Title: Ex-CIA Spy on Torture, Trump & How Australia's Intelligence Ran
Show: The Clear Signal (Steve Visscher)
Date: 2025-04-11
URL: https://youtu.be/cQNedgdX0oM
Duration: 1:05:00

---

[00:01] [Music] The Clear Signal with Steve Fisher. [Music] John, it's a great pleasure to have you with us. Welcome. Thanks so much for the invitation. John, um, you popped into my YouTube feeds three or four, five, six months ago now and, uh, just out of the blue. And it's interesting how YouTube knows this stuff about the things you're interested in, isn't it? because I've been fascinated by the clandestine world like many of us I think. I mean a lot of us would read books and novels and see

[00:32] movies and and dream of a lifestyle like that. But you've actually lived that life. Yeah. You know, there are a couple of things that are that have sort of taken me by surprise. Um I've been talking about these issues for a long time. I've been talking about them for 17 years. And 6 months ago, for reasons that probably will never be clear to me, I seem to have hit that YouTube sweet spot in in its algorithm. And where

[01:03] interviews I had done were getting 500 views, 800 views, now they're getting 5 million, 10 million, I have no explanation for it, but I'm glad word has gotten out. I got to tell you now, I've read every Tom Clancy novel ever written. I've read the Greyman series, uh, Victor the Victor the the assassin, and I've read every Mitch rap novel that's ever been written, so I feel like we're kindred spirits, John. I joke, of course. There you go. But it really does fascinate me. Um, I I know there's so many things I like to

[01:33] talk to you about. Your backstory has been well covered in some of those podcasts. Uh, and we'll give a shout out to those. Uh, I would like to touch on it a little bit later on, but you also talk a lot about contemporary politics and things that are going on right now. But when I first approached you, it was just before Donald Trump's inauguration. I thought maybe we might just just wait a little to do this interview and just see how things have played out. As we record this in the middle of March 2025, it's been an interesting few weeks. Oh, yeah. Uh that's the understatement of the year. uh so far, you know, the in

[02:06] Trump's first term, I thought it was it was a four-year slow motion disaster for our democracy. Uh Trump surrounded himself with with fools and idiots and people who were unqualified for the job. And I can't even believe these words are going to come out of my mouth, but this is a different Donald Trump this time. Not to say that I support most or even some of what he's

[02:36] trying to accomplish. Uh for example, uh he started deporting people who have valid visas just because he doesn't like uh their political positions, especially as they relate to the Middle East. That's unconstitutional. It's illegal. but on some very narrow issues that are important to me like for example the day-to-day running of the CIA or or the broader intelligence community and appointing people to lead those organizations who are going to take a hard look at what they do that I

[03:09] support. Tulsi Gabbard I think was an inspired choice to be director of national intelligence. I like her. I trust her and I know people who work for her who know that she is as honest as the day is long. Um I wouldn't have named Marco Rubio Secretary of State. He's a he's a cold warrior and he's he's opposed to any raprom between the United States and Cuba or the United States and and Iran or the United States and North Korea. That's going to be a problem. But

[03:40] at least where it comes to intelligence, this is a different Donald Trump than what we saw eight years ago. And and this shocked me as well, but two weeks ago, he said that he was going to request from the Congress an 8% yearover-year cut for the next 5 years of the defense budget. That's a 45% cut in defense spending. No Democrat

[04:10] in American history has ever asked for a 45% overall cut in defense spending. I think that is absolutely fantastic. Is it sustainable? Uh no. No way. There's no way Congress is going to let him uh let him do it. There's just no way. Listen, over the past hundred years, the Defense Department or the War Department is what it was called before that, has um gone out of its way to establish manufacturing or manufacturing through

[04:42] subcontractors in literally every one of the 435 congressional districts in America. So, if you cut the Pentagon budget, people in every single congressional district will lose jobs. And so there's going to be some real push back uh in uh in Congress. But still, just the idea that it's not okay for us to have a bigger defense budget than the next eight largest countries combined is finally starting to have some resonance. some of the commentary that's been going

[05:14] on here, however, particularly in light of the uh the the rather interesting press conference he had with Vladimir Zalinsky in the White House just recently. Um it has people allies such as Australia, people are now questioning, well, can we still rely on the US to be an ally? And frankly, a country like Australia needs to have the US as an ally. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm no fan of Vimir Zalinski, but I thought that uh I thought that it was very bad form to humiliate him publicly like Donald Trump

[05:44] and JD Vance did a couple of weeks ago. That was clearly set up in advance. They clearly planned to embarrass him and humiliate him uh in front of the entire press corps and that may have worked out for their Ukraine strategy, but other European leaders have been saying not so privately. Well, if he's going to treat an ally like Zilinski like that, how's he going to treat us?

[06:14] Why should we trust the United States to be a friend if they if they turn on a dime against Zalinski like that and then humiliate him in public on top of it? So where they may have gotten some kudos from from the the MAGA base, I thought that was really very shortsighted and um and undiplomatic. It was one of the things now and I wasn't a huge fan of Barack Obama for example, but one thing I always liked about Obama was he could play the role of a statesman really well. Um, you

[06:47] don't really see that with you don't really see that with Donald Trump, whether you like his politics or you don't. I mean, it's kind of a case of what you see is what you get. But I think in in in as much as he's come back as a slightly different Donald Trump this time, I think there's still elements of the old Donald Trump president version one that he really needs to work on. as you say. Yeah. I I'm really worried about some of these uh freedom of speech, freedom of expression issues. you know, the idea that you can take a green card holder uh

[07:17] a green card holder is also called a US person where they have um um immigrant status, uh resident alien status, they have all the the protections of of an American citizen and you just order a person's arrest and incarceration without access to an attorney, without access to a phone, and prepare that person for deportation. I mean, it's never been done before in American history, and it's wrong, wrong,

[07:48] wrong. Uh, just today, we're we're talking uh on what did you say? March uh March, I guess it's the 17th for me or the 18th for you. Um, we deported a a a scientist from Brown University back to Lebanon because she attended Hassan Nasella's funeral. She's never written anything controversial. She's never said anything publicly that was controversial, but Donald Trump doesn't like her politics and so she was expelled from the United

