The Manosphere Report

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2:17I think if you go after Joe Kinn, especially Joe Kinn, who has arguably the

2:22most gold -plated reputation of any man since MacArthur in 1945.

2:28Thank you. If you come after him, alright, he's going to f***ing bury you.

2:34Alright, this guy has lived his entire life fighting our nation's battles and had his

2:41wife killed in action fighting these same enemies.

2:44Like, of all the people in the world that you don't want to screw with,

2:46it's this guy. Joe Kinn resigns as director from the National Counterterrorism Center and the

2:54fallout ensues. That's why I'm bringing on former Special Forces Sergeant Clay Martin to the

3:01show. Today on The David Rutherford Show.

3:13Alright, Clay, you heard this news.

3:16What was your immediate reaction?

3:19Honestly, shock. I was actually blown away.

3:23By the way, thanks for having me on today.

3:25Yeah, it was early this morning.

3:27I was actually kind of stunned.

3:30Not that I didn't think Joe had it in him because he's one of the

3:33most honorable men that's ever won.

3:34He's one of the colors of this country.

3:36I just didn't see this coming today.

3:40So it was an absolute shock.

3:42I felt the same way.

3:44You know, I had always imagined that it would come from maybe Tulsi Gabbard or

3:51Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right?

3:54Somebody that had a long tradition of being a Democrat or, you know, a different

4:01type of belief. But to have, in my mind, kind of the epitome of what

4:09a true American patriot and a hero represents in Joe Kent.

4:14Like, he's the totality. I think, like, if I could go back and do it

4:20again, I'd want to try and be like Joe Kent, right?

4:23Me too. I still want to be in when I grow up, actually.

4:28I totally get it. I totally get it.

4:30100%. Awesome. Awesome. You know, and as you watched, I don't know about you.

4:35Obviously, I was paying attention a lot to what you were posting today and what

4:38other people were posting. I got sucked into the Twitter wars a little bit as

4:42well, too. But the thing that I really wanted to represent and what I was

4:49saying is that a guy like this, who he is, what he represents, but more

4:56importantly, where he comes from and what he's seen.

5:00And that's what I hope we could kind of talk about today from your firsthand

5:05experience, just starting, let's just start from the beginning.

5:09Let's start from the moment you become a Green Beret, right?

5:14Because what I think a lot of people, you know, people that aren't familiar with

5:17our world is the very unique differences between all the branches.

5:22Every force. Yeah. And so, you know, this special.

5:25forces is its own unique animal.

5:28And really, in my mind, with the guys that I've worked with in the past,

5:32both at the agency and then, you know, doing joint ops, they they have a

5:37profound sense of intelligence, how to utilize it, how to cultivate it, collect it, and

5:44then how to employ it in a way that OPSEC is permanent.

5:48And then also its function to be able to really great conduct great missions.

5:56No, this is absolutely true.

5:57And this is this is directly relevant to especially some things that we said about

6:00being said about Joe Kent today, as far as like the negative stuff that goes.

6:05So the big difference, honestly, between like the special the Green Berets and everybody else

6:10is we were actually built to specialize in the intelligence stuff.

6:16All right. Like the Johnny Commando stuff is all cool.

6:18We have to push that during the G1 like everybody else, but it really goes

6:21down to brass tacks. We were always intended to be like an older force.

6:26Used to be you had to have four years of service in the army before

6:30you could even go be a Green Beret.

6:32All right. And the focus was not as physical or is like classic Johnny Commando

6:38as, you know, Seals or Raiders or Rangers, everybody else.

6:42It was more to be this like intelligence gathering force.

6:46All right. And part of this, this goes into, you know, having our little live

6:49going and train host nation guys, all that kind of stuff.

6:51But this really does center itself around intelligence because even like before the war started,

6:56we were doing what we call JSAs, which is where we go to friendly countries

7:00and train their armies and stuff.

7:01There's a huge intelligence mission that goes with that.

7:04All right. They're not sending us to teach the Zimbabwean, you know, army privates how

7:08to shoot. They don't care about that.

7:09All right. They care about having dinner at the colonel's house or whatever other thing

7:14that we're doing. So this is like deeply steeped in our tradition.

7:18The other thing that's especially relevant about Joe and what's being said about him and

7:25this Iran conflict is we also kind of unique.

7:28I think it's unique. At least we have a regional focus in SF because of

7:32the same things we just talked about.

7:34We have to, we have to have a language.

