The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret) Col Chris Wyatt - Zuma & Epstein, Israel & SA , Trump & Iran - and Fikile’s “Cold War”

In the latest NDB Sunday Show, Chris Steyn and US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt talk about former president Jacob Zuma's name popping up in the Epstein Files; the mysterious death of Goolam whose posts on X had made him the target of many a politician; African National Congress SG Fikile Mbalula’s latest description of US-South Africa relations as a Cold War; the tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between Israel and South Africa; US President Donald Trump’s readiness to strike Iran; the Trump Derangement Syndrome of his haters; and calls from certain groups in South Africa to boycott the next FIFA World Cup in North America..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here:.Listen here:.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.464)Welcome to the NDB Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyn and US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt. Morning, Colonel. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:11.644)Good morning, Chris. A lovely morning to you. Well, afternoon for you, morning for me, but a lovely day to you. I hope things are going well on your end. Chris Steyn (00:19.214)Let's start with the Epstein files. It's big news and now even former president Jacob Zuma's name has popped up with Jeffrey Epstein arranging an intimate dinner with a beautiful Russian woman for him during his state visit to the UK in 2010. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:41.116)Well, that's a fascinating story and I guess a good place for us to start. For the better part of the last year, I've heard a lot of people on the right, especially the extreme right in America and some people in the MAGA crowd complain and some of them come on my programme and say, Trump promised to release the Epstein files. What's he hiding? What's he hiding? He must be in the files. Trump's behind it. Why won't he release it? My question to them was always, well, the Democrats have had these files for four years. Biden never released them. Why weren't you ever complaining about that? Where was the call in South Africa? Where was the call in America for the Epstein files be released when Biden had them? There was almost no uproar about Biden not releasing them in the Biden justice department. No effort to go get the grand jury testimony released, which is very rare. It's almost impossible to do. And in this case, that grand jury testimony is still blocked by judges because you endanger the process of witnesses. So, you know, I heard this for the year and I had some viewers come on my programme and wanted to talk about it. And said, look, I don't know what your obsession with this is. Unfortunately, there's not much can be done about this. I mean, basically, the person responsible is dead. The other person is in jail for an extended period of time. All that survivors can possibly hope to do is to get restitution from the estate. But I think a lot of people want the knives out and want to go after people and bay for blood. So that brings us back to the topic at hand with Epstein. So when this was released, the New York Times and CNN were uncharacteristically objective in their analysis. They say that Trump's name is mentioned many times in the latest release of three million documents, but it's unverified, unconfirmed information, which is remarkable to hear. Now we've already seen reported breathlessly this morning in South African press and it's all over social media about Jacob Zuma. I'm not here to defend Jacob Zuma. I think he's an indefensible person in many respects, but what I'm going to say is that if this was the carnage and the damage that's going to come out of releasing documents to people who have no understanding of what a criminal investigation involves or what it entails…The fact that someone's name appears in emails or appears in a conversation does not mean that people had an association or did anything untoward. So I'm not going to accuse Jacob Zuma of doing anything incorrect here. However, the fact that it appears to be maybe with a Russian lady, you know, this is kind of unusual. It does make it kind of salacious potentially and very interesting, I think, for people to discover. So I think we're not going to hear the end of this with Zuma. Of course, MK Party and his acolytes are saying it's a smear campaign. It's not a smear campaign. Dude, your name is in the files. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (03:01.306)And people screamed, maybe not you, but people screamed for these files to be released. And this is the damage that's done. You know, if it's out of context, if nothing untoward happened, then he's still smeared with it. The Slovakian prime minister just resigned because he's mentioned there. Well, that makes me think that maybe he did something wrong. That doesn't mean he did, but the point with this whole thing with the Epstein files is people have been obsessed with it for so long. And as I caution people getting copies of transcripts of investigations, interviews or interrogations with people is not productive because you're not an adjudicator. You're not a person evaluates the evidence. You're not a person. Most people aren't and people will jump to conclusions and things can look very bad. There are a lot of prominent people. Look, Jeffrey Epstein was very wealthy, very connected. He knew all the connected people in this point. He probably knew the Chinese communist connected people as far as I know. But the point is that he knew lots of people and that doesn't mean that people mentioned his files or a phone number was found in his address book means that they did anything wrong. Epstein was constantly spreading his network, getting his tentacles out there, trying to get in touch with other people and grayshade himself for his own needs and desires. And that's just kind of how it works among the rich and powerful. So that's why you have to be very careful, Chris, who you choose amongst your friends and your associates. You never know. You never know who's going to be responsible for exposing your information later on in whatever context. So in this case, I think it's early and the jury is out with the Jacob Zuma and the Jeffrey Epstein story. But hey, I'm curious and I want to know now. Chris Steyn (04:28.782)Well, African National Congress party SG. Mr. Mbalula has described US-South Africa relations as a Cold War. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (04:45.266)Well, that's a fascinating description. I wouldn't resort to Fikile Mbalula for a source of anything unless you're looking for propaganda and hysteria. Fikile Mbalula lashes out at his own party members, at his own NEC, at the public, at white South Africans, at the United States. Cold War. I'm curious what kind of Cold War this is. Again, the only concrete action the United States has done that could be considered anything that was unwarranted. And even then, there's information to back up why it was done. It was a response to actions by South Africa. But the public generally doesn't know about it. The only action would be the decision by Trump to say that South African diplomats would not be welcome in the G20 this year because we're hosting it and you're not going to come here. That's the only thing the US has done. There are no sanctions against South Africa. There's no embargo. There's no trade. There's no effort to block Americans from investing in South Africa. Nothing like that has happened in South Africa. The arguments and crying about this Cold War by Fikile Mbalula are pure fiction and fabrication in his mind. There is a war. But it's the ANC on the United States. For the United States, you know, it's the ANC is like a pesky little fly, a mosquito over here, you know, not really much of an irritation or a threat or interest even for the United States. The United States is kind of busy with a lot of other stuff, not the least of which is an insurrection to federal authority in Minneapolis, as well as Ukraine conflict and many other things on the planet that are going on. But the ANC may think it's in a cold war with the United States, but it's a fabricated in their minds war. The United States is taking no action. Now, course, we'll hear that, well, but the US cancelled all foreign aid. Well, I'm sorry. Isn't that our money? Don't we decide who gets it? And because of the fact that the South African government passed a law that clearly violates their own constitution and the fact that many other factors come into play here, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which South Africa is signatory, as well as the AGOA Trade Act, which gave preferential status to countries in Africa that respect private property rights. The abrogation of those with the Expropriation without Compensation law means that South Africa made itself ineligible for AGOA. We didn't kick South Africa out of AGOA even though they passed that law. It was signed in January. AGOA expired 30 September. South Africa was not booted out. They were ineligible under the law. And President Trump graciously allowed South Africans to continue to ship goods and services into the U.S. duty free while South Africa charged us outrageous tariffs on our poultry, bans our pork products, puts quotas on our automobiles coming to the country. We allowed free trade coming this way. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (07:06.16)The only war taking place here is in the mind of Fikile Mbalula and the intentional effort by the ANC to sabotage America, sending a racist ambassador to Washington, DC to insult America publicly. And he did this multiple times. This is the one time he got caught on video and got exposed. So his persona non grata was simply a legitimate reaction to his behavior. How can you be an ambassador in a guest country? Let's say you're the ambassador from South Africa, Lesotho, and you go there and say the king, you know, say the really bad things about the king in public forums, you're to be kicked out. Now here's the irony South Africa has now, and this is a story we're probably going to talk about shortly, now persona non grata this charge d'affaires from the Israeli diplomatic mission making the same argument. But their argument