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CIA Commander Gary Berntsen: We Had Bin Laden Cornered—Then Help Was Denied · Unshaken & Unafraid with Joe Pags

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The CIA had Osama bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Gary Bernson asked for 800 Army Rangers to block his escape,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and the request was denied. Now the man who commanded
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: that operation reveals exactly what happened next. You gotta see this.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: The only thing I asked for at the end that
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't get was I wanted 800 Rangers because I
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: wanted to block the back side.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And you would have stopped them had you had those.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And they didn't want to get, they didn't give it.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: 9-11 happens, we're galvanized as a country, we gotta go
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and get the bad guys. You're right in the middle
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of it. In fact, you're the guy who's going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: set up our response over in Afghanistan. What do we
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: know that day? When it happens, do we automatically know
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it's al-Qaeda, it's bin Laden, let's go get them? Do
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: we know that immediately?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Well, when it happens that day, I was actually out
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of the country as a station chief in Latin America.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I had been in the counterterrorism center for multiple years
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: as the chief of Hezbollah operations, and I had just
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: rotated out. I studied Spanish, went to Latin America. The
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: previous people that were in the job of chief of Al-Qaeda,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: those guys are still in their positions. The chief of
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: CTC is Colfer Black. Many of the players are in place.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We knew months before, and before I went to Latin America,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and it was in June, I attended a meeting of
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: outgoing chiefs of station, and Colfer Black, the chief of counterterrorism,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: came to that meeting and implored us to assist him,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: implored us. and said that there were many, many threats,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: that he knew something large was coming. And this is 60,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: you know, 75 days before. He said he knew an
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: attack was coming. I need your help. Each of you
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: are going to be station chiefs. You need to do
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: your best for me. And two-thirds of the room blew
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: him off. They said, Okover, his hair's always on fire.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: He's always saying this is going to happen. I knew,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I believed him because I had been in the counterterrorism
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: center for years. I was the guy that responded to
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the East Africa bombings in 1998, where Al Qaeda blew
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: up the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam and in Nairobi.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: So I knew and I believed. So on that day
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: when the bomb, when those planes hit the World Trade Center,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I instantly knew who it was. I was certain. And
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of course, the people in the counterterrorism center were certain
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: also of who it was.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's Gary Bernson. So Up till now, Gary, we've been
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: told as the American people, there was one memo one
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: time that suggested Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations wanted
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to try to use planes somehow to get us. In
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the past few days, there's been declassified stuff or somebody's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: been talking about something that it turns out not only
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: should George W. Bush have known, Bill Clinton should have
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: known well before that, maybe even George Herbert Walker Bush.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: How far back does this go that we should have
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: known that airplanes were going to be used?
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And well- Several years before 9-11, during the late 1990s,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: we knew bin Laden was planning catastrophic attacks on the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: United States because we were running sources with inside al-Qaeda.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Mike Scheuer was the head of the bin Laden group there.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: It was called Alec Station and had given the president
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: of the United States, Bill Clinton, at least three opportunities
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to kill bin Laden. When he was inside Pakistan, it
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: was at a hunting lodge on one, was in a
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: meeting in another one. But they were senior members of
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the UAE family with them, so they didn't want to
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: do that because they didn't want to kill them. But
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the Clinton administration wouldn't pull the trigger. Then, of course,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: George Bush, 43, gets elected. And the Bush administration is
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: briefed several times. And they're trying to look toward Latin America.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: They're not looking toward al-Qaeda. You know, at that point,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: there were there was a guy named Richard Clark that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: had been in the White House.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: That had been the chief of counterterrorism, but he had
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: been removed. And now he's working on cyber. So they
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: had a new team in there. And the Bush administration
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: just didn't act on the briefings they were getting. They
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: claimed they weren't briefed. But in recent days, you see
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: that there were at least three briefings where there are
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: in writing with the PDB, the president's daily brief states
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that there are imminent planning for a a near-term attack
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: by a catastrophic attack by al-qaeda on the united.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: States and did it say using planes it didn't.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Say planes it did not say planes but it said
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: an imminent catastrophic attack on the united states.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you about clinton just for a second
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: we want to rewind for a second clinton if i
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: remember i was a television news anchor at the time
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: if i remember sudan offered bin laden on a platter
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to bill clinton do you know why he said no.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know why he said no, but the Sudanese,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you know, there were airstrikes into the Sudan at one
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: point when they did the bombings in East Africa. Our
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: response were airstrikes there.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: The Sudanese cooperated at times. We captured Carlos the Jackal
