PBD Podcast - CIA Operative Andrew Bustamante | PBD Podcast | Ep. 180

Starting point is 00:00:00 I was trying to impress you. Yeah, but port. I know. So not the kind of nightclub we were going to. Port the deportment. Yeah. And you're planning on staying in the Portland. That's a conversation between conversation between you should watch his video on why he moved to Florida No, I've heard Portland's crushing it right now

Starting point is 00:00:36 In fact, except in Spain I would be curious though because you know I can move I'll move close with the mic the mic yeah yeah yeah I'm just chilling brother and Great beer. Yes, I people know how to have fun. Yes, you know You know certain cities you go to people are tied it up Portland was up there Yes, I saw everybody. I didn't see I don't think I saw like a two-year-old kid tied it up. It was like anybody was tied up Yeah, they'll tattoo anyone. Yeah, they will Tattoo's aren't unique these days. Yeah, we were going up. You had tattooed all the mess with that guy now you certify the message. I tell you but Portman was above

Starting point is 00:01:14 and beyond. Yeah, above and beyond. Have you been recently? No, you also won't find a bra in Portland. Yeah. Thank you for being on the headset and catching that one Liberal policies or liberal people or a combination of both but like what's worse? The people and they keep bringing those policies in. What's the worst of the Yn yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n ddol, yw'n dol, yw'n dol, yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Starting point is 00:04:14 I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did you ever think you would make it here? I feel I'm supposed to take sweetest theory. I Hey, this Addy run homie look what I've become Oh my god, okay, so are we live episode number 180 today's guest a special one He may look like Hispanic calling cavernic, but it's not

Starting point is 00:05:04 Okay, then don't don't you know don't you get too excited? It is Actually somebody way more interesting to me a former covert CI operative Kai who Went to school at South Florida State then went to the United States Air Force Academy He's now a fortune-tank corporate advisor and at the same time when he was in for seven years he and his wife his wife was also a And at the same time, when he was in for seven years, he and his wife, his wife was also a CIA agent. They had a kid and they had to make a decision on what to do. I think in 2014, they decided to get out and try the civilian life, which is a very strange adjustment.

Starting point is 00:05:36 If you've been living in that life, to go to this life, we'll find out about it today. But with that being said, Andrew, both Samantha, but we're gonna call you Andy on the podcast if that's okay with you. Yeah, great. Good to have you on, man. Thanks, man gonna call you Andy on the podcast. That's okay with you. Yeah, great. Good to have you on, man. Thanks, man.

Starting point is 00:05:48 I'm happy to be here. What a story you got. Well, I appreciate it. So it's my story. So like all of us, we think our story is the least interesting story. That's a good point. You always want to know other people's story.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for people that don't know, maybe share with the audience on. And by the way, if you're listening to this and you want to know kind of what things we're gonna cover cover, here's some things we're going to cover. Obviously, we're going to cover the background. I want to know some things about the credibility of the different agencies. For me, I have a hard time believing that agents can, you know, separate their emotional opinions versus actually seeing stuff like,

Starting point is 00:06:27 hey, this data says bad things about the guy's support. Yeah, I don't want to see that versus this data says good things about the guy's. But yeah, this is what we found out on the intelligence. I have a hard time in the last few years. I think a lot of people would probably agree that the trust, and I know you left in 14. So in 14, it still wasn't that bad. But since 16, it's been very, very taxing on any of the agencies, C-C-I-A-F-B-I-N, I say, you name any one of them.

Starting point is 00:06:50 They lost a lot of credibility. So how do you differentiate between emotional style? What your own opinions are versus the data you're getting. We want to talk about some of the stuff with the laptop. An article came out from New York posting, 79% say truthful coverage of Hunter Biden's laptop would have changed the 2020 election, which means Trump's would have been President today. Zuck's guest appearance on the Rogan podcast, a lot of stuff was said there that got people

Starting point is 00:07:19 thinking he's talking to the FBI and you know how decisions they made with the laptop. We'll talk about Mar-Logos and so just happened. A lot of talk about civil war and some of the media platforms just recently, CNN's talking, I were trying to be less of a democratic mouthpiece. They just let go of stouter, they just let go of not just let go, they're, Cuomo. Cuomo was a year ago and possibly, if they they lose lemon they may go out of business but that's the challenge and a few other things so we'll cover those things here but for the audience that doesn't know your background if you don't mind sharing briefly

Starting point is 00:07:54 how you want about becoming a CIA agent. Yeah absolutely and I mean that's a super exciting lineup that you just laid out there Patrick so I'm gonna try and keep my pieces tight possible. So I was Air Force Academy for college. I was a brown kid in Pennsylvania. If you're brown and in Pennsylvania, I get you and all you wanna do is get the hell out of Pennsylvania. So that's where I started.

Starting point is 00:08:16 I was looking at any and all options, just desperate to do something that got me out of rural Pennsylvania. What city were you in? I was in Harrisburg, which is the actual capital of Pennsylvania. Nobody knows that. But no one thinks of Pittsburgh Philly. We all remember fifth grade when we got that one wrong. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:31 Right? In our fifth grade Harrisburg. Sorry, you got 49 out of 50 buddy. So I found out that there are these military schools that give you free scholarships and that's what took me the Air Force Academy. So I just kind of went all roads to Rome, trying to get to a free military education.

Starting point is 00:08:48 I was successful. I was the first one in my family to go to college and went from Air Force Academy into the Air Force, learned about nuclear missiles, learned how to fly, got a top secret clearance, learned Chinese. It was a great Air Force experience. And then when I tried to leave, because I was not a short hair, clean shave,

Starting point is 00:09:07 and kind of guy. You were not. Even when you were in. Oh no, I had to be when I was in. Right. So every day was one of those days where you're like, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And when you're like 22 years old, 23 years old,

Starting point is 00:09:20 like every year feels like a long time. And now we're like, years just disappear. But when you're, that's- So this is the real you. This is long hair, calling cappernick vibe, the beard. I need to get it rattier like dreads. I need to get some sun bleach going on. I want to have that leather skin that you see so often in Florida.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Go down the South Beach by the other way. I'm still endeavoring, I'm still endeavoring. But that was what picked me up. So then CIA saw me trying to leave the Air Force and. So then CIA saw me trying to leave the Air Force. And that's what CIA saw you trying to leave the Air Force and then they reached out to you. Yeah, exactly. Now let me ask you this, was there a desire to one day

Starting point is 00:09:56 want to be an FBI NSA CIA? Was there anything like that? Oh yeah, absolutely. I was one of those kids that grew up wanting to be a fireman in a cop and serve and keep people safe. That's what I always wanted to do. When I graduated from the Air Force Academy, my number one choice, we get to choose, we get to tell the Air Force what we want to do.

Starting point is 00:10:14 My number one choice was Air Force Intelligence, but then needs the service. It's the military, so they put you wherever they need you. So they're like, well, you can fly, you're the right height, you had decent grades, so now you're going to be a pilot. And I was like, oh, well, it was hoping to do Intel. And then, you know, going through my Air Force career, it was, I wasn't the best at anything. And the Air Force had just told me

Starting point is 00:10:33 that I couldn't be an intelligence officer. So the last thing I was thinking as a 27 year old is that I should apply for CIA. They told you that you couldn't be an intelligence officer for what reasoning? Because they wanted me to be a pilot instead. Okay, got it. So I was like, I swing, you know, I took my swing a bat,

Starting point is 00:10:47 I got turned down, not gonna keep wasting time on this one. So when I got the phone call from Langley, I was like, maybe you didn't see in the records where I already got passed up for this once, or you know, I learned later on how Air Force actually, how CIA actually recruits, and then it all made sense. But at the time, I was thinking, I've already been flushed out of this system. how Air Force actually recruits, and then it all made sense. But at the time, I was thinking, I've already been flushed out of this system.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Like, there's no reason to expect it. Well, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that I saw you say something to the effect of you were applying or you wanted to get into the Peace Corps, and you had two main things on your mind, which very much so a resonates with me. You wanted to see the world, and you wanted to get laid. Yeah. And you're like, all right What what else is out there? And then something popped up on your screen that said how is it out of Hundreds of hours of content out there. That's the only thing I mean at some at the end of the day some

Starting point is 00:11:37 Like what can we talk about how nonchalantly you're like yeah, I got into the Air Force Academy That's nothing to shake a stick at man. You have to get two senators to sign, quick, we have them wrong. Two senators to sign off, the governor to sign off. Like, that's nothing to shake a stick at, man. Plus you flew for them. Are 85 year old shake a stick reference? I've never heard that from anyone.

Starting point is 00:11:55 I'm an idiot heart, baby. An idiot heart. Old souls, old souls are the best. Yeah, there's some challenges to get the Air Force Academy. But being a brown kid in Pennsylvania, in 1998, I mean affirmative action has its benefits. It also helped that I was a busboy in a white, like a white person's golf club

Starting point is 00:12:14 where the Senator or where my congressman liked to frequent. So I was a hard work in busboy who actually had the ear of the congressperson and then my bosses backed me up. They were like, hey, this guy's a busboy, but he's not gonna be a busboy who actually had the ear of the Congress person and then my bosses backed me up. They're like, hey, this guy's a busboy, but he's not going to be a busboy forever. Right. Back this kid up. Back this kid up.

Starting point is 00:12:31 Yeah. It's all about, I am, I mean, from my success is not because I'm smart, it's not because I'm like lucky, it's not because I'm anything other than just blessed by the fact that other people stepped up and lifted me up one more level. So then when you're in it and you're thinking, well, this is not gonna work out, you know, Air Force Intelligence, I'm gonna have to figure something out.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Was it an immediate thing that they contacted because my friend, he wanted to be Delta, friend of my wanted to be Delta, to become Delta Fort, you're not gonna be like, hey, guys, can you tell somebody from Delta to reach out to me? I really wanna be Delta. You can do that with special forces. You can do that with Ranger.

Starting point is 00:13:07 You can do that with a lot of things. Not with Delta. All of a sudden, he disappears for eight years. And then years later, I meet up with him and Madrid. He says, yeah, I was Delta the last 12 or 13 years. But that was his dream from 18. When we first got to the unit at 101, that was his dream to go Delta and it happened

Starting point is 00:13:26 Was it a dream to become CIA was it to dream okay? So it wasn't that part wasn't for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was never it was never a childhood dream I've worked with people who just like I mean fit your story exactly yeah nine ten years old I want to be CIA went to college picked their major did everything to get there and then they got there Yeah, but that just wasn't me. For me, it was, what can I do that lets me travel the world and get laid? I was, you said something parked up on your screen one day. So I was applying, yeah, when I was trying to leave the Air Force, and anyone who has transitioned

Starting point is 00:13:56 out of the military knows what this feels like. You're like, what the hell can I do? And one way you're like, the whole world is an option. And then in the other side, you're like, I only do one thing in uniform. And nobody needs that out there. So in my kind of frustrated attempts to figure out where I fit in, that was when I just boiled myself down to, well, what am I?

Starting point is 00:14:15 Like, what are the things I really want here at 27? I want to travel the world, not just the world, but like the armpit of the world. I want to see the shittiest parts of the world. Because I was able to see some shitty parts of the world with the Air Force, and it really made me proud to be an American. So I was like, I want to see more shitty parts of the world because it's just going to make my confidence and my appreciation to my country that much firmer. So I was looking for Africa. I was

Starting point is 00:14:36 looking for like hardship and I was looking for a lady with Harry Armpits and Harry Lager. I wanted to get it on in a tent in Africa. Those were the two things I was looking for. Peace Corps was going to deliver. Wow. But halfway through that application throughout the day. But you, I want to understand how the CIA works. Something popped up on your screen. Was that intentional or is that accidental?

Starting point is 00:14:57 You see what I'm asking? So you get to remember the government works like one giant organism. And the Peace Corps is part of the government. State Department is part of the government. DHS is part of the government. FBI is part of the government works like one giant organism. And the DPS core is part of the government. State Department is part of the government. DHS is part of the government. FBI is part of the government. The US military is part of the government. My entire record going back to the age of 18 was on file. My name was in capital letters, which means I'm an asset of the US government, right? That's what they saw. So when I started applying to another government agency,

Starting point is 00:15:21 the US government, right? That's what they saw. So when I started applying to another government agency, I fell into some massive algorithm somewhere and happened to hit on what they were looking for, just like a keyword search anywhere else. Got it. And I got a warning screen that popped up in the middle of my online application to Peace Corps.

Starting point is 00:15:37 A screen that said, hey, you may qualify for other opportunities, big red screen. Please put this application on hold and we'll reach out to you within 72 hours. If you were to have the same thing happen, big red screen says, hey, you may qualify for other opportunities and you're 27 years old, how easy is it to click that button and says, yes, put me on hold? And that's how they found me. And then from that point forward, it's just that application was abandoned and a new application

Starting point is 00:16:05 was created. So it wasn't, it's not a word of mouth method of recruiting. They have multiple, CIA has multiple ways of recruiting. There is word of mouth, for sure there's word of mouth. And that's for a very deep cover kind of niche area. Because there you, you're looking for people with established credibility and in some special field. So it's not easy to find business people who are actually running successful businesses and then you want to turn them into spies. That's a hard thing to do. So you look for word of mouth. And then you have things like the government world, anybody trying to move from one government job to another government job, that can be automated. That's easy. And then you've got the whole world of college recruiting where

Starting point is 00:16:42 you have either somebody who's a recruiter on campus or somebody who's a regional recruiter that visits multiple campuses and you will literally find CIA in a cheesy stall with a sign at almost every college recruiting event for big colleges. Pat, you tell the story that your dad pulled you aside one day and he's like, you can tell me son. do a side one then he's like, you can tell me son. It's okay, it's just you can tell me. You were in the army, uh, 101st, right? And your dad literally thought you were doing something. What was that? This was five, six years ago. He says, you know, five, six years ago, six, you're already running B. A full on business. This is six years ago. This is maybe five to seven years ago. What he's like, you can tell me, you know, we have people in the family. I'm like, that I'm telling you, I'm not. He says, I understand if you are. I said that. First of all, I'm not. He says, I know even if you were, you couldn't tell me. I said, I'm telling you right now. I'm not. So till today, there's a 20% chance

Starting point is 00:17:37 of it. He legitimately thought you could have been something in the intelligence community. CIA. What have you? Yeah. I don't even know where to speculation form can. He just one day came up to me, we're having dinner and he asked me a question, this is I've been really thinking about this. I don't know how to ask you without offending you. Yeah. He says, are you, I'm telling you, I'm not.

