Speaker 1: And then comes Ukraine, and it's a classic David versus
Speaker 1: Goliath story. And and I think for a lot of
Speaker 1: us it was appealing because this was right versus wrong.
Speaker 1: There's no Gray, there's no Murphy, and and and then
Speaker 1: then what I think about is the same thing I
Speaker 1: thought about about Afghans, who we betrayed, and Kourags we betrayed.
Speaker 1: But the betrayal of the Ukrainians. Imagine if you're one
Speaker 1: of the one of the members of soft right now
Speaker 1: in Europe. I don't think they're in Ukraine, but in Europe,
Speaker 1: you know, training Ukraine, as are your CIO officer in
Speaker 1: at key station. How do you look at your partners
Speaker 1: in the eye this morning?
Speaker 2: All right, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes
Speaker 2: on Very Special. On today we have Jack Murphy and
Speaker 2: Mark poly Moropolis, the No Marines, Thank god, uh Locke cooking.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Mark of course, Mark, former senior
Speaker 2: CIA officer, current national security analyst, an expert. Jack Murphy
Speaker 2: of course or do you leader, host of the Teamhouse
Speaker 2: and writer of the High Side. Guys, how's it going?
Speaker 2: What's happening in the world? Mark? How are you you start?
Speaker 2: Because uh, I know you're red hot.
Speaker 1: No, so it's good. So you know, I just got
Speaker 1: back and I have a little home gym that we
Speaker 1: built during COVID, so I was just lifted and I
Speaker 1: was listening to French heavy metal go Gyra. So I'm
Speaker 1: all fucking jazzed up now. But but I wanted to
Speaker 1: say something because every time I come on, I love
Speaker 1: coming on the show. I've done this for years. But
Speaker 1: I was just out at the University of Colorado at
Speaker 1: their RTC program talking to the cadets about leadership. They
Speaker 1: they're they're the couple of the army guys, and invited
Speaker 1: me out just because they had they had heard me
Speaker 1: where on the fucking team house. Literally, I get a
Speaker 1: foc ball and said, hey, I heard you in the
Speaker 1: team house. I loved your leadership stuff when you come
Speaker 1: out and talk to the cadets. So I went out there,
Speaker 1: and you all have a huge following, even amongst the
Speaker 1: kind of youngsters coming up and so, and I want
Speaker 1: to tell you one thing. If you ever go to Colorado,
Speaker 1: University of Colorado and Boulder, oh.
Speaker 3: My god, what a place that's cool. That's exactly the
Speaker 3: type of audience you know that I hope we reach
Speaker 3: out to young people who are interested in, you know,
Speaker 3: serving their country in some shape or form, and not
Speaker 3: to not to really persuade them one way or the other,
Speaker 3: but you know, if you're interested in this, here's a
Speaker 3: lot of more information. You can listen to someone like
Speaker 3: Mark talk about, you know, in depth about the agency
Speaker 3: for in his career there, and that can help them
Speaker 3: make their decision. So yeah, those are exactly the type
Speaker 3: of people you hope you reach to.
Speaker 1: And one of those things is that they also with
Speaker 1: the cadets told me, and also there was a couple
Speaker 1: of jack a couple of army rangers who run the
Speaker 1: program there, but they said they loved how you know,
Speaker 1: you bring on folks and this probably won't apply today,
Speaker 1: but who are a political so, you know, because you
Speaker 1: have in kind of the vepro world kind of you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: people who kind of go crazy on the right, but
Speaker 1: you all don't do that, and you bring on people
Speaker 1: who serve their country and tell some unique stories and
Speaker 1: you try to keep it a political mind. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite things is whenever I listened to Team House
Speaker 1: and you see one of your guests go down a
Speaker 1: certain road and how you and Dave kind of madly
Speaker 1: scramble to try to get them back on track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we're not necessarily trying to go down that road.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I think I had a conversation
Speaker 3: with Doug Wise a while back where he said something
Speaker 3: like that. He's like, this is one of the few
Speaker 3: nonpartisan spaces where people from this profession can talk. He's like,
Speaker 3: there's not very many of them.
Speaker 1: So amen, Amen to you guys. So happy to be
Speaker 1: on as always.
Speaker 2: And just editors know by design, that's by design. We
Speaker 2: do that on purpose. And I'll me and Jack talk
Speaker 2: about this offline all the time that it hinders and
Speaker 2: has hindered our growth. Oh sure, we're going to keep
Speaker 2: it like that, even if it means less money in
Speaker 2: our pockets. Clear, you know what I mean, Like, we're
Speaker 2: never gonna just colt how so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is like a little aside, a
Speaker 3: little like anecdote that maybe means nothing to anyone at
Speaker 3: this point. But you know, many years ago I fell
Speaker 3: into the circle of Ginny Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice's wife,
Speaker 3: who is quite a sort of an activist. Not that
Speaker 3: I ever met her or anything like that, but she
Speaker 3: was emailing me and trying to get me to testify
Speaker 3: in front of Congress, trying to get me to talk
Speaker 3: to sixty minutes and all these other people. Not that
Speaker 3: I'm have a problem talking to Congress or journalists, but
Speaker 3: I realized at that point, I was like, if I
Speaker 3: do this, I'm allowing myself to become a political tool
Speaker 3: and the entire rest of my life is going to
Speaker 3: be different. And I was probably like I was still young.
Speaker 3: I mean I was like thirty or something like that,
Speaker 3: and I was just like, this isn't the road I
Speaker 3: want to go down. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things is I obviously has denoted
Speaker 1: I you know, I do some media commentary and I
Speaker 1: have a contract with MSNBC, so you know, take it
Speaker 1: whatever you want to take it in terms of ideology.
Speaker 1: But if people actually watched my my hits during the
Speaker 1: Afghan withdrawal, I was savage against the Biden administration for
Speaker 1: how they hose this up. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I try to do is
Speaker 1: is you know, call it like I see it, and
Speaker 1: that's what I think you all do as well. And
Speaker 1: so that's just that's just kind of a smart place
Speaker 1: to be that if you find yourselves being hated by everybody,
Speaker 1: it can be loved by everybody too. But if if
Speaker 1: you if you annoyed both the right and the left, Jack,
Speaker 1: I think you've probably done your job. That's the place
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 3: But I will say, though you know, all of that said,
Speaker 3: I also have felt in the you know, over the
Speaker 3: last month or so, that maybe it's more important, not
Speaker 3: necessarily to get partisan, but like I'm seeing things that
Speaker 3: I think are pretty messed up, and I think it's
Speaker 3: important that we say they're messed up, like this isn't cool,
Speaker 3: this isn't okay. And and I don't think it's necessarily
Speaker 3: a left or a right issue, like we'll talk about
Speaker 3: Ukraine in a little that, Like it's not necessarily a
Speaker 3: left or right issue. It's just like this is stupid.
Speaker 1: Well right, I mean, I have to you know, half
Speaker 1: of my friends are Republicans, uh, And I spend half
Speaker 1: of my day on signal chats saying, really, this is
Speaker 1: really what you signed up for? You know, Trump siding
Speaker 1: with Putin or you know, uh, you know threatening to
Speaker 1: fire the probationary officers at the CIA or or the
Speaker 1: special agents at the FBI. I mean these are actually
Speaker 1: not conservative principles from what's happening right now. So I'd
Speaker 1: very comfortable.
Speaker 3: The question is what are what are you trying to conserve,
Speaker 3: because it doesn't seem like they're trying to conserve the
Speaker 3: United States government or constitution at this moment.
Speaker 1: Look, government, you know, government sucks until you know, planes
Speaker 1: start falling out of the sky and terrorist attacks happened
Speaker 1: in the United States and your VHX don't get to you,
Speaker 1: and then there's a fricking measles or burf flu epidemic
Speaker 1: and you know your kids are sick, and so you
Speaker 1: know this kind of you know, war on government I
Speaker 1: find ludicrous. We won't. We want to reform government. Everybody does.
Speaker 1: If you actually worked, you know, you were in the military,
Speaker 1: I was in the CIA. I could spend five hours
Speaker 1: telling you all the reforms that are needed. You probably
Speaker 1: could do the same thing. We could have a whole
Speaker 1: podcast in the Pentagon procurement process, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: do we need giant aircraft carriers? I mean, look look
Speaker 1: at Ukraine and you know the explosion in indigenously produced
Speaker 1: drones that are having effects on the battlefield. So you know,
Speaker 1: reform is really good. But this is this is kind
Speaker 1: of the and I called the wet dream of the
Speaker 1: Chinese or Russian intelligence services. It looks like a COVID
Speaker 1: action plan to like destroy the US government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's the thing. If you had infiltrated
Speaker 3: your people into the United States government, you know, like
Speaker 3: j Edgar Hoover suspected, this is exactly what they would
Speaker 3: be doing. They'd be flipping all the switches off, unplugging things,
Speaker 3: firing people, just like jamming up the works so that
Speaker 3: nothing can happen.
