1 00:00:17,879 --> 00:00:21,800 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emi Lajashinskiek, 2 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:24,800 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:24,839 --> 00:00:29,079 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST, 4 00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:32,600 make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the 5 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,920 premium version of our website, The Federalist dot Com as well. Today I'm 6 00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:41,200 excited to be joined by Brian Dean Wright. Brian is XCIA and he also 7 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:46,320 has a new podcast called The Right Report. Brian, thanks for joining us. 8 00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:49,000 Such a treat this is great. Now. I started up by saying 9 00:00:49,039 --> 00:00:52,039 your podcast is new? Is it new? How new is it? You've 10 00:00:52,039 --> 00:00:55,799 been doing it for a little bit, well for the last year to a 11 00:00:55,799 --> 00:00:59,000 lot of folks out there might be new. We kicked off last April and 12 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:00,719 have been going strong ever since. We're just shy it one year, so 13 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:04,359 yeah, relatively speaking, it's new. Well, congrats then on the one 14 00:01:04,439 --> 00:01:07,920 year mark. That's a huge mark. I feel like a lot of people 15 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:11,519 start podcasts and they go for six months or something or three months and it 16 00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:15,040 just sort of peters out. But that's just such a great mark of success. 17 00:01:15,079 --> 00:01:18,799 And can you tell us, Brian a little bit about where people can 18 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,840 find your podcasts and what they can expect to hear on your podcast, you 19 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,079 bet, five days a week, available no later than seven am Eastern. 20 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:30,599 I bring folks around America around the news, and we talk about around the 21 00:01:30,599 --> 00:01:33,680 world. Rather, we talk about news that's happening that might not get on 22 00:01:33,719 --> 00:01:37,599 everybody's radar at first. But I use my background as an intel guy will 23 00:01:37,599 --> 00:01:40,799 take you to strange places and help you understand why we should care about you 24 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:44,560 know, Van and Watu or Uaga Dogu and like where are those places? 25 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:46,599 Well, I'll tell you. So. It's a lot of fun. We 26 00:01:46,599 --> 00:01:49,239 have a great time seven am Eastern on all major podcast platforms, and we 27 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:53,319 do a lot of domestic news as well, a lot of great political stuff 28 00:01:53,359 --> 00:01:56,640 and even the fun stuff again you don't usually hear elsewhere, like agriculture. 29 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:02,519 Well, you know, there's also some good overlap between agriculture and intelligence, 30 00:02:02,599 --> 00:02:06,359 especially these days, and maybe we can't get to that in just a second, 31 00:02:06,599 --> 00:02:10,080 Yeah, do it right? Could you tell us about your career history, 32 00:02:10,719 --> 00:02:15,080 your experience with the CIA, a little bit about what brought you up 33 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:19,080 to this point. You know, I grew up in a farming and egg 34 00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:23,719 family back in Oregon, graduating from college back in the day at gonte Goes 35 00:02:23,759 --> 00:02:28,599 Eggs, and I went into the intelligence community as a pretty young guy on 36 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:32,120 twenty four years of age. Went into the what's called the Clandestine Service, 37 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:36,800 So there different kinds of jobs. My job was to go out and recruit 38 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:39,719 spies, steal secrets, and give those two the folks back at headquarters who 39 00:02:39,719 --> 00:02:43,080 would take out down to the White House and talk about what's happening in the 40 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:46,240 world. So that was my career. And then I taught a fair amount 41 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:50,960 also with the military, and did that for gosh, lots and lots of 42 00:02:51,039 --> 00:02:53,400 years until the last three or so, and that's when I started doing a 43 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:58,199 little bit more writing, a little more TV stuff, and this podcast. 44 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:04,560 So this has been a great transition spending time for years avoiding cameras and Mike's 45 00:03:04,599 --> 00:03:07,000 and now I sit in front of them and talking to them as a no 46 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,199 longer clandestine officer. So it's a lot of fun. You know. There's 47 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:16,319 also interesting kind of reporting in that. I mean, it's just been over 48 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:23,280 the course of years and years about how if you are XCIA that the agency 49 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:28,159 still has to exert some control or influence over what you say. And Brian, 50 00:03:28,199 --> 00:03:30,680 I don't know to what extent you're able to answer that question say about 51 00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:35,800 your experience with the CIA, that is is that, how true is that? 52 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,639 How might that influence the way you go about all of this work, 53 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:40,759 I imagine has to be sometimes kind of tough to balance all of that. 54 00:03:42,759 --> 00:03:46,439 It's an awesome question. So if there are topics that I know that I 55 00:03:46,479 --> 00:03:49,919 have got inside information on and I want to talk about that, I have 56 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:53,319 to reach out to the agency. There's a review board, and they're actually 57 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:59,400 pretty good about taking the information and processing it sometimes same day, but otherwise 58 00:03:59,479 --> 00:04:02,000 I just really really far away from the stuff that I know to be true, 59 00:04:02,039 --> 00:04:06,000 from the clandestine world and my clandestine secrets. That has to remain in 60 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,479 my head for the rest of my life. But I will tip my hat 61 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:13,319 to the agency for on occasion when I have to reach out to clarify. 62 00:04:13,759 --> 00:04:15,199 They're pretty good at getting back to me. But I know the line. 63 00:04:15,519 --> 00:04:18,959 I don't want to be in prison, So I'm very motivated to write and 64 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:27,920 speak carefully bold, bold choice to stay out of prison. Bright to set 65 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:30,759 the stage a little bit. You know, there's this great piece that you 66 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:34,800 wrote for the Washington Examiner recently, actually like March twenty first, I think 67 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:39,720 is when it came out. The headline was the US intelligence community is a 68 00:04:39,759 --> 00:04:44,680 propaganda machine. And again this kind of sets the table because I hope our 69 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:48,959 listeners know at this point that we're not just throwing you know, hacked spooks 70 00:04:49,279 --> 00:04:55,079 up on Federal austradio hour. This is you know, serious territory for self 71 00:04:55,079 --> 00:05:00,759 reflection as you engage in every single day about what's happening to the intel community 72 00:05:00,759 --> 00:05:04,079 in the US and how it's evolved over the course of various years. You 73 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:08,560 start with this thing that Dan Crenshaw said. You say, last Friday, 74 00:05:08,639 --> 00:05:12,959 Representative Dan Crenshaw told a lie about US spies. He was asked if he 75 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,399 was worried about intel agencies spreading propaganda within the US, thereby manipulating our minds 76 00:05:16,439 --> 00:05:21,600 about domestic or foreign affairs. Crenshaw, laughably, from my perspective, says, 77 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:26,519 I know that they're not. Do you have some evidence otherwise that you'd 78 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:30,639 like to share? Now, again, this is a helpful kind of table 79 00:05:30,680 --> 00:05:32,759 setter. Brian, Could you talk to us a little bit about why that 80 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:42,040 smug insistence from Dan Crenshaw isn't in fact a lie and why the reality behind 81 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:46,439 that lie is so important? Right now? Yeah, so let's start with 82 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:50,240 this. I think most of us know intuitively that probably the CIA and FBI 83 00:05:50,519 --> 00:05:55,439 are leaking to the press. I will tell you from personal experience that I 84 00:05:55,519 --> 00:05:58,680 know that the agency tended to leak to the Washington Post. When I was 85 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:00,399 inside of the building, they would talk about this. This was the joke 86 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:04,439 that our seventh floor or our CIA director or senior folks, they would leak 87 00:06:04,519 --> 00:06:09,079 to the Washington Post. The FBI would leak to the New York Times, 88 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:13,160 their senior folks. So we all kind of knew culturally that that's what happened, 89 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,600 right so, which in and of itself is awful and wrong and bad. 90 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:18,319 A lot of times those leaks were actually directed by the White House. 