[00:05] [Music] we have a lot to talk about today with yesterday's events too yeah what was yesterday uh yesterday uh the Secretary of Defense threw out the guilty plea the plea deal yeah the plea deal for khed shik Muhammad yeah oh yes oh yeah we definitely should talk about that R out square one after 22 years wait what do you mean threw it out oh he overwrote it it's it must be under UCMJ it is under UCMJ so so so now that he's going to get executed no we don't know we don't know
[00:36] what happens next see but this this is the reason why they engaged in in uh plea negotiations in the first place everything that they said that implicated themselves Steve timer sorry go they set under torture and so it's it's not admissible even in the Military Tribunal and there's a precedent for that from 5 years ago so do you want to roll the dice I mean it's probably like a 0.1% chance of of you know of an acquittal MH but you can't really
[01:09] convict them if you don't have any independent um evidence against them everything you have came as a result of torture so why don't we just come to an agreement they plead guilty to 2,974 counts of murder right yeah and U material support for terrorism they get life without parole and the only thing that they ask is that they do not want to spend Winters in Colorado I'm serious so it was part of the deal that
[01:39] they won't be sent to Florence that they get to stay in Guantanamo and SEF said that the only thing that really burned me yesterday I mean honestly if you're if you don't have a camera running you should have a camera running the cameras are running we're Camas oh we are rolling rolling sweet yeah the only thing that burned me about this whole thing was that um was that Mitch McConnell made a statement saying this is disgusting this is sickening this is blah blah blah blah blah I went back to 2009 I found the original statement from Mitch McConnell
[02:11] saying oh my God we can't have them come to the United States we I've told you before that in March of 2002 we had captured so many Al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan that we literally filled the Ral pendy jail they said we can't hold them anymore yeah and the PS came and said look the Jail's full got to do something with them I called CTC I said the Jail's full the packs want them out what do I do with them they said put them on a C12 and send them to Guantanamo I said Guantanamo Cuba why
[02:42] would we do that and they said oh this is what we've come up with we're going to put them in Cuba we're going to hold them there three or four weeks until we could figure out if we should try them in the eastern district of Virginia the southern district of New York or the District of Massachusetts I said that's a great idea so we put them on the on the C12 you know they stop in Oman for refueling they go the rest of the way and um and it turned out the White House had other other ideas and then of course the the real high value targets that we
[03:13] had captured got special treatment but then as a result you can't you can't use any of that evidence so even before the torture started with 9/11 being a an open criminal investigation you want to gather that information so that you can try them and find them guilty and execute them as they deserved but the agency blew it and then Mitch McConnell and I looked up the vote the vote was 93 to5 so it's not just Republicans Democrats were just as
[03:44] guilty in the in the house it was the Democrats that did it it was Ike Skelton who was a congressman from Missouri he was the chairman of the House of armed services committee at the time they joined together and they said we can't have these dangerous terrorists on American soil it's too dangerous cuz they had never heard of Charles Manson or Ted kazinski or the blind shake or you know Jeffrey dmer like we don't have dangerous people in the United States we can't have these Arab terrorists and as a result they've been in this limbo all the time since 2002 so I guess I guess
[04:16] where I'm I'm confused you you were you I think what you're saying is that because SE def overrode the plea deal we back to square one with khed shik Muhammad The Mastermind of 911 and and more than than a handful of other I think two other people yeah Mustafa hassawi and uh W batash but the I mean for me I can I can understand why he
[04:47] overwrote it right oh politically I get it sure he had to you can't it's an election year well you can't have you can't have the people who orchestrated 911 MH get off on a plea deal yes and I get it it's it's it's a sticky situation but it's the UCMJ UCMJ is the military court of justice correct which is not the civilian court of justice no and while it is unusual to have a civilian and of course Secretary of Defense has to be a civilian it's unusual to have a
[05:20] civilian claim the authority to overturn it he's within his legal rights to overturn sure well I agree with him overturning it because you can't have just like we said you can't have these men get out on a plea deal see but what scares me though election year or non-election year like but but that's exactly what scares me because if you can't try them because you can't use that information against them then what do you do with them well they're not American citizens but they still have constitutional rights and maybe that's the better question to be asking well
[05:52] see that's for the Supreme Court but they did say that why do they have constitutional rights because they're in US custody okay so they have I mean the most basic of Rights they have they have the right to face their accusers in a court of law and they have a right to a jury a trial by jury of their peers unless it's in military peers but that's the thing they don't have any they don't have any peers and they're in the military system so it's not going to be a jury of their peers it's going to be a military jury or even a non-jury military trial but again you come back
[06:24] to that issue of not being able to use the evidence against them the CIA screwed that up because we can't use any evidence because they were tortured they were tortured and all the evidence they gave up and everything they admitted to was while they were chained to an ibeam or getting teally Technically when they gave up that information it was legal because it had been Sanctified by a by olc and then later that decision was overturned and that's when terrorism or that's when torture became illegal so their evidence was admissible and then the policy
[06:56] changed and that meant that their evidence is now inadmissible correct according to like certain lines of the law and that's that's what sucks about not just this case but many cases where where um confidential courts get overruled by civilian courts yeah which is exactly what our court system does a system a court system in Virginia can come to a conclusion that a court system and the appeal court changes that the Supreme Court changes so it's just a
[07:28] it's a it's a sticky element of our judicial process that's true yeah it's it's a chaotic system so okay that was kind of a uh shotgun start for this podcast yeah right where's the lube people there's the foreplay so uh for people yeah the least you can do is buy me a drink first I love it so uh I'm super excited to have you guys both in here together I think this is uh the first time two
[07:59] people of you know your status who have been involved in the Central Intelligence Agency like you guys have been together on a podcast to discuss these issues together and I think you guys have a lot of the same views on most things but maybe some diverging views on a couple topics so um to start out the podcast can you guys just give like a brief 20 30 second background on your involvement in the United United States government and CIA Andy you want to start sure so uh I started with the US government when I was 18 years old I was recruited in the Air Force Academy
[08:29] graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2003 went on to become a US Air Force officer nuclear missile officer uh learned how to fly then got picked up by CIA coming out of the military in 2007 where I spent seven years uh working with the na National Clandestine Service as a staff operations officer certified or uh who went through the FTC program and uh and then left CIA in 2014 yeah good um I was recruited into the CIA and Graduate School 1989 started uh 1 January 1990 as an
[09:02] analyst spent my first 7 years uh in analysis all in the Middle East served overseas learned how to speak Arabic then switched to not just operations but uh counterterrorism operations and what was then the directorate of operations now the National Clandestine Service and um specialized in counterterrorism operations in Athens and the Arabian Peninsula then went to Pakistan after 911 as the chief of counterterrorism operations back to headquarters as the U executive assistant to the deputy director for operations and then I
[09:33] finished out my career at the uh at the UN in New York and then um the end of your career uh can you explain basically what happened to you at the end of your career I went into the private sector it's a long story I'll make it very very short um in 2007 I went public with the this with information on the Ci's torture program um the FBI investigated me for a year determined that I hadn't committed a crime um a year later Barack Obama
[10:07] became president and um and brought with him the lovely and talented John Brennan back to the National Security Council Brennan asked Eric Holder to secretly reopen the case against me I didn't know of course that's why it was a secret and uh three years later I was charged with five felonies including three counts of Espionage four of those felonies were dropped cuzz I hadn't committed Espionage but ended up going to prison for 23 months make no uh apologies for
[10:37] it proud that I did it somebody had to do it kind of regret the result but uh you know worth it in the long run right to start I wanted to sort of like lay a foundation here to have can I get each of you to describe what key values underpin your stance on America democracy and cia's role in the world gotcha so I'll go first I believe that the America is not perfect the United States is not perfect
[11:07] but it is by Leaps and Bounds the best of the government National civilized options that exist today and for that reason I believe that anything we can do to maximize American superiority maintain our status as the number one superpower in the world is an imperative that we all have to work towards because if we are not the superpower somebody else will be cia's role in that is to serve at the behest of the chief executive the president to execute
[11:38] operations clandestinely around the world whether it's technical collection or human collection that benefit national security policy which is aimed at American superiority which is intended to maintain our status as the only superpower in the world my personal values my company values remain very steadily in that in that vein because that's where I come from and that's what I've seen to be true John I don't I don't disagree with any of that um you know the DDO when I was working for him said something once
[12:09] that was that was so simple that it's sort of become a mantra of mine the who the I'm sorry the deputy director for operations got it so he said that the job of the CIA is to recruit spies to to steal secrets and to analyze those secrets to allow policy makers to make the best informed policy possible it's really that simple and I agree with that that's what the CIA should be doing um but at the same time my driving how should I say it my my driving belief behind that is that it
[12:41] has to do it within the confines of the law and I'm not talking about foreign laws the job of a CIA officer is to violate foreign laws right you're you're committing Espionage you're convincing foreign Nationals to commit Espionage or in some cases to commit treason for you CU they like you or because maybe their ideal logically pro-american or maybe they're doing it just for a couple of dollars or to get their kid in college or whatever but we need to we need to be guided by the rule of law in the United States there was a period there have
[13:12] been a couple of periods over the course of the history of the CIA where we've gotten away from that and it has never turned out well the the definition of laws the definition of rule of law is a flexible definition well it depends on who's President yeah you're you're you're right about it depends on the court system it depends on the judge it depends on what's been voted in and what's been voted out it was legal once to beat women it was legal once to keep black people from voting children working in the mines right so it's not it's a it's about much more than legality it's about much more than
[13:43] following the letter of the law it's about constitutionality I would say because look at it this way um you know in in 1945 1946 we executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American PS in in 1968 on January the 11th 1968 The Washington Post ran a front page uh photograph of an American Soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner that that Soldier was arrested convicted of torture and sent to sent to um prison for for 20 years for torture
[14:14] and then all of a sudden in 2002 torture is legal because John U and J BBY say it is but the law never changed the law was never amended Congress never voted on any change in the federal torture Act of 1946 so you know we changed the definition of torture also changed or it was never fully defined they elected to change it in fact it was defined because not only were we signatories to the UN convention Against torture Steve is that a bald spot no Danny it's a solar panel for a
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[15:46] go check out hims.com it's linked below now back to the show we wrote the UN convention Against torture so we actually delineated what was illegal and what was legal and then we violated it and said well well you know exigent circumstances it's a time of War even though it wasn't because Congress never declared war and that's a whole different issue we can yell about Congress too but but we changed and so it was as you mentioned a moment ago 5 years later we said oh you know what
[16:16] maybe we shouldn't have done that maybe that was wrong well you know if if we're going to be the as Ronald Reagan said The Shining City on a on a hill this Beacon of Hope for human rights and civil rights and civil Liberties then let's be it we can't be it when it's convenient for us we we can't we're getting we're getting ideologically we're getting ideology confused with practicality and that's the thing that sucks it sucks because you can't always stick to your
[16:47] ideals you just can't and America is a country that's built on ideals but America is also a country that's 9 years old compared to the rest of the world sure right we're we're juveniles we're children compared to what Society has been for in in Central Europe in East Asia and Latin America so yes we came on the scene and we were big Heavy Hitters and we came out of World War II as the dominant superpower especially with the fall of the Berlin wall and all we've really had to stand on since then is our
[17:17] our ideals but we don't live by our ideals we talk ideals and we execute something totally different and we've we've always been that way parents are that way bosses are that way yeah that is that is the way the world works so we can't my point with that is that we can't say that we are violating our own ideals we always violate our like that's what winners do winners violate they change the rules that doesn't make it if if if if you've got a congressional
[17:48] mandate for example to write a human rights report every year uh for every country in the world that we have diplomatic relations with and you tell them them look you know you can't you can't I'll give you an example my own personal example I had to go to the minister of uh of uh interior in Bahrain and say your highest you cannot kill a 15-year-old boy because he marched in a pro-democracy demonstration you can't do that I'm going to have to report that to Congress and then Congress is going to have to weigh whether or not to suspend
[18:19] military sales for for 12 months but then you've got the CIA station Chief goinging in saying don't pay any attention to the human rights guy we want you to open in this secret facility over here where we can take people nobody's going to know about it we're going to give you $100 million or $50 million whatever okay what's he going to do there sure there are practicalities real politique is a real thing but we can't pretend to be one thing and then be the other we have to choose and if we want to be the bad
[18:50] guys okay that's a policy decision that can be made but then we have to change the law we are 100% able to not choose we don't have to choose but then what do you do about the about the legality of it the legality of it changes the legality of it is what you put in motion the legality of it is is absolutely flexible the idea to the Supreme Court it's not the Supreme Court is [ __ ] flexible different justices of different beliefs make different decisions all the time they even choose what the [ __ ] to
[19:21] what like what to look at and what to send back down to the lower courts like you can't you can't possibly actually believe that we are the system that we tell the average American we are no of course not I'm saying that we should strive to be though no [ __ ] way dude it's chaos otherwise no it's not it's chaos to not try oh I think that's nuts it's chaos to not try all you have to do is convince people that you're trying to not try yeah to say to say that what we're striving for is too much so we're
[19:52] not going to try anymore is to give people no goal people without a goal are lost people who achieve a goal are lost people who are pursuing a goal have focus and that's that's what the magic sauce is in the United States yeah that's why it's always a changing goalpost because then there's always something to pursue for the lay person while the people who are at the highest levels are also constantly coming in and out like that's part of our weakness but that's also part of our strength but
[20:23] listen to what you're saying though you're saying that we've got torture that's illegal in 194 a torture that's illegal in in 1968 torture that's legal in 2002 maybe it is maybe it isn't let's just torture and see if anybody stops us we'll see what the Supreme Court says oh five years later the Supreme Court says we can't do that okay so what do we do we just tortured these guys they can't go on trial they can't be punished until they go on trial we can't just chalk that up to American greatness we have to have laws we have to have rubrics by
[20:55] which we we operate every day I I'm not saying that we we should be Lawless or have no in so no no rubric to follow what I'm saying is we can't let ourselves bureaucratize no I I don't disagree with that for no reason and that's essentially like KSM has been in jail for 26 22 years it's not been Pleasant no he's never going to get out the question is really the question is just how do we deliver Justice in a way that is congruent with the loss that the
[21:28] family of those 2900 lives how do you even gauge something like that exactly exactly there's no right answer there whether the guy rots in jail whether his head is cut off in jail whether he's marched through the square and everybody gets to throw tomatoes at him there is no way that we are going to ever fulfill what the expectations are of all of those families who lost someone on 9/11 there's no way it's going to be done the legal system isn't going to do it the UCMJ system isn't going to do it like it's it's like it's an impossibility to
[21:59] even try well then what do you do that's the question right and for me for me it's just it's if we let ourselves get stuck in the cycle of what's what's approved by what court what's legal right now and what whatever we're asking the wrong questions like we need to figure out what is the right thing to do and saying that torture is the wrong thing to do our our policies around torture have always been convenient yeah it was in 19 in the 1940s we defined torture as one thing that was convenient for what
