BREAKING: The U.S. Cuts Intel Sharing w/ Ukraine | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Marc Polymer returns today with Jack Murphy to talk about the US cutting intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians and what the fallout could be with all the CIA Officers being let go. New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Marc Polymer ⬇️ https://x.com/mpolymer?lang=en https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4hfd6gooiddj6aelubt7jlrz Jack Murphy:⬇️ https://x.com/JackMurphyRGR?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor We Defy https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N The High Side https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Andy Milburn here: ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 https://amilburn.substack.com/ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social https://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=ios Find Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.soci Music by - Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:59Jack Murphy?

  It's interesting, there's a, there is a smaller parallel. I mean, what's going on now is unprecedented, I think, but a smaller parallel would be during the Nixon administration. Nixon saw the CIA as part of the deep state. Like, they're against me. And he made a bunch of cuts to CIA that actually came into effect during the Carter administration.

• 1:23Jack Murphy?

  And my, my point there is that there's like this sort of like story, there's some mystique around it even, about all these laid-off CIA officers who went into the private sector. And from there, it was like the Wild West for these, for these guys. And it's going to be interesting to see where this generation of, you know, disenfranchised intelligence officers end up. I mean, some of them will end up working for the Europeans, the Australians, you know, things like that. Some of them might just go over to the other side. I mean...

• 2:08Speaker 04

  What's up everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On. Today's a special and we got Jack Murphy and Mark Palomaropoulos. A lot going on, more fallout from the chaotic meeting in the Oval Office last week. We just found out, literally just now before we got on, that the US has paused or suspended intel sharing with Ukraine, as well as the military aid from the other day. So, what's up guys? Mark, how are you? What are your thoughts?

• 2:38Speaker 05

  Okay, before, you know, well, first of all, it's always dangerous for the Team House and for Eyes On to have Jack and I on together. Because this can now spiral into not only kind of gloom and doom, but also some rage. No, this is great. I'm always happy to be back. But I want to say thank you, you guys. I received a package in the mail yesterday and my wife is like, what is this? Like a fucking car bomb, letter bomb? No, it was two t-shirts, appropriately double extra large because I'm fat from the Team House. So, thank you, guys. I will wear them proudly. I am honored. Love it. Great, great. I mean, who doesn't love like, you know, bling?

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Swag.

• 3:18Speaker 05

  Swag, swag. So, thank you. Thank you both very much.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  Our pleasure. Good show. That was great. Just a little quick merch plug. I loved it.

• 3:29Speaker 04

  So, yeah, back to reality, unfortunately. Um, yeah, this morning, I guess it just popped off that the US has cut the cut the flow of intel into Ukraine, which is insane to me. I feel like the next, the next step is Starlink, probably.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. And so, but one key thing on this, just for the, kind of the, this will probably come out in a couple hours or maybe tomorrow, but just, you know, the, that story is confirmed. I'm hearing from all my contacts, but then the government and, and on the Ukrainian side that the intel has been, has been stopped. There's some confusion, not confusion, there's some discrepancy on whether it was targets inside Russia or cutting off the intel targets against Russian forces inside Ukraine. But the bottom line is, I think that, that is confirmed. And John Ratcliffe, the CIA Director, just went on Fox just this morning and said the same. So this is, you know, I think this is something that I was dreading happening after the cessation

• 4:29Speaker 05

  of military aid, but it really does kind of put this in perspective and Jack will understand because it's not just on the Ukrainian battlefield that Jack, you might be able to address this in a much more professional manner than I would based on your background, but, but overall, I mean, our durability and credibility as an intelligence partner globally, I think is going to take a hit. So, you know, again, there's, there's never a bottom and I think we're, we're still plummeting downward. But Jack, welcome your thoughts on, on the military effects of this.

• 5:01Jack Murphy?

  Well, I mean, it's gonna put, definitely put Ukraine on their back foot. And I, I don't, I'm like you, I mean, I'm trying to understand or like search for some sort of like logic or sense behind some of these decisions, but can't find them. Um, you know, Russia is, has been put up basically on the ropes. Their economy is cratering. It's, it's a position that we've never really had the upper hand on them like this before. And I don't know why we would sacrifice that advantage in this era of, you know, pure, near peer competition, or whatever

• 5:40Jack Murphy?

  the hell we want to call it, new cold war. Um, so yeah, it's a, it's a mess, obviously for Ukraine. But as you point out, Mark, it signals to the entire rest of the world that we're not reliable, that you can't work with us. And, you know, there's some thought that the reason why we fought so hard in Vietnam, sort of a, a somewhat obscure country in Southeast Asia at the time that not many Americans had ever heard of, the reason why we fought there so hard was because we were trying to prove to Europe specifically, that we were willing to stand up to communism. And right now, what we're doing in Ukraine, doing this like heel turn on them, it signals

• 6:24Jack Murphy?

  something to Taiwan, it signals something to our partners in Europe and also our partners closer to home, such as Canada, that just got slapped with a 25% tariff just yesterday.

• 6:39Speaker 05

  I think one of the things is that, you know, the little I'm gonna say, you know, I wake, I get up early. I got up at five in the morning. Often I have to do TV at that time, too. So I'll kind of roll into my computer and I'll do a hit on MSNBC. But, um, you know, every morning, there's three or four different stories which are kind of head spinning. Um, uh, and then that that only is is based on that day because the because just 24 hours earlier, there were three or four stories that also were head spinning. So it's, you know, the news cycle is such that there are really significant ramifications for these national national security for these moves by the administration. But I don't even know if we have a time to even kind of do a deep dive or dissect because it's just eclipsed by something else.

• 7:22Speaker 05

  The cessation of military now, this is a cessation of intelligence sharing.

• 7:26Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's it's intentional.

• 7:28Speaker 05

  You know, it's it's but ah, you're right. It's intentional. I mean, isn't that the what Steve Bannon talked about? What was it?

• 7:33Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  Zone? Yeah.

• 7:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. It's also following the playbook of that weirdo Curtis Yarvin, uh, who came up with his whole plan to like break the government and they're pretty much following it.

• 7:46Speaker 05

  Right.

• 7:47Jack Murphy?

  They're following the game plan. I I saw today, uh, one another one of those head spinning stories, uh, Veterans Affairs intends to lay off 89,000 employees this year. Um, which is pretty wild. Um, VA is a big organization. Um, it's funded almost or has been funded. We'll see how how long that holds out uh, to the tune of almost $300 billion a year. And and you know, there are a lot of complaints about VA, um, but that organization has also come quite a long way in the last 20 years. Um, thanks, you know, a lot of it, thanks to public and congressional pressure, uh, that people are like, fix this. Like, because they feel that veterans deserve better care.

• 8:32Jack Murphy?

  Uh, you know, especially all the things that were, you know, people were hearing about the GWOT veterans, 22 a day and all this sort of stuff um, did have an impact. And I'm, I have a number of friends who are veterans who work at VA uh, in different capacities and different parts of the country. And um, they're already impacted by this. Um, when I I was telling you earlier, Mark, I mean, it's a little hard for me to grasp or understand, like, if you go and log on to Facebook right now. All I see is retirees, military retirees, just cheering this on.

• 9:11Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:12Jack Murphy?

  Um, and they will tell you with a straight face, all these were all D E I hires. They were all woke. We're cutting the fat. We're getting rid of unnecessary spending. Hey, don't worry. This isn't going to affect anything as far as veterans care. It's like, whoo, where, where are we going here? Um, I'm all about trimming some fat, but yeah, if, if you're like, if you're like firing the McKinsey consultants or something, sure. But they're firing like the therapists and.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Right. This is madness. I mean, again, it's, I think it's part of the disinformation bubble. I'm sorry. This is the, the bullshit on Fox News. I mean, I have friends who work there, but. You know, it's, it's, you know, if you turn on Fox News, you, you don't hear about any of the pain. Um, you know, this administration, you know, you know, says it supports veterans, yet it's crushing them right now with these cuts. This administration says it, you know, if, if, you know, there was a touching moment last night on the, uh, uh, the president's address to Congress. Um, about a young cancer patient, um, that, you know, kind of got a lot of attention, except they're cutting funding for cancer research. And so.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  Pediatric cancer research.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  Pediatric cancer.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 05

  There's the, the actual truth of what is going on, which is gutting the federal government without any kind of, uh, uh, uh, plan. Look, I think all of us here on the show would say, sure, there's a ton of waste in the federal government, but it has to be, you know, done in a, in a, in a, in a smart systematic fashion. Um.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  And then passed by Congress, which they're not even doing it because they just passed a budget in the house that raises the deficit by $400 billion this year.