Starting point is 00:17:57 He says, I understand and he keeps and I understand. Like, yeah, I'm telling you, I'm not. But he's your dad, man. He's your dad. So your dad, your dad always thinks that you're the best. Your dad always thinks that you're the most elite, right? Like that's an awesome dad. That's an awesome dad.

Starting point is 00:18:11 The reality is, and I'm used to air quotes, you're most likely not an asset, but you were at one point. Did you have family members, people pull you aside and be like, Andy, I mean, come on, I mean, just tell me, I'm your dad here, I'm your friend, I'm your friend. Nobody was on to you, do you have those difficult questions?

Starting point is 00:18:29 Yeah, I mean, honestly, one of the things CIA does train you to do is how to look and act like the most boring, forgettable person, especially to your own family. So I didn't get a lot of those challenges. How do you do that? So one of the things that doesn't look like a natural thing for you, you don't seem like a boring, you know. So how do you, how do you adjust if you do that? So, one of the things that doesn't look like a natural thing for you, you don't seem like a boring, you know. So, how do you adjust if you're not?

Starting point is 00:18:48 You have my background, which is what makes me interesting. I got turned away at the front door of your building. They looked at me and the guy, the guy no kidding said, what are you doing here? And I said, I'm here for an interview with who? Patrick, we don't just let anyone into this building. I need to call someone. Who calls this by into this building I need to call someone I need to call someone as I pulled in I usually come in the back door I saw Andy in the front I was like oh that's me I know who that is and he couldn't get in I was like come on buddy right this way sign

Starting point is 00:19:19 in please so that's how you do it man just being discreet and just not someone you know that someone would recognize. So the human brain has two elements to it, right? It has a fight or a flight response, and it's in its paleo mammalian brain, in the central cortex in the back of your brain. So you look at everything around you as either beneficial or threat, right, or even to boil it down further, threat, non-threat, threat, non-threat. The way that you get yourself forgotten, you always trigger the non-threat

Starting point is 00:19:45 side of the brain. If you ever trigger the threat side of the brain, either because you're super attractive or because you're super ugly, whichever one it is, right? If you trigger that threat response of, in any way, you're going to get remembered. The brain will store that in short-term memory, move it to long-term memory, just depending on what it thinks. If you trigger the non-threat side, you don't even get retained in short-term memory. So essentially, okay, so let's talk about it how to be a non-threat. Don't ask tough questions.

Starting point is 00:20:11 Yep. Don't ask technical questions. Don't ask why questions. Don't talk about yourself. Don't talk about yourself. Don't touch politics. Don't touch world events. Are those some of the ways you...

Starting point is 00:20:22 Correct. Look put together, but don't look like you put effort into yourself. Don't wear your money. Don't wear money on your wrist. Don't wear money on your fingers. Don't wear money on your clothes. Show up on time, not earlier late. Why is that? Because if you show up early, then people remember that, because usually you catch people by surprise.

Starting point is 00:20:41 If you show up late, people are usually annoyed because they've been waiting. If you show up on time, you give everyone else a chance to either be early or late, and they feel good no matter which way they are, because either they were early and prepared for you, or they were late, and you were prepared for them, which makes them feel good. Interesting, but that's a little counterintuitive to what I hear about the military.

Starting point is 00:20:58 We have our friend, a couple of friends of the marine here, Chris, he says, if you're on time, you're late. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. How do you, that's like kind of cognitive dissonance between a CIA agent and just a typical military person. Correct, because remember CIA, when you're CIA, you're trying to be discreet and you're trying never to appear as a threat and you're trying to be forgotten. When you're a military, you're trying to show obedience, you're trying to be remembered. Right?

Starting point is 00:21:21 So early as on time, on time is late, very, very standard military jargon. Because when the commander shows up, the commander wants everyone there because who wants to feel important? The commander. Right. If you show up after the commander's there, everybody looks at you because they think you think you're more important than the commander. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:38 That makes sense. So go back to it with the recruiting side. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of the story on how you got recruited this time. Let's see if we're gonna get this guy's, okay, this time we're on. So you apply on this, you set the pop-up, right? You set the pop-up, so you apply on this pop-up, what happens next?

Starting point is 00:21:54 All I did on the pop-up, all I did was click, put me on pause. So I'm inside the Peace Corps website, I'll wait for 72 hours before, and I'll give someone a chance to call me. About 24 hours later, I get a phone call. And the phone call is to an old school flip phone if you remember those old flip phones. And all it says is 703.

Starting point is 00:22:11 I don't know what 703 is, but it doesn't say a block, it doesn't say enlisted, it doesn't say the full number, just says 703. So I pick it up. On the other than the line is some nice person, a lady, who basically says, hey, are you introduced to Monta? Did you apply for this position? And I said, yes, to all those things. She was like, hey, it seems like you

Starting point is 00:22:29 might be a good fit for a role in national security. Would that be something that interests you? And then we have a very short conversation that basically just verifies I am who I said I was on online, and that I would be interested in national security at a position they don't say who or who with. Did you ask? I did. I said, who is with and she said we're not in position to disclose that right now. But she did say we would like to interview in person in Washington DC would you be

Starting point is 00:22:53 amenable to that. And again 27 year old 27 year old single mail. Everything she asked me was yes. Yeah, I'm down. Let's do it. Let's go. So then she said we're going to send you a ticket and a rental car reservation, a hotel reservation, it'll be at your house overnight, and then just follow those instructions, and we'll see you in DC. To Virginia, oh, DC, go. So for me, I'm in Montana at the time,

Starting point is 00:23:15 and I think to myself, never gonna happen, nothing's gonna show up. That was just the weird crank, like whatever people are just traveling. You legitimately didn't think it was a real thing. Cause I was a nuclear missile officer for the Air Force too. So this just seemed to me like a, this could have been anything.

Starting point is 00:23:30 And it's not a lot of people say that I'm a nuclear missile officer in the air force. Come on guys, it's just a little nuclear missile. Vinnie did the same thing. He was a nuclear officer in the air force. I don't think he's as qualified as an air force. No, but wait a minute, Vinnie was a nuclear officer in the air for I don't think he's as qualified as and no, but wait a minute. Vinnie was a nuclear officer in the Air Force.

Starting point is 00:23:47 Vince and Oshana, the same guy who dresses up as Alfonso Ramirez and Raid's Nancy Pelosi's office was a former nuclear missile officer in the air force. We're going to verify that. We're a cool bunch of crazies. That's true.

Starting point is 00:24:01 Okay, so your Montana, they sent the car you're thinking there's no way this, someone's trying to pull a prank on you. And then I get an overnight package that has everything she said it would have with a physical paper ticket that has me in DC like two months later. And I go, and I follow everything. The recruiting process. The recruiting process kicks off.

Starting point is 00:24:20 Now for most people that recruiting process is somewhere between nine and 18 months because it takes so long for the security clearance to come through I already had the clearance so my my interview process happened in about six months Not because again not because I was smart but just because the majority of the work was done They had my whole military background. They knew that I was a Chinese speaker They knew I had nuclear missile knowledge and they knew that I was and they knew that I was Let me ask you you say because I'm not smart. Oh, you know how sometimes we're kind of like well I'm not the smartest guy, you know

Starting point is 00:24:50 We're kind of playing that I'm not that smart to not be a threat because we want to be not a threat and you're naturally Yeah, I got a picture of not smart multiple times I'm thinking yeah this airport nuclear science This over here not that smart. Yeah, but no but but the part a part of that is for me I don't know if I want CIA to not recruit Smart people like you I don't want them to go recruit like just anybody off the street So you know, there's there's a when you when I worked at Morgan Stanley Dean with her They we went through a bunch of interview process. Of course nothing like like it. I'm military, you didn't go through interview,

Starting point is 00:25:25 I was a hammer mechanic. So you don't become a hammer mechanic, needing a process, just, here's a wrench, go, right? But when I did go through Morgan Stanley, the in-wood, it was like one interview, two interview. You're not accustomed to them in interviews, and you're taking tests after tests, after tests, after tests, after tests.

Starting point is 00:25:40 What were some of the tests you took with them? Was it more mental? Nah, I'm assuming none of it was probably physical because if you're coming from Air Force, they already know you're somewhat taking care of yourself. What were some of the tests you went through? Yeah, so it's a psychological battery. It's a psychological battery almost exclusively. So, I had a 2.4 GPA coming out of college, which is well below what they say you have to have to apply to CIA. They say you have to have a minimum of 3.5. And then I went on and got a graduate degree at University of South Florida, and I did well in my graduate studies mainly because I wanted to prove to myself that I was smarter than I was in college. I was just chasing tail in college,

Starting point is 00:26:17 and we all suck or grade wise when you spend late nights on benders and tail. But the application process for CIA looks like personal interviews, where they're basically pressure testing your ability to work under fire and be flexible with the situation. And then they pair that with psychological interviews. Some of those psychological interviews or some of those psychological tests test your personality, others test your cognitive reasoning, other ones actually quantify your ability to take disparate information and then combine it into something useful. So I did well, I must have done well enough in those tests to be moved forward, but I didn't expect at any point to actually make it to the next round. Because in my back of my head,

Starting point is 00:26:55 I'm thinking like I was I barely graduated college. Yeah, granted I went to a nice college. I went to a challenging college, but I still didn't get great grades. And I wasn't a 4.0 student in high school. I am the model get distracted by things fun and life kind of person. Just turns out, after I got in, that is exactly what CIA is looking for. The undercover element of CIA, the directorate of operations, the national clandestine service, the people whose job it is to go out there, meet and recruit sources and spies, those people need to be flexible, social, and up for the next big adventure.

Starting point is 00:27:32 Your analysts, your scientists, your tech wizards, you need those people are super smart and borderline asbers, they don't always want to go outside, they don't want to deal with people. Hardcore introverts? Great point. That do a different job. That totally makes sense. So it makes sense where it is almost the non-threat as well. It's a form of a non-threat based on how you're explaining it.

Starting point is 00:27:58 Okay, so then you go in your, you're, you're, you said six months ago because you already had to clear and so you're higher, you're working with them. Uh, at this point, are you moving somewhere? Are you staying where you are? Are you constantly under what, what are you telling your parents? Did you have a girlfriend at the time? If you did, what did you tell her? Like what was, what were those conversations like?

Starting point is 00:28:18 Yeah. I mean, those are, man, no one has asked me these questions, brother. These are, I'm, I'm enjoying and mildly uncomfortable by some reason. I had a great girlfriend at the time, who I hope does not follow me anymore, because this interview is going to hurt her heart for sure. But I had a great girlfriend. She was a great girl. She was in Montana with me.

Starting point is 00:28:37 We were both nuclear missile officers, and I got the call to come out. That first interview, that's when they tell you you're being considered for CIA. You're being considered for undercover work at this point, you can't tell anybody, you're gonna work for CIA, but you can tell them that you're considering government positions and that you're flying to Washington, DC for these multiple interviews as someone looking for government positions. And then they tell you very clearly, you need to start breaking off contact with anyone you don't intend to spend the rest of your life with.

Starting point is 00:29:02 Oh damn. So that's exactly what I did. I went back and she was a great girlfriend, but she wasn't someone I was gonna spend the rest of my life with. So, I had to start breaking off that contact. Even before I knew I was going to the second or third interview, I knew Peace Corps was my future. She wasn't applying to the Peace Corps.

Starting point is 00:29:18 I knew that something around the world, something, you know, hard was my future. She was looking for something different. Yeah. So I had to leave that behind. What they say, like a lot of, in the Manosphere Red Pill community, they say chase excellence, not women. It sounded like exactly what you were doing. Yeah, and I didn't, I wouldn't give myself the credit to say that, but it does feel right when you say it out loud like that, right? And then my mom and dad, I come from a family that was, my family was a little bit divorced.

Starting point is 00:29:45 My mom and dad were at 25 years of marriage and then going through divorce. That was their thing. It was the perfect chaos for me to not even be a blip on their radar. So hey guys, I'm sorry about your divorce. I'm going to leave the military and go get a job in the government. Do you have brothers and sisters? I have two younger sisters. One was having a baby.

Starting point is 00:30:04 The other one was figuring out her own life. Like, it was really easy. Perfect. When you want to disappear, you would be shocked how easy it is to disappear. Everybody's living in their own world. And once someone just opens your eyes to the fact that if we are all the star of our own movie,

Starting point is 00:30:20 that movie is our life. We are the star. We are the hero. We are the center of attention. Except when you sit next to somebody else, you realize they're the star of their movie. I'm not even a supporting actor in their movie. They don't even know I'm here. So when you just stop talking, when you just stop talking about yourself, when you stop trying to get attention, it's really easy to have no one give you attention. Pat, let me ask you, you talk about this all

Starting point is 00:30:41 the time. Like you disappeared for a while. You cut off all your friends. You said, I gotta change my life. This happened after your dad had a heart attack. I mean, you allegedly not in the CIA. So different stories here. But not everybody watching here is trying to get part of the CIA, but disappearing and recreating yourself. That's something you talk about all the time, Pat. Would you weigh in on that?

