Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - The Terror Is Still Out There with the CIA’s Marc Polymeropoulos 

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

In this episode, Anthony is joined by one of the CIA’s most highly decorated operations officers, Marc Polymeropoulos. Marc provides insight into the CIA’s way of thinking, the current state of US security, his concerns surrounding China, Russia, and more. Then, Marc discusses his bestselling book Clarity in Crisis, which shares his experiences and lessons learnt from 26 years in the agency.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is open. book where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know I can roll with the punches, so let me No, anyways, let's get to it.

We can learn so much from the CIA about leadership, adversity, service, and teamwork, from multiple field and headquarter assignments to specializing in counterterrorism in the Middle East, spending time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and leading clandestine operations in Europe and Eurasia. If anyone can tell us about the state of our intelligence and safety, it's Mark Polymeropolis. When the world is at its toughest, we need guidance from people like Mark, and that's what he gives us on today's show. And joining us now on Open Book is Mark Polymeropolis. And Mark, I got to tell you, I am so happy I pronounce the name right because, you know, I'm an Italian kid from Long Island and I can butcher people's last names. A CIA veteran, a bestselling author, an MSNBC national security analysts, but also several decade career at the CIA serving our country.

And so first off, Mark, thank you so much for the service. The title of the book, Clarity and Crisis, Leadership Lessons from the CIA, it's a phenomenal book. It's a quick book, Mark. I enjoyed reading it. It took me about three and a half hours to read it, loved it, loved your stories in it. You also go over who you are as a person. We share our baseball love in common.

That's right. Our teams are somewhat different. We share our baseball love. But let's go right to starting at the agency in 1993. You became one of the CIA's most decorated field officers. You spent time in Greece every summer. You are obviously Greek origin. You travel to Algeria with your dad. You know, I'm Italian American. You're Greek American. Tell us about your background and what led you into the CIA. Sure. So first of all, Anthony, thanks for having me here. I got to start with just a quick story. I always talk about this when people pronounce my last name. So give me one second. We'll dive into it. But I was in the Middle East. I was the deputy station chief. I can't tell you which I've still sworn to secrecy on that, but I get a phone call from the president's briefers. This was when George W. Bush was there. And they were going down to the Oval and they were going to brief him on a breaking situation.

They wanted my take on it. So I was pretty pumped. I was still kind of a mid-career, mid-level manager at the agency. So I gave my two cents. They go down there. They say they're going to call me back in a couple hours when they come back from the White House. I wait by the secure phone. I get the phone call and I said, how is the Oval session with W?

And they said it was awesome. And I said, why? Like, you know, did he think my analysis was, was solid? They said, well, he spent the whole time trying to pronounce your last name. So that's my, that's my claim to fame for, but everyone they're always going to push. I love it. And, uh, and anytime I'll see. Well, I got to, I got to ask you this, though, because I know him a long time. He nicknames people. Did you get a nickname at him? I don't know. I don't know. That's right. He did, he did nickname people. And, you know, talking about, in terms of, uh, even jumping into kind of the leadership stuff. And we can talk about it in a sec, but, you know, his leadership after 9-11 was extraordinary. I was in New York City and just pretty amazing his visits

and how he rallied the city, a diverse population in the country. So I get chills even thinking about, you know, what he did for for New Yorkers during that time period. So I just throw that out. I love the, I'll be, you know, very candid with my feelings. I love President Bush. I didn't know his dad, frankly. I met him a few times, but I got to really know President Bush because of what happened in 9-11. our mutual friends like Tom Higgins and things that I was doing to help post 9-11. His nickname for me, Mark, was Gucci Scaramucci. I love it. Okay.

Gucci Scaramucci, right? He always comes up with something, right? So I guess I had Gucci loafers on on that day, I guess. I don't know. But go to your background if you don't mind because I think you have this fascinating background. You're right about it in the book. Take us through your background. Look, I mean, it's an immigrant success story, starting with my dad, you know, who came from Greece

on a full right scholarship. You know, comes to the United States, spends 40 years as a professor at Rutgers University. And, you know, just, you know, it's the story of someone, you know, making it in America. Now, I was born in Greece as well. So I had that same, you know, dual background where we'd go back to Greece every summer,

traveled all over the world. That gave me my kind of interest in foreign affairs. And, you know, a seminal event for me was in 1980. I was 10 years old. My dad had taken a sabbatical in Algeria, you know, a small North African country, which at that time was not racked by a later Islamic insurgency, which killed, you know, tens of thousands of people. But it was relatively safe. And so, Anthony, listen to this. At 10 years old, my mother dropped me off at JFK Airport alone. Would you do this with your kids? Ten puts me on a plane to Paris and I fly to Algeria. As I meet up with my dad and my father and I spend one month driving 2,000 miles through the Sahara Desert in a Volkswagen minibus. And I thought I was Lawrence of Arabia and boom, I was done. I wanted some kind of career in foreign affairs, intelligence, something like since, you know, when I was 10. So that hooked me.

I, well, first of all, I love this story. But yes, can I believe it. I can believe it. You know, we were latchkey kids. I don't know what my parents were doing. My father was smoking a cigarette. I was sitting in the middle of the front seat with no seat belt. And he was letting me drive the car.

