff right he said that I mean the president said it publicly that's why we got in theou and he the only reason he accepted getting in the is cuz like we went through you know a month or so of like we're going to bomb the crap out of them and at some point it's like well we're bombing them but it's not really having any effect.
21:45>> Yeah. And when you guys are making any intelligence related decisions on any actions that are going to happen, obviously at least one part of the report is like downstream economic effects of what said action may cause and stuff like that. How much in the conversations you were around, how much did like playing out the scenarios of what will happen to the economy and the stock market weigh in on decision-m?
22:14No, not enough. I mean, from from the IC side, that wasn't really like our our wheelhouse, but we had smart people there from from commerce, from Treasury.
22:21Um, I mean, look, the I I think we just got >> too cocky and we thought they wouldn't shut down the streets for movies. I think we said we convinced ourselves that because they didn't do it during the 12-day war that they weren't they just simply weren't going to do it. Um, >> why didn't they do it during the 12-day war?
22:36>> Because they wanted to negotiate with us and we didn't get overtly involved. They knew that we were involved. They knew that we were helping the Israelis, but we didn't take any American strikes. And then when we did, we messaged right away. So Trump, you know, dropped the bombs on Midnight Hammer. Then he came out right away of a press conference, >> right?
22:50>> And then at the same time, we were saying to the Iranians like, "Hey, we we want this to be done and now we don't need to talk about that stuff anymore.
22:55Let's get back to negotiating table."
22:57>> And to my surprise, and everyone's surprised, the Iranians said, "Yeah, okay, let's do that. Let's get back to negotiating table. We got the Israelis through a tantrum. Let's get back to negotiating table."
23:04>> Yeah. You were saying earlier how like in the past the way you'd kind of get back channels to Iran would be through proxies whether it be Iraq or Qatar and stuff like that but once these hot wars are happening effectively whether it's the 12-day war or this one are we in an understanding where like I never remember how to pronounce their names but the dude with the goatee who goes on the TV all the time with with with Iran like a guy like that literally calls the White House and they have direct conversations. Does it get to that point or is it still there's an intermediary every time and we never really are
23:37talking to each other until you actually see JD Vance f face to face with them negotiating.
23:42>> So the Iranians especially since we killed the Ayatollah the Iranians have been pretty adamant they won't directly meet with us.
23:49>> So the Iranians are going through different intermediaries. Pakistanis Qataris you know the Emirat the um Omanis are in there as well. So yeah and we've used Geneva etc. So there there's there's different mechanisms is what they always say. Um but I think our ability to actually have those direct talks, those direct talks were going on um before the 12-day war, they're happening right after, but since this iteration of the war, um they're limited. Even even when they were doing talks, there were still intermediaries in the room and so there always was a procedure there. The Iranians are very
24:21procedural. Um the Iranians were very bureaucratic as well. And they can be frustrating. Yeah. Yeah. They can be very frustrating, I think, to to attempt to work with. Um, but yeah, so right now that's it's never it's not direct and that's a that that's a huge problem and and I think since we've killed the Ayatollah, we've taken a lot of that off the table. I think, you know, pre-killing the Ayatollah, I think President Trump probably could have gone directly to the Iranians. Like had he said like, I'm going to have my Nixon moment and go to go to China. He he he went to Tran. I think he could have
24:49pulled that off or or I think he could have gone to Qar and met them in Qatar, >> you know, and said, "Send the president over here. Let's just hash this out."
24:55Because, you know, President Trump, that's that's his thing. it strength.
24:58And now there there's folks who say that the Iranians messed that up because they should have, you know, said that they wanted to meet President Trump uh ahead of the 12-day war and they would have had that opport they may may have been able to have that opportunity. Uh I just don't know if we're going to get back to that place anytime soon because of killing the Atoll. And again, that goes back to what I've been saying the whole time. The Israelis were genius because they wanted they wanted us to get into a situation that we couldn't extract ourselves from. Um and even if we wanted to extract ourselves from, how willing
25:25would the Iranians be? Now, the Iranians can't be willing to directly negotiate with us or talk with us.
25:30>> Well, they also keep trying to kill the negotiators over and over.
25:34>> Yeah. M multiple times. And he and Trump even came out and said that like really early on. He's like, "Well, I can't say who I'm talking to because I'm afraid they'll get killed."
25:39>> Yeah. It's it's like it's like I read the room. It's right there. The answer's in front of your face.
25:44>> Yeah. Yeah. And so this this is why I said from, you know, the very first interview I gave of Tucker, I was like, "Step one's restraining the Israelis."