Starting point is 00:31:00 Yeah, I mean, but in this example, which is very, the way he's explaining it is the fact that even when you disappear, most people are not going to notice when you disappear. Correct. You know, there's only a few people that can disappear. By the way, even sometimes big names disappear, and you don't even know about it. Like Jack Ma, nobody barely even noticed when he,

Starting point is 00:31:18 by choice versus by force, he's disappeared. Not because he's trying to be a hide and go see Chanap. And he disappeared. Because I think they just You're waiting jack. Yeah, but that is a big thing to talk about recreating yourself and disappearing Well, it's the count of a Count of monocrystal right with a guy disappears. He goes to jail comes out Resolute books and mentoring as comes out his girl leaves him for this other guy and all of us and he's putting the party

Starting point is 00:31:43 The girl shows a wait a minute and I'd recognize the face. That movie is a very, very deep movie. So here you disappear now. Are you in communication? Are they hearing from you? Are they seeing you? Is there Christmas parties? Are you going to family gatherings?

Starting point is 00:31:58 Are you going to Thanksgiving dinner? Are you still doing those types of things? Yeah, so I'm doing the bare minimum to kind of stay a member of the family so that I don't become a threat by ostracizing the family. I'm just, I'm the son that has an important government job somewhere. And if you talk to most parents, won't be able to tell you the details of what their kids do. They'll say, oh, I think he's a salesman for some insurance company. Oh, I think he's a doctor in a practice in Tampa, whatever it might be. They don't know the details.

Starting point is 00:32:30 So it was very easy for my family, my sisters, my cousins, everyone. What would you tell them? I work for the government. And then I can't think that your families don't ask, what do you do for the government? So I would tell them I worked in the foreign service. What does that mean?

Starting point is 00:32:41 So foreign service is a subset of multiple government agencies that work overseas, right? So there's foreign service and support FBI, there's foreign service and support Department of State, there's foreign service that support trading commerce. The foreign service is a sub element of the US government that basically is American serving abroad. Have a hard time believing that nobody else would go a little bit deeper than that with the question. They do. but okay, I got it. They do, but you don't, one of the things that we're taught to do

Starting point is 00:33:08 when you're undercover is you don't, you turn questions. So if somebody starts digging into me, here's, you wanna disappear, you don't talk about you. You wanna appear as a non-threat, you don't talk about you. So when they ask you a question, you just turn the question around to let them talk about them.

Starting point is 00:33:24 How do you do that? Give us an example. Because Pat basically is saying, yeah, foreign service. Come on, buddy. What does that mean? Yeah. So foreign service. So, so what does that mean? What does that look like? And I'd be like, oh, it just means that I get to travel the world. Have you ever wanted to travel the world? And then most people will answer that question. Or you can just flip it on them. Yeah. Where do you want to go? I would love to go there. Yeah. Yeah. That's that. So you said the shittiest places and it was the shittiest place you went to. Yeah, yeah, that's attention. So you said the shittiest places and it was the shittiest place you went to. Ooh.

Starting point is 00:33:45 So, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, is about a shittiest as the world. Worse than Portland, because we have a phone. Only Portland. At least Portland has beer. Shout out to Will. Yeah. That's an inside joke that didn't only five of us. So I asked people all the time, like if you had millions of dollars and you were a quote

Starting point is 00:34:04 unquote chilling, what do you want to do with your free time? Everyone says travel the world, but nobody wants to go to shitty places. You had this yearning to see the worst of the worst. Harry armpits. Harry armpits. So you could sort of codify your love for America.

Starting point is 00:34:18 How did that even resonate with your mind? It wasn't necessarily codifying. So when I was with the Air Force Academy, they sent me to China. So I was on a, I was learning Chinese and in 2002, 2002, I went to China to do a six-week language immersion with the Air Force Academy. And when I was there, it was, I've been to Canada, I'd been to resorts in Mexico, like I've done the stuff that most Americans do. But in China, I was eating dog. I was really? I could, yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:45 It's a normal meat to eat there. What about bat? I didn't have bat. That's less normal. I didn't have. I didn't have to eat dogs. Yeah, we ate dog meat, right? There are stands, street stalls,

Starting point is 00:34:56 just like you would get a hot dog in New York, really? With scorpions and different large beetles. Like this is just normal stuff there, right? And then it looks like New York, but the food stalls are not anything like we've ever seen. I can't drink the water. The water out of the sink can't be used to brush your teeth.

Starting point is 00:35:13 The water that comes out of a water fountain, when you go to a restaurant, you always have to ask for the bottles of water. Like these were little things where I was like, I don't have to do this in America. Like I can literally go to any sink in the United States and like grab a glass and drink some water. It might taste bad,

Starting point is 00:35:29 but it's not actually gonna give me a long-term permanent gastrointestinal issue. You're not gonna have Mata Zuma's revenge. Yeah, so just these things, when I finally left China to come back to the United States and they landed in the United States, I was like, oh, this feels good. So why would you want more of that and even worse?

Starting point is 00:35:44 Because one thing that I've always been is very proud of my country and it gives me the ability to drown out the noise. There's so much noise in our country, so much what I call first world problems, people bitching and complaining and fighting about things that make us a half a percent, 0.01% better or worse than where we were yesterday. Not realizing we're 35% better than other first world countries. I took my executive assistant with me

Starting point is 00:36:14 on a trip recently to Austria. And we went to Austria to support like Ukrainian refugee program and whatever else. It was awesome. Excellent food, excellent foods, excellent people, beautiful surroundings. Excellent food, excellent foods, excellent people, beautiful surroundings, the buildings were pristine, very, very heavily socialist country, right?

Starting point is 00:36:30 We come back to the United States, we cross the border in Orlando, you know what she says? It's so good to be back in America. It's like, fuck, yes, that is exactly right. That's why you want to travel the world. You're just going to get to that conclusion to hold that faster in third world countries in first. That is a very good point.

Starting point is 00:36:48 By the way, especially as a, I saw you and your daughter, right, you have a daughter. You and your daughter were sitting there, she was doing homework or study in world wars or different things and just watching how you're raising your kid as well. Have you taken your daughter yet to third world country and if yes, which home was this? So my children have not been to a third world country.

Starting point is 00:37:11 They've lived in the United Arab Emirates. They lived in Abu Dhabi for a year. And my son, especially, they both have very fond memories. And UAE is a first world country because it's a collegial Arab country, rich in oil wealth. They basically overnight developed into a first-world country. So it's not a difficult life at all. It's except for the heat and the culture. Right?

Starting point is 00:37:32 Arab culture is a difficult culture when you're a Westerner. My kids have very fun memories, but they also are like, it's not like, I don't want to go back to UAE. This is something they tell me often. I don't want to go back to the desert. I like the fact that I can be free to talk to whoever I want to talk to. I don't have to worry if they're a girl or a boy. I don't have to worry about classes.

Starting point is 00:37:51 They're saying that at what age? Not at my son is nine, my daughter is five. I love that. I love that. Basic stuff. They're so, okay, let's go back to being a CIA agent. So, what can you talk about that you were apart? I've had a lot of CIA agents here.

Starting point is 00:38:06 We've had Jonah Mendison, which, you know, would chief disguise officer. I think she was married to Tony Mendison. Another story like you guys, where they were also married to each other. Nick McKinley, we can go to Mike Baker. We can go to so many of them. And it's such a interesting space, right?

Starting point is 00:38:23 On what you guys do. And then sometimes, like, I remember one time, I was hosting a Vistage event. I don't know if you're familiar with Vistage. Vistage is a community for C-suite executives, and every month, the yields come together, and there is a chair, and then he brings a guest once every other month.

Starting point is 00:38:38 One of the guests we brought to our office was the former director of one of the directors of CI, for a region of it that he came to us. Pretty powerful guy, well known guy, but he came up and for one hour we kept asking questions. And his answer was, I can talk about that, I can talk about that, I can talk about that. What can you talk about that you were involved in? Not necessarily details, but to say, I participated in this, I was a part of this and I was a part of this. So the rules at CIA are interesting because I and I love my CIA brothers and sisters who are still serving and everyone who's former

Starting point is 00:39:13 and they know that this is true. We can talk about a whole hell of a lot more than what we choose to talk about. It's just there's a culture older gray hairs have a culture that they grew up in, where you just talk less. They've taken it too far. So they've taken it so far that now they appear cagey and now they appear like they're trying to hide something. When the CIA doesn't ask you to hide anything. The only thing CIA tells you to do, officially, is to protect sources and methods.

Starting point is 00:39:40 Interesting. Classified sources of collecting information, classified methods to collect information. Everything else is fair game for the most part, with the exception of speaking in detail about where you served. So I can say I was all over Asia. I was often working in Latin America. I was often working in the Middle East. I was often working in Africa. I can tell you that. I can tell you some regions, right? You don't have to stretch your brain if you know that I speak Chinese. I also speak Thai.

Starting point is 00:40:09 Again, I can tell you what I speak. You have to infer the rest from there. What I can't tell you is what kind of operation, what kind of sources, what kind of methods I was using to collect information that the policy makers needed. Every one of us can talk about that. Nick can talk about that. I know Nick. Nick's a good dude, right? He's running a fantastic operation

Starting point is 00:40:26 with deliver fund doing great things. He can talk about that if he chooses to, right? Jonah does a pretty good job of talking about some of her background, but she wasn't operational. She was in the disguise space. She was what we call support on our side. Really interesting stories. She can talk a whole lot more than what she talks about.

Starting point is 00:40:42 She can't tell you exactly how we create our prosthetics and we can tell you what adhesives we use to make sure that they stick and cold and hot weather and you sweat. But she can talk about a lot more than she chooses to talk about. We all can. So from maybe let me ask a question this way. And by the way, is it true that you guys sign a lifelong NDA? That's a lifelong NDA. It's not an NDA, it's a secrecy agreement. Yeah. It's a secrecy agreement. So okay, so let's say you break it. What happens if you break it? What do we do to you? As soon as we break it, that gives CIA the legal jurisdiction to arrest us for breaking a law, right?

Starting point is 00:41:14 However, we still have a court of our peers that we have to go to. This is where it gets tricky. This is kind of the loophole in the whole process. This is what makes it so that people write memoirs, that the CIA never approves, but those same people never really go to jail. In order for CIA to prove to a public court

Starting point is 00:41:30 that you disclose classified information, they have to disclose the classified information to the court. So if you say, like if you write a book and you're like, I was an undercover officer in Iraq, technically you just broke your CIFC agreement. So CIA can come out and say, now you're like, I was an undercover officer in Iraq. Technically, you just broke your CFC agreement. So CIA can come out and say, now you're going to jail, we can sue you

Starting point is 00:41:49 for breaking the secrecy agreement. But then they have to present the court with documents that show that you were actually in Iraq. So there's no secrecy agreement then. There's a secrecy agreement if you go too far. Has anybody ever gone too far? Nobody's gone too far. People have had lots of different punishments that can be done through different types of

Starting point is 00:42:06 court, but people have yet to go to jail for disclosing information without an intelligence service or disclosing information to a foreign government. Is there a different method of discipline that we're not aware of that you guys can't talk about? We can talk about, yeah. So the other methods of discipline are that we can have wages get garnered often. So I'm working, I've worked on two book projects. My first book project made it all the way through approval processes and everything was

Starting point is 00:42:32 ready to go to publishers until a civilian attorney got involved and decided that they wanted to have an extra conversation with CIA. And then that extra conversation, CIA was like, oh, you know what, we don't want this book to go public. So we're going to say no. After they had said yes to all these other things, when they communicated that to me, the way that they said it is, we know that we've approved for this book to go live. We know that we've already proved everything you've said about you, but we have not approved what this other person who's involved in the book said about themselves. So if you go live with this book, they'll go to jail. Okay, so, but let's stay on that.

Starting point is 00:43:11 So in order for a person to fully follow those guidelines, there has to be a public example of what can happen if you really cross the line. Do you understand what I'm saying? If there's not a public example, it's like, yeah, but listen, I kinda know how to work in between the lines to still get my message across and I'm having this conversation here or there,

Starting point is 00:43:36 you know, like even the mob, right? The mob is like, hey, we have Omarita, hey, and I've sat with God knows how many people in the mob world have interviewed. You know, it's in the mob. If you go through Omerta, you may get killed. Your family may pay price for it. So the price is even bigger, but the CIA is not going to

Starting point is 00:43:55 say if you do anything, and we're going to come after your son and your daughter and your wife, and they can't say that to you, right? So what is bigger than taking your life, a garnishing wages, I don't give a shit if you garnish my wages. Let's just say if I'm going through it, if I'm CI, that's not that scary, right?

Starting point is 00:44:14 The only thing that's really that scary is family, blood and other things that I don't get to do because you're professional at hiding. It's not like they're putting a chip in you where if you decide to go live in a place, if you really wanted a hide, you could hide away from CIA, couldn't you? You could try.

Starting point is 00:44:30 Yeah, we have the skills to try and to do a pretty good job of it. But if they were to really use all of their resources, they'd find pretty much anybody. So what's been a method where they've done something where other people are scared to not wanna follow through with that? So I think there's two things here, right? So first, I would say that you don't have, or scared to not want to follow through with that. So I think there's two things here, right?

Starting point is 00:44:47 So first, I would say that you don't have, I would disagree with your first point that you have to have a public example of punishment to convince people not to do something. You actually don't need a public punishment. You just need to state and demonstrate some level of high probability that something might happen.

Starting point is 00:45:03 Most people are motivated by fear. Fear, true. Fear is a future state. So if they just instill enough fear, fear is something that controls behavior. So if you're coming from CIA, I mean, Matt put yourself in the shoes of a person who is committed part of their life

Starting point is 00:45:18 to working for this organization, and then they leave, and then they start writing a book or they start speaking out, they start coming on podcasts, whatever it might be, they don't want to run the risk of crossing a boundary too far, and then actually forcing the hand of the federal government. You don't want to be that person, because in my heart, I'm still very proud of observing.