So I just give you a sense throughout we grew up. And I was at the station diner near the Long Island Railroad 2 o'clock in the morning at 11 years old, eating pancakes with my cousins. So I don't know what the hell these people were doing. But it also makes me think that we're over parenting and we're over helicoptering our kids. No, I mean, growing up in Jersey in central Jersey, I'd jump on the train in New Brunswick when I was, again, 12, 13, go with my buddies into the garden to watch Ranger hockey games alone. Yeah. So the Mets, when they were traveling, they'd have that like 1.30 game on a Wednesday or Thursday, I would deliver my newspapers in the summer, take the train at 11 years old, by myself, and get a general admission ticket and keep score of the game. My parents had no idea where I was, no cell phones,

no air tag, Apple air tag up my, you know what, to find out where I am. But let's talk about, let's talk about this career, okay? Why the CIA, what can you tell us about the farm? Why is it called the farm as an example? And what do you think makes a good intelligence officer? Great question. So, you know, look, I was interested in foreign policy. You know, again, I was born in Greece, all these crazy experiences traveling. We went back every summer to the Greek island. So my parents gave me some really incredible experiences, seeing the world at a very young age. So I knew I wanted to do something.

What it was going to be, it was either going to be CIA, perhaps the State Department, perhaps the military, but I wanted to do something. And I think I probably read a whole bunch of Tom Clancy books. And so when I was at university, I went to Cornell University, and I walked into the, you know, the recruitment center. And I had an interview and after a very long process, a grueling 18 month security background check, probably because all of my travel and my, you know, relatives overseas, but I was, I was finally hired. And off I went into this kind of incredible 26 year career. But again, you know, one of the things that I think I'd go back to is that I was a middle class kid from

New Jersey. And when I go and I talk to college students all the time now. And I had this amazing career and I feel very, you know, lucky and fortunate to have work with real heroes in the intelligence community. But I was just a normal kid. I don't come from any kind of special background. You know, my dad was making 30 grand a year as a college professor. You know, he drove an old Dodge Dart that had a hole in, you know, rusting hole in the floorboard. And so it really is a kind of a success story, a true American success story in the sense. You can do some unusual things if you really put your mind to it. So off I went to the agency. And you asked a great question in terms of what makes the best intelligence officers. And, you know, so I'm not here as a

former Navy SEAL kind of pounding my chest saying, we're going to charge a hill. And I love those guys, and I work with them very closely. But I think it's just the characteristic of humility. And that can go across, you know, so many walks of life, but just being humble because it was a high risk, high-fail profession. So I did things that were extraordinary. I know. I feel proud that the operations that I ran saved hundreds of American lives. But I also know I screwed up sometimes. And there were some terrible consequences in which friends of mine died. And I was involved in that. And so, So it's just the idea of staying humble. And I think that's a character trait that's absolutely critical.

And your final question is, you know, what's the farm? You know, what can I tell you about that? That's, of course, the training program at CIA where you go to, you know, a not-so-secret base in the mid-Atlantic of the United States. And, you know, it takes about a year or two to you learn, you know, what's called tradecrafts. And that's how to recruit an agent. That's how to run a surveillance detection route. It's really a weeding out process, you know, in finding people who have not necessarily type A personalities, but have that, because introverts can do very well as too, but have that kind of mental fortitude to operate on your own. Let's go back to my growing up in New Jersey, what we talked about.

So why was I a successful CIA officer? Well, at CIA as a case officer, an operations officer, we operate alone all the time. So here I am growing up with parents who gave me a, there was not even a leash. There was no leash. So I had a lot of confidence in myself, you know, and how to react to certain situations, how to make decisions. And that really was honed with this tradecraft training down the farm, which was ultimately, it wasn't difficult in the sense of mentally tough. It was all about time management. It's about how do you react at so many situations that are thrown at you. And the training is actually

very good. It's very realistic. And, you know, I think back to that time period. And I'm very thankful for, you know, a lot of the instructors I had along the way. Well, first of all, you know, I've had the chance to go. I've ever been to the the forum, but I've been to Quantico. And as you know, I've been on troop support missions. I've been to Iraq and Afghanistan. Obviously, lots of our embassies. You know, I've watched Homeland, Polymeropolis. I've read Daniel Silva and Ken Fowlid and David Balducci. So where is the separation between truth and fiction? Wow. So Hollywood does not necessarily get it right. But there's a couple things. One, as a former intelligence officer, you know, I always have to be kind of careful in my critique of

Hollywood movies or some novels because, you know what, they're designed to entertain. There are some that are quite good, though. So Homeland, which is a lot of fun, is not anything, you know, even close to reality. I would say that there's a couple authors who have gotten it pretty, pretty close to reality. One is David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist, a friend of mine. He wrote a book called Agents of innocence about a CIA case officer in Beirut, you know, loosely based on on true events. But again, again, it gave a really good idea of what life is like as a case officer. And then most recently, there's another friend of mine from the agency, David McCloskey, he wrote a book called Damascus Station, which is about operations in Syria after kind of

the terrible events of the Civil War. Again, fiction, but with a lot of reality thrown in there. The agency's okay with this stuff? Obviously, you guys have to vet this stuff with the agency and so forth. forth. In some ways, they like it, right? Because they want to get this stuff out there to help their recruiting efforts, but they also want to be careful about not giving up too much, right? Fair to say. So one of the things that we do, and as I, you know, I made the decision after I retired to kind come out in public and, you know, and talk to the media. And of course, now I'm, you know, I work with