7:36I was going to be narrowly aligned to the regional world that we work in.

7:40I, especially before the, uh, for the GWAS started, we are never going to think

7:45about anything outside of that region.

7:47People sometimes ask me about stuff like South America.

7:49Like I have no idea.

7:50Why would they tell me?

7:51Like, you know, I was never going to step foot in Brazil.

7:55It's not going to happen.

7:56We, that regional alignment is also built for the very purpose of you're going to

8:02spend your entire career focused on this one narrow region.

8:05You're going to know everything about it.

8:08And that's fascinating to me because what, you know, that specialty does is it really

8:13gives you, you know, and I, let me just back up.

8:17I, you know, I, I was an Intel rep in, in my first platoon and

8:22in my second platoon. And, and I remember like the first platoon, my education seemed

8:29almost, I don't know, sophomoric, if you will.

8:33My second platoon, we, you know, I did this real brief work up in Kuwait.

8:37And then all of a sudden I law, I land in Bagram and we seem

8:42to be like in this, this Intel vacuum.

8:44Right. And then all of a sudden I run into the 19th group guys and

8:49there was actually a guy from at 19th group who was there.

8:54I think it's fifth group, right?

8:56Is, is the middle East who was a fifth group guy, which joke.

9:01And I want you to talk about fifth group in a second.

9:03And this guy actually used to train Mujahideen fighters in Pakistan and on the border,

9:11right? To, to, to, to wage war against the Russians.

9:16And that, and he's like, man, no, no, no, no.

9:18I'm going to give, and he gave me this book called the bear trap.

9:22And it was about the, our involvement in the Russian and Russian Afghan war and

9:28how we helped them with intelligence when we set up all these Intel networks and

9:32all this. And I read that thing in a week.

9:35And I re I remember saying to my, my, my chief saying my senior chief

9:40going, I, I, I have no idea what I'm doing, man.

9:45I'm not trained for this.

9:46Like, I don't, I, I feel like I'm, you know, sucking my thumb over here

9:50because collecting intelligence in and of itself is this profound skill set that takes years

9:59and years of development. And as I think about Joe Kent and what his experience

10:07was for 20 plus years, not only at fifth group, but also at, at ground

10:13branch at the, as a paramilitary case officer, his whole identity involved the middle Eastern

10:18intelligence collection and understanding it.

10:22Maybe you can just riff on that a little bit.

10:24Yeah. When that goes back to the, uh, the, the difference between forces too.

10:28And, uh, you know, what, one of the, the disparities things people will call a

10:30SF is slow. In fact, they're kind of right.

10:32Cause that was also, that was supposed to be the part of the idea.

10:34It was supposed to be an older man's force.

10:36It was supposed to be guys like 10 to 15 years.

10:38And especially early in the war, that's how those teams were.

10:41You know, if you showed up at like 26, 27, you were sometimes a junior

10:44by like five, six years to everyone else under detachment, because it was always intended

10:50to, as you know, now from, you know, doing.

10:53intelligence throughout your career it does take a long time all right that's not one

10:56that you can like teach a new guy in like two or three years i

11:00also know this because i landed on we have teams that also kind of specialize

11:04in intelligence stuff and i landed on one of those actually as my first oda

11:08just by accident uh it's kind of it's not like i was so good at

11:11this it's just we were so shorthanded by the time i got to my first

11:14oda that i landed there and it was jarring because it was nothing like i

11:19was i was basically the muscle for the guys that knew what they were doing

11:22for a year while we you know what i mean like hey retard get a

11:27machine gun and sit in the car uh you know but it is it's a

11:31it's an extremely it's an extremely different skill set from again a lot of the

11:36stuff that we see in movies or the stuff that's actually fun like shooting and

11:39blowing shit up uh but our culture especially is extremely steeped in this and as

11:44i recall also and i didn't check his bio today but i know joe pretty

11:48well uh joe was in the q course when 9 11 happened so when he

11:54showed up to a team right after that you know six months or a year

11:57after that he would have been also with an old school fifth group team all

12:02right we're not talking you know 2008 2009 when half the guys are fresh out

12:06of the q course because we've taken casualties we're talking still steeped in that old

12:10culture where they everybody knew everything uh the team started to be grilling you as

12:15the new guy about you know what kind of bread do they eat and uh

12:18you know lahore that day you know and you have to know the answer because

12:21these guys all do because they've been doing it for 15 years of course they

12:23know right it's just an entirely different kind of mindset and then also for joe

