The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #541 - Mike Baker

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00:04:53.000 Alright, Mike Baker's here. 0.98

00:04:55.000 We're going to find out some shit. 0.99

00:04:56.000 We're going to get down to business. 0.99

00:04:57.000 Cue the music, Jamie.

00:04:59.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

00:05:01.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:05:04.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:05:13.000 All righty.

00:05:14.000 Mike Baker, first of all, sir, thank you very much for joining us.

00:05:16.000 No, thank you.

00:05:17.000 Thank you.

00:05:18.000 Love the podcast.

00:05:19.000 And by the way, the code word, Rogan, may not be that secure as a code word, but it's a good one.

00:05:25.000 It's a terrible code word as far as security.

00:05:26.000 No, if it was your Wi-Fi password, I would say you're in deep trouble.

00:05:30.000 You've got to change that thing. 1.00

00:05:32.000 Well, coming from you, you know about some shit. 0.99

00:05:35.000 You're a former... 0.99

00:05:36.000 Well, explain what you did.

00:05:38.000 You were the former covert operations officer for the CIA? Yeah, I went in, I was recruited into the agency, and the CIA is divided into a handful of directorates.

00:05:50.000 You've got the Directorate of Operations, which is pretty much what it sounds like.

00:05:53.000 You've got the Directorate of Intelligence, which is where they put all the smart people, and they do all the reports writing.

00:05:59.000 They take all the raw intelligences coming in from the field, And they put it into some usable form that can then be kicked out the door to the National Security Council, the White House.

00:06:08.000 It's used by the other agencies in the intel community and primarily by the White House.

00:06:13.000 So a lot of smart people sitting over there.

00:06:15.000 Then they've got S&T, which is science and technology.

00:06:17.000 That's where you get all the gear.

00:06:18.000 So that's where they develop all...

00:06:20.000 I mean, they've developed in the agency over the years everything from the U2 to...

00:06:24.000 You know, stealth technology, drone capability, a lot of the drone technology came right out of the agency.

00:06:30.000 They've done a tremendous number of things right there in-house.

00:06:34.000 And then we have the administrative logistics group, and they're incredibly important because they keep money, gear, and everything else flowing out to the field.

00:06:43.000 What is the biggest misconception about the CIA? You being a guy who worked with them for years, I know that there's all sorts of wacky conspiracies out there about everything.

00:06:55.000 Anything that there is where people don't have all the facts and information is going to be wacky conspiracies.

00:07:00.000 Look, I know a bunch of wacky conspiracies just about the UFC. They're ridiculous. 0.94

00:07:04.000 And me knowing the actual inside truth, I hear these things and I go, what the fuck are What are you talking about? 1.00

00:07:09.000 Things that I'm supposed to say, the things that I had to do because, you know, the UFC made me or they said you have to say this, which is all 100% bullshit. 0.99

00:07:18.000 What are the big misconceptions? 0.91

00:07:20.000 No, you're absolutely right.

00:07:21.000 And the agency is like...

00:07:25.000 It attracts this sort of thing, right?

00:07:26.000 It attracts sort of the Byzantine theories and the conspiracy theories and all that.

00:07:29.000 Because, again, there's a reason why you have secrets.

00:07:32.000 There's a reason why you protect sources and methods. 0.98

00:07:34.000 And so because you don't have transparency that people would like to see, they assume that you're out to fuck them over, you're out to screw the world. 0.95

00:07:41.000 And that's just not the case. 0.93

00:07:42.000 So I guess the number one conspiracy is that somehow the CIA and the intel community of the U.S. We're good to go.

00:07:53.000 We're good to go.

00:08:18.000 That we've got nothing but hot chicks walking around the building. 1.00

00:08:21.000 And if you walk in, we've got wonderful people, but we don't have that many hot chicks. 1.00

00:08:26.000 Isn't that because of Homeland?

00:08:28.000 Yeah, exactly. 0.57

00:08:28.000 That one show fucked it up for everybody. 0.57

00:08:30.000 Yeah, Alias and all the other movies, the beach books.

00:08:33.000 Everybody's supposed to be hot in the agency.

00:08:36.000 I was disappointed, too.

00:08:38.000 I mean, when I started there, I got in for my first couple of days of training, I kept thinking, are they hiding them?

00:08:44.000 Are they someplace else?

00:08:45.000 A lot of really great people, but the quote of hot chicks was less than I expected.

00:08:50.000 You bring up an interesting point about being apolitical.

00:08:53.000 Now, that's one thing that a lot of people worry about when it comes to organizations, that they may have more power, in fact, than the political governing body that controls the country.

00:09:05.000 One of the big theories about the CIA was the CIA had Kennedy killed because Kennedy was trying to get rid of the CIA. Wasn't that one of the big ones?

00:09:12.000 That was one of the big ones.

00:09:13.000 And that's still endearing.

00:09:15.000 I co-host a show on Travel Channel.

00:09:20.000 America Declassified.

00:09:21.000 That was the first season.

00:09:21.000 Right.

00:09:22.000 They're changing the title for the second season.

00:09:24.000 But in the first season, we looked at the Kennedy assassination.

00:09:28.000 And absolutely, I talked to a number of people who have been involved in...

00:09:33.000 You know, studying that for a long time, and you're never going to shift them off that position that the agency was involved.

00:09:38.000 And there's a lot of people out there.

00:09:40.000 And part of it is because, again, there's no transparency, and people assume the worst if they don't get exactly what they want to hear.

00:09:47.000 And people like conspiracy theories anyway.

00:09:49.000 They're sexy.

00:09:49.000 They're fun.

00:09:50.000 Yeah, what's not to like?

00:09:52.000 You interviewed that Jim Mars guy on your show, America Declassified.

00:09:56.000 And he's an interesting cat.

00:09:59.000 He's a full-on nutter, right?

00:10:01.000 I'll stick with he's an interesting cat.

00:10:03.000 He's a full-on nutter slash interesting cat.

00:10:07.000 And he's all about UFOs and bases on the moon.

00:10:12.000 Yeah.

00:10:12.000 I'm not saying there's not bases on the moon.

00:10:14.000 There may be.

00:10:15.000 That part there, yeah, I can confirm that.

00:10:17.000 But as far as the Kennedy assassination goes, again, it's one of those things, you could see why at the end of, I don't want to disappear down that rabbit hole, but you could see why at the end of that story, that episode when we talked to a lot of people, we did a lot of research, you could see why the theory still holds, the conspiracy still out there.

00:10:33.000 What do you think happened with Kennedy?

00:10:34.000 Do you think Oswald acted alone?

00:10:35.000 Yeah, you know what?

00:10:36.000 I think that once you get inside there, we got really good access into that, and that's part of what the show's about.

00:10:41.000 But we had really good access into that window, that very spot where he took the shots.

00:10:45.000 Now, he wasn't Lex Luthor, but he had enough training.

00:10:50.000 And when you look at the distance involved, the line of sight, the weather conditions, the lighting conditions, the fact that he reconned that site beforehand because he worked there.

00:10:58.000 He had every advantage he needed.

00:11:00.000 And so the idea that he could make those shots with the training that he had received from the Marines...

00:11:05.000 Again, was he the world's greatest sniper?

00:11:07.000 Of course not.

00:11:08.000 But he had enough.

00:11:09.000 And also he had an element of luck going for him, which you always need in operations.

00:11:13.000 So I think he took the shots.

00:11:15.000 Now, I also think that he was...

00:11:19.000 I think?

00:11:40.000 Here's the other part that's a bit of a wild card.

00:11:43.000 The Cuban Intel Service had a file, a massive file, on him, courtesy of the Russians. 0.95

00:11:50.000 Of course, I mean, the Russians trained most of the Cuban Intel Service at that time, and they had provided a great deal of information because Oswald had been living in Russia for all that time.

00:11:58.000 He married a Russian woman, you know, worked in a radio factory, and again, had a very disappointing experience.

00:12:03.000 And the Russians were pretty much happy to get rid of him at that point, because he was, you know... 0.93

00:12:06.000 He was serving no purpose.

00:12:08.000 And so by the time he had gotten back to the States, the Cubans already had a big file on him.

00:12:13.000 Now, he had also gone to Mexico.

00:12:15.000 There was an unexplained trip that he had taken down to Mexico City.

00:12:18.000 So do I think that there's a potential that, probably not directed by the Cuban government, but probably in his mind thinking, this is how I do it.

00:12:27.000 This is how I get in. 0.96

00:12:28.000 I mean, he was a sociopath.

00:12:31.000 I think one of the things that bugs me about people, the way they look at the Kennedy assassination, is that it's either Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or it was a conspiracy and Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't a part of it.

00:12:43.000 And my thoughts are always like, why would you assume that he wasn't a part of it just because people said there were shots from other directions?

00:12:50.000 First of all, we all know that eyewitness accounts are some of the most unreliable accounts ever.

00:12:54.000 Absolutely.

00:12:55.000 People see things that aren't there.

00:12:57.000 They hear things.

00:12:58.000 They remember things completely wrong, especially in a traumatic event.

00:13:03.000 Your adrenaline fires up.

00:13:04.000 Your heart rate goes up.

00:13:05.000 There's shots going off.

00:13:07.000 You hear things.

00:13:07.000 It was behind me.

00:13:09.000 Michael Brown.

00:13:10.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:13:11.000 Well, that's another, we'd go down that rabbit hole too, but the thing that drives me crazy about the Kennedy assassination too is when they show Lee Harvey, when they try to disprove it, like Jesse Ventura did a show where he tried to disprove it, he was holding a rifle in his arm,

00:13:26.000 he was cocking it and firing it, but he was standing holding it, and I'm like, you got a windowsill.

00:13:32.000 If you're trying to hit something accurately, why would you hold it in your arm?

00:13:35.000 Yeah.

00:13:39.000 It's a platform.

00:13:49.000 Yeah.

00:14:01.000 But common sense tells you, and the physical nature of that tells you, that he rested the weapon on the windowsill.

00:14:07.000 So you look at Oswald, and again, Oswald wrecked this site.

00:14:10.000 He knew what he was getting into.

00:14:12.000 He knew how he was going to take this shot.

00:14:14.000 And he had had sufficient training from the Marines.

00:14:17.000 So I agree with him.

00:14:18.000 And that's typically, with conspiracy theories, it's typically always, it's all one or it's all the other.

00:14:22.000 And the real world operates in a much different, murkier environment than that.

00:14:27.000 No doubt, no doubt.

00:14:29.000 What bothers me about it, there's a bunch of things that bother me about it.

00:14:32.000 The single bullet theory, without a doubt, bothers me.

00:14:34.000 Because that doesn't make any sense at all.

00:14:36.000 When you see that bullet showing up on Connelly's gurney, it's in pristine condition, it's supposed to have gone through two bodies, there's more, there's bullet particles, fragments that are in Connelly's body, they showed up on x-ray, they're not missing from that bullet.

00:14:48.000 That seems a little wonky.

00:14:49.000 And the whole reason Arlen Spector concocted that in the first place was because They had to account for a bullet that hit a curb stone under the overpass.

00:14:56.000 Guy got hit with a ricochet.

00:14:58.000 Now they've attributed three bullets to this one guy shooting.

00:15:01.000 They have to attribute all these wounds to one bullet for this theory to make any sense.

00:15:05.000 That, to me, is the biggest hole in the conspiracy.

00:15:09.000 Right.

00:15:10.000 And that's...

00:15:10.000 And I mean, at the end of our episode, and for what it's worth, I mean, we basically...

00:15:13.000 It's clear...

00:15:15.000 There are issues here that remain.

00:15:18.000 And are they likely to be solved?

00:15:20.000 Probably not, given the fact that a lot of people have passed away.

00:15:23.000 Some in, you know, odd circumstances.

00:15:24.000 We looked at that issue, too.

00:15:26.000 The people that, you know, that died.

00:15:27.000 A shitload of them.

00:15:28.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:29.000 And so, you know, but again, you know, our point was not this.

00:15:33.000 I think anytime you set out to disprove a conspiracy theory or prove it, you're going to be left unsatisfied.

00:15:39.000 Yeah.

00:15:39.000 But...

00:15:39.000 The disprove part was wonky, though.

00:15:42.000 The holding the gun...

00:15:43.000 Was wonky.

00:15:44.000 Why would he hold it?

00:15:45.000 And the other thing was wonky.

00:15:46.000 They said the sight was off.

00:15:47.000 We checked the rifle.

00:15:48.000 The sight was off.

00:15:50.000 I can tell you.

00:15:50.000 This is in person.

00:15:52.000 I wounded a deer once that I was trying to kill because I dropped a rifle.

00:15:55.000 I fell.

00:15:56.000 I dropped the rifle and the sight went off.

00:15:59.000 You've got a rifle.

00:16:01.000 You're moving it around from the crime scene.

00:16:05.000 You're putting it somewhere else.

00:16:06.000 You're putting it in cars and then you test it.

00:16:08.000 You can't tell me that rifle sight was off when he shot it.

00:16:11.000 Because you don't know.

00:16:12.000 You don't know.

00:16:12.000 Right.

00:16:13.000 And you're absolutely right.

00:16:14.000 You know how sensitive those things are.

00:16:15.000 And particularly older technology.

00:16:16.000 Right?

00:16:17.000 So, I mean, some of the gear now is pretty robust and designed to stand up to pretty difficult conditions.

00:16:23.000 But, you know, that gear, you know, it's old.

00:16:25.000 Yeah, it's old.

00:16:26.000 And you're absolutely right.

00:16:27.000 It went from place to place to place.

00:16:28.000 The Secret Service was storing it.

00:16:29.000 The Bureau was storing it.

00:16:30.000 Everybody was, you know, had their hands on it.

00:16:31.000 Yeah, but if he had it sighted in, if it was accurate at the time, and he's resting it on the window, man, that's a different animal.

00:16:39.000 Yeah.

00:16:39.000 My number one problem with it is that single bullet theory.

00:16:42.000 That's the number one problem.

00:16:43.000 The other thing is the Zapruder film.

00:16:43.000 Yeah.

00:16:45.000 The Zapruder film was weird.

00:16:46.000 Because everybody points to the Zapruder film, the whole back and to the left, back and to the left.

00:16:51.000 You know, you see Kennedy, it looks like he's getting shot from the front.

00:16:54.000 But what they don't say is that the blood is kind of spraying forward.

00:16:59.000 If you watch that video, he's going back to the left, but the blood is spraying forward, almost as if he was hit twice.

00:17:07.000 Like he was hit with one bullet from the front and one bullet from the back.

00:17:11.000 I mean, again, it's the movement of the vehicle.

00:17:14.000 It's his immobility to begin with.

00:17:17.000 I mean, if he didn't have back problems, he probably could have maneuvered himself out quick enough.

00:17:23.000 But Kennedy was fairly immobile.

00:17:26.000 That's one of the things that people don't realize.

00:17:28.000 He was really sick before he died.

00:17:30.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:31.000 But, yeah, and it was, again, so I think the conspiracy things, going back to your original point, the agency is always sort of ground zero for people's conspiracies.

00:17:39.000 Yeah, well, there's so many people involved in it, too.

00:17:42.000 One of the things that I found completely fascinating about this whole thing with Petraeus is Petraeus got in trouble with the FBI, was investigating the CIA, and, you know, the whole thing with the emails.

00:17:57.000 Like, That seems to me to be so crazy, that agencies investigate other agencies.

00:18:02.000 Is there really competition between the CIA and the FBI? Well, you know what?

00:18:07.000 It's better than it used to be.

00:18:08.000 I mean, I remember when...

00:18:10.000 When the Bureau started going overseas, when they started getting involved in terrorism issues overseas, they would send their people out.

00:18:19.000 And I remember I was operating overseas, and I remember we had a meeting one time, and I went into an embassy.

00:18:28.000 Because they said, look, we're going to have a meeting.

00:18:30.000 I said, okay.

00:18:31.000 We were doing something out on the street.

00:18:32.000 So I remember going in there and looking at our guys.

00:18:36.000 Taking down maps and photos and charts and everything of this thing that was going to happen and stuffing them in a desk.

00:18:44.000 I said, what's going on?

00:18:45.000 They said, well, the Bureau's coming in. 0.99

00:18:48.000 So, you know, we've got to take all this shit down. 0.99

00:18:50.000 We don't want them to see this stuff. 0.98

00:18:52.000 But the idea was we were, you know, working together.

00:18:54.000 And if you're out on the street, I mean, our natural response was, well, I thought we're working together because I don't want to get my ass caught out there if, you know, if we could tell them something that would make sense.

00:19:04.000 But, you know, also at the same time, the Bureau was telling us about 50% of what they knew.

00:19:08.000 And so there was a lot of...

00:19:12.000 Difficulty.

00:19:13.000 Some of it highlighted after 9-11.

00:19:14.000 That was talked about a lot, so I don't want to go into that.

00:19:16.000 Everybody talked about the need to play well with others.

00:19:18.000 And so it has gotten a lot better.

00:19:21.000 We've got a much better relationship.

00:19:22.000 And I personally, because I've worked with them a lot in the past, I have a great deal of appreciation for the Bureau.

00:19:28.000 And so that side of things has gotten a lot better.

00:19:31.000 Is it ever going to get perfect?

00:19:32.000 Well, no, because, you know...

00:19:33.000 Is it human nature?

00:19:34.000 It's human nature, yeah.

00:19:35.000 You're pissing on each other's turf sometimes.

00:19:37.000 And, you know, now the agency's, you know, in a bit of a different situation.

00:19:41.000 I mean, the Bureau has bigger issues with ATF and some others.

00:19:45.000 Because they're all kind of focused on law enforcement in some capacity.

00:19:49.000 And my old outfit, you know, we've got a different focus.

00:19:52.000 So it doesn't usually surface.

00:19:54.000 And when it does, it's typically in a terrorist concern.

00:19:59.000 But it is better.

00:20:01.000 It is better.

00:20:01.000 Look at me, Mr. Rosie.

00:20:04.000 I've got my glass half full.

00:20:06.000 And by the way, the coffees, and we talked about it before, but this is great coffee.

00:20:10.000 Yeah, it's delicious.

00:20:11.000 It's caveman coffee.

00:20:12.000 Straight from Columbia.

00:20:15.000 The thing about it is, is it because everybody wants to take credit?

00:20:20.000 Is it like the FBI wants to take credit for catching bad guys, and the CIA is going after the same people, and they're competing to reach the finish line first?

00:20:27.000 Is that what it is?

00:20:28.000 In part, yeah.

00:20:29.000 I mean, I'd probably be lying if I said there's not an element.

00:20:31.000 There's got to be an element of that, right?

00:20:32.000 Everybody's competitive, and these are two very type A organizations.

00:20:36.000 But part of it is also just the feeling like you know what you're doing.

00:20:41.000 You've got the process, and your process is better.

00:20:44.000 And there's also an aspect of it...

00:20:48.000 Law enforcement looks at, as an example, law enforcement looks at sources differently, right?

00:20:53.000 The agency is all about developing sources and maintaining those and building on them because what are you trying to do?

00:20:59.000 You're trying to gather intelligence, right?

00:21:01.000 So we're not trying to, at the end of the day, bust somebody.

00:21:05.000 I mean, maybe at the end of an operation we're looking to terminate them, but, I mean, that's a different story.

00:21:10.000 I just forget I said that.

00:21:13.000 But at the end of the day, law enforcement, oftentimes it's like, well, we've got a source?

