10/8/24: Kamala Says Iran Greatest Threat, US Approved IDF Aid Strikes, Hillary Demands Censorship, CIA Caught In Major Coverup
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During our 60 Minutes interview, Kamala Harris was also asked a question that it seems like she wasn't quite ready for. And you might not be ready for the answer here. Let's take a listen. Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary? I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands, okay? This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles,

What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities. So if you have proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, would you take military action? I'm not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment. I'm sorry, what? What?

I've been upset about this basically from the moment that I saw this because- This was not in the interview, it was in the overtime part. Yeah, first of all, why didn't they put that in there? That's an insane thing to say. So we're talking about a regional power, non-nuclear state, maybe nuclear, that threatens Israel. That is the right answer if your name is Israel. If you're the president of the United States, look, even

within a liberal framework, say Russia. Russia is a stupid answer too, but you can make a case for it, right? It's got nukes. It invaded Ukraine. All right. I still think that's not all that high priority in their idiotic worldview. I get it. Yeah, exactly. You got boomers who are worried about, you know, oh, yeah, I lose through drills or whatever. Okay. So I get that. I still think it's an incredibly dumb answer, but Iran?

And notice that she said it's our greatest threat. She talks about American blood on their hands. I assume that she's talking about those proxy attacks on U.S. soldiers, three killed in that Jordanian attack recently and then previously the war in Iraq. But then she starts talking about Israel. Hold on a second. You said, ow!

our greatest adversary, not Israel's greatest adversary. I mean, that is honestly one of the most troubling answers I have ever heard from a presidential candidate, because what does that mean for your worldview of what you think adversary to the United States is? Not to Israel, not voting for the president of Israel. Supposed to be voting for the president who's looking at our commerce. I mean, like I just said,

He could make a fine case for Russia. I still think it's dumb. China is the most obvious answer. Even within that, I mean, Biden says China, right? Like, what are we doing here with Iran? Yeah, I think she treated it as a pop quiz, didn't know the answer, and reached for one. Oh, my God. Like, I don't think she actually believes that Iran is our biggest threat. How cool, though, would it be to have a president who said none? The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Yeah, absolutely.

honestly, better answer. Again, I don't agree with that necessarily, but I could make a philosophical case in one where America is so powerful that our own division and lack of unity is a threat to us, to global instability, and to other nations. In fact, I don't not believe that, but I just think that they're within the framework of greatest adversary. But

I just have no idea how you arrived at Iran. Also notice, Ryan, she didn't even think about it. She immediately went to it. It's like if you look back at those previous debates, and I said this on Twitter, I was like, I honestly think that is the stupidest answer to this question in several decades. During the Cold War, it was not really that difficult. The only time where it's ever been in flux is that 2012 famous debate, Romney and Obama

Obama, where Romney says Russia and Obama correctly makes fun of him. He's like, well, we don't have bandits anymore, Mr. Romney, and all that. And he was, Obama was right, by the way, because he said China. But in the year of our Lord, 2024-

to say Iran is so crazy. Again, we are not talking about a nation that in any way, when you say greatest adversary, you are talking about global competition. You are talking about somebody who poses a genuine existential threat to the superpower. There is only one nation in the world for which

That's not even 100% true, but you can make a case for it, and that's China. That's why the Russia one is so dumb, and that's why Iran. I mean, again, we're talking about shipping lanes. Okay, fine. A little damage to the U.S. economy. I'm not even saying it would be good. I think it would be a disaster to get into a war with Iran. But to say our greatest adversary, they're doing backflips in Beijing. They're doing backflips in Moscow over this. If you're so dumb that you think that, I can't help you.

I think the actual answer to this is that our greatest adversary is ourselves, our own military adventurism, our recklessness, and also our sanctions policy, which Jeff Stein has covered so well. Our sanctions policy, which is going to eventually drive the rest of the world to stop using the dollar, which is the...