[22:30] we wanted to accomplish and then we changed that in 2002 and then we changed it again we're probably going to change thing we didn't change it we changed the interpretation of it that's what that's what law is law is the interpretation and then the court came back and said no you were wrong and that's why it was codified with the uh with the McCain Feinstein Amendment uh in 2015 to get back to the original uh Federal torture Act of 1946 we had strayed so far away from it that McCain Feinstein came back and said look this is the original
[23:02] language that's the language we're going to use in the uh in the army field manual which is another mistake I can say in a second and so the law is what's in the Army Field Manual the mistake is the Army Field Manual is an executive branch document that can be changed with a stroke of a pen so it's codified but not really codified and that's what our whole system is built on it's a house of cards then but it's the best House of Cards that's out there unless you want to build a house out of bricks that are
[23:32] authoritarian bricks oh I disagree I I mean sure I I can see how I can see how rule of law can become an authoritarian system yes I can I can see that but at the same time we have to have a framework by which we we live and by which we lead and uh you know I I've mentioned to you I think in the past that on a trip to Africa one time I was kind of joking with a with a congal foreign Ministry official about you can't joke with a congales foreign they
[24:04] have no senses of humor they have no senses of humor at all because their [ __ ] life is hard and they also have their hands out like this all the time but anyway I said you know what's with you in the Russians you guys are always so chummy close to the Russians and very seriously he said to me um because you promise US democracy and the Russians promise US Food Bingo wow that's how the whole world works the whole world is practical we are ideological which we only get that luxury because we are the
[24:34] superpower of the world as soon as we are no longer meaning the citizens are ideological not necessarily people running the country no the United States the whole country the whole country yeah ideology goes all the way up everybody's trying to push their ideology the polarization that we're seeing politically right now is really a polarization of ideology agreed that's what and it's just it's unfortunate because we have become so spoiled by what we have that we are now seeing the second and third generation of people who have
[25:06] never actually suffered people who have never actually wondered where the next meal is going to come from and those people have gone all the way up to the senior ranks of of government and business and politics and everything else like you can still find people who literally live foot to mouth in the United States there are people below the poverty line there are people so poor they actually don't know where their next meal is coming from there's people so poor they don't know if they're going to eat or die next right right so they understand what it's like to feel real suffering in need the rest of us don't
[25:37] that's why so many Middle Eastern governments wealthy Middle Eastern governments are unstable because they're so fat and so rich and so fast they got there so fast they got there so fast that's true many of those countries only gained independence in 1971 in the in the Persian Gulf they went from being deserts with palm with dates dates and bedwin eating camel milk and dates M and then they became the richest countries in the world the world within 50 years I had a friend who was
[26:08] the son of a Kuwaiti Ambassador and Kuwait was my first uh my first overseas assignment and um he got drafted he was in his 30s and he got drafted I said drafted I didn't even know there were any kuwaitis in the in the quati military he said no there aren't I there aren't many so he he had to he was a banker in Bahrain he had to fly to Kuwait for basic training and he said that on the first day there were like two dozen guys all kuwaitis half of them were royal family members on the
[26:39] second day there were like a dozen another dozen had just run away and the third day it was him and two other guys and then all of the kuwaitis were replaced by pakistanis you just pay them give them a couple couple of dollars and they'll just do your military service for you because slavery is essentially legal yeah in the Middle East it's legal everywhere else outside the United States it it arguably it happens here in the United States and people still turn a blind eye to it too you know why King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was so dark or why Prince bandar was so dark because
[27:09] their mothers were Sudanese slaves that were serving in the house of Saud really they were the illegitimate children of slaves so so John you mentioned that we need Frameworks right I want to go back to this conversation John mentioned that we need a framework to to live by to lead by I believe that the framework that the United States lives and leads by is the framework of change it is not a framework of rigidity and legality there's a system of legality to support a framework of change because what we
[27:40] have seen is that change is required we must adapt we must evolve we must disrupt if you're so tied into a legalistic system that you can't change it with the stroke of a pen right essentially what you're saying is is the the the executive chief executive the president pres who is voted into office by the people of the United States and delegates and etc etc right essentially that person has gone through a vetting process to be given the pen that can
[28:12] change the letter of the law in some cases in a moment and where he can't change a letter of the law there's a system to support other changes whether that's the judicial branch or the legislative branch or whatever else that is what is our framework that is what gives us a huge advantage over many of our of our uh opposition governments and countries that's why threats come and go but the United States stays the same because our same our consistency is being able to change to flex to meet the
[28:43] need and meet the threat that presents itself so a question or comment on a question it it sounds like what you're describing is more of a European parliamentary uh parliamentary uh system that's a comment but the question then is would you support an easier way to amend the Constitution than the way that we have now which would then affect change more easily Steve doesn't know it but I haven't showered in 3 days what
[29:14] how's that even possible I smell like a used gym sock on a wet dog in Satan's no no closet I put it on before his gag reflex sets in it's Mando's whole body deodorant and it can go 72 hours per hit that's how long it lasts is it americanmade it sure is Steve does it work on the pits packaged in every crevice of the body yes it stops odor before it starts Steve plus it comes in three delicious flavors Mount Fuji Pro Sport and clover Woods my favorite thing about Mando is they don't put any [ __ ] in their deodorant it's one of the few deodorants you can actually find that has no phalates added into it and
[29:46] if you've listened to this podcast you know you've had people on here that talk about how phalates can lower your testosterone lower your sperm count and all kinds of things that are really bad for your body and your human development plus when I'm on the road and I want to travel light it's all I need need to put in my bag I can either go with the whole body deodorant or their 5- inone acidified cleansing bar plus it smells great and it's made by a doctor who said hold my cologne and created this cruelty-free vegan and die free brand of incredible ousness Mando starter pack is the perfect introduction to musky gorgios you get a solid Stick deodorant a cream tube deodorant two free products
[36:35] and then dropped out Eugene McCarthy was the one that uh that got the 33% as soon as Johnson dropped out everybody else jumped in and Robert Kennedy senior sailed to the nomination he had enough delegates to win it the KN of the California primary he's shot and killed in the Ambassador Hotel the Kennedy family asks George McGovern to stand in for the Kennedy delegates about half remained with McGovern but Hubert Humphrey who was the vice president who
[37:06] nobody had voted for became the Democratic nominee okay so not too terribly different 76 um you have George uh I'm sorry U not George W bush you have Gerald Ford Gerald Ford was the House minority leader a year and a half earlier but the vice president sparo agnu uh was indicted on uh on bribery charges and so he resigned to go on trial uh Richard Nixon picks picks uh Gerald Ford out of
[37:37] the House of Representatives makes him the vice president and then in August of 74 Nixon resigns so Ford becomes president not having won a single vote not one American voted for Ford for either president or vice president and here he's the president of the United States so this is the system that we' given ourselves it's not the prettiest sometimes but it's the system and it tends to work for better for worse so it's not so terribly it's not a coup
[38:08] like Donald Trump says it is and you know he wasted millions of dollars in advertising he said the other night on Fox because he thought he was going to run against Joe Biden okay well you know what you're not running against Joe Biden so toughen up M third point is I'm not sure I think that a lot of this Trump anti- CIA anti- deep State thing I think it's for show because Trump had the opportunity to essentially dismantle the CIA and not only did he not do that
[38:40] but he named Gina haspel as the Director Gina haspel was a consummate Insider right you don't get any more Insider than Gina haspel like she actually destroyed documents tapes she put them in an industrial grinder the tapes of the torture to Dy to destroy evidence after specifically being told by Harriet Myers the White House Council don't destroy the tapes this is as demonstrative what tapes were we talking about they of the abua torture sessions
[39:12] really yeah yeah she got she literally she got a message that said from from email yeah it was an email from Jose Rodriguez yes Mr Rodriguez I worked under Mr Rodriguez yeah I did too so she got an email that said destroy destroy any evidence related to this and then she did mhm like that's after there's so that's wrong on so many levels oh my God it's a felony it's on it's wrong on so many levels and that's the person who got placed into the
[39:43] director of C You by Trump by Trump you only put someone like that in the seat of the director if you want them to do what they're told to do there it is that's that's the purpose of somebody that's the loyalist and and then on top of Gina haspel who does he name as the National Security adviser but John Bolton the most neoconservative pro- CIA pro- covert action Republican that was even available for the job so if Trump wanted
[40:15] to really make a put his stamp on the intelligence Community he had everybody fooled because he did exactly the opposite so there's I mean there's a couple of other things to keep in mind right um neither of the examples from history that John just went through are memorable to any of us that's right exactly that's right because those candidates those politicians the outcomes did not change they did not move the needle of History that's right right interesting second you've also got to keep in mind the the
[40:48] institutional demands that exist inside the Democratic National Convention the DNC right and the and the representation of the polit of the democratic in the United States Joe Biden according to the the uh laws of or the the system of the transference of power he can't nominate someone else like he has to demonstrate his faith in the democratic system so when he steps down there's only one person that he can actually endorse
[41:19] that's exactly right and I'll add vice president if he were to endorse anybody else that's basically saying I don't believe in the democratic system yeah scandal CU if he's shot if he's shot or if he has a heart attack or if he's lost in some tragic accident guess where the country Falls just like it falls to her anyway so he has to follow that process just to demonstrate his loyalty to the democratic system that's right and I'll add one thing the Republican party is far far more likely to nominate an outsider than the Democrats are the
[41:50] Democrats have have made their system so that it is impossible for an upstart or an outsider to win the Democratic nomination in 1972 Richard Nixon was afraid of running against Edmund musky musky had been um the senior senator from uh Maine and he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee everybody loved Ed musky he was the Vice Presidential nominee for the Democrats in 68 with
[42:20] Hubert Humphrey uh he later actually became Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter but anyway Nixon was worried about musky and he was worried about Kennedy but then Kennedy killed Mary Joe kekney and well he killed Mary Joe kekney and Kennedy didn't run in in 72 so Ed musky is a threat to Richard Nixon so Nixon had the plumbers you know the plumbers uh spread a rumor uh about uh musk's wife and musky
[42:54] gave this famous press conference in the snow and the fact that it was snowing becomes important uh in New Hampshire where he defends his wife now the conventional wisdom is that he began crying in this press conference he says that a snowflake landed on his cheek right under his eye and melted and it looked like a it looked like a tear okay you look at it he's clearly crying cuz he's so insulted that his wife was insulted they called her a [ __ ] and all
[43:25] kinds of stuff and everybody he's like oh my God Ed musk's a crybaby we can't nominate him for president and so he drops out of the race then you've got Eugene McCarthy saying hey remember me I got a third of the vote against Linda Johnson four years ago people are like yeah but you're kind of a closet communist and you're a hippie and we can't do you either and so George Wallace is like what about me I'm a Democrat no you hate black people and you're a racist we can't nominate you and all these Democrats are jumping in and then George McGovern all of a sudden
[43:57] starts winning delegates nobody wanted George McGovern to be the Democratic nominee that's what you're seeing happening with Kamala Harris right now exactly the president Ste down he only has one choice he has to endorse the vice president he has to and then the Democratic National Convention and the party there's no George mcover the party can't stand opposite of the democratic process so where the [ __ ] else are the delegates like who's not going to support Cala Harris of the party precisely so the delegates all say yes all the other all the other people who
[44:27] were trying to run for Democratic ticket they're all going to say yes cuz they don't want to be blacklisted and not get to run in the future MH the American people haven't had a chance to vote yet and this is why the Democrats created the system of superdelegates right after 72 they said there will never be another George McGovern we're going to make these super delegates so every Democratic elected official at the federal level and every Democrat in the state party apparatuses will automatically become Democrats and they will by their very nature endorse the Party candidate so KLA Harris KLA Harris
[44:59] was already nominated what yesterday I think it was or the day before in a zoom call seriously front page of today's New York Times so the convention next week is is just for show now now let's take this conversation back to where John and I started M are we ideologically driven by rule of law no or are we just promising one thing and doing something different on the back endend right and that's what's happening right now is the American the
[45:30] the opinion of the American people is being shaped in favor of Kamala Harris yes right because she doesn't have anything of her own to stand on three weeks ago she was polling lower than Joe Biden yeah today she's savior of the democratic party right it's crazy how the public opinion has shifted and the media has shifted the public opinion has not shifted yet there is no voice to the public opinion yet because they haven't cast a vote that's what's so [ __ ] important dude but you're right talking about the media the amount of advertising here's here's the thing that makes me laugh the most when you look up
[46:02] anti-h Harris videos when you're on YouTube anybody on YouTube who hasn't seen this I don't know where you're I don't know what YouTube you're watching you'll find videos that are that are talking about why Camala Harris shouldn't be president can't be president whatever else and as soon as you click play the first ad you're going to see is a pro Harris ad right oh my God not only is their advertising so sloppy not only are they just pushing as much out there as they can because they have a hundred hundred million in the bank for the Biden Harris
[46:34] campaign right it's really easy to make ads for Kamala Harris because they're they're like they they're just b-roll they're b-roll and her saying a message right it's much harder for people to do anything for Trump yes let's let's test this right now can we test this right now yeah let's yeah we got we don't have we don't have oh he's on I already searched oh on Prem I just typed in 2024 presid IAL ad and Camala Harris is the what so we we should search for just Camala Harris right yeah do a search do a search for something like uh Camala Harris should
[47:06] not be president okay Camala Harris see yeah see what comes up okay why Kamal Harris should never be president now let's click on that and I want to see what the ad is so there's not gonna be an ad premium we're on YouTube premium son of a [ __ ] you just can you sign out of Premium is there a way I can find uh oh yeah there we go yeah so your your point is like if they were actually paying attention they wouldn't be targeting hate Hater Hater videos on her exactly exactly that's the one person
[47:37] you're not going to convert right so there's clearly just we need to blow as much money as possible right and we need to pump it out quickly because what do they know is happening they know that the Trump campaign is changing all of their messaging now to attack Kamal Harris which is why you're not seeing a lot of trump ads you're not seeing a lot of anti- Harris ads because they're working on them they're they're making them yeah and and you you can't come out with one ad every week you need to come out with like 12 ads at the same time so that you and I and all the American people see the same
[48:07] ad so I'm saying that because public opinion is currently being shaped and this is how it is being shaped by the process that we have made our electoral process right we have made it so that the far left and Far Right have already made their decisions it's all the unnamed voters in the midd who have yet to decide and up until 3 weeks ago their decision was between two old white men you're absolutely right and you know you go on you go on a lot of these sites um
[48:38] I do this every year just for fun just to see what the result is going to be the libertarian party always has one of these Q&A things where they'll they'll ask you about all the major issues of the day you click on what your position is and then they'll they'll place you on a on a graph to show you are you Progressive are you conservative are you libertarian are you statist and they they'll they'll tell you which candidate you most closely align with I consider myself to be a part of
[49:09] the libertarian left right and I always always always match almost perfectly with the Libertarians always not with the Democrats or the Republicans um and then second is like usually you know the greens or something like that but uh everybody should do that you know I I remember asking my voting your conscience everybody should vote their cons well you know what they say the lesser of two evils is still evil it's true it's true but all all of that is to
