Part Two: 18,000 Terrorists Are Already Living On US Soil. Former CIA Targeting Officer Sarah Adams Explains The Deception Campaigns They Use To Hide And How Al-Qaeda Grew To 200,000 Members

Former CIA Targeting Officer Sarah Adams reveals what she believes are some of the biggest national security threats facing the United States today, and why many Americans may have a false sense of security about the future. In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Sarah explains why the U. S. could be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than many realize, whether the U. S. is currently facing an active terrorist threat, and how the same types of intelligence disconnects that contributed to 9/11 could still exist today. She breaks down why we need to rethink what a future homeland attack might actually look like, how terrorist organizations are evolving, and why groups like Al Qaeda may be more widespread than ever. Sarah shares shocking insights into sleeper cells operating within the U. S., foreign actors intentionally fueling political division to increase influence, the strategic relationship between Al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria, and why many terrorist groups are now organized around waves of coordinated attacks. She also discusses emerging security concerns, including airport vulnerabilities, the return of threats similar to the Shoe Bomb and the rise of "invisible" bombs, and what she believes went wrong from a security standpoint during the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting incident. Drawing from years spent targeting some of the world's most dangerous terrorists, Sarah recounts how she helped capture the Taliban's number two leader, the intelligence work that made it possible, and what qualities allowed her to gather critical information in some of the most hostile environments on Earth. We also explore intelligence deception campaigns, how disinformation operations work, and the warning signs people should recognize when evaluating information online. Sarah reveals what it was like to interrogate Middle Eastern male detainees as a Western woman, how individuals become radicalized, and the indoctrination systems inside terrorist camps that determine whether recruits become fighters, suicide bombers, propagandists, or support personnel. She explains how corruption within humanitarian systems can allow resources to be diverted toward terrorist organizations and how ordinary people may unknowingly contribute to funding foreign terrorist camps. We also break downHavana Syndrome, alleged energy weapon incidents, reports involving an investigator connected to the Epstein case, and what is currently known (and still unknown) about these controversial claims. Sarah also discusses the role of social media algorithms in radicalization, whether platforms like TikTok are shaping the opinions of younger generations, and the broader information war being fought online. She opens up about living under a bounty, receiving threats from terrorist organizations, dealing with alleged surveillance around her home, and how she manages the psychological stress that comes with being a target. She shares practical advice on disaster preparedness, what average citizens can do to become more resilient during crises, and why the culture of terrorism has far more to do with ideology, power, and human behavior than religion itself. This conversation will challenge the way you think about terrorism, national security, online influence, and the risks that could define the next decade! Sarah Adam’s Podcast, The Watch Floor: https://www.youtube.com/@thewatchfloorSarah Adams' Book, Benghazi, Know Thy Enemy: A Cold Case Investigation: https://a.co/d/09aeb3tG Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:06Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:07Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to part two of our conversation with Sarah Adams. She's a former CIA targeting officer and global threat advisor. She advised the US House of Representatives on national security matters and led the Department of Defense research and development efforts focused on intelligence modernization. In part two of our conversation, Sarah's going to talk about the rise of terrorist indoctrination camps all over the world, how recruits are psychologically being transformed into fighters, facilitators, and suicide bombers, and how foreign actors are exploiting and polarizing US politics to weaken our stability.

• 0:43Jonathan Cohen?

  We also talk about Havana syndrome and what we know now about directed energy allegations that are growing and seem to be targeting dissonance.

• 0:53Mayim Bialik?

  And Sarah's going to share experiences from colleagues of hers who have witnessed Havana syndrome being administered.

• 0:59Jonathan Cohen?

  We're also going to talk about the thousands of terrorists currently in the US right now in sleeper cells that are undocumented and below the US radar.

• 1:11Mayim Bialik?

  And finally, is TikTok a psy-op seeking to control the opinions of our youth? This and so much more in part two of our conversation with Sarah Adams.

• 1:23Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan and I get to talk to all sorts of interesting people here, and you're absolutely fascinating, but I can't help but think of, you know, we talk to people who are versed in simulation theory, right? And the fact that so much of the world that we live in, it doesn't only feel unreal, it has a lot of echoes of what many of us would associate with. I think a game seems too flippant a term, but...

• 1:53Mayim Bialik?

  You know, like, I'm gonna say something crazy. You know, if we, if we kind of like, throw a spiritual blanket over this whole conversation, right? Like, why are humans here? How did we evolve? Like, what did we get placed on this planet to do? I'm pretty certain that hatred, division, war, murder, suicide bombings, this is not our natural state, right? Like, this is not our natural state. If you believe in any religious or spiritual tradition, or if you've had a good journey on mushrooms, you know that, like, above the clouds, it's always sunny, right? Like, there's a larger goodness and hope that we all come from, right?

• 2:36Mayim Bialik?

  Like, picture us in whatever stage of evolution you want to, right? So when I think of these conversations, like, I can't help but feeling like we're in some twisted game, where people have harbored, you know, hatred and, you know, all these, and they're plotting to kill themselves so that they can kill other people. And then you get these elaborate militaries that need to protect against that. And they do horrible things to try and prevent those other people from killing, like, and on and on and on.

• 3:08Jonathan Cohen?

  And those actions justify the hatred, which then justifies the need to retaliate, and on and on you go.

• 3:14Mayim Bialik?

  And I don't know if there's a question here, but, yeah, I guess I'm curious, with all of your resilience and your patience and your scrappiness, you know, how, how do you place this in a larger context? Like, are we in some giant simulation? And, you know, you're just a very active and interesting player, you know?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  No, it's really interesting, because one of the hardest things to view is, what is an endgame after terrorism? Is there ever gonna be an endgame after terrorism? Well, I saw like a microcosm of it just earlier this month. So I went back to Libya, I went back to Benghazi at the beginning of May.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  And- For a long time Benghazi was extremely dangerous. Remember I lived there, there was assassinations every day. Actually, Al Qaeda and ISIS ended up taking over the entire city. And then there was a civil war to push them out. So the civil war started in twenty fourteen and in twenty seventeen. And so I've been wanting to get back since because the terrorists are completely gone from Benghazi. And I say it publicly, and I think people roll their eyes at me and they're like, she's so naive. I'm like, I need to go back and see it for myself. And so I did go back and I saw a city with the terrorists gone when I had been there when the terrorists were there. And it was night, it was night and day, okay? So like, I didn't feel danger, I didn't feel unsafe for one second, the entire time I was there.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  The other thing is when I was in Benghazi, I rarely saw women. I maybe saw three women fully covered. When I was there this time, there was like seventy percent more women than men. Every other driver on the road was a woman. I think there was more women driving than men. The markets were full of women hanging out with their friends. I went to the hospital, most of the staff were women. And so it's this thing, it's like you almost need to see that. You almost need to see life after terrorism. Now, huge parts of the city are completely destroyed. Rebuilding is so expensive, it takes so much time, so much work and you have to do it. Cause then terrorists might come in and give you that aid and benefit if you don't.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  So it's not a hundred percent done and finished yet, but you see it and people are happy, they're living lives. They're not worried their sons are going to be indoctrinated. And like when you see an end state, you're like, okay. This is what you want, this is what you aim for and get to, but I'm gonna tell you, that war was a nightmare, right? They lost eight thousand local troops. The terrorists were killing off entire bloodlines. I know Libyans, over twenty men in their family. Boys, men, grandfathers were killed, so they couldn't carry on the bloodlines. It was tragic and I wish more of the world would talk about it, because it is a success against terrorism, but.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  It takes a lot to get there. There's lots of ripple effects. And we have to start thinking, what is an end state? And how do you actually get to that end state? And help people to like, live again? So they're not under Al Qaeda or ISIS? Because it is a horrible life to be under them.

