← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Trump FIRES Bondi, CIA's "MK Ultra" History, and "Two Weeks" Talking Point, with John Kiriakou, Sean Davis, and Sohrab Ahmari | Ep. 1287
01:40:29
Megyn Kelly is joined by Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, and Sohrab Ahmari, U.S. Editor of UnHerd, to discuss reports that President Trump is about to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi, Bondi's challenges in handling the Epstein Files, Trump's reported frustration with the lack of prosecutions from the DOJ, reports Trump is considering firing DNI Tulsi Gabbard over her position on Iran, why Megyn hopes Gabbard doesn't leave, the implications for the coalition Trump built in 2024 if Gabbard leaves, and more. Then John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer, joins to discuss the “two to three weeks” talking point that President Trump and Lindsey Graham are pushing about the Iran war, what really happens next with the war, the CIA’s “MK Ultra” origin story, the secrets of the CIA and FBI, why conspiracy theories are growing in a post-COVID world, how Israel tries to recruit CIA operatives, the influence Israel has on both Democrats and the GOP in Congress, how he got recruited...
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- [00:01]
John Kiriakou
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Megyn Kelly
How can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
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John Kiriakou
One in four taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
- [00:08]
Megyn Kelly
What do I do?
- [00:09]
John Kiriakou
My refund, though.
- [00:10]
Megyn Kelly
I'm freaking out.
- [00:11]
Sohrab Amari
Don't worry. I can fix this.
- [00:12]
John Kiriakou
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- [00:18]
Megyn Kelly
I'm so relieved.
- [00:19]
Sean Davis
No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way.
- [00:21]
John Kiriakou
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- [00:31]
Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. We've got a former CIA officer coming on in just a bit who has some wild stories about being a spy and unique thoughts about everything from the war in Iran to Jeffrey Epstein. And I'm really looking forward to this talk. But we begin today with Trump's talking about regime change in Iran and the numerous reports that he's planning big changes to his own administration. That regime change does seem underway in some way, shape or form. Last night, the New York Times breaking the story that the president is considering firing Attorney General Pam Bondi. Mr. Trump reportedly upset at her handling of the Epstein files and her lack of aggression in going after his political enemies like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, et al. The report was quickly confirmed by multiple news outlets. According to the Times, Mr. Trump is considering replacing Bondi with current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. And semaphore. This morning, a news outlet reporting that the President has informed Ms. Bondi that, quote, her time as attorney general is nearing an end. End quote. And a formal announcement is expected soon. As always with Donald Trump's semaphore is reporting he could change his mind before going through with the plan. But that's not all. The Guardian just as we came to air, dropping a report that Donald Trump is privately polling his top advisors about whether he should replace the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The answer is no, he shouldn't. The president apparently upset that Tulsi did not condemn Joe Kent, the former National Counterterrorism center director who resigned over Joe's opposition to the war in Iran before he left the government. Kent reported to Tulsi. Before he resigned, he worked for her as her chief of staff and then went over to counterterrorism and did speak to Tulsi before he resigned. They spoke to the vice president and then he, he went and directly spoke to the president about leaving. The Guardian also reporting that Trump is not happy that Tulsi, a longtime opponent of foreign interventions, has appeared somewhat reluctant to defend his actions in Iran. There's a lot going on here. Joining me now to react to all of this is Sohrab Amari. He's U.S. editor of Unherd. And Sean Davis, who is CEO of the Federalist. Ever been in a bad relationship? You know, the kind that just wears you down, you settle in even though deep down you know this is not how it's supposed to be? Well, that's what daily aches and pains can feel like. You stop expecting to feel good and you start thinking, I guess this is just my life now. But it doesn't have to be. With Relief Factor, you can break up with pain just like Anthony did. He wrote, quote, I was dealing with debilitating pain and fatigue. I've been taking Relief Factor for about two months and now I'm back to running my business, fishing, gardening, doing the things that really matter to me. If you have back pain, knee issues or stiffness slowing you down, Relief Factor could give you your mobility back. Relief factor is 100% drug free. It targets the inflammation that causes pain, helping you move better, feel better and actually enjoy life again. Try the three week quick start for just 19.95. Go to relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief. Break up with pain and get back to what matters. Guys, thank you so much for being here. Can't think of any two guys I'd rather have on for what we just saw last night in the news this morning. We got lucky having you here. So let's start with the potential firings. Sean, I guess I'm not shocked he may or may not be wavering on Tulsi because the Joe Kent thing clearly was a bee in his bonnet. But I am kind of surprised about the Pam Bondi thing because my impression of the Pam Bondi thing was she handled most of that exactly the way he wanted her to. So what do you make of let's start with the Bondi report first.
- [04:47]
Sean Davis
Yeah. So I think to understand the whole Bondi thing, you have to go back to the first Trump administration. His initial AG was Jeff Sessions, one of the first people in Congress who ever got on his side back in 2015. Trump thought he would be great. He was an immigration hawk and he ended up being a disaster. He turned over the department to the deep state. He recused himself during the Russia hoax and then we had Rod Rosenstein for several years and in comes Bill Barr. So at that point, Bill Barr was maybe not the most loyal guy, but was seen as very, very competent. He dispatched the Mueller probe and his special counsel, but then kind of fell apart at the end. He didn't really follow through with what he needed to do on Russiagate accountability and then ended up kind of going crazy towards the end. He and Trump have a breakup. So I think Trump with Bondi decided that what he wanted was not someone who may have been ideologically on his side. He wanted someone who was loyal above all else. He tried the competent but not loyal thing with Barr. This time he wanted someone who was loyal. I think unfortunately she was very loyal. Absolutely. She wasn't particularly competent. I think she dropped the ball on a ton of things. The Epstein handling was a fight farce. The way she handled that initial White House meeting, the handout of the binders, and I think it did extreme damage to Trump the way she handled it. So I don't blame him and I don't find it particularly surprising that he's probably had enough, especially when you look at what happened with Tish James, with James Comey, with so many things falling apart. I think he understands now. Yeah, loyalty's important, but you need to have somebody who can actually do the job competently every day.
- [06:28]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, I'm wondering Saurabh, if he's seeing his dwindling poll numbers now and looking for somebody to blame. And there is no question that when it comes to Trump's base, the two things that arguably have hurt him with, with that base while we're seeing some erosion thanks to Iran. But the Epstein files is definitely on the list and I don't. Is there, is there a chance he's blaming Pam Bondi for that as opposed to himself? Because we watched. Yes, she was way out ahead of her skis with her PR campaign around. The Epstein client list is on my desk and all the Fox News appear appearances and all that. But like in terms of we're done giving you any more disclosures. Goodbye. That we saw Trump on camera saying all that himself.
- [07:17]
Sohrab Amari
Yeah, I think that's the price you pay when you campaign on this. Full disclosure of the Epstein files and then sort of renege on that. Whether it's for understandable reasons or not. I think some of it is understandable. There are people who are on the so called list who I know just happened to be there because they had some Interaction with Virginia, Jeffrey. But they were not at all accused of being on the island or done any wrongdoing. Yet. If there was a kind of full unredacted disclosure, their lives would be destroyed. So whatever the reason, the fact is that I think Pam Bondi is basically executing what the President wanted to do, some disclosure, but not the full. That would be super destructive. So I, I think the blame lies there. I will say one thing. There is one specific area which is kind of wonky, but it's important, and that has to do with antitrust, meaning breaking up monopolistic businesses. That was an area where kind of left wing and right wing populists had begun to see eye to eye going back to the first Trump administration. And part of it falls under the Department of Justice. There's a specific antitrust unit within the Department of Justice. And over the past year, the person who was put in charge of that, her name is Gail Slater. She came from J.D. vance's office and was seen as a MAGA populist, someone who would translate the MAGA populist agenda into going after big tech and other companies. That is not the free market. Right. Businesses colluding to buy each other and ultimately so that consumers only have one choice to go to, whether that's in technology or ticket prices with Ticketmaster and the like. That's not free market capitalism. And, and antitrust is a way to correct for that. Unfortunately, the Bondi DOJ was pretty actually bad in that regard. Gail Slater, the person who was again put in charge of the antitrust unit, was basically had all her power taken away. Firms that had reached basically settlements with the Department of Justice were able to sidestep her. So that the normal scrutiny that goes into how a settlement was reached. This happened, for example, with the merger between two companies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, that provide like wi fi and networking services to big stadiums, hospitals and things like that. They basically, they reached a settlement with a doj, but one that where it was done behind in a kind of behind closed doors, literally over cocktails, which raises serious legal questions. And when Gail Slater's team objected to this, one of her deputies was fired and then eventually she herself was fired as well. So it's one of those instances where, you know, what looks like populism on the campaign trail and then under Bondi, it cashed out as kind of crony capitalism. So that was an area of disappointment. I have no idea whoever comes next will do anything different. Gail Slater is now gone. And she was seen as like One of the. One of the real populist anchors of this administration. I don't think Bondi did right by her.
- [10:24]
Megyn Kelly
That's interesting. Okay, that's. I didn't know about that. That's. That could be a potential ding. She suffered behind the scenes as opposed to the ones we saw publicly, Sean, which were, you know, there in front of the scenes for all to see. Who could forget this moment? This is Fox News, February 21st of last year. Sat 0 here.
- [10:41]
John Kiriakou
DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
- [10:46]
Megyn Kelly
Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk right now to. To review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. That's all in the process of being reviewed because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these agencies.
- [11:02]
John Kiriakou
So. So have you seen anything that you said? Oh, my gosh, not yet.
- [11:08]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. That was an embarrassment. It turned out, I guess, not to be true, or so they would later tell us. And then even more recently, Sean, she was asked. It was at a Cabinet meeting, and clearly she was trying to run cover on this issue and change the subject from Epstein when she got asked a question to the Dow, you know, the surging Dow. Like, hey, look at this. It's so much better. Look what Trump did. And it was just inept. We pulled it. We never got to this a couple months ago, but here it is. Sat 0b. The American people need to know this. They are talking about Epstein today. This has been around since the Obama administration. This administration released over 3 million pages of documents. Over 3 million. And Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents. He is the most transparent president in the nation's history. And none of them, none of them ask Merrick Garland. Over the last four years, one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump. The Dow. The Dow right now is over. The dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader. As I hear, Raskin, the dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000. And the NASDAQ smashing records. Americans, 401ks and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about. Is it over? Is it over, Sean? Like, let's be honest. She's not an effective messenger for the administration.
