Hi, I'm Megan Alexander and this is Middle East Tomorrow. Five years ago, the U.S. brought leaders from Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain together to sign the Abraham Accords. That historic day ignited a cross-border movement of changemakers who are joining forces to reshape the region. Join me as I uncover the stories of the people transforming the Middle East today and tomorrow.
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Crazy intense time. We just had the ambassador to the United Nations, Michael Waltz, defending our operation that scooped Maduro out of his bed and put him in a Brooklyn jail. And he was just in, he's now in a Manhattan courtroom. And now we have people like Russia, China. And some Central and South America and Iran condemning these actions.
Brad Meltzer, author of The Viper, a brand new book that's out. Is it out on tomorrow? Hey, yeah, we're out. You're out on a Monday.
Well, we can, you can, some bookstores will sell Monday. Barnes and Noble will sell Monday. Amazon will sell Tuesday.
Okay, yeah.
So, yeah, The Viper is officially out there. Yeah, and I want to talk about that too, but in terms of fast-moving world events, I mean, this is fast moving. And a guy that you know well, knew well, Pris41, HW, you're friendly with the family still. People were equating it to the Panama operation when they just said Noriega's got to go, and he went. It took 10 days.
We lost 23 guys. We needed 25,000 soldiers. But they're equating the two. Do you equate the two? You know I what I equate and I think it's the right question, right?
Where in history are we right now? Tell me what it is. Are we at Noriega? Are we at Saddam Hussein? Like and the fear, of course, is if you look historically, You break it, you bought it.
And I think the one thing I think, and no politics about it, is people listen, if it all goes right, then great. Hallelujah, that's wonderful. He's clearly a bad guy, he's a bad dude. But This does not usually go well when we go into other countries and obviously you have Trump is saying, we're going to run Venezuela now. I don't want to run Venezuela.
We could barely run America.
Well, hey, I don't want to be running another country. That's the opposite of what everyone wanted. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, because I do not want to be running another country that has historically been a bad thing for America. Right.
So another thing is if you wanted to run the country, you don't leave the Interior Secretary who's been indicted, the Defense Minister who's been indicted, and the Vice President, who people say is a barracuda. We'll see. Here's Bill Barr. He was there, and he's there again. He was there in 2020 when he actually drew up the indictment.
Cut 32. Yeah, I have a high degree of confidence he'll ultimately be convicted. And all the legal arguments that have been raised really were raised during the prosecution of Noriega, which was a very parallel situation. Which you also oversaw. Right.
And I think they will be rejected, and I think he will be convicted. And I think he's looking at sentences similar to, if not bigger, than Noriega's sentence. He's committed far more crimes, in my mind, than Noriega did. And Noriega got a 40-year sentence, which was reduced to 30. But then he also served time in France and then later in Panama, where he died.
Yeah, I'm not worried about the conviction. We're going to get a conviction, right? One of my dear friends at the Cali cartel. Right, we're good at that. That's not the issue.
The issue is, is what do we do with the country now? That's the issue. Again, I think Barr is exactly right. It's going to be a conviction. But the question is, what are we now holding?
And that, to me, is the question we all as Americans have to be asking. And the question is: if you have a country in your backyard that has Iran, Russia, China, Hezbollah, with huge portions of their country where they occupy, Iran was bragging last year, we're in your backyard.
So If you go out and you try to get rid of a guy that wouldn't leave even though he lost election 70-30. The ripple effects of maybe having a hemisphere without terrace in your backyard is certainly attractive. Listen, that you've just described the most viral clip that has gone around the Internet. And I'm sure you've seen it. I know I've seen it because it's been all over my Instagram feed.
is the Jack Ryan clip with John Krasinski. From the Tom Clancy show. In fact, you want to play it? Do you have that clip? Let's listen.
Oh, we got it. What would you assume is the most major threat on the world stage? Anyone, just call it out. You don't have to raise your hand. Definitely Russia.
Definitely Russia. That's confident. I like it. Who says Russia? Anyone agree with her?
Hands?
Okay, great. Who else? China. Stop yelling at me, but China is a good answer. Anyone?