MSNBC. But I did so just with the, with the idea that I thought it was good for the American people to hear from the operation side of the house. There's a lot of former analysts who speak out in public. But I wanted the American public to understand what. what the CIA was about for a couple reasons. One is because I think it's, it is absolutely indispensable for the security of the country. But number two, it also, you know, you get, we get a black eye every once in a while. You know, there's some things we've done in the past that caused a lot of controversy. And if we don't have people out there explaining, you know, the good parts, the positive aspects of what the intelligence community can do, I think we risk

a lot. But with that all in mind, everything I do and everything I write has to go through the publication review process. And so the agency does, because I saw when I sign a secrecy agreement, at the beginning of my career, it lasts a lifetime. So I cannot ever divulge classified information. And I honor that. I have a pretty good, I have a great relationship with the agency. The publication. I get that because I had the same thing in the White House, you know, when they gave us an

intelligence briefing, you know, can't say anything about it. And, of course, it never do. So the truth and fiction are somewhat separated, but there's a lot of truth in the fiction. You know, people are out there as intelligence officers. They're analyzing data. Some of them are actually in the field as human intelligence agents doing operations on behalf of the United States, disrupting terrorists, catching people that are money laundering, catching people that are acting in interests against the United States, doing it surreptitiously. All of this is fair to say, right?

You more or less write about it in the book, in that vague way. I guess what I want to talk to you about is the word ambiguity. You remember writing about this. It talks a lot about, you know, you talk about ambiguity. and being comfortable with ambiguity. So tell our viewers and listeners what that means. What does it mean to be comfortable with ambiguity? So, you know, it's when you don't have situational awareness.

You can call it, you know, when you're operating in those times of gray. Well, you don't actually know what's going on, but you're okay with it. And, you know, to me, that was always, that was something that it was a skill that I learned to kind of hone over time to a point where, you know, that was my happy place when there are ambiguous situations. Okay, we don't really understand what's happening. But you know what? You're the one who raises your hand and you say, you know, send me, I got this. I'll figure it out. Me and my team will figure this out wherever we go.

And that to me was a great hallmark of CIA. You know, we're never looking. Why would you call in the intelligence community if we were looking for, you know, for knowns already? There's always the unknown. And so to me, that was something that was what I was very proud of at the end of my career. I was really good at those situations. Okay. And there's so many, you know, we've been attacked by a terrorist group.

We have to track down the group. How do we do that? There's a weapons of mass destruction. There's some kind of proliferation concern really hard. Who's going to say yes and kind of jump into the fray? I'll never forget, Anthony, I can talk about this, going into Northern Iraq before the war. This is in late 2002, myself and nine others, a joint CIA Special Forces team went to live with the Kurds up in Northern Iraq. And we got up there, but it was a terrible kind of logistics train.

Our weapons didn't even arrive. What do we do? Okay, we'll figure it out. We've got some from the local partners. We have no expo plan. Helicopters couldn't reach us. All right, we're going to figure out. Literally, the plan was we're going to walk into Iran if we have to, if Saddam Hussein's forces come across the lines and attack us. So that's the idea of being comfortable in the uncomfortable. And to me, that was just an incredible skill that CIA officers end up developing because, you know, that's kind of the true nature of the intelligence business is kind of understanding, finding, fixing, working really hard problems. Really good stuff. Let's dig into the nine principles. You've got adversity and humility in there. I have those as bumper stickers.

One's on my forehead. The other one's on my backside. You have the glue guy or the glue girl. I love that. So I want you to talk a little bit about the glue guy or the glue girl. But let's go over your nine principles. Tell us a little bit about each of them if you don't mind. So these are nine principles on leadership.

And again, it's the idea of how to be comfortable and the uncomfortable. You know, when times are tough, you're the one who's going to raise your hand. And so all these principles build on each other. And it's the idea of, and it's not only for individuals, it's the idea of how to build kind of cohesive teams that are able to operate in that, in that place, in that time of gray. And what I found was, as I look back on my career in some kind of seminal events, huge operations, I kind of dissected this. Why I wrote the book? And I said, how did we succeed in that time? So I came up with these.

And I'll jump into, you know, the idea the glue guy or the glue gal. And that's a notion that every member of your team is indispensable. and that is something that is counterintuitive. You know, if you're in special operations, it's the door kicker. You think they're important. Well, are they really? What about the logistics personnel? What about the support personnel?

If you're in sales, you know, who's the one in front of the customer? Well, hold on a second. Who prepared everything in the background. So it's the idea of celebrating those behind the scenes that are just as important. And when you have a high performing team, you understand that. You celebrate successes amongst everyone. But you also in your planning, you take everybody into account. I'll never forget.