91 00:06:18,439 --> 00:06:21,800 Sometimes our senior folks just did it on their own, kind of let James 92 00:06:21,879 --> 00:06:26,959 comy. But the point is, so anecdotally I can tell you that's true. 93 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,480 But the real challenge is how do we demonstrate this? How do we 94 00:06:29,560 --> 00:06:32,560 factually prove that it is true? Because what I know from when I entered 95 00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,680 in two thousand and one to the CIA, and what it is today wildly 96 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:41,000 different. I don't trust the agency or the intel community. So how do 97 00:06:41,079 --> 00:06:46,759 I prove this allegation that they are spreading propaganda inside of this country and that 98 00:06:46,839 --> 00:06:49,240 it is highly unethical, if not illegal. Well, what I show in 99 00:06:49,319 --> 00:06:51,439 that piece that you brought up is the fact that we can go back to 100 00:06:51,519 --> 00:06:56,600 December of twenty twenty two, a woman named Amirl Haynes, who is the 101 00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:00,480 director of the Office of National Director of National Intelligence. She was sitting down 102 00:07:00,519 --> 00:07:04,920 on BBC Radio four with a guy last named Fleming, with a British GHQ, 103 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:10,160 which is kind of their segent or signals intelligence, their spies that listened 104 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,079 to emails or phone calls and read emails and such. And they were talking 105 00:07:14,079 --> 00:07:17,360 about the war in Ukraine, and they were talking about how they were declassifying 106 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:24,800 information to try to what they said, prebunk or debunk Russian disinformation. And 107 00:07:24,839 --> 00:07:29,040 the goal was to try to put this stuff inside of Moscow, inside of 108 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:31,279 Russia, changed the hearts and minds of the Russian people, and then if 109 00:07:31,319 --> 00:07:34,800 not, try to change the hearts on the minds of all of Russia's allies 110 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:39,319 all around the world. So those are the two goals, and what they 111 00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:43,399 set on BBC radio, these two leading spies of these two countries hours in 112 00:07:43,439 --> 00:07:47,800 the brits Is they said, well, the propaganda operation where we declassify disinformation, 113 00:07:48,399 --> 00:07:54,079 it was unsuccessful, unmitigated disaster inside of Russia. It did nothing. 114 00:07:54,839 --> 00:07:59,199 Also did absolutely nothing all of these countries all around the world, who are 115 00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:03,240 Russia's allies. So you might one think, gosh, here they are admitting 116 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:07,000 that their propaganda operation did not work. Okay, well, then they added 117 00:08:07,319 --> 00:08:11,600 both AMERL. Haynes and this mister Fleming added, but this information that we 118 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:15,680 put out into the public sphere, the propaganda, it really changed the needle 119 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:20,519 and hearts and minds in Europe and the United States, and that is just 120 00:08:20,639 --> 00:08:24,920 disastrous. But they celebrated it. Now you might be able to argue, 121 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:28,000 well, okay, if they were declassifying really good information, maybe that is 122 00:08:28,079 --> 00:08:33,000 good for us to know. Well, we unfortunately know that they were publicizing 123 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:39,879 information that was in some cases just half true, the unvetted rumor or they 124 00:08:39,879 --> 00:08:43,799 published stuff that they knew to be false. So it wasn't like they were 125 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:48,000 really declassifying this top shelf stuff that we all really needed to know. It 126 00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:50,840 was just garbage, and they were celebrating that, and so I documented that 127 00:08:50,879 --> 00:08:54,399 in this piece to say, look, Crenshaw knows better or he should, 128 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,000 that this information, at least on the issue of Ukraine, is being put 129 00:08:58,879 --> 00:09:03,360 out into the public sphere. It is changing hearts and minds on this issue, 130 00:09:03,399 --> 00:09:05,159 which, oh, by the way, Biden and a lot of folks 131 00:09:05,159 --> 00:09:09,519 on Congress want us to give us give Ukraine another sixty billion plus dollars on 132 00:09:09,559 --> 00:09:13,000 top of the one hundred or so we've already given. So we should probably 133 00:09:13,039 --> 00:09:18,080 say this spreading propaganda in this country, and I would imagine in the UK 134 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,080 might not be good, especially with that propaganda is false. So that's the 135 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:26,600 point that I make. The Intel community is absolutely out of its mind. 136 00:09:26,639 --> 00:09:31,279 When I was involved in various operations, the lawyers were always asking the question, 137 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:35,159 what is the potential blowback here when we do the propaganda stuff. Do 138 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:37,799 we need to be worried about this coming back into the US because we don't 139 00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:43,240 want that. That was happening into twenty fifteen and sixteen when I was there, 140 00:09:43,679 --> 00:09:46,000 and now they actually celebrate that it is coming into the United States, 141 00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:50,720 that our own propaganda is influencing American hearts and minds. That is wrong. 142 00:09:52,159 --> 00:09:58,159 It should be and we should be talking about it. Hello, thank you 143 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:03,320 for listening to The Federalist. This is columnist and podcaster Sarah Carter, and 144 00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:07,279 I would like to tell you about your new best friend on Friday nights, 145 00:10:07,639 --> 00:10:11,679 z Biotics. Let me tell you. If there's a surefire way to wake 146 00:10:11,759 --> 00:10:16,679 up feeling fresh after a night of drinking, it was z Biotics. 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You know, this was so 163 00:11:37,399 --> 00:11:43,279 central to the creation of these Intel agencies that it would not they would not 164 00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,639 operate within the boundaries of the United States. That was held sort of sacred 165 00:11:48,519 --> 00:11:52,759 as a founding principle of these Intel agencies, at least publicly. That's not 166 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,559 to say there wasn't a funny business going on. We know, for example, 167 00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:58,039 with Chadgar Hoover. You know, there's all kinds of stuff going on. 168 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:01,519 FBI is differently the CIA, obviously, but with the CIA, I 169 00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:05,080 mean, there are various different things I'm sure people will point to, but 170 00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:09,639 that was held sacred. That was really a line that publicly at least was 171 00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:16,120 not crossable. And then we have had so much reporting since on former Intel 172 00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:20,759 guys collaborating on the Hunter Biden laptop propaganda letter. We know that people were 173 00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:26,919 using CIA email addresses to help in the organizing of signatures for that letter and 174 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:31,320 censoring the Hunter Biden laptop on the guys that it was potential Russian propaganda. 175 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:35,440 I guess I just want to ask Brian, you know you mentioned that you 176 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:39,600 started in two thousand and one, so just the watershed moment in the history 177 00:12:39,639 --> 00:12:45,600 of American Intel, global Intel obviously nine to eleven, along with the influx 178 00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:48,919 of online technology and all these different tools. It was, you know, 179 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:54,960 such a such a crucial hinge point in history. What went wrong? Where 180 00:12:54,000 --> 00:13:01,159 did all of this start to change and why? If you ask those of 181 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:05,039 us who started right after or right during nine to eleven, such as me, 182 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:07,879 I think a lot of us started to see the change. And around 183 00:13:09,679 --> 00:13:13,000 twenty ten or so, first of all, we just stopped, I think, 184 00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:16,679 having that passion for the mission. I think there were a lot of 185 00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:20,360 folks who were there more for themselves to feed their egos. The culture started 186 00:13:20,399 --> 00:13:22,639 to change a bit. I think all of us saw that, because again 187 00:13:22,639 --> 00:13:26,639 we came on you know, days or weeks after or before the nine to 188 00:13:26,639 --> 00:13:31,919 eleven attacks, so we were motivated by mission, by country and love for 189 00:13:31,039 --> 00:13:35,600 our country. That changed, and I would say around twenty ten, give 190 00:13:35,679 --> 00:13:39,159 or take. I also think that the culture started to change because of who 191 00:13:39,159 --> 00:13:43,639 we were hiring, and they were all under the Obama administration. There were 192 00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:46,320 a lot of folks who came on board where