Kash Patel and Ric Grenell Part 1: Russia, NATO, and Building Serbia-Kosovo Peace | Kash’s Corner
In this two-part special on Kash’s Corner, Kash Patel sits down with Richard Grenell, the former Acting Director of National Intelligence, for an intimate, unfiltered, and wide-ranging conversation.In part one, they discuss Russia, NATO, building peace between Serbia and Kosovo, and Grenell’s personal battles with cancer.In part two, they reflect on their work together in the intelligence community and in the Trump White House.Besides leading the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Grenell has also served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany and as special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations.
This week I'm thrilled to have my dear friend and the former director of national intelligence and our former ambassador to Germany, Rick Rennell here with us.
Rick, welcome to the program.
You forgot one of my titles.
What?
The presidential envoy for Kosovo.
You know that's my favorite.
You have so many titles.
I can't remember.
That's my favorite, though.
But uh I'm really excited you're here for the first time ever on Cash's Corner, you're a first guest.
I couldn't think of a better friend and host and patriot to have on our show.
Um, look, we're gonna talk about your tenure as director of national intelligence.
We're gonna talk about your tenure um with Serbo uh Kosovo relations, we're gonna talk about in Germany, Nord Stream, and so much more.
But what I want to start with is I want the audience to know who Rick Rennell was before the Trump administration.
What were you doing?
Wow, that's a good question.
Um, as you know, uh I whenever I talk about myself or talk about life before politics or outside of politics.
I have to go to immediately to um seven years ago when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which was a devastating moment for me.
Uh I thought I was a goner.
It was a uh aggressive form, stage three and a half.
And I always joke with my doctor who said, uh, when I say, you told me it was stage three and a half, because you really didn't want to tell me it was stage four because you thought I would give up.
But um I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, and uh I immediately had to really go to the core of who I was and figure out how do you how do you beat cancer and how do you stay really connected.
Um how'd you do that?
You know what's really interesting is you know, my partner Matt and Matt was a data guy and working for Discovery Communications running data, and um when I was devastated and we got the news, um he he cried, and I looked at him and I said, You can't do that ever again.
Like I'm losing it, and so I need you to be strong.
And so he was like, okay, I'm done, I'm focused.
And he then started asking me these questions and created this system on his laptop, which later on allowed him to quit his job, go to friends and family, launch a company, and it's now called Treatment Technologies and Insights.
It's in four languages around the world.
It's free, and it should always be free no matter what happens, because uh it's on the app store, it's on you know all of the available platforms.
And it's called uh Wave Health, and it's a tool that goes to your phone, it uses artificial intelligence, and it allows people to really champion themselves in the midst of a struggle.
It's not just cancer anymore, it's every single chronic disease.
And uh, and it's a long answer to say I found that I had the strength in me, and I just needed to be validated a little bit on the steps.
And you needed Lola.
And I needed my dog Lola, which you know, I'd come home and I was bald after uh um you know, I did six rounds of of um five different chemos every single round.
So I did like 30 different cancer uh chemotherapy treatments, and I'd come home and my dog would uh totally sense what was happening and would be with me and would lick my head and be she'd even walk softer.
It was very cute.
But I I think the the answer is that it's defined me now.
I'm a better person because of cancer.
I'm um less worried about what people say and less worried about consequences of telling the truth.
I live each day.
I get up and I'm so thankful that I have every single day now the full day to live, and I say, make the best of it and get out there and make your world better.
And I think I'm less selfish um after cancer.
Um little things don't bother you anymore.
So I hate to say this because I never want to Go through it again and I never want to have it.
But cancer made me better.
Wow.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone who had such a high level of cancer say that, but you're on the other side of it.
We're happy that you are, and that Matt Lola got you there.
And I'm sure a lot of that you used in the conversations we're going to have when you were serving in the Trump administration.
But right before the Trump administration, I think what I know about you, because we're good friends is your tenure at the State Department that preceded all of that, that gave you such a robust um international foreign policy experience over at the UN.
Can we what were some of the highlights from that?
I think it was eight years at the UN, right?
Yeah, right.
And you know, nobody stays in political jobs for eight years.
Yeah.
How'd you do that?
Why did you do it?
Would be for the real question.
Um, you know, I didn't plan on doing it, but um, I got appointed.
I always have to say um Ari Fleischer, who was the White House spokesman at the time, uh, my friend, even before that, and we worked on Capitol Hill together, he was a big champion of mine and getting me into the Bush administration.
