Gen. Keith Kellogg on New Houthis Designation: “They’re Not Taking Serious Action”, Houthi Members Still Allowed Visas Under New Designation
L.T. General Keith Kellogg, Fox News Contributor, Former National Security Adviser To VP Pence, Former Chief Of Staff Of National Security Council In The Trump Admin, and author of War by Other Means: A General in the Trump White House, joined the Guy Benson Show to discuss the latest from the Red Sea and conflict between the United States (and allied nations) and Iran. The Biden Administration signaled that they would redesignate the Iranian-backed Houthis as a terrorist organization, but Gen. Kellogg says that the move comes with a massive caveat. Listen to the full interview below.
Full Interview:
Listen to the full podcast:
Kellogg had this to say on the Biden’s re-designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization (SDGT):
“You can’t get an a visa to the United States if you’re part of an FTO, but you can if you got an SDGT. So they basically didn’t go that extra distance that we did… they’re not even going to put this in effect for another month and so (the Houthis) get a month. You go, okay, what you’re really showing me is how unserious you are with this whole situation. And they’re not taking hard action.”
Full Transcript:
Guy Benson: I’m joined now by Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, retired, a Fox News contributor. He was chief of staff of the National Security Council under President Trump. His book is War by Other Means and General. It’s always good to talk to you.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Hey, Guy. Thanks for having me today. Good to be with you.
Guy Benson: So it seems like since the last time we spoke, not that long ago, things have only heated up further in the Middle East as these attacks of these Houthi terrorists have increased. We’ve seen counter offensives now by the U.S. and our partners in the U.K. and elsewhere. Some strikes and then some reprisals from the Houthis. And I guess now we’re going after them even harder. This is an Iran backed terrorist group. We’ve been funding U.S. taxpayers and the Biden administration. We’ve been funding the Iranian regime, uh, various ways now for years. And unfortunately, some of those chickens are coming home to roost, targeting Americans in that region. Let’s talk about that first, because it seems like a serious situation is getting more violent and now more deadly.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah, I guess it is. And part of that is because we’re unserious about controlling it. And what I mean by that is when you look at what’s happening there in the Red sea with the who is using Iranian supported, the supplied equipment, missiles and drones, we’re not really taking very hard action to to stop that. You know, when we came up with this plan, the United States did on putting together a task force called Prosperity Gardi. And we’re going to make sure the traffic flowed well into the Red sea. And this was canal and back out as well. Well, you will you know, I always judge operations like that with the response that you’re going to get. And the response we got from the shipping fleets of the world started with Mediterranean shipping, which is the largest in the world. And then you had Maersk, which is number two and a half, had Lloyd, which is number three. It basically said, you know, you know, we hear what you’re saying, but we’re going to reroute our cargo ships around the southern part of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, which increases that the time of passage by 10 to 14 days. It doubles the price of containers that you ship, which means it’ll be sent to us or any consumer that’s that’s buying something. So they we really believe you. So they voted with their fleets. They just walked away from it.
Guy Benson: And I by the way, general, just to just to jump in, I saw Shell Oil just did the same thing. They joined these other companies saying, yeah, we’re going to we’re going to avoid that because they don’t apparently trust the seriousness or the competence of the U.S. coalition to actually seriously get a handle on this. I mean, look, the hood, these are dangerous and Iran is terrible, but we have the capability if we really wanted to, to take care of this threat. Right. Like we could neutralize this threat if we were serious about it.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Oh, sure we would. Look, if the capability capacity we have in that region, uh, kinetically for military is massive when you think about it. And that’s the only way that’s going to get something done. And here’s why. Because we have no economic leverage over the hoods. Zero. We’ve got no diplomatic leverage over the Saudis is zero. And we’re not pressing Iran as well. So you default.
Guy Benson: And they’re attacking our people, right? If we if we have no leverage, if we have no leverage in the realms that you just talked about, and they’re attacking our people and they’re being so disruptive in these various ways, it seems like there is one way to deal with it, one solution that they unfortunately have asked for, and we should give it to them, and not in a half assed sort of way. Let’s deal with it and make this make the problem stop.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah, and what you do guy, you use the term I use the super escalate. You go up this escalation ladder that they talk about a national security terms. And you, you go to a position where it really becomes really uncomfortable to include you. And I think you need to do that. And here’s what I mean by that and said, okay, I’ll give you a couple options. Here’s one. You know, you say, okay. The who hoodies are led by a singular individual Abdel Al hoodie who leads these economic ministries. The military leader is everything. And you take him out, you basically say, okay, this is a terrorist organization, he’s a terrorist. And we’re going to just reduce it by eliminating him like we did with Soleimani. That sends a message, or you can do something that sends a message to Iran. They’ve got a spy ship that is anchored outside the Red sea called the beachhead, and it basically monitors all traffic coming and going. So it kind of knows what ships are there, which flag carriers are there. And we just say to the Iranians, fine, you’re going to lose a ship today. And you put it to the bottom of the Red sea to.
Guy Benson: Sinking.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Sink, where you send a message.
