PBD Podcast - Former CIA Executive Philip Mudd | PBD Podcast | Ep. 189

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

 In this in depth episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Philip Mudd & Adam Sosnick.  John Philip Mudd (born 1961 or 1962) is an American political commentator and former counterterrorism official in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). TOPICS 0:00 - Start  29:30 - Philip Mudd on Hillary Clinton's involvement in Benghazi  36:58 - Why do social media companies allow conspiracy theories from Hillary Clinton, but not Trump?  43:12 - Does the U.S. have a problem at the border?  48:40 - Are Americans 'racist' against immigrants?  58:33 - Was the investigation of January 6th 'worth it'?  1:03:52 - The importance of consistency  1:25:18 - Was the U.S. behind the Nord Stream pipeline attack?  1:41:26 - The future of India  1:47:23 - Will Iran ever see regime change? Try our sponsor Aura for 14 days free - https://aura.com/pbd to see how many times your personal information was found on the dark web today.  Find Philip on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3dPhuiw Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

PDB or PDB PDB PDB PDB why PDB? President Stanley Brief when I started at the CIA, the gold standard is, do you get in front of the president every day? The president gets what we call the book. It actually, depending on the president, it can be a pamphlet, it can be a binder. But it's referred to as a PDB, the President's Daily Brief. It's the, it's the short summary of stuff going around the world that you think he'd be interested in through articles, maybe some shorts, you know, a couple of seasons.

Yeah. Now let me ask you this, you think the current president enjoys the PDB or he skips them? No, he's not reading because he was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so it's somebody who's now leaving for the community. He has to go through it. Guys, welcome to the PDB podcast. So we're live. We went right into it. Yeah, let me tell you, we're back at it again. We're trying to solve a mystery. So for me, I'm like look we got to bring XCIA agency XFBI agent So finally we said look why don't we bring somebody that's been both CIA and FBI and that's our guest today Let me properly read the intro so you know who we're talking to today

He is an American political commentator former counterterrorism official in the CIA and the FBI. He joined the CIA in 85 as an analyst specializing in South Asia Middle East and 92. He joined the CIA's counterterrorism center, CTC from 95 to 98. He served on a national intelligence council as a deputy national intelligence officer. For the near east and South Asian, all one he began policies, assignment at the White House, detailed from the CIA to serve as a director of golf affairs on the White House Security Council. And then he's done a bunch of different things after that.

I think he was back at the CIA from 2002, I think around 2010, the little bit of stuff from 2009, 10 with the FBI. And then eventually the debate is whether he left, whether he got fired or he quit, but I want to find out what happened. Why did you leave the CIA at the end?

That's the mystery. That's the question. Okay. In 2010, let's be clear. I did not retire. I quit. You're the first person and you're starting off on the wrong foot to say, guess that I got fired.

I did not get it. You know what this reminds me of. Have you seen Larry King with what's the guys in the comedian? You like the Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld he sits there. He says so so Jerry. Why did they fire you wait you think I got fired Larry you think I got fired are you is this serious you see us or no? Yeah, of course classic on that so what's the deal we're gonna start brawling here you know i'd i'd twenty five years of service you think somebody would say thanks he says did you get fired it there's there's a

real story i was one of the problems in a thousand problems in american government is the is the presence responsible for nominating too many people for too many jobs so i got nominated by president obama whom i did not know one of my friends put me up for the job to President Obama to be the head of intelligence at Homeland Security. I had been deputy director of the CIS Counterterrorism Center at the time where we had so-called black sites where we kept Al Qaeda prisoners and we conducted what are called renditions. That is transferring Al Qaeda prisoner to our CIF facility. So I was involved in some of that. By the time President Obama nominated

me for a position at Department of Homeland Security in 2009, the Congress was all over renditions and black sites. And they said, when you come down for your open, that is public nomination hearing, the Democrats are going to kick your ass one way and the Republicans are going to kick your ass another way. And I said, well, neither of you is because if that's your goal, I'm out. That's not professional, and I'm not gonna participate. So the real, to be really serious for a moment challenge for me was, after 25 years of a paycheck every other Friday,

stepping out and saying, I don't have a job, and I don't know what my job's gonna be, and I'm gonna, I'm going to lose my pension, and I still don't have it for a seven year period from 55 to 62. I'm 16, 16 now. So it's still another couple years till I get a pension. So I know this is boring, but as a government bureaucrat and I use that word, it's painful to say, but I was to step away from a paycheck and say, I quit because I'm pissed off at the Senate. That was tough, but that's what happened. I just said, I'm not going up for a hearing

where you just abused me in public about the interrogation program. That's what it was when you said I'm done with this. That's correct. Yes, I said I'm out. All my friends said, you're nuts. Another seven years and you can get a pension. I said, life is not about waking up in the morning

for seven years of life and saying, you know, maybe six months I would have done it and saying, I'm gonna do something because I could never get a great job. After you turn down a presidential appointment, that never happens unless you don't pay taxes on your nanny. You never willfully pull away, especially as a bureaucrat. You never pull away from a presidential appointment. When you start as a GS9, making $23,000 a year and the president appoints you to a position.

So my point is after you pull away from one, my career would have been over and I'm not gonna sit around for seven years just waiting for a pension, that's not like. Was that a shot at a man named Bernie? When you said the taxes on nanny, did we care? Remember the whole thing?

No, no, no. Back at, no, everything. I thought that's where you went, I'm like, that was a... No, no, no. Both, there's a lot of back. You're going, I'm going to date myself 20 years or so. Yeah, yeah. A whole series of, there are a whole series of public officials,

including justices, et cetera, who did not succeed in getting their jobs because they had a nanny from Latin America and they didn't pay taxes, which I thought was a bit much but uh... yeah people usually pull out from appointments where i was trying to say for cause and the causes usually some ethical issue not just because they're pissed off at

the senate look at for you for doing that so for for some of us uh... on the who are not cia agents or fb agents who live normal lives can you kind of you know i know a lot of things are said here with the projects you worked on, assignments you worked on. What were some regions, maybe even countries that you worked on since 1985? Boy, a lot of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, worked a lot on Middle East stuff, including places like Saudi Arabia, when I was Deputy Director of Counterterrorism from O2 to O5. So that's you know, obviously

after 9-11 dealing with dealing with Afghanistan, I was in Afghanistan with the team to put together a new government in November and December of 2001, which was an incredible experience with a guy named Ambassador Dobbins, who was the the man who basically put together the new government after we moved into the army and intelligence, et cetera, moved into Afghanistan. So, Middle East, South Asia, generally, and doing a lot of counter-terrorism stuff for a lot of years.

From your perspective, what is the difference between the job duties of a CIA agent and FBI? Obviously, we've heard it many times by folks. I think in the last eight weeks, we've had two or three CIA agents and FBI agents sitting right here on the podcast with us, but what would you say is the difference between the CIA agent and an FBI agent? Well, let me do better than they did because clearly they didn't educate you. So let me see if I can, let me see if I can.

Shots fired. You thought this was going to be an easy time. Yeah, it's going to be a good. I like it. I like it already. There's a couple, one that's sort of clear and one that's less clear. Let's do fact and culture. Fact would be the FBI typically is domestically focused. They have a lot of people overseas, but that is a secondary purpose for the FBI. So investigating things like white collar crime, and Ron years ago, investigating organized crime, investigating obviously counterterrorism, child pornography, gangs, right now white supremacists. And the CI, which is obviously typically focused

on overseas the Iranian nuclear program, the North Korean missile program, what's going on in Ukraine right now. But I think that one of the most interesting things I saw I spent 25 years at the CI, the last five I was on detail to director Mueller, the Mueller who did the Russia report. I was his intelligence adviser at the FBI from 05 to 2010.

Culturally the FBI is much more formal, much more hierarchical, much more rules oriented because you have to bring your information into a court of law and that's public and you can be questioned by defense attorneys. The culture at the CIA is fundamentally different, flatter, to be blunt, less respectful of leadership, which has ups and downs. Yes, you can walk into the CIA director, in my case, that my most frequent interaction was daily with the CIA director, tenant, and the conversations are can be pretty toe-to-toe. You do not do that with yet, with yet.

That's right. When you say toe-to-toe, it's a that with yet with yet. So, I'm just saying, when you say toe to toe, is it's a direct or the bait? Yes, it's not in polite. It's a direct or we can't do that. That's not a good idea. We should do this. I did not see people interact with Robert Mueller's personality was also, he's a different personality.

Maybe the best leader I ever saw in Washington, D.C., and that's saying a lot. So both have advantages, but I was saying the CIA is more informal, less rules oriented because you're operating overseas and you're not collecting information on what we call nonuspers, non-US persons. So the rights a non-US person has to privacy when they're looking at their email is a lot different than the rights you might have, despite what people say in sort of conspiracy media.

The rights you might have logging in and for Lauderdale or Chicago or Los Angeles, very different, very different worlds. And Philip, how long were you CIA versus FBI? 25 years at CIA, but the last five, the CIA director said, you're going to go over to the FBI and help them build an intelligence program. Back then there were a lot of questions about how the FBI, how aggressively the FBI was trying to follow potential people in the United States who were joining al Qaeda later to become ISIS. So I was paid by the CIA when I was at the FBI, but I sat in the executive suite of the FBI down the

hall from director Mueller. So in essence, you're sort of you're immersed, which was a weird, seeing both cultures was really instructive. One of the best experiences of my life, personally and professionally, I'd say. You said culturally was. You gave a clear distinction between how people operate internally with the FBI versus the CIA, but you were SCIA for 25 years, a little more less structure,

everything you sort of encompassed with that. But then when you went to FBI, you kind of had to more toe the line. You had to be, I don't wanna say less respectful. I'm sorry, more respectful, but you basically had to kinda fall in line versus CIA, you could be a more Lucy Goosey with it. How did you process that?

I think one of, you know, there's a lot of leadership questions, I do some executive coaching now and some public speaking. It's surprising how many of the lessons of leadership and management you see outside government. I didn't expect this outside government that I witnessed inside government. The only reason I can say that is because in my first 20 years of the CIA, a new one thing is how we operate, especially operating in a world that's not visible to the public, where you think you're

everything. The lack of humility, I'll get in trouble with my friends for this, that the CIA is significant because they think that they.I. is significant, because they think that they're everything. And again, in a secret world, you don't have competition, you're not questioned. Going over the FBI has started to realize, hey, these folks are much more rigorous

in how they ask questions. Now, again, that has some downsides that sometimes eliminates risk-taking. But we can learn from that. The FBI is much more metrics-. But we can learn from that. The FBI is much more metrics oriented. We can learn from that. How we measure performance instead of saying, you know, Joe's pretty good. Let's assume that what he's doing is succeeding.

Well, it's not. So you're going to hold Joe's feet to the fire by adding a little metrics to the equation. I just saw the differences as profound and I don't mean to be critical of either organization, but I think both have something to learn from the other, and sometimes they're incapable of it, because there's still rivalry between the two. So it's a little bit swarming. Why do you think the American people

trust these organizations, the lack of trust they have for these organizations today? Why do you think it's gone to that point? I think it's pretty simple, and this is a leadership question and i i anticipated in the age of social media in the internet that people would become better educated more access to more information meant that people would be broader that people would be open to to looking at more stuff and what you realize obviously whichever end of the spectrum you're on is

that people go down and they want validation. I think this, I'm going to have an avenue for information that reflects this. I mean, I'm not giving you what revelation here. In terms of your questions about lack of trust in institutions, people who are going to on those rat holes left and right, still value leadership. And this is a positive thing, but it's also a negative thing. If leadership propaganda is about a consistent message over time that has some little kernel of truth. If leadership consistently says, don't trust these people, watch out for Mar-Lago, watch

out for January 6th, watch out for the Russian investigation, left to right. They're not don't trust them because they're not doing what an American should expect to see the FBI does. People are eventually, and people are susceptible to propaganda in this country. We think we're not. We are. People eventually are gonna say, I believe that. If it's told consistently over the course of years,

down a rat hole, and someone's told the same message, so I blame leadership. I don't blame the institutions. They're not responsible for public diplomacy and convincing Americans why they're doing the right thing. The FBI is not a public affairs organization. And I object to members of Congress saying the FBI should be more out there explaining itself.

They're an investigative organization. They're not there to influence American perspectives. I blame leadership for telling people not to trust these institutions, and over time, they won and people don't trust them. So let's go through a series of issues that have happened in the last few years that caused the public to kind of react to it. Okay. And and give your feedback on each level of credibility. And I'll kind of go through one by one. I want to be curious to know to hear from you. And by the way, if I miss something Tyler jump in there and add

your stuff that I forgot as well. Now, don't make this more complicated. You just go to the hotel. So for me, so let's go through Bengazi. Let's write that down. Bengazi, let's write down the 30,000 emails. Let's write down Russia collusion with Trump. Let's write down a January 6 insurrection. Let's write down the two impeachments. Let's write down the Marlago raid. What did I miss here?

