Title: Former CIA Officer Speaks Out About Hidden Politics
Show: Covert Strategies Revealed
Date: 2026-07-07
URL: https://youtu.be/osXgMj89FwQ
Duration: 1:17:00

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[00:00] Thank you very much. Good to be with you again. >> It's good to see you. >> Good to see you as always. >> You the first time we met, you were in a different place than you are right now. >> Yeah. >> You're in a much different place and and I was with my filmmaking partner and you were you were talking to us about maybe we could make your film and we said, "No way. This is so much bigger than us." It's the perfectly crafted hero's journey. Your story is the hero's journey by the book. >> It's the writer's structure of the story. ordinary world, call to adventure, threshold, guardians, innermost cave, death and resurrection,

[00:31] return to the ordinary world, like you've lived it perfectly. And so here we are on the other side. Um, so it's not a lot of people in history who have suffered what you suffer have the privilege in their lifetime. >> Yeah. >> To experience the resurrection. They may be resurrected in the history books. Um, have you thought about that? Like just what it's like to have gone through all of that and get to live through your redemption. I like to think that all of that is true. I like to think um and I'm I'm

[01:02] confident that I'm on the right side of this issue. I I've been on the right side of it from the very beginning. It's been a long journey. And I'll tell you, you really get to see who your friends and supporters are. And sometimes sometimes the people who are the quickest to turn on you are the ones that you're laying next to in bed at night. You just never know. People make funny decisions and um you have to be supremely confident that you're right and that everybody else is wrong. I've

[01:36] been called arrogant, narcissistic by people close to me because I just would not stop talking about these issues and insisting that I was on the right side of it. And in the end, I think I've been vindicated. I think I have been on the right side of it. Uh, I don't know why it was so confusing to everybody else. You know, when it comes down to the basic issue of of torture. It just seems so clear-cut to me. I don't understand why it wasn't clear-cut to everybody else. And uh, I've just

[02:09] decided to to go with it and accept that this is this is the this is the plan that God had for me. It's certainly not what I expected. I really believed that I would work my 30 years at the CIA. I'd retire on a Friday. On Monday, I would start up with some intelligence community contractor. I'd have a little house at the beach with my wife and kids and live happily ever after. I really believed that for many years. And that wasn't to be at all. And so here I am

[02:40] all these years later. Um went to prison for a couple of years. have friends who are like nationally known mobsters or nationally known political leaders and I embrace all of it. >> Yeah. The the the the spectrum of people who have admired you and reached out to you is it's unbelievable. It's the the whole spectrum. >> It's crazy. You know, >> Susan Strand to Tucker Carlson and yeah, everything in between. >> What are they sharing? What do they have

[03:11] in common? the the mobsters, Susan Strand and Tucker Carlson, all the people that stood by your side, what is the gesture line that they all have in common? >> That's a really great question and I think that and this is going to sound a little bit crazy, but it's it's all about transparency and truthtelling. One of the things I mean, it's easy to say, you know, Susan Sarandon, she's a well-known truth teller. She's demonstrating in the streets all the time for, you know, human rights and civil rights and civil liberties and all that stuff. Yoko Ono is another one. Um,

[03:42] uh, I know it's crazy, right? >> It's unbelievable. >> Uh, Roger Waters, the lead guitarist from, uh, Pink Floyd, paid off my second mortgage so that my my wife didn't lose our house when I went to prison and did it anonymously. It was seven years before I learned it was Roger that paid off my mortgage. >> That's unbelievable. >> It was crazy. Um but then you know these mob figures just gravitated toward me and it was because I told the truth and called the government on the carpet. And so there

[04:14] is this theme that even though even though we may disagree on 99% of the other issues on that one core issue, we're all in alignment. And I found that to be the one consistent theme, >> respecting people enough to be honest. >> Yeah. You don't have to agree on everything. You don't have to have friends that, you know, there's this prerequisite that you have to agree on every issue to be friends. I don't think I agree with everybody or

[04:45] on every issue with anybody in the world. So why would that be a prerequisite? you know, we we can respect each other and respect differences and opinion and, you know, live happily ever after. It's just become obvious to me the the older that I get. >> It's powerful. I want to do the hero's journey with you. When we start from the beginning, interviewing you is is nerve-wracking. It's it's like going on a date with someone who you're like,

[05:15] "Have you been any dates recently?" Well, yeah, I went out with Brad Pitt and then it was like Tom Cruz and then it's like, yeah, I've been interviewed by Theo Vaughn, by Joe Rogan, by Tucker Carlson. That's that's scary. >> May I actually interrupt you on that point? >> Yeah, >> this little vignette is apppropo of of this leadin. So, I got divorced in 2018. I waited a couple years, decided to go on the apps. So, I figured I'm gonna go to Bumble because Bumble is supposed to be the the lady's app, the gentleman's

[05:46] app, the gentleman's app, because the woman chooses who she wants to talk to. Okay, I go. I see this absolutely stunning woman. I swipe right. She swipes right. I said, "Hey, I matched." >> So, we start texting back and forth and we agree to meet for a glass of wine. So, we meet in person. I said, "My god, she's even more beautiful than in her pictures." But I wanted to be transparent. So I said, "Listen, before this goes anywhere, you should know something about me. And if you don't like it, you can walk and no hard

[06:17] feelings at all." She says, "No, I know who you are, Mr. Kiryaku." I had never told her my last name. So I said, "Oh, okay. So you're okay." And she said, "Yeah, you should know something about me." I said, "Great." She says, "I'm the deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights." And I said, "Hey, then we're a match." Great. Right. >> Yeah. So, I had such a good time. I said, "Please go out with me Saturday night. We'll have dinner." Great. We went out, had a great time. And I said, "Let's do a little day trip next

[06:48] weekend. I've always wanted to go to Shepherd'stown, West Virginia. It's about an hour and 15 minutes away. Civil War town, art galleries, boutiques." She says, "Great." I said, "Great. I'll pick you up 10 o'clock Saturday morning." I go to her house. I pick her up. She gets in my car. I said, "Good morning." She says, "Good morning." I was like, "Ah, dog gone it." I said, 'What's wrong? Nothing. Nothing. I said, 'Come on, let's not play these games. Obviously, clearly something's wrong. What is it?

