Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Part Two: 18,000 Terrorists Are Already Living On US Soil. Former CIA Targeting Officer Sarah Adams Explains The Deception Campaigns They Use To Hide And How Al-Qaeda Grew To 200,000 Members

Episode Date: July 18, 2026

Former CIA Targeting Officer Sarah Adams reveals what she believes are some of the biggest national security threats facing the United States today, and why many Americans may have a false sense of security about the future.In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Sarah explains why the U.S. could be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than many realize, whether the U.S. is currently facing an active terrorist threat, and how the same types of intelligence disconnects that contributed to 9/11 could still exist today. She breaks down why we need to rethink what a future homeland attack might actually look like, how terrorist organizations are evolving, and why groups like Al Qaeda may be more widespread than ever.Sarah shares shocking insights into sleeper cells operating within the U.S., foreign actors intentionally fueling political division to increase influence, the strategic relationship between Al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria, and why many terrorist groups are now organized around waves of coordinated attacks.She also discusses emerging security concerns, including airport vulnerabilities, the return of threats similar to the Shoe Bomb and the rise of "invisible" bombs, and what she believes went wrong from a security standpoint during the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting incident.Drawing from years spent targeting some of the world's most dangerous terrorists, Sarah recounts how she helped capture the Taliban's number two leader, the intelligence work that made it possible, and what qualities allowed her to gather critical information in some of the most hostile environments on Earth.We also explore intelligence deception campaigns, how disinformation operations work, and the warning signs people should recognize when evaluating information online.Sarah reveals what it was like to interrogate Middle Eastern male detainees as a Western woman, how individuals become radicalized, and the indoctrination systems inside terrorist camps that determine whether recruits become fighters, suicide bombers, propagandists, or support personnel.She explains how corruption within humanitarian systems can allow resources to be diverted toward terrorist organizations and how ordinary people may unknowingly contribute to funding foreign terrorist camps.We also break downHavana Syndrome, alleged energy weapon incidents, reports involving an investigator connected to the Epstein case, and what is currently known (and still unknown) about these controversial claims.Sarah also discusses the role of social media algorithms in radicalization, whether platforms like TikTok are shaping the opinions of younger generations, and the broader information war being fought online.She opens up about living under a bounty, receiving threats from terrorist organizations, dealing with alleged surveillance around her home, and how she manages the psychological stress that comes with being a target. She shares practical advice on disaster preparedness, what average citizens can do to become more resilient during crises, and why the culture of terrorism has far more to do with ideology, power, and human behavior than religion itself.This conversation will challenge the way you think about terrorism, national security, online influence, and the risks that could define the next decade!Sarah Adam’s Podcast, The Watch Floor: https://www.youtube.com/@thewatchfloorSarah Adams' Book, Benghazi, Know Thy Enemy: A Cold Case Investigation: https://a.co/d/09aeb3tGFollow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm I. M. B. Ehrlich. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to part two of our conversation with Sarah Adams. She's a former CIA targeting officer and global threat advisor. She advised the U.S. House of Representatives on National Security Matters and led the Department of Defense Research and Development efforts focused on intelligence modernization. In part two of our conversation, Sarah's going to talk about the rise of terrorist indoctrination camps all over the world, how recruits are psychologically. being transformed into fighters, facilitators and suicide bombers and how foreign actors are exploiting and polarizing U.S. politics to weaken our stability. We also talk about Havana syndrome and what we know now

about directed energy allegations that are growing and seem to be targeting dissonance. And Sarah's going to share experiences from colleagues of hers who have witnessed Havana syndrome being administered. We're also going to talk

about the thousands of terrorists currently in the U.S. right now in sleeper cells that are undocumented and below the U.S. radar. And finally, is TikTok a sci-op seeking to control the opinions of our youth? This and so much more in part two of our conversation with Sarah Adams. Miami-Bi-Alex breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep. We were so excited to hear that Helix wanted to partner with us. I've had my Helix mattress for, I think it's close to six years now, and it helps me sleep. really, really great. Jonathan and my kids also have Helix mattresses. Everybody loves them, and all of those issues, night sweats, back pain, motion transfer, all of those things are completely gone. Helix sleep

makes premium mattresses and bedding that are customized to fit your personal needs, and they're conveniently shipped to your door. I was so happy with their shipping process. I even ordered my son a new mattress when he needed one. It shipped right to his apartment. It's amazing. Helix combines innovative tech with high quality materials to deliver comfort and support. They offer soft, medium and firm mattresses. There are different options. Are you a side sleeper, a stomach sleeper, a back sleeper? Helix sleep mattresses have a supportive hybrid design you can choose to elevate your mattress with premium cooling options. The Helix lineup offers 20 plus unique mattresses to choose from any variety of mattresses. Helix has a sleep solution for just about

everyone. Go to helixleep.com slash breakdown for 20% off sitewide, 25% off luxe mattresses and 30% off elite mattresses. That's helixleep.com slash breakdown for 20% off sitewide, 25% off lux mattresses and 30% off elite mattresses. HillickSleep.com slash breakdown. An inspirational portrait of a farmer's son who rises from humble beginnings to build a luxury fashion empire. Brunello, the gracious visionary, traces Brunello Cucinelli's life journey, his commitment to craftsmanship, ethical values, and humanistic philosophy.

Directed by Academy Award winner Giuseppe Tonatore, the film blends documentary and fiction. An intimate look at the Italian entrepreneur known as the King of Kashmir. See Brunello, the gracious visionary in Select Theater's July 24th. Break it down. Jonathan and I get to talk to all sorts of interesting people here, and, you know, you're absolutely fascinating. But I can't help but think of, you know, we talk to people who, you know, are versed in simulation theory, right? And the fact that so much of the world that we live in, it doesn't only feel unreal. You know, it has a lot of kind of echoes of what many of us would associate with.

I think a game seems too flippant a term. But, you know, like, I'm going to say something crazy. You know, if we kind of like throw a spiritual blanket over this whole conversation, right? Like, why are humans here? How did we evolve? Like, what did we get placed on this planet to do? I'm pretty certain that hatred, division, war, murder, suicide bombings, this is not our natural state, right? Like, this is not our natural state.

If you believe in any religious or spiritual tradition or if you've had a good journey on mushrooms, you know that like above the clouds it's always sunny, right? Like there's a larger goodness and hope that we all come from, right? Like, picture us in whatever stage of evolution you want to, right? So when I think of these conversations, like, I can't help but feeling like we're in some twisted game where people have harbored, you know, hatred and, you know, all of these, and they're plotting to kill themselves so that they can kill other people. And then you get these elaborate militaries that need to protect against that.

And they do horrible things to try and prevent those other people from killing them. Like, and on and on and on. And those actions justify the hatred, which then justifies the need to retaliate and on and on, you go. And I don't know if there's a question here, but yeah, I guess I'm curious with all of your resilience and your patience and your scrappiness. You know, how do you place this in a larger context? Like, are we in some giant simulation and, you know, you're just a very active and interesting player? You know? No, it's really interesting because one of the hard.

things to view is what is an end game after terrorism? Is there ever going to be an end game after terrorism? Well, I saw like a microcosm of it just earlier this month. So I went back to Libya. I went back to Benghazi at the beginning of May. And for a long time, Benghazi was extremely dangerous. Remember I lived there? There was assassinations every day. Actually, Al-Qaeda and ISIS ended up taking over the entire city. And then there was a civil war to push them out. So the civil war started in 2014 and in 2017. And so I've been wanting to get back since because the terrorists are completely gone from Benghazi. And I say it publicly.