I think that's a fine answer. And the reason why, again, this is fine is it acknowledges like superpower status. And it's like actually the only threat to us is ourselves because we're so big. We're so powerful that only our own missteps can lead us into disaster, which is true. I mean, if you look at Iraq and all, nobody could have damaged America more than the American invasion of Iraq. But yeah, I mean, I just just.

ideologically framework wise to talk about Iran. I mean, also when you say our greatest adversary

At least on Russia and China, we have a limiting principle of war called nuclear weapons. Like at the end of the day, that stops it from escalating into the worst areas. With Iran, they don't have nukes, at least not yet. And we're on the precipice of a potential Israeli strike on nuclear facilities or even oil facilities, which could lead to blowback. That actually could lead to a full-blown hot war.

which would draw the United States in almost certainly. So is that where we're setting the stage here? I mean, that's the crazy part too. The latest leaks out of Israel are that they have decided not to target the nuclear sites because they're inside of a mountain and they can't do it. We paid them off, begged them not to do it. Instead, they're going to attack the oil industry, which Iran has said it will respond by attacking Saudi, Iraq, and other countries.

other oil fields throughout the Middle East and just setting the entire thing on fire. So we'll see how that goes. We have an interesting example of our own recklessness that I was referring to over at Dropsite. If you can put up this element here. Our correspondent over in Israel, Yanni Cogan, writes this piece, "Blinken-approved policy to bomb aid trucks "Israeli cabinet members suggest." And that might sound crazy. Go read the story. I'll put the link in the description down below.

What Yaniv identified here is that October 16th and 17th, from into the early morning hours of the 17th, Secretary of State Blinken goes to Israel. So this is 10 days after the attack, and humanitarian aid has been cut off to Gaza. The first thing that Netanyahu says to him is that, look, I can't actually lift this siege. I've got people in my cabinet who don't want a

a bottle of aspirin getting into Gaza. And he says, I will negotiate this with Biden, not with you. And Blinken says, Biden's not getting on a plane.

and coming to visit here unless you change this policy. And so Blinken thinks that that bluster is going to move Netanyahu. He meets him six hours later, Netanyahu still hasn't moved. So what Yanni reports here, Blinken sits down with the security cabinet of Israel and they hash out a humanitarian aid policy. And the policy that they finally agree to

is that, okay, we will let in some aid trucks, not through Israel, though we'll let them come in through Egypt. Egypt has to basically let us monitor everything that's going in. And if we believe that there is any Hamas involvement with any of these aid convoys, we are allowed to strike those convoys.

And Blinken then signs off on those. And one of the key pieces of evidence of this, the first draft was published in English, which is, you know, the kind of giveaways going back and forth. And the word that they use to thwart, they say we will thwart it if it's connected to Hamas. We will thwart the convoy is the same Hebrew word, Yanni, points out that they often use to describe assassinations.

So, they're clear about what's going on here. The State Department's spokesperson, Matthew Miller, was asked by Syed Erekat yesterday about this report at the State Department briefing. Let's take a listen to that. Let me ask you about a report in Dropside.

And it says that Secretary Blinken approved a policy to bomb aid trucks. That's what an Israeli cabinet member said. Are you aware of this report and do you have any comment? I am aware of the report. I'm glad you asked me about it. Look, the suggestion that we in any way signed off on bombing humanitarian convoys is absurd. It's just not true.

Of course, Israel has the right to target Hamas militants. That has always been the case. And so look, if you had a situation where Hamas

a commandeered convoy, and Hamas militants were operating a convoy, of course Israel would have the right to strike those militants. That's not been the situation that we've seen over the past year, except in some very limited circumstances. There have been a few reports here and there of Hamas commandeering convoys, in most cases returned quickly to the humanitarian organizations. It has not been, there's not been any widespread reports

evidence that we have seen of Hamas actually taking convoys and commandeering them, which is, I think, the scenario or the proposition of this scenario presumes. So the strikes that Israel has conducted on humanitarian convoys have been times when they have had failures in their deconfliction processes, where they have had intelligence failures, and when they've just made basic mistakes. And the thing that we have made clear about those is that those mistakes are unacceptable.