Speaker 1: Let me say that the you know, I have lots
Speaker 1: of friends in the FBI who all believe in the
Speaker 1: need for reform. But the idea that you're going to
Speaker 1: take it's it's six thousand FBI per some of the
Speaker 1: work on personnel who worked on January six cases, nine
Speaker 1: hundred special agents. The list of them went down to
Speaker 1: this kind of weird omb elon Musk thing which we
Speaker 1: don't really know is secure or not, and then and
Speaker 1: to DJ. But one thing that I don't know if
Speaker 1: the American people realize, is that the agents involved in
Speaker 1: the January sixth cases were taken from the Joint Terrorism
Speaker 1: Task Forces because they considered it domestic terrorism.
Speaker 2: Which they were.
Speaker 3: They were taken from all over Mark. I mean like
Speaker 3: that sucked up like a third of the eighth of
Speaker 3: the bureau.
Speaker 1: But if you end up getting rid of these people,
Speaker 1: you know that that's gutting the jttfs around the country.
Speaker 1: It's also doing two other things. One is their existing
Speaker 1: case load, what happens to it? But number two and
Speaker 1: I don't think this has been talked enough about do
Speaker 1: you really want and you know, think about things we
Speaker 1: did overseas when we're trying to advise reformer security services.
Speaker 1: Here's what you don't do. You don't throw you know,
Speaker 1: six thousand FBI personnel or two thousand CIA officers out
Speaker 1: in the streets overnight were angry. That's a counterintelligence disaster.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about civil you know, civil unrest. People
Speaker 1: without with with mortgages to pay, with top secret clearances,
Speaker 1: who need healthcare, and who when they get when they
Speaker 1: get hit up on LinkedIn by a consulting firm located
Speaker 1: in Dubai that wants their uh you know, their their services,
Speaker 1: it's the Chinese intelligence organizations who are going to hit
Speaker 1: them up. So there's so many second order effects of
Speaker 1: just a lot of these really ill thought out moves.
Speaker 1: And but again I don't see a whole lot of
Speaker 1: pushback from from the Republicans, and I guess the American
Speaker 1: people think it's okay. There's CBS News poll from last
Speaker 1: week said Trumpet a fifty three percent approval rating, which
Speaker 1: means this shit's going to keep going until something bad happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe I'm the one that's out
Speaker 3: of touch, right, you know, like you start to wonder
Speaker 3: this at all. You know, you mentioned earlier, like maybe
Speaker 3: America isn't the country that we thought it was, it's
Speaker 3: actually something different. It seems like we're in this point,
Speaker 3: this error right now, where people people who are intimidated
Speaker 3: by complexity, where I think the information environment has become
Speaker 3: so overwhelming that everyone wants to distill it down and
Speaker 3: you know, quote unquote common sense, and you know, you
Speaker 3: can that complexity and that information environment makes people feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: But when you start trying to eliminate it, I mean,
Speaker 3: the way the globalized world works today, I mean, we
Speaker 3: can't go back to the Stone Age, like it's not
Speaker 3: possible at this point. I mean not without you know,
Speaker 3: catastrophe and apocalypse happening.
Speaker 1: Right right, and so you know, so we're left with
Speaker 1: a time in which we are kind of battling for
Speaker 1: the truth. I mean, you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think de follows me on Twitter, probably more than
Speaker 1: you do. But I threw a fit and kind of
Speaker 1: said I wouldn't go on Twitter anymore a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, and now I'm back on.
Speaker 2: Jack's been good, he's out, he's not.
Speaker 1: And look, trust me, I get more hate mail and
Speaker 1: death threats on Twitter. Some of them are funny. I
Speaker 1: think I might have told you guys, someone called me
Speaker 1: an is Lomist communist one time, and that I should have.
Speaker 1: But I don't really know what an is Lomist communist
Speaker 1: actually is because it kind of doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: I mean, people, people are so brainwashed. I mean we
Speaker 3: we will do an interview with, you know, a woman
Speaker 3: who served in the army, and you get a bunch
Speaker 3: of comments like, oh, this is the DEI podcast. I
Speaker 3: was like, you're just the water buffalo, Like you can't
Speaker 3: think for yourself at all. You're just regurgitating propaganda like
Speaker 3: like a communist.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've done is I talked
Speaker 1: to I do a lot of talks to college students
Speaker 1: who are interested in national security careers and and I
Speaker 1: had a line in this and I kept it. I
Speaker 1: was brave, I was, you know, it's just at the
Speaker 1: University of Colorado recently, and I say, you know, I
Speaker 1: actually say, diversity, you know, is our superpower. That, of
Speaker 1: course is exactly what Pete Hegseth, new Secretary of Defense said,
Speaker 1: and his hearing, he said we should never say that again.
Speaker 1: And I disagree, and I just I tell the students
Speaker 1: why is because on the streets of places like Moscow
Speaker 1: and Damascus, the most sensitive assets are off and handled
Speaker 1: by female case officers. If you serve and you know
Speaker 1: work and serve in the Middle East, and you're a
Speaker 1: CIO officer, and you guys know this, but you know,
Speaker 1: for the audience, if you go out and what's called
Speaker 1: a surveillance detection route, it's the idea of you know,
Speaker 1: making sure you don't take surveillance the bad guys to
Speaker 1: your agent meeting. If you have a female officer in
Speaker 1: a full of baya, guess what they're not going to do.
Speaker 1: They're not going to get caught. We need to have
Speaker 1: female officers, We need to have people who don't look
Speaker 1: like the three of us on this program. I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, so many instances in which we had this
Speaker 1: ethnically diverse station in which they spoke different languages. And
Speaker 1: the reason, one of the reasons why we didn't get
Speaker 1: caught was good trade craft, but also is because we
Speaker 1: could look differently on the street. That's the best athlete approach,
Speaker 1: and that's where diversity is great. But when you hear
Speaker 1: things like the Pentagon is not going to these there's
Speaker 1: just a news article that they're not going to this.
Speaker 1: I guess it was engineering conference or event at a
Speaker 1: historically black college or something in which used to be
Speaker 1: a very a kind of recruiting tool for the military.
Speaker 1: Well they can't go anymore because of the anti woke,
Speaker 1: you know, anti DEI stuff that's insane. You know, we're
Speaker 1: going to end up and your some of your listeners
Speaker 1: are gonna go crazy when I say this. We're gonna
Speaker 1: end up with an all white intelligence and military if
Speaker 1: we kind of go down these paths of you know what,
Speaker 1: we can't celebrate you know, Black History Month. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't have a women's counsel and even you know
Speaker 1: at the Agency, when I go into these colleges and
Speaker 1: I talk to folks, and a female officer of a
Speaker 1: female candidate would come up and say, is is CIA
Speaker 1: a comfortable place for women? And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gotten better. We've had sexual harassment scandals. But here's why,
Speaker 1: because we really cannot you. You know, female officers have
Speaker 1: kind of a tremendous advantage in some places. But also,
Speaker 1: you know what, there's a women's council at the CIA.
Speaker 1: You will have a group outside of work where you
Speaker 1: can talk to people that doesn't exist anymore. That's crazy. So,
Speaker 1: you know, is the DEI stuff annoying? Sometimes? Sure it is.
Speaker 1: I went through all this stuff. I was told in
Speaker 1: a three day seminar that I was a racist. It
Speaker 1: was annoying. Did it stop me from spying?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: And so the pendulum is lung so wildly, you know,
Speaker 1: in which we blame plane crashes on DEI stuff. This
Speaker 1: is crazy.
Speaker 3: I was blaming.
Speaker 1: Should it be reformed? Yes? You know? Now it's like that.
Speaker 1: The it explains all of our ills of society.
Speaker 3: You know, blaming, blaming women and black people, like punching
Speaker 3: down like that is about the most pathetic thing that
Speaker 3: I can possibly imagine. That's it's kind of sad that
Speaker 3: there are these dudes that are just so intimidated by,
Speaker 3: you know, a country that is changing that you know,
Speaker 3: we're seeing like a backlash.
Speaker 1: Stuffs like you.
Speaker 3: I mean, are you sire melting right?
Speaker 1: You want to be this badass motherfucker in Special Forces
Speaker 1: or in the CIA, and you can't take a two
Speaker 1: day class on DEI and that's going to cause you
Speaker 1: to quit. I mean, this is crazy, it's annoying it.
Speaker 3: But I mean a couple I talked to one person
Speaker 3: who worked for uh, let's just say Protective Detail at
Speaker 3: the State Department, right, and he's in He thought, dee,
Speaker 3: I was stupid, but it was also just a block
Speaker 3: on evaluation, yes, and it said something about like are
Speaker 3: you inclusive with your team members and bringing them into
Speaker 3: the fold or something like that. He's like, it's dumb,
Speaker 3: but it didn't affect his job in any way. Or
Speaker 3: up at at Special Operations Command, they had a office
Speaker 3: with a DEI office with nine employees working in it,
Speaker 3: run by a PhD. They all got fired. And I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't really have a problem with that either, because
Speaker 3: no one I've spoken to knows what the hell these
Speaker 3: nine people did up there. So I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: think DEI is something that's going to be missed as
Speaker 3: it goes away. There's gonna be some other things, you know,
Speaker 3: like I should point out the Equal Opportunity REP is
Speaker 3: still up there at SOCOM, so I mean that's and
Speaker 3: that was always separate from DEI. So I mean, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: I think it's important that we recruit, you know, from
Speaker 3: a diverse population. But yeah, d I mean, it's like
Speaker 3: you said, I don't think it was like destroying or
Speaker 3: helping America. It was more like something that was like
Speaker 3: kind of annoying.
