We'll come back ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this live broadcast. We're in the second hour here at TNT. Today's news talk. This is the Patrick Pennington show. Very pleased to be joined in the next segment by a fantastic guest. Of course, he's an independent journalist. He is also a correspondent at the U.S. State Department. He's joining us on the live link from the United States right now, Sam Housseini. Welcome to the program. Thank you all. It's good to be with you, Patrick. It's great to have you as well, Sam. And we've also been admiring your exploits there at the U.S. State Department asking tough questions, not always getting great answers, unfortunately, but you are holding them to account. It's good to see that you're doing that. And those clips are going viral. A lot of people are seeing those. So I think it's done a lot to raise awareness on where the sort of hypocrisies are, where the holes are in some of the official positions that the U.S. government has. We'll talk about some of those positions, but I want to get your reaction and your thoughts, your takeaways, main takeaways from this big debate that happened last week between the incumbent Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I'm going to say straight off the bat, Sam, I have a bad feeling when I saw this debate announced because it's the first time they've ever had a presidential debate before the conventions. So yet another abrogation of U.S. democracy along along with everything else that we've seen. Go ahead, Sam. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Patrick. The Democratic and Republican establishments have spent decades making the so-called commission on presidential debates, which always had so-called debates after the conventions, the institution for that. And suddenly, this time around, they decide they didn't want to do that. And they decided that they wanted to have a so-called debate before that. Apparently the commission for presidential debates had some minimal standards, and they couldn't do it. So they teamed up with CNN to do this thing. So you knew from the get-go that some other agenda, unstated agenda, was taking place here. A lot of people speculated that it was to keep Robert Kennedy out because they were afraid that after the conventions, his numbers might go up. I don't know if those numbers will necessarily go up after two propaganda, extravaganzas by the two major parties. So something else was cooking here, and I think we have a clue about it. It's not clear to me if the establishment agenda is to knock Biden out. And keep in mind, the other part of this is that what they have done is the Democratic Party rigged its own primary process in at least 2016 and 2020. I documented both of those extensively. That's on my substap. And now they effectively trashed the entire primary process by keeping Biden in place until now. So if they do get rid of him now, they would have done so under a set of conditions such that totally eviscerated the possibility of an actual minimally democratic process where you would have had, if they had said a year ago, Biden's out, he's mentally not competent, then you would have had a bunch of different people jumping in and potentially buying or potentially winning the nomination, the DNC, which as a matter of law can rig its own primaries. This has been adjudicated. It did so by keeping Biden in office. If they do want to get him out now, they have made it so that the voice of the people through a regular primary process has been shut down. So that's another count under which normal, minimally democratic processes have been trashed. Now, it's not clear to me now what the agenda is. And there might be computing factions here, of course, is it to get rid of Biden in a very controlled way with a preferred candidate? Or is it potentially to keep him in place but to make this question the central one for the however many coming months or potentially even years so that you don't have a discussion about actual policy? And they have effectively rebranded from genocide Joe to well-meaning, but incompetent Mr. Magoo, right? They had a problem on their hands that more and more of the US public, even despite all of the however skewed the coverages of Israel's genocide and so on, the branding of genocide Joe had some legs to it. And now they have tried to dispense with that. And the sound bites that you've seen in major media, I don't recommend people look at major media, but at times I do just to see how they're molding the public. And the big sound bites coming out of the so-called debate was Biden saying I might not be a great debater, but I know the truth. So I played on CNN all day. I know the truth. I know the truth. I know the truth without any pushback from anywhere. And then the following after the Supreme Court decision, the big sound bite in terms of presidential power words was the president is not above the law. Biden saying that that was the big sound bite 24 hours ago or so. Well, of course Biden is above the law. He's violating a slew of US laws, the Arms Export Act, the law he laws, and so on in backing Israel's slaughter Palestinians. Center for Constitutional Rights even taken to court and the judge in the courtroom earlier this year declared there's a real case here, but I don't have jurisdiction. So it actually highlights the fact that US society is incapable of administering even its own laws. Yeah, no, on that first issue is about how you wrote about this on your Substack will bring this article up on screen here. So there's been total denial about the cognitive mental state of Biden for the longest time. It wasn't it was off limits in the media. It was off limits in sort of polite conversation. Of course, Trump was talking about it. Fox News was talking about it. But generally