The Team House - CIA Officer Busted With $40 Million in Gold Bars | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

The guys break down the still-unresolved Iran ceasefire talks, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, possible sanctions relief, and whether the U.S. is about to reward Tehran just to return to the status quo. They also dig into nuclear inspections, Iran’s hardliners, Israel’s push deeper into Lebanon, Hezbollah’s drone threat, and the political bind Trump now faces.The episode also covers the CIA executive arrested with gold bars, cash, and luxury watches, plus the proposed NDAA language that could deepen U.S.-Israel military and technology integration.GhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/teamFOR 10% off! Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinJack's news outlet:⬇️https://thehighside.substack.com/Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️Jon's Twitter:https://x.com/jonathanhackettJon's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettJon's books:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettTwitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackettCheck out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Whitefish security summit ⬇️https://whitefishsecuritysummit.comFind Marc P here:https://x.com/MpolymerFind Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio00:00 — Start 01:32 — Strait of Hormuz crisis and why it affects the entire world04:08 — What should Iran get for reopening the Strait?07:20 — Rewarding Iran, global chokepoints, and the precedent for other countries09:23 — Highly enriched uranium, China, Kazakhstan, and monitoring problems12:00 — Why the U.S. should be pushing internet access into Iran13:59 — Trump’s options, sanctions relief, and the backlash to “JCPOA 2.0”16:18 — Did the Iran war actually improve anything for the U.S. or Iranian people?20:31 — Trump’s political bind, gas prices, and whether there are any good options left24:01 — What the U.S. and allies could realistically do to reopen Hormuz29:29 — Why allies may not want to risk lives for a war the U.S. started31:51 — Nuclear inspections, Iran’s hardliners, and why Tehran may want nukes more than ever34:38 — Israel pushes deeper into Lebanon and the symbolism of Beaufort Castle38:50 — Hezbollah, drones, and Israel’s fear of losing freedom of movement42:13 — Israeli politics, Gaza, Netanyahu, and the limits of military force46:15 — CIA executive arrested with gold bars, cash, and luxury watches50:22 — How did he get through CIA security screening and internal oversight?53:05 — Counterintelligence concerns and how CIA tech officers support operations56:24 — NDAA Section 224 and proposed U.S.-Israel military/tech integration01:00:34 — Counterintelligence concerns, Title 10 limits, and what the bill actually does01:02:35 — Knicks, Trump at MSG, Patreon, and closing thoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy, Mark Polymeropolis, Jonathan Hackett. Good, good ratio here, 2 verse 2, which is good, two Marines, two Greeks. Missed you guys, Mark, everybody, Jonathan and Mick. You guys have been, you know, out there, you know, shaking, shucking and jiving. Anyway, a lot happening, as usual. Iranian ceasefire.

Still up in the air. last I heard President Trump was mulling over whether to accept it. All the reports that are coming out are saying that both sides are very far apart. There's talks about a $300 billion fund for the Iranians. It's crazy. It's nonsense. But obviously the Strait of Hormuz still kind of closed. We have traded.

We bombed them. They like shot at the Kuwaiti base. There's been a little bit of like some kinetic action going on as well. so very much still up in the air. Let's start off with that. Obviously, and then that'll like dovetail right into like Israel going past the Latani River in Lebanon. Israel really stepping up the bombing and stuff like that in Lebanon. My guess is to try and then you guys can correct me if I'm wrong,

but kind of throw a wrench into the any kind of ceasefire negotiation because it looks like Iran wants let the Lebanon issue with Israel to be covered in that. And I don't think Israel is exactly amped about that. So, Mick, I'm going to let you go first because I haven't seen you in a while and I miss you. Yeah, I was a couple weddings. Congratulations. Yeah, my son and close friend. Well, let's start with the Strait of Hormuz, right?

So I think it's, you know, we have this discussion in terms of the U.S. and Iran, obviously Israel. But I think it's important to start off saying, like, this is affecting the entire one. Right? So not only is the energy prices going up around the world, which of course increases the cost for everything, countries are now starting to run out of their reserve fuel. There's also about 30% of the nitrogen comes out of this, which is key for food production. So now food's going to cost more and there's going to be less of it, which means it's going to cost even more. the countries in the global south are going to start feeling the pinch even higher. It will just mean less food available.

In the U.S. and other developed countries, it's going to mean more expensive food. And you know, we do humanitarian food aid delivery, so kind of stick this really closely. This is affecting every country in the world. I think we ought to start viewing it that way, all the parties involved, and I think the rest of the world should start weighing in a lot more forcefully, on the strait itself. You can completely disagree if you want to on the U.S. reasons for going to war, but you should be completely against the idea that a country can simply claim sovereignty over international waterway just because they happened to have been attacked by another country. Because

it's affecting real people around the world. And what I mean by that is the UN should start, you know, I know resolutions. What do they mean? Well, they mean something or they wouldn't do them. So under the UN Convention on Law of the Sea, the Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway. So that's the basis. And then I think countries should start preparing to do whatever is necessary to open up the strait. And I know that most countries, if not all, countries wouldn't want to do this militarily. It doesn't even seem like we do. But we've got to be preparing for clearing this trade of mines.

There's reports this morning that more mines have been laid. the NATO has two standing mine clearance groups, amphibious groups, north and south. They should be being prepared. They should be moving that direction, if you ask me, because ultimately that has to be open and it has to be open with unfettered access for the gate to the globe. So that's the first point I make. And again, at the end of the day, I mean, I want the U.S. to be successful on this. I'm obviously not going to agree with all the policy decisions, but ultimately, I want the U.S. to be successful.

I want Iran, the regime at least not to be, but we're on a path where that's still unclear. So the question, of course, is what are we willing to offer for the straight to be open? The strait was obviously open before we started the war. I don't think Iran should get anything for opening the strait. I think they might, the only thing they could get to be a benefit would be an ending of the blockade of their reports. That to me seems somewhat accurate. But giving them sanctions relief, giving them access to frozen assets, I think there's 12 billion apparently in Qatar. Or as you mentioned, I think in the lead-up, D, this 300 million investment, that's just reparations, guys.

If companies wanted to invest in Iran, they would. And maybe they would if there wasn't a regime. But I think that's a complete mistake, not only because it would be paying them to do something that they don't have the authority to do, which is control the straight. And it would firmly, especially the $300 billion, it would firmly embed the regime. The very regime that says death to America and death to Iran would then be permanently in place, right, if you gave them access to that much money. And what would they do?

