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The Shawn Ryan Show
#291 Joe Kent - His Message to President Trump on Ending the War With Iran
02:03:22
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- [00:00]
Joe Kent
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- [00:18]
Sean Ryan
Your workday even faster.
- [00:20]
Joe Kent
Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 360 apps you use,
- [00:34]
Sean Ryan
helping you quickly write, analyze, create and
- [00:36]
Joe Kent
summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot.
- [00:50]
Sean Ryan
Welcome back, man.
- [00:52]
Joe Kent
Thanks for having me. Great to be here.
- [00:54]
Sean Ryan
It's an honor to have you. So you resigned last week.
- [00:59]
Joe Kent
I did, I did.
- [01:00]
Sean Ryan
How's that going?
- [01:02]
Joe Kent
About as good as resigning to the President can go. I think
- [01:07]
Sean Ryan
it's definitely created a lot of buzz. I just. I just want to commend you, man. I mean, I know that took a lot of courage. That took some serious balls to do that, especially with the statement you made. Wow. And, you know, internally, but just me, myself, I. I haven't been happy about really much of anything that's been going on. I feel like it's been a 180 bait and switch from what we were told in just about every aspect. And I've been wondering, because I know there's people frustrated up there, and I've been wondering what. What are you still doing in the position if you're not doing the fucking job that you were supposed to do, why are you still there? Is it power? Because it's not power. They might think it's power, but if you're not able to do the fucking job that you're there to do, then you're powerless.
- [02:02]
Joe Kent
Right? That's the conclusion that I came to. I mean, after a year of really trying as hard as we could to advance what we believed the agenda was, in particular, keeping us out of endless wars and preventing more bloodshed overseas and then potentially more blowback terrorism here, I just felt like we weren't being effective. I wasn't being effective anymore. And so for me, it's like, I don't want to stay just because I have a title, some degree of, I don't know, prestige, whatever. I don't want to stay for that. I want to stay for the mission. But then also just seeing, and I'm sure we'll get into it, the things I mentioned in the resignation letter Seeing the way we are being slow walked and then rapidly entering this war, I had to say something about it. I had to. I couldn't, Number one, I couldn't be a part of it. Once the coffin started coming back from Dover, from overseas to Dover, I just couldn't be a part of it, just based on all the experiences I had had previously. Because I'd said to myself years ago, if I was ever in a position to prevent us from getting involved in a quagmire, I wouldn't be quiet about it. I would say something about it. And so that weighed heavily on me. But then I truly believe, like I said in the letter, that the way that the President was influenced by the media, but then also by Israeli government officials and the way that that decision making took place in a compartmentalized environment. Compartmentalized in the sense that the President didn't have a bunch of, didn't have much in terms of people giving him alternative viewpoints, that our country was in a bad spot. And the most effective thing that I could do was resign and resign publicly.
- [03:45]
Sean Ryan
You, you're getting a ton of hate and you're being attacked. The FBI is coming after you. You've been accused of leaking, you've been accused of all kinds of, all kinds of stuff. It's ridiculous in my mind. But, you know, I think the one thing that you've been accused of the most is, is, I mean, people are pissed that you called Israel out. They're really, really upset. And they make it sound like there's zero justification for that. But, you know, I have a couple of things right here that I want to read off. I mean, you're saying that the administration, president himself, was influenced to strike Iran for Israel's benefit. I mean, Rubio said that we hit them because Israel was going to hit them first. Then the Wall Street Journal had an article out, I think it was last week, maybe the week before. And this is, this is quoted to help make the case on Iran. Lindsey Graham traveled several times to Israel in recent weeks, meeting with members of countries of the country's intelligence agency. This is, this is in quotation. They tell me things our own government won't tell me. He said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action. Netanyahu who showed the president intelligence that persuaded Trump to go ahead. Graham said. I mean, this is, it's Reuters. About an hour ago today, Reuters. Less than 48 hours before the US Israeli strike on Iran began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone to President Donald Trump about the reasons for launching the kind of complex, far off war the American leader once had campaigned against. I mean, it's, it's not absurd that you're saying that the President's being influenced by Israel at all. All the publications are talking about this, everyone's talking about this. Senator Lindsey Graham is actually bragging about this. Ted Cruz was. What? Ted Cruz was on the flight?
- [06:02]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [06:03]
Sean Ryan
So what, how is this like some kind of fucked up conspiracy? Like all the signs?
- [06:09]
Joe Kent
Yeah, they're trying to shut people up by saying you're a conspiracy theorist, you're anti Semitic, et cetera. But yet they will come out and they will say we had to attack Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran. I mean, Secretary of State Rubio said that. The President said it. Many others have as well. So it's right there up in our face. And so again, for me, it was just something that I felt like I couldn't influence anymore from the inside and I could no longer be a part of.
- [06:37]
Sean Ryan
But it's insane. I mean, and even if, you know, Israel spent 6.4 billion on this war since March, you know how much the US has spent? 18, approximately 18 to 25 billion with another request for another 200 billion from Congress. Now why the fuck are we the ones pay floating the bill for this?
- [06:58]
Joe Kent
Because that's the way it is every time. The Israelis will have their objectives, they will convince senior American officials that this is also their objectives. And if the Americans don't agree, then the Israelis will set off a series of actions that make us react. And the next thing you know, we're having to contribute our blood and our treasure. And that same playbook is playing out now. And I, I referenced the Iraq war, I referenced what happened in, in Syria as well in my letter, because this is the same playbook we've seen over and over again. And you know, you and I saw it at the tactical level when we were deployed in the war on terror, and then now I saw it at pretty senior levels take place over the course of the last year.
- [07:36]
Sean Ryan
We're going to get into all this. I want to, I want to start by reading President Trump's statement today on truth. I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had over the last two days very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostile, of our hostilities in the Middle east. Based on the tenure and tone in these, of these in depth, detailed and constructive conversations, which will continue throughout the week I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period, subject to this success of the ongoing meetings and discussions. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump do you know what Iran's response is to this?
- [08:31]
Joe Kent
I've seen.
- [08:32]
Sean Ryan
So they immediately responded. And you know, I would love to believe our President and our administration, but just, just like we talked about at the very beginning, everything that has come out has been a bait and switch. Complete 180 fucking lie. This is what Iran says. The Iranian Foreign Ministry and state broadcaster IRIB stated in quotes, no conversation has taken place between Iran and the US And Trump's claim about having these talks is false. They described it as psychological warfare intended to manipulate energy prices, markets and buy him time. And a senior Iranian security official quoted Tehran is not in talks with Trump and that he backed down from attacking energy infrastructure. After Iran's credible military threats and market pressure. There has been and is not any negotiation underway. IRGC linked outlets and Iran's Parliament speaker called reports of negotiations in quotes, Trump's own words, fake news.
- [09:45]
Joe Kent
We're in a, we're in a bad situation. I mean, I pray that this five day somewhat truce, I hope it lasts. The problem is the Israelis have said they won't stop striking throughout the entire period.
- [09:55]
Sean Ryan
They came out and said they don't care.
- [09:57]
Joe Kent
Right? So this is the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that we right now are not capable of restraining the Israelis. I think if President Trump focuses on it, I think he has the power to restrain the Israelis. But that's the key first step in any formula towards peace. He's got to restrain the Israelis before he can even get the, the Iranians to the negotiating table.
- [10:19]
Sean Ryan
Now there's a lot of speculation that maybe the President made that statement to JET launch the stock market today. Here's a post. Just minutes before Trump's announcement of talks with Iran, massive traders hit the market. In one move, 1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures were purchased. This trade was so large it sent the entire index.03% higher. That exact minute, 192 million in oil futures were also sold. These orders were four to six times larger than anything else at that time. Whoever made those trades made $60 billion. I wonder if that was Congress. I wonder if that was insider trading from Congress that the administration and the Senate.
- [11:09]
Joe Kent
I hope people look into that.
- [11:10]
Sean Ryan
I hope they look into it too.
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Joe Kent
I hope they look into it because it definitely should be researched.
- [11:14]
Sean Ryan
Well, a lot of people are looking into it because it's going viral on X right now. And, you know, it's.
- [11:22]
Joe Kent
The problem is a good point. Even if it was, you know, worst case scenario, and this would be very bad, a way to make money. At the end of the day, the five days expire, we're still in the exact same spot that we're in where there's going to be a stranglehold from the Straits of Hormuz. There's going to be continued escalation, energy prices. Even if they stabilize for this five days, what's going to happen when, when day five arrives, we have a problem that we have to solve again. Look, I, I believe that President Trump can solve it. Restrain the Israelis, work with the GCC countries. That's the way to get out of this.
- [11:55]
Sean Ryan
Well, Joe, let me give you a quick, just a quick introduction because I think a lot of people have forgotten just exactly who the fuck you are and what you've done for this country. So, Joe Kentucky, former director of National Counterterrorism center, retired Green Beret, former member of a classified special missions unit, former CIA paramilitary officer, Gold star, spouse with 11 combat deployments, six bronze stars, author of Send Me the True Story of a Mother at War, A tribute to Shannon's courage and a testament to what real service looks like. Trusted by President Trump as his foreign policy advisor and leader. And the leader who most recently served as head of counterterrorism for the United States of America, now being investigated by the FBI for leaking classified information. I wonder how many of the pedophiles that were in the Epstein files. I wonder how many of those pedophiles are having active FBI investigations on them. Probably fucking zero. Probably zero. As of this recording, Polymarket says There is a 13% chance that US forces will enter Iran by March 31 and a 19% chance of a US Iran ceasefire by March 31. What do you think about those odds,
- [13:19]
Joe Kent
man? A ceasefire? I'm skeptical again. Until the Israelis are restrained, there won't be a ceasefire. Boots in the ground. As you know, when you have combat resources in theater and you've got active combat going on, saying that you can control any of these factors is more of a wish than a plan. So my fear is that we could rapidly escalate.
- [13:41]
Sean Ryan
Let's talk about your resignation. And what was it?
- [13:46]
Joe Kent
I mean,
- [13:49]
Sean Ryan
how long have you been frustrated with what's going on?
- [13:53]
Joe Kent
Basically since the lead up to the first iteration of our conflict with Iran in June. I was very frustrated that we had kind of backed ourselves into a corner artificially. I was and remain a big supporter of President Trump's overall thesis of foreign policy, of peace through shrinks of stopping us from getting involved in costly wars, in particular with Iran. I think President Trump was uniquely postured to cut a great deal with Iran. He had in the first Trump administration. He had killed, cost him so money in the terror mastermind. Once he left office, the Iranians went right back up to their old tricks. They funded their proxies. They were attacking our troops in the region. October 7th happened. America generally was not respected by the Iranians. When Trump came back into office, the Iranians automatically said, okay, wait a sec, this is a whole different administration. We might be able to cut a deal with this guy, but also if we don't, he will use force like he did against Qasem Soleimani. So they stopped their proxies from attacking us. Last time I was on your show, we were talking about, about how there had been over, I think, 150, 200 attacks against our forces in Iraq and Syria. That stopped when Trump came into office because the Iranians knew who was back. They also knew that President Trump was willing to make a deal and actively seeking a deal. President Trump deployed, I think a very, very competent diplomat, Steve Witkoff, to go get a deal going with the Iranians. Now this was a major threat to the Israelis because the Israelis viewed this as the prime time and Trump is the prime vehicle to use for regime change in Iraq. Now President Trump's stated policy had been, and he' says this all the time, that Iran can't have a nuclear bomb. Now the Iranians actually agreed with President Trump and they had a prohibition, a fatwa, religious decree on actually producing a nuclear weapon that had held since 2004. Now what the Iranians did say was like, hey, we're not going to make a nuclear bomb, but we want the ability to enrich uranium. Because they had seen what had taken place in Libya and Iraq and they said, hey, if we go the Gaddafi route in Libya and say, here's all of our nuclear making material, then they're a sitting duck. Then they can be invaded and regime changed at any given time. They saw the Saddam route. If they actually pursued a weapon or even like kind of BS'd that they had a weapon, that same thing, they would be immediately invaded. So they kind of had this, this ability to say, hey, we have a prohibition on a nuclear weapon, but we have some ability to enrich. This was a major threat to the Israelis goal. So what I watched the Israelis do over the course of the last year was use their, their government officials engaging with our government officials, but then also their surrogates in Levin, who I'll talk to you tonight. Mainstream media, think tanks, foundation for Defensive Democracies, a lot of talking heads on Fox News to move the red line. So Trump had said, my red line is no nuclear weapons. Dyatola said, great, I don't want nuclear weapons either. Let's talk. So they moved the red line by saying enrichment. Iran can have no enrichment. Enrichment equals a nuclear weapon, which is just fundamentally not true. So that would be parroted from officials in the, in the Israeli government and then also on the news.
- [16:53]
Sean Ryan
I mean, let's backtrack. Yeah, I don't think not one of our 18 intelligence agencies had mentioned that Iran was enriching uranium. Correct.
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Joe Kent
They were doing enrichment to some degree. So there was enrichment.
- [17:05]
Sean Ryan
No nuclear weapons, but no nuclear weapons.