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: in the Sudan. Right. That was actually Kovar that captured
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: him there, his team. So, you know, Sudan was hit
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and miss. But the point was, was, you know, resources
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: were not brought to bear. to bring in bin Laden,
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  Speaker 2: and bin Laden was then given the opportunity to conduct
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the attack that we knew he was planning.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I just want to know if we know the why.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, you had this guy that we knew was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: funding and financing al-Qaeda. The guy that we used to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: fund and finance and give weapons to as part of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the Mujahideen, we knew that after he defeated the Soviet Union,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: we did through them. I mean, why not take this guy?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, one of the reasons was then, After the Vietnam War,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and when I was hired in the CIA in 1982,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we all operated under a thing called Executive Order 12333.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And there was a prohibition on assassination, and there was
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: a prohibition on the CIA using lethal force. And so
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: we provided intelligence, and then the Department of Defense was
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: supposed to do that. After 9-11, after the attacks... I
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: was brought back to the United States, and I was
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: the first guy with another gentleman in a room where
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: they read me and another officer in on that new
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: executive order that gave me the authorities and him the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: authorities to go after al-Qaeda guys around the world and
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: kill them.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And by then— But not until 2001.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Well, by then, bin Laden was in hiding.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Well, he was in Afghanistan— And I was given the
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: authorities to go in there and do whatever I needed
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to do to kill him and to kill all the
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: al-Qaeda guys with him.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's Gary Bernson. Get his book, by the way, called
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Stolen Elections. It's an amazing book that really does expose
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: what's going on in our elections. But also, he's the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: guy that set up counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan after 9-11.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So 9-11 happened.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It was called Jawbreaker then. Jawbreaker was the book in
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: 2001 that told the story of the election. I mean,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the invasion of Afghanistan. It was published in 2005, 2006.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Did we need to invade Afghanistan? You're the guy on
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the ground. You're running COVID operations. We needed to?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes. There were maybe 10,000 al-Qaeda guys on the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: ground with the Taliban. There were foreign fighters every place.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It was the center of mass for foreign terrorists when
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: we conducted operations against them and defeated them on the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: battlefield in some places. We captured guys with Irish passports.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: We captured Burmese passports, Chinese passports. It was the United
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Nations of murderers that had showed up there to get
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: protection from the Taliban, and they were conducting lethal attacks
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: on the United States globally. We had to go in
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: there and take down the Taliban who wouldn't cooperate. We
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: gave the Taliban the opportunity to turn bin Laden over.
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  Speaker 2: They refused. Once they refused, I was told, defeat the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Taliban and then eliminate al-Qaeda.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Before you're even in country, and this is such amazing information,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm jumping in. Before you even enter country,
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  Speaker 1: you're in that room. You and another guy with leadership.
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  Speaker 1: What do they say the job is? Bernstein, go and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: do this. What do they say?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Okay. They told me to do five things. They said
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to me, and this is from the chief of counterterrorism.
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  Speaker 2: It's me, the chief of counterterrorism, and his executive officer
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  Speaker 2: with me. The first thing we need you to do
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  Speaker 2: is destroy the Taliban because we've offered to let them
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: give bin Laden dust. They won't do it. So we
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: want you to destroy the Taliban completely. We want you
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to destroy al-Qaeda completely. We want you to rescue the hostages.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: There was the shelter now international hostages. There were eight
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of them. Two of them were American women. We want
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: you to rescue them. We want you to find bin
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Laden and kill him. I want you to cut his
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: head off and bring it back in a box for
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: the president. And then the last thing we want you
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: to do is figure out what the next attack is.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: We did figure out what the next attack was. We
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: captured a Saudi terrorist there and we debriefed him and
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: he confessed that they had positioned 10 tons of explosives
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: in Singapore, and they were going to attack the American embassy,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the British embassy, Canadian embassy, Israeli embassy on one day
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: with multiple car bombs. That was the follow-on. We did
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: identify those guys, pass that information, captured the explosives, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: we stopped that follow-on attack.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I love that. Great work, by the way. Gary Bernson,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: he was the commander of CIA counterterrorist operations in Afghanistan.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how it works between the CIA and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the DOD. I have no idea. Or the DOW that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we're calling it now. So you're over there. Well, I'm
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: going to ask you that. That's why I have you on.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So you're over there. You're setting up operations. You have
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: these five things that you're told to do. Now it's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: time to coordinate. Let's take out the Taliban. Let's go
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: ahead and make Afghanistan realize they should never have done this.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: How do you coordinate that? How does that relationship work?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: So the first thing we do is we fly out