holds no water and we can get that a little bit later on. But the point here is that there is no Cold War, Chris. This is ratching up a propaganda. This is what propagandists do. They try to stir the mix. They try to get people incensed and emotionally invested. And the bottom line here is that from the United States side, there is no Cold War. I mean, look, the president of South Africa came to America, sat in the Oval Office, at the request of the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa asked for the meeting. Trump rearranged his schedule in a very busy time in May of last year, had Ramaphosa come over, took his delegation, warmly greeted them. They met with other officials on the sidelines a couple of days before that, multiple meetings, clearing the calendar. And then Ramaphosa shows up 42 minutes late for the meeting for the most powerful person on the planet. Who does that? Chris, I was a few minutes late for our conversation this morning and I felt terribly guilty. Ramaphosa showed no remorse whatsoever. And then he goes and he lies to the president of United States…And I live 6,000 miles away and I watch it unfold live. This is ridiculous to sit there and lie to the president of United States. You know he lost all credibility if he had any with the president. And also you go back to Bloomberg in 2018. You know, he's after the UN General Assembly. He's talking to Bloomberg press. President Trump is uninformed. He's misinformed. He's not true. There are no farm murders in South Africa. There are no farm murders. There are no white farmers being murdered. Well, that's poppycock. Thousands of white farmers have been murdered and their family members and thousands of other farm workers and farm owners who are not white have been murdered. It's just a reality. You know, farm murders happen all over the world. We even have them rarely and occasionally in America. To deny there are no, say there are no farm murders, it's just a lie. It's just, it's speaking to an audience he thinks is stupid. That's the approach of the ANC. They think that people are stupid or either that or they're very stupid because this propaganda war is their fabrication. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (09:31.986)The United States has not kicked South Africa out of the swift banking system. United States has not done any action against South Africa. Have you seen the USS Lincoln show up off the coast of Cape Town? No, no, but we have seen a designated terror group, the Iranian Revolutionary Republican Guard Navy vessel show up and participate in an exercise with South Africa, so they weren't participating in. The provocations come entirely from the South Africa side. The US has done virtually nothing to South Africa and is still doing nothing. A lot of people are dismayed the fact that Donald Trump is taking no action against the ANC for its provocations. But I believe the ANC wants provocations. They want to play the victim here because it's a distraction from their failures. They have an election coming up and they're as popular as measles or smallpox. They're not very popular and they're going to lose badly. Chris Steyn (10:17.47)While we're on this topic, Chris, let's go to the latest on the tariffs..Read more:.The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret.) Col Chris Wyatt - Malema, Motsepe, Motshekga - and no seat for SA on Trump’s Peace Board….Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (10:24.732)So Chris, on the issue of the tariffs, here's a funny one. Let's talk about this. So for the past year, we've heard endlessly and breathlessly from South African media and experts that they dig out of universities in South Africa that claim that the United States has been aggressive towards South Africa. And these tariffs, they've attacked South African these tariffs. And I've pointed out thousands of times that the United States under President Trump imposed tariffs on 90 countries, 90 countries. Now he didn't just do it willy nilly. Now, the formula they came up with, people want to dispute, yo, that was a cockamamie formula they came up with. Whatever. I'm not here to dispute that. That's their prerogative, how to determine what tariffs are. Well, the bottom line is every country that these tariffs are imposed upon practice unfair trade against the United States. And we allowed it for decades. And the United States went from being the largest creditor nation in world to being the largest debtor nation in world with a massive trade deficit because we allow countries to basically pilfer our national resources because we're nice people. Stupid, but nice people. So what Trump did is he said, no, no, that's not right. It's unfair. And I just mentioned some of the things that South Africa does to our trade. They put outrageous tariffs. …They put bans on our pork products, the best pork products on the planet, but to protect their pork industry, they ban our products from coming. They also put quotas on other things. We can only ship so many cars. Meanwhile, the Chinese, until recently, and the Indians are flooding the market with cars. Some of these companies have 147% year-on-year sales growth. It's insane. So South Africa's practice unfair trade policies against us, so we impose a 30% tariff on them. Now, here's the irony. This is what the story you want to talk about. This week, South Africa is proposing a 50% tariff on Chinese and Indian manufactured cars. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Donald Trump is the aggressive one by putting a 25% tariff on automobiles globally and a 30% tariff on South African goods. And he's aggressive. That he singled out South Africa, targeted them. So what exactly is that meaning the ANC is doing to China? Are they singling out China and India? Well, it seems to be the case here. And you want to talk about a tariff, 50%? Yeah, a lot of people are speculating the reason for this is less to protect the automotive industry in South Africa and more to take money out of the pocket South Africans and give it to the government, which clearly doesn't have to spend money effectively. Whatever the case is, this myths and lies have been spread and the 30% crowd of people that listen to the major media outlets in South Africa need to wake up and go back to school and get a proper education, learn how to think critically for themselves. All the lies have been spread about Donald Trump and about the United States for the past year are the exact same things…. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (12:50.386)…or far worse that the ruling government in South Africa in a plurality in a coalition the ANC is doing in its foreign policy, imposing a 50% tariff to block Chinese and Indian vehicles from coming into the country, but they're not really gonna block them because people need cars while the South African motor industry collapses because losing duty-free access to United States has been devastating. Already thousands of jobs have been lost in the automotive industry, particularly in Eastern Cape, in a region that can't afford to lose a single job. But the ANC marches merrily along and keeps calling Trump aggressive and Fikile Mbalula saying, oh, they're targeting us and singling us out. You haven't been singled out. You haven't been singled out. Tariffs went on Great Britain, our closest ally for centuries. Tariffs have gone on everyone, Canada, which used to be a close relationship. It's because of unfair trade practices. And I'll give you one example about how it's unfair before we move on. And that's the European Union. The European Union has a unilateral 10% tariff on US cars shipped to Europe. A lot of Europeans like Chevrolets and Fords and things like that. I'm not sure why, but they like them. So that's a barrier. In the meantime, the vehicles shipped to United States from Europe have a 2.5% or 2% tariff. Yeah, 2.5%, 2.5%. 2.5% tariff. So they charge four times as much for our cars to go that way as we charge for their cars to come here. Now, how is that fair? In addition to that, we don't have value added tax, but every European country has value added tax. Some of them have 25 % like Sweden. Others have 19% or 20%. That adds a significant amount to the cost of the vehicle, which isn't added to the States. Now, someone will quibble with me and say, well, Chris, you know, but you have sales tax. Yes, but sales tax varies from state to state and it isn't value added tax. It doesn't change the nature of the transaction; it makes, it doesn't make the car more expensive. Anyway, the point here is that, isn't it ironic to see the South African government now trying to impose draconian tariffs on Asia manufacturers after crying that America was so aggressive towards South Africa? Poppycock, people think for yourselves. Listen to what other people tell you. Don't listen to what I say. Look it up. I'm giving you the facts. I give you the receipts. Those are the receipts. That's reality. Chris Steyn (14:48.366)Chris, meanwhile, the biggest mystery here is the sudden death of Goolam, whose posts on X enraged so many politicians and made so many others quite happy. In a message to BizNews founder Alec Hogg, Goolam claimed that there was a million-rand bounty on his head. Have you been following? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (15:25.49)I've been following that story. know, it's interesting, the irresponsible behavior of so-called investigative journalists in South Africa, in particular, the Independent Online and News24, going after and attacking private citizens for social media posts when there's real issues in South Africa to deal with. It's shocking to see what's happening. Goolam was targeted and people went after him. I remember when News24 ran a thing about Twatterbaas. They ran a list and they actually published in the newspaper all the times that certain people in South Africa interacted with Twatterbaas and with Elon Musk in an effort to put their lives at risk. And I know someone personally whose life is at risk has had to go into hiding because of death threats. And it's shocking what's happened. I also know that the certain organisations working for the government, purportedly in South Africa, have been sticking their nose in and using illicit methods to get into people's Twitter accounts. My Twitter account, which is 27 years old, was compromised this week and