They would rebuild the everything, anything that we gain from this. like the degradation of the ballistic missile capacity in manufacturing and suicide drone, etc., and the Navy and Air Force, we'd be given on the money to rebuild the whole thing. So, and to be fair, we actually don't know if that's in the MOU, so I'm only commenting it based on meteor reports. But if that is, obviously we're going to have to give them sanctioning leave, but that should only come if we have a new nuclear agreement, and that nuclear agreement has to be more restrictive of than the JCPOA. If not, then people are. going to say, why the hell did we get out of the JCPOA 2018? Because at that time, we had uranium

enriched 3.67%. Now, because we got out of it, one can make the argument, we have 1,000 pounds enriched to 60%. So now we're trying to get that back. At the same time, we're trying to get them to accept no enrichment. When one could have made the argument, although we can't go back in time, we could have just tried to improve the JCPOA rather than just blow it up, which was more political than policy. But anyway, so we'll have to see where this is, but I think where I'd end on this is it seems that we're getting further apart, that we're not getting closer to a deal,

that we're either going to have a long stalemate or we're going to have a return to major air operations. And if that's the case, I don't see it necessarily helping push forward our policy objectives. So we just might be in this for the long. wants, it takes it, baby. Go ahead, Jonathan. Yeah, I think we're kind of moving toward rewarding them at our own expense for our own actions.

It's an interesting, logical series of steps where, you know, action A is the U.S. does something Iran responds and the U.S. rewards Iran for responding to go back to the way things were before Actor A acted, which is kind of a strange sequence of events. And, of course, we can't go back in time, like you said, Mick. But we can look forward and think about what, what actually is. do we take next and what results do those actions have? And if we reward one actor, Iran, for what it's doing with the straits, basically exerting sovereignty over international waters, that's not just an Iran problem. It's a problem in Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt, and Panama,

telling other countries that, hey, if you behave this way for long enough, the U.S. or another country that's powerful will give you a concession to allow you to keep control over the thing you have now that you shouldn't have had in the first place. That's a huge. huge concern. And of course with Iran, it will remain a concern with Iran, but it will also trickle over to other countries too. And we can't predict how the world's going to be ordered in 50 years, 75 years, 100 years. Right now, Indonesia is a friend. In the 50s, Indonesia was not necessarily a friend when we had the non-aligned movement, other things going on. So that is a huge place. 30 to 60 percent of all world goods travel through the Straits of Malacca. And if Malaysia or

Indonesia decide that they have something that's not aligned with the interests of the West, there's going to be a challenge there. Sorry, my dehumidifier was beeping there in the back. Yeah, I know. It's actually very cold here. It was 48 degrees yesterday. It felt like fall. It's crazy.

But back to the nuclear issue. Connecticut. Yeah, it's Connecticut, man. It's fall here or winter, one of the two. But the uranium, I just saw recently that Kazakhstan was named as a country to potentially take the enriched uranium in addition to China. I think this is very interesting because we're thinking about sending this uranium to two countries that we have very little monitoring capability over. So if we send it to China, there is a possibility that is non-zero that that uranium either ends up back in Iran or ends up in a way that Iran can continue working with it even if it's not in Iran. We've had similar issues with the North Korean scientists and Pakistani scientists.

So it's like are we sending it to a country that we can control or not? and if the problem is that we don't have control or monitoring capability, but like the IAEA has complained about and is true, we're not really solving that problem either. We're just putting it somewhere else into a similar problem set, perhaps a worse one because China's far more powerful than Iran in a variety of ways. So if China begins acting badly with this uranium, there's even less we can do about it.

Clearly, China is not affected by sanctions. If they were, the oil issue we see right now would not be happening. China's been benefiting, and so has Iran have been benefiting from the sanctions going on since February 28th. And when I say Iran, I don't mean the people. I mean the government, small amount of people that are controlling the country right now. And as you mentioned, Mick, got the $12 billion of asset possibly being unfrozen. We have a $300 billion reparation fund. There's sanctions relief. All three of these things that are being mentioned benefit only one class of society. And it's a small managerial class and ownership class in Iran, which is like,

estimates vary, but let's say 10% or less of the people in the country. all of whom are very much against the United States, very much against the West, seeing this as a victory. And if you can see the propaganda on the Persian language side, you would understand what I mean by this. I was just listening to someone in Iran speaking yesterday, and they noted that, or they asked, are things as expensive as they say they are in the rest of the world? Because on the Iranian propaganda side, the propaganda there says that eggs here are like $100 for a dozen. They're like just everywhere all over the place saying that the West is falling apart, that the U.S. government is, completely collapsing. There's been a coup, like all this stuff. And it's like every day,

all the time that the Iranian people are seeing and thinking that that's actually what's happening in the outside world because remember, they don't have the internet. Or if they do, it's filtered. So their view of what's going on is very different than our view of what's going on. And the information domain is a domain that the Iranian government understands very well. And if we keep funding them, they're going to keep maximizing that use of the information domain, which they're doing in English, like on X when we see the Lego videos. And also the ways that they're actually paying for cultural centers and other things in Europe and the United States and Canada and all these other ways they're understanding the information domain

that we are failing. We're going to be funding them to increase that. I think it was your idea, Jonathan, before, to have just to do like commercial businesses to blast the internet into Iran. I don't know why we don't do that. So apparently there was a stuff, but we don't do any, any, go ahead, sorry. Yeah, in January, there was a plan. billion dollars it would cost for 60 days to completely cover Iran 24 hours a day in direct-to-sell communications using a Starlink like platform and the U.S. government, I'm not sure which office, shot it down. So there was a pitch for that to actually bring it in and the U.S. decided not to do it. Also, similarly...

Costs that much $100 billion? Because you've got to put up new mesh network. So like right now, the amount of coverage that's up there is not sufficient to actually cover the demand that would, you know, be put on it. Because you're thinking about 88 million to 90 million users active per day with video, with voice, with all this data. Like that's going to be a huge step up from what's currently up there for the limited number of users that are up there, plus the ground station equipment, plus the backbone infrastructure. So there would be some cost to additional cost to actually getting this thing to be sustainable. Jonathan, wasn't there also another thing where like they asked Starlink and Starlink said it was 100 million up front and then I think 500 million over the course for like the first.

and the DOD said no bueno on that. Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah. Yeah, that was like a Ukraine model that they had already tested out basically and seen that it works in extremists. Nothing. And it's better than absolutely nothing. I heard that the Kurds with the weapons issue,

remember that there was a lot of talk about what's going on with the Kurds. I read recently about a week ago that apparently Turkey is the one that vetoed that because they saw the Kurds getting hands on weapons and they were very concerned about what would happen after they won. That's been a history of Mark in my life going back decades. It's always about us giving guns to the Kurds. So let me just, my kind of quick two cents on this, because I think that you guys kind of made a lot of sense, just first and foremost, you know, Trump doesn't want to go back

to any kind of armed conflict, period, which I think we can, it is absolutely clear. I'm not sure what the Pentagon is briefing him, but I would imagine Centcom is also saying that the remaining, you know, they've gone through 70% of the, the target list, anything else they can hit is not going to actually affect Iranian regime behavior because I think they won't. And so even the notion of a return to armed conflict doesn't actually make any sense militarily. And so at the same time, the Iranians want, obviously, the straight of hurt moves as a card, but they need sanctions relief. And so that's what they're going to get and almost did get. And then Trump panic, because if you saw this kind of outcry from the right,

whether it's Lindsey Graham or Mark Dibowitz from Freedom of Defense of Democracy or Mark Thiessen or Hugh Hewitt, you know, Mike Pompeo, there was kind of this outrage on that we were about to do at JCPOA 2.0, which is actually what we are going to do. I mean, there's no other option on this right now. And so, you know, the New York Times at a piece this morning, which I think is probably accurate, saying that, you know, Trump heard all this criticism. And then they came back now with the response to the Iranians strengthening the notion of, you know, until you get rid of some of the nuke stuff, we're not giving you any sanctions relief. And the Iranians are going to reject this probably. And so, you know, if you remember literally a week ago, last weekend, there was all sorts of optimism for a deal because Trump wanted out. And then things leaked in terms of the sanctions relief. And then it really does, I mean, the Republican talking point, Mick, from your time with JCPOA, was, um, We gave bags of money or whatever it was millions flying in jets to the Iranians. Well, you know, all that, of course, is simplistic.