Guy Benson: Yeah. I mean, these seem like good options. Instead, it’s been kind of smaller measures. Finally, belatedly, they’re doing something. And speaking of belated, I saw this again earlier. That might have even been yesterday. I saw the headline. So the Biden administration, you know this very well because you served in the Trump administration at a high level. The Trump administration quite rightly classified the Houthis as a terrorist organization, which is what they are backed by Iran. Then Biden came in. And of course, what they do is just get rid of everything that has to do with Trump. Anything Trump did, they hate, so they decided to declassify and take that label off of the Houthis. Part of that was anti-Trump. Part of that was trying to cajole the Iranians, which is this failed obsession. And now the failure is so complete and so undeniable that Biden himself the other day had to admit, okay, yes, they are terrorists. And now formally, they’re going back to reclassify the Houthis as a terrorist organization. What a misadventure. It’s just another, I think, microcosm of the cataclysmic foreign policy that we’ve seen from this crowd.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah. But here’s here’s what’s interesting about it. We designated the Saudis the route administration as an FTO, a foreign terrorist organization. What the Biden administration has done is they’ve designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organization, an SDGT. It’s a difference a huge difference. And what it means is there’s economic repercussions when you do that compared to an FTO. And for example, you can’t get an A visa the United States if you’re part of an FTO, but you can if you got an SDGT. So they basically said they didn’t go that extra distance that we did. Oh, by the way, when you read with the National Security Council wait.
Guy Benson: Can I ask you something? Just a point of clarity. Point of clarity. What you’re saying this this re designation that we’re describing, you’re saying even with their new policy change, they still aren’t going fully back to the foreign terrorist organization. They’re doing this sort of secondary level. That’s the new policy.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: That is correct. And here’s and here’s your real kicker. If you read what the National Security Council put out, it’s going to be held in advance for 30 days. What really. So they’re not even going to put this in effect for another month and they get a month. You go, okay, what you’re really showing me is how unserious you are with this whole situation. And they’re not taking hard action. And then they go to the SDTG route instead of the FTO route, which is a secondary, and they’re not really serious about it. And they you watch the news, I tell you, go watch what the news does. We’ve read designated them a terrorist organization. No you haven’t. You’ve gone a second level. You haven’t gone to the top level and they’ll call for this. And then they’re not even thinking of the 30 days I.
Guy Benson: Didn’t even know that I see. So that is I learned two things just now. Number one, the Re designation is not quite what it seems, and the Re designation doesn’t attach for a month, which I mean, neither one of those things makes any sense, especially given the terrible behavior of the who these attacking Americans constantly attacking these ships. I know they’re you know, rattling the saber and talking about now destroying America. They don’t have the power to do that, but they’re at least talking about these are just absolute enemies of civilization. They enslave people. They put children in their terror armies, they’re awful. And now we’re just more little kind of. Half measures and baby steps here for the Biden administration. Gosh, it’s like they they never learn. They can never quite get it right. There’s also just the issue of Iran directly launching attacks. There was this series of explosions. We saw one right near our consulate in Iraq. Uh, what was that? Two days ago. Iran took credit for that. What was the target there? And then we’ve also seen a deadly strike within Pakistani territory by the Iranians. So, general, I mean, both of those seem like pretty disturbing developments. What are the implications? Take one at a time, if you would.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah. Well, the 1 in 2 tour near Erbil, uh, by the Iranians was a couple things that really stood out. One, they used, uh, short range ballistic missiles actually fired from Iran into Iraq. You know, just kind of level of war. And they’re saying, well, as against some sadr’s Israeli agents in the area. Well, you really don’t know that. So first he had to remind was, you know, there’s a there is an organization. It’s not smart to get mad. You have the mad at you and that’s Mossad because they’ve got a long memory. You know, the Israeli, you know, basically version of the CIA. And they’re going to come after him and show they did that. And then there’s always that potential of those things hitting our consulate of getting near our consulate. And but to me, it was so egregious. They did it. And they followed that by doing the same thing with Pakistan by foreign foreign missiles. And they’re saying, well, we’re attacking terrorist sites as well, and they really don’t have much ability to really do great damage. But the fact is, it shows me how emboldened they are to.
Guy Benson: You know, they’re attacking a sovereign country with strikes inside a neighbor, uh, a Sunni country. Um, and I love that they’re saying they’re going after terrorists. They’re the top supporters of terrorist state sponsors of terrorism in the world. They’re not offended by terrorism at all.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah, I would have said they’re not our terrorists or you’re terrorists. If you’re right, you’re absolutely right. And and but they’re but they’re a them attacking, uh, adjacent countries where nobody’s saying a word about it. It sends a signal and sends a signal, everybody that that region is out of control, and nobody’s got any controlling ability except us, and we’re not going to use it.