[07:18] She says, "I have doubts about your left-wing credentials." I said, "Excuse me, I went to prison for my left-wing credentials. What's your problem?" She said, "I saw a YouTube video in which you quoted Ronald Reagan." And I said, "Yeah, I know what the quote is." I said, "Ronald Reagan was right when he said that government is the problem. It's not the solution to the problem." He's right. She says, "I just need to

[07:51] process this." I said, "Fine." We go to Shepherd's Town. Had a terrible time. It's about 3:00 in the afternoon. It starts to rain very hard. I said, "Let's go back to DC." We get back in my car. I don't like sitting on my cell phone in the car. So, I take my phone out. I put it in the cup holder next to me. Soon as I start driving, I get a text message. It goes. So, I look down and I said, "Oh, no." It's from Tucker Carlson. And it says, "Hey, buddy. Haven't heard from you in a while. Are you free for a

[08:22] beer this weekend?" And I try to discreetly look at her and I see she's looking right at the phone. >> Oh no. >> And she says, "Do you know Tucker Carlson?" And I said, "Yes, and he's a lovely man." And she says, "Take me home right now and don't ever call me again." And so I did. And it just made me realize even more clearly that I'm right. >> Yes. We don't have to agree on everything to respect one another and to

[08:54] respect one another's points of view. >> You know, when we were young, there was left liberal and right liberal. At the end, we were all believed in freedom of speech. >> Exactly. >> Freedom of religion, free economy, >> and our differences on foreign policy ended at the shore, we used to say, >> and it was, but that's now I feel like the left is illiberal >> and the right is illiberal. We've lost a belief in the founding principles of our republic on both. >> I think you're exactly right and that's why I find myself in a excuse me in agreement so often with with people who

[09:27] call themselves MAGA Republicans because and I've said this many times I don't believe that the ideological spectrum is a straight line from left to right. I believe that it's a circle and it meets at a certain point and we should embrace that meeting. We should embrace the ability to cooperate and work with each other and to respect each other and each other's positions. >> Yes. I think sincere people on the left and the right are ordered to the common good. >> We disagree credentially, but we we're sincere people are striving for the same

[09:58] things. But that there are insincere people and grifters also across the ideological >> 100% and we see it every day in in the papers. >> Absolutely true. So with that, um, I want to go to the beginning. So because I'm nervous to interview you, there's you've been interviewed by the best people. You've been asked the best questions. You're my children's and everyone under 20's hero. So I don't want to mess this up. So I went to Jason Rocket, our friend, who's a worldclass researcher who's worked on the most important biographies of the 20th century. >> Henry Kissinger's go-to guy.

[10:29] >> Yeah. Henry Kissinger's guy. So I said, "What should I ask John?" He said, 'Oh, that's simple. No one's asked him. No one I've never seen it. ask him about his parents and then I saw you on um the week, >> right? >> Who I love that man's heart. He's such a beautiful human being. >> Yeah. A really genuine genuine person. >> Really? Yes. Something special to me. The what gives me hope for America is that America loves Theo >> and Tim Dylan and you. >> It's like, you know what I mean? >> And uh not a lot in common between you,

[11:00] Theiovan, and Tim Dylan. No. >> But the fact that America, especially Gen Z, loves you guys, I'm like, okay, there's hope for this country. And um but you were talking about Tulsi Gabbard. >> I've known Tulsi since she was 12. >> Her father and mother were good friends of mine. They're the most beautiful people I've ever met in my life that they love each other so much. Um in the in the in the '9s, her father really led the campaign to protect traditional marriage in Hawaii. And he was really hated. And I was chairman of the college Republicans at the time, worked closely with him. And I watched how and I was in

[11:30] Hawaii in the army, but I was from Chicago. So I was kind of a fiery young man. Here's a Samoan man, her father. And the way he responded to hatred was always with joy, with kindness, with a smile. I've never saw him angry. I never saw him lose his temper. And the way that those two are both, her mom and her dad are like these strong individuals, but they're a perfect couple. They don't dominate each other and they're both warm. And I say to people, if you want to understand Tulsi Gabbard, you cannot. She will never make sense to you until you meet her parents. And so I had

[12:02] Jason's text. I'm watching you talk about Tulsi and I realized Jason was right. That's the question. The question is where did John Kuryaku come from? This guy doesn't like Tulsi. They don't make sense in this world. So that's the question. We want to know about your mom and your dad. >> I appreciate that. Um I was really really fortunate growing up. My parents were deeply in love with each other and they came from completely I shouldn't say completely different backgrounds. They came from different

[12:32] backgrounds. First of all, all four of my grandparents came from the island of roads in Greece. My dad's parents came in 1931. My mom's parents in 1934 and they were all farmers in Greece. Uh but my dad's parents stressed education because they didn't have an education and it was just my dad and his sister. On my mom's side, my mom had eight brothers and sisters and education was never important on my mom's side of the family. So, my dad got a PhD in um in

[13:05] education and my mom ended up getting a master's degree in education. She went to college when I was when I started fifth grade. She started college and then she finished grad school when I finished grad school. So, um education was everything. They were both in elementary ed. My mom was a third grade teacher. My dad was an elementary school principal for 44 years. And they

[13:36] were deeply in love with each other to the point where my brother and sister and I would be like, "Stop. You guys get a room or something." You know, and I I grew up thinking that everybody's family was like that. >> And it wasn't. They weren't. I I was just very very fortunate. When I was nine years old, I told my parents that I wanted to be a spy when I grew up. and they thought it was cute and they bought me walkie-talkies for Christmas and disappearing ink and stuff like that. My brother and I would walk around the

[14:07] neighborhood like spying on the neighbors. We really did. But then when I was 16, I told my dad, I still remember the conversation. We were driving on Old Plank Road past Fraser's Pond and I said, "Dad, I want to be a spy in the Middle East when I when I finish college." And he said, "Still with the spy thing. Can't you like be a dentist or something?" And I said, 'N no, I really want to be a spy.' And he said, 'Why the Middle East?' And I said, 'I don't know. It's just fascinating to me. And so I only applied to George

[14:41] Washington University because they had a degree uh program in Middle Eastern studies, and that's all I cared about. It's all I wanted to study. And they didn't like it, but they supported it because they knew that that's what I wanted to do, that it would make me happy. Why don't you think they liked it? >> They were afraid that something would happen to me. >> And they had no doubt if you they weren't like, "Okay, this is just a phase. He'll never They knew that you had your >> And then when I joined the CIA, they were happy and proud." And I said, "You

[15:11] can't tell anybody." My dad like stands up in church and announces. And I said to him, I said, "Dad, you're going to get me killed. I'm undercover and you're just announcing to the church and breaking my cover." He's like, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so proud. I'm sorry. I said, "Dad, you got to stop doing that." >> And he did. He stopped. But um but I had only been on the job, I don't know, eight months. I've mentioned this in a couple of podcasts. I when I was hired into the CIA, I was I was put on

