Title: \"Are You a CIA Plant?!\" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions!
Show: John Kiriakou
Date: 2026-08-01
URL: https://youtu.be/-J7znGcmKMg
Duration: 50:00

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[00:00] Hi everybody. I'm John Kiriakou and welcome to our first Q&A here at the briefing room. I want to thank everyone who submitted questions for this our first Q&A episode. We've been looking forward to this for a long time. We'll have another one soon. We'll try to do them regularly. So please continue to send the questions and if possible, please try to keep them under 100 words. We've received hundreds of questions. We're going to We're going to try to tackle the first 20 or 25, something

[00:31] like that. Um so thanks. Thanks for submitting. Also there we we've gotten a lot where people are asking the same question. So we've just lumped them together. So I'm going to start with Jack. Jack says, "How is the issue of the pardon going? I've been watching you since before the Tik Tok success and I love the show." Thank you, Jack. >> [sighs] >> How's the pardon going? It's going. I have, without get going too deep into the details, I have enlisted the help of every Republican in Washington who

[01:03] has the ear of the president. And I was speaking to a congressman a few days ago who has very kindly volunteered to help me only out of the goodness of his own heart. He's not asking anything of me. And he said to me, when I gave him everything that I had, he said to me, "My God, if you've got all this support and you're not pardoned yet, you're probably not getting pardoned." And I said, "Yeah, that's kind of what I assumed." And he said, "Let me

[01:33] investigate it a little bit." And so he investigated and he got back to me a couple of days ago and he said the CIA absolutely positively does not want you to get pardoned. So he said, "It's still possible, but we're going to have to go head-to-head with the CIA on this. So, you know, it's a process. President Trump is going to be president a little bit more than two year two more years two and a half years he'll be president. And so I don't feel any particular rush. I'm getting all my ducks in order and

[02:04] I'm hoping for the best. Matthew says, "If back in the day you did agree with the CIA torture program, do you think you'd still be with them today? And how different do you think your life would have been?" Yeah, good question. My ex-wife and I have actually talked about this. She was also a senior CIA officer. She said to me one time, "If you had never objected to torture, where do you think we would be right now?" And half jokingly I said, "Well, we would both be in the senior intelligence service. I would be recovering from my first

[02:35] heart attack and you would be trying to lose that pesky 40 lbs." And then we had a laugh. Uh the truth is I would be retired by now. I was eligible to retire, get this, the day that I turned 56 because I had 5 years overseas uh service in dangerous posts. Um and uh and I had uh the the 25 years in. So I would probably

[03:07] have retired on a Friday and returned on Monday in exactly the same job but with a green contractor's badge instead of a blue staff badge. I probably would be making tons of money which they mostly do as contractors. Um but I couldn't have slept with myself, lived with myself. I I couldn't have looked my children in the eye. Um You know what? No regrets. Life is what we make of it and uh knock on wood, I like to think that I've made something

[03:38] out of it. JB, how can someone identify a diplomat or spy? I've heard from a few friends in diplomacy that the economic affairs, I'm sorry, the economic officer or the political attache sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, what are the obvious cover positions? And whether there are any on-the-nose positions that should rate raise eyebrows with the general population? Very good question. Very difficult to answer. So, economic officer, political officer,

[04:09] political attache, of course those are cover positions. Or they're not. Meaning, the State Department has to do its business of diplomacy every day. And so there are State Department officers literally in every country in the world in which the United States has an embassy, who are political attaches or economic officers or whatever. So, the answer to your question is every position is a cover position. That's what makes it cover.

[04:40] You can be, you know, the agricultural attache, the commercial officer, you can be anything inside or outside an embassy. Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, who until recently was the Deputy National Security Advisor and is the daughter-in-law of um Bobby Kennedy Jr., she was a deep cover officer and her cover was that she was uh a fine art consultant. I met a deep cover officer once who was a um wildlife photographer.

[05:12] You just never know. The answer is anything and everything. So, everything should raise an eyebrow and nothing should raise an eyebrow. That's kind of the bottom line of cover. Blake, what kind of cars do spies use when working in the field? I like this question. Did you ever have a favorite type, brand, or model of vehicle? And what were the defining characteristics of a vehicle that made it good for operational use? It depends on what country you're in.

