Title: Covert Strategies Revealed
Show: Covert Strategies Revealed
Date: 2026-07-08
URL: https://youtu.be/tUxyyvi_ORE
Duration: 83:00

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[00:00] It's breathtaking. And um after he he died he died from what we believe was probably prostate cancer. >> Okay. >> So they realized he was near the end. And so they put him on a donkey and the donkey carried him all the way from the north side of the island all the way to the port down the mountain and they put him on a boat and they sent him to Athens to the Red Cross hospital which is still there. It's right by the American Embassy.

[00:31] And he died a couple days later in the hospital. Well, there was a man in the next bed who was a farmer who had fallen off a retaining wall and he broke his back and was paralyzed from the neck down. And he was crying in the bed, not because he was paralyzed, but because now he wouldn't be able to farm. And so his wife and his children would starve. And so the saint died in the next bed. And when

[01:01] the nuns went in to wash his body, they took his sweater off and they put it on the bed where the paralyzed man was and he got up and walked. >> Unbelievable. >> It was the first of the I had chills. It was the first of the major of the major miracles that were attributed to him. As soon as these miracles began happening, it was before he was even buried, the patriarch of Alexandria said, "Oh my god, I made a terrible

[01:32] mistake." Or, "We made a terrible mistake." And they issued an apology and said that they were wrong. He was right. But remember all those years, >> I mean, we're talking 25 30 >> longer than that, 40 >> 40 years, >> 45 years, he forgave all of them. He he still tried to to reclaim his reputation, but he forgave all of them. So, I'm reading this. The the the bishop of Pittsburgh was a big fan of mine, the

[08:12] coming. And it had been in the works for years. I never ever saw it coming. And the night I was arrested, they released me and um it was about 10 o'clock and my wife said, "Come on, let's go to bed. It's been a heck of a day." And I said, "No, I'm going to stay up and watch TV." I wasn't going to stay up and watch TV. I was going to go down to the garage and start the car and lay on the back seat and just let it finish me. And I think

[08:42] she suspected and she said, "No, come on upstairs." And I said, "No, I'm not ready." She said, "I'm insisting." And so I did. that I went upstairs and um and then my brother called me the next day and he said, "I know you can't see this, but this is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you." And I said, "No, I can't see it. I appreciate you saying it, but no, this is the worst thing that ever

[09:12] happened to me." But then I decided to fight. And my my ex-wife now, she said she was trying to buck me up and she said, "They have consistently underestimated your resolve. They've consistently underestimated your toughness. You have to fight them." And then later she said, "You have to keep talking about your case because eventually they're going to move on to their next target." Which

[09:42] they did. It was Ed Snowden. And she said, 'If you keep talking, your side of the story will become the side of record >> because you're not going to gaslight forever. >> That's right. >> They move on always. >> They move on. They always move on. >> And she was right. >> Wise woman. >> Yeah. >> In that instance. In that instance. >> Yeah, >> we'll give her that one. >> I will admit to you that I am I am prohibited by court order from discussing my ex-wife in uh in detail. >> Yeah. But I will say that um

[10:16] I will say that June 30th, 2018, three plus years after I got out of prison was the worst day of my life. >> Okay? >> Because well in Latin the words infle deleto mean something. And um I thought going to prison was bad. This was way way worse than going to prison. But you know, I remember laying there in bed, quite literally laying in bed, I

[10:46] suffered terribly from insomnia, 3:00 in the morning, and against the advice of every intelligence officer I've ever known, I have an Alexa in my room, right? Because it plays SiriusXM radio every morning. You know, >> losing our privacy is worth free. It's like exactly Alexa. We all make that same decision. >> Yeah. So I I'm laying there and I said, "Alexa, what percentage of marriages that begin as affairs end in divorce?" And she says, "The percentage of marriages that

[11:18] begin as affairs and end in divorce is 93%." And I was like, "Oh, thank God." Okay, so at least I've got that. I'm going to hang on to that for a little while. And then I'm laying there and I have I have an econostasis in my room, right? icons that belonged to my greatgreat greatgrandfather from the early part of the 19th century and icons that I've picked up around the world, you know, over the years. I have a a cross where somebody carved 1820 into the bottom of it, the crucifix. And

[11:49] so I I've got them all on a on a shelf and I'm looking at them and St. Nectario is one and I have holy oil from the monastery and and holy water and stuff like that. And I'm looking at the icons and I said, "Am I really that bad of a guy that I deserve this? Really? What is it that you wanted me to do that I haven't done? Why do I deserve to be treated like this?" I remember saying it out loud at 3:00 in

[12:21] the morning. And I remember being tempted to start boycotting church, which I had never done before. Like, ah, I can't believe in this stuff anymore. And then I thought, "No, that's what the devil wants me to do. I'm going to stick it out." And I will say, you know, there's one part of the Greek Orthodox liturgy where the priest says where the priest asks God to bless those who love the beauty of thy house. And I really do love the beauty of his house. You know, even after all these years, decades of

[12:53] sitting in church, I still look around at the iconography and I just marvel at it. I marvel at it. And that got me through. >> Did you reflect on the passion? >> My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? >> All the time. Like every time I start feeling sorry for myself, I think to myself, you should be ashamed feeling sorry for yourself. After what all these other people went through, after what Christ went through himself, and you feel sorry for yourself, shame on you.

[13:25] And it snapped me out of it. >> Yeah. I don't I can't wrap my mind around how people in other faiths grapple with the problem of the mystery of human suffering. >> Yes. >> Because to me, Christianity has the second person of the trinity exemplifying how one should bear suffering. >> Yeah. >> And if we didn't have that, how do I handle my child dying from leukemia, my wife dying in a car accident? >> Exactly. >> How do you even wrap or being betrayed by someone you love? >> Yep. >> Or a friend of mine um who is one of the greatest heroes I've ever known. and he

[13:56] saved more lives than anyone, but he's constantly depressed and feels like a failure because when you do a job like his, you fail a lot and you don't remember your successes, you remember your failures. And while he was doing this all over the world, his wife was running around um where they were living. And um I called him and I said, "Brother, I'm really so sorry." And he said, "It's very painful, but I'm just grateful that I can I feel like now I'm really getting empathy to how our Lord suffered to be betrayed by people you love." >> There it is right there.

[14:26] >> And I thought, "Wow, >> there it is right there." >> Pretty powerful. So during those years, those dark years, did you ever kick yourself self and say, "Why did I do this?" >> No. >> Never once. >> I never did. And I can't even really vocalize to you why I didn't. Well, like I say, my ex-wife used to say it was because I'm so arrogant and so narcissistic that I my brain won't allow me to think that I did the wrong thing. I'm like, "Okay,

[14:59] all right." And so, I just accept it. Maybe I am arrogant. Maybe I am narcissistic. But I know that I did the right thing. I know it. You and I were have had this conversation in the past where the CIA culture is such that they want you to believe that everything in life is a shade of gray. Everything. And that's just simply not true. Some things are black and white. They're right or wrong. And in our guts, we all know what the right thing to do is. All of us know.

