- It's important for all of us to know
that at the end of the
day, if they were to choose
to activate some of their sleeper cells
in places like Los Angeles,
because they are here,
or in places like in Michigan, et cetera,
then it's game over.
They know that the United States,
either alone or with a
coalition, will go into Tehran.
We'll be there within 12 to 24 hours.
(upbeat music)
- This is The Rubin
Report and I'm Dave Rubin.
Here's quick reminder that
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And now, more importantly,
joining me today
is a former CIA Ops Officer,
a political analyst,
and a national security
expert, Bryan Dean Wright.
Welcome back to The Rubin Report.
- Pleasure, brother.
I had you on here about four years ago.
It's like 18 studios ago,
feels like 27 lives ago.
- Yeah.
- Here we are, we gotta lot to do.
- And you've become an alt-right,
gay Nazi, which congratulations.
Very exciting.
- Thank you, please.
My mother is so proud.
- No, I'm honored.
I do wonder though, at the Klan meetings,
do you and your husband
wear like the rainbow hats,
do the rainbow?
- Well, they make you wear the rainbow hat
as a gay.
- Okay, okay.
Well, incredible.
(Dave laughing)
Great, great development
for you and your family.
- Little did you know four
years ago when we sat down
that so much was gonna happen.
- Yeah, here we are.
- All right, I'm really
glad to have you here
for many reasons.
Before we get into Iran, before
we get into the deep state,
before we get into the
split of the Democrats,
the rise of the socialists,
and the whole thing,
former CIA Ops.
Just give me a little recap
of what got ya into it,
what does that actually mean,
and then we'll take it
away on current events.
- So, back in early
2000, just before 9/11,
I was interested in national security
and the State Department
and CIA were both options.
I decided that after looking at each,
the CIA made the most sense for me.
It was a little bit more cowboy,
which coming from a farm and a ranch
in the western part of this
country, it fit me better.
So I applied, moved forward
through the application process,
took a couple years,
and ended up working up
as a what they call the Clandestine
Service Trainee Program,
was there for a couple years,
and then sent out into the field.
- So, what was it like being
in the field as a CIA guy?
- You know, just after 9/11,
it was an incredibly difficult
and challenging time.
You know, we didn't know
how many more threats
were going to be actualized,
you know, how many more people
were going to be killed.
And so, it became a very intense time
to be in the Intelligence Community
but it was also thrilling.
You know, at a very young
age, I was 24 or 25,
and you're out in the field,
doing incredible stuff,
meeting with the bad guys
who are good for you,
and it was an incredible opportunity
that what you were doing
every day helped ensure
that people back home didn't die.
- How do you figure out which
bad guys are good for you?
(Bryan laughing)
(Dave laughing)
- Oh dear, yeah.
- Is that a question you can answer?
- Yeah.
So, there's a vetting process, right?
You first start with,
what do you need to know
in a particular part of the world
on a particular issue, right?
So, once you do that, you
go through a target analysis
and you figure out who has
the information in that organization
or that piece of knowledge that you need
and then you target that individual
and then you approach
them in some capacity
and then you build a relationship
and you not only ensure
that they are who you
thought that they were to be,
you then make sure that they're compatible
in terms of living a clandestine life
with you as an Intelligence Officer.
So, that is a very long
process, or it can be,
but in those early days,
we were recruiting people
to be informants for us
with not a lot of scrutiny
because we just had so little information
and the threat was so profound
and it was so immediate.
- All right, so we could do
CIA 101 the whole time here
and for people that want that, we'll link
to our old interview
because I wanna catch up,
because we hadn't had you on in awhile
and when we booked this, this was before
this Iran World War III thing happened.
- Oh, it's happening?
World War 3, okay.
- Well, apparently
if you listen to Rose McGowan on Twitter,
not only that but World
War Four has also begun.
There's a lotta wars coming
- Oh my gosh.
- Well, that's exactly why
I wanted to start with this
because it seems to me that
if you're paying attention
to social media, as it
does to most things,
we've ramped everything up
to crazy levels beyond imagination.
It is so hard to find sort of clear, sane,
non-extremist voices in
the midst of all this.
I consider you one of those people.
So can you talk to me about
what's going on with Iran
and are we in World War III?
Are we going down the path?
- We are not.
- We're not in World War III.
- No, whew!
- All right, well now we have the quote
for this interview.
- Yes, all right.
- Okay, good
So, to understand what's happening,
I think you have to step back
and ask yourself the question,
you know, what does Iran
want ultimately, right?
In general, what this regime wants
is both stability and survival,
more than anything else.
So whatever it does in terms
of international affairs,
domestic affairs,
it's all designed to make sure
that the regime continues.
So, they have red lines.
They have red lines internally,
in terms of how far they
will let the populace go
in terms of demanding certain things,
and then abroad, you know,
they'll push as far as they can,
knowing full well that the
United States and the West
and Israel at some point will say,
that's a bridge too far,
and they will pound the
living hell out of Tehran.
So, they're always poking the bear.
They're always challenging that red line.
So, it's important for all of us to know
that at the end of the day, you know,
if they were to choose to activate some
of their sleeper cells in
places like Los Angeles,
because they are here, or
in places like in Michigan,
et cetera, then it's game over.
They know that the United
States, either alone
or with a coalition, will go into Tehran
and we'll be there within,
you know, 12 to 24 hours.
- Okay, so let's pause there for a moment
because that was a bit of knowledge.
So, Iran basically has sleeper cells--
- Sure.
In Western cities, you
just said Los Angeles.
- Correct.
- We're in Los Angeles,
Michigan, I'm sure in European cities.
So, if we know these things
exist, what are we doing
to actually disrupt these cells?
- So, both the FBI and
the CIA have long known
that Hezbollah and Iran have
operated these sleeper cells
and so they've kept a pretty
good pulse on these folks
but the issue is, do you know
about all of them, right?
Because you have to be
perfect 100% of the time
and they only have to be perfect
or executable once, right
to implement something
horrific in the U.S. homeland.
So, we have a good pulse
of what they're doing
and where they are, who they are,
but do we know all of them?
I can almost assure you
that the answer is no.
- So, as they sort of push
what that red line is,
we've had a policy of what,
maybe the last 10 or 15 years,
at least the Obama policy,
we kinda let them do what
they wanted to do, right?
And so now Trump has kind of flipped
this thing on it's head.
so what do you make about the strike
and what is Trump doing here?
- Yeah, so the Supreme Leader
never saw this attack coming.
He had buffaloed, as I say,
or my family says on a
ranch in Oregon, right?
They buffaloed Bush and
Obama for many, many years
that we had certain red lines,
that we didn't want to
start this World War III,
so we allowed them, that is the Iranians,
to do all kinds of poor,
terrible, horrific activities
throughout the Middle
East and indeed the world.
We would give them
enough leash to attack us
through this Soleimani and the Quds force
and Hezbollah and what not.
- What were our red lines, actually?
Like, what would have been the thing
that would've changed
the equation on our side?
- Well, that really is the question.
I don't think any of us really knew,
certainly with inside the
Intelligence Community
because we had the infamous
Obama red line in Syria
that, of course, we just erased that one
and moved to somewhere different.
So I don't think that the Iranian
leadership ever quite knew
where the United States
would, the switch would flip,
other than an attack in the homeland.
Certainly they learned that
after the 9/11 attacks,
when we immediately went into Afghanistan.
We started making noise elsewhere.
I think most of this is public knowledge
but the Iranian government
very quietly reached out
and said, look, we will
stay on the good boy list,
just don't invade.
So the upshot is that they know
that we will hit a point
where we say, enough,
and I don't think that
they thought Soleimani
would be the, in all of his shenanigans,
would be it but here we are.
- Right, so what do you
make of what Trump did here?
'Cause it's like, if you
listen to the critics,
it's like, "Oh, Trump
doesn't know what he's doing.
"There's no plan for after,"
et cetera, et cetera.
And I'm starting to think,
if this guy doesn't know what he's doing
and he has no plans, what does
that say about the experts?
