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Jon Stewart presses Matthew Cole on sources behind Gulf-policy allegations

The "Princes and Thieves" interview pairs Cole's account of secret financial arrangements with Stewart's questions about what readers can verify.

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The Daily Show Story of October 30, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Matthew Cole - “Princes and Thieves” | The Daily Show

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0:00Cole opens by reading a lawyer's denial of the allegations in his book.
1:40Cole argues that informal financial arrangements helped shape American Middle East policy outside normal oversight.
8:26Cole alleges that secret accounts in Abu Dhabi and Israel supported covert regional operations.
17:20Stewart asks how Cole can substantiate his account while protecting sources and facing legal threats.
23:20Stewart argues that protected sourcing makes the allegations difficult to sell publicly; Cole stands behind his investigation.

The denial comes first. Before explaining his book, investigative journalist Matthew Cole reads a lawyer's statement rejecting its allegations. Jon Stewart then asks him to lay out the story behind "Princes and Thieves."

Cole describes a five-year investigation into Gulf money and American diplomacy. His central argument is that informal financial arrangements helped shape Middle East policy outside normal oversight. He describes an abandoned multibillion-dollar foreign-policy fund, then alleges that secret accounts in Abu Dhabi and Israel supported covert regional operations.

Stewart keeps returning to a different question: how can readers assess an extraordinary account when the sources behind it must remain protected?

That tension becomes clearest during Cole's account of Dutch intelligence and phone surveillance. Stewart questions why an allied intelligence service would keep its activities from Washington. Cole answers that intelligence agencies routinely spy on allies without telling them. Later, Stewart also questions the use of conventional banks rather than cryptocurrency for the arrangements Cole describes.

The host does not disguise his difficulty with the material. "It was a frustrating read, if I'm being honest," Stewart says, explaining how the increasingly complex details strained his belief.

Cole maintains his confidence in the reporting while saying readers should reach their own conclusions. By the close, Stewart recommends the book, but his questions have given the interview a second subject beyond foreign policy: the distance between a reporter's confidence in protected sources and what an audience can independently judge.

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