it was all about the me 193 00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:50,720 show, it wasn't about mission, and I started to see some of that. 194 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:54,120 That's sort of what we would now call DEI stuff, the diversity, 195 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,720 equity inclusion world. We started to see that creeping in in around twenty ten 196 00:14:00,399 --> 00:14:03,840 twelve. So I put part of it to that, But at the end 197 00:14:03,879 --> 00:14:07,600 of the day, it's about terrible leadership, both at the White House and 198 00:14:07,639 --> 00:14:11,799 whoever they choose to run the CIA. If you are not mission only, 199 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:16,480 and you are mission sometimes but politics other times, which is what we currently 200 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:20,039 have, then you are going to get a very very horrific situation where you've 201 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:22,200 got a deep state, or you've got what Chuck Schumer said said back in 202 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:26,519 twenty seventeen, which is an intel community that could have six ways of Sunday 203 00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:31,519 to get after politicians who are duly elected by you, all by us the 204 00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:35,200 voters. That's what we have right now, and that not only came from 205 00:14:35,279 --> 00:14:37,320 Chuck Schumer, but we've got, as you allude to, a couple of 206 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:41,679 Special Council reports, We've got Inspector General report to talk about the lack of 207 00:14:41,679 --> 00:14:46,039 strict fidelity to the law by the FBI. Yeah, that's another word for 208 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:50,840 lawlessness by our bureau. That's awful. So we've seen, i think, 209 00:14:50,879 --> 00:14:54,759 over the past ten years, a real profound assault on the country. It 210 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,120 is an attack on this nation by folks in the intel community, which really 211 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:03,159 is the definition of the deep state. Yeah, that's so interesting. Maybe 212 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:07,519 just I'm also interested in what it was like to be at the CIA around 213 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:13,799 two thousand and one and maybe throughout the kind of early heady days of the 214 00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:18,360 War on Terror, just being there and being around, you know, so 215 00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:22,759 many genuinely very brave people, so many genuinely very well intentioned people, but 216 00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:28,200 also in the midst of this real and justified panic. What was it like 217 00:15:28,399 --> 00:15:33,360 just to be someone spending every day, you know, in that environment at 218 00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:37,240 the time, you know, the word incredible comes to mind. You know, 219 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:41,039 it really was the best of times because we had a lot of men 220 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:43,919 and women who showed up because they wanted to deserve the country. They wanted 221 00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:48,360 to defend the country, and that was their motivation. So you were surrounded 222 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,840 by these incredible men and women who were diverse, but not because that was 223 00:15:52,879 --> 00:15:56,879 the goal. We had folks who are Christian and Muslim, and gay and 224 00:15:56,919 --> 00:16:00,279 straight and black and white, didn't matter. We all came to work every 225 00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:04,759 day focus on trying to protect the country, figure out who al Katta was 226 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,399 and where their threats were coming from inside and outside of the country. It 227 00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:12,799 was incredible. It really was amazing. And you know, I had so 228 00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:18,600 many amazing and wonderful memories of a lot of these folks who sacrificed so much, 229 00:16:18,879 --> 00:16:22,840 and to include their lives, I will never forget some of my first 230 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:26,120 early colleagues who I went through training with, who didn't come home, and 231 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:30,360 their memories I will always live in my heart and mind. You don't forget 232 00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:33,080 those folks. So it was an intense time when you know, you would 233 00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:37,559 go out and have a lunch and you look up on the sky after the 234 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,559 weeks after nine eleven, and you would see that when the planes were allowed 235 00:16:40,759 --> 00:16:42,440 to fly again, you would see them and think, well, this won't 236 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:47,279 come unto me or not, and there was a degree of concern. I 237 00:16:47,279 --> 00:16:48,840 think a lot of us every day were like, well, maybe this is 238 00:16:48,879 --> 00:16:52,639 the day that the agency gets hit. I don't know, but we got 239 00:16:52,639 --> 00:16:53,919 to keep going. We've got too much work to do, We've got too 240 00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:57,960 many threats to address. And it really was incredible, and it did intends 241 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:04,920 that I miss that era where people walked in and they didn't care about their 242 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:10,200 personal politics. They weren't there for a snuggle session about you know, I'm 243 00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:14,119 whatever. Was at an infamous CIA recruitment ad that came out about three years 244 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,319 ago where the gal said that she was intersectional, which I think is a 245 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:21,519 kind of couch. I don't know. The point is she was like talking 246 00:17:21,559 --> 00:17:26,000 about all these things that were relevant. Right, I've latina, I'm anxiety 247 00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:32,079 disorder, Like what did get hero divergent? Right? Right? What do 248 00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:33,440 these words even mean? I think somebody just made them up. They're not 249 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,960 even real English words. The point is it's absurd they're hiring these people who 250 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:42,240 Now was it? I think two weeks ago there was a document that was 251 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:45,240 put out by the Office of Director of National Intelligence that talked about how this 252 00:17:45,279 --> 00:17:52,720 person was a cross dresser and it made him a better Intel officer. And 253 00:17:52,759 --> 00:17:56,839 this person wasn't even claiming to be transgender. They just were cross dresser. 254 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:03,319 Wait, what, why why are we doing this? Why are we putting 255 00:18:03,319 --> 00:18:06,359 this out? And it was true. It's incredible. The Peace was talking 256 00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:10,240 about how the guy was a much better Intel officer because he wore ladies clothes. 257 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:11,599 Look, whatever you want to do in your private time, knock yourself 258 00:18:11,599 --> 00:18:15,400 out, don't care, but come on. So here we are twenty years 259 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:19,720 twenty five years later. It is an Intel agency and an Intel community that 260 00:18:19,799 --> 00:18:26,920 is unrecognizable. It is now yet one more extension of these absolutely crazy leftist 261 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:32,440 ideas that are turning the Intel community into something that it wasn't designed to be 262 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:34,200 or do. And by the way, I say that as a guy who 263 00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:37,680 was for twenty years of Democrats, so I feel like I have a little 264 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:41,160 bit of cred on this and I left that crazy party. But at any 265 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:48,319 rate, it's just it's unrecognizable. The place is unrecognizable that it keeps you 266 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:52,640 tossing and turning at night. You just can't get away from it. But 267 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:56,119 the truth is the system is actually designed to trap you in debt insanely high 268 00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:00,160 interest credit cards and loans make it nearly impossible to pay off your debt. 269 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:04,359 But there's a new way out of the debt trap Pivotal Debt Solutions. Pivotal 270 00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:10,200 Debt Solutions isn't like the old school debt relief companies that string your debt out 271 00:19:10,319 --> 00:19:15,000 for years. They have new aggressive strategies that can end your debt faster and 272 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:19,680 easier than you thought possible. Pivotal Debt Solutions can cut or even eliminate interest, 273 00:19:19,799 --> 00:19:23,720 find programs to write off your balances so you owe less, stop those 274 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:30,000 threatening phone calls without bankruptcy and without alone. 