• 6:17Mayim Bialik?

  I understand that politics is no longer a line. It's just a big weird circle, right? It's like every, you know? So we're hearing from certain fringes of the left, which I do not identify with. You know, this fringe. And it's also, we're hearing it from certain fringes of the right. And they're coming together in this way of like, I don't want to be involved in anything foreign. It's not our business. Let them figure it out. Do you feel like you can weigh in from your perspective on, you know? And also, I understand, we don't just like, carry a big stick. We're not the cops of the world. Like, I'm not looking for that. But, you know, I was raised by civil rights activists. So I was taught from the values of what happened in Vietnam, right?

• 7:00Mayim Bialik?

  How horrible things can go when the government is left unchecked? And when we're not given appropriate information? How do you translate that to a conversation about a completely different culture of terrorism? That violates many of the values that we hold true in the West? But which take a tremendous amount of resources? And troops? And time? To actually invest in? How do we justify that?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  It's very interesting. So, there are different thought processes on this. But the fact is, if a country is only caring internally about itself, or has no outward goals or ambitions, that's easier to say, hey, we don't have a dog in the fight here. We don't need to get involved here. That's kind of why even a lot of people didn't like how we went in and helped the Afghans when the Soviets came in, right? We're like, this isn't our fight, like, etc. But when you have a situation now where, like in Afghanistan, Syria, parts of Northern Africa, they're putting these training camps together? And these terrorists are only going through them to come and attack the West? You're in a much different...

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Situation, right? Because you're like, well, if their goal is to train and come here, we have a problem and we have to stop that in some way. Now, Israel's a different situation because Israel constantly has that problem. We did a really good job of thwarting attacks overseas. So Americans don't get that feeling. Israel, you're attacked every week. You have this constant barrage. And then, of course, when October 7th happened, the level that that happened at, you can't go out and tell your people, oh, we're going to be light on this. You have to say, we're never going to let this happen again, just like America said with 9/11. So it's this difficult situation. Then how do you make it never happen again?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Hamas is a gigantic terrorist organization, as we've known, because we've killed, they've killed what? 50,000 Hamas members? And Hamas is not defunct. It's crazy. Then there's other allies. Hezbollah is on a whole nother level. And then it doesn't matter anyway, because of course they have, Iran over top and Iran has very key relationships like with Al Qaeda, which is three times the size of Hezbollah and Hamas. So the problem is, it's how do you strategically go at these groups? And the US has always said, but keep them overseas. So that's the way we focused on it. Keep the insanity, the suicide bombings, the terrorist attacks overseas,

• 9:36Speaker 02

  and we'll be fine. And that has been our goal. And now we stopped doing that. And they're probably coming here. Israel constantly is being attacked. So they have to view it a lot different. It can be, we're going to be attacked every single day. How do we make it so it goes down to only once a month? How do we make it to goes once a year? How do we stop it completely? And that is almost an impossible problem to deal with. Like, I couldn't give you the right answer for it.

• 10:01Mayim Bialik?

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• 11:46Speaker 02

  So we are in a tough spot. Now, one thing people need to be, know the truth of is terrorism today is much bigger than terrorism on 9/11. So 9/11, Al Qaeda was 5,000 members. Now, worldwide, they have over 200,000. This is a much bigger problem. On 9/11, they had eight terrorist camps. Right now, just in Afghanistan, they have 50. Then they got camps in Syria and Yemen, in North Africa, on and on. So we don't get to the pleasure of saying, well, we got to think of it like it's September 2001. It's a much bigger problem, unfortunately, and it's going to take different solutions. And not anyone knows the best solution.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  I don't know the best solution because, you know, as was said, you then also don't want to make more terrorists.

• 12:35Mayim Bialik?

  But that seems to be exactly what, like, can you say those numbers again? The numbers from 9/11 to now? You said that there were 5,000 Al Qaeda members when 9/11 happened, and now there are...

• 12:48Mayim Bialik?

  Two hundred thousand?

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Yes, it's massive. And they're worth billions and billions of dollars. So they don't need to borrow two, five hundred thousand dollars from the Bin Laden to do an operation.

• 12:57Mayim Bialik?

  So I'm gonna ask a dumb question, you know, and this is not my field of expertise. Fear is my field of expertise.

• 13:05Mayim Bialik?

  Was it because nine eleven was seen as so successful? That people decided this is the organization to join if you hate the West?

• 13:15Speaker 02

  I think it's more nuanced than that. Sadly, I think the biggest jump happened when we invaded Iraq. And then Al Qaeda was able to say, hey, you know, we planned nine eleven from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The US is invading Iraq to destroy the Middle East, to harm Muslims. And that, I think, was the huge turning point to where they were being able to stand on a mountain and say, see, we told you, this is all America wants to do. They want to come in here and harm us, take over the Middle East. And I think that's where the trajectory went kind of out of our control, unfortunately.

• 13:58Jonathan Cohen?

  Talk about the training camps that we know about, because it sounds like they are the college for any satellite group. You go there to get your master's degree in terrorism.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, the sad part is the terrorist camps actually start around nine or 10 years old. It's really traumatic. So we're just gonna jump to a military age person. So when you're a military age person, there's a couple of different pathways you take. Of course, you just do some sort of indoctrination and then you can basically kind of go to be a fighter. Or you can go to be a suicide bomber. And they are different trajectories. And then there's suicide bomber camps and then there's these fighter camps. Now, the interesting thing that's different than in the old days. So in the old days, so the camp, Al-Furqo camp, it was called, that nine eleven was planned out of. Every guy in it was Al Qaeda. Now, Al-Furqo's reopened.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Everyone in Al-Fruk is not Al Qaeda. They actually did train members of Hamas in there, for example. So now it's like almost this open training ground. It doesn't matter if you're all Shabab. Heck, Boko Haram has been there, ARSA out of Bangladesh. Come to Afghanistan. We'll train you at the best level we can. You know, we'll give you sustenance, we'll give you arms. Like, we are, again, the base of terrorism. Come here, become an expert at whatever you want to be, right? Is it shooting? Is it guerrilla warfare? Is it urban operations? You know, is it suicide bombing? Suicide bombing is, of course, very concerning. Come here, we'll make you the best we can make you, no matter what terrorist group you're a part of. And so that's, they all a cart.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  But it's also very similar to how it happened during the Afghan Mujahideen. It didn't matter what country you came from, or what terrorist group, or what Islamist organization you're affiliated with, we're all one. And they're getting back to that mindset.

• 15:54Jonathan Cohen?

  You said that they don't need $500 million from the Bin Laden family. Where are they being funded from now?

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Sure. And it was only $500,000. So 9/11 only cost it $500,000.

• 16:06Jonathan Cohen?