[15:42] the Iraq desk. And um I became Saddam Hussein's classified uh biographer for the intelligence community. I was the only one covering leadership analysis on the Iraqi leadership. And so when Iraq invaded Kuwait, I got into the office very early one morning, 6:00, not one morning, that morning, August 2nd, 1990. And my boss said, "Um, don't take your jacket off. We're going to the White House." I had never been to the White House except as a tourist. And so we got

[16:15] in the car, went to the White House. There's a marine there waiting for us. He escorts us into the Oval Office. I'm 25 years old. It's the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, and the CIA director and then my boss and me. And you know, you don't speak until you're spoken to. And you don't sit until the president tells you to sit. So there's two nice like wing back chairs for the president and the vice president. Two like less comfortable dining room kind of chairs

[16:46] for the CIA director and the national security adviser. And then the couch where my boss and I sat down and the president says, "Gentlemen, sit. Sit." So, we sit down and then he says, "Well, now what do we do?" And then everybody turns and looks at me and I'm looking at him like I was speechless. And then it took me a second. I said, "Oh, well, uh, Mr. President, as you know, Iraqi troops crossed the border at 0200 this morning. The royal family has fled to Saudi Arabia and blah blah blah blah blah."

[17:18] And then that night my parents called me and they said, "Busy day for you today, huh?" And I said, 'Yeah, it was a busy day.' Well, what was it like? What did you do? And I said, 'Well, I I just I sat at my desk and I wrote as much as I could write. >> You couldn't tell him. >> Uhuh. >> His dad had a big mouth. >> Dad had a big mouth. >> He's proud. >> He's going to call everybody at church >> next week on Sunday. Everybody announcements and prayers. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. Exactly. But they were proud of me and and supportive of me and you know we

[24:00] had had enough and he just wanted to go home. And I said, "How's your family?" You never say, "How's your wife?" That's very rude. >> Okay. >> You say, "How's your family?" and what does your family say about it? And he said, "Alas," he said, "I haven't seen my family in five years. I have a son that I've never met. He's five years old. I have a nine-year-old daughter, and I just want to go home." So, I said, "Let me take you to lunch. Let's talk about this more." So, we go to lunch. And we're talking and talking and talking. And then the next day, we meet

[24:31] again. And finally, I said to him, "Yeah, Muhammad, I haven't been completely honest with you. I'm actually not Lebanese. And he said, "Okay." And I said, "I'm actually American." Okay. I said, "Are you all right with that?" And he said, "Yeah, you have a little bit of an accent I couldn't quite put my finger on." I said, "Well, there's more to it, and I don't want to frighten you, but I'm actually a CIA

[25:01] officer." And he says, "Okay." He said, "What do you want from me?" And I told him very specifically what I wanted from him. And he said, ' And what will you do for me? And I said, 'Anything your heart desires. I said, you want to go home to see your family. I'll send you home with a bag of money that'll weigh you down and you can start a whole new life and put all of this behind you. You don't want to live

[25:32] here. you want to be with your wife and your children and start something new and build something for your children. And he accepted it and he gave me everything I wanted. And I took him to the airport and I said, "Muhammad, before you leave, I want to ask you, why did you agree to give me what I asked for? You didn't run screaming from the room when I told him who I was." and he said, 'I've been here for five years and you're the first person who ever asked

[26:02] me about my family. And you know, it it crystallized something in my mind. It's that it's all about the relationship. Success is all about the relationship. Didn't cost me anything to ask him about his family. Just like it wouldn't cost, you know, a partner at Deote, where I used to work after I left the agency, to ask the person in charge of the big audit contract, how'd your kid do in the in the little league game? How's your husband doing after his gallbladder surgery? Hey, did you have a

[26:35] happy birthday party last week? That doesn't cost anything >> to take interest in somebody's life and to treat them with respect and kindness. Can you imagine going up to to this guy in the coffee shop and saying, "You better give me what I want or I'm going to make your life miserable." Come on. That's no recipe for success. >> So, he's an angry young man. >> Yeah. You just have to show people respect. It really is that simple. >> You know, when I my first job out of college was I did radio sales and my

[27:07] mentor sat me down and he gave me Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. Shake them in the hands, look them in the eye. M ask them about their family names. >> So I would think it's CIA. Is that not taught? >> No. And it should be the first thing that's taught and it's not. It's ignored. You know, another thing too is they never tell you in training you don't want to be the heavy. You know, we've been doing this for 75 years. We've learned that it's not good to be the heavy. They never train you in that way. They they train you in

[27:37] something called the asset acquisition cycle. Spot, assess, develop, recruit. You go into the the the pretend diplomatic cocktail party and you go up to a guy. Hi, how are you? I'm John from the American embassy. Where are you from? Oh, I'm from the Polish embassy. Okay, I'm not interested in you because Poland's in NATO. It's in the European Union. We don't spy on Poland. We don't need to. So, nice meeting you. And I'm going to go on to the next guy. The next guy's from, you know, Iran.

[28:07] Okay, I'm going to be interested in this guy. or I'm going to be interested in a guy in the um you know the let's say I'll make something up Syrian defense ministry >> or the Russian foreign ministry or whatever but they don't teach you be nice, be friendly, cultivate the relationship. You either have that in you or you don't. Now sometimes there are guys that need to use a heavy hand. Those are the guys in what's euphemistically called the special activities division. Uh, but they're not

[28:41] they're not going to diplomatic cocktail parties to find their targets. They get their targets from the White House kill list meeting on Tuesday mornings. They're not doing what I was doing. But I never ever ever found that being the heavy was the way to go. Never. >> Which foreign intelligence service is the best at cultivating friendships and relationships? >> Friendships and relationships. >> You know that that I would think the Iranians are probably pretty good at it. >> The Iranians are terrible at it. Really? >> Absolutely. >> Persian culture is so

[29:11] >> they are absolutely >> terrible. No. >> Who who would you say that would be? >> It depends on who the target is. The Israelis are very very good at developing people who would be their natural supporters anyway. Um we're good at it. >> Okay. >> The Brits are good at it. >> Um >> Russians no good. >> The Russians are better off at using their own people as sleeper agents. or throwing money at people who have

[29:42] very significant um problems. If they identify you as somebody who's got a gambling addiction or an alcohol problem or a drug problem um or somebody who's been passed over for promotion too many times, sure they they'll target you, but that relationship is going to be strictly based on on money. um these other services, the Cubans, the Cubans don't have money to pay sources. They do it all out of a sense of uh ideology and patriotism.

