One American - Chase Geiser - 9/11, Chinese Election Interference, JFK & The Deep State | Tony Shaffer

May 28, 2021 - One American - Chase Geiser

01:02:01

9/11, Chinese Election Interference, JFK & The Deep State | Tony Shaffer | One American Podcast #5

Chase Geiser is joined by Tony Shaffer. Tony is a self-described snarky bastard, NYTs bestselling author, retired DoD Intelligence Operative, and President of The London Center For Policy Research. EPISODE LINKS: Tony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/T_S_P_O_O_K_Y Chase's Twitter: https://twitter.com/realchasegeiser PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://www.patreon.com/IAmOneAmerican

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	You were aware of some 9-11 intelligence and tried to kind of push it up the ladder before 9-11 happened and nobody listened.
	Yeah, it's more complicated.
	It's a bit more complicated than that because forces on both sides.
	And to summarize it, there were three parts of this.
	First, uh, I was running um a task force that was focused on adapting new technologies to war fighting and intelligence support.
	Let me be very clear on this.
	People tend to forget this.
	Able danger wasn't about intelligence.
	Uh Special Operations Command uses intelligence as a as a um uh enabler to do their operations.
	And you know, so special operations command, they go out and kill people.
	I mean, it's kind of like, you know, I I'm always surprised people don't really connect the dots here's like, yeah, we weren't doing this just to do data mining.
	Data mining was a methodology which was brand new back then.
	It's done commonly now, but remember, this is the late 90s, and nobody really understood the potential of the internet.
	Uh, some knucklehead over at the New York Times predicted that the internet would fade away, you know, it would never happen.
	I think he got a Nobel Peace Prize, as I recall.
	Uh it was a very different environment.
	And so we uh were trying to figure out ways to do things differently.
	So that's kind of why we were involved.
	When Special Operations Command decided to pursue Al-Qaeda, they were getting nowhere with the normal intelligence support that they were being offered.
	Now, was this in late 90s?
	Late 90s, 99, 2000.
	Okay.
	And so the primary focus then was by SOCOM.
	How do we target a global target that's never been really uh targeted before?
	How do we do that?
	And uh we were brought in because they weren't getting anywhere.
	We choose to go to the moon and this decay and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
	Mr. Gorbachev teared down this war.
	A date which will live in infamy.
	I still have a dream.
	Good night and good luck.
	Good night and good luck.
	So um, I just kind of want to talk uh uh a little bit about where you're coming from.
	Uh uh in your background as well as where America is going, if you're comfortable sort of having that conversation now.
	Um all I know about you is what I've seen from your Twitter and your Wikipedia page, which I'm sure you might have some disputes about your Wikipedia.
	Wikipedia is completely effed up.
	Yeah, it's like go refer to that, and it's all propaganda and you know, you know, as a whistleblower, they put a lot of false stuff out.
	And you want to you want to echo that, then you go you go knock yourself out.
	So, you know.
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	One of my favorite is oh, well, you lost your retirement.
	It's like, uh, no, I'm right now working with DIA to figure out my exact starting of pay date.
	And same with the army.
	It's like, yeah, no, I'm sorry, you you know, sorry, you know, no such thing.
	You know, it's just amazing.
	And of course, it's the most vicious things they want to come at you with.
	It's always amazing.
	So tell me a little bit about um uh about your background and where your story starts in terms of the intelligence community.
	I want to talk a little bit about 9-11 if you're comfortable with talking about that.
	Anything you don't want to talk about is totally fine.
	No, no, no, I'm open to everything.
	We can talk about anything.
	So okay, great.
	So my understanding, and totally correct me if I'm wrong, please, is that um you were aware of some 9-11 intelligence and tried to kind of push it up the ladder before 9-11 happened, and nobody listened.
	Yeah, it's more complic, it's a bit more complicated than that because forces on both sides.
	And to summarize it, there were three parts of this.
	First, uh, I was running um a task force that was focused on adapting new technologies to war fighting and intelligence support.
	Let me be very clear on this.
	People tend to forget this.
	Able danger wasn't about intelligence.
	Uh Special Operations Command uses intelligence as a as a um uh enabler to do their operations.
	And you know, so special operations command, they go out and kill people.
	I mean, it's kind of like, you know, and I I'm always surprised people don't really connect the dots here's like, yeah, we weren't doing this just to do data mining.
	Data mining was a methodology which was brand new back then.
	It's done commonly now, but remember, this is the late 90s, and nobody really understood the potential of the internet.
	Uh, Some knucklehead over at the New York Times predicted that the internet would fade away, you know, it would never happen.
	I think it got a Nobel Peace Prize, as I recall.
	Uh it was a very different environment.
	And so we uh were trying to figure out ways to do things differently.
	So that's kind of why we were involved.
	When Special Operations Command decided to pursue Al Qaeda, they were getting nowhere with the normal intelligence support that they were being offered.
	Now, was this in late 90s?
	Late 90s, 99, 2000.
	Okay.
	And so the primary focus then was by SOCOM.
	How do we target a global target that's never been really uh targeted before?
	How do we do that?
	And we were brought in because they weren't getting anywhere.
	They were just, they were just not, they were not getting anywhere.
	So we proposed, hold on a second here.
	Sure.
	We proposed that um that the methodology we were developing for purposes of uh information operations be applied for purposes of supporting SOCOM and their initiative to go after bin Laden.
	And that's all it all happened.
	And we were indeed an experimental project.
	We were doing things with data that had never been done before.
	And it was as an outgrowth of this data mining, this data can uh consolidation and uh figuring out how to use it, is that we discovered two of the three cells which conducted the 9-11 attacks.
	It's kind of like, hey, you're over here looking through all this stuff, and all of a sudden you you build an algorithm.
	The algorithm we built was based on the 93 World Trade Center bombers.
	We took and digitized all those guys.
	Again, this is all brand new back in those days.
	Nobody understood digitization, nobody understood algorithms.
	This was all brand new.
	So we took and digitized the uh Trade Center bombers of 93, then had this reference database out there to go set and basically said to the algorithm, go look at all these people and these terror networks and tell us if any of these people look like these guys.
	And sure enough, there emerged all the data.
	It's like, oh, yeah, and then we had one of the cells was the Brooklyn cell, because they were the most uh essentially they wrote they weren't physically in Brooklyn, they were they they were most like in uh digitized format.
	They were most like the the current that the it turned out the Al-Qaeda guys were most like the Brooklyn digitized profile.
	They the profile matched, and that's where we started.
	It's like, hey, these guys are here.
	Looks like they meet the profile of Al-Qaeda, you ought to look at them.
	And that's where the problem started because the lawyers, the Jamie Garelic memo of pre-9-11 of the Clinton administration said, oh, we don't want intelligence information, which we're developing shared with law enforcement.
	Oh, they're worried about due process, or is that the issue?
	And so, what is SOCOM do?