25:50And people got really mad at people got really mad at me for saying that. But it's just like it's borne out to be true because any like I mean you even have the president tweeting in all caps like Israel is prohibited from striking Lebanon. And within and within hours they're like let's go ahead and level a couple apartment complexes. And they've obviously made the president frustrated because he's come back out and said, you know, they need to stop doing that. If you're trying to kill one guy, you don't need to level the whole apartment complex. But the problem is, and this is what I keep going back to, people always
26:16ask me now whenever President Trump comes out with a statement that's like generally trying to restrain Israel or saying something against the Israelis, they're like, "Well, what do you think about that?" It's like until we actually take something away from them, like they're not going to take us seriously.
26:28Like, it's basically all pro wrestling.
26:29Even if the president means it, and I'm not saying he doesn't mean it, >> but the Israelis are going to be like, "Okay, well, what's it going to do, though?" You know, it's like with my kids, like I I I have this conversation with my kids all the time. whenever they they do something they know they're not supposed to do, I have to say like you understand like I'm not punishing you because like I want to or I get some satisfaction from it. If I don't take away something from you right now, you're going to repeat the same behavior. And that's literally where we're at with the Israelis. They won't
26:52respect us until we take something away from them.
26:54>> Well, you're assuming we're the adult and they're the kid.
26:56>> Well, we're paying for everything.
26:58That's the thing. Like I'm not saying I'm not saying 100% our our rationale is always right. But at the end of the day, if we if we allow emotion and how do we feel about them or how we feel about the region to get in the way, the simple math is we are paying for their military. We are paying for a good deal of their defense. If they say they can do it on their own, then godspeed. I hope you can. Um but as long as we're giving this much, we get to call the shots.
27:22>> It's the most and that's what you said from day one since since you left office. It's like it's the most obvious thing though, but that doesn't happen.
27:30>> Which begs the question beyond just like Mary Madison having a lot of money from Vegas.
27:36>> Yeah.
27:38>> Why?
27:40>> Why? Here's the thing about Trump.
27:43There's never been a guy in politics that I've seen who is as more hyper aware of polling and where the poll says Yeah. than Donald Trump. I mean, he would find polls 10 years ago when he was running that no one has ever heard of or heard of since.
28:00>> And what he had a real understanding of is >> he knew it wasn't like a criminal trial.
28:06It was like a civil trial.
28:08>> All he needed to have was the scale just >> barely twinge this way and he could go all in on that thing cuz the math was on his side. And he would always follow that. That's why, you know, the famous first words of like we're going to build a wall, you know, cuz people were he saw the math was on his side with some immigration issues and stuff and he went all the way in on it despite the fact that then some people really hated him for it. He knew he had it on his side.
28:33So, I look at all these polls he's followed over the years, and yet two polls that stand out that he just seems to like, you know, like a horse with blinders on, not look at or just decide to amnesia ignore, I don't know, are related to like Epstein and Israel. And so, to your point, now we've seen in some recent weeks like he's said some interesting things, but then it doesn't get backed. I saw a tweet the other day where it was like, "President Trump has told Benjamin Netanyahu to pull his troops out of Lebanon and Syria. Two hours later, Benjamin Netanyahu has told Donald Trump to go himself. Nothing
29:10happens. Nothing gets taken away. Why?
29:15That's the big I mean, this has been a question that I struggle with and I've articulated it publicly and you know, um, here's the problem. President Trump knew an instinctual level like everything we talked about in the first Trump administration. He understood that the Middle East was quicksand and you can't get sucked into the quicksand. He also understood as a candidate when he was going after, you know, his former adversary, now friend Marco Rubio, he said he said Marco Rubio is just going to do what Sheldon Adlesen says. He's he's because he's going to give him all the money. He's going to do what Apac
29:41says. Trump knew that. He called it out.
29:43He understood how these things worked.
29:45He also at the beginning, like I said, at the beginning of the Trump at the beginning of this administration, the president was not interested in this this conflict with Israel. People will say, "No, Joe, you don't know what you're talking about." When I was there and he was getting the briefings, he was not interested in it. He wanted the negotiations to work. He wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. He thought that he could cut a deal. He thought that every other president, and I think there was a lot to back that up, had, you know, not been able to get a good deal with Iran because they were weak or because they
30:11were dumb. And he thought that he could get a a very good deal if I ran. and he was off to a good start. Something in the spring, late spring, early summer time frame happened. I don't know what happened. I I can't tell you why.
30:21>> 25 >> 2025. Yeah. I can't tell you why his mentality changed, but it went from like we're going to create the most space that we can for the negotiations to take their course and we're not interested in a war, we got other things to do, like everything else he ran on in 2024 to okay, we're going to support the Israelis and we're going to do Midnight Hammer and we're going to continue to entertain this. I I don't know what happened. And so for me, when when something like that happens from an intelligence background, you do have to step back and look at, okay, so what else could be influencing the president?