Guy Benson: And a lot of things will be tolerated. Apparent. Like that’s that’s the message in Tehran, right? What will they tolerate? And the answer has been. Time after time. We led by the Biden administration will tolerate a hell of a lot. And that is a dangerous signal to Iran. And now there might be a real human cost to the United States. We talked about this a little bit yesterday. These two Navy Seals, general, that are missing. I know we’ve heard almost nothing about it from the white House. I think zero comment from the commander in chief, but it’s not looking good for these two Navy Seals who were lost at sea during one of these anti-terrorist anti Houthi missions in the Red sea. Do we have any update there? It seems like a very, very sad situation.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Yeah, we don’t have an update. And you’re right, we haven’t really said anything about them and they should look when you’re doing it. And this when the Seals do this. That is a and I’ve been I’ve watched them because I was an Army guy not a seal. When you watch them how they do it, it’s a really high risk operation. When you do a ship to a ship and we take down, uh, you know, they’re experts at it, but there’s always an element of risk to it. And the very fact that they did this, it was it was actually to take down a target that was Iranian target that was actually supplying the Houthis. The fact that we didn’t come right out and say and say, look, we’ve lost them for soldiers or sailors at sea. Here’s what they’re doing and kind of explain it to the American people, what these young men and women are doing. And I’ll tell you, that’s got an effect as well. That’s when you got the military going, you know, why do I want to be part of this group? When do you want. The administration clearly doesn’t have any respect to this. Shows it to what we’re actually doing. And I’m not talking about how great those young men and women are because they are, but it’s just that the administration, it’s almost like a cavalier approach guy to do.
Guy Benson: They want this to be a scan I like. They want this to be a secret. Like they didn’t really want voters or Americans knowing that things have gotten bad enough that now Americans are dying there where they just trying to, you know, keep this under wraps as if, I don’t know, it’s similar to the defense secretary being, you know, in the ICU with no one knowing. It seems like they’re not really being transparent.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: You know, I think it’s actually worse in there after being cavalier. And it’s sort of like, yeah, okay, that happens in there. Just go to the next step and whistle past the graveyard. It’s almost like they don’t care. And that’s the the frustration I get a lot of times is that they have the commander in chief should care a lot more. The fact they have clearly, you know, has got an issue as well. But you know, look, this is a pattern. It goes back to what happened in Afghanistan. It goes back to what’s happened all through the world. Should any type of kinetic or military response. And that’s not your only response all the time. You always have an economic or diplomatic response. But but the kinetic response, the military response is always. Because the risk that you have there is losing young men or women into the action. And they should, you know, when that when there is a loss, they should go out of their way to make sure that people understand how valuable these assets are. These are the best people that America’s mom and dad can provide to the, you know, to the government and to the military service. And you can’t just be cavalier about it and say, well, we lost a couple there. Let’s go the next day.
Guy Benson: From some of the best people in this country to some of the absolute worst people in this country. The New York Post reporting that the big mob that was, uh, heckling, we talked about this in the last segment, heckling cancer hospitals in New York City because they’re supposedly complicit in genocide or whatever. These are the Hamas supporters that seem to have a lot of time on their hands to rally constantly. I would love to know who’s organizing them, who’s paying for all of this, printing out the placards. These are anti-American, anti-Western, anti Israeli anti-Semites, I mean Communist. It’s a ragtag group of them. The New York Post reports that, quote, when news spread, this was over the weekend at this rally, the hate rally that Iran had launched a ballistic missile attack near the US consulate in Iraq. Some of the protesters cheered. We’ve also heard just overtly pro Houthi pro terrorist chanting at these rallies. They’re not just supporting Hamas anymore. They’re also supporting the Houthi terrorists because this is who they are. Uh, I saw that there was one of the Houthi leaders gave a sermon on Friday and he said this, quote, the time has come for humanity to rid to get rid of America, talking about America as the country of evil, corruption and homosexuality. And we have people in this country and in London, people in the West enjoying our prosperity, our values, our way of life, our opportunities. And they are celebrating terrorist groups and chanting on their behalf. General, I just wonder how that strikes you as someone who has served this country and served the country.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: You know, when you think about it, you actually question, how did we get to this position was with people like that, you know, and I’m, you know, I do understand freedom of expression and freedom of speech. But you reach a point where you say, you know, if you really don’t want to be here, then don’t be here, and we’ll help you move. You know, bring up the moving van and moving to another location, because we’ll send you back to where you you know, where you say there’s a lot of freedom over there. We’ll send you to Gaza, we’ll send you to Iran, we’ll send you to somewhere. So, you know, it’s under Sharia law. You know, I just. Yeah, I’ll be honest. I just I just shake my head. I’m one of those products that goes back to the Vietnam War where I saw demonstrations, but they were never like this, you know, this this takes it to a very different level.
Guy Benson: No, it’s more disturbing. And and here’s the thing that’s maybe most disturbing. General, I think some of these hardcore leftists would be very happy to see our society disappear, decline, and be radically transformed. And of the Islamists, which makes up a significant chunk of these hate rallies, they don’t want to go back. They actually like it here in a lot of ways. They just want to change what what here means Sharia law, or elements of that in the United States is not something that they view as anti freedom. It’s what they want. And they’re not really bashful about it. They’re very emboldened right now, which is why I wanted to ask you about what we’re seeing in the streets. We’ve got to leave it there. We’re up on a break. We’ve gone long already. Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, retired Fox News contributor. Sir, as always, thank you.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Thank you Guy. Thanks for having me.
