Good Guys - SPY GUYS with Ex-CIA Officer, Andrew Bustamante

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Mazel morons! Today, we sit down with former CIA officer and bestselling author Andrew Bustamante for one of the wildest conversations we’ve ever had. We talk Epstein files, how the government actually hides secrets, CIA interrogation tests, what really happens inside Langley, how to escape a mugger (Ben’s “fake phone call” technique gets reviewed), digital security nightmares, and the truth behind spy tradecraft. Plus, a shocking amount of Dunkin’ Donuts discourse. What are ya, nuts?! Love ya! Want to learn more from Andrew? Find your Spy Superpower Read Andrew’s CIA book ‘Shadow Cell’  Follow Andy on YouTube Explore Spy School Support Andy's sponsor Axolt Brain Listen to the podcast Leave us a voicemail here! Follow us on Instagram and TikTok!  Sponsors: Quo - Quo is offering my listeners 20% off your first 6 months at Quo.com/goodguys Hero Bread - Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code GOODGUYS at checkout. Fatty15 - Fatty15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help you live healthier, longer. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/GOODGUYS and using code GOODGUYS at checkout. Aura Frames - $35 off with code GOODGUYS Shopify - Use our link, shopify.com/goodguys, now to start getting serious about building your future. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Produced by Dear Media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Two Jews, both big and tall, no subject, too small for the good guys. A mother's dream, premium podcast team, make it your weekly routine, it's a good guys. And if you don't give us five stars, what are you nuts? What are you nuts? Yeah, we're the good guys, do not be great guys. We're just so good, good, good guys. Mazel Morans, welcome back to the Good Guys podcast.

We're sitting here with Andrew Bustamante, ex-C-CIA officer, New York Times, bestselling author for his new book, Shadow Selt, Mazel. Congrats. Thank you, sir. Amazing. And the head of hair, my God, godly hair. If you're not watching on YouTube, you're missing out on the locks of the year. Like, let me tell you, sure, Andrew has many qualifications. This head of hair, this is golden, Josh.

it's unbelievable. I wish you were here in person to see it. It's just, it's, it's voluminous. That's the word. None of this makes me feel very masculine, guys, just so you know. I appreciate the compliments. Well, the good news is you're on one of the gayest podcasts with straight men in the world, okay? We're married to women, but it's all beards. It's all beard. Which will make from your hair. I love it. That's a lot of beards. Holy smokes. That's some Viking beard that we could make from braiding this bad boy.

So we were talking about how you're going to donate your hair. Josh, I'm just thinking now he's donating to children's hospitals. You could also donate it to the Hasidic community, the ones who can't grow long beards, Josh. We can have, how many beards do you think we can get from your hair? Eight beards? Wow.

Eight Lubbich of beards? I think eight beards. Yes. Love it. What happens when a Hasidic Jew can't grow long hair? No, seriously. What happens? Does anything happen?

They just accept it. These are the questions that we should be asking. These are worldly questions. I don't know. Yes. These are worldly questions, Andrew. I don't know the answer. But I think that if we, I think that if we got the answer, I think it would bridge communities.

I think it's an important thing that we need to ask and we need to find out. I think they probably just say, okay, he tried. You can be a bald rabbi. You know? Yeah. But isn't that so much, Ben, and it's part of the silliness and also a good thing, isn't so much of studying to be. a rabbi learning how to answer such questions like the yes if like soup has one 60th pork in it it's still considered kosher like right isn't that part of what you learn at yeshiva kkaziat is like

there's like a level of if you accidentally ate something non-kosher there's a level where it's okay so if you didn't know that it had one 60th pork it's probably totally fine but yes like the fundamentals of Judaism are asking these ridiculous questions and finding answers to them. And I think it's what makes the religion so interesting. I would love to know the answer to that. I have to consult a rabbi. I think I've heard, and I think this might be Ari Shafir, the comedian, but he, I think it's, even if you know it's 160th pork, at that ratio, God goes, hey, enjoy.

Enjoy the little extra flavor. You tried your best. Interesting. You tried your best. Listen, what do you think Trump's going to do about the Epstein files? Oh my God. Let's start light. Shout out Jeffrey Epps.

Yeah, I honestly, I mean, I don't know if it's a serious question or not, but I will, I will say that Donald Trump is so good. Donald Trump is so good at controlling what the media is focused on. I would argue Donald Trump is very good at controlling what the, you know, what the, the average American is kind of willing to bite into. And then he kind of shapes the media narrative around what he already knows are going to be good media bites and just kind of keeps feeding everybody. I honestly think, and I say this because I think it's scarier than what most people think. I actually think Donald Trump is quite smart.

And it's so easy to look at a guy like that and think that he's not smart. But because he continues to keep us focused on what he wants us to focus on, either he's smart or somebody in his circle of influence is quite smart and he had to find the smart person to keep to trust in. So there's something there that's really interesting to me because if you even look at what we're doing in the Caribbean right now with our military buildup in the Caribbean, we're all looking at this and what are we being told? Narco-terrorists in Venezuela. If you look at that question logically, it makes zero sense. And yet everybody is thinking that that's what we're doing in the Caribbean, right?

Less than 15% of cocaine comes through Venezuela. 100% of cocaine flow, well, not 100%, something like 85% of cocaine flows into the United States. The remainder goes to Europe, primarily to predominant markets. And the vast majority, 90-ish percent of the cocaine that comes to the United States, goes through Mexico. All of the fentanyl goes through Mexico.

So why are we focusing on Venezuela at all? Why do we even have a term darko-terrorism? Makes you think, doesn't it? Yeah. Makes you think. That's right. That's what we do on the good guys. Same more, man.

We try not to. It makes me think. It absolutely makes me think. I don't know what I'm thinking about. Don't hurt yourself. I just short circle. Okay, so if you have nothing to hide, why not release the files? So I think that the real win here for Donald Trump is to have this constant.

controversy between Donald Trump publicly saying, release the files, let us vote on releasing files, push the Americans have the right to know. But then knowing full well that he can say that out loud and it's not going to happen for some other reason. There could be, let's just say, let's just theorize that Jeffrey Epstein was in fact a protected, what's known to protected CI, a confidential informant or a clandestine source. And would that be through the CIA? No, it would be through a law enforcement agency because CIA is not a law enforcement agency. This is, it's a silly piece of bureaucracy, but it's an important piece of bureaucracy. All of the tasks that government is given are split between different authorities.

Let's just say there's 10. There's more than 10, but let's just assume that there's 10. Those 10 authorities are essentially 10 different carveouts from American law that allows the agencies to break some element of American law in pursuit of their larger mission. So CIA's carve out has to do with espionage. We're allowed to commit espionage, which is, illegal in every country, including our own, but we're allowed to commit acts of espionage outside of United States borders in support of national security. So that's our carve-out.