Have I missed any of your lastions? I mean, what else? I mean, how much do you want to put it in? No, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would,

I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, Obama, I don't know. Okay, let's, let's, I mean that and that's more marketing.

That's more marketing, but you know, it's not, um, Biden dementia, everything, I don't think, Biden Ukraine, for his most specifically putting it on what has to do. Hunter Biden, let's put that one. Hunter Biden, uh, the story, New York Post, they knew it, they held it back, even Zuckerberg talked about it on Rogan's podcast.

So, so these events happen. The average person that doesn't have access to information like you do, like others do, they sit there and people want to believe it. They want to believe it. Yeah, that's what's happening, you know, and then you know, some sides rather than, well, let's, let's prove it. We've become this society that everybody is guilty until proven innocent, instead of innocent until proven guilty. When you hear some of these stories, where are you at with? Well, that one, I don't know what they did with that. There was no point with this one.

That one had credibility. This one ended up being a hoax. That one was a waste of time. How do you process these? Boy, that's a great question. We'll spend the next, it's a 923A. Yeah, I'm just gonna post. Let me just give next, it's a 92380, I suppose. Let me just give you a couple thoughts

and we can go into whatever direction you want. The first is, I made a missed one or two. Let me take birth rhythm off the table. I look at all of these and say, they're worthy of investigation. They're worthy of looking at to determine what happened. On her Biden, 30,000 emails, what happened in terms of Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with

a Russian to get dirt on Hillary before the election. All these things are worthy of looking at. There's a couple of characteristics that I look at as someone who did this for a living to see which ones get over the bar. Let me give you two or three. One is you mentioned Benghazi, that's loss of life. That's not only worth looking at. That's worth stepping back and saying,

is we have to have an after-action to determine whether there's some way to prevent this in the future. Loss of life to me takes a problem to a different, to a different, versus the Hillary Clinton 30,000 emails. I mean, there wasn't loss of life, so you got to investigate that to determine whether there's a civil or criminal penalty, but that's at a lesser level. The second thing, and this is where it gets really subtle, but to my mind, really important, is the difference between what you think and what you know, particularly when the question

of what you know is going to go in into court of law where there's a defense attorney and a prosecutor. So you can say, let's go to Mar-a-Lago and I'll give you both sides. You can say as someone who looked at classified information, I can see that the cover sheets on the photo that came out of Mar-a-Lago. And I can say that stuff is extremely sensitive. In my world, some of that stuff, I would not have had access to. And the reason it's sensitive is that if

it were released to the public, the people were collecting against Iran, North Korea, Russia, example, would be able to figure out where that came from in a heartbeat and shut down that avenue, including potentially, if it's a human informant, that's a traitor, they're going to kill him. So that's one aspect to it. So somebody would say, well, if he's got that stuff in Mar-a-Lago, well, of course, he's guilty. Why haven't they charged him yet? Then I look at it and say, well, if you want to talk about the former President of the

United States, it's not clear to me exactly what he told the people when that information was removed from the White House. It's not clear to me what happened when it got to Mar-a-Lago in terms of clear direction from the President. I'm not talking about what you think, what we've heard reported. I'm talking about what you can say in a court of law. The former President doesn't write emails, so you're not going to produce an email, and he's got a bunch of advisors who probably heard different things.

So you're going to have conflicting evidence going to a trial. So when I look at stuff to really get over the bar on this stuff, I'm going through a process, an analytic process of let me make arguments both sides. And when I train analysis, I tell people, if you believe one thing, you are only a good analyst when you can go to the other side and make an argument to me that's compelling about what the person on the other side of the table thinks. You have to have your mind at a level of flexibility where you're seeing both sides. I would say on most of these to close,

Benghazi's an example, the 30,000 emails are an example, Maralago's sort of an example. The stories are subtler than people think, and finally there's far less conspiracy than people think. We don't do conspiracies well in government. And I'm not joking, you know, if you have 100 people looking at the Maralago problem, one person trying to affect that because they don't like President Trump or they do is very, very, very difficult

to do. And let me rephrase that. That's impossible. I just don't see it. So take the conspiracy crap out, but put your hat on of saying, before I go down a rabbit hole of my perspective, make the other argument argument and it's more difficult than it sounds. Yeah, hard it is to believe what you just said that the, the, the, the conspiracies of people not liking somebody is out

to window or liking somebody is out to window because, that, I think that's the biggest problem I have. And let me explain what I mean by this. For me, CIA, maybe CIA more than FBI, but maybe we can put FBI in that as well. I have a hard time, you know, believing that they can stay neutral. I have a very hard time believing that they can stay neutral. And then the problem I go to is how to help do you recruit people that don't have their own political leanings where they're not going to be jumping to conclusion with their own ideology or relationships that they have.

It almost hurts it, right? Like when Stephen A. Smith talks, I don't know if you follow Stephen A. Smith or Eric. He irritates me. Okay, yeah. And we give our opinion here. So check this out. So with Stephen A. Smith, by the way,

he irritates a lot of people, right? But anytime Stephen A. Smith wants to give feedback about magic Johnson, I don't hear it, because it's his best friend. So when you become too close to these players, you can't give real feedback because you're gonna have dinner with this guy and you wanna keep a relationship with them.

But we're in CI and FBI, a lot of these guys can't stand a lot of these types of personalities. Like I can imagine in the CI, like what Peter struck that it was very obvious when his text came out. This guy hated Trump. I mean, that wasn't a maybe, that wasn't a possibly it didn't take a dummy to read some of these texts to say, this dude cannot stand who Trump is, right? Well people who are regular people sit and not they're out there saying dude what the hell is he doing?

So you're telling me to not believe conspiracy theorists. These are all the text messages. They have on what this guy said hey January 18, 2016 Martin normal is a freak show Lisa page yikes baby. Yeah, that's what we next one He asked me to fight world for yes K6 seriously. What would you I don't know I suppose Hillary I would be Page God Trump is a lot some human Yet human's I mean when you go through this stuff would he be worse president than Cruz? Trump yes, I think this is public information so when you say what you're saying as much as The public wants to say, you know what Philip? You're right, man. We're just watching one too many, you know Conspir conspiracy theory movies

and we just got caught up with this YouTube stuff and maybe we're just smoking a little too much hash and we're getting a little too creative. But no, I don't know. I think there is some true hate involved, hate involved and they're targeting certain people. I think that's correct. There's a, let me go, I de-elistic,

which is rare for me. I'm a realist, but then go practical. Ideologically, when you join the entities that I joined, Peter struck did a lot of damage to the FBI. What happened to him, you can argue about whether it was appropriate or not, but he did tremendous damage to the FBI. The bottom line at the CIA and the Bureau is that most of the people believe it or not,

they do have strong uses. These are smart people. The people I worked with at the agency, when I joined, I got a master's degree from a great university, the University of Virginia, in English literature. My master's degree with defense was in Victorian novel, 19th century British novel. My master's thesis was comparing medieval sermons with morality plays from 600 years ago. I mean, I sat down with people and I said, this is game on.

So they do have views, some very strong views. You're discouraged from expressing them in the workplace. Obviously, these folks on phones that were given to them by the bureau, which means that's not your phone. We're expressing views during the workplace, but you're supposed to say, and a lot of people did believe it or not, and I will get realistic in a second. You're supposed to say the American people elected, you know, Mary or Joe or John as president, when I go to the office, I wasn't elected.

I served them. So unless they're doing something illegal, unethical, or immoral, that's the will of the people, and I don't represent the will of the people. Now, let's go practical for one second and do a numbers game. And let's look at the Russian investigation. And as someone who took stats in college, stats for non-mathematicians, along with logic,

one of the best classes I ever talk, it trains your mind analytically, not just mathematically. Let's do a numbers game. Let's say there are hundreds of people involved in the Russian investigation. Those people are involved in reviewing things like who you're going up on with informants, whose emails you're looking at, how that stuff not only is investigated in the bureau, but how it's overseen by many lawyers at the Department of Justice. What I'm saying is statistically, you start to weed out fringes or people who want to take the investigation

to a different place because you simply can't go through hundreds of people and have an aberration. We wanna go up on Adam because we don't like him. Well, a lawyer's gonna look at that and then 10 lawyers are gonna look at that and then it's gonna be reviewed and then the FBI director's gonna look at that and then the attorney general's gonna look at that

and they're gonna say that's stupid and that's biased. So if you don't believe me idealistically, I just say do your stats homework and tell me how likely it is that political bias and investigation of several hundred people can be or that an investigation of several hundred people can be directed by one or two people who have bias. That just statistically doesn't work. Well, you're talking about one-offs, right? Like Peter Stroke, but what happens if it's at the top, you know, whether it's a John Brennan or a Christopher Ray or even a Robert Mueller? Yeah.

What kind of influence is that person? Like John Brennan as an example, not a fan of Trump. I don't think that's like a secret. If the person at the top has an agenda, how does that affect the trickle down? Significant leadership, and this is why you need to pay attention, you know, not to your third level appointments, but to your first level appointment. Secretary to Fantst, Secretary of State, when you look at people like James Madison, Rex

Tillerson, the first people involved in the cabinet for President Trump, you got to step back and say, like them or not, these are serious people. So if you like President Trump or you don't, either way, you're going to say these people are going to provide advice that he should listen to. My experience is that leadership, even in bureaucracies that look like they don't move are, is huge. So let me give you a specific example. You look at the closeness of the CIA leadership pre-Arock war to the White House and anybody who looks at history, and George Tenant, the former director's a friend,

but I think anybody who looks at history says, what are the questions you should raise about how distant a CIA director should be from the president? George Tenant was very close to George Bush. Is there a lesson that says, even though the CIA is supposed to be a, obviously a fundamental support mechanism to the White House, there should be a distance because there's a contradiction

there. If you're supposed to support the White House, obviously, you should be close to them to understand what they think, what they want, whether you're supporting them properly. I think there is a balance in leadership over time, but it's not easy enough simply to say that they should be distant from leadership because at some level, from the White House, at some level, you have to say we're here to serve the White House. What are your thoughts on the current leadership? What's Christopher Ray at the FBI? Boy.

And the head of the CIA, forget his name again? That's secret. I know the head of the CIA's son. I do not know Christopher Ray. I think in my now, man, 36 years of doing this, this is easily one of the best combinations if you're just doing one plus one, both of them together that I have ever seen.

In terms of experience, I look at characteristics of leadership, whether it's in the organizations where I consult or the executive coaching that I do, and the characteristics I saw with people like Condi Rice, Cole and Powell, Bill Burns, by the way. Mike Hayden, George Tannett, Robert Moller, the characteristics I see in both of them them experience, temperament, humility, intellectual curiosity, peer intellect, how they treat the workforce, how the workforce responds to them. I think when you're looking at leadership, if you start to find it down in measurable areas,

like the areas I just mentioned, communication skills, the ability to take a bullet. Chris Ray doesn't talk much, and I guarantee you there are some lower level of the people at the FBI. Some would say, can't you get out and defend us more, which would be a huge mistake on his part. To getting out ahead of some issues, you said? No, to raising your head above, you know, in a political fray, Democrats and Republicans above the fray, because you'll get shot at. So if you stay silent, he doesn't stay silent all the time,

but mostly if you stay silent, the likelihood you're gonna get shot is lower. Keep your head in trench. Both of them have this variety of characteristics that is really unique. I don't know Ray, but I know Burns Summit. I would say privately, he's pretty funny. He's, you can talk to him.

He's a nice guy. I mean, you just don't get this range of people lack humility sometimes. Sometimes they don't have the knowledge they need to because they have political connections, but they don't know the business. Sometimes they're too political. Sometimes personalities, I worked with a number of CI directors who had very difficult personalities at rude, impolite. I'm like, I had to 15 years. Can you not even say, what do you think instead of kicking my ass? That's not a very good leadership style.

So both of them might say A plus. Let's go back to this. Let's go back to this because I really want to target this. So Benghazi, 30,000 emails, Russia, January 6, two impeachment, Mar-Lago, in Hunter Biden. Can we also throw in 9-11 to that? Because he said loss of life in conspiracy theory, we know we just, episode we had a show weeks ago. I'll put that up.

I'll put that up. I'll put that up. So let's go through some of these. So Benghazi, the way we investigated it and the level of accountability that whoever was involved at that time, say Hillary Clinton, was justice served based on what happened in Benghazi and the four folks that we lost out there.

