PBD Podcast - "Mossad Is Reckless!" - Ex-Spy Andrew Bustamante EXPOSES CIA, Mossad & China's GLOBAL Agenda | PBD Podcast | Ep. 629

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante returns for his second appearance in the PBD Podcast, revealing untold spy stories, Mossad secrets, and the high-stakes world of global intelligence. From Iran to Israel, covert ops to geopolitics, he explains why he’s vanishing from the public eye by 2027.-------📕 PRE-ORDER ANDREW'S BOOK ‘SHADOW CELL’: https://bit.ly/45wF5eH▶️ SUBSCRIBE TO ANDY'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://bit.ly/3Utzdhd🎫 THE VAULT 2025 | SEPT 8TH - 11TH | THE GAYLORD PALMS | ORLANDO, FL: ⁠https://bit.ly/40lR90L⁠ 🍋 ZEST IT FORWARD: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4jYg3Lh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📰 VTNEWS.AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time!ABOUT US: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.

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18 plus subscription required TNCs apply. It's a hundred percent true. I would have not guessed you would have said that. So I am a staunch, staunch supporter of Israel's importance to the United States. Holy shit. Absolutely. Because we needed to manipulate Europe. NATO is there to protect us.

Israel's there to protect us. How different is an Epstein versus what happens here? Mossad is way more flexible in what they're willing to bring to the table in terms of an intelligence operation other than CIA. So tell me more when you use the word flexible. Very experimental. very little oversight. Mossad actively tries to penetrate CIA, actively tries to penetrate.

I wouldn't be surprised with it. I fully... Yeah. What do you think about Tucker? So whether or not he was dad's little helper when dad was CIA, I don't know. But he certainly wasn't trained because you can see what it's like

when he sits across from a trained intelligence officer. Oh, wow. Got it. Maybe China's not the naive one. Maybe we're the naive one. Could that be a possibility? Absolutely. Don't forget about all of our intelligence assets

that are not human. bot activity, cyber activity. So you create more chaos from known opinion that are already happening in country. So if you really want an argument to get bigger and bigger, all you have to do is fuel both sides of the argument.

That's the stuff that we need to pay attention to. I know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. The handshake is better than anything I ever sized. Right here. You are a one-of-one? My sun drive, there.

I think I've ever said this before. The one and only Andrew Bustamante. What a fucking sick intro, man. How you doing, man? Every time I hear that intro, I'm like, this is so pimped. My man. So last time we were together, CIA clandestine officer, we sat down. We had a great conversation.

I think it's three years to the T end of August when we did it in 2022. And we had some follow-up conversations. You're like, I'm going to do this with the U-Tam. I want to grow this. I'm going to do this. I'm like, this guy's going to do everything he wants. And then you said in a few years, I'm going to disappear and no one's going to see me, right? So are you pretty close to that?

Were you going to disappear? Yeah. So my goal was always to do it before 2030. Okay. And then this year, in the last three or four months, we were actually able to hone it down to essentially a series of months in 2027. So in 2027 you're going to disappear. Wheels up in 2027, and then basically 2026 is just our chance to get everything rolled up.

So I remember because that would have been there. That's why I thought about five years because 22, you told me five years or 27, you're gone. So as a person who's been in this world, and by the way, it's going to be tough for you to disappear. I'm kind of wanting to hear about it. You see the interviews with you. You've got hundreds of millions of you. Your clips are probably in the billions on TikTok, Instagram, all over the place.

The way you tell stories is very interesting. But one, why do you want to disappear? And two, how to hell you're going to do it with that hair that you have? So the hair is going to go away. All of it. So all of it. I've got plans to donate it to a children's cancer nonprofit. And I'm super excited about that.

That'll actually happen in December. I'll document the whole thing. I will continue to create content, but the content's going to be further and further from. the real image of me. So obviously post in 2026 I'll create content with a whole new look because the hair will be gone and some other things will change too. And then I'm planning on moving even further back so that I'm using real voice but AI generated image. So I might be a cartoon, I might be a real person, I might be whatever. But I'm going to experiment and explore with how that goes because at the end of the day you know this as well as I do. We're only here

to feed a small percentage of our listeners. So all the virality might be nice, but it's really just a vanity metric. It's the core audience that takes action. That's who we show up for every day. And that audience, they don't really care what I look like. They don't care if I'm a cartoon. If they get the real information, the real knowledge, they move forward with it. Well, why are you doing it? Two reasons, right? First, I'm a dad, and that's where I want to put my effort first. And I always promised my wife and myself that while I build everyday spy, the company that I run, I'm going to treat it like a baby, treat it like a newborn. But when my kids get to those teenage years, I want to be able to dedicate myself fully to them. My son's 12 right now. He is still

very much a kid at heart, but he's going to get to those hard adolescent years, and I want dad to be there for him first. So, but you wanting to disappear to no longer be seen so people won't recognize you. Why do you want to do that? That's the second reason, because success brings wealth, but not enough wealth to be able to actually protect yourself the most. Wealth like you have, you know what I'm talking about. You can fly private. If you don't want to be seen, you don't have to be seen. You can have people who do things that are cutouts of the actions that you need to take. I can do some of that. Anybody can do some of that, right? We can have shell companies. We can have attorneys that do stuff for us. But I'm not wealthy enough to fly

private. So when I fly, I'm still recognized by dozens of people in the airport. They all want have a conversation, and that's the people who support me. I don't know how many of those people see me and recognize me that don't like me, don't support me. And I'm not going to stop telling the truth, as I understand it. So that means the audience that doesn't agree with me and doesn't like me, it's just going to keep getting bigger. And as I travel with children, as I, as I, you know, have to follow certain, certain rules of transparency, it makes me an easier target to reach. So, so it's not, it's got nothing to do with the business that you had, because If CIA wants to find you, they're going to be able to find you.

They're not going to have a hard time finding you. And MSS and SVR, every intelligence agency out there can find me in a heartbeat. So your concern isn't any of the intelligence agency. Your concern is the average day-to-day person that doesn't like what you have to say and they disagree with you. That's your concern. It only takes one. That's true.

And if there's anything that you learn in the military and the agency, all rights, all opportunity lies with the unknown threat. So as you get more and more unknown threats out there, like the probability is just continue to grow. So that's interesting. You're saying that. So have you so far have people come up to you negatively and said some things to you or nothing yet? I have only had one or two people say anything negative. Actually, it's interesting. Flying into Miami yesterday was the first time that I had a really uncomfortable situation. So that was one of our guys. We intentionally did that. But I had a local retired private investigator who interrupted my, my movement.

movie on the plane multiple times drag dragging his granddaughter with him to like have a conversation I was like I'm trying to politely tell him I don't want to have a conversation and then after we get off the plane he's staying there with his family waiting for me to go off the plane to approach me again trying to pitch his respectfully or he's trying to pitch you something he's trying to pitch me his private intelligence business but I mean respectfully as respectfully as push he can be yeah but still awkward yeah I can see that so there's a guy in church that every time I go to church he just waits all the way at the end says can you make this video for me can you send this Can you do? I'm like, listen, you do this, like, I want to come here and I don't want to be bothered, but it's becoming challenging. Okay, just a quick thought. When you're on the plane and you're with your family and kids, your radars are up for protection, what do you like to sit? What do you like to sit? What do you wear up? Your surroundings? What do you look at?

So we're always within three rows of an exit seat. CIA taught me very early on that you've only got 90 seconds to survive in the event of an airplane accident. So you want to be able to be able to get out of your nearest exit within 90 seconds. So for me, I kind of put. put 20 to 30 seconds maximum to get past a row of people, especially in a panic. So we're always within three rows of an exit. My son always takes the window seat. He's the oldest, so he gets the window. My daughter gets the middle seat. I take the aisle seat. My wife is on the opposite aisle from me.

And we both know that in the event of an accident, heads are getting stomped on, people are getting pushed. We're not going to play fair to get off the airplane in the event of an accident. In the event of some sort of hostile character on the plane, then my wife knows that I'm going to engage the hostile character and she's going to protect the kids. So we kind of have multiple different disaster scenarios in terms of probability. And you guys have talked about this. My answer was like this. It wasn't even a hesitation. My wife is a catastrophizer, man. She runs through this stuff and she insists that we have a plan for everything. What was her

background? She was a CIA targeter. Oh, it's okay. Got it. Interesting. So that's right. Because when I talked to, we brought up the Mendez family, right? The husband of what, the Jonah Mendez and what was his name, Tony Mendez, Anthony Tony Mendez. And then I just met another CIA, John Kiraku who was here who also I think he was married to somebody who was also CIA, dated somebody who was here, it seems like that's a pattern

where everybody kind of, it's an easier way of doing it. You know the life, let's kind of marry each other. That's exactly it. I mean, we joke at the agency that it's the most expensive dating service in the world. But you put a bunch of fucking high-achieving people together and you make them all work 16-hour days and... You're going to hook up. John said, man,

everybody was hooking up with everybody. It was wild what he was talking about. Okay. So I got a bunch of things I'm going to go through with you. I want to talk about, you know, there's some stuff going on with Nick Fuentes, with Tucker Carlson, Candace, who's a Fed, Peter Thiel report about he's a Fed, you know, J.D. Vance, you know, what happened. There's all these interesting stories that are coming out. And then some of the stuff that happened with intelligence this year so far, but before I

go into these stories that we have, Trump just said something today about him wanting to go after Schiff and Hillary Clinton with the Russia Gate hoax. And then there's also the Epstein stuff that's going on. a lot of people are talking about. I want to hear what you have to say about it, but I want to go to something else. So CIA, Andrew, so guy calls me. He says, Pat, I'm being offered to be part of CIA to give intel, okay? He's in a niche industry that a lot of people have access to him and he meets a lot of people. Think money, finance you're a lot of, in front of a lot of different interesting people. Why is that appealing to somebody like him to say, yes,

yes, I want to do this job versus why? What is the risk for them to say never, ever work with the CIA, even if they're trying to use you for a project like that? U.S. citizen, right? U.S. citizen. So this is, it's such a hard question because even when we're at CIA and we're briefed on these operations, it's really hard to understand why the fuck somebody would say yes.

It's so nonsensical to say yes to be an American citizen that works for the CIA, that supports as an asset the CIA because the bureaucracy is horrible when you're, a badged officer of CIA, a blue-badged officer, it's even worse when you're a U.S. citizen that's encrypted, that's under layers of confidentiality and compartmentalization. But people say yes, and there's two big reasons why people say yes. One, they truly believe in helping America, like legit, real blue blood, red blood Americans, and they do it a lot, Pat. It's fucking amazing, because if CIA were to call me, the only reason I would say yes

is because I worked for them in the past. But if I was a $100 million business owner and CIA said they want to meet a report, I'd be like, no, how are you guys going to keep my information safe? How are you going to keep my business safe? I've spent my whole life building this thing for you guys to piss away in one bad phone call. But they say yes. They say yes. And then oftentimes what ends up happening is the average lifespan for a CIA asset is about five years.

We say that's their useful reporting life, not their physical life. because within five years, CIA fucks up somehow. They leak their information, they don't brief the right office, and then an internal investigation takes suit, and some FBI person barges through your office door and arrests you on suspicion of working with Russians, and then it's not until you get into an interrogation room where you're like, I'm only talking to the Russians

because CIA's paying me to talk to the Russians, and then that whole fucking debacle blows up, and it's a mess. It's a mess because government compartmentalizes so heavily. The second reason why people do it is because they believe CIA is going to help them somehow. help them close a deal, help them get Intel, help them get something on their combat. That's the last thing you would think about it.

And they're never going to do it. Okay, so, but let's go with that. Where am I going with this? So you think about stories like an Epstein. Okay. So, you know, when I say Intel, of course, I think CIA. But you have Mossad, you have MI6, you have, you talk highly of India, I think, would India's intelligence. I've never heard about L.A.W.

