Andrew Bustamante Reveals America's Domestic Chaos and the Shadow War Threatening Our Future

[Music] It's less than a week since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. When you see somebody die in front of you, you don't forget that. We have become so desensitized to the value of human life that we think the politics matter. >> We live in this weird world where there's this incredible distrust of government and simultaneously this incredible overestimate of the effectiveness of government. When you're an insider and you know how the world works, you have this responsibility to say what you think will play out. You understand probabilities and you understand human behavior and you understand the fact that nothing is really original, right? History just repeats itself over and over again. Not with the operation that we cover in Shadow Cell because Shadow Cell was unique. When you're building a terrorist cell to operate against an adversary on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency, you know you're doing something that needs to be documented. Were you ever ordered to do or or ended up doing something that you had kind of a moral objection or conflict to and you decided to do it anyway or it made you decide not to do something that you should have? So, [Music] Since the Civil War, dogs have stood alongside our military, proving to be indispensable partners. Our military prioritized ensuring proper K9 nutrition for optimal performance, recognizing its vital role in mission success. Team Dog embodies that standard, offering science-based, customizable meal plans tailored to your dog's unique needs. Developed by a former Navy Seal and K9 trainer, Team Dog Food ensures the highest quality nutrition for our K9 companions. Improve your dog's well-being. Be your dog's hero with Team Dog. Ladies and gentlemen, as always, it's both an honor and a pleasure to welcome my next guest back to the podcast. Uh he was on episode 206 about almost two years ago to the day uh in terms of publishing it. He's a former CIA intelligence officer. He's the founder of Everyday Spy and the host of the Everyday Spy podcast, which I got to tell you, the the YouTube algorithm. Uh I I think fuels that I need an everyday spy enema with with how much I see your face on my uh on my feet. It's uh it's amazing. Um but he's also the author of the recently released book Shadow Cell, which is an insider account of America's new spy war, which I can't think of a better time for that book to come out. and to have you on the show with all the different stuff that's going on. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Andy Bamante. >> I'm super stoked to be back here, man. And uh the algorithm for YouTube is absolutely on my side. >> I can't It's the worst thing in the world when I try to defend how I'm not a CIA plant. >> Yeah, nobody believes you. >> Nobody. And I wouldn't believe my [ __ ] either cuz I'm looking at that and I'm like, how how in the hell does this happen? >> Yeah, I I see that all the I mean, I see it with a lot of uh people on YouTube that have shows that have anything to do with government or or politics, military, and CIA shill, and he's a [ __ ] State Department plant, and you know, he's a MSAD [ __ ] guy, and you know, it's just like, man, you I think you're given, it's not to say that there aren't some some very curiously [ __ ] up elements of not just our government that does stuff like that, but also other governments. I'm not naive to the fact that I know there's a component to that, but um to think that, you know, I think any government agency could pull it off for very long at this point. >> That's what gets me too. It's it's we live in this weird world, especially in the United States, where there's this incredible distrust of government and simultaneously this incredible overestimate of the effectiveness of government. Yeah. Because you'd have to think that they're really [ __ ] good at what they do to plant media personalities that go viral >> and somehow they can't keep a president from getting shot at when he's on the the road to presidency, right? So, how can they not do one thing, but they do the other really well? That's that's not the government I'm used to. The government I'm used to does pretty much everything badly. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, especially our government, you know, um to to me in in today's day and age with chat GPT and AI and and the ability to to search massive amounts of databases and and access that hackers and you know, even just remotely computer literate or competent people have, it's like even even if that was the intended goal and and the project, if if you want to call it that. I could see it, you know, an episode or two, but very quickly any of that stuff that gains traction like I mean to me like the the collective US society in many ways a good way >> are more effective than opposition research for political campaigns in finding [ __ ] out about people, you know, and I just like I I don't think that our government is capable of putting somebody in that position for long enough to where it wasn't found out cuz like you know you'd have to have so many dots connected in a flawless way for decades really. I mean you'd have to manufacture records and you know his historical databases for somebody's life for somebody not to find some glitch or some timeline that doesn't line up or some ability to prove that somebody's full of [ __ ] or you know whatever. Like people are so good at that now. Again, I think that's overwhelmingly positive because it's way harder for people running for office to to pull the wool over people's eyes. But, uh, it never ceases to amaze me how many people throw that out there, though. You know, um, normally I would ask kind of the, uh, boilerplate, relatively boilerplate, uh, lightning round questions, but since you were here on 206, we already went through that. And I feel like there are so many things current events wise. Uh, number one, if you want to hear Andy's story, you know, please check out episode 206. It was a great great episode. But, uh, I want to dig both into the book and especially with what's happened the last uh, week. Uh, get your take on some of this stuff. Before we do that though, just what have you been up to in the last two years to catch us up quick? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, it's been a very exciting two years. The company's grown significantly. Uh, my internet presence continues to grow, which is really an exciting additional benefit to running a business. Yeah. >> Um, I think the big thing for me that's really been important to watch CIA CIA likes to be wrong. And I don't think people realize that when you're when you're an insider like you were and you know how the world works. You have this responsibility to say what you think will play out, but you always kind of hope that you're wrong. >> Yeah. >> Right. You always hope that you're being pessimistic. You're being overly negative. you're being fatalist or alarmist, but you got to say it because you understand probabilities and you understand human behavior and you understand the the fact that nothing is really original, right? History just repeats itself over and over again. >> And the last two years for me have been just a stark reminder of how much I really wish I could be wrong more often. I've been warning people about leaving the US. I've been warning about the decline of the US dollar and the economy. I've been warning about, you know, partisan politics. I've been out there saying this stuff and uh and obviously the algorithm picks it up and and people must feel it at some level because we keep watching it, we keep talking about it, but to actually see it playing out over the last two years to see, you know, the the high-profile killings in both the business sector and the political sector. To watch our economy just struggle, to watch immigration do what immigration's doing, it's just it's uh it's difficult, man. So, it's been it's been a weird juxiposition to make so much business and internet growth out of so much bad news >> cuz that's just it's