Judge Slashes Massive Bond, Plus Boeing CEO’s Emergency Exit and How Biden put ISIS Back in Business, Live with Matt Cole and Jerry Dunleavy | TRIGGERED Ep.122
On this week's episode of Triggered, host John Rocha is joined by the CEO of Strive Asset Management, Matt Cole, and reporter Jerry Dunleavy to discuss the Boeing 737-200 crash, the new Boeing Dreamliner, and the Biden administration's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Plus, we have a special guest on the show to talk about the Democratic National Convention, and much, much more! Subscribe to our new podcast, RUMBLE, wherever you get your podcasts, to get immediate access to all the latest news and discuss the topics most impactful to you and your day-to-day life. RATE 5 STARS and SUBSCRIBE so you can receive notifications when new episodes are available. If you don't like what you get on my news app, go build your own. They tell us every time, hey, if you don t like what I get on the mainstream news, go get your own, non-biased version of the news you get from the mainstream media. Go check it out at MXM News! Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms, and spread the word to your friends about what's happening in the world! . And remember, I'm not a masochist. I do not own the rights to the music you hear on this podcast, it's just me making it. - but I do own the music! - and it's my job to make it so you get to choose what you listen to it and decide what you're going to be heard on the rest of the next 24 hours. And if you like it, let me know what you want to hear about it! Timestamps: 1:00:00 - What's going on? 2:30 - What are you think of it? 3:15 - What s happening? 4:00 5:40 - Is it a good thing? 6:00 | What s going on in your life? 7:30 | What's happening 8: What's your favorite part? 9:10 - what's going to happen next? 11:30 12:15 | What do you think? 13:00 -- Is it better? 15:30 -- What's the worst thing you're listening to me? 16:40 -- What s your opinion? 17:40 18:20 -- How do you want me to know?
00:06:45.000Later, we'll also have reporter Jerry Dunleavy.
00:06:49.000He's the author of a new book, Kabul, the untold story of Biden's fiasco and the American warriors who fought to the end, which uncovers even more shocking details about Biden's This disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:07:06.000Remember, guys, the adults were going to be back in charge.
00:08:02.000You can do that. If you're subscribing, also head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:08:06.000If you miss an episode here on Rumble, you can check it out that way on those platforms.
00:08:10.000If you have other friends, that's how they get their podcast, maybe when they're traveling or whatever it may be.
00:08:15.000Download, subscribe, make sure people know that that is available to them as well.
00:08:21.000So I really appreciate you guys doing that.
00:08:23.000Again, it's because of you that makes all of this happen.
00:08:26.000So, also guys, for all of the top headlines that I'll cover here on the show, head over to my news app, MXM News, where you can get the mainstream news without the mainstream bias because...
00:08:40.000We've seen all the craziness of Google and the manipulation of elections.
00:08:44.000We've seen what's going on over at Meta with Instagram and conveniently selecting, making sure that people don't see political content in an election year.
00:08:51.000I have a feeling, folks, that people who don't want to see...
00:08:56.000Election content will still be smothered with radical leftist bullshit non-stop.
00:09:02.000But if you're a conservative, that probably matters.
00:09:59.000Squatting is becoming a major issue in this country.
00:10:03.000People literally just walk into your house or break into your house, say that they reside here, and once they do that, in some of these liberal hellholes, nothing can happen.
00:11:05.000No stay! On this rainy Saturday afternoon...
00:11:09.000This means a lot to me and just gonna end my family.
00:11:12.000A crush of protesters turned out once again to pressure serial squatters saying Kim to leave.
00:11:22.000This is the second rally in as many weeks.
00:11:25.000At this point, we're trying to call it anything in the Housing Authority under Jay Inslee.
00:11:31.000Even after owing homeowner Jaskaran Singh tens of thousands of dollars in back rent, Kim is still refusing to leave this property in Bellevue's Woodridge neighborhood.
00:11:40.000This has been going unchecked and seems to be expected as normal by our law and by our leaders.
00:11:56.000Adding to the absurdity of this situation, Singh's friends and family members led this weekend's rally without him.
00:12:03.000How many can imagine someone living in your home rent-free for a year to two years?
00:12:07.000Singh waited patiently at a park 1,000 feet away.
00:12:13.000You haven't paid a rent for last one year.
00:12:15.000That's because Kim accused Singh of harassment and a King County judge believed him, issuing a temporary protection order last week.
00:12:24.000Guys, think about how upside down the world has become.
00:12:28.000The law punishes the property owner, not the thief.
00:12:32.000This isn't a property owner trying to throw out a renter who has a lease and is paying.
00:12:37.000This is someone who hasn't paid in months, doesn't probably intend to because they understand that the law is designed to help them and penalize those who worked hard and perhaps bought homes and made that their business.
00:12:51.000Meanwhile in Michigan, the geniuses there are offering $500 a month for illegal immigrants, or as they now call them, Newcomers.
00:13:46.000But it's a nightmare for American citizens who are struggling, who have to no longer just pay for themselves, their children, their needs, and their families, but for 12 to 15 countless millions of others who are often, in cases, not going to be able to ever pay into a system.
00:14:04.000You have to subsidize the people breaking the law.
00:14:16.000You can make this insanity stop in November.