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan first, and Tommy Franks and I and
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Hank Crumpton, who was my boss, immediate boss, get on
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: a plane on Tommy Franks' command aircraft, We bring on
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Engineer Arif, the chief of intelligence for the Northern Alliance,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and General Fahim, the overall commander of the Northern Alliance,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: because the great fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated. So
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Fahim's in charge. We have a meeting with him on
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: the plane. And General Franks explains that we're putting a
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: CIA team in. Mr. Bernson was sitting next to me.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And we want to eliminate these guys. And we have
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: a discussion. We discuss how much money we're going to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: give them. We give them $ 7 million a month. I
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: drag in a big crate, big Rubbermaid trunk with $ 14
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: million in it. So I'm paying for everything. And, you know,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: of course, General Fahim agrees. His team receives me. I
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: set up with his team. Then after I arrive, Special
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Forces arrives, a 12-man A-team. And attached to that A-team
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: is a small command unit with a lieutenant colonel by
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the name of Chris Haas. who was an army officer.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: He's the senior officer in country. Chris Haas and I
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: had never met, but we both grew up on Long Island,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: New York, about 20 miles from one another.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Me too, by the way.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: We became fast friends. He showed up with about $ 5, 000,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: so I paid for everything. And so he needed a
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: big truck. I bought him a truck. I bought him
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a car. I bought him trucks. I bought him vehicles.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: I paid for sources. I just poured money on that
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: special forces team like they had never seen before. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: then my teams were integrated in with his teams. We
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: went down to the front. We broke out the SOFLAMs.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Those are special operation forces, laser acquisition mechanisms. It's lasers
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: and are lighting up the enemy. And then each of
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: those special forces team had a two-man Air Force combat
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: control team that are communicating with the airfield. And we
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: start calling in air and we start the big fight.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: We drive them off the Somali plane. So we're with
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: About 5,000 to 6,000 Northern Alliance. The enemy had between
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: 17,000 to 20,000. It takes us a couple of weeks
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: to defeat them. Bin Laden flees the city, and he
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: goes into a nearby province called Jalalabad. I pursue him
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: with a team. He then goes south to Jalalabad to
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the mountains of Tora Bora. I pursue him again. I
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: get guys up in the mountain. I have a team
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: now of Delta Force that are with me, a three-man
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: advanced team for Delta Force. So I put two of
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: those Delta Force guys and two of my guys, my
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: two CIA guys, one was the former Special Forces and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: one was former Delta Force. So I got four of
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: these guys up on top of a mountain surrounded by
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: 10 Afghans, break out a soap lamp. And then for
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: 56 hours, we got bin Laden down below with 1100
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: guys and we shred him. I went to the army.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I asked the army for a Special Forces team, full
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: team to come in to help me. They didn't want
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to do that because they hadn't picked that fight. They
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: didn't understand the terrain. I just jumped in a plane,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: flew to Uzbekistan. We had a special forces team up
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: there that was working for CIA. I loaded them on
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a plane. I brought them down and I inserted those guys.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And so the fight goes on in Tora Bora. For
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: about the first nine days, I had command. My deputy
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: was forward doing that. He was a former Marine infantry officer.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And then we inserted Delta Force down there. They landed.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: They came in. And they wanted to take over command
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: on day nine. I said, of course, you've got greater
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: capacity than we have. And then they finished off the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: battle in the next six days. And that's where bin
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Laden was. We killed about 700 of his guys. He
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: would cross the border into Pakistan with a group of 180.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: There was another group of 130. We captured them. Those
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: were the first 130 guys that get Mo. And we
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: captured a number of senior soldiers. Taliban, intelligence people, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: we sent those guys to get them out too. And so,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: you know, that was the battle in the east. At
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the same time, there were battles up in the north
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: with the Uzbeks to see Mazar-e-Sharif. There were battles in
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: the south. I had, there were, in the beginning, there
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: were four CIA teams, each with eight guys commanding them.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: We got up to six teams. My team, the jawbreaker team,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: would expand up to 50, 75 guys. And Americans, because
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I had like three or four battlefronts that I was
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: running simultaneously. I was there for seven weeks. We overrun them.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And then once we put the flag up, I went
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: out to the airport, flew out, and they replaced me
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: with a guy who would become the chief of station.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Because I was the chief of station in the country
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: in Latin America. I just went in there for the fight.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, because this has been around
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: for 25 years now. Was Osama bin Laden an asset
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of ours at all, ever? No.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Osama bin Laden worked for an NGO called Maktab al-Hidmat,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: the services organization that was in Peshawar. And it was
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: run by a Palestinian by the name of Abdullah Azam.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Abdullah Azam was trying to take Sunnis and Shias together
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: and have them fight the great Soviet enemy. And so...