[30:13] >> Did you ever feel Can you feel it when you're being recruited? When someone's trying to develop you, did you feel that? Did you understand that? Did anyone try to recruit you and you didn't even know until later? >> No. >> When I was in the CIA application process, I was invited to a to a party. I was in grad school and my grad school adviser had recruited me into the CIA, but I still had to go through the security process. So, I'm in that process and I'm invited to a dinner party and the Hungarian, this is during communism, the Hungarian third secretary

[30:46] for education affairs, that's just a madeup cover job. Um, even I knew that at 23. >> There's no travel budget for that guy if he even exists. >> This guy was on me like white on rice. He just would not leave me alone. And I got to thinking about it like, I wonder if this guy's an intelligence officer. And so, since I was already in the application process, I called the recruiter and I said, I had this odd

[31:17] encounter a couple of nights ago and I gave him the the the guy gave me his business card. So, I said, this is his name, this is his position, this is his uh his telephone number. And then once I got hired by the agency, I was talking to the security officer that cleared me and he said, "You know, that was an intelligence officer. He was young and inexperienced and a little too overeager, but you did the right thing reporting it." And the second time it happened, I was a senior officer and um I was in Islamabad and my chief says,

[31:48] "Um, I want you to meet with the French head of counterterrorism here." And I said, "Okay." So, I call a guy and uh I said, "Let's get together for lunch." He says, "Okay, let's meet on the corner of this street and that street." And I'm like, "What? That's a residential area." Oh, maybe there's a little cafe that I don't know about. So, I said, "Okay." So, I'm standing on this corner waiting for the guy and it's a residential area. There's no cafe or anything. and he

[32:20] screeches around the corner, leans over, opens the door, and says, "Jump in." And I said, "You set me up for a car pickup." A car pickup is when you're meeting with a sensitive source. You pull around a corner as quickly as you can so that in case you're being followed, the guy can jump in your car without the chase car seeing that you've picked somebody up and then you kind of cut through alleys and stuff. And I said,"I am not your asset, so I wouldn't get in the car." And I

[32:52] said, "I'll meet you at the Pearl Hotel. We're going to have coffee in the coffee shop. I'm not doing a car pickup meeting with you. How dare you try to recruit me?" And then there was one other time I've talked about on on uh podcasts, my very first briefing as a CIA officer. been on the job six weeks and my boss says to me, "Listen, today you're going to do your very first liaison briefing. This is a joint briefing of Israeli Mossad and Shinbet."

[33:23] And it was like eight of us, eight analysts with these two Israeli intelligence officers. He said, "We don't allow the Israelis into the building. We used to, but every time they'd come, they would bring gifts. And the gifts are completely packed with listening devices and batteries. Like, we're not going to x-ray them. And then we had to keep telling them, "Guys, you can't keep coming here and trying to bug our conference rooms every time you come." So, finally the director said, "Israelis

[33:53] are not permitted in the building anymore." So, we rented a space, a safe house, and we would meet with the Israelis in the safe house. So this is my very first briefing and they told me you're going to go last since you're the most junior. So the the chief analyst starts first, then the Iraq political, then the Iraq military, then the Iraq economic, then the Iraq oil, and then they finally came to me. So this woman from Mossad, man from Shinbet, and they're writing down every word. Now I was overt at the time, so I

[34:26] used my true name, which was what I was supposed to do. And I said, "I'm John Kiryaku and I'm going to brief you today on Saddam Hussein's psychological state." And the Shinbet guy has his glasses down like this and he says, "Spell your name." So I spell it and he goes, "You are Jewish." And I said, "I am not recruitable. Don't even think about trying to recruit me." I was furious. I could barely get

[34:58] through the briefing. So I go back to the office and my boss said, "How did it go?" I said, "This so tried to recruit me right in front of everybody else." And he laughed. He said, "The Israelis do that to every one of us. Every single one of us." Because they figure if they pitch a thousand guys, one's going to say yes eventually. >> Glen Gary, Glenn Ross, always be closing, >> right? Coffees for closers. >> That's right. That's really, you know, they seem from the outside so hamfisted and aggressive

[35:29] that it wouldn't work, but it seems to be working just fine. >> Look at Jonathan Paul. >> They're running the table on us. >> They are. >> It was announced yesterday, I guess, they've been elevated to the highest risk uh for spying on us. >> Yes. Well, and and they had been at the highest previously. One of the very first briefings you get when you join the CIA is a counterintelligence briefing by the uh the director of security. Very first day of the CIA. So, you're in the bubble, which is the auditorium, and the first person out is the director of the CIA. Welcome to the

[35:59] CIA. We're so happy to have you. And then HR comes out and says, "This is the health insurance and this is the life insurance, whatever." Chief of security comes out and gives you some basic ground rules. Don't ever go to the steakhouse down the street, ever, because the KGB thinks we all eat there. And so the KGB is at every table waiting for a CIA person to walk in and start talking about work. Right. So I've never been there. I've been in Washington 44 years. I've never been to that

[36:30] steakhouse. It's all KGB. >> What steakhouse is this again? It >> It's changed names a couple times. It's TJ something now. One >> I'm going I'm bringing my friends and we're going to pretend to be the CIA and we're gonna spill secrets. >> TJ Gilberts >> as loud as we can. >> It's called TJ Gilberts. >> All right. So um another thing that he said was um let's see was TJ Gilbert's oh he said uh the highest tier for counter intelligence is critical threat for

[37:01] counter intelligence. These are the countries that spy on us the most aggressively. At the time it was the Soviet Union, now Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Israel, with France just one little step below. Um, they're so incredibly aggressive. He said, for example, at the Israeli embassy in Washington, there are two declared intelligence

[37:32] officers, one Mossad, one Shinbet. I met them six weeks later. He said, "But the FBI has been able to identify 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread all across America, mostly in American defense contractors, stealing our defense secrets. Why? We give the Israelis 98% of what we have. They want that last 2%." >> 98%. Well, and now in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, which

[38:04] passed the House a couple of days ago, we're integrating our military technologies. So, Israelis will be sitting next to us at the Pentagon. >> How can this happen the same week that we elevate them to the greatest risk? >> Yeah, you tell me. Exactly. Well, let me add let me add one other thing. Uh Jonathan Pard, famous trader, uh was was spying. He was a naval intelligence officer. Uh he was spying for the Israelis,