[05:43] So, in most of the countries where I served operationally, and they were almost exclusively in the Middle East, my car was whatever the rental car company gave me. Seriously. Most of the time it was a Toyota of some sort, Corolla, Camry, whatever, no big deal. Couple of times it was a Volkswagen. I think I had a Nissan one time. When I was in Athens though, it was different. I needed something that

[06:14] was fully armored with level four armor. And so we had to special order a BMW 540. I need I needed a big engine, big enough to carry all that armor. Um I did not like that BMW at all. It was not uh retrofitted, it was factory fitted, both the armor and the big engine. And still it it was just not meant to be.

[06:44] So it broke down constantly. It protected me, you know, in case somebody wanted to try to assassinate me while I'm sitting in traffic, which thank God didn't happen. But um But yeah, for for most of us doing counterterrorism, it was either armored BMWs or armored Jeeps. Most of the guys had armored Jeeps. Um but Jeeps break down all the time, too. So you kind of just take what you get. Paul, from your time inside the CIA as

[07:15] someone who became a whistleblower, what psychological or institutional forces lead good people to stay silent? Wow, this is a good question. When they see wrongdoing. Looking back, do you view those who stayed quiet as complicit or simply trapped? And should the public judge them for it? Wow, buddy. This is a very deep question. Um Maybe I'm maybe I'm the forgiving sort. But I don't blame most of my colleagues.

[07:48] Most of them most of them were not complicit. Uh most of them very quietly, privately opposed the torture program. But you know they had pensions and families and mortgages and kids and you can't rock the boat. I'm one of those guys who just couldn't keep silent. Most people can keep silent. And so most of my former colleagues just did not want

[08:19] to rock the boat. Certainly in the counterterrorism center center there were there were many who were complicit. And not just complicit, they they've written books about how great torture was and what a great idea it was and how many lives it saved. It's all of course. But um but a lot of them have tried to uh to justify their actions. I I went to the spy museum 2 weeks ago and I gave a family a tour of the spy museum. And

[08:50] there was a little room just dedicated to the torture program. And they have this loop of videos going and the only people that they're looping are the torturers. And I'm never mentioned in that in that video. Only the pro-torture people uh are giving their side of the story. It's it's sickening. Billy are you a religious guy? You've been around the world and met people of many religions. Have you studied any religions? I am a religious guy. I'm a

[09:20] practicing Greek Orthodox. I keep a little card of Saint Nectarios of Aegina next to me just because I identify with him. He's somebody who was wronged and lied about and and forgave the people who had wronged him, but for the rest of his life tried to rehabilitate his reputation. So, I kind of identify with him. I studied Islam extensively, and my minor in in my bachelor's program was in Islamic theology, something that I'm actually quite proud of. I studied mostly Shiism,

[09:53] which I find fascinating. Um but yeah, I have studied religions. Uh in fact, it wasn't just Shiism. I studied under under Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who's the the father of Vali Nasr, and probably the most important Shia Muslim scholar in the world. He's 98 years old now. Um and believe it or not, he's still teaching. It's crazy. But um but I also studied uh Judaism under Dr. Paul Jones at um at George Washington

[10:26] University. You know, I've got my own faith. I'm one of those people who sort of keeps it to myself. Um if people want to believe, go for it. If they don't want to believe, I'm perfectly fine with that, too. None of my business. But for me, yeah, it's kind of a it's kind of an important part of my life. Uh Ahmed, what is your opinion on Flock cameras? Are Snowden's predictions coming true? Oh, Flock cam What a Flock camera is is it's like a let's say like a license plate reader.

[10:57] Where sometimes they'll be mounted on the back of police cars, sometimes they'll be mounted on poles that look like telephone poles. I'll tell you there's one that stops me all the freaking time, and it's a block from the White House at 15th and Constitution Avenue. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten pulled over right smack behind the White House at 16th and Constitution uh because I once reported my license plate stolen. Not both of them, just one of them, and every time I pull over, I'm like, "You guys, when are you guys going to get

[11:27] your act together?" That's a different story. Anyway, uh I think Flock cameras are a direct assault on our civil liberties. Seriously. I think they're far more dangerous than people realize because they're blanket surveillance, constant surveillance. The The authorities know where we are at any given time of the day. I mean, maybe we're going to the dry cleaners or going to the grocery stores or going to a clandestine meeting. You never know. But they're on us.