So I spent eight years up at the UN as the American spokesman serving four different US ambassadors.
Um I got to see a lot of what ambassadors do, and I got to see what works and what doesn't work.
Well, that's so like with the UN, a lot of people aren't UN experts.
They kind of know it's in New York City.
What would you say to our audience that basically what's the one best thing you learned about the UN and sort of the one worst thing at the UN in your time?
So I let's start with the worst because there's so many.
Um first of all, the UN does not function well if America is not in the lead, no matter what programs.
UNICEF, World Food Program, all of the the programs that are what we call specialized agencies, the actual UN, the Security Council, the Secretary General's office, all of that is I think broken.
And it's broken because one thing that I learned is that the UN community, the world community tries to assume that countries are equal.
I actually believe people are equal.
People, of course, are equal, but countries are not equal.
Some countries are better than others, and I think that's okay to say.
And so what I would say to you is that what I learned at the UN is that the world community wants us to believe that countries are equal, and therefore you shouldn't make disparaging comments about other countries.
You should treat everybody that's a country the same.
And I don't think that that's true.
So that was a big awakening for an American who I think goes to the UN and we already know countries aren't equal, and we don't assume that, but the outside world does believe that.
Yeah, and some people might say that's a little uh not popular to say such a statement, but I think I agree with you.
Countries, you know, in your vast experience in Intel and foreign policy and ambassadorships, you have to know countries aren't equal.
If you treated them equally, we wouldn't get anything done.
Yeah, and you know, when it comes to America first, what's interesting is is that you know, in my eight years at the UN, every country thinks of themselves first.
I've been in thousands of diplomatic meetings and one-on-ones, bilateral, multilateral settings.
And I've never been in one where the other side doesn't ask the United States to do something for them.
They're always saying, Well, this is what we'd like from you.
This is what we think you should say, do for us.
And yet if we do that somehow we're at fault, or we're a villain.
We're a villain.
And I think that's got to change.
We've got to be able to understand that um we as America get to defend ourselves, get to represent ourselves, get to fight for ourselves.
I I do think that it's only controversial in progressive circles in Washington.
Um, you know, in Berlin, where I served, America first is not controversial.
Because people don't know that.
They say, of course, America should be first when you're in America, because in Berlin, we think Germany should be first.
So we'll skip around uh chronologically, but I think uh let's go to Germany.
You were you were President Trump's ambassador to Germany.
Uh, Most people don't know.
Germany is Europe's biggest economy.
They think the United Kingdom is, but it's actually Germany.
I know you dealt with a lot, a lot of high political issues, high volume issues such as Nord Stream.
Tell us about your tenure getting to Germany and what were some of your biggest accomplishments that you think Americans or the world doesn't know about.
So it's a big question.
And there's so much packed into that.
What I would say is, you know, Chancellor Merkel is finishing, right?
We're seeing the end of her tenure.
And what I would say is that it's clear from me being there and watching the Germans up close that over the last 12, 16 years of her tenure as the Chancellor of Germany, as the leader of Europe, that she's fundamentally changed conservatives.
She's coming from the Conservative Party, but she personally moved away from the Conservative Party.
And she kept winning because she was able to put together a coalition of folks outside of the conservative movement, but she lost a lot of conservatives.
She moved and her base didn't always move with her, which was, I think, one of the reasons why there was a rise of the conservative parties and a lot of conservative voices, even in uh other parties in Germany.
So I I wouldn't say that she was a great champion for the conservatives.
Um I also think that the Germans, uh, just everyday German wants a leader that is quieter, that's not too um dramatic.
Um I think they have a special history with a very strong uh leader, obviously, and so they're they're frightened to go in that direction.
Um so what that means is they want leaders that are understated, that are um I would say a little more stoic.
They've convinced themselves that this is a good way because oh, that person can manage crises easily.
But I don't think that that's true.
I think that you want leaders to manage crises that are a little more um action-oriented, and no one would ever say that Chancellor Merkel is action-oriented.
So, I mean, we could talk a lot about the accomplishments you had um in in Germany as your ambassador as our ambassador there.
And one of the things I remember most is standing on the rooftop of your office, which overlooks most people don't know this because they can't get there.
It's an outdoor area with the statue of Ronald Reagan that overlooks Brandenburg Gate.
It's one of the most powerful um places I've ever been.
And I remember being up there with you uh one of the Christmases when you were ambassador, and we talked about a number of things.
Um, Chancellor Merkel was one of them, but the other thing we talked about was Nord Stream too.