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And you know, he looks 283 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:19,119 at people like Clapper and Brennan and says, these are actual ideological leftists and 284 00:20:19,319 --> 00:20:26,440 they have brought this this ideology into the bureau, or not the Bureau, 285 00:20:26,519 --> 00:20:30,839 into the CIA and into the intel world. And that, to a lot 286 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:34,559 of people, especially my friends on the left, is going to sound absolutely 287 00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:37,599 laughable. I mean, when you watch the CIA recruitment video that you just 288 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,240 referenced, it becomes a lot less laughable. But I wonder, Brian, 289 00:20:41,279 --> 00:20:47,839 from your perspective, do you see this as kind of a haphazard battle between 290 00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:52,480 the young millennial employees who are just woke in ways that they don't really even 291 00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:57,559 understand and want a virtue signal and you know, believe in gay rights and 292 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:04,759 women's rights and all of that. Or is it this deeper ideological struggle that 293 00:21:04,839 --> 00:21:07,720 really is rooted in you know, maybe some of the things that like Chris 294 00:21:07,799 --> 00:21:12,799 Rufo talks about with cultural Marxism. Where do you kind of fall on assessing 295 00:21:12,799 --> 00:21:17,519 how deep this is? Well, I actually think that it's both. So 296 00:21:17,559 --> 00:21:19,119 I think that you've got a lot of young people who have been brought up 297 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:23,400 in this cultural Marxist stop over the past twenty or thirty years, and they 298 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:29,240 now believe that they might not necessarily understand that the Marxist underpinnings or the goals 299 00:21:29,319 --> 00:21:33,599 of some of the more Marxist leadership, but they are living in the world 300 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:37,440 that these folks have created, so they come into work with all the wokism 301 00:21:37,519 --> 00:21:44,559 which really is centered in this Marxist cultural revolution. So what I have seen 302 00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,920 and I know for sure, I'll give you just one example. There was 303 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,079 someone at the agency who believes themselves to be transgendered. They came in and 304 00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:57,000 they were going to file an appeal or a demand that some people be fired 305 00:21:57,039 --> 00:22:02,640 because they saw on the person bumper sticker it said Trump for President. And 306 00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:07,079 this obviously was a number of years ago, and so the person believed themselves 307 00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:11,599 to be so important, that their beliefs and values were more important than anybody 308 00:22:11,599 --> 00:22:15,240 else's that they could file this claim and get that person fired because their cultural 309 00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:21,240 or political beliefs didn't cohere to each other. So, look, I think 310 00:22:21,279 --> 00:22:23,960 that there's that group of people who have just been brought up in this radical 311 00:22:25,039 --> 00:22:27,799 leftist stuff and they're living in the world that they might not understand have been 312 00:22:27,799 --> 00:22:32,000 created for them, but it certainly is true, because yes, John Brennan 313 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:36,480 and some of those guys absolutely swing way left and they're bringing that Marxist stuff 314 00:22:36,519 --> 00:22:38,519 along with him. And then of course you've just got the guys who are 315 00:22:38,519 --> 00:22:42,839 the true old school deep staters. Let me give you an example, aldrich 316 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:48,880 Ames. He was a former CIA operations officer. He worked secretly for the 317 00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:52,440 Soviet Union. When he was caught by the FBI. He was asked why 318 00:22:52,519 --> 00:22:56,039 to do it, and he said, because I know what's best for America's 319 00:22:56,119 --> 00:23:00,440 national security and I'm going to act on that. This is the James Comy 320 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:04,599 or aldrich Ames deep state, where they're just going to do what they want 321 00:23:04,799 --> 00:23:08,079 because they think they're smarter and better than the rest of us. So you've 322 00:23:08,079 --> 00:23:12,599 got that kind of leadership, you've got the John Brennan radical leptist, communist, 323 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:17,519 socialist, Marxist stuff, and then you've got a lot of younger people 324 00:23:17,559 --> 00:23:22,319 from that trans person I mentioned to others who they just want to be the 325 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:27,640 intersectional neuro divergent person because they think that's normal and it's not. So we've 326 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:33,039 got this really awful mix of a lot of different kinds of people, different 327 00:23:33,039 --> 00:23:34,799 motivations. But the end of the day, what did I not mention and 328 00:23:34,839 --> 00:23:40,839 all that of why people are there? The mission the country, defending the 329 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,000 nation, that is why everybody should be there, and that is what is 330 00:23:44,039 --> 00:23:47,240 being sacrificed, and instead you've got a bunch of people with a lot of 331 00:23:47,279 --> 00:23:52,000 power using it for very terrible means. I'm kind of scared to ask this 332 00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:56,720 question, but from the inside, how frightened are you about the apparent lack 333 00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:00,720 of competence and preparation sort of on full display. A lot of people see 334 00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:06,279 this more broadly with the Pentagon, Afghanistan and Mark Millie and there have been 335 00:24:06,319 --> 00:24:08,640 all kinds of connections drawn there. But you know, again, just you 336 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:14,880 have such helpful perspective on this, you have experience from the inside. Are 337 00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:21,359 there kind of everyday ways that scare you? If the or as the CIA 338 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:26,519 in particular, has embraced this ideology not just for these kind of ideological concerns, 339 00:24:26,519 --> 00:24:30,519 but for these concerns of just like basic preparations, our ability to defend 340 00:24:30,559 --> 00:24:34,279 the country. The border is a really good example, not that that's the 341 00:24:34,319 --> 00:24:37,359 CIA's fault. But just you know, we have all kinds of different people 342 00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:41,079 from the terrorists watch list coming in the border, you know, every few 343 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,920 days basically, and we have to depend on the FBI, for example, 344 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:49,599 to be able to defend us from that. Are you scared just about our 345 00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:56,160 ability to protect ourselves? Amen? Yes I am. So let's talk about 346 00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:00,359 what we all know just CIA aside, and that is when you start hiring 347 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,400 people or you surround yourself with people not because of merit. So you're trying 348 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:07,200 to build a business, and it's not because they are good at whatever job 349 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:10,599 you're hiring them to do, but rather they check a box that you need 350 00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:12,559 because the federal government or otherwise tells you, oh, we need a certain 351 00:25:12,599 --> 00:25:18,119 number of gay folks or women or what have you. When everything that you 352 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,160 base your HR procedures and processes on and you will hire people not on merit. 353 00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,559 Can you do the job? Can you spy or recruit recruit spies and 354 00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:29,799 steel secrets abroad? If you're not asking that, then you're in big trouble 355 00:25:29,839 --> 00:25:33,559 because not only do you have problems in terms of collecting the intel, but 356 00:25:33,599 --> 00:25:36,480 then analyzing it. What does all of that mean? Well, if you're 357 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,119 not hiring smart people who you're hiring because they're smart, but because of a 358 00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:45,000 skin color or sexual orientation, then you are immediately and automatically inherently degrading the 359 00:25:45,039 --> 00:25:48,079 process of both the collection and the analysis of that intel. I mean, 360 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:53,319 just intuitively obviously, right. So yes, I am deeply afraid of the 361 00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,799 folks that are being hired right now. Are they really competent because they're not 362 00:25:57,839 --> 00:26:03,519 hired on merit and large So yes, I'm very concerned about that. Thank 363 00:26:03,559 --> 00:26:07,279 God. I will tell you there are some good people still left there and 364 00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:11,799 they are doing God's work. There aren't a lot of them, there are 365 00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:17,720 some, but I think that they from what I understand what I continue to 366 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:22,880 be told is they feel like they are being overrun by people who shouldn't be 367 00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:26,880 there, who are qualified to be there, and that is affecting operational planning 368 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:32,799 and execution because it is incredibly incredibly tough to go out there and recruit those 369 00:26:32,799 --> 00:26:36,720 spies and steal those secrets, get high quality intel that then goes to the 370 00:26:36,759 --> 00:26:41,599 president. That is a problem with your collectors aren't really competent. So yeah, 371 00:26:41,799 --> 00:26:47,200 I'm worried. And how much was any of this, I don't know. 372 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:51,079 I don't mean this spee leading question, but how much was this influenced 373 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:56,880 by or induced by morale concerns throughout the sort of broader war on terror in 374 00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,799 which the CIA, you know, whether it was torture, which I think 375 00:26:59,839 --> 00:27:03,519 we forget, how front and center it was to these news cycles throughout the 376 00:27:03,519 --> 00:27:08,440 Bush administration into the Obama administration, you know, different intelligence failures that led 377 00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:12,160 up to nine to eleven in the War on terror? Was there a crisis 378 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:18,039 of morale that maybe made it easier for these ideological failures to or these these 379 00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:22,799 failed ideologies I should say to Waltz in the door and kind of take over 380 00:27:22,839 --> 00:27:26,160 the CIA? Is there any is there any connection between those two things? 