I'm not known for being subtle, so let me say yes for a basic reason. You're talking about a fairly isolated diplomatic facilities in a hostile country, and you want to anticipate in hundreds of facilities overseas that you can manage basically a mob trying to storm that facility. If you want to make Fortress America, which if you travel overseas, we already see,

you can do that. These facilities are supposed to be open to people. They're supposed to be open to visa seekers. When I saw that, I saw a tragedy. I saw a tragedy that should be investigated. That's why I say, I agree with an investigation. That investigation should be looking at the question of whether there's culpability.

But there's a tougher question that says, how do we balance having hundreds of facilities? So there is a, both a cultural issue here about how America wants to be perceived, but there's also a financial issue here. Do you want to build fortresses and every tiny consulate around the planet? How do you look at that and say, we should anticipate this kind of mob coming into this kind of location and have every place not only secured, but have a backup plan to ensure that we can respond in a vacuum.

I just, we do 45 seconds on TV, and that doesn't do a service to this problem. It goes back to the question of saying, if you want to say the Megazzi was a Hillary Clinton problem and that we should have responded more quickly and prevented loss of life, spend some time making the counterargument about how difficult it would be to plan in sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa in the Middle East and South

Asia and Southeast Asia and East Asia for every diplomatic location we have to plan to make sure that never happens. And I'm going to say, good luck. You can't do it. Perfect. So if we hold that kind of accountability to her, then we have to hold this similar kind of accountability of lack of perfection doesn't exist anywhere, which is fine. We have to stay consistent with it. Yes, fair. Okay. So if we're going to say Hillary's not perfect, we have to keep going

with that. So 30,000 emails, okay, on what happened, her break in the laptops, the phones, all that stuff. Was the right level of accountability held to Hillary Clinton for what she did. And every time they asked her questions, she's like, yeah, I don't know, yeah, I don't know. That's, you mentioned earlier, I'm a political competitor. I'm not, I comment on it because people ask, but I'll give a semi-political answer. I think yes, if you look at the information

that was in those emails, it's not clear to me that revealing that information was hugely substantial for national security or could have led to loss of life. So in terms of legal responsibility, I'd say, I don't know how much money the US wants to spend on this case going back to wife said earlier, if you can't anticipate a defense attorney's going to have a good case too. So we're going to spend a ton of money. And remember, resources are finite. If I'm the attorney general, I'm saying, man, So we're gonna spend a ton of money. And remember, resources are finite.

If I'm the attorney general, I'm saying, man, this is gonna be a ton of people. How many, I'd rather put those people on child porn. I'd rather put them on gangs. The other thing though, I'd say the flip side of this is, I think she paid a tremendous price in terms of authenticity. In turn, this is where I will make a vague political comment in terms of people passing

judgment. And to be blunt, I think some of that was appropriate. When I saw some of the answers about why this was on there, what I knew, what I knew was classified and didn't, I'm like, as a guy who did this for for decades, that, that dog don't hunt. I thought there was way too much bobbing and weaving way too much avoiding questions. And I thought a lack of responsibility in looking at a camera and don't give me yes but yes but I didn't give me a break. Anybody who deals with national security information knows what's going on here. If you look at some of the information in there, it is classified. It's sorry. It is. Now I don don't think, as I said, there should

have been a criminal charge or a civil charge, but I do think the American people judged her and based on the answers I saw. I'm not saying you should solely judge her on that basis. But people who judge her and said, this is inauthentic. Okay, I'm with that. That's fine. Got it. How about the, you're going to get, is this over yet? Because I, it's not. Let me, let me, let me, let me, the reason the reason why I'm gonna go through this the reason I'm gonna go through this is because of the same level of accountability and softness the agency has on one side they have to have on the other side or else you lose credibility it doesn't

matter what it is that if if you're going to be gentle with one and making this person well no one's perfect well as this well as that you can't go and say the other person is evil and they're disindered that. So the next one, okay. So Hillary Clinton loses 2016 election. The world is shocked. Nobody watching TV thought this was gonna happen.

Nobody. I couldn't believe it. I was up in a farm. 3 30 in the morning, you're like, what the hell just happened, right? So I can only imagine she's in her hotel room. They're getting ready to prepare the party, the fireworks, everything. And then it's announced that Trump wins Trump shows up for three years,

four years. All she talks about is, you know, the election was a fraud. It was a fraud. Russia was involved. Russia was involved. The election was a fraud. There's no way I've lost it for four years. But the media allowed her to keep saying that for four years, nobody said anything. Should she have every chance she got, that when she got on TV, talked about that there was a election fraud for her losing to Donald Trump, was that okay, what she was doing? The answer could be yes or not, I'm okay with it. I didn't particularly care for it.

I thought it was rehashing an election that she lost, that was humiliating. She lost to a candidate that was not the strongest candidate the Republicans ever put up. I mean, just talking apolitically, if you look at polling numbers, I think a strong Democratic candidate, some way of the caliber, I'm just talking about polling numbers and sort of reach across America, she had to have been embarrassed. And I think looking around saying, what happened here for someone, I'm gonna quote someone who, and I won't use the name, once said somebody who knows her said,

there are no mirrors in the Clinton household. I thought that was a great line, in other words, not looking saying, maybe I, maybe I didn't run. Maybe I should have campaigned in the rust belt in the mid belt in the midfitter enough. That's exactly right. So, so I think, you know, media can put on whoever they

want. That's a choice of our producer. But in terms of people to listen to, to me, it sounded like sour grapes. I didn't think it did her any favors. Yeah, the only one I say media. Can't we do like sports or something? We're about to get into. We're

about to get into some sports. So see I, I want to talk sports. But I ask this because when he said media can put whoever, they want that's the producer's job, you're right. But social media can also choose today, they want to ban and they never banter for keeps saying. Oh, but time, okay, this is America. This choice, I don't do Twitter, I don't do,

I have a LinkedIn account because people sometimes send in interesting questions or hire me for a speech. But if you choose to do that, you can. My my as someone who does media for a living my question is Why don't you check out if you don't like that stuff check out go have a glass of Cabernet go run five miles Go learn to cook check out from where what do you mean check out from a life that says I have to know every five minutes Would Hillary Clinton said would Donald Trump? No, that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is actually the other way What I'm saying is the fact that social media companies allowed all those video clips of Hillary saying that this was a broad election.

They allowed her clips to stay on, but the other side, the moment they said, no, this is, you know, you're just talking about a conspiracy theory. So Hillary Clinton's, you know, loss wasn't a conspiracy theory, but Trump's was a conspiracy theory. So which conspiracy theory is allowed and which one's not? Well, you're asking me social media policy. I'm going to punt on that one. I think the American people give social media too much of a hard time. If you want to sit down and silicon valley and say there's billions of tweets and I've got to figure out which one's violent, which one's semi-violent? You give me a break. Oh, no, you give me a break.

Oh, give me a break. So these, So you think that they should sit down an American company that's supposed to make money for America and like and influences the globe. Yeah. And go under because they're hiring. Dude, you're just saying you're the same guy that said you can't put a, treat me like a dog and put a muzzle on my mouth. I'm going to say whatever I want, then you can't silence me. You said that. You said that on CNN. You said this. That's what I'm gonna say whatever I want, then you can't silence me. You said that. You said that on CNN. You said this. That's what I'm saying. I think they should spend less time silencing,

Pika, unless... Okay, cool, then that's what I'm saying. Yeah, unless. When you get into suggesting violence, and I mean suggesting, I don't mean asking for, I think you're done. I don't think you're done. Okay, fair enough.

I believe the Congress should be saying, these are American businesses making a lot of money how do we make their jobs more dole so so kicking their own so then if you're saying that to you can't put any violence uh... last week of up uh... current member of parliament of turkey got up and on his twitter account put a video of him speaking saying if you can find a saying hey ar Armenia, let me remind you guys what we did to you. We're starting to lose patience to you.

Don't make us, if we wanted to, we can choose to make you disappear off of history and geography. That's genocide. That's genocide. And Twitter left it on. Now, he should be off. Oh, so he should be off. In my opinion, because you're advocating violence.

Well, then that's the part where you know Again, this is where people lose trust in Organizations who say they're fair and then the American people say you're full of shit. You're not fair You're taking sides. Yeah, and that's why people are losing a little bit of trust in different institutions Look, I have four kids You know family when you got kids they'll come up to you and they'll say, you like him more and you like her more and you like this more and you like that more. Look, I like to talk sports with my younger son,

but I like to talk, you know, weird topics of science and stuff like that with my older son. I just like to hang out with my oldest daughter because last time we took her out because, you know, Hurricane sitting here, whatever we took her out because we took the other guys to the Miami dolphins game and whatever the game was Buffalo bills sick game so she's like you're not spending time with us we took her on a date. There's different things I like with everybody but it's my job to try to stay as neutral as possible whether I agree

with one of them or not right in companies same way you have operations operations as well salespeople they don't know shit, they're breaking everything. And in sales as operations, they're so slow. So that is, that is a sign of leadership. And we have a hard time doing that. I think you're exactly right. I mean, I mentioned leadership before in the significance of leadership. I thought leadership would decline in the age of social media because people would just look at different sources of information and absorb them. And then you realize, you know, senators, members of Congress, presidents,

Supreme Court justices, which is a different story, really still influence people. The way they should influence people, and let me give you a specific example in a second, is by saying, let's have a conversation. So let's take the wall. If you're on one side, you'd say, the wall keeps illegal immigrants out.

If you're on the other side, you say, this is a land of immigrants and this violates the principles of what America is. A conversation might be, let's talk to CBP Customs and Border Patrol, let's talk to immigration and say, are there parts of the border that are particularly susceptible to illegal immigrants that you have a difficult time policing that a wall makes sense on. And so let's say there's 120 miles where experts say, yeah, that would really be helpful.

I would say, well, let's fund it. There's a compromise. We're gonna fund some of a wall, but we're not gonna fund a wall in areas where maybe this is not that significant a problem. There, okay, done. We finished out, of course you agree with me. We finished out in 30 seconds.

No, but what you're saying is, but then the lack of leadership is the fact that the borders are, a lady named Kamala Harris was the vice president, refuses to go to the border to see what's going on. So you lose again credibility. You know, like, listen, what I said just a week ago,

I said, I have so much respect for a, a man so man's Pelosi. China tells you, if you go to Taiwan, we're gonna do this, you she shows up. And then, you know, other than Archeon and Perky says, when she shows up to Armenia, listen, so we got some balls.

I think she has more brass than Biden and Kamala combined, if you ask me. That's just, but to me is, you don't have the audacity to show up to the border. Listen, of course the American people don't believe you. Even your own side doesn't believe what you're saying. You've lost credibility. Leadership is losing a lot of credibility right now in many different organizations.

It's not just all the way at the top at the White House, VP, FBI. It's a lot of different institutions. And by the way, I don't think that's good. You said something very interesting. I think you were talking about the January 6th, where you and Lemon were going back. I don't know who you were talking to, but the whole conversation was about the fact

that this is not a good idea, the fact that we keep pushing it, the lady sitting to your right, I don't even know what she was saying. She was saying, no, we should continue to push this because maybe the more, and she's saying this to the host, maybe what's gonna happen is if we keep doing this January 6th committee Trump's going to get so upset that all of a sudden he's going to say something on national television and this was

coma when coma was the new rule with coma with the girls sitting to your right and then coma's like no that's not the right reasons to do this and then you say I don't think we should do this because it's getting America to be more divided we keep getting more divided these games are playing. Well, some of this goes back to, let me be a bit of a polyanna. I wish this shows why I'll never run for elected office. I think the American people, I sort of have faith in the American people, will respond to a fact.

The fact is, we have a problem at the border. Now I'm not a child, I'm a child of privilege, but if you look back at, you know, my history going back to the 19th century as Italians and Irish, they were not treated well. If you look at, I know American history, okay, if you look at how Chinese were treated in the early 20th century, how women were treated, how blacks were treated, how gays were treated, every generation discriminates against somebody and the next generation has to reverse it. And some of that's relating to immigration.