[11:59] And are Snowden's predictions come true? They've already come true. Yes. Yes, and it's dangerous because nobody on Capitol Hill cares. It's just not important enough. >> [snorts] >> William, if the department you worked for years ago asked you to come back one last time for a mission they needed help with and needed someone with your level of knowledge and experience, would you ever consider going doing it one last time if they apologized about everything, paid you a lot of money, and just to experience how they run that department now compared to when you and

[12:30] your team were working in it back then? I will admit to you I would consider it. I'm going to add something to that I haven't said publicly. I met with a cabinet member about 6 months ago about the pardon. And he asked me to write something very specific. So, I I did all the research, I took this very seriously, I wrote it, I submitted it. And he said to me that the person the

[13:01] person that I was trying to impress appreciated the paper. And I said I was very happy to write the paper for him, but I'm going to make a request. I said if John Ratcliffe were to resign as the director of the CIA, even if it's on the last day of the Trump presidency, I want to be the CIA director. I want to be the one to walk in that hallway and say, "Guess who's back?"

[13:33] Even if it's for one single day. But I'm not bitter. Anyway, Zach, do you think there will be some sort of a revolution in the US in the next 100 years? Or is that just something groups in each generation say? It seems the US is heading toward a point of no return economically, politically, socially, technologically, etc. I don't know how long it will take, but I believe something is coming for the oligarchs, politicians. Inevitably, people can't take corruption and greed forever. You know what, Zach? I have to agree with you.

[14:05] First of all, you're right that every generation says, "Oh, these events are unprecedented." Actually, these events are unprecedented. We've never had trillionaires. You know, you've heard the phrase eat the rich, which is something that, you know, revolutionaries say. But when when five men when five white men have as much wealth as the bottom, whatever it is, 80% of

[14:38] the world's population, there's a problem with distribution of wealth. Nobody is worth a trillion dollars. I don't care what you do. You're not worth a trillion dollars. And so, yeah, I think something's coming. And it's not just for that. Um the defense budget is untenable. Uh it's a trillion dollars. The administration's asking for 1.5 trillion dollars. We're practically bankrupt as a

[15:09] country. And so, what are you going to do? You're going to cut social security? You going to cut Medicare, Medicaid? You going to cut, you know, aid to hungry children? You going to cut education? You you're to cut highway funds? For what? To make more F-35s and and missiles? The whole situation's untenable. Um I'm glad you didn't say the next 10 years. Uh I don't think we're going to see anything like that in the next 10 years. In the next 100 years, yeah, something's coming. There's going to have to be a major societal change

[15:42] because this situation, this this thing that we've created, it's just not tenable over the long term. Aidan, what's your favorite bird in the Angry Birds game? You know, actually people ask me this a lot. And uh don't have a single friendly bird. Um first of all, I like the blackbird very much cuz he explodes. I like the inflating bird very much because he inflates and destroys everything. But some of these new birds, like the one that sucks everything up and then spits it out, love him. The newest one, the

[16:14] white one that spins around and destroys everything, love him. I will say I don't like Stella, the uh the pink bird. Stella's very weak. I don't like the bluebird very much because the bluebird only can destroy glass. And so those are my two least favorite birds. And even the small red bird that only can knock things over, uh I don't know. I could take her or leave her. But I still love the game. I just finished playing it 15 minutes ago. Jordan, what is MK Ultra and how has it

[16:44] been used in the past? Is it still being done today? So a lot has been written about MK Ultra. MK Ultra was a secret actually, it was a top-secret CIA program that was begun in 1952 and ended unceremoniously in 1975 when it was exposed to the Church Committee, which later became the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. MK Ultra did things like um studied ESP, astral projection, mind reading, uh

[17:18] crazy stuff. The The CIA was experimenting with LSD. They were dosing their own employees until they began committing suicide. Then they began dosing innocent Americans on the street. MK Ultra had several sub operations like MK Chickwit is another one. Um, where Oh, the CIA had recruited prostitutes in San Francisco to pick up johns, customers, and dose them with LSD just

[17:49] to see if they would confess their deepest darkest secrets. Um, MK Ultra included an operation where a germ was released into the atmosphere in San Francisco and 11 people came down with a very rare upper respiratory infection. Um, all of it was illegal. Al- Almost all of it was against American citizens. You hear a lot that from uh, especially on the internet about MK Ultra taking place now. No, it's not taking place now. There are

[18:21] a lot of people who think that the CIA is beaming waves at their heads and the CIA is is stealing their dreams and is communicating with them through chips in their heads. That's not MK Ultra, that's mental illness. And it's actually quite common. But MK Ultra was bad, bad, bad no matter how you look at it. It ran for 23 years. It ended. Certainly there are elements of MK Ultra that were renamed, that were approved by the congressional oversight committees, and