- Right.
- 'Cause he keeps one-upping
the experts,
(Bryan laughing)
so what's going on here?
- Yeah, so I think he did
the right thing, right?
So, I have friends who work in
the Special Forces community
and they were all universally
thrilled at what happened.
Soleimani has so much blood on his hands,
has maimed and killed more people,
not just Americans but Iraqis and others,
so the man earned his death.
The question is, so what comes next?
And I think people could rightfully
and should be asking that question, right?
And is this gonna cause World War III?
Some of that is hyperbole
but some of it's
appropriate to at least ask.
So, the answer is no, we're not gonna
be going into World War III.
The only thing that would
change that calculus would be
whether Moscow and Beijing
suddenly started moving troops
into and, or backed Iran,
basically wanted to use them
as some sort of forcing function,
this incident, to create World War III.
- Right.
- I don't think--
- You mean, they would move
their troops into Iran?
- Precisely, I mean,
something grandiose like that.
Now suddenly we're looking
at a very different prospect
of conflict on a global level
if Russia and China
moved into Iran, right?
- Right.
- So, they have a degree of relationship
but I'm talking about
physical assets into Iran
to make clear that this is the equivalent
of that World War I assassination
of the prince in Sarajevo, right,
that people keep talking about.
- Just to be clear,
that's a pretty far off,
crazy thing, although--
- Correct.
- If you're just listening
to the pundits these days,
it's like anything's on the table, like,
the Martians are landing and you know--
- In the Intelligence Community,
we talk about low, medium,
and high degrees of confidence
that something could happen, all right?
I think that most of us would say
that we have high degree
of confidence that it
is extraordinarily unlikely
that Russia and China
would ever get involved
in this kind of conflict.
One, because Russia's
economy's the size of Italy.
I mean, they have a lot of
internal struggles themselves.
And China, fundamentally
President Xi is concerned
about making sure that his
stability of his country remains
the most important priority
and then they continue
to grow economically.
Because of the number of
people in that country,
they need to have
continued economic growth
so that is their focus and their goal,
and that's why they want stability.
So for them to step into this conflict
and create some sort of horrific outcome
like World War III
is just extraordinarily unlikely, right?
In terms of degrees of confidence,
I would say we have degree of confidence
that's not going to happen.
So, the question is, what
will Iran do next, right?
So you're going to see, and
folks are talking about this,
absolutely a degree of pushback,
whether it's from cyber
attacks, the usage of Hezbollah.
They're already talking about,
that is, the Iranian
leadership talking about,
targeting military personnel in locations
throughout the Middle East in particular.
We expect that,
the administration expected
that, the Pentagon,
when they authorized the
strike, expected that.
That's why you're seeing
this flood of personnel,
a lot of my friends, going
into the Middle East right now.
And that is to make the price
of any kind of retribution
or any kind of attack by Iran,
the price will go up dramatically.
- How do we send that message
beyond bombs and killing people?
Like, do we actually go on the ground
and talk to contacts and say,
"Guys, okay, you saw what we did.
"We know you're planning
"to do a couple things here and there."
But do we really give the hint like,
well, I guess Trump sorta did
it with this tweet, right?
His tweet about 52 sites that we've got.
I mean, is that really how it works?
Like, we get down there and talk to them
about that sorta thing?
- Well, I think that
the talking that was--
- Like your house is on a list, basically.
- Right (laughing).
Well, I think the talking that was done
was a missile going into
Soleimani's head, right?
And so I think that the
Trump administration
very wisely has said, look,
we have tried diplomacy
with these clowns and
they've continually lied
to us about, say, their nuclear program.
If you recall, in January of 2017,
Israel did an incredible operation
where they went into
Tehran, they grabbed a bunch
of nuclear material, that is, I should say
documentary-based material,
from this warehouse in Tehran,
they took it back to Israel,
that basically showed that
Iran was playing a game.
They wanted to make sure that they held on
to their nuclear program and the ability
to move forward very, very quickly.
So there's no ever real intention
by the regime to give up
that nuclear capability.
- What do you make of sort of
the set of people that think
that just 'cause you sign
something, it has meaning?
So, like the Iran nuclear
deal, just any deal.
The Climate Paris Accord or
the Paris Climate Accords,
like we sign something
and that inherently means
that it's real but that's really not how
the world works, is it?
- If you have a document, an agreement,
a treaty that is signed,
it is only as effective
as the parties engaged or involved intend
to carry it forward, right?
Particularly with some
degree of some hammer
if people fall short.
I mean, this what we've
experienced with Russia
with the START treaties, et cetera, right?
They were constantly cheating
because they believed
that the United States wouldn't respond
in any kind of intense or retaliatory way,
whether it be sanctions
beyond what we've already done
to something more kinetic,
right, a military strike.
So everybody who signs
any kind of document
is always sitting back
and making the calculus
or asking, can we push this further?
Can we do more?
Can we sneak, right?
North Korea with this nuclear program
is a great example of doing exactly that
and it's gotten away
with lying to the world
and continuing to march forward,
irrespective of the silly
sanctions that we apply.
- That's what you were
talking about earlier about,
you just keep pushing the red line.
- Correct.
- Because if you know the guy
on the other side isn't
gonna ever gonna push back,
you can move that thing
pretty signficantly.
- But I think it's important
and I think you and I have
spoken about it previously,
we hear a lot right now in the media.
Folks are talking about, you know,
get us out of the Middle East.
Get us out of Iran and Iraq
and all these places,
we shouldn't be there.
And that's true, we shouldn't be there.
- Yeah.
- Why are we there, right?
- You're giving me a lot of my
good Libertarian side, right?
- So, let's have that conversation.
- Yeah.
- So, it's good
that we killed Soleimani,
that the government in Iran
is bad, but why in the hell are we there
to begin with, right?
We are there because Iran and Iraq
and the Middle East have oil, right?
All these countries have oil.
The global economy is built on oil
so it's great the United States
has become a net exporter of oil, super,
but the rest of the world
continues to be net importers.
So, as long as these folks,
whether it be Iran or Iraq,
either control the oil or,
through the Strait of Hormuz,
they control the ability of
that oil to get to market,
we are stuck in the sandbox, right?
So, if we want to change
this conversation,
if we want to basically
make the Middle East
the equivalent of what, you
know, happened in the '90s
in Rwanda where the Hutus and the Tutsis
were killing each other,
if we want to let the Sunnis
and Shias slaughter each other
and really, the world doesn't care,
then we have to remove the impetus for us
to be there in the first place.
Why do we care?
We have to change our energy policy.
So, if you're angry about the fact
that we're in the Middle East
and we have troops there,
then you have to be onboard
with changing our energy policy.
- So, what do you make of the argument,
so you can do it two ways.
So, the Libertarian argument
is just get the hell out of
there, these aren't our wars,
these are sectarian conflicts
that have existed forever,
they're gonna last longer
than we're ever gonna exist.
That's one side of it.
The other side is, well, you
broke it, you fix it, sort of.
So, it's like, Iraq, we actually
were turning it around, you know?
Regardless of whether you thought
it was a good idea to go in or not,
weapons of mass
destruction, the rest of it,
they were having free and
fair elections basically
and then we just left.
You know, we announced the date.
Obama said we're getting out on this day.
We left and then it fell apart.
How do we negotiate that?
- So, you have to sit
back and ask the question,
from a foreign policy perspective,
why the hell are we involved in the world?
What is our ultimate goal?
And most smart people will say
that we want the world
to be more democratic,
because the more democratic the world is,
the less likely that the
nations who are democracies
will get involved in
conflict and war, right?
So, this is sort of foreign policy 101.
So, the question is,
how do you move nations
from being autocratic or anything less
than a full democracy to some shade
or variation of a healthy democracy?
You know, President Bush's
idea, the neoconservative belief
was we can do it via the barrel of a gun.
Well, oops.
That didn't work out right?
Not only did they view us ultimately
as outsiders invading the nation
but they weren't really ready
for a true commitment to democracy,
which requires a degree of
education of the people,
right, to understand what
their obligations are, right?