[08:18] States. This is a cancer researcher from Brown University. I think it's a very dangerous trend. It's interesting too in in context when JD Vance is getting up and lecturing the Brits, I think quite rightly over their attitude to free speech and freedom of expression. Uh what's going on in the UK I find personally disturbing. But it's almost as if you say they're not practicing what they preach. Yeah. I I complain a lot about um about the Brits, especially um about their uh

[08:50] official secrets act, which really does squaltch free speech. Um it squaltches freedom of the press, and it it makes just about anybody vulnerable to a prosecution based on something that they happen to say, whether it's classified or not. it can dee be deemed to be uh too sensitive for uh public consumption even if you don't have a security clearance uh when you're saying it. But um you're right, the United States has no has no cause to point the finger at

[09:23] other countries and their their uh squatchching of free speech when when we're doing exactly the same thing. When we look at uh the political strategies of um Trump and Vance versus say Biden and Harris, it certainly is stark. There certainly is a comparison. How is that playing domestically versus we talk about how it's viewed externally here in Australia? But that's a great question. That's a great question and it's one that's very controversial over the last couple of days because as as Donald

[09:53] Trump's popularity declines, the Democratic party's uh popularity is also declining. There was a poll that was published just yesterday showing the Democratic Party uh with a 24% approval rating as a political party. That's the lowest ever recorded. Ever recorded. Mind you, the Democratic Party was established in 1820. And public opinion polls began in 1890. And it's never been more unpopular

[10:24] than it is today. The Democrats have no idea how to confront Donald Trump. They don't have any idea. Well, first of all, they can't they can't confront him in the House of Representatives. It's close, but the Republicans have a majority. But they can confront him in the Senate because to do something called to break closure, which means to forcibly end debate, you have to have 60 votes out of a 100red senators. The

[10:54] Republicans have 53 seats. So, it should be easy for the Democrats to kill Republican um bills that they don't like. In fact, the Democrats just fold fold like a like a you know, a paper doll. There's nothing behind them. They have no ideas of their own. And so, because they have no ideas and no real leadership, uh they they can't uh they can't force an agenda. There was a controversy just uh this past week where

[11:27] uh the government was due to run out of money at midnight um Friday uh Friday night, Saturday morning. And uh and of course, Republicans needed 60 votes in the Senate in order to force a six-month temporary spending bill and keep the government open. Well, the Democrats could have forced the government to close, which would have put pressure on Trump to at least make some concessions to the Democrats and Democrats would jump in and vote yes and everybody would

[11:57] get a little piece of something. Uh Trump gave Democrats the middle finger and said, "If you want to shut the government down, go ahead and shut it down and it's going to be on you." Well, the Democrats panicked and they voted. Seven of them voted yes. And so there were there were more than 60 votes, 64 votes uh in the Senate that went with Republicans and uh Trump got his spending bill. The Democrats got literally nothing in return. I see probably the most prominent of those being Chuck Schumer. He's now copying

[12:28] he's he's he's a he's a strange character. Look, sitting over this side of the Pacific, he's a very odd player, it seems to me. And he's far weaker than than most people realized, I think. You know, Schumer Schumer's one of these sort of old school backroom dealmakers. The He's the kind of Democrat that young Democrats loathe. And he's one of these guys who Well, let me let me back up and say I I'm of the belief that we have seen a slow motion

[13:00] sea change in American politics over the last eight years. When I was in college in the 1980s, we studied the um the elections of 1932 as as a sea change election. Prior to to the election 1932, it was Republicans who were the liberals. It was Republicans who were the the party of of um uh organized labor and uh civil rights and civil liberties. That changed in 1932 with the

[13:32] election of Franklin Roosevelt and Roosevelt became the party of socialism and organized labor and everybody flipped. Well, I think everybody's flipping back again in in a slow motion way starting in 2016 where now Donald Trump has won 23 of um of union members votes and Democrats are the ones pushing increases in defense spending uh to to cold war

[14:05] levels uh demanding that there not be talks for example with Iran. demanding that we continue to fund Israel and to allow them to do anything they please in Gaza despite the fact that they admit to that 90% of the casualties are are civilians. There's nobody to tell them to stop. And so why would anybody want to support Chuck Schumer when what you're getting is sort of an old school cold warrior? You're not going to get anything from Chuck Schu. Chuck Schumer

[14:37] is not calling for 45% cuts in the defense budget. Donald Trump is. It's kind of the concept of the It's kind of the concept, John, of the neocon that we hear a lot about. I mean, exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is exactly right. They're all neocons. That that there's no difference between the neoconservatives and the neoliberals. They all support the same thing on foreign and defense policy. Yep. Yep. It's all an industry, which you know, you talk a lot of people here will use the term it's a uni party. We see that with with both sides of politics here in Australia. Doesn't really matter.

[15:07] They'll say anything they like. It's just happened that I wear a red shirt or you wear a blue shirt. But in the end, we all sort of stand for the same thing. Yeah. We called it the duopoly here that the two parties are just two sides of the same coin. Do you think um do you think the the Democrats though in that four years that they were in, did they lose their way? I mean, they seem to be focusing on things that were not as important. And it it seems to me that the the result of the US election I mean I I I talked to a lot of people I know a lot of people that live in the south and I mean you know I lived in a very red

[15:38] state so obviously people there are quite happy that Donald Trump won. However, there are people who voted for him that probably don't like him. But it seems to me it was more a wholesale repudiation of the way the Democrats under Biden and Harris were running the US. People a large majority it seems didn't didn't agree with that. And I wonder how the Democrats regroup from that. Oh, I have to agree. Um, you know, the Democrats, even when they did things that were positive positive for

[16:09] the country, nobody knew about it. The the Republicans controlled the uh the debate. For example, the Republicans started this this lie that uh that the Biden administration supported open borders. That became the catchphrase, no more open borders. Well, the borders have never been open ever, right? We we have we have fences, we have walls, we have we have border guards and and national guard troops. The borders have never been open. But the Republicans

[16:39] just kept hammering on the Biden administration um saying that the borders were open. They would talk about these caravans. That was another thing. only Fox News, which is the right-wing news network, um Fox News as a mantra, would would talk about these caravans of of migrants that were on their way north. They're in this state in Mexico. Now they're in the next state in Mexico. They're on their way to the border. We have to stop them. Well, there were no there were no migrant caravans. It was all made up.

