The Team House - How Intelligence Agencies Would Operate in an Authoritarian America | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Former CIA officers Mick Mulroy, Marc Polymeropoulos, and Jason Lyons join Dee to explore a chilling hypothetical — what if the U.S. turned authoritarian? The panel breaks down how allies and adversaries might react, how intelligence operations would shift, and what it means for democracy at home and abroad. A rare, insider look at the intersection of espionage and authoritarianism.Check out Marc P's podcast herehttps://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-crisis-room/id1815989479Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our new newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comCheck 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/ ⁨@PubPorch⁩  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/Find 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 Audio"00:01 — Start03:48 — Thought experiment: U.S. turns authoritarian05:29 — Global authoritarianism by the numbers12:19 — Autocracies’ intel edge (disinfo/social media)15:23 — Russia 2016 playbook & U.S. CI gaps28:38 — Allies spying on America as norms erode42:54 — What Canada/Mexico would do next53:51 — Freedom House checklist: signs of backslidingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. A little bit different today. We have Mick Mulroy, Mark Polymeropoulos, Jason Lyons, and myself. We are completely 100% CIA funded. Go to CIA.gov, if you want to join. I wish. Send me a check.

So today's show is a little bit different. We usually talk about, like, current events, what's going on in the world and stuff like that obviously a lot is still going on um this today i wanted to do something different where it's more i guess of a thought exercise i mean more or less i'm sure there are people thinking of it right now due to like the fact that authoritarianism is rising across the world um the basic question of this show is going to be what happens if america american democracy is basically a shell of itself there's an authoritarian regime in power what would allied and enemy intelligence agencies be doing in America in terms of operations

that you see them working up you know you see China and Russia doing stuff now obviously but I want you to picture 5 10 15 years from now there's an authoritarian regime and like places like Canada or the other five eyes NATO intelligence agencies what would they be doing in America in terms of operations so I figured how the CIA guys on, they would have a good understanding of that. So here we are. I'm here with the experts.

And, you know, Mick mentioned before we started recording about, like, you know, talking about the rise of authoritarianism in the world. I mean, it's obviously rising as clear as day. There's statistics behind it. So thank you guys for being here. And Mick, you want to talk about the rise of authoritarianism in the world that's going on? Sure. Sure. And this is something we talk a lot about on the stoicism side. It's kind of a long history of stoics, push and get back against tyranny and autocracies. So I'm familiar with these statistics, but I want to make sure I get it right. So according to Freedom House, World 2025 report, 60 countries experienced declines in political rights and civil liberties. That means 40% of the world's population saw a decline in their freedoms.

There's now 91 autocracies in the world. Only 88 democracies. And the arrests are somewhere in the middle. That's the worst. It's been in 20 years. And up to 65 to 70% of the world's population lives in an autocracy. What else? It's key here.

There was an interesting graph I saw. So this last one I just throw out there. This is the 19 consecutive year of worldwide civil liberties becoming less for the people of the world. 19 consecutive years. So the reason why I'm pointing this out is obviously to alarm people that we're going in the wrong direction worldwide, but also to point out that it's not some crazy idea. I personally don't think we'll ever get to an authority of state in the United States. Happy to have people disagree with me on that.

So I'm not saying the sky's falling, but I'm also not. I'm not blind, and I don't think anybody should be blind to the fact that the idea of autocracies around the world are becoming more prevalent and essentially view themselves as some kind of alliance against us, the democracies of the world. I think the United States should always and is the beacon of freedom and actually the leader of the free world. So I would start with that and throw it over to you guys, but I thought it was important to point out that this isn't some ridiculous notion. that there's an issue with freedom around the world, and it could affect the United States. Mark? So, you know, I think Mick's right in the sense of, you know, in this, in 2025, we should not do things that I used to do when people like, do you call and say, hey, you want to talk about this? I'd be like, that's crazy.

I don't do that anymore. I mean, you know, so everything that you say that cannot happen, like masked federal agents, snatching people off the streets. without any due process, violating everything that policing is all about. I mean, I've talked to, I work with, you know, police departments all the time. And they are instructing their recruits. They're instructing their officers that if you do what ICE and CBP are doing, you will go to jail. You'll be fired. So there is, you know, we see this every day in terms of elements of autocracy and fascism.

It's horrifying to me because I lived in these places around the world. So I think that it's okay to talk about this, even if, you know, I agree with Mick. It's unlikely, but it doesn't mean it's not impossible. And, you know, the other part of it is that, you know, for those of us who served overseas, you know, America meant something. You know, I'll never forget, and I think I sent you all a piece I recently did about living in Damascus and walking to the embassy at night and seeing the silhouette of the American flag, and that it really meant something to this, to the members of a small embassy staff,

but also to the Syrian people because America stood for economic, you know, liberalism and political freedoms. And I think that's a question now. You know, there is a slow, you know, march towards authoritarianism here. It's a president who believes in this kind of unitary executive power. Again, what you see kind of the military on the streets. I mean, you know, I don't want to be hyperbolic and say we're there because we're not. But it's worth having this discussion.