	What is SOCOM supposed to do if they can't pass something to law enforcement?
	Are they supposed to just sit there and say, oh, these terrorists are in the United States, but no big deal?
	Think about this.
	Like, what are you supposed to do if you can't pass it to law enforcement?
	Right.
	And was there concern that it was going to be a violation of due process?
	That was one of the dilemmas, which has never to this day been resolved.
	There were options that people don't want me talking about, and I won't, but okay, you can probably figure it out.
	You're, you know, you guys in the media are pretty smart.
	And then the the ask the other aspect of this is after the fact the attacks happened.
	What happened?
	Why wasn't this information passed to the right authorities?
	It's a legitimate question.
	Uh, and that was how my involvement uh started.
	Uh I was part of the intelligence team to develop uh the capabilities.
	I was running some of the operations to help inform special operations command.
	I was actually uh uh at times a reservist working for special operations command because I was in reserve status back then.
	So that's how Able Danger all started.
	It was about this uh advanced project to facilitate SOCOM identifying and targeting Al-Qaeda.
	And then because of restrictions, we didn't stop 9-11.
	After the fact, I went and reported to the oversight officials to include the 9-11 commission, Phil Zelikau, hey, we identified these guys, and nobody let us do anything about it.
	And that's why it became so controversial to this day.
	And nobody can still answer to anybody why Able Danger was shut down in January of 2000.
	It's a mystery.
	So do you think that's that's kind of that's the best way I think I can summarize it all without getting really deep into details of what happened.
	That makes sense.
	Do you think that the reason that um there was reluctance to share intelligence information with law enforcement was that there were any sort of concerns about due process or you know, how can we actually bring charges or get warrants for for these people just because their profile matches, you know, known terrorists.
	Well, the the answer is EO 123 provides you uh clear and compelling guidelines on how to do that by by the fact that um if you if you or I came up in a legitimate uh investigation as a as a direct link to a terrorist organization, you're a fair game.
	Even before the Patriot Act, yeah.
	Oh yeah.
	You can look you can look at EO 1233 now, and it actually says a U.S. citizen is presumed to not, you know, I can't like right now, I could not necessarily easily lie to you about if I if okay, let's start.
	Let me frame this correctly.
	Sure.
	If I were an active military case officer, and uh I wanted you to help me do something regarding a foreign threat, I'd have to show my badge and say, hey, I'm Tony Schaefer, I'm a clandestine guy.
	I need you to help me do an investigation.
	That's what I because you're a citizen.
	You I can't spy on you.
	I'm uh, you know, we're looking at bad guys, and you're not presuming you're not presumed of having broken any law.
	The moment that you have a link, a viable link, a credible link to a terrorist or a foreign intelligence service, I can lie to you.
	I can pretend that uh I'm Chris Stryker, which is my alias in another operation.
	And that's cool, alias, superhero.
	Yeah, I know.
	I can we it's a whole nother story on that.
	Anyway, so I can say then, hey, XYZ, I don't have to tell you U.S. intelligence, I could say I'm undercover with uh XYZ bottle washers incorporated or something, and then start investigating you.
	So that's where it was even before 9-11 that was available to us as intelligence officers, and it was totally legal.
	So that's what we were saying.
	It's like, hey, these guys, they're they're foreign nationals.
	Uh well, the the argument was, well, they're here legally.
	Uh, I don't care if they're here legally or not.
	But the the presumption was if they're here legally, they have the status of a U.S. citizen.
	There's no legal uh predicate for that.
	It was just, oh, what this is our decision, this is our policy.
	There's no law that backs it up.
	But that's what we were forced to live with.
	It's like these guys are here on green cards, you can't look at them.
	Why?
	Well, they're you're a citizens.
	Yeah, but it either if you even treat them like that, if you go by EO 123, if we can find a credible link between them and a terrorist or foreign intelligence organization, we can still look at them.
	And they wouldn't let us do that.
	That's during those days, they were so restrictive, they over-interpreted the restriction and said, Well, we don't agree, you can't look at them at all.
	Or they put us put on us very severe restrictions regarding you have to do something within 30 days or or take them out of the database.
	That's how severe it was.
	And I would argue those misinterpretations of law uh were the results of um uh policies which were to look the other way.
	Now, whether that meant meant that uh they were supporting the 9-11 attacks or not, I don't know.
	But I'm just telling you, there was a vast misinterpretation over interpretation of policy saying, yeah, these guys have terrorist links, but don't look at them.
	Some somebody had to make the decision.
	And uh we know that there were DOD lawyers that were involved in that decision, and that's where a lot of the roads we've been able to trace back to so far go.
	So I know obviously that you there's no way that you know you can know for sure, but if you were to speculate, is your best guess that for some reason the United States wanted 9-11 to happen?
	You know, that if you'd asked me that question back in 2003, I would I would give you uh a No, there's no way any sworn officer of the United States or politician would ever encourage that level of uh of death and destruction.
	And now here I am in 2021, having seen what's happened over the past 10 years, like there's no doubt that someone would have been open to selling out the well, there's specul there's speculation that you know that Pearl Harbor was was something that we allowed to happen in order to get into World War II.
	I don't know if that's true or not.
	I just know that there's some speculation about it.
	You can go to the International Spy Museum, and there is a very clear uh one of the foreign intelligence assets, a poll was trying to tell uh Hoover that the attacks were coming with great great credit.
	Yeah, so no, I mean uh Hoover refused to tell FDR about that.
	Interesting.
	Yeah, no, I mean, this is you're what you're saying is as is absolutely correct.
	There was evidence.
	Uh and and by the way, uh Hoover didn't want to share the information with Roosevelt because he considered this uh the source a oh, he's a womanizer and uh drunk.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, you know, doesn't change the fact that he may be factually correct.
	But right, it's an ad hominem fallacy.
	Absolutely.
	And I see a lot of that going on here.
	We who came forward and tried to say this were attacked vigorously.
	It was you and four others, right?
	That's what Wikipedia says.
	So who knows if it's true?
	Yeah.
	So so, but but the funny thing is, and again, we can the people who did the 9 11 invest the people who did the actual investigation of my issue have come forward and said, uh, John Crane, he's come on record, he filed.
	Get this talk about I irony.
	John Crane, who was the lead investigator uh in 2000 uh five, he investigated my claims.
	He was the lead investigator.
	He did the report.
	He came out three years ago and said, Oh, we shut we sent Schaefer up.
	He told the truth and we went after him.
	We we've we verified what he said within the first 30 days, and then we spent the next six months burying him.
	He said this if we get the evidavit, he files a complaint with the intelligence community.
	The same time Venman does his report, oh, they put Venman's at the top, let you know, oh, this is Ukraine, we gotta go after and frame the president.
	They the intelligence community has yet to this day to act on John Crane's credible allegation saying, yeah, Schaefer's told the truth, and I will we need to validate what Schaefer said.