381 00:27:27,599 --> 00:27:30,880 You know, I think that there could play a role. I don't think 382 00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,680 it played a major role. I think that whatever morale issues occurred, it 383 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:40,200 was because of the folks who did engage in whatever you know, advanced interrogation 384 00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:44,200 techniques people called torture. Whatever you know, your view on that is fine. 385 00:27:44,839 --> 00:27:47,160 There were some people who got hung out to drive because of that. 386 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,680 They were following orders and they got in serious trouble. But the lives were 387 00:27:51,759 --> 00:27:56,440 ruined and people were tossed out of that out of work. But I really 388 00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:02,839 don't think that that created a culture where then it allowed kind of a weakness 389 00:28:03,279 --> 00:28:06,279 then this other more radical leftist stuff to kind of seep in. I think 390 00:28:06,319 --> 00:28:08,960 instead, if I could use an analogy, I just read a piece this 391 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:15,680 morning that was talking about a study of British female athletes and the ask these 392 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:21,119 gals, are you worried at all and concerned about any advantage that so called 393 00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:26,400 to trans women have obviously men competing as women. And this survey was anonymous, 394 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:30,559 and it said seventy percent seven zero percent were worried, and they were 395 00:28:30,759 --> 00:28:37,279 a similar percentage were worried about speaking out. They felt that they might ruin 396 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,480 their careers, that they might be in trouble in some way. And so 397 00:28:40,559 --> 00:28:45,279 I think what happens is you start to get these small numbers of people who 398 00:28:45,319 --> 00:28:48,759 come into the place like a CIA, where you've got leadership. He says, 399 00:28:48,839 --> 00:28:52,960 hey, to these small numbers of people, actually, your cross dressing 400 00:28:52,359 --> 00:28:56,599 is totally normal, and everybody should accept your cross dressing and if they don't, 401 00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,440 they're a bigot. Well wait a minute. If course everybody's like wait, 402 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,000 what, that's crazy, But if it's set enough and if enough people 403 00:29:04,039 --> 00:29:07,240 sort of now there doesn't go along with it. Suddenly the majority, the 404 00:29:07,279 --> 00:29:11,880 seventy percent in the UK today or the majority of folks at the CIA, 405 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,039 are like, oh, well, I don't want to not get promoted. 406 00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:18,160 I don't want to get the job that I really want. So I'm just 407 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,720 going to keep my head down and I'm not going to say that that is 408 00:29:21,759 --> 00:29:25,200 actually crazy that we should be not you know what I mean. So I 409 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:30,359 think that that is probably helps explain when Obama and others came into the White 410 00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,839 House, they chose their CIA leadership. They were not focused on mission. 411 00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,799 They were focused on this social engineering stuff, mostly radical leftist stuff that changed 412 00:29:37,799 --> 00:29:41,559 then the culture, and so the people who were there for a mission shut 413 00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,400 up and kept their heads down continue to do the job, thank god. 414 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,160 But then they brought in a whole bunch of other people who are not interested 415 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,920 in doing the job because they were intersectional and neurodivergent and the rest of it. 416 00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,039 And now it seems like they're the normal ones, but they're not. 417 00:29:55,559 --> 00:29:56,880 So you want to change that, we can talk about how to do that, 418 00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:03,279 but it needs to be changed. Hello, thank you for listening to 419 00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:07,200 the federalist. 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Asked that zbiotics dot com 436 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:29,400 slash r A d io radio and use the code radio r A d i 437 00:31:29,519 --> 00:31:33,799 O at checkout for fifteen percent off. Thank you z biotics for sponsoring this 438 00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:41,759 episode and our good times. You know the There's a line towards the end 439 00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:48,240 of Howard Hunt's memoir that's always stuck with me. It was written, I 440 00:31:48,279 --> 00:31:51,640 want to say, two thousand and seven, and obviously Howard Hunt is famously 441 00:31:51,759 --> 00:31:57,400 longtime CIA operative, involved in Bay of Pigs and Watergate and Guatemala and all 442 00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:01,119 of that. But the former too, I believe. But he wrote, 443 00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:07,759 if we're right, he really blamed the Church Committee and the reforms that came 444 00:32:07,759 --> 00:32:12,440 out of the Church Committee and some of the crisis of confidence that came out 445 00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,440 of the Church Committee. As he was looking at the Iraq War, he 446 00:32:15,519 --> 00:32:20,720 thought, you know, if we had a stronger, unhampered CIA, what 447 00:32:20,759 --> 00:32:25,599 we could have done was something more covert and precise in the Middle East, 448 00:32:25,599 --> 00:32:30,240 in Iraq, and we wouldn't have had to have this sort of massive boots 449 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:32,480 on the ground operation. And again this is what he's writing around two thousand 450 00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,640 and seven, he didn't have the benefit that we do now of hindsight. 451 00:32:36,759 --> 00:32:40,880 But I'm wondering, Brian, what your take is on that, because you 452 00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:45,799 know, it could be extrapolated to just about every conflict that the United States 453 00:32:45,839 --> 00:32:49,839 finds itself in brilden around the world. So it's a very broad and open 454 00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,119 ended question, but just sort of in general. You know, I'm coming 455 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:57,240 from this someone from a perspective who looks at breach of you know, Foyer 456 00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,839 Foya standards over the course of the administration and says, my goodness, you 457 00:33:01,839 --> 00:33:06,519 know, the CIA should have less power or you know, these intel agencies 458 00:33:06,519 --> 00:33:09,200 should have less power in general. But at the same time, there's something 459 00:33:09,359 --> 00:33:13,640 that seems so real to that that there is a legitimate argument we could save 460 00:33:13,799 --> 00:33:20,319 lives, you know, save American lives and have a totally different operation if 461 00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:24,480 you know, this was more Cold War pre Watergate. So two things. 