The Great America Show - FEWER GENERALS MORE WINS

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and welcome to The Great America Show. Thanks for being

00:00:08.120 with us on this beautiful day in America. A lot going on this week. The Biden regime

00:00:14.000 is in an uproar, as they should be, appointing David Weiss, the very same U.S. attorney who

00:00:19.680 sold out any sense of integrity, to give Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal that would have been

00:00:25.240 unprecedented. Weiss and the Bidens ran into an honest judge, and she blew up what would have 0.99

00:00:32.120 been the most amazing immunity deal in American history, a get-out-of-jail card for anything that

00:00:38.860 Hunter chose to do in perpetuity. Federal Judge Mary Ellen Noreka didn't go for it, especially 0.99

00:00:46.040 after Weiss took five years to investigate Hunter's crimes, drug, gun laws, and he forgot to pay his

00:00:54.040 taxes for years. And Weiss let the statute of limitations run out on his most serious charges,

00:01:00.780 and now the Republicans must decide whether they will end the corrupt Biden regime or let Biden's

00:01:07.080 corruption prevail. Speaker McCarthy, in my judgment, should call the Congress back into session

00:01:13.180 immediately and vote on impeachment, which the American people should demand. The evidence of

00:01:20.540 these crimes, the vast, widespread corruption, the massive cover-ups are already overwhelming and a

00:01:28.480 disgrace to the Marxist-dem party and deep state that lied, cheated, and stole to put this impaired, 0.74

00:01:36.860 compromised, and crooked puppet president in the Oval Office. A leading Republican wants Biden out of

00:01:43.700 that office that Biden has disgraced. Congressman Greg Stubbe of Florida filed the articles of

00:01:49.600 impeachment against Biden for high crimes and misdemeanors. He cites bribery, extortion, obstruction

00:01:56.440 of justice, fraud, and financial involvement in drugs and prostitution. I believe House Speaker Kevin

00:02:03.920 McCarthy should follow Stubbe's lead and the entire conference as well. The Dems and deep state have 0.91

00:02:11.760 politically persecuted President Trump to cover their own vast corruption and outright crimes.

00:02:17.920 What looks like a dying gasp for the Biden regime, the appointment of David Weiss to be special

00:02:24.580 counsel on the Hunter Biden investigation has Hunter's Marxist Dem attorney complaining. At least for

00:02:32.820 appearance's sake, attorney Abby Lowell appeared on Face the Nation and said after a five-year investigation

00:02:40.200 of his client, David Weiss is now using things other than, quote, the facts and the law, in quote,

00:02:48.180 to investigate Hunter. One of the things that Judge Mary Ellen Noreka brought up in court that day

00:02:54.520 was she said the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, she asked specifically whether that would be

00:03:03.420 handled within the scope of this deal. Is your client being investigated for that?

00:03:09.680 Our client has been investigated in a five-year, long, thorough, painstaking investigation for every

00:03:16.500 transaction that he was involved in. But she specifically asked if immunity would cover that.

00:03:21.300 But you asked me whether or not that has been part of the investigation. And after five years and what

00:03:25.280 we know happened in the grand jury, of course that had to be part of what the prosecutor has already

00:03:29.860 looked at, as well as every other false allegation made by the right-wing media and others, whether

00:03:35.680 it's corruption or FARA or money laundering, that was part of what this prosecutor office had to have

00:03:43.020 been looking over for five years. I can assure you that five years concluded that the only two charges

00:03:49.900 that made sense were two misdemeanors for failing to file like millions of Americans do, and a diverted

00:03:55.300 gun charge for the 11 days that Hunter possessed a gun. Everything else had been thoroughly looked

00:04:01.200 at. So is that possible that they're going to revisit it? Let me answer it one way. If the now

00:04:07.920 special counsel decides not to go by the deal, then it will mean that he or they decided that something

00:04:14.480 other than the facts and the law are coming into play. It's clear, isn't it, that Abby Lowell has fallen

00:04:19.680 to the weight of so much left-wing lawyer privilege. Lowell says the reason Hunter Biden's sweetheart

00:04:26.420 deal fell apart was because there was a, quote, fundamental disagreement and the prosecutors are

00:04:33.280 incompetent, end quote. How could there be such a fundamental disagreement on this issue of how broad

00:04:40.160 immunity would be for your client? Because that's what I understand it came down to in that transcript

00:04:47.280 from July. It did come down to fundamentally that, and then a couple of issues as to what a judge's

00:04:52.200 rule could be in the proceedings that the prosecutors wrote the documents for. And how could it happen?

00:04:57.540 I gave you the three possibilities. They wrote the language. They insisted on that language. 0.96

00:05:02.500 They insisted on two different documents. With the understanding that it would be broad immunity.