[49:40] say that that what you're seeing right now Americans are interpreting the support of delegates and the the support of delegates the support of donors the support of whatever the influx of donations they're interpreting that to be support and Unity behind a candidate right it is not no it's not it is a practiced Behavior expected of you to survive inside the Democratic national conventions system
[50:11] if you violate their system you will be taken out of that system and you will not have a chance in the future and interestingly the democratic system of nominating a candidate is far less Democratic with a small D than the Republicans yeah far far less you don't have a choice like you unless you are registered and identified and groomed and invested and show loyalty and have a history of whatever like M you don't even get the
[50:41] opportunity sounds like a cult yeah yeah it does doesn't it yatsi John you made a point earlier that um Trump was very seemed to be pro- CIA working with the CIA when he was president last time do you think that he is going to be sort of pro-establishment that you think he's still on that trajectory ever since the assassination attempt I think probably less so there's been there have been rumors lately that
[51:12] if he wins he he's considering naming Rick grenell as the CIA director who's that Rick renell is an odd character he's a fundraiser he's openly gay um he was nominated not even nominated he was he was Ambassador to Germany the Germans hated him threatened to expel him there he is and um now there's talk that if Trump wins he'll end up as either National Security adviser Director of National Intelligence or CIA director I've met grenell a couple times
[51:44] he's teaching a class over at George Washington University right now you he's not a guy that I'd necessarily like to hang out with but I I could think of a lot worse people you know to to be considered for a position like that the other thing to keep in mind is don't mistake Donald Trump wanting to have the CIA as him being pro CIA that's a good point it could just be Pro capability because you get when you're the president CIA is in your back pocket yeah like the branch that CIA falls
[52:14] under is the executive branch right so it's like the toy that sits on the shelf that you play with only when you want to whereas if you throw away the toy you don't ever get the toy but with CIA comes a whole Suite of capabilities that's right and a whole a whole building of people that can't say no cuz without you they have no purpose or job right if anything the massive attrition that CIA has been experiencing since 2016 when Trump won the election was when people really started waking up at the agency started waking up to the fact that we serve the president we don't
[52:45] serve the American people MH we don't serve the Democratic process we serve at the behest of the president the pleasure of the president so wherever that person goes we follow people didn't like that I think most Americans don't understand that um CIA is one of those very very unusual organizations where where serving at the behest of the president actually means something I remember when I first got hired there were Old-Timers still talking about a station Chief in the Middle East who had been fired by
[53:15] Ronald Reagan because he was living in sin with his girlfriend that Reagan had made a trip to the Middle East there was a dinner at the cos's house the co chief of station's house the the chief said like like for Mr President to meet my my girlfriend oh are you visiting oh no Mr President I live here H you're fired I don't allow my people to live in sin you can't do that in the rest of the civil service but at the CIA we served at the pleasure of the president and if
[53:45] he doesn't like the cut of your jib or the way you look at him in the meeting you're out so now you understand why someone like Gina hasell would be a good call because that's a person who does what they're told to do right so when a call comes down at 2:00 in the morning on a Sunday to get something illegal or potentially illegal done that's the kind of person who says yes I was on Fox news last week on the uh uh uh Waters Jesse wat show and he asked me about that
[54:16] specifically and I said you know this is why if if Donald Trump wins the presidency again and if I had the opportunity to tell him one thing it would be please don't choose a general or a CIA Insider to lead the CIA because the way those people became generals and became senior intelligence service leaders was by saying yes sir through their whole careers yes sir what you
[54:48] need is somebody who has the guts to say Mr President that's a terrible idea and let me tell you why and I think this is what we should do instead somebody who's got the guts to tell the president the truth right but it's counterintuitive because that's not the way you get power in the government exactly right exactly right and that's that's what's so difficult and anybody who's ever served in uniform anybody who's still serving in uniform anybody who's ever been in any kind of bureaucratic process that's tied to tied to government what they have seen is
[55:18] your first your your new trunch of recruits every year are full of zest and Zeal and ideology and passion for what they believe it means to serve the public exactly right and then as every year goes by they are ground down to a more mediocre average and then the people who are still have Burrs on their shoulders the people who are still a little bit ornery either find their way out or they get kicked out or they're pulled out in some way and once you get to the senior most levels of decision-
[55:49] making those people have already like there's a there's a turning point between like s and 12 years where you really have to so true where you really have to make your decision am I going to make a life out of this so true or am I going to pull parachute and get out of this an Oldtimer told me by year 10 you can see who's going to be a leader and who's not and the ones who aren't are going to leave it has nothing to do with leadership no it has to do with whether you're going to follow the bureaucratic process I mean we call it riding coattails we call it having grandfather having a rabbi yep let me tell you a
[56:22] quick story um and I've told you this story but it's important and and it Bears repeating so when I was still in analysis this would have been the mid1 1990s um the office that I had worked for the office of leadership analysis ceased to exist while I was serving overseas under Clinton under yes uhhuh Bill Clinton so I came back and I was assigned to the office of NE Eastern and South Asian analysis one of the group Chiefs which was a gs15 you know the the
[56:53] general service scale goes up to 15 and then above that is the senior intelligence service one of the gs15 Deputy group Chiefs was John Brennan um John was uh he was you know he was a mid-level nobody a mid-level functionary what year was this this was 1996 96 he was a gs15 yeah wow which is actually the point of the story so there was nothing special about John you know he had a ba from forom in
[57:24] history nothing special about this guy at all and he worked for a woman named Martha Kessler and Martha was something special she was the US government's acknowledged expert on Syria and had written the definitive book on Syria called Syria fragile Mosaic of power and everybody had to read Martha's book when you got assigned to Nissa so Christmas of 1996 I remember this like it was yesterday he goes to Martha and he says Martha I've been your Deputy for whatever it was four years 5 years I
[57:55] think I'm ready for the senior intelligence service and I want your blessing to apply for XYZ job she said I don't like you I've never liked you and you will never be in the senior intelligence service in fact you're fired mhm so at the agency you're not really fired if if shuffled yeah you're shuffled so if they tell you you're fired you have 6 weeks to walk the halls and find another job and if you can't
[58:26] find a job in 6 weeks then you're fired okay it's Christmas time the normal job turnover is in the summer so there are no jobs at Christmas over vacation so Brennan is going office to office to office looking for a job he finds one opening it's in the president's Daily Brief the pdb staff and for analyst you know if you're serious about analysis you're going to end up in the pdb staff eventually
[58:56] either as a briefer or as an editor they have one opening and it's for the lowest level it's to brief the lowest level person entitled to a pdb briefing and that is the National Security council's director for intelligence programs who at the time happened to be George tenant so you know John is this short squat ugly Pock face dude and George is
[59:28] a short squat ugly Pock faed Dude tell me how you really feel John yeah both chomping on cigars I won't get into their personal lives but they're equally disgusting um so Brennan goes down to the White House introduces himself to George they immediately hit it off now George had just had a heart attack so he promised his wife he wouldn't smoke well there used to be a kiosk at the corner of 17th in Pennsylvania Avenue it's not there anymore and the guy sold magazines and newspapers and cigars and gum and
[59:59] stuff like that so they would do the briefing at the White House walk over to the kiosk smoke a cigar George would go back to the White House and John would go back to the agency next thing you know George's name Deputy CIA director so he calls Brennan and he makes Brennan the deputy director of The Office of near Eastern and South Asian analysis Martha kesler's boss and he calls Martha in on his on his first day and he says now you're
[1:00:32] fired o and so she was gone she packed up her [ __ ] and she left that no we never saw her again next thing you know there's a realignment and I mean he was only in the job for like six weeks there's a realignment and they merged a bunch of offices and there was a more senior guy who took John's job so George made John he says listen you're going places with me so I'm going to make you station Chief in Riad direct line of communication between the the director
[1:01:03] of the CIA and the King himself and he's there for like five years well this also gives him operational experience which he had never had so then he comes back from Riad they make him the executive director of the CIA the third ranking officer in the entire CIA and then from there he becomes the head of the national counterterrorism Center the first first one by the way then he becomes the deputy National Security adviser for counterterrorism then he becomes the director of the CIA wow does does
[1:01:36] anybody remember yeah yeah does anybody remember Martha Kesler or know what she's doing there's some really important lessons here yes right that that are absolutely worth highlighting one this is the way our government works what is true in CIA is true in Department of State is true in Department of energy is true in the department of the Interior the dni the you know DHS FBI and everybody who's in those worlds knows it and everybody who's not in those worlds thinks that somehow we promote from within based on
[1:02:07] meritorious service and outstanding accomplishment and outstanding achievement and that the American government gets this reputation in movies and books that somehow these organizations are super Elite right we are not the most talented people leave or get forced out because the only way that you climb to the top is by becoming a company person by acknowledging and accepting and being grandfathered and godfathered it's not based on your meritorious service it's not based on what you accomplish it's
[1:02:38] based on who you know and the politics within each building and your ability to work within those politics and this is a fantastic example of the director of CIA when like the leadership of that role fired a recognized expert that could actually move the dial to benefit American National Security interests but out of personal spite yeah sent her somewhere else there's a famous quote by um Gamal Abdul nasar the the president of Egypt I actually printed it and I had
[1:03:09] it hanging at my desk and I and I was able to verify that he actually said this it's it's not apocryphal he said the thing about you Americans is you never make clear-cut stupid decisions you always make complicated stupid decisions which make makes us wonder if there is something to them which we are missing right and it's because these are the people making the stupid decisions so and that's a great quote because you also have to look at it Through The Eyes of of Arab culture Arabic culture whether it's
[1:03:43] collegia or otherwise is so calculated and so careful that there's an intent and a purpose behind everything right they're they're very very these are people who had to survive in the desert so they somehow both hospitable and ruthless there's a level of patience and then there's a point where you pass you cross that line of patients and they never show you like they're expert negotiators cuz they never show what they're actually thinking mhm when they see us through their eyes
[1:04:15] they think that we must also be expert negotiators experts at hiding something and and when we do these nonsensical things that seem stupid they think it's just Mar they can't figure it out yes when it's really just stupid just stupid I remember when when Saddam Hussein began pulling out of Kuwait you know George George HW Bush said the clock is ticking you know February 2nd we're going to start bombing and then on the 1 Saddam started
[1:04:46] withdrawing from Kuwait I remember yaser Arafat giving a press conference and just saying genius genius because he fig figured he can't be actually withdrawing right there has to be some incredibly deep military strategy here no he was just withdrawing yeah I think I think China may have figured it out that we're just [ __ ] stupid sometimes good point right because as soon as we left Afghanistan they swept right into Afghanistan and started signing deals and everything else so it's not like
[1:05:17] they thought there was some kind of long-term strategic play there they were like oh nope America's just leaving behind half a pie and we're going to go eat the [ __ ] out of that pie right right whereas everybody else is looking in they're like there's something wrong with that pie they poisoned it or something there's no way they're leaving it yeah yeah oh yeah you've you've hit that on the head so it's just it's frustrating because you know when from the outside looking in we see that happening for these internal services and America doesn't know that that's the truth of it and at the same time I still
[1:05:47] very much love CIA and the mission of CIA and the purpose of CIA and it's the work that those people are doing is is incredibly important incredibly relevant incredibly powerful so I still want to encourage people who want to go down that road to go down that road but at the same time bail the [ __ ] out when when you've been able to serve a year or four years or six years or eight years or 10 years when you run into that wall MH get out get out and go do something else with the talent that you have because you will start to believe that you are not
[1:06:17] good enough if you stay inside because you'll end up being gas lit by the system and that's part of the culture in the CIA is the long you're there the more the culture convinces you that you can't do anything else your your skills are so unique your training is so specific you can't do anything else and that's just simply not true yeah and it's it's it's sad it's sad to see it from the outside but at the same time I also understand that it's it's required because we need the best people in the world to get in
[1:06:48] there okay what do you guys make of this shooter that shot Donald Trump do you think that he was just some lone idiot or do you think that this was a intentional Gap left in security by the Secret Service so I'm going to I'll go first on this John because there's there's a I I see this aam's Razer I see this as [ __ ] happens so you think like [ __ ] happens okay if you're going to look at this instance and you're going to look at it with any kind of statistical relevancy you have to look
[1:07:18] at every Public Presentation by every politician over the last 300 to 3,000 public presences right where the Secret Service was in charge of security when you put this against a statistically relevant number you realize this is the exception that all those all those public appearances all those speeches all those presentations where there was no Act of danger where there was no threat where there was no nothing that the American people knew about that was the Secret Service doing a good job at the time whereas what happened in in
[1:07:50] Butler Pennsylvania is different it's different because what people don't want accept is that there's always gaps always there's it's never perfect there's always a chance for tragedy there's always the opportunity for a perfect storm it's just that we happen to see it this time is it always the case though in these situations where the actual counter sniper has a scope on the guy with a gun on the roof that's like 200 yards away that's part of the bureaucracy you got to ask this guy for permission to shoot
[1:08:20] and then that guy has to ask the chief for permission to shoot and by then you know the sniper already shot right that's people don't like to accept it but they have to accept it that there is a process there's a process because here's here's the thing if the sniper on the roof were to have seen who the [ __ ] knows a little old lady who's chasing her cat up a wall if he blows the head off an 85-year-old lady who's chasing her cat that's [ __ ] a nightmare right and that's not something that people
[1:08:51] that's again a demonstration of the incompetence of the Secret Service so there's a process call something in get something approved I don't know what the process is for secret service but they don't just get to make autonomous decisions right but I think the guy even said during the when they were getting questioned by Congress is that the sniper asked like two minutes before that he told them this whoever the next person in the chain of command was that he had the guy on the roof saw that he had a gun mhm and they still denied him
[1:09:22] like it's not just it's not like it was a guy on the on the roof C it was a guy on the roof with a rle you know the LA Times had a very interesting opet about this um the day or two days after it happened and they said we've so convinced ourselves that the Secret Service is the Secret Service that we see in films right right they're they're all Supermen they really are and they're expert marksmen and they're smart and they're athletic and they're out there just doing God's work in fact these are the guys that you know went to Columbia
[1:09:54] with the president and got prostitutes and then didn't didn't pay them and got in trouble and then one guy left his badge and his gun in the hotel room with the prostitute by accident they're idiots they have their heads up their asses half of them he said uh these are the guys who when Obama was President a guy climbed over the White House fence ran all the way to the door to the front door of the White House got inside the White House right and woman in there something he got he got halfway up the steps you know into the the residential
[1:10:25] quarters so why wasn't he stopped cuz the guy in the booth thought that the guy at the fence was going to stop him the guy at the fence missed him and said well the canine's going to get him the canine guy didn't get him cuz he was on the phone with his girlfriend and then the guy inside said I don't want to get him because the dog is going to come and I don't want the dog to bite me [ __ ] happens [ __ ] happens we're not bulletproof now that you realize hopefully now that every now that the world is hopefully waking up the world that listens to Danny