12:29to go to fifth group especially pre pre -war guys all right fifth and third

12:34were kind of the odd ducks out because we were the only guys that went

12:36nowhere that was fun uh that would be fifth group has the middle east uh

12:40third group has africa but because of that fifth group has had the middle east

12:45as an ao since like 1982 uh yeah so for decades prior to they've been

12:54going over anything that anything weird that's happening in the middle east they're they're doing

12:58it uh you know traded jordanian commandos there were fifth group guys in afghanistan a

13:03long time ago like before this war like when the the war was happening there

13:06were fifth group guys there yeah i to to say that somebody from fifth group

13:10especially that era doesn't understand the middle east is the most foolish thing you could

13:14say and they understand it better than anybody else i that that for me is

13:19kind of the the bizarre reaction to all of this right obviously you know i'm

13:26not even going to discuss calling this guy a traitor and a leaker and all

13:30that i oh my god yeah and anybody that's carried uh a top secret security

13:35clearance a tssci clearance just in in in the regular and not regular in in

13:41in special operations much less all the way up to a chief warrant right that's

13:48handling the most sensitive uh level and then obviously the level of clearance he gets

13:54while working with ground branch oh my god is even a whole another so can

13:59you can you describe one the progression of moving up the ranks in an oda

14:07team and then and then obviously um what it takes to move into a chief

14:15warrant officer position right so this is this is actually hugely important too uh so

14:21he goes over and does a couple tours as i don't even know where he's

14:23in with he might have got bravo or something all right but again arch our

14:28our warrant officers and special forces uh they actually have their own warrant officer academy

14:32and the whole reason that we have warrant officers was to be the continuity on

14:36the team all right so it's to basically match a team sergeant which is like

14:39a platoon chief as far as experience goes but the other thing the warrant specializes

14:44in is the intelligence stuff oh my god it's amazing wow that's most of their

14:49training at the chief warrant officer course they learn a little bit of you know

14:52bullshit about being an officer and put their uniform on and stuff but mostly they

14:56are the guy that runs all the intelligence collection all right they are basically the

15:01boss of the 18 fox who's the intelligence sergeant all right and if you're on

15:06a a specialized human team all right that warrant officer is like the master of

15:11all the little you know human guys so that's their bread and butter that's uh

15:16you know another year -long course where they specialize in those things i to get

15:20selected as a warrant officer uh you had to do some crazy stuff all right

15:25you had to have like a lot of recommendation like your entire chain of command

15:28all right not just the enlisted guys but the officers as well as the warrant

15:31officers uh it's a process uh and it's it's not undertaken lightly uh and yeah

15:37you had to be a stellar performer for the most part to even get into

15:40that program all right before we get into the next aspect of this madness right

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19:04Hi! You're listening to Meditating with Jan from Toyota.

19:09Soften your focus and visualize yourself off -roading in a Tacoma.

19:14Now engage your senses. What do you hear?

19:16A donkey! Because you're driving the kids to a farm sanctuary in a Grand Highlander.

19:21Breathe in, breathe out, and go from dreaming it to driving it today.

19:26Dealer inventory may vary. See your participating Toyota dealer for details.

19:29Event ends March 31st. Toyota.

19:33Let's go places. All right.

19:35All right. So now let's talk about Iraq in the time that Joe was serving

19:41in Iraq as a Green Beret.

19:44How did you guys, because I know from what I've heard is that not only

19:50from your side, but our side as well, too, that around 05, like after Fallujah,

19:5605, Battle Ramadi, moving through there, there was some animosity that had developed between the

20:05agency and SOF. And so I think the DIA and then those programs where they

20:14really started to train our guys to run their own intelligence networks and to start

20:20going out and take their areas that they were running and build their own intel

20:25networks. So can you describe what that battle space was like and the challenges and

20:32how complex those relationships would be with local warlords or local, you know, clerics or

20:43whatever it was? Right. Right.

20:45As much as I can.

20:46And I was a pretty young guy around that period, too, but I was there.

20:51I did my first tour with SF in 2006.

20:55So it was both some animosity and a lot of that was actually driven by

21:00Donald Rumsfeld because he basically owned the DOD and he was tired of the agency

21:06doing their thing. So there was some conflict, but there was also some like this

21:10is too much for everybody to handle because the CIA itself hasn't had to handle

21:14a real like war zone war plus all the other bullshit they have to do

21:18in, I don't know, 50 years.

