Title: Country Fried Podcast Season 2 / John Kiriakou talks abo
Show: failure
Date: 2024-09-04
URL: https://youtu.be/nYZT3a9tlSk
Duration: 43:00

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[00:03] recording perfect okay so um I've known about you of course um and how's the audio is the audio okay yeah nice and clear okay perfect thank you I've known about you obviously through through the media what you went through right um you basically deserve a statue somebody will tear it down that's right that's right forgot about that maybe even something biodegradable that's right that'd be

[00:34] better that'd be up there you at your laptop for like 20 years that and then by the time people get sick of it it'll be gone on its own F I like that there'll be fascism communism capitalism then you know but um all right so one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show from because you have a unique perspective about from a a male point of view okay I'm 43 now I'm worryed about my future my

[01:05] retirement my health care my body all that stuff yes and your mental well-being is number one right um I want to ask you about a young John you know uh how were you as a kid can you give me a quick snapshot were you were you ambitious were you shy no I was always extroverted very ambitious told my parents when I was four years old that I was going to go to college in

[01:35] Washington DC and I did um always always had an interest in foreign affairs from when I was a little kid uh I was always in good shape good health Avid baseball player played baseball gez all through my youth until College were you considered an overachiever have you been accused of that before yes definitely definitely which you know puts a lot of pressure on kids I I I realize in retrospect I'm

[02:08] gonna move this just slightly I realize in retrospect that um that that puts undue pressure on kids you know uh but my parents were so supportive and so good like my grandparents my my grandfather always wanted me to be a dentist right because he was an immigrant all my grandparents were immigrants and you know to be a doctor or a dentist you really made it in life and so until I was like 11 years old I was I would always tell my grandfather yeah sure I'll be a dentist

[02:39] I'll be a dentist and then I remember one time it was 11th grade I was in a car with my dad and and I said to him Dad I just don't want to be a dentist and he said really what do you want to be and I said I want to be a CIA agent no sh no [ __ ] yeah I did I was in 11th grade and I said yeah I don't have any interest in in science I just

[03:09] don't but uh but I had an interest in foreign affairs and I had this weird obsession with Espionage like even when I was eight my mom and dad bought me um a set of walkie-talkies my brother and I would spy on the neighbors and stuff and keep logs on what they were doing and you know do you have a favorite spy film did I have a favorite spy film or Espionage perhaps not as a kid but I will say you know once you get

[03:40] into the CIA you sort of uh critique every spy film everyone and you go see them all and they're all terrible except the recruit the first half of that movie the first half was so 100% spoton I went with a group of C people with six of us and we were all looking at each other like holy [ __ ] who did they have to advise them um the second half of the movie kind of went off the rails okay but the first half

[04:12] was oh my God the Americans on uh it was like AMC I think it's on Netflix FX I think FX FX yeah right I worked with Joe Weisberg who's the creator of uh of the Americans Joe is a terrible case officer he just wasn't cut out for it he's a good guy he's a nice guy it wasn't it wasn't a part of his psyche to you know recruit spies to steal secrets and um and so he had no wife no kids he decided to go to Hollywood and make his fortune and sure enough he created the Americans

[04:44] and is Rich Beyond his Wildest Dreams um but that show is 100% spoton too so um yeah you know I didn't have a favorite movie as a kid but I I have had favorite movies at adults in this as an adult in the genre and um there are a handful of good ones and a whole lot of really bad ones uh you do a damn lot of writing boy do I you do is is writing your passion

[05:15] and and how did it become your passion if is uh writing is easy for me um I never published anything until 2007 uh and I was already what 43 years old uh in 2007 uh I It's Kind of a Funny Story I had um been working at Deo and touch at the time which is one of the big four accounting firms I was the head of their competitive intelligence practice and uh

[05:45] and I was bored I mean it was a it was a fun job it was easy I loved the people I worked with they bring you the money practically in a wheelbarrow right compared to what I was making in government but you're essentially Consulting yeah essentially uh I was uh spying on Dee's competitors to steal their corporate Secrets okay so um I got a call one day from an old boss of mine at the agency and he said that he had gotten a call from Paramount Studios it wasn't for him and he wanted to refer