Speaker 1: So so fix it, you know. But but you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Musk's kind of preoccupation with this anti woke
Speaker 1: stuff and that or that if Pete Hexast thinks that
Speaker 1: this is actually what you know, has affective military readiness
Speaker 1: is insane. Let me just you know, my friends who
Speaker 1: have served that you know in the US Navy who
Speaker 1: just got back. These are some young folks who were
Speaker 1: you know, you know, driving a ship in the in
Speaker 1: the you know, in the Pacific somewhere says, you know what,
Speaker 1: our fucking ships are falling apart. I'm sorry, that's not
Speaker 1: because of de I you know, there's there's something fundamentally, uh,
Speaker 1: the fundamental reform that that certainly needs to take place
Speaker 1: in it within within.
Speaker 3: It goes back to what I said about people being
Speaker 3: intimidated by complexity. Like, right, yes, sorting the navy is
Speaker 3: a big, complicated, expensive endeavor. It's a lot easier to
Speaker 3: just blame transsexuals and be like, hey, the transsexuals. They
Speaker 3: destroyed the navy.
Speaker 1: You know that one of the I was out west
Speaker 1: of a while ago and someone was railing to me about,
Speaker 1: you know, trans athletes and high school sports, and I said,
Speaker 1: I said, you realize in Utah there's four of them,
Speaker 1: Like literally this this might have decided the presidential election. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Remember the Super Bowl ad that everyone like?
Speaker 2: That ad was incredible?
Speaker 1: Uh, And so the Republicans ran this ad. But I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like five thousand on the list of important
Speaker 1: things in America. It's not a voting. Oh come on,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's let's get us back on track. Let's talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's yeah. So yesterday the US delegation included Mark,
Speaker 2: Rubio and Lavarov met in Saudi Arabia with UH was
Speaker 2: MBS at the meeting.
Speaker 1: I don't think so oh no, no, no, no, they
Speaker 1: met before with.
Speaker 2: Him, Okay. So and they had a four and a
Speaker 2: half hour meeting and they came out Uh. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're a supporter of you, I wouldn't say it
Speaker 2: was a pro Ukrainian meeting. Uh. I think that's fair
Speaker 2: to say. You know, they came out saying that Ukraine
Speaker 2: needs to have made concessions and stuff like that. It
Speaker 2: looked like a hostage video with Marko Rubio with the
Speaker 2: Russian delegates. Yeah, so that's where we're at. There. There's
Speaker 2: some word that Putin and Trump are gonna meet within
Speaker 2: the month. Again, I don't know where it came out.
Speaker 2: Very pro Russia, I mean, and I told Jack this
Speaker 2: before the meeting, like they're gonna go into that meeting
Speaker 2: and come out with a different set of a new
Speaker 2: set of talking points, and it's gonna get disseminated out
Speaker 2: and these are gonna be the new talking points of
Speaker 2: what Zelenski's gonna have to do without Ukraine and without
Speaker 2: European representation at these meetings. So that's where we're at, Mark.
Speaker 1: So let me just start off this off again because
Speaker 1: I think Jack made a good point that we have
Speaker 1: to criticize things that that we see are wrong. But
Speaker 1: you almost make this on a non partisan basis. So
Speaker 1: I'll say that, you know, if you were Donald Reagan
Speaker 1: or John McCain, you'd be horrified at what was the
Speaker 1: betrayal of Ukraine and the resuscitation, the rehabilitation of a
Speaker 1: war criminal. It's Vladimir Putin. Yesterday was kind of the
Speaker 1: culmination of a shocking week in which the US policy
Speaker 1: foreign policy changed dramatically. You know, we were the ally
Speaker 1: of the Ukrainians. We spent sixty billion dollars to a
Speaker 1: triit the Ukrainian military fifty percent. Not a single US
Speaker 1: soldier was killed. Russia is our enemy everything from of
Speaker 1: course their invasion of Ukraine to you know, sabotage and
Speaker 1: assassination or operations across Europe too, by the way, and
Speaker 1: you all, I think I've talked about it, you know,
Speaker 1: paying bounties to the Taliban to kill US soldiers. Yet
Speaker 1: now we are at best a neutral party, and perhaps
Speaker 1: now we're actually siding with Putin. Because it wasn't only
Speaker 1: the results of the RIAD meeting, it was then President
Speaker 1: Trump's comments in a press conference in which he essentially
Speaker 1: blamed Ukraine for being invaded, and so you know, there
Speaker 1: was a former British intelligence officer made a comment yesterday
Speaker 1: that I'd certainly heard and picked up on. He said,
Speaker 1: US flushed eighty years of leadership down the toilet. And
Speaker 1: so I think this is a really a profound moment
Speaker 1: for the United States. Friends of mine, probably for you
Speaker 1: all as well who've worked on and in Ukraine are horrified.
Speaker 1: But ultimately the you know, well, there's two things. Do
Speaker 1: the American people care? I don't know. But where are
Speaker 1: the republics? Where the GUP national security set, who actually
Speaker 1: many have been in favor of helping Ukrainians Because yesterday
Speaker 1: and really the week was not a proud one for
Speaker 1: the United States. You do wonder, And I know the
Speaker 1: way my friends in Europe are saying, now, you know,
Speaker 1: are we the good guys anymore? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Now that that is the question, isn't it.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Jack?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think that a country changes overnight,
Speaker 3: but I mean, from like a political policy point of view,
Speaker 3: I mean, we're, you know, siding with the evil empire here.
Speaker 3: You know, Russia was up against They're on the ropes.
Speaker 3: Their economy is shit. They lost like eight hundred thousand
Speaker 3: soldiers during the conflict. Why in the world are we
Speaker 3: appeasing this dictator. It doesn't make any sense to me
Speaker 3: other than to be you know, it's it really is
Speaker 3: like these people cooked their minds on Twitter and they
Speaker 3: want to be like edgy contrarians, like, oh, let's go
Speaker 3: side with this, you know, dictator, this strong man. It's
Speaker 3: kind of bizarre to me.
Speaker 2: Jak.
Speaker 1: Let me give you kind of my thoughts on this,
Speaker 1: and I think you'll identify with it because both of
Speaker 1: us were practitioners, so I look at everything differently. I
Speaker 1: know you guys were very kind to say, I'm a
Speaker 1: national security analyst blah blah blah, But actually I always
Speaker 1: look at it from the guy or the gal on
Speaker 1: the ground. And so, you know, we went through the
Speaker 1: twenty years of the GWATT and I spent time in
Speaker 1: I Rock and Afghanistan and Syria, and so we trained
Speaker 1: indigenous forces and sometimes we obviously stayed in places too
Speaker 1: far and you leave with the whole kind of I think,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't want to speak for you, but you know,
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, I'm proud of my service. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's things are a little murky, like some of my
Speaker 1: friends really fucked up, Like, I'm not so sure how
Speaker 1: great God blessed me. We had to respond after nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. But a rock WMD like, you know, proud
Speaker 1: of the service there anyway, so you'll leave with like.
Speaker 1: And then comes Ukraine and it's a classic David versus
Speaker 1: Goliath story. And I think for a lot of us
Speaker 1: it was appealing because this was right versus wrong. There's
Speaker 1: no gray, there's no mercy, and and and then then
Speaker 1: what I think about is the same thing I thought
Speaker 1: about about Afghans, who we betrayed, and courage we betrayed.
Speaker 1: But the betrayal of the Ukrainians. Imagine if you're one
Speaker 1: of the one of the members of SOF right now
Speaker 1: in Europe. I don't think they're in Ukraine, but in Europe,
Speaker 1: you know, training Ukraine as your CIO officer in at
Speaker 1: KEYV station, how do you look at your partners in
Speaker 1: the eye this morning after what Trump said, not only
Speaker 1: after what happened in Ria, but after what Trump said.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are people you broke bread with, you
Speaker 1: spent a year plus with them, you know their families,
Speaker 1: Maybe people in their units have been killed. We were
Speaker 1: committed to to this then, you know, so I think
Speaker 1: of the guy or the gal on the ground and
Speaker 1: what it's like to look at your Ukrainian partner in
Speaker 1: the eye and see as they're looking at you and hey, hey,
Speaker 1: jack Man, I love you, but holy shit, you guys
Speaker 1: are betraying us now, aren't you. What do you say back?
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, exactly, what would you say?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's one of those things where like, yeah,
Speaker 3: as the person on the ground, do you have to
Speaker 3: be like diplomatic about it, like, yeah, support the policies
Speaker 3: of the United States government, but you know, we're still
Speaker 3: committed to this relationship. You know, I've spoken a little
Speaker 3: bit about it before. When I really you would say that,
Speaker 3: I mean, what else are you gonna say?
Speaker 2: Mag this is fucked up. I know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe like at a bar over a beer you
Speaker 3: might like, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not talking about like like like a conference room here.