00:05:06.900 With our understanding that it would be broad immunity. And the language, as the judge pointed out,

00:05:11.260 is a very broad phrase. It says, encompassing all the facts that were in the document that sets out the

00:05:18.160 transactions. So what happened is one of three possibilities. And I, again, point out that no good defense

00:05:24.800 attorney, and Mr. Biden had quite a few of them, would allow somebody to do a misdemeanor on a Monday

00:05:30.880 thinking that three days later there could be a felony. Are you saying that the government prosecutors

00:05:35.240 are incompetent? I'm saying there's one of three possibilities. And that was one of them, is what

00:05:39.460 your suggestions? I wouldn't say, I didn't use that word, you did. I said that they changed their

00:05:43.320 decision on the fly, standing up in court. Lowell seems to be mightily upset that the sweetheart deal

00:05:49.360 blew up in their faces, which should have happened long ago. Congressman James Comer, the chairman of

00:05:55.740 the House Oversight Committee, the committee investigating the Biden crime family, and the

00:06:00.900 president of the United States, says he's seen enough, he's ready to subpoena President Biden's

00:06:06.940 personal phone and bank records and says he will start giving out immunity for witnesses to testify.

00:06:13.260 Here is the chairman talking with John Solomon on just the news.

00:06:16.840 We are ready now to be able to subpoena the personal bank records of the Biden. What we've got

00:06:23.560 now are their shady shell companies. Now we need the personal records because when we show those arrows,

00:06:28.180 when we show that chart that shows China and Romania and Russia and the arrows going to shell

00:06:34.900 companies and then to the Biden family, we think there may be another era beyond the Biden family,

00:06:40.500 and that would go to Joe Biden himself. And that's what people have told us. That's what the emails

00:06:46.300 suggest. And that's what we're trying to determine now. And that's where our investigation is headed.

00:06:50.940 And Marxist Fulton County DA Fannie Willis is set to present her case before a grand jury next week. 0.96

00:06:58.440 Willis is part of the Marxist-dim parties' orchestrated persecutions of President Trump,

00:07:03.880 claiming Trump had no right to protest the crooked 2020 election in Georgia.

00:07:09.360 It's also part of the plan to cover up the Democrat Party and Deep State's role in stealing that election,

00:07:16.180 which is now clear as day. Willis is looking to bring a RICO case against the former president.

00:07:22.980 A RICO case is for racketeer, influenced and corrupt organization.

00:07:27.840 It is more than unclear how Willis would be able to make that stand in a court of law.

00:07:34.140 But at the same time, Marxist special counsel, Jack Smith, has charged President Trump with almost 40 absurd charges.

00:07:43.040 Our guest today worked as a former national security advisor to Mike Pence for almost three years

00:07:48.580 and has just come out to endorse President Trump.

00:07:51.520 Citing many flaws of Vice President Mike Pence,

00:07:55.380 he's with us today to tell us why he chose Trump over Pence for the 2024 nomination.

00:08:01.400 Joining us is General Keith Kellogg, former national security advisor to Mike Pence,

00:08:06.700 working closely with the president in his campaign and in the White House and the entire national security team.

00:08:13.480 Keith, it's great to have you back with us here on The Great America Show.

00:08:17.400 I really appreciate you having me on.

00:08:19.320 Let's turn to all the stir that you've created in political land when you endorsed President Trump

00:08:28.840 and put together, I just think, one of the most eloquent tributes to the president's leadership

00:08:37.460 that I've seen in this cycle, certainly.

00:08:42.060 Give us the background and the reason that you felt compelled to do it.

00:08:46.540 Yeah, Lou, well, you know, there's a lot of people in the land out there that think that

00:08:53.060 because I was Vice President Mike Pence's national security advisor, as a Mike Pence guy,

00:08:57.900 I reminded everybody that, no, I've been with Donald J. Trump since 2015.

00:09:02.100 I was there at the first, you know, campaign we started.

00:09:04.740 I've always been with Donald J. Trump.

00:09:06.440 You know, and when I had the opportunity, I think there was, what, 13 different candidates at the time

00:09:11.160 running for the Republican nomination, there was only one guy that I really liked when I started,

00:09:16.540 sat down and talked with him, and I really enjoyed it, and I got to know him personally,

00:09:20.400 not just professionally.

00:09:21.540 And I've got a real like for him, both, again, personally and professionally.

00:09:28.220 So when you started seeing all the campaign stuff start to kick in right now,

00:09:35.060 there were a lot of people saying, well, okay, you know, we see you on the news networks, on Fox News,

00:09:40.820 and the chyron says national security advisor to Vice President Pence.