People are saying immigrants are not only bad, but they're giving American people a sense that immigrants are dirty. And every one of us, I'd like to ask a Native American, what do you think of immigrants? But the fact is that immigration is a problem. There are too many immigrants taking advantage of the system. I thought an under reported story this week about how the White House is giving more administrative authority

to immigration officials to reject people. I think that's part of the answer. We should be setting a far higher bar for who gets in here and also supporting who gets over that bar much more aggressive. You're really saying that? Yes. If people, I would think a lot of people would agree with you on that. It took us a long time to come to America. I went to Germany at a refugee camp before I came here. We had to sacrifice parents getting a divorce,

our entire money that we had, everything just to come to America. So I think a lot of people in America, as a person I was born in Iran, 10 years there, two years in Germany at a refugee camp you're in a half that finally made it here. I Value this place a ton on how long it took us to get here It was a dream that they would put then but then to be clear when you get here support for your children Food and kindergarten support for for your family in terms of medical care. There's a cost

What job is that though? I'd say partly that it's the job of the government. Why is that the government's job to educate a child? No, no to give help to an a public school. You're right. No, no public school. You're right But but what is my my responsibility when I do I do you owe me more or do I owe you more if I come here? I think both owe each I disagree. I disagree. How could you say that? How could you say that? Well, how can a person I pay a lot of taxes that person's not gonna pay a lot I just paid a lot for them to go to school. I don't have a kid wait. Let me get the straight So an immigrant is wanting to come to your house. Yes. I want to come to your country. Yes You own me the same amount as I owe you I owe you a lot. No, no, you don't owe me, bro

That's incorrect. I owe you I you want to disagree? You want to yell at me. But come across it. Maybe I'll crush you like a bug. That's it. I'd love to see it. But the point I'm trying to make to right now is the following. I feel, I feel, I owe you. I feel, I agree with you.

Okay, so that's the part where a little bit of the mindset right now is the fact that people are saying America owes the immigrant. I don't agree with that. I think, I think if I, so for example, let's just say Goldman Sachs gives me an opportunity to work for them, okay? If I work for Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs was here before I was here.

I owe Goldman Sachs for the opportunity. Michael Jordan is about, LeBron says we should retire the number 23 permanently. Michael Jordan says, listen, and this league is bigger than one player. Jordan owes the league, more than the number 23 permanently. Michael Jordan says, listen, and this league is big and one player. Jordan owes the league more than the league owes Jordan. Well, I mean, the immigrant owes America. This whole concept about America owes the immigrant.

I never came here thinking America owes me anything. I think you're misunderstanding me. I have a couple of things. First of all, to be clear, why, what I said, before I get, we will get attacked from both sides. I think the bar should be higher, but when someone gets here, there's a couple of things that go on.

To be idealistic, if you're a human being, I want to give you the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happens. It's all you get it. But there's a brutal economic piece. And that is, as someone who pays, like I say, a ton of taxes without kids. So I'm paying for other kids to go to school.

I'm paying for everybody who doesn't believe in socialism. Then I get to pay the same taxes you do and I don't. We have socialism in this country and that part of that means I pay a ton more than you do and you use the same services. But my point is just to be purely and brutally economic. A child who goes through a good education particularly at the primary level. If that child doesn't have access to food, I want them to have access to food. If they don't have access to medical care, I want them to because I want to ensure that I doesn't have access to food, I want them to have access to food, if they don't have access to medical care, I want them to,

because I want to ensure that I don't have to pay for them in the back end. To pay for someone, if a child is educated and healthy, the chance that they'll contribute, and I'm talking about money, they're gonna get a better job, they're gonna be less likely to use public services, they're gonna be less likely in older age to be unhealthy,

they're gonna pay more in taxes. So there's a brutal economic piece to what I'm saying as well. I get what you're saying. And listen, the other day, if I can find this clip, man, if I can find this, matter of fact, if I, I'm going to find that I'm going to have you play it, is so, so for me, this, this lady, a judge is talking to this this other person who her husband and her are getting a divorce. And the judge asks her about what she's going to do for, you know, finding a job, making

I'll find it here, we'll post it in a minute. I think the concept of what you're saying is public schools being offered to immigrants totally fine, of course, you know, they take them, of course, yeah, you chose to let them in, of course, you know, taking, of course. Yeah, you chose to let him in, of course. But I think it's going back to this one guy named John who got assassinated in the 60s, who was beloved by people around the world and in America.

What was this guy's name, John? He had a middle name Fitzgerald. Last name was Kennedy, right? I was talking to his nephew yesterday, excited about what he's working on. But, yeah, you've heard this. I'm not the first person that's saying Sharon Discord, it's been shared a billion times. neff you yesterday, uh... excited about what he's working on you've heard this i'm not the first person that's saying share and discuss been shared a billion times you know don't ask what your country in do for

you ask what you know what you can do for your country i think it's more we had a kind of go back to that hey listen guys like what are you doing for america uh... okay i think we're and this is where conversation helps you gotta get a job you can't go on the dole there's you, you know, if I were a king, I'd say there's a lot. Yes, yes, that's it. We're on the same page.

But I don't, but we've encouraged people to say immigrants are dirty. Immigrants are never. And so, yeah, we don't say it. We don't, we don't believe it. Now, no one's saying, oh, come on. You don't think there's a sentiment in a matter. No, I don't.

No, I don't. No, I don't. I'm talking about Mexican rapists. Let me see what he's gonna say. I don't. Mexican rapists. Mexicans are rapes. No, those who are rapists that they're sending sending their rapists, yeah, we shouldn't have

them here. Yes, I agree with that. Okay, you know, most like, you know, Bill Mars said something very interesting when you were on with them. And Bill Mars said to you face, Bill Mars said, most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are what? Muslim. Yeah, he said that to you and your center said,

okay, how do you, and you didn't argue that? You're like that, that's right, okay? So, but for, for, for, for, for you to say, we're saying that, you know, immigrants are rapists, give me a break. You don't think people have more of an anti-immigrant sentiment today than they would have 30 years ago? No, I don't.

Okay, I disagree. I don't, and I'm immigrant. I'm the immigrant talking. I'm not a white guy that's privileged. I grew up in a family that went to Vanderbilt and has got, you know, lived in a nice community. That's not this guy. I'm the immigrant.

Listen, let me take one I experienced discrimination and I'll give it to you. When I was in the Army and I'm shooting a rifle, it's a funny story, but it's a true story. I'm shooting a rifle and I got the M16 on my nose. My drill sergeant comes and says, I've never seen a nose like that in my life before. He says, where are you from? I said, I'm from Iran.

And he says, man, that's a massive nose. I said, I appreciate it. I said, drill serge, I got to tell you something. He says, what's that? He'll take me $7,000 and make my nose look like yours. It'll take you millions to make yours look like mine. Ray starts cracking up. We have a relationship together.

I go to Alabama. I'm at a waffle house, 1997. I'm going to Panama City to party at Club La Vila and Spinickers. Apparently, Club Livia was going out of business right now. Or they went out of business. On the way there to Alabama, I sit there at the waffle house. Everyone's white, wait for your shows up.

She keeps looking at me like she's never seen a creature like this before. I said, ma'am, is there something going on? You okay? Sir, where are you from? As I'm from Iran. You from Iran? I ran.

She says, where'd you run? She says, yes. I'm from Iran. She says, what are you doing here in Alabama? I said, I'm in your army. I'm in the US army. They let you in the US army? Yes.

What are you doing in the US army? As I can, I feel comfortable telling you? She says, yeah, of course, I said, I'm a spy. I'm taking all your content and I'm taking it back to Iran to train our soldiers. So that a little bit of that happens. Yeah. But to sit there and say, oh my god, I'm a victim, feel sorry for me, give me a break. We have victims. Adam's going to police us. What I said was I think there's more anti-aircraft and sentiment today than three years ago. Yes or no. You did say that but you also said that every generation we have to kind of trace back and fulfill what happened in the prior generation before that. Yeah, talked about you being Italian Irish immigrant and the Jews and the blacks and everything that

happens. It's that but this sentiment that you're talking about are you basically saying because you went off on Trump with the shithole comments, right? Where are shithole countries? Is that what you're referring to? You're saying that the sentiment against immigrants shithole, is that what you're going with this? Yeah, I mean, I can't look ahead far enough

to say where people will judge us in the future. I can guess based on history, they'll judge us for something. In terms of how we treated people, maybe how we treated immigrants, I don't know. I'm not comfortable with the rhetoric I see about immigration in this country. I would say the rhetoric has to be more fact-based. We're going back to where you started the conversation.

Both sides should say we have a problem. And that problem goes back to the Congress to say the laws should allow more rapid and more sort of dispersed decision-making about whether a 19-year-old who wants a job should be allowed across the border. And my answer is no. But isn't that sort of the attack that says? I got a fact-based statement to you. So I've been to restaurants where it's back 24-7.

You go there, okay? And then you'll go on Yelp and you'll read a review. This restaurant sucks, the owner is terrible, their customer service is horrible, they're gonna go out of business. And I'll be in the restaurant, I'm like, dude, if this review was right, why the hell am I in line for 20 minutes?

What the hell is going on with this restaurant that's supposed to be the worst restaurant in the world? If America treats immigrants so bad, why did we have a record breaking? Two million people came through the border. We're so horrible at immigrants. If we're so terrible at treating immigrants, what do you say to that? You could stop twisting my comments. I did not say we traded immigrants poorly. I think we, if you look at things like access, I wish we could rewind this thing here.

I said, people's thinking and attitudes about immigrants has changed to the negative because people like you keep saying it. Oh, for God's sakes, you ask. Because we keep saying it. Okay, we're perfect to them. We've, we've, we've, I just have one question because we're pro immigration here.

Correct. Legal immigration. We all came from my, my family were Russian Jews who came over the bullshit revolution You came over in 1992 after the Iranian Revolution you said your family right 1990. Sorry your family came over I don't know Wherever it'll be okay But you're saying that there should be certain qualifications that we want the best the best the best the brightest But isn't that

Antithetical to what is literally written on the Statue of Liberty? What does it say on the Statue of Liberty? Give me your, your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses, give me your homeless. Those aren't exactly the brightest minds out there. These are poor refugees, immigrants, who are coming here for political asylum to escape.

What is going on in other countries? Yes, so what's the deal with that? I think it goes back to the problem we have about conversations in Congress, especially with ease of movement in the 21st century, to sit there and say that everybody who, because they're poor, wants access to America means that over time, the ability to absorb poor will decline. You can't overwhelm the system. So the conversation in Congress has to be there has to be a balance between saying we live

by the standards of America and that might be a numerical judgment. That is we can absorb X number of people. That's a legal judgment. That means some people who might be qualified aren't going to get in because we can't absorb that many. But I go back to saying Democrats and Republicans can't sit down and say, we have a problem on the Democrat side. It has to say we need to have limitations.

It may lead to adjustments in law. On the Republican side, it has to mean that we're gonna allow a fair number of people here who are gonna live off the system for a while because they don't have that many skills. Maybe they come from a place where they're oppressed. I just I just go back to saying I wish we could have realistic conversations among professionals instead of saying, you know, both tribes, Democrats and Republicans say not only are they the adversarial

party, what we're increasingly saying is they are the enemy and they don't represent American values. That's in the past, I don't know, decade or two and that is corrosive. One more point here regarding skills. All right, I'm born and raised in Miami. I can't tell you how many uber drivers I run into, waiters I run into. I said, oh, how long have you been driving uber? Oh, you know, two years.

Oh, where are you from? Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, pick a country. Oh, what'd you do there? Oh, I was a doctor. What? Yeah. Okay, oh, I was an engineer. What? Right? So. Oh, I was an engineer. What? Right.

So you talk about skills. You're talking about people who are of higher pedigree of other countries that show up here. And they're just happy just because they're in a freaking America. They're okay driving an Uber. Now, obviously, they want to make more of their life. They want to do more than that. But yeah, there's a there's sort of a tipping point here where it's like you might be a highly skilled doctor in Venezuela, but now you're an uber driver in Miami. How do you grapple that? And to Pat's point, I think that proves my point.

We want to ensure that we maintain some sort of standards of immigration where people like that still see opportunity. And at some point, I would be afraid that if we flood the system, there would be fewer opportunities, our ability to take care, not take care of, but to allow for an opportunity for an immigrant will decline, which is sort of, I guess, half a Republican argument. I still think this is a great place for people to come. I mean, I look at my, this has been an acrimonious for the past 10 minutes, mostly your fault Pat.

But I look at my child's ability and feel sensibilities. And it felt a lot of fun. Growing up in Coral Gables, I fished in the canals of Coral Gables. You grew up in Coral Gables? Coral Gables, yes. Oh, well. I played Little League Baseball. I rode around in my bike.

We played in the park, and mom said, come home when the lights go on. I look at my child, and you don't know it when you're a child. But man, what an idyllic life. I don't know where you could live. And I mean, I lived in Paris for a while. Okay, let's take Paris off the table. But I'd look at that and say, boy, I hope every immigrant and every American gets that opportunity. It was awesome. I never caught anything, but that wasn't the point. It was a lot of fun to come down here. So let's wrap this up before we go. Let's wrap this up before we go.