	So after 9-11 happened, and the days and weeks that more information became public about you know, finding passports outside the wreck.
	Yeah, remember within 48 hours they listed all these individuals, their address, all that within 48 hours.
	Right.
	And you and so were you what was your personal feeling at that?
	Were you like, holy shit?
	No, it's like we knew it's like how, you know, um to me, the fact that they published within 48 hours.
	Now, I don't know how much time you spent actually in law enforcement or um working uh this issue, that doesn't happen.
	Especially something this complicated.
	You don't have all these guys listed out by name and addresses in less than less than that less than a week because you got to validate, but no, they had these guys, oh yeah, here's here they are.
	And so it just reinforced what I said is like, yeah, we we were tracking these guys.
	We, you know, we identified these guys by sell where they were where they were at.
	And so my presumption was we're gonna go out and kill these guys immediately.
	And I I believed from day one, then it's like, yeah, we we probably were gonna go after and do this pretty quick.
	What and then with the more and more the time went by, and I was being told that no, we didn't know this was coming.
	It's like, no, that's not true.
	We did know.
	I mean, we were working behind the scenes.
	And my and my issue was I'm a you know, I'm I'm a black operations guy.
	I'm under I'm in career cover.
	Uh and I didn't have any contacts with the media.
	I mean, at the time, no offense.
	I thought media folks were like poisonous.
	Like, I don't want to talk about it.
	Oh, they are.
	I don't consider myself a media person, but I guess I am because I make a podcast, but I'm not made by any corporations.
	Yeah, my own.
	So anyway, so that's what I said.
	The point is like, yeah, we, you know, we I didn't want to talk to the media because, you know, I'm still undercover.
	I want to go after the bad guys.
	As a matter of fact, I was undercover in Afghanistan when I talked to Phil Zelikau.
	I was out, you know, there's a book out there called Operation Darkheart where I cover all this.
	I, you know, I kind of outlined the fact that we were all as a team disappointed, but we wanted to get back into the fight and do something to to win.
	And so it wasn't even like we were All a bunch of Nardy Wells complaining.
	It's like, no, we were already back engaged going after these guys when we uh commander Scott Philpot, who became Captain Scott Philpot, went separately to the 9-11 Commission with the permission of uh of Pete Schumaker, General Schoomaker, who's commander of SOCOM, he went and talked to him.
	And I went in Afghanistan and talked to the 9-11 Commission with the chain of command uh permission as well.
	So it wasn't like we started screaming, oh, you know, we no, we re-invigorated ourselves to go fight.
	And then when the opportunity presented itself, it's like, hey, by the way, you know, did you guys investigate able danger?
	That's that was how it all happened, and that's why it was kind of it didn't happen right away right after 9-11.
	It happened incidental to our being asked the question, what do you know about the 9-11 failures?
	And we answered them honestly.
	It's like, well, this is what we know.
	So was it that we knew 9-11 was going to happen ahead of time, or was it more so that we just knew the people involved were a problem?
	Well, it I don't, I it could be both.
	It could be both, because uh we knew for a fact that the people were going to be a problem because they were here and they were doing up to no good.
	And we had the Africa bombings already under our belt.
	Uh in 99 and October 99, we had the coal attack.
	Uh Captain uh Kurt Lippold.
	So it's kind of uh it's like, yeah, we know something's on something's going on.
	And the attitude at the time of DOD and the intelligence community largely was Al Qaeda makes far too much money here fundraising.
	They would never dare to come here and bite the hand that feeds them.
	That was the attitude.
	And that was the same attitude that was derived from the Pentagon and intelligence communities dealings with the uh IRA with the uh Irish Republican Army.
	It's the same attitude we had with China.
	They they make way too much money off of us.
	Why would they ever hurt us?
	You hear that all the time.
	All the time.
	And it's it's it's it's it's fallacious, it's stupid.
	Well, the CCP doesn't care how much money its people make.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Yes, like, yeah, no, it's stupid.
	That's but that was the attitude, same attitude.
	Oh, they'll never do this.
	I was called in to a meeting one time by a senior executive service guy.
	My unit, Stratus Ivy had multiple uh multiple um task forces.
	We were we were a special mission task force, and we had smaller teams within it.
	One of the teams was supporting uh compartmented DOD black operations relating to technology.
	And uh it was called enabling, enabling is the term, enabling operations, sports NSA.
	Anyway, I get called in by the guy, and he says, Why are you doing all this able danger stuff?
	Uh, because there's a credible terrorist terror threat, and we're working with the tiered units, uh, you know, the the uh special operations SOCOM folks, JSOC folks.
	Well, we this is a waste of time.
	It's like, what do you mean it's a waste of time?
	Well, they'll never come here.
	Uh, you know, this is like 99 cycle.
	They'll Al Qaeda will never dare come and attack the United States.
	You're wasting your time on this.
	And uh I basically had to say, I'm sorry, I disagree with you.
	We're continuing.
	This is something that I, as the unit chief, feel is important enough to pursue.
	And I got in a lot of trouble there because you know, I pissed off the set off the secretary of defense and said, I basically kind of said politely, yeah, F you, we're gonna do it anyway.
	Agree to disagree, right?
	I agree to disagree, we're pursuing this.
	And so about one third of my unit's resources, and we weren't large.
	I mean, just to let you know, my unit was uh at max, uh, probably about uh 20 people doing a global mission.
	And I was augmented with it by another 10 to 15 reservists on on call.
	So imagine a small unit doing global operations, uh, and that's what we were doing.
	And we were literally at the cutting edge.
	And but so yeah, one third of my resources being devoted to this really pissed off the other folks.
	It was kind of like, no, I mean, they've attacked us in Africa.
	The chances are pretty good based on the evidence we have here, they're gonna do something.
	And they didn't they didn't like that.
	And obviously, DOD after the fact, I think is has tried to cover this up far more because of embarrassment and their refusal to accept what we knew rather than uh anything relating to trying to fix things.
	It's all about the fact that they don't like being embarrassed, I think I believe.
	So, what was what was that like going through that?
	Surreal.
	It was very surreal.
	I mean, I still think back of it on it now, it was uh very much like a movie.
	I mean, it was just as bad as it gets in any drama where you know that you were right, and uh uh you see the failure, you can't miss the failure one of my friends is bernie carrick and i feel terrible about what bernie had to go through uh uh regarding 9-11 i mean we've spoken about this like bernie you know and he they've they they tried to sit bernie against me one time on the Donnie Deutsch show back years ago we spoke about that and I said look Bernie I was you know I'm sorry that they put you in a position to try to have to face
	off against me but you know we've come to understand what happened and Don Rumsfeld I spoken to Don Rumsville about this I said Don you know uh we were sitting together in the Fox green room one day and uh I look over at the sec in a former Secret and I said you know uh for all with all due respect Mr. Secretary uh there's there's an issue between us and he looked over and smiled and says yeah Tony able danger he knew uh and he looked at me says why is
	that talk about surreal I said well with all I I think they lied to you they they lied to you look I told the exact truth and I laid out what I knew and he sat there and looked at me very stone faced he just said you know Tony this wasn't the only thing they lied to me about so take that for what it is and since then Don and I have been very friendly he's been trying he actually has spoken highly of me in public so that's a huge change.
