Trip the Beltway Fantastic With Kelley Vlahos and Friends

Kelley Vlahos
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Welcome to "Trip the Beltway Fantastic," where we peel back the curtain on Washington’s hidden narratives and the underbelly of its political machinations. As a seasoned journalist with over two decades in the capital, I’ve witnessed the evolution of the imperial city from a unique vantage point. Having co-hosted series like Empire has No Clothes and Crashing the War Party, I’m no stranger to dissecting the hard truths and challenging the mainstream's company line on national security and foreign policy.

  1. 11/26/2025

    Strangling the Ukraine Peace Deal in the Crib

    After months of what seemed to be a stalled if not utterly failing Trump effort to end the Ukraine War, developments on this front have been hurtling at a breakneck speed this week. As of Tuesday there was still an expectation that the President might be able to announce something big as America’s turkeys and pumpkin pies were landing on groaning holiday tables this Thursday. To say there is a lot to do before such an event could take place is an understatement. First, the backlash against Trump’s 28-point peace plan has been swift and vitriolic. Remember, the forces lined up to reject any plan that offers Russia concessions are at the levers of legacy mainstream media and in concert with Congressional megaphones and both are already promoting a narrative of appeasement and capitulation. For many Americans, this is the only message they are receiving from the media on ongoing negotiations this week. Nevertheless, the 28-point plan has already shrunk to a 19-point plan after the Trump team met with Ukrainians in Geneva Monday. Trump officials, including fresh envoy, Secretary of Army Dan Discroll, have been meeting with Russians, too, trying to gauge what measures in either plan they will ultimately agree. It is fluid and fraught, and social media is covering it minute-to-minute so gossip, scoops, fake news and spin are all on the menu.  Here to discuss all of this are two of the best analysts on the war and the potential end to it, Mark Episkopos and Mike Vlahos. Mark is a colleague of mine at Quincy where he is a research associate in our Eurasia program. Mike is a retired professor of military strategy and history and author of “Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change.”

    30 min

  2. 11/14/2025

    Israel’s Gaza Peace Plan Perversion

    This week marked one month since Donald Trump got both Hamas and Israel to agree to a 20-point peace plan for Gaza. Phase one was supposed to cease the fighting, see the exchange of hostages, flood the Strip with aid, and begin the process of Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza. By all accounts it’s not going so well. While the exchanges of live and dead hostages continue, the aid is not getting into the war- and famine-plagued population, which is now suffering from conditions not heard of since the turn of the last century, like scabies and scurvy (and much worse), as tons of uncollected refuge piles up and all drinking water is contaminated.  Meanwhile, according to Al-Jazeera, the Israel government has violated the ceasefire 282 times as of Nov 11.  Israel has shot at civilians 88 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 12 times, bombed Gaza 124 times, and demolished people’s properties on 52 occasions, according to Al Jazeera. Israel still occupies 58% percent of the Strip and is hardening its presence behind the “yellow line” with what looks like permanent structures. Israeli-backed militias continue to skirmish with Hamas. News of talks about the second phase have dwindled,and Hamas seems no closer to disarmament or giving up governance, yet. This puts the progress of the agreement at a virtual standstill, since Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm before it leaves the territory. Americans meanwhile have been standing up a multinational Civil-Military Coordination Center on the ground to help oversee the mandated flow of international humanitarian and security assistance into Gaza, and to monitor the ceasefire agreement. Details are scarce. Israeli and American media have reported that the Israelis are being sidelined a bit due to frustration with the fact that they have only let in a fraction of the aid that was agreed upon in Trump’s plan. Meanwhile there are reports that Arab nations in the region will not participate in an international stabilization force planned for Gaza (even if it gets a UN blessing) because the conditions are too chaotic and violent in the strip today. There are also rumors of the U.S. building a base at the center, which is 20 miles outside of Gaza, and housing American troops there, a story that was quickly denied by the Pentagon. If Washington was sidelining or pressuring Israel, it has yet to have an effect, and time is of the essence as more and more Palestinians are in mortal danger, if not by direct Israeli attacks but unsafe buildings at risk of collapse, disease, lack of food, medicine, and proper health care. More than 69,000 Palestinians have died in the war — that we know of — and this number is likely much, much higher and growing. Here to talk about the deal, its failures and what might be next are my two Quincy Institute colleagues, Annelle Sheline and Khaled Elgindy. Annelle is a research fellow in the Middle East program, and Khaled Khaled Elgindy is a new senior fellow at Quincy and an adjunct instructor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

    47 min

  3. 10/29/2025

    Will This be Trump’s Greatest War Folly?