Let's wrap this up. January 6th, how much credibility is behind what they did with, you know, every day on TV watching and correction and correction and correction. And I got two more and then we're wrapped up. Not wrapped up with the whole episode, just this segment. We're wrapped up with this segment.

Yeah, we're wrapped and then we can go on events. So we're gonna give it a go. You're giving me hope that we're right. It's like, I need to, we're going, we We can go in the sport. So we're giving me hope that we're like, I need to go. We got one more hour, Phil. Well, when the iceman on the side, as they say, it's 12 o'clock somewhere.

I know you used to 45 second seconds on CNN. We go two hours here, but um, generally six. Was it, was it a, you know, a shit show they're just trying to, you know, make it look like big than it really is. Or was it credible? Did they waste a lot of time and money? Were they trying

to divide? Was it a good idea? Was it not a good idea? I think the investigation, the DOJ investigation into the individuals who went over into the Congress is worthwhile. It's hugely, it may be the biggest investigation they've ever conducted in terms of the number of people you're looking at who were involved. If you wrap in election denial, I think the political investigation is worth it, because the prospect that people will go into a future election and do the same thing, I think, is worrisome.

I tend not to be sort of the sky is falling, but I would not want to encourage people to say it's now acceptable political rhetoric to say the election was stolen from me. And Mitch McConnell supporting legislation that sort of changes the game on this, I think, is an indicator of their people on both sides of the aisle. A little bit worried about attitudes in America on elections, election denial. That's different from how culture dealt with it. I think it once again divided culture into saying, we ought to immediately prosecute people in the White House.

Try that trial. Can you show me consistently how all these people told somebody to go break a law and break a criminal statute? Or do you think that? I thought the coverage encouraged people to say, this is the only thing that's important in America right now. It's important, but there's a lot of other things going on. It's not the top thing I worry about.

So I thought some of the investigative work was valuable, especially in terms of not only holding people accountable, but looking forward and saying, how do we change laws to ensure that election denial isn't part of the American political culture? In terms of cultural coverage, I'm like, this is like, whoa, this is overwhelming too much, too much. How about the tomb peachments? I thought, I'm going to say this again, I thought the investigation that Robert Mueller

conducted was serious and worthwhile. As someone who did foreign policy for a lifetime, suggesting that it's okay to encourage foreign powers, Russia or others, to inject information into an American election, that is just, that's needs to be investigated. People who attacked Mueller for not filing charges, including people that I knew at the FBI who were on Mueller's team, Mueller was the most straightforward, the best leader I ever saw in government.

He looked at this and said, again, you gotta look at both sides of this argument. I'm not sure that we should or can prosecute these cases. So worth investigating, but I thought Mueller's decision was entirely defensible in terms of coverage. Man, again, we made it the only thing people talked about in the midst of serious conversations we should be having about why our educational standards are modest in this country. Educational standards are modest in this country. Educational or a healthcare in this country is excellent. Access is still compared to our pure countries.

Okay, life expectancy is dropping. Things like obesity and diabetes, you know, you might call me again a polyanna, but if you want to talk about stuff that affects an American citizen, healthcare affects an American citizen a lot more than a Russian impeachment will. So I thought the process was appropriate. The attention was a bit much. In terms of the final, the second impeachment, I thought that was an egregious abuse of

presidential power to ask a foreign leader to investigate a rival's son. I think Hunter Biden is worthy of the investigation. That is some dirty stuff. But you can't have presidential authorities pressing the president pressing a foreign leader to conduct the political investigation against or a criminal investigation against the rival That's a no you can't do it. That's you can't do that. So when Obama did it and he got cop recorded I'll do it after the election he shouldn't have done that either. He should be investigated today. That's what you're saying I decided on remember you You don't remember when Obama said when he's talking on national television, he got

recorded saying, we can first let's get this election knocked out of the way. Then we'll address that now. Talk about Russia with Russia and the invasion of Crimea. Yeah. I mean, I was like, it's fun. Like, I don't know what channel you watch. If you didn't see, well, I can kind of see what channel you watch. If you didn't see this was the... I know. So you just made an assumption that's on. I don't know what channel you watch. If you didn't see what I can kind of see what channel you watch if you didn't know

So you just made an assumption that's on a I don't I don't have a TV. Yeah, but this this right here was On a hot mic he gets caught this By the way, this this is the problem. This is the problem that we have and not and this is nothing you're the problem The problem that we have is the fact that the if guy like you, you're back on a CIA and FBI and you didn't see this and this was all over television. Time out, time out. A president asked a country overseas to conduct an investigation to a political rival.

Is, are you saying that's what this is? Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you wanna go to what Biden did when he told you you're a crane guy what he's going to do? Like if you play this card, you're going to lose a lot of it. Again, this is the part why I'm doing this. Some people are watching this and they're saying, Pat, we don't give a shit, why are you doing it?

I'm not doing it for you, I'm doing it for me. Here's why I'm doing it. Stay consistent is all I'm saying. Because to the left, Trump is to the left, what Hillary is to the right. Okay? Yeah. Let's just kind of put it there. For me, if I'm going to go hard at someone, I have to go hard on the other one as well,

that maybe he's on my side. Well, unless they're not equivalent. Oh, so to you, to you between the two, I'm assuming the lesser of the two evil to you is Hillary. You're not. I'm doing facts. Did someone ask a leader of another country to conduct a criminal investigation against the child on the right? If we do that, I can bring a million and one different things that Biden has done and Obama has done and show it to you, and then what are you going to say?

So this is a conversation about give me space on missile defense and you want to say that's the same show it to you. And then what are you gonna say? So this is a conversation about give me space on missile defense and you wanna say that's the same as asking for. Do you want me to pull out with Biden to all the guy that hears what we're gonna do with the view? I want you to answer the question, I just asked you. Are you saying this is equivalent or not? I think every one of them at the same level,

if you're asking for a favor that we'll do this afterwards, it should be held at the same level. I disagree if the favor is about a diplomatic conversation that doesn't involve a political rival. I see that as diplomacy. Now you might not like the diplomacy, but that's not what so. So, so, so, so let me, let me ask you this.

Why, why the infatuation with Ukraine, all of a sudden, with US? Why? This. Why are we, why are we all of a sudden? So, so, Iran on the other end, you know, people are there getting killed, plummeted, you know, they're getting crushed, they're getting destroyed, and our attention is only on Ukraine, we're not thinking about that. Why are we doing what we're doing with Ukraine and not some of the other places?

You know how many American people are sitting there saying, oh, so when he said that, and the link between the sun and Ukraine and himself in the past, all the stuff that pulled up and the New York Post story was hidden, and afterwards, Mark Zuckerberg said that I was talking in communication with FBI, which he probably didn't even think he just said that. And then, you know, the story of Pfizer announces the vaccine is ready three days after the election is over with all of this stuff. You're sitting there watching, saying, listen, man, I have a hard time believing what the hell is going on here. Now I see what's going on with Ukraine. You have to understand the same way when you say the conspiracy theorists from both sides, the left's got its own conspiracies

that they follow, like Hillary said, the election was a fraud. Yeah. For three, four years, all I'm saying is, if you're gonna say that, we have to stay consistent. We can only see, we can't only see when, when people were saying Trump, Russia, Russia, Russia, I said, hey, if you think that's the case, prove it,

I don't know. There's this recent guy that went viral, viral Tate who's all over the place Well, do you know what Tate did? I said listen, and there's a big difference between you know Breaking the law and offending people that's correct if he offended you I don't give a shit if you found I'm offended on daily basis if he broke the law That's got to go with the court. I have no control over that. I don't have the investigation So when a rush I think took place what Trump Trump Trump Trump Adam shift. Okay no control over that. I don't have the investigation. So when a Russia thing took place, what, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Adam Schiff, okay, that's the, I don't have access to that.

Do your job and prove it, right? That's right. And then three years later, Durham comes out, this was a dossier paid for Hillary 35 million American people. Now you're not, no longer talking about a CNN. You just got to rip. Forgot about Russia.

And for three and a half years, that's all you guys ever talked about. What happened? Oh, you guys, excuse me, I'm not, you're talking to Philip, no, you're not talking to CNN. You guys, you guys being CNN is what I'm saying to. I'm a contractor for CNN. I'm not an employee. I go and speak what I say. I attack

President Trump. I've said negative things about Hillary Clinton. So I'm not here as a spokesman for CNN to be very, all I'm saying is, all I'm saying is when you're talking about holding one side to the fire, we have to hold all sides to the fire. If we're going to do that, we have to stick consistent. That's all I'm saying. Well, CNN is clearly paying the price for having an agenda and being biased and not holding both sides accountable.

I think what you said is there is a major difference between fact and feelings, right? So Trump pissed off a lot of fricking people. That doesn't mean that he was a criminal i'm not saying that he's not a criminal that needs to be proven that's not my job though right my job isn't to prove that if that's if if the lady in in new york what's her name the judge and if if she if her in new york she wants to file a lawsuit a quarter of a billion dollars towards Trump and lose licensing. Guess what? Hey, it sucks.

But guess what? You know, they can do that. And then you can come back and make the argument. You're going to have to spend a lot of money on legal fees. So maybe that's a way of getting them to spend a lot of money on legal fees. And she did campaign on the fact that if you've elect me, I'm going to sue the Trump family. Yeah. She kept her promise.

To me, that's like, you know. And there's where politicians, and this is one problem with the American political culture where people involved in civil and criminal cases are elected politicians who argue during a campaign that somebody should be prosecuted to me is that's something that should be borderline and legal. Suggesting that somebody, whether it's Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, should be locked up, should be the judgment of people at the Department of Justice.

Those people should be separate as they are, or are supposed to be, if you look at Bill Barr, for example, from the White House and political pressure. We have gotten way too comfortable in this country with people saying, not only do I not like my adversary, I said this 10 minutes ago, but my adversary is an enemy to America, and they should be in a jail. That's third world lock her up. That is, yeah, or saying again, that people who too quickly say more a logo,

he should be charged. Right. Well, that's a legal process that should have involved fact by professionals, not politicians, and I object to the January 6th committee saying, I wanna make referrals, they should not be telling the department of justice, doesn't have an investigation and know how to the January 6th committee saying, I want to make referrals. They should not be telling the department,

like the Department of Justice doesn't have an investigation and know how to look at an investigation in facts. As soon as you make a referral, one, you're saying politicians think something should happen. And as soon as the Department of Justice moves, and I don't think the January 6th committee has thought about this enough, somebody on the right's gonna say,

you're doing that because Congress told you to, not because that's a good case. I think January 6th ought to do their own investigation and say nothing to the Department of Justice beyond here's some documents if you want them. Can I just ask one quick question, a simple question, just very simple. Trump, okay. I have a lot of conversations with people wildly different opinions on Trump. Okay.

So people on the left literally think he's the devil reincarn reincarnated, he's the worst person that's ever list, lived, he's evil, like the worst, the worst, the worst, the worst. And the people on the right, I'm talking about fringe elements, people on the right, literally the next Messiah, greatest president we've ever had in US history, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, don't hold a candle to Trump,

talk about fringe, fringe, fringe, fringe. Clearly there's some middle ground there. He's not, I don't think a candle to Trump. Talk about fringe, fringe, fringe, fringe, fringe. Clearly there's some middle ground there. He's not gonna think either one of those. I want you to put on your complete unbiased hat. You've been covering Trump since forever. Where do you genuinely think Trump stands? He's not evil, he's not a Messiah, where's Trump? I look at in my relatively short lifetime,

I was born in 1961, some of the people who showed characteristics of leadership in my relatively short lifetime I was born in 1961. Some of the people who showed characteristics of leadership in my lifetime, LBJ, Kennedy, I thought in some way, in Jimmy Carter, who I did not think was a great president, but has some, has leadership characteristics, Ronald Reagan. George H. W. Bush has a man of great humility, a lot of wisdom. I thought a courteous man, a thoughtful man, a curious man, which I think is important for a president.

If you look at the, defining this by characteristics of leadership, intellectual curiosity, experience, humility, ability to deal with an adversary and rise above the fray, I don't see those characteristics in President Trump. I'm looking for a characteristic that would leave me to say to someone in a polypsych class or to a nine-year-old, you should emulate that characteristic. And I'm including characteristics, personal characteristics, like temperament, like courtesy,

like kindness, like humility. I just didn't see him. I don't disagree with you, but isn't that why he was elected? Because he wasn't the traditional political figure. He's a businessman. He grew up in the Ruppentumble streets of New York. He had to make it. Isn't there something to be said about that? I do, but I think that's because politicians have encouraged Americans to have started say, if I take Americans down, which is easier than taking them up. If I take Americans down, I can win votes.