[17:11] And so the Biden administration when it did positive things just never really got the word out. It's like there was this malaise in the White House. Everybody knew that Joe Biden wasn't in his right mind. I mean, you'd have to be blind to see that he wasn't a demented old man. He was a demented old man during the 2020 campaign. You know, there were three on my own on my own radio show. Um, at the time, uh, we talked about three different things that

[17:43] happened in that campaign. Once he was participating in a debate, and his teeth fell out, we we didn't know that he had dentures. He's an old man who doesn't have any of his own teeth, and his teeth actually fell out while he was debating, and he had to catch them and put them back in. He was debating in Iowa before the Iowa caucuses and his eye spontaneously started to bleed. He had some sort of a blood pressure event. It burst a blood vessel in his eye and the

[18:14] white of his eye turned red with blood. That's not normal. Something's wrong. And then finally he gave a speech in Iowa the week before the Iowa caucus. And the lights were so bright that he became confused and he didn't know where the crowd was. And so he gave the entire speech with his back to the audience. That's not normal. It's the most high high-profile case of elder abuse, I think, that probably the world has ever seen. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And then, you know,

[18:46] everybody pretended that no, he was fine. He was the the strong leader that we needed at the time. And and who would have been who would have been there to replace him? But Kla Harris, who was so unpopular among Democrats that in 2020, she didn't even make it to the Iowa caucus, which is the very first contest of the primary season. She didn't even make it. Nobody wanted her to be the vice president. And so, it's not like the party could could sort of lean on her

[19:18] when they needed somebody to replace Biden. She was forced on Democrats. Yeah. Um, I I you know, there were some quality candidates the Democrats could have picked. A lot of people talked about Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, for example. Even Gavin Newsome, I mean, I'm not really a big fan of the way he operates, but he's very popular in that state, and that state does bring a lot of votes with it. I I cannot understand for the life of me why they they seem to bypass their own Democratic process and just install her in there. I don't I don't I to this day, John, I don't get

[19:48] it. You know, there was talk um from party insiders at the time that Biden would drop out, that he would not make an endorsement, and that there would be four regional primaries. Um North, what was it? North or the Atlantic states in New England, the South, the Midwest, and the West. And um there were three people with Kla Harris being one, three people who were likely to jump in. And then

[20:21] they said, "No, no, we're not going to allow anybody to vote on this. We're just going to pick her. So take it or leave it." And people decided to leave it. Yet they they claimed other, you know, other candidates were a threat to democracy, but they kind of subverted democracy in their own. Yes. You know, I I often thought, you know, a lot of people have said here, and I kind of agree with it. There's 350 odd million Americans, and those were the candidates they came up with. You know, I would have liked to have seen there are some,

[20:51] you know, even on the Republican side, um, you know, the gentleman from Florida whose name escapes me. That would have been a that would have been an interesting contest. Say him versus Newsome. Oh, Ron Dantis. Dantis. Yeah, that would have been that would have been a good race. That would have been a good race. And Republicans are a little bit afraid of Dant of um uh Nuome. They're afraid of Newsome because he's young, he's good-looking. He's got negatives. Um and they're trying to pin things on him that he's had nothing to do with like the the recent fires in

[21:22] Southern California. The fires aren't Gavin Newsen's fault. You know, there are arsonists. The the equipment is a hundred years old. There are any number of reasons why fires break out, and they break out every single year in California. Oh yeah, but they're afraid of they're afraid of Newsome and that's why they complain about him so frequently. And and and Newsome is interesting. I have noticed I don't know whether you have just in the last couple of weeks he seems to be breaking ranks a little bit with mainstream Democrats now and starting to speak out against some of

[21:53] their strategies and some of their policies. I've seen him even going on podcasts where people might challenge his views which I don't think you would have seen even three months ago. Yeah, I think you're right. In fact, um I saw a newspaper report the other day saying that Gavin Newsome has the most interesting Republican podcast uh out there now, which was funny. And then just last week, he denied he denied parole to a whole slew of people who, you know, have been in prison for 20, 30, 40 years who are now eligible for

[22:24] parole. He said, "Nope, nobody's leaving prison. Everybody stays." Not really a left-wing position. No, that is a real shift and I think uh he's starting to play the long game. That's my view of that. I think that's right. It may well work. It may well work. You talked about Fox News before, John, and um I've talked a lot in my podcast with other journalists and I see this myself working in news media there. It is become a hyperartisan place. Um perhaps it always was, but it's more overtly so say in the

[22:54] last particularly the last 1015 years. um the role that you think that plays in day-to-day the way people your average person in the street sitting down to the 6:00 news is really subjected to a narrative depending on which side they choose to listen to. And I don't know I I don't know that that's really a healthy thing. Oh, I think it's very unhealthy. But you're absolutely right. Everybody has a goto almost everybody has a go-to uh network for news and there's very little actual news. It's

[23:26] mostly commentary. So, if you're a conservative, you're going to watch Fox News, and it's the most uh watched news uh channel in America. Uh if you are a mainstream left-winger, if you're if you're in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, you're going to watch MSNBC. Or if you're a little bit farther to the right, but still to the left of the the American political center, um you're going to watch CNN. My my view is well twofold. I'll make two points on

[23:57] this. Number one, I'm one of of the few people who jumps from network to network. You have to see what all sides are saying. So, I watch Fox and CNN and MSNBC, but I also make sure to tune to Al Jazzer and BBC and um Canal Plus and I I watch news from everywhere. I watch RT everything I can I can consume. whom I I do. Um but another problem that we have here in the United States is

[24:29] that well we've we've got a right-wing party and then the other party is farther right-wing and that's the choice. I don't know how the Democrats are I don't know how anybody ever convinced themselves that the Democrats are a left-wing party and then if you watch Fox News they're identified there as the radical left. I asked a friend of mine one time, a very dear friend of mine, actually he's my best friend from childhood. He he said something about the radical left, and I said, "What what