a weird feeling to go home and watch your bank account get bigger >> because your predictions are coming true. >> Yeah, I I don't doubt it. I mean it's uh to me I mean it it's almost obviously it's not oracle like in in that there's some mysticism to you know h how you forecast certain things trending a certain direction but um to me it it does kind of remind me of like the fortune teller that doesn't want to break the bad news to the person sitting across them but does because they feel obligated. But with all of the predictions you've made and and trends that you've seen, is there one or even several that stand out as being either the most uh problematic or maybe uh you you were kind of almost laughed at the most on or you know one that people scoffed at or said that you're a conspiracy theorist or this is crazy that'll never happen that you have been right on that that comes to mind. So, the the biggest one out there is really it ties back to Ukraine and Russia, which which is where a lot of my kind of people's awareness of me came from. Um, because I made a prediction back early on in when Russia first invaded Ukraine, talking about the fact that that the press would lose interest, but that Russia was engaged in what was truly an existential threat and that Ukraine would lose interest. people would lose interest in Ukraine. The EU would lose interest, NATO would lose interest, United States would lose interest and there'd be a significant decline in support for Ukraine and that Russia would use that decline to kind of push further in, specifically trying to close off the Black Sea, reaching all the way to Odessa. Now, when I made that prediction the first time, it was like August of 2022. Um, the war looked very different than it looks now. was before the counteroffensive that gained so much ground for Ukraine and a lot of people criticized me because instead of having Russia reach over to Udessa Odessa there was a counter offensive in the late summer of 2022 and I remember watching all the you know all the accusations and all the you know this guy's whatever his predictions age like sour milk and all these other you know hate speech coming stuff come across and I remember just sitting there watching and saying you guys you don't understand like intelligence doesn't happen on a timeline. It happens in in a series in order. Now, here we are in 2025. Russia's making gains that it never made before. It's dropping bombs in Kiev. You've got more people pushing against it than ever before in Europe, but they're still not funding Ukraine. Ukraine has had to try to prove that it's worth investment by developing its drone industry, a drone industry that has been largely replicated by China that we, the United States, are just now trying to catch up to. So Russia hasn't changed. They have not become any less aggressive in their intention to not just take eastern Ukraine, which has always been their priority, but in cutting Ukraine off from the rest of NATO. And they've become bolder and stronger in their opposition, in their position in the face of Zillinsky, in the face of NATO with the Trump presidency. So, it's not what we're seeing is that Russia really will not back away from this because they know they can't. To back away from Ukraine if you're in Putin's shoes is essentially to undermine your economic success, to kill Russia, and he's not going to let that happen. It it is partly tied to his political reputation, but it's largely tied to their country's existence because Russia needs its satellite states to maintain a viable economy. And that's what we're trying to kill with sanctions. And that's why it's partnered up so closely with Iran and China. So I I say that because not that I think the world's necessarily paying attention to Ukraine and Russia. I think that like I predicted people lose interest. There's many more interesting things right now than whether or not one side or the other gained another 100 yards of territory. But that's exactly what I said what would would happen. And as we continue to watch the near-term and the long-term future of the Russia Ukraine uh issue, it's important to me that we understand Russia knows how Americans think. He knows how Europeans think and he knows that given enough time, we're going to light ourselves on fire, which is exactly what's happening in France right now. We're going to dissolve our own governments, which is what happened in Portugal and which is what happened in Germany. We're going to doubt our own political system, which is what's happening in the United States. Russia knows us so well, they just keep pressing. >> So, I I mean, to me, I I don't disagree with any of that. Uh I am curious from a kind of like an from the intelligence analyst 30,000 foot view perspective, who gives a [ __ ] you know? And and to your point, like I I understand and and and totally get why a lot of Americans, especially right now with some of the things that are happening here in the United States, could care less. Uh especially when you see the amounts of money that we've sent them and how it's druggone and and seems to be a bit of a stalemate, uh largely speaking. >> But from your perspective, uh why why should America care? >> I don't necessarily think that Americans need to care. I think what Americans need to understand is that the story they were sold when Russia first invaded Ukraine was a lie. And I don't know that we've necessarily woken up to that yet. I think people still believe that Ukraine is a fight for democracy when it's not. Ukraine is a test bed, a battlefield where we can make advancements in our technology and field test them and simultaneously gain commitments from both Russia and Ukraine that when the conflict ends, the United States will have first dibs of going in and rebuilding the country, which is a massive economic benefit for us. That's what Trump sees in Ukraine. He understands there are rare earth minerals and those are going to be valuable to us, especially as we try to hedge against China. But more importantly, there's been so much destruction. All of that has to be rebuilt. And an American company could rebuild it all. American loans could rebuild it. American debt could rebuild it. American issuances of of lease could rebuild it. And that's that's a major benefit for us that he doesn't want NATO to have and he doesn't want some foreign country to have. So, I mean, from I guess from that standpoint, my first thought is how about [ __ ] Detroit and Chicago first? Like, why why don't we worry about fixing those places and and a host of other, you know, cities and and even regions within the United States? Is it because we have to pay for that and if we're rebuilding in Ukraine, somebody else is and and there's actually money to be made? >> Correct. It's all about the currency. And this is an important piece. I'm glad that you asked the question because under the Biden administration, we printed a [ __ ] ton of new money. >> Well, if you only have a certain amount of value, right, let's just imagine three gold bars sit on one side of a of a scale. That's all the real value you have. You can print as many dollars as you want, but the only real value is the three gold bars. So then, how do you make it so that all of these dollars are worth more per dollar? That's what counterinflation is, right? Right now, we're experience experiencing inflation. More money with less value per dollar. Well, how do we get more value per dollar? You have to add more gold to the pile. Well, the United States only has a fixed amount of gold, only a fixed amount of value. The only way you get more value is from foreigners putting their value into our US dollar. So, that's what we need to have happen. We can't just you can technically take dollars off the market and destroy them to force more value per dollar, but the more efficient way is to keep all those dollars in circulation and add more gold bricks. That's why we care about foreign investment. That's why we sell apartments in Miami to [ __ ] Cubans and Chinese because we're trying to get foreign currency to convert their currency to US dollars because it increases you