The Joe Rogan Experience - #541 - Mike Baker

Episode Date: August 27, 2014

Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer. Currently he is the president of Diligence LLC, a global intelligence and security firm.

Cue the music, Jamie. Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. All righty, Mike Baker, first of all, sir, thank you very much for joining us. No, thank you, thank you. Love the podcast. And by the way, the code word, Rogan, may not be that secure as a code word, but it's a good one. It's a terrible code word as far as security. No, if it was your Wi-Fi password, I would say you're in deep trouble.

You've got to change that thing. Well, coming from you, you know about some shit. You're a former, well, explain what you did. You were the former covert operations officer for the CIA? Yeah. I went in. I was recruited in the agency. And the CIA is divided into a handful of directorates. You've got the director of operations, which is pretty much what it sounds like. You've got the director of intelligence, which is where they put all the smart people. And they do all the reports writing. They take all the raw intelligence that's coming in from the field, and they put it into some usable form that can then be kicked out the door to the National Security Council, the White House.

It's used by the other agencies in the intel community and primarily by the White House. So a lot of smart people sitting over there. Then they've got S&T, which is science and technology. That's where you get all the gear. So that's where they develop all – I mean, they've developed in the agency over the years, everything from the U-2 to stealth technology, drone capability, a lot of the drone technology came right out of the agency. They've done a tremendous number of things right there in-house. And then we have the administrative logistics group, and they're incredibly important because they keep money and gear and everything else flowing out to the field.

What is the biggest misconception about the CIA? You being a guy who worked with them for years, I know that there's all sorts of wacky conspiracies out there about everything. Anything that there is where people don't have all the facts and information is going to be wacky conspiracies. Look, I know a bunch of wacky conspiracies just about the ufc they're ridiculous me knowing the actual inside truth i hear these things and i go what the fuck are you talking about right things that i'm supposed to say the things that i had to do because you know the ufc made me or they said you have to say this which is all 100 bullshit right what's what are the big misconceptions um no you're absolutely right and and the agency is like,

it attracts this sort of thing, right? It attracts sort of the Byzantine theories and the conspiracy theories and all that. Because again, there's a reason why you have secrets. There's a reason why you protect sources and methods. And so because you don't have transparency that people would like to see, they assume that you're out to fuck them over, you're out to screw the world. And that's just not the case. So I guess the number one conspiracy is that somehow the CIA and the intel community of the U.S. is involved in some one-world government, that they're basically out to fuck everybody. And they're not.

The agency is an incredibly apolitical organization. It doesn't matter who's in charge in the White House. You get your task and you march on. And that's a really good thing because a lot of other countries over there, including a lot of our allies, they have very politicized intel communities. So every time you get a change in leadership, out go some people, in come some new people, and they're beholden to the White House. So that's one of the things.

I suppose the other thing would be that we've got nothing but hot chicks walking around the building. And if you walk in, we've got wonderful people, but we don't have that many hot chicks. Isn't that because of Homeland? Yeah, exactly. That one show fucked it up for everybody. Yeah, Alias and all the other movies, the beach books. Everybody's supposed to be hot in the agency.

I was disappointed, too. I mean, when I started there, I got in for my first couple of days of training. I kept thinking, are they hiding them? Are they someplace else? A lot of really great people, but the quota of hot chicks was less than I expected. You bring up an interesting point about being apolitical. Now, that's one thing that a lot of people worry about when it comes to organizations, that they may have more power, in fact, than the political governing body that controls the country.

Right. One of the big theories about the CIA was the CIA had Kennedy killed because Kennedy was trying to get rid of the CIA. I mean, wasn't that one of the big ones? That was one of the big ones. And that's still endearing. I'd co-host a show on Travel Channel. America Declassified.

Right. That was the first season. They're changing the title for the second season. But in the first season, we looked at the Kennedy assassination. And absolutely, I talked to a number of people who have been involved in studying that for a long time, and you're never going to shift them off that position that the agency was involved.

And there's a lot of people out there. And part of it is because, again, there's no transparency and people assume the worst if they don't get exactly what they want to hear. And people like conspiracy theories anyway. They're fun. They're sexy. Yeah, what's not to like? You interviewed that Jim Mars guy on your show, America Declassified.

And he's an interesting cat. He's a full-on nutter, right? Yeah, I'll stick with he's an interesting cat. He's a full-on nutter, right? Yeah. I'll stick with he's an interesting cat. I'll go with he's a full-on nutter slash interesting cat. Yeah. And he's all about UFOs and bases on the moon. I'm not saying there's not bases on the moon. There may be.

That part, yeah, I can confirm that. But as far as the Kennedy assassination goes, again, it's one of those things you could see why at the end of – I don't want to disappear down that rabbit hole, but you could see why at the end of that story, that episode, when we talked to a lot of people, we did a lot of research, you could see why the theory still holds, the conspiracy still out there. What do you think happened with Kennedy? Do you think Oswald acted alone? Yeah, you know what? I think that once you get inside there, we got really good access into that, and that's part of what the show's about.

But we had really good access into that window, that very spot where he took the shots. Now, he wasn't Lex Luthor, but he had enough training. And when you look at the distance involved, the line of sight, the weather conditions, the lighting conditions, the fact that he reconned that site beforehand because he worked there, he had every advantage he needed. And so the idea that he could make those shots with the training that he had received from the Marines, again, was he the world's greatest sniper? Of course not. But he had enough. And also he had an element of luck going for him, which you always need in operations. So I think he took the shots. Now, I also think that he was, in his mind, he felt he was doing this because he was desperate to join.

At that point, he was desperate to join the Cuban Revolution. He had been very disappointed by his time spent over in Russia. And he had come back, and he was looking for something. And he felt, this is my theory, he felt that this was going to get him in with Castro by doing this. And I honestly believe that. Now, here's the other part that's a bit of a wild card. Castro by doing this. And I honestly believe that. Now, here's the other part that's a bit of a wild card. The Cuban Intel service had a file, a massive file on him, courtesy of the Russians. Of course, I mean, the Russians trained most of the Cuban Intel service at that time. And they

had provided a great deal of information because Oswald had been living in Russia for all that time. He married a Russian woman, you know, worked in a radio factory and, again, had a very disappointing experience. And the Russians were pretty much happy to get rid of him at that point because he was serving no purpose. And so by the time he had gotten back to the States, the Cubans already had a big file on him. Now, he had also gone to Mexico. There was an unexplained trip that he had taken down to Mexico City. So do I think that there's a potential that probably not directed directed by the cuban government but probably in his mind thinking this is how i do it this is how i get in this is he was

i mean he was a sociopath um but i think it's one of the things that bugs me about people the way they look at the kennedy assassination is that it's either lee harvey oswald acted alone or it was a conspiracy and lee harvey oswald wasn't a part of it. And my thoughts are always like, why would you assume that he wasn't a part of it just because people said there were shots from other directions? First of all, we all know that eyewitness accounts are some of the most unreliable accounts ever. People see things that aren't there.

They hear things. They remember things completely wrong that if especially in a traumatic event your adrenaline fires up your heart rate goes up there's shots going off you hear things it was behind me with michael brown yeah exactly well um that's another we'd go down that rabbit hole too but the the thing that drives me crazy about the the kennedy assassination too is when they show lee harvey when they try to disprove it like j Jesse Ventura did a show where he tried to disprove it. He was holding a rifle in his arm. He was cocking it and firing it, but he was standing holding it.

And I'm like, you got a windowsill. If you're trying to hit something accurately, why would you hold it in your arm? Why wouldn't you rest it on that windowsill? When you're resting it on something, it's incredibly stable. You don't have to be a master marksman. When you have a rifle resting down on something, all it is is about not flinching. It's a platform, and it's going to give you some stability. And we looked at that with the MLK, with the Martin Luther King assassination, too. And the fact that the shot was taken

out of a bathroom window, and it was clear given that, yes, common sense tells you and the physical nature of that tells you that he rested the weapon on the windowsill. So you look at Oswald and again, Oswald recce'd this site. He knew what he was getting into. He knew how he was going to take this shot and he had had sufficient training from the Marines. So I agree with him. And that's typically with conspiracy theories, it's typically always, it's all one or it's all the other. And the real world operates in a much different, murkier environment than that. No doubt. No doubt.

But what bothers me about it, there's a bunch of things that bother me about it. The single bullet theory, without a doubt, bothers me because that doesn't make any sense at all. When you see that bullet showing up on Connolly's gurney, it's in pristine condition. It's supposed to have gone through two bodies. There's more. There's bullet particles, fragments that are in Connelly's body. They showed up on an X-ray. They're not missing from that bullet.

That seems a little wonky. And the whole reason Arlen Specter concocted that in the first place was because they had to account for a bullet that hit a curb stone under the overpass. Guy got hit with a ricochet. Now they've attributed three bullets to this one guy shooting. They have to attribute all these wounds to one bullet for this theory to make any sense. That, to me, is the biggest

hole in the conspiracy. Right. And that's, I mean, at the end of our episode, and for what it's worth, I mean, we basically include, it's clear there are issues here that remain. And are they likely to be solved? Probably not, given the fact that a lot of people have passed away some in you know odd circumstances we looked at that issue too the people that you know that died yeah yeah and so you know but again uh you know our point was not this i think anytime you set out to disprove a conspiracy theory or prove it you're you're going to be left unsatisfied yeah but the disprove part was wonky though the holding the gun was wonky like the why would he hold it and the other thing was wonky they said the sight was off we checked

the rifle the sight was off well this is in person i can tell you i wounded a deer once that i was trying to kill because i dropped a rifle i fell i dropped the rifle and the sight went off like that you could take a you got rifle, you're moving it around from the crime scene, you're putting it somewhere else, you're putting it in cars, and then you test it. You can't tell me that rifle sight was off when he shot it, because you don't know.

Right, you don't know, and you're absolutely right. You know how sensitive those things are, and particularly older technology. I mean, some of the gear now is pretty robust and designed to stand up to pretty difficult conditions. But that gear, it's old. Yeah, it's old. And you're absolutely right.

It went from place to place to place. The Secret Service was storing it. The Bureau was storing it. Everybody had their hands on it. Yeah, but if he had it sighted in, if it was accurate at the time, and he's resting it on the window, man, that's a different animal. My number one problem with it is that single bullet theory. That's the number one problem Yeah

the other thing is this is a pruder film there's a pruder film was weird because Everybody points this is a pruder film the whole back into the left back into the left You know you see Kennedy it looks like he's getting shot from the front But what they don't say is that the blood is kind of spraying forward if you watch that video He's going back to the left, but the blood is spraying forward, almost as if he was hit twice. Like he was hit with one bullet from the front and one bullet from the back. Yeah. I mean, again, it's one of those, it's the movement of the vehicle. It's his immobility to begin with. I mean, if he didn't have back problems, he could have,

he probably could have maneuvered himself out quick enough. But Kennedy was fairly immobile. That's one of the things that people don't realize. He was really sick before he died. Yeah, yeah. But, again, so I think the conspiracy things, going back to your original point, the agency is always sort of ground zero for people's conspiracies. Yeah, well, there's so many people involved in it too. One of the things that I found completely fascinating about this whole thing with Petraeus is Petraeus got in trouble with the FBI, was investigating the CIA and the whole thing with

the emails. That seems to me to be so crazy that agencies investigate other agencies. Is there really competition between, like, the CIA and the FBI? Well, you know what? It's better than it used to be. I mean, I remember when the Bureau started going overseas, when they started getting involved in terrorism issues overseas, they would send their people out. And I remember I was operating overseas, and I remember we had a meeting one time. And I went into an embassy because they said, look, we're going to have a meeting. I said, okay. We were doing something out on the street.

So I remember going in there and looking at our guys, you know, taking down, you know, maps and photos and charts and everything, you know, of this thing that was going to happen, and stuffing them in a desk. And I said, what's going on? And they said, well, the Bureau's coming in. So, you know, we've got to take all this shit down. We don't want them to see this stuff. But the idea was we were, you know, working together.

And if you're out on the street, I mean, our natural response was, well, I thought we're working together because I don't want to get my ass caught out there if we could tell them something that would make sense. Yeah. But you know also at the same time, the Bureau was telling us about 50% of what they knew. And so there was a lot of difficulty. Some of it highlighted after 9-11. That was talked about a lot, so I don't want to go into that. Everybody talked about the need to play well with others.

And so it has gotten a lot better. We've got a much better relationship. And I personally, because I work with them and have worked with them a lot in the past, I have a great deal of appreciation for the Bureau. And so that side of things has gotten a lot better. Is it ever going to get perfect? Well, no, because, you know. Is it human nature? It's human nature.

Yeah, you're pissing on each other's turf sometimes. And, you know, now the agency's, you know, in a bit of a different situation. I mean, the Bureau has bigger issues with ATF and some others because they're all kind of focused on law enforcement in some capacity. And my old outfit, you know, we've got a different focus. So it doesn't usually surface. And when it does, it's typically in a terrorist concern. So, but it is better. It is better. Look at me, Mr. Rosie got i've got my glass half full

and by the way the coffees and i i shit you're not just we talked about before but this is great coffee yeah it's delicious that's caveman coffee yeah it's really good from columbia um the the thing about it is is it because everybody wants to take credit is it like you know the fbi wants to take credit for catching bad guys, and the CIA is going after the same people, and they're competing to reach the finish line first? Is that what it is? In part, yeah.