[38:35] Jewish American, giving the Israelis uh information on Soviet military movements. No big deal, right? I mean, in the greater scheme of things until you realize that the Israelis were then giving that same top secret information to the KGB in exchange for plane loads of Russian Jews to allow them to immigrate to Israel. So, it caused what the Pentagon, what Secretary of Defense, uh, um, Casper

[39:05] Weinberger at the time called grave, um, grave damage to the national security. It's the highest level of damage. So, Pard does every single day of his 30-year sentence for espionage. Every single day. didn't get one single day off for good behavior or halfway house or anything. Sheldon Adlesen, now the late Sheldon Adlesen, sends his private jet to pick up

[39:36] Pard at prison, fly him to Tel Aviv. When he gets off the plane, he's excuse me, he's met by Benjamin Netanyahu. Pard gets off the plane and kisses the ground. He's bestowed with Israeli citizenship and in a speech at the airport urges American Jews to take up arms against the United States. And then what happens? He's welcomed into the American embassy by Ambassador Huckabe for a meeting like

[40:07] some kind of conquering hero. Where are our priorities here? Either the Israelis are a counter intelligence threat or they're not. Well, they've proven repeatedly that they are. So, are we serving the American people or are we serving Israeli national interests, national security interests? >> Well, according to according to Joe Kent, >> who seemed to be in a pretty good position >> to have visibility in all this, I'm really eager to hear what Tulsi Gabbert has to say in the coming months. >> Um, it seems to be we're serving the interests of Israel.

[40:41] >> Israeli prime ministers come to the United States all the time, sometimes multiple times a year. I've met Netanyahu in my life like 10 times being in the conservative movement. Sat next to him at breakfasts and lunch. He's worked very hard at cultivating his relationships here in the United States >> over the course of a lifetime. >> Yeah. Since the 90s. I probably first met him in the late 90s at a Christian coalition dinner. I got to sit at the same table. >> I'm going to blow my own horn for a second. >> Okay. >> When I was going through the application process for the CIA, this was 198 or nine.

[41:11] Uh ' 89, I had to go in for interviews. I'm at the very end of the process. So, they give me a file folder about that thick and it's full of newspaper clippings. Every one of them is about Benjamin Netanyahu. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations at the time. And they said, "Take two hours, review all of these articles, and then write a one-page um psychological analysis of Benjamin Netanyahu." So I did and I said that my

[41:45] conclusion was that he would probably become prime minister of Israel one day. >> And he did. >> What year was this? >> 1989. He was ambassador to the UN. Then he became ambassador to the US. Then he was like defense minister, then foreign minister, and then he became prime minister. Now he's the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history. But um why was I telling you that? Oh, Netany, >> you met him and and was that by a sheer force of his will and ambition?

[42:16] >> Absolutely. Yes. He's brilliant. He's dangerous, but he's brilliant and a real political player. He just runs rings around every other Israeli uh political figure. So from the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was was president, every Israeli prime minister, even before Netanyahu, when they would come to the White House, they would say, "Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran." And every single president said, "I'm not going to bomb

[42:46] Iran." Until this one. But even Barack Obama said a couple of uh weeks ago that Netanyahu asked him to bomb Iran and he said, "We're not going to bomb Iran for you." And he said, "If you don't bomb Iran, we're going to use nuclear weapons." And Obama said, "Go ahead. Go ahead. Do it. Use nuclear weapons." And he backed off because it was a bluff. >> Yeah. >> But he made the same bluff with Donald Trump and Trump was

[43:16] >> Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it's wishful thinking or not, but I do feel that everything Trump is doing is going against everything he said he would never do and would be really stupid. And so I think that there must be something that he thinks is for the greater good for him to do something that is so obviously stupid. >> I think that's right. I think Trump really believed that he was doing the right thing. I think that he believed that over the long term he would be saving lives and he would be supporting long-term American foreign policy goals by doing this. And I think now he realizes he's been duped. I think so

[43:46] too. There seems to be a sudden a sudden shift. I want to talk about the psychology of Netanyahu. You seem to be that's how you were recruited. Yeah. And and and I want to go back to how you were you were recruited still when you were in grad school which means they identified your professor as a recruiter. They identified you as a likely recruit. >> Was that Hungary or Russia through Hungary? Was Hungary that sophisticated? >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Yeah. The Hungarians, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, they were very aggressive. That that's pretty good that they identified him identified you as a

[44:16] likely recruit and thought to recruit you while you were still in the process. >> Yeah. >> But I impressive I want to go back to Netanyahu because understanding the psychology of leadership is they saw a gift. Your professor saw you had that gift >> and that was the name of the class >> the psychology of leadership. >> Psychology of leadership. >> Netanyahu reminds me of Michael Corleó. >> He lost his brother. M >> he's really obsessed and I really do understand the obsession of that generation especially of Jews to for their security. >> So he seems like someone who wanted nothing but to keep his family safe

[44:48] >> and he's doing nothing but destroying his family. >> Plus he had he has what appears to be a very long-term view of these issues. But I think the truth is that while he may have a long-term goal, his short-term actions are wrecking the region, the whole region to the point where it's it's untenable over the long term. >> Is he does he buy into this messianic

[45:20] religious >> or he's just weaponizing it for >> Absolutely. They laugh at American evangelicals. They laugh at them. >> Yeah. >> They've tricked them, duped them into blindly supporting Israel. >> You know, I I have a friend who's an evangelical, a close friend, and he's an anti-Netanyahu evangelical, and he says, you know, the problem with these evangelicals, let's let's back up. Evangelicals believe that Jesus can't come back until all the Jews have moved to Israel, have returned to Israel, right? And and he

[45:52] said, here's what the disconnect is. Evangelicals think that they can force the hand of God. That their actions, oh, if we charter enough planes and put enough Jews on them, Jesus will come back. Jesus is going to come back when Jesus is ready to come back. >> Not because you guys have chartered all the planes, right? It's ridiculous. >> It's ridiculous. and and the Israelis know that these fools have a lot of money and they're willing to do whatever the Israeli government wants them to do and so they take advantage of it. You

[46:24] and I have had conversations in the past that I think bear repeating here where we can't understand why so many people who proudly describe themselves as Christians actively work against the Middle East's Christians. We're talking about these the original Christians, >> the descendants of the Jews that accepted Jesus. The descendants of the people in the upper room. >> Exactly. What about them? I'm still angry about the bombing of St.