And I think people roll their eyes at me and they're like, she's so naive. I'm like, I need to go back and see it for myself. And so I did go back. And I saw a city with the terrace gone when I had been there when the tariffs were there. And it was night. It was night and day. Okay. So like I didn't feel danger.

I didn't feel unsafe for one second. the whole entire time I was there. The other thing is when I was in Benghazi, I rarely saw women. I maybe saw three women fully covered. When I was there this time, there was like 70% more women than men. Every other driver on the road was a woman. I think there was more women driving than men. The markets were full of women.

You know, with their friends. I went to the hospital. Most of the staff were women. And so it's this thing. It's like you almost need to see that. You almost need to see life after terrorism. huge parts of the city are completely destroyed. Rebuilding is so expensive.

It's so much time, so much work, and you have to do it because then terrorists might come in and give you that aid and benefit if you don't. So it's not 100% done and finished yet, but you see it and people are happy. They're living lives. They're not worried their sons are going to be indoctrinated. And like when you see an end state, you're like, okay, this is what you want. This is what you aim for and get to, but I'm going to tell you that war was a nightmare, right? They lost 8,000 local troops.

The terrorists were killing off entire bloodlines. I know Libyans, over 20 men in their family, boys, men, grandfathers were killed so they couldn't care in the bloodlines. It was tragic. And I wish more of the world would talk about it because it is a success against terrorism, but it tastes a lot to get there. There's lots of ripple effects. And we have to start thinking, what is an end state? And how do you actually get to that end state and help people to, like, live again? So they're not under Al-Qaeda or ISIS, because it is a horrible life to be under them.

I understand that politics is no longer a line. It's just a big weird circle, right? It's like, you know, so we're hearing from certain fringes of the left, which I do not identify with, you know, this fringe. And it's also we're hearing it from certain fringes of the right. and they're coming together in this way of like, I don't want to be involved in anything foreign. It's not our business. Let them figure it out.

Do you feel like you can weigh in from your perspective on, you know, and also I understand we don't just like carry a big stick. We're not the cops of the world. Like I'm not looking for that. But, you know, I was raised by civil rights activists. So I was taught from the values of what happened in Vietnam, right? how horrible things can go when the government is left unchecked and when we're not given appropriate information. How do you translate that to a conversation about a completely different

culture of terrorism that violates many of the values that we hold true in the West, but which take a tremendous amount of resources and troops and time to actually invest in? How do we justify that? It's very interesting. So there are different thoughts. processes on this, but the fact is if a country is only caring internally about itself, it has no outward goals or ambitions, that's easier to say, hey, we don't have a dog in the fight here. We don't need to get involved here. That's kind of why even a lot of people didn't like how we went in and helped the Afghans when the Soviets came in, right? We're like,

this isn't our fight, like, et cetera. But when you have a situation now where, like, in Afghanistan, and Syria, parts of Northern Africa, they're putting these training camps together, and these terrorists are only going through them to come and attack the West. You're in a much different situation, right? Because you're like, well, if their goal is to train and come here, we have a problem, and we have to stop that in some way. Now, Israel is a different situation because Israel constantly has that problem. We did a really good job with thwarting attacks overseas,

so Americans don't get that feeling. Israel, you're attacked every week. You have this constant barrage. And then, of course, when October 7th happened, the level that that happened at, you can't go out and tell your people, oh, we're going to be light on this. You have to say, we're never going to let this happen again, just like America said with 9-11. So it's this difficult situation, then, how do you make it never happen again? Hamas is a gigantic terrorist organization, as we've known, because they've killed, what, 50,000 Hamas members? and Hamas is not defunct. It's crazy. Then there's other allies. Hasbola is on a full

another level. And then it doesn't matter anyway because, of course, they have Iran over top. And Iran has very key relationships like with Al-Qaeda, which is three times a size of Hasabala and Hamas. So the problem is, it's how do you strategically go at these groups? And the U.S. has always said, but keep them overseas. So that's the way we focused on it. keep the insanity, the suicide bombings, the terrorist attacks overseas, and we'll be fine. And that has been our goal. And now we stop doing that. They're probably coming here.

Israel constantly is being attacked. So they have to view it a lot different. It can be, we're going to be attacked every single day. How do we make it? So it goes down to only once a month. How do we make it to go once a year? How do we stop it completely? And that is almost an impossible problem to deal with.

Like, I couldn't give you the right answer. for it. Mine Be Alex's breakdown is supported by OneSkin. Whether you try every new skin care products or you've been using the same things for years, at some point your skin's not just going to be able to keep up the way that it used to. And that's what One Skin changed for me. It didn't just make my existing routine better. It actually works differently than anything else that I've tried.

As we age, skin cells stop functioning the way they should, causing fine lines and dullness that creeps in over time. And OneSkin's OS1 peptide was specifically engineered to address those visible signs of aging. With summer here, that matters even more. Up to 80% of visible skin aging starts with sun exposure, but One Skin's new limited edition summer bundles have you covered. It's their skincare and SPF essentials paired together. So the OS1 peptide helps to reverse the visible effects of UV aging

and uses SPF protection to prevent new damage. It's a complete system to summer-proof your skin. So make sure to check these out before they're gone. My favorite thing is that they're rooted in rigorous science and research. With one skin's face SPF, it's got the same science-backed skin care benefits from the OS1 peptide while also giving you mineral SPF protection from UV exposure, reverse aging while having lots of summer fun,

you really don't need a complicated routine to get healthier, younger-looking skin. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin is helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code break at OneSkin.co slash break. That's 15% off OneSkin.com with the code break. After you purchased, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show.

Tell them we sent you. So we are in a tough spot. Now, one thing people need to know the truth of is terrorism today is much bigger than terrorism in 9-11. So 9-11, Al-Qaeda was 5,000 members. Now, worldwide, they have over 200,000. This is a much bigger problem. On 9-11, they had eight terrorist camps. Right now, just in Afghanistan, they have 50.

Then they got camps in Syria and Yemen, in North Africa, on and on. So we don't get to the pleasure of saying, well, we got to think of it like it's September 2001. It's a much bigger problem, unfortunately, it's going to take different solutions and not anyone knows the best solution. I don't know the best solution because, you know, as was said, you then also don't want to make more terrorists. But that seems to be exactly what, like, can you say those numbers again, the numbers from 9-11 to now? you said that there were 5,000 al-Qaeda members when 9-11 happened, and now there are 200,000? Yes, it's massive. And they're worth billions and billions of dollars, so they don't need to borrow $500,000 from the bin Laden to do an operation.

So I'm going to ask a dumb question, you know, and this is not my field of expertise. Fear is my field of expertise. Was it because 9-11 was seen as so successful that people decided this is the organization? to join if you hate the West? I think it's more nuanced than that. Sadly, I think the biggest jump happened when we invaded Iraq. And then Al-Qaeda was able to say,

hey, you know we planned 9-11 from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The U.S. is invading Iraq to destroy the Middle East, to harm Muslims. And that, I think, was the huge turning point to where they, were being able to stand on a mountain and say, see, we told you this is all America wants to do.