I mean, I'd probably be lying if I said there's not an element. There's got to be an element of that, right? Everybody's competitive, and these are two very type A organizations. But part of it is also just the feeling like you know what you're doing. You've got the process, and your process is better. And there's also an aspect of it – law enforcement looks at – as an example, law enforcement looks at sources differently, right? The agency is all about developing sources and maintaining those and building on them because what are you trying to do? You're trying to gather intelligence, right?

So we're not trying to, at the end of the day, you know, bust somebody. I mean, maybe at the end of an operation we're looking to, you know, terminate them, but, I mean, that's a different story. Just forget I said that. But at the end of the day, law enforcement, you know, oftentimes it's like, well, we've got a source, great. We don't mind burning that source because we're after the bust or we're after, you know, some gear or whatever it is.

And so there's a fundamental difference there sometimes in the way that we view our assets. But oftentimes, yeah, you can't disregard the fact that it's professional pride. It's always a conflict in every movie where there's like cops and the FBI comes in. We're taking over this investigation. Shit, this is our case. That's so common. Get in the captain's office. I'm going to chew your ass out.

They have control of this crime scene. You motherfucker. I think we just wrote a show, didn't we? I think we did. It's already been done, I think. A million times, unfortunately. Yeah, the CIA guys always end up looking like douchebags in the movies or in the shows.

But we're used to that, frankly. Just like getting washed up on Capitol Hill and having our ass kicked every now and then. Well, not on Homeland. On Homeland you guys look pretty good. That's true. Do agency people watch Homeland and go, not bad, not bad? You know what?

This is going to sound weird, but I don't watch any of that. I don't. I'm a terrible person to sit down with. And my wife refuses to sit with me and even try to start watching something like that. Because I know that she's irritated, but every time I start kind of squirming, I go, no. Get the fuck out of here with this. I'm making noises, you know, and I'm kind of like, and I'm shifting around. And she finally just says, oh, fuck it. Just go somewhere else.

Yeah. I can understand. I did that when I watched Punchline with Tom Hanks and Sally Fields. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Exactly. Why do they have lockers? Nobody has a locker room in a comedy club. You guys don't get lockers?

We don't have lockers. Where do you put your- We don't have anything. Sports gear. Where do you put your jock strap? Yeah, where do you put your fucking lacrosse stick? Yeah, it's ridiculous. But is there anybody who's gotten it right?

Is there like any movie or anything that you've ever seen where you're like, that's pretty damn close? You know, there's some old school ones. When you talk about straight up tradecraft, when you're talking about old school espionage, then things like Smiley's People, some of the old sort of BBC shows. Oh, I don't even know what that is. What is Smiley's People? It's an old, what is it, Le Carrere i think that uh that wrote it i'm not sure um but it's a it's it has it hasn't been airing for a long long time uh but that was good the good shepherd is a movie the good shepherd i thought

was very interesting it kind of dragged on for a while and and honestly who could believe that you know if you're married to angelina jolie, you're going to want to go away all the time? She's probably annoying after a while. Yeah. I don't know. After a week with her on an island somewhere, you'd be like, all right, bitch, I'm going fishing. A week? I'm giving it longer than a week.

Really? Yeah, I would have to give it longer than a week. You're a patient man. Yeah, I am a patient man. But I think that those were good. They did a show, and full disclosure, I worked on the show from its inception called Spooks in the U.K. And it was called MI5 over here in the States. And it aired for a number of several seasons.

It was actually, I think, probably the most successful show in U.K. television history. And then it ran for about eight years as a drama. More successful than Top Gear? Well, yeah. No, not that, but I mean like a drama. Oh, I see. Typically what they do is if they get success with a drama or a comedy, they just stop it because they feel guilty because, I don't know, it's a British thing.

But this thing ran for eight seasons. They did a very good job of not focusing on the explosions and the car chases and everything. It was more about tradecraft and things that were going on to accomplish an operation. But I like the Bourne series. I know that that's not realistic. It's so unrealistic. I know.

It's so unrealistic. But I like the pacing of it. I like that. Usually the filming is great, the movie. So as a way to just – because it's so obviously not realistic. It's great. You can get immersed in it. The ones I have trouble with are where they try to, you know, they throw a little something in there, try to make it look like they know what they're doing.

Right. And then you think, oh, for fuck's sake. Yeah, the Bourne series is more like a superhero show. Exactly. So you can kind of get lost in it a little bit easier. You know what my problem with the Bourne series is? This is my major problem with it, and especially the last one it seems like they're pussifying superheroes and and tough guys and to the point where they never try to get laid ever yeah they have zero sexual

attraction to the most beautiful women on the planet they are have totally pure altruistic purposes to all of their actions everything they do is noble like this guy who the fuck jeremy renner is that what i didn't see the last one the last one is fucking ridiculous because he's with this chick as hot as the fucking sun and she's fawning over him and at the end of the scene the end of the movie they're sitting apart from each other like he saved her life about 150 fucking times she should be so he's he's handsome he's a stud he's kicked 150 000 people's asses in front of her like she should be blown away by this guy and they should be or vice versa yeah both and they're leaving they're on this boat and they're sitting apart

from each other like as far apart as you and i are like they're not even hugging yeah like there's nothing james bond would have fucked her a million times are you kidding me oh yeah probably in the first five minutes. I mean, that's the whole point of a Bond movie. Exactly. I mean, isn't that what an agent is supposed to be? A man of danger, out there kicking ass. Action.

Yes. And believe me, I go back to my point about the hot chicks when I first started the agency. I thought that was kind of part of the deal. But the first three, was it three? The first three Bourne movies. You're right. It was the same way with, what's his name, who played the role? Matt Damon.

Yeah, Matt Damon. Yeah. It was always angst ridden. And if you got an indication that he might have just been banging one of the girls that was in the movie, he seemed like he was sorry about it and he was depressed about it. Because, I don't know, I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. Yeah, they're trying to mute male sexuality when you're dealing with trained killers. It doesn't make any sense.

I mean, it's like the polar opposite of what we consider. If you think about ancient warriors, think about like Gladiator or any of these ancient warriors, you connect these ancient warriors with they would fight and they would fuck. But these Bourne Identity guys, there's no fucking. There's nothing. It was an interesting thing. I think who knows what they were thinking. I do think they were trying to make it seem as if they were just so angst-ridden that they were kind of above it all.

You know what I think they're doing? I think they're doing the same shit they're doing with Twilight. They're making things for chicks they're turning vampires into these fucking glittery glittery queers that like hang out in the forest and they don't hurt anybody it's madness they're doing this thing where they're turning into these romantic novels of completely unrealistic behavior yeah that's what they're doing anybody out there who wants success just write write a tween book. Include a vampire and no sex, and I guess you're good to go.

But the thing is, it's not tweens. It's grown women want that shit too. It's this weird fantasy thing that it plays off of. I don't understand it. The female psyche is a mystery to me. To everyone. I'm with you on that one, although I am married to the world's greatest woman. No, you're not.

I am. So good luck with yours. Are we married to the same girl? No, we're not. Good God. How strange would that be if we found that out? That would be crazy. We'd both be fucked.

It would be. Oh, my God. What do your kids look like? They look like your kids. Yeah, my kids look like you. So, well, we've solved that issue here today uh yeah no she's uh she's absolutely terrific and she uh she uh from idaho and that's where we've moved that's good stock yeah we moved back there oh you live up there yeah beautiful

man new york so that cordelaine man that lake up there holy shit that's just up there and it is fantastic another place mccall redfish lake Lake, Payette Lake, just beautiful, beautiful places. Stunning. Yeah. Just a stunning part of the country. Do you guys have a lot of wolves up there? Yeah, and they delisted wolves because it's Idaho. Too many of them.

Right. So if you get a wolf problem, shoot the fucker. But people don't understand that. It's just like people trying to dictate what you do with public lands when they have no experience dealing with public lands in their state you know yeah and that's kind of the way things work nowadays uh but yeah she uh she's from idaho went back east i met her out there uh when she was working with a lobbying firm and and i came home one day from uh from uh we were living in in new canaan connecticut which is a nice little town outside of new york but i was on metro North riding the train back and forth where my office is in Midtown.

Walked in the door and said, you know, I don't think I have to be here to do what I do, which is basically just travel for the business. And within a week, she had the house on the market. Within five weeks, we were settled in Idaho. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah, it worked out great. Did you know anybody out there? Did you just? You know, I didn't.

We'd been going out there to hunt and fish and raft and climb and ski over the past handful of years. So I knew the area, but I didn't know anybody. But she knew a lot of people. And so, you know, we've settled in very nicely. It's so calm out there. That's the thing that people don't appreciate. Folks that are, like, stuck in the rat race of L.A. or in New York or anywhere where there's unbelievable, stuck in the rat race of LA or in New York or anywhere where there's unbelievable, like the peace that you can get in a place like Montana or Idaho. It's just-

Wyoming, yeah. The beauty of the nature. It's something that if you can do it, I mean, if you don't have a job that requires you to be in a city. Right. And, you know, more and more people, you know, I think have, you know, have the opportunity sometimes to be able to do that. But you can fool yourself into thinking that I've got to be here.

I've got to be in this epicenter, whether it's Los Angeles or Chicago or New York or wherever. And, you know, because, hey, it's an important place, and so therefore I'm important, you know. But, you know, I sat on that train, you know, long enough going back and forth to realize I wasn't that important. So I figured, hey, time to move. But it's worked out. The quality of life is, you know, I sound like I'm with the Boise, Idaho Chamber of Commerce. It's beautiful. Boise's beautiful.

It's clean air and people are nice. Great live music, good bars and restaurants. It's, you know, BSU's there, Boise State University. So it's just the right size. And I got three little boys. And I tell you what, you know, we're out in the fishing, you know, five minutes from the house house we're up in the foothills uh you know when they're old enough you know the hunting is great so it'll be good yeah idaho is beautiful there's a lot of great parts of this country that don't get enough credit everybody likes to call the flyover states you know fly over between new

york and la is basically everything in between those two yeah yeah it's pretty weird it's weird that we but i think also because for the longest time culturally those spots weren't as as rich but now because of the internet everything is changing we were talking about this the other day people just they're not hicks anymore in the middle right it's not the same it's not like nobody has books like everybody's online yeah like the level of intelligence and awareness of the average folks just in the middle of the country is way different than it was 20, 30 years ago. Right. The flow of information, much better, and that's helping. But you can... I spent

what, about seven years in the Northeast, in the New York City area. And people in that area, I got wonderful friends there but but a lot of folks can believe that the rest of the country thinks like they do and and or that they should uh because they just don't know any better because they're not right there they're not in the heartbeat of america as they would refer to it and and you know you get outside that northeast corridor and in washington dc in particular washington dc is so far up its own ass that you realize all this country. And that's one of these things with this Travel Channel show. That's a pretty good plug, wasn't it?

The great thing about that is being able to just go out and travel and see how great this country is and how, like you said, how many places there are to see. And I spend most of my life overseas. And so for me, it's a real treat because we're going all over hell and back. And just it's an incredible country. When you try to leave the CIA, do they go, are you sure? Do they go, do you really want to do that? What are you going to do when you go out? Are you going to get on TV?

What are you going to talk about, Mike? Yeah. You want to talk about us? They did. I got a great relationship with them. And, and, uh, and I, I, I'm one of those guys that, you know, I have a hard time being objective sometimes about it. Although I, I try not to, you know, uh, look through rose colored glasses every time, you know, I'm talking about operations or things that they're doing, but I had a great time and I got a lot of respect for the people there. And so when I got ready to leave

and I left for a pretty simple reason, I've got a daughter who's in college, terrific, terrific kid. And I was just never home when she was growing up. And so we got to a certain point where I didn't have a choice. I had to be home. And so I walked in, and I was overseas at the time, and I walked into my boss, who was very senior in the operations group, and I said, I think it's time to leave. And he said, what are you going to do? You can't leave. Just stick around.

And he knew I was getting antsy, and he said, stick around. It's going to get better. Because we had gotten a little bit risk-averse at that point. And it gets a little wearing after a while to be working on operations, and then all of a sudden at the last minute people say, no, we can't do that. Too much blowback. And then you pull back and think, well, what the fuck was that all about? Like what kind of risk avert can you talk about the operations? Yeah, I mean a lot of times it's just political blowback, concern over what a host country might say if something went south. Yeah.

No, if something went south. If you're operating in another country and something you're about to do blows up on you, and then the political blowback from country to country dealing with that. And so that oftentimes is the sort of thing that people think about. But anyway, so this guy, a great, great, great character and terrific experience with the agency. He said, stick around. So anyway, long story short, I went back to Virginia, resigned to start a business, and woke up the next morning. And the guy had said, you're going to feel terrible if you do this. If you go back and you resign, you're going to feel terrible when you wake up. And so I woke up, and I felt pretty damn good. So I called him overseas.

It was towards the end of the day, his time. And I said, I got to tell you, I'd feel great. And he said, what a dick. But he, but he's gotten out since. He's retired. And now he's in business. And we get together a lot. And he says, yeah, some of the worst advice I ever gave anybody. But it was, you know, it was not easy leaving because, you know, you have a huge amount of respect. You spend a lot of time, you know, in there.

And you're doing things that you know. Sometimes you're doing things that you know nobody else is doing. There's nobody else doing this right now. I remember having that feeling, walking away from something and thinking, that's it. I'm the only person that's just done this right now. And it's a pretty special thing. And that's kind of, they draw you in that way because of the challenge and the patriotism and all the rest of it. And that's exactly how it should be.