And then, you know, there's certainly things, though, in our past. I mean, one thing I'd say, day, is that, you know, we all did this for the CIA, maybe not so successfully. So, but we certainly gave it a shot sometimes. But, you know, there's a lot we can offer in terms of, you know, what are both our allies and our adversaries would be doing. And I think just to maybe start the conversation is to note that, you know, what you would do as former case officers here is that you would look for recruitment targets. And what you have right now in the United States and you would have if it went to a kind

of full autocracy is an enormous number of very disaffirm. individuals in the hundreds, if not thousands, with top secret clearances. So we would have a right pool of recruitments who are both our friends and our adversaries would probably look to recruit. And finally, one other thing, Dee, I'm just going to tell you, I'm wearing this t-shirt today, the Team House T-shirt. As you know, I am a total podcast whore. If you send me bling, I will come on your show.

You've done that. You also promised me a mug house. I'm waiting for that. But good to be with everyone again. And Jason. You too, buddy. Mugs en route, don't worry. Okay, settle down.

That's coming. Payments in the mail. I get recruited by anybody if you give me blank. Yeah, you're easy. Notes are being taken. Yeah. You hear that China? Just settle over some stuff.

Awesome. Jay, what do you think? What do you take from this? So when you first put it out about doing this, I, my first thought was, I don't have the, the years and years of experience that Mark and Mick do, but I do have some experience. So I tried to look at it, put myself in the shoe, back in the shoes of myself as a junior officer. Like, what would my boss be telling me to do if I was in the United States from a, you know,

a foreign intelligence services and all of this has happened? What would they, you know, what would they task me to do? And then also I was able to pull on, I have a little bit of liaison experience. So I think that would be very important as well. So I would be along with reaching out to my contacts and my assets, I would also be trying to work my liaison contacts as well to see what their feelings are on what's happening in their country. And, you know, they have the pulse. So those are the kind of things that I was thinking about leading up this.

But I agree with both of them that I don't think we're there yet. but I think all of the pieces are in place and all the signs are showing that we're, you know, running towards that. We're taking the baby steps towards that. And it's very, it's concerning because I also looked at as a father, you know, and a grandfather. What is going, what is my, my children and my grandchildren's future going to look like if things keep going like this? If you look at this like a, like it was a competition, if you will, between an autocratic system and an ours, democratic system. They have a lot of advantages, right?

When it comes to this kind of covert type warfare, right? We have a lot of freedoms and they can exploit that. We have a lot of civil liberties. I wouldn't want to give any of these up. I'm just looking at it purely intel perspective. That they have freedom of movement. They have the ability to jump on social media, which is pretty much unrestricted in the United States

or completely unrestricted, I should say now. Whereas if we're trying to affect an autocratic system as intelligence officers like Russia or you name here, autocracy, they're very controlled, right? They block social media. They block access. They, I mean, especially people in the agency who work hard target countries. They track every movement. It's not an equal playing field. And I wouldn't want it to be because that means that we'd be reducing our own, you know, civil liberties.

here in the United States, which I think every American should fight for regardless of whether you're on the right or the left or the center. But from the intel perspective, it is a challenge to affect an autocratic society because of the restrictions they put on their own people, let alone foreign folks that are there, either a diplomatic mission or other. they have a lot of control over us. Here, you know, I mean, how many, if you look back at the statistics during elections, how many of the Facebook accounts or Twitter now X accounts are completely fabricated, right?

They're not even, they don't even exist. All I do is promote conspiracy theories against one American group against another American group, much of which is untrue, probably the entire Q&ONC, conspiracy series fabricated by an intelligence organization. I don't know that for a fact. But it's a lot of that stuff is either manufactured by a foreign intelligence service or amplified by intelligence service. So, you know, let's say it was a real conspiracy theory that was out there by some, you know,

disenfranchised person. The fact that you see 50,000 people agreeing with it, you might think that, it's legitimate because, I mean, why would, when in fact, all 50,000 of those people were generated fake accounts, right? So there's a lot of things they can do to exploit the United States system of freedom against ourselves and get us to start fighting against each other that we simply can't do in place like China because they have, you know, complete control over the spread of information or disinformation on social media sites, interwinds. And we saw this happen, of course, if you look at the indictments after the Russian interference in 2016, the Russians actually, you know, the Russian intelligence service sent individuals to the U.S. to set up, you know, fake accounts on social media. And they were trying to exacerbate, you know, kind of the hot button political issues in the United States, whether it was Second Amendment issues or abortion or Black Lives Matters. I mean, this is in the indictments. We have indicted Russian intelligence officers who did this because it's easy pickings here. Again, it's a free and open society. It's not.

difficult. But going back to what I said before, you know, I thought about, I thought about this actually when there was kind of these rumored purges at the FBI several months ago. And the FBI fired a lot of people and a lot of people retired. But it wasn't as whole scale because at one point they said they're going to get rid of several thousand FBI agents, anyone who touched the Russian investigation. And, you know, the stupidity of that is, is, you know, multifaceted. First of all, it's ridiculous. FBI agents get assigned cases. It's not their, you know, prerogative what they work on and don't work on. But do you really want to fire 3,000 people, all of them who are armed with a sidearm and a shotgun and have a vehicle? I mean, just talking about like, you know, fundamental things.

And by the way, they also all have mortgages. They're sending their kids to schools and they've got to pay for health care. And so, you know, when, if our country kind of moves down that line again towards autocracy and assuming, of course, and this is maybe a more scary thing is that not everybody goes along with it. And I think the results last Tuesday show that that's not the case. You know, there was some kind of hope for democracy, I think. But ultimately, what you have is a huge pool of potential recruits. Again, who, you know, and, you know, there are friends of mine who were working in national security who were when the kind of these big reductions in force were taking place, and I think more are coming. But they said they were getting hit up on LinkedIn by a consulting

firm from the Emirates or Singapore. Now, clearly it's the Chinese or the Iranians or the Russians, and they're not going to say that. It would be a commercial recruits. movement, but you know, why would someone, and by the way, these people knew what it was, but if you're desperate and have no, you know, you have to pay a mortgage and you have no health care, you're going to take those offers. And so I think foreign intelligence services, and I'll get this wrong. I was not in the military. You guys were, but I don't know if it's called operational prep or the environment. I always throw in these acronyms that I learned from like Mick and Jason to sound really good on TV. I'm freaking wrong all the time. Someone will write me to know. That's really not

what operational prep of the environment is. I was like, I don't care. It sounded good. But ultimately, the operational prep of the environment, in theory, would be intelligence service would try to recruit disaffected individuals in the United States. And I think that as – and I think that's probably the case now. The other thing, too, is – because, by the way, the FBI has decided counterintelligence isn't as important. I mean, I gave a talk at Georgetown Law School a couple of weeks ago, and someone there had a relative in the FBI who said, yeah, they've been running around doing immigration raids. And Cash Patel, the FBI director has said they're going to pull people off a CI because, you know, it's – let alone now dropping a college requirement for joining the FBI. But ultimately, I think our CI defenses are down, and then you're going to have disaffected people.

And if we kind of continue on this march, our adversaries will have a pretty easy time scooping people up, which would be the first step? I mean, what you do in any kind of, like, you know, Jason or Mick or myself couldn't have ever operated in places fomenting insurrection or trying to do regime change if you don't have sources to do so. So I think the first thing would be kind of agent operations to get people in line in place. And just one quick thing, remember why the Russians failed so spectacularly in Ukraine? Because the FSB, which was the Russian entity that was tasked to go into Ukraine, actually told Vladimir Putin, yeah, we have everything prepped. But it was all bullshit. It was all, you know, they basically on paper recruiting people where they're stealing all the money. So they didn't do that fundamental piece, which is recruiting people on the ground.

I think something else to think about too, that Mark, you mentioned environment to consider it too, is think about where we live physically, where we live the diverse environment that we live in. It's not hard for a Russian or a Chinese intelligence officer to either come over here or already be here and just blend into the environment. Join these groups, Black Lives Matter, whatever it is, to start fomenting. dissent as well as pick out recruitment targets like I myself like if I went over to Russia just as a as a black man as you know I'd automatically be pegged as something and then when I'm you know it's to determine that I'm an American I'm automatic then double you know the problem so depending on the cover that that intelligence officer come is here in the United States under if it's official then maybe you know they might

you know, catch a tail, although today we don't know that that's absolutely true or not. But if they're here under unofficial cover, non-official cover, they, you know, they could disappear into the, you know, the pond to fish and do whatever it is they got to do. So the next step, and let me throw this, the question to Mick, sorry, Dee, I'm taking over. Oh, I love it. Always making my job easier. I was like, Dee, I'm going to be producer for some. But for Mick, as you live out in a place where, like, everyone has, like, arsenals buried

underground in their backyard. You know, there is a, you know, okay, so let's go back into our old world. Are your agents on the ground? Well, what do you then need to do? You need to bring in things such as explosives, weapons, things to provide a surrogate force. Well, guess what you have in America, a incredible preponderance of weapons, everybody's arms. So a foreign country, foreign intelligence service would not even have to worry about smuggling anything in if they wanted to, you know, mess with the United States on this.

Nick, what are your thoughts as you live out in the land of you? Yeah. And me and, me and, uh, you're then I'm four. Me and, uh, just to highlight that. And I'm a, you know, weapons owner. But me and there, my, my business partner were doing a documentary where you travel around. And, uh, family friend of his owns a farm.

And we went and we're talking to him. And the guy told us he had 50,000 rounds of ammunition. Like, what? I mean, just to emphasize the point, yes, everybody's armed in Montana. It is true. So, you know, not to get into a second minute question, but it would make invading the United States like an impossibility. But to your point, Mark, it also means that if you were trying to plant, you know, caches that you could be used to send in teams like their version of special operations or paramilitary teams to start things in the United States, it would be easy, right? Because it's not just going to a gun show and all that stuff.

You can buy from individuals. You could have basically facilitators, assets that you pay to purchase that are legally able to purchase weapons to collect all this stuff. So whether it was a nation state that's looking to cause issues or a terrorist organization, that would make more sense, right? Because they're okay with getting caught and they're okay with not, you know, it's not an issue of creating a third world war. It would be, we obviously have a lot of access to weapons as part of the freedoms of the United States, but it is a vulnerability. So we should always consider that. And since we have, you know, three of us that we're in the agency, questions I get sometimes, although I don't know why it still persists, but it would be good. I think it's a good idea to bring this up.

There is no deep state. I don't know, I don't know where people think this comes from. I'll have you guys weigh in. But my experience, generally speaking, in the agency, which is the most covert of the departments and agencies of the U.S. government, they're just average folks. They have the gamut of right, left, and center. I've never seen anybody promoting their own political agenda through their actions in the agency. It's basically a bunch of Americans are just trying to do the best for their country. And so this constant idea that there's this group of people, whether they're on the right or the left or what have you that are obsessed with their own politics, is 180 degrees out.

It's just not the case. And folks that think that there should be purges because they disagree with you politically are just, I think, patently wrong. And I hope we could at least end that concept. that would be the first step in ending these type of disenfranchisements, this othering of federal workers and all that. It's just simply not the case. There's just as many, especially in the agencies, Republicans that are all Democrats, and I would guess maybe even more independence than any other group. But they certainly don't wear their politics on their sleeve, and they don't conform their actions to any kind of point. holds agenda.

Hey, don't you remember we go to the cafeteria to be people like with nose rings and blue hair and they'd be kind of cramping out the Grateful Dead? Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. It's just, it's what's going on. It's meetings and, you know, it's a

Yeah. I don't know if you guys have the same experience, but I think it's important that people that might not have that any knowledge of the agency or FBI for that matter here about what people are like inside the agency because you already mentioned it mark they take their kids to

soccer games they drive many vans yeah they do they do really cool work i mean it's it's one of the coolest jobs you could have but it is not some you know cabal of the smoking man sitting in a dark room trying to figure out how to manipulate maybe other countries but certainly not our own i mean look i didn't know anyone's political ideology i mean those of us who have come out afterwards In our private lives, I certainly can sometimes hear people's political ideologies. I never heard it talked about at work. Of course, you're in a skip for the whole time, a secure facility. We didn't pay attention to tweets or politics.

And frankly, you were just a sharp tool of the U.S. government. And so, you know, I agree with you totally. It's also a very, I mean, ultimately, it's a pretty conservative institution. You know, the idea that CIA or FBI is the deep state. I joke with my FBI friends, like they wear suits like a coat and tie on the weekend. again, they're not out there, you know, popping gummy bears or listen to Grateful Dead all the time. I mean, it's just, I find it preposterous, but that certainly, that narrative is very much out there. And, you know, it's something that I think that, you know, obviously still has a lot of weight in certain political, you know, groups in the United States.

I mean, the Mago world really does believe in this, and it's almost impossible to get rid of. But they are now the deep state, quote, unquote, right? They're running the show. So it's like- Well, Cash Patel is flying around on his G5 after he used to criticize others for flying around on the G5. I mean, you know, once you become the man, you're the man. So, but no, but Nick, I think it's good that you bring that up. And it's important.

And, you know, and having this kind of intellectual discussion is certainly, let's just caveat this massively. Like, we're not advocating this. Right, right, obviously, yeah. I'm going to work against the United States. think it is interesting to see how especially our allies do. And, you know, one, maybe just to take this in another direction a little bit is that I've had this kind of unofficial project as I've gone around. I was just in Sweden talking to three former chiefs or deputy chiefs of allied services. And just the notion is as the U.S. kind of moves towards, you know, away from kind of the democratic

norms, are our allies going to start restricting intelligence from us on certain issues? And when it comes to Russia, everyone is probably behind the scenes that they are. It's not going to be on counterterrorism or counterproliferation or other things, but on Russia, where there's just such a distrust of the United States. So our allies are withholding, and I think that's something that is pretty dangerous. It's pretty scary because, you know, as Jason, as you noted, you ran liaison operations for a while. Like, liaison is, you know, the sexy stuff of unilateral agent running is really fun, but liaison is just as important. And they can still help us catch spies and learn about, you know, China and Iran and uncover proliferation networks. And there's a skill in doing that, too.

So is it safe to assume an authoritarian regime that happens in America, fictually, you know, hypothetically, years down the road, that our enemies will be doing more or less, probably a little bit more like brazenly and outwardly, doing what they're doing now? I don't see why they wouldn't. Right. I mean, especially if that authoritarian regime is openly or even dog-wistling,

support for what they're doing. I don't see why they wouldn't do it more brazenly. I mean, there goes friends on friend. What we would by is friends on friends policy, and that goes away, I would imagine. Friends on friends, meaning you don't spy or work against your allies. But once an allied country, let's say in Europe, sees the United States go down a certain path, you know, all that kind of goes away. And by the way, and Mick, this is going to go, you're going to love this piece too,

because I know you know this is true. Like, think about, and this, you know, think about what the British did running around in New Wayland in Boston, British intelligence, recruiting, you know, penetrations with the IRA. They did this for years and years under the nose of the FBI. And so it's not like our, you know, our foreign, even some of our foreign friends haven't done this in the past. I have to throw a little Irish thing in there for me. Yeah. Mick, refresh your thing and come back in.

Yeah, refresh your thing and come back in because I think it said stop recording. But we'll have Mick respond to that one because that was fucking good. Yeah. Mick is an Irish, like a Irish supremacist. That's why I'm so easy. You know, I'm one of my talking points. So what was that about the Irish? What did you say about the Irish?

This question is for Mick. No, it's the notion of, not questions, it's just the idea of, you know, sometimes friends or allies spying on us, spying in our country. And my notion was, you know, if the U.S. goes kind of down the road towards autocracy, you're going to see our allies not respect that friends on friends anymore. But my just comment was, well, sometimes they don't anyway because you saw it, British intelligence who drive the FBI crazy because they'd run around Boston all the time.

They're trying to recruit penetrations of the IRA. So they have already operated in the U.S. And, you know, anything, you know, mentioning the Irish, I have to, oh, we mentioned Mick on this. So there you go. Yeah, the old black rose have been there many time not to get them focused on. But I mean, if I don't think we are going to be an autocracy, but if we were, our alliances would also shift, right? Autocrates doesn't support autocracies, democracies, democracies. So our adversaries, at least what we have traditionally put as our most significant competitors are China and Russia, right?

So autocracies and Iran and North Korea, the kind of the rogue states. So that would shift, I would imagine, if you, but we're not because let's talk about that for, we have. a system that would make it extraordinarily difficult for that to happen, right? We don't have, contrary to some people who love to talk about this unitary executive theory, that's not the way the system set up. It's actually set up the contrary to that. Separations of powers. Article 1 is Congress.

Article 2 is the executive branch, and Article 3 is a judiciary branch. They're all set up to never get to a point where we have all the power in one branch of government. But I know it's a thought experiment. So in the case that we were, we served that way. And remember, a lot of autocracies started as democracies, and then the people who were elected simply got rid of all the rights in freedoms that fall under democracy and shifted. But if we did for this thought experience, our alliances would be different. We would be essentially more concerned about freedoms around the world spreading to the

United States, right? So we would be more prone to be attached to the authoritarian states. And I just don't think that'll ever happen. Our country has essentially established its place in the world as being opposed to tyranny, right, from the very inception to fighting for the freedom of all individuals to be citizens in the Civil War, to defeating Naziism in Europe, defeating imperial Japanese in Asia to winning the Cold War, right? This is what makes America America, and it's all in direct opposition to autocracy. But, Mick, on that note, I mean, obviously we have an administration that every once in a while shows a little bit of an affinity towards Russia, that right now the Hungarian president, who is kind of the epitome of the autocratic experiment in Europe, he was just in Washington. And so I think people are worrying about that is that, you know, that's why, you know, my friends in Europe are having kind of a collective freak out because, you know, we shouldn't be siding with Russia on Ukraine. Now, you know, I think Trump actually wakes up and changes his mind every day.

So maybe that's, maybe it's not ideological. But I think there's enough out there where you, where you could question some of the kind of the historic American commitment to, you know, political and economic freedom and liberalism, liberalism meaning just freedom. And so that's what that worry. I mean, you know, he talks openly praises President Xi of China. He's, you know, Vladimir Putin was his buddy until recently when he's not. So I think there's, there's enough worry that kind of those, the foundational principles that we all worked for are creaking a little bit. Now, I would, I would hope that that we do have this separation of powers. But Congress has been totally impotent.

I mean, the Republican Party has turned into, sorry, D, I'm going to get us in trouble here. You guys don't have to agree with me. If it wasn't, you would be D anyway. Don't worry. I mean, so it's a cult that follows kind of Trump on everything when they shouldn't. They should be pushing back. And, you know, that's what I would want to see that there's a separation of powers. I don't see that right now.

Now, it's not institutional because it still exists, but I do worry. So I totally agree with you on pushing back against Russia and Hungary. I mean, Hungary has essentially become an embarrassment to the EU and NATO, you know. I mean, to the point where I had to talk about it this week on because he was here in Washington. They can basically block them from having any say in the EU. I looked it up. They can completely marginalize Hungary. And there is a path toward, even though it's not in the charter of NATO,

there is another article in the overall Vienna Convention that we could essentially boot Hungary out of NATO. So, I mean, I am probably already, I am 100% for defending our historic, important allies around the world in democracies. That's the other thing. When a CIA officer is trying to do something in another country, generally speaking, yes, they're promoting the interests of the United States, of course. That's what every country does. But they're also promoting, at least historically, the interests of freedom and democracy and individual civil liberties. Right. So things that, I mean, we're not, we don't talk about what we do, but we, I think it, we'd be proud, we'd be proud to talk about why we're doing, which is to promote the idea

of other countries having the right of self-governance, right? Choosing your representatives and un-chusing your representatives and having the right to say what you want, even if it's not what the government agrees with, and everything else that goes with being in the United States or a country like us, certainly Western Europe, is the same way. But I think We have to protect that. So the idea that it's eroding and that people are talking about it is a good thing. It's a good thing, right? It's a good thing that we're talking about it.

And it's a good thing that we're identifying where we think that would be the case, because ultimately the idea that you would protect the freedom of speech, not just of your own ability to say what you want, which is really not protecting free speech. It's just protecting your speech. you have to be willing to protect speech you don't agree with. That's free speech, right? And if it was popular speech, it wouldn't need protection.

So every American, not that they listen to me, but every American, if you believe in free speech, you need to protect the right of somebody who thinks the opposite of you whose speech is not popular. That's protecting free speech. I mean, that's what our country is founded on the idea of dissent. It's good. Absolutely.

Absolutely. If you don't like it, that's fine. I mean, you know, I live in D.C., so there's a protest on every issue all the time. I mean, it's good. You welcome that. Because the other thing, too, that's actually an outlet for people. It's better to allow them to protest on the street rather than get pissed off. And, you know, that's kind of, that's when you see kind of regimes having huge issues.