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Abdullah Azzam had three deputies. One was Osama bin Laden.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: One was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And the third one was Mohammed Saeed, who would lead
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the LAT. Remember the LAT, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, did an attack
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: in India on the Taj Hotel there. Those were his
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: three deputies. He was assassinated. And when he was assassinated,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: bin Laden would become a bigger figure. And bin Laden
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: had a vision. During the Abdullah Azam period, they were
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: taking Arabs from around the Arab world and they were
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: feeding them into the six different Muj groups that were
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: fighting the Soviets. Bin Laden's dream was to create an
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: all-Arab brigade that would fight. That's where he comes up
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: with the idea of the base, al-Qaeda. And so he
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: does put his first group together and they go in
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and they fight over in Jalalabad. And they do a
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: decent job fighting a Soviet battalion over there. They distinguish themselves.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: That's his first real battle that he organizes on that.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: He then leaves Afghanistan after, you know, the Soviets withdraw
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and a new government comes in. And when Saddam Hussein
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: invades Kuwait, he goes to the Saudis and tells the Saudis,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I can use my al-Qaeda guys to help
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: defend the kingdom. And then they say, no, we don't
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: need your assistance. We don't want your assistance. They invite
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: the Americans in and he becomes deeply offended.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: And he was from Saudi Arabia. That was his homeland.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: He was a Saudi. His family was very famous. They
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: had a company called the bin Laden group, and they
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: did construction. Years before, there was a big attack, a
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: very famous attack on the Grand Mosque, where militants went
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: in there and attacked there, and then the Saudis had
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: to go kill them all. That was facilitated by his
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: older brother. His older brother used bin Laden company vehicles
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and knew the underground passages because they helped build that.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to lead those guys in for that assault.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Back to the video in a second, but first I've
• 17:18
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• 18:01
  Speaker 1: It's now playing. Now back to the video.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: So this family was very wealthy, very powerful there, and...
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: You know, he went rogue and the Saudis, of course,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: you know, turned against him. But there were members of
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the Saudi government that were supporting him. Do you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: yesterday there was one of the speakers at the 9-11
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: memorial was talking about, you know, Saudi Arabia and the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: fact that they still haven't gotten justice because the Saudis
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: had involvement. You know, the point I would like to
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: make on that is that there were individuals in the
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Saudi government that were involved. There were radicals. I wouldn't
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: say that it was an overall policy of the king
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: himself to do that, but were there people who were
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: radicalized in the Saudi government that provided support to al-Qaeda? Yes.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Amazing. It's Gary Bernson. The book is called Jawbreaker?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the book I wrote about this was Jawbreaker many
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: years ago.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: You've got to go get it. You've got to go
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: get it. 25 years later, I think that we've forgotten
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a whole lot.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It was a bestseller.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And it should be a bestseller again. We're going to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: push it as hard as we can. Let me ask
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you this. When it comes to bin Laden, I'm glad
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that you said he wasn't an Aztec because they were
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: saying his name is Billy Smith. and he's an asset
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: from Maryland. Come on, that's stupid. But having said that,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: did we purposely let him go from Afghanistan to Pakistan?