00:14:20.000But if you sit idly by and allow apathy to take over, you're going to continue to pay for this nonsense forever while your American dream continues to be diminished.
00:14:32.000While Democrats allow squatters to destroy property rights and subsidize housing for illegal immigrants, they're also trying to punish successful real estate developers.
00:14:43.000Look at this article from the New York Times just yesterday.
00:14:48.000Pinning a value to Trump's buildings is a guessing game.
00:14:52.000Wait, what? Wait, pinning a value to his real estate is a guessing game?
00:14:59.000Wait a minute, folks. I thought the New York Times and Attorney General Letitia James knew for a fact what every building is worth.
00:15:08.000They told us very clearly and very loudly, Bar-a-Lago is worth $18 million.
00:15:14.000Apparently, if Donald Trump's, you know, a pretty solid real estate guy says they're worth X, they can say it's worth 1% of X, and that's correct.
00:15:23.000But then, all of a sudden, now they're not sure.
00:15:27.000Ha! Now they're not sure what it's worth.
00:15:30.000Isn't that the entire thesis of their case?
00:15:33.000If they're not sure they're saying it, what was the purpose of the last two years?
00:16:22.000That's the bond while we're waiting for things on appeal.
00:16:26.000But still, it is outrageous for there to be any amount when there was no fraud and there were no damages.
00:16:33.000Remember folks, the alleged victim of all of this, Deutsche Bank, like a probably trillion dollar institution, got on the stand and said that they wanted to do more business with us, not less.
00:16:52.000That they made hundreds of millions of dollars and that they used the business of the Trump Organization and the deals we did together as like feathers in their cap for them to get other business.
00:17:03.000But that doesn't matter because we live in dystopian times.
00:17:08.000Nonetheless, folks, this is a big win in reigning in Ngoron's baseless ruling.
00:17:14.000He's now been overturned five times in this case alone.
00:17:18.000Think about that. Remember, when the original 463 came out, it included deals that were already ruled on by the appellate division like six months ago.
00:17:30.000They said they were out of the statute of limitations, all of this.
00:17:33.000It didn't matter because they don't care about the rule.
00:17:37.000The judge ignored the appellate division, the higher court, so that he could come up with a higher number in this case, because even if you do have to put up a bond, there's collateral that is gone forever.
00:17:50.000If this thing turns into zero, you still have to spend probably tens of millions of dollars
00:17:55.000just to get the bond to make the way for the holding pattern.
00:18:53.000No solutions to make your life better, just corruption to try to enrich themselves.
00:19:01.000Polls now show Biden is losing every swing state.
00:19:06.000Guess what, folks? You cannot win re-election with rising prices, an open border, nonstop evacuations of US embassies abroad, along with chaos at home and elsewhere.
00:19:21.000Trillions probably going to be blown on wars that we don't know what the endgame actually means.
00:19:27.000Inflation, gas prices, overall insanity, paying illegals while Americans suffer.
00:20:08.000So those who can and can afford to flee, like myself, do.
00:20:14.000The rest of the people there suffer while they go on their political witch hunts.
00:20:20.000And meanwhile, folks, it was also revealed that Joe Biden lied to Special Counsel Robert Herr.
00:20:27.000Last time I checked, that's a federal crime.
00:20:30.000As someone who's done 50 hours of testimony before Congress and other congressional bodies, I have a feeling that I would be in jail if this happened.
00:20:53.000I don't remember Joe Biden actually ever practicing law because he's an idiot and went right into government and has done nothing other than leech off the American taxpayers since.
00:21:02.000But Biden claimed that his legal defense helped the company win the case.
00:21:07.000Well, folks, there are two big problems that That case happened in 1968 when Biden was still in school.
00:21:49.000He's a Democrat. They don't have to play by the rules.
00:21:53.000They are totally immune and absolved from anything from rules, law, and even decency.
00:22:00.000Just look at Hunter. You cannot make this stuff up, folks.
00:22:04.000Democrats are abusing the law to try to destroy their political rival, and they are ignoring the crisis at the border.
00:22:11.000This is newly relevant due to the rise of ISIS. Yes, folks, ISIS, who Donald Trump, my father, your favorite president, basically eliminated in about two weeks.
00:23:01.000Biden's own Border Patrol chief, not Trump's, Joe Biden's, went on CBS this weekend to warn that our open border is a national security threat that ISIS could take advantage of.
00:23:24.000But again, just so you can hear it with your own ears from Joe Biden's own Border Patrol chief, here you go, folks.
00:23:35.000dangerous people or potential terrorists who may be infiltrating the country because you are so focused on processing asylum seekers, families and others who are in distress.
00:23:45.000Absolutely. You ask any law enforcement officer, especially somebody that works in border security, that is what keeps us up at night.
00:23:53.000We're closing down on a million entries this fiscal year alone.
00:23:59.000That number is a large number, but what's keeping me up at night Is the 140,000 known gotaways.
00:24:13.000Border security is a big piece of national security.
00:24:16.000And if we don't know who is coming into our country and we don't know what their intent is, that is a threat.
00:24:23.000And they're exploiting a vulnerability that's on our border right now.
00:24:26.000You mentioned... Guys, 140,000 known gotaways?