[18:52] are probably still taking place. But MK Ultra, the original MK Ultra with all the LSD experiments and, you know, mind reading and no. All done. Shay, what are sleeper agents and do you think we have them in the USA right now? If so, where from? Absolutely yes, we do. And they're almost exclusively from Russia and China. So, a sleeper agent is someone who is trained as an intelligence officer by a foreign intelligence service and then sent to

[19:22] the United States and told to just live as an American, pretend to be an American, get a job, and just wait until we contact you. But, that person may wait for 20, 25, 30 years before being uh, contacted. Um, less than 2 years ago, a woman in my neighborhood was arrested. She was an elementary school teacher in the Arlington County, Virginia public school system, and here she was a

[19:54] Russian sleeper agent waiting to be activated. So, yeah, they're out there. Um, there was an arrest a year ago, 2 years ago, here in I'm in New York City right now. Uh, here in New York, it was a group of Chinese working for the Chinese uh, National Security uh, service. Um, just going around New York threatening Chinese and telling them to keep their mouths shut or something terrible was going to happen to them. So, yeah, they're out there. Chase,

[20:25] regarding 2028 presidential candidates, who do you think we will see running? And who do you think represent private agendas versus those who prioritize genuine transparency? Wow, buddy. There are only two who prioritize genuine honest-to-god transparency. For the Republicans, it is Thomas Massie. For the Democrats, it is Ro Khanna. Um, if you've ever heard of the app Cal Shi, it's one of these predictive apps. And right now they list 66 people, 44

[20:59] Democrats and 22 Republicans, that they consider to be potential presidential candidates. Too many to name here. Um, the real race is going to be you know, among the Democrats, of course, the front runner is Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. We're all going to also going to see J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, probably Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, um you know, and a handful of other people. Uh Pete Buttigieg, etc., etc. For the

[21:30] Republicans, the there are two heavyweights. It's J.D. Vance, the vice president, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Everybody seems to think that J.D. Vance is going to be the nominee. I don't think that's the case. I think it's going to be Rubio. Rubio is already tested. He's run for president. He's been a senator. Now he's been a cabinet member. He's been a He's been an attorney and a congressman. J.D. Vance is is practically a kid. The guy, what, just turned 40. And so, he could run for president for

[22:01] the next 30 to 35 years. I think that he's got a good shot of being president someday. I don't think he's got a shot of being president in 2028. But I don't think anybody besides Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna really believe in transparency. Ahmed, have Have you ever had a failed operation? If so, what happened? >> [laughter] >> Yes, one time. >> Ay, yi, yi. It was not my fault.

[22:32] So, God, I got to be careful here. So, there was a terrorist suspect. And and I heard from a source that the guy really needed money. He was having some serious problems. His daughter was sick. He couldn't afford medical care. And um so, I I called him out of the blue. And I said my name was, you know, Joe

[23:02] Blow. The guy was a journalist. That was his kind of his cover. He was a terrorist, but he was a journalist for a leftist newspaper. So, I called him and I said I was the I was the editor of this uh new magazine. And um you know, because of his reputation in the the leftist community, we we wanted to offer him a column. And we could pay him, you know, $1,000 a month or 2,000 a month, whatever it was it happened to be. I don't remember anymore.

[23:33] Um and would he like to meet for a coffee and we could talk about the magazine? Oh my god, yes. He would love to meet for the coffee. Okay, I was so excited. I'm going to get in front of a bonafide terrorist. I run into the station chief's office and I tell him. And he says, "Okay, okay." He's so excited. He goes, "Okay, I'm going to do the pitch." I'm like, "What? I've been working on this guy for 2 years." "I'm going to do the pitch. I'm going to do the pitch." "What's your cover?" And I told him what

[24:03] my cover was. He says, "Okay, I'm going to be I'm going to be the magazine's publisher. You be the editor, I'll be the publisher." I'm like, "Okay." So, I called the guy back. And um I offered up two different restaurants to meet in. And he was very smart. He said, "No, I don't want to meet in those restaurants. I want to meet at this outdoor cafe." Now, this outdoor cafe was surrounded on four sides by really high hedges. So, even though it was the