They want to come in here and harm us, take over the Middle East. And I think that's where the trajectory went kind of out of our control, unfortunately. Talk about the training camps that we know about because it sounds like they are the college for any satellite group. You go there to get your master's degree in terrorism. Yeah. The sad part is the terrorist camps actually start around nine or 10 years old. It's really traumatic. So we're just going to jump to a military age person. So when you're a military age person, there's a couple different pathways you take. Of course, you just do some sort of indoctrination. And then you can basically kind of go to be a fighter or you can go to be a suicide bomber. And they are different trajectories. And then there's suicide bomber camps. And then there's these fighter camps. Now, the interesting thing is. that's different than in the old days. So in the old days, so they camp, Al-Fruq camp, it was called.

That 9-11 was planned out of. Every guy in it was Al-Qaeda. Now Al-Frux reopened. Everyone in Al-Fruc is not Al-Qaeda. They actually did train members of Hamas in there, for example. So now it's like almost this open training ground. It doesn't matter if you're all Shabab. Heck, Boko Haram has been there.

A-R-S-A out of Bangladesh. Come to Afghanistan. We'll train you at the best level we can. You know, we'll give you sustenance. We'll give you arms. Like we are, again, the base of terrorism. Come here, become an expert at whatever you want to be, right? Is it shooting?

Is it guerrilla warfare? Is it urban operations? You know, is it suicide bombing. Suicide bombing is, of course, very concerning. Come here, we'll make you the best we can make you, no matter what terrorist group you're a part of. And so that's very all a cart, but it's also very similar to how it happened during the Afghan Mujahideen.

It didn't matter what country you came from or what terrorist group or what Islamist organization you're affiliated with were all one and they're getting back to that mindset. You said that they don't need $500 million from the Ben Laden family. Where are they being funded from now? Sure. And it was only $500,000. So 9-11 only cost it $500,000. My mistake, yeah.

No, you're fine. Yeah, I just wanted to. So it's crazy. Okay, so you have to look it in two ways. There's illicit money, and then there's legitimate businesses. So elicit money, the most they make off of is opium in Afghanistan. I get 20% of all, 20% of all, like, the revenues out of that. So it's a huge chunk.

It's like $1.5 billion a year just off that. Then they run and get a cut of different minds, not just in Afghanistan, but all over North Africa. talking gold mines, emerald mines, heck, uranium mines, etc. So they get a cut of all these mines. All that's black market. Now, legally, they run ports. So Al-Qaeda owns a huge chunk of some of the ports in Egypt, some of the ports in Somalia. They also run over 50% of the Hage travel. So you can just be a normal everyday Muslim. You live in, I don't know, Algeria. You're going to do the Hage and you book through a travel agency. That traffic. agency's owned by al-Qaeda. You have no idea, but they smartly got into that business because

they knew they would need it to move tariffs all around. They get so much money off legitimate travel. You wouldn't even believe it. So it's a mix of things. And then unfortunately, all this aid, it's not just aid, those counterterrorism dollars. So don't just think this is humanitarian money. So humanitarian money, countertarian money, are flooding into like Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda gets a cut of that. So U.S. tax dollars through State Department, CIA, Department Defense, World Bank, UN, IMF, World Food Program, we are literally funding Al-Qaeda with our own dollars right now. And it's very hard to parse out which dollars are going where, how that money is flowing. It's like not so easy to keep track of, is there real aid being delivered or it's just

being siphoned out. Yeah. So it's super unfortunate. They say it's not easy to follow the money because we're not in country anymore, but we literally follow the money in vehicles. And I can tell you, it goes straight to terrorist camps and you can follow it. So you can follow it with like a drone. So they're lying that they can't figure it out. But there are different buckets. So the aid money is, it's a mess. It's filtered through like the local bank in Afghanistan. It goes back out to buy products, comes back in. So by a time you get to, let's say, rice, okay? So I'm going to deliver rice to this village outside Nangahar. Well, it now goes to the families the Taliban chose for it to go to. So they go deliver the rice to Caledan families, and it doesn't go to the women and children who

really need it, former U.S. allies, et cetera. And then another unfortunate thing is because the terrorists run the country, these aid organizations have to appease them. So like the World Food Program literally delivers food to al-Qaeda camps, and it knows it is. We've watched their vehicles drive straight into these camps. So it's also a frustrating thing to watch people in the West be like, well, I want to keep taking in these donor dollars or this U.S. funding. So I'm not going to be truthful and say our money isn't going to help poor orphans. It's going straight to foreign fighters and terrorist camps. So I find it very, very frustrating.

I've long worked humanitarian issues, but as you know, there's so. much corruption on the humanitarian side of things, very small percentages of any dollars actually get to anyone who's really needing of something. And it's a huge problem. It's essentially money laundering in a lot of cases. I want to get into university campus infiltration. But before we do, it feels like there's still some area to explore here with the camps and the training.

you know, you said that our approach was keep it overseas as our defense strategy, but that isn't happening, right? Like, can you talk about the infiltration? Are there sleeper cells in the U.S. that are basically waiting to be activated? When we use the term sleeper cell, it's almost like a fear term because it kind of sounds like there's these guys all underground and they're waiting for a bat signal and then they're going to pop up and attack, and that's not how it works at all. So we have, according to, you know, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, over 18,000 known foreign tariffs on U.S.

soil, right? That's a government fact. Now, then you ask, well, what are these 18,000 terrorists doing? Because that's important to know. So some are literally like business operations, right? There's a lot of these from Hezbollah, for example. So in a little bit from Hamas. And they're here and they're collecting money, sending it back. They're doing influence media operations. And they might not have a plot to hit a certain location, right? Then you do have what I call the fighter side of a terrorist group. And those people are here to commit an attack.

But they're not sleeping. So they're doing surveillance. They're building bombs. They're researching, right? They research online about you. And then they go outside your home. and you see them when you walk in your dog. So that stuff is happening.

So they're not like sitting around playing Xbox. Like, what am I going to do my attack? They constantly have taskings that they're working on, even if it's just casing for something else, right? I might case this location or something Al-Qaeda wants to do in the future. And there's a lot of different infrastructure pieces and safe houses. It's huge, right? It's a huge chunk of time because people have to have a place to lift.

The al-Qaeda plots bend the late. So that's expensive. If you got to keep people in these locations, you got to figure out what to do with them. You don't want them to get impatient. If they didn't patient, they might just lose it and go do an attack. So we had one of the homeland attackers. Long story short, he was supposed to stay in Turkey and go from there to the U.S. He got freaked out.

He went to Germany. He couldn't find his pathway to the U.S. He kind of lost it. And then he stabbed five people outside of a sports bar. So he's not coming to the U.S., which is good for us. But for Al-Qaeda, they didn't train him well enough. He wasn't patient enough, and he kind of, like, lost it and could have messed up other parts of the plot. So they constantly also have to feed these terrorists in a way so they don't get bored.

I know that's a crazy, sad way to put it. But, yes, there are plenty of sleeper cells in the United States from pretty much every terrorist group, we can name, Al-Qaeda. ISIS says they have 2,500 here in an illegal status. So that's, you're not an American, because they are American members. You're not here in a green card. They have green card members. These are people who don't have any paperwork at all.