Starting point is 00:45:39 The last thing I want to do, going to jail isn't the worst thing. Having my wages garnered isn't the worst thing. Losing the respect of the same organization that I served, losing the respect of the American people who I love, that's worse than sitting in a jail cell. Yeah, but that's your character. That's not everyone's character, right? That's a lot of our characters.

Starting point is 00:46:01 The people I left, keep in mind, I left. I had my first child and I left. Many people have many children and stay. Many people sacrifice their relationships, multiple divorces, they sacrifice their health, they sacrifice their fitness, they sacrifice everything to continue to serve. For me and my wife, at 2014 came

Starting point is 00:46:20 and we had to make a life decision and we decided to prioritize family first. Now, you were exactly right, that 2016 on, massive attrition from the intelligence services. We were at the front end of it, but what they've seen since 2016 is incredible. And we were at the, we didn't start the trend, we just happened to be on the first wave.

Starting point is 00:46:38 Of leaving, but you left like at the, it's like selling your property at a perfect time. You sold at a perfect time. And we're very happy of it too. Yeah, oh, I mean, congratulations on selling your property at a perfect time. You sold at a perfect time. And we're very happy about it too. Yeah, I mean, congratulations on selling your property at a perfect time. So, okay, fair enough. So, I asked that because you said,

Starting point is 00:46:53 fear is a great motivator of what actions we take in the future. I get it, but I also think, you know, you know, sometimes also when you learn a lot, you, you know, the three phases we all go through with parents and kids, right? You first phase, you know, kids idolize their parents. Then second phase, they demonize their parents.

Starting point is 00:47:13 Oh, I saw what you did that, you know, I saw they demonize. Then third phase is they humanize their parents, right? I'm assuming an agent, a CIA agent, or an FBI, an NSA probably goes through those three phases with the agency as well. You first idolize, like two others, you're like, oh my god. And the CIA that's sick, that's for all my, I'd be using that to get late every day, you know, that's what I'll be doing. Right, so I'm assuming like phase one is dude, I'm idolizing, I'm part of the freaking CIA.

Starting point is 00:47:41 And second phase is like, damn, that's some dirty stuff right there there because there's stuff you know that we don't know right so then you demonize then you humanize and you say well these are not perfect people everybody makes mistakes and every organization makes mistakes corporations make mistakes governmental agencies make mistakes etc etc so you go more into humanizing phase but while somebody's in the demonizing face and they're seeing the dark side of the organization, that's a vulnerable area for somebody to come in and exploit that opportunity. Absolutely. Okay. And many have from the outside, right? Many, we've had agents that have been bought, money, sex, women, all of that stuff. For me, when it says a lifelong type of an India, you call it secrecy, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:48:29 Like sometimes I wonder if it's happening, we don't know about it, but they can't talk about it because it ruined the credibility of the existing agency because how do some people know so much about us? Where are they getting there until, like you were talking about how Russia, on another podcast, you were talking about how great of a job Russia's done against Ukraine how they're actually getting

Starting point is 00:48:47 exactly what they want. Yes, you know, Ukraine has shown a lot of strength, but maybe Russia's strategy is working very effectively. How they're getting there until I don't know. Even you said, you said, I don't know how they're getting, how they're doing what they're doing. So how are they doing it? Maybe we have some people that are supporting them. Could that be a possibility? I would say it's more than a possibility. It's almost a guarantee that we that the United States in the world of intelligence, we all assume that we are penetrated to some level or or or another right penetrated means we have a mole among us or we have information leaks among us.

Starting point is 00:49:25 There's a technical operation collecting information from servers or databases somewhere. You have to assume that you're compromised. Because if you assume that you're not compromised, you're even more exposed to risk. So assume that you're compromised compartmentalized from there and act appropriately, increase your security from there. Just like I joked about the guy who didn't let me in the front door, that's awesome security for a value attainment.

Starting point is 00:49:48 This building is that much more secure because that guy in the face of doubt kept me out. No problem, he let me in eventually. Because you're in a promotion by the way. But that's how you have to operate if you want to maximize security, right? When it comes to why we don't speak out of school, yeah, we don't want to dishonor our country, we don't want to dishonor our country,

Starting point is 00:50:05 we don't want to dishonor CIA, we don't want to smear our family names, but we also, for damn sure, don't want to give our enemies information, they might be able to use against us just so that we can talk about it on CNN or talk about it in the press. There's an awesome example of Osama Bin Laden

Starting point is 00:50:20 from 2002, 2003, the Washington, the Wall Street Times, or maybe the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, was speaking to as a intelligence service anonymous source, and they talked about how we were tracking bin Laden through his satellite phone. That was a source and a method, right? The one thing we're not supposed to talk about, and then because of that, bin Laden stopped using that satellite phone, completely changed his That was a source and a method, right? The one thing we're not supposed to talk about. And then because of that, been loud and stopped using that sound like phone, completely changed this communication strategy,

Starting point is 00:50:50 went dark, went black, and we had to start all over again. I don't wanna give China any advantages. I don't wanna give Russia any advantages. I wanna give the American people every advantage we can give them, but I also wanna be able to talk honestly about what my peers don't talk about

Starting point is 00:51:05 because just like you're saying, I want to respect my secrecy agreement, but I also want to be able to shed some additional perspective on the awesome work that the men and women still inside get to do. The privilege that I have as an American, being able to leave and still talk about it. Because if I was in France, I wouldn't be able to.

Starting point is 00:51:22 If I was in China, I wouldn't be able to. If you're a SBR officer in Russia, once you leave, you don't get to talk about it because if I was in France, I wouldn't be able to. If I was in China, I wouldn't be able to. If you're a SBR officer in Russia, once you leave, you don't get to talk about it. That's, that's, that's good that you're so pro-American. Okay. And, and I love hearing that. But for me, I want to transition into this next topic and then we can talk about the one that I skipped over. Um, so Peter struck. Okay. James Comey, James Comey, parties with Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. His wife, they've supported their campaign. Peter struck, hey, text come out, this is what we're willing to do. XYZ, there's no way we're going to let him win. In the text, we can see the text, right? Okay, you seem like a reasonable guy.

Starting point is 00:52:06 You seem like a nice guy. You seem like a guy that you're like a trifecta. I would have a blast having party with you, go and party with you, and we were 20s. We'd have a blast together. If we had it, maybe we'd go to jail, but we still have a blast together. Number two, you're the kind of guy that I

Starting point is 00:52:25 you know, enjoy watching a game with and we're sitting there talking and you know, and then three, I feel comfortable for my family and my kids to meet you and we you know, you go to the house, bring you to my place, you give that vibe, okay? You're a man's man, you give very peace, comfort, all that stuff. I can't say that about everybody and we can't say that the CI is a hundred percent bullet proof hiring process because you can't read in the minds of everyone and I understand how some people that are fully non-emotional that can be also psychological or a person can be extremely narcissistic or whatever where they can manipulate that's probably

Starting point is 00:53:00 not a person that want to hire as well. But how do people like Peter Struck? How do people like that get in, where they represent an institution that we have to trust and agency that's essentially working to protect me, how do they prevent from their emotions and their friendships and the parties that get invited to and the communities they live in? How do they say, listen, we may be best friends, I may support you, but you go on to jail.

Starting point is 00:53:29 Okay. That's a very hard thing for a person to do once you're fully vested with someone. Right? There's a reason how they say in Hollywood, a lot of big celebrities that don't go on social media. If you notice a big name, they are not on Twitter. You can't find a Daniel Day loose on Twitter. You can't find any of theseLuis on Twitter. You can't find any of these big actors on Twitter because for them is the moment we open our mouth and give you our opinions, it's very hard for us to act because now you see us in a certain way, right? Okay, that's very deep to me. Very like this guy that played Elvis Presley, I don't know what the guy's

Starting point is 00:53:58 name is. Incredible job. I was watching all his interviews. I was so flabbergasted by the guy. I was really blown, but there's nothing on the guy, right? What kind of an artist he is. But for this side, I have a hard time believing that even these agents on the inside can let their emotions get in a way where they help one side of the political party over the other side. No, it is again, let's, if we skip the idolized phase and we skip the demonized phase, we go straight to humanized phase. That's you're explaining exactly why that happens.

Starting point is 00:54:29 Of course, they're swayed by their emotions. We're all swayed by our emotions. We go through specific training to de-insensivize our emotional decision making and increase our dependence on rational decision making, but it's still a process. It has to be trained. It has to a process. It has to be trained, it has to be practiced, it has to be exercised. Oftentimes when you're making emotional decisions, you're not giving yourself space or time to train or exercise. You're just in a moment making an emotional decision. That's a very human thing to do. We all do it. I don't know Peter.

Starting point is 00:55:02 Peter struck. So I don't know him personally. I can't speak to his specific credentials, whether he was blue badge CIA, green badge CIA related to CIA. I have no idea what his role was there. But what I do know is that the men and women inside CIA when I was inside. He was FBI, but Peter struck his FBI. Thank you very much. So when I was inside federal government, inside specifically inside CIA, where we are always taught to expect and predict that we will think and act emotionally, and then try and take steps to limit that so that

Starting point is 00:55:31 we can give ourselves the space to let our rational brain keep up. If you're interested in the cognitive cycle, I can give it to you in about two minutes. Go for it. So, every human brain, we call it a pink matter. It's like a computer in your head. You have two sides, a left side and a right side. We all know that. What we don't know is that one side works faster

Starting point is 00:55:47 than the other side, right? Your left brain is your logical brain. Your right brain is your creative or emotional brain. Your right brain works faster than your left brain. It's because your right brain depends on these things called cognitive biases or cognitive connections. These inferences that it builds over time so that it can jump from conclusion to conclusion

Starting point is 00:56:08 skipping logic. That's why if you're a butt guy, right? You don't even, you just, you are attracted or not attracted in an instant based off of the thing that you're interested in, right? If you're a girl that likes a certain kind of shoe or a certain kind of purse, you're attracted to it immediately.

Starting point is 00:56:27 Your brain is skipping the logical step. If your left brain was in charge, it would say, what is that? Is it real? How much does it cost? Can I get access to it? That's four steps compared to the one step that says, I like it, I want it.

Starting point is 00:56:39 Sales people understand this intrinsically, even though they may not be able to put words to it. Make it so that it triggers a right brain reaction, and the sales process will move faster. If you're trying to sell through a left brain process, the sales cycle is going to move slower. Try to talk about the features and benefits, whatever else. So you will train us to slow down our right brain and speed up our left brain. And those exercises and practices, you can do that.

Starting point is 00:57:03 It's one of the things that I teach my executives now. One of the things I teach my sales teams now, so that people can kind of reprogram the pink matter. For me, by the way, can we do a poll? Can we do a poll to see which agency people trust the most? Put FBI, put CIA, what else you want to add to it? Do you want to put NSA? NSA. NSA. NSA, there as well. Which of those three do you trust the most? CIA, I have an assumption which one I think is going to be number one, but just put it in there. I don't want to say it before people put it. So FBI, CIA, NSA, let's see what people say in this poll. But okay, so that's my discomfort. So for me, when you're working like,

Starting point is 00:57:45 okay, last night we're having dinner and we're talking consulting. Our consulting business has grown very rapidly and we're getting more and more consultants that are coming over to us and we're getting more people that are calling us from McKinsey's, Gart, you know, these big consulting firms that want to sell our product, right?

Starting point is 00:58:03 So they're reaching out to us. One of the things that a guy was talking about, how is a lot of lazy executives nowadays in Fortune 500 companies, they have an idea that they want to bring up to the CEO, okay? So when they want to bring up this idea to the CEO and Tom's talking about this last night, they say, the best bet is I'll go to McKinsey

Starting point is 00:58:22 and I'll say, here's my idea, Here's a half a million dollars. Can you send me an analysis on why this idea is good or bad? They send it to them and they'll say here's why it's a good idea. Then they'll go pitch it to their CEO or whoever the boss is that they're working with. And they'll say here's my idea. By the way, I've already spent a half a million with McKinsey. McKinsey already approved that it's a good idea. Let's go ahead and test it. So that's their insurance policy to say, if it succeeds, awesome. I get the victory, but if it fails, look, at least I wouldn't got my insurance policy

Starting point is 00:58:55 from who? From McKinsey, and McKinsey gave me a thumbs up, hey, you're doing a good job, go forward, you know, kind of like backing them up. Don't worry, we'll take the blame forward because of our and whatever research that we gave you. So it's an interesting way of doing it. So for me, intelligence, do I trust a government agency that's been there for years to do it? Or would I rather use an independent agency that's more on the free market, free enterprise side that has a reputation that if you don't

Starting point is 00:59:25 hit it, negative reviews is actually hurts a private agency. Negative reviews doesn't do shit for CIA. I can't go on the open fine CIA. I can't go on glass store and fine CIA. I can't go anywhere and do anything with FBI and it. They're like, do it. Say whatever you want. You can't do nothing about it.

Starting point is 00:59:40 So, maybe what happens with this, with my opinion, is even if I'm a president that gets elected, say I become a president, do I really trust a guy that's been an agent for 22 years? Because in a way, the agent that's been there for 22 years or 27 years, or the director that's been there for 32 years, he looks down at me. Because in the back of his head, he'll say things like, did you're only here for four years at best? If you're lucky, maybe eight years, you ain't shit. I've been here for 32 years.

Starting point is 01:00:08 Who the hell are you? You're gonna come and put it on your resume, they became a president and you're out of here. I don't care what you're gonna be doing. So me as a president, who gets paid to be paranoid, I sit there and I say, why the hell would I trust you to do the intelligence for me? Because your loyalty is to people that came before me.

Starting point is 01:00:23 I'm gonna go use an independent agency outside, not in the government, because I don't trust you, to be honest with you, and then see what we can get. So do you see how there's a little bit of that, you know, this trust and the lack of respect a, the director of CIO or director of FBI has for whoever becomes a president and how the lack of trust a president could have for people that are currently in these agencies. Yeah, and you're exactly right, that that is what happens. But there's a second step that I think we're overlooking because all of those director positions are presidential appointments.