30:50Like if he's the president, he makes the ultimate decision here. Did he just change his mind? And I have a hard time believing that Donald Trump, like you said, the guy who can look at polling and understand which side of the issue to be on. And the president also too, I think, is very good at uh intuiting vibes, for lack of a better term. He was the first like Twitter social media president. I mean, the president can take a large swath of data, and I think this is probably why he was successful in real estate and and construction. He can take a large swath of data, and maybe he doesn't know every last little
31:19detail of it, but he understands the general theme, and he can make a really quick assessment.
31:23>> Yes.
31:24>> And for him not to see where this whole thing was going to end up, I just don't buy it. And I know there's there's people out there who hate Donald Trump and they're like, "See, I told you, you know, he's he's just dumb and he fell for the whole thing." [snorts] I have a really hard time believing that. Um, and maybe I'm putting too much stock in him.
31:40However, I I just don't think he was I don't think he changed his mind and I I don't think he was like deceived or tricked. You know, I I think there was a there was a fair amount of de deception and trickery that was going on there.
31:50So, he definitely got a lot of bad information. They definitely played to his ego. They definitely told him it was going to be easy. That's all true, but for him to go through with it ultimately, I I do think there's potentially I I don't know 100%, but I think there's potentially other factors there. And so, what could those other factors be? What What influences a president? Why would a president make decisions that he doesn't agree with? If you just look at what happened to President Trump with the assassination attempts, I think that those things could factor in uh you know, he came within a fraction of an inch
32:17>> of having his head blown off on on national TV. Um I looked into the the Butler investigation. We can get into that basically.
32:24>> Yeah. I was just going to ask, it's funny you read my mind on this. I was going to ask you about that.
32:28>> Yeah. So, >> again, why does Donald Trump not get curious about that case? This is a guy who remembers enemies from 1964 in high school.
32:37>> Yeah, >> that's a huge data point. I mean, so I'll get into Butler, but you have Butler, you have West Palm Beach, and then he comes into office and it's like, we don't make any changes to security detail. As a matter of fact, some of the same people who were on duty then get promoted. Then there's multiple breaches of his multiple public breaches of his security that happen. There's the stoppage at the uh at the UN on the escalator. There's the armed police officer who comes up and shakes his hand who wasn't part of the president's detail who everyone's like, "How the guy with a gun get in here?" Well, he put on
33:04a cop uniform. Well, he was a cop, but he he walked in and did it and then it made the paper and it was, you know, a huge embarrassment. Um, and then you have the uh the restaurant in Washington DC when Trump and the cabinet are going to go out and show how safe Washington DC is. Code Pink reserves a table right next to him. They wait for the president to come in and they jump up and do their Code Pink thing where they yell at him or whatever. It's just Code Pink. It was harmless, but still it shows that someone got the president's itinerary and they knew exactly where he was going to be sitting. So between the breaches
33:32of the security, between the assassination attempts, that what does that tell the president? If you have Donald Trump's mind where you can take in a large amount of data, that lets you know that you're not safe. That like the people that are around you, you're the most powerful man in the world. They can't keep [snorts] you safe. He's got a lot of kids. He's got a lot of grandkids who I think he does love dearly and I think he has concern for them. It also says that okay th they can't be kept safe either. [snorts] Then in the interim period between Operation Midnight Hammer, when Trump tried to get
33:58us out of this disaster that the Israelis attempted to get us into and what happened in February, where the war restarts in September, you have one of the most vocal advocates against the Iran war, who is in the Oval Office advocating against the Iran war in the leadup to Midnight Hammer, Charlie Kirk, also publicly assassinated. Now, I'm we can talk about any of the I I don't know if there was potential linkage there. I would I would say what it is right now.
34:24>> But you were stopped from looking into that.
34:25>> We were stopped from looking into it.
34:26But if you put all those on a on a on a timeline and you say what else could be affecting the president that I'm looking at right now, you have to factor that in. If if this was a foreign country and I was looking at it from an intelligence perspective, I would have to factor all that in. Now, with Butler, Butler happened obviously under the Biden administration. Um when we came in in January of 2025, there was a lot of us who were eager to get to the bottom of lots of things that happened during the Biden administration. Butler was like top on my list. It was top on lots of people's lists. And so I came in, I
34:56said, "All right, let's figure out what happened with Butler because what happened on the ground didn't make sense." But then there's also been a bunch of innuendo where people said Iran tried to kill the president. Um, and so I said, "Okay, I I want to I want to get to the bottom of this and I I want to figure out if Iran had anything to do with trying to kill the president for, you know, killing at the time it was vengeance for killing Kosmani." So I said when I came back in from the intelligence community perspective, I said, "Show me all the intelligence that we have on uh assassination attempts
35:23against President Trump, Iranian involvement." When I got into the Butler file, this wasn't publicly disclosed at the time. This is all out in the public sphere now. There's a guy named Osaf Mant who was just tried in New York.
