Pod Insights Flagrant Ex-CIA Explains China’s Superpower Rise, Israel/Hamas, and Epstein’s FBI Ties | Andrew Bustamante About this episode YERRR – this week the boys go deep state mode with an unfiltered look at the CIA, Mossad, and America’s relationship with Israel. From Epstein’s real role, to Trump’s chaotic intel briefings, to why Oct 7th caught everyone off guard—this one’s full spy thriller meets Flagrant insanity.
If you’ve ever wondered what’s really going on behind the curtain—this is the one.
All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE.
Read Andrew’s CIA book ‘Shadow Cell’: https://geni.us/ShadowCellBook
00:00 Fat vs Fit
1:44 Does Andrew work for CIA?
8:02 What do we get out of relationship with Israel?
10:38 Will we forget about this genocide? It’s worth for US?
16:32 Intelligence is inconsistent + AIPAC need
19:02 Israel doesn’t trust the US & Vice Versa
23:05 Sharing Intelligence + Mossad knew about 9/11?
29:12 Mossad acts like CIA from the past
30:50 How did Israel miss Oct 7th? Who has jurisdiction?
34:44 Terrorist organisation
36:04 PDF Files & Mossad + Epstein
45:34 Why the need for Epstein? Protecting Informants
52:08 Trump is a dishonest person
54:16 Intelligences’ view of Trump + Mass resignations
59:01 US isn’t safe long term + Thanks Obama
1:02:09 Hunting Osama Bin Laden + Pakistani Paranoia
1:04:21 Accurate Spy representation in media
1:06:43 Decapitating Leadership effective? Netanyahu’s interests
1:09:53 Promoting + Book about CIA mission
1:15:38 CIA has “rules”
1:16:54 Ukraine v Russia + American & Chinese influences
1:28:13 Issue with China being no. 1? Unravelling the US
1:35:10 The world hates the US + Russian motivations
1:40:31 Propaganda war with China + Hot war
1:47:31 Biggest threat to US = CHINA
1:49:15 Tariffs are negotiating tools + No professional politicians
1:54:12 Bustamante is still leaving the US
2:00:25 Getting fake passports is easy
2:02:50 Bustamante’s Book = most accurate modern spy novel
2:14:31 Dealing with stolen valor + Hard to leave
2:17:14 Vulnerabilities being CIA + Mission comes first
2:20:53 Leaving with clearances + Going back
2:24:14 Lightning Questions
Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/44p02I7
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Transcript 29,073 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:29 Speaker 02 What's up, guys? Welcome to Flagrant. I'm your fat co-host, Akash Singh. And we are here with CIA agent, former and probably present, author of the book Shadow Cell, one of my favorite guests ever, even though he still works for the agency, Andrew Bustamante, guys. Give it up for him. Thank you for coming through, man. Thank you for coming through.
1:50 Speaker 03 I'm sorry you got fat.
1:54 Speaker 03 That's new, that's new since the last episode.
1:56 Speaker 02 We were saying this off pod. I have been fatter on this podcast. I must have just hidden it better. I'm not saying I'm not fat now, I am. But I'm less fat, slightly. So the comments didn't bother me as much, but if you look at the episode with Ralph Barbosa, every comment is about how fat I am, and they're so funny.
2:11 Speaker 03 Are they making comments about how fit you are? It's almost like you're-
2:13 Speaker 04 Just how black he is. They've talked about that a lot.
2:15 Speaker 03 It's like the way to transfer- I gave him a fat transfer.
2:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, can you teach him how to go deep undercover?
2:21 Speaker 02 Hey Miles, what was your favorite comment about how fat I am? Do we have one on deck, or Joey can pull it up?
2:25 Speaker 04 I don't have a favorite one off deck, but they were all great.
2:27 Speaker 02 Oh god, they were so good. I was genuinely laughing at them. I was with my wife, just dying laughing. And she can't go nowhere. I've this, she married my fat ass. So what's you gonna do about it?
2:36 Speaker 04 I saw some bangers. Someone said, "The camera adds 10 pounds. Look like Akash ate five cameras."
2:45 Speaker 04 Unfortunately, that's a heater.
2:47 Speaker 02 It's so good, dude!
2:48 Speaker 03 That was just a bargain joke right there.
2:52 Speaker 02 Oh my god, it's so good, dude!
2:55 Speaker 04 One too many non-bread, Akash been eating good? Hell yeah, dude.
3:00 Speaker 02 Nah, the funniest one was just, "Akash looks like he gained 50 pounds in the last week." It's just like, so blunt. Okay, anyway. Andrew, Mr. Bustamante, as your fat co-host, I have some questions for you to chew on, get it?
3:15 Speaker 02 Address, if you want to just address, "Everybody thinks you still work for CIA." What do you have to say to that? Alex thinks it, I believe.
3:23 Speaker 03 I do. So, Alex is the exception, everybody else is an idiot.
3:28 Speaker 03 Okay, if you think I still work for CIA, you are so far off, like, so far off in terms of anything rational, logical.
3:37 Speaker 02 Well, no, no, no, I-
3:37 Speaker 03 That's what an agent would say if they tried to throw you off the charts.
3:40 Speaker 02 I don't believe you work for CIA, but we have to address this. It is rational and logical to think, because you are seemingly very like- Pro CIA, you don't have a lot of negative things to say about them. So, a person could make the leap that, oh, he probably still works for the agency.
3:55 Speaker 03 So, let's do an actual CIA drill, right? Because this shit happens in CIA all the time. Where you have two very smart people who sit there and they're like, this is what's happening. And somebody else is like, nope, this is what's happening. And they're polar opposites. So, me working for CIA still is the polar opposite of me not working for CIA. So, when you have this kind of impasse in intelligence, you go through something called an analysis of competing hypotheses in ACH.
4:18 Speaker 02 This sounds like some shit he's workshop.
4:20 Speaker 03 I know, I know.
4:20 Speaker 02 But go ahead, but go ahead.
4:22 Speaker 03 Workshop with like corporate clients, yes.
4:24 Speaker 02 Okay, okay.
4:24 Speaker 03 Is that what you mean?
4:25 Speaker 02 Sure. That's what, if that's what they want me to mean, that's what I mean.
4:29 Speaker 03 So, you have to look at the two options and then compare objectively, the likelihood, the logic, the reasoning behind the two. So, let's start with the camp that I am still working for CIA. So, what are our, what are our objective, like rational arguments for why you think I still work for CIA?
4:48 Speaker 02 It would make sense for the CIA, or CIA, whatever, to hire an incredibly charismatic, likable, well-spoken person to defend their actions in the guise of no longer working for CIA.
5:02 Speaker 03 Okay, so, that is, that is not objective. It's subjective, because what you're saying is it would make sense. So, it makes sense to you, might not make sense to someone else. But let's still use it. So, that's one point in the I still work for CIA camp.
5:15 Speaker 04 Theoretically, people would say you can never leave the CIA. Once you're in, you're always in.
5:18 Speaker 03 Once you're in, you're always in. Which, based on the fact that we signed two contracts, right? We signed two secrecy agreements with them. One that's civilian and one that's federal. So, that actually is demonstrably true. So, we technically can't ever leave because they always have to approve what we publish, what we make. So, that's two things and two points in the Andy still works for CIA camp.
5:39 Speaker 04 You generally speak somewhat positively about the CIA and general operations.
5:42 Speaker 03 I think that still goes back to point one. The charismatic person who defends CIA.
5:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:47 Speaker 03 What else?
5:48 Mark Gagnon? They want someone in the industry rubbing shoulders and buddy-buddy with all the celebrities and people that you're around.
5:55 Speaker 03 The Epstein argument, right there.
5:57 Speaker 02 That is actually who I was thinking of. And I got uncomfortable sitting next to you.
6:03 Speaker 03 But a very valid and like strategic argument. The last time I was here, you were the one that made all the really good spy like strategic observations. So I love that you're still doing
6:13 Speaker 02 it. He wanted to work for CIA or FBI. Was it CIA?
6:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:16 Speaker 02 He wanted to work for CIA and then he started working for us and his whole life went downhill.
6:20 Speaker 03 But your bank account went up.
6:24 Speaker 03 So that's three, three points in that camp. Anything else? Why would I still work for CIA?
6:28 Speaker 02 Miles, I feel like you got one ready.
6:30 Speaker 03 No, I was just gonna say Alex media would be the worst CIA agent possibly ever in the history of mankind.
6:35 Speaker 02 Why?
6:35 Speaker 03 Or the best.
6:36 Speaker 04 Or the best.
6:36 Speaker 03 Or the best. So bad. Just remember when he was sort of a cop.
6:42 Speaker 03 I just can't imagine the abuse of power.
6:44 Speaker 02 Oh, absolutely.
6:45 Speaker 04 I got another one. Your wife was CIA.
6:49 Speaker 03 Okay.
6:50 Speaker 04 So you are metaphorically and literally in bed with CIA in some way.
6:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're married to, you're married to the agency, literally.
6:56 Speaker 03 Okay, we'll keep that one too then.
6:58 Speaker 02 Okay.
6:59 Speaker 03 So three.
7:00 Speaker 02 Three, let's say four.
7:01 Speaker 03 Three of the four, three of the four were subjective, but we'll keep all four. Now, let's do the thought exercise of why you would defend that I'm not in CIA.
7:08 Speaker 02 I have nothing.
7:09 Speaker 03 You really have nothing?
7:09 Speaker 02 I have nothing.
7:11 Speaker 04 I mean, you say you're not.
7:12 Speaker 03 Okay. Have you, do you have other CIA examples of people like me?
7:18 Speaker 02 I don't think so.
7:20 Speaker 03 Okay, so there are no other examples out there. So I would be like a one original.
7:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:24 Speaker 03 And one, only one success story.
7:26 Speaker 02 But it would make, and I honestly don't believe this, but the narrative seems to be out there and I want to help you at least address it.
7:34 Speaker 04 I mean, there's other people that claim they're former CIA.
7:36 Speaker 02 And it would make sense that in this YouTube landscape, this is the new entertainment landscape, this, you would be the first, or there would be a first.
7:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, there would be a first, but would the first also happen to also be someone that they planted?
7:48 Speaker 02 I mean theoretically.
7:49 Speaker 03 Theoretically, but you could also argue, how many things has CIA done right? Like, when you hear about CIA.
7:56 Speaker 02 Argue.
7:57 Speaker 03 After they made a movie about it, right? So, so, so most of what CIA does right, nobody ever hears about, which is, which is an argument for why I would still be CIA. But the, the, the second truth is, most of what they do publicly, they do wrong. So, if they were to try to plant somebody publicly, it would probably go terribly wrong. Right? How, how is they, an organization like that, going to actually keep up with the pace of business? How are they going to keep up with the pace of media? How are they going to control every channel, every person who goes out there? Why is it not every video is a hit? Why is it only some videos are a hit?
8:32 Speaker 02 Well, you can't control the YouTube algorithm, or nor would I expect the agency to control the YouTube algorithm. But having a smart, charismatic, handsome guy to go be their mouthpiece, enough videos will hit and penetrate that our job will get done, our message will get across. I can't imagine that you guys haven't thought of the same thing Andrew Tate thought of. Let's just have a bunch of accounts getting clips out of me and making us look good.
9:01 Speaker 03 Okay. It's, it's all fair.
9:04 Speaker 02 Now, again, I'm not, I don't think this, but as we talk this out, I, I doubt myself. The thought exercise really led to me being unsure. Now, we're still gonna have a great episode, and whether you represent the agency or not, I think it's great because you can answer some questions that we have about larger issues, I think. And I would love to start with, if you guys are okay with it, I would love to start with this one. Because we've asked a few people and never gotten a solid answer. I've listened to some stuff of yours, you seem to be reasonably pro-Israel, which is fine. Our question that we ask people is, what does the United States government get out of their relationship with Israel?
9:38 Speaker 03 So, it's a great question, and I want to make sure that, that we understand something. So, I am pragmatically pro-Israel. Having Israel as an American ally is a very pragmatic, practical decision.
9:48 Speaker 02 Okay.
9:49 Speaker 03 Right? It's kind of like a 401K. It's a good idea.
9:52 Speaker 02 Okay.
9:53 Speaker 03 But you can still hate your 401K.
9:54 Speaker 02 Okay.
9:55 Speaker 03 You can still have it mismanaged, it can still be something where you're like, I wish there was a better alternative, but I have no other option because my company chose this 401K. That's kind of the relationship that I think the United States has with Israel right now.
10:05 Speaker 02 Okay.
10:06 Speaker 03 Israel is, if you, if you think of, if you think of, when you were a kid and you like, made the whole egg drop experiment in, in elementary school, you put an egg inside of something so that you can drop it from the roof, or you drop it from the ceiling, or you drop it from the third floor. Some people put it inside of a box, some people attach it to a parachute, but everybody puts the egg into something, because the egg is what they care about. The thing on the outside is the thing they don't really care about, but the thing that's supposed to absorb the impact of the ground. That's what Israel is for the United States.
10:35 Speaker 02 Okay.
10:36 Speaker 03 Israel is supposed to absorb the impact.
10:38 Mark Gagnon? He might be Mossad.
10:41 Mark Gagnon? I heard you say on another pod that all Mossad agents are hot.
10:46 Speaker 03 I'm getting a lot, I'm getting more compliments on this couch.
10:49 Mark Gagnon? Oh, we all wanna fuck you.
10:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.
10:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, my wife is watching right now.
10:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, C I K, dude.
10:59 Speaker 02 Okay, but, so they absorb the impact of potential adversaries in the Middle East.
11:05 Speaker 03 Correct. They also give us a foothold on another side of the world that if we ever need to rapidly deploy, we just have to move people from here to there because all the weapons they have are already our weapons. They're flying our jets, they're using our tanks, they're using our artillery.
11:20 Speaker 02 We still own them or we sold them?
11:21 Speaker 03 We sold them, but they're buying American brand. So now all of a sudden, if we needed to launch an American front, and even if Israel didn't wanna be actively involved in that front, we have a whole cachet sitting there waiting for us.
11:33 Speaker 02 Now, is this not the case with Saudi?
11:36 Speaker 03 Not the case with Saudi. It is the case with Jordan, right? Saudi Arabia is a very different beast than Israel because Saudi Arabia is independently wealthy, right? They have oil wealth, they have royalty, they have all, they don't need our money. Israel, their economy is heavily tied to our economy. So they do need us to sell, they do need us to buy from them. Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates.
11:59 Mark Gagnon? He's calling Jews broke. That's crazy.
12:05 Speaker 02 Okay, but then here's my question, just from, I guess, a PR standpoint. There is, I think, most of us would agree, there's a genocide happening and the United States seemingly just kinda supports Israel in this thing. And that is a very bad look for us globally. So is that allyship worth it? And if that protection is enough, well, I guess you can answer that and then I have a follow up.
12:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, yes, it's worth it because, whether you wanna admit it or not, we're gonna forget about this genocide in the next 15 to 20 years. Because we've already... Already forgot about the genocide that happened on Clinton's watch when the Hutus killed the Tutsis.
12:40 Speaker 02 Now, this is what I had this exact thought. There have been many times, sadly, in Africa, where the United States just kind of didn't acknowledge a genocide, and the media landscape went with that and never talked about it. And we didn't support it, but we just kind of didn't do anything. What it seems to many of us, I'm no geopolitical expert at all. I'm dumb with most of this stuff. But it seems like not only are we turning or kind of turning a blind eye, we are looking at it and being like, no, that's okay. And that is a very different thing.
13:08 Speaker 03 That's true.
13:08 Speaker 02 Hey, we support those guys. Nobody was saying, we support the, was it the Tutsis killing? Yeah, we support the Tutsis. They're defending themselves. They have the right to defend. Nobody was saying that. We just kind of ignored it. It seems like, and I hate that this hope, I hope this doesn't get clipped up for some antisemitism shit, because it has nothing to do with Jewish people as a race or culture or whatever. This is about a government.
13:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:28 Speaker 02 What they seem to be doing is a genocide, and we're like, hey, they are allowed to do that.
13:32 Speaker 03 I agree with you. There was, the international outcry was so much more significant in the 90s. Whereas right now, the international outcry is there, but that's not really what we're seeing or hearing here. Instead, what we're seeing here is, well, they have a right to defend themselves. And there's all the comparisons to 9/11. There's actually not a lot of objective comparison between 9/11 and what happened on October 7. They're very, very different settings, right? But we're still drawing all these comparisons as if we are making the argument that the mass killing of non-participant, non-aggressors in Gaza, Palestinian women, children.
14:09 Speaker 02 Yes.
14:09 Speaker 03 And civilians, non-extremists, as if that's okay.
14:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I think to that end, I don't know that we're going to forget about this in 15, 20 years. I think there will be a stain that didn't necessarily exist with Hutus and Tutsis, and I think it happened in Sudan as well. I read a book that I already forgot. What is the what it was called? But it's about a genocide, so that's happened. But this, I think, will leave a longer stain. Do you not feel that way?
14:33 Speaker 03 The reason I don't feel that way is because, first of all, most Americans don't understand what a Palestinian is. And I, and.
14:40 Speaker 02 It's someone getting killed in Palestine. And I'm, I mean, it's probably a woman or child getting murdered in Palestine.
14:47 Speaker 03 And here's what's fucked up. What's Palestine?
14:50 Speaker 02 Uh, well, it is, it is the nation that will soon to be known as Israel.
14:56 Speaker 03 But that's
14:57 Speaker 02 It's like Prince, but
14:57 Speaker 03 It doesn't exist, right? And that's one of the things that makes it so hard for people to conceptualize. There is no technical Palestine.
15:04 Speaker 02 Okay.
15:04 Speaker 03 There is Israel, and then there's other areas of Israel that are called other things. Gaza, West Bank.
15:09 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
15:10 Speaker 03 There's no Palestine.
15:11 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
15:11 Speaker 03 Right? Even the United States, who has kind of quietly advocated for a two-party, a two-state solution. There is an Israel, and there for sure is terrorism. We all know terrorism very well. Every American knows terrorism very well. So we understand terrorism, but we don't understand the difference between Hezbollah, Hamas. We don't understand
15:29 Speaker 02 I don't.
15:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, we don't understand what the IRGC is in Iran. And what's the relationship between Iran? Like, what's a proxy?
15:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:35 Speaker 03 And then, why are there even missiles coming from Yemen? People don't understand it.
15:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:39 Speaker 03 And when people don't understand it, it makes it really easy to forget and favor something else that you do understand.
15:44 Speaker 02 So, the United States is kind of making a calculated decision. And I'm not even necessarily judging this. This is kind of like a decision I have the luxury of not making. I gotta look out for my 330 or whatever million constituents. And if it is, you know, tens, twenties, hundreds of thousands of people over there dying, those aren't my constituents. I don't have to worry about that if it benefits my... Is that kind of the ugly truth of what you're saying?
16:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, there's, there's two ugly truths. One is, I have to feed my constituency.
16:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:09 Speaker 03 And my constituency doesn't know, doesn't care, to a point where it's affecting the economy or my election, my reelection campaign, right? That's part of it. But then the other part of it is, objectively speaking, if you measure what Israel's actions have been, it's all good for us.