• 10:45Speaker 05

  So, so it's, you know, none of this is all, I mean, just as someone, you know, uh, you know, like, okay, I'm from New Jersey. So deal, you know, you guys, you Brooklyn and Queens folks will make fun of me, but you know. I wasn't born, uh, you know, yesterday. I have kind of a brain in my head. And so it just, it, none of this makes sense. I mean, you know, it's just, it's, it's, it's the, it's the bullshit PR versus actually what's happening on the ground. At some point, perhaps it'll catch up to them. Jack, you're right. It's the former intelligence community, a lot of folks too.

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• 12:11Speaker 07

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• 12:55Speaker 07

  going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

• 12:59Speaker 05

  On LinkedIn, which I actually got off because I couldn't take it, who cheerlead, or cheerleading all this stuff. And now I'm gonna get the audience all pissed off. It's a bunch of old white dudes. It just is. Um, it's old cranky white guys who are really angry for some reason about the state of uh, the country or cheering this on, but I think there's, there's tangible effects. Let me throw one of the kind of thing out there. I got it. I got an email. Uh, a signal message. Let me be very, uh, clear on that. Um, uh, from a case officer, CI case officer who on Monday was fired. A probationary officer. They're starting to fire probationary officers, but they're doing it based on, uh, anyone who had any kind of blip in their file, a security violation. Uh, some kind of bad performance appraisal. Um.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  Every single one of us in the IC would have been fired then. I had security violation. We, you screw up every once in a while. You leave the, you leave the station one time. You don't spin the lock on your, the safe in your office. You get a violation. It's, it's, it's not ever a career ending. It's just saying like, hey, tighten your shit up. They're fired now. Um, uh, and this case officer was absolutely stunned. Someone had gone through language training, spoke fluent Russian. Uh, uh, served, uh, uh, over there, um, in, in that part of the world, uh, and was less than two years into, into their, uh, their probationary, uh, uh, status. And now they're, they've been walked out the door. Um, again, but it, these kinds of cuts make no sense.

• 14:22Speaker 05

  Um, and I think that, uh, uh, you know, the, the only question is, will the American people have looked at every kind of step up and understand what's happening. Um.

• 14:31Jack Murphy?

  Mark, uh, I, I'd love to ask you if there's a bit of an insider's view you can share with what's going on with Ratcliffe and CIA. That's one of the appointees, like at least I haven't seen in the news too much, or I haven't heard from people I know so much yet. Like what's going on behind closed doors? Like I, cause I remember during the first Trump administration, there's a lot of, um, concern about Pompeo. Um, but I talked to people who said he was okay. He wasn't bad at, as DCI.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  I'm one of those people you talk to. I mean, uh, now it's a, that's a radically different administration because there were adults in the room. You had, uh, you know, Jim Mattis, you had uh, various national security advisors, but ultimately, uh, H R McMaster and John Bolton. Um, uh, you had people who would stand up to Trump for kind of his crazy ideas, including Pompeo. Um, Pompeo, who clearly was partisan, nonetheless, let the director of operations do its job. And so, uh, uh, I, I think you're right. Um, uh, and, and he was, he was visible, you know, he, I mean, he actually, you know, went to work and you, and you saw him. And I remember in, in, you know, even in briefings with him, when we asked for something like concurrence to do something, he'd be like, why are you asking me this? Go do it. And that's kind of music to our ears from the operations side.

• 15:48Speaker 05

  Um, uh, I think this is a different time though, because there are no adults around, uh, uh, Trump. And so, um, you know, I, the, the, the, the, the best, the best characterization of what I think those in the Pentagon and the intelligence community are feeling now is disoriented. Um, uh, and that's just, you know, it's just, there's so much coming at us. Um, and it's both based on policy, such as the abandonment of Ukraine, but also that your job security, people don't know if they're going to have a job. I just got a message from a friend of mine from the I C. Hey, I'm going to work. I'll text you later if I have a job when I get back. There is, you know, fear is the wrong word because fear is something you use when you're in Afghanistan or Iraq and getting shot at. Um, but I think, you know,

• 16:34Speaker 05

  you know, significant concern, uh, is probably better because you don't know if you're going to have, you can pay your bills. You know, people have mortgages, people have healthcare. I mean, this officer who just got fired doesn't have healthcare right now. Um, and so people are extremely nervous because it's both, you know, trimming the fat, if you want to call that. Uh, you know, with reductions in force at the top, um, or this idea of getting rid of kind of the lower level employees, uh, a- as well. And so, so I think the people in the IC are just disoriented right now and, and it's what the, Jack, the thing is that of course, nobody, I mean, I hope some of your viewers, listeners will, will understand, there is no deep state, there's no cabal of people stopping, you know, Trump from

• 17:17Speaker 05

  anything he wants to do, people put their heads down and they just do their job. I mean, Pierre, I literally had no idea what anyone's political orientation was in my old shop until after I left. I retired and then I see someone and they turn out to be from the left or the right just because they're Americans and they can say that. But I think now there's just, there again, there's, there's significant worry about the US role in the world now, since we've switched sides to our enemy. Remember, Russia is an enemy of not only the United States, of the CIA. That is one of our absolute, it's not, it's not just a competitor, not even adversary, it's an enemy. I mean, Russia put bounties on US soldiers with the Taliban. They've, you know,

• 17:56Speaker 05

  they've, they've done a tremendous, you know, harm to colleagues of mine. So again, combination of we've, we've, you know, flipped sides, but also, you know, do I have a job tomorrow? That's not a good mix, by the way, if you're, if you want, you know, what I think is, you know, you want our nation's first line of defense to be kind of at the top of their game.

• 18:18Jack Murphy?

  Specifically about Ratcliffe, what, what are you hearing about him behind the scenes?

• 18:23Speaker 05

  I got it. I mean, I gotta be careful on this. Exactly. I mean, you know, I think that, that, you know, you know, what you'd want to see someone, how do I say this in a, in a, in a more positive light? I think the, the director and deputy director have to be more visible to the workforce at a time of upheaval, which means doing things like Leon Panetta used to do, George Tenet used to do, literally go down to the cafeteria and sit neck, sit down with a unsuspecting case officer analyst and have lunch with them, which happened to me. It's, you know, and that's, that's really, and I think that was even a scene in Zero Dark Thirty, with the character Panetta, that stuff used to happen. So, so the director, deputy director

• 19:04Speaker 05

  have to be visible, especially at times of, of turmoil. So if I would have any one suggestion, I think they should be more attuned to, to upheaval in the workforce.

• 19:15Speaker 05

  That was pretty professional, Mark. You held it together.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  What are your thoughts on the Director of National Intelligence going on news and I basically parroting kind of Russian talking points and stuff like that?

