Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310

00:00:00.000 | Mossad will do anything.

00:00:01.600 | Mossad has no qualms doing what it takes

00:00:05.440 | to ensure the survival of every Israeli citizen

00:00:08.720 | around the world.

00:00:09.760 | Most other countries will stop at some point,

00:00:12.920 | but Mossad doesn't do that.

00:00:14.280 | - The following is a conversation

00:00:18.200 | with Andrew Bustamante,

00:00:19.960 | former CIA covert intelligence officer

00:00:22.520 | and US Air Force combat veteran,

00:00:24.760 | including the job of operational targeting,

00:00:27.740 | encrypted communications,

00:00:29.440 | and launch operations for 200 nuclear

00:00:33.140 | intercontinental ballistic missiles.

00:00:36.260 | Andrew's over seven years as a CIA spy

00:00:39.900 | have given him a skillset and a perspective on the world

00:00:43.740 | that is fascinating to explore.

00:00:45.640 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:00:48.640 | To support it,

00:00:49.580 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

00:00:52.100 | And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Bustamante.

00:00:55.740 | The Central Intelligence Agency

00:00:58.700 | was formed almost 75 years ago.

00:01:01.540 | What is the mission of the CIA?

00:01:02.980 | How does it work?

00:01:04.100 | - The mission of the CIA is to collect intelligence

00:01:07.380 | from around the world

00:01:08.220 | that supports a national security mission

00:01:10.500 | and be the central repository

00:01:12.380 | for all other intelligence agencies

00:01:14.620 | so that it's one collective source

00:01:17.340 | where all intelligence can be synthesized

00:01:20.180 | and then passed forward to the decision makers.

00:01:23.060 | - That doesn't include domestic intelligence.

00:01:26.100 | It's primarily looking outward outside the United States.

00:01:29.420 | - Correct.

00:01:30.260 | CIA is the foreign intelligence collection

00:01:34.340 | kingspoke, if you will.

00:01:37.380 | FBI does domestic,

00:01:38.940 | and then Department of Homeland Security does domestic.

00:01:41.620 | Law enforcement essentially handles all things domestic.

00:01:45.300 | Intelligence is not law enforcement,

00:01:46.740 | so we technically cannot work inside the United States.

00:01:50.000 | - Is there clear lines to be drawn between,

00:01:52.460 | like you just said, the FBI, CIA, FBI,

00:01:55.980 | and the other US intelligence agencies

00:01:58.260 | like the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency,

00:02:01.860 | Department of Homeland Security,

00:02:03.500 | NSA, National Security Agency,

00:02:07.020 | and there's a list.

00:02:08.100 | - There's a list of about 33

00:02:09.740 | different intelligence organizations.

00:02:11.100 | - So like the Army, the Navy has,

00:02:13.020 | all the different organizations

00:02:14.780 | have their own intelligence groups.

00:02:16.740 | So is there clear lines here to be drawn,

00:02:19.740 | or is the CIA the giant integrator of all of these?

00:02:23.180 | - It's a little bit of both, to be honest.

00:02:24.520 | So yes, there are absolutely lines,

00:02:26.300 | and more so than the lines,

00:02:28.340 | there are lines that divide what our primary mission is.

00:02:30.980 | Everything's gotta be prioritized.

00:02:32.740 | That's one of the benefits

00:02:33.580 | and the superpowers of the United States,

00:02:36.120 | is we prioritize everything.

00:02:38.620 | So different intelligence organizations are prioritized

00:02:41.100 | to collect certain types of intelligence.

00:02:43.540 | And then within the confines of how they collect,

00:02:47.100 | they're also given unique authorities.

00:02:49.340 | Authorities are a term that's directed

00:02:51.520 | by the executive branch.

00:02:53.480 | Different agencies have different authorities

00:02:55.540 | to execute missions in different ways.

00:02:58.660 | FBI can't execute the same way CIA executes,

00:03:01.280 | and CIA can't execute the same way NGA executes.

00:03:05.520 | But then at the end, excuse me,

00:03:07.580 | when it's all collected, then yes,

00:03:09.940 | CIA still acts as a final synthesizing repository

00:03:14.940 | to create what's known as the President's Daily Brief,

00:03:17.740 | the PDB.

00:03:18.580 | The only way CIA can create the PDB

00:03:20.780 | is by being the single source of all source intelligence

00:03:24.860 | from around the IC, the Intelligence Community,

00:03:28.380 | which are those 30-some-odd and always changing organizations

00:03:33.380 | that are sponsored for intelligence operations.

00:03:35.980 | - What does the PDB, the President's Daily Brief,

00:03:38.420 | look like?

00:03:39.260 | How long is it?

00:03:40.080 | What does it contain?

00:03:40.920 | (Lyle laughs)

00:03:41.740 | - So first of all, it looks like the most expensive

00:03:43.940 | book report you can ever imagine.

00:03:45.300 | It's got its own binder.

00:03:46.820 | It's all very high-end.

00:03:48.980 | It feels important. It looks important.

00:03:51.140 | It's not like a cheap Trapper Keeper.

00:03:53.240 | It's somewhere between, I would give it probably

00:03:56.820 | between 50 and 125 pages a day.

00:03:59.380 | It's produced every day around two o'clock in the morning

00:04:02.540 | by a dedicated group of analysts.

00:04:04.540 | And each page is essentially a short paragraph

00:04:09.540 | to a few paragraphs about a priority happening

00:04:13.440 | that affects national security from around the world.

00:04:16.540 | The President rarely gets to the entire briefing in a day.

00:04:19.660 | He relies on a briefer instead to prioritize

00:04:22.780 | what inside the briefing needs to be shared

00:04:25.060 | with the President.

00:04:25.900 | 'Cause some days the PDB will get briefed in 10 minutes,

00:04:28.580 | and some days it'll be briefed over the course of two hours.

00:04:30.580 | It depends on the President's schedule.

00:04:32.820 | - How much competition is there for the first page?

00:04:36.220 | And so how much jockeying there is for attention?

00:04:39.680 | I imagine for all the different intelligence agencies

00:04:44.500 | and within the CIA, there's probably different groups

00:04:47.000 | that are modular and they all care about different nations

00:04:50.700 | or different cases.

00:04:53.380 | And do you understand how much competition there is

00:04:58.380 | for the attention, for the limited attention

00:05:00.580 | of the President?

00:05:01.500 | - You're 100% correct in how the agency

00:05:05.300 | and how officers and managers at the agency handle the PDB.

00:05:09.640 | There's a ton of competition.

00:05:10.940 | Everybody wants to be the first on the radar.

00:05:12.660 | Everybody wants to be on the first page.

00:05:14.380 | The thing that we're not baking into the equation

00:05:17.260 | is the President's interests.

00:05:19.140 | The President dictates what's on the first page of his PDB,

00:05:21.460 | and he will tell them usually the day before,

00:05:23.700 | "I wanna see this on the first page tomorrow.

00:05:25.380 | "Bring this to me in the beginning.

00:05:26.540 | "I don't wanna hear about what's happening in Mozambique.

00:05:28.640 | "I don't really care about what's happening in Saudi Arabia.

00:05:30.820 | "I wanna see one, two, three."

00:05:32.860 | And regardless of whether or not

00:05:34.240 | those are the three biggest things in the world,

00:05:37.060 | the President's the executive, he's the one,

00:05:39.340 | he's the ultimate customer.

00:05:40.700 | So we do what the customer says.

00:05:42.620 | That has backfired in the past.

00:05:44.660 | If you haven't already started seeing

00:05:46.540 | how that could go wrong, that has backfired in the past,

00:05:49.280 | but that is essentially what happens

00:05:51.240 | when you serve in the executive branch.

00:05:53.380 | You serve the executive.

00:05:55.140 | - So what's the role, the director of the CIA

00:05:58.100 | versus the President?

00:05:59.840 | What's that dance like?

00:06:01.300 | So the President really leads the focus of the CIA?

00:06:06.100 | - The President is the commander-in-chief for the military,

00:06:09.360 | but the Executive, the President is also

00:06:11.880 | the executive for the entirety of the intelligence community.

00:06:16.240 | So he's the ultimate customer.

00:06:19.580 | If you look at it like a business,

00:06:21.960 | the customer, the person spending the money,

00:06:24.340 | is the President, and the director is the CEO.

00:06:27.540 | So if the director doesn't create what the President wants,

00:06:30.640 | there's gonna be a new director.

00:06:31.660 | That's why the director of CIA

00:06:32.940 | is a presidential appointed position.

00:06:34.600 | Sometimes they're extremely qualified

00:06:36.260 | intelligence professionals.

00:06:37.640 | Sometimes they're just professional politicians

00:06:39.620 | or soldiers that get put into that seat

00:06:41.540 | because the President trusts them

00:06:43.820 | to do what he wants them to do.

00:06:46.780 | Another gaping area that causes problems,

00:06:51.780 | but that's still the way it is.

00:06:54.260 | - So you think this is a problematic configuration

00:06:57.300 | of the whole system?

00:06:58.140 | - Massive flaw in the system.

00:06:59.500 | It is a massive flaw in the system

00:07:00.900 | because if you're essentially appointing a director

00:07:03.900 | to do what you want them to do,

00:07:05.540 | then you're assigning a crony,

00:07:08.620 | and that's what we define corruption as

00:07:10.860 | within the United States.

00:07:11.700 | And inside the United States, we say,

00:07:13.300 | if you pick somebody outside of merit

00:07:15.060 | for any other reason other than merit,

00:07:16.700 | then it's cronyism or it's nepotism.

00:07:19.540 | Here, that's exactly what our structure's built on.

00:07:21.740 | All presidential appointees

00:07:22.940 | are appointed on something other than merit.

00:07:25.100 | - So for an intelligence agency to be effective,

00:07:27.500 | it has to discover the truth and communicate that truth.

00:07:31.780 | And maybe if you're appointing the director of that agency,

00:07:34.740 | you're not, they're less likely

00:07:36.700 | to communicate the truth to you

00:07:38.380 | unless the truth aligns perfectly

00:07:40.020 | with your desired worldview.

00:07:41.740 | - Well, not necessarily perfectly

00:07:43.100 | because there are other steps, right?

00:07:44.860 | They have to go in front of Congress

00:07:46.900 | and they have to have the support

00:07:48.460 | of multiple legislatures or legislators.

00:07:51.940 | But the challenge is that the shortlist of people

00:07:55.820 | who even get the opportunity aren't a meritorious list.

00:07:59.260 | It's a shortlist based off of who the president is picking

00:08:01.540 | or who the would-be president is picking.

00:08:03.340 | Now, I think we've proven that an intelligence organization

00:08:06.860 | can be extremely effective even within the flawed system.

00:08:11.860 | The challenge is how much more effective could we be

00:08:16.340 | if we improved?

00:08:17.780 | And I think that's the challenge

00:08:20.220 | that faces a lot of the US government.

00:08:21.980 | I think that's a challenge that has resulted

00:08:24.900 | in what we see today when it comes to the decline

00:08:28.580 | of American power and American influence,

00:08:31.180 | the rise of foreign influence, authoritarian powers,

00:08:35.460 | and a shrinking US economy, a growing Chinese economy.

00:08:39.500 | And it's just, we have questions, hard questions

00:08:42.460 | we need to ask ourselves

00:08:43.380 | about how we're gonna handle the future.

00:08:45.240 | - What aspect of that communication

00:08:47.020 | between the president and the CIA could be fixed

00:08:49.540 | to help fix the problems that you're referring to

00:08:54.540 | in terms of the decline of American power?

00:08:57.620 | - So when you talk about the president wanting

00:09:01.260 | to prioritize what the president cares about,

00:09:04.640 | that immediately shows a break

00:09:07.580 | between what actually matters

00:09:09.740 | to the long-term success of the United States

00:09:12.340 | versus what benefits the short-term success

00:09:15.560 | of the current president.

00:09:16.540 | - Because any president is just a human being

00:09:20.180 | and has a very narrow focus,

00:09:21.940 | and narrow focus is not a long-term calculation.

00:09:24.740 | - Exactly, what's the maximum amount of years

00:09:26.700 | a president can be president?

00:09:28.280 | Eight.

00:09:29.260 | He has to be, he or she--

00:09:30.660 | - In the United States.

00:09:31.620 | - In the United States,

00:09:32.700 | according to our current constitution.

00:09:34.220 | (laughing)

00:09:36.540 | But they're very limited

00:09:38.460 | in terms of what they have to prioritize.

00:09:41.580 | And then if you look at a four-year cycle,

00:09:44.020 | two years of that is essentially preparing

00:09:45.700 | for the next election cycle.

00:09:47.100 | So that's only two years of really quality attention

00:09:49.140 | you get from the president,

00:09:50.020 | who is the chief executive

00:09:51.460 | of all the intelligence community.

00:09:53.060 | So the most important thing to them

00:09:55.220 | is not always the most important thing

00:09:57.020 | to the long-term survival of the United States.

00:09:59.660 | - What do you make of the hostile relationship

00:10:02.020 | that, to me at least, stands out of the presidents

00:10:04.660 | between Donald Trump and the CIA?

00:10:07.340 | Was that a very kind of personal bickering?

00:10:11.460 | I mean, is there something interesting to you

00:10:13.260 | about the dynamics between that particular president

00:10:16.300 | and that particular instantiation

00:10:17.980 | of the intelligence agency?

00:10:19.380 | - Man, there were lots of things fascinating to me

00:10:21.720 | about that relationship.

00:10:23.700 | So first--

00:10:24.540 | - What's the good and the bad, sorry to interrupt.

00:10:26.100 | - So let me start with the good first,

00:10:27.960 | 'cause there's a lot of people

00:10:28.800 | who don't think there was any good.

00:10:30.900 | So the good thing is we saw that the president,

00:10:35.700 | who's the chief customer, the executive to the CIA,

00:10:40.340 | when the president doesn't want to hear

00:10:42.460 | what CIA has to say, he's not gonna listen.

00:10:45.460 | I think that's an important lesson

00:10:46.540 | for everyone to take home.

00:10:49.100 | If the president doesn't care what you have to say,

00:10:51.580 | he's gonna take funding away,

00:10:52.780 | or she will take funding away.

00:10:54.620 | They're gonna take attention away.

00:10:56.820 | They're going to shut down your operations, your missions.

00:11:01.820 | They're gonna kill the careers of the people working there.

00:11:04.780 | Think about that.

00:11:05.620 | For the four years that President Trump was the president,

00:11:08.500 | basically everybody at CIA, their career was put on pause.

00:11:11.980 | Some people's careers were ended.

00:11:13.660 | Some people voluntarily left their career there

00:11:16.300 | because they found themselves working for a single customer

00:11:20.380 | that didn't want what they had to produce.

00:11:21.940 | - So for people who don't know,

00:11:24.460 | Donald Trump did not display significant,

00:11:26.940 | deep interest in the output.

00:11:28.820 | - He did not trust it, yeah.

00:11:30.620 | - He was a disinterested customer.

00:11:32.420 | - Exactly right.

00:11:33.260 | - Of the information.

00:11:34.380 | - And then what do disinterested customers do?

00:11:36.980 | They go find someone else to create their product,

00:11:39.700 | and that's exactly what Donald Trump did,

00:11:41.100 | and he did it through the private intelligence world,

00:11:43.300 | funding private intelligence companies

00:11:45.500 | to run their own operations that brought him

00:11:48.100 | the information he cared about when CIA wouldn't.

00:11:50.900 | It also didn't help that CIA stepped outside

00:11:53.540 | of their confines, right?

00:11:54.540 | CIA is supposed to collect foreign intelligence

00:11:56.620 | and not comment on domestic matters.

00:11:58.700 | They went way outside of that

00:12:00.380 | when they started challenging the president,

00:12:02.340 | when they started questioning the results,

00:12:04.140 | when they started publicly claiming Russian influence.

00:12:08.300 | That's all something the FBI could have handled by itself.

00:12:10.760 | The Justice Department could have handled by itself.

00:12:12.500 | CIA had no place to contribute to that conversation,

00:12:16.300 | and when they did, all they did was undermine

00:12:18.760 | the relationship they had with their primary customer.

00:12:21.700 | - Let me sort of focus in on this relationship

00:12:26.220 | between the president or the leader

00:12:29.140 | and the intelligence agency,

00:12:31.220 | and look outside the United States.

00:12:33.120 | It seems like authoritarian regimes,

00:12:36.500 | or regimes throughout history,

00:12:37.860 | if you look at Stalin and Hitler,

00:12:39.780 | if you look at today with Vladimir Putin,

00:12:42.680 | the negative effects of power corrupting the mind

00:12:45.540 | of a leader manifest itself is that they start

00:12:50.340 | to get bad information from the intelligence agencies.

00:12:53.420 | So this kind of thing that you're talking about,

00:12:55.660 | over time, they start hearing information

00:12:58.660 | they want to hear.

00:13:00.760 | The agency starts producing only the kind of information

00:13:04.780 | they want to hear, and the leader's worldview

00:13:07.860 | starts becoming distorted to where the propaganda

00:13:12.560 | they generate is also the thing

00:13:15.220 | that the intelligence agencies provide to them.

00:13:18.580 | And so they start getting this,

00:13:19.740 | they start believing they're on propaganda,

00:13:21.540 | and they start getting a distorted view of the world.

00:13:23.740 | Sorry for the sort of walking through in a weird way,

00:13:27.460 | but I guess I want to ask, do you think,

00:13:30.020 | let's look at Vladimir Putin specifically,

00:13:32.600 | do you think he's getting accurate information

00:13:37.600 | about the world?

00:13:38.620 | Do you think he knows the truth of the world,

00:13:40.820 | whether that's the war in Ukraine,

00:13:42.620 | whether that's the behavior of the other nations,

00:13:45.140 | in NATO, the United States in general?

00:13:47.460 | What do you think?

00:13:49.060 | - It's rare that I'll talk about just thinking.

00:13:52.620 | I prefer to share my assessment,

00:13:55.500 | why I assess things a certain way,

00:13:57.020 | rather than just what's my random opinion.

00:13:59.620 | In my assessment, Vladimir Putin is winning.

00:14:02.980 | Russia is winning.

00:14:04.180 | They're winning in Ukraine, but they're also winning

00:14:07.020 | the battle of influence against the West.

00:14:08.860 | They're winning in the face of economic sanctions.

00:14:11.180 | They're winning.

00:14:12.380 | Empirically, when you look at the math, they're winning.

00:14:15.500 | So when you ask me whether or not Putin

00:14:18.180 | is getting good information from his intelligence services,

00:14:20.580 | when I look at my overall assessment

00:14:22.940 | of multiple data points,

00:14:24.500 | he must be getting good information.

00:14:26.960 | Do I know how or why?

00:14:28.580 | I do not.

00:14:29.740 | I don't know how or why it works there.

00:14:31.260 | I don't know how such deep cronyism,

00:14:35.060 | such deep corruption can possibly yield true real results,

00:14:40.060 | and yet somehow there are real results happening.

00:14:43.740 | So it's either excessive waste and an accidental win,

00:14:47.260 | or there really is a system and a process there

00:14:49.340 | that's functioning.

00:14:50.420 | - So this winning idea is very interesting.

00:14:52.860 | In what way, short-term and long-term, is Russia winning?

00:14:56.460 | Some people say there was a miscalculation

00:14:58.260 | of the way the invasion happened.

00:14:59.920 | There was an assumption that you would be able

00:15:03.580 | to successfully take Kiev,

00:15:06.060 | you'd be able to successfully capture the east,

00:15:09.020 | the south, and the north of Ukraine,

00:15:11.780 | and with what now appears to be

00:15:15.140 | significantly insufficient troops

00:15:17.380 | spread way too thin across way too large of a front.

00:15:20.840 | So that seems to be like an intelligence failure.

00:15:24.740 | And that doesn't seem to be like winning.

00:15:29.700 | In another way, it doesn't seem like winning

00:15:31.760 | if we put aside the human cost of war.

00:15:34.860 | It doesn't seem like winning

00:15:37.260 | because the hearts and minds of the West

00:15:39.580 | were completely on the side of Ukraine.

00:15:43.220 | This particular leader, Volodymyr Zelensky,

00:15:46.060 | captured the attention of the world

00:15:48.060 | and the hearts and minds of Europe, the West,

00:15:52.060 | and many other nations throughout the world,

00:15:54.420 | both financially, in terms of military equipment,

00:15:57.340 | and in terms of sort of social and cultural

00:16:01.420 | and emotional support

00:16:03.180 | for the independence fight of this nation.

00:16:05.860 | That seems to be like a miscalculation.

00:16:08.660 | So against that pushback,

00:16:12.100 | why do you think there's still kernels

00:16:15.820 | of winning in this on the Russian side?

00:16:19.860 | - What you're laying out isn't incorrect.

00:16:21.900 | And the miscalculations are not unexpected.

00:16:26.260 | Anybody who's been to a military college,

00:16:28.820 | including the Army War College in Pennsylvania,

00:16:30.660 | where so many of our military leaders are brought up,

00:16:34.860 | when you look at the conflict in Ukraine,

00:16:37.900 | it fits the exact mold of what an effective,

00:16:42.420 | long-term military conflict, protracted military conflict,

00:16:46.220 | would and should look like for military dominance.

00:16:49.580 | Now, did Zelensky and did the Ukrainians

00:16:52.420 | shock the world?

00:16:53.260 | Absolutely.

00:16:54.220 | But in that, they also shocked American intelligence,

00:16:57.820 | which, like you said, miscalculated.

00:17:00.180 | The whole world miscalculated

00:17:01.540 | how the Ukrainians would respond.

00:17:03.220 | Putin did not move in there accidentally.

00:17:05.540 | He had an assessment.

00:17:06.820 | He had high likelihood of a certain outcome,

00:17:09.380 | and that outcome did not happen.

00:17:11.420 | Why did he have that calculation?

00:17:13.060 | Because in 2014, it worked.

00:17:15.940 | He invaded, he took Crimea in 14 days.

00:17:19.740 | He basically created an infiltration campaign

00:17:24.740 | that turned key leaders over

00:17:26.860 | in the first few days of the conflict.

00:17:29.180 | So essentially, there was no conflict.

00:17:30.700 | It worked in 2008, when he took Georgia.

00:17:33.220 | Nobody talks about that.

00:17:34.980 | He invaded Georgia the exact same way, and it worked.

00:17:38.300 | So in 2008, it worked.

00:17:39.380 | In 2014, it worked.

00:17:40.340 | There was no reason to believe it wasn't going to work again.

00:17:43.140 | So he just carried out the same campaign.

00:17:45.500 | But this time, something was different.

00:17:47.580 | That was a miscalculation, for sure, on the part of Putin.

00:17:51.060 | And the reason that there was no support from the West,

00:17:52.940 | 'cause let's not forget, there is no support.

00:17:55.380 | There is nothing other than the Lend-Lease Act,

00:17:58.660 | which is putting Ukraine in massive debt

00:18:01.540 | right now to the West.

00:18:03.340 | That's the only form of support they're getting

00:18:05.180 | from NATO or the United States.

00:18:07.060 | So if somebody believed Ukraine would win,

00:18:10.820 | if somebody believed Ukraine had a chance,

00:18:12.260 | they would have gotten more material support

00:18:13.700 | than just debt.

00:18:15.540 | And we can jump into that anytime you want to.

00:18:17.780 | But the whole world miscalculated.

00:18:19.460 | Everybody thought Russia was gonna win in 14 days.

00:18:21.420 | I said that they would win in 14 days,

00:18:23.540 | 'cause that was the predominant calculation.

00:18:26.340 | Once the first invasion didn't work,

00:18:28.960 | then the military does what professional militaries do, man.

00:18:32.780 | They reevaluate, they reorganize leaders,

00:18:37.780 | and then they take a new approach.

00:18:40.340 | You saw three approaches.

00:18:41.740 | The first two did not work.

00:18:43.740 | The first two campaigns against Ukraine did not work

00:18:46.220 | the way they were supposed to work.

00:18:47.680 | The third has worked exactly like it's supposed to work.

00:18:51.260 | You don't need Kiev to win Ukraine.

00:18:53.780 | You don't need hearts and minds to win Ukraine.

00:18:56.540 | What you need-- - What's the third?

00:18:57.660 | - Yeah, what you need is control of natural resources,

00:19:00.780 | which they're taking in the East,

00:19:02.700 | and you need access to the heartbeat,

00:19:05.900 | the blood flow of food and money into the country,

00:19:09.140 | which they're taking in the South.

00:19:10.900 | The fact that Ukraine had to go to the negotiation table

00:19:14.740 | with Russia and Turkey in order to get exports

00:19:19.400 | out of the Black Sea approved, again,

00:19:21.760 | demonstrates just how much Ukraine is losing.

00:19:24.180 | The aggressor had a seat at the negotiation table

00:19:29.500 | to allow Ukraine the ability to even export

00:19:32.400 | one of its top exports.

00:19:33.860 | If Russia would have said no,

00:19:35.500 | then they would not have had that.

00:19:37.100 | Russia has, that's like someone holding your throat.

00:19:39.620 | It's like somebody holding your jugular vein and saying,

00:19:43.180 | if you don't do what I tell you to do,

00:19:46.480 | then I'm not gonna let you breathe.

00:19:48.340 | I'm not gonna let blood flow to your brain.

00:19:50.080 | - So do you think it's possible

00:19:52.180 | that Russia takes the South of Ukraine?

00:19:56.140 | It takes, so starting from Mariupol,

00:20:01.860 | the Kherson region.

00:20:03.640 | - All the way to Odessa.

00:20:04.540 | - All the way to Odessa.

00:20:05.760 | - And into Moldova.

00:20:09.720 | I believe all of that will happen before the fall.

00:20:12.880 | - Fall of this year?

00:20:13.800 | - Fall of this year.

00:20:14.680 | Before winter hits Europe,

00:20:16.600 | NATO wants, Germany needs to be able to have sanctions lifted

00:20:21.480 | so they can tap into Russian power.

00:20:23.720 | There's no way they can have those sanctions lifted

00:20:26.100 | unless Russia wins.

00:20:28.240 | And Russia also knows that all of Europe,

00:20:31.240 | all of NATO is the true people feeling the pain of the war

00:20:36.000 | outside of Ukraine are the NATO countries

00:20:39.160 | because they're so heavily reliant on Russia.

00:20:42.680 | And as they have supported American sanctions against Russia

00:20:46.280 | their people feel the pain.

00:20:47.880 | Economically, their people feel the pain.

00:20:50.520 | What are they gonna do in the winter?

00:20:51.940 | Because without Russian gas,

00:20:54.720 | their people are gonna freeze to death.

00:20:56.860 | - Ukrainian people.

00:20:58.000 | - People all over NATO.

00:21:00.400 | Ukraine, everybody knows Ukraine's at risk.

00:21:03.040 | Everybody knows Ukrainians are dying.

00:21:05.200 | The game of war isn't played just,

00:21:08.560 | it isn't even played majoritively

00:21:10.200 | by the people who are fighting.

00:21:11.920 | The game of war is played by everyone else.

00:21:13.640 | It's an economic game, it's not a military game.

00:21:16.000 | - The flow of resources and energy.

00:21:18.360 | - Attention. - And food.

00:21:19.600 | - Exactly right.

00:21:20.520 | - I was on the front in the Kherson region,

00:21:24.640 | this very area that you're referring to

00:21:26.880 | and I spoke to a lot of people

00:21:29.040 | and the morale is incredibly high.

00:21:33.240 | And I don't think the people in that region,

00:21:37.680 | soldiers, volunteer soldiers, civilians,

00:21:42.680 | are going to give up that land without dying.

00:21:47.320 | - I agree with you.

00:21:48.660 | - I mean, in order to take Odessa

00:21:51.960 | would require huge amount of artillery

00:21:57.480 | and slaughter of civilians essentially.

00:22:00.360 | - They're not gonna use artillery in Odessa

00:22:01.840 | because Odessa is too important to Russian culture.

00:22:05.360 | It's gonna be even uglier than that.

00:22:07.840 | It's going to be clearing of streets,

00:22:10.280 | clearing of buildings, person by person, troop by troop.

00:22:13.400 | It'll be a lot like what it was in Margol.

00:22:16.080 | - Just shooting at civilians.

00:22:18.120 | - Because they can't afford to just do bombing raids

00:22:20.920 | because they're gonna destroy cultural

00:22:23.080 | significant architecture that's just too important

00:22:25.480 | to the Russian culture.

00:22:26.680 | And that's gonna demoralize their own Russian people.

00:22:29.520 | - I have to do a lot of thinking to try to understand

00:22:31.520 | what I even feel, I don't know.

00:22:33.360 | But in terms of information,

00:22:37.480 | the thing that the soldiers are saying,

00:22:39.400 | the Russian soldiers are saying,

00:22:40.720 | the thing the Russian soldiers really believe

00:22:43.640 | is that they're freeing,

00:22:45.440 | they're liberating the Ukrainian people from Nazis.

00:22:50.440 | And they believe this.

00:22:56.560 | Because I visited Ukraine, I spoke to over 100,

00:23:00.720 | probably a couple hundred Ukrainian people

00:23:02.520 | from different walks of life.

00:23:04.440 | It feels like the Russian soldiers at least

00:23:08.600 | are under a cloud of propaganda.

00:23:11.240 | They're not operating on a clear view of the whole world.

00:23:15.520 | And given all that,

00:23:20.520 | I just don't see Russia taking any more of the blame

00:23:26.160 | for Russia taking the South without committing war crimes.

00:23:31.160 | And if Vladimir Putin is aware of what's happening

00:23:36.440 | in terms of the treatment of civilians,

00:23:39.380 | I don't see him pushing forward all the way

00:23:43.120 | to take the South.

00:23:44.760 | Because that's not going to be effective strategy

00:23:49.760 | for him to win the hearts and minds of his people.

00:23:54.040 | - Autocracies don't need to win hearts and minds.

00:23:56.760 | That's a staunchly democratic point of view.

00:24:00.160 | Hearts and minds mean very little

00:24:02.040 | to people who understand core basic needs and true power.

00:24:07.040 | You don't see Xi Jinping worrying

00:24:13.720 | about hearts and minds in China.

00:24:14.920 | You don't see it in North Korea.

00:24:17.600 | You don't see it in Congo.

00:24:20.080 | You don't see it in most of the world.

00:24:22.440 | Hearts and minds are a luxury.

00:24:24.640 | In reality, what people need is food, water, power.

00:24:27.280 | They need income to be able to secure a lifestyle.

00:24:31.000 | It is absolutely sad.

00:24:34.040 | I am not in any way, shape, or form saying

00:24:37.620 | that my assessment on this is enriching

00:24:42.440 | or enlightening or hopeful.

00:24:46.320 | It's just fact.

00:24:48.680 | It's just calculatable empirical evidence.

00:24:52.640 | If Putin loses in Ukraine, the losses,

00:24:56.320 | the influential losses, the economic losses,

00:24:59.400 | the lives lost, the power lost is too great.

00:25:03.720 | So it is better for him to push and push and push

00:25:07.560 | through war crimes, through everything else.

00:25:09.400 | War crimes are something defined

00:25:10.600 | by the international court system.

00:25:12.400 | The international court system has Russia

00:25:14.640 | as part of its board.

00:25:16.220 | And the international court system is largely powerless

00:25:19.740 | when it comes to enforcing its own outcomes.

00:25:23.180 | So the real risk gain scenario here for Russia

00:25:27.520 | is significantly in favor of gain over risk.

00:25:33.020 | The other thing that I think is important to talk about

00:25:36.820 | is we, everybody, is trapped in the middle

00:25:40.320 | of a gigantic information war.

00:25:42.860 | Yes, there's battlefield bullets and cannons and tanks,

00:25:46.000 | but there's also a massive informational war.

00:25:48.540 | The same narrative that you see these ground troops

00:25:53.540 | in Ukraine, these Russian ground troops in Ukraine,

00:25:56.780 | believing they're clearing the land of Nazis,

00:25:59.900 | that information is being fed to them

00:26:02.540 | from their own home country.

00:26:04.120 | I don't know why people seem to think

00:26:06.460 | that the information that they're reading in English

00:26:08.100 | is any more or less true.

00:26:09.820 | Every piece of news coming out of the West,

00:26:13.020 | every piece of information coming out

00:26:14.840 | in the English language is also a giant narrative

00:26:18.420 | being shared intentionally to try to undermine the morale

00:26:23.420 | and the faithfulness of English speaking Russians,

00:26:26.060 | which somebody somewhere knows exactly

00:26:27.900 | how many of those there are.

00:26:29.500 | So we have to recognize that we're not getting

00:26:32.000 | true information from other side,

00:26:33.800 | because there is a strategic value in making sure

00:26:35.980 | that there is just the right amount of miss

00:26:38.580 | or disinformation out there.

00:26:40.300 | Not because someone's trying to lie to Americans,

00:26:42.540 | but because someone is trying to influence

00:26:44.440 | the way English speaking Russians think.

00:26:47.080 | And in that world, that's exactly why you see

00:26:49.860 | so many news articles cited to anonymous sources,

00:26:54.380 | government officials who do not wanna be named.

00:26:56.580 | There's nothing that links back responsibility there.

00:26:59.740 | There's nothing that can go to court there.

00:27:01.980 | But the information still gets released

00:27:04.180 | and that's enough to make Ukrainians believe

00:27:08.220 | that the United States is gonna help them

00:27:10.020 | or that the West is gonna help them.

00:27:11.300 | It's enough to make Russians think

00:27:13.100 | that they're going to lose and maybe they should just,

00:27:17.020 | they should just give up now

00:27:18.000 | and leave from the battlefield now.

00:27:19.660 | We have to understand,

00:27:20.880 | we are in the middle of a giant information war.

00:27:24.020 | - Maybe you can correct me,

00:27:25.380 | but it feels like in the English speaking world,

00:27:27.320 | it's harder to control.

00:27:29.380 | It's harder to fight the information war

00:27:32.260 | because of, you know, some people say

00:27:35.200 | there's not really a freedom of speech in this country,

00:27:37.540 | but I think if you compare,

00:27:40.140 | there's a lot more freedom of speech.

00:27:41.740 | And it's just harder to control narratives

00:27:44.260 | when there's a bunch of guerrilla journalists

00:27:48.440 | that are able to just publish anything they want

00:27:50.360 | on Twitter or anything.

00:27:51.980 | It's just harder to control narratives.

00:27:53.940 | - So people don't understand where freedom of speech is.

00:27:56.100 | That's the first major problem.

00:27:57.580 | And it's shameful how many people in the United States

00:28:00.340 | do not understand what freedom of speech actually protects.

00:28:03.740 | So that aside, you're absolutely right.

00:28:06.580 | Fighting the information war in the West

00:28:09.140 | is extremely difficult

00:28:10.380 | because anyone with a blog,

00:28:14.260 | anyone with a Twitter account,

00:28:16.140 | anyone, I mean, anyone can call themselves

00:28:18.260 | a journalist essentially.

00:28:19.540 | We live in a world, we live in a country

00:28:21.740 | where people read the headline

00:28:23.280 | and they completely bypass the author line

00:28:26.620 | and they go straight into the content.

00:28:28.220 | And then they decide whether the content's real or not

00:28:30.140 | based on how they feel

00:28:31.420 | instead of based on empirical measurable evidence.

00:28:33.980 | - So you mentioned the Len Lease Act

00:28:37.580 | and the support of the United States,

00:28:39.740 | support of Ukraine by the United States.

00:28:42.340 | Are you skeptical to the level of support

00:28:44.700 | that the United States is providing

00:28:46.800 | and is going to provide over time?

00:28:49.980 | - The strategy that the United States has taken

00:28:51.620 | to support Ukraine is similar to the strategy

00:28:53.900 | we took to support Great Britain during World War II.

00:28:56.540 | The enactment of the Len Lease Act

00:28:58.700 | is a perfect example of that.