Nobody does it for the money, that's for sure. If there's one bit of controversy or the main controversy the main conspiracy when it comes to the cia it's drugs the main evil conspiracy is that the cia was involved in selling drugs in african-american communities to fund foreign wars the contras the nicaragua you know the whole thing with Oliver North, with Freeway Ricky Ross, the guy who's out now. He was involved directly with selling

drugs. The money went straight to the CIA. The CIA used that money. You're shaking your head. I'm shaking my head. You don't believe it? No. I spent long enough time behind the curtain. Of course, what are people who are down that road are going to be listening to this. What the fuck?

Of course he's going to say that. I mean, what else is he going to say? But, honestly, guys, I spent enough time behind the curtain in operations the whole time to say that we've got a lot of restrictions on us in terms of what we can do, who we can deal with, and what you're able to accomplish. on us in terms of what we can do, who we can deal with, and what you're able to accomplish. And yeah, the whole concept of the drug thing, I don't know when that got started. I don't know how it sort of popped up initially, but it takes on a life of its own, like everything else, like theories about the Kennedy assassination, like we were talking about. And you're never going to let him go away. And sometimes saying that, you know, if I sit here and protest,

people are going to say, well, of course, that must be true because he's protesting. Is it possible that things went on that you don't know about? Oh, absolutely not. How would that happen? No, of course there is. Right. But at the same time, I will say this much. People can't keep their yap shut well over a period of time

i'm sorry what no barry seals is barry seals is dead now but barry seal was he was a fighter it was a pilot rather and uh a drug smuggler and he said that he flew covert flights for the central intelligence agency well it must be, he's dead now. He died. He was assassinated when he was on his way to testify with George Bush's phone number in his pocket. That's the salacious details. That's the details. That's got to be true, right?

Well, he had photographs with CIA agents and Medellin cartel officers. I mean, he, without a doubt, was a drug runner. The question is whether he was actually running drugs for the CIA. What happened? Yeah, I feel comfortable being here and saying no. Of course, you've got to say that. You have to say that. But also, I mean, and again, you're right.

The more times I say it, people are going to go, well, it's got to be true because he's saying it so often. But, you know, the agency is operated by humans just like everything else, and so it's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. There will be slip-ups, Iran-Contra, you know, the whole decision to nation-build in Iraq and what that meant, although the agency, you know, doesn't drive policy, so I'm not sure what that's got to do with it.

But the Iran-Contra thing is directly connected to selling drugs in poor neighborhoods in LA. Yeah, but... Freeway Ricky Ross literally sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs. But not for the agency. Well, he says that that's how he got a hold of the drugs. Why wouldn't you? Get it through a connection to the agency.

Yeah, but I guess that's my point. If I'm a dirtbag, what am I going to do? I'm going to complicate things and muddy the waters because I'm going to say, well, my God, I did it for the government. I did it for the agency. I did it for the bureau. I did it for the Secret Service or whatever. Freeway Ricky Ross didn't even realize he was selling drugs for the CIA until he was in jail.

He didn't know who the connections were that he was getting. What's interesting about Barry Seale, the guy who died, is that he was an informant for the DEA. The DEA, as you were talking about the CIA and the FBI have like a little combative relationship. So do the DEA and the CIA. There's all sorts of interagency relationships. I've worked with the DEA. I worked with the DEA overseas in counter-narcotics operations. And again, yeah, part of, part of it is, is

going back to the same thing we talked about with the Bureau. Relationships during those early days, starting out, working with them overseas, there's a lot of kind of peeing on each other's turf. Relationship's much better now, but I guess all I'm saying is, and I'll, I'll, I'll leave it that is that the agency was not in the business of selling drugs. If we wanted money to fund operations, we had other recourses to gather that money rather than narcotics and selling drugs to lower income neighborhoods in the United States of America. It's just, to me, I understand you're never going to shift people off a certain position and people, you know, are going to, are going to believe what they're going to believe. But, um, it kind of goes back to what I said at the very beginning. The number one

misconception is that this agency is out to fuck people over. Yeah. This, this Barry Seale one is a very interesting one because he had so much information about the CIA and so much information about the Medellin cartel and drug dealing in the first place, what he had actually said led people to believe that he was a guy who was very knowledgeable about the actual operations. It's the number one piece of evidence that points to the CIA. And then what happened with Michael Rupert. Michael Rupert was a former L.A. narcotics officer who busted people.

Do you know who Michael Rupert is? You've been down every rabbit hole there is, buddy. I was going to say, man, narcotics officer who busted people. Do you know who Michael Rupert is? I've been down every rabbit hole there is, buddy. I was going to say, man, you've been spending a lot of time down the rabbit warren. Yeah, you know what? Again, we're going to just be at loggerheads constantly on this one because I keep going back to the same thing. I understand why people find it interesting. I understand why people believe, okay, this this is what i'm gonna choose to believe uh i got a different perspective based on a lot of life experience inside the organization and and if i saw shit that i thought was absolutely you

know untenable then yeah i'd like to think i'm a decent enough person and i don't have a dog in the hunt i'm not you know bound by anything other than respect for the organization based on the experience i've had with them so anyway but that's exactly what people would expect me to say. Well, the guy who was the head of the CIA, the director of Central Intelligence Agency in 96 was John Deutsch. That's how you say his name? Deutsch. He was in Los Angeles. He was at a town hall meeting and Michael Rupert, who was a former L.A. narcotics officer, he was an officer at the time,

confronted him saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer, he had seen evidence of the CIA complicity in drug dealing and that the confrontation was handled so poorly by Deutsch, it resulted in him being terminated from the CIA. It resulted in Deutsch being terminated? Yeah. No, it didn't. It didn't? No. Whyysping terminated Yeah No It didn't?

No Why was he terminated? Well Because he was It just wasn't good? It just wasn't good He was acknowledged Along with Stansfield Turner And a couple others

Of being Not our most Effective Beloved Directors You know That's not I don't want to

Besmirch anybody's character But at the same time The idea that he Wow But was it time, the idea that he, wow. But was it an embarrassment? The idea that he was on television. But it was embarrassing. He was let go as a director. No.

Have you ever seen the video of Rupert confronting him? No, I haven't. But I've dealt with John Deutch. I've been there when John Deutch was there. Not a good guy? No, I mean, you know, you always have favorites. It's like anything else. I have my favorite boss at the company. I got my favorite. And, you mean, you always have favorites. It's like anything else. I have my favorite boss at the

company. I've got my favorite... I've got my favorite directors, for sure. Who's your favorite podcaster? It's got to be this Rogan guy. His coffee's outstanding. And, yeah. But, no, it's... It is what it is.

I'll play this one thing for you, and then we'll let it go. Michael Rupert confronting John Deutch. Pull this up, Jamie, because it's pretty fascinating. Watch this. Okay. This is when... I will tell you, Director Deutch, as a former Los Angeles police narcotics detective,

that the agency has dealt drugs throughout this country for a long time. People are clapping, so it must be true. It must be true. That's a crowd-pleasing statement. All right. Come to order. All right. Obviously, that is an answer for a lot of you.

Now, can you please? I refer. All right. Now, can you please? I refer to it. Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. This chick's not good at her job.

No. No. Wait a minute. Wait a minute here. All right, principal. Come on. Wait a minute. If you don't mind what's going on here, please leave now.

Oh, that's a good way to handle it. That'll do it. Representative Juanita McDonald. You can stop by the CIA narcotics booth on your way out. Will you please take your seats? I will come back to you as we roll back across to the center section. What? Yeah.

back across to the center section. Hmm? What? Yeah. Director Deutsch, I will refer you to three specific agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus, and Watchtower. I have Watchtower documents heavily redacted by the agency. I was personally exposed to CIA

operations and recruited by CIA personnel who attempted to recruit me in the late 70s to become involved in protecting agency drug operations in this country. I have been trying to get this out for 18 years, and I have the evidence. My question for you is very specific, sir. If in the course of the IG's investigations and Fred Hitz's work, you come across evidence of severely criminal activity, and it's classified, will you use that classification to hide the criminal activity

or will you tell the American people the truth? All right, you want to hear the response first from Congressman Julian Dixon and then from the director. Wait. Good catch. Wait a minute. From your, from your, I'm sorry, sir. This is kind of, you can pause it here. I mean, he basically said what he needed to say.

Yeah. So what do you think about that kind of shit? That's the first guy who ever claimed to have been tried to be recruited by the CIA. Well, he's an L.A. narcotics officer. I mean, he's a legitimate guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Okay, that's fine.

I look at it, and I see the same thing I see in a lot of other cases. You have sort of a delusion thing going on, a delusion of grandeur. You've got sort of a – we see it all the time in guys like, I'm not putting them in the same category, don't get me wrong, but guys like Hanson, guys like Jim Nicholson, Ed Lee Howard, all these things. People never listen to me. If they just listened to me, things would have been better. So therefore, the man's out to fuck me, therefore I'm going to fuck the man. And that's typically, and the agency is a beautiful shining light up there on the hill

to take a shot at because it's so intriguing. Nobody fights back. That's one of the reasons why the agency is always getting kicked in the ass up on Capitol Hill. We don't push back because you're not in a position to. What are you going to do? Go back up there and start talking about sources and methods? Again, getting back to this guy, yeah, I hold absolutely no credibility in it. I can guarantee you that Deutsch was not let go because of his response or lack thereof to that particular rant.

But it doesn't matter. I'm going to sit here. It's just like me saying this is how Kennedy was killed. It's not going to make any difference. So everyone's going to believe what they're going to believe. Again, I go back to the same thing. Somebody pushing that theory has their own life experience. somebody pushing that theory has their own life experience i've got a life experience which you i was fortunate enough gave me access inside an organization that i you know that i think

gave me an understanding as to how they operate and the ethics with which they have even though people say ethics the agency that's a lot i mean again as an example people people went nuts over the interrogation thing which would you mean the waterboarding stuff? Yeah, waterboarding stuff. If anybody had taken the time, all those critics who had taken the time to read the DOJ memos that Holder's Justice Department decided were great to release, then you can't not come away from reading seriously the DOJ memos and not say, well, shit, every little thing, they were going back and forth trying to see, is this appropriate? Can we do this? We can't do that? Okay. Can we do this? Okay. Can I push them against a fake wall? Oh, I can't. Can I do the following? And there's back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And it belies this

notion that somehow we're just out there fucking over the world and acting like a bunch of cowboys. But again, it's like the agency going up on Capitol Hill and trying to defend itself. What are you going to do? People are going to believe what they believe. If I was going to give you advice, though, in the future, I mean, obviously you don't need my advice. But when someone brings up something, even if it's ridiculous, don't laugh while you discredit it because it makes it look like bullshit. You know, like when people do that,

they go, well, that's ridiculous. Yeah. No, I know. And I think you're right. I think you're right. But you also have to realize that- It is ridiculous to you.

It is ridiculous to me. So I'm going to react the way that's natural for me to react. Were rogue agents that were involved? I mean, we see it all the time with narcotics officers. That's a big thing with narcotics officers. They get involved.

They go undercover. They start selling drugs. They start doing drugs. And then they say, you know what? These motherfuckers are making millions of dollars. I'm going to make a little piece on the side for myself, put it away somewhere in a safe deposit box, live off of it or whatever. I mean, it does happen. People do get corrupted.

Yeah, of course. People get corrupted. Back to your point. Was I get corrupted. Yeah, of course. People get corrupted. I'm not, you know, and I don't and back to your point, you know, was I the director of the agency? No. So do I know everything that goes on? No. What am I saying? I'm saying based on my experience, based on a lot of time behind the curtain and working in

a lot of operational environments and dealing with a lot of people over 17 years, no. To me, I don't buy it. It doesn't make any sense. I don't believe it. But, you know, again, I got to leave it at that because, you know, anything in this world is possible.

I don't believe it's possible. But that's exactly what people expect me to say. I keep going back to that same thing. Of course. Isn't there always an issue as well with in order to adequately protect the United States' interests, in order to adequately act in secrecy in the interests of the United States people and government, there's always going to be walls that people come up against where, to do your job, I would imagine, if you're involved in something that requires a certain amount of secrecy, you can't

discuss certain things. So when things come along where Congress wants to have answers to questions, like, do you know what the GLOMAR, you know what GLOMAR is? Like a GLOMAR response? Global Marine. Do you remember when that Russian submarine... Yeah, years and years ago. Yeah, there was a Russian submarine

that the United States was trying to recover. It was a nuclear submarine, and Global Marine was a company that was trying to pull this thing. So it was a great operation. Yeah, it was a great operation. They were trying to pull this thing out of the ocean, but it was an incredible operation. Right. Miles deep, there's millions of pounds of metal, and they had to pull this nuclear sub up, and they were trying to get all this information about the capabilities of these Russian subs,

what kind of documents were on board. it was right after watergate so because there was so much so much blowback against secrecy because of watergate because everybody had assumed that the united states well now we found out that nixon was spying on people and he's kicked out of office so the global marine response to this was, we can neither confirm nor deny. And that's where that term came from. We can neither confirm nor deny. It came out of them having to come up with some sort of a response because of the Freedom of Information Act.

It required them to do so. So they came up with this way to respond, but not respond at the same time. It didn't really do any good because it came out in the press anyway. Eventually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah, pretty quickly. But doesn't really do any good because it came out in the press anyway. Eventually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah, pretty quickly. But doesn't that kind of highlight how difficult it is?

