461 - The Silencing Of Charlie Kirk
63 min
•Sep 13, 20257 months agoSummary
Tim Dillon and Max Blumenthal discuss the assassination of Charlie Kirk, exploring the political pressures Kirk faced from Israeli billionaire donors and the Israel lobby after he began questioning U.S.-Israel policy. Blumenthal presents claims from Trump administration sources suggesting Kirk feared for his life and that there may be more to the official narrative of his death.
Insights
- Charlie Kirk's shift toward questioning Israeli influence in U.S. politics created a direct conflict with major donors and political figures who had built and controlled his organization (TPUSA)
- The Israel lobby's control over Republican politics operates through financial leverage, media ownership, and coordinated pressure campaigns against dissenting voices
- Younger Republicans (under 35) have dramatically shifted away from supporting Israel, creating grassroots pressure that forced Kirk to give platform to Israel critics at TPUSA events
- Multiple Trump administration insiders reportedly believe the official narrative of Kirk's death is incomplete, suggesting broader geopolitical implications
- Israel's urgency to secure U.S. military support for Iran regime change appears tied to a narrow window of opportunity with Trump and concerns about declining global influence
Trends
Generational divide in Republican support for Israel: only 25% of Republicans under 35 now support Israel over PalestineIsrael lobby's shift to media ownership consolidation (CBS, potential Warner Bros acquisition) as traditional political control weakensRise of anti-Zionist voices within Jewish communities and libertarian/conservative movements challenging AIPAC's monopolyIncreased scrutiny of Jeffrey Epstein's Israeli intelligence connections and pressure to suppress related filesCoordinated suppression of Palestine advocacy through AIPAC-funded stealth PACs and media campaignsTrump administration insiders expressing fear of Israeli leverage and potential threats to presidential securityAcceleration of Gaza ethnic cleansing plans and Iran military planning tied to Trump administration timelineGrowing distrust of official narratives around high-profile political deaths among Washington insiders
Topics
Charlie Kirk assassination and official narrative questionsIsraeli influence in U.S. Republican politics and TPUSAAIPAC lobbying and campaign finance controlIsrael-Palestine conflict and Gaza ethnic cleansingIran regime change military planningJeffrey Epstein Israeli intelligence connectionsMedia ownership consolidation by pro-Israel figuresGenerational shift in Republican Israel supportTrump administration security concerns and Israeli surveillanceBen Shapiro and Mark Levin as Israel lobby enforcersMiriam Adelson and billionaire donor influenceTPUSA youth movement and grassroots Israel criticismCBS News editorial control and Barry Weiss appointmentAnti-Zionist organizing within conservative movementsU.S.-Israel military aid and strategic alignment
Companies
The Grey Zone
News outlet founded by Max Blumenthal; published viral article about Charlie Kirk's final days and pressures
Turning Point USA (TPUSA)
Charlie Kirk's youth organization; central to discussion of Israel lobby control and generational political shifts
AIPAC
Israel lobby organization; described as controlling Congress and running coordinated campaigns against dissenting pol...
CBS News
Media outlet targeted for acquisition/control by pro-Israel figures including Barry Weiss and Ellison
Newsmax
News network where Netanyahu denied Israeli involvement in Kirk's death; described as Israel-controlled
Fox News
Platform where Netanyahu blamed Muslims for Charlie Kirk's killing
InfoWars
Pro-Trump outlet where Harrison Smith reported Kirk's fears about Israeli threats
Palantir
Security company that Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak competed against with their own ventures
Elliott Capital Management
Vulture capital firm run by Paul Singer; described as funding campaigns against Israel-critical politicians
Hudson Institute
Neoconservative think tank where Keith Weissman worked before becoming CBS News ombudsman
Harvard University
Institution where Bill Ackman pulled funding over Palestine activism
Warner Brothers
Media company that pro-Israel figures are reportedly attempting to acquire
Paramount
Media company owned by pro-Israel figures seeking to expand media control
Newsweek
Publication where Joshua Hammer works as Zionist propagandist debating Israel critics
Boston Consulting Group
Firm where Benjamin Netanyahu worked before his political career
People
Max Blumenthal
Journalist and editor-in-chief of The Grey Zone; author of viral article about Charlie Kirk's final pressures
Charlie Kirk
TPUSA founder assassinated; subject of discussion regarding Israel lobby pressure and political threats
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister; described as personally calling Kirk, placing surveillance devices, and controlling U.S. policy
Miriam Adelson
Israeli billionaire donor; described as controlling Trump administration and funding campaigns against Israel critics
Donald Trump
U.S. President; described as fearing Israeli leverage and being manipulated on Iran policy
Ben Shapiro
Conservative media figure; described as Zionist enforcer who attacked Kirk days before his death
Mark Levin
Conservative media figure; described as Zionist enforcer and Netanyahu lobbyist
Tucker Carlson
Fox News host; gave speech at TPUSA summit questioning Israel's influence and citizenship of Israeli military volunteers
Bill Ackman
Billionaire investor and Netanyahu donor; pulled Harvard funding over Palestine activism
Paul Singer
Billionaire vulture capitalist; described as controlling Marco Rubio and funding anti-Israel-critic campaigns
Ehud Barak
Former Israeli PM and defense minister; worked with Jeffrey Epstein on security company ventures
Jeffrey Epstein
Financier with alleged Israeli intelligence connections; files suppressed under Trump administration
Barry Weiss
Pro-Israel media figure; being installed at CBS News to control editorial direction
Kash Patel
FBI head; criticized for inability to investigate Charlie Kirk's death despite other responsibilities
Cory Bush
Congresswoman kicked out by AIPAC-funded campaign for Palestine advocacy
Jamal Bowman
Congressman defeated by AIPAC's $20 million campaign for Palestine advocacy
Thomas Massey
Congressman targeted by Adelson and Singer-funded campaign for Israel criticism
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Congresswoman; mentioned as safer in her district but targeted for Israel criticism
Anya Parenpil
Co-author with Max Blumenthal of article about Charlie Kirk's final pressures
Dave Smith
Libertarian comedian and Jewish anti-Zionist; debated Israel policy at TPUSA summit
Quotes
"I don't understand how after witnessing that murder, you could be gleefully celebrating this attack. I think you're at a very bad place spiritually, you know, in your life if you're celebrating the murder of a person like that."
