May 14, 2025 • 37 mins
People in Congress don’t realize that it’s the American people that are calling for change, not just Trump. Brandon Weichert and Trump’s movement in the middle east. Trump getting cross with Netanyahu over a hot war with Iran. What kind of role does Turkey play in the middle east.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is the Jesse Kelly Show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on
a wonderful, wonderful Wednesday, all kinds of stuff. We're going
to talk more about government corruption here in just a moment.
That'll be spicy and fun. We'll make fun of the GOP.
That's always a good time. And we're about to get
(00:34):
so smart. And about eh half hour, about a half
hour from now, Brandon Wicker's gonna come on, and let
me explain why I'm bringing him on. If you've listened
for a while, you know Brandon Wiker does foreign policy stuff.
Donald Trump. In this foreign trip he's on with Saudi
Arabia and Katar at places like that, he's giving these
(00:58):
speeches and he's saying a lot of things and they
are significant internationally. In fact, I'm thinking about an hour
from now doing a little talk about America in our
foreign policy and things like that. But Donald Trump is
very very clearly realigning or attempting to realign, how America
(01:21):
is globally, how we conduct ourselves globally, how involved we
are globally, and there's a lot to tackle. So Brandon
Weikert's going to give us a heads up on what
all is happening with Iran and Turkey and Syria and
Israel and Qatar and Saudi Arabia and all these plays.
We're going to discuss all that about a half hour
(01:42):
from now. We will be so smart. We'll rub it
in all of our friends' faces tomorrow about how smart
we are. So just get ready for that. Now. I
want to get to this Alana Goodman. She's a wonderful
reporter at the Free Beacon. She has a story out
about somebody we've talked about before on the show. His
name is Jigar Shaw. Jigar Shaw, and you see he
(02:07):
had a role. Joe Biden made him the Energy Energy
what did they call him? The Energy Loan Czar? The
Energy Loan Czar, What does that actually mean? He was
the director of the Department of Energy's Loan Program's office.
And it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out
(02:29):
what that means. He's the guy who hands out a
million here, a millionaire. And let's be honest, it wasn't
a million here a millionaire, it was a billion here,
a billion there? Hey, who wants a billion? You want
a billion? And You're not dumb. You know who he
was giving that money to. Remember why communists? What communists
(02:51):
do with power? What two things do communists do with power?
Anyone who's listening to the show notes, what are the
two things they do with power? Reward their friends, punish
their enemies. Communists believe in using power for two reasons.
Reward your friends, punish your enemies. This guy got in
there and he started grabbing as much of your money
(03:14):
as humanly possible and throwing it at all these ridiculous
green energy scams that are out there, which makes it
so nakedly corrupt because where do all these quote green
energestion him use that word, the climate scam energy companies,
Where do they donate their money When they donate political donations,
(03:36):
roughly one thousand percent of their political donations go to
the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party gets elected, and they
do what communists always do. They take your money, the
taxpayer money, and they hand it right back to the
climate commuy companies, who then in turn donate again to
the You understand the vicious, little ugly circle of corruption
(03:57):
we have here. Well, he's still longer at his current position.
Now he's over there in Europe trying to do the
same thing to the Europeans. I wanted to combine that
with something Sean Duffy said today. Remember Sean Duffy is
the Transportation Secretary. I've met Sean a couple times. Wonderful
human being, just wonderful family. Actually, Sean's great guy, a
(04:20):
really great guy. And Sean said something about the trillion trillions,
trillions with a T that seemed to have disappeared. Here's
what he's twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
They passed the stimulus bill under the Obama era, and
then you had one point two trillion in the last Congress,
and so that's two trillion dollars over ten years. And
sometimes you look around the country and go, where did
two trillion dollars go? Where is all the infrastructure? Why
don't we have more? And I think it does a
(04:53):
lot of this money gets eaten up in again the
permitting and the consultants, and I want to see more
of the money go, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
To the money was stolen. And let me clarify, just
because you steal something legally, don't think that buys you
any benefit from me on fevery, because you know how
this works. As we've discussed many times before Congress Democrats
(05:26):
passed some big corrupt bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, And
in that bill, it's a trillion dollars with money for
this and money for that, and so we'll save five
hundred million dollars for solar panels. It was more that
we'll just call it five hundred million dollars for solar panels.
But that of course goes to a government department to
hand out five hundred million dollars, and they'll look for qualified,
(05:50):
approved contractors who get that five hundred million dollars. In fact,
the government department may may even seek out some sort
of a DC area consultant. Hey, we have five hundred
million dollars that need to go to solar panel companies.
We definitely need a separate company to help us figure
(06:11):
out where to send that five hundred million dollars. And
what wouldn't you know it, my second cousin has a
consulting company. That's right, Chris, I know a guy. I
just happen to know a guy, and for a small
fee of one hundred million dollars, he will tell us
where to send the five hundred million dollars. And once
(06:32):
you get the money to the hundred and once you
get the money to the second cousin and he takes
his hundred million dollars off the top. Then he goes
through and looks for his second cousin and his uncle
and his campaign donors, and he hands them your tax
payer money. And yes, on the surface, a lot of
this stuff, I want to be clear, is perfectly legal
(06:53):
by the letter of the law. But don't think for
a second it's anything anything better than outrun theft. You
have been robbed repeatedly by Washington DC. Remember Elon Musk.
Elon Musk did something. It might have been on Joe Rogan.
I'm not sure where it was, but he talked recently
about what he was discovering at DOGE and how the
(07:15):
money works and how essentially ninety cents of every dollar,
even the foreign aid stuff, the foreign aid stuff. You
might think that that money goes overseas. No no, no, no, no, no,
ninety cents of every dollar stays right in Washington, d C.
Remember that story. We touched on it a little bit
about the at what was it the African Development Office
(07:37):
or something stupid like that. And it doesn't take a
genius to figure out off the job of that office
is stuff help Africa, of course with your money, which
you'd never agreed to. But we did a help Africa,
except all the money just stayed here, and the money
that did go to Africa, most of it came right
(07:58):
back here. That's how it worked. Now that actually was
a crime. In fact, the guys I believe already been
indicted or being indicted. I know he's being investigated. But
this is how Washington corruption works. And this brings me
to this little story here. Insider trading is something we've
(08:21):
discussed before. Insider trading. As far as far as Congress goes,
Congress sadly has a lot of control over our economy.
They have a lot of sway over our economy. Things
they do, things they don't do. It makes certain sectors
of our economy go up, certain sectors go down. And
these people they know before we know. You're not in
(08:46):
these committee meetings. They know before we know, and they
trade stocks to make money or avoid losing money before
you get the opportunity, before I get the opportunity. That's
a violation of the law. If any if I have
a inside knowledge, let's say I'm a big stockholder in Nike,
(09:06):
I'm not. But let's say I'm a big stockholder in Nike,
and maybe my brother feeds me some information that, hey, hey, Jesse,
I work for Nike, and let me tell you what.
They've got a new shoe coming out. Stock's about to
blow up. And let's say I sell a bunch of
stock or buy a bunch of stock because my brother,
(09:27):
who works for Nike told me that I'm going to prison.