- [17:07]
Joe Kent
We knew all 18 intelligence agencies agreed that the fatwa against actually making a nuclear weapon was holding and the Iranians were not making a nuclear weapon. So Tulsi Gabbard testified to that last year. She just testified to it again this year that the Iranians under the previous supreme leader who was, who was just killed, now the Iranians more than likely are going to change their, their strategic outlook. That's my guess. My guess is like, hey, a lot of their hardliners are now saying, hey, do you see what this moderation got us? And now they're going to attempt to buy one or spread. That's just my guess. But for the last year, prior to this last conflict kicking off, we did not assess that they're trying to make a nuclear weapon. So that's why they had to move the red line and say enrichment. And so finally through official engagements and the media continuing to echo this, they basically got the US Talking point to change that Iran could not have any kind of nuclear enrichment. And that was a non starter for the Iranians. And that's how we basically got into the 12 day war, Operation Midnight Hammer again, 12 day war launched by the Israelis. We said, hey, we're going to come in, we're going to do a series of limited strikes to take away any nuclear capability that Iran may have and then we're done. Now at the time we had seen, myself and others had seen how aggressive the Iranian, the, I'm sorry, the Israelis were about wanting regime change inside Iran. So when Midnight Hammer in the lead up to it, we assessed that, hey, even if we did these Strikes. The Israelis were going to come right back to us after a couple months and say, no, no, now is the time for us to do regime change. And that's exactly what happened. The difference is we had robust debates in the lead up to Midnight Hammer. After Midnight Hammer, President Trump's decision making circle was very, very tight. And that's his prerogative. He can do that. However, he had all pro Israel hawks like really in his ear, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and then on the outside again, the media echo chamber, knowing that President Trump was watching Fox News, knowing what media he was consuming, and they're all saying the same thing, Iran can't have any enrichment, which basically put us on this collision course towards a conflict. I think the Israelis once again got nervous about a month ago because they knew that Witkoff and Kushner and others in the administration were actively engaging with the Iranians to get a deal. And that's why the Israelis launched their attack knowing they could force our hands. And that's why I think you saw Marco Rubio and others come out immediately and say, well, yeah, there was an imminent attack, and the imminent attack was the Israelis attacking the Iranians. And then, then we knew that they would retaliate back against us.
- [19:36]
Sean Ryan
Why do, why would they retaliate against us?
- [19:40]
Joe Kent
Why would the Iranians retaliate against us
- [19:42]
Sean Ryan
if they know that the Israelis are the ones that hit them? Why would they retaliate against us?
- [19:48]
Joe Kent
Because they know that basically we fund the Israelis, that Israel would not have the offensive capability without us. The Israelis are very competent at conducting, I'd say, smaller, more clandestine intelligence type of assassinations. Very good at doing that. They don't need our help to do that. They don't need our help gathering very much intelligence. But for big military lifts that involve deploying strike packages several thousand miles, they need our help and troops.
- [20:14]
Sean Ryan
And also they want us to die for them.
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Joe Kent
In order for them to commit that air power to go strike Iran, they're leaving some of their airspace vulnerable. So they need us to back them up in that regard as well. So without us providing the defense and the offensive capability, Israel can't do it. Now, Iran, in the lead up to the 12 Day War, during the 12 Day War and after Midnight Hammer, they observed the escalatory ladder very, very carefully. They didn't have their proxies attack us, and they didn't attack us until Midnight Hammer. So they let the Israelis strike them throughout the entire 12 day war, and they didn't target any of our bases in the region. And Then after Midnight Hammer, they shot back an equal amount of missiles at, like, the empty sector of one of the bases on, on Qatar, in Qatar, as we dropped bombs inside of Iran. So I think this, this, this next iteration, they said, we're not, we're not going to be the escalatory ladder if you guys come after us this time. Because they knew that the Israelis were going for a regime change, they were going to try to take out the Supreme Leader. And that's what led them to say, if you guys are going to do this, then we are going to retaliate with the full force. Because they didn't want to get pushed around again.
- [21:18]
Sean Ryan
Where did that intelligence come from, but didn't come from us?
- [21:22]
Joe Kent
The intelligence about them having, about them enriching uranium, it wasn't even, it wasn't even intelligence. It was literally just talking points. I mean, I may, I don't even think it was portrayed as intelligence because this is what the Israelis, they're very good at.
- [21:34]
Sean Ryan
Are you serious?
- [21:35]
Joe Kent
The Israelis are very good at doing this. The Israelis will come and they will have engagements with our intelligence services, with our diplomats, and they will give information and they will say something like, well, this isn't an intelligence channels yet because we, as you know, we formally share intelligence with the Israelis, but that makes its way through our own, our own checks. And it's not a perfect system, but it's at least a system. And they'll say, hey, this isn't intelligence channels yet. And then we'll go back and we'll check it to see if it's actually an intelligence channels. And a lot of times it's not. And that's the way this enrichment talking point was really, really was really, really spun because they just basically said, no, no, America's policy has always been no enrichment. And I went back and I looked, and people can fact check me. The only American official who ever said America's policy is zero enrichment was Mike Pompeo in the first Trump administration. So the Israelis in this Trump administration came and they're basically like, here's President Trump's policy. It's from his last administration and he contained Iran. This is it. This is the policy. And they echoed it over and over and over again. Whereas all President Trump had said was no nuclear weapon. And so to short circuit the agreement essentially that the Supreme Leader and Trump had, that got them a negotiating table. The Israelis move the red line by, by basically having their surrogates, their, their official government interactions. But then also the media echo that. It's A very clever, pretty sophisticated plan, but they got it done through repetition.
- [22:57]
Sean Ryan
You got a lot of flack for something that you said on my show the last time you were here. I think, I think you said that. We'll roll the clip right now, but I believe you said that Iran's, they have attacked us over 150 times using proxies and people are calling you a flip flopper. What do you have to say to that?
- [23:15]
Joe Kent
If they look at the totality of everything I've ever said, I am neither an isolationist nor am I a hawk on Iran. If their proxies attack us, we should hammer them. I will debate anybody on the utility of killing Qasem Solmani. President Trump was justified and he was correct and he was bold for killing Qasem Soleimani and his deputy, Abumani Mohandas. He was really bold in the fact that he took them off the battlefield, but then he didn't get suckered into what we're in right now, which is a regime change war in a massive country like Iran. So I've always been against us doing a prolonged kinetic strikes inside of Iran. When Iran shot ballistic missiles at our troops, I thought we would have been justified to basically counter battery and take out some of those ballistics. Now, right after the Iranians shot the ballistic missiles in retaliation for somebody at our troops at Al Assad, they accidentally shot down that Ukrainian airliner and that basically ended the conflict right there. But I have never been in favor of a regime change war inside of Iran. If their proxies attack us, if they attack us, we hammer them back. But again, going back to the Iranian escalatory ladder, if you look at how Iran has behaved since President Trump basically killed Somanis and then since he came back into office, they were very, very deliberate about what they weren't going to what they were and what they were not going to do. They didn't hit us until we hit them. And then again, again, just for the record, I'm not a fan of the Iranians. I'm not a fan of the Quds Force. Like I fought them, you fought them, they've killed friends of ours. But at some point we do have to find a way that we can de escalate these situations and move on. The default answer can't always be, well, we're going to do another regime change war and get sucked into this place for 20 plus years.
- [24:51]
Sean Ryan
That's my beef. I mean, the way I look at it is you got in there, you have access to a lot more information and you changed your mind and. Yeah, you're right. You know, they did. They weren't. I think they were in charge. They were the ones that developed the EFP bomb, too. Correct. That killed a shit ton of our friends.
- [25:10]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [25:11]
Sean Ryan
But I think we both agree we shouldn't have been in the Iraq war.
- [25:17]
Joe Kent
We should have. And then also, just in terms of being effective, if our goal is to stop the Iranians from doing things like that, I argue, and I've argued this for quite a while, we would only strengthen the hardliners in Iran. We would only strengthen the Quds Force, the IRGC and the hardline ayatollahs if we go in there and try and take them out. It's the basic rally around the flag effect. And I think we've done that. I mean, the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that we killed, not a great guy, probably a bad guy, but by killing him, we basically said, the next guy who's in charge, he's going to say, we're not going to have a prohibition on developing nuclear weapons. And if we end up killing him, too, and we end up killing some of the other folks that are more moderate, we. They're not going to be replaced by like a mini Thomas Jefferson. They're going to be replaced by more and more hardliners. There's always been a tension in Iran between the clerics and between the irgc and the irgc. It's full of pipeheaders, man. I mean, it's the guys who fought the Iraq Iran war. They fought us in Iraq, they fought against the Israelis in Lebanon with Hezbollah. So if we give these guys the ability to basically say, hey, don't listen to the moderates, our job is to fight the Americans, it's to fight the Israelis, then this is going to get harder and harder. There's going to be more terrorism, there's going to be more blood, and then basically the only recipe for getting out of this is going to be more and more continued war. Problem is, though, you've got the Straits of Hormuz as a choke point for major world energy. So this is going to become. It already has become a major geostrategic issue and a major issue on the world economy.
- [26:43]
Sean Ryan
That's like 20 to 25% of the world's oil comes out of there. Everybody's pissed at us. Back to the Iranian proxies and them killing US Service members in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. That's not why we're there, though. And so I see everybody in there, they're talking about the hostages back in the day. They're talking about how they. And they're clipping you on my show. But that's not why we're there. You can scrounge around and find all kinds of justifications on why we would be starting a war with Iran, but none of that relevant stuff is the reason that we're there. And it hasn't been stated either by anybody but just fucking Internet trolls.
- [27:29]
Joe Kent
If we wanted to clean the deck on Iranian proxies that were outside of Iran or even inside of Iran, fine, do it. Do limited strikes. That's fine. The Israelis are very competent. I mean, they've killed many Hamas. They've killed at least one Hamas leader inside of Tehran. They've killed how many members of Hezbollah, decapitated them with the. The pagers. Operations like that are pragmatic. They make sense. They're limited in their scope, and they target exactly where we need to target. Again, back to the policy of the first Trump administration. President Trump would use force where required, but then, like no other president I've seen, he would apply other leverage that only America has in terms of economic power and in terms of diplomacy. So after he kills Somani Mohanis, he goes and he slaps maximum pressure sanctions on Iran. That makes the. The economic life in Iran very, very challenging. That results in waves and waves of protest that we were seeing back in January, just not that long ago. We saw Iranians out on the streets protesting against the current regime because of the cost of living. Now, the Iranian. The regime knows that their own people could overthrow them if they're not happy, especially, you know, with. With just how expensive it is and challenging it is to live. That organic protest movement was already happening, but it was happening in large part because of the economic pressure that President Trump had put on them. Now, if you want to ruin all that, you go as an outsider with the Israelis and you strike them, because then everyone is going to rally around the flag. That's why we're not seeing any protests. That's why even the Kurds have said, hey, we don't want to be part of any kind of regime change. Right now. We're working against.
- [29:03]
Sean Ryan
Heard rumors that we wanted the Kurds to back us in this. My answer to that is, why the. Would the Kurds back us in this? We abandoned them in Iraq. They got slaughtered when we did that. We just abandoned them about a month ago in Syria. I got buddies over at Fifth Group that were complaining about it, and they. I mean, they fought with them. Yeah, and we fucking abandoned them again. And now they're getting slaughtered in fucking Syria. And then we ask them, the US Has a. I mean, we have a pattern, and that's what the pattern is. We come in, we pretend like we're your friend, we get what we need, and then we fucking abandon you. And they slaughter your ass. And we do nothing. Happened in Afghanistan, happened to the Kurds twice in Iraq and in Syria. One just a couple of months ago. The Syrian one is just a couple of months ago. Now we're already back asking them, like, of course they're gonna fucking say, fuck you.
- [30:05]
Joe Kent
Yeah, I think that was the Israelis trying to, like, basically use a media campaign to will that into existence. I don't know if that was ever a very real thing. But. But again, if our goal is to get rid of the Ayatollah and is to get rid of that. That government, the last thing that we should have ever done was strike them. Because now, I mean, the persons have their pride. I mean, it's not that hard to imagine, to put ourselves in their shoes. Like, none of us, most people probably watching this show or me or you, we didn't like Joe Biden. But if a foreigner would have attacked America, hey, man, like, I'm going to saddle up and I'm going to defend my country. I don't think they're that much different than we are. And we're seeing that right now. There's a massive rally around the flag factor happening inside of Iran. And again, we're only going to get more and more hardliners.
- [30:46]
Sean Ryan
Now let's talk about the strategy.
- [30:50]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [30:50]
Sean Ryan
What is the strategy? What are we doing?
- [30:54]
Joe Kent
Well, right. Right now, this is their strategy. Well, the problem is we have a drastically different strategic goal than the Israelis do. So we will say that Israel is our ally in this. They're basically our CO Equal in this. People like me will say, actually, we're not really even CO equals. They're leading because we're having to react to them. But either way, we're basically joined at the hip with the Israelis. Now, the problem is they have a much different strategic goal and a much, I'd say, higher threshold and tolerance for chaos and bloodshed than we do. Now, we have stated that our strategic goal. You'll hear Secretary Hegseth rattle these off at his morning briefings that he gives to the media. It's to destroy the Iranian navy, to destroy the irgc, to destroy their ballistic missile capability, to destroy all their enrichment. So we kind of have a checklist of things that we want to bomb essentially to take off the battlefield. That's about as far as we've gone with stating what our strategic goal is, which I think is a big problem that we have with the gwad is we never really said what our strategic goal was. Obviously there was get bin Laden and make sure the homeland isn't attacked. But I just remember being in Iraq being like, what's the goal here? We're building a government. So same thing. We didn't really learned that lesson. We haven't stated our strategic goal. The Israelis, as critical as I am of our relationship with the Israelis, the Israelis have a very clear strategic goal and that is to take out this regime lock, stock and barrel. That's to get rid of the Ayatollahs, the, the clerical class that rules over, and then also the irgc, which is a huge lift. It's a big country. Those institutions are massive. They've got a lot of support. But that's the Israelis goal. Now the Israelis don't really care necessarily if that happens and Iran then slips into chaos and the Straits of Hormuz remains inflamed and there's a migration crisis and there's an ongoing war. The Israelis don't care about that. They care. The IRGC and the Ayatollahs can no longer fund their proxies or cause them problems inside of Israel. So again, you've got us footing the bill doing the majority of the combat, doing the dying, doing the fighting. We have a very, very murky strategic objective, whereas the Israelis are driving this. They're driving essentially our commitment of combat power. They're driving us having people lose their lives. They have a very clear strategic objective. And this is why I say the number one thing we have to do in order to get out of this is to restrain the Israelis and get our relationship with Israel straight. Otherwise it's all going to be for naught and we're going to continue to get sucked in further and further.