21:21You know, there were some presidents in Vietnam, too, but they haven't like really had

21:25to do both things in a really long time.

21:27So there was a there was actually a lot of crossbreeding, too.

21:30There was a lot of our guys on the intelligence side going up to the

21:34farm, like full up, like the whole case officer program and a lot of overlap

21:40with that. Now, there was also some conflict, as there's always want to be.

21:44There was the the growth of CIA muscle around that same time.

21:48which somehow they got funded for and sanctioned for, and maybe they pulled the other.

21:52We need a card, which is mostly our guys retired.

21:55At the same time, we were growing our own intelligence network.

21:59It's almost like we built parallel things where the agency is still a little bit

22:03better at intelligence, but a little bit weaker on muscle.

22:05And we're a lot better on muscle, but we're still a little bit weaker on

22:07intelligence. But we did build a huge amount of overlapping things.

22:12The only time it was really coming to conflict is if there was not good,

22:16what's the word I'm looking for here?

22:19Not good cross -pollination. You'd go actually hit something that somebody else was using for

22:23a source or vice versa.

22:25Usually that stuff got deconvoltaic, though.

22:27But for us in our little areas especially, so especially in the Iraq place, they

22:33again tried to just break down the country into like, okay, there's a little section,

22:36so you get to know everything about that.

22:39And hopefully you'll rotate back there multiple times as you come back into that country.

22:45And I actually know one of the places that Joe was at.

22:48We weren't there at the same time because we were in different groups.

22:50I was the 19th at the time and he was the 5th.

22:52But he was right down the road from me.

22:53So we both spent a lot of time in Shia country down by Diwenia and

22:58Karbala in those years. Okay, one of the things that I'm hearing a ton of,

23:03obviously, is there is a tremendous amount of people saying that Iran has been hunting

23:12Americans and going after Americans for 47 years.

23:19And in particular, I've seen a couple people posting today that the Iranians were really

23:30targeting Americans essentially on whether it was in eastern Iraq or around Baghdad.

23:40Can you talk about that threat level and how that affected operations?

23:46No, that's absolutely true. One thing I won't discount from the people that are saying

23:50like, you know, Iran's been at war with us for 47 years or whatever.

23:54Same thing in second recon.

23:55I walked past 17 paddles on our quarter deck from our dudes that got killed

24:00in the Beirut bombing. But especially as it applies to Iraq war, yeah, there was

24:04a huge amount of Iranian weapons that came across.

24:07They did send over most of the EFPs as well as the expertise to do

24:11it. Later on in a direct action company, you know, we've hit caches and found,

24:17you know, brand new made, you know, PKMs still have the factory grease on them

24:21and the safeties in Farsi.

24:23But my answer to this has always been, especially, well, let me rephrase that.

24:28My answer to this has been since I've been older, what would I do if

24:33China invaded Canada and I had a machine gun factory?

24:36I would do the same fucking thing.

24:40Beirut, that's a little bit before my time, but I mean, I can kind of,

24:43you go fucking around in somebody else's neighborhood, like this is what's going to happen.

24:48But, uh, so yes, I've lost friends in Iranian EFPs too.

24:52Uh, do I, do I have a lot of love for Iran?

24:55No, I don't, but I can also understand why they did it.

24:59Well, I appreciate that answer.

25:01Cause that's, that's, that's, these are not, you know, it's not, I think everybody in

25:08these circumstances, when somebody like a Joe Kent has a public reaction to, to policy

25:17there it's, it's, what can you find to discredit his rationale or reasoning, even without

25:24knowing his legitimate reasoning, because we haven't heard from Joe Kent yet.

25:29Right. Right. Um, you know, uh, all right, so let's move on from his time

25:35in, in, in, uh, special forces to what it takes to make the transition to

25:42go and move over to be a paramilitary case officer for ground branch.

25:47Well, let's not forget, let's not forget one of the thing there though, too.

25:51And I'll only say this because he publicly disclosed it on the Sean Ryan show,

25:54uh, two years ago. Right.

25:56He didn't just go straight over.

25:58He went up to our other SMU first, uh, which is arguably my opinion, the

26:06best intelligence guys that there are, maybe even better than a lot of ways.

26:09And those guys are gangsters.

26:11And that's actually to me more important than him going to ground branch is, uh,

26:14I actually went to that selection and I failed it, but that's, that shit happens.

26:18That is the weirdest place you will ever go.

26:22Even just on the selection side of things.

26:23I was there for like 30 days.

26:24It's so fucking weird. And, uh, brutally on par with, with anything else with Delta

26:29selection or dev group or anything else.

26:32So just to get through that, you're going to have to be a, a tough

26:35and capable son of a bitch.

26:37All right. And then to go do that job.

26:40I mean, wow. Hats off.

26:42I mean, absolutely hats off.

26:43So he did that for a number of years before he retired and then immediately

26:47walked across the street to ground branch.

26:49I mean, that's incredible. That's basically, if you look at a military career and you

26:54say, what's the most gangster shit that you could possibly do?

26:57It's, you know, one, one path of, of the most game shit you can do

27:00is, uh, well, I was in Ranger Battalion.

27:01I was in fifth group for the war.

27:02And then I was a chief foreign officer of fifth group.

27:04And then I was in the other thing that we don't talk about.

27:05And then I was in drop branch.

27:06I was like, come on, man, leave some for the rest of us.

27:08Come on, dog. Dude, dude.

27:11I, I, I look at my career and I just, I'm like.

27:15I'm like, oh, my God, I suck, man.

27:18I'm pretty fucking gangster until I see a picture of Joe Ken.

27:20I'm like, fuck, man. All right.

27:22You know what? JV's pretty good.

27:23JV's pretty good, too. Fuck it.

27:25That's right. That's it. And I'm like, I'm in like freshman.

27:29I'm freshman football right now.

27:31So, yeah. So I and I'm glad you brought that up.

27:35I didn't know whether I should have.

27:38He had disclosed it. That's the only reason I bring it up.

27:41Yeah, yeah. I recognize. And I know several guys that were there.

27:45And right. They. Yeah, it's it's a different level.

27:49I really believe it's a different level.

27:51Incredible respect. Yeah. And so even with that in the Intel access and collection they

27:58have there and then you even morph it into over a ground branch.

28:03It's like he has been he was up until his resignation this morning or yet

28:11whenever it really took place, he has been given the ultimate responsibility with operational intelligence

28:20for his entire adult life.

28:23Exactly. Yes. A hundred percent.

28:26Look, this is a there's no one of those things like, you know, I had

28:30a TSSCI for, you know, whatever, last six, seven years.

28:32That is nothing compared to the kind of shit that they're getting into over at

28:37the thing. All right. And then we go to the agency to ground branch specifically.

28:40We're talking like, I don't even know what the fuck your clearances are called because

28:43that's how classified they are.

28:44You know what I mean?

28:44Like, right. He's playing at a completely different level with with access and with trust

28:49in these things. Yeah. I mean, shit that normal people can't even understand.

28:54That's right. That's right. And and, you know, I you know, then there's this other

29:00component that I think even adds another insane layer to the Joe Kent story of

29:10his America, his commitment to America and more, more importantly, his commitment to America in

29:17the Middle East. That that's the other thing, too.

29:20Like, right. He's he's obviously he's worked, you know, all around Iraq.

29:24He's worked probably in Afghanistan.

29:26He's certainly worked maybe in Syria.

29:29He's worked in Pakistan. I mean, every single conceivable layer of of the the complicated

29:38nature of what what foreign policy and and and and our enemies, what their objectives

29:46have been in the region.

29:48There's not many people that have have have experienced more of that.

29:51Now, the layer right beneath that is that his wife, his last is his late

29:57wife, Shannon Kent, who was with one of my good friends, Scotty Wirtz, when they

30:03were blown up in Syria, his wife even had high level access.

30:09Right. And and and and so it was it was a component of his entire

30:15existence. It's not like Joe went home and didn't discuss what he was doing with

30:20his wife because his wife was deployed in different areas and they'd come home and

30:25see each other. They were they were in the same unit.

30:30So, again, this is one of those things that almost can't happen, but it rarely

30:35can. They're at the same special mission unit, which has also been this close.

30:40I'm not spilling the beans on that with the same types of clearances doing the

30:44same shit in the same A .O.

30:46Yeah. No, I mean, it's insane.

30:48It's it's crazy. There's probably not arguably a human being alive knows more about what

30:55we've been doing in the Middle East for the last 25 years than Joe Kent.

30:58I mean, it's very reasonable.