That's a big number. How many? 2,500 who aren't like American. And then they have Americans and other, of course, recruit. So that's a big number and a scary number. Remember, those people are completely off the books. They don't have like, well, they might have a driver's license in some states, but who knows what name it's in.

you know, there is an interesting part. We've talked about religious institutions. I've done a lot of work when people reached out to me and said, hey, we've had these casing incidents that's at my church or my synagogue, wherever it can be. We even just saw, obviously, this attack at the mosque in San Diego. Now, this happened in California. I won't say the name. I don't want to freak anyone out.

It's a large church. And so we gave them all these tips because these two-man and four-man teams kept coming. So we said, you need to bring him into. kind of like the parish area, have a conversation, say you have to give your driver's license. So they started doing that, getting better pictures. And when they were getting their driver's license, they were getting those license that said no name given on them. So we took one of the no name given licenses in California. It was a California license.

And then we looked at the address on it. And there was 1,500 driver's licenses registered to that address. And it was a one-bedroom apartment. So there's huge corruption in some of these driver's license systems and nobody, the data's there, right? You can go and look through those 1,500 people, go talk to them. So the data is there, but there are people, some states not doing anything about it. And I think it's a very frustrating thing because, you know, if his church gets attacked, it's going to be with these individuals with these licenses with no name on and we don't know who they are.

And that's a whole other mess then to identify them after the fact. Remember, 9-11, they had their real passports. We knew exactly who they were, what country they came from. And now we don't know who these people are. Valerie just typed, you can't even, like, change your address with the DMV without, like, going to four different offices and petitioning and getting, like, approved from your bank, right? Like, I can't do shit with my driver's license.

It's crazy. And this is happening. Yeah. And a lot of it's probably corruption or somewhat under the table. We had in Florida just people paying like $200 for driver licenses for like the to drive the big trucks. And it was just corruption. It was a person in the office taking money.

They weren't getting any approvals. You know, the state cracked down after. But, you know, they gave them to a bunch of people. So you have both sides of the coin, right? You have criminal activity. And then you have terrorism. And when do you decide what this is? That's very complicated.

This is sort of a, you know, a hope that you can maybe provide a little bit of insight, you know, with I hope the best of intentions, which I believe you have. You know, when people try and analyze terrorism, right, and this does generally tend to come from the left, you know, like if you want to know, that's where it falls on this circle that used to be aligned, right? you know, there's always a reason, right, that we can blame the U.S. our policy. We do many horrible things, you know, like many, many horrible things all over the world, right? But there's a tendency to try and be able to find the reason, right? What did I do to deserve this? What did we do to deserve this?

Can you talk a little bit? You know, and I say this, you know, with a tremendous affection for the time that I have spent in the Middle East. You know, this has nothing to do with if you're Arab, if you're Muslim, if you're Jewish, if you're Christian. There's a different culture in the Middle East, right? Like even waiting on a line to, like, get your food. Like, people don't wait on lines the same.

You just kind of like shove your way to the front, right? It's a different culture. Like, it has different, you know, can you talk a little bit about what it is about the culture of terrorism, which is, you know, very specific? What is it? And how can we teach people? not to have their first reaction be, well, it's because the U.S. is messing things up all over the way. It's something we did.

And they just, can you give us a framework of what it looks like also? This is a business you're describing. I never thought of terrorism like that, right? I knew all the horrible things they did and there's a lot of members, but I never thought of it like there's someone running the books so that we know which hotels to put them in. And how are they going to eat? And where are they going to get the information and what's the pamphlet? And how do we teach them to be patient?

so that they don't lose their minds because we've indoctrinated them to be mentally ill, right? You're indoctrinating an insanity, right, that you should die instead of live, right? Talk a little bit about the culture just from also your experience, you know, the culture of terrorism. Yeah. I mean, the simplest way, usually to put it, that at least people can grasp on to it, is the fact of, like, this Islamist caliphate, okay? And so the last one was the Ottoman Empire, which people, when you say Islamist Caliphate, they think, oh, she's talking about something thousands of years ago. And that was, you know, relevant when our grandparents were around, right? So it's not like this, the terrorists have some medieval thought process.

And so what they want to do is just bring back this caliphate. It's the simplest way to put it. Now, these are the Islamists. Okay. So these aren't everyday Muslims. These are the terrorists. So we're talking about Muslim Brotherhood on the political side, and then we're talking al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.

So when they have this Islamist caliphate that they talk about, it will only be them. So there will be no Christians, there will be no Jews, there will be no Druze. I mean, you can go on and on and on. There will be no secular people. Well, that's what I was going to say. Then you have no Muslims who don't think like them.

It's almost like I told you in Benghazi. So they'll kill your bloodlines, right? So they don't have this secular. You know, they will kill the police and the military and the judges and the lawyers, etc. Because they want everyone to have this extreme lifestyle and thought process. And sadly, we saw that in real time. We saw when ISIS went in and really took land. And they did control these areas in Iraq and in Syria like this.

They even went into Libya. cert was a good example, right? Everyone went under a burqa. Women over six stop going to school. They put it in place very, very, very quickly. And you have to remember, and I think this gets lost in the West. So in the West, we're like, well, the only way to stop that is we go in and save these people. Like they forget the locals are fighting them.

So when ISIS was defeated in Iraq, it's not because of the U.S. And it's because the Kurds, right? When ISIS was defeated in Benghazi, it's because the locals did it with their bare hands. So we have to remember, Muslims are fighting these Islamists more, actually, 10 times longer and 10 times more all day long than we are because they don't want this either. But the terrorists have this thought, hey, we're going to make this happen. We're going to get here. And that's what they're super focused on. Now, in their mind, the only hurdle to this happening is the U.S., Israel, having an influence over the Middle East.

If we didn't have this influence, of course, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and UAE would join our Islamist Caliphate, right? Because they're a little delusional, right? They've been brainwashed in a way. And so they are very focused on a big idea and we're in the way. That's the best, simplest way to put it, so much more. No, that's that's really helpful. And I think the thing that strikes me is, you know, and I happen to be, you know, a person of faith. So, you know, a lot of times people love to point out, this is all because of religion and there's no God.

And if it wasn't for religion, nobody would fight. This is actually not, this is not even a religious concept what's happening here. Like you're describing something that is not because of a religious structure. It's a psychological structure. And it's outside of Islam. It's outside of Judeo-Christianity. It's even outside of all the other branches of Christianity and Catholicism that we can talk about. And I think that's sort of where, you know, in many cases, in an open-hearted attempt to accept all people, right, and let people have, you know, their lives.

Oh, well, this is just the way some people are practicing religion. religion's the problem, right? This is not a religious problem. This is an ideological one. Yeah, they use religion as the tool to influence and manipulate you. But the interesting thing is, as I was reading, you know, it's just an ex and it was a gentleman in the UAE. He took a trip to the West and he went to just the local mosque because he wanted to pray why he was traveling. And he said it was crazy. They were talking about jihad openly in the mosque. Like, that's a legal. in the UAE. So the funny part is we have allowed this to occur because of our own, I guess, suicidal empathy. But if you go to a mosque in some of these other countries, you go in Saudi Arabia,

you go in UAE, you go in Oman, you're not going to hear this type of language and rhetoric. You're not going to see this indoctrination piece. You know, you don't see it. You're not going to go to a mosque in Nagazi right now and be indoctrinating and promise you that much. And so why do we allow it? It's a very strange thing. And we have gotten a little soft on this. When we have partners, these governments can tell us, here's the framework, here's how we do it, here's why we do it. And it's like we don't even care to listen to them and learn from them when they are doing it the right way.

