Danny Jones Podcast - #206 - CIA Spy & FBI Agent Expose TRUTH about UFOs & China

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

CIA spy Andrew Bustamante, FBI Special Agent Jim DiOrio, & Julian Dorey discuss the current state of the world. SPONSORS https://mudwtr.com/danny - Use code "danny" for 15% off https://mybookie.ag - Use Code DJP when depositing $50 or more ANDREW BUSTAMANTE LINKS Find your spy superpower: https://everydayspy.com/quiz Learn more with Andy: https://everydayspy.com Follow Andy's podcast:  @EverydaySpyPodcast  JULIAN DOREY LINKS  @JulianDorey https://instagram.com/julianddorey https://twitter.com/julianddorey FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/jonesdanny https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - Why are Feds called Spooks? 06:59 - Filming Beyond Skinwalker Ranch; UAP Senate Hearing 17:41 - David Grusch; Black budgets 26:23 - The Government 's job to keep the people wilfully ignorant 46:07 - Andy & Jim's proposal to Bobby; advising on secret service security detail 55:07 - How Bustamante met Matt Cox & Danny 59:33 - CIA perspective on Russia/Ukraine Conflict 01:03:02 - CIA / FBI analysis on Prigozhin death & Outcome of Russia/Ukraine 01:20:31 - Truth About Federal Budget and Planning 01:24:15 - Analysis of Prigozhin's plane crash; it was an air-to-air missile 01:58:10 - Biggest problem inside the FBI 02:16:21 - Biggest problems inside CIA 02:39:34 - North Korea & China 02:40:48 - Why China is thriving 02:52:18 - Does Xi Jin Ping want war with the US? 03:10:29 - China / Russia relationship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Where did this word spook originate when referring to a CIA agent? Or an FBI agent? Why are they called Spooks? The closest thing I've been able to come up with is the reference to ghost. Yeah. Right? They're not there. Little Houdini action.

That makes sense. Disappear when they can. I think that's right. But what about the glow in the dark thing? I still don't know where that is. That one is. That one is lost on me. Yeah.

Every time I see those comments saying that, we glow. I kind of want to get pissed but then I don't know what I'm pissed at. So then I'm like, yeah, I don't really know what this means. Steve, you want to cut the lights and see if he glows? You might too, Jim. I don't know. Sure he's out on you. Oh, ooh. Oh, we are.

There's a little light sneaking in. We got the back lay, so. He's good. Yeah. Yeah, they're good. They don't glow. They don't glow. Conspiracy denied. X spooks. That should speak to our longevity. Yeah, I think so. It's a good thing for life.

We're a vampire note. Well, thank you guys for coming back. Round two. Oh, hell yeah. Spook Fest, 2023. This is like Christmas morning. CIA versus the FBI. We've been waiting for a long time to do this.

We had a great weekend. And we're here. This has been a killer weekend, man. Coming down here and getting prepped for the podcast? Are we allowed to talk about all of it? Yeah, I think why wouldn't we are? I think it's all. I'm allowed to talk about it.

I don't know about you. I can't speak for these guys. Fucking Danny Jones watching the sun come up with strippers in the back. Savage. We wake up. I love that I get a text from your wife like, Law. Danny was out till 6.

you guys get back and I'm like 3.30. I need this wife. I need Lexi. This is great. She's my secret weapon. Yes. I dropped you guys off at like 3.30 at your house and then my buddy Shane came back and he's like, bro, the clubs don't close until 630. One more lap dance for the boys. I just wish I could get a video of Jimmy D. getting a lot, getting strippers just right up in there. It was great. It's a sight to behold. Definitely got a sore neck. Who was your favorite girl?

I think Andy and I were pretty much falling in love consistently, which each girl that walked out. But I did like that the jewels. Oh, yeah. She called herself bubbles. Yeah, bubbles. But we called her jewels. Yeah, we liked it because it was jewels.

Is that karma with a sea? That might be karma with a sea. Definitely the line of the weekend. Andy's sitting there and he pulls a stripper close. He's like, I'm sorry, I just got to ask, what's up with the AK and the karma tattoo? She has these two tattoos on her belly. That's a brave girl in general. Would she say?

Definitely. She was like, well, I like AKs and I believe in karma. And he goes, fair enough. And then she walks away and he goes, and that's why she's a stripper. A classic line. One that will go down in history. The thing that was the most disappointing to me, though, was that we're in a strip club. It's great strip clubs.

You picked great places for us. But the people that came up to us the most, I'm pretty sure we're men. Because they recognized us from TV and from podcasts. So here we are in a strip club surrounded by women who get paid. to show you attention in the place where we get the most attention. Yeah. Is from other men in the strip club. Trying to give us things, which we didn't want from them.

So it was perfect. You got hit in the humidor the other day in the cigar shop. That was wild. So Julie and I are on our way. Pick him up at the airport, Tampa Airport. Andy's coming in later. We go to Danny. We're going to go to Danny's house.

We're going to bring some cigars and maybe a little bit of wine and the like. So we stop in here. We're in the humidor, small humidor. And then comes a guy. And he's like, wait a minute. I know you from Danny Jones, from Connie Jones. from concrete. So I'm like, thank you.

He said that? Yeah, he said that. So I'm like, thank you so much, sir. Hopefully you can get some teeth here in the future. But my fan base is strong. And at that point, I say, hey, I'd like to. No, no, your listeners do have teeth. But this man, like a nice meat from your podcast. So really my fans, I don't have teeth.

That's a perfect scenario. Fair enough. Right? So now I say, hey, this is Julian Dore. He goes, yeah, I know you too. But doesn't say too much until he walks out and he goes, yeah, yours is pretty good, too. as he staggers out with his marijuana cigar. So it was a class.

Andy's getting recognized by like executive chefs. Jim's like, we really got to work on our class here. God damn. Everybody's coming out, giving Andy free desserts. Andy's trying to introduce like Jim, Julian, and me to everybody. Like, oh, yeah, that's cool. Anyways, Andy. Nice to see you, too.

Ship back down. Thank you, sir. Oh, God. But no, it's a hell of a job hosting us, man. Yeah, man. I mean, it's impossible to say no to this invite. Well done. Danny Jones, host of the year. Next year's in Hoboken.

Yes, sir. Round three. Studios looking precious to Julian. A new studio. Which, by the way, a huge shout out to you on the side for helping me build some of that. And Stephen back there figuring out the lighting situation, I'm so excited to unveil that in a few weeks. It's going to be good. We came in. We came in and did some work.

And people are going to be psyched to see that new studio, bro. It looks really good. Yeah, I'm trying to get you to move the family up to New York. Never. It's never going to happen, bro. The hardest sell for a family in Florida. That's the last place I'd ever go, to be honest. You're going to lose them to the streets here.

So I'm doing a TV show, right? And the next show that we're doing has... This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new elixir collection, featuring three perfume intense scents, inspired by a unique orchid accord, paired with vanilla, each with its own distinct attitude, each with its own universe, bold elixir, sensual, woody, addictive, magnetic elixir, sweet and romantic like a lingering touch. Solar elixir, a radiant expression of joy, ultra-concentrated for amplified impact and lasting power. Find your euphoria. Discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein.

A filming segment in New York. So whenever you're doing a TV show, you have to abide by the laws of the state of California, and you also have to abide by the laws of the state that you're in. So it's actually really restrictive, how many hours you work, what you do, who you talk to, whatever else. So New York State actually had a mandatory sexual harassment training video that we all had to complete and we all had to pass in order to do our five-day shoot in New York City. Really? In New York State. So it was like going right back to corporate America again, man. It was a YouTube video.

It was like 65 minutes long. Anybody can find it. New York State sexual harassment training, you know, 18 questions, just like you and I used to do at the agency all the time. Oh my gosh, man. Check the box. Yeah, true or false, A, B, C, or D, which of the following it denotes sexual harassment. And it was insane to me to see how New York defines things like harassment, inappropriate behavior, et cetera, et cetera. Because it's like what we used to think was flirting is now illegal in the state of New York.

It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't even. Thank you, Cuomo. Did you watch it on three times speed? Ah, see, I'm not quite smart. enough to do that yet. I had my little questionnaire sheets finish this shit. I had two days to

finish it. I was like, this sucks. Did we talk about on the last episode, did we talk about your big TV show that you've been doing? No. I don't think we talked about it. I don't think it was a big TV show then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, now it's History Channel's largest new show in the last five years. Congratulations. Really? That is awesome. And you do a great job on it, bro. Thanks, man. So for the people that don't know out there. I know a lot of people are very familiar with Skinwalker Ranch, but you are doing beyond Skinwalker Ranch. You're about to film season two,

which is great. But what'd you find? Some weird shit, man. You know what's wild? It's not the 98% of stuff that you see out there that's weird, but explainable. And that's the thing that people don't understand. All the people out there who nay say UFOs and nay say aliens and all the

skeptics out there, they all point to all the stuff that we know. Well, yeah, no shit. We already know it. That's not where the fascination and discovery lies. In knowing what you know, there's nothing interesting there. It's in finding the 2% that you don't know. What is that about?

And there were multiple times on that show. I mean, we're tracking data. So we're in a ranch in Colorado, for example. And we're sitting here and it's nighttime. We're seeing lights in the sky. We're seeing strange readings in terms of radiation levels and energy ratings. And we're tracking. tracking flight trackers, we're tracking satellites in the sky, we're tracking as much as we can track

and ruling out a lot of what we see, but only a lot of what we see, not all of what we see. So what is the remaining 2 to 5% of strange stuff in the sky? Now, I'm not saying it's all aliens, but what I am saying is it's something we don't know. Does that mean it's a foreign adversary? Is that the light reflecting off of the sun past the horizon, reflecting off the underbelly of a satellite that's not something we're going to have in our satellite tracking software yeah is it a special project can you see my shirt great shirt how's the camera looking on my shirt damn it you need it off you got to fix it that's who's responsible for skinwalker ranch yes DARPA

DARPA nothing to see here and not to be mistaken with DARPA so you think it could also be some of our own, obviously, like, weapons testing. Because one of the things you were saying is that there's a bunch of these, like you made it sound like a lot of these testing bases that we've never heard of. Yeah, it's not just like the ones that are on Wikipedia and stuff. Oh, yeah. There's so much more than what's already publicly known. If you think about it, every time something becomes publicly known,

then it basically gets burned. You have to find a new site to do it in. Like Area 51, for example. Everybody talks about Area 51. I'm more interested in Area 52 and Area 50. and area 50 that nobody talks about. Exactly. Because if you know what the actual facility looks like,

there's multiple areas. They're all just separately fenced off. There's like 25 different investigative or experimental areas, experimental areas, all in the same compound. But people only talk about area 51. And when they talk about area 51, they think they're referencing a specific area, not realizing that their specific area is a huge test range.

Now, when you guys did that show, Did you guys mainly focus on Skinwalker Ranch? Did you guys go anywhere else? We didn't focus at all on Skinwalker Ranch. That's why it's called Beyond Skinwalker Ranch. There you go. Dumbass. Where else you go?

What am I supposed to know? I don't know Jack's shit about TV. I don't blame you, man. No, we went. So essentially what we tried to do, so Skinwalker Ranch, if you don't know, is a strange place. It's this ranch in Utah. It's got a long history of connection between high strangeness, which is strange phenomenon. Everything from like alien sightings to space craft sightings to like Bigfoot sightings, orb sightings, all sorts of strange stuff in one geographical area.

Our goal was to basically see if there are other geographical areas in the continental United States that have multiple points of data overlap with Skinwalker Ranch. Because what the Intel people will tell you is that one point of corroboration is worthless. You need multiple compounding points of corroboration. Right? If something has feathers and quacks and has a bill, then it might be a duck. If it just quacks, it could be anything. Jim, did you guys, I've never really asked this because everyone always just thinks about like some of the agencies when we talk about. Yes, I did have hair at one point. Oh, you did. Sorry. I did. Yeah, I was jumping. That was a long time ago. Yeah, it's all good. But at the FBI, like, we hear some of the stories about how they had every iteration of like Hitler, for example, around the office and what he could look like. Because. Hoover and others there didn't think he lived. So you look at some of these like Bigfoot type ideas that you guys are at least paying attention to. Did you guys have any type of division or focus on potential crafts that are not of this earth? Well, listen, I don't have any

independent knowledge of that. However, it'd be hard to believe that it doesn't exist, that it does not exist. I think the closest that we came to at least understanding as students at Quantico was this behavioral science unit that was extremely unique, really had a specific mission. It didn't really look anything like they make it out to look on TV, you know, with criminal minds and that they're totally involved in every investigation that comes down the pipe from law enforcement across the country, across the world. But I always had the sense that it had to exist. And there were individuals that I got to know along the way. whose career paths were different than my career path.

Very different. And most of the time, well, most of the time, if we're together and we have an opportunity to work together, we're going to talk about things. We're going to actually reveal specific items of factual nature and talk about it to help. Right?

I want to be able to say, guys, put eyes on this. You know, what do you think? And those guys and girls, none of that. That didn't happen. They take, right? Even sensitive stuff. It's kind of like a professional courtesy when you all have similar classification or similar security clearances. You kind of, you share.

You share because you all have access to need to know information. And guess what? In this case, you need to know the thing I'm talking about to give me some insight. But there are people who just take. There's no, and you get it. So after a while, you start to build your own kind of conclusion, I think pretty accurately. And you say, okay, I'm not going to push that person. But I will provide information.

not always just people who are doing what we call special projects, right, DARPA, for example. You always have to run all of the strange findings you find through an index of special projects. Like, could this be a special project? Could this be like a subdivision of a subdivision of a private military contractor that's running something new on our behalf through a special project, highly classified, highly compartmentalized program? But you're also separated out basically like in your own cells, like on a need-to-note basis with things. So it's not like you're read in for example as a spy on, oh, here's every single thing we're working on. It's nothing close to that, no? No, yeah, exactly. Because your, like, need to know is literally operation to operation.

So when we come across people who are takers, we come across these people who are in positions that are so sensitive that they don't share, that doesn't always mean that they're doing cool shit. Sometimes that means they're the ones spying on us. Right. Right? Because all of your internal counterintelligence, like the FBI department in charge of looking for FBI moles, the CIA department in charge of looking for CIA moles, those are people who are not. they're not going to share. And they're not wearing name tags all the time. Yeah. Definitely. What always cemented it for me and kind of got me to the point where I started to believe that this unit or whatever it was existed was when we would get, you know, actual asks from local county state departments about a certain situation.

So they would come upon something, a factual piece, and they would send it to me if I was in Newark or I was in New Jersey or wherever we were. and then we would forward it to behavioral science. And it was pretty amazing conclusions that behavioral science would make based on a very simple patrolman, and I'm saying it's simple, but based on a simple set of facts that a patrolman might come across. And next thing you know, you're really down a rabbit hole, but it's a very productive rabbit hole. What comes back is definitely an ask from the bureau. where you would really expect it to be, hey, here's a conclusion. You know, we looked at that and we got to this point and here to help you out.

More asks would come back. Now you're in the middle of a situation where you're trying to protect that local officer, but at the same time, you need to get the information, right? So that's when I always, hey, what's going on? You know, what's going on that we're getting on this simple little task, we're getting more asks? The thing that's really interesting about it all is that in order for an operation to be stood up, it has to be funded.

It's not like the TV shows where like, you know, Jim takes an interest in something so then he can run and I take an interest in something and we're like giving like a thumbs up to run with it. It doesn't work that way. You have to have funding approved. It doesn't matter your level of interest before you go. So if you're talking about FBI, you're talking about CIA,

you're talking about groups that have a vested interest in national security. That is the mission. So when funding is reviewed, the question that the funding source is asking itself is, is this operation going to contribute positively to national security? Think about how many times funding is denied. I promise you right now, you have no idea how often funding is denied. We know it well because you sit around all day long reading about denied funding operations.

So when funding is actually approved, that means that there's such a preponderance of evidence that it's a national security concern that the funding is approved. So when you hear like when a patrolman's correspondence, a report of something that he saw in Arkansas, New Mexico, whatever, when that actually makes it to FBI and then money is awarded for FBI to look into it, that's significant, right? That's not just some small thing. Absolutely, man. That's a great point. And you're right, because we actually have to sit in front of boards every quarter, even if we have a funded operation. We have to come back, can justify, first off, you know, with results, right? Because everybody has great intentions, got to have results. Once you get those results and you're moving it forward, you have to

prove your case, your need over and over and over again. And what I would see is a simple observation that there's never a need to continue to provide factual information or results in order to continue that particular plan. Who's doing that? It's not me. I was never involved in doing those things, even though I was at a level where I could have been, there's others that are doing those things. This is what that whole grush thing is about, right? He was in charge of finding missing money. There was like millions of dollars that were missing, apparently, that went to black programs,

right? What did you guys think of that whole thing? Black programs are a real thing. I mean, there's a whole black budget. It's a real thing. And that's an important thing because if you know what the budget is that's being spent, you can start to ascertain or start to deduce what it might be being spent on. So a black budget is an important thing.

Even to protect from accountants at CIA understanding what CIA is doing. They don't have a need to know. So why should they know whether we're spending $1 trillion or $12 trillion, whatever it might be? So black budgets are an important thing. When it comes to people who are whistleblowing in general, I find that it basically breaks into two camps. You've got genuine whistleblowers who know something. is going on that shouldn't be and they've tried to go through the proper channels

and the proper channels either haven't worked or they're working too slow so they come out publicly and blow the whistle. Then you have other people who are just not right, just not mentally right in the head and they've been in something so long or they're in something so deep, they've lost the larger perspective,

they've lost the mission essentially and then they come out and they whistleblow. From what I've heard, grush is more of the is the true type. of whistleblower. He saw stuff and then had people on the inside that just weren't working fast enough or he wasn't being taken seriously so he came out and spoke.

But there are plenty of other examples of whistleblowers who do the opposite. Danny, what did Sarpati say about Grush again? What was his take on that? He's a fucking idiot. No, I get a little skeptical and I think a lot of people out there do when you see

things pile on in almost in unison in a way. from so many governments. I mean, we just saw, like, that video in Mexico. I don't know if we can put that in the corner of the screen, Stephen, or if that's copyrighted. The aliens they just found in Mexico. No, like I said, that shit's been on the internet for a long time. Right.

But now they're, like, putting this whole dog and pony show on to make sure fucking everybody sees it. You know, and I'll say, like, when you listen to Grush Talk at Congress, like, not that this really counts for anything, but he comes across is pretty credible. But there's also so many arguments about what these things are. or they crafts from another planet or are they future humans you get the religious sect that wonders if they're like demons so they're you know some of it sounds crazy but

if we don't know what it is we don't know what it is and when you when you hear them going through it in the boxes you know when he says stuff about we have I may get this wording a little wrong but he's like we have possession of biological entities biologicals biologicals not of this planet

or something like that Is it this? Is that what he's referring to? Is it the little green man that James Fox is talking about in so many of his sightings or is it something else? I don't know.

Yeah, and it's important because biologics, what else is biological? Plants. Right? Sort of samples. There's all sorts of things. Germs, viruses.

What is, and taking things out of context, especially when it comes to the way government people speak versus the way that the lay civilian speaks, we speak in completely different terms. government people work really hard to use terminology that they can't be like held accountable to in the future. Right. So it's overgeneralized and under committed.