31:00Yeah. And for me, that really becomes the precipice of of why the president wanted

31:06him in that role, in particular, as to be able to support Tulsi Gabbard, who

31:13who didn't have a tremendous amount of background or history or understanding of how these

31:20different terrorist organizations or governments, you know, whether it's, you know, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the

31:27Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, whatever it is.

31:31Because Joe Kent can articulate a definitive historical reference, an idea of what their operations

31:39have looked like, like you said, for 25 years.

31:43That's why he was I believe that's why he was brought in to support Tulsi

31:48in the position is she was in.

31:50Do you do you think that's a great evaluation?

31:52I absolutely agree. In fact, I think he probably actually wanted her for Tulsi's position,

31:56but knew he would not survive the confirmation process for that, but could be put

32:00in as a supporting role, which is oftentimes better anyway.

32:03You have the face and then you have like some some brains behind it as

32:06a staff that can really prop that up.

32:08And not that Tulsi's not that Tulsi doesn't know what she's doing.

32:11Just she's not playing at the same level as Joe in terms of like the

32:15Middle East specifically. That's right.

32:17That's right. The great mystery right now, obviously, is, you know, in the question that

32:27immediately I hit based on reading his response was, OK, Iraq is not does is

32:35not an imminent threat. Now, obviously, he's seen some intelligence and he's he.

32:43And there's people saying he's been kept out of briefs recently and they're putting him

32:47on the sidelines, but it doesn't make any sense.

32:51And so, you know, as I hear that statement, my immediate response, I go to,

32:59well, last summer when we did the strikes after the 12 -day war and we

33:04hit their nuclear facilities, apparently, in quotations, decimating it.

33:09Right, yeah. Right, right. That was the thing.

33:11And then, you know, the fast forward, what transpired over the next, what, eight, nine

33:19months until we attacked recently, you know, obviously, the only question I might have is

33:27perhaps he wasn't privy to the political negotiations that were taking place with the Iranian

33:36political infrastructure. But still, he would have access to what their threats are because he's

33:45also tracking as working with Homeland Security based on his testimony we heard a month

33:51ago and suggesting there are two to 16 ,000 terrorist sympathizers or actual terrorists in

34:02the country themselves. So, he's tracking the threat here as well, too.

34:07Right. Well, and he's the director, too.

34:10It's not like he's got to go home and get on Google.

34:12He's the director. He can go talk.

34:13You know what I mean?

34:14Like, it's an easy conversation.

34:16You know what I mean?

34:17It's like us working in the same town at the same time.

34:20Like, hey, David, I need to know what the fuck is going on.

34:22Like, okay, man, here's the, let's not run through the red network just slower than

34:25Christmas. Like, here's the shit, man.

34:26Here's the deal. Like, thanks, buddy.

34:27Cool. Awesome. Here's what I got.

34:29Let's go. Yeah. No, it's insane to think that he's, yeah.

34:34Even if that's true, he's, you know, I don't know.

34:37They suspended the clearance of the director of the national credit as preposterous.

34:41But let's say that they did.

34:42He's still going to know a lot of stuff.

34:44It turns out. All right.

34:45He's still going to have a lot of people that he's talking to.

34:48That whole thing is just absolutely insane.

34:51Okay. So, obviously, we have very personal reactions to it.

34:58And I think if you've paid attention, you know, online today from the backlash in

35:03particular, I think the majority coming from GWAT guys that, you know, obviously, you know,

35:10hold Joe and Joe's career at the highest possible level.

35:14I mean, like you and I both, you know.

35:17I'm a fanboy. All right.

35:18I'm going to say a fanboy.

35:19I'm not ashamed of it at all.

35:20Yeah. Like, I must have direct messaged him like eight times in the last two

35:25years just being like, dude, so proud of you, so honored, you know, keep going.

35:30And, and, and, um, what?

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37:49Let's go places. What takes place now?

37:53In your mind, what advice would you give Joe, being now that, you know, the

37:59machine, the political machine, is coming at him heavily?

38:04What advice would you give Joe?

38:07Joe? Man. One, I think he knew this was going to be.