• 19:32Speaker 05

  Well, Dee, I expect you to be up at 5 a.m. for my MSNBC hits. So if you were to have been up yesterday, you would have seen I, because this is the only thing I addressed from 5 until 5:15. And then I actually had forgotten it because it was so early and I was so tired. But, but look, this is totally not with what someone who is role as an intelligence chief should do. So, so basically President Zelensky gets dressed down by Trump in the White House, in the Oval Office. And what happens usually is the rest of the government then, who has contacts with the Ukrainians will be like, hey, that's in the political sphere, like, things are going to be okay. That's not what happened because Tulsi Gabbard then went on Twitter and basically was cheerleading and dissing all over Zelensky.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  That is absolutely against what any kind of professional intelligence chief would do. It's not their role. What should have happened after that is that, that the CIA and the Ukrainian side would get together and say, look, our political masters are having a big shitstorm, but we're going to kind of, we're going to, we're going to work through this. That's just what's done. It, it happened to me when I was at the agency when, you know, and Trump won, when, when, you know, Trump would insult Angela Merkel, the, you know, the, the German Chancellor in a Twitter rant. And then I'd have to go, you know, mend ties here in Washington with the German intelligence chief. And so, no, that's just what is

• 20:59Speaker 05

  done. If you think back to the first Gulf War, I know I'm going to, I'm dating people here, but this is when, when King, who then King Hussein sided essentially with Saddam Hussein in the invasion of Kuwait, if you remember that. So the Jordanians were quote, neutral. But the CIA and the Jordanian General Intelligence Director, GID, kept the ties open. And King Abdullah, the current king now, credits that for the current state of US Jordanian ties. He said, hey, I remember that you all CIA, you know, stuck with us under the table. Now, this is done on purpose, of course, by design, because you work through those political differences. Tulsi Gabbard going on Twitter and cheerleading for, you know, Trump's kind of, you know, evisceration

• 21:40Speaker 05

  of Zelensky absolutely throws that into question. And I can't imagine the migraine headache my old colleagues and the operations director had realizing they'd have to know, try to figure out how to unscrew this with the Ukrainian colleagues. And then, of course, that falls, or that now we see today, a suspension in intelligence sharing. And so, you know, Gabbard is, as I said on TV, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna try to downplay it here. She was not fit for the job. And she's acting like a political toady to Trump. And that's just not what her role is. And that is, that actually feeds into all the worries we had about her as the DNI,

• 22:21Speaker 05

  just a, an awful moment. And, and this, this is just not me talking. This was kind of the, you know, my colleagues, my, the, the formers, even across the political spectrum, I had Republican friends who were like, yeah, she really shouldn't have done that. You know, what is she doing here?

• 22:36Jack Murphy?

  Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com/the Team House. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of The Team House ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast Eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, McMurroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has

• 23:16Jack Murphy?

  helped this company, this small business survive, especially during our early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going, even as we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page. And there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop. So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers, and we also have patches. And I should mention, if you sign up for Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail you this patch as well.

• 23:53Jack Murphy?

  So we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch shop. And additionally, they got T-shirts up there, water bottles, a tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff. So please go and check them out and support the show. We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Yeah, it's an interesting time and it's challenging to talk to friends, colleagues, etc. In many cases, I mean, something is happening within the United States government and to the United States government right now that I don't think most Americans have like, it hasn't sunk in yet. They aren't really clear

• 24:34Jack Murphy?

  about what's going on or what's being done, or how this fundamentally takes America in a different direction. And maybe it's not the one they think.

• 24:42Speaker 05

  So Jack, that's a, that's a really good point. So that, you know, there's, there's the kind of the day to day, you know, outrage or concern over, over what's happening. But then there's the bigger picture, you know, in the sense of, you know, who are we now? This, you know, and, you know, this, this kind of war on the, on government. There's always going to be a debate on how much kind of government intrusion in our lives is necessary. But I think we could also say that, you know what, it's a good thing to have weather forecasters, you know, on the government payroll. They were fired the other day. You know, I mean, it's, it's a good thing to have people fighting wildfires out West. They were fired the other day. And the same thing with, with, you know, you know, workers at the, at the VA, including many veterans.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  And so I don't know if the American people have woken up to the fact that this is a complete dismantlement of, of the federal government and people hate government until they need government.

• 25:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 05

  And, and so to me, I mean, again, there's, you know, this is, you know, go back to, to, you know, your old kind of theories of, of, of politics. I mean, I don't know, are we going to turn into, you know, Anne Rann? I gotta go back and read, read Anne Rann, the whole idea of total libertarianism. There's no government at all. Is that really what we want? Because that, you know what, no one's picking up your garbage. No one's fighting your fires in your house. There's going to be a tornado. It's going to demolish your house. No one kind of warned you about it. So there's, there's parts of this that I just kind of, I, I think are, and, and the last part of it, let me just say is, as a former government employee, you worked for 26 years. You know, at some point, you know, I'm starting to get irritated. You know, I don't need a pat in the head.

• 26:18Speaker 05

  Um, I worked the CIA. No one ever knew what we did, but this hatred on the federal workforce um uh is uh is is getting a little is wearing a little thin.

• 26:27Jack Murphy?

  It's, I mean, what do you attribute that to? I mean, we you touched on it a little bit about some of the anger. Like, there's something, not to, like, wax poetic or play Sigmund Freud a little, maybe a little bit too much, but, I mean, there seems to be this, like, total disenfranchisement with the very idea of governance, that that government can come in and through policies and reforms, they can improve conditions for people. It seems like there's just no belief in that at all anymore um across the spectrum. And and just the the other thing I would point out is that a lot of people are treating politics as entertainment.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:05Jack Murphy?

  And I can't really totally blame them either, because our politicians and our media have both packaged and branded politics as entertainment to them for decades.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:16Jack Murphy?

  And I think that has uh led us to maybe where we are today. But, I mean, what are your thoughts about? You know, why, I mean, this is clearly, there there is clearly some support, public support for this at the moment. There may not be in another year or two.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:31Jack Murphy?

  Where where do you think some of those things come from or that difference in perspective?

• 27:36Speaker 05

  So I think, you know, so let me, let me answer this. You know, I was in New York City after nine eleven and I saw how the New Yorkers came together. Um, which was remarkable. I mean, I'll never forget, you know, I lived up on Eightieth and York. Thank uh uh uh nice Upper East Side uh uh living there. Um, and I remember there was a pizza guy uh on Second Avenue in the eighties somewhere. He was Egyptian, and I was worried about him. Um, and he hung American flag outside his his pizza joint, and he was embraced by the community. Really impressive. I remember President Bush saying that, hey, there cannot be kind of any, there cannot be anti-Muslim sentiment based on this, you know. This is not, this is not, we're not, we're not going to war with Islam, we're going to war with Al Qaeda. But there was a feeling of kind of collective goodwill.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  And then I, then I, and so then, then compare that to then, you know, what happened to COVID, a million Americans died. In COVID. And there was a point in time where there was a feeling of, of unity amongst the country, but that then all fell apart. And why is it, I'm trying to answer your question, because government, I think, took measures. Um, which I think were understandable at the time in terms of mask mandates and quarantines and shutting down basically the entire country. Because they were scared and people didn't know what to do. I mean, my, my stepbrother's an ER doc in New York. Uh, he had dead bodies piling up. I mean, the, the doctors have still have PTS from this. He said they had no idea what they were doing. They would treat a patient, they're coming in, they looked okay, they'd send them home, they're dead.

• 29:01Speaker 05

  Uh, there was bodies, one of my, one of my, uh, stepbrothers fellow doctors committed suicide. After this, because they had such trauma for, I mean, literally hundreds of people dying on shift.

• 29:12Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, my, my mom worked in a hospital and they had like the refrigeration truck out back. It's, yeah, it's bad.