- [33:19]
Sean Ryan
I mean, if we're attached hip to hip with them, I mean, it's got to be the same goal, right?
- [33:24]
Joe Kent
You would think, but it's not.
- [33:26]
Sean Ryan
Is it just not articulated or is it really not?
- [33:30]
Joe Kent
I feel like it's, it's, it's truly not. And, and the Israelis don't have a, have, have a hard time articulating what their goal is.
- [33:37]
Sean Ryan
Oh, I mean, us articulating. Yeah.
- [33:40]
Joe Kent
So we, we just list off the tactical pun punch list of things we want to bomb, to take out so the Iranians don't have any more. And to me, that's not a real strategic goal.
- [33:51]
Sean Ryan
You know, you had a. I want to bring out this up. You had a really good article in the Washington Post. I think it released today. But you were talking about some strategy here, and that made me think. The potential deployment of US Ground troops makes me very nervous. Citing recent reporting that the president is considering seizing Kharg Island, Iran's main hub for oil experts. This is. You quoted. I just think that would be a disaster. Kent said of deploying U.S. troops there. It would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles. Are you the only fucking person up there that's. That's thinking straight? Because that's exactly what would happen. You're putting U.S. service members in a fucking. In a fishbowl for Iran to kill because there's. They are stranded on a fucking island.
- [34:46]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [34:46]
Sean Ryan
I mean, this is our, this is our strategy.
- [34:49]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [34:49]
Sean Ryan
Who came up with this fucking strategy?
- [34:51]
Joe Kent
It sounds like Trump. It sounds like Lindsey Graham. I mean, Lindsey Graham was on the Sunday shows yesterday talking about how great it would be. It would be just like Iwo Jima. I mean, just insanity. And I mean, I don't think the people who are pragmatic and are expressing their concerns, I don't believe they're being listened to. Now, obviously the administration will push back and say, no, no, we're doing robust planning and we're hearing all voices, et cetera. But when I see ideas like that floated and there's much worse ones out there as well, basically, most of the formulas for putting boots in the ground inside of Iran are problematic, I guess is too late of a way to put it. They're bad plans.
- [35:30]
Sean Ryan
They've already stated they want us to do it.
- [35:33]
Joe Kent
They're ready for it 100%. I mean, that would be handing Iran basically a strategic victory because once they get our troops on the ground there, they're going to be able to kill some of them. We're going to take losses and, and then we fall back into that cycle. Once we take losses somewhere, we say, oh, no, no, now, we can't leave. We have to stay to avenge our fallen. We can't be all for nothing. We have to stay. We have to keep fighting. We saw this over and over again in the gwat. Every single time we talked about any kind of withdraw in Iraq or Afghanistan, it was the same argument. We've lost too much here. There's still more that we could do. So, I mean, in terms of the Crog Island. That makes me nervous because I have heard so many people like Lindsey Graham and others that are not military, people that are not in the Pentagon, that are not reading intelligence every day, talk about it very flippantly, like, oh, we'll just take that island. We'll just take their oil. I want to tell you guys, like, it's not 2003 anymore. You can't just put guys there and they'll occupy it. Like, there's ballistics, there's drones. They would be sitting ducks in that area. And as a matter of fact, like you said, the Iranians would probably be like, please take the island. We, you know, we'll roll out the red carpet for you guys.
- [36:37]
Sean Ryan
I mean, do I need to read your bio again? Why is he taking advice from Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and whoever else that's just career bureaucrats.
- [36:47]
Joe Kent
This is the problem.
- [36:48]
Sean Ryan
And then you got a guy like you in there with tons of experience in war, in intelligence.
- [36:55]
Joe Kent
Yeah. And there's others, too. There's plenty of us in there that can give him much better advice. I just hope the President reflects and I know he's mad at me. I hope he reflects and I hope he looks at the advisors he has around him currently that got him to the state that we're in right now, because we're not in a good state. He knows that. And he needs to start listening to people that are going to give him better advice that can give us a clear pathway out of this.
- [37:18]
Sean Ryan
Who are some people that would give him better advice other than yourself?
- [37:22]
Joe Kent
Vice President Dni Gabbard and their teams, I think, are absolutely key.
- [37:25]
Sean Ryan
The Vice President and the dni.
- [37:27]
Joe Kent
And the dni, yeah. Yep. And there's, there's, there's good people at the Pentagon that can give you options.
- [37:32]
Sean Ryan
So he's not taking advice from his own vice president that I don't know.
- [37:36]
Joe Kent
I wasn't at the vice president's level. I think they have a good relationship. I just, Based on what I've seen and based on what we've seen in the public sphere, he has been taking more advice, obviously, from Lindsey Graham, from Ted Cruz, from Mark Levin on tv, than he has been from people who may say, hey, Steve, Mark Levin on
- [37:54]
Sean Ryan
tv, that's who he's getting advice from.
- [37:56]
Joe Kent
Fucking in terms of how easy and great of an idea this will be. So the media ecosystem, they're not giving him tactical military advice, but they were, I believe, in my opinion, a big part of echoing the Israeli talking points about no enrichment. You have to Strike now. If you strike now, you'll be a hero. There was also this false narrative, basically, that said, like, hey, because the people were on the streets in January, if you take a couple strikes right now and you really hammer them, the rest is going to be easy. It's going to be a cakewalk. The people are going to rise up, they're going to overthrow the regime, they're going to love you, they're going to cut a deal. It's going to be quick and easy like Venezuela was. I think Venezuela did a lot to give us some false confidence in how quick and easy a regime change, regime modification, whatever you want to call it, can be. So people like Levin, people on Fox, New York Post, New York Times, et cetera, a lot of those talking heads, coincidentally not so coincidentally, a lot of them were the same people who talked us into the Iraq war, convinced him how quick and easy this would be. But I mean, to your point, I think if he took some more advice from Vice President, from Dni Gabbard and their teams, I think we'd be in a much better spot and I think we'd be able to carve our way out of this message, man. Wow.
- [39:07]
Sean Ryan
How many troops do we have over there right now waiting?
- [39:11]
Joe Kent
Is it 25 Marines? I don't know. I mean, I see what you see on the news. I'm disconnected from all that.
- [39:17]
Sean Ryan
How many is Israel sent?
- [39:19]
Joe Kent
Far less than us. Most their military operations are taking place in Lebanon. They're doing a lot of air. Air support and power projection via air. Which is heavily funded by us.
- [39:30]
Sean Ryan
Are they talking about sending ground force?
- [39:33]
Joe Kent
If they could, it'd be tiny. They just don't have. I mean.
- [39:36]
Sean Ryan
Oh, so we'll do it.
- [39:37]
Joe Kent
So. Oh, we would have to do it. Yeah, 100. I mean, they might do it for them. They could do a commando raid or something, you know, that'd be about it. But in terms of any kind of meaningful hold ground, even for a limited amount of time, that would have to be American boots.
- [39:51]
Sean Ryan
Oh, okay. That's kind of what I thought. But, you know, I'm getting angry, Joe.
- [39:58]
Joe Kent
I can tell. I hear you, man.
- [40:00]
Sean Ryan
Angry. But, oh, man, it just. No new wars. No new wars. It just echoes in my head all day long. And here we are. Here we are right back in war.
- [40:21]
Joe Kent
Completely avoidable. Completely avoidable. And I pray again, he listens to some of the voices that can get him out of this. I think there's still time, but this is very bad. And this could get worse. And I think platforms like Yours are important because people like you. Big podcast. I think you guys brought a lot of people out to vote for President Trump. And I think it's really important that all the people that are watching this show and all the other podcasts call their senators, call their representatives, make their voice heard, because there is, again, that media ecosystem that kind of exists, oddly, in the White House. We've got to penetrate through that. They were listening during the campaign, and I think they'll listen again if people take this as a call to action.
- [41:07]
Sean Ryan
I mean, so we're talking about war strategy a little bit here. What is the rest of the world's pulse on this? Is anybody other than Israel encouraging us to hit Iran?
- [41:20]
Joe Kent
I doubt it. I strongly doubt it.
- [41:25]
Sean Ryan
I mean, China gets like. Not that China's our front. China's not our front. They get, like, 75% of their fucking oil from the Straight or Hormuz.
- [41:34]
Joe Kent
They're still getting it. The only difference is they're selling the transactions in yuan. And so I think China may like this because obviously we've taken our eyes off the Pacific. For people who care about Taiwan, the Pacific is truly our border. We're a Pacific power. I think a lot of that has kind of gone by the wayside because we had to move so much combat power into centcom. So I'm sure China's happy with it. Russia, too. We've taken our eyes off of getting a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine because there is scarcity now. We've created scarcity while it's taking place in the Straits of Hormuz with the energy sector, Russian oil, Russian gas, all that is going to be worth more on the market now to fund their war. So I think our major competitors, Russia and China, I would say they're probably pretty happy about this, but all of our regional allies, I think, are probably pretty furious about it.
- [42:22]
Sean Ryan
And China's becoming more aggressive towards Taiwan since we started this.
- [42:26]
Joe Kent
Right, right. And then two.
- [42:27]
Sean Ryan
In terms of, like, now that's a real threat.
- [42:30]
Joe Kent
That's a real threat.
- [42:31]
Sean Ryan
And then take those chip plants. That's a real threat. They will win the AI race like that.
- [42:38]
Joe Kent
It is done.
- [42:39]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [42:39]
Joe Kent
And.
- [42:40]
Sean Ryan
And it was always debatable going after fake nuclear weapons.
- [42:43]
Joe Kent
It was always debatable if we could defend it before. But now with all the combat power pushed into centcom, that's a huge issue. Another major issue is the strength of the dollar. The dollar's already been weakened so much because of our deficit spending. We can deficit spend because we're the world's reserve currency holder. And a lot of that strength comes from the petrodollar, that any money that gets bought from the GCC or any oil that gets bought from the gcc, you got to sell the transaction in dollars. China's already kind of short Circumflex.
- [43:07]
Sean Ryan
And then they reinvested in our stock market.
- [43:09]
Joe Kent
Right, right. So if you want to keep that system going, which I'm not sure if it's the best system, but we should at least deliberately move away from it if we're going to do it. It disappear over the course of a month because of a war, because the straits being choked off. Iran knows this. They know that if they choke off the straits and they only let Chinese ships, et cetera, come through and they settle the transaction in another currency, that they're eroding away at the petrodollar. And we also need the GCC to be on board. All the Gulf Cooperation countries in the region, they've got to be on board with the petrodollar, too. The reason why they went with the petrodollar is because we provided their security guarantees. Well, how are the security guarantees now? We can't defend them against what's taking place. We can't defend them from Iranian ballistics, Iranian drones. They know full well that the war was launched by Israel and now they're suffering the consequence. So all of a sudden we're not the best ally. So how long do we expect them to continue to settle their transactions in the dollar? So the ramifications of this conflict, I think, are massive.
- [44:07]
Sean Ryan
What about Europe? I mean, when the facility in Qatar got hit, I mean, they're now having to renegotiate all their contracts with China, Italy. There was a handful of European countries that did get the majority of their oil from there. Now they have to renegotiate because they're going to default on the contract.
- [44:26]
Joe Kent
Yeah. There's only one country that gains in this and that's Israel. That's just the bottom line.
- [44:31]
Sean Ryan
Is there anything that we gain? Do we gain anything at all by doing this?
- [44:36]
Joe Kent
I don't believe so. I mean, my critics would say no, we're finally once and for all taking out the Iranian regime, again for all the reasons I previously outlined. I just disagree with that. And again, we don't seem to have a strategy that's working in that direction, minus the punch list of things that we're bombing.
- [44:52]
Sean Ryan
Well, Joe, I want to take a break here real quick, but before we do, I saw Trump's speech this morning about, you Too. He's poking fun that you lost, that you lost your congressional run. So I pulled some stats. So I'm poking fun at you this morning about losing in Washington, losing your Congress race. Trump actually lost there in the last presidential election by set by a 17% margin himself. You only lost by a 3.8% margin. Who's the fucking loser? All right, let's take a break. Aging is inevitable. And if you're anything like me, you feel it a little more every year. Sore knees, tight joints. Recovery takes longer than it used to. We can't stop the clock, but we can take care of ourselves. That's why I take Bubs Naturals Collagen Peptides. I mix it into my tea every morning. It blends right in. No taste, no gritty texture. It's simple. I've been using Bubs collagen for a long time, and I genuinely notice the difference. My knees feel better, my skin looks better. I recover faster after workouts. I stick with Bubs because I trust the company. Their collagen is NSF certified for sport and sourced from grass fed cattle. So it's clean, tested and exactly what they say it is. And there's a bigger mission here. Bubs was founded in Honor of Navy Seal Glenn Bubb Dougherty. And 10% of all profits go towards helping veterans transition back to civilian life. So you're not just supporting your joints and recovery. You're supporting people who served this country. If you're ready to upgrade your daily routine with Bubs Naturals Collagen, head to Bubsnaturals.com SRS and use code SHAWN for 20% off your order. Again, that's Bubsnaturals.comSRS and use code SHAWNfor 20% off your order. Take care of your body. It's the only one you've got.