That's our article. That's our authority. FBI also has an authority. Their authority is that they are allowed to collect intelligence on U.S. citizens without the knowledge or permission of the U.S. citizen. That's their carve-out. So someone like Jeffrey Epstein, who's a U.S. citizen would fall under FBI's jurisdiction in order for them to collect the information they need to build a case against him. But because he was in bed with so many corrupt people, particularly corrupt politicians, he's also the kind of person that would make a very attractive CI source, a clandestine who would be able to help FBI build a case not on Jeffrey Epstein, but on 15, 20, 30,

other corrupt politicians that are all funneling their money, their criminal activity, their nefarious activity through Jeffrey Epstein. And in order to do something like that with the U.S. citizen, you essentially have to grant them amnesty for their crimes that are committed in the process of facilitating criminal behavior for other people. I want amnesty and I don't do anything. Everybody wants amnesty. I'm a good guy.

I pay my taxes on time. I overpay. Little amnesty would be nice. Amnesty sounds great. So your thought is that potentially it's all just great noise that they're loving, using, that they keep alive, even though they know that they can't ever release anything on him so that they can do, they can keep your attention there while doing things there. Correct. And honestly, I personally think that sounds incredibly logical because otherwise it wouldn't continue to be this rat race. We, we're going to release it.

We're going to release it. No, you're not. We're going to release it. No, you're not. You just would stop drawing attention to the fact that people are asking you to release it and you would stop commenting on it. The only way that the media continues to feed off it is if you keep talking about it. Correct.

It's funny that we spoke about cancel culture for a second, Josh. It's the same thing. If you continue to bring up something yourself, then you're giving people the ability to continue to talk about it. But if you just put a stop to it and you stop talking about it and you stop answering any questions on it, eventually like everything else, it probably goes away. So it's very interesting. And I think that, again, I have no, I don't know anything about, I don't know anything more than anybody else knows.

But the idea that they don't have files that they can release legally and are just continuing to talk about it to distract from something else would be sort of politician 101. I think that every administration has that thing where they're, they put your attention on something while they focus on things that actually matter as opposed to chatter. but they can release it. They don't want to. They're protecting. We actually don't know. That's the tricky part. He's saying that he doesn't know.

Maybe they can't release them. Correct. Why wouldn't they be? That's a great, and that's a great question, right? So the way that our government was built, we were built with three branches, right? The legislative branch, the judicial branch. That's where your amnesty comes from right there. Your amnesty comes from the judicial branch.

RBG. You know what I'm saying? Clarence Thomas. RIP, RIP, RIP, Connie Barrett. So you've got these. Cabinot. I just want to let you keep going.

This is pretty, it's never sounded cooler than right now, the entire judicial branch. Jackson. So do you're not. Sorry. So you've got these three branches of government that all combine together to make the government. But they know that they know that they.

They are only contained certain authorities in each branch. So everything that would be related to Jeffrey Epstein as a criminal, in his criminal activity and in his criminal protection, would all fall under the judicial branch, which is where FBI lives. Right. But the executive branch is the president of the United States. That's a whole different branch. So essentially, the president can say anything he wants to say, or she, if we have a female president at some point, they can say anything they want to say from their branch.

and it has no impact on another branch. That's how our checks and balances were supposed to be carried out. Right. So the executive branch can know that the judicial branch can't release the files, but they can still publicly say the judicial branch should release the files, even though they know they can't because they have no power or authority over the other. It's also why the legislative branch, Congress and the Senate in the House, why they have no power over what Donald Trump does with his executive orders

or what he does, say, when he, when he, uses covert action from CIA against Venezuela. Like our congresspeople have no say in that because it's a completely different branch of government. Right. So like when Trump came out initially and said that he was going to release the files on JFK because that's another thing that people have been wanting to hear, he's able to say, I want them to release those files because maybe he means that, but he has zero authority

in doing so. And that's what's, same thing? That's what's so interesting about the JFK specific situation. because if JFK was fully an intelligence matter, fully a CIA matter, CIA falls under the executive branch. 100% of what the files they had would be released by the president's direction. But by virtue of the fact that part of the JFK files haven't been released, it means that either part of them haven't been released by the president or part of them actually exist in a different branch of government, like the judicial branch. That's what's so tricky about JFK. My recollection is that Donald Trump said release JFK files and then changed his mind after partial release of the files,

meaning he saw something and he was like, oh, as the executive, we're not going to release that. But we'll release everything else. But isn't that always the case of no matter who the president is, whether it's the most, you know, like an Obama type who comes in and is like the senator and young and seems like quite pure in there, their direction or you have someone like Trump who had sat in the seat before and then was coming back, right? Isn't it that on day one on, you know, at 3 p.m. on January 20th, you get sat down in the room and go, I know what you ran on. Here's what's really going on. And they go, ooh, we can't tell people this. Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of it. There's a, there is a

specific point at which candidates are given a security brief to the level of compartmentation that they will have as president because the president still has to fall within a need to know. And there are certain areas that the president doesn't need to know until the president asks. Because they don't want to ever have the president be implicated in something that wasn't necessary for them. It's easier if they just don't know. Exactly. And it's partly that and it's also a prioritization for the president. There's certain things the president doesn't need to know because it's just not important enough. Right. What we're trying to do against some low level drug dealer who's dealing methamphetamines in Montana doesn't really rise to the occasion of the president's

daily brief, right? So there's all these different elements that are there. But you're exactly right. You'll have 10 people running on the red side and 10 people running on the blue side. None of them actually know what's happening. And then that'll get whittled down to a primary and a secondary and a tertiary. And then all of a sudden the primaries happen. And now you have one candidate that's blue and one candidate that's red and maybe two or three that are in between. The only people who will get the security briefing are the people who have a realistic chance of making president. So only the two, the red and blue, the conservative and the liberal will get that security briefing. And it's not until right before they actually know that they're

the candidate. So that's like if elections are in the first week of November, when are those candidates getting like brought in on official security briefings? Six weeks maybe six weeks before they actually get elected into office. Cool. So you're exactly right. So much baloney. They can promise much baloney. They can promise anything they want. And then they find out they can't. They can promise free buses. They can promise free grocery stores.

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Girl, you already know who it is. It is I, singer-songwriter, actor, actress, athlete, activist, and your newest favorite podcast host. I welcome you to the baddest radio, hosted by yours truly, me, Bretman Rock. Duh. Here, I'll be talking about every. everything from funny personal stories to raw and unfiltered conversations, I'll be showing you

how to live your best life unapologetically. Catch me on here every fourth day of the week, which are Thursdays if you didn't know. You already know what to find a bad bitch. Don't forget to follow, rate, and like. You can follow me at Bretman Rock on everything and follow the podcast at the baddest radio on all social media, except for X. Because who the hell uses X? Like, Let's talk more about the CIA, my friend. I want to know the ins and outs. I want to know what they're serving for lunch. I want to know you walk into the CIA office.