Did you know that that's illegal? Yet Congress does this
all the time. There's a reason members of Congress routinely
beat the greatest financial consultants in the country. It's because
they're insider trading. Mike Johnson, this is hilarious. He came
out and he said that he backs a bipartisan push
(09:53):
on banning congressional stock trading, but he stopped short of
promising a vote on it. That might be the most
Republican statement in the history of Republican statements. We should
definitely ban this, and I might have a vote on it.
(10:13):
I mean, probably not, but maybe we'll vote on it
one day, maybe after the election, we'll have a vote
on it. That might be the most gop thing in
the world. These people are all thieves. In scumbags. And
this is why people get angry about politics. And it's
also why I call it the low T GOP. It's
not just because Mike Johnson and the rest of the
Republican Party have lower T levels than the average American
(10:35):
male that can be fixed with chalk. It's because these
people never had the guts to actually stand up to
DC corruption. In fact, Tim Burchett said something about DC
corruption in Congress. Before we get to Tim Burchett, let
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(11:38):
code Jesse, We'll be back. This is the Jesse Kelly Show.
It is that Jesse Kelly Show. I am excited because
Brandon Wikert is coming up about ten minutes from now,
and you are about to be so much smarter than
you already are I am too, Chris, not so much.
(11:59):
But we can only do what we can do. That
is going to be fascinating. Tim Burchett, who I love,
Tennessee's own Tim Burchett. He was talking about Congress and
Trump's executive orders and here's what he says.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Hey, everybody, Congers from Tim Burchett, I'm incredibly frustrated this
morning after that we will seriously lose our country. We
have got to start codifying these executive orders from President Trump.
America realizes what's going on. Congresses to wake up and
Dad Gemmitt, we get to do our job.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
What has happened in d C. What is happening in
DC is the American people are completely fed up with
the corruption. They're fed up with the way Congress has
done things, and as per usual, DC's the last to know.
And now that they're starting to pick up on the
fact that people really want genuine change, like banning of
(12:57):
stock trading, as we were just talking about. People want
these changes, they want these changes. What Congress is now
going to try to do is something they've been trying
to do for some years now. They're trying to wait
out Trump because they think the source of all these
change calls is Donald Trump. They have no earthly idea
(13:22):
what they're dealing with. Donald Trump is there because the
American people were ready for a change, and after Donald
Trump is gone, that same desire will be there. If not,
it'll burn even hotter. If anything, it'll burn even hotter
than it already is now. But what the House wants
(13:43):
to do, and the Senate, the Republicans and Democrats in
the House, the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, what
they want to do is pretend as if they're on
board with you and the things you want. Pretend they're
on board with things like banning stock trading. But then
when it actually comes right down to it, it's well,
I mean, we'll try to schedule a vote. I'm not
(14:04):
really sure. I don't know. My dog's sick. I can't
get to it. I know when somebody is trying to
wait me out. I know it. I have a son
who doesn't eat his vegetables and AB and I A
couple times we tried when he was younger, We tried
the tactic of making him sit at the dinner table
until the vegetables were eaten. He waited us out. He
(14:28):
would sit there, talk, laugh, make jokes, slip the dog
as much food as he could possibly slip the dog,
and just sit there and wait. That adorable look on
his face. That's exactly what Congress is trying to do
to us, in a much less adorable way. Congress is
attempting to wait out the America First Movement. They are
(14:52):
the GOP does not want to codify anything into law
because they don't want to actually do any of these things.
In fact, they want to do the opposite of all
these things. So they understand, they can't say that. What
they're hoping is. I bet you they wake up every day,
I bet you they have I bet you they have
reminders in their calendar for the day Donald Trump is
(15:12):
finally done as president, and I bet they have deluded
themselves into believing on that day everything can just finally
go back to normal. We can finally go back to
doing things the way we've always done things. But I'm
here to tell each and every person who thinks that
in Congress, you really don't understand what is happening in
(15:33):
this country. You don't understand it at all. You've spent
too much time around lobbyists and other scumbag politicians. You've
spent too much time in Washington, d C. The American
people's anger at how things are done in this country
is palpable, and it's getting worse and worse and worse,
(15:54):
and stuff like this. I played it only pours gas
on the fires.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And they passed the the stimulus bill under the Obama era,
and then you had one point two trillion in the
last Congress, and so that's two trillion dollars over ten years.
And sometimes you look around the country and go, where
did two trillion dollars go? Where is all the infrastructure?
Why don't we have more? And I think it does
(16:18):
a lot of this money gets eaten up in.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
The American people are sick of it. And COVID actually
helped move this along as well. The American people quickly
grew tired of the do as I say, not as
I do politicians in this country the politicians both in Congress.
(16:42):
Remember remember when they left the congressional gym open, these morons.
American gyms closed across the country because of a chess cold,
which is hilarious, but they closed gyms across the country.
People were mad about it. And then the story came
out that Congress has a big weight room. Congress left
their jim open, and they were just completely oblivious to it.
(17:05):
I remember one guy was asked about it and it's like, well, yeah,
we got to work out. Just totally out of touch,
and they do not understand the level of anger that
is out there. I mean I brought up that I
brought up that story about that illegal to start out
the show. They don't understand the level of anger Americans
have at illegals committing crimes in this country that hasn't
(17:28):
even gone in. Even most Republicans don't really fully understand
how bad that anger is. It's really really bad. You
people in DC suffer from the worst case of signal
lag I've ever seen. Mike Johnson says, we'll try to
get a vote on banning insider trading if we get
(17:49):
to it. That's essentially what he said, Well kind of,
I don't know. Maybe we'll vote on it, and you
guys better wake up. This is why I tell you
a dictator is coming. You're gonna keep ignore the people
and ignoring the people, trying to wait out Trump and
wait out this and hoping this will pass. It's not
going to pass. I'm telling you right now, it's going
to be bad. Now. Speaking of all the crime, what
(18:14):
do you do when one of the two major political
parties wants more of it? What do you do?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You better get something to protect yourself, man, especially if
you live in one of these blue areas. They are
pro criminal and anti you. What are you going to do?
Do you have a burna yet? You know they have
a new compact launcher. It fires at four hundred feet
(18:42):
per second. It's non lethal. But Jesse, I can't own that.
I'm in Colorado. I can't own that I'm in California. No, no, no,
burna is legal everywhere all fifty states. You don't need
a permit, you don't need a background check. SWAT teams
carry them, private security companies carry them. Over five hundred
an agencies carry them. These things are legit. We'll save
(19:04):
your friggin life, man, it'll put a stop to a
bad guy quickly. Little tear gas rounds all. You can't
even imagine the powder that comes. It's brutal. Give one
to your daughter you sent away to college. Please your mom,
your dad. B y Rna Berna dot com slash Jesse
(19:25):
gets you a discount, all right, Berna dot com slash Jesse.
Brandon Wikert educates us on international things. Next. He doesn't
care if you believe him, but he's right, Jesse Kelly.
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful, wonderful Wednesday.