Meanwhile, civilians are coming out and they want to be like hyper specific about everything. So that's why you hear terms like, we have biological proof or evidence that is not of this planet or not of this known planets. Stephen, can you pull up the photo of David Grush during his testimony in front of Congress? Um, but if, if you were to play hypothetical roulette and say, are these things really aliens or are, is it, is it DARPA? What would your bet be? Wild guess. Oh, wow. That was fast.

Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt in my mind either. It's not a wild guess. I mean, I've been, I've actually spent over a year now traveling and researching this stuff. I, I, I, I, I've actually seen data. And I'm like, the 2% that I can't explain. It still fits terrestrial models. And you've also been public now, at least like on podcast and stuff, talking with Danny a couple years back, two or three years back,

that like you do think we are not alone in the universe. Absolutely. Right. So it's not like you're just like, oh, fuck all this stuff. We're the only things here. You just don't think the evidence we're seeing for maybe some of the specific stuff they're dropping is compelling enough.

And the things that you've seen up close, it seems to be, I mean, you and I were talking off air, but it seems like you're thinking Chinese spy balloons and DARPA. Yeah, I mean, it's, and this is just, I would love to hear Jim's take on this, but the way I see it is you have to start by ruling out what's known. If you can't rule out what's known, you can't leap that the solution is the unknown. It's not a, it's not a judicious way of analyzing a problem.

Yeah, slippery slope right there. I mean, I think that's, that makes a ton of sense. And the true, what I like about this guy, this is a true American patriot. whistleblower, right? So he is coming out to make some statements that definitely are at his, he's got some clear danger that he takes on, some clear risk doing this, right? So my thought on it is, and I think we talked about this on the last pot, it's the whole conspiracy theory generation. What's not known the gap needs to be filled. Yes. Right. So, but this guy knows he's been there. He's been in the middle of, right? He's not your traditional.

whistleblower. I mean, the Bureau has had issues across the board, and we've seen it every day with whistleblowers and what's going on. Sexual harassment in the Bureau. Never been addressed. And it never will be addressed. Look at the rose. Look at the rose behind him. Is that James Clapper? Look at Sean Ryan there.

So you got Sean Ryan there. Bill Gibson on the right. I think that's James Clapper right behind him. And then George Knapp, right? And then this is Jeremy Corbelle. Oh, yes. He's like the director of UFO dogs.

So it's really interesting to me because you have like this mixed bag. Yes. Of credibility behind him. But the other thing is he had to take the steps himself to come out and say something. Yes, absolutely. And that's a huge, that's a huge piece for a guy, especially a guy who's made a career in military? Exactly. Your traditional Army or Air Force officer.

Military guy, yes, sir. You know, moving forward, salute, move on. This guy, this is impressive to me. I'd love to meet this guy. I'd love to be one of the soldiers that found that in 1945. what the fuck were they doing here bro he said they went back to the 30s in Italy yeah yeah yeah yeah

they I think they maybe I'm remembering this wrong correct me in the comments if I am but it was allegedly from like 1933 or something Mussolini had it and then when the allies like took Italy in 44 or 45 they took possession of it I think or they knew about it through that

but I want to know Jeremy alien scientist told me that there was some fishy stuff about James Clapper and if James Clapper was there then that's like a red flag that this is all some sort of cover up or this is all some sort of limited hangout. Baldi on the left there, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't speak to that. I don't know. I don't know. What I would say, what I think is really relevant, I mean, I'm not the kind of person likes to pull summaries out of the details. I like to look at the strategic view and then let the details fill in the rest. And here's what we know.

What we know is that Congress has taken an interest in, unknown aerial phenomenon. What we know is that within weeks of the Chinese spy balloon being an international incident, three more UFOs were spotted over the United States. In my book, ruling out what's known versus unknown, we saw a spy balloon. It made the headlines. What does the government start looking for after that? More spy balloons. But if we call them a spy balloon, we just learned, it's going to cause an international incident. So instead of calling them spy balloons to the American people, we're going to call them UFOs. easier. Remember, the government's job is to keep the American people passive, calm, content.

When you start saying that there's spy balloons over missile bases in the United States, your average American does not stay passive and content. They start paying attention. And that's the thing that is so true about our current government. The government's job is to keep us willfully ignorant. The information can be there, but we want you to volunteer. choose ignorance instead. If you have to choose between the headlines or Netflix, please choose Netflix. If you have to pick between what you're going to watch on YouTube, I hope it's, you know, girls and bikinis on trampolines and not intelligent podcast conversation.

So damn true, man. So spot on. But from a CIA spy and FBI special agent in charge perspective, for you when you were doing your jobs, which would you prefer? Would you prefer? Agar and American people. Absolutely. Every day.

Lest they know, the better. our easier our job is. Saying the quiet part out loud there. Get out of our hair. You know, you know, what we want. What you want, and when you're a government professional, when you're in charge of doing anything that has to do with making decisions to keep the American people safe, the last thing you want is for every American person to have a say.

Think about every parent out there. Do parents let their kids vote on what they're going to have for dinner? No. Right, but you're saying that the United States are, is our parents and we're their children. That's not what I'm saying. That's how the structure is built. What do we call the founding fathers?

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And use the promo code Danny at checkout to get 15% off. It's linked below. Now back to the show. Not only is it what it is, it's what we fucking want. And for all the bitches out there right now crying or pissing up a storm because they're hearing us I want to be treated like an equal and I want to have a say. No, you don't. You don't. You want to be able

to get on your porn hub and whack off when you want to and be done with your day and go to sleep, willfully ignorant about all the crazy shit out there trying to kill you. Because it's easier. It's easier. It's such a... More peaceful. It's such a conundrum because they want us to be ignorant

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So the whole voting thing is interesting, right? The whole voting thing is interesting. Because if we just review the history of the United States, the United States was founded on what? White landowning men. That means you had to be white and you had to own land and you had to be a man. Right? But when we talk about our founding and when we bitch about it and when, you know, social justice or whatever else starts coming through, we kind of take it out of order. First, we bitch about the fact that you have to be a man.

Well, women should be able to have equal property rights too. And then we bitch about the race. Well, you shouldn't have to just be white. The last thing we talk about is the land owning part. Oh, you're saying we're, okay. We're backwards. The reason that you had to be a land owning individual of any color was because then you're invested in the success of the country.

Oh, that's not what I thought you were going to say. Okay. Now what we have is people complaining all the time that everybody's racially charged and sexually charged and there's all these biases that separate us instead of realizing, no, no, no, no, no. Right? The people who were originally supposed to vote

on the direction of the country were people who were vested in the success economically of the country. Now, any 18-year-old can vote. Even if they don't like the United States, they still have a vote. An equal vote to the land-owning, hyper-invested, highly patriotic,

American citizen, right? That's what's happened. And part of that mutation happened through our growth and our evolution through civil rights and through women's rights and everything else. But it also happened during Vietnam. Prior to Vietnam, you had to be 21 to vote. You had to be 21 to vote. You had to be 21 to drink.

Yes. But then in Vietnam, the draft came and the draft was how old? 18. If you can die for your country, you should be able to vote and get a drink. So they change the laws in multiple states so that people could vote younger and drink younger during the period of the draft. And then when the draft ended, some states went back and some laws did not. And that's how we made it so that 18 year olds now who are cognitively, biologically, not of sound mind. Right. Your cognitive brain has not matured

by the time you're 18, but you have a vote in what the direction of the country is. Yeah. And you are conditioned for whoever people are listening to that. And your family. And what's in your algorithm? Yep. Yeah. And what's in your algorithm? You know, it's interesting. It's still on military posts.

And I'm probably going to get a letter from superintendent at West Point. If you are on a military post and you're 18, guess what? You can have a drink there. Now, they don't encourage it. But, okay, all you cadets up there that are 21 and under, you're welcome. And you owe me one. But yeah, that's still the way. It's still the way. So, you know, my point is, just what Andy said, you're conditioned as an 18-year-old. First off, you have the right and are encouraged to vote. Secondly, you really don't have any clue as to why you're voting. Yep. No context. So if they're going so out of their way, and I'm not to speak about the U.S. here, I'm speaking about other governments as well. If they're going so far out of their way to, I don't know, what would you call it, push the UFO agenda or whatever? Is that a part of the whole, like,

like keep everyone fat dumb and happy? Like is that is that a piece of it? Where they like is that a distraction? It's a nice distraction. Right? Yeah. Just watch the follow the correlation. Follow the correlation between liberal politics and the UFO narrative.

Hmm. They go very close to each other, right? The Latin American countries that are the most vested in the UFO problem are also the most leftist countries. What about in this country? How so? What about in this country? I wouldn't have thought that.

Like I feel like that's not. Right now we have a very liberal. government, and that's become a very hot button topic. And for many, many years, UFOs wasn't a topic at all. And then we started having more and more divide, more and more left and right extremist points of view in our politics. And now at our most divisive points, we have UFO becomes a mainstream topic. Got it.

Right? Now, why? I don't know why. All I'm saying is if you follow the data, you can see the correlation between Chile, between Mexico, between Brazil, the United States now, right? Even in Europe the same way, right? France, the countries that care the most about these topics

tend to also be more left-leaning. One of the things that I wonder is it's because left-leaning governments are trying to appease the masses. The masses are interested in what other life is in the universe. So? They are now.

They were before. They always were. This goes to what you were saying last night at dinner when you almost ripped Julian's head off. That was hilarious. That was awesome. What was the point you were making? You were talking about the difference between Trump and Obama and how they communicate to the masses.

Yeah. So, and this is, again, this is just, I didn't, I'm glad that your head is still. You want to rip in my head. I was loving it. It was fucking great. It was incredible. I was like, where are the cameras and the mics? I know.

So it goes back to our conversation. It goes back to the topic about government is supposed to be a parent, right? If all government, all democracies, authoritative governments, dictatorships, they're all the parent. child relationship. It's just a different kind of parent. Like your dictator is your abusive parent. Yes. Right? You're your toxicly masculine parent. And then you've got some like liberal democracies that are like the touchy, feely hippie mom. But it's still parent child. Let me cultivate you. Let me raise you. Let me tell you what's right. Let me tell you what's wrong. Let me punish you if you step out of bounds. It's all for your best interest. It hurts me more than it hurts you.

That's the fucking relationship, man. Now, during the Obama years, Obama successfully passed this narrative to the American people that the government was trying to do the right thing. We're going to contribute to the global civilization. We're going to be global citizens. We're going to try and help our peers and we're going to invest in human aid or humanitarian aid and all this other stuff all over the world. Meanwhile, he's signing executive orders and using covert action to kill more people. than any other president ever in history, right, killing terrorist leaders,

killing terrorist cells, killing, killing Islamist extremists to try to keep America safe. Because even in Obama's eyes, priority number one was not global civilization. It was the United States. But he kept a barrier between the two.

That's like when mom and dad shut the door to have an argument in the bedroom while you guys are watching Netflix. That was the Obama administration. That was largely like the predominant political view of how career politicians manage the White House. And then you were saying Trump is the

Trump came in, pull the curtain back. Correct. It's the Wizard of Oz moment, right? He's like, let's open the curtain and look at the fucking wizard. It's a short angry guy that has like dials and whatever else, right? And Trump did it because Trump's a businessman. And he understands that the more people see what you do, the more they're divided. And when people divide in the terms of business, that's a good thing.

Because you want to subdivide your audience, because then that makes people super faithful and super resistant. And what's Trump's famous marketing quote? All press. He's good press. Yep. Right? So he ran the White House like you run a business.

Not like Trump runs a business, like every marketer, every CEO, every successful business person everywhere runs a business the way Trump tried to run the United States. And was it the Trump show all the time? Of course it was the Trump show all the time because his brand, his business is tied to the name. term Trump, right? He wants to drive that divide. Now, the American people are lost in the middle because they went from having mom and dad argue in the kitchen or in the bedroom with the door shut. So now mom and dad are arguing in the kitchen at dinner and the kids are like, oh, I think mom's crazy and dad's right. Right. Yeah. Wow. I mean, but there's also the concept of like

when you turn over power now so you go from w to obama they're politically extremely different but there's an understanding that people who sat in that seat don't they know and the people who have it they don't so there could be like a guy like obama going on the campaign saying we're going to end all these wars hope change whatever then he gets in there and w goes hey have a seat there fella let me tell you something that little covert action some cool shit right here you're going to love it and then he goes oh wait so i can use you guys these drones and that can be a little bit more deniable. Maybe people don't see some boots on the ground

and Obama goes, I kill two birds who once don't politically. Except that you're underestimating the fact that we're talking about career politicians, which going back to our founding fathers was never supposed to exist. Ever. Yeah. So career politicians mean that Obama as a senator knows about the process of covert action. Obama as a senator knows how the president has special authorities over the executive branch. Career politicians know that from their their junior freshman year, right?

They get that. So by the time they become president, they already know they don't know. But you got someone like Trump, on the other hand, who Trump's smart enough to know how the office of the president works for the most part. But then when he gets the option, do we kill people through covert action? Or do we kill people overtly

and let CNN and everybody else cover it? Well, hell yeah, we're going to do it that way. That's why you see all the brinksmanship stuff that Trump does. He starts an open trade war with China. He's like, there is active, active inbound aircraft going towards Iran and the whole world is watching and Trump sitting there like,

I'm going to let it go, I'm going to let it go, I'm going to make a phone call. We're going to call it. It's mainstream control. You make a great point on the active, you know, active trade war with China, right? So there was a point that I was exposed to a piece where he actually had named,

it never got off the ground, but he had named a czar against China's trade. And he's a businessman, a big time New Jersey businessman. Not Norah. No, another guy. high school buddy of mine who you'd all know but bottom line is that was that was in the process that's what he was doing that's he wanted that out there he wanted a face with this particular view to go out and say yep we're going to fuck you over every chance we get and we're coming at you

as opposed to what's going on today where I don't want to get in China's way I don't want to do you know that's what we got going on or do we yeah or exactly right or do we you know so it's kind of a, I love the point of, I love the wizard analogy. I think we all get that. We could see it. You know, we could see the two completely different views and where it's at. Beautiful. You know, beautiful. I mean, it's great. Why did your, because for people that don't know, for some of the Bustamante fans, tuning in right now who are less familiar with your full background, Jim, you know, a special agent in charge at the FBI, eight years serving as an army ranger before that in civil affairs, which we can all do math there. But your roommates at West Point, Mike Pompeo, Mark

Esper, were CIA head slash Secretary of State and then Secretary of Defense for Trump. And they didn't like them. And I know you had a lot of conversations with them. So if we're talking about some of like the behind the curtain is actually like the refreshing part about Trump, because there's a lot of things we complain about there, why did they hate them so much? So you get, I think you've got two different people, right? We talked about Esper. We talked about the regimental commander at West Point always was the same. He's never changed. He has been no different from the day he was a cadet as to he is at this moment. And so along the way, I think there was a lot of tension between the two of them because Mark is your true military man.

Mike is to an extent, but Mike's smarter. Mike's a smarter guy, right? So Mike knows how to, I think the CIA actually crafted him later in life with regards to understanding how, I don't want to say play the game. how to make things happen. So he just took that from CIA to State Department. He took it right into the White House. He took it right into the Oval Office. You know, if you read, I read both books.

Esper's was a little bit harder to read. Mike's was great. You know, and as my friends have said, man, there's nothing Mike didn't do himself. You know, that's kind of what they said. So it's an interesting peak. And I don't know that there was a strong distaste personally for Trump. but I do know there was a lot of tension. It was a lot of argument for the sake of ego.

Ego soul. You know, ego soul thing. There was never a soul with regards to, I love America. There was an ego piece. I love America. However, you better recognize me as a person. You got that Pompeo. You got my mic, whatever he called him.

You got it, Mark. One kind of ran with it because he was smarter than the other guy. The other one kind of jumped out. So that's my thought. Obviously, there's tons of stories that right now I'm not going to talk about with personal conversations with the two of those guys. But I think that the one thing they both agreed on was the fact that he loves and loved America. And that's why they were able to salute, yes, sir, you know, we'll move forward. The problem is, you know, the problem at the time was Mark Millie.

I mean, that's the problem in there, bouncing off of everybody. You know, as a military officer, he's a train wreck. You know, whoever came in last, he's going to side with that person. Oh, yeah, you make a great point. Oh, you make a better point. Oh, you make the best point. But I don't make any point. I don't make any points because I'm just looking for, you know, I wish I went to West Point.

One week he's walking to the church with Trump with all smoke bombs going off. The next week he's saying, I want to know about white rage. Exactly. It's like, all right, dude. Yeah, exactly, you know. But anyway, that's my two cents. Yeah, and I'm not saying the thing that America has not accepted, is that we all need to appreciate the Trump White House.

Because the Trump White House transformed, transformed the United States forever. Like in a way. In how many different ways, man. We went from mom and dad treating us like kids, and we weren't allowed to know the information, to all of a sudden we know the information is actually there. So now when you see the Biden administration stepped up

and they basically just replicate the Obama administration, and you see them try to take their conversations back into the bedroom and close the door. Now we're kind of sitting there banging on the door like, hey, we want to know what's going on too. We want to have a voice in this conversation too, right? The same shit happening now, we call the bullshit. Primaries for the Republican candidates just went down, right?

The first round of primary debates for Republican candidates for 2024. That brought up the question. Is there going to be a primary debate for Republican candidates? There are two Republicans, or I'm sorry, two Democrats, thank you. There are two Democrats challenging our incumbent president right now. Word came back from the Biden administration. Biden will not participate in debates. That's not new.

Who's the other one? There's RFK and then... Gavin Newsom. What's it? Gavin Newsom, right? He's challenging Biden? I don't know the second one off the top of my head, but for sure we got... Right?

We got Kennedy. Either way, either way, an incumbent president has not accepted a primary debate going back to like 31970. But we're in a world now where we have no problem saying, this is bullshit. Us in 1994, we were like, okay, that's just the way it is. Now we say, no, this is bullshit. We kind of want to see what these other folks have to say. Essentially, we, the American people, won't even get to be introduced to the contenders

for a potential Democratic presidential slot. We won't even get to know them ever on a mainstream stage. I mean, Vivek Ramoswamy? Oh, yeah, yeah. The whole world discovered him because he did an outstanding job in the primary debates as a good talker.

Great talker. Who is this guy you're talking about? Vivek Ramoswamy. What? His name is, and that's it, and that's it. The guy went from nobody knew him. Yeah.

Nobody knew him. Apparently Stephen doesn't either. Yeah, Stephen didn't know how to spell progoshin either. So he's great with lights. Great with lights. lights, but you have a lot of faith in the spelling. Stephen, there's a Times article, too, about Newsom. What do you think about, make sure we don't say the, I don't want to say his initials on

here, but Bobby, Bobby's security being infiltrated by that guy. Oh my gosh, man. Let me tell you something. That is probably, it has to be, yep, it has to be some, the most disturbing piece. And can I, can I, just have to chime in because you and I, maybe this makes the final cut, maybe it doesn't. Jim and I literally wrote a proposal for Bobby Kennedy's campaign manager. How long ago?

Two months ago? At least. Telling him in his top three threats that a human assault in a public event was something that he was going to have to make one of his top two to three primary issues and that we already were working on a plan to how to keep him safe. Right? Do diligence, advanced teams, et cetera, et cetera. And then two days ago or whatever it was, we see this article.