[46:54] Borfidio's church in Gaza >> October 18th. >> I'm still angry about that. The oldest continuously operating church in the world and 24 women and children took refuge there and the Israelis blew it up. >> You know what else they blew up? We sent in a film crew into Thran to document the oldest Jewish extent Jewish community in the world. The oldest s continuous youth synagogue in the world. Uh the United States and Israel flattened that synagogue 11 days after we shot our documentary about two months ago. It's gone. Wiped from the face of the earth. Today, today

[47:27] um a Palestinian child was shot in the West Bank. A baby, an infant. Yesterday, Taibbe was set on fire, the only 100% Christian village in the West Bank. And in the past week, four Palestinian students, female students were kidnapped by the IDF. One a Christian, one an American citizen, one on the national football team. And the world is silent. How about uh Shireen Abuakla? Shireen Abbakla, the most important, most highly respected journalist at Al Jazer, an American citizen, a Greek Orthodox

[47:58] Christian. She's in the West Bank with a bulletproof vest that says press and a Kevlar helmet that says press. She's standing with a cameraman behind a tree because she doesn't want to get in the way of anybody. And as soon as she steps out from behind the tree, an Israeli sniper shoots her in the face and kills her instantly. As if that wasn't bad enough, the IDF goes into the hospital where her body is being carried out in a coffin. They beat the pawbearers to the point where they

[48:30] drop the coffin and then they shoot rubber bullets and smoke grenades into the Greek Orthodox church while her funeral service is taking place. And not a single word from the American government. Not a word. >> Or from evangelical Christian leaders or Catholic leaders. >> Yeah. I want to know where is Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and Mike Huckabe when these things happen. >> No. And people will say, you know, in in December when Gaza made it to the front pages for about an hour and a half. Um, all of a sudden on Q all the evangelical

[49:00] Christian human rights groups, all Catholic leaders, even uh Catholic Bishop Robert Baron, what about Nigeria? What about Nigeria? To this day, Bishop Baron has never mentioned Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon. What about Nigeria? That lasted for about a week. Yeah. >> As if. So, they'll say, "Well, what about what you know what about Boo Haram? My organization guards churches in Nigeria and the only synagogue. We provide security for this." So, I understand we lost an employee last year to Islamist extremism in in Nigeria. I'm not naive to this, but we lost two employees in Gaza that were killed when our baby formula warehouse was bombed.

[49:31] >> But they'll say, "Well, you know what about Boo Haram?" Like you want to compare a nation state to a No. No. What other nation state behaves the way the state of Israel does to its minorities? >> None that I can think of. You know, I I used to I used to teach, don't judge me. I used to teach at Liberty University, the the largest evangelical university in the world. They called me right after I blew the whistle on the torture program. It was it was Jerry Fwell Jr. that called me. Even my wife said to me

[50:03] one time, "We got a Christmas card from Jerry Fwell Jr." And she says, "Do you know Jerry Fwell Jr.?" And I said, "Yeah." She said, "How?" I said, "We send jokes to each other every once in a while on email." Anyway, so they offered me this job speaking in or lecturing at the Jesse Helm School of Government. And I said, "Are you sure you want me? We probably disagree on 99% of the issues." And Jerry says, "We want you because torture is not Christian." And I said,

[50:33] 'You know what? I'll take the job. And I loved every second that I was down there. We disagreed on a lot of stuff, but I loved it. So, we had this debate a lot about the role of evangelical Christians in the Middle East. And I could never understand why in the world they wouldn't stand up for the original Christians. They didn't even want to talk about it and it just kind of fell by the wayside. And here we

[51:06] are all these years later and they're still not talking about it. They're still not interested. >> You know, I had a relationship with him because he our first my first film, Bella, he got way behind. He leaned into it so much. Was a big part of our success. Was very kind. I know he got caught in a kind of an embarrassing scandal. Yeah, >> but he seemed like a kind. And this is my frustration with a lot of my Christian Zionist friends. They're better than me. They're kind. They're thoughtful. They're polite. They wake up every morning and pray. But then when you talk about this issue, it's just like

[51:36] >> And then you show them quotes from Ben Gavir. You show them attacks on by settlers on Westbank Christians. That's right. >> And it's just they cannot they cannot see it. Now, is am I naive to think that the state of Israel has been running aggressive influence operations through our religious communities, through Christian radio, through Christian publishing? And isn't the FBI and the DOJ's responsibility to protect us from foreign governments influence operations? >> It is indeed, but the Israelis get a break. There are no counter propaganda,

[52:10] counterintelligence operations against the Israelis. The Apac doesn't even have to register as a foreign as a foreign agent, which is nuts to me. You know, a few years ago, more than a few years ago, 2008, I won a very small contract, very modest contract, I don't know, five, six, $8,000, whatever it was, to write a series of op-eds in support of um the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, right? Do business in Abu Dhabi. There are no taxes. It's a friendly business environment, that kind of thing. and I

[52:41] had to register as a foreign agent because I was doing this on behalf of a foreign state. Apac is the biggest agent of any foreign state in America, but they're exempt from filing. Why? Why do they get special treatment? I'll give you another example of how powerful Apac has become. I'm sure you've read articles, you've seen news reports about how there are Apac

[53:13] employees literally assigned to every office on Capitol Hill, every single one, all 535, and they participate in meetings as if they're staff members. They write legislation, which is nuts to me, but they write legislation. Um, nobody else is like that. Well, a Texas state senator called me a few months ago and said, "Hey, I followed your case. I followed you on the, you know, the speaking circuit and all this stuff." He said, "I want to draft a resolution for

[53:47] John Kuryaku day in the state of Texas." I said, "Oh my god, thank you so much." He said, "We do this 140, 150 times a year. It's just proforma. Everybody just votes yes and everybody gets a certificate from the governor with a shiny gold seal." I said, 'Ah, thank you. It's wonderful. He calls me like three weeks later. He says, ' Listen, I'm sorry, but that John Kiryaku day, that's not going to happen. And I said, ' Really? What happened? And he says, Apac objected. I said, Apac, >> I want this for the Gen Z to hear this.

