[00:00] Everybody, I'm John Kuryaku and welcome back to another episode of Deep Focus Q&A. As I always say, my favorite favorite part of the week. But before we get started, I want to say a couple of things. First of all, I want to thank you like I do every time for liking, sharing, subscribing, and talking about the show and recommending it to your friends and family. We're only continuing this growth because of you. So, thank you very, very much. But secondly, a rumor has been going around that we're going to end this show. Let me assure you, we are not going to end
[00:31] this show. I had to leave my other podcast, Drogram, just because it's on every single day. My life has changed dramatically recently, dramatically, unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I somehow seem to be viral. I'm immensely popular among young people, especially young men between 15 and 30. And um as a result, I've signed a representation contract recently with a major with a major talent agency and
[01:03] they have been scheduling speeches and consulting contracts on various things and new books. I I've got four new books in Q and there just aren't enough hours in the day. I've gotten to the point where I actually have to set my alarm at 4:00 in the morning just to get up and try to get through as many emails or cameo requests as I possibly can. And that's untenable. Uh my health is beginning to suffer and I just couldn't keep it up and so I decided to leave
[01:35] deep program to at least free up a few hours to try to get some of this other work done. We're not ending Deep Focus. It's going to be right here every week like it always is. We may change the day we drop the podcast. We may change some of the graphics, but the show's not going anywhere. Rest assured. So, let's jump into some of the questions. Jay says, "Hi, John. As someone who is former military, I know that if a foreign country killed my family, I would spend the rest of my life seeking revenge quietly and deliberately. My
[02:07] question for you is, since you understand Middle Eastern culture far better than I do, is whether people there hold a similar cultural expectation of revenge, how do they process something like this? And what does justice look like to them? Man, that is a great question and quite an important question. So, let's take it one line at a time. Do people in the Middle East hold a sim similar cultural expectation of revenge? Yes, there is such a thing according to
[02:37] psychologists as generational trauma. So it doesn't even have to be that let's say as an example the Israelis killed your wife. It could be that the Israelis killed your great-g grandmother who you never met and that trauma is passed down from generation to generation along with the the hatred and the anger for the crime that was committed. A Saudi official once told me years ago before the Saudis started doing a dance
[03:07] with the Israeli government that he never had anything personally against the Israelis until he saw a news report of an Israeli soldier with the with his boot on the neck of a Palestinian grandmother and then he decided to oppose Israel under all circumstances and to kill Israelis if he ever had the opportunity. So the answer is yes. That that anger is is passed on and it's
[03:38] held for a long period of time. How do they process something like this? You know, one thing about the Palestinians is that they understand that on a day-to-day basis, they can't exact revenge. They have they have to worry about surviving about, you know, avoiding an Israeli bullet or hoping that the Israeli government doesn't bulldoze their houses or worry about where to find food or water. Uh, in Iran today, you know, Americans have
[04:09] forgotten that we shot down a an Iranian civilian airliner during the George HW Bush administration. We killed almost 300 people. And then we said, "Sorry, our bad. On radar, it looked like a military jet." But we know when civilian airliners are flying. It's public information. We shut it down anyway. And people are still people in Iran are still angry about it. They're still talking about it even if Americans have forgotten that it ever happened. So what does justice look like
[04:40] to them? Justice looks like whatever they can get. If justice means they're able to kill a settler or an American soldier, then they'll take it. If justice means they're able to blow up an Israeli police station or throw a grenade onto a bus in West Jerusalem, they'll take it. And that's exactly why this thing is never going to end. Thanks for that important question. Now I'm all shaken up. Idesi Id rez I I says hi John what is
[05:14] your most favorite job you have done at the CIA if you're able to tell I can tell also I just finished watching Snowfall and was wondering if you had watched it before and your thoughts on how they use the CIA and the story of it. Thanks for those questions. My absolute favorite job, something that I still think about every single day even though I left it 25 years ago was the time I spent in Greece. I loved that job so much that I went into the station seven days a week. I didn't have to. I
[05:47] mean, most people work half a day on Saturday, but I went in seven days a week only because I so loved the job. It was dangerous. Revolutionary organization 17 November actively was trying to kill me and then they killed my next door neighbor instead, uh, Brigadier General Steven Saunders, the British defense attaches. And that's why I was evacuated from Greece because we learned later that they had set out to kill me that morning and they killed Steven because he was a softer target. I I was armed and I was driving an armored
[06:17] car. But I never had any job that was as fascinating as allencompassing as working against Greek terrorism. You know, plus the fact that I I just always had a fascination with communism, Marxism. I studied Marxism extensively. And um and I was always learning something new. For example, 17 November shot a rocket at the German ambassador's residence. Uh he survived,
[06:49] but in the manifesto that they left at the scene, there was one line in there that nobody understood and it said, "Make like Leafar." The heck does that mean? Make like Leafar. L A F A R G U E. Make like Leafar. I happened to have a source who was a who was a communist and not just a communist but a communist thinker. So I I triggered a meeting with him and uh he got into my car and he said what's up? I said you have to help me make
[07:19] sense of this communicate this manifesto. I don't understand what this means. Make like the fart. And he looks at me and he says I thought you were smart. I said I am smart. I don't have any idea though what this means. Make like the fart. He said, "I thought you studied Marxism." I said, "I did. I did study Marxism." He said, "Leafar was married to Marx's daughter." I said, "So?" He said, "Lefar was a Marxist who fell in love with Marx's daughter. They got
[07:51] married and then Lefar brought Marxism to France and was the founder of the French Communist Party." I said, "Okay." So he said after 30 years Leafar and Marx's daughter came to this conclusion that Marxism was and that there was nothing behind it. And so they went to the roof of their apartment building and hand in hand they jumped off the roof and committed suicide together. So what they're saying is they want the
[08:21] German ambassador to commit suicide to make like Lefar. I'm telling you, in that job, not a single day went by that I didn't learn something new, something important that still is burned into my mind 25 years after I left the job. Snowfall. Absolutely fantastic, wonderful, and well-written series. If you if you didn't see Snowfall on AMC when it was first making its run, it's now on Hulu. Every episode is on Hulu. And it is
[08:51] about how it was about how crack cocaine was invented uh first in Oakland, California um in in the uh early 1980s and how it it was picked up by an upand cominging coke dealer coke importer in Los Angeles but with the help of the CIA. The CIA was providing the coke so that it could be sold in Los Angeles and they took the money and used it to buy weapons for the Contra rebels. You know, it's funny to me when when Snowfall came
[09:22] out, I don't know, six, seven years ago, the CIA denied and denied and denied that this is not true. This is just Hollywood make believe it. It's like, you guys forgot that Gary Webb proved all this was true and then committed suicide. CIA, it's like there's so much turnover in the jobs, they don't remember the lies that they told three years ago. And then anyway, they contradict themselves. So, if you want a TV recommendation and you have Hulu, Snowfall, you you you're
[09:53] going to binge the heck out of it. It's fantastic. Buzz Lightyear 95. Hey, Buzz. Buzz says, "Hey, John. First of all, thank you so much for speaking truth to power and courageously sharing your expertise with everyday Americans." Thank you for saying that. Some questions for your next show. In the age of the manosphere and trad propaganda, what advice do you have for women in the workplace in 2026? Can you tell us a story about a woman you highly respected at work? What was she like? How can American women stay safe in this era when there's more hostility and our
[10:23] rights are being taken away? Think about how suddenly women in Iran lost their rights under the last regime and worry for women here. I hope you're pardoned. Thanks. Yeah, that's that's an important question. I don't understand this manosphere. I just don't get it. It's a bunch of of incelss who somehow found themselves with a platform and um and are telling us how to live our lives. You know, a friend of mine played me a video the other day, but he wouldn't let me see he wouldn't let me see the the video. I was just listening to it. He
[10:54] was it the person talking was talking about movies and he was like and the reason my friend brought this up is I said, "I never liked Lord of the Rings. I'm a little bit even afraid to tell you I actually walked out of Lord of the Rings and then I wanted to smash my TV when it won the Oscar for best picture. Absolutely dreadful movie. I kept looking at my watch like when is this freaking movie going to end? Not only that, but the the sequel won best picture. The craziest thing. Anyway, he said he wanted me to to
[11:27] listen to this video and the person on the video was saying Lord of the Rings. Oh my god, what a terrible show. Terrible. Pointless. a bunch of little guys running around, midgets, orcs, whatever. And he says, "It was such a gay movie. It was gay." And then he says, "Good fellas, gay. Godfather gay." I like, "Gay? What are you talking about?" I said, "Who is that idiot?" And then he turns the phone around and it was Nick Fuentes. I said, "Well, of course it was Nick Fuentes because everything he says is stupid and backward and I'm not going to take any
[11:57] advice from a 20-year-old incel." How these guys are able to thrust their ideology on the rest of the country is a mystery to me. So, number one, ignore them. Um, I somehow found myself in a in in a one-day long feud with Nick Fuentes last week. I never responded to him, which is why it went away, but he was calling me out because I wouldn't debate Bezo, Bino, Zeno. I don't know what the this guy's name was. One of these
[12:28] Twitch streamers. I don't know who these people are. I don't know why anybody thinks they're important, but no, I'm not engaging them because of this manosphere thing. Because of this stupid tradife propaganda. I totally agree with you. My ex-wife, I'm not supposed to talk about my ex-wife, but I'm complimenting her here. So, don't sue me if you're watching. I'm complimenting you. My ex-wife was the smartest person, man or woman, I've ever met in my life, ever. and she's the CEO of a major company.
[13:00] The CEO of a major company right now. Um, and you know what? To answer your question, she was the person at work that I most highly respected. She was a senior CIA officer. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, everybody knew she was going places. U bachelor's degree in foreign service from Georgetown, master's degree in national security from Georgetown. she uh she got into Harvard Law School and elected to join the CIA instead. And on
[13:31] top of that, and I'm not even going to say on top of that, she'd probably get mad, but but she was by far the most impressive woman I ever encountered at the CIA. There were certainly others. There were others who I respected but didn't like. One of them was the red-headed devil, who, which is what we called her, who uh figured very prominently in the film Zero Dark 30. She was my immediate supervisor. She was a psychopath and a stone cold killer, but she was smart and accomplished.
[14:04] So, how can women stay safe in this era where there's more hostility and your rights are being taken away? You know what? We've got to we've got to meet this challenge head on. For every Andrew Tate, there's got to be a woman out there defending women. There's got to be a a woman out there defending defending progressive society. We can't let the likes of the Tape brothers or Nick Fuentes or any of these other morons from the alt-right, the extreme right, the racist right uh
[14:36] impinge on our on our values and our freedoms. It's what America's all about. We've got it's a constant fight and we have to keep up that fight. But I agree with you. We don't want to end up like Saudi Arabia or Iran. Not a chance. Nicola Riel says, "Dear John, thank you very much for your inspirational content and detailed geopolitical analysis. Thank you. I wish you the best in achieving your goals in every aspect of life. What is the extent of CIA influence on NASA's space activities? More broadly, how do
[15:08] intelligence agencies worldwide exploit exploit access to space? Do you have any story on this topic? Greetings from Italy." I actually do have a story on this topic, a story that I've never told. I was an analyst for I'm gonna say two years. So, I was young, still new at the agency, still within my three-year probationary period. And my boss said to me, "Hey, do you want to go to a rocket launch?" I said, "Hell yes, I want to go to a rocket launch." Where? He said, "On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, there's a
[15:39] village named Big Assaoman." It's an unfortunate uh Native American name. Uh it's on a on a a bay called Big Assa Woman Bay, which is ironically opposite Little Assa Woman. Anyway, um there's a NASA uh rocket launching site there. I said, "Yeah." So they put like eight of us, all junior analysts, into this van that we requisitioned from Motorpool and we drove down there. It took about 3 and 1/2 hours to get down there and there is nothing down there except a handful of
[16:12] little fishing and crabbing villages. So this is on the eastern shore of Virginia. So sure enough we drive on to the base for lack of a better term to watch the rocket launch. We get out, we meet all the NASA scientists. It's a NASA base. We meet all the NASA scientists. Hi, how are you? So excited to be here. never seen a rocket launch before. This is our colleague. One of them says, "This is our colleague from the Russian Space Agency." And he's like, "Hello, how are you? Very nice to meet you." And
[16:44] I I like gasp like, "Oh my god, it's a Russian." And not just a Russian, but a Russian government official. And this is our colleague from the French Space Agency. And this is our colleague from the British Space Agency, and the Australian Space Agency, and the Ukrainian Space Agency. I almost like swallowed my tongue. So, I pulled the scientist aside who was introducing us and I said, "What are all these foreign nationals doing here?
[17:14] Like, we're all going to have to report this to security when we get back that we've had contact with a Russian government official. Are you freaking kidding me?" And he said, "Relax." He said, "Literally everything we do is unclassified." I said, "What? Why?" He said it's space. We share everything with everybody about space. The idea is that when we all go to space, we do these experiments that can result in medical breakthroughs, treatments for cancer, you know, mathematical
[17:47] breakthroughs that we can use in engineering. We share everything that comes from space. Everything. And so I went back and because I was a good soldier, I I went to to the office of security at CIA and the guy stops me. He says, "No, no, we know all this. We do this all the time. You don't have to report yourself unless you invited the Russian to dinner or something." And I said, "No, of course not." And uh he said, "Yeah, don't worry about it. We we really do share everything that comes from space."
[18:19] Well, before we go into our next question, I want to uh give you a word from one of our sponsors. Last week, the Treasury Department put out its financial report for 2025. Almost no one covered it. And here's what it said. Six, get these numbers, $6 trillion in assets. That sounds like a lot of money. $47 trillion in debt. The US government is $41 trillion in the whole net. That's not my opinion. That is the Treasury Department's own numbers. A few days ago, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the
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[19:21] It shows what's really going on and how to protect your savings before this gets worse. So, go to johnlovesgold.com for your free copy. That's johnloves.com. Or you can call 888 gold053. That's 888 gld053. Harry Boris, that's a good Greek name if I ever heard one. and he says, "Yasuani, Yasu, Yasu Harame, thank you for your hard work and for sharing your story with the world. I believe you're truly a skilled and talented person. Thank you.
[19:53] I remember you from your time uh in Athens back in 99 when I was a teenager." Few questions I will attempt one more time. Number one, do you believe that all of 17 November was arrested? Number two, did the CIA know more information that didn't actually make it to uh the public regarding 17 November's ties to Pasok, that's the Panhellic Socialist Party? Number three, do you believe that DARPA is behind Elon Musk's Neuralink, meaning the interconnection of the human brain and the computer? Four, did you know Steven Lawless personally and what
[20:23] did you think of his case? Hope to see you again one day and I pray that your pardon will progress soon. Cheers from a Greek expat in Prague. Thank you, Harry, for those outstanding uh questions. I'm going to take one at a time. Do I believe that all of 17 November uh was arrested? No, I don't. I believe there were probably five, six, seven that got away. Oddly enough, this group was so secretive that we always believed analytically that it was the same group of people that did all the killing and the bombing
[20:55] and the maming from December of 1975 until April of uh 2002. Well, it wasn't. It's just that they were so good at keeping a secret that even when members left the group, nobody ratted anybody out. So, no, I believe there were others who were in the group, did attacks, left the group, and are still out there. Besides the fact that we never found the Welch 45, the the 45 that was used in at least seven close-in assassinations, we never
[21:26] found the typewriter that was used to type the manifestos for the first, you know, 10 or 15 years of the group's attacks. Somebody's got them. They're in somebody's house. So, no, I believe some of them are still out there. Did the CIA know more information that actually didn't make it to the public regarding 17 November's ties to Pasok? No. Uh, in fact, I'm surprised that the information got out there in the first place because it was very highly classified. I don't know who in the world leaked it. It may have been on the Greek side. It probably was on the Greek side, but um there were
[21:59] always rumors that there were ties between this group and and the uh the prime minister's office or members of Basok. We were never able to prove anything. Uh but the rumors were certainly out there. Do I believe that DARPA is behind Elon Musk's Neuralink? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but yeah, I do. I do. I You know, one thing that Elon Musk hates doing is spending his own money. He'd rather spend your money and my money, taxpayers money. So, if DARPA is doing the same kind of of uh experimentation and research, why would
[22:31] Elon Musk pay for it? So, yeah, I think there's probably a very highly classified um uh relationship between DARPA and Elon Musk on Neuralink. Yes. And finally, did I know Steven Lawless? I did not know Steven Lawless personally. I gave an interview about his case, I don't know, a week ago, maybe to one of the big Greek newspapers. For for those of you who don't know, Steven Lawless was was an American. He worked for the government. He had a top secret security clearance. And he was
[23:01] recruited by the Greek National Intelligence Service, Abe Abe, which gave me one of the awards that I have on my shelf up there in the in the middle up there on the top right. Um, this was very provocative. I mean, this was done by the the conservative government in the mid 1990s, not by the socialists. And it was so sensitive that Lisa's handler was reporting directly to the director of EE. It didn't go through the chain of command because AE was
[23:31] afraid that the CIA had recruited somebody in E and that they would tell the CIA that there was a a double agent and then there would be this whole sting. Well, Lis got caught and um he didn't do a ton of time. He did something like seven years and then when he was released, he was given Greek citizenship and he moved to Greece. The reason why I gave this interview last week is because he's bitching in the Greek press. Oh, I'm broke. I don't have any money to live and I I have to rely on the kindness of strangers to put food on the table. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have been a spy against your country.
[24:02] And the Greeks are like, "Ah, that was 30 years ago. Nobody even remembers this guy. Why should we give him anything? We paid him while he was being a spy. It's not our fault that he blew the money and went to prison. That was a risk he knew he was taking. So, sorry. I don't have any sympathy for Steven Lawless. He knew exactly what he was getting into. Thanks for your questions, Harry. Scrawny Bravo says, "Hey, John. Thank you so much for your commitment to keeping your platform interactive and doing these Q&As. I love them." So, I'm I'm very happy to do
[24:33] them. I think it's important and beyond that it's awesome for us. Thank you. Hoping for that pardon soon. Thank you. I'd love to hear your take on China's worldwide illegal fishing fleet. Oo, that's a good question. To me, it's one of the biggest problems in the world today with how fast they're degrading the oceans, but no one seems to talk about it. Is there anything that could be done or is it too entrenched in the seafood industry? Man, that is a great question and that's not an issue that anybody has ever brought up with me. You know, funny as it may sound,
[25:04] when I was stationed in Bahrain, I was the embassy's fishing officer. Isn't that funny? I was the econ officer. And because I was the only econ officer in the embassy, I also did banking, I did aviation, I did fishing, and I did environment. The first time I got an instruction from the State Department to go to the Bahrainis, it was over something that I thought was so ridiculous and so funny that I was reluctant to make an appointment with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I did it anyway, but I had to
[25:36] go see the deputy foreign minister, Gaziel Gosi, Ambassador Gazelle Gosbi. He had been the uh Bahraini ambassador to the UK. And I went to him and I said, "Your excellency, I have a demarsh that I need to deliver. This is a formal request from the government of the United States to the government of Bahrain. I said, "Your excellency, we are in a fishing dispute with Canada and it's becoming so important and so dangerous that we have actually decided to send a naval vessel
[26:07] off the coast of Western Canada." He says, "Oh, I'm intrigued." I said, 'We in this serious fight with the Canadians over whether or not clams are fish. The American government position is that clams are fish because they move more than 10 ft a day, right? They they open their little clam shell and they're able to like hop. If you look at at them on a sped up camera, you can see them like hopping and they'll they'll go 10, 20,
[26:37] 50 feet in a day. So, we believe they're fish. The Canadian government says that they are not fish, they're shellfish. And it doesn't matter how much they move because there are ocean currents that may help their movement. And we shouldn't believe that they're jumping, you know, with their opening and closing their little clam mouths to to hop. I don't really care whether they're fish or shellfish. I don't care. But the government's position is that they are fish. and by God, we're ready to to fire
[27:09] rockets at Canadian fishing vessels. That led to a conversation with him about Chinese fishing. The Chinese are such prolific illegal fishermen that the oceans are actually running out of food fish, right? I mean, there are lots of fish in the ocean that you just can't eat. You can't eat sharks because they don't pee. Their pee goes into their meat. It's it's uric acid. It goes into their meat and so the meat is poisonous. That's why
[27:42] shark fin soup is such a delicacy because it's the only part of the shark that you can eat. It doesn't get urine, whatever. Um, the Chinese are over fishing everything. Chilean sea bass, for example, it's almost extinct and that's why it's so crazy expensive because the Chinese have fished it all. Um, Alaskan cod. What are the Chinese doing in the um, not Alaskan? Sorry, Alaskan cod. Yes, there is Alaskan cod, which the Chinese have overfished, but
[28:13] Atlantic cod. What are the Chinese doing in the North Atlantic? The Americans, the Canadians, the British, the Icelanders, the the the Irish, they should be the ones fishing up there, but it's the Chinese. I went to Antarctica on my honeymoon, and what did we see down there? Chinese fishing ve vessels in Antarctica. So yeah, this is a very serious problem that that western governments need to band together about and uh and we need to we need to make diplomatic uh efforts
[28:46] first, diplomatic efforts to stop the Chinese from doing this. And you know, if if the Chinese drift into national waters, no matter what the country is, they need to be escorted into port and have the have the fish and the uh and the vessel seized. We need to we need to let the Chinese know we're taking this very seriously. E1 CHY N0.0 says, "Hey, John. I love hearing your perspective on the Middle East and geopolitics at large. I think you're one
[29:17] of the most important and needed voices in America right now. Thank you for that. You've spoken many times about CIA involvement in the Middle East and other regions of the world. However, I wanted to ask if you have any interesting stories about the CIA in the US territories such as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, or the Mariana Islands. As a Puerto Rican, I am especially interested in this topic. Thank you for standing firm on your morals and not compromising under pressure. You're a hero for many, including me. Thank you. God bless you and your people and thank you for your time. Hope you get that well-deserved
[36:02] and Russian literature, the wife. I mean, these are people who know every last detail about these issues. And when we get together, we talk about Russia, Russia, Russia. They say that this is an easy question to answer because the war is essentially over. Russia's won. Ukraine can't fight the Russians back. Aside from the fact that Russia is a nuclear power, the Ukrainians just don't have the manpower. They don't have the wherewithal and the United States is not
[36:33] a reliable ally because it depends, frankly, on who happens to be in the White House whether or not they're pro- Ukraine or not. The Ukrainians will likely have to make a deal and the deal is going to be in Russia's favor. Uh, as many of us said from the very outset of the war, the Ukrainians are going to have to give up territory and um and they're not going to look like what Ukraine looks like today. They're probably not going to be allowed to join NATO in whatever the final agreement is, but they will likely
[37:04] have fasttrack approval into the European Union. Look at Cypress. Cypress isn't in NATO, but it is in the European Union, and it is a wildly successful economy now. They had a banking problem 15 years ago, but no more. Cypress is a wonderful, wonderful place, successful, strong economy, um, attractive to foreign investment. Ukraine could be the same. So, I I think that for all intents and purposes, the war is over. Russia won. It's just a question of formalizing
[37:34] things. Uh, second, with the Soviet Union collapsing, can I discuss Yelton's Russia? Yeah, it was it was like it was like Chicago in the 1920s, you had this incredible uh division of wealth where people became billionaires literally overnight because they looted the national economy, right? All of a sudden, you have an aluminum billionaire, oil billionaire, gas billionaire, this billionaire, that billionaire. They're buying giant houses in Mayfair, London,
[38:05] uh in the just off the Shams vis in in Paris and um and in Beverly Hills. Where'd that money come from? They looted it from the Russian people. Yelten was strongly pro-American and he and Bill Clinton had a a wonderful personal relationship. But Yelten was a fall down drunk and he was a terrible leader and the economy of Russia went to hell under under Yeltson's leadership. You know, when when Yeltson was just
[38:36] about to leave office, the United States negotiated with with Putin and said that the United States would have no objection to Putin rising to the level of of president so long as he didn't prosecute Yeltson. Just let the old man go off into his drunken retirement. And that's what happened. Good question. The real Brizzo says, "Hi, Mr. Kuryaku and thank you for your service. Thank you. I found it very interesting that you have decided to pursue an acting career." Oh, no, no, no. I haven't I haven't I'm not pursuing an acting career. I just acted in that
[39:07] movie as a as a favorite to a friend. Um, it was fun and it's a fun uh hobby, but no, no, my my life is is in writing. I've sold uh seven pilot scripts in Hollywood over the last 14 years. Now, I'm represented by one of the biggest talent agencies in the world, and I'm going to be doing a lot of writing in Hollywood, but not acting. I'm not an actor. I'm a terrible actor. Wait till the movie comes out. The movie's actually quite good. It's called u Below
[39:37] World's End. It's quite good. Uh I'm by far the worst actor in it. Just awful. Although, I'm going to blow my own horn here. When I had dinner with Sean Penn a few weeks ago, he had just watched the movie that day. He watched a rough cut of the movie and he said, "Hey, the movie was really good." And I said, "The movie was really good. I I watched it with my girlfriend and she just balled at the end of it." I I was looking at her like seriously. She says it's beautiful. It's a work of art. I was terrible. I was stiff and unconvincing.
[40:09] My posture was bad a couple of times. I didn't realize that I walk with poor posture. I got to do something about that. But Sean Penn said, "No, you were good." And I said, "Oh, thank you. No, I wasn't. I was stiff and unconvincing." He said, "No, you were actually good." He said, "You were bold and mercurial. I I haven't used the word mcurial in 40 years. Anyway, he said, "I was bold and mercurial." And then he said, "You acted every
[40:39] single day of your CIA career and you don't even realize it." And I thought about it afterwards and he was right. So, I have two questions for you regarding similarities of the skill set needed for both acting and being a CIA officer who constantly lies or plays a role. Yes. Yes. Do you know of any other intelligence officers who have later pursued an an acting career or vice versa? Yes, I do. Uh Mike Baker. Mike Baker. I replaced Mike Baker in in Athens. And u Mike first went to
[41:09] Hollywood. He had a couple of of bit parts. Couldn't make a living as an actor and then went into news and commentary. He spent years at Fox News. Um but yeah, Mike is one. Joe Weisberg's another one. Joe and I work together in uh in the counterterrorism center. One day he came up to me and he said, "Hey, I resigned today." I was like, "What? Why?" And he said, "This job, it's just not for me. Convincing people to commit espionage, it's just not for me. Like in my gut, I can't do it." I said, "My god, man, what are you going to do?" And he said, "I'm not married. I don't have any
[41:42] kids. I'm going to Hollywood to find my fortune." And he went to Hollywood and he created The Americans. and he made more money than he can count in a lifetime. So, because he's an A-list writer and showrunner, he appears in his own shows and bit parts and and um is highly highly sought after. I have deep respect for Joe Weisberg. Uh let's see. I feel like an actor would make a great asset with their ability to play a role. Yes. Yes. And and both you
[42:13] and Sean Penn are right. CIA officers in operations act every day of their lives. You have to take on a persona that's not yours. You have to remember it and you have to live it on a daily basis. I'll conclude this comment by stating as a history major, I know the importance of time and human recollection. The people who have wronged you are finally being shunned for the cowards that they are. That is true and I say it all the time as they should. They will go down in history as evil, spiteful people, while you will be honored in history as the man who did the right thing while everybody did nothing. PS. favorite
[42:44] quote of yours. We're Americans. We're better than this. Thank you. That actually makes my day. Thank you. Tomorrow, when I say tomorrow, we're recording this on Saturday. We always record it on a Monday and release it Monday afternoon. Recording it on a Saturday because tomorrow I have to go to Ireland. And I'm going to Ireland because I'm I'm being honored by the Irish government with the highest honor that they bestow on a person. It's called the Gold Medal for integrity in the public discourse. The last seven recipients,
[43:15] two have been presidents of countries, five have been winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, and me, crazy as that sounds. Um, but it's because I keep talking about these issues, and you are exactly right. My detractors are either dead or retired, and they found themselves on the wrong sides of history. I own what I did. I proudly served 23 months in prison and I would do it again
[43:46] tomorrow if I had to do it. So, I know I made the right decision. And and as these guys are dying in their obituaries, it always says they were instrumental in the creation of the CIA's torture program. We knew that was going to happen. At least I did. I knew it was going to happen. You're going to have to own these decisions. You were so important at the CIA and you so thought you were the good guys and you weren't. You were psychopaths and now you have to own it. So there it is. Thank you for
[44:17] your support. Jameson is away says, "Hi John. Big fan from Dallas here. I love your work and the things you stand for. Thank you. First, what the hell is going on in Myanmar? Huh? Why is no one talking about it?" Yeah. Also, huh? What will the outcome mean for the world? Also, I work in the theater industry and I'm curious if you're a fan at all and if you have a favorite play or musical. Stay safe. I wish you well on getting a pardon, whether it's this administration or another. Thank you for all of that. First, it just so happens that my dear
[44:48] friend Bruce Fine, who has been a guest on this show and will be again very soon, um represents the Kirin people of Myanmar. I've learned a lot from Bruce about Myanmar. I've learned, for example, that Myanmar is the only country in the world that has been continuously at war without a single day of peace since World War II. Can you imagine that? Not one single day of peace since World War II.
[45:21] There's this there there are a whole bunch of different ethnicities in Myanmar and a whole bunch of different religions and the Buddhists including that peace lover Angansuchi um who's a a fraud in my view and should have her Nobel Peace Prize stripped from her. Um they are fundamentalists. They hate Muslims. They hate Christians.
[45:51] They hate Hindus. They hate everybody who's not just like them. And so they kill them. They bomb them. They shoot them. They round them up and put them in camps. They'll let them starve to death in prison. Or worse yet, they beat them to death in prison. The country is not it's not viable as a member of the of the global community. Why is no one talking about it? It's sad
[46:21] to say because nobody has any national interests in Myanmar. Myanmar doesn't have oil. It's got beautiful gems. It's famous for its rubies and its sapphires and its emeralds. They're the highest quality gems in the world. You know, a Burmese ruby. Who who wouldn't want one? They're in the Smithsonian Institution for heaven's sake. But there's no oil. It's not strategically located. So, nobody nobody cares. It's it's it's just awful. But you know, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a Kuwaiti one
[46:52] time. We had just liberated Kuwait. And I mean like a week or two earlier. The whole country is on fire from the oil fires. And this Kuwaiti said to me, you know, I don't celebrate the Americans. I'm not glad you're here. You had to liberate us. And I said, well, that's kind of an unusual position. What What brings you to that conclusion? He said, because we have oil. If we had gravel, you would never be here. And I said, "So,
[47:23] so we have national interests. Every country has national interests." So what? You're right. First, if you had gravel, we wouldn't give a But you don't have gravel. You have oil and we did it. Would you rather? We hadn't done it. Hadn't have done it. And he just kind of sat there and looked at me. But that's how Myanmar is. it it has gravel and so nobody cares. Nobody cares about the atrocities being committed against their own people. Do I have uh first of all, yes, I love the theater. I really do. Um I actually went to a musical a
[47:55] couple of days ago called a musical and I'm not into musicals, but it's called um young John Lewis and it was about congressman and human rights leader, I'm sorry, civil rights leader and human rights leader John Lewis and it was absolutely wonderful. It was at the Mosaic Theater here in Washington on 8th Street Northeast. Absolutely wonderful. I'll tell you too, I saw a play there during COVID and it was called The Interrogation. It might be the best play I've ever seen. It was a single act, went an hour and a half and it was about a woman, a a
[48:28] university professor, an American who was arrested by the FBI and is being interrogated by someone. You don't know if it's FBI, CIA, you don't know. And you don't know if this professor just got scooped up in something or is she a true believer or what. I mean, the play was about civil rights and human rights. And if you're an American, what are your rights?
[48:58] At the end of it, I mean, it's not normal for me to get chills when I'm watching a play. I got chills and leapt out of my seat to applaud at the end of it. But at the end of it, you genuinely don't know who this interrogator was. He never identified himself and whether or not this woman was a terrorist. So, it really made me think, you know, there's another thing here in the summertime in Washington where they'll do theater week
[49:29] and every single theater in town puts on plays. Well, at the um arena stage, which is an absolutely wonderful venue, they'll do like five, six, seven plays, you know, over the course of the weekend, and you can buy a ticket to one or two or all seven or whatever you want. And during COVID, I did that and went to all of them. In one of them, it was so hot that the the power went out and the lights went out. So all we
[50:00] had was just a little bit of sunlight just barely streaming in. The actors never missed a beat. They never stopped speaking. They never dropped a line. They never, you know, smiled or laughed or anything. They just kept right on going. It was just, it was just unbelievable. I was really