In this episode of the podcast, we discuss a new show coming to the Discovery Channel called Black Files. It's an exploration of the Defense Department's hidden budgets and what they do to keep them a secret. What are they really doing with the money and why are they doing it? What are the benefits and drawbacks to keeping these things a secret? And how much money does the CIA actually have to spend on these programs? We also discuss the benefits of the CIA cooperating with the government in order to keep these secrets, and why they don't want to make them public. We also talk about how the CIA spends their money, and what it's really like to be a part of an agency that's not allowed to talk about these things. Finally, we talk about some of our favorite conspiracy theories and theories, and how they might be based on some of the things that have been declassified over the years, and some that have not been. If you like conspiracy theories, this episode is for you! Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for our next episode next week for a new episode of The Dark Side of the Mind, hosted by John Rocha and the crew at The Daily Planet! -John and I talk about the new show, Black Files, coming on the Discovery Network's Black Files on the Science Channel's Discovery Channel, "The Dark Side Of The Mind" on the future episodes of the upcoming show "The Black Files! and much more. - John and I discuss all things related to the upcoming Black Files show, including the upcoming episodes of Black Files and the upcoming new show on The Dark Art, White, White and Blue Skies, a new Netflix show on the History Channel's BlackFiles, coming soon. . John talks about his new show and his plans for the new Black Files series on the science channel's new series, BlackFiles. John gives us a sneak peek at the upcoming series, "Black Files. and talks about what the show is going to be about, and gives us some background on the show and what we can expect from the new series. of the show. , and how it s going to look like. The Black Files and what to expect in the future of the series, including what we re working on. Black Files is coming. in the coming episodes, and more! Stay tuned for more on the upcoming episode, including how to watch the show, and our thoughts on it.
00:01:26.000Because obviously, you know, the Russians, the Chinese, whomever would like to know how much money is sent over to the agency so that they can get a sense of size, resources, capabilities, that sort of thing.
00:01:39.000So that's where the show concept started.
00:01:42.000What is that money spent on, both in the old days and now?
00:01:46.000So it kind of spans historical operations and events and activities and special units, and it comes up to the present time and says, where is money being devoted?
00:01:57.000Now, for new technology or new programs, new operations, new intelligence gathering efforts, whatever it might be.
00:02:02.000So it's, you know, I think it's got a lot of promise.
00:02:05.000You know, hopefully people tune in and find it interesting.
00:02:08.000Well, people are always curious about where the money goes.
00:02:35.000Or could you discuss the numbers that they used to have?
00:02:39.000We'll be able to discuss the numbers that went into past operations, but anything that's currently classified, obviously, we're not going to touch on.
00:02:46.000But we've been working hard, and the producers have been working very hard to get excellent access where possible, and get cooperation where possible.
00:02:55.000It's going to be a fairly immersive effort.
00:02:57.000What's the benefit of the CIA even divulging any of this information?
00:03:02.000Why wouldn't they say, hey, shut the fuck up?
00:03:04.000Yeah, well, and frankly, they should, and they have, and they will.
00:03:09.000Not necessarily with the agency, but with other departments, and certainly within the military.
00:03:14.000There's some information out there that's accessible.
00:03:18.000There's some ability to get them to cooperate on.
00:03:21.000On certain, again, declassified operations that just haven't come to light.
00:03:25.000Look, a lot of shit's been declassified over the years that's just never been looked at or talked about.
00:03:29.000You know, somebody maybe gets a wild hair up their ass and they say, I'm going to look into this program, and then they start, you know, peeling it back.
00:03:41.000It's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of travel, some great people working on the program, but apparently I have to keep it pretty much at that until the marketing department says, okay, here's what you can say.
00:03:57.000So if they're making something like the B-52, if they're making a stealth bomber, if they're making some spaceship-looking thing, you're talking this insane amount of money in research and development and the budget of these things, and they have to keep all that under wraps.
00:04:16.000U-2 program was developed, designed, built, maintained, flown by the CIA all those years ago, right?
00:04:23.000Now, that was a massive effort and a lot of money.
00:04:27.000And it was done under budget, and it was done on time, in part because I think, you know, things were a little bit easier back then, and we weren't all pissing on each other up on Capitol Hill.
00:04:37.000But, yeah, so it's programs like that that I think will surprise people when they find out both Who was running it?
00:05:00.000So there's constantly projects that are in development that people, other than the people that need to know, The general public has no idea.
00:05:10.000That's always the people on the outside, folks like myself.
00:05:37.000It's not unlike going out with your buddies and drinking and thinking, you know, somebody comes up with some dumbass idea, and the next thing you know, it turns into a TV show or something.
00:05:53.000And the key is to do it creatively, right?
00:05:55.000Because if you've got a bunch of engineers sitting around a table, you hope that they're not at all approaching it from the same point of view, right?
00:06:02.000If you've got a high-value target out there and you've got to figure out how to get access, get to them, you want ideas coming in from all directions.
00:06:13.000And Believe it or not, I mean, the intel community, the military, they've been enormously creative over the years in developing new technologies and developing operational ideas and methodologies.
00:06:25.000So what we're trying to do is shed some light on that.
00:06:28.000Well, I would imagine there's a certain amount of – I don't want to use the word fun – But that's really the right word.
00:06:34.000Some of it's got to be fun to develop this stuff and to implement it and go out and get bad guys with it and to see your project come to fruition and actually have a positive effect on the world.
00:06:48.000It's that simple because in operations anyway, you engage in something out there in some place around the world, wherever it may be, and you realize as you're walking away that there are not a lot of people doing this at this moment on the planet.
00:07:04.000So the operational activity itself is enormously entertaining, as long as it goes right.
00:07:23.000Heavy lifting, chasing down countless bad leads and doing enormous amounts of surveillance, street work, and tracking down assets and doing, I mean, just the hard, hard work that eventually allowed all those guys from the teams to land and do their job.
00:07:41.000What's interesting to me, too, is that the guy who's writing the book about all this stuff and talking about, you know, the man who shot bin Laden, that guy's persona non grata in the community.
00:07:51.000Like, you talk to the other SEALs, they're like, you don't do that.
00:08:12.000The reason why I think the horse got out of the barn on that whole issue of guys writing books or getting out there and talking about specific operations...
00:08:22.000It's because senior commanders and senior people, people that came out of the top levels of government, started writing their memoirs, started revisiting history while it was their watch, and coming up with their explanations for history.
00:08:38.000And I think all the guys below, you know, junior ranks and street-level operators, they looked at that and thought, well, what the fuck if they can do it?
00:09:02.000Because it gets a bunch of people that are really interested in becoming a SEAL. It gets people to appreciate the unbelievable sacrifice and hard work that's involved.
00:09:11.000Yeah, I think that there is an upside.
00:09:14.000Yeah, there's an upside to it, but I think it's a fine balance, right?
00:09:17.000At what point do you go over that line?
00:09:19.000So you're right in the sense that – we see that with whomever, the FBI or DEA. They got out there and put their thumbprint on some TV shows, right?
00:09:28.000Because I think it – It expanded, in part, awareness of what they do.
00:09:36.000And so the SEALs are no different, but at the same time, You sign a piece of paper at the very beginning that says you're going to keep your yap shut.
