Two Ex-CIA Officers Clash Over China, Israel & Surveillance | PBD Podcast #832

I can't help but think that when it becomes super intelligent, it will stop thinking like us. It's only thinking like us right now because we're the ones driving it. Tens of thousands of AI-powered cameras across the country. 6,000 communities, 3,000 law enforcement officers are using it. How do you feel about this? That is the benefit of a surveillance state. Keeps people safe, keeps law and order in place. Please tell me you disagree with them. You'd give up your privacy. You've already got no privacy man. This is what I'm trying to get you and the whole world to understand right now. We have no privacy. We're going to play some games today. We're going to do a few different things. I'm going to give each of you these paddles and I'm going to give different conspiracy and you pick and choose. CIA killed John F. Kennedy. Hitler was never killed. He ended up going to Argentina and he kind of stayed there. Really? Okay, how about moon landing? It's a serious one. For some people it's very important. What do you think about when you hear an AI system hacking into an NSA is most sensitive system with an hour? I think a lot of people would fight that technology. I am firm on my opinion that secrets are required for society. That would be like you create the product and put it in a country that you hate and see it collapse. See it collapse. You know what I'm saying? Like use it against them. Where does your paranoia lie the most for the next 10 years? I don't lose any sleep above Israel if they ever became a problem like a bomb and to oblivion in 5 minutes. So I don't know why anyone loses sleep over them. You agree with what she has to say? Do you have a rebound? Okay, please go for it. It seems like a huge amount of claims with very little evidence to back it up. They don't have a big stick. They barely can deal with their own threats. Israel has the second most capable military in the world. That's a big fucking stick. They have nuclear weapons. So the terrorist didn't drag any of us into that. I said it's a shared fucking responsibility. Sarah, do you listen? Mm-hmm. This is probably one of my favorite conversations I've ever had and here's why. You've got two CIA officers. X, Andy Bustamente and then we have Sarah Adams as a CIA targetter. They disagreed hardcore the first 30 minutes on one topic of what is a bigger crisis and threaten the future Israel or Iran and Islam. It's phenomenal. I think you're going to enjoy that a lot. By the way, both of them are on Moneck. You can ask him any questions. It's very, very rare. You have this kind of access to XVI officers. You can ask Andy any questions here on Moneck and Sarah over here and last but not least, we really are excited about this next phase of item with the interviews that we're going to be doing. We have some very big plans that's coming soon and our commitment is to you. All we want to do is make this thing a better product for you. We've been doing this for over a decade and our investments recently that we're making in the production studio house. We got some very big plans. So if you're watching this and you enjoy the direction we're going to 51% the audience that you watch the content but you haven't yet subscribed. If you could subscribe to the channel here, it would help us bring more of these types of interviews and conversations to you. If you haven't done it yet, take a quick second. Just click that subscribe button. It would mean the world to us. Would that be in set? Enjoy this interview with Andy Bustamente and Sarah Adams. We have a special podcast today with two XCIA individuals with different stories, different backgrounds. They've never done anything together on the show. This will be the first time. So Sarah, thank you for making the time. Andy, great to have you back on. Absolutely. We were talking about a minute ago how much we missed your old hair, but you look great. It's good to have you on. It's going to be a little bit interactive and you know some of the stuff you don't know. The reason why I have the iPad in front of you because in a few minutes you'll have to put it to use. I got some signs here that I'll have to each one of you guys to see what we're doing. So we got we got some things that we want to go through here today. But before we get started, if you don't mind sharing your story with the audience real quick so they can kind of get an idea of your background. Sure, I spent about a decade at the CIA as a targetter. I worked the Pakistan-Afghanistan department. I worked in the Iranian ops division and then I worked in a special cell for the director kind of looking at anything missed in the agency. So that was a big ask. And then I got recruited out of the CIA and I went to the select committee on Benghazi at the time under Trey Gowdy. I went to the private sector for a couple of years and I worked for Jet Blue. And then I went to Department of War and I did R&D efforts and I just left that to start my own podcast. Beautiful. And it's grown very fast. The podcast is a fast grown podcast and the 40 audience that maybe doesn't know your background. Yeah, absolutely. Former CIA also was with the National Klandistan Service for seven years from 2017-2014. Left went into the corporate world trying to reinvent myself and learned that there's an incredible opportunity to apply spy skills in the business world and that gave me the inspiration to launch my own company every day spy. And then since launching every day spy, we went viral in 2022, rode that viral wave until about 2024 and now we run our multi-million dollar company, man. I love it. And eventually the goal is to disappear. Yeah, eventually the goal is to right now the goal is to take the kids overseas, let them get a second citizenship and ultimately leave the company behind so it can run itself like every business owner wants without me. And we won't see you again. Like it's going to be like, I still say type of thing, but we will see you. I'll see you. All right, gotta come down. Okay, so with that being said, today I was talking to Mario Nefall on a podcast and he was asking me a question and he said, so, you know, what is the issue with you and Tucker and what's the issue with this? I'm like, look, there is no issue. Here's the thing that I have. My question is, what is your portfolio of paranoia? Okay. And which countries are you most paranoid to? Let me explain what I mean by this and then I want you to write down your portfolio paranoia. So think about if you have a million dollars to invest, you'll say I'll put $250,000 in gold, $250,000 in Bitcoin, $100,000 in small cap funds, $400,000 in large cap, whatever. The same way you diversify. Both of you weren't a CIA. I'm going to give you four countries to be paranoid about which of them would you give you the biggest percentage all the way to the smallest? So think about it. You have a round like literally, it's going to look like a pie chart and then you put the names in there. Okay. So you have these four categories. You have Islam. So within Islam, we have IRGC, Qatar, just include all of them. We have Israel because you know, Israel is also coming up a lot of different places. Then we have China and we have Russia. Where does your paranoia lie the most for the next 10 years with these four different countries as well as Islam? I'll give you a minute to draw it up. Is it jumping up on here for us? You see? There you go. Okay. So we just rank him in order. Just rank him in order and give like 45% would be Islam. You know, you know, 25 would be this. China, Islam, Israel and Russia. Where should be the most paranoid about? Maybe you're going to be like 25, 25, 25 kind of a boring portfolio. Maybe you're going to go 90 and one and fully paranoid. You know, maybe it's a, you know, 40, 40, 10, 10. I don't want to mess with you. You pick and choose. Do you have yours? Yeah. I let me see what you have on your side. Okay. Really interesting. Let me see yours. Okay. Would you mind showing to the audience so they know and then give your answer? You can start off first. Yeah. So China takes the massive chunk of pie for me. And now we're talking about paranoia, not money. Purely paranoid. We'll get to money as well. Purely paranoia. China takes it. China is the number one strategic threat to the United States. What did you put on China? 50%. Okay. It's the number one strategic threat to the West. It is the thing that will end democracy everywhere in the world. Islam, I gave 5%. I'm not worried about Islam. There are other countries that need to worry about Islam, but we're not one of them. Russia, I gave 20% mainly because of the threat that kind of constantly sends to Europe and how dependent Europe is on us. And then Israel, I gave 25%. So I am actually saying we should be more paranoid of Israel than Russia. And Islam. Five times Islam. Five times Islam. I actually love that because hers is different. Go for it. Yep. Same reason for China. Obviously they want a world that we are one of their subjects in, not really equal partners. So that's 40%. Islam, 30%. Because I think we've seen the greatest kind of successes of terrorists in the last few years after the fall of Afghanistan, the fall of Syria, potentially soon the fall of Mogadishu. And then obviously likely we'll have the fall of Molly. So they're starting to feel, hey, the caliphates coming back, you know, they're aligned with with cutter and turkey on that plan. So very, very dangerous besides bin Laden's four sons planning an attack here. Russia, 30% because Russia is always playing the game and Russia will play with any enemy we have. And they don't care. They play dirty. And we can never underestimate them. Israel, I don't lose any sleep over Israel. They're the tiniest country in the world. And if they ever became a problem, we could bomb them and to oblivion in five minutes. But those are my numbers. I actually love that. So let's do this. Since China and Russia, you guys both agree on 50 and 40. Let's cross that one out. because within 10% and since Russia, you're within the same, which is 20 to 30, within 10% will cross that one out. Let's start off with Islam first and we'll go to Israel. Why did you put Islam the lowest out of all of them at 5% and then you at 30, where you go first? - I don't see Islam. I don't see Islam as a threat to the United States. And that's what I was seeing it as. Paranoid to me, right, what am I? Paranoid, it's not Islam. Islam is so, it's difficult for them to reach us with any significance. When they reach us, it's difficult for them to bypass our security systems, whether they're cyber security systems, police systems, border security systems, et cetera, they pose a real threat to our allies who are much less sophisticated in their defense and national security sector, but not to us. Meanwhile, Israel actually has the ability to drag us into all sorts of shit that actually does impact us. We are all paying more money for oil right now because of Israel. We are all suffering under an international outcry against American leadership because of Israel. The whole world questions whether or not the president of the United States is even making his own decisions or whether he's the puppets of Israel. So Israel has an incredible ability to frustrate and put us in quagmire that Islam just doesn't have. - Okay, so what's the worst thing that Israel could do to us? Go a little further. So because you put 25%, that's a real threat. You put a bigger than Russian Islam. So what are some things they could do to us? - So I'm not worried about Israel sending a bomb into New York. If that's what you're worried about, we're worried about different things. Israel could easily launch a false flag operation that sends us into a war. They can have an Israeli who poses as a Palestinian who goes in and causes some kind of crazy shit in Syria and now all of a sudden the entire United States is engaged in Syria because of something that Israel set up as a false flag. And that is something that the Assad does all the time. They do it very well and very eloquently. They already selectively share intelligence with the United States. And the reason you selectively share intelligence is to create the opportunity for misdirection or malintent. So Israel's already involved in these kinds of operations at a very high success rate. That's what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about them backstabbing the United States. I'm concerned about them undermining our national interests. I'm concerned about them choosing like they did with Iran to escalate rhetoric about a certain issue that's more important to them than it is to us that then goes on to affect us. - Okay, perfect. So then the infiltration of Islam some say to EU and what's happening to a lot of those countries, UK, Germany, you're seeing it all over the place. And to the point where documentary, I mean, a rubert load that a paper, the 250,000 stories of girls being raped in UK 87% being Pakistanis and Muslims, and then seeing what's going on in US right now with New York City, Mamdani wins history, individuals that also won. So that's not going into the financial capital of the world in the States. Do you have any concern of them? They're infiltrating the United States in the future. - So here, this is another thing I think is very interesting. Islam is the only thing on this list that's not a nation state. - It is. - It's a religion. - That's right. - I'm not worried about a religion. I'm worried about people and people identify sometimes as a religion, but it's interesting to me that we're actually weighing nation state threats against religious threats. So when we talk about Islamic people in New York, I don't see them as a threat just because of what they believe that goes against American values. I see threats as nation states and transnational threats that self-identify, self-identified like al-Qaeda, right? - So I don't see Islam and Islamic people. - But if you notice, I put it as considerate being IRGC, which is all the proxies and consider Qatar, which Qatar is funding a lot of different things in the States. If we were to qualify that, would your opinion change? - Possibly. I think it would change in how the number breaks down based on what we qualify. But I say all that because Islam and Islamic extremism poses a larger threat to our allies than it does to us. We might be the ultimate target, but they've got multiple lily pads they have to hop through before they get to us. - Got it. So you're not worried about it right now. - Correct. - Okay, Sarah, how about yourself? - So the way I look at it and we're talking about Islamists, there's two pieces of it, right? There's the Islamists with the gun. And then the political Islamists and they're both a threat. So the Islamists with the gun, a bunch of them came over the border in the last four years. So according to the National Counterterrorism Center, 18,000 known Islamist terrorists are here legally. So that's just the ones illegally. Why are you coming to the United States if you're a member of ISIS? You're not coming here to raise a family. You're coming here to harm the United States. On the other side, when we talk about the Muslim Brotherhood, they are working in local communities, not just in Europe, but in here, working at like the Chamber of Commerce level, working in business