[06:16] Paramount to me I said okay I had consulted on a couple of films I said sure I'll do that so they call me and they didn't want me to consult on the film what they wanted me to do was to make a secret trip to Afghanistan and rescue the children actors who had appeared in the kit Runner and their family members I laughing because I wish you were making this up you're not making this up are you no it actually made the New York Times and then I got a call from Universal saying that they were thinking of optioning the

[06:48] story which was crazy to me anyway okay so what happened was there were two scenes in the kit Runner that were objectionable in um Muslim culture one was um a 12-year-old boy raping another 12-year-old boy and the other was another 12-year-old boy being forced to do this homoerotic dance in front of a member of the Taliban which is true right they do this which is true which is true it was a true story and

[07:20] um bootleg copies of the film had made their way to Afghanistan from India and they were being circulated this is before the film appeared in the United States in the theaters so you know Afghans many Afghans most Afghans are simple people they're you know from small villages they're largely uneducated and they just don't know the difference between real life and Hollywood make believe and so there were threats against these children's lives incredible threats actually coming from

[07:51] other family members so the studio asked me to go over there assess the situation and if I believed they were in I had a literally unlimited budget to get all of them out of Afghanistan so I fly to Afghanistan through Delhi I hired a British security firm to um protect me while I was there and uh I found the kids school in this really poor neighborhood in Cabell and I met with the principal and he said yeah the

[08:24] kids are in danger um their own cousins are threatening to kill them because they think that they're they're because they were in these these scenes in the film so I went and um found the family uh the the father and mother for each of the kids and they all agreed that yeah they want to get out they got to get out of Afghanistan they're all going to be killed to make a long story short I had to bribe a senior um official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get them passports and exit visas we uh very

[08:58] discreetly rented uh three vans and got everybody in their luggage to the airport and I said I need the first flight out of uh of Cabell I need to get to Dubai well there were no direct flights to Dubai you can fly back to Delhi wait overnight and get to Dubai or you can go through Iran well I'm an American but I said well do we switch planes in Iran or do do we have to

[09:30] overnight in Iran no they said the the plane lands picks up more passengers and then you go onward to Dubai I said give me 28 tickets so uh so we did we flew to Iran and then from Iran to Dubai a friend of mine from Washington met us in Dubai and then we took a week we found houses for for all the family members we enrolled the kids in a in a a Dar farsy language uh private school and um and we got jobs

[10:03] for the fathers and then I just uh flew back to to Washington so I was gone for two weeks I I I had taken two weeks vacation it was funny when my boss when I got back to the office he said how was your vacation and I said oh yeah it was good it was very relaxing oh he said where'd you go the beach or something I go yeah something like that I did a lot of traveling it was later he found out I went to Afghan fistan and Iran um because the New York Times the studio leaked the story to the New York Times

[10:34] because it was a success story and uh he's like dude what's up and I said well I said you know to be honest with you where I choose to spend my vacation really is none of the firm's business and so they uh they overlooked it but yeah I you know I had missed the excitement of the C and working for an accounting firm was Luc lucrative certainly but it was it was boring and I just needed a little bit of adrenaline now

[11:05] um the uh you tell a a story and it's in your Wikipedia page about you're recruited uh when you were in college by a professor right uh what gave him that vibe to approach you was it open discussion in class and he said hey you should think about this or how that come about it was a combination of things open discussion he said that he noticed that um I was never the first one to talk he would he would throw out a question and everybody would jump in and

[11:37] once I heard different perspectives then I would jump in I should add this was a graduate program in legislative affairs and I was easily 10 years younger than everybody else in the class they were all you're over staff professionals on Capitol Hill I was there right I guess um and I I went straight from undergrad everybody else was mid-career decided to go back to school get a master's degree so he liked the fact that I considered all sides before coming down

[12:08] with my own opinion but my writing was also very analytic and um he thought that was my strength it's funny too when I finally joined the CIA um my boss at the time complemented my writing I I I'm very quick I'm a very quick writer and um he he saidou a very quick writer and I like the way you craft your analysis but he said I think you would be happier as a case officer and I said as a case officer like what would give you that

