Current State of US Politics w/ Former Counter Terrorism Joe Kent | ZFS 68

Joe Kent resigned from inside the government because he watched it happen in real time. Israeli officials and mega donors like Miriam Adelson bypassed official intelligence channels to feed the president and his inner circle a single message over and over again until US policy changed. Not through force. Through access. Through repetition. Through the echo chamber of think tanks, Fox News pundits, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies all saying the same thing at the same time.

The result? America is now two and a half months into a war that was supposed to last two to four weeks. One fifth of the world's energy supply is being choked off at the Straits of Hormuz. Gas prices are up. Fertilizer supply is in crisis. And the goal of current negotiations is essentially just to get back to where things were in February.

Joe breaks down how we got here, why killing Iran's religious leadership removed the moderates and empowered the hardliners, why there is no military solution, and what a real exit strategy could actually look like. He also weighs in on the Thomas Massie primary, the splintering of MAGA, and why a Massie win on Tuesday could be contagious in the best possible way for the American people.

This is the conversation Washington does not want you to have.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome into episode number 69 of the Zach Fowl Show. Once again, in a different location than typical. We're sitting in Florence, Kentucky, on the second story of a last-minute Airbnb to come to the 4th District of Kentucky to fight for Thomas Massey. And with that in mind, we brought on a guest today. Today's guest needs little introduction, but let's give him one anyway. Joe Kent is a former special forces operator with 11 combat deployments, and he's also a former CIA paramilitary officer. Though most recently known for serving as a director of the National Counterterrorism Center under the Trump administration. One of the, by the way, highest intelligence positions you can gain in our country. But in March of this year, he walked away from that post. Why? Well, many know. He wrote a letter directly to the president stating the war with Iran was not based on hear this genuine, imminent threats to the United States, but instead on pressure from Israel and its powerful lobbying groups that have created an apparatus in Washington. And in his own words, he quoted as saying this multiple times that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. But yet we're at war. A war that we've won 18 times, apparently, but a war nonetheless. This letter of resignation did cost him his career, of course, but now the FBI has gone a step further and is now investigating him. What's fascinating is that these same forces that came from the inside of the intelligence community appear to be playing out in real time at the ballot box here in this fourth district of Kentucky. Let me explain. What's fascinating is the same forces that forced Joe Kent to look into the mirror and decide whether or not what we were doing was legitimately for our country or for another, are the same exact forces. Right now in Kentucky, we're Thomas Massey, one of the only members of Congress who's consistently voted against foreign aid to Israel and other countries alike, as our domestic economy has its own issues. The only one who has been fighting to not only not have this war, but also to have the Epstein list held accountable and all the filth that's existed in there. He's the one who got the Epstein Transparency Act actually written and passed. Is now at war, Congressman Thomas Mass.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Between what DNI Tulsi Gabbard testifies to in front of Congress, where she says Iran was not on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran was actually holding a prohibition on developing a nuclear weapon. There was no actual imminent threat coming from Iran because that's what 18 U.S. intelligence agencies agreed on. Now, what the Israelis did was very clever, uh, and take it has taken them several decades to get this level of influence. They use official engagements where they'll send Israeli government officials in their official capacity to engage with our government officials, as most governments do. And they will say, hey, we have some really sensitive intelligence for you, but we haven't put it in our official intelligence channels yet. We just want to get it to you guys right away, knowing that because principals are very, very busy, a lot of times they will just take that information directly to the president or directly to the president's inner circle, leaving this massive disparity between the IC and what they're actually transmitting. At the same time, the Israelis are very clever at sending in a lot of their very influential donors. Miriam Adelson is a name that people have thankfully become very familiar with to have unofficial engagements with President Trump, members of his inner circle. And then they'll use this echo chamber of the traditional media. They'll use pundits on Fox News. And in the Biden administration, they'd use pundits on MSNBC, they'll use the Wall Street Journal, and then there's this think tank ecosystem with organizations like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. And essentially, all these different layers will kind of say the same thing. So that when the president hears it from his official government advisors, he'll then hear it from the donors. And then he'll turn on Fox News, and there's Mark Levin, there's someone with, you know, a great list of credentials from the Foundation from the Defense of Democracy saying that Iran's on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon and President Trump's the only man that can stop this. So seeing this up close and watching the Israelis uh the way they were able to influence President Trump, because Trump just instinctively knew that going to war in the Middle East was a disaster. It's what he ran on in 16, it's what he largely executed. It wasn't perfect, but he largely executed in his first administration. But the Israelis with that influence were able to basically take President Trump's former red line of Iran can't have a nuclear weapon and change it to zero enrichment. And we can get into why that's a big deal, but they were able to basically change the U.S. policy by just continuing to message this same theme over and over again. And even as we acknowledged it was happening, uh, the influence remained. And that's a big reason why I felt that I had to leave government and kind of call it out for what it was so people were aware of it.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Sorry, that was a long answer. No, it's a great answer. Have you and the obvious attacks you've received since then? Do you think that that's born from the same individuals and entities that you came out against?