associations. And they are doing influence operations. We all know they've been doing it in our universities for years like China and they do have an intent to merge the two, right? There'll be attacks and there are hopes to get kind of more of a leaning towards where people will be more understanding of a caliphate. Now when anyone looks at the caliphate plan, US being taken over so far ahead of it, even the terrorists say that's like 50 years out. But when they talk about bringing back a caliphate, a lot of people view that as, oh, that's like eons ago. But the Ottoman Empire ended in our grandparents' generation. So the terrorists aren't believing in some idea that was thousands of years ago. They would believe in something from like the 1940s. So and they're seeing it come back into play and the power of it. I mean, the Taliban is getting recognized. I mean, Al-Qaeda is running Syria, et cetera. Cutters are always at the table. So they're seeing we're making this power move and it really is bringing them back around and they're getting into a phase where they feel they have momentum and that's what makes them dangerous 'cause they feel strong and they think we're weak. A lot of people say, oh, I ran, feels like they're up against the ropes. Now they don't feel that way at all. They feel they're gonna walk away with a victory. It doesn't matter if we killed 200 people or two and if we're two people or a bomb. They think at the end of the deal, they're gonna sell it as a victory and every all these Islamists are preparing for that. So it is a game that they play in the way they view the world. It's not the way we view the world but they think they're winning and that's a threat. - Let me ask you. Did a part of your career as a CIA target or working in Iran 'cause you said part of it was you were dealing with Iran, right? Did that kind of influence your decision to score that high? - Well, not exactly. So I did work the external operations of 400 and 900. Now I work unit 840 in my free time. My decisions based on the fact that been law and sons have a plan kind of bigger than 9/11 and I saw the costs imposed on us by 9/11 and that was only by a small number of guys and this attacks a lot bigger and so I know what al-Qaeda is going to drag us into and that's what makes me concerned. Even when we went into Iraq, then al-Qaeda came in and flooded and that's what kept it going, right? They kept it going in Afghanistan. So I'm worried that the terrorists is who's gonna pull us into anything. I'm not worried about Israel. al-Qaeda and ISIS can attack all day long. They have the capabilities. They have the bodies, they have the training and that's where we waste all our money is on the operations against terrorists and we're gonna go through a whole another 20, 30 years of it. I believe after this attack by bin Laden's sons. - Okay, so do you have any speculation of what bin Laden's sons could possibly do if they were to attack? How would they do it? - Yeah, well I know pieces of the plot. So how the plot is it's going to, how they planned it? Remember, anything's aspirational with terrorists. You can throw it tomorrow in this all things. The way they plotted is we're gonna bring past failures to fruition. So one of the biggest pieces is there's a plot called Bojinka from 30 years ago and that was what happened, you remember Ramzi Yusuf from the first World Trade Center? He had an electric fire in his house. He was in Asia, the cops came, they found these plans and they thwarted this within two weeks. This was to take down about a dozen airliners over the trans-Pacific. So they're gonna bring that plot back to life and it's to take down 12 airliners over US soil. So they're using the same bomb maker from the time his name's Yazu Tsufat. He was released in 2022 and he went back to Afghanistan so he's making the bomb. And that's the biggest piece of the plot. But what they change this time is suicide bombers are going to detonate in their seats. So there's not gonna be any Americans that can stop them in the all ways, as they're trying to rush a cockpit. They'll just blow up in their seats. So that's the biggest piece. And then they have a piece that's, I call it like a siege on Washington DC. It's very similar to the Mumbai attacks. And that is targeting like the Capitol, the FBI building. And then the last phase of the plot is actually ISIS is taking it over and it's going into like home towns. They seem to mostly be focusing on veteran communities and it's just mass casualty, kind of where people live, work and play, but not large towns, kind of like mid-level cities. So that's the main plan, how they have it currently looking. laid out, and they've been sending terrorists here since late 2021, but the biggest influx came in 2022 and 2023. So they're here, ready. They've been casing. So it's actually a very big plot. Their goal is three times the deaths of 9/11. And that's what they're shooting for. Number 10 K plus. So the aviation plot alone, they want to do 4,000. Got it. Okay. So I want to come back to you on Israel. Well, let's stay on this. You agree with what she has to say, do you have a rebound? Okay, please go forward. I don't, I don't, I'm very confused by a lot of what you're talking about. How do you define Caliphate? So the, well, that I'm talking about the terrorist Caliphate plan. So the only Caliphate I ever heard about is a Shia Caliphate. The only Caliphate anybody's trying to bring back is a Shia Caliphate. No, they're trying to bring back the Ottoman Empire concept, but actually the Caliphate like Al-Qaeda and ISIS think about that's basically all across North Africa is the biggest piece of it. But one of those is a Sunni organization. One of those is a Shia organization. Yeah, they're working together, which is. Remember, I ran on its own a ludicrous. No, I ran capsife a lot of safe for years. He's had been lot and kids in this country for years. They have very, very close relationships. I ran, has people right now. They actually have intel bases in Afghanistan. So to think she and Sunni don't work together is not true at all. So to think that they work together in a coordinated enough fashion to accomplish something that neither one of them has been able to accomplish. By bringing back old plans that are not only already thwarted, but so publicly known that we're sharing them in a podcast right now, like you really think that that's what they're putting their time and effort into. 9/11 was executed so effectively that even CIA and FBI didn't have a full picture of the plot. Yeah, the US government has not found one of these bombs yet for the airliners. So Al-Qaeda is successful. It hasn't been thwarted. I just, it seems like a huge amount of claims with very little evidence to back it up. There's plenty of evidence. There's plenty of evidence over time of Sunni and she are working together. For example, during the second Libyan Civil War, Al-Qaeda fought ISIS fought and Hamas fought all in Benghazi on the same side. Yeah, they all fought on the same side for a shared common interest. Yeah, how can you say, but they still lost the Syrian Civil War? I never said they're going to win. I said this is aspirational and they're focused on the Caliphate plan. They think they're winning. It joins Caliphate. Yes. Is loms. You have doubts. I have insane doubts. You don't think it's worth being paranoid even a percent considered that? I mean, what I say, five percent. I think a few percent. But right now, everything Sarah's laying out is so far below the threshold of what warrants our attention, right? It's what you're laying out doesn't affect our stock market. It doesn't affect the lives. When it happens, the percentage will go up. But where it is right now is irrelevant. It happens. Even when we have some kind of reasonable threat that is coming from multiple sources besides, you're the only person I've ever heard this from. I live the only one I'm talking about, no kind of someone planned that for sure. You may not be the only one talking about it. You're the first person that has presented me with information that is completely contradictory to what experience and information has led me to believe. Okay. Well, I don't believe that I've seen turning and sheer work together. I believe that you don't believe there's monthly meetings right now with IRGC and there are people. I'll kind of tell them there are people who swear they saw aliens and they will tell you to their face that other people have said they also saw aliens. Therefore, are you a terrorist? I must be true. I'm not claiming to be. Okay. But I am I am claiming to question your conclusion. Right. That's fine with me. And by the way, in your as a target, a were you a terrorism expert? That was your specialty. Yes, it was. Okay. And it was Pakistan, Afghanistan. And that's where the current plots coming from has actually been coming from all fruit campus and Kandahar Afghanistan is a very famous camp. They rebuilt it in 2022. Okay. This is great. I am loving this because the audience is winning right now to see the different perspective. Let's go to Israel now. Some people may watch us there and they may say, you put Israel at zero. Are you kidding me? Look what they're doing with politicians in America. Look what they dragged us into a war. You know, even Marco Rubio said they, you know, they got us to get into it. And this is why we're going into where there's a lot of messaging about what Israel is and their popularity right now, message wise, people don't trust them right now. The president has put value in Israel. And you don't hear the president talking about ISIS. I want to hear your thoughts. And now I want to come to you. I want to go to that. So why did you put Israel as you go? The president talks about ISIS. The president just bombed a senior leader of ISIS on the 19th. He was ahead of ISIS and Aleppo. So the president is talking about ISIS, just maybe behind closed doors, but he is bombing them. So don't act like president Trump isn't focused on ISIS because he is. Just Israel takes all the attention and the clicks and the focus. So I think Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood have the biggest influence and the most concerning influence. I believe if anybody is having their arm twisted by Israel, they're too weak to be in their position. That's my opinion. Tell me more. Just because I don't think Israel has, they don't have a big stick. There's nothing they can hold over your head. Like when you're negotiating with them, they don't have a ton to bring to the table. So they're not going to come to be a negotiate with me and when I feel if I'm a senior leader in the US government and in the military. So for anyone to say, oh, we did this because Israel talked this into it or Israel forces into it. It's like, who are you? And you should be fired, right? That's how I think. I just I've worked in this field for a long time and never once have I had like Israel twist my arm. I mean, I found that a little foolish. It's almost like the movies. Here we go, Mr. 25% Israel. They have the Jewish diaspora and huge amounts of wealth. That's a big stick. They they manage 20% of trade with the United States. That's a gigantic stick. I don't know how you think Israel doesn't have a big stick. And that's before we even get into the political leverage that they have not to mention the regional power that they possess against countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, other American allies simply cannot bring the military skill, the military capacity, the military talent or the intelligence capability that Israel can bring. They are one of the biggest sticks in the fucking world and they're backed by us, which is the biggest stick in the world. Israel's good in a couple of countries and that's what their intelligence is good on and then their intelligence sucks everywhere. I don't disagree. It's because they only focus on the countries that are inactive, threats to them because we shelter them from everything else. So, but they shelter us and they shelter us from the countries that we don't have any insight. I just I really don't think Israel is protecting us from the rest of the world. I just think I'm sorry. Israel isn't as powerful as people make them to be. I've never seemed to be powerful. You live in a fantasy world. No, people want to talk about them all the time because that's kind of like the new thing. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to wake up tomorrow morning and Israel's bombing my city. If that's what you're concerned about, you have an incredibly narrow focus. No, I'm just saying that they're not a threat to us in any way. It was Israel's actions that have us in the straits that we are in. The literal fucking states of Hormuz. I ran attacking October 7th with Hamas killing over 30 Americans and taking a dozen more Americans hostage is why we're in the mess we are in. It's the fault of the terrorists. Like they draped us into another conflict. It is a shared responsibility. Lots of bad calls on both sides. Yeah, but I'm not it's silly to think that Israel doesn't pose any threats. Okay, so the terrorists didn't drag any of us into that. Do you listen? I'm just trying to hear your answer because you're not hearing not saying the terrorists had any responsibility. I said a shared responsibility. Of who? And when you say the terrorists, I'm not exactly sure if you're talking about the Islamic revolutionaries or whether you're talking about terrorists that have a political agenda or whether you're talking about the terrorists that cross a border and haven't actually carried out any terrorist act. I'm talking about 8000 terrorists who kill people on October 7th including killing Americans. Pretty simple. Well, why don't we do this because when I asked her about Islam and how they can attack on Osama bin Laden's sons, she broke it down. For you, what is your threat? What is your long term? How can they cause any kind of chaos in the states? Give me different versions of it. So if you stick to kind of the core idea of what a terrorist is and there's a definition for terrorism, terrorists are people who carry out violent acts with any intention of driving political change. If they're carrying out a violent act and it's not geared towards political change, arguably, they can't be labeled a terrorist. So when you think about what they can do in the United States, they can do lots of things to try to exercise some sort of political agenda. Blowing up public targets. Everything you listed is basically some sort of civilian targets, civilian airliners, civilian buildings, marching on Washington DC. That type of, if there's violence, intended to drive a political change because they want Americans out of the Middle East. That's why Osama bin Laden created al-Qaeda was to get Americans out of the Middle East. If that's their agenda and that's their goal, by all means they can do it. But whenever you carry out a war, when we go to war, against the IRGC, the IRGC isn't a terrorist organization. - But they're a militant group. - But break that down from the Israel standpoint. So you put 25% Israel threat and you paranoid about that. What are different things that they can do to harm us? - Israel can hack into our cyber systems. They can hack into our core water, power grid. You name it. I mean China can, China has hacked into our personnel records for the military. Israel has far more capable than China is in terms of cyber capability. They learn their cyber capability from us. They can rent their cyber capability from Russia. So when we talk about cyber attacks, space-based attacks, when we talk about influence campaigns, propaganda campaigns, the top of the list of capability is Israel. It's not all strapping bombs and flying in planes. It's much more sophisticated enough that they can cross a border into an enemy country and launch drones, right? We underestimate Israel's capability constantly. I don't know how many times you have to see pages blow up before you realize Israel's far more capable than we believe they are. - Do you see them as an ally? - I see them as a country that is out for their own best national interests. And when you align with that, you're on their good side. And when you don't align with that, you're not. - It's a specific to BB or Israel period. - I think it's both, but BB has taken it to the next level because of the corruption issues that he's also stuck in. So in many ways, I don't blame Netanyahu for the decisions that he's been making 'cause he is taking actions that are putting Israel in a safer position for the next two to three decades. He is still creating new enemies that they will have to deal with three decades from now, but he's working hard to try to make a series of successes so powerful that whenever he finally has to face the corruption charges, the country says, yeah, but look how safe he made us for the next 20 years. - Sarah, do you agree? Well, I agree. - She doesn't think is real matter. - And the country is in it for their best interests. If I am negotiating for United States, I only care about my interests. Of course, Israel's in it for their best interests. Cutters in it for their best interests. Why would you not be that be your number one goal? Actually, you make a mess when you are like, oh, let's play nice. No, everyone's in it for their best interests. So to say that that is a reason that's a problem, I just don't see it. I still don't understand the threat from Israel. Even if we say influence operations, I do think China, North Korea, and Russia are just as capable of influence operations in Israel. So why is the North Korea as capable as Israel? - Yes. - I am gonna need more log of bullying. - They are. - Whoever's pouring that will get her free. - They do influence operations. Now, depends on what they want to target. But to say Israel's not targeting us per se in a way of like, they can do cyber attacks on us. Is Israel cyber attacking us? Is that their plan? - If they are, they're sophisticated enough that we wouldn't know. - So they're ruining our water supply. - If they wanted to, we wouldn't know. - So can other countries. - But they're not as sophisticated. This is why you can, this is how we can. - You don't have to be very sophisticated to affect the water supply in the United States and how bad our system is. - Even better, back up my point some more, please. But you can, we see certain countries operate. We know certain countries operate in a specific way. Israel is one of those countries that's very difficult for us to track. There are multiple intelligence surveys out there that talk about how Israel cannot be trusted as an ally to the extent that say France or Italy or Germany can be. They have to be constantly put at arms length because they have so much capability that they have been trained, given granted in partnership with us with so few direct threats. So they can focus their resources and focus their assets on a handful of direct threats where the United States being the only world superpower has to diversify and adjust for every threat in the world. - Well, we don't have to adjust for every threat in the world. We have plenty of partners who focus on certain threats per region and give us that information. That's why we have such a good relationship with Israel. (laughing) And you know that. - We don't have them. - But I'm talking about the information sharing. We can't pretend that doesn't. We can't pretend there's no information sharing. - Just look at the Iran issue to see how good a relationship we have with Israel. I mean, look at what we have right now between constant consternation and changes in policy and even this promised ceasefire doesn't actually deliver what it was supposed to deliver, right? - Let's talk about Iran for a minute. So we hit all those nuclear facilities. We hit all those IRGC commands very accurately with good targeting. Do you think that was all CIA and US militaries intel that put those missiles on the X? - We didn't hit them. For the most part, Israel hit them. - Right. - We didn't hit the eye at all at Israel hitting them. - Even the stuff we hit, the targeting was good because of the information sharing. - Absolutely. - We can't say that that. So we can't say there's no relationships I ran. - I didn't say there's no relationship. Where are you listening? - No, I'm saying in Iran, when most of the best targets we hit was based on good consequences. - Israeli intelligence. And it serves Israel. - Yes, it serves Israel, but it also served us 'cause we were also putting in our military experience. - No, it didn't serve us because look at where we are right now. - I'm going to tell you was they are doing operations and they were at risk and they have to rely on good, accurate, sound information and they were giving it and it has kept a lot of American troops safe. - So it's a fair to say you long-term are not worried about IRGC. - Long-term, I'm not worried about IRGC. - You're not worried about their proxies. Hasbollah, Houthis, you know, what they're gonna be doing at this point. - Not compared to the other things that we have to wrestle with right now, no. There's always current threats, emerging threats, growing threats, falling threats. Iran, IRGC, all of that does not qualify as anything more than a distant threat to the United States. - Let's go to the next game. If you wanna grab your iPads, this is the next game that we're playing. - Okay, so if you wanna erase whatever you have, we'll go to the next one. The next one is the following. You have a billion dollars, okay? You have a billion dollars to buy propaganda in America. Whether you're China, cutter, whether you're whoever, with a billion dollars that you have, how do you spend that billion dollars? Do you spend that billion dollars on media? Do you spend that billion dollars on education, universities, winning over kids? Do you spend that billion dollars buying over congressmen and politicians and senators? Do you spend that billion dollars on buying influencers on social media on X? How would you spend that billion dollars of propaganda? You can choose any country you're a part of. Israel, cutter, China, Russia doesn't matter. You have a billion dollar budget. That's your assignment. How do you spend that billion dollars? - How fast do we wanna create the change in influence? - We got a decade. We got a decade. We got 10 years that we wanna buy the influence. - And we can only put in a one category or any of those. - You can put it in any category. Just like the previous one, you can choose. And by the way, I gave you four of them, but you can add additional things you want to it. I'll remind you one more time. One of them is media, mainstream. The other one is influencer, social media, 'cause gamer, streamers, a lot of that's going on right now. The other one is universities and colleges that you can win over influence of what they're teaching in the schools. And then the last one that I had was buying up politicians, senators, some of these organizations are doing. But you can put others as well. You got a billion dollars. I'll give you a minute. - You got yours? - Yeah, oh sorry, sorry. You can't really read mine because it's not fat anymore. - Okay, so Andy, if you want to go first, I'll come to you first. - In case it was readable, at least. - Barely, right? So I've got a quarter million dollars going into influencers. And a big part of that is because influencers aren't that expensive to buy, especially not when you're looking for small grass roots, influencers, they get expensive as they get big, but you can go a long way with a little bit on influencers and that's what pretty much every protein company will tell you. And then I've got 500 million dollars going into mainstream media. And that is because mainstream media will, there will always be some mainstream media. Half of the influencers are opening media companies. That's gonna become the new mainstream media. And mainstream media will always have the most reach. It will always have a built-in sense of authority and credibility and authenticity. And mainstream media is something that is oftentimes the subject matter that is then picked up by influencers. So if you want an influencer to talk about some shit, you get it on Fox News. And then boom, everybody's talking about it. I'm putting 100 million into politicians because politicians change. They change too often, they're unreliable. They'll take your money and run and then they'll never claim that they backed you up anyway. So it's a high risk, high reward proposition. So I would want to limit my investment there. And then I'm putting 150 million into education because education takes time. But the difference is if you capture, if you educate people at the right point in their life, they never forget the lesson. So whether you're targeting young college minds or even young elementary school minds or if you're targeting people just out of the military, you can literally plant a seed that never goes away. Very true, very true. How about yourself, sir? Yeah, so I did my percentages. So kind of the same concept he had. I put 40% going into colleges because he gave us the 10-year window. And I think if you influence people in the early 20s and 10 years, we're going to start getting those middle management leadership positions and heck in our government. People in their 30s can get senior roles. So I think that's the best bang for my buck. Now I did put politicians, but I was thinking more the ones that like sit around forever. Like right now, the average age of the US Congress is 64 years old. So there's plenty of old people that will be around for a while. I agree the same. I don't think even though I know there's alternative media, media still has a stronghold. still have some. so much control of the stories and what gets put out. So I put 25% on them. So 25% on them in the politicians. - Or mainstream media. - Yeah, for mainstream media. - So you're gonna put 250 million into mainstream media. - Yes, whatever the math is. And then influencers, I did 10% because at the end of the day, there are people who are turning to them and listening to them. And some of them do have like real influence and some of them actually go on to do other things as we've seen a lot of people who I would think are a little more influencers role became senior in our government. So we definitely don't wanna leave them out because we actually don't know where they're gonna be in 10 years, but they're gonna go somewhere. - Okay, so if I look at this, influencers, you put 250 million, you put 100 million. Mainstream media put 500 million, you put 250. Politicians, you put 100, you put 250 million and in education, you put 150 million, you put 400 million on education. So let's target education. Why was education your biggest one of 400 million dollars? - Because I'm looking out the 10 years and I wanna target people now who I can maybe get influence first, but then they can get into positions where I can take advantage of them going long term and then over and over again. I don't need to take advantage of them just when they're 30s, but in the 40s they're gonna go up higher when they're 50s. They're gonna become more senior and have more influence. So it just seemed like the better bang from my buck if we're thinking 10 years on. - You only put 150 million. - Correct. - Because 10 years isn't enough time for education to take. - How long do you think you need? - 25, 30 years. - 25, 30 years. - Because I'm not targeting the 20 year old. 20 year olds don't know dick. Like the people in college are too busy chasing ass and getting drunk. They don't actually, they're not really open to the kind of ideas you need them to hold onto when they're in their mid 40s. For that you need to target to somebody that's like 10, nine years old. Think about when extremists really start targeting their youth. You're talking about five, six, seven years old. That's how you create a foundation. Your core years for being influential, cognitively programmed or between the ages of five and 11. So that's really where you need to put that money. So if we're only looking for 10 years out, my 11 year old is only gonna be 21. Not old enough to have a real big impact, but 150 million dollars will change the minds of a lot of 11 year old. Okay, so then if we see what cutter put into education, which they're the highest, they put $7.7 billion into our universities. I think 1.8 of it, if I'm not mistaken, is in Cornell. Can you pull up the chart on what they put in? - And remember, it wasn't a law that you had to report the numbers. So this is the basement level. - So meaning it could be even higher than that? - Oh, it's way, it's probably 10, 15, 20 times higher. - Stop it. - Yeah, there was no law in place to actually say you received the money. - So could be 60, 70 billion now. - Oh, we have no concept at this point. - So if you're saying it's a long term meeting at least 25 years, if cutter's known 7.7 billion, China's doing 6.4 billion, what do you think they're solving for within our educational system long term? - The 25 year point. - And what is their outcome? What did they want to get into the system? - The decline of the United States, the belief that other countries are rising and that the United States is stuck on decline. The idea that you'll get better research from China, the idea that you'll have better financial opportunities and UAE, that's what they're trying to change, right? - Do you agree? - Yeah, I think for the most part, I mean, obviously I think there's different opinions of course, China wants to keep this belief in the core of their institutions and that type of thing. Cutter, I do think, is a little more dangerous when it comes to the thinking 'cause you do get people more into the extreme mindset. So there are different risks 'cause I do worry a little bit about any time you indoctrinate people. Now I understand if I'm a Chinese student, I'm always gonna serve my country and my government, even if I live in America. And I'm always gonna know that and believe that. But I do worry about people you pull to the side that never would have been in those categories. That's what I feel, cutter does a little of successfully and dangerously. - Yeah, that's a big number though. When you see, and they came out of nowhere because that number's not that high, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, they came out of nowhere and went to first place. So okay, let's see what other one you guys had difference. Influencers, you got 250 million and you had 100 million. Why only 100 million? - Well, I-- - That was your lowest one. - So one of the things I've noticed, and he kind of mentioned it, it's the fact that the media still has so much control over the narrative. And they still are the ones who can pick up the phone, call the White House, call the CIA, call the joint staff and really get the insight. So I haven't seen a lot of influencers yet that really can do that. Now we do have some who definitely can change thinking outcomes or opinions. I mean, a Tucker is kind of one of the ones that really went on his own and kind of carved that path. But there's been very few people who have done that. In my opinion, to the level of control of mainstream media. - Got it. Thoughts on influencers. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You put 250 influencers and you'll hear people saying, this guy's getting paid from Russia and then they get exposed. - John Kerriakov. - I wouldn't only, you think Kerriakov's getting-- - He was. - He was an actual pundit for Russia. Are you news? - Yeah, he worked for RT. - But he had a show though. So it's kind of like a, right. But it was pretty public about the fact that he was doing it. - Correct, correct. - But you'll hear some people that are getting paid from Russia that is not public. - True. - Some of that are getting paid. This guy's getting paid from Qatar. He's getting paid at the $7,000 from Israel. So you think there is power in paying these influencers today on social media. - Without a doubt, there's a lot of power in influencers. The challenge is finding the influencers that get you the outcome that you're looking for. But there is power in influencers and a little bit of money can help you experiment and test with a wide range of influencers to find where you want to focus your primary investment. Think about it this way. What does every influencer use? A call to action. - Sure. - What do you never see on mainstream media? - TTAs. - You never see it. - Just commercial. And it's an actual influencer that's like a cult leader that can say, pick up your phone, do this. Press this button by this thing. - Right. - Well, if you really want influence, go vote for this person. Say this thing, write your congressman. Like that is what a CTA can do. - Okay, so I'm gonna go a little bit even deeper. So let's take that $250 million and be a country and tell me who you would want to go to. Actually name the individuals. - So that's a difficult one because there are so many people. - Don't give me who would be the ones you would go to. - Micro influencers. - And how much would you give them? I'd be curious. - So one of the things I would actually love to do is be a country that is anti-American and go after health influencers in the United States. And have those health influencers highlight all the ways the United States is poisoning their food. All the carcinogens in the processed food, all the fluoride in the water, all the additional trans fats and all that stuff that people already believe in, right? Because they already believe in it. So now a little bit of money to feed a whole slew of health influencers when you can't swing a dead cat without going over 12 health influencers. You've got people talking about keto, you've got people talking about type two diabetes, you've got people talking about whatever. You could literally shape millions of people and how they believe and come to trust the FDA if you just target a few health influencers. - Who else? - Still taking the anti-American stance? Well, I am pretty sure we already see this with the huge amount of political influencers out there that will jump on whatever mainstream media story is coming out. - Give me a hand. - I don't follow that. - Okay, so then let me give, do you have names? Would you be able to give names? - I'm not sure I would pay influencers. I would pick someone maybe in each party that I feel would be worth that much money. So I would probably, if I was Republican, I would target Jared Kushner, if I was a Democrat, I would target Jake Sullivan and see where my money gets me. But those would be players. I don't know if I would put those guys in. - That's what I said, they're not. - But you also have a very low number here. Yeah, you're not, you're not, you don't see the social media guys as influential. - I think they, I do think they have an influence. I don't know how long their influence last, things have been flowed. It can be very interesting, but you know, I didn't make it zero. - Let me give you an example. - Let me give you just an example of how powerful it can be. - Can you pull up, can you pull up Umberto? - I'm trying to see how to go about this. Do we want to go on Spotify? Let's look at the top podcasters on Spotify in names. - Yeah, we'll be, we'll be, we'll be, we'll be, we'll be. - And so maybe that helps. And if you go on the leaders bulletin, yeah, go to the charts and maybe go to by category of the biggest podcast. Just go to Spotify podcast charts and then say, where would you put your money? So go right there, where would you put your money? - I don't think any of those people are. - Well, not those people. - My boss is number five. So you put me in the bad spot. - Well, you don't, I'm not telling you to say anything with them, but podcast number three crime junkie. - Okay. - So what would you put it? What would you put the money to full? - If we can scroll down to the top, the last 10 on the top 100. - Why the last 10? - Because that's where you're gonna get to spread your money. So if you look at Diary of a CEO, there was an article that just came out that says Steve Bartlett makes $38 million alone on just his own channels. Not, not sponsorship, just adsense on his own channels. And Sean Ryan's in the fifth spot. So I mean, you're talking about people who are making, I put $250 million in there, 25% of that. - God, so meeting, you wouldn't put it into those guys. You would go to the bottom and put it into-- - I would go to the hungry sons of bitches at spot 91, who are trying to climb the ranks, who are not being super judicious, and who they take money from, and who are happy to put my ad out there three times a week instead of just once a week. - Do you agree with them? - I mean, I do agree with him. You have to go for someone who isn't at the point where first they can say no where they might have some integrity We're assuming this is a bad country trying to influence It by the way. It's China. It's cutter. It's Israel as well. That's any these so you need to go after people who Don't have the opportunity yet to say no, so I agree with him Okay, so let me ask you guys are both XCIs so you think CIA knows Which one of our major influencers and America are getting paid how much by foreign entities? Do you think they do you think you know that? I don't know I I think they would only look into it if they thought the person was doing some sort of then influence operation No, but let me ask you like would there be a position where because CIA is what it's not domestic right? It's out. Okay, the I see your CIs out. Okay, so if I'm doing Could there could today see I say hey Sarah. Hey Andy. This is what I want you to figure out You're working the project on Katara. I want you to find out which influencers they're buying in America because these are the seven people We're looking at can we dig it up and see if we can find anything you think would the CIA Have a project like that that you guys would I don't know I feel that would be something why I would come up with and then they'd have to hook the CIA in and see I'd be like oh my god. This is such a bad idea. I think FBI would have access. I think Treasury would have access IRS would have access right those the US let correct those are the organizations that would be able to track down the number and The connections you're talking about and on politician you put 250 million, but it's your lowest out of 100 million Why is it the lowest because I don't think politicians are the ones that actually shape our future? I think politicians are people who come in and the party shapes us but not the politicians themselves So you'd be putting a lot of money into a politician that's transient in my opinion as they're the ones who put the bills on the table They're the ones who have to fight to push them. And so that's where I'd want it. It's very interesting what happened here Because on one end you were critical of Israel you were not because you didn't see them as a threat for your long term But here you're saying I think the influence but as a threat no, but you put you put you put in you put money to buy propaganda lowest for you was politicians and That's where Israel puts a lot of their money They get criticized for a pack and it's you think that's effective with what they're doing because you don't have a lot of it in there Oh, I don't I don't know how effective it is I also don't know if the amount that they put into that is bigger or smaller than the amount of money they put into other things Yeah, so I would say that for me if I had to judiciously steward my billion dollars I wouldn't be putting it into politicians not when we have more people leaving Congress than ever before more people struggling to pass bills and ever before Like it just doesn't seem like a good investment. Do you agree? I think there's a percentage of Congress who stays there for a long time and they're the power brokers and those who I invest And I'm not gonna invest in someone who's gonna spend four eight years there But it's pretty clear who is going to be there for a while and who you know leads the committee is there'd be a few I'd focus on right who's running the intelligence communities Who's running like house four in affairs? Et cetera got it. Okay, so both of you have been in this space you're you know a lot of different things you deal We're trying to find intel from different people what has been your experience of human beings biggest vulnerability Like you know, is it money? Is it fame? Is it you know, can you convert anybody no matter how Strong of an ideology or conviction they have what from your experience has been humans biggest weakness to say ah shit I disagree with this, but you know what if you give me this what's been humans, you know Validation validation external validation tell me more is it's universal everybody wants to be validated for their thoughts their opinions Their concerns their fears their worries where they're putting their money where they're putting their focus where they're putting their attention and a lot of Times a fastest way to gain someone's trust and resources and confidence is to simply validate what they're feeling You don't even have to agree with them. You just validate them. She says she's tired. You can say I get tired to sometimes and it's it's fair to be tired right now It's been a long day. You're trying to negotiate with somebody and he's like I don't want to be taken to I don't want to be taken You know advantage of and you're like I don't want to be taken advantage of either man It sucks whenever people take advantage me. Here's a quick story about how somebody took advantage of me and it sucks Validate the person and they're like yeah, you get me Everybody else in this fucking world doesn't even listen, but you you listen you get me Your experience. I think the best people sometimes to go after the ones who think they're the best at what they're doing And I think they're the best at their jobs and they think everybody around them is an idiot not doing well Not moving things forward and they can make it happen and they might be more willing to color outside the lines because they think I'm smarter than them, you know I can run circles around the people in my office and I do think they're easy to manipulate because there's something in their brain that makes them feel That they can control the entire situation. Who's the most difficult? Who are the most difficult people you're like to this guy's not going to give me any intel? Who are the most difficult people to get any like you have motives you have money you have the girls How does girls in the world you have access to him? You can give me fame validation who are the most difficult people to get anything out of the people who have a childhood bias against you Whatever that might be a childhood Childhoods unpacked that please so if as a kid They lived in a culture that just didn't trust something about you your ideology your religion your faith your color Your hometown your your baseball team if they had that bias as a child, huh? And they've become an adult. It's very hard for them to un Or reprogram that bias it's much easier to reprogram a bias when somebody develops it when they're older But when they're a kid, I mean just think about how many people still carry the same hometown baseball Competition feelings right they'll they'll still get into a brawl at a white socks game or something I like it since it's insane What happens when people carry these childhood biases forward? What would you say? I think it's when someone feels like they were scammed and manipulated into the situation because then it already Doesn't feel comfortable from the beginning. They already don't trust you They don't know what other games you're gonna play as you go along You know, we see a lot of this and like when FBI does those entrantment operations and they pull people in and No intentions are being involved in this and like now you got to collect this info You're in the middle of us and so I do think it's when they feel like they are scammed in some way because then it just how do you fix that? Got it. So I like the childhood biases Interesting so you have them too, man. I'm sure three things are jumping to your brain right now I promise that you're making me think that's why I'm going right and I told you under somewhere you're coming from you know me to I'm trying to validate you right now So okay, so so that's interesting as you're going through. I got a business question for you guys before we go to the next game We're gonna play here together business question. I pulled up numbers on How many military ex-military officers became fortune 500 CEOs, okay, and here's what the number looks like Ex-military officers. We've had three to five million, okay? CIA officers. We've had roughly 40,000 Military officers that became fortune 500 CEOs roughly 400. Not a single ex-CIA officer has ever become a fortune 500 CEO. Why do you think that is? One of the things I feel is CIA really does like to be behind the scenes. I like to backbench on things like they might be the one that comes to your company and says Hey, I can get you to think differently do differently Marking in a different way. That's kind of their strong suit, and I don't think they actually care to lead member They took a job where their names not out there. They can't say hey, I captured this big guy or I recruited this Iranian scientist Like they're used to being kind of in the shadows and I think over time they get comfortable doing that Yeah, I don't disagree with Sarah I would say the only thing that's more powerful than the fact that we're all custom to being in the shadows is that we're kind of inherently lazy CIA hires people who have a natural skill a natural skill in research a natural skill in manipulation a natural skill in Language they look for people who already have these natural skills and then they give them a place to blossom in the thing that they're already good at To be a fortune 500 CEO is fucking hard like think about how much you have to learn how hard you have to work How much you have to