00:09:44.000And it's one thing to come out from whatever unit or whatever team or whatever organization and say, I'm going to write, I don't know, about my time in.
00:09:55.000And it's not a look at sources and methods, not look at operations.
00:09:59.000It's more of, you know, this is what happened during my time.
00:10:03.000I'm not explaining it very well, but I think there's a way you can do that without screwing the pooch.
00:10:08.000But I think the SEALs got overexposed.
00:10:12.000And I think a lot of the guys resent that.
00:10:32.000It's important to maintain that honor.
00:10:34.000It's important to maintain that bond of silence.
00:10:38.000You guys, they're doing something that is probably one of the most dangerous and one of the most, in terms of special operations, one of the most significant in all of military in this country.
00:10:54.000Yeah, I think the old school guys, the old school operators out of the teams are definitely like, just shut your pie hole.
00:12:20.000And so from, you know, inside the CIA, you got a lot of officers going, well, shit, maybe when I get out, I'll write a book, because what I'm doing is pretty damn interesting.
00:12:31.000And anybody who reveals sources and methods, anybody who breaks their agreements in terms of the proper handling, which is a lifetime agreement of classified information, there's supposed to be consequences.
00:12:44.000And sometimes there are, and sometimes if you're senior enough, maybe there's not.
00:12:49.000But, yeah, you sign a piece of paper at the very beginning.
00:12:58.000I mean, I don't want to oversimplify it, but it says you are being given the responsibility of handling extremely sensitive information, and information that, if released, can easily result in the loss of life.
00:13:11.000I mean, it's as simple as that, essentially.
00:13:13.000And your obligation is to shut your mouth and not talk about sources and methods and things that you know better not to talk about.
00:13:21.000But I think that kind of the drip, drip, drip, right, of the books and the things that come out and the anonymous sources.
00:13:28.000The New York Times can write an entire front page article based on nothing but anonymous sources nowadays.
00:13:56.000I think the desire to get information out there quickly because every journalist is now playing beat the clock with everybody who's got a smartphone, right?
00:14:04.000And who fancies themselves a blogger or- A journalist on Twitter or whatever.
00:14:08.000So they're all doing this, and I think it's just this idea, right, that says...
00:14:16.000I had a meeting with my company, Diligence, for all your information and security needs.
00:14:24.000And it was with a major multinational corporation.
00:14:26.000And I was meeting with their head of security and some other folks.
00:14:30.000And they do a lot of work overseas in some very difficult places.
00:14:33.000And the competition that they face in their sector is huge.
00:14:37.000And so we went in there and we thought, this will be great.
00:14:39.000There's a lot of things we can do for them in terms of gathering information, preventing them from making mistakes as they're going into a new market, all of these things.
00:14:46.000And the bottom line was they said, they looked at me and they said, nah, you know what?
00:16:49.000And all these things that have been happening to us, you would think that we'd be pretty buttoned up.
00:16:54.000But no, every administration has had its moment where it's let slip.
00:16:57.000And whether it was the press secretary or whether it was somebody rushing to the podium or with somebody on Capitol Hill, I mean, they're famous for it up there, you know, congressmen and congresswomen or senators.
00:17:06.000All in the rush to get in front of the camera to talk about something.
00:17:13.000So I think it all kind of contributes to this mentality that we started off talking about with the SEALs where, you know, why are we in this point where people are writing books and maybe getting outside?
00:18:15.000But as far as what the current mood inside the agency is, I mean, if you talk to some I don't find that.
00:18:30.000I find that, frankly, they're just more focused on operational concerns and priorities and tasking than anything else.
00:18:39.000Everybody's got a personal opinion, right?
00:18:42.000But I do think that the agency has proven itself over the years at being better at pushing that down and understanding, and in part because it's a smaller organization, right, than most of them.
00:18:56.000But he doesn't go after the CIA, right?
00:18:58.000He's only gone after the FBI. He's gone after the FBI. He's done some things in terms of questioning CIA analysis and some of the advice and guidance that they've provided.
00:19:11.000But again, you sort of look at it and go, hey, look, we're feeding this into the NSC, the National Security Council.
00:19:16.000You guys, you know, that's an editorial process at that point.
00:19:20.000You guys are going to have to make your decisions.
00:19:22.000You know, people are going to say, I'm just saying this because I'm subjective and I'm providing top cover for the agency.
00:19:27.000But for the most part, they just focus on getting shit done.
00:19:31.000And we also have the benefit of being focused overseas.
00:19:33.000So we're not, like the Bureau is, you know, it's a domestic organization, right?
00:21:38.000We're not going to get rid of that mentality, that ideology, sort of what seems to be sometimes a bottomless well of recruits that they can draw on, their ability to morph into something else, as Al-Qaeda did, depending on how successful we are in a campaign against them.
00:21:55.000They're like, again, it's like you step on roaches over here and they pop up over here.
00:22:02.000It's – the biggest problem I've got is that if we leave, we're not – It's not like we're engaged in firefights every day with ISIS over there, right?
00:22:17.000And our allies in most part up there in the north of Syria are the Kurds.
00:22:21.000And the Kurds have been our allies in one way or another in that part of the world for a long time now and have played a very important role.
00:22:29.000And we have not been particularly honorable over the years in terms of how sometimes we deal with them.
00:22:35.000If we walk out, if we leave, then Erdogan, you know, the head of Turkey, I guarantee you will be in there in short order to kill as many of them as possible because that's just what the Turkish authorities are going to do.
00:22:52.000They honestly – they couldn't be happier with the announcement that we're going to leave because that opens the door for them to then go in there and from their perspective stamp out the Kurdish alliance that have been our allies.
00:23:07.000Our presence, that small presence, not minimizing it, but 2,000 troops, has been what's prevented them from doing that.
00:23:14.000So that's the number one issue I've got.
00:23:17.000The other is I have no idea why any president or vice president or anybody in the government ever, not just this administration or any administration, ever thinks it's a good idea to say, we've defeated the enemy.
00:23:32.000When we're talking about radical Islam.
00:23:34.000We've seen it over and over again from previous administration, from the Bush administration.
00:23:37.000Every time they say, you know, we've done it.
00:24:04.000There's no benefit to saying that and it's not going to happen anyway.
00:24:08.000So the goal of being over there is to assist our allies, but also to make sure that these radical factions don't become more powerful and then eventually affect us and attack us.
00:24:21.000So we can keep an eye on what they're planning, what they're doing.
00:24:28.000I mean, if you look at the reason we went into Afghanistan, right?
00:24:39.000That was because the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to establish a beachhead in there for training and for communications and for finance and for plotting and planning attacks outside of Afghanistan against us and our allies.
00:24:56.000That's why we went in there, aside from just seeking revenge, obviously, was to route that out.
00:25:12.000But the reason now for being in Syria is, yes, we have done a very solid job of beating back ISIS, removing their territory, and degrading their ability to operate.
00:25:30.000And so we've been providing the support, again, in the form of weapons, hardware, gear, resources, training, and most importantly, combat air operations, air assaults.
00:26:12.000But both sides can make a valid argument, one for staying, one for leaving.