And I don't think the world and many Americans realize the impact, not just the national security impact, but the energy impact of Nord Stream 2.
Maybe you can help us understand what is Nord Stream 2 and why it's so globally impactful and why Russia is such a problem in in that pipeline.
So I have to just give a quick word on the Ronald Reagan statue, though, because you did bring it up.
It was uh something that I didn't think that I needed to do, but when I got there, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation had said, you know, we really want to put a statue of Reagan in Berlin.
It wasn't there before you got there, I told you.
It was not there.
And that top of the embassy was kind of a not a very pretty place.
It was just an outdoor space.
But when the Reagan library people came and they said, you know, the city of Berlin is not allowing us to have a Ronald Reagan statue, um, it was troubling to me because you go around Berlin and they honor a lot of people, a lot of communists are honored in Germany.
And so I petitioned the mayor and I said, you know, where can we put the Ronald Reagan statue in the city?
And he said, no place.
There's no place that we're gonna put it.
Wow, I didn't know that.
And so he rejected us again, and it had been 10 or 11 years of being rejected.
So I went to the Ronald Reagan um library and I said, I got a I got a good idea.
We're gonna turn the top of the embassy into the Ronald Reagan terrace.
And not only do I want a statue up there, but we're going to get a kiosk because you are right that when you overlook from the top of the embassy, you're you're looking down on where Brent on where the wall was.
You're right at Brandenburg Gate, and you are right where Ronald Reagan gave his speech tear down the state.
Your feet from there, right?
You can see the spot from the from the balcony.
So I wanted to play the Ronald Reagan speech, tear down this wall from the top of the building.
So there's a kiosk there.
Walk up, you can press it, you can look over and see where he did it, and you can watch the actual speech right next to the Ronald Reagan statue.
To me, that was my way of saying to the mayor of Berlin, I'm going to do it anyway.
And you did it.
And we did it.
I remember hitting play, and it was a really impactful moment because as you said, you're just feet.
You're outside, you're literally touching Brandenburg Gate from the rooftop, and you look down, you hit play on the video, and you can almost visualize it has been all the time.
And I will tell you, Cash, that I have stood in that spot and pressed play on that video.
Standing with US senators who get tearied.
Yeah, I did.
It's and they look and they say, Wow, what a moment.
Thank you for putting it up here.
And, you know, if not for the mayor of Berlin, you got it done.
You got it done.
But speaking of getting things done, I know a lot about Nord Stream because of my work in national security.
Um, but most people don't even know where it is or what's it what it's about.
And I know that was a big platform you dealt with as ambassador of Germany.
Well, first of all, the reason why we had to deal with it was because Chancellor Merkel decided after Fukushima to cut out nuclear energy.
And I'm not sure that the lessons of Fukushima was to get rid of nuclear energy.
Maybe it was don't build on the ocean in an earthquake zone.
Um but but Germany, I think, misread it.
And um maybe it was a little bit politically driven for her because the Green Party was coming on strong and she wanted to be able to blunt them.
So what year are we talking here?
So Fukushima was in 2011, so shortly thereafter, I think, is when uh the the Germans immediately and quickly overplayed the uh focus on nuclear energy.
How'd they do that?
They politically just wanted to get rid of it.
They thought it was something that they didn't want.
So I I say that because they also were going after coal, which they have not quite removed yet, but they have goals of getting rid of coal.
So they're forcing themselves to rely on natural gas.
And they're forcing themselves to look for renewables.
And I I think energy policy needs to be all of the above.
It needs to be a little bit of everything.
The Germans have not made that decision.
And therefore, they are forcing themselves to buy gas from Russia in quantities that are dangerous because first of all, the Americans are fine with Nord Stream one.
It's Nord Stream 2 that goes too far of reliance on Russia.
What is what is Nord Stream 1 or 2 for 10?
So their pipelines of gas into Europe or into uh supplying uh Germany.
Who's building them?
Russia's building them and Russia owns them, and therefore the leverage that comes into Europe from Russia is not I mean the leverage is is clear because they're providing the energy, they're getting the money, and therefore they have the ability to cut it off.
They have the ability to scare Europeans into saying, do X, Y, or Z, or you're not gonna get energy.
Now, energy is fundamental to living.
And so what we say in America, and by the way, we share this view with the European Parliament, who says no one country should supply us so much energy that we get to the point where we have to rely on that country for other things.
I mean, that's what Nord Stream 2 did for the Russians.