  My mistake, yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  No, you're fine. You're fine. I just wanted to... So, it's crazy, okay? So you have to look at it in two ways. There's illicit money, and then there's legitimate businesses. So illicit money, the most they make off of is opium in Afghanistan. They get 20% of all, 20% of all, like, the revenues out of that. So it's a huge chunk. It's like 1.5 billion a year just off that. Then they run and get a cut of different mines. Not just in Afghanistan, but all over North Africa. We're talking gold mines, emerald mines, heck, uranium mines, et cetera. So they get a cut of all these mines. All that's black market. Now, legally, they run ports.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  So Al Qaeda owns a huge chunk of some of the ports in Egypt, some of the ports in Somalia. They also run over 50% of the Hajj travel. So you can just be a normal, everyday Muslim. You live in... I don't Algeria, you're gonna do the Hajj and you book through a travel agency. That travel agency is owned by Al Qaeda. You have no idea. But they smartly got into that business because they knew they would need it to move terrorists all around. They get so much money off legitimate travel, you wouldn't even believe it. So it's a mix of things and then unfortunately, all this aid, it's not just aid, those counterterrorism dollars. So don't just think this is humanitarian money. So the humanitarian money, counterterrorism money, are flooding into like Afghanistan and Al Qaeda gets a cut of that.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  So US tax dollars through State Department, CIA, Department of Defense, World Bank, UN, IMF, World Food Program, we are literally funding Al Qaeda with our own dollars right now.

• 17:50Jonathan Cohen?

  And it's very hard to parse out which dollars are going where, how that money is flowing. It's like not so easy to keep track of, is there real aid being delivered or it's just being siphoned out?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's super unfortunate. They say it's not easy to follow the money because we're not in country anymore. But we've literally followed the money in vehicles. And I can tell you, it goes straight to terrorist camps and you can follow it. You could follow it with like a drone. So they're lying that they can't figure it out, but there are different buckets. So the aid money is, it's, it's a mess. It's filtered through like the local bank in Afghanistan. It goes back out to buy products, comes back in. So by the time you get to, let's say, rice, okay? So I'm going to deliver rice to this village outside Nanggar. Well, it now goes to the families the Taliban chose for it to go to.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  So they go deliver the rice to Taliban families and it doesn't go to the women and children who really need it, former US allies, et cetera. And then another unfortunate thing is because the terrorists run the country, these aid organizations have to appease them. So like the World Food Program literally delivers food to Al Qaeda camps and it knows it is. We've watched their vehicles drive straight into these camps. So it's also a frustrating thing to watch people in the West be like, well, I want to keep taking in. These donor dollars or this US funding, so I'm not going to be truthful and say our money isn't going to help

• 19:20Speaker 02

  poor orphans, it's going straight to foreign fighters and terrorist camps. So I find it very, very frustrating. I've long worked humanitarian issues, but as you know, there's so much corruption on the humanitarian side of things. Very small percentages of any dollars actually get to anyone who's really needing of something and it's a huge problem. Essentially money laundering in a lot of cases.

• 19:44Jonathan Cohen?

  I want to get into university campus infiltration, but before we do, it feels like there's still some area to explore here with the camps and the training. You know, you said that our approach was keep it overseas as our defense strategy. But that isn't happening, right? Like, can you talk about the infiltration? Are there sleeper cells in the US that are basically waiting to be activated?

• 20:12Speaker 02

  When we use the term sleeper cell, it's almost like a fear term. Because it kind of sounds like there's these guys all underground and they're waiting for a bat signal and then they're going to pop up and attack and that's not how it works at all. So we have, according to, you know, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, over eighteen thousand known foreign terrorists on US soil, right? That's a government fact. Now, then you ask, well, what are these eighteen thousand terrorists doing? Because that's important to know. So some are literally like business operations, right? There's a lot of these from Hezbollah, for example, so and a little bit from Hamas and they're here

• 20:53Speaker 02

  and they're collecting money, sending it back, they're doing influence, media operations, and they might not have a plot to hit a certain location, right? Then you do have what I call the fighter side of a terrorist group and those people are here to commit an attack. But they're not sleeping, so they're committing, they're doing surveillance, they're building bombs, they're researching, right? They research online about you and then they go outside your home and you see them when you walk in your dog. So that stuff is happening. So they're not like sitting around playing Xbox like, what am I gonna do my attack? They constantly have taskings that they're working on, even if it's just casing for something else, right?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  I might case this location or something Al Qaeda wants to do in the future. And there's a lot of different infrastructure pieces and safe houses is huge, right? It's a huge chunk of time because people have to have a place to live. Um, the Al Qaeda plot to bend the late. So that's expensive. You gotta keep people in these locations. You gotta figure out what to do with them. You don't want them to get impatient. If they do impatient, they might just lose it and go do an attack. So we had one of the Homeland attackers. Long story short, he was supposed to stay in Tur- in Turkey and go from there to the US. He got freaked out. He went to Germany. He couldn't find his pathway to the US. He kind of lost it and then he stabbed five people outside of a sports bar. So he's not coming to the US, which is good for us, but for Al Qaeda, they didn't train him well enough.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  He wasn't patient enough and he kind of like lost it and could have messed up other parts of the plot. So they constantly also have to feed these terrorists in a way. So they don't get bored. I know that's a crazy sad way to put it. Um, but yes, there are plenty of sleeper cells in the United States from pretty much every terrorist group we can name. Al Qaeda, ISIS says they have twenty five hundred here in an illegal status. So that's, you're not an American because they are American members. You're not here in a green card. They have green card members. These are people who don't have any paperwork at all. That's a big number.

• 22:57Mayim Bialik?

  How many?

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Twenty five hundred who aren't like American and then they have Americans and other, um, of course recruits. So that's a big number and a scary number. Remember, those people are completely off the books.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  They don't have, like, well, they might have a driver's license in some states, but who knows what name it's in? You know, there is an interesting part. We've talked about religious institutions. I've done a lot of work when people reached out to me and said, hey, we've had these casing incidents at my church or my, my synagogue, wherever it can be. Um, we even just saw obviously this attack at the mosque in San Diego. Now, this happened in, um, In California, I won't say the name, I don't want to freak anyone out, at a large church. And so, we gave them all these tips, because these two-man and four-man teams kept coming. So we said, "You need to bring him in to kind of the parish area, have a conversation, say you have to give your driver's license." So they started doing that, getting better pictures.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  And when they were getting their driver's license, they were getting those licenses that said "No Name Given" on them. So we took one of the "No Name Given" licenses. In California, it was a California license, and then we looked at the address on it. And there was fifteen hundred driver's licenses registered to that address, and it was a one-bedroom apartment. So there's huge corruption in some of these driver's license systems, and nobody, the data's there. Right? You can go and look through those fifteen hundred people, go talk to them. So we, the data's there, but there are people, some states not doing anything about it. And I think it's a very frustrating thing, because you know,

• 24:35Speaker 02

  if his church gets attacked, it's gonna be with these individuals with these licenses with no name on them. We don't know who they are. And that's a whole other mess then, to identify them after the fact. Remember, nine eleven, they had their real passports. We knew exactly who they were, what country they came from. And now, we don't know who these people are.

• 24:53Mayim Bialik?

  Valerie just typed, "You can't even like, change your address with the DMV, without like, going to four different offices and petitioning and getting like, approved from your bank, right? Like, I can't do shit with my driver's license."

• 25:09Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 25:10Mayim Bialik?

  And this is happening.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. And a lot of it's probably corruption or someone under the table. We had in Florida, just people paying like, two hundred dollars for driver's licenses, for like, the, um, to drive the big trucks. And it was just corruption. It was a person in the office taking money. They weren't getting any approvals, you know, the state cracked down after, but, you know, they gave them to a bunch of people. So, you have both sides of the coin, right? You have criminal activity, and then you have terrorism. And when do you decide what this is? That's very complicated.