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Uh yeah, for sure. That's some of it, but then also just like a lot of the the personality of politics, but then especially President Trump's particular brand of politics. I knew when I wrote the resignation letter, and I knew and I had a conversation with President Trump before actually resigning. Um, I I knew it was coming my way. You know, I just kind of that those are the rules of the road. And I know some people would be sent to attack me, and then others would follow. Um, but the the Israeli lobby over the course of you know, really several decades, they have made, you know, calling, you know, calling out any influence from the Israelis. They've said like it's anti-Semitic. I think a lot of that's wearing off, but they do have attack mechanisms built into anyone who questions. I mean, people have had their entire careers ruined way before I was ever even on the political scene for saying the exact same things that that I said. I mean, Ron Paul was slandered relentlessly, you know, two decades or a decade and a half ago when he was a presidential candidate for basically calling out APAC, Pat Buchanan. There's been plenty of before. Um, luckily, and I think we're seeing this play out in in Thomas Massey's race, a lot of these old attacks, I think and I pray, are really losing their effectiveness.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Why do you think that is? I agree with you, by the way, but why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Well, I think uh people like yourself, I think influencers, podcasters, social media, it's just much harder to really pull the wool over the eyes of a younger generation who's not getting all their media from the New York Times, Fox News, and CNN. Um, people out there, I mean, you guys can fact check in real time. I mean, politicians, most of them are pretty good at getting up and delivering talking points. But the difference between then and now is there's a whole army of people that can communicate with each other that are fact-checking, basically, in real time. So I really think what you guys are doing with social media, just the influencer sphere, and you can tell that podcasters are a threat because all you hear like the neocons and the pro-Israel lobby scream about now is it's like, oh, the podcasters, like these horrible podcasters. It's like, well, obviously we've hit a nerve and they don't want people having long-form discussions where you can actually really get into the details and you can really get to know someone. So I think that's that's what's changing. And also, I think just the younger generation has been lied to about almost everything in their lived experience as a as young adults and as adults, that like this stuff just doesn't fly anymore.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

So Massey has been one of the only voices in Congress that has been opposing pretty consistently this entanglement in the Middle East. You obviously resigned over the entanglement in the Middle East with Iran. So if a guy voting no to wars in Iran is getting pushed out, and the other guy who is calling out the war is getting investigated by the FBI. I mean, what does that tell us about how much room there is for actual discussion in Washington?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, in Washington, there's not much, but unf but fortunately for us, Washington, D.C. actually is a very small place. They think they're the center of the universe, they think they're the most important people in the world, and in some cases they are because they control a lot of power. However, the second you you get, you know, I live just outside of Washington, D.C., kind of in a rural part of Virginia. The second you get into like real America, nobody cares about their talking points anymore. And so they are, I think, in a panic. And we see this with the spending against Massey. They are kind of going all out right now because I believe in many cases, not just Massey's race, but also just what's taking place, you know, in the Middle East, the pro-Israel side, the pro-Israel lobby, and then really even beyond the Israel lobby and the issue of foreign policy, just big money and politics. I think a lot of those powers, they realize this might be their kind of their last two raw. If they can put down Massey with money, that extends their life a little bit longer. But they know that like this younger generation that's coming up as the boomers phase away, um, they're not going to be able to pull, again, pull the wool over their eyes. So I think there's a lot of desperation when you see the attacks. Because really, I mean, Thomas Massey's he's one of 435 guys in Congress. Like, really, what do you care that much? And because they care, that shows you just how important it is what he's saying. I'm just a guy who was appointed by the president and decided to resign. Like, why spend all this ire on me? Why would the president even mention my name again? You know, unless we are really onto something and unless people were really listening.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