Speaker 1: But here's where you got to be careful on this,
Speaker 1: because if I was sitting across my can't creating partner
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, man, like this is totally fucked up,
Speaker 1: this is wrong, and our president is this is crazy
Speaker 1: what we're doing. What if this guy goes back tells
Speaker 1: his you know, his his you know, commanders, and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, the agency guys here think this is really
Speaker 1: screwed up, and that gets back back to the White
Speaker 1: House and back to Washington. You were an impossible situation.
Speaker 1: Uh you know does that mean you you well, if
Speaker 1: you're in the military, you can't the agency. Do you resign?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're in the State Department, do you
Speaker 1: write a dissent channel? I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the answer is because I've not. I can't imagine a
Speaker 1: time in which we have switched policies almost overnight. Now
Speaker 1: we saw this coming. This all kind of emanates from Helsinki,
Speaker 1: you know, years ago, and Trump won when he sided
Speaker 1: with Putin in the in when Putin said, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't interfere in your elections. Jonathan Lemire of MSNBC
Speaker 1: asked him a question, you know, who do you believe,
Speaker 1: and he basically said, I believe putin over the intelligence services,
Speaker 1: So you can you can think of it starting from then.
Speaker 1: But this right now, this policy flip, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty wild. And so again for practitioners on the ground,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how you serving US embassy
Speaker 1: in Kiev. Now what do you say, Mark?
Speaker 3: Mark? What do you make of it as from a
Speaker 3: policy standpoint? I mean, I think none of us ken
Speaker 3: or should at all assume that there is some sort
Speaker 3: of grand strategy behind this, because I don't think there is.
Speaker 3: But still, I mean, why why do you think that
Speaker 3: we did this abrupt child? Is it just a case
Speaker 3: of like, well, Biden did this, so it's bad, you know,
Speaker 3: just like during the first Trump administration, anything that Obama
Speaker 3: did was bad, so we got to reverse that and
Speaker 3: turn it around. I mean, is it just contrarianism or
Speaker 3: is there something else going on here?
Speaker 2: Jack?
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great question. So a couple things
Speaker 1: just to kind of but to to prep for the
Speaker 1: answer to that. Let me say, there is no function
Speaker 1: in this government now, so ordinarily policy changes, policy discussions
Speaker 1: take place in the National Security Council, where you have
Speaker 1: and this is this I'm gonna get a migraine thinking
Speaker 1: about this because I participated that. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you have low level policy meetings at the NSC amongst
Speaker 1: the inner agency, and then it eventually goes up to
Speaker 1: what's called the Deputies Committee the DC, that's the deputies
Speaker 1: of cabinet agencies, and then it goes to the Principals Committee,
Speaker 1: chaired by the National Security Advisor. Then the President will
Speaker 1: come in, so there's a policy process and saying hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to do something different. I don't think this
Speaker 1: shit's going on right now because if you look what
Speaker 1: happened in Munich, Pete Hegseth stepped on his crank. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: You know, this is someone who is wildly unqualified for
Speaker 1: the job. And he goes out there and he gives
Speaker 1: this speech which which all of my information is was
Speaker 1: not coordinated with anybody, and basically says Ukraine will never
Speaker 1: be in NATO, just giving away one of our you know,
Speaker 1: negotiating positions. Wild Everyone goes crazy. Then Jadie Vance comes
Speaker 1: and gives this lecture about to Europe saying, actually, Russia
Speaker 1: is not your biggest enemy. Actually the European free speeches
Speaker 1: and people's minds are blown. And then Trump says something
Speaker 1: else that we have And by the way, General Kellogg,
Speaker 1: former Green Beret, where the fuck is he? He's and
Speaker 1: so he's supposed to be the envoy. So we have
Speaker 1: no voice in any of this. And the only thing
Speaker 1: that matters, And one of the things I've been saying,
Speaker 1: you know, on my TV hits, is that Trump is
Speaker 1: the only one who matters in this. And again you
Speaker 1: look at at you know, you know.
Speaker 3: You don't Trump, Elon and Elon right.
Speaker 1: Don't you think Mike Walt's a former Green Beret or
Speaker 1: Mark or Rubio a longtime member of the Senate now
Speaker 1: Secretary of State. Don't you think they know better?
Speaker 3: What do you make of that press conference they gave
Speaker 3: yesterday where Mike Waltz and Rubio they looked like they
Speaker 3: just had their launch eaten by the Russians, like because
Speaker 3: they didn't had.
Speaker 1: They have no experience in negotiations, They have no experience
Speaker 1: in dealing with people like Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister
Speaker 1: has been there for two decades. You know, God blessed
Speaker 1: Mike Waltz and what he did for our country. And
Speaker 1: Mark Rubio has actually been a voice against autocracy and
Speaker 1: for human rights. And they're sitting there like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, Saddam esque parroting the great leader of Trump.
Speaker 1: But let me go back to why does this all occur?
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that CI did
Speaker 1: really well, we fucked a lot of things up, but
Speaker 1: we would do these leadership profiles of foreign of foreign
Speaker 1: heads of state. So can you imagine the leadership profile
Speaker 1: that the British, or the French, or the Germans or
Speaker 1: anyone else has done of Trump when it comes to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Because I think he actually detests Ukraine. He thinks this
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons why he was originally impeached,
Speaker 1: and he particularly hates Zelenski and so for him, it's
Speaker 1: all personal. So there's what I'm trying to say is
Speaker 1: there's no way we are ever going to support Ukraine
Speaker 1: or Zelenski. It's just not gonna happen, because that's just
Speaker 1: baked into Trump's DNA. And it does doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: everybody around Trump, not everybody, but people like Waltz and
Speaker 1: Rubio want to support the Ukrainians. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a from the New York Times, Uh,
Speaker 2: Trump's he's putin as a compatriot and a strong player
Speaker 2: who was a genius for bullying Ukraine. And from the
Speaker 2: New York Times.
Speaker 3: Vilensky said sometime in the last twenty four hours that
Speaker 3: Trump is living in a Russian manufactured disinformation environment.
Speaker 2: I mean it is good that, like, you know, because
Speaker 2: Alenki was saying all the right things the last couple
Speaker 2: of months, you know, the election happened as a transition,
Speaker 2: is going on saying what he needs to say to
Speaker 2: try and keep Trump on side, and now you do
Speaker 2: see him kind of bucking a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the lead up to that is that agreement they
Speaker 3: tried to hand him at Munich right where you know,
Speaker 3: apparently the Trump administration wanted him to turn over like
Speaker 3: fifty percent of the natural resources of Ukraine over in
Speaker 3: exchange for what I'm not even exchange.
Speaker 2: For previous support, not even new support.
Speaker 1: So so do you know how gross this is? I mean,
Speaker 1: think of the United States, and you know, don't laugh
Speaker 1: at me when I say this. Because I believed it
Speaker 1: and I still you know, and I still want to.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're supposed to be the good guys.
Speaker 1: You know, America stands for economic and political freedom, and
Speaker 1: we don't always live up to this, but there is
Speaker 1: the notion of the bright, shining city on the hill.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you if you go to any US
Speaker 1: embassy consulate section overseas anywhere, there's a line around the
Speaker 1: around the corner because people want to come to America
Speaker 1: for a reason.
Speaker 2: Uh uh.
Speaker 1: And we you know, values do matter again, Pete Hegseth
Speaker 1: in his speech in Europe that actually values don't matter.
Speaker 1: Only military might matters. And you know, my head blew
Speaker 1: off again because that's just not who what America is about.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even make sense, right, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But now we are a transactional government. You know, this
Speaker 1: is this is the age of kings and queens again.
Speaker 1: We're going to do We're only going to do anything
Speaker 1: that is you know, it has direct financial interest for
Speaker 1: the United States, Like this idea of trading minerals. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's I understand why the Ukrainians would go
Speaker 1: along with it, because they're like we'll do anything at
Speaker 1: this point, but it's gross. Again, the American ideal means something.
Speaker 1: Let me, well, I was thinking about the other day,
Speaker 1: and I've talked about this, you know, we've had great
Speaker 1: conversations on the team house about you know, how do
Speaker 1: we recruit agents, and you know, there's that old acronym mice,
Speaker 1: and so we we we end up gaining someone else's trust,
Speaker 1: you know, in Iranian government officials, Russian, Chinese, based on
Speaker 1: their vulnerabilities. But it's based on this this acronym mice,
Speaker 1: which is money, ideology, coercion which we really don't do,
Speaker 1: and ego, and that's you know, that's what you're trying
Speaker 1: to plug into. Some people are financially vulnerable, some people
Speaker 1: have you know, have been screwed at work, so you
Speaker 1: can go for their ego. But a huge amount of
Speaker 1: people we recruit is based on ideology, because we're the
Speaker 1: good guys, I mean, and that's the idea of political
Speaker 1: and economic freedom, and are we actually going to take
Speaker 1: that off the table? And so I was that's what
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the other day, just because to me,
Speaker 1: it was just this this transactional foreign policy is just gross.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting you mentioned that you know, we're go
Speaker 3: you feel like we're going back to the age of
Speaker 3: kings and queens. And that's exactly what I've been reading
Speaker 3: about in nick Land's writings, which apparently nick Land was
Speaker 3: and is influential on the thinking of Elon Musk and
Speaker 3: the people around him. And nick Land specifically talks about
Speaker 3: how liberalism has failed, democracy has failed, America is a
Speaker 3: failed experiment. He uses this term the cathedral to describe
Speaker 3: like our institutions, that it is just this sort of
Speaker 3: self replicating zombie and that what we need instead is
Speaker 3: a monarch, a monarch ceo. And he goes into like
Speaker 3: it really is going to be like a government of
Speaker 3: high status males basically all just corncob and each other,
Speaker 3: I guess. And you have this monarch ceo at the
Speaker 3: top that just says like this is how it's going
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's so that seems like exactly what's happening.