• 29:18Speaker 05

  Stunning. Um, and so, but, but then the government reaction to this, uh, uh, which I think was very understandable at the time is, you know, uh, and, and they got some things wrong, but you know. You know, whether it's shutting down schools, uh, which was very harmful to kids, but mask mandates, which I thought were fine, but people kind of freaked out about. Um, uh, uh, and, and I think that is where you see this hostility to government now, because there is a, a large percentage of our population thinks there was huge government overreach on there. So I was thinking about that the other days, you know, why this hatred of the government, but I think it was, people saw that as an infringement on their rights. Um, and that's the only way you can explain how this fucking nut job is now our HHS secretary.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  Uh, in terms of RFK Junior. I mean, the man is certifiably insane if you talk to any medical professional. Um, yet he's lauded last night in the State of the Union as well. Well, why is that? Because he, again, is part of this. Kind of, uh, uh, you know, anti-government sentiment.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  I don't know. So I think, I think it goes back to, to a reaction to, um, you know, government measures, uh, during COVID. COVID, uh, uh, perhaps it's more deep seated than that, but um, to me that was, uh, and, and by the way, that is not, that's across the political spectrum too. I mean, uh, this is a silly statement, what I'm going to make is, you know, my son's a big baseball player. He's played baseball in college now, but his high school season, but you know, was canceled because of COVID. This was a season in which they thought they'd win the state championship and most of the people I live in Northern Virginia certainly are not Trump voters and they're still furious about this, you know, why did they cancel school? Uh, uh, uh, and, and you know, and so, uh, maybe it's, maybe it's just the reaction overall to, to COVID.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Hmm. I mean, that's, that's definitely interesting. I hadn't really thought about that, but I'm sure you're right. That, that did pull the country apart in more ways than one.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know, like I, I mean, I'm, I'm like, I, it's, there's something, something off with me now. Well, there's probably a lot off with me now, but uh, every time I go on a goddamn plane, I get sick. I get the flu. I don't get COVID. I've had COVID a million times, but so like the other, I was on a flight the other day and I wore a mask. I, I might as well have had a giant dick growing out of my head. Like I was like, like people were staring me like I was a pariah. And, and I was like, you know, hey, hey man, like I'm not getting the flu again. I've got to go on this, you know, I gotta go on this, uh, this airline flight, but you know, the, the, wearing a ma, I mean, there are measures in certain states banning the wearing of masks right now. That's the, that's the reaction to, to COVID. And so, um, yeah, maybe that's.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  I mean, it's interesting that they want to ban masks and like, want to talk about like, you know, your body, your choice and like, you could do whatever you want to do. But if I want to wear a mask. That's not right. Wear a mask. That's what I'm saying. Like if you don't want to wear a mask, that's fine too. Like, why are you getting so triggered over the fact that somebody wants to wear a mask in an airplane? With like three, oh, you know, 200 other people.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  All right. I have a great, I have a great, uh, little plug for a show that, that, that hopefully the listeners will like, there's a, there's a show on Max now called The Pit. Have you guys seen it? It's about an ER emergency room in Pittsburgh.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  I saw like clips from it.

• 32:15Speaker 05

  Phenomenal. It's an incredible show. Again, my brother who's an ER doc in, in New York's, uh, uh, said it's a hundred percent realistic. But there's a great scene in there in which there's someone who's against masks comes in. And in the ER and she's screaming at other people for wearing masks and then she's about to roll into. Surgery and the doctor says, ma'am, I just wanted to clarify something with you. Um, you know, is it okay if the doctors here wear masks as we're performing surgery on you? And she said, well, I don't know, you know, why? He said, well, you know, if we don't, you know, you can get infected and you might die. But if you tell us you don't want us to wear a mask, we're happy not to. And she looks at him and she says, wear a mask. There you go.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Um, all right. Swing it back to Ukraine and stuff like that. Um, can I ask a question? Can Europe fill the void?

• 33:06Speaker 05

  Oh, great question. I saw, so you know, I'm a member of about forty five different signal chats on this uh, on Ukraine. So I gotta, I gotta roll through them every morning. But, you know, the majority of people I talk to, and again, as a former intel officer, I'm not a former, you know, uh, professional military officer or strategist. But I think there's a lot to be said that, that first of all, Ukraine can hang on. And just remember, we have written Ukraine in this death, you know, obituary death notice so many times. And so just keep in mind that, and Jack will get this, you know, there's, there's a couple of things in war that I think are relevant. One is, of course, material resources, but also it's the will to fight. And the Ukrainians have that. And that's kind of that intangible. But if you look at the battlefield,

• 33:50Speaker 05

  um, uh, you know, so much now is less dependent on kind of the, the, I think that the way we thought of things before with, um, you know, with maybe with armor, with tanks or even uh, things like that. And now it's, now it's all these kind of uh, not only drones, but indigenously produced drones. The Ukrainians have an incredible capacity um, uh, for these FPVs, uh, these FPV drones. And so ultimately, I think, um, they're going to be able to hold on. To me, I think the big thing would be air defense. Um, uh, you know, and getting the Europeans to kind of step up on that. But, um, again, we've written Ukrainians, you know, obituary many times. And so, uh, at some point, I think, and this is

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• 36:16Speaker 07

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• 36:21Speaker 05

  It's not a bad strategy. Europe should say, "Well, fuck it. The United States has switched sides. Goodbye. You're not relevant anymore." And I can't believe I'm even saying that. But I think there's something to that, and that's if the Europeans can get their crap together and lead. And there are a lot of signs that they will, in terms of leadership from Germany, from France, from the UK. And then don't forget the smaller frontline states who are just savages. Go talk to the Estonians or the Poles about what they want to do and how they want to kill Russians, and it's fun.

• 36:49Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, and we've resisted the idea of not Europe being unified economically, but being unified militarily is something that we've discouraged because Germany will ultimately become the leader of that army. And there are some historical things there that we don't want to repeat.

• 37:12Jack Murphy?

  But there's also the larger question also of Five Eyes and how that relationship is going to work because we're talking right now about the Europeans filling the void that we leave in Ukraine. But if we really are completely out, I mean, how does that affect the Five Eyes relationship and our European partners' ability to collect intelligence?

• 37:34Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. And so, so just for kind of the background for your listeners, the Five Eyes is this incredible, you know, decades-long partnership between the US, England, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. And it is an intelligence-sharing relationship in which we share things such as human intelligence, that's, you know, you know, reporting from our spies on the ground, and then signals intelligence, that's the communications intercepts. And, and I think that on the signals intelligence side, there's been a lot written on this, there's, there is interoperability in the sense of like the US and the UK share systems. It's very hard to break that. I don't know how you, you know, how that gets broken apart

• 38:15Speaker 05

  because the NSA, National Security Agency, that's our outfit, and the GCHQ, that's the British one, are in essence one. And so, breaking that is going to be difficult, where I think, I think it's already happening for sure, because I talk to my especially old friends in the British security establishment, you know, funny, if I get them, you know, drunk a little bit, they'll admit this to me. On human intelligence, that's a choice. And so, when British version of Russia House, and I know you've had former Russia House folks on the Team House, so when the British version of Russia House collects something based on their penetration of a member of Putin's inner circle, they have a choice. And in the past, they would share that with the United States, they would sanitize it, probably

• 38:56Speaker 05

  not tell us the identity of the source, but they would sanitize it to a degree, but still provide critical information. You have to remember for an intelligence service, they have a sacred duty to their agents, to their, to the, to the sources, to keep them alive. And so I don't think anyone in their right mind in the British Security Service right now, it's gonna say, hey, we, we can share this stuff with the Americans like we used to. And what you'll see is, there won't be a stated policy of it, because that would risk the wrath of Trump, but they will just slowly, ratchet this back. And I've talked to numerous British officials on this. And they say, that's exactly what is, is happening. You just will never know until you wake up one morning and you're like, you know, we don't get the same kind of stuff from our counterparts. And I'll tell you, no CIA officer would say that they don't understand

• 39:40Speaker 05

  what the British are doing. Because again, you have a sacred duty to your asset, to your agent, to keep them alive. And the US cannot be trusted now, not only with, you know, you know, dopes in charge, sorry, of the US intelligence apparatus, but also the notion that we have, in essence, switched sides to Russia. You know, the, the one thing, Jack, that I want to throw out to you, this will be a fun exercise. Because if we had this discussion three months ago, so many of the things that we would be saying, we would have said, well, we'll never do that. We'll never fire officers of the CIA. We'll never withhold, you know, intel or military aid. We'll never gut the VA, because that's insane.