00:28:59.980 | The Len Lease Act means that we are lending

00:29:02.620 | or leasing equipment to the Ukrainian government

00:29:06.040 | in exchange for future payment.

00:29:08.760 | So every time a rocket is launched,

00:29:10.680 | every time a drone crashes into a tank,

00:29:13.000 | that's a bill that Ukraine is just racking up.

00:29:18.000 | It's like when you go to a restaurant

00:29:19.600 | and you start drinking shots.

00:29:21.060 | Sometime the bill will come due.

00:29:23.460 | This is exactly what we did when Europe

00:29:26.200 | and when Great Britain was in the face of Nazi invasion,

00:29:30.080 | we signed the same thing into motion.

00:29:31.960 | Do you know that the UK did not pay off the debt

00:29:34.960 | from World War II until 2020?

00:29:37.800 | They've been paying that debt since the end of World War II.

00:29:41.880 | So what we're doing is we're indebting Ukraine

00:29:45.220 | against the promise that perhaps

00:29:47.340 | they will secure their freedom,

00:29:48.720 | which nobody seems to want to talk about

00:29:50.280 | what freedom is actually gonna look like for Ukrainians.

00:29:52.880 | What are the true handful of outcomes,

00:29:55.420 | the realistic outcomes that could come of this?

00:29:57.240 | And which of those outcomes really looks like freedom

00:30:00.200 | to them, especially in the face of the fact

00:30:02.600 | that they're going to be trillions of dollars in debt

00:30:05.400 | to the West for supplying them with the training

00:30:09.480 | and the weapons and the food and the med kits

00:30:11.440 | and everything else that we're giving them

00:30:12.800 | because none of it's free.

00:30:14.480 | It's all coming due.

00:30:16.120 | It's all, we're a democracy,

00:30:17.780 | but we're also a capitalist country.

00:30:20.400 | We can't afford to just give things away for free,

00:30:23.200 | but we can give things away at a discount.

00:30:24.840 | We can give things away layaway,

00:30:27.040 | but the bill will come due.

00:30:28.880 | And unfortunately, that is not part of the conversation

00:30:31.480 | that's being had with the American people.

00:30:32.920 | - So debt is a way to establish some level of control.

00:30:37.400 | Power is power.

00:30:39.760 | That said, having a very close relationship

00:30:44.160 | between Ukraine and the United States

00:30:45.480 | does not seem to be a negative possibility

00:30:50.480 | when the Ukrainians think about their future

00:30:53.000 | in terms of freedom.

00:30:54.040 | That's one thing.

00:30:54.880 | And the other, there's some aspect of this war

00:30:57.840 | that I've just noticed that one of the people I talked to

00:31:01.520 | said that all great nations have a independence war,

00:31:06.520 | have to have a war for their independence.

00:31:10.680 | In order, there's something, it's dark,

00:31:12.760 | but there's something about war just being a catalyst

00:31:16.760 | for finding your own identity as a nation.

00:31:19.400 | So you can have leaders,

00:31:21.360 | you can have sort of signed documents,

00:31:23.120 | you can have all this kind of stuff,

00:31:24.320 | but there's something about war

00:31:25.460 | that really brings the country together

00:31:27.400 | and actually try to figure out what is at the core

00:31:30.400 | of the spirit of the people that defines this country.

00:31:32.800 | And they see this war as that,

00:31:36.540 | as the independence war to define the heart

00:31:38.520 | of what the country is.

00:31:39.360 | So there's been before the war, before this invasion,

00:31:42.840 | there was a lot of factions in the country.

00:31:46.300 | There was a lot of influence from oligarchs

00:31:50.440 | and corruption and so on.

00:31:51.960 | A lot of that was the factions were brought together

00:31:56.160 | under one umbrella effectively to become one nation

00:32:00.000 | because of this invasion.

00:32:01.440 | So they see that as a positive direction

00:32:04.720 | for the defining of what a free democratic country

00:32:09.720 | looks like after the war,

00:32:12.040 | in their perspective after the war is won.

00:32:14.760 | - It's a difficult situation

00:32:16.360 | because I'm trying to make sure that you

00:32:19.780 | and all everybody listening understands

00:32:22.160 | that what's happening in Ukraine,

00:32:24.480 | among Ukrainians is noble and brave and courageous

00:32:29.160 | and beyond the expectations of anyone.

00:32:33.240 | The fact is there is no material support

00:32:38.880 | coming from the outside.

00:32:40.120 | The American revolution was won

00:32:43.040 | because of French involvement,

00:32:44.640 | French ships, French troops, French generals,

00:32:47.920 | French military might.

00:32:49.720 | The independence of communist China was won

00:32:54.720 | through Russian support, Russian generals,

00:32:57.720 | Russian troops on the ground fighting with the communists.

00:33:01.040 | That's how revolutions are won.

00:33:03.680 | That's how independent countries are born.

00:33:06.320 | Ukraine doesn't get any of that.

00:33:08.320 | No one is stepping into that

00:33:10.000 | because we live in a world right now

00:33:14.000 | where there simply is no economic benefits

00:33:17.760 | to the parties in power to support Ukraine to that level.

00:33:21.560 | And war is a game of economics.

00:33:24.500 | The economic benefit of Ukraine is crystal clear

00:33:28.880 | in favor of Russia, which is why Putin cannot lose.

00:33:31.400 | He will not let himself lose.

00:33:33.520 | Short of something completely unexpected, right?

00:33:36.560 | I'm talking 60%, 70% probability, Ukraine loses.

00:33:40.100 | But there's still 20%, 30% probability

00:33:42.560 | of the unimaginable happening.

00:33:44.680 | Who knows what that might be?

00:33:45.860 | An oligarch assassinates Putin

00:33:48.040 | or a nuclear bomb goes off somewhere

00:33:50.500 | or who knows what, right?

00:33:52.940 | There's still a chance that something unexpected

00:33:54.920 | will happen and change the tide of the war.

00:33:57.640 | But when it comes down to the core calculus here,

00:34:01.640 | Ukraine is the agricultural bed to support a future Russia.

00:34:06.320 | Russian knows, they know they have to have Ukraine.

00:34:09.600 | They know that they have to have it to protect themselves

00:34:11.800 | against military pressure from the West.

00:34:13.600 | They have to have it for agricultural reasons.

00:34:15.680 | They have major oil and natural gas pipelines

00:34:20.160 | that flow through Eastern Ukraine.

00:34:22.680 | They cannot let Ukraine fall outside

00:34:26.060 | of their sphere of influence, they cannot.

00:34:28.500 | The United States doesn't really have

00:34:31.120 | any economic vested interest in Ukraine.

00:34:33.580 | Ideological points of view and promises aside,

00:34:37.800 | there's no economic benefit.

00:34:39.280 | And the same thing goes for NATO.

00:34:41.320 | NATO has no economic investments in Ukraine.

00:34:44.480 | Ukrainian output, Ukrainian food

00:34:49.240 | goes to the Middle East and Africa.

00:34:51.080 | It doesn't go to Europe.

00:34:53.840 | So the whole, the West siding with Ukraine

00:34:58.320 | is exclusively ideological and it's putting them

00:35:01.940 | in a place where they fight a war with Russia

00:35:04.120 | so the whole world can see Russia's capabilities.

00:35:06.580 | Ukraine is a, as sad as it is to say, man,

00:35:09.680 | Ukraine is a pawn on a table for superpowers

00:35:14.680 | to calculate each other's capacities.

00:35:17.440 | Right now, we've only talked about Russia

00:35:18.920 | and the United States.

00:35:19.760 | We haven't even talked about Iran.

00:35:21.160 | We haven't even talked about China, right?

00:35:23.720 | It is a pawn on a table.

00:35:24.980 | This is a chicken fight so that people get to watch

00:35:27.360 | and see what the other trainers are doing.

00:35:29.640 | - Well, a lot of people might have said the same thing

00:35:31.560 | about the United States back in the independence fight.

00:35:34.140 | So there is possibilities, as you've said.

00:35:38.440 | We're not saying a 0% chance,

00:35:41.920 | and it could be a reasonably high percent chance

00:35:44.600 | that this becomes one of the great democratic nations

00:35:48.080 | that the 21st century is remembered by.

00:35:50.160 | - Absolutely.

00:35:51.000 | - And so you said American support.

00:35:55.120 | So ideologically, first of all,

00:35:57.600 | you don't assign much long-term power to that,

00:36:02.600 | that US could support Ukraine purely on ideological grounds.

00:36:08.200 | - Just look in the last four years, the last three years.

00:36:12.880 | Do you remember what happened in Hong Kong

00:36:14.520 | right before COVID?

00:36:16.900 | China swooped into Hong Kong violently,

00:36:20.520 | beating protesters, killing them in the street,

00:36:23.840 | imprisoning people without just cause.

00:36:26.720 | And Hong Kong was a democracy.

00:36:28.980 | And the whole world stood by and let it happen.

00:36:32.640 | And then what happened in Afghanistan just a year ago?

00:36:35.620 | And the whole world stood by

00:36:37.800 | and let the Taliban take power again after 20 years of loss.

00:36:41.760 | This, we are showing a repeatable point of view.

00:36:46.480 | We will talk, American politicians,

00:36:49.600 | American administrations, we will say a lot of things.

00:36:52.960 | We will promise a lot of ideological,

00:36:55.360 | pro-democracy, rah-rah statements.

00:36:58.460 | We will say it.

00:36:59.840 | But when it comes down to putting our own people,

00:37:02.760 | our own economy, our own GDP at risk,

00:37:07.260 | we step away from that fight.

00:37:09.280 | - America is currently supplying

00:37:11.480 | military equipment to Ukraine.

00:37:13.080 | - Absolutely.

00:37:13.900 | - And a lot of that military equipment

00:37:15.000 | has actually been the thing that turned the tides of war

00:37:18.840 | a couple of times already.

00:37:20.540 | Currently, that's the HIMARS systems.

00:37:22.620 | So you mentioned sort of Putin can't afford to lose,

00:37:27.720 | but winning can look in different ways.

00:37:30.000 | So you've kind of defined, so on, at this moment,

00:37:33.320 | the prediction is that winning looks like

00:37:36.700 | capturing not just the east, but the south of Ukraine.

00:37:41.240 | But you could have narratives of winning

00:37:44.560 | that return back to the, what was it,

00:37:48.080 | the beginning of this year before the invasion?

00:37:49.840 | - Correct.

00:37:50.680 | - That Crimea is still with Russia.

00:37:53.840 | There's some kind of negotiated thing about Donbass

00:37:56.680 | where it still stays with Ukraine, but there's some--

00:37:59.600 | - Puppet government.

00:38:00.440 | - Yeah.

00:38:01.280 | - Just like that's what they have in Georgia right now.

00:38:03.760 | - And that could still be defined through mechanisms.

00:38:07.320 | - As Russia winning.

00:38:08.360 | - As Russia winning for Russia,

00:38:09.960 | and then for Ukraine as Ukraine winning.

00:38:13.000 | And for the West as democracy winning,

00:38:17.040 | and you kind of negotiate.

00:38:19.120 | I mean, that seems to be how geopolitics works.

00:38:22.640 | Everybody can walk away with a win-win story,

00:38:25.920 | and then the world progresses with the lessons learned.

00:38:29.040 | - That's the high likely, that's the most probable outcome.

00:38:31.600 | The most probable outcome is that Ukraine remains,

00:38:35.840 | in air quotes, a sovereign nation.

00:38:38.840 | It's not going to be truly sovereign,

00:38:41.400 | because it will become,

00:38:43.600 | it will have to have new government put in place.

00:38:47.520 | Zelensky, it's extremely unlikely he will be president,

00:38:50.720 | because he has gone too far to demonstrate

00:38:54.040 | his power over the people,

00:38:56.280 | and his ability to separate the Ukrainian people

00:38:59.360 | from the autocratic power of Russia.

00:39:02.440 | So he would have to be unseated,

00:39:04.640 | whether he goes into exile,

00:39:06.440 | or whether he is peacefully left alone,

00:39:09.400 | is all gonna be part of the negotiations.

00:39:11.120 | But the thing to keep in mind also,

00:39:13.040 | is that a negotiated peace,

00:39:15.840 | really just means a negotiated ceasefire.

00:39:17.760 | We've seen this happen all over the world.

00:39:19.080 | North Korea and South Korea are technically still

00:39:20.800 | just a negotiated cease power.

00:39:23.080 | What you end up having is,

00:39:24.880 | Russia will allow Ukraine to call itself Ukraine,

00:39:28.560 | to operate independently,

00:39:29.600 | to have their own debt to the United States.

00:39:32.000 | Russia doesn't want to take on that debt.

00:39:34.400 | And then in exchange for that,

00:39:36.680 | they will have firmer guidelines

00:39:38.680 | as to how NATO can engage with Ukraine.

00:39:41.640 | And then that becomes an example

00:39:43.160 | for all the other former Soviet satellite states,

00:39:45.160 | which are all required economically by Russia,

00:39:48.120 | not required economically by the West.

00:39:50.640 | And then you end up seeing how it just,

00:39:53.800 | you can see how the whole thing plays out,

00:39:55.440 | once you realize that the keystone is Ukraine.

00:39:59.240 | - There is something about Ukraine,

00:40:02.120 | the deep support by the Ukrainian people of America,

00:40:05.520 | that is in contrast with, for example, Afghanistan,

00:40:09.800 | that it seems like ideologically,

00:40:14.080 | Ukraine could be a beacon of freedom

00:40:17.160 | used in narratives by the United States

00:40:20.160 | to fight geopolitical wars in that part of the world,

00:40:24.160 | that they would be a good partner

00:40:26.080 | for this idea of democracy, of freedom,

00:40:28.960 | of all the values that America stands for.

00:40:31.480 | They're a good partner.

00:40:33.000 | And so it's valuable,

00:40:35.120 | if you sort of have a cynical, pragmatic view,

00:40:38.760 | sort of like Henry Kissinger type of view,

00:40:41.560 | it's valuable to have them as a partner,

00:40:43.960 | so valuable that it makes sense to support them

00:40:47.440 | in achieving a negotiated ceasefire

00:40:50.160 | that's on the side of Ukraine.

00:40:52.040 | But because of this particular leader,

00:40:54.480 | this particular culture,

00:40:56.280 | this particular dynamics of how the war unrolled,

00:41:00.600 | and things like Twitter,

00:41:02.640 | and the way digital communication currently works,

00:41:05.120 | it just seems like this is a powerful symbol of freedom

00:41:08.080 | that's useful for the United States,

00:41:09.920 | if we're sort of to take the pragmatic view.

00:41:12.680 | Don't you think it's possible

00:41:16.480 | that United States supports Ukraine

00:41:20.520 | financially, militarily enough

00:41:22.720 | for it to get an advantage in this war?

00:41:25.280 | - I think they've already gotten advantage in the war.

00:41:27.360 | The fact that the war is still going on

00:41:28.840 | demonstrates the asymmetrical advantage.

00:41:30.840 | The fact that Russia has stepped up

00:41:33.460 | to the negotiating table with them several times,

00:41:36.480 | without just turning to Chechen,

00:41:41.240 | I mean, you remember what happened in Chechnya,

00:41:43.200 | without turning to Chechnya level,

00:41:45.120 | just mass blind destruction,

00:41:48.600 | which was another Putin war.

00:41:50.040 | To see that those things have happened

00:41:53.200 | demonstrates the asymmetric advantage

00:41:54.920 | that the West has given.

00:41:56.160 | I think the true way to look at the benefit of Ukraine

00:42:01.160 | as a shining example of freedom in Europe for the West,

00:42:06.720 | isn't to understand whether or not they could,

00:42:09.000 | they absolutely could.

00:42:10.640 | It's the question of how valuable is that in Europe?

00:42:14.960 | How valuable is Ukraine?

00:42:16.780 | Which before January, before February,

00:42:19.800 | nobody even thought about Ukraine,

00:42:22.400 | and the people who did know about Ukraine

00:42:24.400 | knew that it was a extremely corrupt former Soviet state

00:42:28.880 | with 20% of its national population

00:42:30.980 | self-identifying as Russian.

00:42:32.500 | There's a reason Putin went into Ukraine.

00:42:35.460 | There's a reason he's been promising

00:42:37.000 | he would go into Ukraine for the better part of a decade,

00:42:40.520 | because the circumstances were aligned.

00:42:43.680 | It was a corrupt country that self-identified

00:42:45.600 | as Russian in many ways.

00:42:47.480 | It was supposed to be an easier of multiple marks

00:42:52.000 | in terms of the former Soviet satellite states to go after.

00:42:55.000 | That's all part of the miscalculation

00:42:57.960 | that the rest of the world saw too,

00:42:59.920 | when we thought it would fall quickly.

00:43:02.920 | So to think that it could be a shining example of freedom

00:43:05.920 | is accurate, but is it as shining a star as Germany?

00:43:10.320 | Is it as shining a star as the UK?

00:43:11.960 | Is it as shining a star as Romania?

00:43:14.000 | Is it as shining a star as France?

00:43:17.920 | It's got a lot of democratic freedom-based countries

00:43:22.440 | in Europe to compete against

00:43:23.720 | to be the shining stellar example.

00:43:26.840 | And in exchange, on counterpoint to that,

00:43:29.960 | it has an extreme amount of strategic value to Russia,

00:43:33.600 | which has no interest in making it a shining star

00:43:36.120 | of the example of democracy and freedom.

00:43:38.520 | - Outside of research,

00:43:39.400 | in terms of the shininess of the star, I would argue yes.

00:43:43.120 | If you look at how much it captivated

00:43:45.200 | the attention of the world.

00:43:46.520 | The attention of the world has made no material difference,

00:43:48.600 | man, that's what I'm saying.

00:43:50.320 | - That's your estimation, but are you sure we can't,

00:43:54.540 | if you can convert that into political influence,

00:43:59.120 | into money, don't you think attention is money?

00:44:03.540 | - Attention is money in democracies

00:44:05.780 | and capitalist countries, yes.

00:44:07.980 | - Which serves as a counterweight

00:44:09.480 | to sort of authoritarian regimes.

00:44:11.460 | So for Putin, resources matter.

00:44:14.520 | For the United States, also resources matter,

00:44:16.560 | but the attention and the belief of the people also matter

00:44:21.280 | because that's how you attain and maintain political power.

00:44:24.720 | - So going to that exact example,

00:44:27.000 | then I would highlight that our current administration

00:44:29.380 | has the lowest approval ratings

00:44:30.880 | of any president in history.

00:44:33.680 | So if people were very fond of the war going on in Ukraine,

00:44:36.800 | wouldn't that counterbalance some of our upset,

00:44:39.280 | some of the distent coming from the economy

00:44:42.000 | and some of the dissent coming from the great recession

00:44:45.800 | or the second great, or the great resignation

00:44:48.660 | and whatever's happening with the draw,

00:44:50.000 | with the down stock market.

00:44:51.400 | You would think that people would feel

00:44:52.600 | like they're sacrificing for something

00:44:54.640 | if they really believed that Ukraine mattered,

00:44:57.960 | that they would stand next to the president

00:45:00.360 | who is so staunchly driving and leading the West

00:45:05.080 | against this conflict.

00:45:06.840 | - Well, I think the opposition to this particular president,

00:45:09.840 | I personally believe has less to do with the policies

00:45:12.720 | and more to do with a lot of the other human factors.

00:45:17.000 | - But again, empirically, this is,

00:45:20.920 | I look at things through a very empirical lens,

00:45:23.040 | a very cold fact-based lens.

00:45:26.960 | And there are multiple data points that suggest

00:45:29.560 | that the American people ideologically sympathize

00:45:32.480 | with Ukraine, but they really just want

00:45:34.480 | their gas prices to go down.

00:45:36.080 | They really just want to be able to pay less money

00:45:38.240 | at the grocery store for their food.

00:45:40.040 | And they most definitely don't want their sons and daughters

00:45:42.880 | to die in exchange for Ukrainian freedom.

00:45:45.300 | - It does hurt me to see the politicization

00:45:47.960 | of this war as well.

00:45:49.040 | I think that it has, that's maybe has to do

00:45:53.960 | with the kind of calculation you're referring to,

00:45:56.320 | but it seems like it doesn't.

00:45:58.760 | It seems like there's a cynical,

00:46:00.720 | whatever takes attention of the media for the moment,

00:46:05.260 | the red team chooses one side

00:46:07.160 | and the blue team chooses another.

00:46:09.000 | And then I think, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:46:12.320 | but I believe the Democrats went into full support

00:46:17.320 | of Ukraine on the ideological side.

00:46:20.200 | And then I guess Republicans are saying,

00:46:22.200 | "Why are we wasting money?

00:46:23.320 | The gas prices are going up."

00:46:25.920 | That's a very crude kind of analysis,

00:46:27.720 | but they basically picked whatever argument

00:46:29.820 | on whatever side.

00:46:30.880 | And now more and more and more,

00:46:33.740 | this particular war in Ukraine is becoming a kind of pawn

00:46:38.740 | in the game of politics.

00:46:40.100 | That's first the midterm elections,

00:46:42.740 | then building up towards the presidential elections

00:46:45.100 | and stops being about the philosophical, the social,

00:46:49.980 | the geopolitical aspects, parameters of this war

00:46:53.820 | and more about just like whatever the heck captivates Twitter

00:46:57.380 | and we're gonna use that for politics.

00:46:58.940 | - You're right in the sense of the fact that it's,

00:47:02.380 | I wouldn't say that the red team and the blue team

00:47:04.020 | picked opposite sides on this.

00:47:05.360 | What I would say is that media discovered

00:47:08.900 | that talking about Ukraine wasn't as profitable

00:47:12.340 | as talking about something else.

00:47:14.020 | People simply, the American people who read media

00:47:17.620 | or who watch media, they simply became bored reading

00:47:21.720 | about news that didn't seem to be changing much.

00:47:23.980 | And we turned back into wanting to read

00:47:26.580 | about our own economy.

00:47:27.740 | And we wanted to hear more about cryptocurrency

00:47:29.380 | and we wanted to hear more about the Kardashians.

00:47:31.020 | And that's what we care about.

00:47:32.460 | So that's what media writes about.

00:47:33.900 | That's how a capitalist market-driven world works.

00:47:37.460 | And that's how the United States works.

00:47:38.460 | That's why in both red papers and blue papers,

00:47:41.160 | red sources and blue sources,

00:47:42.780 | you don't see Ukraine being mentioned very much.

00:47:44.700 | If anything, I would say that your Republicans

00:47:47.260 | are probably more in support of what's happening

00:47:49.420 | in Ukraine right now because we're creating

00:47:51.380 | new weapons systems, our military is getting stronger,

00:47:53.740 | we're sending these military,

00:47:55.000 | we get to test military systems in combat in Ukraine.

00:48:00.260 | That's priceless in the world

00:48:02.980 | of the military industrial complex.

00:48:05.420 | Being able to field test, combat test a weapon

00:48:10.100 | without having to sacrifice your own people

00:48:12.580 | is incredibly valuable.

00:48:13.740 | You get all the data, you get all the performance metrics,

00:48:15.820 | but you don't have to put yourself at risk.

00:48:17.620 | That is one of the major benefits of what we're seeing

00:48:21.200 | from supporting Ukraine with weapons and with troops.

00:48:23.780 | The long-term benefit to what will come of this

00:48:26.640 | for the United States, practically speaking,

00:48:30.880 | in the lens of national security,

00:48:32.820 | through military readiness,

00:48:34.520 | through future economic benefits, those are super strong.

00:48:38.640 | The geopolitical fight is essentially moot

00:48:42.280 | because Ukraine is not a geopolitical player.

00:48:45.180 | It was not for 70 years, and after this conflict is over,

00:48:50.180 | it will not again.

00:48:51.520 | Just think about what you were just saying

00:48:53.320 | with the American people's attention span

00:48:55.600 | to Twitter and whatever's currently going on.

00:48:57.400 | If the Ukraine conflict resolved itself today,

00:49:00.000 | in any direction, how many weeks do you think

00:49:04.520 | before no one talked about Ukraine anymore?

00:49:06.320 | Do you think we would make it two weeks?

00:49:07.880 | Do you think we'd make it maybe seven days?

00:49:09.600 | It would be headline news for one or two days,

00:49:11.900 | and then we'd be onto something else.

00:49:15.080 | It's just an unfortunate reality

00:49:17.760 | of how the world works in a capitalist democracy.

00:49:23.000 | - Yeah, it just breaks my heart how much,

00:49:26.580 | you know, I know that there's Yemen and Syria,

00:49:30.840 | - That nobody talks about anymore.

00:49:33.720 | Still raging conflicts going on.

00:49:35.580 | - It just, it breaks my heart

00:49:38.720 | how much generational hatred is born.

00:49:42.280 | I happen to be from, my family is from Ukraine

00:49:46.840 | and from Russia, and so for me, just personally,

00:49:49.580 | it's a part of the world I care about

00:49:51.880 | in terms of its history.

00:49:54.360 | Because I speak the language,

00:49:56.960 | I can appreciate the beauty of the literature,

00:49:58.920 | the music, the art, the cultural history

00:50:01.400 | of the 20th century, through all the dark times,

00:50:04.560 | through all the hell of the dark sides

00:50:09.000 | of authoritarian regimes, the destruction of war,

00:50:12.280 | there's still just the beauty that I'm able to appreciate

00:50:14.440 | that I can't appreciate about China, Brazil,

00:50:17.680 | other countries because I don't speak their language.

00:50:19.680 | This one I can appreciate.

00:50:20.880 | And so in that way, this is personally really painful to me

00:50:24.440 | to see so much of that history,

00:50:26.880 | the beauty in that history suffocated by the hatred

00:50:30.320 | that is born through this kind of geopolitical game

00:50:34.960 | fought mostly by the politicians, the leaders.

00:50:39.960 | - People are beautiful,

00:50:41.520 | and that's what you're talking about.

00:50:42.800 | People are just, people are beautiful creatures.

00:50:47.180 | Culture and art and science,

00:50:52.180 | these are beautiful, beautiful things

00:50:53.700 | that come about because of human beings.

00:50:55.920 | And the thing that gives me hope

00:50:58.220 | is that no matter what conflict the world has seen,

00:51:02.620 | and we've seen some devastating,

00:51:04.540 | horrible crimes against humanity already.

00:51:07.360 | We saw nuclear bombs go off in Japan.

00:51:10.060 | We saw genocide happen in Rwanda.

00:51:13.780 | We've seen horrible things happen.

00:51:16.300 | But people persevere.

00:51:18.260 | Language, culture, arts, science, they all persevere.

00:51:21.420 | They all shine through.

00:51:23.600 | Some of the most, people don't even realize

00:51:25.420 | how gorgeous the architecture and the culture

00:51:27.780 | is inside Iran.

00:51:29.060 | People have no idea.

00:51:30.160 | Chinese people in the rural parts of China

00:51:35.820 | are some of the kindest, most amazing people

00:51:38.380 | you'll ever meet.

00:51:39.580 | And Korean art and Korean dance, Korean drumming,

00:51:44.780 | I know nobody has ever even heard of Korean drumming.

00:51:47.340 | Korean drumming is this magical, beautiful thing.

00:51:50.380 | And the North, in North Korea,

00:51:52.220 | does it better than anybody in the world.

00:51:54.460 | Taekwondo in North Korea is just exceptional to watch.

00:51:57.780 | - In North Korea? - In North Korea.

00:51:59.480 | Nobody knows these things.

00:52:00.320 | - How do you know about Taekwondo in North Korea?

00:52:02.380 | I have questions.

00:52:03.380 | That's fascinating.

00:52:05.500 | That's, people don't think about that,

00:52:08.180 | but the culture, the beauty of the people

00:52:09.820 | still flourishes even in the toughest of places.

00:52:11.740 | - Absolutely, and we always will.

00:52:13.700 | We always will because that is what people do.

00:52:16.340 | And that is just the truth of it.

00:52:18.500 | And it breaks my heart to see travesties

00:52:21.140 | that people commit against people.

00:52:23.860 | But whether you're looking at a micro level,

00:52:26.460 | like what happens with shootings here in the United States,

00:52:30.100 | or whether you look at a macro level,

00:52:31.900 | like geopolitical power exchanges

00:52:35.020 | and intra and interstate conflicts,

00:52:37.520 | like what you see in Syria and what you see in Ukraine,

00:52:40.400 | those are disgusting, terrible things.

00:52:42.180 | War is a terrible thing.

00:52:43.860 | That is a famous quote.

00:52:45.340 | But people will persevere.

00:52:49.780 | People will come through.

00:52:52.040 | - I hope so.

00:52:54.300 | I hope so.

00:52:55.620 | And I hope we don't do something

00:52:58.100 | that I'll probably also ask you about later on,

00:53:03.300 | is things that destroy the possibility of perseverance,

00:53:08.180 | which is things like nuclear war,

00:53:09.860 | things that can do such tremendous damage

00:53:14.300 | that we will never recover.

00:53:17.060 | But yeah, amidst your pragmatic pessimism,

00:53:21.060 | I think both you and I have a kind of

00:53:24.660 | maybe small flame of optimism in there

00:53:27.020 | about the perseverance of the human species in general.

00:53:30.540 | Let me ask you about intelligence agencies

00:53:33.780 | outside of the CIA.

00:53:37.340 | Can you illuminate

00:53:38.500 | what is the most powerful intelligence agency in the world?

00:53:43.900 | The CIA, the FSB, formerly the KGB, the MI6, Mossad.

00:53:48.720 | I've gotten a chance to interact with a lot of Israelis

00:53:52.860 | while in Ukraine.

00:53:54.180 | Just incredible people.

00:53:55.660 | In terms of both training and skill,

00:53:58.140 | just all on every front.

00:54:00.100 | American soldiers too, just American military is incredible.

00:54:05.340 | The competence and skill of the military,

00:54:07.440 | the United States, Israeli I got to interact,

00:54:10.980 | and Ukrainian as well.

00:54:12.540 | - It's striking. - It's striking, it's beautiful.

00:54:14.420 | I just love people, I love carpenters,

00:54:16.860 | or people that are just extremely good at their job

00:54:19.300 | and then take pride in their craftsmanship.

00:54:21.400 | It's beautiful to see.

00:54:22.780 | And I imagine the same kind of thing happens

00:54:24.580 | inside of intelligence agencies as well

00:54:27.260 | that we don't get to appreciate because of the secrecy.

00:54:29.940 | Same thing with like Lockheed Martin.

00:54:31.500 | I interviewed the CTO of Lockheed Martin.

00:54:34.180 | It breaks my heart as a person who loves engineering.

00:54:37.180 | Because of the cover of secrecy,

00:54:41.100 | we'll never get to know some of the incredible engineering

00:54:43.300 | that happens inside of Lockheed Martin, Boeing.

00:54:45.820 | - Raytheon. - Yeah.

00:54:47.020 | There's kind of this idea that these are,

00:54:50.020 | people have conspiracy theories

00:54:52.300 | and they kind of assign evil to these companies

00:54:54.980 | in some part, but I think there's beautiful people

00:54:58.480 | inside those companies, brilliant people,

00:55:00.180 | and some incredible science and engineering

00:55:03.260 | is happening there.

00:55:04.380 | Anyway, that said, the CIA, the FSB, the MI6,

00:55:08.980 | Mossad, China, I know very little about the--

00:55:13.380 | - MSS, Ministry of State Security.

00:55:14.820 | - I don't know how much you know.

00:55:16.460 | (both laughing)

00:55:17.940 | Or just other intelligence agencies.

00:55:19.780 | In India, Pakistan, I've also heard--

00:55:21.820 | - Yeah, RAW is powerful and so is ISS, or ISSI.

00:55:26.820 | - And then, of course, European nations

00:55:28.660 | and Germany and France. - France.

00:55:30.420 | Yeah, so what can you say about the power,

00:55:33.700 | the influence of the different intelligence agencies

00:55:35.900 | within their nation and outside?

00:55:37.640 | - Yeah, so to answer your question,

00:55:39.760 | your original question, which is the most powerful,

00:55:42.420 | I'm gonna have to give you a few different answers.

00:55:44.760 | So the most powerful intelligence organization in the world

00:55:49.260 | in terms of reach is the Chinese MSS,

00:55:53.180 | the Ministry of State Security,

00:55:54.820 | because they have created a single, solitary intelligence

00:56:00.820 | service that has global reach and is integrated

00:56:04.220 | with Chinese culture so that essentially,

00:56:07.500 | every Chinese person anywhere in the world

00:56:09.780 | is an informant to the MSS, because that's their way

00:56:13.100 | of serving the middle kingdom, zhongguo,

00:56:16.140 | the central kingdom, the Chinese word for China.

00:56:18.820 | So they're the strongest, the most powerful

00:56:23.460 | intelligence service in terms of reach.

00:56:24.860 | Most assets, most informants, most intelligence.

00:56:27.180 | - So it's deeply integrated with the citizenry.

00:56:29.340 | - Correct, with their culture.

00:56:30.860 | You know what a Chinese person who lives in Syria

00:56:33.020 | thinks of themself as?

00:56:34.380 | A Chinese person.

00:56:35.540 | Do you know what a Chinese person, a Chinese national

00:56:38.180 | living in the United States thinks of themself as?

00:56:40.180 | A Chinese person, right?

00:56:41.660 | Americans living abroad often think of ourselves

00:56:44.500 | as expats, expatriates, living on the local economy,

00:56:47.980 | embracing the local culture.

00:56:50.020 | That is not how Chinese people view traveling

00:56:52.060 | around the world.

00:56:52.900 | - And by the way, if I may mention,

00:56:54.500 | I believe the way Masada operates is similar kind of thing

00:56:59.500 | because people from Israel living abroad

00:57:04.460 | still think of themselves as Jewish and Israeli.

00:57:07.740 | - First.

00:57:08.940 | - First, so that allows you to integrate the--

00:57:11.740 | - Culture and the faith-based aspects, exactly right.

00:57:14.500 | - But the number of people in Israel is much, much smaller

00:57:17.100 | than the number of people in China.

00:57:18.580 | - So when it comes to reach, China wins that game.

00:57:21.300 | When it comes to professional capability,

00:57:23.940 | it's the CIA by far because budget-wise, capability-wise,

00:57:28.940 | weapon system-wise, modern technology-wise,

00:57:31.500 | CIA is the leader around the world,

00:57:34.100 | which is why every other intelligence organization

00:57:36.380 | out there wants to partner with CIA.

00:57:38.940 | They want to learn from CIA.

00:57:40.860 | They want to train with CIA.

00:57:42.100 | They want to partner on counter-narcotics

00:57:45.340 | and counter-drug and counter-terrorism and counter-Uyghur,

00:57:47.980 | you name it, people want to partner with CIA.

00:57:50.380 | So CIA is the most powerful in terms of capability

00:57:52.820 | and wealth, and then you've got the idea,

00:57:57.460 | you've got tech, so tech alone,

00:58:01.620 | meaning corporate espionage, economic espionage,

00:58:05.980 | nothing beats DGSE in France.

00:58:09.060 | They're the top.

00:58:10.700 | They've got a massive budget that almost goes exclusively

00:58:12.980 | to stealing foreign secrets.

00:58:14.780 | They're the biggest threat to the United States,

00:58:16.780 | even above Russia and above China.

00:58:19.620 | DGSE in France is a massively powerful

00:58:22.220 | intelligence organization, but they're so exclusively

00:58:25.500 | focused on a handful of types of intelligence collection

00:58:29.660 | that nobody even really thinks that they exist.

00:58:31.940 | And then in terms of just terrifying violence,

00:58:35.680 | you have Mossad.

00:58:36.740 | Mossad will do anything.

00:58:38.340 | Mossad has no qualms doing what it takes

00:58:42.180 | to ensure the survival of every Israeli citizen

00:58:45.460 | around the world.

00:58:46.500 | Most other countries will stop at some point,

00:58:49.660 | but Mossad doesn't do that.