and that humanitarian workers need to be protected, and humanitarian aid needs to be protected. So the idea that we, that anyone in this department signed off on bombing humanitarian comrades is just absolutely ridiculous. So if you notice there, Sagar, he starts by calling the report absurd, but then throughout the answer, he basically confirms the report that if...

israel believes that hamas is involved with these convoys then of course they have the right to strike it that rationale is of course the one that the idf has used each time it has struck a convoy if you think back to the world's central kitchen attack that killed all those aid workers they said well we thought that there were a couple hamas militants at some point before it went into the warehouse and we thought maybe they were still there every attack

on an aid convoy has used this very rationale. The other policy option available is, you know what? Don't attack humanitarian aid convoys. Let's just have that as our policy. Like that's an available policy and still to this day, not one that the U.S. has insisted on.

I mean, the report itself, I actually encourage people to go read it. But on the response from Matt Miller, what did you make then of his categorical denial? Or was there room for this within his framework? What did you think of it?

So if you're used to parsing these responses, absurd is a word that they use that's not a categorical denial. Oh, I like that. Right, yeah. It's absurd, but it could be true. It doesn't actually mean it's not true. That's good. And then he later says, of course, if Hamas has commandeered an aid convoy, then Israel has a right to strike that. That's what we reported. Right.

And so they're confirming that that is the policy. Because like I said, the alternative policy is we don't care who is driving the aid convoy. You don't strike an aid convoy. If something happens to an aid convoy, you deal with that later in other ways. The Flower Massacre, where 100 plus people or so were slaughtered at this intersection. Yes.

There was a Hamas security official who was in charge of the security around that delivery of the flour. This is often who aid organizations are communicating with, the Hamas police officials. Hamas is the de facto government. So you're going to find Hamas. And if you're Israel, you have been saying for years that UNRWA,

is a front for Hamas. So a low level or mid-level operative who is behind the button on the drone, all, oh, UNRWA? Well, we already believe that they're a front for Hamas and thoroughly infiltrated and a terrorist organization that ought to be banned. There's UNRWA. And you see one guy with a gun, like, all right, well, we're going to hit this aid convoy. It also raises the question,

who do they want to do security for these aid convoys? Is Blackwater available for business to like start shepherding aid convoys through Gaza? Like what are they talking about? So the result is that aid convoys get struck. And the result of an aid convoy getting struck is not just that that particular flower or water or medicine doesn't get delivered, but then the aid organization itself not only has lost personnel,

but usually stops for an extended period of time delivering aid. - What do you make of this in the context of previous stuff you guys have reported about Blinken and his overruling of things within the department? - That he's effectively acted as basically an attorney for like Smotrich and Ben-Gavir. Like taking their harshest ideological positions and massaging them into something that's acceptable from a US perspective.

And I think that if you delved into his heart of hearts or something, what he would be saying is, look, it was either this or abject starvation because they were telling me that not a single aspirin was gonna get in. And I got 50 trucks in. And then the next day there were 60 trucks in. And yes, the result was that some convoys got struck and that's unfortunate, but the alternative was much worse. So I think that that's what...

That's what they would argue. But on the other hand, it's the greatest superpower in the history of the world that is just getting walked around by a client state. That's what underscores to me is like we go through all this bureaucratic BS to like approve all of this Israeli violation of US law. And then you see the same machine kick in.

to justify anything Ukraine, you know, wants to do. And it's like when you put those two things together, you're like, what are we doing here? These are choices. Yeah, yeah. These are explicit choices. These are by, I mean, if anything, it seems to me like Blinken is such a powerful force because Biden is so cooked and so irrelevant that Blinken does run a lot of U.S. foreign policy with respect to these discrete choices. When, you know, Biden can coherently be like, just give them whatever they want. Right.

But he's the one actually mechanically executing all of this. There was a new Axios report this morning. I love new Axios reports. Four sources say that Biden is increasingly frustrated and doesn't trust that the Israelis are honest brokers when it comes to their talks with him. It's like...