[1:10:55] is hopefully waking up to the fact that there is not a promotional cycle of meritocracy inside so good people don't go up the chain nope yes and on top of that you've got this inherent bureaucracy that makes every decision needs three other people to sign off on it and the process that's in place nobody wants to get caught you know uh with their hands in the cookie jar or breaking the process or whatever else so that slows everything down so now you have a a bit of of a competency question with a guaranteed timeliness question
[1:11:27] and then on top of that you have to add in the variables that come from the actual person or the threat in this the case of the Butler County shooting the threat themselves and what the threat intends to do and the capacity and capability of the threat all of those things go into every situation right it's just it's the nature of the game it's not just Secret Service it's also FBI it's also Special Operations it's also CIA it's also nro like the most elite organizations out there are still built on the backs of people now I'm not
[1:11:57] going to say they're all what you you made a a statement I made a generalization that's probably not fair that's harsh so I'm not going to say they've all got their heads up their ass or anything like that they are hardworking people trying to do the right thing but they also know that if they do the wrong bureaucratic thing their career is over right yeah totally understood about the people who work within the Secret Service so what's more likely a second secret shooter and a great conspiracy that was rised by the Democratic party and kept hush hush and
[1:12:28] we still haven't discovered and they farmed it out to a 20-year-old right as a py right is that more likely or is it more likely that maybe somebody didn't answer a walkie-talkie call fast enough and they didn't coordinate closely enough with the show with the local sheriff and the sheriff's deputies and as a result of that some [ __ ] wack job got on a roof and shot a gun MH what's more likely yeah I that see I don't know I've been going back and forth this in my head ever since it happened I don't know what it's been like almost 3 weeks now right and it
[1:12:59] just seems like with all the footage that was released and then let's just like take a little time machine and go back in time and look at all the [ __ ] that Trump I mean I'm looking at from the perspective of just like a citizen who doesn't have any experience in the government or working for CIA we see Donald Trump getting shot at before that you have all these trials they're dragging him through before that you have all the other things that are coming out with like the stormy Daniel stuff before that you have the the hunter Biden laptop story which was sign
[1:13:31] a literally 51 CIA agent signed a piece of paper saying that it was disinformation and these are like apparently like legitimate highlevel oh I worked with I worked with 40 of them right yeah signing off that it was disinfo when we find out in fact it was knew it wasn't right they knew it wasn't they knew it but they were all hoping listen at that level everybody wants to be CIA director National Security adviser or Secretary of Defense and that was their effort to suck up to Joe Biden
[1:14:03] hoping that they could cash in on it later I hate to I hate to sound like that but that's the way it works that's just the way it is that's the way it works John Brennan you know I'll tell you another thing about John Brennan um he was in this cohort of people who of very senior people who retired all around the same time and half of them went to the um to the John McCain campaign and half of them went to the Hillary Clinton campaign and he was literally the only one who went to Obama the only one and he saved himself and then after
[1:14:36] Obama won he told everybody who would listen that he wanted to be the Secretary of Defense because that's just the way it is you keep moving up higher and higher and higher and higher and then you get the $6 million book advance and then you get a center at some University named after you and you appear on the news networks and you live happily ever after that's what they all have as a goal why this is I mean it's important to understand the why okay what what John is saying is right and that's there's
[1:15:07] nobody that's going to deny it there's nobody that's going to tell the truth and deny it you don't get to be sis2 because you're so dedicated to American National long hours so smart yeah you get there because you know that the only other option besides going up the chain is to stay midlevel or senior enough that at retirement hopefully you get to hold on to 50% of your base pay when you retire that's right because you're and and I mean top tier salaries
[1:15:40] at CIA top tier salaries right now is the airp what what 170 yeah 180 so when you you're not doing it for the money so so 20 or 30 years let's just say you serve for 30 years plenty of people serve for 30 years they start when they're 24 they retire at 50 before they were making $170,000 they built a lifestyle for $170,000 they're 50 years old which means they've got kids in college they've got a spouse who's probably still working and now their salary gets cut in half MH so now they go from making $170,000 a year to making
[1:16:13] 85 $85,000 a year but they have $170,000 lifestyle living in Northern Virginia and Bel and five or 10 years of mortgage payments left yep so what are they going to do what are they going to do you become a contractor right you flip your clearance into something else and this is something Trump tried to stop right that's something Trump tried to stop but but the only other option you have besides flipping it into a contract is to get the book deal to become some spokesperson for a news origin like you have to have something to carry you because you can't live off of $85,000 a
[1:16:45] year on $170,000 a year lifestyle and you have no future plan you have a tsp where you've stashed away three and a half% every year that's it can't touch it until you're 67 or something years old 67 right so it's a it's a financial reality that that government employees have to play by the rules after about year 12 if they have any hopes of building the next round of income when they retire whereas anybody who leaves
[1:17:15] you have many many more options in the commercial sector because you can build your own product build your own business you can invest your money in five or seven different ways you can make more money and less time mhm so it's it's just that's why the people who stay in often times are they end up being these shells of kind of mediocre performers right because they have become so focused on just how to survive how to survive now and how to survive later they still want to do the right thing they're still public servants but they're also trying to deal with
[1:17:45] divorces and trying to deal with kids going through school and trying to go with like it's not easy man with two and a half weeks of vacation a year is private would you say private in elligence is more effective than traditional government CIA intelligence no not more effective no it's got benefits but it's not more effective it it's relying essentially on open- Source intelligence press and the CIA does that anyway okay there's also an element with private intelligence where they can do things that that can't
[1:18:16] be sanctioned by the government right but they also don't have the resources or the training or the talent pull to pull from which is how you end up having a bunch of contractors caped on on the bank of exactly right they you don't have the protection from risk you know that black passport that says Diplomat at the top of it that's the worldwide get out of jail free card and if you're private forget it you're on your own right that's why they make a ton of money look at Venezuela but they take a ton of risk yeah speaking of Venezuela I just had a guy in the podcast uh two weeks ago John
[1:18:47] Perkins he wrote a book called economic Hitman great interview confessions of an economic Hitman and he had a job with a cons ing company to go around the world to I guess it was poor countries and convince them that they needed loans from the World Bank or the IM IMF or whatever it was the United States would give them these massive loans that they knew they could never pay back and in return we would say that's fine just you know we'll take your resources and he was explaining to me
[1:19:19] that China figured out how this wasn't working especially when countries started to go I forget I think it was Ecuador is one of the ones that said no Argentina Argentina we had Argentina by the balls and then you know conveniently the the presidents of Panama and I think Ecuador got killed in plane crashes and what he was explaining is that China's figured out this loophole and figured out where we messed up in this whole situation so they can go in and basically give them money with no strings attached and and they can get to come in there build roads you know the
[1:19:50] whole belt and Road thing build you know airports whatever is there Chinese influence in Venezuela or no very little very little okay and and in the it's in the oil sector you know the thing about Venezuela traditionally we we used to have good relations with with Venezuela to be a rich country they used to be very successful the the largest um proven oil reserves in the world now but the thing is Venezuelan oil is very very dirty it has unusually high levels of sulfur in
[1:20:21] it and there are only two places where you can refine that oil Texas and now China and the Chinese just built a refinery in the Caribbean so really for decades yeah they own a big chunk of the Caribbean islands yeah it's true and that's just in the last 20 years what island did they build the refinery on oh I knew this I I wrote it up at and I don't remember anymore so it's important what John just said in the last 20 years what has America been doing for the last 20 years yeah fighting Wars that's it
[1:20:52] that's right that's where our money is gone yep and the Chinese were smart to that that's why you know I I was in China I guess let me think I was there in April the first time I've ever been no it's Caribbean islands owned by China Caribbean island oil refinery everything is brand spanking new glittering gleaming cities it's incredible their airports are are first class the shopping it's their roads are beautiful and then you come here you fly into JFK
[1:21:23] and you're like what JF K is Hell on Earth it's awful is it worse than Miami oh my gosh even comparison really oh no I'll Take Miami bad LaGuardia has hope JFK is a [ __ ] show I have no idea how New Yorkers do it it's stunning thank God for EWR and for so many Travelers like that's their first glimpse of the United States you know you land and you're like seriously well it feels like the rest it feels like a third world country so I mean at least they they are landing in a place that feels like home St Croy St Croy
[1:21:55] yep St Croy 2022 Venezuela is completely different and what's happening there is totally different you you you can't look at Venezuela without looking through the lens of its history of strong men leaderships right going back to like the late 90s when Chavez took over that that place had it is a playground for influence operations for every major player in the world right but it's totally unpredictable you have no idea what's going going to happen there all you know
[1:22:25] for sure is that there's going to be some sort of of uh central government play catering to poor people to make them take action on something they don't understand that's Venezuela that there's no proxy war there no there's no things worse though is is sanctions you know we've been sanctioning the living [ __ ] out of them right yeah we sanctioned the living [ __ ] out of anybody don't like everybody and we've overplayed that hand for sure because now people are like you know what [ __ ] you're saying
[1:22:56] Chinese all of our all our sanctions have done our sanctions combined with a 20-year global war on terror have allowed a competitor in the marketplace to rise up so now if you don't like American Financial work or financial systems you can choose Chinese Financial systems if you don't like American weapon systems you can choose Russian or Chinese weapon systems if you don't like American I uh Comm telecommunications you can choose Chinese telecommunications you don't like American-made Vehicles you can choose Chinese made Vehicles China's done a fantastic job of getting themselves to a
[1:23:28] place where they are a viable alternative to the United States for de sector for developing nations yeah it's it's not first class first world stuff but it is absolutely good enough for the third world absolutely true what was the story are you I'm sure you guys are familiar with the the 2020 story where there was like a a boat of like mercenaries that went a went ashore in Venezuela that's what we're talking about yep the piglets yeah but yeah private contractors who were hired to do a very
[1:24:00] dangerous thing underfunded mhm probably you know probably trained adequately I heard that they were backed by the US no probably not if they were it was through a series of cutouts cutouts okay got it so essentially the reason and and it's hard to navigate like why Elon Musk is you know in the he's been obsessed with the lasts so why is that he's Elon Musk guys Elon Musk is a fantastic example of say [ __ ] all the time and
[1:24:33] when you're right everybody's like oh my gosh Elon Musk is a genius he predicted this right and when you're wrong everyone forgets I my favorite my favorite example is ever is Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger did an interview once where the interviewer was like you know Mr Schwarzenegger you've done a lot of movies and and why have you done so many bad movies and he was like because nobody remembers my bad movies but I had to do a lot of movies to get enough good movies that people remember there you go and when you think about it right what movies do you
[1:25:05] remember Arnold Schwarzenegger in and I'll bet you have movies that just rattle off in your brain big big name movies Terminator yeah he was also in a bunch of bad movies can you list more than two of his bad movies nobody can and that's that's the Human Experience Elon Musk is just a he's a [ __ ] autistic dude right who understands the math behind it so he just talks about whatever is on his mind at the time and eventually it either turns out to be right and everybody gives them credit for it or it's wrong and nobody notices or
[1:25:36] remembers so we essentially our only interest in there being a dictatorship in Venezuela is because we want the oil we want to I think Trump and am I right is it when Trump was President there was a guy who was running against Maduro who wasn't even he wasn't even an actual candidate Juan guo he was a graduate student at George Washington University this is this was [ __ ] John Bolton's genius idea they didn't like they didn't like the result of the election now one
[1:26:07] of the things that that people forgot is the likes of um the National Association of attorneys uh the Carter Center the United Nations they sent election observers just like they did last week to Venezuela yeah and they said yeah there were a couple of problems but not enough problems to change the outcome of the election for you all intents and purposes it was fair enough and legal enough we don't like that at least as Fair as ours right yeah seriously so
[1:26:37] they said no no we recognize Juan guo Juan guo this kid from from GW University he's going to be the new president of Venezuela and then of course we bully the European Union to jump in and say yes yes we recognize wanguo well wanguo didn't know anything about running Venezuela in fact I remember a public opinion po poll where most Venezuelans didn't know who wan guo was most Venezuelans don't know much though yeah well that's true although they're very good at kidnapping they
[1:27:08] learned it from the Colombians yes so um I remember John John Bolton uh taking questions in a press conference where one of the reporter said but Mr Bolton what about the provision in the Venezuelan Constitution that says that if the president doesn't take the oath of office between within 30 days of the election that he's no longer the president and Bolton was like because he had never read the Venezuelan Constitution it's like we just wanted to impose this guy this is
[1:27:38] going to be our guy whether you like it or not and wanguo never went back to uh he's in Washington a week ago I saw him at some think tank so so I don't so I mean I want to I want to come back to this John because you you just used the correct word the correct word about how the United States engaged yeah yeah um about how the United States engages with the UN would you grab me one y and you said that they we went in and we bullied the UN to get them on our side thank you oh it doesn't matter so again so you have made you have made some significant
[1:28:11] decisions in your life sure based on principles and ideology but you know that the United States bullies we bully the we bully NATO we choose which court system we use to approve whatever illegal process or whatever seemingly questionable process we need I just I don't understand why you would gamble with your life the way that you have gambled with your life knowing what the [ __ ] you know man I know right why would you do that like yeah I know
[1:28:41] what I can talk about I ask myself the same question what the [ __ ] man you know I really believed at the time that somebody was going to say something because I remember seeing these cables coming back from the secret sites mostly from M people uh Office of Medical Services mostly from Ms people saying look I took an oath to do no harm I'm not doing this you know we had we used to call the doctors that were Reviving abuaba so that he could be tortured more
[1:29:12] we used to call him Dr mangala right oh Dr mangala is out at the site and then we had we had nurses that would that were fainting during the torture sessions we had people curtailing their their assignments C if you curtail an assignment you send a cable to headquarters saying I'm not doing this anymore I'm coming home that's a career ending decision and I mean we're talking about a dozen people and I thought well surely somebody's going to say something and then nobody did and then there was
[1:29:43] there was one woman I I think I'm not going to say her name because she never said she never admitted that it was her but there was one woman who was escorted out of the White House her badge was taken senior intelligence service and she was told never to come back because they believed that she had blown the whistle on the secret prisons and I thought wow she's got some balls that was really a brave thing to
[1:30:13] do she knew what they were going to do they're going to take her pension they're going to prosecute her they didn't because if she did it she was extraordinarily discreet I wasn't discreet and really the the mistake that I made I'm I don't regret taking on the agency I regret not engaging an attorney before taking in the agency that was really a critical mistake that I made if I had had somebody skilled in whistleblower defense or even criminal defense sitting next to me like the a-listers that I had after the fact I
[1:30:45] think the whole thing would have turned out differently plus you know I had strange things happened uh consequently two of the FB agents that were involved in my arrest um after I went to prison called my lead attorney and and apologized and said that that they were ordered to do it it was a political case they had to do what they were told that meant a lot to me I got an email from a retired ddci deputy director of Central
[1:31:18] Intelligence a guy that I had the greatest respect for the day after after I did it he emailed me and he said you've chosen a difficult Road I'm glad that somebody did I only wish I had had the guts to do it myself and that just meant everything to me and I thought you know what one of my lawyers said something he said this this case is you're you're stuck on the fact that it's you involved