00:58:51.460 | - So it's the lines you're willing to cross.

00:58:54.820 | - And the reasons that you're willing to cross them.

00:58:57.420 | The CIA will let an American stay in jail in Russia

00:59:02.740 | unlawfully and seek a diplomatic solution.

00:59:06.180 | I mean, the United States has let people,

00:59:07.900 | there are two gentlemen from the 1950s

00:59:10.620 | who were imprisoned in China for 20 years

00:59:12.940 | waiting for diplomatic solutions to their release.

00:59:16.700 | So we do not kill to save a citizen, but Mossad will.

00:59:21.700 | - And then they'll not just kill,

00:59:28.380 | they'll do large scale infiltration.

00:59:31.660 | - These are amazing things.

00:59:32.980 | They spare no expense because it's a demonstration

00:59:37.540 | to their own people.

00:59:38.380 | Again, going back to the whole idea of influence.

00:59:40.620 | Every intelligence operation that sees the light of day

00:59:45.980 | has two purposes.

00:59:47.860 | The first purpose is the intelligence operation.

00:59:51.380 | But if it was just the intelligence operation,

00:59:53.540 | it would stay secret forever.

00:59:54.940 | The second purpose of every successful

00:59:56.780 | intelligence operation, when they become public,

00:59:59.420 | is to send a signal to the world.

01:00:02.180 | If you work against us, we will do this to you.

01:00:05.420 | If you work for us, we will take care of you in this way.

01:00:09.100 | It's a massive information campaign.

01:00:11.820 | - Do you think in that way, CIA is not doing a good job?

01:00:15.420 | Because there's the FSB, perhaps much less so, Jerry,

01:00:20.420 | but the KGB did this well, which is to send a signal,

01:00:25.740 | like basically communicate that this is a terrifying

01:00:31.260 | organization with a lot of power.

01:00:33.500 | And so Mossad is doing a good job of that.

01:00:35.740 | - Correct.

01:00:36.820 | - The psychological information warfare.

01:00:39.740 | And it seems like the CIA also has a lot of power

01:00:45.740 | has a lot of kind of myths about it,

01:00:47.940 | conspiracy theories about it,

01:00:49.420 | but much less so than the other agencies.

01:00:52.500 | - CIA does a good job of playing to the mythos.

01:00:54.900 | So when General Petraeus used to be the director of CIA,

01:00:58.820 | 2000--

01:00:59.660 | - And your workout partner.

01:01:00.780 | - And my workout partner.

01:01:01.620 | - I read about this.

01:01:02.460 | - So I loved and hated those workouts with Petraeus

01:01:05.220 | because he is a physical beast.

01:01:07.900 | He's a strong, fit, at the time, 60-something year old man.

01:01:11.700 | - Let me take a tangent on that

01:01:12.940 | 'cause he's coming on this podcast.

01:01:14.140 | - Oh, excellent, man.

01:01:15.380 | - So can you say what you learned from the man

01:01:20.380 | in terms of, or like what you think is interesting

01:01:25.220 | and powerful and inspiring about the way he sees the world,

01:01:28.380 | or maybe what you learned in terms of how to get strong

01:01:31.820 | in the gym or anything about life.

01:01:34.020 | - Two things right away.

01:01:34.860 | And one of them I was gonna share with you anyway,

01:01:36.180 | so I'm glad that you asked the question.

01:01:37.500 | So the first is that on our runs,

01:01:42.260 | and man, he runs fast,

01:01:43.380 | and we would go for six-mile runs through Bangkok.

01:01:45.700 | And he talked openly about, I asked him,

01:01:50.300 | how do you keep this mystery,

01:01:55.140 | this epic mythology about your fitness and your strength,

01:02:00.140 | how do you keep all of this alive with the troops?

01:02:04.760 | And he had this amazing answer,

01:02:06.620 | and he was like, "I don't talk about it."

01:02:08.860 | Myths are born not from somebody orchestrating the myth,

01:02:13.380 | but from the source of the myth simply being secretive.

01:02:16.980 | So he's like, "I don't talk about it.

01:02:18.620 | "I've never talked about it.

01:02:19.820 | "I've never exacerbated it.

01:02:21.140 | "I just do what I do, and I let the troops talk."

01:02:23.980 | And he's like, "When it's in favor,

01:02:25.440 | "when it goes in favor of discipline

01:02:27.480 | "and loyalty and commitment, I let it run.

01:02:30.740 | "If it starts getting destructive or damaging,

01:02:33.320 | "then I have my leadership team step in to fix it.

01:02:37.840 | "But when it comes to the mythos,

01:02:40.380 | "the myth of him being a super-powered soldier,

01:02:42.920 | "that's what he wants every soldier to be."

01:02:44.460 | So he lets it run.

01:02:45.740 | And it was so enlightening when he told me,

01:02:48.860 | "When there's a myth that benefits you, you just let it go.

01:02:51.360 | "You let it happen because it gets you further

01:02:54.180 | "without you doing any work.

01:02:55.120 | "It costs no investment for you."

01:02:56.100 | - So the catalyst of the virality of the myth

01:02:58.500 | is just being mysterious.

01:03:00.500 | - And that's what CIA does well,

01:03:02.020 | to go back to your first question.

01:03:03.260 | What does CIA do?

01:03:04.700 | They don't answer any questions.

01:03:06.540 | They don't say anything.

01:03:08.280 | And wherever the myth goes, the myth goes,

01:03:11.020 | whether it's that they sold drugs

01:03:13.080 | or used child prostitutes or whatever else,

01:03:14.860 | wherever the myth goes, they let it go.

01:03:17.120 | Because at the end of the day,

01:03:18.840 | everybody sits back and says,

01:03:20.200 | "Wow, I really just don't know."

01:03:22.240 | Now, the second thing that I learned from Petraeus,

01:03:23.840 | and I really am a big fan of Petraeus.

01:03:27.160 | I know he made personal mistakes.

01:03:29.120 | You don't get to be that powerful

01:03:30.600 | without making personal mistakes.

01:03:32.200 | But when I worked out with him,

01:03:33.440 | the one thing that my commanding officer

01:03:38.440 | told me not to ask about,

01:03:39.920 | he was like, "Never ask the general about his family."

01:03:43.320 | I'm a family guy.

01:03:45.240 | So as soon as I met General Petraeus,

01:03:48.160 | one of the first things I asked him was,

01:03:49.840 | "Hey, what was it like raising a family

01:03:51.660 | "and being the commander of forces in the Middle East?

01:03:55.220 | "Like you weren't with your family very much."

01:03:57.080 | And the thing I love about the guy,

01:03:59.080 | he didn't bite off my head.

01:04:00.420 | He didn't snap at me.

01:04:01.260 | He didn't do anything.

01:04:02.340 | He openly admitted that he regretted

01:04:04.780 | some of the decisions that he made

01:04:06.660 | because he had to sacrifice his family to get there.

01:04:11.160 | Relationships with his children,

01:04:13.600 | absentee father, missing birthdays,

01:04:15.580 | missing, we all say, we all say how sad it is

01:04:19.160 | to miss birthdays and miss anniversaries, yada, yada, yada.

01:04:21.080 | Everybody knows what that feels like.

01:04:22.080 | Even business people know what that feels like.

01:04:23.960 | The actual pain that we're talking about

01:04:26.040 | is when you're not there to handle

01:04:28.320 | your 13-year-old's questions

01:04:29.960 | when a boy breaks up with her,

01:04:31.640 | or when you're not there to handle the bloody lip

01:04:34.540 | that your nine-year-old comes back with

01:04:35.960 | from their first encounter with a bully.

01:04:37.960 | Those are the truly heartbreaking moments

01:04:39.800 | that a parent lives and dies by.

01:04:42.400 | He missed almost all of those

01:04:45.640 | because he was fighting a war that we forgot

01:04:48.280 | and we gave up on 20 years later, right?

01:04:50.240 | He's so honest about that.

01:04:53.300 | And it was really inspiring to me

01:04:57.040 | to be told not to ask that question.

01:04:59.180 | And when I broke that guidance, he didn't reprimand me.

01:05:02.940 | He just, he was authentic.

01:05:05.580 | And it was absolutely one of the big decisions

01:05:07.460 | that helped me leave CIA on my own in 2014.

01:05:10.580 | - And he was honest on the sacrifice you make.

01:05:15.100 | - The same man, the same man who just taught me a lesson

01:05:17.780 | about letting a myth live,

01:05:21.460 | that same guy was willing to be so authentic

01:05:24.420 | about this personal mistake.

01:05:27.940 | - I like complicated people like that.

01:05:30.820 | So what did you make of that calculation

01:05:34.420 | of family versus job?

01:05:36.540 | You've given a lot of your life and passion

01:05:40.700 | to the CIA, to that work.

01:05:42.700 | You've spoken positively about that world,

01:05:47.700 | the good it does.

01:05:49.040 | And yet you're also a family man and you value that.

01:05:53.940 | What's that calculation like?

01:05:55.180 | What's that trade-off like for you?

01:05:56.020 | - I mean, for me, the calculation is very clear.

01:05:57.860 | It's family.

01:05:58.780 | I left CIA because I chose my family.

01:06:03.260 | And when my son was born, my wife and I found out

01:06:06.580 | that we were pregnant while we were still on mission.

01:06:08.380 | We were a tandem couple.

01:06:09.280 | My wife is also a former CIA officer, undercover like me.

01:06:12.660 | We were operating together overseas.

01:06:14.940 | We got the positive pregnancy test, like so many people do.

01:06:18.780 | And she cried.

01:06:21.780 | My wife was a badass.

01:06:23.300 | I was just, I was like the accidental spy,

01:06:26.380 | but my wife was really good at what she does.

01:06:28.340 | And she cried and she was like, what do we do now?

01:06:32.300 | It's what we've always wanted, a child,

01:06:34.900 | but we're in this thing right now.

01:06:37.860 | There's no space for a child.

01:06:41.260 | So long story short, we had our baby.

01:06:44.940 | We, CIA brought us back to have the baby.

01:06:48.060 | And when we started having the conversations about,

01:06:50.580 | hey, what do we do next?

01:06:52.160 | 'Cause we're not the type of people to wanna just

01:06:54.420 | sit around and be domestic.

01:06:57.580 | What do we do next?

01:06:58.780 | But keep in mind, we have a child now.

01:07:00.940 | So here's some of our suggestions.

01:07:02.620 | We could do this and we can do that.

01:07:04.140 | Let us get our child to a place where we can put him

01:07:06.340 | into an international school or we can get him

01:07:08.320 | into some sort of program where we have,

01:07:11.720 | we can both operate together again during the day.

01:07:15.820 | But CIA just had no, they had no patience

01:07:19.100 | for that conversation.

01:07:19.940 | There was no, family is not their priority.

01:07:23.900 | So the fact that we were a tandem couple,

01:07:26.140 | two officers, two operators trying to have a baby

01:07:29.100 | was irrelevant to them.

01:07:30.660 | So when they didn't play with us,

01:07:32.740 | when they did nothing to help us prioritize parenthood

01:07:37.740 | as part of our overall experience,

01:07:41.500 | that's when we knew that they never would.

01:07:43.140 | And what good is it to commit yourself to a career

01:07:46.540 | if the career is always going to challenge the thing

01:07:48.500 | that you value most?

01:07:50.200 | And that was the calculation that we made to leave CIA.

01:07:53.620 | Not everybody makes that calculation.

01:07:55.860 | And a big part of why I am so vocal about my time in CIA

01:08:00.380 | is because I am immensely appreciative

01:08:04.140 | of the men and women who to this day have failed marriages

01:08:09.140 | and poor relationships with their children

01:08:12.140 | because they chose national security.

01:08:14.260 | They chose protecting America over their own family.

01:08:17.420 | And they've done it even though it's made them

01:08:21.780 | abuse alcohol and abuse substances

01:08:23.620 | and they've gotten themselves,

01:08:25.420 | they've got permanent diseases and issues

01:08:29.180 | from living and working abroad.

01:08:31.460 | It's just insane the sacrifice that officers make

01:08:35.460 | to keep America free.

01:08:37.600 | And I'm just not one of those people, I chose family.

01:08:40.260 | - You said that your wife misses it.

01:08:44.380 | Do you miss it?

01:08:45.220 | - We both miss it.

01:08:46.060 | We miss it for different reasons.

01:08:47.640 | We miss it for similar reasons, I guess,

01:08:49.460 | but we miss it in different ways.

01:08:50.900 | The people, the people at CIA are just amazing.

01:08:55.300 | They're people that, they're everyday people

01:08:58.180 | like the guy in the gown next door,

01:09:00.460 | but so smart and so dedicated and so courageous

01:09:04.920 | about what they do and how they do it.

01:09:06.820 | I mean, the sacrifices they make are massive,

01:09:08.940 | more massive than the sacrifices I made.

01:09:10.700 | So I was always inspired and impressed

01:09:12.580 | by the people around me.

01:09:13.660 | So both my wife and I absolutely miss the people.

01:09:16.600 | My wife misses the work because you know everything.

01:09:20.340 | When you're inside, it's all, I mean, we had top secret.

01:09:25.220 | We had TSSCI clearances at the time.

01:09:27.140 | I had a Cat 6, Cat 12, which makes me nuclear cleared.

01:09:30.460 | My wife had other privy clearances that allowed her

01:09:33.420 | to look into areas that were specialized.

01:09:37.300 | But there was not, there wasn't a headline that went out

01:09:40.900 | that we couldn't fact check with a click of a few buttons.

01:09:44.220 | And she misses that 'cause she loved that kind of--

01:09:46.260 | - And now you're just one of us living in the,

01:09:49.860 | you know, the cloud of mystery.

01:09:51.900 | - Exactly. - Not really knowing anything

01:09:53.420 | about what's going on.

01:09:54.340 | - Exactly, but for me, I've always been the person

01:09:57.140 | that likes operating.

01:09:59.020 | And you know what you still get to do when you leave CIA?

01:10:00.980 | You still get to operate.

01:10:02.420 | Operating is just working with people.

01:10:04.300 | It's understanding how people think,

01:10:06.140 | predicting their actions, driving their direction

01:10:08.620 | of their thoughts, persuading them, winning negotiations.

01:10:12.020 | Like it's, you still get to do that.

01:10:14.060 | You do that every day.

01:10:15.460 | - And you can apply that in all kinds of domains.

01:10:18.540 | Well, let me ask you on that.

01:10:21.020 | You were a covert CIA intelligence officer

01:10:24.300 | for several years.

01:10:25.980 | Maybe, can you tell me the story of how it all began?

01:10:28.660 | How, were you recruited?

01:10:30.700 | And what did the job entail,

01:10:32.580 | to the degree you can speak about it?

01:10:34.260 | - Feel free to direct me if I'm getting too boring

01:10:36.140 | or if the-- - No, every aspect

01:10:38.140 | of this is super exciting. (laughing)

01:10:40.820 | - So I was leaving the United States Air Force in 2007.

01:10:46.980 | I was a lieutenant getting ready to pin on captain.

01:10:51.260 | My five years was up.

01:10:53.060 | And I was a very bad fit for the US Air Force.

01:10:56.300 | I was an Air Force Academy graduate, not by choice,

01:10:58.940 | but by lack of opportunity, lack of options otherwise.

01:11:01.860 | So I forced myself through the Academy,

01:11:03.780 | barely graduated with a 2.4 GPA.

01:11:07.220 | And then went on, the Air Force taught me how to fly.

01:11:09.460 | And then the Air Force taught me about nuclear weapons.

01:11:12.020 | And I ended up as a nuclear missile commander

01:11:16.380 | in Montana, and I chose to leave the Air Force

01:11:20.860 | because I didn't like shaving my face.

01:11:23.260 | I didn't like having short hair,

01:11:24.300 | and I most definitely didn't like shining my shoes.

01:11:26.300 | And I did not wanna be one of the people

01:11:28.220 | in charge of nuclear weapons.

01:11:29.380 | So when I found myself as a person in charge

01:11:31.060 | of 200 nuclear weapons,

01:11:33.020 | I knew that I was going down the wrong road.

01:11:34.660 | - I have questions about this.

01:11:36.220 | And more importantly, I have questions about your hair.

01:11:38.460 | So you had short hair at the time?

01:11:40.700 | - Yeah, you have to.

01:11:41.520 | Military regulations, you can't have hair

01:11:43.020 | longer than one inch.

01:11:44.020 | - Okay.

01:11:44.860 | - So is this the beautiful hair you have now

01:11:48.460 | that came to be in the CIA or after?

01:11:52.220 | - This, so I discovered I had messy hair in CIA

01:11:55.460 | 'cause I used to go mouj, we called it mouj.

01:11:58.620 | I used to go Mujahideen style,

01:12:00.420 | big burly beard and crazy wacky hair.

01:12:03.380 | Because an ambiguously brown guy

01:12:05.660 | with a big beard and long hair

01:12:07.780 | can go anywhere in the world

01:12:09.540 | without anyone even noticing him.

01:12:12.300 | They either think that he's a janitor

01:12:14.660 | or they think that he's like some forgotten part of history

01:12:18.940 | but nobody ever thinks that that guy is a spy.

01:12:21.660 | So it was the perfect, for me,

01:12:23.660 | it was one of my favorite disguises.

01:12:27.740 | It's what's known as a level two disguise.

01:12:29.220 | One of my favorite disguises to Don

01:12:30.580 | was just dilapidated brown guy.

01:12:33.980 | - Can you actually, we'll just take a million tangents.

01:12:37.740 | What's a level two disguise?

01:12:39.620 | What are the different levels of disguise?

01:12:43.020 | What are the disguises?

01:12:44.220 | - Yeah, there's three levels of disguise by and large.

01:12:46.740 | Level one is what we also know,

01:12:48.540 | what we also call light disguise.

01:12:49.940 | So that's essentially, you put on sunglasses

01:12:52.980 | and a ball cap and that's a disguise.

01:12:55.140 | You look different than you normally look.

01:12:57.420 | So it's just different enough

01:12:59.740 | that someone who's never seen you before,

01:13:01.420 | someone who literally has to see you

01:13:03.060 | just from a picture on the internet,

01:13:05.180 | they may not recognize you.

01:13:06.540 | It's why you see celebrities walk around

01:13:08.140 | with ball caps and oversized jackets and baseball hats

01:13:11.980 | 'cause they just need to not look

01:13:12.940 | like they look in the tabloid

01:13:13.940 | or not look like they look in TV.

01:13:16.380 | That's level one.

01:13:17.980 | Let me jump from level one to level three.

01:13:19.860 | Level three is all of your prosthetics,

01:13:22.300 | all the stuff you see in "Mission Impossible,"

01:13:24.780 | your fake ears, your fake faces, your fat suits,

01:13:28.740 | your stilts inside your feet, all that's level three.

01:13:32.420 | Whenever they make any kind of prosthetic disguise,

01:13:35.900 | that's a level three disguise

01:13:37.100 | because prosthetics are very damning

01:13:41.340 | if you are caught with a prosthetic.

01:13:43.100 | If you're caught wearing a Sutton,

01:13:45.340 | wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses,

01:13:47.260 | nobody's gonna say you're a spy.

01:13:49.500 | But when you're caught with a custom-made nose prosthetic

01:13:54.140 | that changes the way your face looks

01:13:55.540 | or when someone pops out a fake jaw

01:13:57.700 | and they see that your top teeth don't look

01:13:59.260 | like they did in this prosthetic,

01:14:01.900 | then all of a sudden you've got some very difficult questions

01:14:04.700 | to ask or to answer.

01:14:06.700 | So level three is extremely dangerous.

01:14:08.480 | Level one is not dangerous.

01:14:09.540 | Level two is long-term disguise.

01:14:12.380 | Level two is all the things that you can do

01:14:14.220 | to permanently change the way you look

01:14:16.180 | for a long period of time

01:14:17.740 | so that whether you're aggressed in the street

01:14:20.420 | or whether someone breaks into your hotel room or whatever,

01:14:23.540 | it's real.

01:14:24.720 | So maybe you get a tattoo.

01:14:27.300 | Maybe you cut your hair short.

01:14:28.860 | Maybe you grow your hair long.

01:14:29.780 | Maybe you go bald.

01:14:31.120 | Maybe you start wearing glasses.

01:14:32.540 | Well, glasses are technically a prosthetic,

01:14:34.100 | but if you have teeth pulled,

01:14:38.240 | if you gain 20 pounds, really gain 20 pounds,

01:14:42.220 | or lose 15 pounds, whatever you might do,

01:14:44.300 | all of that's considered level two.

01:14:45.580 | It's designed for a long-term mission

01:14:48.420 | so that people believe you are who you say you are

01:14:52.060 | in that disguise.

01:14:53.100 | - A lot of that is physical characteristics.

01:14:55.660 | What about what actors do, which is the--

01:15:00.660 | - Method acting.

01:15:02.100 | - Yeah, the method acting,

01:15:03.020 | sort of developing a backstory in your own mind,

01:15:07.160 | and then you start pretending

01:15:11.460 | that you host a podcast and teach at a university

01:15:15.900 | and then do research and so on

01:15:17.980 | just so that people can believe

01:15:19.980 | that you're not actually an agent.

01:15:22.860 | Is that part of the disguise levels or no?

01:15:24.700 | - So yes, disguise has to do with physical character traits.

01:15:28.180 | That's what a disguise is.

01:15:29.580 | What you're talking about is known as a cover legend

01:15:32.260 | when you go undercover,

01:15:33.480 | what you claim to be, who you claim to be.

01:15:35.620 | That's called your legend, your cover legend.

01:15:38.160 | Every disguise would theoretically have

01:15:40.580 | its own cover legend.

01:15:42.380 | Even if it's just to describe

01:15:43.660 | why you're wearing what you're wearing,

01:15:45.300 | it's all a cover.

01:15:47.100 | So the method acting, this is a fantastic point

01:15:50.460 | that I don't get to make very often, so I'm glad you asked.

01:15:52.780 | The difference between CIA officers in the field

01:15:55.300 | and method actors is that method actors

01:15:57.420 | try to become the character.

01:15:59.940 | They try to shed all vestiges of who they really are

01:16:04.280 | and become the character,

01:16:05.900 | and that's part of what makes them so amazing,

01:16:07.460 | but it's also part of what makes them mentally unstable

01:16:12.220 | over long periods of time.

01:16:13.140 | It's part of what feeds their depression, their anxiety,

01:16:15.740 | their personal issues,

01:16:16.580 | because they lose sight of who they really are.

01:16:18.940 | Field officers don't get that luxury.

01:16:20.740 | We have to always, always remember

01:16:24.420 | we are a covert CIA intelligence officer

01:16:26.900 | collecting secrets in the field.

01:16:28.580 | We have to remember that.

01:16:29.860 | So we're taught a very specific skill

01:16:32.380 | to compartmentalize our true self separately

01:16:37.980 | but make that true self the true identity.

01:16:42.740 | So then we can still live and act

01:16:44.540 | and effectively carry out our cover legend

01:16:47.820 | without ever losing sight,

01:16:49.860 | without ever losing that compass true north

01:16:51.940 | of who we actually are.

01:16:53.540 | And then we can compartmentalize

01:16:55.100 | and secure all the information that we need,

01:16:56.820 | retain it, remember it, but then return to our true self

01:17:00.380 | when we get back to a position of safety.

01:17:03.140 | - Is it possible to do that?

01:17:04.380 | So I just have kind of anecdotal evidence for myself.

01:17:09.220 | I really try to be the exact same person in all conditions,

01:17:12.260 | which makes it very easy.

01:17:13.820 | Like if you're not lying,

01:17:17.180 | it makes it very easy to, first of all, to exist,

01:17:21.300 | but also to communicate a kind of authenticity

01:17:23.900 | and a genuineness, which I think is really important.

01:17:26.460 | Like trust and integrity around trust

01:17:29.180 | is extremely important to me.

01:17:30.420 | It's the thing that opens doors

01:17:32.380 | and maintains relationships.

01:17:34.780 | And I tend to think like when I was in Ukraine,

01:17:39.380 | so many doors just opened to the very sort

01:17:42.820 | of high security areas and everywhere else too.

01:17:46.100 | Like I've just interacted with some incredible people

01:17:48.940 | without any kind of concerns, you know,

01:17:52.100 | who's this guy?

01:17:53.020 | Is he gonna spread it?

01:17:54.180 | You know, all that kind of stuff.

01:17:55.180 | And I tend to believe that you're able

01:17:58.180 | to communicate a trustworthiness somehow

01:18:00.860 | if you just are who you are.

01:18:05.060 | And I think, I suppose method actors

01:18:07.180 | are trying to achieve that by becoming something

01:18:09.300 | and they can, I just feel like there is very subtle cues

01:18:14.300 | that are extremely difficult to fake.

01:18:16.900 | Like you really have to become that person,

01:18:20.580 | be that person.

01:18:22.060 | But you're saying as a CIA agent,

01:18:25.060 | you have to remember that you are there

01:18:27.740 | to collect information.

01:18:29.100 | Do you think that gives you away?

01:18:31.100 | - So one of the flaws in your argument

01:18:33.940 | is that you keep referring to how you feel.

01:18:38.220 | I feel this, I feel that, I feel like this,

01:18:40.420 | I feel like that.

01:18:41.580 | That feeling is a predictable character trait

01:18:45.860 | of all human beings.

01:18:46.740 | It's a pink matter, we call it pink matter.

01:18:49.060 | It's a cognitive trait.

01:18:50.900 | You are not alone in trusting your feelings.

01:18:55.020 | All people trust their feelings.

01:18:56.780 | But because what CIA teaches us

01:18:59.620 | is how to systematically create artificial relationships

01:19:03.340 | where we're the one in control of the source

01:19:06.380 | that is giving us intelligence.

01:19:08.460 | And the core element to being able to control

01:19:11.660 | a relationship is understanding

01:19:13.020 | the pink matter truth of feelings.

01:19:14.940 | What all people feel becomes their point of view

01:19:19.900 | on what reality is.

01:19:21.460 | So when you understand and you learn how to manipulate

01:19:23.380 | what people feel, then you can essentially

01:19:25.820 | direct them to feel any way you want them to feel.

01:19:28.340 | So if you want them to feel like they can trust you,

01:19:30.820 | you can make them feel that way.

01:19:32.140 | If you want them to feel like you're a good guy

01:19:34.220 | or a bad guy, if you want them to feel like

01:19:36.420 | they should give you secrets

01:19:37.460 | even though their government tells them not to,

01:19:39.100 | you can do that.

01:19:40.020 | There are men who make women feel like they love them

01:19:43.220 | and just so that the woman will sleep with them.

01:19:45.180 | There are women who make men feel like they love them

01:19:47.460 | just so the men will give them their money.

01:19:49.620 | Manipulation is a core behavioral trait

01:19:52.860 | of all the human species

01:19:54.780 | because we all understand to some level

01:19:56.780 | how powerful feelings are,

01:19:58.180 | but feelings are not the same thing

01:19:59.540 | as logical, rational thought.

01:20:01.220 | They're two different sides of the brain.

01:20:03.380 | What CIA teaches us how to do is systematically

01:20:06.260 | tap into the right side, emotional side of the brain

01:20:10.100 | so that we can quickly get past

01:20:13.100 | all of the stuff you were just saying,

01:20:14.260 | all of the, well, don't you have to be convincing

01:20:16.700 | and don't you have to really know your story

01:20:18.140 | and don't you have to be able to defend it?

01:20:20.380 | Don't you have to have authenticity

01:20:21.660 | and don't you have to have genuine feelings?

01:20:25.820 | Yes, all of those things are true

01:20:27.620 | if you're having a genuine relationship,

01:20:29.820 | but in an artificial relationship,

01:20:31.300 | there's ways to bypass all of that

01:20:32.780 | and get right to the heart

01:20:33.660 | of making someone feel comfortable and safe.

01:20:35.380 | - I guess the question I'm asking

01:20:37.660 | and the thing I was implying

01:20:40.660 | is that creating an artificial relationship

01:20:42.500 | is an extremely difficult skill

01:20:45.500 | to accomplish the level,

01:20:47.980 | like how good I am at being me

01:20:51.820 | and creating a feeling in another person that I create.

01:20:56.340 | For you to do that artificially,

01:20:58.260 | that's gotta be, you gotta be,

01:21:00.420 | my sense is you gotta be really damn good at that.

01:21:03.700 | I would venture to say,

01:21:05.820 | I mean, I don't know how to measure

01:21:08.980 | how difficult the thing is,

01:21:10.100 | but especially when you're communicating with people

01:21:13.980 | whose job depends on forming trusting relationships,

01:21:18.620 | they're gonna smell bullshit.

01:21:20.220 | And to get past that bullshit detector is tough.

01:21:26.620 | It's a tough skill.

01:21:28.380 | - Well, it's interesting.

01:21:29.220 | So I would say that--

01:21:30.980 | - Or maybe I'm wrong actually on that.

01:21:32.700 | - I would say that once you understand the system,

01:21:34.620 | it's not that hard.

01:21:35.540 | It makes a lot of sense.

01:21:37.020 | But I would also say that to your exact point,

01:21:39.580 | you are right that people smell bullshit.

01:21:42.180 | People smell bullshit.

01:21:43.740 | But here's the thing.

01:21:45.100 | If you come in smelling like goat shit,

01:21:47.980 | you still smell like shit,

01:21:49.900 | but you don't smell like bullshit.

01:21:51.820 | So they don't count you out right away.

01:21:53.780 | And if you come in smelling like rotten tomatoes,

01:21:57.060 | or if you come in smelling like lavender,

01:21:59.260 | or if you come in smelling like vanilla,

01:22:00.540 | or if you come in without any smell at all,

01:22:02.420 | all that matters is that you don't smell like bullshit.

01:22:05.660 | Here's the thing that's one of the secret sauces of CIA.

01:22:10.500 | When you look and act like a spy,

01:22:12.460 | people think you're a spy.

01:22:14.180 | If you look and act in any other way,

01:22:16.060 | you know what they never ever think you are?

01:22:18.260 | A spy.

01:22:21.060 | They might think you're an idiot.

01:22:22.180 | They might think you're trailer trash.

01:22:24.900 | They might think that you're a migrant worker,

01:22:27.700 | but they never think you're a spy.

01:22:30.780 | And that lesson in everyday life is immensely powerful.

01:22:35.500 | If you're trying to take your boss's job,

01:22:39.660 | as long as you don't ever look like the employee

01:22:41.700 | who's trying to take the boss's job,

01:22:43.300 | the boss is focused on all the employees

01:22:44.860 | who are trying to take his job.

01:22:46.660 | Everybody's prioritizing whether they know it or not.

01:22:48.980 | The goal is to just not be the one that they're targeting.

01:22:51.820 | Target them without them knowing you're targeting them.

01:22:54.100 | - So people just, when they meet you,

01:22:56.380 | they put you in a bin.

01:22:58.180 | And if you want to avoid being put in a particular bin,

01:23:01.020 | just don't act like the person that would be,

01:23:04.060 | just show some kind of characteristics

01:23:06.180 | that bin you in some other way.

01:23:07.420 | - Exactly right.

01:23:08.260 | You have to be in a bin.

01:23:09.540 | Just choose the bin.

01:23:11.020 | (Lex laughing)

01:23:11.860 | - All right.

01:23:12.700 | So you knowing these methods,

01:23:16.860 | when you talk to people, especially in civilian life,

01:23:19.140 | how do you know who's lying to you and not?

01:23:22.740 | - That gets to be more

01:23:24.640 | into the trained skill side of things.

01:23:26.620 | There's body cues, there's micro expressions.

01:23:29.940 | I'm not a big fan of,

01:23:31.500 | I don't believe that micro expressions alone do anything.

01:23:33.940 | I also don't believe that micro expressions

01:23:35.660 | without an effective baseline do anything.

01:23:37.820 | So don't for a second think that I'm,

01:23:40.180 | all the people out there pitching

01:23:41.620 | that you can tell if someone's lying to you

01:23:43.080 | just by looking at their face, it's all baloney.

01:23:46.100 | In my world, that's baloney.

01:23:47.660 | - Like the way you move your eyes or something like that.

01:23:49.980 | - Without knowing a baseline, without knowing--

01:23:51.820 | - For that individual.

01:23:52.660 | - For that individual, then you actually don't know.

01:23:54.420 | And an individual's baseline is based on education,

01:23:56.520 | culture, life experience, you name it, right?

01:23:58.360 | So this is huge.

01:24:00.160 | But when you combine facial expressions

01:24:03.460 | with body movements, body language, nonverbal cues,

01:24:06.900 | and you add on top of that effective elicitation techniques

01:24:10.500 | that you are in control of,

01:24:12.060 | now you have a more robust platform

01:24:15.260 | to tell if someone's lying to you.

01:24:16.460 | - So there's a set of interrogation trajectories

01:24:21.460 | you can go down that can help you figure out a person.

01:24:26.140 | - Technically, they're interview concepts.

01:24:30.340 | Correct, because an interrogation,

01:24:32.180 | an interrogation is something very different

01:24:33.620 | than an interview.

01:24:34.460 | In the world of professionals,

01:24:36.100 | an interrogation is very different.

01:24:37.340 | - What's the difference?

01:24:38.220 | The nature of how relaxed the thing is or what?

01:24:40.820 | - So in an interrogation,

01:24:42.360 | there's a clear pattern of dominance.

01:24:44.060 | There's no equality.

01:24:45.580 | Also, there's no escape.

01:24:47.220 | You are there until the interrogator is done with you.

01:24:49.860 | Anybody who's ever been reprimanded by mom and dad

01:24:51.780 | knows what an interrogation feels like.

01:24:53.120 | Anybody who's ever been called into the principal's office

01:24:54.820 | or the boss's office, that's what interrogation feels like.

01:24:57.220 | You don't leave until the boss says you can leave.

01:24:59.580 | And you're there to say, to answer questions

01:25:01.260 | the boss asks questions.

01:25:02.820 | An interview is an equal exchange of ideas.

01:25:05.700 | You are in control of this interview, for sure.

01:25:09.660 | But if we were having coffee,

01:25:11.540 | I could take control if I wanted to take control.

01:25:13.420 | If I wanted to ask you personal questions, I would.

01:25:15.140 | If I wanted to talk to you about your background, I could.

01:25:17.620 | - Why am I in control of this interview exactly?

01:25:19.420 | - Because the person in control

01:25:20.580 | is the person asking questions.

01:25:22.500 | - Yeah, always.

01:25:23.340 | - I'm sitting here, as you've spoken about,

01:25:25.840 | my power here is I'm the quiet one listening.

01:25:29.780 | (Lex laughs)

01:25:30.820 | - You're exactly right.

01:25:31.660 | Guess where this conversation goes?

01:25:33.160 | - Yeah.

01:25:34.000 | - Anywhere you choose to take it,

01:25:35.140 | because you're the one asking questions.

01:25:36.580 | Every time I answer a question,

01:25:38.300 | I am creating a pattern of obedience to you,

01:25:41.680 | which subliminally, subconsciously,

01:25:43.300 | makes me that much more apt to answer your questions.

01:25:45.780 | - Of course, you can always turn that

01:25:46.820 | and start asking me questions.

01:25:48.500 | But you're saying that there's, through conversation,

01:25:53.940 | you can call it interviewing,

01:25:55.580 | you can start to see

01:26:01.580 | cracks in the story of the person

01:26:05.660 | and the degree to which they exaggerate or lie

01:26:08.540 | or to see how much they could be trusted,

01:26:12.140 | that kind of stuff.

01:26:13.120 | - What I'm saying is that, through a conversation,

01:26:15.060 | you develop a baseline, right?

01:26:16.620 | Like, even just in the first part of our conversation,

01:26:20.140 | I've been able to create some baseline elements about you.

01:26:23.140 | You've been able to create baseline elements about me.

01:26:25.580 | Maybe they're just not front of mind.