Okay. Got it. Very useful. Any other plans on the State Department? When's the next briefing? Today. I'll be at it. I was at this one, and I got dissed on the follow-up. What do you want to ask him today? I don't know. People should tell me what they want to ask. One thing I have been wanting to ask is what happened to the American concern for civilian casualties? When...

Israel bombed this top Hamas command, killed a top Hamas commander in 2002. This is six, it was six months after 9-11. Oh, you're talking about the Bush administration. I remember this. Six months after 9-11, Islamophobia and fear of terrorists is ripping through the American body politic. They take out a top Hamas commander and kill like eight civilians or so in that strike. Bush, like the Bush administration loses it on them. Like this is an unacceptable civilian death toll. Now,

you can take out two to 300 civilians in a single strike aimed at a top Hezbollah commander. And the answer from the State Department is, well, Hezbollah shouldn't be near all of these civilians. Not even a reference in a Lloyd Austin statement or a Blinken statement or a Biden statement or a Harris statement, not even a line that says,

this civilian death toll is unacceptable. What happened? So I'm curious from their perspective, what happened in the 20 years since then to make it so that we're cool with that? You should ask him that. I'd like to see that. I remember I brought that up before about the Bush administration, how in 02, even Ari Fleischer, who actually, that's the ironic part. Fleischer said that in 2002, but now he's on Fox News being like, actually, Israel is the most moral army in the history of the world. I'm like, wait, but I

I know nothing matters, but you said that. He'd be like, well, that was President Bush, not me. You're the compassionate conservative. Amazing.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the Old Pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on this celebración. Visita visittucson.org slash viva.

The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

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All right, let's move on to Hillary Clinton. This is something I've been wanting to put in this show for quite some time. I actually watched this interview live. I was sitting in the state of Pennsylvania, you know, it was in the morning. You know, my father-in-law loves to keep CNN on, don't ask me why, but I was forced to endure this struggle session. And this, it's funny because it's one of those things where Smirconish clearly does not realize the magnitude of what actually just was said. But

But if you're listening carefully, you're like, that's one of the most insane things I've ever heard. So here we have Hillary talking about how imperative it is to censor and to monitor content. Let's take a listen. There should be a lot of things done. We should be, in my view, repealing something called Section 230, which gave platforms on the internet immunity because they were thought to be just pass-throughs, that they shouldn't be judged online.

for the content that is posted. But we now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the platforms, whether it's Facebook or Twitter X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don't moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control. We lose total control. All right. So what do we take away from that?

We lose total control. Right. Who's the we and what are you controlling? What are you controlling? What are we talking? You know, it's interesting, too. We should consider, like, what the context of this interview actually happens because it happened within the general context of being asked, not necessarily about social media, but about.

election strife ahead of this election. So that was specifically being talked about in the context of quote unquote misinformation ahead of the current election. And I was thinking, wow, that's very revealing, isn't it? It also gets to the bitterness of Hillary because you have to remember that the through line for all of this is still Russia 2016.

And now they've faux intellectualized the argument about all this. And look, the whole Section 230 thing, there's arguments to be made, actually. I've seen from the right, from the left about it, about liability and all that. But if you're making the argument explicitly to say that we need straight up much more criminal liability for platforms for spreading misinformation, that gives the game away.

in a very certain sense. - Yeah, and it also suggests that she still believes that most of big tech, obviously she feels like Twitter has fallen, but she still feels like most of big tech is susceptible to her pressure. That there's some alignment there, that they're not doing enough according to her, but she feels like if she makes the case, if Democrats put enough pressure on them, they can,

Yeah, 230 is interesting for people who don't know. That's the section of the law that says that if you're a platform, basically, let's say you're a comment section, that you are not personally liable, your company is not liable for something that somebody says in a comment section. Because the argument is that you can't have a free-flowing debate of user-generated content if you have to fact check every single thing that every Tom, Dick, and Harry is putting up on your site.

