Former military officials are cashing in by taking jobs with foreign governments that are hostile to
the United States. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joins me to talk about what's happening. This is
a really, really bothersome story. We're talking about admirals and generals while they're still on
the job working in the Mid East, actually working for Saudi Arabia, actually working for places like
Qatar. It's, it's incredible. And we're talking about big money. We're talking about these guys
are making millions of dollars. They take their training, they take everything we give them,
these admirals and these generals. I'm talking about, I'm talking about five star generals, four
star generals that are, that are doing this and, and just, it's a cash, it's a cash cow for 'em.
It, it is. You know, the report from the Washington Post shows that some of them are making
thousands of dollars a day plus benefits, plus living expenses, all to go over there. And most of
them, the majority of them have ended up working for Saudi Arabia. And what they're doing is
they're basically teaching them how to turn their military into the United States military. And
then they come back here, lobby the government, send them more weapons, send them more money,
because I get more money if I send them more. Any coincidence that these are the same people
on MSNBC and CNN churning up war? I mean, it's the same kind of faces.
It is. They're working for the Saudis,
they're working for the weapons industry. They're on MSNBC, they're on CNN, talking about the
glorious nature of war, the glorious nature of Saudi Arabia. These guys are punks. And I mean,
for us not to do any, and, and let, let's call names. I mean, first of all, security advisor
James, James Jones, he was the security advisor for Obama. So he's making, good God, millions
advising the Saudis, lobbying for the Saudis, telling the Saudis, if you want our weapons,
you gotta come through me. Telling the Saudis, if you want to train your guys to, to fly our F35s,
you gotta come to me. This is so wrong for so many standpoints and nobody's doing anything about it.
It, it is, And the biggest problem too is that technically these individuals are supposed to
report to the military if they're gonna go work for a foreign government. But if they forget to
tell the government. It's okay.
There, there is no punishment. There's literally no punishment on the books.
They couldn't punish them if they wanted to. So these retired people who spent 20, 30 years,
our tax dollars trained them, made them into what they are. They're saying, thanks, now I'm gonna
go help. I mean, in many cases, literally our enemies learn how to kill other people.
The, the average pay for a four star general working for Saudi Arabia is $200,000. Okay.
And what are they doing? All they're doing is buying access. They work for the weapons industry.
They're getting money from the weapons industry, and then they're getting weap, money from Saudi
Arabia. And then they're getting money to go on MSNBC and CNN and to tout how remarkable Saudi
Arabia is with their, what is it, $500 billion futuristic city that they're building. You,
you'd think, you'd think it's just, you'd think it's heaven there when you watch these guys on the
news, even though they know the same thing we do. They know the Saudi Arabia, that, that the Saudis
were responsible for killing 3000 Americans on US soil. They know that. They know the
royal family participated in that, made it happen. They know Khashoggi, they know the
Khashoggi story real well. They know everything about what a freak this dictator is. This punk
dictator that's, that's absolutely running Saudi Arabia with such an iron fist.
It's okay with them. Yeah. They, they're perfectly fine
working for a government that is killing people for tweeting, literally lopping their heads off,
you know, with, with a hundred other people. Killing political prisoners. An American in
Saudi Arabia just got sentenced to 16 years in jail for a tweet. And these people say,
that is perfectly fine with us because they're paying me hundreds of thousands of dollars to
make sure they get more military equipment. Now, okay, this is being done. Last week,
the Saudis just absolutely hustled Biden. Okay. Biden did everything he said he was
gonna do for them. They asked Biden, can you get us more weapons? He got it for 'em. Said,
Biden, if you get us more weapons and you get us more training in the United States, we're gonna
help you with oil. Then they turn around and do absolutely the opposite of what they tell Biden.
He was negotiating in good faith, basically trying to help our cause in the United States with,
in good faith. These guys knew that went on. And they know that they're playing an invisible
role here. Like nobody's paying attention. Have you seen this one time on television, one time?