That's a great point. Because it and and if it were any other country, too, not just Israel, Germany, Russia, China, influencing not even just the presidential election, but for the fourth district of Kentucky with 762,000 people, that's what this foreign country is worried about. So let's stick on Massey. Mike Saronovich said if Massey loses this week, that every Congress member will be cowed into fear from then on out. Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, to a certain extent. I mean, they're gonna know that if they take the stands that Massey takes, that they will be, they'll they'll be taken out. I mean, because there's other there's been other times where APAC has singled out a congressman, a Democrat, Jamal Bowman, who I disagree with probably pretty much on everything, but he he voted against APAC. I think they spent no about 10 million less than what they're spending on Massey. I was just reading this morning. And so both sides of the aisle, I think, will see that like, okay, we're not really all that free to vote in accordance with what our constituents want. We we can be taken out. Now, the but the flip side of that is if on Tuesday Massey is victorious, his his courage will become contagious. Because I believe Massey, when he says, like, hey, there's, I mean, there's, I think, four or five congressmen came out there and campaigned with him, and Trump's going after all of them now. I he said there's a lot more that that feel the way that he does, but they're too scared to go and actually vote the way he does. If he wins, I think that there's gonna be a bunch of candidates that come that come into power, but there's also gonna be a lot of congressmen who are suddenly gonna be like, oh, okay, I can't I actually can do what Massey does. So there's there's a lot of the line there on Tuesday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

I I'll add to that, we were at Massey's property yesterday, and I actually brought this up as we're going on a UTV up his mountain on his 1500. It's a beautiful property, but brought up that same question. Like, do you do you have other politicians in Congress come up to you and say, you know, I, you know, I would push for you, I would have your back, but you know how you know the game, you understand. I'm sorry. And he's like, all the time. And we were talking about like, would this moment change it? And he believes that. He believes the momentum might indeed shift. But you had brought up something earlier that you think that by winning this race, potentially the power of these lobbyists and these neocons and these billionaires, foreign and domestic, could have less power in elections if we can prove in this one that the people's voice was heard. Is that what you meant?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

100%. Yeah, I agree. That's why they're spending so much money against Massey, because if he wins on Tuesday, there's gonna be a bunch of others who say, okay, I can do that too. And then also, it's going to really, I think, empower, I don't know how many creators and how many podcasters or just guys with a smartphone are out there right now documenting what Massey's doing.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

I think there's about 30 of us right now.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

That's that's amazing. And so, like, I think that two onto itself will also become contagious because the next time there's a representative who takes some controversial votes who has it on the line in a primary, that influencer army is going to go back out there and turn the attention of the entire country on them. And that actually has a monetary value. Massey, even though he's getting outspent, he's raised an incredible amount of money. And he's not raising it from the super PACs, he's not raising it from the lobbyists, he's raising it. I think probably like 99% of it from hardworking Americans who are chipping in a couple bucks here and there. And so that really empowers the people and the establishment, all the different, you know, moneyed interests, the make the mega donors, the special interest groups like APAC, they are terrified of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

All right, switching gears ever so slightly. As someone who's come into the crosshairs of the systems that be that control what we're what we're doing, how long do you believe money and the elites have had this influence over our country and the way that we vote? Because it seems of recent, like you said, kind of the wolves falling off the eyes a bit. And maybe social media and influence and the ability to go on Chat GPT and look something up right away is fixing that. How long do you think this has been going on? Have you have you looked into that or talked to anyone about that?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