You're starting to really speak. Well, you're bringing some attention to it. But if a person like in Epstein, where you hear stories about this guy on what things he's been involved with, you go back history at this point, people know that him and Bill Barr went to a school together. I don't know if you knew this or not. They went to a school together many, many years ago as kids. And then one of the people from that school is who later on came back and brought Jeffrey Epstein to be a math teacher, even though he didn't have the degree for it. And he kind of grows up to be who he is today. But the story with how he made his money, how he got his connection, his tie to Robert Maxwell, Robert Maxwell's tie back to Mossad, Juslane Maxwell, who was trained by her father, and Robert Maxwell being a big media mogul person, does a person like Epstein leverage his intel relationship with Mossad to get things from either Mossad or the individuals as a form of a threat and a leverage?

that's different than a CIA coming to somebody in America's and we'd like to be an asset to help us out getting information. How different is an Epstein versus what happens here? In method, in methodology, it's not that different. And it's not that different. You're basically, you have an intelligence agency that knows there's a source of information from an individual, and then they just need to find what they can use

to reciprocate that cooperation from the targeted individual. So the methodology is not that different. I would, and I still do openly say the most likely intelligence connection that Jeffrey Epstein had was with Mossad. Most likely. If he was an intelligence asset, it was probably for Mossad,

not for CIA. He's too much of a high risk for CIA. And what he would have wanted is something Mossad would have been able to supply him with where the CIA couldn't. Whether that's sex trafficking or something else, Mossad is way more flexible in what they're willing to bring to the table

in terms of an intelligence operation, other than CIA. So tell me more when you use the word flexible. So Mossad assassinates, openly assassinations. CIA does not openly assassinate. Israel and Mossad openly advocate for regime change. CIA does not do that. And then the permissions, the authorities that kind of, for lack of a better word, handcuff CIA, those authorities don't really exist for Mossad.

Massad is essentially the modern-day version of the 1960s-era CIA. Very experimental, very flexible, very little oversight because they're surrounded by an ocean of threats, whereas, you know, the United States is surrounded by literal ocean and Canada and Mexico. So we have different threat portfolios, profiles, and the difference in that threat profile is what informs our willingness to take high-risk actions. So it's interesting when you say, so are you saying back in the 60s, we were. as reckless and aggressive in getting intel as the current Mossad is? And we were as reckless without being as well

trained, well funded, or well technologically equipped. Give me an example of how reckless we were. MX Ultra. Okay. Operation Midnight Climax. I mean, we were actively drugging Americans and then putting them in brothels with American prostitutes to test mind control agents.

That's some reckless shit. Trying to get Castro's beard to fall off his face. The whole bay of pigs I mean, that's the kind of shit that CIA still can't get off its back because it was so dumb, reckless, and ill-informed. Do you think that gives a country an edge if they're willing to be more reckless than you in gathering intel and you're trying to be more proper than them?

Just a mat, take it out of the intel world and put it on the fucking school playground, right? Which bully is likely to not get muscled around? The one that will go crazy when you approach him or the one who's trying to play by the rules. No question about it. No question. And that's exactly why it works.

Who knows this? All of the five eyes, the five eyes being the five Western intelligence agencies that cooperate the closest, Canada, America, UK, Australia, New Zealand. All of the five eyes know Mossad is the most risk-tolerant and most aggressive of intelligence agencies.

And then we also know that, because of that recklessness, there's only so much we can do to reel them in. They're so reckless, Pat, they collect on us. Masad actively tries to penetrate CIA, actively tries to penetrate. I wouldn't be surprised with it. MI6, AIS, yeah. Yeah, when John was you, John Caracas said,

every time they would come around to us, he said, we never trusted Massad because they would come in, they would give gifts. And we're like, what are you doing giving us gifts? We don't need gifts. You're going to put some recording. We'd find it. We're like, what are you doing?

I can tell you, want to hear my conversation. What experiences did you have with the Massad yourself? So I was lucky to only have a few experiences because the types of operations I worked on were more sensitive than they were willing to expose to Mossad. In my senior years, in my years as a middle manager, if you will, that's when I had the most overlap with joint operations with Mossad. Always super professional, always very smart, always quiet in the room, always impeccably dressed, and always shockingly good looking, especially if they were cooperating in an operation with the U.S. because they know our M.O. They know that a beautiful man or a beautiful woman is going to distract us from better judgment. And that's one of the things that we're briefed on before we operate with Mossad. We're like, hey, just expect a bombshell to walk in and expect that they put that bombshell there for a reason. It's basic principles. Basic principle. And that's how they work. That's why they're so good, because they can literally leverage what we call primal instincts. Primal instincts and human beings, they surpassed. your religious beliefs, they surpass your education level, your age, these primal incentives that they know how to kind of set the dominoes up in place to maximize your cooperation,

unless you come in defensive. So let's go back to it. So let's talk about the recklessness you're saying of Mossad, that they're willing to go to levels that, you know, U.S. is not willing to go. We used to back in the 60s no longer. What event prevented us from being as reckless? Is it because somebody came in and they're like, well, moving forward, the CIA is going to be a very responsible intel agency, and we're going to tell everything to America.

Or, no, after the 60s, you know, you got Martin Luther King, you got John F. Kennedy, you got Bobby Kennedy, you got all this stuff that happened. The reputation dropped. Let's find a way to fix this. What was the reasoning why we went more safer than being reckless? September 11th, 2001. So not even 60s. So you coming straight to 01.

01. When we, when CIA and FBI failed to collaborate effectively to prevent 9-11, when that happened, the Congress stepped in and created heavy oversight for both intelligence agencies. The 9-11 commission that was completed in 2003 basically outlined how the intelligence agencies were forced to cooperate, forced to grow, how their budget and their operations were going to be strictly pursued and overseen by a group in the Congress and how everything would have to get briefed up through the executive branch. That transformed CIA. So they finally had oversight.

So prior to that, what was oversight? The president had the president controls CIA. That's always. It's always been the case. That's the executive branch. But what else did they have another dotted line to somebody else after 01? They had a slight, yeah, after 01, they had dotted lines to multiple people. So they were still under the executive branch, but they had a hard line to the DNI.

And the DNI had a hard line to the executive, the president. So now you have one layer of management in between the two. But then you also have this dotted line to the Congress who controls the purse strings. So prior to that, CIA was controlled exclusively by a black budget. They spend what they want to spend when they want to spend it. Well, now their budgets tied to Congress, black or not. Do you like that? I mean, do you think there needs to be a department that nobody knows about,

especially when we're dealing with the types of actors in the world today, that if they're going to have no rules and they're going to be reckless, we're going to play by the rules. We're going to get our asses handed to us. And that's my concern, man. I look at this situation, and it's kind of fucked both ways. If you take away oversight to CIA, you run the risk of a politicized, weaponized, CIA doing whatever the hell it wants to do.

And that goes for anybody else. That goes for IRS for all we care, right? But if you give increasing permissions and oversight to CIA to be more, activist, more risk tolerance, then you kind of invite more pain, more public damage, more loss of reputation in the international space. So it's a hard place to be right now, but you're asking the right questions. We, the American people, should be asking these questions. Right now, we're outsourcing these questions to whoever sits in Congress. Yeah, that's not. I don't trust that. So the recklessness, you said after 60s. So are you saying, were we still reckless in the 90s?

We were still without supervision in the 90s, which is a big part of why you started to see, you know, like the Hutus and Tootsies took over. So, so regardless, so the 9-11 event that took place, whether we were more reckless or not, that couldn't have been prevented, is what you're saying. 100% could have been prevented. If what? If there would have been, this is the argument in the 9-11 commission, if CIA and FBI would have been forced to work together, 9-11 would have been avoided. And they say that because when in retrospect, they collected all of the intelligence in both agencies and looked at it from 2001 to 2003, they saw that the fulsome profile of both intelligence collection efforts would have prevented the time, the place, and the personas

involved. But because FBI was sending messages to CIA, CIA was ignoring them, CIA was sending messages to FBI. FBI was ignoring them. They're using two different systems. They're speaking in different languages. They have different encryptions for the same sources. All of this chaos resulted in the most important stuff just sitting in the printer. Do we communicate better in the 50s and 60s, CIA and FBI versus in the 90s? No, but they had a greater, a greater chasm between responsibilities. So inside United States, FBI, outside United States, CIA. Law enforcement, FBI, foreign intelligence, CIA, sabotage CIA, drug research, drug investigation CIA.

It started to get kind of conflagrated, I think the word is, confused in the 90s and into the early 2000s. Yeah, so this, I don't know. So, okay, the level of recklessness of Israel till today, who holds them accountable if they, what is their level of lessons they can go to where a commission comes in and say, tribunal, hey, hey, listen, time out. What are we doing here? Is there anybody that holds all the intelligence is worldwide accountable or there's really? That's, that was what they hoped would come about from the UN, that there would be some kind of global organization that we would all voluntarily submit ourselves to, and then we would follow that rule. It was actually Clinton, who refused to let the

United States fall under the jurisdiction of the UN's court, the criminal court. So after he set that precedent, Israel followed, China followed, Russia followed, and that's why we find ourselves where we are now where basically anything goes if you're a strong enough, brave enough leader. Yeah, I mean, for me, I wouldn't want to be under UN because I don't even trust UN. UN is going to be having favored. So no matter what it is, bias is there no matter who you are, to believe that a person is going to be 100%. Walter Cronkite was the most unbiased. Stop it. He was a liberal. He still had his own bias, right? All of us have it. So the sooner I know what your biases are and what mine are, the sooner I'm like, yeah, I totally get it. We were talking about, you know, three years ago about you coming here or doing something. You remember that conversation we had. You know, my biggest thing was you had a timeline. And okay, we do the show, we grow it against millions of subscribers. And then somebody else to come after you, ain't nobody going to be able to hear anybody else but you. I'm like, no, that's not. I'm not, you know, you go to your thing. We had that conversation. And I've recommended you to God knows how many people. Because I think you're phenomenal. at what you do. But everybody has a bias, spouse, husband, wife, kids. Everybody has some of it.

And then you have the character and the trust. But going back to this, I'm kind of glad we're not under the UN jurisdiction. And that's what kills us, right? Would you want to do that? No, no, no. Personally, it makes complete sense. But what happens is when you look at what's happening in the headlines, and then you put mass opinion on top of what's happening, that mass opinion sometimes drones out the other more rational thought process, right? So you've got all these people who are like, oh, America committed war crimes invading Afghanistan and Iraq. According to war crime legal definition. Definition?

Yeah, we did. All war is illegal according to the war definition. That doesn't stop wars from happening. So who are you going to be? The one that gets invaded or the one that does the invading? I mean, if you kind of look at it as a binary personal decision, it makes total sense. But our enemies and our own internal... politics have made it so that people start to think that somehow a more cooperative world

is better for us when that's that is a problem that only the richest wealthiest healthiest people get to have because when you're not the richest the wealthiest and the healthiest you don't want to be yeah you don't they want it right exactly because the more order you know the less chance somebody's going to take them out right you you want that order to be in place but sometimes you need chaos to be able to move up as well right if you don't have the a bit of the chaotic situation. How do I come up as a small market? So let's stay on this.

Let's stay on this with the recklessness that they still have today versus we don't have today. Okay. If we chose to go be as reckless as them, and we get to a point where the CIA is like, look, what do you guys want to do? We keep going like this.

Look what they're doing. They're getting involved. They have control over us. I'm not playing by the rules. You guys can't bully me. I'm going to come in, I'm going to own a bunch of your Congress folks. I'm going to give them a bunch of money. I'm going to use different NGOs, charities, APAC, whatever you want to call it.