[15:32] The question then in modern culture is, is the right thing also the expedient thing? Right? If you do the wrong thing, maybe you'll make a little bit more money, maybe you get that promotion, maybe something good happens to you in the short term, but is that how you really want to live your life? You know, and that's not how I wanted to live my life. Another thing, too, is money has never been important to me. And I know that doesn't really make logical sense to a lot of people, but

[16:04] money was never really important to my parents. And because it wasn't important to them, h I grew up, you know, just as a kind of a normal middle middle maybe slightly lower middle uh class existence. I never saw the ocean till I was 16 years old. Never went on a plane until I was 18 years old. I we just never never did those kinds of things. We never had the money to. And so when I went into government service, God knows you don't do it for the money. They're not paying you anything. when I when I got hired by the CIA, my annual salary

[16:35] was $17,200. You don't do it for the money. And so I thought, well, you know, this is my lot in life. This is what I was meant to do. It's not about making money. It's just about doing the right thing. And I came to, you know, really believe it. >> And so as you're going through all this, you never had regret. Now, if I map your life out and then I'm going to Gen Z, you are the icon to Gen Z. And there's no one I would rather be so grateful that they have found you because there's a bewildering

[17:07] >> mix of people they look up to and they all have like glimmers and flashes of virtue and then ah but like you you are a man of that presents himself and Gen Z recognizes having integrity >> and they it's just like they drink they binge watch I I told you the one time my kids came to meet with me it was the day that my two old my my 19-year-old and 18-year-old son wanted to tell me they wanted to work for me for a their like serving the vulnerable people through the vulnerable people project and they said yeah dude there's this guy you'd

[17:37] love uh John Karaki like this is early on and they were like I said I don't know who you're talking about then they started describing I'm like oh John Keryaku they go yeah I'm like oh I turned my phone around look who just I was texting with my kids like eyeballs popped out and they said dad do you know who he is I'm like yeah he's my friend he goes no no he's the biggest guy in the world I'm like does he know that I don't think he knows at and he's like he has to know it like Gen Z has discovered him. So, you know, Gen Z to me has been

[18:08] totally forgotten. The Pope Pope Leo just came out with this beautiful encyclical that's being criticized >> on AI. >> Well, the the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of America came out with an encyclical a couple of days ago saying everybody needs to read Pope Leo's encyclical because he's right on. >> I I thank God for him. You know, it was a fluke. I was in Rome for the um for the Conclave and I was wearing a Chicago White Socks hat. Wow. >> And so NBC Evening News and Chicago ABC wanted to interview me and they had asked me why he took the name Pop Leo and I said I think it's because he

[18:39] recognizes that AI is a threat to the working class the way the industrial revolution is and we'll probably get an encyclical drawing on Ram Navarum and that's exactly what we got and he has such a thoughtfulness that AI first of all the apps pornography has brutalized their moral imagination destroyed their ability to experience authentic awakening of the erotic. um they've got the Only Fans, all of this, and then now you have AI, so you're never going to get married, you're never going to have kids, and guess what? Now you're never going to have a job. And it seems like the whole world is out to lunch on this.

[19:10] >> Um and so Gen Z is just like, does anyone care about us? Is anyone thinking about our future? >> Yeah. >> And then here you are, and they and they discover you. Can you explain a little bit? Why do you think Gen Z has responded to you so powerfully? >> Well, the way it started is odd. It's kind of a disconnect. So, I gave an interview in January to uh Steven Barllet at Diary of a CEO, the Diary of a CEO podcast. >> So, it was just this January when it took off. >> It just happened. And I've been telling the same stories for 19 years and nobody

[19:41] paid any attention. So, I gave this interview and it was kind of the standard long- form podcast interview, the same interview I I've given to Tucker Carlson or or Joe Rogan or a couple of others. It was a little bit more philosophical. And then I, you know, got on the plane and went home. A sophomore from the University of Texas at Austin took that interview and cut it into shorts,

[20:13] sped up my voice, slowed down my voice, shot lasers out of my eye, and >> I'm loving this. >> And it went completely crazy. Right after that interview, I flew to Dubai. I had a a contract there and my niece called me and she said, "Uncle John, you're exploding on TikTok." I said, "Why?" And she said, "I don't know, but it's huge." And I was like, "Oh, okay." The next night at 2:30 in the morning, I

[20:44] get a call from the Creative Artist Agency, the biggest talent agency in the world. They didn't know it was in Dubai, so it was like afternoon for them. And the guy says,"Tell me you're not represented." And I said, 'N no, I'm not represented, but what's going on? And he said, 'You just blowing up the internet.' And they wanted to represent me. And I said, but why is this happening? And they were like, we don't know, but it's happening. And I said, okay, sign me up. That's the origin of it. But the result

[21:15] has been that it seems that Gen Z trusts me because I'm a trutht teller. I don't have any personal agenda, none. I think that for the most part, mainstream media lies to us every single day. And I think that young people need to develop the analytic skills necessary to get to the bottom of issues on their own because they're not going to get it

[21:45] from Fox and CNN and MSNBC and the others. They're not going to get it. People ask me all the time, where do you get your information? My answer is from literally everywhere. >> Yeah, >> it takes me hours every morning. And I start with the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, the BBC, the Times of London, AP, Reuters, Al Jazer, Al Monitor. I just go down this list of 25 different outlets because you educate yourself enough from every single point of view

[22:18] so that you can make your own conclusion based on the evidence that you're seeing. >> So there's no email I can subscribe it. No, I haven't found it. And I think that people have concluded that I'm telling the truth. The truth has hurt me significantly over the years. And I just continue to tell the truth. It really is as simple as that. >> Could it be they also feel abused and abandoned by the establishment? >> I think that's a survivor who was abused

[22:48] and >> you know, look at look at uh affiliations with political parties. They're at historic lows right now. I really believe that we're headed for some sort of a watershed political event in the country. Um I'm not exactly sure what that's going to look like yet, but think of it this way. As recently as a century ago, we had as many as six viable political parties in this country. We had cabinet members. Think of Solomon P. Chase, the the Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, or or

[23:19] William Stanton, Secretary of War under Lincoln. They were each members of six different political parties. If you had a problem with a position that your party took, you just quit. >> And Lincoln didn't like any of them, I think. >> And team of rivals. >> Yeah. >> And you would just jump to a different party. So how did we box ourselves into this you know this essentially uni party this duopoly that's really a uni party when a century ago we had we had a populist party we had a socialist party we had uh

[23:51] you know the free soil party and this party and that party and the farmer uh DFL the Democratic farmer labor party and we had all these different parties that were winning seats in Congress that were winning governorships. Why have we relegated ourselves to two sides of the same coin? So, I think we're headed we're headed towards something big. I'm just old enough to remember 1968 and 1969. I remember sitting on my dad's lap. He

[24:24] was watching the news and the news showed all these buildings on fire. And I asked him why these buildings were on fire and he said, "A very bad man killed Martin Luther King and black people were very upset." I still remember him saying it like that. And then a couple months later, my mother just crying all day because Robert Kennedy had been shot and killed. And then a friend of ours, a friend of my parents, um, lost his daughter at Kent State. She was one of the the five

[24:56] that was shot and killed. Yeah. So I remember this upheaval, these riots in the streets and the >> this was forming you. This was forming your moral conscience >> very much >> losing a friend losing his daughter at Kent State must have been a big part of your identifying with the left. >> It it very much was Governor Rhodess Governor Rhodess was the governor of Ohio that ordered the National Guard just open fire on unarmed students and in our house Governor Rhodess was the devil. you know, open fire on unarmed students for a peaceful political