00:21:18.000 Great.

00:21:18.000 We don't mind burning that source because we're after the bust or we're after some gear or whatever it is.

00:21:23.000 And so there's a fundamental difference there sometimes in the way that we view our assets.

00:21:28.000 But oftentimes, yeah, you can't disregard the fact that it's professional pride.

00:21:33.000 It's always a conflict in every movie where there's like cops and the FBI comes in.

00:21:40.000 We're taking over this investigation. 0.99

00:21:42.000 Shit, this is our case. 1.00

00:21:44.000 That's so common. 1.00

00:21:45.000 Get in the captain's office. 1.00

00:21:46.000 I'm going to chew your ass out. 1.00

00:21:48.000 They have control of this crime scene. 1.00

00:21:50.000 Like, you motherfucker. 1.00

00:21:52.000 I think we just wrote a show, didn't we? 1.00

00:21:54.000 I think we did.

00:21:55.000 It's already been done, I think.

00:21:56.000 A million times, unfortunately.

00:21:58.000 Yeah, the CIA guys always end up looking like douchebags, frankly, in the movies or in the shows.

00:22:03.000 But we're used to that, frankly. 0.99

00:22:06.000 Just like getting marched up on Capitol Hill and having our ass kicked every now and then. 0.98

00:22:10.000 Well, not on Homeland. 0.99

00:22:11.000 On Homeland, you guys look pretty good.

00:22:12.000 That's true.

00:22:13.000 Is that like, do agency people watch Homeland and go, not bad, not bad?

00:22:18.000 You know what?

00:22:19.000 This is going to sound weird, but I don't watch any of that.

00:22:22.000 I'm a terrible person to sit down, and my wife refuses to sit with me.

00:22:26.000 And even try to start watching something like that.

00:22:28.000 Because, you know, I know that she's irritated, but every time I start kind of squirming, I go, no. 0.96

00:22:33.000 Get the fuck out of here with this, right? 0.60

00:22:34.000 And I'm making noises, you know, and I'm kind of like, ugh, and I'm shifting around. 1.00

00:22:37.000 And she finally just says, oh, fuck it. 0.99

00:22:38.000 Just go somewhere else. 1.00

00:22:39.000 Yeah.

00:22:40.000 I can understand.

00:22:42.000 I did that when I watched Punchline with Tom Hanks and Sally Fields.

00:22:46.000 Exactly. 0.97

00:22:46.000 I was like, get the fuck out of here. 0.97

00:22:47.000 Why do they have lockers? 0.99

00:22:48.000 Nobody has a locker room in a comedy club.

00:22:50.000 You guys don't get lockers?

00:22:51.000 We don't have lockers.

00:22:52.000 Where do you put your...

00:22:52.000 We don't have anything.

00:22:54.000 Sports gear.

00:22:55.000 Where do you put your jockstrap? 1.00

00:22:56.000 Yeah, where do you put your fucking lacrosse dick? 1.00

00:22:58.000 Yeah, it's ridiculous. 1.00

00:23:00.000 But is there anybody who's gotten it right? 0.84

00:23:02.000 Is there like any movie or anything that you've ever seen where you're like, that's pretty damn close.

00:23:07.000 You know, there's some old-school ones.

00:23:09.000 When you talk about straight-up tradecraft, when you're talking about old-school espionage, then things like Smiley's People, some of the old sort of BBC shows.

00:23:18.000 Oh, I don't even know what that is.

00:23:19.000 What is Smiley's People?

00:23:20.000 It's an old, was it Le Carre, I think, that wrote it?

00:23:23.000 I'm not sure.

00:23:25.000 Smiley's People.

00:23:26.000 It hasn't been airing for a long, long time.

00:23:30.000 But that was good.

00:23:31.000 The Good Shepherd is a movie.

00:23:33.000 The Good Shepherd, I thought, was very interesting.

00:23:34.000 It kind of dragged on for a while, and honestly, who could believe that if you're married to Angelina Jolie, you're going to want to go away all the time.

00:23:43.000 She's probably annoying after a while. 1.00

00:23:44.000 Yeah, I don't know. 1.00

00:23:46.000 I bet after a week with her on an island somewhere, you'd be like, all right, bitch, I'm going fishing. 1.00

00:23:49.000 I'm giving it longer than a week. 0.99

00:23:49.000 A week? 0.99

00:23:51.000 Yeah, I'm going to have to give it longer than a week.

00:23:51.000 Really?

00:23:52.000 You're a patient man.

00:23:53.000 Yeah, I am a patient man.

00:23:55.000 But I think that those were good.

00:23:59.000 They did a show, and full disclosure, I worked on the show from its inception called Spooks in the UK. And it was called MI5 over here in the States.

00:24:12.000 And it aired for several seasons.

00:24:14.000 It was actually, I think, probably the most successful show in UK television.

00:24:20.000 More successful than Top Gear?

00:24:36.000 You know, not focusing on the explosions and the car chases and everything.

00:24:40.000 It was more about tradecraft and things that were going on to accomplish an operation.

00:24:46.000 But I like the Bourne series.

00:24:49.000 I think, you know, I know that that's not realistic.

00:24:51.000 It's so unrealistic.

00:24:52.000 I know, it's so unrealistic, but I like the pacing of it.

00:24:54.000 I like that, you know, usually the filming is great, the movie.

00:24:57.000 So as a way to just, because it's so obviously not realistic, it's great.

00:25:01.000 You can get immersed in it. 0.98

00:25:02.000 The ones I have trouble with, where they throw a little something in, they try to make it look like they know what they're doing, and then you think, oh, for fuck's sake. 0.77

00:25:09.000 Yeah, the Bourne series is more like a superhero show. 0.58

00:25:11.000 Exactly.

00:25:12.000 So you can kind of get lost in it a little bit easier.

00:25:14.000 You know what my problem with the Bourne series is?

00:25:16.000 This is my major problem with it, and especially the last one.

00:25:19.000 It seems like they're pussifying superheroes and tough guys.

00:25:26.000 To the point where they never try to get laid.

00:25:28.000 Ever.

00:25:29.000 They have zero sexual attraction to the most beautiful women on the planet.

00:25:34.000 They have totally pure altruistic purposes to all of their actions.

00:25:41.000 Everything they do is noble. 0.98

00:25:43.000 Like this guy, who the fuck, Jeremy Renner, is that what his name is? 0.98

00:25:46.000 I didn't see the last one. 0.99

00:25:47.000 The last one is fucking ridiculous, because he's with this chick as hot as the fucking sun, and she's fawning over him, and at the end of the scene, the end of the movie, they're sitting apart from each other. 0.99

00:25:57.000 He saved her life about 150 fucking times. 1.00

00:26:00.000 He's handsome, he's a stud, he's kicked 150,000 people's asses in front of her. 1.00

00:26:06.000 She should be blown away by this guy. 0.98

00:26:08.000 Or he should be, vice versa.

00:26:10.000 Yeah, both.

00:26:10.000 And they're leaving, they're on this boat, and they're sitting apart from each other, like as far apart as you and I are.

00:26:16.000 Like, they're not even hugging.

00:26:17.000 Like, there's nothing. 0.99

00:26:18.000 James Bond would have fucked her a million times before the end of that movie. 0.99

00:26:21.000 Oh, yeah, probably in the first five minutes. 0.99

00:26:23.000 I mean, that's the whole point of a Bond movie.

00:26:24.000 Exactly, but that's a...

00:26:26.000 I mean, isn't that what an agent is supposed to be? 0.99

00:26:29.000 A man of danger, out there kicking ass and... 0.99

00:26:32.000 Action. 1.00

00:26:33.000 Yes.

00:26:34.000 No, and believe me, I go back to my point about the hot chicks when I first started the agency.

00:26:37.000 I thought that was...

00:26:39.000 That was kind of part of the deal.

00:26:41.000 But the first three, was it three?

00:26:44.000 The first three Bourne movies.

00:26:46.000 It was the same way with, what's his name, who played the role?

00:26:46.000 You're right.

00:26:51.000 Matt Damon.

00:26:52.000 Yeah, Matt Damon.

00:26:53.000 It was always angst-ridden.

00:26:53.000 Yeah.

00:26:55.000 And if you got an indication that he might have just been banging one of the girls that was in the movie, he seemed like he was sorry about it and he was depressed about it.

00:27:05.000 Because I don't know.

00:27:07.000 I'm not sure this is the right thing to do.

00:27:09.000 Yeah, they're trying to mute male sexuality when you're dealing with trained killers.

00:27:13.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:27:15.000 I mean, it's like the polar opposite of what we consider. 0.98

00:27:18.000 If you think about ancient warriors, think about Gladiator or any of these ancient warriors, you connect these ancient warriors with they would fight and they would fuck. 0.99

00:27:28.000 But these Bourne Identity guys, there's no fucking. 0.99

00:27:31.000 There's nothing. 0.99

00:27:31.000 It was an interesting thing. 0.99

00:27:33.000 I think who knows what they were thinking.

00:27:34.000 I do think they were trying to make it seem as if they were just so angst-ridden that they were kind of above it all.

00:27:39.000 You know what I think they're doing? 0.98

00:27:40.000 I think they're doing the same shit they're doing with Twilight. 0.99

00:27:42.000 They're making things for chicks. 1.00

00:27:44.000 They're turning vampires into these fucking glittery queers that hang out in the forest and they don't hurt anybody. 1.00

00:27:52.000 It's madness. 1.00

00:27:53.000 They're doing this thing where they're turning into these romantic novels of completely unrealistic behavior.

00:27:59.000 That's what they're doing.

00:27:59.000 Yeah.

00:28:00.000 Anybody out there who wants success, just write a tween book.

00:28:03.000 Include a vampire and no sex, and I guess you're good to go.

00:28:07.000 But the thing is, it's not tweens. 1.00

00:28:09.000 It's grown women want that shit, too. 1.00

00:28:11.000 It's this weird fantasy thing that it plays off of. 1.00

00:28:15.000 I don't understand it.

00:28:18.000 The female psyche is a mystery to me. 0.98

00:28:20.000 Hey, dude, I'm with you on that one, although I am married to the world's greatest woman, so...

00:28:26.000 I am, so good luck with yours.

00:28:26.000 No, you're not.

00:28:28.000 Are we married to the same girl?

00:28:29.000 Good God.

00:28:29.000 No, we're not.

00:28:32.000 How strange would that be if we found that out?

00:28:34.000 That would be crazy. 1.00

00:28:35.000 We both fucked. 1.00

00:28:36.000 Oh, my God. 1.00

00:28:37.000 What do your kids look like?

00:28:38.000 They look like your kids.

00:28:39.000 Yeah, my kids look like you. 1.00

00:28:39.000 Shit! 1.00

00:28:41.000 So, well, we've solved that issue here today. 0.99

00:28:44.000 Yeah, she's absolutely terrific, and she's from Idaho, and that's where we moved to.

00:28:50.000 Yeah, we moved back there about a year and a half ago.

00:28:50.000 Oh, that's good stock.

00:28:52.000 Oh, you live up there?

00:28:53.000 Beautiful, man.

00:28:53.000 Yeah, we moved there.

00:28:54.000 From New York.

00:28:55.000 That Coeur d'Alene, man, that lake up there? 0.99

00:28:57.000 Holy shit, that's beautiful. 0.98

00:28:58.000 It was just up there, and it is fantastic. 0.99

00:29:00.000 And other places, McCall, Redfish Lake, you know, Payette Lake, just beautiful, beautiful places.

00:29:05.000 Yeah.

00:29:05.000 Stunning.

00:29:05.000 Just a stunning part of the country.

00:29:07.000 Do you guys have a lot of wolves up there?

00:29:09.000 Yeah, and they delisted wolves because, you know, it's Idaho.

00:29:12.000 Right.

00:29:12.000 Too many of them.

00:29:13.000 So, you know, if you get a wolf problem, shoot the fucker. 1.00

00:29:15.000 But it's, you know, people don't understand that. 1.00

00:29:18.000 It's just like people, you know, people trying to dictate what you do with public lands when they have no experience dealing with public lands in their state, you know?

00:29:25.000 And that's kind of the way things work nowadays.

00:29:25.000 Yeah.

00:29:28.000 But yeah, she's from Idaho, went back east.

00:29:30.000 I met her out there when she was working with a lobbying firm and And I came home one day from, we were living in New Canaan, Connecticut, which is a nice little town outside of New York.

00:29:42.000 But I was on Metro North riding the train back and forth where my office is in Midtown.

00:29:46.000 Walked in the door and said, you know, I don't think I have to be here to do what I do, which is basically just travel for the business.

00:29:54.000 Within a week, she had the house on the market.

00:29:56.000 Within five weeks, we were settled in Idaho.

00:29:59.000 Wow.

00:29:59.000 Fantastic, yeah.

00:30:00.000 It worked out great.

00:30:00.000 Did you know anybody out there?

00:30:01.000 Did you just...

00:30:02.000 You know, I didn't.

00:30:03.000 We'd been going out there to hunt and fish and raft and climb and ski over the past handful of years.

00:30:08.000 So I knew the area, but I didn't know anybody.

00:30:10.000 But she knew a lot of people.

00:30:11.000 And so, you know, we've settled in very nicely.

00:30:34.000 It's so calm out there.

00:30:35.000 And, you know, more and more people, you know, I think have, you know, have the opportunity sometimes to be able to do that.

00:30:35.000 Right.

00:30:41.000 But you can fool yourself into thinking that I've got to be here.

00:30:44.000 I've got to be in this epicenter, whether it's Los Angeles or Chicago or New York or wherever.

00:30:48.000 And, you know, because, hey, it's an important place, and so therefore I'm important, you know.

00:30:52.000 But, you know, I sat on that train, you know, long enough going back and forth to realize I wasn't that important.

00:30:57.000 So I figured, hey, time to move.

00:31:00.000 The quality of life is, you know, I sound like I'm with the Boise, Idaho Chamber of Commerce.

00:31:00.000 But it's worked out.

00:31:05.000 Boise's beautiful.

00:31:05.000 It's beautiful.

00:31:06.000 It's clean air, and people are nice.

00:31:09.000 Great live music, good bars and restaurants.

00:31:11.000 It's, you know, BSU's there, Boise State University.

00:31:14.000 So it's just the right size.

00:31:16.000 And I got three little boys, and I tell you what, you know, we're out in the fishing, you know, five minutes from the house.

00:31:22.000 We're up in the foothills.

00:31:24.000 You know, when they're old enough, you know, the hunting is great, so...

00:31:27.000 It'll be good.

00:31:28.000 Yeah, Idaho's beautiful.

00:31:29.000 There's a lot of great parts of this country that don't get enough credit.

00:31:32.000 Everybody likes to call the flyover states.

00:31:34.000 You know, flyover between New York and LA. Basically everything in between those two.

00:31:38.000 Yeah, it's pretty weird.

00:31:40.000 It's weird that we...

00:31:41.000 But I think also, because...

00:31:44.000 Yeah.

00:31:58.000 Like, the level of intelligence and awareness of the average folks, like, just in the middle of the country is way different than it was 20, 30 years ago.

00:32:06.000 The flow of information, much better, and that's helping.

00:32:06.000 Right.

00:32:09.000 And then, but you can, you know, I spent, what, about seven years in the Northeast, in the New York City area, and You know, people in that area, you know, I got wonderful friends there, but a lot of folks can believe that the rest of the country thinks like they do,

00:32:26.000 or that they should, because they just don't know any better, because they're not right there.

00:32:31.000 They're not in the heartbeat of America, as they would refer to it. 0.50

00:32:35.000 You know, you get outside that northeast corridor, and in Washington, D.C. in particular, and Washington, D.C. is so far up its own ass, that, you know, you realize that all this country, and that's one of these things with this Travel Channel show.

00:32:47.000 That's a pretty good plug, wasn't it?

00:32:49.000 The great thing about that is being able to just go out and travel and see how great this country is, and how, like you said, how many places there are to see.

00:32:58.000 And, you know, I spent most of my life overseas.

00:33:01.000 And so, for me, it's a real treat because we're going all over hell and back.

00:33:05.000 And just, it's an incredible country.

00:33:08.000 When you try to leave the CIA, do they go, um, are you sure?

00:33:13.000 Do they go, uh, do you really want to do that?

00:33:16.000 Um, what are you going to do when you go out?

00:33:17.000 Are you going to get on TV? What are you going to talk about, Mike?

00:33:19.000 Yeah, they did.

00:33:21.000 I got a great relationship with them, and I'm one of those guys that, you know, I have a hard time being objective sometimes about it, although I try not to, you know, look through rose-colored glasses every time I'm talking about operations or things that they're doing, but I had a great time, and I got a lot of respect for the people there.

00:33:37.000 And so when I got ready to leave, and I left for a pretty simple reason.

00:33:41.000 I've got a daughter who's in college, terrific, terrific kid, and I was just never home when she was growing up.

00:33:47.000 And so we got to a certain point where...

00:33:49.000 I didn't have any choice.

00:33:50.000 I had to be home.

00:33:51.000 And so I walked in and I was overseas at the time and I walked into my boss who was very senior.

00:34:00.000 In the operations group, and I said, I think it's time to leave.

00:34:04.000 And he said, what are you going to do?

00:34:05.000 You can't leave.

00:34:06.000 Just stick around.

00:34:07.000 And he knew I was getting antsy, and he said, stick around.

00:34:11.000 It's going to get better, because we had gotten a little bit risk-averse at that point.

00:34:14.000 And it gets a little wearing after a while to be working on operations, and then all of a sudden, at the last minute, people say, no, we can't do that.

00:34:20.000 Too much blowback. 0.98

00:34:21.000 And then you pull back and think, well, what the fuck was that all about? 0.99

00:34:24.000 Like, what kind of risk avert? 0.97

00:34:25.000 Can you talk about the operations?

00:34:27.000 Yeah, I mean, a lot of times it's just political blowback, concern over what a host country might say if something went south.

00:34:33.000 No, if something went south.

00:34:35.000 If you're operating in another country and something you're about to do blows up on you, and then the political blowback from country to country dealing with that.

00:34:44.000 And so...

00:34:45.000 That oftentimes is the sort of thing that people think about.

00:34:48.000 But anyway, so this guy, a great, great, great character and terrific experience with the agency.

00:34:53.000 He said, stick around.

00:34:54.000 So anyway, long story short, I went back to Virginia, resigned to start a business.

00:35:04.000 I woke up the next morning, and the guy had said, you're going to feel terrible if you do this.

00:35:07.000 If you go back and you resign, you're going to feel terrible when you wake up.

00:35:11.000 And so I woke up, and I felt pretty damn good.

00:35:13.000 So I called him overseas.

00:35:15.000 It was towards the end of the day at his time, and I said, I got to tell you, I'd feel great. 1.00

00:35:19.000 And he said, what a dick. 0.99

00:35:21.000 But he's gotten out since. 0.99

00:35:22.000 He's retired, and now he's in business.

00:35:24.000 And we get together a lot, and he says, yeah, that's some of the worst advice I ever gave anybody.

00:35:28.000 Yeah.

00:35:29.000 But it was not easy leaving because you have a huge amount of respect.

00:35:34.000 You spend a lot of time in there.

00:35:36.000 And you're doing things that you know.

00:35:39.000 Sometimes you're doing things that nobody else is doing.

00:35:42.000 There's nobody else doing this right now.