Trust me, I'm going to get that control over a lot of your guys here. And because I can do that. I'm not doing anything illegal, everything I'm going by the books. Yeah, maybe I'll use some of the methods that's going to be a little bit crazy. And for us, we're trying to be very much amicable and very much, you know, following by the rules and let's report everything the proper way. It's a chaotic situation on how you manage that sort of. specific relationship with another intel agency that can break the rules and do whatever they want

to do. And the thing is you're not trying to manage the relationship. In reality, what you're trying to do is leverage the relationship for your own benefit. That's the real reason. Is that what we do? That's why intelligence agencies cooperate. The problem is then it becomes a game of which intelligence officers are more skilled, can move fastest, and can make the bigger promise.

And that's where we start to shoot ourselves in the foot again. United States sits at the table in a joint intelligence subcommittee with the Mexicans, which is happening right now to fight cartels, right? In a situation like that, we bring the bigger budget, we bring the bigger weapons, we bring the better recon infrastructure, the Mexicans are going to listen to us. They're going to do what we want them to do, and we're going to get lots of access into their agencies. That's a good thing.

That's a win. But flip the ticket, somebody that doesn't have the same need as a Mexican law enforcement agency and all of a sudden the rules change the leverage changes yeah but where i'm what i'm thinking about what this is so if if they don't have the rules they get the intel from us like my kids my daughter will come and say my daddy sena hit me sena hit me and that's her intel okay then i go in there and then my son will say no she didn't hit her brooklyn scratched her back and then Senna reacted, but Brooklyn started it. And then she'll go like this and give me a look.

I'm like, did you do that? And I'm like, two witnesses that I believe, right? So then the question becomes, what if we rely on them for intel, but they come and give us whatever intel that they want us to know, but not the full intel that makes us overreact, but we have to trust the intel because we can't go to another person that was a witness to say, no, that's not really the full story. This is the real full story.

how do you inspect the intel that's being given to you that doesn't have another person hold an M accountable? And again, you're right on the money with the question. We have a process that we have called the corroboration of intelligence. Corroboration of intelligence. So when an intel report comes in, that is a single-sourced intel report. We're looking for corroborating intelligence, a second intel report that says the same thing

or nearly the same thing as the first intelligence report. but from a completely separate source. When you have corroboration, that's the two witnesses that you trust. That also lets you know if the first source or the second source is being honest, because if you have information that's not corroborating and they both say they're telling the truth, you have reason to doubt them both. That is a big part of why we have 36 intelligence agencies because Air Force is giving us intel, Navy is giving us intel, NRA is giving us intel, NRA is giving us intel, CIA and NSA are giving us

Intel. So even between the agencies, we're hoping to find corroboration that allows us to validate foreign sources. Oh, that's actually not what I'm asking. I'm asking if we're dealing with, you know, for example, if we're trying to get Intel, how many a CIA agents do we have in Iran right now? That's great. Exactly. Who do we have? We have Masada agents in Iran. Correct. We can't go in there, right? We did a skid a couple weeks ago, not a skid. We're in the middle of the podcast. I'm like, what if we send 200 African-American agents to Iran to act like they're Iranian, you know, Tyrone Johnson, right, Tyrone Johnson, but they're African-American. I don't if you're speak or anything.

They know you're not from Iran. They know it's weird for you to be here, right? So who do we rely on to get intel on what's going on with the scientists that are working on nuclear weapons or where Khomeini is in Iran? We have to rely on somebody else's intel to give to us, and who's intel are we going to rely on Iraq, Saudi, or Mossad? So what I'm saying is if Mossad has, whatever the numbers we've read about, low, 700, high, 2,000, and Iran just kicked out, I think, 550 of them.

They arrested him. Something happened to them. Rob, if you want to verify what I'm saying here. How do we know when Mossad's given us intel, we don't have representatives there to check to see if they're telling us the truth or not? Do we just risk believe in them? So the short answer is yes. The short answer is when you don't have intelligence superiority,

when you don't have information superiority, you have to start to take risks on the people that you think do have information superiority. Now, there are certain benefits here. Saudi Arabia and Israel both have a threat from Iran. So we would anticipate that both of them would be actively collecting against Iran. However, neither of them fully trust the United States. So we're going to be getting groomed intelligence from both of them, meaning it's going to be shaped for what they want us to know, but it's still an opportunity for us to see if one or the other is saying the same thing or something different.

Plus, don't forget about all of our intelligence assets that are not human, right? SIGANT collection, satellite connection, open source collection. There's lots of other collection efforts besides just human beings on the ground that we can use to collect intelligence. So we're now trying to find whether or not the SIGMT corroborates the Saudi report. Tell me about the SIGM. Tell me about all the three. So what I'm talking about are human sources coming from two allied countries and then a third signals intelligence that's coming from NSA.

Because NSA collects signals worldwide. Everywhere. Okay. So you don't have to be there to get that. And then you said, what was the other two SIGMT? And then... So there's SIGAN, there's open source, open source information. Those are all the analysts that can pull things in foreign languages, in English language, academic sources, et cetera, and then start to cross-reference to see what intelligence you can derive

from open-source information. Okay, but if we're getting it from Mossad and we're not there... Just a question for you. Human rights reported that 530 people across Iran that were violating espionage, Israeli Mossad. So this was June 13, 2025. 530 that they found that they were going through and they detained a bunch of these guys.

But if Mossad gives us the intel, how many CIA agents does America currently physical have an Iran right now? I don't know the answer. If I knew the answer, it would be classified, but I will say that my assessment less than what fit on two hands. Damn.

Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, you're sophisticated or rather your most rogue nations have been systematically kicking Americans out, hunting down anybody who even looks like an asset, and then publicly punishing these people to further instigate and protect themselves against people turning against their country for a long time. Now, you'll see, and I mean, it's fantastic if you do a quick search, you'll see the kind of commercials that CIA and MI6 are putting out there to try to get people to volunteer. The reason those things don't work very well is because your next door neighbor just got arrested because they think he's an American spy.

And then you on the internet, a CIA commercial says, hey, become an American spy. And you're like, fuck, no. I just saw what happened to my neighbor. I can hate the regime all day long without talking to you. What do we, like, let's just say it's Russia or Iran and somebody reaches out, right? And China, somebody reaches out. What do we give in return for them to give intel? So you're talking about if like a...

So the Russia ad, right? The Russia ad that you have, and it tells the story, it's very emotional, by the way. Remember back in the days when your father and he went through this and now you have this, do it for your country like these China ads, these Russia as that they do. Okay, so I want to give intel. What is that Iranian, that Russian, that Chinese person that's sick of their own country? What do they get in return? This is a lot like our conversation about why would an American support CIA.

A huge chunk of their motivation is that they believe they're doing the right thing. They'll take the risk, believing they're doing the right thing. Now, America never wants that. You always want to have leverage. So we try to find a leverage point. Is that leverage point money? Is that leverage point? Medicine is that leverage point.

A visa to get your family out of the country. We look at all of those options. But we have to give something right away. One of the reasons I really don't like Bitcoin is because Bitcoin has become the currency of choice for espionage around the world. If you're a North Korean trying to recruit an American scientists, you're going to pay them in Bitcoin. Well, if you're a Chinese person

trying to report to American intelligence, you're probably also getting paid in Bitcoin. In a way, I know this is not the answer, you probably expect them to hear from me, in a way that's good because there is a way to give something that if you do this and it's real, we can send half a Bitcoin

or we can send a Bitcoin over to you and it's decentralized so it can't be fully tracked of where it's coming from. Correct. So part of that, is good but the other part of it is

if okay when you were in the CIA you don't need to give this end I'm just trying to see if you knew it would you guys all know how many actual officers were in any country at any given time did you guys know that only for our

the short answer is yes for the area of responsibility we were working in the longer answer is there are different categories of officers some of them are outside of our need to know. So I would know how many officers of my caliber were there, but then there might be some of a deeper cover that I wouldn't know at all. And there might be some that were barely covered that I also wouldn't know at all. So above your rank,

you wouldn't know if they're there or not. Correct. Okay. So at the peak ever, if you were to guesstimate, what's the most officers that we had in Iran actually working? What would that be? I mean, the peak would have probably been, under the shaw, and 60-ish. Still 60s, still not a big number. Not a big number of American officers. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, but they would be running networks of locals.

So, okay, so if they're there, would they be white guys? Would they be regular guys that look like? They could be. They would be basically whatever the United States, whatever the United States was hiring at CIA, which was predominantly Caucasian back then, but there could have been women, there could have been blacks, there could have been blacks, there could have been Asians that were also recruited by CIA at the time. So it's not like they're going and finding American, Iranian, Iraqi, whatever,

to be able to leverage them to send them there. Correct. If anything, they're trying to avoid that because of the instant suspicion. So what is the population right now of Americans living in Iran today? Do we know that number, Rob? Can you pull up? What is the population of Caucasian Americans living in Iran today? White Americans living in Iran today.

Caucasian, let's see what it says, living in Iran today. Because if I'm Iran, even if I see one person, it appears there's no publicly available, reliable sources, although exact numbers are not published, past this, it suggests that thousands of U.S. citizens, including expats, dual national students and business professionals, reside or stay in Iran, often intermittently in mid-2025 during the rising detention state department issue, this is about, okay, I remember this one, the old one, this is recent. That just happened. 25,000 people. This is right. before they attack the nuclear facility. They say, you've got to get out of there.

But what I'm trying to say is, okay, even if one white guy lives in Iran, why are you here? So if I'm Iran, and I'm overly paranoid consistently, and we're like, you're either CIA, you're either somebody that's trying to give intel to another, get him out of here, right? Or arrest them.

Find a way to get... So that's not going to work effectively. So we have to rely. What other intel do we rely on as much as Massad to get intel from Iran? So I don't want to think of it as a country. I want to think of it as a rogue nation. A rogue nation means a nation that basically prevents the transients of American citizens, like Iran, like North Korea.

These are countries where you can't get in. If you have an American passport, good luck getting in. And if you do get in, good luck not going to jail right away. So rogue nations, you primarily rely on third country intelligence, like we're talking about with Mossad. you primarily rely on signals intelligence, which you would get from NSA. You primarily rely on military intelligence, which you would get from the intelligence services of your four branches or five branches of military with the Space Force. And those branches of the military are getting a lot of their information from other third-party

groups. They're getting it from the UN. They're getting it from military channels. Submarines collect secrets. Airplanes create secrets. So you've got this conglomerate at all times that are always collecting. but you're primarily relying on signals that you can absorb and intercept and your human intelligence is coming from a third party. But aside from Assad, do we have another intel

that we trust that would be in Iran to get intel for us or no? It would mainly be Mossad. So the 25,000 people, if you scroll back up again, this is an important two words that often get overlooked. You see the dual nationals?

Yes. There are only a handful of countries that allow you to have dual citizenship with the United States. those countries would allow you to have both an American passport and a foreign passport. So you could travel into Iran on the foreign passport and essentially the border agents would never know you're an American citizen.

Who are to five countries? There's only a handful. Costa Rica allows you to have dual citizenship. Spain allows you to have dual citizenship. I believe Canada might let you have dual citizenship, Rob. Can you look that up? Yeah, thank you. What countries allow Americans to have dual citizenship?

Israel is one of them. There you go. Canada, Mexico, many in Latin America. Oh, these require that you scroll that up again one more time. These nations do not require that you announce your citizenship. So these are all dual national countries for the United States. Okay. And then if you go lower-Rop, where is Israel on that list?

Because a lot of, you know, the criticism that a lot of, there it is, Longfrey, Grandson, San Francisco, go a little bit lower-rop. Countries that allow it only in limited circumstances, Japan, Singapore, countries that generally do not allow dual citizenship. Let's see this list real quick. China, India, Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, Malaysia. Where is Iran on this list, by the way? Did you see anywhere Iran above?

