Loading summary
Transcript6 lines
- [00:01]
Ryan Reynolds
It's not just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose, proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously, and we do too, which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose, in every detail, and crafted with intention. Timberland Built on craft. Visit timberland.com to shop.
- [00:31]
Sarah Adams
Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com specialoffer welcome to the Watch Floor. I'm Sarah Adams. On March 11th, ABC put out this news exclusive that went viral. It was pretty disingenuous and I'm surprised this actually got approved through their editors and went out in the way it did. But of course, it caused a lot of fear as it relates to drone strikes.
- [01:21]
Ryan Reynolds
We've been aware of information.
- [01:24]
Sarah Adams
And then, as you can imagine, it also spiraled to conspiracy theories because it isn't the normal way. The Iranian regime, like, plots the revenge plot. So a lot of people who've long worked Iran said this reporting to begin with does not pass the sniff test. And so that's what we're here to discuss today. So let's just go quickly to the heading breaking. The FBI has warned police departments in California that Iran wants to retaliate for American attacks by launching offensive drones against the west coast. Or according to an alert reviewed by ABC News. When I saw this right away, it did not make a lot of sense because a lot of what we call Iranian sleeper cells aren't exactly attackers. Many of them are doing logistics, fundraising, intelligence collection. Those who are operatives, the type you would think like a terrorist with a gun, the majority of them, they've been tasked with doing kind of the surveillance and all the planning and plotting and reconnaissance around doing, like, assassination plots. So they haven't been plotting these massive terrorist attacks that we've seen ever in recent years, especially in the last five years on US Soil. What they've done is targeted specific individuals, obviously, most famously President Trump. But then of course, like, you know, the head of centcom, Mike Pompeo, of course, we a former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. And then there's Iranian activists in the country and they've targeted those and even just in recent days put out bounties like on some of these female activists that are in the US or in Canada and Europe, et cetera, et cetera. That is their normal modus operandi kind of on US Soil. Now, of course, they have a much different plotting and planning structure if they're based in Iran because they can reach out and touch kind of U.S. military facilities or U.S. diplomatic facilities. So right off the bat, a lot of Iranian watchers were saying, this is very strange. What ABC had put out is that the Iranians were going to take drones and then shoot them off ships off the west coast and into California. When you actually then go figure out where they got this information from and you look into the plotting, it's very interesting that they put this out at all. When you go to the law enforcement memo that they said went to all of these officers in California, the first line of it literally says, not for dissemination to the public or press. This message contains raw information subject to revision and is provided for your situational awareness only. The first line literally says, do not give this to the press. This is unvetted raw information. So how can a press outlet run with first off, a single source report, but second, the fact that says it's not ready and it may be revised. And the next line actually says, we recently acquired unverified information. So even law enforcement was saying, hey, we have not even been able to vet this. And so this was sent to JTTF, right. So of course, JTTF's all over the country. They work with FBI, they have embeds from FBI and then they'll take information and down to local law enforcement. Obviously, it's strange this one went forward. From what I heard, it was like an email tip that maybe got sent into the FBI. Now, law enforcement will do this though, because they sometimes want to see, hey, are there other bits and pieces out there that could marry up with this, that we could confirm it, make it more credible, or just decide it's not credible at all. And then we can make sure, you know, we don't interact in any way with the person who was the source of this information to begin with. So what was really like a benign reach out and sharing attempt with law enforcement ended up getting exaggerated and put out in the press. And then it went viral. A lot of other press outlets picked it up. And again, I want to go back to what I read to you, again, they said the FBI has warned police departments in California that Iran wants to retaliate for American attacks. So first off, the info is raw, it's unverified. Also, the original timing of the information came in like around mid February. It came in prior to the latest US bombing of Iran. So obviously the first one is early last year when we attacked their nuclear facilities. And then of course this time we came back around and attacked their leadership. So this report, this raw information went to the FBI before we even did the bombing. But ABC News says to retaliate for American attacks, they wouldn't even know there are attacks yet. So again, another leap, another piece of exaggeration, and this is very concerning that this is the type of information we get from our press and a lot of people. This caused a lot of fear. It made a lot of people concerned. They're like, hey, this is the first time we're hearing about this kind of plot. Law enforcement was really confused because then a lot of pressure in local cities in California reached out to the law enforcement and they're like, we never saw this memo. So it was just a disaster to begin with. Then the next day, March 12, the press secretary for the administration, Carolyn Levitt, put out a statement and it's pretty harsh, but it's very true. And she says this post, referring to ABC's news post on their X account regarding this should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people. She goes on to say they wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single unverified tip. The email even states the tip was based on unverified intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story. Why? To be clear, no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists and it never did. Again, this was never a known plot. If you've ever worked long hours, whether it's on a watch floor in an er, on a construction site or just on the road for work, you realize that you start stacking like caffeine on top of energy drinks just to stay awake. I started looking for something that can help with focus without loading up in caffeine. And that's where I came across ultra pouches because I've been seeing these everywhere. They are completely nicotine and caffeine free pouches. What they do is they use a blend of neotropics and adaptogens that are designed to support focus and then a steady state of energy. Altra Actually partnered with neuroscientists and I want to walk through a little bit of this formula so you know what's inside. They have Xfinity px. So this is designed for like a smoother energy than caffeine. There's L Theanine, this is an amino acid that promotes like a calm focus. Then we have Alpha gpc. This is a neotropic that helps with like your mental processing. And lastly we have B6 and B12 which you know, they really help us balance our energy and our mood. The idea is simple, clean, clean plant based energy without the jittery crash. For me it's been so useful when I'm up late at night working on investigations, kind of going through leads, comparing and cross checking information, I really can stay locked in. Ultra is the ultimate guilt free pouch delivering instant focus and mental clarity. Without that nicotine and caffeine we talked about, new customers can use Code watch to save 15%@takealtra.com Again that's takeultra.com to save 15% with code watch. When you check out, let them know the watch floor sent you. It helps promote the show. So when this tip came in, it noted that Iran or individuals in Iran were assigned to carry out this attack. That means they're only discussing it and thinking about it. So they haven't put a plot in place, sent it up, got it approved, recruited operatives, trained operatives, done testing, done dry runs, all the things. They're really just thinking about it. Can you imagine if I just went out and told you the stuff Al Qaeda had on the books that aren't approved plots yet? Because hey, I can spend all day telling you about their plot to use dirty bombs made from uranium and drop them from drones. But again, guess what? That plot is way early in the thinking. It's never moved to senior leadership and been approved and it's never moved into like a plotting stage. So we can't just take hopes and dreams of terrorists and put them out there and cause all this fear to people. And so many people do that. So many people say, well if I was a terrorist, I would do it this way or I would do it that way or oh, it'd be so easy for them to do it that way. But again, you need evidence and then you need a real plot and you need real operatives and there is a whole system in place that you back by evidence before you warn the public of something that clearly isn't even likely real in this case. So I know a lot of people got concerned about this because it isn't like a plot they'd seen or heard of or they felt unprepared for it. And at the end of the day, the future of warfare are drones. It is a problem we're gonna have to deal with, we're gonna have to get ready for, and we're gonna have to think through all these future ideas that will become plots one day. But right now, we need to base ourselves in reality and we need to deal with the problems in front of us. And there are so many actual plots right now against the US Homeland, we do not need to make up any of them. Right. We have this issue, of course, with Iranian sleepers. Again, they're more of a threat to certain individuals they're plotting against. Right. We have Al Qaeda's homeland plot, we have ISIS plots, we have inspired ISIS terrorists. And then we have the other 20 different terrorist groups rebroad their members in. And now there's 18 total of these Islamist terrorists on our soil. So to have, like our mainstream media making up plots just to get attention and likes and views is the wrong thing to do. You know, why don't they lean in and maybe put some effort into helping Americans prepare for terrorist plots? Because they're coming, they're going to increase and. And we're going to have a problem if people aren't honest with the American people about the reality and most likely scenarios they may expect in terrorist plotting. Now there are a lot of people interested in what Iranian retaliation could look like. If you want to go back to previous episodes here on the watch floor, we first did one, and it's a really great backgrounder on IRGC's Unit 840. So this is one of the COVID action arms in the irgc. So when I say that, what I mean is this is one of the arms that would deploy sleeper cells around the world and carry out operations with a hidden hand. So it's not entirely clear it's carried out by Iran, but they mess up a lot and we figure out it's Iran anyway. The other thing that I think would be useful to is I put out an entire kind of threat briefing about what retaliation may look like from Iran. Of course, visually we've seen all this retaliation against Middle Eastern countries and then US interests or Israeli interests in the region. But a lot of Americans are like, well, what am I most likely to be impacted by? Of course, the number one thing we brought up are cyber attacks. If you recently saw there was a cyber attack against a Michigan company, they make medical supplies and Initially, they're saying this was Iranian backed. So we're going to see a lot of that type of event. And so you need to pay attention and be aware of that. We have multiple issues with Iran. First off, they're Iranians in this country. The regime first doesn't like. So those individuals are under threat. And so we have to be aware who are the Iranian activists in our community. Are they protected and safe in the way they should be? And then some of these high profile figures I talked about, like the senior leaders in Centcom. When Qasem Soleimani was killed in 2020, again, I brought up former Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo. These type of individuals, of course, are going to be under extra scrutiny because the Iranian regime already wanted to take them out. And then we're now into a new threat picture. We have new leaders in our government. Of course, some of them are going to come under focus, like our Secretary of War, Hedge Seth, or of course our Secretary of State, Rubio. We have to remember now some of these individuals might be put into this kind of incubator of Iranian assassination plots, you know, and they might, you know, face some circumstances and have to change, you know, the way they live their life and the way they protect their family. Now, at the end of the day, we have a lot of terrorists in this country. You know, over the last four to five years, since the fall of Kabul, a number of terrorist groups started working together. We spent a lot of time talking about what we call the Islamic army. And it's got a lot of different names, but it's essentially like an Islamic Resistance Council. And it has pretty much every major terrorist group, you know, and they have individuals who serve on this council. They meet monthly, and then they have discussions of, you know, what Al Qaeda can bring to bear, what ISIS can bring to bear, you know, what Hamas can bring to bear, what Al Shabaab can bring to bear, what Boko Haram can bring to bear, what Lashkar E. Tayyiba can bring to bear. So it's really interesting that the terrorists are getting together and have discussions like, how can I aid you? How can I support you? You know, where can we pool resources? What could we work on together? You know, where do you not have enough fighters like Al Shabaab? Last year was like, hey, when we do this push on Mogadishu, we don't have enough people send us bodies. You know, a couple years before that, Abu Mohamed al Julani, as they were planning the Syrian blitzkrieg, said, I Don't even have close to enough bodies. I can maybe get 3, 4, or 5,000 trained up, but I'm going to need 10,000 more. Can you get me 10,000? And, of course, Al Qaeda ponied those up to them. So all of these groups are starting to have discussions and work together now. That's overseas. Think about the fact that they're here on our soil. We know there's at least about 3,000 members of ISIS. Al Qaeda claims they sent 1,000 members just for this plot. We've had different numbers, obviously, come out from the government once you start adding this up. This is a lot of different terrorist groups, a lot of different reporting structures, and an increased threat level that did not start the day we struck Iran. It started the day we opened our borders in 2022 and said, anyone can walk across the border and come in. We won't detain you, we won't deport you, and you can have safe refuge here. And of course, the terrorists then said, let's get into the US as quickly as we can. Then October 7th happens, right? The attack in Israel in 2023. And there was a lot of paranoia and fear among the terrorist groups. And they said, the US Is going to shut the border. Send everyone now. So tons of terrorist groups, even like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, started sending people as fast as they could to the US Border thinking we were going to close it. We didn't close. So for the next year, we had this massive flood of terrorists compared to just the year prior. So we have a massive issue in this country. And then now we're learning there's other issues. This isn't just a problem where we have illegals who are terrorists. We have plenty of individuals who came to this country legally. We naturalize them, and now they're committing terrorist attacks. You know, really great examples. Obviously, what we saw at Old Dominion University here, we had Mohammad Jalal. He was an ISIS West Africa member. He gets detained for material support to ISIS. He gets charged in 2017. He gets sentenced. He was supposed to have 11 years. The judge, of course, lowered the time he had to serve. And he was out clearly before the 11 years, and then committed a terrorist attack on the campus of a US University. And again, a US University who accepted him as a student even though he was a member of isis. Nobody had any discussion about, let's denaturalize him. He's from Sierra Leone, and let's support him, because guess what? He was a member of isis. Now, it's not like when he gets out of prison, he no longer is a member of isis. He's now more kind of invigorated to make his attack happen and to be part of kind of this global terrorist ecosystem, especially in today's climate, when they actually do have a lot of support and a lot of backing. And it's insanely this strange thing where we've almost like glorified terrorists in recent years and now we're dealing with the ramifications of not actually dealing with this. So I hope at least I gave you a little bit of clear understanding about this Iranian threat reporting the fact that ABC News did lie to the public, they chose to lie to the public. And this is two days later and these posts are still up. So they're perfectly fine continuing this lie to the public. And, and you need to be very wary of anyone who lies. And in some way it could maybe help the terrorists. And so we're going to call this out whenever we see it. But we also want you to be aware there are a lot of plots out there. You know, terrorists are irrational actors. We can't say they're going to do exactly X or exactly Y, or this would be a target of theirs. Or this wouldn't be a target of theirs. We have to do our best to collect evidence, see how they're training, look at how their plots are forming, look at what they're surveilling, what they're focusing on, and make the best assessments. And then as a public, we want you to be aware, to pay attention. If you notice something, you know, and you see it, you say something about it, right? We're all going to be in this together. And as we've seen in recent days, we've had amazing Americans then who are aware of this threat step up, defend others around them and take it to the terrorists. And that's what we're going to keep doing because we're not going to live in fear because of these terrorists. They need to fear us. Thanks for being here today on the watch floor.
- [23:46]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
- [24:08]
Sarah Adams
of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra see full terms@mintmobile.com.