By taking them down, I'm saying you can sit there and tell people that person's evil, that person's your enemy, that person does things that are un-American, as opposed to looking at the country as Reagan did, as LBJ did, and saying, I can go to a higher place, which sometimes means telling people things they don't want to hear. A shining city on a hill.

Correct. Yes. Which I, you know, I talked about my childhood. to hear. The shining city out of hell. Correct. Yes. Which I, you know, I talked about my childhood. I lived on a shining city on a hill. It was awesome, my childhood. I wish my dad and mom were around. They're not. I would tell them once again, I loved them.

I didn't tell them enough. They just did me a tremendous favor by the environment I had and the education I had. I think that's a good reminder for everyone out there to just tell your parents you love them. So listen, I appreciate you for going through this with me while there to just tell your parents you love them. So listen Appreciate you for going through this with me while I'm going back. No, I'd still be in DC, but that's okay Well, this is how we do we all of a sudden I've seen you do it way worse than that, you know, you know

You know if people come to this show they kind of know we're gonna talk and it's a long form you get a chance to talk We get a chance to give our arguments and then I think at the end of the day the audience wins And that's what the outcome is there's a few topics. I do want to talk about We get a chance to give our arguments. And I think at the end of the day, the audience wins. And that's what the outcome is. There's a few topics I do want to talk about. That's more current. I want to talk about Iran. What's going on there? I do want to talk about the North Stream pipeline. What's going on there? The whole comment from the PM of Poland, Sabotized. And that's some very, very interesting stuff. And then a few other topics that we may hit up here that we have. But prior to doing that, I want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Aura. Aura is somebody that we decided to team up with a couple months ago for specific reason.

I've been in the financial industry now for 20 some years. Every meeting I'm going to write now, all they're talking about is cybersecurity, cybersecurity, cybersecurity, our amount of money we've spent in cybersecurity. The last year has gone up every single year. Cybersecurity is officially the number one crime. Cybercrime is officially the number one crime effective 2021 ahead of home robbery. One and a half million incidents last year,

nearly $52 billion of losses to American people just last year because of cyber attacks. And it's not slowing down. It's just getting more and more. Now, I think a lot of people when they see this, they're kind of like, well, it's like selling insurance path. Why do I need insurance? I'm only 32 years old. Nobody thinks they need insurance until they find out they have cancer unless they realize somebody in their families about to lose their life. And then you sit there and say, man, I wish I had insurance.

Just trust me. I've gone through this many times. We had our guys go on or and run a test for themselves. On the dark web, one of our guys, Aaron had 40 of his passwords on the dark web, and that's what aura does. So when it comes down to fraud, every second matters, connect your credit, bank accounts, and get notified of any changes up to four times facet and auras competitors. Their VPN allows you to stay anonymous online

by keeping your browsing history and personal information safe and encrypted. And their anti-virus software will block malware and viruses before they infect your videos. Protect you and yourself from America's fastest growing crime. Try Aura free for two weeks and see if any of your or your family's personal information has been compromised, you can start your 14-day trial today at aura.com forward slash pbd once again aura.com forward slash pbd aura spelled a-u-r-a.com forward slash pbd we'll put the link below in the description and chat for you to go out there and take advantage of it. So having said that let's go into I want to do

Nord Stream pipeline five. I think we should go right and more current and it's a little bit concerning because this summer saying could be the tipping point to War meaning the nuclear war that maybe there whether where they were not I don't know, but let me share three stories from you. One is from insider The other ones from the post-Malennial and another ones from the insider so first one German lawmakers break Europe silence silence on suspected north stream pipeline Sabotor to point the finger at Russia on Tuesday Swedish and Danish authorities reported three leaks and a pipeline is running under the Baltic sea from Russia to Germany Two in north stream one and another in north stream to the two senior German lawmakers are pointed a finger at Russia Over suspect the sabotage of north stream natural gas pipelines

Rodrik keys with her a government spokesperson for Christ's crisis prevention said that the attack was an act of sabotage of north-stream natural gas pipelines rod-rich keys weather a government spokesperson for christ's crisis prevention said that the attack was an act of sabotage by russia to deterrent threatened europe merry agnès stragg Zimmerman chairman uh... chairwoman of the boondist ag defense committee also named russia in comments and suspected attack the c.i.e. warned germany weeks ago about potential attacks on north stream very weird

CIA is saying hey we have a feeling someone's gonna attack so not a weird for me there that you're like a Houdini type of situation so not Houdini North Stradamus type of situation so next one European official says sabotage likely cause of suspicious north stream leaks that's a post uh... Danish prime minister metafredrickson noted that while it is too early to conclude whether the incidents were act of sabotage there are three leaks and therefore it is difficult to imagine that it could be accidental

polish prime minister matuas morawiki said we don't know all the details of what happened but we can clearly see that it's an act of sabotage. To make it, he's not even saying maybe. He said, we can clearly see that it's an act of sabotage related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine. And Alasbana Ali is the same story again comes with some of the commentary where the reporter

said, but will you, when Joe Biden was asked February 7th, I'll read this on what happened between Joe Biden, when his question was asked, pretty intense. President Joe Biden, on February 7th, promised to prevent Nord Stream 2 from becoming operational if Russia invaded Ukraine. He said, if Russia invades, then there will be no longer a north stream too. We will bring an end to it. Reporter asks, but how will you do that exactly? Since the project is in Germany's control, Biden, I promise you, we will be able to do that that seven months ago.

So based on what you've been following this story with and where you're at, what are your thoughts on what the hell is going on with north stream one and two who's behind it? The one of the earliest victims in times of tension is the is the difference between what I think and what I know and One of the things I learned at the agency is man be very careful about crossing that line I think the White House has been more cautious and some of the people in Europe who spoke. I think Russia did this basically because you're looking at multilateral warfare. We define warfare in terms of kinetic. I put bombs on something. I put artillery on something clearly going into the winter with Europe that's dependent on on gas from Russia. You would say on the surface, why would Russia want to sabotage pipelines

where they're making money? They want to tell Europe, this is very simple. They want to tell Europe when it gets cold. And you need to heat homes, careful. Where your source, and if Nord Stream 2 comes on, we're gonna continue to be your source. And this is what can happen if you guys don't sort of continue to import and also don't back

off on Ukraine. So I think Russia did it, but you know, that's what I think. That's not what I know. I would want to have basic questions. For example, technical questions. When do we get overseas drone so we can see how these things were sabotaged? Can't engineer tell me what the causes of those sabotage might have been? As a non-expert, I'm not my degree in English literature. I want to know what exactly happen

and whether that could be explained by natural means or whether an engineer can guarantee to me that that's an external, that's an external event that was manipulated by a human being. So I think Russia did it. I think the reasons are pretty basic. I think Biden over-promised. I'd close by saying this is where foreign policy is interesting. One of the things that's fascinating, and three-dimensional, for example, there's got to be a lot of conversations.

And these include people like the Saudis, a lot of conversations about energy security in Europe going on 10 years. You know, that's where Anthony Blinkens involved. Here's a really interesting conversation. I would have liked to participate in, if ours still in. Let's anticipate that Putin will stay aggressive over the course of time. What are we learning about vulnerabilities of Russian forces in Ukraine?

How do we push NATO without additional American backing to say, we want to forward deploy in places like the Balkans in Poland to take advantage of those Russian polar abilities if Russia does, there's a lot of planning going on here. And I think the gas pipeline is the part of it, because you are guaranteeing that Russians, or that the Europeans realized they're under threat.

So now is the time to go in and talk to them and say, we better prepare for the next threat. And we don't know if that's Balkans, we don't know if it's Poland, but be careful. A Baltic's not Balkans. Quick follow up. By the way, I completely appreciate what you say about what you think versus what you know. I think that's something we could all kind of take away from this episode is like, you might think something,

but you don't know for sure. Settom.md. Exactly. I mean, we would say America. I've been there too many times. I mean, it's such a powerful comment right there. Just a quick question. What are the chances that the US actually did this?

You know, what is that numbers at 1% is at 5%, what is that? Zero. Zero. You don't think that that's- But again, let me be for people who say, us actually did this, you know, what is that numbers? Is it 1% is it 5% what is that? Zero. Zero. You don't think that that's. But again, let me be for people who say, you know, you're just, you're just supporting the government. If you do that, you're going to have to have an executive order.

That executive order is going to have to go through a chain of command. You're going to have to not have a number of people who are involved in the actual sabotage operation. So going to my college stats class, what's the likelihood that not one of them has or will ever speak? That's, if you're doing the multiplication numbers, that's just not possible. I never saw a secret that didn't get out.

Nothing we did that I can remember. I'm sure there's some minor things, but the major operations we ran, I can't think of any that didn't get out. Fair enough. And then regarding Russia, I'm not the Nord Stream guy, but I do understand supply and demand and imports exports.

If they're making money from Europe, now they're not gonna be able to make money because these Nord Stream won't be working. Europe's still gonna need to import energy and oil from other countries. Now they're gonna go to Saudi, or they're gonna go to even America, or they're gonna go to Iran,

or they're gonna go to Venezuela. Whoever's pumping out oil, doesn't that just kind of shoot themselves in the foot if you're Russia? But I think if this is where the job I used to have, which is basically understanding the world through the eyes of an adversary, to avoid that the analytic phrase

is to avoid mirror imaging. Don't think the opponent sees the world the way you do. The adversary, even the person you're just negotiating with, what I think, not what I know, but what I think is that, and Putin, as almost as much as said this, is that his priority is the restoration of the Russian Empire. I mean, he talks about the decline of the Soviet Union and then the Soviet Union is one of the biggest

tragedies of the 20th century. So if your priority is geopolitical and let's restore sort of a Zara state and the cost is economic pain for a few years, I can see him prioritizing, I want to restore basically the empire. And if it costs us a couple of difficult years, a difficult decade, I have a bigger vision that goes, it's like the alcatagai is used to tell me, I know this sounds like a strange parallel, but I'll never, never forget it. They used to look at us in interrogations, and one of them said once, you know,

you think of life in terms of years. This, the caliph that may not happen in my lifetime, maybe not my kids, but it might happen in my grandchildren's lifetime. Americans don't think like that. Right. But some of our adversaries do. We have a yellow mentality here. They've got a legacy

mentality. So, so go ahead. Partly because life is so good here. Pat, what was the the quote that you've referenced before? You guys may have all the watches, but we have all the time. I believe is that what they said about it? Yeah. Yeah. The Taliban, I believe. So, so okay, so let's let's process this on on what we're saying. That Russia is behind this, and some are saying US is behind this. It's really the two main parties that people are saying is behind this, is Russia or US. He said zero US, but yeah, so clearly we know based on what we 100% know,

not what we're speculating, what we 100% know to take your argument. We know that the person in charge, his name is Joe Biden, said, if Russia invades, then there will be no longer a north stream too. We will bring it to an end. So the only thing we know for a fact is that only one person in the world out of 7.7 billion people only said this, putting them and say that only one person in the world out of 7.7 billion people only said this, Putin didn't say this, only one person said it and it's the leader of the free world, the president of the United States said this, okay?

Can we find that? And then, and then, not just to quote the video, you can find a quote, okay. And then the reporter says, but how will you do that exactly since the project is in Germany's controlled Biden? This is what we know, not what we think. I promise you, we will be able to do that. Okay, so now let me go to the other part. So for me, if you can find this clip somewhere, it's easy to find. It's what i like to if this is the one just place of the audience can see it because it's not just a it's exactly what i'm the border of ukraine again then uh... there will be uh... we there will be

go back go back go back go back from the beginning so they can hear the whole thing if uh... if russian vades uh... that means tanks of troops crossing the border of Ukraine again. Then there will be no longer an orc team too. He said we will be the leader. Okay, this is. Listen. How will you do that?

The ladies' confusion. Exactly. Since the project and control of the project is within Germany's sense. Exactly.. I promise you we'll be able to do it. Okay, so you commit today to turning off and pulling the plug on Nord Stream 2. You didn't mention it. You haven't mentioned it. You can pause it. the people that made debate the argument that it's really Russia are going to say, where's your proof? Because this is proof. And your leader said this. This is a threat. And we did it. We did invade Ukraine.

So guess what? If the person that said they're going to do it, it's him. So we can't say 0%. That's my opinion on the we can't say 0%. So now let me go to the other part. On Nord Stream 2 pipeline, we have to look at who owns most of it, right?