- [46:58]
Joe Kent
Hi, I'm Sarah Adams, the host of Vigilance Elite's the Watch Floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a permissive state. Explain to you why it matters, and then aim to leave you feeling better informed than you were before you hit play. Terrorists, hostile intelligence agencies, organized crime. Not everything is urgent. But this show will focus on what is need to know, not just what is nice to know. Foreign.
- [47:37]
Sean Ryan
Joe, I know we were going to move on about strategy from the Epstein War. I mean, I mean, the Iran war. But I got a couple more questions for you. So, one, what is Rubio doing in all this?
- [47:50]
Joe Kent
I'm not sure. I mean, I think he's doing the best he can to give the President Options. I mean, he came out right away and I think was pretty honest when he said we had to attack, otherwise these really were going to.
- [48:00]
Sean Ryan
What are the other options that he's given? Are you aware of those?
- [48:02]
Joe Kent
I'm not, no. I don't know.
- [48:04]
Sean Ryan
Is he for this?
- [48:06]
Joe Kent
That I don't know, honestly. Yeah. What?
- [48:10]
Sean Ryan
You know, there's a lot of strategy. There's a lot of. Of stuff floating around about strategy. Attacking their infrastructure, taking away the fertilizer for their food, creating famines, hitting their water supply, starving them of water. I mean, hitting their energy grid. Is there any validity to that?
- [48:27]
Joe Kent
That I'm sure it was looked at because we look at everything but that I don't know. The only.
- [48:31]
Sean Ryan
Those are innocent people.
- [48:33]
Joe Kent
The only strategy I've seen is the punch list of military targets. And I still believe the US Military would not deliberately target civilian infrastructure in that way.
- [48:44]
Sean Ryan
You don't think we would do that?
- [48:46]
Joe Kent
I don't think we would. Based on my experience in the military, I don't think that we would. Now will the Israelis. This is the problem. This is the problem that we have being partnered with someone who has different values than we do. Look, the Israelis believe this is existential. The Israelis. We've seen what the Israelis, what they did in Gaza.
- [49:10]
Sean Ryan
They have a different 20,000 kids.
- [49:12]
Joe Kent
They have a whole different way of fighting wars than we do. They fight total war. They fight very biblical wars. We do not.
- [49:23]
Sean Ryan
I mean, in all honesty, they fight of war how you should fight a war.
- [49:27]
Joe Kent
Precisely. So if you want to win, like we don't fight to win. That's not in our interest. Because at the end of the day, like, if you're going to do that, then you're going to occupy the land, you're going to fully take the land. We're not going to do that. We've never been a very good occupying army. America has not been a good occupying army. I don't think Americans have the colonial mentality. I don't think we have the total war mentality. I'm glad that we don't. However, if we're going to be. Again, it goes back to are we going to be partnered with the Israelis and attempt to pretend that we can have a different strategic goal, but then also a different appetite for how war is conducted. Like at some point we should just say there's certain things we can partner with the Israelis on, like limited strike counterterrorism operations. Absolutely. But when it comes to fighting and to try and take over and quell and dominate an entire Population. We cannot be joined at the hip with the Israelis just due to the different strategic goals, but then also just a different value system.
- [50:23]
Sean Ryan
Is there any way at all to differentiate that? To have our goal and their goal and be in this together?
- [50:29]
Joe Kent
It seems one and same to me. I don't believe so. But we're paying for the Israelis. We're paying for everything that they're doing. And so we are the dominant one in this relationship. We need to assert ourselves as such. I honestly. And I know I've gotten a lot of crap and people have said, oh, you're anti Semitic, whatever. I've got no issue with the Israelis. They're pursuing their objectives. I have an issue with our reaction to the Israelis. Like, our government should not be. Our action should not be directed by a foreign government. And that's my biggest issue.
- [50:55]
Sean Ryan
You have an. Yeah, you have. You're upset because we are under their influence.
- [51:00]
Joe Kent
Yes, exactly.
- [51:02]
Sean Ryan
And you know, in your resignation letter, you had talked about how the Iraq war. Yeah, Syria.
- [51:09]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [51:10]
Sean Ryan
That was because we were under their influence, too. And I want to ask you, how were we under their influence in Syria?
- [51:17]
Joe Kent
So I think the war in Syria wouldn't have happened if the Iraq war wouldn't have happened. So the Iraq war was driven, obviously, by the neoconservative movement here in America. Military industrial complex. But a big part of that was also the Israeli lobby. Benjamin Netanyahu at the time, who had just gotten done being the Israeli prime minister. I think he was still in government. He was like the finance minister. He came and he aggressively lobbied and testified in the House and in the Senate that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. So he helped launder that narrative that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction in conjunction with the military industrial complex and neoconservatives. To say that we had to go in and we had to take away the nuclear weapons. You also had others in, like, the think tank realm, the same thing, the media echo chamber, who was saying that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda and to nine, 11 potentially. So they laundered those talking points as well. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party really wanted us to go in and take out Saddam so that they could have basically a launching pad for operations into Iraq and then also into Syria. They wanted us to do the heavy lifting so they could eventually get their goal of taking out Assad, who was supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and then also taking out Iran. So that's why they supported the war in Iraq. The prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, Initially said, no, I don't support this, I want America to focus on taking out ir. But then eventually he got on board. So you basically had both major political parties inside of Israel pushing for the war in Iraq. The Israelis also wanted access to Iraq's oil supply so that they could get a pipeline of oil coming out of Iraq and directly into Israel, circumventing Syria because they didn't want to go through Syria because Assad was supporting the Iranians and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. So once we got into Iraq and got into that quagmire, we, the US government screwed things up so badly that we basically handed over Iraq, as you know, to Iranian backed Shias that were there. So by the time we were done in Iraq, Iran pretty much controlled Iraq through their proxies, helped them circumvent sanctions, made Iran even stronger. So then you had the Shia Crescent, you basically had a unification of Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus, forming that crescent, that land bridge, Iranian supplies going right into Israel's backyard. So the Israelis at the end of the Iraq war were like, no, no, this is not going to work at all. We have to break this up. We have to go to war in Syria, we have to take down Assad. Arab Spring happened. There was some energy from the people. I think it was somewhat organic. But then in short order we came in and we said, we're going to work with the Israelis, but we're also going to have to work heavily with the Sunni population on the ground in Syria to create an uprising. And that's where ISIS came from. We worked directly with Al Qaeda. Hillary Clinton's emails confirmed this. The operations that we were doing to support the so called Free Syrian army and there were some moderates there, but the most effective guys initially were Al Qaeda and then eventually isis. Now obviously ISIS got out of control and they started plotting attacks in Europe, they started plotting attacks in America. They took over large swaths of Iraq. So we then had to go back and put out once again the brush fire that we had started and go after isis. And that's where I lost my, my late wife. But Israel was the driving factor in that. We took down Saddam, who is a strong man against Israel. We then had to go in and take out Assad, who was a strong man against Israel as well. And now this is the third phase. We're going now into Iran to take out that strong government for Israel.
- [54:48]
Sean Ryan
And we, who did we put in charge of Syria?
- [54:50]
Joe Kent
Oh, we handed that whole, well again we screwed the whole thing up so much.
- [54:54]
Sean Ryan
We handed it to A leader of fucking Al Qaeda.
- [54:58]
Joe Kent
Yep. He was in ISIS initially. He was in Al Qaeda initially in Iraq, fighting. Fighting against us. We had him in jail, joined isis, broke off from ISIS hand selected by Bin Laden's right hand man, Ayman Zawahiri, to lead Nusra. And then they rebranded and this is like the number one way to fool Americans as a jihadist is just put on a suit and get a good PR company and then apparently we'll just believe whatever you say.
- [55:18]
Sean Ryan
There's videos of this guy holding people's heads that he cut off.
- [55:22]
Joe Kent
Yeah. I mean, he's the thug, he's shaken. He's a brutal.
- [55:24]
Sean Ryan
President Trump's hand.
- [55:25]
Joe Kent
Yeah. Horrible advice. Yep.
- [55:27]
Sean Ryan
And so what the fuck are we doing exactly? What are we doing exactly?
- [55:31]
Joe Kent
President Trump at the beginning, again, this is where Trump.
- [55:34]
Sean Ryan
This guy's inviting a fucking terrorist.
- [55:36]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [55:37]
Sean Ryan
Into our house.
- [55:38]
Joe Kent
In the first Trump administration, he had Syria. Right. He said, we're going to go in, we're going to take out the caliphate because it poses a threat to us, and then we're going to get out. And this is why I supported President Trump even after losing Shannon, because he was trying to get our troops out, the military was fighting him. And then when Assad fell in December, right before President Trump even took office, when Assad fell in Jelani, whatever, HTS took over Syria, President Trump put out a truth. You can still probably pull it up where he says, whatever happens in Syria, it's not our business. I always said it was a bad idea. I don't want to be involved in Syria. And that was actually the right approach because it was too late for us to go back in and fight the new government, et cetera. Best thing that we could have done is back off, let the Turks, let the Israelis, let our regional partners kind of take lead there. But instead we went all in with the Shara government, we embraced them, and now we're pretending they're part of the d ISIS coalition and it's an entire mess. Look, the Middle east, basically, and again, President Trump used to understand this. The Middle east is a place where you can just get involved in these never ending quagmires and you start one fire to put out another and you never fully extricate yourself. And at the end of the equation, there's never a clear benefit for the American people. And that's, that's, that's gotten us to a state, this state that we're in right now, and we have to stop that.
- [56:55]
Sean Ryan
What about the IAEA inspections? We were Going in there and inspecting all these facilities in Iran. Correct. And then Trump cut that.
- [57:06]
Joe Kent
Oh, yeah.
- [57:06]
Sean Ryan
As part of that in his first administration.
- [57:08]
Joe Kent
Right. As part of the getting rid of the jcpoa.
- [57:12]
Sean Ryan
Why would we do that?
- [57:14]
Joe Kent
I think the idea with the JCPOA was it gave Iran access, and I partially agree with this, it gave Iran access to more capital with sanctions, circumvention. That was the whole famous. Initially, Obama unfroze a bunch of the assets that we had frozen and that's why we flew over the pallets of cash that everyone talks about so frequently. And then as part of throwing out the jcpoa, we got rid of the inspections. And we did. Because when they put in the inspectors, there was some sanctions relief that came there by getting rid of the JCPOA and slapping the sanctions back on them. That made it more challenging for the inspectors to get back into the Iranian sites again, though, like Trump had used his leverage, he killed Soleimani. We were in a really good place at the beginning of this administration. President Trump was in a great spot with Iran. Him and the Supreme Leader both agreed, no nukes. We need to have a discussion about enrichment. We need to have a discussion about how that's going to be supervised and checked. But this was a discussion that could have been worked out by diplomats sitting at a table as opposed to a massive military conflict and Iran. And again, I'm no fan of Iran. They were restraining their proxies. They even restrained their proxies throughout the first iteration of the 12 day war. So again, I go back to why are we doing what we're doing right now? Look at the ramifications, look at how little we're gaining from this. And again, all roads go back to Israel is the benefactor in all of this. And we've got to get that relationship to a place where it actually benefits us. And not just them.
- [58:47]
Sean Ryan
As far as these proxies, I mean, you know Sarah Adams, Correct. I mean, she's been talking about the sleeper cells in the US for probably two years now, maybe longer.
- [58:58]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [58:58]
Sean Ryan
You know, says there's thousands.
- [59:00]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [59:01]
Sean Ryan
Thousands of terrorists in sleeper cells all around the country. Now, how are we going to know if Iran is the one that activated them?
- [59:11]
Joe Kent
Right. Or were they just inspired by events that are over there? So I testified publicly in December that we at NCTC had identified 18,000 known suspected terrorists who had access to America. The more we dug into the data of the last four years, the more I realized we have no idea who's in our country. Just because There was no border. The CBP1 app, and the ability for people to come into the country undetected, but then later apply for a benefit knowing they'd get a parole status, which gives them a legal status in America, which we're still caught up in the courts and fighting the courts with. We just simply don't know. At the beginning of this war, we were looking at other data sets of people who could have come from either Iran or Lebanon, Iraq, countries that have large Shia populations. And again, the data was. To me, it was as murky as the numbers of who came into the border. Like, it just the one consistent factor I kept coming away with or the one takeaway I kept coming away with, was that we have no idea who is in our country right now, and that is incredibly dangerous. So, again, I think we should be focusing the majority of our efforts on securing our homeland and making sure that people who came into our country in the last four years are located and we get them out now. Sleeper cells, I think a lot of people, when they hear sleeper cells, they'll think like it's a handful of guys who are specifically trained and infiltrated to conduct an attack at a certain time that could be taking place. I don't think that's the main threat. I think the main threat is people that have come here legally and illegally being inspired by media they consume or by seeing social media clips and then saying, now I'm going to conduct an attack as a lone actor. Because that's even harder for us to pick up on cells when they infiltrate. They have to communicate with each other. The U.S. intelligence enforcement, we're pretty good at infiltrating those cells and detecting them, it's not 100%. It could still happen. But when it's a lone actor and it's someone who's just inspired to take action based on the fact that they shouldn't even be in our country in the first place, and they see some media and they take action, then that's hard for us to actually get ahead of and stop until it's too late. And at the beginning of this conflict, we've already seen several attacks. There was a guy down in Texas who went in the bar and shot up several. I think, killed three people, shot several more. You know, he had an Iran T shirt on. Exactly, Virginia. Exactly. Right there, too.
- [61:31]
Sean Ryan
And then how do you know that they. So it's. How do you know they're. They're. They need to communicate and that we would pick that up because it's been reported by Sarah and her counterparts that they are only communicating back to HQ in Afghanistan through couriers and that they have. They're totally isolated, that you don't know each other, so the only way they have to communicate is through couriers, which we would not pick that up.