Starting point is 01:00:54 So I would say almost to a worse detriment, the president just brings in whoever he wants to put in or whoever she wants to put in and they become the new director. Every president has the right to appoint who they want. And that's why directors at CIA and directors at FBI and directors at NSA change so frequently because they don't come up from the inside. They don't spend 35 years at CIA and become the director. They spend 35 years and become some lackey to the director and the directors appointed by the president inside the president's inner circle of friends or peers, and then they get the chop off from the Senate.

Starting point is 01:01:29 So even, I would say it's almost worse than what you're saying, because the most professional person in that organization doesn't even have a chance at becoming the director. They have to make friends with whoever the incoming president is or even worse whoever the presidential party represents, and then they will become nominated for that role. And so that's the truth of how it works. And then to your second point, which I think is even more powerful, America is asking itself the question now, should we privatize intelligence?

Starting point is 01:01:58 We failed massively on September 11th, 2001. Massive intelligence failure because we let the intelligence infrastructure at FBI and CIA run things the way they had always run things through the cold war and we had completely closed our eyes to the fact that we were moving into a war on terror. Afghanistan, massive failure, predicting Ukraine, massive failure. And now with 2016, President Trump, when the CIA turned its back on Trump, Trump just dried up funding and directed its funding into a private intelligence organization.

Starting point is 01:02:28 So we have seen it work, we've seen people do it, the precedent has been set. So now the government is asking itself the question collectively. Do we even keep doing it this way? How do we change? How do we evolve? How do we evolve?

Starting point is 01:02:41 Closer to the speed of business and less to the speed of government. This is not going to happen though. It's not going to happen. That's why you see private intelligence on the rise right now. Most of the people that sit inside CIA headquarters aren't government employees. They're contractors that belong to Booz Allen Hamilton, Ray Theon, later. I'm more comfortable with that. But that's the transition.

Starting point is 01:03:01 Yeah, I'm more comfortable with that. And I'm glad I hope it goes that direction. So my paranoia, if I'm in there, and even if we appoint a director of CIA, okay, what percentage of the guys that are on the inside? Forget about the director of CIA. What percentage of the guys on the inside that are actually doing the leg work that are bringing up the report to the top

Starting point is 01:03:22 are getting replaced with a new president. Not many of them. And you're right again. So that's where, again, if you look at it through the humanized lens, the way that you get those people to fall online is you have to incentivize them the right way. But I don't even want it to be incentive

Starting point is 01:03:37 because I don't want it to be incentive. Like, in sales, I understand, like the best thing that John Amanda said to me was a follow-on. I said, what's the quality of a great CI agent? She said, Tyler, we can hear you, Ty. She said, somebody that is extremely charming, somebody that can pull information out, somebody who is very competitive,

Starting point is 01:04:01 somebody who is very curious, but when they save the world, they have no desire to share that big victory with anybody and they keep it to themselves. Like, to the level of the ambition isn't a dude. You want even believe what I just did yesterday, I've proven it World War Three.

Starting point is 01:04:15 That part doesn't happen because to most people in sales and Hollywood in sports, hey, so tell us LeBron, 38.16 rebounds, 12 assists, three steals, how's the fuel? Well, let me tell you, you know, that's a LeBron 38.16 rebounds 12 assists three steals. How's the feel? Well, let me tell you know that it's a form of a recognition C.I.H. and so tell us a handy C.I.G. and Boussamites How does the feel known when you went in there with Jeezing and you found out the China's doing this? Well, this was a team effort and we've been working on getting to tell you don't have that kind of recognition, right?

Starting point is 01:04:39 So I don't want there to be incentive The only incentive I want anybody working for the government is the truth. That is the only incentive. That's not the only incentive you want. What are the incentive do I want? The form of recognition. Because the thing is no. So I never said recognition was the incentive.

Starting point is 01:04:56 You said the incentive, I said they have to be incentive. So how do you incentivize that? The same way you incentivize career. Any career, that's fully fine with me. That's what I'm saying. I'm game with that. I'm totally game with that. You want the person in charge incentivize career. That's totally fine with me. That's what I'm saying. Oh, I'm getting with that. Yeah, you want the person in charge

Starting point is 01:05:07 of Africa operations to be the most qualified, most experienced person who's done the most hard work, who's done the most whatever, to become the head of Africa. And then you want to incentivize that person to tell the truth to the director every time. So then you don't want to make it punitive. You don't want to make it some kind of weird,

Starting point is 01:05:24 you know, you only brief up good news and you hide bad news. You don't want to make it punitive. You don't want to make it some kind of weird, you know, you only brief up good news and you hide bad news. You don't want that to happen. So you have to incentivize them to continue with their career even when they tell you what you don't want to hear. Yeah, so for example, like, you know, we're studying, I'm not, I don't believe in art, okay, like I believe 70% of art is fraud, okay. I don't know that it's fraud, but I don't, I don't understand it. So I'm with you there. Check this out. So I, so that it's fraud, but I don't understand it. I'm with you there. But check this out. I'm so skeptical that I did research. We're sitting there going through the stuff with art, right? Where today total value of art in the world is 1.7 trillion dollars. Deloitte says that by 2026, it's going to increase by 900 billion dollars. There's a place in Switzerland called Geneva Freeport that holds a hundred billion dollars of art,

Starting point is 01:06:06 one point two million pieces. They hold a hundred billion dollars in one building. You may want to show this building. That's the building. That building in Geneva Freeport holds a hundred billion dollars of art in that one building. And this is people that buy the art that send it there who never see the art to prevent from paying the taxes, and it's a form of a vault,

Starting point is 01:06:26 so they don't buy it because I'm gonna show it off at my house, they buy it as an investment purpose, they put it in a lot of times, what a lot of billionaires and millionaires will do, is they'll buy an art that a half million dollars, they'll send it there, they'll get a new appraisal to say it's worth 10 million dollars, and then they'll give that art and donate to a museum,

Starting point is 01:06:41 and they get a 10 million dollar write-off where they get to write right off 30% of it So there's a lot of different things with art, but I'm really trying to see maybe Pat You ought to give the people in the art world a break so even this Salman Mundi thing that recently sold for not Rushdie, no, no, no, Salm Salvador Dalin? Salvador Dalin you can pull up the piece that the art piece that sold for 450 million dollars recently the guy from Saudi Arabia, that bought it.

Starting point is 01:07:10 Leonardo, what is it called? Salvador Mundi. So this thing in 1958 sold for 45 pounds. Then in 2005, it sells for $10 sells for ten thousand dollars in New Orleans Then a person comes out and says this was part of You know the queen of England's collection and it's a real piece of Leonardo and et cetera et cetera Next thing you know it sells for four hundred fifty million dollars by person that nobody knows about right? So I'm and then like about 80 percent chance. It's a fake and it's not real So I really want to debate myself on this. I really want to convince myself that the CIA and the FBI and these organizations do a lot of good where the net positive, you know, it's a net positive than a net negative.

Starting point is 01:08:00 I'm okay with it. Well, I'm not looking for perfection, but I want to be able to trust it. But man, it's very, very hard to do with the last few years on what's happened. My level of skepticism is so high, it's hard to believe how much good they do rather than how much bad they do to the world. I can understand. I can totally understand. I don't, I wouldn't disagree that I am also disappointed with what I've seen in the last, since I left in 2014. So what is that?

Starting point is 01:08:26 Eight years. There's a couple of things that are, you brought up two points, right? You brought up your own questions about the productivity and the constructive use of the intelligence services and then you brought up the art thing as I think as a parallel. This has a very interesting story or a very interesting explanation. If you, if we can get to it, I think you'd like it. But when it comes to the the value of intelligence services, it's hard to assess the value when you only see the cost of goods sold.

Starting point is 01:08:54 Right. That's essentially what you're looking at. What if the American people look at with any secret organization, they only see what they do wrong. They only see the things that cost money. They have no idea the lives that are saved. They have no idea the tragedy that's avoided. They don't get those stories. I love Jonah. She's a great, a great lady, a great patriot, a great CIA officer, but she embellishes sometimes what it's like to be at CIA. That's an old school tactic. We like to overreach in our gray hairs, always

Starting point is 01:09:26 overreach and idolize what it's like to be CIA. Part of it's because that's how they were conditioned while they were there. Part of it's because they always want to be pitching people back, right? The more accurate way of saying it, she was right about the curiosity and she was right about the competition. She was right about all that, but we absolutely celebrate our victories. We just don't do it publicly. We have margarita machines inside CIA. We'll shut down offices for half a day.

Starting point is 01:09:52 We'll put them on scale to increase just so we can celebrate the fact that we just avoided a civil war in Niger. Right? Absolutely. There's high fives all the time. People will sit in a bullpen. We have a bullpen not too different from this. And you'll sit together with a few people overseas and you'll be like, holy shit guys, I think

Starting point is 01:10:08 we just literally saved 10 American lives today. We just brought down a terrorist cell that no one even knows existed. Without any specifics, how many times has that happened in your 7-year career when you were there? It happened probably three solid times in my 7 years. It could have been massively damaging to the world. Where Americans would have been killed. Innocent Americans would have been killed.

Starting point is 01:10:29 There's a very clear example of that. There's a place where we would probably be 10 to 15 years behind where we are right now in terms of the global economic situation between China, Russia and the United States had one of our operations not happened. And then there was another one that was in Africa, or it would have been like innocent non-American lives, but allied lives, Western lives, British citizens, Canadian citizens, a mix, just a group that was targeted by a

Starting point is 01:10:58 fringe extremist group in Africa. So we have those victories, we celebrate those victories, we love those victories, we don't talk about those victories. I guess my biggest thing becomes, if there's a bigger push to go private, then go public, because the challenge becomes, there is zero competition for CIA. You have a monopoly, there's zero competition for FBI, you have a monopoly, that is not good.

Starting point is 01:11:19 There's a reason why we have a monopoly laws when AT&T went through it. Microsoft went through it. Even Facebook right now is going through it. We've got to break it apart. You're too this, you're too that. I actually understand some of those conversations. But why have monopoly laws for free enterprise and not have monopoly laws for government agencies? I think we need monopoly laws for government agencies.

Starting point is 01:11:40 How does a patent differ from a monopoly? Patent gives you a timeline. You don't have it forever. Correct. Right? Monopolys don't ask for either, forever either. They incentivize people to create competition and monopolies are intentionally attacked

Starting point is 01:11:54 by the federal government, where patents are protected by the federal government. Sure. So what I'm saying is that there's a place for everything. There's a place for patents. There's a place for monopoly. There's a place for secret intelligence services. There's a place for one-sided advantage, absolutely, but there should be checks and balances. There are checks and balances in our private intelligence world and our secret

Starting point is 01:12:13 intelligence world publicly and privately, but what we're also finding is that there's vulnerabilities that nobody talks about. The vast majority of espionage cases right now are coming from private intelligence. They're coming from Chinese, Russian, Iranian, penetrations through the private intelligence network into a mainstream building. We just, there was just two, husband and wife couple, I don't know if you want to look it up, husband and wife couple that were working,

Starting point is 01:12:39 that were teachers in, I don't know where it was, somewhere in the Northeast, but they were caught spying, giving nuclear secrets about American submarine technology to an unnamed foreign service. They were just arrested because they were contracted. The husband was contracted as an engineer to go work with the Navy. And now, because of that, in Maryland, thank you very much. This just happened. Nobody knows this happened.

Starting point is 01:13:06 This doesn't make headlines. This is the kind of stuff where we're doing the right thing and nobody even knows it's happening. This happens all the time. Unpack the story. So what happened here? Maryland husband and wife arrested in nuclear submarine spy case. The couple are accused of selling nuclear secrets, including a SD card concealed in a peanut

Starting point is 01:13:23 butter sandwich. This is classic human intelligence espionage. I would suspect that this, that the unnamed service that they're talking about here is the Chinese, because this fits a Chinese model of collecting military secrets on American technology. Right down to the fact that they were doing dead drops in Maryland in food. But let's, let's break that down a a little bit because I think you could make the case that even though it may be a private institution,

Starting point is 01:13:47 it's still technically controlled by the CCP, right? And I think it's because it's tied to the Chinese government. I think you could make the same case for Russia. And I don't disagree with Pat on the idea that we should privatize intelligence agencies, but I think you mentioned Raytheon. So like, how do we keep, if we do go that route, how do we keep from Raytheon making up false intelligence

Starting point is 01:14:06 to sell weapons, right? Or like going down that path to where they're no longer focused on the actual intelligence, they're focused on the bottom line of the profit. Well, that's one of the reasons that you wanna have a national intelligence organization, because one of the ways that you differentiate information from intelligence is through a process called vetting.

Starting point is 01:14:22 Information can be single source, one time you hear it, you can't find it anywhere else. Vetting means you have to find the same piece of information in multiple different unrelated sources, right? So the difference between information intelligence is specific. But what I'm saying here is this penetration, these secrets were lost because of the privatization of intelligence.

Starting point is 01:14:42 Had this been a naval engineer working only within the Navy, it would have been harder for a foreign intelligence service to recruit them and get them to provide secrets. But because this person was a civilian working for a private organization contracted by the Navy, it was easier. So you're saying there's more risk to being privatized. There's more risk to being privatized. Just like there's more risk to any company hiring anybody. How do you know if you work in the number one company in pharmaceuticals, that the number two company in pharmaceuticals doesn't recruit your top sales?