The argument against it is that that was the case when platforms were neutral and that everybody had an equal chance and that the published product of that platform was the sum of the parts of the voices that were allowed to flow freely into it. So the argument is if you're no longer balanced and your algorithm is pushing something far to the left or pushing something far to the right or driving a particular narrative,

then you are actually a publisher and you no longer should have the shield of 230. Let's say, to take Twitter, for example, if they can prove that Musk goes in and puts his thumb on the scale, or old Twitter, if with old Twitter you could prove that they were going in and putting their thumb on the scale and pushing it in Biden's direction on the Hunter Biden story or whatever else, they would say, well, actually, that's not protected.

And you now can be sued for defamation. I just think the context of this – well, actually, you know what? We never got to talk because that also came after that Tim Walz clip from the debate. We haven't spent enough time. We all had to move on. But yeah, what – okay, as a leftist, give us the take on why Tim Walz was wrong. Shocking for Tim Walz. Well, first of all, he did the stupid –

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Which is fake. Hey, if there's a fire, you absolutely can. And if you yell fire in a crowded theater and you do not cause panic, then that also is fine. Like you're allowed to do that. Right. This is a commonly cited thing. I don't know what the origins of it even are. It was in a Supreme Court ruling.

where he was saying like, obviously you can't yell fire in a crowded theater and cause- - Yes, that's right. - Falsely, falsely. You can't falsely yell fire in a crowded theater and cause panic. So you need all of those different elements. You have to know it's false and you have to cause panic.

and they were using it to lock up socialists who were calling for resistance to the draft. That's right. World War I. But they weren't even calling for resistance to the draft. They were telling people to call their member of Congress and argue to repeal the draft law. And they locked the head of the Socialist Party up for like six months for that or whatever. So like terrible for anybody to point to that in any way.

More worrisome I thought was what he said right after that. He's like he said you don't have a right to hate speech Yeah, that's right. Oh actually you do like bro. Yeah, that's the whole point right? And who what a speech that is just loving speech. Yes makes no sense who's gonna prosecute for loving especially terrifying in the context of all these like Democratic current efforts to like institutionalize. What is it the the

the definition of anti-Semitism, what is the IHRA definition, which basically is just, it's anti-Semitic to criticize Israel, which is nuts. I mean, and by the way, that fits with a lot of those Republican BDS laws that are already on the books, totally unconstitutional for you. And just to outsourcing the definition of something like that to a private organization, which could then go on its website and change it again.

Yeah, the whole thing is crazy. But anyway, I mean, it's alive and well in the sense of industrial complex. Wasn't it Colombia that said you can't use Zionist in a pejorative way? That just happened. Yeah, didn't you? You talked about that. Yeah.

that because, well, Columbia, it's different. It's private. We can criticize it, but there's not much you can do on an institutional level. You don't get federal funding. Yeah, but you made a good point. You're like, wait, but what about in like history classes? Yeah, it's like in papers, in a literal academic context. But suddenly a lot of those concerns just disappear.

Because what we all know is that they really mean it that if it's in a historical context, it's fine. But if it's in a political context on campus and you don't like it, and especially if the donors don't like it, that's when you're going to get expelled. And that's when it's a problem. Okay, we've got Jefferson Morley standing by, so let's get to it.

Get ready for a full month of fiesta y cultura because it's time for Viva Tucson. Let's celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month como nunca antes in true Tucson style. From September 15th to October 15th, join us for comida, musica y eventos that you won't find anywhere else. Our rich history and traditions make the Old Pueblo the perfect place para celebrar y aprender.

Mark your calendars so you don't miss out on this celebración. Visita visittucson.org slash viva.

The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. Our reporters are on the ground. Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country. Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th on MSNBC.

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We'll be right back.

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All right, joining us today is Jefferson Morley, who's the author of many books on the JFK assassination. He's been investigating it for many decades. How long? 30 years. So 30 years at this point. You have a new piece out. And let's put this up on the screen. This is at his sub stack, JFK Facts, which everybody should subscribe to.