I think Iran allows dual citizenship, actually. If you... There it is. So scroll up to Section 1, sir. No, I don't see it under Asia Pacific. I didn't see it under Middle East either. So this is not all-encompassing. There's a hundred and sixty-something countries,

so this is not every country. Iran does not formally recognize dual citizenship. Under Iranian law, anyone who is considered Iran's citizen is treated solely as an Iranian citizen while in Iran, even if they hold another password. Dual citizenship isn't legally acknowledged. Iran will not provide conciliar access

to dual nationals from their country while in Iran. If you are an Iranian citizen under Iranian law by birth, Iran assumes you are 100% Iranian. and legal matters. Yeah, so, okay, so let me go where I'm going with some of these questions. We're going to come back, we're all over the place, right now, we'll come back to it.

So the Shah is the leader of Iran for, I don't know, 37 years, 38 years, 39, somewhere in the high 30s, right? He was there, can you pull up how many years he was in rain? 38 years, 41 to 79, okay, 38 years. And he improves the economy, allows women to vote, women have freedom. They're not forced to get married at a young age, nine years old, eight years old, ten years old,

all that stuff, gone. Great relationship with the West. People travel in and out. He falls. He leaves. He dies. Khomeini comes in. IRGC comes in.

I had the former founder of IRGC here doing a podcast with us a few months ago. And then it's been now 46 years. Okay. And everyone's been waiting for his son to go back and bring freedom to you. Iran, Reza Pahlavi, whose son, we've had him on here a few times as well.

And nothing's happened. I think he's a nice guy. I don't think he's his father to be tougher or his grandfather. He's a nice guy. And lots of people have been waiting for him to do it. I don't think he wants to do the job. I don't think he's going to do the job. And he keeps saying peaceful, we have to do it peacefully, peacefully, peacefully, peacefully, peacefully,

peacefully, peacefully. But this is not the job of anybody, okay? The revolution of the Shah Levin wasn't peacefully. It was nasty. But they've had control for 46 years. If the CIA and others really wanted Iran to fall the last 46 years, it was a lot easier to do it under the Shah than it would be now. Why hasn't U.S., MI6, Mossad, the Middle East became chaotic after the Shah fell?

If we keep hearing these stories about, let me tell you, Kudda, let me tell you, you know, what's the word I'm looking for, that they got involved to create a coup and, you know, whatever the word is, if they have the playbook, if they know how to do it, if they know Iran is chaotic, and they call it what the, what's the phrase they say of terrorism,

there's a, they're the such and such of terrorism. Like they're the ones that generated all over the world. Why has an MI6, Mossad, and U.S. work together, state sponsor of terrorism, why haven't they worked together to cause a fault? 46 years, you left them alone? Why?

So this is where uncomfortable truths have to be said, right? Sure. Iran is not a priority for the United States. And when you have friends like... For 46 years, it's not been a priority? Why would it be a priority? Russia's not a priority for the United States either anymore.

We don't, they don't touch our economy. They don't touch our people. we're militarily insulated against them. And most important of all, Pat, we have friends who they have to go through first. So it's a problem that we outsource. It's Saudi Arabia's problem. It's Israel's problem.

It's the UAE's problem. It's Jordan's problem. These are all allies that we have. And we give them money. We have military bases that they host. We feed them intelligence and they take action on the intelligence. A big part of the reason why Netanyahu, who even still to this day doesn't have to kowtow to the United States.

It's because he understands the leverage he has. He understands that he is the wall that protects the United States and the Western allies from Iran. And it makes it so that we can spend our money on something else, and he spends his money in his lives protecting the rest of us against Iran. If it was a priority for us, like it was on the day that Trump went in and blew up the nuclear air, sites. When it's a priority for us, we reach right into that cookie jar and do our thing. But when it's not a priority for us, we reach into other cookie jars. So when you say they have to go through somebody else, it's kind of like before you can come fight me, kick this guy's, that guy's, then you can

come talk to me about final kids. It's like a weight class, you've got to come up. Okay, so then if that's the case, in this case, wouldn't that paint Israel as the protector to what Iran could do to others. If that's the case, why are they not seen and they're getting the level of criticism they've been getting the last two years, two and a half years? So first of all, it took them two and a half years to get this current level of criticism, right?

Right now is when you have... It's been about a year. They're getting destroyed right now online. Like the people are going after Israel in a hardcore way. Online. Online is the masses. The masses have no authority. Well, what I'm concerned about is how does, how do Western leaders treat them? So you do that, Rob?

Yeah. The masses don't matter. And if the masses think they matter, that's why they're the masses. Israel understands. Online influencers, YouTubers, podcasters. We can talk and people can carry our voice. But what can we do to affect policy, man? Not a thing.

Affecting policy isn't profitable either. so that's why they YouTube can turn us off if they don't like what we have to say Facebook can quiet you if they don't like what you have to say so what power do we really have right that's we have to avoid certain keywords so that we don't get cancelled

by the organization not by the internet but do you do you think for a guy that's you very open about the fact that the Mossada is extremely reckless very open about the fact that you know we don't have to solve Iran's problem because that's Israel's problem

We just give them the money and go, you go do it, right? What do you need? Here, go do it. It's on you, and you guys pretty much can self-sustain yourself. Even better, we don't give you the money. We sell you the weapons, so we make the profit, but you're still giving us. You're still buying an American dollar. So do you think the level of criticism Israel's been getting the last two years?

People don't know the full story of the role they play that's positive for the world? 100%. Really? 100%. It's 100% true. I would have not guessed you would have said that. So I am a staunch, staunch supporter of Israel's important. to the United States.

Holy shit. Absolutely. Because they are the first wall of fucking defense for us. We, there's a reason that we fucked everybody up so much at the end of World War II. Because we had to build walls around the American boundary. We needed to manipulate Europe. NATO is there to protect us. We're not there to help Europe.

NATO's there to protect us. Israel's there to protect us. We continue to, our presidents, like Biden, call the Saudi Arabian prince all sorts of horrible names and promise justice, but it never happens because Saudi Arabia protects us. Americans for sure don't want our enemies at the gate. So we let our enemies go to other gates. And then in diplomatic channels, military channels, and intelligence channels, we give them the tools to fight the fight. Why do we continue to support Ukraine? Because they are weakening Russia.

that benefits us hurts Ukraine but as a very pragmatic fact a Ukraine death does not equal an American death not in the eyes of an American certainly not in the eyes of the American administration okay

so if that's the case and we're going with the role Israel plays how have they gotten the reputation they have right now that they control American politicians, they fund American politicians, they're doing all this stuff. And by the way, it's documented. Apax spends the money. You know, they're hardcore, they're always going out there and, you know, lobbying and

hey, you know, we're this, and we need you to come and we'll travel you and we'll send you this once in. How have they gotten the level of criticism they have? And why isn't half the market believe in them? They're like, no, I'm not with you. I think you guys are, you know, Trump is a puppet to BB and Israel, all this stuff that you started here. So a big part of that is because Israel doesn't trust us. They know we have set them up to take bullets instead of our people. They know that we put them into a country that's surrounded by their enemies. They understand that every proposition and accord that we try to force them into

benefits us more than it benefits them. Israel's not stupid. Israelis are very, very smart, very entrepreneurial, very self-defense. Like, they understand that nobody's there to help them. We as Americans, we forget that we have institutions that protect us. We have partnerships that we believe in. We pay health insurance so that we're not going to get sick. Like, we have this false idea that we're safe.

Israelis don't carry that idea. They know they're not safe. So they do whatever it takes to get them just an inch more of security. So they reach back into the United States, and they do lobby for what they believe in. And they do try to take advantage of markets. when they can and leverage relationships when they can. I mean, there's this phenomenal book called Thou Shalt Prosper, written by a rabbi about why business benefits from the five,

like these five principles of Hebrew of Judaism. Phenomenal book, every business leader should read this book. But in that, he very clearly lays out how the traditional beliefs of Judaism translate directly to business benefits. And the same thing I guarantee you applies as in some other book to political benefit. Yeah, that is, that is, okay, so they know that we set them up.

When you're saying we set them up, where else could have given them their land? That's by Jerusalem. So it's not like it's a setup, right? that was the location that's what you're getting we didn't have to help you we helped you you got the land

you're grateful explain to me the setup part because I don't understand why they would think that we set them up for failure I don't think they think we set them up for failure I think they know that they can't trust us fully I think they know that tell me why they don't trust us

same reason Taiwan doesn't trust us why because they see that we have rhetoric that shifts It shifts every four years with politicians. It shifts every two years with midterm elections. It shifts with the marketplace. And it was the end of World War II that many of these, quote, unquote, you know, new countries were born. Israel obviously doesn't believe they were born after World War II, but many Americans believe that that's when Israel was born.

So Taiwan came about as a result of the nationalists being forced out of China. Israel came about as Jewish Jewish populations were forced out of Europe and they were given this land. That's how so many people believe it. That's not how they see it themselves. And then from that point forward, their economy was kind of forced on them.

Their trade with the United States was forced on them. It's the same way with Japan. It's the same way with Germany. It's the same way with France. Poland, all these countries that were devastated after World War II, the United States swept in and was like, hey, we'll help you rebuild and we'll put you in debt, and you'll build markets that benefit

the United States, and this long list of things, including ideologies, you'll have to be a democracy and you'll have to follow our democratic principles. All of that worked, Pat, it worked for a long time until about 2020, when 20 years of an American conflict in the Middle East started to show that we didn't know as much as we thought we did. And then strong men leadership started to and start to work. People like Putin, people like Netanyahu. In other countries of the world, we started to see a shift towards socialist beliefs and socialist practices rather than democracies, and they were working. Economies were building and growing. Militaries were winning in a way other, and America was distracted for 20 years. That's what changed everything recently.

So let's move on from how they feel about us and how we feel about them. How does Russia and China feel about Israel? I think that Russia and China look at Israel and they see pragmatic decision-making. And that is something that our adversaries appreciate because there's no ideology involved there. Whether you like Netanyahu's ideology or not, whether you care that he's a right-wing supporter or not,

what he is pragmatically doing is destroying step-by-step, the enemies that surround Israel, which will guarantee Israel's security for five years, a decade, 15 years, 20 years. He's doing as much damage as he can to Israel's enemies, which are all America's enemies, in the time that he can before he's essentially forced to back off of his warpath. And when he has to back off off of his warpath, then we'll see what the criminal courts of Israel have to say about him. So he doesn't quite know what the future holds. But other strongman leaders, China and Russia see that and they say, America's supporting that. So what America says

to its people and what America does in policy is not always the same. And how can we use that? So criminal courts in Israel, when he's done, it could be very nasty for BP. Could. So he could end up being a useful individual for people that want peace there. But to Russia, what issues does Russia have with Iran? Doesn't Russia have a better relationship with Iran than Israel? Oh, yeah, for sure. So then does Russia indirectly view Israel as, would Russia rather see Israel get weaker or Iran get weaker because they help Iran? And Iran buys from them, no? Like they go back and forth.

So what Russia wants is Iran dependent on Russia. And as long as Iran can be hurt, damaged, put in a box, they will just become. that much more dependent on Russia. What Russia and China need are strong dependent. I want to call them allies, but allies implies that you have a common ideology, right? What they want is partnerships that are pragmatically predictable.

And as long as Iran has no other friends in the world, they're going to keep going to China and Russia. As long as China has no other friends in the world that's going to keep going to Russia and vice versa. Okay. And I know Iran has these drones that they sell to Russia. They're known for the weapon that they're selling.

So that's like where the revenue comes from as well for them. But say somebody wants to, now flip it. So we just saw the motivation. Why would the U.S. want to see Iran fall? For what? It's not our problem. Let Israel deal with it. Right?

Let somebody else deal with it. But then why did they back then create a coup and allow Iran to fall? That was, those were the years before government oversight. So that was the left hand. It was a reckless. and the right hand not knowing what each other was doing. And so Kissinger promised Shaw that they would help and that they would allow him to use the hospitals and all this other stuff.