35:32He's he's a Pakistani national who obstensively was recruited by the Iranians to come here to America and find a way to kill President Trump.
35:40>> Mant is arrested two days before Butler.
35:42Right before he's arrested, he's in a hotel room and he hires some guy, a guy who he says is a sniper. And he, you know, reports back up to the Iranians.
35:50I've got a sniper and that's how I'm going to kill President Trump at one of his rallies. So I I I read this and I'm like, what happened to the sniper? We know what happened to Mashant. I got it.
35:58He's in jail. What happened to the sniper? It's, you know, I I have to do some asking around. FBI comes back and they say, "Well, don't worry about that guy. He's one of our informants." And Okay. I'm like, "All right, he's one of your informants, huh?" Okay.
36:09>> The [snorts] sniper.
36:10>> The sniper. The sniper. Cuz he was never a sniper. He he wasn't a sniper. He basically just kind of tricked Mant into saying, you know, sniper. Mant doesn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed.
36:19>> Yeah. [snorts] >> So, >> but that's the guy they picked to >> Yeah. Yeah. So, Mant's in jail. I said, okay, well, you know, I've I've ran a lot of sources in my my time overseas.
36:29And when you start hiring a source to go hire people, things get out of control really quick. It's already hard enough to control a source that you're not with all the time. But when the source starts hiring what we call sub sources, where it's like, you know, you go hire your buddy, but I only talk to you, things get pretty crazy pretty quickly. So I asked the obvious question like, okay, so that guy was your your your CHS.
36:47Number one, are you sure that Mant wasn't talking to other people and he didn't hire other snipers? Have we done the proper analysis to see if there was any linkage between anyone in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas Krooks, and anybody else that Mant interacted with?
37:01>> [snorts] >> We got blocked. Got, you know, crickets on that one. You know, like no no no answers whatsoever. You know, nothing to see here. If if you basically if you keep investigating, you keep asking questions, you're going to mess up the trial um that's ongoing with with Marawn. That's what the FBI always says.
37:15Um so I said, "Okay, fine. Crooks's devices, his computer, his cell phone, etc. Uh he's an American citizen, so normally the intelligence community wouldn't get to look at that, but he's dead. There's no Fourth Amendment issues. let's take a look at his devices and let's see if he was talking to anybody internationally, if there's any international ties here whatsoever. For the first couple months, we were told no one can get into his devices. He's got encryption on him. I said, "Okay, well, if if the FBI can't get into his devices, let's just open it up to the broader community because we've got the
37:44NSA. We've got we've got, you know, a huge intelligence community. I think someone's going to be able to get into those devices." Crickets. Fast forward later on and I actually meet with Dan Bunino and I I asked Dan, "Did you guys get into the devices?" And Dan says, "Yeah, we got into the devices." Okay, great. Like, he's like, "Well, there's nothing there."
37:58>> Nothing there.
37:59>> I'm like, "There's nothing there." Okay, >> this guy.
38:01>> I'm like, "Well," I'm like, "If there's nothing there, let like let's just let us still do our due diligence. Can we can we at least see, you know, what's in the devices and maybe there's, you know, potentially foreign ties. If not, fine, but at least we've done our due diligence."
38:12>> Dan says, you know, he'll see what he can do about it. You know, I also said I also said, "Dan, can we can we see the brief that you guys showed the president?" Because the president publicly had said he was satisfied with Butler. Later on, behind closed doors, the president said, at least around me, that he wasn't satisfied.
38:26>> Oh, we told you that >> with it. Yeah. Yeah. And then later on, he said to I think he said to Tucker, much later, like a couple months later on, that he was satisfied. So, that's what you know, it's hard to peg where all these different things are on the >> saying one thing publicly and another thing privately, >> right?
38:41>> I'm going to believe the private thing almost every time. Yep.
38:45And then then a couple months later after, and this is like in I think August, Dan and I met or maybe September, um [snorts] right after that, I think shortly thereafter, that's when Tucker disclosed his investigative journalist had found Krooks's online profile. And Krooks had a prolific online profile to include interacting with a guy from, I believe it's called the Nordic Resistance Front. I'm not going to try and say his name. It's it's a it's like a white nationalist group um that is a a specially designated global terrorist organization by the US. So we are monitoring these people. Thomas
39:16Krooks in I think 2020 2021 was in touch with with this group. And so to think that he wasn't on our radar in some way, shape or form, I I kind of have a hard time believing that. Can't prove it. But for a while there we said that like there's nothing there. But then Tucker's investigative journalist does, you know, basic internet deep dive researches that most private investigators are capable of doing and he finds those actual foreign ties.
39:42>> U and so again, we still don't know what happened with, you know, Thomas Krooks, who he was linked to. And then at the same time, the investigation of what took place on the ground, that wasn't my purview. Um but that was like a DHS purview. The DHS inspector general, also another Trump appointee, he goes in, he starts wanting to run down all the afteractions reports. He wants to look into the actions the Secret Service took that day, what other federal agencies were involved, etc. He gets blocked from doing so as well. So, okay, that's a data point, you know, like what what what's going on there. You know, fast
40:12forward to October of 25 and I have the opportunity to share because this isn't public yet. And I I have an opportunity to share this with with President Trump.
40:20Um, and he says he's not satisfied with with Butler. Like, he didn't know that there was a CHS involved with the Mashant case, etc.
40:27>> without going into anything that of course would be privilege and like off the record with the sitting president of the United States, was there any pickup that you got from it that he had continuing fears? Meaning like if this got looked into farther and got to some answers that maybe certain people didn't like his life and people around him would be strongly in danger.
40:53Did you pick up on that at all?
40:55>> No, I didn't. I mean, and I don't think I would. I mean, the president's pretty strong guy and he presents, you know, a pretty strong persona. He He just said that he like cuz when you lay out the facts of Butler, like, how can you say you're satisfied with it? He's a smart guy, >> of course.
41:06>> If you lay that out there, he's just like, "Yeah, I'm not satisfied with it."
41:08That was >> I can't believe he doesn't tweet about it every day.
41:10>> Yeah. That's the That's the That's the part that's off, right? And it's like, >> you know, and now you see again there's new intel, and this is technically unrelated to Butler, but there's new intel that like Trump has been warned by Israeli intelligence that Iran is trying to kill him. Again, it's the same intelligence that has selectively given us stuff that you've laid out that doesn't come to pass and hasn't for decades now at this point for the most part, you know, and they're running the same narrative on the place that they're upset that we're stopping the war against. And like the other
41:44thing about Iran, great to criticize their regime and all that and yes, they they've funded all these proxies you fought against them.
41:53Like they're not great. We know that.
41:56But they're not suicidal, >> right?
41:59>> In my opinion. No, >> they're [clears throat] fine with some of their people being suicidal. They'll celebrate the martyrs and blow themselves up any day. But like they want to exist and they do know that a country like ours, if we were pissed off enough, has the ability to blow them off the map if we needed to. Not that that would be like publicly supported, but if they, you know, human beings, if they got pissed enough, they could do it. So why on earth, number one, would they try to kill the sitting president? And number two, less explored question here, why didn't they do it while he was out
42:30of office for four years? They had a better shot then.
42:33>> Yeah. I mean, the Iranians after Somani was killed, they they publicly said that they were going to avenge Somani.
42:39>> I think they had to say a lot of that for domestic consumption.
42:43>> The the actions we saw them take, like the some of the plots that we saw, they were like pretty weak. They like the the Iranians are pretty we we so since we've seen since this war started the Iranians are actually pretty capable. So then it comes down to like intent versus capability. Like they had the capability but they didn't necessarily have the intent. Now fast forward to where we are now. We've killed the Supreme Leader.
43:03We've killed their head of state/ the religious leaders. You now have the the Sun. One of his first, I think, statements he's put out, not publicly, but he put out a written statement. I mean, they're talking about avenging, you know, the the Ayatollah. They're talking about going after Trump and members of his cabinet. So that I think we do have to take pretty seriously because because we've basically made a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
43:24In the leadup to killing him, there was threats here and there, but none of the plots ever turned out to be to be very seriously. And this is serious. And this is a problem, you know, we would always have with the Israelis. They would put something out and then you'd have to put it into context of like, okay, well, the Israelis clearly they're giving us this information. Some of it's probably true, but they're giving it to us because they they want to influence us, right, as well as inform us. So >> now you keep describing a lot of these different things today in different contexts as like data point
43:50>> and you'd like click it and be like okay and then eventually like it added up so much across so many different things that you took the action you did in March and and stepped aside. But when you get in there and as you described it like your first priority was like all right let's look into Butler. Yeah. And then you start to do that and you kind of get stonewalled everywhere you go and you click that data point is, you know, I'm just trying to get into the psychology because I'm not you, but like I'd just love to know how you were thinking. Is there do you go home one night and it's not like you can discuss
44:21that because it's privileged information, but at least like go for a walk or like sit out on the back deck and say, "Wait a minute. What's up here?" Like are there moments like that where >> Oh, lots lots. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we had a pretty good team there in OD9 that that uh that came in with with Tulsi. Um and so we talked about these things quite a bit because we were all working on them together of like why when we request this from our fellow Trump appointees over at the FBI like why aren't they looking for this stuff too?
44:46Like what what's going on there? Um and there's still a lot that I I don't know and I I genuinely I have no idea why people took the actions they did. But a lot of it I think is it's really easy when you're on the outside to say like the system is is bad, the system's messed up and here's how it's messed up.
45:02It's really hard when you get on the inside um to be part of that to now be part of that system and to start going after that system because the system has a way of embracing you and telling you that you're the greatest guy ever and especially if you're going to lead an organization like the FBI. They've got a way of saying like, you know, here's your security detail. we'll take you and you can go watch the the guys clear the shoot house at the hostage rescue team range and here's your private plan.
45:25You're one of us now. Like you you run this entire thing or you run the CIA.
45:28You're like you're going to run all of our covert action. You're the head spy guy. Um and so then it's hard for you to to turn around and be like now I'm going to start going after where all the rot is here. These organizations are very good and very proficient, especially the intelligence agencies at capturing their principles. And I think a lot of that is what what has happened in in the Trump administration. Unfortunately, a lot of people who I think were very very good at pointing out why these agencies, these these institutions were very flawed and working against the American people when they were on the outside.
45:56They got captured by them when they they went on the inside.
45:59>> Did you feel that happening to you at all, too?
46:02>> I mean, it's pretty easy. I mean, once you're like Senate confirmed, people call you sir and like you've got your own office and you got a driver and like it can it can totally. Had I not been in the military before and been in the CIA and and spent so much time like as a guy on the ground, I could totally see it happening to me. I mean, because you know, it doesn't happen with any nefarious intent, but it just happens because you get told like, "Hey, you're running this great organization and like now you're the head guy that's part of the organization and here's just what we do every day." And they keep you I mean
46:28principles can be kept very very busy.
46:30If you don't take steps to like manage your own schedule, you will be managed.
46:34They will >> feed them Keep them in the dark.
46:35>> Yeah. No, 100%. They'll keep you moving from meeting to meeting. It'll be very important. They'll have an agenda for it. Presentations, you know, like it's just that the apparatus is very very proficient at doing that. And usually not really for like any nefarious. Some of it's definitely got some nefarious intent, but most of it's just like that's what these positions do. You know, you're on the director's staff.
46:53Your job is to keep him moving from meeting to meeting. And you know, you you plan out the schedule. That's what you do.
46:57>> Yeah. Joe Rogan always had this great line where he'd say, "These people were there before the leaders got there and they're going to be there after they leave."
47:06>> 100%.
47:07>> And they know it. And so it's like anything that regardless of politics or policy, whatever you want to say, anything that could threaten just the order of business and how they do things, >> they're going to find little even subtle ways or not so subtle ways to quietly divert that from happening. And I think we've seen that over the past two and a half decades. A lot >> a lot. I mean, and and this is I if we get a shot at this again, I I think we've got to go in like Bulls and China shops. I mean, >> how would you do that?
47:40>> Uh, I would put people in charge of these organizations. They have, especially in the intelligence community, they have to have a background in at least the IC. Like, you can't walk into the CIA as a guy who's never dealt with, you don't have to have been a CIA officer before. It helps. Um, but you do need to have dealt a good deal with the CIA. You need to know what the department of operation the director of operations does, what special activities does. You have to know those things. Same thing with the NSA. You've got to know the lay of the land and know what the organizational priorities are
48:12of these different organizations. Number one, to do your duty and to make sure that that the those organizations are still keeping the American people safe.
48:19But then number two, to really start understanding where the the rot is. And so you have to have people that are not just your standard pay-to-play political operatives who like, you know, I I ran in the primary against the guy and and now I'm going to get a cool cabinet position. You you've got to have people who like, hey, this is probably going to be the last thing they do in government.
48:35Um, and they're they're okay with that.
48:38And they're okay with not getting put on any boards at Loheed Martin or Rathon or, you know, any of these other great Washington DC institutions [clears throat] afterwards. Um, >> great Washington DC. I see what you mean.
48:49>> Yeah. Yeah. or or you mean because there's just so many boards, there's so many places that you can go afterwards.
48:52If you play the game, if you just kind of hold the seat and get your picture on the wall and, you know, you go receive awards and you go visit people at, you know, different outposts and say everyone's doing a great job, there's going to be a great job for you somewhere in in Northern Virginia, Washington DC on on a board or a think tank or university, etc. We need people who don't want any of that crap. Um, who want nothing to do with it. We we we have a good cadray right now, I think, of experienced people from the war on terror and from the intelligence community who understand where the rot
49:20is. We brought a lot of them in OD and I unfortunately a lot of them have kind of gotten pushed out. Um we've had a lot of whistleblowers come out um I think in the last five six years uh in these different organizations that could go in and say I want to say single-minded focus on what the what the the true mission of this organization is. um cut out all the fluff and start exposing a lot of the rot which is going to be very unpleasant I think for the US government at large. But if we don't my fear is that if we don't do that soon if we don't start exposing a lot of the the places where the intelligence community
49:54has kind of gone off the rails if we don't do that soon eventually this next generation that's coming up they're going to say like I don't even think we need an we just need to shut the entire thing down. like the the the bounceback effect from what we've had so far, from all the dishonesty, all the corruption, all the lies, it's going to be such a boomerang effect that I think it's going to make the country uh it's going to put the country in a very unsafe place. So, if we don't get people who are like, "This is going to be the last thing I do in government, potentially even professionally, but I'm going to go in
50:21and I'm going to start exposing the rot." Um, if we don't have those people in and we let this system continue, I'm afraid it will implode on itself.