I was sitting at a CIA station one time as dawned on me. We were planning some operations. We're having a morning meeting. I had all the case officers there. And I said to myself, where's our finance officer? And someone they brought the finance officer here. And he said, why am I here? I said, well, actually, we can't run the operations. We don't have any money to do it. So every leadership team we're going to have from now on, I want the finance officer and the support officer, as well as case officers, the door kickers in with me. And that's the idea you start understanding the importance. And I'll tell you, as a baseball fan, you know all about that. I bet you could tell me glue guys from the New York Mets that go back 20 to 30 years who are critical, you know, that that 1986

World Series team, you know, who are the glue guys there? They don't win without them. They might not be on the All-Star team. They might not be MVP, but yeah, well, yeah, somebody definitely in the year 2000 was Joe McEwing. I don't even know if you'd remember that guy, but Joe was a utility player. He's managing now in AAA could easily be a major league baseball manager, super smart guy. But I get the point. You need people on a team that are willing to go all out, but also get the fact that they're on a team. You know, Derek Jeter, who's become a friend subsequent to his career, I didn't really know him during his career. One thing he said to me that I always share with people is he could have cared less about his stats. You know, I mean, you had a situation where the

ball was going into the third base spectator stance, and he's at shortstop. A-Rod is at third base. So A-Rod's closer to the ball. Jeter's out racing A-Rod for the ball. He died. He died. into the stands and gets a fracture of his cheekbone catches the foul ball. I mean, I don't know anything more metaphorical of Derek or Arod to be candid. You know, I mean, one was a glue guy and the other one was a stat. What are my stats and what's important to me guy? And, you know, and that happens in life. How do you know who you can count on?

You know, I mean, we've all been stabbed in the back, you know, and, you know, you live in a funky place. Washington, I mean, I thought, I mean, you know, Trump had one of the best lines ever. I mean, I was in the Oval Office with Trump. And he says, yeah, he goes, I thought I was a killer, man. I was a real estate developer. I thought I was dealing with all these like killers and vultures and in New York. He says, here in Washington, he says, Garamucci, the secretaries will cut you.

The secretaries will make you bleed out, you know, meaning that the secretaries are more ruthless in Washington and even the killer New York city developers. I felt in Washington they would take your eyeball out with like an ice pick and they would drop it in their dirty martini glass. You're bleeding. the table mark, they're still talking to you like nothing happened. Like, well, that's what we do here in Washington. We take each other's eyeballs out and drop them in martini glasses. So, so what do you say about all that? How do you know when you can count on somebody and what do you say about

the treachery that is around us from small-minded and insecure people? So what a great question. You know, I think about when you, when you walk into CIA headquarters, you know, on the right, you have the memorial wall, which are the stars on the wall. This signifies our, you know, officers killed in the line of duty and it's incredibly sobering. My friends were on that wall. And on the left, though, there's also, there's a, it's equally as important because there's a line that's etched in stone. It's a biblical verse. And it says, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. But that's the idea about integrity. And I'll tell you, Anthony, you know, that's the only thing that we have kind of honor and integrity as foundations. And so while sometimes we are betrayed,

and that happens in life, you know, my, my view is you always have to give people the benefit of the that's the only way to kind of kind of move forward in a positive fashion now sometimes you're going to be disappointed i remember in my career i would help a young officer with something you know i'm trying i push really hard for a promotion and the officer gets promoted and somehow down the line i hear their shit talking me some way and i'm like wow that's a bit of a betrayal but you know what it was still the right thing to do to get that officer promoted and so you know you there's there's just a set of you know ethics and and kind of the integrity that you have that's all you really have in the end so i think it's just the idea that these things are going to happen You try to build teams around trust. You certainly get to, you know, you kind of go around, you get to know your team. One of the things I'd love to do, and I got better at this as a manager, is I would try to understand my people more. So you have, let's say you're running a unit of 10 individuals or 20 individuals.

And it could, you could be the head of a Fortune 500 company because these are some of your top managers. But I'd get them together. And we wouldn't talk about work. I said, tell me something about yourself. And so, you know, you kind of, you build trust that way. you try to have empathy with your employees and your peers as well. But at the end of the day, sometimes human nature kind of bites it. And so, you know, there's, we've all been stabbed in the

back in the past. But you try to kind of move forward and kind of live by that honor of, or that code of honesty and integrity, which ironically, a place like CIA is something that is really important because we're entrusted with just a critical mission. We have unique authorities. We have incredible amounts of power. And so that's what you have to really kind of, you have to live that code every day. You know, you, you said something. When I read it, I was like, okay, that is actually true. It doesn't feel like it at the time. You said that adversity is a performance-enhancing drug, you know, and I've been kicked in the face. I've been fired. I've been lit up in the American media, international media. And when I'm in an adverse situation, like I own Bitcoin and it's dropping 65% for the year. And I've got every client and their mother coming at me with a hatchet, it doesn't feel good, Mark. And so tell me why adversity is a performance

enhancing drug. So for me, so I came up with that one of the principles, adversity is the PED to success. It's because every really incredible elite team that I'd been on, we had failed prior to that before some huge success. I mean, it's just something that this is based on my experiences. This is not just something I kind of came up with out of nowhere. And so what I started thinking about is adversity can be a super fuel. And I, you know, there's so much. many examples in life, the kind of the one I use all the time is, you know, Michael Jordan, you know, what happened in sophomore year in high school, where he got cut from this high school basketball team. I think he, you know, he didn't quit after that. But it's just, it's just

the idea that you need to taste rock bottom first before you kind of eventually succeed. And you know, that's life. And you know, to me that the idea of this principle is, I use this with my kids all the time. You know, my son's playing college baseball. He's had two shoulder surgeries in three years. Brutal. You know, what are you going to do? You know, you either, you know, you know, you can complain about it. You can pick yourself up and do your rehab and get back at it. I mean, this is going to happen in life, whether it's your personal life, whether it's in business, family, anything. And so it's just going to make you, it's going to make you ultimately strong. I'm going to give you a great baseball analogy. Remember in 2003, the Red Sox Yankees series,

the Red Sox, Red Sox lose the Yankees on a walk-off home run by, of course, Aaron Boone against a great knuckleballer, Tim Wakefield. Watch that game, man. What happened the next year, 2004, the Red Sox are down three games to none, right? And Kevin Malar, incidentally, a glue guy, gets up in front of the whole, the world media and smile and he says, we're going to shock the world. And the Red Sox come back when four straight beat the Yankees. And if you talk to any member of that Red Sox.