Like, what's it like? I have in my head I watch severance. It feels kind of severancey. Like, do you watch severance? So the building of CIA is shockingly disappointing, I think, the actual building. Arlington, Virginia. So Arlington, Virginia is one of many cities in Virginia that actually comes close to the city that holds CIA. CIA actually has its own address in a place called Langley, Virginia,

which is just on the outskirts of McLean, Virginia, which is one of the wealthiest zip codes in America because of all the money that's been pumped into contractors who support the CIA. So they all live close to Langley, and it's increased the value of all the property in the surrounding area. So all of your Arlington's, your Clarendons, your McLean's, your Falls Church, like there's all these little cities around Langley that have gotten the economic benefit of all the money that's been pumped into CIA. But if you want to get nitty gritty and you want to be disappointed, this is like what I told everybody, that's every girl I dated before he went to bed, right? If you want to get detailed and you want to get disappointed, well, let's, here we go. There's, there's two entrances into the CIA

building. One is the front entrance. It's the main entrance that has the most roads in, or the most weighs in, the most ways out, and the most security personnel. The second entrance is a side entrance that is really only known to people who have been there for a while, less of a security presence, less ways in, less ways out, but you also have to have a certain status to use that side entrance. That in and of itself has caused all sorts of security issues because it basically means anybody who intends to do harm to a CIA officer knows exactly where every officer is going to enter the building. And we've had attacks at that entrance. People who just stood there with machine guns and shot people as they were driving in. So it's a very real threat, even just going to work.

And CIA is marked from the highway. It says CIA entrance here, George Bush Center for Intelligence here, right? It's not like Universal Studios, but it's not far from being like Universal Studios. It's funny. It's called the George Bush Center for Intelligence. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's like, it's awesome. It's like the Donald Trump Center for Manners. This is a little... Sorry, but it's George H.W. Fair. Shout out.

It's the dad. Sorry, George H. But, so you come in, and whichever entrance you come in, you come into a giant campus that's essentially two different buildings that are connected. There's a new headquarters building and an old headquarters building. So they're called NHB and OHB. And you come into these two different sides, and they each have their own gigantic parking lot because the...

the same people who work at the building can't park too close to the building. There's federal regulations around, um, around skiffs. So secure compartmental, uh, secure compartmentalized information facilities, SCIF. Skiffs have to be a certain distance away from vehicles in case that vehicle is carrying a bomb. I already can't work for the CIA. That's it. If I can't park near my place of work, there's, is what's there a shuttle? Is there a shuttle? There are. There are. Oh, yeah. I'm out. You're like, you're like, you're like, the worst airport in America. I'm out. I've told the story before you fly jet blue into JFK. All of a sudden you have to take a train to Howard Beach to get an Uber. This sounds like

the CIA and I am out. But continue. But continue. So the people who, for that reason, many people show up to work between 4 and 6 a.m. That's the, that's kind of the first swell of people coming to work because they want the best parking spots, which aren't great, but still closer to the building. And then the second ground swell of people really comes between probably like eight and 10. And they take the, they park in the worst spots, but they take the shuttle in and those shuttles will drop you off at the front entrance of the new headquarters building or the front entrance of the old headquarters building. All of the movies, all of the cool stuff that you've seen about CA, all of that is the front entrance of the old headquarters building.

The marble seal on the floor, the stars on the wall, the shiny marble everywhere. That's the front entrance of the old headquarters building. There's only one place where you can go in that looks that cool. Every place else is very much like any other corporate facility that you could imagine. If you've ever walked into like the ground floor of any major office in New York City or L.A. It's just kind of all. Guys and blazers. Yeah. And security personnel and gates with badge entrances. And that's pretty much it. Is it private security or is it federal security? So CIA actually has its own police force that serves at the headquarters building. Is this a Dick Wolf show or what?

CIA police? Now this is a procedural. You kidding me? Sick. Sick. Wow. Wow. So tell us about the vetting process.

Like from, I assume, college, like, how did it come into your purview and kind of what was the process for you to officially become a CIA officer? So I was recruited into CIA through a software system for all intents and purposes. I was applying for a different federal job. And then in the application process, a blue screen popped up that said you might be qualified for other government opportunities. And then from there, a recruiter actually reached out to me. And that's when I was trying to leave the military.

I was in the Air Force. I was trying to leave the Air Force and do something other than the Air Force. I just wasn't well built for the Air Force, as you can probably see with my Hasidic Maine. My hair is caught in the engine. I'm sorry. But so I was recruited in that way. But there are other people who are recruited on college campuses, just like you said. And there are other people who literally apply themselves through an online portal.

So there's three different ways in. But the vetting process for all of us is essentially the same. From the time that you come across CIA's possible employment radar, you go through a series of interviews. Sometimes it's between three and five interviews. They all culminate with a polygraph test. Wow. Some polygraphs take half a day. Other polygraphs take two days or more, depending on how extensive your personal background

is. Have you traveled much? Have you been engaged in criminal activity? Have you done drugs? Have you not done drugs? Like there's a wide range of people who end up working for CIA. But that's kind of the process overall. Of the interviews, there's one that is an individual interview.

You and one individual interviewer is kind of vetting you. And as you pass each round, they get more and more. So you go from an individual interview into a series of psychological and intelligence exams that has no interview. It's just a day of exams. And then you'll go into group interviews where there's panels of people who will put you, who will ask you questions, kind of put you through mock interrogations, put you through intelligence tests in front of the group of people.

And then you have to kind of perform in each level to make the vote to get passed on to the next level until ultimately you know that you're just doing a, a lie detector test and if you pass the light detector you're in. Oh, I would crush this. I would be so good. Right? Will you give us one, will you give Ben and I one like mock question,

like a toughy question that might come up in an interview process? Like I'm talking round four, round five, but we're getting close. We're getting close. Okay. So, so,

so, uh, yeah, here's, so here's one for you. Yeah, I've hooked up with a dude. No,

I'm sorry. It's, it's, it's, you got me. God. They're like, sir,

we just asked you where you're from. Okay, sorry. So we go through these role plays. And they roleplay us for a number of different reasons. But let's just say that in this role play, you are your first tour officer. You are undercover. You're not in your true identity. That's what undercover means.