Speaker 1: So good on you to to be reading that. I
Speaker 1: got to pick that.
Speaker 3: Book up, Yeah, and I should. I should point out
Speaker 3: too that like behind like all the like kind of
Speaker 3: like cool branding, that this looks like it's something new
Speaker 3: or kind of hip. It's really just boiler plate fascism.
Speaker 3: There's nothing really new about it. It's just fascism with
Speaker 3: some clever branding around it.
Speaker 1: And I think that that that should go to kind
Speaker 1: of this existential question on you know, who are we
Speaker 1: right now? And one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: that is going to be very telling, you know, will
Speaker 1: the American people then at some point say hey, this
Speaker 1: is really not what we signed up for. You know,
Speaker 1: we elected Donald Trump because there was inflation, the price
Speaker 1: of eggs were high. Now let alone, you can't find
Speaker 1: any goddamn eggs anywhere. I want some eggs. There's no
Speaker 1: eggs and whole foods. This is driving me crazy in Vienna, Virginia.
Speaker 1: Uh but but you know, but who, you know, are
Speaker 1: we okay with this? And and so you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to see over the next several months and years
Speaker 1: and maybe the next of the midterm elections, but are
Speaker 1: the American people okay? Which you know. Ann Applebaum is
Speaker 1: is a writer who I love, you know, all of
Speaker 1: her kind of analysis. And there's a piece she wrote
Speaker 1: for the Atlantic this last week or two where she
Speaker 1: actually called what's happening is regime change in America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's not only foreign policy that's changing, but just
Speaker 1: fundamentally inside the United States, this theory of the unitary executive,
Speaker 1: this all powerful presidency, no set, you know, there's no.
Speaker 3: Well maybe I've been a little bit worse than that, though, Marcus.
Speaker 3: I mean when I listen to President Trump, I mean,
Speaker 3: it just sounds like old man babble to me. It
Speaker 3: doesn't even make sense what he's saying. It seems like
Speaker 3: Elon is actually running the show.
Speaker 1: And JD Vance as well, and jd Vance has some
Speaker 1: very extreme views on this, So I actually I agree
Speaker 1: with you. And so you know, are we okay with
Speaker 1: you know, dismantling the entire or you know, you know,
Speaker 1: firing thirty or forty percent of the US government. You know,
Speaker 1: if if American people are okay with that and there's
Speaker 1: a bird flu at epidemic or there's a measle epidemic
Speaker 1: in Texas and people are gonna die, okay, well you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we deserve what we're going to get. But I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure that's that's the case. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I just the stories of the last couple
Speaker 1: of days, you know, uh, you know, the Republican Party
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the party of national security, you know,
Speaker 1: to support the military or back the blue. Is that
Speaker 1: what firing FBI agents is all about?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: What? You know there's been you know, when with all
Speaker 1: these with these cuts or these uh you know, terminations,
Speaker 1: reductions and force of these probationary employees. That's military spouses
Speaker 1: we're getting fired. You know, none of this makes sense
Speaker 1: the VA. I mean, does the VA need reform of
Speaker 1: my god, of course it does. But it's just the
Speaker 1: my I guess my question is is the American people?
Speaker 1: Are the American people going to be okay with this
Speaker 1: when the real effects of some of these changes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly coming back because it is radical and I don't
Speaker 1: think any I mean, they said they were going to
Speaker 1: do it sort of. I don't think they realized that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk would be the co president. But but ultimately
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty dramatic what's happening. And and for people,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's so lazy intellectually when people see, yes,
Speaker 1: fuck the government. You see a lot of conservatives say
Speaker 1: that that's okay, good, the federal government's too big. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you know, when the FAA doesn't have controllers in
Speaker 1: the control tower? Is that what government too big means?
Speaker 1: This is just not being done smartly or with any
Speaker 1: kind of uh, you know direction. It's it's like how
Speaker 1: Elon Musks. You know, when he took over Twitter, he
Speaker 1: fired everybody and then kind of rebuilt it. You don't
Speaker 1: do that in the government.
Speaker 3: One of the interpretations of like you know that people
Speaker 3: have advanced of like what is Donald Trump? What does
Speaker 3: that represent?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: You know, this sort of like end of an error
Speaker 3: in the beginning of the next. And I mean one
Speaker 3: of the probably like easiest to understand takes on it
Speaker 3: is that Trump is a wrecking ball that the voters,
Speaker 3: that the constituents sent to Washington to destroy the place
Speaker 3: because they're so fucking angry, right, so fed up and
Speaker 3: some of those some of those issues, those anger issues
Speaker 3: with like we've talked about DEI, they're hyped up. You know,
Speaker 3: it's grievance politics, but there are real issues that Americans
Speaker 3: are sick and tired and they're fed up and they're
Speaker 3: tired of being fed bullshit all the time. And I
Speaker 3: think many people, rightly or wrongly, they see Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is like the guy that's going to cut through that.
Speaker 1: So you know, you're one hundred percent right. And I
Speaker 1: think we also don't have a party in opposition, you know,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party not.
Speaker 2: Being absolute pussies excuse me from being so brass.
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's there's there certainly is a
Speaker 1: whole kind of you know, aar going on, you know,
Speaker 1: forensic analysis of how in the world did this happen?
Speaker 1: Did Donald Trump get elected because of this of this disruption,
Speaker 1: you know, with the Democrats that dysfunctional, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you make it. You can make a very
Speaker 1: strong case that the answer is yes, you know, there's
Speaker 1: you know, so what do we need? I mean, now
Speaker 1: we're getting into some weirder territory. One of the things
Speaker 1: I talk to a friend of mine the other day said,
Speaker 1: you know, we need a we need an oligarch in
Speaker 1: the center, like a Mark Cuban to come in, you
Speaker 1: know and be the cat. I don't know, it kind
Speaker 1: of makes some sense, I sort of, I guess, but
Speaker 1: you know, because one of the things that you have,
Speaker 1: going back to something Jack you said earlier, is you know,
Speaker 1: I love your podcast. I'm on your podcast, but some
Speaker 1: podcasts in the United States have done tremendous harm in
Speaker 1: spreading uh, you know, misinformation and disinformation. And so when
Speaker 1: you look at the and I'm sure you know scours
Speaker 1: the lists of of of podcasts what do well and
Speaker 1: what don't you know Tucker call us in or Joe Rogan,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nonsense that's spewed on there. And
Speaker 1: that's how Americans are getting their their information right now.
Speaker 1: So you know, so how do you counter that? How
Speaker 1: do you how do you counter it? I mean, you
Speaker 1: just have to tell the truth because so there's so
Speaker 1: much crap on on these kind of podcasts that have
Speaker 1: gazillions of viewers.
Speaker 3: I don't know that the truth can necessarily compete though,
Speaker 3: with people's emotions, and that they they get emotionally triggered
Speaker 3: by certain outrageous things. And I feel like that the
Speaker 3: the algorithms that these companies are using, that they're actually
Speaker 3: encouraging and I know for a fact that they encourage
Speaker 3: you to put out outrageous content all the time. D
Speaker 3: and I had many conversations about this, and it's interesting
Speaker 3: to see how the algorithm itself is sort of like
Speaker 3: barfing up this new ideology in the last few years
Speaker 3: that combines right wing politics, the military, Christianity, but also
Speaker 3: you like UFOs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3: Earthquake weapons, you know what, what what? What's going on here?
Speaker 3: And I think it really is an algorithm that all
Speaker 3: ideologies are filled with inconsistent, dumb ideas. But I think
Speaker 3: you're seeing a new one start to coalesce because of
Speaker 3: this arbitrary algorithm.
Speaker 1: And then and then people have this incredible distrust, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly of government. I mean one of my buddies,
Speaker 1: he's actually a cop, he was down at these you know,
Speaker 1: the FBI. Quantico runs these annual conferences for for you know,
Speaker 1: kind of local police officers. Actually went and I I
Speaker 1: did a leadership talk a couple of years at it.
Speaker 1: But he was wearing an FBI polar shirt around Quantico,
Speaker 1: just going to Local seven eleven or whatever, getting his
Speaker 1: gas at sheets or I don't know, whatever the heck
Speaker 1: it was. And someone came up and said something like
Speaker 1: derogatory against the bureau, like I don't trust you guys,
Speaker 1: and like you live in Quantico, like the whole this
Speaker 1: town is fundamentally based on FBI. D I in the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps, you know, base being here, and it's just
Speaker 1: to me. That was and he was shocked. He's a
Speaker 1: big city he's a big city East Coast, you know, cop,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't see this kind of that kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he he's an anti police bias probably
Speaker 1: from other people on the streets. But but he was
Speaker 1: shocked at this. This is regular old kind of person
Speaker 1: a pickup truck saying something nasty to him because he's
Speaker 1: wearing an FBI shirt. I mean that that there. So
Speaker 1: again there's something wrong with that. Yeah, and so and so.