01:26:27.640 | From those baselines, now we can push through

01:26:30.660 | more intentional questions to test--

01:26:34.340 | - Got it.

01:26:35.180 | - To test whether or not the person is being truthful

01:26:36.980 | because they're operating within their baseline

01:26:39.100 | or if you are triggering sensitivities

01:26:42.500 | outside of their baseline,

01:26:43.480 | and then you can start to see their tells.

01:26:45.480 | - That's fascinating.

01:26:46.320 | Yeah, baseline, even the tells, right?

01:26:49.200 | The eye contact.

01:26:50.620 | You've probably already formed a baseline

01:26:52.300 | that I have trouble making eye contact.

01:26:54.580 | And so, if you ask me difficult questions

01:26:56.900 | and I'm not making eye contact,

01:26:58.300 | maybe that's not a good signal of me lying

01:27:00.580 | or whatever. - Correct.

01:27:01.420 | - 'Cause I always have trouble making eye contact.

01:27:04.140 | Stuff like that, that's really fascinating.

01:27:05.980 | - The majority of your eye movement is to the right.

01:27:07.740 | - Yeah.

01:27:08.580 | - My, your right, my left, right?

01:27:10.300 | Which is usually someone who's,

01:27:11.560 | if you ask micro-expressionists,

01:27:13.460 | that's someone who's referencing fact.

01:27:15.620 | - Yeah.

01:27:16.460 | - That's not necessarily what's happening for you

01:27:18.020 | because you're pulling concepts out of the air.

01:27:19.780 | So, it's also a place

01:27:20.620 | that you reference something other than fact.

01:27:22.060 | It's a place for you to find creativity.

01:27:24.020 | So, if I just thought that you were lying

01:27:25.420 | because you look up into the right, I would be wrong.

01:27:28.020 | - That's so fascinating.

01:27:29.300 | And a lot of that has to do with like habits that are formed

01:27:32.140 | and all those kinds of things.

01:27:33.100 | Or maybe some right hand, left hand type of situation.

01:27:35.940 | - Right eye dominance.

01:27:36.860 | - Yeah, right eye dominance.

01:27:37.680 | - Is gonna make you look to the right.

01:27:39.060 | - Is this a science or an art?

01:27:40.800 | - It's a bit of both.

01:27:41.780 | I would say that like all good art,

01:27:44.200 | art is taught from a foundation of skills.

01:27:47.460 | And those skills are played,

01:27:51.060 | are taught in a very structured manner.

01:27:53.660 | And then the way that you use the skills after that,

01:27:57.300 | that's more of the artistic grace.

01:27:59.460 | So, I've always called espionage an art.

01:28:01.780 | Spying is an art.

01:28:03.500 | Being able to hack human beings is an art.

01:28:06.040 | But it's all based in a foundation of science.

01:28:08.260 | You still have to learn how to mix the color palette

01:28:10.300 | and use certain brushes.

01:28:11.640 | - Do you think of that as a kind of

01:28:15.540 | the study of human psychology?

01:28:17.540 | Is that what a psychologist does or a psychiatrist?

01:28:20.460 | What from this process have you learned

01:28:22.900 | about human nature?

01:28:25.700 | - Human nature? - Yeah.

01:28:26.660 | - I mean, I suppose the answer to that could be a book.

01:28:30.060 | But it probably will be a book.

01:28:32.260 | - I'll save you that, yeah.

01:28:33.300 | - But is there things that are surprising

01:28:37.700 | about human nature,

01:28:38.980 | surprising to us civilians that you could speak to?

01:28:43.460 | - Yes, one thing is extremely surprising

01:28:45.740 | about human nature, which is funny

01:28:48.500 | 'cause that's not the answer I would have said.

01:28:49.940 | So, I'm glad that you clarified this specific question.

01:28:52.880 | The thing that's surprising about human nature

01:28:55.900 | is that human beings long,

01:28:59.420 | like in their soul,

01:29:02.780 | there's like a painful longing to be with other people.

01:29:06.740 | And that's really surprising

01:29:08.700 | because we all wanna pretend like we're strong.

01:29:11.380 | We all wanna pretend like we're independent.

01:29:14.020 | We all wanna pretend like we are the masters

01:29:17.540 | of our destiny.

01:29:18.740 | But what's truly consistent in all people

01:29:22.100 | is this longing to commune with others like us.

01:29:27.100 | My more practical answer about what I've learned

01:29:33.180 | to be the truth is that human nature is predictable.

01:29:36.500 | And that predictability is what gives people

01:29:38.900 | an incredible advantage over other people.

01:29:41.800 | But that's not the surprising piece.

01:29:43.460 | I mean, even when CIA taught me

01:29:45.100 | that human nature is predictable, it just made sense.

01:29:47.460 | I was like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense."

01:29:49.060 | But what I never ever anticipated was,

01:29:52.660 | no matter where I've been in the world,

01:29:54.060 | no matter who I've talked to,

01:29:54.980 | no matter what socioeconomic bracket is that longing,

01:29:59.300 | man, it hurts.

01:30:01.020 | Loneliness sucks.

01:30:03.040 | And togetherness feels good,

01:30:04.500 | even if you're together with someone you know

01:30:06.060 | isn't the right person.

01:30:07.260 | It still feels better than being alone.

01:30:09.300 | - I mean, that's such a deep truth you speak to.

01:30:11.340 | And I could talk about that for a long time.

01:30:15.060 | There is, I mean, through these conversations,

01:30:17.980 | in general, whether it's being recorded or not,

01:30:20.580 | I hunger to discover in the other person that longing.

01:30:26.940 | You strip away the other things,

01:30:29.300 | and then you share in the longing for that connection.

01:30:32.500 | And I particularly also detected that

01:30:34.860 | in people from all walks of life,

01:30:40.300 | including people that others might identify as evil,

01:30:45.140 | or hard, as completely cold.

01:30:50.140 | It's there.

01:30:52.620 | - It's there.

01:30:53.440 | They've hardened themselves in their search.

01:30:56.980 | And who knows what dark place their brain is in,

01:30:59.140 | their heart is in, but that longing is still there.

01:31:03.640 | Even if it's an ember, it's there.

01:31:06.260 | It's the reason why in World War I and World War II,

01:31:11.260 | enemy combatants still shared cigarettes

01:31:13.900 | on the front lines during periods of holidays,

01:31:17.380 | or bad weather, or whatever else,

01:31:18.940 | because that human connection, man, it triumphs overall.

01:31:22.900 | - See, that's in part of what I refer to when I say love,

01:31:27.900 | because I feel like if political leaders

01:31:31.940 | and people in conflict at the small scale

01:31:34.740 | and the large scale were able to tune into that longing,

01:31:42.300 | to seek in each other that basic longing

01:31:45.340 | for human connection, a lot of problems could be solved.

01:31:49.460 | But of course, it's difficult,

01:31:53.000 | because it's a game of chicken.

01:31:56.000 | If you open yourself up to reveal that longing

01:32:00.700 | for connection with others, people can hurt you.

01:32:03.760 | - Well, I would go a step farther,

01:32:04.940 | and I would say that taking the connection away,

01:32:08.940 | punishing, penalizing people by removing the connection

01:32:13.940 | is a powerful tool, and that's what we see.

01:32:18.140 | That's why we send people to jail.

01:32:20.060 | That's why we put economic sanctions on countries.

01:32:22.340 | That's why we ground our children

01:32:24.300 | and send them to their rooms.

01:32:25.900 | We are penalizing them, whether we know it or not.

01:32:28.820 | We're using punitive damage by taking away

01:32:32.300 | that basic human connection, that longing for community.

01:32:36.460 | What was your recruitment process and training process

01:32:40.460 | and things you could speak to in the CIA?

01:32:45.460 | - As I was leaving the Air Force, all that was on my mind,

01:32:50.060 | I don't know what you were like at 27,

01:32:52.580 | but I was a total dipshit at 27.

01:32:55.000 | I'm not much better now at 42, but--

01:32:56.940 | - Yeah, you and me both.

01:32:58.300 | (Lyle laughs)

01:33:00.660 | Think until you make it.

01:33:01.660 | - Yeah, but I was like, I just wanted to be anything

01:33:05.020 | other than a military officer.

01:33:06.960 | So I was actually in the process of applying

01:33:09.520 | to the Peace Corps through this thing called the internet,

01:33:12.340 | which was still fairly rudimentary in 2007.

01:33:16.020 | I had a computer lab that we went to,

01:33:18.700 | and it had 10 computers in it,

01:33:20.220 | and you had to log in and log out

01:33:21.500 | and slow internet and everything else.

01:33:22.980 | But anyways, I was filling out an online application

01:33:25.340 | to go work in the US Peace Corps.

01:33:28.020 | I wanted to grow my hair out.

01:33:29.980 | I wanted to stop wearing shoes that were shiny.

01:33:33.140 | I wanted to meet a hippie chick

01:33:35.140 | and have hippie babies in the wild,

01:33:37.300 | teaching Nigerian children how to read.

01:33:40.460 | So that was the path I was going down.

01:33:42.580 | And as I filled in all of my details,

01:33:45.520 | there came this page that popped up,

01:33:47.380 | and it was this blinking red page,

01:33:48.820 | and it said, "Stop here.

01:33:50.340 | "You may qualify for other government positions.

01:33:53.180 | "If you're willing to put your application on hold

01:33:55.800 | "for 72 hours, that gives us a chance to reach out to you."

01:33:59.820 | So again, 27-year-old dipshit, I was like,

01:34:03.020 | "Sure, I'll put myself on hold

01:34:05.020 | "if I might qualify for other government opportunities."

01:34:07.420 | And then about a day later, I got a phone call

01:34:09.520 | from an almost unlisted number.

01:34:11.880 | It just said 703, which was very strange to see

01:34:15.020 | on my flip phone at the time, just one 703 area code.

01:34:18.660 | And I picked it up, and it was a person

01:34:23.420 | from Northern Virginia asking me if I would be,

01:34:26.020 | telling me that I was qualified for a position

01:34:28.740 | in national security, and if I would be interested,

01:34:30.860 | they'll pay for my ticket and fly me up

01:34:32.900 | to Langley, Virginia.

01:34:35.140 | They didn't say CIA, they said Langley.

01:34:37.940 | I put one and one together, and I was like,

01:34:39.220 | "Maybe this is CIA."

01:34:41.060 | Like, how cool is this?

01:34:43.100 | Or maybe this is all make-believe, and this is totally fake.

01:34:45.340 | So either way, it doesn't hurt me at all to say yes.

01:34:47.620 | They already have my phone number, so yes, yes, yes.

01:34:50.500 | And then I remember thinking,

01:34:52.040 | "There's no way that happened, and this isn't real."

01:34:54.780 | And then a day later, I got a FedEx,

01:34:57.580 | or an overnight delivery of an airplane ticket

01:35:00.180 | and a hotel reservation and a rental car reservation.

01:35:03.260 | And then I just kept doing the next thing,

01:35:05.700 | which I found out later on is a form of control.

01:35:07.860 | You just do the next thing that they tell you to do.

01:35:10.540 | And then before I knew it, I was interviewing

01:35:12.460 | in a nondescript building with a person

01:35:15.020 | who only told me their first name

01:35:17.140 | for a position with the National Clandestine Service.

01:35:19.380 | - So you never really got a chance to think about it

01:35:21.300 | because there's small steps along the way,

01:35:23.100 | and it kinda just leads you,

01:35:24.620 | and maybe your personality is such that,

01:35:29.940 | that's an adventure.

01:35:30.820 | - It's an adventure, and you don't,

01:35:33.020 | because it's one step at a time,

01:35:34.300 | you don't necessarily see the negative consequences

01:35:36.460 | of the adventure.

01:35:37.300 | You don't think about any of that.

01:35:38.980 | You're just stepping into the adventure

01:35:41.660 | one step at a time. - And it's easy.

01:35:42.500 | There's no work involved.

01:35:43.680 | Somebody else is doing all the work,

01:35:44.980 | telling me where to be and when.

01:35:46.400 | It's a lot like basic training in the military.

01:35:48.340 | Anybody who's ever been through basic training

01:35:49.860 | will tell you they hated the first few days,

01:35:52.220 | and then by the end, it was really comforting

01:35:54.540 | because you just did what you were told.

01:35:56.460 | They told you when to eat,

01:35:57.540 | they made the decision of what to eat,

01:35:59.260 | and then you just, you marched when they told you to march,

01:36:01.300 | shined your shoes when they told you to shine your shoes.

01:36:03.020 | Human beings love being told what to do.

01:36:06.380 | - What about the training process

01:36:08.740 | for becoming a covert CIA agent?

01:36:14.900 | - Yeah, so the interview process is--

01:36:19.020 | - Yeah, the interview process too.

01:36:20.380 | Was that, how rigorous was that?

01:36:22.220 | - It was very rigorous.

01:36:23.820 | That was where it became difficult.

01:36:26.100 | Everything up to the first interview was easy,

01:36:28.620 | but there's three interviews,

01:36:30.340 | and some people are lucky enough

01:36:31.580 | to have four or five interviews if something goes wrong

01:36:34.580 | or something goes awry with the first few interviews.

01:36:37.660 | And again, this might be dated from what I went through,

01:36:39.980 | but during the interview process is when they start,

01:36:43.400 | they do your psychological evaluations,

01:36:45.580 | they do your, they do personality assessments,

01:36:50.580 | they do skills assessments.

01:36:53.060 | They'll start sending you back to your,

01:36:55.080 | wherever you're living with assignments.

01:36:57.860 | Not Intel assignments,

01:36:59.860 | but actual like homework assignments.

01:37:02.740 | Write an essay about three parts of the world

01:37:05.500 | that you think will be most impacted

01:37:08.120 | in the next three to five years,

01:37:09.460 | or prioritize the top three strategic priorities

01:37:12.820 | for the United States,

01:37:13.700 | and put it into 250 words or 2,500 words

01:37:17.900 | and whatever else, double-spaced in this font,

01:37:20.620 | yada, yada, yada, like super specific stuff.

01:37:22.580 | It's kind of stressful,

01:37:24.220 | but it's just like going back to college again.

01:37:26.060 | So you go through all of those acts,

01:37:27.820 | and then you submit this stuff to some PO box

01:37:30.700 | that doesn't have,

01:37:31.980 | anybody's ever gonna respond to you.

01:37:33.180 | And then you hope, you just send it into the ether,

01:37:36.300 | and you hope that you sent it right.

01:37:38.420 | You hope that you wrote well enough.

01:37:40.100 | You hope that your assessment was right,

01:37:42.460 | whatever else it might be.

01:37:43.340 | And then eventually you get another phone call that says,

01:37:45.660 | "Hey, we received your package.

01:37:46.820 | You've been moved to the next level of interview.

01:37:49.540 | And now we need you to go to this other

01:37:51.300 | nondescript building in this other nondescript city."

01:37:53.580 | And then you start meeting,

01:37:55.660 | you start sitting in waiting rooms

01:37:59.540 | with other groups of people

01:38:00.540 | who are at the same phase of interview with you,

01:38:02.660 | which were some of the coolest experiences

01:38:04.540 | that I remember still.

01:38:05.900 | One of my best friends to this day,

01:38:07.340 | who I don't get to talk to 'cause he's still undercover,

01:38:10.260 | is a guy I met during those interview processes.

01:38:12.260 | And I was like, "Oh, we met.

01:38:14.140 | I saw what he was wearing.

01:38:14.980 | He saw what I was wearing.

01:38:16.820 | I was brown." - So you immediately connected,

01:38:18.340 | and you liked the people there.

01:38:19.780 | - Close.

01:38:20.620 | More like we immediately judge each other

01:38:22.620 | 'cause we're all untrained.

01:38:24.060 | So he looked at me and he was like,

01:38:26.100 | "Brown dude with crazy hair."

01:38:27.740 | And I was wearing, dude, I was dressed like a total ass.

01:38:29.780 | I was dressed in a clubbing shirt.

01:38:32.700 | I don't know why I thought it'd be a good idea

01:38:33.900 | to go to a CIA interview in a clubbing shirt

01:38:36.500 | with my buttons on button down to here.

01:38:39.180 | And he was like, "Yeah, you were really..."

01:38:40.540 | After we got in, he was like,

01:38:42.060 | "Yeah, dude, you were always really cool to talk to."

01:38:43.780 | But I was like, "There's no way that idiot's getting in."

01:38:46.780 | And I remember looking at him and being like,

01:38:47.940 | "Dude, you were just another white guy in a black suit.

01:38:50.180 | They're not looking for you, but here you are."

01:38:52.540 | So it was just those kinds of things were so interesting

01:38:54.420 | 'cause we were totally wrong about what CIA was looking for.

01:38:56.820 | Until you're in, you have no idea what they're looking for.

01:38:59.900 | And you're just shooting in the dark.

01:39:02.620 | - Did they have you do a lie detector test?

01:39:05.820 | - Yes, it's called a polygraph.

01:39:07.380 | - Polygraph.

01:39:08.540 | How effective, just interesting,

01:39:09.980 | for our previous discussion, how effective are those?

01:39:12.780 | - Polygraphs are really interesting.

01:39:14.040 | So one of the things that people don't understand

01:39:16.380 | about polygraphs is that polygraphs

01:39:17.860 | aren't meant to detect a lie.

01:39:19.420 | Like they're called a lie detector,

01:39:21.340 | but they're not actually meant to detect a lie.

01:39:23.820 | They're built to detect variance

01:39:27.220 | from your physiological baseline.

01:39:29.640 | So they're essentially meant to identify sensitivities

01:39:33.320 | to certain types of questions.

01:39:35.180 | And then as they identify a sensitivity to a question,

01:39:37.360 | it gives the interviewer an additional piece of information

01:39:40.580 | to direct the next round of questions.

01:39:42.980 | So then from there, they can kind of see how sensitive

01:39:45.100 | you are to a certain level of questions.

01:39:46.820 | And your sensitivity could be a sign of dishonesty,

01:39:50.700 | but it could also be a sign of vulnerability.

01:39:54.460 | So the interrogator themselves, the interviewer themselves,

01:39:57.340 | they're the one that have to make the judgment call

01:39:59.820 | as to which one it is,

01:40:00.660 | which is why you might see multiple interviewers

01:40:03.540 | over the course of multiple polygraphs.

01:40:05.820 | But that's really what they're all about.

01:40:07.360 | So, I mean, outside of, they're extremely uncomfortable.

01:40:11.220 | Like they're mentally uncomfortable,

01:40:13.340 | but then there's also, you sit on a pad

01:40:15.740 | because the pad is supposed to be able to tell

01:40:17.500 | your body movements, but also your sphincter,

01:40:20.420 | contractions or whatever.

01:40:22.180 | So you're sitting on this pad, you're plugged in,

01:40:24.540 | you're strapped in, you're tied up,

01:40:26.300 | and it takes so much time to get in there.

01:40:28.020 | And then they start asking you questions,

01:40:30.060 | baseline questions at first,

01:40:31.220 | and then other questions from there.

01:40:33.260 | And you're just answering the best you can.

01:40:35.260 | And you never know what they're seeing

01:40:36.320 | and you don't know what they're doing.

01:40:37.160 | And it's really hard not to get anxious of that anyways.

01:40:39.620 | - Are they the whole time monitoring the readings?

01:40:42.340 | - Yeah, from like a big, they've got multiple screens

01:40:45.020 | and they've got just, it's all information superiority.

01:40:47.840 | They have information superiority.

01:40:50.000 | You're the idiot looking away from them

01:40:51.480 | or looking sideways of them and trying not to move

01:40:54.680 | because you're afraid that if you like have gas

01:40:57.060 | or if you move a little bit,

01:40:57.920 | it's gonna bury you from your baseline.

01:40:59.640 | And the whole time you're worried,

01:41:00.560 | your heart's racing and your blood pressure is increasing,

01:41:02.400 | which is a variance from baseline.

01:41:04.360 | So yeah, I mean, it's an interesting art.

01:41:06.520 | - Or your baseline. - Correct.

01:41:08.040 | - Maybe there's some people that are just chilling

01:41:09.600 | the whole time and that's their baseline.

01:41:11.840 | - Right, right.

01:41:12.920 | - But that's what they're doing, they're establishing.

01:41:14.920 | I mean, I guess that means the polygraph

01:41:16.880 | is a skill that you develop to do it well.

01:41:21.880 | - So when people talk about beating a lie detector,

01:41:24.400 | it's not that they're telling an effective lie.

01:41:26.240 | That's not hard.

01:41:27.060 | It's not hard to tell a lie to an interviewer.

01:41:30.220 | And the interviewer doesn't care if you're being honest

01:41:33.120 | or not honest about a topic.

01:41:34.300 | What they're looking for is sensitivity.

01:41:36.800 | If they see no sensitivity, that's a big sign for them.

01:41:40.740 | That's a big sign that you're probably a pathological liar.

01:41:43.540 | If you show sensitivity to many things,

01:41:46.920 | then that's a sign that you're probably an anxious person.

01:41:49.320 | And they can still reset their baseline

01:41:51.680 | because they can tell how your anxiety is increasing

01:41:54.480 | in 15-minute increments.

01:41:56.720 | It's a unique skill.

01:41:58.560 | I mean, a really good polygrapher is immensely valuable.

01:42:02.040 | But yeah, it's the misnomers, the misconceptions

01:42:04.920 | about polygraphs are vast.

01:42:07.240 | - You also mentioned personality tests.

01:42:09.560 | That's really interesting.

01:42:10.960 | So how effective are personality tests,

01:42:14.020 | one for the hiring process,

01:42:15.380 | but also for understanding a human being?

01:42:17.340 | - So personality is extremely important

01:42:19.860 | for understanding a human being.

01:42:20.860 | And I would say that there's 1,000 different ways

01:42:22.780 | of looking at personality.

01:42:23.620 | The only one that I count with any significance is the MBTI.

01:42:28.100 | And the MBTI is what all the leading spy agencies

01:42:30.540 | around the world use as well.

01:42:32.460 | - Well, that's kind of interesting to hear.

01:42:34.020 | - Oh, yeah.

01:42:34.860 | - 'Cause there's been criticisms of that kind of test.

01:42:36.540 | - There have been criticisms for a long time.

01:42:38.420 | - Yeah, and you think there's value.

01:42:40.220 | - Absolutely, absolutely.

01:42:41.380 | And there's a few reasons why, right?

01:42:43.140 | So first, MBTI makes the claim

01:42:45.540 | that your core personality doesn't change over time.

01:42:49.220 | And that's how it's calibrated.

01:42:51.720 | And one of the big arguments is that people say

01:42:53.300 | that your personality can change over time.

01:42:55.740 | Now, in my experience, the MBTI is exactly correct.

01:42:59.620 | Your core personality does not change

01:43:01.660 | because your core personality is defined

01:43:04.380 | as your personality when all resources are removed.

01:43:08.880 | So essentially, your emergency mode, your dire conditions,

01:43:13.300 | that is your core personality.

01:43:15.580 | We can all act a little more extroverted.

01:43:18.280 | We can all be a little more empathetic

01:43:21.680 | when we have tons of time and money and patience.

01:43:25.060 | When you strip away all that time, money, and patience,

01:43:27.180 | how empathetic are you?

01:43:28.700 | How much do you like being around other people?

01:43:31.300 | How much do you like being alone?

01:43:33.060 | Do you make judgments or do you analyze information?

01:43:37.140 | That's what's so powerful about MBTI

01:43:38.860 | is it's talking about what people are like

01:43:40.600 | when you strip away resources.

01:43:42.320 | And then, because it's so consistent,

01:43:44.280 | it's also only four codes.

01:43:46.380 | It's super easy to be able to assess a human being

01:43:49.740 | through a dialogue, through a series of conversations,

01:43:54.020 | to be able to hone in with high accuracy

01:43:57.420 | what is there for code, four-letter code.

01:44:00.620 | There's only 16 options, and it becomes extremely valuable.

01:44:04.120 | Is it perfectly precise, and does everybody do it the same?

01:44:08.560 | I mean, those things, the answers to those are no,

01:44:10.920 | but is it operationally useful in a short period of time?

01:44:15.200 | That is a resoundingly powerful yes.

01:44:18.240 | - Yeah, I only know, I think, the first letter.

01:44:20.320 | It's introverted and extroverted, right?

01:44:22.320 | I've taken the test before,

01:44:25.480 | just a crude version of the test,

01:44:27.640 | and that's the same problem you have with IQ tests.

01:44:30.280 | There's the right, thorough way of doing it,

01:44:33.200 | and then there's fun internet way.

01:44:34.920 | (Lex laughs)

01:44:35.880 | And do you mind sharing what your personality--

01:44:40.880 | - My type index? - Yes.

01:44:44.240 | - I'm an ENTP.

01:44:45.780 | That's an extrovert, intuitor, perceiver, thinker.

01:44:49.120 | ENT, thinker, P, perceiver.

01:44:54.320 | My wife is an ISFJ, which is the polar opposite of me.

01:44:59.200 | E, I'm extroverted, she's introverted.

01:45:01.280 | I'm an intuitor, she's a sensor.

01:45:03.020 | I'm a thinker, she's a feeler.

01:45:05.920 | I'm a perceiver, she's a judger.

01:45:07.520 | - Is there good science on long-term successful relationships

01:45:12.120 | in terms of the dynamics of that, the 16?

01:45:15.160 | I wonder if there's good data on this.

01:45:17.440 | - I don't think there's a lot of good data

01:45:19.700 | in personalities writ large,

01:45:22.000 | because there's not a lot of money to be made

01:45:24.580 | in personality testing, but I would say

01:45:27.240 | that with experience, with a good MBTI test,

01:45:32.240 | with a good paid test, a 400, 500 question test,

01:45:38.880 | once you understand your own code,

01:45:41.240 | and then you're taught how to assess the code of others,

01:45:44.900 | with those two things kind of combined,

01:45:46.640 | 'cause then you have experience in learning,

01:45:48.800 | it becomes very useful, and you can have high confidence

01:45:53.800 | in the conclusions that you reach

01:45:55.800 | about people's professions,

01:45:58.040 | about people's relationships with family,

01:46:00.560 | about people's relationships professionally,

01:46:02.480 | people's capabilities to deal with stress,

01:46:04.920 | how people will perform when pushed

01:46:07.600 | outside of their comfort zones.

01:46:09.360 | Really, really powerful, useful stuff in corporate world

01:46:12.400 | and in the espionage world.

01:46:14.120 | - So in terms of compressed representation

01:46:16.840 | of another human being,

01:46:18.260 | you can't do much better than those four letters.

01:46:22.000 | - I don't believe you can do much better.

01:46:23.240 | In my experience, I have not seen anything better.

01:46:26.360 | - Yeah, it is kind of, it's difficult to realize

01:46:30.800 | that there is a core personality,

01:46:32.080 | or to the degree that's true, it seems to be true.

01:46:35.600 | It's even more difficult to realize

01:46:38.040 | that there is a stable, at least the science says so,

01:46:42.720 | a stable, consistent intelligence, unfortunately.

01:46:47.720 | You know, the G factor that they call.

01:46:51.000 | That if you do a barrage of IQ tests,

01:46:53.260 | that's going to consistently represent that G factor.

01:46:57.080 | And we're all born with that, and we can't fix it.

01:46:59.160 | And that defines so much of who we are.

01:47:01.880 | It's sad.

01:47:03.040 | - I don't see it as sad, because it's, for me,

01:47:06.280 | the faster you learn it, the faster you learn

01:47:08.960 | what your own sort of natural strengths and weaknesses are,

01:47:13.960 | the faster you get to stop wasting time

01:47:16.360 | on things that you're never gonna be good at,

01:47:19.200 | and you get to double down on the things

01:47:21.160 | that you're already naturally skilled or interested in.

01:47:23.560 | So there's always a silver lining to a cloud.

01:47:26.600 | But I know now that I will never be a ballerina,

01:47:29.640 | or a ballerino.

01:47:30.880 | I know that I'll never be an artist.

01:47:32.200 | I'll never be a musician.

01:47:33.780 | I'll never be any of those things.

01:47:35.280 | And when I was 18, that might have made me sad.

01:47:37.640 | But now at 42, I'm like, well, shit, awesome.

01:47:40.640 | I can go be something else good,

01:47:42.880 | instead of always being bad.

01:47:44.160 | - Why do you think you're not gonna be a ballerina?

01:47:46.680 | - Because I'm not graceful.

01:47:48.560 | - And you've learned this through years of experience.

01:47:51.640 | - Yeah, exactly.

01:47:52.640 | - Well, I don't know if there's an MBTI equivalent

01:47:54.680 | for grace of movement.

01:47:56.880 | - I think it's called S, sensor.

01:47:58.880 | - Oh.

01:47:59.700 | - Yeah, because a sensor is someone who's able to interact

01:48:02.840 | with the world around them

01:48:03.680 | through their five senses very effectively.

01:48:06.140 | Like if you talk to dancers,

01:48:07.440 | dancers can actually feel the grace

01:48:09.760 | in all of their muscles.

01:48:10.760 | They know what position their finger is in.

01:48:13.560 | I don't have any idea.

01:48:14.400 | I don't know what position my feet are in right now.

01:48:15.940 | I'd have to look to make sure

01:48:17.360 | I actually feel the floor right.

01:48:18.600 | - Yeah, I definitely have.

01:48:20.320 | Oh, that's good to know.

01:48:21.360 | So I don't, you know, I'm not a dancer,

01:48:23.480 | but I do have that.

01:48:25.640 | - You're a musician, man.

01:48:26.840 | Like to be able to pluck a guitar.

01:48:29.480 | - Sure, yeah, that's true,

01:48:30.760 | that there is that physical component.

01:48:32.360 | But I think deeper,

01:48:33.800 | 'cause there's a technical aspect to that

01:48:35.880 | that's just like, it's less about feel,

01:48:39.000 | but I do know jujitsu and grappling.

01:48:41.960 | I've done it all my life.

01:48:43.540 | I don't, you know, there's some people who are clumsy

01:48:46.620 | and they drop stuff all the time.

01:48:47.720 | They run into stuff.

01:48:49.160 | I don't, first of all, I don't know how that happens,

01:48:51.960 | but to me, I just have an awareness of stuff.

01:48:54.720 | Like if there's a little--

01:48:55.560 | - A spiritual orientation.

01:48:56.840 | - Yeah, like I know that there's a small object

01:49:00.560 | I have to step over and I have a good sense of that.

01:49:03.800 | It's so interesting.

01:49:05.000 | Yeah, you're just like born with that or something.

01:49:06.520 | - My wife is brilliant and she still walks into doors.

01:49:09.600 | - Yeah.

01:49:10.440 | - I mean, she'll walk in a doorway,

01:49:11.820 | she'll bang her knee on the same wall

01:49:13.320 | that's been there for the last 50 years.

01:49:15.280 | - It's for some reason really hilarious.

01:49:17.280 | That's good for me.

01:49:18.120 | (Lex laughing)

01:49:20.300 | You've been asked, I think on Reddit,

01:49:23.360 | are there big secrets that you know

01:49:25.240 | that could land you and our country in terrible trouble

01:49:28.280 | if it came out to the public?

01:49:29.480 | And you answered, yes, I wish I could forget them.

01:49:32.940 | So let me ask you just about secrecy in general.

01:49:36.700 | Are these secrets or just other secrets,

01:49:39.160 | ones that the public will never know

01:49:43.240 | or will it come out in 10, 20, 50 years?

01:49:47.360 | I guess the deeper question is

01:49:49.520 | what is the value of secrecy and transparency?

01:49:53.560 | - The standard classification

01:49:56.840 | for all human intelligence operations

01:49:59.240 | is something called 25X2, 25 by two.

01:50:03.300 | So 50 years, 25 years times two years or times two rounds.

01:50:07.640 | So in essence, anything that I've seen

01:50:11.320 | has the first chance of becoming public domain,

01:50:15.120 | declassified after 50 years,

01:50:17.360 | unless there's some congressional requirement

01:50:19.880 | for it to be reviewed and assessed earlier.

01:50:22.200 | So by then, I'll be 80 something years old

01:50:24.680 | or potentially dead, which is either way.

01:50:28.000 | That's when it can come out

01:50:31.020 | according to its typical classification.

01:50:34.240 | The value of secrets I have seen

01:50:39.040 | is that secrets create space.

01:50:42.820 | Secrets give opportunity for security,

01:50:48.520 | they give opportunity for thinking, they give space.

01:50:52.080 | And space is an incredibly advantageous thing to have.

01:50:55.100 | If you know something somebody else doesn't know,

01:50:57.060 | even if it's just 15 or 20 minutes different,

01:50:59.760 | you can direct, you can change the course of fate.

01:51:02.600 | So I find secrets to be extremely valuable,

01:51:05.420 | extremely useful.

01:51:07.720 | Even at the place where secrets

01:51:10.040 | are being kept from a large mass,

01:51:12.340 | part of what all Americans need to understand

01:51:15.520 | is that one of the trade-offs

01:51:19.280 | to building a system of government

01:51:23.940 | that allows us to be first world

01:51:26.120 | and wealthy and secure and successful,

01:51:28.480 | one of the trade-offs is that we have given up

01:51:30.680 | a great deal of personal freedom.

01:51:32.560 | And one of the personal freedoms that we give up

01:51:34.700 | is the freedom of knowing what we wanna know.

01:51:39.020 | You get to know what the government tells you,

01:51:41.460 | you get to know what you need to know

01:51:43.060 | or what you've learned yourself,

01:51:44.420 | but you don't get to know secrets.

01:51:47.000 | People who do get to know secrets know them for a reason.

01:51:49.740 | That's why it's called a need to know.

01:51:51.840 | - How difficult is it to maintain secrecy?

01:51:54.460 | - It's surprisingly difficult as technology changes.

01:51:58.620 | It's also surprisingly difficult

01:52:02.380 | as our culture becomes one where people want notoriety.

01:52:06.740 | People wanna be the person who breaks the secret.

01:52:09.480 | 25 years ago, 40 years ago, that wasn't the case.

01:52:13.060 | There was a time in the United States

01:52:14.380 | where if someone gave you a secret,

01:52:16.660 | it was a point of personal honor not to share the secret.

01:52:20.060 | Now we're in a place where if someone tells you a secret,

01:52:22.580 | like that could turn into a Twitter post

01:52:24.940 | that gets you a bunch of thumbs up

01:52:26.340 | and a bunch of likes or whatever else.

01:52:27.500 | - An opportunity.

01:52:28.320 | - Right, so the value of secrets has changed.

01:52:31.220 | And now there's almost a greater value on exposing secrets

01:52:34.180 | than there is on keeping secrets.

01:52:36.300 | That makes it difficult to keep secrets,

01:52:38.380 | especially when technology is going in the same direction.

01:52:40.780 | - Yeah, where is the line?

01:52:43.120 | And by the way, I'm one of those old school people

01:52:45.060 | with the secrets.

01:52:46.020 | I think it's a karma thing.

01:52:51.020 | Again, back to the trust.

01:52:52.980 | I think in the short term,

01:52:54.340 | you can benefit by sharing a secret.

01:52:57.260 | But in the long term, if people know they can trust you,

01:53:00.300 | like the juicy of the secret, it's a test of sorts.

01:53:05.060 | If they know you can keep that secret,

01:53:07.880 | that means you're somebody that can be trusted.

01:53:10.100 | And I believe that not just effectiveness in this life,

01:53:14.140 | but happiness in this life is informing a circle

01:53:17.380 | of people you can trust.

01:53:18.700 | - Right, we're taught that secrets and lies are similar

01:53:22.220 | in that they have a limited shelf life.

01:53:24.300 | If you treat them like food,

01:53:26.380 | secrets and lies have a very limited shelf life.

01:53:29.200 | So if you cash in on them while they're still fresh,

01:53:33.100 | you beat them before they spoil.

01:53:35.740 | You get to take advantage of them before they spoil.

01:53:38.100 | However, trust has no limit to its shelf life.