16:24 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
16:25 Speaker 03 They have crippled Hezbollah, crippled Hamas. The Houthis are, are weak. Iran has been, like, their, their enrichment program has been damaged significantly. Their ability to leverage proxy conflict, not just against Israel, but anywhere else in the world, has been significantly reduced. I mean, Netanyahu's decisions, his actions, as sad as they are, and as many tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians that you can count, he's essentially taken three major adversaries to the United States, and he's knocked them all back 10 to 15 years.
16:56 Speaker 02 Hmm.
16:57 Speaker 03 So 10 to 15 years of increased security for 330 million cost the price.
17:03 Speaker 03 Of 50,000 Palestinians and how many Americans are going to take action on that? That's the ugly truth.
17:09 Speaker 04 Could you also say that the conflict has exacerbated a potential hot war between the United States directly and Iran?
17:17 Speaker 02 Thank God you had a good point because he fucking checked me.
17:26 Speaker 02 Okay, go ahead.
17:27 Speaker 03 So I think what, what, yes and no, we were never that close to a hot war with Iran. Iran doesn't really care that much about us. They care much more about what's happening in the Middle East and we don't really care that much about Iran because Iran doesn't have much sphere of influence that impacts us. When, when Donald Trump flew stealth bombers into Iran to bomb their nuclear enrichment facility, I think he knew very well there was not going to be significant retribution coming back from Iran. If anything, there would be what happened, some sort of response that allows us to test our weapon systems in full view of everybody and look really strong again, right?
18:03 Speaker 02 Did he do real damage with that attack? Because I've heard, we've heard mixed things.
18:06 Speaker 03 It's mixed things and this is part of what's the biggest challenge in the Trump administration is that even the intelligence, like the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence and all the agencies that feed up to the DNI, we don't know if they're independent or if they're being directed as to what they can or can't report to the president, right? Because DIA came back and said, hey, our, our damage analysis is insignificant. And the DNI came out and was, and said, we knocked them back to the Stone Age. And so it's, it's inconsistent. Who's, are the facts coming up so we can find them or are the facts being dictated? Is the truth being dictated down?
18:43 Speaker 02 Which of those entities has the greater chance of being propagandized by a president that wants to get a third term?
18:50 Speaker 03 So the DNI, because the DNI, the DNI is the newest of all positions, didn't exist before 2003.
18:56 Speaker 02 Okay. And the DNI said that we didn't do much damage, correct?
18:59 Speaker 03 Correct. And then the DNI came back later on and was like, no, no, no, no, we really did. That's Tulsa Gavir.
19:03 Speaker 02 Okay, okay, okay, got it. Okay, here's actually one question I did want to ask you about Israel and the allyship and all the good that it does. If that is true. Why is, why do we still hear so much about an AIPAC presence as a lobby? Why do we still, why does AIPAC still exist? Why does Israel need AIPAC to do all of these things? From what I understand as a guy who's not super political, they have a large influence on the government. But if we're already getting so much out of Israel, why do we need that lobbyist?
19:32 Speaker 03 So, I mean, you're, you're definitely out of my depth on this one.
19:35 Speaker 02 Fuck yeah.
19:41 Speaker 03 Because when it comes to a lot of the political lobbies and what's involved in them and how they work, that's not foreign intelligence.
19:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, I can understand that.
19:48 Speaker 03 That's like domestic.
19:49 Speaker 02 I guess my question, as you're talking it all out, I'm thinking it in my mind, I'm like, okay, that all makes sense. But then why would we need an AIPAC? Or why would Israel need an AIPAC to have to have such influence here? And, you know, Bernie Sanders has said like, you go against them, they'll get you out of office. Why do they need that if they offer so much value?
20:06 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, our elected politicians, they need a vacation to, you know, Israel.
20:09 Speaker 02 I mean, you know what? I guess I can understand that to a degree. But if they offer so much good, it feels like they wouldn't need such a strong. Like, I'm trying to think, England is an ally of ours, as far as I know, that we have a great relationship with. There's no English lobby.
20:24 Speaker 03 So this is a great point. So you're actually raising something that is really relevant here. Because, or not, it's both relevant and I know something about it. Israel doesn't trust the United States. Israel actively tries to send Mossad agents to penetrate the United States. They're actively recruiting spies inside the United States in our, in our nuclear programs, in our weapons and military programs, in our intelligence programs. Like, Israel is actively trying to spy on the United States. So, any, they don't trust us. They don't trust us to do what we say we're gonna do. They don't trust us not to spy on them. Because I think they understand American pragmatism better than most Americans understand American pragmatism. Right? Israel is one of the few countries in the world that's surrounded on almost all sides by enemies.
21:08 Speaker 03 Not just, like, I don't like you enemies, but existential threat enemies. People who want to wipe off, wipe the Jewish state off the map.
21:15 Speaker 02 To act like, to give Israel credit, to act like there haven't been terrorist attacks, slash attempted terrorist attacks, constantly is a ridiculous thing to say.
21:23 Speaker 04 Is it fair to say they have a militaristic paranoia?
21:27 Speaker 03 I would venture away from paranoia because it's demonstrable.
21:31 Speaker 04 But when it comes to dealing with the United States as far as intelligence?
21:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, that would seem like paranoia.
21:36 Speaker 04 Like, is there demonstrable evidence the United States is withholding information from the Israeli government or Mossad?
21:42 Speaker 03 So, the United States has a full transparency agreement with four other countries. That's what makes what's known as the Five Eyes. So, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.
21:54 Speaker 02 Are they called the Five Eyes because CIA, MIC, the "I" in the intelligence?
21:58 Speaker 03 I actually don't know, and it's funny when you look at it written out, it's the word "I", E-Y-E.
22:03 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
22:05 Speaker 03 I don't really know where it came from. But those are the only five countries that really agree to full transparency, and even then that full transparency has policy rigor around it. Israel's not part of that. So, they already know that they're not part of an agreement that says we're going to share everything. So, then they have to wonder, like, what are you going to share? What aren't you going to share? And when it comes to Israel, the thing they're the most interested about is not what is the United States collecting about Israel? It's what is the United States collecting about a threat to Israel that they're not telling Israel? So, what did the United States collect about Hezbollah that they're not telling Israel? What did the United States collect about Iran that they're not telling Israel? And they want to shore up that gap.
22:40 Speaker 02 Then that's why they're so paranoid and they'll still have a lack of trust for us.
22:45 Speaker 03 I mean, they have a lack of trust for Israel, again, and I want to differentiate between Israel and Jews. Not the same thing.
22:51 Speaker 02 Yes, that's a super important thing to do.
22:53 Speaker 03 But Israel, Israel's, it doesn't know who to trust, and it arguably doesn't trust anyone. It's a young country. It's almost, like, the relationships that it does have are all pragmatic, based on economy and military trading and shared borders or whatever else. It doesn't really have anyone who's ideologically aligned with the Jewish state. Because Israel does not have a differentiation of church and state. They are the Jewish state. It's the government is the religion, the religion is the government. So, that's fundamentally different than here in the United States.
23:27 Mark Gagnon? And so does America trust Israel?
23:29 Speaker 03 No. At the government level, the United States does not trust Israel.
23:32 Speaker 04 Why?
23:33 Speaker 03 Because of all the same reasons. We know they're trying to penetrate us. We know that they manipulate us. We know that they manipulate trade. We know that they have agreements and partnerships. And they do all sorts of things with other countries that are beneficial to Israel, but not beneficial to the United States. So there's this inherent distrust of these two allies that inherently need each other on opposite sides of the world.
23:53 Speaker 04 Is that a new phenomenon, or do you feel like this has precedent in history?
23:57 Speaker 03 It has precedent for sure. And it's the way that most relationships around the world actually do work. There's a famous quote that you learn at the agency that actually comes from statesmanship and diplomacy. It says, "There are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests."
24:14 Speaker 02 Ah, that's good.
24:15 Speaker 03 So you have permanent interests.
24:16 Speaker 02 I think that's a life lesson.
24:17 Speaker 03 But people come and go based on whether or not they agree with your interests or not.
24:20 Speaker 04 Is there any evidence of different governments, globally speaking, that withhold intelligence information of a potential attack for some other interest?
24:30 Speaker 03 So it's a yes and no answer, right? Generally speaking, imminent threat to life, imminent threat to life means very pressing in terms of a timeline, 48 hours, 72 hours, that type of thing. Imminent threat to life, arguably even complete enemies should advise each other, right? So if we in the United States find out that some extremist group in China is going to bomb a public event in Beijing, we'll tell China, right? It's kind of a duty to warn is what we call it. And other countries agree the same thing for us. So there should be that for imminent threats.
25:12 Speaker 03 But for strategic threats, which are long-term threats or tactical threats, it becomes more dicey. And now it becomes, well, if we tell them about this attack that could happen in three months... Are we exposing our source? And if we're exposing our source, is it worth possibly losing the source to prevent that attack? Or is it better to wait until the attack is imminent? And then warn them two days or three days in advance?
25:37 Speaker 02 I noticed you said the word "should." Have you ever seen it not happen?
25:41 Speaker 03 Oh, I've seen it happen a number of times, especially in even the takedown of Osama bin Laden. Right? Pakistan was an ally. We crossed Pakistani borders illegally to take out Osama bin Laden. We didn't warn the Pakistanis that there was going to be a violent attack on their country until right before we crossed the border.
26:00 Speaker 04 Now, this is, we're getting into conspiracy territory, okay? You can punt on this if you want. But there is a theory that Mossad had some forewarning of the September 11th attacks. And that they were in some way, maybe knew about it, and then didn't inform the United States. And I've seen it like pop up on Twitter a lot.
26:16 Speaker 02 That is the kindest conspiracy theory I've heard. About anything Israeli adjacent.
26:21 Speaker 03 It's like a Mormon conspiracy theory.
26:25 Mark Gagnon? We heard about dancing Israelis over in Jersey celebrating out there.
26:29 Speaker 04 People call it different things. But I'm curious, have you heard of this theory? And do you think there's any validity to it?
26:34 Speaker 03 I think there's actually probability to it. And I say that because even in the United States, CIA and FBI both had information about the September 11th attacks before they happened. Now, whether or not Israel nefariously held that information back is a different story. Was it there and they just didn't see it? Was it there and they didn't validate it? Was it there and they communicated to the United States and said, "Hey, we're getting some strange warnings. Do you have anything about a pending attack in your country?" Right? And the United States, they did, but it was on the cutting room floor and nobody was talking about it. So they may very well come back and be like, "Nope, we don't know what to talk about."
27:07 Speaker 06 Wasn't there a huge lack of communication pre-9/11 between CIA and FBI and other information agencies? And then post, they sort of opened that up better?
27:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, so that's exactly getting back to what the DNI is and why the DNI exists. Prior to 9/11, the United States was basically a bunch of intelligence community members who coordinated when they wanted to. And they all spoke different languages, right? You speak military, you speak intel, you speak signals intelligence or the people who listen in on phone calls, right? Well, when you write a report, you use different terminology when you write a report. And when you have an asset, you didn't coordinate your asset with him. So it might be the same asset for all we know, only yours is 24612 and yours is codenamed, you know. Hard nipples, whatever.
27:52 Speaker 02 Falcon.
27:53 Speaker 03 Yeah. But nobody was talking to each other in the same language. So when the nine eleven commission happened and in two thousand and three, when Senate came in and said, we're changing, we're, when really all of Congress came in and said, we're changing how we do intelligence business, we are appointing a DNI, a director of national intelligence, who's going to standardize in uniform and make everything more uniform.
28:15 Speaker 02 Are we less effective in a sense because of this?
28:18 Speaker 03 I would say we're more effective.
28:19 Speaker 02 Okay.
28:20 Speaker 03 We're more effective, but we're also fatter.
28:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. I get it. I get it. I get it. Yeah, I get it.
28:30 Speaker 03 But we're fatter and we're, and we're more expensive.
28:32 Speaker 02 Okay.
28:33 Speaker 03 Right? It used to be that people could run kind of lean, be experimental.
28:37 Speaker 02 Wouldn't know anything about that.
28:38 Speaker 03 You always had plausible deniability. Now, like, how, how does the DNI have plausible deniability?
28:44 Speaker 04 You made a comment in a different podcast where you said that Mossad operates today like the CIA operated in the late fifties, sixties.
28:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, so, so the, the reference there is that CIA prior to nine eleven, CIA in the sixties and seventies, was, did not suffer significant oversight.
29:03 Speaker 02 Okay.
29:04 Speaker 03 They had a small group of people that could take very high risk operations in order to accomplish whatever priorities the president set in place. That's essentially what the Mossad is now. Argo.
29:15 Speaker 02 Argo.
29:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what Mossad is now. Mossad is a small group with almost no oversight that executes in any way that they need to, the direction of.
29:25 Speaker 02 We keep hearing they're like the most effective, I mean, we, meaning idiots like me, the most effective intelligence agency. Is that true and is that why?
29:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, so tell us about your colleagues.
29:37 Speaker 03 So I wanna, I'm, I'm gonna be particular about language, right? Because effective, effective has different meanings.
29:44 Speaker 02 They know the most, it seems.
29:46 Speaker 03 So I would argue that they don't.
29:48 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
29:48 Speaker 03 So first of all, Israel and Mossad is very, very focused on just a handful of priorities. Basically, threats to the homeland.
29:54 Speaker 02 Okay.
29:54 Speaker 03 Everything outside of that handful of priorities, they don't care about. They're not a global superpower. The United States is a global superpower. We don't have a handful of priorities. We have dozens upon dozens of priorities. We have to know what's happening between two allies in Europe. We have to know what's happening about, you know, rice trade in Southeast Asia. We have to know whether or not there's going to be another coup in Africa. We care about all that shit. So we have to take our budget and our officers and know everything that's happening in the world.
30:18 Speaker 02 And Mossad just has to focus on threats to the homeland.
30:21 Speaker 03 Right.
30:21 Speaker 02 Here's a question.
30:22 Mark Gagnon? How did they miss October 7?
30:24 Speaker 02 Bang! So... Did they miss October 7?
30:27 Speaker 03 One of the places, one of the ways where October 7th is, is parallel to 9/11, is that in, in hindsight, what people have collected is that there was reporting, there was information that was communicated up the chain of command that was never acted upon to prevent the attack.
30:44 Speaker 02 But if it's a small group of people, it makes sense in CIA. I keep, I keep, you have a real thing against the word "the," so I just keep saying CIA.
30:51 Speaker 03 I appreciate it.
30:52 Speaker 02 In CIA, it was a scattered budget. Like you said, there's no real oversight. Mossad is a small group. So, to address some conspiracy theories out there, how do they not communicate with each other within a small group that there's an imminent threat potentially to the homeland?
31:09 Speaker 03 So there were three groups that are, that were involved. Three Israeli organizations that were involved in the October 7th incident. Mossad, because Mossad's charged with collecting foreign intelligence against, that addresses threats against the homeland. So their job is, they were the ones that should have known what Hamas was doing, who the Hamas leaders were, what the supplies were, timing, etc., right? So that would have been Mossad. But the actual border itself was protected by the, by the Israeli military.
31:40 Speaker 03 Not by Mossad. So, anything about imminent attack, anything about locations, anything about security and defense, the IDF would have had to handle that. So Mossad would have had to communicate with the IDF, and the IDF would have had to communicate with Mossad.
31:55 Speaker 02 Okay.
31:56 Speaker 03 And then you have internal security, which is handled by a group called Shin Bet. Shin Bet is basically like the FBI for Israel. Anything that happens inside the country, not on the border, not outside of the border, anything that happens inside the country should be Shin Bet's purview.
32:11 Speaker 02 Okay.
32:11 Speaker 03 So you've got three organizations that would have had to all communicate almost seamlessly in a short period of time to prevent October.
32:18 Speaker 02 So you don't think there's any real validity to the idea that Netanyahu maybe allowed this to happen so he could stay in power?
32:23 Speaker 03 I think there's always a possibility, but the probability speaks to miscommunication, mishandling, and a poor series of events.
32:32 Speaker 02 Which is, yeah, I understand that, is the most logical and probable of all solutions. Okay.
32:36 Mark Gagnon? Wait, one thing, but things going on in Gaza, since that's technically part of Israel, wouldn't that be Shin Bet's responsibility?
32:44 Speaker 03 And this is why, it's a great question, and this is why things get really mixed up in Israel, because you have all these international players, some of which are trying to protect Palestinians, some of which are trying to protect Israel, all of which are trying to find peace, and then you have these areas that are kind of carved out, that are supposed to be like, safe havens for the Palestinians, but they're not really safe havens, because they're still managed by the Israelis. And then Israeli law shouldn't necessarily apply to Palestinians, but it does, because they're on land that the world kind of views as Israel, so it gets really fucking complicated, right? Who does have jurisdiction? Is it the Palestinian Authority? Palestinian Authority is kind of the recognized authority for the Palestinian people, or is
33:29 Speaker 03 it Hamas? Hamas is the group that was voted into power by the Palestinian people over the Palestinian Authority. Woo, fucking. And then the United, the world sees Hamas as a terrorist organization, sort of. Twelve countries in the world see Hamas as a terrorist organization.
33:44 Speaker 02 Really? I thought we all kind of saw Hamas as terrorists.
33:47 Speaker 03 No, that's, that's Westerners.
33:48 Speaker 02 Why do the others not see it as a terrorist?
33:49 Speaker 03 Even the EU doesn't see them as, doesn't see them as a terrorist group.
33:53 Speaker 02 Okay, is it just because they're liberal cucks, or like, what is that? What is the, I'm serious, why would they not?
33:58 Speaker 03 Because the definition of terrorism is really loose. It's defined by each country. And some countries see Hamas's activities as terrorist activities. Some countries see Israel's activities as terrorist countries. In Iran...
34:12 Speaker 02 Two things can be true.
34:13 Speaker 03 In Iran, the United States is a terrorist organization.
34:16 Speaker 04 Is the Taliban recognized as, or not recognized as a terrorist organization by many countries?
34:21 Speaker 03 That's what's funny is the Taliban is seen as a terrorist organization almost universally.
34:26 Speaker 04 Oh, really?
34:26 Speaker 03 Which is why it was so significant when George Bush, President Bush, said, "We will not negotiate with terrorists." And then, there we were, sitting at the table with the Taliban.
34:35 Speaker 04 Right. Interesting.
34:37 Mark Gagnon? Was Hamas a terrorist organization before October 7? By those 12?
34:41 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was identified, it was identified as a terrorist organization in the United States for many, many years. Because it uses extremist activity to cause injury to civilians with the intent of changing policy. That's essentially the definition, the United States definition of terrorism. Even if you look up right now, is Hamas a terrorist organization or an insurgency? Because insurgency was another term that we invented in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you look up that term, even on Google, the Google machine, the Google AI will be like, "This is a very complicated topic." Because depending on your point of view, it is both an insurgency and a terrorist group.
35:20 Speaker 04 One person's terrorist, another person's freedom fighter, basically. I have a question that might parlay us into our next topic.
35:26 Speaker 02 Okay, I have a Mossad question.
35:28 Speaker 04 Oh, I'll do that one.
35:30 Speaker 02 Well, we start with Israel and now Mossad questions. And this is really more from Twitter than me. Why do they like fucking kids so much?
35:40 Speaker 03 You know, I was sitting there, and when you said it's from Twitter, when you said it's from Twitter, I was like...