(19:47):
Remember you can email the show Jesse at Jesse kellyshow
dot com. It's very rare for us to have one
guest on the show, let alone too, But it just
felt right today because I need to know what the
heck is going on overseas. Trump is in Saudi Arabia
now he's in k Tar. I know the experts call
it cutter, but I went to community college. Either way,
I bet Brandon Weikert knows what's going on. He wrote
(20:09):
the book The Shadow War about Iran and those dirt balls. Brandon,
what's going on with Trump and Iran? And I've heard,
especially in that speech he gave yesterday a lot of
what we'd call saber rattling talk.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
What's happening, Well, thanks for having me, And we are
moving at the speed of Trump. It's almost hard for
me to keep up. And I do this for a living.
The way this guy is moving through the region. I
will just say that his speech yesterday was probably the
best speech of either of his terms so far in office.
(20:44):
It certainly set the table for I think how America
is going to proceed, not just during the Trump years,
but probably beyond as well. With the Middle East. We
are clearly no longer going to prioritize the region the
way that we were doing after nine to eleven. That's
both good and bad. The good thing is we don't
(21:05):
have to. We're not going to be sending any more
kids to go fight and die in those Middle East wars. Now.
The downside here, though, is it looks like he's handing
the region over at least to some bad actors, not all,
but some, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar. So there
are some real concerns, and it isn't just from not
never Trump types. There are some real concerns from people
(21:29):
on our side, and I think their concerns are justified
that maybe Trump is getting too cozy with the Qataris,
for instance, who are a huge funder of the Islamic
terrorism that we've been dealing with since nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, so let's actually nail down on that. It's one
of the main reasons I wanted you to come on,
because you're the furthest thing in the world from a
never Trumper. So this is kind of how I look
at it. I'm concerned myself. However, is there a way
for us to wash our hands this reason region and
let them do what they do without handing it to
(22:06):
some bad actors because bad actors run a lot of
the dumps over there.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
That's right, That's right now. I think that's probably what's
that play here, because like I said, they're not all
bad actors. I mean, the Saudi government, at least under
Mohammed bin Salman, he's very pro American. Clearly he has
a very very strong rapport with President Trump. That's the
real in the Arab world at least, that's the real power.
(22:32):
And so the fact that we've got a friendly in
the Crown Prince that's going to stabilize and sort of
contain what katar might otherwise do now that Trump is
sort of letting them in to the wider picture. The
Kataris he's letting in, but the fact that we've got
the Crown Prince Saudi Arabia that will balance that because
(22:52):
they don't want the Kataris to go full bore into
the Muslim Brotherhood stuff either. The problem is, though, the
Muslim Brotherhood itself, which is the umbrella organization for Islamism,
that is the ideology that we've been fighting. That's the
ideology of Bin Laden al Qaeda. The ideology of isis
(23:13):
the ideology of Jelani and Syria, who again I'm very
disturbed Trump is recognizing. But ultimately the Saudis are a
great counterweight to that, which is why I say it's
not all bad, but it is concerning. And I think
though this is part of a larger move to pull
the Americans out of the region and let the locals
(23:34):
clean up their own messes. Now, the downside's going to
be for our friends in Israel, because our friends in
Israel have overplayed their hand Netan Yahoo in particular, and
what's happening now is Trump is fed up with Netan
Yahoo so he's basically letting the region isolate Israel as
we exit out of the region. So that's going to
(23:55):
be a continuing headache and a threat to the Israelis,
especially because the Muslim Brotherhood has direct ties to the
most powerful country in the region, and that is Turkey.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Okay, So there's so much to unpack there. Let's nail
down on the Israel thing first. Why is Trump fed
up with Israel and Net and Yahoo? Because it's honestly,
it's difficult to get more pro Israel than Trump has
historically been. They call the goal on Heights the Trump Heights.
I was over there once and they are billboards of
the man up. What in the world did Net and
(24:28):
Yaho do to get crossways with Trump?
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I think what Trump has been trying to do is
avoid another Middle East war. And I think he feels
and I don't know if this is right or not,
but I think he feels that Netanyah who is intransigent
about picking a fight with Iran. And while Trump has
certainly made it clear he doesn't want to see Iran
become more powerful, he has also made it abundantly clear
(24:54):
that he's not going to war against Iran. Anytime soon.
And so Netan Yaho, you know Menyah, who is Israel
itself is threatened directly by Iran, the Iranian proxies, the
who thise Hamas Hezbela, especially Hesbela, those Iranian proxies are
direct threats to Israel. But the Israelis can't take it
(25:15):
all on their own. So I think Trump is frustrated
because net Nyaho is very gung ho about knocking out
the Iranian regime while he thinks there's still time to
do that where or at least the nuclear facilities, but
that will lead to a regime change mission, whereas Trump
doesn't want to do that, and I think that Trump
felt he no longer had a viable partner in Netan Yahoo.
(25:39):
Now what I think might happen is whenever the political
system in Israel gets back on track, it's been sort
of off kilter since the October seventh terror attacks. I
think whatever that process comes back into play, where domestic
politics in Israel starts normalizing, I think Netanyah, Who's probably
not gonna last much longer in office, and at that
(25:59):
point there might be a resetting of relations between Israel
and the US. But I argue as long as net
and Yaho is in office, Trump's gonna let the kind
of Islamic powers of the region isolate Israel so that
it buys us time and favor to leave peacefully from
the wider Middle East.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Did the Gaza stuff the gazz of war? I shouldn't
call it stuff. Did the gazz of war that Israel
was fighting? Is that something that Trump likes? Dislikes it?
I asked, because I remember, like it was yesterday when
he talked about putting up hotels and just making a
nice yeah. Yeah, no, I you go ahead, go ahead,
(26:41):
God please.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
No. I think that he wants peace in the region.
I think initially he thought Net and Yahoo would be
his ticket to quickly getting peace. You have to remember, though,
the Israeli military is highly competent, but they're a small force.
And so when they went in to god yes, they
did a lot of damage to Hamas, and that's good,
(27:03):
but unfortunately there was a lot of collateral damage. And
I think Trump is looking around, going this doesn't look
good for me and America in the region to be
so closely tethered to all of the destruction in Godza.
Now look, I think that Yahoo was justified to protect himself,
to protect his country. Collateral damage is part of war,
but ultimately, from the American perspective, it was, at least
(27:25):
as Trump saw it, it wasn't conducive to what he
was trying to do with the wider region. And the
wider region is not just Israel, it's the Arabs, it's
even Iran and Turkey. So he's got to balance what
Israel needs with what American needs to do, which is
to extricate itself from the region without completely surrendering the
region to say Iran.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
This stuff is all so complicated with our allies here
in enemies here. I need Chris. Next time we booked
Brandon Wikert, I think we need to get him for
like an hour or something like that. I'm not going
to ask you for an hour. We're Brandon, but do
you have maybe one more segment with these kids? I
want to talk I want to talk Turkey. Ha. How
about that, Chris, Chris, that was funny. It was a
(28:08):
dad joke. Whatever. Anyway, we will be right back with
Brandon Weikert talking Turkey, Iran, Iraq. I'm curious, are they
anything anymore? All that and more coming up? Hang on
truth attitude. Jesse Kelly, we are back with Brandon Wikert. Obviously,
(28:29):
you know Brandon Wiker. If you listen to this show,
highly recommend you pick up his book Shadow War. Okay,
so I first want to ask you about Turkey before
we get to Iran in Iraq, because you've mentioned to
us before on this show that they are really the
big dog in the region. So maybe you could let
us know what is Turkey, Brandon. Is it some Islamist state?