I have not. No. No. I don't think anybody has because TV,
MSNBC, corporate media, they're the ones these guys appear to talk about the glorious nature of
war, the glorious nature of Ukraine, the glorious nature of Saudi Arabia. It's a disgusting story,
and it just, it just makes me sick to my stomach that politicians aren't paying attention to this.
Progressives are on the hunt for new candidates to replace the very few,
but very old real progressive leaders in Washington. You know, before we came on the set,
I said, I can’t think of anybody that I want to replace, that I would want to put in that slot.
Give me some names. I mean, we’re talking about, we’re talking about Bernie quality.
Yeah. We’re talking about Elizabeth Warren
kind of quality candidate. What do you think? Well, you know, we, we’ve talked a lot about
just the aging problem with the Democratic party, but on the actual progressive side,
yeah, we’ve got two people. Bernie’s 81, she’s in her early seventies. They’re kind of aged out
and people understand that. They’re not gonna run again in 2024, and honestly they shouldn’t.
No. Bernie Sanders at 83 should
not run. Love the guy, but it, it’s not happening. So the question is, who carries the torch? Who is
out there actually fighting against corporations, fighting for workers? A couple names to me come to
mind. Katie Porter out in California. Mm-hmm.
She is. You, you really like her.
I really like Katie Porter. Every time you talk about
Katie Porter, you light up. Okay. I, I am just absolutely loving Katie
Porter because you watch her on the House floor during these hearings, taking on
these CEOs better than anybody I’ve seen. Yeah. That’s what, she’s smart, isn’t she?
Yeah. I mean, and, and she’s
not afraid. She, she’s, you know, obviously when she takes on these big corporations,
they dry up money to her, but she doesn’t seem to be afraid of that. Anybody else you can think of?
Possibly Ro Khanna. He’s actually also from California.
Mm-hmm. He actually served as kind of Bernie’s right
hand man during his 2020 presidential campaign. Mm-hmm.
So he’s very much like Bernie. He’s got baggage. You know, we actually brought him up recently
talking about the insider trading stuff. Right, right, right.
His wife, his family. So. It’s a pretty ugly story.
That’s what, that’s what turns me off about him now. But, Katie Porter, I, I’ve, I’ve dug,
I’ve dug, I’ve dug, I don’t see the baggage. She’s not somebody that the
conservative media’s been out there trashing for years, which is a problem that the squad has.
Yeah. They’ve been so tarnished by right wing media,
I don’t think they could have broad appeal. Whether, you know, I, I, as I watch the squad.
And, and I like them. I do. I do, I, I, they do some good things.
Yeah. I don’t know whether they just
don’t do it right or whether the media is just so set and, and, and they don’t, you know, corporate
media does not like progressives. I mean. Right.
They may act like they do. You may watch MSNBC and you may say they really have kinship with
progressives. They don’t. We’ve, we’ve.
There’s no. We know firsthand behind
the scenes stuff they hate progressives at MSNBC. Yeah. I did MSNBC, as you know, for a long time,
you were one of the producers that worked with me when I’d made, I’d make, I’d be on a couple
times a week and they’d rarely let you tell the story. So for us to believe that progressives,
progressives have an easy run with media and that they’re gonna support, that’ll be the problem with
Katie Porter, won’t it? Yeah. It.
The problem will be they will do everything they can to dis, to discredit her.
Right. But actually too, if you look at Katie Porter’s voting record, she does have a
very, a moderate coming across voting record. Okay.
So she doesn’t, she’s not super extreme, but the fact that she
takes on corporate power and does advocate for workers, the working class, consumers,
that’s the kind of thing we need. And, and in her mold, we could bring more people in that way.
Yeah. Maybe we can ask as people watch this, you send in your comments, give, give us some ideas.
Yeah. We need more names. We’ll, we will, we need a lot.
We need more than just Katie Porter. We need a lot more names. Farron, thank
you for joining me. Okay. Thank you.
That’s all for this week. But all these segments are gonna be available this coming
week right here on this channel and you can follow us on Twitter @AmericasLawyer.
I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer, where every week we
tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers
won’t let ’em and their political connections don’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.