- But that's what I'm saying.
If we had stayed longer, and
I'm not saying we should have,
but have we stayed longer,
once they had some elections,
had we stayed longer to
build some institutions
and that sort of thing, it's
almost like it could've worked.
There were signs that it could've worked.
- But what is the ultimate
benefit for the American people
to go in and nation build
in a place like Iraq or any nation, right?
So, we have to ask
ourselves the questions,
as there are hundreds and hundreds
of nations around the world,
many of which are not democratic,
why are we gonna get involved in that one?
And one of things that I actually think
that President Trump does correctly,
perhaps in his New York braggadocious way,
is he says, "Well, what
are they giving us?"
Like, what do we get in exchange?
And that's actually a good
and important thing to ask, right?
Because we shouldn't be
going into Zimbabwe, right,
and trying to correct all of the ills
of Mugabe and all his shenanigans, right?
Because what are they giving us?
Nothing.
We would invest our time and treasure
into a place like Zimbabwe
and we would be getting very
little to nothing in return,
other than a commitment to
the world and to ourselves
and the Zimbabwean people
that we're creating a democracy there,
and more democracy means
less global war, right?
So, we have to rack and stack
or prioritize where we're
involved in the world.
So, Iraq and Iran, the reason
that we want to be there,
why we give two bits about the place,
is because of this commitment,
not only just to democracy
but because they have something we need,
they have, and not just
we but the global economy.
So, if you were to withdraw, right,
and just completely let the place go
and be as it is, you better have a back up
in terms of a global energy policy
that doesn't require that stuff,
because if that price of oil quadruples
or goes up by 10, 20%, or at times,
whatever number it might be
and you start having global
recessions and depressions,
now we understand the cost
of our inaction, right?
So, there is a cost to just
completely pulling out.
- Are you kind of surprised
that Trump seems to understand all this?
- No.
- In a weird way.
- No, I have had concerns
about his temperament.
I have--
- By the way, wait, we should
pause for a moment and say,
you are a lifelong Democrat.
- Yeah, here we are.
- I know the feeling, my friend.
(Men laughing)
Here we are so.
- Although I don't know
what that means anymore.
- Yeah.
- What does it even mean
to be a Democrat anymore?
- We'll get to that in a sec,
'cause you wrote a great--
- We'll get there, yeah.
It's a disaster.
- You wrote a great piece on foxnews.com
about the split of the Democrats
and I've been screaming
about this for years.
But why do you think Trump gets this?
Like, he's not a politician,
he wasn't a foreign policy guy.
If you asked him five years ago
to put his finger on a map,
who knows what he would have found?
I mean, what is it about him
that you think understands this
or is he listening to better generals
than the guys before were listening to?
Like, what's going on here?
- Well, a couple things.
How do we diagnose why President
Trump is the way that he is
and indeed that he's effective.
I think we could probably
(Dave laughing)
have a three hour program on that
but the upshot is,
I think the American people recognize
that something was important in that man,
that he could serve an important role,
and that is the fact that he is basically
a walking human firecracker, right?
And he went to Washington
to just blow stuff up
because most of us were
sick and tired of the way
that Washington was working.
And we might talk about,
all right, can we have him
a little bit more Presidential?
Well, when you elect a firecracker,
you're gonna get what you get, right?
So, what I think that he is doing well
is he's asking really important questions
that Washington has always assumed
that we've asked and answered.
Like, well, of course, we're
gonna be absolutely committed
to NATO at all times.
Well, wait a minute.
These a-holes aren't contributing,
you know, their dues.
So what, are we gonna
continue to pay for it?
Like, go F yourself.
I mean, that's basically Trump's attitude.
And it's like yeah, yeah,
that's exactly what should
be happening, right?
There should be nothing
so sacred on the table
that we can't ask a question as to,
well, why are we doing it that way?
So, I think that that is a good thing
that the President is
bringing to the table
and I think that he is bringing
that outsider's perspective
and asking really good
questions that might seem
to be crazy to the New
York and Washington elite
but I should think most
people in middle America
are like, yeah, we agree with you.
That makes sense, right?
- All right, so with that in mind,
so Trump comes in basically
as the firecracker
to throw the chessboard
up, the whole thing.
The administrative state or the deep state
or maybe you have a
different phrase for it.
- [Bryan] Deep state works.
- This idea of a constant
group of people that stay,
no matter what administration
comes and goes.
Can you just explain a little bit
about what that actually is?
(Bryan inhaling)
- Lord have mercy.
All right.
(Dave laughing)
So, folks who get their, those jobs,
you are there for 20, 25, 30 years,
and it's true that you
outlast all administrations.
- So, what are these jobs?
Like, let's really do
like the most base level here.
- Yeah.
'Cause this is the type of
thing, you hear deep state,
and everyone online, you're
either a conspiracy theorist
or an Alex Jones guy or
give me something like,
what are these people actually doing?
- All right, so, when you,
let's just take the CIA, right?
So, someone like me who went
in as an Operations Officer,
so somebody who basically
goes out in the field
and recruits spies and
steals secrets, right?
You have a tremendous
amount of power, right?
A tremendous number of tools
to read people's emails,
listen to people's phone calls,
I mean, you can call
up surveillance teams,
you have a lot of power to
do or accomplish the mission
and through that, some people
have this mistaken belief
that they are now anointed
to make decisions writ large
in terms of foreign policy.
That is, they are the ones
that have the knowledge
to decide what the nation
should or shouldn't do
on a particular issue,
instead of simply informing
a policy maker, to say,
"Here's what I know to be true.
"Here's what I think we ought to do
"but here are a slew of different options
"and you make the choice or the call
"because you are a
representative of the people
"and I am simply a tool."
- So basically, they sort of have access
to all of this information
and then after years of it,
you start thinking you're bigger--
- [Bryan] That's right.
- Than the people that
are coming and going.
- So, one of the most
infamous spies, Aldrich Ames,
worked for the CIA but indeed worked
for the Russians secretly,
was eventually found out.
It led to over 100 individuals,
assets, being killed.
When he was asked why he did it,
he said, "I know what's best
for the nation's foreign policy
"and I'm gonna act on that."
So, that degree of hubris...
Right, you go in loving your
country, embracing the flag,
you're there at the CIA
for the right reasons
but now suddenly, you've
come to this belief
that you are anointed,
that you are somehow
the guardian of the republic,
beyond the defensive
nature that the people,
your government has anointed on you
to actually do good things,
to support the constitution,
and support policymakers.
Now you think that you're actually
a king or a queen behind the scenes
and you will move the levers of power
and you will decide who gets briefed
on what pieces of information
or you don't brief certain
pieces of information.
Let me give you an example
So, I worked an issue that
I can't talk a ton about
but an Asia-related concern,
and what we were briefing the White House
was that what we as the CIA were doing,
in terms of covert action operations,
were incredibly successful.
But I actually knewthat that wasn't true,
so I sat down with the analysts
and I said, "Help me understand why
"you all make this judgment."
They're like, "We don't
make that judgment.
"We don't believe that's true."
So, I collated all this
information, I presented it to our,
what we call the 7th floor,
and I said, "Sirs, what we are presenting
"to the White House as effective isn't,"
and they said, "Well, you
know," this song and dance,
and then they said,
"Look, why don't you brief
that downtown," right?
Knowing that I had absolutely
no ability to do that, right?
So, they just sort of, it
took an issue that they knew
would be problematic for
the agency, for themselves,
they lied about it to the
NSC and to the White House,
and they decided what was best
for America's foreign policy
as it relates to that particular country
and that particular issue
around weapons of mass destruction.
So, it's a tiny little
example of how the deep state
can decide what a nation
should or shouldn't do.
The rubric that I think has been crossed,
that kind of stuff is
more typical Washington.
What hasn't happened,
certainly in my lifetime
or my recollection, is a
guy like Brennan and Clapper
deciding that a politician
or someone running as one,
President Trump in this case,
candidate Trump in this case,
was not good enough to
assume the presidency.
So, they were doing things
to kneecap his administration
before, I should say, his election,
his ability to become an elected official.
- Yeah, can you explain a little bit
about what these guys were doing?
- So, let's just start with the dossier.
- Yeah.
- All right because to me--
- You've had tweets deleted over this.
- Yeah.
- I mean, Twitter tried
to boot you and ban you--
- Twice.
Because you started, as a former CIA guy,
you started talking about
what Brennan was up to,
what these guys were doing,
and they were gonna boot you off Twitter
and then eventually there
was enough of a outcry.
I tried to help as much as I could--
- And you did, thank you.
- to get you back on there.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
So, all right, if we
just look at the dossier
we knew for a considerable amount of time
that this information was
unvetted and uncorroborated.
It was internet rumor, I think,
is what was in the IG report, right?
So, it was well known
that this was garbage
but yet, it was utilized by the
FBI to continue surveillance
of a Trump campaign official.
- So this is before the
election, this dossier,
which is basically an internet rumor,
is now used so the CIA
can use spying techniques.
- Let me just tell you
how absolutely crazy this was.
- I'm just trying
to dumb it down, yeah.
- We had a foreign spy that was hired by
a domestic political opponent
inject this garbage into the system,
which if you work in intelligence field,
you know that any Russian sources
are oftentimes controlled by
Vladimir Putin, the SVR, right?
So, unless you really
vet the information--
- They're smart enough
to have double agents?
- Oh, amazing, isn't it?
- Jesus, these Russians.
- So, we're pumping this fake garbage
that we haven't vetted
into the political system,
we're using it for surveillance purposes,
and now, and here's the kicker,
in early January of 2017,
they, Clapper and Comey and Brennan,
leaked this dossier to the press,
which it had already been
circulating out there
but giving it their stamp
of, we know it exists
and we're gonna brief this, right?
So, they briefed it to
President-elect Trump
and the very act of doing that
and saying, "Hey, you should
be aware that this exists,"
suddenly gave the hook for the
press to run with this story
that we have a Russian agent
sitting in the White House.
The FBI and the CIA, you
know, they believed enough
in this document to brief
it, and then of course,
the fire was set, right?
The brush fire took off.
- Yeah.
- The hysteria was launched.
But what's amazing is
the next number of days
and the next couple of weeks,
every one of those bastards,
Comey and Clapper,
Brennan, all of them said,
"Oh, but you know, the
dossier, we don't believe it.
"It's just rumors."
Well, then why'd you brief it?
Why did you spread it around Washington?
Because you knew that it
would cause a brush fire.
You knew it would set this nation on fire
and you knew that the Trump presidency
would likely never recover from it.
And in fact, John Brennan told
a crowd here in Los Angeles
that President Trump would
no longer be in office,
an interview he gave, by the end of 2018.
He told a bunch of these Hollywood elites,
"Don't worry about it,
"Trump's gonna be gone
by the end of 2018."
Thank God John Brennan was gone
and now he's under criminal
investigation by AG Barr.
- So, that was my next question.
- Chef's kiss.
- How (laughing) nervous should Clapper
and Brennan and Comey be?
I mean, Clapper is the
guy who lied under oath
when they asked him
about, are we, you know,
doing mass surveillance on
people, on our own citizens?
And what was it, "Not
wittingly," that he said
as he was scratching the top of his head,
which you ever see that
episode of Seinfeld?
You know, when you're lying,
the higher up on your
face that you scratch
tells you if it's a big lie or not?
I mean, he's literally
going, "Not wittingly."
- Right, right, yeah,
and oddly enough his nose starts growing.
- Yeah but then becomes
like a CNN analyst on this
and suffers no ramifications
for lying under oath.
How much trouble do you think
these guys really are in?
- I think they're in a lot
and I think that they know it.
And I am, as an American,
forget my party affiliation,
forget me having worked in the CIA,
although that's a part of my anger
because I know what they've done
to the Intelligence Community.
They have now made the American
people reasonably concerned
about the degree of politicization
that they weren't aware of or
that they thought would be,
might be impossible.
So, they have really sullied
not only the reputation
but the ability of the
FBI and the CIA to go out
and do the good work that they need to do.
We do, in fact, need an FBI and a CIA
to do the good work that they do.
But it's reasonable for an
American to sit back and say,
maybe we shouldn't have these guys
'cause they're so highly politicized.
So, I think that Brennan
and Comey and Clapper
and that whole cabal that was involved
in these shenanigans in
2016 should be very worried.
John Durham, a very, very smart man,
and I think AG Barr is playing
the long game on this one.
I think he's letting Comey go
on some of the smaller stuff.
I mean, he's hitting
him hard in some areas
and the IG has called him,
you know, a dangerous man,
a man who set a dangerous precedent
for the 30 plus thousand former
and current FBI employees
and I think you're gonna
find the same thing
with Clapper and Brennan
when this is all over.
- So, if these guys did so much bad stuff,
what do you make of the fact
that they don't shut up?
Like, what do you make of the fact
that Comey wrote the book,
which nobody bought the book--
- He teaches ethics!
- But they push it out.
- Comey teaches ethics,
what is happening in this world?
- Or look at Brennan's Twitter feed?
It's just like, wait a minute?
You were the head of the CIA,
I don't think you should be,
like you're basically attacking
one of the institutions,
the Office of the Presidency.
Now I get it, Trump attacks everybody too
so there's nobody that's
totally clean here.
But you look at Brennan's Twitter feed
and it's like, what are you doing?
But I guess they feel that
they'll never be caught.
- Well, here's I think what's happening.
You have Comey and Clapper and Brennan,
that they're all contributors,
they go to these fancy
functions, here in Los Angeles,
they belong to these
institutes, they go on Twitter,
and they're all echoing
the same talking points,
which is, basically,
Trump is a Russian traitor
or he's all but and we
have to get this guy out
of the Office of the Presidency,
and we, as former CIA, FBI, ODNI,
whatever three or four letter
agency they were a part of,
we are the defenders of the country,
we are the defenders of the nation.
And so--
- That's literally what you
were saying about the deep state before.
- Right, right.
So, they are spinning this
over and over and over again
to continue this high boil of hysteria,
so that people believe that
the Brennans and the Comeys
and the Clappers are
actually good guys, right?
They're creating their hysterical base
so that when AG Barr and Durham
come out with this report,
mark my words, you will have
the MSNBCs and Rachel Maddows
from the top of the roof screaming,
"Well, but it's partisan and it's not true
"and this is just, this is
a witch hunt against them,"
and they will deny facts.
So, it's coming, so they are preparing
the battlefield very wisely,
although horrifically,
they're trying to save their own skin
and so they're prepping the battlefield
with all of these hysterical tweets
so that they can find a way,
at least in the public sphere,
to push back to save their skin.
- All right, so I want to get
to the media portion of that
because you've talked a lot
about how they leak things
to the media and the rest of
that, but before we do that,
how pissed are these guys
at Mueller for the report?
I mean, they obviously didn't think
this was gonna be the outcome
and it was all gonna just be nonsense
and make Rachel Maddow look
like a complete, raving lunatic.
- Right, so no collusion.
That was a surprise for
the Democratic Party,
wasn't it, for the left?
That was a slam dunk, right?
That was supposed to be a very clear case
of a president being a
Russian agent and he wasn't.
Look, it was appropriate--
- Did it all seem like nonsense?
Like, what I kept saying
from the beginning was
if this is all true,
wouldn't every Democrat
be saying, "We're in World War III now?"
- [Bryan] Yeah.
- Like, let's really take this
thing to it's end collusion.
If it's really true that, in effect,
Russia basically installed
the President of the
United States, I mean,
that's as big a crime as
you could possibly get
so congratulations,
we're in World War III.
They're worried about
the new World War III
but we're in it already.
- So, I think that many
of us, to include myself,
at the very beginning were
concerned about connections,
not just the dossier-related
garbage 'cause that was silly,
but some of the rest of it,
and it was like, my position,
I think a lot of us at
the very beginning said,
"Look, let Bob Mueller do a fair job
"within a short period of
time to address this issue."
Because what I knew, working
in the Intelligence Community,
is that if we had any
information, any intelligence,
SIGINT or HUMINT, in other
words, phone calls, emails,
if we had any kind of
sources from human beings,
multiple individuals throughout the world
and in Moscow, et cetera,
who could all corroborate
the same thing, then we need to know that
and let's put that forward.
But very quickly, that information
should be brought to the table
and we would be ejecting
the man from the White House
within the first few
months of his presidency.
And when that didn't happen,
it became very clear to me,
and I think most reasonable
intelligence officials
or former officials, that
there was nothing there,
that this was now getting
into a political exercise.
And I think that the report showed that,
that there certainly was no collusion.
Now, the issue of, did he try to obstruct?
Well, boy, I think you
can take a step back
and say, look, if I were
a newly elected president
and I knew that I was being smeared
by a bunch of former FBI
and CIA people in the media,
saying I was a Russian agent,
I know that's not true,
damn right I'm gonna try to shut down
that investigation because
I know it's garbage.
Most reasonable people would wanna say,
"Forget it, that's garbage, and I know
"what you're trying to do.
"you're trying to politicize
my ability to do this work
"as President of the United States.
"You were trying to make sure
"that I can't do what the
American people elected me to do."
- Especially, literally you were elected
on draining the swamp.
- Correct.
- So, that's sort of the core thing here.
- So, the obstruction piece
I think is a political loser.
I also think that the essence
of the argument's garbage
as well but the Democratic
Party has clung to that
and now that they see that
that wasn't working out
and Bob Mueller, bless his heart,
if you recall when he testified--
- Poor guy.
- Yeah, made me feel sad.
- I actually felt bad for him,
like he was just way over his head--
- He was.
- Or he has a little bit
of the Biden, sort of like,
are you even all there kinda thing.
- I mean, a good man.
I think he worked hard for his country
but he was way over his skis,
doing something he shouldn't have.
He should've stayed in
retirement land, so.
- So, the other piece of this,
which you've sort of been hitting on here,
is the media portion and
how all of these leaks,
every day you open up The New York Times
or CNN or MSNBC and
they're reporting on stuff
that's supposed to be behind closed doors,
there are secret congressional
meetings about things,
but somehow MSNBC and The New York Times
has all of Schiff's talking
points and the rest of it,
how does this game actually get played?
Like, is it as obviously ridiculous
and just so blatant as it seems?
Could it be that blatant?
- Yeah, it is.
Look, most of the leaking, so,
when you work in Washington,
you find out very quickly that
most of the leaking occurs
either by the White House,
interestingly enough,
or by the senior levels
of the various departments and agencies.
It's rarely that lower or
working level individual, right?
It's the people who,
again, like Aldrich Ames,
have decided that they know
what's best for the country
so they're gonna act on it
and they're gonna leak things
to try to push the media
narrative in that one direction
or another, based on
whatever they want, right?
Whatever their goals are,
you know, personal goals.
We saw that with Comey.
I mean, we know he leaked
to The New York Times
via a cutout to try to push
for an independent counsel,
and he got it.
So it's not as though the tactic
doesn't work, it does work.
So, that's frightening.
That should frighten all of us.
- [Dave] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So, both sides do it
but what we have seen
over the past three years
is a group of individuals
from the FBI, from the
CIA, who are leaking pieces
of information to kneecap
a duly elected president
so that they can put the people
in power that they choose,
irrespective of party,
whether it's a Never Trumper
or whether it's one of these, you know,
more traditional moderate Democrat
what the hell that means these days.
- Well, it's not really
irrespective of party, right?
'Cause you mean a Never
Trumper or some other Democrat.
- Sure, but I mean historically the leaks
have come from both sides
of the aisle to the media
because of their own personal
desire to shape policy, right?
We're just seeing it on steroids now.
- [Dave] Yeah.
- The amount of leaking, the ferociousness
of the impact of those leaks, right?
It's not just, we like
this or we don't like this.
It's, you know, Trump is a traitor
or he's gonna launch us into World War III
or it's that absurdity, it's that hysteria
that was kicked off in
2016 and hasn't stopped.
- Do you think that's
partly just because we're
just watching institutions
crumble across the board
and so they're all sort
of in their death throes,
so you just throw out everything?
You know what I mean?
Like, we're watching our
media institutions crumble,
our political institutions are crumbling,
we're exposing information,
conversations like this
weren't really being had five years ago.
So as it all becomes more obvious,
the ways it can lash out
become crazier, sort of.
- As the curtain is pulled
back on the Wizard of Oz,
does he not get a little bit more panicked
about people understanding
that he's like four foot two
and you know, 250 pounds?
- Yeah.
- I think that that could explain a lot
because again, at some level,
when you start looking at,
for instance, let's just
take the media, right?
So, it's long been known
that the media focuses
on one particular party
and benefiting them
and it's the Democratic Party.
Which, by the way, when you get like 95%
of political funds or that
is, the media supports you
from their political
donations, it's incredible
that the Republican
Party even exists, right?
When you have that degree
of an avalanche of support
in your nation's media, the
fact that another party exists
is really incredible
or it means the Democrats might be stupid.
- Reminder, I'm looking
at a lifelong Democrat.
I just wanna say that again.
- Right, right.
So, look, the last 10 to 15
years, forget that, five years,
- Yeah, we'll get to that then.
- has changed so much,
- We're gonna get there,
we're gonna get there.
- it's incredible.
But yeah, no, I think you're right to say
that the media's recognizing
that we're all pulling off the
mask and seeing who they are
and that is horrifying to them
because the moment that we start
questioning their authority
to tell us what's right and wrong
and we start to say,
"You know what, actually,
"you've given to the
other political party.
"You used to work for
that other, you know,
"organization or entity
that is now against Trump,"
or like, we now know that you are biased
and that's fine, right?
You and I both have an opinion,
- [Dave] Sure.
- We both go on TV and talk
about things and our opinions,
that's fine, but let's be
candid about who we are
and what we believe in and
let's not pass it as news
because it's not news, it's
just an opinion, right?
It's interesting.
The former editor of The New York Times
gave this fantastic interview
where she talked about her students.
You know, she left The New York Times
now I believe is at Yale or
one of these fancy Ivies,
and she works with students
who wanna become journalists.
And she said one of the frustrations
that she has is that all want to report
on their own opinions
of what's happening in the
world, right, and not the news.
And it's like, well, amen,
we have been down this road
for 15 plus years where everybody
in the role of journalism
- Right, why not admit it?
- Yeah, so let's have
an honest conversation
that the Walter Cronkites are gone.
- Yeah.
- And it's now, you know, a circus
and everybody's got a different performer
that they prefer, and that's bad
and we should acknowledge that that's bad
and we should, I think, as
a country and at some point,
when does journalism ring it's own bell
and say, "We've gone too far,
"let's see if we can do
something different."
- So, when you read the paper
that was formerly The New York Times,
are there phrases that you
can see are obvious tells
when it's complete nonsense,
beyond just unnamed source
or source on Capital Hill?
- You mean, other than just
picking it up and saying New York Times
and putting it back down?
- Yeah, yeah.
And by the way, as I always say
every time I knock The New York Times,
I would prefer this not be the case.
- Amen.
- Everyone knows it.
The people that I find that
are railing against it the most
are the people that don't
want this to be the most,
you know what I mean?
Just don't be totally horrible.
- I come from the middle of
nowhere in Eastern rural Oregon.
The way that I was able
to get into the CIA
was that I went to The Washington Post
and New York Times and I
read it every single day,
back in the late '90s and early 2000s.
I took notes on each story,
I built my knowledge and understanding
of the world based on their reporting.
So there was a time when I was a big fan
and I appreciated what
they were doing for me,
for the world, for the country,
spreading what was actually happening,
and we've lost that at the Gray Lady.