[25:02] makes them radical? What makes Democrats radical?" And he said, "Oh, come on." I said, "No, no, I'm serious. It's a legitimate question. What do you think it is that makes them radical?" Well, like uh he says, "This this environmental protection stuff." And I said, "Oh, like they want clean water and clean air and that's radical to you." And he's like, "Well, I don't know. You're trying to put me on the spot." I said, "You watch too much Fox News. You can't even identify what the

[25:33] word radical means." But the the truth is we have a a right of center party and then we have a very right of center party. And on the left, nothing nothing that sticks. We have a Green Party that routinely and regularly gets about 1% or 3/4 of 1% in elections. And then we have a Libertarian party that the last few years has sort of tended more left than right. And it gets about 1 and a half% and that's it. That's it. The the

[26:05] two main parties will work together to snuff out any any third party that they think could possibly be a threat. Yeah, that's we are actually seeing that in action right here in Australia at the moment where we are seeing we are seeing yeah we're seeing parties who well people who are independent and other people who alleged that they are independent be being funded by wealthy interests elsewhere um you know I think legitimately they're trying to close a loophole to stop that but in doing so they're they're making it almost

[26:35] impossible for anyone else but the two major parties here to be a part of it which you know doesn't play well for democracy I don't know where you find a middle ground in that Um I don't think they want to find a middle ground to be really honest with you. We we've got these uh we've got a couple of startups here. Um uh things like uh the Reform Party which came out of that that movement in the 1990s that Ross Perau self financed. Um they're they're not on most of the ballots uh in

[27:06] in the 50 states. Uh we've got um oh New York has a party called the rent is too damn high party and um and they're great in New York City. They actually elect people to the New York City Council but they just can't seem to gain a foothold outside of New York City. U and a slew of other parties. There's a constitutionalist party which is another far right-wing party. Um nothing else really has been able to take. What we really need is people moving

[27:38] back on either side to the sensible center. It would be nice to see that. I think you know we talk about uh hyperartisanism and media being structured along party lines and politicians and their strategists are very smart that way. They know how to play and set up particular narratives. I see that reading news media all the time. You've really got to be able to pick apart narratives and just report the news. It's sometimes it's not that easy to do because you've really got to be able to be alert to those narratives and try and just work around them and present a story that you know might suit

[28:08] both sides of the fence and let people make their own mind up. That can be a challenge for a news reader. It really can be and you know it's getting worse here in the states too. Our our so-called newspapers of record are the uh New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. Um those are the four you know on which PhD dissertations are based as an example. But um but the New York Times has taken to not correcting its own mistakes. The

[28:40] Washington Post was bought by Jeff Bezos, the owner of uh the founder of Amazon.com. And um two weeks ago, he announced that uh that there will be no um uh opinion articles permitted that in any way criticize capitalism. Can you imagine that? They're not permitting any op-eds that criticize capitalism. Period. They said you can go to some other organization,

[29:11] some other outlet if you want to read criticisms of capitalism. So the editor resigned, the opinion editor resigned, some some uh reporters resigned, but you know the the media here are owned by by billionaires. Uh look at Fox, it was probably the first one to go. And um you know, Bloomberg is another one. And uh now Jeff Bezos has the uh has the Washington Post. It's where do you go for news? That's why you have to go everywhere. Yeah. I think and one of the

[29:43] encouraging things now is that there are there are other sources you can go to. There are plenty more online where you can go to. There are some podcasts around for example that you know really help you I think to better understand the way this sort of stuff works. And of course you can listen to podcasts and stuff that tell you exactly what you want to hear too. It's just a matter of there's that too. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit more just before we move on to some other subjects, John, about uh Trump's strategy. Um his trolling of Canada, your neighbors to the north. Now, I got to admit, I found that quite amusing when he first started talking

[30:14] about Governor Trudeau, but it's gone, in my opinion, way too far now. And I think whatever strategy he's playing at has led to a it's backfiring now. It's led to a wave of nationalism in Canada. Yes. Um I wonder what you're seeing over there. Yeah. I I have to tell you my my own view is the same as yours. It was kind of funny. He was trolling. We thought he was trolling Trudeau. He's never liked Trudeau. He's called him names. He called him a pipsqueak and just stupid, childish names. Um Trudeau

[30:45] always uh always held his temper. He never really said anything publicly. And it was funny when he called when Trump called Trudeau the governor of Canada. But then on a hot mic, Trudeau was heard saying to um uh Carney, who's who's now the prime minister, uh that that Trump is serious about this idea of just taking Canada. And so the Canadians needed to to be alert and to watch him, what whatever it is he he was planning

[31:16] to do. Well, Ford, uh, not Bob Ford, but the brother, the one who's the governor of Ontario province now, said something the other day that was that was actually Deb Ford. It was actually funny, but funny in a serious way in that he said, "You want to enex Canada? Go ahead." Um, that'll give us six seats in the House of Representatives and two Senate seats. Uh, and and the Republicans will never win an election again in uh in America. Touche. Yeah,

[31:48] touche. Go ahead. We'll all vote for the Democrats. He said, um, I'm actually more worried about Greenland. You know, the United States has um has an air base in Greenland. It's had one for many, many years. Greenland is a, for lack of a better word, a colony, a protectorate of Denmark. Denmark, of course, is a NATO country. Um, everybody thought Trump was joking or trolling when he said he wanted to take Denmark eight years ago, but he keeps bringing it

[32:19] up. And it turns out that Denmark is is rich in rare earth medals. And Trump has this obsession now with rare earth metals. Ukraine has rare earths. The United States has some, but far less than what we need. We buy most of it from from Central Africa. Uh but it's all refined in China. All of it to refine rare earth metals is very very expensive to the point where it's a money losing proposition. But the Chinese are willing to take that

[32:49] loss if they can maintain a monopoly on the refining. So I think in the back of his mind, Trump sees this as a long-term problem correctly, most likely. But to correct the problem, the solution is not to invade Canada or to invade Greenland. Uh but then you get these stupid followers like uh this congressman there there's a junior congressman from the state of Georgia, Republican congressman from the state of Georgia who two weeks