- [12:55]
Sean Davis
No. And I think what she didn't understand and what a lot of people didn't understand was that the Epstein case was not just about Jeffrey Epstein. It was a proxy for. For a shadow government. A bunch of corrupt people who could lead the nation around by the nose, get rich, and never have any accountability. That's actually what the whole thing stands for. And I understand that there's specific crimes that people are very upset about and want accountability for. But when Trump kind of went out during the campaign and made a big deal that he was gonna be the one to get all this stuff out, he was gonna be the one who get to the bottom of it, people really believed him. And they said, oh, well, finally this is gonna be the guy, this outsider that they tried to kill, that they tried to put in prison, that they tried to bankrupt. This is going to be the guy who's finally going to hold everyone accountable. And I think he has done that to a large extent, but not with the Epstein thing. And so you had a lot of people who really felt disillusioned when they saw him come out and say it's a hoax or this, and that he was very poorly advised by whoever did that, whether it was the FBI, whether it was Bondi. And that began, I think, a series significant missteps from him that eroded key demographics. When you look at his victory in 2024, he won every swing state. It was an overwhelming victory, and it was largely done on the strength of what people were calling the podcast bros. These are guys who speak to 20 under 30 men who are fairly apolitical, who are kind of sick of all the crap, who don't trust anyone. They said, you know what? This guy's going to be the one who gets it done. And then you have Bondi get in there. She does the whole stage stupid stunt with Epstein. She ignored everyone who told her, hey, by the way, you should probably just get a special counsel to go in and review these items and slowly release them to make sure it's all done properly. Because she wanted the attention. She wanted to go on television and talk about it. She wanted to be the hero. Well, I've got bad news for you. When you want to be the face, you're going to be the one who takes the fall. And it looks like she's finally taken the fall.
- [14:50]
Megyn Kelly
That is so right with the influencers. Who could forget this moment where she had them all come to the White House? These are some of the President's most loyal social media, media, you know, warriors. And she humiliated them by having them to the White House. We were told that she actually didn't even front to them when she got them to come, that it was going to be about Epstein. But then she handed out these binders and sent them out, understanding that they would all be photographed by the press sitting on the White House lawn with the binders. And there was nothing in them, nothing new. She humiliated them. But, you know, it's tough to say. It's bought. I mean, this is just embarrassing to watch because I like these people and I blame her. They didn't know that she had effed them over. So, Sohrab, it's, it's hard, though, to blame it squarely on Pam Bondi when, like, who could forget this moment? I said that the other thing was at a Cabinet meeting. It wasn't. It was Pam Bondi testifying in front of Congress. But there was this meeting with Trump and Bondi early on in the Epstein scandal where we were all. It was right after the DOJ had released that two page memo saying, like, we're done. You're getting nothing else. This is a long time ago, right? This is like last summer. We were all like, what? And then when Trump got on camera, he wasn't like, sorry, never mind. The DOJ went rogue. This is what happened.
- [16:07]
Sean Davis
Could you resolve whether or not he did?
- [16:09]
Sohrab Amari
And also, can you say why there
- [16:10]
Sean Davis
was a minute missing from the jailhouse
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John Kiriakou
tape on the night of.
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Megyn Kelly
Yeah, sure.
- [16:14]
John Kiriakou
Could I just interrupt? Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking. We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time and do you feel like answering?
- [16:36]
Megyn Kelly
I don't mind answering.
- [16:38]
John Kiriakou
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question, Epstein, at a time like this.
- [16:42]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, that's not great. All right now my team is just sending me this Oreb. This is trying to see the source of this article. Daily Mail. Pam Bondi begged Trump not to fire her during dramatic White House showdown as insider reveals his final straw. It reports AG Pambani begged Trump not to fire her in an explosive showdown at the White House after he accused her of an unforgivable offense. He informed the AG last night, shortly before his Iran speech, that she would soon be leaving the Justice Department. According to a senior administration source. She responded by pleading to give her more time in the role, but Trump remained firm that her time leading the agency was over. She was unhappy and tried to change his mind, said the source. However, the President told her she was fired and that an announcement would be made shortly. The announcement set to be made on Friday, but is now imminent because of all the media attention. His reasoning for the sudden dismissal comes in part because the president believes Bondi tipped off Eric Swalwell. Okay, this is not on our bingo card, guys. Tipped off Eric SWALWELL about the FBI's efforts to release investigative documents related to his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, our old pal Fang Fang. The FBI was preparing a cache of documents on Swalwell's relationship with Christine Fang. She's intervening in those matters. This is a quote, the White House was not pleased she was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell, said the source. I call bullshit on that. I don't believe that's the reason. I, I just don't believe that I It's over. The, the FBI getting ready to release the file on Swalwell from 2015, which it reportedly is. Which reportedly is. They didn't find any wrongdoing, but Swalwell doesn't want the report coming out because he's running for governor and the election's May 2nd in California. I don't believe that. But your thoughts so.
- [18:33]
Sohrab Amari
Rep. Yeah, look, there's a sort of great deal of crumblingology that goes on with any Trump administration. I'm trying to think, and I want to be fair about this, but it is remarkable how messy these Trump administrations are. We're now a year and a half into the second one. I'm trying to think back to the Biden administration. And, you know, the guy was really senile, like, drooling senile, you know, bless him. But, you know, they held it together until fairly, you know, almost to the
- [19:05]
Megyn Kelly
end because he, he wasn't making any decisions. They were like, gee, should we fire ourselves? No. Does everyone agree?
- [19:13]
Sohrab Amari
He's exactly right. But, you know, then, then you compare this and look, I mean, if the, if the previous administration, if the first Trump administration guide, if there was indeed a scene that involved her begging him not to fire her, you can almost bet that there is going to be three years of Bondi serving as a source to the press, getting a book deal. What I saw up close, and of course, like, the, you know, the irresponsibility of this president and so on and so forth, having, you know, been, you know, perfectly eager to do those sessions where they sit around in the Cabinet and each of the Cabinet members goes by one, one by one and says, sir, your presidency really is better than Abraham Lincoln's. It's amazing she was doing that just as much. But she'll be leaking against him.
- [19:57]
Megyn Kelly
Very uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable. I mean, I'm a Trump supporter and I like most of the people in the administration, but the Cabinet meetings and like, that constant fluffing of Trump is very Pravda esque. It makes me uncomfortable. Like, just stop. Just like, stop with the obligatory compliment. It reminds me of what I saw in Russia with Vladimir Putin. If you watch a press conference over there, I mean, the entire Russian press corps is like, isn't he fabulous? He's even more fabulous than we thought he was, isn't he? He's amazing. Now, our press isn't like that, but certainly the Cabinet is. It's just too much. It's like, okay, whatever. It's like, it's fine. I forgive Trump the need to be, to have his ego stroked because he gets just ripped by everybody so often. So I get it. Okay, Sean, here's what I think. I think it's probably more of what we said in the intro, which is she's not bringing indictments against the people who tried to bring, put him in prison and bring down his first presidency. You know, we have not seen an indictment of John Brennan. We have not seen a renewal of the charges against Tish James. The Comey matter, too, is on the ropes because of a judge ruling that the indictment was improper. And I, I bet Trump actually is very angry about that stuff and maybe is blaming Pam Bondi. Like, if I had to put my own money on it, that's where I'd put it.
- [21:12]
Sean Davis
Yeah, I think it's a whole collection of things. You know, if you look at his presidency so far, which we forget how bad Bo Biden was, thank goodness he is president now and we don't have to deal with all that nonsense. But I think he's had kind of two major missteps. The big political one was the Epstein thing, which we've covered. But I also think his administration had a fairly significant strategic misstep in how it was handling what I call the judicial insurrection. These collection of completely corrupt, inferior, unelected district judges, to a certain extent, certain circuit court judges. This is something that started very early in the administration, where you just had a bunch of judges with no authority to do this, nonetheless saying, hey, Mr. President, we get that you're the head of the executive branch, but you don't get to do anything unless you get unanimous consent from a bunch of chuckleheads with law degrees who managed to somehow get appointments to district courts. And I think there was a strategic calculation made early on that rather than taking them Head on. Immediately.
- [22:11]
John Kiriakou
Immediately.
- [22:11]
Sean Davis
And saying, we're not going along with your stupid, lawless nonsense here. You can issue all the opinions you want. We're not going along with them. We're not going to pretend they're valid, and we're going to do what we're going to do. And if the Supreme Court wants to step in and somehow back you up, they can have at it. And I think now, whether it was at the advice of the White House counsel's office or the ag, I think Trump now understands that he's been in a bit of a hole by how his administration has decided to handle these courts. And when you add that up to all the other missteps with Bondi, the appearances, the embarrassing hearings, the Epstein thing, I don't see how Trump had any other decision to make other than it's time for you to go and we're going to put someone else in there.
- [22:52]
Megyn Kelly
You made some of these comments in a taped interview we did for our AM Update podcast, which we release every day. And my husband and I were listening to it this morning, as we always do over our coffee, and he, you really gave him a lot to think about. He was saying, my husband was saying, like, how good your points were and was saying, you know, how is it that we have all these district court judges who have lifetime appointments who want to, you know, ding Trump and pretend that they're little mini presidents and get plaudits at the Georgetown cocktail parties with no skin in the game, like they don't care anymore if they get chastised by the circuit courts above them, who, you know, depending on the jurisdiction, never will chastise them anyway. The only chance is when it goes up to the Supreme Court. They don't care. They all hate Trump so much. They have such tds. We never impeach them. We, we do abide by their rulings, you know, anyway, you persuaded him. And if people missed AM Update this morning, you missed something good. You can still go back and listen to it on YouTube or on podcast. Here's the other thing, the Tulsi news. I really hope now it's the Guardian. So rev, I don't know how great the Guardian sources are inside the administration and what the motive here might be. I believe Tulsi Gabbard wants to stay and that she doesn't think her neck is on the chopping block, but the report is that it is. I'm going to read what the Guardian has reported. Trump has privately asked cabinet officials in recent weeks whether he should replace his DNI venting frustration that she shielded a former deputy, meaning Joe Kent. It's not clear that Trump will actually fire her over the episode. There's no standout candidate to take the job. It's an ominous development for Gabbard that he's doing this polling given that he does tend to poll his advisors when he starts to seriously consider whether he should change a post. The nature of Joe Kent's departure and his criticism of the war had already angered Trump. But he expressed particular the frustration about Gabbard seemingly defending Jo can and appearing reluctant to defend the administration's position to attack Iran. He was asked on March 29, just days ago, whether he still had confidence in Tulsi on Air Force One. Here's what he said in Sat 1. She's lost confidence in Tulsi.
- [24:57]
Sean Davis
Gabbard, sir.