	So I don't know if he was you know buffaloed himself remember he was the only guy of the old Bush folks who didn't go against Trump just saying there's a clue there.
	He wasn't the it was the only guy of the old Bush folks who didn't go in and try to to go against President Trump and some of the other folks when they all went against him.
	So I'm not sure if Don has had an awakening much like other Secretary of defenses perhaps do after they get out and have some time to think about it.
	But I'm just telling you that that uh going for going through and seeing the failure and then seeing the cover up to that level it's been it was very surreal very frustrating because it's like I'm sitting there it's like I'm just telling you what I know and you can go back and check I have never went past my story.
	I I worked very hard to not comment on other aspects of the evil danger or 9-11 issues beyond my direct knowledge because I've been asked well what about XYZ it's like I don't know I wasn't there.
	What about NORAD?
	What about X?
	Like, I don't know.
	I can only tell you what I know about my factual understanding of my experience.
	I can't deviate from that.
	But it was very frustrating to see the entire, not entire defense establishment, Army stuck with me as long as they could, to see that there was a great effort by the defense and intelligence establishment to basically come after me and destroy me with the interest of trying to prevent proper oversight and responsibility.
	resort and fixing the issues that happened.
	So having experienced what you did um what are your thoughts about what happened with Snowden well I that's a mixed bag.
	I I uh I've been a critic of Snowden no no don't get me wrong I sure and I I was very clear about my belief that his going the the method he took was not helpful because I feel I've seen some of the information he provided to foreign threats for and he he compromised I don't want to get into specifics he compromised some of the things I work to establish regarding capability.
	So that I'm not happy about that.
	I understand his frustration based based on what happened to me it's like you go down the path of trying to tell the truth you think he had good intentions I think he had good intentions I'll give him that and and uh and I've said the same thing about Assange like you know I've I've met Julian Assange and I I I told him at the time I thought he was making mistakes about how he was approaching it.
	So um I feel terrible about what's happening to him but I do too no look I I think it's all a setup.
	I think they set him up I mean come on between you and me you have consensual sex with girls and and then it's statutory rape and all this other stuff.
	Basically anytime there's a public accusation of sexual assault I you know I believe all women until I hear him on CNN that's kind of my philosophy.
	That's a good that's a good but I mean the guy had you know this is the thing I I hate about the left and it's not even the entire left because there's people like Tulsi Gabbard who are completely uh good people who really want the truth.
	It's the progressives.
	It's this like, I don't even know what to tell it because people I don't know what it is because a lot of my friends on the left that I'm still friends with, Dennis Kusinich, Tulsi Gabbard, they see what's going on as a as a danger.
	And I'm not one who believes Nasaj shouldn't have been uh locked up, he should be heard.
	But I but I knew the path he was going down was going to result in bad things because of the progressives, because of the Hillary Clintons, the Bill Clintons, uh, the Joe Bidens.
	It's it's it's they they are not traditional liberal, they are not liberals or progressives.
	Uh and even some of the conservatives have went after him.
	I'm I don't consider myself a neocon, but the neocons seem to be in that that ball of hate that they've all kind of formed together to form to do what they're doing now.
	And I feel bad about Assange as well.
	And I think Assange should he should have his day uh in court, whatever.
	I don't think he's guilty of the things he's been accused of.
	Uh I think he got information and put it out there as best he could.
	Uh, I think his organization, WikiLeaks has been badly maligned for the same reasons.
	Uh and some of the some of his enemies are my enemies, some of Snowden's enemies are my enemies.
	Uh, and I think there, there the issue becomes uh what price do you have to pay to simply state the objective truth is as you best understand it without drawing the wrath of those in power who don't want to uh acknowledge the fact that they're part of a cover-up, part of a plot, or part of something that has no uh interest in basically helping the American people or those people of the world.
	So I was surprised that President Trump didn't pardon um Assange.
	Me too.
	Uh I'm disappointed in a lot of things in the last six months of the Trump administration.
	Um I feel the same way.
	I was a big Trump supporter because I'm a populist and he was the only he was the only candidate that was like America first.
	And that was even though it no matter what I disagree with him on, I could always come home to the populism.
	So I'm with you.
	I I've actually said on BBC and other networks.
	I'm not sure you've seen this like I've said that the the Trump uh uh the the folks who follow Trump is much more populist than they are conservative.
	Right blue-collar support, the idea of having good jobs, tariffs if you need them, the idea that that we want to preserve uh our initiative for our people.
	We look, uh who could be against good, they always talk about raising the minimum wage.
	Well, what what if you flood the market with cheap labor uh by allowing unmitigated, uh unregulated uh immigration?
	Even Bernie Sanders at one point understood you don't want that because you destroy the very uh people you're trying to support regarding good wages.
	Why do you do that?
	So this is where I think people who don't pay attention don't understand like no, Trump is for you American workers.
	He is for you all having good careers and good money.
	And the things that the left now represents, the progressive left now represents, undermine the very interest of the blue-collar workers you're all supposed to be supporting.
	And this is one of the things I've not understood why people can't get past the mean tweets.
	Yes, he had mint mean tweets, but he was actually doing the things which I think most people would recognize benefits the American worker.
	And I I it's it's been very frustrating.
	So well, and it's really interesting to me with the whole Trump phenomena in that you know, the media has always been biased in this in this country, especially the last the second half of the 20th century and end of the 21st century.
	Right.
	But I didn't realize until election night, 2016, when Trump won, because I was certain he was gonna just get his ass kicked.
	And I voted for him.
	And I was like, he's gonna win, he's gonna lose, but I gotta vote for him.
	I was in Tennessee at the time.
	And when he won, it occurred to me, I was like, wow, the media didn't just get it wrong.
	They lied.
	Yeah.
	Because he because Hillary was supposed to win by such a great margin.
	And the fact that she didn't, it was like, oh my God, they were just lying to try to help.
	And ever since then, it's it's been terrifying to me, but obvious to me that the corporate media is not media anymore.
	It's it's it's propaganda that they're pushing right now that the reason gas prices are up are because of unprecedented demand.
	I'm like, shut down the Keystone pipeline.
	Like, come on.
	What the hell do you think it is?
	And so what are we what where is this propaganda coming from?
	And what are we what are we supposed to do about it?
	So this is where the able danger questions and your your current question kind of come together.
	Yeah, it it is all about uh the people in power wanting to maintain power uh no matter what it takes.
	And then using uh they've been able to co-opt the US media to the point of where the media will say and do anything they wanted to.