So, you know, reminding everybody that Germany is Europe's economic uh powerhouse.
It's is the biggest economy, which means it's the biggest national security uh power player in Europe.
Uh, I know people say United Kingdom, but in just terms of sheer size and volume, it's got to be Germany.
So why would Americans care um what the Russians were building and giving to the Germans on a pipeline and what national security implications were there for you as ambassador as our chief of mission or number one representative there?
Well, I think our fear was that the Germans were going to have an over-reliance on Russia while being a member of NATO.
So NATO exists to blunt Russia to stop the rise of Russia.
And now what we see is that the largest economy in Europe, the German economy, is having this relationship with Russia to that supplies its energy.
And our fear and the Europeans fear was that that relationship meant that they weren't going to be able to make other rational decisions if you're over-relying on Russia for energy.
I always say that in that pipeline is not only gas, but it's a bunch of leverage.
And that makes us nervous, and that makes a whole bunch of other European countries nervous.
American policy is actually that Europe have a diversified energy source.
Our policy is not you can't get gas or energy from Russia.
Russia should absolutely be a part of what the Europeans get in terms of diversification.
At this point though with Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2 and some other pipelines, they're becoming overly reliant on one country.
And by the way, I would say this as US ambassador when I was in Germany, I would say you shouldn't be overly reliant on America.
It's not just our policy that you shouldn't be over reliant on Russia, but it's on any one country.
And so the mixture of different types of energy is really important and that's where the Germans fail.
And so I know you took a lot of heat over in Europe.
Well, at least I was at least that was what I was seeing back at home in the White House when I was heading up national security for President Trump on counterterrorism matters.
And you and I had some crossover there, but you actually stopped Nord Stream 2 at least for a while, uh, because it served not just America's national security interest, but Europe's national security interest as well, and sort of was a countermeasure to Russia dominating the region.
Can you speak to what you did to actually get one of the world's superpowers to stop such a massive project?
You know, I was constantly mocked by the Russian media for always talking and making Nord Stream 2 a big issue.
But it was a big issue.
And for me, I was very much unhappy that the Germans were feeding the beast, that they were a member of NATO.
They weren't paying their NATO obligations.
The 2014 pledge when every NATO member came together in Wales.
It's called the Wales Pledge.
And the pledge was in 2014, within the next 10 years, every member of NATO will spend 2% of its own GDP on its own military programs.
Why should they do that?
Because, you know, I always tell people that NATO is kind of like a wedding registry.
When you go to a wedding, you sign up for the Creighton Barrel glasses that you're going to bring that the uh bride and groom picked out, right?
NATO is the same way.
NATO tells us what they need in terms of a war.
What do we need to combat a potential war?
And so NATO lists all the things that it needs.
Countries sign up to come to the war.
Honestly, it's just like the way and before this pledge, the US was footing most of that bill, right?
And when President Trump came in, he tried to make NATO members actually live up to that pledge.
Did Germany?
Yeah, that's that's the whole frustrating thing of the Wales Pledge is that nobody forced the Germans to sign Wales NATO pledge.
We said, hey, you want to be a member of NATO, here's a commitment.
Can you sign it?
The Germans did.
And by the way, it was Merkel's government that signed this pledge.
And yet all these years later, they refused to move toward they they refused to get to the 2%.
They moved towards it slightly under Trump.
And that was their out.
They would say, well, we're moving towards that.
And every time President Trump would say to Chancellor Merkel, you're not spending the 2% that you promised to spend for NATO.
And how does that affect America?
I think is the best kind of question to answer.
And I would say that if NATO members are funding all of the programs that NATO needs to protect us in the alliance, then America gets to spend less.
And we're already spending too much.
And so when the Germans don't pay for their own defense and have the capabilities that NATO requires, it falls upon America to protect.
And I don't like that.
I think that it's not fair.
And it's certainly not fair to the US taxpayer.
Most people might not know this, but Germany houses the largest contingent of U.S. soldiers outside of America on planet Earth to this day.
That means there are many, many bases there, huge towns that America has built.
And this is a holdover from World War II when we were fighting with them alongside our allies against against then Nazi Germany.
But to this day, there's something like 25 or 30,000 American soldiers scattered across at least half a dozen bases in Germany.
And we, the American taxpayer, foot that bill to the tune of 4% of Germany's GDP.
Did that ever come up in your um in your ambassadorship tour?
And how did it tie into the 2% NATO pledge, if at all?