- [24:58]
John Kiriakou
Yeah, follow up. I mean, she's a little bit different in her thought process than me, but that doesn't make somebody not available to serve.
- [25:08]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, that was pretty tepid. You know, it doesn't make somebody unavailable to serve. Like this is not, not a ringing endorsement.
- [25:18]
Sohrab Amari
Yeah. I think here's what's happened is what my sources in the administration, including lots of people who've, in the security apparatus or the Pentagon, this is what they tell me is that the, the so called restraint camp, people who are conservative but believe that the US should leave forever wars, especially wars of regime change and especially in the Middle east behind the people who want to pivot away from that and focus either on domestic development or because they see China as the greater threat. Those people of whom Tulsi was very much one, as everyone pointed out, like her 2020 campaign, sold t shirts that said no war with Iran. Those people won many of the staffing battle inside the administration, meaning they got these jobs up and down the Pentagon, the intelligence community and so on. But what's happened is that that's not who the people who ultimately made the really, really big policy call, which is
- [26:14]
Megyn Kelly
to invade Iran, Mark Levin did.
- [26:15]
Sohrab Amari
It's these outside, they call them outside voices like Mark Levin, like Senator Lindsey Graham, like Senator Tom Cotton, these kind of uber hawks. Miriam Adelson, who has the President's ear very close.
- [26:27]
Megyn Kelly
She's our real president.
- [26:29]
Sohrab Amari
Well, I wouldn't go so far, but I'll let you say so you say
- [26:33]
Megyn Kelly
I'm being facetious, but she's. Her $200 million really did get her a bang for her buck.
- [26:38]
Sean Davis
And so.
- [26:39]
Sohrab Amari
So you know, at some point that that's going to come to a head. Is there There are these people in the administration who were brought on, on the premise that this was going to be the. The administration that was not going to do this one thing, which is to launch a war against Iran, a big war, especially, rather than like a quick intervention. So here they are. What do they do? And all of them are facing this pressure. Do they just, like, grind it out and grit their teeth and do, you know, execute policies that ultimately leave them unhappy and feel like this against their conscience?
- [27:09]
Megyn Kelly
I think she's prepared to do that.
- [27:11]
Sohrab Amari
It may well be. Or do they resign? Or even if they don't want to resign, do they get, you know, thrown out for lack of sufficient enthusiasm? And I think maybe she's in that third.
- [27:22]
Megyn Kelly
Right, right. Or lack of sufficient enthusiasm. Or in her case, there is a tie to Joe Kent. And if the President is somehow hanging Joe Kent around her, yeah, he could potentially make her suffer for it. But, Sean, I mean, we can't. To lose Joe Kent and then to lose Tulsi Gabbard, too, It's like the restrainer wing of the Republican Party, which is always. Which is already unhappy with Trump. If he fires Tulsi, that's. That's not going to help the poll numbers. He doesn't need to give the neocons another gift. He needs to worry about the other part of the Republican Party that feels as Tulsi does, or at least as she did prior to joining the administration. I'm assuming she secretly feels the same way, just keeping a quiet out of loyalty to him, which is, we don't want this war.
- [28:07]
Sean Davis
Right. So I have something of a different perspective. Having been a staffer. I worked on the Hill for a long time. I worked for a presidential campaign. And when you're a staffer, you have. I think there's a certain code you need to adopt, which is that you don't matter. You are there entirely to serve the person that you're working for. And Joe Kent was a staffer. Tulsi is a staffer. You might even say J.D. is a staffer. The only important one there is Donald Trump. And I think as a staffer, when you have made the decision internally that I can't work for this person because I can't in good conscience implement these policies, I personally find it distasteful to see people do the big public spectacle. Here's why I'm quitting. I think you have a responsibility to quietly quit and go your separate ways. Now, in defense of Joe Kent, he could have done what so many people in Washington have done for decades, which is stew privately and then do everything he possibly could to backstab and delegitimize the person he's working for. Okay. That's what everyone in Washington does. So bless him for actually having old fashioned way. Yeah. Taking a stand and saying, I can't do this. But I have a hard time faulting Trump for being disappointed with that. Because if there's one thing Trump cannot stand, it's number one, being disloyal and number two, making yourself the story over him. And I love Tulsi. I think she's great. I think she's a very important voice to have in there. But I don't think you can be surprised when Trump says, hey, this was your guy, and he went and did that. Are you really on my team? I think that's probably a fair question.
- [29:40]
Megyn Kelly
Right. I think he accurately senses her skepticism about the war. And maybe he just doesn't want that right now because he wants all loyalists around him to promote his agenda.
- [29:50]
Sohrab Amari
Really big mistakes is the only people who, I mean, there's a video going around kind of a downfall. Like it's like it's a Hitler movie making fun of the decision to go to war. And the Trump in it says, like, I'm in this because I just brought so many askers around me and no one to say, hey, like, Mr. President, Iran is not like Venezuela. Iran is not like Iraq. It's going to be a while and it's going to be a big war. I think, you know, like, loyalty is very important, but sometimes loyalty means actually putting your neck out there and saying, Mr. President, this is a really bad decision.
- [30:25]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Because Sora, there's no way Trump isn't seeing the collapse of the coalition that put him in office. You know, the latest polling out, we've talked on this show this week about the loss of the Hispanic voters, the loss of the young voters, the loss of the men. He's lost men, young men in particular, but men across the board now no longer favor Donald Trump. And of course, the women have hated him for a long time now. Today the latest is he's lost the working class. The working class vote for Trump, which has always been his bedrock, is now he's underwater with them. So he sees this and he looks around for, like a clean way to get out of Iran. It's not there. And it's because of this escalation trap that Professor Pape has been talking about that we're falling into. And then last night there were reports that he was going to go out and announce that we were pulling out, we were de. Escalating. We were. It wasn't true. I heard nothing new last night. I heard a restatement of his truth social posts which basically say we're staying. He said maybe two to three weeks. But he said he wants the Iranians to do what we want them to do, to cut a deal or we're going to do all the stuff he said in the true social post, which is bomb there electric plants. So they're energy plants. He didn't mention the desalination plants, which he said in the true social. But did you hear anything new and what did you make of last night's White House address?
- [31:48]
Sohrab Amari
Well, I did hear one thing that was new, which is in a very disturbing way is the President has said we, you know, it's not possible, it's not possible for the US to pay for Medicaid, Medicare, daycare, quote, we're fighting
- [32:01]
Megyn Kelly
wars and now wait, wait, hold that thought. Cuz that wasn't at the White House address.
- [32:08]
Sohrab Amari
Correct.
- [32:09]
Megyn Kelly
But he did, but this is a separate story and it's.
- [32:11]
Sohrab Amari
We can get into it.
- [32:12]
Sean Davis
Yeah, you're right. That's where the working class get a
- [32:14]
Megyn Kelly
meeting at the White House. They put a post up on YouTube, apparently erroneously, of his remarks to this private group and there was a devastating sound bite by Trump. It's now been pulled down, but everybody has it. We all have the feed that, that was up there for some time. And here is the sound bite to which you refer in SA9 because the
- [32:36]
John Kiriakou
United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states, we have all these other people. We're fighting wars, we can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up, but it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis, you can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection.
- [33:16]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, you go ahead.
- [33:17]
Sohrab Amari
So that is a big departure from the Trump of 2016, from the Trump of 2020 and the Trump of 2024. The whole thing with Trump was he repeatedly said, I am not going to touch your entitlements I am not going to touch your entitlements. Including in the 2024 GOP, the Republican platform, one of the planks is, you know, protect and preserve entitlements. And that means Social Security, Medicare, Medicare, and they've even. There are even White House statements you can find in which that says we are not going to touch Medicaid either. Now, for the voters who are the marginal voters whom Trump brought into his coalition in 2016, then again in 2020 and even bigger in 2024, I'm not talking about the MAGA hardcore. The MAGA hardcore, if he converted to Shiite Islam tomorrow, they would continue. But I'm talking about those marginal voters, half of Hispanic men, a fifth of African American men, young men who are anti war. For those people, what stood out about Trump was that unlike Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the kind of old Republican Party of2015, he would say, I'm going to protect your entitlements. And the foreign wars have been a disaster. This is the complete reversal from that because he's saying a Medicaid, Medicare, all of these things are under the, under the chopping, under chopping block potentially, and it should be a state problem. Maybe we give them some discount, which is not how they're set up, certainly not for Medicare. And then. But what is not on the chopping block is the war I just launched in Iran, which is going to add, at a minimum is going to cost 200 billion, which is what. What is being asked for from Congress. So that's like literally a switcheroo. And I'm sorry, I know that was not from the original, the address he gave us. I didn't hear anything new in the address last night. No clear timetable, no sense of even again, the shifting of the mission. Is it to open the strait? Is it to denuclearize? Is it regime change? All of these things, depending on which Trump you ask or which member of the Cabinet, it shifts literally every 12 hours. So whatever it was another address, it sounds like we're in for the big war.
- [35:26]
Megyn Kelly
It shifts along with a message, no matter who it's from, of we've been perfectly clear from the start. And then what follows is some new, like another explanation that isn't clear. But okay, whatever. I mean, I really don't care. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't care anymore about like the retroactive justifications. I just want us to get out. I don't care what excuse we have to use. I'm perfectly happy to go along with the excuse. I really am. I just. Just get out like his. I hope his advisors tell him. They'll buy it. Yes, just get out the straight. It's not fair to the Europeans to say it's your fault. I mean, it's your problem now, the Strait of Hormuz being closed. You deal with it. It's not fair. But I don't care about that either. I just want us out. I don't want any more troops over there. And I think he can do it if enough people get in his ears and if enough people show him these polls. Sean, but your thoughts on both the sound bite we ran just there and on the address last night.