and me the value that's specifically in our wallet. That's one of the benefits to going into a war zone. You go into a war zone, that shit's already destroyed. You go into Detroit, you would technically have to destroy what's there before you could build anything new. And how are you going to get state, municipal, county support to go in there and and gut or even demolish buildings? I mean, I certainly understand the premise, but when I look at, you know, ju just from a a business owner standpoint, which, you know, I've certainly never run anything that was anywhere near, you know, uh, the type of levels of capital investment that we're talking about, but to me, moving a decimal plate, a decimal point is really the only difference. The principle is the exact same. I mean, when I look at the amount of money that we've sent there already, though, you know, which further causes the problem that you're talking about, you know, to me at this point, we're what 200 and some billion dollars that we've sent there. I mean, maybe even 300. I I mean, I don't even know what it is. I don't I'm not even sure that our government has been completely transparent on how much. And that's uh not including all of the investment, you know, weaponry wise. So to me it's like well we've we've already put so much money into it you know to me it's it's not a onetoone conversion in terms of if you if if US uh we'll say semi-private companies because some of them are so infused into the government I don't think you can call them entirely private sector companies but um you know the Hallebertton the you know Rathons the whatever let's say they're contracted to go in To me, the the travesty is is that the American taxpayer doesn't get paid back a 1:1 ratio on that. Even if, let's say, best case scenario, not only are we able to to break even dollar for dollar um or even make money, like the the taxpayer is still the one that took it on the chin for having to shell out all the the tax revenue to to benefit them in the first place. So, if you're Donald Trump and and we're, you know, keeping with your theory of the decision to to put so much time and energy and and bandwidth into the Ukraine Russia conflict, how does that shake out to to a net positive benefit to the United States? >> So, it's important to understand there's there's two things that we're talking about even though we're using one term, right? When we talk about the net benefit of the United States, that's not really one thing. There's the benefit to the American taxpayer, which is a current thing, and then there's the benefit to the United States, as in the United States government, which is a long-term thing. One of the things that I think Americans have not been conditioned to understand well enough, because again, we've been conditioned, we just haven't been conditioned with the truth, we haven't been conditioned to understand that our true value to the federal government is really nothing more than paying our taxes. That's unless you dedicate your life and put your life on the line for your country also, which you and I both did in uniform. Really, the only other thing they care about is whether or not you generate taxes. And how can they maximize the amount of taxes that you generate? This is why we're very pro business in the United States. If you look at one person, you can only tax that one person so much. But if that one person creates a hotel and that hotel has 200 rooms and those 200 rooms have 90% occupancy throughout throughout the year, every one of those rooms creates tax. The building creates tax. All of the jobs inside the hotel create tax. So they are willing to tax to tax the person who owns the hotel less because they can tax everything else so much. But at the end of the day, all they care about is US citizen creates taxes. We always take it on the chin. That's that's our job in the government. That's our job as as citizens is to take it on the chin. Pay the taxes. Pay for the machine to run. Understanding that the machine isn't investing in us right now. It's investing in future returns. 20-year returns, 50-year returns, 200-year returns. I'm not, if I'm in Donald Trump's shoes, I'm not trying to put more money into Ukraine. We've already put too much money into Ukraine. I'm trying to find a way to cut the amount of money that we put into Ukraine without losing the benefits that we already invested in. If he can get Putin to stop firing and he can get Ukraine to stop firing, we kind of keep the benefits. And the benefits are not necessarily Ukraine for us. There's an immediate financial benefit in rebuilding Ukraine. But the bigger benefit to us is that all of the NATO allies buy American weapons. That's we are the world's top weapons exporter. Russia's number two. China's number three. So if we can export the most weapons, that's all free money. That's free foreign currency coming into US dollars. That's more gold bars that benefit us. Well, if we abandon Ukraine and and NATO steps in to help Ukraine, they're going to diversify who they buy their weapons from. They're going to start making more weapons and buying from each other. They might start buying Chinese weapons. They might start buying Indian weapons. These are there's plenty of countries that are trying to get in there, right? So Trump is trying to find a way to not give up the investment that we've made. It's a sunk cost. That would be the term he would use, right? It's a sunk cost, but how do we not lose everything from the sunk cost? And I'm not defending that we need to care about Russia or Ukraine right now. We have major domestic issues. What's frustrating to me is that part of the domestic issues we have is that there's still half of the country out there that believes that getting involved in Ukraine at all was the right thing to do. that's there's still people out there who think that they were that there's a fight for democracy that we're not fighting for. And that kind of misalignment of ideas is what's in large part driving our domestic issues right now. >> Yeah. I I mean to me the the most frustrating part is that you know to to reduce the decision whether or not to get involved at all and and to both reduce it and base it off of potential economic benefit and stimulus to me is a huge misstep. You know uh to me that >> that shouldn't play the role. Not that it shouldn't be a factor but you know if if back in whatever year I mean what was it 20 was it 22 when it started? um you know that kind of right in the middle of of Biden's presidency. Um I'm curious if that was his take or you know his administration's take was the same as Donald Trump's or was it a skimming operation you know where dozens or even hundreds of American politicians got filthy rich by skimming off the top of of some of the money that was given because I've seen and heard a lot of of those types of claims. I don't know if you have any to back any of that up or not, but um it it drives me nuts. Um >> well, it's a very common thing for politicians to make money off of some adjacent activity related to the politics that they're in. In many ways, that's how they get to politics, right? That's how the Clinton Foundation became a thing. That's how many different um senators and congress people have any kind of wealth beyond their their uh annual paycheck, right? It's because they're affiliated with things. They're affiliated with projects or affiliated with associations. They're even affiliated with foundations. Um profit and for-profit and nonprofit. And I mean, you've you've seen this even with uh with um with former military folks that you it's why Trump is revoking clearances. You spend a whole career making $80,000 a year and then when you retire, you work for a contracting firm making $250,000 a year, $400,000 a year. and your job is really just to make sure that the contractor you work for wins the contract with the Army or the Navy or the Air Force or whatever else. It's a very common thing that is the second career for public servants. I would also say that if you really if you really get down to the brass tax in 2022, Biden wanted eyes off of CO. He wanted eyes off of the