[33:21] ago sponsored a bill uh house resolution 1116 which calls for the president to take Greenland by any means necessary and to change the name of Greenland to Red, White, and Blue Land. This is just ridiculous. Isn't it though? And and it's bad for our foreign relations. Now, the Danes are worried. The the the Greenlanders, I didn't even realize Greenland had a prime minister, but they they called

[33:53] special election just last week and they elected somebody. The parties came together in Greenland and they elected somebody whose whole platform would be to oppose any attempt by the United States to take any part of Greenland. But this is not. We shouldn't be thinking about stuff like this. We should be thinking instead about sitting across the table from the Iranians or or reopening our embassy in Havana or or something that's going to, you know, encourage peace in in the the world. You know, it's one thing to go out there and

[34:24] put an ambit claim. You see a lot of unions do that, for example, when they want a big pay rise. They'll go for something outrageous. But we we see some of these statements that he seems to be making. you know, maybe he might have got a short-term sugar hit from that, but I think cooler heads prevailing now. I I can't see what he's playing at here. The tariffs is another one that's interesting. That's not playing well here in Australia. He's just decided to put a 25% tariff on steel that we export to the US. It's probably one of the few things we do export to the US. We bring in far more from the US, so we're no

[34:54] threat to you guys. Um, what it's it's not going to play well long term. And you know, interestingly, politically, if the strategy might have been to troll Trudeau and make him so unpopular that people would perhaps switch in the next election in Canada to a like-minded person in in in the form of Pierre Polyv, who's a conservative, right? That's backfiring on him now. And that's backfiring. And you'll you see it here. We're about to come into a federal election period here in Australia where

[35:25] the conservative leader here, Peter Dutton, is already now being touted by his opposition as being well, he's a friend of Trump. He's an Australian Trump and you don't want that. You want to stick with us, the Labour party who's currently in power here. So, you know, I if that was Trump's strategy, it's not working. I have a cousin in Greece. I I'm a dual US Greek citizen now and I have a cousin in Greece who um was elected governor of um of the Danese

[35:55] islands with the island of roads being the the biggest and most populous our ancestral island and um he's a socialist and he said that his conservative party um colleagues are very worried about Trump for the reason that you just explained. They're afraid of being tied to Trump, if only because they happen to be conservatives and they're afraid that um that that association is going to drag them down in the next election.

[36:26] We're already seeing it if you look at the public opinion polls in Canada where where the Liberals were thought to be headed for a for a beating and now they're just about even in the polls again and Carney has an actual chance of winning this thing. I think the same thing as you just said is happening in Australia. Um I think that I think that Trump's unpopularity is what is keeping Kier Starmmer um so high up in the polls in the UK. Uh it's going to backfire.

[36:59] Yeah. Yeah. And K Star is in at least in my view is a disturbingly nothing. Yeah. He's nothing. It bothers me. I mean, I I can understand why the Brits uh this probably sidetracking a little, I guess, but I can understand why the Brits wanted to move away from the Conservative government who broke so many promises, but to go to a totalitarian clown like this, no, no, it doesn't sit well with we could go on for hours about that. John, I wanted to move on to defense and intelligence. Um, you have a long career in the intelligence community, obviously. I wonder just

[37:32] looking here regionally in Australia around this part of the world. I mean how does how are our intelligence how is the Australian intell intelligence community looked at by the US? Are they seen as a key partner a key strategic partner? Oh yeah absolutely key absolutely key partner. Australia of course is part of Five Eyes just like the United States is along with the UK, Canada and New Zealand and um you know I remember just after 911 when Five Eyes was first floated the idea of the Five Eyes Alliance was was first floated u George Tennant was the CIA director at

[38:03] the time and and he told us in an all hands um uh email an email sent to every every CIA officer uh explaining what this alliance would look like. He said that that we would be sitting side by side with our allies and that they would have access to literally everything they were doing. And many of us laughed at that like well that's you know not possible. And in fact no that's exactly what happened. It got to the point where we had you know MI6 and MI5 officers uh

[38:37] sitting at headquarters. NSA had GCHQ people. Uh, we had Australians. I don't recall the New Zealander, but there may have been a New Zealander in in the counterterrorism center where I was where I was assigned, but they they meant that we would all have access to each other's information and everybody literally opened the books. It was really historic. Australia has uh just like the US, in fact, um the US has so many different

[39:07] intelligence agencies. Um Australia has a number of them too. Most people here would think of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization or Azio, but I would imagine the people that you probably dealt with more I suppose would be ASUS, the Australian Security Intelligence Service, which is more an external agency. Yes. Would that be a fair assumption? Yes. Yes. Yeah. For uh for SEO, it would have been uh the FBI. That would be their their normal partner. which is kind of funny because until 911 there there were no FBI agents in our building and there were no CIA

[39:38] people at the at the FBI. We were completely stovepiped. Well, that's an interesting one, too. Let's let's have a look at that one. So, I've got to I've got to I've heard you talk uh in very long form on these other podcasts, John, about the waring tribes between CIA and FBI and as it's probably the same here in these parts of the world. Why does that exist? I mean, aren't we all playing on the same side? Or are we playing on the same side? Oh, sure. Sure we are. You the CIA and the FBI. And I'm told I've been out for a long time, so I'm told this has

[40:10] finally changed or it's in the the process of changing. But, um, you know, until after 9/11, the CIA and the FBI hated each other to the point where they just would not cooperate with one another. Starting in 1947 with passage of the National Security Act of 1947, which created the CIA. Well, I can tell you exactly how it started. When the National Security Act of 1947 was being considered in Congress, Jay Edgar Hoover, who was the

[40:42] very longtime director of the FBI, he was director for 48 years. Um, he announced his opposition to the passage of this bill. Now, the bill created the CIA, created the National Security Council. Um, so it was a major change in US intelligence policy. So, President Truman, in order to get Jay Ed Garoover's support for the bill, lied to him and told him, "No, no, you're wrong about this bill. It's going to create