35:44 Speaker 02 I'm just curious. I'm not saying what's happening. I keep hearing this thing, and you're my, I know nothing, so you are the brain for this podcast. We're never gonna pretend to be smart people. I keep reading about...
35:58 Speaker 04 I was gonna ask the same question in a different way. Do you wanna try a different way?
36:01 Speaker 02 Try your way, try your way, let's try your way.
36:03 Speaker 04 So there was a recent news story that went viral on Twitter. Why are they all pet...
36:13 Speaker 04 There was a recent news story that there was an Israeli national that was in Nevada that was allegedly implicated in a child sex trafficking ring or an operation where he was trying to procure other people to have sex with children. Then, he was arrested, detained in Nevada, and then deported and basically ostensibly extradited to Israel and then released by the Israeli government. People are looking at this as some sort of unfair deal the United States has with Israel where some of the worst criminals that are attempting to offend our citizens are then getting released with impunity in their own nation.
36:43 Mark Gagnon? And this isn't the first time that that has happened.
36:46 Speaker 03 This is...
36:47 Speaker 04 Why does that happen?
36:48 Speaker 03 I can tell you why, you're not gonna like the answer why, but it happens and it will continue to happen. So, we don't know what we stumbled into. We had the Nevada police, we had local police, who stumbled into something that had an international footprint. So, it could have been a coordinated intelligence operation between the United States and Israel, and Nevada stepped into the middle of it not realizing that both the US federal government and the Israeli government understood what was happening. It could have been a situation where nobody in the United States had any idea what was happening and Israel was just running a unilateral operation, but Israel is such a close ally and the intel sharing that exists makes it so that we have an agreement where if an American citizen is arrested in Israel, they are immediately extradited to the United States,
37:32 Speaker 03 not held prisoner in Israel. And if an Israeli citizen is arrested in the United States, they're immediately extradited to Israel so that they're not held liable in the United States. That kind of agreement could exist. There's a number of different reasons why all of this could have played out the way it played out, but I will say that the optics are horrible because they're exactly what your conclusion is. Why would it be that somebody who is putting American children at risk, whatever their nationality is, why would they be allowed to go right back home again?
38:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:02 Speaker 03 Why wouldn't they stand trial here where their criminal actions would have had damage? Why doesn't that person face, you know, face justice here in the country where they committed the crime?
38:13 Speaker 04 Yeah. And then on a similar note, you have said on record that you think Jeffrey Epstein was most likely Mossad, so why do they like fucking kids so much?
38:25 Speaker 02 That's just, I'm just, you know, that's Twitter, not me.
38:29 Speaker 03 Dex, Twitter does it.
38:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, okay, that one might have been me. But it was based on that, and then you have, you said Mossad. Jeffrey Epstein was most likely Mossad.
38:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, so the Epstein thing is really interesting because I was, I don't spend a lot of time digging into the topics that-
38:46 Speaker 02 I didn't care that much about it until the list disappeared. Now, this is crazy.
38:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, so it's funny because I was, I actually had a conversation with another intelligent friend of mine, where we, who had federal background, and we were talking about what could have happened here. Like, how does this play out the way that it plays out? How, how does somebody who is accused of such heinous crimes, who's already in custody, and then who was part of a campaign promise, how does, how does it still get covered up? How does it still get redacted from, from public purview? And the, the theory that we kind of developed, the theory that he introduced to me that I think is the most sound theory, is that there's a good chance that Jeffrey Epstein may have been an FBI source. Not a CIA source, not a Mossad source, I mean, he may have been a Mossad source and a million other sources.
39:36 Speaker 03 But if he was an FBI, what's known as an FBI CI, covert informant, if he was an FBI CI, he could have been in a position where he was safe from any charges. Instead, he was reporting to FBI the more egregious criminal activity of all the clients that he was supporting, the people whose bank accounts he was moving and building, the people whose abuses he was building, the foreigners who were coming to his parties. Like, he could have been a pretty incredible source of information, not to CIA, because CIA doesn't work that way, but he could have worked with FBI and been given protection.
40:13 Speaker 02 You see how that sounds like you still work for CIA, right? Where you're like, "That's FBI." You get how he's like, "We wouldn't do such a thing."
40:21 Speaker 03 We would, but we can't, but we can't. We can't because the CIA can't work with an American citizen without going through the FBI to get there. It has to do with authorities. Yeah, we would do all sorts of horrible shit.
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41:46 Speaker 02 Son, there was a time when it was, it was fire. You're in a suburb, you go to Panera Bread. You can pick two.
41:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
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41:53 Speaker 04 It is hospital food, right?
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42:06 Speaker 04 The bowls are still good. You know how they put broccoli, you know, like a bowl of bread?
42:09 Speaker 02 Oh, you love a fucking bowl. This guy should put broccoli in a bowl and he's in.
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42:16 Speaker 02 Oh, the bowl is made out of bread.
42:17 Speaker 04 You never seen this?
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42:53 Speaker 02 Serving bullshit food, pretending it's a fucking... So, remember they had lemonade that killed people?
42:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
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44:40 Speaker 02 Save the swallowing for after Bluetooth, actually, ladies. Hey, listen, if you want your man to have better dick, Bluetooth, Bluetooth.com. And we got a special deal for our listeners, as always. You get your first month of Bluetooth for free if you use the promo code FLAGRANT at checkout. All you gotta do is pay $5 for shipping. That's it. $5 to double your dick score. As always, shouts to Bluetooth for supporting this podcast. Y'all are the goats. I heard somebody, I don't remember who, but they said that about Israel and Palestine. They're like, this is just war. It should, that's all, this is what it's been throughout history. This is war. This is politics. This is espionage. This is, we're gonna allow some, we're gonna be a part of some horrendous things in the effort to preserve our power.
45:22 Speaker 02 Now, I guess my question would be, what could we get that's so valuable that the trade-off makes it worth it?
45:29 Speaker 03 With Epstein?
45:30 Speaker 02 With Epstein and children getting molested and all these horrible things.
45:34 Speaker 03 You're not gonna like this answer either, but...
45:36 Speaker 02 No, I don't have to like it. I just wanna know what it could be.
45:38 Speaker 03 X isn't gonna like it either.
45:40 Speaker 02 Okay.
45:40 Speaker 03 So, you protect a CI, you protect a clandestine source of information at all costs, because every future CI is watching what happens to today's CI. So, as somebody as heinous as Epstein, right? Accused of everything he's been accused of. If he's just one of, say, 30 massive FBI confidential informants who are out there, if we turn him over to the public, if we break our agreement with him, then everybody else is like, well, fuck, I'm not gonna work with FBI. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna rat anybody out. I'm not gonna narc ever, because even FBI won't got my, they won't cover my back, right? They won't put me in witness protection. They won't keep my secret.
46:24 Mark Gagnon? If he's a confidential informant, no one else would know that he was working with you.
46:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's a great point.
46:30 Speaker 03 Except, except that when the files are released, the files will tell you.
46:35 Mark Gagnon? When he gets jammed up, got it. Okay.
46:39 Speaker 03 And then think about that, if they try to keep those files hidden, this is what I think, argue, this is what I think is happening to JFK. I think JFK had some sort of connection in there that shows that he was in some way working with or colluding with some element of either our government or foreign government. And we just can't carve that part out because every time you release some files, those files say nothing. And then you hold other files back and they're like, what's in those files? So you can never get to the core of exoneration.
47:09 Speaker 02 So you don't think it was just Lee Harvey acting alone with JFK? You think there...
47:13 Speaker 03 I think we don't, well, oh yeah. So I don't know. I don't even know that the assassination is what's being hidden in the JFK files. It could have been something tangential to the assassination, right? And that's the same thing with Jeffrey Epstein. What we're all looking for is some kind of smoking gun that says he was working for Mossad or he was working for CIA. It all could be tangential. It all could be tangential and the reason that it's classified is a tangential classification, not to protect him in any way.
47:39 Mark Gagnon? But wait, but what can be worse than protecting child... It's like, even if he was helping us out in so many ways, now we know that there are so many victims, like, shouldn't we go after the people who were also victimizing?
47:55 Speaker 02 And sorry to add to that point, is there not, I'm not even saying this is a joke, is there not like a carve out in a CI's mind that's like, oh yeah, that guy fucked kids, so that's why. He's out.
48:05 Speaker 03 No, because it's so, the answer, what's worth it is the future confidential informants that we will get if we never out a confidential informant. That's the benefit.
48:19 Mark Gagnon? Okay.
48:20 Speaker 03 Not just this year, but next year and two years from now and 10 years from now, right? Because if we ever out a confidential informant, then every confidential is going to think twice about ever working.
48:28 Speaker 04 It is interesting because with this specific crime, it is so heinous that I don't think people can see past it. But like, I think like, you know, Whitey Bulger, like in Boston becomes a CO or a CI and he's working as an informant with the FBI and they let him do crime.
48:44 Speaker 02 Drugs, these are things we can kind of wrap our mind around.
48:46 Speaker 04 And we kind of let it go and they're like, oh yeah, well, they were using him to get to all these guys. And they were able to get a hundred of them and they'd killed, you know, 10 other people. Who cares?
48:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:54 Speaker 04 And we kind of were like, all right, whatever. But with this crime is so heinous that we can't see through it. But I think in the mind of, you know, intelligence people, CIA, FBI, they're just like, yeah, people are people. Numbers are data. Who gives a shit?
49:05 Speaker 06 You guys just did the John Gotti thing.
49:07 Speaker 04 What?
49:07 Speaker 06 You guys all just did like the John Gotti thing where they're interviewing and John Gotti got caught. And they're like, what do you think about John Gotti getting caught? And they're like, he did nothing wrong. And then they're like, what about the murders? And the people are just like, what murders?
49:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's a degree. I think in our mind, maybe it's society, maybe it's human nature, especially of children.
49:27 Speaker 04 It's the worst.
49:28 Speaker 02 There is no, there's no ability to reconcile that for most of us.
49:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, there's a reason prisoners fuck them up. You know what I mean? Like.
49:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of a job that I don't envy in someone high up in the agency or FBI or whatever these places are, it's like, you can't afford to do that because I gotta worry about 330 million people. And I'm not defending what they did. I do understand that is a part of their job and that is a tough thing to do.
49:51 Mark Gagnon? So there definitely are files. There's definitely stuff that was collected at his place that he was filming. They probably have proof that other people have fucked some kids. Let's say you don't want to expose that he was intelligence, but couldn't they at least use that information to start investigating some of the people that we know fucked some kids? And then just try to, hey, get them on a private investigation.
50:15 Speaker 02 You weren't CIs.
50:16 Speaker 03 And, and yes, they can, and yes, they probably are. But when you start an investigation, you don't go public and say, we started this investigation. We're actually looking into so and so right now because of what we found.
50:27 Mark Gagnon? It's taken them a long time.
50:28 Speaker 03 Investigations take a painfully long time to, to actually research, to build a case, to build a case that you have confidence when it goes to trial, you can build a jury that's not going to have a predisposed bias for the case.
50:40 Speaker 02 Give us a rough idea how long it could take to see justice for any of these people.
50:44 Speaker 03 I mean, I think we'd be lucky if we saw, if we saw it in four or five years. I think realistically, cases probably would take between seven and 14 years. And then even.
50:55 Speaker 02 No, not the age of the victims. How long does it take to get this trial like these? It takes upwards of 14 years to get a prosecution.
51:04 Speaker 03 It can.
51:05 Speaker 02 Wow.
51:05 Speaker 03 Especially if you're looking for a federal prosecution. It's, it's a long time.
51:08 Speaker 04 There's also the assumption that all the blackmail is sexual blackmail. Which like, which I mean, Sagar kind of pointed out to us. I think it's like a good distinction, like some of it obviously is. But some of it is just a dinner that he has with, you know, a former head of state or with a very wealthy investor and just listening to the conversation. And so it's like, oh, there's blackmail of Bill Gates. There's blackmail of this person. It may be sexual, but it also could just be a conversation.
51:34 Mark Gagnon? I know that, but the ones that were diddling to kids, get them the fuck out of here.
51:38 Speaker 04 Right.
51:39 Mark Gagnon? Why would Trump run on releasing these files? If, when he was in office and Epstein got locked up and they got all this information and he know this can't get out to the public, why would he run on releasing it?
51:55 Speaker 03 Because he's dishonest.
51:57 Mark Gagnon? Point blank.
51:58 Speaker 03 All right. I mean, Trump is, Trump is dishonest. I think we all understand Trump is a dishonest character.
52:03 Speaker 04 I mean, he told us that on the pod. He said, I am a mostly truthful person, basically saying, I lie sometimes.
52:09 Speaker 03 Yeah. When it's strategically relevant, when it's beneficial to marketing, when it advances the cause, when it gets him what he needs in the long run, it's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain, like.
52:18 Mark Gagnon? So was it just a huge miscalculation? He thought people would not care after he gets elected? Like if he know he couldn't.
52:24 Speaker 04 Well, he did release, he, I think he thought, oh yeah, we're going to give him some red meat. We're going to put together all these influencers. We're going to give them these files and we're going to leak all the stuff and they're going to eat it up and we'll be good. I'll have done my job. And then no one ate it. And then he was like, oh shit.
52:39 Speaker 03 Is that what you think, Andrew? You gotta keep in mind that like Donald Trump was there from the beginning of all this with his first presidency. So none of this is new to him. It's almost like a boomerang that's coming back.
52:49 Mark Gagnon? He was back there with Epstein too. You know, I mean, he was there for a long time.
52:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, but my, but what I'm saying is just when you put yourself into the shoes of the president and you calculate risk, this is his second term.
53:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
53:01 Speaker 03 Like, he shouldn't have a, he shouldn't have a third term according to what we understand of precedent and our own, our own internal laws, right? So what does he have to lose? What does he have to lose pissing off everybody in his base? What's he have to lose? Is that base gonna vote liberal next cycle? No?
53:19 Speaker 02 I do think a lot more people.
53:22 Mark Gagnon? I think a lot of people in the middle are upset.
53:24 Speaker 03 But the middle's not the base.
53:26 Mark Gagnon? Ah, okay.
53:26 Speaker 03 Right? The base, the base is still intact for the next conservative president, the next conservative candidate. So if anybody, the people you can mess with the most is the base.
53:34 Speaker 04 That's a good point, because Trump doesn't care about the part, right? Like, he doesn't care about, like, republicanism. I think he cares about, like, him getting elected.
53:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
53:41 Speaker 04 And so if he pisses off everyone, like, he doesn't care, and he's like, I'm out. If he's out.
53:46 Mark Gagnon? If he's out.
53:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:48 Speaker 02 What is the general view of all the agencies on Trump? Do they, what do they think of him as a president? Do they have some dirt on him? Do you think any foreign intelligence has some dirt on him? I've heard that theory that, like, of the reason he's so pro-Israel or whatever is they have something on him. Russia might have something on him. Do you, how much do you believe in that? And then what is, like, the general agency view of him?
54:07 Speaker 03 So it's, I, I can't speak for, obviously, all the members of the IC. Donald Trump is definitely a split decision for a lot of people. Even within the CIA and the people that I talked to at CIA, he's still a split decision. There are some people who love the America first, pro-America, let's get back to, like, hurrah, support the military, be strong again, give up on this diplomacy bullshit stuff. There are plenty of people who love that idea. They don't love Donald Trump, they love that idea. And then you have the other side of people who just seem to hate Donald Trump.
54:40 Speaker 02 Okay.
54:40 Speaker 03 Right? Where they're like, oh, he, he's misogynistic, and he's belittling, and he's, he sounds stupid when he talks, and blow, and so you've got the people who love what he's doing, and you've got the people who kind of hate the man.
54:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
54:52 Speaker 03 And I've seen that on both sides, even within CIA itself, which is supposed to be an apolitical organization. I think the real thing that you can look at to measure how much CIA likes or dislikes Donald Trump is the incredible lack, or the incredible amount of resignations at CIA under the first Trump presidency, and then under the second Trump presidency also.
55:12 Speaker 02 Right.
55:12 Speaker 03 People don't want to work for him. He is the executive, that is a, a organization that works for the executive branch. And I think Donald Trump, of all people, is like, if you don't like working for me, get the fuck out, right? Give me, give me space to bring somebody else in.
55:24 Speaker 02 Right.
55:25 Speaker 03 But unlike we've ever seen in history, when the first Trump presidency resulted in a massive exodus of CIA officers.
55:32 Speaker 02 I was unaware of this.
55:33 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, so CIA had an attrition rate historically of about 1, 1.3%, which means that every year, 1.3% of its, of its clandestine cadre would leave its ranks. The majority of that 1.3% would come back in the following Monday as a contractor, working for a contracting firm. So they didn't really lose anybody, right? Very, very few people left CIA.
55:57 Speaker 02 You never lose CIA.
55:58 Speaker 03 And then what happened is in 2014, 2014 was when I left CIA, there were more people willing to leave.
56:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:07 Speaker 03 There were more people willing to resign.
56:09 Speaker 02 Right.
56:10 Speaker 03 If you like that word better.
56:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:12 Speaker 03 And then in 2016, like the floodgates opened. CIA went from losing on average, one clandestine officer per month.
56:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:21 Speaker 03 That's what they were losing prior to Donald Trump, to 30 clandestine officers per month in 2016.
56:29 Speaker 02 Wow.
56:30 Speaker 03 They had a huge, and these are not, these aren't analysts, or finance people, or logisticians, or fake passport people. These are actual people who collect intelligence.
56:39 Speaker 02 Has that affected the strength of the agency long term?
56:41 Speaker 03 Absolutely. Now, now that is like universally understood across every agency officer I've talked to, current, former, and, and even still inside, they all think the agency's weak. The agency's weak, the intelligence it collects is weak, the access it has is weak, it's heavily reliant on foreign partners to give the intelligence that it collects. It's struggling. It's struggling and it's not, it's not because of the officers, the men and women at CIA, it's because of the resources and the structure and the administration and the, and the massive swings left and right that we've seen in the executive.
57:13 Mark Gagnon? Guys, take me out. I'm available.
57:15 Speaker 02 That's true. He will fail his weed test. That's our fault.
57:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I guess I'm also thinking just a 30x increase in turnover. You're not going to be able to train up people as fast as you're losing them.
57:27 Speaker 03 Correct.
57:28 Speaker 02 So that would have long-term effects. And then I guess to bring it in to not make it just Trump. When Biden comes in and things seem to go pretty far left. That will be the swing you're talking about and then Trump comes back in and they go even further right.
57:38 Speaker 03 Correct. And when you're making a career in government service. First of all, you make a career in government service, hoping that you won't have to deal with politics. Most of the people that go to the go into health and human services, you know, TSA, you name it, any federal office. They don't really, they're not politically motivated people. They're there because they're looking for a stable, steady job.
58:05 Speaker 02 They don't seem to want to be there. They don't seem to enjoy much of anything. I don't think being alive is really motivating to them.
58:12 Speaker 03 But in all honesty, like that's, that's the kind of person that gets a federal job. That's the kind of person that lives in a government job for their entire career.
58:18 Mark Gagnon? Randomly checked a lot more times.
58:21 Speaker 02 The way I look, I might be a TSA agent sooner. I keep putting on weight like this.
