A Former CIA Station Chief on the Israel-Iran Conflict | Ralph Goff
Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Dan Crenshaw
4.6 • 16K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former CIA station chief Ralph Goff returns to analyze the actions, likely outcomes, and fearmongering surrounding the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Regime change. World War 3. Tucker vs Cruz. Iranian civil war. America’s role. With decades of experience running covert operations across the Middle East and beyond, Goff gives us a grounded assessment of the strategic risks and geopolitical implications as Israel pushes the Iranian regime closer to the brink of collapse.
Ralph Goff is a 35-year veteran of the CIA and a 6-time station chief who served in Europe, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia. He also served as Chief of CIA’s National Resources Division, working extensively with “C Suite” level US private sector executives in the financial, banking, and security sectors. Today he is a risk management consultant and contributor for The Cipher Brief.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We hold these truths to be self-evident. |
| 0:02.1 | That all men are creed. |
| 0:04.0 | As a member of Congress, I get to have a lot of really interesting people in the office. |
| 0:07.3 | Experts on what they're talking about. |
| 0:09.0 | This is the podcast for insights into the issues. |
| 0:11.6 | China, bioterrorism, Medicare for all, in-depth discussions, breaking it down into simple terms. |
| 0:18.0 | We hold. |
| 0:18.7 | We hold these truths. |
| 0:20.1 | We hold these truths. We hold these truths. |
| 0:21.3 | With Dan Crenshaw. |
| 0:23.4 | Welcome back, folks. |
| 0:25.6 | This is a special podcast because we're really hitting the current events between Israel and Iran and potential for the United States to even enter in one way or another. Of course, President Trump is |
| 0:39.0 | weighing those options as we speak. And so I'm having a return guest, my friend Ralph Gough, from |
| 0:45.5 | former CIA, what, 35 years in? We did a podcast very recently. So our regular listeners |
| 0:52.3 | got to know pretty well there. But of course, our conversation |
| 0:55.6 | at that time was pretty broad. I mean, we talked to Israel. We talked to the Middle East, |
| 1:00.2 | you know, but we mostly, I think, I think it was a cool conversation. We mostly gave people some |
| 1:05.8 | insight and they know, how do you even join the CIA? What is it like? What is life like? |
| 1:10.6 | So today, because you served in the Middle East and how to do you even join the CIA? What is it like? What is life like? So today, because you |
| 1:12.9 | served in the Middle East and have a lot of experience with this particular problem set, |
| 1:17.8 | I thought you'd be a great guy to bring on and just sort of analyze what's true and what is in |
| 1:22.2 | about what the heck is going on. Before we started talking, I was trying to remember if we had we had uh made any predictions about what would happen and I don't think we had like you said I don't think we had um but obviously that line has been crossed so so let's just start there like what does why I mean why does Israel make that decision now? |
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