00:09:44.740 And I said, yeah, I just wanted to clear the battlefield up.

00:09:47.760 I said, okay, let me just make it sure, absolutely clear, that there is one guy that I've always been with,

00:09:53.120 one that I'm going to be with, and I want to make it very clear who I'm going to, you know,

00:09:58.480 march down this path in the political lane for the next year, year and a half.

00:10:03.920 So it's sort of like clearing the air.

00:10:05.540 That's all I wanted to do.

00:10:06.500 Boy, it really did clear the air.

00:10:08.000 Like, okay, it got it out there.

00:10:10.440 But it was just an honest statement.

00:10:12.440 I sat down and wrote it.

00:10:13.260 And nobody asked me to do it.

00:10:14.980 I just said, I just want to make sure that it's clear so there's no questions.

00:10:18.660 Because very honestly, Lou, there have been a couple other candidates out there, and I won't name them,

00:10:23.420 but I picked up the phone.

00:10:24.480 There were advisors who picked the phone and said, hey, look, would you support us?

00:10:27.140 Would you do this?

00:10:27.760 And I said, you know, I just want to put a stake in the heart of everything and say, this is where I'm at.

00:10:33.380 Leave me alone.

00:10:34.040 I know where I want to be.

00:10:35.420 Well, your loyalty to President Trump is commendable and I know heartfelt.

00:10:40.420 I want to just share with the audience a couple of things that you said, a number of things.

00:10:46.280 While President, and I'm quoting General Kellogg here,

00:10:49.680 while President Trump has consistently put America first, prioritizing our citizens, our economy, and global standing,

00:10:57.240 Pence's actions have often seemed more focused on political maneuvering and maintaining his image.

00:11:02.620 That is not what Republican voters want.

00:11:06.020 President Trump's dedication to the prosperity and security of the United States is unwavering,

00:11:11.060 as is his vision for the future.

00:11:13.580 I think that is just an extraordinary statement.

00:11:17.180 It is clear.

00:11:18.660 It is powerful.

00:11:21.320 And it is absolutely what most of us think about President Trump.

00:11:27.120 Give us your thoughts on the background for that particular paragraph.

00:11:33.840 Yeah.

00:11:34.140 You know, Lou, when I first started with Donald J. Trump, you know, went up to Trump Tower,

00:11:39.520 and we actually sat down the first time I interviewed him.

00:11:41.720 And by the way, when he hired me, I think the reason he hired me, he asked me how much it was going to cost him.

00:11:45.780 And I said, nothing is going to be like pro bono, because I don't know if you're going to like me.

00:11:49.120 You don't like, you know, if I'm going to like you, like me.

00:11:51.120 And he said, you're hired.

00:11:52.020 I said, I think he did it because I was cheap.

00:11:53.500 You know, he's easy to do so.

00:11:56.640 And I reminded a lot of people that, you know, my experience with Donald J. Trump,

00:12:01.680 he's really not a Republican.

00:12:03.040 He's really not a Democrat.

00:12:04.200 He's a populist.

00:12:05.460 And what I mean by that, he's taken the Constitution and he's looked at it and he said,

00:12:11.040 you know, when you look at we the people, and he really does focus in on people,

00:12:16.160 and he's not a political animal at all.

00:12:17.820 In fact, a lot of, he never even spent the night in Washington, D.C. until he, you know, became an elected official.

00:12:26.520 He even never ran for any public office before.

00:12:30.260 So what I liked about him is he was somebody that said the most important thing about running for office is focusing on the American people and what's important for them.

00:12:40.520 And it's not a political lane.

00:12:42.740 It's not a Republican lane.

00:12:43.860 It's not a Democratic lane.

00:12:45.100 And he was really, he was able to clear his, you know, clear his mind and really focus in.

00:12:50.320 And a lot of people are politicians.

00:12:52.700 And he's not that.

00:12:54.080 I've really noticed that.

00:12:55.280 Now, he's in the political lane now.

00:12:57.080 But his instincts are absolutely incredible.

00:12:59.120 And when I first started to know him, in fact, my daughter, you know, I wrote a book after I came out of the White House.

00:13:04.620 But then my daughter said what she should have named it is Behind Closed Doors.

00:13:08.640 But he said, I got to know him on a personal level and what he really wanted to do.

00:13:11.380 Now, I will tell you, when the Klieg lights came on, it was a different person.

00:13:14.060 You know, the first time I ever saw him, I said, well, who's that guy?

00:13:17.800 But that's what I wanted to make sure people understood, that this is, he's a different type of person.

00:13:23.980 He really does care for the American people.