	And I learned that the hard way during my thing when you know I was in with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and Wolf said, Tony, these are the five things we've been told about you, which we're not gonna go with because we can't prove them, but I'm just letting you know there's a whisper campaign to undermine you.
	That's a big lesson.
	Now, the only reason Wolf didn't go against me at the time because my attorney was kind of friends with him, but otherwise, they would have come after me even harder.
	Think about that.
	Now, and think about the fact that Wolf acknowledged, yeah, normal circumstance, we'd screw you.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But because you know, and I didn't understand the context of that admission at the moment.
	It was, but it's like I look back on it now, it's like, oh, so you guys are ready to really, you know, you're not you're only gonna lie a little bit here.
	We're not gonna go all the way.
	But that so that's this is 2005.
	Think about where we're at now and what's at stake.
	So it's only gotten worse.
	And so the the answer is you cannot trust corporate media because corporate media has desired decided that they are uh a wholesale extension of whoever is in the and it's not even whoever's in power, they never supported Trump.
	It's all about this loose configuration of again the progressives and neocons who have decided we think we know better than you, and we're just gonna try to maintain power no matter what.
	And they'll light sheets, steal, I would argue, even murder if they don't get their way.
	And that's that's where we're at right now.
	And people like you, people like me who politically we may not agree on everything, but I think we agree that we should all focus on objective truth.
	We should all focus on those things which are are uh uh need to be addressed to benefit the American people.
	And these other folks don't do that.
	And I think that's where there's a great danger.
	I I know this is a long way of answering your question.
	No, I I really appreciate it.
	The other thing that I recognized over the you know to your point regarding this 2016 election and what happened after, I went on a record in on March 6th and said this Russia collusion narrative, it's a hoax.
	I went on, I was on Fox, you know, because the president had tweeted, oh my God, they were targeting me in Trump Tower.
	And uh so Fox News sent a car and said, Hey, would you come talk about this?
	I was driving in, I was talking to my sources, like, hey, is it is what it's like, yeah, no, uh, this is what happened.
	So I went on the air ahead of everybody else and said, No, we're gonna come to find the Russian collusion narrative was a complete hoax.
	And I said this on the sixth, I think it was the 6th of March 2017, and I was the problem.
	It's like, oh my gosh, Schaefer's off the reservation, you know.
	So my point is is like I'm an intelligence officer.
	I said what my sources were telling me based on what they were directly uh uh give been given, and it turned out to be completely correct.
	But my point is somebody in the media was decided to make it up, decided to make it up, and they were taking they were saying, Well, we're talking to high-level anonymous sources.
	The anonymous sources, in my belief, were Comey, Brennan, uh uh Clapper, because who else has that kind of uh uh power to convince someone in the media to go with a single source?
	And the other thing, everybody kept saying, Well, uh, they were people, these people were leaking.
	No, they weren't leaking, they were lying.
	They were lying.
	That's why you can't use the espionage to go after them now because they were lying, they weren't actually leaking in classified information of the media, yeah.
	Right.
	So, how do you legally go after someone who basically says I lied?
	I didn't leak anything because I didn't break a law, it's not legal.
	Think about that for a second.
	They got away with this because that's that's treason, man.
	In my opinion, that's but you can't get them on treason because they were oh, we're just lying.
	Yeah, yeah, people just lying.
	That is just oh, that is terrible.
	But but terrible.
	But the me, but the people even our side didn't think about how evil that is.
	It's because you know, everybody, oh, we want Durham to go get these guys.
	Yeah, you know, you're you're probably gonna get him on some stuff, but on the big things of treason of all these other things, it's like, yeah, we were just lying.
	And it's like we didn't leak anything.
	It's so that's how I just I'm just so glad that he Found out he was fired by seeing the news.
	That was awesome.
	A quick story.
	I was in the White House when uh the president fired uh Comey.
	No kidding.
	Oh, let me cut.
	Tell me a story.
	Yeah, take your time.
	We got all so I'm sitting there on the couch.
	I'm in the in the in the West Wing with Katie McFarland and uh Howie uh uh uh Kurtz Kurtz is there from the from Fox and KT's there, and I'm there to meet with Sean Spicer, because I'm doing some stuff, you know.
	I'm trying to, I was I was working on a series called uh uh chain of command, Nat Geo's chain of command.
	It's out there, you guys can Google it.
	Anyway, so I'm over to coordinate some of the potential shooting with the White House for for the series for the TV series for Nat Geo.
	So I'm wearing my media hat.
	So I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden, you know, Katie and I are just talking, and all of a sudden I see Rance Prebus running down the hall, full blast, running down the hall past us.
	And I look over at KT and it's like, hmm, that's something you don't see every day.
	That's awesome.
	And so I'm sitting there, and then someone comes out and says, Oh, Colonel Schaefer, you know, um something's going on, you know.
	Uh Sean's Sean Spicer, Sean's gonna be poles into this for a while, he's not gonna be able to see today, we'll have to reschedule.
	But would you like to see Vice President Pence instead?
	That's awesome.
	I'm not joking.
	So they said they shuffled me off to talk to Vice President Pence.
	That's awesome.
	So what's you can check my social media, get some pictures on the wall.
	Oh, I believe you.
	So so, but no, I mean, it's like I guess Trump just decided I'm done with Comey.
	And see, Trump should have done more of that.
	He didn't do that enough.
	Because those that those sorts of things really disrupted the other side's ability to do what they were doing against them, because as you and I both know now, Comey was completely in on this other plot.
	So if we're gonna get into um conspiracy territory at all, which I think we're already there, but I don't think the conspiracy since it's all true, it's factual.
	So well, yeah, well, it could be a conspiracy can be true as long as people conspire, right?
	So if we're gonna talk about election manipulation, it seems to me, and I could be just totally full of shit, so forgive me if I am, but it seems to me that if there's any evidence for foreign interference in elections, it's COVID-19 in China this past year.
	I mean, it seems to me that the lab league hypothesis is the most reasonable explanation of what happened with this virus because it is incredibly rare for a virus to be both lethal and viral to the degree that it was out of nowhere, and there's no evidence that it's infecting animals, right?
	It's only humans because of the gain of function research would be the best explanation.
	And it and if it's obvious that China was hyping the fear around it by all the videos they released of people collapsing, you know, really early on during this whole COVID thing.
	They had subway videos of people in China just spontaneously collapsing that we know now is not a symptom or side effect of COVID at all, right?
	But it was alarming.
	And it seems to me that they were just they were pushing the whole thing to try to screw Trump.
	So if you just look at the facts, you know, I'm an intelligence officer, so we sure, you know, law enforcement has uh uh they want to basically have you know, basically a factual case to go through.
	We we have indicators, we can tell just look for indicators and the indicators you just outlined indicate to us that China was up to something.
	If you I mean it's it's not a conspiracy if you just say Wuhan was being funded by uh uh NIH to do certain research, Fauci's acknowledged that.
	Uh the Chinese are up to no good.