[12:39] idea I had only considered being an analyst um but sure enough after seven years I became a case officer and find I found that I actually had a knack for it for recruiting people so yeah this this professor not only had be had he been a senior Cia officer he had also been the founder of the cia's political um psychology division which was an analytic component in the director of intelligence so he just thought I I would be a good fit

[13:11] there and that's that's the unit that hired me in the beginning now when you made your major personal decision to reveal the torture program um how does you weigh the cost that was one of my my questions to you from personally is you know me men make all sorts of decisions in the course of their lives some are minute to what beer to buy whether or not to drink or to drive or call a

[13:41] cab for you you know like I was watching all your different video interviews I started just writing down words because I didn't really know how to interview you honestly or how to approach you right I just started writing down different words I would hear you say or the interviewer say he said words like deadly serious too many Secrets um million dollars in debt cost uh how did you weigh that cost because you had kids at home you had a wife you have a career you know you could dude you could have

[14:11] sat sat in your office yeah I'd be wethy today dude you you could consulting job write some movies you know how to keep secrets you can keep it secret why do you just keep this one why did you start much for your [ __ ] S I did I did I started all kinds of trouble um I I'm gonna answer that question two ways um

[14:44] first I underestimated The Fallout to tell you the truth I underestimated it um my wife went with me when I gave that interview to ABC News and at the end of it I said how did I do she said great I said I didn't say anything classified right and she said no it was great and I believed that well the George W bush justice department also believed that and after investigating me they

[15:16] determined I hadn't committed a crime but it was it was the Obama Administration that went after me and specifically John Brennan you know John and I never really liked each other and um Brennan's a score settler he's a he's a mean prick and he'll go after you and he'll ruin your life and I'm not the only person that he did that to he did that to a lot of people and and that's you know when you play with the big boy sometimes you get injured so that's that's one answer the other answer is I saw a lot

[15:48] of questionable stuff over the course of a 15E career a lot of illegality a lot of unethical activity illegal immoral activity but torture was just a bridge too far for me okay you know I was mad after 911 to we all were right I volunteered three times to go to Afghanistan before they finally sent me to Pakistan as the chief of counterterrorism operations but that was too much either we're either We're a

[16:20] nation of laws or we're not either We're a nation that respects human rights and civil rights and civil liberties or we're not we can't just pretend to be and then have an archipelago of secret prisons around the world where we disappear people and torture them and when they die in our custody we cremate them and just throw them away which is literally what happens um and and I decided you know wrong is wrong and and I had waited all this time for somebody to come out and say something nobody did and so I

[16:53] figured well I will because that is a huge way to to Bear your shoulders you know and it's it's e easy for other people to patch on the back and say hey John go John go you know and they're not the ones risking their well you know what I got a the the day after I I gave the interview to ABC I got an email from a retired deputy director of the CIA and he said you've chosen a difficult Road uh I'm glad somebody had the guts to say

[17:24] something I only wish it had been me and I thought wow man that made it all worthwhile and you know every time I would I'd have a setback or I'd feel down or the justice department is going after me I would think about that that email and I would think you know what I have taken their best shot and I've come out stronger on the other end I'm gonna think about that email and I'm gonna know in my heart that it was worth it yes the cost was high I'm not even

[17:54] married any longer the cost was very high but it was worth it somebody had to say something you know just six weeks before I got out of prison John McCain um said on the floor of the Senate that the country owed me a debt of gratitude because without my Revelation Americans would never know what their country was doing in their name and that made it worth it my congressman got up on the floor of the house and called on the president to paron me that was worth it the guy who

[18:26] wrote the law that I was convicted of viol ating wrote a letter to the president saying that this was not why they wrote the law and I should never have been convicted in the first place so you know they put me away for 23 months I know in my heart I was right and I know that the people who are most important to me know that I was right my my skin actually is thicker than I realized it was at the time well there's there's people around