It's a little more complicated, but essentially they're going to replicate this. And so I think that's why we're in this position now and we're kind of stuck. And so, you know, I'm not sure how this gets resolved other than Trump actually caving because the Iranians need that sanctions relief, period. The other piece of this is, I think, just going through, and indeed, you and I might have talked about it last week. so forgive me for saying this again, but go through a checklist of five or six questions, regardless of where you are in this.

Just fundamental questions, number one, you know, has Iran actually been thwarted in an attempt to get a nuclear weapon right now? What's the answer to that? Probably not. Number two, is the Iranian regime more or less hard line now? Arguably more hard line. Not good. Is Iran still a threat to the U.S. and our allies, both in the conventional military,

which is ballistic missiles and drones, or an asymmetric, cyber and terrorism? The answer is, yeah, still not degraded enough. Again, is the Iranian regime more firmly entrenched? If we give them sanctions relief, the answer will be yes. How about, you know, has Iran now gained a geostrategia card they can always use in the future? Regardless if there's an agreement, they now know closing the Strait of Hormuz works, check. Are our Gulf allies actually reconsidering security arrangements? Absolutely.

Trump went crazy a couple days ago, and I can't believe D, when we went over kind of our, in the pre-brief, what we're going to talk about. I don't even know if the Oman thing. It's threatening to bomb Oman, which watching that press conference, I was like, man, he made a mistake there. He meant Iran. Wait, that was the cabinet meeting. No, it was Oman because the State Department retweeted it.

That's psychotic. So what about our security ranges where the Saudis, you know, are running around trying to, you know, I think everybody's cutting deals. They got Pakistani forces on Saudi. territory now. The UAE has the IDF now deployed in the Emirates. And so everyone's cutting their own deals because we don't seem like a solid partner. And then the last piece and the one Jonathan, Jonathan McIndee, I think you all agree on. And this goes to why we are good people and good Americans is what I care about it most in all of this is the Iranian people. January 13th is

when Trump made that statement, help is on its way. There's nothing that suggests we are doing anything for that. In fact, if there is kind of a deal, it's going to mean the regime kind of stays in power. And that's yet another long line in the betrayal the U.S. government has had in the region. So when you go through kind of those checklist, those just key questions, it's hard to make any argument that anything is actually better off right now. Did we degrade the Iranian, I mean, I can't believe people are saying this. Did we degrade the Iranian Air Force and Navy? Sure. The Iranian Air Force and Navy, are you kidding me? These are not entities that we all thought were a threat to the United States. And so, you know, I hate the notion when we say the U.S.

lost this war because I think that's really simplistic. I don't like hearing that. That's that kind of, that doesn't even make a lot of sense. But because in armed conflict, everything's really murky, but we certainly didn't win. And so we're kind of in this kind of odd situation right now. And so, you know, we'll see where this goes. But the other thing, too, is, you know, the foreign by true social post. I mean, it just is so kind of old and tiring right now. And, you know, we, you know, either you read Barack Ravid and Axios on what the administration is thinking, or you read Trump's true social posts. And the kind of the days of actually figuring out that this is being done by kind of normal individuals in the National Security Countermeeting.

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and thanks Ghostbed for support. important the show. Love you. Bye. It's a question for you, Mark. You said, and I think you're correct, of course, that if we give sanction relief or opening the straight, obviously the far right, especially the Hawks are going to be opposed. But doesn't it seem like everybody across the political spectrum is going to be opposed to this? We've basically just given them money for opening something they shouldn't have closed. But that's the only way this will get resolved. I mean, and I say this, I mean, Trump's stuck.

Iranians are not going to agree to anything but that. And they don't have to. Why would they? They're holding the cards, guys. If we do it, then we've essentially said that this is a failed. The whole thing's failed. Yeah, but that's what I think. That's the way history is going to view it.

We've then given them money, which is sanctions relief, right? They get money. It goes to like you all said, it goes to 10% of the population. to that's going to firmly embed themselves until your last point, Mark. And what are they going to do? They're going to use it to oppress the Iranian people. Right. Right.

Yeah, I mean, the policy options for Trump are, you know, everything is political. And so the midterms are coming up. The price of gas is high. Inflation is up. I mean, he needs this thing to end. And the only way for it to end is to reward the Iranians in some kind of compromise. I mean, and I hate that. But he got himself in this box.

But he's in a pickle. And, Mick, I mean, I've used your kind of line a zillion times in all sorts of media stuff is, you know, there's no kind of, you know, silver bullet or kind of magic, you know, magic toy or whatever it is. Whatever you said before I loved and I used. But there, you know, there's no, there's no good options right now. If there was, we'd be advocating for it. If you told me that, you know, another three weeks of bombing would bring the Iranians to their, their knees, I would be like, all right, fine. But it's just, I don't think anybody even assesses that anymore. And it certainly SENCOM doesn't, but SENTCOM's going to do the right thing when

they see the president says, you know, I'm interested in going back at it. You know, what are you going to hit. Okay, here's what we're going to hit. I mean, they're going to give them targets if he wants to go down that line. But I don't just know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, we're in a bind right now. This is one of those kind of paradoxes where I really don't know what we actually can do to further U.S. interests at this point. I don't know if you guys do. If you were sitting in your, you know, in your old jobs, you know, what would you advocate that we do? Because, again, knowing the, I mean, you have to assess Iranian behavior. You guys know Iran. You know, and they, you know, their view is that in my sense that they can hold out much longer than we can. They can, they have more patience than us. They don't care about the Iranian people. The Iranian economy is a mess. Okay, that's, that's all right. But the midterms are coming up and Trump is going to get clobbered unless he doesn't give a shit at all. But if that was the case, we'd, you know, I think we'd continue on kind of a harderline policy. I don't know. I'm not, you know, it's always good to, it's always easy to criticize. But in terms of if someone gave you like, what's the policy prescription of this?

I don't know, guys, I don't know what I would say. What else can we do economic? I mean, unless we just want to concede and start giving that money, which I don't think is in our interest, I mean, what else can we do to put pressure on them that doesn't involve to restarting the air campaign, which I think you're right. I mean, I don't, I think sentcom is telling them, like, look, we can bomb stuff. But ultimately, we're just depleting our munitions. and it's not going to affect a policy change.