(28:52):
Is it a secular state? Are they are they she eyed?
Are they sunny? What? Are they?
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Definitely an Islamist state. They are predominantly Sunni ethnic Turks.
It's a little bit different than the Saudi Arabia, you know,
Qatar side, which are ethnic Arabs, but they're also Sunni Muslim.
The thing with Turkey is under the current regime of
Rasip taiep Erdowan, the president, he is an Islamist, he
(29:21):
belongs to the Islamist Party and he has made it
clear his intention to rebuild the lost Ottoman Empire that
collapsed at the end of the First World War, that
was for hundreds of years the dominant power in the
Middle East, and he is on track to restore the
it's called the Neo Ottoman Empire. He is on track
(29:42):
to bring that to be into being. And I argue
that Trump's moves right now, whether it means to or not,
they are going to allow for Turkey to take a
much greater role in the Middle East as we step out. Now,
that's somewhat of a good thing because technically Turkey is
a NATO ally. At the same time, though, they're very
(30:04):
unpredictable and unstable and at times unfriendly ally. And furthermore,
if you're sitting in Israel, the last thing you should
be wanting is a Turkey coming in and restoring the
out of an empire, because that probably means the end
of Israel. The Turks are going to try to crush
Israel at some point, and they've got the military capabilities
(30:25):
in the long term to do that. So what's happening
now is a completely generational shift. It's going back to
the way things were before World War One in the
region with Turkey as the dominant power. That's not a
good thing, though necessarily for our friends in Israel.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Okay, So they're going to fill the vacuum of power
when we step out. Where does Iran fit in all this.
Turkey obviously we know how they fit with Israel, but Turkey, Iraq,
But where where is Iran as far as their their
military capability, they're They're who there are? Whose side are
they on? Where are they in this?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Well? The Iranians, that's a great question. The Iranians are
predominantly a Sheiite Muslim power, ethnic Persians, so they're really
kind of on the outside of the region in many respects.
They are Muslims, so that they have a lot of
weight in the region, but they're not the predominant Sunni power.
They are the site power. What that means is Iran
(31:23):
has spent the last several decades desperately trying to make
for itself, to make itself into the dominant regional power
that was playing out throughout the Iraq War in two
thousand and three, that was playing out afterward during the
Arab Spring and all of that. Ultimately, I argue it
looks to me like the Iranians are on the back foot.
(31:44):
They have lost their connectivity to Syria through Iraq, They've
lost their connectivity to Hesbla in Lebanon. They're very much
isolated in their own part of the region. However, Iran
itself is a very hard target. They have very sophisticated
air defenses, they have a very capable for that region military,
(32:06):
which means that any strike by US or even Israel
on Iran might not end very well for US because
of how complex the Iranian defenses are. Moving beyond the
defensive to the offensive. I argue Iran is at the
weakest that has been in years. It cannot initiate the
kinds of offensives it was doing in twenty fourteen, for instance,
(32:26):
against Isis because it's lost Syria, it's losing parts of Iraq,
two Turkish backed groups, the Sunni groups. So ultimately what
will happen I think is Turkey will become the dominant
force in the region and the Iranians will basically kind
of have their own little enclave in Iran itself, not
unlike historically where you had the Ottoman Empire leading the
(32:49):
Sunni side and then you had kind of an Iranian
you know, the Safavid for instance, empire running the kind
of the Iranian side of things, and that's kind of
a balance of power between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, I'm going to need a new lawrence of Arabia
at some point in time here soon, yes, don't roll
your eyes, all right, Iraq, what I spent a little
bit of time in that dump. Where are they now?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
So they are torn between a Shiite dominant population, their
majority Shiite, which means they are aligned with Iran. This
is why I said Iran after Iraq War, after we
got rid of Saddam, Iran basically was Onmi offensive because
they were able to move in to Iraq. We basically
got rid of Saddam and handed Iraq over to Iran,
(33:33):
which was not what we wanted to do. But there's
also the Sunni element in northern and western Iraq near
the Syrian border, the Sunni Triangle maybe you're familiar with
if you served in Iraq, that was a key area
of operation. The Turks are actually moving and forced there
to support the Sunni side that previously was the home
(33:55):
of al Qaeda in Iraq and Isis. So you have
shaping up any rock sort of this this no man's
land between Turkish backed Sunni militants and the Shiites backed
Iranian militants of the south of Iraq. So Iraq doesn't really,
in my opinion, exist per se as a functional country.
(34:17):
It's sort of like, you know, a middle, like a
neutral zone between the Sunni and Shiite sides of the region.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh good, well, at least all that fighting was worth it.
That makes me feel really wonderful. Okay, so finally I
swear I'll let you go after this one. Thank you
for giving us an education. Random Russia, China and frankly Europe.
You say, when we back away, Turkey feels that vacuum.
Are these other significant powers on the planet not interested,
(34:47):
not involved, not able to get involved? Where are they?
Why are they not sticking their noses at all?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
That No, No, Russia and Russia and China are very
much involved through Iran. Basically, once we back away, you'll
have the Turk spilling the void. But then also on
the periphery you'll have Russia and China having more influence
via Iran. China buys eighty percent of Iran's natural gas
(35:14):
and oil. Most of Saudi Arabia's oil is sold to Asia, Japan,
but also China. So China is going to have a
significant long term presence in the region regardless of what
happens with these Trump deals. Second of all, Russia is
a key military partner for many of these regimes, notably Iran,
(35:34):
but they're also making bold moves right now in Libya,
where Russian backed militants are fighting Turkish backed militants for
control of Libya. So ultimately those two powers will have
a greater influence as we step back the Europeans. They're
sort of trying to get in, but ultimately the Europeans
are not a real power anymore, and so they're going
(35:57):
to be forced to just watch from the periphery.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I think he is, Brandon Wikert. I bet you're going
to buy that book now, aren't you. The book is
Shadow War. Brandon, come back and see us soon. Thank
you so much. I appreciate you, brother. I'm so smart. Now,
don't roll your eyes, Chris. And it did give me
an idea to talk about something. I wasn't going to
(36:21):
go this direction an hour three, but we're let's talk
about America's influence internationally and why it's going the way
it's going. Before we talk about that, I want to
talk to you about something more important, and that's your
dog's food, which is not good. Dog food is bad.
If you ate at McDonald's every single meal, how long
(36:45):
would you live probably not as long as you'd live otherwise, right,
probably not very long. Well, that's what we give our dogs.
And I'm not talking about you actually go to McDonald's
for your dog like my dad used to do. I'm
talking about the fact that dog food is empty calories,
there's no nutrition in it, and our dogs die too
(37:06):
early because of it. We have to go to the
vet too often because of it, because our dogs have
health problems they shouldn't have. So give your dog nutrition.
Sprinkle Roughgreens on your dog's food so your dog can
live longer. Naturopathic doctor Dennis Black created it so your
dog so his dogs can live longer. Now he gives
it to us free jumpstart trio bags at eight three
(37:30):
three three three my Dog, or go to Roughgreens dot
com slash Jessie. We'll be back.