reactions, the missteps, the errors that we made with CO. And it was really easy to unify or or try to unify the United States around the biggest enemy of all time, Russia. How could you not want to fight Russia? How could you not want to defend democracy? Well, it turns out after about 4 months, we didn't want to defend democracy. We didn't want to fight for the causes that uh that the Biden administration were trying to fight for. The the Trump administration isn't necessarily better. They're just different. There's also things happening that Trump is very happy to let us focus on something else because of missteps in in one area. Whether that's the economy, whether that's not being able to reach a peace accord between Russia and Ukraine, whether that's the ongoing hostility with Israel and Hamas. So, there's all sorts of um conveniences that we have to recognize also play out in the presidency. >> Yeah. Uh I appreciate the insight. Um, do you have the I guess the comprehension from Putin's standpoint, like do you would you say that you're comfortable saying that you have a thorough understanding of of his decision to to go into Ukraine, like what the driving force was? >> So, I I I would hesitate to say a thorough understanding of his perspective. I think I have a solid understanding of the pros and cons, the the motivations and the vulnerabilities of him pushing into Ukraine. And the biggest thing is is really tying back to the idea that Russia understands that it's seen as the largest threat in Europe and that its allies don't exist in Europe. Its allies exist or its allies exists as practical partnerships, pragmatic partnerships with other large authoritarian countries. So if Russia's has to rely on just what it has inside its own national borders, it knows it can't support its economy. So it has to have resources. It has to have natural resources. It has to have has to have reach outside of its own borders. And that's what drives it to take places like Georgia and Crimea and to put threats on, you know, to to engage in what's happening in Bellarus and Azerbaijan. And it's it knows that it needs those foreign satellite states. >> Yeah. Um I guess you know moving on from that unless there's anything else uh that makes sense to to bring up with it. I you you mentioned Israel and Hamas and since that's something that's been ongoing now for a while too. I'd love to get your take on it because that's taken place since the last time you're here. I mean it's right after you were here actually that that October 7th happened and this whole you know dust storm kind of rek up. Um, I would ask you kind of this the same question from the analyst standpoint. when you look at the United States from a existential standpoint, whether it's a threat or whatever, um our involvement there and kind of the weaving of Israel's politics here in the United States and and you know, similarly like there's stuff all over the internet and at this point it's impossible to discern what's propaganda versus true and you know, if there's >> elements of truth to some of of the the claims or not or whatever. like I don't know how you even keep track of it from an intel analyst standpoint. What is your take on what's going on there? Similarly to Russia and Ukraine. Yeah. The the thing to understand in Israel is to understand that pal being a Palestinian is different than being a member of a terrorist organization, Hamas, which is different from being labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and only 12 other countries where the rest of the world sees Hamas as a legally voted political party. that that Gaza voted into power over the Palestinian Authority and I think it was 1996. Um, so there's all these overlapping kind of ven diagram elements that are worth understanding because everybody tries to reduce it, simplify it to something like a war on terror. This is not a war on terror. The the tens of thousands, I think 50-ish thousand deaths are not terrorist deaths. The idea that Netanyahu is continuing to press an offensive into the Gaza Strip. He's he is adamantly opposed to giving the Palestinians their own state. This is Israeli politics, Israeli governance. This is not Jewishness, right? So, we've got all these overlapping issues. Anti-semitism, which is tied to Judaism, which is the state religion of Israel, but not commentary on Israel itself. You can you can disagree with Netanyahu without hating Jews. You can say something negative about the decisions of the Israeli government without being labeled an anti-semite. >> Well, that's that's tough. I mean, and similarly, you know, I think on the other side of the coin, just in the exact same way, you you you almost can't sympathize with the state of Israel and and not be labeled a a baby killer by, you know, pro Palestinian folks. And on the other side, you any shred of sympathy for anybody living in Palestine by somebody who's super pro-Israel is going to label you, you know, basically a terrorist. And and it's like there's these polar opposite absolutes that make it really, really difficult a to understand and b to navigate how you even sort through it. >> Exactly. And that's the problem that we've reached as a society. And I I put the responsibility for that problem on the systems that indoctrinate us, that rule us, whether it's it's less about the media and more about the narrative that the government weaves that the media then picks up. Folks, just a quick heads up, I do have a Team Dog Patreon tier where I answer questions uh via video, either just describing the answer to the question or even demonstrating some of it. So, go to our Mic Drop Patreon page, check out the Team Dog tier, and I look forward to seeing you in there. Thank you much. >> When it comes to the academic and operational facts of the matter, being a Palestinian does not make you a terrorist. Being a Palestinian does not make you sympathetic towards Hamas, the terrorist group. You can be a Palestinian who voted for the Hamas political organization that takes care of your hospitals and your schools and your food and still disagree with the Hamas militant wing that goes on carrying out terrorist activities. There's a hard step between the two, between Palestinian and Hamas terrorist. There's also a hard step between Israeli and Jew. There's a big step between the two. Israeli is just what's on your passport, right? Jew is what you believe in. You can be a Jew and not have an Israeli passport. You can have an Israeli passport and not be Jewish. But we have like created this echo chamber where the two extremes are the only people talking. And the silent majority sits in the middle afraid to say what they believe or afraid to ask a question, afraid to have an opinion because they're they don't want to be labeled an anti-semite and they also don't want to be labeled proterrorism. From my perspective, the single point of failure or maybe not that's maybe that's not the right characterization that the single biggest issue I think is is frankly the internet and specifically social media with that is that to me it it reminds me of you know a lot of domestic hotbed political topics where let's say we'll take abortion >> or the border I'll use both you know abortion it's like you I I kind of lean towards the the right to choose. So you enjoy murdering children, >> correct? >> No. On the same token, like, hey, I think abortion should be illegal. Oh, so you want to, you know, enslave women and not let them make a single decision about their own body. It's like, no, the border, the same thing. It's like, I think we should have a secure a secure border. So, you're a [ __ ] racist and you want nobody other than blue-eyed white people in the country. Like, no. And and I think these absolutes, you know, whether it's algorithmic or the if it bleeds, it leads. Like the more extreme something is, the more it gets pushed into into people's feeds. And and I would love to know what this the stat is on your average American above the age of 18, 18 to 65, we'll say. Um how many hours a day is spent scrolling social media apps on average? I'm sure that it's hours, you know, several hours a day. So those metrics exist. I don't know them off the top of my head. They are shocking numbers. The shocking numbers are the hours that are spent on social media for the age demographic that you're talking about. Specifically, it's more like 18 to 35, 18 to 50, right? Cuz after a certain age, they don't know how to use social media efficiently. So the number of hours spent, but the bigger thing for me is how many people as an exclusive source of news use social media? And that is a huge huge number. I think it's like 30% of social media users view the social media that they're using as their only source of news. Not a newspaper that they buy from the street, not even a newspaper website, right? Not the news that's on television. It is literally what comes across their feed in social media. That is their source of news. They don't know how to vet an intell. They don't know how to vet a source of of information. They don't know how to cross reference information. They don't know. They don't understand journalistic intent. It's just if their social media feed feeds them something that is called news, then they consider it news. Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think to to further complicate it with how easy technology has made it for your average everyday person to manipulate stories or create false stories that are are a complete fabrication, not just altered, complete [ __ ] Um, I mean it makes it impossible to discern what's real or not and it's becoming more and more difficult. I mean, same with, you know, especially on the the Israel Hamas stuff or even the Ukraine Russia stuff that we've talked about news clips or or video clips that aren't even real, you know, or saying something happened with no video to back it up or saying something happened with manufactured video to back it up. It's like it's like living in the Matrix, you know, and it makes you feel crazy like I dude I don't even know what the [ __ ] is is happening. Uh so again, keeping that intel analyst hat on like how do you make sense of all of that then? And and is there a recommendation you could make for your average citizen to be able to discern what's what? You know, my recommendation for any everyday person is not often wellreceived because the only real thing that we can do is we have to take responsibility for our own opinions. We have to develop our own opinions by researching, cross-referencing, following multiple news sources, not just following your favorite news source. It means you have to you have to flip the channel every now and then off of CNN and onto Fox. And you need to flip the channel every now and then off of Fox and onto CNN. And you should probably pick up a a magazine called The Economist, which comes out of the UK. and you should probably read BBC and you might want to take a look at France 24 and and look at foreign news sources just as much as you look at American news sources because in that conglomeration of information you will find points that intersect and those are facts and then you'll be able to differentiate between the factual information and all of the noise and all of the opinion that's out there. There's something in the intel world that we worry about constantly. It's called circular reporting. Circular reporting is when you you hear something from one source, but then that thing that you heard from one source gets repeated by another source. So, let's just say uh you and I, you're DoD intelligence and I'm CIA intelligence and we're both talking to the same person. That person tells you the same secret that they tell me. Well, now when you and I are talking to the president, you give the president a secret. I give the president the same secret. The president's like, "Oh, I just heard that from both DoD and CIA. It must be true." Not realizing it came from the same source here. When when somebody like AP, the Associated Press, when they put out a story, that story gets picked up by hundreds of other news outlets and often times just repeated and then the new the news outlet puts their own name on it and maybe down at the bottom at the very end of the article they say, you know, attributed to the Associated Press. But now you and I see a story from the Associated Press and we might see it four other times on our own feed and not realize that's not four independent journalists confirming anything. That's four journalists who have just copied and pasted what they found off of the Morning Daily Wire. Right. >> So how how do you discern that then? How do you how do you come to the conclusion that it is actually corroborated through independent sources and not a telephone game? The best thing you can do is actually follow multiple conflicting sources. You want to follow foreign sources and domestic sources. And the domestic sources and the foreign sources you follow should be conservative and liberal sources. You have to bring in voices that would never intentionally collaborate with each other. And then when there's overlap, that's the corroboration. when you you know that the same sources for Fox are not the same sources for CNN. They're even if there is some overlap, 90% of the overlap or 90% of their sources are going to be completely different sources because they're looking for conservativeleaning voices. They're looking for liberal leaning voices. So when you get the final finished report out of both and you cross reference, that's how you find discernable high probability fact. >> Yeah. >> But you're not going to find much. So, you're going to do a lot of effort to find out very little. So, the next thing that you have to do is follow it over time. You can't you can't be interested while you're taking a dump on Monday night and then come to a conclusion by the time you wipe your ass on Monday night. You have to follow it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you have to come to a conclusion after a few days of following the instance. >> Yeah, that's good uh good advice for sure. bringing it back to the Israel Palestine Hamas scenario again, you know, because it's it's such a a prevalent issue that seems to consume a lot of Americans lives more so than you would think. Uh given how how quickly how quickly we have lost interest in Ukraine or I mean pick any other thing. This is one thing that that continues to uh I would say invade you know people's feeds and algorithms and thought processes etc. What is it about Palestine and Israel that is different that that there's so much stronger staying power with that issue by itself? >> It's not really about Palestine and Israel. That's the important thing. What it's about now is it's about Israel and Netanyahu. That's really what it's about. When to get our eyes off of Gaza because Netanyahu wanted the world to stop focusing on Gaza because as as we focused on Gaza, it became a very simple bully kind of equation. Like the the Palestinian civilians in Gaza have no standing military, no way to defend themselves. They're being their their their hospitals are being bombed. There's there's food shortages. There's nothing but crisis for the Gazin for the Gazin Palestinians. So Netanyahu knew he needed something to take the world's attention off of that. So after he had like essentially neutered Hezbollah and Hamas, he went after the source. He went after Iran. That got us all looking at Iran. So now there's there was an Iran Israel war for 13 days that culminated with the US sending bombers and bombing Iran uh enrichment facilities, right? That's why the that's where the staying power came from because now there's a new conflict and Israel's invading or Israel's attacking Iran. Now Israel's bombing and then Israel was bombing Syria after the fall of the of the Assad regime. Now they're bombing Qatar. Then they were killing leadership, Hamas leadership all over the Levant. The reason we keep watching this is because now Americans are criticizing Israel. Now Americans are saying, "Well, where is Israel going to stop?" Turkey is worried that Israel is going to bomb inside Turkish borders and the United States is going to continue to support them. Qatar houses the largest military base in the