Starting point is 01:15:11 So let me tell you this, I fully, fully agree between what you're saying. Fully agree with what you're saying. However, there's a big however. So there is risk to both sides. It's which risk you want more. So which is the two Has more of a risk to bully the American people. I trust the market. I'm with you Okay, so here's the market. Here's where I'm going with that. See the market cannot bully the American people They're gonna eventually get caught

Starting point is 01:15:39 But the government can bully American people. That's exactly what they're doing today They're bullying American people. That's exactly what they're doing today. They're bully on American people. And so, although you're right, we're a person on the free market side because they're getting paid for the work that they're doing, you know, they may be like, well, if you give me 500,000 dollars, I'll give you the information. If you give me a million dollars, but we know a lot of government agency people have done that as well. And, you know, sold their soul.

Starting point is 01:16:00 I can tell you stories. There's plenty of articles of different names. You know them. I know them. We've read about them. So, but my my bigger concern is free enterprise cannot take my freedoms away, but the government can't take my freedoms away and bully me and a lot of times what they do is they use you know, like Andrew Tate, this guy never met him, never talked him, we're probably going to do podcasts together eventually, but he said some stuff I agree with, and I love the

Starting point is 01:16:29 fact that he's pushing the envelope. All of a sudden, hey, let's silence this guy. Okay, why? Because he's got a case going on with women and all this other stuff. Okay, there is criminal activities that you have to, you know, be held accountable for. And then there is banning because he's saying some stuff you disagree with. On the criminal side, if I break the law,

Starting point is 01:16:51 yes, I have to go to court and if I'm doing time, I'm doing time. Big difference. I don't know what he's done. If he's done crime, hey, that's the level of accountability. But banning somebody for things you disagree with, OJ Simpson is on Twitter. You know, the, how many is on Twitter? Putin who just killed a bunch of people, he's on Twitter. How many is on Twitter?

Starting point is 01:17:05 Putin who just killed a bunch of people, he's on Twitter. He ain't banned, how come they're not banned? You're afraid of what this guy's gonna be doing. So that's the part where I wonder if government gets involved in saying that guy's been little too loud, shut this guy up. And free market can bully by saying, we don't want your customers.

Starting point is 01:17:21 Simple, Facebook can say that. Twitter can say that, Instagram can say that. But are they saying it because they're saying it like this whole story going into Facebook where he sits with Rogan and... Yeah, Zuck sits with Rogan and they go through a bunch of different stories. And here's a story from Fox Business,

Starting point is 01:17:41 FBI response to Zuckerberg's claim on Rogan that Facebook limited Hunter Biden story after agencies warning and appearance by Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan podcast last week's Stoke controversy after meta sealed minute that Facebook limited the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election because the FBI had warned about Russian propaganda after the release of the episode on Thursday the FBI said it routinely notifies US private sector entities, including social media providers of potential threat information so that they can decide how to better defend against threats. The agency said it has provided companies with foreign threat

Starting point is 01:18:16 indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influencer influence actors. Okay, you read this. I can take this in a couple different ways. One way I take this is, Zuck did this intentionally. Cause he's like, I'm so sick of you guys, targeting me, leave me alone. Okay, I have two customers.

Starting point is 01:18:38 The left or right, I have to kind of deal with both of you guys. I'm both of you guys hate the other side. I get it, but let me do my job. So maybe he said this publicly intentionally to get under FBI's skin and kind of have them be exposed a little bit, maybe 10%. I believe it was intentional.

Starting point is 01:18:54 Did he do it accidentally? He's too smart to do it accidentally. Like was Joe really cornering him and pressuring him? You better tell me or else, and you know, here's, no, it's just a basic conversation. We came out Could it be accidental but when somebody says something like this This this just keeps hurting more and more and more so the FBI bullied the American people through Cornering a free enterprise company that made them silence because they didn't have the intel that the FBI claimed

Starting point is 01:19:23 They had and they couldn't verify it through private agency that's a competitor to FBI that they had to kind of take that position. And because of that, we have the greatest motivational speaker of all time as our president Joe Biden. So it's a kind of like a very weird situation that takes place here. Yeah, so what you're, I think that there's a couple things that we want to keep in mind. We want to keep in mind the context of the situation. So if you recall 2016, first of all, let's be, let's be very honest with each other. Russian meddling in the US elections did not start in 2016. Every election cycle ever has had people trying

Starting point is 01:19:55 to meddle in the election. What happened is that in 2016, social media got caught. That's what happened in 2016. Before then, we could all kind of pretend it wasn't there. It's like the it's like that uncle in our family that we don't want to talk about because they're kind of maybe they they're criminal or maybe they went to jail or who knows what they did but we don't really what we don't want to we don't want to be the one who calls the police and turns the uncle in but we also don't want to be the person who admits that we know the uncle that the uncle's in our family, right? That's exactly what happens with espionage almost all the time. People don't want to admit that it's there,

Starting point is 01:20:26 but it's happening all the time. It's that ugly wart on your butt, you don't want anybody to know about, right? What happened in 16 is everybody saw a wart. Espionage became a household word, influence campaigns, covert influence became household conversation. In 2020, everyone was expecting it to happen again. Trump was back in the race. Russia was still involved.

Starting point is 01:20:48 All the 16 investigations came to fruition in 18, and you had CIA basically telling us that the couldn't trust the president and the president saying that it didn't trust CIA and it was a disaster, it was a total mess. The social media companies did not want to get stuck in the middle of being accused in the future of being willing

Starting point is 01:21:06 voices for propaganda from Russian meddling or Chinese meddling or Iranian meddling, all of which happens. Saudi meddling happens, right? Nobody wants to be on the ex for that, so the more cautious approach is to just shut it down. If FBI calls you and says, hey, this is Russian meddling, we think this is Russian meddling. What does, what does Zuck have to lose by being overly cautious and just doing what they tell them to do? To a certain extent, you're right, he's saying, just leave me alone, guys, let me do what I do. I'm not a political mouthpiece.

Starting point is 01:21:35 I'm just a social media channel. But I'm also a business owner and the practical solution here is if the FBI tells me that that I might be being abused by the Russians, I don't want the Russians to abuse my platform, so I'm just going to shut it down. Two years later, we have the benefit of time now. Now we can look back and look at all the information. He had limited information in a short period of time. I actually am really proud of Zuckerberg for saying it publicly like, hey, I agree. I had to shut it down guys. It doesn't mean that FBI's bullying me. It means I took the more conservative decision, and maybe that was the wrong decision. By the way, that's publicly standing up to FBI. Correct. And then that's, we all as American citizens, we have the right to stand up to our

Starting point is 01:22:14 own government. That's what the First Amendment promises are. He's already screwed up, by the way. Like, you know, he screwed up the election because him and Dorsey, both of them, took the fear position and it was so sudden, it was, okay, strategically. Can we all agree that that story was held till the week prior to the election because that's the bond that we're going to drop to flip the voting at the last minute? We all know that would have been intentional. It's not like they just got the story last minute. If I'm a skeptic I'm assuming New York Post had that story for a while and they were timing on one to drop it. That's my skepticism. I may be wrong so

Starting point is 01:22:54 And in politics stories matter on Timing matters on when they drop it. So he Essentially affected the election. So Dorsey essentially affected the election. The fact that he's saying it now, I think he's more doing this to say, don't come bothering me for 2024. I don't disagree with you. So I will say that I don't necessarily agree

Starting point is 01:23:20 that the Washington, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, whoever broke the story. I'm not saying that they dropped the story when they dropped it specifically to change the direction of the election. They dropped it at a very intentional time, most likely to get maximum readers, maximum views of their advertisement,

Starting point is 01:23:37 maximum press coverage and secondary viral coverage, not to sway an election. But what I will also say is that there is only one person, or not one person, there's one entity that has the responsibility for the way the elections turned out, and that's the American people. If you stood in line and you voted, you own the vote that you cast that day.

Starting point is 01:23:59 Zuckerberg did not change the course of the election. Did he have a tool that could have been used to sway it? Sure, but ultimately, somebody went and stood in line, cast a vote, and that's the person who owns the responsibility for the outcome right now. That's the person who owns the responsibility for every single outcome.

Starting point is 01:24:17 That's why you have to vote. It's why you have the right to vote. We just have to understand, especially if you look at 2020, 2020 was a freakish year. I have a hard time processing that. I have a very hard time processing that. So, you're telling me the person who voted has the ultimate responsibility for the results.

Starting point is 01:24:33 For the vote they cast. For the vote they cast, I understand. But the journalists have a responsibility for digging up and getting the information to the people so they can read it before voting to be as educated as possible. Journalists and these virtual governments, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, have to permit that information to be released to the public so they can make the most educated vote, which they prevent it from happening. So you can't, I have a hard time saying in this case that it's the voters responsibility on the way they voted. No, they did not have access to the entire information. This article says 79% say truthful coverage of Hunter Biden's laptop would have

Starting point is 01:25:14 changed the 2020 election. And the numbers they gave as majority in both parties, 89% of Republicans, which is fine. That makes I'm surprised it's not 99% Republicans, but 89% Republicans, 61% of Democrats said they believed the laptop is real along with 74% of independence. So if the difference between it coming out a week versus a week after that, that's a very big difference. Let me show you a quick spy tool. So what's our title? Tyler, I'm sorry, Tyler.

Starting point is 01:25:45 Tyler, do me a favor. Go to this article and then look up the specific survey. I did this after I saw this article. I want to show you exactly how spy I was. No jersey. I looked at it. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, this is what New York Post.

Starting point is 01:25:56 Did you see the population that they tested? 1,226. 1,226. 1,226. Do you know what a statistical relevant population is? What's that? 3,000. Okay. So this is not a statistical, not a statistically relevant representation of a survey result. They could essentially have called 1,022 old Republicans in a single district to ask them

Starting point is 01:26:18 this question and get this result. Surveys are no poles are no curiously difficult. I trust two poles. Is this one of them? No, that's not one of them So this is this is what I'm saying. I'm about what I tell you a city by the way Mm-hmm. What I say to you a city when I say look up the poll who's a by will it's a new Jersey? I said I tell you which two polls I'll pay attention to you or Gallup those two I'll pay attention to them. I'm not going past Direct everything else I'll like when they hate Oh, I'm gonna pull Fox poll poll. Nope, I totally get it.

Starting point is 01:26:45 I fully get it. So these guys, when I looked at this, that's when I was like, well, they can shape their pace for good about these guys. Just the four of us talking right now, whoever else that's watching this, right. You mean to tell me the story, not being released, did an impact.

Starting point is 01:27:00 The story did. So here's, I wanna make sure that we're aligning responsibility in the right place. Please. Zuckerberg does not, Zuckerberg runs a business. He does not run a second government, a federal, a commercial government, a shadow government. He runs a business. The journalists have a journalistic responsibility to report the facts. Amen. 1,000 percent true. Journalism is dying. Journalism, some people say, is fully dead. And the journalists who write for most of these mainstream news sources hate the way that the editors handle their journalistic responsibilities.

Starting point is 01:27:31 Because the editor does not have a journalistic responsibility like the journalist does. So they're forced to produce at a certain speed before they can do what's needed to meet journalistic requirements. And then information is controlled by a business that wants to spend its time being protective of its own long-term business interests. I'm sure you get that.

Starting point is 01:27:50 And then what's left is the human being, the person, the American on the other side, is scrolling through Facebook, only reading what they see. And we have given that person that American has got the permission now to think that it's okay to get your news from Facebook. It's not okay to get your news from Facebook. It's not okay to get your news from just one source of anything

Starting point is 01:28:07 But what do you mean? It's not okay to get your news from Facebook though Facebook isn't a Platform where I get my news from because they write it Facebook is where stories go viral correct Twitter is where stories go viral correct for you to prevent a very damaging story stories go viral. For you to prevent a very damaging story, to not go viral for the public to know before they vote. Knowing this is a very corrupt situation here, you're essentially manipulating the election. And then the world paid a price for it because if the election was possibly in a different way, say somebody else becomes president, Russia probably doesn't attack Ukraine.

Starting point is 01:28:47 Lives could have been saved there. We probably don't lose 83 billion dollars of equipment in Afghanistan because that would have been handled in a different way. And, you know, economy would probably be in a slightly different place. Inflation would be in a different place. Many things would be in a different place

Starting point is 01:29:02 if it wasn't for the, and the American people today are paying the price for for it. Yesterday a poll came out. I don't know if you saw the poll or not on who they're saying the leading candidate is for presidency. Did you see that or not? Yes. The story by five. Okay. So, story came out. What pages that on page seven. So, you've seen this. I'll read it to you. So, page seven. This is yesterday. Uh, uh, uh, is it, pay, page seven? Do you know which one I'm looking at? Tidre or not? A lot of up six, you're talking about Bernie Sanders? No, it's not that one.

Starting point is 01:29:32 It's another one where it says Bernie Sanders is the leading candidate. Yeah, it's part of polls. Uh, yeah, it's page six. Is it page six? Yeah. Okay, so if I go to a Hill story, Highest Saviour Building.

Starting point is 01:29:43 Sanders, Sanders has highest favorability among possible 2020 for contender poll. This is a Hill story. This is not a Fox story or CNN. Sanders clocked in with the highest favorability rating amongst the list of 23 potential 2020 for candidate presidential contenders. According to a new USA today poll,

Starting point is 01:30:02 46% of respondents say they had at least a somewhat favorable view toward Sanders, while 41% said they had an unfavorable opinion. President Biden had the second highest at rating of 43%. Although his unfavorability was notably hard in Sanders at 52, and then Trump clocked in with the same rating as Biden. So again, polls, USA Today, we know with side they're gonna lean. Of course, they're gonna want a Sanders, you know, because it's gonna be more.

Starting point is 01:30:30 Yeah, they're gonna want to be able to use that part as well. But at the same time, I think when you're saying Facebook, Twitter, these guys don't have a responsibility. I think they have a responsibility of allowing the message to be released. The populace, what the populace, UNI, the citizens, the voters have a responsibility for, is not to jump to conclusion, is to do our own due diligence before voting.