[18:57] the country like myself who know that you were right thank you thank you know and I and I can't there's really no way to express the things you've done or my our gratitude what you've done a thank that's very sweet of you I appreciate it you know you bet you um uh when you make this decision things are spiling out of control the cost is way more like you like you just stated that the effect is way more intense than you thought you're getting vilified by your government

[19:28] label the traitor then there's I'm sure you saw people in the media that you consider reasonable individuals yeah who are now making hit pieces out of you yes and now you're a goddamn cartoon yes that's true so it's almost Allison Wonderland like to where you know I'm sure you're just and everyone's self-protecting in this situation oh totally the new reporter for the New York Times told me that on the day of my arrest every single one of their

[19:59] National Security sources went silent so I saw your interview with um Brian Ross I think it was and you mentioned about feeling suicidal oh yeah and that's why I wanted to bring this up is I was doing some research about because I'm old now right and I got gray hair right and um since 2008 to 20 2018 um men's Suicidal Thoughts have gone up from 3.9% to 4% of men have had Suicidal

[20:30] Thoughts uh at your point you've self you self-sabotaged you vilified yourself yeah you know you started all this trouble for yourself you're feeling suicide are these legit suicidal thoughts or is just man I can go on a plane I can be in Afghanistan I know this guy were you you know was there a plan was there seven different plans um this question do prob Mak any more make any sense but I'm just trying to get in ideas you know when you had those

[21:01] suicidal were they legit thoughts they were legit thoughts twice okay um the first time was walking out of the FBI's Washington field office where they've just told me that they've raided my house and um I'm going to be arrested on Monday and charged with Espionage and they're asking for 45 years in prison you must be freaking out I know you're a CIA analyst you must be freaking out yeah I was in a complete State of Shock

[21:31] I walked out of the building and I called my attorney and he told me get on the Metro and come to my office right now and I went down into the metro and the train was coming and I was watching it come up through the tunnel and I thought to myself I'm gonna jump oh man I'm gonna do it I'm gonna jump and I'm watching it barreling up through the tunnel and then I thought oh my God I got little kids at home I mean my kids were were young at the time they were what eight six and three

[22:02] months so uh so I didn't do it and it was only because that Professor who recruited me into the CIA um became my psychiatrist and walked me through it and saved me and um and the other time the other time was you know I think I probably shouldn't talk about the other time it's okay okay it's okay I'm not asking for I'm not asking for blood and guts yeah

[22:32] you know um but but it happens and you know I I'll say another thing too there's there's no shame in therapy I mean therapy is is awesome and you come to realize something very important and that is that things really do get better they really do you know it's a cliche that time heals all wounds it does heal all wounds provided that you can get it off your chest you know I didn't even realize until until 2015 that I was suffering from longterm PTSD from my

[23:04] years at the agency long-term PTSD you know like you can't you can't walk into a church that 15 minutes earlier was the sight of a terrorist attack and accidentally kick a human head when you walk in that's been blown off its body uh and not have it bother you or to then volunteer few days later to help clean the brain matter off the ceiling from the attack or twice I was

[23:35] the subject of an assassination attempt once in Greece and once in the Middle East and then you know just work your day oh somebody tried to kill me this morning you work your full day and then you know you go home in the afternoon and then your wife says oh how was your day and you say oh it was good oh what's new nothing because she's not cleared so you can't bring her into it right do you think that affected your value judgments where you've been through so

[24:06] much traumatic experiences you said well you know what what's the difference I can survive this yeah it it toughened me but it toughened me but not necessarily in a healthy way okay you know I remember I remember getting ready for work one day um overseas and I had a bulletproof vest on under my suit jacket under my shirt I had a 9 mimer in in uh shoulder holster right

[24:38] here I had a 38 on my ankle and I had a pocket knife like a big nasty Smith and Wesson pocket knife with a serrated blade in my back pocket and then I carried two extended magazines so I had 44 rounds of ammunition and I remember strapping on and my wife says ready for work and I said just about and I finished strapping on and then I thought what kind of lunatics do this to go to work every day you know this isn't

[25:09] normal some would enjoy that though yeah people want that those are the ones with real problems and then I I got home one day and I thought I was alone in the room and my son who who was six at the time saw me take these guns out he didn't didn't know I had guns um and I hid them on top of a of a breakfront so they would be Out Of Reach of the kids and he said to me are you a detective and I startled I I saw him and

[25:41] I said oh I said you know what buddy I said I am a detective and he said Brian's daddy works at the embassy but he doesn't have guns I said Brian's Daddy has a different job at the embassy from what I have but this has to be our secret don't tell anybody that I have guns and he did it was our secret but I'm thinking ah man now I'm dragging my kids into this too yeah doesn't that change your whole perspective on the job of what you're with the sacrifice you're making the daily sacrifice the life well you know

[26:12] what what what finally made me resign um I you know I have five kids I I needed to make some money for for them to go to college etc etc so there were things playing on my mind but I happened to be in headquarters for a day uh for consultations from from my tour I went I went to Washington just for the day and I was in the elevator Lobby to get an elevator to go up to the sixth floor and somebody had put up flyers for a class that was being offered and the class was

[26:43] called raising your children in a war zone and I thought to myself I quit this isn't worth it I had just come back from from Pakistan um we had already um gone through cycled through everybody who had volunteered to go to Iraq so we had a stoploss program going on in Iraq and then we got this cable saying look everybody has to volunteer to go to Iraq or you're going to be automatically passed over for promotion so I thought

[27:14] damn it I now I gotta go back to Iraq again and then after Iraq I'm gonna have to go back to Afghanistan again and this is not what I signed up for and I have little kids at home so I said there's more to life than this I'm not doing this anymore and that's what made decide to leave so you go through the trial the government they stack the charges you got to take your loss okay by the way did you ever get any bad advice from anybody bad advice yeah that's a great

[27:45] question uh nobody's ever asked me that question uh bad legal advice uh I don't know just um it could be a bad legal advice could be an an idiot neighbor said hey you know you should run to the to the Bahamas or uh because you can get there's you know you can be a c student and still be an attorney right uh no I I was I was very very fortunate I had 11 attorneys if you can imagine such a thing and my attorneys were what the Washington Post

[28:17] called Legal Titans right literally the best attorneys in Washington I had there there's an A-list firm in Washington called trout cacheris I had both trout and cacheris right okay um I had Mark McDougall the man is a fraking genius he's a he's a professor of law at Georgetown and he's chairman of the white collar defense practice at Akin Gump and Strauss arguably one of the five best law firms in America I have no

[28:47] idea what that is but I'm sure it's amazing oh my God it's amazing their building is an entire city block in downtown Washington so um I had really great advice in fact I was the one making stupid decisions and it was their great advice that that kept me out of trouble and I'll give you the example that I'm thinking of all righty I believed in my heart I was innocent right and I kept thinking look as soon as I get in front of a jury and they hear my side of the story they're going to realize how ridiculous this is and so from 45 years the government

[29:21] kept coming down um in our first profer meeting they offered me 10 years take a take a plea to an Espionage charge and do 10 years I said I'm not doing 10 minutes and then that was on a Monday on Wednesday they came in with eight years and on Friday they came in at five years Plato at that point had been practicing law for 48 years he was Monica Lewinsky's lawyer he was Attorney General John Mitchell's lawyer he was Aldrich ames's lawyer the trader um I

[29:53] mean the guy's been involved in every major case in the last 50 years and he said to me you know I've been practicing law in this town for almost 50 years and I have never seen them come down in time and I said really why are they doing that and he looks at me and he says because they have a [ __ ] case and they know it's [ __ ] and I said okay so what do we do he said we go to trial and that energized me well I really believed we were going to trial so the government finally comes in with their best and final offer 30

[30:24] months I do 23 and they drop all Espionage charges I hadn't committed Espionage they had to drop them anyway well my wife and I stayed up literally all night long there were no previous cases I I was only the second person ever charged with violating the intelligence identities protection act and the the other person was a woman who was actually a traitor right so there there was no precedent there were only a couple of um Law Journal articles from