58:30 Speaker 02 Okay, um, fuck, I had a question for you. Oh, how does this affect America's safety long-term?
58:36 Speaker 03 Yes. We're not safe long-term.
58:39 Mark Gagnon? What the fuck?
58:40 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, we're, we're, we're in, I mean, I'm sorry if this is new news to you. X would have told you this too. We're fucked. We've got like 10 to 15 years of horrible American existence ahead of us. It's not going to be a fun place to be. We have to fix the shit that we've broken.
58:58 Speaker 02 How long has this been breaking?
58:59 Speaker 03 It's been breaking since the Obama administration.
59:02 Speaker 02 Okay.
59:02 Speaker 03 So, so Barack Obama came in and he was the first truly populist president who abused the executive power system to hijack policy when he, when his party controlled the Congress.
59:19 Mark Gagnon? Oh.
59:19 Speaker 03 He was the first one to do it. I don't think he did it maliciously. I think he was trying to do what he believed was right. That the party also told him, Barack, this is the time to do it. Like, you need to do what's right. So I think there was a lot of pressure and I think he was still a statesman and I think he was still, you know, a professional politician. But the precedent that he set was a precedent that made it easier for every following president to abuse it.
59:44 Mark Gagnon? Oh, gotcha.
59:45 Speaker 03 So the most executive orders ever written at, up until that period of time, Barack Obama. The most covert action ever executed, like, meaning the president executed killings abroad with nobody's permission. Barack Obama, right? That these were the things that were happening during his administration to build hope for the future of America.
1:00:08 Speaker 02 To what end? What, do you have an idea or can you talk about like what they were trying to get done? What were the democratic interests at the time?
1:00:15 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, politically, there's definitely smarter people to talk about it. But when it came to national security, what Barack Obama was trying to do is he was trying to combat the terrorist threat, the long-lasting terrorist threat, which is a transnational threat that's based in ideology that is really centered on like an abuse of information. So if you can kill enough like, uh, queen bees, then the hive is useless. So that's what he was trying to do is he was trying to like knock out major players, just like Netanyahu was doing in, uh, in Israel, right? He's trying to knock out these major players and then hopefully have all of Al Qaeda kind of collapse in and of itself. Especially because we had been in a war for a decade already that was not necessarily a popular war.
1:00:59 Speaker 02 And I, I understand the idea, like on its, on its face, it makes a lot of sense.
1:01:03 Speaker 03 And that's, and then domestically, he was trying to build up a policy that was so powerful that the next incumbent president couldn't unravel it. Right? With Obamacare.
1:01:11 Speaker 02 Right.
1:01:12 Speaker 03 In the effort to do what was well-intentioned, the result was
1:01:19 Speaker 03 Donald Trump could come in and be like, hey, guys, I'm gonna sign a bunch of executive orders. I'm gonna use my right as the executive to control CIA and do whatever I want to do. I'm gonna play brinksmanship over here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do things my way now. And it's okay, because the president before me did the same thing. And then Biden came in and was like, well, now I'm gonna sign as many executive orders as I want to sign. And I want to use the CIA for whatever I want to use the CIA for. So it's like.
1:01:42 Speaker 02 How much do you think 9/11 and the search for Osama influenced Obama's desire to just sort of non-congressional attack and try to hunt people down?
1:01:50 Speaker 03 I think the first actually led to the second. So I think he had had so much success eradicating leaders along the way, that when Osama bin Laden was identified and the location was known, he was like, let's do this. Like, we're gonna piss a bunch of people off, but it's the right thing to do.
1:02:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:02:06 Speaker 03 For America. The Pakistanis. It pissed off the Pakistanis. It pissed off almost every American ally.
1:02:12 Speaker 02 Maybe my Indian is showing, but if you're harboring the guy, you're our ally, you're harboring the guy who blew, who had the greatest terrorist attack on our soil ever, what fucking right do you have to be mad that we killed this guy?
1:02:26 Speaker 03 What, why would you say that the Pakistani authorities would change their rights at all, depending on what America thinks?
1:02:31 Speaker 02 Would change their rights at all?
1:02:34 Speaker 03 Why would they change their perspective at all, based on what America thinks?
1:02:36 Speaker 02 Well, you were harboring a known terrorist.
1:02:39 Speaker 03 To America, not to Pakistan. What do they care? He's not killing Pakistanis.
1:02:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, but he also wasn't a Pakistani citizen. He was a Saudi Arabian citizen. So he's not one of yours.
1:02:48 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, and if he's, if they're one of our allies, wouldn't you be like, hey?
1:02:51 Speaker 03 Yeah. Are they really one of our allies? Because they're gonna ask the same thing. Is, is America really our ally, or is America India's ally?
1:02:57 Speaker 02 America, at the time, I think, was Pakistan's ally, but I'm also basing that on you saying they were allies.
1:03:03 Speaker 03 They are. So, so the Israeli-Pakistan-America thing is completely tits up. Who's friends with who? Like, Pakistan and India are not friends.
1:03:13 Speaker 02 No.
1:03:14 Speaker 03 But America is somehow allies with both.
1:03:16 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:03:17 Speaker 03 Right? The United States gives weapons to both. It gives aid to both. It gives training to both. Pakistan actually uses terrorist tactics in its fight against India.
1:03:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, believe me, I hear a lot about it.
1:03:29 Speaker 03 But we still support Pakistan. Do we identify them as a terrorist organization? See what I'm saying? It's fucked up, man. The way the world actually works, not the way that like you see on Reading Rainbow or whatever the fuck you watch on TV. Like when you, when you watch your YouTube at night, the way you think the world works is not the way it actually works. It works in a far more carnal, practical way.
1:03:52 Speaker 02 Do you ever watch a movie, a spy movie and be like, that's an accurate description? What's the most accurate spy movie slash TV show you've ever seen?
1:03:59 Speaker 03 The Americans is the most accurate and, and even then you have to kind of focus it into probably the first four episodes of the first season.
1:04:07 Speaker 03 After that, it's all whiz bang.
1:04:09 Mark Gagnon? What was that showing at Showtime?
1:04:11 Speaker 02 Slow Horses is one that I, oh Homeland, Slow Horses is on, on Apple TV.
1:04:15 Speaker 03 No, like Homeland is off, Slow Horses, Slow Horses, the concept is sound. There really are offices, we call it the Office of Broken Toys at CIA. Where you send your alcoholics and you send your burnouts and you send your serial adulterers and you send your people who discovered that cocaine could help them write better reports. Like you can't send them back on the street.
1:04:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:04:34 Speaker 03 And you can't send them out in the field and you can't fire them because then you've got this bucket of secrets that's tied up in this person.
1:04:40 Speaker 02 Ah.
1:04:41 Speaker 03 So you give them a job.
1:04:42 Mark Gagnon? I could be the top agent in one of those.
1:04:45 Speaker 03 I'm a Slow Horse, baby.
1:04:48 Speaker 02 The most broken toy. Guys, you know. Aspern Labs.
1:04:52 Mark Gagnon? Um, the strategy of going after the queen bees to try to dismantle an organization, does that work? Like has.
1:04:59 Speaker 03 So there, there were mixed success. We have found that one of two things usually happens. If you attack a queen bee either before, or the head of an intel of a, of a terrorist cell. If you attack the head of the cell before they're able to create a succession plan. And, uh, and or if they are in control of a cell and they don't trust their people. If you kill that person, the cell melts down. Because they have no leadership, they have no organization, they have no plan. But if you're dealing with somebody who has a succession plan, or if you're dealing with somebody who does kind of have relationships with the people that they command. You, you run the risk of killing the person who's actually the most moderate. And then the next person to rise up is worse.
1:05:43 Mark Gagnon? Because it's like, I feel like Israel did a great job targeting a lot of the Hamas leaders, but they seem to still be doing the thing over there. I actually don't know.
1:05:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, so.
1:05:53 Mark Gagnon? We don't get accurate information.
1:05:55 Speaker 03 But Israel did a phenomenal job in the way that they targeted their leadership because they hit all the leaders at once, right? Or the majority of leaders at once. So now it's like you have no logistics and you have no communications and you have no military leadership and you have no civilian core, you know, connection to the government. Like, we've killed nine people, there's only three left and those three are in hiding. What the fuck are you gonna do? And then succession plans start to kick in, but it's not like the succession plans were ever serious because there was ever an imminent threat to the leadership. So, and then they did the same thing with Hezbollah and then they did, and then they, they've tried to do the same thing with Iran.
1:06:32 Mark Gagnon? So why is Hamas still such a threat?
1:06:34 Speaker 03 I don't think Hamas is the threat that they claim it is. I think now Netanyahu is trying to deliver a campaign promise essentially, where he's like, I'm gonna rid us of Hamas. We also, again, to, to, to reiterate the whole, like, Israel's like, Israel's like the shitty 401K, right? Israel's like the shitty 401K. We don't like it, but we still have it.
1:06:54 Speaker 02 Right.
1:06:55 Speaker 03 Which means we have Netanyahu. Netanyahu's on trial for corruption charges in Israel. He knows that as soon as this whole fucking thing ends, a civilian trial begins. And he knows that half his population doesn't agree with him or more. And he knows that there's zero percent of the international community that's gonna come to his side. So he has one hope, cause as much damage to enough Israeli enemies as possible so that when the civilian courts look at him, they're like, you did some really important stuff for us and for our children, for the future. So we're either gonna waive the sentencing or lessen sentencing or let you, let, live out your days retired and whatever, or we'll let you go to the United States and live in New York.
1:07:29 Speaker 02 It is a bold risk, and I don't know that it's a risk, that's, I think it's kind of a selfish risk because I think he's doing a lot more damage internationally for Israel and for Jews internationally. I think they're facing a lot more scrutiny because of this one guy's actions.
1:07:43 Speaker 03 And I don't, I don't disagree with you, and I think there's plenty of voices out there that would say the same thing.
1:07:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:07:48 Speaker 03 That's when you have to think about the calculus. If you're Netanyahu, what is your calculus? First and foremost, survive, protect yourself.
1:07:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, I get it. It's reckless, but I do understand where it comes from. Okay, I'm gonna let you choose your own adventure. You're promoting your book, Shadow Cell, great book.
1:08:06 Speaker 03 Thank you. Did you actually read it?
1:08:08 Speaker 02 What was your favorite part? The summary I read on ChatGPT was incredible.
1:08:14 Speaker 03 I really liked the cover. The cover was killer.
1:08:15 Speaker 02 No, the summary I read was riveting. I really wish I had read the actual book. And I will, I will, I will. I read a lot of books halfway through. When will you read about it? What date will you read?
1:08:25 Speaker 03 It's all right.
1:08:26 Speaker 02 I have to read a Jack Reacher novel and then I'll read about Real Spice.
1:08:32 Speaker 02 All right, so you can talk about the book, but I also know, having done just like promo for a comedy special, you go talk about it ad nauseam and you're like, all right, buddy. I'm done with this. So we can talk about the book and then I could ask you some other questions that we have about what's going on in the world as you with our, as our expert. Or we can talk about this and then get to the book and close with the book. What would you prefer? Oh, we also have a lightning round of questions, but that'll be quick.
1:08:55 Speaker 03 Uh, let's, let's put off the book. Let's go with your questions first.
1:09:00 Speaker 02 Sick of talking about it, I knew it.
1:09:02 Speaker 03 I actually really appreciate that you know how this works. Because a lot of people don't understand how it works.
1:09:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're answering the same questions and it's like, guys, read the book or read a four-page summary on ChatGPT.
1:09:13 Speaker 03 Or don't read the book, but at least go order the book.
1:09:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:09:16 Speaker 03 So that I get points for it.
1:09:17 Speaker 02 It looks very cool. Oh, here's a question, actually, before we get into the book. Um, so my understanding of this book from ChatGPT and Mark is you, basically, this is a CIA mission. You are allowed to talk about it. You could have said every country, every name, everything, but you made a deal with CIA to say, hey, you guys can help me with this book and I can protect these names? Or I can do this on my own without your help and it's gonna get a lot more publicity and I'm gonna get uh, on national bestseller list, whatever. What would you rather do?
1:09:49 Speaker 03 Close.
1:09:49 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:09:50 Speaker 03 That's Mark, Mark GPT.
1:09:53 Speaker 03 Was a little bit inaccurate. So, um, my wife and I were very committed when we were, because this is our operational memoir.
1:10:00 Speaker 02 This was our life.
1:10:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, this was our operational memoir.
1:10:03 Speaker 02 I really wish I had taken it more seriously and read the book.
1:10:05 Speaker 03 It's all good, man. It's all good. It's all good. From just like a handful, like 12 years ago, right? Not long ago. And the men and women who operated with us are still in the field, many of them still doing the same operations. So it was never on the table for her and I, it was never on the table to talk about the people.
1:10:21 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:10:22 Speaker 03 So all the characters, quote unquote, characters that you read, they're modeled off the real people, right? There really was a guy named James. There really was, or there really was a guy who was named James in the book. There really was a girl who was named Tasha in the book. She really did have a cute child who was named Monty in the book. Right? So everything's real, but we didn't want to give the real people because the country where this took place is for sure gonna know that we're talking about them.
1:10:48 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:10:49 Speaker 03 Because they have my face, they have my file, they have my records, they have my travel details. They know me.
1:10:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:54 Speaker 03 And they know that if I wrote this book, it's about them and they're gonna be pissed.
1:10:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:57 Speaker 03 Well, what I didn't want to do and what my wife didn't want to do, we didn't want to give them enough information to reverse engineer and find the other people.
1:11:02 Speaker 02 Ah.
1:11:02 Speaker 03 So we told CIA, we're not gonna talk about the people. CIA actually came in and was like, oh no, you're allowed to talk about the people. You just use the first name of their, the true first name and their last first initial. And we're like, that's a policy thing? That's a stupid operational rule? So we're not, we're not gonna touch the people at all. But we are gonna talk about where it really took place. And in 2021, when we told them we wanted to do this, they gave us approval. But by 2022, when we finished the manuscripts, the whole world had changed, right? Multiple global events happened in 2022. I'm sure you can wrap your minds around it. And it changed the landscape of geopolitical pressures against the United States. And then they came in and they said, that book that you wrote is classified from beginning to end.
1:11:46 Speaker 03 It'll never see the light of day. And that's when we kind of had this back and forth for many years, trying to find a way to get it published, trying to find a way to get CIA to accept that that there wasn't anything in the book that was going to harm national security.
1:11:59 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:11:59 Speaker 03 It's not gonna look good geopolitically.
1:12:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
1:12:02 Speaker 03 But it's not gonna get anybody killed.
1:12:03 Speaker 02 Right.
1:12:03 Speaker 03 And they just kept fighting with us and fighting with us. So then in 2024, my wife really decided to escalate things and she brought on an attorney and she said, we think that we have a legal case to sue CIA. And the attorney reviewed and said, yeah, you guys have, you have a first amendment right case that you would win if you sued CIA and took them to court.
1:12:23 Speaker 02 Isn't it nice when your wife is combative with somebody else?
1:12:26 Speaker 03 Yes!
1:12:27 Speaker 02 It's my favorite. It's my favorite. It's my favorite. I think our wives would get along.
1:12:31 Speaker 03 Oh my gosh.
1:12:32 Speaker 02 Or hate each other violently. Either way, it'd be fun for us because we'd be out of it. But when they decide to fight someone else, I'm like, oh, this is what, watching.
1:12:39 Speaker 03 Game over.
1:12:39 Speaker 02 It's watching Picasso paint. Watching my wife argue with someone else. It's like, what a maestro.
1:12:44 Speaker 04 And you see them make a misstep and you're like, ah, you don't know what you just did.
1:12:46 Speaker 02 No, no, yeah, but that from them, yeah, my wife don't misstep. She catches it though.
1:12:50 Speaker 04 No, but if the other person missteps, you're like, ah, you just exposed yourself.
1:12:52 Speaker 02 You're fucked.
1:12:53 Speaker 04 Just wait.
1:12:53 Speaker 02 Okay, so I, okay, Mark kind of, he made you look cool. Like you really played hardball with CIA, which you kinda did.
1:12:58 Speaker 03 Mark's nice. He wants to fuck me.
1:13:00 Speaker 02 But, yeah.
1:13:01 Speaker 04 Hold on, wait. One sec. I gave them a very honest depiction of what we discussed, okay? And then he butchered it. You wanna fuck? I mean, that part is good.
1:13:08 Speaker 02 Honestly, what did I get wrong, Al? From what Mark told us?
1:13:11 Speaker 04 I don't know. He wasn't listening to what I'm talking or whatever. I was, you know.
1:13:15 Speaker 02 He didn't out loud call about this.
1:13:16 Speaker 04 That was gonna be the central unintelligence.
1:13:18 Speaker 02 Jesus Christ. Okay, so, I'm glad we got that out of the way because then my first thought was, you would have made way more money if you didn't work with CIA. Why would you do that? But then, you wanted to protect your people in the field. So that makes sense. So guys who think he's still an agent, that's why he did that. Because I was, I was trying to give you that as well, really let you defend yourself.
1:13:36 Speaker 03 I keep, I keep racking up points. My whole ACH exercise did not work out.
1:13:40 Speaker 02 No, dude.
1:13:41 Speaker 03 I'm kinda screwed.
1:13:42 Speaker 02 I thought ACH is how you send money. Yeah, I was with you. Okay.
1:13:48 Mark Gagnon? You weren't worried about the CIA killing you for your wife going and threatening legal action against them?
1:13:55 Speaker 03 So, no.
1:13:57 Mark Gagnon? They've killed a lot more for less.
1:13:58 Speaker 03 Well, well, two things. So first, I'm, um, the modern day CIA has a lot of, I would say they can't kill an American citizen, but I'm sure there's always an exception. I don't feel like.
1:14:10 Speaker 02 We used to be a country, bro. What happened, right?
1:14:14 Speaker 03 I don't think that working on the book was gonna meet that criteria. And then two, one of the nice things about being a pro CIA, very public internet figure is like, it would make internet headlines if I suddenly disappeared. And people were like, "Did CIA kill Andrew Bustamante?" And then they'd have to answer that at some point.
1:14:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, that makes sense.
1:14:34 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, it's almost as public as making a president disappear and covering that up easily, you know?
1:14:40 Speaker 03 But that was pre-9/11, that was pre-9/11.
1:14:43 Speaker 02 It was easier back then.
1:14:44 Mark Gagnon? I think he's still in.
1:14:47 Speaker 03 There's a very nice museum on the first floor that we'll go visit together.
1:14:50 Mark Gagnon? Ooh.
1:14:52 Speaker 04 That's a threat, by the way.
1:14:53 Speaker 03 No, I know. I was like, "What the fuck is happening?"
1:14:57 Speaker 02 You're gonna go see the first floor real quick, don't worry about it. He's shoving you out the window, dude.
1:15:03 Speaker 02 Okay, so Trump and Putin, I don't know, this is probably coming out in a couple of weeks, but Trump and Putin just met yesterday, I believe, right?
1:15:09 Speaker 03 Friday.
1:15:10 Speaker 02 Trump and Putin and Zelensky, Friday, okay.
1:15:11 Speaker 03 Putin and Zelensky, or Putin and Zelensky hasn't happened yet.