[54:17] This is important. >> In a pack in Texas state legislator vetoed John Keryaku day. >> I was like, that's unbelievable. Are you kidding me? And he said, no, they're in all 50 state legislatores. I said, 'I had no idea.' He said, 'Ay, now they've gone lower and they're being they're getting involved in mayoral races, city council races, schoolboard races because they're building their bench. That's exactly what it is. You took the words

[54:48] right out of my mouth. And then the problem is now I'm 55 years old. They built a relationship with me since I was 18, 19, 20 years old. I feel a debt. Yes, exactly. >> With that debt, this is a a debt I have to people who gave me everything I have in my life. >> You know, for a couple of years, I was the senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee uh from 2009 to halfway through 2011, I think, is what it was. And um I had already worked on Capitol Hill. I had been on the House side. So now, that was as a junior staff

[55:19] member. Now I'm a senior staff member on the Senate side. And literally the first day that we take office, John Kerry is the chairman. So, I'm working for Carrie. These two guys just walk right into my office. They don't knock on the door or anything. They just walk right in. And I look up. I said, ' May I help you? Hi, welcome to Capitol Hill. I'm like, "Yeah, thank you. I've I've been on Capitol Hill before. May I help you? We're from Apac." And I said, "Okay, we

[55:50] wanted to offer you an all expenses paid trip to the Holy Land." I said, 'N no thanks, guys. I can pay for my own vacations. Oh, we'll take you to all the Christian holy sites. I said, 'No thanks, guys. I'm not interested. Well, so far, seven of your colleagues are going. I said, good for them. I'm not interested. Finally, I had to tell him, just get the hell out of my office. And it just went downhill from there. >> And these tours are pmpkin village tours. >> That's exactly what they are. I'll tell

[56:21] you another thing. just a year earlier in 2008, u my mom called me. My my dad died in 2003 and my mom never quite got over his death. And so she was depressed and she wanted to do something to pass the time. So she called me and she said, "NP is giving a tour of Ireland. I think I'm going to go to Ireland." I said, "Ireland?" I said, "Mom, it's February. You know what the weather's like in Ireland?" I said, I said, "Father, >> NPR, that was their fun fundraising event." >> February in Ireland.

[56:52] >> Come on. Okay. >> So, I said I said, "Father Ted's going to take a group to to Israel. Why don't you go to Israel with all the all the church group?" And she said, "Oh, that's a good idea." So, she and my sister went to Israel. And my mom, God bless her, she was kind of an innocent soul, right? She didn't know anything about politics or international affairs or anything. So, she gets back and I told her in advance, I said, "Take pictures of literally everything. This is the trip of a lifetime. Take pictures of everything." She came back with hundreds of pictures.

[57:23] So, their driver for this little van that they had driving them from sight to sight was a Palestinian Christian Catholic guy. And um she got back and I said, "How was it?" And she said, "Did you have any idea how they treat those Palestinians?" And I said, "Of course I do." She said, "It's scandalous." And I said, "Yeah." And she said that, you know, you're driving around Israel like, oh my god, it's first world. It's incredible. It's highrises and

[57:54] everything is, you know, there's Cardier over there and and you know, Saks Fifth Avenue over here and then you cross into the Palestinian areas. And she said, "It's like going into a prison. There are literally walls with barbed wire." And I said, "Yeah." She said, "To make matters worse, their driver, he's done these tours a thousand times. So, he's not going to go into the, you know, Church of the Nativity again or to this place or to that place. He'll drive you up to it and then he just sits there

[58:26] and he had one of these little pulp fiction dime store novels that he was reading. So, they get stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and the IDF comes onto the van and everybody had to hold up their American passport. But then they snatched the the driver's novel out of his hand and the Israeli soldier says he opens the book, he says, "No picture of Arafat on this page." And tears out the page and throws it at him. No picture of Arafat on this page. And

[58:56] throws it at him. And then he ends up tearing up the whole book and throwing it at him. And the guy just sat there and took it because he had to sit there and take it. And she said, "The craziest thing was that that was not the exception. That kind of thing happened every time they got stopped." And I said, "That is life in modern day Israel." Last week, my team had a camera crew in Ta for a Maran festival. The IDF rolled in drones, helicopters, armored vehicles throwing stun grenades at the

[59:26] Marian Festival. Um the day before we just happened to be interviewing the owners of the Taed Brewery, the oldest brewery in micro brewery in the Holy Land and the only one maybe now still in operation. We have footage of it cuz my one of my guys hid the camera >> and kept the mics on. >> Wow. >> And and an Israeli soldier with they came in were abusing the owners, refusing to allow a doctor to come check on the mother, the grandmother. And you can hear in one of her recordings in Hebrew but with an American accent

[59:58] um the soldier says to the woman, "I'm so sorry you're having to go through this." Then the IDF soldiers commander yells at him and says, "We don't get out of here. We don't talk to those animals like that. Don't show them any respect." >> And so when you hear the stories, it's like a madras. You have to pity these child soldiers, these radicalized settlers, these radicalized guys in the IDF because they they're hate. They have such hatred. There's someone who's a prominent conservative American leader who is big in Hollywood and is a settler outside of Bethlehem.

[1:00:29] >> Oh my. >> Yeah. One of the owners of a major Christian television network, movie network. Um >> Oh my god. >> And he is a settler and I know him from my film days. I actually like him quite a bit. So I'm in Bethlehem and I call him and I say, "Hey brother, will you meet me in Bethlehem for coffee?" He's like, "They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me. It's so dangerous. Get out of there. What are you doing here?" And I and I remember the first time I went to the West Bank, I was nervous because I hear all my friends, they go on these tours. They scare them. They're like they were so brave. And then you're

[1:00:59] like, it's safer than my neighborhood that people are so kind. I don't see I expected to see boys with >> green bandanas marching. Now my son, my 12-year-old, wakes up every morning, puts on camo, gets his break barrel gun, puts on a rucks sack, and patrols the neighborhood for ISIS. Every day my 12-year-old, we homeschool. This is how him and his friends begin the day. That's I see that every day. We're not radical fundamental. But and I never saw a kid play with a weapon. And I I said to I never saw kids play army play war. I saw them riding bikes and jump roping

[1:01:29] and kicking a soccer ball playing basketball. And I said, you know, in America we have this vision that your kids roll out of bed with their wooden uh rifles and then they march in the streets and they laugh. They go, "Why would we play war?" >> Yeah. Right. When they live it, >> we live war. It's not a It's not something we think is fun to play. May I ask you a question? >> Yeah. >> One of the things that I've been grossly disappointed um with uh over the last I'm going to say 15 years or so is the uh the behavior of the Arab Gulf states visa v

[1:02:01] the Palestinians. Now I get it. I lived through the first Gulf War. Um for for those of you who don't know the background, Yaser Arafat was the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the time. And there were two members of the United Nations Security Council at the time, Cuba and Yemen that we were a little worried about. So Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and the Bush administration goes to the Security Council for use of force. We tell the Cubans, we don't have