And The Washington Post has gone
even more bananas and bonkers
and it's horrible for the republic
because democracies need that voice
to challenge people in power.
- So do you think we're
more than anything else,
I mean putting all the
political stuff aside,
putting deep state aside,
putting the parties aside
that we're really more
in an information war
at this point than anything else?
It's not even information.
It's really the delivery
system of the information
more than anything else.
- Sure.
I mean you're talking to a
guy who put out two tweets,
expressed a simple political opinion,
no inflammatory language.
- Can you just remind me
what the tweets were exactly?
- Yeah.
- Because you're a former CIA Ops guys.
I think you've proven
here in this half hour,
whatever it is, that you know
what you're talking about.
And here are the two
tweets that you put out.
- So both of them basically
had to do with President Trump
or Democrats being crazy.
And one was taking a headline
from The Washington Post,
which was silly Parson Flimflammed.
I don't even remember what
the hell the headline was.
I was just commenting on
the fact that it was silly.
And that was enough to get me banned
for whatever number of days.
And the other one was
a thread talking about
the president and this
whole impeachment silliness
and how absurd it is.
I think it was a relatively
short thread and I was banned.
Again, simply taking a
snippet form the IG report
and commenting on that section
of report, that was enough.
So that to me, and I
know that you have been
banging this drum for a long time,
is incredibly frightening that we now have
a handful of entities from Silicon Valley
that are really publishers deciding
who gets to say whatever
they want them to say
and if it goes too far,
either a corporate policy
or as a one off, whatever
number of decide that's bad,
there gonna throw a little
sand in the gears, right?
They may not ban you completely, they may.
But they may just throw
some sand in the gear
and have you blocked for
a week or two or whatever
when you want to share something
at a very important time
in the nation's politics,
right during this Iran issue.
So we're gonna throw
some sand in your gears.
We're gonna stop you from tweeting,
or stop you from sharing
something on Facebook.
That's what they're doing now.
That's what they've done to me.
- Does it feel like the whole game
is designed to just make
us crazier, right now?
Like every time you read--
- Well that's result.
- Like once you start
seeing this stuff, right,
you have your little red pill moment,
you start seeing this stuff.
You don't wanna see it, right?
You wanna put the ocean back in the cup.
- Right.
- And it just doesn't fit.
- Well I think that this
has been a long time coming.
So what's interesting is,
MIT did this brilliant study
in the late '90s when some of our
economic trade policies were changing,
China went to the WTO.
We had Mexico and Canada and NAFTA
and a lotta the communities
were impacted negatively
by these economic changes.
We're starting to elect people to Congress
and Senate who were
increasingly more inflammatory,
increasing further on the
left and further on the right.
And what now you see that
that created the marketplace
for people in media to be even more loud
and bombastic and crazy,
because people were angry
and so they were able to
tap into that marketplace.
So it think that the things
that you're seeing in
America's media right now
are really reflective of a
country that's deeply unsettled.
It doesn't mean that we
don't celebrate the progress
here in this country,
because economically, I think
you could make an argument,
and you've had people on this program
that have made it very clear
that we are benefiting profoundly
from our wonderful economic
system, imperfect as it is,
our wonderful republic,
imperfect as it is.
But there's clearly a sickness
that is being reflected in our media
that is really, at the end of the day,
it reflects our own
brokenness, our own anger,
because we're responding
in such a visceral way
we're giving those people ratings.
- Okay, so let's go to our woe is me
beat up lefty guys here for a second.
Because as you're saying that
I'm reminded of when I used to be on
the Young Turks and I was a big lefty,
that I'd be on air with the hosts
and they'd be screaming like
crazy people about something.
There's no video of me ever screaming
about anything like this,
but they'd be screaming this thing
and then we'd cut to break,
and then they'd be completely fine again,
like completely fine.
Then we'd come back and
people were screaming
or crying or yelling or
pounding their fists.
And I remember thinking
is just all theater.
This is not theater to me.
We're having the same exact
conversation right now
that we were having
before the cameras started
and everything else.
- Correct.
- But we've been sort of
primed that everything
is sorta theater right now.
But it doesn't seem like
can get any of this back.
Is that now where we're at?
That we won't come back.
So what I'm talking about
with the cup and the ocean
it's like we now need
different institutions.
I think there's a lotta people trying to
hang on to the old institutions.
I see this with a lotta my
last remaining sane lefty friends.
The New York Times will come back.
The Democratic party'll coem back.
But the ain't comin' back guys.
- If there's any hope, it's
President Trump wins in 2020
and the Democratic party--
- And the death blow
is so cataclysmic.
- It would have to be
an overwhelming loss, both
the House, the Senate,
and the Presidency.
We would be talking about like
1984 election with Mondale
and '88 election with Dukakis.
But let's not forget that stupid
tends to be very resilient.
And so you're seeing a lot
of that coming out of places
like New York with Ocasio-Cortez.
We're getting a lot of
very crazy individuals
who are very now powerful
with in the Democratic party.
We're absolutely reshaping it.
You would need to have
a progressive nominated
for the 2020 election lose
against President Trump.
- So they have to have
the Corbin basically.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah I mean I see that.
I mean how crazy though for two guys
that are basically lifelong Democrats.
And I can't call myself
part of the left anymore.
- I'm hanging on by my fingernails.
- Yeah I know, but a lotta my good last
liberal friends are trying.
Like I get it.
And it just like, for me the
ship has sailed, it's fine.
But you wrote a piece
in Fox News.
- How about a life raft
for those us who are
paddling behind behind you?
- I'm gonna keep a life raft
out there, but not much longer,
you know what I mean.
(Bryan laughs)
- I gotta go now.
- I've been saving--
- Make the jump.
- Yeah, yeah.
Well I feel like I've been screaming
about this for so long
that now it's weird.
Because you know how your
frustrations change over time.
And it's like I used to be
really frustrated with the right
and then for these couple years
I've been frustrated with the left.
Now I'm like really frustrated at my
last remaining lefty friends,
that just refuse to see reality.
'Cause it's like come on guys,
like how much more destruction
do you want these people to sow?
How much further down the
socialist path do you wanna go?
But you wrote a piece
about this in Fox News.
I mean do you think there's any chance?
Like who are the remaining Democrats
that would make someone like
you say you're a Democrat?
Or forget the people,
although you're welcome to tell me some,
what are the Democratic policies
that actually make any sense anymore?
- So if you look at, if
you believe Gallup polling,
so about 15% of Democrats
are conservative Democrats,
are identified as conservative Democrats.
35 say they're moderate, 50%
say liberal, progressive.
So there is clearly a
split within the party.
I think what you're seeing now
in place like Iowa and New Hampshire
and South Carolina and Nevada
and some of that polling,
Biden's still got the pole position.
But clearly if you look at Bernie Sanders
and to somewhat of a lesser
extent Elizabeth Warren,
that wing of the party's strong.
And so what happens in this primary season
I think will set the temperature
in the direction for the party
for many, many years to come.
And that's why you're seeing
people like Ocasio-Cortez
just yesterday saying in an interview
that she can't believe that she
and Biden are both part of the same party.
- [Dave] 'Cause that
was the plan all along.
- She's not a Democrat.
Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat.
They're Democratic
Socialists which of course,
as you have, they're gonna
drop the democratic part
at some point.
- Yeah, the D word's
goin' down.
- Although North Korea's
calls themselves the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea.
So there is a branding
exercise there, right?
- It's just pure branding, okay.
- It's really, there's some
chutzpah happening right now
within the socialist wing of the party,
basically saying that they are the party.
So that's fight's gonna continue 2020.
Let's see what happens.
My personal hope and I hate to say this,
but my person hope is that we
elect some crazy progressive,
elect Bernie Sanders right,
then the American people
have a very clear distinction
for whom they should choose.
What should the future
of the country look like?
Is it the Bernie Sanders
and the Green New Deals
and the free everything that
nobody can pay for, right,
and that's absurd?
- Plus all the racism.
(both men talking at the same time)
- So is that who we wanna become?
And if it's not, then you
have to look to the other guy,
'cause you only have two choices.
- But do you think there's any mechanism
and this is the thought that
I've really been stuck on
for the last couple months,
like is there mechanism
that liberals have,
I mean good liberals, so like
an old school Democrat has,
to fight off the bad thing?
Because we're just watching
all of them be pinned one at a time.
You know what I mean?
Like Biden was brought in
to be the straight shooter
and the decent guy and
the old school Democrat.
Now he's telling you you
can pick which prison
you wanna go to depending on what gender
you identify with.
- And learn how to code
coal miners.
- He literally, I mean--
- Yeah.
- Learn how to code
coal miners and then his other thing
the other day about--
- So much for Western PA Joe.
Yeah.
- But, but, oh I thought
you were gonna say,
'cause he had this other
thing the other day about...
Basically he said we're
a European culture,
not some culture that's
imported from Africa.
And it's like, um, I
thought that's what...
Isn't that what...
But he was brought in to be the,
and that's what I'm saying,
like there's no mechanism
for a decent Democrat anymore.
There's no vehicle for it anymore.
- No there's not right?
Because at some level you
would hope that the media
or people within The Washington Post,
the New York Times,
the CNNs and the MSNBCs
that they would have some of
their more sensible voices
and calling out the
people like Ocasio-Cortez
and Bernie Sanders saying,
they're not real Democrats.
Let's talk about they
strategy document from 2012
that talks about Marx and Lenin
and taking over the economy.
Like let's talk about who they are
versus the Joy Behars of The View of like
she's super awesome,
you know and Rachel Maddow of like
boy she's an impressive gal.
Like what is happening?
Like I don't care that
she can dance really
fun on roof in Boston, like
that's stupid viral video.
Like, that's not important.
The fact that she wants to encourage
the United States government
to take over the means of
production in this country,
via socialism.
- Problematic would you say?
- Yeah, right?
Let's up end it and let's
pass the New Green Deal,
which we could never afford
and oh by the way isn't
actually going to be effective.
So let's slaughter all the
cows because of the cow farts.
Okay, super.
You are aware that China and India
their combined CO2 and methane emissions,
would far and do far eclipse everything
the United States and
European union could ever do
in terms of their horrific pollution.
So you can kill all the cows you want,
but until you address the
India and China problem,
this is silly, this is
a silly conversation.
And the only reasonable people
in this conversation right now,
shockingly enough, are Republicans.
It's the Dan Crenshaws who are like,
yeah look CO2 and methane,
it's real, like it's happening
and we need to focus on
R and D related issues
that scrub the stuff
out of the environment
and that's what we need to be doing,
versus knocking down every
house and rebuilding it,
killing all the farting cows.
If you're gonna kill farty
people, what about Swalwell?
I mean he goes on TV and farts,
like what about that guy?
You know.
- Yeah that was
the biggest fart of 2019.
- That was an amazing
series of flatulence.
(both men talking at the same time)
- Right he actually, no, no, no,
they said it was cup--
- Right, right.
- Move his cup on the table.
- Sure, sure.
I use that excuse too.
- Yeah, yeah.
So all right, if they go down that road
and then okay now Bernie,
let's just say it's Bernie
'cause that's the easier answer here.
Bernie ends up gettin' crushed
and then we have round two of Trump.
Do you think there's a chance
they actually recalibrate
and look in the mirror and do it?
I mean Trump's president now.
- Right.
- At every moment, and this
is where my frustration lies,
where there've been every moment,
when those road blocks have come
of like guys let's take the look,
they always just plow right through
and I sense that's exactly
what they're gonna do.
I sense that's what they're
gonna do in the UK now.
Like it just, it doesn't stop.
It doesn't stop.
- The question is, are we at the point
where leftism is so broken
that we double down,
so we have our Mondale moment
and we're just gonna go with Dukakis?
Or are we at the Bill Clinton '92 moment
where the powers that be in
the Democratic party say,
okay, we dipped our toes
in the crazy waters,
let's do something different now?
And I think that we are
more at our '84 moment
and I think that we are
gonna double down on stupid
because I think that
the fever is too strong.
Look Tom Perez at DNC
said that Ocasio-Cortez
is the future of the party.
Barack Obama endorsed
her during her election.
He's now endorsed Medicare for All.
I mean this is man who at the
same time also talks about
we need to not go too far to the left.
Well then why the holy hell
are you endorsing socialists?
- He plays it both sides.
Every other week he comes out
with something that sounds
you know oh we shouldn't judge people
by the color of their
skin, and then (laughs)
Britain should rule the world.
And it's like come on man, pick a side.
- So we are in the middle of silly season
and it's not just...
Why is this important?
Right so this conversation
about where is the left today,
why should we really care?
The people who are watching this,
who are Republicans or Libertarians,
and they're like yeah, screw you asshole.
- Well they keep beating on me.
They keep saying Dave stop
givin' them the hints.
- Right, right.
But here's what I would say to them
and this is what I would say to any of us
who are tired of the left's silliness,
but well we'll just all vote for Trump.
We are not China with one party.
We are not North Korea
with one dear leader.
A republic, a true democracy
requires vibrant parties
to combat each other, to fight
with each other rhetorically
to provide different
solutions to problems.
So you need a vibrant political class
to have these conversations.
Because at the end of the day,
this is so important 'cause
who else is going to lead
humanity for the next number of years,
for the next century.
It's not going to be China.
And it's not gonna be Russia
and God forbid if either
of those two nations
are leading humanity.
- And so is that the irony here
that when people want us
to pull out of everything
and I get that my Libertarian
side really feels that,
and why are we giving
all these countries money
and if you told me right now
we were gonna cut foreign
aid 25% across the board,
I'd probably be for it.
I don't know all of the ramifications
of all of those things,
and I'm sure that--
- We could talk about
foreign aid too.
- Yeah, yeah.
All right, so let's talk about it then,
but like, so like that
part of me really exists.
But then it's like, it's
not just that we pull back
and then things would just keep operating.
It's like well somebody's gonna step in.
- Correct.
- And who do we wanna step in?
So as imperfect as we are, I
kind would rather it be us.
It's just our sort Faustian bargain
with the universe or something.
- Well so, look from a
foreign policy perspective,
you know people talk
about what's our strategy,
what's our strategy?
Well we wanna create more democracies
and then we want to try
to stop or slow down
or bog down the parties who
would stop us, humanity,
from reaching that point
of greater liberty.
Right, because that is
ultimately the goal.
And we are the torchbearers
of that legacy.
It is our responsibility.
- When you say that,
you hit on this earlier,
but when you say that,
the idea that we're
giving them more liberty
and we want more democracy,
'cause democracies don't get into wars
with each other.
- Right.
- It's not purely, like
when people say that,
you wanna spread democracy,
there's somehow it means this sort of
financial thing or capitalist thing,
but it actually is,
I mean I don't know if you
read "Virtue in Nationalism"
by Yoram Hazony, it's like,
strong nations actually,
strong democratic nations,
that's what actually brings peace.
- Correct, absolutely.
And this has been, again,
foreign policy 101.
This has been a profound goal of most
United States Presidents
and their administrations.
So yes we have to be involved
and engaged in different
parts of the world
where it suits our interests,
particularly whether it
be economic and so forth.
And again this is the Trump's
like what are we gettin'?
Give us your oil stuff, right?
He's using crass language
but the request is fair.
But in places where China or Russia
that don't represent the
future of humanity in the way
that I think you and I
would want all of us to be,
like they're underwriting corrupt regimes
all over the world.
Certainly China, definitely
in places like Africa.
What can we do to slow down
their reach and their power,
because that is important,
without committing a ton of our resources,
our people, and our
treasure to that, right?
And then it becomes sort
of a strategic engagement
or withdrawal from different
parts of the world,
because often times is aid
really the end of the day,
we're paying people off
to keep the Russians out,
the Chinese out, to try
to keep it a low boil,
but not encouraging corruption.
So that can be a very
difficult thing to balance.
But I will tell you--
- Right you're probably
gonna get a lotta corruption
just as a result of it.
- You're going to get...
Correct, so you have to
constantly keep a pulse on that.
So it's not easy to do this.
But I will tell you, I've
seen these aid projects
in places like say in Zambia,
where we're giving them all this money.
For instance for some of the tribes
we're giving them lots of
money to build fish ponds
and yet you've got the world,
these other NGOs coming
in and delivering food
and so all the fish die
and the ponds go dry.
But it's like well of course,
because you're just giving people food.
They're not gonna schlep
out in this terrible heat
and like work, of course they're not.
So sometimes we do things
that are silly with our aid.
But the broader point,
the most important thing
that we have to remember from
a foreign policy perspective
is we're trying to
create more democracies.
That's gonna be a long loop process.
It is not gonna happen
by the barrel of a gun
and it's not gonna happen tomorrow.
So let's have some patience.
And then where we are
engaged in the world,
especially when it comes to our military,
damn right there better be something
that the American people
are getting in return,
because it can't be this constant outlay.
And that's what I think you're seeing,
guys like Tucker Carlson and others be
very reluctant about continued engagement
in the Middle East.
So change your energy
policy, make them irrelevant
and now you can march forward.
- You know it's interesting
that you bring up Tucker there
because I see this sort of split now
where Trump did the strike in Iran
and now suddenly Tucker
said well this is gonna
lead us to World War III.
Trump's kinda just like everybody else.
- Yeah.
- And I like Tucker very much, obviously.
But I thought well everyone's
sorta jumpin' all over that,
ah see this horrible
split that's occurred,
and oh my God.
- Right.
- To me it's like this is great.
- Right.
- What a great debate is
happening on the right, right now.
- Right.
- You know can you do a strike?
Does that lead to World War III?
Like what a beautiful thing.
It's like where would that
happen on the left these days
without someone being just
completely slaughtered
in the crossfire.
- Well let's talk about what
the Democratic party has done
the last three to six months about these,
so in terms of foreign engagement.
So Trump wants to withdraw Syria,
and you know he's an idiot, right?
- Remember that conversation.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And now he's sending people into Iraq
and well now he's an idiot.
Well what is it?
What do you guys want?
What is your strategy on the left?
I mean I would love to hear that.
I mean we know what Joe Biden likes to do
in terms of some of his
foreign policy stuff.
He's been wrong more
times than he's been right
and sends his kid and
blesses his engagement
with the corrupt Ukraine
oligarch and take a
truckload of money.
- Oh let's, let's...
Can we just finish with that actually?
That's the right way to finish.
I meant to get to it before
when we did the Russia stuff.
So the Ukraine stuff and
impeachment and everything else.
Is the basic takeaway here,
beyond the obvious
stuff that everyone sees
on the headlines, like how insane it was
that Hunter Biden's getting,
what was it 50 grand a month?
60, 80 grand a month?
- Sure whatever the amount is
it's absurd and unacceptable.
- Something insane
to work for an energy company
he had no expertise in,
blah, blah, blah.
His dad happened to be
vice-president, okay.
That what it seems that this all hinges
on the idea that if
Trump felt legitimately
that there was corruption,
which there clearly was.
Like nobody's really debating whether
something seriously corrupt was going on.
- Jake Tapper's admitted
this on his program.
Love it.
- Jake is like 50, 50.
It's like one day I'm like
Jake you get it, the next day
he just doesn't get it.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's crazy.
- It's CNN.
- Bless his heart.
- It's a mind virus.
But it seems that it all hinges
on the idea that if
Trump genuinely believed
that there was corruption,
and I think every sane person believes
that there was corruption--
- Correct.
- Then he had the,
is authorization the right--
- The obligation.
- Or the obligation--
- Absolutely.
- To actually do something about it.
Is that, is that, did I
get this thing kinda right?
- Yes, right, and if you look at polling,
even I think it's some 40
odd percent of Democrats
actually think that what
the Bidens did was wrong
and deserves a degree of scrutiny.
So you've got a good chunk of the party,
darn near half that think that
and of course independents and Republicans
are fully on board with that.
So that's the fundamental problem
with this impeachment push.
If there was nothing there,
if the Bidens did
absolutely nothing wrong,
then of course Trump would have been
absolutely, horrifically wrong
to ask them to get
involved in our politics,
or try to knee cap Biden
or any other person.
But that's not the case.
We know unquestionably,
just based on what we know
from press reports and from,
we now have testimony by
Obama administration diplomat
that as early as 2015, they
were raising the flag in Kiev,
saying hey look what the Biden kid's doin'
is undercutting our ability
to fight corruption in Ukraine
and they were told to
basically shut the hell up.
- Well what about that incredible video
of Biden just admitting the whole thing.
- Well... (exhales loudly)
- Why doesn't that--
- It's all a scam.
It's all a joke, it's all a scam
and this is when I wanna like,
I wanna channel--
- They're like
it's so ridiculous, let's
just put it out there.
- Yeah, this is when like I
wanna channel my inner Trump.
And then be like it's a
witch hunt, it's all a scam.
You know, because it is, it's silly.
The Bidens did things that
were inappropriate and wrong.
And they should have been investigated
whether it be by the Ukrainians,
whether it be by our
Department of Justice, or both,
it's absolutely, enough
is there for us to say
that was wrong and it
should be investigated.
And the fact that the
president's being called
on the carpet for this and
impeached over his demand
to look into it, I think is absurd.
Put in committee, investigate
at the end of the day,
but to actually launch an impeachment
and put this country through
something that is just silly,
it's absolutely horrifically wrong
of the Democratic party and
shame on Pelosi and Schumer
and the legacy of the past five, 10 years
for what has happened under
the progressive leadership.
I think you are going
to look back and say,
what a sorrowful time for this country.
- Well congratulations,
'cause as a Democrat
that thinks Trump has to be re-elected
to get this thing to reset,
I'm pretty sure if you
ever wanted to fire up
the Trump base you just did it
with a partisan impeachment.
But what do you make of now the fact that
they're not even sending
this to the Senate?
So they do a completely
partisan impeachment, right,
completely partisan.
- Trump, Trump
is a Nazi guy, right,
I mean he's Hitler.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- So we were all living in--
- Well we better hold on this.
- No right but--
- Let's hold on the paperwork.
- We are living in Nazi Germany,
the equivalent of modern day, right?
We're putting kids in cages
and Trump is Hitler, right?
But you know what, let's
sit back for a while.
Let's sit back on this impeachment stuff
for just a little bit.
Let's think about this for,
like go to hell, that's just absurd.
And it defies logic, it defies reason.
If you're gonna move forward,
you better have the facts,
and then let the American
people make the call.
- Have you heard the crazy theory
that she's gonna sit on it long enough,
that Pelosi will sit on it long enough
so that, assuming Trump gets reelected,
but maybe something happens in the Senate,
more favorably to the Democrats
then you move on it then.
I mean truly insanity.
- Well if that's
the strategy--
- And it's like, maybe.
- I mean if that's Pelosi's long game,
I'll tell you what, I think she's gonna be
disappointed come next November.
Because in doing that,
she'd look flippin' absurd
that most reasonable voters say,
these folks aren't serious.
They're not being adults right now.
You can have differences
with the administration,
with Trump in terms of his temperament,
in terms of some of his
policies, that's fine,
make the case, but this kind of stuff,
either if may, shit or
get off the pot, right?
Move the impeachment forward
and move him out of office,
let the Senate judge,
and if they don't, tough.
You've done your House, move on.
Now make the case to the American people.
- I think you've proven why I consider you
one of the few sane
people on Twitter here.
So I'm gonna tell the good
people to follow you on Twitter.
It's Bryan B-R-Y-A-N
Dean D-E-A-N W-R-I-G-H-T.
Thanks for coming in.
We're gonna have to do this again.
- [Bryan] Can't wait.
- Once you move, once
you officially are like,
left done, Democrat (mumbles).
- Hangin' by some nails brother.
- @bryandeanwright on Twitter.
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