- [36:17]
Sean Davis
Yeah. So I was actually pretty encouraged by the address last night, and I am where you are. Like, I don't think this was a wise action to take. I think it's a distraction. I think it's making it harder to do things that need to be done here domestically, and it was the domestic agenda that got him reelected. But what I saw. I saw a couple things. So he talked about a few different things. He said the objectives were largely completed. He said Iran was no longer really a threat. It's a direct quote, that regime change wasn't a goal, that there were maybe two to three weeks left, and that the Strait of Hormuz is just going to have to open up on its own. So what I saw in that was an admission that, hey, we're not going to do this big ground invasion to open up the Strait. It's not our problem. Look, we may have been the reason it got screwed up. You're going to have to deal with it. I was encouraged by all that because it suggests to me that he understands that this is not popular, that people didn't want it, that it's a distraction, that it's hurting him. And it reminded me of a New York Post article that ran right after the war was launched. And there was a quote in it that was very uncharacteristically Trump, where he said something along the lines of, well, I don't care what the polls say. It's the right thing. I need to do it. I don't care what the polls say. And it's very, very rare for Trump to ever say something like that, because it's an implicit admission that what he's doing isn't popular. I think he's known all along that this was going to be a drag, but for whatever reason, he felt compelled to do it. He felt he had to do it the Overall vibe and impression I got from that speech last night was a president who understood that it's a drag on him. It needs to be wrapped up, and it's time to move on. And say what you will about Trump, unlike I think every other president I have experienced and seen as an American, the man does listen. He has a pretty incredible political radar and political instinct. It's how he got elected twice, three times, depending on where you sit. The guy's not an idiot. He's not a political neophyte. He survived attempts to imprison and bankrupt and even murder him. And he's in president again. So I was encouraged because I think I saw a president who understands this thing's got to get wrapped up and we got to move on.
- [38:24]
Megyn Kelly
I hope you're right. I get a little worried when I see, you know, Levin tweeting out perfect speech. Zorab like, whoa, wait, why is he so happy? I get nervous. But maybe it's true. Maybe we're not going to use all those ground troops that we sent there. The some 5,000. We've got 50,000 in the region now, which is 10,000 more than normal. Or there's always the possibility that the speech telegraphing a wind down over the next few weeks was a head fake and that we are going to see the use of those ground troops. How did you read it?
- [38:55]
Sohrab Amari
I simply don't know. I think I just would not count on this being. I want Sean to be right. I want this to be basically an indication of we're gonna, like, do a bit more and so it'll look like we've really hurt the Iranians now. And then that gives him domestic justification to leave. I hope that that's correct. But the pattern has been one of the. Has been on a kind of escalatory ladder. And so what I worry is two kinds of ground deployments that either or both I think would be terrible. One is to try to take this Kharg island or some portion of Iran's southern shore. The problem with that is that that area the Iranians have so fortified. And I watch Iranian state TV and you can say, yeah, it's all their propaganda and stuff, but at some point, there's some nexus between propaganda and reality. And I think the Iranians really, really want that to happen because it'll get them a chance to get up close and get some far more US Deaths than they've been able to achieve, even if it means they also rack up lots of deaths. But to them, it's like it's martyrdom, right. They like glory in it, so they don't mind that. But if they can rack up like more kills and it provides a static target too. If you're landing on an island, it's pretty easy for them to like, like drone it, you know, and other forms of targeting that they can do, that's one the other, which is, I think even crazier is this idea of landing special forces to try to retrieve several hundred pounds of enriched uranium which are in tunnels. And obviously the Iranians aren't like cartoon villains to keep all their enriched uranium in one underground site. It's multiple tunnel cities across the country where they've placed these. So the idea of sending in special forces on this, to me it seems like a wild goose chase of. I laugh because. But it's grim because it's also obviously very, very. It's a very dangerous thing to do for those, for the special forces operators. So I mean like, the only way to do the really big thing of quote unquote defeating Iran is to do an invasion that takes 500,000 troops at a minimum. And that's what Mark Levin really wants. Response. It's obvious from all of live in type messaging, it'll become a US Problem for two decades. Short of that, like, let's not go there. Let's just leave. I mean, I'm just saying let's please leave. But my problem is I just can't be sure that in order to like maintain credibility, he's not tempted by the escalation trap that eventually leads to the
- [41:34]
Megyn Kelly
500,000 because why isn't he leaving now? I mean, I think last night should have been we're leaving. We did a lot. Here are all the great things we did. And we're peacing out like I don't really know what's happening over two to three weeks. They said that they hit all of their targets. They said they were running out of military targets because our, of course, our air force has been so effective. So what are we hitting? What are we doing over these three weeks? And, and you know, is it going to be escalatory? Guys, gotta run. Thank you both so much for coming on today. Really appreciate it.
- [42:01]
Sean Davis
Thank you.
- [42:02]
Megyn Kelly
See you both. Okay, Coming up, more reaction to the Iran speech last night and an in depth interview with the real live American spy. I'm going to ask him everything about the CIA spying on you and MK Ultra and all the stuff that you ever wanted to know about the CIA when you are in a business growth mindset, you know, how much the basic stuff matters, like how you talk to customers or clients and keep your team aligned. A more modern setup makes everything run smoother. So I want to tell you about one of our sponsors, Quo spelled Q U O the modern alternative to running your business communications. Quo works right from an app on your phone or computer and lets you keep your existing number, add new numbers or teammates, and sync your CRM. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, so there's no mixed messages or mist mixed or missed. And Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. It can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive. Make this the season where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free plus get 20 off your first six months when you go to Quo.com MK that's Qu-O.com MK Quo no missed calls, no missed connections.
- [43:29]
Sean Davis
Here's a shift worth noting.
- [43:30]
Sohrab Amari
Better healthcare is care that meets patients where they are.
- [43:33]
John Kiriakou
UnitedHealth Group is bringing it directly to living rooms.
- [43:37]
Sohrab Amari
This is a win for patients managing chronic conditions.
- [43:39]
John Kiriakou
And here's the interesting thing.
- [43:41]
Megyn Kelly
By closing those care gaps, administering in
- [43:43]
Sohrab Amari
home exams and identifying risks earlier, more
- [43:46]
John Kiriakou
diseases can be prevented and patient outcomes can improve. In 2025 alone, UnitedHealth Group patients received
- [43:53]
Megyn Kelly
over 19 million home visits.
- [43:55]
John Kiriakou
Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com commitment.
- [44:03]
Megyn Kelly
My next guest is a former CIA officer who spent more than a decade inside the agency, eventually rising to become chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan at the height of the war on terror after 9 11. And that's some responsibility. During his time there, he was involved in high stakes operations against Al Qaeda, including efforts to tied to the capture of a senior operative. After leaving the agency in 2004 to work in the private sector, his life took a dramatic turn. During an interview with ABC News in 2007, he became the first US official to publicly confirm the CIA's use of waterboarding on terror suspects.
- [44:42]
John Kiriakou
And at the time I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do. And as time has passed and as September 11th has, has, you know, has moved farther and farther back into history, I think I've changed my mind and I think that waterboarding is probably something that we shouldn't be in the business of doing. Why do you say that now? Because we're Americans and we're better than that. But at the time you didn't feel that way. At the time I was so angry and I wanted so much to help disrupt future attacks on the United States that I felt it was the only thing we could. Could do. And with zubaydah, you think that was successful? It was. And we have reported that Khalid sheikh mohammed was also waterboarded. I was out of it by then, but it's my understanding that he was. That he was also waterboarded. Those were really the only two, to the best of my knowledge. Yes. And bottom line, as you sit here now, do you think that was worth it? Yes. Did it compromise American principles or did it save American lives or both? I think both. It may have compromised our principles, at least in the short term.
- [45:43]
Megyn Kelly
That interview put him at the center of a national firestorm over interrogation techniques and US Policy in the war on terror. Years later, kiriakou was charged under the espionage act and ultimately pleaded guilty, with the feds breathing down his neck, to revealing the identity of two covert CIA officers to journalists. He believes he was targeted for speaking out about the enhanced interrogation program. He ultimately spent just under two years behind bars. John says he has no regrets about speaking out. And in recent years, he's become a major player on the podcast scene, revealing some of the agency's tactics and strategies and speaking out about Jeffrey epstein and what really motivates U.S. foreign policy decisions. Former CIA officer and whistleblower John kiriakou joins me now. John, what a pleasure to meet you.
- [46:31]
John Kiriakou
Oh, the pleasure's all mine. Thanks for the invitation.
- [46:34]
Megyn Kelly
Of course. I'm really looking forward to this discussion and I've been enjoying your podcast tours.
- [46:38]
John Kiriakou
Thank you very much. Thank you.
- [46:39]
Megyn Kelly
In a lot of places and I'm like, I gotta know this guy. There's so much I want to go over before we get to your amazing story and background, which is spectacular. Can I just get your reaction on where we are right now in this Iran war? Because you know a lot about this and you've got. I know. Strong thoughts on what we're doing over there. Did you hear anything last night that. That encouraged you in any way?
- [47:01]
John Kiriakou
Not really. What I had been hoping for, having watched Donald Trump for the last six plus years, longer than six plus years, 10 plus years. I was hoping that he would declare victory and announce that the boys are coming home. And that's not what we saw. What we saw was that we're winning or we won, which I don't believe we are. And. And we're going to keep fighting for weeks. That's probably going to stretch into. Into months. But one of the things that really disturbed me the most was the president threatened again to attack Iran's Infrastructure, specifically its electrical grid. And that is quite literally a war crime. It's very unusual for a president to go on TV and announce, I'm going to commit a war crime. But that's what we saw last night, you know, and I, I think that, I think that we made a policy decision to accept and to believe Israeli intelligence at face value. I think that the Israelis had a vested interest in lying to us and pulling us into this war to do their dirty work for them. And that's exactly what happened. The Iranians weren't the threat to us.
- [48:18]
Megyn Kelly
Yep. I mean, it seemed clear because the administration admitted it early on. And then when they realized that the public had a strong reaction to that, started changing that story. I always get worried when I see Mark Levin happy or Lindsey Graham happy. And they were very happy last night, which alarmed me. Lindsey Graham was on Sean Hannity's program. Listen to this. 5.
- [48:41]
John Kiriakou
Do you believe this is, this is pretty much wrapped up in two to three weeks. In two or three weeks, we'll have completed the objective of destroying their ballistic missile program. In about two to three weeks, those objectives will have been met. And how does this movie end? What people don't realize is that they were two to three weeks away. Iran from going from 60% to 90% enrichment. Trump said, okay, I've got two or three weeks to act. I'm going to act now. Two to three weeks that it had enough material to make eight or ten nuclear weapons. And Trump blew up their enrichment facilities so they couldn't go from 60 to 90. But what I learned tonight, Iran's going to have a choice in two to three weeks. By the way, I don't even think they have two or three weeks, Senator. That's two or three weeks when their infrastructure would be blown up. Now we have two or three weeks left to achieve our military objectives. Destroying the missile program, making sure there can never have a pathway to a nuclear bomb and putting them out of the state sponsored terrorism business. We're about two or three weeks away, but at the end of two or three weeks, what happens next? Wow.
- [49:48]
Megyn Kelly
Do you think he's trying to get a certain time frame in our heads, John?
- [49:51]
John Kiriakou
Seems to me like something might happen in the next two or three weeks.
- [49:57]
Megyn Kelly
It's just ridiculous. I don't like this guy is driving our foreign policy.
- [50:01]
John Kiriakou
You know, Megan, I have to say, in all the years that I was in the CIA, literally every time an Israeli prime minister came to the United States, and they come all the time, regardless of who happened to be the president, whether it was Ronald Reagan, all the way into Donald Trump's first term, every single Israeli prime minister would come and say, please bomb Iran, please bomb Iran, please bomb Iran. And every president would say, no, we're not going to bomb Iran until this president and the Israelis. From 1986, the Israelis have been saying that the Iranians were six months away from a nuclear bomb. Just simply not true. The CIA in the last 20 years has written two national intelligence estimates. Now, this is a sense of the entire intelligence community concluding both times that the Iranians did not have a nuclear weapons program. Besides the fact that Ayatollah Khamenei, the late Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a fatwa, a religious decree in 2003, saying that it was a sin to have a nuclear weapons program and that the government was forbidden from doing so. There's no evidence that they had a nuclear weapons program except for what the Israelis have been saying, and I think the Israelis made it up.
- [51:20]
Megyn Kelly
In our own intelligence assessment, as we heard from Tulsi Gabbard when she testified publicly, is that they, they did not have a nuclear weapon and that they were not close to getting a nuclear weapon. And even our president told us that their nuclear weapons program was obliterated last June. So this is why many of us are having trouble believing anything other than Israel had an agenda. And we decided to help them. As you point out, the same agenda they've had for many years. There's much, much more to do, John. Stick with us. Got to take a quick break and we will be back with a great interview. I, I just know it. Next, let me tell you about Cozy Earth, which makes relaxing at home so much more enjoyable. If you have not tried their robes or slippers yet, you are seriously missing out, my friends. Their robes are unbelievably soft, perfect for slow mornings, after a shower or just relaxing at night. The fabric is breathable, lightweight and incredibly comfortable. It's the kind of robe you put on and immediately feel more relaxed in. And their slippers have this plush lining. They're warm, they're comfortable, they're easy to wear around the house all day, which you should with Mother's Day coming up. Cozy Earth makes an amazing gift, something she will actually use and appreciate every single day. And here's the best part. Cozy Earth backs everything with a 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty. So you can try it completely risk free. Go to cozyearth.com use my code Megan for 20% off. That's cozyearth.com promo code M E G Y N for 20% off. And if you see the post purchase survey mention you heard about Cozy Earth from this show. You've been hearing me talk a lot about Pure Talk lately. Pure Talk is veteran led, so helping veterans is their north star. They have donated over half a million bucks to America's warrior Partnership, a fantastic organization that's on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide. And Pure Talk's creating American jobs with a US Only workforce. Yes, it'd be a lot cheaper to send jobs overseas like other companies do, but they're committed to delivering the best experience possible for their customers. And PureTalk's service, I mean, they give you the same towers, the Same network, same 5G coverage as one of the big guys, but for a fraction of the price. Pure Talk supports veterans every single day and creates American jobs. If you want to give it a shot, dial £250 and say Megyn Kelly to switch to Pure Talk. That's £250.250 and say Megyn Kelly to switch to PureTalk, America's wireless company. Pure Talk,
- [53:48]
John Kiriakou
Lifelock.
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Megyn Kelly
How can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't.
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John Kiriakou
One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
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Megyn Kelly
What do I do?
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John Kiriakou
My refund though.
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Megyn Kelly
I'm freaking out.
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Sohrab Amari
Don't worry, I can fix this.
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John Kiriakou
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Megyn Kelly
I'm so relieved.
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Sean Davis
No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way.
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John Kiriakou
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- [54:19]
Megyn Kelly
Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Siriusx and it's called the Megyn Kelly channel. And it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, RealClearPolitics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. Back with me now, former CIA counterterrorism officer John Kiriakou. John, so you're at GW University from 82 to 86, a boy from Pennsylvania and Middle eastern studies is your thing. And one day a professor pulls you Aside and makes an extraordinary admission and offer to you tell us.
- [55:16]
John Kiriakou
Right. I got a degree in Middle Eastern studies at George Washington University. And today, the truth, I wasn't ready to go into real life yet. So I stayed for a master's degree in legislative affairs with a focus being on American foreign policy analysis. And I was taking a class called the Psychology of leadership with Dr. Gerald Post, who was an eminent psychiatrist. He gave us an assignment, quite a controversial assignment, to shadow our bosses and then to write a psychological profile of our bosses. I did that, and
- [55:51]
Megyn Kelly
it was a.
- [55:53]
John Kiriakou
I worked for a. I worked for a sociopath, and I called him on it. And so I got my paper back at the end of the week, and I got AN A. And Dr. Post wrote in the margin, please see me after class. So I went to his office to see him. He had me close the door. And then he said, look, I'm not really a professor here. I'm a CIA officer undercover as a professor here. I'm looking for people who might fit into the CIA's culture, and I think you would fit into the CIA's culture. Would you like to be a CIA officer? And the truth is, you know, I wanted to go into public service. I wanted to see the world. But the real truth was I was getting married in six weeks, and I didn't have a job. So I said, yeah, sure, I'd love to join the CIA. And the next thing I knew, I was in the CIA.
- [56:42]
Megyn Kelly
So what was it about you? Just your ability to profile people?
- [56:46]
John Kiriakou
That was the start of it, yes. It turned out that I was hired by the office that he had created about six years earlier, called the Political Psychology Division. So I was assigned to Iraq. I became Saddam Hussein's classified biographer. And I did that for years before making what at the time was a very unusual switch to counterterrorism operations. But the agency gave me opportunity after opportunity. I learned to speak fluent Arabic that went with the fluent Greek that I had. And, yeah, I mean, one day you're sitting in a college class, and the next day you're in the Oval Office trying to think of, you know, how not to sound like an idiot when you're speaking to the president. And, yeah, the rest. The rest was history.
- [57:32]
Megyn Kelly
And so do you. Do you. Are you. Was this the kind of hire that you could tell anybody about or, like, when you joined the CIA? Or do they say, no, your cover is going to be you, too, are a university professor?
- [57:41]
John Kiriakou
Well, at the beginning, I was an overt employee, so I wasn't under Formal cover. But what that meant, for all intents and purposes, was that I could tell those closest to me that I was working for the CIA, and then that was it. I mean, even my own wife, she knew that I was a CIA officer. She had no idea what I did, which caused all kinds of problems later. And frankly, it led to our divorce. You know, you come home and you say, she says, how was your day? You say, great. What'd you do? Nothing. Who would you talk to? Nobody. And then your phone rings at 11 o' clock and you say, you know, the rain in Spain falls mainly in the plane, and then you leave until six in the morning. And that's just not conducive to a, to a smooth marriage, a healthy marriage.
- [58:29]
Megyn Kelly
Did you really use little phrases like that, like the pearl is in the river?
- [58:33]
John Kiriakou
Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes if you're not close to the person that you're trying to trigger an emergency meeting with, it would be easy to say, hey, Constantine, let's have coffee. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at 9. Well, tomorrow morning at 9 really means tomorrow morning at 8 in the abandoned, you know, parking lot behind the sweater factory, because you've arranged that all in advance. So if somebody's listening to your phone, and nowadays everybody's listening to your phone, they don't have any idea what you're going to do.
- [59:05]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I was interested in your, I want to get to all that, but I do. I am interested in your relationship with your wife. You've had two wives, as I understand it. And I heard you tell the story in part, and I wanted to hear the rest of it. So you were in Greece and I think this is the first wife, right?
- [59:20]
John Kiriakou
My first wife.
- [59:21]
Megyn Kelly
Your son, your son said something shocking to you. Can you tell us that story?
- [59:26]
John Kiriakou
Yeah, I was so focused on the job and, and trying not to get killed. You know, there was a, there was a terrorist group active in Greece at the time called revolutionary organization, the 17th of November. That was the whole reason why I was in Greece at the, at the, in the, at the basis of it all. It was to, to try to infiltrate this group to disrupt their attacks and really to destroy the group from the inside. They'd killed the CIA station chief, two U. S. Defense attaches, the Turkish ambassador, the deputy ambassador, the minister of finance. They just killed, they killed 28 people. And so she was a first generation American. Her parents were, were from Greece and she inherited her grandmother's house on, on one of the Greek islands. And so she started going to the island on the Weekends and taking the kids. I thought that was a great idea. The kids can get to know their cousins. Well, leaving Friday, coming back Sunday became leaving Thursday, coming back Sunday, then leaving Thursday, coming back Monday, then kids are missing school. And then one day I'm shaving, getting ready for, for work and my then 6 year old is sitting on the floor next to me and we're talking about his day and what his day is going to look like. And then he said to me, I told mommy not to kiss Uncle Stellos on the lips. I told her to kiss only you on the lips. And she told me to mind my own business. I felt like I had been electrocuted. And so I went into the bedroom and I kicked the bed. She said, what? I said, who is Stelios? And she said, where did you hear that name? I said, who is he? And she said, don't believe everything a six year old says. And I, I said to her, and I said it very plainly and clearly at the time, I'm gonna leave right now before I do something that's gonna, that's gonna dog me for the rest of my life. And so I didn't even finish shaving. I finished shaving at work. I got in the car and I drove to the embassy and it was all downhill from there. As it turned out, 17 November murdered the British defense attache a few months later, Stephen Saunders. Stephen was a friend of mine. We were next door neighbors and a couple of months later they mailed a manifesto to a leftist newspaper. And they said in the manifesto, meto megalocatascopos. We saw the big spy, but we knew that he was armed and, and he was driving an armored car. So we elected to carry out the revolutionary sentence on the war criminal Saunders. Well, I got to the office and the, and the chief said, he came just barging into my office. He said, did you see the manifesto? I said, what manifesto? He said, the Saunders manifesto. I said, they didn't leave a Sanders manifesto. He said, no, they released it today and you're in it. I said, what do you mean I'm in it? He said, they set out to kill you that morning. And I said, oh my God. He said, you have to go. I said, go where? He said, home, like to Washington. I said, I just dropped my kids off at school, I can't just up and go home. He said, listen, you get in an armored car, we're taking it to the airport, we're going to pick up your kids, we're going to pick up your Wife. So we all met up at the airport and I said to her, I am so sorry. And she said, I want a divorce. I'm not living like this anymore. And so the plane landed in New York. I caught a connection to Washington, she caught a connection to Cleveland, and that was the end of it.
- [62:56]
Megyn Kelly
Was that the end of it for Stelios too?
- [62:59]
John Kiriakou
Yeah,
- [63:02]
Sean Davis
I.
- [63:02]
Megyn Kelly
They didn't wind up together.
- [63:04]
John Kiriakou
Oh, no. The guy could barely read. That was. No, she was feeling lonely. And it was because I was so focused on, on the job.
- [63:12]
Megyn Kelly
Was very hard to maintain a marriage in the CIA.
- [63:14]
John Kiriakou
Very much so. Very, very much so. And you know, I'll tell you another thing. Two years later, I was in Pakistan and I'm dating a CIA officer. And in Pakistan we had this trunk line. So it was a just a normal phone, but it was a 202 area code. So it's, it's like you're making a local call. So I think we were like 11 hours ahead of Washington or 10 and a half, half hours ahead of Washington. So I would call her every morning when I got to the, to the office because it was already evening the previous day for her. And one of the guys in my branch, they were all retirees in my branch, they were all either former chief or deputy chief of Near Eastern operations. And, and so one of them heard me say, okay, I love you. And I hung up the phone and he said, so, are there wedding bells in the future? And I said, oh, I don't know. I just got divorced and I really don't want to be a two time loser. And he says, two time loser? He says, I've been married four times. Jim, how many times have you been married? Jim says, five for me. Bill, how many times have you been married? He says, I have four. Dave, Dave has three. He says, two time loser. Welcome to the CIA, kid.
- [64:30]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. I mean, I guess I'm not surprised. It doesn't really breed intimacy or honesty. Not to mention your psychological profiling skills, which if used against the wrong person, could be an annoyance to a spouse. I'll say it, but it's something you're really good at.
- [64:44]
John Kiriakou
And when you're, you know, you're gonna do a day trip or something or take your kids to the, you know, Luna park or whatever, and you're taking some crazy way. She says, where are you going? And the answer is, well, I don't want anybody to shoot us on the way there. And that's like a legitimate problem.
- [64:59]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Yes. So tell me about the CIA, because the CIA has a very bad reputation in the circles that I travel in. I think most people are very suspicious of them in today's day and age. They're not supposed to be spying on Americans, but they are, they're masters of the dark arts. They, they have people killed. And I think the question is like, how many people like Americans? Like what, what, what are the, what are the most shocking things they do in your experience that you need people to know?
- [65:28]
John Kiriakou
Well, Americans, that's the $64,000 question right there. The answer is we don't know because they won't tell us. You know, years ago when Senator Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, was questioning then Attorney General Eric Holder, I think it was in the Senate Armed Services Committee, he asked Holder directly, does the President of the United States have the legal authority to assassinate an American citizen? And after some hemming and hawing, Holder said yes. And then he asked a follow up question. Does the President have the authority to murder an American citizen on U.S. soil? And Holder wouldn't answer the question. Well, we murdered Anwar Alaki, who was a bad guy but had never been charged with a crime. He had never faced his accusers in a court of law. He had never stood before a jury of his peers. We just decided we didn't like his politics and so we blew him up. And then a week later we blew up his 16 year old son and 16 year old nephew. Also American citizens, they had never been accused of a crime. So either we're going to be a nation of laws or we're not going to be a nation of laws. We have to choose. But we can't pretend to be the one while really being the other. We need to make a policy decision here. May I answer further? To answer more specifically, your, your question, way back in the battle days in the early 1970s, a dear friend of mine started as a 22 year old at the Agency and his initial job was in the Counter Intelligence center which was then headed by the notorious James Jesus Angleton. And on his first day, the secretary was walking him around the office and she pointed to an entire wall of file folders and she said, you may find yourself alone in the office every once in a while. You are not permitted to look at those files. Well, of course, what's he going to do? He's 22 years old. As soon as he's alone he's going to run and look at the files. And he said, and now he's in his 70s. He said every single one of those files was on an American Citizen. Now, that was patently illegal, but they were doing it anyway. We all thought that with the Church Committee and Pike committee reforms of 1975 and 1976, that we had cleaned all that out. And maybe we did, at least for a while. But September 11th. September 11th changed everything. And the CIA went back to the battle days with largely the support of the American people, at least for a while, and certainly the support of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
- [68:15]
Megyn Kelly
So. But what about now? Because what I'm noticing is, I think post Covid, we're much more conspiratorial than we were pre. Because all of our conspiracies came true exactly during the COVID era. So it made. It made everybody like, I trust nothing and no one. But, you know, for example, I know there are a lot of people questioning whether the CIA had some control over the Butler shooter of President Trump.
- [68:40]
John Kiriakou
Right.
- [68:41]
Megyn Kelly
There's been a question about whether they had any knowledge whatsoever about what happened to Charlie Kirk. Do you think that the CIA possibly has any role in. In cases like that?
- [68:54]
John Kiriakou
I don't know, but I can tell you it's absolutely possible. You know, when. When Joe Kent, whether you like Joe Kent's politics or not, you cannot doubt the man's patriotism. He's walked the walk. And if he says that he was forbidden from having his analysts follow investigative leads, you have to ask why? Why? Why do we not know more about the Butler shooter and the circumstances surrounding the Butler shooting? I grew up 15 miles from Butler. We never missed a county fair and farm show. I've been there a thousand times. That should have been easy to investigate, right? They're all patriotic people. It's a red county and in a red part of the state, and. And then the President of the United States takes a shot to the earth. So why were comprehensive, full, complete investigations not carried out? Why was Joe Kent told that he could not pursue investigative leads in the Charlie Kirk case? And one other thing about the Charlie Kirk case that I've always been confused about. Why is the FBI involved at all? The crime took place in Utah. The shooter is from Utah. He set out that day from Utah. He went to a location in Utah. This is a state police case for the Utah State Police. Why in the world is the FBI calling the shots unless they know something that we don't know, unless they know something that they haven't revealed that indicates, you know, either cross interstate, some investigative lead that came across state lines, or some kind of international involvement. But, my God, transparency is everything. And like you said, Megan in the post Covid area era, where, where we've learned definitively that we can't trust what the government is telling us, then wouldn't transparency make that all go away?
- [71:03]
Megyn Kelly
Well, as I understand it is, I. I haven't really been conspiratorial in my adult life at all, in any part of my life. But I do want to understand the theories because some of them do turn out to be right over time. And as I understand it, the theory kind of revolves around MK ultra.
- [71:22]
John Kiriakou
Yeah.
- [71:23]
Megyn Kelly
Like either, you know, they unleash an operation on a vulnerable target to try to get that target, possibly the shooter and Butler to do what they want him to do. But can you walk me through what you know about MK Ultra?
- [71:37]
John Kiriakou
Sure. MK Ultra was a. Was a CIA operation that was, that was conceived in 1952. It began to be implemented in 1953 and really took hold in 1955. It did a lot of different things. There were even sub operations within MK Ultra, MK Chickwith, MK Midnight something or other, lots of them. The bottom line was this. There was a source that the CIA recruited a Chinese communist source who said that the Chinese government was experimenting with mind control. That's where the idea of the Manchurian Candidate came out, which led to a popular movie in the late nineteen nineteen fifties starring Frank Sinatra. In fact, the Chinese were not experimenting on mind control, the Russians were. And the source was wrong. But the CIA believed that it was behind the eight ball. And if the Chinese were experimenting in mind control, than we needed by God, to experiment in mind control and to figure out if we could sort of create a Chinese zombie who could then work his way through the the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and take over China and then do away with communism and we all live happily ever after. That's how it started. So the CIA went about doing this in all of the worst possible ways. Right around the time that MK ULTRA was, was being hatched, a scientist in Switzerland invented something called lsd. And LSD did these incredible things and it could manipulate your mind. You could see colors that didn't exist. You could see people that didn't exist. And maybe if we microdosed people with this new LSD, that maybe we could control their minds. The CIA began by using it on their own people. Now we know that one of those CIA contractors actually jumped out of a hotel window and committed suicide because he thought he could fly. That's been well documented. Then they decided, you know, maybe experimenting on our own people isn't the best way to go about this. Maybe we should just experiment on random citizens in San Francisco. And so they went to San Francisco, they rented a safe house, they recruited a bunch of prostitutes and sent the prostitutes out on the street to pick up dates, bring the dates back to the safe house, dose them with LSD without their knowledge, and then try to get them to reveal their innermost secrets just to see if the CIA could collect those. Another part of MK Ultra, also in San Francisco, was they decided to create a virus or a bacterium. In this case, it was a bacterium that they could just push out into the air and see how many people they could infect. They waited until an unusually foggy day where the. The air is very heavy and sitting close to the ground. And all around the city of San Francisco, as well as on the public transit system, they released this bacterium and eight people came down with this very rare upper respiratory infection. So then they tried to couple that and the release of the bacterium with the lsd. Can we release LSD into the air? They experimented in a small village in France by dosing the yeast in the village's only bakery with lsd. Everybody in the, in the village ate bread from that bakery, and everybody went nuts for a day or two. And so that was another, you know, successful operation. In the end, nobody's mind was taken over. We didn't bring down Chinese Communism or Russian Communism or anything else. It was a failure. But then Congress got wind of it, the Church Committee got wind of it in 1975 and called the director of Central Intelligence to testify. And then at the testimony, specifically ordered him to not destroy the documents. He immediately went back to CIA headquarters and told everybody, destroy everything. That's why what we have today is only 15% of the MK Ultra documents. Everything else was destroyed in 1975. Now, he was held in contempt of Congress, and by God, he was fined $150 and.
- [76:16]
Megyn Kelly
Right.
- [76:16]
John Kiriakou
Yeah. And all the CIA employees chipped in to pay the $150 fine for him.
- [76:21]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. And a negative presumption was against him that he had something to hide.
- [76:25]
John Kiriakou
That's exactly right.
- [76:26]
Megyn Kelly
But I think as a result of that, it's part of the reason why people now suspect government involvement in everything.
- [76:33]
John Kiriakou
There it is.
- [76:34]
Megyn Kelly
You know, the things that we don't feel like we're getting full transparency on, it's a CIA conspiracy or maybe an NSA conspiracy or maybe an FBI conspiracy, and it's undermining what probably are CIA and FBI conspiracies. Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, not everything is A conspiracy by the government. But for sure, they are doing some things that we should know about. So how do you tell the difference?
- [76:59]
John Kiriakou
I think you're exactly right. And the only way to tell the difference is through robust congressional oversight, something that we have not had since the early 1980s. Screwed. Because what are they? They're cheerleaders for the CIA and the FBI, on the intelligence Committees and on the Judiciary Committees, they're cheerleaders. You know, when I got home from prison, I was invited to a dinner at the Greek ambassador's residence. And I went there, and there was a Democratic senator there who happens to be a member of the Intelligence Committee. And I went up to him, he came up to me, actually, and he said, hey, welcome home. We were really pulling for you. And I said, thanks, Senator, but I gotta tell you, I expected more from you. I thought you would have been more helpful to me. Me. And he got angry and he said, look, it took everything I had just to not lose my security clearance. And I said, oh, you're afraid of them. You're not overseeing them, you're afraid of them. And he walked away from me. But I was right. He was afraid of them. They're all afraid. And so they just tow the line.
- [78:10]
Megyn Kelly
Well, remember, who was it that said about Trump, like, you mess with the three letter agency, you mess with CIA, and they will make you pay. That was for the rest of your life.
- [78:20]
John Kiriakou
That was Chuck Schumer. He said, they have nine ways from Sunday to make your life miserable to make you pay.
- [78:26]
Megyn Kelly
But here's my question, because I heard you on Diary of a CEO saying the CIA can. They can. They can wrest control of your car. You know, our cars have these big brains now that, I mean, you know, if the car company can't, like, whatever the services, if you get into an accident, you can just sort of say, help me. If they can get in there, sure. I bet it's hackable by somebody else to the point where they could potentially drive your car right off the road. If they could do that, then why would they ever have to do anything more explicit? Why would they ever have to do mind control over anybody at a rally in Pennsylvania if that's what they want? You know, like, there would be ways of getting rid of you that would be so undetectable and not suspicious that they could be doing that all the time. They wouldn't have to go about mind control. MK Ultra, lsd. You know what I'm saying? So that, to me, that's. That undermines the theory that they're doing any of these public executions explicitly or behind the scenes.
- [79:25]
John Kiriakou
I think that's right. But think of it this way, too. I'm going to tell you a little funny little anecdote about one of my promotion panels. I had been working with a psychologist in the CIA's counterterrorism center to come up with. With out of the outside the box ideas on how to recruit spies to steal secrets. And she happened to also sit on my promotion panel. And she said, in my promotion panel, in great support of my promotion, she said, john kiriakou will come up with 40 different ideas for an operation. 36 of them are insane, but four of them are going to be really good. So imagine sitting around the table and somebody comes up with an idea to put an explosive in fidel castro's cigar. Well, that's a stupid idea if you're going to get close enough to put an explosive in the cigar. Just shoot him in the head, for example, if that's what you really want to do. So there are a lot of people sitting around a lot of conference room tables at the CIA coming up with really stupid ideas. And then there are nodding heads all around the table saying, yeah, that's. That's a great idea. We should do that. So, you know, the bottom line is this. We know, thanks to WikiLeaks and the Vault 7 revelations that the CIA can remotely take over your car. They can make you drive off a bridge or into a tree or into an abutment and kill you if they want to. They can turn your smart TV into a microphone. They can reverse engineer your speaker to turn into a microphone so they can listen to. Listen to everything you're saying, even when the TV is off. The. The technology is 20 years ahead of what anybody else thinks the technology is.
- [81:06]
Megyn Kelly
I don't want to be a pollyanna about it, but they're not supposed to do that without a warrant. Are they doing that shit without a warrant?
- [81:13]
John Kiriakou
Without a warrant? You know, at the CIA, I mean, that's. Oh, my God. In training, they used to tell us all the time, our job is to break the law. And I remember saying. Saying, yeah, but not here. The job is to break the law over there. I was perfectly happy and. And on multiple occasions actively participated in, you know, breaking into people's houses or offices and planting bugs and cameras. We're the good guys. That's what we have to do. This is to protect the United states. But not here. You need a warrant. And besides, the CIA is forbidden by law from doing any. Anything Operationally inside the United States. That's what the FBI is for. I just never understood this. Like, why isn't it that clear to everybody? I don't know.
- [82:00]
Megyn Kelly
Do you think the FBI is doing similar behaviors, or is this all CIA?
- [82:04]
John Kiriakou
You know, it was my experience when I was working with the FBI and I worked with the FBI for years and years that they. They really were sticklers for the law where the CIA wasn't. I remember even saying one time. I'm gonna. I'm gonna fudge the details here, for obvious reasons, but they. We were talking. A couple of us CIA people were talking to a group from the FBI, and they were saying what difficulty they were having infiltrating a domestic terrorist group. And I said, oh, no, I. I got you covered. I said, there was this group that. That we took care of. We just didn't have access to them. So what we did is we found one of them. It was only, like, six members of this terrorist group. We found one, and we said, hey, listen, Mohammed, your friend Abdullah, I'm from the CIA, and Abdullah told me that. That you'd be a good guy for me to talk to, because Abdullah works for me. And he said, you'd like to work for me, too. Well, the guy runs screaming from the room, but he goes back and he kills Abdullah. And then we. And then we tell Russia, hey, listen, we were talking about. About Abdullah with Muhammad. You know, Muhammad's one of our guys. And. And he told us that Abdullah was a bad guy. And then Russia kills Muhammad. And then by the end of the year, this terrorist group doesn't exist anymore. And the FBI guy said, oh, my God, that's so illegal. We couldn't possibly do that. And I was like, oh, it never even occurred to me that that might be illegal. So the FBI does kind of pay closer attention, at least they're supposed to. To what's legal and what's not legal. But with the CIA operating overseas, you know, who cares what's legal and what's not legal?
- [83:44]
Megyn Kelly
They can do anything they want over there. And what about domestically? I mean, I. I was a big fan of that show, the Americans. Oh, me too, Reese.
- [83:52]
John Kiriakou
Wonderful show, right?
- [83:53]
Megyn Kelly
It was so good. Is that real? I mean, do you think there are a bunch of foreign spies, like sleeper spies here in America?
- [84:00]
John Kiriakou
Oh, yes, yes, yes. That show was. Was written and created by Joe Weisberg. Joe was a colleague of mine in the CIA's counterterrorism. He was a brilliant writer. And I went to the office one day, and he walked up to me and he said, hey, listen, I quit this morning. And I was like, what? Why would you do that? And he said, this job is just not for me. I'm not married. I don't have any kids. I'm going to go to Hollywood and find my fortune. And he went to Hollywood and he created the Americans. And the reason why it was so successful was because it was completely real. Just in the last two years. I happen to live in Arlington, Virginia. In the last two years, one of my neighbors was arrested. She was a. An elementary school substitute teacher. She was arrested because she was a Russian sleeper agent just sitting in place and waiting to be activated by the svr. This is something that the Russians have always been very good at, the long game. They'll. They'll recruit an agent, put them in place, have them pretend to be an American and just let them sit there for 20 years, 30 years, until they need to be activated to carry out some operation.
- [85:09]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. Wow. I mean, the odds are we've all met one and have no idea.
- [85:12]
John Kiriakou
That's right.
- [85:13]
Megyn Kelly
That's incredible to think about that they've been lying and wait there. The Russians will play the long game. The Chinese will play the long game too. That's one of the problems we're up against. They're thinking generationally. They're thinking the next 50 years.
- [85:25]
John Kiriakou
Exactly right.
- [85:26]
Megyn Kelly
How will they be positioned versus how will we be positioned? And in a. This is part of our problem. I just want. I. Forgive me for diverting the discussion, but this just breaking. Pam Bondi is out. As we reported at the top of the show, we had heard she would be the president. Just tweeting Pam Bondi or posting on Truth Social is a great American patriot and a loyal friend who faithfully served as my AG over the past year. She did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in crime across our country, with murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900. We love Pam and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector to be announced at a date in the near future. Okay. I don't know what that means. And our deputy Attorney General and a very talented and respected legal mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as acting ag. As acting ag. So we'll see. The earlier reports were that he was probably going to give the replacement to EPA administer Lee Zeldin. Todd Blanche makes a lot more sense, not only because of his job title, but because I hear he's very well liked over there.
- [86:29]
John Kiriakou
That' right.
- [86:30]
Megyn Kelly
So we shall see Pam Bondi's officially out. Did you have any thoughts on that? Like why she's. Like, why now? Why is Pam Bondi gone now?
- [86:37]
John Kiriakou
You know, I've always heard the loveliest things about Pam Bondi, that she's a sweetheart of a person. She's loyal to the President. I also heard that she never really wanted to be Attorney General. The president insisted that she be Attorney General. And you know, when, when a president. President calls you and says your country needs you, you say, of course, Mr. President, I'll do whatever the country needs. And I think that's what she did. I think she really wasn't happy in that job. And then after a year, it was probably time to move on.
- [87:12]
Megyn Kelly
I wonder. Because, I mean, the reports are that he was unhappy with her, which is why she. She got pushed out. But I mean, I will say it's such a thankless job, he can't win. My information is they're all miserable over there in doj for good reason. They have. Have way too many cases and way too few bodies. They had a bunch of people quit over the politics of the administration. So that's even fewer bodies. But like a lot of lawfare, you know. Oh, yes, by the Trump administration, against the Trump administration. These judges who think they're mini president. Like it's just zero free time, zero thanks, zero love, you know, coming back from the public. Whatever Pam body is going to do next, especially if it's private sector, it'll be better. She's going to be happier. So we'll see what happens with Todd Blanche. Okay, but back to you. So the CIA doesn't have any real rules overseas. The FBI domestically does. I've heard you say before, another group that has no rules is the Israelis. And that seems really clear right now. I mean, one of the dynamics of this war has been the President going out there saying, we are talking to somebody. I can't tell you who it is, cuz I'm worried he'll get killed. And then of course, left unsaid is killed by who?
- [88:23]
John Kiriakou
Exactly?
- [88:24]
Megyn Kelly
Obviously it's the Israelis. So what was your experience with them?
- [88:28]
John Kiriakou
It was universally negative. In my very first briefing, I had only been on the job as an Iraq analyst for six weeks. My boss said to me, I want you to participate in a group briefing. You're going to brief the Israelis. They have a Shin Bet representative and a Mossad Assad representative. And he said, we don't, we don't speak to the Israelis in the building. They're not permitted in the building. Because every time they would come to CIA headquarters, they would bring gifts, and the gifts were always laden with listening devices and batteries. And, you know, we. We would x ray everything and. And we would tell them, stop trying to bug our conference rooms. And they would say, oh, okay, okay, you. You caught us. Okay. So finally we said, they just can't come in anymore. So we have a safe house where we meet with the Israelis. So it was like eight of us. The senior iraq analyst, the military analyst, the political analyst, the econ analyst, the oil analyst. Everybody's doing their thing. And because I was the most junior, I went last and I said, because I was an overt employee. My name is John kiriakou, and I'm going to brief you you today on Saddam Hussein's state of mind. And the mossad representative looked over his glasses at me and he said, spell your name. So I spelled it, and he says to me in front of everybody, he says, you are jewish. And I said, I am not recruitable. Don't even think about trying to recruit me. Shame on you. So I went back to the office. My boss said, how'd it go? I said, I'm so angry right now, I couldn't explode. I said, he practically pitched me right there in the meeting and asked if I was jewish. And he laughed. And he said, they've done that to every single one of us.