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Because how does this guy get away? He's 6'6. You
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: were all over Tora Bora. How did he get there?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I allowed food to go into him so that I
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: could kill him, and we sent in a Blue 82.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: That's an 18,000-pound device. We bombed him with B-52s and
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: with B-1s. I mean, we had an all-out battle for
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: 16 days trying to kill him. And we had, you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: like 60 guys down there. And then I even, we built,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I spent $ 4 million building, you know, putting together 2,000
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: tribal guys. We called it the Army of the Eastern
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Alliance because the Northern Alliance, who I seized the Capitol
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: with were Tajiks. They didn't want to go into Jalalabad
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: because that's Pashtun land. They didn't want to go into
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: another tribal area that was not their own and have
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: a fight with those guys. So I had to build
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: a new, very quickly, I had to build a new
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: force down there with a different tribal group. And it
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: cost me $ 2 million, um, uh, actually $ 4 million. And, and, um,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: So he didn't get out because we let him out.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: We did everything possible to kill him. A Delta Force
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: unit on foot got close, but then their guys got
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: trapped behind them, and the squadron commander had to make
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: a decision. Do I push forward to where he thought
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: bin Laden might be, or do I have to save?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I had a squad of guys behind him that were
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: trapped that he didn't want to die. He had to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: save his guys.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: There's a book.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: It's called Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury. That was
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the name that Tommy Greer, the squadron commander of Delta Force,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: used to write the book, Kill Bin Laden. He was
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: a very, very fine officer that had been an enlisted man,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: then an officer in that unit in Delta Force. So,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: you know, we worked quite well with the Army. They
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: had really distinguished people there. You know, I think I
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: had got full cooperation of the Army there. The only
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: problem was this. The only thing I asked for at
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the end that I didn't get was I wanted 800
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Rangers because I wanted to block the back side.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And you would have stopped them had you had those.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: And they didn't want to get, they didn't give it.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And the reason was, was the formula that we had
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: used was small number of American CIA and SF with
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: tribal units. And we were hammering those guys, but I
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: knew at the very end to kill bin Laden, I
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: was going to need a larger group of Americans for
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: concentrated firepower on the ground. And, And they just wouldn't
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: make that decision. And there was actually, you know, there
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: was General Mattis. I think he was a full colonel then,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: was down in Kandahar. He wanted to come up to
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: help me, but they wouldn't let him. Why?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: You know, that sounds like a boring question, but I mean,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: why not?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: This was, you know, look, this was the first time
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: ever that CIA had the point. We had the point
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: because when there was a meeting at Camp David after
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the attacks of 9-11, The president asked Donald Rumsfeld, how
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: long is it going to take you to do the invasion?
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: He said it would take six months to organize agreements
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: with the Russians and the Pakistanis and everybody else to
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: get forces in. He was horrified. And Kofor Black, the
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: chief of counterterrorism, sitting behind George Tenet, the director of
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the CIA, said, Mr. President, if you put me in charge,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I'll have flies walking on their eyeballs in six weeks.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And the president said, you're in charge. And so the
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: DOD was horrified that these CIA guys were calling the
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: shots and running everything. So when they did the Iraq war,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: he was like, Rumsfeld told his guys, this is the
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: big show. We don't need those CIA guys. We don't
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: want them telling us what to do. And so he
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: went and did this. Look, I have nothing but respect
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: for the guys, our brothers in the armed forces. My
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: son is an army officer, too, in the 82nd Airborne,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: was a captain. And my daughter is a naval officer.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So I have, you know, and I was in the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Air Force years earlier before. So, you know, all the
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: respect due there to the military. But This was a
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: unique opportunity for the first time ever. CIA was the point.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: He was deciding on the missions, where we would go
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and design the entry points. And I would ask the
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: military and they provide the support to me as we
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: were doing that. And it was kind of a unique experience.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: It's Gary Bernson. Get the book called Jawbreaker. It's unbelievable. Also,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: check out his book called Stolen Elections. You'll learn a
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: lot from that. So he gets to Pakistan. Does Pakistan
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: know immediately that he's there? And why doesn't our so-called
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: friend or ally Pakistan that we give money to every year,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: why didn't they tell us immediately, come and get him?
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Great question. Of course they knew. They let him cross.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: They helped him. Years later, we find out they flew
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: helicopters in there. They met with him. They wanted to
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: keep him alive. They wanted to keep that option alive
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: because they The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of the Pakistani Armed Forces,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: their intel guys, are not our friends. You know, we
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: have liaison with them, but they have their own interests
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: and their interests were supporting Islamic fundamentalists. They fell in
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: love with those fundamentalists. They used them in Pakistan, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: they used a lot of them against the Indians. Remember,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I mentioned the third guy in that group, in Maktab al-Khidmat,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: was Mohammed Saeed. But in addition to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, they
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: had the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, Harakat-ul-Ansar. They had all these
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Pakistani militant groups from Kashmir that they were in love
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: with for two decades, and they did— did terrorist attacks
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: against the Indians nonstop. So, you know, bin Laden was just,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: you know, another member of that club.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: But, but even that said, if he got there from
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the Tora Bora fight, he, by the time he got him,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: he must've been in Pakistan for 10 years. Why so long?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Why didn't, in that decade, why didn't we get him?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He spent time in Iran too.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. So he was moving.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: He spent time in Iran and, And then essentially he
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: was relocated back over there, but he was right next
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: to the Pakistani military academy. Wow. But we had reporting
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that he was in Iran for years, and I do
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: believe that the Iranians would provide him protection. There was
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: conflict between the Shia and the Sunnis, you know?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, Bin Laden was Sunni
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and Iran is Shia, but they still wanted to give
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: him cover?
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Well, they did at that point because, you know, we
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: were the greater enemy, the great Satan. But, you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: when the Taliban seized control of Iran, In the early
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: 90s of Afghanistan, they went up to the city of
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Mazar-e-Sharif and there was an Iranian consulate. And the Taliban
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: just took all the diplomats down to the basement and
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: executed them all. And the Iranians were pissed. So they
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: sent like a couple of brigades to the border. They
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: were going to invade and attack them. And then they
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: decided not to. But there was hostility between those guys,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: serious hostility at times.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Did we know, how long did we know that he
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: was where he was in Abbottabad? Because I guess he'd
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: been moving around, but then he ended up having a complex.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: When they learned, and they had a, they, I know
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the guy that found him, one of the key people
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: that found him.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And they used a doctor who identified him, a Pakistani doctor.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: That doctor sadly got arrested and didn't get out of
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the country. The people that were on the ground working
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: with him. They did get out of the country, but
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: that Pakistani doctor was arrested, and I believe he's still
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: in jail. But once they found him, they moved pretty
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: quickly to do that. And my understanding is, and I
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: was not in the agency when they did get him,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: but the truth was the two people that pushed it
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the hardest to go get him were Petraeus and Hillary Clinton,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: and that they really did force Barack Obama's hand. Of course,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: they tried to make Barack Obama look like a hero,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: but His people didn't want anything to do with it,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: and they actually set the whole thing up so that
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: he couldn't back out of it.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you something off the beaten path, just
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: for a second. I want to get back on topic.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Let's be honest. A lot of what comes out of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Hollywood these days makes a mockery of America. Somehow, we're
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the bad guys. They make a mockery of our history,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: our values, our faith. There's still a place telling stories,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: real stories, that remind us what makes America, the United States,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: worth celebrating. That place is Angel Studios. They're creating unapologetically
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: patriotic films and shows, original films and shows that uplift, educate,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and inspire. Like Sound of Freedom. Have you checked that
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• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of child trafficking and inspired millions to take action. Something
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• 27:39
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• 27:48
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• 27:52
  Speaker 1: kind of storytelling Hollywood forgot how to do. These aren't
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: just good films. They are cultural reset buttons. And when
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you join the Angel Guild, you don't just stream entertainment.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: You help to create it. You vote on what gets made.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You support filmmakers who still believe in this great land, America.
• 28:07
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• 28:09
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  Speaker 1: go to angel.com slash PAGS right now. Angel.com slash PAGS.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Become a premium Angel Guild member today. Support entertainment that
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: builds something worth passing on. Why did Hillary Clinton want
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Gaddafi dead? Do we know that? Because she was celebrating.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: You know, we came, we saw, we shot him like
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a dog. I mean, she was like bragging about it.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: It seems as though that was something personal. What was that?