And the last minute, they didn't help him. And there could be a possibility that Kissinger wasn't necessarily reporting everything to Carter, that Kissinger may have been more powerful than Carter was. And these are all suspicions that can't be validated but are completely probable. And that's what sucks so much about the days before oversight. This guy was a very powerful guy. Oh, yeah. Feared, hated, powerful, interesting, womanizer, all in one.

Very interesting. Okay, so let's go here. So today, if somebody today wants to see Iran fall, and they're in politics, they're actually on the inside. If somebody to the firm, I have a CIA agent today, knowing, say a former CIA officer, Kalanda Stein, that, you know, you've been around, how would you be able to succeed today?

How would you do it today? Knowing all the players, knowing where people are at, knowing who would want to see it, no one who doesn't give a shit about getting involved, it's not our top ten problems that we have right now. President Trump sat right there and said to me, yeah, we have so many problems in America.

You want me to think about Iran? We have so many things that we're dealing with our right? How would one go about doing it if they're from the states? You always have to approach things with multiple avenues, multiple ways in. So you would have, of course, one way in that's exclusively propaganda, trying to get the people on the inside to take action themselves. Propaganda is alive and well everywhere. Don't just think that it's Russians doing it to us. We do it all over the world as well. We call it information warfare. So one route is through propaganda. Another route is through paramilitary or guerrilla support to known revolutionaries that

are in country. That's why you have green berets. That's why you have CIA paramilitary. That's why you have elements of government whose job it is just to support, train, arm, equip known revolutionary forces that are in any given country. But then you would also want to reach in using your intelligence services to create bot activity, cyber activity. So you could create more chaos from known opinions that are already happening in country. Anywhere you go, there's always people who disagree. So if you really want an argument to get bigger and bigger, all you have to do is fuel both sides of the argument. So hack an algorithm, create a bunch of fake bots that comment and like and whatever else, and now you just made an argument bigger. So you have all three

of those elements before you start talking about foreign intelligence partners that do have reach into that country. And when you have a foreign intelligence partner who has reach into that country, sometimes it's just a matter of paying them for operations. Sometimes they already have their own national security policy they're trying to execute and you can support that national security policy. So there's lots of ways to reach in. But the thing that's so frustrating about Iran specifically is nothing seems to be funded and supported for a long enough period of time to make real progress. All four of those efforts happen,

but then they're turned off, they're turned up, they're turned down. All sorts of changes happen all the time. And especially for professional intelligence officers, current and former, who have been Iran watchers, it drives them crazy. It drives them crazy because they see success

and then there's protests and then they hope that someone's going to continue to fund operations that advance the protests and then they don't. Or they hope that there's going to be some kind of effort to swoop in and do something else. And there isn't. And then you've also got instances like the B2 bombing raid that happened in that incurred into Iran. A one time attack

like that, that's just a big muscle flex. That's not strategic or tactical benefit for a long term operation. So in other words, in order for it to happen, it's not going to be a peaceful one. No. It would be a very nasty one. If it was peaceful, I'd be shocked. It would require somebody to die of natural causes, somebody else not to step up to the plate to take over when committee dies, and then everybody else to just agree to elections. I will say one thing that shocked all of us was when the least likely president was elected, right? I forget, I don't know how to say his name, but when the current president was elected, nobody saw that coming. Lacey? Who's the current president?

Yeah, it starts with a P. Oh, yes, Peschke. Right? Here's a guy that's... He was just on Tucker four weeks ago. But pro-bull markets, minority, did not win the majority, did not, and no one expected him to win the majority vote, except that so few people voted, he ended up elected. In contrast with the religious leadership, with the religious leadership. So this guy is an example of letting these three arms of espionage work, letting, letting

covert influence and rebellion and letting natural things foment can cause change. But then this guy got screwed when we bombed Iran because now all of a sudden he has to choose between supporting the U.S. or supporting Iran. Of course, he's going to support Iran. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I thought it was close at one point, but there wasn't enough momentum and too many people wanted to play nice. And I don't think playing nice. And I don't think playing would have gone the job done. And the only time I ever saw Trump flinch, not even flinch, but like a little bit nervous,

was the day when they attacked those three facilities. When he walked up with himself, Vance, and Hexet, maybe Rubio next to him as well. It's the shortest. It's the first time he ever said, God bless, you know, hopefully God is looking over us. Never saw him talk like that. He seemed a little bit nervous.

Okay. I figured you'd get a kick out of this. So I've been trying to buy this property for three and a half years, okay? 10, 11 acres on the airport, all this stuff. So one day, I find out locally that this was the old CIA DoD property where all of our North sold, you know, when they were going back and forth with the weapons, Iran-Contra, this is the land.

Wow. Yeah. So we buy the property. After we buy the property, the director of the airport comes up. He says, you know, we've been trying to buy this property. I said, I don't know that. I said, why are you trying to buy it? well, nobody wants this property to be in a civilian sand.

He says, how much you know about this property? I said, I've heard a lot of stuff, but I don't know what's what? He said, what have you heard? It's like me and four of their people and in my executive team. And I'm like, I've heard some weird things. Well, tell us what you've heard. Is it true that this was the CIA property and DOD and they would do a bunch of things? He says, all of that is true and then some.

I said, really? Yeah. He says, when we used to call back in the days, when they used to call, you know, cops or whatever they would call, nobody would ever come to this property. Everybody wanted to stay with from this property. So apparently they flew this stuff from this land. This is a tax-free zone property, this 11 acres here. That's badass. When I pulled up and saw the new building and saw the new property backed up against an airport, what I thought was that the airport completely fits the model of a CIA airport. Really? You thought, oh yeah. And there are several CIA airports across the

country for various reasons. But the acreage, the location in a downtown city space, it's a small airport that doesn't really have to serve executives but can serve executives. It's got the right cover reason into being there. It's big enough. It's got the right size landing strip. It's a great, it's a great location for clandestine airborne operations. Well, I'm glad you said that because the reason why you're here is they've asked me to invite you back to the CIA. I'm the recruiter so you know I'm not getting on that plane you're not open to the idea not on that plane they've been watching you closely they want you back you're not open to it because if I get on a plane in fucking Florida man in like 20 minutes I'm no longer on American soil so then they can do

something to you exactly all right well I guess that offer is off the table I was going to give it to you but you rejected it folks you know now he's not interested nowadays more than ever the brand you wear reflects and represent who you are So for us, if you wear a Future Looks Bright hat or a Valuetainment gear, you're telling the world, I'm optimistic, I'm excited about what's going to be happening, but you're a free thinker, you question things, you like debate. And by the way, last year, 120,000 people got a piece of Future Looks Bright gear with Valuetainment. We have so many new things.

The cufflinks are here. New Future Looks Bright. This is my favorite, the green one. Just yesterday, somebody placed an order for a hundred of these. If you watch the PBD podcast, you got a bunch to choose from, white ones, black ones. If you smoke cigars and you come to our cigar lounge, we have this high quality, lighter cutter and a holder for the cigars. We got sweaters with the Valuetamil logo on it. We got mugs.

We got a bunch of different things. But if you believe the future looks bright, if you follow our content and what we represent with Valuetainment, with PPD podcast, go to vtmerch.com. And by the way, if you order right now, there's going to be a special VT gift insight just for you. So again, go to vtmerch.com, place your order, tell the world that you believe the future looks bright. Let's go to two other issues that's going on, three other issues that's going on here with us. One is the Russia Gate. Okay. Russia Gate, story's been outwarranted for a while.

It's not like we haven't known when the dossier was paid for, $35 million, Hillary Clinton. We've all read it. We've seen the story. That's not news. Now, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, who is running the end. and I is coming out and saying, hey, here's what we're going to be doing. And they're going after Schiff. They're going after Hillary.

Here's President Trump today just five hours ago. Go ahead, Rob. I had to go through the Russia-Russia hoax. And it was actually, it was a strain on the relationship. I actually told them. I said, you know, they got this phony investigation going on, Russia, Russia, Russia, totally phony, created by Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff, and Hillary Clinton and the whole group of them. And it made it very dangerous for our country because I was unable to really deal with Russia the way we should have been.

I'm looking at Pam, because I hope something's going to be done about it. These people put our country at great danger. And Adam Schiff, it was all made up, it was a hoax. The Mueller report came out. They all hated me. They had 18 Trump haters, and they said, I did nothing wrong. They couldn't believe, they couldn't find anything after years of investigation. It was all a hoax.

It was a hoax created by the Democrats, but in particular, Schiff, and crooked Hillary, the whole group. Let me pause right there. So what do you think is going to happen here? You think, I mean, at this point, people know, right? Obama knew the all along, we got the reports that shows that Obama knew this was going on, and he kind of looked the other way, and he allowed it to happen. what level of accountability do you think will happen here? This is tricky.

So, unfortunately, we are dealing with an issue that will always have information that's confidential, that's classified. We're not ever going to know what they know. We're not going to know what's being leaked. That isn't a controlled leak. We're not going to know what's real information versus what spun information. So because we'll never know, it does two useful things. for the current administration. First, it distracts us from whatever else we might be focusing on.

And then second, it continues to drive this bipartisan divide, which is going to be very important going into the midterms. So there's lots of benefits from talking about something, even though you and I can't reasonably expect any significant outcome to come of it. The second thing it does is that it allows this question about whether or not a president, former, or current can be held accountable, accountable for their actions, for their words, for their conspiracies. And that's, to put a fine point on it, I don't think a president will ever be held accountable for what they did or didn't do right or wrong, because the office of the president is so representative of freedom around the world that to actually put a president behind

bars, to hold them in contempt would be something that basically says, hey, we're America, we made a mistake. We can't do that on the world stage. They did it to him. Didn't they give him a muck shot, president? They, you know, what president's ever had a muck shot? They tried. They certainly tried with Donald Trump.

And the vote of the people on two separate elections, four years apart, kind of demonstrated the power of the office of the president. If Trump didn't flip those three Supreme Court justices, and it was the other way around six, three, when they voted for him not to be able to be on the ballot in Colorado, if they would have voted the other way and said, yeah, we're going to remove him from ballot on Colorado and five other states follow. He's not winning. Kamala Biden is the president today. Right. And he would

have been in jail or they would have done anything and everything in their power to say that he was a criminal. They would have done that. So we got very close. Oh, yeah. Without the Supreme court, we're there. Without, it's at its core, you're right. But, But there's also other levels that have to, essentially other dominoes that are smaller dominoes that also have to fall into place. And we don't really know how any of that would turn out. But I don't pay a lot of attention to these internal divisive politics because it really is, it's a page out of the political playbook to distract the American people. The masses. It's a tool to distract the masses. It's also a tool to distract your adversaries

because all of the Russian intelligence services that are watching open source collection from the United States, they're spending time and money wondering what's going to happen next instead of collecting meaningful intelligence on what the true plans and intentions are of the United States in Mexico

with trade tariffs, with rare earth minerals, right? So we want to waste our enemies' time. We didn't invent this. We borrowed this skill from the USSR. The USSR literally had a playbook that said that they would let their politicians pontificate in multiple hour-long meetings because they knew that it would distract the Americans.

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where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem, call 1-866-531-2,600, or visit connectsonterio.com. Please play responsibly. Got it, so you don't think there's anything there, and Trump may be doing something to play everybody else and to going in and seeing what's going to happen. What's that? Rudy Giuliani says, Obama will invoke presidential immunity over the Rush Oaks investigation, but here's one little problem that could lead to.

an indictment. You're not immune for the rest of your life as a president. Obama becomes a problem because he will invoke presidential immunity. Where is this, Rob? Is this a clip from it is? Here it is. Is this just now? August 10th. Okay. So yesterday a couple of days ago, let's see it. It becomes a problem because he will invoke presidential immunity. The decision the Supreme Court made that helped Trump. The acts are kind of different, but there's a problem for Obama. It continues after he's president. So starting on January 1st, 2017, any participation of him in the conspiracy is not immune.