You know, uh, I think the kind of the black pill, I guess, of it all is like it's probably been going on for since the beginning of our political existence, really. I mean, and it was much easier for the powers that be before social media. And then if you just you know take a couple steps back, imagine how easy it was before cable news. Imagine how easy it was before, you know, people there was a high literacy rate and people were reading newspapers. So I would imagine that the moneyed interests, whatever they were at the time, they've always been able to really shape public opinion. And so that's why this moment that we're in right now, I think is is revolutionary in its own way and it's exciting. Um, if it if it goes the other way and we allow the tools of social media to be taken over and you know, uh chat bots basically to replace real humans on there, that's gonna be a real thing. But but I think, you know, people always say Twitter's not real life and and and social media is not real life, and you can't build a campaign on social media, et cetera. I I think when you actually have the people from social media show up in real life like all you guys are and actually generate the real power of the people towards a candidate, towards a political movement, that does show how we can flip the script. So I think this is something that has been going on for quite some time. And again, another reason why they're spending so much money against Massey, why whenever someone stands up against the system, they get so much flack. It's probably because that they do realize the flip, the script could be flipped coming soon. Yeah, right wrong.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Do you think MAGO is beginning to splinter?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I think it's already splintered, man. I really do. I mean, I President Trump did an amazing job in 24 of building a coalition, a broad coalition on just very, very common sense issues that were impossible for the Democrats or anybody else to really argue with because they were just it was just such a strong platform. You know, he won the popular vote, he won the electoral vote. But unfortunately, other than like a few items here and there, he basically has gone 180 on all of it and not really even tried to explain it other than like because I said so, and if you disagree with me, then like you're a terrible trader like Kenton Massey and all the other insults that come. And so I do believe, unfortunately, that amazing political movement has been really splintered. A fear that I have, um, and I think it could go either way, is the younger generation that came out and probably were first-time Trump voters uh and voted for Trump in a in a very, very big way, that they become so disenfranchised with politics in general as they're just like, well, I voted for this guy, and he did exactly the opposite. You know, I've seen what the other side did. I'm just not going to participate. That's that's actually my fear. So I think if we can do things to keep the coalition together to show that there's there's still people who will speak truth to power, who will stand on principle, and that they actually have a chance. I think then we can hold that political coalition together because what MAGA was, what President Trump actually was able to create, was actually a beautiful thing. It's tragic what's happened to it. Um, but I think, you know, in 20, in 28, he couldn't run again, anyways. So we are always going to have to reach this moment where we looked at MAGA beyond Trump, anyways. Um, so we just kind of arrived there a little bit early. I just think we've got to do everything we can to try and hold it together.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Speaking of holding it together, we're two and a half months into an excursion to Iran that was supposed to be two to four weeks long. I think uh you and others alike kind of called that from the beginning that the juxtaposition, especially with the straight, wasn't gonna be something that was gonna be short-lived. Um, just from your high-level perspective, this was your job. You were probably one of the most highly informed individuals in DC on subject matters like this from Operation Midnight Hammer last summer uh to when you resigned. Can you tell me just from your perspective, what is going on right now in Iran for those that are seeing headlines every different direction? You'll see Iranian news say this, you'll say, oh, President Xi in China said that, Trump tweeting that. What's going on? And is this a skirmish, quote unquote, that's going to be over anytime soon? Because the economy seems to be getting more and more and more affected by this. What is your take?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Well, uh, unfortunately, we're we're in quite the quite the position right now. President Trump basically has set the stage where Iran has closed down the Straits of Hormuz. We did a counterblock, and that's why, you know, one-fifth of the world's energy supply energy supply is being choked off. That's had horrible ramifications on obviously the price of the pump back here at home. But also, I think very soon we're going to start seeing what the real petrochemical shortages, what that looks like in terms of how that's affecting uh all the different fuel lubricants, but then in world fertilizer supply as well. So we could see famine, not here in America, but we'd see it ever, we'd see it in other places first. America, obviously, we're very blessed. I don't think we would experience that here, but that does speak to a greater global supply chain crisis coming from this. Then we put our own blockade on the Straits of Hormuz. We sort of have a standoff where we're saying that we will apply our military might to make sure that Iran can't get you know ships in or out. So they can't make money off the tolls that they were imposing. Now keep in mind there were no tolls in the Straits of Hormuz, and the Straits of Hormuz was completely open prior to us launching this foolish war.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