[41:14] this thing called the CIA, but the CIA is going to be a division of the FBI." and he said, 'Oh, okay. So, I'll be the head of the FBI and of the CIA. Okay, I I relinquish my uh my opposition. And um that was a lie. And so the the bill passed, the president signed it into law, and the CIA was created. And um and uh General uh William Donovan became the first director of the CIA. Well, that

[41:47] same year, 1947, Hoover ordered the FBI to refuse any and all cooperation with the CIA. And only when we really truly had to cooperate with each other did we even, you know, talk to one another. In all the years I was in the CIA, not one single time did I ever go to the FBI. Never. I mean, I had more I had more interaction with, you know, the Egyptian intelligence service than I ever had with the FBI. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I

[42:19] mean, a lot was made over 911 about uh intelligence breakdowns and and what information each particular agency may or may not have had that they may or may not have shared. That's exactly right. I 911 happened because the CIA and the FBI refused to cooperate with one another. And then even after 911, I tell the story in in my first book and I've told it in podcasts too. The night that we captured Abu Zubeda in Fisalabad, Pakistan. Um, we also uh confiscated his cell phone and one of my FBI colleagues

[42:51] threw it in an evidence bag and sealed it and wrote her name on it. And as soon as she threw it in this evidence bag and sealed it, it started to ring. So I picked up the bag and she said, "Stop. Don't open that bag. I said, "Jennifer, are you crazy? It's ringing. It could be Bin Laden on the phone for God's sake." Calling to ask if it was true that we had gotten him. And she said, "Don't open the bag." I said, "I'm going to open the bag and I'm going to answer the phone so that NSA can pick up the call

[43:21] because that was going to be more important." I told her it could be Osama bin Laden for God's sake. Everybody's half CIA, half FBI, they formed a circle around us just to watch and see how this was going to play out. Finally, she said, "If you open that bag, I'm going to place you under arrest and I'm going to charge you with obstruction of justice." And then the phone started ringing and I tossed it back over to her. That's uh high stakes bureaucracy playing in there, it seems to me. I'll

[43:52] say. Yeah. Yeah. When you're looking at uh this part of the world, I mean, I guess working in in the intelligence service is very much when you're an operator on the ground or whether you're someone at high level, it's all about levels of trust. I hear a lot of talk, for example, about we always talk about the Israelis, for example, being our greatest friends, but from what I can glean, the MOSAD, for example, is actually not that well trusted at all. Is that something I mean, do you have to apply a level of suspicion to all intelligence services, whether they're

[44:23] friend or foe? No, actually. Um, with with the Five Eyes intelligence services, it was always smooth sailing. I mean, we we really are friends. We re I I I would socialize with those. I got an award from MI6 for a joint operation that we did. Um, the Israelis though are in a class of their own. Um, not only not only were our relations with the Israelis

[44:54] difficult and really I'm being very nice about it by just using the word difficult. Um, but we distrust the Israelis to the point where they're not permitted in the headquarters building. Wow. They're not permitted to even enter the compound. We meet them at an off-site location. Um, Israel along with Russia, China, Cuba and Iran are ranked as critical threat for counter for counter

[45:25] intelligence. Imagine that Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Israel. Indeed, Israel is uh is touted as some of our best friends. I don't That's That's bizarre. They're not. And they have spies placed all over the United States at every American defense contractor trying to steal defense secrets because although we give them 99% of what they want, they're willing to take the risk

[45:56] to steal that remaining 1%. That's uh yeah, I think a lot of people would be really surprised to hear that, Johnny. you know, particularly in in in light of the current environment around the world. There's a lot of things going on in that part of the world that everybody knows about. Um, and you know, there was uh Well, there's there's a story, too. I'm sure you've heard me say on other podcasts. I had some friends at the CIA who um served in Israel. This was a married couple and they were what

[46:27] we called declared. So they went they went to Israel and the the senior CIA officer in the country took them to Mossad and said these are CIA officers. One of them is on rotation to the state department doing legitimate state department work and the other one is going to attend the University of Tel Aviv and uh get a degree in um Arab studies. So no secrets. They're not doing anything against the Israelis. They're just there and the Israelis know

[46:57] it. we've informed you. Everybody's, you know, on the up and up. Well, they were there for a few months and they went to a a dinner party at the ambassador's residence when when the American embassy was still in uh Tel Aviv. And when they got home, all of their living room furniture had been rearranged while they were out. So Mossad had gone into the house and just rearranged all the living room furniture just as a message that you know we're watching you and we can

[47:30] do whatever we want and there's nothing you can do about it. So at Christmas uh they went to the ambassador's Christmas party in Tel Aviv and at the end of the party they drove back to Jerusalem and people people had taken shits in all of their toilets in their house and just left it unflushed. And then when they were getting ready to leave after having spent two years there, the ambassador had a going away party for them. And

[48:01] then when they got back home, the dog was under the dining room table whimpering because somebody had cut its tail off and then wrapped the stump in in medical tape and gauze. Like, why why do that? Why why piss off the CIA when you're relying on the CIA for for intelligence? You know, if I were a CIA officer who had been abused by the Mossad, I wouldn't give them the time of the day.

[48:33] No. In a briefing, let alone actionable intelligence just because I don't like them. Yeah. I mean, it it really comes back to that that talk we had about trust. I mean, it's as if they're saying, "We don't trust you." But, right, like you say, you can say, "Well, we don't know whether we can trust you either." I mean, I can't see how that would be a good way to do business, but Yep. I agree. I guess they have their methods. Well, I guess it comes to when you're talking about adversaries and particularly in this part of the world now, we must think of China. Um, Chinese

[49:03] infiltration, the Chinese are not stupid. They know what they're doing and they they think a lot more long-term than any Western politician would ever think. They don't have to think beyond elections, obviously. Um, and we have, in fact, we have recently seen them coming around our coast. They circumnavigated Australia with uh couple of their ships, two or three of their ships in fact, and probably a submarine as well. Um, and that's gunboat diplomacy really. That is them saying, "We can come here, you know, don't don't upset us. We can do anything we'd like."