But the one thing that I think that is really interesting, though, is to see how. our foreign partners are looking at us right now and the amount of concern and worry. And so perhaps because, you know, because Trump ends up being so kind of schizophrenic on policies, you know, you can't say right now that, you know, Donald Trump is is pushing forward a pro-Russia policy on Ukraine because it just changes all the time. So in some ways, maybe that's a good thing. And they just think he's just incredibly, you know, unpredictable. But, but, you know, I actually, I worried for a while, like, how do we run an agent of penetration of the Russian intelligence service right now?

It's a job of a case officer is harder if there's questions of, you know, where is the U.S. going to go on policy and, you know, is there a more to autocracy? All right. So like you guys mentioned, like historical allies, you know, NATO and Five Eyes, what happens if in this hypothetical, the United States is not a democracy anymore, authoritarian regime, what do countries like the Five Eyes, Well, Four Eyes and NATO, you know, MI6, name your pick. What do they doing in the U.S. in terms of operations? because I mean, I'm sure they still spy on us a little bit, right?

Like they have embassies with diplomats, you know, what are they doing if there is a one unitarian? I mean, under this hypothetical, our alliances would change. You would be more closely associated with other authoritarian regimes around the world, right? And so what you're calling the five eyes wouldn't even exist. Yeah, right. I mean, it wouldn't be a five eyes. it would be, or it'd be a different collection of eyes, right? That's never going to happen.

But, again, I need to keep saying that. But I would say this. So, you know, I'm in the big city now, so I took the time to go to a movie last night, since we know about there, a theater in town I live in. Went to Saw Nuremberg. I'm going to go see that tonight. Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

I think Russell Crowe. and Rami Malik should both get the Oscar. Obviously, you know what happened. I would just tell you, Mark, don't read anything about the story before you go. There's going to be stuff that is true. I looked it up afterwards. You're going to go, oh, like, I didn't know what I consider myself a history geek. It's really, but the reason why I'm bringing it up is the psychiatrist that played,

that Romney Malik plays Dr. Kelly. He was interviewing all these Nazis, including Herman Goring, main character, Russell Quill. His book that he wrote after and was to put the movies based on, and one of the main findings is, although those people were horrible, they're not unique to a time and place, that this could happen in any country, and we need to view it that way. not that there happened to be a bunch of monsters in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Not that there wasn't.

That certainly wasn't his point, but his point was that this could happen anywhere. And I think we ought to take that as a kind of a siren call for what we're talking about today. Again, I'll think it's happening in the United States, but that doesn't mean you can't happen in other countries. Like there's countries that are traditionally inclined to the Western, Western way of governance that are not anymore. So we need to keep that in mind.

I think this movie is incredibly well done, kind of brimps back in our ability of macbodies, but also really important politically and philosophically right now. Look, as an older man now, here's my worry about today. It's two and a half hours. I'm going to have to pee like three times. I'm a little concerned about this. There's no way I'm not.

but I'm excited to see it for all the reasons you talked about. I think, you know, it is relevant historically. It's, you know, it's relevant now. And I've always wondered, you know, just about the notion of, you know, how do societies kind of accept evil things that start happening. And again, I'm just going to bring up in the United States now. And this is my kind of pet pee these days because I watch all the ice and CBP raids that are going on in Chicago and other places. It's horrifying. And again, I work with police departments all the time.

And this is against all policing. This is out of the fascist playbook and what's happening. I mean, literally police departments are telling their officers that you cannot do this. You will be prosecuted. You will be fired. They're having, I mean, in big city, East Coast police department I work with, they're literally saying you cannot cooperate with ICE or P.BB, a border patrol on this. And so there's parts of, so there's some things that, and I do wonder, I mean, I get upset about this, but I think, you know, half of America looks at this and they're not disturbed. And I don't understand that.

because this is just kind of basic decency, you know, smashing a car window and dragging a screaming woman out with a kid in the back of the car. I don't understand. I don't understand this. And so I think there is some relevance. And of course, it's not the same. It would be too hyperbolic if we said, you know, we're at that state now of, you know, 1940s Germany. That's crazy. But there's stuff that goes on today. You're just like, I'm not sure how this is happening in America. It's a little disturbing. So I got a question What would a country like Canada be doing?

I know like they're a friendly neighbor or whatever But like they have a secret intelligence service What are they doing in a country that is completely Fallen apart at the seams in terms of liberal democracy? Are they working with resistance groups? Are they taking a more active role? Like what are you guys speculative? Obviously what do you guys think they're doing?

You're thinking like a handmaid's tale kind of scenario Here's that what I think is under that scenario, if you've read the book or the books, the United States becomes somewhat of an authoritarian country in Canada's like freedom, freedom land, right? Well, no, my question is based on the fact that, you know, if the U.S. democracy were to, like, be a shell of itself, it would totally affect Canada because they're a labor, Mexico. That's why that's my thought process in terms, even though Ham-Mace-tail is great. I think more than anything, their immediate mission would be to find out what is going to spill over into Canada.

You know, what are our plans or what are whoever's in charge's plans? What are they for Canada? As far as military, intelligence, whatever it is, and this takes us back to when President Trump had his, you know, site set on Canada for whatever reason, whether it was tariffs or turning it into, another state or whatever it was those sorts of things they're laughable but those are the kind of concerns you know it's like is he joking you know we want to know what your leaders are thinking so i think the canadian intelligence service those are the kind of things short term or long short term would be is this violence or is this unrest or whatever it is going on the u.s going to spill over

into canada and then long term what are the u.s is whatever whoever's in charge in the u.s. what are their plans for us because we're neighbors, you know, and Mexico would be thinking the exact same thing. Yeah. And a lot of our allies have started taking steps because

either the intelligence that they usually get is, didn't we already boot some people out of, I mean, Mark, might remember this or Jason, then we already start restricting certain intelligence to some of the five eyes and I know we were talking about it. But if, obviously,

if we shifted entirely, then I think Canada is going to look at us as one of their highest priorities for collection. I mean, we're way bigger than them, and we're right below them. And we've already talked about them being a 51st state. So if I was them, I would be quadrupling my military, making it and probably trying to gain a nuclear weapon, right, the ultimate security, and increasing my intelligence capacity beyond. one that just, you know, basically butters up to the agency to get there and tell. It has the capacity to do it themselves, and including a covert element. So, I mean, that's what I think I would be doing if I was Canada. Yeah.

Look, and there's things that are happening in Canada now in the sense of, you know, there's obviously a massive crisis and confidence among Canadians in the feelings towards the United States. But, you know, Canada is the, Canada and U.S., these are the largest trading partners. But because of this kind of crazy tariff or, you know, Trump sees a commercial during the World Series gets pissed and throws massive tariffs on Canada, which is bananas. But the Canadians are looking right now to China. I mean, they've announced it publicly. The U.S. may not be reliable. I mean, they don't want that because the economies are so intertwined.

But they're going to, you know, they're going to look to China as a more reliable partner. And I think the Chinese will probably take advantage of that. One of the things you see amongst our allies now, and again, this is very. why it's so kind of self-defeating in some of the kind of the rhetoric and a strangeness coming out of the White House when Trump gets pissed and lashes out is countries that originally were going to buy, for example, the F-35 or not. You know, they're going down different roads in terms of acquisitions. Portugal is not looking at the F-35.

Ukraine just bought the Griffin, whatever, the Swedish. Yeah. And so, you know, the things that are happening in which there's questioning on U.S. reliability, and that's what you would see kind of in the, the future as well. Again, and it's not going to happen in this hypothetical scenario, it's kind of a creeping march towards authoritarianism. Now, to kind of put some favorable spin on this, I mean, I do think the American people

don't like this notion, and there will be kind of pushback on that. But, you know, I guess we'll see in the midterms. We will. That's the other part of this. I think that was an example that, I mean, look, whatever parties in power, it's always good when there's a course correction. Everything happens. When the left comes into power, we swing too far to the left, and there's crazy shit the left does. The right comes into power. Now they do stupid stuff. And so Americans usually course correct. And that's why I think Tuesday, because you did have, you know, New York City race is stupid. And everyone, you know, Fox News loves this, but it's irrelevant. But that's why when you see centrist candidates, when governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, I think that's a good thing. But I think the mid- We'll tell us a lot more. And, you know, that, you know, divided government is a good thing. Americans like that.

And there's a reason for that. Mike, you were going to say? Actually, I was going to say something, some of the what Mark just said that, unfortunately, I mean, as I'm probably on the right, maybe Mark's on the left, and Jason can characterize yourself. But what I see is the pendulum tends to never, like, slow down in the middle. It just goes, right? So you're talking about the issue.

that we have with ice right now, that probably wouldn't happen if they didn't essentially open the border for several years, right? So, I mean, it's, if we could get, you know, the, the, the pendulum's slow down in the middle and maybe even stop, I think that would be very helpful, but that's, you know, it's politics, so you'll just stand to that. But it does tend to cause a reaction that's, it keeps pulling the pendulum higher up on the, on the, on the, uh, a vortex, if that's the right. You know what I mean? It goes higher up on each side each time. And I don't think that's helpful to the United States. It's certainly not helpful to the modern democracy where it's very difficult to have a long-term strategy if we keep shifting entirely our, not just internal politics. I focus on external, but our allies want to be able to rely on us, period. They don't want us to every four years decide whether we want to support Ukraine all out or now we don't care. I'm not saying that's the case right now. Obviously there's plenty on the right that you support Ukraine. But we have to promote democracy around the world to be the leader of the free world or it's just rhetoric.

If we're not promoting it, if they're not defending it, we're not putting our money where our mouth is, then this idea that we have a Reagan view of the shiny city on the hill that's a beacon of freedom, that's a leader of the free world, who'd all said for decades is not true. And I don't think any Americans should want to get to a place where we're not viewed as that around the world. I think we're there, honestly. That's my worry is that, you know, again, I just, Mick, I know you travel all the time too,

but I think we are closer to that point where people are questioning, you know, about American exceptionalism, about America's the bright shining city on the hill. Just because there's no, because exactly what you said, there's no, there's no Trump doctrine. It's transactional. You know, the Reagan doctrine is very clear about fighting for, you know, fighting for freedom against kind of the communist menace. That's a good thing. But I don't think we have a doctrine now. And so I think

that's, that is a, that is a problem, that, that notion that, that inspired a lot of us. But maybe I'm thinking, maybe I'm too extreme on that. And do you take what Mark and Mick just and bring it down to a micro level to that case officer that's sitting across in that potential high value asset who is asking for, you know, possible repeat or being able to come to the United States once they're, you know, they've done what's been asked of them. Are they going to trust, are they going to say yes when if they're on, their country is on a list of do not enters to the United States or, you know, there's question, their loyalty to us would be questioned. why would I say yes if I was a potential high level asset?

