By Ray McGovern and Robert Scheer / Original to ScheerPost
In this week’s episode of “Playing President,” Ray McGovern, 27-year CIA veteran and briefer of five presidents, continues to make sense of the world to “President” Scheer, who prepared for this role through his decades as a journalist, including in-depth interviews with five presidents from Nixon to Clinton. In the universe of “Playing President,” however, Scheer is not a journalist, but instead plays the President of the United States attempting to navigate the geopolitical landscape of governance and media with the help of his trusty daily briefer from the CIA, Ray McGovern.
Transcript
White House Intern 00:02
Mr. President. Ray McGovern is here to brief you.
POTUS 00:05
Oh, yeah, more bad news. Take it away. Ray.
McGovern 00:09
Good morning Mr. President.
POTUS 00:10
By the way, would you mind telling some people you run into that I’m coherent that I….. You know, I’m getting- I can’t stand it. Ray, I know you got a lot of important stuff to tell me, but you know… Here’s Kamala, I wish her well, you know my legacy and all that… But no press conferences and nobody holds… and what, because she’s got a Jewish husband, she could, every once in a while say something negative about Netanyahu? But Netanyahu he does whatever the hell he wants. We all know he holds our future in his hands, and he goes after a full blown war, yeah, Trump is right in… Right? So what’s Kamala? How come she gets away with this and I got slaughtered? I was, you know, she never told me she didn’t like Netanyahu or what Israel is doing? I never heard that. And now she’s, she’s getting the same briefings from you CIA people that I’m- What do you tell her? It looks more cheerful in the Ukraine. That’s also cheerful now? You give her a different briefing than you give me?
McGovern 01:10
No, Mister President, my colleague, who briefs Kamala.
POTUS 01:15
Kamala, they trained me on this. You gotta remember “comma” and then “la.” Otherwise you’ll sound like Trump. You’re getting it all wrong. Then they tell you you’re stupid because you can’t do the grammar. And you know what I mean.
McGovern 01:29
I do, Mister President, she’s getting the same information that I’ve be giving you, except when I give you my own opinion, I make that very explicit. With respect to what I tell people who ask me about the how alert you are, I don’t share anything from these briefings. They’re sacrosanct.
POTUS 01:30
What are you saying that I’m not alert?!
McGovern 01:50
On occasion… on occasion.
POTUS 01:53
You’re saying I’m not alert?! I’m alert!
McGovern 01:56
On occasion Mr. Presidet.
POTUS 01:57
You forget… like you don’t remember you were briefing Reagan, that guy was, would sleep through the thing, right? He didn’t even show up after time, right?
McGovern 02:06
Well, he preferred to sleep in to your credit, Mister President.
POTUS 02:10
Yeah, I’m here all the time with you. What are you talking about?
McGovern 02:15
Well, I permit myself…
POTUS 02:16
I’ve been I’ve been slandered, you know that.
McGovern 02:20
Of course. And I permit myself to say that in our dealings, you always have acted very professionally, just like everybody else says. So on that score, let’s proceed, if that’s okay?
POTUS 02:32
Yeah ’cause guys like you, you end up writing books and everything and make me look like an asshole. You know, what is this? Okay? You wouldn’t go there. I’ve been in government a long time, and so have you, Ray, what you were the CIA 27 years?
McGovern 02:47
That’s right.
POTUS 02:47
Yeah, if anybody’s been brainwashed it’s by you, how come you’re such a pinko? Yeah, I’m just kidding you. Okay, go ahead.
McGovern 02:55
Okay. Well, Mr. President, we have news today. Vladimir Putin, President Russia, has just spoken on the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk province of Russia and on the attack on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant that the Russians seized four days after they invaded Ukraine. What Putin says is pretty, pretty tough. And what I want to do is just read from you a little bit, read to you for a little bit for because it’s not really yet in the press. I doubt whether you’ve been told about it yet. This is today. He’s saying, “Look, the enemy, Ukraine, with the help of US or Western masters, is striving, apparently, to improve its negotiating position for the future. But how can we talk about talks with those who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians and who try to threaten nuclear power- nuclear energy facilities.” So this incursion where a good number of Ukrainian troops — the best they have — went into Kursk, is something that Putin is saying, okay, “Look, if anyone thought these people are ready for negotiations, forget about it. We’re going to drive them out,” as he said, you know, if one- last thing he said here was that, you know, “if they thought that this would divert attention from the progress that the Russian forces are making in the Donbas, they have another thought coming. We’re having more and more volunteers into the army and the pace of our offensive operations in that area- that is in the Donbas, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya has double, has one and a half times as much as before.” So…
POTUS 04:55
I know you’ve got your pronunciations, all right. You speak Russian, right?
McGovern 05:01
I do, yeah.
POTUS 05:01
What were you? They taught it to you? Or how’d you learn? You were head of the Russian desk at the CIA, right?
McGovern 05:09
I was.
POTUS 05:10
When they were when they were communists. I like them better when they were communists than now, you know, you could do business with them. What? But, but what? Alright, so you know how to pronounce all these things. But why are you giving them any credibility? They say their recruitments up there. They’re, they force people. They throw them in jail. They kill them if they don’t do what… I can’t do that here. We can’t even have a draft, right? Pinkos, they would, they would demolish us if we tried to have a draft. All the hawks would become doves if we had a draft. You know? Then their kids would have to go. You know that?
McGovern 05:42
Well, that happened in Vietnam. Of course, that’s one reason we got out. Mr. President, I think you may be confusing Russia with Ukraine, where this draconian effort to get people however young or however old into the army is is ongoing. The Russians are having no trouble at all recruiting people. Matter of fact, their recruiting stations are full of volunteers.
POTUS 06:07
Because they use that oil money and they bribe them? I mean…
McGovern 06:11
Well they have a lot of money, and they are investing on the- and they’re giving these soldiers rather good inducements, bonuses to enter. You know, the the sanctions haven’t worked. The Russian economy is going pretty strong. They have the money, and we predict that by the end of the year, there may be 800- 900- 900,000 troops in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are losing more troops than they’re replacing. So doesn’t really look good for the Ukrainians. The only question that we have right now is how fast Putin will move to conquer the rest of Ukraine, at least eastern Ukraine. And it doesn’t look very good because he can, well, I think I’ve told you this before, he could do that, before the election, to the extreme embarrassment of NATO, of Ukraine, and, of course, the United States.