Tim Dillon•Opening segment
"You don't have to agree with someone to not enjoy their murder. This guy's life was ended, his family was shattered. This is inhumane."
Tim Dillon•Early discussion
"Charlie Kirk was going to advance that for them in exchange. He'd be built up as like the biggest conservative youth leader in history."
Max Blumenthal•Background on Kirk
"Netanyahu personally called him and offered to basically fund his organization to new levels that he never even imagined, which meant Zionist, Israeli takeover, complete recapture of TPUSA."
Max Blumenthal•Discussion of pressure
"With Trump, there are simply no red lines. And after having demonstrated in Gaza that they could get away with anything they wanted, Netanyahu sees that this is the last moment before Trump leaves the stage where he can get everything he wants."
Max Blumenthal•Iran war discussion
Full Transcript
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dillon Show. We have an interview this episode with Max Blumenthal, who wrote an article in the gray zone with Trump insiders talking about where Charlie Kirk was mentally in the last few weeks and months of his life and the things he was feeling and the pressure he was under. I didn't know Charlie. I'd never met him. I knew people that knew him well. Everybody liked him, both people I know on the Democratic side liked him and people on the Republican side obviously liked him. But, you know, that was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen in my life. The man is a husband, a father. Even if he wasn't, he's a human being. He's sitting there. He's engaging in conversations with people and he was brutally murdered in front of his wife and children. I'm not a sanctimonious guy. I dressed up as a dead healthcare CEO on Netflix. I'm not someone who is out there being a purveyor of good taste, but I just don't understand how after witnessing that murder, you could be gleefully celebrating this attack. I think you're at a very bad place spiritually, you know, in your life if you're celebrating the murder of a person like that. I mean, again, this wasn't, you know, a lot of what I do on the program, we make fun of the news. We make fun of what's happening. A lot of it's dark comedy. So I don't go out there and police people's reactions or tell them what to say, but if that's the first reaction you have to that video is to celebrate this or, I mean, you can't be doing great. You can't be doing great. If you, you know, if you're celebrating the murder of this man, I don't think you're at a good place in your life. And, you know, I, like I said, I saw the video I watched at one time, I would not rewatch it, I found it to be, I didn't know what I was watching. I was on a plane to Austin with Louis actually, and he was doing shows down there. And I saw this video and I was like, it was maybe the worst thing I had ever seen, you know, when I picked up my phone, it was unbelievable. And a lot of people I know, you know, people that I'm, you know, in their orbit comedically or for whatever reason were, you know, I understand people trying to be funny about terrible things. I understand failed attempts at making things funny. I've had them myself, I get it. But the, some people, the joy, the glee, the delight in this man's assassination, again, I don't understand how you can look at his wife who's collapsing in front of his casket, who's crying where the children are asking where their father is. I cannot get to that place where I can understand enjoying that. And it scares me that there's a lot of people that are there. And people that I kind of, you know, kind of somewhat know, not close friends, but like people that I am aware of and, you know, kind of, you know, I've worked with and know from the life that I've lived. Like I had disagreements with Charlie Kirk, some substantive ones. I have disagreements with most people. I don't, you do not have to agree with someone to not enjoy their murder. This is something that should be obvious. You don't have to agree with someone to not delight in their murder. This guy's life was ended, his family was shattered. This is a, this is, it's inhumane. And I understand that this is what's going to happen inevitably to people as the country drifts into this kind of schizophrenic fever dream where nothing is real and people are, you know, living online and they're radicalized and everyone's an enemy and everybody's dehumanizing them. And everybody feels for whatever reason that this type of thing is justified. And it's only, it's a terrible omen for the future of America if people think that a guy who's willing to sit at a campus and engage in debate with students should be assassinated. I can't understand that. That's not something that I'm open to understanding. I think it's a pathology. I don't think it's a political point of view when someone's head is blown off in front of their children and for someone to say, oh, good. It's not a political point of view. That's kind of a deeply destructive pathology. And I don't think that, you know, I understand again, people trying to make a horrible situation funny and failing and saying, doing things that are in bad taste, I've done them myself, I get it. That's not really what I'm talking about here. That's not what I saw that was the most disturbing. What I saw that was the most disturbing was the complete delight and joy in seeing someone cut down like that. I don't agree with a lot of the people that run the state that I'm sitting in right now. It's California. I feel they've been incredibly destructive to my living in the sense that like, I think they've ruined large swaths of the most beautiful state in the union. I think their policies have driven business out of the state. They've increased crime and I agree with their policies on some things, right? Like I'm pro-choice, I'm pro gay marriage, I'm pro, you know, on a lot of the social issues, I have kind of a libertarian view. So like states like New York and California, I'll agree with them on certain things and then on other things, you know, I don't agree with them, right? I don't agree with like, you know, like pick a gender day in preschool or whatever's happening. Like obviously there's things that I don't agree with at all and I would never want any of the people that I disagree with to die. I would never want any of the people who I politically disagree with on any issue to be shot in front of their children. You know, I don't understand. I think you're at a place in your life. If you're enjoying that, you're at a very bad place in your life. You're not at a good place in your life. I mean, that's all I can say. I cannot, I don't know many well-adjusted, happy people with their own children, their own partner, wife, whatever, girlfriend, boyfriend, a dog you like. I mean, anything, anything that you love or care about, I can't imagine someone with that type of life seeing that guy's body tense up and then, and slumped down watching the last moments of his life and gleefully celebrating it. It just to me is I don't understand. I can't, I was looking at some of these things kind of shocked. And again, I'm not a sanctimonious guy. I'm not a guy that like, I'm