• 25:43Mayim Bialik?

  This is sort of, um, you know, a hope that you can maybe provide a little bit of insight, you know, with, I hope, the best of intentions, which I believe you have. You know, when, when people try and analyze terrorism, right? And this does generally tend to come from the left. You know, like if you want to know, that's where it falls on this circle that used to be a line, right? You know, there's always a reason, right? That, that we can blame the US, our policy. We do many horrible things, you know, like many, many horrible things all over the world, right? But there's a tendency to try and be able to find the reason, right? What did I do to deserve this?

• 26:28Mayim Bialik?

  What did we do to deserve this? Can you talk a little bit, you know, and I say this, you know, with a tremendous affection for the time that I have spent in the Middle East? You know, this has nothing to do with if you're Arab, if you're Muslim, if you're Jewish, if you're Christian, there's a different culture in the Middle East, right? Like even waiting on a line to like get your food, like people don't wait on lines the same. You just kind of like shove your way to the front, right? It's a different culture, like it has different, you know? Can you talk a little bit about what it is about the culture of terrorism? Which is, you know, very specific. What, what is it? And how can we teach people not to have their first reaction be, well, it's because the US is messing things up all over the world.

• 27:13Mayim Bialik?

  It's something we did and they ju— Can you give us a framework of what it looks like also? This is a business you're describing. I never thought of terrorism like that, right? I knew all the horrible things they did and there's a lot of members, but I never thought of it like there's someone running the books so that we know which hotels to put them in? And how are they going to eat? And where are they going to get the information? And what's the pamphlet? And how do we teach them to be patient so that they don't lose their minds because we've indoctrinated them to be mentally ill, right? You're indoctrinating an insanity, right? That you should die instead of live, right? Talk a little bit about the culture, just from also your experience, you know, the culture of terrorism.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the simplest way usually to put it that at least people can grasp on to is the fact of like this Islamist caliphate, okay? And so the last one was the Ottoman Empire, which people, when you say Islamist caliphate, they think, oh, she's talking about something thousands of years ago. And that was, you know, relevant when our grandparents were around, right? So it's not like this, the terrorists have some medieval thought process. And so what they want to do is just bring back this caliphate is the simplest way to put it. Now, these are the Islamists, okay? So these aren't everyday Muslims. These are the terrorists. So we're talking about Muslim Brotherhood on the political side.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  And then we're talking Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, et cetera. So when they have this Islamist caliphate that they talk about, it will only be them. So there'll be no Christians, there will be no Jews, there will be no Druze. I mean, you can go on and on and on.

• 28:55Mayim Bialik?

  There will be no secular people.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I was gonna say. Then you have no Muslims who don't think like them. This is like, almost like I told you in Benghazi. So they'll kill your bloodlines, right? So they don't have this secular, you know, they will kill the police and the military and the judges and the lawyers, et cetera, because they want everyone to have this extreme lifestyle and thought process. And sadly, we saw that in real time. We saw when ISIS went in and really took land and they did control these areas in Iraq and in Syria like this. They even went into Libya. Surt was a good example, right? Everyone went under a burka. Women at over six stopped going to school.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Like, they put it in place very, very, very quickly. And you have to remember, and I think this gets lost in the West. So in the West, we're like, well, the only way to stop that is we go in and save these people. Like, they forget the locals are fighting them. So when ISIS was defeated in Iraq, it's not because the US went in. Because the Kurds, right? When ISIS was defeated in Benghazi, it's because the locals did it with their bare hands. So we have to remember Muslims are fighting these Islamists more, actually more, ten times longer and ten times more all day long than we are because they don't want this either.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  But the terrorists have this thought, hey, we're going to make this happen. We're going to get here and that's what they're super focused on. Now, in their mind, the only hurdle to this happening is the US, Israel, having an influence over the Middle East. If we didn't have this influence, of course, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and UAE would join our Islamist caliphate, right? Because they're a little delusional, right? They've been brainwashed in a way. And so they are very focused on a big idea and we're in the way. That's the best, simplest way to put it, so much more.

• 31:00Mayim Bialik?

  No, that's, that's really helpful. And I think the thing that strikes me is, you know, and I happen to be, you know, a person of faith. So, you know, a lot of times people love to point out, this is all because of religion and there's no God. And if it wasn't for religion, nobody would fight. This is actually not, this is not even a religious concept, what's happening here. Like, you're describing something that is not because, because of a religious structure. It's a psychological structure. And it's, it's outside of Islam. It's outside of Judeo-Christianity. It's even outside of all the other branches of Christianity and Catholicism that we can talk about. And I think that's sort of where,

• 31:46Mayim Bialik?

  you know, in many cases, in an open-hearted attempt to accept all people, right? And let people have, you know, their lives. Oh, well, this is just the way some people are practicing religion. Religion's the problem, right? This is not a religious problem. This is an ideological one.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, they use religion as the tool to influence and manipulate you. But the interesting thing is, is I was reading, you know, it's just an X and it was a gentleman in the UAE. He took a trip to the West and he went to just the local mosque because he wanted to pray while he was traveling. And he said it was crazy. They were talking about jihad openly in the mosque, like that's illegal in the UAE. So the funny part is we have allowed this to occur. Um, because of our own, I guess, suicidal empathy. But if you go to a mosque in some of these other countries, you go in Saudi Arabia, you go in UAE, you go in Oman. You're not going to hear this type of language and rhetoric. You're not going to see this indoctrination piece, you know, you don't see it.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  You, you're not going to go into a mosque in Benghazi right now and be indoctrinated, I can promise you that much. And so why do we allow it? It's a very strange thing and we have gotten a little soft on this. When we have partners, these governments can tell us, here's the framework, here's how we do it, here's why we do it. And it's like, we don't even care to listen to them and learn from them when they are doing it the right way. And it's very concerning.

• 33:16Jonathan Cohen?

  When you talked about Benghazi and how the society evolved after terrorism. I was heartened to believe that there's another way out, right? There is a way out. But what I was concerned by is where did those terrorists go? Because they didn't just decide not to be terrorists, they just left Benghazi. Where did they go?

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Sure. So yeah, the good part with Benghazi, it was a city that was anti-terrorist. So that was a good starting point. Now, what happened is they did the civil war and they went neighborhood by neighborhood, which people don't like in other countries, apparently, and battled them. So actually about 50% of them died on the battlefield, which is crazy. I'd say about 10% of them are detained and then maybe 15%. And then the other maybe 35%. Yeah, like you said, kind of went into the wind. Now, there is a small percentage that left terrorism, but it's a very small percentage. And then the rest went over to the other side of Libya. So they're kind of in the Tripoli area, they joined other groups, some left.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  There's about a dozen in Turkey, there's other ones in Europe. And then we of course have. Them now moving again to Afghanistan. So they do proliferate and lots of times they move to the next war zone. So initially, they just went to Syria, as you can imagine. Now they're all going to Afghanistan again because that's the new kind of base of jihad. So these terrorists will move constantly. I know terrorists that went Bosnia to Afghanistan, to Algeria, to Iraq, to Syria. It's crazy. They need to go to the next jihad in their mind.

• 34:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Can you describe a little bit about what's happening inside American universities and the very complicated business of funding ideology that is actually starting to pull the US apart and making us really lose track about where threats are coming from, who's on the side of good versus bad. Now, I don't want to simplify it so much to good and bad, but you know, as you described, there is an ideology that doesn't want people to live in harmony with one another. They want a very specific and controlled way of life. Can you describe how that is infiltrating our school systems?

