EverydaySpy Podcast - EXPOSING the Donald Trump Agenda: An Ex-CIA Spy Couple's Perspective

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/4kjD3VT Trump is in his second term, the government is getting shook up, and our business is growing faster than we ever thought possible! In this conversation, Jihi and I tell you a bit of what life is like for us under the new Trump administration and where we plan on taking you in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States is going through a massive transition right now. The difference between a politician and Donald Trump is that he doesn't play by the same rules. Donald Trump is coming in and he is breaking everything, but it might be exactly what we need right now. The truth is that change hurts. And we can't really see right now whether this change is going to be good or bad. How do you think CIA officers are thinking through the idea of getting bought out of the rest of their career? You know, it's really? It's been a while since we've sat down together and a lot has happened.

How are you feeling about everything? I'm excited. I think the business has grown so much. Everyday spy has really become something that I never imagined. I mean, I think in the sense that I have met more and more people now who have told me themselves personally that their lives have been touched and improved by their experiences with everyday spy. It's humbling. Yes.

It's super humbling. I mean, it happens to me in the airport. I was crossing the street not too long ago in Estes Park. And a dude jumped out of his truck. He was parked. He wasn't parked at all. He was at a stoplight. He was the second car at the stoplight.

He actually got out of his running vehicle to come meet me in the crosswalk and be like, dude, Andrew Bustamante, everyday spy. I love you guys. You guys are doing such great work. Keep at it. and then the light turned green and he had to go back and all the honking. It was, I mean, the stories are endless.

Yeah. And it just keeps getting better and feeling better. Yeah. Just recently we were, we were skiing. I was taking my second skiing lesson. Swoop, second ski lesson. It feels just as terrible as the first one. But the ski instructor was amazing.

And he spent, I think, three hours with me and he gave me exactly what I needed because I, after the first ski lesson, I was just terrified. Like, I was on the snow, but I felt like I couldn't stop. I felt like I couldn't control myself. And so he listened to me and took exactly, you know, what I needed, you know, step by step. And it wasn't until the very end of the three hours when I was thanking him. And I was like, thank you so much for your patience.

I mean, we were doing our lesson during a snowstorm. It was freezing. And he was so patient. and I was I was really expressing my gratitude to him and he looked at me and he was like, you know, thank you. It's really been a privilege to be able to teach you today. He's like, I listen to your guys' podcast. And I was like, oh, like I never would have known.

But then he starts telling me his own story and his own journey. And his journey was so powerful because he had been a ski instructor for several years. and then one day he decided to become sober and right at the time when he decided to become sober was when he started listening to our podcast. And for the next three years, the last three years, he's been listening to us and, you know, really taking to heart the lessons and, you know,

the techniques and tactics he was talking about how, you know, he implemented for himself to, you know, know, work on the issues that he had had before were all things that I implement myself and we have taught and I've met other people who also use these skills and it helps them too. And so to meet somebody who, it was really humbling, to have somebody help me so much and then to know that we have also helped them in a way that's so profound. When you first told me that story, I was like, I was floored because your ski instructor was the same ski instructor who previously was teaching our daughter.

And he had not mentioned anything about knowing who we were. And she loved him too. And she loved him too. So a couple of things. One, as much as I would love to shout out his name, I want to protect his anonymity because of what he's at in his life.

But I will say this. For all of the skiers out there, find time to visit ski Cooper in Colorado. Ski Cooper, not Copper Mountain. Ski Cooper, Cooper, not Copper, the instructors are top notch. and if you're lucky, you'll come across the same incredible instructor that we had. And the history of that place is awesome, right?

Cooper being one of the training grounds for the U.S. military during World War II, when they were training soldiers to invade in the winter over the Italian mountains. How incredible is that, right? And there were real troops, real soldiers who were pulled from Kansas and Utah and Florida and New York. and they were trained here in Colorado at ski cooper on that premise so that they could be dropped by parachute and invade on skis into Italy. What an incredible historic story of that place. Yeah, it really is humbling as well

because when you read on the wall, they have a display talking about the history of ski Cooper and the men who train there. And when you're reading it, you think about the men and women who are currently on missions doing these crazy things like that. I mean, somebody had the idea of we need to be able to go into combat in this scenario. So we're going to train you to do it no matter how nuts it sounds. And people signed up and they did it and some were successful and some lost their lives.

And it's just such an amazing and humbling experience to, you know, be in a place where people trained to potentially give up their lives for our freedom, for our safety and security, and then at the same time spend the day with an instructor who's giving up his time and his focus to really make sure that you are safe on the mountain. And that was one of my biggest, you know, I guess security is one of my big things. Security is one of your big things. I think anybody listening here? has known that you're a little bit of a little bit on the extreme spectrum of needing to feel secure.

But that was one of the things I appreciated the most was that his sense of security. So, you know, just an example, he taught me to look uphill. He's like, before you start skiing, look uphill. And my first lesson didn't teach me that at all. And now I realize how important that is. So just the focus and attention he gave me, like he seemed to be able to read what I'm, you know, what I'm, needed, right? And what I value is security, the security of myself, my family, my nation, my neighbors, right? So, you know, I'm, it's nice to know that as we invest our energy and other people, they are also investing their energy back in themselves and in us. So I have to go here because you just commented on how focused you are on security.

The United States is going through a massive transition right now. Yeah. Donald Trump, reelected for his second term and I have to say it's been pretty incredible to watch you process through the changes that he's been implementing and I say that as a compliment because you have a very rational logical um approachable way of thinking about his changes can you tell me tell everybody really a little bit about what you're seeing what you're thinking how you're processing it. So I don't know if it's age or your influence. Wisdom is what we call that.

But I do find that with age and with experience, I become more centered. And the first place I really experienced that was in law school because I was very, very, I came from a very liberal family. I was very liberal progressive in college. And then when I started law school, there were so many concepts that I realized it's not, not black and white.

There's so much gray. And I think that experience is what helped me at the CIA because so much is gray. So much is complex. And you can't just judge it right off the bat. And so with the new administration coming in, I've been very intentional about not having knee-jerk reactions. There are lots of things happening that I want to have a knee-jerk reaction

and be like, this is horrible. The world is ending. Like, what's happened to our country? But the truth is that change hurts, right? And we can't really see right now whether this change is going to be good or bad. Yes, on the surface, I think for a lot of people, they're like, this is horrible.

And then for a lot of people, they're like, this is amazing. Right. But we're not really going to know only for years. For years. For years. For years. It's so powerful to understand.

understand like politicians have been making promises for a long time. Right. The difference between a politician and this enigma that is Donald Trump is that he doesn't play by the same rules. Right. So where the Obamas and the Bushes and the Clintons and the Bidens of the world, they all made promises to implement changes and those changes didn't come. When those changes did come, they came by forcing, forcing legislation through a controlled,

a dominated house, right? Donald Trump is coming in and he is breaking everything. Yeah. Because honestly, I think he's saying him to himself, I just have to break it. Anything that's built back

will be better than what was here before. But every politician who comes through these halls is always too much of a coward to just break it. So let's break it and then let better men fix it essentially, right? And that is a reckless, business-minded thing to do, but it might be exactly what we do. need right now. Well, and the other thing he's doing is he's testing the system. So right now, in the very early days of the administration, he's testing. He's seeing what can I actually break

and what is going to get pushed back? What is unbreakable? And I think, and I think... What is so entrenched? Yes. It can't actually be moved. Or what works? What is working? And so it doesn't really need to be broken. So I don't think we're going to see the dust settle for like at least a year, you know, because it's going to take the court system and, you know, all of, we do have checks and balances. So we're going to have to see how those play out and what do they check and what do they balance. And then I think we'll be able to really see the state of affairs. And then we'll be able to see what is the path forward that this nation really wants. How do you think CIA officers are thinking through the idea of getting bought out of the rest of their career? You know, it's really hard

to guess because there are different types of people who work for the government. There are different types of people who work even just at CIA. Yes. And so, you know, for the person who wanted a secure job who was like the government is a steady job, I do my time, I contribute, and I get a pension at the end for my contribution, those people, if they're early on in their career, might feel more inclined to go elsewhere. But there are people at the CIA who are there for the mission. I mean, they don't care who the executive is.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, they go into the jungles of Burma by themselves to like complete a mission. Yeah. By snakes. That person isn't going to be bought out. That person's there for the mission. That person understands that no matter what the government goes through, as long as the government

exists, as long as we have a nation, we have to protect it. And intelligence is a key component. of protecting our nation. So I think the people who are really passionate will stay because I don't think they're, they're not going to leave us unguarded. Who's the kind of person that Director Ratcliffe simply won't let leave? Because there's an element of that as well. Right.

So there are some people who are just too important to the mission. And I think you and I... Whether they are, whether they're like bean counters, or whether they're just there for a paycheck, right? Right. I mean, because if you're, whether or not you want to be there, if you're talented and your talents go towards protecting our nation,

we need you. You know, and when you signed up, when you sign up for the CIA or the FBI or the military, it's needs of the mission. So they're not going to let you leave. You know, even when, I remember when we were there, there was at least one,

long government shut down. And we had to go to work. We were all critical personnel. We were all critical personnel because it didn't matter whether or not we got paid. The mission continued, right? So I think there are going to be lots of people like that in the CIA, the FBI, Secret Service, you just aren't going to be able to leave your critical. We have a number of excellent friends, friends and colleagues that supported us in operations

who work at USAID. And USAID is going through a massive tumult right now. What are your thoughts? So it's, that was the beginning of me being like, I really need to stop having major reactions. Because, so, it's twofold for me. And let me frame it because I think, I want to say what I think you're saying. I want to say what I think you're thinking.

And then you can correct me, right? Okay. USAID is the source of our soft power worldwide. Yeah. But it is also incredibly wasteful. And we've seen the waste that it gets trapped into and the abuse of that waste. And we've seen it for as long as we've been in government. And how do you fix that?

How do you fix that? How do you change that? Especially when you think you have to accept outside of the United States, corruption, you know, political manipulation. I mean, these things are standard. It's common to have a warlord who's a drug kingpin, who's also the president. That's common in the world. And somehow we still have to find a way to pass aid to that country.

So my answer is mostly different. Oh, shows how little I've learned about you in 14 years of marriage. So I do agree with the soft power. So like my, the more mature version of me agrees in the, the importance of soft power. So I think we've talked about this before. Hard power is like your military, is your stick. Soft power is the carrot, right? You know, we help you out.

We build infrastructure. We make your people's lives better. and then you want to be friends with us because we've helped you have a better life. So it's important for national security, honestly, for national security, for America to maintain its edge, all of these things are important. The other side of me, well, I understand that,

I mean, that's why I think, you know, we'll see when the dust settles how much waste, fraud, and abuse there actually was. Because the other side of me believes in the mission of USAID. I believe that we are a nation, but we are all on the same planet. We cannot get away from each other. We can see with the immigration issues that when people in one country are suffering, it affects all the countries around them. So why wouldn't you try to make that better?

Why wouldn't you invest in the betterment of your neighbors? because if you don't, that will affect you in the future adversely. So I'm not saying that it's not complex because it is incredibly complex. And I don't believe that I have never believed that just exporting democracy would fix the problem because democracy isn't the solution for every nation and for every people. But we have to try. We have to at least think outside of the box on how can we improve conditions around us in a way that enhances our soft power that helps us out while also helping others out.

You know, I love that you have such a different opinion from mine and a different perspective. I'm super excited when your perspective starts to shift towards my perspective because it makes me wonder if I was right the whole time or if, I don't know, or if I'm just wrong but you're becoming more wrong. Some in the middle. Yeah, whatever it is. It still makes me feel good. But I've really appreciated learning your point of view and learning your knowledge and learning your perspective on so many different things.

I'm actually really excited for the next phase of where we're going with the podcast because we're going to start inviting our own network to join us in these conversations. We're going to invite our military contacts and our federal government contacts and our commercial sector contacts, folks who we trust, folks that we go to when we have questions and challenges and when we need insight. And I'm really excited to start rotating them through that chair that you're sitting in now so that we can share their insights with everybody who's joined us here in the Spy Tribe with Everyday Spy. Yeah, I'm super excited because when I meet people, you're wonderful. I love everything that comes out of your mouth mostly. But you on your own are one perspective, one set of experiences. It's like an amazing set of experiences.

It's fairly broad. I love the perspectives that you bring. I love that you can see multiple sides of things. But when we talk together, I've met so many people who are like, I love the way you two converse. I love the difference in opinions. I love watching you two. Push and pull.

Push and pull. Work it out. And I bring a complete. different perspective and set of experiences. And what I'm excited about is, you know, we have the people in our network over for dinner and we have these amazing conversations. And they have, they come with experiences that in my wildest dreams I could never imagine having. And it has built them in, you know, in ways that are so different than me and they have

perspectives that are so different than me and they say things that I take home and I'm like, I start to think about it and should I implement that? And so I'm really, really excited that, you know, the diversity of our network is going to be able to be showcased for the spy tribe because I think it's just so important. The more people you speak with, the more people you meet and the perspectives you hear, the more human we all be. become. Yeah. Right.

And the better equipped we are to tackle this thing called life. Yes. And life includes your career. And life includes your family. And life includes your challenges and your goals and your growth. And the moments where you trip up and you make mistakes. Like it's all, it's all something that brings us together. And our colleagues at FBI, our colleagues at NSA, our colleagues in special forces,

they all understand that. They know that mistakes and successes come hand in hand. And growth and failure comes hand and. hand and and heartbreak and heartache and you know the and pride all come hand at hand and that's something that I feel the world isn't hearing enough of yes instead we hear these one-sided stories where you know this person's a success story and when you follow them on instagram or tic-tok all you see is their perfect pictures and this person is you know they learn from their biggest failure and it's like they they believe that that person is one-dimensional

Yeah. He failed here. He succeeded here. And now that's who he is defined as for the rest of his career. Yeah. Never thinking like, hey, that person came from somewhere and is going somewhere. That person has goals themselves. They will have multiple failures on their way to the top, right?

Right. And it's been such an exciting thing because our network is also watching our company and supporting our mission. Yeah. So they want to come on. They want to share their thoughts. They want to share their knowledge, not to be. just here on the podcast, but in our training courses and in our in our corporate courses, in our international private intelligence endeavors because they believe in our mission.

They believe in the mission of spy education to break barriers for everybody who's willing to learn. So if you're listening to us right now on audio, I want you to find your way to YouTube and subscribe to the Everyday Spy podcast on YouTube. If you're already on YouTube and you're following us there, make sure that you click on notifications because we've got some really exciting stuff coming up. And if you're somewhere in between, you can't go wrong if you like, subscribe and share this episode because we want everyone to be ready for a whole new gear to get turned on when we start bringing on the guests, these people that you have never thought you would ever get to meet, that you will now get to meet and have these conversations with yourself. How have you felt developing everyday spy to the place where it is now? It's been challenging.

But it has felt good to, you know, when you leave the CIA, you don't know what you're going to do with yourself. You don't know what value you really bring to everyday life. You don't know what purpose you're going to serve without a mission. So everyday spy really has given us, really has allowed us to create a mission and a purpose that aligns with our values and that continues to drive us forward. You know, this is the legacy that we want to build.

We want to build a community of people who want to grow, and we want to grow that community. We want people to understand that life is gray, life is complex, life takes work, right? But you can still win. But you can still win. And winning looks like lots of different things, and winning comes with failure too.

I remember, you know, one of the most incredible, like one of the most mind-blowing things I realized, you know, probably a few years ago, I think maybe shortly after we left the CIA, was I had been raised with a goal in mind. And when I hit that goal, which was getting a professional job with the government, I had checked all the boxes, right?

Done well in school, gone to college, gone to grad school, got a professional job with the government. And I was like, I've made it. I have arrived. You don't arrive in life. Life changes, right? You change. So I love that the everyday spy community,

that the spy tribe is full of people who recognize that you have to constantly be striving because life is constantly changing. Yeah. Right? Folks, I am super excited to share this conversation with you and even more excited to share the conversations that we have ahead.

If you want to understand more about how Ghee and I think about problems and what CIA taught us to do, make sure you click on the link in the description below and find your way to the spy quiz. But I do have one more thing I have to say to my beautiful wife before we wrap up because I have noticed

that as you have spent more years away from CIA, you have fallen into the habit of calling it the CIA. Yeah. And anybody who's been listening, I'm pretty sure I mean, I wasn't even trying to. count, but I think I got somewhere to the tune of like 18 references to the CIA. Just to make sure that people know I'm not the one lying here, what is the correct way of saying

it? And why? You don't remember? I know. You are very adamant that it is CIA. CIA. And it's not just me. That's how CIA is as well. Because, and I will never forget this, this was in our, this may have been in the training class where we met, actually. Oh, maybe it was on a day that I wasn't there because remember I ended up in the ER like that first week. So Ghee and I met for those of you who don't know. Jehe and I met when we were in in one of our early training courses. It was a report writing workshop and she sat behind me and I was always trying to sit between two cute girls, which is actually very easy to find at CIA.

It's pretty nice. But during that report writing shop, they specifically told us when you refer to CIA as the acronym CIA, it is not a proper noun. So you can't use the word the in front of it. When you refer to CIA by its full name, Central Intelligence Agency, then it is a proper noun and you can call it the Central Intelligence Agency. I was definitely out that day. I came back and I didn't know how to do like my timesheet. I didn't know anything about insurance and nobody caught me up. Nobody cared. You seem like you still made it work. You found a way to get paid.

I did because, you know what, Targeters don't write the same kind of reports that other people do. It's mostly like data. That's why I picked that job. Folks, thank you so much for joining us. We can't wait to see you next time and we'll see you on the flip side.