Given the year of squeezing them, sure, but then the international economy is destroyed. It is. But these are things that should have been worked out in the NSC process, right? Anybody in the NSC would have said, they're going to close the straight. We're going to close the street.

We worked this out on the podcast with four of us. We worked it out. You know, it's like... So either we'd be willing to force it open militarily, which is a big decision. I think we could do it, but, I mean, being able to and should is two different things. Or we're willing to tough it out.

But we're also bringing the world. Let's put 500,000 ground troops and go to war and defeat the Iranian military. Love that idea. Let's do that. Let's do that. No, what I'm saying. But, you know, there are actions out there. There are. That's an option. That's a terrible. It's not palatable. Yeah, that's on Lindsey Graham's mood board. You know what I mean? That's what that is. But, you know, defeating a regime via an air campaign very rarely works if ever. I think Libya is the only sort of model, but it just doesn't work.

And so, you know, that, again, goes to the early assumptions in the war. But, Jonathan, I mean, if you were sitting in a policy meeting right now, what would you advocate for us to do? Well, I'd be looking at the problem. The current problem is the straits are a challenge, right? And, you know, the question of why are they a challenge because Iran is threatening to put them at risk, not necessarily actually putting them at risk. This is a very important thing.

I think yesterday there was just one naval mine that was detected, that was tossed overboard to threaten a vessel. That's just one naval mine. Right? So it's the threat of force. That's the problem, not the use of force. So if there's a way to actually reduce that threat of force from Iran, I think that's helpful. And when I'm looking at this problem, we're talking about what can the U.S. do, like the ground troops, the sanctions relief, all these things. The real solution is not what the U.S. can do, but what the U.S. and its allies can do. So we're looking at not just the Gulf partners, but also the combined maritime task force, which is led by the United Kingdom and many other partners, including Japan, that are in that area, that are experienced in that area. The U.S. has been turning its back on. It's international partners since last year, two years ago, and even further back in time. And rather than walking away from those partners, we need to be walking toward those partners and asking them, hey, actually, we need your help this time. And I know that's a really tough thing to do for the U.S. government right now because a lot of

the narrative has been the opposite of we don't need you. And we're going to punish you because you're not helping us, even though we don't want your help, but we're going to punish you for not helping us. There's just a lot of ambivalence. I was with a German delegation two weeks ago from the defense industry in Germany, and they were asking the U.S. trade representative and some other U.S. government officials about this, like, do you want us to help or not? And the U.S. was saying, well, we have these 10% tariffs. They're very attractive. You can just bring your industry to America and not do it in China. And one of the guys from the German companies, the CEOs, like, that doesn't make any sense. Why would I pay more money for more expensive labor to relocate my factory to the United States to avoid your 10% tariff when I could just produce it in Europe or China at a fraction of the cost and have it out faster than if I could do it in the United States. And the U.S. view is that that's nonsense. And instead, the tariffs would be excused if you just do it in the United States. Completely illogical.

But I highlight that. And then tariffs could go away the next administration, so they would have spent all that money to come to the United – Even if it did make economic sense, it could be short-lived. Like, it could be a two-year situation. And that's why I bring this up, because it's not just a military problem. It's an economic problem. It's an economic problem with a military component, but the bigger issue is economics, because as you said, Mick, this is affecting the entire world economically.

So the U.S. needs to turn back to its allies and partners and look for their help, not only in the military side of it, but also economically. There's three places in the world that can produce the type of heavy crude that Iran produces. Two of them are outside of the straits, Norway and Venezuela. Norway's production is extremely low, the Brent crude. Venezuela's is completely aged because of how the infrastructure has gone down over the years. But those are two potential sources where the U.S. could dramatically create incentives for those to increase production. That's one thing.

The U.S. could also help with insurance companies by offsetting the cost that insurance companies are incurring by not letting their vessels go through or letting them go through at a very very very important. high cost for insurance. This is a war of insurance. It's not a war of bullets and bombs going through the straits of more moves. So if there's a way to incentivize these insurance companies like the insurer for Maersk to send their Maersk vessels through there and be okay with it, the U.S. will agree to offset, kind of like lend lease, where there's some incentive on both sides for letting this thing happen at an acute cost with a long-term benefit. But that's not, that doesn't seem to be in the cards right now.

So Wildcard, including the last part, so like this indemnification of these ships, what if the UN passed a resolution saying we authorize a naval coalition to escort the ships through the street? It can't be the U.S. because we're a combatant in this. I don't know if any country is going to sign on, but I'm grassmanist draws here. If the U.N. then tells Iran, like, they're coming. through and they're going to escort these ships out that are, I don't know, thousands, right, that are all indemnified, you know, financially, so they accept it.

Would that potentially work? Would Iran actually strike a UN, a wild card on top of a wallet card? Yeah, because, you know, the UN's about to run out of money in August, and they're about to have a UN presidential election as well in August. The U.S. and China combined provide 46% of all funding for all U.N. activities. This is like a special pocket veto that both China and the U.S. have in the funding. Obviously, the U.S. has been using this veto quite a bit. But this is a problem where just because we authorize it doesn't mean it can happen.

And we saw this with Mali, with the Manusma, the multi-dimensional international stabilization mission in Mali or whatever it was, Manusma, where there was this authorization for African countries and other partners to come and help stabilize against ISIS. And what happened after that, it didn't work. I mean, the country split up and now controlled by ISIS. So, I mean, we can authorize this stuff. Same with Lebanon. UNSCR 1701 set up the blue line 2006 down in southern Lebanon. And that has not worked either.

So like there's a lot of aspirational things with the UN, but the problem is that states themselves have to agree to actually commit forces and resources to do it. And if the U.S. is already giving the middle finger to the international community, why would the international community come and do something the U.S. could do as a leader? And it's not doing it. Yeah, I agree. I realize this is a long shot. The only thing is they have an incentive.

Like this isn't, they're not doing us a favor, right? Like, this is affecting everybody around the world. So when will it get to a point where they'll say, yeah, we'll do it? We'll just take the risk because it's impacting them and their people. It's not just doing the U.S. The one thing on that, we have to remember that most of these countries, when we're talking about it, the U.S. or France, you know, what they've agreed upon, I believe is if, you know, once the war is over,

they won't do this. But if you're the prime minister of Britain or the French president, you are beholden to your electorate. And there's probably three people in the entire country of France and England who thinks that anyone from their military should die for this for a war the United States started. So I think that's the thing too. So even if, and you do hear kind of behind the scenes, UK defense planners are like, yeah, you know, we do have an interest in here. British prime minister gets, he's already in big trouble anywhere. Right. But I mean, are you kidding me? You know, British sailors dying over a war the U.S. started. Especially after turning our backs on NATO like we just did recently.

Yeah. And so why would any – these are democracies and they have their constituencies. And so I think there's no political will. And so you do see people, especially in the right here, you know, screaming that, you know, our allies are not helping us. Well, our allies are democracies. And even if they wanted to, I don't know. I think they would if there – so if there is this kind of mythical, agreement now, you know, would we see this kind of maritime task force takes hold or maybe? But, you know, under duress, you know, really is any, is any country going to actually put their men and women? By the way, because President Trump is sitting there insulting all of the countries that lost forces in Afghanistan and Iraq on a daily basis. Trump is insulting them.