This is the Jesse Kelly Show. It is the Jesse
Kelly Show. Another hour of the Jesse Kelly Show on
a wonderful, wonderful Wednesday, all kinds of stuff. We're going
to talk more about government corruption here in just a moment.
That'll be spicy and fun. We'll make fun of the GOP.
That's always a good time. And we're about to get
(00:34):
so smart. And about eh half hour, about a half
hour from now, Brandon Wicker's gonna come on, and let
me explain why I'm bringing him on. If you've listened
for a while, you know Brandon Wiker does foreign policy stuff.
Donald Trump. In this foreign trip he's on with Saudi
Arabia and Katar at places like that, he's giving these
(00:58):
speeches and he's saying a lot of things and they
are significant internationally. In fact, I'm thinking about an hour
from now doing a little talk about America in our
foreign policy and things like that. But Donald Trump is
very very clearly realigning or attempting to realign, how America
(01:21):
is globally, how we conduct ourselves globally, how involved we
are globally, and there's a lot to tackle. So Brandon
Weikert's going to give us a heads up on what
all is happening with Iran and Turkey and Syria and
Israel and Qatar and Saudi Arabia and all these plays.
We're going to discuss all that about a half hour
(01:42):
from now. We will be so smart. We'll rub it
in all of our friends' faces tomorrow about how smart
we are. So just get ready for that. Now. I
want to get to this Alana Goodman. She's a wonderful
reporter at the Free Beacon. She has a story out
about somebody we've talked about before on the show. His
name is Jigar Shaw. Jigar Shaw, and you see he
(02:07):
had a role. Joe Biden made him the Energy Energy
what did they call him? The Energy Loan Czar? The
Energy Loan Czar, What does that actually mean? He was
the director of the Department of Energy's Loan Program's office.
And it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out
(02:29):
what that means. He's the guy who hands out a
million here, a millionaire. And let's be honest, it wasn't
a million here a millionaire, it was a billion here,
a billion there? Hey, who wants a billion? You want
a billion? And You're not dumb. You know who he
was giving that money to. Remember why communists? What communists
(02:51):
do with power? What two things do communists do with power?
Anyone who's listening to the show notes, what are the
two things they do with power? Reward their friends, punish
their enemies. Communists believe in using power for two reasons.
Reward your friends, punish your enemies. This guy got in
there and he started grabbing as much of your money
(03:14):
as humanly possible and throwing it at all these ridiculous
green energy scams that are out there, which makes it
so nakedly corrupt because where do all these quote green
energestion him use that word, the climate scam energy companies,
Where do they donate their money When they donate political donations,
(03:36):
roughly one thousand percent of their political donations go to
the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party gets elected, and they
do what communists always do. They take your money, the
taxpayer money, and they hand it right back to the
climate commuy companies, who then in turn donate again to
the You understand the vicious, little ugly circle of corruption
(03:57):
we have here. Well, he's still longer at his current position.
Now he's over there in Europe trying to do the
same thing to the Europeans. I wanted to combine that
with something Sean Duffy said today. Remember Sean Duffy is
the Transportation Secretary. I've met Sean a couple times. Wonderful
human being, just wonderful family. Actually, Sean's great guy, a
(04:20):
really great guy. And Sean said something about the trillion trillions,
trillions with a T that seemed to have disappeared. Here's
what he's twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
They passed the stimulus bill under the Obama era, and
then you had one point two trillion in the last Congress,
and so that's two trillion dollars over ten years. And
sometimes you look around the country and go, where did
two trillion dollars go? Where is all the infrastructure? Why
don't we have more? And I think it does a
(04:53):
lot of this money gets eaten up in again the
permitting and the consultants, and I want to see more
of the money go, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
To the money was stolen. And let me clarify, just
because you steal something legally, don't think that buys you
any benefit from me on fevery, because you know how
this works. As we've discussed many times before Congress Democrats
(05:26):
passed some big corrupt bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, And
in that bill, it's a trillion dollars with money for
this and money for that, and so we'll save five
hundred million dollars for solar panels. It was more that
we'll just call it five hundred million dollars for solar panels.
But that of course goes to a government department to
hand out five hundred million dollars, and they'll look for qualified,
(05:50):
approved contractors who get that five hundred million dollars. In fact,
the government department may may even seek out some sort
of a DC area consultant. Hey, we have five hundred
million dollars that need to go to solar panel companies.
We definitely need a separate company to help us figure
(06:11):
out where to send that five hundred million dollars. And
what wouldn't you know it, my second cousin has a
consulting company. That's right, Chris, I know a guy. I
just happen to know a guy, and for a small
fee of one hundred million dollars, he will tell us
where to send the five hundred million dollars. And once
(06:32):
you get the money to the hundred and once you
get the money to the second cousin and he takes
his hundred million dollars off the top. Then he goes
through and looks for his second cousin and his uncle
and his campaign donors, and he hands them your tax
payer money. And yes, on the surface, a lot of
this stuff, I want to be clear, is perfectly legal
(06:53):
by the letter of the law. But don't think for
a second it's anything anything better than outrun theft. You
have been robbed repeatedly by Washington DC. Remember Elon Musk.
Elon Musk did something. It might have been on Joe Rogan.
I'm not sure where it was, but he talked recently
about what he was discovering at DOGE and how the
(07:15):
money works and how essentially ninety cents of every dollar,
even the foreign aid stuff, the foreign aid stuff. You
might think that that money goes overseas. No no, no, no, no, no,
ninety cents of every dollar stays right in Washington, d C.
Remember that story. We touched on it a little bit
about the at what was it the African Development Office
(07:37):
or something stupid like that. And it doesn't take a
genius to figure out off the job of that office
is stuff help Africa, of course with your money, which
you'd never agreed to. But we did a help Africa,
except all the money just stayed here, and the money
that did go to Africa, most of it came right
(07:58):
back here. That's how it worked. Now that actually was
a crime. In fact, the guys I believe already been
indicted or being indicted. I know he's being investigated. But
this is how Washington corruption works. And this brings me
to this little story here. Insider trading is something we've
(08:21):
discussed before. Insider trading. As far as far as Congress goes,
Congress sadly has a lot of control over our economy.
They have a lot of sway over our economy. Things
they do, things they don't do. It makes certain sectors
of our economy go up, certain sectors go down. And
these people they know before we know. You're not in
(08:46):
these committee meetings. They know before we know, and they
trade stocks to make money or avoid losing money before
you get the opportunity, before I get the opportunity. That's
a violation of the law. If any if I have
a inside knowledge, let's say I'm a big stockholder in Nike,
(09:06):
I'm not. But let's say I'm a big stockholder in Nike,
and maybe my brother feeds me some information that, hey, hey, Jesse,
I work for Nike, and let me tell you what.
They've got a new shoe coming out. Stock's about to
blow up. And let's say I sell a bunch of
stock or buy a bunch of stock because my brother,
(09:27):
who works for Nike told me that I'm going to prison.
Did you know that that's illegal? Yet Congress does this
all the time. There's a reason members of Congress routinely
beat the greatest financial consultants in the country. It's because
they're insider trading. Mike Johnson, this is hilarious. He came
out and he said that he backs a bipartisan push
(09:53):
on banning congressional stock trading, but he stopped short of
promising a vote on it. That might be the most
Republican statement in the history of Republican statements. We should
definitely ban this, and I might have a vote on it.