00:24:31.000Known gotaways? I mean, imagine the unknown.
00:24:35.000If it's ISIS, if it's other terror groups, if it's Iran-backed, you think maybe there's a lot more than that, that are unknown gotaways, that maybe were better funded or smarter or more sophisticated to be able to manipulate the system to get into their country?
00:24:50.000You don't understand what that could do?
00:24:52.000What those sleeper cells could accomplish in destroying our country?
00:24:56.000That, again, is Joe Biden's That is his legacy.
00:25:01.000Biden, Kamala Harris, and that liar, Corinne Jean-Pierre, tell us non-stop, guys, non-stop.
00:26:03.000Watch this. Okay, we're having a little trouble pulling up the video, but let's just say it sounds like straight-up extortion, okay? Mexico's president is saying that he'll flood our country with criminals if we don't do what he asks.
00:26:30.000We're just gonna say, hey, we're gonna send you all of our criminals, all the dregs of society from not just Mexico, but from other countries.
00:26:36.000We'll bring them in here. We'll send them into your country if you don't do what we tell you.
00:26:54.000With the ear of the White House, President Lopez Obrador proposed his fix, that the United States commit $20 billion a year to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, lift sanctions on Venezuela, end the Cuban embargo, and legalize millions of law-abiding Mexicans living in the U.S. If they don't do the things that you've said need to be done, then what? The flow of migrants will continue.
00:27:24.000Oh, you know, hey, guys, just give them another $20 billion.
00:27:28.000I mean, we're sending another $60 to Ukraine.
00:27:47.000We went from having a lot of control over our border, the most ever, to a lot of control over Mexico, to Mexico extorting us on a world stage, publicly, with a straight face.
00:28:14.000As I mentioned earlier, if you fly as much as me, you want the planes to work.
00:28:17.000I'd like them to be flown by the most capable people ever.
00:28:20.000I don't care if they check boxes or if they don't.
00:28:23.000I just like capable. Our first guest, Matt Cole, had a great analysis today on Twitter how DEI and ESG turned Boeing into an absolute dumpster fire, okay?
00:28:36.000We're going to get to that interview because it's a big one.
00:28:39.000And it turns out Boeing's collapse happened after, shockingly, wait for it, folks, drumroll, after it added a DEI requirement for suppliers to Think about that.
00:28:52.000They added a DEI requirement for suppliers of people who make airplanes that fly at like 600 miles an hour at 36,000 feet in the air.
00:29:06.000So now, after adding a DEI requirement for its suppliers, their CEO is making an emergency exit.
00:29:14.000Who could have seen this coming, guys?
00:29:20.000It's amazing. But we're going to have some fun with this interview.
00:29:22.000So we're going to get to our first guest in just a second.
00:29:26.000But first, a quick word from one of our great sponsors.
00:29:29.000Public Square. You've heard me talk about it over and over again, but Public Square and the patriot economy are so critical to everything that's going on right now, guys.
00:29:40.000On Public Square, you can put power behind your purchase and let your dollars reflect your values.
00:29:45.000Don't give your money to companies who hate you, hate your values, hate your guts, hate your country.
00:29:52.000It's easy. Give it to freedom-loving companies who actually support you.
00:29:57.000And we're going to begin by spotlighting some of these great companies on the show.
00:30:16.000This holster fixes the number one problem with most holsters, which is they're uncomfortable, and they make it much harder to carry.
00:30:23.000That's why Vanish has sold over 100,000 of these products in just the past 16 months.
00:30:28.000Plus, it works without a tactical belt, you know, the more rigid belts that you use.
00:30:33.000When you're actually on the range or something like that, it supports multiple carry positions, has level 2 retention, and even conceals two spare mags as well.
00:31:14.000Pulling the money out of the ecosystem of woke corporate America is one of the number one things we can collectively do to fight back against the insanity that we're seeing.
00:31:36.000Crazy times. It feels like I'm living the Truman Show every day.
00:31:42.000I'm just waiting for a TV camera that's not part of the podcast studio to fall out of the ceiling because I feel like I've been being punked.
00:31:52.000It's pretty fitting that you had an advertisement for Public Square right before we get into this conversation, because I know that's one company where DEI is not infecting it, and I think we're all having much better days today than Boeing, right?
00:32:25.000You see them being destroyed for no reason other than they're adapting these ridiculous, you know, woke policies.
00:32:34.000So, I mean, maybe we start with Boeing.
00:32:35.000I'm curious about your thoughts on some of the others.
00:32:37.000But, like, you broke down today, you know, on Twitter, X, I'm so used to still calling it Twitter, but how...
00:32:44.000Liberal ideology destroyed this once great, iconic American company.
00:32:50.000Can you talk about that? Because it's a big one in the sense that when doors start flying off planes, people don't want to go down in a ball of fire on a plane.
00:33:01.000If other things happen at a bank, maybe they don't care as much, but falling out of the sky is probably something that can wake people up.
00:33:08.000Break it down for us in detail, because it's almost shocking how insane it all is.
00:33:14.000It is shocking. And it's important to reiterate, this is a great American company, like you said.
00:33:22.000And personally, I still have love for these companies.
00:33:25.000I don't love where they are, but let's actually back up a little bit.