- [61:56]
Joe Kent
That's definitely possible, too. Yeah, that's. That's certainly impossible. Yeah, Yeah. I wouldn't rule it out. Again, it goes back to, like, the border was open for four years. So it's kind of like if you and I wanted to attack our adversaries and left their border open for four years, like, how creative could we get? And that's the opportunity that we gave all of our enemies. So when people would say, well, how many bad guys do you think are in the country? Like, like, seriously, what's the number? I'm like, like, I don't know. I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell you the truth is that the more we dig through the data, the more we realize we really, truly don't know. And then people would say, well, do you think it's sleeper cells? Do you think it's this, that or the other thing? It's like, well, honestly, again, we kind of go back to the only thing we created for the last four years under the previous administration was a massive opportunity for terrorists to exploit our country and to kill people here.
- [62:45]
Sean Ryan
If they were to attack with a proxy, would you be 100% confident that it was them?
- [62:55]
Joe Kent
If Iran or. I mean, at this point, what we've seen more of is we've seen younger people, some of whom were born here, conduct these attacks, and they were just inspired by something that they saw, and then a lot of them, too. I know Sarah has her theory of the case. I think the bigger threat, based on what we saw last year, the terrorist attacks we saw here in America, most of those people were inspired by media content they had consumed coming out of Gaza, the Gaza conflict, and they cited Gaza as being a driver pushing them towards violence. So, yeah, obviously, if we intercepted a cell of Iranians that we could prove they had ties back to Iran then, and. Yeah, then, absolutely we'd have to hold them accountable for that.
- [63:46]
Sean Ryan
I mean, there are other motivations for this as well. To get us all riled up.
- [63:55]
Joe Kent
Oh, for sure, 100%.
- [63:57]
Sean Ryan
Do you think that's a possibility?
- [64:00]
Joe Kent
I think it's. I think the. I think war always presents an opportunity for people to exploit to further their objectives. So if you want to sell more of surveillance, state more infringements upon our civil liberties, now is the time to do it. Because, like, I just described, it's a very scary security environment. You can legitimately say, like, hey, we don't know who's in our borders. Terrorists could attack. Because what's taking place in the Middle east, there's been a massive decline in law and order in general in our cities. So therefore, we need, take your pick what kind of intrusions on our civil liberties. And it's, it becomes easier to, I mean, the more people are scared of what's happening, the easier that is to sell. So I definitely think there's going to be elements of the government, big tech, that will exploit this, this chaos.
- [64:47]
Sean Ryan
You're being accused of leaking classified information.
- [64:51]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [64:51]
Sean Ryan
What classified information did you leak?
- [64:54]
Joe Kent
It's a good question. I didn't leak any. I didn't leak any classified information. I had my, I had my full security clearance until last week. When I walked out the door. I had full access to everything. So my security clearance was never suspended, never pulled. I think most of the, most of these leak allegations are just a media narrative to take away from the conversation that you and I are having. The first leak accusation surfaced right as I was going live with Tucker. So they were just trying to take the wind out of, out of my sails, I think, a little bit by saying, don't listen to this guy, he's a leaker.
- [65:23]
Sean Ryan
I mean, that's what I think, think. It seems very reactionary to me. When did the investigation start? Are you aware?
- [65:31]
Joe Kent
I don't think there is an investigation.
- [65:32]
Sean Ryan
There isn't.
- [65:33]
Joe Kent
No, no one, no one has come to me and said, you're being investigated. The only, the only, the only proof of there being an investigation is someone in the government leaking to the media, saying that Kent's under investigation for being a leaker. So they had to leak that I'm a leaker.
- [65:48]
Sean Ryan
Another leaker.
- [65:49]
Joe Kent
Right, Exactly. That's why I take it seriously. The FBI has ruined innocent people's lives, like General Flynn, with an actual accusation before. So I, I, I take it seriously. I'm confident I didn't leak any classified information. But at the same time, like, we kind of know what the game is here, and if they really were going to investigate me, they would come to me and say, hey, you're being investigated, or we're going to ask you some questions, et cetera. If they really were going to investigate me too, I don't think they would tip their hand ahead of time by leaking it. I don't think that doesn't work out in their advantage at All. So I think it's just immediate.
- [66:18]
Sean Ryan
If they do, you were leaking, why wouldn't they have fired you and then continued on with the investigation? Just, they were just going to wait for your resignation.
- [66:24]
Joe Kent
Right. They at least would have pulled my clearance.
- [66:26]
Sean Ryan
He's going to resign soon. Don't fire him. He's, we know he's leaking classified information, but just. He's going to be gone soon.
- [66:32]
Joe Kent
Exactly. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense.
- [66:40]
Sean Ryan
What's going on with the Butler assassination attempt. So are we looking into that?
- [66:48]
Joe Kent
Yeah, I, I, I, I think there's basically two schools of thought as to what's taking place right now and how we got in the situation with Iran, that Trump should know better. And I think he does know better. I just gave you the more than likely. I think he just got a lot of bad information. There's a much smaller chance, but I think it can't be ignored, the fact that there was several assassination attempts against President Trump that really haven't fully been explained, one of which, so Butler itself, no one is saying, is linked to the FBI. But two days before the Butler assassination attempt, we arrested a guy named Asif Merchant. He was just prosecuted and I think going to jail. We arrested him for being recruited by Iran to come here and attempt to assassinate President Trump to avenge the death, to avenge the killing of Qassem Soleimani. Merchant had a FBI informant that was working with him. Marchant didn't know he was an FBI informant, obviously. And, and they basically set up a scheme to conduct an assassination against President Trump using a sniper. They arrest Merchant and then two days later a sniper tries to kill Trump at Butler. I wanted to look for potential linkage between those events. Was completely shut off and blocked from that. You were nctc, everybody was the National Counterterrorism Center.
- [68:06]
Sean Ryan
Why would they cut you off? That seems like definitely possible terrorism, especially considering the first one was supposedly sent by Iran.
- [68:14]
Joe Kent
Certainly. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Again, we were told, hey, the Merchant trial is ongoing, so you can't look into any of the information. You can look, you can look at a little bit of the information, but we can't really do much there. But my question was always, is there any linkage between anyone that Merchant talked to and the people who were there at Butler and Crooks? Because we can say all day long they're not linked, but are we sure that we had everything that Merchant was doing under control? Is there any linkage between those two events? From my vantage point, I didn't see that Investigation being done very thoroughly. I think this matters who's conducting that investigation. That was all they had, the FBI.
- [68:52]
Sean Ryan
Oh, the FBI, yeah.
- [68:54]
Joe Kent
I think this matters in the terms of what we're talking about, because you had Butler, you had the other assassination attempt at West Palm beach, and then you had, once Trump came into office, you had several breaches of his security perimeter. You had the famous stoppage of the escalator at the un you had, when he went out to dinner, there was the, the table of Code Pink protesters who sat down next to them. And then you had the police officer, who I think is probably a good patriotic American, but he was armed, he wasn't part of the President's detail, come up and shake President Trump's hand. So basically circumventing the Secret Service. And then you had the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And Charlie was one of the most vocal advocates against a regime change, war inside of Iran. And he was, was advocating heavily that we change our stance in regards to our relationship with Israel. He was in the White House lobbying President Trump to not attack Iran in the lead up to the 12 day war. So Charlie would have been very, very much against what was going on, what's going on right now. He's then killed in September. And so I think it's irresponsible for us not to look at all of these things on a broader timeline and see where they fit into what's taking place right now. Now,
- [70:06]
Sean Ryan
are you saying that you don't think that the kid that's been propped up to have killed Charlie is the, is the guy?
- [70:13]
Joe Kent
I'm not saying that at all. I mean, that, that, that kid, his fingerprints are on the gun. That case is going to be made. What I do know is that NCTC was investigating the foreign. Any foreign linkage, not necessarily just to the suspect, to Robinson, but any foreign linkage that could have taken place regarding that case. And again, we were stopped really early on from thoroughly investigating. And all that I can say is that we had more foreign connections. I'm not saying a foreign government, but I'm saying foreign connections to look into, to thoroughly do our due diligence from an investigatory standpoint, that, in my opinion, was not done. Now, the FBI will tell you, we got our guy, he turned himself in, his fingerprints are on the gun. There's been some debate over whether or not he confessed. I guess we'll see when he goes to court. But now that the case is being handled 100% by Utah, and again, considering how prominent Charlie Kirk was, I think it's important that we continue that investigation and that every angle is looked into, and then a complete investigation actually takes place. And from what I saw, that did not happen.
- [71:20]
Sean Ryan
So this is going to wind up just like jfk.
- [71:24]
Joe Kent
I hope not. I hope not. I think we have the ability to really look into every aspect of it, no matter what the truth is and no matter where that leads us. And again, like, look, people are saying, like, why are you. Why are you speaking cryptically? I can't speculate. I can only tell you what I know. And the only thing I know for sure is that our due diligence was not done on looking at the foreign links. The rest of the case could be rock solid if they've got Tyler Robinson
- [71:50]
Sean Ryan
saying there are foreign links, there's foreign
- [71:52]
Joe Kent
connections we need to look into.
- [71:53]
Sean Ryan
What are those connections that.
- [71:55]
Joe Kent
That I can't get into because that's going to. That's all tied up inside of classified channels, essentially. But there was more work we needed to do. And now I'm not saying, like, you know how an investigation works. You chase down 99 leads and 100 leads, and 99 of them are BS and you get one good one. So even the things that I know of that I don't want to speculate about, half of them could be half, 75%, 90% of them could be trash leads. But there's stuff that we need to look down. Charlie was a very influential figure. He traveled the world. He traveled the nation. There was a lot of people from all over the place looking and watching Charlie Kirk speak there. There was people speculating about what was going to happen to Charlie Kirk online ahead of time. So there's. There's more work that we needed to do in regards to foreign linkage to the Kirk assassination. Man, I just.
- [72:47]
Sean Ryan
It's just. I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to know. Why you wouldn't conduct a full investigation on who tried to kill you if you're the President of the United States.
- [73:00]
Joe Kent
Right.
- [73:00]
Sean Ryan
I just. That does not compute in my brain.
- [73:03]
Joe Kent
Right.
- [73:03]
Sean Ryan
Why would you not want to know?
- [73:05]
Joe Kent
Especially after we were told for quite some time that Thomas Crooks was an enigma. We didn't know who he was. He's just this crazy kid. He had no online footprint. You know, we were told for a while that they couldn't get into his devices, that they were locked, couldn't get into his devices. And then when they said they finally got into his. The FBI finally said they got into his devices. They're like, no there's nothing there. Well, fast forward a couple months and Tucker Carlson's investigative journalist finds a full online Persona of this kid. He's communicating with other people. He's commenting on YouTube videos, he's interacting with people that are overseas. So there's more work there to be done, clearly. And there was a big rush to say, like, well, we shot the sniper. He's kind of an enigma. We don't anything about him, but case closed, you know, cremate the body 10 days later.
- [73:50]
Sean Ryan
Tucker's the one that came up with all that.
- [73:52]
Joe Kent
Tucker's investigative journalist that he, that works on Tucker's team found Crooks's online Persona. Yeah. And the FBI didn't, or the FBI didn't report it. I, I don't know what the case is.
- [74:09]
Sean Ryan
Where does Tulsi stand in all this stuff?
- [74:12]
Joe Kent
She's obviously in a tough spot, so I don't want to say anything else that's going to put her in a tougher spot than she's already in. She's doing the best that she can.
- [74:22]
Sean Ryan
How many people up there are against what we're doing?
- [74:27]
Joe Kent
It's hard to put a number on it. Look, I mean, you know how the government is.
- [74:30]
Sean Ryan
Maybe a percentage.
- [74:31]
Joe Kent
Yeah. Most people that serve in the government, I've found they want to make their boss happy and they don't want any friction at work and they want to salute and they want to move out.
- [74:43]
Sean Ryan
You know, I think that's where Everybody's lost it. 100% job is to protect and serve the people of the United States.
- [74:52]
Joe Kent
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And look, there's a lot of good patriots that are still there who think that they're, they're doing the right thing. And this is a dilemma that I had. I was like, well, do I stay here and do I soldier on and be a good soldier and, you know, do I show up every day and do my darndest? And then if the big strategic picture gets messed up, well, that's not really on me. I did that for 20 plus years in the military, in the agency, and kind of see where that got us. Right when we knew better, see where that got us. And so, like I said, 20 plus years ago, I made a promise to myself. If I ever had the ability to speak out and try to get us on a better path, I would do so. If my late wife hadn't gotten killed, if I hadn't been through the experiences I had been through, I wouldn't. I don't think I have the clarity and the courage to do what I'm doing now. So I am sympathetic to people who are inside who are still like, hey, I'm just a guy, I'm not that important. I'm trying to do my job, I'll do what I'm told. However, the people who came in with President Trump in key leadership positions that are a part of this movement and leading this movement, I think they've got to reflect on what we ran on, because this is not what we ran on. They have to live with it. And so they can either make a decision to try and influence the situation from inside, but once they realize they can't influence that situation inside, then they have a choice to make. Do they stay and be complicit with it, or do they leave and try and get us back on the right path?
- [76:20]
Sean Ryan
In your mind, how do we get out of this thing? I mean, we're in it now with Iran, we're in it. How does this end? How do we get out of this? What are the options?
- [76:32]
Joe Kent
If we don't deal with the Israelis, then this thing will just keep going. There might be fits and starts. Like, maybe this five day ceasefire will work. I'm a little skeptical.
- [76:42]
Sean Ryan
I'm hopeful.