462 00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:28,920 One, I think we can talk about the theoretical and what could be if 463 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,440 America were different, and then we can talk about, well, what is 464 00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:37,200 the best way forward giving the America that we have so the America that we 465 00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,839 have over the past five years, since twenty sixteen, I went from a 466 00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:45,000 guy that really supported the Intel community and really embraced my former colleagues. I 467 00:33:45,039 --> 00:33:49,119 did not. I knew that there were problems internally in some of this cultural 468 00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:52,400 stuff, but I didn't think that it would get as bad as it did, 469 00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:57,759 as we found in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Trump. When I saw 470 00:33:57,799 --> 00:34:01,559 that, what became very very clear. Plus a lot of those Special Council 471 00:34:01,559 --> 00:34:06,440 reports, we've got Chuck Schumer saying that CIA and the NSA and the rest 472 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,440 of situated and someday getting back at people are politicians. At that point, 473 00:34:09,519 --> 00:34:13,639 I said, you know, okay, this is too far gone. It 474 00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:17,119 doesn't matter what the importance of the mission is of the CIA or the FBI 475 00:34:17,599 --> 00:34:23,400 if they are engaged in such lawlessness, if they are attacking the nation hypothetically, 476 00:34:23,639 --> 00:34:27,199 you know, we could go back to even an earlier era where we 477 00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,800 got the untouchables. Right, there're such bad corruption and we have the eliot 478 00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:35,400 messes of the country rise up and start to take on the dark powers of 479 00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:40,719 the nation that I think there is a way to be inspired by that about 480 00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,079 fixing things or looking at guys, this is how it could be. I 481 00:34:45,119 --> 00:34:50,039 would only offer in terms of going back some of the era of the nineteen 482 00:34:50,039 --> 00:34:55,000 seventies and before you know, the agency and the covert action operations, those 483 00:34:55,000 --> 00:35:00,000 are simply tools of the president, so the resident can order one thing or 484 00:35:00,119 --> 00:35:02,320 the other. So the CIA comes up with lots of different operations or options, 485 00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:07,119 and then the present chooses. I would only gently offer to the legend 486 00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:14,119 that you mentioned the oss incredible officer, that we came into the nineteen forties 487 00:35:14,159 --> 00:35:16,440 and fifties thinking that were really really good, and we were, and then 488 00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:22,039 into the sixties and seventies we got a little bit overconfident in some of our 489 00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:24,800 abilities in terms of we could do all this whiz bang stuff covertly, and 490 00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:30,400 we really learned some bad lessons. For instance, in Guatemala, we did 491 00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:34,079 a terrible job and the covert action operation down there there was nothing covered about 492 00:35:34,079 --> 00:35:37,679 that. That was an overt operation. And we thought that we had learned 493 00:35:37,679 --> 00:35:40,000 some interesting things and we tried to apply that to Iran, and some of 494 00:35:40,039 --> 00:35:44,440 the Shaws and all that back in the day screw that up as well. 495 00:35:45,119 --> 00:35:49,360 So it wasn't like that there was a perfect era in the CIA's history, 496 00:35:49,519 --> 00:35:52,239 it's going to be imperfect. The operation is going to be imperfect because you 497 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,639 have humans and yet presidents and they have different priorities about which tools are going 498 00:35:55,679 --> 00:35:59,599 to use and why. So at the end of the day, could we 499 00:35:59,639 --> 00:36:02,800 create read a CIA that maybe gets back to the elliot ness like characters, 500 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:07,719 We hire those kinds of people who really just love the country and want to 501 00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:09,679 do right and follow the rules and the laws. And then, oh, 502 00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,239 by the way, because there's so much power there, we've got to have 503 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,800 good Senate and House oversight to make sure that there isn't abuse going on at 504 00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:21,599 the CIA or FBI. Yeah, all the systems are like we know them, 505 00:36:22,079 --> 00:36:27,400 They just they've broken profoundly completely. And so unless I knew that there 506 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,079 was somebody in the White House who truly earnestly loved this country, was not 507 00:36:30,199 --> 00:36:34,960 caught up in foreign entanglements like the Biden family is, and we had different 508 00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,719 kind of leadership of the CIA, and we started firing I'm going to guess 509 00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:40,559 about sixty to seventy percent of people there who are not mission critical but in 510 00:36:40,599 --> 00:36:45,880 politics aciet they're just not needed. Then maybe you start to recreate and most 511 00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,639 importantly, I just want to emphasize this. There has got to be a 512 00:36:49,679 --> 00:36:53,199 re establishment of trust with the American people because right now that trust has been 513 00:36:53,239 --> 00:37:00,000 destroyed, absolutely destroyed by guy who's like James Comy and Clapper, John Brennan 514 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,199 and even the current guy, Christopher Ray. One of the incredible things from 515 00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,199 one of the Special Counsel reports, I believe it was John Durham's, he 516 00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:14,639 called the FBI's lawlessness missteps missteps what no wawlessness that the FBI is on a 517 00:37:14,639 --> 00:37:16,440 misstep? A misstep is you know when you come home and you call your 518 00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:20,920 wife by the ex girlfriend's name. That's a misstep and you're gonna be sleeping 519 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,920 on the couch. The point is a misstep. It's far far more serious. 520 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,119 Uh. The way what happened to the FBI, that that lawlessness, 521 00:37:29,639 --> 00:37:32,679 it has to be made right and it has to be honored and acknowledged that 522 00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:37,679 it was, it happened, and then you get new leadership and you restore 523 00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,519 trust amongst the American people, and that's the way you move forward in my 524 00:37:40,599 --> 00:37:45,840 view. Right you know, RF Kid Junior has a plan on this. 525 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:50,519 Obviously, he has a lot invested in the reform of the CIA given his 526 00:37:50,599 --> 00:37:54,280 family three. Donald Trump and people that might staff at Trump administration have talked 527 00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:59,159 about reforms and I know Brian that you have some ideas about this. A 528 00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:06,039 lot of them have focused on separating the collection in the intel agencies and kind 529 00:38:06,039 --> 00:38:10,639 of bifurcating the operations. What do you think would help from a policy perspective, 530 00:38:13,559 --> 00:38:16,920 Well, the president and let's hope in this case, if I may, 531 00:38:17,199 --> 00:38:21,679 that it is Trump versus Biden, because I have no belief that Biden's 532 00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:23,760 can to fix things. He and his team are part of the problem. 533 00:38:24,079 --> 00:38:29,199 So if it is Trump or if it is mister Kennedy, whoever it is, 534 00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,960 has to understand that things are broken, because obviously you're not going to 535 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:36,199 fix a problem if you don't think one exists. So there's a problem, 536 00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:37,880 we need to fix it. Let's talk about the CIA. You've got to 537 00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:42,480 have different leadership there who comes in and looks at who's hired over the past 538 00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:45,360 ten or fifteen years. You look at those HR records, especially in what's 539 00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:50,840 called the Director of Analysis or Intelligence, plus the director of Operations, and 540 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:52,320 those are your spies who are out there. My old job, and then 541 00:38:52,599 --> 00:38:57,280 I would hand things off to the analyst. Look at those folks and really 542 00:38:57,519 --> 00:39:00,079 look at their You can look at their internal unications. You can look at 543 00:39:00,119 --> 00:39:02,920 their cables that they're sending them from the field, you can look at their 544 00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,360 analysis. You can talk to some of the folks that they work with. 545 00:39:07,159 --> 00:39:10,920 Who's there formasion and who is there because there's some ideological belief. That's what 546 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:13,920 you got to focus on. You got to root out a lot of those 547 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,639 people. Honestly, I think it is sixty seventy percent of the people need 548 00:39:16,679 --> 00:39:22,760 to just go thing and downsize and you focus on the mission at hand, 549 00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,360 which is to protect the country and nothing more, nothing less. So it 550 00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:29,320 really comes down a good leadership and then's smoking out all the people who were 551 00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,800 hired that weren't there or shouldn't be there. It just takes new leadership. 