00:26:17.000I think the best argument for staying in certainly the short and midterm is to ensure that Erdogan doesn't slaughter a bunch of Kurds who have been working with us honorably.
00:26:39.000So it's not in our best interest, it's in the best interest of our commitment and our agreement with them.
00:26:46.000Well, is it in our national security interest to stay in Syria, for example?
00:26:50.000Look, there was this – there's so many levels to this thing, and I'm sure right now everybody's listening going, oh, for fuck's sake, he's not going to disappear down the rabbit hole.
00:27:41.000Are we going to keep Iran from forming too late for that?
00:27:44.000They've already got a beachhead there that they're not going to give up.
00:27:47.000And so You've got to set those issues aside and say, well, what the hell are we doing there?
00:27:52.000Are we there simply because we have to finish the fight against ISIS? Well, you know, at some point you've got to say, you know, I guess.
00:28:03.000I wouldn't say that we've defeated them, but I think we would say, yeah, we've degraded them sufficiently that we can now operate from elsewhere.
00:28:11.000We can operate from forward bases in other locations where we're currently based.
00:28:25.000But there's something that tells me it's the right thing to do.
00:28:28.000And maybe sometimes that's enough, that we should not let Erdogan have his way.
00:28:34.000And also long term, wouldn't it be in our best interest to honor our commitment and make sure that we protect our allies so that in the future other allies would be more willing to cooperate with us because they understand that once we're committed,
00:30:26.000They don't know what the hell we're trying to sell them, right?
00:30:28.000So I don't – I'm not against the notion of getting out, but this one's a tough one.
00:30:34.000I guess that's what I'm saying is the Syria issue I'm real conflicted on because of the Kurds and what they've done on our behalf in the past and how they've suffered.
00:30:42.000And knowing, going years and years back, you know, having dealt with that issue two and a half decades ago, a long time ago, with the Turks and the Kurds, knowing how vicious that could be.
00:30:56.000And I don't trust Erdogan as far as I could throw him out a window.
00:30:59.000So, you know, I think there's a problem there that we need to, we need to make sure we've talked through thoroughly before we just say, sure, let's get him out of there.
00:31:12.000But like everything else, it's complicated.
00:31:14.000You would like to think that they're having conversations like this up on Capitol Hill between the parties, the Republicans and the Dems, but I don't think they are.
00:31:25.000What concerns me is, especially a guy like Trump, if Trump is the guy who's decided we're going to pull out of Syria, how does he have enough time to carefully consider that as well as all the other things that are on his Yeah.
00:31:43.000And when someone runs for president, say if someone's campaigning and they say, you know, I support a non-interventionalist foreign policy.
00:31:50.000I'm going to get us out of these wars.
00:33:02.000I go out to dinner with folks on the hard left, and when you talk to them, They fully believe, fully believe that President Trump is a Russian puppet, a winning asset of Putin who is just doing Putin's bidding.
00:33:19.000And they honestly, honestly believe that.
00:33:22.000And nothing is going to shift them off that position.
00:33:25.000When you have that sort of frame of reference, you don't have the ability to look at anything rationally and say, yeah, okay, I like this policy related to China.
00:33:35.000It's about time we call them out and say that you obviously have not been a fair trading partner.
00:33:40.000That's something that every administration has agreed to but has never done anything about.
00:33:43.000So you would think that everybody would be able to say, hmm, makes sense.
00:33:55.000And yet they can't do it because they've got this mindset that prevents them from having any sort of conversation, any sort of rational discussion that could lead to some compromise that could then advance the ball.
00:34:08.000And make this government more functional.
00:34:11.000So where we're at right now is today is day one of the shutdown.
00:35:20.000And the Democrats, you know, talk about it every minute, about how this is a terrible crisis.
00:35:24.000And so you would think that if both sides feel that way, then get something done.
00:35:30.000Look, the Democrats, they've approved in the past, recent past, many of these Democrats voted for fencing, barriers, whatever you want to call it.
00:35:48.000If he had started his campaign by saying, we need to improve our border security and find fixes to an immigration system that is both fair and secure and efficient, if he had gone with that, it's a wordy bumper sticker, but if he had gone with that,
00:36:04.000we'd have a different conversation right now.
00:36:05.000We would, but maybe we'd have a different president as well.
00:36:42.000Boy, I didn't even know the people that voted for him, the people that are like real MAGA supporters, I didn't even know they existed in the numbers that exist.
00:36:51.000It's like he uncovered a rock, like he flipped a rock over and there was an ant colony of rubes in there.
00:36:57.000And just the sheer numbers, it's like, whoa!
00:37:04.000You've got a lot of people very, you know, because I don't buy the idea that it's all just a bunch of, you know, crackers or a bunch of idiots.
00:37:31.000There was some congressman recently that was talking about all the people that supported Trump, and he was talking about them all being losers and alcoholics and illiterate.
00:37:42.000I'm like, man, you're talking about half the country.
00:38:29.000Not where we've got this much talent and skill and capability.
00:38:33.000So I don't know what 2020 is going to bring, but it's, we're in for a hell of a ride between, you know, Look at all the shit that's happening.
00:38:55.000It seems very critical, because if the Democrats win, and somehow or another he abandons his idea for a wall, abandons the billions of dollars that he's been asking for for this wall, that gives them momentum.
00:39:07.000We kicked his ass with that wall, and we're going to kick his ass in 2020. That's exactly what they're thinking.
00:39:13.000That is exactly what they're discussing in the war room when Nancy Pelosi keeps them all in lockstep, and she's done a good job so far of keeping the Dems in line.
00:39:22.000And that's why they wanted her back in.
00:39:24.000At least the old guard wanted her back in, because that's what she does well, aside from fundraising.
00:39:29.000So, you know, I have a feeling that, look, he's asking for whatever, $5.7 billion.
00:39:33.000In the scheme of things, that's a drop in the bucket.
00:39:35.000And Schumer and Pelosi and a wide variety of other people, including the previous president, have all voted in the past for additional funding for border security, including fencing and barriers.
00:39:44.000But they are not going to budge off of this.
00:39:48.000Does that mean he's being pushed into a corner where he has no option but to declare a national emergency and use funds elsewhere so that he can say, I finally got it done and looked at Dems and didn't do anything?
00:40:00.000Whoever's perceived as the winner out of this ridiculous situation, yeah, they're going to beat that drum all the way to 2020. One of the things they've been saying, too, about the wall is that they want to keep drugs from coming in, illegal drugs.
00:40:15.000But from this El Chapo trial, we're learning how the biggest drug dealer in Mexico got his drugs in.
00:40:56.000And he's now claiming that the former president in Mexico, Pignaneto, was given $100 million at the outset of his term.
00:41:06.000I think it was 2012 when he started as president.
00:41:09.000So when he was president-elect, he'd already won, but he was waiting to take the seat.
00:41:13.000According to this Colombian trafficker who was working with Guzman, with Chapo, And Pignanetto reached out to him, possibly through his campaign manager or however the story goes.
00:41:26.000And Chapo came back with a negotiated position that says $100 million, which was then, according to this, again, the guy's a Colombian trafficker, how legitimate is he?
00:41:39.000Then the money was transferred to Pignanetto.
00:41:44.000And You know, pionettos, people are saying that's ridiculous.