I'm like, Jim, we fucking wrote this down. price just went up yeah yeah and I mean you know you've got you've got a weird dynamic there so his his campaign manager strange bird right so um Kacenich yeah why is he strange is I mean was he an investigative I mean just think well no comment he just thinks but but he doesn't get it right so all you all we have to do is and there's a whole for me I have a whole theory on gaining secret services validation in order to move forward. Yes, there's things that you see that you have to achieve along the way. But it really comes down, it comes down to putting it in this simple terms of,

I'm going to probably get assassinated. If you, son of a bitch is don't get on my shit now. There's the gap. Andy and I spent the better part of a day authoring this perfect piece, in my opinion, and sent it off. and I got a phone call back. Yes, we like it. We're going to move forward after September 13th.

Literally. I think this happened. Wasn't that the date? Who was that? The 14th, maybe? The 14th or 15th happened. Who set you the response? So the contact between, we were one level down from him, from the main guy.

Okay. The contact sent back, love it. Let's get a little bit more detail after the 13th. And it had something to do. I think he was in New Hampshire. There was a visit. And we'll get this moving. And we really had it.

We had proposed a 90-dayer, right, to really just put an advanced team in place. How can you be taken fucking serious as a candidate for the presidency and not have an advance team? Have the hotel you're speaking at do your fucking advance. And that's what happened.

CEOs of middle-sized companies when they travel, they have advanced teams. Yes. Like there's a whole executive security protection group for most companies that have more than $100 million in revenue, so that before the CEO travels for anything, to go take their family of the Bahamas, to go to a speaking event,

to go to a conference, an advanced team goes out 48 hours beforehand, just double checks. This is how we get from the hotel to the conference. This is what's in the hotel. This is within the conference rooms. These are a couple of areas. I mean, and they're done by, what,

like 25-year-old veterans who just got out of their first military tour duty. Like, it's even the most basic stuff, in the world is done on a business level. But here we have a case, no advanced team was done. And then the risk, the potential human threat

was posing as a false officer. I mean, how do you? Open carry. Open carry and walked right into the event space by claiming he was part of the security detail to Bobby Kennedy. It's like taking a ladder into a building.

He looks the part. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go on in. And we talked about. That's right. We had that conversation. But to me, it's just you not only have the part for any candidate, right? Any candidate we'd be saying, you don't have an advanced team.

You've got to do the history, the track record of his family. They're fucking picking these people off. I mean, how do you not have that in place? Did you hear the story about when he went on Tim Dillon's podcast last week? No. They were doing a, I don't know if they brought any security at all. But apparently from what Tim explained, they were halfway through. the podcast and then the power of the building shut off.

And he was sitting, he was on, oh, Cheryl, Cheryl. You can do it better than I can. They're coming. They were sitting there for like 10 minutes by themselves, him and his wife. And they like had no idea what was going on. And they had to restart. And he was like super flustered after they restarted. And you know, you know, Tim was pissing him off with like the live coverage of it.

Like, hey, bye, about you feeling over there. Yeah. You think they're going to a little less hair? And you know, the other thing is, okay, it's all, it's all great for the American public to see. We caught the guy. Yeah. He's just one.

There's hundreds more out there that are watching that and saying, the money. He's got no one around him. That could be, that could even be somebody coming in saying, let's see what they do, let's see how easy it is. We talked about on a podcast, right?

Jersey City financial firm. Yes. It's pretty easy. It's not that hard to do. Can you tell that story? Just for old time's sake. Yeah, for old time's sake, real quick. I love this one.

Major company, major corporation, major managing partner challenges me. It's not a good idea to challenge me because obviously I'm getting worked up right now. Nobody's even challenging him. It's just a memory. It's just a memory. I need the image of Jim outside the Starbucks

and loading a clip like, yeah, I couldn't believe that. I mean, that was stupid. And I now know that because everyone's told me that. But sitting out at Starbucks right outside, it's pretty crowded. I'm in the corner with, you know, putting everything on, unloading it. And people are looking like, What the fuck? Is that guy homeless or is he doing something?

So, you know, get it all done. I checked it like, like, Julian knows. I checked it 50 times. You know, I'm like, all right, this is going to be great. Walk right in, right into the building. First line of defense is a 22-year-old, you know, recent college grad. How have you been? How you been? How are you doing?

How's everything? You're doing well? Hey, I'm just going up. You know where I'm going, right? Yep. Boom. Through. First.

Get to the elevator up to 13th, right up to the floor. Come off. There's the desk right there. Did you enjoy the bagels last way? It's this simple. Did you enjoy the bagels last week? I did. Oh, I did.

Yeah. I'm just going to go in and see him real quick. No problem. Walk by his executive assistant. How are you? Fine. Walk in. He's sitting at his desk, pull the gun out, put it at his head and say, we got a problem.

So bottom line is that is the exact. This is what they are doing. And this is a guy that is going to have more, he has more threats right now than he even knows about. Can you imagine sitting in there and cut the power? And he's by himself. He has nobody to say, can you, oh, my God. you please go check. No advance. They have, they have literally, I know this for a fact,

they have hotel concierges doing his advance where he's going. How would you like a nice dinner and then how would you like me to go ahead and map out where you should walk? Definitely not through the fucking kitchen. Not the same guy. Not through the kitchen. That's terrible. I'm sorry. God God forgive me. But that's, yeah, I mean, have at least one Delta guy, retired Delta guy, walking ahead of you make it look like you give a fuck the money the money i would have paid to see a sunglassed up angry jim de oreo on top of that motherfucker going give me a fucking reason give me a reason they just they put the cuffs on them they were nice they were standing them there we thought about reenacting that last

oh my god that would have been awesome they didn't give me that peach dessert i was going to go nuts christ maybe they'll maybe they'll give you the job now prices up hey you know we're the only ones that we're not the only ones that could do it but i think we'll do a damn good job Yeah, a big part of the problem is that the entire campaign for the Kennedy campaign right now is all based on how CIA killed his dad. And you're a spook. So, yeah, exactly. So what I would say is, Bobby, if you want to know who can keep you the safest, it's the person you're the most afraid of. Yes, that's what you were saying yesterday, too.

Absolutely. Julian said, if I was the CIA, I would be doing everything in my possible, everything in my power to keep him not dead. I make sure no one, if I'm, if, strictly, strictly from a, from a reputational risk assessment, I'm looking at a guy like Kennedy and a guy like Trump and saying, put him in a glass box, no one touches him. Otherwise, otherwise, it's just the whole progocean thing all over again. Oh, good segue. Holy cow.

You're getting good at podcasts. Yeah, man. Andy's got a killer podcast. It's almost like you have one yourself. Wait a minute, you do. So I'm sitting here with the two, with the two people who launched me. Like, that's fucking crazy, guys. Well, there's a third.

There's a third. We have the clip. Hold on. Matthew Cox. Let's give our dear friend, Matthew B. Cox. Let's give it, let's give credit where credit is due. We and Julian were not the first layers. There was a layer below us.

He's the, he's the G-fote. Greatest fraud of all time. Bustamante said he thinks that they're going to evade before the new, the presidential election. No. Like, I don't, I can't, I can't believe that. First of all, you need specialty class. That guy's a geopolit. I hear you.

I mean, I know that's just stupid to go up against Bousamante. But I'm saying that I was, I've been watching a bunch of videos and so that makes me an expert. TikTok all day. No, he's ex-CIA. Right. I know. I'm the one that told you, you've got to interview this guy. Who is he?

I don't know. Two weeks later, bro, did you call him? What, who is this again? What is he what? I don't know. He literally bugged me to call Bustamante for like six months before I called him. Now look at that guy. Then he calls him.

Boostamante blows up. He won't return a fucking tax. Wait till you see. You said you come on my program. It's like it's... He's working on something big right now. He's about to be worldwide. Insane.

Yeah, he's stepping on the backs of little people climbing the ladder. I get it. Oh, how dare you? Probably won't talk to you. He's not probably going to talk to you in six months. He'll be like, Danny Jones. God, that sounds for him. You cut off the end of that where he leans far.

He goes, it'll come to me. That is fabulous. How did you guys meet, by the way? So Matt was doing a screenplay version of one of the books that he wrote when he was in jail about a big guy who had ties, like a big criminal that he met in prison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who had ties back to CIA. And he found me through my first, like,

audio only podcast. And he reached out to maybe an email or something like that. And he was like, hey man, you know, I met this guy in prison who I think had ties to CIA but I'm writing a screenplay and I'd kind of like to run the story by you to see if it makes sense. And Matt and I just, I mean,

we clicked right away. Like this was, this was he was just a painter in freaking clear water or some shit. Like he was restarting life all over again. He had still had his website, his blog where he has all of his true crime stories. But that's, we just started kind brainstorming. That was way, way early.

I had nobody knew who I was. I didn't have my podcast up yet. I had nothing really up, right? I had a website. I don't even know how he found me necessarily. Pretty cool. Jim, you said he was a great FBI employee, right? I met Max and I met Matt in a different way. Probably

one of the best agents I ever had work for me. He's a solid, hey listen, he turned it around, man. He jumped on Team USA. He doesn't, he doesn't shy away from what he's done or who he was. And he's helped us shitload of people.

He has. That's a good, that's a great thing. I wish we can say that about some of the people who blow their own horn and haven't done that. Matt Cox has helped me a lot and he has never asked for a single thing in return. To this point, like I feel like I haven't given him enough value. Like, as hard as that is for some people to believe when they hear him tell a story and everything, like Matt is a very interesting human being. He's only got $5.7 million in restitution left. Oh, he's there then.

He's almost there. Paying back. At a hundred bucks a month. Paying back Bank of America. But yeah, then Danny, Danny here brings Bustamante on, does a bunch of killer podcasts, one three years ago, another one on UFOs. And then the third one was on Russia, Ukraine right when it was breaking out. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. You took the Taiwan thing, and then it was off to the races after that. Yeah, we'll see. It's football season, baby, and you know what time it is, time to gamble all that hard-earned money on some sports.

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So what are you paying attention to when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine thing right now? It's so interesting, man. It's so interesting. I would say there's kind of three layers to what I am watching, right? You've got the Russia layer, all the stuff that's happening in Russia. Progosion, I think, is included in that. Yes. Then you have the NATO support to Ukraine, which is also changing. And then you have the Ukraine piece, which is fascinatingly changing, right?

So just a real quick example, the new Minister of Defense for Ukraine, they change the Minister of Defense at the same time that there's a counter-invasion going on, right? A counter-offensive going on. They change the Minister of Defense. Why? Because of corruption issues. Oh, that's nice. When did we talk about... This is me actually, actually doing the whole Matt Cox thing.

I swear that sounds familiar. We talked about corruption at some point. When we first fucking launched this thing, dude, nobody was talking about the rampant corruption in Ukraine when this whole thing started. Right. Ukraine has been a corrupt country forever. It's basically a mini-Russia. So with like three out of ten on the Democratic Index, it was never a democracy. We called this out when the whole thing first started.

But now, almost two years into this thing, when Zelensky goes to NATO to ask for continuing support in the face of a counteroffensive that's not happening fast enough in the United States is facing a change in administration and Poland is facing a change in administration, these strong allies to Ukraine are all facing a political change. Then Zelensky is like, I need more support. And you know what the answer is? Sorry, buddy. We have problems with the fact that what we've given you in the past, you don't have good. authentic records to show us what happened with those things in the past. Yeah, didn't we lose like $6 billion that we couldn't even find or some shit? Not even accountable.

How are we going to give you more if we don't even know what it is? Oh, by the way, maybe you haven't seen our inflation lately. Oh, by the way, maybe you haven't seen that we're in a recession that we're doing our best to call it a soft landing. I'm about the Maui wildfires that need all that money to fix that place. So what does Zelensky do? 700 a person. Those are DEWs. So to close this off, what does Zelensky do?

He changes, takes out the Minister of Defense. who couldn't close the gap on corruption and brings in a new minister of defense with zero military background. Amazing. The new minister of defense's background specialty is in negotiating with Russia. Oh, nice.

So the new person in charge of the military for Ukraine is a trained negotiator. Why does they make him Secretary of State or whatever, their equivalence? Because we're starting to see what the future is going to look like. What we've always said it was going to look like. A negotiation, Russia's not getting

kicked out. Ukraine's not winning according to Zelensky's rules. Remember when Zelensky said we will not quit until every inch of the original pre-1976 boundary of Ukraine is recaptured. Now he's appointed a minister of defense who's a trained negotiator with Russia with no military

background. And poured the corruption charge on the last guy. He'll be fired. So it's just a perfect fucking situation. And we're sitting here just trying to... I mean, listen, let's think about it. Not one receipt for one of that $6 billion is returned in any way, an affidavit form.

I mean, even Dion Sanders is keeping receipts. Right? I mean, even Prime, Coach Prime is keeping receipts. These fucking people can't keep receipts. Oh, it shouldn't be that hard. That's incredible. Should be that hard. Just for people out there, like, we heard about this whole potential revolution

happening back in May or June with Progosion and the Wagner group. It felt like it was like a 10-hour story. And then, up, they made deal. No problem. And then now there's the whole plane getting shot out of the sky or whatever. So even before we get there, like, can you walk us all through that and what happened, like how long progoshan had maybe turned on Putin internally before that and what led to him actually doing this thing? And what the actual result was, it seems like Putin obviously was like we're going to make a little piece.

Can I start it off with a quote? Yes, please. Okay. So here was Putin, right? He was a man with a difficult fate. and he made serious mistakes in life, Putin said, while describing him as a talented businessman. That to me wraps it all up, right?

To me, I mean, you made mistakes. That caused, and Andy and I have talked about that method of alleged killing, it's out of character. This one's completely out of character, but sorry to jump in, but I don't know, I'm not to frame it. You got a great, I think it's a great point, right?

So if you go back in time, we're talking June 23rd, right? July 23rd, August 23rd is when Progotion's plane goes down. Two months exactly today. June 23rd to August 23rd. And essentially what happened on June 23rd was the culmination of what had been weeks or months worth of Progotion basically saying that the generals in charge of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine were incompetent generals, which I think the whole world kind of learned that They weren't necessarily fully incompetent because they still control 18% of Ukraine,

but they weren't nearly as effective as everybody thought they would be. Meanwhile, you've got the Wagner Group. Wagner Group is a PMC, a private military contractor. Mercionaries. Right. What we call mercenaries, right, the actual official term is PMCs. These PMCs, which are trained former military combat units who are now privatized, better equipment, better training.

They're the ones making most of the offensive gains in Ukraine on behalf of Russia. and they're essentially falling under the logistical and financial support elements of the military, which are not very effective. So progoshans getting pissed at the generals leading the military. But progoshin's also friends with Putin. So progoshin's like, hey, Putin, can we do something about these generals? Long enough goes by, he's not getting the answers he wants. He's just more and more angry at the generals waging the war.

So essentially on June 23rd, he comes out and he's like, you know, fuck this. The Wagner Group is out. We're taking our ball and going home. He grabs what, I think it was 23,000 troops. Yep. And they basically about face and start marching away from Ukraine, marching towards Moscow. He doesn't say for himself that he's got Putin on his mind.

He doesn't say anything about a revolution. He's just saying these generals are incompetent and we're not going to play anymore. Western media, Western media, meaning NATO media, American media, English-speaking media, pick up on this and they're like, It's a mutiny.

It's finally happening. Progotion's going to take down Putin. No, progotion was just like, I want to show that I'm serious that I'm not going to put the Wagner group on the front lines of dying because we can't get fucking tuna fish because the military can't deliver their goods, right?

Then you've got Putin who's stuck in the middle of having to like, having to manage this power shift, this power face-to-face conflict, right? Putin's supposed to be in control. progocean's supposed to be listening to Putin, but he's not. So how do we handle this? And that's how within 24 hours of the quote unquote mutiny, you have Putin saying it's okay. Progotion is no longer an enemy of the state. This is no longer treason or treachery. I'm going to give him an amnesty pass on behalf of

the Russian state. And now the Wagner Group and Progotion are all allowed to go to Belarus safely and just relocate there, right? Belarus also housing 17,000 Russian troops on the northern boundary of Ukraine. So that's June 23rd, June 24th. From June 24th to August 23rd, that's preceding 60 days, progoshans in and out of Russia all the time, in and out of Moscow, all the time. Because the Wagner group, what people don't recognize, the PMC Wagner group is a massive resource magnet for the Russian government. They're in Central America. They're in Eastern Europe. They're in South America. They're in Africa making deals and offering protection to corrupt officials everywhere in exchange for gold, silver, platinum, right? They're basically bringing in raw,

raw precious metals and raw precious goods into Russia, which is how Russia had so much cash in foreign banks when they were put under banking sanctions by the United States, right, because they actually have tons and tons of resources. They're not a broke, poor-ass country. They're just, they're cash rich. And then the United States, then the European allies, in their sanctions, cut them off from their own main source of cash, but they still have tons of reserves, right? So that's all that is what led up to the airplane exploding, and nobody quite knows what happened yet on August 23rd. I have three predominant theories, and all three predominant theories are basically also out there by other experts.

Theory number one, some kind of crazy mechanical failure due to sabotage, right? Theory number two, some sort of internal explosion because a bomb was placed inside the aircraft that led to catastrophic failure at altitude. Option number three, some sort of external explosion, most likely an air-to-air missile, not a surface-to-air missile. We can dig into that if you guys want to geek out, but those are kind of the three predominant theories about what brought down the aircraft. And then what I find super-telling is that there's only one fucking source that tells us anything about the aircraft coming down. and it's the Russian aviation federation. Right?

That's it. Nobody else. No outside investigators, no third parties, just the government-controlled aviation authority. That's the source of all information that we've seen on the downing of Progostians. All the U.S.-based news is coming from Russia as a source? All of it.

Period. Guess where most of your Ukraine news comes from? Ukraine as the source. Now the light bulbs are going off. I like the two-spot. I like the bomb on board theory. What about door four? How could you miss door four?

What's going to? Oh. The UFO. Oh, door five. He's still alive. Let's roll the TWA 800 video. Oh, God. We'll get there.

We'll get there. Hold that one off. But yeah, I mean, I like two. I like the two spot. The one spot sabotage, you've got to worry about somebody who's fucking going to speak, you know, that you could grab, right? The two is, for God and country, for Mother Russia. Get the fuck on there with a bomb and blow this thing up. Sorry.

You know, we'll make sure your family's day. Suicide bomb? I love that. Or just to carry on, yes, which is a suicide bomb. Yeah. And the three, air to air, I like that too. I like that. I, you know, but I'm in the two hole.

Why air to air and not surface to air? So the track, the track that the aircraft was on was, it had just gone over a military base. It was actually in a region where jamming equipment was rife because there were so many military resources, military assets in play geographically. So there was jamming equipment that was going off. And there were tons of sensors in the area specifically looking for threats to the military bases. So if there would have been a surface-to-air missile, one of those sensors would have noted that.

Not just Russian sensors, UK sensors, US sensors, you know, allied sensors, who are watching that military region of Russia would have seen a surface-to-air missile. Definitely. So surface-to-air is out. I think it's fully out. Anybody who thinks that it's still in is reading the wrong thing or just a willful, ignorant, dumb shit. But you've also like with respect to who's winning the war and stuff like that and how it's going. You've been aggressive since the beginning that like Ukraine has no shot and everything. And like you said, we're getting all the news from Ukraine. So that's not very trustworthy. And there is, I think, hard data that shows that they have given up a certain percentage. I'm not going to say because I don't know it offhand right now. But is there, do you at this point, since it's dragged on this long and you've seen Putin at least have some internal problems, do you think there's any opportunity for Ukraine to, I would describe as win the war, meaning Russia keeps Crimea, Russia probably keeps some of the, is it the Dombas region? I'll never get the fucking word right. And then Ukraine keeps everything else, including Odessa and access to the seaport. Such an important question, such an important question. Because let's be honest about what we're talking about.