[25:28] protest. What is this? North Korea, you know, and so yeah, that did inform my my political views. Um, so I don't know how we've gone from the free thinking of ' 68 and 69 through 74, which was the year of Watergate, to this thing where we pretend to have these significant political differences and we're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[25:58] >> That's that's what's happening. And Jenzie knows it and they know it. >> They're like, "We're on the Titanic and y'all are rearranging the deck chairs." They recognize it. Yes. >> And Pope Leo recognizes it. And Pope Leo, >> your patriarch recognizes it. >> Pope Leo has been has had his intellect consistently underestimated. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> Well, he's from Chicago after. He's a Socks fan. >> That's right. >> So, there's that. >> And he's been around the block. >> Yeah. >> So, I have some questions from Gen Z for you. >> Okay. Great. >> Okay. I had Jenzers. Uh the hope of the

[26:30] FE, you know, they're they're they're I they're what gives me hope. Okay. Is the CIA Oh, no. No. I want to ask this question first because this is a good question. Okay. Not saying that the moon landing was faked or that the CIA was involved in the killing of John F. ity. But as someone who worked inside the intelligence community, do you think the US government could keep a secret that big, faking the moon landing,

[27:01] assassinating a president, or hiding aliens from us? Could they, if they wanted to, hide that those secrets from us? I hate to be wishy-washy, but yes and no. Um, the the moon landing wasn't faked, of course. Um, we've got the science to prove it. But, uh, you know what? I'm going to answer that with an anecdote that Bob Kennedy Jr. told me. And when he told me this, I said, Bob, you've

[27:31] you've got to write this down. This social scientists need to know this. He said that he said that on November 22nd, did I say this already? November 22nd, 1963, >> the day that his uncle was assassinated in in Dallas, his mother went to the junior high where he was attending in Mlan, Virginia, minutes after the assassination, and pulled him out of school. And they drove back to the house, it was called Hickory Hill, big

[28:02] mansion in Mlan, Virginia. And he said he got out of the car and his father was standing in the driveway speaking with John McCone, who was the director of the CIA. As background, both the Kennedys and the Mccons were very devout Catholics and Mrs. McCon had died six months earlier from breast cancer. The Kennedys were very worried about Director McCone. They were worried that he was so distraught by her death that he might harm himself. And so John McCon had dinner with the

[28:33] Kennedys nights a week. And after dinner, he and Bob Kennedy would go swimming together. So Bobby Jr. gets out of the car, walks past his dad, and he hears his dad say to Director Mccon, "Tell me your people didn't do this." And McCone answered, "I don't know who did it." He did not say, "Of course my people didn't do this." What in the world would make you think the CIA would kill the president of the United States? That's not what he said. He said, "I

[29:03] don't know who did this." So, did the CIA kill John Kennedy? Of course not. Did elements of the CIA kill John Kennedy? I think that's something that we'll never know the answer to, but I think the circumstantial evidence is such that we should be asking these questions because it's entirely possible. >> So, you know, as an outsider, when I hear there are rogue elements within the CIA, I'm saying to myself, "Oh, please let that just be Hollywood fantasy." No, there there are rogue elements

[29:34] especially, you know, pre-1975, pre-Curchp Pike committees, immediately post 911. Yeah, I kind of make a joke about this uh this guy that I used to work with, friendliest guy in the world, Rick. I was working in the counterterrorism center and he would come in every day. Morning fellas. We say morning Rick. How's your weekend fellas? Hey, great Rick. How was your weekend? Yeah, great. Hey guys, you going to go to the agency

[30:06] picnic? Yeah, Rick, we'll see you at the picnic. Finally, I said to the guy I was sitting next to, Frank, I said, you know, he's the nicest guy in the world, and I really don't know what he does here. And Frank says, he's the head of the special activities division. So, his job was every Tuesday morning, you get the kill list, which is what they called it. Every Tuesday morning at the White House, CIA people meet with the White House council and their people, come up with a list of people to kill that week. Rick gets the list. He

[30:39] sends his guys out. He goes out all around the world. You kill the guy that's on the list and you come back and you get the next list the next Tuesday. And I said, "Wow, that's that's not good, right? I mean, none of these people have been charged with a crime. If these are such bad people, I mean, this is the United States of America. Yeah, >> we have a constitution. >> If these guys are so bad, charge them with a crime. You can't just decide you don't like somebody's politics and go and blow their brains out. And as it

[31:10] turned out, some of them were American citizens who had never been charged with a crime. Again, some things are right or wrong, and this is wrong. After I left the CIA, Rick retired. He I left in ' 04. He retired in like ' 06. And in ' 07, Vanity Fair magazine wrote an expose about him. I couldn't believe what I read. He had been a hitman for the Cali cartel

[31:44] and he struck up a friendship with a dark figure in my career who ended up becoming the deputy director for operations because they were both working against communist insurgents in Colombia because the Cali cartel hated the communists and vice versa. Well, the CIA hated the communists and the enemy of of my enemy is my friend. And so the agency and the Cali cartel are working together

[32:15] to stamp out communism. As if that mattered. And so he says, "Hey, listen. Uh, if you don't want to do cartel hits anymore, I'm I'm the CIA station chief down here. Why don't you come and do hits for me?" And that was it. He was a hitman for the Cali cartel. That's not That's not cool. >> No. No. How did that happen? >> Are we still doing this? >> Are they still getting the kill lists? >> Uh, we don't know. They won't they won't say. They won't tell us. The kill list

[32:46] was outed in um the Atlantic Monthly magazine. The um originator of the kill list was one John Brennan. And uh we don't know if >> John Brennan's drone war killed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of children. >> Oh my god. I have a friend Daniel Hail. Daniel just got out of prison himself. He was a drone operator from the US Air Force. He's the one who blew the whistle on the drone program and he tells the most chilling story. He was operating a drone from a base in

[33:18] Nevada. His boss was at McDill Air Force Base in Florida. So, they're both looking at the screen. Daniel's operating the drone and he sees the target. The target's in Afghanistan, right? And Daniel says, "I have eyes on the target." And his boss in McDill says, "Fire." And Daniel says, "Wait a minute. He's with two little kids." And his boss says, "Those aren't kids. Those are goats."

[33:49] He said, "I'm looking at them. They're not goats. They're children. They're girls." And his boss says, "Fire." And he said, "I can't fire. They're children. >> It's an illegal order." He says, "Fire or be court marshaled." And he fires. And he kills a 12-year-old girl and a nine-year-old girl. And he went home that night and he said to his girlfriend, "I became a child killer today." How do you how do we live with ourselves? >> How do you recover from that? >> You can't recover from that.

[34:22] But this is what I what I mean when I say >> in Israel right now, they have a ramp. The suicide rate of IDF soldiers is unprecedented. >> It's got to be because you can't all be monsters, right? >> Yeah. >> Somebody's got to have a conscience. >> Not Lindsey Graham. >> No, >> not Randy. Fine. >> Lindsey Graham is perfectly happy to kill your children and your children and your children. He doesn't care. Yeah. And fine. Who wears an IDF uniform onto the floor of the house like a traitor.

[34:53] >> Who did? Oh, fine. All right. Yeah, Congressman. Fine. He was shown a picture of a dead Palestinian child. >> Yeah. >> And he said, "Oh, that's a lovely picture. I'd like to see more of those. That this isn't an international scandal." But then Jen Z is watching this >> and they're utterly horrified. >> Talk like that. >> Yeah. That's not how normal people talk. Ben Gavir, you listen to Ben Gavir talk? >> His wife, listen, the Israelis passed a law two weeks ago allowing for the death penalty, but only for Palestinians, not for Jews. And on the day that the Knesset passed it into law, his wife baked him a cake in the shape of a

[35:25] gallows. These are not normal people. This is not normal life. We need to reclaim what's right. You know, I think we're going to see a political shift in this country like we did after desegregation. And ironically, it's going to be around segregation. >> You know, when you look at Israel, it is a segregated apartheid state. It makes the Jim Crow South look like utopia. >> Very much so. And I think it's hard for most Americans to believe that, but you have settlers attacking Christian villages with the IDF pulling security.