Which has never been done before. Let's just let everybody know that. You know, the go 03 and win the remaining four games never been done before. Boston Red Sox do it. Every member of the Red Sox team, every member said there's no way we win in 04. if we hadn't had that incredible loss in 03 because we learned. And so, you know, when I talk to groups about this and when I, you know, I talk about my book to whether it's, you know, athletic teams or, you know, Fortune 500 companies,

you know, I say the same thing is that, you know, sometimes going through adversity makes you what, makes you fearless. So, Anthony, what you've gone through in terms of, you know, experience with Bitcoin, like, how much worse can it get? Well, the answer is actually, you know what? It was pretty bad for about for a while. But so, but in the future, you're going to be fine because you went through that. And it's just having that kind of mental toughness.

And so the idea of embracing adversity. I don't know if you have an opinion of it or anything, but what does the agency think about Bitcoin? There's rumors out there that the agency invented Bitcoin. You think that's B. I have no idea. I'm not sure. I think, you know, I mean, I guess sometimes it's harder to track. I don't know.

But who knows? We're probably giving credit for a lot of things we didn't do. Right. Well, yeah, amen. You're probably getting credit or sometimes discredit. There's a lot of nonsensical conspiracy theories. and so forth. Let's talk a little bit about your time in Afghanistan. You were in Iraq. You were in Afghanistan. I obviously only spent a week in each of those countries, but man, I thought they were

very different countries. You know, there's just a whole different culture in both those countries. So set the scene for us. What was your time like in Iraq and what was it like in Afghanistan? And how did they differ? Setting the scene is a perfect way to think about this because ultimately, And I wrote about this and talked about it on Morning Joe a couple of weeks ago as we kind of did a retrospective on the 20-year anniversary of Iraq. But you have to remember that whether it's Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, you know, I was a tool of the U.S. government. It's a sharp tool. It's one that is employed with care. But so I'm not going to give a impression on whether it was right or wrong.

For me, it was the idea of answering the bell. And so the U.S. government trained me to do something. I was asked to go. I volunteered to go. in fact, begged to go in both those places because that's what we do. But ultimately, both were quite different in Iraq, certainly before the war, as I was living up with the Kurds in northern Iraq. And then when the war kicked off, I went in with the Navy SEALs for what we call the high value target hunt when we're tracking down members of Saddam's regime. But my recollection of

this was not anything about WMD or anything like that. It was that I had run Iraq operations for a while. And Saddam Hussein was an evil, evil bastard. You know, one of the, one of the worst dictators of the century. And the sense that we had is that we were actually helping the Iraqi people. Now, everyone might kind of scoff at that now after, you know, not finding WMD. But, you know, if you knew the Iraqis and knew what they had gone through under a brutal dictator, this was a chance to do something different. So that was kind of the feeling I had there. In Afghanistan, far different emotions for me because, and this is not, you know, this is, I'm going to give you just the personal view of this, you know, it's about revenge. I was in New York on 9-11.

Going to Afghanistan, I was a base chief in eastern Afghanistan. I ran one of our paramilitary bases, and our job was pure and simply to track down high-value targets. And that's fine fix and finish missions, along with the U.S. military against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And for me, it was avenging the deaths of 3,000 Americans. It was avenging the death of terrorists who killed my fellow CIA officers. And so, you know, there was never a day I woke up and said, boy, I wish I was back home. I loved every second of my time in Afghanistan because I thought we were doing was absolutely righteous.

This is far different than nation building, far different than what probably a lot of people's experience is there. But for me, I'm extraordinarily proud of what we did because Americans are safer, for sure, from what my team and my fellow colleagues. colleagues accomplished there. I know that we are safer, but tell us why we are safer because you give you all this cynical nonsense in the press. So, and we've also, I don't want to jinx us, but we've also managed to really in the last 21, 22 years curb any monumental terror attacks in the United States. So tell us why we're safer. So look, every day, you know, there's a great

poster that was put up at CIA headquarters. Every day, just think about this. Every day is September 12th. Every day is September 12th. What does that mean? You get. up every day saying that what happened on September 11th will never happen again. And I'll tell you, as a member of the intelligence community, we considered, you know, September 11th, the failure. I mean, you know, I know we had to be perfect and we weren't. And so when you say every day September 12th, we're going to do everything possible so that doesn't happen again. And, you know, again, lots of retrospectives, obviously with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But you know what? we weren't attacked again on our homeland. And I think the men and women of CIA and the intelligence