00:41:47.000Look, we were the ones who tracked him down, you know, even though he escaped, you know, 48 times or whatever he escaped.
00:41:54.000But there's always been this talk about how Chapo's arrests were orchestrated, right?
00:42:02.000And that's so that the military, the police were involved somehow, that there was a coordinated effort.
00:42:08.000And there's always been that underlying rumor.
00:45:04.000You have to nowadays, I think, at least my theory is anyway, if you want to be a paid contributor for a network, it doesn't matter which network, you've got to stake out a position that involves some crazy.
00:45:17.000You've got to be all in for President Trump, or you've got to be all out.
00:45:21.000If you live in the center, that ain't happening.
00:45:24.000Nobody wants to hear from anybody in the middle because that shit's not picking up the ratings at all.
00:45:29.000No, no one wants reasonable middle right now.
00:45:33.000The only time that I think reasonable middle would ever work out is if the two ends are so fucked up.
00:45:39.000And they're fighting so hard on the opposite ends.
00:45:42.000Someone's like, God, surely there's got to be a reasonable middle.
00:45:55.000That's the way it is with the government shutdown right now.
00:45:58.000Pelosi's sitting over here in the mud.
00:46:00.000President Trump's sitting over here in the mud, and nobody's giving any ground, and they're just occasionally taking a shot at each other or throwing a hand grenade, and nobody is making any movement.
00:46:10.000So again, how do they stop this shutdown?
00:46:38.000Everybody's having some problems, but we didn't need to add to the noise.
00:46:43.000John Stossel had an interesting video that he put out where he's saying what this does actually highlight is that there's a lot of things that the government does that really should probably be privatized and we wouldn't have these issues.
00:46:55.000It kind of made sense to me, but I don't know a lot.
00:47:12.000But otherwise, just stay out of my kitchen, right?
00:47:14.000And that's why I've always been surprised.
00:47:18.000The Republicans, the problem I got with them is you can't sit around and argue for small government and then try to tell people what to do with their bodies or who can get married and who can't get married.
00:47:41.000But the Republicans have always stuck their nose in this, and you can't make that argument for wanting small government if you just want to step into people's bedrooms all the time.
00:47:53.000And I think the only reason why they do it is because it gets people excited that they get to vote for them.
00:47:59.000I think when they take these positions, it's not like these are really having an effect on their lives or it's some moral stand that they must take because God wants them to do it.
00:48:07.000I think they do it because they think that it's going to shift the poll one way or another.
00:48:13.000And it's going to get people excited about them possibly making some sort of a difference that they feel is going to significantly affect their position.
00:48:20.000But do you ever get to the point, I mean, I don't know whether that's going to happen, but you would think that you've got the people on the hard right and the hard left.
00:49:09.000But remember when he took out a whole, he took a block of time, I believe it was a half an hour on national television, he bought the time to explain how you're getting fucked.
00:49:20.000And explain taxes, and explain all these different things.
00:50:03.000Again, I talk about there are certain things that the current administration is doing that I like.
00:50:08.000One of them is the way that they're dealing with China right now.
00:50:10.000And yes, the trade issue is buffeting the market somewhat and causing some instability.
00:50:15.000But again, the previous administration, the Bush administration, Clinton administration, lots of former presidents, they all acknowledged that China privately was not a fair trading partner.
00:50:26.000This administration is at least trying to call them out and calling them out on the cyber On their theft of intellectual property.
00:50:35.000So anyway, Huawei, supposedly owned by the founder and however many employees.
00:50:43.000You know, I think Huawei is, by the way, the number one telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world.
00:50:50.000And they're the number two seller of smartphones, right?
00:50:53.000They're a bigger seller of smartphones than Apple.
00:50:55.000So it's Samsung, Huawei, Apple for this.
00:51:00.000And so supposedly the company is owned by the founder and his daughter is the chief operating officer, chief financial officer, one of those.
00:51:07.000She was arrested up in Canada and she was arrested at the request of the US. She's up there on bail right now waiting extradition hearing.
00:51:14.000And the reason was because supposedly she lied about Huawei's dealings with Iran and they were busting sanctions by dealing and providing certain types of equipment to Iran.
00:51:27.000Now, this past week, we've had a Huawei employee who's now been fired by Huawei in Poland arrested for espionage.
00:51:39.000And along with him is a member of the Polish Intelligence Service, right, who retired and was now working for a French telecommunications company.
00:51:49.000But was arrested also for espionage related to Huawei and related to this individual who up until just recently was working for Huawei.
00:51:58.000Huawei claims innocence and says, well, we have no idea.
00:52:01.000And the founder just came out and gave this big speech and said, I would never let the Chinese authorities tell me what to do.
00:52:07.000And I would certainly never spy on anybody using Huawei's capabilities and technology.
00:52:12.000And people are probably thinking, what the fuck are you talking about this for?
00:52:16.000Huawei embeds their telecommunications equipment throughout the world, right?
00:52:21.000So it's in our allies' military operations, which then are connected to ours, right, in terms of communications and transfer of intelligence and information.
00:53:25.000And they've had access to, at this point, to NATO communications and now the arrest of these two individuals.
00:53:31.000And people will still, despite this and despite their past, despite their theft of information from everybody, from U.S. Steel to Alcoa to Lockheed Martin to DuPont, all the times that they've been stealing information, people will still go,
00:53:51.000I don't see why the Chinese would act that way, and I don't see why we're being so harsh on them.
00:53:54.000You know, this tariff thing is a bad idea.
00:53:56.000My point being, you've got to call them out.
00:53:59.000They're not going to necessarily change their behavior, but you've got to raise public awareness, make our allies understand, and that's what we're doing right now.
00:54:06.000We're saying, you've got to put the brakes on this.
00:54:10.000Use other companies' telecommunications equipment, right?
00:54:13.000Because, you know, the fact that we're tied in with our allies, with Poland and with Canada and with us, You know, that gives them access to us.
00:54:21.000So for someone on the outside, like myself, who's trying to look at this, and you say that Huawei is stealing stuff, like stealing stuff from U.S. Steel.
00:54:30.000Well, they, I mean, The U.S. Steel, admittedly, that was a PLA. That was a People's Liberation Army third department operation against DuPont and also against U.S. Steel and others.
00:54:43.000But Huawei, one of the things that they do is by having access and embedding their equipment in your communications infrastructure, that gives them the ability then to, in a simple way, to tap in.
00:55:21.000So when Huawei is able to embed their technology, Into, you know, Polish communications and we're now connected because of our NATO alliance.
00:55:32.000That gives them access to us, to France, to Germany, whomever.
00:55:45.000The guy who was arrested, the Huawei person who was arrested, was responsible for the provision of telecommunications equipment to government facilities.
00:55:57.000And the guy, the Polish guy, one of his last jobs with the intel service was communications.
00:56:05.000So I guess what I'm saying is none of this shit happens in a bubble, and it's all very well mapped out.
00:56:11.000The Chinese have a very long view on things, and they are very good at developing operations like this, and so they've been very successful.
00:56:22.000But it's – I'm glad that the current administration at least is calling them out.
00:56:26.000I don't believe it's necessarily going to change their behavior.
00:56:28.000We'll probably get some sort of deal where they'll claim to – look, just a couple of years ago, they agreed with President Obama to stop their cyber shenanigans and they didn't.
00:56:37.000So they just changed the way that they did it.
00:56:41.000You know, that's the world we live in, but I think it is important to make a stand, right?
00:56:45.000Yeah, some of the tech people are saying that they think it's preposterous when they were talking about the ban on Android phones.
00:56:53.000Some of the tech people say that doesn't make any sense, but what you're saying is it goes far beyond the actual phones itself, and it's really the mission of the actual company itself.
00:57:04.000Yeah, I'm saying that there is no way that Huawei and other important...
00:57:11.000Chinese companies are solely privately owned and or have the ability to tell the Chinese authorities that they will not spy on their behalf.
00:57:23.000You have to go a long ways to come up with that sort of naive viewpoint that says that A Chinese company is going to put its foot down and tell President Xi, absolutely not.
00:57:38.000We will not do anything to harm another nation's company.
00:57:43.000They've spent generations now, decades, jump-starting their industry and moving up the food chain on the global economy by hoovering up everything possible out there.
00:57:54.000So if someone like a tech wizard got a hold of one of their routers...
00:57:58.000Have they been able to detect something in there that doesn't belong or some sort of a backdoor or some sort of a way that they could tap in?
00:58:06.000It's like if you were, you know, you were Apple and you were sending, you know, data to Raytheon or whatever and you're going back and forth, they could tap in through that?
00:58:16.000Has it been proven that there's a device like that?
00:58:19.000Yeah, a former NSA director, McConnell, back in...
00:58:25.0002015, I think early 2015, came out and NSA came out with an official statement and it said every major US corporation of any consequence has been attacked and exploited by Chinese and we have never ever not found Chinese malware within their systems.
01:00:14.000I'm far more worried about a company like Huawei with its integration into our allies.
01:00:24.000I'm about telecommunications systems than I am about sort of the individual sale of phones and, you know, what that means.
01:00:31.000Look, you know, Amazon and all the others are gathering more data on the average American than, you know, U.S. government or anybody else's government is doing at this point.
01:00:40.000Let me ask you this because this is something that just came up and we were trying to figure out if it's nonsense or not.
01:00:45.000My friend Adam was here the other day and we were talking about Toyota trucks and he didn't Google Toyota trucks just discussing it and he said since then his mentions have been filled with these little advertisements for Toyota trucks.
01:01:08.000It's a carryover from the old days of, you know, optical readers and how, you know, we all thought it was incredible that you could take a piece of paper, put it into a system, and it would, like, take that information that was on that piece of paper, and now it was on a database that you could access and manipulate.
01:01:23.000And so, you know, voice recognition is no different in the sense that...
01:01:26.000If, for example, if I had this switched on and it happens to people, I'm sure all the time walking around their house, they'll say something and all of a sudden Alexa will come on and go, oh, I couldn't find a result for that, but do you want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald or whatever?
01:01:48.000If you wanted to, if I knew that TV was going to go into the office of the Deputy Foreign Minister of a country hostile to our interests, I could turn that thing into a receiver, obviously, right?
01:02:00.000And if I could get my hands on that before delivery, that's a wonderful thing.
01:02:05.000Now I've got this in there, and it's like the old days when you would have to go in on an entry operation and use silent drills and put a device in the wall.
01:02:16.000Now, you know, we've delivered a TV. Now I get a video, too.
01:02:21.000So, shit's always on, you know, in a sense.
01:02:26.000So, a regular phone that you get, if you just buy an iPhone and you have Siri turned on so you can say, hey, Siri, and it turns on, that phone is always listening to you.
01:02:37.000Well, now we're getting in over my head, but it could be.
01:02:59.000But I will say, from an operational perspective, sure, yeah.
01:03:02.000From an operational perspective, right.
01:03:04.000But, like, it would kind of be scandalous if we found out that Apple is listening to everything that you say, and then they're sending them information to these companies, and then they're trying to sell you whatever you were bringing up.
01:04:59.000There's an ability for that billboard to sense – and again, I go overboard if I start talking technical and someone will call me out and say, well, it's not exactly how it works.
01:05:06.000But in simplistic terms, yeah, it's an ability to monitor pedestrian traffic to understand people's interests and to further refine so that they can sell a shit better.
01:05:21.000Make your outdoor advertising interactive.
01:05:23.000This is putting your phone directly up to it.
01:06:42.000If I know that signal for that car, I'll bet I can find that car.
01:06:45.000And it's the same with all the other electronics that exist within a vehicle or just in the shit that we carry around.
01:06:53.000They've all got some kind of signature.
01:06:55.000But again, I think most people are willing to give up a surprising amount of privacy for whatever reason, maybe because they're getting accustomed to it and they're not shocked by shit anymore.
01:07:05.000Jamie, what were you saying today that somebody made a slip up about phone calls?
01:07:09.000The thing you were saying about the different data that they've collected?
01:07:15.000You were just telling me before the show about some investigation.
01:07:21.000Was that the thing I was just talking about?
01:07:24.000Where they could find anybody's phone?
01:07:25.000No, you were saying that through the emails and phone calls, the guy had fucked up by saying phone calls.
01:08:52.000So, one of the things that everybody was scared of was that the NSA was building some gigantic place somewhere outside of Salt Lake where they would store every single phone call that you ever made, every single email.
01:09:56.000It's really difficult to do observation posts and listening posts and everything overseas, right, because it's not your turf.
01:10:01.000And so you've got to come up with an airtight plan, but it was the same way.
01:10:06.000You still had to get physical access, right?
01:10:08.000The phone lines, you had to clip off, and then you had to figure out where am I putting the gear, where am I going to put the batteries, how am I going to store this shit, and then you've got to listen to it, right?
01:10:18.000And what happens is it starts collecting like this, you start getting mountains of tapes, right?
01:10:22.000And you're not getting it real-time, which is a problem.
01:10:24.000But nowadays, no, it's entirely different.
01:10:28.000But I think if we look at today's concerns, if we look at what are people worried about, what should they be worried about?
01:10:44.000But I guess I keep going back to my same point, which was I – I don't see people with pitchforks and the torches going down to complain to Jeff Bezos that Amazon's collecting massive amounts of data or T-Mobile and Sprint and all these are mapping our locations as we move around.
01:11:17.000Well, I tell you what we should be worried about mostly is state-sponsored activity by countries whose interests almost never align with ours.
01:11:37.000Which means they've determined that the next war, the next modern large-scale war is going to be won by whoever has control over information.
01:11:47.000So where are they putting all their resources?
01:11:50.000China knows that they're not going to build a military that's going to be able to reach around the globe.
01:11:53.000For the most part, although they're, you know, they're beefing up their resources.
01:12:15.000Well, their anti-satellite technology that they've been developing and working on and continue to work on, the whole point of that is to take control of communications and surveillance abilities, whether it's ours or our allies, in the event of something major that happens.
01:12:29.000So they would have the ability to shut off our satellites?
01:12:36.000And we're all suddenly walking around with compasses and maps, you know, trying to shoot an azimuth and figure out where the hell, you know, the target is.
01:12:42.000So China is currently developing that, or they have developed something that disrupt satellites?