this issue of the reality of Joe Biden and Jerry, as you said, it's now gone from genocide, Joe to geriatric, geriatric Joe. But what are the ramifications of this over the last four years? And one has to sort of step back here, Sam and say, would any other president, Democrat president, been able to get away with the amount of things that Joe Biden has gotten away with? I can't remember in history, at least in my lifetime, seeing anything like this. It's been horrendous. Some of the things that the United States broke in precedent when so many different things during this first term of Biden. It's almost like he really was the ideal person for this. And maybe that explains why they chose him to begin with, why they've kept him in play. What are your thoughts on the strategy of this situation we find ourselves in? Well, he certainly was chosen. I re-upped a piece that I wrote from the 2020 campaign, where I did a sort of, you know, reverse autopsy on it, right after Super Tuesday in 2020, where it became clear that they completely rigged that through a whole host of measures. And, you know, who was in the race, who got out of the race, when they got out of the race, when he was backed by different parties, it was a very well-coordinated, clearly a plan to ensure that he was president. And you had him brought in with Ubers Inus Blinken as the secretary of state, Avril Haines as director of national intelligence. You had the perfect crew to back a whole slew of policies, especially in Ukraine, and particularly with respect to Israel, Palestine, and to get that target done. So I think that this was very, very well-planned and very well-executed. Yeah, it's almost like the president had just become a functionary of some kind of, you could call it a deep state cabal, you can, whatever, a management council, who knows, who's, and what have you heard in terms of who's actually running the White House? Because that's a big question now that's finally come to the consciousness of people, even Democrats, is who's in charge? It's not the chief executive, clearly. So I've heard everything ranging from Barack Obama to Jake Sullivan and Valerie Jarrett to the Clintons. What's your kind of thought on this? Because it's kind of an important question. It is an important question. I suspect that we don't know a lot of the people who are actually calling the shops. My mind, when this kind of question comes up, always goes to who is Coza. Coza was somebody in the NSA who signed a memo laying out that there should be a spy surge during the buildup of the Iraq war. This was brought to life by Katherine Gunn, who worked at GCHQ when she exposed the memo to try to derail the US invasion of Iraq, and this person, Frank Coza, who wrote that memo saying that we need to spy on UN missions right now. We don't know anything about him. There was a whole litany of people behind the scenes who were running the show. I do suspect, however, that we do know some of the names. I think that Lincoln has a lot of personal connections and is determining a great deal of policy. Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, who participated in event 201 prior to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. As you say, Jake Sullivan, others, Samantha Powers, perhaps. This isn't totally new for the United States. I mean, I think it was certainly under Ronald Reagan. It was fairly clear that other people were running the show and I think it other times. Certainly, until he stepped down as Chief of Staff when I'm claiming Biden's Chief of Staff for his first three years, I think it's an enormous power. The president is like a brand or a figurehead, like a queen in large part. He's marketed in a certain way and he represents certain interests and he has certain prejudices. You don't want somebody in there who might actually wake up with a conscience one day. So I think that Biden fulfills those circumstances. Where are they at right now? Because major donors, major Democratic Party luminaries have cast huge doubt over Joe Biden's mental fitness, his ability to serve. In a second term, there seems to be a lot of real pressure to basically put him out to pasture. Realistically, can that happen? I mean, a lot of people talking about it, that's not so easy to do considering where things are at. And then if they do, who could possibly replace him on such short notice? Do you have any thoughts on this? I'm not sure. I would just be speculating and repeating what other people are saying and pretending to be authoritative about it. I can't be authoritative about it. So, I mean, obviously, the name's floated. Harris was for her whole litany of problems and Gavin Newsom and other people. I should say, at another level, I mean, through every election, I think that the establishment, or if you want to say the deep state has occasionally had, maybe typically had a preferred candidate. And it's not clear to me who the preferred candidate is. And it might be possible that some of the Democratic establishment, and this has happened in the past two in 1972, some of the Democratic establishment might want to sabotage their own candidate and have that Republican win. I know that a lot of people want Trump because they still believe that he's actually America first. I never bought that. And I certainly don't buy it after witnessing his first term. It's quite possible that a good deal of the establishment, including part of the Democratic establishment, actually wants Trump at this point, that he, for example, would conceivably accelerate Israel's violence. Biden has ostensibly prevented a complete ethnic cleansing in Gaza with Trump. I mean, they've decimated Gaza, you know, killed, but they haven't forced the Palestinians in Gaza out of the territory. It is clearly the goal of Israel being an expansionist