Middle East for the United States. and Israel violated Qatari sovereignty to to bomb people to bomb negotiators and their families in a secure base that was guaranteed with protection by the Qatari government. So Israel is taking steps that have gone beyond their original justification of we're trying to protect ourselves by eliminating a ter imminent terrorist threat in Gaza. how they're [ __ ] bombing sovereign American allies. I can understand why. Donald Trump understands why. Which is why at the UN vote recently, 10 countries, nine countries stood with Israel. The United States was one of them. And 140 other countries demanded a a two-state solution in Palestine. The UN is completely against Israel. There's there's a handful of countries that are still supporting Israel because we understand that Israel is playing a game that really does benefit all of us. And that's why people in the United States are not understanding. They don't understand Qatar isn't really a good guy. Yes, they have our base there, but they're also essentially the Dubai of terrorist finance. They pay everybody and they are they're they're a pass through for terrorist organizations all over the world. Do >> go ahead. and and they have a huge reputation in the Middle East of intentionally um boosting Islamic fundamentalism even though Saudi Arabia and UAE are working against it. So even in the region itself Qatar is kind of the black sheep the villain of the Middle East. Saudis don't like them. Uh Emiratis don't like them and Qatar is also the host of Alazer News. That's their national news outlet. So you've got a a very powerful news outlet with international reach that leans fundamentalist Islam that also supports a state that is the finance hub for Islamic extremism. It just so happens that they also happen to have our sentcom. Why? That all goes back to the people who made the decisions originally, right? Like that's 50 years ago, 30 years ago when those deals were made and then they were just never brought up to speed. And now we live in this world where things things change and and we get sticky. We forget that one of the 9/11 bomber the one of the um suicide bombers for 9/11 came from the Emirates, the United Arab Emirates. >> Yeah. I I guess you know I I understand. Hey, it's a big move. And I mean it's almost just completely unrelated, but kind of like Hawaii, you know, the amount of American military presence and resources there made way more sense than it does now with aircraft carriers and stuff. Not saying that it doesn't make sense, but the the kind of taking over of of the island uh when it happened strategically was much more understandable than it is now. But to move it now, you know, the cost and and whatever and is it that way where we just have so much invested that it would it would be so problematic and and take so long and cost so much money to move from Qatar and where would we move it? >> Correct. I mean, Bahrain obviously is a big uh a big presence and footprint now in a similar way. Could we not just move it all to Bahrain? >> I think that's that's a very preient question when you consider the fact that we're moving Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. And that's going to cause major disruption in both places. And during the time that it takes to move from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, the response time for US Space Command is going to decrease because there's a there's a disruption to defense service in that move, right? Even if you're just talking about people on planes or, you know, uh, software being spun down, other software being spun up. So there's there's a very real operational impact that comes from making those moves. I think the other thing that we're seeing is what the world is using against us, which is our four-year presidential cycle. >> Yeah. >> No president who initiates the move is going to remain in office long enough to watch the move actually take place. So, the next president's going to inherit or inherit whatever the outcome or the blowback is. And that next president could with the sign of an executive order cancel the previous president's >> order. I mean, it's that's the world that we're in right now. >> Yeah. I I mean, I I don't I've not been to Qatar. Well, it's been so long since I've been anywhere near it that uh I I can't even pretend to understand what the footprint is there now. But I I can I mean, to me, build everything in in Bahrain and when it's done and ready to move, make the move. It it can't take that damn long, I wouldn't think. But it especially given the representation that you just gave of the role that Qatar plays in the region, it seems like it's a lesser of two evil. It's like you you almost can't keep our presence there that that's currently there. In my opinion, >> it's a it's a it's a dangerous game and it's uh >> I know I know we traveled from, you know, Israel bombing Qatar and got on the issue of Qatar, but going back and it's the last kind of point I want to ask you about as far as Israel and Palestine and Hamas go. But even with, you know, the the historical reference, you know, in in the short term, we'll say, going back to the late 1940s, there's that window of of time that everybody or not everybody, but I think most people have have a general understanding of the context with which Israel exists in that window of time. when you go way back into you know uh you know preJesus time frame of of Judaism being in existence in that region and and trying to understand uh you know whose land it is and and borders and you know whatever rightful claim anyone can can try to attach to that section of the world. Do you think that that that plays a role and justifies either side continuing to fight over it to the degree with which they are? >> I think what the further back you go in history, I always find it interesting when people go back in history to create justification because it's history. It's not relevant right now. So both Israeli and Palestinian claims that go back to ancient times. There's centuries of new information that have to be baked into the conclusions that we reach today. Let's just go back to World War I because most Israeli claims happen at World War II. Well, at the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the Brits and the and the Western Allies carved out a state called Palestine from the territory that originally belonged to the Ottomans. So they gave the Palestinians a state and then they gave Israelis the same state, Jewish, they gave Jewish refugees the same state at the end of World War II because Western powers didn't care. And that's that's what we all need to just admit. The French, the British, the Germans, we just they didn't care how they carved up the world at the end of World War I. and and the Americans and the French and the British didn't care how we carved up the world at the end of World War II. We just shove everybody somewhere and let's get to the let's get to the the building part of this. Right? That's where we are now. where we're going is that you can't you can't completely ignore a population of people and you certainly can't kill a population of people or force them into some sort of exile and hope that the problem will go away. That's not going to work. Especially not when there's no economic benefit to the other countries, Egypt in this case being one of them, Jordan being another one. There's no economic benefit for them taking a bunch of Palestinian refugees. Israel is doing to the Palestinians the same thing that the Germans did to the Jews in many ways, right? Minus the gas chamber systematic killing. Now we're just systematically killing with air air raids, but the same kind of process is occurring simply because they're Palestinians living in Gaza. That's it. Not because they're Hamas, not because they're they're terrorists, just because they're in the wrong place and they have no other place to go. So now they're on the receiving end of a bomb. We have to find a way through that. More specifically, Israel and Palestine have to find a way through that because the rest of the world is dealing with their own problems