00:13:26.480 So I got to give you a real quick story.

00:13:30.040 During the middle of COVID, we were sitting in the Oval Office and I was just talking to him.

00:13:34.640 You know, it's kind of a couple of guys sitting around talking.

00:13:36.920 And he looked at me and he goes, you know, I just want people to get better.

00:13:41.220 And I said, stop right there.

00:13:42.560 Let's go out and tell the press just what you said.

00:13:44.280 He said, no, no, it can show weakness.

00:13:45.880 Oh, God, here we go.

00:13:47.560 But the point is, he really did care about the American people.

00:13:50.560 And that's what I mean.

00:13:52.060 It was almost he really wasn't a politician.

00:13:54.260 And I wanted to make sure people knew that because everybody else that was surrounded him in the White House, that was of a political nature.

00:14:02.680 And I mean, everybody, they thought of politics and they thought of policies, how it affected either party.

00:14:10.200 And he didn't.

00:14:10.700 He just wanted to say the first party I'm supporting is the American people.

00:14:13.780 So that was my kind of way in shorthand of saying that's what this guy is.

00:14:19.560 It is who he is.

00:14:21.760 I've had the fortune to spend a little time with the president.

00:14:25.200 I consider him a friend.

00:14:27.040 And the greatest president, certainly Abraham Lincoln.

00:14:31.520 And I can't find a single person who would argue that he wasn't absolutely honest with the American people about who and what he meant to do.

00:14:43.140 Yeah, I mean, it was very clear.

00:14:44.940 And I would remind people, if you really want to know what Donald Trump is like, go back and read his books.

00:14:51.200 Read his book, Crippled America. 0.96

00:14:52.620 Read his book, Art of the Deal.

00:14:54.360 There's no secret to him.

00:14:55.620 I mean, he said what he's going to do.

00:14:57.400 He's been very open about it and what he wants to do.

00:15:01.000 And it's out there.

00:15:01.840 He's been very, very consistent from what he said years and years ago until the policies he's trying to make work now.

00:15:14.460 And I really admired him in that regard because he was very consistent on what he did.

00:15:19.900 And he stayed very, very steady with his policies.

00:15:22.660 And it was from international to domestic as well.

00:15:25.660 And, I mean, you can even go back and watch him on newscasts when he was on certain news stations being interviewed.

00:15:31.900 And he would always say the same thing.

00:15:33.400 And I said, boy, there's one thing you find with him, and I used that word before, it was consistency.

00:15:38.580 And he's been there.

00:15:39.680 And I think it's really an admirable trait that he's got.

00:15:43.160 And it would have made it easy for people like me to realize where we were coming from in the national security sector.

00:15:49.600 And I'd remind everybody, first of all, it's transactional.

00:15:53.460 Well, you have to understand we go into anything with national security.

00:15:56.200 And I said, what do you mean transactional?

00:15:57.780 I said, what it means is what's good for America comes first.

00:16:00.800 That's going to be the deal.

00:16:01.960 And when these foreign leaders would come in and sit with him in the cabinet room, the first question out of his mouth was always, what's our trade balance, our trade deficit with you?

00:16:10.400 And so he looked at the world from an economic view first.

00:16:13.120 What's good for America?

00:16:14.760 And, oh, by the way, I told people, in fact, I told the president this one time.

00:16:18.340 I said, you know, there's a pretty good professor at Yale called, his name is Professor Kennedy.

00:16:23.620 And he wrote a book, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers from 1500 to Lede.

00:16:27.540 And I said, Paul Kennedy.

00:16:29.300 And I said, you know, it seems like you've read his book.

00:16:34.640 And he goes, I don't even know who this guy is.

00:16:36.120 I said, well, bottom line, he said, great nations fall because of what's called strategic overreach.

00:16:41.120 He called it imperial overreach.

00:16:42.800 I called it strategic overreach.

00:16:44.160 And they said, you just pay more money outside of the country than you do inside of the country.

00:16:48.580 He started laughing.

00:16:49.360 He said, well, I put some of that money at LaGuardia in the airport because the undercarriage of my airplane gets damaged every time I land there.

00:16:56.140 And I said, well, that's kind of the whole attitude Kennedy's was you spend the money home, you don't spend it abroad.

00:17:02.860 And that was kind of his philosophy.

00:17:04.820 And, again, as long as you understand Donald J.

00:17:06.900 Trump came from an economic baseline and what's good for America economically and then extend it from there, you were in good shape.

00:17:14.120 But if you didn't understand that, you didn't read the guy at all.

00:17:17.600 And you didn't understand his instincts because he's been very, very, you know, this is the fourth time I've said it.

00:17:22.200 He's very consistent in what he's done.

00:17:23.700 There is no doubt President Trump is a man of constancy and strength.

00:17:28.760 And we're going to be talking more about Trump.

00:17:31.980 We're going to talk about a fellow named Biden as well.

00:17:34.860 We're talking with General Keith Kellogg, former National Security Advisor to President Trump and to Vice President Pence as well.

00:17:43.360 Stay with us.

00:17:43.980 We're coming right back.

00:17:50.880 We're back talking with General Keith Kellogg.

00:17:53.160 Now, Keith, I want to turn to the military appropriately, I would think.

00:17:59.400 What I'm watching in the Pentagon is a complete unmitigated disaster.

00:18:05.500 I just want to get that out of the way.

00:18:07.000 I cannot believe that the military has turned over the value structure, the culture of our military to transgender affirmation, to wokeness, to all of this politically correct madness. 0.98

00:18:23.700 And I think it's clearly at the expense of readiness and lethality and just simple good old military, good military order.

00:18:34.200 Your thoughts?

00:18:34.740 Yeah, you're probably, Lou, honestly, understating the problem.

00:18:39.140 It's really pretty bad.

00:18:40.800 And I think you see that in the fact that all the military services, except for the Marine Corps, cannot meet their recruiting goals because people don't want to come into the military because they see where their military is going.

00:18:52.400 Somebody actually – and now, I have a daughter who served.

00:18:58.060 I have a son who served.

00:18:59.800 Both of them went to West Point.

00:19:01.400 And I have a son-in-law who's still in.

00:19:04.000 And somebody asked me a question the other day.

00:19:05.700 Would you recommend young men and women join the military today?

00:19:08.260 And I said, no.

00:19:09.440 And it was a stunned silence.

00:19:11.100 I said, look, the role of the military is quite clear.

00:19:14.780 It's to deter.

00:19:15.960 And if deterrence fails, fight and win our nation's wars.

00:19:18.560 It's not everything else that you're hearing about.

00:19:20.920 And if you focus on something other than that, you're not going to get the great young men and women to come into the military that are going to be willing to put their lives on the line and stand at the gates and repel the barbarians.

00:19:33.400 And it's all based off leadership.

00:19:35.740 It's not the young men and women who come in or are serving.

00:19:38.480 It's the senior leaders that you have that have basically forgotten their way, the importance of the military and warfighting.

00:19:45.960 And I think there's going to have to be a real restructure of leadership in the next administration if they look at it hard, let's say a Republican administration, on how they're going to have to restructure the Defense Department and how they approach the military because I think they've lost their way.

00:19:59.560 And everything emanates from the leadership.

00:20:01.460 And it just flows down.

00:20:03.660 And my youngest son who got out, he said, Dad, let me give you an example.

00:20:08.480 He spent nine months overseas on a deployment to Lithuania with a major U.S. unit.

00:20:16.200 He gets off the airplane after nine months.

00:20:18.200 And the first class he has to conduct, the morning after they get back, is on pronouns.

00:20:26.420 And I said, what?

00:20:28.020 Let me get this one right.

00:20:29.020 He said, no, Dad, I'm telling you, this is just kind of the way it is.

00:20:31.640 And he said, I'm done with it.

00:20:33.000 He said, after eight years in the military, I loved it, but I'm going to do something different in life.

00:20:37.800 And because of that, it just has permeated the military.

00:20:40.640 And we're going to have to take a hard look.

00:20:42.840 And I go back to what George C. Marshall did in 1939 and also what Bob Gates tried to do in the 80s and 90s is basically do a restructure or purge.

00:20:54.340 And I use that word.

00:20:56.260 It's a strong word, and I use it advisedly.

00:20:58.780 Purge the senior military leadership and say until we get the right people there.

00:21:02.220 You know, people forget that when you get in the military, you get promoted.

00:21:05.420 You're promoted by merit up to two stars.

00:21:07.480 And after that, when you're three and four stars, you're politically selected individually.

00:21:12.260 And I think maybe we need to sit down and look really hard at who's leading our military and their thought process.

00:21:18.260 We've accepted the fact that we lost a 20-year war in Afghanistan.

00:21:22.020 There's been no accountability for that, Lou.

00:21:24.020 Nobody's ever talked about how did we get there, how did it then, what happened.

00:21:28.140 We talked about the debacle three years ago and getting out of Kabul.

00:21:31.000 And then you look at the same thing happening right now with the extension of what we're trying to do with Ukraine and the money we're spending there.

00:21:37.520 And there's no accountability there.

00:21:39.380 There's no end state.

00:21:40.600 We haven't talked about that at all.