[1:02:31] any sway over the Cubans. We tell the Cubans and the Yemenes, you better vote yes on use of force because we had the Russians with us, the Chinese, the British, the the French, all the permanent members. We're going to liberate Kuwait. The right thing to do is to vote yes. The Cubans and the Yemenes voted no. But Yaser Arafat came out in support of Saddam Hussein. Well, there were six million Yemenes in Saudi Arabia as

[1:03:01] guest workers. Literally, every single one of them was expelled. Yemen has never recovered. In fact, it's way worse now. It collapsed the government. Every Palestinian was thrown out of Kuwait. And not just Kuwait. We liberated Kuwait a couple of months later. Every Palestinian was thrown out, but they were also thrown out of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Well, they were the middle class, the Palestinians. They were most well educated, >> the lawyers, the engineers, the

[1:03:33] professors, the dentists and doctors, and the bankers, the entire middle class. The Palestinians have never recovered from that stupid decision to support Saddam Hussein. And so here we are all these years later. We're talking now 36 years ago. This happened. 36 years ago. Is it still, do you think, because of that decision in August of 1990 that the Arab Gulf states

[1:04:04] continue to have their backs turned to the Palestinian people? There's a real fear. I I when I'm there, the only golf state I'll go to anymore is cutter. >> I just get angry at how the migrant workers are treated. I just I get so angry. I'm from Hawaii. My parish is all Filipino and I go there and I see it and I get angry and so I just don't I don't go and cut her. I see it. I see how with dignity the migrant workers are treated for my experience. >> Um you know the Israeli lobby will say that they're they were kicked out because they're such dirty awful. They're Amalecch. They're awful.

[1:10:45] through my career and they're saying you might not want to take that job. You might want to think about taking this job or you know I'm volunteering to go to Afghanistan. No, no, you don't want to go to Afghanistan. You want to go to Pakistan. There's more substantive work. They're just killing people in Afghanistan. You don't want to do that. Things like that. So, so it it became a consistent theme through the course of my career. And uh

[1:11:17] I left my wallet downstairs. In my wallet, I keep a a photograph of a very important 20th century saint, St. Nectarios of Aena. He's also St. Nectarios of Pentopoulos. Um, this was a guy, this was a guy that I have, I don't know why, identified with more closely than any other saint. He's a 20th century saint. We don't we don't make very many new saints in the Orthodox church. The Russians sanctify everybody. They get 100,000 new saints all the time, but not

[1:11:49] us. So, Nectario was the was the bishop of Pentapoulos, which is in Alexandria, Egypt. And he was a young bishop and very very popular because he so identified with the poor. You know there are stories about him giving away his shoes to homeless people because he said oh I can always find another pair of shoes somewhere or going hungry so that others had something to eat or

[1:12:20] heading a heading a a seminary in Athens later in his life. And when the the janitor got sick and could no longer work, he cleaned the toilets so that the janitor didn't lose his job because he had children at home. >> Oh, that's beautiful. >> The bishop. Um but anyway, he was driven out of Pentapoulos because older priests were jealous of the fact that that his career was moving so quickly and they began spreading rumors that he was having um affairs with parishioners. It was a terrible, damnable lie. And so he

[1:12:53] was fired and sent back to Greece. Well, back then in those days, we're talking about like the 1860s or 1870s. It wasn't like it is now where priests are, you know, government employees and they have nice pensions and the church owns half the property in the country. If it wasn't for the generosity of your parishioners, you starved. And so he practically starved. And then he received permission to build a

[1:13:26] monastery, not a monastery, a convent on the island of Auna and um and began attracting nuns to go and study and lived out the rest of his life there. Well, he never stopped trying to reclaim his reputation, but from the very beginning, he forgave everybody for what they did to him. This idea >> and you identified with him as a boy. >> As a boy,

[1:13:56] >> this was the grace of God. >> In fact, >> preparing you. I >> I'll tell you one funny thing that I've never said before. When I first got assigned to Athens, I'm working very closely with the Greek intelligence service and they said, "Listen, we need to do an operation on the island of Auna." And um I said, "Yeah, great. Let's do it." So, we had to take a hydroofoil over to the island. It's very close to Athens. Back then, it was like 40 minutes.

[1:14:27] >> I can't wait till they make your movie because you on a hydrooil to AA. This is Hollywood. This is awesome. Yeah. >> So, we get there and we weren't sure if the sea was going to be choppy that day or smooth. So, we said, "Let's go like 6 hours early. So, in case it's choppy and we're delayed, we can still get there in time to do the operation." So, we we get there and it's smooth as as oil. The Greeks say uh the the sea was just as smooth as oil. So, we get there six hours early

[1:14:58] and the head of surveillance for the Greek intelligence service was a very religious man and he says to me, "Have you ever been to St. Nectarios's house?" I said, "Oh my god, I forgot Staint Necarios is here on Aena. I would love to see the house." So, we go to the house and the convent and it's stunning. I took my son there just a few months ago. I never go to Greece without going to the to the house. And because we're like VIPs,

[1:15:28] right? >> Yeah. >> They let me sit on his bed and we went into his study and it's like pictures of his parents from the 1840s and it was incredible. So immediately next to the house, attached to the house, is a little chapel. And then next to the chapel is his tomb. Most of his relics have been dispersed, but part of him is still in the in the tomb. And so

[1:15:58] I wanted to light a candle and say a prayer. And everybody's putting in 100 dramas, right? Little 100 drama coin, which at the time was about a quarter. I didn't have any change. So I reached into my wallet and the smallest the smallest thing I had was a 5,000 which was 20 bucks 20 whatever whatever 24 bucks and I thought ah it's for the convent so I put in the 5,000 the head of surveillance saw me put in the 5,000 and I crossed myself and I lit my candle

[1:16:30] and I said my prayer. We later learned that he told everybody in the intelligence service to keep their hands off of me and not to put surveillance on me because I was a good Christian boy and I meant them no harm. >> That's unbelievable. All going back to your youth and then >> that leads me to my next question. Was St. Notorious did he find that redemption in his lifetime? >> Not really. He died in 1920. His

[1:17:02] assistant lived until 1968. And if you're at all interested, there's a uh there's a film on Amazon Prime called Man of God about his life that came out in 2020. >> Seen it on there. Suggested. I've never watched it yet. So, I'm going to watch that for sure. >> It's breathtaking. Don't miss