Who else? China? North Korea? North Korea. Any North Korea takers?
Okay. And uh Venezuela, anybody? No, oh, yep, one guy in the back. Little worried about Venezuela. Everybody's cool with Venezuela?
No threat?
Okay. Let me ask you this. Which one of these places can claim to have the largest oil deposit on the planet? More than Saudi, more than Iran. Wow.
Okay, what about things like Gold. More than all the mines in Africa combined? The fact is that Venezuela is arguably the single greatest resource. of oil and minerals on the planet. Why is this country in the midst of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in modern history?
And at the end of that clip, says it's also the closest place to launch nuclear weapons. And that clip. on a fictional property. Made by a fictional person is the number one thing that's trending around where people are getting their information from. It's fascinating the way the world is working right now.
But there are facts within those statements. There are, and I've been obsessed with the comments. If you look at the comments of that clip, Half the people are like, this is propaganda put into our entertainment to set us up for today. And the other half is, oh, that's absolutely right. Right.
And again, same thing that we see in reality, right? Is two sides of America trying to fight their thing. But again, I think historically, the other thing that's embedded in that clip is. What do we do now? What happens now to Venezuela?
And especially as you and I have been talking, there's now Russia's demanding that, hey, we want him freed. And there's going to be a parlor game going on right now because you can't go into those places and not have Russia and China say, wait a minute, what do we get now? They got their hands full right now. Oh, everybody's got their hands full. We got our hands full right now, right?
We think there's no victory in bringing this guy back. It doesn't end today. If it ended today, then we win, right? We took the bad guy out. But to me, I think a lot of people elected Trump.
Because they were like, get us out of these active wars. And as someone who spent a lot of time in Dover Air Force Base, a lot of time dealing with our fallen troops, a lot of time watching what the results are. It's not today. But you also got elected to solve problems. And this has been a problem for 25 years.
Yeah, but I also think if this was about solving problems. then don't pardon the other guy who was a drug dealer. If your goal is, is I'm going to get drug dealers, then don't let go of the other one. It's not about a drug dealer to me. This is about another, it's again, it's a bigger game, but big games that are played on foreign land when we remove people.
Again, Maduro's a bad dude, make no mistake. Part of the border problem is them. Part of the drug problem is them. Part of the gang problem is them. They're actually working in America, sending money back to Maduro, who is giving China 85% of their oil for a discount.
How is China able to sustain itself?
Well, part of the reason could be that they get this discounted oil from Russia. And they get the discounted oil from Venezuela. Yeah, no listen, no doubt about that. The question is: I wonder when you ask the average American, Do we want to be running another country? I'll wager good money that the average American, Democrat, Republican, anything in between, says, I don't want to be messing around with foreign sources.
I'm convinced that you can have a foreign policy and a domestic policy. Oh, and we always will. But we have so far been, again, right here looking at America, and suddenly everyone woke up on Saturday. You and I, you know, we said it before, going, Oh my gosh, this is some action like we haven't seen before. But we've seen the buildup.
They actually said the CIA is on the ground. Oh, no, CIA was the reason we got in. Is because the CIA was in there, right? That's how we found them because we had a CIA guy that was in there giving us information.
So we have people, but we have people everywhere. Name a country. We said we're moving in and we put 15,000 troops on ships in an area. But I want to talk about the Viper. Tell me about the Viper.
Yeah, the Viper, again, built in reality. A man walks into a funeral home carrying his favorite blue suit. He's got a terminal disease. And this is the suit he wants to be buried in. But here's the thing: if you go into your local bank and you open up a safety deposit box, Paperwork gets filed.
Government can track it. Same thing you go to the UPS store and you open up a PO box, but if you secretly sew something into the lining of your suit, and you hand that suit to your local mortician. you have the ultimate untraceable hiding spot. And the man then goes back to his hotel room. There's a guy with a gun who says, Where is it?
He says, I don't know what you're talking about. and the guy shoots him dead. Man's now dead. His suit is in the funeral home. You won't believe what's hidden in that suit.