Starting point is 01:30:52 But that, the responsibility is for them. So, releasing of the information is on Facebook. They got to release that part. The information is out there, regardless of whether it's on Facebook. I get that. They could just get it from a different news source. I know, bro, but I can post the same video clip on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube, on TikTok, and all of a sudden, one of them,

Starting point is 01:31:15 like for example, TikTok. I'll tell you a perfect situation. If you go back, look at my TikTok account. I was posting videos, and I was getting 100 views, 600,000 views, 100,000 views, 800,000 views, 5 million views, 2.1 million views, 1.8 million views. I post two clips about China. Find the clip after, it's been 50 videos since that clip.

Starting point is 01:31:34 Find the clip after that if any one of them have ever done 10,000 views. I'm like, okay, content is content. One of the clips posted by somebody else got six million views of the same thing I said on a smaller platform posted it, but I put it on mine. It got 11,000 views So virality is about the gods of viral to allow an article to go viral Today when an article is going viral social media they know when the triggers back in oh, oh look at this This things going viral. What is it? Okay, let it go. Oh, the things going viral. Oh they know when the triggers back in oh, oh look at this this things going viral What is it? Okay, let it go? Oh the things going viral. Oh, yeah, let it go. Oh, the things going shut it down

Starting point is 01:32:10 Shut it down shut it down shut it down shut it down. Rrr goes like this. I've seen videos on on on November 22nd Five years ago. I did an interview with Jim Jenkins and Jim Jenkins was one the four guys that held John F. Kennedy's brain He was in the autopsy room. He stayed quiet for 50 years. Christian man, quiet man, never wanted to talk to anybody who was afraid because they told him if you say anything, we're going to take the Navy money away from you. So this guy doesn't want to talk. Finally, he says I want to talk about it, but he comes in. If you ever see the interview was so nervous. We put it out on November 22nd, which is the assassination day. The video goes like this. Boom. Boom. Boom, boom, boom.

Starting point is 01:32:46 Then suddenly it went like this. That doesn't happen. What platform? YouTube. That doesn't happen. It went like this and it stayed like this. Okay. So, what does that mean?

Starting point is 01:32:58 Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold this thing back. A person on the back and when I look at my creative studios, I can see I've never in the history of my 1800 videos. I've ever seen a video do that. Why is this happening? Sometimes these types of things happen because these platforms have the ability to prevent these types of topics that become common. So that's my small concern with Facebook. And I think I want to be able to be an optimist and I think what Zuck is trying to say is, guys, next time we're on FBI, we're telling the story and we're not getting away. I think that's what he's saying. Now, whether he'll follow through with that or not, we have no idea.

Starting point is 01:33:35 Yeah, there's an interesting relationship between national security and big business in the United States. Biden's laptop is a hunter Biden's laptop is an ex-hunter Biden's laptop is an excellent example. The making model of that laptop is an Apple. How did they get onto an Apple without the user? How did they do that? You shouldn't be allowed to do that. You know what FBI has long had? A contentious relationship with Apple. Big time, because Apple won't let them

Starting point is 01:34:00 run to iPhones. San Bernardino. Yeah, the San Bernardino. No terror, no spoilers. Yeah, exactly, right? How the hell did they get on? How do they get on this Apple? What's your skepticism?

Starting point is 01:34:09 My point here is, you can see that Apple does not protect your privacy like they promise that they do. They choose which device to let who on when, right? In this case, they let somebody onto this guy's Apple. And in other cases, they won't let FBI get onto an apple iPhone that belongs to a Saudi pilot who kills a bunch of people in Pensacola. So there's a relationship between the government and Apple,

Starting point is 01:34:34 and Apple chooses when to share and when not to share. So this is this relationship that you were talking about with Zuckerberg, it happens in social media, it happens in all big government, all big organizations, all big companies in the United States because companies, they get big enough, they have a responsibility to contribute to national security. Some play nicely, others play inconsistently, others don't play well at all. So what you're seeing is every company has to learn, it has to mature and evolve its own position on how am I going to be, how am I going to plug myself in to this national security context?

Starting point is 01:35:06 I want to say, we had the guy here who, he had the laptop that I'm working. John Paul Mack, I said. We had him here six weeks ago, seven weeks ago. And I want to say when Hunter brings it in, the passport to get into the computer was given. I want to, I want to assume it was given because he let him a log on. Well, he was working on it. That's what I'm saying. So I want to assume so I don't think it was Apple. I think the government can't stand Apple because they don't give the information that they do because Tim Cook is very

Starting point is 01:35:38 interesting guy by the way. Tim Cook is a very very interesting guy on how he works with the government and how he works with different presidents and who he is, first K-Pur-C, all the fortune 500 company to come out. But at the same time, he had a good relationship with Trump and he had a good relationship with, you know, very interesting way to have he is. But I don't know, I won't be, if it's true, it's true, maybe Apple gave him the information. But from what I know, from the guy that was your seven weeks ago I thought he got the password to log into the system, but you don't have an apple phone. You're not a fan of Apple correct correct

Starting point is 01:36:10 All right, what are you droid? Are you droid person? I use Android mainly because it's the other option Right, there's only like two major options that are out there There's other options when you get to super high levels and that's just a personal preference So there's a moral political reason. Yeah, it's because of care. If people are killing terrorists are killing Americans. What kind of business stance do you have as an American company to not let, to not help the FBI solve that case? You don't have to help them solve every case. But how the hell are you choosing to not protect? We can't investigate a Saudi Arabian phone.

Starting point is 01:36:45 We can't investigate a network of phones that belong to known terrorists. Why can't we investigate those phones, right? And you obviously have a way to get into the phone because you guarantee service to your all of your clients. So you already have a back door. We don't need to know the code to the back door, but at what point do you decide

Starting point is 01:37:03 when you're responsible for the security of Americans and when do you decide when you're responsible for the security of Americans and when do you decide that you're not responsible for security of Americans? But by the way, you don't just make me think about, you just make me think about. So how many, how many employees does Apple have? 400,000? I don't know what the number. It's a massive number. You mean to tell me none of those guys on the inside who can't stand a president on

Starting point is 01:37:22 either side won't somehow release the password to the government in a way that nobody will find out. I'm sure they could. I'm sure they could. So there's always leaks. Yeah, I mean, it's the word on our butt that we were just talking about, right? So these 7,000 employees, yeah, it's like 400,000.

Starting point is 01:37:40 Yeah, I 400,000 employees. Yeah, it makes you kind of think about the fact that whistleblowers on the, you're seeing what the project veritas is doing. I have to say, I'm curious to know what you say, how does a CIA or FBI, how do they look at a project veritas? What do they think about an organization like that? So I'm not familiar with project veritas. Okay, you're not familiar with that.

Starting point is 01:38:03 What is it? You've never heard of James O'Keefe. I'm, the name is not. You're not familiar with Jamzo Keith. What is it? You've never heard of Jamzo Keith. I'm, the name is not ringing the bell for me. Really? Yeah. Okay. You, I'm surprised because that guy is, well, you may want to look him up.

Starting point is 01:38:15 If you just look him up, you'll see because Project Bear tells us everywhere what he's got going on. Okay. So let's talk about the Mar-Lago rate and what happened there. Okay. So at this point in the game, you know the story, the people know the story, it's come back and forth. Now they're saying, hey, former FBI official says

Starting point is 01:38:31 Russian, Chinese, and Iranian spies could have tried to infiltrate Trump's Marlago residence. This is an insider story, which I believe is said by Peter Struck, the same guy I was talking to you about earlier, who was once the Deputy Director of FBI's counterintelligence division, said that it is likely that foreign agents from Russia trying to try to infiltrate

Starting point is 01:38:52 former President Trump's Mar-Lago Residence, considering the top secret documents that were being kept there. Struck was fired from the agency for sending anti-Trump texts on his work phone, absolutely the Russians, but not the Russians alone. Any contempt for an intelligence service is whether that's those belong into China, those belong into Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia are all, we're very interested in

Starting point is 01:39:16 our interest in gaining access to Marlago, he said. Especially concerning the lack of any sort of control of memorization, a memorization of who had access to Marlago at any given time. So when you hear something like that and what happened with Marlago, first of all, just a position that they took where, you know, Biden says, oh, we had no clue about it. This is not something we knew about it, you know. And then, Garden is the only one I know nothing about it.

Starting point is 01:39:42 It's not my project. Somebody else is, yeah, okay. There is 8 billion people in the world. There's only one other guy that's a former president. If somebody rates that guy who was your enemy, he's your enemy, he's the guy that you don't want to go up against. You knew nothing about it. None of that was disclosed to you. And then when they give the affidavit,

Starting point is 01:40:00 you saw what came out with all the black bars and nothing is we wanted to be disclosed. For someone like you who's in the world, how are you processing what happened to you with Marlago? So, Trump has been a target of investigations since the time he was running for president in 2016. This is just the next, this is a predictable breadcrumb in that long-term trail, right? Do I, there's a tool that we use at the agency

Starting point is 01:40:28 called Haram's Razor, and Haram's Razor tells us to never subscribe to conspiracy, what can be explained through incompetence. So never subscribe to conspiracy, what can be explained through incompetence. So do I believe that Biden knew that this was going to happen? Probably not. Maybe it was on a list somewhere that got buried on the bottom of his 10 page list,

Starting point is 01:40:51 and he just never got to it. Maybe he was supposed to be briefed and someone didn't brief him. Maybe the Department of Justice, which falls under the judicial branch of government, actually decided not to tell him because he is the executive branch of government, and we have three different branches that don't have to communicate everything to each other. So who knows how it turned out. But I don't see conspiracy in this, what I see in this is a continuation of the same sort of hunting behavior to find enough evidence to bring some kind of criminal prosecution against Trump that sticks. And that's the same thing that we did for a long time against Hillary Clinton. So this is just, unfortunately, this is the world of politics

Starting point is 01:41:31 that Americans are gonna live in for a while. As we try to mix executive branch and judicial branch and keep trying to hunt down politicians and business people acting like businessmen and politicians. How much is this is political incentivization versus actual, all right, let's figure out the truth here in Europe. I think a lot of it is political. I don't think the truth is something that the government

Starting point is 01:41:54 is particularly interested in when it comes to Trump. They either know the truth to a high enough probability that they can make their decisions moving forward or they don't know the truth, but they also can't just ignore it. To just ignore it would mean to basically let go of all of the time and all of the money and all of the effort that they've put into it so far.

Starting point is 01:42:14 And let's not forget, Trump is still an extremely powerful player in a public and politics, extremely powerful player. Whether he runs for president or not, what he says about a candidate transforms that candidate's opportunities. You brought up Hillary Clinton and I assume you're talking about the parallel between her email server and top security information and this exact same scenario with Trump. What's the parallel you're seeing there? People hunt, people try to hunt down some sort of judicial criminal action to either eradicate or neutralize the threat

Starting point is 01:42:47 of that politician. It's just, I mean, whether the stuff that we saw in 2016 on just the Democratic side was horrible. We saw the Clinton campaign, we saw the Democratic National Convention undermine Sanders intentionally when he was running against Clinton. Like that is manipulation of politics all day long. The idea that the voter gets the ultimate say, yes, that's true.

Starting point is 01:43:11 But then you also have things like in 2020 when Instagram decided to start telling everybody, as soon as you logged into Instagram, as soon as you opened up the app, register to vote, click here to register to vote. It was pushing registrations to vote of the audience that they knew was on Instagram, which is a certain age demographic,

Starting point is 01:43:26 a certain socioeconomic demographic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Which, I mean, that was common. This is the world that we're living in now as everybody starts to get so heavily involved in politics. And we start seeing conspiracy everywhere when what we really need to be accepting is like, this is America's adolescence. We're not a mature country.

Starting point is 01:43:44 We're just over 200 years old. We're not mature. China's 4,000 years old, right? We're coming into our adolescence, growing pains and hair in new parts of our body that we never saw before. Remember how terrible that felt when you couldn't wear sweatpants to school anymore? That's a horrible feeling for a dude.

Starting point is 01:44:00 That's where we are right now when we've got like 50 to 100 years of adolescence coming up and this is the kind of garbage we're going to have to deal with. Yeah, I have, I, and by the way I understand what you're saying on on the truth conspiracies. I have a very hard time believing that the president didn't know they were going to be doing this. Very, very hard time believing. very, very hard time believing. You're, again, for example, like LeBron James, who were the people that he's gonna know everything

Starting point is 01:44:31 that's going on with those people? Michael Jordan is probably one of them because he's trying to pass up Michael Jordan. Okay, like, he probably sees everything that's going on with Michael. Okay, all right, Barack Obama, who was he seeing that's, you know, what's going on with anything with them? He probably followed everything that was going on with the Clintons

Starting point is 01:44:49 because, you know, behind closed doors, they're apparently big competitors. And it was probably following everything was going on with Trump. Even when he gave that one speech from stage, you know, and he did the tweet and, you know, Trump said this about you on Jimmy Fallon or Camino says, at least I will go down as being a president, you know, you won't be a president, to be president. So you know, hey, elections have consequences and Obama looks to the left. He's right. You know, so I have a hard time believing in the game of competition that you don't know that they're doing this.

Starting point is 01:45:20 Or I didn't know this was going on. And when you say you don't know what's going on, do you know how pathetic you look as a leader? Wait, let me get to straight. You did not do that. That's going on. Yeah. Man, what a kind of a leader are you? That you don't know this kind of stuff is going on. If you don't know what's going on with him, maybe you shouldn't be in office because a person that should know what's, it's an office should have known that this is going on. Yes, it's both ways, no matter what direction you say, I didn't know I did know. It doesn't look good for anybody.

Starting point is 01:45:48 No, I agree with that. It doesn't look good for anybody. You keep, there's a word that you used quite a bit in that explanation, right? The word was probably. And the core word in probably is probable. The root word is probable. Probable refers to probability. So, when...