• 40:22Speaker 05

  So the one of the, one of the really interesting things is, if you, if you look at, let's even get, you know, move forward. US pulling out of NATO. The US telling the Chinese, you can have Taiwan. I mean, I think there are some things that in the past, we would have said are absolutely beyond the pale, we would never do. But I think we should consider, because when people, you know, call me up and say, you know, well, Trump will never, you know, just declare himself, you know, emperor and run for a third term. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, you know, nothing is sacred anymore. So what are your thoughts on that? And what are, what are some of the things that in the past you'd say could never happen that perhaps could happen now?

• 41:02Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I totally agree. I mean, we have to get over that, that, that hurdle that we have mentally of, you know, that could never happen, or that Shit doesn't happen here. We need to get over that real fast because it is happening. Um, and yeah, throughout just my life, you know, relatively short period of time historically, a bunch of things that would never happen actually happened. I mean, everything from Brexit to the two thousand sixteen election of Donald Trump. I mean, all these things we were told repeatedly would never happen, uh, took place. Um, so I think that, yeah, we're moving in a direction that is more authoritarian.

• 41:45Jack Murphy?

  Um, you're right to point out that some of these things can't just be undone. You know, if we pull out of NATO, it's not the same as us like renaming Fort Bragg every four years. Like, there's a little bit more to it than that. Um, but I, I think that, you know, when I make this argument, I'm at it. I feel like I'm at a disadvantage because quite frankly, making this sort of argument for international cooperation is not as compelling as the America first argument. They're saying fuck all these other people out there. They're taking our money, they're cheating us, and we get nothing for it. I, I, I admit, my argument is not as sexy or as, as compelling as their America first argument is,

• 42:30Jack Murphy?

  even though I feel that it's really America last, um, that our partnerships are a vital strategic necessity for us. And, um, you know, our enemies acknowledge that. That's why the Chinese and the Russians and others are always trying to attack our alliances around the world.

• 42:47Speaker 05

  Well, you're right.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Mark, can I say something about the America first thing? And I agree, it's like an easy, uh, rebuttal to what you're saying in terms of like, being involved internationally and like giving aid or whatever. The problem is, America first doesn't happen. Our li- our quality of life is not better.

• 43:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  You're telling me even if we pulled out and we cut our budget in half in terms of defense and foreign aid, and we saved five hundred billion dollars or a trillion dollars, that something would happen for the regular middle-class person that's struggling day to day to pay rent, to pay for groceries, to do all the things that they need to do to just live a fucking life?

• 43:25Speaker 04

  If you were telling me, maybe I'd be a little bit more on the America first side. If they were like, you know what? We're gonna save money from here and we're gonna give you guys some type of affordable or universal healthcare. That's quality that the rest of the world has. Basic things that people should deserve. Then I'd be like, you know what? I'm kinda on their side too, but I've yet to fucking see it. The only people I see benefiting are the robber barons.

• 43:46Jack Murphy?

  Those Musk.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, correct. If I was a hedge fund manager or a significant shareholder in a big company, yeah, I'd be loving it too. But I'm not.

• 43:56Jack Murphy?

  They might not be loving it mu- uh, much longer seeing the way the stock market's going.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 05

  So, so this is my, this is my Jersey blue class, you know, upbringing right here. You know, I just went to see Dropkick Murphy's, by the way, in concert. I think I told you guys that.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:10Speaker 05

  It's awesome. That's like the new resistance. We're actually, I was talking to Adam Kinzinger, like, we wanna get like a Dropkick Murphy's, um, uh, you know, resistance concert, uh, uh, uh, forum. But, but one of the things that I, you know, the, the, the amount of grift that is going on is stunning. And I, I get, I guess the American people don't care that you can go and, you know, uh, pay a million bucks to have dinner with Trump? Or this, this golden visa where for five million bucks, anybody, including a Russian oligarch, can now, can now get citizenship? I mean, it's just, it's one thing after another, um, uh, where kind of the, the blue collar guy and gal, the middle class is not being, uh, uh, advantaged whatsoever. And, you know, how about the tariffs? The tariffs are gonna crush.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:49Speaker 05

  The working class. So, uh, the whole thing is just, uh, uh, you know, preposterous. I, i- in terms of, you know, I, I didn't do that well in economics in college, but I'm, you know, I, I know a thing or two. It just doesn't even make sense. Um, uh, you know, with, uh, with, with, with economics. But I think, um, one of the things, uh, uh, to look for is, uh, what that, what I thought was kind of interesting is these, these town halls. Where people are, are kind of, uh, pushing back to the point where there was a kind of a directive from the Republican leadership in the House saying, don't do them anymore.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:22Speaker 05

  Well, if you can't face your constituents.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  From the Republican Campaign Committee, which is like.

• 45:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  You go to the town halls to try and.

• 45:30Jack Murphy?

  You know, make some money, raise some money.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  Dee, and you know, if you look at, again, I'm going to quote the American Enterprise Institute, AEI, that's a think tank in the United States, that is certainly not, you know, the obsession of progressive liberalism, it is a conservative think tank. And in their study on Ukraine aid, on the 150-plus billion, you know, a huge majority of that actually went to defense contractors, which who do what? They employ American citizens. And so it actually, the aid to Ukraine is excellent for the US economy. Now, you can make the whole argument like, oh, my God, this is the military industrial complex, blah, blah, blah. But ultimately, the American worker is benefiting from our aid package to Ukraine. And so I think that's the way you kind of, and by the way, most of these jobs are in red states.

• 46:17Speaker 05

  And so that's the way, that's the retort, you say, well, well, we're giving all this crap to Ukraine. And I said, yeah, but your, your brothers and sisters down the street and, you know, in Alabama have a job because of it.

• 46:27Jack Murphy?

  Well, yeah, you want to talk about bringing jobs back to the United States? I mean, the war in Ukraine brought back the artillery shell manufacturing base to the United States, where, I mean, we, we made them all along, but we ramped up production like drastically, opening up a number of new facilities to do that. And a lot of Americans, they don't understand that, you know, how foreign military sales in general work. And it is a little scary when you, you know, hear about it, because it does sound like a military industrial complex. But the larger point is that when we give this military aid to a foreign country, Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, whatever, we're not just like giving them money, and we're not just sending them war material.

• 47:11Jack Murphy?

  We're basically giving them monopoly money and saying, hey, you have $5 billion. You can spend it on whatever American defense, you know, weaponry you want. And so that, that money never even leaves the United States.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like store credit.

• 47:25Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it goes, it goes to the United States arms manufacturers, American jobs, as you point out.

• 47:32Speaker 05

  In red states, in red states.

• 47:34Jack Murphy?

  And then that, that war material is sent over to Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, wherever. And so, yeah, I, I mean, it's important to understand that.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  Hey, I gotta, I, let me just, let me switch topics just because something's on my mind. That was, that, that was what came up last night in the President's address. And that's, uh, that, uh, obviously in an operation run by the intelligence community, uh, and with the help of the Pakistani government, uh, uh, it looks like we're going, we're about to, uh, we're extraditing one of the masterminds of the Abbey Gate bombing. At, uh, HKIA at Haoming Karzai Airport. If you remember 13 American. Marines. I mean, not, not all Marines. Oh, sorry. Marines and, and some, some other, uh, folks as well from, I think, uh, Navy and, uh, uh, and the Army were killed in a suicide bomb attempt. But so President Trump makes these remarks yesterday.