00:35:43.000 I remember having that feeling, walking away from something and thinking, that's it.

00:35:47.000 I'm the only person that's just done this right now.

00:35:50.000 It's a pretty special thing.

00:35:53.000 They draw you in that way because of the challenge and the patriotism and all the rest of it, and that's exactly how it should be.

00:35:59.000 Nobody does it for the money, that's for sure.

00:36:01.000 If there's one bit of controversy or the main controversy, the main conspiracy when it comes to the CIA, it's drugs.

00:36:08.000 The main evil conspiracy is that the CIA was involved in selling drugs in African-American communities to fund foreign wars, the Contras, the Nicaragua, you know, the whole thing with Oliver North, you know,

00:36:23.000 with Freeway Ricky Ross, the guy who's out now.

00:36:27.000 He was involved directly with selling drugs.

00:36:30.000 The money went straight to the CIA. The CIA used that money.

00:36:33.000 You're shaking your head.

00:36:35.000 I'm shaking my head, yeah.

00:36:36.000 You don't believe it?

00:36:36.000 No, look, I... I spent long enough time behind the curtain.

00:36:40.000 And I mean, of course, what are people who are down that road are going to be listening to this?

00:36:45.000 Of course he's going to say that.

00:36:46.000 I mean, what else is he going to say?

00:36:48.000 But honest to God, I spent enough time behind the curtain in operations the whole time to say that we've got a lot of restrictions on us in terms of what we can do, who we can deal with, and what you're able to accomplish.

00:37:05.000 Yeah, the whole concept of the drug thing, I don't know when that got started.

00:37:09.000 I don't know how it sort of popped up initially, but it takes on a life of its own, like everything else, like theories about the Kennedy assassination, like we were talking about.

00:37:19.000 And you're never going to let him go away.

00:37:22.000 And sometimes saying that, you know, if I sit here and protest, people are going to say, well, of course, that must be true because he's protesting.

00:37:28.000 Is it possible that things went on that you don't know about?

00:37:31.000 Oh, absolutely not.

00:37:32.000 Yeah.

00:37:33.000 How would that happen?

00:37:34.000 No, of course there is.

00:37:35.000 But at the same time, I will say this much.

00:37:41.000 People can't keep their yaps shut over a period of time. 0.99

00:37:46.000 I'm sorry, what?

00:37:47.000 Do you know who Barry Seals is?

00:37:48.000 Barry Seals is dead now, but Barry Seals was a pilot and a drug smuggler.

00:37:55.000 And he said that he flew covert flights for the Central Intelligence Agency.

00:38:00.000 Well, it must be true.

00:38:01.000 Well, he's dead now.

00:38:02.000 He died.

00:38:03.000 He was assassinated when he was on his way to testify with George Bush's phone number in his pocket.

00:38:08.000 That's the salacious detail.

00:38:09.000 That's the details.

00:38:10.000 That's got to be true, right?

00:38:12.000 Well, he had photographs with CIA agents and Medellin cartel officers.

00:38:17.000 I mean, he, without a doubt, was a drug runner.

00:38:20.000 The question is whether he was actually running drugs for the CIA. Yeah, I feel comfortable being here and saying, no.

00:38:28.000 Of course, you've got to say that.

00:38:29.000 You have to say that.

00:38:30.000 But also, I mean, and again, you're right.

00:38:31.000 The more times I say it, people are going to go, well, it's got to be true because he's saying it so often.

00:38:37.000 But, you know, I... The agency is operated by humans just like everything else, and so it's never going to be perfect.

00:38:45.000 It's never going to be perfect.

00:38:46.000 There will be slip-ups.

00:38:48.000 Iran-Contra.

00:38:50.000 The whole decision to nation-build in Iraq and what that meant.

00:38:54.000 Although the agency doesn't drive policy, so I'm not sure what that's got to do with it.

00:38:58.000 But the Iran-Contra thing is directly connected to selling drugs in poor neighborhoods in L.A. Freeway Ricky Ross literally sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs.

00:39:10.000 But not for the agency.

00:39:11.000 Well, he says that that's how he got a hold of the drugs.

00:39:14.000 Why wouldn't you?

00:39:15.000 He did it through a connection to the agency.

00:39:17.000 I guess that's my point.

00:39:19.000 If I'm a dirtbag, what am I going to do?

00:39:24.000 I'm going to complicate things and muddy the waters because I'm going to say, well, my God, I did it for the government.

00:39:28.000 I did it for the agency.

00:39:29.000 I did it for the Bureau.

00:39:30.000 I did it for the Secret Service or whatever.

00:39:32.000 Freeway Ricky Ross didn't even realize he was selling drugs for the CIA until he was in jail.

00:39:37.000 He didn't know who the connections were that he was getting.

00:39:40.000 What's interesting about Barry Seal, the guy who died, is that he was an informant for the DEA. The DEA, as you were talking about, the CIA and the FBI have a little combative relationship.

00:39:50.000 So do the DEA and the CIA. There's all sorts of interagency relationships.

00:39:55.000 I work with the DEA. I work with the DEA overseas in counter-narcotics operations.

00:40:00.000 And again, yeah, part of it is...

00:40:04.000 Going back to the same thing we talked about with the Bureau, relationships during those early days, starting out working with them overseas, there's a lot of kind of peeing on each other's turf.

00:40:13.000 Relationships are much better now.

00:40:15.000 But I guess all I'm saying is, and I'll leave it at that, is that the agency was not in the business of selling drugs.

00:40:24.000 If we wanted money to fund operations, we had other recourses to gather that money Rather than narcotics and selling drugs to lower income neighborhoods in the United States of America.

00:40:38.000 It's just, to me, I understand you're never going to shift people off a certain position and people are going to believe what they're going to believe.

00:40:45.000 But it kind of goes back to what I said at the very beginning. 0.97

00:40:49.000 The number one misconception is that this agency is out to fuck people over.

00:40:52.000 Yeah, this Barry Seal one is a very interesting one because he had so much information about the CIA and so much information about the Medellin cartel and drug dealing in the first place. 0.77

00:41:03.000 What he had actually said led people to believe that he was a guy who was very knowledgeable about the actual operations.

00:41:09.000 It's the number one...

00:41:11.000 A piece of evidence that points to the CIA. And then what happened with Michael Rupert.

00:41:16.000 Michael Rupert was a former L.A. narcotics officer of busted people.

00:41:19.000 Do you know who Michael Rupert is?

00:41:22.000 I've been down every rabbit hole there is, buddy.

00:41:24.000 I was going to say, man, you've been spending a lot of time down the rabbit, Warren.

00:41:29.000 Yeah, you know what?

00:41:30.000 Again, we're going to just be at loggerheads constantly on this one because I... I keep going back to the same thing.

00:41:38.000 I understand why people find it interesting.

00:41:40.000 I understand why people believe, okay, this is what I'm going to choose to believe.

00:41:44.000 I got a different perspective based on a lot of life experience inside the organization. 0.96

00:41:47.000 And if I saw shit that I thought was absolutely untenable, then yeah, I'd like to think I'm a decent enough person. 0.99

00:41:55.000 And I don't have a dog in the hunt. 0.99

00:41:56.000 I'm not bound by anything other than respect for the organization based on the experience I've had with them.

00:42:02.000 So, anyway, but that's exactly what people would expect me to say.

00:42:05.000 Well, the guy who was the head of the CIA, the director of Central Intelligence Agency in 96, was John Deutsch.

00:42:12.000 That's how you say his name.

00:42:13.000 Deutsch.

00:42:14.000 He was in Los Angeles.

00:42:16.000 He was at a town hall meeting.

00:42:18.000 And Michael Rupert, who was a former LA narcotics officer, who was an officer at the time, confronted him saying that...

00:42:25.000 In his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer, he had seen evidence of the CIA complicity in drug dealing and that the confrontation was handled so poorly by Dush, it resulted in him being terminated from the CIA. It resulted in Deutsche being terminated.

00:42:41.000 He didn't?

00:42:43.000 No.

00:42:44.000 Why was he terminated?

00:42:46.000 Well, because he was...

00:42:47.000 He just wasn't good?

00:42:48.000 He just wasn't good.

00:42:49.000 He was acknowledged, along with Stansfield, Turner, and a couple others, of being not our most effective, beloved directors.

00:42:58.000 I don't want to besmirch anybody's character, but at the same time, But it was an embarrassment, because it was on television.

00:43:06.000 But it was embarrassing.

00:43:08.000 Have you ever seen the video of Rupert confronting him?

00:43:12.000 No, I haven't.

00:43:14.000 Would you watch it?

00:43:14.000 I've dealt with John Deutsch.

00:43:16.000 I've been there when John Deutsch was there.

00:43:18.000 Not a good guy?

00:43:19.000 No, I mean, you know, you always have favorites.

00:43:21.000 It's like anything else.

00:43:22.000 I have my favorite boss at the company.

00:43:24.000 I've got my favorite directors, for sure.

00:43:27.000 Who's your favorite podcaster?

00:43:28.000 Oh, it's got to be this Rogan guy.

00:43:31.000 I mean, his coffee's outstanding.

00:43:33.000 And, yeah.

00:43:35.000 But, no, it is what it is.

00:43:38.000 I'll play this one thing for you, and then we'll let it go.

00:43:41.000 But Michael Rupert confronting John Deutch.

00:43:41.000 All right.

00:43:44.000 Pull this up, Jamie, because it's pretty fascinating.

00:43:47.000 Watch this.

00:43:47.000 Okay.

00:43:48.000 I will tell you, Director Deutch, as a former Los Angeles police narcotics detective, that the agency has dealt drugs throughout this country for a long time.

00:44:06.000 People are clapping, so it must be true.

00:44:07.000 It must be true.

00:44:09.000 That's a crowd-pleasing statement.

00:44:13.000 I'm doing it.

00:44:14.000 Alright, obviously that is an answer for a lot of you.

00:44:17.000 Now can you please?

00:44:18.000 Alright, now can you please?

00:44:21.000 Wait, wait, wait.

00:44:25.000 Wait a minute.

00:44:28.000 This chick's not good at her job. 1.00

00:44:29.000 No.

00:44:30.000 No.

00:44:34.000 Wait a minute.

00:44:36.000 Wait a minute.

00:44:37.000 Alright, principal.

00:44:39.000 Come on.

00:44:40.000 Take your seats.

00:44:44.000 Oh, that's a good way to handle it.

00:44:47.000 Representative Juanita McDonald.

00:44:49.000 You can stop by the CIA narcotics booth on your way out.

00:44:53.000 Will you please take your seats?

00:44:54.000 I will come back to you as we roll back across to the center section.

00:45:00.000 Hmm?

00:45:01.000 What?

00:45:02.000 Director Deutsch, I will refer you to three specific agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus, and Watchtower.

00:45:02.000 Yeah.

00:45:09.000 I have Watchtower documents heavily redacted by the agency.

00:45:13.000 I was personally exposed to CIA operations and recruited by CIA personnel who attempted to recruit me in the late 70s to become involved in protecting agency drug operations in this country.

00:45:24.000 I have been trying to get this out for 18 years, and I have the evidence.

00:45:28.000 My question for you is very specific, sir.

00:45:30.000 If in the course of the IG's investigations and Fred Hitz's work, you come across evidence of severely criminal activity and it's classified, will you use that classification to hide the criminal activity or will you tell the American people the truth?

00:45:56.000 Alright, do you want to hear the response first from Congressman Julian Dixon and then from the director?

00:46:05.000 Wait a minute from your I'm sorry, sir.

00:46:12.000 You can pause it here.

00:46:13.000 I mean, he basically said what he needed to say. 1.00

00:46:15.000 So what do you think about that kind of shit? 0.99

00:46:18.000 That's the first guy who ever claimed to have been tried to be recruited by the CIA. Well, he's an L.A. narcotics officer. 1.00

00:46:23.000 I mean, he's a legitimate guy.

00:46:25.000 Well, yeah.

00:46:25.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:26.000 Okay, that's fine.

00:46:28.000 I look at it, and I see the same thing I see in a lot of other cases.

00:46:35.000 You have sort of a delusion thing going on, a delusion of grandeur.

00:46:39.000 You've got sort of...

00:46:39.000 We see it all the time in guys like, I'm not putting them in the same category, don't get me wrong, but guys like Hanson, guys like Jim Nicholson, Ed Lee Howard, all these things.

00:46:49.000 People never listen to me.

00:46:50.000 If they just listened to me, things would have been better. 1.00

00:46:51.000 So therefore, the man's out to fuck me, therefore I'm going to fuck the man. 1.00

00:46:54.000 And that's... 1.00

00:46:55.000 Typically, and the agency is a beautiful shining light up there on the hill to take a shot at because it's so intriguing.

00:47:03.000 Nobody fights back. 0.99

00:47:04.000 That's one of the reasons why the agency is always getting kicked in the ass up on Capitol Hill. 0.98

00:47:08.000 We don't push back because you're not in a position to. 0.96

00:47:12.000 What are you going to go back up there and start talking about sorts and methods?

00:47:14.000 Again, getting back to this guy, yeah, I hold absolutely no credibility in it.

00:47:19.000 I can guarantee you that Deutsch was not let go because of his response or lack thereof.

00:47:24.000 To that particular rant.

00:47:27.000 But it doesn't matter.

00:47:29.000 I'm going to sit here.

00:47:30.000 It's just like me saying this is how Kennedy was killed.

00:47:32.000 It's not going to make any difference, so everybody's going to believe what they're going to believe.

00:47:35.000 Again, I go back to the same thing.

00:47:38.000 Somebody pushing that theory has their own life experience.

00:47:42.000 I've got a life experience which I was fortunate enough gave me access inside an organization that I think gave me an understanding as to how they operate and the ethics with which they have, even though people say ethics, the agency.

00:47:55.000 Again, as an example, people went nuts over the interrogation thing.

00:48:00.000 You mean the waterboarding stuff?

00:48:02.000 Yeah, waterboarding stuff.

00:48:03.000 If anybody had taken the time, all those critics who had taken the time to read the DOJ memos that Holder's Justice Department decided were great to release, then you can't not come away from reading the Seriously, 0.95

00:48:20.000 the DOJ memos, and not say, well, shit, every little thing, they were going back and forth, trying to see, is this appropriate? 0.90

00:48:26.000 Can we do this? 0.99

00:48:27.000 We can't do that?

00:48:28.000 Okay, can we do this?

00:48:29.000 Okay, can I push him against a fake wall?

00:48:33.000 Oh, I can't?

00:48:34.000 Can I do the following? 0.98

00:48:35.000 And there's back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, and it belies this notion That somehow we're just out there fucking over the world and acting like a bunch of cowboys.

00:48:46.000 But again, it's like the agency going up on Capitol Hill and trying to defend itself.

00:48:52.000 What are you going to do?

00:48:53.000 People are going to believe what they believe. 0.99

00:48:54.000 If I was going to give you advice, though, in the future, I mean, obviously you don't need my advice, but when someone brings up something, even if it's ridiculous, don't laugh while you discredit it, because it makes it look like bullshit. 0.97

00:49:05.000 You know, like when people do that, they go, what, that's ridiculous.

00:49:08.000 Yeah, no, I know, and I think you're right, I think you're right, but you also have to realize it. 0.98

00:49:13.000 It is ridiculous to you. 0.98

00:49:14.000 It is ridiculous to me, yeah. 0.99

00:49:15.000 So I'm going to react the way it's natural for me to react. 0.91

00:49:18.000 If there were rogue agents that were involved, I mean, we see it all the time with narcotics officers.

00:49:22.000 That's a big thing with narcotics officers.

00:49:25.000 They get involved.

00:49:26.000 They go undercover.

00:49:27.000 They start selling drugs.

00:49:28.000 They start doing drugs.

00:49:29.000 And then they say, you know what? 1.00

00:49:30.000 These motherfuckers are making millions of dollars. 1.00

00:49:32.000 I'm going to make a little piece on the side for myself, put it away somewhere in a safe deposit box, live off of it or whatever. 1.00

00:49:38.000 I mean, it does happen.

00:49:39.000 People do get corrupted.

00:49:41.000 Of course, people get corrupted.

00:49:43.000 Back to your point.

00:49:45.000 Was I the director of the agency?

00:49:46.000 No.

00:49:47.000 So do I know everything that goes on?

00:49:49.000 No.

00:49:49.000 What am I saying?

00:49:50.000 I'm saying based on my experience, based on a lot of time behind the curtain and working in a lot of operational environments and dealing with a lot of people over 17 years, No.

00:50:02.000 To me, I don't buy it.

00:50:04.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:50:05.000 I don't believe it.

00:50:06.000 But, you know, again, I got to leave it at that because, you know, anything in this world is possible.

00:50:12.000 I don't believe it's possible.

00:50:14.000 But that's exactly what people expect me to say.

00:50:17.000 I keep going back to that same thing.

00:50:18.000 Of course.

00:50:18.000 Is there always an issue as well with, in order to adequately protect the United States' interests, in order to adequately...

00:50:29.000 Act in secrecy in the interest of the United States people and government.

00:50:34.000 There's always going to be walls that people come up against where to do your job, I would imagine, if you're involved in something that requires a certain amount of secrecy, you can't discuss certain things.

00:50:45.000 So when things come along, when Congress wants to have answers to questions, do you know what Glomar is, like a Glomar response?

00:50:54.000 Global Marine.

00:50:55.000 Do you remember when the Russian submarine fell?

00:50:57.000 Yeah, years and years ago.

00:50:58.000 Yeah, there was a Russian submarine that the United States was trying to recover.

00:51:01.000 It was a nuclear submarine, and Global Marine was a company that was trying to pull this thing.

00:51:06.000 It was a great operation.

00:51:06.000 Yeah, it was a great operation.

00:51:07.000 They were trying to pull this thing out of the ocean, but it was an incredible operation.

00:51:11.000 Miles deep, there's millions of pounds of metal, and they had to pull this nuclear sub up, and they were trying to get all this information about The capabilities of these Russian subs, what kind of documents were on board.

00:51:24.000 And it was right after Watergate.

00:51:26.000 So because there was so much blowback against secrecy because of Watergate.

00:51:31.000 Because everybody had assumed that the United States, well now we found out that Nixon was spying on people and he's kicked out of office.

00:51:38.000 So the global marine response to this was, we can neither confirm nor deny.

00:51:44.000 And that's where that term came from.

00:51:46.000 We can neither confirm nor deny.

00:51:48.000 It came out of them having to come up with some sort of a response because of the Freedom of Information Act.

00:51:53.000 It required them to do so.

00:51:55.000 So they came up with this way to respond, but not respond at the same time.

00:51:58.000 It didn't really do any good because it came out in the press anyway.

00:52:00.000 Eventually.

00:52:01.000 Yeah, it did.

00:52:02.000 Yeah, pretty quickly.

00:52:03.000 But...

00:52:04.000 Doesn't that kind of highlight how difficult it is?

00:52:06.000 I mean, look, that's a perfect example.

00:52:08.000 You're dealing with a Russian submarine.

00:52:10.000 It's during the Cold War.

00:52:11.000 We're worried we're going to go to war with Russia. 0.99

00:52:13.000 Why do we have to tell you if we found a fucking Russian sub that's got nuclear missiles in it? 0.98

00:52:18.000 Why should we have to tell the American people and also inform the Soviet Union, and then they go and find out where we're doing this, and then they find out that we have their sub? 0.99

00:52:27.000 It fucks up everything, right?