And you're in a hotel room meeting with an established asset. So an established information source. Okay. The hotel room is in your intelligence source's name. and you're meeting with the person in that room. You've been going over plans for a sabotage operation. So there's maps, there's red markers, there's marks all over the maps where you plan on dropping bombs

and where you plan. Magnifying glass. There's all the cool spy shit sitting there on the bed, right? Sick, night vision. And then there's a knock at the door. And the knock at the door says, let us in, it's the police. It's room service.

Sorry. Okay, yeah. So now, what do you do? Let us in, it's a police. Oh, fuck. The police, you say, of course, you throw everything under the bed and you are no longer, you code switch. You're no longer this person.

You're back to who you were. Is that right? I'm asking, I'm asking you what you would do. So here's what I already learned. I already learned that Josh was like, oh, fuck. No, no, no, no. First of all. And Ben, I am like, it's going under the bed.

I'm cool. I'm cool as a cucumber. We throw everything under the bed. and the police force don't know that I'm undercover, right? So I'm not going to tell them my undercover names, certainly, because we don't want them digging, because if they dig and they find out that I'm not a real person, all of a sudden the whole operation is blown.

So I am my old self, or I'm quickly saying, I'm Keith Benjamin from New Jersey, and I run an ice screenshot. And it's great to see it. So I really like Ben's answer here. That's some great thinking on the spot. So let me tell you what. Let me answer really quick.

Yes, please. Okay, but I need a couple follow-up questions. Do I have... You don't get follow-up questions. It's the police. What floor are we on? Do I have grappling hooks? Okay, okay, okay.

Do I have an asthma inhaler? Can I fake an asthma? I think that's good. How big are the air conditioning beds? It's good like that. Do I have a little mini screwdriver? You can't. I'm sorry.

Oh, boy. I like this. I like the fact that you're going to fashion suction cups. out of like something that's in the bathroom and you're gonna work your way to the outside of the building. You know what I like where this is going. I'll tell you what.

I mean, all because you double parked to your car and they ask you to move it. Like, that's it. This is, this is, they see you climbing into the vent. They're like, is that your red Volvo?

Like, we're just, we just want to make, we were just passing by and we're going to have to tow it. Like, can you move it? But,

nice maps. Do you always, Do you always, for that reason, get in adjoining room? Because, I mean, in theory, right, if they don't know that you've got the room next door and you've opened, you know, the adjoining doors, like, could you just really quietly walk into the other room? So I love where this conversation is going. Nobody ever wants to talk tradecraft. And that's what you guys are talking right now. And it's really exciting to me, right?

So let's talk to the first most powerful, I think, exercise of really valid tradecraft was when Ben was saying, they don't know I'm undercover. This is something that you have to be taught. You have to be taught this at CIA. You know you're undercover. Nobody else knows. And it's because- It's like the person sitting front row at a comedy show. I never understood this.

Everybody's always worried. They're like, what if they call on me and they ask me personal questions? I'm like, they don't know who the fuck you are. You don't have to say that you're Nancy, the nurse. You can say that you're Pauline the flight attendant. Yeah, it doesn't matter. What are you so nervous about?

Nobody knows. So are, the human psyche has, a guilty complex by nature. Right? We like secrets because secrets keep us alive, but we don't like keeping secrets because it makes us feel guilty because it makes us feel like we're taking survivability away from somebody else. So it's our tribal instinct working against our survival instinct. And that's kind of the definition of all the problems of the human race come down to a conflict of our survival instinct against our tribal instinct because we are tribal creatures. Right. So they have to teach us this. When you are

undercover and operating, you are part of a tribe, but you are part of an undercover tribe. So that way, whenever the police are asking you questions, you have no problem lying to the police because they're not part of your tribe. And when you're sitting there talking to your asset, you're not, you have zero problems lying to your asset because they're not part of your tribe. Right? So the CIA helps us to identify what our hierarchy of tribal alliances are so that we can execute in the field better. So when Ben was like, they don't know I'm undercover, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna make up Keith, Keith the newspaper guy, right? On the spot. That's really good thinking because you're 100% right. Who do the police know are in that room? Only the asset.

Yeah. Because the asset's the person that the room is reserved under. Now, tradecraft, if you were to have an adjoining room next door, then there would be a paper trail that would tie to your identity. And there would very likely be some kind of correlation between when the assets room was booked and when your room was booked. There'd be some kind of correlation where there's a history of you having adjoining rooms in multiple hotels at the same time across the country. Marriott courtyards everywhere. We're always getting the adjoining. Always getting those bonvoy points.

I'm a bonvoy platinum, babe. You already know that shit. So you have to, you have to think about all this when you make your strategies, right? So, so in many ways, throwing everything under the bed and then doing everything that you can to not, not give the police a reason to suspect what's going on in the room is a, better solution than trying to wiggle out of the air conditioning vent. Though that would have been a way cooler story. That would have been a way cooler story.

And I think that was a good answer too. Okay. No bad answers. That said, it's fine. I'll be a CIA agent. I can't. So you can't tell anyone though, right? You can't?

Like, I'm too much of a yenta. Literally, like, I, like, booked a trip for my parents yesterday. It was a Hanukkah present. I called them this morning and told them. I can't hold the secret. I can't hold it. If it's a cool thing, I can't hold it. So if I, like, if I'm in the CIA, I can't just go around with my friends and not tell

them and then I'm in the CIA. But you have to do that, right? How do you do that? Well, I mean, the only people that it's hard not to tell are your family. And by the time you're recruited, most of us are not married. We don't have kids. So the only family you have to lie to are your brothers, your sisters, your mom, your all that kind of stuff.

You can tell your wife. Most of us aren't married when we're recruited. But if you meet your wife while you're still working for the CIA? Then she has to go through a clearance process. And you have to request permission to disclose your affiliation. Right. So everything has to happen before. If you're married before you join CIA,

then your application process and her clearance process kind of happens hand in hand. Right. But if you get married after you've been cleared, then everybody is a risk. to national security at that point because you are now a cleared intelligence officer. You have need to know. You have access to special compartmented information. And anybody who meets you, the government immediately distrusts.

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Like, eventually they're going to be like, really? What Costco? Yeah, I don't, it's, you can't have any real, it sounds like you can't have any like real relationships, which makes it very difficult. Well, the only real relationships you have are inside the building with other cleared individuals. Yeah. And that's, it's a genius. It's a genius move on the part of the government because you basically basically. burn all of your previous relationships. That's what I did. I burned everybody from college, high school,

the military. I just shut all those relationships down and became essentially married to CIA. And then at CIA, you make a peer group, a peer group of other people who are going through training with you, a peer group of other people who operate with you, a peer group of other people who travel with you. So you make new friends. And all of those friends have the same access by and large as you do because you're working together. And as long as you are inside the building at Langley, you're free, essentially, to talk about whatever you want to. And if you want to talk about something operational, you just go into a different room that's secured for what you want to talk about. But that's why, to your point, Ben, what do you eat? They have a whole cafeteria. They have their own Dunkin' Donuts. They have their own,

they have some kind of pizza shop. It's not like a, it's a brand, but I don't know what it is. You can trust Shaq. Sabarros. Something like that. So. They have their own Starbucks. They have their own Dunkin' Donuts. They have their own fried chicken place. So you don't ever have to leave. People show up at 4 a.m. And then they leave at 9 p.m.