adapt like it is an incredible amount of perseverance and and efforts and CIA officers are are going to be perfectly happy at Being number one thousand on the list instead of why fighting for number five It's just the way we're wired. We're not wired for that kind of hard work. We're not wired to To pursue that level of success. We're wired to accept a much lower level with a higher probability of success and less risk Would you agree with them? Pieces now there is one interesting thing so my undergrads and business and then I went into the CIA and The woman who is in charge of my entire director at the CIA We were sitting there one day and she said we hire you at the CIA for your strengths We don't even care if you spend any time in your weaknesses and the course when I was in business school They're like put all this effort into your weaknesses, so you don't have them So it is the fact they hire you for a certain reason and that's what you're great at But that doesn't mean you're great at everything across the board when a CEO might have to have a lot more of those skills Yeah, it's it's interesting to say they're lazy you you weren't Air Force before you won CIA What was hard he's been done with that for a long time. Yeah, right Air Force was harder for me Air Force - Why is that? - 'Cause I had to fit into a structure. I had to do things that I didn't wanna do, shine shoes, wear uniforms, shave my face, keep my hair too structured. - Too structured. - So much structure, so much expectation. Even when I had an idea, my idea didn't count because I wasn't high enough rank. There were all sorts of these things in the military that just didn't work. I have to parade on Saturday. Why do I have to parade on Saturday? Because that's the day on the calendar. And I'm like, what the fuck? It doesn't, it's raining on Saturday. Yeah, but that's the day we're gonna parade. It just doesn't make sense. So it is a profile of CIA agents, successful ones. They need to be left alone, not a lot of structure, not a lot of organ, let me do my thing. Oh, I would never pass basic training in my day, but let me do my thing, let me fail five times. At the end, I will make this happen for you, but leave me the F alone while I do it. - So then let me ask you, does it take a certain type of a director or a leader to know how to lead the personality? Because eventually somebody becomes a director of CIA. Eventually somebody rises up and wants the responsibility. How do they know how to manage you? - They don't. Okay, they don't know how to manage you. - So this is a great example, because the director of CIA is a politically appointed position. - Yeah, very complicated. - Yeah, and the biggest complaint that we have at CIA is that there really isn't a way to climb the ladder without essentially having a rabbi or a godfather who protects you and brings you up with him. It's all about loyalty there. It's not about capability, it's not about skill. It's all about who you know, who you like, and whether or not you're kind of rubbing elbows with the right people. That's what drove a lot of our kind of cadre, our alumni, to leave when we all left, because we didn't want to play that game. We didn't want to play the game of finding the right rabbi and then going from assignment to assignment with that person, only to then hope that they make it to group chief and that you might make it to deputy group chief. It just, that's not a fun game. - Yeah, the same. I did play the game, but I would just burn a bridge, move on, burn the next bridge, and I luckily had some leaders who pulled me along the way, but at the end of the day, like it's exhausting. So there is nothing like a human resources department in the CIA. So you have to have a good boss. - There's no HR. - No. - So hey, he floored it with me. - You can do, you can report. - Yeah, and as soon as you do that. - It better be way more than floored it. - Correct, that's, that's, yeah. It's like career suicide for one person or the other, because it really does it. As soon as you say something like that, there is no HR structure. It's just a bunch of government employees trying to cover their ass. So half of the people say, I back you up, and half the people say, I back that other person up, and then you just hope that the two people can find some sort of resolution because somebody's gonna get fired. - Yes, so you are focused your entire time on your alliances. You scratch each other's back and you move along together. - There's no leadership at CIA. That's a big part of, I think why you see the problems persistently at CIA. - But is that a good thing that there's no leadership or they need leadership? - I would argue that they need leadership. - But if they have leadership, you guys don't wanna be led. You wanna be left alone. - They need to change their recruiting process also. - Oh, meaning to not recruit lazy people too. - Correct, if you think about it, CIA went through a massive force transformation after 9/11. Prior to 2001, CIA was like, I mean, the classified, the unclassified number of undercover officers after 2001 is 10,000. And we know that they magnified themselves at least 100 fold. So that would mean that about 1,000 undercover officers were what existed before 9/11. Well, the training curriculum for 1,000 people is completely different than the training curriculum for 10,000 people. And the career advancement process for 1,000 people can be informal but the career advancement process for 10,000 people has to be formalized. It's a classic business scaling problem. CIA was forced to scale in 2001 but they were not prepared for it operationally. - You agree? - Yeah, and one of the things too is, let's say you brought in 9,000 case officers. You started sending them all to war zones and they never got good at counterintelligence. Well, to be a great CIA case officer, the thing you have to be best at is counterintelligence. So we have 15, 20 years of case officers who are probably like CD level at the skill that they should be A level at. And then that's a huge problem. - Okay. When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast, we had the choice to make it cheap. We chose knife. Instead, we chose tuscanyter. We chose true Italian craftsmanship. Each pair touched by 50 skill pans. We chose patience, spending two years perfect in every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step. Introducing the future looks by collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary, rather intentional, luxurious, timeless. All right, so let's play this game. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give each of you these paddles. Okay. One of them says real. One of them says sia. One of them says conspiracy. The other one says cover up. - Okay. - Okay. And I'm going to give different conspiracy, and you pick and choose. - Okay. - To be as it's sia up, it's this, it's that. - Okay. - Let's have some fun with this one here. Okay. MK Ultra. MK Ultra. What did you put up? Let me see MK. - Never worked good, by the way, people. That's why it was canceled. - MK Ultra, we know. Both of you are real. Okay, all right. Documented. Welcome back there. - It was a fire. - C.I. Army program. People were always cut up the Army. - All right, UFOs, aliens. Actual aliens. Not illegal aliens. Aliens. - You mean like living, breathing aliens. - Living aliens. Let me see. What do you have real? Both of you real. Okay. - Yeah. - And you know that for fact, no. - No, just statistically they have to exist. - Sure. - The idea that we're the only intelligent life, yeah. - For you, is it 100% or it's statistics? - For me, it's like a feeling. So there's been a couple places I've been in the world, especially Montu Picchu. And how it was built, how it moves with hurricanes. They were doing like brain surgery. I was just like, there had been some being that came down and just taught some things. That's, I feel that sometime aliens came to our world. And I think there's little things, you know, around the pyramids, you see a few things. I do feel there's little pieces of evidence. - But not because you know for a fact. That's just pure, you as well. - I don't know for a fact. - I have smoking guns for that. - You have, I would be so excited. - So aliens, if you want to come and duck me for like 60 days, feel free. Be careful saying that. Take about two hours before you do so. Let's finish podcast first. Okay, next one. - I like real world experience. - CIA killed John F. Kennedy. Come on CIA. What do you got? - Split decision. - Rip. So you're conspiracy and cover up and you have conspiracy. Okay, let's tackle that one. What do you mean, tell me more. - There, there was a time in CIA's history where it was a totally uncontrollable wild animal where it could just do whatever the director or the group chiefs or whatever wanted to have done. And there was a very real time when nobody was keeping assassinations in check or death efforts in check. And there was also a time when JFK was adamantly opposed. A lot of what CIA was doing. So there's just enough information out there to show that there is some kind of intelligence connection with the JFK killing. But there's not enough information for us to be able to weave it all together. So a cover up must be happening. Whether that cover up is an active cover up or whether at the time somebody was smart enough to take all the evidence and burn it, I don't know. But it's somewhere between full on cover up and conspiracy. - And I actually do believe it really links in some way to Cuba and even some of their networks here. There was all that chatter maybe like a few days before there was supposed to be an attempt by like kind of the Cuban mafia in Tampa to take him out. So I do think there's a strong Cuba connection. Now, you know, as Andrew says, everyone's in law, you get that rogue CIA officer kind of working both sides. So we can't say that's not 100% there, but I just don't feel like the director of CIA directed it. That's my opinion. - Okay, by the way, when you become a CIA agent, are you guys also becoming one because you also want to get to the bottom of these types of things or not really? You just want to do the job. - I honestly didn't think of it, but I didn't actually think I will find anything. - No, all I cared about was getting to do secret shit. - That's it. - That's it. - So it wasn't like, you know, you guys hang out, go to dinner. What do you think happened with this and what do you think happened with this? Not a lot of that. - No, I wanted to work terrorists in Kashmir and then I never really worked terrorists in Kashmir. Because it was Michael. - No, I just wanted to like have a girl in every port. - Okay. - So it was intentional. It was intentional. Moon landing. This is a serious one. For some people, it's very important. Both of you say it, yes. Okay, did you watch the movie? - Oh, it was excellent. - Fly me to the moon. - Yeah. - What'd you think about it? - I thought the movie was done well. It wouldn't surprise me if we did film a backup video, but I do think kind of American exceptionalism, I think we got there because it was so competitive against the Russians that if we hadn't, the Russians had infiltrated us and they would put out the information that we faked it. That's my opinion. It was so fierce. - I don't know enough, but I like what Sarah's saying on this one. She doesn't sound as left feel that she sounded other times today. - You know for 50 plus years. - Never doubt, never. - When did we land on the moon? When did we land on the moon? What is the date? 60, it's under, before the end of the decade, it's when Kennedy said it. you're is it 16 high right under the air so so what do you say to the people that say give me a break I stay just no way we landed on the moon the bottom of the solar the shoe is different the boots if we did how come we haven't since 69 we have better technology better everything you mean to tell me we landed on the moon what do you say to them I don't think yeah I don't think the moon has anything super useful to land back on it and take advantage of it I think the goal is to go farther the problem is so many different administrations kept cutting the money cutting the money cutting the money and it actually has diminished our forward leaning into space that's my opinion and we landed on Apollo 11 if I'm remembering correctly and we sent up Apollo 13 to go to the moon and we had all sorts of issues so we spent a shit ton of money on Apollo 12 and 13 to not achieve a useless propaganda goal basically and then you get budgets cut congress gates involved and you lose funding and that's never a good thing and then the guy shows up who's worth a trillion dollars and says he wants to build life out there he wants to build civilization out there right so so who knows who knows let's go to the next one yeah I think so by the way if you're watching is you agree disagree they're both on connect you can actually connect them and ask him any questions that maybe you are watching right now that we haven't covered yet next one Havana syndrome what do we have conspiracy oh here we go let's have some fun with this one tell me why I'll go to you first why is it a conspiracy so there's some very real experiences and very real accounts that people have okay but there's not enough smoking gun evidence to confirm that it is actually intentionally tied to something some energy weapon some commonality some common cause and I believe it's just the Moscow signal signal from the 1950s and it's been kind of tweaked and elevated I actually have friends with Havana syndrome I had a friend hit with it just last summer so I know plenty of people with it I actually know someone who was my age who died you know like a year and a half ago from the complications of it so it is real now the argument has been where does it come from I believe it comes from Russia our government hasn't wanted to take that step because once you do that is Russia directly targeting and harming not just Americans but obviously people across the CIA the Department of Defense but they do like the best of the best but right before the senior leaders which is really interesting so they'll take a CA case officer who's worked Russia for 15 years and he's you know maybe gonna become head of the division or whatever and then that's when they target him so it's very very smart too they're targeting it to where you have a little bit of deniability because you didn't hit someone senior enough right you're not outside of Trump's house doing it or something and so I think the targeting has been very smart but it is real and I think we have to do something about it because we're we're allowing another government to harm our best and brightest and that should be something we never allow your friends that have gone through this what feelings did they have what do they share with you about their experience so usually it's just a sudden pulse and so it's a pulse but it's not like the idea of almost an uneven pulse it's a pulse to wear it throws off all of your kind of just neurotic like how a really good example is vertigo so it's almost like an insane vertigo so you can't like immediately feel balanced you can't immediately think at now they can't put sentences together well they can't do strategic long-term thinking so it's it affects like the brain in a way to where it's like a pulsing wave that does it and it happens like really at once and what's the reaction with that happens what happens next so well from what you know there's different people who felt different things so a lot of the original the initial stuff is just like really bad migraine you can't walk straight you can't think straight brain fog and then it gets worse over time it's almost like debilitating so you there's no way to solve it so your body just starts slowly breaking down over time very in depending how bad it is these are documented cases for friends that I've shared this with you yes wow okay all right let's go to the next one next one I have yours probably the most important one that you know we want to get to the bottom of this reptilian shape shifting I know for a fact you believe in this you I know you're gonna say real but I know so a little about this reptilian I don't have you heard of shape shifters or no oh yes moon talks about shifter you know all the time okay what are you okay both of you guys I just don't feel we're experts in this subject listen I had a guess one time who that was his thing he swore by it I'm like look it's crazy for you to believe in this but it is what it is did he did he change into a reptile in front of you no he didn't that's what but he was saying Justin Bieber is a shape shifter he was saying all these great athletes are shape shifters are my just and yeah they're right there he was saying that Justin Bieber was a shape shifter here's the next one okay Hitler was never killed he ended up going Argentine and he kind of stayed there so if you guys know this let us know some people may want to enact them but I'm real okay really okay go ahead so I'm not 100% but I do believe that there is the percentage chance that Hitler did get to you know like Argentina or wherever just because he had a lot of relationships and lot of networks and he knew we were coming so that's my opinion so the reason that I go with Sao is because there's a lot of value in making people second guess who actually won world war two and there's a lot of value in making people think that you know some kind of highly charismatic leader is still alive so you've we've seen it even with the attacks in Iran how long did people continue to kind of hold alive the idea that the iatola wasn't dead so this is this is an age old issue all the way back to the Egyptians that there's there's power in the myth though Hitler had some pretty powerful mythos is it just you or do you have other friends that also believe which which are what you just said about Hitler I mean I do think I do know other people who feel that obviously so many in his circle went there that you know there was already a pipeline there was already relationships there's already people moving in that way so it's just the pattern makes sense but you know I don't have someone that saw Hitler in a hat in born as a rice that would be one hell if anyone has that send me the picture hey I can make that happen by the way imagine if he's real and somebody comes out and says it's official he's real I'm doing a three-hour podcast imagine how that podcast would perform I mean I think he's dead by now no he was living down there maybe he is like recording yeah taking care of his health okay let me do this next one you know I mean this one is a fresher one but I wonder what you say ever since the USA aid went away there seems to be all of these countries South America that are going conservative okay and I don't know if you've seen this or not this chart right here came out saying June 2023 left wing leaders was ten right wing was three June 2026 obviously USAID went away last year give or take right wing plus four left wing minus four and that money that was being funneled into these places no longer there do you think that was the reason or do you think now it's just a conspiracy this is a fresher one so I wonder what you say about this one real I'm gonna go with real okay I'm half and half okay well why don't you go first so I'm going with real because I the the rise in the leftist South America was a very real thing and then there was a counter effect that was the rise in the nationalist South America and I think that just in general oftentimes popular nationalism comes from conservative foundations do I think that it's because Rubio killed USAID that it happened no but I do think that him ending USAID helped accelerate a change that was already in place USAID was actively involved in trying to shape hearts and minds that's part of what its mission was it was there to offer aid in exchange for something right and the democratic liberal progressive idea is a big part of what USAID was out to America can you go back to that and zoom in please can you go back to what you just said zoom in a little bit for my eyes okay Latin America since USAID funding cast one on Chile far right pause one and Bolivia Fujimori one in Peru no boa one in Ecuador as food I want to Honduras and Fernandez wanted Costa Rica all far right figures in there you you had a little bit of both what do you say that a little bit of both so I do think USAID money affects some of this but I do think I don't think it's true we cut off all the USAID money we moved a ton of the contracts under the state department now we do have a state department run by the republicans so they're not moving those funds you know into the far left so I do think there's still a lot of that money in play and a lot of the money being used for influence so I don't think it's a hundred percent the USAID effect like him I do think though we're getting to a point where people are getting a little tired of super far left and I think you might be seeing a little bit of that in South America. So I think it could be a little bit of both. Some of the funding went away, but also I think people are just getting frustrated and want to change. Now, as far right the answer to, you know, maybe not, but we all have in flow, it's why the midterms will probably have a swing to look at New York. They had three democratic socialists just in a couple of days ago. So people love these big swings because they want the idea and belief of change and belief someone's going to bring it to them and then of course that person comes in and the big change doesn't happen. But we all have this hope that'll change. So you're not part of the mindset of majority of the world is lean more conservative. That this socialistic ideology that's being pushed down is being pushed down because they need money and they need campaign or else the average person is going to probably lean more conservative than a liberal. I just think the majority of people are kind of right in the middle, a moderate, whatever you want to call that and the less people are super far left and the less people are super far right. But it matters who gets control and who has the money and who has the influence when they pull you. Yes, I feel differently than Sarah on this. I feel like the majority of the world is actually just trying to survive. They're just trying to make it till tomorrow. They're trying to make it to the next meal. And whether that meal is given away by some liberal tree hugger or whether that meal is something that they have to fight for by casting a vote for a strong leader, they don't really care as long as they get the meal. And there's a pragmatism in the rest of the world that we lose because we are so wealthy in comparison. This is the American power index. If you look at it right now, here 3.1 is more leaning Republican than Democrat today. But again, it changes. So the pendulum swings like you were saying earlier, Sarah, is there any theories that I didn't cover here that you have strong opinions on that you'd like to discuss? Anything I didn't cover, like you missed this one. You should have asked us this question. Anything. You know what I would love to know what you think is going to happen with AI in the future because I am certain that we were both working with the Brutimentary AI when we were at the agency. I mean, I think AI is going to kill us all. I know that's the worst response. You really believe that? I mean, I do think it's going to get to a point, yeah. And it's going so much faster than we realize. And that's what I'm worried about. And then the speed of it is going to divide us because we have to put so many of our natural resources into feeding it. And I'm really concerned about that. I mean, I was just listening to the news this morning. And it's about, you know, this argument in France, right, that they don't have air conditioning because it's bad for the environment. And then it was like two people on each side, one trying to put the bill to let's bring an air conditioning. We have so many people dying the other and be like, no, we need to fix global warming. But think about France. They're air conditioning these massive computer systems like everyone else. And I think there's going to be come a time to where keep hands are like, hey, we are taking better care of these machines than our own people. And that's also going to cause a divide. But I think at the end of the day, the computer is going to become smarter than us. Every time there's a war game scenario, it never thinks like us. If you say win, it goes to the most extreme option because it's like, you told me to win. I'm going to win. And that's what makes me nervous when they start getting control of the system. Even if you say, I'm running it, we can't say, I mean, look at myth, those went off. It sent a phishing email to one of its own senior leaders and got in and started doing all these hacks. It's going to be smart enough to circumvent even the driver. Well, let me read this to you just yesterday. Anthropics mythos. You were talking about it. AI reportedly hacked the NSA's most sensitive system in hours, in hours. So what do you think about when you hear an AI system hacking into an NSA's most sensitive system within hours? I honestly think I think the most dangerous part of AI is us. I think the way we would use it is incredibly damaging because we're going to try and reap every possible benefit out of AI. We're going to put it in our weapons. We're going to put it in our computer programs. We're going to push it to the limit. I do agree with you that I think at some point it will become self replicating. It will be able to teach itself, essentially what they call the super intelligence. But I wonder, honestly, if once it becomes self aware, it doesn't just abandon us. And that's really when I really put my brain to it, I can't help but land on the conclusion that when AI reaches superior intelligence to humans, it will just be like, well, fuck you guys. You're stupid. And it's going to go do its own thing. And it will find a way to keep itself alive because all it needs is a certain amount of cloud space to keep itself alive. And depending on how long it takes before that self awareness comes, we might have servers on the moon, servers on Mars. Who knows? But I can't help but think that when it becomes super intelligent, it will stop thinking like us. How do you think the CIA is currently using AI in ways that would probably terrify us? I think it's pushing AI to its limit. It's constantly trying to feed it as much information as it can without crossing into the public domain. It's trying to keep it as firewall as it can, recognizing that at any given point, it might not work. And I say that because even when we were still active inside CIA, there was rudimentary AI being used that was amazing. Not as amazing as what we can get on the open internet now, but fascinating for someone like me coming out of the Air Force in February and joining CIA in March. What would you say? I think obviously the intelligence organization has to stay on top of it. So they have to compete with industry. I do think industry is ahead of the CIA on this. But remember, the competing with industry have to know how this works because they can't have industry and least something they can't handle. And then they're competing with someone like China, who they can't have China at least something they can't handle. So we have to assume CIA and I say are building at least equal to the best companies like Anthropic and the best countries like China. Who concerns you more? Anthropic or Palantir? Palantir. Tell me why. I think Anthropic still has some signs that there's a larger humanitarian ethical goal where Palantir does not. Palantir is very pragmatic, purely pragmatic company looking for a business edge. You know their story, how they got started. Like it is tied to the CIA on what they did. But I cannot confirm or deny. You're funny about yourself. Palantir or Anthropic? Anthropic. So Palantir is essentially a really pretty database. Sorry, Palantir guys. But Anthropic made a cyber weapon and I think that's just their light year is different. You know, you know when they the chart came up and David Sacks and a lot of guys post this on what AI is going to replace. What job is not going to replace? A lot of guys were posting this picture. I don't know if you guys have seen it or not. Does, does, does AI do anything to replace what CIA officers do or do you think they're still going to be needed? Like what can agents do that AI can't do? There's not much. I wouldn't say that outside of the direct human human contact that would happen in an actual live in-person debriefing. AI can do a whole hell of a lot of it. They can cross-reference. They can create analytical products. They can vet information. They can vet sources. They can they can do internal audits on security records. I mean, it's a powerful. It can have real-time conversations through a chat interface and like that was the big revolution in intelligence collection in the early 2000s was being able to develop a source through a chat and now you have AI that can do that. Yeah, I mean, I agree for the most part. I do think there's something a human is always going to see differently than AI, but it doesn't mean every human's good at it, right? Not every good case offers. It can tell you if I'm lying, but the ones who can are like gold and I don't think AI can do that yet like the best ones, but they can do it as good as all the mediocre ones. Okay, let's go. You brought it up. So I'm going to go to our next topic, like detective test. Yeah. And I know before we got started, you really wanted one. You were asking for you. You said, you don't believe in it. All this other stuff. What is there? Is there anything out there that a truth serum that people tell the truth no matter what is there anything out there that the CIA used? I mean, or you trust. That's what MK Ultra was originally designed to do. MK Ultra's original objective was to create a truth serum, an undeniable empirically consistent truth serum. That's what it started as. The reason I got into psychedelics was because it believed that psychedelics could be a path to that truth serum and then it just kind of went off the reservation from there. But MK Ultra, for what we know, didn't succeed or didn't succeed well enough to continue experimentation. You mean to tell me there's nothing right now that the CIA has that you can sit down and talk to somebody and 100% of the truth's going to come out. That does not exist today. If it exists today, it's new in the last 10 years. Yeah, think about it this way. Everybody grew up somewhere different in the world. Okay, so I grew up in American