00:52:28.000 Right.

00:52:28.000 Well, I mean, you know, decade after decade, it becomes less likely that, you know, the government's going to keep deep secrets, right?

00:52:36.000 Because just the way information flows and the access to information.

00:52:39.000 With the internet.

00:52:40.000 With the internet and just also this general inability anymore of officials to keep their yap shut. 0.96

00:52:46.000 So...

00:52:47.000 I mean, you look at FDR, for crying out loud, to press a greet, to not say anything about his handicap.

00:52:53.000 And so for several years, that was kept under wraps.

00:52:58.000 You can't do that.

00:52:59.000 You're not going to do that anymore.

00:53:01.000 And so you look at this and you think, well, yeah, we can't...

00:53:04.000 The idea that the government...

00:53:06.000 And that's a good thing, in a sense.

00:53:08.000 The idea that the government is going to keep big secrets from people...

00:53:11.000 There's a tendency to just talk.

00:53:13.000 I mean, for crying out loud, the New York Times, half the time, the front page is made up of front page stories with nothing but anonymous sources.

00:53:19.000 And they can't be quoted or they can't be identified because they're not supposed to talk about it. 0.99

00:53:23.000 Well, then don't fucking talk about it. 0.99

00:53:24.000 If you've signed an agreement, if you've signed a deal that says you're not going to talk about something, shut your piehole. 1.00

00:53:29.000 Or if you feel that strongly about it, get the fuck out and then talk about it. 0.98

00:53:33.000 How do you feel about guys like Edward Snowden, guys? 0.98

00:53:37.000 Yeah.

00:53:37.000 Is that funny?

00:53:38.000 Yeah, it's funny.

00:53:39.000 See, I laugh when I get irritated.

00:53:40.000 Is he irritating to you?

00:53:42.000 Yeah, he's irritating to me, yeah.

00:53:43.000 In what way?

00:53:44.000 Well, again, everyone's going to disagree over this.

00:53:48.000 I'm a small government person, so I agree that you've got to have checks and balances.

00:53:53.000 And I believe a handful of things, one of them being that, and people aren't going to believe this because they watch a lot of movies and beach books and shit, and down a lot of rabbit holes, but the U.S. intel community is the most transparent intel community on the planet, right?

00:54:07.000 Maybe that sets the bar pretty low, you know, compared to other services. 0.98

00:54:10.000 Right, that saying like you're the nicest rapist ever. 0.97

00:54:12.000 Right, exactly. 1.00

00:54:13.000 Jeez, you're a great stalker.

00:54:15.000 And so I think that it's, for me, You know, the idea that Snowden had signed agreements and then chose to do what he did disappeared into the PRC and then now is over in Russia.

00:54:38.000 And despite people wanting to wave the flag and saying he's a hero, on a certain level it's caused a great deal of damage.

00:54:46.000 And I think that if he was that distraught over this Then there were other avenues that he could have pursued to bring this to light.

00:54:59.000 And I think that what he's done is very damaging.

00:55:01.000 I understand why people beat the drum for him.

00:55:04.000 I get that.

00:55:06.000 Again, my opinion is based on certain life experiences.

00:55:12.000 We're never going to meet in the middle on this one.

00:55:14.000 The importance of secrecy, things along those lines, sticking to your word.

00:55:18.000 The sort of damage that some of this information actually does out in the field in terms of what that means.

00:55:26.000 And so, yeah, again, I'm kind of conflicted in a way because I agree.

00:55:31.000 You've got to keep things in check.

00:55:33.000 And you've got to have the ability to understand what the government is doing in this regard.

00:55:43.000 I think that the best way to do that is have a very inquisitive and proactive political base.

00:55:52.000 Congress and Senate should do their jobs.

00:55:54.000 And part of it is, you know, there's a game that goes on in Washington where every time something like this comes out and it's politically expedient for them to do so, they express outrage and angst and, oh my god, I can't believe this is happening.

00:56:04.000 There's a well-worn path between the intel community and Capitol Hill, with people going up and briefing these people all the time.

00:56:11.000 But in Edward Snowden's case, what he's talking about is them spying on every single American.

00:56:17.000 That's essentially what it is.

00:56:20.000 Don't you think that people have a right to privacy if they're just innocent folks that are taxpayers and they're not breaking the law, they're not doing anything?

00:56:28.000 Sure.

00:56:28.000 I think that there is that, and I don't disagree with that.

00:56:31.000 That's why I say I'm conflicted on the whole issue.

00:56:33.000 And conflicted as well, because he did actually pursue different avenues before he released everything.

00:56:38.000 Well, he says he did.

00:56:39.000 You don't believe him?

00:56:41.000 No.

00:56:42.000 There's a lot of characteristics of Snowden that remind me, again, of some of the other characters in a counterintelligence world that we dealt with that...

00:56:51.000 I don't take everything, just like this character that we watched on the video.

00:56:56.000 Michael Ruber?

00:56:57.000 Yeah, I don't take what they say for face value, no.

00:57:00.000 Because you're willing to do a certain thing, then that makes me question your compass.

00:57:10.000 But yeah, the idea that the government's collecting metadata. 0.99

00:57:14.000 Now, admittedly, I could drive a big fucking truckload of metadata, dump it here on our table, and you wouldn't know shit about shit. 0.98

00:57:20.000 Yeah, but it's not just metadata. 0.99

00:57:23.000 Then again, you look at Amazon and Google, and you look at what they're doing.

00:57:25.000 Yeah, but he was saying that people were actually going into people's emails, extracting naked photographs, passing them around the office.

00:57:33.000 Yeah, that's Edward Snowden saying that.

00:57:36.000 Again, we're going to have to fall down on this whole thing that I don't believe him saying that.

00:57:42.000 All the time I was involved in things, I never saw behavior like that.

00:57:46.000 And we dealt with NSA a fair amount and on the technical collection side.

00:57:49.000 Right.

00:57:50.000 But at the same time, I understand people are going to believe a different thing.

00:57:56.000 I think it's important for us to have these conversations.

00:57:59.000 I think it's important for us to keep the government in check.

00:58:01.000 I just think this is...

00:58:02.000 I disagree with the way that he went about doing it.

00:58:05.000 I guess that's the best thing.

00:58:07.000 But I don't disagree with the fact that it's an important conversation.

00:58:10.000 I think he felt like he had no recourse.

00:58:12.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:58:12.000 I mean, so did Hansen when he started spying for the fucking Soviets. 0.99

00:58:16.000 So... 0.99

00:58:17.000 You know, that's always the case.

00:58:18.000 I didn't have any other choice.

00:58:19.000 People weren't listening to me.

00:58:20.000 Oh, my God.

00:58:21.000 You know, I'm not getting the respect I deserve.

00:58:23.000 It is funny they all go to the Soviets, right? 1.00

00:58:26.000 He's right over there chilling in Russia.

00:58:27.000 Yeah, and they've got everything he's got.

00:58:28.000 You know, Glenn Greenwald and Snowden, these guys, they all want to, you know, talk about how, no, no, we've safeguarded it. 1.00

00:58:35.000 Well, if they're smarter than the fucking PRC and the PLA out in China and smarter than the FSB in Russia, then winged monkeys on unicorns are going to fly out my ass. 0.99

00:58:45.000 So I'm just not buying it. 1.00

00:58:47.000 You mean in terms of safeguarding very important secret information that they haven't released yet? 0.96

00:58:51.000 From a counterintelligence perspective, all that shit that he's walked out the door with is in the hands of people who don't have our interests at heart.

00:59:00.000 Meaning not just what's been released, the concerns about the American people, about privacy, but some other stuff that is totally unrelated to privacy that is very important. 0.97

00:59:09.000 Well, that can't be argued.

00:59:11.000 In my opinion, that's very tricky.

00:59:13.000 I mean, if that is the case, then the data isn't secure, and it can compromise people in the field and all sorts of other things.

00:59:19.000 But Americans, their number one concern was that this is what is an ongoing situation.

00:59:26.000 Like the NSA... The facility that they're building in Utah where they're going to store all the data.

00:59:32.000 That scares the shit out of people.

00:59:33.000 Every single phone call they make is being stored somewhere.

00:59:36.000 Every single email.

00:59:37.000 Every single text message. 1.00

00:59:40.000 Every dick pic they send. 0.99

00:59:42.000 And I think that, again, there's ways to go about... 0.99

00:59:48.000 There's ways to go, but we're supposed to have checks and balances in place.

00:59:51.000 But no one even knew about this until this guy came up.

00:59:53.000 Yeah, I also don't necessarily buy that one either.

00:59:57.000 How about this?

00:59:58.000 The CIA improperly hacked into Senate computers.

01:00:01.000 Yeah, that one is, you've got to kind of reverse engineer that story.

01:00:06.000 They had set up a shared network system.

01:00:08.000 uh...

01:00:09.000 between uh...

01:00:09.000 the senate staffers who were busy writing what took them over five years uh...

01:00:14.000 and they had a preset agenda on on uh...

01:00:17.000 the interrogation history of interrogation by the agency so it took them over five years to write but during the course of that they set up a shared network shared system uh...

01:00:24.000 for the agency and the senate staffers who were writing this thing to use So, at a certain point it became clear through the course of that process that Senate staffers had acquired documentation that they weren't supposed to have,

01:00:41.000 that was above their parameters, their classification.

01:00:44.000 How'd they get it?

01:00:45.000 That is what, then what happened was, on this shared system, not in the Senate computer system, nobody in the Senate is arguing that.

01:00:52.000 It's a shared network that was set up specifically for this process of sharing documents.

01:00:56.000 So the agency ran what is basically a forensic effort, a keyword and phrase search.

01:01:02.000 It happens every day.

01:01:03.000 I've got a company diligence for all your information and security needs that, you know, we've got a computer forensics group.

01:01:09.000 So keyword phrase searches is a standard forensic tool.

01:01:12.000 So they went through that to try to figure out how did this document and did others go walkabout.

01:01:16.000 So that's what that whole hoo-ha was about. 1.00

01:01:19.000 But again, it points to Even at that level, even with the Senate Intel Committee, which, you know, again, they've got the ability, if they would use it, if they would stay inquisitive, if they would stay proactive,

01:01:35.000 they've got the ability to pursue things, but there's a level of distrust.

01:01:41.000 Sometimes it goes on, and it kind of comes back around to this whole transparency issue.

01:01:47.000 Yeah, conspiracy, I don't know.

01:01:48.000 There's always been, and I keep going back to that same thing.

01:01:51.000 You asked me that question at the very beginning, which was terrific, which, you know, what's the number one misconception? 0.99

01:01:55.000 Oh, the agencies have to fuck us all. 0.69

01:01:56.000 So your take on it was just that the CIA was trying to figure out how the Senate acquired these documents that they were not supposed to be in possession of? 0.99

01:02:03.000 Yeah, the point of their exercise was, from a counterintelligence perspective, then you have to start figuring out what else has walked out the door.

01:02:10.000 And what the Senate interpreted it as was that I guess the agency was pushing back in an attempt to What?

01:02:20.000 I don't know.

01:02:21.000 Stop the reporting?

01:02:22.000 The reporting had already gone out.

01:02:23.000 This massive report that they've already written had gone out.

01:02:26.000 It had already gone out to the community for a review.

01:02:29.000 It had gone to the White House for a review.

01:02:31.000 So it's not as if they were going to try to stop that flow of information.

01:02:34.000 They've already done that.

01:02:35.000 They've already released it.

01:02:36.000 They haven't released it to the public because they're now waiting from the White House for a review.

01:02:41.000 So I don't know.

01:02:42.000 You know, there's...

01:02:47.000 The agency has a long history of being a lightning rod for things because of the nature of its business.

01:02:57.000 And that's understood.

01:03:00.000 People who work inside the organization understand that.

01:03:02.000 And I'm outside it so I can express a little frustration.

01:03:05.000 But I guarantee you when you're inside...

01:03:07.000 And you're constantly being thrown out there as, you know, an evil cabal or selling drugs to low-income neighborhoods or fucking over, you know, everybody else or doing, you know, working against the interests as opposed to White House delivers tasking and says, 0.88

01:03:23.000 get this done. 0.90

01:03:26.000 The job of the agency is to march forward regardless of who's in the administration.

01:03:31.000 And it doesn't matter whether it's President Obama or President Bush, President Clinton, President Carter.

01:03:36.000 It doesn't matter.

01:03:38.000 They give you the tasking, you do it.

01:03:40.000 So when you see a situation like this where Dianne Feinstein says that the CIA may have violated the Constitution, do you think there's a lot of political grandstanding going on?

01:03:49.000 Of course there is.

01:03:50.000 Yeah, I think so.

01:03:51.000 Yeah, I mean there's political grandstanding in everything that goes on nowadays.

01:03:54.000 So when they're making these big speeches, it's like to set them up in a position where it looks like they're looking out for the American public, when in reality, if they looked at the actual circumstances and the actual facts behind what had gone on, it would have been far less... 0.99

01:04:07.000 Or if in other cases where they were expressing, oh my god, I can't believe this interrogation program was doing this, well, fuck that.

01:04:16.000 We've got briefers that, like I said, march back and forth and back and forth and explain what's going on and answer questions. 0.97

01:04:22.000 I mean, the agencies, from the church committee on and even prior to that, you know, there's a long history of sort of this game that goes on.

01:04:32.000 If I'm a politician up on Capitol Hill and I see that this is not going to look good from my constituency back home, then I'm going to express surprise, even if I sat on that intel committee and listened to what was going on.

01:04:42.000 I was supposedly listening to what was going on. 0.98

01:04:44.000 So, again, I'm not saying the fucking agency is perfect. 0.98

01:04:49.000 And again, I'm also not saying I can be objective about it. 0.99

01:04:52.000 I'd be lying if I said that.

01:04:54.000 I am subjective.

01:04:55.000 I got a great deal of respect for them.

01:04:56.000 My experiences with them were extremely positive.

01:04:59.000 I saw people stand up with really sound moral compass and always try to do the right thing.

01:05:06.000 So that's what I took away from it. 0.75

01:05:09.000 That's how I then process all this other crap that's out there, this noise. 1.00

01:05:13.000 So, you know, if I'm wrong and I die and I find out I'm wrong, well, fuck me. 1.00

01:05:19.000 I don't know. 1.00

01:05:21.000 I don't know what to say.

01:05:23.000 That's one way to look at it.

01:05:25.000 Well, I can't imagine that...

01:05:27.000 It's possible to know everything that's going on in any organization.

01:05:31.000 I mean, you can't, no matter what it is, if it's a police department or if it's the CIA or the FBI or the United States Army, every general doesn't know about every single action that every single soldier is involved in.

01:05:45.000 It's impossible.

01:05:45.000 Well, it's like going after President Obama every time something goes wrong, right?

01:05:49.000 I don't necessarily...

01:05:50.000 It's convenient.

01:05:51.000 Yeah, it's convenient.

01:05:52.000 But no president, whether it's him or whether it's President Bush or whether it's President Clinton or whoever, you can't know everything.

01:05:59.000 You've got to try to do your best to make sure you don't get surprised, and then for that you've got to rely on your staff.

01:06:05.000 And I don't think saying that you were surprised and that you're just finding out about it is a good strategy necessarily.

01:06:11.000 But at the same time, you can't be expected to know everything.

01:06:14.000 Do you feel like that what's going on, like the WikiLeaks thing and the artist formerly known as Bradley Manning, now Chelsea Manning.

01:06:21.000 Chelsea Manning.

01:06:22.000 You have to say Chelsea.

01:06:24.000 Do you feel like that's in the same league as Edward Snowden?

01:06:28.000 Is one better and one worse because one was a soldier?

01:06:31.000 No, you're...

01:06:34.000 That's a really good question.

01:06:38.000 You know what?

01:06:40.000 Nobody ever accused me of being a deep thinker.

01:06:42.000 So my feeling about it is the commonality there is that you initially agreed to keep your mouth shut, to protect the information that you were given responsibility for having access to and to do your job.

01:07:03.000 I think if you sign up to commitments, if you make a promise, if you sign that promise, that contract, then you've got to stick with it.

01:07:12.000 And if you decide at some point that you can't because you're just so fucking morally opposed to it, Then, you know, man up and find a way to do it properly. 0.98

01:07:24.000 Don't break the fucking law. 0.98

01:07:26.000 Don't go to the Soviets or the Russians. 1.00

01:07:28.000 I call them the Soviets still. 1.00

01:07:29.000 Yeah.

01:07:30.000 Don't go to the Russians. 0.98

01:07:31.000 Don't go to the Chinese. 1.00

01:07:32.000 Don't go to those people who, again, don't have our interest in heart and try to claim that you're doing it for the good of all mankind.

01:07:41.000 That doesn't make any sense.

01:07:42.000 What do you think they could do, though?

01:07:44.000 I mean, what does someone do if they feel like they're being ignored and they're on the inside and they honestly feel like some horrible things are happening and they have no recourse?

01:07:52.000 Well, you know what?

01:07:56.000 If you believe in the justice system, who knows?

01:08:00.000 Kids, if you find yourself in this position at home...

01:08:03.000 Well, it's a weird thing as a guy like Julian Assange, because he's not even American.

01:08:08.000 He's locked up in jail.

01:08:10.000 He's in an embassy, supposedly, for sex crimes.

01:08:13.000 I thought he was coming out.

01:08:13.000 Yeah, I thought he was coming out to face the...

01:08:14.000 Yeah, what did he say?

01:08:16.000 Last I heard, he was coming out to face the charges of the sexual assault charges. 0.99

01:08:21.000 Well, he's sick.

01:08:22.000 He's not doing well health-wise. 1.00

01:08:24.000 It's not good to not have any son for two fucking years. 0.99

01:08:28.000 I've been in embassies. 0.99

01:08:30.000 I wouldn't want to spend two years in there.

01:08:32.000 But I think it's...

01:08:34.000 You know what?

01:08:36.000 Again, I guess easy to say when you're not in that position, but at the same time...

01:08:42.000 Again, it's just my opinion. 0.99

01:08:45.000 Don't fucking break your covenants. 0.99

01:08:47.000 Don't break the law. 0.99

01:08:48.000 Find a way to do it.

01:08:51.000 And if you can't?

01:08:52.000 And if you can't...

01:08:53.000 Just deal with it?

01:08:54.000 Just deal with it.

01:08:55.000 Walk out.

01:08:55.000 You've got to leave.

01:08:56.000 Go find yourself something else to do.

01:08:57.000 Get yourself a job that you can be happy with.

01:09:01.000 I'm sure there's people out there right now screaming, oh my god, well you gotta bring it up, well then fine.

01:09:05.000 At what level though, at what level can the crimes be?

01:09:08.000 I mean, what if you found out, like let's go deep, like what if you found out that there was some sort of a false flag operation that was going to result in the death of a bunch of American lives, including American servicemen, including American officers and enlisted folks?

01:09:23.000 I mean, if you found out something along those lines...

01:09:26.000 That's a thriller movie concept, but yeah, and there's never the ticking time bomb scenario.

01:09:31.000 I mean, by the way, that was never a good defense of sort of like the interrogation program, the ticking time bomb, you know, that always saying, well, I've got five seconds, so therefore I've got to hit this guy over the head with a car battery.

01:09:42.000 But you almost always have more than five seconds.

01:09:47.000 But...