- [76:44]
Joe Kent
But unless we restrain the Israelis and tell them, like, you're done. And if you continue to attack and you continue to do things without telling us and asking us, without asking us first, we're paying for it. You're going to ask us first, then we are going to negate our other part of the deal. And our part of the deal says that we defend Israel and we provide their Iron Dome system. We provide their air defense, we provide a lot of their defense.
- [77:09]
Sean Ryan
We provide their Iron Dome.
- [77:10]
Joe Kent
Well, we provide.
- [77:11]
Sean Ryan
We don't even have a fucking Iron Dome.
- [77:12]
Joe Kent
We provide a lot of the funding for the Iron Dome, for sure. For sure. So I would say to the Israelis very bluntly, you're done going on the offense. We will tell you what operations you can conduct. If you, you disobey us and you don't run your operations by us that we're paying for, then we are going to start taking away features of your defense system to the point where all you can do with your military basically, is stay on the defense. That's the only way to restrain the Israelis, in my opinion. I think we're past the point of being able to have like, hey, nice conversations, like, hey, could you guys please not. Because every time we say, could you please not? The Israelis say, yeah, sure, that sounds good. And they turn around and they conduct Strikes that basically negate any kind of negotiation that we're trying to pursue.
- [77:55]
Sean Ryan
I mean, didn't yell. Who'd literally just say that.
- [77:57]
Joe Kent
He, he. Yeah.
- [77:58]
Sean Ryan
Again, just with, with this statement, I
- [78:00]
Joe Kent
just, again, as, as frustrating as people as I get with the Israelis, sometimes, they're not very subtle. Like, the Israelis are not doing a lot of, like, lying and BSing to us. Like, they're pretty upfront with what they're doing and what they plan to do. So I would take them at their word and I would just say, no, you're not, because we're paying for all of this and we have to restrain them. And, and I know a lot of people are going to be very, very frustrated when I say that, because there are people who really like Israel. And I'm not saying, like, you cut off Israel, you know, you, whatever. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying you take away the resources that they have right now to go on the offense, make it so Israel could only defend themselves, that's fine, but they can't go on the offense anymore. Once we do that and once we restrain the Israelis, then I think we have a place where we can use our allies in the Gulf. We can use the Omanis, the Qataris, et cetera, to get the Iranians to come to the table and come up with a way that we can reopen the Straits of Hormuz. I think we're going to need to say to the Iranians, okay, we need to lift sanctions on some of their oil. We have to give them something. So I think lifting the sanctions and letting them get a lot of their oil introduced back into the world market, I think that's actually a pretty good carrot to get them to the table. And that's also going to help lower the price at the pump and get more oil and petrochemicals flowing for the fertilizers and everything else that the world needs in terms of energy. But again, step one is restraining the Israelis. That's the only way I can see out of this. And look, we're going to have to make some concessions. We're going to have to say, hey, we'll work with whoever is there in Iran. We're going to have to give them red lines that might need to be enforced every now and again. Like, your proxies will not attack us. You will stop attacking the Gulf countries, otherwise this will continue. But at this point, they know we're pretty serious about using force. I think we have to show them now that we're serious about using diplomacy and getting to the table point.
- [79:51]
Sean Ryan
What are the chances you think that'll happen?
- [79:55]
Joe Kent
Every day that goes by less and less right now, again, look, I know you're frustrated with President Trump. I know probably a lot of your viewers are frustrated with President Trump. I think if President Trump sits and thinks about where we are and how we got here, I think he'll understand that we're in a bad spot and we need to get out of it it. And in order to get out of it, he needs to take drastic action. Now, that's where the good news is, and this is what gives me some hope. President Trump is good at taking drastic action. He is decisive, he is unpredictable. But in terms of doing big things, that's the story of President Trump's life. He can do it. So I think other presidents in this situation, they wouldn't be able to rapidly extricate us from this. I think Trump can. He needs to listen to his core beliefs and he needs to listen to different advisors and he needs to have the courage to restrain the Israelis. Then I think he can do it. It gets harder and harder every day that goes on, though. If he's got this five day window that he, that he's created for himself, he needs to use it and he needs to pursue it aggressively. At the end of that five day window, I think it's going to be exponentially more difficult.
- [81:00]
Sean Ryan
I mean, what do you think? I mean, Iran's literally saying there are no negotiations going on. You think there are or do you think there are not?
- [81:10]
Joe Kent
I'm sure we're trying. I'm sure we're trying. We have some people that I know are probably aggressively reaching out now. Are they getting responses? I don't know. I just think that the Iranians after us, killing so many of the negotiators and so many of the leaders, so many of the leadership there, and then us basically saying after the 12 day war that we use the negotiations as a ruse. I don't think that helps because I think before again, there was a tension inside of Iran where you had the clerics and you had some of the moderates that were saying like, okay, we won't make a nuclear bomb. We are interested in some engagement with the Americans. We would like a deal. But then you had the hardliners, you had the students of Qasem Soleimani who were like, absolutely not. Let's go on the offensive. Let's use our proxies to kill these guys. Let's bleed them out of the Middle East. So right now, who's winning that argument inside Iran? I fear the hardliners are winning that argument inside of Iran because every Iranian leader that they target and they kill. I mean, Trump even said it today when he was at the plain side, when he was plain side, he was asked, who are you talking with inside of Iran? And he said, I don't want to name them because then they might get killed. Well, they might get killed by the Israelis because the Israelis don't want us to have negotiation.
- [82:18]
Sean Ryan
This is fucking crazy.
- [82:20]
Joe Kent
It's insane. No, no, it's insane.
- [82:21]
Sean Ryan
This is fucking crazy.
- [82:22]
Joe Kent
It's insane. So the Iranians.
- [82:24]
Sean Ryan
He's saying that. He's not saying that because if he names a name, the Israelis will kill them.
- [82:29]
Joe Kent
I, I didn't say it.
- [82:30]
Sean Ryan
He said, you're saying that we can't,
- [82:32]
Joe Kent
that
- [82:34]
Sean Ryan
I just don't understand how, like, essentially you're saying we just need to tell them no.
- [82:41]
Joe Kent
We have to. And not just tell them no. You have to take things away from them. You can't just say, because we've said no to them before. How forcefully? I don't know. I think it's pretty debatable. But right now they're having their cake and they're eating it, too. I mean, we are doing all the heavy lifting in this war for them, but we're also continuing to provide them so much military assistance. We're providing their defense package for them. So we have to go to them and we have to say, not just no, but you're going to run any strikes by us. And also, you're not going on the offense anymore. You're done being on the offense. If you're attacked, we'll back you up. If you guys want to do military operations on your own border, that's your country, fine. What takes place now in Iran, that affects us, that affects the gcc, that affects the Straits of Hormuz and world energy. You're done. We have to say that to them and we have to take away things that make it so that they can only do their own defense. They can't go on the offense. Until we do that, I don't think the Iranians actually will take us very seriously.
- [83:35]
Sean Ryan
We don't have a problem doing that to any other country in the world.
- [83:39]
Joe Kent
Pretty crazy, right?
- [83:40]
Sean Ryan
Why do we have reluctancy to do it to Israel?
- [83:45]
Joe Kent
I mean, there's obviously the Israeli lobby factor, aipac and all the other surrogates that, that spend so much money on our elections. There's major donors. Miriam Adelson, gave. I mean, someone can look this up, like I think $100 million to the Trump's campaign. And she's not the only dollars. Someone can look it up. I'm not sure exactly off top of my head, significant. And there's other really prominent donors that are very pro Israel, many of whom are dual citizens.
- [84:10]
Sean Ryan
Oh, yeah. I mean, the owner of OnlyFans, he just died today, right.
- [84:14]
Joe Kent
Big APAC.
- [84:15]
Sean Ryan
He was the biggest donor to APEC.
- [84:17]
Joe Kent
Did you know that? I just learned that today, actually, I had to check that myself because I wasn't aware of that until he found out.
- [84:23]
Sean Ryan
He's fucking dead now.
- [84:24]
Joe Kent
Yeah, yeah. So we've got a pimp who funds APAC so that we can go to war. Yeah. Make it make sense. But I think the Israeli lobby is part of it. But I also think that there is a massive outpouring of support from like the evangelical community in America, Evangelical Christians. And also I think a lot of people, especially the baby boomer generation, have just been led to believe that, that Israel's a democracy. The Israelis, you know, they speak English. They sound like us. They're. I've, I've dealt with the Israelis quite a bit. Like, they're, they're pretty pleasant to deal with. They're easy to deal with. I mean, because a lot of them are educated in America, you can. It's easy to get complacent around the Israelis because, like, they don't have that foreign feel. And so they do a good job of selling. Hey, we have the same interests here, man. We're just, we're the same, same. So a lot of it is financial. You have a spiritual component to it. And then you also have the Israelis, basically by providing us with a lot of intelligence and potential access. Even though I think a lot of that is to inform us or is to influence us rather than inform.
- [85:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, you had already mentioned that a lot of that stuff isn't in the intel pipeline.
- [85:28]
Joe Kent
Right, Exactly.
- [85:29]
Sean Ryan
What is the intel pipeline?
- [85:31]
Joe Kent
What is it?
- [85:31]
Sean Ryan
What is the flow of intel from the field to the top?
- [85:34]
Joe Kent
Well, I mean, it depends on what manner of intelligence it is. But stuff that we get. And you know this from your past life. Life, when we get information, especially from like a foreign liaison service, like it always has that caveat, like could be used to influence and inform so everyone knows what they're reading. If you want to lean heavily on the inform side and you're a partner of ours that has access to senior decision makers, you bypass the intel guys because they're going to check your stuff. They're going to put it through a vetting process. They're going to put it through analytical tradecraft. If you want to short circuit that, then you go directly to key decision makers and you say, hey, I've got some intel for you. It hasn't gone through the intel channels. And a lot of those senior decision makers, although they have access to 18 intelligence agencies and top secret clearances, they're not familiar with intel. And so they might not know that there's a vetting process that needs to take place or things are happening so quick they don't have time to think about it. So the Israelis, with their access, and again, a lot of that access comes from the media, it comes from the donors, it comes from just a certain familiarity and comfort that we have with the Israelis. They're able to push that in there. We get intel, I mean, intel, as you know, it's not 100%, it's not always accurate. But when we get intelligence from the field, whether it's from a human source, signal or a liaison, there's a vetting process that has to take place there before it goes and finished intel. And then usually it's explained how we got the intel. Again, the Israelis have done a really good job of putting an Enron on. On that system to circumvent it. Yeah.
- [87:09]
Sean Ryan
You know, the reason I'm asking, I'm just wondering if the. Which you pretty much already described it, if the intelligence that Iran had nuclear weapons went through the proper channels.
- [87:20]
Joe Kent
It didn't.
- [87:20]
Sean Ryan
We know it didn't.
- [87:21]
Joe Kent
Yeah, it just began. It just didn't.
- [87:23]
Sean Ryan
Who's the gate? Who's the gate that's keeping real intel from getting to Trump?
- [87:31]
Joe Kent
That's a good question. I mean, he in theory has control over who he has around him. He's the president, he's the commander, he's the commander in chief.
- [87:38]
Sean Ryan
Somebody's stopping real information to get from getting to him.
- [87:42]
Joe Kent
Yeah, clearly. Or maybe he just doesn't want to hear it. I don't know what the case is.
- [87:46]
Sean Ryan
I think he might not want to hear it.
- [87:47]
Joe Kent
I think he got sold like a pretty clean equation. They were like, hey, the protesters are protesting. The Iranians at the negotiating table have said they still want to enrich because they again them moving that red line, the Israelis and their allies moving that red line and making Trump basically think that US Policy is no enrichment. It was very effective. And so they made it seem like the negotiations had stalled out, when in fact, I don't think they had I think Steve Wyckoff could have gotten us a deal back in June. I think they just sold them a very simple, rushed equation to get us into this conflict. A big part of getting a quick action like this is rushing the president and telling him, hey, the protesters were just out there in June. We don't have time. In July, I'm sorry, in January. We don't have time for a long deliberation. We need to conduct these strikes now. And so I think they took away a lot of his decision making space and time and only put a handful of advisors around him. And maybe those are the people that he requested. But because he thought that he was under the gun for a time crunch, I don't think he had enough time to really fully assess that.
- [88:51]
Sean Ryan
A lot of people are saying that your resignation and change of heart is because of influence from your wife. Is there any validity to that?
- [89:02]
Joe Kent
No, no, not at all. I mean, we share very similar views. One of the reasons we probably got married, but right on.
- [89:11]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, I got to address it. It's out there.
- [89:13]
Joe Kent
Sure, sure.
- [89:14]
Sean Ryan
But. All right, Joe, I want to take a break. When we come back, I just want to talk about how what this means for the midterms, what this means for the next election, what this means for the Republican Party, what this means for magic.
- [89:26]
Joe Kent
Go. Yeah, absolutely.
- [89:30]
Sean Ryan
Most gear looks good until you actually start using it. Then you find out pretty quickly what holds up and what doesn't. That's why I keep coming back to Roka. These aren't just lifestyle sunglasses pretending to be performance gear. I've worn mine training on the range, traveling, and outdoors for long days, and they stay locked in place the entire time. They're incredibly lightweight. The optics are razor sharp with zero glare, and you honestly forget you're even wearing them. But they still look clean enough to wear anywhere. Not overly tactical, just modern, functional design that works every day. Roka was born in Austin, Texas, and everything about them reflects that performance first mindset. And if you need prescription lenses, they offer both sunglasses and eyeglasses, options built to the same standard. And whether you're outfitting a law enforcement unit, a military team, or looking for corporate gifts that don't suck, Roka offers wholesale partnerships to make it happen. Roka isn't just eyewear. It's confidence you can wear every single day. They're the real deal, ready to upgrade your eyewear? Check them out for yourself@roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off site wide at checkout. That's R O-K-A.com and use code SRS. Want more from the Sean Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests, interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode. Plus unlock bonus content like our extra intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions, our new SRS on site specials and access to an entire tactical training library you will not find anywhere else. And the best part, Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now. Support the mission and become part of the Sha Ryan Show's story. All right, Joe, we're back from the break. Midterms are coming up.