Speaker 1: But one thing I kind of I wanted to to
Speaker 1: kind of throw out there just in terms as you know,
Speaker 1: of course as a national security podcast, it has to
Speaker 1: do with kind of the pending reductions both at the
Speaker 1: State Department, CIA and FBI, and maybe even lead off
Speaker 1: with kind of us A I D. But you know,
Speaker 1: my view of working alongside AID front service officers over
Speaker 1: the years is that's a tremendous you know, kind of
Speaker 1: value added for US in terms of of soft power.
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's multiple military officials, US military folks
Speaker 1: I've met over the years who actually said AID was
Speaker 1: indispensable to the United States national security. What's your what's
Speaker 1: your thought on that and essentially gutting foreign aid entirely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's again, it's one of those things
Speaker 3: where some voters think that half of our GDP goes
Speaker 3: to foreign aid, right, I mean they seriously believe that
Speaker 3: when it's I don't know what the actual percent is,
Speaker 3: it's for sure less than one percent. It's probably closer
Speaker 3: to like point oh one percent, that's correct. And you
Speaker 3: know that foreign aid it develops our soft power. And
Speaker 3: you know what people don't really understand about that is
Speaker 3: it's not like just to be nice. It's like we're
Speaker 3: also looking for something in return. There's some leverage we're
Speaker 3: hoping to develop through foreign aid. You know. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: in good will, like hey, you're an ally, you get
Speaker 3: got pounded by an earthquake. We want to help you
Speaker 3: guys out, And there's not like strings attached to it
Speaker 3: or anything, but like foreign military sales and usaid and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, there there is a sort
Speaker 3: of like give and take to all of that that
Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of people acknowledge or want
Speaker 3: to acknowledge.
Speaker 1: And Jack, who do you think when we stop doing that?
Speaker 1: Who do you think takes our place?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Russia, China or right, China. I mean it's unbelievable. I mean,
Speaker 1: eating soft power to China for a tiny kind of
Speaker 1: fraction of investment. You know. On top of the notion that,
Speaker 1: I think, what there's there's some figure that was thrown
Speaker 1: around twenty we've saved twenty million people with kind of
Speaker 1: the HIV prevention help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is which is objectively a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's a conservative program too. I mean, you know, conservatives
Speaker 1: love this program. So it's just this is to me,
Speaker 1: is is insanity. And then you go to the notion
Speaker 1: of the probationary officer issue, and that's where the US
Speaker 1: government is firing the probationary staff of the U. I
Speaker 1: mean the sorry, the administration.
Speaker 3: Again it started to interrupt, Mark, but just to point
Speaker 3: out there are a lot of people out there who
Speaker 3: think probationary officers are people who are on probation because
Speaker 3: they're in trouble, because they did something wrong. You want
Speaker 3: to tell them what it really means.
Speaker 1: It's officers within one to four years of experience. I
Speaker 1: think the intelligence community has has a higher number. It's
Speaker 1: several years, maybe three years in your four years into
Speaker 1: your career. But for others a year and so what
Speaker 1: we're doing. You know, so all federal agencies had to
Speaker 1: give lists to omb about their probationary staff because it's
Speaker 1: easier to fire them if you're in your probationary period,
Speaker 1: you don't have the same amount of rights. This is insane,
Speaker 1: you know Again I said, as I said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to talking to colleges all the time. I got a
Speaker 1: text message from a kid I mentored at the Citadel
Speaker 1: who is a Republican who then joined the National Security
Speaker 1: State and was just fired. And he is respondent, Uh,
Speaker 1: because this is this is gen z. This is the
Speaker 1: next generation of security practice. It's who you and I
Speaker 1: and D in this podcast are trying to pass the
Speaker 1: torch to to get them excited about this. We've just
Speaker 1: fired these people. That's insane. There's you know, uh. It
Speaker 1: also makes no sense. So for example, if if you say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the new directors the c I, John Ratcliffe,
Speaker 1: wants to beef up our spying capability. He said that,
Speaker 1: you know, because the agency is two woke, so we
Speaker 1: got to get better against China. You just fired your staff.
Speaker 1: Who's going to go serve in see in Beijing. It's
Speaker 1: nuts and and I think the the you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it also seems misguided if you want to as you know,
Speaker 1: as as you know, I don't know if they have
Speaker 1: the right legally, but if you want to say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna replace this the C suites of the FBI
Speaker 1: and C I a fine, do it. What are you
Speaker 1: doing going after the junior staff? This is not the
Speaker 1: woke ideologues of the Biden administration. These are kids right
Speaker 1: out of college who wanted to serve their country and
Speaker 1: the rest of their fucking classmates are making a shitload
Speaker 1: more money. I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like a real business. It's a
Speaker 2: businessman thinking, right, Like what's your first move when you
Speaker 2: don't have a good quarter?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jack welch, just like trim the fat. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: just laid people are a bunch of people.
Speaker 2: And like I'll make a guess that like when they
Speaker 2: go to d D they're gonna cut people too, and
Speaker 2: we'll yeah, like what people were saying, like, oh, they're
Speaker 2: gonna look at the procurement process, Like no, they're not.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna look at the primes and the money
Speaker 2: that the defense contractors are making. Let's be honest to you,
Speaker 2: the first movie is to scalp. They want scalps.
Speaker 1: So the economists had a great article this week talking
Speaker 1: about the need for reform at d OD and exactly
Speaker 1: that you know how how everything is jacked up. Uh,
Speaker 1: But that has nothing to do with the idea of
Speaker 1: going in and firing your probationary staff. One of the
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things now is because you know,
Speaker 1: there's so much pork barrel politics, there's so much congressional interest.
Speaker 1: Individual congressmen and women have their pet projects, and they
Speaker 1: have people at military basis. So these d D cuts,
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're a Republican congressman, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear it this week when when people start getting fired.
Speaker 2: But what they're worried about is if a Republican congressman
Speaker 2: comes out and says something against Trump that Elon is
Speaker 2: going to primary. I know, so this is million dollars primary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the lack of courage amongst the Republican
Speaker 1: kind of national security set is incredible to me. And
Speaker 1: again it half by friends.
Speaker 3: And all all of these corporations too. Isn't it interesting
Speaker 3: that they went from unwavering support for DEI to totally
Speaker 3: bowing down like immediately. And I've railed against this for years.
Speaker 3: You know that these companies use this crass advertising. You
Speaker 3: know that we have like b L m ice creaming
Speaker 3: gay pride oreos, and it's it's just the way corporations
Speaker 3: to sell a shit that we don't need.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 3: But it's still, you know, disconcerting to see, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: if we did have like a fascist or a communist government,
Speaker 3: these same corporations would be selling us products you know,
Speaker 3: covered with a hammer and sickle or a swastika.
Speaker 1: Like they are. Everyone's bowing to the media. I mean,
Speaker 1: the people can't rush to the White House. These CEOs
Speaker 1: can't rush fast enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things also that I wanted to raise
Speaker 1: again for folks who are interessed in the intelligence community.
Speaker 1: You know, when you when you're this literally I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you something that one ndred percent happens. So
Speaker 1: as you get promoted up through the agency or the
Speaker 1: IC or the State Department, I'm sure FBI, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be the flavor of the day. So
Speaker 1: at one point it was okay, you need a little
Speaker 1: more kind of DEI experience, and so you mark case
Speaker 1: officer Mark, after serving overseas and getting shot at at
Speaker 1: war zones and all this stuff, we need you to
Speaker 1: go do a rotation in some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment office where there's some little DEI flavor
Speaker 1: in order to get promoted. Okay, and and you know
Speaker 1: what you say, you say, all right, I gotta check
Speaker 1: the box. I mean, Jack, you're in the military. This
Speaker 1: shit happens all the time.
Speaker 3: You gotta go check the boxes.
Speaker 1: You gotta check the box. So I'm gonna go check
Speaker 1: the box. And all of a sudden, Trump's elected. And
Speaker 1: what they did is they then fired anybody in a
Speaker 1: DEI position. These are rotational positions. It's a regular case officer,
Speaker 1: a senior manager who was told to get promoted, he
Speaker 1: or she had to go to this position. They're there
Speaker 1: and they are now out of a job. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I saw in an article yesterday I
Speaker 1: was actually happy with this is that there was eleven
Speaker 1: such officers at the agency and they a judge has
Speaker 1: kind of frozen their dismissal because this is like the
Speaker 1: lawyer Kevin Carroll, former agency officer, was like, these are
Speaker 1: people who were told to take this job. They're off,
Speaker 1: they're case officers or analysts, Like what are you doing
Speaker 1: firing them? But that was this blanket thing, like anyone
Speaker 1: who ever touched DEI is going to get fired again.
Speaker 1: That's just again, I mean, these are common sense stuff
Speaker 1: that I think the American people should agree was nuts.
Speaker 1: But we'll see if it kind of sticks or not.