You're not immune for the rest of your life as president. So he'll be immune if whatever allegations against him are contained within his presidency. but if he's helping to assist over that three-year period that they push Russian collusion into 2017 and 2018, then he's, of course, he could be indicted for that. Obama becomes a problem. Do you agree with him? So I agree with him on a legal basis.

However, the operative term that he used was conspiracy. I think if there's anything we all learned from the Diddy investigation. it's that the Department of Justice can't do shit to prove a conspiracy because they couldn't pin conspiracy on Diddy? They failed to pin conspiracy on multiple players because it's very hard to prove conspiracy. So whether or not there was a conspiracy, whether or not that is backed up with evidence,

it's a completely different thing that our Department of Justice can bring the talent and the team together to be able to make a true conviction of, conspiracy. So you don't see much happening here. I see us getting distracted, man. I see a lot of us being distracted.

I see a lot of bifurcation of politics. And I want to correct one thing. I don't think it's Trump doing it. I don't think it's Trump sitting in the Oval Office saying, you know what we need to do, guys? We need to distract America. I think it's its PR department. I think it's the people who are trying to make sure

that the Republicans are still in a good position for the midterms. I think there's all sorts of advisors who are like, We need to do something to get the eyes and ears and get all the clicks off of. But a strategic way of telling Trump to protect them or because somebody else that's the establishment is telling the PR people to tell the president to say this because they want to distract others. Like is it direct or indirect? It's direct. Oh, it's direct. So he knows that it's not a negative.

His own teammates are not doing this to distract him. Correct. Okay. So it's not a negative thing. It's not a negative thing. And it's just, and it's not a Trump trying to misinformed the United States. Okay, so let me ask you this. As somebody that is in this world where you study deception and you know what's going on

because you've been a part of it as a CIA officer, not been a part of it, but like you're in it and you're seeing what they're saying. They're like, no, that's bullshit. It's actually now what we're working on. What is worth paying attention to today? So what you want to watch is you want to watch what Donald Trump is able to do that delivers on his campaign promises. And what is he able to do that makes a demonstrable?

improvement in the lives of the average American because that's going to be what we carry with us into the midterm. And the midterm is going to be critically important because if Donald Trump wants to continue to make progress, he needs as much control to be Republican held in the Congress as possible at the midterm. So that's the stuff that we need to pay attention to. His foreign policy ambitions are all over the map right now because these strong men leaders are all jockeying for control, whether it's Netanyahu or whether it's Putin or whether it's Xi Jinping. They're all manipulating and jockeying in different regions. Europe is kind of tits up. In the last two years, you've got three major economies all dissolving their

parliaments, all going through a no-confidence vote in France, in Germany, in Portugal. You've got Hungary and Bulgaria supporting Russia. You've got Slovakia, having a pro-Russian president brought in like Europe's in chaos so foreign policy is going to be something very and it's too complex for the average person to understand it's and it and it's not trump's priority just like he told you here why would I worry about Iran so how does he make domestic wins that's that's what he and that's what the party behind him want to see everything else is just something to fill the 24 hour news cycle epstein did you and I know that's part of 24 hour news cycle how do you view Epstein the list the you know

people, the names, the Clinton, all these guys, how do you view it? I view it through a list of probabilities. I think the most probable explanation is that he was killed in prison. Whether he killed himself, or whether somebody was hired to kill him, or whether he pissed off the wrong person and they killed him because he was an accused sex trafficker for

children, is kind of irrelevant. I think the probability is he was killed in prison. I don't think that he was in an orchestrated hit by some politician. I don't think that the deep state was involved. I think that if it comes down to whether or not he was an intelligence asset,

it is likely that he was on somebody's radar, if not a full-blown paid asset, very unlikely that he was a paid asset of the FBI or the DEA or any other U.S. entity. So he had incredible access and incredible value that foreigners would be able to exploit far better than we would. And they wouldn't want him dead, right? Because they would always want to hold out hope. that he was going to get through the trial, come out the other side, maybe spend a couple years in prison, pay a fine,

and be right back in the intelligence collection business. Wouldn't they be worried that? Maybe he threatened them because he had all the intel and said if you guys don't take care of me, I'm going to do this, so let's just take him out

because he sounds a little bit too emotional and irrational. The problem with that is that it's very easy to spin one person's story and then you can always destroy that person reputational, financially,

financially afterwards. That's very, very easy to do. Look at John Kiriaku. Very easy to destroy somebody without ever killing them. The flip side is he would only have one shot. He'd have one golden arrow, right? I'm going to let this video loose. After that golden arrow is shot, what's he got?

They destroyed him. Nearly a million dollars of pension they took away from him, but he's never gotten till today. And either two years in two years time, I believe. I'm not mistaken. 23 years, John Kiriakou. Yeah. Yeah.

So the one shot, they would have said, no he's emotional he's this he's that so why are they releasing jelaine maxwell why is she going to a different jail why is she out there now i thought didn't i see story rob but what's the story about her being released or yeah that came out yesterday axwell uh lawyer drops bombshell work release report this was just released go a little bit lower uh the lawyer of jeffraves at july that she's able to leave her security senate the report of maxwell was certain 20 years and Mr. Conspirator, has been granted work-release privileges and the fines of federal rules for sex offenders,

was made by Allison Gill, host of Mueller. She wrote political podcast. So they're saying what? They're saying now that's not correct? That's what her attorney is saying. That she is not released. Correct. But she is willing to now talk.

And how close do you follow on the episode? I don't follow it that closely. I don't follow it that closely. And because, again, I'm trying to conserve my resources for what I think really matters. And then second, whatever is on the Epstein files, it's just like JFK. It is not going to be complementary

to the U.S. federal government. They're not going to release it. If it's not going to benefit strategically or tactically the current administration, it's not going to get released. And what's interesting is each current administration isn't an individual. It's a party.

So it's not just Donald Trump. it's the Republican Party. It's not just Barack Obama. It's the Democratic Party, right? So if it's, if whatever the information that's currently classified, once that sees the light of day,

you can't put it back in the box. So it's always better to keep it in the box. Yeah, but so then, so then what that means is, how many people do you think actually know what happened with Epstein? How many people know for a fact? Who's on that list?

How many people are on that list? Maybe no more than 50, probably closer to 25. closer to 25, no. Of those 25 people, how many them are in a place where maybe something happened to their daughter or to their kids, or maybe to them when they were younger where they're like, no, I'm going to make sure

the world knows about this. Meaning none of them would want to bring that story out to the public, really? Every one of them would have more invested in their political career than they would in aligning this with their family. And here's the thing, man. When you get to the level

where you're dealing with scumbags, first you segregate your family out of just survival need. You can't think of all the FBI officers that have to hunt down child pornography. They can't do their day job and live in a world where they think of their kids. So they have to compartmentalize the job

from their family life. It's the same way in politics. You have to compartmentalize your job from your family life. And then second to that, they're also thinking about what does this do to the structure, the institution of the American people? If I release it, X, Y, Z happens. If I keep it confidential or classified, ABC happens. And if it's classified now, somebody else can always come back and release it in the future, and then the blood is on their hands when they release this. So it's just easier for me to kick it down the road to focus on something else. I mean, there has to be an element of selling the dream. There has to be an element of, hey, look, you're on the inside now.

You know, guys, we can't release this. You know, this is America. We have to protect that if they knew they will lose their mind. You're at a different level. You're no longer part of the masses. That's the masses. You're now on the inside. What's being said for them to flip?

It's a very interesting conversation. When somebody goes in who views themselves as a statement, Then they get the intel. What is that script that's being given to him? So there's a speech that we get when we first join any kind of sworn service. And it's almost always the same topic, even though it has different names. At CIA, the speech was called American Primacy. And the speech was given by this officer at CIA,

who was a 20-year veteran of CIA. And he got up in front of all of us after we had taken our sworn oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And he gave us this 45-minute lecture about American, primacy and how America has to be the number one superpower in the world. It has to continue that way. We may disagree with it at times. We may come into contact with information that we think is unjust. But it doesn't matter what happens in the moment because in the arc of global power competition, the United States needs to remain in the front spot. Because if we're not who is and

When somebody else takes the front spot, what does that do to the American people? The 330 million American people. And do you want to be the person whose principles sacrifices the safety of the 330 million people? We all get that speech. What? You agree with it. Pragmatically, that's how you do the job. It is what it is.

That's part of what you have to do. And if you go against the principles, you're John curiosity. If you go against the principles, you're Edward Snowden. Oh, my God. You know, it's funny, Pat, because people, and you've seen this, I'm sure, people call me like a CIA plant. They accuse me of still working for CIA. It's way more pragmatic than that, right? I understand why CIA does what they do.

I understand what happens if you go counter to what they approve or let you do. So why would you go contrary? Why would you swim against the flow if swimming with the flow gives you more reach, more wealth, more power, more success? Maybe that makes me unprincipled, but pragmatically speaking,

it's one road to Rome. Do they ever called you and told you, hey, listen, relax, you're talking too much? I get an email every year that reminds me in a templated format that I'm criminally liable for whatever I say and whatever I put on the internet in print or in or in digital interface so that's their way of letting me know someone is still watching you someone's still listening to you I've been up to

CIA three times in the last two years physically to sit with a panel of people who are talking to me about my content and saying this is on the line this is safe this is not safe oh you're kidding me I get those emails I get phone calls but at the same time I also get I get I get text messages, I get emails, I get public comments online from people who left CIA and are patting me on the back, saying they support me, saying they agree with me. I know my reputation inside the halls of Langley is kind of 50-50. Some people hate the fact that I'm capitalizing on my background. Some people love the fact that I'm out there accurately representing the difficulties, the commitment, the patriotism of the men and women who still serve.

and that those three meetings that they had, how long was it? Was it a few-hour meeting? Oh, I figure because they're showing clips. They don't show clips. It's hilarious. It's hilarious because you can't have your phone. You can't have your computer. You can't have any kind of electric device.

Do they check to make sure you don't have hearing gates? They check your hair, everything. So when I go in, there's, if you go into any kind of heavily secured federal facility, you drive to a gate, and then at the gate you park, and then you pass through a pretty rigorous. security checkpoint. So you run your bag through checkpoint, you walk through a metal detector, sometimes you get patted down.

They make you sign an affidavit that if you're caught with anything on your person, you're criminally liable for falsifying your report to the security guard because they're federal officers. They're not like security guards. They're federal uniformed officers. So when you lie to them, you're lying to a federal agency. So you go through these steps before you're ushered to a secure room, and then in the secure room, you have the conversation. And then you go in reverse on the way out. And that's not

just for, you know, publishers and authors and influencers. That's also for people who are retiring. Like when you get your, when you get your high five and your fake Rolex, when you retire from a federal agency, you go through the same rigmarole because you're not, you're not a uniformed officer anymore. You're a nobody who's just allowed in today to get your pat on the back before you leave. That's, uh, that's wild. Because I can see if you're, if you're going out there talking, doing what you're doing, they're like, hey, what is crossing the line? What cross on the line is given actual details of a mission you were a part of, right? Is that cross in the line?

Specific to missions that you were. The terminology is sources and methods that you yourself, or sources and methods of active intelligence collection, that's the key word that makes it criminal. Anything other than that, they can pursue you on civil charges for contract violation, et cetera. But John Kiriaku was inside that sources and method space. Okay. So next question for you with threats. Who is the biggest threat that they look at in the CIA? Is it a religion? Hey, look at what's going out with Islam in UK and Europe and look at the damage you're doing. They're coming

over here next. We've got to be careful with a religion, right? Is it a region? Is it a community? is it a mindset? How does CIA, you know, rank threats and or any of those that I sit on the list? Like, how do they look at it? And the number one threat is this, number two threat is this. How would they view it? The number one threat is China. Still.