00:33:28.000For a 20-year period, 2000 to August of 2019, Boeing actually outperformed the S&P 500 by almost 1,000%.
00:34:23.000And we are going to move away from that and move towards the ESG agenda, the DEI agenda, the World Economic Forum agenda.
00:34:31.000And this marked the beginning of Boeing's downfall.
00:34:35.000So what did we see after that? They signed that in August 2019.
00:34:39.0002022, Boeing adds climate and DEI to their executive compensation.
00:34:45.000And so what that means is that as much as I want to hate on this CEO, and the CEO did sign this initiative in 2019, his paycheck became dependent on implementing climate agenda and DEI agenda at his company.
00:35:01.000So at that point, I actually think a lot of the blame was on the board of Boeing that implemented this executive compensation plan.
00:35:10.000They also in 2022, which you briefly talked about, added that you have to look at ESG and DEI when assessing suppliers.
00:35:19.000And so it's up and down everything at Boeing, ESG and DEI. That's literally 2022.
00:35:26.000So then you fast forward literally one to two years later, 2023, 2024, And Boeing's planes start falling apart, literally.
00:35:36.000It did not take long for the destruction of this company to happen.
00:35:41.000And it has big implications, obviously, on safety, which, as an American, as someone that flies a lot, is my biggest concern.
00:35:50.000But at Strive, we are also owners of Boeing.
00:35:53.000And what we've seen is Boeing underperformed the S&P 500 by 135% just since 2019 when they signed that initiative.
00:36:04.000And it's important to note that Boeing can't just do this on their own.
00:36:08.000No corporation can just do this on their own.
00:36:35.000It's worth defending while we also may say, I don't like this.
00:36:38.000I might look for other. Now with Boeing, with the airplane manufacturer, it's a little bit more difficult.
00:36:43.000You can't go to public square and buy a different airplane.
00:36:45.000You can go and buy consumer goods, but We really need to restore excellence at these great American companies.
00:36:53.000So, yeah, but talk about that a little bit in the sense that, you know, obviously Boeing, great American companies, and yet that happened.
00:37:00.000What's in it for Vanguard and BlackRock?
00:37:03.000They're destroying their own value, and I get it.
00:37:05.000They're investing, they're playing with sort of other people's money, but their comp is still based on success in many cases.
00:37:12.000And yet, like, Airbus, European company, obviously Boeing's biggest competitor, they don't have these problems, and yet that's in Europe, which is going to be, by all reasonable measures, much further ahead of us are the liberalized, woke-scale companies.
00:37:49.000So on the environmental climate agenda side, it is effectively exactly the same, where you actually have Europe imposing its standards on American companies with the blessings of the large asset managers.
00:38:03.000But where it's different is the DEI agenda.
00:38:06.000That's a little bit more on the American side because in Europe, they're a much more homogenous culture.
00:38:13.000They don't actually have What's in it for them is a couple of different things.
00:38:31.000One, their largest clients So whether it's CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System, which is actually where I started my career before Vivek pulled me, thankfully, out of California into Ohio.
00:38:46.000Solid move. Yeah, very, very solid move.
00:38:49.000But I saw there for 16 years, the belly of the beast of what the tip of the sphere is of ESG and DEI. BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, they're the weight behind the tip of the spear.
00:38:59.000But why? Because their largest clients, like CalPERS, like the New York Pension Funds, demand it, like European clients as well.
00:40:49.000So, you know, while CalPERS and the people in charge there may be pushing the woke agenda,
00:40:55.000when those pensions are due and there's not enough money in the kitty to pay them, it's going to be a problem.
00:41:03.000And it's a problem that seems like it's entirely avoidable if they didn't push this sort of insanity, you know, again, and drive people's values, the people that are actually the dependents of these funds into smithereens.
00:41:51.000Eight of them are elected by the governor.
00:41:53.000Seven of them, a minority, are elected by the pensioners.
00:41:57.000So the pensioners keep putting in people that say, hey, I don't care about ESG. I don't care about DEI. We're underfunded.
00:42:03.000Make money. But then it doesn't matter because it's so politicized from the top that you can't do anything but implement these crazy values.
00:42:12.000Yeah, they'll bail it out with other taxpayer money in the end rather than doing what's responsible.
00:42:16.000I mean, it seems like a vicious cycle, but I guess it never ends with these policies.
00:42:22.000I want to talk—you wrote a great piece in The Hill about how Joe Biden's CHIPS Act is pushing companies outside of the U.S. In fact, Intel, Samsung are moving manufacturing facilities— Overseas, even the little manufacturing we have left in America is moving overseas because of DEI requirements in Biden's legislation.
00:42:44.000For example, I guess it mandated in one case a quota for female construction workers and on-care childcare for those female construction workers.
00:43:08.000We have the CHIPS Act because of geopolitical risks with China.
00:43:12.000There are risks that China could annex Taiwan by 2027 and Taiwan is where over 90% of the most advanced semiconductors are made.
00:43:23.000So there's this need to onshore manufacturing of semiconductors to the United States.
00:43:29.000So Congress approved a $280 billion act to help do that.
00:43:35.000And so you could agree with that or disagree with that, but then what was really interesting from our perspective and where we wrote this article is we saw this dance start to occur where the White House would make an announcement.