[35:57] So if you try to protect yourself, protect your property, you're shot right in the face or arrested. >> Yep. And how many American citizens have been killed in the West Bank? >> One was kidnapped this week. >> And does the American government lift a finger? >> No. >> To do anything in the name of justice? Nothing. Literally nothing. >> It's frustrating. I could talk to you about the West Bank and Gaza and Lebanon. I mean, that's the nightmare, too. Okay, so here's some more Gen Z questions. Um,

[36:27] what do you know about Project Gateway and using astral projection to spy on the Soviets during the Cold War? This is the men who stare at goats question. Is that what this is? Okay, >> so Project Gateways was a part of what was called MK Ultra. MK Ultra was a very very broad scope operation that began in 1952 and ended in 1975. It included a lot of different things. ESP, astral projection, mind readading,

[36:58] um LSD and using LSD to get people to confess to their deepest, darkest secrets. A whole bunch of different stuff. It was a disaster and it ended up in the deaths of a lot of people, a lot of innocent people. So, the way it started off was the CIA recruited a source who was a fake, a phony source who said, "Hey, the Russians are experimenting with this,

[37:28] you know, ESP and astral projection and mind reading and all this stuff. We're behind the eight-ball." That wasn't true. The Russians were not doing any such thing. the Chinese were, but we didn't know that. So, we said, "Oh my god, we have to we have to get up to speed as fast as we can." The CIA comes up with this program, MK Ultra, and they start just pouring resources into it, beginning with LSD. And because the CIA

[38:00] often moves into the area of utter lawlessness, they start dosing their own employees unwittingly. You just just slip LSD into people's coffee and, you know, their food and just just see what happens to him. Well, I wonder what's going to happen to Joe if I dose him with LSD. >> Jacob's ladder if you movie. >> Well, Joe's going to go to the roof and jump off because he thinks he can fly. And then you got to explain to his kids why your dad went to work this morning perfectly normal and then committed suicide at lunchtime. >> And this that happened. >> Yeah, that happened. In fact, um there's

[38:31] even been um a documentary about it. So that was one part of it. They hired psychics and seers and readers and and it was all silliness and nonsense. It never amounted to anything. But then there were sub operations of MK Ultra like MK Chicwit for example uh where we broke into the lab in Switzerland and stole the formula for LSD so we could make it better

[39:04] and then we just decided to I'm not making this up. It's all it's all out there on online. You can find it. We decided to make San Francisco the sort of the the headquarters of these experiments. And so >> so hippie culture, the grateful dead fish, >> all this all at the same time >> is the fruit. Yes. >> Of CIA. >> It all came out of the CIA. So we decided to recruit a whole contingent of uh prostitutes and we set up a safe house. So, we sent

[39:35] the prostitutes out to pick up John's clients, dose them with LSD, bring them back to the safe house, tie them down, and get them to confess their deepest, darkest secrets. And it just didn't work. They were just, you know, jabbering incoherently and having flashbacks and freakouts and it just didn't work. And then we decided, well, let's uh let's come up with a germ and we'll wait until a really foggy day

[40:07] when the air is really heavy and we'll just shoot this germ into the air in San Francisco and just see if anybody gets sick because then we can do it in Moscow and really screw them up, right? So, we come up with this germ that's developed in a CIA lab. We wait until an unusually foggy day and then just drive around the city with these big pipes just blowing the germ into the into the atmosphere. Two days later, 11 people came down with this extraordinarily rare upper

[40:38] respiratory infection that had never been seen in San Francisco before. And we were like, "Hey, that worked. We should we should do that in the Moscow subway system and see if we can really, you know, screw them up." Then there was another experiment where they um they decided to dose. There's a small village in France. I forgive me. >> How many people knew about this? Was this a small >> At the time? It was very very small. It was tightly held. Um it was a compartmented program. So we we went to this village in France.

[41:09] It had one bakery that supplied the entire village and we dosed the yeast in the middle of the night. We broke into the bakery and put LSD in the yeast. The baker comes to work in the morning. He makes all the bread. He sells the bread to everybody in the village. Everybody in the village goes on an LSD trip. And then for decades, we were like, "It wasn't us. It wasn't us. It wasn't us." And then in the '9s, we're like, "Okay, it was us." And then finally in 1975, the CIA had just gone too far, right? We

[41:41] we've just lost the Vietnam War, and everybody in the CIA is like smuggling heroin back from Vietnam. and it's just a disaster. So, Senator Frank Church, a Democrat of Idaho, convenes a a special committee known as the Church Committee. Sen uh Congressman Otis Pike, a Democrat from Long Island, convenes a a parallel committee in the House side, the Pike Committee. They morphed into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and

[42:12] they started investigating the CIA, what what was then called the family jewels, where they demanded literally everything that the CIA had. Well, the first thing that comes up is MK Ultra and Associated Assassination Programs. The CIA wasn't supposed to be assassinating people. In fact, it was out there assassinating thousands of people. So, Congress put the brakes on that. Senator Church specifically told the CIA director, "Do not destroy the MK Ultra

[42:44] documents." Direct order. He literally went from Capitol Hill back to headquarters and said, "Destroy everything." And so, everybody in the building is just shredding documents. They destroyed 85% of the MK Ultra documents. 15% survived. That's why we have this little idea after all these years of what it was. But we really don't know what the overall program was because it was all destroyed. Well, the director was fined $500

[43:17] for this egregious criminal act of defying Congress. And the old-timers used to talk about this when I first the IDF does for soldiers when they >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. By God, you're going to be fined $500. What happened was he was held in contempt of of Congress. He was found guilty, fined $500. He went back to headquarters and the old-timers told me that every CIA employee had lined the halls and they were throwing dollars and $5 into a hat to pay the director's $500

[43:49] fine just as a big FU to to Congress. >> What caused it that? Was it the the shock of World War II and you still had this culture that were facing existential threat from social communism? >> That's exactly what it was. It was the communist boogeyman. Well, um, also in 196 I'm sorry, in 1975, Senator Church and Congressman Pike insisted on an executive order that became known as EO12333.

[44:20] Executive Order 12333 became the basis for what the CIA was allowed to do overseas and not allowed to do. And the original draft, the original version, signed version of 1233 forbade assassinations. Okay. Until September 12th, 2001. And then President Bush kind of crossed that part out and said, "Kill anybody you want." And that's what they've been doing ever since.

[44:51] >> Now, are these assassinations done by the special activities group? Are they like in the movies? Do they poison people, have heart attacks, commit suicide, or is it just >> all different? >> So, it's as sophisticated as in the movies? >> Yeah, it is. It can be. I mean, sometimes it's as crude as, you know, the guy's walking his dog. This happened recently. I read in the paper. Uh, the guy's walking his dog, a van pulls up alongside, the side door opens, you get a bullet in your brain, the door closes, and the van drives off. >> That's when they're sending a message. They want people to know what happened.