also. And if the rest of the world gets involved, it's not going to be in the best interest of Israel or Palestine, it's going to be in the best interest of whoever is getting involved, whether that's the United States or France or Spain or any of the other countries that are taking a more aggressive stance in Israel. as unbiased as possible. Do you have a an idea as to what a even possible fix to to that region looks like? Like I think all of us are are stuck wondering what a realistic fix to that region looks like. You're going to upset everybody to fix it. You're going to create two states where there's where both sides only think there should be one state and then you're going to leave a mess for everybody else in the region to deal with when you step out. Right? And when we say we're going to leave a mess, we're leaving a mess for the Saudis. We're leaving a mess for the Turks. We're leaving a mess for the Amiradis because they're the ones we're leaving a a absolute cesspool for Iran to get involved and then we're stepping away from it. And that's such a strategically relevant part of the world, especially for us as we get ready to face down our long-term threat, which is China, right? It's very hard to deploy our resources from the United States to the Asian theater without hopping through the Middle East to get there. >> Yeah. So, in short, not really. >> It's going to be a mess for a long time. And and we just have to >> we have to choose which mess we're going to make and which mess >> we're going to accept. Yeah. Um, moving on to more domestic oriented um, issues. Obviously, this last week as we're recording, it's less than a week since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Um, I don't know about you, but I'm curious to uh, I guess before I share uh, my thoughts or feelings on it, I'd like to get yours just generally speaking when you heard about it, what your reaction to it was and even even more so what that means for us as a nation moving forward. >> You know, it's funny. I was uh I was just in New York um as part of our book launch tour and I wanted to be in New York for September 11th and my wife was with me and we wanted to show our respects at the 911 memorial on 9/11 24 years later. So we we were in New York and as as interesting as this is to me, it may not be interesting to you. I remember 911 crystal clear in my mind and because I was in New York and because of the scenario I was in when Charlie Kirk was shot. I will remember that for the rest of my life too. I was I was on set with another podcast, a major podcast in New York, and the podcast Leans Liberal, and we're sitting there waiting uh for lights to turn on in studios to get spun up. And um one of the researchers sees on their feed that Charlie Kirk was just killed, just just shot, right? This is >> uh the 10th of September, I want to say it was. Was that the day he was shot? So, it was 10th of September. It was about 12:15, 12:30, maybe Eastern time. Um, and this, if my memory is certainly right, and this notification came across his feed, and that's all that it was. And at the table, the question was, "Who's Charlie Kirk?" >> Wow. >> So then people start looking up Charlie Kirk and they're like, "Oh, he's this conservative youth uh influencer." And then the the tweets just start piling up and then they turn on the main screen uh the main TV screen and then we're watching Fox News because it's the only people covering it at the time. And we're watching Fox News kind of break this story. Meanwhile, the actual video footage of the of the gun of the bullet penetrating his skin and exiting. That footage breaks on the internet and they start the liberal producers start passing it from person to person having these incredible reactions. When you've seen somebody shot, when you see somebody die in front of you, you don't forget that. They'd obviously never seen anything like that and the video was was circulating. So, they're seeing it and they're they're exploding with like, "Oh, I don't ever want to see. I can't unsee that." And just like all sorts of reactions to it. And I'm sitting here and I'm watching this actively play out in front of me. I'm like, "This is incredible. This is this is me watching one side of politics not understand the reality of life. And then not 10 minutes after they were ex like talking about the the unforgettable view of watching somebody die. Not 10 minutes after that they start making jokes about how is it is it I think their their specific saying was something like is it bad that I'm watching this? And I just kind of think like and again I was blown away. I was like you guys don't understand or you don't understand that the violence that we live in right now has become so ingrained in our culture that you are blowing off a person's life simply because of his political views and that somebody took his life possibly simply because of his political views. and that we live in a country where educated, wealthy people who run a podcast studio are making jokes about this death. And I'll just I'll never forget it. I'll never forget being there and seeing it with my wife beside me and her hand on my thigh and we're both watching this thing play out and we're both keeping our mouths [ __ ] shut because observing people being people is so informative. And that's not me saying, you know, that liberals are bad and conservatives are good or vice versa. It's just me saying that we have become so desensitized to the value of human life that we think the politics matter. All right. Look, halfass sleep equals halfass results. You can train like a beast, eat clean, hit the cold plunge, but if you're overheating in bed, none of it matters. Quality sleep isn't always about how long you sleep, but how well you sleep. And science tells us temperature plays a massive role in that. Quality sleep is a non-negotiable. Recovery doesn't happen in the gym. It happens when you're dead asleep. But if you're tossing, turning, and sweating, you're going to wreck your performance. The Chili Pad isn't just per for professional athletes or special operations. It's for anyone who wants to sleep hard and recover harder. You set your exact sleep temp anywhere from 55° to 115° and let the Chili Pad do the rest. It's built for performance. You can set it cold as hell at night and then you can let it gently warm you up in the morning so you wake up ready to go. No alarms, no thermostat fights with your spouse. They sent me one. I tried it and now it's part of my nightly kit. I'm getting deeper sleep, no night sweats, and I wake up sharp. Visit www.sleep.me/mikedrop to get 20% off your Chili Pad with code micdrop. All caps, all one word. That's free shipping, free returns, and a 30 night sleep trial to test it for yourself. Again, that's www.sleep.me/mikedrop. Sleep cooler, recover faster, perform better. Man, I uh I I don't know how you sat there with your mouth closed, honestly. You know, um I don't think I would have had that same reaction seeing that, you know. Um I've never met the guy. Um, admittedly I I wouldn't say that I followed him all the time. I mean, I I've seen a number of his interviews and uh, you know, some of his events that he's done at colleges, usually clips. I don't think I've watched a single either podcast episode he's been on interview or one of those events in its entirety from start to finish. But I've seen enough of it to have a good understanding of what I think, you know, he stood for and was about and and uh I am um in in most ways blown away with some of the reactions. Uh but also not that surprised. Uh you know, almost begrudgingly so in in that, you know, ju just to your point, you know, the the trivialization of of people losing their lives because they said something that you don't like or disagree with to me is is such an incredible poison in this country. And and it exists on both sides, you know, for sure it does. Um, and I just uh, man, I it I I will say that for me, you know, kind of similarly, I won't forget either because I was sitting right where I am this second when it happened. We're doing a show with uh with another guest, Craig Douglas, and and