00:43:47.000We are about to open up the checkbooks and write a massive check to Intel, TSMC, Samsung.
00:43:53.000And then a day or two later, Intel would make an announcement, say, we are delaying our fab.
00:43:59.000And you would see this dance back and forth.
00:44:01.000What the dance was showing to us was that there was a public negotiation happening between the White House and these large chip manufacturers.
00:45:43.000You have material makers that are part of the supply chain for these semiconductors, and they're also delaying plants.
00:45:50.000And so when you have plants delayed till 2027, 2028, the risk that we have here is that China annexes Taiwan, we lose our supply of chips, and our onshore manufacturers aren't online, and we're out of luck.
00:46:06.000Yeah. No, they're not going to do us a favor in time of war.
00:46:09.000They're probably not going to do us a favor anyway, but it never ends.
00:46:13.000Talk about how the SEC has a new mandatory climate disclosure rule that will cost companies hundreds of billions of dollars.
00:46:24.000What does that have to do with the SEC? Why are they getting involved?
00:46:27.000And why is the Biden administration doing this and forcing it down corporate America's throats?
00:46:32.000I mean, same question as it relates to CalPERS investing in any of these stocks.
00:46:39.000It's going to hurt investors. What's the deal there?
00:46:43.000Your first reaction when you see this, and this was my reaction as well, literally a couple of weeks ago, was say, wow, SEC government overreach again, three-letter agency, and then you start to peel it back.
00:46:56.000And what we noticed was that there was hundreds of public letters to the SEC. Letters asking, begging the SEC to implement this.
00:47:07.000None other than BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.
00:47:11.000On the record to the SEC requesting them for the quote-unquote protection of investors.
00:47:17.000And so it's important to note that when you actually say, well, what is the protection that they're providing?
00:47:25.000The protection is, in their words, that they view that we're in a climate emergency and that we need to see all the risks up and down the supply chain of climate and reduce those risks, reduce them by forcing corporations to reduce their emissions beyond U.S. law.
00:47:43.000What's this disclosure rule going to do?
00:47:45.000It's going to cost corporations literally hundreds of billions of dollars.
00:47:50.000Just one consultant, PWC, spent over $12 billion getting ready to help companies implement this agenda.
00:48:00.000And so again, you get back to how is this actually helping companies?
00:48:15.000It was voted three to two on party lines and something that I think could be unwound in a future administration if it's not the Biden administration.
00:48:24.000Yeah, I think that's one you got to get rid of because it's just never going to end.
00:48:27.000But I mean, I guess some states are taking action against ESG investing.
00:48:47.000It's almost irrelevant. Even Texas pulling it doesn't really change that much or doesn't change their worldview where they're stopped pushing the woke nonsense down our throats.
00:49:02.000I think where we are right now is I think we are at a point where further progress has largely stalled.
00:49:09.000But 75% of the companies in the S&P 500 have already implemented It's kind of comp tied to ESG and DEI. So it's great that Texas pulled $8 billion from BlackRock, but obviously it's a drop in the bucket for trillions.
00:49:28.000They wrote this letter trying to humiliate the chairman of the Texas Board of Education that pulled this $8 billion.
00:49:35.000And this is where I stepped in, actually.
00:49:38.000I wrote a post on X just to call this out because it's crazy that you would have BlackRock try to humiliate a chairman, but then you say, well, why are they?
00:49:47.000They're afraid because they don't want anyone else to do the same thing because they see the risk here of this ballooning into something else.
00:49:55.000much larger. So I called them out. I called them out on a few different things that they've done
00:50:00.000that have explicitly hurt energy companies, because this is what Texas really cares about
00:50:05.000because of the energy companies that exist within Texas.
00:50:08.000Well, a couple of things. One, BlackRock had actually forced onto Chevron, requiring them
00:50:15.000to reduce their scope three emissions, which is their emissions up and down their
00:50:38.000Exxon then actually took the step in 2022 at our request of adding on additional board members that actually had real experience in energy, which is what you would think you would want for a company like Exxon back onto their board.
00:50:52.000So they did that. They asked the SEC to- They could put Hunter Biden on.
00:51:05.000They've done the SEC climate disclosures, which is going to cost corporations hundreds of billions of dollars.
00:51:10.000And they've also just said that they will force companies, this is on the record, as part of their net zero asset manager agreement, If corporations don't comply with their view of climate risk, they will literally remove their board.
00:51:24.000So I called all that out and they got massively ratioed.
00:51:27.000And what I hope that the end result is, is that they won't call out these good actors like Aaron Kinsey publicly again and let them choose who they think the best fiduciary is for their assets.
00:51:40.000Well, I think that's really important.
00:51:42.000And, you know, thanks for all the work that you're doing, pointing all this stuff out, Matt.
00:51:45.000I really appreciate it. It's just great information.
00:51:48.000And as more of it happens, because we know it will, we'll have to have you back on to talk about it again.
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00:53:25.000And guys, joining me now, co-author of the new book, Kabul, The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End, Jerry Dunleavy.
00:53:39.000Thanks for having me. So you did a lot of research for your book, and you actually found out some shocking details.