I mean, look, that's a perfect example. You're dealing with a Russian submarine. It's during the Cold War. We're worried we're going to go to war with Russia. Why do we have to tell you if we found a fucking Russian sub that's got nuclear missiles in it? Why should we have to tell the American people and also inform the Soviet Union, and then they go and find out where we're doing this, and then they find out that we have their sub?

It fucks up everything, right? Right. Well, I mean, you know, decade after decade, it becomes less likely that, you know, the government's going to keep deep secrets, right? Because just the way information flows and the access to information. With the Internet.

With the Internet, and just also this general inability anymore of officials to keep their yap shut so you know I mean you look at look at FDR for crying out loud the press agreed to you know not say anything about his in his his handicap you know and and so for several years it was just that was kept under wraps you can't do that you don't do that anymore I mean and and so you look at this and you think, well, yeah, I mean, we can't,

the idea that the government, and that's a good thing in a sense, the idea that the government is going to keep, you know, big secrets from people. There's a tendency to just talk. I mean, for crying out loud, the New York Times,

half the time the front page is made up of, you know, front page stories with nothing but anonymous sources. Yeah. And they can't be quoted or they can't be identified because they're not supposed

to talk about it. Well, then don't fucking talk about it. If you've signed an agreement, if you've can't be identified because they're not supposed to talk about it. Well, then don't fucking talk about it. If you've signed an agreement, if you've signed a deal that says you're not going to talk about something, shut your pie hole. Or if you feel that strongly about it, get the fuck out and then talk about it. How do you feel about guys like Edward Snowden, guys?

Is that funny? Yeah, it's funny. See, I laugh when I get irritated. Is he irritating to you? Yeah, he's irritating to me yeah um well you know again um you know everyone's going to disagree over this i'm a small government person so i i agree that you you got to have checks and balances um and and i believe a handful of things one of them being is that and people aren't going to believe this

because they watch a lot of movies and beach books and shit and down a lot of rabbit holes. But the U.S. intel community is the most transparent intel community on the planet. Maybe that sets the bar pretty low compared to other services. Right, that's saying like you're the nicest rapist ever. Right, exactly. Geez, you're a great stalker. And so I think that it's, for me, the idea that Snowden had signed agreements and then chose to do what he did,

disappeared into the PRC, and then now is over in Russia. And despite people wanting to wave the flag and saying he's a hero, on a certain level, it's caused a great deal of damage. And I think that if he was that distraught over this, then there were other avenues that he could have pursued to bring this to light. And I think that what he's done is very damaging. I understand why people beat the drum for him. I get that. Again, my opinion is based on certain life experiences.

So we're never going to meet in the middle on this one. The importance of secrecy, things along those lines, sticking to your word. The sort of damage that some of this information actually does out in the field in terms of what that means. And so, yeah, again, I'm kind of conflicted in a way because I agree. You've got to keep things in check. And you've got to have the ability to understand what the government is doing in this regard. understand what the government is doing in this regard. I think that the best way to do that is have a very inquisitive and proactive political base. Congress and Senate should do their jobs. And part of it is, you know, there's a game that goes on in Washington where every time something

like this comes out and it's politically expedient for them to do so, they express outrage and angst and, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. That's a well-worn path between the intel community and Capitol Hill with people going up and briefing these people all the time on shit. But in Edward Snowden's case, what he's talking about is them spying on every single American. That's essentially what it is. That's essentially what it is. Don't you think that people have a right to privacy if they're just innocent folks that are taxpayers and they're not breaking the law, they're not doing anything? Sure.

I think that there is that, and I don't disagree with that. That's why I say I'm conflicted on the whole issue. I'm conflicted as well because he did actually pursue different avenues before he released everything. He says he did. You don't believe him? No. There's a lot of characteristics of Snowden that remind me, again, of some of the other characters in the counterintelligence world

that we dealt with that I don't take everything. Just like this character that we watched on the video. Michael Ruber? Yeah, I don't take what they say for face value, no. Because you're willing to do a certain thing, then that makes me question your sort of your compass.

And so – but yeah, the idea that the government is collecting metadata. Now, admittedly, I could drive a big fucking truckload of metadata, dump it here on our table, and you wouldn't know shit about shit. Yeah, but it's not just metadata. But it's – then again, you look at amazon and google and you look what they're doing yeah but he was saying that people were actually going into people's emails extracting naked photographs passing them around the office yeah that's edward snow that's edward snow to say that again we're gonna have to we're gonna fall down on that this this whole thing that i i don't believe him saying that all the time i was involved in things, I never saw behavior like that.

And we dealt with NSA a fair amount and on the technical collection side. Right. So I don't buy that. But at the same time, I understand, you know, people are going to believe a different thing. I think it's important for us to have these conversations. I think it's important for us to keep the government in check. I just think this is – I disagree with the way that he went about doing it. I guess that's the best thing.

But I don't disagree with the fact that it's an important conversation. I think he felt like he had no recourse. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so did Hanson when he started spying for the fucking Soviets. So, you know, that's always the case. I didn't have any other choice. People weren't listening to me.

Oh, my God. You know, I'm not getting the respect I deserve. It is funny. They all go to the Soviets, right? He's right over there chilling in Russia. And they've got everything. These guys, Glenn Greenwald and Snowden, these guys, they all want to talk about how, no, no, we've safeguarded it. Well, if they're smarter than the fucking PRC and the PLA out in China and smarter than the FSB in Russia,

then winged monkeys on unicorns are going to fly out my ass. So I'm just not buying it. You mean in terms of safeguarding- Safeguarding the information, yeah. Very important secret information that they haven't released yet. From a counterintelligence perspective, all that shit that he's walked out the door with is in the hands of people who don't have our interests at heart.

Meaning not just what's been released, the concerns about the American people, about privacy, but some other stuff that is totally unrelated to privacy that is very important. Right. Yeah, well, that can't be argued. In my opinion, that's very tricky. I mean, if that is the case, then the data isn't secure and it can compromise people in the field and all sorts of other things. But what Americans, their number one concern was that this is what is an ongoing situation,

like the NSA, the facility that they're building in Utah where they're going to store all the data. Database center, yeah. That scares the shit out of people. Every single phone call they make is being stored somewhere. Every single email, every single text message, every dick pic they send. Every single text message, every dick pic they send. Yeah, and I think that, again, there's ways to go about it. We're supposed to have checks and balances in place.

But no one even knew about this until this guy came up. Yeah, I also don't necessarily buy that one either. How about this? The CIA improperly hacked into Senate computers. Yeah, that one is, you've got to kind of reverse engineer that story. They had set up a shared network system between the Senate staffers who were busy writing what took them over five years. And they had a preset agenda on the interrogation, the history of interrogation by the agency. So it took them over five years to write. But during the course of that, they set up a shared network, a shared system for the agency and the Senate staffers who were writing this thing to use.

So at a certain point, it became clear through the course of that process that Senate staffers had acquired documentation that they weren't supposed to have. It was above their parameters, their classification. How did they get it? That is what – then what happened was on this shared system, not in the Senate computer system. Nobody in the Senate is arguing that. It's a shared network that was set up specifically for this process of sharing documents. So the agency ran what is basically a forensic effort, a keyword and phrase search. It happens every day. I've got to accompany diligence effort, a keyword and phrase search.

It happens every day. I've got to accompany diligence for all your information and security needs. We've got a computer forensics group. So keyword phrase searches is a standard forensic tool. So they went through that to try to figure out how did this document and did others go walkabout. So that's what that whole hoo-ha was about. But again, it points to even at that level, even with a Senate Intel Committee, which, you know, again, they've got the ability if they would use it, if they would stay inquisitive, if they would stay proactive, they've got the ability to pursue things. But there's a level of distrust. Sometimes it goes on and it kind of comes back around to this whole transparency issue, conspiracy.

I don't know. There's always been. And I keep going back to that same thing. You asked me that question at the very beginning, which was terrific. What's the number one misconception? Oh, the agency's out to fuck us all. So your take on it was just that the CIA was trying to figure out how the Senate acquired these documents that they were not supposed to be in possession of. Yeah, the point of their exercise was, from a counterintelligence perspective, then you have to start figuring out what else has walked out the door.

And what the Senate interpreted it as was that, I guess, the agency was pushing back in an attempt to, what, I don't know, stop the reporting. The reporting had already gone out. This massive report that they've already written had gone out. It had already gone out to the community for review. It had gone to the White House for review. So it's not as if they were going to try to stop that flow of information. They've already done that. They've already released it.

Well, they haven't released it to the public because now they're waiting from the White House for a review. So I don't know uh you know there's the the agency has a long history of uh of being a lightning rod for things because of the nature of its business and that's understood people who work inside the organization understand that and and and I'm outside it, so I can express a little frustration. But I guarantee you, when you're inside, and you're constantly being thrown out there as an evil cabal, or selling drugs to low-income

neighborhoods, or fucking over everybody else, or working against the interests, as opposed to White House delivers tasking and says, get this done. And the job of the agency is to march forward, regardless of who's in the administration. And it doesn't matter whether it's President Obama or President Bush, President Clinton, President Carter. It doesn't matter. They give you the tasking, you do it. So when you see a situation like this where Dianne Feinstein says that the CIA may have violated the Constitution, do you think there's a lot of political grandstanding going on?

There's huge political grandstanding. Of course there is. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, there's political grandstanding in everything that goes on nowadays. I mean, it doesn't matter what this is. So when they're making these big speeches, it's like to set them up in a position where it looks like they're looking out for the American public when in reality if they looked at the actual circumstances and the actual facts behind what had gone on it would have been far less or if in other cases where they were they were expressing oh my god i

can't believe this interrogation program was doing this well fuck that we've got briefers that like i said march back and forth and back and forth and and and and explain what's going on and answer questions i mean the agencies from the church committee on and even prior to that, you know, there's a long history of sort of this game that goes on. If I'm a politician up on Capitol Hill and I see that this is not going to look good from my constituency back home, then I'm going to express surprise. Even if I sat on that intel committee and listened to what was going on, I was supposedly listening to what was going on, I was supposedly

listening to what was going on. So again, I'm not saying the fucking agency is perfect. And again, I'm also not saying I can be objective about it. That would be, I'd be lying if I said that. I am subjective. I got a great deal of respect for them. My experiences with them were extremely positive. I saw people stand up with really sound moral compass and always try to do the right thing.

So that's what I took away from it. That's how I then process all this other crap that's out there, this noise. So if I'm wrong and I die and I find out I'm wrong, well, fuck me. I don't know what to say. That's one way to look at it. Well, I can't imagine that it's possible to know everything that's going on in any organization. I mean, you can't, no matter what it is, if it's a police department or if it's the CIA or the FBI or the United States Army, every general doesn't know about every single action

that every single soldier is involved in. It's impossible. Well, it's like going after President Obama every time something goes wrong, right? I don't necessarily... It's convenient. Yeah, it's convenient. But no, no president, whether it's him

or whether it's President Bush or whether it's President Clinton or whoever, you can't know everything. You got to try to do your best to make sure you don't get surprised. And then for that, you got to rely on your staff. And I don't think saying that you were surprised and that you're just finding out about it is a good strategy necessarily. But at the same time, you can't be expected to know everything.

Do you feel like that what's going on, like the WikiLeaks thing and the artist formerly known as Bradley Manning, now Chelsea Manning. Chelsea Manning. You have to say Chelsea. Yeah. Her. Do you feel like that's in the same league as Edward Snowden? Is one better and one worse because one was a soldier? No.

That's a really good question. You know what? Nobody ever accused me of being a deep thinker. So my, my feeling about it is, um, the commonality there is that you, you initially, um, agreed to, um, Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut to protect, um, the information that you were, um, given responsibility for having access to and to do your, your job um i think if you sign up to commitments if you make a promise if you sign that promise that contract um then you got to

stick with it and uh and if you if you decide at some point that you can't because you're just so fucking morally opposed to it then you know man up and find a way to do it properly. Don't break the fucking law. Don't go to the Soviets or the Russians. I call them the Soviets still. Don't go to the Russians. Don't go to the Chinese. Don't go to those people who, again, don't have our interest at heart

and try to claim that you're doing it for the good of all mankind. That doesn't make any sense. What do you think they could do, though? I mean, what does someone do if they feel like they're being ignored and try to claim that you're doing it for the good of all mankind. That doesn't make any sense. What do you think they could do, though? I mean, what does someone do if they feel like they're being ignored and they're on the inside and they honestly feel like some horrible things are happening and they have no recourse? Well, you know what? If you believe in the justice system, who knows?

Kids, if you find yourself in this position at home... Well, it weird thing is a guy like julian assange because he's not even american you know yeah he's he's locked up in jail and he's in an embassy supposedly for sex crimes yeah i thought it was coming out what did he say i thought it was last i heard he was he was coming out to face the the charges of the sexual assault. Well, he's sick. He's not doing well health-wise. It's not good to not have any son for two fucking years. Well, I know. To be locked in an embassy? I've been in embassies.

I wouldn't want to spend two years in there. Yeah. But I think it's, you know what? Again, I guess easy to say when you're not in that position, but at the same time, again, it's just my opinion. Don't fucking break your covenants. Don't break the law. Find a way to do it.

And if you can't? And if you can't? Just deal with it? Just deal with it. Walk out. You've got to leave. Go find yourself something else to do. Get yourself a job that you can be happy with.

I'm sure there's people out there right now screaming, oh, my God, well, you've got to bring it up. Well, then fine. At what level, though? At what level can the crimes be? I mean, what if you found out? Let's go deep. What if you found out that there was some sort of a false flag operation that was going to result in the death of a bunch of American lives, including American servicemen, including American officers and enlisted folks. I mean, if you found out something along those lines.

That's a thriller movie concept. But, yeah, and there's never the ticking time bomb scenario. I mean, by the way, that was never a good defense of sort of like the interrogation program, the ticking time bomb, you know, that always saying, well, I've got five seconds, so therefore I've got to hit this guy over the head with a car battery. But you almost always have more than five seconds, so therefore I've got to hit this guy over the head with a car battery. But you almost always have more than five seconds. But in that sort of a scenario, I mean, that is a crime against the United States. Well, sure.

Yeah, then fine. Then go out there. It's not as if, you know, again, it's a hypothetical. It doesn't make any sense in the sense that, what am I going to do? I'm worried that I'm going to go and I'm going to tell my superiors and it's all a cabal and they're all working together and the whole organization is going to suddenly, and I'm the one who's going to be fucked, and the next thing I know I'm being chased to the basement of the organization

by all these people and it's a cabal. No, I mean, if you find out that there's something, there's one thing to say, I haven't seen any indication of breaking the law, but morally, I don't know, this bothers me. That's different. If you find it, then okay, then that's I don't know, this bothers me. That's different. If you find, you know, then, okay, then that's one case you've got to deal with. If you find a case where there's something illegal going on, well, then fine.

Bring it to light immediately. There's no other choice. I mean, it's like I used to tell my guys, you know, you make a mistake, you do something wrong, you know, tell me immediately. And, you know, that's the way that you resolve problems. That's how you fix things. That's how you make sure that things don't go off the rails. And the agency does operate under that.

You know, again, people aren't going to buy it. But, you know, I saw it time and time again. Somebody would make a mistake. Someone would make a bad decision. And the first thing they would do is march in there and tell their supervisor, chief of station, or whoever it was. And, you know, there's that type of culture in there again but people don't gotta buy it i mean because that's not that's not the whole issue that the artist formerly known as bradley manning faced is that there was nothing that he could do or she could do now that was

being taken seriously so she went public with all that information because no one was listening well they have uh yeah they have uh ig uh office jag office they have, yeah, they have IG office, JAG office. They have a lot of avenues that they can go to that wouldn't be walking into your immediate supervisor in the military. Because, yeah, sure, maybe that's not the best thing to do. Maybe you're concerned it's all, you know, I'm going to be punished for stepping out of line. Well, they have practices in place that you go to, just like in a corporation.

You've got compliance officers, you've got ombudsmen, whatever you want to call it. So, I don't know. Again, I'm not smart enough to be able to address issues like that, but I do think if you make promises and you agree

to protect and serve the interests of the United States, don't break the fucking law. Well, don't break your oath. Right, don't break your oath. That this is what you're dealing with when you're dealing with any agency or the military. You're dealing with a group that you've agreed to be a part of. It's a sacred oath that you've taken.

It's very important that you keep that oath. And isn't what we're seeing with all these leaks and all this different stuff sort of a it's it's also it's an excellent example of the times that we live in that it when you're dealing with something so sensitive and so difficult it's very it's very hard to get people to just keep their mouth shut now right and and no that's and they used to be able to hide these things that's a really good point and part of it is again part of it's very hard to get people to just keep their mouth shut now. Right. Well, they used to be able to hide these things. That's a really good point. And part of it is, again, part of it is all the anonymous quotes in the newspapers and oftentimes attributed to senior military officials, senior administration officials. Part of it is the books that get written, sort of the idea that I'm going to finish up as whatever, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I'm going to write a book.

And that filters down to write a book. And that filters down to the junior officers. They see that, or people in the organizations, and they see that, and they think, well, what the hell? What's sacred then? You're going to get out after 30 years, and you're going to talk about all the various things that were done, and you're going to give a mea culpa over a couple of things, and you're going to talk about shit that all that time you knew you weren't supposed to talk about.

So it's – yeah, I think there's a slide there in sort of the cultural understanding of what is and isn't acceptable. So what you were talking about, you keep saying the New York Times, and you're talking about unnamed quotes and unnamed sources. You're talking about this James Risen case where this guy's detailing a botched CIA operation in Iran, and they're trying to get his sources. Well, no, not just that. You can't swing at the cat most days without hitting a major newspaper that's dealing with anonymous sources. I'm just talking about in terms of all the general use of them. Remember that. In the past, I'm just talking about in terms of all the general use of them. Remember that. I don't think you could, in the past, I don't think you could write a major story if you had more than one anonymous source. Maybe you couldn't even have an anonymous source,

but now it's an accepted fact. And I guess the point being is that people just feel more comfortable speaking out of turn, and that filters down to all the younger members of whatever organization it may be whether it's a company whether it's a hedge fund whether it's a the agency a military whatever it may be so you feel like in the case of this rising guy who's he's in deep shit right i mean he's yeah i mean the supreme court just rejected his appeal um his refusal to uh identify a source and what he's done is write a book based on some information that allegedly someone from the CIA gave him.

The Supreme Court's saying, look, you've got to give up that information. You've got to say who told you this stuff, because that's more important than the freedom of the press. Right, protection of the source. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, again, you know, I don't even know where to go with that.

That's like one of those meet the press sort of issues that no one's ever going to call me on. Well, to play devil's advocate, one way to look at it is it's not like New York Times reporters have been infallible. It's not like they haven't been accused of plagiarism. It's not like they haven't bullshitted before. plagiarism. It's not like they haven't bullshitted before. And if this guy wrote a book and the book was based on unfactual or either lies or

fabricated information, it is possible. Is it possible that you could meet behind closed doors and do that where it doesn't have to go public? Well, you would think so. Right? I mean, it's not like the judges. Right. It can't be the first time they'd need to find a mechanism for something like this, you know, just like with

testimony up on the Hill, Capitol Hill. I mean, it's not, it's never the first time any of that crap happens. So they must have some sort of protocol in place, you would think. But perhaps there's a political element here to, you know, beating it out in public. I don't know. That is a very interesting situation when it comes to protecting sources it's like it's it would almost be if we had a lie detector test like an infallible lie detector test where you can say did these sources actually tell you this information were these sources really cia deep undercover operatives were they legit people and you know and then the guy it turns out he's lying well then you throw the book at him yeah if he's telling the truth then it seems like the onus is almost on the cia well yeah um although

i wouldn't put a lot i mean yeah i mean not to get in the weeds but yeah the polygraph is not necessarily it's it's a it's an art it's not a sign yeah it's not ready yet right so do you think this is sort of a battle between the idea of protecting sources and the idea of protecting America, that these two things, maybe the oath that a person takes is equally important as the laws that are in place to protect sources, and this is just duking it out to see which one holds precedent, what's more significant in terms of the repercussions on the American people? Yeah, I mean, I think I could see where journalists would hold this up as an example of saying this is the same thing. You can't argue the difference. Is there a national security element to this that takes precedence over a journalist's right

to publish something and not disclose the source? That's a court decision. What do I know? Again, no one's going to ask me for my opinion on that, but I can see where people could draw the comparison and try to argue one side or the other, frankly. I think if there is a legitimate national security issue, you've got to weigh in on that side of it. Yes. But that could also be abused, no doubt.

So you have to be careful about it. Yeah, isn't that the deal? I mean, that's the issue that we have with law enforcement, everything. You're dealing with the human element. You know, I'm a big fan of law enforcement. I take a lot of shit from people for saying that because whenever someone says we shouldn't have cops, I'm like, I know bad people. I've met bad people. You're fucking crazy.

When people say that we shouldn't have military, in your utopian world and the world would be beautiful and charming and everybody would be growing flowers out of their ass, yeah, that would be nice. But that's not the world. Look at what's going on with ISIS right now in Syria. Anybody who doesn't think that you need military to deal with people like that, you're fucking crazy. Yeah. No, I've spent a lot of time in very unusual and hostile environments where there's no rule of law.

There's no, and it's not a place people want to be. No. And so I agree with you. And that's also part of the the perspective that's just a massive ignorance of human history i mean human history and human motivations if you look at the potential and if you look at the possible future of humanity once we evolve past where we are now you have a thousand years from now ten thousand years wholly a hundred maybe a decade who knows but the reality of right now if you look at the rest of the world look at

what's going on with israel and gaza right now. Anybody who thinks you shouldn't have some sort of method of protection, some sort of method of intelligence, information, and the ability to operate militarily, they're crazy. Right, right. And I don't know that human behavior is ever going to change. I mean, technology adjusts, and so we end up doing things differently because of technology and what that means to us. But I don't know that, I don't think we're ever going to evolve beyond this where we're all just a bunch of...

But don't you think we have from the time we were apes? I mean, we've kind of gotten a little bit better. That's what you're talking about. I know some guys that haven't. Don't talk about Al Sharpton that way, man. Oh, oh. How dare you. Oh, you walked me into that trap.

Look at this. I feel like this this is probably at least in america this is fucked up as it is this is probably the safest time ever for people i really do believe that as far as violent crime as far as worried about being attacked by another country i think it's probably the safest time ever. And I would hope that that trend would continue and that this would continue all across the world and that human beings would slowly but surely sort out all their bullshit and figure out a way to have a cohesive, nice, civilized world that we could all live in.

Yeah, not in our lifetime, but it's nice to think about. It's just, I'm not. It's a long process. Like evolution almost. Yeah. I've seen some, you know, folks do some pretty, you know, iffy things out there. I'm sure you have.

And so I think that I'm not as optimistic that, you know, that human nature will change. I think that it's possible, but I think that oftentimes we, and I get asked this question all the time from folks that are trying to manage security, work on crisis management, that sort of thing, for their companies, for their families, whatever it may be. And I'm not one of those preppers. I'm not one of those people who thinks, oh, my God, it's all going to fall apart, and we're going to be dealing with zombies. Although that would be interesting. I don't think that would be fun at all.

Yeah, it wouldn't be fun. I mean, unless you've got a lot of gear. What do you mean if you have a lot of gear? What kind of shitty life is that? Oh, I know. I know. That's well, yeah, that's where we get that Idaho compound. No, I'm kidding.

It depends on what kind of zombies you're dealing with, too. Yeah, you don't want the ones that move fast. I never understood that, right? The fast-moving zombies doesn't make any sense. 28 Days Later zombies are scary as fuck. Yeah. You know, my daughter is fantastic. She's in college.

She loves zombie movies. She refuses to watch 28 Days Later because it freaks her out. So anyway, but I think that, you know, this idea, one of the biggest crises we actually do face in the short midterm is to our power grid. So as an example of what I mean by human nature, I lived in New Canaan in Connecticut. It's a very nice little town in Fairfield County when I was working out of my New York office. And one of the things I didn't know about New Canaan was if you buy a house there, then you have to assume that in town, you'll lose power at least every week during winter because everything's above lines, above ground. And so one time after about a year there, I didn't have any generators. I'm not smart.

I'm not a handy guy. And so my wife looks at me and says, are you ever going to go out and buy a generator for us? Because we're the only one on a block that doesn't have a generator. So the power goes out for three or four days and in wintertime, it's pretty damn cold night it's fun right the kids are all you know i got three boys and the scooter sluggo and mugsy and they love a camp out so first night's great second night it's it's everybody's freezing their ass off so it took me the first winter to figure out i should go out and get a generator we had we had a power failure so i went to uh home depot and i went in there uh home depot and i went in there and i watched a fight break out in in a very affluent county of of america uh when the power had really only been out for probably about 36 hours at that point and i watched a fight break out of one of the last generators apparently that was available i mean i

literally just walked up on this scene and there were people all masked up and they've been handing out numbers and trying to get everybody in order in line and i I looked at this thing, and I thought, good God. So then I found the manager and gave him $100 and got the last generator. So that's field expediency right there, kids. It only cost $100? Well, yeah, on top of the cost of the thing. And then I proceeded, and to show you how handy I am, I proceeded to take it home and run the thing. We had power. It was fantastic. I ran the generator. And then I didn't realize to show you how handy I am, I proceeded to take it home and run the thing. We had power.

It was fantastic. I ran the generator. Then I didn't realize necessarily that it needed oil. You blew the generator? I blew the generator. And that was a happy day. So my point being is that if the grid goes down, say we've only got three grids, east, west, and Texas, around this whole country of ours. And these grids were never designed.

They were never built to withstand a terrorist attack. That wasn't the point. And now, you know, the infrastructure is getting old, and we're spending a lot of money trying to harden the facilities and try to improve and provide more mobile generators. It's a major, major issue in this country. And you can imagine if the grid goes out, or lose power for say two months, everything that drives transportation, trading, banking, just general well-being of society, how we all feel about ourselves every day, water, then we got a problem. And so my feeling has always been I would like to think that we'll see the best of ourselves during the course of something like that. Maybe we will But I sometimes I sometimes I find myself being a little more cynical it depends entirely on the desperation

If there's no food, you're not gonna see the best in people. There's no water You're not gonna see the best in people For well, you know people can bond together if they feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel The real problem is when there's no light when there's no light or there's a brighter light over there Yeah, and what you got or they feel like they can a light at the end of the tunnel. The real problem is when there's no light. When there's no light or there's a brighter light over there than what you got. Or they feel like they can get away with carving their own light at your expense. That is a real issue

with human nature. Desperation is a scary thing. Those preppers freak me the fuck out, man. Because some of them it's almost like they want it to go bad so that they could use all their canned food. You've got to rotate that shit. Well, you've got to rotate that shit. Just like you've got to rotate your ammunition, you've got to rotate your canned food. So don't forget that when you're dealing with your two-year supply.

Yeah. But, no, I agree with it. Anyway, I don't know where I was going down that rabbit hole. Well, we were talking about zombies in your Idaho compound and Sluggo and Muggsy. Is that really your kids' names? Basically. Nicknames? Yeah, that's their nicknames, but I don't think they know their real names at this point.

Sluggo just started kindergarten the other day, and that was exciting all the way around because he, you know, the oldest one, like a lot of kids, actually, never mind, I don't want to start talking about my kids. People are like tuning out right now. Yeah. He's talking about his kids. Well, people like, they don't mind talking about kids. But it's an issue that everybody has.

It has children. You worry about the future. You worry about not just the future because of bullshit that's going on overseas, but just natural disasters, things that could happen that could wipe out the grid, asteroidal impacts, et cetera. You know what I worry about, too? All those things. I mean, all the potential, pandemic, you know, whatever it is.

But I tell you what I spend more time worrying about, because I think it's actually more likely or possible, is most of my time was spent overseas. Most of my, you know, young and then adult life. And you could travel to the darkest places out there, the deepest, darkest places out there, the deepest, darkest places out there, and you would find somebody who would think, you know, if I could just get to America, and I work hard, then I can do better. And they honestly believe that. And people over

here used to believe that. I'm sure a lot of people still do. We got great people. But I do worry about the erosion of that concept of America being a place where, A, we're very fortunate. of that concept of America being a place where, A, we're very fortunate. And, you know, and I understand, you know, some more fortunate than a lot of others. And I, you know, that's obvious. But as a country, I worry more about the erosion of our belief in ourselves and our ability to do great things. You know, I mean, think about what we did. The space program, for fuck's sake, we put duct tape on a rocket ship and, you know, took it to the moon and back. I mean, we did shit.

And now we're begging the Russians for a ride to the space station, and the Russians are saying, fuck you. You know, we don't like your stance on Ukraine, so you can't go to space. I don't know. I think it's ridiculous to cancel that. When they canceled the space shuttle,

but they were keeping up the space station, I was like, what? Yeah, what's that all about? That sounds like the most ridiculous shit ever. It's like, we're going to have a house in the Hamptons, but we're going to give away our car. Do you have a house in the Hamptons? No, I don't. But I mean, if you did, where the fuck? It'd be nice.

How are you going to get it? It's nice out there. Yeah. A lot of deer, though. You hit your car with them. A lot of deer. How the fuck do they expect to get out there? It just seems to

me to be so ridiculous that they stopped the space shuttle program well we want to live in a community of nations i mean maybe i mean some people want to live in a community of nations that's a lovely ideal just like human nature is going to evolve and we're all going to you know like you said have flowers at our ass i don't know what that gets us having flowers at our ass but it it uh i i think that you know there's a there's reality, which is that if you don't have somebody at the top, and during the Cold War, we had this bipolar situation with us and the Soviets, and that worked, right? As long as there was a balance of power, a physical balance of power.

But if you don't have somebody at the top of the food chain, you're going to get kind of where we're going, which is chaos and people looking to fill that void. And we're not going to be happy with it. And if you're not in charge, then you're looking at somebody's ass in line, right? And that, you know, if we're happy with that and we're happy with the ensuing, you know, potential chaos that that brings, then fine. Let's just admit it. Let's say that's where we're going with all this. You know, we want to be average.

But I don't believe that's the case with this country. And I don't know. i know what you're saying you know you're a patriotic guy and you're looking at the the situation at hand and it's uh it's very uncomfortable and i think that the reality of what's going on the foreign crisis is whether it's what's going on in the ukraine or what's happening right now in iraq this massive power vacuum that's being filled by isis and these militant jihadists and somebody if somebody's going to be at the top better the united states than isis yeah no absolutely and you know what honestly and that's and that's i guess maybe that's what i'm trying to say but i'm not saying it very well is that i have a great uh deal of

faith in the u.s no matter which administration's in charge again i don't i don't like to think i have a dog in the hunt as long as people are working hard and doing trying to do the right thing whether it's this administration previous administration whichever one I got a lot of faith in the ability of or the or the desire of this country to do the right thing sometimes we don't do it and it takes us a while to course correct uh... sometimes longer than we should

but I do believe that we and that's something I took away from the time with with with the government we try to do the right thing so I don't know I believe you I believe, and that's something I took away from the time with the government. We try to do the right thing. So, I don't know. I believe you. I believe you. And I think you're a noble guy. I mean, when you're saying this to me, I don't think you're bullshitting at all.

No, I'm not. What I worry most about when it comes to the United States, when it comes to the future, the direction of things, is the influences that politicians have that are not in the best interest of Americans. That, to me, is one of the scariest things. The influences of corporations that only look at things in terms of how much money they can extract from X or Y. Which one is going to be more profitable for them? Let's go with Y. We're going to make more money. Fuck the American people.

And the politicians tend to lean towards that because those are the very people that put them in office in the first place. They're beholden to them once they get in there. That, I think, is one of the biggest threats. The fear that people have of money overpowering the greater good of the actual citizens of the United States. I think you're absolutely right. And to that I would say what I always say, which I've been beating on this stupid drum for a while, is term limits. I don't think we get big, brave decisions in Washington anymore until we get term limits. Until we take this system, which quite frankly, the founding fathers never imagined that anybody in their right mind would

want to stay in Washington for 36 years. Who would want to do that in their mind? So they didn't put that in there. And that's the one thing I think that would make a difference. Give congressmen two four-year terms, give senators two six-year terms and get the fuck out, right? And rotate that. We got some great people in this country that could step up and be terrific leaders if given the opportunity. And if we didn't have to pay a couple hundred million dollars every time we want to run a campaign. So put finance limits that actually mean something in there and bring that that down if you can't get your point across in a congress congressional or senate campaign for say you know a million dollars two

million dollars then you're a fucking moron how can you how can that not work and you and you can only run your campaign for a certain period of time how difficult is that so i mean the states tried it individual states tried to do that and then the Supreme Court shut it down and said, oh, the states can't determine the term limits for federal positions, which to me, I still don't quite get that. But I agree with you. But I think that one step we could be taking to try to get that influence of money out of politics in a meaningful way is term limits. Get some rotation in there. Get some fresh blood in there so that you don't have people sitting there. And these guys will say, well, it takes a long time to understand how Washington works. Well, maybe if you're a moron, but Washington's a pretty straightforward place at the end of the day.

And if you can't figure out the legislative process in six months, you're an idiot. You shouldn't be there. So that's where I go. I'll step off my soapbox now. Do you think that term limits would be circumvented the same way they've kind of been with the president? Where there's just so much massive money and influence that they essentially, the two-party system is controlled by virtually the same corporations in the first place. Well, you know what? I'm not saying that they wouldn't figure out a way to try to game the system at some point.

But it'd be more difficult. It would be much more difficult. I'm not saying that they wouldn't figure out a way to try to game the system at some point. It would be more difficult. It would be much more difficult. If suddenly, if I'm a corporation, and I know that somebody's going to be on the Ways and Means Committee for the next 24 years, then I know what I'm going to do. I know how I'm going to try to influence that position and how I'm going to kind of work that from a lobbying position. If you're only there for two terms, I've got to change my game plan. I'm not going to invest all my time and effort

and resources into into this person i'm gonna think of it and and you know what it's worth i guess my point is it's worth a try is any system going to be perfect well no of course not um and but the way that it's working right now all i know is we got a city full of dysfunctional people who are i mean the congressmen are trying to run for election basically constantly A two-year term means you're constantly trying to raise money. And that's not the way it should be. And that's most of their time, too. That's most of their time, yeah. Most of their time is fundraising.

Literally 80% of the time that anyone who's running for Congress, anyone who's running for Senate, 80% of the time you're trying to raise money. Right. And when you send good people there, then they get co-opted by the system. And it must be extremely frustrating for the people that go out there with good intentions. And then they realize I got to spend all my time impressing the congressional leadership with my fundraising prowess. First, without a doubt, do you get a sense by paying attention to all the shit that's going on overseas, whether it's what's happening in Ukraine, what's heating up in North Korea, what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, do you get a sense that things are kind of like more chaotic and more hectic now than they've ever been before? I don't know about than they've ever been before. Certainly in my recent memory, yeah. Because I remember it used to be that we'd have the issue, right? It was the Balkans and the Balkans were a mess. They were a big stinking mess. And it was very violent. There was a little lovely period of time where Haiti was the only real big concern. We had the Cold War era. And that was very comforting for a lot of people because you knew who the enemy was and you knew how the game was played in a sense. But right now with the flashpoints that we've got, we've got the Chinese are increasingly aggressive in an effort to try to retake the Pacific, which they've always been pissed off that we've basically owned since World War II.

since World War II, and the Russians, the Middle East situation, obviously. Yeah, I'd say it's more chaotic now than it has been in recent memory. I don't think that's not a big statement. Is that what happens? Is there just an ebb and flow when it comes to these sort of situations, when it comes to, like, what's going on in the world, power struggles, then the power struggles are resolved, and then new resistance builds up. I mean, is that, in your experience, how things go?

Well, I think you minimize the chaos by being consistent. And what I mean by that is, as foreign policy, as an example, if your foreign policy message is consistent and strong and clear, and there's no misunderstanding by either your allies or the people that are against us, then you can minimize the chaos that exists. If it's not consistent, and there's confusion over where we stand, and I'm saying we because, you know, okay, fine, we're still at the top of the food heap, whether people are comfortable with that or not, I don't know. But so if we're not consistent in that message then there's confusion and that's where you start to get problems because

you start to get people probing at the perimeter trying to see what exactly is going on what they can get away with we start getting less leverage i mean you know we're getting situation in the middle east now where countries are acting completely without uh consulting uh with the u.s you wouldn't have had that 30 years ago. It just wouldn't have happened. Like what instances? Like Egypt? Yeah, Egypt acting in what they consider to be their own best interest. The Saudis. The Saudis are enormously pissed off at us still over what they view as the current administration's failure to work with them

to try to resolve some issues out in the Middle East. And they feel as if we've sort of abdicated responsibility. Now, whether we have or not, whether it's the right thing to do or not, I'm just saying, from a policy perspective, you know, if what we want to do is be isolationist, then be very clear about that. Say, this is all we're going to do. These are our parameters. That's it. So everybody knows, good. We're all good with it, fine. Get on with it. But, you know, the mixed messages are the problem. I mean, that's, you know, I think that's pretty clear. So in one way, being patriotic and being an isolationist, in another way, meddling in foreign governments, sending out aid, being part of their political process, all that jazz?

Well, I think that, yeah, exactly. I mean, saying, okay, we don't really want to be involved. Here's a red line. You pass the red line, okay, fine, we're going to do something else over here. You know, we're going to pivot to Asia. And I don't mean to pick on the current administration. I've got a lot of respect for some of the folks in there. But there's a, you know, there's a lack, I think, of consistency.

And there's certainly, I think, in the sense of how the Chinese are behaving, how the Russians are behaving, how certain countries in the Middle East are currently behaving, I think it's an indication that they don't necessarily believe we're engaged. And that either worries them or delights them, you know, depending on what position they hold. So, you know, and I don't think we have the luxury of disengaging. You know, again, my experience has been when there's a vacuum, you know, shit happens. Well, that's what we're seeing right now in Iraq, right? Right, yeah, absolutely.

And it's one of the scariest times ever for the folks who live there. And what we're seeing in terms of these jihadist extremists, this is like, this is as ramped up as we've ever seen it before. And this is a direct response to the power vacuum, right? Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, we can argue, you know, all day long, okay, you know, should we have gone in, you know, should we have not have, okay, fine. But the situation is that it's fucked up. And we've got to deal with it.

It is what it is right now. Right. Whether the 2001 decision was correct or not, it is what it is right now. Exactly. And so now we've got to deal with it, otherwise we're going to pay a big price for this. This is the first time that they've gained this sort of territorial integrity from an

extremist point of view. And they're consolidating territory. They're in the entire northern province in Syria and an additional territory moving east and up through Aleppo. They're controlling border posts along the Golan Heights. They're controlling border posts along Turkey. And they've moved, obviously, into Iraq. They're, you know, not

very far away. They could piss on Baghdad at this point. And they're consolidating that turf. And that's a huge recruitment tool for them overseas, which is why we're seeing their numbers, you know, kind of grow exponentially at this point. It's because they've got the turf of this caliphate that they've been talking about for years and years.

Finally, they've got this physical vision of this thing. They've got the resources from overrunningiphate that they've been talking about for years and years. Finally, they got this physical vision of this thing. They've got the resources from overrunning the banks and the various military bases in Syria and Iraq. I mean, good God, they've gotten their hands on multiple divisions worth of gear. And so we're going to have to deal with it. And somebody's got to put boots on the ground, whether it's us or somebody else. It'd be nice to see the Turks step up because they got a lot to lose on this one. It'd be nice to see the Turks step up because they've got a lot to lose on this one. It'd be nice to see the Turks step up and get involved. But somebody's got to put boots on the ground because airstrikes alone are not going to cut it.

Is this one of those situations, too, where it's difficult to get people enthusiastic about engaging because of all the years of war that people disagreed with, Iraq and Afghanistan especially? Yeah. No, absolutely. But this is a much more imminent threat. No, absolutely. I mean, you know. But this is a much more imminent threat. Well, it is, but it's hard to explain that to people who are fatigued. And I understand that 100%. I mean, you know, we're all tired of the freaking war on terror.