uh you know, it's it's a weird environment being in a in a podcast episode, I think, in today's day and age because it's reminiscent of being on an airplane without Wi-Fi is that there's this window of time. >> Yep. >> Where you are completely isolated from everything in the outside world, which in today's day and age is excruciatingly rare. And so we took our first break and it he had it had just happened and so we had heard that he was shot. Took a very short break, got back into it. So we didn't know, you know, hadn't seen any video, just, you know, saw the blip that, you know, there was a shooting and and that he was either hit or possibly had been hit or so there was very little information. I was just like, "Holy shit," you know, and so we sit back down and go for another couple hours and then finished and then it was everywhere. And uh you know I I was completely shocked. You know again like thinking of it now maybe it was naive of me to to be even shocked. Uh but the I guess the point that I want to make is that for the rest of the that day and and even since as we sit here the following Monday um it it's shaken me and rattled me more than than I realized it would. Um because to me the there's such a difference between a politician in in a position to draft legislation or pass bills that have significant impact on somebody's life. And I'm not saying that somebody with his reach and ability to communicate wasn't capable of of swaying people who are in that position or even getting them elected. I.e. Donald Trump. I think he he played an integral role in in Donald Trump being elected this this goound. But to me, there is a huge line in the sand between a civilian, private citizen who's engaging in dialogue with somebody uh and being, you know, shot in a very JFK style, not just on principle, but where right after what he said, you know, the venue, the state that it I mean, there are so many symbols woven into that experience that in my opinion should scare scare the [ __ ] out of everybody in this country. Um because to me it it's it's just uh it's hard to wrap my mind around uh a that that it come to that uh and not just that it's come to that happening, but I think even more importantly the response uh in a lot of circles speaking to what you experienced in in New York when it happened. Part of this conversation right now takes me right back to the beginning of our conversation today when I mentioned how much I don't like being right. Two years ago, start talking about how my family and I are going to leave the United States. We're going to leave before 2030. You know, over the course of the the years that we've been sharing our plans, we've actually moved our timeline earlier. And it's in large part because this is the the way that the world, specifically the United States, is evolving right now. We are evolving into more chaos. Because just like adolescence, we forget how young the United States is. We have to go through a period of self-discovery to define what we actually care about. Not not the propaganda lines that we used on posters to win World War II. Not the the propaganda posters that we still use to recruit for the military services. Not not the promise, not the stuff that we say when we pledge allegiance to the flag as an empty pledge in school rooms that kids don't understand, but actually decide what we really care about, what we really stand for, what we really believe in as the American people. We have to go through a lot more darkness before we land on our answer that carries us into the light. That is something I've been trying to trying to communicate, trying to share because it happens all over the world. It happens we've we serve CIA serves in countries that are in the midst of that darkness because that's where espionage thrives. You don't want to go to a country that's that's clear and solid on its values and beliefs. You're not going to get very far spying in Switzerland. You're going to get far going into these developing countries, going to these dark parts of the world that haven't yet decided when you're working with war warlords who are fighting each other in Africa or when you when you deal with polit with pullet bureau members in China who are actively trying to undermine each other. When you deal with oligarchs who are trying to undermine each other in Europe, that's where you go to collect state secrets. That's where you go to commit espionage because those people are confused and lost and they haven't unified behind a united message yet. We may be called the United States, but we haven't been unified behind a message since we were bombed in 9/11. We keep getting ourselves lost. >> Yeah. I mean, I agree. you know, the level of manipulation that's taking place is staggering. But I think to me, obviously, neither of us were around in the '60s, but it it seems similar to that time frame where it was a a cultural awakening and and very confusing and divisive time where there was a pretty clear line in the sand on on two sides at least. But I am curious you know different from really any other time in history. I know as as human beings have progressed in let's say you know the printing press being a a significant um contributing factor to propaganda and and a a country's ability to have turmoil at such a degree so quickly because the spread of information can now be so much faster. We're in a time now though that's unprecedented from a global standpoint where you know you you can have instantaneous information being passed and when you have a subset of culture that is young enough to be hyper impressionable but old enough to not be within the confines of their parents' houses. you have this, in my opinion, petri dish of just absolute anarchy possible. Um, the level of brainwashing, manipulation, and radicalization that can take place on the screen of a phone or a computer in a basement somewhere or in a college dorm room or wherever. I mean, it could be in a ranch in Montana to not keyhole one uh, you know, element of our society. But again, with the analyst hat, how big of a role are foreign state entities playing in the subversion of our society in that way, and how can you defend or defeat it? >> I like your comparison of a petri dish because you're right, we're a giant experiment, right? I will also add to that though that the petri dish is getting bigger. That we're we're in unprecedented times now and the unprecedented times that we're in now came from unprecedented times just before that. And with the advent of AI and the evolution of AI, the only thing coming next is going to be unprecedented as well. So we're in this series of unprecedented escalations in the information space. So I completely agree with you there. when it comes to how much foreign influence is playing a role, it's hard to put a percentage on that. So, let me frame the question a different way. What prevented most foreign countries from influencing Americans was the incredible expense that it cost to reach Americans. You had to be printed in a newspaper. You had to be printed in uh some sort of magazine or journal. You had to be on television. You had to be giving your your information in English from a native voice. That's what it used to take to have any influence inside the continental United States. If you didn't have the avenue to make those things happen, you your voice wasn't heard. Very hard for Venezuela to impact Americans. Very hard for uh for the Congo to influence Americans. very hard for Iran to influence Americans because if they couldn't get printed in a paper or put on TV from a native English speaker, we didn't hear it. Now all of those barriers are gone. You can have an AI translate your script from Persian, from Farsy into English. You can have that same AI put some sort of, you know, B-roll clipped something around it. And now all of a sudden you have it on Tik Tok, you have it on Instagram, you have it on Facebook, you have it on Reddit, you have it on YouTube, and Americans are the ones consuming it. And then just like we were talking about with the with the algorithms that seem to give you enemas of the information you may or may not w