00:53:46.000I mean, this is something that's sort of a...
00:53:48.000It's almost a go-to in my speeches when I talk about the Afghan withdrawal.
00:53:52.000I mean, the adults were back in charge, and morons like Anthony Blinken, our Secretary of State, get on stage, and they talk about how they're shocked and dismayed that the Taliban didn't install a more diverse and inclusive government.
00:54:04.000So, you know, if you thought it was bad and that was...
00:54:07.000But there's even more shocking details about this withdrawal.
00:54:12.000And I want you to go over some of the big revelations in the book.
00:54:15.000Can you talk about how even the COVID vaccine mandate impacted the Afghan withdrawal under Joe Biden?
00:54:25.000Let me just start with a real quick disclaimer.
00:54:28.000I'm a senior investigator on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that's investigating this disastrous withdrawal by President Biden.
00:54:36.000But I'm just speaking as the co-author, not on behalf of the committee or the investigation.
00:54:43.000Shockingly, the Biden administration's obsession to some extent with the COVID vaccines did impact the withdrawal.
00:54:56.000The U.S. Embassy in Kabul pretty much locked down for a few weeks in the summer of 2021, which slowed down efforts to process SIV applicants.
00:55:10.000So there are very likely Afghan allies who had their exit from Afghanistan slowed down because of the Biden administration's response to COVID. Now, when it comes to the evacuation itself, the COVID vaccine mandate actually impacted the readiness and the deployment of some of our US service members.
00:55:35.000There was a squad leader, team leaders, a surgeon for the Marine groups who were going to be deploying there who were not able to go because they had not received the COVID vaccine.
00:55:50.000The 82nd Airborne that was preparing to go had to shuffle its forces around because members had not gotten the COVID vaccine.
00:55:58.000And so as Afghanistan is falling apart, as the Taliban is taking over the country, as we're about to leave Americans behind, We have tens of thousands of our Afghan allies behind.
00:56:09.000These COVID mandates by the Biden administration had an impact on the US military's ability to respond to all of that.
00:56:18.000So you found that we missed sort of two opportunities to actually stop The deadly Kabul suicide attack.
00:56:26.000I mean, that's sort of shocking to me.
00:56:59.000Keeping Bagram would have been a much smarter, safer place to do an evacuation from.
00:57:04.000Keeping Bagram would have enabled the U.S. to keep its air assets in the country, to continue bombing ISIS-K, Al-Qaeda, stopping Taliban advances.
00:57:17.000It's very, very, very unlikely that the Taliban would have been able to Take Kabul if we had held on to Bagram.
00:57:24.000On top of all of that, at Bagram, there is a prison that held thousands of terrorists, ISIS-K terrorists, Taliban terrorists, Al Qaeda terrorists.
00:57:37.000Among these ISIS-K terrorists was a man by the name of Abdul Rahman al-Lagri.
00:57:43.000The Biden administration has refused to say his name, but he is the man that carried out the Abbey Gate bombing.
00:57:53.000The Taliban freed him from Bagram on August 15.
00:57:57.000So the simple fact is, if we had just held on to Bagram, the guy who carried out that attack that took the lives of those 13 U.S. service members, he still would have been behind bars rather than out there trying to kill Americans.
00:58:10.000On top of that, there's the testimony from Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews, of course, the Marine sniper who has testified that he had a suspect in his sights who met the description that he had been passed of a suspicious individual.
00:58:26.000He asked for permission to take the shot.
00:58:28.000His commanding officer told him that, as a commanding officer, he didn't know if he had permission to give Tyler, he didn't know if he was able to give Tyler permission to take that shot.
00:58:41.000Now, on top of that, the U.S. military, General McKenzie, In Doha around August 15th, the Taliban, as it's knocking on the gates of Kabul, actually offered to let the United States military take over security of Kabul.
00:58:59.000And on the spot, General McKenzie turned that down.
00:59:04.000And so that was essentially a green light for the Taliban to come into Kabul.
00:59:11.000And so the United States military, during this evacuation, Was reliant on the Taliban to provide security outside of that airport.
00:59:22.000And Mackenzie has later said that there were a number of times, a bunch of times, where we asked the Taliban to raid or search a suspected ISIS-K location.
00:59:38.000And on top of that, just keep in mind that the U.S. did not carry out Any airstrikes against any ISIS-K locations from the time that the Taliban took over Kabul on August 15 until after the Abbey Gate bombing.
00:59:55.000And so you kind of put all of those factors together, and it's pretty clear that the Abbey Gate bombing that took the lives of those 13 service members, it was not inevitable.
01:00:09.000And then, you know, right after that, in the aftermath of it, you know, it was like 15 minutes later, like, yeah, we bombed the guy that did it.
01:00:14.000I'm like, wait, you didn't see it coming.
01:00:16.000You didn't know it was going to happen.
01:00:17.000But you imagine, you know, it turns out it was just like a, you know, a goat herder's family.
01:00:22.000Because they just greenlight sort of the murder of someone to check a box to make it look like they were actually doing something about it.
01:00:28.000You know, they didn't see any of this coming.
01:00:32.000The incompetence was astounding, but magically in like 15 minutes they were able to find the guy that did it and put a hellfire missile through his head, but that clearly wasn't the case.