00:21:42.180 And you look at the alliances.

00:21:43.500 You look at what's happening in China.

00:21:44.700 I think it's really – it's a long comment.

00:21:47.080 But when you made those comments earlier about the military, I think you're kind of understating it.

00:21:50.940 I think it's a lot worse than you think it is.

00:21:52.900 Well, I think it's pretty bad when you go back to 1971 and the Pentagon Papers

00:21:58.600 and to see the absolute deceit of our leaders.

00:22:03.380 This corrupt government of ours is not a new development.

00:22:07.680 It is a continuation and a worsening over decades.

00:22:12.900 And I salute you for having the personal courage to assess the military as you see it and tell your children exactly that.

00:22:22.540 I think millions of us feel the same way.

00:22:25.960 I just have to wonder where we're headed because we have Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense.

00:22:34.200 We have General Milley, Mark Milley.

00:22:38.820 I mean, these are embarrassments.

00:22:40.500 These two people, to me, are – I don't know what one can possibly say about what they've done in less than three years

00:22:51.520 to the U.S. military and what this administration – I don't for a minute, by the way, believe this is the Biden administration.

00:22:58.660 I believe it's the Obama-Biden administration because these are simply carry-throughs of what was underway under President Obama.

00:23:07.540 I think it's his third term.

00:23:09.000 Yeah, well, you know, I've got to – here's the truth in advertising.

00:23:14.340 You know, Lloyd Austin worked for me on two different occasions.

00:23:16.740 He was one of my brigade commanders when I committed the 82nd Airborne Division.

00:23:20.420 And he was a young major for me.

00:23:22.000 And I've had a chance to tell him.

00:23:23.960 And, of course, after Afghanistan, I said very publicly that he should resign.

00:23:29.260 And I said, I don't know what the heck happened to him.

00:23:30.980 I said, you know, I've got to say he's a totally different person in the way he's approached the world.

00:23:36.040 And he's approached it in a very, very political manner.

00:23:38.740 That is a place where you don't want to approach it in a political matter.

00:23:41.860 You worry about how to fight our nation's wars.

00:23:44.320 And I think Mark Milley is the same way.

00:23:46.200 Mark Milley has become a very political animal.

00:23:48.520 I would have fired – if I had known, for example, right in January of 2020 when – that he was talking to the Chinese. 1.00

00:23:58.440 He never told us about it, you know, on his own about, you know, well, you know, don't worry about it.

00:24:03.700 We've got control of the military.

00:24:04.880 I would have fired him in a heartbeat.

00:24:06.960 And probably after Afghanistan, they both should have left. 1.00

00:24:09.680 So, again, it goes back to what I said earlier, Lou, about it's very important that people understand that how the military is handled is from the very senior levels, and they set the tone.

00:24:21.900 The young men and women in uniform, they just execute the job that they're bringing in and they're told what to do.

00:24:27.040 But, you know, you look at the – and I blame the president because under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution, he's the commander-in-chief, and he sets the tone.

00:24:35.860 And, look, I'll give you a couple of examples.

00:24:37.400 One is I reminded everybody, you know, just recently there were some problems in Africa, and we drew down the embassy there.

00:24:44.740 You know, this administration, this current administration, they've pulled out of five different embassies.

00:24:49.240 Our administration didn't pull out of a single one.

00:24:51.860 Even though we had the threats.

00:24:53.260 And you just look at it and you go, these are your policies, this is how you operate, it's wrong.

00:25:00.080 I'm sorry.

00:25:00.860 It really is.

00:25:02.260 Five different embassies.

00:25:03.760 We don't know who our friends are any longer because this administration seems hell-bent on making adversaries, if not enemies, out of every country with which we had strong relationships.

00:25:16.060 And I mean, whether it's Canada or whether it's Saudi Arabia, you name it, this administration is – nothing about it seems to be multilateral other than its association with communist nations or other totalitarian nations.

00:25:33.780 We're talking with General Keith Kellogg.

00:25:35.840 We're coming right back in just a few moments.

00:25:38.380 Stay with us.

00:25:38.940 We're back talking with General Keith Kellogg.

00:25:47.920 General, let's kind of hone in a little bit on what you're talking about with Lloyd Austin, with Mark Milley.

00:25:55.180 How is it that our military academies are producing officers who would descend to the depths that these two have?

00:26:06.400 And I know they're not unusual because I have gotten to know a few general officers who, frankly, I would never have dreamed had graduated West Point.

00:26:15.180 By the way, I've talked to a number – I've talked to two commandants of West Point, and I've asked each the same question.

00:26:22.880 Do you guys ever teach what happens when you make mistakes in strategy, in tactics, and lose battles?