• 35:37Mayim Bialik?

  Did you just say specific and controlled? That's also, it's, you know, yeah, it's a gentle way to put it.

• 35:43Jonathan Cohen?

  It is a gentle way to put it. I was trying not to use inflammatory language.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  It's difficult if you're in an environment that might be some indoctrination around it or radicalization around it because you're not going to admit that it's happening, right? Because I wouldn't fall for something like that. So it's a hard thing to define because it's hard to also put people down who have no clue what's going on, but they're getting down this pathway. So it's very complicated. Foreign actors who influence our university, they put the money in and then it gives them the job titles, they get to affect curriculum, they get to open different kind of institutions on the campus. Where the influence is, is in the youngest generations. If we get them now, right, they will think like us, act

• 36:27Speaker 02

  like us, aid us, you know, as they grow. ISIS, they do a lot of recruiting and engineering programs, right? So they know this is the core time to get the brightest, to get the most influential, to maybe even get people who are a little bit wealthy, that they do target wealthy institutions. Because they're going to become someone. And when they become someone, they can parrot our talking points and they'll be influenced by us. And we have now a little bit of control and they have a positive view for us. It's it's very smart, but it's hard to get universities to admit this is happening because they want this money. It's so much money.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  It funds a lot of, you know, research, it helps them expand and it's it's a very difficult thing to deal with, I've noticed.

• 37:20Mayim Bialik?

  Why are terrorists recruiting engineering students at our universities?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they focus on engineers because engineers think outside the box, they're creative. Like I said, a lot of them come from wealthier families and which gives them an influence piece. And then, of course, just for the bomb making. So you can, anyone can make a bomb. What, the three of us can sit in line for thirty minutes and make a bomb. But how do you advance that, right? How do you do different, how do you try new chemicals? How do you do different things? So they want someone who thinks like that. And they might not even take the engineer and make him a bomb maker. They might take the engineer and he now makes fake passports. There's tons of engineers making fake passports.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  It, they just like the brains and the thinking. A lot of people think, oh, terrorists are like goat herders. Or they're uneducated and they're just vulnerable people picked up. But no, they actually like to focus on the elite. Because think of it, if I recruit this guy from Saudi, he's from a very wealthy family. Everybody kind of knows him. He's always done great in school and now he's working for me Al Qaeda. First off, no one's gonna assume he's Al Qaeda right away. He has all the relationships and the connections. This is what people get confused about nine eleven. They're like, oh, their connection to the Saudi government. It's like, no, these were rich kids. They knew tons of people across their own society because of who they were.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  They had relationships and connections that predated being an Al Qaeda member. And the terrorists take such advantage of that because influence is so important. Remember, it's not about just shooting a gun. You need political influence. You have to buy your way into societies. And it's the same way China does it, but they do it different. So China, for example, will be like, well, I want to make influence. They're not going to first go and try to make influence in the office of the president. They're going to go into local chambers of commerce and become members and start buying land and making relationships. The terrorists do the exact same thing because they know we need to be in these certain systems and these certain societies to legitimize who we are.

• 39:33Jonathan Cohen?

  I was wondering if we can tackle two topics. One of them is Havana syndrome. I know you have a very interesting experience that I'd love to hear about, but just today, a reporter who had been investigating Epstein said that she had to flee her New Mexico house because she was a target of what she described as very similar effects of what an energy weapon could be. Can you react to that? And also, maybe if people don't understand Havana syndrome, describe what we're talking about.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Sure. So Havana syndrome is a new term from when a lot of CIA and State Department officers felt this in Havana, I don't know what it was, eight or nine years ago. But this really goes back to really like the 1950s when we had an embassy in Russia and the Russians started targeting us with these weapons that we call, they're really like pulses. So it's like, you know, if you kind of like just tick, right? You tick, tick, tick at yourself. It's a simple, continuous pulse. Well, these pulses come at

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Varying times and varying, um, speeds. And then they mess with your nervous system because it hits it in a way it hasn't been hit before. I know that's the simplest way to put it, but that's what people are experiencing. Now, when they get one of these pulses, it then affects the central nervous system and affects different things. So a lot of it can be like, maybe if you had meningitis, um, like, you know, just things, you can't put thoughts together, you're having like a cloud fog, um, you're, um, forgetting things. And then it can get more extreme to where you think about stepping, but your brain isn't telling your leg to move.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  So unfortunately, there's different extremes to where people can't work anymore. You can't think, you can't stay focused, you just can't work. You can't even stay focused for an hour in some cases because it's damaged your central nervous system so much. So for a long time, we knew Russia did this and it was covered up. Then in Havana, and then it went to Vienna and a couple other places, like in Asia, so many people started reporting it, the government could basically no longer cover it up, but then they've no, also not found answers. So they don't want to say it's Russia, even though it's Russia, because they don't want to elevate a conflict.

• 42:08Mayim Bialik?

  Also Havana syndrome is officially known as anomalous health incidence.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:15Mayim Bialik?

  I'm saying this, you know, half joking, you know, for many women who have long COVID, menopause and autoimmune conditions, we have all these symptoms.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  And limes.

• 42:25Mayim Bialik?

  We don't have Havana syndrome, but these are the symptoms of something that has dysregulated your nervous system, right? In a way that is very hard to pin down, very hard to diagnose, very hard to find a cause, and very hard to treat. So you kind of try and treat all the symptoms, but that's really what this is. It's a, it's an unknown etiology, right?

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the most simplest, less harmful, um, effects of Havana syndrome feel like long COVID or limes. But because of who is targeted, how they were targeted, and they got targeted a lot more extreme, the the worst cases, those people can can't do normal daily functions or thinking or movements. And there's not like a cure or a solution, unfortunately. So the government shifted from calling it Havana syndrome to anonymous health incidents as this effort to off you skate it. Because they're trying to pretend we don't know the fore and after.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Well, it targeted our best and brightest. And it targeted people who spent years overseas. You're not like delusional, like you know who the enemy is. You know when something directly is happening to you and impacting you. You know when something has changed. And when this eh weapon hits you, you actually physically feel it and know it. It's not like kind of one of those things like, you know, when you fall asleep and there's an earthquake in California, you're like, what was that? Like, you don't know what it is at first. You know you're being hit by something. So it's not like um you are don't have the common sense. So then the problem is if you're a victim of this, I mean, think about it. You have a government not being honest about it. They're not giving you the treatment you need.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  You have to be siloed into only certain treatment programs. And then even in those, they're not writing everything down. They're influencing it. So you can't go out and just get any medical care. For a long time, they weren't even giving these officers health care at all. Um, so luckily, there's been some changes to that. But it's it's one of those things that we act like is unknown, but it's known. You know, Russia targeted our best and brightest in our intelligence community, in our diplomatic community, in the military, didn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat, if they were sharp, um, they were a rising star. They were working Russia, they went after them. And so it's kind of this thing that's been hanging. And as you can imagine, the victims feel completely ignored.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  They feel they haven't got treatment. There isn't even like a lot of government effort to think of new ways to treat them or to try different things or to bring in some of these smart, um, scientific or medical communities to help make their lives a little better. So they do feel left alone. So it is this constant problem. And again, the government covered up a lot of stuff. So if even if you say, I'm gonna FOIA. All of the information on Havana syndrome, I'm looking at myself, the records are not complete. So you're not even be able to make a good assessment, even if you pull in all the government records, because they have corrupted them. It's a sad thing to say, but it's true.