01:00:42.000It didn't happen, but I guess they were just content with the media being willing to do their bidding for him and pretend like they got him.
01:00:48.000Is there anything about that that you guys are aware of in the research on the book?
01:00:52.000Yeah, so there were actually two US airstrikes after the Abigate bombing, because keep in mind we were relying on the Taliban.
01:01:00.000to provide security against us, against ISIS-K. Obviously, the Taliban, shockingly, did not do a very good job of that.
01:01:08.000So, one of the airstrikes was on August 27th, and that was an airstrike in Nangarhar province, where we said that we killed a terrorist by the name of Kabir Ayedi, who the U.S. military said was connected to the Abbey Gate bombing.
01:01:23.000Now, raises the question of why was the U.S. not carrying out airstrikes against ISIS-K before the Abbey Gate bombing?
01:01:31.000On August 29th, that's when we carried out an airstrike in Kabul that killed civilians.
01:01:39.000No members of ISIS-K, just a bunch of civilians.
01:01:45.000An airstrike that General Milley had called a righteous strike before he had to walk that back.
01:01:55.000All of this goes back to this decision to rely on the Taliban to provide security.
01:02:01.000You know, we've been fighting the Taliban for 20 years.
01:02:05.000The Taliban was involved in killing, you know, probably over 2,000 U.S. service members.
01:02:11.000But we're relying on them to provide security outside this airport, you know, with deadly results.
01:02:20.000Yeah, I mean, we also left a biometric scanner so that anyone that helped us over the last 20 years, they can make sure they find them and snuff them out because the adults are back in charge.
01:02:31.000But the book also describes—we're going to talk about lunacy— How dozens of terrorists were just let into the United States after withdrawal.
01:02:41.000How did that happen? Because, I mean, we see it coming across our border.
01:02:43.000I'm sure there's plenty more, but this was before even that crisis really manifested itself with how bad it is.
01:02:49.000What happened there, and how bad is that problem?
01:02:53.000Yeah, so the Defense Department's Inspector General concluded that there were dozens of Afghans who Made it into the United States who were later found to have what the DOD Inspector General called significant security concerns related to them.
01:03:14.000And the Inspector General said that among those concerns was known or suspected terrorist ties and latent fingerprints found on improvised explosive devices.
01:03:28.000The DOD Inspector General also said that one Afghan who made it into the United States had actually been freed by the Taliban from prison in August of 2021.
01:03:46.000A lot of the Afghans that the U.S. evacuated due to heroic efforts by the U.S. military there, a lot of these Afghans were Afghans that were interpreters that Some of the people that the US evacuated did not have particular ties to the US mission in Afghanistan.
01:04:13.000And some of them had significant security concerns, according to Defense Department investigations.
01:05:01.000And, you know, this all goes to the fact that the Biden administration did not prepare Did not plan and acted way too late.
01:05:11.000And so when you don't plan, when you don't prepare, when you act too late, you know, a handful of bad guys and maybe a handful, more than a handful, slip through.
01:05:22.000And that's just what happens. And, you know, something to keep in mind when we're talking about the people that did get evacuated from Afghanistan, keep in mind, There were hundreds of Americans who were left behind.
01:05:41.000And some of those Afghan allies left behind, hundreds of them targeted by the Taliban in revenge and reprisal killing.
01:05:48.000So those are people who have been killed.
01:05:51.000They're not getting out. So, you know, after 20 years of war, you know, it didn't seem like we had even a fundamental understanding of, you know, this is Millie and some of these losers that are just terrible.
01:06:00.000But, like, why would the Biden administration rely on the Taliban for security in Kabul?
01:06:06.000Like, the whole thing's just—I mean, you're going to rely on literally the people you've been at war with for 20 years for security?
01:06:12.000Like, who—who's dumb—you know, Joe Biden's pretty— Fucking dumb, but you're that dumb?
01:06:29.000So some of this just kind of goes back to the fundamental terrible decision that President Biden made, his decision to go to zero in Afghanistan.
01:06:38.000Because when Biden took office, we had 2,500 troops there, along with many more, actually, NATO forces there.
01:06:47.000And on top of that, you had the contractors, thousands of contractors as well.
01:08:31.000We have troop caps set by President Biden.
01:08:34.000And so There you are in an impossible situation.
01:08:40.000You rely on the Taliban to provide security.
01:08:43.000The Taliban stops tons of our Afghan allies from getting through, beating our Afghan allies, killing some of them, beating Americans as well.
01:08:54.000And some Americans that were left behind were left behind because they were They were terrified to try to run through that Taliban gauntlet because some of them had tried to make it through and were physically attacked by the Taliban.
01:09:13.000And so this all goes back to a series, a cascading series of decisions made by President Biden that put these U.S. service members in an impossible situation With the Taliban right outside the gates, the Taliban enemy who they've been fighting for 20 years, while ISIS-K is roving around, some of those ISIS-K members, keep in mind, as we mentioned, freed by the Taliban just days earlier.
01:09:40.000And one of them gets through and carries out a devastating attack that kills 13 U.S. service members, wounds dozens more U.S. service members, some of them grievously, and kills, mind you, nearly 200 Afghan soldiers 200 Afghans in that crowd as well.
01:09:59.000What was the most surprising thing you found in your research, and what do you make of sort of Joe Biden's refusal to own up to any of the mistakes?
01:10:06.000I mean, he refuses to say the name of the 13 dead troops, and he broke his promise to get all Americans out.
01:10:12.000I mean, what was the biggest shock in sort of researching all of this?
01:10:17.000Yeah, it's hard to be shocked, I suppose.
01:10:24.000But in terms of the biggest surprise, I suppose it would be the willful blindness that the Biden administration had throughout all of this.
01:11:19.000Jerry, you still there? I'm still here.
01:11:24.000Can you hear me? Yeah, we got you back.
01:11:29.000It's pretty crazy what's all going on there.
01:11:32.000But you've also done some major reporting in the US on the security state politicizing the China election interference in 2020.
01:11:40.000You're one of the few journalists that'll actually cover it.
01:11:44.000Can you share with the audience what you found and how it might impact 2024?
01:11:48.000Because it seems like a big one with what they're doing, and yet almost no one's going to talk about it.
01:11:55.000Yeah. Well, let me just stress again now.
01:11:58.000I'm not talking on behalf of Congress or the committee, just sort of putting my recovering journalist hat on here for a second.
01:12:05.000So, yeah, back in 2020, The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia tried to influence the election, that the Iranians tried to influence the election, but that China thought about it but didn't.
01:12:29.000Now, that was the majority opinion by the U.S. intelligence community, but there was a minority view within the intelligence community by the national intelligence officer for cyber And other members of the intelligence community who did believe that China had attempted to influence the 2020 election and had done so in an effort to try to undermine now former President Trump's re-election chances.
01:12:59.000Now, this is sort of a big divide within the U.S. intelligence community because you have the national intelligence officer for cyber and others in there saying, hey, look, China is trying to take steps to influence a presidential election.
01:13:16.000And you had now former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe take the side of the national intelligence officer for cyber, saying that in his view, the intelligence showed that China had attempted to influence the 2020 election.
01:13:33.000And an analytic ombudsman, kind of a mouthful there, I actually kind of took a look at why there was this divide inside the intelligence community.
01:13:44.000And one of the findings there was that analysts on the Russia side were much more willing to assess that Russia was influencing an election than analysts on the China side.
01:14:01.000And one of the reasons that the Sambudsman found why was that some of the China analysts
01:14:08.000may have been worried that if they found that China is trying to influence this election,
01:14:14.000then that might be used by members of the Trump administration.
01:14:20.000And so it's kind of this feeling among some of the analysts on the China side inside the
01:14:26.000intelligence community that they didn't want their intelligence to be used in that way.
01:14:32.000Yeah, because it would help Trump because Trump was tough on China and Joe Biden's basically been a blank check for China ever since they paid Hunter umpteen millions to do whatever it is that Hunter does, which is nothing productive or business related.
01:14:46.000And what I'd add here is that after 2020, after that election goes by, suddenly the intelligence community is actually saying, oh, by the way, China is trying to influence the 2022 midterms.
01:15:03.000And so they very quickly were able to shift to agreeing that China was trying to influence our elections after that 2020 election had passed by.
01:15:14.000And so, look, I would just say China trying to influence our elections is something that really needs to be kept an eye on, along with all of these Chinese influence efforts.
01:15:52.000But, Jerry, tell us where everyone can find the book, and I recommend you guys check it out because we have to understand exactly what we're getting into, especially as we're in an election year, when we understand sort of the gross incompetence that we're dealing with on a daily basis.
01:16:07.000Yeah, you can get it wherever books are sold.
01:16:11.000You can go to Amazon. And if you'll indulge me real quick, I know that the Gold Star families, if they're watching or if they watch us, would probably appreciate it.
01:16:21.000As you mentioned earlier, President Biden has never said the names of the 13 U.S. service members who were killed at Abbey Gate out loud and in public, but I'd love to real quick.
01:16:33.000So that's David Espinoza, Nicole Gee, Darren Taylor Hoover, Ryan Christian Knauss, Hunter Lopez, Riley McCollum, Dylan Marola, Kareem Nkui, Dagan Page, Yohani Rosario, Humberto Sanchez, Jared Schmitz, and Maxton Soviak.
01:16:53.000Our book was dedicated to them and to the other 2,448 Americans who lost their lives in Afghanistan.
01:17:01.000And I do hope that people check out the book.
01:17:06.000And I do hope that this debacle in Afghanistan is at least something that people keep in mind.
01:17:13.000When they go to the ballot box there in 2024 because this was a disaster.
01:17:22.000Afghans left behind. 13 new Gold Star families.
01:17:26.000ISIS-K now carrying out attacks around the world and a more dangerous world with Russia, China and our other adversaries taking advantage of what happened.
01:17:38.000Yeah, I mean, that is Joe Biden's legacy, and it's a damn shame.
01:18:38.000And also, any of you guys, if you're in Indiana tomorrow, I'll be there in Shelbyville with Congressman Jim Banks, who's running for Senate there because we need some more fighters in the Senate.
01:18:50.000Could be really good. So I'm in Shelbyville with Jim Banks at the Fisher Food Grade for an America First rally.