We're all tired of Iraq. We're all tired of Afghanistan. And I understand that. Nobody wants to deal with it. But just kind of wanting it to go away isn't, that's not a sound national security policy. What is the future? I mean, what can be done to sort of mitigate all this shit? Well, the problem is that we're now in a position,

and if we're just talking about ISIS, the Islamic State, we're now in a position where we've got some pretty strange bedfalls. Iran is engaged against them. Obviously, it's a Shiite regime. They've been putting boots on the ground in Iraq for some time now, trying to prop up Maliki, who's now gone. Syria, Bashar al-Assad has been, you know, authorizing airstrikes in there. So in a sense, if we go into Syria, you know, and try to kick some ass with ISIS, we're on the side of the Iranians and Assad. And this White House is really, really unlikely to want to be seen in the public eye as taking sides with Assad. So this is probably the most complex situation they've got going right now, is how to do this. And that's why I say the best way to go about it is to strong-arm, if necessary, the Turks, Jordanians, Saudis, to the degree we can. We don't have much leverage with the Saudis anymore.

To try to get them on board, get an allied force in there. Because we can do it. It's not like we can't defeat them. We just don't have a strategy for doing it right now. We've got a strategy to contain them. Yeah, I'm not necessarily the biggest Obama fan, but man, has this fucking guy walked into a hornet's nest from the moment he got into the White House. I mean, talk about a chaotic eight years.

Right, right. No, absolutely. And they walked in without really, I think, appreciating how bad it could be, obviously, and walking in also with not as much interest in the international scene as in doing some domestic changes. Well, I remember when he was debating McCain and he was talking about going into Afghanistan and that we'll just go in and take care of things. And McCain was like, do you even fucking know what Afghanistan is? Do you understand how it works? I remember when McCain said that that place has operated essentially the same way since Alexander the Great. Yeah.

Do you recognize that? You can't just go in there. Right. It's the definition. It's like Libya. Libya is a hot mess right now. By the way, nobody's focusing on Libya. Exactly. The extremists have just taken over the airport in Tripoli. Basically, they have taken over the country. There's almost nothing related to a sort of a

pseudo-federal government running Libya anymore. It's a disaster, but we can only focus on one thing at a time, apparently. So, you know, right now we're looking at ISIS, but I think you look at Afghanistan and that's a perfect example. We didn't need another case study. We got a case study of what the Russians did. We spent a lot of time. I was in there when we were trying to get the Soviets out. We spent a lot of time trying to push them out. And they went through the same process we did. After five years, they were just trying to get the fuck out of there. They already realized it was a failure situation. So what did they do? They retreated to the urban centers. That's what we did. They couldn't figure out how to get the fuck out of there they already realized it was a failure situation to try and so what did they do they retreated to the urban centers that's what we did they couldn't figure out how to get a government that would stay in place after they left same problem we're having all this we know

they went through um i had one of my first hires in diligence for all your information and security needs was a former military intelligence officer he's was a former tank driver, too, for the Russian military. And he told me, he grabbed me, I remember, as we went into Tora Bora, and he said, you know, don't stay. You can't stay there. So there are a lot of cockroaches. You step on them here, they show up over there. Don't stay. He was still carrying around shrapnel from the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. We didn't need to go all the way back through history to understand how this was not going to work. And I hate to say this, and I'm not doing any disservice to the terrific men and women who have served over there, lost their lives, been wounded.

The Taliban have no place to go. It's like the Viet Cong. Where do we think they're going to go? So once we're finished there, when they take back over, we shouldn't be that surprised. So I'm not an optimistic guy. We did a brilliant tactical mission there. But by the spring of 2002, we should have walked out the door.

So if you do this again, if you allow your place to be used to reach out to the West, we'll come back and kill more of you but we nation building i don't give a shit whether we raise their literacy rate by two or three percent or build another road they don't know what we're trying to sell them never have so that's i'm very frustrated with it the afghan policy is very enormously frustrating it seems incredibly frustrating but what could be done is there a way to handle it better i mean what what could be done? Is there a way to handle it better? I mean, what could be done?

Well, once again, I mean, we're in that category where you kind of, you know, you broke it. You know, what kind of, it's ours. You know, we can argue about the wisdom of what we did, but you're right. I mean, now you've got to look at it from a practical point of view. Frankly, anything we do in Afghanistan is sort of like a holding enterprise. So as long as we stay there, we can maintain some semblance of not a shitstorm. Once we leave, then it degenerates. So I think anything we do there is simply a containment exercise. So does it just become the United States of Afghanistan? is simply containment exercise.

So does it just become the United States of Afghanistan? We take over and just fund it all on the poppy seeds and the fucking minerals in the mountains? Ooh, this goes back to that whole narcotics thing. Well, listen. Hold on a second. But it's important. Look, I mean, if you really do think about what the scenario is over there, 90% of the world's opium comes from there,

and there's a massive amount of lithium and ion and minerals in the mountains what what the fuck else can anybody do other than try to figure out one way to fund staying there yeah no it's it's it's uh it's uh one of the most unsatisfying discussions you can ever have is what do we do there's no good answer there's no good answer leaving sucks staying sucks both of them suck right and and and again we're having this discussion in public where public is entirely, rightfully so, fatigued with this whole thing. Not just fatigued, but ignorant, right? I mean, I'm ignorant of it. I've read quite a bit about it, but I guarantee you I'm ignorant. I mean, if I was over there, I'd probably have a better understanding.

If I was over there for a decade, maybe I would scratch the surface. Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah, I see what you mean. But yeah, we've got a lot of flash points right now. We've got a lot of big issues that are happening and now we've got the midterm elections

coming up so I don't think anything, nothing big in a way is going to happen in Washington. Do you think any of this could have been avoided by not going into Iraq and not going into Afghanistan or was that kind of shit inevitable anyway because with all this with having a ruthless dictator like Saddam Hussein that's no picnic having a guy like that running a country with this evil fucking sociopathic serial killer sons I mean that guy was a

ruthless piece of shit right no absolutely yeah I mean people say well we should have left him in place well you know what the mindset at the time and people have you have a hard time remembering going back to what it was like right after 9-11 people thought shit was going to happen every single fucking hour right and you know it got it got overrun with the neocons there's no doubt about that they you know they had an agenda they had a plan that they're this is what they were going to do um now there was also and i do know this there was also agreement from a lot of allies that this was a problem that had to be dealt with. So it wasn't just the U.S. saying, we're going to rush in there,

you know, because that's a conspiracy. Oh, we're going to go in there because we're going to get their oil. Really? Well, yeah. There were a lot of allies that were believing that. And unfortunately, and this goes to show you how you got to be very careful about your intelligence operations. A lot of it was based on just crap, bullshit. But the time, at the time, the way that we thought and the fear that existed and the way that people said, whatever it takes to protect the homeland,

even if that means going into Iraq because that's going to be the next flashpoint. So I'm not one to say you've got to second guess decisions that happened in the past because yeah it's a complete waste of fucking breath but I mean I guess you obviously can learn things from it but um more to your point which is a much more important question is what do you do about it now what what no one has a good solution no one has no one is standing up on top of a soap

box saying this is what needs to be done. If we do this, we're going to have peace on Earth. Right. And you're right. The Republicans are beating the Democrats over the head saying, but the Republicans, come up. Come up with a decision. Come up with an idea. I'm not a fan, again, of Obama.

Could you imagine if fucking Sarah Palin was the goddamn vice president of the United States right now? How the world would be looking at us? Well, that's why I say, you know, another thing I think is, I can't go back to term limits and finance reform, is I think we get a deeper pool of potential candidates. And we'd surprise ourselves with how many really good, smart, dynamic people are out there who might be willing to step in if they didn't have to go through this insane political process. So, yeah, what do I know? Yeah, I don't even know how we got on the subject. I don't know. Look at this. It's Wednesday. go through this insane political process. So, yeah, what do I know? What do I know?

Yeah, I don't even know how we got on the subject. I don't know. Look at this. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday evening. Let's talk about your show, man. It used to be called America Declassified. What are you guys going to call it now?

Now it's going to be called World Access. World Access. We're almost finished filming episodes. We've been all over the country. Great country. Seeing terrific sites, talking to really cool people. Exploring things. Doing shit.

Chasing Burmese python down the Everglades. Roping in the glacial ice caves up in Alaska. Tracking grizzlies in a beautiful Yellowstone park. If people haven't been to Yellowstone, oh my God. Yellowstone's incredible. It's incredible. And you got to do yourself a favor and go out there. It's going to explode though though, and kill everybody.

So get there before that happens. Yeah, before the end of the world. Before the end of the world, yeah. That might be where it starts. Yeah, Idaho would be blown off the map if that happens. So will California. Yeah, exactly. So it's going to air in the late fall.

World Access, the production company is Indigo Films out of San Francisco and Los Angeles. A great bunch of people. It's uh the production company's indigo films out of san francisco and los angeles a great bunch of people uh with it's on the travel channel and uh that's all i can think to say that's clever what was it like when you had to investigate area 51 was that a hornet's nest of looney tunes thinking that there's aliens that are pickled in a fucking mason jar somewhere down in the basement of yeah well no the agency the agency called me up, look, here's what you can and you can't disclose. Don't tell them about the sub-basement where we keep the aliens. And so I think I kept those secrets pretty well. Area 51 is a fascinating, fascinating place.

And what's interesting is tracking the history of sort of our developmental air platforms and looking at the timeline, the chronology of getting sightings and things. That, to me, is pretty cool because we were coming up with some pretty bizarre air platforms for surveillance in particular. And this shit was flying around the desert, you know, being tested.

Some of it worked, some of it didn't. And you can imagine, you look at the timeline of people going, oh my god, what the hell is something... And you see this happening. You look at the timeline of people going, oh, my God, what the hell is something? And you see this happening. You understand why people were losing their minds. But, yeah. People trying to believe their eyes or trying to understand what they're seeing is a real issue. We played a video yesterday on the podcast of a bear that had something wrong with its front paws.

It was walking on two feet, and it looked like fucking Bigfoot. Oh, yeah. I saw this. Yeah, I saw that. It's ridiculous. If you saw that, you would think it's Bigfoot. Oh, yeah, I saw this. Yeah, I saw this. That's ridiculous. If you saw that, you would think it's Bigfoot. After September 11th, we were filming Fear Factor down near Edwards Air Force Base.

We were out in the desert doing these stunts, and stealth fighters would fly overhead. And if you had never seen one of those before, if you didn't know what that was, that looks like a goddamn UFO. That looks like a spaceship from another planet, this black thing that's not shaped like any normal plane, and it's flying low and fast.

You're like, holy shit, I'm looking at aliens. A lot of that technology developed at the agency by the science and technology group. A lot of that. Early days in particular, surveillance, craft, incredible what they were doing inside the agency. How do they recruit guys instead of getting them filtered, like the top people, instead of them going into the public sector and making money doing something else?

That's a good question. I mean, you know what they got? They got a huge number of applicants. I mean, you'd be amazed at how many people apply to work there. Across the board, operations, intelligence group, S&T, admin, logistics. They just get a very deep pool of candidates. And you're right. I mean, these guys aren't looking to join for the money. They can make a lot more money at Twitter or wherever. Twitter. Yeah, I just came to be.

I'm not that plugged into my page or whatever. You have a Twitter page, fella. Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm getting better at understanding how you use it. I've only got, I've gone through like 800 tweets. I'm always fascinated by how many tweets I've done because I think, wow, how much time am I spending doing this? But, you know, they get great people applying.

And part of it's just knowing that, you know, they're going to be in the agency. They're going to have access to both great people, great technology, sort of cutting edge thinking. And there's patriotism involved too. I mean, they want to work there. So, you know, it's, I don't, again, I don't want to sound like I have rose-colored glasses on. It's a bureaucracy like a lot of other places, you know, things could be done better for sure. But, you. But my experience was always terrific. If any kids are out there listening, I highly recommend you apply. Now, as far as what's going on in Area 51 today, that's not the same thing, right? Didn't they move their operations to a different area because so many people are paying attention to it now?

Yeah, they moved it to Woodland Hills. I thought it was calabasas i'm getting bad disinfo that's right yeah i know they they did move it because it took a little too much heat and so uh so they they thought it might be better to have other uh facilities um but it's still true to this day is that they um i mean they're inside the agency and i actually took i actually took indigo films Films for the second season of World Access on Travel. I took them into the agency headquarters not too long ago, a couple of months ago. And we did a story inside the headquarters.

And part of it was based on, we've got a museum inside there that's open to the staff, obviously, and then visiting liaison partners and dignitaries that come in. And you look at the history, and the agency started out of OSS, out of the military, and you look at the history of it in all aspects of it, operations, science, technology, whatever it is, and it's a pretty incredible place. But they always, when they're developing technology, when they're developing ideas, when they're developing operations, it's in response to something. It's in response to a task. They don't just sit around, unlike maybe a

tech company in Palo Alto or something. They don't just sit around and throw a ball at the wall and think, you know, let's come up with a clever idea. It's always in response to a task that they get from, well, from the administration. It says, we need to solve this problem. And typically, the administrations over the years, they go to the agency first because they know they'll cut through the crap. They've got people who will sit down and come up with a scenario that this might work. And they work quickly. And again, they've got terrific, creative people. Listen to me.