(10:13):
I mean, probably not, but maybe we'll vote on it
one day, maybe after the election, we'll have a vote
on it. That might be the most gop thing in
the world. These people are all thieves. In scumbags. And
this is why people get angry about politics. And it's
also why I call it the low T GOP. It's
not just because Mike Johnson and the rest of the
Republican Party have lower T levels than the average American
(10:35):
male that can be fixed with chalk. It's because these
people never had the guts to actually stand up to
DC corruption. In fact, Tim Burchett said something about DC
corruption in Congress. Before we get to Tim Burchett, let
me tell you about chalk. By the way, are you
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(10:57):
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(11:17):
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(11:38):
code Jesse, We'll be back. This is the Jesse Kelly Show.
It is that Jesse Kelly Show. I am excited because
Brandon Wikert is coming up about ten minutes from now,
and you are about to be so much smarter than
you already are I am too, Chris, not so much.
(11:59):
But we can only do what we can do. That
is going to be fascinating. Tim Burchett, who I love,
Tennessee's own Tim Burchett. He was talking about Congress and
Trump's executive orders and here's what he says.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Hey, everybody, Congers from Tim Burchett, I'm incredibly frustrated this
morning after that we will seriously lose our country. We
have got to start codifying these executive orders from President Trump.
America realizes what's going on. Congresses to wake up and
Dad Gemmitt, we get to do our job.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
What has happened in d C. What is happening in
DC is the American people are completely fed up with
the corruption. They're fed up with the way Congress has
done things, and as per usual, DC's the last to know.
And now that they're starting to pick up on the
fact that people really want genuine change, like banning of
(12:57):
stock trading, as we were just talking about. People want
these changes, they want these changes. What Congress is now
going to try to do is something they've been trying
to do for some years now. They're trying to wait
out Trump because they think the source of all these
change calls is Donald Trump. They have no earthly idea
(13:22):
what they're dealing with. Donald Trump is there because the
American people were ready for a change, and after Donald
Trump is gone, that same desire will be there. If not,
it'll burn even hotter. If anything, it'll burn even hotter
than it already is now. But what the House wants
(13:43):
to do, and the Senate, the Republicans and Democrats in
the House, the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, what
they want to do is pretend as if they're on
board with you and the things you want. Pretend they're
on board with things like banning stock trading. But then
when it actually comes right down to it, it's well,
I mean, we'll try to schedule a vote. I'm not
(14:04):
really sure. I don't know. My dog's sick. I can't
get to it. I know when somebody is trying to
wait me out. I know it. I have a son
who doesn't eat his vegetables and AB and I A
couple times we tried when he was younger, We tried
the tactic of making him sit at the dinner table
until the vegetables were eaten. He waited us out. He
(14:28):
would sit there, talk, laugh, make jokes, slip the dog
as much food as he could possibly slip the dog,
and just sit there and wait. That adorable look on
his face. That's exactly what Congress is trying to do
to us, in a much less adorable way. Congress is
attempting to wait out the America First Movement. They are
(14:52):
the GOP does not want to codify anything into law
because they don't want to actually do any of these things.
In fact, they want to do the opposite of all
these things. So they understand, they can't say that. What
they're hoping is. I bet you they wake up every day,
I bet you they have I bet you they have
reminders in their calendar for the day Donald Trump is
(15:12):
finally done as president, and I bet they have deluded
themselves into believing on that day everything can just finally
go back to normal. We can finally go back to
doing things the way we've always done things. But I'm
here to tell each and every person who thinks that
in Congress, you really don't understand what is happening in
(15:33):
this country. You don't understand it at all. You've spent
too much time around lobbyists and other scumbag politicians. You've
spent too much time in Washington, d C. The American
people's anger at how things are done in this country
is palpable, and it's getting worse and worse and worse,
(15:54):
and stuff like this. I played it only pours gas
on the fires.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And they passed the the stimulus bill under the Obama era,
and then you had one point two trillion in the
last Congress, and so that's two trillion dollars over ten years.
And sometimes you look around the country and go, where
did two trillion dollars go? Where is all the infrastructure?
Why don't we have more? And I think it does
(16:18):
a lot of this money gets eaten up in.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
The American people are sick of it. And COVID actually
helped move this along as well. The American people quickly
grew tired of the do as I say, not as
I do politicians in this country the politicians both in Congress.
(16:42):
Remember remember when they left the congressional gym open, these morons.
American gyms closed across the country because of a chess cold,
which is hilarious, but they closed gyms across the country.
People were mad about it. And then the story came
out that Congress has a big weight room. Congress left
their jim open, and they were just completely oblivious to it.
(17:05):
I remember one guy was asked about it and it's like, well, yeah,
we got to work out. Just totally out of touch,
and they do not understand the level of anger that
is out there. I mean I brought up that I
brought up that story about that illegal to start out
the show. They don't understand the level of anger Americans
have at illegals committing crimes in this country that hasn't
(17:28):
even gone in. Even most Republicans don't really fully understand
how bad that anger is. It's really really bad. You
people in DC suffer from the worst case of signal
lag I've ever seen. Mike Johnson says, we'll try to
get a vote on banning insider trading if we get
(17:49):
to it. That's essentially what he said, Well kind of,
I don't know. Maybe we'll vote on it, and you
guys better wake up. This is why I tell you
a dictator is coming. You're gonna keep ignore the people
and ignoring the people, trying to wait out Trump and
wait out this and hoping this will pass. It's not
going to pass. I'm telling you right now, it's going
to be bad. Now. Speaking of all the crime, what
(18:14):
do you do when one of the two major political
parties wants more of it? What do you do?
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Well?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You better get something to protect yourself, man, especially if
you live in one of these blue areas. They are
pro criminal and anti you. What are you going to do?
Do you have a burna yet? You know they have
a new compact launcher. It fires at four hundred feet
(18:42):
per second. It's non lethal. But Jesse, I can't own that.
I'm in Colorado. I can't own that I'm in California. No, no, no,
burna is legal everywhere all fifty states. You don't need
a permit, you don't need a background check. SWAT teams
carry them, private security companies carry them. Over five hundred
an agencies carry them. These things are legit. We'll save
(19:04):
your friggin life, man, it'll put a stop to a
bad guy quickly. Little tear gas rounds all. You can't
even imagine the powder that comes. It's brutal. Give one
to your daughter you sent away to college. Please your mom,
your dad. B y Rna Berna dot com slash Jesse
(19:25):
gets you a discount, all right, Berna dot com slash Jesse.
Brandon Wikert educates us on international things. Next. He doesn't
care if you believe him, but he's right, Jesse Kelly.
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful, wonderful Wednesday.
(19:47):
Remember you can email the show Jesse at Jesse kellyshow
dot com. It's very rare for us to have one
guest on the show, let alone too, But it just
felt right today because I need to know what the
heck is going on overseas. Trump is in Saudi Arabia
now he's in k Tar. I know the experts call
it cutter, but I went to community college. Either way,
I bet Brandon Weikert knows what's going on. He wrote
(20:09):
the book The Shadow War about Iran and those dirt balls. Brandon,
what's going on with Trump and Iran? And I've heard,
especially in that speech he gave yesterday a lot of
what we'd call saber rattling talk.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
What's happening, Well, thanks for having me, And we are
moving at the speed of Trump. It's almost hard for
me to keep up. And I do this for a living.
The way this guy is moving through the region. I
will just say that his speech yesterday was probably the
best speech of either of his terms so far in office.
(20:44):
It certainly set the table for I think how America
is going to proceed, not just during the Trump years,
but probably beyond as well. With the Middle East. We
are clearly no longer going to prioritize the region the
way that we were doing after nine to eleven. That's
both good and bad. The good thing is we don't
(21:05):
have to. We're not going to be sending any more
kids to go fight and die in those Middle East wars. Now.
The downside here, though, is it looks like he's handing
the region over at least to some bad actors, not all,
but some, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar. So there
are some real concerns, and it isn't just from not
never Trump types. There are some real concerns from people
(21:29):
on our side, and I think their concerns are justified
that maybe Trump is getting too cozy with the Qataris,
for instance, who are a huge funder of the Islamic
terrorism that we've been dealing with since nine to eleven.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay, so let's actually nail down on that. It's one
of the main reasons I wanted you to come on,
because you're the furthest thing in the world from a
never Trumper. So this is kind of how I look
at it. I'm concerned myself. However, is there a way
for us to wash our hands this reason region and
let them do what they do without handing it to
(22:06):
some bad actors because bad actors run a lot of
the dumps over there.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
That's right, That's right now. I think that's probably what's
that play here, because like I said, they're not all
bad actors. I mean, the Saudi government, at least under
Mohammed bin Salman, he's very pro American. Clearly he has
a very very strong rapport with President Trump. That's the
real in the Arab world at least, that's the real power.
(22:32):
And so the fact that we've got a friendly in
the Crown Prince that's going to stabilize and sort of
contain what katar might otherwise do now that Trump is
sort of letting them in to the wider picture. The
Kataris he's letting in, but the fact that we've got
the Crown Prince Saudi Arabia that will balance that because
(22:52):
they don't want the Kataris to go full bore into
the Muslim Brotherhood stuff either. The problem is, though, the
Muslim Brotherhood itself, which is the umbrella organization for Islamism,
that is the ideology that we've been fighting. That's the
ideology of Bin Laden al Qaeda. The ideology of isis
(23:13):
the ideology of Jelani and Syria, who again I'm very
disturbed Trump is recognizing. But ultimately the Saudis are a
great counterweight to that, which is why I say it's
not all bad, but it is concerning. And I think
though this is part of a larger move to pull
the Americans out of the region and let the locals
(23:34):
clean up their own messes. Now, the downside's going to
be for our friends in Israel, because our friends in
Israel have overplayed their hand Netan Yahoo in particular, and
what's happening now is Trump is fed up with Netan
Yahoo so he's basically letting the region isolate Israel as
we exit out of the region. So that's going to
(23:55):
be a continuing headache and a threat to the Israelis,
especially because the Muslim Brotherhood has direct ties to the
most powerful country in the region, and that is Turkey.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Okay, So there's so much to unpack there. Let's nail
down on the Israel thing first. Why is Trump fed
up with Israel and Net and Yahoo? Because it's honestly,
it's difficult to get more pro Israel than Trump has
historically been. They call the goal on Heights the Trump Heights.
I was over there once and they are billboards of
the man up. What in the world did Net and
(24:28):
Yaho do to get crossways with Trump?
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I think what Trump has been trying to do is
avoid another Middle East war. And I think he feels
and I don't know if this is right or not,
but I think he feels that Netanyah who is intransigent
about picking a fight with Iran. And while Trump has
certainly made it clear he doesn't want to see Iran
become more powerful, he has also made it abundantly clear
(24:54):
that he's not going to war against Iran. Anytime soon.
And so Netan Yaho, you know Menyah, who is Israel
itself is threatened directly by Iran, the Iranian proxies, the
who thise Hamas Hezbela, especially Hesbela, those Iranian proxies are
direct threats to Israel. But the Israelis can't take it
(25:15):
all on their own. So I think Trump is frustrated
because net Nyaho is very gung ho about knocking out
the Iranian regime while he thinks there's still time to
do that where or at least the nuclear facilities, but
that will lead to a regime change mission, whereas Trump
doesn't want to do that, and I think that Trump
felt he no longer had a viable partner in Netan Yahoo.
(25:39):
Now what I think might happen is whenever the political
system in Israel gets back on track, it's been sort
of off kilter since the October seventh terror attacks. I
think whatever that process comes back into play, where domestic
politics in Israel starts normalizing, I think Netanyah, Who's probably
not gonna last much longer in office, and at that
(25:59):
point there might be a resetting of relations between Israel
and the US. But I argue as long as net
and Yaho is in office, Trump's gonna let the kind
of Islamic powers of the region isolate Israel so that
it buys us time and favor to leave peacefully from
the wider Middle East.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Did the Gaza stuff the gazz of war? I shouldn't
call it stuff. Did the gazz of war that Israel
was fighting? Is that something that Trump likes? Dislikes it?
I asked, because I remember, like it was yesterday when
he talked about putting up hotels and just making a
nice yeah. Yeah, no, I you go ahead, go ahead,
(26:41):
God please.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
No. I think that he wants peace in the region.
I think initially he thought Net and Yahoo would be
his ticket to quickly getting peace. You have to remember, though,
the Israeli military is highly competent, but they're a small force.
And so when they went in to god yes, they
did a lot of damage to Hamas, and that's good,
(27:03):
but unfortunately there was a lot of collateral damage. And
I think Trump is looking around, going this doesn't look
good for me and America in the region to be
so closely tethered to all of the destruction in Godza.
Now look, I think that Yahoo was justified to protect himself,
to protect his country. Collateral damage is part of war,
but ultimately, from the American perspective, it was, at least
(27:25):
as Trump saw it, it wasn't conducive to what he
was trying to do with the wider region. And the
wider region is not just Israel, it's the Arabs, it's
even Iran and Turkey. So he's got to balance what
Israel needs with what American needs to do, which is
to extricate itself from the region without completely surrendering the
region to say Iran.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
This stuff is all so complicated with our allies here
in enemies here. I need Chris. Next time we booked
Brandon Wikert, I think we need to get him for
like an hour or something like that. I'm not going
to ask you for an hour. We're Brandon, but do
you have maybe one more segment with these kids? I
want to talk I want to talk Turkey. Ha. How
about that, Chris, Chris, that was funny. It was a
(28:08):
dad joke. Whatever. Anyway, we will be right back with
Brandon Weikert talking Turkey, Iran, Iraq. I'm curious, are they
anything anymore? All that and more coming up? Hang on
truth attitude. Jesse Kelly, we are back with Brandon Wikert. Obviously,
(28:29):
you know Brandon Wiker. If you listen to this show,
highly recommend you pick up his book Shadow War. Okay,
so I first want to ask you about Turkey before
we get to Iran in Iraq, because you've mentioned to
us before on this show that they are really the
big dog in the region. So maybe you could let
us know what is Turkey, Brandon. Is it some Islamist state?