01:53:43.100 | So it's almost like you're trading a short term victory

01:53:46.420 | and losing a long term victory.

01:53:48.340 | It's always better to keep the secret.

01:53:50.580 | It's always better to let the lie live

01:53:53.620 | because it will eventually come to light

01:53:56.080 | from somebody else, not from you,

01:53:57.940 | because it already has a limited shelf life.

01:53:59.840 | But what you win in exchange for not being the one

01:54:02.400 | that cashed in on the secret is immense trust.

01:54:05.500 | - Let me ask you about lying and trust and so on.

01:54:12.560 | So I don't believe I've been contacted by

01:54:15.680 | or interacted with the CIA, the MI6, the FSB,

01:54:20.040 | Mossad, or any other intelligence agency.

01:54:22.800 | I'm kind of offended.

01:54:26.600 | But would I know if I was, so from your perspective?

01:54:31.300 | - No, you would not know if you were.

01:54:33.420 | For sure you've been on their radar.

01:54:35.040 | Absolutely, you've got a file.

01:54:36.620 | You've got a dossier somewhere.

01:54:38.100 | - Why would I be on their radar?

01:54:39.540 | - Because you're-- - Who's interesting?

01:54:41.540 | - It's not necessarily that you are interesting

01:54:46.300 | to someone as a foreign asset

01:54:48.900 | or an intelligence collection source,

01:54:51.680 | but your network is extremely interesting.

01:54:54.460 | - The networks are important.

01:54:55.740 | - Correct, if someone had access to,

01:54:57.880 | if someone was able to clone your phone,

01:54:59.880 | every time you cross a border,

01:55:02.520 | you go through some sort of security.

01:55:04.820 | If you've ever been pulled into secondary

01:55:06.500 | and separated from your bag,

01:55:08.120 | that's exactly when and how people clone computers,

01:55:10.700 | they clone phones, they make whatever,

01:55:13.300 | photocopies of your old school planner,

01:55:17.340 | whatever it might be.

01:55:18.440 | But for sure, you are an intelligence target.

01:55:23.160 | It just may be that you're not suitable

01:55:24.880 | to be a person who reports foreign intelligence.

01:55:28.880 | We've gotta understand that all people

01:55:30.920 | are potential sources of valuable information

01:55:33.360 | to the national security infrastructure

01:55:35.620 | of our host country and any country that we visit.

01:55:39.000 | Someone like you with your public footprint,

01:55:41.520 | with your notoriety, with your educational background,

01:55:43.920 | with your national identifications

01:55:46.760 | becomes a viable and valuable target of information.

01:55:50.920 | - Yeah, so to speak to that,

01:55:55.080 | I take security pretty seriously,

01:55:58.200 | but not to the degree that it runs my life,

01:56:03.200 | which I'm very careful about.

01:56:05.880 | - That's good, I'm glad to hear that.

01:56:07.760 | - So the moment you start to think about germs,

01:56:10.720 | like you start to freak out

01:56:14.120 | and you become sort of paralyzed by the stress of it.

01:56:17.360 | So you have to balance those two things.

01:56:19.360 | If you think about all the things

01:56:22.640 | that could hurt you in this world

01:56:24.000 | and all the risk you could take,

01:56:25.660 | it can overwhelm your life.

01:56:29.200 | That said, the cyber world is a weird world

01:56:32.640 | because it doesn't have the same,

01:56:34.880 | I know not to cross the street without looking each way

01:56:39.320 | because there's a physical intuition about it.

01:56:42.280 | I'm not sure, I'm a computer science guy,

01:56:45.040 | so I have some intuition, but the cyber world,

01:56:49.720 | it's really hard to build up an intuition

01:56:51.600 | of what is safe and not.

01:56:53.280 | I've seen a lot of people just logging out of your devices

01:56:57.640 | all the time, like regularly.

01:56:59.720 | Just like that physical access step

01:57:01.760 | is a lot of people don't take.

01:57:03.360 | I can just like walk in into the offices of a lot of CEOs

01:57:07.920 | and it's like everything's wide open

01:57:10.000 | for physical access of those systems,

01:57:13.480 | which is kind of incredible for somebody,

01:57:16.720 | that sounds really shady, but it's not.

01:57:18.400 | I've written key loggers,

01:57:20.360 | like things that record everything you type

01:57:22.000 | in the miles you move.

01:57:23.480 | And I did that for, during my PhD,

01:57:27.680 | I was recording everything you do on your device

01:57:30.160 | and everything you do on your computer.

01:57:32.800 | Like people sign up to the study,

01:57:34.240 | they willingly do this to understand behavior.

01:57:37.240 | I was trying to use machine learning

01:57:38.480 | to identify who you are based on different biometric

01:57:42.200 | and behavioral things,

01:57:43.960 | which allows me to study human behavior

01:57:46.080 | and to see which is uniquely identifiable.

01:57:49.560 | And the goal there was to remove

01:57:51.280 | the need for a password.

01:57:53.120 | But how easy it is to write a thing

01:57:56.080 | that logs everything you type,

01:57:58.240 | I was like, wait a minute,

01:57:59.680 | like I can probably get a lot of people in the world

01:58:03.000 | to run this for me.

01:58:04.240 | I can then get all of their passwords.

01:58:06.680 | I mean, you could do so much.

01:58:10.840 | Like I can run the entirety of the CIA

01:58:13.080 | for just myself if I was,

01:58:16.560 | and I imagine there's a lot of really good hackers

01:58:18.440 | like that out there, much better than me.

01:58:21.360 | So I tried to prevent myself from being

01:58:25.800 | all the different low-hanging fruit

01:58:27.560 | attack vectors in my life.

01:58:29.440 | I tried to make it difficult to be that,

01:58:33.120 | but then I'm also aware that there's probably people

01:58:35.720 | that are like five steps ahead.

01:58:37.280 | - You're doing the right thing.

01:58:40.440 | What I always advocate is the low-hanging fruit

01:58:44.240 | is what keeps you from being a target of opportunity.

01:58:46.800 | Because you're half-assed hackers,

01:58:49.960 | you're lazy hackers, you're unskilled hackers.

01:58:53.280 | They're looking for low-hanging fruit.

01:58:54.720 | They're looking for the person who gets the Nigeria email

01:58:57.240 | about how you could be getting $5 million

01:58:59.120 | if you just give me your bank account.

01:59:00.520 | - Exactly.

01:59:01.360 | - That's what they're looking for.

01:59:03.640 | The thing that's scary is that

01:59:04.800 | if you're not a target of opportunity,

01:59:06.400 | if you become a intentional target,

01:59:09.160 | then there's almost nothing you can do.

01:59:11.840 | Because once you become an intentional target,

01:59:14.520 | then your security apparatus,

01:59:17.280 | they will create a dedicated, customized way vector

01:59:24.000 | of attacking your specific security apparatus.

01:59:27.240 | And because security is always after, right?

01:59:30.400 | There's always, there's the leading advantage

01:59:32.960 | and the trailing advantage.

01:59:34.960 | When it comes to attacks, the leader always has the advantage

01:59:38.280 | because they have to create the attack

01:59:40.120 | before anybody else can create a way to protect

01:59:43.160 | against the attack.

01:59:44.240 | So the attack always comes first.

01:59:45.640 | And that means they always have the advantage.

01:59:47.040 | You are always stuck just leaning on,

01:59:49.720 | this is the best security that I know of.

01:59:52.320 | Meanwhile, there's always somebody who can create a way

01:59:54.760 | of attacking the best security out there.

01:59:57.120 | And once they win, they have a monopoly.

01:59:59.160 | They have all that time

02:00:00.800 | until a new defensive countermeasure is deployed.

02:00:04.120 | - Yeah, I tend to think exactly as you said,

02:00:07.120 | that the low-hanging fruit protects against,

02:00:09.800 | yeah, crimes of opportunity.

02:00:11.760 | And then I assume that people can just hack in

02:00:15.240 | if they really want.

02:00:17.000 | - Think about how much anxiety we would be able to solve

02:00:19.000 | if everybody just accepted that.

02:00:21.480 | - Well, there's several things you do.

02:00:22.960 | First of all, to be honest, it just makes me,

02:00:26.800 | it keeps me honest.

02:00:28.720 | Not to be a douchebag or like not,

02:00:33.240 | yeah, to assume everything could be public.

02:00:39.840 | And so don't trade in information

02:00:43.640 | that could hurt people if it was made public.

02:00:46.060 | So I try to do that.

02:00:47.840 | And the thing I try to make sure is I,

02:00:52.240 | like Home Alone style, try to-

02:00:54.560 | - Booby trap.

02:00:55.480 | - I really would like to know if I was hacked.

02:00:58.960 | - Right.

02:00:59.800 | - And so I try to assume that I will be hacked and detect it.

02:01:04.800 | - Yeah, have a tripwire of some sort.

02:01:07.200 | - Yeah, tripwires through everything.

02:01:10.080 | And not paranoia tripwires, just like open door.

02:01:13.440 | But I think that's probably the future of life on this earth

02:01:17.540 | is you're going, like everybody of interest

02:01:19.440 | is going to be hacked.

02:01:20.620 | That hopefully inspires, now this is outside of company.

02:01:24.120 | There's, these are individuals.

02:01:25.960 | I mean, there's, of course, if you're actually operating,

02:01:30.100 | like I'm just a, who am I?

02:01:31.480 | I'm just a scientist person, podcasting person.

02:01:36.160 | So if I was actually running a company

02:01:41.160 | or was an integral part of some kind of military operation,

02:01:46.200 | then you have to probably have to have an entire team

02:01:49.560 | that's now doing that battle of like being,

02:01:52.880 | trying to be ahead of like the best hackers in the world

02:01:56.320 | that are attacking.

02:01:57.480 | But that requires a team that like full-time

02:02:00.200 | is their focus.

02:02:01.760 | Even then you still get in trouble.

02:02:03.440 | - Correct, yeah.

02:02:04.260 | - So what I've seen as the norm,

02:02:06.660 | well, what I've seen as the cutting edge standard

02:02:09.980 | for corporations and the ultra wealthy

02:02:13.300 | and even intelligence organizations

02:02:16.980 | is that we have tripwires.

02:02:19.340 | It's better, if you can't prevent from being hacked,

02:02:22.860 | the next best thing is to know as soon as you get hacked

02:02:26.620 | because then you can essentially terminate

02:02:28.940 | all the information.

02:02:30.500 | If you know it fast enough,

02:02:31.580 | you can just destroy the information.

02:02:32.900 | This is what the ultra wealthy do.

02:02:34.260 | They have multiple phones.

02:02:36.060 | So as soon as one phone gets hacked, the tripwire goes off.

02:02:38.860 | The operating system is totally deleted

02:02:40.460 | along with all data on the phone.

02:02:42.020 | And a second phone is turned on

02:02:44.380 | with a whole new separate set of metadata.

02:02:47.500 | And now they, for them, there's no break in service.

02:02:49.820 | It's just, oh, this phone went black.

02:02:52.020 | It's got a warning on it that says it was hacked.

02:02:54.180 | So trash it 'cause they don't care

02:02:55.500 | about the price of the phone.

02:02:56.420 | Pick up the next phone and we move on.

02:02:58.620 | That's the best thing that you can do essentially

02:03:01.060 | outside of trying to out-hack the hackers.

02:03:03.900 | And then even in your intelligence and military worlds

02:03:06.860 | where cyber warfare is active,

02:03:09.540 | the people who are aggressing

02:03:11.740 | are not trying to create aggression that beats security.

02:03:16.400 | They're trying to find aggressive techniques,

02:03:19.220 | offensive techniques that have no security

02:03:21.860 | built around them yet.

02:03:23.220 | Because it's too cost and time intensive

02:03:26.020 | to protect against what you know is coming.

02:03:28.740 | It's so much more efficient and cost-effective

02:03:30.880 | to go after new vectors.

02:03:32.780 | So it just becomes like,

02:03:34.740 | it becomes almost a silly game of,

02:03:38.820 | your neighbor gets a guard dog,

02:03:41.220 | so you get a bigger guard dog.

02:03:43.020 | And then your neighbor gets a fence,

02:03:45.020 | so you're just constantly outdoing each other.

02:03:46.340 | It's called the security paradigm.

02:03:48.580 | People just, they just one-up each other

02:03:50.700 | because it's never worth it to just get to the same level.

02:03:53.100 | You're always trying to outdo each other.

02:03:54.620 | - Yeah, and then maybe like banks have to fight that fight,

02:03:58.140 | but not everybody can. - Not us, right.

02:04:00.660 | - Yeah, no, so you're saying I operate

02:04:02.400 | at the state of the art with the Tripwires.

02:04:04.140 | This is good to know. - Absolutely, man.

02:04:06.260 | - And also just not using anybody else's services,

02:04:10.100 | doing everything myself,

02:04:12.660 | so that it's harder to figure out

02:04:14.020 | what the heck this person is doing.

02:04:15.220 | 'Cause if I'm using somebody else's service,

02:04:17.100 | like I did with QNAP. (laughs)

02:04:21.740 | I have a QNAP NAS I use for cold storage

02:04:24.500 | of unimportant things but are large videos.

02:04:27.300 | And I don't know if you know,

02:04:28.380 | but QNAP is a company that does NAS storage devices.

02:04:32.260 | And they got hacked.

02:04:34.020 | And everybody that didn't update as of a week ago

02:04:38.820 | from the point of the zero-day hack,

02:04:41.580 | everybody got hacked.

02:04:42.540 | It's several thousands of machines.

02:04:44.500 | And they asked,

02:04:46.200 | "You can get your data back if you pay,"

02:04:50.600 | I forget what it was, but it was,

02:04:53.020 | it was about a couple thousand dollars.

02:04:55.420 | And QNAP can get all the data back for their customers

02:04:59.100 | if they pay, I think, $2 million.

02:05:00.820 | But that came from me relying on the systems

02:05:04.580 | of others for security.

02:05:05.620 | I assumed this company would have their security handled.

02:05:10.620 | But then that was a very valuable lesson to me.

02:05:13.320 | I now have layers of security

02:05:17.380 | and also an understanding which data is really important,

02:05:21.460 | which is somewhat important, which is not that important.

02:05:24.300 | And layering that all together.

02:05:26.500 | - So just so you know, the US government, the military,

02:05:29.020 | woke up to that exact same thing about two years ago.

02:05:31.940 | It's still very new.

02:05:33.420 | I mean, they were sourcing,

02:05:35.380 | take night vision goggles, for example.

02:05:37.540 | They were sourcing components and engineering

02:05:40.020 | and blueprints for night vision goggles

02:05:41.700 | from three, four, five different subcontractors

02:05:44.020 | all over the country.

02:05:45.420 | But they never asked themselves

02:05:47.200 | what the security status was of those subcontractors.

02:05:50.660 | So, you know, fast forward a few years

02:05:54.780 | and all of a sudden they start getting faulty components.

02:05:57.900 | They start having night vision goggles that don't work.

02:06:00.060 | They start having supply chain issues

02:06:02.080 | where they have to change their provider.

02:06:04.500 | And the army doesn't know that the provider is changing.

02:06:07.780 | I mean, this is a strategy.

02:06:09.300 | The idea of going through third-party systems

02:06:12.780 | is identifying the vulnerability in the supply chain.

02:06:15.420 | That's a savvy offensive practice

02:06:20.020 | for more than just cyber hackers.

02:06:24.260 | - Let me ask you about physical hacking.

02:06:26.540 | So I'm now, like I'm an introvert,

02:06:29.180 | so I'm paranoid about all social interaction,

02:06:31.340 | but how much truth is there?

02:06:35.700 | It's kind of a funny question.

02:06:37.500 | How suspicious should I be when I'm traveling in Ukraine

02:06:40.460 | or different parts of the world

02:06:42.020 | when an attractive female walks up to me

02:06:44.340 | and shows any kind of attention?

02:06:46.100 | (Lex laughing)

02:06:46.940 | Is that like this kind of James Bond spy movie stuff

02:06:49.900 | or is that kind of stuff used by intelligence agencies?

02:06:54.020 | - I don't think it's used.

02:06:55.820 | It's absolutely used.

02:06:56.700 | It's called sexpionage.

02:06:58.100 | That's the term that we jokingly call it, is sexpionage.

02:07:02.660 | But yeah, the art of attraction, appeal,

02:07:05.940 | the manifestation of feelings through sexual manipulation,

02:07:11.380 | all of that is a super powerful tool.

02:07:14.320 | The Chinese use it extremely well.

02:07:15.740 | The Russians use it extremely well.

02:07:18.020 | In the United States, we actively train our officers

02:07:21.620 | not to use it because in the end,

02:07:24.780 | it leads to complications

02:07:26.700 | in how you professionally run a case.

02:07:28.420 | So we train our officers not to use it.

02:07:30.140 | However, you can't control what other people think.

02:07:33.360 | So if you're an attractive male

02:07:34.740 | or an attractive female officer,

02:07:36.100 | and you're trying to talk to an older general

02:07:40.460 | who just happens to be gay or happens to be straight

02:07:43.380 | and is attracted to you,

02:07:44.680 | of course, they're gonna be that much more willing

02:07:45.980 | to talk to an American who is also attractive.

02:07:48.860 | So it's hard to walk that back.

02:07:50.740 | - In all definitions.

02:07:51.660 | So it could be all elements of charisma.

02:07:54.340 | So attractiveness in a dynamic sense of the word.

02:08:00.980 | So it's visual attractiveness,

02:08:02.140 | but the smile, the humor, the wit, the flirting,

02:08:05.680 | all that kind of stuff that could be used

02:08:07.740 | to the art of conversation.

02:08:10.740 | - There's also elements of sexuality

02:08:12.500 | that people underestimate, right?

02:08:14.740 | So physical sexuality,

02:08:16.460 | physical attraction is the most obvious one.

02:08:18.100 | It's the one that everybody talks about and thinks about.

02:08:20.580 | But then there's also sapiosexuality,

02:08:23.220 | which is being sexually attracted

02:08:25.260 | to thoughts, to intelligence.

02:08:28.540 | And then you got all the various varieties

02:08:31.220 | of personal preferences.

02:08:34.100 | Some people like people of a certain color skin,

02:08:36.700 | or they like big noses, they like small noses,

02:08:39.120 | they like big butts, they like small butts,

02:08:40.780 | they like tall guys, they like bald guys,

02:08:42.260 | whatever it might be.

02:08:43.940 | You can't ever predict what someone's preferences,

02:08:47.260 | sexual arousal preferences are going to be.

02:08:50.980 | So then you end up walking into a situation

02:08:53.540 | where then you discover, you know,

02:08:55.540 | and just imagine, imagine being an unattractive,

02:08:59.100 | overweight, married guy,

02:09:01.140 | and you're walking into an asset or a target meeting

02:09:04.780 | with like a middle-aged female

02:09:06.540 | who is also not very attractive and also married.

02:09:09.020 | But then it turns out that that person is a sapiosexual

02:09:11.700 | and gets extremely turned on by intelligent conversation.

02:09:14.580 | That's exactly what you're there to do.

02:09:16.300 | Your mission is to have intelligent conversation

02:09:20.100 | with this person to find out if they have access to secrets.

02:09:22.300 | And by virtue of you carrying out your mission,

02:09:24.620 | they become extremely aroused and attracted to you.

02:09:26.740 | That is a very complicated situation.

02:09:29.620 | - Hard to know to trust.

02:09:30.780 | Like how do you know your wife,

02:09:32.700 | or how does your wife know

02:09:33.640 | that you're not a double agent from Russia?

02:09:37.420 | - There's a large element of experience and time

02:09:42.020 | that goes into that.

02:09:43.100 | She's also trained.

02:09:44.300 | And I think my wife and I also--

02:09:47.260 | - That's what you think.

02:09:48.100 | - Yeah, my wife and I also have the benefit

02:09:50.340 | of being recruited young and together where--

02:09:55.340 | - So over time, you can start to figure out things

02:09:58.740 | that are very difficult to,

02:10:00.500 | so you form the baseline,

02:10:03.380 | you start to understand the person's very,

02:10:04.820 | it becomes very difficult to lie.

02:10:06.100 | - The most difficult thing in the world is consistency.

02:10:08.380 | It's the most difficult thing in the world.

02:10:10.500 | Some people say that discipline or self-discipline,

02:10:12.940 | what they're really talking about is consistency.

02:10:14.820 | When you have someone who performs consistently

02:10:17.300 | over long periods of time, under various levels of stress,

02:10:20.540 | you have high, high confidence

02:10:22.000 | that that is the person that you can trust.

02:10:23.680 | You can trust, again, you can trust them

02:10:26.540 | to behave within a certain pattern.

02:10:30.260 | You can trust an asshole to be an asshole

02:10:33.200 | without trusting the asshole to take care of your kids.

02:10:36.760 | So I don't ever wanna mix up the idea of personal trust

02:10:40.040 | versus trusting the outcome.

02:10:42.400 | You can always trust a person to operate

02:10:44.560 | within their pattern of behavior.

02:10:45.760 | It just takes time for you to get consistent feedback

02:10:50.560 | as to what that baseline is for them.

02:10:52.280 | - To form a good model, predictive model

02:10:55.320 | of what their behavior's going to be like.

02:10:57.120 | - Right, and you know, it's fascinating

02:10:58.440 | 'cause I think the challenge is building that model quickly.

02:11:03.300 | So technology is one of those tools

02:11:05.840 | that will be able in the future

02:11:07.060 | to very quickly create a model of behavior

02:11:10.180 | because technology can pull in multiple data points

02:11:13.660 | in a very short period of time

02:11:15.300 | that the human brain simply can't pull in

02:11:17.860 | at the same period, at the same space, at the same speed.

02:11:20.140 | - Well, that's actually what I did my PhD on.

02:11:22.340 | That's what I did at Google,

02:11:23.500 | is forming a good representation,

02:11:26.000 | unique representation across the entire world

02:11:29.340 | based on the behavior of the person.

02:11:31.260 | The specific task there is so that you

02:11:34.500 | don't have to type in the password.

02:11:35.780 | The idea was to replace the password.

02:11:38.100 | But it also allows you to actually study human behavior

02:11:40.700 | and to think, all right,

02:11:41.740 | what is the unique representation of a person?

02:11:44.100 | 'Cause we have very specific patterns

02:11:48.820 | and a lot of humans are very similar in those patterns.

02:11:51.340 | What are the unique identifiers

02:11:52.980 | within those patterns of behavior?

02:11:55.220 | And I think that's, from a psychology perspective,

02:11:57.580 | a super fascinating question.

02:11:59.300 | And from a machine learning perspective,

02:12:00.980 | it's something that you can,

02:12:02.300 | as the systems get better and better and better,

02:12:04.620 | and as we get more and more digital data

02:12:07.140 | about each individual,

02:12:08.300 | you start to be able to do that kind of thing effectively.

02:12:11.740 | - And it's, I mean, when I think of the fact

02:12:13.180 | that you could create a dossier on somebody

02:12:14.980 | in a matter of 24 or 48 hours,

02:12:16.940 | if you could wire them for two days, right?

02:12:21.140 | Internet of Things style.

02:12:22.340 | You put it in their underwear or whatever, right?

02:12:23.780 | Some chip that just reads everything.

02:12:26.420 | How heavy are they walking?

02:12:27.580 | How much time do they sleep?

02:12:28.960 | How many times do they open the refrigerator?

02:12:30.580 | When they log into their computer, how do they do it?

02:12:32.860 | Which hand do they use when they log in?

02:12:35.300 | What's their most common swipe?

02:12:36.900 | What's their most visited website?

02:12:38.420 | You could collect an enormous amount of normative data

02:12:42.740 | in a short period of time,

02:12:43.660 | where otherwise we're stuck the way that we do it now.

02:12:47.780 | Once or twice a week, we go out for a coffee for two hours.

02:12:51.140 | And two hours at a time,

02:12:52.220 | over the course of six, eight weeks, 12 weeks,

02:12:55.000 | you're coming up with a 50% assessment

02:12:58.020 | on how you think this person is going to behave.

02:13:00.820 | Just that time savings is immense.

02:13:02.720 | - Something you've also spoken about is private intelligence

02:13:06.300 | and the power and the reach and the scale

02:13:10.560 | and the importance of private intelligence

02:13:12.300 | versus government intelligence.

02:13:13.460 | Can you elaborate on the role of what is private intelligence

02:13:16.980 | and what's the role of private intelligence

02:13:19.500 | in the scope of all the intelligence

02:13:22.300 | that is gathered and used in the United States?

02:13:26.340 | - Yeah, absolutely.

02:13:27.620 | It's something that so few people know about.

02:13:30.620 | And it became a more mainstream topic

02:13:33.920 | with the Trump administration,

02:13:35.780 | because Trump made it no secret

02:13:37.540 | that he was going to hire private intelligence organizations

02:13:40.300 | to run his intelligence operations and fund them.

02:13:43.140 | So that really brought it to the mainstream.

02:13:44.940 | But going all the way back to 9/11,

02:13:46.860 | going all the way back to 2001,

02:13:48.900 | when the 9/11 attacks happened,

02:13:51.980 | there was a commission that was formed

02:13:56.140 | to determine the reasons that 9/11 happened.

02:14:00.700 | And among the lists that they determined,

02:14:02.460 | of course, they found out that the intelligence community

02:14:04.180 | wasn't coordinating well with each other.

02:14:06.340 | There were fiefdoms and there was infighting

02:14:08.320 | and there wasn't good intel sharing.

02:14:10.340 | But more than that, they identified that we were operating

02:14:13.220 | at Cold War levels, even though we were living in a time

02:14:18.260 | when terrorism was the new biggest threat

02:14:20.440 | to national security.

02:14:22.000 | So the big recommendation coming out of the 9/11 commission

02:14:25.540 | was that the intelligence organizations,

02:14:27.380 | the intelligence community,

02:14:28.620 | significantly increased the presence

02:14:30.700 | of intelligence operators overseas

02:14:33.020 | and in terms of analytical capacity

02:14:36.100 | here in the United States.

02:14:38.160 | When they made that decision, it completely destroyed,

02:14:42.020 | it totally was incongruent

02:14:44.720 | with the existing hiring process,

02:14:46.320 | because the existing hiring process for CIA or NSA

02:14:48.700 | is a six to nine month process.

02:14:51.020 | The only way they could plus up their sizes fast enough

02:14:55.140 | was to bypass their own hiring

02:14:57.780 | and instead go direct to private organizations.

02:15:00.720 | So naturally the government contracted with the companies

02:15:04.900 | that they already had secure contracts with,

02:15:07.640 | Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Khaki, you name it.

02:15:12.640 | And then over time from 2001 to now,

02:15:15.340 | or I guess that started really in 2004

02:15:17.500 | when they started significantly increasing

02:15:19.860 | the presence of private intelligence officers.

02:15:23.380 | From then until now, it's become a budgetary thing,

02:15:26.540 | it's become a continuity of operations thing.

02:15:30.240 | And now the reason Northern Virginia

02:15:33.820 | has become one of the wealthiest zip codes in America

02:15:37.620 | is because of the incredible concentration

02:15:40.220 | of private intelligence that is supporting CIA, NSA,

02:15:43.420 | DIA, FBI, and all the slew of IC partners.

02:15:46.940 | - By the way, does Palantir play a role in this?

02:15:49.300 | - Palantir is one of those organizations

02:15:51.180 | that was trying to pitch their product

02:15:54.140 | to an intelligence community because they have,

02:15:57.460 | it's a fantastic product on paper.

02:15:59.940 | But the challenge was the proprietary services,

02:16:05.300 | the proprietary systems that we used in CIA

02:16:08.940 | prior to Palantir continued to outperform Palantir.

02:16:13.500 | So just like any other business decision,

02:16:16.420 | if you've got homegrown systems

02:16:18.680 | that outperform external systems

02:16:20.260 | then it's not worth it to share the internal information.

02:16:23.380 | - Got it.

02:16:24.220 | So what, the close connection between Peter Thiel

02:16:29.220 | and Donald Trump, did that have a role to play

02:16:33.140 | in the, in Donald Trump's leveraging

02:16:37.780 | of private intelligence or is that completely disjoint?

02:16:40.620 | - I think that they're related but only circumstantially.

02:16:45.520 | Because remember, Donald Trump

02:16:46.700 | wasn't really investing in CIA.

02:16:48.980 | So the last thing he wanted to do was spend his network,

02:16:53.780 | WASTA, WASTA is a term that we call influence.

02:16:56.220 | It's an Arabic term for influence.

02:16:58.080 | Trump didn't wanna use his WASTA putting Thiel into CIA

02:17:02.060 | only to lose Thiel's contract as soon as Trump left office.

02:17:04.900 | So instead it was more valuable to put Peter Thiel's tool

02:17:08.040 | to use in private intelligence.

02:17:09.500 | And then of course, I think he nominated Peter Thiel

02:17:11.360 | to be his secretary of defense, secretary of state.

02:17:15.420 | At some point in time, he tried to present,

02:17:17.180 | like presidentially appoint Peter Thiel

02:17:19.140 | into a position of government authority.

02:17:23.140 | - What do you think of figures like Peter Thiel?

02:17:27.740 | Do they wield, and I'm sure there's figures

02:17:30.860 | of similar scale and reach and power

02:17:35.260 | in private intelligence.

02:17:37.140 | What do you think about their role and power

02:17:40.660 | in this whole, like without public accountability

02:17:44.460 | that you would think directors of CIA perhaps have?

02:17:47.260 | - So this is where private intelligence

02:17:49.940 | has both a strength and a weakness.

02:17:51.980 | The ultimate law overriding,

02:17:56.180 | that's overseeing private intelligence

02:17:58.140 | is not government legislation.

02:18:03.140 | It's the law of economics.

02:18:05.580 | If they produce a superior product,

02:18:07.520 | then they will have a buyer.

02:18:09.340 | If they do not produce a superior product,

02:18:11.300 | they will not have a buyer.

02:18:13.100 | And that's a very simple business principle.

02:18:16.300 | Whereas in the current national security infrastructure,

02:18:20.820 | you can create a crap product,

02:18:22.900 | but the taxpayer dollars are always going to be spent.

02:18:25.700 | So it's really thrown things for a loop,

02:18:28.100 | especially during the Trump administration.

02:18:29.760 | And this is one of the things that I will always say

02:18:32.260 | I liked about the Trump administration.

02:18:34.660 | It put a big blazing bright light

02:18:38.700 | on all of the flaws within our system.

02:18:41.740 | One of those flaws being this executive power

02:18:45.700 | over the intelligence organizations

02:18:47.420 | and the lack of accountability

02:18:50.460 | for intelligence organizations

02:18:51.540 | to produce a superior product.

02:18:53.040 | When that light got shown down,

02:18:59.040 | that's when you also saw Trump start to go after,

02:19:01.620 | if you remember, there was a period

02:19:02.920 | where he was taking security clearances

02:19:04.400 | away from retiring officers.

02:19:06.460 | That became a big hot issue.

02:19:08.700 | That became something that people were very opposed to.

02:19:11.580 | When they didn't realize that process

02:19:14.860 | of taking security clearances away,

02:19:17.140 | that incentivized seasoned senior officers

02:19:19.940 | to stay in service.

02:19:21.780 | Because with private intelligence paying a premium

02:19:24.140 | during the Trump administration,

02:19:25.340 | because Trump was paying a premium

02:19:26.980 | to the private intelligence world,

02:19:29.220 | when senior officers found that it was more profitable

02:19:33.060 | to retire early, keep their clearance,

02:19:35.580 | and go work for Raytheon,

02:19:37.260 | Trump saw that as bypassing service to the American people.

02:19:41.500 | You've made a career in CIA, you've made a career in NSA,

02:19:44.060 | you should stay there.

02:19:44.960 | If you leave, you lose your clearance

02:19:46.760 | because you no longer have a need to know.

02:19:49.340 | He upset the apple cart with that.

02:19:51.940 | And unfortunately, the narrative that came out in many ways

02:19:54.760 | was a negative narrative against Trump,

02:19:56.420 | when in fact, he was actually doing quite a service

02:20:00.140 | to the American people,

02:20:01.080 | trying to take away the incentive of senior officials

02:20:06.080 | leaving their service in order to just profiteer

02:20:09.180 | in the private intelligence world.

02:20:10.220 | - So in that way, he was kind of supporting the CIA

02:20:15.220 | in making sure that competent people

02:20:19.860 | and experienced people stay in CIA,

02:20:22.940 | incentivized to stay there.

02:20:24.020 | - Correct, I think that there was definitely,

02:20:27.540 | he understood incentives.

02:20:29.060 | I mean, Donald Trump understands incentives.

02:20:31.260 | So he was trying to incentivize them to stay,

02:20:34.220 | but I think he was also playing a safety card

02:20:36.860 | because he didn't want former CIA officials

02:20:40.220 | who were not listening to him

02:20:42.180 | to then move into private intel organizations

02:20:44.180 | that he may be hiring,

02:20:45.660 | only to then have them undermine him

02:20:47.780 | from both sides of the coin.

02:20:49.460 | So there was a little bit of offensive calculation

02:20:53.220 | in there as well.

02:20:54.060 | - But do the dynamics and the incentives of economics

02:20:56.700 | that you referred to that the private intelligence

02:20:58.820 | operates under, is that more or less ethical

02:21:01.940 | than the forces that maybe government agencies

02:21:06.740 | operate under?

02:21:07.580 | Like, what's your intuition?

02:21:08.540 | Is capitalism lead, so you mentioned it leads

02:21:12.780 | to maximizations of efficiency and performance,

02:21:16.900 | but is that correlated with ethical behavior

02:21:19.940 | when we're talking about such hairy activities

02:21:24.100 | like collection of intelligence?

02:21:26.180 | - The question of ethics is a great question.

02:21:27.940 | So let me start this whole thing out by saying,

02:21:31.660 | CIA hires people on a spectrum of our ability

02:21:36.660 | to be morally flexible, ethically flexible.

02:21:41.900 | All people at their heart are ethically flexible.

02:21:45.340 | I would never punch somebody in the face, right?

02:21:48.100 | Some people out there would say,

02:21:48.940 | "I would never hurt another human being."

02:21:51.180 | But as soon as a human being posed a direct threat

02:21:53.740 | to their daughter or their son or their mother,

02:21:56.860 | now all of a sudden they're gonna change

02:21:58.100 | their ethical stance in self-defense, right?

02:22:01.540 | But at the end of the day,

02:22:02.380 | it's still hurting another person.

02:22:05.300 | So what CIA looks for is people who are able

02:22:07.540 | to swing across that spectrum for lesser offenses, right?

02:22:12.540 | More flexibility.

02:22:16.320 | I do not believe that private intelligence

02:22:21.820 | and the laws of economics lend themselves

02:22:24.540 | to increased ethics or increased ethical behavior

02:22:28.540 | in the short term.

02:22:30.500 | But what ends up happening is that in the long term,

02:22:34.100 | in order to scale economic benefits,

02:22:37.440 | you are forced to act within norms of your customer base.

02:22:42.440 | So as the norms of that customer base

02:22:45.860 | dictate certain requirements,

02:22:48.100 | the company has to adapt to those requirements

02:22:50.540 | in order to continue to scale.

02:22:52.960 | So if a company tries to ostracize LGBTQ,

02:22:58.740 | or if they try to ostracize men or ostracize women,

02:23:02.780 | they're limiting their ability to grow economically.

02:23:05.640 | They have to adapt to whatever is the prevailing

02:23:09.740 | ethical requirement of their customer base.

02:23:12.500 | - That's such an interesting question

02:23:13.740 | 'cause you look at big pharma and pharmaceutical companies

02:23:16.820 | and they have quite a poor reputation in the public eye.

02:23:22.780 | And some of it, maybe much of it is deserved,

02:23:27.300 | at least historically speaking.