01:13:05.000As long as they don't use it in an illegal way, they have the right to develop the technology.
01:13:10.000There's no treaty that says you can't develop anti-satellite technology.
01:13:14.000There's the START treaties, there's the nuclear conventions that we have with Russia, which is a whole other interesting topic because we're right now arguing with the Russians over the latest nuke It's coming up for renewal sometime soon,
01:13:33.000And the Russians have been cheating on a previous agreement, and so now they're trying to say we're cheating on the new one.
01:13:40.000That's an interesting thing to be watching, but the point being is that there's conventions that try to control the numbers for warheads or for delivery mechanisms, missiles or submarines, whatever, bombers.
01:14:12.000Maybe we'll start having these discussions and create treaties that will allow that.
01:14:15.000But right now, from China's perspective, again, not to beat on China, but I'm much more concerned about China for our national security They're a much bigger concern than Russia is.
01:14:41.000They've got the GDP of a small European country.
01:14:44.000And when the oil prices are in the toilet, they really are sucking wind.
01:14:49.000So, yeah, we got to be concerned with Russia and understand that their interests are never aligned with ours, you know, for the most part, maybe.
01:14:54.000We tried to imagine they were with Syria and ISIS and everything, but Russia's only interest there was maintaining their leverage and increasing it and not losing their military foothold there.
01:15:07.000We mirror our values and we mirror our interests on other countries, and so we imagined that somehow we're all in this fight against ISIS together.
01:15:55.000But I suspect that what happened was he came into it focused on the trade imbalance.
01:16:02.000And as he was sitting there and talking about the trade imbalance, More of the conversation from the National Security Council and from the agency and others in terms of saying, well, yeah, this is part of the reason why, and this is the long-term effects of their theft of intellectual property.
01:16:18.000This is why, in part, they've been successful in these areas.
01:16:20.000So I think there was probably more and more discussion talking about their economic espionage and theft of IP, and that became then an issue for him.
01:16:31.000But I think initially, and still to this day, I think the big issue is just he wants to Try to create a win in terms of the trade imbalance.
01:17:04.000We think about China, and even with the Huawei arrests, we're like, eh, no one seems to be concerned.
01:17:11.000It doesn't seem to light any bulbs over here.
01:17:21.000And also, I mean, look, he's been very clear about, you know, wanting to try to rebuild the Soviet Union.
01:17:26.000So whether it's Crimea and the annexation of that, or whether taking over eastern Ukraine...
01:17:31.000You know, or maintaining a position in Georgia, whatever it is, you know, certainly, you know, his attacks or the FSB's attacks overseas against, you know, dissidents and others.
01:17:57.000I think it's, you know, we should be trading with China.
01:18:00.000We should be doing a huge amount of business with China.
01:18:02.000We should, you know, clear the decks and try to the degree we can level the playing field.
01:18:05.000But we should also be pragmatic and realize what they do.
01:18:08.000You know, in terms of their theft of IP. And so, you know, because that, again, that probably won't change.
01:18:14.000But yeah, we absolutely should be dealing with China all the time.
01:18:18.000But I think that they've always kind of been viewed more in more of a sophisticated fashion, maybe, because Putin is just sort of in your face.
01:18:31.000But he's – I think he's pretty easy to read, right?
01:18:34.000He's thuggish and he longs for those days of the Soviet Union.
01:18:40.000So we should understand that everything he does is because of that.
01:18:44.000It's because he would love to rebuild the Soviet Union.
01:18:48.000And so we shouldn't be surprised by any sort of aggressive move that he makes against his neighbors, and we should always push back.
01:18:57.000And to be fair, this administration, not to beat their drum, but the actions they've taken against Russia, despite the fact that you've got people calling him a puppet of Putin, are more significant than the previous administration took.
01:19:15.000The sanctions against key individuals and companies within Russia, as an example, those are the toughest sanctions that have been placed on Russia ever.
01:19:24.000The provision of weapons and assistance to the Ukrainians, right?
01:19:29.000That was something the previous administration said, no, not going to do that, because we don't want any blowback.
01:19:40.000Pushing back against them on the 2011 nuked deal, right?
01:19:45.000Or sorry, on the previous, on the START deal, prior to the 2011 deal, and calling them out and saying, look, you're cheating on this, and you've got to be held accountable.
01:19:55.000I mean, there's certain things there that make sense.
01:20:01.000If you talk to somebody who says, well, he's an absolute puppet, and you say, well, okay, he's a puppet, so why is he doing certain things that seem counter to Russian interests?
01:20:09.000And they'll say, well, because he's smart, and he's like, he doesn't want to get caught out.
01:21:32.000And so, you know, who knows where they're going to go with that, but, you know, could they have...
01:21:39.000This idea that they've got compromising information on them.
01:21:43.000Here's what I think, is that if Mueller has figured this out, right, and he's been quiet about it, and then they...
01:21:53.000Then the most remarkable thing about this investigation will be that nobody leaked.
01:21:58.000Because you can't keep a secret in Washington.
01:22:02.000And so the fact that for two years now, we don't have that bullet that they think they're going to come up with at some point, my inclination is to think that Mueller's going to finish this investigation.
01:22:15.000Issue some findings and nobody's going to be happy, right?
01:22:21.000The right won't be happy because he'll still be pointing out the fact that there was, you know, a lot of, you know, stupid moves on the campaign's part and that there was inappropriate activity by, you know, people like Manafort and others.
01:22:33.000But do I think there's going to be some smoking gun?
01:23:16.000It's going to have to end before probably the end of this year.
01:23:19.000I don't think even he's going to want to, for political calculations, let it go into too close to 2020 in the election.
01:23:26.000So regardless, even though I don't think he's a particularly political individual, I think he's going to see the wisdom of wrapping it up before then.
01:23:33.000And then letting the chips fall wherever they do.
01:23:36.000What's astonishing to me is how anytime something does come out on Trump, it just seems to slide right off.
01:23:49.000And much like, you know, our willingness to give up privacy because we keep...
01:23:53.000We're hearing about another hack or another leak or we know that Amazon's doing this or that.
01:23:58.000I think it's that constant drumbeat and that mudsling.
01:24:01.000And I think the Dems haven't done themselves any favors or the resistance movement or whatever we want to call it because I think people are just immune to it.
01:24:08.000And it's hardened Trump's base to think, you know, he's under attack every minute.
01:25:22.000I just wonder if she has so many people that owe her favors and she's so deeply entrenched in the world that she could somehow or another muster up enough support to give it one more shot.
01:26:10.000I think it would actually – I think it would turn the ship in a nice direction, right, as long as the policies are good.
01:26:16.000I don't care who it is, as long as we're not veering off into – You know, sort of socialist policy land and thinking somehow we're all going to end up with universal basic income.
01:26:28.000I've got a guy coming on talking about that.
01:26:30.000Andrew Yang wants to describe universal basic income and what the benefits would be.
01:26:34.000The reason being that they're worried that automation is going to kill a gigantic percentage of jobs in...
01:26:41.000In manufacturing, fast food, medical field, trucks, all these different things that universal basic income might actually be something that we need at a certain point in time because so many jobs will go away and go away so rapidly.
