Trump's Next Iran Move, and Havana Syndrome Cover-Up, with Bryan Dean Wright, PLUS Stephen A. Smith’s Political Future

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Welcome to Acroparty, everyone. Happy Monday. I'm coming to you live this evening from

the Harvard campus because I am, of course, an intellectual giant and exactly where I have

a long go. I was talking to some students here today, and I'm excited to talk through this wild

news cycle. The president just wrapped me. That's one of the good things about doing a show at night.

These news cycles do not quit, and Donald Trump is not quit a news cycle, and the man can drive news

no matter what hour it is. So often, we get a news cycle. Like today's, he just finished a press

conference just within the last couple of hours. He's at Derral, in Florida. He spoke to reporters.

He's there meeting with Republican lawmakers, but took time behind the podium and filled in all

kinds of questions that made huge news. I'll give you a little bit of a tease. He said, actually,

that he thinks the war is almost over at one point. So we have that video and audio coming up in

just one moment. As a reminder, please do subscribe. It helps us out so much. Subscribe to the

YouTube channel, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, like, comment, all of that stuff.

It is enormously helpful to us as we bring you independent journalism here on After Party. All right.

So tonight's guest, I'm so excited about. You may remember, I had Brian Dean Wright on

Federalist Radio Hour. Like if you go way back with me, you remember Brian Dean Wright. It wasn't

that long ago. Actually, it was, it was really before I left the Federalist. He's the host of a really,

really interesting show. You actually, in fact, he's here because many of you asked me to talk to Brian

once again. It's called the right report going to bring him in in just one moment, but this is

really the perfect news cycle because what's happening in Iran is heavily dependent on intelligence

and on the shadowy world of intelligence, domestic intelligence agencies and foreign intelligence

agencies. So we're going to kind of peel back the layers of that. We're also going to talk about

what happened in New York City with the foiled, apparently, terror attack the last couple of days,

wild reactions from Mayor Mamdani, politicians like Brad Lander that have since been walked back,

I think, rightfully so, but we're going to dive into all of that. Another reason that we had the

perfect news cycle to get Brian here, CBS dropped a massive segment full of original reporting on

Havana syndrome just last night, like years worth of reporting on Havana syndrome in a half hour

segment. So there's a lot to discuss. If you aren't up on Havana syndrome, you're not going to want

to miss this because, I mean, even if you are, you're not going to want to miss this because it's

this Pandora's box of what we can trust in media, what we can trust from intelligence agencies

and where we are in this new or maybe continued Cold War period. You know that I'm obsessed with

Cold War history and this story really like touches on a lot of different layers of that.

Chrissy Nome out at DHS, there's so much to discuss. Also, Stephen A Smith, apparently ruling out

a run for presidency, kind of bad news for Democrats and I'm not actually totally joking on that

front. So there's tons to get to tonight as you can see. I mean, even just going through the

president's news conference that just wrapped alone is going to be some heavy lifting and I'm excited

to get into all of it. First, though, I'm going to take a quick break. Stay with us. Brian will be

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section. All right, so excited to be joined tonight by Brian Dean Wright. He's a former CIA

ops officer and he's host of the right report, which I highly recommend you all check out.

Brian, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be here. Congratulations,

great show. Look at you go. Love it. It's so good to talk to you in the midst of this insane

news cycle. Yeah. And for your purposes, I mean, do you get this is a very random question,

but as I just mentioned, former CIA ops officer, people who listen to your show know that do you

ever get like FOMO now that you're out? Do you watch some of this stuff go down and you're like,

man, if I were there? Yeah, of course. I mean, look, once you become an Intel officer,

you know, I started when I was, let's see, 24. So I was a pretty young guy when I went in,

so that was, you know, pushing 20 plus years ago. So yeah, when I see a lot of ops go down

abroad or like, I see something. I'm like, I think that's an Intel op right there. I'm like,

oh, boy, but I wouldn't give V back. So yeah, yeah, there's a little bit, a little part of me

that wishes I could be back inside doing good work. But that's all right. I mean, with you,

that's good. I was going to say you're here on after party, which is I'm sure very similar

to special. It's pretty much the same thing. Yeah. It's just like you right now, you are in Doha

and this is you're my asset. I'm going to start debriefing. I'm just going to get to Iran.

Let's go through the crypto process. We're like, I'm going to pay you. We're going to actually,

you can teach something up. That's really important, which is how do people communicate when you're

inside of Iran? And there's some really interesting by your old school, like Morse code,

like stuff that's floating around there on shortwave radio right now trying to top. We're not

really sure exactly what that is. We can talk about that. Maybe Iran is trying to signal its

terror networks abroad to start killing people blowing stuff up. Maybe it's a CIA working inside

of Iran telling its assets to get going. So there is all kinds of stuff in this news cycle that's

below the headlines that's really, really interesting and very impactful for people's lives in ways

that you might not even know. Oh my gosh, you just made me even more excited to dive into this.

So let's start with some big news from Donald Trump's Florida press conference just this evening.

So here are a couple of big clips from that, like the headline type clips. This is S1. We'll start

with us. We're keeping it up live audience. Don't make it you my best Trump impression. I can just

say something. The word Iran and winning. Nobody else can be me. It's amazing.

The best CIA. Let's try S3. Let's see if this works. Okay, wait on a minute. Okay, so basically,

let's actually we'll get to the shots in just one second. I want to, since this goes with exactly

what we were just talking about, I was going to ask you about this anyway, but you kind of teased it.

So let's dive right into it. Al monitor reported. This is F3. The headline here, CIA,

Mossad, bolster, Iran's Kurds as US Israel seek to ignite military revolt. And this question

that we were actually just going to play Trump answering is about how long the war goes.

And we have this thought. Let's go with S1. This is a clip of Trump from this evening.

The Navy has gone. It's all lying at the bottom of the ocean. 46 ships. Can you believe it?

In fact, I got a little upset with our people. I said, what quality of ship?

Excellent, sir. Top of the line. I said, why did we just capture the ship? We're going to use it.

Why did we sink them? They said it's more fun to sink them. They like sinking and better.

They say it's safer to sink. And I guess it's probably true. But think of it, we knocked out 46

and actually took three and a half days. Their terrorist leaders are gone or counting down the

minutes until they will be gone. Think of it. We had leaders and they're gone. That we had new

leaders and they're gone. And now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be

there out of the country and will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.

Okay, Brian, nobody knows, but there's some public indication that there's a CIA op with the

Kurds, although that's also been disputed, which is interesting. Before I get your reaction,

let's roll S3 here too. On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon.

Are you thinking this week it will be over? No, but soon. I think so. Okay, and very soon. Look,

everything they have is gone, including their leadership. In fact, there are two levels of

leadership, and even actually, as it turns out, more than that, but two levels of leadership are

gone. Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about. So,

it's obviously been very, very powerful, very effective.

This is a really important point, Brian, because the intelligence that the USA appears,

so this apparently was CIA, communicating to Israel, the location of the Ayatollah,

who obviously was killed. It seems because of that intelligence. As you're looking at this

from your vantage point, how much of this seems like grand strategy, and how much of this seems

like, well, the intelligence was, you take out the Ayatollah, what comes next? We'll figure it out.

The Kurds, how are you analyzing what happened from the outside here?

Yeah, so let's start with the beginning of how they were able to find the Ayatollah.

You know, there's some really incredible operations going on inside of the CIA and within

inside of Masad. What they're able to do was crack cameras throughout the city of Tehran,

and they were able to watch the bodyguards that they believed that were responsible for protecting

the Ayatollah and other regime officials, and they would watch them going from their homes

to different locations throughout Tehran. That's how they were able to understand exactly where

Ayatollah would be on any particular day. So the pattern of life information was it was able to

get hacked by the CIA, by Masad, and that's how we were able to know where everybody was gathering

that Saturday morning, and we could then take them out. It just so happened that that meeting

happened that morning and that day. The plan was not for everybody to be there at one time,

and that's why the president, the CIA, gave that material to the Israelis and said, look,

if you want to take these guys out, let's do it. It was a big op, and I think it changed a lot of

planning. I don't think that we had any indications that everybody was going to be gathered that morning,

and so it was a shot that we took, that took out that Ayatollah, a lot of the regime leadership,

which is great, but as the president said, like, who comes second? Who comes third? Well,

we just wiped everybody out. You know, the CIA and others at the Pentagon were counting on,

who was going to take over after the Ayatollah? Well, we killed everybody, or the Israelis did,

and that's right. So now we have the real great change of who comes next, not just for the Ayatollah,

which obviously the remaining son has been chosen now, but then also you'll future leadership within

what's called the IRGC, which is the regime's main military that supports it. So there was just,

the point is from the average Americans perspective, like, why should we care about that?

Well, you got to negotiate with somebody to end a war, and when you wipe out all your leadership,

like, who do you talk to? You don't know. And you'll trump kind of jokes about it, but it really,

really is serious when you try to look at an off ramp, how do you end this war? Now, the price

of oil is going from like 80 to 120 barrel dollars of barrel down back to 80. It's really

wild. It's very intense. A lot of people's lives are impacted by this. So that CIA op is a great

off. We're able to find the Ayatollah, a lot of the regime leadership. And unfortunately,

we took out a lot of people that we thought would be the number two or number three, our preferred

choices. So that's why that particular op mattered. And on that point, I'm curious with Trump saying

it could be over very soon. I mean, that could mean a lot of different things.

How much does our ability to, I mean, Colin Powell had, Powell had famously the, you break it,

you're buy it, maximum. It's contrasting, I think, in a lot of people's minds with Venezuela,

where nothing was entirely broken. There was a very, very different, not so much customary,

quote, regime change operation in Venezuela. And is, from your perspective, I mean, we're looking at

these reports of the Kurds that we just had up on the screen with El Monitor. The committee's

son is an IRGC guy. He was serving the IRGC, I think, like in the 80s. How much of this depends

on our ability to piece together some alternative to the IRGC or to turn the committee's son into

Delcy Rodriguez, which seems laughable. Do we have to put it back together again with CIA

boots on the ground, or is there a way to just kind of let come any son take over and hope for

the best? That's the million dollar question that a lot of people are asking. So let's start with

your main point, which is that the president, I think the Pentagon, were believing that this

operation in Iran could be somewhat similar to Venezuela. We take out 80% of the regime

leadership. We leave the top person in charge and they'll be our puppet. That's really the

Venezuela model. What's very different about Venezuela as compared to Iran, Venezuela is pretty much

one country with one group of people, one ethnicity, one religion, not a lot along history of

other nations around it, you know, invading. So that was that experience. It is, although

Venezuela's a pretty good size country, but the point is it's not historically as complex,

religiously, ethnically in the rest of it, or on the other hand, thousands of years of different

competing empires and religions and ethnic groups and all the rest of it, it is a hornet's nest

of a nest to try to get into. With about 60% of the Iranian people Persian, you've got about 20%

who are Kurds, another 10% or so, Azaris, and then in the far eastern part of the country,

people called the Baluch. So it's a really challenging place to try to govern and in years gone by,

not only does the current regime understand that, but you've got the different

previous, the Shaws and then the other families that came before him. So I think this idea that I

prefer from the White House that somehow this is going to be the same as Venezuela or similar. It's

like, no, that's crazy. So the Kurds, of course, from the northwestern part of the country,

got to really understand that the Kurds are not just as monolith. They are represented by all kinds

of different sorts of people. There's the Syrian Kurds, there's the Iraqi Kurds, there's the

Iranian Kurds, and then within each group, there are sub tribes and some and clans and families,

and some of them are super, super far left. They're Marxist, they're communist, some of them are

much more capitalist. So when you talk about like, are we going to arm some of the Kurds? Well, which

Kurds we talk about? And then can you actually control those people? Because maybe today you're

going to, you're going to find the Kurds that are from Iran that are hunker down in Iraq right now.

So you're going to give them a bunch of weapons. Are they really going to be the proxy force that

you want? Are they really going to stay true to what you're tasking is? Or are they going to go

sort of offer a reservation to use that on PC term? And I think that that's one of the great

challenges of any proxy force that the CIA has used over the years is how long do they stick

with you? It's a very transactional relationship. So, yeah, I was, I was going to say Tulsi Gabbard,

who's now in charge of the DNI. She's a director of national intelligence. She's literally in

charge of national intelligence. Famous is very critical that we ended up via the CIA,

funding both sides of the Syrian civil war because of the way that situation transpired. And I just

have a hard time looking at the situation again, totally from the outside and expecting things to

go differently. I don't know is my cynicism misplaced? No, I think that you're looking at the

last 25 years of US history in the region. You're sitting in Iraq and Afghanistan. That hasn't

worked out well. We look at Libya has not worked out well. Syria has not worked out well.

And I think if you really dig into some of the Afghanistan experience, you know, we try to work

with some of the tribal leaders on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan along the

Duran line. And that did not work out well either. So, we've got about 25 plus years of it not

going so well. So, your cynicism is completely well placed in my view. And that's why when I

first started here in the president, others talking about using the Kurds, I'm like, no, no,

no, no, that was really a reaction. That's super interesting. For sure, for sure. Look,

the agency has told, and I can tell you this with high confidence, the agency through director

Rackliffe, the CIA, told President Trump as well as some of our Arab partners has said, look,

this is not the right group of people to work with. We don't have them fully vetted. We have some

historical relationships with some of the Iraqi Kurds, definitely with the Syrian Kurds.

You don't like us anymore. And it's just, it's going to be a mess. So, it's going to complicate

things, especially as the Turks, the government of Turkey and Ankara, do not work with them,

Iraq government, Baghdad, do not work with them. So, we're just going to get really, really

complicated really quickly. And I think that the president very wisely did a U-turn. It's like,

all right, we're not going to work with the Kurds. It's just going to make things a lot more

complicated. And as you teed up perfectly in today's pressur, he said or emphasized a lot more

focus on just the nuclear mission. Let's go after the loose nuke material. Let's go after those

scientists. Let's maybe go after the delivery systems, those ICBMs, those long-range missiles.

But let's keep that mission really tight, really narrow. And let's focus on that stuff, because per

Gallup, pulling 80% of Americans say, it's good to focus on trying to stop this spread of nuclear

weapons throughout the world. So, that's something that the president politically would be very smart

to do U-turn on. Get away from the regime, change stuff. Turn that over to these railings in

the Arabs. Let him focus on the nuclear mission. Makes a lot more sense.

Now, this question of boots on the ground often calls to mind the images of, you know,

ground troops, army, et cetera. And Marines, how much of that could possibly be is

CIA? I'm asking this question like a dummy, because it's, I mean, it's, I think it seems fairly

obvious to me that there are CIA operations happening in Iran right now, but I guess the question

is assets versus agents versus, right, like, explain to us what's like-

Oh, that's the worst nuke. Yeah. So look, I think what you're seeing is a lot what happened

in Ukraine. So we've been able to the CIA and we've been in with special forces, and we set up

bases throughout Ukraine. And we fought the Russians. We were providing targeting intelligence

to the Ukrainians to better kill Russians. So that's what we did in Ukraine. And I think that

that's what we're doing here as well in Iran is that we're sending in probably, I don't know if

it's CIA officers necessarily, but definitely our assets. The people that a guy like me would have

recruited, we would then put them inside a baron to do different things like target packaging,

putting together like pattern of like behavior. We want to kill somebody or we want to blow up

a facility. One of the guards get there, you know, how long did they stay at their post went

at what time did they take breaks? How long did those breaks last? Who are those people?

At what point are there no guards? You know, what are the narrow opportunities to to ex-full or

infiltrate and say special forces person going ahead grab nuclear material? All that kind of

information, those kind of asset networks, those are absolutely inside of Iran right now. We're

collecting that intelligence. And that then allows us boots on the ground, but not an invasion force.

We're talking about like a very small number 15, 20, 25 guys probably from Delta Force.

They've got a specific group of guys that go after loose nuke material. So it would be those guys

that once we have that good intel, the massage, these realies have brilliant networks inside of

Iran as well. We collect that information and probably facilities like ones called Isfahan,

other ones Natans. But the one that isfahan is probably where most of the material is at.

Not buried and entombed under dozens and dozens of feet, but maybe just a handful of feet.

That nuclear material that's enriched to about 60%. It's in containers about the size of a big

scuba air tube. So that's what you're looking to figure out is what kind of security is around that

to then with that CIA networks, missod networks. Then you're sending in your boots on the ground,

those are the special forces guys that Delta guys, they're going in with whatever period of time

they think they're going to need to dig that stuff up that's in that shallow grave as it were.

Grab it and then get out either destroy it there on site or probably more likely you're

going to send it to helicopters, grab those guys and then get them out with the material.

And that's so interesting. What is the feasibility? I mean, obviously again, we're

talking out of podcaster, but the feasibility of our current military readiness preparation,

I mean, again, the Venezuel operation went swimmingly from the strategy perspective of the admin.

So the feasibility of recovering nuclear material enriched 60% from your vantage point,

how likely feasible of a goal is that? Yeah, so look, there are sites that we know are

pretty high confidence that we know where that nuclear material is at and we know the depth

that which it's buried. The stuff that's really entombed, I don't think we're super concerned about

that. We want to keep a watch on that with both on the ground until networks as well, satellite

imagery. So that part, I think, is less concerning for the administration. I think what's more

concerning is that stuff that isn't quite buried as deeply or maybe we've got to collapse tunnel,

you know, whatever number of feet and the ronians can get back and they're relatively quickly,

that's the part that the administration, the CIA and the Pentagon are worried about.

And that's what Delta would go in and do. Have those guys done that work before? They have,

what we really praise God, have not had a ton of loose nuke issues to worry about. And so Delta

might have to dust off their boots a little bit with this particular mission, but they can do

it. This is what they trained to do. This is what the CIA does if they have networks on the ground

to find this intel to then inform the mission. But look, it's a high, it's a high risk situation.

Anytime that you're going to have boots on the ground for any extended period of time,

but you would probably need to have a fair number of hours, maybe longer, even potentially days,

you're going to need to control that turf to a certain degree. It just really depends on the

amount of material, how deep it's buried and how long it's going to take to get that out.

Based on that, you're going to have to make some big decisions about how long to deploy guys

and how much of that turf you're really going to need to control. I think what I'm hearing from

the president is that we're going to need some guys on the ground for more than just like an hour

or less. We're probably going to need them there for a substantially longer period of time,

which means that you're going to have to keep up this campaign. Even though we didn't say today,

we're not going to do it for a lot longer. I think you're going to have to keep it up for a while

to really create some space in these areas like Isfahan to deploy our guys. It's either that or

you get a new set of leaders in Tehran, whichever ones are alive today. And then they agree to give

some of this material and let its spectres go in there and do a proper job to find this material

and don't get it out. When I just wanted to go back to that point before we wrap up the segment,

I wonder what perspective you could share with us on intelligence sharing between

Assad, Israeli intelligence in general, CIA, American intelligence in general, because the point

you were making earlier about what could, I was also just generally curious, I'm kind of

grafting two questions together here, what you made of the first week where it wasn't exactly

the Bay of Pigs, but you have this idea where there's air cover and there isn't no obvious

there is no obvious counter revolution. You don't have everyone rising up in the streets,

seizing power from the IRGC and the like. So I guess the two parts of the question are one,

do you sense an intelligence failure that we thought something would materialize that didn't?

Was it our hand being forced? And then the second part of the question is what's the intelligence

sharing like and how important is that going to be going forward? Yeah, so let me tackle the

first question. I don't think it was an intelligence failure. I think what the CIA in fact I know

with the agency told the White House the next security council is, look, there is nobody that's

rising up. In part because of the regime for 20 plus 35, actually what 40 years now has squelched

any kind of rebellion and they have killed lots of people. In fact, in the past six weeks or so we're

talking about 10 to 40 plus thousand people were killed by the regime. Plus the average person

doesn't have weaponry, isn't it? Not able to organize themselves. So I don't think anybody had any

any kind of belief that there would be this sort of organic uprising. So that's the first piece.

I don't think there was an intelligence failure there at all. Had there been something that would

have been an incredible part of like where do these proxy forces inside of Tehran come from? We

have no idea. As for the intelligence sharing and this gets to some of the allegation that

is Israel leading this, is Netyao kind of pulling Trump by the nose to get us involved in this.

It looked from an intelligence sharing perspective, from a nation perspective.

Different countries have different goals and different interests. I can tell you working with

the British. Of course, supposed to be our number one ally and we're supposed to be our best

friends, right? You know, 60 plus years ago when we were thinking about whether we should get

involved in the Second World War, Churchill set up a propaganda arm inside of the United States

in New York to convince FDR and the United States American people to join the war. So from that

till about 10 years ago, I had a British intel office for a gal like she was a honey pot.

She was like, Brian, why don't you come over to the UK and we'll hang out and you're so handsome.

I'm like, no, okay, lady. I don't know. The one British only had good teeth. They're like

I'm tempted and I'm flattered. But the answer is no. But look at the point is any foreign nation has

interest and they will try to manipulate the United States to get what they want. The British do it,

the French do it and used to work with them. In fact, we do ops on occasion with the Chinese and

the Russians even still. So with that sort of context, you have to appreciate and understand

that Israel is not going to be any different. Israel also uses honey pots and I can tell you that

from another personal perspective they will send very, very pretty girls who sit next to you on

an airplane and try to squeeze you in information. So all nations do it. Is Netanyahu trying to do that

with us in this war to try to get more of or bigger change out of Iran? I wouldn't be shocked to

the answer. Oh, of course I would imagine he is and he's trying to make the case with Trump that

the white and America's interest to do that. But I think what the president is now say what I heard

him saying is pressured tonight is look, we have to get back to this focus on the nooks

and the missile delivery systems. That is a defensible position for him. It might not be whether

Israelis or Netanyahu wants and that's okay because we have very good intel sharing with

Mesa not everything and sometimes when you share intel it's not to just inform it's also to

influence so the Israelis may share intel with us. It's really good but the whole point is like to

get us to do something. So you have to be really careful if you're CIA director or you're a president

yet to really understand that nations intend to both influence you and inform you that includes

with your intel sharing and you got to be really careful to make sure you stay focused on your

particular country's mission because any country from the brits of the Chinese to yes these

Israelis will try to pull you off if you're not real careful. Oh my goodness this is fascinating.

Branding right is going to be with us on the other side of this break so we'll be right back

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not gonna lie now that we're back with Brian Dean Wright host up the right report former CIA officer

I opened a second beer during the commercial break and it exploded all over me so Brian

I hope you're having a better experience with whatever's in your mug you know what uh thank you

it's it's water because I'm a tea roller and I spent most of my years at the agency drinking too much

so my liver is recovering but I appreciate a beer exploding I've had some fun experiences

out in the field with beer uh some Arabs they're naughty naughty people since we're tired

about the Arabs a bunch of losses anyway you brought it up but I digress but I digger you should

go to the least they'll love you they drink secretly it's fine they like the beer over there I

would think there would be more spirits well it's they're it's it's all you've all it's all the

cinnamon they just do it in private yeah no you know the the drinking the hookers and the gambling

it's just they just do it in private I'm telling you so that has to be odd in a place like Iran

just I'm on a tangent now where you don't especially because there's been this like weird softening

of like the morality police over the last year like just sensing out the situation

in a country where it is religiously diverse and it's I mean that that has to be incredibly

mind melding to try like you've got to be in a pretzel trying to figure out what to do when

yeah you know one of the the huge drug trades is going on in the Middle East right now is a drug

called captegon you know that there's this official veneer of the Middle East that's very pious

and that's certainly through the royal families and a lot of people in public but behind closed

doors there's a ton of cocaine going on all throughout the country captegon is huge and you've

got a ton of people who travel to Europe and and party there it's look and I can tell you I don't

know how many Arab diplomats that I hang that I hung out with or worked with that were like big

boosers and big gamblers and they have more mistresses than you can shake a stick at and they were

I don't even want to go into the radar or stuff it gets real nasty real quick

well the salt and silly honorable things for my country well you probably saw the salt and

silly emails in the Epstein files where he's making wildly off-color dresses in emeraldi wildly

off-color dress jokes not just just those people are dirty they're right dirty mama let me tell

so that rang true to you yeah yeah no it's uh let me just tell you I want to and I'll keep

this PG-13 I went to an Arab diplomat's house and I walked in there and he was doing like a

Skype session can I deal with the coity princess and I'm not going to tell you specific details

but there weren't a lot of clothes involved on either side of the camera and I walk in and I'm like

just keep bringing on the black label whiskey this is what I'm doing for my country right now

everybody owes me America you're welcome this is awful yeah so look it's all these societies

abroad you know they've got the veneer of what they want you to believe about who they are but

then underneath that there are different kinds of of um real life it's like real housewives

of the Middle East and all the dirty stuff that happens behind the scene anyway so that's

promotion you've heard of it well on that note let's talk about Havana syndrome which if people

don't follow this closely it is and has been in a source of enormous controversy among the kind

of CIA skeptical crowd and the maybe more establishment defense policy crowd but also actually

within apparently the CIA itself it seems 60 minutes dropped a 27 27 minute not quite 60 27

minute expose investigation based on years of reporting into Havana syndrome on Sunday evening

some big highlights uh Scott Pelley said one of the things that makes Havana syndrome which is of

course if again people haven't been following this uh you have people in the US intelligence

community saying that they feel intense pains to nitis uh like their head is in a vice uh and

the suspicion is that this has been done as the CBS report said by literal micro waves uh like in

in the air via an estate actor obviously with the Havana syndrome name you can uh take guesses at

some of the suspects but in the CBS report they say uh that Russians have been doing this research

for decades decades ago the CIA believed it was unlikely this is again according to CBS news

in 60 minutes uh at the time the CIA dismissed it as not possible uh but here's what one former

CIA officer told CBS in the package last night this is gonna be s7 i remember feeling you know

that this is so unusual i've been shot at in places like Iraq and Afghanistan i've been in physical

danger but this was terrifying he was treated for vertigo migraines loss of vision and trouble with

memory and concentration disabled he retired later in 2023 his own agency was among those that

concluded it is very unlikely that he and the others were attacked by an adversary which of course

to me is a betrayal because CIA is supposed to be about putting people first and they did not

are you saying this is a cover up this is a massive CIA cover up and i'll and i'll say i say this

with great regret it's an organization that i loved i believe in the mission i was really good at

this job uh to this day i want to see the CIA um operate in a strong and effective manner

he alleges that the CIA covered it up for fear that would come from a state actor having this

capability now brine you know this as well as i do people who are skeptics of the CIA long time

skeptics of the CIA laugh at Havana syndrome they're like okay you gotta be kidding me it sounds like

a way to gin up militarism or a hostility toward Cuba or Russia and so they dismiss it and say

oh these poor CIA officers they're making up these sob stories ha ha on the other hand this guy is

saying no it was actually the CIA who covered up the existence of Havana syndrome so what the hell

is going on here yes so let's just step back and now i'll tell you upfront on a personal

perspective or personal history a friend of mine died about three or four years ago and one of

the things that she suffered from she believed that she was attacked by one of these directed energy

weapons and it was it was part of what drove her ultimate ailments that took her alive so this

was a personal issue but i also can be a little bit um i guess i guess have a bit of distance from

this and let's just start here directed energy weapons there's nothing new about them there's

nothing new about the suggestion that we should create these and use them the idea of course is

whether it be a laser whether it be microwave or with the sound waves whatever it is that you create

this and you direct that energy towards an adversary or even towards a crowd and you make their

body heat you make that you know tonight is you you make them feel uncomfortable they just want to

get out of the way and do that with different kinds of directed energy the challenge historically

in terms of an engineering perspective with these weapons is they have a lot a lot of power

to drive to drive that energy to create that energy to make it consistent so over the years it's

been one of these ideas of like maybe someday we can do this but the size of the energy we're

talking about like a rock or eating some cases depending on the weapon and what you're trying to

fire around you we need to be the size of a small building so the concern of some folks out there

who are like oh i was in this my car i was in a house you would have to have a really really big

energy supply to really hurt someone inside of that building or that car and so i think from an

engineering perspective that's why there was a bias initially i think towards all people saying

that this kind of directed energy weapon is highly unlikely it's not to say for the CIA report

that these people aren't suffering from things but that a directed energy weapon probably isn't

it and one of the earliest victims came from Havana and Cuba so that's why they call it vanna syndrome

now whether that was the humans doing it or the Russians or Chinese or others we didn't really know

but that's the underlying issue of concern so then about four years ago three years ago from

my understanding there was an offer on the black market of some Russian affiliated people

who said that we can give you we can sell you a weapon that is basically a backpack like weapon

that's a directed energy weapon and we bought it there's an element within the US government

who does that and they bought it and they've been testing it because that was a really surprise

that that could be miniaturized and then utilized in that way it's been reverse engineered in my

understanding is that it's it's legitimate and so that was suggest that the Russians have had

this weapon for some period of time that they had a technological leap in a way that we didn't

depreciate and that some of these people I don't know what number of percentage but a certain

number of these people at the CIA the State Department the Pentagon have been injured by these

directed energy weapons and it's probably the Russians it could also be a Russian you know gun

for hire who is you know being paid under the table by Russian intel or you know an x-y for who

knows but you know you're going on the dark web and they're they're organizing these things

so the bigger point that now that thing Trump has called one of the weapons allegedly the

discombobulator using it in in Venezuela during the the raid and taken Maduro that we've been

able to reverse engineer that and then use that as our own weapon not from a lethal perspective

but it has caused when we landed it caused when people started bleeding from their nostrils and

terrible headaches and all the rest of it it didn't kill them but it disabled them for a short

period of time you know that's a potential good use as a order of a directed energy weapon

but I think that that technology is a little bit new and if it goes sideways you can really hurt

people and damage them and so I think the clip that you put at the CIA officer is probably reflective

of somebody who got hit by that I believe he was in Moscow at the time when he got hit by it

and he was a guinea pig by the Russians to see if this could work and if it if it did you know

there were a very angry at the Biden administration for what they were doing in Ukraine

which is we are fighting intel to kill Russians our CIA was working with special forces in Ukraine

to kill Russian generals and Russian soldiers so all sphere in love and war from their perspective

taking out some of our CIA guys or Pentagon guys with a directed energy weapon to make them suffer

they don't care I mean you gotta remember early on in the war in Ukraine we brought down a plane

that had over a hundred men all over under Russian men on it and not fair number of generals

so this war has been very costly from Russia's perspective and they're more than

happy to get back at us so I think that that's the broader context of this directed energy weapon

concern issue it's real it's been under engineering sort of the radar for many many years it looks

like the Russians beat us to it looks like a reverse engineering it and I think that that requires

probably the Trump administration to declassify what we know so that we can help these people

have been impacted by it people who are still with us you my friend is not you know how much of

her dad was caught by it I don't still know this day but it's real and I think Kavanaugh syndrome

I've gone from a bit more of a skeptic around the underlying engineering for it to with this discovery

I'm a lot more keen to say we need to declassify what we know and be honest with with our people who

have been hurt that's exactly what I was gonna ask next because here you have the CBS news report

that is post majoral raid where these reports from Cuban soldiers I believe it was the Cuban

report that was going absolutely viral at the time explaining or explaining the experience of

what sounded exactly like other reports of Havana syndrome and so why would the CIA continue

to not just come clean when CBS news is saying hey we're running a big 60 minutes package on

this it's based on our reporting going back years and years is it help us understand you

know reading between the lines from the outside here Brian why the CIA doesn't want people to know

it has this capability or at least not in a news report it doesn't want to confirm it

well I think you start getting back to this issue of at what point was that weapon secured by

this Russian black or gray arms dealer what are those intel networks that we use to get in front

of those people and what degree are we going to burn those networks they're quite important

in other operations that might be a part of it I think that you don't have to weigh like what are

the posts in the cons of revealing that network to letting everybody know that there actually is

this kind of weapon and then the fact that we've reversed engineered and we're using it in the

the discombobulator at least in in one case or one example like that's actually getting to some

classified capabilities too that if we were to go to war with let's say China we wouldn't

necessarily want them to know that we have that weapon we would want that to be our secret weapon

that we would we would bring to a war and knock them out that they could otherwise be prepared for

if we be classified it now and start talking about it now so I think that there could be some

reasonable explanations for why they're not talking about it but if you're going to believe that

and think that's possible you've got to believe that your leadership at the CIA or the OD and I

or the White House are really going to do the right thing and they're going to keep self-classified

for the right reasons and I think what this country has seen up for the past 10 years is a lot of

us don't trust the CIA anymore we don't trust the OD and I we don't trust the NSA we don't trust

the FBI and for a good reason classified hurricane started with no predicate the CIA involved in

some of the stuff most horrible tax on this country and you're in a circular predicate yeah you know

we're now we should now trust the CIA because rat clothes and church that's a really tough cell

I mean I'm a former CIA guy and I can admit that and that's a really hard cell I think for

reasonable people to say let's just get the benefit of the doubt the CIA now it's not like that

anymore I think good people can ask really tough questions and say yeah we just don't trust him

so until I think there's a different kind of leadership and more time of CIA reestablish and trust

you're going to have to probably be classified a lot more stuff that makes me think I know we can

put this up on the screen of this big Matt Taibe report over at Racket he has all of his reporters

working on this seemingly they appear to have a cash of FBI no point intended a cash of FBI

documents that they're going through they say in this headline exclusive the FBI secret stash

finally uncovered and actually in this big article where Taibe is talking about how we are likely

to get more disclosures from what cash Patel FBI director has discovered at the FBI in terms of

secret files that were intentionally kept away that he has confirmed the FBI has confirmed

to Taibe and the Racket team are in existence Matt asked Seymour Hirsch for his take on this and

Hirsch obviously led to the church committee and the great disclosures of the CIA I mean the

the epic disclosures of the CIA that are literally hundreds of pages long read in some cases

like their like R.A. because they literally were these guys were all writing spy novels it's

an amazing thing that CIA guys do when they get out of the agency yeah yeah or they write like really

like thinly veiled versions of their memoirs through fiction yeah incredible um but on that note

it feels like we're entering a period of disclosure I mean the fact that Tulsi Gabbard's at OD and I

the fact that cash Patel people who are piecing together crossfire hurricane skeptically are now in

the government and confirming you know big stashes like apparently what the FBI has of secret files

that rival the crown jewels that Hirsch reported on that led to the church committee that led to

a starting to understand MK Ultra and never another secret things I wonder I mean there are a lot

of different directions maybe I just I want to get your reaction to what apparently is this big

stash of FBI files Brian but I'm kind of thinking about it in this lens of is is it getting much

much harder in the age of partisanship and new technology to keep things secret because remember

when Buzzfeed just published the whole dossier that Christopher Steele was shopping around like

it just it seems as though we're coming towards something very different than the era the CIA and

the FBI grew up in yeah look if there is a guy that worked it was CIA ops officer and he worked

for the Soviets he was a treasonous spy and he worked for the Soviets he was caught the FBI later

investigated him and caught him and his name was Aldrich Ames he recently died back in January

after spending many many years in prison when he was caught though back in the in the 90s they

asked him why to do it Aldrich why'd you work for the Russians the Soviets at the time and he

responded by saying because I know what is best for America's national security and I want to

act on it I want to do what I want so there's a great example of what motivates somebody to decide

to leak secrets or work against US interests and I think that we've seen that up for the past 10

years or so in a different way in a partisan way you've got a lot of these guys like John Brennan

or others who got the FBI James Comey who they think they know what's best for the United States

and for national security and they're going to act on it and they're going to use their powers they're

going to use their information to cook the books on intel it told me that information as they did

to the Washington Post and York Times and others and they're going to create this propaganda campaign

to destroy President Trump in 2016 and 2017 and then throughout his entire first term that's

exactly what they did with the press fire hurricane this document called the ICA which assessed

the degree to which the Russians were helping Trump and all that so we have this evidence it's

not even a question now it's not a conspiracy we know what Colmy and Brennan and

Clapper and others guys did and it's a partisanship that has now taken over the CIA and FBI and

it's not just the leadership because we have new leaders now but we hired a lot of people during

that era we hired a lot of partisans and those are within the bureau and the DOJ too by the way

as well as the agency and others you might remember that infamous CIA recruitment ad under the Biden

era who said that she was you know I think it was not bipolar it was some mental issue she also said

she was intersectional and all these things that weren't focused on the mission she never actually

talked about working for the American people but she was part of this CIA's recruitment ad and you

should come to the agency bringing your whole self well I don't want to see your whole self I

just want you to come get a watch yeah I don't want your partisanship I don't want to know

intersectional is that sounds like it's so far like whatever I don't care just like come do the

work and so I think that that's the really fair reaction that a lot of people have in this new

era of the past 10 years and that is the CIA is not what I thought it was it's not the part of the

the un non-partisan agency that it needs to be and that's what good leadership needs to to

bring to the agency again into the intelligence community because the president really does need

high confidence good quality intelligence to make good smart decisions which it's really hard

to do that and trust that if you think that the whole place is full once we these partisans

than we've seen over the past 10 years that's great danger that the US makes bad decisions

because we're gonna trust the intel guys anymore I think that's a bad deal

is it possible to disrupt the machine I mean that's one of the things I think when I look at

listen I'm still very skeptical about the story we're getting told on the January 6th

pipe bombs I'm so skeptical of what the FBI has said about the assassination of trolley

Kirk meaning were there other is there information that they're slow walking for a reason or

is there information about for example the people who seem to telegraph they knew something

on social media in the kind of internet community of trans identifying people I don't even

know the particulars because we haven't gotten enough public information about it yet but

there did seem to be potentially some online knowledge in the Tyler Robinson friend group

and that's not to open up this can of worms is just to ask you know I think some people

look at a cash battalion they look at a John Ratcliffe for a Tulsi Gabbard and they say this is

you know we were we were promised significant reforms and I wonder if the machine is just

ultimately too powerful to prevent because I mean even we're talking about crossfire hurricane

well the freaking FISA courts were part of the church committee reforms like we were supposed to

have those as a protection against the church the abuses that the church committee uncovered

and they're still being abused. Clients went to light on the the FISA application to continue

surveillance right yeah no it's I'm with you so look here's the thing at the agency over that if

I were a king for a day there and I I could go back I would say over the past 15 years I want to

look at everybody that we've hired and what's called the director of of of analysis and director

of operations and I want to I want a team dedicated to look at every single one of those employees

and I want to understand are they there for the right reasons there are they there for the mission

and you can look at the hiring individuals involved what's called the HRS which the HR

components and you can look at some of those careers and you can see who's been promoted you

can go through and I'm sure the opposition would call that you know which hunt but we're really

looking for are people who are there for the wrong reasons and I think you can find that this

is a great audit trail of all this you know one of the things the agency does well document

everything and computers you don't save everything for decades so it's all there why these people

were hired you know whether they're there because of DEI or the rest of it and I think that you

can smoke out a lot of those people and I think you can clean up a lot of it but I would say to you

that I think that a generation of Americans who saw the crossfire hurricane stuff were really paying

attention are still going to be skeptical and it's going to take a series of leaders over the years

doing good things on behalf of the American people and just keeping quiet not getting involved

in the role of politics and really dressing this statement that was made by Schumer if you

remember in January 2017 when he said to Trump that he's an idiot for going up against the

intelligence committee because he has six weeks of Sunday to get back at them that remains to me

one of the most outrageous things that has been said over the past 10 years and that is a

Senate majority leader saying that the CIA and Intel community have six weeks of Sunday to control

America's leaders oh I mean that kind of seems like a big deal why are we not talking about that

like you know so if that's real and Schumer was real and honest and I think he was like

yeah we got to be able to clean up that's going to take years and until then I think citizen

is appropriate hmm let's talk about New York City because on the upper east side I'd said of

a crazy mansion there was a wild wild scene actually we have video of this there was a just

for a little bit of background here I think this was was a Saturday Sunday over the weekend there was

a yeah it was it was Saturday there was a right wing fringe type demonstration and then there

were counter protesters but let's take a look at S8 here this is a video of a suspect throwing

a bomb over a protester named Walter Masterson we were going in race in New York and we want

everyone here to stay in New York you don't get to come from outside and then tell everyone

all right now we also have the indigenous drum there it's not great you know right it's it's a

soundtrack it's a soundtrack you didn't know you needed here we have this video we can roll

this is the suspect dropping the bomb at the feet of officers so it's exactly what it sounds like

if you're listening to this literally from Matt Van Swole on X it's exactly what I just described

you see it happening in real time and this is again outside of Gracie Mansion obviously the current

mayor of New York's around Mamdani is Muslim and there was a rush immediately to pin this

seemingly I shouldn't even say seemingly because Brad Bradlander former controller former

city council member he already apologized for rushing to blame islamophobia for this but we have

two New York times headlines we can put side by side this is f6 the original headline smoking

jars of metal infuses thrown at protest near mayor's house the had the sub headline was six people

were arrested after anti-Islamic protesters led by the right wing activist Jake Lang clashed

with counter protesters near Gracie Mansion the revised headline homemade bomb thrown at protest

near NYC mayor's house police say the counter protester accused of throwing the bomb was one of six

people arrested after a clash with anti-Muslim protesters led by the right wing activist Jake

Lang now these two suspects were arraigned today in court this is from Bill Maloojian of Fox News who

says according to the just released federal criminal complaint after NYC terrorist suspect and

Mayor Balot was arrested for throwing an IED loaded with nuts bolts and TATP he pledged allegiance

to ISIS while in NYPD custody saying all praises to do a lot lord of the worlds etc etc the comments

were caught on NYPD body cameras which makes sense because we also learned today from the police

that a lot of the information they're now claiming about these suspects allegiance to ISIS and

the motivation for the attack was actually told to office officers meaning they likely have tape

of all of this f8 we can put on the screen the suspects statement that was again captured on

body camera right afterwards we can throw up the picture f9 from the New York Post of the ISIS

salute being flashed by one of the suspects in this case Zora Mamdani first comes out and

points towards white supremacists this Jake Lang guy he says such hate has new place in New York City

my administration he goes on to say it's closing monitoring the situation uh and then

as more and more information came out it became obvious that there was something deeper

happening here uh Mamdani had been going on and on about white supremacy and then as of this afternoon

he posts Amir Balot and Ibrahim Qayumi have been charged with committing a heinous act of terrorism

and proclaiming their allegiance to ISIS they should be held fully accountable for their actions we

will continue to keep New Yorkers safe we will not tolerate terrorism or violence in our city

Brian this comes after last week's attack at a bar in Austin, Texas which could potentially

mean it looks to me likeliest case scenario that's alone wolf this is obviously not alone with

two people they have a suspicious travel history from what I understand already that seems crazy

and it's a counter protest they've they've apparently said they were partly inspired by the war

and Iran they said they wanted to do something allegedly worse than the Boston Marathon bombing

how volatile is the situation in cities like New York Boston probably Dallas Miami places like

that right now where potentially I mean do you see links in this case to something more organized

uh with just the little information we have in the first 48 hours yeah look absolutely there was

also another attack at the the US Embassy in Oslo Norway and what we know about that one is that

the Iranian gangs there will pay young Muslim boys or young migrant voices young as ages 12 or

or 10 to kill us diplomats Israelis Jews except Western targets so you combine that with what happened

in New York these radicalized Muslims from not just to big town by the way their communities

in Pennsylvania from where they they hate all originally they live and in communities less than

3000 people so these are not necessarily communities that are you're just talking about Miami's

in New York it's everywhere and that I think is the the real big alarm that I've been trying to

ring for a fair number of years I you know my podcast I think others are too you know if you go

back right after the October 7 terror attacks in the Israel there was a hold released by an outfit

called signal one of the top rated pollsters in this country and they asked American Muslims do

you support what Hamas did 60 percent said no but 40 percent of American Muslims said that either

Hamas was fully or partially justified in doing what they did in October 7th so they would find a way

to justify a terror attack well that's pretty alarming when you think about that there are millions

and millions of Muslims in this country and that 40 percent of them would justify a terror attack

that's a lot of folks so we do have a problem here we have a radical Islam problem there is a crisis

within Islam it is not a religion of peace it's religion in crisis and it's important to be honest

about that and I think that we've had some really wonderful leadership actually in the Middle East

and from the Middle East four minister of the United Arab Emirates has that that really

quote from about 70 years ago saying look and to paraphrase you in the West with your

political correctness you were going to allow this radical Islam to rise and it is going to be

there in the West and Europe in the United States who is going to have a radical Islam problem we

in the Middle East won't because we're cracking down on it and we know that it's real but you in

the West just bury your heads and I think that that's what we saw with that first reaction by the

New York Times and and Zohar Moldani and folks on the left that Democrat party you know just

continuing with this ridiculous suggestion that you know Islam is a religion of peace and that

actually it's just Islamophobia if you point out the fact that 40% of them would justify a terror

attack no no we're just being honest and we're being honest with facts and we're being honest with

reason and logic and it's not homophobic or Islamophobic or whatever transphobic whatever phobic

to say that that's true because it is definitely not transphobic yeah you know what could be it's

who knows anymore everything is something phobic I don't know so look it's really important I

think to start being honest about this threat and then you think about the southern border seven to

12 million people came over the border either unbedded because they were godwaves or poorly vetted

you know imagine all these individuals from around the world let's say from Islamic or predominantly

Islamic nations to be able to vet them from just a criminal perspective our databases had to be

tied in to say the more opinions or the Nigerians or the whomever's those databases were in saint

we were connected so we have the ability to vet any of those individuals on the border even though

the Biden administration was lying and saying they were and then that you apply on top of that the

cultural question which is do we want some of these people from these societies believe like

all right they're Muslim but what do they believe really oh they believe that like women are not

really fully human and we can push gaze off of buildings we don't believe in art and like you know

science is coffee or whatever like oh okay well let's vet for that will we do it embassies and

counselors when we process visas but we don't have the southern border and now we have seven to 12

million of these people into this country in addition to the legal migrants who we didn't ask these

questions about cultural fit so we have quite literally tens of millions of people in this country

who certainly we can argue don't have a cultural fit in terms of Judeo-Christian values

like this really has to type like that's a good right right i mean it's this way you know

Trump got a lot of heat for saying you know in the springfield Missouri of like the dogs and the

cats the reading the dogs and the cats well you don't look in Haiti they do they practice which

craft and they do animal sacrifice so you know there was tens of thousands of patients in

springfield you would assume some percentage of them practice their faith from back home which

craft yeah they're gonna eat them so this isn't crazy like this isn't illogical and unfortunately

there have been a lot of people who have turned this into Islamophobic or whatever phobic

and it's not it's about security it's about cultural fit and it's about being really honest about

that and being brave and saying it because you know i i don't know about everybody else but i'm tired

of being shoted down by just bringing up the truth and that is i want an American family that's

a melting pot that when you get here from wherever burn your ship you ain't going home there is no

duel whatever your American buckle to the family you might give you a big hug and you're

going to be part of the family and that's it uh you but you're you're not going to maintain these

foreign connections and ties to whether it be religion or whatever you're in and i think that

that's what is happening in New York is so many of us are concerned about these kids and people

and adults now take it over the city and Islam is still around non-dani's record as an Islamist

is clear in this reaction speaks to that and then these these two terrorists that are Pennsylvania

growing up in very wealthy families and communities of two three thousand people it just underlines

the point that we have done an abysmal job of as terms of leadership uh for our American elite

uh what they've done here it's it's it's unforgivable well and this so one of the things that that

worries me a bit is i look at the record during the Bush administration of going we had situations

that almost looked like and this would be FBI but like Whitton Whitmer kidnapping plots with

random kids at mosques and there were some cases where i look back and i'm like well the left

was right about this and mom donny is one of the people who grew up watching that he talks about how

he grew up watching that and whether or not he's you know whether or not we agree with him on the

proliferation of it or anything he's he saw that and i look at what he's pledged to do in terms of

like sounds to me letting off the gas of it when it comes to investigating after we just had

however many people pour in through a southern border over a three year surge period in the Biden

administration plus like the ten years before that when it was relatively porous and i'm sympathetic

to the idea of respecting civil liberties and in being enthusiastic and vigilant about respecting

civil liberties the other hand i wonder if bush era failures are giving way to a new york city that

is ultimately going to be less safe because there's this intentional politically correct turning

away from some very obvious situations where you could have people whose political philosophy is

based on undermining harming the United States of America took advantage of an obvious situation

that you could take advantage of i mean i was down at the border when that happened when the

Biden surge was happening you watched it you just walk right across and disappear into the interior

of the country um so it's like a perfect storm of horrible things happening um for the security

and the safety of the American people how do you think about those two things like is it is the

mom donny backlash is it worry you that the backlash to what happened during the bush era for

people like so on mom donny makes new york city less safe how do you think about that

look there are a lot of us who grow up in the United States of America assuming a lot of things about

us as a country and a people and one of those things was we believe in the constitution we're

a constitution republic that we have our various first amendment right second all the rest of them

and those are very important to being an American embracing people from abroad

and those same laws and rules are now being used against us to destroy us from within

and what we have seen up at the past well good number you're certainly under the Biden

administration we saw a pipeline into this country first of all they want to lie on their asylum

applications we have migrant activists on the left helping them to lie on their asylum applications

eventually 80% of them will be turned down but in the meantime they get it to come in the country

going to a sanctuary city or state and they never leave so we have this pipeline into the country

now we've got this abolished ice which isn't just abolishing the organization but what

Democrats have said over and over again is they want to abolish the ability to deport anyone

for any reason so now what we're doing is we're importing people who hate this country who want

to throw out the republican and throw out the constitution and they're being protected by the

rule of law and I will tell you having worked abroad what I had seen in countries where that happens

is the rule of law is no longer meant to protect people or directly innocent but to ensure corruption

continues and to ensure that seditious behavior continues it's a it's a weapon to destroy not to

protect and that's what I think that we're at right now as a country is that the rule of law is

being used by judges by used by attorneys and by people who really want to destroy the nation

to use it against the rest of us we're like hey you know why not necessarily agree with everybody

or whatever but welcome to the country we hope you enjoy it be part of the American family so

they're taking advantage of the goodness that a lot of us have and by the time that we wake up to

that to the wake up to to the attacks effectively to the Trojan horse that has arrived inside

of the castle I think it's going to be too late and that's what really really worries me about

the current state of our union right mass migration as a pretext like as Kierstharmer was pitching

for visual ID is a great like this is a pretext for surveillance you create a horrifying situation

as the Biden administration did and then you could crack down because people want security

and safety because you just created an unsafe situation which is just a wonderful way to go

about it before you run Brian I did want to get your take on the transition period we seem to be

entering from Kristi Nome to Senator Mark Wayne Mullin of Oklahoma your border guy Brian you pay

attention to this you talk about on your podcast all the time the internal battle clearly was a

tug of war I've heard this from people I think it's fairly obvious at this point between team

Nome Lewandowski Stephen Miller and team Holman and team Holman Holman of course comes from the

Obama administration an institutional veteran he wanted to do worst first and that's what a lot

of the American people would agree with at Nome Lewandowski Stephen Miller came in and said this

is a basically a generational mandate to do nasty portations and a lot of people I know are kind of

bummed in Washington not bummed black pills is probably the better answer and think now this

was a big victory for the Holman wing although I'm skeptical of that I think Mark Wayne Mullin is

probably politically similar to Kristi Nome and maybe we'll prove to be a better leader less messy leader

we'll see but from a security standpoint worst first criminals criminals might not necessarily be

spies espionage tools they may not even be doing espionage or spying but they might be tools of

a foreign government whether it's China whether it's a cartel whether it's Russia when I was on

the border it literally meant Russians in 2021 and they had a sob story so maybe it was true maybe

it wasn't but they were on their way into the country I'll tell you that so what is the

the what is the difference I mean how important is it or maybe I'm wrong but is it important

so let's ask more than just the worst first and give us your thoughts so what's the worst of the

worst like let's define that so one of the things that we know in a lot of states is that they

don't write down they don't document somebody's document and status right so if you get arrested

they don't ask if you're a migrant or otherwise unlawful or otherwise so it's not documented

so how do we even determine the worst of the worst if your police officers or your sheriffs or

whatever aren't even documenting that up front we know the data to say oh this person's the worst

because then we'll have no criminal record and even if they are processed oftentimes prosecutors

will let these people especially the Soros D.A.'s and others they will let these people off with

lower level charges even though they should be charged higher we have the Department of Justice is

now investigating that in Washington D.C. and other cities where the police chief of the mayor

are downgrading crimes so these people are actually the worst of the worst but it's not documented

up front or the police department's downgrading crimes the D.A. is in prosecuting letting people out

of the streets so this whole debate around worst of the worst it's really it's impossible to really

determine who's the worst the worst you know we can have some data they can help us along that

process but that's the fundamental issue we don't know who's bad and who's not and then you know

we of course get all the people across the border that only adds additional elements to it so

as much as I would like you know personally to just grab as many people as we can understanding

and appreciating that we'd like to do the surgical careful approach but because of what I just

laid out we got to use the chainsaw and that's uncomfortable it's really uncomfortable it's sad

there are a thousand stop stories and I think that that's what I'm seeing in the lot of the polling

which is they the American people want a lot of the unlawful migrants are illegal aliens out of

the country but it makes them sad get you know when they see the sad videos and the people hurting

and so it's like they want the meal but they don't want to watch the cap be raised and slaughtered

and cut off like no don't show me how the sausage is made I just want to eat it well I think that

that's that's important politically to then understand that you know from Holman's perspective

let's focus on the worst of the worst I guess this is just a branding exercise and then we bring

up and try to educate people like well what is the worst the worst if we're not even riding down

people's immigration status when we're resting them or we downgrade crimes or we we prosecute

us release them we've got to re-educate people on what even worse the worst means so the ones that

they start seeing these sad videos they're like well I don't know about that guy he says that he's

got a family here but does he really just have a family he's not really just a snake in the grass

that's the conversation that needs to happen because if you don't and you leave in you know 5 million

of the 10 let's say we deport half of what came under Biden the number of cuts are going to get

in and they're going to open up the border again and you're going to have another 10 million

to come in this country so you will at that point the country is over you're done as a nation

it's you're you're cooked so you gotta get as many people out as fast as you can

how intentional was the strategic abuse of American border policies during Biden from

hostile foreign actors maybe not even hostile foreign actors maybe places that just found

an easier route to bring people into the United States and do espionage like is was that a fairly vast

operation worldwide during the Biden administration where other foreign intelligence agencies looking

at the United States and laughing that's because of our open border well two things where they

laughing at us you bet they were second were they taking advantage of it mm-hmm yes for sure I

can tell you foreign intelligence he's sent in operative saboteurs and elders into this country

be the southern border for sure the other thing to keep in mind with the Chinese is that even if a

Chinese person has a sob story and they don't want to cooperate with a regime the president she

and his goons can still go to a Chinese person and say look per Chinese law and or because you know

we have your family back home you will do what we tell you to you're an employee with a utility

company or the water company or whatever you're going to set out this bomb you're going to fry

this system because if you don't we're killing all of your friends back home like your your family

members back home and that's how the Chinese operating that's what they will do even with these

Chinese people who you might hear people in the media or otherwise they like oh you know they don't

want to go home president she's bad and mean yep he sure is and he will use his relationships or

these people's relationships back home to get what he wants so we've got to mess across the board

in terms of terrorism terms of saboteurs in terms of even people who might otherwise be good

but they can be turned to be bad and as we are seeing in places like Oslo over the weekend they

attack there we've seen this in the places in the world where poor people are struggling they will

take cash to do terrible things so you don't have to be infecting this country to do terrible things

when you've got examples and also we've got examples of Hessville out doing this down in

Argentina Pena so a wedding photographer paid him cash to target Jewish interest in Argentina

so poor people will do lots of terrible things for cash and that's not because they're poor which

because they start to become desperate and they do really dumb things so we've got to send a lot

of people back home we've got to vet them once they're back at an embassy or consulate abroad

and then we can talk about why we need them back here really that's about labor do we need labor

now we've got the air revolution robots are coming for everybody so do we really need the labor

i don't know about that but that's the thoughtful conversation that we need you have in our

immigration as well well we'll see where uh mark when mullen takes it we'll be following the senate

confirmation branding right host of the right report it was so good to have you in the middle

of this new cycle thank you for you've been very generous with your time thank you for taking so

much time to explain this to us you're amazing and congratulations when you're showing i look

forward to coming back whenever oh we would love that thanks so much Brian awesome you are all right

gonna take another quick break and then talk about steven a smith on the other side everybody

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all right i want to finish up with a clip that was released this evening another benefit of doing

evening shows sometimes clips just pop whenever because people are posting their podcast clips

literally whenever and shun handy has a new podcast he's got steven a he's a radio guy by the way

so just an interesting state of affairs tells you a little bit about media right off the bat but

steven a smith is his guest on tomorrow's edition of the show and handy asked steven a smith how

serious he is about running for president here's a clip that we just got that just popped on social

media before we went to air here's my big question yeah 2028 come pretty pretty quick yeah

if you had to pick for suit you i think it's all bullshit i don't think you're running am i right

i don't think i'm running either because i got to give up my money you don't it yeah you want

to give me my money you want to play shun i give my money i got i can tell you right now let me put

that the presidential aspirations over it from if i have to give up my money it's not

happening all right so is he totally joking i don't think so that sounded pretty serious to me but

so much should let him know that you can actually create a family company and put your children

in charge of it you can even put his name on it and he could have a meme coin and he wouldn't really

have to give up his money out of that uh but that's kind of interesting right that he would have to

give up his money because a lot of people right now are saying it's a bridge that we've crossed

that was maybe some people say that is a cheap shot at Trump but i do think it's one of the things

that we still haven't figured out i mean with Hunter Biden for example when Joe Biden was vice

president that family shares how it didn't give up their money right there was intense lobbying

efforts afloat that were used then to support Joe Biden after he left the White House and didn't

have a ton of money and was you know obviously engaged in selling influence uh selling his status as

a former vice president potential future president and that was good business for the entire Biden

family with Stephen A Smith he say i don't want to give up my money period period don't want to do it

but to me that sounded serious and i think this is interesting for democrats because i don't know

i mean some of this depends on the giant unknown we won't really have an answer to because of world

events in the future for a long time which is who's the republican nominee some of this depends on

you know a black swan event like Butler Pennsylvania god forbid happening again and let's hope

that doesn't happen but you can see how that would dramatically change the landscape in ways

that we can't quite anticipate and change who the republican nominee is in ways that we can't

quite anticipate but if everything stayed the same Stephen A Smith would run as a democrat he's

indicated as much before and what you get with him is the combination of this anti-establishment

anti-machine sensibility uh with media know how and Trump kind of had both of those things and

Smith is dabbled i mean even the way he responded to Hannity it sounded like he's had serious

conversations about it i don't know why he wouldn't have had serious conversations about it but

we have record low levels of institutional trust across the board so if democrats don't think

that a Stephen A Smith would be competitive against and i'm not joking republicans might plan

at this a rubio or JD vans we haven't seen Stephen A Smith really campaign but what we can tell

is that people like hearing him talk they like hearing him talk about politics and he has takes

that surprise people he's extremely entertaining and you know there's always a lot of talk about

Michelle Obama and Oprah and how they could just wipe the floor with any republican i don't know

that's true there's such creatures of old media and Stephen A Smith is a creature of old media but

has adapted for the new media ecosystem he knows how to go viral he's very in touch with the new

media audience he knows that people expect and appreciate takes that are let's just say use the

worst word in the english language heterodox sometimes it's the only word that works and he

understands that he's surprising he's unexpected and i think democratic voters

would like him despite the fact that he's neither a cookie cutter populist or a cookie cutter

a cutter establishmentarian that's what would make everybody uncomfortable and it was true with

Donald Trump right like this is a guy that loves business but is super protectionist this is a guy

who detests foreign wars but talks about how he's he's always been hawkishan oran as we mentioned

on last week's show so and he he talked about you know no more dumb wars kicking the heck out of

different countries that's what so he's like sort of a similar figure it was on prime time forever

and Stephen A Smith is maybe more of a niche figure right like he he didn't have the apprentice

right but he's a very familiar face and he gives very surprising takes generally people believe

that he believes what he's saying which i continue to think is one of the more important

characteristics of anybody running in a new media environment plus he doesn't have the stench

of a political institution around him so this isn't me making the case in substance for Stephen

A Smith it's me making the case for the political power viability of Stephen A Smith as a candidate

there are a lot of people are like oh well maybe this pop cultural figure this random person could

be a candidate and it's just not that easy he though happens to be someone who actually has

experiences that come together in a way almost a perfect storm of characteristics that come together

in a way that i think would make him a potent threat to other democrats and potentially to a

republican nominee one of the things that helped with trump is people saw him as a very very successful

businessman Stephen A Smith doesn't have a real estate empire at least that i'm aware of maybe he does

behind him but he's talking about how much money he's got now so maybe he could convince people

that he has some prowess in business and in media that requires you know with trump it was he was

able to pitch his kind of international relations i keep is able to pitch himself as someone who

may deals with other countries and knows how to work with the elites of different countries i think

that's going to be it would be probably not going to be sounds like he's not going to run that

would be a much much steeper climb for a Stephen A Smith but but people get annoyed when i do this

but i talk about how Neil Postman had the television based epistemology in the Reagan era

before that the print based epistemology we're in the tiktok based epistemology the

the algorithmic social media based epistemology our narratives are set not by television

not by print they are downstream of tiktok it doesn't mean television of print aren't important

but it means that they're downstream now of a more powerful wide-reaching technology and

if democrats think they could beat someone who's a master of that craft

with aoc do i think aoc is good at it yes but Stephen A Smith is a media native

aoc is good with social media in the same way that like in 2016

you can say like rant paul was good with social media but there's a difference between

being like clever as a politician and being a native and trump was a television native he was

a twitter native the sick of demio tweet alone so Stephen A Smith is a native of that medium

and that medium is driving the conversation it is driving the discussion with voters and the like

so i think that's something they think very very serious about if you're an establishment

democrat or a populist democrat is there someone that you can i'm not trying to give any one

ideas but that you can attach an agenda to where it would be believable authentic and powerful

in that medium that would just blow everybody else out of the water so some some food for thought

as the midterm cycle gears up and people start looking ahead to 2028 all right that's going to

do it for me this evening alive from the hoovered campus where else would i be in a monday night in

march happy birthday to my dad thanks to everybody for watching appreciate it you can email me

an emily at devil my care media dot com i will go ahead and check those out for the happy hour

episode we will record on Thursday to pop Friday get your questions in early and often as they say

thanks a bunch everyone have a great night subscribe and we'll see you back here on Wednesday live at 9 p.m.

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