02:23:29.580 | And so you start to wonder, well,

02:23:32.100 | can intelligence agencies use some of the same technique

02:23:36.540 | to manipulate the public,

02:23:38.920 | like what they believe about those agencies

02:23:42.940 | in order to maximize profit as well?

02:23:45.060 | Sort of finding shortcuts or unethical paths

02:23:49.960 | that allow you to not be ultimately

02:23:52.740 | responsible to the customer.

02:23:55.060 | - Absolutely, and I would go a step further to say that

02:23:58.860 | the covert nature of intelligence operations

02:24:01.900 | is really attractive when it comes to the private sector,

02:24:07.500 | because now they have all the same money

02:24:10.160 | with none of the oversight

02:24:11.980 | and all they have to do is deliver.

02:24:14.380 | So without the oversight, what's holding you back?

02:24:18.540 | And for anybody who's ever run a business,

02:24:21.660 | anybody who's ever started a startup

02:24:22.860 | or tried to make something succeed,

02:24:24.220 | we all know that there come those times

02:24:26.540 | where you have to skirt the boundaries of propriety

02:24:31.540 | or morality or commitments or promises to other people,

02:24:36.960 | because at the end of the day,

02:24:38.900 | if your business fails, it's on you.

02:24:41.300 | So if you promise to deliver something to a client,

02:24:45.140 | you've got to deliver it to the client,

02:24:46.300 | even if that means you stay up late

02:24:48.620 | or if you lie on your taxes, whatever it might be,

02:24:51.060 | there's a certain level of do or die.

02:24:53.560 | - Yeah, I personally have a sort of optimistic view

02:24:56.580 | that ultimately the best way

02:24:59.380 | is to stay within the ethical bounds,

02:25:01.260 | kind of like what you suggested.

02:25:02.740 | If you want to be a company that's extremely successful,

02:25:05.860 | is win with competence, not with cheating,

02:25:09.860 | 'cause cheating won't, I believe, win in the long term.

02:25:14.120 | But in terms of being publicly responsible

02:25:21.140 | to your decisions, I mean, I've already been supposed

02:25:24.840 | to talk to Peter Thiel twice on this podcast,

02:25:27.160 | and it's just been complicated.

02:25:28.700 | (Lex laughing)

02:25:29.920 | If I were to put myself into his shoes,

02:25:32.120 | why do podcasts?

02:25:35.400 | The risk is too high to be a public person at all.

02:25:40.000 | And so I totally understand that.

02:25:42.240 | At the same time, I think if you're doing things

02:25:47.120 | by the book and you're the best in the world at your job,

02:25:52.120 | then you have nothing to worry about.

02:25:56.680 | And you can advertise that, and you help recruit.

02:25:59.880 | I mean, that's the work of capitalism,

02:26:02.800 | is you want to advertise that this is the place

02:26:07.160 | where the best people in the world at this thing work.

02:26:10.440 | - True, I think that your point of view is accurate.

02:26:14.160 | I would also say that the complexities

02:26:19.160 | of what makes somebody make a decision

02:26:21.120 | can only really be properly calculated with a baseline.

02:26:26.180 | So because there is no baseline that you or I have

02:26:28.320 | on Peter Thiel, it's difficult to really ascertain

02:26:31.840 | why he does or doesn't accept invites

02:26:34.000 | or why he does or doesn't appear.

02:26:35.440 | - Well, let me ask your opinion on the NSA.

02:26:40.440 | And then maybe you can mention about a bulk connection

02:26:44.080 | and collection in general in the CIA.

02:26:46.480 | But let's look at some history with the NSA and Snowden.

02:26:51.200 | What's your opinion on the mass surveillance

02:26:55.040 | that is reported to have been conducted by the NSA?

02:27:00.920 | We talked about ethics.

02:27:04.760 | Are you troubled by the, from a public perception,

02:27:11.320 | the unethical nature of mass surveillance

02:27:15.000 | of especially American citizens?

02:27:17.920 | - This is a topic that I never get tired of talking about,

02:27:21.880 | but it's very rare that anyone ever really agrees with me,

02:27:25.320 | just so you know.

02:27:26.160 | (laughing)

02:27:27.840 | - So I see where you're, well,

02:27:29.480 | I think there's a nuanced thing here.

02:27:31.000 | Maybe we'll find some agreement.

02:27:32.440 | - The truth is that the American experience after 9/11

02:27:37.440 | is nothing like the American experience now.

02:27:40.640 | So all the terminology, all the talk about privacy

02:27:45.080 | and privacy laws and mass surveillance

02:27:47.120 | and all this other stuff,

02:27:48.240 | it was a completely different time then.

02:27:50.520 | And that's not to say it was an excuse,

02:27:52.040 | because to this day I will still say,

02:27:54.440 | mass collection, bulk collection of data

02:27:58.480 | that allows for an expedient identification

02:28:02.160 | of a threat to national security benefits all of us.

02:28:06.560 | But people don't understand what they want.

02:28:09.560 | Like people don't understand what the value

02:28:11.120 | of their own privacy is.

02:28:13.240 | First of all, the fact that people think

02:28:14.320 | they have personal privacy is laughable.

02:28:16.720 | You have no privacy.

02:28:19.120 | The cell phone that you carry in your pocket,

02:28:20.600 | you're giving permission to those apps constantly.

02:28:22.560 | You're giving commercial organizations,

02:28:24.280 | what you and I have already said,

02:28:25.600 | are less tied to ethical responsibility.

02:28:28.720 | You're giving them permission to collect enormous amounts

02:28:31.800 | of private data from you all the time.

02:28:34.240 | And do you know what happens if AT&T or Verizon

02:28:37.520 | sees some nefarious activity on your account?

02:28:40.840 | They do nothing.

02:28:42.120 | They might send a note to FBI

02:28:44.800 | because they have to according to some checklist.

02:28:47.200 | But when NSA was collecting intelligence

02:28:49.640 | on metadata from around the United States,

02:28:51.840 | they were very specifically looking for terrorist threats

02:28:55.000 | that would harm American lives.

02:28:56.600 | I don't, man, NSA can clone my phone.

02:29:00.480 | I will give them my children's phone.

02:29:02.040 | I will give them the passwords to every one of my accounts.

02:29:04.880 | If it means that there's a likelihood

02:29:07.160 | that my family will be safer from a nefarious actor

02:29:10.000 | who's intent on hurting us.

02:29:12.280 | NSA doesn't care about your affair.

02:29:15.080 | NSA doesn't care if you're cheating on your taxes.

02:29:17.160 | NSA doesn't care if you talk shit about your boss

02:29:20.880 | or if you hate the US president.

02:29:22.800 | Nobody cares about that.

02:29:24.600 | Your intelligence community is there to find threats

02:29:28.000 | to national security.

02:29:29.520 | That's what they're there to do.

02:29:31.840 | What Snowden did when he outed that whole program,

02:29:36.720 | the fact that the court, the justice system,

02:29:38.960 | the civilian justice system went back

02:29:41.400 | and essentially overruled the ruling

02:29:44.320 | of the intelligence courts before them

02:29:47.040 | just goes to show how the general mass community

02:29:51.720 | really shouldn't have a say

02:29:53.560 | in what happens in the intelligence community.

02:29:55.720 | They really shouldn't.

02:29:56.880 | You have politicians and you have the opportunity

02:30:00.800 | to elect people to a position and then you trust them.

02:30:03.760 | That's what a representative republic is.

02:30:05.880 | You vote the people in,

02:30:07.320 | you trust them to work on your behalf.

02:30:09.080 | They make decisions without running them by you.

02:30:11.720 | They make decisions that they believe

02:30:14.520 | are in the best interest of their constituency

02:30:16.280 | and that's how our form of democracy works.

02:30:19.760 | It worked.

02:30:22.080 | We were safer.

02:30:23.560 | Now that we don't have that information

02:30:25.400 | and now that there's this giant looming question

02:30:27.240 | of whether or not NSA is there to serve people

02:30:28.880 | or is collecting mass surveillance

02:30:31.200 | against all American people,

02:30:33.400 | that's not really a true accurate representation

02:30:35.600 | of what they were ever doing.

02:30:36.880 | They were looking for the needle in a haystack

02:30:39.320 | of the series of transactions in metadata

02:30:42.680 | that was going to lead to American deaths.

02:30:45.560 | We are now less secure because they can't do that

02:30:48.920 | and that bothers me.

02:30:50.760 | - So you said a few really interesting things there.

02:30:53.800 | So because you are kind of an insider,

02:30:56.600 | were for a time an insider,

02:30:58.200 | meaning you were able to build up an intuition

02:31:00.640 | about the good, the bad, and the ugly of these institutions,

02:31:05.640 | specifically the good.

02:31:07.200 | A lot of people don't have a good sense of the good.

02:31:09.520 | They know the bad and the ugly

02:31:11.360 | or can infer the bad and the ugly.

02:31:13.960 | You mentioned that the one little key little thing there

02:31:18.200 | at the end saying the NSA doesn't care

02:31:22.520 | about whether you hate the president or not.

02:31:24.840 | Now that's what people really worry about

02:31:28.640 | is they're not sure they can trust the government

02:31:32.400 | to not go into full dictatorial mode

02:31:35.880 | and based on your political preference,

02:31:39.160 | your oppositions, basically one of the essential powers,

02:31:43.080 | the freedom of speech in the United States

02:31:48.040 | is the ability to criticize your government.

02:31:49.680 | - Exactly.

02:31:50.520 | - And that, they worry, well,

02:31:53.340 | can't the government get a hold of the NSA

02:31:57.520 | and start to ask the basic question,

02:31:59.720 | well, can you give me a list of people

02:32:02.320 | that are criticizing the government?

02:32:03.840 | - Think about, so let's just walk through

02:32:05.280 | that exact example, right?

02:32:06.320 | Because this is, it's a preponderance,

02:32:08.760 | it's a preponderous fear.

02:32:10.560 | It's a ridiculous fear because you would have to tap

02:32:14.360 | on multiple elements of government for anything to happen.

02:32:16.880 | So for example, let's just say that somebody goes to the NSA

02:32:20.840 | and says, hey, can you give us a readout

02:32:22.560 | on all the people who are tweeting terrible things

02:32:25.400 | about the president?

02:32:26.400 | Okay, cool, here's your hundred million people,

02:32:28.960 | whatever it is, right?

02:32:30.240 | Here's all the people saying negative things

02:32:31.400 | about the government.

02:32:32.680 | So now they have a list.

02:32:34.200 | What do they do next?

02:32:35.480 | Well, let's just make it simple.

02:32:37.080 | They stay with NSA and they say, surveil them even more,

02:32:40.220 | tap their phones, tap their computers,

02:32:42.580 | I wanna know even more.

02:32:43.480 | So then they get this preponderance of evidence.

02:32:46.280 | What do you do with evidence?

02:32:47.920 | You take it to a court.

02:32:49.920 | Well, guess what no court is going to support?

02:32:52.760 | Anything that goes against the freedom of speech.

02:32:56.920 | So the court is not going to support what the executive

02:32:59.600 | is asking them to do.

02:33:01.120 | Even before you take somebody to court,

02:33:03.080 | you have to involve law enforcement.

02:33:05.240 | Essentially, you have to send some sort of police force

02:33:08.100 | to go apprehend the individual who's in question.

02:33:11.520 | Well, guess what doesn't meet criteria

02:33:13.580 | for any police force anywhere in the United States?

02:33:16.480 | Arresting people who say negative things

02:33:20.800 | about the president.

02:33:21.660 | Now, if somebody poses a threat to the life

02:33:25.140 | of a public figure or the threat to life of a politician,

02:33:27.860 | that's a completely different case,

02:33:29.360 | which means the standards of evidence are much higher

02:33:31.320 | for them to arrest that person.

02:33:32.760 | So unless you create a secret police force,

02:33:36.200 | then your actual public police force

02:33:37.960 | is never gonna take action.

02:33:39.280 | So all these people who are afraid of this exact situation

02:33:42.720 | that you're outlining,

02:33:43.720 | they need the creation of a secret police force,

02:33:46.700 | the creation of a secret court that operates

02:33:48.620 | outside the judicial system,

02:33:50.160 | the creation of a secret intelligence service

02:33:52.120 | that operates outside of foreign intelligence collection,

02:33:54.920 | all so that a handful of people who don't like the president

02:33:58.360 | get what, whisked away, assassinated, put in prison?

02:34:02.720 | Who knows what?

02:34:04.480 | Think about the resources that would be,

02:34:06.180 | the amount of money and time

02:34:08.340 | and how hard would it be to keep that secret,

02:34:10.900 | to have all of those things in motion.

02:34:13.040 | The reason it worked in Russia and Soviet Germany

02:34:15.880 | or Russia and communist Germany was because everybody knew

02:34:19.560 | there was a secret police.

02:34:21.120 | Everybody knew that there was a threat to speaking out

02:34:24.720 | against the government.

02:34:25.560 | It's completely different here.

02:34:26.840 | - Well, so there's a lot to say.

02:34:28.700 | So one is yes, if I was a dictator

02:34:32.120 | and I wanted to, and just looking at history,

02:34:35.400 | let me take myself out of it,

02:34:38.400 | but I think one of the more effective ways

02:34:41.040 | is you don't need the surveillance.

02:34:43.040 | You can pick out a random person

02:34:45.480 | and in a public display, semi-public display,

02:34:49.380 | basically put them in jail for opposing the government,

02:34:54.440 | whether they oppose it or not.

02:34:56.080 | And the fear, that sends a message to a lot of people.

02:34:59.480 | - That's exactly what you see happening in China.

02:35:02.120 | That's what you just laid out.

02:35:03.520 | It's genius, and that is the standard.

02:35:06.200 | - You don't need the surveillance for that.

02:35:07.800 | - Yep.

02:35:09.080 | - But that said, if you did do the surveillance,

02:35:13.480 | so that's the support, the incentives aren't aligned.

02:35:17.240 | It seems like a lot of work to do

02:35:18.640 | for the thing you could do without the surveillance.

02:35:21.240 | But yes, the courts wouldn't,

02:35:25.720 | if you were to be able to get a list of people,

02:35:29.440 | which I think that part you could do,

02:35:31.600 | that oppose the government,

02:35:34.200 | you could do that just like you said on Twitter publicly,

02:35:37.000 | you could make a list.

02:35:38.560 | And with that, you can start to,

02:35:41.280 | especially if you have a lot of data on those people,

02:35:43.140 | find ways in which they did violate the law.

02:35:46.440 | Not because they oppose the government,

02:35:48.880 | but because in some other way,

02:35:50.280 | they were parking tickets or didn't pay the taxes,

02:35:53.920 | that's probably a common one,

02:35:55.200 | or like screwed up something about the taxes.

02:35:57.940 | I just happen to know Russia and Ukraine,

02:36:00.640 | they're very good at this kind of stuff.

02:36:03.040 | Knowing how the citizens screwed everything up,

02:36:06.440 | because especially in those countries,

02:36:08.760 | everybody's breaking the law,

02:36:11.000 | because in a corrupt nation,

02:36:13.140 | you have to bend the law to operate the law.

02:36:15.860 | Like the number of people that pay taxes fully

02:36:18.880 | in those nations is just very low, not zero.

02:36:22.600 | And so they then use that breaking of the law

02:36:26.480 | to come up with an excuse to actually put you in jail

02:36:29.420 | based on that.

02:36:31.100 | So it's possible to imagine, but yes, I think,

02:36:34.400 | I think that's the ugly part of surveillance.

02:36:39.900 | But I do think, just like you said,

02:36:41.940 | the incentives aren't correct.

02:36:43.560 | Like you really don't need to get all of the secret police

02:36:47.480 | and all of these kinds of organizations working.

02:36:49.900 | If you do have a charismatic, powerful leader

02:36:53.640 | that built up a network that's able to control

02:36:55.860 | a lot of organizations to a level of authoritarianism

02:37:00.620 | in a government, they're just able to do the usual thing.

02:37:03.820 | One, have propaganda machine to tell narratives,

02:37:06.780 | two, pick out people that they can put in jail

02:37:10.860 | for opposing the state,

02:37:12.340 | and maybe loud members of the press

02:37:15.020 | start silencing the press.

02:37:16.860 | There's like a, there's a playbook to this thing.

02:37:18.980 | And it doesn't require the surveillance.

02:37:21.140 | The surveillance, you know what is useful

02:37:24.680 | for the surveillance is the thing you mentioned in China,

02:37:27.900 | which is encourage everybody in the citizenry

02:37:32.900 | to watch each other,

02:37:35.400 | to say there's enemies of the state everywhere.

02:37:38.220 | And then you start having children

02:37:40.380 | reporting on their parents and that kind of stuff.

02:37:42.840 | Again, don't need a surveillance state for that.

02:37:46.020 | Now the good of a surveillance system,

02:37:49.380 | if it's operating within ethical bounds,

02:37:53.020 | is that yes, it could protect the populace.

02:37:55.540 | So you're saying like the good,

02:37:57.580 | given on your understanding of these institutions,

02:38:01.760 | the good outweighs the bad.

02:38:03.620 | - Absolutely.

02:38:04.460 | Let me give you just a practical example.

02:38:06.080 | So people don't realize this,

02:38:07.800 | but there's multiple surveillance states that are out there.

02:38:10.440 | There are surveillance states that are close allies

02:38:12.080 | with the United States.

02:38:13.560 | One of those surveillance states

02:38:14.720 | is the United Arab Emirates, the UAE.

02:38:18.680 | Now I lived in the UAE from 2019 to 2020,

02:38:23.320 | came back on a repatriation flight after COVID broke out.

02:38:26.720 | And, but we were there for a full year.

02:38:28.160 | We were residents, we had IDs, we had everything.

02:38:31.880 | Now, when you get your national ID in the Emirates,

02:38:35.220 | you get a chip and that chip connects you to everything.

02:38:39.180 | It connects you to cameras,

02:38:41.100 | it connects you to your license plate on your car,

02:38:44.060 | to your passport, to your credit card, everything.

02:38:46.780 | Everything is intertwined, everything is interlinked.

02:38:49.500 | When you drive, there are no police.

02:38:51.060 | There are no police on the roads.

02:38:52.540 | Every 50 to a hundred meters,

02:38:55.180 | you cross a camera that reads your license plate,

02:38:57.980 | measures your speed.

02:38:59.240 | And if you're breaking the speed limit,

02:39:00.780 | it just immediately charges your credit card

02:39:02.800 | because it's tied, it's all tied together.

02:39:04.520 | Totally surveillance.

02:39:05.760 | That technology was invented by the Israelis

02:39:08.760 | who use it in Israel.

02:39:10.960 | When I was in Abu Dhabi and I was rear-ended at high speed

02:39:17.100 | by what turned out to be an Emirati official,

02:39:19.760 | a senior ranking official of one of the Emirates.

02:39:22.160 | It was caught on camera.

02:39:25.080 | His ID was registered, my ID was registered.

02:39:27.400 | Everything was tied back to our IDs.

02:39:28.960 | The proof and the evidence was crystal clear.

02:39:31.780 | Even still, he was Emirati, I was not.

02:39:34.620 | So when I went to the police station to file the complaint,

02:39:37.580 | it was something that nobody was comfortable with

02:39:39.940 | because generally speaking,

02:39:41.180 | Emiratis don't accept legal claims

02:39:45.100 | against their own from foreigners.

02:39:46.820 | But the difference was that I was an American

02:39:48.780 | and I was there on a contract

02:39:50.100 | supporting the Emirati government.

02:39:51.700 | So I had these different variances, right?

02:39:54.640 | Long story short, in the end,

02:39:57.140 | the surveillance state is what made sure

02:39:59.780 | that justice was played

02:40:01.780 | because the proof was incontrovertible.

02:40:06.220 | There was so much evidence collected

02:40:09.280 | because of the surveillance nature of their state.

02:40:11.300 | Now, why do they have a surveillance state?

02:40:12.860 | It's not for people like me.

02:40:14.360 | It's because they're constantly afraid

02:40:16.620 | of extremist terrorist activity happening inside Abu Dhabi

02:40:21.300 | or inside the UAE

02:40:22.820 | because they're under constant threat from Islam

02:40:25.220 | and they're from extremists

02:40:27.020 | and they're under constant threat from Iran.

02:40:28.660 | So that's what drives the people to want a police state,

02:40:32.100 | to want a surveillance state.

02:40:33.700 | For them, their survival is paramount

02:40:36.500 | and they need the surveillance to have that survival.

02:40:38.780 | For us, we haven't tasted that level of desperation

02:40:42.340 | and fear yet or hopefully never,

02:40:45.180 | but that's what makes us feel like

02:40:46.420 | there's something wrong with surveillance.

02:40:48.940 | Surveillance is all about the purpose.

02:40:50.540 | It's all about the intent.

02:40:52.140 | - Well, and like you said,

02:40:53.980 | companies do a significant amount of surveillance

02:40:56.700 | to provide us with services that we take for granted.

02:41:00.420 | For example, just one of the things to give props

02:41:04.220 | to the digital efforts

02:41:06.140 | of the Zelensky administration in Ukraine.

02:41:08.460 | I don't know if you're aware,

02:41:09.740 | but they have this digital transformation efforts

02:41:12.880 | where you could put, there's an,

02:41:15.060 | it's laughable to say in the United States,

02:41:20.380 | but they actually did a really good job

02:41:22.020 | at having a government app that has your passport on it.

02:41:25.740 | It's all the digital information.

02:41:27.140 | You can get a doctor.

02:41:28.940 | It's like everything that you would think America

02:41:31.700 | would be doing, like license, all that kind of stuff,

02:41:35.740 | it's in an app.

02:41:36.800 | You could pay each other, there's payment to each other.

02:41:39.620 | And that's all coming, I mean,

02:41:41.460 | there's probably contractors somehow connected

02:41:43.260 | to the whole thing,

02:41:44.160 | but that's like under the flag of government.

02:41:46.860 | And so that's an incredible technology.

02:41:49.340 | And I didn't, I guess, hear anybody talk about

02:41:51.980 | surveillance in that context, even though it is,

02:41:55.020 | but they all love it and it's super easy.

02:41:57.220 | And they, frankly, already, it's so easy and convenient.

02:42:00.740 | They've already taken for granted that,

02:42:02.700 | of course, this is what you do.

02:42:04.420 | Of course, your passport is on your phone.

02:42:06.460 | - Yeah, for everybody to have housed in a server

02:42:09.180 | that you have no idea where it's at.

02:42:10.660 | That could be hacked at any time by a third party.

02:42:13.220 | - They don't ask these kinds of questions

02:42:14.720 | because it's so convenient,

02:42:16.060 | as we do for Google, Facebook, Twitter,

02:42:22.060 | Apple, Microsoft products we use.

02:42:27.060 | - Security and convenience are on two opposite sides

02:42:29.260 | of another spectrum.

02:42:30.820 | The more convenient something is, the less secure.

02:42:33.260 | And the more secure something is, the less convenient.

02:42:36.240 | And that's a battle that we're always,

02:42:38.860 | we're always working with as individuals,

02:42:40.500 | and then we're trying to outsource that battle

02:42:42.520 | to our politicians, and our politicians are, frankly,

02:42:44.540 | just more interested in being politicians.

02:42:46.820 | - Yeah, that said, I mean, people are really worried

02:42:49.140 | about giving any one institution a large amount of power,

02:42:54.140 | especially when it's a federal government institution,

02:42:59.820 | given some history, first of all,

02:43:02.660 | just history of the corruption,

02:43:04.980 | of power-corrupting individuals and institutions,

02:43:08.620 | and second of all, myth or reality of certain institutions

02:43:13.620 | like the CIA misbehaving.

02:43:17.740 | - Well, let me actually ask you about Edward Snowden.

02:43:20.740 | So you, outside of the utility that you're arguing for

02:43:25.740 | of the NSA surveillance program,

02:43:29.140 | do you think Edward Snowden is a criminal or a hero?

02:43:34.140 | - In terms, in the eyes of the law, he's a criminal.

02:43:38.180 | He broke the law, he broke the confidence,

02:43:41.140 | he was under security obligation,

02:43:43.740 | and then when he ran away, he ran away

02:43:45.500 | to all of the worst villains in the world,

02:43:47.780 | from the US perspective, to basically seek protection.

02:43:52.620 | That's, that, how you act in the face of accusation

02:43:58.580 | is in essence part of the case that you build for yourself.

02:44:03.420 | So running away to China, Russia, Cuba,

02:44:07.140 | there was a Latin, Ecuador, I think,

02:44:09.940 | that just paints a very negative picture

02:44:11.880 | that does not suggest that you were doing anything

02:44:13.620 | that was ethical and upright,

02:44:14.740 | and in favor of the American people,

02:44:16.220 | if you're gonna run to American enemies to support yourself.

02:44:19.540 | So for sure, in the eyes of the law, he's a criminal.

02:44:22.620 | In the eyes of a group of people

02:44:26.260 | who are largely ignorant to what they lost,

02:44:30.940 | to them, he's a hero.

02:44:32.780 | To me, he's just kind of a sad case.

02:44:35.360 | I personally look at Snowden as a sad, unfortunate case.

02:44:41.300 | His life is ruined, his family name is tarnished,

02:44:45.180 | he's forever going to be a desperate pawn,

02:44:50.140 | and that's all because of the decisions that he made

02:44:54.380 | and the order that he made them.

02:44:55.600 | - I'm not sure his name is tarnished.

02:44:57.220 | I think the case you're making is a difficult case to make,

02:45:01.580 | and so I think his name represents fighting one man,

02:45:08.380 | it's like Tiananmen Square standing before the tank,

02:45:11.420 | is like one man fighting the government.

02:45:15.780 | And I think that there is some aspect

02:45:18.100 | which, taking that case aside,

02:45:21.660 | that is the American spirit,

02:45:24.740 | which is hold the powerful accountable.

02:45:28.980 | So whenever there's somebody in power,

02:45:31.420 | one individual can change,

02:45:38.180 | one man can make a difference.

02:45:39.420 | - Can make a difference, yeah.

02:45:40.700 | - Very Knight Rider of you.

02:45:42.300 | - I mean, that's the American individualism.

02:45:45.260 | And so he represents that,

02:45:46.700 | and I think there's a huge skepticism

02:45:49.620 | against large federal institutions.

02:45:52.940 | And I think if you look at the long arc of history,

02:45:56.540 | that actually is a forcing function

02:45:58.980 | for the institutions to behave their best.

02:46:01.220 | So basically hold them accountable.

02:46:06.460 | If what's nice about this is that we can agree to disagree,

02:46:11.300 | and history will be the one that decides.

02:46:13.700 | But once, like there's a reason

02:46:17.100 | that Edward Snowden needs to do something new

02:46:20.860 | every 16 or 18 months to remain relevant, right?

02:46:25.820 | Because if he didn't, he would just be forgotten.

02:46:28.540 | Because he was not a maverick

02:46:30.620 | who changed history for the better.

02:46:32.780 | He was a man who broke a law,

02:46:35.220 | and now he's on the run.

02:46:37.460 | And to some people, he is a hero.

02:46:41.060 | To other people, he is a criminal.

02:46:42.860 | But to the vast majority,

02:46:44.660 | he's just a blip on a radar of their everyday life

02:46:48.340 | that really makes no difference to them at all.

02:46:50.700 | - So actually let's linger on that.

02:46:51.980 | So just to clarify, do you think,

02:46:54.420 | are you making the difficult case

02:46:57.620 | that the NSA mass surveillance program

02:47:00.780 | was one, ethical, and two,

02:47:02.700 | made a better world for Americans?

02:47:04.980 | - I am making the case that at the time,

02:47:08.300 | it was exactly what we needed

02:47:10.860 | to feel safe in our own homes.

02:47:13.140 | - But what about to be safe, actually be safe?

02:47:16.540 | - So this is what's difficult,

02:47:17.740 | because any proof that they collected

02:47:20.960 | that actually prevented an attack from happening

02:47:23.540 | is proof we'll never know about.

02:47:24.940 | This is the really unfortunate side

02:47:27.500 | of intelligence operations.

02:47:28.540 | And I've been at the front end of this.

02:47:30.540 | You work your ass off.

02:47:32.260 | You take personal risk.

02:47:33.740 | You make personal sacrifice

02:47:35.100 | to make sure that something terrible doesn't happen.

02:47:38.300 | Nobody knows that that ever happens.

02:47:40.060 | - Does that have to be that way?

02:47:41.660 | Does it have to remain secret

02:47:44.840 | every time the NSA or the CIA saves the lives of Americans?

02:47:49.840 | - It does, for two reasons it has to be secret.

02:47:52.980 | First, the mythos.

02:47:55.540 | The same thing we were talking about with General Petraeus.

02:47:58.940 | You can't brag about your victories

02:48:01.580 | if you want to let the myth shape itself.

02:48:05.300 | You can't do that.

02:48:06.260 | The second thing is,

02:48:07.400 | once a victory is claimed,

02:48:12.900 | the danger comes from letting your enemy

02:48:16.880 | know that you claimed the victory,

02:48:19.060 | because they can reverse engineer

02:48:20.260 | and they can start to change how they did things.

02:48:22.540 | If a terrorist act, if a terrorist cell

02:48:24.700 | tries to execute an operation, the operation fails.

02:48:27.620 | From their point of view, they don't know why it failed.

02:48:29.580 | They just know that it failed.

02:48:30.780 | But then if the US or if the American government

02:48:33.220 | comes in and says, "We took apart this amazing attack,"

02:48:37.740 | now they have more information.

02:48:39.940 | The whole power of secrets, like we talked about before,

02:48:41.820 | the power of secrets is in knowing

02:48:43.460 | that not everybody has them.

02:48:44.640 | There's only a shelf life.

02:48:46.660 | So take advantage of the shelf life.

02:48:48.300 | You get space, so you gotta keep it a secret.

02:48:51.320 | There is no tactical advantage from sharing a secret

02:48:56.100 | unless you are specifically trying to achieve

02:48:59.940 | a certain tactical advantage from sharing that secret,

02:49:01.940 | which is what we've seen so much of

02:49:03.100 | with US intel sharing with Ukraine.

02:49:05.140 | There's a tactical advantage from sharing a secret

02:49:07.300 | about Russian military movements or weaknesses in tanks

02:49:10.700 | or supply chain challenges, whatever it might be.

02:49:14.060 | - Well, let me argue that there might be an advantage

02:49:16.340 | to share information with the American public

02:49:19.780 | when a terrorist attack is averted

02:49:22.780 | or the lives of Americans are saved,

02:49:28.440 | because what that does--

02:49:30.060 | - Is make every American think that they're not that safe.

02:49:33.100 | There is no tactical advantage there.

02:49:36.420 | - You think so? - Absolutely.

02:49:37.820 | If the Austin PD started telling you every day

02:49:44.060 | about these crazy crimes that they prevented,

02:49:48.140 | would that make you feel more safe?

02:49:49.860 | It would make you feel like they're doing their job.

02:49:51.460 | - Is that obvious to you, it'd make us feel less safe?

02:49:53.620 | 'Cause if we see competence,

02:49:55.620 | that there is extremely competent defenders

02:49:59.920 | of this territory, of these people,

02:50:02.940 | wouldn't that make us feel more safe or no?

02:50:05.040 | - The human nature is not to assign competence.

02:50:08.880 | So empirically, humans overvalue losses

02:50:13.880 | and undervalue gains.

02:50:17.140 | That's something that we've seen

02:50:18.440 | from finance to betting and beyond.

02:50:20.480 | If the Austin Police Department starts telling you

02:50:23.600 | about all these heinous crimes that were avoided

02:50:26.800 | because of their hard work,

02:50:28.960 | the way that your brain is actually going

02:50:30.740 | to process that information is you are going to say,

02:50:33.620 | if this is all the stuff that they've stopped,

02:50:36.840 | how bad must this place be?

02:50:39.720 | How much more haven't they stopped?

02:50:41.960 | - I take your point, it's a powerful psychological point,

02:50:45.400 | but looking at the other picture of it,

02:50:49.200 | looking at the police force, looking at the CIA, the NSA,

02:50:53.420 | those people, and now with the police,

02:50:56.660 | they're seen, there's such a negative feeling

02:51:00.020 | amongst Americans towards these institutions.

02:51:03.460 | Who the hell wants to work for the CIA now

02:51:06.620 | and the police force?

02:51:07.820 | You're gonna be criticized.

02:51:11.880 | I mean, that's really bad for the CIA.

02:51:16.980 | It's terrible.

02:51:18.340 | As opposed to being seen as a hero.

02:51:20.700 | For example, currently, soldiers are, for the most part,

02:51:25.060 | seen as heroes that are protecting this nation.

02:51:27.420 | That's not the case for the CIA.

02:51:32.700 | - Soldiers weren't seen as heroes in the Vietnam War.

02:51:35.300 | You've gotta remember that when you,

02:51:39.500 | so first of all, public service is a sacrifice.

02:51:43.580 | We oftentimes forget that.

02:51:45.280 | We start to think, oh, government jobs are cushy

02:51:47.300 | and they're easy and it must be so easy

02:51:49.340 | to be the president 'cause then you're basically

02:51:50.620 | a celebrity overnight.

02:51:51.800 | Public service is a sacrifice.

02:51:55.340 | It's a grind.

02:51:56.720 | For all of the soldiers, the soldiers,

02:52:00.500 | the submariners, the missileers, the police officers,

02:52:05.020 | intelligence specialists, they all know what it's like

02:52:07.660 | to give things up, to serve a public

02:52:10.440 | that can turn its opinion at any given time.

02:52:14.620 | And history is what defines it.

02:52:16.900 | The more important thing is to understand

02:52:18.500 | that if you want a true, open, and fair democracy,

02:52:22.300 | you cannot control a narrative.

02:52:25.300 | And starting to share all of your victories

02:52:27.580 | or starting to share your biggest victories

02:52:29.460 | with the intent of shaping public opinion

02:52:31.620 | to be supportive of the police force

02:52:33.700 | or supportive of CIA or supportive of, you name it,

02:52:37.700 | is shaping a narrative.

02:52:39.180 | That is intentional operational use of influence

02:52:43.300 | to drive public opinion.

02:52:45.540 | That is something nobody wants to get into.

02:52:47.660 | It is much more professional to be a silent sentinel,

02:52:50.420 | a silent servant, humbly carrying the burden

02:52:54.140 | of public service in the United States

02:52:56.040 | where we are a fair and open democracy.

02:52:59.220 | - Why?

02:53:00.620 | Why not celebrate the killing of bin Laden?

02:53:04.700 | - We did.

02:53:05.520 | - The search, discovery, and the capture

02:53:06.820 | and the killing of bin Laden.

02:53:08.380 | Wasn't that, actually the details of that,

02:53:11.020 | how much of the details of that,

02:53:12.540 | how he was discovered, were made public?

02:53:15.420 | I think some of it was made public enough.

02:53:17.500 | Why not do that?

02:53:19.060 | Doesn't that make heroes out of the people

02:53:21.460 | that are servants?

02:53:23.420 | Or do people who serve to do service for this nation,

02:53:28.420 | do they always have to operate

02:53:30.780 | in a thankless manner in the shadows?

02:53:33.600 | - I think that's a very good question.

02:53:36.880 | The folks who I left behind when I left CIA,

02:53:41.780 | who continue to serve as faceless,

02:53:45.700 | nameless heroes every day, I am grateful to them.

02:53:50.080 | The truth is that if they were motivated by something else,

02:53:56.740 | they wouldn't be as good as they are at doing what they do.

02:53:59.780 | And I see your point about

02:54:03.940 | shouldn't we be celebrating our victories?

02:54:07.000 | But when celebrating our victories runs the risk

02:54:09.860 | of informing our enemies how we operate,

02:54:15.160 | giving away our informational advantage,

02:54:16.980 | giving away our tactical battlefield advantage,

02:54:19.180 | and running the risk of shaping a narrative intentionally

02:54:22.260 | among our own American people,

02:54:24.060 | now all of a sudden we're turning into exactly the thing

02:54:27.380 | that the American people trust us not to become.