552 00:39:35,119 --> 00:39:40,440 Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you have a read on this is a 553 00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:49,400 big question I was going to say on the recent horrible tragedy in Russia which 554 00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,719 Putin now seems to be pointing fingers at the US. We know that the 555 00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:59,599 CIA has been active in Ukraine. There's plenty of reporting on that. In 556 00:39:59,599 --> 00:40:05,880 fact, Washington Post twice fifteen bases. Yeah, right, right, yes, 557 00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,400 exactly, and putting's pointing the finger at the US. So a lot 558 00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,800 of people say, well, they were heading towards the Ukraine border. That 559 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,519 might mean that there was some Ukraine US involvement. We still don't really have 560 00:40:15,639 --> 00:40:20,440 any clear understanding of what happened with the nord Stream pipeline, although there's good 561 00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,960 reporting in that space, some conflicting reporting in that space. But do you 562 00:40:24,039 --> 00:40:29,199 have an assessment just from what we're able to know from the perspective of the 563 00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:35,519 public, on how Intel is generally handling what's happening in Ukraine and Russia. 564 00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:38,760 Frankly, yeah, So I cover this a lot on the podcast. On 565 00:40:39,039 --> 00:40:43,360 Monday, on my podcast, we discussed this, and here's the upshot. 566 00:40:44,199 --> 00:40:49,360 These guys who were the attackers with isis K, they were tachiks and some 567 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:53,440 of them were laborers there unlawfully somewhere there lawfully, but they were very poor 568 00:40:53,519 --> 00:40:58,840 and they basically got an offer online or via a mosque that said, hey, 569 00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:00,119 participate in this and we're going to be a bunch of money, and 570 00:41:00,159 --> 00:41:04,320 then we got this escape plan. So that's what they did. They did 571 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,519 the attack and they had the escape plan going into Ukraine. So the question 572 00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:13,159 is did the organizers reach out to obviously somebody in Ukraine and they had this 573 00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,519 open window where they could sneak through the border, okay, the border guards 574 00:41:16,599 --> 00:41:21,639 or the whoever was the Ukrainians on that side of the border. Did they 575 00:41:21,679 --> 00:41:25,519 get some sort of official permission to do this by President Zelensky or his intel 576 00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:30,960 or his military folks. I would be surprised if that were true, But 577 00:41:31,119 --> 00:41:35,400 then again, the last two or three years have surprised me a lot things 578 00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,039 that I didn't think would probably happened have happened. Nordstream, I think is 579 00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:45,000 a notable one where the probably the Ukrainians they did that on their own, 580 00:41:45,079 --> 00:41:47,880 or they were nudged into doing it by some folks at the agency or Biden. 581 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:52,760 But the point is, I don't know if Zelensky opened up the border 582 00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:57,039 to help these guys because of the enemy of my enemy is my friend sort 583 00:41:57,079 --> 00:42:00,480 of deal, or if this is just yet another case of Ukrainian corruption, 584 00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:06,440 because we know Ukraine is massively corrupt. General Zulushni, who is the former 585 00:42:06,519 --> 00:42:08,519 a chief general of the Ukraine forces, He's talked a lot about this. 586 00:42:09,559 --> 00:42:15,039 Look Helen Keller could see how terribly corrupt Ukraine is. So maybe they just 587 00:42:15,079 --> 00:42:17,639 paid off some border guards and they were going to sneak in and this has 588 00:42:17,679 --> 00:42:22,440 nothing to do with the Ukrainian government and just some good old fashioned Ukrainian corruption. 589 00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,840 That's what I expect this probably is. But who knows that little land 590 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:30,079 over there is full of all kinds of hijinks right now. M Absolutely, 591 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:37,440 you know, there's been another coup in Niger recently, and that's kind of 592 00:42:37,119 --> 00:42:45,199 an interesting entry point to a question I wanted to ask about general US Russia 593 00:42:45,119 --> 00:42:51,239 intel battles, not just US obviously, also I six and you know, 594 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,840 kind of generally the West, but especially the US, Russia has made a 595 00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:05,440 very concerted effort to basically have these relationships in Africa that are much closer than 596 00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,119 I think a lot of people in the US realize, and much more valuable 597 00:43:07,119 --> 00:43:09,719 to them than I think a lot of people in the US realize. And 598 00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,920 you know way more about this than I do. Obviously, China is in 599 00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:19,239 the mix with Mountain Road in Africa and in South America, where also you 600 00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,800 know, you have Iran basically with land that has been gifted to it. 601 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:27,480 In places like Venezuela, there's there's this kind of stuffs happening all over the 602 00:43:27,559 --> 00:43:30,840 place, But there does also seem to be this, you know, where, 603 00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:35,599 why do we still have troops in New Chair, Why are we still 604 00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:39,480 you know, doing all of the operations that we're doing in places in in 605 00:43:39,559 --> 00:43:45,199 Africa and in like just the most random countries that people can think of, 606 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:50,000 and a lot of it seems to me that there's still this hardened Cold War 607 00:43:50,079 --> 00:43:52,039 mentality. And that's not to say that Russia isn't a threat. Russia is 608 00:43:52,039 --> 00:43:57,079 absolutely a threat. But can you speak to that? Do you see that 609 00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:02,480 kind of mindset as being too you inflexible and problematic, or is it, 610 00:44:02,519 --> 00:44:08,159 you know, actually that we underestimate the ongoing threat from Russia. So before 611 00:44:08,159 --> 00:44:10,960 we dig into this, first of all, I love this part of the 612 00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,800 world. It's so weird. It's like a star scene out of Star Wars, 613 00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:16,039 you know, when they're at the bar and it's all these weird characters, 614 00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,719 Like, that's this part of Africa. This hell, it's awesome. 615 00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,760 I love it. Before people are like, now this is kind of boring 616 00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,719 Africa. I'm going to tell you this story is going to become a big 617 00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,239 deal. It already is if you don't know it. But it's going to 618 00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:34,039 become even bigger because what Moscow is doing is taking all the migrants that are 619 00:44:34,199 --> 00:44:37,639 from this region in the Sahel and he's starting to push them into Libya then 620 00:44:37,679 --> 00:44:43,239 onwards into Europe to push that migrant crisis even from bad to worse. And 621 00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:46,079 they're doing it too into Guinea and Mauritania, which is on the west coast 622 00:44:46,079 --> 00:44:52,000 of Africa, and they're pushing those people to our southern border. So yes, 623 00:44:52,119 --> 00:44:54,199 boodin in this area, it's a big deal. It's super important for 624 00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,960 us to know and understand because a lot of those migrants coming over that border 625 00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:00,840 are coming from this area. Yeah, and it is on purpose, So 626 00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:05,239 let's just start with that. We should definitely care about this part of the 627 00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:10,480 world. Is Russia a threat? Absolutely? Can we manage that threat or 628 00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:15,199 that relationship? Of course we can. I would submit to you that Beijing 629 00:45:15,559 --> 00:45:21,000 is far more difficult to manage. That is a threat that is virtually impossible 630 00:45:21,039 --> 00:45:22,559 to deal with in many ways, certainly as compared to the Russians. So 631 00:45:22,599 --> 00:45:25,840 if you ask me like who keeps me up a night, it's not Putin. 632 00:45:27,039 --> 00:45:30,239 It's not the Russians, It's the Chinese, hands down. So let's 633 00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:37,039 start with that. Or second third, this area of Sahel region desperately poor, 634 00:45:37,159 --> 00:45:42,440 filled with Islamic raticals, particularly the more north you get, and that 635 00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,760 could be Isis or a strain of Isis or al Katta, and they don't 636 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,320 get along, so they fight each other. Plus they fight these regional governments. 