[49:33] There are so many Chinese here now and they are they are known to be infiltrating into all sectors of government and business. Um, how do we counter that? I mean, we have to we have to be smarter. Oh boy, you're exactly right. We have to be smarter. The Chinese, we just found a Chinese network here of uh what we call illegals uh where they're they're Chinese nationals living here sort of undercover uh with working cover jobs and then

[50:06] actually carrying out espionage. Uh but it's not traditional espionage aimed at the United States, the US government or defense contractors. It was targeting other Chinese who aren't pro-China enough. And they would send out these teams to just beat people up or to threaten them or to in one case them and threaten their parents who were still back in China. Um, we underestimate China at our

[50:38] own risk. Uh, you're right. The Chinese are smart and they're powerful. They have a virtually unlimited budget and they've made great inroads in in the West, but especially in Australia. Um, we have to confront them using really good trade craft. We have to focus our training and our officers to counter the Chinese threat. The Chinese threat is not going to be in

[51:11] yourr-face military. It's going to be subtle and secret and it's going to come from within. One of the uh one of the strategies that they use and they've used it to quite great effect branching out across the Pacific and they've used it in Africa and they've tried to use it here of course is their belt and road initiative. Here in our state in Victoria where I present this from, we had a state government at one point attempt to engage in an infrastructure program funded by the belt and road initiative. It's a debt trap program

[51:42] obviously we know how these work. Oh yes. Now now of course um you know they're not the only country that's engaged in this sort of behavior, but they're very good at it. I've read John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hitman, for example. Terrific book. The US has been around and done this too, but the Chinese are very good at it and they're very clever at the way they use it. Now, here in Victoria, that was squashed by the federal government at the time, fortunately. But it just goes to show you how deeply their hooks are into state and federal politicians in this part of the world. Oh, you're

[52:12] absolutely right. You know, Greece, I mentioned Greece a little bit earlier. Greece learned this the hard way. The Greek uh economy of course collapsed in um in 2008 and the Greeks were desperate. They they had uh they had uh uh bonds that were that were worthless. They had debt that was overwhelming. The whole country was going uh bankrupt. the

[52:42] the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank had these ownorous terms that were that were uh connected to to the bailout proposal. And so the Greeks made a really terrible decision. They decided to sell the port of Pereus, the port of Thessaloniki, and the port of Hanya Cree to the Chinese. And um and now they're out of their they're out of their economic doldrums. Uh just today uh Greek

[53:13] government debt was moved out of the junk uh category, but the Chinese now control the Greek economy. And you mentioned Africa a minute ago. You go to any one of these countries in the Sahel or in subsaharan Africa and every new road is built by the Chinese, every new airport, every new port, every new hospital, all of this is Chinese money. And the Chinese aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They're extracting mineral

[53:44] concessions, for example. They're swaying votes at the United Nations. Uh this is real long-term planning. And I will say it's far smarter than the way the US has done it. I was talking to a Congolese diplomat not too terribly long ago. And um and he said, "You know the difference between you and the Chinese? You promise us democracy and the Chinese promise us food." Yeah. Yep. very very very interesting. I I think you know a lot of people I think a lot of politicians and businessmen here are

[54:15] sat sat by in this part of the world and have said well you know the logistics trail that they would have to have to invade Australia uh is significant. However, by them now sending ships and I can tell you now John this won't be the last time they do it. I think there'll be a bigger fleet come next time. They're obviously not just sailing around showing the flag. I could they would be engaged in signals intelligence collection for example. Um and just seeing what sort of a response Australia sent out some frigots to shadow them. We couldn't sustain that because our our two count them two uh you know

[54:46] replenishment ships were both in dry dock and unserviceable. So we had a couple of P8s going out and watching them. Well, you know that's not going to go unnoticed. And the Chinese don't need to invade Australia. They just need to cut us off. If they blockade oil shipments into this country, we'll be shut down in very short order. And surely they know this, right? Surely they do know it. And you know, I I like to think that that the Chinese are as are as smart and as

[55:17] forwardthinking as we believe they are. um in that they know just like you and I know that any move on a country like Australia or Japan or South Korea is going to result in World War II. And so while we try to one up each other all the time, actual shooting hostilities uh just aren't going to you you can't

[55:49] win a war. It's just it's it's a non-winable proposition. No, it's not. It's not. Well, I think it makes you know we we see um treaties such as ANIs, for example, is one uh in this part of the world. Um and obviously Orcus, which a lot of people are talking about. Um a lot of people think that is purely only about Australia acquiring nuclear power submarines. It's it's it's a little bit more involved than that, although that is the the key point about that, right? Um Donald Trump uh interestingly recently has taken a bit of a swipe at a

[56:20] former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turble. Um Turble was actually out in the media yesterday talking about um Orcus. I'll just play this little clip to you. Mhm. Orcus is a terrible deal. It is so unfair to Australia. The most likely outcome of the Orcus Pillar One is that we will end up with no submarines of our own. There will be Australian sailors serving on US submarines, US flagged submarines, and we will provide them with a base in Western Australia. So, we will have lost

[56:53] both sovereignty and security and a lot of money as well. So, that's why I say it is a really bad deal. So, people say, "Does will Donald Trump like it?" Well, of course he'd like it. It's such a bad deal for us. He will his only thing in the back of his mind, he'll be thinking, who are these dumb guys that agreed to this deal? Now, I got to tell you, I'm not I've never been a fan of Malcolm Turble, but I wonder, John, do you think he has a point? I think he's 100% correct. Donald Trump only wants what is absolutely best for Donald Trump. And if

[57:25] that means it happens to be the best for the United States, too, okay, that's even better. But, uh, but Turbo is exactly correct. Donald Trump's not going to not going to give Australia a good deal just out of the goodness of his heart. It's not in his nature. He just can't. He could never bring himself to do something like that. This is a bad deal for Australia. So, what do we do? I mean, we need to be able to project power um in some form. I mean, Australia's defense force is exactly that. It's a defense force. But I think, you know, are we we seem to be

[57:56] moving into a time where we need to be able to expand our our sphere of belligerance, if you like, our sphere of influence militarily. We need to be able to say to the Chinese, look, you can't just come in here and, you know, cut us off if you want to. We need to be able to do that. Australia's current fleet of commiss class submarines, for example, are not capable of going the sort of distances that are needed to perform that role. So, that's right. And that's why Australia needs nuclearpowered subs. Yes. Yes. And I believe we should have had them three decades ago, but uh you know, we can't we can't change that obviously. But um you know, we have

[58:27] Australian sailors at the moment embedded uh we're told embedded on some of the um Virginia class submarines. Now um apparently we're going to get a couple of what are called secondhand Virginia class submarines. Uh but of course under the terms of August, the British uh will bring some of their boats here occasionally and we have actually a US submarine over in Perth at the moment uh getting getting ready for some deployment. So, um, you know, the Chinese will be looking at this very, very carefully. When you're in involved in this sort of stuff, let's say you're a Chinese spy and intelligence agency.