Speaker 3: The one other thing I wanted to, you know, ask
Speaker 3: you about her to put our finger on a little
Speaker 3: bit here regarding USA I D. But also all the
Speaker 3: other stuff going on with like the I R S
Speaker 3: and the Treasury Department and so on. And I think
Speaker 3: it's important to point out that Elon Musk is lying
Speaker 3: about what's going on in these organizations, describing congressionally approved
Speaker 3: expenditures as being quote unquote fraud, that these are lies.
Speaker 3: This is a liar who's telling boldfaced lies to the
Speaker 3: American public about their government.
Speaker 1: He admitted it Jack in that bizarre press conference where
Speaker 1: in the Oval office where his kid was picking his nose, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was I actually thought that was incredibly funny. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was on purpose marked the nose picking. No,
Speaker 1: the kid being in the shop, Oh no, I like
Speaker 1: the nose picking part of it.
Speaker 2: I know, it's hilarious and cute, but that's like to distract.
Speaker 1: And Trump Trump looked like a hostage there too. He did.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but Elon must said something really interesting because someone said, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, this charge that we spend fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars for condoms in Hamas actually is not true, and
Speaker 1: and Elon must said, yes, sometimes we're going to get
Speaker 1: things wrong. Yet yet Fox News blurts out this fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars condoms in Gaza bullshit NonStop and gets everybody
Speaker 1: kind of all hyped up that the idea is this
Speaker 1: you know, you know, is now a terrrist supporting entity.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, it's it's it's it's pro choice,
Speaker 1: pro birth control, terror sympathizers. I mean, it's it's freaking madness.
Speaker 1: But Elon Musk lied, and he said, yeah, sometimes we're
Speaker 1: going to get it wrong and we'll get corrected and
Speaker 1: then you know, the damage is done already. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, the I think the thing that's there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that to me are really chilling about this.
Speaker 1: These doge folks access into kind of the kind of
Speaker 1: the secret world. I don't know who these individuals are
Speaker 1: I don't know if they have security clearances. The idea
Speaker 1: that they have access to the treasury system is or
Speaker 1: the irs is is terrifying as an American citizen because
Speaker 1: that's your personal data.
Speaker 3: Well, and the question is why the fuck do they
Speaker 3: need access to Why do they need data for government efficiency?
Speaker 1: Like why for an administration that looks like there is
Speaker 1: going to be a campaign of retribution against Trump's political enemies.
Speaker 1: I mean, this should scare the crap out of every conservative, Like,
Speaker 1: this is why my head is going to explode. This
Speaker 1: is conservative should be outraged. This is massive government overreach
Speaker 1: into privacy. And then the other part is, you know
Speaker 1: when you talk about these people poking around in the
Speaker 1: treasury or the national security institutions, is there's a huge
Speaker 1: counterintelligence issue. And you know, there was a story and
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true or not, it's been
Speaker 1: reported quite often. I imagine it's true that that somehow the
Speaker 1: agency sent down the first name and last initial of
Speaker 1: the entire probation area Tatry two thousand and five hundred
Speaker 1: officers down to omb in an unsecured manner. We just then,
Speaker 1: in essence, compromised the entire COVID status of our next generation.
Speaker 2: We spoke about that in an episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah again insane and an own goal by the agency.
Speaker 1: But I think they're probably just obviously trying to comply.
Speaker 1: There should be an investigation on how.
Speaker 3: I mean that's that gets into the other interesting thing
Speaker 3: about like compliance. Like if you're working at the CIA
Speaker 3: and they tell you to send email with all these
Speaker 3: names over an unsecured net, I mean, is it your
Speaker 3: answer going to be No, I'm not doing that because.
Speaker 1: It's illegal, which is what you know. That's why the
Speaker 1: acting director of the of the of the FBI, you know,
Speaker 1: a former HRT guy you know, was considered a hero
Speaker 1: down at the bureau. Because he's actually resisting some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. He's probably I would imagine, not going to
Speaker 1: be there. It does.
Speaker 3: It baffles me a little bit because like if some
Speaker 3: nineteen year old, pimple faced kid shows up in my
Speaker 3: office at va Irs, Treasury, FBI and starts telling me
Speaker 3: he needs to look at the computers and this is
Speaker 3: how it's going to be, dude, I get old school
Speaker 3: on that ass and show him right out the door.
Speaker 3: I turn that dude right around. But it seems like
Speaker 3: nobody's willing to do that.
Speaker 1: The two AID Security chiefs were fired after they said no.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many inspected generals were fired?
Speaker 1: They're all gone right, yeah, so again this is but
Speaker 1: who is the architect of the IG and of whistleblower stuff?
Speaker 1: These are people like Chuck Grassley, a very conservative Republican
Speaker 1: and so the Republican Party is dead on these issues.
Speaker 1: They've been good on this stuff. They believe, you know,
Speaker 1: whistleblowers are critical. Uh, the Inspectral General staff absolutely critical
Speaker 1: because what does it do? It uncovers government malfeasance. This
Speaker 1: is That's it. That's a conservative principle that so many
Speaker 1: in Congress seem to have.
Speaker 2: That's what I understand. Like why fire inspector generals if
Speaker 2: you're trying to trim the fat and make these agencies
Speaker 2: more cization cult.
Speaker 3: Because it's a right.
Speaker 1: It's the power of the unitary.
Speaker 3: That matters is one person, one person.
Speaker 1: You're a true conservative. I don't see how your supportive
Speaker 1: of of this stuff. And you so you know, we'll
Speaker 1: see if anyone has kind of power of strength. I
Speaker 1: think you're going to see this week the probable uh
Speaker 1: you know, nomination going through of cash Ptel crazy, the
Speaker 1: same thing would happen.
Speaker 2: That's like me going to the FBI and being the director.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, so whether it's Patel or
Speaker 1: Telsey Gabbard was confirmed or FK Junior was confirmed, I
Speaker 1: mean these are Hegseth was confirmed. When you talk to Republicans,
Speaker 1: you know, I live in d C. On the side,
Speaker 1: none of these people are qualified and so but but
Speaker 1: they see it in a much different fashion. This is
Speaker 1: based on political survival. Survival. If they voted against these individuals,
Speaker 1: they would get primaried. And again that's to me that
Speaker 1: goes against you know, your your principles, when you take
Speaker 1: an oath to the Constitution to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: They did not. I would much rather, you know, be
Speaker 1: out of a job than to have on my record
Speaker 1: that I voted for some of these people. Yeah that's me.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I don't feel well good about this conversation
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what's What's there something good
Speaker 1: to look forward to. I'm trying to think baseball seasons
Speaker 1: coming up. Great, I got some great concert tickets. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go, Oh Jack, You're gonna love this. Come on
Speaker 1: next Thursday. I'm gonna go see Dropkick Murphy's in DC,
Speaker 1: A tiny little place of five thousand uh people in
Speaker 1: the stands.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 1: That's some old school punk. Come on, you got Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another bit of news. Uh, Kellogg arrives arrived in Kiev today.
Speaker 2: I saw a video of him. He did, he took
Speaker 2: some questions, he looked. I mean, what does a guy
Speaker 2: like that do when he shows up in Kiev after
Speaker 2: the day before? What like what happened yesterday during that
Speaker 2: meeting and the after math with Trump? Uh, basically just
Speaker 2: siding with Russia more or less. Like, what does a
Speaker 2: guy like Kellogg go through? He's going to meet everybody
Speaker 2: right in Kiev? Like, what does he tell these people?
Speaker 1: Matt I Uh, comply, Yeah, I mean I would imagine
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some damage control. I mean, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: which is often the case. I mean, Rubio has come
Speaker 1: out and said, no, the Ukrainian is going to be
Speaker 1: at the table again. It's a dysfunctional government. Nobody knows
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. I mean, you know, my friends
Speaker 1: who were at the Munich Security conference came back and
Speaker 1: said it was just it was incredible to see the
Speaker 1: whiplash and our European partners are are horrified. And again,
Speaker 1: what you know, for those who think that Europe doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: and I think there's probably a lot of people on
Speaker 1: the right who are very dismissive of Europe, they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be because a thousand NATO members were killed in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: defending the United States. Even the Ukrainians. Think about the
Speaker 1: scenes at Hkia at how many Karzai Airport with the
Speaker 1: chaotic witrowal. You saw some people outside you of course,
Speaker 1: the US military was there very bravely. You saw a
Speaker 1: lot of people in tiger stripes, which is kind of
Speaker 1: maybe some intelligence community, paramilitary forces Afghans, and you saw
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian special forces who were there after the US left.
Speaker 1: We are not going to have any friends or allies
Speaker 1: if we treat people like shit, if we've turned into
Speaker 1: this kind of imperialiss bully. Uh. You know, another nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, no one's coming to our aid. One hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty eight Canadians were killed in Afghanistan, and and
Speaker 1: yet we're we're you know, we're beating the shit out
Speaker 1: of Canada every day. I mean, you know, for those
Speaker 1: of us who kind of worked with partner forces worked
Speaker 1: on liaison relationships. You know, this stuff matters. And uh
Speaker 1: and and I think we're kind of going going south.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, Kellogg will do some damage control.