If I own a company and I have a leverage over you, and if I hurt the company that I'm the majority owner of, I'm an idiot. I'm a qualified idiot. I'm not a strategist. I'm not a Sun Tzu guy. I'm not a, you know, one of the greatest generals of all time. I'm a qualified moron if I hurt the company that I have control over, and I lose leverage. Specifically, this kind of leverage.

We're not even talking about like company free enterprise capitals, and this is like leverage at the highest level of leverage where you get to control the world, Europe specifically where their winter is coming. So let's see who owns the majority of Nord Stream pipeline. If you can kind of show the shareholders here, and zoom in, go a little bit closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, a little bit more closer.

So 51% is owned by Gazprom. So let's see who is Gazprom. They're the largest supplier of natural gas in the world, accounting for approximately 15% of world's gas production. It was established as a joint stock company in 1993 and partly owned by the Russian state over 50% Interesting Coractivities include exploration production transportation. Papa. Papa. Papa. You can read the rest of if you want to do it number two Is another company called winter shawl D 15.5 percent now this company with the merger of winter shawl holding a G and D a

Doge German Erdog a G two successful companies, what a long tradition, have formed Europe's leading independent natural gas and oil company. Huh. Okay. Cool. Let's look at the next one.

The third company is Eon, Aon, Eon, P-E-G, Infrastructure, AG. This is an international investor-owned energy company, which focused on energy networks and customer solutions as one of Europe's largest energy companies, but it's not really one place. It's all over the place. Five go German company. It's a German company. Next one, envy, Netherlands, gas Sunim, okay, 9%. So as I can keep going on and go to the next one, NG by people of, you know, this next one is a base stat of a, you can see which one is this one as well. Anyways, but the point is 51% is Russia. So if you cause this and your Russia, you will go down in a history box as the biggest

idiot of all time for giving up the leverage that you have during a time like this. So if a lawyer wanted to make a case, simply to a better, because he's gonna go on Las Vegas and bed over a 30-year bed, because eventually CI is gonna leak this in a movie and we're gonna watch an RGO in 2052. That's gonna say Biden was really behind this and we're gonna say no, shut.

And I'm 74 years on, did you see that? I'll be dead, so I'm at this point. So at this space, you're probably gonna be alive because we're living a long time today. But the point is, this is pretty creepy for the people that are saying US could have done it because there is documentation and proof that US could be behind this. What do you say to those crazy conspiracy theorists? I'd give them a pretty simple answer, which is let's go back to fact.

Right now we're making judgments based on no access or very little access to the places where there's damage. We said it's either Russia or the United States. I'm not an engineer, but you took one off the table that I would not take off the table because it's not a fact. People say there's no way this is some kind of industrial accident. I'm like, how can you tell me that if you haven't had access to the places where the event happened?

So first of all, getting back to the earlier point, the president should never have said that because we don't own this. The Americans like to say we can snap our fingers and do stuff, the Europeans and the Russians. But he didn't say it though. He did, a lot of things. He shouldn't say, he thought a person

would alive to the Israel. He can't deliver on this. But my point is, I would say, and this is why attention spans in in America difficult. The right answer is like the right answer on the Russian investigation. Let's look at some facts. And when we gather those facts, including undersea access to the locations where this happened, we will draw conclusions about what happened and start reacting to it. But saying we're going to do XYZ based on no definitive answer about what happened.

I don't get this. I mean, I get it politically. You have to give the American people an answer. But analytically, you don't have a fact. So you just jumped from what I think to what I know and you're going to base policy on that. I don't, not me. I'm an analyst. I wouldn't do that.

Well, I'm just analyzing what my president said. Yeah. It's my president. So going back. I have to follow my president because my president publicly with a microphone in front of him, he's the guy that's my president. He's your, he's our president, right? He said, if they invade Ukraine, we will shut it down.

The lady said, how exactly when you don't have control over it, he says, trust me. Well, he's, he's wrong. He doesn't matter where he's right or wrong, that he said it to. That's a fact. Yes, he does. It does matter because it does matter whether he's right or wrong, that he said it, dude, that's a fact. Yes, he does matter what he's right or wrong, because you can't do this. The right answer is the difficult answer,

that is you go to the Europeans and you go to the non-Russians who have pieces not only of the pipeline, but also have to deal with heat during the winter and say, we have to have a long-term solution, which is alternate access, and we have to have a short-term solution, which is what do you wanna do in November?

And if we think we can tell them, your people are gonna be cold. We don't give a shit, cause the president said we're gonna shut it down. American arrogance at play. The first question is to the Europeans, who probably also have better ideas than we do, cause they have to deal with this every day.

They know what political opinion is, they know what the attitudes of populations who have to be called is. What do you think we should do? And let's start maybe taking somebody else's lead once in a little humility. Let's go through some case study. Okay.

Pearl Harbor happens. FDR gets up and says, they're gonna pay a price for this. Well, he dies. The next leader comes in, Truman Nuke. Okay. Boom. Catastrophic. What happens over there? Right here, Oshima. The next leader comes in Truman Nuke. Yeah. Okay. Boom.

Catastrophic. What happens over there? Right, Hiroshima. Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Iran didn't fear Jimmy Carter at all. They saw him as a weak man. They didn't see him as a leader. The day Reagan gets elected, seconds later, they release prisoners of war because they believed his threat. And Homeni said, hey hey guys. Let's kind of not mess with this guy

I know he's an actor, but I don't think he's acting right now. Let's let's release these guys By the way so far there's two Democrats one Republican. This is not George Bush hey 9-11. I don't want to do the conspiracy stuff with that part But he comes up. Hey, here's what we're gonna do. Okay Trump hey North Korea. I dare you, see what we do. Okay. So you have to believe the threat when a president says a threat, whether we like it or not, whether he's your president or not,

whether you voted for him or not, he made a threat to Russia publicly. If you invade Ukraine, here's what we're doing. So now, when you make a threat, you have one of two choices. And we've all been in this position before. We're at a bar, we have won too many drinks. And we tell the guy, if I'm a kicker, say something. And the guy says it again like shit.

I either have to kick his ass. Or I have to walk away and it sucks when you're in that position. Well, when Biden says it to 7.7 billion people, he has to follow through with his threat. So you have to respect the fact that if he is behind this, at least your president, our president, follow through on his threat. So respect to him for following through on his threat. So now, let's just say it is him. Let's play the game for shits and giggles because it's entertaining and we're having fun with it. I'm gonna kick your ass.

Say something, Philip. Say something. So let's just say he is following through on his threat. Number one, you know who respects the fact that he's following through on his threats in a dark way. Putin respects the fact that he followed. I would agree with that. If he met, yes, yeah, Putin sitting there behind clothes, they're saying this mother, he's probably in his own Russian

way, you know, he'll say something like that. Okay. So now, but Putin has also made some threats. Okay. Putin's also said, we will use nuclear if you keep supporting Ukraine. Okay. When I saw this happen a couple days ago, I sat there and we were talking about the last podcast. What's the chance of a nuclear war taking place? I don't like to do it. It's

less than 5%, 5 to 10%. Less than 5%. You know what I mean? This kind of escalated some shit a little bit. The last 40 hours when this happened. This is not a joke. To the average person, they're like, oh, look at a bubbles in the ocean it's kind of cool it's it's a real entertain would it why we why is oil creating bubbles I be curious enough I swim there would it feel good the average person who's not following all of this stuff so that's just bubbles in the middle of the ocean now this is very very political very very strategic very very intentional and I think the chest the next move is on a

guy named Vladimir. And I think that guy knows how to play chess. And I'm really curious what his next move is going to be. Yeah, we had one move this another move this week beyond pipeline. And that is going to the formal process of taking over pieces of Ukraine, which is him saying, you're never coming in again. And we have a right to do this because this is Russian territory. I... Yeah, that was breaking news. The annexed for regions of Ukraine.

Yes. So I think there's a couple of pieces of this. The first we already know the answer, which is, the White House is total line between saying, how do I say this politely? I think a lot of American people would say, I don't want kids, American kids to die in Ukraine, but I also don't want this to be extended across Europe. We do have, I think there is some residual sense that, you know, we have a lot in common

with Europe based on what happened after, during and after World War II, but we've got to make it painful without making it cost American lives. And I think that line has been told. I think pretty effectively over the past few months, if you had said this was the result earlier this year in terms of paying to Putin, you'd say, that's better than I would have banked on in terms of how much pain Putin feels. I raised that because I think to be brutal,

I think the real question isn't Ukraine. The real question is whether the pain pill is sufficient for Putin to be saying, I can't keep doing this elsewhere in Europe. And that's where I think American policy has made some sense, make it really, really, really hurt. But behind closed doors, I wouldn't say that's the National Security council without the president,

but what I'm thinking is, I may be in for a dime, I am not in for a dollar. I am not in for a dollar. We had a very spirited debate last podcast, Tuesday, Tyler, Jedadiah, myself, Pat, Vinnie. And I said, I basically took the side that we do need to do something in Ukraine. Like we can't just let Putin take over and redraw lines in the middle of Europe.

I don't stand for it. I also agree that we shouldn't send American lives, but money, assets, resources. I stand by that. They said we don't need to be doing anything in Ukraine. Stop sending money. Get the hell out of it. What's your position? My position is we should be telling Russia

that you can't oppress people in a way that fundamentally violates American values. Without saying, again, we're in for a dollar. And for a dollar, to me means risking Americans lives by positioning. If somebody told me we should have sent the 80 second airborne into Ukraine before the invasion and the Russians would have been deterred.

And I'm like, you really need to be thinking about the law of unintended consequences because that's what you think. That is not what you know. And if a sabotage bomb shows up, you're talking about sabotage, his bullet, and Lebanon, the 1980s shows up. And 150 US

servicemen and women die. What would you then say? I made a mistake. So I think what we've done, I think to me, makes sense in terms of both bringing pain to Russia and representing American values and the fact that we haven't done more also makes sense to me. This is not affecting everyday Americans around the dinner table and at the gas pump. So we should be involved.

But until it does that, my definition of kinetic is an American's life is being fundamentally changed. Afghanistan, yes, Iraq, no. I would say, limited is okay. This does not affect them everyday Americans' life, why you sacrificing men and women overseas to do this. What do you say about the billions that are being spent there,

whereas they could be spent elsewhere, whether that's out the border, whether that's child hunger, the money that's being spent? I personally think too much is spent on them. If you look at our spending, military spending, security spending compared to China and Russia, that we spend too much on national security as a national security guy.

But I would say this investment is relatively modest. If you go back to the earlier point of deterrence, we're spending a modest amount ensuring that Putin, and I'm not sure, I think this, I don't know this, that Putin is saying this is not exactly going according to plan. So if I'm thinking about pulling to the Baltics, especially when you look at the lines, leaving Russia now, and then people aren't that happy when you say I'm going to conscript a bunch of people who maybe don't want to go. Spending that amount of money to ensure that we don't have to spend trillions for a broader

European front, that makes some sense to me. You say Poland and the Baltics, even Finland joined NATO recently. Is that a realistic concern that Putin would expand his vision beyond Ukraine? If I were in government, I would say yes, because I don't anticipate there's a difference between capability and intent when you're in the intelligence business. What can someone do in terms of their military capability, technical capability? What do they want to do? Intelligence professionals typically overrate their ability to understand what an adversary wants to do. What does Al-Qaeda want to do? What does Saddam want to do? What would three years

ago? What does Putin want to do? I don't think that's likely in Finland, but for me to anticipate what an adversary wants to do, you better as an analyst come in and give me a damn good story because otherwise I'm going to grill your ass. How do you know what somebody else thinks? How do you know what you're going to do with your family next week at dinner? You don't know. Do you? You don't know. You are for pizza every Thursday. You didn't go next Thursday. Why is I changed my mind? Don't anticipate that you can understand perfectly what the intentions of the

adversary are unless your information is really good. Do you respect Putin? As an adversary, yes, as a decision maker, no. I respect the vision and I respect the execution, but he's put a lot of people's lives at stake, and not just being sort of a soft, but for what is not a very successful operation and doesn't appear to be on the road to executing his vision. So what's up? So what's up? What up, dog? Okay, so that's that part. Let's go to

the next topic. India and China, okay, and then we'll do Iran and we'll wrap up. India, China, there's a lot of animosity, those two countries have for each other, okay, and it's very obvious. for each other. And it's very obvious. India is the only one that publicly banned 100 apps from China in India. Okay, TikTok being one of them. India is, I think, taking 25% of apples, iPhone being made over there, Tim Cook decided to move 25% over there. I want to say it's 25% or it's going to be 25% but they're moving a lot of the manufacturing over to India. they've had over the years on business is gradually changing. 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, it's changing, where trust is going higher around the world. Modi is a pro-capitalism supporter.