community and the U.S. military deserve a hell of a lot of credit, even if we made mistakes in Afghanistan, even if we stayed too long, fine, got it. But at the end of the day, we were not attacked again. And that's because of the resolve. Look, a friend, I have a friend. This is an incredible story. I can't tell you his name. He spent 10 years on the bin Laden hunt. Think about that. Every day, he woke up for 10 years. Most of the time, he was deployed in South Asia in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Dan. Not married, you know, no girlfriends, maybe a girlfriend or two or whatever, but no personal life. Every day for 10 years, he hunted bin Laden. Thank God we have people like that who have that. I didn't have that resolve. I went back and forth. He was there for 10 damn years. And, you know,

those are the kind of people that, you know, God bless we have them, you know, working for us. It's a, you know, listen, it's an amazing story. And, you know, like you said, we've got to be 100% Right. You know, General Kelly and I have become very close. And he told me this story, which is now declassified about the laptop bombs that they were making for these computers. And they were going to bring laptops onto the planes and blow the planes up with these laptop bombs. And of course, the Homeland Security CIA, everyone had to make a decision to continue to allow laptops to come into the United States or even be flown around domestically in the United States. And of course, we disrupted that terror cell, got all the information, and adjusted our security screening so that we

could continue to have our laptops on planes. I think people are terror. We have to, we can't forget, and I think we have, that people were terrified that there was another attack coming. I remember like it was yesterday, not only terrified, but I think it's also important for people to know that the terror is still out there, which is why we're spending all of this money to disrupt terra. And as you know, you know, we have to be perfect. They just, got to get it right once. And it's only us. We're the ones, you know, we'd always say to each other, there's nobody else. If we're not successful, there's no, there's no backup right behind us. Right. We're on the ramparts. And so, you know, that was a tremendous responsibility.

But I think a lot of us have a lot of pride in terms of the counterterrorism work we did. Where are we today in terms of our safety? Wow, what a great question. So the world has changed. You know, we were so successful in the counterterrorism field that the threat of an attack on our homeland is diminished because of how we have so significantly degraded international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. But the world has changed, and now we have, of course, a rising China, which is our kind of long-term pacing threat. And then we have a country like Russia, which is kind of the most near-term threat, particularly to Europe, to NATO. And so the threats are different. In the United States is a, you know, sometimes, you know,

the national security sectors and aircraft carrier moves slowly, but we have shifted towards this what we call great power competition, which is China, Russia. But, you know, Anthony, you saw this in the White House. You know, how humbling is it for the president to get the, or a national security team to get the president's daily brief? And you can, as a candidate, you can say all you want, but you get that brief every day. Right now what President Biden's getting. You got what's going on with Russia, Russia, Ukraine, the potential threat of use of a nuclear weapon by Putin. I don't think it's going to happen, but that's out there. You have a rise in China. You also have what? An Iranian nuclear program that's accelerating. You have a North Korean missile program and nukes as well. Israeli-Palestinian

on and on and on. It's pretty sober. You know, you have the Yemeni Civil War, the complication between Saudi Arabia now and Iran. It goes on and on. It's a dangerous thing I would say about that brief is that when, you know, and I try to tell this to people without getting specific, there's just so many things that we don't know. And so we're giving our best guess to people that have to make these decisions. Of course, if the president is making the decision, that means there were 5,000 other people in the United States government couldn't make the decision. And that's how difficult it was. And so it filtered up to the president.

So, so, you know, it's not only humbling, but it also has prevented me from being coming overly critical and too much of a Monday morning quarterback on people because there's just so many things that we don't know. So I know I'm running out of time with you and I could talk to you all day. I want to talk about Havana syndrome. You know, you have it, struggling with it. Any better? Headaches are better now or no?

No, Anthony, thanks for asking. Yeah, I've gotten much better, in fact. I went to a one-month program at Walter Reed at their traumatic brain injury clinic. I've had some subsequent treatment from some former Navy SEAL doctors and specialists. And so, you know, it's at the five-year mark since this happened to me in Moscow in 2017. And I am definitely better, thank God. But it's a marathon. You know, I still have a headache.

Five years with a headache that's been going on 24-7, but much better. My, you know, my cognitive abilities are vastly improved. And to me, you know, I think about, of course, you know, my book, Now, Clarity and crisis, but I think there might be another book in me about overcoming chronic pain because it's been an incredible struggle. You know, thank God, I channel my energies. You know this because we have a mutual friend who's a personal trainer and Ray. I channel my energies into working out. You know, so I'm a workout fanatic. But I also could see with this battle of chronic pain, how people do things like getting hooked on opioids, you know. Yeah, of course. No, I mean, chronic

chronic pain is a, it's been a brutal, rude journey. And so to me, you know, it's a it's an absolute, It's an absolute, you know, it's kind of daily struggle, but I've managed to channel it successfully. Thank you for asking, but, you know, it certainly has been a marathon, no doubt about that. So with every one of my authors, I throw out a couple of words. I want them to react in a sort of a quick fire reaction, you know, could be a sentence or two or even three. So let's start with the Middle East. Complicated, and America will never be able to disengage. And the reason we can never disengage is oil, our dependence on oil, and also just because it's such a volatile area, and I'll throw on top our historic support for Israel.