And that's not just how CIA views it. That's in the published national security assessment that comes from the DNI. Number one threat is China. number two threat is Russian influence and chaos in Europe. That's the number two threat, I'm pretty sure, according to the DNI. And then I think after that it goes into more transnational threats, cyber threats. I am certain that the next year's assessment is going to include fentanyl or something with Mexican cartels. But that's essentially how they rack and stack the threats.

And it's because one threat has multiple. sub-threats, China, is a military threat to the United States. It is a regional threat to a U.S. allies, including the Philippines, Japan, South Korea. It is an economic threat because it's growing its economic capability to compete with America one-to-one, whether it's telecommunications, whether it's chip manufacture, whether it's electronic vehicles. It's a national, it's a logistics threat with the movement of materials as well as rare earth minerals. So these compounding sub-threats make China the number one threat. Did they ever bring up the religion of Islam or no? So radical Islam was absolutely on that top 10 list during the global war on terror

because we were concerned about the radicalization of Islam, not Islam writ large, but that radicalization of Islam. What we've seen since then is that anybody can be radicalized. It doesn't have to be Muslim. You can radicalize an angry kid in a basement in Pennsylvania, right? So there's ways to radicalize all sorts of different people. So we've moved away from being fearful of religions and move into recognizing that it's the weaponization of ideology that's used by radical groups. Yeah. I would be surprised, Pat, if there's anybody in government that sees Islam as a threat. I would be surprised because that's, that is a way that was China does. But China's not the U.S.

No, I know that, but China does. Yeah, because, and go ahead, sir. Go ahead. I was just going to say, it's a level, it shows how, how not sophisticated China is, that they still view that as a fear, as a national security concern, right? They haven't evolved to the place where they actually can identify a true threat. Yeah, I'm reading the Shaw's book again for the, God knows how many times. Can you pull up his book, not this one.

images. I'll show you which one it is. It's the last one he wrote before he died. Second row, second book. Right there. Yeah. That one right there. And he opens it up in the first chapter and talks about his bigger concern because this could have been a blind spot that he had. He was more worried about communism in the 70s than he was about Khomeini. He thought because of the whole, you know, Russia, USSR, USSR, Soviet Union, and hey, you know, Karl Marx, Stalin, Lenin, all that, and they were moving to Iran. So his bigger threat was the Today Party.

Saddam Hussein, I think, offered to kill Khomeini for him. Can you verify this, Rob? I think Saddam Hussein offered to kill Khomeini, and he didn't think of Khomeini as a threat, right? And some say he mismanaged the threat. He saw an ideology, philosophy, like, communism has a bigger threat and who's Khomeini he's going to come and do something to Iran you're nobody you can't do anything to me and Saddam who is a little bit more reckless than

he was kind of like the you're talking about Assad as the CIA earlier Saddam's like hey man you want us to take this guy out because you don't seem to be too threatened by him no okay so he doesn't and that offer was made by a few different people it wasn't just him that was the offer was made I'd actually rob if he can verify that I really want to see if that offer was made because I don't want to just make claims and it's not. I thought I saw this somewhere.

Saddam Hussein threatened to kill on Khomei. So somebody offered to kill when Saddam was going to consolidate in the way and Iraq and repression of Shah forced Khomeini to leave Najaf. Khomeini forced to France. Some accounts suggest Iraq authorities

harass Khomeini and warn him to stop as anti-Shah activists, but there's no verified. Of course there's not going to be a verified record. But Saddam had a position. He saw Khomeini as an existential threat to Iraq and went to war. So he apparently, from, I have some friends that were former Savak guys from back in the days,

and I've spoken to some of the guys. They're all older right now. The former deputy director of Savak is somebody that I've had meetings with. He's visited the house. And Saddam had a better eye for threat maybe than the Shah. Because he knew that guy you have to worry about. And because Iraq and Iran weren't having problems under the Shah, he wanted to eliminate a future threat.

He didn't. The moment the Shah fell, what does Iraq do, Saddam do, attack Iran. I lived in Iran when Saddam attacked us. I'll never forget the attacks. Tabadjo, Tabajou. Al-a-Kermas, we would hear these are wrong blights. So the lights would go out and tabajou, tabajou. Al-Mata-Kirme, the red signal shows that somebody's crossed our border.

And who was it? It was always Saddam and he's sending his people over. Do you think it's naive to not sit there and be seeing some people that view U.S. as the enemy that they want to destroy this country and our Western ideology and say, no, it's more, we have to worry about socialist, we have to worry about communists, we have to worry about Chinese, we have to worry about this. Maybe China's not the naive one. Maybe we're the naive one.

Could that be a possibility? Absolutely. because if you think about it, September 11th, 2001 happened because the federal government thought communism was a bigger threat than radical Islam. And it wasn't until people were jumping out of towers that we woke up to the fact that we have a whole new threat that we didn't take seriously.

So in many ways, we're standing in the shoes of the Shah, not realizing the true threat because we're still focused on yesterday's threat. I think where we stand right now is best, defined, especially for people who understand how to shoot a gun. You've got your 5-meter target, and then you've got your 15-meter target. China's our 5-meter target. China's right in front of us, getting closer, and making gains every day.

If we start using our ammunition on the 15-meter target, we're going to continue to lose ground at the 5-meter target. So let's take out the 5-meter target and move on. Or let's put 80% of our effort into the 5-meter target, 20% of our effort in the 15-meter target. Let's not make the same mistake where we invest 100% of our effort into fighting communism and then lose two of our buildings.

Yeah, because Saddam wasn't the nicest guy, but he had decent instincts. Because the dude fucking got power in a history of other people just killing each other. Think about that. I mean, one of the things I loved

about living in the Middle East was that everybody knows what it's like to fight for survival, so they never take it for granted. whereas here in the United States you walk down the street you go to Publix the grocery store here in Florida

everybody walking in out of Publix has no fucking clue how to fight for survival even if they're carrying a weapon it's there because they think it's going to help them but they don't know how to actually fight for their survival I mean there you've got Bedouin people who they didn't even have technology

in the 1950s and now it's 2025 and they've got the most modern cities in the world that's an incredible amount of transformation that has happened in the lifespan of basically two generations. They still remember what it's like to be under the hot sun with nothing. No, I mean, that's the, you know, you said earlier with Israel. Israel has an edge because they're always in not flight, fight mode,

because they have to stay protected. America, we're so lucky. Who are you worried about? Canada or Mexico? We don't go to someone. Oh, my God, what if Canada attacks us tomorrow? They cross the border. Hey, Tabadjo, Tabadjo.

Al-Mas, Canada's here. No one worries about that, right? It's a very different threat that we have. I don't know. I was just kind of asking to see if there was always conversations about certain sex, certain religion, certain communities, certain calls to be ready of, and how do you watch what they're doing?

Who's here, who lives here, who from ISIS, who from this, who from Hamas, who from, you know, Houthis, where are they at in the States? It would be something I would think about. Story came out about Tucker. I don't know if you agree with them on this one or not. Rob, you want to pull that one up with Nautau. owning a computer. So he said about a month ago, Tucker Carlson says he doesn't own a computer

because the CIA plants kitty porn. Do you agree with him here? I don't. I don't agree with what Tucker Carlson saying here. I understand why he's trying to do what he does, make alarm his claims, get attention. I actually think he's trying to back this one off, which makes sense, because this is a big, stupid claim to make. Right. Yeah. CIA, first of all, CIA, it's against their authorities to plant evidence on American citizens, period, against their actual federal authorities. So if they were to do it, and then that person went to trial, once it was shown that CIA worked in any way against that person, then the whole trial would be debunked.

So that is a ridiculous claim in many, many ways, just administratively, let alone ethically. So in the last 30 days, story came out about. well, you know, I didn't know my father was CIA, and then when he passed away, I learned that my father was CIA, right? And then I think Nick Fuentes or somebody showed a clip, somebody showed a clip of him on Sean Ryan saying he knew his father was part of CIA, Dick Carlson, Richard Carlson, and now there is the, well, Nick Fuentes is fed,

no, well, this is this and this is that. So, you know, was Tucker CIA, he went on some interesting trips, there's some pictures with him with a, I don't know if it's an AK-47, but I think it's not an M-4. not an M-16. I don't, he's holding something. Were you here? Were you there? Somebody's asking me, you were just on traveling with your father here and there. So, what do you know about Tucker, you know, affiliation with CIA, father being part of CIA? How do you view all these stories that are coming up right now? So I don't know, personally, I don't know anything

one way or the other about Tucker Carlson specifically. Because there's the overlap, he's old enough that there's the overlap with 9-11 and the crazier, looser days of of CIA. So prior to September 11th, 2001, really anything is kind of possible because there was no oversight. Records would have easily been destroyed. I mean, if there's anything we learned from the Obama years of CIA, it's that records could have been recorded, but they can still be destroyed. And even when we were looking at Guantanamo, there were still the director of CIA at the time. I forget her name. She was the temporary director. It'll come to me later. But even she was directed to destroy Guantanamo Bay Records, and she did. Thank you, Gina Haspell.

Look at that, that smiling face of destroying classified information just because you're told to. That's a, that is principles. Second. Country over your principles. Country over your principles. That's a, she got the same fucking speech I got. And she delivered. Hurrah! So the question is, who cares if he was? You know what I'm saying? Like, what's the big deal if he was? I don't know.

Is it just a big deal that, you know, you're maybe using assets to, you know, give information back into acting like you're innocent. Oh, shucks, I didn't know about it. What's the criticism of it? That's what I'm trying to find out. I think the Fed I get, the informant I get, the CIA, slightly different, no?

Yeah, because I, what happens here and what happens so often with CIA is because they've shrouded themselves in secrecy, people don't trust them. And especially when you mash up a media, a strong media presence with CIA affiliation, that's like, that's hot sauce on a jalapeno. That's a guaranteed conversation. It's a guaranteed viral issue on the internet, right? Because people already suspect that CIA is shaping the information that we read. They're already thinking that they're messing with our minds and running disinformation

campaign. So when you put a media persona like Tucker Carlson, together with a CIA affiliation, it's out of this world. The same thing happens with anybody like me with a CIA affiliation. Yeah, it's a crazy question for you. You know, sometimes I'll talk to a guy and they'll say, you know, they'll say, oh, that guy gives me the vibes of being a Scientologist. Why? Because the way he asks questions, I feel like he went through certain levels to learn how to do the assist where you're, you know, trying to get information out of people. And he's very, Were you ever Scientologist? No.

You know what? You speak like a Mormon. Were you ever part of a church of a latter-day sense? Because you give me the vibes, even the way you talk to me, like it's a Mormon vibe you give me, right? Or, you know, that person gives me the vibes

of, you know, being a former, you know, such and such. When you hear people talk and their mannerisms and the way they explain things, do you ever watch and say, that guy could have been an assent? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I know exactly.

What trigger gives it away? So, yeah, it's a great question. So in our world, we call it spotting the spook when you spot a spook. Because there are absolutely verbal and nonverbal indicators that let you know when you're talking to somebody who is trained. So we kind of separate the world in the trained and untrained. Untrained is all the people who went to the school of hard knocks and trained is the people who went to some kind of systematic education about how to interrogate, ask questions, collect information, protect personal information, etc. So just as a real quick aside, if you watch Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin, perfect chance to watch Spot the Spook take place.

Because you can see and hear how trained Putin is and how untrained Tucker Carlson is. So whether or not he was dad's little helper when dad was CIA, I don't know. But he certainly wasn't trained because you can see what it's like when he sits across from a trained intelligence officer. Oh, wow. Got it. So Putin's interview with Tucker gave it away to you that he was never CIA himself. And he says he wanted to be one. They didn't hire him.