02:54:30.280 | - Yeah, but then you operate in the secrecy

02:54:34.180 | and then there's corrupt and douchebag people everywhere.

02:54:38.980 | So when they, even inside the CIA and criminals,

02:54:42.900 | inside the CIA there's criminals in all organizations,

02:54:45.900 | in all walks of life, human nature is such

02:54:48.640 | that this is always the case,

02:54:50.420 | then it breeds conspiracy theories.

02:54:53.220 | - It does.

02:54:54.740 | And sometimes those conspiracy theories turn out to be true,

02:54:57.520 | but most times they don't.

02:54:59.740 | That's just part of the risk of being a myth.

02:55:02.620 | - Can you speak to some of the myths?

02:55:05.820 | So MKUltra.

02:55:08.160 | So- - Not a myth.

02:55:09.760 | - Not a myth.

02:55:10.780 | So this is a fascinating human experimentation program

02:55:14.500 | undertaken by the CIA to develop procedures

02:55:17.380 | for using drugs like LSD to interrogate people

02:55:20.780 | through, let's say, psychological manipulation

02:55:23.940 | and maybe even torture.

02:55:25.860 | The scale of the program is perhaps not known.

02:55:28.480 | How do you make sense that this program existed?

02:55:31.940 | - Again, you've gotta look through the lens of time.

02:55:33.740 | You've gotta look at where we were historically

02:55:35.420 | at that time.

02:55:36.260 | There was the peak of the Cold War,

02:55:38.460 | our enemies were doing the same kind of experimentation.

02:55:41.840 | It was essentially another space race.

02:55:44.420 | What if they broke through a new weapon technology

02:55:48.960 | faster than we did?

02:55:50.180 | What would that mean for the safety and security

02:55:52.180 | of the American people?

02:55:54.720 | So right decision or wrong decision,

02:55:57.340 | it was guided by and informed by

02:56:00.220 | national security priorities.

02:56:02.100 | So from this program that was designed to use drugs

02:56:06.580 | to drive interrogation and torture people

02:56:08.780 | was born something very productive, Operation Stargate,

02:56:12.540 | which was a chance to use remote viewing and metaphysics

02:56:17.440 | to try to collect intelligence.

02:56:19.140 | Now, even though in the end,

02:56:21.500 | the outcome of MKUltra and the outcome of Stargate

02:56:24.820 | were mixed, nobody really knows if they did or didn't do

02:56:26.940 | what they were supposed to do,

02:56:28.380 | we still know that to this day,

02:56:30.300 | there's still a demand in the US government and in CIA

02:56:33.980 | for people who have sensitivities to ethereal energies.

02:56:37.980 | - By the way, is there any proof

02:56:40.620 | that that kind of stuff works?

02:56:42.080 | It just shows that there's interest,

02:56:46.260 | it shows that there's openness

02:56:47.860 | to consider those kinds of things,

02:56:49.620 | but is there any evidence that that kind of stuff works?

02:56:51.660 | - If there's evidence, I haven't seen it.

02:56:53.660 | Speaking from a science-based point of view only,

02:56:58.820 | if energy and matter can always be exchanged,

02:57:02.940 | then a person who can understand

02:57:05.020 | and become sensitive to energy

02:57:08.980 | is a person who could become sensitive

02:57:11.440 | to what does become matter.

02:57:13.620 | - Yeah, I mean, the basics of the physics might be there,

02:57:17.380 | but a lot of people probably are skeptical.

02:57:19.900 | - I'm skeptical too, but I'm just trying to remain--

02:57:21.500 | - But you should be open-minded, right?

02:57:23.020 | I mean, that's actually, you know,

02:57:26.300 | that's what science is about, is remain open-minded,

02:57:28.620 | even for the things that are long shots,

02:57:30.520 | because those are the things

02:57:31.460 | that actually define scientific revolutions.

02:57:34.380 | What about Operation Northwoods?

02:57:37.580 | It was a proposed 1962 false flag operation

02:57:41.580 | by the DOD and the CIA to be carried out by the CIA

02:57:46.580 | to commit acts of terrorism on Americans

02:57:50.380 | and blame them on Cuba.

02:57:52.260 | So JFK, the president, rejected the proposal.

02:57:55.780 | What do you make that this was on the table,

02:57:58.100 | Operation Northwoods?

02:57:59.380 | - So it's interesting.

02:58:00.740 | First, I'm glad that JFK rejected it.

02:58:02.940 | That's a good sign.

02:58:05.500 | So we have to understand that good ideas

02:58:09.180 | are oftentimes born from bad ideas.

02:58:11.640 | I had a really good friend of mine

02:58:14.260 | who actually went on to become a pastor,

02:58:16.940 | and he used to say all the time

02:58:18.580 | that he wanted all the bad ideas on the table.

02:58:20.480 | Like, "Give me all your bad ideas,"

02:58:21.940 | every time we had any kind of conversation.

02:58:23.940 | And I was always one of those people who was like,

02:58:25.360 | "Isn't a bad idea just a waste of time?"

02:58:28.020 | And he was like, "No, 'cause the best ideas

02:58:29.860 | "oftentimes come from bad ideas."

02:58:31.420 | So again, Cuban Missile Crisis,

02:58:35.060 | mass hysteria in the United States

02:58:36.980 | about nuclear war from Cuba,

02:58:38.620 | missiles blowing up American cities

02:58:40.780 | faster than we could even see them coming.

02:58:43.100 | It makes sense to me that a president would go to,

02:58:46.020 | especially the part of CIA,

02:58:48.500 | which is the Special Activities Division,

02:58:51.420 | it makes perfect sense to me that the president

02:58:52.940 | would go to a division called Special Activities,

02:58:55.300 | whose job it is to create crazy ideas

02:58:59.540 | that have presidential approval,

02:59:02.420 | but nobody knows they exist.

02:59:04.580 | So it makes sense that he would challenge a group like that

02:59:07.060 | to come up with any wacky idea, right?

02:59:09.260 | Come up with anything, just let's start with something,

02:59:11.420 | 'cause we can't bring nothing to the table.

02:59:13.780 | We have to do something about this Cuban issue.

02:59:15.740 | And then that's how an operation like that

02:59:17.700 | could reasonably be born.

02:59:19.220 | Not because anybody wants to do it,

02:59:20.860 | but because they were tasked by the president

02:59:22.480 | to come up with five ideas, and it was one of the ideas.

02:59:26.500 | That still happens to this day.

02:59:29.300 | The president will still come in,

02:59:31.140 | but he'll basically send out a notice

02:59:33.020 | to his covert action arm, and he will say,

02:59:36.140 | "I need this, and I need it on Wednesday."

02:59:39.580 | And people have to come back with options

02:59:41.900 | for the thing he asked for, a finding.

02:59:44.380 | He will issue a presidential finding,

02:59:46.420 | and then his covert action arms have to come back and say,

02:59:48.560 | "Here's how we would do this

02:59:49.780 | "and hide the hands of the Americans."

02:59:51.680 | - How gangster was it of JFK to reject it though?

02:59:55.500 | - It was baller, right?

02:59:56.540 | (Lex laughing)

02:59:57.460 | That's like, that is a mic drop right there.

03:00:00.020 | Nope, not doing that.

03:00:01.260 | So yep, doing that.

03:00:02.340 | - A thing that crosses an ethical line,

03:00:07.420 | even in a time where the entire human civilization

03:00:12.420 | hangs in a balance, still forfeit that power.

03:00:16.140 | That's a beautiful thing about the American experiment.

03:00:20.540 | That's a few times throughout the history

03:00:22.540 | that's happened, including with our first president,

03:00:26.020 | George Washington.

03:00:27.000 | Well, let me ask about JFK.

03:00:30.260 | (Lex laughing)

03:00:31.780 | - 25 times two, and they still keep that stuff classified.

03:00:36.200 | - So do you think the CIA had a hand

03:00:42.620 | in the assassination of JFK?

03:00:45.700 | - I cannot imagine, in any reasonable point of view,

03:00:50.540 | that the organization of CIA had anything to do

03:00:53.540 | with the assassination of JFK.

03:00:55.060 | - So it's not possible to infiltrate the CIA,

03:00:58.980 | a small part of the CIA, in order to attain political

03:01:04.940 | or criminal gains?

03:01:09.340 | - I think-- - Or financial.

03:01:10.820 | - Yeah, absolutely it's possible to infiltrate CIA.

03:01:13.980 | There's a long history of foreign intelligence services

03:01:17.640 | infiltrating CIA, from Aldrich Ames

03:01:20.340 | to Jerry Lee recently with China.

03:01:23.460 | So we know CIA can be infiltrated.

03:01:25.660 | Even if they are infiltrated,

03:01:28.940 | and even if that interlocutor executes on their own agenda

03:01:33.940 | or the agenda as directed by their foreign adversary,

03:01:39.460 | their foreign handler, that's different

03:01:41.580 | than organizational support for an event.

03:01:45.100 | So I do think it's possible they could have been infiltrated.

03:01:48.680 | At the time, especially, it was a major priority

03:01:52.680 | for the Cubans and the Russians to infiltrate some aspect

03:01:56.100 | of US intelligence.

03:01:58.540 | Multiple moles were caught in the years following.

03:02:03.460 | So it's not surprising that there would be a priority

03:02:06.600 | for that, but to say that the organization of CIA

03:02:09.500 | was somehow in cahoots with,

03:02:12.300 | to independently assassinate their own executive,

03:02:15.180 | that's a significant stretch.

03:02:16.700 | I've seen no evidence to support that,

03:02:18.700 | and it goes contrary to everything I learned

03:02:21.540 | from my time at CIA.

03:02:22.680 | - Well, let me ask you, do you think CIA played a part

03:02:27.660 | in enabling drug cartels and drug trafficking,

03:02:31.260 | which is another big kind of shadow

03:02:36.260 | that hangs over the CIA?

03:02:37.940 | - At the beginning of the drug war,

03:02:39.300 | I would imagine the answer is yes.

03:02:41.040 | CIA has its own counter-narcotics division,

03:02:45.240 | a division that's dedicated to fighting

03:02:47.700 | and preventing narcotics from coming into the United States.

03:02:51.380 | So when you paint a picture for me,

03:02:53.460 | like do you think the CIA was complicit

03:02:55.260 | in helping drug trafficking or drug use?

03:02:59.100 | When I say yes, my exception is I don't think they did that

03:03:03.380 | for Americans inside the United States.

03:03:05.640 | If the CIA can basically set it up

03:03:07.740 | so that two different drug cartels shoot each other

03:03:10.480 | by assisting in the transaction of a sale

03:03:15.480 | to a third country, and then leaking that that sale happened

03:03:20.100 | to a competing cartel, that's just letting cartels

03:03:23.180 | do what they do, that's them doing the dirty work for us.

03:03:25.660 | So especially at the beginning of the drug war,

03:03:27.220 | I think there was tons of space, lots of room

03:03:29.860 | for CIA to get involved in the economics of drugs

03:03:33.740 | and then let the inevitable happen.

03:03:35.380 | And that was way more efficient, way more productive

03:03:38.260 | than us trying to send our own troops in

03:03:40.980 | to kill a bunch of cartel warlords.

03:03:43.960 | So that makes a ton of sense to me.

03:03:45.300 | It just seems efficient, it seems very practical.

03:03:47.300 | I do not believe that CIA would like,

03:03:49.480 | I don't think all the accusations out there

03:03:50.860 | about how they would buy drugs and sell drugs

03:03:53.600 | and somehow make money on the side from it,

03:03:55.220 | that's not how it works.

03:03:56.860 | - So do you think there's, on that point,

03:03:59.660 | a connection between Barry Seale, the great governor,

03:04:04.060 | and then President Bill Clinton, Oliver North,

03:04:06.620 | and Vice President and former CIA Director George H.W. Bush

03:04:10.580 | and a little town with a little airport

03:04:12.820 | called Mena, Arkansas?

03:04:14.900 | - So I am out of my element now.

03:04:17.100 | This is one I haven't heard many details about.

03:04:19.800 | - Okay, so your sense is any of the drug trafficking

03:04:24.800 | has to do with criminal operations

03:04:28.840 | outside of the United States and the CIA

03:04:30.760 | just leveraging that to achieve its ends,

03:04:35.240 | but nothing to do with American citizens

03:04:37.520 | and American politicians?

03:04:39.840 | - With American citizens, again, speaking organizationally.

03:04:43.320 | So that would be my sense, yes.

03:04:46.620 | - Let me ask you about, so back to Operation Northwoods,

03:04:50.500 | because it's such a powerful tool,

03:04:55.500 | sadly powerful tool used by dictators throughout history,

03:04:59.980 | the false flag operation.

03:05:01.920 | So I think there's, and you said the terrorist attacks

03:05:09.140 | in 9/11 were, it changed a lot for us,

03:05:15.180 | for the United States, for Americans.

03:05:18.580 | It changed the way we see the world.

03:05:19.860 | It woke us up to the harshness of the world.

03:05:22.020 | I think there's, to my eyes at least,

03:05:24.980 | there's nothing that shows evidence

03:05:27.320 | that 9/11 was a quote, inside job.

03:05:30.480 | But is the CIA or the intelligence agencies

03:05:35.480 | or the US government capable of something like that?

03:05:41.300 | But that's the question.

03:05:44.580 | There's a bunch of shadieness about how it was reported on.

03:05:47.820 | I just can't.

03:05:49.620 | That's the thing I struggle with.

03:05:51.560 | While there's no evidence that there was an inside job,

03:05:57.060 | it raises the question to me,

03:05:59.300 | well, could something like this be an inside job?

03:06:02.940 | 'Cause it sure as heck, now looking back 20 years,

03:06:06.600 | the amount of money that was spent on these wars,

03:06:09.460 | the military industrial complex,

03:06:11.660 | the amount of interest in terms of power

03:06:14.140 | and money involved, organizationally,

03:06:19.140 | can something like that happen?

03:06:22.580 | - You know Occam's razor.

03:06:24.180 | So, the Harem's razor is that you can never prescribe

03:06:28.140 | to conspiracy what could be explained through incompetence.

03:06:32.560 | That is one of, those are two fundamental guidelines

03:06:37.300 | that we follow all the time.

03:06:38.860 | The simplest answer is oftentimes the best,

03:06:40.700 | and never prescribe to conspiracy

03:06:43.300 | what can be explained through incompetence.

03:06:45.140 | - Can you elaborate what you mean by we?

03:06:47.540 | - We as intelligence professionals.

03:06:50.860 | - So, you think there's a deep truth to that second razor?

03:06:55.140 | - There is more than a deep truth.

03:06:57.660 | There's ages of experience for me and for others.

03:07:01.900 | - So, in general, people are incompetent.

03:07:04.620 | If left to their own means, they're more incompetent

03:07:09.060 | than they are malevolent at a large organizational scale.

03:07:13.780 | - People are more incompetent of executing a conspiracy

03:07:17.380 | than they are of competently, yeah,

03:07:22.460 | than they are of competently executing a conspiracy.

03:07:25.200 | That's really what it means, is that it's so difficult

03:07:28.720 | to carry out a complex lie that most people

03:07:31.380 | don't have the competency to do it.

03:07:33.260 | So, it doesn't make any sense to lead

03:07:35.260 | thinking of conspiracy.

03:07:36.400 | It makes more sense to lead assuming incompetence.

03:07:40.280 | When you look at all of the outcomes,

03:07:41.920 | all the findings from 9/11, it speaks to incompetence.

03:07:45.100 | It speaks brashly and openly to incompetence,

03:07:48.880 | and nobody likes talking about it.

03:07:51.000 | FBI and CIA to this day hate hearing about it.

03:07:53.800 | The 9/11 Commission is gonna go down in history

03:07:56.320 | as this painful example of the incompetence

03:07:58.720 | of the American intelligence community,

03:08:01.080 | and it's going to come back again and again.

03:08:02.920 | Every time there's an intel flap,

03:08:04.200 | it's gonna come back again and again.

03:08:06.800 | What are you seeing even right now?

03:08:08.640 | We missed the US intelligence infrastructure,

03:08:12.120 | misjudged Afghanistan, misjudged Hong Kong,

03:08:16.400 | misjudged Ukraine's and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

03:08:20.160 | Those were three massive misjudgments in a few years.

03:08:22.800 | - It's just embarrassing to think.

03:08:25.840 | - It's just embarrassing, exactly right.

03:08:28.200 | - So, all the sort of cover-up looking things

03:08:32.520 | around 9/11 is just people being embarrassed

03:08:35.040 | by their failures.

03:08:36.560 | - If they're taking steps to cover anything up,

03:08:39.240 | it's just their own, it's a painful reminder

03:08:43.760 | of their lack of competency at the time.

03:08:46.200 | Now, I understand that conspiracy theorists

03:08:48.680 | want to take inklings of information

03:08:51.900 | and put them together in a way that is the most damning,

03:08:55.760 | but that goes back to our point about overvaluing losses

03:08:59.240 | and undervaluing gains.

03:09:00.800 | It's just predictable human behavior.

03:09:02.840 | - Let me ask you about this because it comes up often.

03:09:07.100 | So, I'm from MIT and there's a guy

03:09:10.400 | by the name of Jeffrey Epstein that still troubles me

03:09:14.280 | to this day that some of the people I respect

03:09:17.480 | were interacted with this individual

03:09:20.840 | and fell into his influence.

03:09:27.760 | The charm, charisma, whatever the hell he used

03:09:31.960 | to delude these people, he did so successfully.

03:09:36.960 | I'm very open-minded about this thing.

03:09:38.680 | I just, I would love to learn more,

03:09:40.400 | but a lot of people tell me, a lot of people I respect,

03:09:44.640 | that there's intelligence agencies behind this individual,

03:09:47.880 | so they were using Jeffrey Epstein

03:09:49.920 | for getting access to powerful people

03:09:54.120 | and then to control and manipulate those powerful people.

03:09:57.340 | The CIA, I believe, is not brought up as often as Mossad,

03:10:00.920 | and so this goes back to the original aspect

03:10:04.360 | of our conversation is how much each individual

03:10:06.960 | intelligence agency is willing to go,

03:10:09.560 | to control, to manipulate, to achieve its means.

03:10:13.520 | Do you think there is, can you educate me if,

03:10:16.920 | obviously, you don't know, but you can bet,

03:10:21.360 | what are the chances the intelligence agencies

03:10:23.960 | are involved with the character of Jeffrey Epstein?

03:10:26.800 | In some way, shape, or form with the character of Epstein,

03:10:29.320 | it's 100% guaranteed that some intelligence organization

03:10:33.920 | was involved, but let's talk about why.

03:10:36.320 | Let's talk about why, okay?

03:10:38.040 | - Yeah.

03:10:38.880 | - There's multiple types of intelligence assets,

03:10:41.800 | just like we were talking earlier.

03:10:43.400 | There's foreign intelligence reporting assets,

03:10:47.200 | there's access agents, and then there's agents of influence.

03:10:51.920 | Three different categories of intelligence, right?

03:10:54.920 | One is when you talk about foreign intelligence reporters,

03:10:58.200 | these are people who have access to secrets,

03:10:59.720 | and their job is to give you their secrets

03:11:02.000 | in exchange for gold, or money, or alcohol,

03:11:03.960 | or prostitution, or whatever else, right?

03:11:05.360 | Their job is to give you secrets,

03:11:07.080 | and then you pay them for the secrets.

03:11:09.120 | Access agents, their job is to give you physical access,

03:11:13.440 | or digital access, to something of interest to you.

03:11:17.640 | So maybe they're the ones that open a door

03:11:19.840 | that should've been locked and let you come in

03:11:21.320 | and stick your thumb drive in the computer.

03:11:23.080 | Or maybe they're the ones that share a phone number

03:11:25.600 | with somebody, and then they're just like,

03:11:27.520 | just don't tell them you got the phone number from me.

03:11:29.120 | Their job is to give you access.

03:11:31.240 | Then you have these agents of influence.

03:11:33.640 | An agent of influence's job is to be part of your effort

03:11:38.640 | to influence the outcomes in some way

03:11:42.800 | that benefits your intelligence requirements, right?

03:11:46.160 | Of these three types of people,

03:11:48.480 | the least scrupulous and the most shady

03:11:52.880 | is your agent of influence,

03:11:54.800 | because your agent of influence

03:11:55.920 | understands exactly what they're doing.

03:11:57.500 | They know they're working with one guy,

03:11:59.880 | and they know they're using the influence

03:12:02.400 | to manipulate some other guy.

03:12:04.300 | When it comes to powerful people,

03:12:07.360 | especially wealthy, powerful people,

03:12:09.580 | the only thing that interests them is power.

03:12:14.160 | Money is not a challenge anymore.

03:12:16.440 | Prestige, notoriety, none of those things are a challenge.

03:12:19.520 | The rest of us, we're busy trying to make money.

03:12:21.400 | We're busy trying to build a reputation.

03:12:23.160 | We're busy trying to build a career, keep a family afloat.

03:12:25.720 | At the highest levels, they're bored.

03:12:27.460 | They don't need any of that.

03:12:28.860 | The only thing that they care about

03:12:30.480 | is being able to wield power.

03:12:32.400 | So a character like Jeffrey Epstein

03:12:35.680 | is exactly the kind of character

03:12:38.000 | that the Chinese would want, the Russians would want,

03:12:41.280 | Mossad would want, the French would want.

03:12:44.040 | It's too easy, because the man had access

03:12:47.680 | to a wide range of American influential people.

03:12:52.200 | For corporate espionage uses, for economic espionage uses,

03:12:56.960 | for national security espionage uses,

03:12:59.440 | it doesn't make any sense

03:13:01.400 | that a person like that wouldn't be targeted.

03:13:03.640 | It doesn't.

03:13:04.560 | - So the question is-- - Who?

03:13:06.560 | - Who, and whether, I think the really important distinction

03:13:14.400 | here is was this person, was Jeffrey Epstein created,

03:13:18.160 | or once he's achieved and built his network,

03:13:21.660 | was he then infiltrated?

03:13:23.640 | And that's a really sort of important difference.

03:13:26.840 | Like at which stage do you connect a person like that?

03:13:29.520 | You start to notice maybe they're effective

03:13:32.280 | at building a network, and then you start making,

03:13:36.080 | building a relationship to where at some point

03:13:38.640 | it's a job, they're working for you.

03:13:41.060 | Or do you literally create a person like that?

03:13:43.840 | - Yeah, so intelligence organizations

03:13:45.760 | have different strategies here.

03:13:47.180 | In the United States, we never create.

03:13:49.820 | We don't have a budget cycle that allows us to create.

03:13:53.360 | I mean, the maximum budget cycle

03:13:55.320 | in the United States is five years.

03:13:57.160 | So even if we were to try to invest in some seed operation

03:14:00.520 | or create some character of influence,

03:14:03.120 | essentially every year you have to justify

03:14:06.120 | why you're spending budget.

03:14:07.720 | And that becomes very difficult in a democracy like ours.

03:14:10.120 | However, Russia and China are extremely adept

03:14:13.800 | at seed operations, long-term operations.

03:14:17.240 | They are willing to invest and develop

03:14:20.920 | and create an agent that serves their purposes.

03:14:25.920 | Now, to create someone from scratch like Jeffrey Epstein,

03:14:30.980 | the probabilities are extremely low.

03:14:34.100 | They would have had to start

03:14:35.040 | with like a thousand different targets

03:14:37.320 | and try to grow a thousand different,

03:14:39.360 | if you will, influencers,

03:14:41.160 | and then hope that one of them hits

03:14:42.680 | kind of like a venture capital firm, right?

03:14:44.620 | Invest in many, hope that a few hits.

03:14:47.040 | More likely, they observed him at some point

03:14:51.320 | in his own natural rise.

03:14:53.360 | They identified his personal vulnerability,

03:14:55.540 | very classic espionage technique.

03:14:57.620 | And then they stepped in, introduced themselves mid-career

03:15:01.080 | and said, "Hey, we know you have this thing that you like

03:15:04.040 | "that isn't really frowned upon by your own people,

03:15:06.920 | "but we don't frown upon it.

03:15:08.100 | "And we can help you both succeed

03:15:10.480 | "and have an endless supply of ladies along the way."

03:15:14.920 | - I've recently talked to Ryan Graves, who's a lieutenant,

03:15:18.200 | Ryan Graves, who's a fighter jet pilot,

03:15:21.480 | about many things.

03:15:26.200 | He also does work on autonomous weapon systems,

03:15:29.520 | drones, and that kind of thing, including quantum computing.

03:15:32.740 | But he also happens to be one of the very few pilots

03:15:37.240 | that were willing to go on record

03:15:38.920 | and talk about UFO sightings.

03:15:41.040 | Does the CIA and the federal government

03:15:45.600 | have interest in UFOs?

03:15:47.760 | - In my experience at CIA, that is an area

03:15:51.680 | that remains very compartmented.

03:15:54.720 | And that could be one of two reasons.

03:15:57.740 | It could be because there is significant interest

03:15:59.640 | and that's why it's so heavily compartmented.

03:16:02.040 | Or it could be because it's an area that's non,

03:16:05.880 | that's just not important.

03:16:07.000 | It's a distraction, so they compartment it

03:16:09.480 | so it doesn't distract from other operations.

03:16:12.540 | One of the areas that I've been quite interested in

03:16:17.880 | and where I've done a lot of research

03:16:19.120 | and I've done some work in the private intelligence

03:16:20.840 | and private investigation side is with UFOs.

03:16:23.180 | The place where UFOs really connect

03:16:27.600 | with the federal government

03:16:28.680 | is when it comes to aviation safety

03:16:31.040 | and predominance of power.

03:16:33.240 | So FAA and the US Air Force and the US military

03:16:37.000 | are very invested in knowing what's happening

03:16:38.960 | in the skies above the United States.

03:16:41.000 | And that's of primary interest to them.

03:16:43.640 | When they can rule out the direct threat

03:16:46.360 | to national security of UFOs,

03:16:48.320 | then they become less interested.

03:16:50.220 | That said, when you have unexplained aerial phenomenon

03:16:54.400 | that are unexplained, that can't directly be tied

03:16:58.920 | to anything that is known of the terrestrial world,

03:17:03.440 | then they're left without an answer to their question.

03:17:07.880 | They don't know if it's a threat or not a threat.

03:17:10.640 | But I think the scarier concern

03:17:12.560 | for the US national government

03:17:13.800 | or for the US federal government,

03:17:15.280 | the scarier concern that nobody talks about

03:17:16.960 | is what if the UFO isn't alien?

03:17:20.320 | What if it is actually a cutting edge war machine

03:17:25.880 | that we are eons behind ever being able to replicate?

03:17:29.280 | - Or the other concern is that it's a system,

03:17:34.200 | it's a machine from a foreign power

03:17:36.840 | that's doing intelligence collection.

03:17:38.720 | - Correct.

03:17:39.560 | - So it's not just military purposes,

03:17:41.200 | it's actually collecting data.

03:17:43.780 | - Well, they fall, a lot of times the federal government

03:17:46.240 | will see the two as the same.

03:17:47.200 | It's a hostile tool from a foreign government.

03:17:50.200 | - So collection of information is a hostile act.

03:17:53.640 | - Absolutely, that's why the Espionage Act exists.

03:17:56.600 | That's why it's a criminal offense

03:17:58.120 | if you're committing espionage in the United States

03:18:00.340 | as a US citizen or a foreign citizen.

03:18:03.320 | - So I guess they keep digging

03:18:04.640 | until they can confirm it's not a threat.

03:18:07.000 | But it just, and you're saying that there's not,

03:18:10.640 | from your understanding, much evidence that they're doing so,

03:18:13.240 | it could be because they're compartmentalized.

03:18:17.020 | But you're saying private intelligence institutions

03:18:21.520 | are trying to make progress on this.

03:18:24.540 | Yeah, it's really difficult to know the scale.

03:18:29.600 | - Yeah, there's an economic interest

03:18:31.480 | in the private intelligence world.

03:18:33.880 | Because, for example, if you understand

03:18:36.000 | why certain aerial phenomenon are happening over a location,

03:18:39.960 | then you can use that to inform investors,

03:18:43.320 | whether to invest in that location

03:18:44.920 | or avoid investment in that location.

03:18:47.040 | But that's not a national security concern,

03:18:48.640 | so it doesn't matter to the federal government.

03:18:51.480 | - Could these UFOs be aliens?

03:18:54.500 | Now I'm going into a territory of you as a human being,

03:18:57.280 | wondering about all the alien civilizations

03:19:00.040 | that are out there.

03:19:01.600 | The humbling question.

03:19:03.940 | - We are not alone.

03:19:05.520 | - You think we're not alone?

03:19:07.020 | - It's an improbability that we are alone.

03:19:10.320 | If by virtue of the fact that sentient human life exists,

03:19:15.080 | intelligent human life exists,

03:19:17.400 | all the probabilities that would have to be destroyed

03:19:19.320 | for that to be true,

03:19:20.720 | simply speak over the galaxies that exist,

03:19:23.720 | that there's no possible way we're alone.

03:19:26.240 | It's a mathematical equation.

03:19:27.720 | It's a one or a zero, right?

03:19:30.280 | And for me, it has to exist.

03:19:32.560 | It's impossible otherwise, rationally,

03:19:34.900 | for me to think that we are truly

03:19:36.320 | the only intelligent life form in all of the universe.

03:19:39.320 | But to think that an alien life form

03:19:43.960 | is anything like us at all,

03:19:46.520 | is equally as inconceivable.

03:19:49.840 | To think that they're carbon-based,

03:19:51.480 | bipedal, humanoid, alien species

03:19:55.600 | that just happen to fly around in metal machines

03:19:58.680 | and visit alien planets in a way that they become observed,

03:20:03.200 | it's just silly.

03:20:05.800 | It's the world of sci-fi.

03:20:07.120 | - Well, let me push--

03:20:08.040 | - Every good scientist,

03:20:09.920 | 'cause we always assume that they're superior to us

03:20:11.920 | in intelligence.

03:20:13.480 | When any scientist carries out an experiment,

03:20:16.480 | the whole objective of the experiment

03:20:18.160 | is to observe without being disclosed or being discovered.

03:20:23.160 | So why on earth would we think that this superior species

03:20:26.320 | makes the mistake of being discovered over and over again?

03:20:29.220 | - So to push back on that idea,

03:20:32.720 | if we were to think about us humans

03:20:34.680 | trying to communicate with ants,

03:20:36.500 | first, we observe for a while.

03:20:39.440 | There'll be a bunch of PhDs written,

03:20:41.280 | a bunch of people just sort of collecting data,

03:20:45.120 | taking notes, trying to understand about this thing

03:20:48.440 | that you detected that seems to be a living thing,

03:20:50.960 | which is a very difficult thing to define

03:20:52.560 | from an alien perspective or from our perspective

03:20:55.160 | if we find a life on Mars or something like that.

03:20:57.600 | Okay, so you observe for a while.

03:20:59.720 | But then if you want to actually interact with it,

03:21:02.320 | how would you interact with the ants?

03:21:04.440 | If I were to interact with the ants,

03:21:06.880 | I would try to infiltrate.

03:21:10.620 | I would try to figure out

03:21:13.960 | what is the language they use

03:21:15.400 | to communicate with each other.

03:21:16.960 | I would try to operate at their physical scale,

03:21:21.840 | like in terms of the physics of their interaction,

03:21:24.620 | in terms of the information methods,

03:21:27.960 | mediums of information exchange with pheromones

03:21:30.960 | or whatever, however the heck, ants.

03:21:33.040 | So I would try to mimic them in some way.

03:21:36.000 | So in that sense, it makes sense that

03:21:39.120 | the objects we would see,

03:21:43.360 | you mentioned bipedal, yes, of course it's ridiculous

03:21:45.880 | that aliens would actually be very similar to us,

03:21:50.240 | but maybe they create forms in order to be like,

03:21:54.800 | here, the humans will understand it.

03:21:58.280 | And this needs to be sufficiently different from humans

03:22:00.920 | to know that there's something weird.

03:22:02.840 | I don't know, I think it's actually

03:22:05.080 | an incredibly difficult problem of figuring out

03:22:07.360 | how to communicate with a thing way dumber than you.

03:22:11.920 | People assume if you're smart,

03:22:14.680 | it's easy to talk to the dumb thing,

03:22:16.840 | but I think it's actually extremely difficult

03:22:19.260 | when the gap in intelligence is just orders of magnitude.

03:22:23.760 | And so of course you can observe,

03:22:26.320 | but once you notice the thing is sufficiently interesting,

03:22:30.040 | how do you communicate with that thing?

03:22:32.160 | - So this is where, one of the things

03:22:34.320 | I always try to highlight is how conspiracies are born,

03:22:38.720 | because many people don't understand

03:22:40.680 | how easy it is to fall into the conspiratorial cycle.

03:22:44.360 | So the first step to a conspiracy being born

03:22:47.560 | is to have a piece of evidence that is true.

03:22:52.380 | And then immediately following the true evidence

03:22:55.360 | is a gap in information.

03:22:57.280 | And then to fill in the gap of information,

03:23:00.720 | people create an idea, and then the next logical outcome

03:23:05.720 | is based on the idea that they just created,

03:23:08.080 | which is an idea that's based on something

03:23:10.280 | that was imagined in the first place.

03:23:12.520 | So the idea, the factual thing is now two steps away,

03:23:15.520 | and then three steps away, four steps away,

03:23:17.280 | as the things go on.

03:23:18.120 | And then all of a sudden you have this kernel of truth

03:23:20.340 | that turned into this wild conspiracy.

03:23:23.040 | So in our example, you talked about humans

03:23:26.080 | trying to communicate with ants.

03:23:27.320 | Ants are not intelligent.

03:23:28.840 | There's no, ants are not an intelligent species.

03:23:30.800 | They're a drone species that's somehow commanded

03:23:33.800 | through whatever technology, whatever--

03:23:36.080 | - Spoken like a typical human, but yes.

03:23:37.920 | - Whatever biological thing is in the queen, right,

03:23:40.120 | but it's not a fair equivalent.

03:23:41.960 | But let's look at gorillas,

03:23:43.120 | or let's look at something in the monkey family, right?

03:23:45.240 | Where largely we agree that there is some sort

03:23:48.480 | of intelligence there, or dolphins,

03:23:50.040 | some sort of intelligence, right?

03:23:52.160 | It is a human thing, a human thing,

03:23:57.240 | to want to observe and then communicate and integrate.

03:24:02.240 | That's a human thing, not an intelligent life thing.

03:24:06.620 | So for us to even think that a foreign,

03:24:09.040 | an intelligent alien species would want to engage

03:24:12.240 | and communicate at all is an extremely human assumption.

03:24:16.920 | And then from that assumption,

03:24:18.200 | then we started going into all the other things you said.

03:24:20.160 | If they wanted to communicate, wouldn't they wanna mimic?

03:24:23.040 | If they wanted to mimic,

03:24:24.120 | wouldn't they create devices like ours?

03:24:26.040 | So now we're three steps removed from the true fact

03:24:29.320 | of there's something unexplainable in the skies.

03:24:32.420 | - Yeah, so the fact is there's something unexplainable

03:24:37.800 | in the skies and then we're filling in the gaps

03:24:40.400 | with all our basic human biases and assumptions.

03:24:43.280 | - Exactly. - But the thing is--

03:24:45.040 | - Now we're getting right back to Project Northwood.

03:24:47.600 | We need some plan.

03:24:48.800 | I don't care how crazy the idea is, guys,

03:24:50.440 | give me some plan.

03:24:51.520 | So that's where we come up with,

03:24:53.400 | maybe it's an alien species trying to communicate,

03:24:55.280 | or maybe it's an alien, a hostile threat

03:24:57.960 | that's trying to take over the world,

03:24:59.760 | or who knows what, maybe it's--

03:25:01.920 | - But you have to somehow construct hypotheses

03:25:07.140 | and theories for anomalies,

03:25:10.120 | and then from that, amidst the giant pile of the ridiculous,

03:25:15.120 | emerges perhaps a deeper truth over a period of decades.