50:29>> Yeah. I mean it you see more and more people out there and I understand it who are like get rid of all of it but at the same time >> the way that let's say some of the really awful corruption that's existed in some of these places has been allowed to continue to exist as they've been able to manipulate and distract the public again and again and again over the decades so that when you know like they had the church commission in the 70s.
50:52>> Yeah.
50:52>> CIA is still strong and powerful today going you know what I mean? So, they find a way to move the ball off it. And like you even talked about the the 12-day war and how it escalated, I think you said, pretty quickly and that something changed with Trump. And I don't know what that was. It's pure spec for me to say this. I got no proof of this kind of thing, but there was kind of like a big tweet Friday, June 6, 2025, where you had Elon and Trump go at each other and then suddenly we're in Iran. Boom. Like a week later. I see like that and I go, "Huh? data point to use your term. Yeah. Could you
51:27see why the average guy out there like me is sitting there listening to this right now and and thinking that like yeah maybe oh yeah then we invaded we did the Somalian fraud thing a week later it did the Venezuela thing that was two weeks after they released the Epstein files on a Friday before Christmas and then another big one came out that was a big problem. So four weeks later when we're in Iran all the way like could you see why people think like this and just see that it's like distraction after distraction after distraction.
51:54>> Yeah. And then we turn around and we say like, "How dare you talk about Jeffrey Epstein still?" I mean, it's come on. I I just this is not what we ran on in 2024. And so I I if we're not more forthright and honest about what these things truly are with the American people, like again, the whole system, I'm afraid, is going to implode. And again, like the the number of data points that we've had, not not just in this administration, but if we step back in like the 2020 time frame with CO and everything else that's come out, like there's a reason why your average person who's generally informed right now is
52:24starting to think like, hey, our government actually is always doing the opposite of what they tell us and they're always working against us. Like they have really, really good reason to think that right now. And again, my my fear as a guy who served my country for, you know, 20 plus years is that like pretty soon here, the whole bottom is going to fall to this whole thing because we at the end of the day, we have a pretty high trust society. But if people think like their votes don't matter, if they start thinking that like no matter who I vote for, I get another stupid war in the Middle East, inflation
52:50goes up even more, my, you know, intelligence agencies are spying on me and taking away my civil liberties, um, you know, that that that is going to erode the entire system faster than the the financial collapse we were just talking about.
53:03>> Yeah. And then they can't pay for groceries. Yeah. They're putting data centers everywhere for Peter Teal, you know, >> and cameras so they can stalk us and tell us this is because we need to win AI. We need to monitor absolutely everything that you guys are doing. Like I I'm sorry. Like I have a problem with that. You know, I'm glad you do.
53:19>> I don't trust my government.
53:20>> Now, to be a cynic for a minute, I I don't like being a cynic. I'll admit when it comes to the government, I'm a bit of a cynic, though. You know, you talk about like if we get another shot at this, you know, whoever it is, we got to go in there and do it right. And you laid out some of the ways you would do that. But >> there's a lot of people out there thinking right now, regardless of Donald Trump's like politics, they're going, "Well, technically, this was the outsider. Yeah, >> this was, you know, the guy who was like, I'm selfunding my campaign and all that, who, you know, was coming in and
53:51was going to drain the swamp and was going to put people like you in charge and stuff and support them even when it was some points maybe they didn't want to hear. And yet here we sit, you know, and it appears to be the opposite in a lot of ways. Could you see why people out there are like, "Joe, that's an amazing idea and I believe you. You want to do it, but that's not going to happen."
54:11>> Oh, no. I totally get that. And that's another thing that I'm I'm uh the younger generation is very informed and I love the way they think. My fear with the younger generation is that they're going to say like, "Yeah, I tried that in 24 and I got screwed, right?
54:23>> And so I'm just not going to participate anymore." Or they're going to go completely the other direction and they're going to go if one of the the more socialist leaning candidates and say like, "Okay, like let's let's actually try that now." Um so I I I think there is a pathway where we could get another shot at this but I do think we have to keep the scope very very narrow and a lot of it [snorts] is going to be uh involved in educating the people uh on you know some of the reasons why I think Trump went off the went off the rails a lot of it is money I mean he he to a certain you can't say
54:50that 200 million over $200 million from Mary Maidson >> 232 >> yeah didn't influence him and that's just her I mean that [clears throat] doesn't include the rest of the pro Israel apparatus so we we have to say like hey sometimes these candidates aren't going to have as much money as the next guy, but we've got to be able to either through small dollar donors raise the money ourselves or just be willing to have a true grassroots campaign and support people who say and that we can check in on that they're just simply not taking the money. I think that's going to be a huge a huge part of it.