not a guy that like is offended by much. I'm almost offended by almost nothing, not nothing, but when you're a person who's done comedy for years and you've been in this fucking world for years on the internet, you can't really be, you know, sensitive. It doesn't work. It's not, you know, it's a, it would be the death now for whatever you wanted to do in any type of public life. If you were sensitive or if you internalized everything or took everything to heart. I mean, that being said, when you see somebody, you know, treating this like it's Christmas or, you know, you know, some of the reactions I've seen are from people that are deeply, deeply, deeply. I guess depressed or they've become, they feel hopeless or helpless and they're reacting in a kind of, in a state of rage and they're not, and in that they're denying their humanity and they're not thinking about things like a human being. I understand not liking someone. I understand thinking their policies make your life harder. I understand having fundamental disagreements with people, fundamental disagreements, by the way, not like little things. I understand that there's people in my life I have fundamental disagreements with on major issues, big issues, and I still remain friends with them because I believe that humanity is incredibly important, you know, and that people respect the fact that people are human beings that come from different places, have different belief systems, have different faiths, have different ways of doing things. And, you know, when, when, in Charlie Kirk was not a crazy extremist, he made inflammatory statements. A lot of people make inflammatory statements, but if you listen to the context and a lot of what he said, the guy was not like a psychopath. He had a definite belief system that, you know, he sat down and talked to people about, I don't, if you're for the assassination of that person, I can't quite get into your head. I said this in 2020 when people were talking about the need for violence, not only protests, violence. And I said, this goes to a terrible place. If you stop having conversations, if you stop debating people, if you stop listening to people, or if you stop, you know, America doesn't have to be any one thing. That's why there's 50 states and people that live in San Francisco don't necessarily have to agree with people who live in Maryland or people who live in Texas or people who live in Wyoming. There are 50 state legislatures, 50 governors, you know, there's a reason and different states need different things, value different things, whatever. You know, I just can't see the value in celebrating someone's death. I mean, whenever there's a weapon, number one, everybody uses it. So anybody celebrating this, it will come for you, it will come for someone on your side eventually. I don't understand, but I don't think people are thinking about that. I think it's the raw visceral feeling that someone that they viewed negatively's life was cut short and they're enjoying that. And it really is, it's fucked up. The interview we're doing is actually really disturbing. It's one of the more disturbing ones that I've done. And it's a viral article that is going viral after this. And it's trying to, again, it doesn't suggest that Charlie Kirk was murdered by Israel, but this article, which is going viral, is a disturbing portrait of a lot of the pressures that not only Charlie, but other people were under. And another thing I just wanna say, and before I go, because I know it's not like, I mean, if I had a dispute with DoorDash and Kash Patel was investigating it, would I get the credit? Would I get the DoorDash? Would I get the DoorDash credit? If Kash Patel was tasked with an investigation, would I get the DoorDash credit? Or would I not? I imagine I would not. I imagine if there was a discrepancy on a DoorDash order, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, would not be able to secure my credit of $11.90. What is this guy doing? I mean, this, the guy that did this to Charlie's, his parents turned him in. I mean, what is, what could Kash Patel run? This is kind of an interesting question. What organization could Kash Patel run? Credibly, I don't know. Anyway, Max Blumenthal. Max Blumenthal, editor-in-chief of The Grey Zone, thank you very much for coming on. You wrote an article that's going viral. You wrote it with your wife, Anya Parenpil, about, you know, obviously a horrific event that happened in Utah. And you were describing, you know, first-hand accounts of things that Charlie had told his close friends in the weeks leading up to his death. And a lot of it concerned the pressure that was being put on him by Israeli billionaires for questioning some of the things happening in Gaza and then as well some of the new anti-Semitism laws. And how did you put together this story? I mean, I know you don't ask a journalist to reveal their sources, but how exactly do you compile this piece? Well, just to answer your question, before I get into the piece, I have been following Charlie Kirk for 10 years since almost soon after he started TPUSA when he was a teenager. And I was following him as a critic or an opponent. I saw him as this kind of very hard-working, highly articulate, sort of like superhuman, ultra-conservative operative that the Israel lobby had basically hijacked and they were using him to create the biggest Republican or conservative youth movement in history, TPUSA, and use it to advance Israel's program in the US alongside all of the kind of conservative social issues he wanted to push and recruit the youth and train them and make sure that they stayed completely aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel. And these billionaire donors, they're American, but they're loyal to Israel primarily and they actually don't care about issues like abortion or LGBTQ or maybe some of them don't like mass immigration because they think immigrants might turn against Israel. But their issue is Israel and Charlie Kirk was going to advance that for them in exchange. He'd be built up as like the biggest conservative youth leader in history. So I've been following him for 10 years. I have no reason to say anything. Obviously I was horrified by his killing and I think it's a terrible omen for this country, but I have no reason to say anything positive about him or to think that he was anything less than a complete cadre for the Israel lobby. And they basically owned him, they basically controlled him and he started to move away. And I was hearing about, just to tell you about how this kind of, this article came into being, I was hearing about this before he was killed that something through the grapevine, I mean, I grew up in Washington, I've been in the city so people talk and honestly, even though I more from the left, people from the Trump administration and around the Trump administration talk more to us than the Biden administration did. They talk more to alternative media. So I was hearing about the pressure that Charlie Kirk was under in the months before he was killed. This was not unfamiliar to me. And so I decided to go back to some sources that we had and ask what was, for more details. Well, even as somebody