And so, I mean, that's just politically, I don't see it happening in many of these European states, unless there is some kind of, you know, a more, when I say, it's not peace. Because by the way, this 60-day MOU is just a ceasefire agreement. The idea that it's a deal is also preposterous. And let me just throw one other thing in here. I know we've got some other subjects to get to. But the notion that Trump keeps saying that one of the key sticking points is that we need to have a firm promise from the Iranians to not pursue a nuclear weapon. Like it's a verbal promise from the Iranians.

Are you kidding me? I mean, it's only have a fatwa, right? They already have a fault while, right? They said the same thing before. Of course, they cheated, but it doesn't matter. I mean, the idea that this is actually being thrown about and that if someone would celebrate an MOU, which includes that and take it seriously, I mean, no one in the national security world is really kind of holding their breath on. They didn't agree to even talk nuclear, did they? Isn't that what the reporting is?

It's like, you know, that's stage two. This is like, okay, this is now going to get me going at. This is, yeah, I watched that Charmol-Shake summit from several months. months ago on Gaza. And I've, I've been opposed to the Abraham Accord Hoopla for so long because it didn't address the Palestinian issue. That whole summit, which was in essence a ceasefire agreement in Gaza. And then there was going to be this 20 point plan. It was always going to be bullshit. And it is because it hasn't gone past, I think, stage two. And so now we have a bunch of real estate guys, Kushner and Wittkoff, again, now negotiating another 20 point plan with the Iranians of several stages.

I mean, it's incredible to me because this is just, and this go, and remember the Alaska summit with Ukraine, there was a multi-point plan as well. This is what these folks, these real estate Yahoo's love. And it just ends up being, look, this will be a ceasefire agreement, if anything. That's it. My two cents. Yeah, and when it gets to the nuclear agreement, if we ever get there, it's going to have to include the recovery of the HAU, of course.

It's going to have to include dismantling of the nuclear program. And inspections. You need inspections. Anytime, anywhere, inspections, man. Because you said it. They would never do this. Yeah, we changed the regime. We made it more hard lines.

So these guys, the guys that I think that are left and correct me if I'm wrong, actually, anybody, I think they're more prone to want a nuclear weapon now. I bet you they're behind the scenes. They're like everything we got, we're going to put into getting a nuclear weapon, right? Because from their perspective, this has proved they needed. Because we're not doing this to North Korea. Is that the lesson? of Ukraine, Ukraine gave up their weapon, their nuclear weapon. I mean, is that the lesson of Libya?

I mean, there's all the, you know, the successes of counterproliferation of countries given up their nuclear weapon have never ended up good for that country. Yeah. At the day and so. So we have to have any time, any war inspections because they're going to try to at least clandescently get to a nuclear weapon. Never going to. They'd be crazy not to. I mean, like, like you said, Mick, especially the hardliners, like, they may have wanted a weapon before, but now, like, their survival depends on it. They're, they're, they're, There's no way they are going to survive if they give up their nuclear ambitions.

It's not going to happen. And think about when we, you know, during the Biden administration, when we were doing a lot, but not ever enough to help the Ukrainians actually win, it was always because of the saber rattling on nuclear stuff from Putin. So having a nuclear weapon really does help ensure one's country's survival, one regime survival. That's the lesson of the last, you know, several decades. In India, Pakistan, and North Korea are perfect examples of that truth. Go nooks.

There we go. And also an Iranian. That's the title. No, no, nooks. Yeah. No, I'm going to make something, something wild. I'll both come up at it already. We've got to do gold bars next.

Come on. Yeah. Let's touch on a little bit of Israel, taking more and more of Lebanese land. They move past the Latani River. Jonathan, what are you tracking on this? I mean, it's hugely symbolic because if you look at the 1982 invasion, this is very similar as far as the incremental northward movement where, In domestic Israeli media, it's advertised that we're only going to hit this line.

And then next week, they go another line and justify why they had to do that. Very similar messaging back with Ariel Sharon, who was leading that back in 82. But the issue really here is there's always been a Lebanon-Israel problem that's separate from the other issues that we've been discussing. And this is coming into the four because I believe Netanyahu sees his time as limited, not because of the U.S. elections, but because of Israeli elections. there's a possibility that the coalition will collapse by September, a real possibility that's being discussed within the Nesit right now. And what's going to happen if that happens, then they're going to lose control over this conflict, which doesn't mean the conflict will stop. It means they will lose the ability to have the initiative in it, which could be threatening to Israel's northern border. So on the hawk side, there's concern.

And then on the security side, there's also a concern about what will happen if the government collapses. And I think there's a mad dash right now to just end the issue before that red line approaches. but the symbolic movement up to Beaufort castles, it's a big deal. Because typically, if you look on a map, this is very far north into Lebanon. This is far just like 1982 and 2006. And 2006 is an important conflict to look at to compare it to because that's when Hezbollah claims they defeated Israel. Really, it was Israel decided to withdraw because the price was too high. Remain engaged with Hezbollah.

But this gave us United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and 1702 in 2006, which said, the blue line's going to be the limit, the border between Israel and Lebanon. The Lebanese armed forces eventually have to move south and reassert sovereignty over South Lebanon, including Nabatia, which is where Israel currently is now. And that hasn't happened. Hasbola has not given up its weapons. This is the weakest Hasbola has been since 2006. So I think Israel sees a possibility for actually forcing Hasbola to disarm. The problem is, does Israel trust the Lebanese armed forces the laugh to actually exert sovereignty in the South effectively. And I think that that is a questionable statement. It's not clear if that's true. That means that Israel will have to be the de facto

annexor of South Lebanon to ensure security for South Lebanon, which is something that Israelis don't want, the Lebanese don't want, the international community does not want, but it may be something that Israel is rapidly accelerating toward because of this red line they see with the potential domestic collapse of the coalition government. Isn't Buford Castle like a Crusader Castle? It is. Yes. Yeah. You know, if go back and there's a great book written in 2005 and not in a great movie,

the Israelis produced in 2007. And this, this, you know, this is about the futility of war. This is about the Israeli occupation. This is their Vietnam. And, you know, I called a, I talked to a friend of mine today, former Mossad officer. And there's a lot of Israelis in the national security establishment who are like, are you kidding me? This is insane.

We're back up at, you know, north of Latani at a very symbolic. place. And again, if you see those movies, these are anti-war films and books, which have a lot of resonance inside Israel. And I think it's also the notion of, you know, the Israelis, and this is under the current Israeli government. And there's a lot of debate in Israeli national security circles, but they've lost kind of any ability to do diplomacy. And everything is, you know, be a blunt force now. And this is after kind of the psychological trauma of October 7th. But, you know, this is, you know, this is something in which I think there's a lot of concern too, especially when you get to the Hezbollah's clearly learning from the Iranians and the Russians in terms of drone warfare.