What he's done, obviously, he's not a perfect leader. He's got his own flaws like everybody else does, but he's done some great work in a country with 44 different political parties. I don't know what the number is, but I think it's 44 giver-take-political parties. He's done a good job on bringing him to where they're at right now. What do you think of China? What do you think of India? How important of a role India is to keeping the world not relying on 100% of China where China can impose themselves on everybody else. And I only reason brought up India and China is because you worked in those. Yes.

I worked in India. I did not work on China, but obviously I watched it. I think we have to deal with both. And I'm a believer in typically an engagement, not because I think it's soft, but because I think if you don't want to use military power and you say you don't want to talk to somebody, where do you end up? Like I would say you got engaged with the Iranians, you have to do it because the alternative is say we walk away from the table and we have no capability to influence the outcome.

Well, you will like Iran. You want to support the government. That's not what I said. I said is here's got a few options. So I look at China, which we can talk about in a moment, and I say, I think engagement and also understanding of what the trajectory is in the 21st century. Realistically, if you look at population growth, economic growth, ability to plan decades in advance, ability to overlook when you're when you're China and looking at African

elsewhere, they don't care about human rights. We're just going to invest. We don't do that in this country in rights. We're just going to invest. We don't do that in this country in America. I think we have to figure out a way to deal with China because if you want to say, we're going to compete with them over Taiwan in 2035. I'm going to say, okay, let's let's let's play that game. I want to see it game on paper how we're going to do that.

And I want to make sure that you know the American people are going to support going across the Pacific to do that. So China's a different case, obviously, in India. I think I completely agree on India. When I used to work on India in terms of economic regulations, in terms of global engagement, in terms of politics and diplomacy, I thought huge country, huge potential, as you say, educational capabilities at the upper one. Young, 28 years old, incredible.

Incredible intellectual talent, investment also in hard stuff, like engineering and the sciences. I think engagement economically makes sense. Politically in terms of things like countering China, I look at the attitude of India on issues like populism and human rights in the country, religious diversity. Boy, I'd be cautious. I would be cautious about getting too close in terms of seeing them as a natural partner

because I think most of who? India. I think Modi does not see the world in the way we do in terms of what he sees for the future. That's a Hindu country. It's not a multi-ethnic country for him, I think Modi does not see the world in the way we do in terms of what he sees for the future. That's a Hindu country. It's not a multi-ethnic country for him, I think. And that's going to cause, if you look at the history of violence, ethnic and religious violence in India, I would not have high hopes about stability in that country over the

long term. Really? I'm not talking about revolution. I'm just talking about stuff the government does where Americans and Congress and elsewhere cringe and say wow We don't want to be in bed with those people I Man

That country has a history of who do you fear more them or China long term China? Okay. I wouldn't say fear I would say if we think we can conformable enemies. Yes, that's exactly right. That's how yeah, that's right Just just again population growth economic growth ability to plan investment in the military and geography. If you look at access to the Pacific, obviously, in Taiwan, we keep thinking, you know, we will defend Taiwan. Good luck. Good luck.

And tell the Americans that we're going to do that over course of time with the military and economics and the population of that we're gonna do that over course of time with the military and economics and population of that size Good luck the American politicians say it. I want to see it gameed out Yeah, I don't think there's any American fervor to go to war over Taiwan and and and Biden once again I think speak he said it though. Yeah, but he's again It's like when he when he got out in front of Obama saying Obama support same sex marriage. A guy speaks before he thinks. He said that and I'd say have you have you

wargamed out that in in the situation room? Good luck, especially as the years pass and China keeps growing and keeps investing. Good luck. 81 million people voted for this guy to lead the free world. And so we have to trust in the fact that 81 million people chose them to be the right guy to lead these types of situations, Biden. But unfortunately, every single time he says something, people who voted from keep saying,

yeah, but that's not what he meant. And he shouldn't have said that. I mean, how many times you shouldn't have to say that every day. You should have better things to do in your life than say he shouldn't have said that. You know what I mean? It's a little bit of a challenge when you have to keep defending the person that you

support it. But, okay, let's talk Iran. Let's go to Iran. Iran. We're seeing obviously what's happened in Iran. This is day 13. Yes, it was day 12. Today is day 13.

It's constant ongoing. The 22-year-old lady, when this whole anti-job movement started. It's become a phenomenon just to get some statistics on what's happened. Day 13 of the revolution, martyrs, 240 people killed, injured thousands, detained 12,000. Protest continue in 162 cities. Yesterday I was on Iran International News channel. They were interviewing me talking about what I think is going on in Iran.

But for you, you worked in Iran 85, this is Chomeini's era, this is post-Chah, six years post-Chah. CIA gets a lot of criticism and credit to helping the Shah become the emperor because they hurt Mossadev. You'll hear that story quite often. But then you'll also hear that DCI who was also involved in helping the show fall and home any show up.

So both ways, you'll hear some stories that have come up on the fact that support wasn't given when it was promised. And when Carter goes in there and he's like, we're gonna help you, Kissinger says we got your back. They never got his back. Revolution got bigger, it's too late. The rest is history. So from your experience, from what you know,

whether it's Mosad to Shah, the Revolution is 79, to today are the chances of a revolution happening again. And if yes, what's needed, just give me your story of Iran your experience. That's a fairly broad question. your story of Iran your experience. That's a fairly broad question. How do I break this down? I saw the security, I followed the security apparatus not in Iran, but outside Iran as an intelligence analyst

at the agency. I thought the security apparatus was brutal, aggressive. And by that, I mean, as a security professional scene, what they were willing to do in terms of supporting for example for overseas militant movements in place like Lebanon. Far more aggressive in some ways than we might be. I thought the West, and this is something I talk about a lot of people don't like this,

but I thought the West had limited ability to analyze in Iran because there's something called the halo effect in intelligence analysis that as you were looking at the Iranian opposition and making them putting halos on them, they think like we do. They want a more liberal sort of democracy. There's a theocracy now, as you know in Iran, that prevents most candidates from running. It is not a democratic system.

I think Americans tend to too quickly say, this is gonna succeed because those people are doing the right thing and everybody must think like that. Who doesn't want to have, not have to wear a job? Who doesn't want to live in a democratic society? And of course, there are a lot of people who think like that. So I think the willingness of the Iranian security apparatus to suppress the people, coupled with maybe an overestimation

in America about how many people might support the people, coupled with maybe an overestimation in America about how many people might support the regime, means that I would say prospects of revolution are modest at best. More percentage would you put on that? Less than 5%. No, 10%. I'm really guessing. That high.

One in 10, I'm talking about over the course of, let's say, 10 or 20 years. Got it. So you're not even the chance of it happening right now. It's not high numbers. No, I would look for to, analyzing one of the hardest things I saw in the agency is trying to analyze public movements. I think it's easier with social media. But I would be breaking this down into specific areas like geography, how many places are

seeing unrest, geography over time, is that going on for months to be blunt willingness of the people to take a bullet? One thing I'd like to say typically in these kinds of movements, you need some kind of leadership to coalesce around. I don't see a great amount of leadership in the Iranian opposition,

and then on the converse side, tough questions like how willing is the security apparatus to kill people over time? Is there dissonance within the military and political leadership about this? There's a lot, if I were doing hardcore analysis, which we're not doing, I'm not, I'm not denigrating this, I'm just saying,

this would take weeks to step through all those elements of successful revolution, successful counter revolution to understand whether that 10% figure is solid. But my sense going back to it is there are a lot of people who still support the regime and the security apparatus don't underestimate them. Not only are they good, they will kill. And they will kill thousands if that's what it takes.

As far as regime change in the next 10 years. Low. Iran, North Korea, Russia, would you put those in order of it in terms of... As far as regime change in the next 10 years low Iran North Korea Russia would you put those in order of in terms of regime change like Topped revolution. Yeah, not necessarily you're not saying like a new person is gonna replace Putin because that's probably gonna happen next 10 yeah, he's you're saying a regime. Yeah. Oh, okay. I go ahead I'd put around third Russian North Korea that the problem I'm facing with North Korea is that's one bullet which I don't really

I mean Russia is the same way Maybe Russia won North Korea too, Iran three. I'd have to. In terms of likelihood of a regime change. So you're putting Iran at the bottom of the list, meaning that's the least likely to happen over the next month. But among three there are volatile.

Now you give me two beers and I might reorder those. Something tells me if we had a couple beers to fill up much better. I actually think it would be a fun conversation. You know, I think, listen, to me, people think like, oh my god, like I love bringing people that we may have disagreements with,

and we can have the conversations, but I also love reading Tip On Eels' book, not Tip On Chris Matthew's book on Tip On Eels and Reagan. And you're like, these guys would go out in an afterwards of having a beer, Irish, talking, laughing, joking, sports, all this stuff. I think that's how it needs to be. You have a discourse. You know, have your debate, have your conversations, and then afterwards sit down and say, dude, we have differences, but let's talk. How's life? How you doing? How's everything? It's interesting to take you inside CNN for just a moment. There's only been, and I'm not going

to name names, maybe two people that I've been in the green room with I didn't care for. And I used to do, I'd see a Ducy and N. Reggierre now before COVID, I was on every day. The definition of the people who I didn't like in the green room is they brought the conversation and typically to dispute to the green room. I'm like, that's an amateur move. Weakened debate on camera and the debates were real. There's different, and then in the green room, what are you doing this weekend?

What's going on? Funny story, not that I disagree. He's actually a very nice guy. John Dean to talk about how pleasant and interesting the green room is. I was telling John Dean, who's a former senator from, no, I'm talking about John Dean from Watergate. Oh gosh. Who's to be blown up? I'm thinking of Howard Dean. John Dean, we're in there one day. He's a super nice guy. And a good sense of humor. I'm a runner. I'm like, man, my knees are starting to hurt me. He pulls up his pant leg and he says, you need these kind of knee bands.

These, I'm talking, John Dean from Watergate is in the green room talking about his grandkids and telling me what kind of knee bands to wear because he's got them on and then he rolls up. That's the green room. Not, what did you say on camera, screw you, you're, nobody does that in the green room except in an amateur.

And I'm saying, as you're suggesting, Tip Bonille and Reagan, we should, nobody does that in the green room except in the now I'm sure. I'm saying, as you're suggesting, Tip O'Neill and Reagan, we should have more of that in Washington. I agree. Well, we're at the end of the podcast. This is fun, guys. We have to go because you and I have to fight outside. But for everybody else that you watch it, if you enjoy this, there's a couple things I want to tell you.

Number one, I am convinced the future looks bright. I'm so convinced I can't even tell you. By the way, these hats that we customized, like literally, I've been working on these things for six months now to make it exactly the way I like it with the help of Kai and our team. It's finally here. Kai, it's a value table logo on the front. On the side of it, it says future looks bright. And on the bottom here, it says, future looks bright with the vital logo on the inside. We have them in black, red and white.

Just two days ago, we announced this on a couple of videos. They're about to sell out. Most people are ordering all three colors for themselves. There's different sizes, large, small that you can have. But I'm about to mindset of having the concept of a future looks bright around you, affirmations around you. There's a lot of mess going on right now in the world. There's a lot of negative things going on around the world

right now. But if you haven't yet ordered yours, do so before they sell out. We will obviously put another order in. But it'll take us another 12 weeks to come in. Before those of you guys that want these future looks bright hats now, click on the link below to go to vtmerge.com to get your hats.

And I suggest ordering all three and if you got friends that are Our containers ordered for them as well Final you have a book you wrote a The we were looking at the book that you wrote if you don't mind sharing that with the odds I've written a few books the last one which was a call a book called black side about say I facilities if you want to talk about it you can find me on LinkedIn at Philip mud my photos I don't have any information up because you're looking at the entire Philip Mudd corporate enterprise, including sadly the ethics office.

You're very active on TikTok and Instagram and I see you like hardcore active on you doing music videos, dancing videos, I see you everywhere. Did you know Kool-O just died? I know. 59 yourself, breaksy. Unbelievable. Blancers, paradise. Michelle Fyfe for the movie. You know the... I'll sing that for you. Higher learn. Really.

By the way, you know that guy made an impact. That was on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. Coolio. Really? Straight up. Best comment of the day. Can I give you guys the best comment of the day? Here's the best comment of the day.

Did you see it or no? I don't know. It's said, you know, Phil looks like he could be related to Adam. He could be his father or his uncle. You guys look very like you could be family. That's why I think he's a very good looking man. This is a good, good looking man here. Anyways, we enjoyed it guys.

Take care. Have a great week and be safe. We'll do it again next week. Take care everybody. Bye bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for having me. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for having me.