	One of the questions I got early on from uh Epic Times, I hope you don't mind me mentioning Epic Times.
	No, I like I did an interview where they said, hey, uh, this is what all the things you just said they were seeing.
	It's like, is this possible?
	It's like, oh yeah.
	And I did an on-air interview saying every nation on earth uh who has a significant population and military uh researches biological warfare, either for purposes of of defense or in some cases offense.
	So in most cases, offensive use will result on your in your own damage, but some may not be worried about that.
	And I outline how China would probably will very likely be doing a lot of this.
	I'm a subject matter expert, but it's like, oh no, no, uh, that's fake news.
	It's like, no, I'm giving you a professional opinion based on doing this for 30 plus years, and everything you just outlined is like, yeah, there's something there's something there.
	We need to investigate that.
	And I don't believe for a minute, bats in the market was the source for this.
	That doesn't make any sense.
	Uh gee, were people French kids kissing bats?
	Were they like, you know, how how would how would that happen?
	Uh you know, there has to be a vector of infection.
	And it turns out now, supposedly these droplets are the vector.
	So unless you were like uh in close quarters in a closet with a bat breathing what is, you know, is it's like it didn't make any sense.
	So this is where the whole thing required investigation.
	And I think if you look at the the messaging, the way the the Chinese communist party tried to deny this initially.
	To this day, they're trying to deny that they're the source.
	The the way the research in the Wuhan lab was denied, they destroyed the market.
	Oh, we don't want to let you investigate.
	We have to destroy the market.
	All these things indicate there was a plot.
	Uh, and then when you allow the idea that it came here, and they immediately started using this against Trump.
	That this was very clearly, I think uh in if it wasn't a key component initially to defeat Trump, the left figured out how to incorporate it in their thinking immediately and use it as a weaponized uh method of uh undermining Trump pretty much from day one.
	Uh yeah, well, it did it terrorized the economy, obviously.
	And it and it opened the door for um uh changing all the election protocols.
	Right.
	And I was, you know, and I was testifying up to that point, and uh I testified, I'm an election security expert based on looking at foreign threat.
	Uh, and and uh I testified in Texas, uh South Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania multiple times.
	I was interfacing with Ron DeSantis staff on this issue.
	And um we were more focused uh up until COVID on making sure that uh paper ballots, risk limiting audits, stopping uh digitization from becoming uh vulnerable to being hacked by a foreign threat.
	And it turns out we should have been looking internally, not at foreigners, but I believe there was hacking.
	I believe that the Dominion is dishonest.
	I believe that there were uh mass ballot fraud occurred.
	Look, I investigated this.
	I found one guy who moved uh a vehicle of 162,000 curated ballots from Beth Page, New York to central Pennsylvania.
	Uh by the way, uh a guy named Bill Barr called me and said, Oh, you need to give that investigation up, you need to turn it over to the FBI.
	Once the FBI got it, we never heard anything again.
	Just saying sounds familiar, right?
	Just saying.
	Sounds like it sounds like a motif in your career.
	When's the last time you ever had Bill Barr, the attorney general calling a private citizen saying, Oh, you need to stop?
	Think about that for a second.
	I I talked to Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general of Virginia about that.
	I said, Ken, I said just two two weeks ago.
	I was like, have you ever heard of the attorney general of the United States calling a private citizen saying, You need to you need to give this up?
	Think about that.
	The attorney general feels threatened.
	Not as yeah, not a staff member, not a uh FBI agent, the attorney general himself.
	Wow, think about that.
	So, how does that phone?
	How's that phone call go?
	Like he calls and says, Hey Tony, how are you doing?
	And you're like, Oh, that's our start.
	Yes, it's like supernight's like, hey, you know, what's going on?
	How do the kids I kind of should be?
	Hey, Tony, all of a sudden he's like, bye, Tony, Bill Barr.
	What's going on?
	I swear to God, I swear to God, there's probably a recording out here somewhere of it.
	Well, the NSA certainly has it.
	Hey, Tony, hey Tony, Bill Barr, how's it going?
	What's going on?
	That's how it started.
	I'm not, I am not joking.
	That's so funny.
	So I told you, it's look, it looks like it's like being in a freaking movie some days, you know.
	For God's sake.
	Yeah, that's why I wore the Ray Bans today, because one of my favorite movies is The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon about Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And he wears the ray.
	I was like, if I'm gonna have an intelligence conversation, I gotta have the look.
	I got a pair of those too.
	And I were when I want to look like uh Wasp, look like the Kiefer Sutherland uh character in uh uh what was that?
	The the the series that got canceled recently where he was playing the president.
	Oh, that was um um what's the what's it called?
	The line of people that are uh that are uh designated survivors, a survivor, yeah.
	He had those in that.
	So I figured, okay, I'll I'll take a look for that look sometimes now.
	Yeah, so how far how far down the list are you?
	I that's a good question.
	I know I'm on a couple lists, but I don't know where I'm at on these lists.
	Yeah, have you ever thought about running for office?
	You know, I've been asked to think about that a couple of times, and uh I've learned a lot from watching uh several friends of mine run for office.
	One of my uh close friends is Sergio de la Pena.
	He just ran for governor here in Virginia for the for the Republican ticket.
	He didn't win.
	But I learned a lot from watching him.
	I've had some wonderful friends and who are great retail politicians.
	I've tried to learn from the late Walter Jones, what representative Jones from North Carolina.
	A great masterful man.
	I've worked very closely with a couple of folks.
	Louis Gomer, I love Louie.
	And I've tried to learn from him some of the things that are required to be a good advocate for the truth and still be a good retail politician.
	And there's a way of doing it.
	I wouldn't do it the way AOC does it, but I think there are politicians who can actually uh create a national movement at the same time really serve the interest of their people.
	And so I would not run for office unless I knew I could actually be a good steward of uh the people I'm representing.
	And I I don't want to go out there and represent people who don't who I would have a hard time representing.
	I just say that I could not go into AOC's district and represent them.
	Right.
	I would be clashing with them constantly.
	So if there's ever a match between the where I'm living and the people I would represent, uh, and they would ask me to go forward, I would absolutely do that.
	I I would uh, you know, but I I've seen too many politicians show up on Capitol Hill and just surrender to the uh to the momentum of uh of the sludge.
	If I you've probably watched uh House of Cards, of course the the Frank, the Frank uh underwood underwood character, I I push the sludge through.
	Man, that that is so true.
	I I don't want to become part of that sludge factory.
	And so um if I could emulate one of uh the legislatures, the legislature's that I've worked with, then I would uh be honored to think about that.
	But I, you know, otherwise I I don't think I'd want to do it.
	I that's I'm I'm not sure if that's a good answer or not.
	Well, no, that is a good answer.
	And the thing that's interesting to me about it is it seems like there's a lot of ways that you can be more effective than being a politician, right?
	Uh people think so.
	I think I like to believe we're trying to be effective.
	So yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, but uh yeah, a lot of people think that the the only way to make things happen in this country is um uh to actually hold a formal power, but there's informal authority, right?
	I mean, Elon Musk probably has more influence than AOC, in my opinion.
	I mean, obviously, not you can't just be in an Elon Musk.
	He's he's an anomaly.
	He's brilliant.
	But but there are private sector individuals that gain so much power and influence because of what they accomplish as citizens that they can they can really have an impact on where our culture and our nation go, I think, in a way that politicians often can.
	I find that very true.
	And look, I um I uh and by by the way, Bill Gates, boy, that the dating market, all the girls are gonna be swanning to him all of a sudden.
	I mean, talk about power in person.
	Just right.
	Well, I mean, he's incredibly attractive.
	He's got a lot of people.
	My point being is yeah, people can, I think, influence things much in a much greater degree than than uh being official.
	Uh as a matter of fact, I know generals who you you will never see their name because they they are just there because they wanted to be generals, they didn't want to do anything.
	You can get the title and do absolutely nothing and make no impact.
	And I've seen that a lot.
	So it's more about I think what you you know feel the the longing, the calling to do.
	My son's a uh fireman.
	I always taught him, he's 26.
	I said, look, you follow your dream.
	You need to do what you feel you need to do and follow that and commit yourself to to being the best you can be in that field.
	And I think you'll do well.
	I think others want to do the same thing.
	A lot some people just do it because, oh, I want to be a general because I want to be a general.
	I want to be a congressman because I want to be a congressman, and they lose track of trying to actually make a significant difference.
	And I don't know if that's I don't want to sound like I'm judging other people, but that I tend that that tends to be what I've I see people do and not make want to make a difference.
	And I think those who want to make a difference can find a way to make a difference, uh, no matter what they end up doing regarding titles or otherwise.
	So what do you think our next steps or our best approach to solving this propaganda problem is in the United States?
	Because it seems to me that it's it's in my opinion, it's the number one problem that we have is that people are being lied to and they're believing the lies.
	Yeah.
	Um first off, people like you asking that question is very important because uh being a recovering alcoholic, I'm coming up in 29 years.
	Congratulations.
	Thank you.
	The first the first uh step of recovery is understanding there's a problem.
	Right.
	So a lot of us, I think, have recognized there's a problem.
	And um the issue has to be how do we then you know get people, other people to ask that question.
	Um there's people like you.
	There's people like I I just we did an interview today with for with uh Jeremy of the quartering.
	Uh his his a YouTube channel is critical of social media.
	He's a millennial.
	There's other folks uh there's a number of folks on YouTube.
	Uh Mark Dice, I was watching some of Mark Dice's stuff.
	He doesn't he doesn't hold back.
	And the first thing I've recognized that people who ask the hard questions become the enemy of the state.
	The big state corporate state media state the government state because they don't want you asking those questions.
	So I think the first thing is to create a network of people who are really committed to just speaking the truth and finding a way around social media if you have to maybe even creating our own.
	I know parlor's coming up but there's got to be uh gab and some other things yeah we've got to find a way to to maintain our voice no matter what and a lot of number folks have asked me it's like well you need to be off Twitter.
	You you know you follow me on Twitter I think so yeah well you need to get off it's like no I'm why I didn't do anything wrong I'm gonna put my thoughts in the face of these folks and I'm attacked all the time there was some guy who yesterday wanted wished my mother had aborted me.
	You know, that's the left.
	Yeah, that's real nice.
	That is real nice.
	But I'm just telling you, I'm not backing off of being in that environment, because they need to understand they are being lied to.
	And at the same time, we need to establish this.
	And then the second thing is, to your point, we need to establish essentially a politically populous movement of left and right.
	It's like maybe it's time we give up Democrats and Republicans for now.
	Maybe it's time we step and say, we're done with both sides.
	Let's figure out how we can create a populist movement to actually I think that's what Trump did because Trump drew a lot of people who used to vote blue and he created a schism in the Republican Party and that the people that support Trump are very pissed off at establishment GOP right leaders right now.
	As am I right and so I think that's what maybe we're in I'm I'm not sure where that is because I know people on the and the you know I think Tulsi Gabbard is more of a Trumper than that's gonna get me in trouble now.
	I think she no I think she was she's more of a republican than a lot of the Republicans that's for damn sure exactly you know and it's kind of like you know so that's why they didn't vote.
	That's why the Dunes haters so much I I could tell you a couple of stories I she I was I suggested we were up in Portsmouth at the same time and I texted her I said hey do you mind if I come by your event because I was a Trump 2020 guy at the time she said no everybody's welcome and I couldn't make it but I said boy wouldn't it be funny if you and I went over and got a picture of you and I toilet papering TPing the tree in front of Peter Pete Buddig's office wouldn't that be funny and it's like people would lose their minds because they don't have a sense of humor anymore.
	I mean, right.
	That would have been funny, right?
	Us on Instagram.
	Yeah.
	It'd be the TP party.
	The tea party.
	But you would see the humor there.
	Others would go, they would lose their minds.
	They would attack us over that.
	It's funny.
	My wife and I have, my wife's from California.
	So consequently, she has a lot of democratic friends from childhood.
	And she was doing a, she was doing like a FaceTime call with one of her friends that she grew up with, who's a very knowledgeable Democrat.
	And she asked, it was after the, one of the primary debates between the Democrats last election cycle.
	And she asked, well, if you had to choose any of the Democrats to vote for, which one would you support?
	And Kaylee, my wife said, well, I'd support Tulsi Gabbard.
	And her friend Mara was like, who's Tulsi Gabbard?
	She didn't even know because they didn't cover her at all.
	She didn't even know what she was.
	She was one of the eight people on the stage, you know?
	It's wild.
	And, you know, I got in trouble with a lot of folks because I was asked, I was on Hill TV with Crystal, what's her name?
	Crystal Ball.
	Crystal Ball.
	I should remember that.
	Hard to forget.
	And Crystal asked that question.
	It's like, how do you feel about the media censoring, you know, Google, that the night of the debate when she went after Kamala Harris, Google shut down her fundraising capability by basically doing some things to the database.
	I don't think it was, oh, it was accidental.
	I don't think it was accidental.
	And if you recall, she actually called out Kamala Harris for some of her lies and, it it got her attention and so immediately upon that happening Google shut down her ability to fundraise or get get attention yeah and I it was and so I I was asked about that's like she should she should sue Google nobody no matter how you feel politically big tech should never have the right to censor your first amendment or political capability to do what you need to do.
	And that's what they did.
	They took a side, they supported the, I guess Kamala or whatever she was representing and suppressed Tulsi.
	It wasn't fair.
	Do you think there's hope?
	You think there's hope for us to win that fight against big tech?
	Because that's my biggest concern.
	I totally agree with you that networks are the key to um getting initiatives done.
	And I think what's happening right now is between big tech and corporate media, they are doing everything they can to um undermine uh uh any sort of populist or right-leaning uh um uh market ability to to network and communicate with one another.
	Do you think that there's hope for us to legislate that problem away?
	If if it doesn't get legislated or fixed, we will we will have a civil war because they're going to continue to suppress speech to the point of where those on the left are fired up and think that we're all the enemy, which we're not.
	And those on the conservative side are gonna feel we we don't have a voice.
	It's very dangerous.
	How close do you think we are to uh civil war?
	Uh in terms of timeline.
	I think unless we get this fixed over the but by 2023, 2024, we're gonna have real problems.
	We have problems now, don't get me wrong.
	I'm not trying to diminish anything, but I'm just everything is like a pressure cooker right now.
	Everything is kind of uh so getting so it's more and more intense.
	And so, unless you find a way to defuse that tension, to remind the left that no, we're not your enemy.
	Uh, there wasn't an insurrection on the 6th of January, people upset, paraded around, is that any other express themselves, and that Antifa really is bad.
	And oh, by the way, BLM, come on, you I mean, I'm always on talking about Chicago.
	It's like 40 people were shot yesterday.
	Where's BLM?
	Why does black lives don't matter?
	I'm just saying it's those, and then you'll have the media lying about this.
	Oh, no, no, no, don't look at that.
	That's not that's not really relevant.
	But I'm just saying we've got about uh 18 months to fix this or get it somewhat resolved.
	And I think the midterms and 2022 will be a big indicator of where we're going.
	If we if the if uh if Congress stays in the control of Nancy Pelosi, there's no hope.
	And I think we're on the path to real problems by 2024.
	You think the first step of that looks like a secession from a state like Texas?
	I think you're going to start seeing secession discussions from big states like Texas, Florida, and other places.
	Because uh it's very clear to San DeSantis is knows what he's doing.
	He's he's supporting his his people.
	They like they love him.
	Well, the Cubans hate socialism, so he's got that going for him as well.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And Abbott's going in the right direction.
	Uh so I think there's a real uh I don't think I've ever seen the country.
	I've you know, I've been around a long time.
	I'm getting pretty old, and I've never seen the country quite so divided.
	Uh you know, I voted for Reagan, uh I was eight, I just turned 18 in October of 80.
	And I voted for Reagan in um that November.
	And I voted for Reagan because I was a conservative.
	It's like I liked his message better than Clark than Carter.
	And and it just seems to me from Carter on, they've gotten more and more extreme.
	Back in, you know, there was an old story of Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan getting ready, you know, they just down the street here, road here in Old Town Alexandria, they got together in a place called Ireland's own and drank beer together.
	The tip O'Neal, Speaker of the House and Ronald Reagan, because you know, they could agree to disagree and still be Americans.
	You're never going to see Dancy Pelosi drinking beer with any conservative ever.
	Right, right.
	Well, it's funny because my my my wife and I had our uh our first baby this year, our daughter, and we named her thank you.
	We named her uh Kennedy after JFK, and um we had some family friends that are like, you know that Kennedy was a Democrat, right?
	And I was like, do you honestly think that he'd be a Democrat today?
	I would not be.
	No way.
	No way.
	He was totally against any sort of deep state.
	He hated Marxism explicitly.
	Yeah, and he was he was a populist.
	He was totally pro-American.
	And there's no way that that guy would be a Democrat today.
	I'm a big admirer of JFK too.
	And I think they're you know, talk about another area to delve into.
	No, I think he wanted to change, I think he wanted to change a number of things that folks didn't want changed.
	I think he wanted this out of Vietnam.
	We should never stay in Vietnam, talk about a good call.
	Yeah, I think he was right about the space program.
	I think uh had he lived, I think we would have been able to do a lot more.
	My judgment is we should have spent a lot more money on on developing access to the moon rather than spending on making nuclear weapons facing them off against the Russians.
	We should Be we should have a moon base.
	We should be on our way to Mars by now.
	Yeah.
	Just a lot of mistakes were made.
	And I think they were made by people who whose interests were not uh to see the economic uh freedom of the American people fulfilled uh over the past 30, 40 years.
	So what do you think the real story is with uh JFK's assassination?
	I don't think it, I don't think it was Oswald by himself.
	Uh it was Oswald involved.
	I think he was involved.
	I I don't, I'm not even sure if Oswald pulled the trigger.
	Uh if you listen, go back and listen to the tapes and listen to it, what he was saying.
	I think when he was told in that press conference, uh go back and look at that.
	And I I it's like he he the people he's talking about, well, I'm here, I'm not I'm not quite sure what's going on.
	And he said, Well, you're accused of of assassining the president.
	If you just look at the expression on his face, it was just like he just like they set me up.
	So uh there no doubt that someone shot at the president from the school box school books repository, no doubt.
	Right.
	And I believe there were multiple uh shooters.
	I don't believe there was just one.
	Uh so do I believe in conspiracy?
	Yeah, maybe.
	I just don't believe that that uh Oswald, if he did act, if he acted that he acted alone.
	So interesting.
	I think uh even go back.
	Boy, I'm I'm gazing here, but if you go back and look at firing line, uh, even there was a firing line episode where one of the guys on the left was trying to debunk the uh report.
	Uh the the uh the Warren Commission report.
	And uh what's his name?
	Bill Bill Buckley was actually open to the debate.
	And so uh Mark, it was Mark something.
	I can't remember anyway.
	There was real questions from on both sides.
	Was the Warren Commission kind of a deep state cover up?
	A lot of questions were left unanswered.
	So and by the way, as you know, you some of that the this information that was used in the commission is not going to be declassified until you and I are probably you know, tell you're in your 80s and I'm dead.
	Right.
	Why would you do that?
	Then it'll be over 100 years old and people think it's irrelevant.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Well, so I you gotta ask yourself why would they do that?
	Why what's so you know, why would you not want to just have everything out there?
	I I don't know.
	It just to me it's peculiar.
	Uh that you if it's not classified, and I think we won the Cold War, so there's nothing there we have to worry about now regarding sources and methods.
	I don't know.
	Interesting.
	Well, thank you so much for taking the time to get on with me today.
	I appreciate it.
	And this was an awesome conversation.
	Yeah, thanks.
	Well, thanks for having me.
	I appreciate uh the opportunity to talk about all this, and it's it's good to kind of walk through and have a an honest discussion.
	And I hope you continue to work to try to seek people out who could are willing to just have the conversation and try to you know help uh people understand that they're not being told the truth in the in mainstream media, and uh and uh try to uh you know get people to organize or do something to just agree on objective truth.
	These are the facts.
	Let's try to work off the facts and try to make things better.
	So yes, sir.
	I'm committed to it, and I will send you a link once this is all edited and uploaded, and uh we'll take it from there.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	Okay, but we choose to go to the moon and this decade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.
	A date which will live in infamy.
	I still have a dream.

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