settler colonial state that could happen under President Trump. They could even accelerate the attack to the West Bank, which is already under attack. But I mean, treat the West Bank the way that they're treating Gaza right now. So, you know, there is an underlying empire here. And it ultimately calls the shots, not, you know, political factions and so on and so forth, that they conform to the underlying dictates of empire. That's how I read US politics. And that's one of the big tragedies of this post-debate fallout is during the debate and after the debate, no real pithy conversations about these two major potentially world-changing situations, these two crisis points being Ukraine the first and, of course, Gaza the second. Now, somewhat encouraging noises from the Trump side about saying Biden, you brought us closer to World War III with Ukraine and the threat of NATO expansions, what started this to begin with. That's somewhat encouraging, although if you look at what Trump did during his first term, he did a lot to accelerate things moving towards this inevitable collision in Ukraine. But with Israel, you're not having any real intelligent analysis between Biden and Trump on this. I think Trump's line, basically, this would have never happened if I was president. That's the extent of the analysis there. And we need to allow Israel the what they need to finish the job, so to speak. I mean, that's not very encouraging either. So, but there's no, not having a real contrast debate between Democrats and Republicans, and this is such a key issue. It seems like Democrats are afraid to really take it head on because they're so deeply ensconced in it all. And on the Trump side, he's done a lot for Israel in his first term, he recognized there in the Golden Heights. He's probably going to give them a green light to annex the West Bank. And who knows what else in Gaza, I mean, so, but that debate is not happening. And I find that extraordinary, Sam, because this is such a major potentially world-changing issue, your thoughts on generally on where we're at with this. Yeah, absolutely. And if you look at what was said in the so-called debate on CNN, they actually work together to propel a problematic narrative. So, you had CNN say, "Mr. Biden, you put forward a ceasefire proposal." That's a lie. He didn't put forward a meaningful ceasefire proposal. He put forward a proposition that was designed and succeeded in delivering the International Court of Justice orders from being implemented by the UN Security Council. He's ended up the UN Security Council and the G7 to regurgitate his demands. And then he cited that at the debate. He's an accomplished statesman or something. And then he says that it's Hamas, that's the problem in implementing the ceasefire. Trump comes in and actually said the truth. He actually said, "No, Hamas isn't the problem. Israel is the problem." But then in typical Trump fashion, when he does say an inconvenient truth, he then says, "And that's a good thing." And that's when he says, "Let him finish him off." And then he says, and then he calls Biden a Palestinian as if it's a pejorative, all someone a Palestinian. So, they almost work in this crazy dance to put forward a narrative or two interlinked narratives that pretend that effectively end up justifying U.S. policy and what Israel's doing. And I would argue similarly, and perhaps even more bizarrely, in the case of NATO, Trump made repeated references to NATO. His critique of NATO during his administration, he said it was irrelevant and seemed to be somewhat echoing, people who were principled, critics of NATO, but he basically leveraged it to get European countries to pay more money into NATO. And he touted that during the debate, saying, "Joe, you're bragging about how big and tough NATO is. That's because of me, because I made everybody else pony up more money for NATO." So, he actually took the dissent against NATO and made it something that further empowered NATO. And that's both the genius and the horror, I think, of Trump. And to some extent, I should say Biden, in terms of this whole ceasefire, because you had the peace movement just saying, "She's fired now. She's fired now. She's fired now." And that became a line that was fairly easy for Biden and company to co-opt, to say, "We want to seize fire. We've put forward to seize fire proposal, but it's phony seize fire proposal." And when you're not asking for the right thing at the get-go, you're more easily co-optable. And I think that's what they've to some degree succeeded in doing here. Yeah, that'd be a great title for a sort of seminal article there, the genius and horror of Trump. That'd be a great headline in there. Because it's surreal what he does when he's like that sort of uncomfortable relative at the Thanksgiving dinner that blurts out a family secret, and then somehow it gets spun into empowering the worst possible situation there. I mean, it's infuriating on one level, but it'd be dazzling on another. And there's nothing like it I've ever seen in politics before. But again, I think the main point here, what you've identified, Sam, is how they were both able, Biden and Trump together in this weird coalescing way to steer the conversation away from anything really substantial that might sort of reveal some insights into it and push it right in the direction really where the establishment wants it. I mean, that, to me, it was an incredible thing. It didn't seem scripted, Sam, but yet that's what happened. And it's really hard to get your head around. I'm still trying to work it out. Yeah, no, it's difficult to know what's actually going on behind the scenes to what extent this is scripted to what extent it's just how the power constellations fit together if they're in their mediaries, how CNN decides on the framing and so on and so forth. But there's clearly some kind of agenda going on here in terms of the outcome and in terms of what we said at the beginning of this interview regarding the Commission on Presidential Debates and why this debate took place when it did. It's sort of like the rules-based order. The US establishment invokes whatever rules it wants that suit it at any particular given time. So it wants to invade Afghanistan. Feminism is the big thing, and that becomes the pretext. And here we see for decades, they were pushing the importance of the regularity of the Commission on Presidential Debates. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, they tossed that out the window. Something's going on here. Yeah, I mean, the other thing was interesting. CNN basically rounded on Biden after the debate. I've seen a few new segments on CNN. It's almost like they didn't just throw them under the bus, the reversing over them as well. And that really raises a lot of questions of what CNN's motivation is because they've always been basically lock stock defending the Democrat camp and supporting Democratic candidates without any reservation unconditionally. So to see this whole thing play out, and the way it was moderated as well, they didn't exactly come to Biden's rescue when he was flailing, I noticed as well. So I mean, the whole thing was very strange. There was no studio audience. The press weren't even there. If I'm not mistaken, Sam, there was no press pool there. So if they edited or cut something out, there wouldn't have been anybody to witness it from the press. They're in a room across the road or something like that, as far as I could see. So the way the whole thing was stage managed, it's not independent. It really shouldn't be like that for a presidential debate. Why is there not any outrage from anybody? There should be somebody that would just flag this and say, this is not the way to do it. Yeah, I mean, I think the whole, I don't think Biden's performance was that terrible, but in terms of his mental cognitive standards, I think that this narrative of from one minute, totally denying that there was any problem to rendering it catastrophic is quite something that were obviously significant lapses. But I mean, his answer to of Trump on Roe v. Wade, or Trump just lied and said, everybody wanted Roe v. Wade's view, for sure. If they wanted to back Biden up, they easily could have played that over and over again after the debate. They didn't do that. There's another agenda at play. They want to make Biden foolish, look foolish, or impaired. I'm not clear as to what the motive is. Is it to get rid of him? Or is it to just make that the subject for the next several months, which is hell of a lot better from CNN and the rest of the established point of view than talking about genocide Joe, or do they considerably actually want Trump? Because even though they pretend to hate Trump, and Trump pretends to be America first, Trump may actually be the mechanism for an acceleration of implementing aspects of US Empire. I think, Sam, I think that there's so much toxicity tied up with the Ukraine debacle with Israel and Gaza. It's heard the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is in major crisis. I think existential crisis will even go so far as to say. And the Biden presidency, all of that can be laid at the feet of Joe Biden. So it seems like this would be a convenient way for them to wash, to absolve their sins, and start with a fresh slate somehow. Because I don't see him going through to the next term, even if he was successful, that existential crisis is not going to go away there. So do you think that might be the calculus there from a strategic point of view, maybe? It's possible. I mean, he then, in effect, would have become a political suicide bomber for the Empire. I'm not to sympathize with him. In issue with a shaper form, he lived a very, very, very cushy life far more than he deserves. But maybe they've decided it's time to shuffle them off stage, and they'll put in a lot of speculation about Michelle Obama being put in there, for example. So it could be the Democratic Party trying to completely rebrand itself and quasi-washing its hands of these debacles. But the buckles is such a euphemism, given the atrocities involved. But whoever comes in is going to have to face them. There are underlying policies. Israel is slaughtering Palestinians by the day. U.S. is juicing up NATO in the name of stability when it's creating instability. There are deep-seated, big lives being put forward by the U.S. Empire. And no matter who's president is going to have to face them. And if people are able to confront that, then they're going to have to deal with it and potentially be exposed in terms of their underlying policies. Well, so you started with genocide Joe Samu into geriatric Joe. And now the suicide bomber for the Empire, Jihadi, Jihadi Joe. That would make an interesting political cartoon. So just throwing that out there to any of the talented political cartoonists there. That's quite a metamorphosis for Joe Biden in such a short space of time. So maybe he's more dynamic than we thought, Sam. So certainly a lot of food for thought there. Sam Husaini, I encourage people to follow the writings of Sam at his sub stack as well. We'll drop that into the TNT chat community. But Sam, thank you so much for joining us on TNT this week. Thank you so much, Patrick. Always good to talk with you. There he goes, ladies and gentlemen, that is Sam Husaini. Again, follow his work in his writings. You'll be better for it near political analysis. Let's take a break right now with TNT. Today's news talk final thoughts, final words on the state of the world on the other side. I'm Patrick Kennington. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