I think many people have forgotten that at this point.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, exactly. Like we're we're literally right now trying to negotiate or fight our way back to what things were in February of this last year, of this year. Um, because things, at least at that point, as bad as we thought they were, at least the Straits of Hormuz was open and oil was flowing, and our security guarantees in the Gulf were still intact for you know for decades. The guarantee of our our security allowed for our basing uh inside the Middle East. It also basically underpinned the petrodoll, meaning that all transactions for oil would be settled in the dollar. This is a big reason. I know Massey talks about this a lot. A lot of libertarians do. This is one of the big reasons why we're the world reserve currency holder. And probably to our own detriment, we can continue to print money here because the whole world needs our money. Well, the Iran war, and we knew this would happen because of this the prolifer proliferation of the technology of drones and ballistic missiles. We knew that our bases in the region basically were going to be sitting ducks for the Iranians. So the Iranians basically proved in the in the you know month-long conflict that our bases were just targets. And they basically took out a ton of our bases. Thankfully, we didn't lose. We lost 13 people, which is greatly tragic. We could have lost more. Luckily, we got a lot of our people out of there, but that shattered our security guarantees for the Gulf countries. And so now we have a completely different security arrangement. We have much less leverage over uh our Gulf partners there. Our Gulf partners know that our guarantees really don't mean much. And so a lot of them, I think, are starting to look at alternatives to the petrodoll. And so now we're in this deadlock state where President Trump, he has like basically, he's been painted that he has two options. I like to pitch that he is the third and he can just walk away. But he basically has two options. He can try and you know negotiate his way out of this, but unfortunately, and this was something else that the Israelis baked into the cake, the Israelis knew right away that uh they only had a couple of weeks where this war would really be popular in America. And so what they did was they got us on board right away with killing the Ayatollah. And the Ayatollah, by American standards, of course, like he's a religious cleric. We we think he's a little kooky here in the West. However, for two plus decades, he held a prohibition on Iran developing a nuclear weapon. He held back Iran's proxies from attacking us once President Trump came into office because he he actually respected and feared the Trump administration because Trump killing Cosm Somani, and he was participating in negotiations with our diplomats even after the 12-day war, even after Midnight Hammer. So right away, the Israelis take him off the battlefield. They kill the religious leader, who's also the leader of the nation, who was advocating for a more restrained approach to the West, uh, kill off a lot of the other moderates, kill off a lot of the negotiators. And so now what we're left with in Iran is a very emboldened hard line. And there's always been hardliners in Iran, just like there's hardliners in our country who have long advocated for developing a nuclear weapon, who have long advocated for being more aggressive against America. And they basically, right now, have been vindicated thanks to our actions. They've been vindicated and they can look at all the moderates and be like, you chumps think you can negotiate with the Americans? We've been saying forever we should just attack these guys. Which means I think we have a limited shelf life where we can actually have our carrier battle groups within range of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones before some of those hardliners just say, like, you know what, let's just kick this thing off again. Because also the hardliners know that the more attacks there are by us, and this is going Sound counterintuitive. The more attacks there are by America on Iran, the stronger the regime gets. There were protesters on the streets in January of this last year. This is this is the tragic thing, because President Trump's strategy of maximum pressure sanctions was working and it was putting pressure on the regime. The people were mad at the regime for their economic conditions. Now, once an outside power, especially America and Israel, attacked, killed a religious leader, now the Iranian people have rallied around the flag. And this was long our assessment. And that's what's taking place right now. So again, it makes sense and it and it emboldens the hardliners inside Iran for the war to keep going. That puts us in a very dangerous predicament. Trump can also attempt to escalate the war, which he's threatening to do with all the crazy memes you see. But I think he's apprehensive to do that because the second that we had to put boots on the ground inside Iran to go rescue that pilot, we barely avoided major disaster there. We lost several aircraft. We barely got all of our people out. Iran is a hard place to operate in. So his escalation options are really limited without risking major U.S. casualties. My fear is that we we try something or the Iranians hit us, we do take casualties. And then once we've taken casualties, then we can't leave. Then we actually have to strike back and then we get caught in this escalation cycle. And as we saw in the global war on terror, that can last for literally for decades. I advocate for the third option where President Trump just says, does what he does best, and he says, I won because I say we won. And he basically throws his own victory parade. Most people in conservative media just echo it and say, you did a great job, you destroyed their navy, whatever, whatever. And then we quietly get back to diplomacy later on, once all of our troops are out of the region. So that's a very long answer. But the bottom line is we're in a we're in a really bad situation right now.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Well, and you had said something there that I want to, I don't want to breeze past that. You said it it's been long known that if we were to attack, that the hardliners were going to get more of an excuse to become basically more patriotic around their flag and their country. Because now, because now they have it makes complete sense. Now we have somebody else to go after that isn't our own for the problems we're facing. So if that's been the longstanding knowledge, what knowledge came in and changed that for the for the executive branch?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I mean, this is a big reason why I had to resign. Um it's the same thing about the imminent threat. There was no imminent threat. Secretary of State Rubio came out and said, like the only imminent threat was Israel attacking Iran and then Iran attacking us. We knew Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon. It's the exact same thing. When we would when we would play out these war game scenarios, I mean for decades, and almost all of this is unclassified. The Iranians basically, you know, hit us with their proxies at our bases, they shut down the Straits of Hormuz, and that becomes their leverage point. Like we had known this for for quite some time. And then also just the basic Joe, one second.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Somebody's AirPods literally just connected to this computer. One more minute. I cannot hear a word you're saying now. Ah give me one moment. I can turn this off real quick.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Come on, Laura. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, old older lady in there. It's okay. She didn't know what she was doing. Could you would you mind uh restating that answer for me so we can catch on?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah, yeah, no worries, man. So we we had known for for quite some time, none of this is you know classified or or most of it's just common sense. The war games had long shown that if we attacked Iran, Iran would retaliate against our bases in the region because our bases are so close, that's relatively easy for them to do. We knew they would shut down the Straits of Hormuz, because if you just look at a map, you're like, oh wow, the Straits of Hormuz is conveniently located next to Iran. It doesn't take a lot for them to be able to be a major hindrance to the shipping there. But then also, based on really, I would say our last two decades in the Middle East, we we realized really quickly, and by studying the Iranian regime, that if we attack them as outsiders, especially Israel and especially America, that the vast majority of Iranians, no matter how much they dislike the Ayatollahs or the IRGC, they would rally around their country. The Persian people have pride. This is just basic common sense, I think. If you think like I probably most people listening to this didn't like the Biden administration, I didn't like the Biden administration. But if somebody would have attacked America under the Biden administration, like I would have grabbed my rifle and let them have it, you know, like that's just that that's just how we are. That's just human nature. And so for a long time, we were well aware of this. And so even when we would play out the scenarios, we always said, like, hey, you don't want to take out the Ayatollah. Uh, because if you take out the Ayatollah, you're definitely 100% gonna get that rally around the flag effect. And what I don't think we realize, because I think we kind of have a very innocent view of the Israelis, the Israelis were like, no, this is exactly what we want. We want to kill off the key leadership. And if this becomes a bloody chaotic war that's that's long, long in terms, we don't really care because all the fighting is gonna take place, you know, on our on Iran in the Gulf region. It's not gonna take place in Israel. Iran's proxies can't actually attack us. It's actually a logical stand, a logical uh tactic from the standpoint of the Israeli perspective. The problem is we let the Israelis drive this entire war in accordance with their strategic objectives. Now, we would come out and say, like, no, no, our goal isn't regime change. You know, Trump will say, like, oh, we already changed the regime, but we'll be really adamant to say our goal isn't regime change. The Israelis, to their credit, like they were really straight up with us. Like at the beginning of the administration, the Israelis said, like, they think now is the time to take down the Ayatollah and to take out the regime. And they weren't shy about it the entire time. This is why after Midnight Hammer, quite a few of us in the administration said, like, okay, we understand President Trump thinks that he solved this problem by taking the Iranium issue off the table because we obliterated their nuclear sites. It was never about nuclear sites, it was never about Iranium. The Israelis are going to come right back in a couple months and they're gonna demand regime change because that's their goal. And again, like we knew if we attacked, especially if we attacked the the uh the regime in the Ayatollah, the people would rally around that. There was a lot of Iran scholars who've written extensively about how Saddam Hussein's attack against Iran in the 80s saved the revolution because the revolution was very new in Iran. It had just come into power in 79. Saddam, I think, launched his attack in 80 or 81. And that's when the the Iranian people said, okay, we're getting attacked now by a secular Arab dictator who's being backed by the West. And even the people who were like, I don't know about these Ayatollahs, they rallied around, they they fought on their front lines, they fought a brutal decade-long war. So we're we're in a very, very tough spot now. I wish we could get a negotiated settlement. I think one's possible once we take down the military uh aspect and take down the conflict. But if we remain in this conflict state with them, these are not people who are going to negotiate with us, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