• 45:40Mayim Bialik?

  And P S, the government has corrupted the files.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:45Jonathan Cohen?

  What we're talking about is like some sort of pulse from a weapon that we didn't understand what that weapon was. There was a lot of controversy around, do you need a massive truck in order to create this microwavable pulse? Is it small enough to be portable? How are they deploying it? Right? There was a lot of uncertainty about the technological side of how this was happening to people.

• 46:08Mayim Bialik?

  It's like on Star Trek. There's some weird gun and it goes pew, pew, pew, pew. Like, that's what I picture.

• 46:13Jonathan Cohen?

  Because it's this new type of technology that we weren't really clear about, there was a lot of uncertainty about, you know, how it was being deployed, how it could be impacting people. So their symptoms were also not understood because we didn't understand the technology that was doing it to them.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that some of that is they didn't want to know all the details, to be very honest. Let's just talk Havana. So the hotel they targeted these people in, it's not like everybody else in the hotel got targeted, right? There's flight attendants in this hotel, for example. So, meaning, it just can go on the other side of the wall of the room. So it doesn't have to be some truck outside. It's at least a size where it's in the room on the other side of the wall from you. That is a basic understanding, but yes, they like to act like, we don't know, we don't know what this is coming from. And then a lot of people don't take it serious. Now, when I left the CIA, I actually went to work for JetBlue, and I told them, I said, hey, your crew is staying in this hotel, this Havana syndrome happened in.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  I told them, I feel it's directed and it won't affect your crew, but why risk it? And so they banned the hotel. So there, at least there are people who understand this is a threat and why put my people in place of this threat. But the US government just keeps throwing the people back into these threat environments and not solving it. And so I know a ton of people who quit CIA because they don't want to take the risk.

• 47:38Mayim Bialik?

  I'm sorry, you went to work for JetBlue? Were you a flight attendant?

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:41Mayim Bialik?

  Were you a pilot?

• 47:41Speaker 02

  I wasn't a flight attendant, no, I was in the security department. I'd be a great flight attendant, though, because I'm super friendly.

• 47:47Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I'd like you flying the plane. I feel like I want you

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 47:51Mayim Bialik?

  seeing everything. No.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  I've flown at Dave and Buster's, and I've only ever crashed a plane. You do not want me flying the plane.

• 47:58Mayim Bialik?

  Dave and Buster's?

• 48:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you have any reactions to this woman who was a reporter who says that she was targeted? Like, is it, are people being targeted on US soil? Should we be concerned that this is just like, become, uh, commercialized? Or is portable now and can attack? Or, you know, potentially, people who are, um, saying things that someone might not want them to say could be attacked?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so here's what I know. Yes, there has been targeting on US soil, for sure, in Washington DC. My opinion is this is portable, so we can kind of just take that off the table. You can be targeted anywhere. Now, I did have a friend hit by this last summer, okay? So he was in Vienna, one of the places we know it is. And I think they were targeting the person with him. So they do make mistakes. Um, and so I think he got hit instead of that person. So that's another thing, too, who is obviously in this person's vicinity? Now, here's the part, it's difficult in this case. So remember, this was Russian. Well, over the years, it's proliferating. But China has it now, and then who knows who has it from that?

• 49:07Speaker 02

  So the negative, too, is now, you can say, I believe I was hit by Havana Syndrome. Who is the threat actor? And that is harder to identify, because it's not just Russia anymore with this weapon. And because we didn't spend time digging into and looking at it, I don't think our government knows who all now has the weapon. And that's concerning. And then, of course, we likely also have the weapon. Because they say we bought one off the black market. Um, so we also probably have the weapon. So, again, it's a very frustrating thing to say, hey, I don't know this reporter's story, so I... But who could have been a threat actor if it really is Havana Syndrome? Uh, and that is more complicated. You can't just assume it's the Russians anymore.

• 49:50Mayim Bialik?

  Not to think like a geneticist, but it's also possible that there's no particular weapon. There could be some other delivery system. This could be a signaling molecule that gets turned on. Meaning it could be something that is somehow ingested, inhaled, placed somehow so that it is in your system and there's some signaling that gets turned on that activates this cascade.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  There could be multiple things. Remember, we all kind of base it off the old Moscow, US Embassy model.

• 50:22Mayim Bialik?

  I'm trying to be creative. I'm trying to get a job with you.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  But there could be five more different things that affect your nervous system because no one took time to look into it. They don't even know all the other ones, like you're saying. That could be perfectly plausible and that's what's the problem with covering it up. You didn't put the work into it. So we don't know those answers.

• 50:43Mayim Bialik?

  I will have my report on your desk tomorrow morning.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Looking forward to it.

• 50:47Jonathan Cohen?

  What should we be afraid of that we haven't covered yet?

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  I don't think we should be afraid at all.

• 50:55Jonathan Cohen?

  Aware of, aware of.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  Okay. I think more like it's always important to know what could happen near me and then you prepare for it. So I live in Florida, so of course preparing for hurricanes is really important. And then we know there's been terrorist casing because the ISIS terrorists did it. So it's all those little things you start thinking of and doing like, hey, how can I better prepare myself if I can't get hold of my family in a crisis? What's our plan? Just all those little steps. What I worry is people don't take the time to even just prepare within their own family or maybe like they make the plan. It's all based on the husband and now he's at work and everyone's like, what do we do now? Dad had this role. And I think it's just a little more, what if, what if this happens? What if we're at the movie theater and guns, you know, we hear gunshot, what are we going to do? Like

• 51:41Speaker 02

  if you have all these discussions beforehand, first off, you're not afraid when it happens because you have a plan, you've thought through it and then you can just go on and enjoy things. And when something's off, then you can get the heck out of Dodge because that's which, you know, you want to do. You don't want to stay in a situation that feels uncomfortable. Think about it. If you walked into a bar and it's all these bikers. Now, you might be curious because I'd like to ask some questions even though I know that they're not going to answer anything, but I'm likely leaving even though I'm super. Super, super curious and I love being curious. I'm gone. Like, I do not fit in in here. They all side-eyed me. They don't know who I am now. They're like, who's this crazy reporter, probably? Um, so that's how you have to live your life. Just take yourself

• 52:24Speaker 02

  out of a situation when you're in it, but you know, live your daily life how it is. Now, if I am in a location, like if I belong to a church or something and I notice they're maybe not doing something, I'm gonna say, hey, you should do it this way, or have you thought of this, or have you considered that? A really good example is on a lot of these casing incidents, the same question has come up. Do you livestream? So I've been going to churches and saying, hey, if you livestream, just delay it thirty minutes. If, if a terrorist wants this to be on the livestream and you're not a church who livestreams, you might take, be taken off a target deck. Very simple. So the more knowledgeable we are, the better we can protect ourselves and the less we have to worry.

• 53:03Jonathan Cohen?

  Really well said. I, that's a really interesting point also.

• 53:06Mayim Bialik?

  Do you feel less scared?

• 53:08Jonathan Cohen?