01:27:02.000What I thought was maybe, but maybe if the motivation is not just to survive, but the motivation to succeed and do well, it would get people to do what they actually want to do for a living or chase down what they actually want to do and get them motivated to have a better life,
01:28:18.000Yeah, but the part that worries me is this issue of motivation and ensuring that then, you know, everybody's willing to un-ask the SOFA and do something productive, right?
01:28:29.000And it's not just, we can't be like a nation of People following their passion because their passion is completely unproductive.
01:32:48.000He had to step down from his position and...
01:32:52.000Next thing you know, X amount of time later, this guy drives his car 150 miles an hour into a tree, it blows up, the engine goes flying, the whole deal.
01:33:04.000The conspiracy theory was that there was a way, because he had a brand new Mercedes, there was a way that they could take over The controls of your vehicle, the acceleration, the braking, the steering, and they could do all this remotely.
01:33:19.000If they put something in your car, like we were talking about, if you could get a hold of this television, you could turn that television into a receiver.
01:33:26.000Do you think that it's possible that someone could have gotten a hold of his car and made him suicide himself?
01:33:54.000And I mean think about – people should think about it.
01:33:58.000Think about the OnStar or think about the ability for your car to send data to the vehicle manufacturer, right, to tell them what's going on with your vehicle.
01:39:40.000He wants Bezos to not have the Washington Post, which is highly critical of the president, while the Inquirer has been known to kill stories critical of the president.
01:39:48.000Oh, so the Inquirer got a hold of the story.
01:42:36.000And there was lines just blocks and blocks and blocks before they opened the doors, and even after they opened doors because there were so many people.
01:42:57.000I think we talked about that before the show started.
01:42:59.000Wall Street Journal wrote an article saying, it is some time ago, a couple of months ago or whenever, saying it's the fastest growing city in the country.
01:44:04.000Man, so it's a good spot, and I gotta stop talking about it, too, because I get a lot of shit for saying nice things about it, but I can't help it.
01:44:15.000There are some unheralded spots in this country, and I think that's most certainly one of them.
01:44:20.000There's a gang of other ones, too, though.
01:45:22.000I mean, we jump on our bikes, we can be up in the foothills in literally about seven minutes, and then spend the afternoon and not see anybody.
01:48:12.000Gymnastics and a bunch of other shit, too.
01:48:14.000It's these kids, they want these kids to grow up, to become hugely successful, and they push them so hard, and everybody in the community is...
01:50:51.000I go to the Ice House and the Comedy Store and the Improv and I go to these local places in LA. And I might do, like last night I did three shows.
01:52:36.000Maybe that's an argument against it also, which is that I don't think it's going to unlock a whole treasure trove of innovators.
01:52:44.000If suddenly you give people money and say, okay, you don't have to go pour coffee or flip burgers or clean up that road or whatever you're going to do for a living.
01:53:07.000You might be right, but the only good that I think could come out of it is that less people are in abject poverty and less people are desperate, so it might reduce crime.
01:53:17.000You might have lazy people, but you might also have less people that are inclined to steal things or do something that's illegal because their basic needs are taken care of.
01:53:59.000Of the families that use the Los Angeles public school system are at the poverty level or below.
01:54:09.000And that means, of course, also that they rely on the free meal assistance that the schools provide, which is kind of what the point of the story was.
01:54:17.000The schools are closed right now, and so kids aren't getting a chance to eat because that's their only chance to get to eat.
01:54:26.000So I meant to look into it and do more research to see whether the article is actually correct or not, but hey, it was in the newspaper, so it must be true, right?
01:56:07.000So your point about the basic universal income, I take that point.
01:56:10.000I see what that, you know, if it was possible to pay for it, and again, My concern would be people that didn't appreciate it and people that felt entitled.
01:56:33.000Like they felt like someone owed them that money.
01:57:30.000But absolutely, I don't begrudge the idea.
01:57:33.000So that's part of it is also I'm fairly steeped in the idea that, you know, we're living in a very unique country, right?
01:57:41.000And I do worry sometimes that people don't...
01:57:46.000You know, even family, and I've got some friends and others who are just constantly pissing and moaning about this place.
01:57:52.000And I'm thinking, I spent almost all my life over in shitholes around the world.
01:57:56.000And there is no other place I would rather be as a country.
01:58:00.000And I know that's jingoistic or whatever, but honest to God, I still believe.
01:58:05.000And if you go someplace and you talk to somebody in some fifth world...
01:58:09.000They will also, my experience has been anyway, maybe you're listening and your experience is different, but that's the way it works, is that they'll think, if I go to America, if I can get to America and I work hard, I can be successful.
01:58:45.000I completely see your point, and I agree with it.
01:58:50.000I think that the real concern is that people don't appreciate already how great they have and what incredible opportunity they have.
01:58:58.000And if we give them more benefits with less effort, then you're going to develop more of this attitude that we find disturbing, which is people that don't have an appreciation for literally the greatest experiment in self-government the world has ever known.
02:00:14.000You make it, okay, well, not enough of them could get through the course, so I'm going to change the regulations, right?
02:00:21.000And so if you change the regulations, what they found with the college was if you increase that pool of people going, it doesn't mean that they're going to be successful, right?
02:00:30.000And now what you've done is you've kind of saddled them with some college debt, and they didn't graduate.
02:00:35.000So they're still earning what a high school graduate earns, and the system doesn't work.
02:00:40.000And so I think sometimes just the idea of throwing money at the problem, it's not helpful if we don't think it through and then assess the results.
02:00:50.000But yeah, that whole marine experiment.
02:00:52.000I think they're catching it late in the chain.
02:00:55.000And I think it's good to give people the opportunity to succeed and to advance themselves.
02:01:01.000But if you really want to address it as a systemic problem, you've got to get to the root of it, which is these unbelievably horrible neighborhoods and these toxic environments that these kids are growing up and being abused and being scared and bullied and terrible piss-poor education,
02:01:22.000That's, I mean, that's really where you have to address it.
02:01:25.000I mean, addressing it just at the college level and giving them the opportunity to get into college and making it easier for them, it doesn't negate the terrible foundation that's been laid by their life.
02:01:36.000Yeah, and I think that's, we had this idea that college should be for everybody, right?
02:01:41.000And that's okay, that's great, and I think that's where the, you know, people like Cortez and Bernie Sanders and others, with their idea of free tuition, They're thinking, okay, well, look at Europe.
02:01:51.000Some countries in Europe have free tuition, and hey, it's relatively prosperous, and there's nothing wrong with that.
02:01:57.000But at the same time, I think we don't We don't assess the cost and the overall efficiency of an idea sometimes.
02:02:07.000And so we just assume, you know, open it up, let everybody go, and somehow this is going to work, right, to our advantage.
02:03:05.000But I see your points and I know what you're saying.
02:03:08.000I think that one thing that disturbs the shit out of me is student loans.
02:03:13.000I mean, one of the worst ways to prepare a kid for the future is to saddle them down with a quarter million dollars worth of debt by the time they graduate from college.
02:03:43.000Some of it, you know, the older students are the ones who are willing to take out this loan, and then suddenly they're using the money for something else.
02:03:52.000The student loan debt is a major issue.