And so, with that being said, do you see this as a war? I mean, obviously, yeah if things were great, like you said, third option, we take the exit ramp, party starts tomorrow. But knowing what you know, is there a time frame that your gut tells you that this war, this conflict could go on for?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I I don't I don't know. That's the problem. I mean, I think all of us thought we were going to be in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan really, really quickly because our initial military operations there at a tactical level were very successful and very impressive. But then it just gets stuck in this retaliation cycle. It gets stuck in the well, we can't leave now because it's kind of broken. Uh, and then you can hang out there perpetually until you end up leaving kind of in disgrace, like we did in Afghanistan. So I'm just saying, like, at some point, we're gonna cut a deal with the Iranians. We can decide to do it now and save ourselves maybe even two decades of hassle, blood, and treasure, you know, uh, or we can wait and see how this whole thing plays out in a bloody mess. Uh, I think if Trump were to leave now, I'm hoping he comes to his senses and sees this because he he historically has been really good about seeing big picture, you know, where his leverage is, where his vulnerabilities are. I think if he wakes up and stops listening to some of the people around him, he's like, you know what, I could sell a win right now. I'm just gonna pull back out, and then we go back in much later on with a new set of diplomats, restrain the Israelis. And I think we're gonna have to be okay with some Irania, uh, some uranium enrichment by the Iranians. Um, but we can also use sanctions relief as a tool to get the Straits of Hormuz back open. Because again, the Iranians, they they they don't want to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. They want to introduce their oil back onto the market because that's how they're gonna be able to revive their economy. So I think if we're able to just to take the military factor out of the equation, I think we can get what we want. I'm just really wary right now that all the pressure the president's gonna be under from the Israel lobby and a lot of the neoconservative hawks in his own administration, they're gonna say, like, you can't leave now, otherwise, it's a catastrophic defeat. You know, like this is your historic moment. But again, like if there was a military solution, if one plus one equaled two in military terms, and that and that two was the regime falls and we're victorious, we would have done it by now. But the problem is there's just simply no military solution.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