And if you look at social media, you see the use of these FPV drones and the Israelis are having a hell of a time with it. And that just means more casualties. And so this is a pretty serious issue inside Israel. I think when people woke up and talked about Beaufort Castle again, And everyone's like, are you kidding me? I mean, this, think about this in terms of us going back to some of these remote outposts in Afghanistan, like now. And, you know, there would be a lot of, from a lot of veterans, there'd be a lot of trauma. Like, what are you kidding me? We're going back there. So pretty interesting. The one piece in which I think what the Iranians are trying to do, the Israelis certainly don't want to have happen is to link this with the Iran negotiations. And the idea of, and no Israeli national security planner from the right of the left would ever agree that they cannot have freedom of movement on their borders. And so the notion that Israelis somehow have to stop the war in Lebanon because of our negotiations with Iran.

There's a lot of opposition to this. And there's an opposition from the left and the right in Israel, those in the left saying, you know, this is what you get. You cozy up to Trump so much. Now he's ordering us what to do, which is what, you know, could be occurring. But this is something worth watching because, man, back up into the old Crusader Castle. Let me go back and watch that movie. It's incredible. What's the name of the movie?

Over. Oh, it's named after the castle. 2007 it came out. I saw it a couple of years ago. I read the book as well, but it's a very serious anti-war film about the kind of the futility of a conflict that never-ending conflict. Yeah. Well, the only thing I'd add to this is, I mean,

It does look to many fairly that they launched this right at the opportune time to have some disruptive effects on the negotiations, right? Because Iran's clearly tying their willingness to go into a ceasefire with a regional ceasefire, which means to them that Israelis have to stop attacking Hezbo. The question, in addition to what Mark and Jonathan just said to the Israelis is, like, if Hezbollah, Hesbill isn't part of the C-Spar agreement, right? So if they continue to attack Israel, we're not talking about whether they should be doing one. They are doing that. How are we going to tell any country they can't respond if they're getting into time? So Iran's going to have to step up.

The answer should be, if you want regional peace, you have to tell Hesbel. Right? It can't just be a one-way piece. That's not going to work. That's got a 0% chance. So you're going to have to either stop supporting your proxy forces here, or you're going to have to exert some control. And if you can't insert some control, don't ask us to try to control Israel. Because if they're getting an attack, just like us, we're going to respond. So, I mean, hopefully we can decouple that from the

negotiations, but I don't know that it's our choice. Amazingly, you know, Trump in one point said, he said, don't worry about this. Bibi does whatever I tell them to. And that might, that might not have gone, it might have kind of flown past people here, but in Israel it didn't. Because again, that's the notion of if you know the Israeli national security system, one of the things they have always wanted is to have that independence from the United States, not give the United States a veto on anything. That was pretty amazing when, when Trump said that. And he said it because he believes it. I mean, this is the, you know, the, you know, this is a delusional. But that, but, but, but this is a Trumpian thing. You know, you know, he says, yeah, you know why it flew by

in America? Because most Americans think that Israel tells us what to do, specifically in the Middle East. Right. And they're not even watching the conflict at all. Or that, yeah, they don't give a shit one way or the other, right? Just remind the 3,400 people have died in Lebanon and over 10,000 are injured, 26 IDF soldiers,

and two civilians in northern Israel have been killed from rocket fire. So it's ongoing, obviously. And by the way, D, one key thing on this, too. And just think about the psyche of the American people with never-ending wars, you know, the psyche of the Israelis, they're getting sick of this.

You know, since October 7th, there's been a perpetual state of war on about six or seven different fronts. And so, and Jonathan said something, October is when, I think we're coming up next October for potential elections. But the coalition does look like it's going to fall apart. And so these really elections are incredibly important because I think that there is certainly a recognition that Netanyahu has overpromised on all of these fronts and hasn't delivered. Yeah, I mean, frankly, like some of the polling coming out of Israel doesn't really seem like they're fed up with this, to be honest. If we're being completely on, maybe there are other polls that, you know, that take the temperature in terms of like, let's keep cracking. You know, Gaza's still going on. There's still people getting fucking smoked in Gaza.

And I know Hamas is bad and all that shit, but IDF owns 70% of Gaza right now. And they keep pushing and pushing in Lebanon. 70 now. Netany out of the city's going to go next 10%. That'll be interesting to see. You know, I trust that. I trust what Daniel says. I remember on October 6th, 2020, there were 300 to 500,000 people in the streets in Israel protesting against the government the way it was governing.

And that sentiment is not gone. It's just quieter because of, as you mentioned, Mark, there is a war footing. There are people that still sirens going off have to come up and downstairs multiple times a day to go down to their bunkers. So they're not able to think about what they were thinking about before. But I think that's another reason that the war is going on because the war cabinet, understands that the moment that the tensions do go down, people will come back to the streets. And so they're kind of... The polling now does have Netanyahu's coalition losing.

It's very close. But he does not want to end any kind of armed conflict now because if there were elections, I think they, you know, he would... The fact that it's still very close is insane to me. That has to do with the trauma after October 7. I know. I understand that. But like, frankly, and I think all you guys can agree, the way they went about what

what they did in Gaza after October 7th was ridiculous. So, I mean, and they bombed Iran unilaterally. Like, let's not act like they're the ones getting attacked all the time. October 7th was a terrible tragedy and they should have went after Hamas hard, but strategically and thoughtfully. And smoke done what they do well, which is fucking assassinate them and not do what they've done the last almost three years, bro. Because frankly, U.S. opinion and world opinion, they are pariah state. Fact. Like, the numbers are there.

So, like, I have a little bit of a hard time them acting like a victim when all they do is just, I hate Iran too. I don't like the, I didn't like Kamani, bro. Like, but they unilaterally bombed the shit at him. And they don't, you know who likes Iran who said they'll go play a concert there? Here's your question. How much you guys are up on social media? Who just in social media just said, if I was asked to go playing Iran, I would go. Vanilla ice.

I hope it wasn't. Lina ice. Was it really? Oh, yeah. That's wild. I don't know why I know. I don't know why you'd say you would do that, right? I guess that the check is right.

He'll play at the 250th anniversary of the USA or go to Tehran and play for them. He'll love it. He needs a PR person. He needs a job. Yeah, he needs a gig, right. All right, let's move on to Mick and Mark's old friend who got arrested for having... Wait, wait, wait, wait. We don't know him.

You don't know him, right? No. So there was a CIA executive who got arrested recently for stealing, or they found $40 million worth of gold bars in his home. And it seems extremely sketchy if anyone's read the article. You guys give us a little bit of a rundown of what this is, old friends of Mark. So it's a, it's, I don't know him. It's someone from the director of science and technology, the DS&T. That's the kind of the, you know, the techie side of the house at the senior intelligence service level.

So that means he had, you know, he was promoted up through the run. He had super superstar rabbis in the seventh floor. You don't make SIS without that. And so that means he, you know, he was in some fashion considered extremely high performing. You know, what has kind of seeped out over the last couple of days is he also was very close to the current secretary, deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg. Former CEO of Cerberus, which is a huge kind of tech firm that provides a lot of stuff to the U.S. government. And so again, talking about very senior level rabbis. The incredible part of this story is that he seems to have first embellished both his military career, but also his education.

In fact, I mean, things that in his security processing, his background check, and you go through multiple background checks when you get hired and then even along the way ever several years, which include talking to all your friends and neighbors and lots of looking to your finances, but also the polygraph, how he got by all of this. is rather extraordinary. It is not a good look for the Office of Security. It's not a good look for people who sat on his boards, his coworkers, and again, kind of the senior rabbis in this. And then he goes off and somehow has $40 million, right? I mean, just extravagant amounts of money. 303 gold bars.

With, you know, I remember when I got like a pen from like, you know, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, I'd have to spend 45 minutes writing a cable about it. And so, you know, we have such strict rules on gifts that you can do. All your accounting, I mean, you have to account for everything. Mick, I don't want to speak for you, but I probably know the answer to this. I have provided allies, indigenous forces, you know, foreign government services with sometimes millions of dollars of money. That is accounted for very closely and I can't really walk off with it. what this guy was working on seems to be probably some type of covert program with an alternative

payment mechanism. But if you saw the stories today from the New York Times and others, stuff is kind of dribbling out and it's going to look really nasty. And everything I'm hearing from my old friends is that it's so bad that they're going to cover the shit up. Because there's just so many huge errors along the way from the security side, the performance side, accounting side, and then all of his senior rabbis, including people on the seventh floor. And so everyone expects this to just try to try to make it go away. But it's pretty amazing. And it doesn't really give you a lot of faith in the intelligence community.

And this is a pretty safe. I will say the last piece for you guys who like this, hey man, if you got to go out, you got to go out, you got to go out big. I'm talking like elephant dick big. Like it's got to be something so fucking outrageous. Because the first thing, when I read this, everyone laughs. Like, holy shit, right? I mean, that's your first reaction is, God damn.

Like, he didn't like fail to talk about a foreign contact or did. didn't do his accounting one day. He went hard. He went hard. They also found $2 million in cash and 35 luxury watches, many of which were Rolexes. Right. So like, I mean, what do I. I know SIS guys get paid a lot, right?

Like, decently. I mean, you're making whatever. I think it's a hundred and 180 grand. Yeah, not that and not that much. Yeah. Anyhow. But you got, you guys thoughts on this. I just, it's an amazing story.

But I expected to be covered up because it's going to be stinky. It's really hard to believe it happened. It obviously did, but I mean, it's, and Mark knows, and I think most people would guess, it's really difficult to get screened to go on the CIA. Yeah. Like, it's really, it takes forever. My wife is a security investigator for the government, including our organization. It's, they get into the weeds.

So the idea he just made up a degree and made up that he was even in the Navy. Mick, go grab her, bring her on the pod. We've got to talk to her. Yeah, right. No, she's still like But I mean It's Don't they have to get the degree from the

From the actual University You don't just show up and hand them to a degree You get a transcript, it's got to be certified It comes in the mail, right? And then the Navy records come from the military Because now it's like so easy to duplicate fake things I mean, it's just insane

And then he I mean, as most military guys know And gals, you talk about your service all the time. So if this guy's was known to be a Navy fighter pilot, like how did that go on for 20 years without somebody going, no, you weren't. I mean, because they know each other, right? Or somebody's going to start talking about flying a freaking jet, and this guy's not going to have any idea what he's talking about. Like, it's just astounding for me that this happened. This is before we even get to the point where he has access to that many gold bars that are somehow not accounted

for funny you mentioned that so the CIA says it informed the FBI of its suspicions about rush who apparently fell into scrutiny after he began asking for gold bars last November that's when he began making several requests to obtain a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses that's an expensive mini bar no what the fuck is he got him though so someone signed off once again like the amount of paperwork you have to do to do these things is astounding. These are massive amounts of money. They scrutinize your accounting every month. And you were talking to your average line case officers.

Like, this doesn't make any sense at all. I passed seven-figure amounts to organizations and entities, but I would never, like, go alone. You got to go, I mean, you know, you go with somebody. If we're driving down the road in X, Y, Z country to pay off some warlord, like, you're not going by yourself. Yeah, you don't like keep it in your house for six months waiting to give it. Yeah, like, get it.

Yeah. I don't get it, man. This is going to be, I agree, Mark, this is going to be people, they're going to have to relook at the system because this guy, he played the system in the entire career, probably. He certainly did because he's, apparently lived in Ashburn. Is there a CI worry about all this or no, this is just a guy who got sticky fingers and, like, figured out how to make a ton of money? That was the first.

All those Rolexes, Rolexes come from. I get, they don't think about it. Turnative payment mechanisms. You have to, like, you're trying to give someone the benefit of that down. You know, is this the way he was going to pay people off? I don't know. But yeah, the CI thing was if that came to mind too, but, you know. But he's, if he's a DS, SIS, DST guy, is he doing that?

That he's going to go pay off fucking sources? Yeah, they're, there, S&T folks are, are involved in, in COVID operations. I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. And this is at the very low level. Remember Scooby vans? Remember Zero Dark 30? The guy's running around in the van. doing the geolocation of the courier, those are S&T guys, assigned to mix old folks.

But an SIS guy, like a senior, like, would he be doing that? No. Yeah. Maybe he's dealing with senior people. I don't know. I mean, someone's going to have to explain. The other thing is, where's congressional oversight on this? I would think if you're in hipsy or cissy, you're like, we need a briefing.

What happened here? By the way, this is the American people's money. Yeah. Interesting fact is there was a GB guy in that band. I don't want to disclose his name, but I think you know him, but who actually was the one that followed him back to the, that's where... Tell us that story.

Well, you kind of see it depicted in the movie. He wasn't a foreign person. He was, you know, America. And he passed away, so he's at Arlington. His story is just incredible. And I don't want to tell it because, you know, I don't have the authorization. to disclose it.

It's an incredible story of, and he was a Marine, did I say that already? No, but. Yeah, I'll say it. Yeah, he was a recon Marine. Great guy, great guy, great, great human, a total hero,

but he tracked, he was the one that tracked the courier to the compound that then turned the focus of the IC on that compound. His reason. He passed away. They're in service. But those, you know,

the S&T is fully integrated into a lot of stuff like this. But again, so it's not that there are a bunch of, you know, tech geeks. I mean, they can be involved operationally in some really big programs. So I don't know. We're trying to find a way to explain this. Yeah. No, I think he did a good job.

Ashburn. Ashburn is the place where you go out there. You see these like white rocks outside people's houses. That's how you know they do the swimmers. Because Aspirons famous for that. It's like a swimmer. Yeah. If you see a white rock, it means invite you in your house.

Leave your keys in a little pool of stuff, you know. They do weird shit. Google the Washington Post and Ashburn and Swingers, though. There's stories on this. Good Lord. So I wasn't expecting that fun of Alex. Don't put a phone back in your thing. People are going to be ringing the doorbell.

I'm here for the orgy. Yeah. Oh, man. All right. Last bit of news. The new NDAA, right? I got that correct. The National Defense, whatever, where we give all our.

money to for the defense department. There is a section in there, section 224 that wants to essentially integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries together. Jonathan, you explain it better because I'm a dummy, but you know, you can actually speak English. So first, it's not a law yet. That's, you know, the NDA has to go through the House and the Senate and has to be passed and argue.

Right. So there's a lot of debate that still is to come on it. But it is important that it's in there to. to debate. And what it's basically doing is integrating some of our defense industrial base and some of our research together, things like AI and other battlefield operating concepts together so that they're more integrated in the future. And it'll probably change before it gets out, but it will probably be there in some form. But it is a modification of past practices where we either ad hoc or by other mechanisms provided integration with and through. Israel to do things in the Middle East. So it's interesting to see it as a law or going to be a law,

because if we look at, for example, defense use of cover for intelligence operations, that is Section 431 of Title X, which actually codifies how the Defense Department uses businesses as cover. It's a couple of sentences long, but it does a lot. Those sentences do a lot. And if there's money behind it, that can do a lot. And I think this section 244 will be very similar. or if it does come out this way where it'll be a couple of sentences that have a lot of power behind them, if Congress appropriates monies to do those things. And I think, Mark, you can talk more about what the effects of that would be. Yeah, so I think that, you know, the controversy over this, and you see the Quincy Institute and others going crazy over it, El Jazeera, you know, all of Dee's favorite news outlets.

What's the other one that you love, that crazy lefty freak show, drop, whatever? Drop site. I don't love it. but I don't need to just hear from the Wall Street Journal and CBS News. Easy to trigger you. It's so good. Like you do. Be Barack Revevee to give you all your information so you can believe it. All right. So going back to this.

But the idea behind this, I think, is that there is certainly a train of thought based on U.S. domestic politics, but also coming from the Israelis, too. And Netanyahu actually mentioned this the other day of, you know, weaning Israel off kind of the U.S. assistance. You know, we provide $3.8 billion a year, I think 3.3 direct. directly. And this would, so there is a notion that that is going to change. And so this would kind of change the nature of this in which Israel and their kind of their value to the United States in terms of their high tech sector could assist. I mean, I think there are certainly significant

counterintelligence concerns that have to be addressed, and they will be, because there has been an appropriate kind of like eyebrows raising, like, what does this really mean? But when you take it, you know, Israeli advances on artificial intelligence and drones and others in air defense. I mean, there certainly is a way to do this. I think that would be beneficial. But again, and it would then kind of negate that the billion dollar a year assistance program to Israel, which I think, you know, next year, 2008, there's a 10-year MOU that's how this runs. It's up, I think, in a year or two. I do not believe it will get passed again in those current numbers, given the political sentiment in both on the right and the left in the United States.

And so this is probably from those who kind of are interested in the U.S. Israel relationship, a way to continue that some type of productive manner. But those who question the kind of the counterintelligence piece on this, I think, are doing so correctly. And it's got to be addressed. So I think that's kind of the most, the best way to kind of to look at this. The Israelis do have a lot to offer us. but we have to have our cover mechanisms, but really our technology protected as well.

What this is not is, you know, Israel or the U.S., you know, having any kind of say over operational decisions on war and peace. That's not, that's not, it has anything to do with it. It's important to that we have a relationship like this. I mean, did we have it with NATO? Do we have with? I mean, some partners, you have, don't you have, you know, you have, what is the, the, There's something with Singapore. There's something with what Gulf country, where they're actually training and operating at U.S. bases.

So chapter 16 of Title X has dozens and dozens of countries named in it as partners for specific things under different sections. You've got 333 building partner capacity, which doesn't name countries, but the sections right after that do name dozens of countries by name on specific operations. And I think part of the concern, too, is that it says integration. And when you read that in an article on Al Jazeera, for example, people think that means that the IDF is going to become a service component of the DOD. I think that's how people are reading this. And that is absolutely not what that's not what's written there. But legitimate concerns. And so, you know, then that's why this will be up for debate here.

There was, there, there, there was, there, there was, there. There is bipartisan support on this, though, you know, for this from the two committee chair in armed services. That's worth noting. I think, Jonathan, you said that. And also, title 10. is man-trained, equip, whereas Title 50 is actually the conduct of war and war powers. So this is a Title X section for non-operational use of the military. It's for, you know, providing services, providing forces, building forces, sustaining, maintaining, and transiting forces, not actually using them in

combat operations. So that's also another important separation here to distinguish. Yeah. And the way it's currently drafted, Section 224, it will apply. point an executive agent to coordinate. And I'm nominating Jonathan Pollard to be the first ever executive agent to do this. I had to get that joke. I had to get that joke. You got his point in. Maybe they'll stop spying on us if we have more integrated.

You know, maybe. Sorry. Anything else, boys? This is a good episode. Hey, your Knicks. Aren't you excited about the Knicks being in the finals? Yeah, New York Knicks, big boys. Yeah, they're playing great.

And I'm happy the Spurs one, too. That means we might have a chance because L.K.C.'s very good. Garden is going to be going crazy. That is when... Yeah, the city's going to burn down if you win. Like... Win's game one? This is important.

Game one is coming up. Trump says he's going to go to a game. How is he going to be received at the garden? I don't think super great. Going to be honest? Because he's going to be... I can't see it being like super, you know, conquering hero coming back.

No. Who knows? They'll probably be... Is he going to play? Trump? He's going to play music at the... the 250th anniversary. He's like,

the artist wanted to play. He's headlining it now because everybody else is like run for the hills. I think the first game is Tuesday. I might be Tuesday. It's coming up to. Yeah.

The game's Tuesday, the third. Oh, no. Is it the second or the third? Tuesday or Wednesday, one of the two. Yeah. They're opening on the roads.

Knicks don't play until I think the seventh. Back in MSG. Yeah. Wild team. First time since 99. And I went to the, I went to a 90,

in the finals game back then. too. I won that they won with my dad, yeah. They lost. Pricey tickets on Stubh. Yeah, I'm not going again this time. I saw some of the ticket prices like three grand to sit up in the fucking nosebleeds. Get lost.

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Anyway, uh, boys, everyone listening, do us a favor. I want you to check out all the links for the guys down in the description. Of course, you have Jonathan's books, Mick Mulroy's podcast, the pub and the porch, Applied Stoas is a mark. Mark, just follow him on Twitter or something. That's where he gets crazy, the craziest.

All those links are in the description. And the best place to support the show is patreon.com slash the Teamhouse. You get both episodes of Teamhouse and IZon episodes free. Not, yeah, ad free and early. And you help support the show. Guys, thank you. A pleasure as always. Take care.

Hey, guys. I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally. Totally free. And what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the team house, on our geopolitics podcast, eyes on, things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on. Books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show. And also, you know, filtering in some fun stuff in there as well. If you go and check it out, we'll go and check it out, we'll be. send it out just once a week we don't want to spam you guys it's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis you can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast dot kit.com slash join again the website for that is teamhousepodcast dot kit.com slash join so we hope to see you there the link will be down in the description