Starting point is 01:46:07 So, what the word probably actually means is there is a high probability that such and such is true. Yeah. I absolutely agree with you. There is a probability that Biden knew. I just don't know that it's a high probability. 51% versus 49%. I think there's a very high probability someone tried to communicate it to him, but I don't know that there's a high probability he actually knew. On all the things on that dude's list, the lowest presidential approval ratings in history,

Starting point is 01:46:38 in history, the lowest presidential approval ratings ever, that dude's got a whole lot of crap on his plate and maybe the Mar-a-Lago raid didn't make the top of his sheet that day, right? I mean, I've seen the presidential daily briefs, a PDB that they get every day. They don't get through the PDB every day. Every, they can't-

Starting point is 01:46:56 It's like a hundred pages every single day, right? About all the biggest threats facing America. The Mar-a-Lago raid is not a threat to America, right? So even if it was in there, buried under Iran and they're posturing about nuclear weapons and North Korea launching a weapon and what's gonna happen in China right now and what's Russia doing in Ukraine

Starting point is 01:47:12 and what Syria looking like right now and what's gonna happen in Yemen, what's gonna happen in Libya? Like think about the headache the president has every day. It's one of the reasons why, no matter how you feel about Trump, you gotta respect the fact that he sat in that seat for four years.

Starting point is 01:47:26 That's everybody who takes that presidential seat. That is a massive, they age. Look at what happened to Obama. Look at what happened to Bush. They age so fast because that is a shit seat to sit in. So go back to when you were an agent seven years and you're you're in it, and you're seeing what's going on, and both your perspective and your wife's perspective. So, when you're laying in bed, and you guys are about talking to each other,

Starting point is 01:47:51 and you guys are still married to each other today. So, even after you get out eight years later, you guys still chose to be married, because it's kind of tough when you get out. Life is like a very different life. So, okay, so, when you went in, where did you, did any area of trust go higher? You're like, oh man, I used to have no respect for those guys. I got a lot of respect for what those guys are doing.

Starting point is 01:48:14 I used to go in and say, I never thought about those guys. Damn, those guys are dangerous. After seven years of being in. And then you went in and you said, oh, those are the guys I was studying. Those guys are a hundred times more scary to the world than the media is even selling. And then the media, yeah, I still really trust the media used to say, dude, I don't trust shit to say,

Starting point is 01:48:32 or I used to not trust what the media used to say. I actually trust what they have to say. What were some of the things where you flipped, where what you saw pre, and now you're on the inside, what flipped on you? The biggest flip was media. The biggest flip out there was news. I, when I started seeing what real intelligence looks like

Starting point is 01:48:49 and how real intelligence is collected, how information is vetted and processed and synthesized and turned into something useful, and then I would read the news. I realized that the news is garbage. Like even the best news sources out there, the most centrist, the most highly best news sources out there, the most centrist, the most highly rated news sources out there, they are still a far cry from what they were in the 1950s. When

Starting point is 01:49:12 journalism was alive, when there were still laws in place that forced you to have fair and balanced news, right now news, news organizations focus on feeding their audience base. That's what they do. Then if they get too far off of their audience base, then they start to see a decrease in ratings and a decrease in ad revenue and they can't have that, especially not now that people don't buy newspapers. So that was a massive flip for me. Some of the other flips were the French.

Starting point is 01:49:37 I went, I was a military officer. You were in the military. Nobody says good things about the French and the military. We make fun of them all the time, right? This is how the French go to war, right? We make fun of them all the military. Nobody says good things about the French in the military. We make fun of them all the time, right? This is how the French go to war, right? We make fun of them all the time. You get into the intelligence service? The DGSE is scary.

Starting point is 01:49:54 They are so well funded. They are so technically adept. They are hunting down corporate and economic espionage secrets are from us and we don't even know they're there. They are super powerful. Had no idea that was happening. No idea at all. And then, you know, Masad has a reputation. Masad is actually, when you deal with them in real life,

Starting point is 01:50:12 they're pretty reasonable people. They just have the authority to do some crazy shit compared to what we do in the United States. But generally speaking, like you sit down, you have a beer with them, like you were saying about the trifecta, right, you're just in Timberlake, they can dance, they can act, they can sing, right? You sit down with a massage officer and you're like, you seem like a fair and reasonable person who is also protected by law

Starting point is 01:50:35 Like and able to just kill somebody on the spot. I have to ask five levels up whether or not I'm allowed to slap somebody in the belly when they're being interrogated in Guantanamo Bay. You know what I mean? And there's just, so there's all sorts of different things like that. Then I also started to learn how scary terrorists actually were. You know, the world knew about al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda by the time that al-Qaeda was a mainstream thing, al-Qaeda wasn't actually that scary. They did, they were well-funded.

Starting point is 01:51:04 They had organization and bureaucracy and reach, but bureaucracy slows you down. ISIS was terrifying. ISIS is still in a phase where it's recruiting what's known as lone wolf. Terrorists, lone wolves are basically people they radicalize and encourage to act and operate independently in a lone. So then there is no communication channel anywhere of anybody saying, hey, I'm gonna hit this target this way, what do you think? If there's no communication, there's no way to collect intelligence.

Starting point is 01:51:31 These loan wolves can just go out and do whatever they think they're gonna do and they've got the permission of the organization and they have the, the praise of the caliphate behind them. That's scary stuff. I exactly would happen with Salman Rushdie, it was a loan wolf and his mother just disowned him. Did you see what she said about him?

Starting point is 01:51:45 He just said, she's like, you can no longer support him being my son. It's nuts. That world is a terrifying world that the average American has no idea about. Let me ask you because Pat framed the question with your perspective. What has shifted?

Starting point is 01:51:58 You've been pretty vocal about perception versus perspective, right? Getting out of your own shoes and looking to the eyes of others. He also framed it with, you know, what you said, the media. And you've been pretty vocal about perception, perspective. We also talked about your wife, how, when she kind of got red-pilled into the real world, how she's went from being a progressive

Starting point is 01:52:19 liberal to being more center. It's the same thing with you, I assume, is right? Correct, yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you're super conservative, if you're not trying to go to Africa to like, save children, right, you're trying to build a business or do something that boosts the economy in some way, shape and form. So we were both moved very, very, very far to independent center. Once we started realizing, not necessarily that there was like a liberal narrative, and it really frustrates me when I hear people go off the deep end, apart

Starting point is 01:52:44 all these liberal conspiracies and these liberal narratives. The truth is that liberals are just, that whole media is feeding its own base. And it's feeding a base of people who don't make a lot of money, who don't have a lot of education, who are struggling to set themselves up financially. So they want to believe that someone else should take care of them and they want to believe that someone else should help them. And they want to believe that someone else should take care of them

Starting point is 01:53:05 and they want to believe that someone else should help them and they want to believe that they that a larger big brother government should be on their side. But what ends up happening across the board time and time again is your 27 year old liberal becomes a 32 year old parent with a career or a business and then their perspective shifts. Because now they got to protect what they have. They got to protect their family. They got to take care of their people. They've got to make sure that the future gen...

Starting point is 01:53:31 Because now there's a child. You've got to protect your child, but you also need a military to protect your child. So, you know what, if I have to pick between who lives and who dies, my child lives, somebody else dies. So you're like a living, breathing case, same with your wife. You know, the famous phrase, if you're. So you're like a living, breathing case, same with your wife of, you know, the famous phrase, if you're young and you're not a liberal,

Starting point is 01:53:48 you have no heart and if you're older and you're not a conservative, you have no brain. Is that kind of what your process you went through? Yeah, it's like, I mean, all of these idioms and all of these stereotypes, right? They happen for a reason. They happen because a normalized, statistically relevant number of people starts to follow in these certain trends. stereotypes, right? They happen for a reason. They happen because a normalized, statistically

Starting point is 01:54:05 relevant number of people starts to follow in these certain trends. It doesn't mean it's right for everyone, but it's right for majority of people. So, you know, as a registered independent, I've been a voter Republican, a voter Democrat, I'm a registered independent now for, I don't know, 11 years or 12 years, something like that. And Rogen, you see, he was libertarian. He voted for Joe Jorgensen, which we have voting for Bernie. If you wish. We have Joe Jorgensen on here. I don't know if she'll ever come back.

Starting point is 01:54:37 I don't know if it'll ever come back. I asked her back. She was upset she didn't want to come back on. But you put a fork in her rear back. But the point being as a following he says with Aaron Rogers he says what's the what do we do and he says vote republican air and starts laughing what did you think when rogan is a guy that

Starting point is 01:54:57 you would have never thought rogan's gonna say vote republican this guy pushed to legalize marijuana this guy pushed to legalize marijuana, this guy pushed to, you know, talking about certain things that there's nothing about it would be Republican, but a guy like him is now saying voting Republican. What was your reaction when you saw that? So when I saw what Rogan said, it was very similar to what I had when I saw what Zuckerberg did. I was like, good for you, Joe, like that's,

Starting point is 01:55:21 like speak your heart. If you're not, if you've got a voice, you've got an awesome voice, man. If you've got that's like speak your heart. If you're not, if you've got a voice, you've got an awesome voice, man. If you've got a voice, speak your heart. If you're speaking to anything else, you're kind of wasting your voice, right? Joe spoke with his voice, zuck spoke with his voice. I think that's really good stuff. It's important to remember that human beings are not left or right. Human beings are all a mix of both. We just, we want what we want.

Starting point is 01:55:45 We are motivated by the things that are important and motivate us. So you're not all red, you're not all blue. There's always a bell curve. So at the fat end of the bell curve, people are close to center. People believe in some things and believe in other things. But unfortunately, media doesn't give you a chance

Starting point is 01:56:00 to be supportive of both. Media forces you to choose one or the other. And then they feed you lines from one or the other, and they move you closer and closer to the outside of the bell curve until you choose to just stop reading news or you choose to just stop watching TV or you choose to sit around and drink beer and watch sports games and bitch about the news all day, right?

Starting point is 01:56:17 But media is in the business of forcing you to one side of the other, human beings are not like that, right? I believe a woman should have the choice to take care of her own body. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but a woman should have the choice to take care of her own body. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but a woman should have the choice to take care of her own body, but the government does not need to tax me at 40%. I can spend my money wisely on my own. I don't need them to police my money.

Starting point is 01:56:36 I don't need them to police like what I'm doing in my bedroom. I don't need the government to police how I raise my children or whether they're home school or private school or whether I'm dissatisfied with the public school, right? We have, we're all a mix of all sorts of different positions, and we are all getting frustrated by being forced to pick one side or the other. Should the government have access to know if you have that word on your butt, that's the question. I think they're curious to know, knowing the they are. Maybe you should stop moaning people.

Starting point is 01:57:06 So they won't find out, obviously that's an analogy for other. But there are any new sources that you legitimately trust. You're saying, you don't trust a media that was your biggest discrepancy with what today. What outlets you say? Okay, Pat said that he, when it comes to polls, he said, pew, and what was the other one, Rasmussen? Gallup. Gallup? He trusts that, all right?

Starting point is 01:57:26 They're not 100% accurate, but with the level of certainty, probability like you termed a yes, what media outlets do you trust? So I don't trust any of them fully. I trust, I'd best I trust about 85%. The way that I handle the news is I will read competing new sources on the same coverage on purpose

Starting point is 01:57:44 and see where they overlap. Right? Give us an example of the Wall Street Journal. So the economist. Okay. The economist is a great example. We got two minutes just so you know. Absolutely.

Starting point is 01:57:53 The economist is a great example. CNN is a great example. Fox News is not such a great example. Yahoo! News is actually a decent, USA Today is actually a decent example. Al Jazeera is a decent example. BBC is a decent example. These are allera is a decent example. BBC is a decent example. These are all places that I'm like 80, 85%.

Starting point is 01:58:08 Even though they consistently lean one side, I don't look at MSN. How about CNN? CNN's on my list only because they were very consistently left. And when I started seeing them trash talking Biden about nine months ago, I was like, there's a change in CNN, right? They still go with popular opinion.

Starting point is 01:58:25 They're still just trying to sell ad space, right? But when it comes to who's, who's going to get my time? I'll look at them. I'll cross reference them. I'll see what's the same. I'll see what's different. I'll believe what's the same. And I'll challenge what's different.

Starting point is 01:58:37 Interesting. Okay, this was great. By the way, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. And if you want to hear more If you enjoyed this as much as I did, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. And if you want to hear more content of Andy, Andy has a YouTube channel, which I want us to put that below in the chat box, as well as description title, or if you can put that down there, so people can go subscribe to his channel and find more content of him.

Starting point is 01:58:59 And make sure to check out every day's spy. Yeah, everydayspy.com is my homepage. And that's where I teach all of this stuff to anybody who is willing to learn. Everydayspy.com. Everydayspy.com is my homepage. And that's where I teach all of this stuff to anybody who is willing to learn. Everydayspy.com. Everydayspy.com. What a sick domain. Seriously, everydayspy.com.

Starting point is 01:59:11 Every day spy. So it's all every day spy. You'll find me on all social media at the same way. By the way, if it wasn't for time, no joke. I would have gone two more hours because that's so many questions, but I have an 11 o'clock Zoom. Folks, we're going to do a podcast. It was not scheduled. This week we have the vault conference for the entire week, which we've got a couple thousand people coming in. And we're going to be with the commentary, Kyosaki, Connolly, a bunch of guys are coming

Starting point is 01:59:37 in. But we will do a podcast to cover a bunch of these stories that we haven't yet. Tomorrow morning, we're going to do a podcast just to cover some of these. We don't normally do it. I was out of town, I was out of the country last week, but we're gonna do it this week. So we get our two podcasts. And having said that, brother, thank you so much for coming out. This was a blast.

Starting point is 01:59:54 It's my pleasure, brother. Guys, we'll be with you tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw you

PBD Podcast - CIA Operative Andrew Bustamante | PBD Podcast | Ep. 180

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