So back to Trump and something that you had stated uh about he seemingly had the right intentions, or at the very least, different intentions coming in through the campaign trail, in through the election. And then slowly things started to change. I think one of the first ones was Epstein, you know, he he called all the people that still wanted it stupid and things of that nature. Um, and then we get into little by little more and more, and now we're up to this Iran war. Of course, he campaigned on no wars. What do you think changed? Do you think that this was the plan from the get-go, uh, to pull the wool over the eyes and then to come in and do something different? Do you think this is just spur of the moment mistakes that are being made? Or is this cabinet influence? Because I've heard that a lot that the people within the cabinet are the ones influencing and convincing and providing the intel and information, quote unquote, that this would have been a quick excursion. This would have been a quick war when it hasn't been. What's your theory on those three options?

SPEAKER_00 32:09

I think it's probably some combination of the three and which one weighs heavier. I honestly I don't know, but you're right. And I don't think President Trump like lied throughout the entire campaign trail. Um, because if you just look at how he went about business in his first administration, especially with Iran, I mean, he had a lot of pressure in the first administration to go to war with Iran. Bolton and the Hawks that he had in the first administration, like the second the Iranians shot down one of our drones, you know, they had a uh concept of the operations on the table to go and do strikes inside Iran. Trump reigned that back in when one of our troops got killed in Iraq by the Iranian proxies. Trump killed Cosmos Almani, killed Abba Mani Muhana's strategic strike. Bolton and the rest of them were like, okay, let's go now, let's take down the regime. And he was like, no, I'm gonna use this as leverage. We're not gonna escalate any further. Um, so his instincts, this this is where I have a hard time because President Trump's instincts, especially on war in the Middle East. I mean, this is how basically he put his his name on the marker in 2016 when he went after Jeb Bush for the Iraq war on the debate stage. His like just gut level instincts, and I've talked with him about this, on a war in the Middle East, from a businessman's perspective, he knows it's a fool's errand. He knows it's just it's just a trap that you can't get yourself out of. So to me, I was really surprised, especially being, you know, air quotes in the room, not always in the room, but sometimes in the room, um, to see how disinterested President Trump was at the beginning of the administration in basically what I say, the Israeli sales pitch of like, we want you to take down the regime, which is like, okay, yeah, got it. Um, we we know every every president's gotten this pitch before. And he was utterly uninterested in it, I think, for the the better part of 2025, up until around this time last year, up until you know late May into June. Um, and then it still seemed like we were kind of we didn't want to be heavy-handed with the Israelis and say you can't. And uh several of us within the administration said before even the 12-day war, we were like, look, the Israelis are gonna do whatever it is they can to get us into this thing, unless we take things from them. If we if we actually take some of our military support back from them so they can only do defense, they can't go on offense, that gives us more leverage. We lost that argument. Um, but at the time, I think that was just a lack of like actually wanting to be a little bit more abrasive and assertive with the Israelis. Um, but then to get sucked into this war, I fully don't know what that is. Because right after the 12-day war and Midnight Hammer, President Trump had the his level of uh engagement with a lot of his advisors really, really shrunk down and he kept the circle really, really tight uh around him. And he was heavily influenced, I think, by that echo chamber, by a lot of people from outside, the donors, the Mark Levins, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, those guys to really move us towards this. You know, I I I've talked about this on other programs before. Um, I think it's impossible for us to take away all of the different things that happened in the last two years to President Trump, to think it doesn't influence the way that he thinks. And by that I mean the two assassination attempts on the campaign trail, um, and then the multiple breaches of his of his security, like one we just saw like a couple weeks ago at the White House correspondence dinner. Um, and then Charlie Kirk, who was against the war in Iran, advocating in the Oval Office against the war in Iran, basically being publicly executed, and we and there's still a lot of questions there. I personally don't think that you can take all those things out of the equation when you look at the way President Trump has changed his mind on the Iran war, on the Epstein files, and on several different key things. It does speak to some form of pressure being under him. And I and I don't think anyone's like taking a manila envelope and saying, like, if you don't do this, then something bad's gonna happen to you. But one of President Trump's, I think, talents uh is he can take a large set of data and he can say and he can get the theme from it. So even if even if there's nothing there, I think all of those different factors potentially could weigh in on why he's changed so drastically. I think they can't be ignored. I'll be called a conspiracy theorist, you know, left and right for it. But uh for me, just to see him change his mind so quickly um and to fall for so many just blatant traps that I know he's not dumb and I and he's not senile. People say he's senile left and right. The guy's not senile. He's the same Trump that he's always been, even behind closed doors. So I don't buy that line. I I do think there's something else there that we don't see that is influencing or even potentially coercing him to make these decisions.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

