Title: Comedy Overload
Show: Comedy Overload
Date: 2026-07-03
URL: https://youtu.be/j89s1BAvK0o
Duration: 9:00

---

[00:00] Middle Eastern country. This is something we did literally every single day, usually multiple times a day. And what we do is we set up a day of briefings, they get a photo op with the director, you know, shaking hands, we exchange gifts, and we take them out to a fancy dinner at night. So, these guys, they're all mid-level, like majors and lieutenant colonels. >> So, it's a lot of [ __ ] >> Yeah, there's a lot of it, a lot, yes. So, I set up a day of briefings, and I I went to see this kid, young guy, 20s, uh that was covering Al-Qaeda, and I said, "Can you come and just talk to

[00:30] these guys about Al-Qaeda for an hour?" He said, "Yes." So, it came time for his briefing, but instead of him coming, the director of counterterrorism comes, Cofer Black, uh later Ambassador Cofer Black, and he comes >> From which country? >> Uh you the >> Oh, from the US. >> Yeah, yeah. He was our director >> So, he showed up. >> Cofer shows up with the director of operations from the Osama bin Laden unit. And um and I jumped [clears throat] up. I was I was like, "Oh, uh gentlemen," I said, "this is This is Cofer Black. He's

[01:01] the director of counterterrorism for the entire American intelligence community." >> And you were working in counterterrorism at the time. Got it. >> And so, he came in and and sat down, and he was very, very serious. He said, uh "Something terrible is going to happen. We don't know exactly when or exactly where, but we know it's going to be an attack on a scale that we've never seen before." He said, "We're picking up chatter from the Al-Qaeda training camps, where camp commanders are on the phone with their students, and they're

[01:32] crying and telling them, 'I'll see you in paradise.'" We're hearing code words for a massive attack, "The honey salesman is coming with vast quantities of honey, or there's going to be a huge wedding, or a huge football game." And he said, "We know that they're planning an enormous attack. We just don't know when or where." And he said, "I'm begging you, if you have any sources inside Al-Qaeda, please help us." They just sat there and looked at him. Nothing. So, at the end of the day, I

[02:02] was not working on Al-Qaeda at the time. I later, weeks later, became the chief of uh counterintelligence in the Osama bin Laden unit. And so, I went to his office at at the end of the day before I took those guys to dinner, and I said, "Koffer, I got to tell you, you shocked me with that briefing today. Was that just for them, or were you serious?" He said, "Oh, I was deadly serious. Something terrible is going to happen." And then on September 11th, there it was. He and I were supposed to go to the White House that morning. We had a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, who was the National Security Advisor at the

[02:33] time, on an issue that's so stupid now, I'm almost embarrassed to tell you what it is. It was about a a book that was being printed by the Government Printing Office, this minor governmental agency called Greece, Turkey, Cyprus. No, it was called Foreign Affairs of the United States, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, 1949 to 1967. Literally, nobody's going to read this book. >> Nobody, I was going to tell you that. Nobody's going to read it. >> Literally, nobody. >> Yeah. >> And it's like a thousand pages long. >> That's money laundering.

[03:03] >> And it had the names of three CIA sources who were still alive. And we've got this obscure law in the United States that if the government outs a CIA source, we have to offer the source citizenship. These guys are like 198 and 97 years old. They're not going to They don't care. >> Right. >> Nobody's going to read the book anyway. So, um we were going to go down there and ask her just pull those pages out of the out of the book, you know? Nobody's going to miss it. Nobody's going to read it anyhow. Just pull the pages out or

[03:34] redact the names or whatever. But, I went up to tell him that the car was ready, and the secretary's got a little TV on her desk, and the World Trade Center's on fire. I said, "What happened to World Trade Center?" She said a plane flew into it. And I go, cuz I'm a genius, I said, "You know, that happened once before in 1930. A bomber flew into the Empire State Building, but it was like pouring rain and fog. I said, "It's so crystal clear today. How can you not see that you're flying into the World Trade Center?" And just as I spoke the words, the second

[04:04] plane hit. And then she turned and she said, "Did you see that or did I imagine it?" And it's like, uh, everything is going to go to [ __ ] now. >> And And at this point you're already working in counterterrorism, yeah? >> Well, I was already in counterterrorism, but I was working on a group See, again, I'm embarrassed to even say it. I was working in a group that was targeting European communist terrorists like Carlos the Jackal, who nobody remembers now. He was the Osama bin Laden of the '70s. Nobody remembers who in the world he was. >> Really? >> Yeah, Carlos the Jackal. >> Bring him up. >> There he is.