02:03:54.000We occasionally, Capitol Hill talks about it, but not really.
02:03:58.000I told my daughter, who's a fantastic person, I said, you know, the biggest gift you're getting...
02:04:03.000is getting out of college without any any debt yeah that's you know so you know dad's not gonna buy you your own wagoneer you know you gotta get your own wagoneer yeah your tuition and that's that's that's it that's the best i can tell that's a gigantic head start for kids yeah not i mean it sounds so fucked up but it's true to not be in debt is gigantic look they're giving kids credit cards and their frontal lobes aren't even developed yet they're doing all kinds of wacky they're like well i'll figure it out You ain't figuring out shit.
02:04:32.000You never figured out things up till now, and the idea that you're going to get magically smarter over the next six months while you owe all this money is crazy.
02:05:26.000What I just looked at, too, on another page that had a clock, which is the same number, it's not including the interest on the federal loans.
02:05:38.000So you look at that and you think, okay, no wonder it's a popular idea of saying you've got to write down student loans, you've got to get free tuition going on, and do all these things.
02:05:46.000And again, can the country pay for it?
02:05:57.000We're not even willing to address the issue of Social Security and Medicare and trying to deal with entitlements as they currently exist, which we know are going to bankrupt us at some point.
02:06:44.000The president has to be – Cognizate of and supposedly capable of digesting a lot of information and making decisions on a varied number of things.
02:06:58.000And it is interesting how, you know, I mean, right now, there's a lot of people that don't have faith in the current president to make, you know, some of your basic decisions.
02:07:06.000Previous administration, there were a lot of people that was convinced he could, you know, I mean, he was capable of all of it.
02:07:13.000So I don't think the job itself is too big.
02:07:17.000I just think that the way that we go through the selection process has slowly over a period of time gone downhill and has kind of resulted in what we're doing right now.
02:07:29.000Part of it's the bullshit primary process.
02:07:32.000You know, and the way that we do the initial selection, there's a lot of things, I suppose.
02:07:37.000Sure, the fact you have to be registered as a Democrat or Republican to vote in the primaries and all those things.
02:07:43.000And then, you know, it's just everything.
02:08:42.000I thought I was just going to go up and shake his hand and say, you know, hey, Mr. President, you know, good to see you.
02:08:47.000Because I always liked the guy, right?
02:08:49.000And okay, aside from his obvious issue and the problem he had, in terms of his ability to govern and the fact that he's a smart son of a bitch, and I just found him capable of the job,
02:09:13.000But anyway, talking to President Clinton, we started talking, and he immediately went to an old agency operation, an old thing that had happened during his time when he was president, to talk about it.
02:09:30.000And you could tell that he, I mean, he had retained a tremendous amount of information, right?
02:09:34.000And we were talking, and we ended up talking for 15 minutes or so, just kind of about this particular incident, and he was kind of curious, and he wanted to, you know, he wanted to recount kind of some of the thought process that they were, you know, going through, and I found it really interesting in the sense that that was a...
02:09:49.000It was a surprisingly deep conversation, right?
02:10:05.000On the scale of presidents, where does the current president exist in the curiosity scale?
02:10:11.000I don't know, but I think that's probably not his strong suit.
02:10:14.000So maybe that's one of the reasons why he's not aging is because he's not asking that fourth or fifth question that leads you to the point where you go, oh, that's a pretty fucked up situation.
02:10:22.000Now we've got to worry about that one.
02:10:24.000So maybe it is water off the back and he's figured out a way to deal with stress.
02:10:30.000Well, on the plus side, he seems to be making business owners happy.
02:10:36.000At least ones that aren't affected by the sanctions against China.
02:10:40.000Because there's like steel manufacturing and a lot of other companies that are very upset by it.
02:10:46.000Well, I think it's the regulations that they've done that they haven't really touted in terms of deregulating some of the things.
02:10:52.000I mean, because, look, the previous administration, you know, a lot of good points, but some bad points.
02:10:56.000One of the bad points was sort of the hamstring of industry through overregulation on everything, right?
02:11:04.000And so lifting some of that, you know, there's this – you can argue whether – You know, you want bigger government or less government, but you can't argue with the fact that it did unleash, you know, industry and business more than the previous administration.
02:11:31.000So there's a lot of things for people to be focused on, you know.
02:11:35.000And I worry sometimes that all we do here in the States is kind of like chase the next shiny ball of tinfoil because we're all a bunch of raccoons.
02:11:42.000We have such a short attention span for everything.
02:12:28.000Of all the sort of incidents – I don't mean to minimize it by calling it an incident – but of all those situations, the Kennedy assassination and Martin Luther King's assassination, those are the two that I understand more than anything else why they've lingered and why people don't believe the shit that they've seen and why they have concerns about it.
02:12:50.000Martin Luther King more than Kennedy, I believe that – There was something there that we still don't understand in terms of who else was responsible and who organized that and who assisted in that.
02:13:01.000I just think of those two, that's the one I've got bigger questions on.
02:13:08.000The Kennedy assassination, I think that Oswald pulled the trigger.
02:13:16.000I think in his mind the reason he was doing it was for the greater good of communism and to boost his image with the Soviets and with the Cuban regime.
02:13:54.000You did not have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.
02:13:57.000It was a different era, and we don't understand it in today's terms.
02:14:00.000But when you get right in that position and look out that window and look at the shot that was taken and what was involved in that, I was not a...
02:14:53.000I think that – look, he was a loser, a two-bit criminal who was constantly getting picked up for the shit that he was doing and ending up in jail.
02:15:06.000And then leading up to the assassination – He cleaned up his act.
02:15:13.000Suddenly he went from looking like a two-bit criminal to a college professor basically and he had cash.
02:15:20.000He was able to purchase a vehicle and he kind of went off the grid for a while.
02:15:24.000He went on his drive and sort of stayed off the grid and he behaved in a way that he hadn't up until months before this thing took place and then he ended up in Europe.
02:15:38.000And I just – something tells me that he had assistance in some fashion.
02:15:47.000I don't know who, right, or whatever, but I just – that's the one that more than any others that I've looked at makes me step back and go, no, we don't know the whole story here.
02:15:59.000The Kennedy thing, I – Again, maybe there's something out there that we just haven't turned over.
02:16:43.000If all you do when you're looking at this is to look at Ray's behavior in that year leading up to the assassination, So that's the interesting – for me, that's the most interesting part.
02:16:58.000I mean you put it in context with everything he did up until that point, which is he was basically, again, just a two-bit criminal who couldn't stay out of jail.
02:17:05.000And you get this change in behavior and this change in appearance and this sudden ability to be something that he wasn't up until that point.
02:17:36.000Leading right up to the day before, there was talk about, you know, there were news reports showing King at the Lorraine Motel and, you know, coming in and out of the room, you know, that he was staying in.
02:18:56.000I don't think that that bullet came from there.
02:18:58.000That's probably the most, of all things, because we looked at the grassy knoll issue and the possibility of spotting other people from the other side.
02:19:46.000But I do get it because it was such a seminal moment, right?
02:19:50.000And nobody wants to think that something that bad, that horrific, and that something that could sort of shatter the country in that fashion could be done by one guy like Lee Harvey Oswald.