- [91:53]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [91:54]
Sean Ryan
Next election's coming up.
- [91:55]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [91:56]
Sean Ryan
MAGA split.
- [91:59]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [91:59]
Sean Ryan
CNN just put a what A poll out that said 100% of MAGA. What do they say? 100% of MAGA supports the Iran war. I don't think they're wrong. I just think a lot of people have left maga. A lot of people have left me.
- [92:17]
Joe Kent
Well, that and I, I think our, our political opponents would love us to believe that this very unpopular thing we're doing is popular to convince us to keep doing it. Yeah, I mean, I just, I'd be very wary obviously of cnn. I don't know why we're even listening to cnn. It's insane.
- [92:30]
Sean Ryan
I'm not that that came from somebody on the staff here.
- [92:32]
Joe Kent
No, but it's true. I saw that, too.
- [92:34]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, it's so.
- [92:35]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [92:36]
Sean Ryan
But I don't, I actually, I don't watch any mainstream media, not fox, not ms, any of it. It's all fucking garbage.
- [92:42]
Joe Kent
It is.
- [92:43]
Sean Ryan
But what does this mean? I mean, what are you seeing?
- [92:46]
Joe Kent
So I think the conventional wisdom would tell you, and I think the president was told this. I think the president was told that wartime presidents are always popular. Like if you look at Bush's approval rating after both Afghan, the launch in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was his highest, his highest ratings yet. So that's the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom also says that most Americans, they don't really care about foreign policy, but what they do care about is they care about the price of the pump. And look at what this conflict has already done at the price of the pump. Look what it's already done to cost of living. We already had an inflation crisis and Trump was working on getting us out of it. But look at the effect that the war, especially what's happening in the straits, is going to have on all these everyday issues that your average really hard working person who's busting their butt to stay above water, they might not say that's because of the Iran war and dig deeply into the policy, but they're going to be like, oh, the party that's in power right now screwed this up. I'm going to vote for the other guy. And then you have the MAGA issue.
- [93:41]
Sean Ryan
It's not even just this country. We're talking about a global economic depression here. Yeah, fucking global economic depression. Yeah.
- [93:54]
Joe Kent
Potential famine because the fertilizer, I mean it's just the magnet famines. America, I don't think we will. But the amount of fertilizer that needs those petrochemicals that come out of the Gulf that rely on the straits of Hormuz flowing freely, I mean, that's a major problem. It's gonna be a major problem. I think first for Europe, I think for Africa, for Asia, I think America, we can insulate ourselves to a certain extent. We're definitely gonna feel it in terms of the inflation. We're already feeling it. The gas prices are back up. Like we're back in the, in the Biden era again, unfortunately. So I think that's gonna factor heavily on voters. And then the MAGA issue, man, the people that like, like were hardcore who don't, who were small dollar donors to President Trump and, and, and to candidates like me when I was running with his endorsement, them not coming out or them being disenfranchised or them being. He endorsed in this war. He endorsed me twice.
- [94:46]
Sean Ryan
Trump endorsed you? Yeah, twice on his speech day. Made it sound like he just felt sorry for you because your wife died in combat.
- [94:55]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [94:55]
Sean Ryan
And he just like handed you a job, which, which honestly I was listening to that. I'm like, if that's how you hand jobs out to your fucking administration, no wonder we're in the fucking place we're at. Yeah, you just handed out pity jobs. Here you go.
- [95:09]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [95:09]
Sean Ryan
I mean maybe look at their background and you know, this is how we wind up with people like fucking Sebastian Gorka.
- [95:15]
Joe Kent
I think Trump just got into a, they put him into a position where he needed to say something about Vanny. I think he's frustrated because I'm doing these, I'm doing these media appearances. So he's going to fire back. Like I just for me, I don't take it personally. I want him to just focus on, on what we're talking about, focus on getting us out of this crisis. And then also, like you said, for the Midterms, I mean, you're going to need a lot of hardcore MAGA people to come out, to knock on doors to do that hardcore work. Because working elections, it's not easy, it's not fun, it's not glamorous. The MAGA base, Trump's base, they're hard working people and they got them across the finish line in 26. A lot of them. Now, it's debatable how much, but a good chunk of them are going to have a really hard time doing that because of the way this last year has gone.
- [95:58]
Sean Ryan
Don't come banging on my fucking door. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear more of those fucking lies.
- [96:04]
Joe Kent
I hear that from a lot of people. Hear that from a lot of people.
- [96:08]
Sean Ryan
It's everything, Joe. It's everything. Did you see the glyphosate stuff?
- [96:13]
Joe Kent
I did, I did.
- [96:16]
Sean Ryan
The Make America Healthy Again movement.
- [96:19]
Joe Kent
Right.
- [96:21]
Sean Ryan
Immunity. Immunity.
- [96:23]
Joe Kent
Yep.
- [96:25]
Sean Ryan
Because of what? A national security issue. Do you know many people died of cancer last year? 618,000. That's not a national security concern. You know where the highest concentration of glyphosate is? It's in Iowa. Do you know where the highest concentration of cancer is?
- [96:41]
Joe Kent
Iowa.
- [96:42]
Sean Ryan
It's in Iowa.
- [96:43]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [96:44]
Sean Ryan
And he just gave him immunity.
- [96:49]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [96:50]
Sean Ryan
We're calling the fentanyl crisis a national security concern. That's 100,000 people. Cancer is 618,000 people in one year.
- [97:03]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [97:03]
Sean Ryan
And he just gave him immunity.
- [97:06]
Joe Kent
Yeah, Yeah. I think your, I think your frustration, your anger is felt by a lot of people who voted, who campaigned. The Epstein files really believed the Epstein files. Yeah.
- [97:17]
Sean Ryan
Is that right? Are you serious right now? We're just going to let people that are raping and killing and exploiting kids sexually.
- [97:29]
Joe Kent
Right.
- [97:30]
Sean Ryan
Just run free. But we're going to put, we're going to sit the FBI on Joe Kent.
- [97:35]
Joe Kent
It's insanity and it's going to have a ramification. I know, I know he's probably not being told this at the White House, but it's going to have a ramification on the elections. It just will. I mean, the coalition that we had was something I think very, very special in the sense that you had a lot of people who probably don't consistently vote, who had gotten mobilized with our message. President Trump's economic populism, his desire, at least stated desire, to go after the deep state, no new wars, the Make America Healthy Again movement. Movement. All of those coalescing into what became the Maga movement in 2024. Giving them, the Electoral College and the popular vote. I think over the course of the last year, that coalition has been very, very fractured. And people will say, I'm fracturing the coalition right now. I'm not fracturing the coalition. The coalition is very fractured because of our actions. I want to preserve the coalition. I want the coalition to last, because I think that formula, I think what President Trump. Trump and Vice President Vance ran on in 24 is the right message. It is the right formula for America and for our country. But we've got to be serious. If we promised to deliver and we didn't deliver, we've got to be serious about that, and we've got to show people that we're going to correct that.
- [98:51]
Sean Ryan
I don't think there's any coalition left.
- [98:54]
Joe Kent
I. I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you. The formula they made in 2024, though, shows that it can be done.
- [99:02]
Sean Ryan
And going after the deep state, we haven't seen one indictment. We haven't seen anything. Nothing. We've seen look the other way. Are we still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? That's what we see.
- [99:15]
Joe Kent
No. The CIA, the FBI, all these powerful institutions are still very much intact and they're still very much calling the shots, and that's a huge problem for the freedom and security of our country. So there's a lot of things this administration and I think needs to get serious about if we're going to fix things. Obviously, this war being the most pressing, but I think this last year of us attempting to govern is going to have a major ramification in the midterms and then definitely in 28 if we don't get serious about turning it around for sure.
- [99:52]
Sean Ryan
What are your aspirations now?
- [99:53]
Joe Kent
What's next for you, the next week or two? I really want to push as hard as I can to attempt to reach the president. And I know that puts me in the line of fire and in the news cycle and people sniping at me online, but that's the only plan I truly had leaving this. The way I look at it is I already kind of got to do my childhood dream. In our old line of work, I got to do that, and everything else is kind of gravy. I want to be able to serve my country. I care deeply about the future of this country. I care deeply about the future that we leave for our kids. So whatever capacity I end up working or serving at, as long as I feel like I can influence, to make sure I'm using my life experiences and what I've been through to affect a better outcome for our country. And I think national security is probably the best place that I can do that. Then I'm happy. I didn't take resigning lightly. But once I made the decision, I felt clarity that I don't think I felt ever in my life that this is the right thing to do.
- [100:51]
Sean Ryan
Do so if you're the first of many.
- [100:54]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [100:54]
Sean Ryan
That make a statement like that. Yeah. Are you worried for your safety?
- [101:00]
Joe Kent
No, I'm not. I'm worried for my family. But as a father, you know, you're always worried. You're always worried for your family. I have a strong family, strong extended family, strong friend network like we were just talking about, you know, at the break and when I got here, the outpouring of support from. From veterans, from people I served with, from, you know, people that are part of the. The whatever. Whatever movement this is. It's been amazing. So obviously the security worries are always there in the back of my head, but I think God's on our side and I think we'll be okay.
- [101:30]
Sean Ryan
Are we going to see you in a midterm? Your name pop up in any midterm elections?
- [101:35]
Joe Kent
Not in a midterm. Man. I got the running for Congress out of my system. I'm living in Virginia right now, and I don't think there's much of a prayer where I live for a Republican of my politics to get elected. So, no, definitely not in the midterms. I don't really have a desire to run for office again. It was a good experience. I'm glad I did it. I'm also glad it didn't work out because I've kind of had to interact enough now with Congress. In my last job, that. Man, that does not look enjoyable at all. But I want to serve in this capacity. If we're able to get someone into the White House who wants to put this country first, they're going to need people that understand the national security apparatus and how to tackle it and reorient it towards American priorities. So I'd be. I'd be happy to serve in that capacity.
- [102:21]
Sean Ryan
What about 2028?
- [102:23]
Joe Kent
Same thing. I think. I think I could help craft good policies and come up with attack plans. I mean, about a run run. I have no plans to run for president in 2028. Running for Congress is challenging enough. I can't imagine doing it in 28. A problem with our president, with our politics in general, is the amount of fundraising that you need to do. And I hated doing that. And I really have zero desire ever again to go ask people to cut me a check. But you have to. You've got to be a relentless fundraiser to make it in politics today. And it's tough because there's so much money out there and this is like literally how our politicians end up getting bought. Like if they don't take the check, then the other guy, their competitor, is going to take the check. And so that's what a lot of it comes down to. And, and I'd much rather stay in the national security realm where I think I can contribute more anyways than ever have to go beg donors for money ever again. This episode is brought to you by Redfin.
- [103:18]
Sean Ryan
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Joe Kent
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- [104:17]
Joe Kent
I think we need heavy legislation and regulation on the ability for foreign governments to come in and even using cutouts because AIPAC will say, no, no, no, this isn't any, this isn't affiliated with Israel. These are Americans who support Israel. And that I think by and large is true. But they're advocating for policies that just support a foreign government. So there's gotta be some regulation on foreign, foreign agents. There's gotta be some regulation on having political fundraising packs and mechanisms that just support the agenda of a foreign country. What that is, I don't exactly know. I mean there's, there's.
- [104:59]
Sean Ryan
What is it? What does that change if they register as a foreign agent? Because the Saudi's got a huge. Yeah, huge lobbying for.
- [105:08]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [105:09]
Sean Ryan
So what does that change?
- [105:10]
Joe Kent
I don't think it changes much. I think you just are aware. It's more of a upfront, to my knowledge. Someone can fact check me on this. I, I'm not a foreign agent registry expert by any means. But I think once someone is registered under fara, like they can't get a government contract act.
- [105:24]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [105:25]
Joe Kent
I think they can resign from the position they're in where they had to register under far and then I think they can slide back into and all. It's not like a forever thing by any means. The problem with the money side is that the Supreme Court basically ruled that that money is speech. And just like they can't tell you what you can and can't say, the government can't tell you how you can spend your money. So if you want to put your money into a super pac, you can put an unlimited amount in there. And I think that's basically been the death of our political system ever since. That makes it very possible for elections to be bought because money's fungible. I think it's hard to actually create a firewall around that.
- [106:05]
Sean Ryan
All right, Joe, we're wrapping up the interview here. Got a hot question for you. Totally different change of pace here. So try to lighten it up a little bit bit. Joe, the last time you were on the show, we aired a clip called Inside the Military's most Secretive Unit. That thing did 2.8 million views on YouTube. This time around, we actually had Claude the AI scrape the data on your YouTube performance, dig through sources across the Internet and help us build this question.
- [106:37]
Joe Kent
Oh, man.
- [106:38]
Sean Ryan
What came back was very interesting. When you were operating in that secretive unit, it doing those missions most people will never hear about. What was your go to combat loadout and why?
- [106:50]
Joe Kent
Oh, it's a great question. So it depends on obviously where I. Where I was working. I would say a consistent factor for me because I was predominantly in the Middle east in dangerous places, was either a Glock 19 or a Glock 43 for. For an EDC.
- [107:06]
Sean Ryan
A Glock 43.
- [107:07]
Joe Kent
Yeah. Little guy.
- [107:08]
Sean Ryan
Holy. You're running around with a Glock 43.