He talks about it openly. Even Putin said it right off the bat. Right. And you can really see it take place when you watch that. And I love that he did that interview, as much of a train wreck as it was. I love that he did an interview because it's such a phenomenal lesson in espionage for anybody who chooses to watch it. And you can see Putin control the conversation, control the pace of questions.

you can see him get his agenda across the line no matter what Tucker Carlson's asking. You can see Tucker struggle for control and then ultimately cave in because he's trying to maneuver into a different type of question category. It's such a brilliant piece of, you know, KGB skill. What do you think about Tucker?

I think Tucker's trying to make it in a world where media is changing. he knows he needs face time he knows he needs coverage he knows he's not the best of all journalists or the best of all interviewers he's got his five minutes in the spotlight and he knows that eventually that spotlight's going to dim out so he's got to collect what he can while he can't sorry Tucker wherever you are have you know it's true too have you done Tucker or no no you've pretty much done everybody you've done uh you've done freedman because that one did very good well. You've done Diary of CEO. I think you've done Ryan.

Yeah. So you haven't done Tucker. You've not, you've not done Rogan. Why haven't you done Rogan? So Rogan actually knowingly is passing me up. Yeah. So I have a book coming out. I know we've talked about it off camera. I have a book coming up. My publisher actually reached out to the Joe Rogan show to make sure they were aware of me in my upcoming book. And their producer wrote back and said, Joe knows Andy, Joe's been tracking Andy, and Joe does not want to talk to Andy. Very interesting. I don't know why. I have a silly theory because when I interviewed with Lex, and I have tremendous respect for Lex Friedman, when I interviewed with Lex, it was before I really understood that during these interviews, there's a bit of a game that you play with the host, right?

So I made Lex look bad on his own show. And a lot of the comments that came out afterwards, a lot of the reason that that show did so well is because people are commenting on what their opinions are for the ways that I made Lex look bad. And there were apparently a lot of people out there that liked Lex looking bad. And then when that started going to Twitter

and that started going to Instagram, I actually got some messages from Lex saying, why would you encourage people to say such mean things? He said that to you? Yeah. Lex said that to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went back and I wasn't, I wasn't even tracking social media, right? So I went back into my social media feed and I saw where people were saying bad things and I saw where I clicked a thumbs up on whatever they were saying, just because I was clicking, you know, like to everything.

And I actually wrote Lex back and I was like, hey, man, I don't really know what I'm doing. I apologize for hurting your feelings. Let me go back and recant it. And there's actually, on Twitter, you can see me going back and saying, hey, Lex was a great interviewer. If you think I looked good on this interview, it's only because he was asking good questions. and but nevertheless when I left Lex's studio he and Joe Rogan are good friends and he was like Joe's just down the street I bet Joe would love to have a conversation with you and then just a few days later

everything went tits up on the internet and Lex stopped talking to me so if if there's that makes sense because I don't I don't see Joe is very loyal to his friends very loyal to his core core friends very loyal to him so I'm not surprised that that's probably

what could have happened because he really likes Lex and they have a very good relationship together. It could be as simple as that. Yeah. So I actually think Joe would very much enjoy talking to you. So, but one thing about, I love about Joe, Joe said the following. The first time I went on Joe Rogan, Joe reached out. I didn't reach out. I'm like, hey, oh, we had a conversation exchange. Like, hey, you want to do a podcast? I'm like, sure. Boom. And then we went out there and That's kind of how it happened. And then the second time, Ron, he opened up his club. I wanted to go see his club.

And then he said, hey, if you're down here, you want to do a podcast? Sure, let's do podcasts. And I gave him the few gifts, which, by the way, man, let me tell you, I don't know if you saw when I gave him the gifts to comment section. They were not, I will never, ever give anybody a gift after my, you know, if you go back and look in my history of me having, like, when I had Kobe Bryant, I give him a gift. He was trying to be a producer.

I gave him a signed copy of all the Star Wars people signing there. When I had Mark Cuban on 10 or 11 years ago, I gave him a gift. I know he's an Atlas Shrug. I gave him original first print, first cover everything. Like, you can't find that. It's a very tough book to find. He didn't have one.

He was thankful. We're always giving gifts from the Middle Eastern side. Sean Ryan gives gifts as well, I think. But I'm like, yeah, next time if I got a gift for Joe, can you turn off the cameraman? I'm going to give it to you afterwards. But yeah, I mean, look, hopefully that'll happen eventually. Fed.

You hear stories with Fed. By the way, some people even say Lex. It's like, Lex, you know, that's, everybody has a criticism that they get, you know. That guy take the, we take money from Mossad. I've never, you know, I've never taken money, 100% financed by my own company. I saw my insurance company and now everything I'm doing here, pretty much financed by us, but everybody has their own criticism. Tucker took money from Qatar.

Those guys took money from Assad. You know, Ben Shapiro got this, this or did he got this? What do you know about the back and forth with Peter Thiel's story came out, 2023? He's a Fed. Did you read that story or no? I didn't read the story. I know what you're talking about. And Peter Thiel has been a topic of...

For a while. For a long time. A federal debate for a long time. And, you know, he... What I know about Peter's company and where it intersects government, I'm pretty sure is still classified, so I can't talk about it.

But I can see why people would accuse him of being tied up with... I'm assuming you're talking about Palantier. Again, and I don't know how much is public or not public, so you said it, not me, but that's pretty much where I can and can't talk. Yeah, I had a guy, the recent theory that a guy said, and then I saw a video that the guy showed today on the podcast with Nick, that JD came out of nowhere, okay, JD Vance.

He was a guy that came from Theo, and then Elon went in with the Doge, and they got the intel that they needed and Palantir now is getting a contract with the government and this may be a direction for technocracy and all this other stuff. Does the CIA sit there and worry about technocracies? Does the CIA sit there and say, well, listen, the direction we may be going to go, and these guys are no longer billionaires.

They're not worth a hundred. Now they're worth a trillionaire in the next 12 to 36 months. I think it'll be worth a trillion dollars in the next 12 to 36 months. A trillionaire, you can buy countries. You can buy, it's a very different world when you make that kind of money. Is there the fear of a technocracy and some of these guys coming out

and overtaking control? Not at CIA, not widespread at CIA. Keep in mind, CIA's focus is almost exclusively foreign, right? If they're looking inside the United States, it's because a foreign threat has made it inside the United States. So they don't worry about that. But I will say that there's a very practical level in federal government where somebody else decides

what technology you use. And whether you like it or not, whether it's good or bad technology, you're stuck with it because some, you know, some acquisitions officer said this is what we're buying. I spent a lot of time on Windows 98 when it was shitty, man. Summer is Tim's ice latte season. It's also hike season, pool season, picnic season. And yeah, I'm down season. So drink it up with Tim's ice lattes, now whipped for a smooth taste. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time.

That's a different story than what we got here. Rob, what is the one clip we had? I don't know if you've seen this one where this lady's on Stephen Colbert. And she starts talking about, have you seen this thing? I don't think so. Okay, so this is interesting. So she's sitting in all of a sudden, I think the conversation said, did you ever work with CIA for the movie and all this other.

She did a show called Homeland on Showtime, I believe, Claire Daines, where it was about intelligence agencies tracking terrorists. And here's what she said. For us producers and writers and... Really? Is it like, you know... Yeah. So we park ourselves in a club in Georgetown and talk to, like, real spooks. And, you know, people in the intelligence community

and the State Department and journalists and people who really... What do they tell you that, like, what's the most surprising thing that they've told you about their jobs or something you would need to know from there? Well, every year it's different, right? We've been at it for a while. And the climate has been... been has changed.

But this year it was all about, you know, the distrust between the administration and the intelligence world. And the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not such good friends. So they're saying he interrupted so quickly because a producer on the back end was like, yo, stop, she's given too much information. Is that likely or now is it just? So I can see why a producer would redirect her.

For sure. I can also see how that may have just been. He was excited. What year or what month was that, Robert? I'd have to go back and check. Because what she's saying is, is 100% accurate. We don't call it Spy Camp, but there are definitely moments where CIA officers who are no longer undercover will meet in restaurants around the D.C. area with actors, actresses, investors, you know, market movers, anybody who can get the approval. to sit with them.

So, 2018. So 2018 is two years after the Trump administration and Trump was keeping CIA at a distance, if you recall back then. So she's telling the truth and that is the kind of stuff

that they talk about and that's what happens at these camps. Silly enough, I actually am hosting my own spy camp for a U.K., a major U.K. newspaper in my home in August

in late August. Yeah, where I'll be doing the same thing. I'll run them through a mock surveillance operation. I'll run them through and teach them tradecraft and show them how to do things in the field so that they can be informed when they write their article. That's wild, man.

That is fully wild. So your book, when is the book coming out? The book comes out September 9th. September 9th. Yep. It's called Shadow Cell. We discussed it earlier. And it was three and a half years in the making man, not because it took me three and a half years to write it,

but because it took three, two and a half years for CIA to... finally, like, bend on letting it be published. Oh, wow. Yeah. They... So you and your wife wrote it together. Yes, sir.

It's our memoir about when we were put on an operation together against one of America's largest adversaries. And CIA really did not want us telling that story. They gave us initial permission to write the manuscript. We submitted the manuscript in 2022. They came back and they said everything in this manuscript is classified. this will never see the light of day. So we went through about a six-month process

of trying to understand what they didn't like about our manuscript so we could edit it and fine-tooth change it. We asked for redactions, anything, that would give us a way of getting to publication. And they just kept saying no. So we ended up having to hire an attorney. And I'm totally happy to tell the world, Mark Zaid is a fucking miracle worker

when it comes to getting a classified organization to understand and listen to the author. and after getting to the place where we realized we had a case for First Amendment lawsuit against CIA when we presented that to them, that's when they were like, publish your book. No shit.

Because the content of the book is about a mole hunt where my wife and I were used as bait to get a mole from a foreign country to make a mistake. And in the process of us building our operations, we also were being targeted by this mole. And because we were put in harm's way, intentionally, we had a First Amendment right to tell the

story. Are you joking? Nope. Dead serious. And this is the man that got across the finish line, and I will support Mark's aid until the day I stop producing content. Do you feel safe from the CIA? I do because there are American laws. You smiled a little bit. I feel safe. I feel safe in my life and well and my health. I don't feel safe that they won't one day take all of my money and destroy my reputation

and then leave me humiliated on the side of the street. I hope that they won't. I hope that they see that what I do is better than, you know, being destroyed like they did the John,

but it's always a risk. Is that one of the reasons why you're going, you know, out of 20, 26? So you're not even a public. It's more what CIA than it is actually what's possible

with regular day to day. it's both it's both it's it's partly the average person doesn't do what you're doing though there's a lot of podcasts there's on YouTubers but the only thing that makes you different than everybody else is your former CIA correct correct and and honestly if we were at a different point in history where where expressing your assessments expressing your opinions expressing your your your sites your truth was more accepted then I would probably keep producing. But there's always a risk now

where someone's going to disagree with you. And if they won't take violent action, some agency might. Wow. Listen, that's pretty wild to be in a situation like that. But, you know, Rob, what I do like is if you want to have the crew

come in with the scissors, Andrew has agreed for me to cut his hair today. And I'm looking forward to this. When that day happens, and all of a sudden, what's the last line in usual suspect? And then he disappeared. Kaiser Sosei, right?

Bustamante is soon to be Kaiser Sosei, right? We run a podcast called the unusual suspect, not the usual suspects, the unusual suspect. But three-year anniversary, so most likely we will not be doing this again. So this is probably the last time we're doing this. I'll give you a call. I'll give you a call before we leave the country in 27.

That'd be great. I'd love to do one last one before you leave because of what's happened with your story. Right after you left with us, You flipping blew up. I would get a message like, hey, can you help this guy come speak at our event? We're really trying to get a hold of him. Does he do speaking again?

Because I'm like, look, just talk to him. Don't even reach out to me. Let me put you guys in contact with each other. But it's been a blast talking to you again. I appreciate you. And to all our CIA friends, leave this man alone. Let him just go sell some books and enjoy his time with his family. I appreciate you.

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