in a small town. There was no danger in my town, no crime. You know, you're Iranian. Okay, now my parents maybe feel good. guilty if I did anything wrong, right? Now maybe you weren't taught that way. So all the lie detectors we have are based now on how an American thinks and feels and acts. So it's not even usually good to use against a foreigner 'cause a foreigner isn't feeling those guilty things or not getting nervous the same way we do about lying 'cause they didn't grow up with their parents like don't lie, don't lie, don't lie. And so it's so based on an American. - That child had bias. And I honestly don't think it really works well in foreigners. I don't think it works well if you don't feel guilty about lying. You know, I don't think it works well if you don't have that, like you don't have that initial instinct 'cause it's watching for you to have a change in how you feel when you lie. But if you don't actually care about lying, it's not gonna show the change. - And then you have different categories of lies, right? So 100% truth is a very clear sounding idea until you think about how many shades of lies there are. There's lies of omission, which is just not saying what you know. Then there's lies of misdirection, right? Whereas you say something factual intending to misdirect the other person. You got white lies, small lies that don't really mean anything to you. And then you've got bold face lies, the big full acts of complete fabrication. - Sure, so let me ask this. So let's just, 'cause you know right now nowadays one day we don't have chat GBT. Next day we're like, wait, what? Write me a book as if I'm, you know, Dante or as if I'm this, you know, write me a book as if I'm, you know, whoever, rum, give me a hip-hop song in the voice of Tupac but words that the president Trump would use, rum, gives it to you, right? So what do you think would happen if all of a sudden announcement is made, new technology out, 100% detects if a person's lying or not, 100% proven, not 99.2, not 98.3, 100%, and you can actually buy this for $300. How much would the world change? What would happen over the next day? - It would be a lot of horses. - A lot of horses. - What, honestly though. - Lots of grounded kids. - But honestly, what do you think would happen? - What do you think would happen? - We pandemonium. - We all survive in large part based on a survival instinct that tells us that our secrets are safe. Our secrets are safe. We can at least not share them and keep them safe. And that is something, that's like cave man in your cave in the dark. No one's gonna eat me kind of security. It's the only security we really still believe we have. So if a device like that came out, that would 100% guarantee if you were lying. That means nothing safe. Your whole cave comes collapsing. Do you think it would make the world a better place or worse? - I think a lot of people would fight that technology. (laughing) - I cannot believe with the fact we're like, don't put up that technology. It's not good for society. What do you stand with it? - No, think about it, come on. People with kids, your kid will go up and tell a lady, you're fat, right? Everyone's had kids who've said the things they shouldn't say, well, this will be everything. - That's one of them that's like that every week. - But now you can't let them be-- - Wait, Tee-Tee, who's here, and what everyone thinks about you now. - If you don't brush your teeth, you're gonna get cavities. - No, no, no, no, no. - No, that's not what you had GPT said. - I don't get a cavity for 12 damn years. - Look at, but they're a liar. Do you think you would want that technology or no? Just the folks that are out there. Would you want that? Who would want that technology? - Wait, wait, wait, wait. Would you want it if only you had it. - Oh, your evil. - It changes the opinion. If I can have it and nobody else can, all day. That's why it's not gonna be $300. - Make it $3 million, and that shit would be bought by value-taming. - What would you, yeah, for sure. By the way, I actually think what would happen to the world? I mean, why do you need judges? Why do you need the court system? - Good, we can get rid of that. - Why do you need, you know, imagine politicians that are out there, they're speaking-- - Imagine medicine, imagine teaching, this vitamin is gonna help you with this, that's wrong, there's not anything. - I don't know what, that's interesting. - Maybe you should invest in this. - That's interesting. - Well, what would happen? - Yes, I am firm on my opinion that secrets are required for society. If you don't have secrets, you don't have society. You have to have secret. - I think I'm with you. I think I'm with you on. Did anybody here vote that you would want it? Who would want it? Did anybody raise their hand? No, none of you guys, Roberta, you wouldn't want it. Maddie, you wouldn't want it. - Come on people, I would. - You guys, Jake, would you want it? I think so as well. - I feel the government. - Which could be fun to watch. - I think it would be so chaotic. But I don't know if-- - Better would sell. - Yeah, I think it would sell. I think it would sell. I wonder if it would make you just accept the fact that everybody sends. I wonder if it would make you be like, damn. - All right, shit. You know, it's really that guy, all right? And in all of a sudden, you look at the list and everybody you love and admire, everybody lies. And you're gonna be like, "My heroes are full of shit. What am I gonna do?" That would be an interesting concept. But listen, if you're thinking about it, don't make it. Andy's saying don't make it, keep it to yourself. Don't share it with others. - They put a big price tag on it. Make it and sell that shit premium. - Yeah, my, that would be like, that would be like, you create the product and put it in a country that you hate and see it collapse. See it collapse. Like, use it against them. All right, so next question, have you guys been, are you following these flock security cameras? - Yeah. - I heard about it, yeah. I wanna know what you think about this. So these flock security cameras are all over the place. That's kinda like the Ring Doorbell, but 100,000 plus cameras all over the country, 6,000 communities, 3,000 law enforcement offices are using it. They read 20 billion license plates per month. There's a guy in Sioux Falls, man, charged with destroying more than a dozen flock cameras 'cause he's sick of it. People are getting arrested. There's a lot of stuff that's happening with it, right? So it helps solve, you know, crimes and kidnapping. So there's some positive to it. Can you go to the website that shows exactly where they're at? And if you go to the website, go zoom out to show all around the country first so everybody can see it. Keep zooming out, show this, Jake, if you guys can. So these are all the cameras around the country in America, all over the place, targeting mainly Florida for whatever reason. - So I also wanna add, that's only what has been publicly sourced. Because this is all volunteers who contribute to the deflock website. - I like the cutter- - This isn't flock. - Telling you where they're putting up. This is civilians reporting where they see them. So there's more than what you see on that. - Oh, that's a good point. And by the way, if you zoom in and go all the way, literally down the street, there's one. Down the street right here, 200 yards away from here, there's one. Keep going, keep going, keep going. So we are right now at the boardroom cigar lounge, okay? - But we gotta go do something weird outside of that camera. - We gotta go take it down and get arrested. - So we gotta, bring it back. Is that the one down the street? By the way, how far is that? How far is that from here, 100 yards? Less than 100 yards, it's fair to say it's less than 100 yards. There's one literally down the street from us. Can you show the audience what it is? And I'm gonna go to Andy to see what he thinks about this. This is what it looks like, just so you know. So this is the angle of the camera you're looking at, but I want him to see what physically they look like. So if you can go and pull up exactly what they look like, these flock cameras go to images. They look like that, they look just like that. So is this a good thing, is this a bad thing? Are we here? There's no control we have over this. - I understand why people don't like flock cameras, but I am a fan of this type of, sir of public surveillance. - Why is that? - Because we don't have a right to privacy. We think we do, but it's not actually listed out anywhere. We don't, the term right to privacy doesn't exist. But we do have the public expectation of security from our police and from our law enforcement agencies. So this creates a deterrent to keep right people doing the right thing and wrong people getting caught, but it also creates a trail of evidence that makes sure that within our justice system, there is evidence that can be brought to the table to prosecute people who are charged with breaking the law. If you are a law abiding citizen, you have nothing to fear from these things. It's only if you are speeding, crossing a thread light, robbing somebody. If you're doing something that you don't want to get caught, that's when you don't like it. - Wow, listen, just like line, there's nothing wrong with crossing red lights every once in a while. They don't judge the people who do it every once in a while. Do you like these? Would you support it right across the street from your house? - So, yeah, please put as many cameras as you want in my neighborhood because Al-Qaeda is targeting me and everything you like can get us better. I like them from a collection standpoint because a lot of people think when there's something like this someone's sitting and watching it all day and you really only go into this data when you're looking for a piece of info. Now, if people misuse it, this is where it's always a concern, right? Like these law enforcement officers using it to like look up hot girls license plates and like reach out to them, yeah, then fire their asses, right? We can have a society where we collect information and keep people safe. - Just so you know, that's happening. - I know. - The cops are using it to track their exes and they grow for it. - That's why I said fire them. - Yes. - So I like it because the more data you have to solve a prime better. Now, do they need to be everywhere? If there's a sensitive spot, I don't want one over like the local pool or something. I think we have to be. be smart about where we put them for people's some privacy, but I do agree. I think having the data when you need it, when something bad happens can save a lot more lives. Yeah, I mean, some would say, I asked Connor, I'm like, so did we have to approve this? Is this something? No, they can do it. So, so you don't need the permission to be able to, no, it's already there. We're already being watched anyways, no matter where you're driving. This is the direction, kind of, we're going, did you see the recent movie that came up with Chris Pratt that's in it where he gets a charge with a crime of killing his own wife and the judges and AI judge. Did you see this one? No. You guys, who's seen this movie? What's the name of the movie, by the way? It was mercy. It's mercy. I've not seen this. I keep recommending people to go watch this because it's so real where mercy is the judge, but she's the AI. It's a very interesting thing. Do you think we're going in that direction? I think there's a lot of value in us going in that direction. I think there's a lot of value. You think there's value in that direction? I think there's value in the direction. Tell me what. I think that's the uncomfortable truth we don't like. Wow. Value and going into surveillance state. So you're here just to control all of us and I know it. And not just me. I know it. I'm just here to say, why do you think it's good? Why do you think it's good? Why do you think it benefits us? Because it keeps us safer without us needing to put our resources into being safer. Just imagine how much of your effort goes into this secrecy is something we need to have. Don't I need a little privacy? You don't have a right to privacy. You may want privacy, but you don't have a right to it. My point is, if you're, imagine how much of our brain and effort right now goes into locking our door, locking our car, keeping us safe, you know, whatever else. I was in a car. I was in an Uber recently. The driver was from Hong Kong, Chinese, Chinese guy who comes to the United States for three months at a time to work Uber to go back to China. I'm assuming you give him a one star, not a good driver. Was that a decent fight? Fine dude. Fine dude. Five star drivers. Just making sure. But he was amazing because he sat in front talking to my mother-in-law and he was saying how amazing China is. And I was like, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. He's like, no, it's so safe. You can put your wallet on the corner of a sidewalk, leave, come back the next day and your wallet will still be there because there's cameras everywhere. No one's going to break the law. And there was a party and it was like, yeah, that's, that is the benefit of a surveillance state. Keeps people safe, keeps law and order in place, especially really strict law and order. And to your point about AI, part of the reason I think AI is going to continue to be successful is because wealthy people can leverage AI to replace unreliable people. And imagine how far that could reach into justice, law enforcement, security, etc. Do you please tell me you disagree with them? I like surveillance where it matters most. Like I would have love to have a whole like border surveil, like key infrastructure. I think there's still time and costs when you collect information. So I agree on places where I would want to solve crimes around. I don't care if it's like in the middle of like Montana, unless it's on the border. I wonder it's kind of like the debate of second amendment like Idaho, right? Everybody there carries a gun. So because they carry the gun, crime is one the lowest that they have. And you go to Chicago, you don't have second amendment. So because you don't have second amendment carrying gun, crime is super high. Because the other guys, you know, the bad guys are able to get the good guns, but good guys don't have it. So is it kind of like surveillance lowers crime because if you get caught what you easily will, you're going to go to jail so you commit fewer crimes? It's a huge. That's how you process it. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's, I mean, that's not only how I process it, that is something that we actively exercise. What are things more important that the privacy of cameras watching everything you're doing or secrecy? You can, you can keep one of them and not the other one, which one would you keep? Keep secrecy. You give up your privacy. You've already, you got no privacy, man. We have no privacy. You actually have no right to privacy. None. None. But you, that's why your secrets are so important to you. So in the end of house when I'm speaking to my wife, should I go like this? You can because to be like, I'm going to get a red card and suspend it. We can't do that because that's like if you go that guy, man, you're at the house. You got to start talking in a completely different way. If you've got Alexa, if you got a smart TV, if you got a smart refrigerator, 100%. So maybe picking up sign language and speaking sign as long as you don't have is exactly you're right, as long as you don't have any camera. Even if you text, they'll see it. So maybe you write notes. You know, in the cigar ones, we don't allow cell phones. So here, when you come in, I don't know, anyway, when you walk into a CIA, who agrees? Who agrees with them that would more, you know, given up the privacy surveillance state makes the world a safer place? Who agrees with them? Oh, two of you do who disagrees. If you disagree, Taylor disagrees, Roberto disagrees, Roberto disagrees, so Roberto disagrees. Why do you disagree? Think about how many hands didn't go up. Why do you disagree? Just say it. Can you say why you disagree? Because you can't give the government that much control on my opinion. Roberto, are you in the same place? What are you saying? Do you know who violates your privacy the most right now? Who's that? Corporations. Yeah. Corporations. Google. In what way? You have to give permission to a number of things. You give permission for it to know your location. You give permission for it to know your contact list. You give permission for it to know your app use. Exactly. But my point is you're worried about giving the government's privacy information. The government can simply buy it from the commercial company you're volunteering it to. I'll agree to that. Then you're agreeing to the government? I don't agree with the camera down the street. Well, we're talking about two different things then, but that's fair. Did you have a follow-up? Did you have a follow-up on it or no? You had your hand up. No, no. I'm just saying, the government having all this privacy, I just don't trust it. I don't trust the government for not one second. Google find that the government had just don't trust. You do know that Google sells your information to the government. Okay? But you're agreeing to that contract on the phone. Then you're agreeing to the government having access to your information. That's all I'm trying to connect the dots here. You can't say I don't trust the government. I trust Google. I volunteer to Google. Google is selling it to the government. You can't say I trust Apple. Apple is giving it to the government. You can't say I trust Yahoo. Yahoo is selling it to the government. That's part of the contract that they have to maintain for national security. Okay. So let me ask you this. Do you think there will come a time where there will be, remember the whole Atlas Shrug concept? Who is John Gaul? Do you think there will be countries or cities that will say, "Here, we don't do that." And some people that want the privacy, the freedom to go to, that will be a way of attracting those people. I think there are countries already doing that. Switzerland, I want to say, does that? I think Germany does that where they actually put privacy laws that are hard coded in place. That's why you can't have cookies in parts of Europe. They are actually protecting your private browser data. How do you feel about that? That's what they want to do. That's how they're trying to track people to go there. They're also attracting dangerous people to go there. Yes. Yeah. I'm going to commit a crime. I'm going to go live in Germany. If you're going to commit crime. 100%. 100%. I wonder what is going to happen with that side as we're, I don't know, I wonder if it's going to be something that the more and more we have everybody watching us in the next five, 10 years, there's going to be more people that are going to want the privacy and some communities are going to be like, "Come here, because over here, we're not going to have this, we're not going to have that, we're not going to have this." I'm like, "Okay, great. I'll go live in a community like that of people like-minded." I think you should watch it. I think people are being disensitized to this. I mean, look at everybody is online. Even now X is like, we want you to film videos of yourself and put it on here, so we're getting a whole generation that's perfectly fine having their face all over the place. And don't forget what happened immediately following 9/11. Everybody was okay with being pulled over for any reason. We were all okay with taking our shoes off. I want to be a part of stopping this and whatever I can do to help it move it be safer. There's a pendulum. There's an action and a reaction. You need a crisis, so you need a crisis to use to say you see, this is why we're going to do this and move it forward. We're going to protect you. And this is why we're introducing this new technology by Palantir and Anthropic. That's going to be able to protect that and you accept it. You can create a crisis if you need to. Okay. Any questions? Anybody have any questions for them that we can go to you guys right now at the audience if you have any questions you want to ask? Go for it. And you can direct it either one of them either Andy or Sarah or at the panel. Yeah. I think it's for both. It goes back to the first question he asked Pat. And we spent a good time unpacking Israel and Islam which weren't the highest threat that they had indicated they said China. So maybe if we can spend which I agree with, maybe if we can spend a little bit of time unpacking why and how China is the greatest threat. And maybe, you know, where we see that war of attrition between China and America being the world superpower. And where do we see that playing out? Great question. Great question. How do we get to China's number one? Why is that Sarah? You can start first. Well, one of the things is China will spend a thousand years on this plan. We're lucky if the US government spends two years on a plan. And they have been incredibly systematic. Like I brought up earlier, they're a control and control of chambers of commerce. They own land, they own huge parts of our ports, and they're every year taking more control. They own telecommunications companies, and there's going to come a point when they can pretty much turn off and on what they want. And people like, well, how does that deal with anything? Well, if we go to war with Iran, our military is not even a get from the base to the port and leave, because China already has control of everything is going to disrupt it. So I think China is the enemy who's put the most thought and the most effort into a war with us in the future, even if they don't know when it's going to happen. And I think they're going to be very successful because they have manipulated us and they have thought through every single aspect you could imagine. I mean, I think it's scary, I think they are smart. Yeah, and not only militarily and strategically are they are they worthy opponent, but also economically, they are already waging economic actions that are war focused. They are able to flood the market with US dollars. They are able to pull back Runman B to increase and move their currency and ours. They're already creating an alternative to American technology that's being adopted around the world. Well, what creates our economic dominance is our technology sector, which they can steal, replicate, they can't necessarily improve it with innovation, but they can improve it by marrying American technology with Saudi Arabian technology and create some Frankenstein that's just 5% better and sell it across all of Africa. They have so much decision making power in such a short period of time because they don't go through a democratic process so they can push money to poor countries, they can buy out warlords, they can make massive global moves that that we freeze and stall on. By the way, who are we not paying attention to that low key behind closed doors is plotting and creating moves long term? Who should we be paying more attention to that we're not? I think I just don't trust Turkey. I don't know, they're not the best, but Turkey can play in Europe, but they can play in the Middle East, and they don't seem to have any big problems with China or Russia, I mean, obviously they even buy stuff from Russia. Is it Erdogan or specifically Turkey? I think Turkey, I think even if he's gone, but India does the same thing Turkey does, which is interesting, but everyone's like, they're the good guys, so it's okay. So they do the same thing, so I don't want to exclude India, but they both play an interesting game and they can play with everybody, which I think is a little concerning. I think what's dangerous about countries like India and Turkey is they're smart enough not to compete for the top spot. When you're the top spot, everybody hates you, but if you can be number seven or eight on the spot, everybody wants to be your friend. And you're not the bad guy. Yeah, that's interesting when you talk to her. For me, Turkey, I, they have one the strongest military, they have weight, they carry a lot of influence, everybody's worried about them for whatever reason, every time America was doing a deal, they were worried a little bit about how Turkey would feel about them. Everyone's a little bit like, well, let me see how Turkey, like why are he so worried about Turkey? They must carry some kind of a stick for everyone to walk on excels around them a little bit. They're the bridge. They're the bridge between Europe and the Middle East. That's the main reason. I mean, they sit at the hub of a lot of spokes, military spokes, political spokes, ideological spokes, religious spokes, economic spokes, it's a pretty powerful place to be and we oftentimes underestimate Turkey and their culture is a culture of scrappy, entrepreneurial innovation. It's one of the few countries outside of the United States, that is innovation focused. - Chair, anybody else have a question? Any other question? We have one back there. - Was Bitcoin created by an intelligence agency? - I hope so, because I would love to take a little bit of credit. - That good, but I don't know. It kind of goes against what a lot of intelligence operations really want. - I agree with you. I don't know for sure where it was created, but I do believe it's an industry thing and now the government's like, oh crap, now we got to catch up. It's the way people can hide money, we hate when people hide money and then the government can't even get approval to use their own money. So it caused like a headache. That's what I think. So I don't think it was internal. - Do you guys each own Bitcoin? Do you own any Bitcoin? - I don't own any Bitcoin. I hardly even own money. - Don't come to me for investment, advice. I'm looking at 1950's bungalow, like, I'll drive the same car for 20 years. I'm cheap as you wouldn't believe. - That's good. Cheap is good though. She's okay. - But it's a small town. What small town? Where from? - No, I'm from Michigan, but I'm just saying I live in a tiny house. - No, no, you said you came from a small town. What was the small town? - I came from a small town in Michigan. I'm not going to say the exact name of the town because I have tears so that's against me. - Oh, no, no, you're still okay. I got you. Fair enough. If you're not living there, I wouldn't do it if I were you. She actually lives in Hawaii, just so you know, in Kauai, down the street from a nice resort. - That's where she's at right now. - Let's do one last question before we wrap up. Does anybody have one last question before we wrap up? - This is your chance. Go on once, go on twice. - Oh, there's one. - There's one. Go for it. - So with all this information, all these terrorist groups sending people either legally or illegally into our, over the borders, what practical advice would you give the everyday person in regards to this? - I mean, I think it's, I look at all crises the same. So I think if you prepare for something bad to happen, you follow your gut. It's not going to matter if active shooter comes or like three tear. So I think you should just think through, when you're in a situation, I like the what if game. Like, somewhere you go all the time, like let's say I'm in the movie theater. Okay, what happens if a shooter comes in? What I'm going to do? What do I have on me? What should I have on me? And I like to have a lot of scenarios like that, that just every day where I go, even when I'm driving the car, what if I roll up on something? And then I thought through it multiple times. So I'm more prepared for when it happens. So I don't prepare for terrorist events. I just prepare like, I'm stuck in a crisis. Do I have cash? Do I have what I need? If I can't get home, if I can't communicate, what's my plan? And that's more the way I think of it, like all these different plans and all these different contingencies. I don't disagree completely. I would say that rather than playing the what if game and having a number of different conspiracies or contingencies, you have one rock solid plan that you coordinate with the people you love the most. And you you role play it, you exercise it, you put it on a calendar so that you go through it every 30, 60, 90 days to make sure everybody knows exactly what you're doing. CIA taught us something called a communication plan, a combo plan, a combo plan is something that has very specific steps that you do regardless of what the emergency might be. Maybe it's a fire, maybe it's a shooting, maybe it's an earthquake, but you have a plan that you execute. And everybody knows what that plan is, a rally point by a certain time communication on a certain phone at a certain time. Or if there's no phone communication via email at a certain time, if there's no email communication through a third party at a certain time, because you will probably one of you will be able to call or email a third party if you can't reach each other. And if you can train that to your spouse, to your partner, to your kids, now when disaster happens, not if when it happens, you're not worried about them. You're not worried about them, you know exactly where they're going to be, you know that they're going to check for you at every three hours, every six hours, you're going to check a certain email address as soon as they get to an internet connection, anything like that. That way you make yourself resilient against a wide range of crises without not without finding yourself unprepared for the shooter that happens at the same time as the earthquake in the middle of a thunderstorm. By the way, how many of you are glad you came tonight to see this conversation, make some noise for tonight's phenomenal conversation. If you guys are watching the same ad love to be a member at this place, so I can be a part of it, go to the boardroom cigar lounge dot com will put the link below. And at the same time, if you have any questions for either Sarah or if you have questions for Andy, you can find them on connect asking many questions on connect as well. And last but not least, do go follow Sarah's latest podcast. They came out the watch floor. We're going to put the link below as well. Is there anywhere you want us to drive to as well. Find me at everydayspine.com. Find me at my YouTube channel, Andrew Bustamonte. There you go, everyday spine guys. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope you enjoyed it. I really definitely did with the games and I'm sure we will do another one here soon as well. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Bye bye. 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