- [107:11]
Joe Kent
Depends on what I was wearing and where I was. There's the else. What Was it? The 20? Is it the 26 as well? The 26, I think it's the little fatter double stack version, but usually a Glock 19. I like the Glock 19 because it's a good. You can conceal it, but it's still a full size pistol. You know, you got the 15 plus 1 cameras heavily as well, just for. For the type of work that we did.
- [107:34]
Sean Ryan
What kind of cameras?
- [107:35]
Joe Kent
Small digital camera. Like a small, you know, like pocket sized. Some of our guys would use bigger ones depending on what mission they would do. But then all I did a lot of human intelligence. So a huge part of my EDC was a pen and a paper and probably about a thousand dollars of cash on me. Because no pen, no paper, no intel. And if you don't pay them, they don't come back.
- [107:58]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [107:59]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [108:00]
Sean Ryan
Did you carry a bolt bag or
- [108:01]
Joe Kent
anything like a go bag? Like a little. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I had a little beat up North Face courier bag that I still have somewhere that I got like an 05. And it was like almost a superstition that I had to take down every deployment with me and that would be like my little bug out of the vehicle bag.
- [108:19]
Sean Ryan
Never a long gun.
- [108:21]
Joe Kent
No, definitely long gun. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- [108:22]
Sean Ryan
What? Long gun?
- [108:23]
Joe Kent
For sure. So we had 416s for a little bit and then just standard, you know, ar, no MP7. I, you know, I rolled an MP7 a couple times. But it's just, it's just a little thing, the bullet. I was always a little skeptical on. I never. I know some guys, I'd heard people say they shot folks with it and it was, it was fine. It did the job. It always just seemed really little to me. There's pictures of me with it with an Uzi. I use an Uzi for a trip as like a lap gun in a car.
- [108:50]
Sean Ryan
Used an Uzi?
- [108:51]
Joe Kent
Yeah.
- [108:52]
Sean Ryan
That's awesome.
- [108:53]
Joe Kent
Yeah, because it had the support. I mean it had a great suppressor on. At the time we didn't have. We had MP5s, but we didn't have suppressed ones. And the suppressor on the Uzi was switching. Sweet. So I use that kind of my lap gun in the car. Big fan of the UMP 45s too. I thought those.
- [109:05]
Sean Ryan
Oh, you guys had those?
- [109:07]
Joe Kent
We had those, yeah. And running around Baghdad, I thought that was great because everything was so close quarters in Baghdad and you just needed to stop the stopping power, especially working in a car. Yeah.
- [109:17]
Sean Ryan
Damn. Well, I got you a present. You want to see it?
- [109:21]
Joe Kent
Absolutely.
- [109:21]
Sean Ryan
It's a long gun.
- [109:23]
Joe Kent
It's long gun. Are you serious?
- [109:24]
Sean Ryan
I'm serious.
- [109:25]
Joe Kent
I thought it was gonna be gummy bear.
- [109:29]
Sean Ryan
You're in law.
- [109:31]
Joe Kent
My kids will be happy. This is what they care about.
- [109:33]
Sean Ryan
I'll give you another one. Have you seen these?
- [109:35]
Joe Kent
Holy.
- [109:36]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, dude. You know, with the FBI investigation, I don't know if you're going to get cleared for this thing, but. But yeah, this is, this is a Sig. The Sig spear chambered in 6.8 made brand new optic. And then so Sig wanted me to give this to you.
- [109:57]
Joe Kent
Wow, that's incredible, man. Thank you so much.
- [109:59]
Sean Ryan
And then silencer shop jumped in too. So they put this suppressor on here. And the good thing about silencer shop is once you sign up with them and you get everything done, that makes the process go a lot smoother, a lot easier getting suppressors, the Class 3 item stuff. So anyways, this is incredible, man.
- [110:19]
Joe Kent
Thank you so much. Say what a beautiful gun.
- [110:26]
Sean Ryan
You want to rip a couple off out back?
- [110:28]
Joe Kent
Yeah, of course. Definitely, man. This is beautiful. Wow. Thank you.
- [110:37]
Sean Ryan
You're welcome.
- [110:37]
Joe Kent
Thank you, man.
- [110:38]
Sean Ryan
Well, I just happen to have some 6.8 out there, so. Yeah, when we wrap this up, we'll go.
- [110:43]
Joe Kent
You definitely. Wow, this is amazing.
- [110:46]
Sean Ryan
We'll blow some up. I really like that thing.
- [110:49]
Joe Kent
That's nice. Yeah, I've never. I haven't shot this before.
- [110:53]
Sean Ryan
It feels really good. Yeah, I think you're gonna like it.
- [110:58]
Joe Kent
I think so too.
- [110:59]
Sean Ryan
There's a follow on question.
- [111:00]
Joe Kent
Beautiful.
- [111:01]
Sean Ryan
If you're gonna go back into combat tomorrow, what would you. If they institute the draft and we all have to go back to Iran or the Middle east, they're gonna be
- [111:12]
Joe Kent
like jokes on you smart asses.
- [111:16]
Sean Ryan
What would your loadout look like today with all the new tech and weapon systems the military has developed since you were on the ground last?
- [111:23]
Joe Kent
I would need to get spun up on the. The, the drones and the counter drones.
- [111:28]
Sean Ryan
That's what I was going to say.
- [111:29]
Joe Kent
I mean I can, you know, talk about long guns and pistols all day long, but the fight nowadays, man, with those FPV drones, that technology, I would, I would get hot on that as fast as I possibly could. And then how to defend, I think. How do you defend any kind of like small formation that you have, like what system can you carry around to at least have a fighting chance against those things? That'd be my first, my first task.
- [111:58]
Sean Ryan
I think I'd get really good at 3D printing.
- [112:01]
Joe Kent
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The technology coming off the battlefield in Ukraine, just incredible.
- [112:09]
Sean Ryan
All right, last thing you know. This is live. This is live on my Patreon right now. So we took some questions as we were doing the interview. So let's crank through some of these. This is from Ava Evans. Thank you so much, Mr. Kent, for your bravery and honesty. What is your advice to the younger generations who may have to drive to severe. Excuse me. To serve humanity in the midst of this chaos, but also do not agree with the objective and agenda of this current administration?
- [112:39]
Joe Kent
To serve humanity.
- [112:41]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, I think she's saying, you know, join the military. Oh, to join the military with Iran. Yeah, that's what she's alluding to.
- [112:48]
Joe Kent
Look, I hope we can be effective and walk this back and get us out of it. I think a key part of that, and especially for the people that are. You have a huge audience, I think for people who feel like they can't do anything, I think them calling their senators, calling their congressmen, going to the president's websites and social medias and just saying politely that they are against this, I think that's probably one of the most effective things we can have to do to get out of this. I think for people that find themselves in the military or have to be in the military, I think your first obligation really is to the man and woman on your left and right. Make sure they come home. You got a job to do. That's why we're trying to sort out the policy from our end. But before you join, I mean, take a good hard look at what's going on right now. And only you can make the decision if this is something that you're willing to support with your life. And don't rush that decision. Again, my goal is to make it so that we can send people back into the military knowing their leaders will only deploy them against a vital national security interest. But, yeah, right now, we need to have. All voices need to be heard right now to say that we, we. We are against what's taking place. Let our elected leaders know that.
- [114:00]
Sean Ryan
Well said, man. Well said. This is from Leela Restivel. What criteria should be met before deploying US Troops into conflict? How can we ensure accountability from leadership when wars do not have clear objectives or protection out of or protection of outcomes?
- [114:19]
Joe Kent
It's a great question, and they basically give the answer in there. I think our leaders need to say before they deploy people into harm's way, hey, this is the object. This is why I'm sending you to this country. I'm sending you this country to accomplish this military objective and then quickly be able to articulate why that objective is in our vital national security interest, in America's vital national security interest. Why, if we don't take out this threat, it's going to harm Americans. That has to be very, very clear up front. And that has to come from the commander in chief. I understand there's, like, the War Powers act, and there's certain things that Congress should be able to do. But as fast as things move, this largely rests at the executive branch, unfortunately, unless the Congress is willing, unless we Elect enough people in Congress that are willing to withhold funding from the military or for operations unless there's actually a war powers declaration.
- [115:09]
Sean Ryan
Roger, this is from Zach. Since you know all that we can do, which changes would you like to see at NCTC that would be most beneficial to citizens that we protect?
- [115:24]
Joe Kent
Hmm, that's a tough one. I think in terms of. Yeah, it's a very good question. I think in terms of screening and vetting, it's a big part of what NCTC does to make sure when people come into the country they don't have ties to a terrorist organization. There's a lot of different agencies that touch screening and vetting in America. In the US government, it's a very complicated bureaucracy. I think there basically needs to be one central clearinghouse for screening and vetting to decide if someone has to ties to a terrorist organization or not and whether or not they should be allowed in. Problem is there's a bunch of different ways and there's a bunch of people who have equities and are able to say whether or not folks are let in. I think there needs to be one agency for that and that should be nctc.
- [116:08]
Sean Ryan
It's from Declan. Iran is known to harbor many terrorists who are actively training and planning to attack the US home front through sleeper themselves. Former CIA targeter Sarah Adams has proved this through open intelligence channels. All this considered, why is Iran not a threat to the United States?
- [116:28]
Joe Kent
So the question was, is Iran an imminent threat? And based on what Secretary Rubio said and what we've talked about here today, the only imminent threat was Israel attacking Iran. Is Iran a threat to America? Iran has been a threat to America and there's other countries that are threats to America as well. The question is how do you deal with those threats? My issue is us, us being part of the Israelis agenda but then also using a massive conventional attack on Iran as the way of dealing with the threat that Iran poses, I think is wrong. I think we'd be much better off doing targeted CT operations against Iranian proxies or Iranian leaders, not doing a massive regime change that results in the straits of Hormuz being closed and then also a rally around the flag that reinforces the hardliners inside of Iran.
- [117:14]
Sean Ryan
Do you think they would institute a draft if they had to for this war?
- [117:19]
Joe Kent
If they do that, then the war is going to fail really quickly because I just don't think the American people are willing to, to saddle up their, their sons and daughters for the draft if they could get away with it. I Think they, they'd be tempted to do it because it'd be like, I mean all options on the table, right? Like if they say like if we get so far sucked into this thing, kind of like we did in the Iraq war, where it's like we, we can only win by, by applying a massive amount of ground troops. Iran is so big, we can't do it with the standing military that we have right now. As big as it is, we would have to do a draft. Now I think a negative to the, a downside to the all volunteer force we've had is that it's been very easy to deploy us and most Americans don't really know or care that we've been deployed because we volunteered for it. We have professional soldiers. I think a draft is actually a good check on that. I think compulsory service. I think if there was more people right now, now who they had to go do two years in the military and they were like, oh crap, my two years are going to involve this Iran deployment. I think a lot more people in America and that was felt by the entire American population that every able bodied man and woman was eligible for a two year period to go serve wars like this wouldn't happen in my opinion.
- [118:30]
Sean Ryan
That is a very interesting point of view that I have not thought about.
- [118:35]
Joe Kent
Yeah, as much as I don't like like the idea of conscripting people or having mandatory service because I liked the professional warrior class that we were a part of. I like serving with volunteers. Problem with volunteers is man, we'll just keep going back and you'll create a professional warrior class and then we'll like I did intermarry and we'll live in our tight communities. Everybody I know is a veteran and so we have an insular community and we're the only ones that experience the war, experience the loss and we keep going back over and over again. Whereas if you spread out that burden to the entire country it makes it almost impossible to keep us at war for a prolonged period. The only reason the Vietnam War ended is because there was popular. The, the people basically revolted against it because of the draft. And that's a big reason why I think after Vietnam they were like, we can't draft people anymore, let's create a professional military.
- [119:23]
Sean Ryan
Damn, I have not thought about it like that makes a lot of sense. This is from Donnie. If Iran was not an immediate threat, then what threats are there that we should be the most concerned about?
- [119:41]
Joe Kent
The RAM was not an immediate threat.
- [119:43]
Sean Ryan
If Iran was not an immediate threat, he wants to know what are the, what are the threats that we should be most concerned about?
- [119:48]
Joe Kent
I think we should be worried about the fact that we had open borders in this country for four plus years like we talked about and, and the sheer volume of potential known suspected terrorists, known suspected terrorists that are here. Our main focus should be getting our homeland straight first and foremost. There's other threats from Al Qaeda in Yemen, Al Qaeda and Syria. There's a lot that we don't know that's taking place in Afghanistan that Sarah's talked about at ad nauseam on your show. So there still is CT threats out there. I mean, there still are people that we do need to hunt down and kill because they seek to do us harm. Again, that's why. Another reason why this conflict in Iran concerns me so much because all of our resources are going to be sucked up there and Al Qaeda and ISIS and all of our adversaries are going to take this time to rebuild and probably attack in China. And China, man, just they're raking in the cash right now. I mean, this is working out in their favor for people who are very, very worried about Russia, same thing. I mean their energy surplus is going to be reintroduced to the market at a greater value, man.
- [120:48]
Sean Ryan
Well, Joe, that pretty much concludes the interview. But, but once again, man, I, I am serious. Thank you for what you did. I know that was a tough decision and like I said, I know that took a lot of courage, but what an example you are, man.
- [121:06]
Joe Kent
Thanks, brother. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
- [121:09]
Sean Ryan
What it means to be an American. Thank you.
- [121:11]
Joe Kent
Appreciate it.
- [121:12]
Sean Ryan
Awesome what you're doing. So God bless.
- [121:15]
Joe Kent
God bless.
- [121:16]
Sean Ryan
Thank you. Foreign. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like comment and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.
- [121:52]
Joe Kent
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