01:09:47.000 But in that sort of a scenario, I mean, that is a crime against the United States.

01:09:51.000 Well, sure.

01:09:52.000 Yeah, then fine.

01:09:53.000 Go out there.

01:09:53.000 It's not as if...

01:09:54.000 Again, it's a hypothetical that doesn't make any sense in the sense that what am I going to do?

01:09:58.000 I'm worried that I'm going to go and I'm going to tell my superiors and it's all a cabal and they're all working together and the whole organization is going to suddenly...

01:10:04.000 And I'm the one who's going to be fucked and the next thing I know I'm being chased to the basement of the organization by all these people and it's a cabal. 0.97

01:10:10.000 No. 0.98

01:10:10.000 I mean, if you find out that there's something... 0.98

01:10:13.000 There's one thing to say...

01:10:15.000 I haven't seen any indication of breaking the law, but morally, I don't know, this bothers me.

01:10:22.000 That's different.

01:10:24.000 Then, okay, that's one case you've got to deal with.

01:10:26.000 If you find a case where there's something illegal going on, well, then fine.

01:10:28.000 Bring it to light immediately.

01:10:29.000 There's no other choice.

01:10:31.000 It's like I used to tell my guys, you make a mistake, you do something wrong.

01:10:34.000 You know, tell me immediately.

01:10:36.000 And, you know, that's the way that you resolve problems.

01:10:39.000 That's how you fix things.

01:10:40.000 That's how you make sure that things don't go off the rails.

01:10:44.000 And the agency does operate under that.

01:10:46.000 You know, again, people aren't going to buy it.

01:10:48.000 But, you know, I saw it time and time again.

01:10:50.000 Somebody would make a mistake.

01:10:51.000 Someone would make a bad decision.

01:10:52.000 And the first thing they would do was march in.

01:10:55.000 They would tell their supervisor or chief of station or whoever it was.

01:10:58.000 And, you know, there's that type of culture in there.

01:11:02.000 But people aren't going to buy it.

01:11:04.000 Wasn't that the whole issue that the artist formerly known as Bradley Manning faced?

01:11:08.000 Is that there was nothing that he could do or she could do now that was being taken seriously?

01:11:15.000 So she went public with all that information because no one was listening.

01:11:20.000 Well, they have IG office, JAG office.

01:11:25.000 They have a lot of avenues that they can go to that wouldn't be walking into your immediate supervisor in the military.

01:11:31.000 Because, yeah, sure, maybe that's not the best thing to do.

01:11:34.000 Maybe you're concerned it's all, you know...

01:11:36.000 I'm going to be punished for stepping out of line.

01:11:39.000 Well, they have practices in place that you go to, just like in a corporation.

01:11:44.000 You've got compliance officers, you've got an ombudsman, whatever you want to call it.

01:11:48.000 So, I don't know. 0.99

01:11:50.000 Again, I'm not smart enough to be able to address issues like that, but I do think if you make promises and you agree to protect and serve the interests of the United States, Don't break the fucking law. 0.95

01:12:07.000 Well, don't break your oath. 0.97

01:12:09.000 Right, don't break your oath.

01:12:10.000 That this is what you're dealing with when you're dealing with any agency or the military.

01:12:15.000 You're dealing with a group that you've agreed to be a part of.

01:12:19.000 It's a sacred oath that you've taken.

01:12:20.000 It's very important that you keep that oath.

01:12:22.000 And isn't what we're seeing with all these leaks and all this different stuff sort of a...

01:12:27.000 It's also...

01:12:30.000 It's an excellent example of the times that we live in, that when you're dealing with something so sensitive and so difficult, it's very hard to get people to just keep their mouth shut now.

01:12:41.000 Right.

01:12:42.000 Well, they used to be able to hide these things.

01:12:44.000 That's a really good point.

01:12:45.000 And part of it is, again, part of it is all the anonymous quotes in...

01:12:49.000 In the newspapers, and oftentimes attributed to senior military officials, senior administration officials.

01:12:54.000 Part of it is the books that get written.

01:12:56.000 You know, sort of the idea that I'm going to finish up as, whatever, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I'm going to write a book.

01:13:02.000 And that filters down to the junior officers.

01:13:06.000 They see that, or people in the organizations, and they see that, and they think, well, what the hell?

01:13:09.000 What's sacred then?

01:13:10.000 You know, you're going to get out after 30 years, and you're going to talk about all the... 0.53

01:13:14.000 You know, the various things that, you know, were done and, you know, you're going to give a maya culp over a couple of things and you're going to talk about shit that, you know, all that time you knew you weren't supposed to talk about.

01:13:23.000 So it's, yeah, I think there's a slide there in sort of the cultural understanding of what is and isn't acceptable.

01:13:34.000 So what you're talking about, you keep saying the New York Times, and you're talking about unnamed quotes and unnamed sources.

01:13:40.000 You're talking about this James Risen case, where this guy's detailing a botched CIA operation in Iran, and they're trying to get his sources.

01:13:51.000 Well, no, not just that.

01:13:52.000 You can't swing at the cat most days without hitting a major newspaper that's dealing with anonymous sources.

01:13:59.000 I'm just talking about in terms of all the general use of it.

01:14:03.000 I mean, remember, I don't think you could, in the past, I don't think you could write a major story if you had more than one anonymous source.

01:14:09.000 Maybe you couldn't even have an anonymous source, but now it's just an accepted fact.

01:14:13.000 And I guess the point being is that people just feel more comfortable speaking out of turn.

01:14:19.000 And that filters down to all the younger members of whatever organization it may be, whether it's a company, whether it's a hedge fund, whether it's the agency, a military, whatever it may be. 0.99

01:14:28.000 So you feel like in the case of this rising guy, he's in deep shit, right? 0.97

01:14:31.000 I mean, the Supreme Court just rejected his appeal. 0.98

01:14:37.000 His refusal to identify a source.

01:14:40.000 And what he's done is write a book based on some information that allegedly someone from the CIA gave him.

01:14:48.000 The Supreme Court's saying, look, you've got to give up that information.

01:14:50.000 You've got to say, who told you this stuff?

01:14:52.000 Because that's more important than the freedom of the press.

01:14:55.000 Right, protection of the source.

01:14:57.000 Yeah.

01:14:57.000 Yeah, again, you know...

01:15:03.000 I don't even know where to go with that.

01:15:05.000 That's like one of those meet the press sort of issues that no one's ever going to call me on.

01:15:09.000 Well, to play devil's advocate, one way to look at it is it's not like New York Times reporters have been infallible.

01:15:16.000 It's not like they haven't been accused of plagiarism.

01:15:18.000 It's not like they haven't bullshitted before.

01:15:20.000 And if this guy wrote a book and the book was based on...

01:15:26.000 Unfactual or either lies or fabricated information.

01:15:31.000 It is possible.

01:15:32.000 Is it possible that you can meet behind closed doors and do that where it doesn't have to go public?

01:15:38.000 Well, you would think so, right?

01:15:40.000 I mean, it's not like the judges.

01:15:41.000 Right.

01:15:42.000 It can't be the first time they'd need to find a mechanism for something like this.

01:15:45.000 You know, just like with testimony up on the hill, Capitol Hill. 0.98

01:15:48.000 I mean, it's never the first time any of that crap happens. 0.93

01:15:51.000 They must have some sort of protocol in place, you would think. 0.97

01:15:54.000 But perhaps there's a political element here to beating it out in public.

01:15:58.000 I don't know.

01:15:59.000 That is a very interesting situation when it comes to protecting sources.

01:16:04.000 It would almost be if we had a lie detector test, like an infallible lie detector test, where you can say, did these sources actually tell you this information?

01:16:13.000 Were these sources really CIA deep undercover operatives?

01:16:16.000 Were they legit people?

01:16:18.000 And, you know, and then the guy, it turns out he's lying.

01:16:21.000 Well, then you throw the book at him.

01:16:23.000 But if he's telling the truth, then it seems like the onus is almost on the CIA. Well, yeah.

01:16:29.000 Although I wouldn't put a lot of, I mean, yeah.

01:16:33.000 I mean, not to get in the weeds, but yeah, the polygraph is not necessarily, it's an art.

01:16:37.000 It's not a sign.

01:16:38.000 Yeah, it's not ready yet.

01:16:39.000 So do you think this is sort of a battle between the idea of protecting sources and the idea of protecting America, that these two things, maybe the oath that a person takes is equally important as the laws that are in place to protect sources, and this is just duking it out to see which one holds precedent,

01:16:56.000 what's more significant in terms of the repercussions on the American people?

01:17:00.000 Yeah, I mean, I think I could see where journalists would hold this up as an example of saying this is the same thing.

01:17:05.000 You can't argue the difference.

01:17:06.000 Right.

01:17:07.000 Is there a national security element to this that takes precedence over a journalist's right to publish something and not disclose a source?

01:17:17.000 That's a court decision.

01:17:19.000 What do I know?

01:17:20.000 Again, no one's going to ask me for my opinion on that, but I can see where people could draw the comparison and try to argue one side or the other, frankly.

01:17:28.000 I think if there is a legitimate national security issue, you've got to weigh in on that side of it.

01:17:32.000 Yes.

01:17:37.000 Yeah, isn't that the deal?

01:17:38.000 I mean, that's the issue that we have with law enforcement and everything.

01:17:41.000 You're dealing with the human element.

01:17:43.000 You know, I'm a big fan of law enforcement. 0.98

01:17:45.000 I take a lot of shit from people for saying that because whenever someone says we shouldn't have cops, I'm like... 0.99

01:17:50.000 I know bad people. 0.99

01:17:52.000 I've met bad people. 1.00

01:17:52.000 You're fucking crazy. 1.00

01:17:53.000 When people say that we shouldn't have military. 1.00

01:17:55.000 In your utopian world, and the world would be beautiful and charming, and everybody would be growing flowers out of their ass, yeah, that would be nice. 0.97

01:18:02.000 But that's not the world. 0.99

01:18:03.000 Look at what's going on with ISIS right now in Syria. 1.00

01:18:05.000 Anybody who doesn't think that you need military to deal with people like that, you're fucking crazy. 1.00

01:18:09.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:18:10.000 No, I've spent a lot of time in very unusual and hostile environments where there's no rule of law.

01:18:16.000 And it's not a place people want to be.

01:18:19.000 And so I agree with you.

01:18:20.000 And that's also part of the perspective that people bring to it.

01:18:23.000 That's just a massive ignorance of human history.

01:18:25.000 I mean, human history and human motivations.

01:18:28.000 If you look at the potential and if you look at the possible future of humanity once we evolve past where we are now...

01:18:35.000 1,000 years from now, 10,000 years, wholly 100, maybe a decade, who knows?

01:18:39.000 But the reality of right now, if you look at the rest of the world, look at what's going on with Israel and Gaza right now.

01:18:44.000 Anybody who thinks you shouldn't have some sort of method of protection, some sort of method of intelligence, information, and ability to operate militarily, they're crazy. 0.55

01:18:54.000 Right, right.

01:18:55.000 And I don't know that human behavior is ever going to change.

01:18:59.000 I mean, technology adjusts, and so we end up doing things differently because of technology.

01:19:03.000 And what that means to us, but I don't think we're ever going to evolve beyond this.

01:19:07.000 We're all just a bunch of...

01:19:08.000 But don't you think we have from the time we were apes?

01:19:11.000 I mean, we've kind of gotten a little bit better.

01:19:12.000 That's not who you're talking about.

01:19:14.000 I know some guys that haven't.

01:19:16.000 Don't talk about Al Sharpton that way, man.

01:19:18.000 Oh, oh! 0.58

01:19:19.000 How dare you.

01:19:20.000 Oh, you walked me into that trap, didn't you? 1.00

01:19:23.000 I feel like this is probably, at least in America, as fucked up as it is, this is probably the safest time ever for people. 0.98

01:19:33.000 I really do believe that. 0.97

01:19:35.000 As far as violent crime, as far as worried about being attacked by another country, I think it's probably the safest time ever.

01:19:42.000 And I would hope that that trend would continue, and that this would continue all across the world, and that human beings would slowly but surely sort out all their bullshit and figure out a way to have a cohesive, nice, civilized world that we could all live in.

01:19:56.000 Yeah, not in our lifetime, but it's nice to think about.

01:20:00.000 I'm not...

01:20:02.000 It's a long process, like evolution almost.

01:20:05.000 I've seen some folks do some pretty iffy things out there.

01:20:12.000 I'm sure you have.

01:20:13.000 I'm not as optimistic that human nature will change.

01:20:20.000 I think that it's possible.

01:20:23.000 But I think that oftentimes we, you know, I get asked this question all the time from folks that are trying to manage security, you know, work on crisis management, that sort of thing, for their companies, for their families, whatever it may be.

01:20:37.000 And, you know, I'm not one of those preppers.

01:20:39.000 I'm not one of those people who think, oh my God, it's all going to fall apart and we're going to be dealing with zombies.

01:20:43.000 Although, that would be interesting.

01:20:46.000 I don't think that would be fun at all.

01:20:47.000 Yeah, it wouldn't be fun.

01:20:48.000 I mean, unless you've got a lot of gear. 0.91

01:20:50.000 Even if you have a lot of gear, what kind of shitty life is that? 0.94

01:20:52.000 Oh, I know. 0.97

01:20:53.000 I know.

01:20:53.000 That's where we get that Idaho compound.

01:20:57.000 No, I'm kidding.

01:20:58.000 Depends on what kind of zombies you're dealing with, too.

01:21:00.000 Yeah, you don't want the ones that move fast.

01:21:02.000 I never understood that, right?

01:21:03.000 The fast-moving zombies doesn't make any sense. 0.99

01:21:04.000 28 days later, zombies are scary as fuck. 0.99

01:21:07.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:21:07.000 You know, my daughter is fantastic. 0.99

01:21:09.000 She's in college.

01:21:09.000 She loves zombie movies.

01:21:10.000 She refuses to watch 28 Days of Life because it freaks her out.

01:21:14.000 So anyway, but I think that, you know, this idea that one of the biggest crises we actually do face in the short midterm is to our power grid.

01:21:24.000 So as an example of what I mean by human nature...

01:21:28.000 I lived in New Canin, Connecticut.

01:21:30.000 It's a very nice little town in Fairfield County when I was working out of my New York office.

01:21:36.000 And one of the things I didn't know about New Canin was if you buy a house there, then you have to assume that in town You'll lose power at least every week during winter because everything's above lines, above ground.

01:21:46.000 And so one time, after about a year there, I didn't have any generators.

01:21:50.000 I'm not smart.

01:21:51.000 I'm not a handy guy.

01:21:52.000 And so my wife looks at me and says, are you ever going to go out and buy a generator for us?

01:21:56.000 Because we're the only one on a block that doesn't have a generator.

01:21:58.000 So the power goes out for three or four days, and in wintertime, it's pretty damn cold.

01:22:02.000 First night, it's fun, right?

01:22:03.000 The kids are all, you know, I got three boys and a scooter, Sluggo and Muggsy, and they love a camp out.

01:22:07.000 So first night's great.

01:22:08.000 Second night, everybody's freezing their ass off.

01:22:10.000 So it took me the first winter to figure out I should go out and get a generator.

01:22:14.000 We had a power failure.

01:22:16.000 So I went to Home Depot and I went in there and I watched a fight break out in a very affluent county of America when the power had really only been out for probably about 36 hours at that point.

01:22:31.000 And I watched a fight break out of one of the last generators, apparently, that was available.

01:22:34.000 I mean, I literally just walked up on this scene, and there were people all masked up, and they'd been handing out numbers and trying to get everybody in order in line.

01:22:40.000 And I looked at this thing, and I thought, good God.

01:22:43.000 So then I found the manager and gave him $100 and got the last generator.

01:22:48.000 So that's field expediency right there, kids.

01:22:51.000 It only cost $100?

01:22:53.000 Well, yeah, on top of the cost of the thing.

01:22:58.000 And then I proceeded to show you how handy I am.

01:23:00.000 I proceeded to take it home and run the thing.

01:23:02.000 We had power.

01:23:02.000 It was fantastic.

01:23:03.000 I ran the generator.

01:23:04.000 And then I didn't realize necessarily that it needed oil.

01:23:07.000 You blew the generator?

01:23:08.000 I blew the generator.

01:23:09.000 And that was a happy day.

01:23:12.000 So my point being is that if the grid goes down, say we've only got three grids, east, west, and Texas, right, around this whole country of ours.

01:23:20.000 And these grids were never designed, they were never built to withstand a terrorist attack.

01:23:23.000 That wasn't the point.

01:23:24.000 And now, you know, the infrastructure is getting old and we're spending a lot of money trying to harden the facilities and trying to improve and provide more mobile generators.

01:23:33.000 It's a major, major issue in this country.

01:23:36.000 And you can imagine if the grid goes out or we lose power for say two months.

01:23:44.000 Everything that drives transportation, trading, banking, just general well-being of society, how we all feel about ourselves every day, water, then we got a problem.

01:23:57.000 And so my feeling has always been I would like to think that we'll see the best of ourselves during the course of something like that.

01:24:03.000 Maybe we will, but sometimes I find myself being a little bit more cynical than When there's no light or there's a brighter light over there.

01:24:24.000 Yeah.

01:24:24.000 Or they feel like they can get away with carving their own light.

01:24:27.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:24:28.000 At your expense.

01:24:29.000 Yeah.

01:24:29.000 That is a real issue with human nature.

01:24:32.000 Desperation is a scary thing. 0.96

01:24:34.000 Those preppers freak me the fuck out, man. 0.76

01:24:36.000 Because some of them, it's almost like they want it to go bad so that they could use all their canned food. 1.00

01:24:42.000 You've got to rotate that shit. 0.99

01:24:44.000 Just like you've got to rotate your ammunition, you've got to rotate your canned food. 0.99

01:24:47.000 So don't forget that when you're dealing with your two-year supply.

01:24:50.000 But no, I agree with it.

01:24:52.000 Anyway, I don't know where I was going down that rabbit hole.

01:24:55.000 Well, we were talking about zombies in your Idaho compound and Sluggo and Muggsy. 0.72

01:24:59.000 Is that really your kids' names?

01:25:01.000 Basically.

01:25:02.000 Nicknames?

01:25:02.000 Yeah, that's their nicknames, but I don't think they know their real names at this point.

01:25:08.000 Sluggo just started kindergarten the other day, and that was exciting all the way around because he...

01:25:15.000 You know, the oldest one, like a lot of kids.

01:25:17.000 Actually, never mind.

01:25:18.000 I don't want to get started talking about my kids.

01:25:20.000 People are, like, tuning out right now.

01:25:21.000 He's talking about his kids.

01:25:22.000 Well, people, like, they don't mind talking about kids.

01:25:24.000 But it's an issue that everybody has.

01:25:26.000 It has children.

01:25:26.000 You worry about the future.

01:25:27.000 You worry about, you know, not just the future because of, you know, bullshit that's going on overseas, but just natural disasters, things that could happen that could wipe out the grid, you know, asteroidal impacts, etc., And you know what I worry about, too? 0.89

01:25:41.000 All those things. 0.95

01:25:42.000 I mean, all the potential, pandemic, you know, whatever it is.

01:25:45.000 But I tell you what I spend more time worrying about, because I think it's actually more likely or possible, is most of my time was spent overseas.

01:25:56.000 Most of my, you know, young and then adult life.