    This week the U.S. military buildup off the coast of Venezuela continued, with two B-1 bombers flying as close to land as any have come in previous flights, according to Air & Space Force Magazine. This is a transparent  “show of force” as the B-1s did not turn off their transponders, wanting everyone, especially Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, to know exactly where they are. The bombers are capable of carrying cruise missiles and guided bombs that could be used in possible strikes on land and aren’t the first buzzing the area in recent weeks. They certainly aren’t the only assets in the region either. The USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group is on its way down to the region from the CENTCOM area of operations in the Middle East. It brings a host of weapons systems, not the least of which are F-35 and F-18 fighters with a range of missile capabilities, and accompanying destroyers that can fire Tomahawks and a likely Virginia class submarine also with the ability to launch Tomahawks. According to the Washington Post: The carrier will join an armada that has been assembled in the Caribbean. Other vessels there include the destroyers USS Jason Dunham, USS Gravely, USS Stockdale, the guided-missile cruiser Lake Erie, and the littoral combat ship Wichita. The Navy and Marine Corps also have combined to deploy the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group, a three-ship task force that includes additional sailors and Marines, off the coast of Venezuela. The Marines are with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. It includes Harrier fighter jets, helicopters and a battalion with hundreds of infantry Marines. The Pentagon in recent weeks also has deployed the MV Ocean Trader, a civilian ship converted into a floating Special Operations base that can dispatch troops on short notice. The ship’s presence in the Caribbean coincided with the deployment of select aircraft from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, an elite helicopter unit that supports the most dangerous missions in the world. Visuals analyzed by The Washington Post showed helicopters, including MH-6 Little Birds that commanders favor for Special Operations ground assaults, flying less than 90 miles from Venezuela’s coastline in early October. When the USS Gerald Ford arrives there will be more than 10,000 U.S. military personnel in the region. Not enough for a proper invasion, but a growing footprint nonetheless, and no doubt troubling for Maduro and Venezuela’s neighbors who are now getting a sense of what Trump’s effort to revitalize the Monroe Doctrine is shaping up to look like.  Is this war? Maximum pressure? Regime change (pushed by one of the most powerful people in his cabinet, today, Marco Rubio?). Here to talk to us this week are two informed critics of the U.S. moves in the region, which also include U.S. military strikes on 12 alleged narco boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and at least 50 dead that we know of, as of Tuesday.  Jen Kavanagh is a senior fellow & director of military analysis at Defense Priorities and Dan DePetris  syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune, a foreign affairs writer for Newsweek, and a fellow at Defense Priorities. More from Jennifer: After strong-arming a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump tries to do it again in Ukraine Pushing regime change in Venezuela is a terrible idea More from Dan: Trump’s Foreign Policy of Short-Termism Donald Trump brings the war on terrorism to the Caribbean

    35 min

  4. 10/17/2025

    What’s ‘America First’ About Trump’s Gaza Deal?

    On Monday President Trump signed an agreement with Arab leaders that has been called a “miracle” and “historic.” It has largely (so far) paused the Israeli onslaught in the Gaza strip and served to release the remaining live Israeli hostages held by Hamas and upwards of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Before attending the signing ceremony in Egypt, Trump was feted in triumph by Israeli officials at the Knesset. Aside from bestowing on him the moniker “President of Peace” they said he would be remembered “as a giant of Jewish history, one for whom we must look back two and a half millennia into the mists of time to find a parallel. Cyrus the Great. Donald J Trump, you are a colossus who will join the pantheon of history,” said Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Knesset. He referred to the 6th century BC Persian King who liberated the Jews from Babylonia to create their own self-governing province in the Persian Empire, also known as the Second Temple period. Benjamin Netanyahu was also met with thunderous applause and a long standing ovation, as was Steve Witkoff, whose name was even chanted. In his own remarks Trump went on for nearly an hour, charting the litany of things he had done for Israel since his first presidency, including recognizing the Israeli capital in Jerusalem, and acknowledging right there that it was due to the aggressive lobbying of the billionaires Miriam and Sheldon Adelson. They were strange speeches overall, in that the word “Palestinians” only came up once, even though the deal was to eventually afford the Palestinian people the same self-rule the Jewish people had enjoyed thanks to Cyrus in 540 BC. The speeches, too, mentioned very little about the United States, other than Washington had given everything it could — including $21.7 billion in taxpayer dollars — to the Israeli cause over the last two years. Trump even boasted that he had approved every weapon Netanyahu had asked for, even ones he never knew existed. This week I brought in my friend Ret. Col. Doug Macgregor to the show, because after the dust settles, one wonders what any of this has to do with America and the vaunted America First foreign policy that Trump had been promising since 2016. For the last two years, Americans have been told this was “our fight too” but it was never properly explained. It’s been clear in polling that Americans haven’t been convinced either, even Republicans are waning more visibly in their support for giving Israel everything it wants in order to wage a war that has resulted in the collective punishment and deaths of more than 67,000 Gazans, most of them civilians.  Today, Gaza is in ruins and we are being told it was worth it. Was it?

    36 min

  5. 10/03/2025

    What Warriors Think of Hegseth “Warrior Ethos” Speech

    This week Secretary of State Pete Hegseth called every single admiral and general to Virginia where the Pentagon is located for a meeting. It turned out to be a pair of speeches from Hegseth and President Donald Trump about what they are declaring to be the new American military era. In his own words, Hegseth described it as “no more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters.”  “We are warriors. We are purpose built, not for fair weather, blue skies or calm seas. We're built to load up in the back of helicopters, five tons of zodiacs in the dead of night, in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places to find to find those who would do our nation harm and deliver justice on behalf of the American people, in close and brutal combat, if necessary. You are different. We fight not because we hate what's in front of us. We fight because we love what's behind us.” OUT are rules of engagement that restrict the necessary force, DEI, and “fat generals” walking the halls of the Pentagon. IN is a warrior ethos that only focuses on the “M” (military) and builds pride in that ethos. OUT is the word “defense.” IN is “killing and breaking things.” Trump followed with a much less cogent speech, at one point saying he wanted to make American cities National Guard training grounds and talked about the “enemy within.” Given that he has or is threatening to send troops to a number of U.S. cities over crime and anti-ICE “rioting” this immediately sparked another wave of panic in the press and among American Constitutionalists.  This also comes as the president and his administration appears to be leaning into a renewed Drug War, particularly military action against Venezuela, and proposals for a new Authorization for Military Force targeting “narco-terrorists” that could, in practice, see U.S. military force used in upwards of 60 countries if not the homeland itself.  And, according to the New York Times this week, not only are there Marco Rubio-efforts within the administration to engage in a regime change operation in Venezuela, but on Thursday the paper reported that the administration has decided that the U.S. is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his team has labeled terrorist organizations, and that suspected smugglers for such groups are “unlawful combatants.” This was conveyed by the administration in a confidential notice to Congress this week.  There have been plenty of calls for military reform, even shaving the top officer ranks and instituting radical reforms to the culture of the institution, which has become sclerotic in its thinking, detached from American life and people, and unaccountable for its failures and corruptions. But is what Trump is doing the right way to go? I put this question to two veterans I most respect. Brandan Buck is a scholar and fellow at the CATO institute and an Afghanistan veteran. Dan McKnight is the founder and director of “Bring Our Troops Home” and also a veteran of the Afghanistan War.

    35 min

  6. 09/05/2025

    Trump’s Insane Gaza Riviera Plan: Time to Panic?

    The Trump Administration reportedly has a plan to reconstruct Gaza into a Riviera on the Mediterranean. What does that mean? According to reports, President Trump, with the help of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner, have laid out details for the total real estate redevelopment of the war torn Gaza Strip. This of course would require the relocation of the two million people, or what is left of the Palestinians after two years of war, who live there. According to the Washington Post this week, it is euphemistically called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust. The proposal “was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)” which is operating the Hunger Games-like food distribution centers at which more than 2000 Gazans have been killed, mostly from getting shot or shelled from Israeli military tanks. The financial planning and prospectus was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group, which has now distanced itself from the project.  The plans, according to Washington Post, call for “a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls ‘voluntary’ departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.” “Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new ‘AI-powered, smart cities’ to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.” The plan estimates that every individual departure from Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of housing them somewhere in the Strip while the reconstruction takes place — so a financial incentive to push as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible. Gaza’s western waterfront would be reserved for the “Gaza Trump Riviera,” boasting “world-class resorts” with the possibility of artificial islands similar to the palm-shaped ones built off the UAE city of Dubai. For many who have been watching this nightmare in Gaza unfold, the details of the plan do not come as a surprise. Not only did Trump announce something like this was coming shortly after his inauguration, Kushner was interviewed at Harvard in March 2024 before Trump was elected saying there was “very valuable” potential in Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip.  Since then of course, tens of thousands more Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli forces and they are being deliberately starved as the Netanyahu Government makes it untenable to live there. Families are being forced completely from the North of the Strip and from Gaza City as a military incursion began in earnest this week. There are no serious signs of the war abating or a ceasefire agreement coming into fruition. The prospects of Kushner leading a real estate bonanza in this hellscape is, even beyond what we’ve seen over the last 22 months, a little hard to swallow. Here to talk about it with me are Jon Hoffman, a Middle East research fellow at the CATO Institute, and Rawan Abhari, who serves as an advocacy associate at the Quincy Institute.

    32 min

  7. 08/22/2025

    Peace or Utter Collapse? Zelensky Holds Ukraine’s Fate in his Hands

    The big Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, followed by the extraordinary convocation of European leaders, along with Ukrainian President Zelensky and Trump’s team on Monday at the White House, signaled that something is finally happening. The War in Ukraine may be finally coming to an end. Of course the fighting on the battlefield hasn’t stopped and all parties appear to acknowledge that an immediate ceasefire is not in the cards, at least not until some sort of framework with terms can be sealed. There is also a broad recognition that there will have to be some territorial concessions by Ukraine, which is losing on the battlefield, and some sort of security guarantees for Ukraine after the war short of NATO membership. But as they say the devil is in the details. The mainstream press was as always skeptical of Trump’s approach but assessed that in a “master class in diplomacy” (I’ll call it butt kissing) Europe had largely gotten what it had wanted — that Trump was listening, and the so-called adults in the room had been heard.  Others saw things a bit differently. They surmised that Putin would never go for the “Article 5” like guarantees that Trump and the Europeans had been banging on about in front of the press, and certainly Western peacekeepers in Ukraine was a no go. They guessed that Trump was being deliberately vague. Moreover, word on Wednesday was that Putin may never accept a “bilateral” meeting with Zelensky, despite Trump’s assurances that it would happen. In short there was little substance to come out of the meeting, just a lot of solid if not good vibes. While there is nothing wrong with a positive momentum, the lack of detail could cause a whole lot of crossed wires and given the mistrust and hostilities built up over the years, it wouldn’t be too difficult to see this going south if given certain triggers.  Two of the best analysts on the Ukraine war joined us this week to sort this all out. James Carden is a writer and publisher of the Realist Review. Mike Vlahos is a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a weekly contributor on the John Batchelor Show.  More from Carden:  Sixty-Three Years, Nothing Has Changed Presidents Trump and Putin Must Seize the Moment in Alaska More from Vlahos: Accepting the Truth About Ukrainian Casualties is the Only Real Path to Peace America's Military Is in Big Trouble