• 48:27Speaker 05

  Couple of things on that. And then of course you see all this stuff on social media, which I have to stop reading. Um, from, from, you know, from the FBI director, from the CIA director, et cetera, et cetera, from people around, uh, uh, the Trump National Security Apparatus saying, this is Trump. He did this. Again, um, uh, so we take a, an event which I support, of course, which is the apprehension and extradition of a terrorist. Uh, and we fuck it up. And this is how, because number one, this operation, um, a high value target operation, uh, takes months, if not years to germinate. It's intelligence driven. The agency was following this individual. It's been out in the press already.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  Um, and when, you know, when we finally get them on the X, we can do a couple of things. We can, you know, conduct a drone strike, call in the JSOC brothers and sisters, or go to Pakistani liaison, uh, for help. And they, that's what we, that's what they did. They went to the Pakistanis and they captured them. Um, this has nothing to do with whoever's in power. And literally the, the, you know, the Secretary of Defense and others were saying, this is a victory for Trump. We made this a priority to, to get the, the perpetrators of Abbey Gate. Once we got into power, and that is utter and complete bullshit. Because this operation has been going on for months and months. This was a high value target. Um, everything is intel driven. And to compound all that, then Trump's goes out and says, uh, uh, in the State of the Union, thanks to the government of Pakistan.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  Who right now is having a fucking aneurysm, because if you understand Pakistani domestic politics, it goes like this. We'll help you, but please don't tell anybody about this. Um, so now we've screwed up a, a relationship that if we were trying to rebuild with Pakistan on CT, which has always been strained. Now it's, uh, now it's kind of gone down the shitter. It reminds me of the Soleimani strike of several years ago. Righteous strike. Killed a really bad guy, but then Trump has to has to brag about it. So there's this inability of this and every administration is going to try to take credit. But in particular here, saying that chest thumping, saying that this this was a priority of Trump. That's just total bullshit. This is based on dogged work by the intelligence community, following a high value target for years,

• 50:31Speaker 05

  and it finally comes to fruition. And I know this because this is what I did for a living for years and years. And it doesn't matter who's in power. You get the guy in the X, you figure out a way to to bring him to justice, either kinetic strike, maybe put, you know, you know, JSOC on the ground, or you go to liaison for assistance. But they take

• 50:50Speaker 04

  They like taking curtain calls, even when they don't

• 50:53Speaker 05

  It's just, it drives me crazy. No, no, every president does this.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  Sure. But at the same time, like, you could probably do it in a better way where you don't expose or kind of like expose your allies in terms of the people that helped you because Pakistan and America's intelligence sharing has kind of been a tale of two fucking faces, right? For the last 20 years, right? So

• 51:17Speaker 05

  So this this literally, it's been called the Trump operation. And I'm just like, oh, my God. And it's, you know, anyway, so that's

• 51:23Jack Murphy?

  There's like this interesting like desire for instant gratification right now. People talk about, oh, he's a businessman and, you know, it's transactional, but transactional is not bad, you know, there's a give and take like, okay, I get that. But when you're really just looking for like, short term successes and victories that you can tout in the media, you're sacrificing the deferred gratification, the the long term strategic successes.

• 51:51Speaker 05

  Especially when in South Asia right now, at the rise of ISIS K, and I'm sure you've had guests on talking about this, you know, ISIS K is probably the biggest threat to US interests at this point, as a kind of classic old terrorist group, not so old, but but we need that we need all of our allies assistance because we have no, you know, boots on the ground. We have no eyes or ears in Afghanistan anymore. And so the Pakistanis, as much as I find them completely, you know, irritating, as I was subject to multiple 107 millimeter rockets fired by the government of Pakistan at my base in Afghanistan. Um, I've talked to you about that story uh uh uh before the Pakistanis and and AQ were kind

• 52:31Speaker 05

  of shooting at us. Um, but ultimately, the Pakistan is a would be a a a uh uh uh an intelligence partner that's worth investing in again if we can in some fashion. But but kind of thanking them globally, it's not something the Pakistani government, because domestically, it's that now, no, now they're gonna be on uh kind of uh uh under the gun. Anyway, uh, that was just kind of something this morning with with all this kind of chest thumping that they're doing. And and it's a great CT success. Um, the other the and but but again, what I find this administration and others are guilty to other administrations, but um, and I've criticized by the administration when they did stupid stuff like this. But the idea that somehow this is the the, you know, the political masters kind of taking credit for this is ridiculous.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  I mean, there there's a lot of work in the intelligence community and military that probably went into, well, I'm sure went into this.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they've been looking into this since that day in August of 2021.

• 53:24Speaker 05

  Again, it's not like, you know, so so the the press reports were like, you know, CI Director said on his first day, this is gonna be a priority, except it was a priority on his, you know, the the day before he got there, because, you know, conceivably, my old colleagues have been working on this. Again, H high value target operations don't just kind of come from the snap of a finger.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  He didn't walk into a 7-Eleven and somebody called the cops and they got him?

• 53:47Speaker 05

  Right.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? Like?

• 53:49Speaker 05

  That's that's what it sounds like, because, you know. And so just, you know, again, it's just, you you you kind of just.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Something that's breaking right now, I guess, uh, in a in a response to the tariff stuff, Chinese Embassy, if war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, ready to fight to the end.

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Great.

• 54:08Speaker 04

  If you're China, right, and you see what's going on with Ukraine, and obviously, there's a different relationship between, a bit of a different relationship between Trump and Xi and Trump and Putin. Um, if you and you see that America's uh gonna probably um invest in like our own US-made manufact- like chips, the chips that are like the high-end chips.

• 54:29Speaker 05

  Well, that's what he says. Yeah.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  Right. Um.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  If you're Taiwanese, you're China, are you, I I'd be freaking out if I'm Taiwan and I'm licking my chops if I'm China, if they were really serious about taking Taiwan.

• 54:41Speaker 05

  So Bill Burns, who was the CIA Director, obviously before Ratcliffe, said in a speech couple of, maybe a year or so ago, that 2027 would be when the US assessed China would be ready to invade. Um, and I will tell you that, uh, we're basically giving them a green light. Uh, you know, we are not going to stand by Taiwan as an ally. We are not going to put US lives at risk. And I think Trump, again, will see this as some kind of weird transactional thing.

• 55:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:07Speaker 05

  But if I were the Taiwanese, I'd be crapping my pants. Um, because, uh, uh, and, and let me say alongside that, uh, uh, if we were to come to the aid of Taiwan, uh, uh, in, in defense of Chinese, uh, invasion, we would have to have a significant US military buildup. And right now they're cutting the Department of Defense. Now there's a whole other issue on that, you know, whether you believe in, uh, kind of a defense buildup or not, but uh, DOD right now, I don't think is configured to fight a war against China and the, the, the defense budgets. Um, uh, uh, with this kind of cost cutting, this Doge cost cutting are not going to reflect that, uh, as well. But I think our allies would be very well served to look elsewhere. I, it pains me to say that.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  By the way, I'm getting texts right now from a good friend of ours who should be on the show.

• 55:54Speaker 04

  Are you really?

• 55:55Speaker 05

  Nick Mulroy is asking that shit that's going on. So, you know, what the hell? He should be on with us right now.

• 56:00Speaker 04

  That's so funny. I think he might have texted me.

• 56:02Speaker 05

  In a second, when I get off here, I said, hey, we're just talking about you.

• 56:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, he text, he texted me too. Texted in the group chat.

• 56:08Speaker 05

  Tell them we are on air, uh, mocking his absence.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Uh, not being.

• 56:19Speaker 05

  Anyhow.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  I mean, I guess, I, you know, I, one of the things that, you know, Jack, you know, for you to think about too. Um, uh, based on your, you know, uh, uh, your experience, um.

• 56:31Speaker 00

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• 57:32Speaker 07

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• 58:15Speaker 07

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• 58:21Speaker 05

  In the military is, you know, what do you think, or I'm curious, what do you think people in the 75th Ranger Regiment, or in the special, or the Green Berets are thinking now about this kind of, the, this abandonment of an ally? Because, and I will say that more than likely, just like the officers at CI and the paramilitary world, probably those in SF as well, are generally pretty conservative, but I would think that they're bothered by us walking away from an ally that they spent a lot of time with. What are your, what are your thoughts?