And they have every meal at CIA. They have every caffeine break at CIA, right? They have a museum. They can walk through. They have halls of artwork that you can walk through. They have courtyards that you can hang out in. They have everything you need there so that once you get there, you never leave. And either of you seen severance?

No. I couldn't get past the first episode. Okay. This sounds, the only difference between the CIA and severance is that there's an operation so that when you go down the elevator bank and you reach the ground floor, all of a sudden you have no prior memory of your past life. But it was obviously modeled after. It's the same thing. The halls of the museums. You're only friends with the people there.

You only talk to the people there. It's fascinating. How long were you with the CIA? You have to check it out. It's a great show. Yeah, yeah. I was with National Clandestine Service for seven years. So that's the branch of CIA that handles operations. And what's it like when you want to leave? It's, well, it's changed quite a lot, actually. So when I left in 2014, they almost never had people leave mid-career. My wife and I, we had just had our first child. My wife is also a CIA officer. So we got around all of that awkwardness. We dated in the halls of CIA. We had. We had our afternoon dates were over tea in the courtyard at CIA, right? So we ended up getting married, getting pregnant, and then having our first child while we were still undercover with the agency.

And then when we kind of approached the agency to say, hey, we want to slow our operational pace down so we can be parents for a couple of years. They said no to us. You're like, no, your mission is the mission. Your job is too important. You know, the country needs you kind of thing. And we, at the age of, what were we, 34, we were like, I think the baby needs us more than the country needs. The country has thousands of other undercover officers.

And our baby has two parents that are already absentee enough. So that's what drove us to leave. But when we submitted our essentially our separation paperwork, then they administratively came back to us and they were like, we actually don't have a process for people to quit CIA. We have a process for people to get fired, and we have a process for people to get to retire, but we don't have a process for people to quit. So that was in 2014. The reason I say it's very different now is because in 2016 with the first Trump presidency, you had a mass exodus from CIA, the largest volunteer separation in history. And they had to deal with thousands of people voluntarily separating from CIA in 2016 and 2017. So there is a process now, obviously,

but one of the reasons that I and my wife are both able to disclose our CIA affiliation is because we went through a process where our cover was removed from us. So CIA can disclose that we work there and we can disclose that we work there. Whereas all the people who separated in the thousands in 2016 and 2017,

they filled up the backlog and their cover has never been removed. So even now there are still people who quit seven years ago and can't disclose that they previously worked for CIA. And I think you mentioned it on Jordan's podcast, but what becomes hard, right, is that you basically have a massive gap in your CV, right? You can't say where you worked for the last 10 years or 15 years. You can't show anything that you've accomplished. So you're kind of, you look like a college kid. That's exactly what you look like an idiot, right? Because you're clearly

not a college kid. Right. And you can't write a resume and you don't have. and you don't and you have typos and spelling errors and you don't have any list of references. Because when CIA has to approve everything that you publish from the day that you leave for the rest of your life. So the way that they kind of prepare that is they write your CV. They write your resume for you. But the people who write your resume are like, you know, they have no idea who you are. They're just a group of five people in a little windowless room somewhere. And this is what they do all day long is they write.

fake stuff for fake people. Well, now they have to write a fake resume for you based on your cover identity because you have a legal obligation to live your cover even after you leave CIA. So it's not like you go to work on Monday, you quit on Tuesday, and on Wednesday your resume says you worked for CIA. You quit and then your resume still says you work for the undercover position that you previously had. And it's never sexy. And it's never sexy. You read a car wash. And it's rarely real. So there really isn't any website. There really isn't any phone number.

There really isn't any person. There really isn't any boss. There really isn't any coworker that can ever validate or verify your employment. So any standard. Can you do what you do best at CIA and just make up another fake identity? That's that is a fake identity that mirrors what you'd like to see. And then you put me and Josh on as references. You just, you move on.

Like, right? Like, can you do that? It sounds obvious, but it takes time. That is essentially what I ended up doing with my wife because we were in this limbo where our resume was shit and nobody would consider us for a job because every time they tried to do basic due diligence, the due diligence would end up dry. So we decided one day we were like, you know what? We can't live in my mother-in-law's garage forever.

It's time for us to get a real job somehow, even if we have to lie and fraudulently create some tool. to get a job. So that's what I ended up doing in 2014 was essentially fraudulent behavior, falsifying records to get a job interview into a major corporation. And it worked. It worked, but it's not, it's, I don't know how legal it is. And I also don't know that, that the average person who leaves service to the United States immediately accepts that they have to, you know, fake and lie their way into a job. They're all trying to do the right thing first. It's not until, you know, things get desperate that you're willing to start breaking the law.

And what about you, you talked about how once you're cleared, you've sort of gone through the process, right? But how much are they keeping tabs on? My friend worked in the West Wing and he was like they were very concerned about people who cheat on their spouse, right? Because it's like the easiest thing for a spy for foreign intelligence to come in and take advantage of, right? Like this guy cheats. He doesn't want to disclose it to his wife. I got him. Right. So I catch him at a bar. I catch him somewhere out. Say, listen, you don't want your wife to find out. Give me these three documents or whatever. Right. So like, say like there's, you know, people act out in certain ways. Or maybe they develop a little, you know, they get a little boozy. Then they find themselves

a little bugger sugar. Like are, is the CIA actively monitoring what you're doing even after you've past all the clearances? They don't monitor your personal behaviors. What they do is they monitor your digital behaviors. So they track what you're looking at, what you're printing out, when you log in, when you log out. They can look at all that. They can look at activity on your phone, on your ops phone.

They can look at your travel records. I mean, they have access to you completely. So they've just automated all that. So long before AI hit the mainstream here in the U.S., AI was already actively being engaged at CIA. And it was being used for anything from the coalition of information all the way through to the monitoring of the officers themselves because we're still U.S. citizens. So even if CIA wanted to fire you because you got, you developed an addiction, if they wanted to fire you, they still have to meet all the stringent requirements of firing somebody from a federal

job, which means they have to build a case. They have to take that case to court. They have to have a, a panel of peers, and that requires evidence. So that's why they have just reams and reams of information about your behaviors, what you have access to, what you don't have access to, because that helps them build that case. They don't need to spend the time and energy into knowing if you cheat on your wife. They can always track call records to see if you're calling somebody that you shouldn't be calling. What if you had a burner phone?