And were we successful in getting the Germans to pay for security we were giving them?
Such a great question.
And the reality is, is we did bring it up a lot.
If you count the rotational troops in Germany, it's more than 50,000.
Oh wow.
If you count rotational.
Okay.
The permanent and rotational troops together are more than 50,000.
And I would bring that up constantly to Chancellor Merkel and say, you know, America's showing our commitment.
And all we're asking is that if you're going to be a member of NATO, that you actually be a member of NATO in good standing.
And you're not in good standing when you don't do this.
And so I articulated that.
Chancellor Merkel once admitted to me that the reason why she didn't like me constantly bringing this up.
And the reason why big motions came after I would bring this up is because I was right.
It's because it hurt them to be reminded that they weren't paying their obligations.
And so there was a variety of excuses.
There's always a variety of reasons that the intellectual community in Germany would say, well, nobody wants the Germans to have another big uh military, which I think is is not true.
And yet I would continue pushing this.
I do have to give President Trump credit in that because we were willing to withstand the criticism and to constantly push on behalf of the American people, the Germans did begin to change their calculus, and they certainly paid more.
They didn't get, and they currently are not up to the 2% commitment.
Um they should.
I wish they would, and I hope that future administrations are going to hold them to account.
I haven't seen the Biden team bring it up at all.
Uh the Biden team, to be honest, has dialed a lot of this back.
They gave the Nord Stream 20 over to the Russians and said we're gonna not enforce sanctions and they're thereby allowing it to move forward.
And they also stopped uh the rollback of troops.
We wanted to bring some of the American troops home, and the Biden administration stopped that.
And so every signal that could be sent to the Germans to continue on their road of ignoring America and ignoring the American taxpayer has been sent by the Biden team.
And I think that's to our detriment.
We could we could talk about it for for a long time.
And I agree with you on Nord Stream, and that's how we enforced the how you actually stopped it was the enforcement of these heavy sanctions we put on the Russian government, Russian individuals who were building that pipeline and on as you know, as a as helping run the DoD as chief of staff.
I remember talking to you and seeking advice on troop withdrawal because we didn't want to pay billions of dollars to Germany.
We don't need that large contingent of of forces, US forces in Germany.
But let me add one thing on troop withdrawal, because I think it's really important.
Um it wasn't just because the Germans weren't paying their fair share in their obligation that we were rethinking the the appropriate number of troops in Germany.
I think that we had been trapped for so long at the Pentagon into constantly sending troops, oh, Germany because the bases are there and let's just keep sending them to Germany, that we forgot to think strategically about, well, where is the best place to send individuals?
Um I don't want to go into too many details, but there were a number of times that the Pentagon would approach me and say, we're gonna send another thousand or two thousand troops to Germany, and I would say, no, it doesn't make sense.
And and so I was holding up a an additional number of troops constantly because it was just an easy thing for the Pentagon to keep sending troops over to Germany, and I felt like look, if we're gonna be strategic about it, shouldn't some of these troops be in Eastern Europe anyway?
And that's a credit to you.
Most people don't know this, but as ambassador as chief of mission, you actually have the authority to dictate American policy outside of the president, it's just you.
So you could actually tell the Pentagon, rightly so, I'm not accepting your extra troop presence in here.
And I did that's why we loved it.
So staying in the European theater, and one of your favorite um posts that you held in the Trump administration, but maybe the least known is that you were the special envoy for Serbia-Kosovo relations.
And you know, quite frankly, most Americans might not be able to place those two countries on a map.
Most journalists.
Most journalists.
Why was that so important?
Why did you champion that effort?
Where what is the importance of Serbian Kosovo to America and the world to this day?
So you know this about me because you know me, but uh I can sometimes be um too transparent to a fault, right?
And I'll be honest with you that that when the European media were trying to mock me by saying, oh, he's Trump's guy in Europe or mini Trump, or you know, they they they were you in it using it as a very big negative, it backfired on them because a whole bunch of people who wanted the United States to get involved in their issues, then came to me and said, hey, can you get to Trump?
Can you get to the president of the United States?
And so they presented issues to me.
And this is what happened with Kosovo and Serbia.
And the leaders literally came and said, you know, we'd like to make some progress here.
No one's paying attention.
And so I invited them to Berlin.
And the Serbia-Kosovo leaders.
Yes.
It wasn't always popular with the State Department.
It's an understatement.
That's okay.
You didn't, you know, you didn't do the popular thing.
You didn't, you know, what you thought was the right thing.