[30:58] Harvard that said that the law was unconstitutional and should anybody ever be charged with it it would be challengeable so I said I'm turning it down we decided that night we're turning it down so I emailed my attorneys at 7 o'clock in the morning and I said we've been up all night we've read everything I'm turning down the the offer and I'm going to trial they drove straight over to the house 7 o'clock in the morning they called me and said put a a pot of coffee on we're going to be there in a minute and Mark Mark McDougall I liked all the

[31:30] lawyers but I I liked Mark the most um he was I'm gonna I'm gonna tell the story here on the side of my story um when Mark first volunteered to join our team pro bono again I said he's the chairman of the white collar defense practice at aen Gump and Strauss I mentioned this to um Jonathan weiner Ambassador Jonathan weiner who was John Ker's personal attorney Jonathan was a great supporter of mine so he said Mark McDougall he's the

[32:00] meanest man in Washington and I said' really and he said yeah I went up against him in a case one time and he won but he was just so mean and I said well I'm glad he's on my side and then I mentioned to jesselin radak the famous whistleblower attorney uh later in the day Jonathan I mean um Mark McDougall joined our team and she said Mark McDougall he's the meanest man in Washington and I said you're the second person that told me that today well he was like a brother to me he was never

[32:32] mean to me he was nothing but kind and because he had that reputation for toughness and meanness frankly um I trusted him I trusted his judgment and so I when they got to the house I said look we've been up all night we're going to turn down the deal I'm going to go to trial I'm going to get in front of a jury and he puts his finger in my face and he says you know what your problem is your problem is you think this is about Justice and it's not about Justice

[33:03] it's about mitigating damage take the deal and I took the deal and I'm glad I did because later I learned that the that the justice department wins 98.2% of its cases nobody ever wins in federal court never I hired OJ Simpson's jury consultant right he flew up here from Dallas we got him a security clearance he went through all 15,000 pages of Discovery and he told me listen if we

[33:34] were in any other District in America I would say let's go for it we're gonna win this thing but the eastern district of Virginia the Espionage Court he said your jury is going to be made up of people from the CIA the FBI the Pentagon from intelligence Community contractors you don't have a prayer he said take the deal so I took the deal and other interviews I've you talked about the situation of going to

[34:04] prison anding entering the facility and and being deceived where you're supposed to go in the first place right um You Brought in and I I let me restart here the restart the question uh there's all this talk about you reverted back to your training in the CIA once you entered the the facility I don't I don't doubt that at all but from the traumatic experience you've been through yeah you've got to be as fragile as you

[34:35] can be and you're brought into the facility you're stripped naked y you're walked around you're humiliated okay um yeah they gave me a pair of pants that was six sizes too big on a Friday so I had to literally hold up my pants for the entire weekend until I could trade them in for a regular size pair of pants they did it on purpose just to humiliate me just to humiliate you right right now in our country virus spreads everywhere out of

[35:07] nowhere grown adults can't go to work can't feed their families told stay home you put a mask on you're an American and you're a Democrat you don't put a mask on you're a racist Trump supporter you don't care about public safety and now it's a fascist statement and now it's a political statement right it's a win it's a it's a lose lose for for our country for everybody so now you're going to have grown men who've been living in isolation they've been at

[35:39] home depression sets in anxiety sets in you yourself as a trained CIA agent who's been through all these different situations but now it's your own country is doing this to you and not a foreign agency and there's nowhere to run to toh been for the top to the bottom so there's guys out there they've lost their jobs they've lost their income they've lost their pride back in

[36:09] 2008 I lost everything lost my wife I lost my job my laptop my company car you know I lost my version of the CIA and now it's years later and there's people around me losing everything again yeah yeah so how does a man get humiliated sleeping on concrete in a concrete box you know wash yourself have a a metal toilet whatever um how do you come from from

[36:43] complete Grim Reaper death yeah to being something I don't know to do you feel like a different man now that you you mored into or do you feel like you're free from something oh I feel totally different but in a good way you know there's an ancient Greek phrase that translate to know thyself right um I didn't know myself until this happened to me uh I had the same American dream that everybody else did uh make more and more money uh buy a