And it's very concerning. When you talked about Benghazi and how the society evolved after terrorism, I was heartened to believe that there's another way out, right? There is a way out. but what I was concerned by is where did those terrorists go because they didn't just decide not to be terrorists. They just left Benghazi. Where did they go? Sure. So yeah, the good part with Benghazi, it was a city that was anti-terrorist. So that was a good starting point. Now, what happened is they did the Civil War and they went neighborhood by neighborhood, which people don't like

other countries apparently, and battled them. So action, you, about 50% of them died on the battlefield, which is crazy. I'd say about 10% of them are detained, and then maybe 15%, and then the other maybe 35%. Yeah, like you said, kind of went into the wind. Now, there is a small percentage that left terrorism, but it's a very small percentage. And then the rest went over to the other side of Libya, so they're kind of in the Tripoli area. They joined other groups. Some left. There's about a dozen in Turkey. There's other ones in Europe. And then we, of course, have them now moving again to Afghanistan. So they do proliferate.

And lots of times they move to the next war zone. So initially they just went to Syria, as you can imagine. Now they're all going to Afghanistan again because that's the new kind of base of jihad. So these terrorists will move constantly. I know terrorists that went Bosnia, to Afghanistan, to Algeria, to Iraq, to Syria. It's crazy. They need to go to the next jihad in their mind. Can you describe a little bit about what's happening inside American universities

and the very complicated business of funding ideology that is actually starting to pull the U.S. apart and making us really loose track about where threats are coming from, who's on the side of good versus bad? Now, I don't want to simplify it so much to good and bad, But, you know, as you described, there is an ideology that doesn't want people to live in harmony with one another. They want a very specific and controlled way of life. Can you describe how that is infiltrating our school systems?

Did you just say specific and controlled? That's also, you know, yeah, it's a gentle way to put it. It is a gentle way to put it. I was trying not to use inflammatory language. It's difficult if you're in an environment that might be, some indoctrination around it or radicalization around it because you're not going to admit that that's happening, right? Because I wouldn't fall for something like that. So it's a hard thing to define because it's hard to also put people down who have no clue what's going on, but they're

getting down this pathway. So it's very complicated. Foreign actors who influence our university, they put the money in and then it gives them the job titles. They get to affect curriculum. they get to open different kind of institutions on the campus. Where they influences is in the youngest generations, if we get them now, right, they will think like us, act like us, aid us, you know, as they grow. Isis, they do a lot of recruiting and engineering programs, right? So they know this is the core time to get the brightest, to get the most influential, to maybe even get people who are a little bit wealthy,

but they do target wealthy institutions, because they're going to become someone. And when they become someone, they can pair it, our talking points, and they'll be influenced by us. And we have now a little bit of control, and they have a positive view for us. It's very smart. But it's hard to get universities to admit this is happening

because they want this money. It's so much money. It funds a lot of research. It helps them expand. And it's a very difficult thing to deal with, I've noticed. Why are terrorists recruiting engineering students at our universities? Yeah. So they focus on engineers because engineers think outside the box, they're creative.

Like I said, a lot of them come from wealthier families, which gives them an influence piece. And then, of course, just for the bomb making. So anyone can make a bomb. the three of us can sit on line for 30 minutes and make a bomb. But how do you advance that, right? How do you do different? How do you try new chemicals? How do you do different things? So they want some of new things like that. And they might not even take the engineer and make him a bomb maker. They might take the engineer and he now makes fake passports. There's tons of engineers making fake passports. They just like the brains and the thinking. A lot of people think, oh, tears are like

goat herders or they're uneducated and they're just vulnerable people picked up. But no, they actually like to focus on the elite. Because think of it, if I recruit this guy from Saudi, he's from a very wealthy family, everybody kind of knows him. He's always done great in school. And now he's working for me al-Qaeda. First off, no one's going to assume he's al-Qaeda right way. He has all the relationships and the connections. This is what people get confused about 9-11. They're like, oh, their connection to Saudi government. It's like, no, these were rich kids. They knew tons of people across their own society because of who they were. They had relationships and connections that predated being an al-Qaeda member. And the terrorist takes such advantage

of that because influence is so important. Remember, it's not about just shooting a gun. You need political influence. You have to buy your way. into societies. And it's the same way China does it, but they do a difference. So China, for example, will be like, well, I want to make influence. They're not going to first go and try to make influence in the office of the president. They're going to go into local chambers of commerce and become members and surviving land and making relationships. The terrorists do the exact same thing, because they know we need to be in these certain systems and these certain societies to legitimize who we are. I was wondering if we can tackle two talks.

One of them is Havana syndrome. I know you have a very interesting experience that I'd love to hear about, but just today, a reporter who had been investigating Epstein said that she had to flee her New Mexico house because she was a target of what she described as very similar effects of what an energy weapon could be. Can you react to that? And also, maybe if people don't understand Havana syndrome, describe what we're talking about, Sure. So Havana syndrome is a new term from when a lot of CIA and State Department officers felt this in Havana. I don't know what it was, eight or nine years ago. But this really goes back to really like the 1950s when we had an embassy in Russia and the Russians started targeting us with these weapons that we call. They're really like pulses. So it's like, you know, if you kind of like, just tick, right? You tick, tick, tick at yourself. It's a simple, continuous pulse. Well,

these pulses come at varying times and varying speeds, and then they mess with your nervous system because it hits it in a way it hasn't been hit before. I know that's the simplest way to put it, but that's what people are experiencing. Now, when they get one of these pulses, it then affects essential nervous system and affects different things. So a lot of it can be like maybe if you had meningitis, like, you know, just things you can't put thoughts together. You're having like a cloud fog. You're forgetting things. And then it can get more extreme to where you think about stepping, but your brain isn't telling your leg to move. So unfortunately, there's different extremes to where people can't work anymore. You can't think, you can't stay focused, you just can't work.