01:25:59.000 And you could travel to the darkest places out there, the deepest, darkest places out there, and you would find somebody who would think, you know, if I could just get to America and I work hard, then I can do better.

01:26:09.000 And they honestly believe that.

01:26:11.000 And people over here used to believe that.

01:26:13.000 I'm sure a lot of people still do.

01:26:14.000 We've got great people.

01:26:15.000 But I do worry about the erosion of that concept of America being a place where they were very fortunate.

01:26:24.000 And I understand some more fortunate than a lot of others.

01:26:29.000 That's obvious.

01:26:30.000 But as a country, I worry more about the erosion of our belief in ourselves and our ability to do great things.

01:26:39.000 Think about the space program. 0.97

01:26:42.000 For fuck's sake, we put duct tape on a rocket ship and took it to the moon and back. 1.00

01:26:46.000 I mean, we did shit. 0.99

01:26:47.000 And now we're begging the Russians for a ride to the space station. 1.00

01:26:51.000 And the Russians are saying, fuck you. 1.00

01:26:52.000 We don't like your stance on Ukraine, so you can't go to space. 1.00

01:26:56.000 I don't know.

01:26:57.000 I think it's ridiculous to cancel that.

01:27:00.000 When they canceled the space shuttle, but they were keeping up the space station, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. 1.00

01:27:05.000 That sounds like the most ridiculous shit ever. 0.99

01:27:06.000 It's like, we're going to have a house in the Hamptons, but we're going to give away our car. 1.00

01:27:10.000 Do you have a house in the Hamptons?

01:27:12.000 No, I don't. 0.99

01:27:12.000 But I mean, if you did, where the fuck? 0.99

01:27:14.000 How are you going to get it? 0.99

01:27:15.000 It's nice out there.

01:27:16.000 Yeah.

01:27:16.000 A lot of deer, though.

01:27:17.000 You hit your car with them.

01:27:18.000 A lot of deer. 0.99

01:27:20.000 How the fuck do they expect to get out there? 0.99

01:27:22.000 It just seems to me to be so ridiculous that they stopped the space shuttle program. 0.99

01:27:27.000 Well, we want to live in a community of nations.

01:27:28.000 I mean, maybe.

01:27:29.000 I mean, some people want to live in a community of nations.

01:27:30.000 That's a lovely idea. 0.99

01:27:31.000 Just like human nature is going to evolve and we're all going to, you know, like you said, have flowers at our ass. 0.99

01:27:35.000 I don't know what that gets us, having flowers at our ass, but... 0.95

01:27:39.000 I think that there's the reality, which is that if you don't have somebody at the top, and during the Cold War, we had this bipolar situation with us and the Soviets, and that worked, as long as there was a balance of power, 0.93

01:27:55.000 a physical balance of power.

01:27:57.000 But if you don't have somebody at the top of the food chain, you're going to get kind of where we're going, which is chaos and people looking to fill that void, and we're not going to be happy with it. 0.57

01:28:05.000 And if you're not in charge, then you're looking at somebody's ass in line, right?

01:28:08.000 And if we're happy with that, and we're happy with the ensuing potential chaos that that brings, then fine, let's just admit it. 0.77

01:28:16.000 Let's say that's where we're going with all this.

01:28:18.000 We want to be average.

01:28:19.000 But I don't believe that's the case with this country.

01:28:22.000 I don't know.

01:28:23.000 I know what you're saying.

01:28:24.000 You know, you're a patriotic guy, and you're looking at the situation at hand, and it's very uncomfortable.

01:28:30.000 And I think that the reality of what's going on in the foreign crisis is whether it's what's going on in Ukraine or what's happening right now in Iraq, this massive power vacuum that's being filled by ISIS and these militant jihadists.

01:28:44.000 And if somebody's going to be at the top, better the United States than ISIS. Yeah, no, absolutely.

01:28:50.000 And you know what, honestly, and I guess maybe that's what I'm trying to say, but I'm not saying it very well, is that I have a great deal of faith in the U.S., no matter which administration's in charge.

01:28:59.000 Again, I don't like to think I have a dog in the hunt as long as people are working hard and trying to do the right thing.

01:29:05.000 Whether it's this administration, previous administration, whichever one, I got a lot of faith in the ability or the desire of this country to do the right thing.

01:29:13.000 Sometimes we don't do it, and it takes us a while to course correct, sometimes longer than we should.

01:29:18.000 But I do believe that we, and that's something I took away from the time with the government.

01:29:22.000 We try to do the right thing.

01:29:24.000 So, I don't know.

01:29:24.000 I believe you.

01:29:25.000 I believe you.

01:29:26.000 And I think you're a noble guy.

01:29:27.000 I mean, when you're saying this to me, I don't think you're bullshitting at all.

01:29:30.000 No, I'm not.

01:29:31.000 What I worry most about when it comes to the United States, when it comes to the future and the direction of things, is the influences that politicians have that are not in the best interest of Americans.

01:29:44.000 That, to me, is one of the scariest things.

01:29:46.000 The influences of corporations that only look at things in terms of how much money they can extract from X or Y. Which one is gonna be more profitable for them?

01:29:56.000 Let's go with Y. We're gonna make more money. 1.00

01:29:58.000 Fuck the American people. 1.00

01:29:59.000 And the politicians tend to lean towards that because those are the very people that put them in office in the first place. 1.00

01:30:04.000 They're beholden to them once they get in there.

01:30:07.000 That, I think, is one of the biggest threats.

01:30:09.000 The fear that people have of money overpowering the greater good of the actual citizens of the United States.

01:30:17.000 Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. 0.97

01:30:19.000 And to that I would say, what I always say, which I've been beating on this stupid drum for a while, is term limits. 0.96

01:30:25.000 I don't think we get big, brave decisions in Washington anymore until we get term limits. 0.97

01:30:30.000 This system, which, quite frankly, the Founding Fathers never imagined that anybody in their right mind would want to stay in Washington for 36 years.

01:30:36.000 You know, who would want to do that in their mind?

01:30:39.000 So they didn't put that in there, and that's the one thing I think that would make a difference.

01:30:43.000 You know, give congressmen two four-year terms. 0.98

01:30:46.000 Give senators two six-year terms, and get the fuck out. 0.95

01:30:48.000 And rotate that. 0.78

01:30:50.000 We got some great people in this country that could step up and be terrific leaders if given the opportunity and if we didn't have to pay a couple hundred million dollars every time we want to run a campaign.

01:31:01.000 So put finance limits that actually mean something in there and bring that down. 1.00

01:31:05.000 If you can't get your point across in a Congressional or Senate campaign for say, you know, a million dollars, two million dollars, then you're a fucking moron. 1.00

01:31:14.000 How can that not work? 1.00

01:31:16.000 And you can only run your campaign for a certain period of time.

01:31:18.000 How difficult is that?

01:31:19.000 So, I mean, the states tried it.

01:31:21.000 Individual states tried to do that.

01:31:22.000 And then the Supreme Court shut it down and said, oh, states can't determine the term limits for federal positions, which to me, I still don't quite get that.

01:31:30.000 But I agree with you.

01:31:31.000 But I think that one step we could be taking to try to get that influence of money out of politics in a meaningful way Well, you know, 0.99

01:31:49.000 maybe if you're a moron, but Washington's a pretty straightforward place at the end of the day. 1.00

01:31:53.000 And if you can't figure out the legislative process in six months, you're an idiot. 1.00

01:31:56.000 You shouldn't be there. 1.00

01:31:59.000 I'll step off my soapbox now.

01:32:01.000 Do you think that term limits would be circumvented the same way they've kind of been with the president, where there's just so much massive money and influence that essentially the two-party system is controlled by virtually the same corporations in the first place?

01:32:16.000 Well, you know what?

01:32:17.000 I'm not saying that they wouldn't figure out a way to try to game the system at some point.

01:32:20.000 Would it be more difficult?

01:32:21.000 It would be much more difficult.

01:32:22.000 If suddenly, if I'm a corporation, and I know that somebody's going to be on the Ways and Means Committee for the next 24 years, then I know what I'm going to do.

01:32:31.000 I know how I'm going to try to influence that position and how I'm going to kind of work that from a lobbying position.

01:32:36.000 If you're only there for two terms...

01:32:40.000 I've got to change my game plan.

01:32:41.000 I'm not going to invest all my time and effort and resources into this person.

01:32:44.000 I'm going to think of it – and you know what?

01:32:47.000 It's worth – I guess my point is it's worth a try.

01:32:49.000 Is any system going to be perfect?

01:32:51.000 Well, no, of course not.

01:32:53.000 But the way that it's working right now, all I know is we've got a city full of dysfunctional people who are – I mean the congressmen are trying to run for election basically constantly.

01:33:01.000 A two-year term means you're constantly trying to raise money.

01:33:04.000 And that's not the way it should be.

01:33:07.000 And that's most of their time, too.

01:33:08.000 Most of their time is fundraising.

01:33:10.000 Literally 80% of the time that anyone who's running for Congress, anyone who's running for Senate, 80% of the time...

01:33:16.000 You're trying to raise money.

01:33:17.000 Right.

01:33:18.000 And when you send good people there, then they get co-opted by the system.

01:33:21.000 And it must be extremely frustrating for the people that go out there with good intentions, and then they realize, I've got to spend all my time impressing the congressional leadership with my fundraising prowess. 0.58

01:33:31.000 Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. 0.99

01:33:32.000 The situation is, without a doubt, fucked up. 1.00

01:33:36.000 You heard it here, first. 0.99

01:33:38.000 Without a doubt. 0.97

01:33:40.000 Do you get a sense, by paying attention to all this shit that's going on overseas, whether it's what's happening in Ukraine, I don't know about it than they've ever been before, 0.98

01:33:59.000 certainly in my recent memory. 0.98

01:34:03.000 It used to be that we'd have the issue, right?

01:34:05.000 It was the Balkans, and the Balkans were a mess. 1.00

01:34:07.000 They were a big stinking mess, and it was very violent.

01:34:11.000 There was a little lovely period of time where Haiti was the only real big concern.

01:34:16.000 We had the Cold War era, and that was very comforting for a lot of people because you knew who the enemy was, and you knew how the game was played in a sense.

01:34:25.000 But right now, with the flashpoints that we've got, we've got the Chinese Are increasingly aggressive in an effort to try to retake the Pacific, which they've always been pissed off that we've basically owned since World War II. And the Russians, the Middle East situation, 0.95

01:34:42.000 obviously.

01:34:44.000 Yeah, I'd say it's more chaotic now than it has been in recent memory.

01:34:49.000 I don't think that's not a big statement.

01:34:51.000 Is that what happens?

01:34:52.000 Is it just an ebb and flow when it comes to these sort of situations?

01:34:56.000 When it comes to, like, what's going on in the world?

01:34:59.000 Power struggles, then the power struggles are resolved, and then new resistance builds up.

01:35:04.000 I mean, is that, in your experience, how things go?

01:35:06.000 Well, I think you minimize the chaos by being consistent.

01:35:11.000 And what I mean by that is that, you know, as foreign policy is an example, if your foreign policy...

01:35:17.000 If the message is consistent and strong and clear and there's no misunderstanding by either your allies or the people that are against us, then you can minimize the chaos that exists.

01:35:30.000 If it's not consistent and there's confusion over where we stand, and I'm saying we because, you know, okay, fine, we're still at the top of the food heap.

01:35:38.000 Whether people are comfortable with that or not, I don't know.

01:35:42.000 So if we're not consistent in that message, then there's confusion and that's where you start to get problems because you start to get people probing at the perimeter trying to see what exactly is going on, what they can get away with.

01:35:53.000 We start getting less leverage.

01:35:54.000 I mean, you know, we're getting a situation in the Middle East now where countries are acting completely without consulting.

01:35:59.000 With the U.S., you wouldn't have had that 30 years ago.

01:36:02.000 It just wouldn't have happened.

01:36:04.000 What instances?

01:36:05.000 Like Egypt?

01:36:05.000 Yeah, Egypt acting in what they consider to be their own best interests.

01:36:09.000 The Saudis. 0.71

01:36:10.000 The Saudis are enormously pissed off at us still over what they view as the current administration's failure to...

01:36:18.000 You know, work with them to try to resolve some issues out in the Middle East, and they feel as if we've sort of abdicated responsibility.

01:36:25.000 Now, whether we have or not, whether it's the right thing to do or not, I'm just saying, from a policy perspective, If what we want to do is be isolationist, then be very clear about that.

01:36:36.000 Say, this is all we're going to do.

01:36:37.000 These are our parameters.

01:36:39.000 That's it.

01:36:39.000 So everybody knows, good.

01:36:41.000 We're all good with it, fine.

01:36:42.000 Get on with it.

01:36:42.000 But the mixed messages are the problem.

01:36:46.000 I think that's very clear.

01:36:48.000 So in one way, being patriotic and being an isolationist, in another way, meddling in foreign governments, sending out aid, being part of their political process, all that jazz?

01:37:01.000 Well, I think that, yeah, exactly.

01:37:02.000 I mean, saying, okay, we don't really want to be involved.

01:37:05.000 Here's a red line.

01:37:06.000 You pass a red line, okay, fine, we're going to do something else over here.

01:37:10.000 You know, we're going to pivot to Asia.

01:37:12.000 And I don't mean to pick on the current administration.

01:37:13.000 I've got a lot of respect for some of the folks in there, but there's a...

01:37:18.000 You know, there's a lack, I think, of consistency.

01:37:21.000 And there's certainly, I think, in the sense of how the Chinese are behaving, how the Russians are behaving, how certain countries in the Middle East are currently behaving, I think it's an indication that they don't necessarily believe we're engaged.

01:37:32.000 And that either worries them or delights them, depending on what position they hold.

01:37:38.000 And I don't think we have the luxury of disengaging. 0.99

01:37:41.000 Again, my experience has been when there's a vacuum, shit happens. 0.99

01:37:46.000 Well, that's what we're seeing right now in Iraq, right? 0.99

01:37:48.000 Right, yeah, absolutely.

01:37:49.000 It's one of the scariest times ever.

01:37:51.000 For the folks who live there, and what we're seeing in terms of these jihadist extremists, this is as ramped up as we've ever seen it before.

01:37:59.000 And this is a direct response to the power vacuum, right?

01:38:02.000 Yeah.

01:38:02.000 No, absolutely.

01:38:04.000 We can argue all day long.

01:38:06.000 Okay, should we have gone in?

01:38:08.000 Should we have not?

01:38:09.000 Okay, fine. 0.99

01:38:10.000 But the situation is that it's fucked up. 0.98

01:38:14.000 It is what it is right now. 0.98

01:38:15.000 Whether the 2001 decision was correct or not, it is what it is right now.

01:38:19.000 Exactly.

01:38:19.000 And so now we've got to deal with it, otherwise we're going to pay a big price for this.

01:38:22.000 This is the first time that they've gained this sort of territorial integrity from an extremist point of view.

01:38:27.000 And they're consolidating territory.

01:38:29.000 They own the entire northern province in Syria and an additional territory moving east and up through Aleppo.

01:38:34.000 They're controlling border posts along the Golan Heights.

01:38:38.000 They're controlling border posts along Turkey.

01:38:41.000 And they've moved, obviously, into Iraq.

01:38:44.000 They're, you know, not very far away. 0.97

01:38:46.000 They could piss on Baghdad at this point.

01:38:48.000 And they're consolidating that turf.

01:38:49.000 And that's a huge recruitment tool for them overseas.

01:38:53.000 Which is why we're seeing their numbers, you know, kind of grow exponentially at this point.

01:38:56.000 It's because they've got the turf of this caliphate that they've been talking about for years and years. 0.85

01:39:01.000 Finally, they've got this physical vision of this thing.

01:39:03.000 They've got the resources from overrunning the banks and the various, you know, military bases in Syria and Iraq.

01:39:09.000 I mean, good God, they've gotten their hands on multiple divisions worth of gear.

01:39:13.000 And so we're going to have to deal with it.

01:39:16.000 And somebody's got to put boots on the ground, whether it's us or somebody else.

01:39:19.000 It'd be nice to see the Turks step up because they've got a lot to lose on this one.

01:39:22.000 It'd be nice to see the Turks step up and get involved.

01:39:26.000 But somebody's got to put boots on the ground because airstrikes alone are not going to cut it.

01:39:29.000 Is this one of those situations too where it's difficult to get people enthusiastic about engaging because of all the years of war that people disagreed with, Iraq and Afghanistan especially?

01:39:41.000 Yeah.

01:39:41.000 No, absolutely.

01:39:42.000 Well, this is a much more imminent threat.

01:39:44.000 Well, it is, but it's hard to explain that to people who are fatigued.

01:39:47.000 And I understand that 100%.

01:39:48.000 I mean, you know, we're all tired of the freaking war on terror.

01:39:51.000 We're all tired of Iraq. 1.00

01:39:52.000 We're all tired of Afghanistan. 1.00

01:39:53.000 And I understand that.

01:39:54.000 Nobody wants to deal with it.

01:39:55.000 But just kind of wanting it to go away, that's not a sound national security policy.

01:40:00.000 What is the future? 0.98

01:40:02.000 I mean, what can be done to sort of mitigate all this shit? 0.99

01:40:06.000 Well, the problem is that we're now in a position, and if we're just talking about ISIS, the Islamic State, we're now in a position where we've got some pretty strange bedfalls. 0.99

01:40:15.000 Iran is engaged against them.

01:40:17.000 Obviously it's a Shiite regime. 0.83

01:40:18.000 They've been putting boots on the ground in Iraq for some time now, trying to prop up Maliki, who's now gone.

01:40:25.000 Syria, Bashar Assad has been, you know, authorizing airstrikes in there.

01:40:28.000 So in a sense, if we go into Syria, you know, and try to kick some ass with ISIS, we're on the side of the Iranians and Assad. 0.87

01:40:35.000 And this White House is really, really unlikely to want to be seen in a public eye as taking sides with Assad.

01:40:42.000 So this is probably the most complex situation they've got going right now, is how to do this.

01:40:47.000 And that's why I say the best way to go about it is to strong-arm, if necessary, the Turks, Jordanians, Saudis, to the degree we can't. 1.00

01:40:56.000 We don't have much leverage with the Saudis anymore. 0.73

01:40:59.000 To try to get them on board, get an allied force in there, because we can do it.

01:41:03.000 It's not like we can't, you know, defeat them.

01:41:06.000 We just don't have a strategy for doing it right now.

01:41:08.000 We've got a strategy to contain them. 0.99

01:41:10.000 I'm not necessarily the biggest Obama fan, but man, has this fucking guy walked into a hornet's nest from the moment he got into the White House. 0.99

01:41:17.000 I mean, talk about a chaotic eight years. 0.99

01:41:20.000 Right, right.

01:41:20.000 No, absolutely.

01:41:21.000 And they walked in without really, I think, appreciating how bad it could be, obviously, and walking in also with not as much interest in the international scene.

01:41:32.000 As in, you know, doing some domestic changes.

01:41:35.000 Well, I remember when he was debating McCain and he was talking about going into Afghanistan and that we'll just go in and take care of things. 0.96

01:41:42.000 And McCain was like, do you even fucking know what Afghanistan is? 0.98

01:41:46.000 Do you understand how it works? 0.98

01:41:47.000 I remember when McCain said that that place has operated essentially the same way since Alexander the Great.

01:41:53.000 Do you recognize that?