Yeah, no, it's interesting because, you know, it goes back to Thomas Hobbs, the, in the Leviathan written almost 500 years ago, what Hobbs said is you need one hegemonic power to suppress the internecine conflicts. If you can do that, you can get to world peace. If you don't have a hegemonic power doing that, these tribal conflicts, these disagreements, they bubble up. And of course, you and I are students of Middle Eastern history. So we know that the Sykes-Picos Treaty, the treaty that was put together by the French and the British, as they were leaving Palestine and the Middle East, as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, those guys were a little dastardly. They created border disputes in every single country. So those tribes are still fighting over the varying borders. So the World War I in the Middle East has not ended, Mark. You and I

both know that. And so a result of which the United States definitely needs to be there. I'm just wondering, though, about what Henry Kissinger would say, where he said, don't let the Russians in, don't let the Chinese in. We seem to have let, we seem to have let both the Russians and Chinese. I think that, you know, this is more a complicated discussion. But I think President Obama, the Obama administration, let the Russians into Syria in particular. And now the Chinese influence in the Middle East is quite significant. You actually see Saudi Arabia tilting towards China. But that's also a reflection, I think, of it's not a, you know, unipolar world anymore.

United States is not the dominant power, but China is right behind us. And so we're just going to have to live with that, I think, in the years to come. Yeah, no, no, no, no question. So let's go right there, China. or as Trump would say China, China, China. It's our longest term, our pacing threat. I think, though, and perhaps this is a bit controversial when I say this, I'm not as convinced that we will inevitably have a war with China

because China wants one thing and that's 9% growth. China is not Russia. China's economic interests, you know, Trump, everything else. And so I think we're going to have to learn how to coexist with another power in the world. But I'm not as convinced we will have armed conflict, I think, as others are, because China ultimately value stability and they want that 9% growth. Yeah, and I also think they are long-term planners, you know, and they don't need a conflict today that's going to disrupt the long-term plan. But you think they invade Taiwan? I do not. I think that the lesson of Ukraine is going to be, you know, front and center in their mind.

And as long as we kind of continue on with with strong deterrent capability, I do not think they will. that would threaten the world economy, certainly threaten the China's economy. It doesn't make sense to me why they would do that. It was nice to see former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Ukraine going against the MAGA narrative. It's a fight for the democracy and it's also a fight for the stability of the West. So let's go to that monolithic country, 13 times on the largest landmass in the world, Russia. You know, I would say it's a country ruled by a war criminal. Enormously disappointed. I think to many. You know, you had the old German view that Russia could be integrated into Europe. I think that has been, you know, shattered totally. And ultimately, while we're going to have to continue supporting Ukraine as they try to push Russian out of their territory, you know,

what happens the day after the war ends? How do we deal, assuming Putin's in power, with a bruised and battered Russia? That's going to be kind of a key, key issue of our time. That's what the National Security Council is focused on. I strongly believe Ukraine is going to win this war. But I don't think anybody understands what happens the day after. Okay. So you got the Ukrainians winning the war. What does that mean for Vladimir Putin and his regime? Right. So Putin is going to have to find a way to somehow couch this as a success when he inevitably is going to have to, he will lose, he will have to withdraw. You know, one of the things is that Russia is a pretty monolithic police state. So he seems to have, you know, kind of a hold on power. But at the end of the

day, I think one of the things that I find fascinating is I'm not sure we understand Russia and the Russian people as much as we think. The notion that the Russian people are, you know, are somehow going to rise up against him. I'm not sure that's accurate. My friends of mine who know Russia far better than I see a population that is, that is demoralized and has just kind of accepted that they have this war criminal in power. So I'm really, you know, again, I think that it's the notion that somehow Putin is going to be deposed. I think that's that kind of that silver bullet idea is a bit fanciful. What he, you know, but how this ends is, is, is going to be quite curious. He's going to have to have some reason to kind of call it quits. I say this all the time that, you know, when I say it in

the media and people always are quite horrified. The only thing that matters every day is the, is the amount of Russians we send home in body bags, us and the Ukrainians together. That, that is going to be how this this war eventually ends. Now, listen, it's a terrible thing to say because both you and I know how devastating war can be, and we know that it unravels. The rhetoric, the hot rhetoric, turns into real personal tragedy for so many families and individuals. Two last ones. Okay, you ready? USA, the United States.

I still have hope. You know, here's a great, you know, I go around and I speak to universities all the time. And, you know, there's so much negativity in the media. And a lot of it is justified. You know, the events of January 6th, I think are a historic staying on our country. You have a Republican Party that nobody can really recognize anymore. But then I go and I talk to Generation Z. I go and talk to the youth.

And you know what? They still are interested in public service. They are not as depressed or demoralized as sometimes many of us in the media are. And so I think there is hope for the future. And, you know, it's our job to try to pass the torch correctly. But, you know, I still think of America as the shining city on the hill. Anthony, when you travel overseas, go by a U.S. Embassy and at the Consular Section, even now, there are long lines of people who want to emigrate to the United States. We are still seen as the

land of political and economic freedom, and nobody should forget that with all of our problems. So I still have hope. Yeah, I mean, I've heard ourselves. I mean, listen, I love the country. It's a resilient country, and it will improve. And, you know, like you said about Reagan, you know, that our best days are probably ahead of us as we reform ourselves as we always had. We've We've had a civil war, two world wars. We've had setbacks related to the Cold War. Now we're experiencing a tremendous amount of tribalism. Some of that is actually being infected by intelligence forces that are adversarial to the U.S. You and I both know that these robotic server farms are designed to influence Americans, make them feel bad about themselves, or make

them hate other Americans. And so, you know, we'll figure it out as time goes on. I'm super optimistic about America and love the country and want to be part of the solution. Last one, CIA. It's the nation's first line of defense. Key part that CIA has to understand is with the explosion and open source data, we have to remain relevant. And that means we have to be able to continue to spot, assess, develop recruit, and handle agents, human sources. The explosion of open source, the explosion of data means about 80% of what the president and national security team needs to know comes from open source data. But we need to have that 20% niche. We need to recruit a penetration of the inner circle of President Xi in China of Vladimir Putin.