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, look, Gaddafi did Pan Am 103. Right. You know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and killed a whole lot of Americans. Oh, don't get
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: me wrong, Gary.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not sad that Gaddafi's dead. He got what he
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: had coming. But we had him under control. And Libya,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: without him in control, becomes much less manageable. So I
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: just wondered why she thought that was necessary.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: But he was a terrible problem. And in those days,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Democrats were not as insane as they are now. Right,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: that's true. You know, it's like, you know, after looking
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: at the Democratic Socialists of America, I kind of miss
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Bill Clinton. Exactly.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I'm with you. Hey, listen, man, Bill Clinton actually wanted
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: to close the border and get rid of illegal aliens.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: So that's another topic for another day. I just wondered
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: if there was something personal there, because after what Reagan
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: did to Gaddafi, we pretty much got him under control.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And he was doing, come and do anything you want,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: just don't kill me. Then we ended up pushing him
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: out and killing him anyway.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I know. Look, I'm not here. I'm not a great
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: fan of Gaddafi. Hillary Clinton, but the truth is the truth.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: She and Petraeus worked together, colluded together, to ensure that
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: bin Laden was eliminated.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And it's the truth. And it was the people in
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: the Obama circle around him would have blocked, but they
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: were put in a position where they didn't have much
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: of a choice.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, if you're going to force my hand, I
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: will say good job on Hillary Clinton. First time I've
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: ever said that in my life. It's Gary Bernstein. Jawbreaker
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: is the book. Go and get it. Let's get to
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: what the rules of engagement were and why were we
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: in Afghanistan for 20 years just to hand it back
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to the Taliban at the end?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: What were we supposed to do? Look, when we entered Afghanistan,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: it was a country that looked like it was in
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the 6th century. Women and children were virtual slaves of
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the worst kinds of Sunni extremists. And the United States
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: did a lot of good things there. We set up schools,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: we built hospitals, we built roads. We did some good things.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And we paid a price. We had losses. In the
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: last three years before Biden surrendered the country, there were
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: virtually no laws. There were like two or three people
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: a year that were killed. I mean, more people get
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: in car accidents in the States, you know, soldiers. We
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: weren't losing any people. We've been in Korea for 70 years.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: We've been in Europe there. We had invested a lot there.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Remember something else. Bagram Air Base was the single closest
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: air base to China. I know. Why would you want
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: to give that up?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: The capabilities of SIGINT alone for listening and this and
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: that and force projection in that part of the world. Bagram,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I seized Bagram. OK, I was, you know, the battlefront
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: right to the middle of Bagram. We had guys in
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the control tower pulling in airstrikes on the other side
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: of the base in the fight. And I flew in,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: grabbed Bagram, used it as a logistical head, then went
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: in and seized the capital, you know. with the northern
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: alliance well.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Why why does biden get why does he leave like
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: he did why does he give bagram up and can
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: we take it back that's our airbase we built it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Total and well it was actually built by the soviets
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: a long time ago really fixed it up though oh
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: yeah okay look when i landed there it was a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: big base and almost every hangars and aircraft destroyed the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: roofs were there was only two buildings with roofs on
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: it one of those buildings we shoveled it out and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: put plastic up around the walls. And it was like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I used it as like a, as a headquarters for
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: just a couple of days. But then I went into the,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: into the city and seized a hotel and made it
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: my headquarters and told the managers, the hotel lever, I'm
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: going to shoot you. This is mine now.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: We held that place for years, you know? So we
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: didn't build it. We remodeled it is what we did.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: We, we, we, we rebuilt it. And when, you know,
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: when I went in there, there was only a dozen
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: of us. And then, 300 Brits came in, special air
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: service and special boat service guys down at the end
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: of the runway. And then we started building the base up. And,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: you know, it went from zero to 30,000 people at
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: that place.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Why does Biden leave like he did? Did Biden leave
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: for a photo op for the 20th anniversary? Is that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: what that was?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did. It was insane giving that up. Listen,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: not since 1841 and Lord Elphinstone was there, and with McNaughton,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: and they surrendered Afghanistan. They were at Bala Hazar, and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the 14,000 of them were wiped out. Has there been
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: such a disaster, military disaster, in history? Biden is right
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: up there. That is the single worst military disaster, the
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: surrender of Afghanistan in 250 years. Joe Biden is an imbecile,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: and it made absolutely no sense to do what he did.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: No strategic sense. No, I mean, we could have reduced
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: it down to a special forces mission with a small
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: number of agencies. Look, there were many other options. It
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: didn't have to be 100,000 or nobody. We could have
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: held the place with 2,000 guys.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: It's Gary Bernson. Go and get his book called Jawbreaker.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It's an amazing tale, true story, of exactly what went
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: down after 9-11. You didn't expect to be there for
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: 20 years, right? I mean, a presence, I get it.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: A presence, yes. But a so-called war for 20 years
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: didn't make any sense.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: If you were to talk to Kofor, Kofor Black, who
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: was the chief of counterterrorism, his vision was a special mission,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: special forces type mission. He didn't expect, you know, 30,000
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: people at Bagram or 100,000 people and contractors on the ground.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: We never envisioned that. And the big army got in
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: there and they went wild. They just kept building and
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: building and building, you know. We didn't need to have
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: it that large. It was overdone.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Well, I have you, and we've only got a couple
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of minutes left, and we've got to do this again
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: very soon. With your knowledge and your expertise, now that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you're not in right now, but you're seeing what's going
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: on with Iran, how does that end? Because originally the
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: president said, The Persian people, the Iranian people might have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a chance to get their country back, might be the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: only chance they get. But we don't appear to be
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: doing anything to help them do that. I know that
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: we armed the Kurds a little bit, but the Kurds
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: kept the arms, whatever. How does this thing end? It
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: can't go on forever. There's no appetite for it here, Gary.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: There just isn't.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Right. Look, I support the fact that, look, people don't
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: realize that Iran has 95 million people. It's a very
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: large country. They had 2,000 ballistic missiles and missile launchers.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: They were the dominant force in the Middle East, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has defanged them. And that needed to be done,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: and we needed to destroy their nuclear material. And so
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: the Obama administrations and the Biden administrations were secretly facilitating
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: and allowing the Iranian Islamic fundamentalists to grow in power.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: They did nothing to limit them. The JPOA, that agreement
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: was a disgrace, a total disgrace. And so they have
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: had their Air Force destroyed. Their Navy has been sunk.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: A couple of tiers of their leadership have been removed. Look, conflict,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: war doesn't happen in a day or even in a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: couple of months. I would ask people to be patient.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Give the president a little time. Don't keep asking me,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: is it done?
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Is it done? Is it done?
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: They have done a remarkable job. of defanging the worst
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: threat on the planet. And it was done with the
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: United States and with thousands of sorties also done by
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: the Israeli. And I think that there have got to
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: be covert programs where they're trying to arm and build
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: an opposition because no one before Donald Trump ever invested
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: in an opposition. For 50 years, the U.S. national security
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: apparatus was afraid to do this. Shame on them. And
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: so Trump stepped up to it. And I think he did.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I know he did the right thing in my heart.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: He did the right thing. Yeah, we got to give
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: him a little bit of time. This is a look.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: This is this was a big threat. And thank God
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: he did this now. I know we're paying a little
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: bit more for gas, but please, everybody, take a deep breath,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: because if those guys that had nuclear weapons, the world
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: would be an unbelievably more dangerous place. And so, you know,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: God bless Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and General Kane
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: and the rest of these people that took this thing on.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: God bless them. Give them a little bit of time.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: We're working with our allies in the area to try
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: to forge something and also get them to finance that.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: We need the Saudis, the UAE, Qatar to finance the
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: new Iran as it comes online. And it just won't
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: happen overnight. And it's not Trump's fault. It's because none
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: of his predecessors did. invested two nickels in an opposition.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Last question for Gary Bernstein. Gary, we'll do it again soon.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Get his book called Jawbreaker. It's a bestseller. Been out
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: for a long time, but go in and refresh yourself
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: on exactly what happened after 9-11. Why exactly would Obama
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: and Biden, and really it was three terms of Obama,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: why exactly would they fund and finance Iran? Did they
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: think they were buying their cooperation? Because Iran laughed at
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: it and spent it however they wanted. Even when they
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: said When Biden told us, or whoever it was telling us,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: he was eating ice cream. But when we were told
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: by these administrations that this was only going to go
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to humanitarian needs, even the leader of Iran said, we'll
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: spend it however we want. It's our money. We're not
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: going to give it to humanitarian needs. And we know
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that they continued funding the Houthis and everybody else around
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the world. Why do you think they funded and financed
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: this country? Were they just so dim as they thought
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: they really wouldn't use it for that?
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: They weren't dim. They were trying to create a world
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: where the United States is no longer the predominant power.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: They wanted a multipolar world where America was just one
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: among other nations like Denmark. I mean, it is insane
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: what they were doing. It was purposeful. You know, the
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Obama administration was messaging them as soon as they got
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: elected that we are your friends. We will help you.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, shocking stuff. And it's almost consistent with the
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: messaging that you're getting out of the DSA, you know,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Democratic Socialists of America. These are not people that believe
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: in our Constitution or in our republic and are attempting
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: to destroy our culture and our civilization. And Obama is
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: one of the leading advocates of that. And it's taken
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: me a while to come to terms with that. But
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: these people want to destroy our country.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: It's sick. Gary Bernstein, go and get his book called Jawbreaker.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Also check out Stolen Elections. That's his book as well.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Uncovers much of what you thought was going on. It
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: was written by Ralph Pizzullo.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Stolen Elections is about me and Martine Rodile, but it's
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: written by Ralph Pizzullo, who wrote Jawbreaker with me 20
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: years ago.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Who you had on the program as well, and he's
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: an amazing author. Gary, thanks for making the time. Thanks
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: for the insight. Let's do it again very soon, my friend.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you. That's it for this one. Another Unshaken,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Unafraid with Joe Paggs to drop very soon. Make sure
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you subscribe.