(28:52):
Is it a secular state? Are they are they she eyed?
Are they sunny? What? Are they?
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Definitely an Islamist state. They are predominantly Sunni ethnic Turks.
It's a little bit different than the Saudi Arabia, you know,
Qatar side, which are ethnic Arabs, but they're also Sunni Muslim.
The thing with Turkey is under the current regime of
Rasip taiep Erdowan, the president, he is an Islamist, he
(29:21):
belongs to the Islamist Party and he has made it
clear his intention to rebuild the lost Ottoman Empire that
collapsed at the end of the First World War, that
was for hundreds of years the dominant power in the
Middle East, and he is on track to restore the
it's called the Neo Ottoman Empire. He is on track
(29:42):
to bring that to be into being. And I argue
that Trump's moves right now, whether it means to or not,
they are going to allow for Turkey to take a
much greater role in the Middle East as we step out. Now,
that's somewhat of a good thing because technically Turkey is
a NATO ally. At the same time, though, they're very
(30:04):
unpredictable and unstable and at times unfriendly ally. And furthermore,
if you're sitting in Israel, the last thing you should
be wanting is a Turkey coming in and restoring the
out of an empire, because that probably means the end
of Israel. The Turks are going to try to crush
Israel at some point, and they've got the military capabilities
(30:25):
in the long term to do that. So what's happening
now is a completely generational shift. It's going back to
the way things were before World War One in the
region with Turkey as the dominant power. That's not a
good thing, though necessarily for our friends in Israel.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Okay, So they're going to fill the vacuum of power
when we step out. Where does Iran fit in all this.
Turkey obviously we know how they fit with Israel, but Turkey, Iraq,
But where where is Iran as far as their their
military capability, they're They're who there are? Whose side are
they on? Where are they in this?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Well? The Iranians, that's a great question. The Iranians are
predominantly a Sheiite Muslim power, ethnic Persians, so they're really
kind of on the outside of the region in many respects.
They are Muslims, so that they have a lot of
weight in the region, but they're not the predominant Sunni power.
They are the site power. What that means is Iran
(31:23):
has spent the last several decades desperately trying to make
for itself, to make itself into the dominant regional power
that was playing out throughout the Iraq War in two
thousand and three, that was playing out afterward during the
Arab Spring and all of that. Ultimately, I argue it
looks to me like the Iranians are on the back foot.
(31:44):
They have lost their connectivity to Syria through Iraq, They've
lost their connectivity to Hesbla in Lebanon. They're very much
isolated in their own part of the region. However, Iran
itself is a very hard target. They have very sophisticated
air defenses, they have a very capable for that region military,
(32:06):
which means that any strike by US or even Israel
on Iran might not end very well for US because
of how complex the Iranian defenses are. Moving beyond the
defensive to the offensive. I argue Iran is at the
weakest that has been in years. It cannot initiate the
kinds of offensives it was doing in twenty fourteen, for instance,
(32:26):
against Isis because it's lost Syria, it's losing parts of Iraq,
two Turkish backed groups, the Sunni groups. So ultimately what
will happen I think is Turkey will become the dominant
force in the region and the Iranians will basically kind
of have their own little enclave in Iran itself, not
unlike historically where you had the Ottoman Empire leading the
(32:49):
Sunni side and then you had kind of an Iranian
you know, the Safavid for instance, empire running the kind
of the Iranian side of things, and that's kind of
a balance of power between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, I'm going to need a new lawrence of Arabia
at some point in time here soon, yes, don't roll
your eyes, all right, Iraq, what I spent a little
bit of time in that dump. Where are they now?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
So they are torn between a Shiite dominant population, their
majority Shiite, which means they are aligned with Iran. This
is why I said Iran after Iraq War, after we
got rid of Saddam, Iran basically was Onmi offensive because
they were able to move in to Iraq. We basically
got rid of Saddam and handed Iraq over to Iran,
(33:33):
which was not what we wanted to do. But there's
also the Sunni element in northern and western Iraq near
the Syrian border, the Sunni Triangle maybe you're familiar with
if you served in Iraq, that was a key area
of operation. The Turks are actually moving and forced there
to support the Sunni side that previously was the home
(33:55):
of al Qaeda in Iraq and Isis. So you have
shaping up any rock sort of this this no man's
land between Turkish backed Sunni militants and the Shiites backed
Iranian militants of the south of Iraq. So Iraq doesn't really,
in my opinion, exist per se as a functional country.
(34:17):
It's sort of like, you know, a middle, like a
neutral zone between the Sunni and Shiite sides of the region.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Oh good, well, at least all that fighting was worth it.
That makes me feel really wonderful. Okay, so finally I
swear I'll let you go after this one. Thank you
for giving us an education. Random Russia, China and frankly Europe.
You say, when we back away, Turkey feels that vacuum.
Are these other significant powers on the planet not interested,
(34:47):
not involved, not able to get involved? Where are they?
Why are they not sticking their noses at all?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
That No, No, Russia and Russia and China are very
much involved through Iran. Basically, once we back away, you'll
have the Turk spilling the void. But then also on
the periphery you'll have Russia and China having more influence
via Iran. China buys eighty percent of Iran's natural gas
(35:14):
and oil. Most of Saudi Arabia's oil is sold to Asia, Japan,
but also China. So China is going to have a
significant long term presence in the region regardless of what
happens with these Trump deals. Second of all, Russia is
a key military partner for many of these regimes, notably Iran,
(35:34):
but they're also making bold moves right now in Libya,
where Russian backed militants are fighting Turkish backed militants for
control of Libya. So ultimately those two powers will have
a greater influence as we step back the Europeans. They're
sort of trying to get in, but ultimately the Europeans
are not a real power anymore, and so they're going
(35:57):
to be forced to just watch from the periphery.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
I think he is, Brandon Wikert. I bet you're going
to buy that book now, aren't you. The book is
Shadow War. Brandon, come back and see us soon. Thank
you so much. I appreciate you, brother. I'm so smart. Now,
don't roll your eyes, Chris. And it did give me
an idea to talk about something. I wasn't going to
(36:21):
go this direction an hour three, but we're let's talk
about America's influence internationally and why it's going the way
it's going. Before we talk about that, I want to
talk to you about something more important, and that's your
dog's food, which is not good. Dog food is bad.
If you ate at McDonald's every single meal, how long
(36:45):
would you live probably not as long as you'd live otherwise, right,
probably not very long. Well, that's what we give our dogs.
And I'm not talking about you actually go to McDonald's
for your dog like my dad used to do. I'm
talking about the fact that dog food is empty calories,
there's no nutrition in it, and our dogs die too
(37:06):
early because of it. We have to go to the
vet too often because of it, because our dogs have
health problems they shouldn't have. So give your dog nutrition.
Sprinkle Roughgreens on your dog's food so your dog can
live longer. Naturopathic doctor Dennis Black created it so your
dog so his dogs can live longer. Now he gives
it to us free jumpstart trio bags at eight three
(37:30):
three three three my Dog, or go to Roughgreens dot
com slash Jessie. We'll be back.
Host
Jesse Kelly
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