One thing that Jefferson is known for is almost never relying on anonymous sources. Everything is document based and people who are willing to put their name to something. This latest story is significantly based on an anonymous source.

Which to me signals how important you think it is. That's true. That you're willing to go forward on it. So tell us what this source told you and why this is in advance on what we understand or at least adds new questions to what we understand about the assassination. This source approached me a few years ago and said in the course of working at the CIA had seen a document that disturbed them.

And so we talked about that. I investigated a little bit, found a lot to corroborate that. I also checked out the source professional expertise, experience, and I felt very confident. This source is highly credible. And I wouldn't, like you say, I rarely, rarely use unnamed sources. But in this case, I felt if the source was willing to take a chance,

of disclosing classified information, then I could take a chance on the source. - Right. Do you feel like that this source will ever come forward? Like, we're gonna learn who this is at some point? - I think the sources will be willing to do that. - All right, so let's talk about what they told you. - What did they show you? - The source said two really significant things. One, that there was a file room in a CIA office in Herndon, Virginia, where the CIA keeps its assassination-related records.

Now, that doesn't mean that those are all secret records. Those may be records that have been shared with the Congress. We don't know. But that there is a dedicated facility like that. And I did some reporting, talked to people who have worked in that building, one of whom confirmed to me that there was a JFK facility within a SCIF, a secure compartmentalized facility.

intelligence facility. And so I felt good about that. The second thing that the source said was that

In the course of duties at the CIA, the source had seen a document about the CIA's reaction to the congressional investigation of the 1970s. And the source felt that this document, lengthy document, 40, 50 pages, apparently produced by the CIA inspector general's office, showed an intent to deceive the congressional investigators.

The source says this document shows that they knew they weren't being totally forthcoming and when Congress didn't penetrate their deception, they celebrated. Now, there's no document like that that's been released in the past 30 years with all the JFK releases under Trump and Biden.

There's no document that fits that description in the remaining 3,500 JFK documents that still contain redactions. So this document is not in the JFK collection.

Obviously, it should be. One of the important things about the story, and this also made me feel good, was when I asked the CIA for comment, they did not deny any of the facts in the story. In fact, they said something slightly disturbing. If you parse their statement carefully, what they're saying is we're under no obligation to release this document, and if we want to keep it public, we will. Got it. And so one of the things you talk about in the story is about Oswald in Mexico.

Yes, and that's the core of what he's talking about. The source says that the House Select Committee was called in and showed a bunch of documents about Trump

the CIA surveillance of Oswald in Mexico City shortly before the assassination of President Kennedy. The CIA has always said, "We never obtained any photographs of Oswald in Mexico City." The source says one of the things that he saw in the JFK file room was what looked like a video case

that was labeled Oswald in Mexico and dated 1963. Now, if there is photography of Oswald in Mexico City in the possession of the CIA today, that alone will rewrite the JFK story because they have been so adamant about denying this over the years. And what you see, the larger point of the story here is that what you see is this fits a pattern of withholding information

closely held information that the CIA had about Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination. And that's what's really going on here is they are withholding JFK documents to this day. And the sources story makes that story, you know, makes that clear. And the fact that the CIA is not denying it, not saying that doesn't say the document doesn't exist, doesn't say the facility doesn't exist.

you know, we're onto something. So this is really about, you know, why does it matter today? Well, this is about accountability, you know, it's about transparency. We've had these assassination attempts on President Trump, lots of conspiracy theories, politicization of that. Obviously we need transparency, we need credible investigations around that. And the same goes for President Kennedy. This, you know, this is a story that doesn't go away in American politics. We're still talking about it 60 years later,

because of its symbolic importance and because you know, we have this mistrust of government government institutions aren't Legitimate and if you look in the broad sweep of history when did you US government begin to lose its credibility? It was right around 1964 according to the polls around the Warren Commission report of 1964 since then that report not particularly credible with the American people and

Confidence in government has been going down. One of the theories that says, actually there was, there's a theory that says there was no conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. And in fact, what we're looking at when it comes to CIA is CYA. That they actually are just covering for their own incompetence and then it snowballs into covering for their cover-up. Does this fit that or does this fit the other? I mean...