We're talking about the conditions of Ukraine losing. We're not talking about Ukraine winning. This is so fucking important. Because when we started, everybody was like, we need a winner and a loser because we're fucking black and white Americans and we're like, oh, somebody wins and somebody loses. Yes. That's not the way of geopolitics.

There's no clear winner. There's no clear loser. There's just conditions that get set by the winner, conditions that get set by the loser, right? World War II, who won, who lost? It's not as simple as we think. it is. There were just conditions that were set by the West, conditions that were conceded by the East. You don't think Germany lost that war? I said it got pretty ramped up. What country

still exists? They do, and there's a lot of other reasons with that. We can talk about a separate conversation. But like, I mean, Germany in the 10 years after fucking World War II is one of the most underreported histories ever, in my opinion, because it was like Mad Max Fury fucking road out there. Right. The whole reason there was in East and West Germany was because we negotiated with Russia over who would take what parts of the property, right? That's a negotiation. That's conditions for surrender. So if you want to say that Germany lost, but they still exist as a country, then you can't

say that, well, let's define winning in Ukraine as Russia keeps this half and Ukraine keeps that half. No, we're talking about the conditions by which they will surrender. Well, Germany had like a lot of mainland Europe at one point during the war and they eventually were left with half of their like a, or whatever, a portion of their original country. And now they've grown into a world power still inlocked, enclosed in that area of Germany. It's not like they have other countries around it, whatever. So I would call that an L.

But I see what you're saying with the fact that Ukraine still is going to lose something. Like if they lose Donbass and Crimea, which they'd already lost in all fairness before this war, like it's not 50% or 75% or something. Maybe they'll lose, you know, 10, 15%. If you're considering only landmass. I am considering only land. In the eastern part of Ukraine is where all of their rare earth minerals, all of their oil supplies, all of the transfer points for Russian oil,

it all exists in the east. But they still control the pipelines that come through their country now? They control the pipelines that go through their country, which are few compared to the hub of pipelines is actually in the Dombas region. No, it's in eastern Ukraine. All the energy that flows out of Russia

flows into eastern Ukraine and then goes through essentially a network of pipes that then spreads out through Europe and Eastern Europe. You're talking about the actual pipe. Okay. Right. Not to mention the gold, the coal, the other energy resources that are actually in eastern Ukraine.

So, but all of this to say, all of this to say, where do I stand now? I stand the exact same fucking place that we stood on the first day we talked about this. Corruption is finally making mainstream media after being suppressed for so long. The corruption has grown so rampant. They have not been able to control it so much so that even the NATO-AIDS, allies who want to support Ukraine are still in the pressure of 18 months of support from their own people are saying, we can't really keep, we can't vote again for you, right, Polish prime minister. We can't vote again for you, Mr. President, if you continue to pour resources into this

foreign war and not our own natural disasters like what we're seeing in Maui, right? The whole world is getting tired of this. And my point from the beginning here was that Ukraine can't wage this war without NATO. They can't do it. They just can't, right? They have the troops. They have the courage. They have the bravery.

What's happening in Ukraine is absolutely a tragedy. I'm not saying it's not. But what I'm saying is they don't have the resources to be able to compete in a prolonged conflict with Russia. Russia knows that too, which is why they just have to kind of keep the pressure on. It's the fat guy leaning on the skinny guy who's pressing himself against the wall, right? Eventually, the skinny guy is going to get tired of. holding himself up and the fat guy's going to crush him.

Right? It's just the way it works. Do you think the NATO countries, what do you think their view on all this is, the smaller NATO countries that are surrounding that area with the U.S. pressure on trying to keep it going? And do you think they're in lockstep with us? Do you think they're kind of getting tired of it? NATO's divided.

This is the other thing. NATO's been divided since about month four, right? Hungary and Bulgaria. Hungary and Bulgaria outright, NATO, NATO members, who said, we don't need to be a part of this. Russia has a claim. Ukraine and Russia have history. It's their problem, not ours.

So already from the beginning, NATO didn't support things unanimously. Now as time has gone on, you saw France, you saw Germany get really upset because Biden, from his fucking White House thrown in the United States, way outside of the sphere of influence of Russia and the conflict in Ukraine, you saw him stoking the flames, protect democracy. Meanwhile, the European countries were paying the penalty in terms of, pressure and energy costs, et cetera, et cetera, right? So then you saw France and Germany get pissy about that and be like, Biden, you need to shut up.

I think he was in Poland. Yeah. Like visiting the troops. Yep. Is that when he accidentally said he won a regime change? Yes. Accidentally. Accidentally.

Presidents do a lot of accidental speaking in front of. I think he does. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. They just say what they think. The lights are maybe on. They're dimmed and no one's talking about it. Yeah, that dimmer is going dim, dim and dimmer.

I don't want to say dumb and dumber. Maybe they should run Newsom. Jesus. So then you're seeing the fracturing. We watched NATO fracture. More importantly, China watched NATO fracture. Conversation for a different minute in this conversation. I'm sure.

But you were seeing the dominoes fall exactly like they're supposed to fall. They might be big, thick, fat dominoes. It's like the janga at the bar. You know, jenga at home is like these little wooden blocks. Jenga at the bar is the giant wooden blocks. It takes a little extra energy to knock that first big block over, but eventually they all fall over.

What bar are you going to? I need this bar. You've never seen a big jangles? Not in the big blocks you're talking about. We play it at the bar with like, regular kids jango. This is why you need to go on a date, Julian. Oh, wow.

Shots fucking fired. Too much time at the strip club. God damn, son. Oof. Get out there, Julian. Get out of the studio. We're out there. We're out there.

We're out there. We were counting the rings. We're doing all right. Yeah, so that's exactly it. You see NATO's falling apart. NATO's fallen apart because of this strategy that the United States has been putting in place since the end of the World War II, right?

The United States strategy for economic dominance is essentially playground bullying. We're the biggest kid, you're all the smallest kids, will give you our protection, you give us your lunch money. That's been our strategy since the end of World War II, right? Why, how are we allies with the Japanese? We'll be your military for you. You just sign on the dotted line here that says you won't have a military.

Germany will be your military for you, right? NATO, we'll create all your weapons, will be your military support system. We'll do all that for you, right? And now we created this allied base of weaklings and we're the big bully. Meanwhile, what you're seeing with the BRICS countries and what you're seeing with the Eastern alliances, Russia, China's leading the charge, they've been the alternative all the way back to World War II, they've been the alternative. The problem, the difference is, we've never noticed it that way because in, in 1955, the Eastern Alliance was like nothing, right?

China had just been born, basically, 1949, the Maoist revolution had just happened. Russia was recovering from being, like, just absolutely destroyed coming out of World War II. And the United States was the big kid on the block. Well, a lot of time has gone by, and in 70 years, the two are starting to come back. to parody, right? So, and NATO is realizing that. All those NATO countries are asking themselves, what should we do? Which is why the German chancellor has said,

we want to distance ourselves from reliance on the U.S. military, and we will become the largest military in Europe. Germany wants to be the largest military in Europe? That sounds like a good idea. Right? France, the president of France is going to China and on parade with Xi Jinping? comes back to like tons of people arguing with them.

Like, NATO is not the United Front that our Western media likes to say it is. The conundrum in my head is that you would think hasn't the United States thought this through already? Haven't they thought 10 steps ahead and seen all this was going to happen? No. No, for real. Hell no.

What's the planning cycle at FBI? Probably 30 days, 30 to 90. What's that a 30-60-90 pipeline? Well, we're supposed to have a year of prioritizing. crime problems. How your leads looking. By the time, yeah, by the time we get to the actual presentation, 90 days has passed already.

So we're already in blown cycle. What's your budget cycle? Budget cycle is, well, I mean, a year, a fiscal year, but we're well into the fiscal year before we realize that we overspent or under budgeted for what we need. So all of a sudden program start getting shut down. So we, the same pattern. CIA has a one year budget cycle and a five year budget cycle. So we have one year money and five year money.

The longest out planning that happens at the premier intelligence agencies of the United States is one year longer than a president's term. I don't know if you know the answer to this question in all honesty because, you know, you were out there working, but like how much of that is public versus some stuff we don't see? Hopefully I didn't just say anything classified. Or else I'm in worse trouble than. No way. That's why I didn't mention five years because I understand.

No, I'm going to kidding. Yeah, like I wouldn't know something. that already knows. Come on. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, no one should know that information. Maybe. Yep. But who knows?

It's got to be deception for advantageous purposes. We're just supposed to salute and move on, you know, move forward when the budget office tells us, you've got, you're going to make it this year. Yeah. This has been a, it's been a shortcoming of the United States for a long time. Yes. Like, no federal agency can really successfully plan for longer than effectively three years and administratively five years.

Because you have new appointments that become the new leaders. Like, the CIA has a new director every three to four years. I don't know how often FBI changes. You're supposed to be 10, but, you know, I mean, it depends. Do they have, do we have 10-year directors? Yeah, 10-year directors?

Yeah, we've had some 10-years. The last few haven't made that. Comey? No, Comey definitely didn't. I mean, Ray. That's your favorite guy right there. Yeah. Comey.

Yeah, what a great guy. You still son on Christmas cards? I do. Yeah, we talk quite a bit. Fuck you, Jim. Very one sign. It's kind of what it sounds. So it's beautiful.

But yeah, I mean, I think Louis Free, 10 years, Mueller 10 years, Comey 3. Yeah, something like that. Trump fired him. And then Ray is maybe six-ish right now. Oh, so, yeah, this guy has been in there since Comey. Yeah. Yeah, maybe six-ish. I'm not, I can't remember.

Maybe six-ish, six-seven. So he's winding down. That's super interesting. Weining down. But yeah, yeah, so it's very difficult for a democratic government, like, hours, right? A representative republic where the president has appointees to some of the senior positions within his cabinet and White House, like it's very hard for us to have continuity, which was something the founding fathers wanted because they wanted friction, because they

believed that from friction would come, we would slow roll bad ideas and we would expedite good ideas because of friction. But then we stopped having land owning invested people be the ones that could vote. We stopped having public servants be the one who stepped into public servant roles. Instead, we started having career politicians and everybody can vote. And career politicians just need to win a majority. And the majority of people out there actually don't have a bested interest in their own country. They're just trying to survive day to day. Right? Yeah. So you put the two together and you have a perfect storm. So going back to the Russia thing, do you think there's any possibility that progosian is still alive?

Oh, that's the, that's the thing. Love it. That's the thing that is like, there's always, there's always the potential, right? I live in a world of probabilities. That's what CIA does. The, the, when I look at the data that we have available to us, keep me honest here,

the predominance of evidence that's available to us is that progoshin is dead. You saw, like, the manifest on the aircraft has been reported widely, even though from one source, It's been reported widely to include him and multiple of his senior leaders. You saw the Wagner group hold an official ceremony recognizing his death. You saw Putin come out and publicly acknowledge his death.

You saw, like we saw the remains of the aircraft with the number, the legacy 600, um, was actually, had the right aircraft tail number. So we know it's his aircraft. So when you put all that together, it's like 98% certain the guy's got to be dead. Oh, but there's still like, there hasn't been a single third party. There hasn't been any DNA evidence. There hasn't been any vetted investigation to come out and be able to prove it. So we're all talking single source reporting.

Right. And you also have mentioned that it's not Putin's M.O. How he kills people. It's not. It's not. We talked about that a lot. Yeah. Putin's M.O.

is very personal, individualized killing. Poison. Like, of the 18 or 24 people that they've killed in the last like, yeah, polonium. 12 years. Yeah, it's poison. It's poison or it's shooting or. Or they couldn't fly.

they're on top of a building and they thought they could fly. Oh. But individuals, individuals get assassinated. The killing of, was it eight people, nine people? Ten maybe in that thing. Yeah. Like, that's uncharacteristic. Correct.

It's just not outside of norm. You know, eye to eye for like a better term, but he's an eye to guy. He wants to look and wants to look at you and make sure you know. Now there are, there are secondary benefits for sure. Like coming from a world where like I understand. sabotage, understand covert action, there's secondary and tertiary benefits to blowing up the plane, right? Benefit number one, you kill Progotion. Horray. Benefit number two, secondary benefit. You also wipe out Progotion's top two senior administrators in the Wagner group, which means that

the Wagner group as an operational force goes into a power vacuum because his operational general... His two got killed, right? His two became his one, or became the one. The two would become a one. but he died inside the aircraft. And then the logistics and administrative head also died. So three of the top leaders inside of the- West Thunderboss and Consoliery. Yes. Yes.

Right? You had four bodyguards. Yep. That's disposable. They're all Wagner Group anyway. So what is Putin care? You had two pilots and then you had a stewardess, right? Ten people.

So ten people on the airplane. And then that's the thing that's so interesting is that the pilots and the stewardess, none of them were loyalist Wagner group employees. they were just contract people, right? One had only been with the company for like three years. One had been a pilot for 20 years. I think that the stewardess, this was like her first time on an aircraft,

on that aircraft operated by the Wagner Group. It is shame. So yeah, I mean, all of that to say, like the benefit is Putin dies or the benefit is progocean dies. The benefit is the Wagner group goes into a tailspin, which, what did Putin want? He wanted the Wagner group to come under general Russian military control.

Now you have all these. open contracts and no leadership at Wagner Group, they can now basically be ingested by the military. But why has he never been challenged? And I ask that because their system is the oligarch system. So it's this handful of guys who are balling around the world with a lot of fucking money. I would think something like that, since you're surrounded by all these gazillionaires, at some point, a few of them got to be like, all right, this guy, I'm fucking sick of this. And then, you know, like that's never happened, though. As far as far as there was one guy and he got arrested.

I forget the dude's name. There's one guy that he's alive, but that we know about. That's alive. That's fair. Who got arrested? One guy that's still alive. Yeah. Why has the Clinton Foundation ever been allowed to go into their bank rakers one time?

Still active subpoenas on that forever. There'll be forever. Same reason. Same thing. Yeah, you've got to understand, you've got to understand, you've got to understand part of culture, right? Russia is a culture of like strong, strong armsmanship. That's what it is. You, you build your, your left and right lieutenants. You become incredibly loyal to each other. If any one of the three of you succeeds, the other two are guaranteed success too. That's, that's the oligarch

system. Like, only in the United States. Why, in the United States, why are wealthy people so heavily involved in politics? Because they fund it. They had to work their ass off to get wealthy. How do you get wealthy in Russia? You know the right people. It's the right people that make you wealthy, right? You don't have to work your ass off. So you're not invested in the system. You didn't cry and bleed into a business.

You just made friends with the right person who gave you the primary contract and the money flowed in. So all you really care about is keeping the relationship with the person in place. So the oligarchs are fat and happy, but they're not politically charged. They're like, Putin's my guy. I'm rich as long as Putin's in power. If somebody else is in power, all of his guys are going to, take my money. All of his guys are going to become the new

the new powerhouse. You know, and the narrative gets spun, right? What we talked about? So, hey, they're coming back. They're marching on me. It's a mutiny. Everybody's convinced of that. Press does a great job at putting that out there. And then at the end of the day, it's kind of just, no, no, no. That's not what it is, right? And then the plane blows up.

So it's like, yeah, you know, that's kind of where we go. And then, I mean, it's very similar. I mean, it's very similar to what we've observed in certain power political individuals. So let's consider the airplane. Let's consider that explosion just for a second.

I'm going to geek out. You guys geek out with me or just shut me the fuck up, right? In the, in the, it was in a Moscow airport, right? So he was departing from Moscow. Inside the airport, you had two pilots who were from outside the Wagner group. You had a stewardess who was from outside the Wagner group. In our terminology, we call those assets, access agents, right? People who are outside of the circle of trust, outside of the vetting and due diligence process, that could be recruited or could be unwittingly used to facilitate sabotage, specifically a bomb being brought onto the aircraft, right?

It could have been, it could have been like a janitor who was sitting next to the stewardess who slipped a small pocket charge, right, or a small box of C4 or whatever, into her carry-on bag right before she got on the thing. She could have unwittingly carried a bomb on board. first time flying with them. So who knows, right? That's one possibility of how it could have happened. The other thing to keep in mind is in the preceding two hours before the plane, the plane didn't take off it. It's departed, it's scheduled time.

It was delayed two hours. Why? For maintenance issues. So it had maintenance issues that prevented it from taking off on its scheduled departure time, right? I asked Steven, Stephen, do you have the, you got the website? So give me just a second and I'm going to have you jump to it, right? Yeah, let's go right here. Perfect. This is the aircraft. This aircraft was sanctioned by the West and sanctioned by the United States. So this specific aircraft couldn't be maintained by anybody other than countries who were willing to work outside of international sanctions. So maintenance was probably sloppy. Maintenance was definitely aging. You know, it's going to be a hard thing to maintain this aircraft when you, when you have the power of the Western governments all working against you. So could it have been an actual mechanical failure? Yeah, could have been. Or it could have also been.

one of the mechanics that got called in for that maintenance actually sabotaged the aircraft themselves. Another version of an access agent because they're not part of the Wagner group. You see what I'm saying? Right. So you've got two options there. Something was slipped on through an access agent

or something was intentionally sabotaged through an access agent outside of the Wagner group itself. Now then the plane takes off, the plane flies straight and true, everything's good to go until what happens at altitude? Can you jump down to the altitude chart? Check this out. This is dramatic.

Unbelievable. Yep, right here. Scroll down just a little bit more for me, Stephen. Yeah, in between the two, if you don't mind. So we have two on screen. Bingo. So what you're seeing here is the rate of descent and the rate of climb of the aircraft at altitude

in the preceding minutes before it falls off a cliff and crashes. You can see it right there, right? What you're seeing here is essentially in six-second intervals, the rate of altitude change. That means that the plane was in the process of climbing and then leveling out and then climbing again right before it basically stopped working. You see how that works? That's the rate of climb. So if you look at the upper one, you can actually see the calibrated altitude.

So the altitude is jumping around and it's jumping around between by thousands of feet, by about 2,000 feet. Why would an aircraft flying straight and true if it had a bomb on board that nobody knew about or if it had a maintenance issue that nobody knew about, why would it change its altitude? five minutes before it actually blows up, it wouldn't. That's the whole reason you sneak a bomb on board. That's the whole reason you sabotage something so that it just operates like normal until it doesn't. The fact that the aircraft was changing

in the minutes before it went down is huge data. It tells us one of two things. Either the sabotage had worked, created a maintenance flaw or maintenance failure, and the pilot was fighting the maintenance failure. So it wasn't really a bomb because a bomb would have just exploded, we're going down.

Right? Or there was something outside of the aircraft that spooked the pilot and the pilot started taking evasive action, which suggests an air-to-air missile. Wow. Oh, shit. So what they were trying to do when they climbed at the last minute, they were trying to avoid something?

Correct. Because standard operating procedure for any pilot, when it looks like you're on a collision course with another aircraft, you don't turn. You jump up. You climb or you descend to get out of the same field of elevation. Right?

So here what you see is they must have seen an air, they could have seen an aircraft climbed to get out of that. The other aircraft also climbed. Then they climbed again.

Rocket was fired. Explosion happened. We got to think about how the aircraft came down. Scroll back up to the top. Show us that airplane again. The airplane crashed because the wing

became detached. Wings do not detach. Unless it's Ryanair. They got duct tape on the fucking wings. Wings do not detach. So in order for that wing to have actually detached.

And when you watch the footage of the airplane crashing, you see it only has one wing, right? For the wing to detach, that suggests an explosion at the intersection of the wing and the fuselage, right? Well, look what's right behind the wing,

the engine. Go back to the aircraft for me again, Steven, do we have the video of the plane crashing? What's the fuselage? The fuselage is the tube that makes up the airplane. The wing is the wing. You can obviously see the wing.

You see the engine. Guess what rockets are tuned. Air-to-air missiles. what they're tuned to seek. Right to that heat, baby. The engine all day. Wow. So then they, that missile, that rocket would have aimed for the body, the central mass of the

aircraft, heavily leaning towards the heat signature of the engine if it was a heat seeker specifically. That's the kind of thing that would rip the wing off the side of a fuselage. Not an internal explosion, not a pocket charge that's stored in the, in the rear half of the aircraft, right? The other thing that's really frustrating and irritating to me personally, go back to the images. Everybody talks about the aircraft coming down because it was missing a wing. Every picture we see, upper left hand corner, click on that picture, that's not a wing. That's the

picture you see everywhere. That's the tail. Yeah, it's the tail. Near and my heart. Yeah, you know. You don't know about tails. You know. So I want to see where the wing is. I want to see where the wing fell because single source of information, single source of information for all the photos too, basically, right, is Russians, Russian sources. So where is the wing that was supposed to have come off? So from all of that, I tend to lean and agree with the experts who are out there that the plane that was brought down was brought down by an external explosion. Shouldn't they have had DNA evidence by now?

They do. I'm certain that they do. And it's just whether or not they're willing to release it or share it. Do you think a ton of intelligence organizations currently have people in Russia? I'm not going to ask about Ukraine yet, but in Russia? I am certain there is something deeper to your question because for me, the answer is so obviously yes.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking for confirmation. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Every Western intelligence agency in the world, right? Everybody from NATO to the United States is going to be all up in intelligence sources inside Russia and Ukraine.

Got it. Yeah, I mean, you had Jack Murphy in here talking about that. Have you thought about the Ukrainian intelligence service that is getting intelligence inside of Russia and then using it? for their own purposes and sharing it with the United States. Of course. Yeah. I mean, we're giving them so much fuck of money. They better be sharing it.

Have you thought about the Russia, the Ukrainian intelligence services that are getting intelligence out of Russia, using it for themselves, giving it to their own private contractors who are then selling it to the United States as circular reporting? So now the US government, CIA, thinks that they're getting intel from the Ukrainians and they think that it's good intel. And then they're also getting the same intel from contract intelligence sources, but the contract intelligence sources are actually the same sources of Ukrainian intel. That's what we call circular reporting.

That's how you get validation and verification of information that isn't actually correct. And that's the thing. That's the nightmare scenario for me that I think is happening in Ukraine that nobody wants to talk about. Essentially, the Ukrainian intelligence infrastructure is double dipping by giving their intel to the U.S. government and selling their info to government to government contracts. companies for the United States whose job it is to get independently verified information out of Ukraine. Okay. Because Ukraine

Ukraine is so corrupt. Holy shit. There it is. There's the video of the crash. Roll that back. Oh, there we go. Never mind. Good. Just. Yeah, wow. Nosed on like a lawn dart. Damn. Tough way to go.

Yeah, that's a tough way to go. That's my like nightmare that I wake up from sometimes. The plane's going down. And then I like, Oh shit Yep Yeah I don't know If I'm him

And I'm getting on a plane Getting ready to fly across Russia And there's maintenance issues on the plane I think I'm driving I'm definitely getting off that plane Yeah Maybe not drive but I'll walk Unless he wasn't on the plane

Exactly that's what I'm saying Which is where that 2% comes from right? Yeah Going back to the beginning of our conversation The world runs on the 2% that we don't know Not the 98% that we do Well, Russia's also like surviving through this, not just in like pushing back some of the lines with the good old fashioned war stuff, but they're making deals everywhere too. They're making deals everywhere.

Oh my gosh. You would think that a country that's falling apart, at least that's what our narrative, that's the American narrative says, is that Russia's incompetent, broke, and I mean, let's add on to it, right? But instead, the bricks is stronger than ever. American allies are joining the Brick's trading block in the last 30 days. You need to find Bricks for people who aren't familiar out there. Yeah, Bricks is the Eastern trading alternative to essentially the G7 countries. So the G7 are all your rich, wealthy Western countries, the UK, France, the United States, right? Canada.

And the trading block that's created by the G7. Bricks are all of the wealthy developing countries of the world. B-R-I-C-S is what they go by, even though they're much larger than this. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. That's the original Bricks group. And who are some of the other ones you're saying are in it now? Saudi Arabia. just joined, Indonesia just joined, UAE is considering joining, like the Iran just joined.

Oh, that's nice. Like, this is crazy. Wait, they're in something with Iran right now? Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of just a terminology more than anything. It doesn't necessarily mean that the treaties that are being signed or every time every country's signing. It's like something that was invented by Goldman Sachs. There's no treaty here.

This is the difference. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This is the major difference between how the West does business and how the East is starting to do business. In the West, we're like, hey, you want to be in our trading block? Great. You make enough money. And here are the rules.

You have to agree to our ideology. Here are the standards for democracy. Here's all the stuff that you have to do. In the bricks, they're like, hey, you want to trade with us? Cool. Done. You want to beat your people? That's cool.

You want to use child labor? That's cool. All we know is that you give us an economic advantage as a trading partner. Let's do it. That's the alternative to what the United States is. forces and how we force human rights on people, how we force the U.S. dollar on people, how we now have proven to the entire world. Extradition. The whole world now knows that if you piss us off, we're going to hold your good money in our banks and we're going to get all of our friends to

hold your money too. Nobody wants to be friends with that guy. That's the, that's the bully on the playground the first day of college. People are like, you were something in high school. You're shit now. Yeah, it really has set a line with this whole war, exactly what we were talking about the east and west thing because, you know, I've seen a lot of of the stories where, like, Russia's making deals with countries in Africa, which is very interesting, but you were also saying, like, South America, they're all over that. What's the story there? It's the exact same thing, right? It's the ability for Russia to export influence through strong man leadership, right? They can use mercenary groups. Do you know who replaced Wagner?

I don't even know. Readout. Oh, really? R-E-D-U-T was the primary competitor to the Wagner Group, multiple PMCs inside Russia, right? So essentially Wagner Group said no, they fade away, their number one competitor readout comes in, and they're in charge now. They're the ones that have all the Kremlin support now, right? Because Russia has it down.

You go in and you find corrupt leaders in poor countries, poor developing countries, corrupt leaders don't actually know how to manage resources, they don't actually know how to lead people. What they know how to do is take money in exchange for favors and everything else. They're learning from China. China learned from?

Us. Yeah. That's exactly what we did after World War II, guys. Yeah. I'm full-blooded American, guys. I bleed red, white, and blue. I think we did the right thing. But you want to leave in five years?

But we never fucking adapted. Oh, yeah, I'm going to leave in five years. I'm still going to keep an American passport. Gotcha. You go to Greece? I'm going most likely to Europe. Most likely. I'm going to sell you on Greece.

I'll be somewhere in Iberia or in the Mediterranean. Greece is beautiful. Yeah, every place in the Italian Mediterranean is beautiful. Greece is beautiful. I thought it was seven I thought it was seven years Five to seven It depends on the

It depends on the freaking Momentum of the business Exactly Greece you have all the beautiful Resorts everyone talks about They're like amazing Like meek and eminent And stuff like that

But then you also have all the places That no Americans go to Yep And it's like And Greeks a lot of people there Speak great English and everything So you know You can get around very easily

But like I gotta look at the residency Residency requirements for Greece A big part of what drives it is residency Ask John Kyriaku He knows It's true You talk with him ever?

Not yet. I didn't think so. I need to get you and him on a podcast. That would be incredible. Get him in that scene. Recently opened, American University of Kyiv. There we go. What's that?

Already coming through to fruition. What's this? Just opened. This is how you get your money's worth out of, this is how you get your money's worth out of all that humanitarian aid. By having first right of refusal. Yep. Recently opened, American run, obviously. And just absolutely no boundaries.

with regards to background citizenship, who people are attending. And that's your pipeline. This is the stuff that makes people go, what the fuck. This is the stuff, they hear about $6 billion getting lost. And there's your justification.

So, oh, what are you looking at? What are you looking at? Tell the world what you're looking at. This is an article. It's not even an article. It's on the site, American University, Kiev, about us. American University of Kiev is designed as a world-class private university based in Ukraine, powered by Arizona State University? They're all majoring in like Coke and Pussy.

It's not funny that we just talked about this last night. Oh my God. I had a client that had an MBA from Arizona State. I'm like, please don't ever tell anyone that again. As one of the largest public universities in the United States with over 135,000 students and 4,500 faculty members, ASU has been ranked number one for innovation in the United States. What? What?

According to the U.S. News and World Report and is considered one. the most prestigious universities in the world, according to Times Higher Educate. I've never even heard of this. What is this a, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, dot, edu, dot, edu, dot, what is that? I can't read it. I can't see it with my bad eyes. Yeah, it's all the way back there. En.

slash U.S. U.N. What's right before that? UA, maybe. U.A. U.A. U.A. dot edu.

U.A. slash E.N. It's a subdomain under University of Arizona. Is that what that is? Yep. Sitting, sitting in Ukraine. Maybe that's it, or it's like Ukraine something. I don't know. That's crazy.

Because people see these things and they're just like, and there's also rabid misinformation being fired by both sides at all times. So you have to, you know, when I just see a video of something regardless of who is from, like, who the fuck knows? You know what I mean? Even that plane crash, I'm like, is that the same one? Could be something filmed three years ago, right? That's true. So, you know, it fades, it falls right into our political division in the sense. that it's everything or nothing, left or right, whatever. People can't have, you know, that middle

ground of like, well, this might be okay, that might not. But you look at Ukraine, the whole point of, like, the people push in the war, the heaviest is like, it is this critical, strategic location that if Russia took it, they have access to the seaports, and there'd be a giant iron curtain going across like western Europe, like somewhere Churchill is going, yeah, baby, let's go. But like, is that even, is that true? Is that pot? Like, let's say Putin got all of Ukraine in a year or something. Like, does that mean like now maybe Belarus would be easy for him to make a partnership with?

But now he wants to like to go to Poland and be like Hitler and go to Germany and everything? Is that a real possibility? No, not even close. And it's funny because that's exactly the narrative that you hear being fed to the West. That somehow it just starts with Ukraine. No. Right. Right.

Now, I don't even think Putin necessarily wants Ukraine. I think he has most of what he. wants in eastern Ukraine. And then he wants a Ukraine that's individually run, but leans Russian, right? Because if he actually takes all of Ukraine, he now has NATO as sharing a border with the Russian Federation. He doesn't want that, right? He's never once said he wants Ukraine. The Western narrative has said that he's going to take Ukraine. What he has specifically said was very early in the war, where he was like if Ukraine doesn't give into us, I am willing to take

away their sovereignty. That's the only thing that he has said about what his ambitions are in Ukraine. All he wants is for Ukraine to not be part of NATO and to play nice with Russia and distance themselves from the West. He's not trying to make fucking Ukraine part of Russia. It's not what he wants to

do. Is Putin want to go to war with the United States eventually? No, the United States doesn't want to go to war with Russia. Yeah. That's not what anybody wants. Nope. It's really interesting seeing his perspective dealing with all these U.S. presidents over the past however long it's been. Right. And

especially from those interviews where he talks so kindly about some of these people, especially for example, there was a moment when Oliver Stone asked him about Hillary Clinton. Like, what do you think about Hillary Clinton? You know, here's her quote, where she calls you Hitler. And he just smiles, it's like, she's a very dynamic

woman. That she is. Yeah, that's some military. That's some intel training right there. That is. That's deflect. And do not. He seems very, he seems like very level-headed. I mean, this is my outside perspective.

I don't know anything. But he seems like he has, he's very cold and calculated and level-headed. So. That's my same read, man. And that's not, that's the read of every professional I have met in the military, in the Intel world, and even in business. Yes. The only time I hear people complain about him being crazy in a wild card, it's all trumped-up media or, Or people who need it.

Yeah, man. Remember the sitting at one side of the table and everyone else sitting at the other side and him staring people down. What is that coming from? Yeah. You know, it's certainly not coming from people who've interacted with him. I mean, listen, he's a cold-blooded killer. Keep in mind.

Keep in mind. He is. The photos we see are cultivated photos. Yep. Not fabricated, but cultivated. So if they have 150 photos of Putin to choose from, and of those 150, 149, show him sitting in a group, but two of them show him sitting alone. we know which two we're going to use.

Exactly. Right? It's like the inverse of Instagram. My wife hates Instagram because she goes through, she's like, Instagram is the highlight reel of everybody's life. Yes. Everybody's life is fucking sucky and miserable and hard.

Right, right. It is the highlights. But you know what I mean? The super hot Instagram influencer chick who's wearing almost nothing and looks smoking hot, guess what she's going to be doing in about 8 o'clock in the morning? Right. Taking a dump. Yep.

She's not posting that. She's not. Right? Yeah. every now and then she gets a pimple. She's not posting that. Nope. Yep.

So what media does is the inverse of that. Everybody knows that the couples that seem the most happy on Instagram who always take photos together are the most unhappy couples. Oh, wait, is that this? Is that one it is? Okay. All right. Do you know it. Do note it.

No more. No more of those. I'm single, by the way. Anybody. Not anybody. Right. Yeah. Not anybody.

That is correct. Thank you. So if the U.S.'s goal really is regime change in Russia, how do you know if the next person who goes to lead Russia is better or worse than Putin? Do you think that our goal is regime change in Russia? I don't. I think we love where we're at because we know who we got. Better to know that enemy than if it's, I mean, better to know that person well and be able to do what we've been able to do. Listen, we said before, do we want to go to war with, how does that end? How does war with Russia end? There's one way. nukes. That's it. There's got to be a winner.

There's no other way we fight that battle. No other way. We might start fighting that battle that way, but I could tell you it's going to get nasty quick. Let's dissect how you even landed on that question, right? That wasn't even a question, really. The first thing you started with was a statement. If the United States' end goal is regime change, where did that even come from? That came from the media, perverting the words that the president actually said when he was in Poland. Because I think what Biden literally said was how in God's name can this man be allowed to rule. That's right. I think that's what he said. Can you find the video of Putin talking to the troops in Poland?

And that's interpreted as. And that's interpreted by the media. I want a regime change. We need a regime change. Exactly. Now, I could see how that could happen. And then once the media says, why would the media twist that? Because they want clicks, dude. Because if you post, if you post the truth of what people say, it's not nearly as compelling as if you interpret it in a dramatic. way. That's right. And then reinforce it. Here's the fucking... Yeah, the deputy director's going to sign off on that. The massive mistake that the United States media has played in this whole conflict in Ukraine is that they have essentially validated Putin and all of his claims for wanting to fight in Ukraine. Because when the American president says, how in God's name can this person be

allowed to lead, whatever he said? And then the media blasts out to the universe and all. Biden wants regime change. Now Putin can take that. line from media to the Russian people and say, the United States wants the regime change. No, it was Biden talking in Germany. Poland, I'm pretty sure. It was it? It may have been Germany. Either way, Biden

calls for regime. He doesn't know where it is either. You know, you know he has his guys back there going. Do you guys have ice cream? Did you see the one, did you see the one the other day where they're like, where well, this was maybe a few weeks ago where he's like doing the Medal of Honor thing?

He's just like walked out halfway through. I feel bad for the guy I really did like it's he's no business doing any kind of job when do they move in when do they move him out and replace him with Kamala they can't do that

there it is second video they can't do that Biden walks back regime change comment she is yeah they can't do that no it was a video of him in like a like a warehouse he was with the troops like sitting like troops well yeah well so

I thought he gave the speech when he was actually on the stage I think he was like sitting next to troops like this almost and he was very close to yeah you know we want regime change or something like that it's like you don't want to you know know no I don't know leave leave in no I don't think they'll say it here I don't think they have it the quote is for God's sake this man cannot remain in power but I don't know is that calling for let's do it oh that's not it I don't think that's not it Damn. That wasn't it?

Scroll up. Maybe try it. Yeah. It's not going to hurt us to hit it. The throne will never be a victory for Russia. For free people refused to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness. We will have a different future, a brighter future, rooted in democracy and principle. Hope and light. Hope and light and democracy.

And freedom of possibilities. For God's sake, this man cannot remain power. God bless you all. There you go. That is not where he said, so he said it twice. Yeah, so he doesn't want regime change. That's, but that's what he said. This is where it came from.

The United States does not want regime change in Russia. What the United States wants is chaos in Russia, because that keeps Russia weak. Good for business. We also like them for elections, right? Now I'm confused. Because we always get to blame them. Oh, yeah. We've only gotten to do that since 2016.

Pretty good. I'm solid. I didn't see where that one was going. Yeah, I liked it, though. Danny Jones, man. He said in that interview with Oliver Stone. He was like, every election cycle, they use us as the bad guy. Very true.

Yeah. And so you do get that, you build that, we build that chaos. We deflect from what's actually going on most likely. Because they have always been the bad guy, right? Like if we change the leader of Russia, we don't have any use for them that way. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is a lesson. This is G-WAT.

Fucking people don't understand G-WAT. The number one lesson, we learned in the global war on terror is that if you kill the lead terrorist you have no idea how bad the second guy is going to be right they could be a leaf and roll over right and it could be a fucking monster right so it's the devil you know is oftentimes better than you the devil you don't know so that's why you just you stroke the the fires of chaos i don't know if you mentioned this at all when i was out the bathroom a few minutes ago, but like who, remember that drone that got shot down, like, over the, over the Kremlin? This had to be a few months ago. Yeah, who do you think that was? Oh, that's so, this is what's so,

dude, there's so much here to unpack. Unpack. So there, there have been multiple drone attacks inside the Russian boundaries, inside the Russian sovereign territory. Ukraine takes credit for those, for those drone attacks, for the most part. But then they also acknowledge, that there are splinter groups that are pro-Russian operating from Ukraine. Problem is, those splinter groups

are oftentimes associated with neo-Nazis. What was Putin's original claim for launching the invasion into Ukraine? We're getting the Nazis out. So now Ukraine is actually, if not supporting,

at least accepting neo-Nazi extremist groups to launch attacks into sovereign Russian territory, which makes it look, for all intents and purposes, like Ukraine is allying with neo-Nazis. Is that a fog of war thing, though, a little bit, though, in the sense that war's happening

and everyone's protected, we can't really stop that? That's a practicality of war, right? You've got a wage of war. They've got resources, like for the enemy of my enemy. Because like in their defense, you know, we have neo-Nazis living in America. I wouldn't want our nation defined by those fucking assholes, right? So they have some, too. And now they're in the middle of war, and those people are fighting.

And that's why we have the FBI so that when those neo-Nazis do try to participate in something, our law enforcement agency comes in and says, that's illegal. Right. But if we were being invaded right now, we're in the middle of a war, would the FBI really be focused on doing that? What is the FBI focused on right now? Honestly, I'm being serious. I'd love to know. Anybody who can give me a call, I appreciate it. What do you think? Well, I mean, you, so, Jim, you left in 2018. You left in 2018. 18, five years. Okay. Five years ago.

What are you hearing from inside the bureau now from your people still there? So Andy and I had a pretty long talk walking the beach yesterday. And really what it comes down to is there is just a whole bunch of people. I think we talked about the, yeah, we definitely talked about the one out of three, you know, role back in a day. I think we're probably two and a half out of three. Can you explain what that means? One guy, basically one guy, every three, I would say the average, every three agents and or management figures. in the Bureau, program managers, agents in charge.

I would say one out of every three is not doing a damn thing. You know, back when I was in, the other two are covering and doing their own work. And it's not a problem because, again, our mentality as government employees is survive till your pension. That's what you're supposed to make. You have no value monetarily when it's over. You will just grind for the hopes that you get a job afterwards that pays you $120,000 a year to hop, we'll take New York City area, to hop on a bus,

take a two and a half hour ride into the city, work, and ride back. And you're happy with that, right? So that's the two out of three that have that mentality. The one out of three, he doesn't care because he's figured out a way to look at his numbers and that's where he wants to be. He sets his life up around that. Now, my thought is there's half a person doing the work. And the other two and a half are waiting around for this great pension, right,

and what's going to happen? What does that cause? It causes issues with motivation. It causes issues with big picture things. It causes issues with sitting and being innovative. How can we move this forward? How can we get it where it needs to be? Incompetence.

And it's the quick rise, right? It's also the quick rise. So the Bureau right now has zero leadership. So Chris Ray, I think he's a really nice man. I don't have a problem with his law degree and how he has done in his law practices, defense lawyer at trade, but he doesn't have the ability to influence people that work for him and work hand in hand with Congress. You see him in front of these committees.

They're asking him difficult questions. He doesn't have the answers. He doesn't put himself out there. As a director, you must, give that. You must take attention off the agency. You must deflect. And then if that means getting fired, that's what you have to do. You have to walk in.

Louis Free basically had that happen. Right. Like he resigned because he was taking. the hits, right? Well, I mean, he lasted his time, but Louis Free was a true leader. Oh, he had been there and done that. He was all 10. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, and he's a true leader. I mean, he had he had done things that were outside of the actual norm for FBI directors and stuck up for his troops. It didn't matter what, my fault, my bad, let's talk, and was knowledgeable to speak in front of the House or Senate about issues. This guy might be knowledgeable, but he just refused.

to answer questions. I can't talk about that. Paula Bait, who's the number two, counterterrorism guy by trade, bright guy, smart guy, lost his mind, you know, scrambled in this prevailing feeling about the FBI and the fact that we are weaponized and, I don't want to say we, they are weaponized. He has confirmed that by acting as absolutely defiant to questions that are opposed to him instead of preparing and answering the questions. No, we are not. There's plenty of proof to show we are not that way. Well, what's the difference here? Because I feel like, especially in the social media world where the politics are all over the place and very divided, it gets worse and worse, the FBI, when they go to create a case, any agency, but let's focus on where you're at right now.

The FBI is going to get criticism, and depending on which side the hammer is falling on on the case, the other side's going to be ripping them and whatever. You, when you were at the FBI, were one of, and complete what I am allowed to say here, but you were one of the lead investigators on the Hillary Clinton investigation. Maybe. Okay. Now we see another investigator. Now she was a presidential candidate at the time. Everyone knew she was, right? she wasn't president, but she was going to be the candidate. Now we have all these investigations

happening into Trump and charges being brought. So people use the words like politicization and stuff like that. But would you say it was also politicized back in 2015 too when you're going after her? By a person that shouldn't have had that stage, that platform. Jim Comey. He made it what it was. He turned it on its head. And so when you think about it, there was, there was. was a bunch of work done and there was a bunch of allegations that were covered during that work. There was evidence that was actually brought forward, investigated, vetted, discussed amongst tons of time, you know, over the course of time. That is supposed to have a process.

When that is found to be, it goes to the AJ. It goes to Loretta Lynch at the time. Or it goes through someone that she appoints to handle that particular. allegation or that evidence. At the end of that time, it is her ability and her right of refusal to say, thank you so much, investigators. We appreciate your efforts. Here's the reasons why we're not going to prosecute it.

Or, or more likely, and what normally happens, I like where you guys are going with this, I see your train of thought. Can we just pump up and close the lid on this piece of evidence? All predicated. All predicated on evidence, not something that's wildly made up. Yes, we can. Come back. And there might be lists until the end of time.

Sometimes you have lists that last six months, seven months, eight months with regards to investigation. You run them all out and you still might get the answer. Nah, we're just not going to do this. And here's the reason why. And mostly it's like, because if we go to trial, we're going to lose. All right? Not saying it didn't happen.

We go to trial, we're going to use. We're going to lose. What happens here is Comey, not in that position, although formal use attorney in San Francisco, stands up there and says, yeah, I looked at all this. I'm not going to present it to Ms. Lynch, to A.G., to General Lynch. I'm going to go ahead and just make that decision on my own. But shame on you, Secretary Clinton, shame on you. You know some of those things are questionable, but certainly didn't commit a crime.

Bullshit. But now they are bringing charges years later on the other side. They're bringing charges that are absolutely ridiculous. And the method by which they bring those charges, sorry about doing that, I'm getting excited. Taking it back. The transformational de Oriole. What happened was. But if you look at other methods that could have been used in order to gain the supposed right, you know, the supposed path of that investigation weren't used.

Very simply put, fourth right subpoena is a very good. common tool in the world of corruption, public corruption investigations. What is done simply is I show up at your office. Danny's the governor of Arizona. I show up to that office and I say, listen, there's 12 items that we need from you, governor, or whoever the representation would be. We're not going to leave here today by subpoena until one of two things happens. You either prove to us that you don't have those documents. That's it. You don't have to tell us where they might be, who might have them, or you present them to us. That's it.

It's over. I've never had a fourth-white subpoena that hasn't been disposed by the end of that time. No, seven, eight hours of time. Yes, wait it that long. Why did that was the easiest way to get those documents that day under, very simple, go in to agents, just always have two with you. Sit down. Hey, thank you so much. Over. Get the documents, move along. No, that's not the way it was done because they needed to show something. They needed to put forward a show. Boats, planes, choppers, SWAT, H.R.T., dogs, you know, vehicles, armored vehicles.

What are we doing? What are we doing? Who authorized that? Fucking Chris Ray. That's who authorized that. Do you think it comes from them, though? Or do you think it comes up from higher than them. Oh, I think it definitely comes up with both investigations. It definitely comes in the AG. I mean, the whole, remember, Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton are meeting on tarmacs. You know, they now they publicized one meeting. It was way more than one meeting. Really? Yes. That's some breaking news. No doubt about it. Right. So no doubt about it. How could it just be one, one meeting in one spot in Phoenix? I think was at Phoenix airport. The one we know about. Yeah, the tarmac and you're out there and hey, how's your grandkids? How are your grandkids? Really? All right. You know.

You're not going to bring this investigation of you. You understand me? We'll stand there for an hour and I'll show you pictures. You're not going to like... They're going to like... Arkansas and they didn't do that shit to me. They're not doing it now. Exactly.

So that I think is how do you classify that in this world? How do you look at that? Is that weaponization or is that pure corruption? It feels like to me it... I don't want to like plane jane it down, but it feels like just regular old corruption. Yeah. Too powerful people meeting on a plane. To me too.

You know, going too far with a dog and pony show to get some documents. And an FBI director that clearly we now know was biased in his party and what he did. Well, back then, Comey. Correct. So clearly, we know that now, and there's other examples of him, you know, that I can't talk about, other examples of him doing things similarly to that. That's his thought pattern. But you guys at the FBI.

Bigger that he's a narcissist, right? He's bigger than life. prevailingly, though, you were saying you guys at the FBI did not like Comey when he was director. No, I don't think he could find many because he was egotistical and he was going to solve the world's, the Bureau's problems. You know, the big thing on Comey is when he first came in, oh, you know, he doesn't wear a sport coat. He walks around, hey, you want a cup of coffee. Hey, great job on that. People love that initially until they started to hear his policies.

And then there was that group that kind of associated themselves with him. Why? I'm going to get to the top. Look, my opportunity to get to the top. And some of those did, and we know those names. Right? So once they got to the top, they realized, oh, holy crap, I don't know how to do this job. I'm here, but I have no idea how to do it.

Oh, hey, let me go over to U.S. Attorney's Office. Let me go to the AG's office. How do I do this? What should I do? Oh, I'll tell you. Sit down. And there's where the agenda starts to correct itself. It's interesting that you say something along the lines of he thought he was going to be there,

like solve the world's problems and everything. I mean, this is, I always. wonder like what the origin story with people is like what formulates their mistakes and stuff like that with him what was what was the what was george bush's attorney general in o3 name again starts with a p i think the ag at the time this was like i think this had to do with like all the snowed and stuff i want to say it was stellar wind yep he had had like an emergency app and decked me something he was the agies in the hospital like a holiday like a holiday weekend is that something like like that was borderline incapacitated.

Yeah. And they were going to pass this something that had to do with like Stellar Win, like illegal spying. Cheney's people wanted to push it through, armatrage, all those guys. John Ashcroft? John Ashcroft. That's it. So Ashcroft is on like what could be a deathbed. He ended up living. It was fine. But like he was fucked up on all kinds of drugs. And they wanted him to sign through the Cheney portion of the White House, which was the White House, I guess, wanted him to sign through this order that says, yes, we're going to. going to continue this under emergency provisions, steal everyone's constitutional rights, whatever.

And so Mueller, Mueller, who was the director of the FBI at the time, and Comey, who was the assistant, they rushed to the hospital at the same time. They gather around this poor sick guy's bed, like have him inject them up with drugs so he can fucking sit up and make a decision. And actually, to the constitutional credit of Mueller and Comey convinced him, I believe, not to sign that one, right? So they didn't get that one through. I hope I'm remembering that right. And so I feel like Comey, when you look at his backstory, he was like the guy that stood up and he did the right thing. Because also he was a Republican. This was a Republican White House. They wanted shit done. And he's like, no, this is the right thing to do. And I kind of wonder if that, like, going to make up a word here, but like egotifies you moving forward. And they may. Maybe you carry that to something like the job. I think it did. Big man, big presence. Yeah. Right?

Big man, big presence, big ego. So he's now faced with a situation where he can make a difference in his mind. I can make a difference here. I can make a decision. I'll jump in. I'll do the AG's job when it's not my job. And I should know that because I've done that job. I've done both.

So I know that it's 1 million percent the decision of the attorney general, just like it is with a simple assistant United States attorney. I go over. I present my case. They say no or yay. And I move forward either way. I pissed. I'm not saying I'm not upset and pissed.

You know, we've talked about stories about Chris Christie. You know, yeah, you're mad. You're upset. But you understand. You're not getting anything done. It's not going to happen. So Comey kind of hybrid. Hybrided himself.

So he was going to, he was going to present the evidence to himself and then make the decision and deliver it to the American people on a pretty broadly, you know, a pretty wide net of media that he talked about that. It was a member of the presentation? It was an hour. Oh, yeah. Oh, here's what we found here. It's a July 7. And I'm sitting, yeah, yes, yeah. It's a Monday.

I'm sitting there going, whoa, there goes eight weeks of my life, you know, and we all did. Yeah, I mean, do you, so you disagree with how he did it, obviously, because he went totally outside the chain of command and how it's supposed to be done. Yes. But in hindsight now, years later, because I'm looking at it based on today's events, too, and how we're divided over like a potential political prosecution here at Trump, do you think he made the right decision, not. injecting like charges into a presidential race and actually like put it. I mean, people claim he put Trump in office with the Wiener emails announcement like two weeks before the election, but still like at least in this case, he's like, all right, it's going to be the two of them and this was bad. I'm going to admonish her, but I'm not going to get the FBI weaponized to like

put the other guy in office. And now like with that precedent, let's say if they found out Trump did some stuff wrong too and a guy like you would want to bring charges against them, maybe they do the same thing to at least let the election happen and best man win. And that's the way it should happen, what you just explained. There's a, there's a unwritten, written rule that basically says you will not affect an election cycle. And there's an actual, and I think they mentioned that in that case. I think they actually talked about whatever it is, 60, 90, 120 days or whatever.

We can't do this. We can't affect. And I think it begins with the primary cycle. So, and it's really just all about raising money, right? So we don't want to get in a position where we're not allowing that candidate. to have a legitimate shot to move forward in their campaign. So that is a, that is probably one of the most widely known rules outside of being published. So any corruption agent, any white collar agent, any counterterrorism agent knows,

hey, we can't mess with this campaign. And you're told that. You should be told that. So it's either one way or another. Either that happens or it doesn't. Either somebody says, no, we're not going to, we're not, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't have had any problem with, no, we can't do this right now. mean the charges won't be revisited at a point after or whatever. But it clearly was marked

in some way both sides now to affect an election. Clearly, to me, I will go to my grave knowing what I looked at and spent time on was a crime. Period. Now, with Hillary? Yeah. I mean, I will go to my grave with that. I'm not going to talk details on what portion I had, but I would go to my grave knowing that that was a problem. And if it was me, you, you, or you, we'd be charged. We'd be in jail. We'd be in jail. And that's the way we always looked at things.

If it was us, we'd be in jail. Absolutely. Yeah. For a lot less than that. And that was outside, I had, there were other things that were going on contemporaneously in FBI headquarters that I think you'd probably be able to talk to everybody that would say if they ever were to talk. Yep.

Yeah, we're convinced to. So how do you view that? How do you look at that over time? What was Jim Comey's role? What is Merrick Garland's role? What is their role right now? What are they supposed to be doing versus what they're doing? What is Chris Ray's role?

What was Jim Comey's role? That's what I think is confusing. That's where people spot weaponization and say, your inaction is causing weaponization. In people's minds, again, we go right back to the same thing. People are going to make something up when there's a gap. They don't understand what happened. They're going to close the gap.

They're going to close it and say, oh, 100% weaponization. Rank and file, not a chance that you'll find, yeah, I'm one or two. You're going to find one or two corrupt people everywhere. It just happens. Sure. But for the most part, not. Management and where the FBI is right now, leadership-wise, is really a disaster. It's a disaster. It's a disaster. It's super discouraging considering CIA is in not much better position. And that the federal agencies writ large are just suffering from massive attrition. Yeah, what's, what's up with the CIA? Like what would your main bones? Is it like literally what are you saying right there? No, it's a whole different beast, right? For us at the agency, it's a whole different

beast because you're, you're, we have completely different authorities, completely different missions between CIA and FBI, right? CIA is all international intelligence gathering from foreign, from foreign countries, foreign adversaries that benefit American national security. FBI is all domestic, right? There are there, there are elements that do international. There are elements for us that do domestic. But writ large, the mission is totally different. It's really just about the disastrous leadership, the fact that talent leaves before they have the opportunity to rise.

So you're not getting the best intel officers. You're not getting the best law enforcement officers who become generational leadership. You're getting the leftovers that become generational leadership. So what does that mean for five years from now, 10 years from now? That doesn't stop at us. I saw the same thing in the Air Force. I guarantee you saw the same thing in the Army. One million percent.

But you also both have a political appointment as the top guy. Right. So you also, I mean, you guys have, at the CIA, you've had guys come from outside of the agency or never there. You talk about that with Comey all the time. He was not an FBI guy where some of these other guys were. I mean, that's always weird to me. Political appointees from career politicians.

Yes. That's very weird to me. Our system is an evolution. It's in process, right? where people forget, Americans forget, the United States has kind of been its adolescence. I don't know what kind of a 15-year-old you were, but I was a pretty dumb shit 15-year-old.

I definitely was. In my adolescence, I was not. I should not have been in charge of anything. Our country is in its adolescence. The democracy that we run is an experiment. It's a great global experiment. And it's working. It continues to work,

but that doesn't make it the best system in the world. Do you think spy agencies are dealing with the same problem in other countries? Yes and no. It depends on what problem you're specifically talking about. With the laziness, like the, what you were talking about earlier, with the percentage of people who just get by to get their pension and the people who are actually doing the work. Oh, yeah, no, that's a completely, that's a very American thing, right? I would say it exists in other countries, BND in Germany, for example, has a horrible reputation among Germans, right? Germans don't like their own intelligence service, not like here where at least we're split.

Some people like CIA and some people don't. In Germany, everybody hates the BND. And that's culturally there's just this inherent distrust of intel agencies. And then you have the culture of each country that dictates how people rise up. In the United States, we're meritocracy. Anybody anywhere, right? I mean, I was a rural kid in Pennsylvania. you get you earn the chance to apply to be fairly reviewed there's still the HR processes are not efficient they're not perfect so they miss a lot of talent and they catch some losers too right

but basically everybody has about the same chance of being accidentally recruited into any one of the agencies i mean in places in europe in places in the middle east and places in like like china it's all about your family name, your connections, right? It's all about the three schools you went to. Where did you go to primary school? Where did you go to prep school? Where did you go to college? We have a chance in the United States to at least try.

Most countries don't get that. So by the time they get there, the Emirates, UAE is a fantastic example. Have you worked with Emeraldives? We just remember you and I did. Oh, yes. What was that? A thing. Yeah.

The thing for a guy. I'll tell you later. You're speaking of New Jersey. jersey well. I like, I like your language. So, so the Emirates, the Emirates only have what, like, I think it's seven, there's seven families of royalty. And then those families have like secondary families, cousins and whatever else, who are also just given more than any other family name. So you know that if you are of the, the ABC family, you're going to get something nobody else gets, including opportunities. So their, their senior intelligence service,

their senior law enforcement services, those roles are not being filled by qualified people. They're being filled by people who came from a family name and who were given the opportunity to go to a certain course or get a certain certification. And then the instructors at the certification course were told to pass the certain people. They don't even have to complete their course.

They don't have to do the work. It's like going to college and not actually having to show up for class, but you still get the degree after four years. just because you need to have the degree in order to become what the CEO, whatever else it might be, right? So it's, corruption is such an

such, the word, the problem with the word corruption is that it implies some sort of injustice done for somebody's intentional gain. We never seem to realize that corruption also just happens because people are just people. People are lazy.

People are favoritist. nepotism exists. That's all versions of corruption. Corruption doesn't always have to be premeditated. Oftentimes, it's just the easiest way of getting shit done, right? When I first started my company, I hired friends and family. Yeah. Right?

You just accused Vivek of doing the same thing. Guess what basically every entrepreneur does with the first few employees. You know what I mean? Did you give them a bunch of public stock, though? I didn't. And how didn't unload it? I don't know if they unloaded it. I got to check that.

But yeah, the point is just easier. Is it nepotism? Yes. Is it corruption? Yes. But I also really didn't know how to use Indeed.com to put out a fair advertisement. I didn't really know how to, you know, and I couldn't pay them anyways, the people who didn't apply. Yeah. No, interesting. I mean, that's a great view.

I mean, I think that is really baseline corruption. We just talked about the other parts are just sinister shit. Sinister shit. Right? But it's so sexy to talk about the sinister shit. But we got to remember, like, we're not fucking all that better either. Right. We give one kid something the other kid doesn't get technically corruption, right? Yeah, there's something about the power and the money that comes with it and the fact that there are people that everyone can relate to because in the sense that we all know who they are.

That's right. And it's like, oh, where are you fucking around starting just by having a conversation and stuff like that? I mean, it's, look, you used the phrase a few minutes ago about like whenever there's a gap, people are going to fill it. Listen, that from my buddy. I'll speak for myself there. Like, that's the thing I always am trying to check myself on because there's gaps everywhere. Yes. You know, what we know, even if it's not like some of the pure world of we're hiding everything from you, government that you talked about earlier, even if there is some stuff that's not hidden, there's still all that unknown and it's easy to make those leaps and assume the worst.

And sometimes like, what's it, what's it, something razor, Hanlon's razor or something lockout? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you can fall in the trap of then saying every time it's incompetence and, you know, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is sinister shit. But deciding which of those situations exist on a situation to situation basis, my God, man. I mean, we're guessing. We're guessing at best. Unless you have a preponderance of evidence. Well, yes. And that's how you rule out guessing. And that's the thing that's so dangerous about all the suspicion and all of the. My English is failing me here when people start speculating. Right.

Right. Like all we are living in a culture now where we're inundated with information. And all the information that we're given doesn't close gaps. It creates more gaps. So then people speculate. People speculate on how to close the gap that was just opened off of the limited information that they just got. Oh my gosh. It's crazy, man.

And then that gets momentum sometimes. Oh, yeah. And then we're in trouble. Then we really lose the chance to be able to look at something objectively. Absolutely. We lose it. And that happens a lot. And you kind of can't win, too, because people will look at you guys when you're talking on podcasts at CX, FBI, X, CIA, and they'll immediately draw conclusions from that.

Like, oh, why are they talking on a podcast? Who sent them here? What are they doing? And it's kind of funny because, like, you know, I can sit here and laugh and joke about some of it. But I also know you guys, right? Like, we talk off camera and stuff about both of you. I don't know. A lot of stuff I don't know.

But like, you know, there's like a friendly understanding that. But like when people are just watching on the internet, they just see you guys sit down at the mic, record for three hours. And then they don't see what happens after. They don't see you take us in the back there and, you know, read us the riot act and tell us we're your official handler or something like that. You know, Stephen might be a plan over here. You never know. Like that's what people are going to speculate. And to an extent, I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't want to live my life just doing that all the time.

That's too much time and stress over shit I can't control. But still, like, I see where they're coming from with just you don't. know so you're gonna guess yeah that's right human human nature man it's human nature yeah that's what I think about about the UFOs I think if they came out and told us that the UFOs were real and aliens were here we would just find something else crazy yes you're exactly we would start being afraid of all the speculative stuff that's gonna happen next you know what I mean yeah that that is exactly it and you know once if you're a person who put that out there and then

you get feedback and it starts to pick up steam you're empowered let's go to the next one. You know, I mean, that's, that's what that's digital age has brought that on too. Yeah. People can get out there and influence, you know, I think we do a good job of keeping it very real, but there's people that are just going to speculate to see what happens. Yeah, it's funny. You talk about us being on camera. And I have, so I have actively, actively been trying to recruit former intelligence officers to come alongside my business, because our business is growing, right? Like, we planned a 10x in two years. And we, we, We have 4xed.

We have between three and four Xed every year since we launched. Since I sat here with you the first time. Wow. Right. Right. It's awesome. It's amazing. It's awesome.

Great job. Well, I'm not bragging because if you saw what it actually looked like under the curtain or behind the curtain, like it's not pretty. Going back to our strip club stuff. Like that. Right? That's good. You all know exactly what stripper I'm talking about. It should have been hiding.

The thing that she wasn't hiding. Yes. That's right. But I just want to drop a real quick plug about how awesome it was that every. that that Jim saw he called it a bush instead I'm 60 I'm 60 I'm 60 Jim there's not a hair in son I'm sorry I'm sorry Baldest Bush I've ever seen

Christ Oh God yeah that was brutal But we have we have all of this All of this information that drives more gaps I'm actively trying to recruit intelligence officers to come in And what's what I'm finding is what Jim was just saying they don't they don't even try to comprehend the value that they can bring to the American people they swore to serve in a different capacity other than public servant right as a salesperson

as a public speaker as a consumer or a customer service person like you name it people don't get it so I know one of my biggest business mentors was like Andy if you don't get out in front of a camera and you don't tell the truth that you know to be the truth somebody else will get out in front of a camera and they will tell whatever they want to tell and because you didn't take a swing to tell the truth you are partially responsible

for the misinformation the other people sent now which director was that telling you that? Is that Pompeo, your boy? That's a little inside and film. That's a big part of what drives us, man. We've talked about this. I mean, Andy has taught me my value in this world. You know, before I tell you, and I went through a whole career and got my pension, you know what?

It's shit. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to say that to you. You know, you guys out there that are holding on at the 10-year mark. Your pension will be shit. It's shit.

You know, so get it together now. But he's taught me this in the last six months. You know, we have more to add. We have more value than we think. Yep. We're always catching up as to what do you think I'm worth them? No. You're worth.

exactly what you put in, and we've all put in work. We've all done it, and now it's okay to get out here and do this. Think about just the metrics of it, right? Just the metrics of it. When a company goes to hire an employee, a successful established company goes to hire an employee, say Johnson and Johnson. Any employee they hire, they have already done the math to know that they're going to earn back from the labor of that employee, no less than 300% of what they pay that employee with all their benefits and all their payroll. So if you're a $70,000 a year payroll, $70,000 your employee and you have benefits on top of that, let's just say that you cost the company $100,000 a year. Company already knows you're going to make them back with your day-to-day labor, $300,000.

If you don't, then you're downsized. If you create more than that 300% of value, you get uptaked, right? That's kind of how it works because they know that when they promote you and they pay you $10,000 extra a year, right? Now you're making $110,000 a year, but you're generating $500,000 a year. That's just how it works. So federal, man, government employees, if you're a military out there, if you're a federal employee out there, if you're a state employee out there, the list goes on. If you work for the U.S. government, whatever salary you take home, in the public sector,

you could generate 300% more revenue for the company. And as soon as you do that or exceed that number, they give you a promotion. Which then becomes a talent issue because you're not, like you said, they're either leaving or they're never coming. Yep. And guess what? And that is the, that's the wake up call that happened in 2016. It sure did. That is a great point. And it's turned to they're never coming more than they're leaving, right? Because the losers stick back. The people that don't have confidence in themselves stay back. It's easy. It's very easy. You can do the crossword puzzle for 20 years. Nobody's going to bother you and you're going to get your whatever it is, 168, 74, whatever it is that year. That's what you're going to get. See, I can't speak on this with the FBI, for example, but you've talked about it on a bunch of podcasts before where with the CIA in over, say,

like maybe the last decade or something, they've moved heavily to private contractors doing things, which also creates a whole litany of issues you can talk about. But, like, to me, like, we were talking about the budget we see and the budget we don't see earlier. I'm guessing, like, in part of the public budget they put out, they say some of this is, earmark for like private contractors or something, but also what about all the money going to people to where the government says, okay, this is how we're just not going to tell the taxpayer what we're doing, but fuck yeah, we're invested in this. And we have all these guys who either used to work here or maybe even worse, never did. And now they're working for, you know, private company whatever. And you're paying

them times a hundred the money because they are the most talented people. I feel like we're rewinding right back to Donald Trump circa 2019. Is that what that was? Remember when he went to war with former government employees who were working for private contractors and he wanted to strip them up their security clearance? Remember that?

The shitstorm that that caused and everybody coming out and being like it's unfair and you're stripping them of their livelihood and everything else and he's like they have a security clearance because they had a job to do within the federal government. They have now left the federal government and all they're doing is using their security clearance

and their buddy-buddy relationship to charge the U.S. tax payer more than they need to pay for the same service. And that still happens today, man, I can't even tell you, the pension is shit. If you're staying around for the pension,

don't. But what most people are actually staying around for is the pension plus. They want to double dip. They want a contract out immediately. And they're coming back to us. They rotate right back. They don't even change desks.

Because they know. And it's a common professional practice. as unprofessional as it is, right? If you're a taxpayer, it should piss you off, that you leave CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, you leave on Friday, wearing your official badge, you come back on Monday,

wearing a green badge that says that you're a private contractor, you're working for Booz Allen, you're working for Northrop Grumman, you're working for Mantec. Prices up times 10. Your whole job is just to go back to your buddies and sell them on the same thing that they could have,

that they were doing with you, through Mantec instead. Yep. And then they swing in some nice 24-year-old recent college graduate who's happy to work their ass off all day long because they get to sit inside CIA. And that's the person who replaces the retired person on their way out, right? And that's a cycle. It's a cycle.

It drives up GDP. It drives up the economy. In theory, it looks good on paper because now the CIA can carry the workforce that was defined by the 2003 finding after 9-11, right? which required a massive increase in employees across the IC. So it's impossible to meet all of that employment demand that was set by the Congress without hiring privately. So the problem is it looks good on paper because you think that once the ops over, we can cut our man size down and save money.

The problem is the ops never over. There's always a new op. And then it turns into a five-year contract because you have five-year money. And then at the three-year mark, everybody rebids for the next five-year contract. other five-year contract to sign in perpetuity, like in perpetuity, you have overpriced, overpaid personnel who make more money and have more institutional knowledge than your internal cultivated internal hires. So Trump was trying to pull the security clearances in 2019 of a bunch of these private people,

but wasn't he also, like his administration, the one because he like went the war with the CIA with words and stuff, wasn't he also the one like kind of pushing us using private? Or did I miss? No, you got it both. You're right on both parts. So that's a contradiction, no? Well, he didn't want, he didn't want what he was trying to prevent against was the internal CIA people who were questioning him, then getting out and becoming private contractors for major corporations. Yeah, for major corporations.

Fundraising. I mean, basically, the other thing, Andy and I had, you guys probably heard us, we were talking in the car about it, is those military guys and girls that come out, take a contract job overseas, making money. So they pump them with money. So picture your E7, E8 coming out, probably making $70,000, you know, in a pension of 35. All of a sudden, you're paid $2.40 to go away for a year. Right. So you're going right back into the combat zone that you were in, but in a different capacity. Well, what's happening with those guys?

Yep. Those guys are getting really sick, literally really sick. You know, mental health, mental health issues. Now what happens is they realize, hey, this is great year one. Might be great year two. Year three, they fall apart. Now they're still at $35,000 year pension, but they can no longer be a guy who can earn. So now they've got to recreate themselves.

Right. So the whole process kind of lets you down. It's very similar to the contractor. We have FBI people that come back in for, you know, I think it's asset forfeiture jobs is our biggest piece, right? So we'll bring on financial agents that did a great job. We'll bring them back in as, you know, asset forfeiture people, making the same amount of money or more, or even guarding frigging

DSS does it right to have FBI stand outside of door but it's for like 170 it's GS-13 pay how long is that you know

how long is that process going to be productive it's really sad it's really sad the talk about a gap that people don't understand that your your military veteran

your state employee your federal employee they don't have options. They work, they commit themselves to 20 or 30 years of government grind, which conditions them

to follow the routine. You get up at seven, you drive an hour to work, you get off at five, you drive an hour home, you get two weeks of vacation a year, you don't get a bonus. Every five years

you're eligible for promotion of 5%. They get into this grind and then when they finally serve their term and they're 65 years old when they retire, 67 years old when they retire, they've got no options except to now live off of their pension, which pays them $35,000 a year, and they live in their same home, which is currently valued at $450,000, but they can't sell it

because they can't afford any other home. Right? They're trapped in a cycle. So what happens is that what the smart people get in, they see it early, they make one of two decisions. Either I'm going to get out and I'm going to go reinvent myself early or I'm going to retire with an eye towards getting into contracting and abusing the system. because the only way to get ahead is to essentially abuse the system.

Let's talk about China. But first let's pop Julian's cherry with the salts. Oh, yeah. Oh, dear. That's where all celebrities come back with full heads of air. All right. All right. So where do I position it? Like right here?

So you want to keep it like an arm like the way? Like this, I do it. Don't look at it. Look away from it and just like move it around until you'll know when you get it. I can see the gas moving up. Yeah. Do I sniff in hard? No, you just like breathe normal.

Through your nose. Holy shit. God damn. Here, Jim. Wow. No. Jim, come on. I got stents, bro.

What if I died? Oh, you'll be fine. He got a second. It's like, remember what was it called? Oh, we got to go to the gym again, bro. Let's go. Yeah. Remember that?

Yeah. Secondhand smoke. He got second hand salts already. Oh, my God. Yeah, there is for the family. That's godly. I'm not going to hoard this one myself, man. I got to share the well.

Oh, dude. Oh, this is good. No. I'm converted. I feel like I was baptized. You feel, you feel cleared out? Yes. They hurt, man. It hurt, right? No, it didn't, it didn't hurt. It was like

it tingled. It's a slap. It's a slap kind of tingle, but it's still, yeah. Oh, God, this is making me so... It doesn't look. Nothing about that. That's not an orgasm face. No. That's a slap in the face. I ain't doing it.

No. Fuck that. I can hold it back here for you. No. Don't do. Don't do. Did no. I'm getting harassed.

Okay. Fair enough. I like it. No means no, Julie. I don't like it. Let's talk about. Back to the trip for you. That's too good.

Anyway, China. China. Tripped clubs are China. China. Do they have strip clubs in China? That's it. You know, I don't know. I've ever heard of one.

I bet they do. They must. It might be illegal. They're probably not called strip clubs. They probably called something else. They got him in North Korea. they do that's what wally said

I wonder what a North Korean strip club look like that would be wild that makes me want to go yeah would you go to North Korea yeah no I wouldn't go to North Korea especially not now for strip club maybe yeah if you're if you're an American if you're a passport holding American

with no other citizenship do not go to North Korea good look you become a political yeah political prize really what if you were what if you were undeniable though like what if they couldn't deny you. What if you had some crazy mission in the CIA? He's like, we need to get this done.

There's no what. We're not leaving you no matter what. Yeah, that's not. That would be a lie. Yeah. I ain't going for that. Yeah. You're good. I don't know if you're that good. Yeah, the more CIA tries to tell you that you're not replaceable, the more you're like, I'm really replaceable. Holy shit, I'm out.

I'm Jason Bourne. So yeah, we've touched on China twice now already, right? We talked about them with the with the whole American bullying thing and our strategy that's costing us a relationship that we have with the world. We talked about them with Russia's strategy in Ukraine. Like it's like you can't talk about geopolitics. You can't look at the world today and not talk about China. So it's just a question of like really where to start. I'll tell you where I would start. I would start with

the fact that they are doing all the right things. It's really hard. It's been really, really difficult for the United States to successfully counter China. We have not reduced their influence, if anything. They've taken the Trump, any press is good press kind of approach. And guess what we talk about all the time? China. Yeah. If we're talking about China all the time, that must mean that they're a threat. That must mean they're doing something right. I mean, Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping did not go to the G20 summit and he did go to the BRIC summit. Ooh. Right? He's been to Russia this year. He has not done anything with the United States, right? Like, he, he is intentionally playing the influence game and letting everybody else,

letting the wake kind of show, you know how the wake of a boat points towards a boat? Yes. I feel like that's what he's doing. I like that. I've heard that he also, actually, I think it was like Peter Zion saying this and then maybe some other people too, but he's so paranoid now because he is a dictator and he's got the death grip on power. He's so paranoid that people won't even go in his office.

like don't you think like eventually all even the most powerful people who are hardcore dictators even when things are like trending in the right direction for them it explodes based on the size of their ego just being too big to fill the office so i mean i could make that argument with hitler guys started a fucking forefront war thank god it was him and not the goring guy in charge or we'd be all under a whole different horrible regime right now yeah there's a i you lost me at you lost me at the beginning of the holy so paranoid thing I don't know where anybody's getting the information that she didn't think is paranoid you know paranoid people don't do all the shit she didn't ping does on public stages public

parades public rallies that's not what paranoid people do well what do you do how's a guy not gonna let people into his office but he's gonna stand on a stage in front of like millions of people in public when any one of them could shoot him too yeah it doesn't make any sense a lot of the a lot of the rhetoric out there about China is based in absolute stupidity. Just absolute ignorance of the culture, the history, a complete disrespect of anything even remotely related to the Asian experience.

Can you define examples of that? Yeah, like this talk, Zion's a great example of talking about this collapse of their population and how it's the end of China. A collapse of your population, if anything, is like the adolescence. It's like starting puberty. for a first world country.

The collapse of a civilization, the collapse of your population? Right. Think about it. Right. What was World War II? What was Vietnam? Massive losses in American population. It had to happen to move us to the next age, right?

With the same thing happened to Russia. What was World War II for Russia? A massive loss. Massive. The population. But those are war losses. Doesn't matter, dude. He's talking about procreation losses.

No. Losses are losses, man. China knows that. that it can't be a world economic superpower carrying 1.3 billion lives. It's not going to happen. It can't be done. So what people out there are saying is that there's going to be a major population loss, and that's going to undermine the manufacturing ability of China,

completely ignoring the fact that China, for the last 20 years, has been moving away from being a human labor manufacturing hub. They're moving towards being a tech manufacturing. hub. A tech manufacturing hub United States doesn't need huge amounts of manual labor. They need sophisticated machines, highly educated individuals,

and their own domestic capability of creating the technology they need to manufacture technology. That's what China is doing. He knows there's no social welfare base that children have to take care of aging parents, and there's a lot of aging parents out there with just one child.

And then all, so there's going to be a massive loss of life. Absolutely. China, post-Maoist China has seen massive losses of life on what, three, three counts? Yeah. The cultural revolution, right? Like, this is not new to them. It's just Americans, we believe that there's like, that life is so precious. We argue about it in federal courts, right?

Life is so precious. American lives to Americans are precious. Guess how much Americans seem to care about all the lives being lost in Ukraine? How much do Americans care about the lives in Russia? How much do Americans care about the bloodbaths happening with dictators in Africa? We don't care about those, right? Why do we think that the Chinese authoritarian communist party is going to care about Chinese lives? They could be, if you just look at anything, imagine a family of six people having,

the same resources, but only having to care for four people. You just cut the costs, right, without reducing the income. And in essence, what they're actually doing is increasing their GDP, especially with the partnerships through the bricks. So as they decrease their population, GDP goes up, gross domestic product per person, the individual, right, contribution to GDP goes up as the population gets smaller. Guess what the United States has? That makes us our number one, number one superpower in the world. High GDP per value per capita. What is the worldview of the average Chinese citizen?

Pretty positive. Really? Yeah. The worldview? The worldview of the average American is negative. Yes. The worldview of the average Chinese person is actually quite positive. I mean, what is the worldview relating to other countries?

And like, they're developed, like, how patriotic are they to China? And what do they think about the U.S.? And what do I think about Russia? How patriotic are they to, you mean, so you can't be patriotic of another country. of their own country. That's what I'm saying. So nationalism. Yes.

Nationalism. Okay, wrong word. Nationalism is on the rise for sure. Without a doubt. I mean, I just think they're creating, they're, it's a very planned, very orchestrated long-term plan, which is what we were talking about for everything. We don't have that. We need instant gratification as Americans. They are not worried about that.

They are willing to allow a population or a portion of their population. to die off. I'm not saying it's not about killing them or anything else, but they are where they need to be in their minds, right? So I think that's, they don't really give a shit what anybody else thinks about them. If you think about the Asian experience, right, let's step outside of China.

Let's step into Cambodia, Vietnam. Yep. Let's look at the Philippines. Why do they have huge families? Because they assume children are going to die. You need to have six kids. Right. Because two are never going to die.

A couple along the way. Yeah. Wow. Completely outside of the American experience. Yeah. Right. We complain when we can't get pregnant. Right.

That's like a tragedy in the American society. And trust me, we worked multiple years on our second child. And it was heartbreaking every time that we tried to get pregnant and didn't. Outside of the United States, they start having kids early and often, knowing that they're going to die. Or Thailand, they're going to get traded off. Yep. Right? You're going to work.

Yep. You, the reason there's a dowry is because there's a transactional financial element of giving your daughter to another family. That's the reason dowry's existed. Yes. I lose a daughter. That means I lose a farm worker. So I'm going to sell her to her husband, basically, in exchange for four cows. That's what it is.

It's what it is. I take care of a woman. I take care of a daughter. We marry, Pamela. What do they think about Xi? the people in China. Xi, Xi Jinping, yeah, she. So it's hard.

Chinese people are like Russian people. Like, you got to remember that this whole idea of freedom of speech is uniquely American. That doesn't exist in other places. Which idea? The idea that you have freedom of speech. No one here has that idea. That side of the table. That's straight out of your mouth.

You said that, not us. That was your line. What was it? If you're under the impression that you're going to have some free speech platform, I would disabuse myself of that notion. Okay.

Good to know. So in the United States, you can say anything you want about the president, short of threat to life. Yeah. Even that you can cut. And you're fine.

Obviously. Well, you might lose your livelihood, but you'd be fine. Yeah. Like, you're fine, right? If you're in the United Arab Emirates and you say anything bad about a royal family, you're going to jail.

You're going to jail. Like, no due process, no attorney, no nothing, you're going to jail. The same thing is true if you speak badly about the royal family in Thailand. You're going to jail. Think about it. That's not just free speech makes it so that you can say anything you want about your government, and it won't take, it can't levy charges against you. Yeah, that's scary.

That's not what it's like in the rest of the world. So the average Chinese person understands that they can't really come out and say anything negative about Xi Jinping. So they just don't. And they can come out and say positive things. If you think about what we saw protests in China. Yes. Late in the COVID, late after like late COVID years. Late 2022.

Yeah. And everybody was like, oh my gosh, the people are coming out and speaking, speaking badly about Xi Jinping or whatever, right? And then all of a sudden the protests ended. He relaxed some of the COVID laws. Yes. And everybody was happy, right? This is the thing that's so funny.

We want to know what dictators understand. What's not just dictators. What people in power understand is that human beings have short fucking memories. We forget. We forget so fast and the faster something else interesting happens, the faster we forget. Moving on. We just clear our brains. That's biological, right?

That's not because people are stupid. That's just biological. There's so much RAM space and we focus on whatever the Rams focusing on, right? So we forgot about Hong Kong's takeover when COVID happened. And then we forgot about COVID when Ukraine happened. right and all what china's doing that's so smart is that they understand that if they make a move too fast or too harsh we're going to forget about whatever's currently distracting us to focus on that she Jinping has watched has been a student of this for a long time so he knows don't unify the

united states by giving them a common enemy if you do you don't get to benefit from the chaos inside the united states what did i say our mission was in russia create chaos not regime change. What do you think China's recipe for success is with us? Let the chaos ensue. I asked this earlier in our conversation about Putin and Russia, but with China and Xi now, do you think Xi envisions a world where he wants a war with the United States? And what does that war look like if so? No, I don't think, I think that's the last thing he wants. He's making, he's waging more and winning, you know, own way again the long-term process the tech he's focused on one thing we are all over the place he loves the chaos that's going on they are they are laughing met what was the whole

the bite i met with him 60 times 60 hours he can't he won't even fucking return his phone calls now he won't even sit or talk to me he doesn't have to he's done exactly what he wants to do he's got it there they're out play they're there they're a chess board that's out playing the shit out of us and they're 10 steps in front 10 moves in front all the time economically for sure, right? And then when it comes to their own internal policies, they don't run into the same hurdles that we run into.

Hurtles. We have a government that values the individual. They do not. That's right. They have a government that values the collective. There will always be fewer collectives than there will be individuals. So our individual nature, our independence,

slows down our bureaucracy. Where for them it speeds it up. But if they're the main threat like to the United States power in the world and just like the GDP war and the influence war, I still look at history and it's so easy every time and I'm sure it's been this easy throughout history when other people are sitting in a seat like this and wondering what's going to happen next to say, oh, this time it'll be different, right? But when you look at the order of power in the world, I can't think of one that's ever happened where power changed that didn't involve. some sort of war, some sort of loss or some sort of great victory for somebody. Like even the United States, like we really came onto the scene through World War I. And I was like, oh, they might be, they might be the guys for those 20 years. Then obviously, like, Hitler goes fucking crazy, starts rising. Oh, maybe it's going to be Germany. World War II happens. We're the undisputed

guys after that. Right. And, well, I should say there was the Cold War with Russia. And there was, there was certainly some, like, East West thing there. But you get the point. Like, we're the leaders of the free world. So when you say like, oh, G doesn't want that in anything, he just wants to win a financial war, at some point the jig on that is up if that's if that's the direction it keeps going as it's going right now and he's chipping our GDP, he's chipping away at our future demographics, he's chipping away at all these different things. And China's like taking over. How does that happen without a war, even if it looks different from previous wars where they're on a battlefield together? Maybe it's a different form of a war now, but how would that not happen?

You've actually migrated from your original question. I have. Your original question was, does Xi Jinping want a war with the United States? I think that was your original question. Now you're in the place where doesn't great power change require a war. I never said. There's a two different questions. Does he want it versus will it have to happen?

And does China even have to be involved in the war? For all we know, the war that changes the power of the future is happening right now between Russia and Ukraine. Xi Jinping just sits there and watches. So the United States is feeding NATO and NATO. NATO and the United States are feeding Ukraine and that conflict goes on. Well, what happens if Russia does use a nuke? What happens if Russia does cross a boundary with NATO? According to Article 20 of the NATO alliance, the United States is now in a war with Russia because Russia crossed and did an active war with a NATO partner. China's not involved in that, but there's still a war.

and in the outcome of that war could very well be the financial future of China. But they're not in the war and technically we're not in the war with boots on the ground, so to speak. Today.

Today. So let's just assume for a second to stay that way. Okay. How does that and it never escalates to China or us putting boots on the ground? That's enough. Like I still don't know

that there's a historical precedent for that where the country who becomes it isn't directly involved in the, you know what I mean? historical precedent, I mean, I'm a huge fan of history, and I'm the first person to agree that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. Yes. But let's not forget that precedence, the legal term is one thing. Precedence in terms of things happen again over and over again is actually a cognitive bias. That's actually cognitively incorrect. But is it also very true? What has happened in the past, what has happened in the past is not destined to repeat. That's not true. But it does happen so often. That's called the availability heuristic.

That's another cognitive bias. You're saying it happens so often because what's actually happening in your brain is you've got like five examples that immediately jumped to mind about how it happened. You're not thinking about all the times when it didn't happen. Think about all the times and something happened in the past that didn't happen twice. Fair. Right? There's so many more because if they don't happen twice, we never even bother to research them in the first place. Right.

So is it true that there has never been a transition of power that didn't come with great tragedy? probably I haven't researched it enough to really know, right? But it doesn't necessarily mean that in order for every transition of power, there must be a tragedy. It doesn't necessarily make it true. Maybe it'll be different. Maybe it won't. Most likely it'll be a blend of some of one of the two together, right?

But on the trajectory that we're on right now, economists are saying 2033 to 2035, here's the thing that's so fascinating to me. Again, something that the parrots out there talking about. geopolitics who haven't served a fucking day in service of our country don't understand equality of power parity of power is the same as fucking losing so when economists say that it's most likely that China will supersede American GDP by 2033 but there's still a good strong chance that actually will just meet parity parity is fucking losing yeah yeah nobody thinks of it that way unless they've actually had to stand on the receiving end of a freaking rifle or the end that

people want to take down nobody understands that parity is death competition is the beginning of death yes so i don't want china to be the number one superpower i also don't want them to be equal to us that's it and so if there's things that have to happen along the way for us to make maintain our place that are uncomfortable, maybe even wrong. And so I'm not talking crazy, crazy shit, but I'm talking, you know, some wars that maybe we don't want to be in and stuff like that that you know I complain about. A lot of people complain about. And in some ways the human sodomy always will.

Maybe that's not why I'm in that seat. But you're saying some of those prices are a small price to pay so that we have the opportunity to decide how things go rather than being on the receipt. Jim, would you do something unethical to protect your daughter? In two minutes. Right. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah.

So deliberate discontalienable. I think is what we're talking about. We don't have that. We're not, nothing against, you guys are beyond the generation, but kids coming up in the 17, 18, 19, 20,

entitled, whatever, they don't have that feel. They don't, they're not going to do that. They're just not going to do it. There's other countries that have no fucking problem. No problem. They're still in survival mode.

We're not in survival. We are not any longer. We're comfortable. We need to teach deliberate discomfort. But you also, like, you can't, you can't teach someone. to know what it's like to be invaded.

We're to know what it's like for your people to almost die. Like we have it so fucking good in this country. We simulate it. That's what a lot of basic training is. That's what I'm sure Quantico is. That's for sure what the farm is. Simulating when everything gets taken away from you. Right?

Simulated interrogations. Simulated capture. Simulated, you know, torture. Simulated escape and resistance and survival, right? We can simulate it. But even that group is this big. Yeah. Most people just go through life.

Yep. there's food when they want food and there's electricity when they want electricity and the water in their toilet is fucking drinkable. There are places in the world where there's a water fountain and you cannot drink the water that comes out of the water fountain. Yeah. Yeah. It's nuts, man. So, so that's it. That's the thing. If we're going to, if we're going to prevent parity, I mean, not even talk about superiority. If we're going to prevent parity with China, we have to be willing to take massive risks and do things that for sure the American people would deem unethical on the way to protect the American people.

Like what? Assassinations are probably one of those things that's on the list. Blackmailing is probably on. I mean, for sure, blackmailing is on the list. For sure, calculated killing is on that list, even if it's not assassinations of world leaders, right? We've got a... Opportunistic wars.

Just think, we have laws that prevent us from bribery. Yes. We need to fucking bribe if you're going to keep up with that. You know what China can do without a problem? Right. Right? Right. Like human rights abuses.

Like there's all sorts of stuff out there. Now, here's the truth of it. Those things are already happening on small levels with lots of oversight and regulation within our bureaucracy because those were authorities that we vest our intelligence partners. But is it enough? Are we going to be able to keep up with that? And this is where, I mean, as a, I don't want to like discredit it, but as like a small example in the context of this, this is where you make your arguments about like

the enhanced interrogation program. And like if a few people got to, what's your line? Like a few people got to have water dumped on them. Yeah. What the fuck are they doing over there? Exactly right, man. Like enhanced interrogation is a perfect example. A terrorist can cut an American's head off, but we can't get them wet in the face.

That's fucked up, man. It really is fucked up. How are we going to compete? Jim's got the bucket out back right now. The spelling salts are just as bad. Spelling salts even secondhand. From you. Terrible.

I think my stents just came out. But, I mean, the examples are countless man. And it's just the developing world, what the bricks is showing us right now is that the developing world is outpacing the first world. Well, guess what we were before we were the first world? Developing. We were developing. Right? And now we've weighed ourselves down with so many bureaucratic requirements with so much oversight, so much regulation.

What were we just talking about? What were we just talking recently about how companies are so afraid of being regulated that they, over-regulates themselves. Exactly. And stifle their entire growth pattern. Saw that up close. We're doing that to ourselves. One example of something like, let's piss off the internet.

We've been there for three hours. Let's get out of Ukraine tomorrow. Let's just pull the fuck out tomorrow. America is done with this. Ukraine, NATO, you're all vested in Europe. You are all in this together. We will gladly advise you. but American dollars are done

American weapons are done American weapons need to be conserved and rebuilt and we need to start using our own supply chain for ourselves because China right now is growing on their own that's a nobody would be willing to do that. The outcry about

leaving Ukraine tomorrow it would be an ideological outcry only. We can't abandon them. Those poor people, they've done so much. Pragmatically speaking, if I have to pick between the long-term economic and national security survival of the United States and the long-term economic and national security survival of Ukraine?

No question. Sure. So let's just ask that question. Let's just have that conversation now instead of seven years from now, two years from now, five years from now. I mean, every exclusive community, you know, we see a lot up in Jersey area, every exclusive community has the flag, the Ukrainian flag outside, saved Ukraine. If you went in there and said, tell me one fucking thing that's going on right now.

No fucking idea. Yeah. Oh, well, that's what everybody's saying, you know? That's what we have to save, you know, what about the $6 billion that we can't find? You don't know. I couldn't tell you. I'm heading off to St. Bart's the same thing. Not saying there's anything bad with that.

You know, I'm not, but I'm saying that that's how fucked up our power is. But then the argument is also being there. Like you just gave the pulled out example, perfectly fair. But then also the example of like being there financially in the first place, let's say, I'm not saying I know that this is what it is. I'm speculating. But let's say part of funding them is also creating a client state, also creating IOUs from maybe other people in NATO because you're pulling more weight or something like that to cash

in in the future when, oh, I don't know, maybe you got to keep the dollar or the reserve currency. Now the argument becomes, and I can see this, even if it's from the military industrial complex or something, I can see the argument being, well, fuck yeah, we got to fund that shit because we're playing 20 years from now. We're not playing for right now. That's what I struggle with in my head because no one wants to see war. No one wants to see people die, whether it's your country or other countries. And I agree it's still got to be like you have to prioritize your needs first.

But what if our needs are also tied to the fact that that's going to be happening because we have a financial incentive to get it done? So you're not wrong by any means. You're not wrong by any means. If anything, it's a balancing act of the two strategies, right? We went in with the second strategy first. Let's invest. Let's start winning, winning approval, support. and influence with our NATO allies.

And let's have first right of refusal so that Arizona State University can open in Kiev. Hurrah! It's the best. Success, right? Now they get to major and what do you call it, cracking pussy?

Okay, and pussy. Ukrainian style. No straw. So for sure, there's a benefit to that strategy. But there's a curve of diminishing returns. Right? At first, we go in, we put in, How much money have we put in there now?

I remember when it was $8 billion. I remember when it turned into $16 billion. What are we at now? Does anybody know? I don't know. Maybe Steve can find that. Yeah, Stephen, can you look at? I don't want to get a wrong number.

So whatever the number was, at some point, the number was $5 billion. Right. At that point in time, for every billion that we put into it, we actually saw a reduction in ROI compared to what we saw for the first five. 75 billion. Oh, $75 billion. $75 billion. dollars invested in what? In what guys?

In what? Answer. At best, at best, we spent $75 billion to buy a client state that has all of its own territories in Ukraine. What do we do with it now? Now we've got to put another $75 billion into rebuild it to actually make it worth anything, right? It's a money pit right now.

It's a shitty house. It's a lemon of a vehicle. Like, what are we going to do with it? You're not going to give it to your kid. They also owe us too, so we get to decide how it goes on the other side now. But what, like, that's, it's like having a, it's like having a six-year-old indebted to you. Yeah. What are they going to do?

Yeah, but mow your lawn? But, Stephen, can you pull up two maps if you can find them? One map would be a map of Chinese military bases around the world. The other map would be map of United States military bases around the world. If we could get that on the screen, because this is one country in all fairness. I'm kind of arguing for you right now. But still, like, you know, when I was in Sicily, like nine years ago, I'm standing there in Katanya and no one around there. They're all Italian.

And then suddenly, I'm standing next to a guy who's speaking English, like Texas English. I turned to my girlfriend. I'm like, yeah, there's actually like a couple Americans here. And I start talking to him. I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, oh, I work on the base here. The base that we got invading Sicily fucking at that point, 70, 75 years before that. and you look at what we do around the world

I guess we're getting some of this on the screen now like you know having Ukraine as a as a as a border country with Russia type in that not too too far from China why not you know what I mean like that would be the argument why not we can set up fucking and we are I think we already had some stuff there by the way

to be clear but like now we get more now oh let's put a couple rockets here or something like that I'm just I'm totally speculating but like I could see where you're holding your poker cards and going I'm going to like this turn in river in a minute. You're not wrong. Again, like I said, you're not wrong.

It's about the return on investment. It's a game of diminishing returns. No country in the world has anywhere close to as many overseas bases as we have. Nobody. Right. Nobody comes close. I do love that. So when we get one more, what's the return on that investment?

Small. Shit. When China gets one overseas base, they increase their overseas capacity by 25%. When we get one new base, we increase our overseas. capacity by 0.05%. Right. Is it worth it? Is it worth $75 billion?

And where, now all we're talking about is called direct costs. What could have been, what did we get for the money we spent? The second cost you have to consider is the opportunity cost. What did we miss? Because we didn't put $75 billion in that. So it's spent for sure. Good point. We didn't get anything out of it and we lost the opportunity to use it some other way.

So technically, we're actually sitting at 150 billion lost potential dollars. Crazy. Crazy. That's nuts. Crazy. So, and what? For what? For a potential base in Ukraine?

We have one in Poland. Right next to Ukraine. It's a bunch of other ones, right? It's like the mole in the stripper's ass the other day that we saw. Right? Exactly. It was like even the stripper lights couldn't hide that fucking mole. Doesn't matter.

Yeah. Yeah. We got that. Oh, boy. And what's going on between China and Russia right now? That's such an interesting relationship, right? I'm not trying to steamroll over anything you want to say, dude. No, I'll jump in, you know me.

So you got... Stripper's Mall. Well, it's unusual. Anyway. You've got these two countries, the enemy of my enemy, right? They both don't want the United States to have the big club in the room. So they want to help each other. I mean, six weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, they made their long-term partnership deal together.

Well, I didn't realize that was six weeks before. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, right before. Oh, shit. They promised long-term cooperation between the two countries, right? This is a big part of why I believe that Ukraine is a test case for Taiwan, right? It's a big part of it. Definitely.

Because of that. But the point that I'm making is that you've got two people, two countries. run by similar-minded leaders with populations that are similarly conditioned to strong man rule, they can basically drive whatever policy they want to drive, so that means they can constantly support each other in a very

dynamic and adaptable way. Right now, Russia gets to potentially, the upside here? The upside here, Russia gets what they want out of the Ukraine conflict. China gets to test Western resolve and deplete Western resources in the in the Russia conflict, while they bide time to take the Taiwan target.

And by the time they take the Taiwan target, the resources and the will of the West have been drained and tested so the Taiwan target goes even faster. And now Russia's expanded, China's expanded, and they're a partnership. Wow. Now we're sitting here in the end of September, 2023. The next election is November 2024. When you were on, well, now the Danny Jones podcast, number one 27, on, I guess like March 27, 2022, so that's a while ago now.

That's when you first said, in the lead up to the 2024 election, China's going to take Taiwan. You'll see China make a massive mood on that. It sounds like you're a thousand per even more strong about that now. All in on that. Absolutely. What does that move going to look like?

All right, guys, that brings us to the end of part one of this podcast with Andy, Julian, and Jim. Part two is going to drop on the Julian Dori podcast next week on Halloween day. And Andy's going to get deep into his prediction on the China invasion on Taiwan. one on 2024, tension rising in the Middle East, as well as a heated debate on American privacy laws. Do not miss it. Do me a favor. Go to the Julian Dory podcast on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button as well as the bell so you get notified as soon as it drops. Adios.