38:11uh i mean i mean obviously he knew this was coming he knew they were

38:14going to come hard hard for him my advice would be you know just stand

38:20your ground and know that your boys got your back because we we clearly do

38:23uh you we've seen divisions happen today just in the only online space and the

38:27stuff that like you said has been this has been the most polarizing thing that

38:31i think has as possibly ever happened uh as far as like uh you know

38:36veterans versus everybody else and it's been also hysterical to watch people call uh joe

38:42and you and me uh pacifists and cowards all this other bullshit like yeah i

38:46mean communist i got called the communist that was the one i got i got

38:51f you commie that was my favorite that's fantastic joe kent pacifist like that makes

38:58total that's completely him uh but yeah it's been more about dealing death than fucking

39:05anybody that's in the entire administration everybody he could have done one tour with fifth

39:11group in 2005 and no more about killing then all these other clowns put together

39:14it was how it was back then yes it's it's completely absurd but uh it's

39:22been telling though too it's it's pretty wild and it's it's funny it the grunts

39:27i feel like are split about 50 50 on support or you know he's a

39:31pacifist commie now or whatever what's been wild those most of the soft bros most

39:35of the guys that were like career dudes have been like firmly in his camp

39:38which i i'm also very happy to see i you know i didn't i didn't

39:43know how the support was going to go but it's been wildly in joe's court

39:47and i think this is something that's important uh it's you would think it might

39:55be weird for us guys soft veterans to be a kind of opposing this iran

40:02war like this is stupid i and it's not that we don't want the young

40:05guys to get their cibs or you know combat action ribbons or whatever bullshit just

40:09we we saw this completely play out before 25 years ago 23 years ago it's

40:16the same playbook as the build up to iraq and we know how that went

40:19uh and i i just i personally don't see a good reason for this war

40:24with iran obviously joe kent doesn't see a good war for this reason with iran

40:28and here's the funny thing i'm making my decisions having i've not had a clearance

40:31in 10 years and you know sitting in my garage reading drudge report like everybody

40:34else or you know i'm dating myself with the drudge report i don't know that

40:38shit exists anymore joe is the goddamn director of the national counterterrorism center he's still

40:44got like you know the gamma level clearances and shit i guarantee you he's seen

40:48things we haven't even thought about and uh that's right he seems to think this

40:52iran war is a bad idea too so i i agree with you man i

40:56i'm my you know obviously i i i go back to the feeling i felt

41:03you know the month after 9 -11 the feeling i felt when i hit the

41:09ground and in may of 2002 you know and and how over the next nine

41:16years from you know the my last deployment to islamabad in the fall of 2011

41:22like just in that short period of time i began to realize oh wait maybe

41:30maybe what what they're telling everybody isn't exactly accurate right and so i i what

41:39i'm trying what i would like is one that consolidated support of of joe um

41:48if if if if not for his courage and his stance to go against the

41:54the grain right he had the ultimate position you know he could have parlayed this

41:58into be doing whatever he wanted maybe becoming the director of the cia the director

42:03of national whatever it is he he chose his his integrity and his beliefs over

42:11all that and so i i think at a minimum that's commendable for all veterans

42:16for everybody around what what what happens next though in in this playbook is young

42:28men have a high potentiality to be killed we've already seen what we've already seen

42:35there was the four uh uh people that died on the base and then there

42:39was the refueler the the six people there have died i'm sure there's more injuries

42:44we haven't been told about um you know and there's a lot of uh there's

42:51probably a lot of backlash taking place in service as well too oh i'm sure

42:56yeah um but it like what i what i really hope is that joe can

43:04find a platform whatever that is articulate his reasons without breaking his top secret clearance

43:11without you know fueling the fire of this stupid he's a leaker he's a traitor

43:16all that bullshit getting rolled up in a non -disclosure yeah something like that yeah

43:20that's right that's right that's right and and imprisoned right right um and and he

43:26can make the case for not only american young men but also the american people

43:33to start to think rationally about another potentially you know 20 -year war in iran

43:40because i i don't know about you but i don't think iran is a quick

43:45deal in any regard no god no well man i think you have to look

43:49at it from this angle too uh you've yeah and also yeah i do not

43:52want to see a land invasion of iran that seems like a terrible idea but

43:56my my i guess i'm gonna go back to two points one you know people

44:00bring up all the historical stuff and the efps and iraq and blah blah blah

44:03yes that's true but uh then isis came along and were a problem for about

44:08six seven years and iran really wasn't what is iran what has been an escalation

44:13against us the united states of america in the last 10 years um did they

44:20shoot a couple of drones that are bad i don't even remember i can't yeah

44:23i don't i don't see them as the threat especially in the last decade you

44:27can't pull this like it happened one time so we have to uh you know

44:31are we still mad at germany for you know 1944 we're still mad at japan

44:34for you know 1940 41 no we're not some people are yeah well okay yeah

44:41some people won't drive it to you i get it and for the most part

44:44as nation states you have to move on all right alliances shift and change are