[1:31:49] in this case he said this case is so much bigger than you people aren't going to remember you you they're going to remember that somebody stood up to the torture program and so it was worth it it was worth it and another thing too and maybe this is getting a little too personal but you really get to see who your friends are oh yeah I'm sure and they're not the people you think they are so it's it's interesting because you know you and I didn't overlap at the agency no I left in thanks I left in
[1:32:21] 2004 four yeah and I came in my my resignation was effective in 2005 but the one charge that that stuck for you for the disclosure of a of a secret identity right um the um intelligence identities protection act right was Duce Martinez no it wasn't Duce no no oh was somebody else the name was never made public ah see this is the thing about Duce Martinez they charged me with Espionage saying that I outed Duce Martinez Duce Martinez is on [ __ ] LinkedIn Central Intelligence Agency
[1:32:53] targeting officer right it's like well you charge me that's being the guy's on [ __ ] LinkedIn and then he gave a speech at JMU I think it was James Madison University what it's a day in the life of a CIA uh targeting officer and they're like uh okay we'll drop the chart so it's just it's interesting to me because uh so Duce went on to become one of the found the foundational Trainers for myself and for my wife uhh
[1:33:23] was a targeting officer for CIA was and Deuce was her Mentor so after meeting him and knowing what resulted as a result of him being tied to the torture for abua yeah right like that was just it was it was frustrating to know that there was a connection there that was made public you know he left the agency just after I did I went to the private sector uh to one of the big four consulting firms and dece went to Mitchell and
[1:33:56] jessen he he had been he had applied for a job at like I think it was IBM there was an an analysis job at IBM he and I used to get together for lunch every week after we both left and um he he would call me with these updates all the time about the negotiations with I I'm pretty sure it was IBM and he called me to say hey let's have lunch I decided to take a job and I said hey great this was going to be big money for him so we get together for
[1:34:26] lunch at Tyson's Galleria right the Chinese place and he hands me a business card and it says Mitchell and Jess in LLC and I said are you out of your [ __ ] mind you're going to work for these monsters seriously and he said no you're wrong about them they're good guys they're Patriots I said they're [ __ ] the creators of the torture program I said how many times have we have we talked about this how many times like into the middle of the night in
[1:34:57] Pakistan have we talked about how we were hoping that they would do the right thing and he's like yeah with the money it was so good it's such great money and I said man I think you're out of your mind and then once I went public he never spoke to me again which was no big loss because he was on the wrong side of that I mean regardless of what you think about Deuce like he went on to make he he changed some lives for people who were coming up in the ranks he changed my wife's life yeah he's done some fantastic work but the thing is also I
[1:35:28] mean this this is this is where principal and and and practicality start to separate right because the torture program was sanctioned when it was initiated yes and the men and women who did the do did the duties executed the job and executed the duties that were assigned to them as they swore in their oath like they didn't they didn't sleep well either sure I understand that but in their oath they they swore to uphold the Constitution against all enemies
[1:35:59] foreign and domestic and it was a legal program that they were assigned to carry out and you already said what the if they curtailed their but was it legal because no court ever ruled that it was legal no court they said it was too highly classified to even present to a court so just take our word for it that's what that's what you and B's conclusion was so the this is I find that this is very similar to the argument for Edward Snowden and snowden's quote unquote whistleblowing right and what often times becomes the
[1:36:31] argument for whistleblowers in general whistleblowers are protected and they should be protected some are when they do things the right way oh no no to to your point about how you what about the case of Tom Drake I don't know Tom Drake Tom Drake was a senior intelligence service officer at NSA he um his first day was September 11th 2001 he had been a full colonel in the Air Force There's Tom Drake and um he became aware immediately after 911
[1:37:03] of uh of the plan to uh to initiate warrantless wiretapping of American citizens so there was a a competing software program that NSA had developed that would weed out us persons and Target only suspect uh numbers and uh General Hayden who at the time was the head of NSA this is before he went over to CIA said that 9/11 was the opportunity that NSA had been waiting
[1:37:34] for to just vacuum up everything and then sort it out later so Tom went to the general counsel and The General Counsel had not been read into the program and so the general Council said I don't know what you're talking about there's nothing I can do he went to the Inspector General the Inspector General said that this was over his pay grade and that he should go to the dod Inspector General he went to the dod Inspector General with documents the do DOD Inspector General leaked the
[1:38:04] information back to NSA and said you have a rogue officer here which was a legal he was supposed to be protected when the dod IG never did anything Tom went to the hipsy the house permanent select committee on intelligence fully cleared staff member turned everything over was charged with nine felonies including seven counts of Espionage on the day that he was arrested and his house was raided his uh wife was also an NSA uh senior
[1:38:37] intelligence service officer and the FBI went and said we've arrested your husband this morning and we're raiding your house right now you're either with him or you're with us and she chose them so he lost his pension he lost his five kids he lost his wife he lost his house he lost his career and then when he went bankrupt they dropped all the charges so did Tom follow the proper whistleblower protocol absolutely what's what's interesting here though is that he also he also didn't get charged he was he was
[1:39:10] charged no he he was never in never convicted only because it was the judge that threw the the charges out he ended up taking a plea to a misdemeanor count of misuse of a government computer because to save f doj came back and said look you got to plead guilty to something if we're going to drop nine felonies you got to plead guilty to something so his lawyer said think of something that they can charge you with so he admitted that on his lunch break one day he looked at Facebook on a government computer and so they gave him 18 months of unsupervised
[1:39:42] release so the we're seeing the technicalities here again right technically he was not uh punished criminally for blowing the whistle it was internal machinations that ended up ruining his life and that's that's generous though the only reason they arrested him and charged him was because of his whistleblowing but this is this is the problem with yeah yeah well they had counts that they charged
[1:40:12] him with that were related to his sharing of documentation mhm that the but the protections for whistleblowers have to do with Protections in court they don't have to do with protections culturally or or uh within the bureaucracy or within whatever else like you don't have protections there right if you violate the culture we violate the culture and the these are organizations with a culture of secrecy MH and I I guess I'm I respect the fact
[1:40:43] that you say it was worth it you're you're the one that paid the penalty you're the one that did the time you're the one that that carries that right for me I was led into a world of Secrets I'm going to keep those Secrets there's I don't see any value in blowing a whistle on Secrets because we are always in compartmentation we know the whole story but there's a difference though Between blowing the whistle on secrets and and blowing the whistle on a crime there the definition of crime
[1:41:14] changes based on the interpretation of the law yeah but the definition that is the law now is the definition that I used you you you made a call based on what you thought was criminal yes that others did not think was criminal that's right and as a result at after after time and after the public disclosure of the case the law was changed that's your prerogative man yeah that's 100% why I say it was worth it but but for
[1:41:46] me I I see it differently man like Edward Snowden Edward snowden's another case where he brought something to light and then then the law changed mhm that that dude is never coming back to the United States he's he he has offered to repeatedly repeatedly the problem is he wouldn't get a fair trial right no way not a chance in the eastern district of Virginia please well that he's he is a criminal man that's what I'm saying the laws may have changed but he still violated this the the oath the
[1:42:16] secrecy that he took but his defense is that it is illegal to class if y a crime we this is actually in the US code you cannot classify a program for the purpose of keeping it from the American people if it is a criminal act that cannot be the purpose of the classification but any but by nature of what we do there's five other reasons to classify the ACT yeah but if the ACT is illegal at its core it can't be classified see and this is this is what
[1:42:49] argues for an affirmative defense didn't you just say everything we do is illegal we we Espionage is illegal we have a car right and that's where we're carrying out the ACT yeah but what he was saying he was exposing crimes committed against Americans he was he was exposing a program to collect bulk data yeah but that was being collected against Americans it was being collected for the purposes of identifying terrorist activity in part I think you're being generous I do why does the government
[1:43:19] need my metadata why do they need a facility so huge that they have to build a new place in the in the Utah Wilderness to hold you know enough data to last 500 years what do they need my data for they don't need my data in fact not only does the law say they can't collect it the NSA Charter says they can't collect it the it's being collected by the service provider anyways that's okay how do you say that how do you say one is okay because the law is the law if the service providers
[1:43:50] protect uh uh collecting it and the justice department needs it then the justice department can get a judge to issue a warrant to get it not not the NSA and CIA to collect my data that's only when you are being looked at as an American citizen for committing a a crime as an American Citi which is my constitutional protection the fact that your metadata exists and it's not personally attributable to you but it can be used to reverse engineer terrorist activity and oh by the way
[1:44:20] some terrorists are American citizens all of a sudden unless you have something you want to hide metadata is fair game but do you know who the first person was to pose that question in a public venue that well if I'm not doing anything illegal then who cares it was Joseph Geral and I don't want to go down that road I believe in individual freedoms I I really do I believe that government works for us that government
[1:44:51] should be responsive to us not that we should fear government that well I just hope a bad guy doesn't get elected or I hope a bad guy doesn't become the head of the FBI or the CIA or NSA and decide to look at me and then put together piece together some kind of false Narrative of something that I did using metadata you know oh he's going to this uh this uh doctor this doctor specializes in uh Internal Medicine maybe he has HIV you know let's start a
[1:45:23] believe that the government say that again you believe that the government is there to support you is that what you said no I believe the government should be responsive to me it works for me it shouldn't be able to Target me that's where we're that's where we're fundamentally opposed oh I'm sure because the government does not work for us that is not I'm saying it should it should not the the government is there to ensure the continuation of the American ideal that's the purpose of the government it is not there to serve you that doesn't even mean anything though the American ideal the American ideal
[1:45:54] means everything what what what is that if if every American is destroyed if every American is killed with the exception of the people in government the president whatever you want to call it one Congress person one Senator right or one one house Member One Senator and one and the president or the vice president then the American government continues America is defined not by its people by its government that's that's what we went to war with the British
[1:46:25] about we could have been colonists we could have been communities we could have been people we could have been collections but the right to Sovereign Independence is a government thing the government exists to Sur to survive and serve the continuation of the government of the United States not the American people wow that's part of the ideological hogwash that we were all taught in elementary school Civics that just isn't true they're not there to serve us that's not what the purpose of government is you swore an oath is to protect and serve the Constitution of
[1:46:58] the United States that is a document defining the government a government of the People by the people for the people but it's still a [ __ ] government not the people the people of the United States Through The Eyes of the government FBI CIA NSA the White House the people of the United States are engines of Economic Development we are there to create the GDP and the flow of economic power that the government can then use to enact national security
[1:47:29] policies or International policies that benefit the government that's that's the cycle that's the reality of the cycle I understand if that's not what you want why I'm a Libertarian I mean it what what was it that Jefferson said that periodically the tree of Liberty what did he say the tree of Liberty has to be watered with the blood of Martyrs and Patriots M yeah I'm ready to fight yeah fight for what my Independence not fight for your
[1:47:59] government no where do you think you get your independence from it's not the government that gives me my Independence 1,00% it's the government that gives you your Independence it's the government that infringes on my Independence that's that is your interpretation oh my God yes oh yeah you know ever since this I of course my entire worldview has has changed since this whole thing started in December of 2007 for me and I find myself coming down on the side of some very odd
[1:48:29] people we we talked about this actually last time aan Bundy right aan Bundy is a nut but doc gunet he's got a point do you remember this he's the guy it all started with cattle grazing right yes yes okay okay next thing you know he's in a shootout with the feds there he is a and Bundy like it yeah what was the story with him he was uh it all started out he and his dad and his brother and brother-in-law I think um they got into a dispute with the
[1:49:00] government over cattle grazing rights in some Western State and the government's like H you can't graze your cattle there and they said [ __ ] you graze our cattle wherever we want public lands and so one thing led to the other and the cops the FBI tried to seize their cattle and then they they took over it was like a they took took over a a visitor center at some national park and they were all armed to the teeth and then there was a shootout with the cops
[1:49:32] they all got arrested they all went on trial and then they were all found not guilty I'm like yeah I'm with the bundies and then they went nuts and said some stupid racist stuff but for a little while I was with the bundies so you there it is inside the shootout so you want your Independence don't tread on me that's what my license plate says but you but you also want the law of the land to be like
[1:50:05] clear and present and defined cuz you do know that it is the laws that infringe your Independence well no I'm going to I'm going to take your position and say it's the interpretation of the laws that has infringed on my Independence Okay so super extreme example uh you don't have the right to kill somebody okay the law says you can't kill somebody somebody comes to your house knocks on your door steals your
[1:50:37] dog out of the front yard you shoot them your Independence would arguably make it so that if they came into your property and they stole your property you have the right to shoot them but the law doesn't let you do that well so which one do you support there do you support your Independence do you supp la if I were in Florida or Texas yeah of course I could shoot them right the the castle doctrine right um but I I wouldn't shoot somebody for I would shoot somebody if my life were in Mortal
[1:51:08] danger but no if somebody's stealing my dog no but what sakes precedence like it's not about the example I'm asking is is it the law or is it your Independence well I I don't think the two are mutually exclusive I really don't the government is what defines the law the law is what defines what you are allowed to do within the confines of your Independence yeah no but I believe that we can have I believe that we can have small government a clearly defined set of laws and still the individual freedom
[1:51:41] and liberty to lead Our Lives independently of government interference I really believe that except when you violate a law cuz then there's government interference but let me let me throw it back at you way between 2012 and 2022 Congress created 500 new crimes not 500 new laws 500 new crimes things that in 2011 were legal and in 2022 were
[1:52:15] felonies crazy things I've written about this extensively for example um there was a man in Alabama who um was commercial fisherman and caught a hell of it that was 11 in uh you have to be there it is oh hey I wrote that so um good catch by the way that was thank you for that thanks Steve Steve's on the ball he always is so
[1:52:46] um he was like ah it's 11 in 12 in all right he kept it just so happy that uh a US Fisheries boat was nearby they pull up hey can we take a look at your catch one of the hbits was too um small he said I'll throw it back in it was still alive he threw it back in they charged him with a felony a felony and prosecuted him successfully there's a a more egregious example there's a woman working for Noah the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
[1:53:16] Administration in Honolulu she's a gs12 so you know how expensive Honolulu is she's not much money so she and a friend of hers buy a boat and on the weekends they take tourists out to go whale watching they're out there one day and this case kind of became famous because it's a an egregious example they're out there one day and they encounter an orca eating a seal so everybody runs to the side of the boat they're taking pictures they're taking videos and somebody whistles at the
[1:53:49] whale right just to get it to stay near the service so they can take a video okay a week later FBI she opens her door uh do you have a boat you take tourists out yeah did you take them out last week yes did you see a whale yes you whistle at the whale she said no somebody did but I didn't but she said you know what I make DVDs of the outings and I
[1:54:19] sell the DVDs to the to the tourists so they take the DVD couple of weeks later they go back to her house they raid the house they take hundreds of DVDs they take her computers they take her cell phone they take everything and then they charge her with a felony count of interfering with the feeding of a wild animal which falls under The Endangered Species Act felony so she fights it this thing drags