was broken into. And that's been reported to Elon Musk. So those responsible for it: It’s best that you get out of my account. You've been blocked from taking further action. There is some strange things going on. Now, I don't use my Twitter account for much of anything other than post few videos, few news articles. But the reason why they would want to get in somebody's Twitter account is because the direct messaging capability. But they're wasting their time because I don't use Twitter for direct messaging because it's not secure. So as you can see, when hacking your account, it's not secure. So I don't use it for that purpose. So good luck there, try to find any connections. And I don't do anything immoral or wrong, but what they're doing is they're looking for South Africans so they can target them. That's what's happening. So Goolam being found dead in a hotel, what is he 40 years old or something like that? I think it was around his age. That's a very puzzling and strange situation. And it bears investigation. It needs to have a serious investigation, but I seriously doubt that there'll be a genuine investigation into his death. People want to sweep it on the carpet and they'll be glad that he's gone. I suspect if anyone's responsible, if it wasn't natural causes, I don't know how he died, but the whole thing is very suspicious. you know, I suspect that there are people who have ill will towards him and may have been behind this. And also I know for a fact that there are people with ill will towards Twatterbaas or simply exposing the failures in South Africa. Why should people be targeted for expressing their opinion or for expressing facts? That's even worse. And so I think this is all tied up into the Twatterbaas, Elon Musk, Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (17:44.722)And of course the Goolam thing. I know Goolam really made a lot of people… I read his tweets. I don't know if I even ever retweet anything. I might have, I don't know. I'd say, you know, right now my Twitter account is locked because of the hack. But so I can't go back and check. But anyway, so yeah, it's a strange world we live in, in which people violate people's personal privacy, violate their own constitution to go after the people who are exposing their failures and their fraud. Chris Steyn (18:12.846)Well, meanwhile, we've seen a tit for tat diplomatic expulsion between Israel and South Africa. Your thoughts? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (18:26.14)Well, my thoughts on that first off, let's come back to News 24, which ran an article this week that basically saying that South Africa is expressing its sovereignty. They've taken three actions recently. I mean, go back to almost two years ago with Reuben Bridgety, how he got a demarche because he exposed the Lady R. And so they're claiming that's them expressing their sovereignty and then talking about this situation here expelling the Chargé d'affaires, Ariel Seidman. Now, the letter, now look, let's be very clear about this, Chris, South Africa is a sovereign nation. It has every right to not accept diplomats. It has every right to tell anyone who's not a national that they must leave the country. Now, that doesn't make it right, moral or just, or even legal, but it does mean it's their sovereign right to tell people who can and can't be in the country. I don't disagree with that. And I would hope that people go to South Africa, obey South Africa's laws and treat the country fairly. Every time I go to South Africa, I obeys its laws, its mores, its norms, and I try to promote its people when I go there. But in this case, the boilerplate statement and it sounds really bad, you know, violent, egregious. That's the language it is putting in these things all the time, whether somebody did something or not. So it's interesting here in Pennsylvania, we have what's called an at will employment state. And in America, some states you have to go through a process to fire someone. But in the United States, someone fails in Pennsylvania, someone fails, you can fire them for whatever reason. Now you can't fire them for immutable fact, then you can be sued if they're black or they're gay or they're straight or they're lesbian or Muslim, you know, or Christian, you can't fire them for those reasons. But if they fail to perform, you can just let them go. Unfortunately, I had the unpleasant task yesterday, letting a person go that we really like who's had some declining mental health and is proving to be more of a detriment and causing the business a lot of resources. And so we had to let that person go because it's that well employment state. And that's kind of the same thing here. It's an at-will acceptance when it comes to diplomatic credentials on the Vienna Convention. However, in the Seidman case, it bears some time to go back and look at Ibrahim Rasool. Ibrahim Rasool, was a second time ambassador to Washington, DC, who knew the rules, who knew the conduct of diplomats. Reuben Bridgety didn't come out and publicly attack the ANC or the government. And Ibrahim Rasool did in public forums and did it repeatedly. And he was caught on video and somebody got tired of it. So they shared it and it became a big thing. So he was persona non grata and told to leave the country. He brought that upon himself by intentionally doing that. And let's go back to what he said. He said, America is a racist nation and Donald Trump is the leader of global white supremacy. Okay. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (20:50.736)Now, if that's true, then he's not slandering the president. But where's the evidence? He offers no evidence. It's just an empty opinion. So he got himself PNG. In this case, I read the statement from DIRCO and it says that Ariel Seidman had been saying disparaging things about President Ramaphosa. So I went back and checked his tweets for the past six months. I don't see a single post on his Twitter account that says anything negative. He does say one kind of cheeky thing about, it's nice to see that President Ramaphosa for once got something correct on an issue about Israel, something like that. That's cheeky. That's not attacking the president. So that's the most egregious thing I could find on his tweet. And the problem is that I believe that what happened here is that Israel is embarrassing the government of South Africa, either intentionally or by happenstance, because of the relationship with King Dalindyebo. And the fact that the people in Eastern Cape have been denied resources for donkey years by the government of South Africa and that's all the responsibility of the ruling ANC in that province and at the national level. And so the king had enough and he's built a relationship with the Israeli government and they have brought resources and it was just in the newspaper. Isn't it funny how all this comes out right after Israeli authorities come there and provide money for a hospital and all these other, the amount of money they've been giving over the past couple of years, which has been helping South Africans and nobody seems to know about it. But once it gets in the press, suddenly we have to PNG that guy. So I think that it's their prerogative, but it's an illegitimate expulsion. And naturally in response to that, they've just ruined the relationship with Israel if they had one left after taking to the ICJ, the National Court of Justice a couple of years ago. So Israel immediately kicked out their Palestinian authority, you know, senior ambassador. And now the thing's gonna get worse. I mean, Israel is one of the major purchasers of South African coal, which South Africa needs. And we're in the midst of a commodity boom right now and good luck. Good luck with selling that coal to someone else. The Chinese have the coal they need. They don't need more coal. And, you know, the Israelis can get their coal from the United States who are desperate to ship coal because of the green crowd in America is preventing us from using it for our power plants. So, you know, this is not going to go well for South Africa. And it was once again ill-advised foreign policy. In my view, there's an opinion from a leader of a ministry that has no clue what he's doing. He's only good at insulting people and sitting in front of a camera. And of course, we know that's Ronald Lamola. So this is a big mistake..Read more:.The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret.) Col Chris Wyatt - SA: Iran & China, the DA “Dumpster Fire” & the next coalition government.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (23:09.604)I don't even know if he runs that ministry, if he just takes direction from Cyril or from the NEC, the National Executive Committee of the ANC. But the bottom line here is that this was a big own goal and it was unnecessary. They claim they talked to Israel and asked them to stop it and ratchet it down. They have no credibility whatsoever. The same government has been telling us for the last year that they're negotiating with America to lower the tariffs, which is a lie. I can confirm from Washington there are no trade representatives in D.C. and there haven't been. There is no trade ambassador. There's no ambassador, period in from South Africa in Washington DC. There's been no effort to engage Americans at all. And they've been telling us now when that excuses run out, people starting to believe what I've been telling them for the past year, which is the truth, not what the government's been telling. Now they're starting to listen and realise that, well, now we have to tell people that we're just waiting for the Americans. You're waiting for the Americans. Meanwhile, real things are happening in the terror field. South Korea just got their tariffs increased. Now they're going get lowered again. Switzerland which had a higher tariff than South Africa at 39%, but the Swiss did run around and cry America was targeting Switzerland. It was a response to the trade policy Switzerland had against the US, preventing our goods and services from getting in there. Now they have a 19% tariff because they negotiated. So this is the bottom line here is that we have a government that keeps gaslighting its citizens and the world. And not enough people are realizing this, but people need to pay attention. You don't have to believe me. Go back and look at the history of the past year, the true history, not the