[37:14] nice house and put my kids through college and then retire while I'm still young enough to to enjoy my life uh and that went straight down the crapper and so I had to to learn what kind of person I was and there were several things that helped me several things that got got me through it one when you go through a when you go through an experience like that you truly get to know who your friends are real friends I'm sure um because seeing

[37:46] you takes effort now yes that's right taking contact takes a lot of effort that's right I mean I had I had family members close family members who cut me off oh I shamed the family says the drug dealer in the family right um no irony there right yeah uh another another cousin who I grew up with we were three weeks apart in age and he was my best friend growing up in addition of being my first cousin

[38:17] um never um never contacted me never wrote nothing never contacted me because he said um he didn't want the government to Target him I said why would they target you you're an IT guy with two drug arrests they don't give a [ __ ] about you I said that was just coldblooded man I counted on you and you walked from me he probably walked out he probably watched Alex Jones or something exactly right exactly so you get to know who your friends are and who who uh is

[38:50] not a friend second uh was writing I decided as soon as I got there I was going to write about this it was therapeutic because listen in prison nobody gives a [ __ ] about your problems or about you or whether you wake up in the morning you are on your own there's no such thing as a friend in prison although I was lucky I I did make one true friend in prison um and the third thing was and I'll say it again uh once you get out immediately

[39:22] seek out a therapist who is is understanding and it's going to help you talk your way through this thing um you know there's no miracle cure you just have to talk and talk and talk and you get through it and uh there's no shame in that I'm glad I saw a therapist I needed to see a therapist and he really did get me through it and you can see my screen right you can see the page the the book yes so um

[39:57] when you go to this go to prison you're starting your process you're still figuring things out you rever back to writing like you said your passion who writing yeah that's the way to really get your word out of his writing you wrote blogs you wrote letters you wrote articles which kicked up a lot of dirt in everyone's face but you didn't care the only weapon you had left was was your pride but you already still had and number two your ability to write I had a constitutional right to freedom of speech regardless of what those morons said and I exercise that

[40:29] right now let's say a guy he's gone through traumatic experience he's been at home for 45 days whatever he's lost his he has no hours to work he works construction he's a plumber whatever the case may be Works in a casino in Vegas barely gets by he's had to wait four months for a goddamn check from the government $1,200 which is pennies compared to what anyway I'm going off now what chapter in this book you think is the most effective that a person can

[41:00] use to come up From the Ashes or maybe they work in in an office it's not the CIA but it's awfully deadly serious and they want to learn how to survive in that office environment with this book what chapter do you think would help people the most in this book I think probably the chapter where I where I list the 20 um life lessons that the CIA uh taught me now some of those are tongue and cheek right I'm not encouraging people to admit nothing deny everything make counter accusations for

[41:30] example hey man that I've worked in corporate in America that's goddamn handy it actually works deny deny deny deny deny um but a lot of those you can incorporate in into daily life if and and I want to add something else what you're saying you know this lockdown that we're in we're locked down we have to wear masks nobody's working everything's closed this is home confinement this is prison it's a form of prison thank you thank you for saying

[42:02] that finally it is this is what home confinement is and it's depressing and it weighs on you you know um since the pandemic began there's been a 300% increase in prescriptions for anti-anxiety and anti-depressants absolutely I would I would have beli that absolutely it's depressing and so you know you've got to think about yourself and you have to think about your own well-being you have to get out and walk for example walk try to get 10,000 steps a day go a different

[42:33] direction every day just get out and walk even if it's raining get out process your thoughts you know go by yourself privately whatever talk to your friends talk to your family my my four best best friends from high school and I do a zoom call uh every other Saturday just to you know laugh and drink beer and tell jokes and talk about people it's positively therapeutic we can't get together because we're all locked down but at least we can see each other and

[43:04] have a good time you know do whatever you can to uh to try to alleviate the heaviness of this situation it's it's unbearable some days but you got to think about your mental health and and your mental well-being but do you think is our section of the book you think is the most like would appli to daily day strategies maybe yeah it's that it's that chapter it's quite a long chapter okay but it's toward the very beginning where it has the 20 rules yes nice thank you for answering that I was super

[43:35] curious about that