[58:59] What sort of methods are they going to be sort of using? Is it going to be purely just taking photographs or are they going to be actively trying to infiltrate this? That's that's the easy part. Yes, they're going to want to know they're going to want to know negotiating positions. Um, you know, this is the hard thing about uh about being a spy is I I had a a boss. He was the deputy director of the CIA for operations and he used to say this all the time that our job is to recruit spies to steal secrets. It's as

[59:31] simple as that. And he's right. We're not going to infiltrate, for example, al-Qaeda. We have to recruit somebody who is going to infiltrate al-Qaeda for us. So the Chinese are not going to just directly infiltrate the uh the Australian government and then you have these Chinese just sort of walking around parliament or walking around the prime minister's office. That's not how it works. They find somebody they identify somebody who has access to this kind of information. They identify a vulnerability and then they exploit that vulnerability. 95% of the time the

[1:00:04] vulnerability is is money, right? Rarely it is um ideology. It could be anger for having been say passed over for a promotion. Uh but usually it's money. Maybe you have a child who is sick. Maybe your wife has cancer. Maybe you have gambling debts. whatever it is. But if those Chinese intelligence officers are able to to spot, assess, develop and recruit somebody who have who has access to that information,

[1:00:36] that's what they're going to do. And you know, money talks and I mean we we see, you know, we see a significant Chinese presence in this country in the business community. One of the things that Australia has weakened itself by doing is we don't have a lot of heavy industry now. But we've outsourced that uh largely to Asia and largely to China. And we saw that really hit us actually quite hard during the pandemic times when supply chains just shut down. We couldn't even manufacture face masks here for example. Um that is obviously another way that they you know they

[1:01:08] that's another point of leverage I guess. Yeah, you're exactly right. And we've done exactly the same thing. We've done the same thing. We manufacture not much. For example, we don't m manufacture any uh clothing in the United States anymore. Um almost all technology is imported. We do still manufacture cars, but that's that's pretty much it. Even John Deere tractors, the sort of the flagship of the American agricultural uh uh sector,

[1:01:39] John Deere is all manufactured in in Taiwan. So yeah, the the Chinese did the same thing and it it happened very slowly, but they were able to undercut union wages and uh you know, people want cheap t-shirts, for example. Uh there's there's a cost that comes with all that, but we we had the same we had the same manufacturing problems uh that that you had during COVID. We bought all those masks. We had N95s and then KN95s with the K meaning they came from China. We

[1:02:11] had to import all of those. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean that that's that's an and one of the other things they did when uh Australia's prime minister at the time Scott Morrison dared to question the origins of of co and and started delving into that. The Chinese said we won't have that and they put tariffs on our wine our wine exports and things that really hurt local manufacturers here. So there's an example of really overt coercion. You know you but obviously on on a on a micro level that's that's obviously done. you know, right? I didn't realize that, but that that's

[1:02:41] exactly what it is. That's a heavy hand. Yeah. So, it's interesting times. It's tough times. I don't know how politicians here can take a populist view on that and say, "Well, we're going to stop that." But in reality, I think that's easy said, not so easy implemented. I agree. You know, I always I always believed too that that at least in the intelligence community here in the United States, we were underestimating China as as as a short and medium-term threat. We talk about China being a long-term threat all the time, but um all the

[1:03:14] years that I was in the CIA, we were so laser focused on on counterterrorism and counterp proliferation and then Russia and Iran. And oh my god, how many times we went to the brink of war with Iran that all this time the Chinese the Chinese were getting away with, you know, well, this economic coercion and belt and road and and buying loyalties in Africa and the Middle East. You know, I went to Djibouti. So, when I was with

[1:03:45] the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, I went to Djibouti back in like 2011, and there's a a base there, Camp uh Le uh Camp Lemonet, I think it's called, and uh it used to be shared. There's actually a fence down the middle, and on the right side, it's an American base, and on the left side, it was a French base. Well, now it's still with a fence down the middle, but the right side is American and the left side is Chinese. Like, why do the Chinese

[1:04:16] need a base in Africa? What do they intend to do with that base? Nobody really was focused on it. Yep. Yep. Well, focus is an interesting thing, isn't it, John? Because at the moment, the entire world seems to be focused upon Eastern Europe and what's going on in Ukraine. the Chinese I, you know, it may even be a it may even be a product of what's happened here with them sailing a boat around Australia. You know, some military planners here are talking about them having a a uh a timetable for about 2027 for going in and trying to retake Taiwan, for

[1:04:48] example. they would logically now be taking advantage of the fact that maybe everybody's eyes off the ball of what they're doing and going in and you know maybe we can while everybody's looking at what's happening in Ukraine and places like that well maybe we can try some things. Yeah. You know I I'm worried about that because here we are already in 2025 and the United States at least would be utterly unprepared for such a confrontation. Yep. Yep. And we, you know, here in Australia, I mean, we've just seen the

[1:05:18] latest batch of, uh, you know, the marine rotational force come into Darwin, right? That's why, that's why, you know, we come back to talking about trust and relationships and alliances. I mean, Australia, a lot of people say, "Well, we don't need the Americans here." Well, we absolutely do because um it's it's vital to our security. And I hope that that the US would still see Australia as as um strategically important that way. Well, I can tell you in the intelligence world um Australia is absolutely that important. Get in touch. Join the conversation. Find us online at clearsignal.com.au.

[1:05:51] [Music]