POTUS 07:09
But Ray, Ray, I get this from you. You’re supposed to be the CIA. All right. I assume you still your information is solid, but if I read the Atlantic, you know, I know we got some influence there. But, you know, Atlantic, or the New York Times, even, it never sounds like you sound. You come here and give me these briefings. And what is it? The Guardian, even, I’ve always thought a pinko publication, they, they seem to think Ukraine’s doing well, you know, and a lot of these… My, my briefers, my other briefers on my staff, tell me, we put in the the new jets, we put in all the new equipment, we’re putting all this stuff in, and you keep telling me it’s going to hell in a hand basket, and I, I keep hearing that it’s going better now, what’s going on here?
McGovern 08:00
Well, Mr. President, these organs that you mentioned, and I would add Politico, they tend to listen to people like General Petraeus and other people have bubbled to the top. There’s a lieutenant colonel, his name is Nagel. He’s a big Professor now at some Army Institute. And he said, and I quote, well, I don’t have the quote here, but he said, you know, “The Ukrainians have begun to win the narrative with their invasion of Russia. But whether this turns out to be a sensible move remains to be seen.” Well, let me explain what happened, because this is really interesting. About two weeks ago, Ukrainians assembled some forces and drove into Kursk Oblast there. There is a Kursk nuclear power station about 30-40, miles inside the Kursk Oblast. Now they drove in there and they had very little resistance. And people have been scratching their head, “Oh, did they surprise the Russians? They surprised the Russian or was this some sort of trap where the Russians are going to envelop them and get them in a cauldron and kill them all right?” Well, the answer is simple, Mister President, the Russians didn’t expect them to do that, because it’s a crazy thing to do. They went in there and they destroyed some villages and did some damage, but they were never going to get to the Kursk power station, and the Russians have the advantage now. They’re going to throw them out. They’re already claiming to have killed 1600 of them and and destroyed 200 tanks and other armored vehicles. So it didn’t make any sense. The Russians weren’t prepared for it, but that’s because they didn’t expect anybody to do that, to do something so stupid. But now Putin is taking advantage of that and saying, “Well, look, you know, this is what you get from people who don’t, not only don’t want to talk, but want to do things that will prevent any, any reasonable person from talking.” Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the Donbas, we have hastened our offensive, our slow offensive by one and a half times, and we’re ready to take more territory, because the Ukrainians are running out of troops. They shouldn’t have put those other troops up there doing that quixotic invasion of Kursk, and the place- the Ukrainians are doing a whole bunch of dumb things. The other thing they’ve done is to send drones against Zaporizhzhya. Now that’s the largest nuclear power station in Europe, okay? And they hi-, they hit the one, they they hit Zaporizhzhya this time. This is all yesterday, okay? Now the Ukrainians said, “Oh, no, no, the Russians did that themselves.” Now, the Russians occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station four days after they started the invasion of Ukraine, okay? They’ve had it since then, and all the shelling has come from the Ukrainians. But the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency under the UN pretends, to not know where the shelling has come from. So Politico says, “Oh, Zelensky says that the Russians did this.” That’s very clear. The IAEA itself put out a tweet saying, “No, no, we saw these suicide drones, and they they made their mark this time.” And the Russians are saying, “Look, the IAEA. Are you worth anything anymore?” Grossi, the name of the fellow who heads it. Are you going to do anything? Are you going to wake up? Are you going to just kind of do something make believe? That’s what she used, [inaudible], she said, “Are you going to even make believe you’re doing something now, or you’re just going to let this slide?” So these are desperate moves. What I’m trying to tell you, Mr. President, is that they’re not only Hail Mary passes, you know, if you try to snatch some victory out of inevitable defeat, they’re very dangerous, because God knows what else is coming. False flag operations of various kinds could happen before the election, and one way or another, the people who have influence in Kyiv need to warn Zelensky against doing something even more stupid, even more inflammatory.
POTUS 12:48
All right, so I’m sorry. I’m a little tired. I dozed off a little bit. I lost you somewhere. You’re telling me what these people Politico and everything, they don’t know what they’re talking about? I- you know what? There’s no happy ending here, right? I mean, that’s what you’re saying. I’ve been told every day now that with the new airplanes, F 16, with the new missiles, the Russians are running out of ammunition with the new stuff. The tide has turned. And you’re telling me this guy, things could go kaput even before the election?
McGovern 13:35
Yes, Mr. President, as I said before…
POTUS 13:37
What’s that two months away or somewhere?
McGovern 13:42
Slightly, slightly less than three, yeah, yeah.
POTUS 13:44
Yeah. Well, you know, look, I only do these things. I’ll tell you, these briefings, because you are so out of joint with what I’m hearing you know that either you… Well, you’re not a double agent. I know. I’ve known you for 27 years over there at that CIA. But how could, how could your view be so different than what you know, foreign affairs in the Atlantic, Politico, what’s going on here? These guys, they’re happy because they’re getting all the defense budget up, right?
McGovern 14:23
That’s right.
POTUS 14:24
That, any old kiss ass to the defense… I know Eisenhower put it your military industrial complex, blah, blah, blah, we’re talking about, what 1000 lobbyists for money. You’re talking money is that, that crash included? So why are they backing Kamala now? I mean, or are they? I don’t know, what- were- they… Those same publications, they seem to like her think she’s okay… Or they’ll surely back Trump, if he looks like he’s winning. But what do they think? The Democrats they’re going to give him… We Democrats give more money, right? Republicans…
McGovern 15:03
That’s right, you know that better than I, Mister President, but that’s that’s why, I guess they decided that, or you decided, together with them at you did not need to run again. The press was full of stories about major donors, and that would have blowed the military industrial complex…
POTUS 15:21
What the hell, why are these donors abandon me? I gave them all they wanted! I gave the defense minister… What are you kidding me? Nobody’s given more. And then, if somebody says it’s pro Israel. Who’s been more pro Israel than Joe Biden? Do I have raised- have I raised a single word? Seriously? How much did we give them just this week? Yeah, I’m now I’m getting… I’m awake now, okay? I’m, I’m here, I’m here. You’re hearing me. Yeah? How much money I gave him this week?
McGovern 15:49
Billions.
POTUS 15:49
Yeah, this week! That son of a bitch, he then blows up some school, all right? Or was that the Hamas that blew it up and blamed it on Israel?
McGovern 15:59
No, it was the Israelis. Mister President, they claimed it was Hamas but…
POTUS 16:02
They promised me they wouldn’t be blowing up schools. Can’t they blow up something other than a school?
McGovern 16:08
Well, Mister President, they’re trying to make a point here. We talk about genocide, okay? We’ve been through this before. There they want to…
POTUS 16:18
Don’t use the genocide word. Americans do not do genocide. Barack Obama said that about torture. Remember? Americans do not do torture. So you got to call it something else. You know what I mean? You know, you got to be a little bit politically correct here, Ray, if you’re going to be working in government. It’s not, and it’s a good thing. Politically correct means, you know, you don’t, you don’t shit where you eat, you know what I mean? You don’t mess up your own place, alright? So, you know, I know I’m getting foul language and everything, but god damn it, I’ve been put to the wall here. I don’t know what’s going on anymore, but, but the fact that matter is, you know, we don’t do genocide. Israel doesn’t do genocide, you know. And you know, we’re of Judeo Christian ethics. We don’t do genocide and all that stuff, you know. So call it something else. It’s a little excessive. What you really want to say, Ray, they’re being a little bit excessive because they were killing Hamas people in the school, there’s always Hamas people. I mean, hell, those guys got elected there. So they can always get some Hamas people, right? There seems to be a lot of them. More you kill, the more you have that’s what we found in Vietnam. Remember, we’re going to eliminate them Viet Cong and god, and you had the Tet Offensive and everything. And the next thing, they’re all they’re all over the place, and they’re being cheered when they go into these places, everything. Yeah… It’s just history repeats itself, you know. But you know, the way I used to hear the first time is tragedy, the second time is farce. Now with the nuclear weapons, no, it’s even bigger tragedies, not farce. It’s not fun and games. You got to never again. Everybody was always saying, “Never again, never again,” right? Well, now it looks like this thing in Palestine, you know? Well, I’m not going to say it’s genocide, but you know, what is it? You know?
McGovern 18:20
Well, Mr. President, we’ve not been known to be politically correct when we are bound to tell you the honest truth. I will not use genocide for the rest of this particular session. I’ll just use mass starvation, and mass deprivation of medical supplies and epidemics and other things to show that maybe 10%… 10% of the population in Gaza no longer is alive, okay? And that the Israelis…
POTUS 18:58
What, what?! 10%?
McGovern 18:59
Well, you have a very…
POTUS 19:01
I thought it’s only 40,000…
McGovern 19:05
Well, that’s what…
POTUS 19:06
Mostly Hamas people. I didn’t know they had 40,000 right? Wasn’t that the the one, and then the Israelis say that’s an exaggeration. So that’s…
McGovern 19:16
So the 40,000 Mr. President, are the ones whose name tags have been verified after they got out of the rubble and they were dead, okay? Hamas was a small sliver of that population. Most of them are still in tunnels, and most…
POTUS 19:32
I did see, I did see something. I just was passing a TV, and these people in that what they call a school that was blown up? Was it a school, Ray? It was a school?
McGovern 19:44
It was and it was… People have sought refuge there, and…
POTUS 19:48
And they say, they say they couldn’t find one body, right, because they’re all dismembered? So how do you tag on a dismembered body?
McGovern 19:57
That’s right, so…
POTUS 19:59
How the hell did this happen? Israel? We gave him everything. They were the biggest military power. They- everybody says their economy is so successful, the whole Palestinian thing was going to blow away the Arab governments all love them. And that was less than a year ago! You know? How the hell did this happen? Ray, what? What did you guys ever brief me on that? That’s what… that god damn Netanyahu, he went there. He’s the one who tried to destroy Obama. Remember? He testified in Congress. What do you think he was doing coming to this Congress? You know, he was going to wipe me out if I didn’t just kiss his ass. You know, that’s what Netanyahu wants. He wants everybody kiss his ass. And you know, the Israelis, they don’t like them, they don’t like them, but they back ’em. Well, what the hell is that about? What the hell is that about? You know?
McGovern 20:46
They back him, Mister President, because he claims to have the full support of the United States government. He does have that he showed in Congress. And unless…
POTUS 20:58
Well that was a lot of Republicans, right? There was Democrats…
McGovern 21:02
Oh, a lot of Democrats too. Well, yeah. But you know, unless somebody weighs in and says, look, if the Iranians retaliate for those assassinations, and if they hit not only Israeli targets, but also US targets — and they are accusing the US as much as as the Israelis, of being responsible for the assassinations — if they, for instance, kill people in northern Syria, our soldiers there, we got about 900 of them, if they kill our soldiers in in Iraq, which has asked us many times to please leave, then you could be faced with a really tough situation here as to whether you can be persuaded by Netanyahu to enter the fray with both feet. Now, that would bring a danger. That would be a danger, because even if you sent the Marines in, there is no guarantee that the US would prevail. Much less the fact that you have another war going on in Ukraine, and you have trouble in the South China Sea, China is bound to react to all this and stir up some real trouble, not just rhetoric. So you’ve got a three front possibility here, at least a two front possibility, but you have the power still, even as a lame duck, you have the power to reign in the Israeli leaders. All you need to say is, “If you retaliate big time to whatever Iran does right now and escalate still farther. You’re alone. You’re on your own. We’re not going to give you any more military support.” Now, what would that do? That would reign in the Israelis, and that would prevent a wider war the Middle East. The only detriment, as I see it, is a political price you would have to pay, and that’s not my business. We’re not involved in the domestic policies. I’m saying what will happen abroad if you take advantage of your lame duck status and read the riot act to this person who is… I won’t say, I won’t say the word… who is responsible for mass starvation, epidemics, polio, worse. And…
POTUS 23:33
Let me give you a little wisdom here, and you have to admit, that’s what the CIA never really had much of, you know? No, you got some smart guys like yourself, and they learn these languages, but mostly they’ve made, if you want to look at their record, like Kennedy, the old Jack Kennedy everybody loves now, he said he wanted to blast him into 1000 pieces. They could never be so… okay. What you’re missing here, is the worse it gets — for what Eisenhower was talking about, the military industrial complex — the better it is. Okay? It’s like the banking meltdown. The worse it got, the better for the banks. You know, they’re too big to fail, we’ll make them even bigger. You know, it’s like, oh yeah, now they’re going to have to google my own department, you know, go after Google. Lots of luck. You know, break them up. Are you kidding me? You know, the public outcry, “Oh no, we like it just the way it is. We like it. We like Big Brother, if it’s coming from Google or Apple and everything.” So let me give you a little point of fact here. Follow that rule. The worst it gets on the ground now, Vietnam was pretty damn bad, you know? I remember, I was, you know, around then in the Senate and everything. And McNemara said three and a half million Vietnamese, mostly civilians, died. He admitted that, you know? And we had a draft. If you have a draft and you kill three and a half million and 59,000 Americans die, then the public cares. But if you don’t have boots on the ground, and you’re right, we were vulnerable there. Some boots on the ground, we’ll get them out, or we’ll make a deal somewhere that you don’t go after them and whatever. But the American public… the election is not decided by foreign policy. It’s decided by the economy. And these are the people that can make it a good economy or a bad economy, you know? And that’s just the reality. And I know I think I’m rambling here, I forgot exactly where I’m going, but you know that I know I’m making sense, right? It’s, it’s like you said, with your fingers, the money, and the money gets better. If they kill some American soldiers, there’s no limit to the military budget. You kidding me? Who’s going to vote against it? Who’s going to vote against it? Nobody’s going to say, “Hey, spend all this money on these airplanes and everything.” They’re not doing it on these tanks. They’re not doing it. They’re going to say, “No, we don’t care. We don’t care.” And they’re not going to ask tough, big, profound, smart questions that, how the hell we got into that? You know, I even see people now they say Vietnam was a success. It was a winner. A lot of people say that. I don’t know. It’s just crazy.
McGovern 26:19
A lot of people…
POTUS 26:21
I’m not going to be around much, you know, Ray, I know you don’t like golf, and I don’t want to have to play it, so we’ll sit somewhere and bullshit with each other and straighten it all out. But it won’t matter, because nobody listens to us anyway. And let me tell you something, Ray, you’ve been telling me week after week, I should shoot myself in the head, let alone the foot, you know? And stop being a peacenik here, and actually control Netanyahu. Are you kidding me? You know what that guy can do now? You know what Trump can do now? That’s what Nancy. Wow, not Nancy. What’s her name? Kamala. Kamala. That’s what Kamala- now Nancy I don’t even know what the hell Nancy doing, she’s the one who caused all this trouble with Taiwan, and now I have to deal with it. People in Taiwan think they can go alone, and we gotta figure that out and here the damn commies to China. They match us in the gold and the Olympics. I mean, I don’t know what the hell is- don’t we have weightlifters? I mean, fencing? Is that a communist sport? How the hell did fencing get to be, you know? I mean, you know about this, you know? You don’t know about China. You know about Russia. They do fencing in Russia too.
McGovern 27:34
They do, yeah,
POTUS 27:35
I thought the French do fencing. I didn’t even know we did fencing. The hell I tried watching the Olympics, it made me sick. What the hell are they doing diving? Didn’t we? When I was in high school, they did diving, diving. When did we stop being the best? We used to be the best. That’s where Trump, you know, he’s gonna make a point. Everything’s to his advantage. We were great. We’re now not great. We’re not can’t do fencing, you know? I mean, you know, I don’t know you got anything more for me here? What I mean?
McGovern 28:05
Yes, Mr. President, I want to just kind of be a Cassandra here. I hope I won’t shoot you for being a messenger of bad news. But whatever happens now, and people are our intent of hooks with respect to what Iran is going to do in retaliation for those assassinations, things could easily get out of hand. Now you have a lot of ships or aircraft carriers so forth. Those can be helpful in an air defense role, if you think or your advisors say, “Hey, about let’s put those 5000 Marines on the ground.” Things are going to get ugly fast.
POTUS 28:47
Wait, where are they putting them? I lost… I am a little slow. But you know what? I’ve heard this shit all my life. I’ve been briefed, I’ve been shown my business on the foreign affairs. I hear all this crap year after year. You know what? I still don’t understand this f*cking shit because it doesn’t make sense, and I’m president now… I don’t know, maybe I am, and maybe I’m getting off my marbles here, but it’s not fair. It’s just not. What did Kamala, she says to the protesters, “If you keep this up, you’re going to elect Trump. Is that what you want?” If I ever said that to them, I’d be attacked everywhere. You know, how come she can say that? Don’t, don’t mess around with the Democratic Convention. Don’t press us and everything. Just coronate, you know, coronation. That’s what, that’s what she wants. And you know, I’m not taking anything away from her. She says nice things about me. I’m not going to put her down, but, you know, I don’t know… Now, did I write that damn thing? Resigning? Did I? What’d they wake me up? What was I on some pill? I see Nancy Pelosi now saying she didn’t- it didn’t sound like me. Why wasn’t it on White House stationary? You know, you just CIA, did you guys write that? Did you have me resign? I can’t ever remember, I had the goddamn virus, you know?
McGovern 30:03
That would be the FBI.
POTUS 30:06
These are not being taped. These conversations, are they? I don’t want to be like Nixon cursing all the time, you know?
McGovern 30:11
No, these are, these are not.
POTUS 30:12
You know why they got rid of Nixon, because he became a goddamn peacenik. You know that? Nobody ever says anything about that. And then, when he was retired, he wrote those books, The Best Way to Have Peace. And the time… he took credit for all his peacenik stuff! Goddamn Republicans. They can do that when they want. It’s like Trump going off to North Korea. He’s gonna make, you know, peace with the worst commie dictator. He can, you know, try. People say, “Oh, nice try.” You know, shit. Look at look at me. I try to do any of your peacenik kind of stuff, Ray, you know, and they’re, God, I’ll be finished! That bring- they’ll be throw me in jail, just like they’ll throw Netanyahu in jail if he gives up the war stuff, right? Israeli’s will throw him in jail if he gives up the war stuff, right?
McGovern 30:56
Yeah, there’s a lot at stake for Netanyahu, including his personal fortune, he may end up in jail if this doesn’t turn out right. And so this is just one factor, Mr. President, maybe we can kind of transition to this in extremis, and given the correlation of forces now with Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran having 1000s, literally 1000s of very sophisticated missiles, some of them hypersonic. It’s not like it used to be. Israel could lose this one big time, whether you help them out or not. So what am I saying here? I’m saying that there’s a good possibility that if this comes to pass, and it would come to pass for the next few months, Israel has what they call the Samson option, and that is to pull down the temple on themselves and destroy everybody in the area, let- lets the dream of a Jewish state perish. I have a citation here I want to read you, because this is not made up stuff. This is a citation from a very prominent Israeli military historian, military advisors. His name is Morton Van Creveld, okay? Now he-his books are on the same shelf as Sun Tzu. Who else? Well, some of these really major military thinkers. Okay? So in US libraries, US Colonels are obliged to read Van Creveld’s works. Okay? Now here’s what he says…
POTUS 31:12
This guy is still alive? This guy’s alive?
McGovern 32:46
Yeah, he’s still, he’s not even, not even as old as we are, Mister President. But, yeah, he’s still. “We have the capability,” quote, “we have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before we let Israel go under. Period.” End quote. Now you may see, you may think that’s not rational, but when you look at Netanyahu, what’s at stake for him and what’s at stake for this vision they have of a Jewish Kingdom promised to them by Yahweh. If it all goes to pieces, would they use nuclear weapons? We think there’s a better than even chance they will. Conclusion we gotta do what we can now to tamp down this violence and make sure that everyone survives, including Israel, but also the Palestinian state that we often talk about, but we never do anything to help create.
POTUS 33:51
You know, Ray, you say, the Jewish state. Most of the Jews I run into, they don’t like Netanyhu. I’m talking about, you know, real knowledgeable… I’m not talking about some lefty like Bernie Sanders. I’m talking about Schumer, talking about people like that, you know? And these protests on these college campuses and everything, its these Jewish kids criticizing Israel all the time. So what happened? And in Israel, there’s these demonstrations all the time. I can’t even understand them, but they don’t seem to like Netanyahu. They want the prisoners back. We’re trying to help them. There’s something crazy going on. And I think, you know, first of all, I don’t believe they would blow up the world, because, I mean, that’s nuts, right? We all say, and that’s what we used to call the madman theory. You got to pretend to be a madman, so the enemy takes you seriously. But you this, you know, my mind is working really good now, when I’m asking you this, all right? This is not any, you know, dementia, you know, crap they throw at me. I’ve been there. I’ve been at the hearings. I’ve been on these issues. I’ve been there, Senator, Vice President, President, I’ve been here, okay? And even Reagan, he had to admit, you know, you can’t have a nuclear war of any kind that’s not going to spiral and kill everything, certainly not in that region. You can’t be using nuclear weapons without the blowback and everything and the madness and all that. But you got to act a little crazy to scare the other people. Now, the other people also have a claim to God, right? And they, they say he’s going to look out for them too. Everybody’s always, you know, looking out for them. You know, I remember when I was trying to be political. You have the Protestants claiming God, and you got the Catholics, right? And how do you negotiate that poor Kennedy? You know, they called him crazy, you know? No, you know. And, but anyway, I’m wondering, I’m wondering here, but I don’t get it, because we given them and they got. It’s like the Six Day War. Everybody, they said, “Oh, you can’t, we’re vulnerable. We gotta give us one more.” Well, the Six Day War was the Six Day War because there was- the enemy, was a paper tiger or whatever! They had nothing. They had nothing. Israel had everything. Right? We’ve given them. We’ve given them gazillions since then, we’ve made them the strongest military power, and certainly in that region, maybe, and one of the top in the whole world. Why the hell would they need nuclear weapons when they conventionally, and they’re showing it, they can kill everybody there with conventional. I mean, I’m not speaking out of turn, and maybe, you know, you say that’s what they are about to do. But why the hell do they need nuclear weapons? They just take over.Saudi Arabia take over. Syria take over… Can’t they? Without nukes?
McGovern 37:08
Well, Mister President, you’re quite right. They have a formidable army, helped and armed by us. Unfortunately, for Israel’s purposes, Hezbollah, Hamas, more, more particularly Iran, which is just about to retaliate for those assassinations, have equally able armies. They lack nuclear weapons…
POTUS 37:35
Equally?
McGovern 37:36
Yes, equally. They lack nuclear weapons, but they have hypersonic missiles. They are- even Hezbollah up in southern Lebanon has 1000s of missiles that they can rain down on Israeli cities, for God’s sake, as well as US installations in Iraq…
POTUS 37:54
But Israel with that Iron Dome and everything where they knock them all down?
McGovern 37:59
Well, the Iron Dome is a pretty sophisticated thing, but it’s not, it’s not impenetrable. Missiles get through and the Iranians…
POTUS 38:08
How come in these reports, they knocked down all of them?
McGovern 38:11
Yeah, the Iranians gave us in April. The Iranians gave us lots, a couple couple of days to get ready, and then they sent in a wave of drones, and most of those got shot down by very sophisticated missiles. Then they sent in some cruise missiles, slow, slow, most of those got hit with other missiles. And then all of a sudden, some missile, real missiles, came in fast, not the hypersonic, but sophisticated missiles, and they destroyed an airfield or two and got through their Iron Dome system. Now how many air defense missiles the Israelis have left after that episode is anybody’s guess. I suppose some people know. But whether they can defend against a un- an unannounced, unprepared for assault by Iran in retaliation for what the Israelis did to these two Hamas, the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, that remains to be seen. What I’m trying to say here is that the correlation of forces has changed, has changed since, well, since the Six Day War. And you know, they had, you probably remember, Mr. President, that after the Six Day War, Menachem Begin, the former Prime Minister of Israel, admitted that there was no threat from Egypt. They were not they were not threatening. We decided to attack, to attack Egypt, and we got lots of land in return. So we need to be honest with that. He said that to the Armed Forces College in in Washington 1982. So, the Israelis have occupied all these territories, including the Golan Heights, including Gaza, okay? Including the West Bank…
POTUS 39:57
Wait, wait, wait, Ray, Ray, let me get this straight what you just said… Right? And you present it as if it’s fact, right? Not fake news, fact, right?
McGovern 40:11
Correct.
POTUS 40:13
Now, because a lot of people confuse them, I don’t know, but you’re saying that they control the West Bank and the Golan Heights and Gaza. They’re controlling all that. Which was controlled by Egypt, had the West Bank, right? Jordan was in Gaza, and his theory was the guard. And you’re saying the Six Day War, this heroic victory, right? And it was what, 67 right? Was that?
McGovern 40:45
June? June ’67, no… yeah, 67 yeah.
POTUS 40:50
’67 I got that right, yeah? Okay, so you’re saying that Israel was not attacked.
McGovern 40:56
That’s correct.
POTUS 40:58
If they weren’t attacked, if they weren’t attacked, then what right did they have to grab this land? And in fact, it wasn’t even the Egyptians who had joined. It’s supposed to be Palestinians, according to that UN agree. That’s a part I’ve never… you know, even though I’m the president, I was on the foreign relation. I think I never quite understood that one.
McGovern 41:19
You know, President, just just to refresh your memory, what Menachem Begin said in 1982 was a speech in Washington. He explained the events in 1967 he said, “Look the Egyptian forces coming up in the Sinai. They pose no threat to us at all. We decided on our own initiative to attack Egypt and enlarge our our folk.” Now that was 1967 June in November, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242, it was the 22nd of November, 1967 and that demanded that Israel withdraw for occupied territories now they never did.
POTUS 42:03
Why didn’t we veto it?
McGovern 42:06
Well, because we could see that it was a war of aggression. It was unprovoked. And Menachem Begin, said, so later. Okay?
POTUS 42:13
Who was president then? Was it…
McGovern 42:17
Well LB Johnson, LBJ was the president 67 and in 82 was Reagan. But what Begin said is very little quoted, although there was a tainted New York Times at the time… What I’m saying here is that lots of things happened in 67 including the killing of 32 US sailors, deliberately by Israel fighter bombers and Israel torpedo boats. They were part of the USS Liberty, right off the- in international waters, right across from the Sinai. Why do I mention that? Because false flag attacks on US troops is very possible right now. We have troops all over the place, in the Middle East. All Israel needs to do to stage a false flag attack is to pick anyone of several places, Iraq, Syria, all these bases we have in the area, kill some Americans and get you in a corner, get you and your advisors in a corner where you think you have to, you have to respond, so to speak. And so the battle goes down. And you’re, you’re you’re confronted with, not only Middle East. You’re not- you’re confronted with with Ukraine. You got the Chinese. You know, I remember when you were on, what, 60 minutes, and you were asked, “Well, don’t you think that maybe Ukraine and the Middle East, maybe two fronts, that that would be a little little too much?” And I remember very well, you would remember it yourself, Mister President, you said, “We’re the United States of America. We’re the most powerful country in the history of the world, in the history of the world.”
POTUS 44:13
Now, Ray, you mocking me? And mocking this country?
McGovern 44:15
No, no I’m just quoting you. You said that…
POTUS 44:17
I don’t like the little theatrics there, you know.
McGovern 44:20
Okay, all right. Well…
POTUS 44:21
I gotta enough people putting me down these days. You know, don’t try my patience here. Alright, let’s just be clear about that. I’m not in a good mood. I’m not in a good mood for, you know, people making jokes at my expense, you know.
McGovern 44:36
Well, yeah, I’m sorry, but that, that’s the way it came across. The the thing I’m trying to say, Mr. President, is that used to be the case like after World War Two, after the Soviet Union imploded, but it ain’t the case anymore. We can’t fight a two front war. We couldn’t fight a one for one front war, given what has happened to our military with the surface of four star generals and people who are not really trained at the bottom, because a lot of the light kernels the majors have quit out of disgust.
POTUS 45:12
Alright, I think that’s takes the cake for depressing briefings. You know, let me ask you some they got some hawkish guy briefing Kamala? Kamala. Kamala. Kamala. God damn, I can’t forget somebody’s name, Kamala. You know they, they got somebody telling her? I mean, what are they going to do with that woman? She’s, some day she’s going to have to speak Trump’s going to ask her, “Would you back Israel? Are you backing Israel? How far are you backing Israel? And why did, why did Biden, why did he, you know, pull the rug out from under Israel,” right? Is she going to betray me? And then she’s going to lose her own people, or what?
McGovern 46:02
Mister President, what I can…
McGovern 46:04
What I can assure you… what I can assure you is that we briefers my colleague who briefs the vice president speak from the same script. The President daily brief, the President’s weekly summary. So she’s getting the same information, so what she does with it is beyond our ken and beyond our influence, but our job is to be apolitical and to be what not so politically correct and just tell it like it is. Now, I agree this was a pretty depressing briefing today, but let me, would you like me to finish with a joke?
POTUS 46:04
Yeah.
POTUS 46:44
Well, yeah, you know, you’re a good guy, Ray. I’m not putting you down. I mean, I get… look, I’m pissed off at the whole goddamn everything. You know I did- I’ve been a great president, haven’t I, Ray? I’m a great president, no? I mean, you know, I don’t know. I don’t get it. And, you know, Jesus, when you think of these other presidents how screwed up they were, I mean, I don’t know… It’s, it’s all, what’s that social media stuff and all this crap that’s out there with this internet? Well this internet turned out to be a shithole didn’t it?
McGovern 47:18
Yeah, well Mr. President…
POTUS 47:20
You know, everybody has information. Everybody gets information. You can’t keep secrets anymore. God damn. You have to keep secrets, right? You know that, Ray, you got? You guys have to, don’t how many of them have two thirds, probably a secret to even say it, who are doing the overthrowing of the governments and making the wars, they don’t tell you what’s going on, right? Let’s be honest about it. Ray, you’ve been in the dark 27 years of the CIA, they’ve been lying to you. Well, you think they tell me the truth? And here’s they sent you over here to brief me what that’s like… they’re not listening to you, why should I?
McGovern 48:00
What you need, Mister President, and it’s a little late to tell you this, but you need a CI- director, CIA director, who is devoted to telling you the truth unvarnished.
POTUS 48:12
When did that ever happen? Who was it?
McGovern 48:14
Well I served under Bill- under Bill Colby, directly. I was his National Intelligence Officer for Western Europe, okay? Now, when the operational part of the agency came up with a cockamamie scheme to overthrow the government in Italy or Portugal because they’re becoming socialist or communists, Colby, to his credit, who’d come to us, come to me and say, “We got rumors here that they’re preparing this little task force to do this that is outside the agency, because they know I wouldn’t buy into it. What do you think, Ray?” I said, “That’s crazy. It would never work.” “Okay, write it up and take it down and tell Kissinger.” I did! Okay? Now…
POTUS 49:08
What year was that?
McGovern 49:10
This was a 75-76. So lots of stuff like that happened, but very few directors — the only one I know of, and I served under seven — the only one I know of was Bill Colby, who tried to rein in the operations people by giving us a little a little in on what was planned. Now, from the beginning, you mentioned that John Kennedy wanted to split the CIA, scatter it to the winds with 1000 pieces. Well, why do you want to do that? Because the CIA told him, Allen Dulles told him, that, “if they land on the Bay of Pigs, there’s going to be an insurrection. They hate Fidel Castro. They’ll throw them out, and the Communists will be gone from the Western hemisphere!” That’s what they told them. Now, John Kennedy had the presence of mind to ask a very imminent historian to look into the record. And also Schlesinger, who was working on contract at the time, told John Kennedy at the as a result of this research, he did that the operations people that was were being directed by Alan Dulles, never checked with the analysts in the analyst division to see if it were true that there was great discontent in Cuba and that the Cubans would rise and overthrow Castro. In a matter of fact, there were papers that the analysts had written saying this is never going to happen. It’s very, very popular. You know, if they knew there’s going to be a landing on the beach, they would have reported, this is crazy. It’s not going to work. So that’s why JFK wanted to split the CIA into 1000 pieces. And what I’m saying here is that so long as the operations people are not obliged to get some sort of reasonable take on what’s likely to happen as a result of this or that operation, Bangladesh maybe you know? Then the CIA is really a bifurcated thing, where the President can use it for whatever purse he wants. If he doesn’t want to chop from the analyst, it’s okay. That’s what Alan Dulles did. That’s what what Bill Colby tried not to do. And I can attest to that, because I was one on one with Bill Colby. He had a lot of guts. He revealed the family jewels, as you’ll remember, before the Church Committee in 1975 okay, what happened to Bill Colby? He died in a very, very curious canoe accident, which was never investigated properly. I can give you a chapter and verse. I was out of the country at the time, wasn’t my fault, but I give you a chapter and verse on the the little bit of investigation was done by an independent source. I believe that Bill Coby was guilty of revealing the family jewels and suffered the same fate as John F Kennedy before him.
52:24
You know, I’m still the president of the United States, right? And you just told me, Kennedy was killed by our people. You don’t mean that. You can’t tell me that… You, you-
McGovern 52:41
Well, Mr. President.
POTUS 52:42
You can’t, I’m just warning you, for your own good. You’re no road courtier here, we’re old guys. I’m just telling you, it’s more- if it ever were true, it’s more than the American people can handle. You know? It’s more than- they maybe they can handle that you bumped off the head of the CIA because he became a peacenik like you… that could happen. But you really believe Kennedy was killed because he, the Bay of Pigs and didn’t want to continue doing that? Ray McGovern, I’m putting you on the spot here. You really, oh, you can backtrack. You can take it back. And so we can end here. I don’t want to get you in trouble, you know, I understand.
McGovern 52:52
Mr. President, this book here, “JFK and the Unspeakable,” is what you really, really need to read sometime when you go into the beach in Rehoboth, it has chapter and verse. Suffice it to say that…
POTUS 53:47
Who wrote that book?
McGovern 53:49
James Douglass, Douglass with two s’s. It was just about 15 years old. Now most people who know about the JFK assassination consider this the Bible. Now it draws on all kinds of other other information. Now…
54:08
You’re sounding like Oliver Stone, an Oliver Stone movie or something. Is that-
McGovern 54:13
Well, Oliver was not far off, but this is much, much more recent that. But what I was trying to say here is that Donald Trump, one of your predecessors, knew that the legislation from Congress, the law required him to release the rest of the CIA and FBI documents having to do with the JFK assassination, okay? it was a date certain, okay? Trump got up in the morning and he said, “I’m going to release the rest of those documents as required by congressional law today.” What happened? He got up in the afternoon and said, and I quote, “I’ve talked to the CIA and to the FBI, and they say, ‘I can’t really do that just now,’ and so we’re going to defer to fifth decision on this for six months.” McGovern makes a little note in his calendar, check check on this in six months. What happened six months? Nothing. On his way out, President Trump talked to Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Napolitano said, “Mr. President, you made a promise when you came in, to me personally, that you would release those documents having to do with the JFK assassination.” I said, “Judge, what did he say?” Well, he said, “I can’t possibly do that, Ray… Can’t possibly do that, Judge Napolitano, but that’s so terrible. My God. I if you saw,” quote, “if you saw- if you read these things like I have read them, you would know why I could never, never release them.” Now, Mr. President, you’re president, now. You’re still president. You’re still president for five plus months. Read them! See if you have, see where your duty lies to protect the Constitution of the United States, to make sure that you and the White House are running things, and not some rogue agency empowered by law to do other things and really kind of unrestrained things, because no one exercises proper oversight.
POTUS 56:36
You know, Ray, I’m going to give you some advice. I’m sure you know this, because you were in the CIA, you know, for so long, you’ve been in so long. But I remember, not going to tell you who told me this, but when I started getting serious in politics, I heard, “Too good to check.” You know, we got an idea of how Kennedy died. That’s consistent with Americans stability, American greatness, American democracy, which we’re promoting throughout the world. And the idea that maybe our own secret agency, or some of them, has something to do with this dramatic change in America… …you go back and you open that, you open that, you open everything. And you lose- everybody thinks it’s the dollar that makes us strong. It’s strong, the dollar, the American dollar, that’s important part of our prosperity, I won’t kid you about that. But it’s our carrying hope, hope that we have the secret sauce for democracy. We know freedom. We have lived freedom. Yeah, we had slavery. Yeah, we had segregation. Yeah, we had some not so good wars. But the secret sauce of our power, our success is we hold keys to the democracy kingdom. Okay, now we can’t call it a kingdom, but we we are that. And I’m giving you a little bit of advice, you’re getting dangerously close to challenging that. That’s like challenging the the Old Testament, which you did a little bit today. You know that’s you can’t go there. Let’s just end this now. It’s getting a little unnerving, even though me- and I don’t think they’ll come after me after I’m in office. But who knows? You know? Who knows? Who knows? It’s kind of creepy. It’s creepy. I’ll give you that. It’s creepy. And you work right next door in that same building with all those creeps that messed up history, including that Bay of Pigs. Everything! They messed up history so much! It’s amazing how those guys can feel. They go on TV after and they sound like they got everything figured out and they made the whole mess! It’s unbelievable, you know?
McGovern 59:13
Mr. President, there’s a law, the National Security Act 1947 and it authorizes you to use the CIA in any way you would like to do that consistent with the purposes that you have in mind. In other words, it gives you a personal control of a Gestapo, let’s say the word pure and simple. Now, some presidents have used that in that way, and other presidents have overthrown governments, whether it’s Chile, whether it’s war in Iraq or war in Vietnam. So what I’m saying, Mr. President, is that you’re the guy, that the, what does it say? You…
POTUS 1:00:02
You left out, you left out Iran, which is what we were talking about before. It was that Kermit Roosevelt was that CIA they went in there- and they only did it because the British Secret Service wanted to do it because that guy, Mossadegh, the last so called Democrat they had there, the last secular person. He was going to nationalize the oil… This whole mess we got right now, you’re telling me could lead to nuclear war, all goes back to the CIA overthrowing this guy Mossadegh? What was that, 1953? Or something?
McGovern 1:00:19
Mossadegh, right.
POTUS 1:00:26
Mossadegh, yeah, what did I say? Did I not say Mossadegh? I had another slip. But why focus on- why focus on the slip? You know, I know what I’m talking about.
McGovern 1:00:48
Of course.
POTUS 1:00:49
Yeah, we, we threw that guy out, you know, and then we brought that Shah in. He was supposed to be a democratic guy, defines himself as a Shah of Shahs, leader of leaders. And then we say, “He’s now the democratic alternative.” And then we get the Ayatollah. We even look twice say, “Oh, maybe there’s not worth, maybe…” You know, remember, at the end, you guys didn’t even like the Shah! You’re starting to give him a hard time, because he spent all his money on all this war stuff and everything he didn’t have we, you know, we had to raise the price of oil. We didn’t like them at the end. So we got the Ayatollah! I don’t know, all the whole things sucked.
McGovern 1:01:27
I think the bottom line there, Mr. President, is why the Iranians don’t like us? Well, because they had one democratically elected leader in four millennia, okay? His name was Mossadegh, and he said, you know, “Hey, this oil we have under our ground here, maybe we should have a bigger share of the profits from that.” And he decided, as you have just said, to nationalize some of that oil. And the British took Allen Dulles by the shoulder and said, “Now look, you’re a young CIA, this is what you do when an upstart, like Mossadegh, starts to fool with oil belonging to British Petroleum, okay?” Took them about a year. They overthrew and the Shah came in with brutality not seen since Hitler’s regime in the 40s. So why do the Iranians not like us? Why? Why wonder? Well, that’s the history. Okay, why did they raid the US Embassy? Because they were afraid it’s going to happen again when Khomeini came in. So there are reasons for this. American people don’t know these things. They need to know them and you can use your bully puppet these next these next few…
POTUS 1:02:45
Oh, stop it. I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. I’m not committing suicide. I got, I got. I’m having enough trouble, enough trouble. I can’t tell you, Ray, I have enough trouble waking up in the morning, I have enough trouble… I mean, I’m in a shit hole here, and I’m not even sure how the hell it happened! If you believe Nancy Pelosi, maybe I didn’t even sign the goddamn thing. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. You know, they told me to party, and they told me, you know, I don’t want Trump. Trump will throw me in a slammer someday. You know, he’s angry with me because we try to throw him in a slammer! You know, he’s going to you think it’s… that was stupid! I didn’t even know we should do that. Why are we bringing all these felony charges against him, the guy? You know, my God, you know, ex-president, supposed to treat him with some respect, right? Because you’re going to be an ex- I’m going to be an ex president, right? Do I want somebody coming after me with all these felony charges? I took the- got some papers in my garage. I got this. I, damn me, who the hell knows what they find? And my son, man Hunter, he sees toast! If these guys win. I mean, they’re vindictive, but are they any more vindictive than we were? No, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ve been, you know, Jesus crisis, I have all… Enough, enough. I mean, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. And I hope you’re, you’re you’re, you’re, you’re, other guy there is telling Kamala something. She’s not a bad that person, you know, but she just doesn’t know a lot of this. And she’s naive, you know? I don’t know why I say that, but you know, she actually thinks you could, you know, be play footsie with Netanyahu. One thing I learned that guy, will do you in that guy, he… Obama, Obama hates him. That guy came to Congress and attacked the sitting president, huh? He hates him, right? You know that? No, yeah…
McGovern 1:04:08
Yeah.
POTUS 1:04:42
Alright, alright. Till next week there or whenever I see you again. I don’t know if I’m still alive, whatever… You know hang in there, Ray. You know, you’re a good guy. And the whole thing is, you know something! That gets in the way all the time. Every time I get briefed by somebody who knows something, it gets me all confused, the story of my life. It’s better not to know too much you ever think about that? You know, I’m better not to know too much. Yeah, yeah. Alright.
McGovern 1:05:09
I appreciate, I appreciate your willingness to listen, Mr. President, even for things that are strange. And…
POTUS 1:05:18
Just tell me, Ray, tip me off when they’re coming up for me, alright? I don’t want to, you know, remember Diem in there and Saigon? When you guys did them in? They no, nobody tipped them off. The guy was scurrying through the sewers of Saigon trying to save his ass. Diem. Diem, Ngo Dinh Diem, I remember, I got him. I’m not losing it at all. Ray, I’m not losing it all. They make this shit up. It’s too much to remember anyway! What good is it? Remember, you know, everything about some country. Then you guys overthrow well there went the whole knowledge. Did you guys kill Lumumba in Africa? Help screw up Africa?
McGovern 1:05:57
Well, you say you guys, all I know is that JFK was was really astonished and suspected the worst, and probably was able to find out the worst about what happened to Lumumba, I believe what you’re suggesting is what happened…
POTUS 1:06:18
We could go on further here… But that guy, he looked like he had a shot to be, you know, courageous guy there in Africa. What we did to f*ck up Africa- okay, I’m cursing again. I don’t want… Get that kid that cut this on the tapes! You know, that’s what got Nixon in trouble. He kept cursing all the time and putting down everybody in his tapes, you know? He wasn’t always like that. He met with all these people. All right. Ray, see you next whatever, if I have to, yeah, okay…
McGovern 1:06:49
Thanks for listening.
POTUS 1:06:51
Maybe we should make these things even early. I gotta go take a nap now, goddamn. It’s a hell of a thing. You know, I don’t know how you hold up that well, but I just, you know, shit!
McGovern 1:07:03
Thank you Mr. President
POTUS 1:07:03
You know what they say is that old age is not for sissies. You know, God damn it. Now, you know these other people, they’re no spring chickens, either there. Kamala, she looks good, but you know what, she’s 60 or something, now? I mean, I don’t know, that’s not- used to be considered old. Now it’s considered young. What do I know? Alright, you got all your marbles, Ray, I gotta admit. You know, sometimes I doubt myself, but you got them. You know, maybe you know, too much…. Knowledge gets in the way, Ray. I’ve seen that knowledge is, you know, stuff… …the whole mythology read, the more mythology collapses there. All right, take care. Yeah, thank you.
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Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27 years as a C.I.A. analyst included leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and conducting the morning briefings of the President’s Daily Brief. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer, publisher of ScheerPost and award-winning journalist and author of a dozen books, has a reputation for strong social and political writing over his nearly 60 years as a journalist. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications nationwide—he was Vietnam correspondent and editor of Ramparts magazine, national correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times—and his in-depth interviews with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and others made headlines. He co-hosted KCRW’s political program Left, Right and Center and now hosts Scheer Intelligence, an independent ScheerPost podcast with people who discuss the day’s most important issues.
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