[45:23] >> Sometimes they'll kidnap a guy and then nobody ever sees him again. There there were times when I was the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations. After I got back from Pakistan, I got promoted and the the deputy director made me his assistant. In that position, you see literally everything that the CIA is doing everywhere in the world. Compartments six levels above top secret. It was ridiculous. I couldn't even sleep at night. But

[45:56] you you see I have to be careful with what I say here. you see some some things that you're like, "What? Why would we do that, right? We're either a nation of laws or we're not a nation of laws. You can't pretend to be one while being the other. If you don't like this guy's politics, you can't just walk up to him and put a bullet in his head." You know, we we would get these cables like, "Oh, uh, we were uh

[46:27] interrogating this guy uh during the night and um Jim may have gone a little too far, but um well, he's deceased now, so what should we do?" And then the the geographic uh office will write back, "Well, where are you?" "Well, we're next to the safe house. can you just bury him in the backyard? Yeah, we'll just do that. And they just dig a hole and bury the guy. And then years later, you see these newspaper

[46:58] articles like so and so's family, they haven't heard from him in years. He he was there one day and gone the next and like where could he possibly be? I I can tell you where he is. He's buried in the backyard of the safe house. That's not a nation of laws. That's not what a nation of laws does. So, we're either going to be the good guys or we're not going to be the good guys. But we can't pretend to be one while being the other. >> And if we're not the good guys, we won't be able to remain our position as the sole hedgeimon. >> Exactly.

[47:28] >> Your competitor >> because the rest of the world is wise to us and it's all going to collapse around us. >> They're wise to us now. >> Yeah. >> How do we What would your advice be to I you look at what's happening in Lebanon right now. It's scandalous. It's shocking. It's unimaginable. And uh it's just as if things are just, you know, I I have a different view of the German people in the 30s and 40s. Like what could they have known? >> We have phones bombarding us with information every day. The Germans would not have known what was happening in

[47:58] Awitz or in the Eastern Front or in Paris. Um but the American people have access to this information, but they have rational ignorance. So I have to pick my kids up from school. I have to My boss wants this report. My wife wants me to make more money. they're just thinking about their life and they don't have time to think about the decimation of ancient Christian cities, monasteries, churches, schools. Um, well, if you were to sit down across from President Trump and say, "This is what you need to do so we can reclaim and maintain our position in the world,"

[48:30] what would you say? >> I think that he needs to put the interests of the United States first above all else. We have secunded our foreign policy to Israel and Israel security is not my concern as an American. My concern is the security of the United States of America and joining ourselves at the hip with Israel is dragging us down. You know, there was a you know the Onion I love the Onion, too. They had a headline a couple weeks ago that just really hit >> and it said um

[49:01] >> China content to sit back and watch US destroy itself. Exactly. Because that's what's happening. We're destroying ourselves. Listen, when when you have votes in the United Nations General Assembly every single year for the last 50 years, and literally the entire world is on one side and on the other side is the US, Israel, Costa Rica, and Nau. There's a problem.

[49:33] We're not smarter than everybody else in the rest of the world every year joining ourselves with the Israelis. >> And it's undermining our interest in the world. >> It is. It's really undermining the world. You know, when I went to Israel last time, 2022, one thing I saw that at first perplexed me and then just pissed me off >> when you're in the old city in Jerusalem and you're approaching the Western Wall, right? There's like a museum there and and some think tank or whatever. People

[50:05] had put up these signs like glued these signs to the walls and they said America we are with you. It's like what? First of all about what? Secondly, >> you're the size of Milwaukee. >> Yeah. >> We don't want you with us. >> What are you with us on? Yeah. >> Yeah. It it hurts us that you're with us. We don't want you. You can't live with civilized countries. >> You just hit the nail on that though. I think the average like boomer me who

[50:35] would have been me even though I'm a Gen Xer to the Gen Z, anyone over anyone who didn't have a smartphone in their pocket during puberty is a boomer. And I think that's a good designation because it's true. They're different than the rest of us. >> That's right. Yeah. >> And so as a typical boomer conservative Republican, I would have if I would have heard that 15 years ago before I had a lot of experience in the region, I would say, "What are you talking about? They're the only civilized country in the region." And I had this I had this idea that they were democracy. >> I had this idea that they were surrounded by all of these just barbarians. And then you go to Lebanon and Jordan and Iraq and Syria and and

[51:07] Palestine and like these are beautiful deep and in the Middle East they're even very proud. They're like we're not like the Gulf States. We have a culture and a civilization. They do. >> And they do. >> They do. >> Yeah. They do. Like you have the Yazidi that are the protometic people that have been living in the same valleys since Abraham left Abraham left years. Yes. >> Christian communities praying in Aramaic. >> Yes. >> Where St. Thomas put a church. >> Yes. Exactly. >> And then you're going to watch the 700 Club or John Hegy and you're going to preach theology to first century

[51:38] Christian communities in the Holy Land that's ancestors were in the upper room. >> Yeah, that's exactly right. >> So what would you say to the boomer Republican who's been watching 700 Club since the 90s, watching Pastor Hegy, watching Fox News? They just can't hear it. Read the history. You've got to open your mind to the history. Don't believe some guy yapping at you on your TV. You have to read and understand the history. It really is as simple as that. But

[52:10] people do what's expedient. It's it takes time and it's hard and maybe it's boring and but you've got read the early church fathers. Just go there. Go through the West Bank. Take a drive. >> That's a great idea. >> From Bethlehem to Tybee. >> That's a great idea. changed >> forever. >> I couldn't agree more. >> This is the last Gen Z question, which I really love. What beliefs did you hold strongly at 30 that you no longer believe today? >> Oh, that's >> And by the way, you're an Angry Birds legend. This is from Colin.

[52:40] >> I live. >> You're an Angry Birds legend. >> For Angry Birds, >> by the way, that's something my kids loved about you. Like, dad, like he just talks about his love for Angry Birds. It's like, who does that? That is so cool. But it's that kind of transparency and honesty that you were like reflect I needed to do I need to play. This is what makes me happy. This is what I do. >> It brings me joy in the morning. >> It brings you joy. >> Yeah. >> I love it. >> I I have a routine in the morning. This is apppropo of nothing but I have a routine in the morning. I play Angry Birds that takes about an hour 50 minutes. I play the daily uh solitaire

[53:12] just because I have a streak that I don't want to break. But my doctor told me to do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day because it actually does fend off, you know, the degeneration of the brain and I don't want like I don't have dementia in my family on either side, but just to be on the safe side. I want to keep my brain fresh. So I do the Washington Post crossword, the New York Times crossword, the uh USA Today crossword if I have the time, Angry Birds and what's the most challenging of the crossword?

[53:42] >> The New York Times. Okay. Yeah, especially Saturday. Okay. >> Saturday is way harder than Sunday. >> The pros. >> Oh, yeah. Saturday's tough. Like I I'm twothirds done with today's. It's hard. >> But anyway, um what do I not believe now that I believed at 30? That we are just unequivocally the good guys. It's just not true. It's not. I also believed I used to say all the time, I want my leaders to be smarter than I am, right? to make wise decisions.

[54:14] And I've I've come to realize they're just human beings. And most of them aren't smarter than the rest of us. They're just more political and, you know, found themselves in positions of power. Um >> they have the same nervous system, the same bandwidth, the same >> Yeah, I'll tell Yeah, they do. I'll tell you a story. When I was when I was in college, um I I was very fortunate to win this thing called the Lynden B. Johnson congressional uh scholarship or internship. So, it was the only paid

[54:45] internship on Capitol Hill. And I worked for my congressman. He was a conservative Democrat from Western Pennsylvania, pro-life, proun, pro labor, you know, the old old school Democrat. And um I like the guy a lot. I sat next to the press secretary who was this really, really good-looking. She had been Miss Iowa of all things, and she was dating an Exxon lobbyist. He was a great guy, too. See, he'd come and hang out in the office all the time. One day, the congressman comes in.

[55:16] I'm only saying this because he died recently, so he can't like sue me or anything, but the congressman comes in one day and he goes like this. He goes, "I got laid last night." And I said, "No, he didn't. Mrs. Coulter's not even in Washington. She's in Pittsburgh." And I was like, and the lobbyist said to me, "You see, they're all dogs. They all put their pants on one leg at a time just like you do, and they're all dogs who think that

[55:47] they're better than everybody else." He said, "I don't know why you idolize these guys." And he was right. He was right. I went into I went in to see um the assistant secretary of state one time. he had he called me and asked me to come over to uh he wanted a briefing on this really like obscure issue dealing with the Gulf. So I went in and um he said, "You know, I was at the White House the other day in this mutual colleagueu's

[56:20] office and I saw a picture on his desk with that friend of yours." I said, "What friend of mine?" "That woman you sit next to." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "The director has a picture of himself with the woman you sit next to." I said, 'They're they're both married. And I was like, "Oh, for heaven's sake." >> And they don't even it's not even And next thing you know, they both get divorced. They marry each other. It's like, you know, it's Payton Place over

[56:51] here. We used to have this joke at the CIA that when you go into a conference, a conference room, never touch the table because you don't know who was having sex on it last night. And it was serious. In 2004, 2003, um, we had to send doctors from the Office of Medical Services out to Iraq because CIA officers were passing around a CIA specific strain of gorrhea amongst each other.

[57:22] >> It was seen only in CIA officers. And the doctors are like, "Can't you people control yourself?" Brett Mcgherk got caught on the top of the embassy having sex. >> Yes, he did. >> This and that guy is an animal. I'd love to do a documentary expose on him. >> You and I should chat about that afterwards. I got some stuff to tell. >> I mean, that guy and and when I would when I was in Iraq documenting the genocide, >> the Peshmerga and I'd meet with senior leadership and I'd meet generals. I do too. But they'd all have US embassy stories. >> Yeah. Because they're all pigs. >> They're pigs. They talk about they'd

[57:53] have to get a shuttle because they were so drunk they couldn't even So, this is where I would have empathy for them. Um, I have to imagine if they're engaged in high-risisk adultery in front of everyone at the office. >> Let me tell you, >> that they have existential angst. They're lonely. They're desparing and they just want to that this is kind of tragic. So, it's a culture of tragically lonely people, which then if I was a foreign, >> if I was another intelligence agency, no one's easier for me to recruit than someone who's lonely and alienated. >> And they're all lonely and alienated. Alienated. Let me tell you, my deputy

[58:25] director that I worked for had been married five times and all five of his wives had first been his secretary. All five of them. I'll give you another example. When I was working in Pakistan, um I was dating a senior CI officer who became my wife. So, we were just dating at the time. I had just gotten divorced and um we had this uh trunk line in the in the station. So even though I was in Pakistan, I could pick up that phone and it was a local Washington DC number. So

[58:58] we were 11 and a half hours ahead. So when I'd get to the office at 7, I would call her at 7:30 the previous evening in Washington and we would just talk about how our day was. So one of the guys in my office, I had seven old-timers um working for me. They had all been either director or deputy director of near east operations and they came back after 9/11 just for patriotic reasons. But if you're a contractor, you can't lead a group. So I was the chief of the group and all of these senior

[59:29] intelligence service officers were working for me, which was a great blessing for me. I learned more from them than I learned over the rest of the course of my career. >> And these were men that came up in the when it was all on the line. >> The Yeah. the bad old days. So, my girlfriend and I would end each conversation with, "Okay, love you. Mwah." And hang up. And one of them heard me and he says, "So, are there wedding bells in the future?" And I said, "Oh, I don't know. I I just got

[1:00:00] divorced. I'm kind of afraid of being a two-time loser." That's what I said. Two-time loser. He says, "Two-time loser? I've been married four times." Dave, how many times have you been married? He says, "Five for me. Bill, how many times have you been married? I got three. Frank, how many times have you been married? Four for me, he says. Two-time loser. Kid, you're just getting started. He says to me. And I said, "Oh my god, I don't want to be like you guys." I get home,

[1:00:31] we get married, and one night we're sitting on the floor of the living room watching a movie. It's like midnight. We're watching this movie and her cell phone rings and it happened to be next to me. I picked it up and I said, "It's like a 16digit number." I said to her, "I think it's a satphone." And she says, "Answer it. See who it is." So I said, "Hello." And this voice says, "Is Heather there?" And I said, "Tony." And he said, "Yeah, who's this?" I said,

[1:01:02] "It's John. Where are you?" He said, "I'm in Afghanistan." And he said, he said, 'Why are you answering Heather's phone?' I said, ' Uh, because she's my wife. Why are you calling Heather's phone at midnight? Oh. He goes, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you two were together. I said, Tony, why don't you use your one minute of sat time every week to call your own wife instead of calling mine?

[1:01:33] But that's typical of the CIA. They don't care. And that's a problem in the culture that should be seen as a real security problem. >> I worked for these two guys. I loved and respected both of them, Mike and Jean. Two of the finest officers I ever worked for. And they hated each other. So one day I said to Jean, I said, "Jean, you and Mike are both you're two of my favorite people. I don't understand why you hate each other so much." And Jean says, "I'll tell you." He said, 'Our

[1:02:04] together, we were in Karach and Mike screwed my wife. I said, 'Oh my god, that's terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. And he said, 'N no, that's okay. He said, um, our second tour was Bogotaa and I screwed his wife. >> And I said, you know, this is exactly what's wrong with this organization. He said, shame on both of you. >> By the way, am I naive? I just think if I'm wanting to recruit somebody, I want to recruit someone who's just betrayed by someone in his own organization in such a horrible way. >> Exactly. Right. Talk about a vulnerability. >> That seems like quite a vulnerability.

[1:02:35] Then you have a culture like this where Brent McGurt's on the top of the embassy. The whole Middle East knows. >> Yeah. The whole Middle East >> and he's in charge of the war against ISIS. This seems kind of a >> You're exactly right. >> It seems like a problem that needs to be fixed. >> Amen. >> I mean, I could talk to you forever. I don't know how much time we have, but that's the next question. What how do we fix the culture of CIA to serve the interest of the American people? Can it be fixed or does it have to be shattered and swept away? The only way it can be fixed is with true robust congressional oversight, which we have not seen since

[1:03:05] 1982. >> Can we see it when we know the ethics of guys that have to go elected every two years? >> No, I don't think so. I mean, Mark Warner, Tom Cotton, come on. These guys, >> Randy Fine. >> Randy Fine, please. What a joke. It's all a big joke. I I've I've said in podcasts in the past, there was one guy on uh on the Senate Intelligence Committee that I kind of expected a little help from. And when I got out of prison, I was invited to dinner at the Greek ambassador's residence. So, I go

[1:03:36] and the senator's there, member of the intelligence committee, and he comes up to me and he says, he says, "Hey, welcome home. Congratulations. We were really worried about you." And I said, "Oh, come on, senator." I said, "I expected more from you. you of all people. I expected a little bit of support. And he goes, "Look, it took everything I had just to not lose my security clearance." And I said, "Oh, you're afraid of them." Now it makes sense to me. And we've never spoken again. >> He's he was never a free man.

[1:04:07] >> No, never. He's afraid of them. >> And one of my favorite stanzas and lines in any poem is in Rudier Kipling's if. And I was just talking to my son about this and actually talking about you. It is if when all if all men can count on you but none too much, you're a man. And I said to my son, do you know what that do you understand what that means? He says, yeah, that you're just that you put justice and truth over friendship and loyalty. I said, yes. I said, let me ask you a question. If anyone if one

[1:04:37] person in this world can count on you too much, then can anyone count on you at all? >> There it is. And that's the reality. >> I want to ask a hypothetical question, okay, of the folks that are here. This is something that I like to raise at uh at colleges and universities because it's kind of indicative of what every CIA officer has to deal with, especially if you're a field officer, you're out doing operations. So, let's say that you're a CIA case officer

[1:05:10] in the Middle East and you've recruited a bonafide terrorist, a bonafide penetration of al-Qaeda, Hezbala, ISIS, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. You meet with this person once a month in a hotel somewhere in the Middle East and this person has given you actionable intelligence that you've used to disrupt attacks and save American lives, right? He's the real deal. So you go out to Aman or Cairo to do a meeting and he

[1:05:42] says to you, "I've been good to you and I've given you everything that you've wanted. So tonight you're going to do something for me. I'm not giving you any more information until you go out and get me a prostitute. So, I always ask, do you get him the prostitute? Show of hands. Right. Seriously, show would you get him the prostitute? Yeah. The answer is yeah. It's nasty and dirty, but this is the job that we've chosen. You get him the prostitute. What if he asks you for a child prostitute?

[1:06:15] Well, obviously the answer is absolutely not. Not under any circumstances. But that's not even the issue. The issue is there are no rules. There's no training class to say, "Well, you know, you can get him the prostitute, but you can't get him the child prostitute because there's this line. Nobody's going to teach you that." So you have to go into this job into this life with your own set of moral principles and you have to stick with it because there's not going to be anybody at the other side at the

[1:06:48] other end of the cable at headquarters saying h you probably shouldn't do that or rule number 125A says yes to the prostitute but no to the child prostitute. It's all up to you. And so, you know, so many guys and women, mostly guys, lose the sense of who they are once they get into this position. And once it's lost, you can't reclaim it.

[1:07:18] I thank you for that. Okay. I want to end on a kind of a happy note. You are record setting a cameo right now. >> I know it's crazy, right? So cameos where you it's a service where you can get a famous person to give someone a birthday wish or something like this >> and you are like setting cameo records. >> Broken all the cameo records. >> You've broken all the cameo records. >> And um when we first were talking about having you on my film, you're like I love a line in your film. So and I'm like yeah of course I love you in my film for your sad card. Dude, you don't need that anymore. You've well blown past that. >> Got the sad card. >> So you you how many hours a week are you leaving messages?

[1:07:50] >> Just answering cameo requests. I'm doing probably 25 or 30 hours a week. >> So that's how many cameos a week? >> I did 900 for the month of March. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So what we want I want to know is of all these cameos, what was the sweetest one? >> Uh I've gotten three. I've I've done about 1950 cameos so far. >> Okay. >> I do 20 or 30 a day.

[1:08:22] >> Okay. I've gotten three where well let me let me back up about 50% of them are birthday wishes you know uh Jimbo's birthday is next Tuesday I say hey happy birthday Jimbo John Kuryaku here hope you had a great day you know etc so there's birthday you know mother's day father's day whatever advice pep talk about 10% are pep talks so of the 10% that have been pep talks

[1:08:52] Three have come back to say that I somehow talked them out of committing suicide. I'm not really sure how I did that. But, you know, there are a lot of really hurting people out there. We get so wrapped up in our own lives, our own existences, we don't realize how many other people are in pain. There's one girl, she's just one out of almost 2,000 cameos that I've done. one who sounded like she was in such pain. I said,

[1:09:23] "Listen." In the cameo, I said, "We're not supposed to do this, but here's my phone number." >> Wow. >> Call me. And she called me crying. She's 15. She's bimic. Her parents don't understand her. She was going to commit suicide. And I talked her out of it. And um she's called me twice since then, usually for less than a minute or two. very respectful, >> very very respectful. And she said she just she's having a down day and she

[1:09:54] needs to hear a friendly voice and that's it. I had another friend friend um he became a friend. So I get it I get an a message through Facebook. The guy says, "Hi, my name is James and I want to thank you for what you did for the country." So, I look at his page and here's picture after picture after picture of him embedded with the Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS.

[1:10:25] And I was like, "Wow." I said, "Thank you. Thank you for what you did." I said, "The Kurds are heroic. I've loved the Kurds all of my adult life since I first, you know, started working with the Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq." And we became friends. This guy had the most tragic story. His mother was a prostitute and he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. So never had any idea who his father was.

[1:10:56] And when he was 17, he he did something really really stupid. He kidnapped a guy at gunpoint and took him from ATM to ATM, forcing him to empty his bank account. And of course, he got caught and the judge came down on him like a ton of bricks and gave him 20 years. And he did the whole 20. Well, he gets out. He's 37 years old. He's got a violent felony on his record. Employment is impossible.

[1:11:26] So, he goes into porn. It's the only thing he can do. He acts in porn. And what do you make in porn? I don't know, $150. Who knows? So he decides he he needs meaning in his life. So he goes to Turkey, crosses the border into Syria, stumbles into these Kurds, takes up arms, and just starts killing ISIS people. He does that for a year, and then comes back out, makes his way back to the United States, Billings, Montana.

[1:11:59] So, we start talking and he can't find a job and I'm a convicted felon and I have this this uh violent felony and I don't have any education and he didn't have anything going for him. And I kept telling him one day at a time, go to the local community college. What's a community college class cost? $100, $150, whatever you're interested in, you know, whatever, whatever, you know,

[1:12:29] tickles your fancy, focus on that. Just one day at a time, I'm telling him. Then one day, I get a call on my phone and it says prison/jail and it has some Wyoming Wyoming area code. I'm like, what in the world? So, I answer the phone and it's him. I said, "What in the world are you doing in jail in Wyoming?" He said, "I got into a fight with my girlfriend and she wouldn't let me see my son and I slapped her and she had me arrested." I

[1:13:01] said, "Geez, James." So, he ends up getting bail and then decides he's going to commit suicide. So, he goes back home in Billings, Montana, takes a gun from his mother, drives to the Walmart parking lot. He's sitting in the car holding the gun getting ready to kill himself when an offduty ATF agent pulls into the space next to him to do his grocery shopping, sees this guy with a gun, pulls his gun,

[1:13:32] and disarms James. So I get a call, Billings, Montana County Jail. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. So I answer. I said, "James, you're in jail in Billings, Montana now." He says, he's crying. I was gonna kill myself. I was in the parking lot at the Walmart. I said, "Oh my god." He said, "I need a I need an attorney." I said, "All right." Because I'm a sucker for a Saab story. I always have been. So, I start calling every

[1:14:02] attorney in Billings, Montana, and I find one that's willing to do it, you know, for a price. So he gets him out, but felon with a gun is a mandatory minimum of five years. The the courts are or the prosecutors asking for eight years because he had a violent felony and this is bad. Then he calls me one day, July 4th, 2022, and he said, "Hey, uh, my sister, uh, lit an M80 and it blew three of her

[1:14:34] fingers off, and she was in surgery all day, 14 hours. They reattached her fingers." I said, "Oh my god, that's terrible, James. I'm so sorry. Tell her I send my best. I'll send her a card." And I said, "But you sound you sound good." He said, "Yeah, I feel good. I feel good. Things are going well." I said, "Great. Okay. Good to talk to you." Two days later, his sister calls me. I said, "How are your fingers?" She said, "Oh, they're okay. It was my own stupid fault, but they reattached them. I'll recover." And she said, "But that's not why I'm calling. I'm calling to tell you James killed himself last night."

[1:15:06] I said, "Oh my god, what happened?" And she said, "Um, he told their mother he was going for a walk. He walked to the neighbor's house or yard. They had a big oak tree and he strung up a noose and he hung himself and he left a note and all it said was, "Please call John and tell him I said I was sorry." And you know, it reminded me of a story.

[1:15:36] Have any of you heard of the folk singer Pete Seager? Pete was a giant in my life next to my father and my grandfather. No man had as much of an impact on my life as Pete Seager did. And he told me a story one time. There was another folk singer from the 70s, Phil Oaks. Um, Phil was as popular as anybody in the 60s and early 70s, but he went on a concert tour in Africa and he was mugged in Africa and the mugger cut his throat and he recovered, but he was unable to hit high notes after that and

[1:16:08] he fell into a deep depression. And Pete told me that that he Pete was performing at a folk club in Granch Village one night and the gig ran late and he was packing up as quickly as he could because he had to literally run to Grand Central Station and catch the last train to Beacon which is where his home was. And as he's packing up, one of the waitress says, "Pete Phil Oaks is on the phone for you." And he said, "Tell Phil I can't talk. I have to run and get the

[1:16:38] last train to Beacon." And so he said, "Tell him I'll call him tomorrow." And he left. And Phil Oaks committed suicide. And he said to me, and this was unlike anything I had ever heard Pete say, he said, "That selfish bastard. I'll never forgive him for what he did. He had no idea how many people he's hurt." And that always stuck in my mind. >> Could have saved your life >> and your dark days. >> Very well. May. >> Did you ever think about that when you were considering suicide? 100%.

[1:17:10] >> So, he saved your life >> and you saved a 15-year-old girl's life. >> There it is. >> So, when you were going through all the rough things that you went through and your brother told you this is the best thing that ever happened in your life, he didn't realize it was the best thing that was going to happen in a lot of people's lives. >> Yeah, it's true. We're all here for a reason. And it just keeps reminding me that there's always somebody who's suffering more than I am. And the privilege of suffering is you'll be able to use that empathy to help

[1:17:41] someone else another time. You lose your child to a drunk driver. There's going to come a day where you're helping someone who lost their childhood. There's that's the empathy is the gift of suffering. >> That's right. >> And so it's interesting that we must have a suffering nation because they've really identified with you. You've really done the whole arc of the hero's journey. Your, you know, your call to adventure was not when you thought. It wasn't when you joined CIA. No, >> it's when you the moment your adventure began was the moment you said >> and who would have thought who could have foreseen that. I never could have. >> Yeah. >> I had never believed you if you had told

[1:18:13] me listen in the next 10 years this is what's going to happen. >> I think when we first met if I would have told you that. Well, you didn't believe me. Jenny and I were like look we're passing on your movie because we are this is a massive studio film. This is the perfect script. It it you wrote it in your life. >> Yeah. >> Like you literally hit each of the points of the mono myth in your life. >> Crazy. >> And then you were discovered by young people,

[1:18:44] >> which is the greatest reward. It really is. >> You know, when you were you were walking down the street to a book reading and I had called you and um when I was asking you to do this, I think I like this is kind of an unbelievable opportunity. I don't know if you can do this. And I thought there was no way you could fit in your schedule. And you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But as you're walking to the book reading, someone you could hear how excited they were to see you, but then you seemed more excited to

[1:19:14] see Thank him. And you said, "If not for you, I could be living out of my car. If not for Gen Z, in a way, you would have a whole fight ahead of you." >> Yeah. >> A whole life of battles. >> It's true. It's true. Yeah. The CIA did its darnest to make sure I could never work again. >> WW didn't work. >> Yeah. Didn't work. >> Didn't work. >> I mean, here's how bad things got. And I'm not saying that this is bad. I mean, maybe in the greater scheme of things, it's bad. But I was so broke and so

[1:19:45] unemployable. I had to I had to rent a house with two elderly gay guys who were attached to oxygen machines, walking around like smoking cigarettes with their oxygen. And I'm like, >> so this is my lot in life. >> What were you watching? Wheel of Fortune. What did they watch? >> I know, right? >> I don't know. >> Jeopardy at 7:00 and Wheel of Fortune at 7:30. I'm sitting there like this. >> Yeah. Like, well, I guess this is the way it's going to be. >> And then everything exploded. >> But that's what heroism looks like. It's not uh, you know, it's not the Rambo

[1:20:16] stuff. It's the long drawn out years and years of not thinking it's going to get better. >> Was there a point where you just said, "I'm I'm good. It's going to be like this forever and I can handle it. >> Yeah, it was a conversation I had with my sister. I said, you know, I don't mind being poor. I've actually become accustomed to being poor. And um I said, the only thing is I don't want to die alone and I especially don't want to be sick for a whole long time before dying alone. My sister's five years younger

[1:20:48] than I am and she's very, very kind and empathetic. She's my best friend, really. And she said, "Don't be ridiculous. you're going to you're going to live in my house. She said, "The whole the whole basement? It's this beautiful apartment. They have a an enormous house in uh Bedford, New Hampshire." And I said, "Great. I get to live in my sister's basement for my remaining days." Thanks, Tina. >> You know, my organization runs a shelter in Warz, Mexico. >> Even better, >> for migrant worker for migrant unwed uh

[1:21:21] migrant unaccompanied women with children. So we have a shelter there and the shelter director said if I have in my old days if I have nowhere to go they'll let me go to the shelter in Warez. You can come to the shelter in Warz with me. >> No. Okay. So I want to end on this and then we'll go to questions and then we'll decide with the audience. I don't know if they want to be in the in the video or not but >> um I want to pay a cameo. How much does a cameo cost? I want to buy a cameo right now. >> Hey, thank you. You know the algorithm changes the price every 15 minutes based on how u how much >> I'll pay you cash so we don't have to share with the website. No, we'll kick

[1:21:52] it to you. No. So, this is my cameo, right? I want to do it right now. Okay, here's my cameo. To Gen Z, I want you to give them a cameo pep talk to a generation that they want to be creative writers. They want to be filmmakers. They want to be lawyers and they're looking at AI and that's gone. They want to have marriage and love and family, but that seems impossible. So, I want you to give Jenz your cameo pep talk. >> Yeah. Okay. Gen Z, John Kiryaku here. Listen, I know how hard life is right now. You're seeing changes coming

[1:22:22] quicker than we've ever seen really since the since the advent of the industrial age. And that's not necessarily a good thing. So what you have to do is grab life by the horns and live it according to your standards. Don't let AI put you out of business. Don't let internet porn take away a chance at a at a beautiful relationship or marriage. You have to grab life by the horns and live it according to your own rules. So do what makes you happy. do what allows you to contribute to society and you're going to live a happy

[1:22:54] life. All the best. >> That was awesome. John, I want to thank you. you know, um,