I'm a booster. You are a little bit of a booster. I am a booster. I am a booster. But that's because you're proud. Yeah. And you're a real patriot. I appreciate that.

Well, who's got... And look, it did work. I mean, look at the stealth bomber. Look at all the shit that they did create. Look at the B-51. Look at all the different... No, I know. There's a lot of shit they created out of there that's pretty goddamn amazing.

Yeah. And some of the most... They've just got... You look at some of the shit. I mean, anybody... this is a good point. You're not going to get inside the agency's museum. Well, you can if you watch the show in the fall. But they have a spy museum in Washington, D.C., which is actually worth visiting.

It's a really good, it was. Anybody can go to it? Anybody can go to it. It's in D.C. and it's a great time out. Kids love it. But it operates on a couple levels. One is sort of for the kids, but one is it's a really very, very smartly done museum looking at espionage through the years, tradecraft, and a variety of operations that have happened over the years. Fantastic facility.

So people should go to that one too. Yeah. Spying technology were so sophisticated. He said they had found a listening device that was powered on the swaying of the building itself. The swaying and the movement of the building itself in the wind was actually powering this device. They said it was unlike anything that they had ever thought of before. And it was just mind-blowing that these equally intelligent

people with a completely different language in another country had come up with some alternative path to listen in on people. Yeah, the Russians and Soviets during the Cold War in particular were A, because they dumped unlimited resources into it and B, because they were highly motivated and aggressive.

They were very, very worthy adversaries, still are. But, yeah, our Cold War history is a fascinating thing. You look at the technology that was developed out of that. And a lot of that ended up being, you know, used for the private sector and the development of everything from smartphones to uh internet applications to a variety of things so a lot of the crap that gets put together gets thought of and designed uh inside the intel community ends up benefiting the private sector and they just a person on the street commercial people it is also fascinating too that both the russians and the United States battled over who could get the best Nazi scientists. You know,

that's a dirty secret of the Cold War and of the space race. Well, you need those minds. I mean, it's pragmatic, you know, choices you've got to make sometimes. You've got to make them. Those choices. It's a choice that nobody wanted to admit for the longest time. That Wernher von Braun was a Nazi.

He was absolutely... The Simon Wiesenthal Center said if he was alive today they would prosecute him for crimes against humanity and that's a pretty amazing thing to say when you consider the fact that that guy was absolutely necessary to uh take part in the space race and that the soviets had nazis we had nazis you were making pragmatic decisions in part because um you know, it was, well, part of it was the world we lived in. And I don't know that you could do that today in terms of, I mean, look at the situation in Syria. You know, if we side with Assad, is that politically acceptable here in the States? Is that politically, you know, is he willing to do that? That these ISIS guys were super smart at social media.

And so we fucking hire them to run the united states facebook page and we go what the fuck you guys got these jihadis and they're you know nobody would buy that today no i don't think so that's a tough sell what was it about the nazis that made them so good at engineering and technology i mean it is really incredible when you think about german engineering and technology to this day is thought of in the highest regard. Yeah. No, it's true. And it goes back, obviously, it goes back a long, long time.

So, yeah, obviously, they took a left turn. That's not a brilliant statement with that whole Nazi shenanigans thing. Obviously. But discounting their social activity, their engineering and technology, I'm always fascinated by what is it that causes one country, one nation to excel in a radical way above and beyond others? bar and it's tough. I mean, it's, who knows what it is. That's why, again, I go back to that same thing about the U.S. I think we can do anything, anything we put our minds to. If we have the collective will, if we, you know, if we set our minds to it, and I just, I hope we maintain that belief structure for our kids. I tell my kids that all the time. I said how fortunate they are to be

living in this country, how fortunate they are to have the circumstances they have. I mean, not just putting food on the table, but, you know, the opportunity for education, all these things. And to live in a place where, you know, hard work is valued. Listen to me. No, but you're right. No, look, listen, don't worry about it, man. You're a real patriot. And I think that's admirable.

I think that for the longest time, look, I'm a car fan. I love cars. And for the longest time, American cars were goddamn embarrassing. You know, while German cars were producing these incredible Porsches, and the Italians were making these fantastic Ferraris, we were making shitty Mustangs in the fucking 70s. Pintos and Gremlins. Remember the Gremlin?

We had these amazing cars for a while, and then something happened when the gas crisis came along. We made shit for 20 years. But finally now, American cars are bounding back like the new corvette is a marvel of engineering i mean all these european car magazines are saying it's one of the greatest cars ever made yeah i read i read some comparisons on it's fantastic incredible it's like it's great to finally see stuff like that happening it's like why didn't it happen a long time ago it's i i'm absolutely fascinated by technology mostly because i'm a

moron yeah because i can Because I can't engineer anything. So when I see how someone figures out how to make a car where when you're taking a turn, the computer adjusts the shocks to put more pressure on one side to flatten out the fucking aim. That's what I say. That's what I say. If everybody was like me, we'd still be trying to figure out how to make a wheel and how to build a fire.

We wouldn't even get close if everybody was like me. It'd be fucking stone rock tools. That's it. We'd make banging flint together. Probably doing a shitty job. You know? Yeah, you look at shit that gets put together, the technology of it all, and you think, wow, who the hell came up with it?

How did you think of that? But thank God they do that. And then there's others who we get the job done in other ways. But a buddy of mine, his first car, he pulled up in front of my parents' house. He was so proud. I was young. He was so proud of it. He was a gremlin.

He was so proud of this car. He was a gremlin. I remember walking out there, even at that young age where I had just gotten my learner's permit. Even at that young age, I knew he had just bought himself a piece of shit. And I thought, how do I tell him that? That was one of my first lessons in diplomacy. How do I look at this guy who's so proud of his fucking piece of shit and say, yeah, that's great there, pal.

There's not much you can do. You can't do anything. Especially a guy's first car. My first car was a fucking hunk of shit, 1973 Chevelle SS. Nice. It was nice for a day until the engine blew the first day i had it or the second day one day the next day the engine seized up better than me i had a i had a 77 granada it's my first purchase 1977 granada ford granada it was very nice with a landau roof and a

bench seats landau roof i haven't heard that term in the and i remember the guy the guy said at the car dealership, he said, do you want an 8-track in that or do you want a cassette deck? Like cassette deck. It's a new shit. This is new. And I said, what's a cassette deck? And he showed it to me. I remember it standing there and he showed it to me. And I said, no, I'll take that 8-track.

That shit's not going anywhere. Well, 8-track sounded better, didn't it, supposedly? Yeah, I thought they did. I think that was the knock on it, is that 8-track sounded better, didn't it, supposedly? Yeah, I thought they did. I think that was the knock on it, is that 8-track had a better sound. It was just you had to deal with these fucking bricks. Put it in there, ka-chunk. And wherever it was in that tape, that's where that song started.

Didn't matter where it was. And then you'd have a shoebox full of them, because that's the only way you could store your 8-tracks in your car, was in shoeboxes. My family never had one, but my friend Javier did, and his mom had an A-track of Pablo Cruz. That song, when my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio de Janeiro. And I remember seeing that thing in the car going, this is incredible. Sound is coming out of it whenever you want.

It's not even a radio. What a coincidence. When I was in the agency, I spent like eight months undercover in a Pablo Cruz cover band. No, you didn't. Working overseas. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I didn't.

But it would have been good cover. Because nobody would have seen that cover. Until you had to start singing. Yeah, exactly. Did you have to go undercover? Did you ever have to do shit? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I spent all my time in operations. And that's just what you did. You worked in whatever it might be. Third country. Are you allowed to talk about that? Not really. I've got a great relationship in part because I keep my app shut. But, yeah, operations, working.

I will say this about operations and working undercover is if you like to act, and I found that I did, then it's great. And we've got everything from our disguise teams inside the agency. We've got some of the best disguise artists. Do you have like makeup companies that do your face up and shit? Really? People out of Hollywood clamor to get in there and work with the agency disguise unit because it's so, again, it's so cutting edge. How cutting edge?

You ever have a guy dress up like a chick? Like an old lady? You mean in my free time? No. What are you talking about? I mean someone pretend to be a woman like Big Mama's house. Oh, yeah. No, nothing like that.

Nothing like that. No. That would be the move, right? You'd have to be a fat lady. Oh, yeah. You couldn't be a thin lady. No. But we had fat suits.

Oh, really? And we had full overhead masks and everything. And you had to be comfortable operating in pretty heavy disguise sometimes, depending on where we were and where we were operating. You had fat suits? Oh, sure, yeah. Wow. I know.

Not like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. Not quite that fat. But, I mean, because what are you trying to do? You're trying to change your appearance quickly. You're trying to figure out ways quickly, but professionally and to withstand scrutiny, to change your appearance. Because people make snap judgments about people. Right.

And in terms of surveillance, people make quick decisions. snap judgments about people. Right. And in terms of surveillance, people make quick decisions. Okay, I'm following this person, brown shoes, blonde hair. Good, got it. And that's how surveillance teams will tee off of certain things. So if you can change your profile just in certain ways, then that's very beneficial. And then operating overseas in places where I might not blend in necessarily.

But if you like to act, then operating undercover is fantastic. I happen to enjoy it a great deal. Did you ever think about acting once you got out of the agency? Like actual acting acting? No, I didn't even know how that would work. But co-hosting a show on Travel Channel, World Access, is pretty good. Why did they change it to World Access? America Declassified sounds better for a former CIA officer.

They wanted to lighten it up a little bit, take it a little bit away from sort of the conspiracy and the dark side and focus more on just going to great places around the country

and talking to cool people. Well, that makes sense. World access. Yeah, so world access and maybe next season, for the next season, we'll do actual world access as opposed to U.S. access.

I did this show for SyFy called Joe Rogan Questions Everything and they were trying to get me to do sort of along the same lines of the jesse ventura show the conspiracy theory they were really into conspiracy theories when i started doing the show but the more i started doing it the more i was like most of this is bullshit like you're you're doing a show where you're exploring bullshit but you don't necessarily want to call bullshit because you want to keep

this air of mystery that keeps people tuning in. Right. Yeah, I agree with you. It can be very difficult to keep that up for any period of time. It's annoying. Right. And so I like to think, I mean, I approach this second season that's coming up, this World Access show, I approach it sort of like anybody who's sitting on a sofa.

I'm a fairly simple guy, so when I go to some of these places, literally I'm kind of staring there slack-jawed and amazed at what I'm seeing, whether it's the geography or whether it's just dealing with the people or what goes on there, whatever it may be. So I like to think I'm the guy that's sitting on the sofa watching this shit, and I'm reacting the same way they would. I'm just fascinated by it. And it's difficult to do sometimes with conspiracies because you feel like a lot of the conspiracies, they've been beat into the ground. Yeah. And you're hearing stuff that you've heard before. You're looking at shit that you looked at before.

But not to say that it's not entertaining. It is. But anyway. Well, I mean, even the Science Channel, which is supposed to be about science, they have so many of these goddamn UFO shows where they talk to these people and they all have fucking stories. But when it boils down to it, that's all there is, is stories. Right. Stories from questionable people. And the stories are almost all goofy.

And it gets weary after a while. You're like, what kind of a show am I making? This is all bullshit. Yeah. It's stories. It's UFO. It's ghost stories. Ghost stories are good.

Or eating shit. Going around to restaurants and eating food. Right. Andrew Zimmerman, that kind of thing. Yeah. I can see why people find it interesting. But what I like about this show now is we're going to some fantastic places. We're seeing shit that you've got to make an effort to get to.

So everything that we're doing is basically you've got to work to get there. But if you do, it's well worth it it and it's not just sort of the same beaten path you know not walking up to the edge of the Grand Canyon staring at and going okay that's nice it's you know get outside your comfort zone travel a little bit more make the effort and you'll be amazed at what the country has to offer oh there's some incredible things in this country and people don't realize the fact that out of these 50 states there I mean everybody thinks of New York Chicago San Francisco you we out of these 50 states, I mean, everybody thinks of New York, Chicago, San Francisco.

We think of these spots that you need to visit, but there's so many amazing spots. There's so much shit to see. You could have 1,000 episodes just traveling to different cities and checking out weird shit that people do. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I just looked at my watch.

I realized if I don't leave now, I may not make my flight. Where's your flight? What time's your flight? I don't even want to tell you. You don't want to tell me what time leave now, I may not make my flight. Where's your flight? What time's your flight? I don't even want to tell you. You don't want to tell me what time? Well, because I may not make it. I may not make it. All right.

So should we wrap this up? It's about 20 after four is my flight. Okay. Yeah, you're fucked. Yeah. Unless it's in Burbank. Is it from Burbank? It's not from Burbank.

Oh. Yeah. Well, you might be okay. Yeah, I might be okay. You might be okay. We'll see what happens. If you leave right now. We'll wrap it up right now.

Mike, thank you very much. This has been fantastic. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. If there's anything you want me to promote, anything, I'd be more than happy to do so. Just let us know. I promoted the shit out of the show on Travel Channel, and it's a great show. But if I talk about it one more time, I'll feel like a pushing tin. Okay, folks, you can follow Mike on Twitter.

His handle is MBCompanyMan. That's your handle on Twitter. And the show, once again, the old one is America Declassified, and the new one is World Access. And it's on the Travel Channel. Travel Channel. Thanks so much. Thank you very much, brother. I appreciate it.

And thanks also to our sponsors. Thanks to Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com. Use the code word JRE and save yourself some money, including $55, a free postage, and a free digital scale. What else do we have today? Onnit? That was it. And Onnit.

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Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Woo!