  You know what? I have a lot of things I think about and I have no one to talk to them about. So I'm really glad Sarah is here. And another thing I was thinking is, is TikTok a psy-op system from designed by China to control the youth and their, their opinions? Like, how concerned should we be that most kids are spending eight hours a day on a platform that China turns off at night? And in their country is designed with educational and motivational content on it.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Real TikTok has long been banned in China. Now, the dangerous piece is no matter what platform you use is the algorithm. Because if you start getting down one of these paths, let's say I'm getting down into accelerationist movement, right? What we just saw in San Diego. Now, when I start looking all that up, which I have been recently, it's now in my feed. I'm now getting more of it. It's like it's almost indoctrinating me, the algorithm, when they didn't even plan for it. Like, it's on X or it's on Instagram. So even though China set up this model in some way, you know, They don't have exactly the ownership now, but this is happening everywhere.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  Like I do find in a way, algorithms are dangerous, even if you're not looking at bad stuff. So let's say you only have one point of view and then your algorithm is only giving you that. So it's only reinforcing it. You never think of the other side of things or look at the other side. Like I was a Democrat for 20 years and then I've been a Republican, I don't know, for a handful of years. You know, I've worked all across the government. I've worked in the Hill. I've seen both sides of it. So I'm really good at seeing this and this, because I'm just moderate down the middle. But if you only have an algorithm that's feeding you far right, far left, terrorist propaganda, whatever the heck they're feeding to our kids, because there is some crazy stuff they believe. It's just reinforced over and over again. And when something's reinforced, it's like when someone tells you something three times, right?

• 55:08Speaker 02

  It's now in your head and it's hard to reverse that.

• 55:12Jonathan Cohen?

  And they start small, right? They'll give you a video that isn't so extreme and they reinforce that for a few weeks. And then after that, it goes a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. I've like, I don't think we'll ever see what I'm about to say, but I've been a long proponent of algorithmic transparency, where you should be able to slide a bar and say, I want something down the middle. I want my viewpoint to be reinforced. I want the counterpoint. And you should see, you should be able to see visually the graph or a chart or a slider of some kind to say, actually, your algorithm is weighted towards this. Because also, you know, our attention spans aren't that long. There's like a six or seven formula, piece of content formula there they give you.

• 55:56Jonathan Cohen?

  For me, it's a, here's a workout exercise you didn't know you were doing wrong. Here's a supplement you need to take. Here's an art, you know, thing that you could build at home that you'll never build. I just saw a beautiful one for a concrete lamp that I'm asking my son to make. Then here's a product you need to buy. Then here's another workout thing.

• 56:15Mayim Bialik?

  But this time it's a lady and she barely has any clothes on.

• 56:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly. And so, and then I'm like, oh, I need to buy that thing. Oh, wait a second. I should really. And then they keep you in this loop over, and then here's a, two pets that should, shouldn't be friends and are friends. And now I feel great and I send that to my. And it just keeps me in this loop over and over again. And I don't realize that there is a formula in place to keep me distracted. And if that is about ideology, if it's about what I should believe in, that I don't like my country, all of a sudden it becomes really dangerous.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's a complicated thing because these companies are trying to make money. Yes, some are paid to do influence, which is very concerning. And it's hard to figure out what and where and when. But they also want to make money. So they want the outrage, they want the crazy. And it's a frustrating thing because they're never going to be fully transparent. Because some are involved in influence operations and those type of things. I really think one of the main things is detaching from it as much as possible. Last week I had a friend in town who is not on social media. And we drilled her, this poor girl, like she was an alien. But it was fascinating because she saw the world actually pretty very clear.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  You know, she was just as informed as crazy people on the internet, but didn't know the crazies. So we actually told her some of the conspiracies and she was laughing about it. But it's like, yeah, that's what you've got to do. You've got to detach from this because no one's going to fix your algorithm. No one's going to give you good info. They want to influence you and we just have to be honest about that.

• 57:52Mayim Bialik?

  The biggest fear that so many of us have is, you know, even if you're not a parent, you know, we have a generation that we did a horrible experiment on. We said, what happens if we give you 24/7 access to rage, to dysmorphia, to mental health, you know, pitfalls, right? What happens? This is what happens. We don't know how to have nuance. We, you know, we have kids who don't know the difference between truth and fiction. If you see someone that says, a study showed, unless you're showing me the raw data of that study and I can then duplicate that

• 58:32Mayim Bialik?

  in other peer-reviewed study, I don't really care about one study that is reported on the internet. The study could have been three people. It could have been 3,000 people. And all that people want to do is forward that on. Here's a piece of information that reinforces the way that I believe. And now I'm going to send it to everyone I know, right? That's actually not what we want this next generation of kids thinking about and thinking towards.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's a super complicated thing. Because also that when you say, we're gonna fix this problem, right? We're gonna fight something like disinformation. Then you bring in political views, assumptions, people's biases. And you can't solve it that way either. So it's almost like detachment is the key, which I know is complicated. Because these kids are becoming like, this is an addiction. And as you know, any, I mean, you're smarter than me. Breaking someone from any addiction is so complicated. So it's so tough for parents right now. This is an uphill battle, but they gotta fight it. And I feel sometimes people fight it, fight it, fight it, and then they give up. Like, ah, it's not worth it.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  And I just, I don't think that's the way it should be handled.

• 59:45Mayim Bialik?

  What do you do for fun? How does this not consume your entire identity? What did they do to you in the Midwest that made you able to function as a person? Knowing the things that you know.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  I guess I don't view it in a fearful way. Because remember, in life, there's just bad things all over. Like, it's more likely I'm gonna get hit by a car and die than I'm gonna get shot by terrorists, right? So I guess I don't really worry about the fear of it. So I don't sit around like stressed about it or upset about it. I try to share. I really like to focus on preparing people. Because the more you know, the more you're squirted away when something happens. Or if you just hear a boom, if I hear a boom, I'm getting the hell out of there. Like, you know the reason curious person like, what could that be over there, right? But this is getting people thinking different. So I like to focus on that a lot. But I have a normal, everyday life. Unfortunately, I lost my dog. My dog was pretty much who I spent all my time with, but he died of old age.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  But I ride around on e-bikes. You know, I'm at the, the local farmer's market on the weekends. Like, my life is perfectly normal. And that's the way all Americans should live. Like, you can't live based on a fear. But knowing the threats out there are at least good to know. Because then you can prepare around them. So if something bad happens, I'll be fine in my house for one week or two weeks. And I can lock down. I'm ready. You know, I know how to defend myself and protect myself if I need to. And I just think that's a really good place to be in. And then you can enjoy the rest of your life.

• 1:01:21Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, Sarah, I found you on the internet and I'm very glad

• 1:01:23Mayim Bialik?

  So glad.

• 1:01:24Jonathan Cohen?

  That we got to speak with you.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Was I in the hot woman category? Or was I in the pet?

• 1:01:30Mayim Bialik?

  You tell us.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  The two pets that don't get along.

• 1:01:31Mayim Bialik?

  You tell us.

• 1:01:32Jonathan Cohen?

  I get a lot of, here's the threats in the world also. So you, you came in that category.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  Just was making sure what bucket it was in the algorithm.

• 1:01:40Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, my God, I love her. Um, Sarah, your podcast, The Watch Floor. If people, if you like the way Sarah talks, which I do, and you like the perspective that she brings, please, please check out The Watch Floor. Where can people follow you and find you on the internet?

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so of course, The Watch Floor is on YouTube. And then we have like, it's on every other, you know, you can go to Facebook X. And then I'm just on Twitter mostly in my name, Sarah Adams. And then I'm on other sites like LinkedIn and stuff. But to be honest, I never get time to check my messages. So you better put some work in to hunt me down. Otherwise, we're never going to connect. And I try really, really hard. But I do spend my nights in my free time going after terrorists. And I don't have a lot of spare time. Plus, I have a full-time job now, obviously, like you, with this podcast. And so I'm learning. I like to be behind the scenes. So it's a super uncomfortable world for me as it is.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  And I bet, you know, well, you are a star. So I guess it's different. But it is, it is a hard transition.