637 00:45:50,079 --> 00:45:52,559 And we have just this policy where we don't like to work with people 638 00:45:52,599 --> 00:45:59,280 who aren't to firm democracies whatever that is anymore. And so that's why we 639 00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:01,840 no longer time to the military government in Nigier. We went over there here 640 00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:06,559 about a week ago. We wagged our finger that represented it from the State 641 00:46:06,599 --> 00:46:09,880 Department and Pentagon all. It turns out the Nigerian leadership didn't like that, 642 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,559 so they're like, get out of here, take your eight hundred troops or 643 00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:15,679 so, get a gone from what's called the air base two oh one, 644 00:46:16,079 --> 00:46:20,719 then a city called Agadez. And yeah, we've been operating drone base or 645 00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,719 a drone based there, firing on killing all of these Islamic radicals that, 646 00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:30,159 if properly organized, could not only destabilize the central part of Africa, but 647 00:46:30,199 --> 00:46:32,440 now they can do all kinds of crazy things, to include go to places 648 00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:37,880 like Mauritania or Guinea and fly all the way to our southern border. So 649 00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,199 we know that Isis is doing this, and they're doing this with the Ta 650 00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:45,800 jeeks by the way, So back to your question, is Russia threat, 651 00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,360 Yes, are the biggest threat? I don't think so. I think China 652 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,960 is a far bigger threat. This Sahel region. It's a big, big 653 00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:53,880 issue and a big problem for the migration crisis. It's going to make it 654 00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,960 bad in Europe. It's going to make it bad here. We haven't even 655 00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,159 seen the beginnings of it yet because Putin is finally stard to kind of get 656 00:47:00,159 --> 00:47:04,559 his claws back into this region. If you look at a map all the 657 00:47:04,559 --> 00:47:07,679 way from Sudan in the far east all the way to places like Burkina, 658 00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:10,960 Fosso and others in the west, and then if you toss in the Chinese, 659 00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,320 they've got Guinea lockdown and Mauritania too. So this area, by the 660 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,000 way, has a lot of very important things that we need, like box 661 00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,840 site and uranium, especially in these air We need that to fire up our 662 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:27,000 nuclear power plants and sort of folks like the French and others. So this 663 00:47:27,159 --> 00:47:30,519 area is really important from the migrant perspective from some of their minerals and some 664 00:47:30,559 --> 00:47:35,440 of the things that we need for our economy. But it is kind of 665 00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,360 an area that is so strange and so weird that it's hard to even know 666 00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,719 where it's out on the map for a lot of folks. But that's one 667 00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,079 of the great things that I love doing on my podcast is taking people these 668 00:47:45,119 --> 00:47:51,079 crazy places and helping them to understand why we should care. Awesome. Well, 669 00:47:51,079 --> 00:47:54,559 my last question is about TikTok, because I have some really smart friends 670 00:47:54,679 --> 00:47:59,960 who to the point you made in your wonderful Washington Examiner piece about Damn Creunch, 671 00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:06,119 see the internal operation, you know, whether it's former CIA people collaborating 672 00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:14,159 on a collaborating on a letter saying that this piece of journalism is propaganda even 673 00:48:14,199 --> 00:48:17,320 though it's you know, by all but by all measures at that point was 674 00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:22,320 true, it had been verified. But in your post over a full editorial 675 00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,519 process, whether it's that you know, you have these intentions from our own 676 00:48:28,599 --> 00:48:34,119 intel agencies that want to use places like Facebook, like Twitter, which we 677 00:48:34,199 --> 00:48:37,159 know Twitter was Jack later said it was a mistake, but they did block 678 00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,679 the sharing based on that letter of the Hunter Biden laptop story. At the 679 00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:45,960 time. So people say, you know, TikTok Twitter or TikTok Facebook, 680 00:48:46,079 --> 00:48:49,960 Meta is all the same thing. You know, these guys are basically defense 681 00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:53,760 contractors at this point, so you know you're concerned about TikTok. This is 682 00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:59,239 what they would say to me is basically it should be extended to all social 683 00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:01,320 media. My counter to that is, you know, the sort of latent 684 00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:05,400 threat of TikTok, as I've said on the show many times, is so 685 00:49:05,599 --> 00:49:10,119 high because there's potential for a hot conflict like immediately with China, and that 686 00:49:10,159 --> 00:49:15,000 puts American lives in danger. But again, you know way more about this 687 00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:17,559 than I do. Brian, what's your take on the kind of great TikTok 688 00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:22,480 debate? Should we be as worried about meta as we are about TikTok? 689 00:49:22,599 --> 00:49:28,000 Is Meta maybe worse than TikTok because it is a domestic company and is censoring. 690 00:49:28,599 --> 00:49:31,480 Where do you come down on this? So I'm kind of an all 691 00:49:31,519 --> 00:49:35,280 the involved guy, but I will start with what I think is the greatest 692 00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:37,800 threat, and that is the one from China. Anything that is owned by 693 00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:42,360 China and has influence over this country, that could be land, that could 694 00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,760 be a business, that could be a social media company whatever it is, 695 00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:49,920 if they have access into this nation, I am I am concerned about that 696 00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,679 and I don't want it. So with this TikTok business, if it could 697 00:49:52,679 --> 00:49:58,880 be sold to a US based company by the American run company that is obligated 698 00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,159 to respond to law, it doesn't mean that it is going to be responsive 699 00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:06,639 all the time or in the best ways, as we have seen through Meta 700 00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:08,719 and others over the past four or five years. You are correctly bringing up 701 00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:15,480 the absolute scandal which was burying the Hunter Biden laptop story, not just the 702 00:50:15,519 --> 00:50:16,920 skin. There was an attack on the country, but they did really they 703 00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:21,840 stole people's votes and they changed the election. So it is not to say 704 00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,440 that an American based company is not going to be a potential threat as well. 705 00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:29,760 That is I suppose true. Is old is the country right? We've 706 00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:34,000 had this threat of companies and corporations becoming too powerful for a long time. 707 00:50:34,039 --> 00:50:37,239 The Gilded Agent the late eighteen hundreds, I think was probably one of the 708 00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:42,760 worst in this nation. So let's solve the China problem. Let's get Beijing 709 00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:47,079 out of this nation in all possible ways, including TikTok, and yes, 710 00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,920 we can do the other thing at the same time, which is we've got 711 00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,719 to do a much much better job at this social media censorship generally the direction 712 00:50:54,800 --> 00:51:00,119 of the government by deep staters, administrative staters who decide that they want to 713 00:51:00,159 --> 00:51:06,079 figure out what the truth is and decide what everybody should think. Both of 714 00:51:06,119 --> 00:51:08,119 those things are threats. I think the most immediate one. Per your point, 715 00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:10,840 Yeah, we got to fix the TikTok one. That is a bad 716 00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:15,599 one and probably a little bit of a greater concern on a media basis. 717 00:51:15,199 --> 00:51:17,360 And then yes, the rest has got to be done too. We got 718 00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:22,920 a lot of work. It's overwhelming, but Brian, we are lucky to 719 00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:29,800 have honest reflection from folks like yourself. Again. Brian's podcast is called The 720 00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,559 Right Report. It's available on every major podcast platform. Brian, thank you 721 00:51:34,639 --> 00:51:37,519 so much for sharing your perspective on the show today. It's been such a 722 00:51:37,559 --> 00:51:40,039 treat and pleasure. And just to remind folks, my last name is right 723 00:51:40,119 --> 00:51:44,320 like wor ighd so it is The Right Report like my last name. I 724 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,760 would be honored to join me every morning at seven am Eastern, and I 725 00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:50,960 got to come back. This is such a treat. Thank you for having 726 00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,039 me on what a great one. I definitely we definitely have to do it 727 00:51:53,079 --> 00:51:55,679 again. Thanks so much, Brian, it was a blast. You've been 728 00:51:55,679 --> 00:52:00,480 listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour, Emily Tashinski, your editor 729 00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:02,039 here at The Federalist. We will be back soon with more. Until then, 730 00:52:02,119 --> 00:52:16,039 be lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray.