Military Generals Go Public with Final Warning to Trump

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1:30Ben Meiselas:Top military generals, service secretaries, the CIA, they're all turning on Donald Trump. Yesterday, we saw a letter from 28 former service secretaries and retired generals and flag officers who collectively served under every president from John F. Kennedy to Joseph Biden calling out Donald Trump's regime and specifically calling Donald Trump for picking Bill Pulte to lead ODNY, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Similarly, we are now learning from leaks by the CIA. They are not sharing information with ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It seems that Donald Trump is getting his information and the bad information from ODNI.

2:17Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump is really getting boxed out by the CIA as Donald Trump continues to attack the CIA. And now we're also seeing a lot of leaks come out from top military officials that are demonstrating the cover-up that's taking place every day by CENTCOM, including the fact that CENTCOM was covering up how the Combined Air Operations Center, the CAOC, out of Al-Udid Air Base in Qatar, was totally obliterated and destroyed by Iran early in the war, and that the United States was operating out of South Carolina, not at a value deed, but they were pretending to operate at a value deed when it was absolutely destroyed by Iran, and the cover-ups just continue.

3:01Ben Meiselas:Let's just go through all of this step-by-step. First, let's take a look at this extraordinary letter, as Ryan Goodman puts it. This is addressing the fact that Donald Trump picked Bill Pulte, who can't even get a security clearance or hasn't gotten a security clearance at this point, to be the head of ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And once that was announced as well, there were massive leaks within the intelligence community about how Bill Pulte has never been vetted and does not currently hold the security clearance. So he's not even allowed to have access to any classified information, yet alone highly classified information, yet alone sensitive compartmented information, yet alone the highest.

3:46Ben Meiselas:He's never gotten a security clearance. He's never been vetted for a security clearance. And they made him the head of ODNI. Are you kidding me? Let me read for you this powerful letter that was sent to Tom Cotton and Mark Warner, the top senators on the House Intelligence Committee. Here's what they write. Dear Chairman Cotton and Vice Chairman Warner, the undersigned include 28 former service secretaries and retired general and flag officers who collectively served under every president, from John F. Kennedy to Joseph Biden. Based upon our leadership roles promoting the strength of the U.S. military and ensuring the security of the United States, we are deeply concerned by public reports that the president is considering the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.

4:31Ben Meiselas:The position of director of national intelligence is a serious role with real implications for U.S. national security. When Congress created the position in 2004, the findings from the 9-11 Commission were top of mind, as were the extraordinary stakes of maintaining the world's largest intelligence operation in an ever-changing global threat landscape. Congress wisely enacted binding statutory guardrails to ensure only the qualified and capable would serve in this critical role. These guardrails include, one, requiring that the director shall have extensive national security expertise. Two, mandating that the director provide intelligence that is objective and independent of political considerations.

5:14Ben Meiselas:Three, requiring Senate confirmation to ensure rigorous evaluation nominee qualifications for the unique demands of the position. And four, requiring that the principal deputy director of national intelligence, another Senate confirmed position shall act for and exercise the powers of the director during a vacancy. In other words, you can't just have someone as an acting head of ODNI. There's an actual hierarchy here of what needs to happen and what Donald Trump has done is unlawful. In other words, the top generals and service secretaries are saying that Donald Trump is out there committing crimes.

5:50Ben Meiselas:He is. To our knowledge, Mr. Pulte does not have any national security experience, let alone the extensive expertise required by law. Public reporting suggests that Mr. Pulte has engaged in numerous acts in his capacity as the director of federal housing finance agency, that if true evince a troubling political bias, Mr. Pulte is clearly unqualified for the role. These concerns are not abstract. The appointment of an ill-suited acting director could materially harm U.S. national security. Any prioritization of political considerations over strategic imperative seeds advantage to our adversaries.

6:28Ben Meiselas:So do errors of judgment arising from insufficient expertise. Our men and women in uniform rely upon the quality and integrity of intelligence gathered and analyzed by the 18 agencies under the director's jurisdiction. With U.S. forces engaged in active operations abroad, there is no margin for error. We request that the committee exercise its oversight authority and other lawful powers to facilitate the administration's compliance with federal law and the prompt nomination of a qualified candidate whose experience and temperament can be evaluated through a rigorous confirmation process. Signed, former Secretary of the Army, former Secretary of the Navy, former Secretary of the Air Force, former Acting Secretary of the Navy, former Secretary of the Air Force, Admiral, Admiral, General, Admiral, Admiral, Admiral, Admiral, Vice Admiral, Lieutenant General, Rear Admiral, Major General, Real Admiral, Rear Admiral, Major General, Major General, Rear Admiral, Brigadier General.

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8:57Ben Meiselas:Now, we're also learning, an exclusive from Reuters, that the CIA is not sharing information with the ODNI. You'll recall that when Tulsi Gabbard led ODNI, she basically exposed the identities of numerous CIA agents. She outed CIA agents, posting it on social media. Yeah, Bill Pulte is worse than her. Donald Trump pushed her out. Then they brought in Bill Pulte. And we know that CIA from this article, they're not sharing information. They're not providing the data anymore to ODNI. And it seems that Donald Trump is using ODNI as his little political entity, as just supporting whatever Donald Trump wants to believe is true, while he's ignoring what's going on on the CIA side.

9:46Ben Meiselas:And I'll give you this example right here. And this comes from Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim. This is what we learned. So this is a former CIA analyst, former CIA leader, CIA agent, and he prepared critical reports back a long time ago in war games that demonstrated what exactly was going to happen in Iran that Donald Trump ignored. Here, let's play this clip. So how did Trump not see that the Iran war would escalate, especially when so many experts predicted it? 14 years ago, this ex-CIA analyst ran a war game between the United States and Iran. Within two hours of gameplay, the Iranians had moved on the Strait of Hormuz.

10:31It became central to their wartime strategy. So did the CIA miss something this time, or did Trump choose to just ignore the intelligence? Who better to ask than the man who ran the war game? There is literally nothing that has happened in this war on the Iranian side, Richard, that I wouldn't have predicted that a thousand other experts on Iran would have predicted. The first time I participated in a war game that was about this, you know, the Iranians closing the Strait of Hormuz, I think it was in 1992. And the U.S. government does it over and over and over again. We plan, we prepare. The U.S.

11:08military is all over this. They've thought it through in every possible respect. What the Iranians did was not unexpected at all. It was completely expected. It's what the United States did that was completely unexpected. Do you think there's any way, shape, or form that your former colleagues at the CIA missed this one? No, I cannot imagine that they did. And the little bits of reports that we're getting is that they had, in fact, predicted this. As I said, all the evidence is that this is whatever the opposite of an intelligence failure is, this is that, right? This was every single step was called at every step of the way.

11:47But again, you had a president who believed what he wanted to believe, which was that regime change was easy, cheap, ineminently doable, likely to happen. But again, this, the US government, forget about my war game. The US government has been studying this for 30 years, right? Over 30 years, understood this completely, understood exactly what was going to happen. I was able to predict everything that happened because I had been part of that community. And I know that other folks had as well. That was not the variable here. That was not the unknown here.

12:23Ben Meiselas:Now, it should also be noted that yesterday, there were major leaks that demonstrated that Trump's CENTCOM was covering up a lot of things as well. And I think we're seeing our intelligence community turn against Donald Trump. The main U.S. air war command center in the Middle East suffered a direct hit soon after the war with Iran began and was severely damaged. Sources tell Air and Space Forces magazine the combined air operation center at Al-Udeed Air Base in Qatar was hit by Iranian missiles. A secondary facility in South Carolina filled the gap. And so the military was pretending it was still operating out of Al-Udeed when it was destroyed and they were operating out of South Carolina.

13:06Ben Meiselas:Well, you got that. Meanwhile, you have Israel intelligence accusing Vice President J.D. Vance of leaking Mossad's plan to use Kurdish forces against Iran directly to Turkey's leader Erdogan, who then lobbied Donald Trump to kill, giving the Kurds military weapons. Erdogan's red line, no Kurdish military forces near Turkey's border. Trump then vetoed the operation. And so So you have intelligence agencies going after intelligence agencies right here. And then I want to remind you as well in terms of what I think Donald Trump's also afraid when it comes to the CIA. I think that Donald Trump knows that the CIA knows about his dark past.

13:48Ben Meiselas:You'll recall that Jeffrey Epstein back on July 18th, 2011, made FOIA requests to the CIA regarding his connections with the CIA. And here's what the CIA wrote July 29, 2011 to Epstein's lawyer. On July 25, 2011, the Office of Information and Privacy Coordinator from the CIA received your letter dated July 19, 2011, providing additional information pertaining to your client Jeffrey Epstein's Privacy Act request, reference above. Since you have provided the necessary information, we process Mr. Epstein's request in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act. We searched for CIA-originated responsive records that might reflect an open or otherwise acknowledged agency affiliation existing from November 5th, 1999, the date of our previous acceptance letter to July 25th, 2011, the date we accepted Mr.

14:47Ben Meiselas:Epstein's current request. we were unable to locate any information records. With respect to responsive requests that would reveal a classified connection to the CIA in accordance with section da-da-da-da, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request regarding Jeffrey Epstein's potential affiliation with the CIA. There you have that. So we'll keep you posted every step of the way. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. And I think you see there, finally, a lot more on a nonpartisan basis, military leaders coming out against Trump.

15:23Ben Meiselas:Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. Thanks for watching, everybody. New Midas merch. Head to store.midastouch.com today and get yourself the best pro-democracy gear and show your support. That's store.midastouch.com.