- [90:17]
Megyn Kelly
On my trying to get you to turn against your.
- [90:20]
John Kiriakou
Exactly. For them. For them. On my very first day at the CIA, where, you know, you put your hand up in the air and you swear to uphold and protect the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, we had a briefing by the CIA's director of security, and he told us that there are two intelligence representatives at the Israeli embassy, one from mossad, one from shin bet. He said, but the FBI has been able to identify 187 other undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread out all across america, working to steal secrets from american defense contractors. But politically, the relationship is so close that you don't want to rock the boat and, you know, start arresting people, spying for Israel. Look at Jonathan pollard. He does every day of a 30 year sentence and then is welcomed like some kind of a conquering hero at the American embassy in Jerusalem. Jerusalem. It made me sick to my stomach.
- [91:20]
Megyn Kelly
Well, when you said the comment about how everybody in congress is afraid of the CIA, the same is true when it comes to Israel. I don't know if afraid is the word, but. But controlled by. I mean, one of the dynamics of this. The wake of the Iran war, John has been the, not just like the loudest, but kind of the only front facing critics have been from the more isolationist. Right. Where are the Democrats? Oh, where are they? They don't say anything.
- [91:48]
John Kiriakou
That's the question right there. Where in the world are the Democrats? They are utterly silent. In fact, I'll tell you, I was especially furious with Cory Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey. Not the last time Netanyahu came to Washington, but the time before Cory Booker literally ran through the halls of Congress to get to a photo op so he could stand behind Benjamin Netanyahu with his big stupid grin on his face. Like even now, after Gaza, after the start of Iran, now you're running like O.J. simpson through an airport. In the old I'm dating myself but in the old whatever it was commercial. Yeah, Hertz commercial. You want to be in a picture with Benjamin Netanyahu. Some of them are afraid of being primaried and God knows that AIPAC, if you are not 100% pro Israel in your voting record, they will primary you, you and they will spend millions of dollars to defeat you. That scares most members of Congress. And so they're just not willing to challenge anybody. I'll tell you another thing. I used to be the chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I did that from 09 to 11. And a couple of days after I started the job, these two guys came in, clearly obviously from aipac, and they said, hey, welcome to Capitol Hill. I said, said, thanks, I've worked on Capitol Hill before. We want to invite you for an all expenses paid trip to the Holy land. They didn't say Israel totally. And I said, thanks guys, I can pay for my own vacations. I'm not interested. It's all expenses paid and we're going to take you to all the Christian holy sites. I go, guys, I'm not taking APAC's money. I'm not interested. But I don't think a single day went by where I didn't see those two. They were, they practically had offices up there. And then individual House members say that there are AIPAC reps that will go to their office every day and just sit on the couch. And if constituents come in to meet with staff or to meet with the member of Congress, these guys will get up like it's their office and say, remember Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, remember. What is that?
- [94:10]
Megyn Kelly
That's, that's not the American way. I, I think that the manipulation is so ubiquitous you almost just don't even know it's happening because everyone's singing from the same hymnal. And so it's like, yeah, this is what we all think. Yes. I remember at Fox News it was like a knee jerk thing. You had to say, like, in Israel, we have a very special relationship. You know, there are most important, important ally in the Middle East. And every once in a while I would remember to ask why? Why again? Like, you know, to have somebody explain that to me. Yes. And it always kind of petered out after that. Like, why again? It was always about demonizing the Arab states. You know, we're supposed to hate them because they're Muslim. We're supposed to love Israel because they're supposedly with us in the Judeo Christian, you know, narrative. I, it's, there's been such a manipulation, paid for a, paid for manipulation that I think many of us just starting
- [95:00]
John Kiriakou
to see John Benjamin Netanyahu said that was very, very much overlooked and I think very disturbing. Last week he was giving, he, he had given a speech and an Israeli reporter asked him a question about the American Israeli war against Iran. And he corrected her and he said, it's the American war against Iran. We are America's ally. And I thought, oh, buddy, that's not what you were saying two weeks ago. Now, now we stand alone doing your dirty work. But that's what it's come down to.
- [95:34]
Megyn Kelly
That's clearly where it is. And he's already saying there are many reports out from Israeli TV saying if we do go boots on the ground, it won't be with them.
- [95:42]
John Kiriakou
That's right.
- [95:42]
Megyn Kelly
They're boots on the ground in Lebanon. They've got another issue they've taken on where a million Lebanese have been displaced because really, Israel wants to be the hegemon of the region and saw an opportunity here. And so we'll be on our own. It'll be American blood and treasure that spills on Carg Island.
- [95:58]
John Kiriakou
I think you're exactly right.
- [96:01]
Megyn Kelly
Our super tight allies will let us do their bidding. I mean, it's just, I believe every word of what you said about how they've tried to get every president to do this. And unfortunately, Trump was the taker. Trump was the one who was talked into it. Yeah, he Fox News and he got persuaded by the messaging that's there. Okay, but back to you. Back to you. One of the things I heard you say about yourself is that, that you have sociopathic tendencies. Now, what does that mean?
- [96:27]
John Kiriakou
The CIA actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies. Not sociopaths. Sociopaths have no Conscience, they don't feel guilt or remorse. They blow right through the polygraph because they don't react to anything. People who have sociopathic tendencies do have a conscience. They do feel guilt or remorse, but they're willing to break the law or to work in legal, moral, and ethical gray areas if they believe it's the right thing to do. So I mentioned earlier that on multiple occasions, I broke into people's houses or businesses and. And planted microphones or listening devices. I was very happy to do that because I believed we were the good guys and this was to protect America. Right. We've got to disrupt that next attack. We need to take apart this terrorist group. And if that means, you know, identifying a terrorist apartment and renting the apartment underneath and drilling a hole through the floor so I can stick a pinhole camera and listen, or a microphone and listen to everything that's being said and then report it back to CIA headquarters, I'm going to do it. That's what a sociopathic tendency is to you.
- [97:38]
Megyn Kelly
Are you able to go anywhere now or rent an apartment? Like, I mean, are you constantly wondering whether this is being done to you?
- [97:46]
John Kiriakou
Oh, yeah. Oh, I just assume that it is. Sure. And, you know, that's why one of the reasons why I'm so vocal and so public is I figured it's safer for me because more people would miss me if something were to happen. Yeah. I will add. I will add that an investment in a good bulletproof vest is always wise as well.
- [98:08]
Megyn Kelly
And, oh, my gosh, what do you have that just sitting in your house? What's that doing right next to you?
- [98:12]
John Kiriakou
I gave a spot speech the other day, and it was so uncomfortable, I took it off when I got. When I got home. But, you know, after Charlie Kirk and after These revelations from WikiLeaks about what the CIA does and what the FBI does and what the Israelis do, they kill everybody who they don't like. So, you know, better safe than sorry.
- [98:31]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, let me ask you, like, without getting too graphic, but, like, let's say you're, you know, you're being intimate in your home. You're in an intimate position. Like. Like, do you. Do you remove all phones? Do you make sure there's no TVs in the room? Like, is it at that level where it's, like, everything's exposed?
- [98:49]
John Kiriakou
Yeah, it's at that level, yes. I hate to say it. You know, all I have is like, a little one of those waterproof shower radios so I can at least listen to the news in the Morning. But, yeah, that's. That's pretty much it.
- [99:00]
Megyn Kelly
Are you not into smart technology for this reason?
- [99:03]
John Kiriakou
You know, forgive me, because I'm going to sound like a hypocrite, but I do have. I'm not going to say the name because it's going to light up an A L, E, X A in my kitchen because I sometimes ask for recipes or the weather, and I don't say anything in the kitchen. You know what I'm. Who am I going to talk to? Myself. So, yeah, but that's. That's the only. That's the only smart technology that I allow myself.
- [99:29]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, I. My own thought has been, you just kind of have to be a relatively good person or just accept that your foibles are no more bizarre than anybody else's, because they probably do know everything.
- [99:40]
John Kiriakou
I mean, I'm going to blow my own whistle or blow. Yeah, blow my own horn here. When the FBI raided my house, when John Brennan took out this vendetta against me, they confiscated all of my electronics and they gave it all back to me a year later. And one of the FBI agents said, you know, this was the first time in my career that we ever took somebody's electronics and we didn't find any porn. And I said, what, do you think I'm an animal?
- [100:08]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, no way.
- [100:09]
John Kiriakou
Yeah.
- [100:12]
Megyn Kelly
No way. Well, you know, my understanding, too, is that the Israelis own a couple of the big porn sites. That one guy just died. He owned Onlyfans. I don't remember if he was an American or as an Israeli, but either way, it was very sympathetic towards Israel. But that's another way, because if they can turn that camera around at you,
- [100:32]
John Kiriakou
I mean, you're done.
- [100:33]
Megyn Kelly
That. That'd be a great way to blackmail it.
- [100:35]
John Kiriakou
Sure would be. Yeah. They. They've been the kings of the porn industry for decades, whether it's in Brooklyn, it's heavily based in Brooklyn or in. What's it called? Hawthorne, California, up by Northridge. Yeah, that's. That's the. The two bases of the porn industry. And it's almost exclusively Israeli.
- [100:56]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. Yeah. The guy who owned only fans was Ukrainian American, but a big. A big fan of Israel, and it donated a lot of money. It's. It's all like. I have. I've said many times in today's day and age, it's not enough to pretend. You actually have to be a good person now. It's going to be a massive pain in the ass.
- [101:12]
Sean Davis
Oh, my God.
- [101:12]
John Kiriakou
Yes.
- [101:13]
Megyn Kelly
But we're going to have to just grin and bear it. Try to be better people. John, I. I really hope to continue this conversation. I want to hear so much more about you and your opinions. Loved, loved, loved meeting.
- [101:24]
John Kiriakou
The pleasure's all mine. Thanks again for the invitation. It was very kind.
- [101:27]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, to be continued. All the best. Wow. What a fascinating guy. I mean, what a life, right? That like to be in the intel agencies, to be recruited by your college graduate school professor and then wind up in prison. We didn't even get to the prison stuff, but lots to go over. Okay, tomorrow we are back with Maureen Callahan for the full show. We will see you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.