The manager's ranking
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The manager's ranking is John Kiriakou's stated reason for expecting never to appear on Joe Rogan's podcast alongside Mike Baker, the former CIA officer who is a frequent guest there. A viewer asked directly; Kiriakou laughed and answered twice in the negative before explaining.

What he was told

The explanation rests on professional representation he acquired after leaving the wilderness years of his post-prison career. "The truth is, I have a manager now who, she also represents, well, I won't say who she represents. She represents some really high-level people. And she told me that I'm more highly sought after than Mike Baker is."

The conclusion he draws from that is not about scheduling but about status: "So why legitimize Mike Baker?"

The remark is characteristic of a longer-running antagonism. Kiriakou's account of his own Rogan appearance opens with the host walking into the studio and asking whether he knew his friend Mike Baker, and his published assessments of Baker's career, including the operation that ended it in Athens, have never been generous.

The second name

The viewer's question bundled in a second figure, and Kiriakou's answer on that point was categorical rather than comparative. "Rogan will not have him on the show. Period. It will never happen. He and his people were crystal clear about that. There will be no [such appearance] on that show." The reason he gives is reputational: "He's not a person who is taken seriously."

The surname is rendered inconsistently by the automatic captions and is therefore not reproduced here; Kiriakou says it four times in eleven seconds, and the transcript spells it differently each time.

What the answer reveals

Stripped of the personalities, the passage is a rare piece of Kiriakou describing his own market position. He has spoken often about the financial ruin that followed his prosecution and about the years in which the only paid work available to him was small. The manager, the unnamed high-level clients and the ranking are offered lightly, as gossip; but they mark a change in circumstances that he does not otherwise dwell on, and he is plainly pleased by it.

See also

- Joe Rogan
- Mike Baker
- John Kiriakou