[24:34] in the center of town, you couldn't see who was sitting at the cafe because of the hedges. It was very smart from a cover perspective. And so, we go there to meet the guy. We go half an hour early and we order some coffees. And uh every other table every other table in the place was CIA people. All doing security cuz this is what we call a high threat meeting. And so I see the guy in the distance and I I'm talking to my boss, drinking my coffee, and I said, "Here he comes. He's

[25:05] directly behind you." And the guy arrives. I said, "Hello, Mr. So-and-so. I'm Joe Blow. I spoke to you on the on the phone. This is my publisher, Mr. Wilson." "Oh, hello. How are you?" My boss grabs his hand to shake his hand and then won't let it go. And then says, "We know who you are, mother We know who you are. We're going to break you." And I'm like, "What are you What are you doing?"

[25:36] The soft touch is always the way to go. He threatened the guy. The guy gets really scared and then he starts screaming, "Police! Police!" I bolt this way, the boss bolts that way, all the security guys are running these other directions. The guy's screaming for the police. We reconnoiter back at the embassy. And he goes, my boss, he says, "I think that succeeded." And I said, "Succeeded? You scared the out of him.

[26:08] And he called the police." And he says, "Yeah, but we we drove him underground. He's not going to be doing any operations." I said, "I wanted to recruit him, not drive him underground." Next thing you know, the ambassador calls us in. "Did you just approach this journalist?" We're like, "Yes." "How do you know?" And the ambassador says, "Because the deputy prime minister just called me to lodge a complaint." So, we screwed that up. And

[26:41] and then he actually volunteered to another intelligence service and they came to us and said, "Actually, I was visiting their capital." And they said, "Did you approach so-and-so?" I said, "How could you possibly know that?" And he said, this other intelligence officer, he said to me, "He volunteered to us. And when we were polygraphing him, we said, "Have you ever been approached by another intelligence officer?" And his answer was, "I was approached by two

[27:13] caricatures of CIA men." It was a disaster from the word go. Gavin. Hey John, are you a government plant? It seems like maybe the CIA offered to let you out of jail early if you agreed to do what they wanted you to do, like maybe start a political podcast to push their propaganda. First of all, I don't push the CIA's propaganda. I am the most famous and most vocal critic of the CIA in America.

[27:45] Number two, they didn't let me out of prison early, and it was prison, not jail. It was the real deal. They didn't let me out early. In fact, I served every single day of my sentence. And it cost me my pension. It cost me my marriage. It cost me my relationship with my children. It cost me literally everything. I had to file for bankruptcy. So, first of all, with all due respect,

[28:16] buddy, your question shows it shows incredibly [clears throat] intellectual laziness. Everybody can say, "Oh, once CIA, always CIA." First of all, that is such nonsense. If you just add two and two, you come up with four. There's no deep operation to try to trick Gavin into secretly believing CIA propaganda. My god, man.

[28:47] You want to see a CIA apologist? Go look at Andrew Bustamante's podcast or Shawn Ryan. Not the foremost CIA critic in America. Oh my god. Evan, what do you think of the fraud situations happening around the country? For For instance, possible election fraud in California and Somalian fraud in Minnesota. Um apples and oranges, but um there's always fraud in America. Always. Always has been from the founding of the Republic.

[29:18] Um I'm not seeing election fraud in California. I see a lot of allegations of election fraud in California. I'm not seeing fraud. Last year, seven people all across America were convicted of um election fraud. And all seven voted for Donald Trump. So, you know, stop watching Newsmax and OAN and Fox.

[29:48] There is no widespread election fraud. Now, the fraud in Minnesota, the Somali fraud, this is large-scale fraud for which people need to go to prison for a long time. And I hope that the authorities get to the bottom of it because people people need to be punished for that. But election fraud? It's not out there. Like I say, lots of allegations, but anybody can make an allegation about anything. Proving it is an entirely different

[30:18] issue. Ivan or Ivan. In a previous interview, you mentioned that 99% of the tools used at the CIA for spy work actually come from Amazon. That is super interesting to me. Do you happen to have any specific examples of items you used or a favorite story about how they helped a mission? Yeah. I was in Pakistan when the pen recorder was invented. And dang, we used to take that thing into

[30:50] every single meeting cuz it looks like a pen and it's a little tiny camera. Back then it didn't have much in the way of memory. But we did it just to see if it would work operationally. And it always worked. It was immensely helpful. There was another thing we used in Athens 1998, 1999, 2000. That's when the GPS was invented. Not the GPS as we know it today where it just gives you a route and you follow the route. The GPS back then would just identify like, "Oh, you're you're you're in view of like

[31:21] five satellites now." or seven satellites or two satellites and you click a button and it gives you your geo coordinates. So we were able to use that in order to to map out surveillance detection routes that had been successful. So it helped us, you know, come up with safer and different surveillance detection routes. But yeah, like I've said in the past it's a lot easier and it's way, way cheaper to just buy technologies that have

[31:53] already been created than to create them from scratch and spend, you know, millions and millions of dollars doing it. Jacob Hey John, love the show. Thank you, Jacob. But I have to admit I was blown away when you said that Sharia law wasn't was nothing to worry about. When I look at countries ruled by Islamic leadership, they are all war-torn and leaving Islam, apostasy, is a crime. Gay people are thrown off buildings. Little girls are married off. Um not exactly true. Uh gay people are thrown off buildings

[32:25] by ISIS, not by any government. Dude, if you go to Egypt for example, which is a Muslim country, they've got very active, you know, LGBT cultures. Same thing in Jordan, same thing all over the Persian Gulf. Um, nobody's throwing anybody off buildings except ISIS. And in that case, they were throwing other Muslims off buildings, not gays or lesbians or whatever.

[32:55] Uh, little girls are married off. Have you ever been to Mississippi or Alabama where it's legal to marry off a 14-year-old? Come on, man. Um, leaving Islam is a crime. It is, and people leave Islam every single day. Uh, the only place where apostasy is punished is Pakistan. And that's way more cultural than it is religious. But my original point, I think, bears repeating. My original point is that Sharia law is not

[33:27] throwing people off buildings or marrying off little girls. That's not what Sharia law is. Sharia law is things like, um, inheritance practices or insurance or education or property ownership or disputes involving money between business partners. That's what Sharia law is. Though the Quran lays out how disputes are supposed to be fixed.

[33:58] That's Sharia law. Not these acts of violence. Stephen, how much of the skills you learned in the field do you still use as a civilian today, decades after federal service? All of them. My second book is called uh Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison. And that book is about how I used those skills in prison. Well, I've got another book coming out uh, like it's it's something like the ultimate guide to CIA

[34:29] tactics, techniques, and something. It's coming out uh uh August 11th. Um and it it shows how you can use every one of those techniques um in everyday life. Surveillance, surveillance detection, counter surveillance, lying, lie detection, and disappearing and living off the grid. That's what the book uh covers. Tiger, I know you love to travel. Yes, I do. From your experiences, which country would you say is the most beautiful,

[35:00] has the best food, is the cheapest, and is the most easily navigable? What a wonderful question that is. Okay, yes. First, I'll say my favorite country. I'm totally biased, I admit, but my favorite country is Greece. I go to Greece two, three times a year. I was there 2 weeks ago. I'm going again in 2 weeks. I'm going again in November. I was there in March, so four times this year. Um Greece is my favorite. And I believe Greece has the best food.

[35:30] Hands down, no comparison. I eat like a pig when I'm there, and invariably, I always always lose weight. Okay. The most beautiful. I'm going to give you two answers. In terms of natural beauty, Oman, which is on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. You've never seen landscape like this before. Thousand-foot cliffs going right to the ocean. Incredible.

[36:01] People, they call them escarpments. People uh go camping in the desert, and they'll just go to the top of the escarpment. The view is unlike anything you've ever seen before in your life. So, in terms of natural beauty, Oman. In terms of the beauty of the civilization and the culture, it's got to be Syria. You go to Damascus, and you're looking at stuff that's mentioned in the Bible, like by name. Damascus Gate, and there are cars driving through it.

[36:33] It's mentioned in the Bible, for heaven's sake. Oh, and there's this little house over here. That's the house where Saint Ananias lowered Saint Paul in a basket so he could escape from the Romans. It's just an incredible thing to see. The cheapest I'll tell you a funny story about Chile. When I was in Chile, it was the cheapest place I had ever been in my life. First of all, it is an absolutely wonderful

[37:03] country. Beautiful, friendly people, plenty to do. Uh it's it's just an incredible place. It's hard to get to, but it's an incredible place. So, I went on my honeymoon, and my wife and I went to this Chilean uh vineyard. And we're doing, you know, wine tasting, and oh, how nice is this, and oh, the bouquet of that, and oh, you know, blah blah blah. They mostly taste the same to me, but

[37:33] anyway, I said to the guy, just for fun, I said, "What's like what's your most expensive, most wonderful, most incredible wine that you have?" "Oh," he goes, "that's the director's special private reserve vintage, you know, 2001, blah blah blah." And I go I go, "Can I taste it?" And he says, "Well, it's it's expensive, and it's locked up." I

[38:04] said, "Ah, we're on our honeymoon. Let's break open a bottle." He gets this big ring of keys out. He keys into this locked room. He comes out with this bottle, and he opens it up, and he pours two glasses. There are four glasses to a bottle. And we drink it and it's magnificent. And so I said to him, "How much is it?" And he takes a calculator and he goes He goes, "$8.50."

[38:37] And I said, "Oh my god." I go, "You guys have a really nice country here. You need to raise your prices." So I bought a case and shipped it back. The The shipping cost more than the wine did. I shipped it back to the United States. One of the best wines I ever had in my life, Concha y Toro. Um but there are a lot of great places out there. And you know, here I am after all these years and I'm still discovering new places. Like I just went to Norway and Sweden 2 weeks ago for the very first time in my life. How I missed

[39:08] Sweden, which was an awesome, gorgeous place with wonderful people and great food and amazing nightlife and coffee culture and great bars. I don't know, I missed it. Next week I'm going to Vietnam. I've never been to Vietnam. Looking forward to it. I'll do the show from Vietnam. So I'm still out there exploring the world. There are a lot of places to see. Uh Lester, how can we safeguard national security and prevent the next 9/11 and have accountability?

[39:38] Whew. Dude, that's really the $64,000 question. You know, my official position is that since the CIA was founded in 1947, it has missed every major world event. Every last one of them. From, you know, the establishment of the Berlin Wall to the collapse of the Berlin Wall to the collapse of the Soviet Union

[40:09] uh the Iran hostage crisis 9/11. I mean, you name it, they got it wrong. So, spending more money, throwing money at the CIA and NSA and DOD, that's not the answer. To prevent the next 9/11, maybe we shouldn't have, you know, 200 bases in 144 countries pissing people off and trampling on their civil rights and their civil liberties.

[40:39] Maybe we shouldn't get in bed with the Israelis and just allow them to commit genocide against innocent Palestinian civilians. Maybe if we weren't around the world pissing people off so badly, we wouldn't have to worry about the next 9/11. Accountability is another issue. Um, we have a cowardly political system in this country where there is no accountability. Like, did literally anybody lose their

[41:09] job even for 9/11? Of course not. They all got promoted. They all got rich. They all went on to the boards of directors of, you know, intelligence community contractors and defense contractors. Everybody got rich. Everybody in Congress that was asleep at the switch got reelected. So, there's no accountability. We need We need to start back from scratch again. Nick, you mentioned meeting Donald Trump in your most recent podcast episode. When did you meet him and why? Did he

[41:41] know who you were? Funny story. Thank you for asking that. I have a very wealthy friend. He's very wealthy and very generous. He also has a felony conviction in his past. It's a bull conviction for violating bank secrecy laws. So stupid. But anyway, he called me one day. We're very close. And he said, "Buddy, we got to get ourselves pardons." This is a year and a half ago. He said, "What are you doing this weekend?" I said, "Nothing." He says, "I'm going to fly you to Mar-a-Lago. I'm going to meet you in Mar-a-Lago. We're going to have

[42:12] lunch. And if the president's there, we're just going to pitch him and ask him to pardon us. And I said, "Hey, let's do it." So, he flies me down to the Palm Beach and um and we go to Mar-a-Lago. It is very, very difficult to get in. There are four layers of security. This is right after um the second attempt on uh on President Trump. And so, with we finally get to the to the desk. We'd made reservations. And the lady at

[42:44] the desk cleared our names, and she said, "Have you been here before?" We said, "No." She said, "There are three rules. No photos, no videos. No hats in the dining room, including Make America Great Again hats. And don't ever approach the president. If he wants to talk, he'll approach you." We said, "Fine." We go in. He's not there. I will say that it was the best egg salad I've ever had in my entire

[43:15] life. So, just as we're finishing lunch, he walks in with Mark Zuckerberg, no less. And everybody politely, you know, politely collapse like that. And then he, you know, waves. And then he sits down in the corner over here with Zuckerberg. And they're talking, whispering to each other. They finish lunch. And Zuckerberg gets up and leaves. They shake hands, and he just walks out. And everybody's kind of like, you know, looking like this, like the side eye

[43:46] look. What's he going to do? What's he going to do? And he gets up, and he goes to the first table. It's a bunch of blondes with big boobs, probably all auditioning for Fox News. So, I said to my buddy, "Oh my god, he's com- he's going to come over here." So, he goes from table to table, and I'm ready. I'm ready for him. So, he comes over and I stand up and I I went to my go-to line. I said, "Mr. President, I'm John Kiriakou, the CIA torture whistleblower.