Or who's about to find it? And that's chapter one of the viper. And I base it all on obviously something that gets you to turn pages, but it's It's a thriller, you know, like Tom Clancy, like those books we all love. But it's built in the reality of Dover Air Force Base and our military troops and what goes on in that incredible. Top secret funeral home that no one gets access to, but I've been lucky enough to have access to.
And something similar to that happened? Yeah, well well, that what I just described to you actually did happen. I it was based on reality. I was in a funeral home and and saw where they hold all the clothes when people die. If you if you have no family and you're sick, you pick out what you're going to wear to your funeral.
It's a crazy idea. And I said to the guy the the mortician opened up the closet that was under padlock and I was like, What's in there? And he showed me all the clothes, and I was like, that's a great hiding spot. But the things that I built it around, the reality you'll see in there is just as an example, You know, we do a lot with witness protection. And you and I were talking about secrets before we got on the air with your previous guest.
And one of the things we forget about is how great we are at keeping secrets in America sometimes. And I've done the secret tunnels below the White House. I've done the hidden labyrinth below the Capitol. I've even done the secret tunnels below Disney World, but there was nothing like trying to dig into witness protection. Because we all know Witness Protection is a place that had the mob, right?
We think of Tony Soprano. And that's what Witness Protection was built for, is to hide mobsters so that we can prosecute them in the same way we're prosecuting Maduro right now. You need someone on the inside who's going to testify against them. I promise you that we'll have some Venezuelans that we're going to be hiding in there. And Eventually guess what happened?
It worked.
So mobsters stopped hiding in winter protection because the mob started to disappear, but crime doesn't stop. Same thing we're going to see now. It never stopped, so guess who took their place? gangs.
So gang members then became the number one group in witness protection. Then nine eleven happened, we started chasing terrorists. Terrorists became the number one group hiding in witness protection. You want to know, Brian, who one of the number one groups hiding in witness protection today is? Accountants.
Because we live in a world of data. And that's who's hiding there now. And so you will read The Viper, and yes, you'll turn the pages and you'll see Dover, and we can talk more about that. You will get to see witness protection like you've never seen it before. Wow.
So, this to me would be perfect for a movie. I listen to that. You sound like my mom made sure she will always be like, I would be like, mom, it's not going to happen. She's always picking out what she's going to wear to the Oscars. But the most moving part to me was watching these morticians at Dover Air Force Base.
We all know Dover, even if you don't know it by name, it's where we just saw recently President Trump was there when that flag-covered coffin came, when those service members came home. Died in Syria. Exactly. And And those morticians there Dover is a place where it's not just our fallen service members, but it's when the space shuttle exploded, the astronauts, their bodies went to Dover. It's when 9-11 happened, all the Pentagon victims went to Dover.
It's also where all of our spies in Venezuela, anyone that gets hurt, anyone that gets killed there, their bodies are going to Dover too. And it means Dover is a place filled with secrets. And morticians there will spend 12 hours rewiring someone's jaw, smoothing it over with clay because a mother says, I want to see my son one last time in his coffin. Rebuilding someone's hand from scratch because they say, I want to hold my son's hand one last time. These are the best of the best of us, working on the best of the best of us.
And almost nobody gets in there. I've had unprecedented access. And you'll see when you read The Viper. Dover is just such an incredibly inspiring place. Right now, and this is I think important, especially as we talk about Venezuela.
If you want to know since 9-11. We always think about combat deaths for our troops. But do you know that suicide, you are four times more likely in the military since 9-11 to die by suicide than during combat? That means for over 30,000 members of the military, that's as far as they can run. And the reason why we can talk about it is that's the best thing we can do for our troops, is to make sure they know that there are resources out there if they're feeling something like that.
And so when for me personally, this is just my take on things. When I see something like this in Venezuela, yes, what do you think immediately of the foreign policy and the domestic policy? But I think of Dover, and I think of when we get involved in these places, Dover starts filling up and not in a good way. And it starts getting to be a busy place. Right now, Dover has been, thankfully, a pretty quiet place to work.
And I'm worried that it won't be soon. Um, yeah, we'll see what happens. It's gotten really quiet since Joe Biden, brilliantly, and I'm being sarcastic, got out of Afghanistan and probably ended his presidency.