I think that this points more to complicity because of numerous false statements and the way CIA operations are structured. This looks like a CIA operation, not CIA incompetence. But the available evidence, I have good friends who argue the other way, like you're saying, this is just, they screwed up and they're just covering their asses. Well, that's why we have the JFK Records Act.

The JFK Records Act of 1992 says the government has to release all JFK records in its possession. They have to review them and release them. They have a presumption of immediate disclosure according to the law. So if the CYA explanation is right, that doesn't mean that they don't have to disclose these records. They do have to disclose them. And if that's the case,

then they should quell conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorizing and say, we screwed up and here's how we did it. But to say we're innocent and we're not gonna share all the records with you

That's not credible. And so, yeah, in that, let's take people back if they're not all that familiar about Oswald's time in Mexico and the meetings that he allegedly was having there and how that would fit into a conspiracy explanation. Why is that significant, Oswald's time in Mexico? So Oswald, the accused assassin who denied- We wrote a book, Our Man. We can put this up, Our Man in Mexico. Yeah, so the story that I tell in Our Man in Mexico is Oswald,

Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who will be accused of killing the president and who will deny it and then be killed in police custody, goes to Mexico City six weeks before the assassination and visits the Cuban consulate and the Soviet embassy seeking to get a visa to travel to Cuba. The visa request is rejected. He's told he has to go get that in Washington. And so Oswald returns to the United States. What the CIA told the Warren Commission was,

We didn't know anything about this guy. We knew so little about him, we didn't even get a picture of him, a surveillance picture of him. As I report in Our Man in Mexico, the station chief in Mexico City, Winn Scott, said specifically that was not true. He had a very sophisticated surveillance system around both of those. Unlike the CIA statement that the cameras weren't working that day, false. Investigators established that they were working.

And the CIA insists on this, well, we never got his, we never took his picture. So, and in fact, they knew a whole lot about him. Senior CIA officials are looking at Oswald's file six weeks before the assassination, writing cables about him, thinking about him. And by the way,

not calling any attention to him, despite the fact that he had been arrested for fighting with CIA-funded group that summer. He had a Russian wife. When he defected to the Soviet Union, he offered military secrets. And now he's visiting Soviet and Cuban diplomatic compound, where everybody working in those compounds was presumed to be an intelligence agent. And most of them

And those were just like a lot of people in the U.S. embassy were. Of course. And so so the notion that they didn't get his picture was, you know, was never particularly credible. So what's going on here? Did they just miss him? Well, that would be the CYA. We didn't understand who he was. He went on and shot the president. Sorry, Mrs. Kennedy, we just screwed up. What's hard to understand from our point of view today is, you know,

The man who supposedly killed the president was well known to top CIA officials. Imagine if one of these accused assassins with President Trump was well known to a small group of top CIA officials. Would we say that's relevant to the story? Yes, of course. The CIA hid all of that. And all of those people who watched Oswald for four years as he made his way to Dealey Plaza, none of them lost their job. None of them even got so much as a demerit. Mostly,

because nobody knew. Over the last 60 years, the story has come out in bits and pieces. And my story now is just the latest part of, we're getting behind that curtain of official secrecy that has always surrounded Oswald and Cuba operations.

And when we go through that curtain, we see, oh, there's still more classified stuff behind it. And that's what's going on today is the CIA saying, you know, we really don't have to obey that law. You know, that law that says all JFK records. We don't really have to obey that. And, you know, the CIA in the constellation of American power, a very strong institution.

On JFK records, they got what they wanted, exactly what they wanted, from two very different presidents, from Trump,

who said all the JFK records were released in 2017. Wasn't true. He had cut a deal with Mike Pompeo and the CIA, and lots of records remain secret. And Biden, more expectedly, an institutionalist, said, CIA, good guys, they can handle it from here on out. I wash my hands of the matter. So that's where it is right now. Trump's made a little bit of an issue of it, saying he would release the JFK files when RFK endorsed him.

Trump had a chance to do it in 2017, he didn't. So it remains to be seen if he's elected, would he actually do it? - Okay, question of why. We always talk about this. All the people involved are dead, presumably. So why do they still care so much about keeping this secret? - Because symbolically it's really important. And this is why they can't even back up an inch. Because if they said we screwed up, you know,

people get called up to Capitol Hill. They'd ask the director, what's going on here? How did this happen? How come you didn't tell us about that? They might get their budget cut. So yes, all the people involved are dead. And maybe the CIA could say, that was then, this is now. But I think the path of least resistance, and when you have the power of official secrecy, we're just gonna bury that, move along folks. And this is what the CIA does. Presidents come and go, journalists come and go,

The CIA is always there. And so I think they're thinking, well, you know, we can just wait this thing out. No, that's all I got. I mean, I guess last thing, if you have a minute, people also point to this police officer who claims that he accidentally squeezed the trigger. I'm sure you've seen this one.

- What do you think, what do you make of this? - This is the most, the most persistent hoax in the JFK story. The Secret Service man did it. - You're gonna see people in the comments section probably talk about this, so tell us about this real quick. - Oh, okay, sure, yeah. - The claim is that the Secret Service man panicked and turning around accidentally shot the president.

The only problem with this theory is there's no eyewitness evidence to support it. There's no forensic evidence to support it. There's no photographic evidence to support it. And the author who first offered this when facing legal action from one of the Secret Service officers involved, formally retracted the whole thing. So there's no evidence and it's been renounced by the person who offered it. So chances are there's nothing to it. - Right, okay. - But I just wanna say one last thing is,

People ask why does it matter today? What you know, what did Kennedy's a set? What was the political meaning of Kennedy's assassination? And I think it's this this is more my opinion you can draw your you know, the facts are the facts after Kennedy the most warlike faction in the US government always had the upper hand and Kennedy was steering us

away from that. Trying to end the Cold War, not going to war in Cuba, pulling out slowly in Vietnam. There's debates about all of those things. But the big picture that Kennedy articulates in the summer of '63, "We don't want a Pax Americana," he says.

Imagine that. Imagine if there was a Democratic candidate or a Republican candidate who said, we don't want a Pax Americana. We are in a Pax Americana era right now. We are establishing Pax Americana in Ukraine, Gaza. You know, we are trying to maintain that. There is another way. And the other way died with Kennedy. Yeah. And whether the key thing to me is whether or not the CIA actually assassinated him. Every president

since Kennedy, including LBJ, believed that they did. Yeah, and operated accordingly. And operated accordingly. Yeah, and this is super important where there's this discourse that tries to marginalize conspiracy theorists. Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon

had their foibles, had their problems, they were not conspiracy theorists. These were men of power who understood how American power worked and none of them believed the CIA's story of a quote unquote. - Yeah, they were terrified of them. They were terrified of them and the FBI, that's right. And it governed a lot of their decision making. Highly recommend people subscribe to-- - And that's why Trump did not release the documents. - Yeah, seriously. Yeah, there you go. Subscribe to the Substack, buy the books. Appreciate you joining us, sir. Thank you. - Thanks a million guys. - Absolutely. We'll see you guys later.

CBS Thursday, October 17th. Hi!

Hi again. TV's quirkiest crime solver. I'm Elsbeth Tassioni. I work with the police. Is back and ready to go toe-to-toe. Yes. With a cavalcade of guest stars. You have a devious mind. I'm a lawyer. Don't miss a moment of the critically acclaimed hit. Look for anything out of the ordinary. That sounds like fun. Murder should be fun. Obviously murder's not fun. Elsbeth is all new. CBS Thursday, October 17th. Part of CBS Premiere Week and streaming on Paramount+.

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