• 58:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I can't say that I have my finger on the pulse necessarily, like, across the board, but I think there's gonna be a range of opinions, but probably the predominant one is gonna be Leaning towards your point, um, being upset about some of these partnerships dissolving, but they put a lot of hard work into. Um, even if they are, you know, whatever their politics are, I mean, it's still, you know, uh, impacting their mission. Um, so I, I think from purely a professional standpoint, um, some of them are going to have problems with what's going on.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  So think about this, Jack. All right. So you're still back in. You're, you're in the military. We've decided your career in journalism is done and you're going back in.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  You're like the, you're like the new chairman of the agency staff. You're like a new chairman.

• 59:42Speaker 05

  You're leaving your cafe lattes in Brooklyn and your, you know, your poetry readings and.

• 59:46Jack Murphy?

  I ain't fucking leaving.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  Uh, and you're back in there, but on a serious note, if you were, uh, uh, in an O D A right now, and let's say you are where, I'm going to make this up in, you know, working with the Philippine government on their counter insurgency. You know, uh, uh, at some point, someone on the, on the, on the, you know, uh, one of our allies is going to say, hey, thanks for your assistance right now. But, you know, can we count on you all? Because we're looking at what you did in Afghanistan. We're looking at what you did in Ukraine. Um, how can we? And so the question for you would be, what is your, what is your response to that? And I just say that because, you know, there's the, there's the S F slash case officer model of, you know, case officer-ing or schmoozing your partner, but they're not stupid.

• 1:00:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  So, you know, so, so how do you address that?

• 1:00:34Jack Murphy?

  Uh, well, I mean, I've, I've seen it and I've been in the room for it a, a number of times, including in the Philippines, actually. And I, I mean, the answer to the question is, I mean, you're going to give them the party line, which is, the United States government stands shoulder to shoulder with the Republic of the Philippines. We're in this together. We have the greatest commitment to this country, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But as you point out, yeah, they're not stupid. At all. And they're looking across the table at you like, hmm, okay. Yeah. And, uh, and so as a, a military professional, you're put in a very challenging position there where it's like, you kind of like have to walk into the room and lie.

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Jack Murphy?

  At that point, and that's not a great feeling, I think, for most soldiers, uh, to talk to an ally like that. But it exists.

• 1:01:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's you could say, hey, we're gonna be here until we're not. I saw that I have a funny story. I was up in northern Iraq with the Kurds in 2002, December of 02, before the invasion.

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  But I was obviously that, you know, what is it now, 2025? So that was 23 years ago. I was much younger. And younger in my career, and I remember giving a senior Kurds official that rah rah bullshit. US speech about promoting democracy and literally he said, stop. He said, we have been betrayed by everybody. He said, we've been betrayed by the Iranians, the Iraqis, you know, the Israelis.

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  United States, the French, everyone under the sun. So he goes, stop with the bullshit. And I said, okay. And that was it. Because again, because our liaison partners are smart. And so perhaps one of the things that, you know. You know, that that that notion of the bright shining city on the hill, that kind of speech ain't gonna cut it anymore. And it's it's much more transactional. Hey, we're here to help you help with you right now. You know, I'm happy to do this. The problem is, of course, and what I what I'm sure you're seeing amongst the paramilitary crowd at CIA. Remember, they have been. With Ukrainians since 2014. And you know this, you've reported on this. One of the one of the before I left as as Ops Chief over Europe and Eurasia is, you know, it was, and that was before the Russian invasion.

• 1:02:46Speaker 05

  Was, you know, investing in this relationship. And so there's going to be some pissed off, you know.

• 1:02:54Speaker 05

  You know, paramilitary officers, I would imagine SF as well, just because. It's impossible not to. If you make repeated trips over years to Ukraine. That means you break bread with these people. You know about their families. You know about people who've been killed. Maybe their families have been raped and murdered. Maybe they've had, obviously, they've had members of their unit killed in action, the Ukrainians. It's it's just a human reaction. For US national security professional to get close to their liaison partner. And so I think there's gonna be some, you know, just as the Afghan withdrawal was traumatic, I think there's gonna be some pissed off people here now saying, well, hold on a second. I just spent 10 years. Investing in this partnership. I know Sergey or whoever it is like. These are my brothers and sisters. And and the other thing is, is Ukraine wasn't.

• 1:03:38Speaker 05

  Ukraine, Russia was a David versus Goliath fight like this was, we talked about it last time. This was the moral clarity that we didn't have in the 20 year GWOT, which went all sideways after a while.

• 1:03:47Speaker 04

  It was an actual just cause, you know what I mean?

• 1:03:51Jack Murphy?

  It's interesting, there's a, there is a smaller parallel. I mean, what's going on now is unprecedented, I think. But a smaller parallel would be during the Nixon administration. Nixon saw the CIA as part of the, of the deep state.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:04:05Jack Murphy?

  Like, they're against me. And he made a bunch of cuts to CIA that actually came into effect during the Carter administration. Um, and my, my point there is that there's like this sort of like story. There's some mystique around it even about all these laid off CIA officers who went into the private sector. And from there, it was like the Wild West for the, for these guys. And it's going to be interesting to see where this generation of, you know, disenfranchised intelligence officers end up. I mean, some of them will end up working for the Europeans, the Australians, you know, things like that. Some of them might just go over to the other side. I mean, especially if that's our new, you know, our national policy.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  There was a report a few days ago saying that Russia and China are turning their eyes towards the people that have been let go to see if they could.

• 1:04:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, of course they are.

• 1:04:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  Okay, so, so, yeah, I mean, think about it. So, so first of all, one of the, one of the, you know, if someone else, someone, a retort would be, well, well, fuck those people. If they're gonna go spy for Russia or China, you know, they didn't deserve to be, you know, they're, they're not great Americans. But that's not how the intelligence business works. What I'm concerned about is the, I'll call it the LinkedIn model, is that they will be commercially recruited. Now, the, the Chinese and the Russians are all over LinkedIn. And so, someone who has just been let go from the US Intelligence Committee with a TS clearance, who has a mortgage and doesn't have healthcare, is gonna get it, is getting an email and saying, "I'm a Dubai-based consultant, and I would love your assistance on X, Y, and Z." And it's totally done commercially. And people are gonna bite at that.

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  And, and that's gonna be the, the modus operandi of the Russians and the Chinese and going after our folks. It's not, it's not, you know, Vladimir from the Russian consulate city coming up to someone. It's a commercial recruitment, and people are going to be desperate because you just are tossing out people with TS clearance, top-secret clearances, who have bills to pay. It's, I mean, one of that, one of the amazing things is when we advise other countries on stuff like this, on a purge of the security services, this is the exact thing we say, "Don't ever do." This is of course is what we did in Iraq with debathification. If you put, you know, several thousand angry, you know, former security service members out in the street, they're going to turn on you.

• 1:06:24Speaker 05

  And so I just think that there is a big counterintelligence concern and it's not, again, someone walking into a Russian embassy. It's someone responding to a commercial recruitment. And they, you know, and it's going to be over time, but they're going to get wooed by some Dubai based or Singapore based entity to end up providing intelligence. That is, I mean, that, you know, my, my former, my friends in the FBI literally are writing me signal messages saying this is a problem right now.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little bit, couple of things to look out for for tomorrow. I think March, I think it's tomorrow, March 6th. The European Parliament is going to vote on our big aid package, 800 bill.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  So we will see if the Europeans do step up. Hopefully they do.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  G, Kalas, who is the EU Foreign Policy Chief, she said, we, we need to have a new leader of the free world now. America is no longer the leader. I mean, that to me, these are devastating statements. Might not be wrong.

• 1:07:24Jack Murphy?

  I mean, it's kind of crazy how, you know, that role right now for the time being is being filled by Zelensky. I mean, this guy in Ukraine who he's standing up to both Russia and the United States at the same time. I mean, he's got some balls.