who you were a political opponent of his, I do, it's obvious, seeing a lot of people gleefully celebrating his vicious murder, obviously, you don't have to agree with someone to not delight in their murder. I mean, this is, I've been surprised, friends of mine, people that I know, and their reactions to this have actually shocked me and shaken me a little bit. I wanna get back to this turn that he makes. Do you have a time stamp on when he's starting to question really Israeli influence in American domestic politics? Cause I'm reading your article and you talk about your source is talking about Charlie kind of starting to question the amount of influence that Israel has in US, not only domestic politics, but foreign politics as well. Do you put this right around the time that we attack Iran? Is this before that? Is this after that? What do you know about his progression? Let me just close a window here cause I have some noise coming in. He never comes back. So yeah, this is the outcome. So this is what actually one of the most fascinating stories I've witnessed in American politics. It could be the theme of a film or a documentary or a book. Charlie Kirk began coming under pressure from his own base. I would say, I actually forgot what year it was, but it was like three or four years ago and it was called the Groper Wars. And Charlie Kirk would do these TPUSA tours around the country and young men would file in and they would, you get to question Charlie Kirk and debate him and they hit him from an angle he never expected. They were from this organization called the Gropers which sort of follows Nick Fuentes, they're anti-Israel, they're kind of anti-Jewish. Some people call them white nationalists, whatever you wanna call them, they're very anti-Israel they believe they're the true voice of America first because the US government has fallen under the control of this malign foreign power in Israel. And so they would confront Charlie Kirk with the history of, for example, the USS Liberty, the US naval ship that was deliberately struck by the Israeli military in the 1967 war in order to cripple that boat because it was a surveillance boat. It was listening to Israeli communications and they killed scores of sailors and they would confront Charlie Kirk with the difference between Israeli interests and American interests while holding up a cross and Charlie Kirk would just shut down the conversation because he knew that if he would give an inch to them it would threaten the relationship with his donors and TPUSA would collapse. Now after October 7th, the pressure was just too extreme. The whole grassroots of the conservative movement, everyone under 35, started to question the US-Israel relationship because they wanted to be America first and they saw Netanyahu just leading Trump around by the balls, they saw Miriam Adelson, this Israeli intelligence asset billionaire just calling shots inside the White House and a lot of them are pro-life and were horrified by the slaughter of babies that they saw in Gaza. So the bottom dropped out of right wing youth support for Israel to the point where now only about 25% of Republicans under 35 support Israel over Palestine. So Charlie Kirk has to answer to his own grassroots base and you can hear he's starting to make some noises. He's talking about October 7th, possibly being an inside job, Israel let it happen in order to carry out long-term political goals. He starts to question whether Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli Mossad agent at a time when Epstein, Epstein files were becoming an uncomfortable issue for Trump and it all blew out into the open at TPUSA's July Youth Summit in, I believe it was Tampa, Florida, you had it in Tallahassee. Yeah, Tucker gave the speech. Right. Right. So Tucker gave a speech, I mean, that was the seminal moment, but it wasn't just Tucker, Megan Kelly had started questioning Israel and she's on stage calling Jeffrey Epstein a Mossad agent with Charlie. Comic Dave Smith, who like myself is a Jewish anti-Zionist, but he more comes from kind of the libertarian world. So he was welcomed on stage to debate a Zionist propagandist who works for Newsweek, Joshua Hammer, debate. No, that's not something you want, especially at this point, if you are like a pro-Israel enforcer. And Dave Smith was openly talking about the slaughter of children in Gaza and the crowd was cheering in this cathartic way. Then Tucker comes out, says, you should have your citizenship yanked if you fight for a foreign army. All right, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of American Jewish youth go to Israel and fight for their army instead of our own. So that's a direct blow to not just the Israel lobby, but like the whole concept of Jewish communal life as it's understood by its leadership. Then Tucker calls out Bill Ackman, who's one of the biggest Netanyahu money men inside the US who's pulling strings at Harvard, getting their funding pulled unless they crack down on Palestine activism. And he calls him a scam artist and said, how did he make $9 billion? Like where did it come from? I mean, and Bill Ackman, the next day, he couldn't really answer the question. He published like a 5,000 word meltdown Twitter post trying to defend his financial investments. It was just bonkers. I'd never seen anything like it. And it was all Charlie Kirk's fault for sanctioning, for giving basically the people what they wanted. And after that, he started getting publicly attacked, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, the two biggest Zionist enforcers in the media who are very close to Netanyahu, biggest forces lobbying Trump to wage war on Iran, went off on TPUSA, said we can't be having a big 10 if it includes KUKS, Laura Loomer. We all know who she is. She publicly attacked Charlie Kirk and said he basically had to step down. He was getting attacked in pro-Israel media. What we didn't know, which I learned is in private, the pressure was even more intense. He was being bombarded with text messages. And at some point, Netanyahu personally called him and offered to basically fund his organization to new levels that he never even imagined, which meant Zionist, Israeli takeover, complete recapture of TPUSA, an organization they basically helped create. And Charlie Kirk turned him down. Now, after Charlie Kirk was killed, we know Netanyahu wouldn't stop posting about him. Like minutes after he was killed, when his body was still warm, Netanyahu was posting about him, interrupting his seven front war in the Middle East and his global assassination spree, where he's trying to kill people even inside a US ally in Qatar. Can you remember any time that in the history of a political assassination, that the leader of a foreign government has come out to deny that they were behind it? I mean- I've never seen anything like that. Right, I mean, yeah. I mean, it was, so Netanyahu has to ultimately deny that Israel was involved in an interview on Newsmax with Greta Van Susteren. Newsmax is another institution that Israel controls. Its CEO, Chris Ruddy, was just in Israel with Netanyahu, basically shining his shoes in public. So Netanyahu goes there and says, this is