1:15:14 Mark Gagnon? That's August 22nd.
1:15:15 Speaker 02 That's August 22nd. See, I told you, I don't know shit. Okay, but in terms of Ukraine and Russia, where does this whole thing go? How does this war ultimately end? What's going on with these meetings?
1:15:24 Mark Gagnon? What do you think of the summit, also broadly speaking?
1:15:26 Speaker 03 Yes, I mean, these are all great questions. The outcome of Russia-Ukraine really hasn't changed that much since like the first time I started talking about it in 2022. Russia's gonna keep the territory that it took. It's not gonna give that territory up. It also, there's a multitude of reasons why it wants the Donbass region. From resources to industrial investments that it made when it was the USSR, to the blood that stains the battlefields, to the fact that it needs a Russian victory. Like, there's all sorts of reasons why it's not gonna give it the Donbass. And Putin understands...
1:16:04 Speaker 03 statesmanship more than Zelensky. So Zelensky promised his people, not only would he get back all of the original Ukraine, but he would get back all of the pre 1996 Ukraine. So it was an impossible promise. So no matter how this thing ends, if any piece of land remains in Russian territory, Zelensky loses, according to Putin.
1:16:23 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:16:23 Speaker 03 So he's, he, that's all, he just wants that.
1:16:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, okay.
1:16:27 Speaker 03 He wants that because he needs to rebuild an economy that's been built on a war machine for the last three years. And he knows that he needs to have something to kind of offset, we're not going to be fighting a war, so how are we going to float the economy? Oh, it's going to be great if we're building infrastructure and basically resettling this new part of Russia.
1:16:43 Speaker 02 Oh, okay. So it's not just for like PR or whatever.
1:16:46 Speaker 03 Oh, no.
1:16:47 Speaker 02 We need to rebuild this and that's going to pump our economy.
1:16:50 Speaker 03 Correct. That's going to hold us up. That's how we got through World War II too. Our economy blew up in World War II because we were creating weapons of destruction.
1:16:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:16:57 Speaker 03 But then we won. The only reason we didn't go into a massive recession is because now all of a sudden we could go into the lands that we conquered and build them up too. Put them in debt, force them to use our labor, right?
1:17:06 Speaker 02 Who do we do that with?
1:17:07 Speaker 03 Who do we do that with?
1:17:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:17:09 Speaker 03 Germany, Japan, Britain, Poland, France.
1:17:13 Speaker 02 Really?
1:17:13 Speaker 03 All of them.
1:17:15 Speaker 02 Is this common knowledge?
1:17:16 Speaker 03 Well, I don't, I don't know if it's common knowledge, but if you, if you look at history critically, you'll see it's all there. We just never got taught that in school.
1:17:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, what we got taught is because World War I, we were so hard on Germany, they went into a depression and that's what allowed Hitler to take power. And some people on X are very upset that he lost. Uh, but, uh, then that's, and then we were much nicer at the end of World War II when we made sure that it would never happen again.
1:17:43 Speaker 03 So you've heard the saying that history is written by the?
1:17:46 Speaker 02 The victors. Yeah, okay.
1:17:48 Speaker 03 We wrote that history. Japan's culture was completely different prior to the end of World War II. Everything we know about Japanese culture now is from American abuses of the Japanese. The reason they're workaholics, the reason they smoke to stay awake and, and drink to go to sleep, the reason that they-
1:18:03 Speaker 02 Sexual repression.
1:18:04 Speaker 03 And then they shame themselves and they shame their children if they don't get a good enough to, all of that is American-
1:18:08 Speaker 02 What are the abuses? Like, I'm not even, I'm not even making a joke. What, can you give me an example of like, how you do that?
1:18:13 Speaker 03 So when we were rebuilding Japan, we basically indentured Japanese to rebuild their own country at our pace, according to our direction and our demands.
1:18:24 Speaker 02 Wow.
1:18:25 Speaker 03 So they didn't get to rebuild the way that they wanted to. They didn't get to rebuild buildings according to their architecture. They built what we wanted them to build. And a big chunk of what they built was American invested money in buildings, infrastructure and manufacturing base.
1:18:39 Speaker 04 But they got baseball. So to get it to bed.
1:18:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:18:42 Speaker 04 If they only knew Americans are fat and lazy, they wouldn't work so long.
1:18:47 Speaker 02 This podcast goes to Japan.
1:18:51 Speaker 04 But then you look at the Japanese economy now and you're like, well, in a way, their rebuilding efforts were successful.
1:18:56 Speaker 03 Yeah. And that's the argument.
1:18:57 Speaker 04 Economically.
1:18:57 Speaker 03 That's the counterargument for sure.
1:18:59 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
1:18:59 Speaker 03 Right? You look at Europe, who are Europe's two strongest economies?
1:19:04 Speaker 02 Germany?
1:19:05 Speaker 03 And France.
1:19:06 Speaker 02 France. Oh, and UK pre Brexit would have been UK, right?
1:19:09 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
1:19:10 Speaker 03 We built, we built all three of those countries on forced debt, on loans, on the outsourcing of American manufacturing. And, and they became the first markets that we, that we spread to when we started creating new products and financial products and.
1:19:24 Speaker 02 There's even.
1:19:24 Speaker 03 Telecommunication products.
1:19:26 Speaker 04 A version of this kind of story even like Central America with like Nicaragua and like the United States sort of working with, you know, different leaders, potential dictators and deposing them, setting up our government systems, getting them into debt in some capacity, giving them our funding to then support all those issues.
1:19:46 Speaker 03 So who is the, who is the fastest growing economy in the world? I'm sure you guys know this, even if all you do is follow X. Fast growing economy in the world?
1:19:53 Speaker 04 China.
1:19:54 Speaker 03 China.
1:19:55 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:19:55 Speaker 03 How did China grow so quickly?
1:19:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:19:58 Speaker 03 The same way that we grew after World War II.
1:20:01 Speaker 04 This is Belt and Road.
1:20:02 Speaker 03 When we, when we stuck our heads so deep in the Middle East for 20 years, that all we were doing was checking up under every rock for terrorists. We were the only ones fighting that fight. The whole time that we were doing that, China was pulling from our World War II playbook. And they were. They were working with despots. They were creating leases and loans with third world countries that knew they couldn't pay them back. Exporting Chinese workers, exporting Chinese technology, Chinese telecommunications that was being stolen from the United States and then remade in the Chinese brand. Like, that's how they built their economy in 20 years. We looked away, they were small. We looked back, they were huge. Right? And that's how they did it. So, the world still works the same way.
1:20:45 Speaker 03 The reason the United States sees China as such a threat has nothing to do with Taiwan. It has nothing to do with Chinese bombing America. It's because China has literally copied our playbook and they've got a 20-year head start in the last 25 years on how to do it. Right? We created a... We, just as another example, the United States became really, really wealthy when we devised telecommunications and financial products. Because now, these are not tangible products. Right? This is something where you can service 100,000 people from a single satellite. And you can charge all of them $200 a month. Right? Like, that's scalable wealth. That's not building a widget or creating a can of tuna. Right? China did the same thing.
1:21:27 Speaker 03 They were like, "Oh, look at how America's growing by creating financial and telecommunications." So, let's spy on the United States, steal their industrial secrets, create those things here in China, tweak them a little bit, and then sell them cheaper to the same markets. To South America, to Africa, to Europe. And then, let's also borrow from America this idea of switching cost. Do you guys all have Apple? Does anybody have something other than an Apple?
1:21:52 Speaker 02 Uh-uh. Apple.
1:21:54 Speaker 03 Even if you don't like Apple, you'll probably never get off of Apple. Because it's too difficult to get off of Apple.
1:21:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:21:58 Speaker 03 Well, what do you think Huawei did? It's too difficult to get off of Huawei. So, we're gonna build this internal switching cost where no one's gonna get off of our technology. Because to get off of our technology means it hurts, there's a data transfer that's complicated, you're gonna lose data for sure, and whatever you're getting on is gonna be more expensive. So, do you really wanna get on an American system? Or do you wanna stay on a Chinese system? Do you want an American electrical vehicle or a Chinese EV?
1:22:20 Speaker 02 Not even a fucking question.
1:22:22 Speaker 03 Do you want an American telecommunications? Do you want an American cellphone or a Chinese cellphone?
1:22:25 Speaker 02 I'm not even saying this as a joke. When I saw the Chinese EVs, I was like, "We're cooked. We're done. We're number two now." And I don't know if that's remotely intelligent, but that is truly how I felt.
1:22:35 Speaker 03 So, that is China. China is not innovative and they've never claimed to be. But they steal and they promote and they drive and they play the long game. And that's the problem. That's the problem. And that's why economists continue to predict that China will be at parity or near parity with the United States by 2030. Because you can't fight a war over telecommunications. You can't fight a war over medical devices. You can't invade that country because they stole your code for building a battery for a car. It doesn't, it doesn't work.
1:23:07 Speaker 02 Is there any chance we can catch up slash reestablish our lead?
1:23:12 Speaker 03 There's always, always the opportunity. There's always a chance.
1:23:14 Speaker 02 How do you see that happening?
1:23:15 Speaker 03 Um, I, I don't know how, or else I would say how. But what I do trust is American innovation. And I do trust American entrepreneurial spirit. And those are things that we have that have gotten us out of worse situations in the past.
1:23:29 Speaker 02 Okay. So we have been in worse situations. In the past, let's say.
1:23:33 Speaker 03 The Great Depression was pretty shitty.
1:23:34 Speaker 02 Let's say 50 years.
1:23:36 Speaker 03 So 50 years takes us back to 75?
1:23:38 Speaker 02 Maybe even we could go World War II if we want. I guess Soviet Union maybe was worse than this at some point?
1:23:43 Speaker 03 And actually, it's a great point because the only reason we won the Cold War is because the Soviet Union imploded. And we didn't know it was going to implode, but it imploded.
1:23:49 Speaker 02 And you see that potential with China?
1:23:51 Speaker 03 It's all, I mean, that's also the potential here too. But yes. So there's, there's always room for something unexpected to happen. But when it comes to what we can do, like inside the United States, you have so many people who are small business owners. You have so many people who are, who are engineering their own future. You guys are all engineering your own future. Do any of you come from a family wealthier than you?
1:24:12 Speaker 02 No.
1:24:14 Speaker 03 That's fucking crazy. They can't, it's hard to do that in China.
1:24:17 Speaker 02 Parents are fucking poor.
1:24:21 Speaker 02 Fucking losers.
1:24:22 Mark Gagnon? Not to sound like unpatriotic, but why is it such a bad thing if China becomes number one?
1:24:29 Speaker 02 No, it's a good question. It's not patriotic, but it is a good question.
1:24:32 Speaker 03 So, um, I see, I see a lot of things and I'll let you decide whether or not they're good or bad. Uh, you have a child? Any other children?
1:24:41 Speaker 02 No.
1:24:41 Speaker 03 What, what language is your child gonna learn?
1:24:44 Mark Gagnon? English.
1:24:45 Speaker 03 What other languages are you gonna learn?
1:24:46 Mark Gagnon? Likely Spanish.
1:24:48 Speaker 03 If China, if China is a superpower by 2030, five years from now, guess what your daughter is gonna, your son is gonna have to speak?
1:24:56 Mark Gagnon? Likely Mandarin.
1:24:58 Speaker 03 You don't get a choice anymore. You, your child, has to speak more than one language.
1:25:02 Speaker 02 That is the biggest complaint about Americans is most of us only know one language. What's wrong with us knowing two?
1:25:07 Speaker 03 So, when one country gets wealthier-
1:25:09 Speaker 02 I'm so tired of these fucking Europeans bragging about speaking all these stupid languages.
1:25:12 Speaker 03 When one country gets wealthier, the wealth, it's not like, I know the United States prints money, but generally speaking, wealth is limited. So, if one country's getting wealthier, what's happening to the wealthy country? It's getting poorer.
1:25:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:25:23 Speaker 03 So, that's also part of the parity.
1:25:25 Speaker 02 Potentially, yeah.
1:25:26 Speaker 03 Right? So, now you've got what, what we experience in our day-to-day life. We don't have to have, not everybody has to have a gun. Not everybody has to have, you know, has to worry about being robbed in a grocery store. Not everybody, everybody can own a car. Like, we have all these luxuries that we don't even realize. And those start to go away as another country steals the wealth, earns the wealth that you otherwise would have had. Right? Our roads get worse, their roads get better. Our rate of accidents happening on construction sites goes up, theirs goes down. Right? That's the kind of thing that comes with wealth. And, you have to learn their language too, because if it's five, seven, if it's five or seven years from now and China's approaching parity with the United States in terms of GDP, your comedy skits are gonna have to happen in Chinese too.
1:26:10 Speaker 02 I'm not even saying this is a joke again. I think AI will be to the point where you, we all can understand and speak any language without even learning.
1:26:19 Speaker 03 And, hopefully that's the case, because who might win the AI race?
1:26:23 Speaker 02 I don't, I don't think it's a might. I think it's a who is winning very clearly right now.
1:26:29 Speaker 03 So, that's, that's just kind of, these are the questions that you have to be asking yourself, right? Do you, do you want to save your money in US dollars or in renminbi? Do you think everybody else in the world wants to be using US dollars or renminbi? Because as other people move to renminbi, your US dollars actually get worth less in your pocket every day. Until you switch to renminbi. And now all of a sudden, you're an American with a savings account in a Chinese bank.
1:26:51 Speaker 02 Everything you're saying that could be happening is happening.
1:26:55 Speaker 03 Okay, that's absolutely happening.
1:26:56 Speaker 02 Roads are getting worse, Americans are getting poorer, we cannot afford to live as much. China seems to be doing better.
1:27:01 Speaker 03 Wealthy people are sending their wealth abroad. They don't trust the US market to protect their wealth. They're buying houses abroad.
1:27:07 Speaker 02 Even bitcoin is a form of that. It might not be a country you're trusting more, but you're not trusting the American dollar as much as you're trusting bitcoin. And Bitcoin is at an all time high and the dollar is lower than I've seen in a while.
1:27:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:27:19 Speaker 02 So, yeah, all these things that you're saying and this, uh, I'm, I can be very fatalistic and pessimistic, but they seem to be happening and it does concern me. And I, Andrew always said this, America's not going to be a superpower forever. When China takes over, you're going to miss the American superpower. And I'm not, he was like, I'm not defending everything they've done by any stretch. I just think a Chinese superpower would be far less sympathetic, far more, we need to do things our way, than even whatever we think of America, which is, that thing that to me is frightening.
1:27:49 Speaker 04 Now, is, I'm curious, cause like, I think there is a fatalistic view where it's like, oh, China's going to become the monopolar, you know, global power and they're going to destroy America. It seems like the reality would be like, oh, we would just become Spain in the 1700s or we'd become France, like in the, you know, late 1800s, we'd become England, you know what I mean? Like, there would be these empires that take over the entire world that are colonial and they're able to get resources and riches from everywhere. They have these fierce militaries and then they've, are no longer imperial. They're no longer the monopolar power. So is it possible that America would just also have that happen in some capacity?
1:28:26 Speaker 02 Quality of life, people seem happier there in, in England now than they do theoretically.
1:28:31 Mark Gagnon? I wouldn't mind a siesta every once in a while.
1:28:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:28:34 Speaker 03 So I think the, the, the way to answer your question is that I agree that that would be what it looks like in the short term because China moves slowly. Right? So we were reaching parity slowly over the course of 30 or 50 years, which is pretty slow if you think about it, right? The United States basically rose to superpower-ness in like seven years.
1:28:52 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:28:52 Speaker 03 They're, China's doing it, taking the 35 year route, right? To get, to get to near parity. After they reach that parity, they're going to tip. It's going to tip and because the, the systems and processes that they're using are going to continue to work and the systems and processes that we don't have to compete with that will continue to not work. Well, then after the parity switches and after China is in control of government policy and China is in control of military spending and China is in control of whatever else because we are just trying to do whatever they do just to keep up with them. When their intelligence services have utterly penetrated all of ours. Now, all of a sudden, you have to worry about the Chinese government SOE model, the state-owned enterprise model. That's why they don't have entrepreneurism.
1:29:35 Speaker 03 Because as soon as somebody has a good idea, the government steps in, takes it, and then says, you can still make a bunch of money, but it's going to be a government-owned business. They're going to start doing that here in the United States, too. They're going to start finding anybody with a good idea, and they're going to come in and be like, we can buy you for like 12X what you're worth. And everybody's going to go take that deal. And now they're going to control innovation, and they're not going to have to steal it from us. They're going to have it themselves. And then that parity just gets wider and wider. Right? They're going, they have the opportunity to unravel the United States because they have spent so much time learning about our flaws, and we sit around defending our flaws.
1:30:13 Speaker 03 There's, I don't think it has to be fatalistic, but when you look at the probability curve, that's a fat part of the curve, that there's going to be this flow. And if we don't find some way to counterbalance it, it's going to get nasty. So there's still a counterbalance. We could still go to war. We could still do the thing that doesn't make sense because enough people are afraid of China. Right? And that, that's, that is a very real possibility.
1:30:37 Speaker 02 That makes sense.
1:30:37 Speaker 04 Or isolationist legislation that basically says you can't sell your company to China. Like, would that be something that would just prevent that delta?
1:30:44 Speaker 03 That's what Trump's trying to do with some of his policy now, with the tariffs and with, with, you know, trying to bring manufacturing back onshore. It just, it's not going to work because we're not built for it. We're not, it might be great to say, we're not going to do business with these Chinese firms that need our chips. But then who's going to buy the chips? It just doesn't.
1:31:01 Speaker 04 Well, the tariffs are one thing, but to just say like, oh, if you're trying to sell your company, you cannot sell it to China specifically.
1:31:08 Speaker 03 China's going to go through a cutout. I mean, that's, that's what they did with, they basically own the Panama Canal by going through cutouts and having shell companies that are owned by the Bahamas.
1:31:16 Speaker 02 That was my first thought.
1:31:18 Mark Gagnon? Why are we the only superpower that is worried about China?
1:31:22 Speaker 03 We're the only superpower.
1:31:23 Mark Gagnon? Well, why, why doesn't Russia care that, like, China is just like? Blowing by them.
1:31:28 Speaker 03 Because the whole world hates us.
1:31:30 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, they have a line.
1:31:31 Speaker 03 Everybody in the world hates the United States.
1:31:33 Mark Gagnon? Okay.
1:31:33 Speaker 03 Even the people who claim to love us hate us, right? Because, but, but we're convenient. We're a convenient benefactor, we're a convenient market for sale and selling goods. We're a convenient source of protection because so that you don't have to spend money on your military because the United States is spending money on their military. Like, we're a convenient solution to a lot of countries. But they don't like our ideology. They don't like that we're all fat. They don't like.
1:31:57 Mark Gagnon? I mean, just a headshot.
1:31:59 Speaker 04 That's like what they did to JFK, remember?
1:32:02 Mark Gagnon? They're good, man, they're good.
1:32:04 Speaker 04 They're good, bro.
1:32:07 Speaker 04 I mean, bang.
1:32:07 Mark Gagnon? Wait, but I doubt, I doubt Putin, I doubt Putin would be okay with Russians having to speak Chinese in 10 years.
1:32:17 Speaker 03 He would be okay with America getting destroyed.
1:32:19 Mark Gagnon? Right.
1:32:20 Speaker 02 The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
1:32:22 Speaker 04 It's like how America's cool with Stalin. You know what I mean? We're like, yeah, Stalin, we're boys because we both hate Hitler. And then after that, it's like, we'll figure that out later.
1:32:28 Speaker 03 We're cool with Israel because Israel hates Iran.
1:32:31 Speaker 04 God.
1:32:31 Speaker 03 Right? That's, that's the, and that's the, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. So those, that's the ebb and flow, almost like, like anybody who's ever held a bowl of water, right? It just moves back and forth. That's, when the United States is in power, we've got the big, the big arc of water on our side. But then eventually it's going to go to the other side.
1:32:50 Speaker 02 And then they will hate China in 20 years or 30 years or whatever. But right now, they hate America and anybody that can take us out is a threat.
1:32:57 Mark Gagnon? So you said, and sorry to bring us back, you said with Russia, they are taking areas so then they can like, kind of bump up their economy and like build this area up. So is that your theory or this is just understood?
1:33:11 Speaker 03 No, that's, so I would say that's among intelligence watchers. Like, we, we have been watching how this is playing out. We see where it's going. There was a period where the intelligence attitude was that Russia was going to continue across the southern coast, go into Moldova, do the same kind of activity in Transnistria and then build like a wall along the Black Sea. Well, then the United States and Europe got really involved in the counterattack and Russia had to refocus its, its moves. So intelligence is tough because, you know, people think intelligence is when you know the facts. That's not what intelligence is. Intelligence is specifically about answering the thing you don't know and you answer it with probabilities. If you knew, it would be a fact. It wouldn't be intel.
1:33:52 Mark Gagnon? Got it.
1:33:53 Speaker 03 Right? So we, nobody knows exactly how it's gonna happen, or what's gonna happen next, or how it's gonna play out. We're all guessing at probabilities based off of the indicators that we see in the situation.
1:34:04 Mark Gagnon? So it's like, if we allow, or not allow, but if they end up keeping the land that they have right now, isn't that just like telling them, hey, this is okay, you can just keep doing this?
1:34:15 Speaker 03 Correct.
1:34:16 Mark Gagnon? So shouldn't we not, like, shouldn't Trump not let them keep it?
1:34:20 Speaker 03 If Trump cares about whether or not Russia feels like they can take former Soviet Union satellite states in Europe.
1:34:29 Speaker 03 Right? Arguably, what, and Trump has it right on NATO here, because he is correct. It doesn't threaten us. It threatens Europe.
1:34:38 Mark Gagnon? Okay.
1:34:39 Speaker 03 And if you're, if Europe wants to protect itself against Russia, all it has to do is buy more weapons from us, and buy more training from us. And we've been giving you weapons and giving you training, and we've even been putting our troops in Europe to help you without charging you. And as a result of that, NATO's been able to not spend more than 3% or 4% of their national GDP, of each country's GDP, on the military for many, many years, even though they agreed to spend 5% or 6% on GDP. Right? So now Trump's coming in, he's like, you guys, if you want to be safe against Russia, fucking spend more money.
1:35:09 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, I think Poland's like the only exception.
1:35:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, because Poland has a real axe to grind with Russia.
1:35:16 Mark Gagnon? Right. And also like a geographical sort of disadvantage, it seems like.
1:35:19 Speaker 03 Proximity, exactly. So that's, that's really what's happening down there. And, and if, if the Ukraine territory thing is, is resolved, it also kind of undermines Zelensky's hopes of remaining there as a leader. Because he couldn't fulfill the promise, maybe he's gonna get credit for bringing peace, but for sure, he's gonna be a target of Russian services that are now that much closer to Kiev all the time. Which gives Russia the opportunity to make a whole propaganda issue out of Zelensky.
1:35:51 Speaker 02 It is a really discouraging thing when you think about how many people are just throwing thousands of lives at them staying in power or whatever selfish interests they have. It's like a really fucking crazy.
1:36:04 Speaker 04 It is just kind of the case, though. Like, this is just humans.
1:36:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:36:07 Speaker 04 Unfortunately.
1:36:08 Speaker 02 I guess you just think.
1:36:09 Mark Gagnon? It's still fucked up.
1:36:10 Speaker 04 No, it is, but like.
1:36:11 Speaker 02 You think you're so far past, uh, Game of Thrones is obviously fictitious time and place, but we understood that kind of thing to be in hundreds of years in the past. It is today, and it's never gonna stop probably, to your point, until the robots take over, but it's just a crazy thing.
1:36:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:36:28 Speaker 03 It's still funny. It's still funny. There's one thing I've learned hanging out with comedians.
1:36:32 Speaker 02 No, it's, you know, it's.
1:36:33 Speaker 03 Like, you guys find the humor in all of it.
1:36:34 Speaker 02 We try to, and X helps.
1:36:39 Speaker 02 And here's a, here's a question I have. Why don't we just fuck China right now while we got it? I've, I've had this thought before.
1:36:46 Speaker 03 It's a very good question.
1:36:47 Speaker 02 If they're coming up so hard, but their military is not our military, let's go fuck them up.
1:36:53 Mark Gagnon? Sleeper cells all over America.
1:36:55 Speaker 03 Maybe.
1:36:55 Speaker 02 He believes this, and there could be validity to it. We laughed at it at first, but he believes every Chinatown is a sleeper cell in America.
1:37:02 Speaker 03 The thing is.
1:37:03 Speaker 02 Or in the world.
1:37:03 Speaker 03 Most, so sleeper cells, we've, we have found in the intelligence community that sleeper cells are largely ineffective because when you take somebody out of a shithole place and you put them in the United States.
1:37:14 Speaker 02 Have you been to Chinatown?
1:37:18 Speaker 02 WDF excluded. Out of a shithole place.
1:37:22 Speaker 03 But, but like, America gets in your veins, right?
1:37:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:37:26 Speaker 03 Clean water out of your faucet gets in your veins, and, you know, constant access to like cheap Kit Kats gets in your veins. Like, you get used to this.
1:37:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:37:33 Speaker 03 And this is not what it's like anywhere else.
1:37:35 Speaker 02 Believe me, I know about the Kit Kats, dude. But yeah, so to me, this seems like so many wars are just propaganda. Why wouldn't there be, I'm not advocating for, but I am curious why it hasn't happened, a propaganda war against China? Well, it seems like all politicians don't speak that unfavorably about China. Biden was, you know, I think spoke of them as an ally. Trump, a little bit harsh with them, but not really. Why wouldn't there be a propaganda war against this rising power that is an imminent threat?
1:38:03 Speaker 02 Let's just act now.
1:38:04 Speaker 03 It's a complicated issue because one of the things that's always been neat about conflict in the past is that the aggressor was not our, we were not engaged in any kind of economic significance.
1:38:19 Speaker 04 We buy everything.
1:38:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, China, Chinese and United States markets are terribly entwined.
1:38:25 Speaker 04 And they need us.
1:38:26 Speaker 03 They need us, we need them. What they need from us is for us to keep spending money. What we need from them is for them to keep producing. If we rip that apart, both countries are going to be in like a leaky bucket. We're not going to have a market that where demand is getting met. And then they're not going to have an audience to sell their stuff to. And that's, when that happens, it's kind of going to necessitate conflict. Maybe not with each other, but with countries nearby.
1:38:55 Speaker 04 There's also something to say that I've seen like different pro-Chinese like Reddit accounts or even like subreddits or Twitter pages that would suggest that we are being fed anti-Chinese propaganda. Which again, I don't know if this is the case. I'm like, I'm just seeing stuff, but it'll be like.
1:39:12 Speaker 03 Just tell us what your mom said.
1:39:14 Speaker 04 My mom actually doesn't touch this one, but like, it's like the idea of like social credit scores. I've heard people be like, that's not real.
1:39:20 Speaker 03 And that's totally real.
1:39:22 Speaker 04 And then people here are like, it is real. And then people over there are like, it's not really real. Or like, like sweatshops, things like that. Like all the negative things we hear about China, there will be people online that are like, that is just not really.
1:39:32 Speaker 03 If Chinatown is a shithole. Just think about what China must be.
1:39:41 Speaker 02 Oh my god.
1:39:44 Speaker 03 I have yet to see anything anti-Chinese that isn't true. I have yet to see it. Maybe it's out there.
1:39:49 Speaker 02 Have you been to China?
1:39:50 Speaker 03 I've been to China.
1:39:51 Speaker 04 Let's get some propaganda. Let's get some racist pictures. Just be like, what do you think of this?
1:39:54 Speaker 03 Please, find something. Find a Chinese person eating a little white baby or something. So that I can at least say that that's not true.
1:40:01 Speaker 02 I'm with this. Can you find some of the pro-China stuff if possible? Mark, maybe you can help him out, but I want to see what they're saying.
1:40:06 Speaker 03 Mark, Mark GPT?
1:40:07 Speaker 04 If you go to the Sino subreddit, S-I-N-O, I don't know what to make. I look at it and I'm like.
1:40:12 Speaker 02 What is Sino? Is that Chinese Reddit?
1:40:13 Speaker 03 Sino. Sino is the, is the term that you use when you talk about.
1:40:16 Speaker 04 They pronounce it Sino. It's a linguistic barrier.
1:40:23 Speaker 02 What is Sino?
1:40:24 Speaker 03 Sino is, uh, is the term that means Chinese whenever you're connecting, uh, like, uh, a Chinese element with a other, another foreign element. It becomes Sino, Sino Thai relations.
1:40:37 Speaker 02 Okay, okay, okay, okay.
1:40:38 Speaker 03 Instead of US-China relation, or Thai-China relations.
1:40:41 Speaker 04 So they'll, those post like memes and different things. I don't know who these people are or where this is coming from, but it'll just be interesting where it's like, yeah, this guy being like, yo, we can protest when the police murders. We're allowed to protest. And China's like, you're police murdering you?
1:40:52 Speaker 03 We're police murdering you?
1:40:52 Speaker 04 Yeah. And you're like, oh.
1:40:53 Speaker 02 That doesn't happen in China. I have a hard time believing that.
1:40:55 Speaker 03 That happens all over Western China.
1:40:57 Speaker 04 Of course, I assume that these governments do bad things.
1:40:59 Speaker 02 Wasn't that where Tiananmen Square was?
1:41:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, I don't look at it. Never happens.
1:41:02 Speaker 02 Ran over the fucking tank, bro. What are we talking about?
1:41:06 Speaker 04 But again, this is, this is just, this exists and I find it interesting. I don't know what it means.
1:41:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think these are just crazy people, man.
1:41:14 Speaker 03 Like, I'm also looking at the handles. The handles are interesting handles.
1:41:18 Speaker 02 I haven't found a lot of people on a subreddit that I don't think are crazy.
1:41:21 Speaker 04 The question is, are these people?
1:41:23 Mark Gagnon? Those handles look like bots.
1:41:25 Speaker 02 So this is another thing you talk about a lot. A lot of this is probably bots and propaganda and just like disruption.
1:41:30 Speaker 03 I wonder where it's coming from.
1:41:32 Speaker 04 Oh, that was another one. Like they're, they're talking about the Uyghur genocide. And if you go through this whole subreddit, they'll be like, oh, there was no Uyghur genocide.
1:41:38 Speaker 03 Uyghurs are very real.
1:41:39 Speaker 04 Well, that's what I assume.
1:41:41 Speaker 02 I've met a Uyghur. He wants, he's DM'd us. He's a fan of the pod, been to my shows. And he's like, it's fucked. It's horrible. It's happening there.
1:41:47 Speaker 04 Right. So you hear these things, but then there's people saying that's actually completely not true. So you're like, all right, well, what is actually?
1:41:52 Speaker 03 So now let's fast forward to what happens when we have parity. Right now, we don't even have parity. And Mark's confused by what's real and what's not real.
1:42:00 Speaker 04 Yeah, you're a sucker, bro.
1:42:02 Speaker 03 No, no, no. I think, I think he's, I don't think he's, I don't think he's an example of who's confused. I think he's representing a subset of the population that is genuinely confused. As we continue to reach parity, that is gonna just go even further.
1:42:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:42:15 Speaker 03 And have even more reach.
1:42:16 Speaker 04 You're gonna buy one electric car and be like, dude, these Chinese guys are sick, bro.
1:42:18 Speaker 03 So they can buy me right now.
1:42:20 Speaker 04 They didn't do nothing wrong.
1:42:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, they're Chinese, their, their electric vehicles are better.
1:42:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:42:26 Speaker 02 They're also horrible government and we should fuck them up right now while we have a chance.
1:42:29 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
1:42:29 Speaker 03 So I think that's.
1:42:30 Mark Gagnon? Akash sing, guys. Akash sing.
1:42:33 Speaker 03 I, no, vote, vote Akash.
1:42:36 Speaker 02 What's up?
1:42:36 Speaker 03 The, uh, the challenge here is you can almost see, if you look at the United, if you look at the world like a game board, like a board game, you can actually start to feel why China hasn't taken Taiwan. Because if China takes Taiwan and the US gets involved, all of a sudden, we are so close to a war between the United States and China. And Xi Jinping must know that where he's dominant is only in China.
1:43:05 Speaker 02 This guy's good, huh?
1:43:07 Speaker 03 Right?
1:43:07 Speaker 02 I wish we had a leader like this guy. He seems like he gets it.
1:43:10 Speaker 03 Did you see his aura in the propaganda photo?
1:43:12 Speaker 02 What? In terms of playing chess? I'm just, this guy's good.
1:43:17 Speaker 04 Oh gosh, he's a dictator, he's like, bro, this guy's fine. Yeah, our guy's supposed to this.
1:43:24 Speaker 03 Do nothing, win. That's awesome.
1:43:28 Speaker 02 I'm just saying, he's a geopolitical maneuverer.
1:43:31 Speaker 03 Sure.
1:43:32 Speaker 02 He knows what he's doing in that sense. He's very good. We have, we have someone who isn't maneuvering quite as deftly, is all I'm saying. So is that the biggest threat to the US? Because I want to ask him, what's the biggest threat?
1:43:44 Speaker 03 Without a doubt, it's China. When it comes to all things American, all things, uh, everyday life, it's, it's China. China, our economy crashes without them. They're the biggest military threat. They're penetrating us across intelligence services, military services. They steal our industrial secrets. They copy our stuff. They, they actively plot with our allies and with our enemies against us, like they are, and that's not my opinion, that's like documented in the DNI's annual report of geopolitical threats.
1:44:15 Speaker 04 Is there something to be said for America's geographic location? I mean, we have water on both sides. We have generally hospitable neighbors. China doesn't seem to have like that many bases set up, you know, militaristically near us. Like obviously there's intelligence operations. And not to say that China doesn't have their own slew of issues as far as like population, innovation, natural resources, et cetera. Like. In our defense, we have certain things that are moving for us where even if all things stay equal, we still have advantages.
1:44:44 Speaker 03 Oh yeah, I'm not saying we don't have advantages. We do absolutely have advantages and one of the big advantages is the fact that we are a country that's unified from coast to coast and that our northern and southern and southern allies are so heavily entrenched with our everything that they're not going to turn against us, right? So that's a huge benefit for us. China doesn't have that. It's got neighbors that'll turn in an instant.
1:45:08 Speaker 02 China and India is tense. I think that's the massive opportunity for America. I'm just saying that as an Indian and I think that might be why they are close with India and Pakistan, maybe theoretically is like these both could be useful against China. So why don't we just be cool with both of them?
1:45:23 Mark Gagnon? With Trump going like all like wild with tariffs, does that fuck up our relationship with our neighbors up in South and everywhere else?
1:45:31 Speaker 03 I mean, it causes a lot of issues for sure. You've got to keep in mind that the tariffs are not being used for what we think they're being used for, or unless maybe it's common knowledge what they're actually being used for.
1:45:40 Speaker 02 Ooh, what are they being used for?
1:45:42 Speaker 03 The tariffs are not there so that we can start making 200% more dollars from trade with China or 75% more dollars from trade with the EU. That's not what they're there for. What they're a negotiating tool. They are an artificial pressure to get countries to cave to our other policies in exchange for us reducing tariffs, right? There's no friction between us, so I'm just going to put friction between us and then I'm going to tell you, if you agree with me that, you know, tennis is for gay people, then I'm going to end this friction between us.
1:46:16 Speaker 04 That's hurt. But that means I'm agreement because he loves tennis.
1:46:19 Speaker 02 I'm gay.
1:46:22 Speaker 03 But that's all the tariffs are. The tariffs were walls that were put up so that we could have a debate where otherwise there was no debate. And then we get to use this artificial tool and reduce the debate, increase the required collaboration. It basically gave Trump a negotiating tool that wasn't previously there. It's a common tool in business. Anytime you increase your price, right? If a coffee shop increases its prices or a restaurant increases its prices, that's all arbitrary. It can choose when it does that. It will lose some customers, it will keep other customers, but it also has, every new customer doesn't know that it was ever changed. And as a result of that, we are in fact making 100% more money from our trade with Europe. Because previously, the tariff was 7%, now it's 15%.
1:47:06 Speaker 03 So, we got Europe to cave on our demands internationally, and they're still paying us more money.
1:47:14 Speaker 02 So this is a good thing Trump did. And I'm not happy with a lot of the things he's done, but you've got to give him credit. That seems like a good thing.
1:47:19 Speaker 03 Right, I mean, Trump, Trump does deserve quite a lot of credit for the things that he does right. And he does a number of things right. The problem is...
1:47:26 Speaker 02 You could say some of those would be great, because we're getting a lot of heat for some of them.
1:47:31 Mark Gagnon? But I can also see it as a negative. Yeah, like it's like, Mexico would be like, yo, you're going to really strongarm us like that? Hey, China, what's up? We're their neighbors. We can let you in, we can give you information, like, that's, I put, that puts us at harm. And I don't think that's worth it to make a little bit more money.
1:47:49 Speaker 03 So then, and now you, now you have to start really seeing the problem with our process of leadership. Because any president that comes into the power in the United States is only thinking four years.
1:48:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:48:01 Speaker 03 You can make a change, make a wave, and have it benefit the economy in four years. And then, it's the next guy's problem. So by the time Mexico creates a backdoor agreement with China, and starts to have that conversation where, hey, we'll let you in, and if you'll just help us trade. That doesn't happen for maybe eight or 12 years. So then by the time three presidents have passed, it's that president's problem to deal with the mistake that this president made.
1:48:30 Speaker 02 For short-term gain.
1:48:31 Speaker 03 When you have a Xi Jinping, he's been in power, I think, 16 years now. When you have Netanyahu, Netanyahu's only been out of power, I think, six years in the last 12 or 16?
1:48:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:48:43 Speaker 03 Right?
1:48:43 Speaker 02 I wonder if the nature of geopolitics has just sped up too much.
1:48:47 Speaker 04 Like, I wonder if four years-
1:48:47 Speaker 02 Face of business?
1:48:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, like, four years in the late 1700s is a long time. Because things go so slow.
1:48:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:48:54 Speaker 04 Whereas, four years now, it's like, oh, it's nothing. It's a blink. And so, maybe you get eight years, but even then, you gotta try for it.
1:49:00 Speaker 02 I always thought that the idea that you can just keep running for reelection, you're just gonna win reelection, not actually fix anything. You should just get one term, six, eight years, eight years, whatever it is, and then you're done, and that's what it is.
1:49:10 Speaker 03 That's close to what our forefathers wanted. Our forefathers wanted so that there were no professional politicians. You had to be successful in business, and then people would see your success in business, and they would say, "I want you to lead us." And then you would take, you would become a public servant, give up your salary and your business, get paid some meager wage to serve the people, to bring all of your skillset and knowledge from the business marketplace into the economy of the country, build it up for eight years, and then you would return back.
1:49:41 Speaker 02 So if you really wanna make America great again, get the fuck out of office, all of you.
1:49:44 Speaker 03 That's, I mean, that is the message for Congress, without a doubt.
1:49:47 Speaker 02 Congress, senate, all that, yeah.
1:49:49 Speaker 03 Because if we can, if we could fix Congress, the president would have no place to hide. But right now, we have an entrenched Congress of a bunch of old fucks, or, or, or backstabbing fucks who just wanna be congresspeople for as long as possible. So they give all their responsibility to the executive, so that when something goes wrong, they can be like, "Oh, it's the president's fault." But now, the president ends up having all the powers of the executive office and the legislature. That's not how we were built to work.
1:50:16 Speaker 02 So, you, you know, you seem a little down on America, and I don't blame you.
1:50:19 Speaker 03 I love my country.
1:50:21 Speaker 02 No, I'm not even saying that. You, are you still thinking about moving?
1:50:24 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. We have a plan. We have a plan. We'll be out in, uh, spring of 27, 2027.
1:50:29 Speaker 02 So I can't ask you where it's going, 'cause you're gonna change your appearance and all this stuff.
1:50:32 Speaker 03 I mean, I'm not gonna change it that rad- well, I'll change it radically, but I'm not gonna, like, get a nose job or anything.
1:50:37 Speaker 02 But we won't be able to identify. If I saw you walking, would I be like, "There's Andy," or would I not know?
1:50:41 Speaker 03 Probably not.
1:50:42 Speaker 04 Are you changing your ethnicity?
1:50:45 Speaker 03 I'm gonna self identify as Caucasian.
1:50:48 Speaker 04 Dude, you're doing full white face? That'd be sick, dude.
1:50:50 Speaker 02 Doug, I'm looking at you right now. If you buzz this down, you look like you could be in, what's that Liam Neeson movie? Taken? He could be one of the bad guys in Taken.
1:50:57 Speaker 04 Oh, he's Albanian or something?
1:50:58 Speaker 02 You look Albanian or Eastern European or something.
1:51:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:51:01 Mark Gagnon? Mark is so happy you're cutting his hair.
1:51:03 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah. It is my hair.
1:51:05 Mark Gagnon? I know. He wants the best hair in the industry and you got it right now?
1:51:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:51:09 Mark Gagnon? So he's so happy.
1:51:10 Speaker 03 Mark's got better hair than me.
1:51:11 Speaker 06 He's gonna ask it for, ask it for.
1:51:13 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:51:13 Speaker 03 Oh, you wanna lock? I'll send you a lock.
1:51:15 Speaker 04 You're gonna donate it? I might just get it.
1:51:16 Mark Gagnon? Yours is way better, cuz I can tell even from here, it's clean. This, you could see the oil and grease coming out.
1:51:22 Speaker 04 Bro, for white, for a full-blooded white, mine is solid, okay?
1:51:27 Speaker 02 Nah, you got gray hair for a white, that's true. He's donating his hair for cancer victims. What are you doing with your hair?
1:51:32 Speaker 04 I'm not gonna donate my hair to cancer victims. That would be dumb.
1:51:34 Speaker 02 Why?
1:51:35 Speaker 04 Because it's a hard look to pull off, first off, okay? Like, it's my hair. Like, it's not, like, it's hard. I'm not, I'm barely pulling it off. You know what I mean? I think the last thing a kid with cancer wants is to have my-
1:51:45 Speaker 02 So you're saying a little girl with cancer would rather be bald than have your hair-
1:51:47 Speaker 04 Yeah, 100%. They give her my hair and they'd be like, ew, this smells. I'm okay. You know what I mean? They're like, I'll stick with the cancer.
1:51:52 Speaker 03 They buy that. So before, before you donate your hair, they have a very rigorous process for how you have to wash it. So you would be giving them clean hair.
1:51:59 Speaker 04 Okay, alright.
1:52:00 Speaker 03 And then after you give them your clean hair, they will do whatever they need to do to turn it into a wig.
1:52:04 Speaker 04 What if it's dreaded?
1:52:05 Speaker 03 It doesn't become like this.
1:52:05 Speaker 04 If my hair's dreaded, can they take it then?
1:52:07 Speaker 03 That's a good question. There's gotta be somebody somewhere who takes-
1:52:10 Speaker 04 You give it to a kid, it's like, yo, big up.
1:52:16 Speaker 06 That'd be crazy, dude.
1:52:19 Speaker 02 Okay, uh, we got, well, I got, I still have a lightning round, but before that-
1:52:22 Speaker 06 Before you do that, well, I know you're not gonna say where you're gonna go.
1:52:26 Speaker 02 Oh, that's what I wanted to know, but I didn't.
1:52:28 Speaker 06 If you're gonna go somewhere, if you were advising someone else to leave.
1:52:31 Speaker 02 Give us a couple countries.
1:52:33 Speaker 06 You go to India?
1:52:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:52:34 Speaker 06 Where would you tell them to go?
1:52:36 Speaker 03 I've got a number of, there are a number of countries that are on our, on our list, and I'm scoping all of them out actively.
1:52:41 Speaker 02 You haven't chosen one yet.
1:52:42 Speaker 03 No, so we've, we've, we're pretty close to choosing one, but-
1:52:45 Speaker 04 He chose one, 100%.
1:52:46 Speaker 03 But we're still-
1:52:46 Speaker 02 Give us a list.
1:52:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, but Spain, so-
1:52:49 Speaker 04 Portugal.
1:52:50 Speaker 03 Spain, Portugal. Where else?
1:52:52 Speaker 04 Oh, France.
1:52:53 Speaker 03 You're right. More, most of the time you talk, you're right.
1:52:56 Mark Gagnon? There's just places I would go.
1:52:57 Speaker 04 Al's just been there and he's like, I like it here.
1:52:59 Mark Gagnon? Yeah.
1:53:00 Speaker 04 Al's just thinking of famous actresses. That's all he's heard.
1:53:02 Speaker 03 So Costa Rica.
1:53:04 Mark Gagnon? Oh, Costa Rica.
1:53:05 Speaker 03 New Zealand.
1:53:06 Mark Gagnon? Aruba.
1:53:08 Speaker 03 You want to go to Aruba?
1:53:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's, you know?
1:53:10 Speaker 03 I mean, it's a nice place, but, uh, but I don't know.
1:53:12 Speaker 04 Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela.
1:53:16 Speaker 03 I'm giving up a spot.
1:53:20 Speaker 02 Okay, Costa Rica, Spain, Portugal.
1:53:22 Speaker 03 Yep, so, uh, Georgia, in the Caucasus, Armenia, Croatia.
1:53:27 Speaker 04 Too many words.
1:53:27 Speaker 02 You said New Zealand, yeah.
1:53:28 Speaker 03 Yep, these are all very nice areas.
1:53:30 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:53:31 Speaker 03 Uh, that's...
1:53:32 Speaker 04 You're describing one country, fuck it.
1:53:36 Speaker 03 That's, that's essentially...
1:53:37 Speaker 04 No, I didn't say Spanish Harlem.
1:53:39 Speaker 03 That's our short list, and, uh, I mean, for the last year and for the next year and a half, we continue to kind of go scope out each of these countries, travel with our kids, see them firsthand, and decide if...
1:53:50 Speaker 02 What are your parameters? What are you looking for?
1:53:52 Speaker 03 So, you keep in mind that when you're an American, and you leave the United States, you're still an American wherever you go. Which means your money's still in American banks, it's still US dollars, you are still carrying an American passport. When, wherever you live, anybody who meets you there looks at you as American. So, one of our biggest parameters is it has to be a place that's pro-American.
1:54:10 Speaker 02 Ah, okay, okay, okay.
1:54:12 Speaker 03 It has to be pro-American, and if it's pro-American, then it's very unlikely that it's gonna switch allegiances anytime quickly. Right? So now, if you're like, if we're in, uh, Paraguay, Paraguay may become pro-China and fuck the United States in two years. So, we don't want to run that risk, right? Uh, Mexico is gonna be pretty pro-American for a long time.
1:54:33 Speaker 04 Maybe. Well, Georgia's a little tricky for that reason, right?
1:54:35 Speaker 03 Well, Georgia's, Georgia's hates Russia.
1:54:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, of course, but you get a little rolling occupation going on.
1:54:41 Speaker 03 If there's a rolling occupation, yeah, yeah. Um, and Armenia's the same way, and so is Azerbaijan. But, so one of the big things is it has to be pro-American. The second thing is we want a place that has a stable economy and a stable government on its own. That's actually quite difficult in Europe right now, because in the last two years, you've had all three of the major European governments...
1:55:04 Speaker 03 Like liquidate their parliament. France dissolved its parliament, had a whole revote. Germany dissolved its parliament, had a whole revote. Like, this is Star Wars-style shit. Where the prime minister voted no confidence, and then boom, everybody was gone, and everybody had to get reelected in. What we should do here.
1:55:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, that's true. That sounded horrible, and then it sounded awesome, actually, once you said it. New Zealand seems like a great choice.
1:55:26 Speaker 03 New Zealand's a great place. It's so far from everything. It's expensive, and it's very westernized. But, I mean, no one's gonna mess with New Zealand for a long time. China's gonna fuck with Australia. And Australia kind of becomes the box around the egg for New Zealand.
1:55:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. Ah, okay.
1:55:42 Mark Gagnon? Is there an issue being former CIA, going to a different country and trying to get a visa or be a permanent resident?
1:55:49 Speaker 03 When people know. When people, when you're an internet fucking, when you're the CIA guy with the hair, there's a problem. Because everywhere you go, people are like, "Oh, I saw you on TikTok. Aren't you CIA?" You don't put CIA in your fucking visa requirements, right? You don't, you don't put your work history in your visa requirements. You just put your last three years' worth of paychecks or whatever.
1:56:06 Speaker 02 Ah.
1:56:07 Speaker 03 So that's a big part of why, like, I don't, I don't want to be the internet's favorite CIA.
1:56:12 Speaker 02 That's actually your best argument for how you're not CIA is, you're gonna have to give them, wherever country you go to, your paychecks for the last three years. And if any of them were CIA, you would be known as CIA in your next country.
1:56:22 Speaker 03 I mean, when you're undercover at CIA, you don't get paid by CIA.
1:56:24 Mark Gagnon? That's okay. Fucking idiots.
1:56:28 Speaker 02 You're right. I have no counterpoint. I'm a fat idiot. I'm just a fat idiot.
1:56:33 Mark Gagnon? What the fuck?
1:56:34 Speaker 02 I'm just a fat fucking idiot.
1:56:35 Mark Gagnon? How hard is it to get fake passports? Because, like, Epstein had a bunch of them. Or, I don't know if they were fake, but he had multiple passports.
1:56:42 Speaker 03 Yes, it's shockingly easy, actually, to get fake documentation. It's harder to get really good, backstopped fake documentation.
1:56:50 Mark Gagnon? But even ones that scan?
1:56:51 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
1:56:52 Mark Gagnon? Oh, really?
1:56:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, because, I mean, what happens is, there's no international database for everybody. So what's really happening in the machine, when I, when you go to the UK? I love going to the UK because it's so easy to go into the UK and it's somehow so hard to come back to the United States. You go through the whole double thing where you scan your passport, you scan your airplane ticket, you like, you stand in that little, the glass door front and back and it does the second scan.
1:57:17 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:57:17 Speaker 03 All it's doing is making sure that your documentation matches what you reported your documentation would say.
1:57:22 Speaker 02 Oh, it doesn't make sure your document, your passport is authentic, it just makes sure your picture matches what you just scanned.
1:57:28 Speaker 03 Oh, get the fuck out. And then whatever the authentication code is inside the chip inside your passport, that's what it's checking against because that's the current method of showing that it's a valid passport. So, all of that could be fraudulent and you can still walk through. As long as it matches itself.
1:57:46 Speaker 04 The chip could be real and then the passport's fake, or like any version of this.
1:57:50 Speaker 03 Correct.
1:57:50 Speaker 04 So they steal a passport, make a fake one, put the new chip in.
1:57:53 Speaker 03 And it's really just a matter of putting a new picture on an old passport.
1:57:56 Speaker 04 Hmm.
1:57:56 Speaker 03 Right? You could be, you could be Dennis Dennis. You're Dennis the Menace for all we care, right? As long as, as long as the passport chip and the passport barcode match, door one, door two. Welcome to the UK.
1:58:09 Mark Gagnon? How come I, I got like denied from global entry twice because I like got locked up in Sweden? Why are they talking to America if?
1:58:19 Speaker 03 Because that's something different. You're going for global access, which is, it's a shortcut way through security. So you have, you put in an application on day one and then you wait a period of time before you come in for an interview. That's, they're doing a background check on you with them.
1:58:31 Mark Gagnon? Everybody.
1:58:32 Speaker 03 Has a guy ever been a problem?
1:58:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, the EU thing is 10 seconds.
1:58:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:58:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is, this is very interesting.
1:58:40 Speaker 03 It's not that, it's not that different than when you give your driver's license to a, to a.
1:58:45 Mark Gagnon? Officer.
1:58:46 Speaker 03 Yeah, an officer of law or even a, what's it called, a bouncer? They just look at it and they kind of look for that little shiny part. Yep, looks like it's real. That's pretty much all the
1:58:54 Speaker 02 And then you look like the picture. Okay, you're good. That's a great, yeah, it's a great metaphor. Um, okay, so Shadow Cell, awesome book. So good. Riveting. Uh, what is the coolest, eh, if you had to sell it to people in 30 seconds, and now that I'm putting it on, we're not ending anytime soon. But I want to make sure we get this out. What, how would you tell people about this? Like, what's, what's the thing? Why should everyone buy it?
1:59:19 Speaker 03 I actually learned this from Mark GPT. Three years ago, everything in that book was classified.
1:59:25 Speaker 02 Three years ago?
1:59:26 Speaker 03 Three years ago, I have an email from CIA saying everything in this book is classified.
1:59:29 Speaker 02 And now it's not.
1:59:30 Speaker 03 Now it's publicly available on the bookshelf.
1:59:32 Mark Gagnon? It's a classified document. It's literally a classified document.
1:59:35 Speaker 03 According to CIA, according to an email from three years ago, that's what it was. So this is the most contemporary, most modern, most accurate spy novel ever written.
1:59:45 Speaker 02 That's awesome.
1:59:46 Speaker 03 Everything, everybody else has written, they wrote 25 years after it happened, 30 years after it happened. This isn't the Cold War, this isn't the war on terror.
1:59:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a great.
1:59:52 Speaker 03 This is the largest adversaries in the world to the United States right now. And how espionage is carried out and how the war that we all know is happening, but we can't see on the, on the TV screen. It's because it's happening in the spy world.
2:00:06 Speaker 02 That's awesome.
2:00:07 Mark Gagnon? And so was it just the fact that, uh, you threatened to sue is why they changed their mind on letting you release it?
2:00:13 Speaker 02 Cause he would have won.
2:00:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, cause he would have won.
2:00:14 Mark Gagnon? And that's the only thing?
2:00:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's the only thing. Cause the, the, there's two things that, there's two reasons that the CIA's publication review board. There's two reasons that it forces all authors to go through. First is to make sure that classified documents don't get revealed to the public. The second is to make sure that if something is going to be shared with the public, that CIA is able to maneuver in a way that protects itself or dampens the public interest in the document.
2:00:41 Mark Gagnon? To just basically make them look good.
2:00:43 Speaker 03 So if we sued on First Amendment rights and then they lost the lawsuit. That's very public news and that makes them look very, very bad. So they already knew they weren't going to win that. So the next best thing to dampen the impact of the document is to just let it, let it go live.
2:01:00 Mark Gagnon? Okay. And why are you allowed to talk about the work that you did?
2:01:04 Speaker 03 So the, the, the, the big reason is because of the first amendment right that we have as American citizens. In this book, it's, it's a story of how my wife and I were called in to carry out a new type of operation. We're called in to build a new type of operation because our, our largest adversaries were becoming more capable than we ever thought possible. Like we were talking about, we were focused on a war on terror for 20 years. All of our adversaries were developing new technologies, new capabilities, because they weren't, they weren't spending any money on a global war on terror. Right? North Korea advanced, they became nuclear capable. Iran advanced, Russia advanced, China advanced, Turkey advanced, everybody advanced. But we were, we're fighting this war. So as a result of that, the, the modus operandi that the United States CIA traditionally
2:01:49 Speaker 03 used wasn't working anymore. So they needed a new way of doing operations. So they called my wife and I in and they were like, hey, you two are very different. My wife is super capable. It sounds like your wife is as well. Very capable, very smart, very hardworking. I'm a, I'm a total shit show. But together, we make some, we usually have some pretty decent ideas. So they put us out in the field to build new operations. What they didn't tell us is that there was a mole at CIA. A mole that has never been publicly acknowledged until the release of this book.
2:02:20 Speaker 02 Wow.
2:02:22 Speaker 03 And that mole, they couldn't find. So they needed to bait the mole so that the mole would make a mistake.
2:02:28 Speaker 02 So you were bait.
2:02:29 Speaker 03 So they used us and possibly, possibly other people. Possibly other people as bait as well, to get the mole to make a mistake.
2:02:36 Speaker 02 You're not bitter about this? You're still pro CIA?
2:02:39 Speaker 03 Because if I was director of CIA.
2:02:42 Speaker 02 You would have done the same thing.
2:02:44 Speaker 03 That's, that's what you sign up for. That's what you swear to when you raise your hand. Right? All enemies, foreign and domestic.
2:02:50 Speaker 03 Wow, but that's why the book can be released. Otherwise, it would still be considered a classified document.
2:02:55 Mark Gagnon? But I don't get why they would put their agents in harm to find the mole. Like, why?
2:03:00 Speaker 03 So when you think like the government, first of all, you always have a backlog of new agents coming in.
2:03:08 Mark Gagnon? Okay.
2:03:08 Speaker 03 Right? So you always have, let's just say it's 200 people that are going to come in every new year. And then you always have people who are leaving because they're retiring. So losing one or two to prevent a mole from spoiling the intelligence.
2:03:20 Mark Gagnon? Ah, fuck.
2:03:22 Speaker 04 Remember the trolley problem that we played?
2:03:23 Mark Gagnon? Yeah.
2:03:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, isn't a problem. And, and I think CIA also diversified its investment because I think we were just one couple, one pair of operators that were sent out. They could have sent out five others, not knowing which of the five would actually get the mole's attention. We don't know that part. That's just what we started theorizing after we found out that we were baited too. So it makes sense. This is a very standard. This is exactly how firing squads used to work. Right? They would put seven people in a line and they put one prisoner on the pole. And you never knew whether you were carrying the weapon, the actual bullet, or whether you were carrying an empty charge. So that when you shot at the villain and shot at the criminal and they died, you didn't carry the guilt of killing them.