03:25:21.600 | And at first that truth is ridiculed

03:25:24.440 | and then it's accepted, that whole process.

03:25:29.280 | - The Earth revolving around the sun?

03:25:30.760 | - Yeah, the Earth revolving around the sun.

03:25:32.940 | But to me it's interesting because it asks us

03:25:37.420 | looking out there with SETI, just looking for alien life,

03:25:41.980 | is forcing us to really ask questions about ourselves,

03:25:45.620 | about what is life, how special,

03:25:48.420 | first of all, what is intelligence,

03:25:50.020 | how special is intelligence in the cosmos?

03:25:52.620 | And I think it's inspiring and challenging

03:25:55.840 | to us as human beings,

03:25:57.460 | both on a scientific and engineering level,

03:26:00.340 | but also on a philosophical level.

03:26:01.900 | I mean, all of those questions are laid before us

03:26:04.480 | when you start to think about alien life.

03:26:06.540 | - So you interviewed Joe Rogan recently.

03:26:09.520 | And he said something that I thought was really,

03:26:12.380 | really brilliant during the podcast interview.

03:26:14.780 | He said that--

03:26:15.620 | - He's gonna love hearing that.

03:26:17.000 | (laughing)

03:26:18.180 | Go ahead, sorry.

03:26:19.020 | - He said that he realized at some point

03:26:21.980 | that the turn in his opinion about UFOs happened

03:26:25.520 | when he realized how desperately he wanted it to be true.

03:26:30.380 | This is the human condition.

03:26:32.960 | Our pink matter works the same way

03:26:35.820 | as everybody's pink matter.

03:26:36.940 | And one of the ways that our pink matter works

03:26:38.500 | is with this thing, with what's known as a cognitive bias.

03:26:41.520 | It's a mental shortcut.

03:26:42.900 | Essentially, your brain doesn't want to process

03:26:45.140 | through facts over and over again.

03:26:46.620 | Instead, it wants to assume certain facts are in place

03:26:48.980 | and just jump right to the conclusion.

03:26:50.280 | It saves energy, it saves megabytes.

03:26:52.940 | So what Joe, what Joe or Joe Rogan,

03:26:56.300 | I feel weird calling him Joe, I don't know him,

03:26:57.820 | but what Joe identified on his own--

03:26:59.660 | - Mr. Rogan.

03:27:00.620 | - What Mr. Rogan identified on his own

03:27:03.100 | was his own cognitive loop.

03:27:06.940 | And then he immediately grew suspicious of that loop.

03:27:10.360 | That is a super powerful tool.

03:27:11.920 | That is something that most people

03:27:13.380 | never become self-actualized enough to realize,

03:27:15.660 | that they have a cognitive loop,

03:27:17.300 | let alone questioning their own cognitive loop.

03:27:20.200 | So that was, when it came to this topic specifically,

03:27:23.500 | that was just something that I thought was really powerful

03:27:25.940 | because you learn to not trust your own mind.

03:27:30.940 | - Just for the record, after he drinks one whiskey,

03:27:34.660 | all that goes out.

03:27:36.460 | I think that was just in that moment in time,

03:27:38.820 | - A moment of brilliance.

03:27:41.780 | - A moment of brilliance.

03:27:42.940 | 'Cause I think he still is,

03:27:44.660 | he's definitely, one of the things that inspires me about Joe

03:27:50.900 | is how open-minded he is, how curious he is.

03:27:53.420 | He refuses to let the conformity and the conventions

03:27:57.420 | of any one community, including the scientific community,

03:28:00.620 | be a kind of thing that limits his curiosity,

03:28:04.220 | of asking what if, the whole, it's entirely possible.

03:28:08.760 | I think that's a beautiful thing.

03:28:10.180 | And it actually represents what the best of science is,

03:28:13.700 | that childlike curiosity.

03:28:15.540 | But, so it's good to balance those two things,

03:28:18.580 | but then you have to wake up to it.

03:28:22.380 | Is there a chance this is true,

03:28:24.460 | or do I just really want it to be true?

03:28:27.140 | And that--

03:28:27.980 | - Like the hot girl that talks to you overseas?

03:28:29.820 | - Yeah, yeah.

03:28:31.180 | For a brief moment.

03:28:34.060 | There's actually a deeper explanation for it

03:28:37.940 | that I'll tell you off the mic,

03:28:39.580 | that perhaps a lot of people can kind of figure out.

03:28:42.940 | Anyway--

03:28:43.780 | - Just to take it one step further,

03:28:44.860 | 'cause I love this stuff.

03:28:45.780 | Personally, I love Pink Matter stuff.

03:28:48.860 | In your interview with Jack Barsky,

03:28:50.060 | Jack's a good friend of mine, a good dude.

03:28:52.260 | - Yeah, incredible person.

03:28:53.100 | - Yeah, in your conversation with Jack Barsky,

03:28:55.820 | you guys, he started talking to you about

03:28:58.540 | how his recruiters were feeding back to him his own beliefs,

03:29:02.740 | his own opinions about himself, how smart he was,

03:29:05.700 | how good he was, how uniquely qualified he was.

03:29:08.380 | That's all Pink Matter manipulation.

03:29:10.460 | Feeding right back to the person

03:29:12.420 | what they already think of themselves

03:29:14.140 | is a way to get them to invest and trust you faster,

03:29:17.700 | because obviously you value them for all the right reasons,

03:29:21.220 | because that's how they see themselves.

03:29:23.020 | So that loop that the KGB was using with Jack,

03:29:28.020 | Jack did not wake up to that loop at the time.

03:29:31.140 | He woke up to it later.

03:29:33.020 | So it happens to all of us.

03:29:35.240 | We're all in a loop.

03:29:37.220 | It's just, whether it's about oat milk,

03:29:39.660 | or whether it's about aliens,

03:29:41.180 | or whether it's about the Democrats trying to take your guns,

03:29:44.780 | whatever it is, everybody's in a loop,

03:29:47.060 | and we've gotta wake up to ask ourselves,

03:29:49.100 | just like you said,

03:29:50.300 | is it true, or do we just really want it to be true?

03:29:53.860 | And until you ask yourself that question,

03:29:55.740 | you're just one of the masses trapped in the loop.

03:29:58.260 | - Yeah, that's the really,

03:30:00.340 | the Nietzsche gaze into the abyss.

03:30:03.580 | It's a dangerous thing.

03:30:05.060 | That's the path to insanity, is to ask that question.

03:30:08.620 | You wanna be doing it carefully,

03:30:11.020 | but it's also the place where you can truly discover

03:30:14.300 | something fundamental about this world

03:30:15.980 | that people don't understand,

03:30:17.300 | and then that, and lay the groundwork for progress,

03:30:21.820 | scientific, cultural, all that kind of stuff.

03:30:24.940 | - Absolutely.

03:30:25.780 | - What is one spy trick?

03:30:28.860 | This is from a Reddit that I really enjoy.

03:30:31.220 | What's one spy trick,

03:30:32.660 | and you're full of a million spy tricks.

03:30:36.900 | People should follow you.

03:30:37.820 | You do an amazing podcast.

03:30:39.220 | You're just an amazing person.

03:30:40.460 | - Thank you.

03:30:42.020 | - What is the one spy trick you would teach everyone

03:30:45.060 | that they can use to improve their life instantly?

03:30:47.980 | Now, you already mentioned quite a few,

03:30:50.820 | but what else could jump to mind?

03:30:54.100 | - My go-to answer for this has not really changed much

03:30:56.620 | over the last few years.

03:30:57.660 | So the first, the most important spy trick

03:31:00.020 | to change everything immediately

03:31:01.660 | is something called perception versus perspective.

03:31:05.300 | We all look at the world through our own perception.

03:31:09.180 | My dad used to tell me, my stepdad used to tell me

03:31:12.540 | that perception is reality,

03:31:13.660 | and I was arguing this with him when I was 14 years old.

03:31:17.420 | I told you so, dad, you're still wrong.

03:31:19.340 | - Yeah.

03:31:20.520 | - But perception is your interpretation

03:31:22.620 | of the world around you, but it's unique only to you.

03:31:25.420 | There's no advantage in your perception.

03:31:28.820 | That's why so many people find themselves arguing

03:31:30.640 | all the time, trying to convince other people

03:31:33.420 | of their own perception.

03:31:35.460 | The way that you win any argument,

03:31:37.780 | the way that you get ahead in your career,

03:31:39.780 | the way that you outsell or outrace anybody

03:31:44.780 | is when you move off of perception

03:31:47.460 | and move into perspective.

03:31:49.620 | Perspective is the act or the art

03:31:52.320 | of observing the world from outside of yourself.

03:31:56.340 | Whether that's outside of yourself as like an entity,

03:31:59.440 | just observing in a third from a different point of view,

03:32:02.420 | or even more powerful, you sit in the shoes,

03:32:05.140 | you sit in the seat of the person opposite you,

03:32:07.420 | and you think to yourself, what is their life like?

03:32:10.180 | What do they feel right now?

03:32:11.620 | Are they comfortable?

03:32:13.940 | Are they uncomfortable?

03:32:14.780 | Are they afraid?

03:32:15.620 | Are they scared?

03:32:16.540 | What's the stressor that they woke up to this morning?

03:32:18.700 | What's the stressor that they're gonna go

03:32:19.740 | to sleep with tonight?

03:32:21.640 | When you shift places and get out of your own perception

03:32:24.700 | and into someone else's perspective,

03:32:27.240 | now you're thinking like them,

03:32:29.220 | which is giving you an informational advantage.

03:32:31.620 | But you know what they're all doing?

03:32:33.300 | Everyone else out there is trapped in their own perception.

03:32:36.940 | Not thinking about a different perspective.

03:32:39.300 | So immediately you have superior information,

03:32:42.500 | superior positioning.

03:32:44.020 | You have an advantage that they don't have.

03:32:46.380 | And if you do that to your boss,

03:32:48.760 | it's gonna change your career.

03:32:50.100 | If you do that to your spouse,

03:32:51.380 | it's gonna change your marriage.

03:32:52.520 | If you do that to your kids,

03:32:53.940 | it's gonna change your family legacy.

03:32:55.780 | Because nobody else out there is doing it.

03:32:58.060 | - It's so interesting how difficult empathy is for people,

03:33:01.900 | and how powerful it is.

03:33:03.780 | Especially for, like you said, the spouse, like intimacy.

03:33:07.220 | Stepping outside of yourself,

03:33:10.060 | and really putting yourself in the shoes

03:33:11.940 | of the other person, considering how they see the world.

03:33:14.700 | I really enjoy that,

03:33:17.820 | because how does that exactly lead to connection?

03:33:22.540 | I think when you start to understand

03:33:26.600 | the way the other person sees the world,

03:33:30.000 | you start to enjoy the world through their eyes,

03:33:32.260 | and you start to be able to share, in terms of intimacy,

03:33:35.660 | share the beauty that they see together.

03:33:39.080 | Because you understand their perspective.

03:33:41.020 | And somehow you converge as well.

03:33:43.740 | Of course, that allows you to gather information better,

03:33:46.060 | and all that kind of stuff.

03:33:47.300 | And that allows you to work together better,

03:33:50.400 | to share in all different kinds of ways.

03:33:53.340 | But for intimacy, that's a really powerful thing.

03:33:55.780 | And also for, actually, people you really disagree with,

03:34:00.920 | or people on the internet you disagree with, and so on.

03:34:03.160 | I find empathy is such a powerful way

03:34:07.400 | to resolve any tensions there.

03:34:09.720 | Even people like trolls, or all that kind of stuff.

03:34:12.480 | I don't deride them, I just kind of put myself

03:34:15.360 | in their shoes, and it becomes an enjoyable camaraderie

03:34:20.360 | with that person.

03:34:21.720 | - So I want to draw a pretty hard line

03:34:23.160 | between perspective and empathy.

03:34:26.680 | Because empathy is, frankly, an overused term

03:34:30.400 | by people who don't really know

03:34:33.740 | what they're saying sometimes.

03:34:34.960 | I think you know what you're saying,

03:34:35.960 | but the vast majority of people listening--

03:34:37.160 | - I would argue that, but that's fine.

03:34:39.280 | - As soon as you say empathy, they're gonna just be like,

03:34:41.360 | oh yeah, I've heard this a thousand times.

03:34:43.480 | Empathy is about feeling what other people feel.

03:34:47.840 | - It's more about feeling, would you say?

03:34:51.720 | - Yeah, it's about feelings.

03:34:53.060 | It's about understanding someone else's feelings.

03:34:54.880 | Feeling, it's not the same as sympathy,

03:34:58.080 | where you feel their feelings.

03:34:59.320 | Empathy is about recognizing that they have feelings,

03:35:01.880 | and recognizing that their feelings are valid.

03:35:04.400 | Perspective is more than just feelings.

03:35:07.360 | It's about the brain, it's about the pink matter

03:35:11.400 | on the left side and the right side of the brain.

03:35:14.560 | Yes, I care about feelings, and this goes directly

03:35:17.720 | to your point about connection.

03:35:18.760 | Yes, I care about feelings, but I also care about objectives.

03:35:22.720 | What is your life, what is your aspirational goal?

03:35:25.760 | What was it like to grow up as you?

03:35:27.480 | What was it like to experience this,

03:35:29.060 | and how did this shape your opinion on that?

03:35:30.840 | And what is it that you're going to do next?

03:35:35.720 | More than just feelings, actual tactical actions.

03:35:38.840 | And that becomes extremely valuable

03:35:41.120 | in the operational world, because if you can get

03:35:43.620 | into someone's head, left brain and right brain,

03:35:46.320 | feelings and logic, you can start anticipating

03:35:48.740 | what actions they're gonna take next.

03:35:50.200 | You can direct the actions that they're going to take next,

03:35:52.640 | because you're basically telling them the story

03:35:54.200 | that's in their own head.

03:35:56.000 | When it comes to relationships and personal connection,

03:35:58.760 | we talked about it earlier, the thing that people

03:36:02.280 | want the most is community.

03:36:05.640 | They want someone else who understands them.

03:36:08.160 | They want to be with people, they don't want to be alone.

03:36:11.800 | The more you practice perspective, empathy or no empathy,

03:36:15.800 | the more you just validate that a person is there.

03:36:19.240 | I am in this time and space with you in this moment.

03:36:22.360 | Feelings aside, right?

03:36:24.260 | That is powerful.

03:36:27.440 | That is intimate.

03:36:29.160 | And whether you're talking about lovers

03:36:31.000 | or whether you're talking about a business exchange

03:36:32.880 | or whether you're talking about collaborators in a crime,

03:36:35.880 | I'm here with you, ride or die, let's do it, right?

03:36:39.200 | That's powerful.

03:36:41.040 | - How much of what you've learned in your role at the CIA,

03:36:46.040 | transfer over to relationships, to business relationship,

03:36:49.800 | to other aspects of life?

03:36:51.400 | This is something you work closely with powerful people

03:36:53.900 | to help them out.

03:36:55.160 | What have you learned about the commonalities,

03:36:57.880 | about the problems that people face?

03:36:59.880 | - Man, I would say about a solid 95% of what I learned

03:37:04.880 | at CIA carries over to the civilian world.

03:37:07.480 | That 5% that doesn't, it would carry over in a disaster.

03:37:12.480 | Knowing how to shoot on target with my non-dominant hand

03:37:18.280 | really only has one purpose.

03:37:20.760 | It's not gonna happen day to day, right?

03:37:23.200 | Knowing how to do a dead drop that isn't discoverable

03:37:25.520 | by the local police force isn't gonna be useful right now,

03:37:28.560 | but it could be useful in a disaster.

03:37:30.600 | But the 95% of stuff that's useful,

03:37:32.780 | it's all tied to the human condition.

03:37:34.540 | It's all tied to being able to understand

03:37:39.540 | what someone's thinking, understand what someone's feeling,

03:37:43.000 | direct their thoughts, direct their emotions,

03:37:45.520 | direct their thought process, win their attention,

03:37:47.960 | win their loyalty, win influence with them,

03:37:51.080 | grow your network, grow your own circle of influence.

03:37:54.880 | I mean, all of that is immensely, immensely valuable.

03:37:58.480 | As an example, the disguise,

03:38:00.860 | the disguise thing that we talked about earlier.

03:38:03.240 | Disguise in and of itself has mixed utility.

03:38:06.600 | If you're Brad Pitt and you don't want anybody

03:38:08.000 | to know you're Brad Pitt,

03:38:08.840 | you put on a level one disguise and that's great.

03:38:10.320 | Or maybe you call me and I walk you through

03:38:12.320 | a level two disguise so that you can go to Aruba

03:38:14.380 | and nobody's gonna know you're in Aruba, right?

03:38:16.240 | Whatever it is.

03:38:18.080 | But even there with the 5% that doesn't apply

03:38:21.720 | to everyday life, there's still elements that do.

03:38:24.800 | For example, when a person looks at a human being's face,

03:38:28.800 | the first place they look is the same part of the face

03:38:32.260 | as if they were reading a piece of paper.

03:38:34.200 | So in English, we start from the top left

03:38:36.920 | and we read left to right, top to bottom.

03:38:38.740 | So when an English speaking person

03:38:40.860 | interacts with another person,

03:38:42.260 | the first thing they look at isn't their eyes.

03:38:45.520 | It's the upper left from their point of view,

03:38:49.040 | corner of their face, right?

03:38:52.060 | They look there and the information they get

03:38:54.760 | is hair color, hair pattern, skin color, right?

03:38:58.280 | That's it.

03:38:59.120 | Before they know anything else about the face.

03:39:01.000 | This is one of the reasons why somebody can look at you

03:39:02.760 | and then you ask them, what color are my eyes?

03:39:05.000 | I don't really remember.

03:39:06.360 | Because the way they read the face,

03:39:07.800 | they read it from left to right, top to bottom.

03:39:10.280 | So they're paying a lot of attention

03:39:11.560 | to the first few things they see

03:39:12.920 | and then they're paying less attention

03:39:14.120 | as they go down the face.

03:39:14.960 | It's the same scrolling behavior

03:39:16.120 | that you see on the internet, right?

03:39:18.920 | So when you understand that through the lens of disguise,

03:39:21.360 | it allows you to make a very powerful disguise.

03:39:23.220 | The most important part of your disguise

03:39:24.880 | is here if you're English speaking, right?

03:39:27.360 | Here if you're speaking some foreign languages

03:39:29.360 | that read right to left, right?

03:39:31.160 | If it's Chinese, you know that they're gonna look

03:39:33.160 | from here down 'cause they read left down.

03:39:35.880 | - So interesting.

03:39:37.080 | (Lex laughs)

03:39:37.920 | So yeah, knowing that really helps you

03:39:39.160 | sort of configure the things

03:39:40.480 | in terms of physical appearance.

03:39:41.760 | That's interesting. - Correct, correct.

03:39:43.040 | So when it comes to how to make a disguise,

03:39:45.280 | not so useful to the ultra wealthy usually.

03:39:47.720 | But when it comes to how to read a face

03:39:50.060 | or more importantly, how people are going to read your face,

03:39:52.640 | that's extremely important.

03:39:53.900 | Because now you know where to find the first signs

03:39:57.600 | of deception in a baseline or anything else.

03:39:59.600 | - You mentioned that the idea of having privacy

03:40:03.600 | is one that we kind of, we think we can,

03:40:10.280 | but we really don't.

03:40:12.400 | Is it possible for maybe somebody like me

03:40:14.960 | or a regular person to disappear from the grid?

03:40:18.060 | - Absolutely, yeah.

03:40:19.120 | And it's not as hard as you might think.

03:40:20.440 | It's not convenient.

03:40:21.640 | Again, convenience and security.

03:40:24.680 | You can disappear tomorrow, right?

03:40:26.460 | I can walk you through three steps right now

03:40:27.760 | that's gonna help you disappear tomorrow.

03:40:29.200 | But none of them are convenient.

03:40:31.320 | They're all extremely secure, right?

03:40:33.600 | The first thing you do is every piece

03:40:35.200 | of digital technology you have

03:40:36.880 | that is connected to you in any way is now dead.

03:40:41.240 | You just let the battery run out.

03:40:42.520 | - Forever.

03:40:43.360 | - Forever, you never touch it again,

03:40:44.720 | starting at this moment.

03:40:46.440 | What you have to do is go out and acquire a new one.

03:40:50.220 | Realistically, you will not be able to acquire a new one

03:40:52.920 | in the United States by buying it.

03:40:55.640 | Because to do so, you would tie it to your credit card,

03:40:58.700 | you would tie it to a location, a time, a place,

03:41:00.840 | a registered name, whatever else.

03:41:02.280 | So you would have to acquire it essentially by theft

03:41:04.840 | or through the black market.

03:41:07.460 | So you would want something because you're gonna need

03:41:09.680 | the advantage of technology without it being in your name.

03:41:13.040 | So you go out and you steal a phone or you steal a laptop,

03:41:16.440 | you do whatever you have to do to make sure

03:41:17.680 | that you can get on with the password

03:41:19.240 | and whatever else that might be,

03:41:20.560 | as dirty or as clean as you want that to be.

03:41:22.360 | We're all morally flexible here.

03:41:24.340 | But now you have a technological device

03:41:27.140 | that you can work with.

03:41:29.040 | And then from there on,

03:41:31.320 | you're just doing whatever you have to do,

03:41:32.660 | whether you're stealing every step of the way

03:41:35.040 | or whether you run a massive con.

03:41:38.720 | Keep in mind that we often talk about con men and cons.

03:41:42.320 | Do you know what the root,

03:41:43.520 | the word that con is a root word for?

03:41:46.520 | Confidence.

03:41:48.040 | That's what a con man is.

03:41:49.320 | A con man is a confidence man.

03:41:51.600 | Just somebody who is so brazenly confident

03:41:54.340 | that the people around them,

03:41:55.800 | living in their own perception, not perspective,

03:41:58.640 | in their perception, they're like,

03:42:00.360 | well, this guy really knows what he's talking about.

03:42:01.960 | So I'm gonna do what he says.

03:42:04.000 | So you can run a massive con

03:42:05.560 | and that can take care of your finances,

03:42:07.200 | that can take care of your lodging, whatever else it is.

03:42:10.240 | You are whoever you present yourself to be.

03:42:13.020 | So if you wanna go be,

03:42:15.680 | if you wanna be Bill for the afternoon,

03:42:18.320 | just go tell people your name is Bill.

03:42:19.840 | They're not gonna question you.

03:42:21.520 | - So the intelligence,

03:42:24.080 | the natural web of intelligence gathering systems

03:42:28.720 | we have in the United States and in the world,

03:42:32.000 | are they going to believe for long that you're Bill?

03:42:36.760 | Are they--

03:42:37.720 | - Until you do something that makes them think otherwise.

03:42:39.880 | If you are consistent,

03:42:41.040 | we talked about consistency being the superpower.

03:42:43.240 | If you are consistent, they will think you're Bill forever.

03:42:46.640 | - How difficult is that to do?

03:42:49.040 | - It's not convenient.

03:42:50.720 | It's quite difficult.

03:42:51.920 | - Does that require training?

03:42:53.840 | - It does require training.

03:42:55.760 | - 'Cause why do criminals always get caught?

03:42:57.760 | - Because they stop being consistent.

03:42:59.960 | Criminals, I've,

03:43:04.880 | I never hesitate to admit this,

03:43:07.120 | but people tell me I should hesitate to admit it.

03:43:09.040 | So now I hesitate

03:43:10.480 | because of the guidance I've gotten to hesitate, right?

03:43:13.440 | I like criminals.

03:43:14.360 | I'm friends with a number of criminals

03:43:16.400 | because the only people who get me,

03:43:17.920 | like right away who get me, are criminals

03:43:20.940 | because we know what it's like

03:43:23.120 | to basically abandon all the rules,

03:43:25.360 | do our own thing our own way,

03:43:26.680 | and watch the world just keep turning.

03:43:29.080 | Most people are so stuck in the trap

03:43:33.880 | of normal thought and behavior

03:43:36.080 | that when I tell them,

03:43:36.920 | they just don't, just go tell people your name is Bill.

03:43:39.280 | Most people are gonna say, "Psh, that's not gonna work."

03:43:42.560 | But a criminal will be like, "Oh yeah, I did that once.

03:43:44.640 | "I just told everybody my name is Nancy.

03:43:46.260 | "I'm a dude and they still believe me."

03:43:48.880 | Criminals just get it, right?

03:43:50.400 | So what happens with criminals

03:43:53.560 | is they go to the school of hard knocks.

03:43:56.440 | They go to, they learn criminal behavior on the job.

03:44:00.360 | Spies go to school.

03:44:02.680 | We go to the best spy school in the world.

03:44:05.040 | We go to Langley's, the farm, right?

03:44:07.880 | What's known as Field Tradecraft Course, FTC,

03:44:10.160 | in a covert location for a covert period of time

03:44:12.440 | and covert, covert, covert.

03:44:13.560 | So if anybody from CIA is watching,

03:44:14.640 | I'm not breaking any rules.

03:44:16.240 | It's all on Wikipedia, but it's not coming from me.

03:44:19.120 | But we do, that's how we do it.

03:44:20.520 | They train us from 100 years of experience

03:44:24.880 | and the best ways to carry out covert operations,

03:44:27.120 | which are all just criminal activities overseas.

03:44:30.760 | We learn how to do it the right way

03:44:32.320 | so that we don't get caught.

03:44:33.320 | We learn how to be consistent.

03:44:34.460 | More importantly, we learn how to create an operation

03:44:37.720 | that has a limited lifespan,

03:44:39.940 | because the longer it lives, the more at risk you are.

03:44:43.160 | So you want operations to be short, concise,

03:44:46.400 | on the X, off the X, limit your room for mistakes.

03:44:49.780 | Criminals want the default

03:44:52.200 | to wanting these long-term operations,

03:44:55.040 | 'cause they don't wanna have to recreate a new way

03:44:57.000 | to make money every 15 days.

03:45:00.520 | - You mentioned if anybody from the CIA is watching,

03:45:03.920 | so I've seen you talk about the fact

03:45:07.920 | that sort of people that are currently working at the CIA

03:45:10.400 | would kind of look down on the people who've left the CIA

03:45:14.400 | and they ride them, especially if you go public,

03:45:16.800 | especially if there's a book and all that kind of stuff.

03:45:19.880 | Do you feel the pressure of that to be quiet,

03:45:28.080 | to not do something like this conversation

03:45:30.640 | that we're doing today?

03:45:31.600 | - I feel the silent judgment.

03:45:33.240 | That's very real.

03:45:35.420 | I feel it for myself and I feel it for my wife,

03:45:37.000 | who doesn't appear on camera very often,

03:45:38.640 | but who's also a former CIA.

03:45:40.880 | We both feel the judgment.

03:45:42.720 | We know that right now, three days after this is released,

03:45:47.580 | somebody's gonna send an email on a closed network system

03:45:50.400 | inside CIA headquarters,

03:45:52.120 | and there's a bunch of people who are gonna laugh at it,

03:45:53.880 | a bunch of people who are gonna say that who knows what,

03:45:56.080 | it's not gonna be good stuff.

03:45:56.920 | - Who do you respect probably?

03:45:58.640 | - A bunch of people who I'm trying to bring honor to,

03:46:01.960 | whether I know them or respect them is irrelevant.

03:46:04.800 | These are people who are out there doing the deed every day,

03:46:08.000 | and I wanna bring them honor,

03:46:09.920 | and I wanna do that in a way that I get to share

03:46:13.020 | what they can't share and what they won't share

03:46:15.640 | when they leave, because they will also feel

03:46:17.140 | the silent pressure, the pressure to,

03:46:19.880 | the shame, the judgment, right?

03:46:21.720 | But the truth is that I've done this now long enough.

03:46:25.440 | The first few times that I spoke out publicly,

03:46:27.960 | the response to being a positive voice

03:46:32.160 | for what the sacrifice is that people are making,

03:46:34.960 | it's so refreshing to be an honest voice

03:46:39.020 | that people don't normally hear that it's too important.

03:46:43.120 | One day I'm gonna be gone,

03:46:44.280 | and my kids are gonna look back on all this,

03:46:46.340 | and they're gonna see their dad

03:46:48.360 | trying to do the right thing for the right reasons.

03:46:51.000 | And even if my son or daughter ends up at CIA,

03:46:53.480 | and even if they get ridiculed for being,

03:46:55.280 | oh, you're the Bustamante kid, right?

03:46:57.640 | Your dad's a total sellout, whatever it might be.

03:47:00.080 | Like, I want them to know, you know,

03:47:02.800 | dad was doing what he could to bring honor

03:47:05.800 | to the organization, even when he couldn't

03:47:07.280 | stay in the organization anymore.

03:47:09.480 | - So you said when you were 27,

03:47:11.460 | I think you didn't know what the hell you were doing.

03:47:14.120 | So now that you're a few years older and wiser,

03:47:20.280 | let me ask you to put on your wise sage hat

03:47:24.720 | and give advice to other 27-year-olds,

03:47:27.480 | or even younger, 17, 18-year-olds

03:47:30.960 | that are just out of high school, maybe going to college,

03:47:34.200 | trying to figure out this life,

03:47:35.520 | this career thing that they're on.

03:47:37.600 | What advice would you give them

03:47:39.840 | about how to have a career,

03:47:42.040 | or how to have a life they can be proud of?

03:47:44.520 | - Well, it's a powerful question, man.

03:47:47.700 | - Have you figured it out yet yourself?

03:47:51.160 | - No.

03:47:52.560 | I think I'm a grand total of seven days

03:47:54.880 | smarter than I was at 27.

03:47:56.280 | It's not a good average.

03:47:58.000 | - Progress.

03:47:58.820 | There's still time.

03:48:01.120 | - There's still time.

03:48:02.680 | So for all the young people out there

03:48:04.920 | deciding what to do,

03:48:07.120 | I would just say the same thing that I would say,

03:48:10.080 | that I do say and I will say to my own kids.

03:48:12.400 | You only have one life.

03:48:14.360 | You only have one chance.

03:48:16.600 | If you spend it doing what other people expect you to do,

03:48:21.260 | you will wake up to your regret at some point.

03:48:25.440 | I woke up when I was 38 years old.

03:48:29.240 | My wife, in many ways, is still waking up to it

03:48:32.040 | as she watches her grandparents pass

03:48:34.800 | and an older generation pass away.

03:48:37.480 | The folks that really have a blessed life

03:48:42.940 | are the people who learn early on

03:48:45.200 | to live with their own rules, live their own way,

03:48:50.200 | and live every day as if it's the last day.

03:48:53.780 | Not necessarily to waste it by being wasteful or silly,

03:48:58.160 | but to recognize that today is a day

03:49:00.040 | to be productive and constructive for yourself.

03:49:04.580 | If you don't want a career,

03:49:06.140 | today's not the day to start pursuing a career

03:49:07.880 | just because someone else told you to do it.

03:49:09.720 | If you wanna learn a language,

03:49:11.200 | today's a day to find a way to buy a ticket

03:49:13.760 | to another country and learn through immersion.

03:49:15.720 | If you want a date, if you wanna get married,

03:49:17.960 | if you want a business, today is the day

03:49:20.440 | to just go out and take one step in that direction.

03:49:25.200 | And as long as you, every day you just make one new step,

03:49:28.600 | just like CIA recruited me.

03:49:30.360 | Just do the next thing.

03:49:32.080 | If the step seems like it's too big,

03:49:34.480 | then there's probably two other steps

03:49:36.060 | that you can do before that.

03:49:37.640 | Just make constant progress, build momentum,

03:49:40.400 | move forward, and live on your own terms.

03:49:43.920 | That way you don't ever wake up to the regret.

03:49:47.000 | And it'll be over before you know it.

03:49:49.960 | Whether you regret it or not, it's true.

03:49:51.960 | - What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing?

03:49:55.500 | What's the meaning of life?

03:49:56.680 | - Self-respect.

03:49:57.760 | That's a fast answer.

03:50:00.220 | There's a story behind it if you want the story.

03:50:01.880 | - I would love to have the story.

03:50:03.680 | - There's a covert training base in Alabama,

03:50:06.360 | in the south, far south, in like the armpit of America,

03:50:10.160 | where elite tier one operators

03:50:12.520 | go to learn human intelligence stuff.

03:50:16.080 | And there's a bar inside this base.

03:50:18.920 | And on the wall is just, it's scribbles of opinions.

03:50:23.920 | And the question in the middle of the wall says,

03:50:27.840 | "What's the meaning of life?"

03:50:29.360 | And all these elite operators over the last 25 or 30 years,

03:50:33.060 | they all go, they get drunk,

03:50:34.440 | and they scribble their answer,

03:50:35.520 | and they circle it with a Sharpie, right?

03:50:37.320 | Love, family, America, freedom, right? Whatever.

03:50:42.320 | And then the only thing they have to do

03:50:43.640 | is if they're gonna write something on there,

03:50:45.120 | they have to connect it with something else on the wall,

03:50:48.080 | at least one other thing.

03:50:49.060 | So if they write love,

03:50:50.000 | they can't just leave it floating there.

03:50:51.440 | They have to write love in a little bubble

03:50:53.600 | and connect it to something else,

03:50:54.960 | connect it to family, whatever else.

03:50:56.680 | When you look at that wall,

03:50:58.040 | the word self-respect is on the wall,

03:51:02.720 | and it's got a circle around it.

03:51:04.440 | And then you can't see any other word

03:51:06.600 | because of all the things that connect to self-respect.

03:51:09.640 | Just dozens of people have written over,

03:51:13.960 | have written their words down

03:51:14.920 | and been drawn and scribbled over

03:51:16.560 | because of all the lines that connect with self-respect.

03:51:19.160 | So what's the meaning of life?

03:51:20.820 | From my point of view, I've never seen a better answer.

03:51:24.120 | It's all self-respect.

03:51:25.060 | If you don't respect yourself, how can you do anything else?

03:51:27.440 | How can you love someone else

03:51:28.360 | if you don't have self-respect?

03:51:29.660 | How can you build the business you're proud of

03:51:31.000 | if you don't have self-respect?

03:51:31.920 | How can you raise kids?

03:51:33.160 | How can you make a difference?

03:51:34.340 | How can you pioneer anything?

03:51:35.960 | How can you just wake up and have a good day

03:51:39.040 | if you don't have self-respect?

03:51:42.800 | - The power of the individual,

03:51:44.320 | that's what makes this country great.

03:51:48.320 | I have to say, after traveling quite a bit in Europe,

03:51:52.200 | and especially in a place of war,

03:51:55.720 | coming back to the United States

03:51:57.080 | makes me really appreciate

03:51:58.400 | about the better angels of this nation,

03:52:02.280 | the ideals it stands for, the values it stands for.

03:52:04.960 | And I'd like to thank you for serving this nation for time,

03:52:09.960 | and humanity for time.

03:52:12.600 | And for being brave enough and bold enough

03:52:16.800 | to still talk about it, and to inspire others,

03:52:19.480 | to educate others, for having many amazing conversations,

03:52:24.480 | and for honoring me by having this conversation today.

03:52:28.480 | You're an amazing human.

03:52:30.080 | Thanks so much for talking today.

03:52:31.360 | - Lex, I appreciate the invite, man.

03:52:32.800 | It was a joy.

03:52:33.640 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:52:36.240 | with Andrew Bustamante.

03:52:38.000 | To support this podcast,

03:52:39.160 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:52:41.680 | And now, let me leave you with some words

03:52:44.080 | from Sun Tzu in the art of war.

03:52:47.000 | Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night.

03:52:52.120 | And when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

03:52:55.400 | Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

03:52:59.520 | (upbeat music)

03:53:02.100 | (upbeat music)

03:53:04.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310

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