like, to accuse us of killing Charlie Kirk or having a role in this, is like a medieval blood libel and the Holocaust. And when Netanyahu says that, it probably leads some Gentiles to wonder if there was something to those blood libels. I mean, when someone that sleazy and that blood soaked links innocent Jews to the murderous campaign that Israel's carrying out, it's actually bad for the Jews when he says that. But I've never seen anything like this. And I've never seen anything like what Netanyahu was doing relating to a tragedy or a crime in the United States since 9 11. Netanyahu blamed Muslims for Charlie Kirk's killing explicitly on Fox News. He was trying to milk it as much as he could, but it blew back on him because he's become a prime suspect. But after 9 11, Netanyahu said in comments widely reported in Israeli media, you can look this up. He said 9 11 was good for Israel. And it's the same way that he saw Charlie Kirk's killing as being good for Israel. He thought he could, he actually probably thought a Muslim was responsible. And he thought he could blame the left and the Palestine solidarity movement and get them shut down by the FBI. And so in a way, he was kind of thrilled by what had happened. And that fuels the speculation, but the real issue was as we learned from a longtime friend of Charlie Kirk who had spoken to him, I would say a week or two before he was killed about this, he was afraid of Netanyahu and he was afraid of these billionaire cutouts of Netanyahu who had many of whom had funded his organization. So let me ask you a question. What would he be afraid of? I mean, obviously, you know, you have an organization that's well funded by people that expect something for their money, right? They're not giving it to you for free. Did you get the feeling that he was only afraid of reputational damage or, you know, losing money or did his fears extend to his life? Well, that's what Harrison Smith who is a personality at Info Wars, pro-Trump outlet has said based on a source he spoke to. I don't know him, I don't know what source he spoke to, but he said this on August 13th. So almost a month before Charlie Kirk was killed, he said, Charlie Kirk fears that Israel will kill him if he continues ahead, providing space in the largest conservative youth organization in American history, which is the institutional grassroots apparatus of Trump and the Republican Party for Israel critics and even anti-Zionists. So I didn't say that. I don't have, there's, I see, I can't see any hard material evidence that Israel had him killed, but there's this fear when you go against the Israel lobby and you're that powerful. And it's a fear that I've been told Donald Trump shares. I've been told that by several Trump insiders. My next question is, does the president of the United States fear for his life? Yes, yes. I mean, obviously he fears for his life. And I was told that he feared for his life before the two assassination attempts, one coming within a millimeter of striking his head. I mean, let's not forget about that. But I mean, just to clarify, he doesn't fear for his life because of Ireland. I mean, I've been told, yes, that Israel is a major source of concern for Trump. I mean, think about it. What would happen if it was just, if he suspended arms to a country that carries out assassinations all across the globe that specializes in assassinations that has an entire wing of its intelligence services that conducts assassinations, including with household goods like pagers, would you not be scared? So yes, Trump is scared. And what I learned from this source, who is a Trump insider, someone who talks to the, who has, you know, who talks to people in the Oval Office, people close to Trump, is that during one of Netanyahu's many visits to the US this year, some figures in his retinue Israeli agents placed electronic devices on emergency response secret service vehicles. The secret service found them and they reported this to the White House. You know, these would be emergency response vehicles that would respond to an incident potentially involving the president. All right, you, some people watching this might be dismissing me as crazy right now. And I wasn't able to confirm this. I can't just call up the secret service and have them tell me that. But in 2019, three former high ranking US officials from the Trump administration told Politico that listening devices were found around the White House and at sensitive locations across Washington targeting President Trump. They wanted to listen to his calls and communications and they were planted by Israel. That's, you just go look that up while I'm speaking right now. Boris Johnson, the former Israeli Prime Minister wrote in his memoirs that Benjamin Netanyahu asked to use his bathroom, his personal toilet and that British security found a listening device planted in his personal toilet immediately after Netanyahu left. So Netanyahu himself dropped a listening device in the British prime minister's toilet. Like never let Netanyahu take a dump at your house. Let me ask you a question. In your estimation, why do things like this not damage relations between the US and Israel more or the UK and Israel? When an ally is found to be, and everybody spies on everybody, but when you are putting a listening device in the prime minister's bathroom or you're putting reportedly putting tracking devices on secret service emergency response vehicles, where is the fallout from that? Is there any diplomatic fallout from that? Exactly, yeah. I mean, think of all the things Israel does. Israel is seeking to drag the US into a all out war with Iran. Where's the fallout from that? The fallout is among the people. It's among the young people who watch your show, who follow social media, who know what's, don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Like they're paying attention and they have almost no power in this country on this issue because of Israel's ethno supremacist bribery network known as APAC, which controls Congress with a hammerlock. Look at like two of the few voices in Congress who spoke out about these issues. Marjorie Bush, sorry. Cory Bush was kicked out. And Jamal Bowman kicked out. But APAC spent almost $20 million. And they were like backbenchers. Like their own campaigns, they probably spent like $100,000. And they spent $20 million, like Super Bowl style ads against them. And none of the ads even mentioned Israel once. And they come up with these fake stealth packs, like Americans for democracy in their district. So you don't even know it's an APAC ad. And now they're going after Thomas Massey. And Marjorie Taylor Green. Yeah, okay. Marjorie Taylor Green is safer in her district, but who is paying for the campaign against Thomas Massey? It's Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer. Paul Singer is another ultra Zionist billionaire who is basically like Marco Rubio's pimp. He owns Marco Rubio. He's a vulture capitalist who runs Elliott Capital Management. And he's very involved in Venezuela as well. So these guys are running the show. So let me ask you a question. Trump is elected 2024. Miriam Adelson is a huge donor, among others, right? Bill Atkins is