So, this is the third book in a series. Yeah, but you can start with this one here. In fact, the quote on the front says the perfect place to meet Zig and Nola. It's, you know, it's like, and one of the heroes of it is a mortician there, my character Zig, who believes if you're a good person, you put good into the world, the world becomes a better place. And I based him on the beliefs of some real morticians who were there, a real Zig, and found a character named Nola, who's like my girl with the dragon tattoo.
So, if you love those books, you're going to love this one. Great.
So, stick around. Brad Meltzer is going to be here. His book is out today. If you know people at Barnes and Noble, you'll get it. Tomorrow it's officially out.
It's called The Viper, or you can order it and have it delivered to your house or download the e-book, which I do. Back in a moment. Nearly home. Isn't home where we all want to be? Reba here for Realtor.com, the pro's number one most trusted app.
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So Brad Melcher's with us, author of The Viper. We're watching a few different stories. The Viper comes out, you can get it today, but it really officially comes out tomorrow. And Brad, we're following a few stories. Number one, what happened when Maduro's gonna be in, he's gonna be seen.
In court shortly, it was pretty amazing to see him taken out of a Brooklyn prison with where. Luigi Mangione was and P. Diddy was. And brought to a soccer field and then choppered into Manhattan. And you know where he was choppered from is Stewart, what used to be an Air Force base, but Stewart Airport, upstate New York.
And it's where that's where the hostages came back in Iran back during Reagan era. That's where they were actually brought back when they were freed from Iran. They came there, this little tiny airport that is now, you couldn't find a cab there if you wanted in the middle of nowhere. And that's where they brought him to. And I'm like, the fact that he's stepping in the places where the hostages were, as you said, where Diddy was, like, it's an unbelievable story.
Yeah, and with his wife, and he had a bunch of off-ramps, and conversations were: look. Turkey will take you. Moscow will take you. UAE, I think, would have taken them. And now the message is you didn't take the off-ramp.
Now you're going to go the Noriego way, 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Also, Governor Waltz, in about 15 minutes, will officially withdraw from running for a third term as governor, which shows, I think, that the scandal, which is huge, it's already going to be, they say, as much as $9 billion, is even bigger than that. and he decides I'm going to withdraw, blaming Trump. How Trump is to blame for $9 billion worth of fraud that dates back to 2018, I'm not sure. Is he running for president?
Is that what he's with? Is he going to run for governor or third time? Right, right. He was going to run for governor. And then probably run for president.
And then run for president. Yeah, I don't know the story. I actually don't know that story very well. What I do know is watching Maduro through the quorum is going to, if you thought that Diddy was a circus. Just wait.
Like, because we were going through, I mean, even when we were doing when Noriega happened, and I'm someone who lives in Florida, I have friends who have done a lot of these prosecutions on these high drug cases. They bring a cast of characters like you've never seen. Because the only people who can testify against him who are seeing his craziest stuff, so you can see on the TVs that are in front of us, you see Miami and Miami and Miami, right? It's one, because we have a lot of Venezuelans there, of course. But two, is no one has drug raids like this and a trial like this, like Miami does.
And you're going to see when you do these trials, I called my buddy who prosecuted the Cali cartel and put them away. And the people that you have to interview when you're doing this. Or It's going to be a cast of characters. I wish it was Miami. It's going to be a new Miami.
Yeah, it's going to be here.
Now it's your problem, right? Yeah, it's not my problem. Remember, The Blind Shake and everybody else that's been prosecuted here, they were going to do KSM here. But in The Viper, which makes you proudest of this book out of everything you've done? What do you walk away and you go, wow, this is what I'm really glad to see unwind in the print?
Yeah, so there's a quote. I love you for asking that. Such a thoughtful question. There's a quote in the beginning that says, I don't believe in closure. I'm not sure we ever get over anything.
And by a very great military writer, and I love the fact that this book. Proves that sometimes you don't need closure's overrated. Love yourself for who you are, accept your family for who they are. And that's to me how you make America to be the best we can be. His name is Brad Meltzer.
The name of the book is The Viper. Go get it, Brad. Great to see you. Always. This is Ainsley Earhart.
Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