You brought up Charlie Kirk. Uh Thomas Massey was recorded as Charlie Kirk's favorite congressman. He was quoted as saying, uh, he loves liberty, he loves the Constitution, I love Thomas Massey. Now we see that Turning Point USA and Erica Kirk have gone ahead and not endorsed Thomas Massey instead endorsing Ed as opponent. Um and and also you have have obviously splintered away largely from the original MAGA base. Uh it you already said you feel like it's splintered. But how how can we actually look at Trump wanting Ed, a quote unquote warm body, to be in that position in Congress? We see the the leading young conservative voice that Charlie Kirk had, there's no doubt he was the number one voice amongst young conservatives in America, uh coming out and saying the Israeli lobby needs to be looked into and also Thomas Massey is the best, to now watch the Israeli lobby fight against Thomas Massey and Magus cheering it on. Forgive me for thinking it's all a bit topsy-turvy. What do you think the right wing looks like if Thomas Massey pulls this off?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

I think it's gonna look more and more like Thomas Massey. Um, I think it's gonna look more and more like you know, the the congressmen you had out there, Lauren Bulbert, uh Davidson, the the those those types. Uh it's gonna look a lot more like them because they haven't changed. MAGA has, unfortunately, or what Trump says is MAGA. So I think it's gonna look much more like this younger generation. It's gonna look much more like people who can who can stand boldly and speak boldly and not be worried about all these different money and interests coming after them. So look, I, you know, I think we should always be grateful for what President Trump did, you know, for the movement and be respectful of that. But at some point we do have to realize that like that individual, he he's kind of gone past where he can be a beneficial uh factor to the to the country and kind of build back from there. So I personally think the future of the party looks a heck of a lot like, you know, like Thomas Massey, like MTG, like what Tucker Carlson's saying. Um, because I think that's again, that's how you hold that coalition together, because the the ideals and the principles that President Trump ran on in 2024, like the Democrats didn't have a counter for that. I mean, they they basically just like took their ball and went home. They tried to spend some money, they tried to run two different candidates, I guess. Um, but as long as we have people that the people can trust, like right now we have a trust deficit because those ideas were great. But then when we got into power, we couldn't execute them because we betrayed the trust of the people that put us in power. And so now we actually have to get any kind of like hold back on power or to to keep this movement alive. Now we need people that those 77 million people can actually trust. And very few people in politics today have the resume and that trust built up like Thomas Massey does.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Agreed.

unknown 39:20

Mr.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Joe Kent, thank you for this. I appreciate it. And any closing words for any registered Republican, there's 310,000 in the fourth district of Kentucky. Any lasting words for those listening?

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Very simple. Get out there and vote and make sure your friends are voting too. I mean, getting turnout in primaries is really, really hard. I've I've ran before, and primaries are rough. So even if you think your friends all voted, like go make sure, go offer to drive people to the polls, especially in rural areas. We always have a real issue with rural Republicans getting out and participating in primaries because they're busy, they got stuff going on, but we can win this as long as everybody shows up and votes.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And you had officially endorsed Thomas Massey as field in the last week, correct? 100%.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah, yeah. Can't endorse Thomas Massey enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

For what it's worth, it's got my endorsement. Yeah. Just want to clarify. Love it. Young people get out and vote. You heard it from Mr. Kent here. Thank you for joining me. And uh, I'm hoping we can talk more if this uh if this Iran war continues on. Maybe we don't have to do that. Um, but again, thank you for your time and thank you for your service to our country.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Enjoy talking to you.