Speaker 1: I mean they're gonna try to. I mean, right now,
Speaker 1: the personal relationship between Trump and Zelenski has now gone
Speaker 1: right into the toilet. So how you repair that? I'm
Speaker 1: not sure?
Speaker 2: So yeah, uh, Zelenskia, like probably an hour ago, I've
Speaker 2: begun discussions with European leaders and I believe they would
Speaker 2: step up in from the Ukrainian armed forces that the
Speaker 2: US does not. EU has agreed on new sanctions on
Speaker 2: package on Russia Financial Times and I was I read
Speaker 2: some article that there was talks of like the EU
Speaker 2: package for Ukraine being like upwards of like eight hundred
Speaker 2: nine hundred billion euros.
Speaker 1: Good, I hope. So, I mean they have it. I mean,
Speaker 1: Europe's got to get a ship together. They need leadership.
Speaker 1: Europeans certainly have the capacity to do this. The question
Speaker 1: is you know in any kind of so there's one
Speaker 1: is is kind of you know, sustainability. If you talk
Speaker 1: to people, and I'm gonna box this, of course I'm
Speaker 1: not a military analyst, but you know, you know, certainly
Speaker 1: Europe needs stuff. I mean, sorry, Ukraine needs stuff, but
Speaker 1: this has actually turned into this kind of drone war
Speaker 1: and so and you're in Ukraine is producing, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of indigenous productions. So I think Europe certainly can
Speaker 1: can step up and lead. There can be some kind
Speaker 1: of your europe security force there. But again this is
Speaker 1: going away from US leadership, certainly any kind of US role,
Speaker 1: and you know, perhaps that's ultimately what what what what
Speaker 1: you know what Trump wants to kind of walk away
Speaker 1: from all this. The other the other point on this
Speaker 1: too is that you know, under NATO, there's that there's
Speaker 1: an issue of what's called Article five, which is attack
Speaker 1: on one NATO member other people will come to eight.
Speaker 1: That's what, that's how, that's why a thousand NATO members
Speaker 1: were killed in Afghanistan. I think that that whole notion
Speaker 1: of Article five is dead.
Speaker 2: I mean, the only time it was ever invoked was
Speaker 2: nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, and a thousand NATO members were killed, right,
Speaker 1: Which is why I think so much of this kind
Speaker 1: of europe bashing is so insulting. Just why you know,
Speaker 1: same thing again, one hundred and fifty nine Canadian troops.
Speaker 3: There were you know, there were forty nine Danish troops
Speaker 3: who died right in Afghanistan, which is a hell of
Speaker 3: a lot of people for a small country like that.
Speaker 1: Yet we want to invade Greenland.
Speaker 3: It's like I said, it's not a lot of the
Speaker 3: right issue. It's just dumb, like it just doesn't look.
Speaker 1: Yet what are we doing. We're going to have no friends,
Speaker 1: you know, and that you know from your former unit,
Speaker 1: and certainly stuff that I did, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the time was done training with other countries militaries
Speaker 1: or intelligence services. That's going to go away. We're going
Speaker 1: to have no friends, and so we're going to have
Speaker 1: a short term win, you know. So the President of
Speaker 1: Panama says something about this whole mess with the Panama Canal,
Speaker 1: which makes my head hurt. But ultimately, you know, are
Speaker 1: we going to have anyone come to our come to
Speaker 1: our assistance in our time of need? And I don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like, yeah, they want short term wins,
Speaker 3: so that it's a little feather in the hat of
Speaker 3: the administration. But like with destroying everything around it, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, again, are we the good guys
Speaker 1: you look like an asshole, you know, I mean I
Speaker 1: I you know, my time goes back to so what
Speaker 1: would it like, what would be like, let's just play
Speaker 1: a game here at a diplomatic reception in the past,
Speaker 1: you go, you hang out with the Brits because they're
Speaker 1: fun and they're like to drink. You go over to
Speaker 1: the French because they probably have some good wine going on,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe there's they you know, they're talking
Speaker 1: about a new restaurant they went to, and so you're
Speaker 1: checking out the around town. I mean, who do we
Speaker 1: hang out with?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: You know, it's not Europe anymore. It's going to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, like the Pakistani dat de fantatic. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like who are our friends? You know, is it going
Speaker 1: to be the authoritarians and come by and kind of
Speaker 1: give a little you know, wink, hey, like you're one
Speaker 1: of us now, Like I don't know what it's like
Speaker 1: to be an American diplomat with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess just to like close off
Speaker 3: from thoughts on it, you know, I have been kind
Speaker 3: of like dismayed. I mean we've talked a little bit
Speaker 3: about like the failure of like the media, the Democrats,
Speaker 3: the Republicans to confront some of these issues. Talk about
Speaker 3: academia for a moment, Like I was reading the last
Speaker 3: issue of Foreign Affairs, which was written between the time
Speaker 3: that Trump was elected an inauguration, so he wasn't yet
Speaker 3: in office when that that issue was published. But all
Speaker 3: of these scholars, political scholars, and damn near every single
Speaker 3: one of them was like, well, you know, the Trump
Speaker 3: administration may prove to be surprisingly nuanced in some ways
Speaker 3: that you didn't quite expect, and you know, it's not
Speaker 3: going to be as bad as you think it's going
Speaker 3: to be because the resiliency of the global system is
Speaker 3: like completely out to lunch, like completely detached from reality.
Speaker 1: I call it wishful thinking. And I was. I was,
Speaker 1: and I quit. I was a member of a signal
Speaker 1: chat where there was some really very esteemed kind of
Speaker 1: historians involved, and that's what I heard from them. It
Speaker 1: was this wishful thinking, Yeah, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: so bad. And of course I go through my daily catastrophizing,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's a dang on me. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: I get criticized on social media and Twitter, doom scrolling
Speaker 1: the whole.
Speaker 2: The whole Peter Teal like thought process about that guy,
Speaker 2: Nick LeAnn is like they attack Uh, academics too, Like
Speaker 2: academics are in the crossairs. So I think they're doing
Speaker 2: the same thing as like the Yeah Republican congress people
Speaker 2: are the big corporate CEOs. Is like they're trying to
Speaker 2: hedge their bets and do the right thing so they
Speaker 2: don't get fucking targeted.
Speaker 1: But I rejoined this chat. I was invited back in
Speaker 1: because I was I was being an asshole and I'm
Speaker 1: railing against everybody, and Bay and some of the some
Speaker 1: of the historians, these are like former deans of major
Speaker 1: universities said to me, you were right. It's actually worse.
Speaker 1: It's actually worse than what you predicted. So I think
Speaker 1: that in academia it's changing a little bit too, because
Speaker 1: again it's now My argument would be, well, he said
Speaker 1: he was going to do all this read Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. Yeah, he's coming through on all of his promises.
Speaker 1: There there ain't nothing new on this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a playbook. They are following it to the t. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but Jack, I think you're a thousand percent right.
Speaker 1: There's so much wishful thinking there's the it's quote it's
Speaker 1: not this bad or you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think that there's people are gonna regret
Speaker 1: some of these articles. It reminds me. I mean just
Speaker 1: this just came like it's like when you know, Jake
Speaker 1: Sullivan wrote and was it Foreign Affairs or Foreign policy
Speaker 1: just before Gaza October seventh, the Middle East is peaceful.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like, we fixed its Palestine Israel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so much. We didn't and we didn't even
Speaker 1: talk about the Middle East. About you now advocating you know,
Speaker 1: ethnic cleansing in Gaza, which as a Middle East hand
Speaker 1: that is my expertise. My head blew off with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, again, are we the good guys? Are we
Speaker 1: actually advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza?
Speaker 3: Want that one's on Biden and Trump just solidified it
Speaker 3: and put it on paper kind.
Speaker 1: Of, I mean, come on, what are we doing? So anyhow?
Speaker 1: I could talk you guys all day. It's fun and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see some of that. You'll get
Speaker 1: some positive responses, you'll get some hate mail.
Speaker 2: For people are gonna freak the funk out.
Speaker 3: Let them.
Speaker 1: Let jack one last question how's your book doing good?
Speaker 3: Really good? Yeah, we defy it has done really well.
Speaker 3: And uh, I'm working on a novel right now that
Speaker 3: I have been hired to write.
Speaker 1: Very good. They see see DC, I'm playing producer now,
Speaker 1: I'm playing like like MC here but plugging his book.
Speaker 2: Thank you, so Jack Murphy. Of course, we defy. Great
Speaker 2: job mark on that. You can check it out. The
Speaker 2: link will be in the description. All the other guys stuff.
Speaker 2: The links will be in the description. Mick Mulwright doing
Speaker 2: incredible work with fog boll and Longbow Mark p MSNBC
Speaker 2: analyst national security analysts. Where else can people find Twitter?
Speaker 3: Every the deep State?
Speaker 1: Deep?
Speaker 2: Yeah, hardcore? When is the new podcast? Are you gonna
Speaker 2: come out with a new podcast?
Speaker 1: What's Yeah, there's some exciting news but not to be
Speaker 1: announced yet. Okay, podcasts from a the Pond cool? Uh,
Speaker 1: a member of and then so.
Speaker 2: So something's cooking so stay tuned for that. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: Patreon dot com Slash the Teamhouse. Please don't leave it
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