another big donor. Is the understanding, we gave you a bunch of money, you're going to let us do anything we want. And is there kind of a veiled threat that, you know, spoken or unspoken, that hangs in the air around Epstein in your estimation? And the Epstein files and the nature of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein potentially and Israeli intelligence, what exactly, how does that factor into what we're seeing now with shaping a narrative? It seems like that lobby is losing control of the narrative quickly, certainly with younger people, but with a lot of people. The rise of independent media, the sheer audacity with which that, you know, APAC and people like that are behaving, Netanyahu. What role do you think, uncovering the truth about Epstein plays in the fear in the White House? Are they afraid to release this stuff? Are they implicated in this stuff? Is it both? And was this something where it was understood that they were there to extend the cover up? What do you think this is? Well, Trump has personally said that he's concerned about all of the files and the names of clients being released or not necessarily clients, but associates, because it will smear some very good people. I mean, he said that on the record and he thinks he's one of them. He was very closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein. And this was the first time I've ever seen the Teflon Don get his mystique actually broken. It was all over Jeffrey Epstein, but it's not just about Jeffrey Epstein or one man. I think it's dangerous to go too far down the rabbit hole on Jeffrey Epstein, but we do need to acknowledge there was a strong Israeli connection there. Jeffrey Epstein was working with Ehud Barak, former Israeli prime minister, defense minister, most decorated soldier in Israeli history on spinning out a series of security companies that were going to compete with the big time, the big leaguers like Palantir. Barak was at his townhouse over 50 times. He had met with Shimon Peres, former Israeli prime minister. He had met with Ehud Olmert, former prime minister. He'd set up meetings between J.P. Morgan and Benjamin Netanyahu. And he was a pro-Israel guy who was close to Alan Dershowitz too, who was considered Israel's propaganda lawyer. So Jeffrey Epstein is a stand-in for everything that frustrates people, especially younger people in this country about this two-tiered legal and political system where there's a class of 0.1%ers who exist completely above the law, who are molesting people and carrying out all sorts of sorted financial crimes and bribery and manipulating institutions, buying CBS news and propagandizing the public in support of a genocide. It's sort of like Jeffrey Epstein perfectly embodies the most disgusting specter or figure of this entire network that we have been sort of forbidden from talking about for so many years. And now, I mean, it's like, as long as there isn't apartheid Israel, we're going to be waking up every day on social media and seeing images of shredded children. And our legislatures are going to be filled with bills that will prevent us from doing anything about it. So the frustration only continues to build as Donald Trump seems to block the release of the Epstein files. Did you notice? This is so crazy. On the day Charlie Kirk was shot. And I mean, take this out if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. So Senate. I know what you're about to say. They voted, right? The Senate voted to not release the Epstein files and it was like a straight party line vote. Yeah. This is not good for American. No one paid attention. This is not good for American Jews. A lot of my Jewish friends are not, they want Netanyahu out. They think that they've made a wrong turn, obviously, in the years after October 7th. What do you think the temperature is like right now between the Trump administration and Israel? Is this an unbreakable bond that is being enforced by a fear, a mutually assured destruction? What, how would you, what is the likelihood of us going into Iran again? What is the likelihood of us doubling down? I mean, there's a huge project now or will be a very huge construction project, I believe in Gaza. I mean, they're, they're, they're moving people out of Gaza. They're going to build a new Gaza. Is the United States going to be providing peacekeeping for, is it going to be NATO peacekeeping forces? Is it going to be U.S. contractors? Can be boots on the ground? Are we going to be funding it? What do you know about what's coming next? What's the next phase of what happens there? Well, with Gaza, it's not a construction project. It's a destruction project. Well, right, but it will be eventually. I mean, they're going to, they're trying to move them out to do something. Right. They're trying to move them out to, in what they call in Israel, judiize the place, especially the north of Gaza and the religious nationalist movement in Israel, the settlers, they want that land. They fought hard for it in this war, in this genocide. And they have Netanyahu under their thumb. I mean, they are the lynchpin to his political coalition. There's not, all those shiny pictures that you see and all the plans for the Gaza Riviera that make it look like Dubai, that's not going to be happening for any Palestinians or non-Jews. That's not what's going to happen. The plan is to ethnically cleanse as many of them as possible, to even incentivize them to go out and give them subsidies to go out. But Israel does not want them there. The Gaza Strip, what was it? 85% refugees who were kicked off their land in 1948 when Israel was founded, 750,000 people were ethnically cleansed in 1948. And so many of them went to Gaza and then they were just warehouse there. I've been to Gaza twice. When you go into Gaza, the first thing you see in the buffer zone when you cross in from an Israeli military base is a remote controlled machine gun on a gigantic wall that stretches as far as you can see pointing into Gaza. That's the world they were living in before October 7th, 2023. It was, they were closed off from the outside world. And then they had this gigantic violent rebellion led by Hamas and Israel's decided they must all go and they have to go through Egypt. So that's just as bluntly as I can put it. And it will be the crime of the century to watch two million people just be scattered like the wind into the world. And where will they go? Will they go to Europe? Will they go to the United States? People who have lived through one of the most horrific genocidal wars we've ever seen. What kind of mentality will they be bringing with them? Will it be good for those societies? Well, it's Israel that is pushing that on the rest of the world. So, you know, if you're worried about, if you're worried about the border now, I mean, consider what Israel's got coming for you. And although I think we should welcome people who have nowhere else to go. They should be in their homes. They should be where they are. Well, I think we should stop destroying their countries and then they'd have a place to go. And that would be my- And that would be my- Really, that would be my- Yeah, your question, Iran, what do you think the