55:19>> Yeah. Now, another thing that's come up a lot that I don't know what to think because it's just like kind of all over the place is like the relationship intelligence communitywise between the United States and Israel. And obviously, this is all now top of mind with section 219 and all that stuff potentially going through, which we can talk about. But what's always been interesting to me is any intelligence guy I've talked to and I'm going to put this on a scale of Andrew Bamonte to John Kiryaku from one end of the spectrum to the other.
55:52Whenever I have asked them off camera and then eventually it's been on camera too about their relationship with Israeli intelligence.
56:02>> Yeah.
56:03>> I have never heard a positive word in my life from any of them. And it is people I've talked to before that haven't been on the podcast, people that have been on the podcast who are in other agencies as well. There seems to be a unanimous consideration that they are annoyed. And so that's different that's different than the diplomatic relationships we see in say Congress and Senate and you know where there's politics and stuff like that. But you see [clears throat] a lot of this thing online where people are like, "Well, CIA and MSAD are one and the same." I mean, I guess I'm open to the argument, but I
56:42don't how can it be that way when so many people there, at least behind, you know, maybe publicly they say one thing, but behind the scenes, you know, there seems to be a lot of disagreement there.
56:52So maybe the better way to ask it is as someone who now lived in the intelligence apparatus, did you find that there was a different opinion among a large group of people within the intelligence agencies about our relationship with Israeli and specifically with their intelligence agencies?
57:08>> Yeah, I mean at the at the ground like operational level, I mean what you described is pretty accurate. Um I I think most of us though, especially if you're more of a special operations guy, >> we have a lot of respect for the MSAD. I mean, the operations that those guys can carry out, the targeted assassinations, the way that they're able to run proxies, uh, support agents, what they did in the early phases of the 12-day war, very impressive. That's stuff that like we we aspire to do, uh, in some theaters and we just haven't been able to do. Like they're they're good at what they do. So, there is a healthy respect
57:38there.
57:39>> However, if you work for them for for a while, there there does come an annoyance where, you know, a lot of partners that we work with, they will kind of ask us constantly for things, which is to be expected. Um, but they still are differential to us in the sense they know that we're the world's most powerful nation and we're funding them and they and they need it more than we need them. With the Israelis, you don't get that. With the Israelis, best case, they'll shoot shoot you straight like a peer. Um, but a lot of times there's an entitlement that comes with that of like, you know, you guys are
58:08going to end up doing this anyways. And a lot of times they like a lot of times they end up being right because the problem is why people will say the CIA and the MASA are joined at the hip because the CIA director in a lot of cases will end up being it's a political appointee >> chosen by the president. The president needs to show the donors that he's going to put one of their guys in there. I mean at the beginning of this administration you had the head of Apac bragging on camera >> about cliff >> about Ratcliffe and and about a guy who I like Mike Waltz um being the national security adviser. So if [snorts] you can
58:39short circuit that system, I think the way that you put stop gaps in there is you grab guys that have been out in the field who, you know, the president needs to feel that he politically aligns with them, that he's one of their guys, but that's who needs to be in charge of these organizations, uh, as opposed to the guy who owes his political career to Apac, who then is a favor to the donor that donated to President Trump to be in charge of one of the the intelligence agencies. That's how you sever that joint at the hip. And then we can start treating the Israelis like any other liaison partner. Like some things are
59:06good, some things are bad. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. This is a good relationship. We're just I think we're just so far removed from that with the Israelis.
59:14[snorts] >> Now, you said you had a chance to listen to Rogan with JD Vance. I did >> on the way here. So, Amanda and I were listening to like maybe 40 minutes of it on 2.0 Speed before, so we got like the middle of it >> right there. But >> J D had kind of was like the same week where Trump started to say some things like, "Yeah, you don't need to blow up the whole building or whatever." and and things like that. JD went out and suddenly it felt a little bit gloves off with saying, "Hey, let's cut the here." Which, okay, cool. Some of us are like, "Well, this is 2 years and 1.2 million people displays too late, but
59:50all right, it's better than nothing."
59:53What did you think of what I picked up on as like a little bit of talking out of both sides of his ass with with Rogan?
60:02>> I don't want to put words in. got a tough job. I mean, like I think I think some at some point in the the Rogan interview, he even said like my job is to support the president, not opine on his policies. Um I I don't think it's too far out of school for me to say like JD was probably one of the more skeptical people about the war. I mean, even the president has come out and said that.
60:21>> Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help.
60:27And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, [snorts] you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.
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