[1:54:50] on for five years she lost her boat she lost her business Noah fired her because she had been charged with a felony so she lost her federal pension and in the end they bump it down to a misdemeanor she paid a little fine and that was it but she had lost everything in her life so government is too much you know we yes we need that structure to keep us free and keep us Democratic and what have you but 500 new crimes 50 new
[1:55:22] crimes a year it's too much it's onerous I don't I don't think we're talking about the same thing man like I am losing track of what you actually think is important because you started this conversation saying that the that the legal definition of terrorism or torture from the 1940s was what we should have adhered to yeah it's on now what you're saying is there's too many laws yeah that law was perfectly good enough why do we need to keep
[1:55:52] who who's the one that decides when the courts the courts and the courts decided and the courts and the courts also are what approved operations for the for CIA but the courts never waigh in on on tort torture stuff they did right there are always attorneys there are always cleared courts there are always cleared individuals always so why didn't the Bush Administration go to the courts and ask for an opinion I have no idea I I I don't know which I don't know the process by which uh
[1:56:23] permission is granted by I can tell you step by step I can tell you step by step that idea went from CTC to olc the office of legal council at the uh justice department they approved it it went back to CIA General Council from CIA General councel went to the attorney general from there it went to NSC general counsel and then to the National Security adviser and then to the president so there took about six months there's multiple legal represent representatives in there and no courts
[1:56:54] and they were under the executive branch yeah I know but if you're if you're making a determination that a law that's been on the book since 1946 is not really what it purports to be and the stuff that was outlawed all these years it really is an outlawed we're going to do it a different way the you need a real legal opinion an outside legal opinion so now we're getting into different things right no but what you're talking about is having all these these neocons in the room all agreeing with one another and convincing each
[1:57:26] other that yeah this isn't going to be a problem this is legal but what I'm saying is just I don't I don't know whether you're making an argument where you want laws to be set forever or whether you want or may you're making an argument where you want laws to be removed or whether you're making an argument where you want laws to be optional cuz you're also talking about being libertarian and want and putting your Independence above government so I I don't know what position you're making man I don't know where you're standing I believe the rule of law I believe that when it when it takes away your
[1:57:56] Independence or only when it benefits your Independence if it takes away your Independence then change the law that's a part how do you believe in the in the rule of law if the law can be changed that's the system that we have that's the system that we have but you're saying the system we have is not but if we I mean if we have a system if we have a system where laws are permanent then we're going to have what you said at the beginning of this conversation we're going to have children working in the minds and women not being allowed to vote and all that stuff no no the Constitution is a living breathing thing if if there's something that's not
[1:58:26] working then you change it right but but passing laws for the sake of passing laws and criminalizing a society that ought not be criminalized that is a mistake correct I agree with that that has to do with the with the version of government we have right now sure I agree with that and I'm not saying I want big government and I'm not saying that that government is right I'm not saying any of those things all I'm saying is that the reality is the government is there to protect itself is not there to protect us I agree that is a reality so that's that's that's all
[1:58:58] I'm trying to get at because I'm I'm just trying to keep track of the conversation because I I I am getting lost in the different the different uh kind of pillars of ideology that you put out there uh I'll tell you what from my angle I'm riveted so this is great so so and this is Delicious By the way I never heard RAB it's great I love it oh there you go there's a good sponsorship right there White Rabbit good stuff now I also have to understand John why why are you working with
[1:59:29] Russian State media oh because I've got five kids and nobody's beating a path to my door to give me work you know this is all part of the the overall plan it's again my lawyer said this isn't about John kiraku this is bigger so for people who don't understand Andy's question John uh has been hosting a radio show for a number of years for RP seven years now for uh Sputnik radio Sputnik radio yeah sputnick radio um the government I think or the agency
[2:00:00] maybe would have been perfectly happy if I starved to death from lack of work or ended up at McDonald's and uh and I worked hard to rebuild my life uh the only people who offered me a job were the Russians and when uh when they first offered me this job I turned it down and then 6 months later they came back and said we'd really like to offer you this radio show and I said you know the only way that I would do this is if I were free to say
[2:00:32] anything I wanted and to talk about any issue I wanted and they said done and I said yeah but I would want to be able to criticize even Vladimir Putin done and I said would you put that in writing in the contract and they said yes and they did and I'll give you an example um on the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine I opened the show by saying that I unequivocally condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and I call for
[2:01:02] Russian forces to depart Ukraine immediately I criticize I I give you another example do you remember in York England I'm going to say 4 years ago five years ago a Russian dissident and his daughter were poisoned with Nova chuk my uh we were doing a story on it and my um co-host said well you know it could have been the ukrainians and a false flag operation it could have been the Russian mafia I said it was the KGB or
[2:01:34] whatever they're calling themselves now they've been poisoning people since the 50s this is what the Russians do they poison people of course it was the Russian government so they let me say anything I want I've never ever received any push back and I make a handsome living like like I've always said if CNN's got an offer or MSNBC or even Fox I'm on Fox at least every other week I'm all ears but uh you know five kids three of whom
[2:02:05] still need to get through college I make no apologies so then when you when you became a sworn officer of the United States what was your intention was your intention to to make the United States to like protect and expand the superiority of the United States or was it something else did you think you were making a better Planet cuz you have to know that by affiliating your name with Russian State media MH you might get to
[2:02:36] say anything you want but that doesn't mean that's what goes to air when it gets translated into Russian it can be whatever they want it to be it's a live show it's in English it's an internet show right uh it's it's terrestrial also broadcast they're going to have the rights to make out of it whatever they want to make out of it and your is that's that is exactly the foundation for how Russian covert influence operations happen a poor CIA there's a former CIA guy working for the Russians he may do some damage to the American
[2:03:09] government [ __ ] the American government what have they done for me what have they done for my children do you really besides violate my rights do you really not know the answer to that come on man it was the CIA that put me in prison what in the world do I owe the CIA it was your decisions that put you in it was the cia's lawbreaking that put me in prison it was your choice to highlight the cia's lawbreaking to media that put you in prison there we go so we're in agreement then your children's your
[2:03:40] children's they live every day under the protection of the United States they have all the benefits of American citizens they you're you get to enjoy you're here on an American podcast you flew on an American Airline prot think memor police officers driving around the streets right now all of these people are contributing to the freedoms that you have oh wow all of them wow and you're sitting here saying you're a True Believer I'm a True Believer in the fact that we we have to serve the American dream we have to
[2:04:11] serve the American purpose that's what we're here to and that's exactly what I'm doing by opposing the American government you don't oppose the American government by making yourself a voice for Russian state media why not because you're not talking out about the American government first of all what you're talking out about is Putin's invasion of Ukraine no I talk about the American government every single day so whatever whoever you're you're speaking to you are you are giving credibility and authority and and and you're you're loaning all of your hard work to Russian
[2:04:44] media for a paycheck I don't see how that's a a problem is because if you didn't come from CIA they wouldn't care about you so so you're borrowing the authority of CIA That's What Makes You valuable to Russian media no I'm able to expose crimes that I that I witnessed in the CIA sure uh and and maybe that gives me a little bit more casu separate of CIA would not be of interest to Russian media so what makes John K that's not true that's not true there I have a
[2:05:15] dozen colleagues who have been sort of leaders in their field have nothing to do with the CIA that also host shows because they bring something to the table they're leaders in their field yeah okay so I I was one of the government's leading experts on the Middle East without the government you wouldn't be if I had been at the state department or if I had been in Academia I'd still be an expert on the Middle East you're everything that you're pulling everything from government man you're so what I don't I don't see how you think I
[2:05:47] owe the government I'm not saying you owe the government anything I'm just saying that the ideals that you had you must have had in 2 1984 1889 89 yeah you must have compromised on those ideals you must have at some point I'm a patriot isn't isn't questioning the government and holding the government accountable something that the United States was founded on I don't know the answer to that of course it is how how isn't that in the Constitution I I don't know the answer
[2:06:18] to that either is there can somebody flag where there's any of individual accountability to the government because I'm pretty sure that's why we are a representative democracy it is our Representatives who are supposed to do that not us what we're supposed to do is be really [ __ ] good at what we do and vote in meaningful representatives to represent the constituents in all forms of government it is not our job to meddle in government it is also not the government's job to meddle in our economic contributions to the government unless we violate a crime or violate a
[2:06:48] law and somehow otherwise ostra but we're not opposed to that's that's why we have representation in the Senate and in in the house okay so yeah my my point with all of this is just there is a there's a very real responsibility in my opinion there's a very real responsibility that if you are going to become a representative of the federal government if you're going to become a sworn officer of the federal government
[2:07:18] whether you're in military uniform whether you're plane clo FBI whether your secret service whatever else we have an obligation forever more we will never be normal citizens I think that's nonsense you can think whatever you want I really do if you are a private citizen your loyalty is to yourself within the confines of the law of course and the Constitution but I don't owe the government anything I'm not saying you owe the government
[2:07:49] anything I'm saying that that we have a responsibility we have an obligation to recognize that we can become tools for our adversaries against the very things that we believe in specifically because of our affiliation with government organizations that's just the fact of it that's what makes us interesting to them I have no but what how is it different then for for the Myriad of Intelligence Officers who sell themselves out to corporate media there's at least what's the
[2:08:21] difference the the the primary difference is that they're not giving our adversaries an advantage by by the connection to their affiliation with a government agency what advantage though am I giving you don't even know how they choose to use your information course I do I see it every single day if you really think you know what they're doing with your information you are either will ignorant or overly confident enlighten me they can do anything they want to they don't even have to be using it right now what are you saying that they're doing though they could be doing so they could be they're not okay let's
[2:08:52] just take best practices for C influence best practices alone right best practices are you take somebody's statement and you put it out of context and then you translate it into a into a different language sure and you use it to promote something in some third world in some third uh absolutely and if you have evidence man I would love to see it and I'll put an end to it sure they could do anything they want just like the US can do anything that it want it wants but they don't they haven't you don't know you don't know just as well don't know of course I know of course I
[2:09:23] know of course you know what Russia is doing with all of your data the data that you were so passionately against the FBI collecting your metadata you were so you were so concerned against I front of a microphone every day and I talk about what's in the papers that's my job it's a 2hour news show that's it and then I get up and I go home you talk about your opinions also yeah my opinions aren't a secret I give the same opinions on Fox and on MSNBC that I give on my own radio show it's it's shocking
[2:09:55] to me how legalistic your point of view is considering that it was the law that put you in prison it's just shocking to me yeah that you are so legalistic and you're you're making ideological arguments but selectively choosing when to follow ideology and when to defend yourself using legalisms well that's that's sort of that's a personal ideology right we all have these personal ideologies I I'm just I am I guess I'm
[2:10:27] sad I'm sad for but then where do you draw the line do you do you not give an interview to a Turkish Outlet or a Cuban Outlet or an Argentine Outlet I mean pretty much anybody the five eyes can be can be a a you know an opponent of the of the uh US Government On Any Given issue what do you do so from my point view there's adversaries current Clear and Present adversaries and then there are unknowns
[2:11:01] and then there are clear and present allies if you're going to support an adversary you can justify it however you choose no I don't support the adversary the adversary offered me an outlet that I gladly accepted at a bare minimum your outlet generates revenue for an adversary minimum so how can you say that you don't benefit the adversary well re it's Revenue it's a government sponsored uh radio I mean there's no advertising there's no Revenue stream it's like
[2:11:32] Voice of America it's the it's if if there is no actual money changing hands I would be surprised because there's always got to be money that changes hand somewhere and you're also talking about not sure what that means there's always money there's always a funding source there's always a donor base there's always there's always an exchange of value nothing is free it's a it's a government funded radio network funded by which government the Russian government the Russian government funds a radio channel yeah for which audience for the American audience for the American people yeah using the voice of a CIA officer yes and you don't see a
[2:12:04] problem with that absolutely none do we do that in other countries of course we do it's called The Voice of America campaigns it's called The Voice of America they are there for influence they are soft power MH there to win it's the same [ __ ] thing that that Tucker Carlson did with Vladimir Putin so you think it's so how do you so what I think because you're there's there is a there is a a Inlet of influence that's allowed into the United States San that is that is essentially sponsored by the Russian
[2:12:36] State media that is headed by the voice of a CIA officer inside the United States which which lends automatically lends credibility to RT who is the sponsor of the program so now anybody who listens to your program they may like you they may like you have to say but what RT is paying for is for a Channel of of media uh exposure into the United States good maybe I can educate somebody I'll take it I'll take
[2:13:06] it seven days a week I will take it this is this is fascinating guys um I want to switch topics a little bit I want to talk about Israel what is each of your takes on Israel's influence in the United States not only sponsoring presidents presidential candidates but um things like APAC the anti Anti-Defamation League and uh all the influence that they have here and currently how does that tie in with
[2:13:37] everything going on in the Middle East between Israel and Gaza and you know a lot of people are fearful that you know with the threat of Iran and Israel attacking each other that it's going to drag us into the middle of it creating some sort of a World War III so what what happened on on uh October 7th of course was was a I mean it was a terrorist attack of historic proportions right the targets were civilians absolutely horrible awful thing
[2:14:07] snatching hostages and whatnot um at the same time what did hus think the reaction was going to be on the one hand okay on the other hand we now know from Israeli journalists that the Israeli government was hoping something like this would happen because it would give them what they believe to be the legal authority to destroy Gaza not to just destroy
[2:14:38] Hamas I mean Hamas is nebulous they don't carry ID cards right and so they could destroy the whole of Gaza something that they've wanted to do for a very long time mhm and they're overt about it you know you see advertisements now I've seen them in New York New Jersey California at synagogues where they'll have what they call real estate seminars afterwards where you can buy land that's really Palestinian land in Gaza that the Israeli government is
[2:15:09] planning now to turn into settlements you know these comments by Jared Kushner for example about beachfront property in Gaza making an incredible opportunity for a a beachfront Resort that was n't an accident that was the plan I think the Israelis are guilty of genocide not a term I I use uh lightly and um you know while of course I I think the Israelis have a right to exist you know peaceful coexistence or whatnot two-state solution one state solution I don't know but
[2:15:42] um but they've gone much too far they've ignored the International Community they're going through the motions of ceasefire talks you know Netanyahu was in town what a week ago and U while he was in Washington negotiations were ongoing in Rome between Israel Hamas the United States Egypt and gutter and when the talks broke up the Egyptians complained that the Israeli
[2:16:15] delegation uh didn't have the authority to agree on anything they just sat there and stared at each other so nothing was accomplished when Netanyahu left Washington John Kirby the the spokesman for the uh National Security Council said that Netanyahu didn't even pretend to support a ceasefire he didn't even pretend there's no hope for a ceasefire not until everybody's dead or everything is destroyed number one number two man we
[2:16:48] don't even have enough time to talk about Israelis in United States and Israeli involv my very first day at the agency we had a briefing by the head of security and he he was talking about Counter Intelligence which was a new word for me and he said he was explaining the difference between declared officers and Undeclared officers so a declared officer is let's say you're a CIA officer and you're serving in some foreign country and the station Chief takes you to the
[2:17:19] intelligence service of that country says this is my officer he's a CIA officer and he's here to work with your officers okay you're a declared officer an Undeclared officer is somebody who's serving overseas under cover and is not declared he's not supposed to be known to that intelligence service so the head of security told us that at the Israeli Embassy in Washington there are two declared officers one for mosad and one for shinb right so shinb is like the F not really the FBI but domestic
[2:17:53] this was in January of 1990 he said there [Music] were 189 Undeclared Israeli intelligence officers that the FBI had been able to identify spread All Over America trying to steal our defense secrets so why don't we wrap those people up and expel them because they're Israeli they're not Chinese they're not Russian they're not North Koreans or Cubans or whatever they're Israeli and the Israelis have such a
[2:18:25] hold on Capitol Hill that it's just not worth the disruption in relations political or Foreign Affairs uh to wrap those people up you just have to kind of hope for the best I think I probably mentioned to you in one of our earlier conversations too I had two friends that I worked with very good friends from the agency and um when I went overseas on my first tour they went over overseas on their first and they went to uh to Jerusalem tandem couple married couple
[2:18:57] both agency officers the wife was the one that actually got the job so the husband took a 2-year kind of sabatical to learn how to speak Arabic so they went as soon as they arrived the chief took them to mosad and said you already know them I'm just making it official they're declared she's going to be working with your people and he's going to be studying Arabic at such and such a university a couple of months later they go to a
[2:19:28] dinner at the ambassador's residence and when they got home all of their living room furniture had been rearranged while they were gone that was just a message like we can [ __ ] with you when we want is that something that's normal for the Israelis yes they do this kind of thing all the time a couple of months after that they went to a Christmas party at the ambassador's residence and when they came back people had taken shits in all of their toilets in their
[2:20:00] house another message mhm right they finished their two-year tour the Ambassador has a going away dinner for them they go back home somebody had cut the dog's tail off and wrapped it in gauze as kind of a going away present this is what the Israelis do yeah there was another incident too where where the Ambassador was being driven back to his residence this is years ago in the 90s and
[2:20:31] um two of his tires blew out in his car so the driver of course pulls off to the side and then these two very helpful men pull up oh what happened oh you want us to help you change the tire oh no it's two tires somehow blew out okay well you know you can call the whatever the Israeli bir version of AAA is they drive off well they drove off with the ambassador's briefcase which had you know Personnel folders and whatnot inside who knows I don't know what it had inside classified documents who knows and it turned out
[2:21:03] those tires had been shot that's what the Israelis do it's important to understand and one of the things I don't think many Americans reflect on is that there's the Jewish faith mhm and then there is the Israeli government Israeli government that's right they are not the same right and in the United States what we're trying to promote and protect is the preservation and protection of the Jewish faith yes but what unfortunately happens is that a lot of especially Jewish people
[2:21:36] who are American citizens get confused even between the idea of the Jewish faith and the nation of Israel the state recognized government political state of Israel right they're not the same thing so Israel as a country as a government with its own security infrastructure with its own National priorities economic National Security and otherwise makes decisions as a nation a nation that doesn't separate church and state but a nation nevertheless we on the other end here
[2:22:08] are still confused about whether or not rejecting Israeli policy is the same thing as anti-Semitism that's a good point that's an important point and you know that's a relatively new phenomenon too if you look back at um for example I just happened to see a YouTube video of Harry Truman's statement when Israel declared independence it was fascinating because he said that both the Arabs and the Jews hate him because he forced them to work together neither one of them like the deal that they wanted to fight
[2:22:39] in the negotiations that's how difficult it was our move in the direction of the Israelis was very slow and very incremental I remember I remember the Amir of Bahrain saying one time that the last American president to give us us the Arabs a truly Fair Shake was George HW Bush and before him it was Dwight Eisenhower otherwise he said you guys always favor the Israelis we actually didn't but then if you look at
[2:23:10] Administration after Administration going back to 1948 you can see how drastically American policy has changed and I think it's because we struggle with that issue of equating Israel with Judaism and you know really never the two shall meet right so in US policy so netanyahu's uh execution of wartime policy which is like outside of legal requirements and he dissolved his War cabinet like he's he's an army of one
[2:23:41] right now basically right with his whole did he get rid of that that one guy Ben Benny left on his own Benny gance left on his own but but idar Ben gav is still that's what I'm talking about so is Julian was telling me about Ben gav saying that guy is like this gu he has felony convictions for anti-muslim hate crimes that's how bad this is he's a convicted hate crime felon and he had apparently he's the guy who had like a portrait of this guy a terrorist who like blew up some sort of mosque the the
[2:24:13] um cave of the Patriarchs yes exactly had his portrait hanging in his living room so the I think there is a there's absolutely a strangle hold in the United States about the topic of Judaism and protecting Judaism and safeguarding Judaism especially knowing that Israel is a safe haven for Jews in an ocean of of uh Islam on both sides right Sunni and Shia Islam so there's definitely an element
[2:24:45] of that and then there are there is a strong Uh current of wealthy Jewish money wealthy Jewish uh lobbyists wealthy Jewish entertainers wealthy Jewish everything just like there's wealthy Christians and Wealthy Muslims and Wealthy Buddhists everything right there's an influence that comes from those benefactors in the United States that we also confuse with thinking that we have to support Israel to support them but there's also a very real Strategic Benefit from supporting
[2:25:18] Israel we just don't have to support Israel and their policies under Netanyahu in how they execute blindly yeah against Hamas and you know one of the things we're not talk it's not [ __ ] it's not about Hamas no it's about Iran and it's about Iran's efforts to execute proxy conflict in all directions around Israel that's what it's really about it is and everybody is talking about the [ __ ] red Sparrow they're all they're all following the red herring that says that
[2:25:48] it's about it's about Hamas it's not about not about Hamas and the and Hamas is an idea that unfortunately with every new Palestinian that you kill all you're doing is guaranteeing another generation of people who believe in Hamas absolutely even [ __ ] even the fata government has now shaken hands with Hamas and been like we or not we but the Israeli the Israeli government drove them to that it's crazy um abas is so easily attacked I mean this is a guy
[2:26:18] that's this is a guy that's 18 years into to a four-year term as president right he's a buffoon he's corrupt he's mentally degraded and the Israelis have pushed him into the arms of Hamas isn't that amazing it's incredible so so on on October 6th the legitimate government for the Palestinians was the fata government even though the West Bank was controlled by Hamas and now here we stand in July
[2:26:48] of 2024 and the two August excuse me August August 3D and now where we stand is that both Gaza and the West Bank have met on equal grounds yeah so the legitimate government that even Israel was saying was legitimate government is now legitimizing Hamas which is labeled a terrorist organization by 13 of the UN states which means only 13 members of the UN which has more than 100 members only 13 identify Hamas as terrorist good
[2:27:20] point that's a good point and you know um another thing too is a lot of Americans either forget or don't know that Benjamin Netanyahu is the most unpopular major political figure in Israel the latest polls just come out last week show his approval rating at 22% they called wildly unpopular oh yeah even before even before October 7th wildly unpopular he's got fraud charges on him criminal charges on him corruption charges on him he's been in and out of office
[2:27:50] influence pedaling so it's and G Gant only slightly higher when's that from May um he um he has an interest in keeping this war going as long as poss abely because the longer it defers I think even Trump said that in an interview oh did he back when he was still president there was an interview where he's like I don't want to say who it is but one side does not want to make a deal is what Trump there it is and now Trump just gets a million dollar or hundred million do from the Adon yeah and I think um
[2:28:22] this is something else Julian educated me on even in death Adon is uh influencing his wife Mar right there was a there was a mad spy who was imprisoned here who apparently was trying to Netanyahu has been trying to get him out ever since Clinton I believe oh it was uh Jonathan Pard there you go joh I'll tell you what I was I was when I was still at the agency so just just to make sure everybody understands yes Pard is an American citizen yeah Navy of of Jewish faith
[2:28:55] right who became a spy against the United States yes giving secrets to the Israelis yes uh in what year was that 85 I think it was does it say there uh 84 1985 198 was apprehended in 85 right and then in turn the Israelis traded the classified American documents the military documents that Pard provided them to the Soviet Union in exchange for Russian Jews can you imagine that wow
[2:29:26] yeah yeah po was a traitor so every single time literally every single time Netanyahu would come to the country no matter who was president he would say you got to release Pard you got to release Pard you got to release Pard and then Bill Quint Clinton went a little wobbly and literally every head of every American intelligence agency said if you release Pard will resign on MOS really so Pard got 30 years he ended up doing every single day of the 30 years the
[2:29:58] Israelis gave him citizenship put him on a plane and now he lives in Jerusalem is it true that Monica Lewinsky was uh working for the Israelis and she was some sort of a well I never heard that no I can't imagine that maybe that was some conspiracy I saw but I heard I can only imagine the conspiracies you must I see a ton of conspiracies especially on Twitter but I heard something that um Monica Lewinsky was used uh basically to get blackmail on Clinton and he wasn't willing to release or he couldn't release Pard so
[2:30:30] that's why they Rel you know releas all the info on on L the whole Lewinsky scandal too many moving parts and why did Trum why did why is Trump the one that and that released Pard and Pard had to be released he completed his completed his sentence oh he completed his sentence okay and I think I heard that he flew back to Israel on on adon's jet oh was it adon's jet that's what I heard okay that makes sense that makes sense it's it's there is no like I don't know how to overstate this Israel is
[2:31:03] not a trusted close friend of the United States in in any way not in any way listen Israel at when I was at the agency and granted my information's 20 years old now but when I was at the agency Israel was classified as critical threat for Counter Intelligence so it was Israel Russia North Korea and Cuba that's how serious not China and China yes that's how serious the Spy
[2:31:36] threat is against us from Israel the problem is they are also militarily economically uh industrially very practical to have as allies and then on top of that you have our commitment to the Jewish faith and and the and the protection and preservation of the Jewish faith do you think it's a problem that both presidential candidates are getting millions and millions of dollars from the Israelis in support of their campaign their presidential campaigns like Trump
[2:32:08] getting 100 million and I don't know how much Kamala has gotten at least five million right not not from the Israelis American Jews this is where you have to differentiate between the the country the adult okay yeah so it was Mary people right yeah and do I think it's a problem I mean yeah I mean the whole campaign Finance thing is a problem yeah how how there's just unlimited amount of money where the money isn't needed to demonstrate the policy or the effectiveness of your policy what the money is needed for is to put
[2:32:39] commercials out and to put influence out and to put marketing out like the real magic behind Donald Trump is not that Donald Trump is some skilled Statesman or diplomat world leader it's that he understands how to Market he knows how to get a message in front of people that that want to hear a message that want to get activated by a message like yeah the Democrats seriously underestimated him in 16 seriously underestimated him and he's I mean you just it's just a it's it's a recognition of the Practical
[2:33:11] truth right it's not that Donald Trump is going to be some Powerhouse president for the next four years it's not that he's trying to like boost any kind of specific policies for the United States he's just he is a guy that likes to win he's a guy that thrives on a challenge there's a lot of benefits that are going to come his way if he becomes president not to mention the fact that he can set motion for things that continue to pay dividends even after he leaves office like it's not it's not some passion for the
[2:33:41] preservation of the American government and another thing about him too is he doesn't really believe in anything he doesn't have any core beliefs right which on the one hand you know might be a good thing because you can adapt to changing situations and changing policy but then the on the other hand it's like you know I I don't know what this guy stands for other than for himself and and there's an elements there where I think part of his popularity is that that's what we all want to think about ourselves too yeah yeah right I mean
[2:34:12] you've said it earlier in this podcast I have yes yes I have so there's a very strong attractive character there and when you talk about an attractive character you are 10,00% right in the center of marketing yeah so what do you guys think I mean I know you you know through your uh your your crystal ball would happen is going to happen in the near or medium future between Israel and
[2:34:43] Iran and how is the United States involved like what does it look like if Hezbollah goes into all out war with Israel it's ugly yeah Hezbollah is an actual force of yeah it is of significance so Israel would be it's well equipped yeah Israel would be in a hard place I think to to answer your question I see Iran continuing to play this smartly where they don't get themselves directly involved and they don't need to be directly involved they've shown great restraint so far and or at least we we interpret it as
[2:35:13] restraint because they're using like patience as a strategic tool in crafting whatever their next step is but if you put yourself in the shoes of Iran they've got a a strong proxy Force to the North of Israel they have a available proxy Force to the south of Israel in the houthis and then they have a proxy Force that's right inside of Israel and Gaza and possibly also now in the West Bank with the growing prominence of Hamas so they've got
[2:35:45] Israel could have a war on three fronts when us never had to deal with before correct in US Doctrine in in the army war College the Air Force War College the the loral war college for the Navy and in all of them a war on two fronts is something to avoid because a war on two fronts significantly degrades your capability of down of winning the war we learned that in World War I and World War II so Israel is at a place where netanyahu's policies have driven them to a point where all of their pre-existing
[2:36:15] enemies now have all the reason in the world to continue going to to ramp up and escalate further and who were the two guys who just got killed one was a leader of Hezbollah who led the aerial raids that killed the 12 youth and then the other was a political leader for Hamas who was actually in tan so Israel launched an attack into Sovereign Iran into the capital city and that that's listen to how crazy this is that we're talking about Ismael hunia who was the head of hamas's political Bureau resident in Doha he was the lead
[2:36:46] ceasefire negotiator right so this is the guy that's ipating in all these meetings the crazy thing here is he went to Tron to attend president uh pesan I always get his name wrong president masud peskin's inauguration right and and that's an opposition president that's a president that's an opposition president a reformist president who said hey you know what we should have talks with the United States like this is Iran took a very weird right turn I didn't I didn't predict see it Happ no I thought for sure Jal would win that race and he
[2:37:17] got killed you know bazes and walloped him anyway um the first the first reports on hania's killing were that the Israelis had launched a missile at the guest house that he stayed in and I even said on the show that would require violating Jordanian airspace and Iraqi airspace or or Jordanian airspace and Saudi airspace twice right getting out that didn't make any sense to me and then they said day
[2:37:48] before yesterday actually no they put a bomb in the house in April because they knew that he stayed in the same house serious security problem yeah stayed in the same house every time he'd go to Iran and they just waited him for him to go and then they blew it up remotely but but this goes to the Israeli ability to violate Iranian sovereignty in any way they want they kill uh Iranian scientists they'll they'll do car bombs they do close in hits um the any they
[2:38:22] have a whole network in Iran that we can only fantasize about and it's taken years and years to build I want to say one other thing too um back in what was it March or April the Israelis bombed the Iranian Consulate in Damascus and killed two Iranian generals yes major violation of you know international law but the Israelis don't care about stuff like that anyway the Iranians responded again with great restraint they launched 700 drones I'm
[2:38:52] sorry 600 drones but they told the United States in advance we're going to send these 600 drones and then they called in the Jordanian Ambassador and said we're going to fly these 600 drones over your airspace so it took six hours for those drones to to cross over so everybody is like sitting like this waiting for the drones to come right so the British scattered their Jets from bases in Jordan we scattered our Jets the is scattered their Jets and shot down all but seven okay so seven hit the ground
[2:39:26] and this a little bit of minor damage here and there and everybody's like oh that was the response no big deal it was actually a very big deal because it showed the Iranians that the Iron Dome isn't so great as the Israelis say that it is they were able to get seven drones through now what if those drones had been carrying BW or CW right or big bombs chemical weapons biological sorry yes biological weapons chemical weapons
[2:39:57] it would be it would be unprecedented in in history so the Israelis think they're so smart and so good that they got away with killing two generals who just were replaced the next day right and the world thinks that Israel is so powerful because of their reach look how safe they are they reached into Syria and killed these guys they reach into Iran and killed that guy they bomb Lebanon and kill this guy it's not as great as they think it is meanwhile Iran is finding a way to learn more about its enemy without actually killing Iranians
[2:40:28] exactly because it's a bunch of extremist proxy people who are actually taking the fall what do you think of these rumors this week that it was the MEK that did it on be sorry the mujah which is a it's a cult actually but it was originally a communist um opposition group during the Sha's time that assassinated an American ambassador kidnapped an American fourstar General and then all of a sudden we decided oh they're not so bad after all and then
[2:40:59] they hired Rudy Giuliani to represent them in Washington and they were FedEd by the Clinton Administration and you know Miriam rajavi the the head of IT her husband was the founder and he just kind of disappeared one day and everybody said oh she killed him and buried him in a rock now she's ahead of it and uh now she's in Washington she's in Paris they have big dinners for her on Capitol Hill and the rumor is that it was the MEK since they're already in
[2:41:29] Iran that actually planted the bomb well that's interesting I hadn't heard that before I heard just this week H so there's just we you know Russia's invasion of Ukraine yeah did a number of things I think people don't realize it highlighted Russia's inadequacy to carry out a land campaign you can say that again right but it also highlighted that we don't really know the capabilities of any country that's out there so anything you can do to try to
[2:42:02] make yourself look bigger than you are quote unquote paper tiger is what most countries are trying to do right so Russia's trying to look strong Israel is trying to look strong America does things to try to look strong China is doing things to try to look strong too but there's also a very real saber rattling that happens where nobody really wants to get too deep into a conf hold me back hold me back yeah right yeah so like like your question original question was what happens if Hezbollah really does go well into Israel it's a blood bath see I think it's more likely
[2:42:32] that Hezbollah is going to do something than the Iranians the Iranians I could see firing a rocket at an Israeli Embassy let's say or killing an an Israeli defense atache somewhere hez Bala I think is ready to fight and Hezbollah has been training for it for a long time as part of their Charter they're they're their neighbors right Hezbollah stands a real chance and and what we learned on October 7th yes there were a lot of deaths yes
[2:43:03] there were a lot of Civilian deaths a solid third of all the people that died were military deaths IDF Defense Force border patrol etc etc right so when anybody tries to compare 911 with October 7 it's not a strong comparison you can't compare the two you just can't not in terms of the number of lives lost not in terms of the uh the fact that that Hamas was a known threat and a known enemy of Israel for a long time they've been oppressed for a long time whereas the attack on the United States
[2:43:33] on 911 was completely out of nowhere it was unprecedented and it was unprovoked right so there's there's huge differences between the two but it's a very convenient comparison in some media channels to try to make them sound like the same thing but one of the things that Israel has to has to do right now is also look strong one of the things Netanyahu has to do right now is look strong he has to look strong enough to keep the warhawks in his own cabinet at Bay and also work against a current of unpopular uh support from his base or
[2:44:05] from the from the Israeli people and the United States is stuck in this awkward position where we I mean we've been making our policies about Ukraine those have not been popular Ukraine has not been successful in the way that I think our our allies in NATO hoped they would be successful if anything the prolonged conflict in Russia and Ukraine has highlighted the corruption and transparency issues with Ukraine that have just made it even worse so Israel and well the United
[2:44:36] States is stuck with these two slow horses that it's it's painted itself into a corner under the Biden Administration was supporting so if it's a Harris Administration that comes next she's still she's adopting two slow horses I want to add one thing if I could yes one of the things I learned early on uh in my analytic career at the agency uh was always watch for troop movements and ship movements right if people at the Pentagon for example are really worried about hostilities they're
[2:45:08] going to send carrier battle groups and today we announced that we have two carrier battle groups two in the region one has just come out of the GF and is now in the Arabian Sea and the others in the Eastern Mediterranean that scares the [ __ ] out of me we're moving we're moving fighter jets also yeah it could be a show of force but it's a very real mobilization when when Iraq invaded Kuwait I remember one of the analysts saying that uh this was going to be tough for us because the Persian Gulf
[2:45:40] was too shallow for an aircraft carrier we had never sent one in to the Persian Gulf ever right it was just too shallow um by the time that hostilities began we had six carriers and their Associated battle groups in the Gulf at the same time and each carrier has 12 uh ships that accompany it you know destroyers and Supply ships and all kinds of different stuff so we already have two and the announcement day before yesterday that that we're
[2:46:10] sending fighter jets and interestingly uh the Pentagon didn't say how many right didn't say where they're going and didn't say what kinds class mhm so it's we don't know we don't know what's going to happen next but we do know that there are significant American interests in the Middle East you got not only our interests with Israel but you've got our interests with Saudi you've got our interests with UAE you've got our interests with Jordan what do you make of the I forget who it was it was some Secretary of something on TV like two two or three
[2:46:41] days ago came out and said was pounding his chest about how there are I think the number he said was 10 trillion dollar worth of valuable resources natural resources and minerals in Ukraine that we needed to keep out of Russia's hands so they wouldn't share it with China no idea and I've never heard anything anyone in the government anyone in the media talking about any sort of resources in Ukraine until now honestly I thought they just had wheat people have been talk well in eastern Ukraine
[2:47:11] or Western Ukraine oh there it is I don't know people have been people have been talking about Eastern Ukrainian minerals for a long time Senate shorse Lindsey Graham yeah so so now it just seems to be like there's this new this new goal for the Ukraine conflict to keep minerals out of the hands of China and Russia or Afghan a new a new wish yeah a new justification Afghanistan has 23 trillion dollar worth of rare earth metals that were just discovered in
[2:47:45] 2015 M 2016 yeah and where does China fit into all this a year ago you were on here you you made the claim that before I think you said right before the presidential election for the US that China would invade Taiwan I don't think I ever said the word invade it's funny I had this conversation with Julian too okay because it's certainly seems like somewhere you guys interpreted the word invade I said China would move on Taiwan move on Taiwan okay in the leadup to the 2024 election I believe that started in October of last year really culminated when they took control when the kmt took
[2:48:16] control of the legislation in January of this year mhm and since then we've just seen a continued escalation of military movements and Military exercises and increased rhetoric like right now for all intents and purposes uh Taiwan is is politically locked it has a president that's Pro separation and it's got a a dominant legislation that's pro-unification and then it's got all these independent players and it's just it's a hot bit of Chinese activity and I'm still sitting there uncertain of if more is coming because if I'm in Xin
[2:48:47] Ping's shoes right now watching what's happening in the United States which is the only benefactor to to Taiwan if I'm watching what's happening in the United States we're so [ __ ] confused right now that we've got a we've got a sitting president who basically can't take action we have a a uh a race between a convicted felon and a district attorney that didn't has never want to vote and we haven't even had a an official DNC to announce the candidate for the Democratic National
[2:49:18] Party to support through the presidency not to mention all the challenges that America has anyways economically politically you know whatever else civil so there's there's it's such a good time right now for sent he must be looking at this knowing that after after November 5th after what the 100 days before the president takes office is just this this window of time where conditions kind of only get worse
[2:49:49] for them to to move on to take an aggressive action of some sort they're in the perfect window right now to basically do something and we're going to be so landlocked so so head up our ass that we can't even make a decision to take action interesting but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're in a position themselves to take any kind of action because Xin ping has his plate full of all sorts of other [ __ ] aren't they sending some sort of like crazy new ships out to out to the uh South China Sea or the whatever the sea the ocean to see is right there
[2:50:19] they've been growing their Naval capability for a while yeah they've been modernizing it now it's unproven in battle one of the reasons that the United States is always engaging in Conflict all over the world all the time is we're constantly practicing exercising training refining we used to love it we used to love it when the Israelis and the syrians would engage in dog fights because it was always you know an F-16 or an F-15 or whatever against a MIG and it was real world testing that we couldn't do yeah yeah so that we don't know what's going to
[2:50:50] happen with China and and China is in a in a fat and happy place right now with regards to International influence and it doesn't even have to take action the United States is doing enough dumb [ __ ] on its own that we're ostracizing ourselves from from the developing world and right now China knows that its future is tied to the developing world one thing I will say is that the the arguments that keep floating around about population right crises in China right those are all of those are way overblown
[2:51:21] definitely like first of all if you look if you Google search what countries are having a population crisis right now it's basically all of them yeah right Japan Japan is having a crisis America's having a crisis South Korea is having a crisis China's having a crisis anybody that can count heads is basically having a crisis because oh by the way we're modernizing all over the world and people need to do a they need less babies right because they get more time on their phone right like it's just it's that simple there's more there's less sex happening in the United States than ever before do you remember being 25
[2:51:52] years old sure all we want is sex at 25 years old but now now I mean I got friends that are 45 and all they wanted sex right now but now 25y olds have less sex than ever before because they've got video games to distract them they've got YouTube to distract they've got all the porn in the world they could want there's there's actually people who do the math and choose that it's better to masturbate in s minutes than go through the three-hour process of of having a date seducing a woman having the
[2:52:23] foreplay and then having sex it's unbelievable to me like if you're not in it for three hours what the hell are you in it for yeah right no yeah that's a huge problem with technology in general yeah so with China China China's hoping for a population to demise they're hoping to reduce their population because if they reduce the population they increase the per capita revenue and they already know that it's only like 10% of all Chinese people that generate the ma the vast majority of Chinese GDP plus they're trying to revolutionize and
[2:52:53] modernize their their industrial base so that they're selling high-tech products electric vehicles telecommunications uh chips and and memory card like that's what they want to do that's going to bring even more money in to a smaller population which massively increases the per capita income which brings them closer to superpower status they can make more money with less people of course that's what they want that's exactly what we did too that's how you can't be a superpower with 1.6 billion people you can be a superpower with 300 million
[2:53:26] people I don't it's just yeah at the end of the day it comes down to GDP it comes down to GDP it comes down to GDP and and it comes down to the economic impact of the individuals who are in your country and the industrial base that you that you provide to the world so right now if you've in the in the last 20 years there's been a massive shift it used to be that if you wanted wanted financial sector uh products if you wanted um telecommunications products if you wanted high-tech products you went to
[2:53:56] the United States well now Hong Kong and Shanghai belong to China Financial Centers MH Electric Vehicles produced in China are outpacing electric vehicles anywhere else at half the price at half the price right and they're beautiful cars and you have you have a a government there that is that is very amenable to working with countries of all shapes and sizes completely regardless of the in of the uh idealistic or the uh ideology or the political practices of that country
[2:54:27] where the United States will only do business unless they want to sanction you they'll only do business with people who fit a certain ideological molds and who adhere to American requirements one of the things that surprised me when I was in Hong Kong the other day was um how few places would take Visa or Mastercard and the way it was explained to me made perfect sense they have their own system they owns so they geted and all of these these don't have to New York they go through Shanghai they go through Shanghai there's money to be
[2:54:58] made everywhere there's money to be made everywhere and we like America has followed an economic bullying strategy since the end of World War II that led to Our Success all through about 2005 mhm and then we took our eyes off the ball and the the MIM China's a fantastic mimic they're not very Innovative they don't have a framework of change there they they steal they steal designs and ideas and make them just as and optimize them they make them
[2:55:29] one or two% better with cheaper cheaper quality whatever else that's right and that's all they did they just mimicked our system rolled out the belt and Road initiative started doing exactly what we did only we started at the end of World War II they started in about 2005 I want to add something about the jcpa as it as it sort of fits into this you know the this the gcpa also called the Iran nuclear deal so we have very specific sanctions laws in the United States and US law calls for sanctions against
[2:56:00] any country that does business with Iran okay if you're trading with Iran we're going to put sanctions on you so the jcpoa opened trade relations with Iran not just for the United States but for pretty much every every country so we signed it the Brits the French the Japanese the Germans everybody all the big Western Powers signed it and then in 2017 I think it was we unilaterally pulled out of the jcpoa okay but what that did is it triggered the sanctions
[2:56:32] law MH so the treasury Department said well look we no longer represent or we no longer respect the jcpoa so all of you other countries you have to pull out of it too and the French the Brits the Germans the Japanese said no no no no no we have valuable trade relations now with Iran we don't have any problem with Iran we're going to keep these trade relations well then by US law we have to put sanctions on the British the French
[2:57:03] the Germans and the Japanese right we can't do that and so it made us look weak we're weak so now we yell about Iran oh we need to isolate the Iranians we need to put sanctions on on Iran those days come and gone and that's why Iran plays nice right now mhm they look they appear to play nice on paper using the proxy that's right the proxy tools that they've been developing for the last few days so we bomb Kabbalah in Northern uh Iraq and the Iranians say that's that's an Iraqi
[2:57:34] militia yep that's not us we didn't do that wow yeah so I just want to make do a quick time hack for you because I I'm I I do have to roll a four yep okay cool well we uh we're about at three hours so I think this is a good place to wrap it up man thank you guys both for doing this this has been a gripping gripping conversation oh yes I want to do after we wrap it up I had our patreon subscribers ask you guys some personal questions so we're going to wrap it up and we'll do a little patreon exclusive people that are interested in checking
[2:58:05] it out sure but before we wrap it up um John tell people where they can find you online read about your substack and all that stuff thanks a substack is where I put everything everything I write all the interviews I do and I got to say this is what the third time you and I have spoken the fourth time third or fourth third or fourth and fourth I think I want to say thank you thank you thank you to your viewers because um hundreds of them have come to my substack so thank you very much everything that I do I put there it's simple it's just John kiraku beautiful
[2:58:36] I'm G link it below Andy uh you'll find me at everydays spy.com you'll find me on my podcast at the everyday spy podcast and of course on all social media at everyday spy and again uh for those of you who listening who don't know Danny Jones was the first podcast that I was on of of significance and launched what has turned into the last two years of excellent pretty incredible podcast invitation shout out to Matthew Cox for putting Us Together Matt Cox booya I now know two
[2:59:07] criminals that uh that I can call friends I wear it on my sleeve that's beautiful thank you guys both for your time I really appreciate it thanks all right if you guys want to keep going on we're going to go on patreon and uh good night all right cool that was riveting we're just G that was [ __ ] incredible oh my God that was so good hey I got to tell you um the FBI came to my house one time you know this and can we record this for patreon or no okay cool we're
[2:59:39] still rolling for patreon cool keep going the FBI came to my house one night my my youngest son was little he was I don't know four or five he was sitting on my lap and the the doorbell rang and he jumped off and he ran to the door before I could you know get up and he opens the door and I hear this sugary sweet voice say hi is your daddy home