[44:17] Barack Obama and John Brennan ruined my life and you are the only person who can give it back to me." And he goes like this. "Tucker told me about you." And I said, "Yes, sir. Tucker's been a great supporter of mine." And he says, "And Dershowitz?" And I said, "Yes, sir. Uh Professor Dershowitz wrote a letter to you um asking that you pardon me." And he said, "Right. Well, talk to Pam Bondi." And I said, "Okay, I'll do that." And he

[44:48] says, "Pam Bondi will get the get the process going." I said, "Thank you, Mr. President." Then my buddy gives his pitch and then Trump goes to the next table. Okay, we leave. That afternoon, later that afternoon, uh I went over to the apartment of um of a very prominent former Democrat, now Republican campaign big shot. A a household name.

[45:18] And he said, "Well, how did it go?" I said, "It went great." And I I told him what had happened. And while I'm telling the story, he picks up his phone and he starts dialing a number and I I think to myself, "That's kind of rude, just dialing a number like that." And then he puts it on speaker and the guy says, "Hey, you know, I'm going to make up a name. Jimmy baby, how you doing, buddy?" And it's Trump. And he says, "Mr. President, I'm sitting here with the two gentlemen that you met

[45:49] earlier today, John Kiriakou and my friend. And uh just wanted to tell you these are these are good men and they deserve a pardon." He said, "Yeah, I I talked to them." He said, "I told them to talk to Pam Bondi." He said, "Okay, Mr. President, I just want you to know that they've got my support. I think they're they're deserving of pardons." And he said, "Okay, they know what to do." And we hung up. I said, "Man, I didn't know you were that connected. I mean, I knew you were connected, but not that connected." And he says,

[46:20] "Now is the awkward moment when I ask you for $25,000." And I said, "Come on, man. I don't have $25, let alone $25,000." And he says, "a month until you get the pardon." And I said, "No can do." So, I decided, you know, Tucker fell out of favor, of course, so I decided after this first letter went to the

[46:50] president, um Pam Bondi did literally nothing for for me, and it turns out her brother was selling pardons, and it was a big deal. Um but I have a second letter now signed by household names in American politics, and uh hoping for the best. I will say that Donald Trump in person, in that short exchange, was nothing like Donald Trump on television. He was warm and engaging and friendly,

[47:21] and I wonder how much of the tough guy Donald Trump is is an act for political purposes. I don't know. I don't know him well enough. I only met him for 60 seconds. Sam says, "Across your whole career, is there any piece that you regret? Would you do it again?" I regret a lot. Yeah, there's a lot that I regret. A lot. Like way too much to go into here. Um [snorts] but you know what though, I wonder, Sam, if that just comes with um

[47:53] being an adult and advancing age. We all look back on our lives and and we ponder the mistakes that we made. I'm married twice and I'm divorced twice. And uh you know, while I've been transparent about why I got divorced, um I I'm I would never say that I was an innocent in all of this. First of all, I've never cheated. I would never cheat. I will never cheat. I have nothing but

[48:23] utter contempt and disgust and revulsion for cheaters. Especially at the CIA. If your own spouse can't trust you, how is the country supposed to trust you? You know? But with that said, I focused way too much on the job. And then when I blew the whistle and got bogged down in my own bull um yeah, I wasn't paying attention to the people around me. So, there's a there's a lot I regret.

[48:55] Well, folks, anyway, that's all the time we have for today and I want to thank you again for sending in the questions. Please keep sending them. jkbradmin@gmail.com. And uh we're we'll do our very best to uh to get to your question. Please again, don't forget to like and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Please follow me on X, Instagram, TikTok. All the links are in the descrip the description. I'm on Cameo, which has been a ton of fun. So, check things out

[49:28] on Cameo. And my other podcast, which is called John Kiriakou's Dead Drop. It is on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you again and we'll see you next time.