• 1:02:48Mayim Bialik?

  It is, no, it's very challenging. Um, also wanted to give another shout out to the book that you co-wrote with Dave Benton, Benghazi Know Thy Enemy: A Cold Case Investigation. A really, really cool book. Also because it shows you not only what happened, but how, how one investigates and how one pursues this kind of terrorism. So, um, really, um, appreciate the book. Appreciate you being here. And thank you for your service, you know? Thank you for everything you've done to keep us safe in ways that many of us will never know. And I know there are so many like you, many of whom we will never get to know. So thank you for your service and for risking your life to protect our freedoms. Thank you.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much for having me today.

• 1:03:38Mayim Bialik?

  I will never sleep again. Was that the goal? You brought Sarah here so that I will just be awake all the time? I can get so much work done?

• 1:03:44Jonathan Cohen?

  One of the important things that I took away from this conversation was the notion of things may get shut down. There may be situations that come up, whether natural disasters or otherwise, where it's not crazy to think that we have to lock down in our houses for a week or two weeks.

• 1:04:03Mayim Bialik?

  That's the message you took home?

• 1:04:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, because I think there's a preparation that we are naive to. And anytime I talk about, hey, we need to prepare a little bit, you're like, you're a doomsdayer and you want to build a bunker. And I think there's a fine line between I want to go in underground for months at a time and be able to live off the grid and understanding that the construction of our society is actually much more fragile than we've been led to believe. And, and we're so used to next day delivery, now same day delivery. I go on the internet, I get all my food from Uber Eats or DoorDash or wherever you get it.

• 1:04:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Not an ad for any particular company. Or I'm so used to just like going wherever I want to go at any time. The restrictions and frictions in our lives are lower than ever before. But like, that's not realistic as a sustainable model. There are bad actors, whether that be external or internal. There are natural disasters, there are earthquakes that happen in California. And I don't think most people, most people don't have cash anymore. Most people don't have gas in their car. Most people don't have a prep or a meal prep or bottled water anywhere. And I think it's a little bit delusional, myself included, to think that we will never experience a situation where we need to be prepared.

• 1:05:30Mayim Bialik?

  I think that Sarah could have a very lucrative side business of selling emergency kits to people. So that after she tells you all the things that you should be afraid of, you would just go to her website and click and say, I'm a level five warrior.

• 1:05:46Jonathan Cohen?

  What's my level five kit?

• 1:05:48Mayim Bialik?

  I need a level five kit.

• 1:05:50Jonathan Cohen?

  There are actually a lot of, um, my Instagram doesn't show me those, but it could after this conversation because it's probably listening to me. There are companies that have pre-prepared go bags with like meal kits.

• 1:06:02Mayim Bialik?

  You wouldn't like the meals. You'd be catching about the meals all day.

• 1:06:06Jonathan Cohen?

  Look, they're like camping meals. They're like add hot water. You need your boiled water kit to go with you.

• 1:06:12Mayim Bialik?

  The number one thing I'd be worried about.

• 1:06:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Maybe for my birthday, we can get one of those.

• 1:06:16Mayim Bialik?

  The number one thing I would worry about, and I'm looking to Valerie and Aton, if God forbid, there was something and we had to like, you know, be in here. The number one thing I'd worry about is listening to you complain about the food. That's the number.

• 1:06:30Jonathan Cohen?

  Not your health.

• 1:06:30Mayim Bialik?

  Not my health?

• 1:06:31Jonathan Cohen?

  Not the Havana syndrome?

• 1:06:33Mayim Bialik?

  Not the health of the country?

• 1:06:33Jonathan Cohen?

  No.

• 1:06:34Mayim Bialik?

  I wouldn't be worried about getting hit with Havana syndrome. I'd be worried about you talking about microplastics and the things.

• 1:06:41Jonathan Cohen?

  A lot of microplastics in those meals because you're pouring hot water into a bag. So that is, that is a concern, but you know what? It's, it's two weeks. It's not your whole life.

• 1:06:52Mayim Bialik?

  Um, no, I really did, um, really appreciated. I mean, look, she's got a candor that I don't have, you know, I, as I said, I'm not. I thought that was a funny part of this episode. These are the qualities that are required. That's not, those are not my qualities.

• 1:07:08Jonathan Cohen?

  And that's okay?

• 1:07:09Mayim Bialik?

  That's okay.

• 1:07:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Everyone is different. I think we're probably.

• 1:07:11Mayim Bialik?

  Because I'm good enough and I'm smart enough and gosh darn it, people like me.

• 1:07:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Like you too. Um, I think we're probably the funniest show that she's been on. She's on a lot of very serious shows.

• 1:07:24Mayim Bialik?

  She's very funny.

• 1:07:25Jonathan Cohen?

  She is very funny. I haven't seen that funny side of her in the past. No shade to some of the shows she's been on, but they're very, very serious. A lot of mood lighting.

• 1:07:37Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I did, I had to question her use of the word funny.

• 1:07:40Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, it wasn't funny.

• 1:07:41Mayim Bialik?

  I didn't mean to correct her, but like colloquially, I get it. Like, oh, and it was funny, but like nothing about. I'm just picturing, you know, when even on the, on the inside flap of her book, you know, you see her and it's like, oh, here she is in front of, I don't know if it's the embassy and she's just like happy, you know, and uh, she's very comfortable, you know, with living in a completely different culture and placing herself in a totally different world to gather information. It's, she's, it needs her own TV show.

• 1:08:11Jonathan Cohen?

  In some ways, not always, some ways you're very discerning and in other ways you're quite gullible. So I just imagine like the film version of you.

• 1:08:19Mayim Bialik?

  I'm impressionable.

• 1:08:21Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay, which I love about you. But I imagine the film version of you as a spy, but it's like kind of a farcical comedy where they're kind of

• 1:08:32Jonathan Cohen?

  hapless, a little bit.

• 1:08:34Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 1:08:35Jonathan Cohen?

  Skipping around, you're kind of like, you go meet the person, they're not exactly on the corner where they say they're gonna be. You get really upset and then you go over to them and they're like, that person isn't important. You're like, oh yeah, of course not.

• 1:08:46Mayim Bialik?

  I'm thinking of Melanie Griffith in a film called Stranger Among Us. A shout out to Howard V. Rosenman who produced that. And it was Melanie Griffith with a gun, like, freeze. It was fantastic. And I was like, that's what I would, I could be that. I would play Sarah if she were to ask me. I would play her in the, in the movie version of her life.

• 1:09:07Jonathan Cohen?

  If you're still here at this point in the episode and you want more of my MB Alex breakdown, you can get this type of banter and analysis over on Substack, my MB Alex breakdown on Substack.

• 1:09:17Mayim Bialik?

  From our breakdown to the one we hope we never have. We'll see you next time.

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  It's my MB Alex breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction one. And now she's gonna break down, it's a breakdown. She's gonna break it down.

• 1:09:35Speaker 05

  BJ's 42% off thank you celebration is how we say thanks for 42 years. Get 42% off ground beef, chicken drumsticks, potatoes and more through October 31st at BJ's Wholesale Club. Terms apply. Visit BJ's.com for details. Not a member? Join today.