We still need to penetrate terrorist groups. So CIA has to be on their game to stay relevant. But again, it's still, it's the nation's first line of defense. And, you know, I still believe these are everyday heroes. America never hears about them. They're in the shadows. I'm never going to get a patent ahead, but they go to work every day helping protect America. Well, listen, it's been a spirited exchange.

You're a great man, a great American. I loved your book, Clarity and Crisis, Leadership Lessons from the CIA. And I'll see you rooting for a team that I don't like sometime this summer somewhere. How's that? That's a deal. And I'll come up to New York any time to see it. Thanks, Anthony. Really appreciate it.

Well, I'm certainly grateful for Mark's service. And I'm grateful for the CIA and the commitment that the United States. and the commitment that these men and women have to America, and their willingness to sacrifice anonymously on behalf of the interests of the United States. And, of course, because I've been privy to a lot of the different operations that the U.S. have been engaged in over the last decade, I can tell you that these men and women like Mark have put their lives on the line. They have put their lives on the line for America to protect civilians not only here in the United

States, but Americans around the world and, frankly, innocent people. around the world. So I'm super grateful to him. And I'm noticing that the glue guy or girl is something I thought about a lot since Mark's reading. And I'm going to tell you that my Earth's wild producer, Holly, is a glue person. We will call her a glue guy or girl, but we'll say that she's a glue person. But she's been an incredible teamwork oriented person here at Skybridge and all things related to salt. And it's nice for people like Mark to acknowledge and bear witness to that. My guest this week was Mark Polly Moropoulos. He's a CIA veteran.

He's basically a spy, Ma. So what do you think of the CIA? Do you like us having a CIA? You need a CIA. Of course you need that. All right. Tell me why, ma. Because they have to be informing the American people and what the hell they say.

Right. They can prevent terrorist attacks. They can disrupt attacks, right? Absolutely. They can find out who the bad guys are before they cause a big problem, right? They had two Chinese men and the China town being spies. They didn't have the FBI or the CIA. We'd really be in trouble.

All right. So I spoke to him about all this, okay? Mark said something to me that I want you to get a reaction to. He said to me, you have to become comfortable with the unknown to succeed. You know, sort of like when I started my companies, I had no idea if it was going to go well or not, but I had to be comfortable with the fact that I didn't know. Is that a true statement, Ma, or what do you think?

Absolutely. Because Anthony, since you were a child, you always were comfortable in your own skin. I think I have three children that I have tried to, I had a saying, look in the mirror and tell yourself you're beautiful or you're handsome and you would end up getting a better feeling about their self. If you said it to yourself every day, and I believe that helps. My father told me that and I answered it on to my children. Okay. So you built up good self-esteem. steam is so this way I can take the body blows when they're like attacking me in the paper,

right? No problem. Well, you also had an uncle who had a feisty personality and told you, who was my brother, never to be afraid of anyone if you think you're right. Explain yourself to the person. And then if they are belligerent, then you tell them why they're off the wall and usually you're right. Yeah. He said, never have any fear of anybody, which was a true story. And of course, he fought in the Second World War. He helped to liberate one of the concentration. camps and so he was very tough and he he didn't like bad or evil people there was no question about that so so so gave everyone a chance many years ago or we had discrimination and in

155 he hired someone that was uh african-american who was very loyal to have because of that and he treated him like he treated himself and everyone else around him and with that you you adopted error no I mean yeah no I got I got raised colorblind, and that was a very good trait to have. And so, but that's also, you know, I don't walk around gingerly around black people. I talk to them like white people or green people. It doesn't matter to me. And people can cancel me or not cancel me.

I want to tell them exactly how I feel one way or the other. Keep going. That's a gift. Right. Well, okay. Well, you help me with that. So thank you, Ma. We talked about teams and having people you can count on.

So how do you know, because you know you're a little bit of a witch, Ma. That's what my brother David calls you. How do you know that you can count on somebody? What's the instinct? What do you feel about the person that knows that, hey, that's a person I can count on? I think I have a gift on that. I really do because I can sense it. Sometimes I keep things in.

I have leukemia from keeping things in because no one in my family has it. And I think that it's a stress of keeping stuff in. And when I say someone that I think is very, really bad and that I think it could hurt somebody by me saying it, I hold it in, but I know the person is about good. Okay. I appreciate that, Mom. So you just, there's a sense that you get, right? Definitely sense. My father even told me as a little kid that I had a sense of that. You know, I just feel that. And then I don't get both those too easy, but sometimes I take a back seat. I let that person win just so I don't have a conflict. Not anymore, but when I was your,

I would let that person win just so I could survive life. Okay. I'm saying who it is. All right. All right. I love you, Ma. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was open book. Thank you for listening.

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