01:41:56.000 You can't just go in there.

01:41:58.000 It's the definition.

01:42:00.000 It's like Libya. 0.99

01:42:01.000 Libya is a hot mess right now. 0.96

01:42:02.000 By the way, nobody's focusing on Libya.

01:42:04.000 The extremists have just taken over the airport in Tripoli.

01:42:09.000 Basically, they have taken over the country.

01:42:12.000 There's almost nothing related to a pseudo-federal government running Libya anymore.

01:42:17.000 It's a disaster, but we can only focus on one thing at a time, apparently.

01:42:20.000 You know, right now we're looking at ISIS, but I think you look at Afghanistan, and that's a perfect example. 1.00

01:42:26.000 We didn't need another case study.

01:42:27.000 We got a case study of what the Russians did. 0.97

01:42:29.000 We spent a lot of time.

01:42:30.000 I was in there when we were trying to get the Soviets out. 0.82

01:42:32.000 We spent a lot of time trying to push them out.

01:42:34.000 And they went through the same process we did. 0.99

01:42:36.000 After five years, they were just trying to get the fuck out of there.

01:42:38.000 They already realized it was a failure situation.

01:42:41.000 So what did they do?

01:42:42.000 They retreated to the urban centers.

01:42:43.000 That's what we did.

01:42:44.000 They couldn't figure out how to get a government that would stay in place after they left.

01:42:48.000 Same problem we're having.

01:42:49.000 All this we know, they went through.

01:42:52.000 I had one of my first hires in diligence, for all your information and security needs, was a former military intelligence officer.

01:43:03.000 He was a former tank driver, too, for the Russian military.

01:43:07.000 He told me, he grabbed me, I remember, as we went into Tora Bora, and he said, you know, don't stay.

01:43:14.000 You can't stay there. 0.97

01:43:15.000 He said, they're like cockroaches. 0.91

01:43:17.000 You step on them here, they show up over there. 0.95

01:43:18.000 Don't stay.

01:43:19.000 He was still carrying around shrapnel from the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

01:43:23.000 We didn't need to go all the way back through history to understand how this was not going to work.

01:43:28.000 And I hate to say this, and I'm not doing any disservice to the terrific men and women who have served over there, lost their lives, been wounded.

01:43:38.000 The Taliban have no place to go. 0.86

01:43:40.000 It's like the Viet Cong. 1.00

01:43:41.000 Where do we think they're going to go?

01:43:43.000 So once we're finished there, when they take back over, we shouldn't be that surprised.

01:43:50.000 So I'm not an optimistic guy.

01:43:52.000 We did a brilliant tactical mission there. 0.97

01:43:54.000 But by the spring of 2002, we should have walked out the door and said, if you do this again, if you allow your place to be used to reach out to the West, we're going to come back and kill more of you. 0.65

01:44:04.000 But nation building? 0.98

01:44:06.000 I don't give a shit whether we raise their literacy rate by 2 or 3 percent or build another road. 0.99

01:44:10.000 They don't know what we're trying to sell them. 0.99

01:44:12.000 Never have.

01:44:13.000 So I'm very frustrated with it.

01:44:15.000 The Afghan policy is very enormously frustrating.

01:44:17.000 It seems incredibly frustrating, but what could be done?

01:44:20.000 Is there a way to handle it better?

01:44:21.000 I mean, what could be done?

01:44:23.000 Well, once again, I mean, we're in that category where you kind of, you know, you broke it.

01:44:29.000 You know, it's ours.

01:44:31.000 You know, we can argue about the wisdom of what we did, but you're right.

01:44:34.000 I mean, now you've got to look at it from a practical point of view.

01:44:37.000 Frankly, anything we do in Afghanistan is sort of like a holding enterprise, right?

01:44:43.000 So as long as we stay there, we can maintain some semblance of not a shitstorm.

01:44:51.000 Once we leave, then it degenerates.

01:44:55.000 So I think anything we do there is simply a containment exercise.

01:45:00.000 So does it just become the United States of Afghanistan? 0.98

01:45:01.000 We take over and just fund it on the poppy seeds and the fucking minerals in the mountains? 0.99

01:45:08.000 This goes back to that whole narcotics thing. 0.99

01:45:10.000 Well, listen.

01:45:11.000 Hold on a second.

01:45:12.000 It's important.

01:45:12.000 Look, I mean, if you really do think about what the scenario is over there, 90% of the world's opium comes from there, and there's a massive amount of lithium and ion and minerals in the mountains.

01:45:23.000 What the fuck else can anybody do other than try to figure out one way to fund staying there?

01:45:30.000 Yeah. 0.96

01:45:30.000 No, it's one of the most unsatisfying discussions you can ever have is what do we do with Afghanistan. 0.96

01:45:36.000 There's no good answer.

01:45:37.000 Leaving sucks. 1.00

01:45:38.000 Staying sucks. 1.00

01:45:39.000 Both of them suck. 1.00

01:45:40.000 Right. 1.00

01:45:40.000 And again, we're having this discussion in public where public is entirely... 1.00

01:45:45.000 Rightfully so.

01:45:46.000 Fatigued with this whole thing. 0.99

01:45:47.000 Not just fatigued, but ignorant, right? 0.99

01:45:49.000 I mean, I'm ignorant of it. 0.99

01:45:51.000 I've read quite a bit about it, but I guarantee you I'm ignorant.

01:45:54.000 I mean, if I was over there, I'd probably have a better understanding.

01:45:57.000 If I was over there for a decade, maybe I would scratch the surface.

01:46:00.000 Yeah.

01:46:00.000 No, that's true.

01:46:01.000 Yeah, I see what you mean.

01:46:04.000 But yeah, we've got a lot of flashpoints right now.

01:46:06.000 We've got a lot of big issues that are happening, and...

01:46:10.000 Now we've got the midterm elections coming up, so I don't think anything, nothing big in a way is going to happen in Washington.

01:46:15.000 Do you think any of this could have been avoided by not going into Iraq and not going into Afghanistan? 0.96

01:46:20.000 Or was that kind of shit inevitable anyway? 1.00

01:46:22.000 Because with all this, with having a ruthless dictator like Saddam Hussein, that's no picnic, having a guy like that running a country with his evil fucking sociopathic serial killer sons. 1.00

01:46:33.000 I mean, that guy was a ruthless piece of shit. 1.00

01:46:35.000 Right. 1.00

01:46:35.000 No, absolutely. 1.00

01:46:36.000 Yeah.

01:46:36.000 I mean, people say, well, we should have left him in place.

01:46:38.000 Well, you know what?

01:46:38.000 The mindset at the time.

01:46:40.000 People have a hard time remembering going back to what it was like right after 9-11. 0.99

01:46:43.000 People thought shit was going to happen every single fucking hour. 0.99

01:46:47.000 And, you know, it got overrun with the neocons. 1.00

01:46:51.000 There's no doubt about that.

01:46:52.000 They had an agenda.

01:46:53.000 They had a plan that this is what they were going to do.

01:46:56.000 Now, there was also, and I do know this, there was also agreement from a lot of allies that this was a problem that had to be dealt with.

01:47:03.000 So it wasn't just the U.S. saying, we're going to rush in there, you know, because that's a conspiracy.

01:47:06.000 Oh, we're going to go in there because we're going to get their oil.

01:47:08.000 Really? 0.99

01:47:09.000 Well, there were a lot of allies that were believing that, and unfortunately, and this goes to show you how you've got to be very careful about your intelligence operations, a lot of it was based on just crap, bullshit. 0.67

01:47:22.000 You know, but the time, at the time, the way that we thought, and the fear that existed, and the way that people said, whatever it takes to protect the homeland, even if that means, you know, going into Iraq, you know, because that's going to be the next flashpoint. 0.92

01:47:39.000 So, I'm not one to say you've got to second guess, you know, decisions that happened in the past, because it's a complete waste of fucking breath, but, I mean, I guess you obviously can learn things from it, but More to your point, which is a much more important question, is what do you do about it now?

01:47:56.000 No one has a good solution. 0.85

01:47:57.000 No one is standing up on top of a soapbox saying, this is what needs to be done.

01:48:02.000 If we do this, we're going to have peace on earth.

01:48:04.000 Right.

01:48:05.000 And you're right.

01:48:06.000 The Republicans are beating the Democrats over the head saying, but the Republicans, come up with a decision.

01:48:12.000 Come up with an idea.

01:48:13.000 I'm not a fan, again, of Obama. 1.00

01:48:16.000 Could you imagine if fucking Sarah Palin was the goddamn vice president of the United States right now? 1.00

01:48:20.000 How the world would be looking at us? 0.99

01:48:21.000 Well, that's why I say, you know, another thing I think is, I can't go back to term limits and finance reform, is, you know, I think we get a lot of, we get a deeper pool of potential candidates, and we'd surprise ourselves with how many really good, smart, dynamic people are out there who might be willing to step in if they didn't have to go through this insane political process.

01:48:39.000 So, yeah, what do I know?

01:48:42.000 Yeah, I don't even know how we got on the subject.

01:48:44.000 I don't know.

01:48:45.000 Look at this.

01:48:46.000 It's Wednesday.

01:48:47.000 It's Wednesday evening.

01:48:49.000 Let's talk about your show, man.

01:48:50.000 It used to be called America Declassified.

01:48:53.000 What are you guys going to call it now?

01:48:54.000 Now it's going to be called World Access.

01:48:56.000 World Access.

01:48:56.000 We're almost finished filming episodes.

01:48:58.000 We've been all over the country.

01:48:59.000 Great country.

01:49:01.000 Seeing terrific sites.

01:49:02.000 Talking to really cool people. 0.89

01:49:04.000 Exploring things, doing shit, chasing Burmese python down the Everglades, roping into glacial ice caves up in Alaska, tracking grizzlies in the beautiful Yellowstone Park. 0.94

01:49:16.000 If people haven't been to Yellowstone, oh my god. 0.99

01:49:18.000 Yellowstone's incredible.

01:49:19.000 It's incredible.

01:49:20.000 And you gotta do yourself a favor and go out there.

01:49:23.000 It's gonna explode, don't kill everybody.

01:49:24.000 So get there before that happens.

01:49:26.000 Yeah, before the end of the world.

01:49:27.000 Before the end of the world, yeah.

01:49:28.000 That might be where it starts.

01:49:29.000 Yeah, Idaho will be blown off the map if that happens.

01:49:32.000 So will California.

01:49:33.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:49:34.000 So it's going to air in the late fall.

01:49:37.000 World Access, the production company is Indigo Films out of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

01:49:42.000 A great bunch of people.

01:49:44.000 It's on the Travel Channel, and that's all I can think to say that's clever.

01:49:48.000 What was it like when you had to investigate Area 51? 0.98

01:49:51.000 Was that a hornet's nest of looney tunes, thinking that there's aliens that are pickled in a fucking mason jar somewhere down in the basement? 0.90

01:49:58.000 The agency called me up and said, look, here's what you can and you can't disclose. 0.98

01:50:03.000 Don't tell them about the sub-basement where we keep the aliens.

01:50:07.000 And so I think I kept those secrets pretty well.

01:50:10.000 Area 51 is a fascinating, fascinating place.

01:50:14.000 And what's interesting is tracking the history of sort of our developmental air platforms and looking at the timeline, the chronology of getting sightings and things.

01:50:25.000 And that to me is pretty cool because we were coming up with some pretty bizarre air platforms for surveillance in particular. 0.97

01:50:32.000 And this shit was flying around the desert, you know, being tested. 0.99

01:50:35.000 Some of it worked, some of it didn't. 1.00

01:50:37.000 And you can imagine it.

01:50:38.000 You look at the timeline of people going, oh my god, what the hell?

01:50:40.000 And you see this happening, and you understand why people were losing their minds.

01:50:46.000 People trying to believe their eyes or trying to understand what they're seeing is a real issue.

01:50:50.000 We played a video yesterday on the podcast of a bear that had something wrong with its front paws. 0.99

01:50:55.000 It was walking on two feet, and it looked like fucking Bigfoot. 0.98

01:50:58.000 Oh, yeah, I saw this. 0.99

01:50:59.000 Have you seen it?

01:50:59.000 Yeah, I saw this.

01:51:00.000 It's ridiculous. 0.91

01:51:00.000 If you saw that, you would think it's Bigfoot. 0.91

01:51:03.000 After September 11th, we were filming Fear Factor down near Edwards Air Force Base.

01:51:09.000 We were out in the desert doing these stunts, and stealth fighters would fly overhead. 0.98

01:51:14.000 And if you had never seen one of those before, if you didn't know what that was, that looks like a goddamn UFO. That looks like a spaceship from another planet, this black thing that's not shaped like any normal plane, and it's flying low and fast. 0.64

01:51:28.000 You're like, holy shit, I'm looking at aliens.

01:51:30.000 A lot of that technology developed at the agency. 0.99

01:51:32.000 By the science and technology group.

01:51:34.000 You know, a lot of that.

01:51:35.000 Early days in particular, surveillance, craft.

01:51:38.000 Incredible what they were doing inside the agency.

01:51:40.000 How do they recruit guys instead of, like, getting them filtered, like, top people, instead of them going into the public sector and, you know, making money doing something else?

01:51:49.000 That's a good question.

01:51:49.000 I mean, you know what they've got?

01:51:50.000 They've got a huge number of applicants.

01:51:52.000 I mean, you'd be amazed at how many people apply to work there.

01:51:56.000 Across the board, operations, intelligence group, S&T, admin, logistics, they just get a very deep pool of candidates.

01:52:05.000 And you're right.

01:52:06.000 I mean, these guys aren't looking to join for the money.

01:52:09.000 They can make a lot more money at Twitter or wherever.

01:52:12.000 Twitter?

01:52:13.000 Yeah, I don't know.

01:52:13.000 It just came to be...

01:52:15.000 I'm not that plugged into my page or whatever.

01:52:19.000 You have a Twitter page, fella.

01:52:20.000 Yeah, I do.

01:52:21.000 I do.

01:52:22.000 And I'm getting better at understanding how you use it.

01:52:25.000 I've only got...

01:52:25.000 I've gone through like 800 tweets.

01:52:27.000 I'm always fascinated by how many tweets I've done because I think, wow, how much time am I spending doing this?

01:52:32.000 But they get great people applying.

01:52:35.000 And part of it's just knowing that...

01:52:39.000 You know, they're going to be in the agency.

01:52:40.000 They're going to have access to both great people, great technology, sort of cutting-edge thinking, and there's patriotism involved, too.

01:52:49.000 I mean, they want to work there.

01:52:51.000 So, you know, again, I don't want to sound like I have rose-colored glasses on.

01:52:55.000 It's a bureaucracy like a lot of other places.

01:52:57.000 You know, things could be done better for sure.

01:52:59.000 But, you know, my experience was always terrific.

01:53:02.000 If any kids are out there listening, I highly recommend you apply.

01:53:07.000 Now, as far as what's going on in Area 51 today, that's not the same thing, right?

01:53:14.000 Didn't they move their operations to a different area because so many people are paying attention to it now?

01:53:18.000 Yeah, they moved it to Woodland Hills.

01:53:22.000 I thought it was Calabasas.

01:53:24.000 I'm getting bad disinfo.

01:53:27.000 That's right.

01:53:28.000 Yeah, no, they did move it because it took a little too much heat, and so they thought it might be better to have other facilities.

01:53:35.000 But it's still true to this day is that they...

01:53:39.000 I mean, they're inside the agency.

01:53:41.000 And I actually took Indigo Films for the second season of World Access on Travel.

01:53:46.000 I took them into the agency headquarters not too long ago, a couple of months ago.

01:53:50.000 And we did a story inside the headquarters.

01:53:51.000 And part of it was based on, we've got a museum inside there that's open to the staff, obviously, and then visiting liaison partners and dignitaries that come in.

01:54:02.000 And you look at the history.

01:54:04.000 And the agency started out of OSS, out of the military.

01:54:06.000 And you look at the history of it in all aspects of it, operations, science, technology, whatever it is.

01:54:12.000 And it's a pretty incredible place.

01:54:16.000 But they always, when they're developing technology, when they're developing ideas, when they're developing operations, it's in response to something.

01:54:22.000 It's in response to a task.

01:54:23.000 They don't just sit around, unlike maybe a tech company in Palo Alto or something, they don't just sit around and throw a ball at the wall and think, you know, let's come up with a clever idea.

01:54:31.000 It's always in response to a task that they get from, well, from the administration.

01:54:36.000 It says, we need to solve this problem. 0.98

01:54:37.000 And typically, the administrations, over the years, they go to the agency first because they know it's, you know, they'll cut through the crap. 0.55

01:54:46.000 They've got people who will sit down and come up with, you know, scenario that This might work.

01:54:51.000 And they work quickly.

01:54:54.000 And again, they've got terrific creative people listening to me.

01:54:57.000 I'm a booster.

01:54:59.000 You are a little bit of a booster.

01:55:00.000 I am a booster.

01:55:01.000 But that's because you're proud.

01:55:02.000 You're a real patriot.

01:55:04.000 I appreciate that.

01:55:06.000 Well, who's got it?

01:55:07.000 It did work.

01:55:08.000 I mean, look at the stealth bomber. 1.00

01:55:09.000 Look at all the shit that they did create. 0.99

01:55:10.000 Look at the B-51. 1.00

01:55:11.000 Look at all the different...

01:55:12.000 No, I know. 1.00

01:55:13.000 It was a lot of shit they created out of there that's pretty goddamn amazing. 0.99

01:55:17.000 Yeah, and some of the most... 0.99

01:55:18.000 They've just got... 1.00

01:55:20.000 You look at some of the shit. 1.00

01:55:22.000 I mean, anybody... 1.00

01:55:22.000 This is a good point. 1.00

01:55:23.000 You're not going to get inside the agency's museum.

01:55:25.000 Well, you can if you watch the show in the fall.

01:55:27.000 But they have a spy museum in Washington, D.C., which is actually worth visiting.

01:55:31.000 It's a really good...

01:55:32.000 Anybody can go to it?

01:55:33.000 Anybody can go to it.

01:55:34.000 It's in D.C., and it's a great time out.

01:55:37.000 Kids love it, but it operates on a couple levels.

01:55:40.000 One is sort of for the kids, but one is it's a really very, very smartly done museum, looking at espionage through the years, tradecraft, and a variety of operations that have happened over the years.

01:55:50.000 Fantastic facility, so people should go to that one, too.

01:55:53.000 Yeah.

01:55:55.000 Spying technology is so fascinating.

01:55:58.000 My buddy Mike worked at the American Embassy in Russia, and they would find the surveillance devices that the Russians would install in these buildings that were so sophisticated.

01:56:08.000 He said...

01:56:09.000 They had found a listening device that was powered on the swaying of the building itself.

01:56:16.000 The swaying and the movement of the building itself in the wind was actually powering this device.

01:56:21.000 They said it was unlike anything that they had ever thought of before.

01:56:24.000 And it was just mind-blowing that these equally intelligent people with a completely different language in another country had come up with some alternative path to listen in on people.

01:56:36.000 Yeah, the Russians and Soviets during the Cold War in particular were, you know, A, because they dumped unlimited resources into it and B, because they were highly motivated and aggressive.

01:56:47.000 They were very, very worthy adversaries, still are.

01:56:50.000 But yeah, our Cold War history is a fascinating thing.