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  The idea that he was supposed to apologize for that Oval Office meeting, I think is, is so patently ludicrous. Again, I'm going to piss off a lot of people who might listen to this, but what I said on, on, on the air the other day is, you know, those who demand an apology from Zelensky, those who are screaming at him for quote disrespecting the president, which I think is ludicrous. I've seen the clip a million times. I think it was totally set up and, and J D Vance was acting like this little yappy terror, a terrier attack dog. Nothing against terriers for the dog loving viewers, but but this anyone who says that Zelensky must apologize, that is actually a tacit admission that our president is a petulant toddler who has to be handled with kid gloves. If you're the president of the United States and you have a

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  foreign head of state come, they can have a frank discussion.

• 1:08:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  Oh, but but Trump is acting like a mafia don.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Um, you know, his skin is paper thin, too.

• 1:08:32Speaker 05

  It's paper thin. And so people who say, well, Zelensky mishandled this are actually admitting that Trump is a toddler who can't handle any type of criticism. I mean, it's it's to me, a great leader is someone who will sit there and have a discussion with someone and you're going to have opposing views. And you say, and that whole exchange, even though it should never have been in public, the right retort would have been, you know, you know, President Zelensky, your passion is so admirable, you know, we'll continue this discussions later.

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's not happening from Trump, man.

• 1:09:01Speaker 05

  Right. But I'm saying, but but the fact that it can't be is an admission of his, you know, narcissistic, sociopathic personality. And again, that he's a he's a toddler who just, you know, you know, he cannot handle any type of criticism. So Lindsey Graham, the senator, when he throws a fit afterwards in a press conference saying, you know, Zelensky mishandled this, you're admitting he mishandled it because Trump is, you know, it's, you know, such a kind of this flawed individual.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  Well, Lindsey Graham's a mutant. Like, he he just goes to have the wind flows, you know, like a week before that, he was on stage with Zelensky praising him, right?

• 1:09:37Speaker 05

  A mutant, yes.

• 1:09:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you also saw Secretary Rubio right after tweet like, Trump did the right thing for America. Meanwhile, it looks like he's about to get a colonoscopy when he's sitting down on the in the Oval Office.

• 1:09:50Speaker 05

  But that's what I was saying before about how I think this country's changing in some ways that people haven't really wrapped their heads around. And this like cult leader following is not a healthy direction. I mean, again, it's it's it's it is amazing to me. You know, Marco Rubio has been someone who's been a champion of human rights. He's very well respected in the senate. Obviously, you know Cuba is a huge priority for him. But if you if you are anti Cuban, you are just by definition ingrained in your freaking DNA anti Russian. Cuban and Russian are the same thing. And the fact that he is kind of signed on to this. I mean, there was an article in Vanity Fair yesterday.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I saw it.

• 1:10:32Speaker 05

  Which which talked about Rubio is kind of upset about his lack of influence. I mean, if he had honor, he'd resign. Everyone thought he couldn't last a year, but.

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  He wants to be president. He wants to run for president is what he wants.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, these people have to be able to wake up and look at themselves and their children, you know, in the eye. But, you know, but again, I was, you know, I have kind of this, Jack, I know you kind of like this stuff. I have friends in like in the Cuban exile community down in Miami. Who who, you know, I was talking to them yesterday and they were big fans of Rubio and I'm like, well, hold on a second. What's happened to him? Like this is something's not right here. He's supposed to be anti Cuban. That means anti Russian and he's not signing on to that. So we'll see if if these these people who've kind of signed on to the cult ever kind of get a spine. But even, you know, Mike Waltz, same thing, former Green Beret.

• 1:11:25Speaker 05

  Just just, you know, they they're kind of bending the knee to to Trump and I find.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  I've heard that Rubio and Waltz are both on the way out.

• 1:11:33Speaker 05

  They should be. They should resign.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  Well, like being being fired.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. I've I've heard those things too, but who knows? And, you know, it's. But but ultimately, you know, you you have to be able to kind of look at yourself in the mirror. But this is this is a cult. And this is this is a country that is now tilted completely to Moscow and that just is inconceivable. And that's why I said before that, you know, you said, what's the reaction inside the I C S? It's just it's disorienting. That's, I mean, you know, what are we doing? Um, and, uh, the other, the other part of this too, and I know we probably kind of coming to the end right now. There is, and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be kind of hammered for this, but there is no bureaucracy going on right now. Bureaucracy and national security at times is important. There's no National Security Council process.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  And Jack and Dee, you know, you know, the way this works is things come to fruition at lower levels. You have meetings at the NSC, then it goes up to the deputies committee, which is maybe, you know, with deputies of different cabinet levels are there chaired by the National Security Advisor. Then there's a principals committee where the president might sit with the, with the various cabinets. None of this is happening now. These guys sit in the Oval and kind of, they're, they are totally winging it. And so, you know, my friends in government were like, literally the, the, the, the freeze in USAID to Ukraine. Um, people, all the national security reporters down the Pentagon who sit in the Pentagon, said their Pentagon contacts didn't know. I mean, we're, we're winging it. And so that, that, that, that actually makes it challenging in the media because you don't even know

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  what's happening half the time. There's no, there's no people to even tell you that things are going on because they're finding out um, literally, uh, real time. And, and that's not the way to do really smart, effective policy. You don't want a 400 man with women, NSC like President Obama, President Obama had, which is then stultifying. But you don't want nothing. And my, you know, friends of mine who have been down to the, the White House recently, I mean, it's empty. The NSC is not staffed yet. The State Department is not staffed yet. We are winging foreign policy right now. Probably not a smart idea.

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  Well, brother, I don't understand why I never feel good about the end of these shows. Every show we do, no matter what, no, not, not with you, just you, Mark. I'm saying like even the ones we do on the weekends with Mick and Andy and, and Jason, it's like, fuck, what about a feel good story? I guess there isn't one. Um, Mark, where can they find you?

• 1:13:59Speaker 05

  Uh, until I get kicked off, I'm still on Twitter at at M Polymer. Um, I've actually decided to go back on to Twitter full force. Um, because it's fun fighting with all the the Magaloon's. Uh, but there are a couple of people that kind of have abnormal dialogue with. Um, I'm on Blue Sky as well, whatever the hell Blue Sky thing is. Um, and then I'll be on, you know, I'm on TV all the time. I've been on, I think I was on MSNBC 15 times last month, but mostly on at 5 a.m. I'm way too early, which, uh, uh, hey, I'm old, I get up now early anyway, so.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  Jack Murphy, Weedify, the link is in the description. Mark's links are also in the description. Check them out. Mark's cooking something up too in the podcast world, so I'm looking forward to that.

• 1:14:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:42Speaker 04

  And get some merch, you know, but Mark just said it.

• 1:14:45Speaker 05

  I love it.

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  Incredible t-shirts, so the link is in the description there. And the best way to support the show is patreon.com slash the team house. You get ad free episodes, both audio and video for both Eyes On and the Team House. So two for the price of one. If you join at a $10 level, I myself will send you

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  one of these patches.

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  At the $10 level. So support the show, please.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  One good thing for you guys is that with, uh, this is not a good thing for America, but maybe for the show is with the flu of retirements and people getting fired. You're going to have some new guests coming on.

• 1:15:23Jack Murphy?

  There's that, yeah.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  That's, yeah, I guess that's good.

• 1:15:26Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:15:28Speaker 05

  I will always keep referring people over to you, so.

• 1:15:32Speaker 04

  Appreciate that, Mark.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

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  This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, "Sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio." If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreaker.com.

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• 1:18:33Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, "Sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio." If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreaker.com.

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  Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:20:29Speaker 07

  This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, "Sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio." If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere people listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today at spreaker.com.

• 1:21:13Speaker 07

  Spreaker, because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extentur, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extentur is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extentur is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection,

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or flulike symptoms, joint pain. Or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extensure. Learn more at Extensure.com or call 1-833-393-3678. Hey everybody, Lady Luck here. I just love the holiday season, spending time with family, sharing stories and having some holiday cheer. But sometimes when the kids get a little crazy, I love to break away, cozy up and play some Spinquest.com. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a thirty-dollar coin package for just ten bucks. So go to Spinquest.com and download the app today.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:22:49Speaker 06

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at OnDeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.