I felt like it was right because there were I could see that that they were hungry for some economic agreements and some attention on the political issues.
So I met with them first separately and then together, and then I went.
Um, and of course, President Trump allowed me to do this and said, you know, he he likes my initiative and thought that it was it was uh worth a shot.
And Serbia and Kosovo historically weren't, you know, friends.
So if you remember the NATO bombing in 1999 of Belgrade, 20 years had passed, and I think there were there was it was time to kind of move us past some of these issues.
And so I was able to forge four different economic agreements between them.
And it's it's really difficult for me to s to watch how the Biden team has completely failed the Balkans.
Have they just stopped the progress you made between those two nations?
I don't even think they're paying attention.
I don't even think they've noticed.
I mean, one, I'll give you one example.
One issue that we were able to forge into the September 2020 agreement was, and it was really historic agreement.
We had the leaders come over into the Oval Office and sign with the president.
They came here to America to watch it.
They came to America and they signed in the Oval Office.
And one of the points, there were many points.
I don't even remember how many, but one of the points was a one-year freeze on each side, attacking the other side for what we call recognition and derecognition campaigns.
So Kosovo would seek recognition as an independent country from all sorts of entities around the world and countries.
And at the same time, Serbia was trying to get entities and countries to de-recognize Kosovo.
And so it was this fight on legitimacy.
And we were able to forge them, and neither side wanted to do this, but but it was a credit to President Trump that we were able to get them for one year to freeze that derecognition and recognition campaign.
Did it last?
It absolutely lasted for that one year.
And then at the end of the year, which was this year, September of 2021, both sides now are seeking recognition and derecognition campaigns because their one-year freeze was over.
Now, the Biden team could have easily looked at that economic agreement and said, oh, what needs to be, you know, renegotiated or negotiated or held, right?
What what are we supposed to do to continue the improvement or to continue the growth?
And nobody even looked at it.
Nobody even brought it up.
I can tell you from talking to both sides that no one from the Biden team ever approached them to extend the recognition or derecognition campaigns.
Did they approach you to ask you your opinion since you were the special envoy or I uh when the Biden team first came in, I provided a briefing on the progress.
And I will give them a little bit of credit where they've talked about it.
They don't they now call it the Washington Agreement.
They don't call it the Trump economic normalization agreement.
It's fine, whatever they want to call it.
Uh the important part is to move these policies forward.
So they did keep it as a as a policy issue, which means the the ambassadors that are in those countries have to talk about it as a positive and say that this is what we want you to do to continue implementing it.
But there's no muscle behind it.
There's no White House, there's no presidential envoy.
Our Secretary of State does not even think about it, doesn't talk about it.
And so I think that the people of the Balkans see this.
I think they know that this is not right, that we made so much progress.
And I will tell you that I'm not stopping.
I mean, I'm doing I'm doing what I can on the outside to push for implementation of this agreement.
Um I talk to leaders in the region constantly, and they're hungry for U.S. leadership.
And I believe that uh it all of these economic agreements are are good and that they should be implemented.
I'll tell you one that we negotiated that's still not implemented, but we negotiated with both sides and with uh with NATO's Cape 4 that there would be a direct flight between Pristina and Belgrade.
I remember that.
And there is no direct flight right now.
And we negotiated and had an airline that was willing to do it, and then COVID hit, so it didn't get implemented.
But this is one of those things that the State Department, the White House, the NSC should be pushing forward.
And they can take credit.
No one's asking them to give Trump total credit uh for this.
We pushed the ball down the field, they should pick it up and continue.
Well, there's there's so many things like that we could get into or we don't have time for, such as Afghanistan.
No one cared.
I didn't care.
President Trump didn't care who took the credit.
Just keep moving foreign policy decisions that worked for the betterment of the world.
So Rick, I hate to cut you off here, but that's where we have to stop for episode one.
And for our fans who want to see more, tune in next week to episode two, where we talk about Russia Gatehoa, plot against the President, China, and Rick's tenure at the Office of Director of National Intelligence, and not to mention his new passion project, Save California.
The whole Russia-Russia-Russia narrative is exactly what Beijing wants you to do.
Yeah.
Russia's a problem.
China is a crisis.
They overplayed their hand and it's gonna come back to bite him.
The plane lands, doors open.
I watch as Pastor Brunson is coming down the stairs, but it was very hard for me not to cry.
Because they are afraid that Donald Trump is gonna run, win the nomination, and compete for the presidency again.