They would be able to identify your burner phone because it's in proximity to your real phone because the two phones are both transmitting messages constantly. Wow. Yeah. Damn. Damn. Oh, man. What if I clear all my search history and my cookies?

And only using Cognito browser. Yeah, yeah. Man, I was in Oklahoma. I was in Oklahoma City the other day and they were like, you can't use Porn Hub here unless you authenticate with your license. And I was like, guys, I'm out. I was like, I don't want to be on that list. Like, you're going to have to use my thoughts. Yeah.

Shut. Have you encountered that, Ben? Where a state has asked me for my license for porn. No. And I've been to many random states and I've never had that. No. It's every red state I've been to as recently. Yeah.

I saw it in Florida. Florida, Utah. Is it new? Oklahoma, North Carolina. I know I'm all. I think it's, in, in Florida right now, if you go to a porn website, you have to put in your driver's license? Well, I don't know about all that, but there's an authentication process now that, and if you

want to have access to 18 plus information or 18, 18 plus content, you have to verify that you're actually an adult. No longer just, yes, I'm 18. Josh, we got to call up Mint Mobile and get those phones. That's what we're going to need to do. We're going to need. It's still your driver's license. No, it's somebody else's.

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What are people doing in everyday life that is negligent when it comes to overall security? Oh my gosh. That's such a long list. So what jumps out? I mean, so the things that jump out are, so we all have our contact lists from our phones saved to the cloud. Nobody saves it to the phone. So that means once somebody has access to one device of yours, they basically access everything

else you have on the cloud. So if you're talking digital security, now it doesn't matter where you are or what you're using. I mean, even if I just piggyback off of the, when you logged into the Netflix account at a hotel, if I just piggyback onto that, I'm now into your Netflix account. I'm just now into your Netflix cloud. If your family's on there, if your kids are on there, if you're sharing it with your mother-in-law, now I have access to that too.

Right. And that's just a silly example of a Netflix thing, right? If somebody actually were to hack into your phone, the phone that's in your pocket, which they can do via Bluetooth from, you know, 100 feet away, that's going to unlock everything to them. And it doesn't matter how many times you change your phone. Your phone comes with two identifiers. One identifier is tied to your phone number.

It's the identity of your digital number. And then one is tied to your device itself. So those two identifiers, when they're matched together, that's how the system knows that it's you. but whenever you split those up and you get a new device, once those two are paired again, then that becomes the new you. As long as that phone number keeps with you.

And that combination is how people can find you, no matter what phone you're using. If you're logged in as my name at gmail.com on three different laptops, two different tablets, and two different phones, they all connect to the same cloud. So digitally, people don't even think about how transparent

all of their information is. If I get onto your cloud, I have your credit card in your credit card number. I have your bank numbers. I have the bank that you bank with. Maybe you have some sort of automatic password organizer that is only validatable through your password to your phone. Well, now I have both of those things. So I have access to your full password bank as well.

Whoa. Jesus. Josh, I wish you never asked this question. Bad, dude. That's just, that's just digital security. Okay. And that's just digital security. So just on digital security.

So just on digital security, we should all be ponying up and just paying for larger iPhones and just using iPhone storage and not using cloud because it's so easy. Like for my computer, for example, I didn't buy the new two terabyte because it's $500 more. I got the one terabyte because I know I'm going to throw some stuff in the cloud, but everything in the cloud is more easily compromised than just on the device itself. So would a quick way be just to have more. storage on your devices itself because it's harder to hack an actual device than it is a cloud?

Yeah, honestly, the quickest thing you can do is stop using digital password protectors. That's the biggest thing, right? Because whether you save something to the cloud or whether you save something to your phone, it's the password that grants the access. Right. So if you literally had two factor, two factor is the same thing? Two factor authentication is another great tool that you can use. But the two factor authentication is compromised.

if somebody has access to the thing that you are two-factoring, two-factor authenticating, right? So if it's a phone command that goes to your email address, if they have your phone and they have your email address, then they can two-f-a-you. And that's how a lot of identities are stolen is people have exactly that problem. Well, that was Andy Cohen randomly talked about that

where he got caught up in this scheme and they were like, and he basically forwarded his phone calls inadvertently to the scammer. So now when he's doing two-factor, they were getting the tax. And so it was, it was a rap. That hurts. And that's, you've got to keep in mind that criminals are always one step ahead of security because their job is to stay one step ahead of whatever the current security tools are. And they're not trying to steal an individual's

information. They're trying to steal anybody's information that they can get their hands on. It's a, it's a mass market game. It's a surplus game, right? So protecting yourself is really just a about having better security practices. But all of those, CIA teaches us there's a spectrum, and the spectrum goes between security and convenience. And if you want things to be more convenient, then you're less secure. And if you want things to be more secure,

then you're less convenient. So there's a reality there that we all just have to accept. If we want a very convenient life, you're going to have an insecure life. If you want a very secure life, you're going to have an inconvenient life. It's like my marriage. It's like we're very secure.

but it's not so fun. I'm sorry. That's every marriage. I love you, Paige. Okay, Ben, quickly, so Ben has this technique when faced with danger. Okay.

Yes. And Ben, and it's foolproof, by the way. We'd love to hear from a security expert what he thinks. Okay, so you're about to mug me. Okay.

You're a pro. me on the street. I, by the way, I have eyes in the back of my head. I can see you coming from a mile away. I know you're about to mug me. I'm going to get handsy in this mugging too. I can already tell. Yeah. You're about, you're about to get, you're coming. I see you. You're probably still 10 feet away. Hello? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you? Yes, of course. All right. Yes, I will, I'll see you soon. Yeah, I'm, I'm coming. I'm coming. Yes, yes, all of a sudden, I'm already in a store. I'm in a store.

That's what I do. I take a fake phone call and I'm in a store. Sometimes, sometimes I'll pretend to be on. It's usually with my mom, definitely, but sometimes I'll pretend to be on with somebody scary, but it's always the beeline to the store, phone call store. What do you think? I think it's a very solid strategy.

Do you know why it works? That's what I'm curious. If you would know why it works, can you put yourself in the shoes of the criminal? Yes, yes. I think that if you're a criminal, the last thing that you want is somebody telling somebody that they're being mugged, that they're being mugged. Like, I'm on the phone with somebody so I can tell, I can tell on you, mugger. Okay? That's my philosophy. It's like, hey, I'm being mugged on 74th and third. Come. You know, you mugger, bugger. So I think that's why it works. And yeah, it's, it, it, it, It works. It works. So I love your confidence that it works. It just makes me think that you're afraid of a lot of people, but that's okay. It's better to be afraid of a lot of people rather than afraid of nobody. I'll tell you another strategy that works wonders. My mom does the opposite of this, which is why she has a crazy story every day. I make no eye contact with anyone I don't

know when I'm on the street. None. None. The second you lock on with somebody crazy. You're theirs. You are fucking theirs, okay? They own you. No eye contact from me. My mom, she'll make eye contact with a tree.

She'll make eye contact with anyone. And all of a sudden, she is lured into their trap. And she's calling me from Amsterdam talking about how she's having lunch at somebody's house that she met that morning. I'm like, mom, what are you doing? You're going to get trafficked.

But no, I don't make eye contact with anyone. That sounds like a very rich life. That sounds like a very rich retired life that your mother had. By the way, she's rich. I am doing everything I can to stay alive. She's doing everything to live rich. Absolutely. That is so true. So going back to your point. So the first thing is your your strategy works very well for anybody intending to do personal harm. Because what you're doing when you pick up the phone, in the eyes of the criminal, what you're doing is it's a pattern disruptor. They're watching. you. They're casing you. They see a pattern of individuality or somebody who's independent in a moment, which means that you're a victim that's not part of a larger group. As soon as you connect with somebody on the phone, it's disrupting the pattern of behavior that was otherwise independent choice. So now all of a sudden there's another person involved. So just like you said, you're not going to be able to say, hey, I'm being mugged on 73rd in Maine. Instead, the criminal

looks at it and they're like, oh, there's no longer one person there. There's two people there. Right. So their survival instinct as the criminal is interrupted, and they have to ask themselves, is it easier to attack this person, or is it easier to wait five minutes and find a different person? Right. So it's a deterrence method. And then the fact that you duck into a store is also a deterrence method. So those are two very strong deterrence tools that you're using to disrupt anybody who's intending to do you physical harm. The problem is if they're intending to do financial or digital harm, you just gave them an unlocked phone. So if, I mean, you're faking it. You're faking it. Oh, wait. No. It's fake. No, it's fake. No, not technically. It's fake. It's 100% locked. Yeah. So,

they're going to take your phone thinking that it's open and then they're going to have your phone. And then it becomes a financial crime where they're like, I have your phone. Do you want your phone or do you want me to keep your phone? How much you're willing to pay for your phone? And maybe you're like, fuck it. I don't want my phone at all. They're like, that's fine. Somebody else will take your phone. Now you're one phone down. You're one phone down. down and that's no problem. But that's how they would extort you for a financial piece. And you wouldn't have time to duck into a store. Got it. That's another thing. Anything you want for me, it's yours. My phone, my clothes, my virginity, anything you want from me.

Are you a size 36? It's yours. Okay. I want no part. Nothing. So you've got you've got one third of criminal activity kind of nailed. They shouldn't mug you with that strategy. But if they wanted your phone or if they wanted your wallet, they still have a good option to get there. You want to see my strategy? No problem. Just don't steal my innocence. No problem. Don't hurt me. Take anything from me, but my innocence, okay? Leave me alone. My strategy is just, I'm Josh from Drake and Josh. Really? You're mugging? You're nuts. What are you nuts? What are you nuts? But I also I think that's a sound strategy as well

Like I've before like when I was younger Like I would just like do like if I was walking to a bad neighborhood And like I would like there'd be a group of dudes Who just felt like they were gonna bully me I would just do this Not the laughter part Ah And it would be like

I just You know you gotta act crazy man The Tourette's approach would work Right? Yeah yeah yeah Dick fuck man I could add that to me my arsenal too. Yeah. I could. Yeah. Do you talk to mom? On the phone. On the phone.

Fucking shit. I think I just shat myself. It's good. Yeah. No one's got touched you. If you literally just say the words, I think I just shat myself. They should leave you alone. Oh, yeah. That's good too. They should leave you alone. That's good. So it's funny because one of the the big things that we were taught were less about how to protect yourself from crime because you can protect yourself from crime by keeping yourself away from opportunities for crime. Right? So don't walk down a shady street. If you're going to a store, pick a street that's not shady. Pick a street that doesn't have a bunch of crazy people on it, right? The only place that that wouldn't work is if you're in Portland, because there's entire blocks in Portland that are just trash.

But generally, you pick the safest route to where you're going. One of the things that CIA taught us, more than anything, was how to get out of conversations you didn't want to be in because that happens all the time. And it's a significant risk to your cover and to your ability to pay attention to your surroundings. If you have somebody just a nervous Nelly or an over, over engaging stranger who's like, oh, tell me about this and tell me about this. And let me tell you about my daughter. And let me tell you about my. Yes. How do you get out of that conversation? I must know. How do you get out of it? You're on a plane. All of a sudden, your locked screen is your King Charles Cavalier. And the woman next to you starts talking about how once upon a time, she also had a dog.

How do you exit that conversation? That is a far more useful skill, right? So what we were taught is that you always, you always try to make it as uncomfortable for them as possible to keep talking to you. The more uncomfortable you can make it for them, then the more it becomes survival instinct and tribal instinct. They're trying to connect with you. That's their tribal instinct. You want them to decouple from you. That's their survival instinct.

So one of my favorite tools was always to talk about how I get air sick. I get air sick very easily unless I have a chance to just focus on a screen or focus on music or look out the window. If I'm engaged in anything, I get very, very air sick. So I don't want to be rude, but I also don't want to throw up on you as soon as we take off. And that will trigger their survival instinct and they won't talk to you. They might check in halfway through the flight and be like, are you doing okay? But they're not going to talk to you anymore. That works in cabs.

It works on trains. It works in all sorts of places. Basically, the I'm going to throw up on you escape. That's really good one. Okay, I'll add that to the awesome. I think the Dick Fuck Tourette's approach would probably also work very well. Or you just bring up shit no one wants to talk about like, hey, you know, do you know any good conspiracy theories? You know, like, you just be like the, like, there's just certain shit where I'm like, I don't want to talk about it, dog.

Depends who you talk to, Josh. Some people, they love that. Some people just want to talk to hear themselves talk. Man, I like the puking. The puking is good. The puking is good. Maybe you actually puke. Maybe you actually puke.

Way to commit. Way to commit to the story, dude. That's called committing to your legend. You just throw up on them. They just ask you anything. And just stick your finger down their own throat in the process. Be like, hold on. Let me just pull the trigger real quick.

It's going to be easier. Yeah. Do CIA officers out in the field who are undercover carry a cyanide pill? No. We do not. We do not. carry self-termination devices. What about tick-tacks?