00:26:30.880 And you know what the answer was, General?

00:26:32.600 I don't know what your experience has been, but they told me they don't.

00:26:36.860 Why in the world would we not at least do that?

00:26:40.080 Yeah, you know, and it's a great question, Lou.

00:26:42.460 And I think one of the first things I'd do is I wouldn't allow – I'd allow a military officer to spend most of the time is two years in Washington, D.C., and get them out of town.

00:26:50.700 You know, a lot of these people spend time in Washington, D.C.

00:26:53.360 That's number one.

00:26:54.000 Number two is it's all based on accountability, and we've lost that ability to do – until we went back to the generals in the Army, at least Gordon Sullivan, years ago, when we did the after-action review.

00:27:05.740 We looked at the loss of the first battles.

00:27:07.360 He actually had a book come out.

00:27:08.420 We required reading of everybody, and it was called First Battles, and how we lost – we seem to have lost every first battle we ever fought in the U.S. military.

00:27:16.920 And he said, look at that, and you reflect on that.

00:27:20.040 And I think it's a good thing to do to reflect on what you've done or haven't done.

00:27:24.900 And that's the reason I've been so critical about Afghanistan, the fact that we're in a 20-year war, thousands killed, thousands wounded, and we lose it.

00:27:33.380 And then nobody's talking about it.

00:27:35.060 It's almost like, well, we'll go to the next fight.

00:27:36.400 No, you don't do that at all.

00:27:38.000 And I think that there's some strong lessons learned, and I think there's been an officer corps that has grown up in Afghanistan, from Afghanistan, that forgot the lessons of how to fight and win our nation's wars.

00:27:48.340 And you look back – I remember – you may not remember back when Colin Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he stood next to Secretary of Defense Cheney when the Iraq war first kicked off, when they had gone into Kuwait and we had started offensive.

00:28:02.620 And they said, well, what are you going to do with the Iraqi armies?

00:28:05.380 And Colin Powell said, we're going to go over it, we're going to go under it, we're going to go through it, and we're going to kill it.

00:28:11.580 I said, okay, I got that job.

00:28:13.740 I understand what he was getting at.

00:28:15.320 And his point was, that was how you fight wars.

00:28:18.340 And we've forgotten that, Lou, and we're going to have to pick that up.

00:28:21.320 And I blame the senior officer corps for getting how to do that.

00:28:25.440 That's the reason I made up a comment earlier about what George C. Marshall did in 1939, where he actually did a purge of the officer corps.

00:28:31.740 And at that time, think of the numbers, he eliminated about 1,000 senior officers.

00:28:36.260 And that's why Dwight D. Eisenhower went from 330th on the seniority list to about number five.

00:28:42.540 And I think that's going to have to be done.

00:28:44.140 It's going to be a very hard sell.

00:28:45.880 Congress would be upset about it.

00:28:47.800 But I think you have to make a point that we need to change the culture of the United States military, that they need to focus on one thing, fighting and winning our nation's battles if deterrence fails.

00:28:57.160 And I don't think we're there.

00:28:58.340 And I know it's a harsh statement, but, boy, the consequences of that are not going to be on my watch or on your watch, but they're going to be on my kid's watch and my grandkids' watch.

00:29:07.620 And I don't want that to happen.

00:29:08.620 You know, the money that we are spending on the military right now without oversight or consequence or for performance and for effectiveness of the billions spent, what we're doing in terms of the education of our officers and creating that officer corps for the future.

00:29:27.380 But we have we had a military, the United States Army adopts his doctrine, this idiotic David Petraeus nonsense, the long war doctrine.

00:29:38.400 It was a doctrine, it was a rationalization that became a doctrine.

00:29:44.180 And, my God, I just cannot to this day understand how we can have these protracted conflicts because of pseudo-intellectual idiots posing as something other than a United States general officer.

00:29:57.940 Well, it goes back to what I said earlier.

00:29:59.740 You know, that comes out of this thing with Afghanistan. 0.65

00:30:01.760 That's where the book was Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:30:03.460 You don't fight long wars.

00:30:04.420 You try to fight short wars because of the consequences of those wars, which are enormous when it comes to the personnel cost, not money.

00:30:12.320 I'm talking about the cost of lives and limbs.

00:30:14.640 And you try to eliminate your adversaries as rapidly as you can.

00:30:18.600 And that's the reason I said about purging the corps.

00:30:20.780 You need to say, okay, we need to find out who these gunfighters are, that we want to have men and women, and they're out there. 0.99

00:30:26.520 That we want to have leading our troops with a total change of attitude.

00:30:31.460 And you hope, for example, getting your recruiting numbers up as well because now people are saying, I don't want to join the military.