2:04:05 Mark Gagnon? Oh, got it. How long were you CIA before they put you on this particular mission?
2:04:10 Speaker 03 Uh, it was, I was a second tour officer. So we count our time at CIA in terms of tours. A first tour officer is a brand new officer. They've really just finished training and they're on their first operational tour. They're, they're independent enough, but they're still getting guidance from senior leaders. Second tour officers are kind of like second gear in a car. It's where you make the most progress the fastest. So you're still young enough that you probably don't have kids. You may not be married and you're hungry to go make a change and you're still super ideologically radicalized. So it's really easy to send a second tour officer out there to do something stupid or something dangerous or something high impact. Your third tour is usually where if you were successful in your second tour, they start bringing you back to train you and advance you because you might be future leadership.
2:04:56 Speaker 03 If you were a shit show in your second tour, then you're, now you're just cleaning up like all the nastiest operations around the world for the rest of your career. Right? Oh, you fucked up. So now you're the one that has to talk to child, to pedophiles, terrorists, drug dealers. Like you don't get a second chance, right?
2:05:10 Mark Gagnon? Yeah.
2:05:11 Speaker 03 My wife and I were in our second tour when we were both pulled in for this operation.
2:05:15 Speaker 04 Now, was pulling both of you in a malicious act in and of itself?
2:05:20 Speaker 03 I don't think so, because my wife, the book will detail the difference between us operationally. My wife was what's known as a targeter and I was a operations officer. So, a targeter's job is to find human intelligence targets, study them, research them, build profiles, dossiers, and then communicate that to an operational counterpart. I was basically a mission planner, so my job was to take dossiers from her as well as intelligence tools from across the network and build new cases. And then you would have case officers and technical officers and analysts and interpreters who would kind of make the operations all happen. So, that was, putting the two of us together was an efficiency operationally. It was two different skill sets.
2:06:03 Speaker 03 We were actually undercover, we were actually married and clandestine. So, our covers matched, our backgrounds matched, we really did actually have sex, we didn't have to pretend it, so it made the cover story really, really strong. She's probably still pretending it, but you know, I'm trying to have some real sex.
2:06:22 Speaker 04 She's faking it this whole time, damn it. That's interesting.
2:06:26 Speaker 02 What's it like being hunted?
2:06:28 Speaker 03 It's, uh, it is, we, it's scary, but it's, um, if you talk to military people, you'll hear them say that at some point, training kicks in, like if you jump.
2:06:39 Speaker 04 I've heard that.
2:06:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, if you jump from an airplane, like it's scary, but then eventually like you pull a parachute.
2:06:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:06:44 Speaker 03 It's the same way whenever you realize that you are actively being surveilled. You, in the book, details when I was identified and surveilled in a hostile country. You feel good, and then you see like, oh, there might be somebody behind me, and then there might actually be somebody behind me, and then you're like, holy shit, there are people behind me. And then you're like, well, like, what did I do wrong? Because in undercover.
2:07:07 Speaker 04 Do they all just look alike? Because if you say yes, I know what country you are in.
2:07:13 Speaker 03 Pakistan.
2:07:19 Mark Gagnon? So I'm still, I'm sorry, still a little, I know this is First Amendment, right? You're allowed to say whatever you want, but the mission is still classified. So even though you're not like giving up names and you're not like saying where this took place, like you're still talking about a classified mission.
2:07:35 Speaker 03 A classified mission that-
2:07:36 Mark Gagnon? Like is this public record? Can I look somewhere up and find this mission?
2:07:40 Speaker 03 No, I mean here is where you can find it.
2:07:42 Mark Gagnon? Yeah, so outside of there. So it's like, why are you allowed to talk about classified missions just because you're no longer CIA?
2:07:48 Speaker 03 So, yeah, yeah, so it's because, I saw that, I saw that, I saw that. Because missions are classified based off of what content is shared. Specifically, what makes something classified in the human intelligence world is called sources and methods. The sources of intelligence and the methodology used to collect the intelligence. That's what makes it classified. Everything else is not classified, right? I drank a Diet Coke on my mission, not classified. I went up three flights of stairs and I met with the target's mom. That's not, that's not classified, right? What's classified is what intelligence the target gave you and who the target is and exactly how they transferred the information to you. That's what's classified. So when we created the book, what we were able to do is we were able to obfuscate those details, but still tell the whole story.
2:08:33 Speaker 02 You don't think there's any way they can backtrack it to your agents or anything like that?
2:08:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's, that, that was the one thing that my wife and I were absolutely hell-bent on is this cannot be reverse-engineerable, right? So as an example, we have a, we have a case that we detail in there about how we approached a, a hostile foreign target who was the CEO of a military industrial complex company supporting our, the adversary. That is a real person, that's a real case that actually happened. But you don't know whether that's, is that military industrial complex, does he make tanks? Does he make satellites? Does he make gunpowder? You don't know. So that means the adversary doesn't know either. All the adversary knows is that at this unnamed time in this unnamed city, a CEO associated
2:09:20 Speaker 03 with the military started giving secrets to the CIA. Good luck finding that out. Even better, one of the tools that we have at CIA that we learned from KGB. We love it when our adversaries spend time and money trying to reverse engineer something that we already know.
2:09:34 Speaker 02 If it's a country like, I'm not saying it is China, but if it was a country like China, isn't there a fear that they could just kill everyone that's a CEO at any milita- like, from what I hear about China, that's not something they wouldn't do. And then you still compromise your source. Now, I'm assuming these are conversations you have with your wife, like.
2:09:52 Mark Gagnon? Guy was just talking about how much, how great of a leader they are.
2:09:57 Speaker 03 Just kill all the CEOs.
2:09:59 Speaker 02 We need a guy like that.
2:09:59 Speaker 03 We need a guy like that. The United States might benefit if China does kill all their CEOs because of the release of our book. So I'll keep that in mind, because I'm, I'll take credit for that if that happens. But, but no, my, my point is, yes, there are, when you are a foreign asset, you put yourself at risk, just like Jeffrey Epstein. If he was an asset to the FBI, he put himself at risk. And who was the gangster that you were talking about?
2:10:20 Speaker 02 Why you Bolger.
2:10:21 Speaker 03 Why you Bolger. You put yourself at risk as soon as you become an informant against what you believe in. You put yourself at risk.
2:10:28 Speaker 03 That's not who we're concerned about. Like, what we're concerned with is American citizens.
2:10:31 Speaker 02 Okay.
2:10:32 Speaker 03 And, and not all deaths are equal, unfortunately, in my point of view. And a foreign death does not equal an American death.
2:10:38 Speaker 02 Right. Okay.
2:10:39 Speaker 04 Random question. How does CIA deal with stolen valor? Like, is there a way that someone, not me exactly, but maybe me, could just write a book and be like, hey, I was in the CIA? And here's some crazy shit that happened.
2:10:51 Speaker 03 So they don't, they don't really deal with it? Which is, which is a huge kind of point in the ACH for why I'm not CIA. Unless you've submitted a verification request, unless you've submitted an employment verification to CIA, you have no way of verifying that I'm actually CIA. One newspaper once actually tried to verify my employment record. And they waited so long for CIA to respond, and CIA never actually responded. So then they published the news story anyways, and inside the news story, they actually say, document out loud, we tried to verify his employment and we could not verify it. So there are people out there who don't think I'm real at all. They just think that I'm making all this stuff up all the time, that I'm just a giant con man.
2:11:31 Speaker 04 Oh, shit.
2:11:32 Speaker 03 But CIA.
2:11:33 Speaker 04 Alex is all sudden like, turns out you're not CIA. You're a fucking liar.
2:11:40 Speaker 03 So stolen valor is a, they love it. They, they don't love it. It's a benefit to them because it's a distraction from the real officers that are out there.
2:11:47 Speaker 02 Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't care about, yeah.
2:11:50 Speaker 03 Correct. Spooks, we see each other. We know when you're real, we know when you're not. We know when you say that you were CIA, but you were really military, seconded to CIA for one operation. We know when you say you were CIA, but you were actually a contractor, working on a contract with CIA.
2:12:05 Speaker 02 How do you know?
2:12:05 Speaker 03 Because we know what terminology we use. We know the training. We know the internal vernacular. We also know how the system works. One or two questions between two actual CIA officers will yield a lot of whether or not you understand what the other person's talking about or not.
2:12:19 Speaker 02 Okay. How many, are you allowed to say how many tours you did?
2:12:24 Speaker 03 I was a five tour officer before I left. Yeah.
2:12:27 Speaker 02 Wow. So you, I mean, they had big plans for you.
2:12:29 Speaker 03 Yeah. And that was one of the things that made it hard to leave. One of the things that made it hard to leave was, this was our second tour. And after this tour, and the success of this tour, which you can, which you'll read about in the book.
2:12:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:12:40 Speaker 03 After the success of this tour, I was brought back to essentially teach how we did this worldwide to all the other CIA officers. And then I started teaching and then in that process, I got escalated to take on covert operations. And then in covert operations, that was really when, when my career started to match my wife's career. She was rock star the whole time. When our career started to match, they pulled us apart. Because you can't have two people kind of on the same trajectory. It's just like in a company, like there's nepotism missions or whatever else. They pulled us apart. And then in our fifth tour, we had our child. And when we had our child, we were like, what the fuck? Like, your career is great, my career is great. Neither of us gets to be with our kid. What are we doing here?
2:13:23 Speaker 04 You said an interesting thing to me recently, where you said like CIA officers will typically do like under 10 years or like over 20 years?
2:13:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
2:13:32 Speaker 04 Can you explain why that discrepancy exists?
2:13:34 Speaker 03 So CIA is still a government agency. It's still an organization like the military, or Department of Homeland Security, or IRS. So you don't make a lot of money. You, you... Come on board, you're making forty five thousand dollars a year, and then by the time you retire, maybe you're making a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year.
2:13:52 Speaker 04 I was looking on chat GPT, there's like a high ranking CIA officer, even like super high, like super advanced, you might make like two hundred, two hundred fifty thousand.
2:14:00 Speaker 03 That's super high, yeah.
2:14:01 Speaker 04 And these are like some of the, like, these are very smart people that are working here.
2:14:04 Speaker 03 There might be one or, yeah.
2:14:05 Speaker 04 They have a ton of options.
2:14:06 Speaker 02 Make it easier to buy you guys, or for the enemy to buy you guys?
2:14:09 Speaker 03 A hundred percent makes it. That's one of the biggest vulnerabilities of a CIA officer. This, the mole that we hunted, or the mole that was hunting us in this book, was one of those CIA officers who was a very successful, high-ranking, multi-tour officer who had no money.
2:14:24 Speaker 04 I mean, Robert Hanson, like infamously.
2:14:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, Aldrich Ames.
2:14:27 Speaker 04 But he's in life in prison for like, it was like five mil or six mil or something like that.
2:14:32 Speaker 03 It's kind of crazy.
2:14:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, that's a hundred times what I'm making or whatever, I'll do it.
2:14:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:14:37 Speaker 02 Yeah. Um, okay.
2:14:39 Mark Gagnon? One second, do you don't think the book maybe discourages future aspiring CIA agents from joining?
2:14:46 Speaker 03 I think this book is going to encourage future CIA agents, because if you are a good fit for the CIA, you're going to understand why they did what they did. If you're a bad fit to work for CIA, you're going to look at this and be outraged in some way, shape or form. CIA already is, they're, they're going to filter out the people who understand that mission comes first. And all this book is, is an example of mission comes first.
2:15:08 Mark Gagnon? Okay.
2:15:08 Speaker 03 When mission didn't come first, we resigned and we left, because we wanted to be parents first, and we wanted to be a married couple first, and we wanted to start a business.
2:15:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I don't think anybody who wants to be in CIA would be like, oh, their life is in danger, I'm not in anymore. I think they know your life is in danger.
2:15:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
2:15:25 Speaker 02 So, you know what I mean?
2:15:26 Speaker 03 To answer, to get back to Mark's question just real quick, you'll find that there's a lot of federal workers in general who stay in less than ten years, or go all the way to retirement, which is over twenty years. Because up until that ten-year point, you haven't invested half of your time into one career. So you can try it on for three or four years, does it work, do you like it? You're still young enough to change everything, you're still young, you probably not married, you probably don't have kids, probably don't even have a house. At less than ten years, it's easy to reset your life.
2:15:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:15:57 Speaker 03 But at twelve years, well shit, I might as well just. Stick out another eight and get the pension. And then at 20 years, they offer you some sweet deal to keep you in for another two or three years. And you're like, I'll just three more years.
2:16:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:16:10 Speaker 03 Right. I have one of my favorite people in the world, and if he's watching, you're one of my favorite people in the world, is my cousin in law. He's the man who married my cousin. He was a naval academy graduate. He was a competitive cyclist. He was always super fit, like super focused, super hardworking, super successful guy. But he became an officer in the Navy and they assigned him to submarines. And now he's 19 years almost at retirement, and he carries way too much weight. His weight is such a problem. It's a, it's a health issue. It's a health issue.
2:16:46 Speaker 02 I get it.
2:16:47 Speaker 03 It's an erectile issue.
2:16:49 Speaker 02 No, no. You're one of the few things I got going for me.
2:16:52 Speaker 04 You'd be great for a submarine, dude. That'd be fucking awesome.
2:16:55 Speaker 02 Got a hard dick that no one wants to fuck.
2:16:59 Speaker 04 You'd help sink the submarine.
2:17:00 Speaker 02 Hard dick, I can't see anymore.
2:17:03 Mark Gagnon? Is it hard for you to leave with your, what's it called?
2:17:09 Speaker 02 Wife, Alex, wife. I know you don't know a lot about those.
2:17:13 Mark Gagnon? Like clearances. Wasn't Trump trying to do away with that? So?
2:17:16 Speaker 03 So I left before Trump took office. And you're correct. And I agree with Donald Trump in this as well. When I left CIA in 2014, I kept my TSSCI, my top secret special compartment information. I kept my TSSCI for another two years. Because policy was that your security clearance times out. So after two years, it drops by half. So after the third year, it drops all the way. So I was a top secret clearance for two years, even though I wasn't in government. And then I was still a secret clearance for another year after that, with no reason to have a secret clearance. There is no reason for that. That's not helping national security to let people have that level of clearance.
2:17:57 Speaker 03 I could have left CIA on Monday and been hired into Northrop Grumman on Wednesday and assigned to a super sensitive case with NASA on Thursday because of my clearance carrying over. Maybe that doesn't sound crazy. A year and a half after I left CIA, I could have been hired by Northrop Grumman and walked into a NASA operation where I immediately had CSSCI clearance. What was I doing in that year and a half? Who was I talking to? What friends was I making? Right? It's a massive security issue. So Donald Trump, when he came into office, he was like, "We're getting rid of these carryover clearances. If you're not actively in national security, your clearance is gone."
2:18:34 Speaker 04 Which CIA probably hated that, or at least the officers there, because they're like, "I'm able to make a crazy bag when I leave because I'm able to use my clearance to get a private security contract or an arms contract somewhere else."
2:18:45 Speaker 03 Correct. And that's a big part of our retirement plan. When you are a FBI officer, a CIA officer, an NSA officer, you understand that most likely, like, there's a pyramid of growth. You are most likely going to end up somewhere in the bottom of the top third, because that's where there's the most space, and you're going to make $120,000 a year, $140,000 a year, to live in Washington DC, one of the most-
2:19:07 Speaker 04 Plus a pension.
2:19:09 Speaker 03 One of the most expensive whatever zip codes in the region. When you retire, you're only going to take 60% of what you're earning. You don't retire at your actual salary. So then, how do you maintain your lifestyle? And how do you pay for the kids that are in college? And how do you pay for your health issues that you guaranteed you have because you fucked up your body in service? They're like, "I'm going to go work for Khaki. I'm going to go work for ManTech and make $260,000 a year, easy duty, and all I'm doing is connecting dots and making sure that ManTech gets the most current tech contract in CIA and Khaki gets the most recent satellite contract." Like, that's their job. And that's a fucked up job.
2:19:49 Mark Gagnon? Right now, can you go back to being an agent or continue being an agent?
2:19:55 Speaker 03 Technically, yes, I could go back to being an officer. We call ourselves officers at CIA. So we could go back to being an officer. It would take some, it'd take a polygraph, it would take a security check, it would take some, an invitation of some sort. So it could happen. It most likely will not happen because CIA really doesn't want officers to have this kind of public footprint. That's what they, they really don't know how to handle an officer with this kind of public footprint.
2:20:19 Speaker 04 Hmm.
2:20:20 Speaker 02 Throwing us off the scent, then. Okay, you ready? Yes or no questions?
2:20:26 Speaker 03 This is lightning round?
2:20:27 Speaker 02 Lightning round.
2:20:27 Speaker 03 Okay.
2:20:27 Speaker 02 Is Diddy a Fed?
2:20:29 Speaker 03 No.
2:20:30 Speaker 02 Do aliens exist?
2:20:31 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:20:32 Speaker 02 Is US still the number one superpower?
2:20:34 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:20:35 Speaker 02 Is democracy at risk?
2:20:36 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:20:37 Speaker 02 Is Trump on the Epstein list?
2:20:39 Speaker 03 Ooh. Yes.
2:20:42 Speaker 02 For fucking kids?
2:20:44 Speaker 03 I don't know, but he's gotta be on the list somewhere.
2:20:46 Speaker 02 Oh, you scratch his nose. I don't, I don't know.
2:20:49 Speaker 03 Right nostril, right nostril.
2:20:50 Speaker 02 If you had to guess.
2:20:52 Speaker 03 If I had to guess, I would say no, he's not gonna be on there for kids.
2:20:55 Speaker 02 Well, that clip won't go viral.
2:20:59 Speaker 02 Are there Russian assets in the US government?
2:21:02 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:21:03 Speaker 02 Is there any truth?
2:21:04 Speaker 03 Is that actually a hard question? Do people think there might not be?
2:21:07 Speaker 02 In the government?
2:21:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, I would hope to not.
2:21:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, fuck that, guys. So here's a rule of thumb. Here's the rule of thumb from CIA. Here's the rule of thumb from CIA. Every government agency is penetrated by five foreign spies.
2:21:21 Speaker 02 Damn.
2:21:21 Speaker 03 Rule of thumb. So don't ever trust that any of them are safe.
2:21:25 Speaker 02 Wow.
2:21:25 Speaker 03 Assume that every single one of them has been penetrated by at least five. And then hunt for those five, and you may find the 10 or 15 others that you never thought of. But that's what motivates us to keep the hunt going. That's why we, every organization has an internal counterintelligence group that hunts spies in its own organization, because they're there. And they're, if they're professional, you'll never know they're there unless you actively try to hunt them down.
2:21:51 Speaker 02 AOC.
2:21:53 Speaker 04 You just heard penetrated by five.
2:21:58 Speaker 04 Like a Bonnie Blue video. You're like, oh, that sounds awesome. Oh, that sounds so cool.
2:22:05 Speaker 02 Andy Bustamante, thank you so much. That's awesome. Thank you, man.
2:22:09 Speaker 03 Thanks for having us, guys.
2:22:11 Speaker 04 Thank you so much, brother.
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