likelihood is that we get into another war with Iran? And is that why- Is this really government right now lobbying the Trump administration actively to go back into Iran? Is this something that you know or are hearing from anyone? Yes, and also from sources in Iran. They're prepared for this. They think that this will happen 100%. I would say 99% just because I always like to hedge, but my friends in Iran, just who are just sort of regular people, tell me their whole society believes this is going to come in any weeks from now. Why do you think this all needs to happen now? Ethnically cleansing of God's end now, the war with Iran now. Do you think Israel's looking at America and going, we're in trillions of dollars of debt where maybe we'll default on the debt, maybe the dollar is going to fall, maybe our standing in the world is going to collapse, and they need to get everything out of us right now. It doesn't it feel to you like there's an immediacy to what is happening and I could be wrong about this, but it does feel to me that they're like, we need all of it now. It needs to happen now. We need to, not only the cleansing of God's, but we need the Iranian regime move now. We need to bomb Libya, I mean Syria, and all of these places right now. It does seem like, are they looking at the tide of populism around the world going, we're not going to be able to get this kind of money in 10 years. Are they looking at America's financial standing and going, it's an inevitability that we're not going to have the money to give them. What exactly is it about this moment where everything needs to happen now? By the way, even though they're losing standing with every demographic in America, they're losing respect or they're losing control of the narrative, but they're still pushing ahead in a very aggressive way. What is it about this moment that it all needs to happen now? That's a great question. And as he said, Israel can see the writing on the wall in the West, where a new generation is rising and turning against it, simply because they are sick of the slaughter, the manipulation and the censorship. But there's a new world rising in China. There's a new world rising in Iran, which is at the center of Eurasia. And a new world that is rising is not a world that America dominates. And then in Washington, this relates to, and this just brings it all back home to Charlie Kirk, they have Donald Trump completely under their control in a way that they have never controlled a US president. And every president is basically given Israel what it wanted. But with Trump, there are simply no red lines. And after having demonstrated in Gaza that they could get away with anything they wanted, Netanyahu, who is nearing the end of his own life, who is the most historically significant Israeli prime minister since the founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and has served longer than Ben-Gurion, who is actually someone from the United States, who speaks English as his native language, who grew up in Philadelphia, went to MIT, worked at Boston Consulting. He sees that this is the last moment before Trump leaves the stage where he can get everything he wants in his dream for his entire political career was to destroy Iran, regime change in Iran. And he believes if he can achieve regime change in Iran, then all of his problems in the region, and Israel's problems in the region, will disappear and Israel will be secure and consolidate its strategic depth for eternity. So Netanyahu wants to be, he wants to leave this world with that as his legacy, but he cannot accomplish that in Iran as we just saw from the last 12 day war without the US military. And so he has to manipulate the United States into not just striking Iran and sending a stealth bomber over there for some top gun style raid, but boots on the ground all out war, just like an unprecedented slaughterhouse. And we're gonna see tens of thousands of American troops killed for Netanyahu's dream, if it's able to go through. And so every time Netanyahu strikes Iran and tries to turn up the temperature in the region, it's always to get the US involved and it's bad for the US, it's bad for Jews, it's bad for the global economy and therefore the world. And that is why I'm always talking about this and why I think people need to understand the danger. What do you think happens if they can't, you know, obviously there's members of the Trump administration that do not wanna go along with this? I would say probably Trump's one of them. I don't think he sees a good domestic political outcome of going to war with Iran. What lengths are they willing to go to make this happen? Well, I don't, I mean, I think attacking Iran in an unprovoked fashion, killing nuclear scientists, attempting to kill, I don't know, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, that would be the most extreme thing possible. And it would lead to a catastrophic eruption of violence that would draw the US in. Do you think those are those planning to attack Iran? Yes. How soon do you think that's gonna happen? Fairly soon because of the window I mentioned with Donald Trump, the midterms coming up, also Iran is restoring its air defenses. They may be importing. Iran knows something's coming, this is obvious. So they can't allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile capacity. They know that the enriched uranium is out there somewhere, but they may not know where. They're afraid of nuclear scientists learning how to develop weapons, so they want to kill them all. It's very maniacal, and Israel really feels like this is it. Like they're at an existential moment. That's why they're weaponizing Barry Weiss to take over CBS News. That's why you feel so much pressure in our own society because Israel feels like after October 7th, they have to get this done now. I mean, nobody has my thing with CBS News. It's a very powerful tool, I guess when you're talking about boomers, but it has absolutely no relevance to anybody that's under the age of 65 years old. You know what I mean? When you see, I guess, Ellison is now thinking of buying Warner Brothers, right? CNN, I mean, they're thinking about, Sanders just talked about it. His group is buying, what is it? Correct me here. They're Paramount and they're buying, they own Paramount, they own CBS, and now they're trying to acquire Warner Brothers. Yeah. Okay. So, I like Barry. I mean, I think Barry is fun. I don't know how much Barry and Drew is me at the moment, but she did at one point, but she has an agenda. It's very clear. It's a very clear agenda is that she's deeply supportive of kind of this Israel at all costs policy. And they're gonna install her at CBS. Yep. Yeah, as the ombudsman. So she'll be, she'll be, I guess, tasked with determining the tone of the foreign policy coverage on CBS, domestic policy coverage, all of the coverage. Presumably, and they just installed this figure, I think his name is Keith Weissman, as the ombudsman who will basically neutralize the news division and he is an Israel lobbyist himself who worked at this neocon think tank, the Hudson Institute in Washington. So it's very clear what their agenda is. I'm just pointing to it as a sign