Why would I trust what that case officer is saying on behalf of the United States who is showing it currently that depending on what you look like or what your views are, you may not even be able to come into this country. So that's something they need that, you know, an intelligence officer would want to think about. Yeah. That's wild how all this stuff ripples has like different ripples. I wouldn't want to go to diplomatic reception right now Yeah a lot of the time

Doing a lot of explaining The Russians and you know And there's like you know They're going to give you a wink and say kind of the same same You know who are they? I mean Just I but But again this is not mean that this is something It's kind of baked in stone

Right no this is a hype yeah it's a hypothetical obviously I mean you guys work in the CIA for the most part, we've been pretty good to our assets, I'm assuming, right, in terms of getting them out. And at least, I mean, Afghanistan, notwithstanding. That's another fucking disaster. But I'm saying CIA specifically, like, you guys are doing what you can to get assets out of harm's way. And even if not. Yeah.

What is that? I mean, just in general, we have an... What's the CIA? Oh. I mean, I don't think people are... I don't know if assets are quitting right now. There's tough conversations in asset. Kind of trace of Russia, you know,

or is happening with a case officer. Maybe that's just natural. But then the job with the case officer to manipulate the asset a little bit to say everything's fine, even if you might not believe it. Yikes. Nick and I promised the Kurds, like the moon, right? I'll miss some courage. I do.

I got a Kurt a go on his T-shirt, by the way. Looks like Patagonia. They sent it to me. All right. I mean, if we have anything left, I mean, this was, I enjoyed this a lot. I mean, go ahead, Nick, please. I looked at what they, there's several groups that study freedom around the world, freedom house, etc. I looked at their, the things that they rate.

So if you're okay with it, I'll read the 10 that they measure. And then you can decide how we're doing. erosion of free and fair elections, the concentration of power in the executive branch, the undermining of civil liberties and the rule of law, the delitimajian of the opposition, the use of emergencies creating crisis to justify power grabs, the erosion of independent media,

the fragmentation and loss of democratic norms, legal changes that shift power but retain the appearance of democracy, weaking enough institutional resilience and oversight, and the decline in the public trust, legitimacy, and the commitment to a democratic society. Those are the, those are what they're talking about. Our audience can decide how we're... Hey, Mick, isn't the United States raiding on Freedom House gone down? I mean this seriously.

I think, you know, where are we on... on that list. So I don't have the list. I mean, we could quickly chat GPT. I would call Freedom House being critical or seeing that our stock is not rising. That's a good point.

Maybe all Americans should look at that. Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, if we're going down, we should all be like alarmed, right? Whether it's the far left or the far right doing stuff, it shouldn't matter. It should be like, wait a minute. If anything, we should be going up the list.

I'm pretty sure we're not on top. We're 84 out of 100. Democracies? Yeah. Well, no, 84 out of 100 in terms of freedom. Yeah, I'm looking. There's another 93 countries, so there should be. Right?

Where number? Hold on, I'm scrolling down. Where? It looks like they don't even put numbers on this. Guys, hold on one second. While he's doing that, there's a great book called How Civil War Start and How to Stop them by Barbara F. Walter, great book that talks about this stuff as well. Okay.

I actually want to try to get her on this, on the show. Also, Anne Applebaum wrote a book a couple months ago, right? Apocry Incorporated? Yeah. She's been my go-to on this, and she is very alarmed. We're about 25th in the world. We shouldn't be 25th on that rating. That's not a good number.

We're the oldest continued democracy. You think this would be one thing that Americans would all get behind. We need to be the freest country in the world. It benefits everybody here. It shouldn't be a partisan thing at all. It makes no sense at all. So maybe that would be the kind of, unifying

issue of the United States is going up that list, not down. Yeah. Yeah, last year we were 83 out of 100. Now we're 84 out of 100. That's our rating, like an 84% out of 100. Oh, so it's good. Like a B.

Solid B. Yeah, solid B. We want a B in A. We want a B in A plus. That's for sure. Guys, this is awesome. We have anything left. Tell me, hit me up. Mark, how's your podcast going? Tell me about it.

Good. Good. It's been fun. It's been, you know, I have to learn British humor. No, it's been quite interesting. And we actually made some news a couple weeks ago. We had the former national security advisor on and he criticized China. And then later that or the next day, the question was raised with the prime minister about the podcast about being on there. It was kind of fun. But I got to learn. I mean, I'm trying to learn about British politics. It's good stuff. It's called The Crisis Room. Check it out. I'll have links in the description and the show notes.

Mick Mulroy's got a new podcast, too, called the Pub and the Porch, Applied Stoicism. Just got video, so I'll put all the links down in the description there as well. Jason Lyons, all his links are in the description too. And do us a favor. Go to our Patreon. Patreon.com slash the Teamhouse. You get both eyes on and Teamhouse episodes, add free and early, and help support the show. guys this is awesome thank you

awesome thanks for you guys hey guys how's it going it's Dee I want to thank you for watching this show I really appreciate it and I love for you guys to check out our Patreon it's at patreon.com

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