reported news, you know, this happened, that happened, read through the lines, see the actual events, mark the dates, see what was said, and then compare what's going on here. This is a government that's gaslighting, and this will damage relations. Now, I will share one more thing with you, Chris. This is an opinion analysis of my part, not based on fact, but based on the data that's available. I strongly believe that if European politicians didn't have Trump Derangement Syndrome, that, say, Biden was the president, and this occurred right now with Israel, that the Europeans in general, especially the Germans and the French would have condemned South Africa publicly for doing this. But because they all hate Donald Trump, they're just being silent. And I think that's what's going on here. Otherwise South Africa would have come to a of condemnation from global leaders that would have shaken the very foundations of the Luthuli house. But they're not getting that in my view because all these politicians, their clarion… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (25:23.218)…point there, their North star right now is we hate Trump. Trump is evil. Anything Trump is for. And of course, Trump is very supportive of Israel, but Trump hasn't said anything yet, which actually surprises me. So once again, back to the whole point of a cold war with the US…this happened on Friday. It's a few days later. Trump hasn't even talked about Israel and about South Africa. If Trump was so obsessed, if there was a cold war with the U S Trump would have taken action against South Africa for this expulsion or that diplomat, but he's done nothing. So once again, Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (25:52.766)…a tempest in a teapot, a own goal created by the ANC, which is going to be detrimental to their foreign policy and to the welfare of South Africans. And for me, Chris, it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking to see this juvenile kindergarten creche style of foreign policy that's just embarrassing. Chris Steyn (26:10.21)While we are in the Middle East, see Iran's supreme leader has warned of a regional war if the US attacks. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (26:20.57)A regional war in the Middle East. I'm sorry, Chris, when did that one stop? Does it stop since the First World War? There's been a regional war in the Middle East since the First World War. Since Lawrence of Arabia, you know, freeing the Arabs with Arab camel riders, defeating the Ottoman Turks. There's been constant warfare in the Middle East. So I guess they're threatening a new war or an enhanced war or, you know, well, we'll see what happens. What I can say is that there's a U.S. carrier strike group now parked off the coast of Iran ready to strike in a microsecond. So Iran is blustering, but even with Trump Derangement Syndrome, Iran has come under a lot of criticism for the slaughter of civilians. And right now, I suspect that most governments, if Trump took action against Iran's or the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or against their military forces, security forces, much of the world would either be muted in response or have mild condemnation and Trump would be able to do and get away with it. I'm not encouraging it. I'm not asking for it. I don't care for warfare as a soldier, you know, having been in combat, it's not something people should have to deal with. It's a horrific circumstance of human interaction. But the reality is that Iran is blustering and they do have the capability to launch missiles, but the missiles won't be in the region. They won't fire them in Iraq. They won't fire them in Turkey. They won't fire them in Azerbaijan or in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They'll fire them in Israel because they're Jew-hating anti-Semitic clowns. And that's what they'll do. And they paint Israel as their great enemy. So yes, they can attack Israel at any time they've done in the past. Remember a couple of years ago, they fired hundreds of missiles into Israel with no provocation whatsoever. And then they cry that Israel attacks them last year. Well, that's in response to your attacking and killing civilians. So yeah, Iran can bluster all they want. I don't really think that the war will go very far. Unfortunately, people will die if such a thing happens. But the US is prepared and Trump is ready to push the button and give the order. So Iran had better ratchet down the rhetoric because Trump has proven one thing in this term, whether you like him or not, he's not playing around. He's 79. He can't be president again. He wants to undo the damage that Barack Hussein Obama did to the US global influence, reputation, and our domestic policy. And he's doing it every single day. People don't like it. That's too bad. It's happening. As Barack Hussein Obama once said, elections have consequences. the political left are discovering that now, and the left around the world are discovering that, much to their chagrin. Chris Steyn (00:00.591)And before I dare to go, the FIFA World Cup. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:04.52)Well, Chris, Chris, many South Africans know that I'm a rugby man. So I take rugby first. Not a big fan of the beautiful game. I can watch the World Cup. I find it fascinating and I can get into it. But the FIFA World Cup is in North America this time around, predominantly in the United States, but also in Canada and Mexico. And there are calls from some groups in South Africa and a number of European groups to get their countries to boycott the FIFA World Cup, which is just a few months down the road and not come to it. So my response to this is that's just silly. Absolutely silly. The Olympics in 1980 where athletes train their entire lives for an opportunity to excel in the world stage. And that's back at that point, they were all amateurs. Today we have a mix of professional and paid athletes and amateurs, but that was their lifelong dream, the lifelong ambition. And then the boycott in 1980. And then the Russians boycotted Los Angeles in 1984, which skewed the outcome of those Olympics and really leaves an asterisk mark next to them. Boycotting the FIFA World Cup is stupid. I realised that everyone playing in the FIFA World Cup, except for one or two here and there on some countries are professionals who make tons of money and maybe we shouldn't feel bad for them not making money. But the point is it's a chance for the world to showcase the best football talent out there. And anyone who's calling for these bans I think is ridiculous. Now, I don't think it's going to go anywhere, for instance. And the reason they're calling for it is they're saying America is a fascist Gestapo state with no evidence whatsoever. The distortion about what's happening in the United States with the expulsion of criminal illegal aliens. And in most cases, not all, but in most cases, these are convicted rapists and murderers and bank robbers and child abusers and child molesters. And there are people trying to stop the government from removing them. The situation in Minneapolis alone is directly a responsibility of authorities…refusing to hand over convicted felons, murderers, rapists, child molesters, hand them over to federal authorities for deportation because they already have a final judgment deportation against them. And they were caught in the act of committing some other crime in Minnesota, arrested by authorities. They're in their custody. And then the US government says, aha, you have them, please hold them. We're sending agents to collect them and they put them back on the streets. 1,365 convicted felons in Minneapolis, St. Paul, 478 released back on the streets so that the government couldn't get them. That's why federal agents are in Minneapolis and people are impeding law enforcement. Yet that's being turned by a narrative of political leftists in South Africa and in Europe against the United States. But of course, these are the same countries expelling their criminal innovators too. The South African government rounds up illegal aliens all the time… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (02:25.71)…and deport some particularly Zimbabweans, but not exclusively. Also, Sothos from Lesotho, and the list goes on and on. Not to mention the xenophobic attitude. At least in America, we don't have people in streets burning down tuck shops and spazes that are owned by aliens and burning your houses down and murdering them in the streets, which is what you have frequently in South Africa. So this whole effort to boycott the FIFA World Cup is just ridiculous. Look, I'm not a fan of the game, and I'm not all that excited at the games in America. The tickets are outrageously priced. I can't afford the tickets. I won't be going to games. I'll probably watch it on TV. But there's no reason to do this. This is a stupid response injecting politics, which is what people love to do, injecting politics in the sport. It's really annoying. Leave sport to itself. It should be outside the realm of politics and no one should abandon the FIFA World Cup. Teams have fought. Look, look, Bafana Bafana coming. They're not exactly an impressive team. The boys are not very good at soccer, but they're in the World Cup. Congratulations. And they should boycott it. No, give me a break. An update on that, Germany last night said, the German Football Federation said, we are not going to boycott. We're going to the FIFA World Cup. And I think that will set the tone for the rest of Europe, which will set the tone for us the world. So for anybody calling for a boycott after this, it's going to look like a bunch of bum hurt, angry leftists who just have Trump Derangement Syndrome and hate America. So the FIFA boycott, I think it died with the German Football Federation saying, we're not going to, we're not going to skip it. We're going. Chris Steyn (28:43.832)Thank you. That was US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt, with me, Chris Steyn, on the NDB Sunday Show. Thank you, Chris. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (28:53.458)Well, thank you, Chris, appreciate it very much. You have a lovely day.

The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret) Col Chris Wyatt - Zuma & Epstein, Israel & SA , Trump & Iran - and Fikile’s “Cold War”

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