You know, no one wants bad breath, even when doing espionage. As long as they didn't come from a U.S. store. Yeah, because you're trying to, you're trying to integrate into your local culture. So whatever the local breathment is. Can you be on Wilburne and be in the CIA asking for a friend? Are you allowed to be on any, like, antidepressants? Oh, yeah, for sure. CIA heavily recruits from people who have anxiety disorders, depression issues.

They make very dedicated and loyal workers. You're looking at a lieutenant, baby. That is the Welchran speaking right there. No, this is the Welchran speaking. Help! Hi. Were you ever out in the field undercover and thought, I'm talking to another person?

and undercover. Yeah, absolutely. It's called spookspeak. Whenever two of us meet in the field, whether we know who we are or whether we suspect who we are, we kind of go into spookspeak. And that's, it's when you talk in generalities that you both know are strategic generalities, and then you kind of talk around certain specialties that you both know you're talking around. So it's almost like, I'm sure it happens in the acting world too. You know when you're talking to another actor. There's vocabulary and terminology and mannerisms and, and, and, and, and, and, and, verbal and nonverbal cues that you're just like, this person is, this person is clearly an actor,

a stage actor or a screen actor or something. I'm sure you have that. Right. The same thing exists in espionage. So that's how, you know, a French intelligence officer and an American intelligence officer meet, and even though they don't share a language necessarily, they're speaking in pigeon French and pigeon English,

or maybe they're speaking in pigeon Spanish as a third language, but they still know with high confidence, like I'm pretty sure I'm talking to a trained intelligence officer. Right. Yeah. Like, that's a very, like, that's a hearty shoe, like, built for running. You know what I'm going? Well, also.

And in the best, in, in, in homage to our Hasidic brethren that will one day have nice beards, the, the, the massad is one of the best at spookspeak. So when, when you are dealing with an Israeli, you never really know if they're massad or if they're, if they're trained in military intelligence or if there's some other intelligence training that they've had. they can, they do a good job, or really what it is, is all Israelis have a security posture that borders on professional. So that makes it very difficult to know if you're talking to a trained agent or whether you're talking to just a security conscious Israeli. It's very different than say in the United States when you know you're talking to an American that has zero concept of personal security versus a trained intelligence operator. Every Israeli in my life growing up We're like, I can talk about it, but I was in the Musad.

And I go, ori, you were a cook. Like, you were not in the Musad, dog. I can't talk about it, but. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know how high up in the ranks you were. Should we get to Woody and Nuts? Uh-oh. Yeah, definitely.

This is fun. Our Woody and Nuts moment of the week. It's our final segment. It's our gripes with people, places and things, both big and small, whatever, sticking in your craw. Ben and I will start. time to think about it, but there's no bad answer. So think about it, Ben.

It can be intense or it can be something on your way here. Something happens. Like right now, I'm staring across from a printer. And my what are you nuts is big printer. Okay. Nobody has a working printer. Okay? We've just come to understand that when we buy printers, they are just going to stop working.

And there is no recourse. There's no recourse against big printer. They never get better. And so I think printers are what are you nuts. You mentioned we're living in the age of AI. We're living in the age of we're making everything better. Printers are just getting worse. Nobody can print anything.

There are no printers. And they eliminated all the kinkos. There's no more staples. You can't go anywhere to print it. You're at home printer isn't working. So I think big printer, Woody and Nuts, how do you make printers that work? Well, good.

I like that. I do. My Woody and Nuts is I have YouTube TV as it happens. They go, listen, we are in a fight. Currently, we are in a, what do you call it? We're in a very intense negotiation with Disney to continue to carry ABC, Disney, ESPN. If we lose them, we will give you a $20 credit. They lost them.

Negotiations didn't go well. They go, if you would like this $20 credit, if I would, what are you nuts? I assume I want it. Don't make it so hard. If you would, you know, if you would like free money, just go to this. link. I'm like, just assume I want it. What are you nuts? Fill up the 25 questions to get your free $20. Yeah. Yeah, the $20. So for me, it only happens when I'm in L.A. But I see all these billboards around L.A. that are

advertising the newest shows on Netflix. Newest shows that are on Disney Plus. Newest shows that are on subscription channels. And I've never understood why would you take a perfectly good billboard space to advertise a television show that you only have access to if you're a subscriber? And it only happens in LA. You don't see that in Boise, in Boise, Idaho. You don't see it in Colorado Springs, Colorado. You don't see it in Tampa, Florida. You don't see anybody anywhere spending good billboard space on a Netflix show. Because if you're watching a Netflix show, you're behind a screen watching a Netflix show and you're going to see that it's already in the top 10 shows. You're going to see it in your search history. So what are you nuts? Putting up a television show

advertisement on a billboard in only one city? I mean, LA is a big city. It's a big city, but it's not as big as the country and nobody else is doing that shit. I'll tell you why they do it. It is a complete what are you nuts. They do it so that their bosses can see that they're doing something. It's the same thing. I own an alcohol company. I strategically advertise in places where investors live so that they can see that we are

everywhere. Cut that out. Okay. We are everywhere. Because if they walk around and they don't go to their local liquor store, you can't be everywhere. I'm saying, don't cut it out. That's just smart.

And I don't think you're the only. person who does that. Don't cut it out. Leave it in. Leave it in. Yeah, you should be doing it. When I was on grandfathered, I was on this show with John Stamos on Fox and it there was two different billboards, right? There was one with just John's face on it and then there was a single one with me and John. And it just so happens, the one with me and John was a quarter mile from my house. I think they were just doing it to keep Josh happy. Could not find another bus terminal with my face. Genius. Genius. Right. Maybe all of the What You're nuts is really just, what do you, smat?

Yeah. Wow. What are you smart? I love that. We need a Bostonian on. What you're smart? Andrew, please plug anything. Tell people where to go to find more. Yeah, absolutely. My name is Andrew Bustamanzi. You can find me on Everydayspy.com. My New York Times bestselling book is out. It's called Shadow Cell. It wrote that with my wife while we were both undercover at CIA. And yeah, thanks for having me. And the hair will not be here much longer. So if If you're only listening, make sure you wake your way to YouTube so you can see what all the buzz is about. It's gorgeous. Oh, what a pleasure it has been to have you.

Like the jokes, the humor on a CIA agent, this man is fantastic. By his book. Folks, if you're not going to give five stars to an episode, it's got to be this episode, right? If you were thinking, am I going to give five stars or not? You must give five stars. This is a five star worth episode. Watch us on YouTube. Listen to us wherever you get your podcast.

Share our clips, Instagram and TikTok. Monday's and Thursdays, folks. We will see you next time. Thanks, too. Thank you guys. Yeah. What a pro. Thanks for coming. What a pro close there, man. So good. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.