44:48your enemies shift and change i with that also i'm not anti -war in the

44:52slightest i'm just anti -stupid wars like you tell me that we want to go

44:55to war with the cartels in mexico who are actually poisoning america i'm down all

44:59right and i know young men are going to die in that too and you

45:01know what i accept those terms all right if they needed me to do that

45:05one i'd probably go do it again you know i'm a little old for that

45:07shit but i you know whatever uh that's the thing that that's the thing that

45:12like that's the that's the argument right fentanyl the cartels in china have killed more

45:18americans on our own soil right than iran has ever killed anybody on our own

45:23soil even close why aren't we bombing the shit out of mexico and bombing the

45:28shit out of i mean it the the logic of these arguments is what is

45:33missing right for me 100 brother even if we wanted to go protect christians from

45:38boca haram man i'd be down i would be 100 down i just personally don't

45:43see iran as the threat for the last 10 years seems like they've been kind

45:46of good boys over in their corner and they haven't really uh they haven't really

45:49antagonize this um so if we have a limited amount of resources we have a

45:53limited amount of things we can do to me attacking iran is this one of

45:56the stupidest things we could do you know awesome um all right last question for

46:03you um what what would your recommendation to for the administration on how to handle

46:13uh this you know do they go out and pick another g watt pipe hitter

46:20put them in the position do they do they put a lid on any negative

46:25uh talk about joe i mean if you were in charge and you had someone

46:31break ranks what what would your response what do you think your risk what what

46:36do you think the i'm trying to figure out the right way to ask the

46:40question there's a reason they should never let me be in charge of things like

46:43this well okay i think this all right i think if you go after joe

46:50kent especially joe kent who has arguably the most gold -plated reputation of any man

46:56since since mcgarthur in 1945 thank you if you come after him all right he's

47:03going to fucking bury you all right this guy has lived his entire life fighting

47:10our nation's battles and and had his wife killed in action fighting these same enemies

47:15like of all the people in the world that you don't want to screw with

47:18it's this guy all right you should just leave him the fuck alone let him

47:21go to whatever he's going to do all right and just deal with it as

47:24damage control if they try to go after him i don't think that's going to

47:29go the way that this is the the most obi -wan person has ever walked

47:32the earth you strike him down and the boys will come out of the fucking

47:36woodwork uh so i think that's all a terrible plan if i was the administration

47:41i would just let him go do his shit i would bring in somebody else

47:44i would maybe have a you know pts guest shit talk him at a press

47:47conference a couple times and just kind of try to laugh it off as the

47:50trump administration does and go about my terrible fucking war in iran it's not going

47:54the way i think it is and uh and hope everybody's distracted enough to forget

47:58about it that's good advice that's good advice well clay thank you so much for

48:04hopping on i know it's uh uh it's later than than normal and you got

48:08a family to attend to but i i just really wanted to get your expert

48:12opinion on on joe's background his integrity and what he represents uh to us the

48:18g watt veterans and and what he should represent represent to the american people can

48:23we say one more thing actually before we go i feel like this is hyper

48:26important all right a fair number of people have come after joe today for saying

48:31that once you're in position and the bullets start flying you don't get to quit

48:35anymore all right i think that's horseshit in this in this particular equation all right

48:40it's not like we are enlisted guys uh in ranger battalion getting ready to jump

48:46into tehran and that's the the decision the president's made and we're going to go

48:50execute it this is an appointee all right in a position of of extreme leadership

48:56all right uh the same way that officers actually can resign their commission all right

49:00same thing they don't agree with something they can resign it right there it's over

49:03and done we're technically not even in a war I'm told, continually.

49:08All right. So to me, this is not the same thing as quitting at the

49:11line of departure. This is a principled stand.

49:14It's the most honorable thing that he could do.

49:17And he actually has a duty to himself and the rest of us, if he

49:20believes that this is a mistake, to fall on his sword, as he has done,

49:24and resign. All right. So that's where I stand on that issue.

49:29Awesome. Clay, thank you, brother, for everything.

49:33And I appreciate your sentiments tonight.

49:35Thank you for having me, brother.

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David Rutherford Show: Green Beret On Joe Kent Fallout, Iran War, and The MAGA Reaction