You can't stay focused for an hour in some cases because it damaged your central nervous system so much. So for a long time, we knew Russia did this and it was covered up. Then in Havana and then it went to Vienna and a couple other places like in Asia, so many people started recording it. The government could basically no longer cover it up, but then they've also not found answers. So they don't want to say it's Russia, even though it's Russian, because they don't want to elevate a conflict. Also, Havana syndrome is officially known as anomalous health incidents. Yeah. I'm saying this, you know, half joking, you know, for many women who have long COVID, menopause, and autoimmune conditions, we have all these symptoms. And lies. We don't have Havana syndrome, but these are

the symptoms of something that has dysregulated your nervous system, right? in a way that is very hard to pin down, very hard to diagnose, very hard to find a cause, and very hard to treat. So you kind of try and treat all the symptoms, but that's really what this is. It's an unknown ideology, right? Yeah. So the most simplest, less harmful effects of Havana syndrome feel like long COVID or Lyme's. But because of who is targeted and how they were targeted,

and they got targeted a lot more extreme, the worst cases, those people can't do normal daily functions or thinking or movements. And there's not like a cure or a solution, unfortunately. So the government shifted from calling it Havana syndrome to anonymous health incidents as this effort to obfuscate it. Because they're trying to pretend we don't know the foreign act. well, it targeted our best and brightest. And it targeted people who spent years overseas. You're not like delusional. Like you know who the enemy is. You know when something directly is happening to you and

impacting you. You know when something has changed. And when this weapon hits you, you actually physically feel it and know it. It's not like kind of one of those things like, you know when you fall asleep and there's an earthquake in California. You're like, what was that? Like you don't know what it is at first, you know you're being hit by something. So it's not like you don't have a common sense. So then the problem is if you're a victim of this, I mean, think about it. You have a government not being honest about it. They're not giving you the treatment you need. You have to be siloed into only certain treatment programs. And then even in those, they're not writing everything down. They're influencing it. So you can't go out and just get any medical care for a long

they weren't even giving these officers health care at all. So luckily there's been some changes to that. But it's one of those things that we act like as an unknown, but it's known. You know, Russia targeted our best and brightest in our intelligence community, in our diplomatic community, in the military, it didn't matter if the Republican or Democrat, if they were sharp, they were a rising star, they were working Russia, they went after them. And so it's kind of this thing that's been hanging. And you can imagine the victims feel completely ignored. They feel they haven't got treatment. There isn't even like a lot of government effort to think of new ways to treat them

or to try different things or to bring in some of these smart scientific or medical communities to help make their lives a little better. So they do feel left alone. So it is this constant problem. And again, the government covered up a lot of stuff. So even if you say, I'm going to FOIA, all of the information on Havana syndrome, look at myself, the records are not complete. So you're not even able to make a good assessment,

even if you pull in all the government records, because they have corrupted them. It's a sad thing to say, but it's true. And P.S., the government has corrupted the files. Yes. What we're talking about is like some sort of pulse from a weapon that we didn't understand what that weapon was. There was a lot of controversy around,

do you need a massive truck in order to create this micro-wark, waivable pulse? Is it small enough to be portable? How are they deploying it? Right? There was a lot of uncertainty about the technological side of how this was happening to people. It's like on Star Trek. There's some weird gun and it goes, boom, boom, boom, boom, like that's what I picture. Because it's this new type of technology that we weren't really clear about, there was a lot of uncertainty about, you know, how it was being deployed, how it could be impacting people. So their symptoms were also not understood because we didn't understand the technology that was doing it to them. Yeah, I think that some of that is they didn't want to know all the details, to be very honest.

Let's just talk to Havana. So the hotel they targeted these people in. It's not like everybody else in the hotel got targeted, right? There's flight attendants in this hotel, for example. So meaning it just can go on the other side of the wall of the room. So it doesn't have to be some truck outside. it's at least a size where it's in the room on the other side of the wall from you. That is a basic understanding.

But yes, they like to act like, we don't know, we don't know what this is coming from. And then a lot of people don't take it serious. Now, when I left the CIA, I actually went to work for JetBlue. And I told them, I said, hey, your crew is staying in this hotel. This Havana syndrome happened in. I told them, I feel it's directed and it won't affect your crew, but why risk it? And so they banned the hotel. So there at least are people who understand this is a threat and why I put my people in place of this threat.

But the U.S. government just keeps throwing the people back into these threat environments and not solving it. And so I know a ton of people who quit CIA because they don't want to take the risk. I'm sorry. You went to work for JetBlue. Were you a flight attendant? Yeah. Were you a pilot? I wasn't a flight attendant now in their security department.

I'd be a great flight attendant though because I'm super friendly. I mean, I'd like you flying the plane. I feel like I want you seeing everything. seeing everything. No. I've flown on Dave and Busters and I've only ever crashed a plane who do not want me flying the plane. David Busters!

Do you have any reactions to this woman who was a reporter who says that she was targeted? Like, is it, are people being targeted on U.S. soil? Should we be concerned that this is just like become commercialized or is portable now and can attack

or, you know, potentially people who are saying things, that someone might not want them to say could be attacked. Yeah, so here's what I know. Yes, there has been targeting on U.S. oil for sure in Washington, D.C. My opinion is this is portable. So we kind of just take that off the table. You can be targeted anywhere.

Now, I did have a friend hit by this last summer. Okay? So he was in Vienna, one of the places we know it is. And I think they were targeting the person with him. So they do make mistakes. And so I think he got hit instead of that person. So that's another thing, too, who is obviously in this person's vicinity. Now, here's the part.

It's difficult in this case. So remember, this was Russian. Well, over the years, it's proliferated. But China has it now. And then who knows who has it from that? So the negative two is now you can say, I believe I was hit by Havana syndrome, who is the threat actor. And that is harder to identify because it's not just Russia anymore with this weapon. And because we didn't spend time digging into and looking at it, I don't think our government knows who all now has the weapon.

And that's concerning. And then, of course, we likely also have a weapon because they say we bought one off the black market. So we also probably have a weapon. So again, it's a very frustrating thing to say, hey, I don't know this reporter story. Sorry. But who could have been a threat after if it really is Havana syndrome? And that is more complicated. you can't just assume it's the Russians anymore.

Not to think like a geneticist, but it's also possible that there's no particular weapon. There could be some other delivery system. This could be a signaling molecule that gets turned on, meaning it could be something that is somehow ingested, inhaled, placed somehow so that it is in your system and there's some signaling that gets turned on that activates this cascade.

There can be multiple things. Remember, we all kind of base it off the old Moscow, U.S. Embassy model. I'm trying to be creative. I'm trying to get a job with you. But there could be five more different things that affect your nervous system because no one took time to look into it. They don't even know all the other ones like you're saying. That can be perfectly plausible. And that's what's the problem with covering it up. You didn't put the work into it.

So we don't know those answers. I will have my report on your desk tomorrow morning. Looking forward to it. What should we be afraid of that we haven't covered yet? Oh, gosh. I don't think we should be afraid at all. Aware of, aware of. Okay.

I think more like it's always important to know what could happen near me and then you prepare for it. So I live in Florida. So of course, preparing for hurricanes really important. And then we know there's been terrorist casing because the ISIS terrorist did it. So it's all those little things you start thinking of and doing like, hey, how can I better prepare myself. If I can't get hold of my family in a crisis, what's our plan, just all those little steps. What I worry is people don't take the time to even just prepare within their own family or maybe like they make the plan. It's all based on the husband and now he's at work and

everyone's like, what do we do now? Dad had this role. And I think it's just a little more, what if, what if this happens? What if we're at the movie theater and guns? You know, we hear gunshot. What are we going to do? Like if you have all these discussions beforehand, first off, you're not afraid when it happens because you have a plan, you've thought through it, and then you can just go on and enjoy things. And when something's off, then you can get the heck out of dodge because that's which, you know, you want to do. You don't want to stay in a situation that feels uncomfortable. Think about it. If you walked into a bar and it's all these bikers, now I might be curious because I'd like to ask some questions, even though I know that they're not going to answer anything,

but I'm likely leaving, even though I'm super, super curious and I love being curious. I'm gone. Like I do not fit in here. They all side-eyed me. They don't know who I am now. They're like, who's this crazy reporter probably? So that's how you have to live your life. Just take yourself out of a situation when you're in it. But, you know, live your daily life how it is.

Now, if I am in a location, like if I belong to a church or something, and I notice they're maybe not doing something, I'm going to say, hey, you should do it this way. Have you thought of this? Or have you considered that? A really great example is on a lot of these casing. incidents, the same question has come up. Do you live stream? So I've been going to churches and saying, hey, if you live stream, just delay it 30 minutes. If a terrorist wants this to be on the live stream and you're not a church who live streams, you might be taken off a target deck. Very simple. So the more

knowledgeable we are, the better we can protect ourselves and the less we have to worry. Really well said. That's a really interesting point also. Do you feel less scared? You know what? I have a lot of things I think about, and I have no one to talk to them about, so I'm really glad Sarah is here. And another thing I was thinking is, is TikTok a sci-op system from designed by China to control the youth and their opinions? Like, how concerned should we be that most kids are spending eight hours a day on a platform that China turns off at night and in their country is designed with educational and motivational content on it. Real TikTok has long been banned in China.

Now, the dangerous piece is, no matter what platform you use, is the algorithm. Because if you start getting down one of these paths, let's say I'm getting down into accelerationist movement, right? What we just saw in San Diego. Now, when I start looking all that up, which I have been recently, it's now in my feed. I'm now getting more of it. It's like it's almost indoctrinating me the algorithm when they didn't even plan for it. Like, it's on X or it's on Instagram.

So even though China set up this model in some way, you know, they don't have exactly the ownership now, but this is happening everywhere. Like I do find in a way algorithms or dangerous, even if you're not looking at bad stuff. So let's say you only have one point of view and then your algorithm is only giving you that. So it's only reinforcing it. And you never think of the other side of things or look at the other side. Like I was a Democrat for 20 years and then I've been a Republican. I don't know, for a handful of years. You know, I've worked all across the government.

I've worked on the hill. I've seen both sides of it. So I'm really good at seeing this and this because I'm just moderate down the middle. But if you only have an algorithm that's feeding you far right, far left, terrorist propaganda, whatever the heck they're feeding to our kids, because there are some crazy stuff they believe. it's just reinforced over and over again. And when someone's reinforced,

it's like when someone tells you something three times, right? It's now in your head. And it's hard to reverse that. And they start small, right? They'll give you a video that isn't so extreme, and they reinforce that for a few weeks. And then after that, it goes a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. I don't think we'll ever see what I'm about to say,

but I've been a long proponent of algorithmic transparency where you should be able to slide a bar and say, I want something down the middle. I want my viewpoint to be reinforced. I want the counterpoint. And you should see, you should be able to see visually, a graph or a chart or a slider of some kind to say, actually, your algorithm is weighted towards this.

Because also, you know, our attention spans aren't that long. There's like a six or seven formula, a piece of content formula there. They give you, for me, it's a, here's a workout exercise. You didn't know you were doing wrong. Here's a supplement you need to take. Here's an art thing that you could build at home that you'll never build. I just saw a beautiful one for a concrete lamp that I'm asking my son to make.

Then here's a product you need to buy. Then here's another workout thing. But this time it's a lady and she barely has any clothes on. Yeah, exactly. And then I'm like, oh, I need to buy that thing. Oh, wait a second. And then they keep you in this loop. And then here's two pets that shouldn't be friends that are friends.

and now I feel great and I send that to my name. And it just keeps me in this loop over and over again. And I don't realize that there is a formula in place to keep me distracted. And if that is about ideology, if it's about what I should believe in, that I don't like my country, all of a sudden it becomes really dangerous. Yeah. And it's a complicated thing because these companies are trying to make money. Yes, some are paid to do influence, which is very concerning.

and it's hard to figure out what and where and when, but they also want to make money. So they want the outrage. They want the crazy. And it's a frustrating thing because they're never going to be fully transparent because some are involved in influence operations and those type of things. I really think one of the main things is detaching from it as much as possible. Last week I had a friend in town who is knocked on social media.

And we drilled her, this poor girl, like she was an alien. But it was fascinating because she saw the world actually pretty, very clear. You know, she was just as informed as crazy people on the internet but didn't know the crazy. So we actually told her some of the conspiracies and she was laughing about it. But it's like, yeah, that's what you've got to do. You got to detach from this because no one's going to fix your algorithm. No one's going to give you good info. They want to influence you.

And we just have to be honest about that. The biggest fear that so many of us have is, you know, even if you're not a parent, You know, we have a generation that we did a horrible experiment on. We said, what happens if we give you 24-7 access to rage, to dysmorphia, to mental health, you know, pitfalls, right? What happens? This is what happens. We don't know how to have nuance. We, you know, we have kids who don't know the difference between truth and fiction.

if you see someone that says a study showed, unless you're showing me the raw data of that study and I can then duplicate that in other peer-reviewed study, I don't really care about one study that is reported on the internet. The study could have been three people. It could have been 3,000 people. And all that people want to do is forward that on. Here's a piece of information that reinforces the way that I believe,

and now I'm going to send it to everyone I know, right? That's actually not what we want this next generation of kids thinking about and thinking towards. Yeah, and it's a super complicated thing because also that when you say we're going to fix this problem, right? We're going to fight something like disinformation. Then you bring in political views, assumptions, people's biases, and you can't solve it that way either. So it's almost like detachment is the key, which I know is complicated because these kids are becoming like, this is an addiction. And as you know any,

you mean, you're smarter than me. Breaking someone from any addiction is so complicated. So it's so tough for parents right now. This is an uphill battle, but they got to fight it. And I feel sometimes people fight it, fight it, fight it, and then they give up. Like, ah, it's not worth it.

And I just, I don't think that's the way it should be handled. What do you do for fun? How does this not consume your entire, identity. What did they do to you in the Midwest that made you able to function as a person knowing the things that you know? I guess I don't view it in a fearful way because, remember, in life, there's just bad things all on it. Like, it's more likely I'm going to get hit by a car die than I'm going to shot by terrorists, right? So I guess I don't really worry about the fear of it. So I don't sit around and like stressed about it or upset about it. I try to share. I really like to focus

on preparing people because the more you know, the more you're scored away when something happens, or even if you just hear a boom, if I hear a boom, I'm getting the hell out of there. Like, you're not going to be some curious person like, what could that be over there, right? But it's just getting people thinking different. So I like to focus on that a lot. But I have a normal everyday life. Unfortunately, I lost my dog, my dog was pretty much who I spent all my time with, but he died of old age. But I ride around an e-bikes.

I'm at the local farmer's market on the weekends. Like my life is perfectly normal and that's the way all Americans should live. Like you can't live based on a fear, but knowing the threats out there are at least good to know because then you can prepare around them. So if something bad happens, I'll be fine in my house for one week or two weeks. I can lock down. I'm ready. You know, I know how to defend myself and protect myself if I need to. And I just think that's a really good place to be in.

And then you can enjoy the rest of your life. Well, Sarah, I found you on the internet. And I'm very glad to speak with you. Was I in the hot woman category? Or was I'm in the pet? You tell us. You tell us. I get a lot of here's the threats in the world also.