    35 min

  8. 08/08/2025

    Conservative Schism? Why Christians are Splitting with Israel

    Hello and welcome to Trip the Beltway Fantastic. On July 17, the only Catholic church in Gaza - the Holy Family Catholic Church – was hit by Israeli fire, killing three, wounding scores of others including the parish priest. Israel says it was a mistake,  a stray tank shelling, igniting a firestorm particularly among American Catholics and Christians, many who had already been shifting support away from Israel on the issue of Gaza. Catholics including Sohrab Ahmari, who joins us here today, jumped on comments by people like Luke Moon of the Catholic Philos Project, who  lashed out against critics of Israel in the wake of the Holy Family church attack. In comments called “unacceptable” and a “bridge too far,” Moon said ““Church leaders are quick to blame Israel (and Israel has apologized),” he added. “They never speak so clearly about Islamists. They’re afraid to. It’s not courageous to attack the Jews. It’s easy. It’s been easy for almost 2000 years. One would think that the leaders of a billion member Church might not be so afraid, and yet they are.” Meanwhile Evangelical Christian Joe Berry,  managing editor of the conservative Onion, the Babylon Bee, is probably regretting comments he made about the outcry after the church shelling. He went on a rant saying “this won’t be easy for people to hear, but there are only 200 professed Catholics still living in Gaza and they all support Hamas.”  “I don’t know about anyone else, but as a Catholic who supports and prays for my persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in Gaza and the Holy Land, I won’t be sharing or boosting anything produced by the Babylon Bee or its anti-Catholic, dispensationalist editors ever again,” wrote author and Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson. Berry doubled down suggesting this was all an effort to turn Christians against Israel, calling it “​​evil forces trying to break up MAGA along racial and religious sectarian lines and it’s encouraging to know some people of wisdom and discernment see right through it.” While polling still shows strong Republican support for Israel overall, there is a discernible drop overall of Americans’ tolerance for its war in Gaza after more than 22 months of civilian death, destruction and starvation. There is a notable shift in attitudes, even among Republicans, of Americans under 30. MAGA, which includes a strong faith based element, has been divided over the issue, as Berry said, but the blame, my guests here today are likely to say, are Israel actions and the Trump administration’s inability to stop them, more than “evil forces” trying to systematically divide the coalition. The disillusionment of course goes far beyond the Catholics. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an Evangelical Christian, has come out to call what is going on in Gaza a genocide and has specifically invoked her faith to explain why she is speaking out so vociferously against the Israeli government on this front. “Yesterday I spoke to a Christian pastor from Gaza. There are children starving. And Christians have been killed and injured, as well as many innocent people. If you are an American Christian, this should be absolutely unacceptable to you,” he posted on X this week.  Online outrage included Erik Prince, no pacifist or even critic of Israel, who actually accused Israel of taking “pot shots” at the cross on the top of the Holy Family Church. He too said he was finished supporting American funding for Israel’s war on Gaza. He said Hamas “need to die” but "But the real losers are the normal people in Gaza just trying to live.”  So what is going on here? I wanted to drill down on how Christians and particularly Catholics on the conservative end of the spectrum are part of the backlash against Israel and may play a bigger role in potential policy change where the war is concerned — and what that might look like. Joining me are the aforementioned Sohrab Ahmari, who is the US bureau chief of Unherd magazine, and author of Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty – and What to Do About It (2023). Dave DeCamp, new editor of Antiwar.com and host of Antiwar News And Andrew Day, writer and editor at the American Conservative magazine

    44 min
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About

Welcome to "Trip the Beltway Fantastic," where we peel back the curtain on Washington’s hidden narratives and the underbelly of its political machinations. As a seasoned journalist with over two decades in the capital, I’ve witnessed the evolution of the imperial city from a unique vantage point. Having co-hosted series like Empire has No Clothes and Crashing the War Party, I’m no stranger to dissecting the hard truths and challenging the mainstream's company line on national security and foreign policy.

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