of desperation and not necessarily a sign of total control. Well, what I've seen over the last six months to a year, a lot of people are getting radicalized and going to very bad places, right? We don't want a bunch of people in America to become Nazis, obviously. We don't want people to become fascist. We don't want people to embrace pathological behavior. We don't Barry Weiss does. Yeah. And Israel does because it reinforces Israel as a sanctuary for Jews. They want antisemitism in this country and it also fuels their fund rate, the ADL's fundraising. So we have to resist that. Yes, well, Max Blumenthal, do you, the source that you spoke to, I guess, for this piece, does that source believe that there's any potential, and I don't know if you covered this or not with the source, do they believe there's any potential that in any way, forces outside of this gunman were responsible for Charlie Kirk's assassination? I don't know if you covered that or not. I mean, I state clearly in this piece that I have no evidence of an Israeli government. Yes, I understand that. Did your source, who's a highly placed Trump confidant of some kind, do they, I don't know if you can make an inference or if they had said anything to you, but were they considering that as a possibility? Yes, I would say they don't accept the official story or no one even knows what the official story is. So a highly placed person in the Trump inner circle doesn't believe the official story of Charlie's murder. I mean, no one does, but I would just say that the phrase I remember hearing is, it feels like there's more at play here. And I, you know, that's not the only person with more power than me in Washington that I'm hearing that from, but I, again. So you're hearing from multiple people that are connected and tapped in, that they believe that there's more at play or more to the story than simply one radicalized young man. I heard subsequent to publishing this story from another source who I would describe as a administration insider that corroborated the account in this story. First, that Charlie Kirk was actively and aggressively, personally lobbying Trump against bombing Iran in June. And two, that right now the FBI is not being forthcoming and there's a lot of frustration with the FBI, not sharing information. So because, I mean, just to reiterate again, you're not a nut, you're a reporter, people may disagree with you, you're anti-Zionist. So there's a lot of people that are going to say that you're a little paranoid when it comes to Israel and that Israel's behind everything. I'm just saying this is not what I'm saying. I'm saying this is an attack that you've probably faced before, but you're a reporter, you're not a nut, you're not a crazy person, you grew up in Washington DC, you have connections to a lot of these people, you have sources, and you're not speaking to schizophrenics on the street, you're not talking to crazy people, you know, you're not, this is not things you're getting off message boards or a discord, you're talking to people in the know that believe there's more to the story. That's pretty shocking. I can only say that I wrote this, I mean, some people want to say, there was this prefabricated narrative on the right that the killer was a leftist or a Muslim, they clearly wanted that. Now, you know, people on the left are saying he was a griper, I don't know what would be the case, but the reason I wrote this story was because I was able to get this background about Charlie Kirk and what was happening in his life and what was coloring his final days and the kind of pressure he was under, which tells a larger story about Israeli influence in the United States, and that's just an issue I've been covering for years. So that's why I reported this story. I didn't report this story to prove that Israel has a direct role in his assassination. Of course not. But there is a real reason why many people who are not able to talk to people with any proximity to power believe that is the case. And it's because the way Israel's conducting itself around the globe. Final question to you in a hypothetical world, in a hypothetical world, and I know you're a reporter, so it's hard to entertain this. Knowing what you know about the, what we talked about about now is the moment and now is the time and everybody needs the money and everybody needs this Iran regime change. And everyone obviously that has that perspective and that interest, Netanyahu and Adelson, all these people, in a hypothetical world, would the head of a campus organization that is hugely influential in grassroots political organizing and fundraising, do you think, and again, this is not to say there is evidence of this because obviously you have none of it, in a hypothetical world, would how dangerous is a Charlie Kirk to the people you're talking about? How dangerous is him making a turn on Israel? How substantive and dangerous is that? And in a hypothetical world, is it dangerous enough where you would have to eliminate him in some way? Well, I think if he had gone further than he was going and continued to give voice to the grassroots of his own organization, they would have eliminated him, but not physically. I mean, they would have sought to have eliminated him politically or just to remove him. And they were already calling for that. Ben Shapiro, who's now running around saying he was Charlie Kirk's best friend, said just days, I think it was just days before Charlie Kirk was killed, he said that you can't be at the front of the church giving space to kooks. And then just a few days later, when Charlie Kirk was at the front of the church, he was struck in the neck by a sniper's bullet. And then Ben Shapiro within 24 hours said, well, he's gonna go on his own campus tour and pick up the bloody microphone that Charlie Kirk left for us. So they did not want someone giving space to anti-Israel critics or just the real mood in this country, they needed to hold the line. So I think there are easier ways to get rid of someone in cleaner ways than assassination. I've been the target of that for many years, but for sure. And he was a gigantic threat to Israeli control over the Republican party, maybe the biggest threat since Trump has proven so easy to move and manipulate and so afraid. I mean, we can't overestimate Charlie Kirk's importance to the Trump machine and to the Republican party. He was sort of a unique figure and I don't think he can be replaced. It will also be interesting to see who steps into his wake. And I might be having more, I might have more to report on this by the way. So watch this space. Well, I appreciate it. Max Blumenthal, the website is called The Grey Zone. You guys do some really interesting stuff. Anything coming up you'd want people to check out? Well, yeah, just watch this space. We might have more to report on this. And I really appreciate you giving me the mic and giving me the space to talk about it. And I love the work that you do. Yes, well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank your wife for also she contributed to the story as well. And thank you both of you and we'll have you back if there's new developments. Appreciate that. Of course.