00:30:37.840 I don't want to do that.

00:30:38.700 And then there's really no plan when you think about it.

00:30:41.380 If you look at the national security strategy, it's just there's nothing there.

00:30:45.200 They talk about diversity and they talk about climate change, but they don't talk about winning our nation's wars.

00:30:50.360 You know, there's one thing, a little quick story on that.

00:30:52.680 But I'll show you, President Trump, when the Iraqi pro-military forces were basically supported by Iran trying to take our embassy on New Year's Day, I guess it was 19, let's see, 2019.

00:31:10.660 You know, I remember him picking up the phone and calling Mark Milley.

00:31:13.240 And I was in the Oval when he did it.

00:31:15.220 And he said, you know, we are not losing our embassy.

00:31:18.520 Do you understand that?

00:31:19.480 And then it was like, OK, I got that one.

00:31:21.580 And his point was, you come up with a military way to make sure that we hold on to the embassy.

00:31:26.100 We're not retreating from it at all.

00:31:28.040 And that's one thing.

00:31:28.860 And then you carry that on to what we do with Soleimani.

00:31:30.740 When he went after Soleimani, it was very clear Soleimani had killed Americans.

00:31:34.820 The third-ranking leader in Iran, the leader of the Quds Force.

00:31:38.820 And President Trump didn't blink.

00:31:40.980 I mean, this guy was responsible for nearly storming our embassy in Baghdad.

00:31:45.240 And he basically said, take him out.

00:31:46.720 And we did.

00:31:48.480 But that's the difference of leadership.

00:31:50.540 But not only is it leadership, Lou, but it causes respect throughout the world because people say, OK, they're really serious about it.

00:31:57.880 If you're going to take on the United States of America, be prepared to fight.

00:32:00.920 And a lot of them won't do that.

00:32:03.000 A lot of them won't do that.

00:32:04.560 And one of them who won't do that is, of course, President Obama, who is without question, he lost Crimea.

00:32:17.680 No one wants to talk about that.

00:32:19.280 He's trying to give away more billions of dollars through Biden and his regime to Iran, despite the fact that we're at the same time trying to arm ships with our weaponry and our Marines in the Persian Gulf.

00:32:36.360 This is madness on its face.

00:32:38.820 And we don't hear a single peep from the so-called bright thinkers of academia in geopolitics and history and governance in in just plain common sense.

00:32:52.480 One understands these conflicts within and contradictions within the administration.

00:32:58.460 General, there's a lot to talk about here.

00:33:01.320 It's a troubling time, a perilous time, if you will.

00:33:05.560 We always give our guests the last word here on The Great America Show, General, as you well know.

00:33:10.320 And if you will now, your concluding thoughts.

00:33:13.740 Yeah.

00:33:14.000 Well, first of all, Lou, thanks for having me on today.

00:33:16.040 And look, I think what you're saying echoes what a lot of Americans are thinking.

00:33:19.580 They just don't know how to express it or try to figure out what the issues are and what the problems are.

00:33:23.700 And I think they're enormous.

00:33:24.520 And I think this election coming up is going to be very, very important for the American people because this path we're on right now is a very, very bad path when it comes down to national security.

00:33:34.000 And if you keep making mistakes like this, you end up fighting a major war.

00:33:38.020 And we are right on the precipice of doing something stupid because wars are fought by accident.

00:33:42.740 And the accident is if the other side thinks you're vulnerable or that you won't fight, then they will continue to take strong actions.

00:33:50.020 And you look at somebody like the Russians or you look at the Chinese or even in the Middle East with the Iranians and them developing a nuclear weapon. 0.78

00:33:57.400 It changes the whole dynamic of the world.

00:33:59.680 And we're not ready for that right now.

00:34:01.280 And we have to get ready for that.

00:34:02.600 So I'm hoping that the American people take a deep breath and don't worry about somebody's presidential candidates.

00:34:09.060 Maybe don't listen to the rhetoric.

00:34:10.560 Look at their policies, because that's what really makes the difference.

00:34:13.980 Their policies and their results.

00:34:16.820 General, it has been absolutely terrific talking with you.

00:34:19.800 I've enjoyed our conversation immensely, and I hope you'll come back soon.

00:34:23.540 And thank you for your insight, your knowledge, and all of your service to this great nation.

00:34:29.580 Thanks, Lou.

00:34:30.100 Thanks for having me.

00:34:30.700 Thanks for having me.

00:35:00.700 The Great America Show.

00:35:01.760 Thanks.

00:35:02.600 God bless you.

00:35:03.640 And God bless America.

The Great America Show - August 14, 2023

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