So you came in that category. This was making sure what bucket it was in the algorithm. Oh, my God. I love her. Sarah, your podcast, The Watch Floor. If people, if you like the way Sarah talks, which I do, and you like the perspective that she brings, please, please check out the watch floor. Where can people follow you and find you on the internet?

Yeah, so, of course, the watch floor is on YouTube, and then we have like, it's on every other. You know, you can go to Facebook X. And then I'm just on Twitter mostly in my name, Sarah Adams. And then I'm on other sites like LinkedIn and stuff. But to be honest, I never get time to check my messages. So you better put some work in to hunt me down. Otherwise, we're never going to connect. And I try really, really hard.

But I do spend my nights and my free time going after terrorists. And I don't have a lot of spare time. Plus, I have a full-time job now, obviously, like you, with this podcast. And so I'm learning. I like to be behind the scenes. So it's a super uncomfortable world. for me as it is, and I bet, you know, well, you are a star, so I guess it's different, but it is, it is a hard transition. It is, no, it's very challenging. Also wanted to give another shout out

to the book that you co-wrote with Dave Benton, Benghazi, Know Thy Enemy, a cold case investigation, a really, really cool book, also because it shows you not only what happened, but how one investigates and how one pursues this kind of terrorism. So, um, really appreciate the book, appreciate you being here. And thank you for your service. You know, thank you for everything you've done to keep us safe in ways that many of us will never know. And I know there are so many like you, many of whom we will never get to know.

So thank you for your service and for risking your life to protect our freedoms. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me today. I will never sleep again. Was that the goal? You brought Sarah here so that I will just be awake all the time and get so much work done? One of the important things that I took away from this conversation was the notion of things may get shut down.

There may be situations that come up, whether natural disasters or otherwise, where it's not crazy to think that we have to lock down in our houses for a week or two weeks. That's the message you took home. Yes, because I think there's a preparation that we are naive to. And anytime I talk about, hey, we need to prepare a little bit, you're like, you're a doomsdayer and you want to build a bunker. And I think there's a fine line between I want to go in underground for months at a time and be able to live off the grid. And understanding that the construction of our society is actually much more fragile than we've been led to believe. and and we're so used to next day delivery, now same day delivery. I go on the internet.

I get all my food from Uber Eats or DoorDash or wherever you get it, not an ad for any particular company. Or I'm so used to just like going wherever I want to go at any time. The restrictions and frictions in our lives are lower than ever before. But like that's not realistic as a sustainable model. there are bad actors, whether that be external or internal. There are natural disasters. There are earthquakes that happen in California, and I don't think most people, most people

don't have cash anymore. Most people don't have gas in their car. Most people don't have a prep or a meal prep or bottled water anywhere. And I think it's a little bit delusional, myself included, to think that we will never experience a situation where we need to be prepared. I think that Sarah could have a very lucrative, business of selling emergency kits to people so that after she tells you all the things that you should be afraid of, you would just go to her website and click and say, I'm a level five

warrior. What's my level five kit? I need a level five kit. There are actually a lot of, my Instagram doesn't show me those, but it could after this conversation, because it's probably listening to me. There are companies that have pre-prepared go bags with like meal kits. You wouldn't like the meals, you'd be catching about the meals all day. Look, they're like camping meals. They're like add hot water. You need your boiled water kit to go with you. The number one thing I'd be worried about. Maybe for my birthday, we can get one of those. The number one thing I would worry about. And I'm looking to Valerie and Aiton. If God forbid there was something and we had to like, you know, be in here. The number one thing I'd worry about is listening to you complain about

the food. That's the no. Not your health. Not my health. Not the health of the cancer. country. I wouldn't be worried about getting hit with Havana syndrome. I'd be worried about you talking about microplastics and the things. A lot of microplastics in those meals because you're pouring hot water into a bag. So that is a concern. But you know what? It's two weeks. It's not your whole life. No, I really did really appreciated. I mean, look, she's got a candor that I don't have. You know, I, as I said, I'm not. I thought that was a funny part of this episode. These are the qualities that are required. That's not, those are not my qualities. And that's okay. That's okay. Everyone is different. I think we're probably... Because I'm good enough

and I'm smart enough and gosh darn it people like me. Like you too. I think we're probably the funniest show that she's been on. She's on a lot of very serious shows. She's very funny. She is very funny. I haven't seen that funny side of her in the past. No shade to some of the shows she's been on, but they're very, very serious. A lot of mood lighting. I mean, I did, I had to question her use of the word funny. Yeah, it wasn't funny. I didn't mean to correct her, but like, colloquially, I get it.

Like, oh, and it was funny, but like nothing about. I'm just picturing, you know, when even on the inside flap of her book, you know, you see her and it's like, oh, here she is in front of, I don't know if it's the embassy. And she's just, like, happy, you know, and she's very comfortable, you know, with living. living in a completely different culture and placing herself in a totally different world to gather information. She needs her own TV show. In some ways, not always, some ways you're very discerning and in other ways you're quite gullible.

So I just imagine like the film version of you. I'm impressionable. Okay. Which I love about you. But I imagine the film version of you as a spy, but it's like kind of a farcical comedy where they're kind of... hapless, a little bit. No.

Skipping around. You kind of like, you go meet the person. They're not exactly on the corner where they say they're going to be. You get really upset. And then you go over to them and they're like, that person isn't important. You're like, oh, yeah, of course not. I'm thinking of Melanie Griffith in a film called Stranger Among Us. A shout out to Howard Svee Rosenman who produced that.

And it was Melanie Griffith with a gun. Like, freeze. It was fantastic. And I was like, that's what I would. I could be that. that. I would play Sarah if she were to ask me. I would play her in the, uh, in the movie version of her life. If you're still here at this point in the episode and you want more of Miami-Bialics breakdown, you can get this type of banter and analysis over on Substack, Miami-Mialx breakdown on substack.

From our breakdown to the one we hope we never have. We'll see you next time. It's Miami-Bi-Lix breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a break-down. It's a break-down. She's going to break it down. MindBialx breakdown is supported by Elastique, where science meets style in wearable wellness. Elastique athletics is designed for daily life, travel ready, workout optional, and beauty enhancing. Elastique fits into your routine with zero extra effort. Their chic sculpting designs provide therapeutic compression while still keeping you looking stylish.

Elastique athletics creates fashion forward compression wear engineered to enhance circulation, reduce swelling, and support lymphatic flow effortlessly. rooted in science and trusted by wellness professionals, their patented micropearl technology blends proven results with premium design, making Elastique the go-to brand for wellness that works while you wear it. Endorsed by physical therapists, lymphatic specialists, and featured in Vogue, Oprah Daily and Goop. Elastique athletics are perfect for post-workout recovery, post-surgery recovery, travel, swelling, fatigue, and sluggish circulation. Their micropearl technology is clinically tested to support lymphatic flow, reduce inflammation, and visibly improve skin texture. It's fashion forward compression that doesn't look like compression. Feel the difference in circulation, recovery, and skin smoothness in just one wear. Go to the link in the show notes and use the code MyM-50 for $50 off your elastic order.

That's M-A-Y-I-M-5-0 for $50 off your elastic order.