[04:35] >> Wow, he looks suave, huh? >> He was Venezuelan, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. >> Mhm. >> Listen to the balls this guy had. OPEC had an oil ministers meeting, right? So, the ministers >> And for those who don't know what OPEC is, it's the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. So, um, it's basically like your oil kind of, um, commission. >> yeah. >> Right? >> Yeah. It's a the, what do you call it? The, cartel. It's an oil cartel. >> So,

[05:06] he and his gang of terrorists raided the OPEC oil ministers meeting in Vienna, Austria and kidnapped every single minister of oil. They killed three people, says there. >> Oh, yeah. >> He and he demanded a plane, flew everybody to Libya, took his billion-dollar ransom that they gave him, and then let everybody go. >> Wow. So, he was just trying to get a bag, really, huh? >> Oh, yeah, and he was good at it. And then he was so good at it, he set up terrorist training camps in Libya and

[05:37] Lebanon, and he trained the IRA, the Irish Republican Army. He trained Greece's Revolutionary Organization 17 November, the Red Brigades, the Action Direct, the >> Why did he feel so convicted to to do this sort of behavior? >> He was a true believing communist. And he just wanted to bring down the West. >> Uh-huh. Interesting. >> Yeah. >> But take me back. So, it's like you guys hear that something's going to happen. >> Something terrible's going to happen. >> But what do you do at that point? >> Well, see, that's the key. What do you

[06:08] do? We We didn't know what to do. So, we're going to the, you know, Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Saudis, the this one, and that one. And they're like, "We We don't know what's going on." Well, as it turned out, that wasn't true. Um almost all the hijackers What Was it 17 16 or 17 of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. >> right? >> And we know that the Saudi ambassador to the United States at the time, Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, his wife transferred $50,000 from her personal

[06:38] bank account to the hijackers. What are we supposed to make of that? >> Yeah, sometimes you got to get your girl to Venmo if you need to get it, you know what I'm saying? >> Seriously, you know, the only time I ever saw George Tenet, who was the CIA director at the time, the only time I ever saw George completely lose his [ __ ] was in a meeting with Prince Bandar. He said, "If we don't start getting help from the Saudi government on this case, we're going to start killing people, a lot of people, and some of them are going to be named

[07:10] al-Saud." I go out to Pakistan as the chief of counterterrorism operations there in January of '02. So, it's still fresh. We're bombing Tora Bora. All these al-Qaeda people are trying to get out of Afghanistan, cross into into Pakistan. And my job was then to catch them when they came into Pakistan. >> what? We're bombing We're bombing which country? >> Afghanistan. >> Afghanistan, right? But there was Why were we looking for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? >> That's where they were living, all of them. They launched 9/11 from Afghanistan. Got it. At least

[07:41] theoretically, the ideas came when they were in Afghanistan. >> Because from the American like population it always felt like we never went after Saudi Arabia. That's what it felt like. >> Yeah. And we should have. >> But if you Didn't you know that? >> We did not. We suspected, but we didn't have There was no smoking gun. So, that's what I'm getting to. We catch Abu Zubaydah, Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn. Abu Zubaydah, who we believed at the time was >> you were having a stroke for a second there. >> no. His name >> No, I'm just joking. That was a joke.

[08:11] >> The profession I know. The profession of faith La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasul Allah every day of my >> people that are stroking out and if you don't tap in with them, they'll just keep going. >> Oh, jeez. >> You know? And they They never buy a vowel and then they just [ __ ] tap out, you know? >> terrible. So, you guys were doing this guy? >> for him. >> Oh, bro. >> And we catch him. >> This dude is a [ __ ] mumble rapper, I think. Go on. >> He We were on him for 6 weeks we chased him. Some days we'd bust down the door and there's like a warm meal and a

[08:42] half-lit cigarette still on the table. We're like, "Dang it, with 15 minutes we could have gotten him." Some days we were a day or two behind. So, he knew we were after him. He knew we were chasing him all over the freaking country. And we catch him. In late March 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan. So, we also confiscated his diary. This This led to a huge fight between the FBI and the CIA. Huge. And the CIA was right and the FBI was wrong.

[09:12] But, um the The fight was What? We had We had captured his diary. So, I'm sitting here >> sounds so suspect that he has a diary. >> It was more than a diary, though. >> But, even though, you know what I'm saying? Like as a regular person >> have terrorism stuff in it.