01:56:55.000 You look at the technology that was developed out of that and a lot of that ended up being, you know, used for the private sector and the development of everything from From smartphones to internet applications to a variety of things.

01:57:07.000 So a lot of the crap that gets put together, gets thought of and designed inside the intel community ends up benefiting the private sector and just the person on the street, commercial people.

01:57:19.000 It is also fascinating, too, that both the Russians and the United States battled over who could get the best Nazi scientists. 0.85

01:57:25.000 You know, that's a dirty secret of the Cold War and of the space race.

01:57:30.000 Well, you need those minds.

01:57:31.000 I mean, it's pragmatic choices you've got to make sometimes.

01:57:35.000 You had to make those choices.

01:57:36.000 It's a choice that nobody wanted to admit for the longest time, that Wernher von Braun was a Nazi.

01:57:42.000 The Simon Wiesenthal Center said if he was alive today, they would prosecute him.

01:57:46.000 For crimes against humanity.

01:57:47.000 And that's a pretty amazing thing to say when you consider the fact that that guy was absolutely necessary to take part in the space race.

01:57:55.000 And that the Soviets had Nazis and we had Nazis. 0.66

01:57:58.000 You were making pragmatic decisions in part because, you know, well, part of it was the world we lived in.

01:58:05.000 And I don't know that you could do that today.

01:58:07.000 I mean, look at the situation in Syria.

01:58:09.000 You know.

01:58:10.000 If we side with Assad, is that politically acceptable here in the States? 0.82

01:58:14.000 Is that politically willing to do that? 0.97

01:58:17.000 It turned out that these ISIS guys were super smart at social media, and so we fucking hire them to run the United States Facebook page. 1.00

01:58:23.000 And we go, what the fuck? 1.00

01:58:25.000 You guys got these jihadis? 1.00

01:58:26.000 And nobody would buy that today.

01:58:29.000 No, I don't think so.

01:58:30.000 That's a tough sell.

01:58:31.000 What was it about the Nazis that made them so good at engineering and technology? 0.98

01:58:36.000 I mean, it is really incredible when you think about German engineering and technology to this day is thought of in the highest regard.

01:58:43.000 Yeah.

01:58:44.000 Yeah, no, it's true.

01:58:44.000 And it goes back, obviously goes back a long, long time.

01:58:47.000 So...

01:58:48.000 Yeah, obviously they took a left turn.

01:58:50.000 That's not a brilliant statement with that whole Nazi shenanigans. 0.97

01:58:54.000 Well, obviously.

01:58:55.000 But discounting their social activity, just their engineering and technology, I'm always fascinated by what is it that causes one country, one nation to excel in a radical way above and beyond others?

01:59:09.000 Yeah, it's a good question.

01:59:12.000 You look at some that just continue to keep ticking along at a certain level.

01:59:16.000 They can't seem to raise the bar.

01:59:18.000 I mean, who knows what it is.

01:59:20.000 That's why, again, I go back to that same thing about the U.S. I think we can do anything, anything we put our minds to.

01:59:25.000 If we have the collective will, if we set our minds to it, I hope we maintain that belief structure for our kids.

01:59:33.000 I tell my kids that all the time.

01:59:35.000 I say how fortunate they are to be living in this country, how fortunate they are to have the circumstances they have.

01:59:40.000 I mean, not just putting food on the table, but the opportunity for education, all these things.

01:59:44.000 And to live in a place where hard work is valued.

01:59:48.000 Listen to me.

01:59:48.000 No, but you're right.

01:59:50.000 Listen, don't worry about it, man.

01:59:52.000 You're a real patriot.

01:59:53.000 And I think that's admirable.

01:59:55.000 I think that for the longest time, look, I'm a car fan.

01:59:58.000 I love cars. 0.98

01:59:59.000 And for the longest time, American cars were goddamn embarrassing.

02:00:02.000 While German cars were producing these incredible Porsches and The Italians are making these fantastic Ferraris. 0.99

02:00:09.000 We were making shitty Mustangs in the fucking 70s. 0.99

02:00:11.000 Pintos and Gremlins. 1.00

02:00:13.000 Remember the Gremlin?

02:00:13.000 The Pacer.

02:00:14.000 We had these amazing cars for a while, and then something happened when the gas crisis came along. 0.99

02:00:18.000 We made shit for 20 years. 0.95

02:00:19.000 But finally now, American cars are bounding back. 0.99

02:00:23.000 The new Corvette is a marvel of engineering.

02:00:25.000 All these European car magazines are saying it's one of the greatest cars ever made.

02:00:29.000 I read some comparisons on it.

02:00:31.000 It's fantastic.

02:00:31.000 It's incredible.

02:00:32.000 It's great to finally see stuff like that happening.

02:00:35.000 Why didn't it happen a long time ago? 0.99

02:00:37.000 I'm absolutely fascinated by technology, mostly because I'm a moron. 0.96

02:00:41.000 I can't engineer anything. 0.96

02:00:44.000 I see how someone figures out how to make a car, where when you're taking a turn, the computer adjusts the shocks to put more pressure on one side to flatten out the... 0.99

02:00:54.000 Fucking A, man. 0.99

02:00:56.000 That's what I say. 0.99

02:00:56.000 If everybody was like me, we'd still be trying to figure out how to make a wheel and how to build a fire. 0.99

02:01:00.000 We wouldn't even get close if everybody was like me. 0.98

02:01:02.000 It'd be fucking stone rock tools. 0.99

02:01:04.000 That's it. 0.99

02:01:04.000 We'd make banging flint together. 0.99

02:01:06.000 Probably doing a shitty job. 0.95

02:01:08.000 You know? 1.00

02:01:10.000 You look at shit that gets put together. 1.00

02:01:13.000 The technology of it all. 1.00

02:01:14.000 And you think, wow.

02:01:15.000 Who the hell came up with it?

02:01:16.000 How did you think of that?

02:01:18.000 But thank God they do that.

02:01:20.000 And then there's others who, you know, we get the job done in other ways.

02:01:24.000 But a buddy of mine, his first car, he pulled up in front of my parents' house.

02:01:28.000 He was so proud.

02:01:28.000 I was young.

02:01:30.000 He was so proud of it. 0.80

02:01:31.000 He was a gremlin.

02:01:32.000 I'm so proud of this guy. 0.98

02:01:33.000 He's a gremlin.

02:01:34.000 I remember walking out there, even at that young age, where I'd just gotten my learner's permit. 1.00

02:01:40.000 Even at that young age, I knew he had just bought himself a piece of shit. 0.99

02:01:43.000 And I thought, how do I tell him that? 1.00

02:01:45.000 That was one of my first lessons in diplomacy. 1.00

02:01:46.000 How do I look at this guy who's so proud of his fucking piece of shit and say, yeah, that's great there, pal. 1.00

02:01:52.000 There's not much you can do. 1.00

02:01:53.000 You can't do anything.

02:01:54.000 Especially a guy's first car. 1.00

02:01:56.000 My first car was a fucking hunk of shit, 1973 Chevelle SS. Nice. 1.00

02:02:01.000 It was nice for a day until the engine blew.

02:02:03.000 The first day I had it, or the second day, one day.

02:02:07.000 The next day the engine seized up.

02:02:08.000 Better than me, I had a 77 Granada.

02:02:12.000 It was my first purchase.

02:02:14.000 1977 Ford Granada.

02:02:15.000 It was very nice with it.

02:02:17.000 Landau roof and the bench seats.

02:02:19.000 Landau roof?

02:02:20.000 I haven't heard that term in a decade.

02:02:21.000 And I remember the guy said at the car dealership, he said, do you want an 8-track in that or do you want a cassette deck?

02:02:28.000 Like cassette deck.

02:02:29.000 And I said, what's a cassette deck?

02:02:31.000 And he showed it to me.

02:02:32.000 I remember it standing there and he showed it to me and I said, no, I'll take that 8-track. 0.99

02:02:35.000 That shit's not going anywhere. 1.00

02:02:37.000 Ha ha ha! 1.00

02:02:38.000 Well, 8-track sounded better, didn't it, supposedly?

02:02:40.000 Yeah, I thought they did.

02:02:42.000 I think that was the knock-on, is that 8-track had a better sound. 0.99

02:02:45.000 It was just you had to deal with these fucking bricks. 0.99

02:02:48.000 Put it in there, ka-chunk. 1.00

02:02:49.000 Wherever it was in that tape, that's where that song started.

02:02:52.000 Didn't matter where it was.

02:02:53.000 And then you'd have a shoebox full of them, because that's the only way you could store your 8-tracks in your car was in shoeboxes.

02:02:58.000 My family never had one, but my friend Javier did, and his mom had an A-track of Pablo Cruz.

02:03:05.000 That song, When my baby, when my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio.

02:03:11.000 And I remember seeing that thing in the car going, this is incredible!

02:03:16.000 Sound is coming out of it whenever you want!

02:03:18.000 It's not even a radio!

02:03:20.000 What a coincidence!

02:03:20.000 When I was in the agency, I spent like eight months undercover in a Pablo Cruz cover band.

02:03:26.000 No, you didn't.

02:03:27.000 Working overseas.

02:03:27.000 No, I didn't.

02:03:29.000 I didn't.

02:03:29.000 But it would have been good cover because nobody would have seen that cover.

02:03:33.000 Until you had to start singing.

02:03:34.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:03:35.000 Did you have to go undercover? 0.99

02:03:36.000 Did you ever have to do shit? 0.99

02:03:38.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

02:03:38.000 I mean, I spent all my time in operations and that's just what you did. 0.99

02:03:41.000 You worked in...

02:03:42.000 Whatever it might be, third country aliens. 1.00

02:03:44.000 Are you allowed to talk about that?

02:03:45.000 Not really.

02:03:46.000 I've got a great relationship in part because I keep my app shut.

02:03:51.000 But yeah, operations, working...

02:03:53.000 I will say this about operations and working undercover is if you like to act, and I found that I did...

02:03:58.000 Then it's great.

02:04:00.000 And we've got everything from our disguise teams inside the agency.

02:04:03.000 We've got some of the best disguise artists. 0.99

02:04:05.000 Do you have makeup companies that do your face up and shit? 0.99

02:04:07.000 Really? 0.99

02:04:07.000 People out of Hollywood clamor to get in there and work with the agency, disguise unit, because it's so, again, it's so cutting edge. 0.99

02:04:14.000 How cutting edge?

02:04:15.000 You ever have a guy dress up like a chick? 1.00

02:04:18.000 Like an old lady? 1.00

02:04:19.000 You mean in my free time?

02:04:20.000 No!

02:04:20.000 What are you talking about?

02:04:21.000 I mean someone pretend to be a woman like Big Mama's House. 1.00

02:04:25.000 Oh yeah, no, nothing like that.

02:04:27.000 Nothing like that, no.

02:04:28.000 That would be the move, right? 1.00

02:04:30.000 You'd have to be a fat lady. 1.00

02:04:31.000 You couldn't be a thin lady. 0.99

02:04:32.000 No, but we had fat suits and full overhead masks and everything.

02:04:36.000 And you had to be comfortable operating in pretty heavy disguise sometimes, depending on where we were and where we were operating.

02:04:42.000 You had fat suits?

02:04:43.000 Oh sure, yeah. 0.73

02:04:44.000 Wow.

02:04:45.000 I know.

02:04:45.000 Not like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers.

02:04:47.000 Not quite that fat.

02:04:48.000 Because what are you trying to do?

02:04:49.000 You're trying to change your appearance quickly.

02:04:51.000 You're trying to figure out ways quickly, but professionally and to withstand scrutiny, to change your appearance.

02:04:57.000 People make snap judgments about people.

02:04:59.000 Right.

02:04:59.000 And in terms of surveillance, people make...

02:05:01.000 Quick decisions.

02:05:02.000 Okay, I'm following this person, brown shoes, blonde hair.

02:05:08.000 Good.

02:05:08.000 Got it.

02:05:09.000 And that's how surveillance teams will tee off of certain things.

02:05:12.000 So if you can change your profile in certain ways, then that's very beneficial.

02:05:18.000 And then operating overseas in places where I might not blend in necessarily.

02:05:22.000 But if you like to act and operating undercover is fantastic.

02:05:25.000 I happen to enjoy it a great deal.

02:05:27.000 Did you ever think about acting once you got out of the agency?

02:05:30.000 Actual acting acting?

02:05:32.000 No, I don't even know how that would work.

02:05:34.000 But I mean, co-hosting a show on Travel Channel, World Access, is pretty good.

02:05:38.000 Why did they change the world access?

02:05:40.000 I don't know.

02:05:40.000 America declassified sounds like better for a former CIA officer.

02:05:43.000 They wanted to lighten it up a little bit, take it a little bit away from sort of the conspiracy and the dark side, and focus more on just going to great places around the country and talking to cool people.

02:05:52.000 Oh, okay.

02:05:52.000 Well, that makes sense, world access.

02:05:53.000 Yeah, so world access, and maybe next season, for the next season, we'll do actual world access as opposed to U.S. access.

02:05:58.000 I did this show for SyFy called Joe Rogan Questions Everything, and they were trying to get me to do sort of along the same lines as the Jesse Ventura show, the conspiracy theory.

02:06:07.000 They were really into conspiracy theories when I started doing the show. 0.99

02:06:11.000 But the more I started doing it, the more I was like, most of this is bullshit. 0.98

02:06:15.000 Like, you're doing a show where you're exploring bullshit, but you don't necessarily want to call bullshit because you want to keep this air of mystery that keeps people tuning in. 0.99

02:06:23.000 Right. 0.99

02:06:24.000 Yeah, I agree with you.

02:06:25.000 It can be very difficult to keep that up for any period of time.

02:06:29.000 It's annoying.

02:06:29.000 Right.

02:06:30.000 And so I like to think, I mean, I approach this second season that's coming up, this World Access show, I approach it sort of like anybody who's sitting on a sofa...

02:06:39.000 I'm a fairly simple guy, so when I go to some of these places, literally, I'm kind of staring there slack-jawed and amazed at what I'm seeing, whether it's the geography or whether it's just dealing with the people or what goes on there, whatever it may be. 0.98

02:06:51.000 So I like to think I'm the guy that's sitting on the sofa watching this shit, and I'm reacting the same way they would. 0.97

02:06:57.000 I'm just fascinated by it. 0.99

02:06:59.000 And it's difficult to do sometimes with conspiracies, because you feel like a lot of the conspiracies, they've been beat into the ground. 0.76

02:07:05.000 And you're hearing stuff that you've heard before, you're looking at shit that you looked at before, but...

02:07:08.000 Not to say that it's not entertaining. 0.96

02:07:10.000 It is, but anyway. 0.96

02:07:11.000 Even the Science Channel, which is supposed to be about science, they have so many of these goddamn UFO shows where they talk to these people and they all have fucking stories, but when it boils down to it, that's all there is, is stories. 0.90

02:07:27.000 Stories from questionable people, and the stories are almost all goofy, and it gets weary after a while. 0.94

02:07:34.000 You're like, what kind of a show am I making? 1.00

02:07:35.000 This is all bullshit. 1.00

02:07:36.000 Yeah, it's stories. 1.00

02:07:37.000 It's UFO. Chupacabra?

02:07:40.000 Ghost stories.

02:07:41.000 Ghost stories are good. 1.00

02:07:42.000 Or eating shit. 1.00

02:07:43.000 Going around to restaurants and eating food. 1.00

02:07:45.000 Right.

02:07:46.000 Like Andrew Zimmerman, like that kind of thing.

02:07:48.000 Yeah, and I can see why people find it interesting.

02:07:51.000 But what I like about this show now is just we're going to some fantastic places. 0.92

02:07:56.000 We're seeing shit that you've got to make an effort to get to. 0.85

02:07:58.000 So everything that we're doing is basically got to work to get there. 0.98

02:08:01.000 But if you do, it's well worth it.

02:08:03.000 And it's not just sort of the same beaten path, you know, not walking up to the edge of the Grand Canyon staring at it and going, hey, okay, that's nice.

02:08:09.000 It's, you know, get outside your comfort zone, travel a little bit more, make the effort, and you'll be amazed at what the country has to offer.

02:08:15.000 Oh, there's some incredible things in this country.

02:08:17.000 I mean, people don't realize the fact that out of these 50 states, I mean, everybody thinks of New York, Chicago, San Francisco.

02:08:24.000 We think of these spots that you need to visit, but...

02:08:27.000 There's so many amazing spots. 0.99

02:08:29.000 There's so much shit to see. 0.99

02:08:30.000 You could have a thousand episodes just traveling to different cities and checking out weird shit that people do. 0.99

02:08:36.000 Absolutely.

02:08:37.000 You know, I just looked at my watch.

02:08:38.000 I realized if I don't leave now, I may not make my flight.

02:08:40.000 Where's your flight?

02:08:41.000 What time's your flight?

02:08:42.000 I don't even want to tell you.

02:08:43.000 You don't want to tell me what time?

02:08:44.000 Well, I may not make it.

02:08:47.000 I may not make it.

02:08:48.000 Alright, so should we wrap this up?

02:08:49.000 It's about 20 after 4 is my flight. 1.00

02:08:50.000 Okay, yeah, you're fucked. 1.00

02:08:51.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:08:52.000 Unless it's in Burbank.

02:08:53.000 Is it from Burbank?

02:08:54.000 It's not from Burbank.

02:08:55.000 Oh.

02:08:56.000 Well, you might be okay.

02:08:57.000 Yeah, I might be okay.

02:08:57.000 You might be okay.

02:08:58.000 Yeah, we'll see what happens.

02:08:58.000 If you leave right now.

02:08:59.000 We'll wrap it up right now.

02:09:00.000 Mike, thank you very much.

02:09:01.000 This has been fantastic.

02:09:02.000 I really appreciate it.

02:09:03.000 I really appreciate it.

02:09:04.000 If there's anything you want me to promote, anything, I'd be more than happy to do.

02:09:06.000 So just let us know.

02:09:08.000 Promoted the shit out of the show on Travel Channel, and it's a great show. 0.98

02:09:11.000 But if I talk about it one more time, I'll feel like a pushing tin. 0.91

02:09:14.000 Okay, folks, you can follow Mike on Twitter.

02:09:17.000 His handle is MBCompanyMan.

02:09:20.000 That's your handle on Twitter.

02:09:22.000 And the show, once again, the old one is America Declassified.

02:09:26.000 And the new one is World Access.

02:09:29.000 And it's on the Travel Channel.

02:09:30.000 Travel Channel.

02:09:31.000 Thanks so much.

02:09:31.000 Thank you very much, brother.

02:09:32.000 I appreciate it.

02:09:33.000 And thanks also to our sponsors.

02:09:35.000 Thanks to Stamps.com.

02:09:36.000 Go to Stamps.com.

02:09:38.000 Use the code word J-R-E and save yourself some money, including $55 of free postage and a free digital scale.

02:09:46.000 What else do we have today?

02:09:47.000 Onnit?

02:09:47.000 That's an Onnit.

02:09:48.000 And Onnit.com.

02:09:49.000 O-N-N-I-T. Use the code word Rogan.

02:09:52.000 Save 10% off any and all supplements.

02:09:54.000 We'll be back tomorrow with Greg Fitzsimmons.

02:09:55.000 Big kiss.

02:09:56.000 Mwah! 0.98

The Joe Rogan Experience - August 27, 2014

Joe Rogan Experience #541 - Mike Baker

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript