Speaker 1: It's interesting, there's a there is a smaller parallel. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's going on now is unprecedented, I think, but a
Speaker 1: smaller parallel would be during the Nixon administration. Nixon saw
Speaker 1: the CIA as part of the of the deep state,
Speaker 1: like they're against me, and he made a bunch of
Speaker 1: cuts to CIA that actually came into effect during.
Speaker 2: The Carter administration.
Speaker 1: And my point there is that there's like this sort
Speaker 1: of like story, there's some mystique around it, even about
Speaker 1: all these laid off CIA officers who went into the
Speaker 1: private sector and from there it was like the wild
Speaker 1: West for the for these guys. And it's going to
Speaker 1: be interesting to see where this generation of you know,
Speaker 1: disenfranchised intelligence officers end up.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of them.
Speaker 1: Will end up working for the Europeans, the Australians, you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. Some of them might just go over
Speaker 1: to the other side.
Speaker 3: I mean, what's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 3: Eyes On. Today's a special one. We got Jack Murphy
Speaker 3: and Mark poly Moropolis. A lot going on, more fallout
Speaker 3: from the chaotic meeting in the Oval Office last week.
Speaker 3: We just found out literally just now before we got
Speaker 3: on that the US has paused or suspended intel sharing
Speaker 3: with Ukraine as well as the military aid from the
Speaker 3: other day.
Speaker 2: So what's up, guys, Mark, how are you? What are
Speaker 2: your thoughts? Okay, before you know, Well, first of all,
Speaker 2: it's always dangerous for the Teamhouse and for Eizon to
Speaker 2: have Jack and I on together because this can now
Speaker 2: spiral into not only kind of gloom and doom, but
Speaker 2: also some rage. Now this is great. I'm always happy
Speaker 2: to be back, but I want to say thank you guys.
Speaker 2: I received a package in the mail yesterday and my
Speaker 2: wife is like, what is this, Like I fucking car
Speaker 2: letter bomb. No, it was two T shirts appropriately double
Speaker 2: extra large because I'm fat from the team house. So
Speaker 2: thank you guys. I will wear them proudly. I am honored.
Speaker 2: Love it great, great, I mean, who doesn't love like
Speaker 2: you know, bling good swag, sag swag. So thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you both very much, our pleasure. Good show.
Speaker 3: That was great, just a little quick merch plug. I
Speaker 3: loved it. So yeah, back to reality unfortunately. Yeah, this morning,
Speaker 3: I guess it just popped off that the US is
Speaker 3: uh cut the cut the flow of intel into Ukraine,
Speaker 3: which is insane to me. I feel like the next
Speaker 3: the next step is Starling probably.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and so but one key thing on this,
Speaker 2: just for the kind of the This will probably come
Speaker 2: out in a couple hours or maybe tomorrow, but just
Speaker 2: you know, that story is confirmed. I'm hearing from all
Speaker 2: my contacts, both in the government and on the Ukrainian
Speaker 2: side that the intel has been has been stopped. There's
Speaker 2: some confusion, not confusion. There's some discrepancy on whether it
Speaker 2: was targets inside Russia or cutting off the INTEL targets
Speaker 2: against Russian forces inside Ukraine. But the bottom line is
Speaker 2: I think that that is confirmed. And John Ratcliffe, the
Speaker 2: CI director, just went on Fox just this morning and
Speaker 2: then said the same. So this is you know, I
Speaker 2: think this is something that I was dreading happening after
Speaker 2: the cessation of military aid. But it really does kind
Speaker 2: of put this in perspective. And Jack will understand because
Speaker 2: it's not just on the Ukrainian battlefield that Jack, you
Speaker 2: might be able to address this in a much more
Speaker 2: professional manner than I would based on your background. But overall,
Speaker 2: I mean, our durability and credibility as an intelligence partner globally,
Speaker 2: I think is going to take a hit. So you know, again,
Speaker 2: there's there's never a bottom, and I think we're still
Speaker 2: plumbing downward. But Jack, welcome your thoughts on the military
Speaker 2: effects of this.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's gonna put definitely put Ukraine on
Speaker 1: their back foot, and I don't I'm like you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand or like search for some sort
Speaker 1: of like logic or sense behind some of these decisions, uh,
Speaker 1: but can't find them. You know, Russia is has within
Speaker 1: put a basically on the ropes their economy is creating.
Speaker 1: It's it's a position that we've never really had the
Speaker 1: upper hand on them like this before, and I don't
Speaker 1: know why we would sacrifice that advantage in this era
Speaker 1: of you know, pure near peer competition or whatever the
Speaker 1: hell we want to call it new Cold War. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a mess obviously for Ukraine, but as
Speaker 1: you point out, Mark, it signals to the entire rest
Speaker 1: of the world that we're not reliable, that you can't
Speaker 1: work with us. And you know, there's some thought that
Speaker 1: the reason why we fought so hard in Vietnam, sort
Speaker 1: of a somewhat obscure country in Southeast Asia at the
Speaker 1: time that not many Americans had ever heard of the
Speaker 1: reason why we fought there so hard was because we
Speaker 1: were trying to prove to Europe specifically that we were
Speaker 1: willing to stand up to communism. Right now, what we're
Speaker 1: doing in Ukraine doing this like heel turn on them,
Speaker 1: it signals something to Taiwan, it signals something to our
Speaker 1: partners in Europe, and also our partners closer to home,
Speaker 1: such as Canada that just got slapped with a twenty
Speaker 1: five percent tariff just yesterday.
Speaker 2: I think one of the things is that, you know,
Speaker 2: the little I say, I wake, I get up early.
Speaker 2: I got up at five in the morning. Often I
Speaker 2: have to do TV at that time too, so I'll
Speaker 2: kind of roll into my computer and I'll do it
Speaker 2: a hit on MSNBC. But you know, every morning there's
Speaker 2: three or four different stories which are kind of head spinning,
Speaker 2: and then that only is based on that day, because
Speaker 2: because just twenty four hours earlier there were three or
Speaker 2: four stories that also were head spinning. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: the news cycle is such that there are really significant
Speaker 2: ramifications for these national security for these moves by the administration.
Speaker 2: But I don't even know if we have time to
Speaker 2: even kind of do a deep dive or dissect because
Speaker 2: it's just eclipsed by something else, the cessation of military
Speaker 2: now this isation of intelligence sharing. Yeah, you know it's
Speaker 2: but you're right, it's intentional. I mean, isn't Isn't that
Speaker 2: the what Steve Bannon talked about? What was it his zone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also following the playbook of that weirdo Curtis
Speaker 1: Yarvin who came up his whole plan to like break
Speaker 1: the government. And they're pretty much following it. They're following
Speaker 1: the game plan. I saw today one another one of
Speaker 1: those head spinning stories. Veterans Affairs intends to lay off
Speaker 1: eighty nine thousand employees this year, which is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: VA is a big organization. It's funded almost or has
Speaker 1: been funded. We'll see how long that holds out, uh,
Speaker 1: to the tune of almost three hundred billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1: And you know, there are a lot of complaints about VA,
Speaker 1: but that organization has also come quite a long way
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years thanks you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of it thanks to public and congressional pressure that people
Speaker 1: are like fix this, like because they feel that veterans
Speaker 1: deserve better care, you know, especially all the things that
Speaker 1: we're you know, people were hearing about the g WAT
Speaker 1: veterans twenty two a day, and all this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff did have an impact. And I'm I have a
Speaker 1: number of friends who are veterans who work at VA
Speaker 1: in different capacities, in different parts of the country, and
Speaker 1: they're already impacted by this.
Speaker 2: When I was telling.
Speaker 1: You earlier, Mark, I mean, it's a little hard for
Speaker 1: me to rasp or understand. Like, if you go and
Speaker 1: log onto Facebook right now, all I see is retirees,
Speaker 1: military retirees just cheering this on, right, and they will
Speaker 1: tell you with a straight face. All these were all
Speaker 1: DEI hires. They were all woke. We're cutting the fat,
Speaker 1: We're getting rid of unnecessary spending.
Speaker 2: Hey, don't worry.
Speaker 1: This isn't going to affect anything as far as veterans care.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, where are we going here? I'm all
Speaker 1: about trimming some fat. But yeah, if you're like, if
Speaker 1: you're like firing the McKinsey consultants or something, sure, but
Speaker 1: they're firing like the therapists and people.
Speaker 2: Who actually work there. This is madness. I mean again,
Speaker 2: it's I think it's part of the disinformation bubble. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry this is the bullshit on Fox News. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have friends who work there, but you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's you know, if you turn on Fox News, you
Speaker 2: don't hear about any of the pain. You know, This administration,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, says it supports veterans, yet it's
Speaker 2: crushing them right now with these cuts. This administration says it.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, there was a touching moment last
Speaker 2: night on the President's addressed to Congress about a young
Speaker 2: cancer patient that you know, kind of got a lot
Speaker 2: of attention, except they're cutting funding for cancer research and
Speaker 2: so pediatric cancer research, pediatric cancer. There's the actual truth
Speaker 2: of what is going on, which is gutting the federal
Speaker 2: government without any kind of plan looked. I think all
Speaker 2: of us here in the show would say, sure, there's
Speaker 2: a ton of waste in the federal government, but it
Speaker 2: has to be you know, done in a in a
Speaker 2: a in a smart, systematic fashion, and then passed by Congress,
Speaker 2: which I'm not even doing. Congress they just passed.
Speaker 3: A budget in the House that raises the deficit by
Speaker 3: four hundred billion dollars this year.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, none of this is all I mean,
Speaker 2: just as someone you know, uh, you know, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: from New Jersey, so deal. You know, you guys Brooklyn
Speaker 2: and Queen's folks will make fun of me. But you
Speaker 2: know I wasn't born you know, yesterday. I have kind
Speaker 2: of a brain in my head, and so it just
Speaker 2: it under this makes sense. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's the it's the bullshit pr versus actually what's
Speaker 2: happening on the ground. At some point, perhaps it'll catch
Speaker 2: up to them. Jack, You're right, that's the former intelligence community.
Speaker 2: A lot of folks too, who are on LinkedIn, which
Speaker 2: I actually got off because I couldn't take it. Who
Speaker 2: cheerlead or cheerleading all this stuff, and now I'm going
Speaker 2: to get the audience all pissed off. It's a bunch
Speaker 2: of old white dudes. It just is. It's old, cranky
Speaker 2: white guys who are really angry for some reason about
Speaker 2: the state of the country or cheering this on. But
Speaker 2: I think there's there's tangible effects. Let me throw one
Speaker 2: of the kind of thing out there. I got it.
Speaker 2: I got an email, a signal message. Let me be
Speaker 2: very clear on that, from a case officer CI case
Speaker 2: officer who on Monday was fired a probationary officer. They're
Speaker 2: starting to fire probationary officers, but they're doing it based
Speaker 2: on anyone who had any kind of blip in their file,
Speaker 2: a security violation, some kind of bad performance appraisal. Every
Speaker 2: single one of us in the IC would have been fired.
Speaker 2: Then I had security violate. You screw up everyone, so
Speaker 2: you leave that, you leave the station one time, you
Speaker 2: don't spend the lock on your safe in your office,
Speaker 2: you get a violation. It's it's it's not ever career ending.
Speaker 2: It's just saying like, hey, tighten your ship up. They're
Speaker 2: fired now. Uh. And this case officer was absolutely stunned.
Speaker 2: Someone had gone through language training, spoke fluent Russian, uh,
Speaker 2: served uh over there in that part of the world. Uh,
Speaker 2: and was less than two years into into their their
Speaker 2: probationary status and now they're they've been walked out the
Speaker 2: door again. These kind of cuts make no sense. And
Speaker 2: I think that uh, you know, the only question is
Speaker 2: will the American people have ever kind of step up
Speaker 2: and understand what's happening.
Speaker 1: Mark, I'd love to ask you if there's a bit
Speaker 1: of an insider's view you can share with what's going
Speaker 1: on with Ratcliffe and C. I A, that's one of
Speaker 1: the appointees. Like at least I haven't seen in the
Speaker 1: news too much or I haven't heard from people know
Speaker 1: so much yet, like what's going on behind closed doors?
Speaker 1: Like because I remember during the first Trump administration there's
Speaker 1: a lot of concern about Pompeo, but I talked to
Speaker 1: people who said he was okay, he wasn't bad as
Speaker 1: d C. I.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those people you talked to. I mean,
Speaker 2: now it's a that's a radically different administration because there
Speaker 2: were adults in the room. You had you know, Jim Mattis,
Speaker 2: you had various national security advisors, but ultimately AhR McMaster
Speaker 2: and John Bolton. You had people who would stand up
Speaker 2: to Trump for kind of his crazy ideas, including Pompeo. Pompeo,
Speaker 2: who clearly was partisan nonetheless let the Director of Operations
Speaker 2: do its job and so uh, I think you're right. Uh.
Speaker 2: And and he was he was visible, you know, he
Speaker 2: I mean, he actually you know, went to work and
Speaker 2: you saw him. And I remember in in you know,
Speaker 2: even in briefings with him, when we asked for something
Speaker 2: like concurrence to do something, he'd be like, why are
Speaker 2: you asking me this? Go do it? And that's kind
Speaker 2: of music to ours from the operation side. I think
Speaker 2: this is a different time though, because there are no
Speaker 2: adults around Trump and so, you know, the best, the
Speaker 2: best characterization of what I think those in the Pentagon
Speaker 2: and the intelligence community are feeling now is disoriented. Uh,
Speaker 2: And that's just you know, it's just there's so much
Speaker 2: coming at us. And it's both based on policy, such
Speaker 2: as the abandon of Ukraine, but also that your job security.
Speaker 2: People don't know if they're going to have a job.
Speaker 2: I just got a message from a friend of mine
Speaker 2: from the IC. Hey, I'm going to work. I'll text
Speaker 2: you later if I have a job when I get
Speaker 2: back there is you know, fear is the wrong word
Speaker 2: because fear is something you use when you're in Afghanistan
Speaker 2: or a rock and getting shot at. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, significant concern is probably better because
Speaker 2: you don't know if you're gonna have you can pay
Speaker 2: your bills. You know, people have mortgages, people have health care.
Speaker 2: I mean, this officer who just got fired doesn't have
Speaker 2: health care right now. And so people are extremely nervous
Speaker 2: because it's both you know, trimming the fat if you
Speaker 2: want to call that, you know, with reductions in force
Speaker 2: at the top, or this idea of getting rid of
Speaker 2: kind of the lower level employees as well. And so
Speaker 2: so I think the people in the IC are just
Speaker 2: disoriented right now, and it's what the jack the thing
Speaker 2: is that of course nobody, I mean, I hope some
Speaker 2: of your viewers listeners will will understand there is no
Speaker 2: deep state, There's no cabal of people stopping you know,
Speaker 2: Trump from anything he wants to do. People put their
Speaker 2: heads down and they just do their job. I mean, Pierre,
Speaker 2: I literally I had no idea what anyone's political orientation
Speaker 2: was in my old shop until after I left, I retired.
Speaker 2: And then I see someone and they turn out to
Speaker 2: be from the left to the right just because they're
Speaker 2: Americans and they can say that. But I think now
Speaker 2: there's just there again, there's there's significant worry about the
Speaker 2: US role in the world now since we've switched sides
Speaker 2: to our enemy. Remember, Russia is an enemy of not
Speaker 2: only the Nited States of the CIA that is one
Speaker 2: of our Absolutely, it's not it's not just a competitor,
Speaker 2: not even adversary. It's an enemy. I mean, Russia put
Speaker 2: bounties on US soldiers with the Taliban, they've you know,
Speaker 2: and they've they've done a tremendous uh you know, harm
Speaker 2: to to colleagues of mine. Uh So again combination of
Speaker 2: we've we've you know, flip sides, but also you know,
Speaker 2: do I have a job tomorrow. That's not a good mix.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're if you want you know,
Speaker 2: what I think is, you know, you want our kind
Speaker 2: of nation's first line of defense to be kind of
Speaker 2: at the top of their.
Speaker 1: Game, specifically about Ratcliffe.
Speaker 2: What what are you hearing.
Speaker 1: About him behind the scenes?
Speaker 2: Got it? I mean it's I gotta be careful on
Speaker 2: this exactly. I mean, you know, I think that that
Speaker 2: you know, you know what you'd want to see someone?
Speaker 2: How do I say this in a in a in
Speaker 2: a more positive light. I think the director and deputy
Speaker 2: director have to be more visible to the workforce at
Speaker 2: a time of upheaval, which means doing things like Leon
Speaker 2: Panetta used to do, George Tennant used to do, literally
Speaker 2: go down the affacteria and sit sit down with a
Speaker 2: unsuspecting case officer analysts and have lunch with them, which
Speaker 2: happened to me. It's you know, and that's that's really
Speaker 2: and I think that was even a scene in zero
Speaker 2: dark thirty with the character of that stuff used to happen.
Speaker 2: So the director of deputy director have to be visible,
Speaker 2: especially at times of turmoil. So if I would have
Speaker 2: any one suggestion, I think they should be more attuned
Speaker 2: to upheaval in the workforce. I was there.
Speaker 1: That was that was that was pretty professional, market held
Speaker 1: it together.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on the Director of National Intelligence
Speaker 3: going on news and uh I basically parroting kind of
Speaker 3: Russian talking points and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, do I expect you to be up at five
Speaker 2: am from a MSNBC hits So if you were to
Speaker 2: have been up yesterday, you would have seen because this
Speaker 2: is the only thing I addressed from five until five
Speaker 2: to fifteen, and then I've actually forgotten it because it
Speaker 2: was so early and I was so tired. But but look,
Speaker 2: this is totally not with what someone uh UH who
Speaker 2: role as an intellig intelligence chef should do. So so
Speaker 2: basically President Zelenski UH gets dressed down by Trump UH
Speaker 2: in the White House in the Oval office, and what
Speaker 2: happens usually is the rest of the government then who
Speaker 2: has contacts with the Ukrainians will be like, hey, that's
Speaker 2: in the political sphere, like things are gonna be okay.
Speaker 2: That's not what happened because Telsea Gabber then went on
Speaker 2: Twitter and basically was cheerleading and dissing all overs Zelensky. Uh.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely against what any kind of professional intelligence
Speaker 2: chief would do. It's not their role. What should have
Speaker 2: happened after that is that that the CIA UH and
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian side would get together and say, look, our
Speaker 2: political masters are having a big ship storm, but we're
Speaker 2: gonna kind of we're gonna, we're gonna work through this.
Speaker 2: That's just what's done. It. It happened to me when
Speaker 2: I was at the agency when you know, in Trump won,
Speaker 2: when when you know Trump would insult on Gla Merkel,
Speaker 2: the you know, the German chancellor in a Twitter rant,
Speaker 2: and then I'd have to go, you know, men ties
Speaker 2: here in Washington with the German intelligence chief. Uh. And
Speaker 2: so no, that's just what is done. If you think
Speaker 2: back to the first Gulf War, I know I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm dating people here, but this is when when King
Speaker 2: who then King Hussein cided essentially with Saddam Hussein in
Speaker 2: the invasion of quoit if you remember that. So the
Speaker 2: Jordanians were quote neutral, but the CIA and the Jordanian
Speaker 2: General Intelligence direct Director g I D kept the ties open,
Speaker 2: and King of Dullah, the current king, now credits that
Speaker 2: for the current state of US Jordanian ties. They said, hey,
Speaker 2: I remember you all, CIA, you know, stuck with us
Speaker 2: under the table. Now this is done on purpose, of course,
Speaker 2: by design, because you work through those political differences. Telsey
Speaker 2: Gabbert going on Twitter and cheerleading for you know, Trump's
Speaker 2: kind of you know, evisceration of Zelenski absolutely throws that
Speaker 2: into question. And I cannot imagine the migrain headache my
Speaker 2: old colleagues and the operations director it had realizing they'd
Speaker 2: act to note, try to figure out how to unscrew
Speaker 2: this with the Ukrainian colleagues, and then of course that
Speaker 2: falls or that now we see today a suspension and
Speaker 2: intelligence sharing. And so you know, Gabbard is, as I
Speaker 2: said on TV, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: try to downplay it here. She was not fit for
Speaker 2: the job, and she's acting like a political toady to
Speaker 2: Trump and that's just not what her role is. And
Speaker 2: that is that actually feeds into all the worries we
Speaker 2: had about her as the d N. I just a
Speaker 2: an awful moment. And uh and and this this is
Speaker 2: just not me talking. This was kind of the you know,
Speaker 2: my colleagues, the formers, even across the political spectrum. I
Speaker 2: had Republican friends who are like, yeah, she really shouldn't
Speaker 2: have done that. You know, what is she doing here?
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting time and it's challenging to talk
Speaker 1: to friends, colleagues, et cetera.
Speaker 2: In many cases.
Speaker 1: I mean, something is happening within the United States government
Speaker 1: and to the United States government right now that I
Speaker 1: don't think most Americans have, like it hasn't sunk in yet.
Speaker 1: They aren't really clear about what's going on or what's
Speaker 1: being done, or how this fundamentally takes America in a
Speaker 1: different direction and maybe it's not the one they think.
Speaker 2: So Jack, that's a really good point. So, you know,
Speaker 2: there's the kind of the data, a you know, outrage
Speaker 2: or concern over over what's happening. But then there's the
Speaker 2: bigger picture, you know, in the sense of you know,
Speaker 2: who are we now this? You know, and you know
Speaker 2: this this kind of war on the on on government. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's always going to be a debate on how much
Speaker 2: kind of government intrusion in our lives is necessary. But
Speaker 2: I think we could also say that, you know what,
Speaker 2: it's a good thing to have weather forecasters, you know,
Speaker 2: on the government payroll. They were fired the other day,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it's it's a good thing to
Speaker 2: have people fighting wildfires out west. They were fired the
Speaker 2: other day.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And the same thing with with you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: workers at the at the VA, including many veterans. And
Speaker 2: so I don't know if the American people have woken
Speaker 2: up to the fact that this is a complete dismantlement
Speaker 2: of of the federal government. And people hate government until
Speaker 2: they need government. Yeah, And so to me, I mean again,
Speaker 2: there's you know this is uh, you know, go back
Speaker 2: to to you know, your old kind of theories of
Speaker 2: of I mean, I don't know are we going to
Speaker 2: turn into you know, and rand I gotta go back
Speaker 2: and re read an Ran the whole idea of total libertarianism.
Speaker 2: There's no government at all? Is that really what we want?
Speaker 2: Because that you know what, no one's picking up your garbage,
Speaker 2: no one's fighting your fires in your house. There's gonna
Speaker 2: be a tornado. It's going to demolish your house. No
Speaker 2: one kind of warned you about it. So there's there's
Speaker 2: parts of this that I just kind of I think
Speaker 2: are And the last part of it, let me just
Speaker 2: say is as a former government employee, you worked for
Speaker 2: twenty six years, you know at some point, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm starting to get irritated. I don't need a patent
Speaker 2: the head I worked the CIA, no one ever knew
Speaker 2: what we did. But this hatred on the federal workforce
Speaker 2: is getting is wearing a little thin. It's I mean,
Speaker 2: what do you attribute that to?
Speaker 1: I mean, you touched on it a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the anger, like there's something I'm not to
Speaker 1: like wax poetic or play. Sigmund Freud a little maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit too much, But I mean, there seems
Speaker 1: to be this like total disenfranchisement with the very idea
Speaker 1: of government that that government can come in and through
Speaker 1: policies and reforms they can improve conditions for people. It
Speaker 1: seems like there's just no belief in that at all
Speaker 1: anymore across the spectrum and just the The other thing
Speaker 1: I would point out is that a lot of people
Speaker 1: are treating politics as entertainment.
Speaker 2: And I can't really.
Speaker 1: Totally blame them either, because our politicians and our media
Speaker 1: have both packaged and branded politics as entertainment to them
Speaker 1: for decades, and I think that has led us to
Speaker 1: maybe where we are today.
Speaker 2: But I mean, what are your thoughts about you know why?
Speaker 2: I mean this is clearly there is clearly.
Speaker 1: Some support public support for this at the moment. There
Speaker 1: may not be in another year or two. Where do
Speaker 1: you think some of those things come from? That difference
Speaker 1: in perspective?
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, so let me let me
Speaker 2: answer this. You know, I was in New York City
Speaker 2: after nine eleven, and I saw how the New Yorkers
Speaker 2: came together, which was remarkable. I mean, I'm never forgetting
Speaker 2: I lived up on eightieth and New York then uh
Speaker 2: uh nice Upper East Side living there. And I remember
Speaker 2: there was a pizza guy on Second Avenue in the
Speaker 2: eighties somewhere. It was Egyptian, and I was worried about him.
Speaker 2: And he hung American flag outside his his pizza joint,
Speaker 2: and he was embraced by the community. Really impressive. I
Speaker 2: remember President Bush saying that, hey, there cannot be kind
Speaker 2: of any they cannot be anti Muslim sentiment based on this.
Speaker 2: You know, this is not that, this is not what
Speaker 2: we're not going We're not going to war with this flom.
Speaker 2: We're going to war with al Qaeda. But there was
Speaker 2: a feeling of kind of collective goodwill. And then then
Speaker 2: I remember that, and so then then compare that to then,
Speaker 2: you know what happened to COVID. A million Americans died
Speaker 2: in COVID, and there was a point in time where
Speaker 2: there was a feeling of unity amongst the country. But
Speaker 2: that then all fell apart. And why is it I'm
Speaker 2: trying to answer your question, because government, I think took
Speaker 2: measures which I think were understandable at the time in
Speaker 2: terms of mask mandates and quarantines and shutting down basically
Speaker 2: the entire country because they were scared and people didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do. I mean, my my stepbrother's an
Speaker 2: erodoc in New York. He had dead bodies piling up.
Speaker 2: I mean, the doctors have still a pts from this.
Speaker 2: He said they had no idea what they were doing.
Speaker 2: They would treat a patient coming in they looked okay,
Speaker 2: they'd send them home. They're dead. There was bodies. But
Speaker 2: one of my one of my stepbrothers fellow doctors committed
Speaker 2: suicide after this because they had such trauma for I
Speaker 2: mean literally hundreds of people dying on shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but my mom worked in a hospital and they
Speaker 1: had like the refrigeration truck out back.
Speaker 2: It's bad, it's donning and so. But but then the
Speaker 2: government reaction to this, which I think was very understandable
Speaker 2: at the time, is you know, uh and they got
Speaker 2: some things wrong, but you know, you know, whether it's
Speaker 2: shutting down schools, which was very harmful to kids, but
Speaker 2: mask mandates, which I thought were fine, but people kind
Speaker 2: of freaked out about uh uh and and I think
Speaker 2: that is where you see this hostility to government now,
Speaker 2: because there is a large percentage of a population thinks
Speaker 2: there is huge government overreach on there, So I was
Speaker 2: thinking about that the other days. You know, why this
Speaker 2: hatred of the government, But I think it was people
Speaker 2: saw that as an infringement on their rights. And that's
Speaker 2: the only way you can explain how this fucking nuts
Speaker 2: job is now our hij secretary. In terms of RFK Junior.
Speaker 2: I mean, the man is certifiably insane if you talk
Speaker 2: to any medical professional. Yet he's lauded last night in
Speaker 2: the State of the Union as well. Well. Why is
Speaker 2: that because he again is part of this kind of
Speaker 2: you know, anti government sentiment. I don't know, so I
Speaker 2: think I think it goes back to a reaction to
Speaker 2: you know, government measures during COVID. Perhaps it's more deep
Speaker 2: seated than that, but to me, that was and by
Speaker 2: the way, and that is not that's across the political
Speaker 2: spectrum too. I mean, this is a silly statement. What
Speaker 2: I'm going to make is, you know, my son's big
Speaker 2: baseball players. He's played baseball college now, but his high
Speaker 2: school season that you know, was canceled because of COVID.
Speaker 2: This was a season in which they thought they'd win
Speaker 2: the state championship. And most of the people I live
Speaker 2: in Northern Virginia is certainly are not Trump voters, and
Speaker 2: they're still furious about this. You know, why did they
Speaker 2: cancel school? Uh? And and you know, and so maybe
Speaker 2: it's maybe it's just the reaction overall to COVID.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's definitely interesting. I hadn't really thought
Speaker 1: about that. But I'm sure you're right that that did
Speaker 1: pull the country apart in more ways than one.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, like I mean, I'm I'm like,
Speaker 2: it's there's something something off with me now. While there's
Speaker 2: probably a lot off with me now, but every time
Speaker 2: I go on a god damn plane, I get sick.
Speaker 2: I get the flu. I don't get I've had COVID
Speaker 2: a million times. But so like the other I was
Speaker 2: on a flight the other day and I wore a mask.
Speaker 2: I might as well have had a giant dick growing
Speaker 2: out of my head. Like I was like, like, people
Speaker 2: are staring me like I was a pariah. And and
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, hey, man, like I'm not
Speaker 2: getting the flu again. I've got to go on this,
Speaker 2: you know, I gotta go on this, uh this airline flight.
Speaker 2: But you know, wearing a mask. I mean, there are
Speaker 2: measures in certain states banning the wearing of masks, right now,
Speaker 2: that's the that's the reaction to to COVID, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe that's I.
Speaker 3: Mean, it's interesting that they want to ban masks and
Speaker 3: like want to talk about like you know, your body,
Speaker 3: your chill, and like you could do whatever you want
Speaker 3: to do. But if I want to wear a mask,
Speaker 3: that's wear a mask. That's what I'm saying. Like, if
Speaker 3: you don't want to wear a mask, that's fine too.
Speaker 3: Like why he's getting so triggered over the fact that
Speaker 3: somebody wants to wear a mask in an airplane with
Speaker 3: like three, you know, two hundred other people.
Speaker 2: All Right, I have a great I have a great
Speaker 2: little plug for a show that that the hopefully the
Speaker 2: listeners will like. There's a there's a show on Max
Speaker 2: now called The Pit. Have you guys seen it. It's
Speaker 2: about an er emergency room in Pittsburgh. I saw like
Speaker 2: clips from it. Phenomenal. It's an incredible show. Again, my brother,
Speaker 2: who's in the r doc in New York's said it's
Speaker 2: one hundred percent realistic. But there's a great scene in
Speaker 2: there in which there's someone who's against masks comes in
Speaker 2: and in the er and she's screaming at other people
Speaker 2: for wearing masks, and then she's about to roll into
Speaker 2: surgery and the doctor says, ma'am, I just wanted to
Speaker 2: clarify something with you. You know, is it okay if
Speaker 2: the doctors here wear masks as we're performing surgery on you?
Speaker 2: And she said, well, I don't know. You know why.
Speaker 2: I said, well, you know, if we don't, you know,
Speaker 2: you can get infected and you might die. But if
Speaker 2: you tell us you don't want us to wear a mask,
Speaker 2: we're happy not to. And she looks at them and
Speaker 2: she says, wear a mask.
Speaker 3: There you go, and yeah, yeah, all right, swinging back
Speaker 3: to Ukraine and stuff like that. Can I ask a question,
Speaker 3: can Europe fill the void? Great question I saw?
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm a member of about forty five
Speaker 2: different signal chats on this on Ukraine, so I gotta
Speaker 2: I gotta roll through them every morning. But you know
Speaker 2: the majority of people I talk to, and again, as
Speaker 2: a former intel officer, I'm not a former you know,
Speaker 2: professional military officer strategist, but I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: to be said that that first of all, Ukraine can
Speaker 2: hang on. And just remember we have written Ukraine's death
Speaker 2: you know, obituary, death notice so many times, and so
Speaker 2: just keep in mind that Jack will get this. You know,
Speaker 2: there's there's a couple of things in war that I
Speaker 2: think are relevant. One is, of course material resources, but
Speaker 2: also it's the will to fight, and the Ukrainian have that,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of that that intangible. But if you
Speaker 2: look at the battlefield, you know, so much now is
Speaker 2: less dependent on kind of the I think that the
Speaker 2: way we thought of things before with you know, with
Speaker 2: maybe with armor, with tanks or even things like that,
Speaker 2: and now it's now it's all these kind of not
Speaker 2: only drones, but indigenously produced drones. The Ukrainians have an
Speaker 2: incredible capacity uh for these fpvs uh, these FPP drones,
Speaker 2: and so ultimately I think they're gonna be able to
Speaker 2: hold on to me. I think the big thing would
Speaker 2: be air defense, uh, you know, and getting the Europeans
Speaker 2: to kind of step up on that. But again we've
Speaker 2: written Ukrainians, you know, obituary many times, and so at
Speaker 2: some point I think, and this is not a bad strategy,
Speaker 2: Europe should say, well fuck it, the United States switch sides,
Speaker 2: go bye, You're not relevant anymore. And I can't believe
Speaker 2: I'm even saying that, but I think there's something to that,
Speaker 2: and that's if the Europeans can get their get their
Speaker 2: craft together and lead, and there are a lot of
Speaker 2: signs that they will, you know, in terms of leadership
Speaker 2: from Germany, from France, from the UK and then don't
Speaker 2: forget the kind of the smaller frontline states or just savages,
Speaker 2: you know, go talk to the Estonians or the polls
Speaker 2: about what they want to do and how they want
Speaker 2: to kill Russians and it's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've kind of like resisted the idea of
Speaker 1: like not Europe being unified economically, but being unified militarily
Speaker 1: is something that we've kind of like discouraged because Germany
Speaker 1: will ultimately become the leader of that army and there
Speaker 1: are some historical things there that we don't want to repeat.
Speaker 1: But there's also the larger question also of five Eyes
Speaker 1: and how that relationship is going to work. Because we're
Speaker 1: talking right now about the Europeans filling the void that
Speaker 1: we leave in Ukraine, but if we really are completely out,
Speaker 1: I mean, how does that affect the five eyes relationship
Speaker 1: in our European partner's ability to collect intelligence?
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure, and so so just for kind of the
Speaker 2: background for your your your listeners. The Five Eyes is
Speaker 2: this incredible, you know, decades long partnership between the US, England,
Speaker 2: in the UK, uh Canada, New Zealand Australia. And it
Speaker 2: is an intelligence sharing relationship in which we share things
Speaker 2: such as human intelligence that's you know, you know, reporting
Speaker 2: from our spies on the ground, and then signals intelligence
Speaker 2: that's the communications interceptions. And I think that on on
Speaker 2: this signals intelligence side, there's been a lot written on this.
Speaker 2: There's there is interoperability in the sense of like the
Speaker 2: US and the UK share systems. It's very hard to
Speaker 2: break that. I don't know how, you you know, how
Speaker 2: how that gets broken apart because the NSA National Security
Speaker 2: Agency that's our outfit, and the g c h Q
Speaker 2: that's the British one are are in essence one, and
Speaker 2: so breaking that is gonna be difficult. Where I think,
Speaker 2: I think it's already happening for sure, because I talked
Speaker 2: to my especially old friends in the British security establishment.
Speaker 2: You know, find if I get them, you know, drunk
Speaker 2: a little bit, they'll admit this to me. On human intelligence,
Speaker 2: that's a choice. And so when British version of Russia House,
Speaker 2: and I know you've had former Russia House folks on
Speaker 2: the team House. So when the British version of Russia
Speaker 2: House collects something based on their penetration of a member
Speaker 2: of Putin's inner circle, they have a choice. And in
Speaker 2: the past they would share that with the United States.
Speaker 2: They would sanitize it, probably not tell us the identity
Speaker 2: of the source, but they would sanitize it to a degree,
Speaker 2: but still provide critical information. You have to remember, for
Speaker 2: an intelligence service, they have a sacred duty to their agents,
Speaker 2: to the sources to keep them alive. And so I
Speaker 2: don't think anyone in their right mind in the British
Speaker 2: Security Service right now it's going to say, hey, we
Speaker 2: can share this stuff with the Americans like we used to.
Speaker 2: And what you'll see is there won't be a stated
Speaker 2: policy of it because that would risk the wrath of Trump.
Speaker 2: But they will just slowly ratchet this back. And I've
Speaker 2: talked to numerous British officials on this and they say
Speaker 2: that's exactly what is happening. You just will never know
Speaker 2: until you wake up one morning and you're like, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't get the same kind of stuff from our
Speaker 2: counterpar arts. And I'll tell you no CIA officer would
Speaker 2: say that they don't understand what the British are doing,
Speaker 2: because again, you have a sacred duty to your asset,
Speaker 2: to your agent to keep them alive. And the US
Speaker 2: cannot be trusted now, not only with you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, dopes in charge uh sorry of the US
Speaker 2: intelligence apparatus, but also the notion uh that we have
Speaker 2: in essence switch sides to Russia.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know. The the one thing, Jack that I want
Speaker 2: to throw out to you. This will be a fun
Speaker 2: exercise because if we had this discussion three months ago,
Speaker 2: so many of the things that we would be saying,
Speaker 2: we would have said, well, we'll never do that. We'll
Speaker 2: never fire officers of the CIA, will never withhold you know,
Speaker 2: intel or military aid. We'll never gut the VA because
Speaker 2: that's insane. So one of the one of the really
Speaker 2: interesting things is if you if you look at let's
Speaker 2: even get you know, move forward, the US pulling out
Speaker 2: of NATO, uh, the US telling the Chinese you can
Speaker 2: have Taiwan. I mean, I think there are some things
Speaker 2: that in the past we would have said are absolutely
Speaker 2: beyond the pale. We would never do I think we
Speaker 2: should consider because when people, you know call me up
Speaker 2: and say, you know, well Trump will never you know,
Speaker 2: just declare himself, you know, emperor and run for a
Speaker 2: third term, I'm like, I don't know. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: nothing is sacred anymore. So what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: And maybe I find what are some of the things
Speaker 2: that in the past you'd say could never happen that
Speaker 2: perhaps could happen now. Yeah, I mean I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I mean we have to get over that, that that
Speaker 1: hurdle that we have mentally of a you know, that
Speaker 1: could never happen or that shit doesn't happen here. We
Speaker 1: need to get over that real fast, because it is happening.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, throughout just my life, you know, relatively short
Speaker 1: period of time, historically, a bunch of things that would
Speaker 1: never happen actually happened. I mean everything from Brexit to
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen election of Donald Trump. I mean, all
Speaker 1: these things we were told repeatedly would never happen took place.
Speaker 1: So I think that, yeah, we're moving in a direction
Speaker 1: that is more authoritarian. You're right to point out that
Speaker 1: some of these things can't just be undone. You know,
Speaker 1: if we pull out of NATO. It's not the same
Speaker 1: as US like renaming Fort Bragg every four years. Like
Speaker 1: there's a little bit more to it than that. But
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, when I make this argument,
Speaker 1: I'm at it. I feel like I'm at a disadvantage because,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, making this sort of argument for international cooperation
Speaker 1: is not as compelling as the America first argument. It's saying,
Speaker 1: fuck all these other people out there, they're taking our money,
Speaker 1: they're cheating us, and we get nothing for it. I
Speaker 1: admit my argument is not as sexy or as compelling
Speaker 1: as their America First argument is, even though I feel
Speaker 1: that it's really America last, that our partnerships are vital
Speaker 1: strategic necessity for us, and you know, our enemies acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: That's why the Chinese and the Russians and others are
Speaker 1: always trying to attack our alliances around the world.
Speaker 2: Well, Mark, can I say something about the America first thing?
Speaker 3: And I agree, it's like an easy rebuttal to what
Speaker 3: you're saying in terms of like being involved internationally and
Speaker 3: like giving aid or whatever. The problem is, America First
Speaker 3: doesn't happen. Our quality of life is not better. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're telling me, even if we pulled out and we
Speaker 3: cut our budget in half in terms of defense and
Speaker 3: foreign aid, and we saved five hundred billion dollars or
Speaker 3: trillion dollars, that something would happen for the regular middle
Speaker 3: class person that's struggling day to day to pay rent,
Speaker 3: to pay for groceries, to do all the things that
Speaker 3: they need to do to just live a fucking life.
Speaker 3: If you were telling me, maybe I'd be a little
Speaker 3: bit more on the America first side. If you were like,
Speaker 3: you know what, we're gonna save money from here, and
Speaker 3: we're gonna give you guys some type of affordable or
Speaker 3: universal health care that's quality that the rest of the
Speaker 3: world has, basic things that people should deserve, then I'd
Speaker 3: be like, you know what, I'm kind of on their
Speaker 3: side too, but I've yet to fucking see it. The
Speaker 3: only people I see benefiting are the robber barons, whether
Speaker 3: it's those musque correct. If I was a hedge fund
Speaker 3: manager or a significant shareholder and a big company, yeah,
Speaker 3: i'd be loving it too, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: They might not nobody else be loving it much longer
Speaker 1: seeing the way the styck market's going.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so this is my This is my Jersey
Speaker 2: blue class, you know, upbringing right here. You know, I
Speaker 2: just went to see Dropkick Murphy's by the way, in concert.
Speaker 2: I think I told you guys that, yeah, awesome, that's
Speaker 2: like the new resistance. We're actually I was talking to
Speaker 2: Adam Kinsinger like we want to get like a drop
Speaker 2: Kick Murphy's, uh, you know, resistance concert form. But but
Speaker 2: one of the things that I you know, the amount
Speaker 2: of grift that is going on is stunning. And I
Speaker 2: get I guess the American people don't care that you
Speaker 2: can go and you know, pay a million bucks to
Speaker 2: have dinner with Trump or this this Golden visa where
Speaker 2: for five million bucks anybody, including a Russian oligark now
Speaker 2: can now citizenship. I mean, it's just it's one thing
Speaker 2: after another. Uh where kind of the the blue collar
Speaker 2: guy and gal, the middle class is not being advantage whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And you know how about the tariffs. The tariffs are
Speaker 2: gonna crush the working class. So the whole thing is just, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, preposterous in terms of you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: do that well in economics in college, but I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I know a thing or two. It just doesn't even
Speaker 2: make sense, uh, you know, with with with with economics.
Speaker 2: But I think one of the things, uh to look
Speaker 2: for is that what I thought was kind of interesting
Speaker 2: is these these town halls where people are are kind
Speaker 2: of pushing back to the point where there was a
Speaker 2: kind of a directive from the Republican leadership in the
Speaker 2: House saying, don't do them anymore. Well, if you can't
Speaker 2: face your constituents, I mean.
Speaker 3: From the Republican Campaign Committee, which is like you go
Speaker 3: to the town hall to try and you know, make
Speaker 3: some money, and they raise some money.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you look at again, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: quote the American Enterprise Institute the AI that's a think
Speaker 2: tank in the United States that is certainly not the
Speaker 2: you know, the bastion of progressive liberalism. It is a
Speaker 2: conservative think tank. And in their study on Ukraine aid
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty plus billion, you know, a huge
Speaker 2: majority of that actually went to defense contractors, which who
Speaker 2: do what they employ American citizens, and so it actually
Speaker 2: the aid to Ukraine is excellent for the US economy.
Speaker 2: Now you can make the whole argument like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is the military industrial complex blah blah blah, but
Speaker 2: ultimately the American worker is benefiting from our aid package
Speaker 2: to Ukraine. And so I think that's the way you
Speaker 2: kind of and and by the way, most of these
Speaker 2: jobs are in Red States. Yeah, that's the way. That's
Speaker 2: the retort you say, well, we're giving all this crap
Speaker 2: to Ukraine and said, yeah, but your brothers and sisters
Speaker 2: down the street and you know in Alabama have a
Speaker 2: job because of it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you want to talk about bringing jobs back
Speaker 1: to the United States. I mean, the war in Ukraine
Speaker 1: brought back the artillery shell manufacturing to the United States,
Speaker 1: where I mean we made them all along, but we
Speaker 1: ramped up production, like drastically, opening up a number of
Speaker 1: new facilities to do that. And a lot of Americans
Speaker 1: they don't understand that, you know, how foreign military sales
Speaker 1: in general work. And it is a little scary when you,
Speaker 1: you know, hear about it, because it does sound like
Speaker 1: a military industrial complex. But the larger point is that
Speaker 1: when we give this military aid to a foreign country Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, whatever,
Speaker 1: we're not just like giving them money, and we're not
Speaker 1: just sending them more material. We're basically giving them monopoly
Speaker 1: money and saying, hey, you have five billion dollars. You
Speaker 1: can spend it on whatever American defense you know, weaponry
Speaker 1: you want, and so that that money never even leaves
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like star credit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes to the United States arms manufacturers in
Speaker 1: American jobs, as you point out, in the States, in
Speaker 1: the United States, and then that that war material is
Speaker 1: sent over to Israel, Egypt, Ukraine, wherever on is. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's important to understand.
Speaker 2: That, Hey, I got it, let me just let me
Speaker 2: switch topics, just because something was on my mind. That
Speaker 2: was that that was what came up last night in
Speaker 2: the President's address, and that's uh that obviously in an
Speaker 2: operation run by the intelligence community and with the help
Speaker 2: of the Pakistani government. Uh, it looks like we're going
Speaker 2: we're about to are extraditing one of the masterminds of
Speaker 2: the abby Gate bombing at h k I at Hamid
Speaker 2: Karsi Airport. If you remember, thirteen American Marines not all marases, sorry,
Speaker 2: and and and some other folks as well from I
Speaker 2: think Navy and uh uh and the army were killed
Speaker 2: in a suicide of bomb attempt. But so President Trump
Speaker 2: makes these remarks yesterday a couple of things on that,
Speaker 2: and then of course you see all this stuff on
Speaker 2: social media which I have to stop reading from from
Speaker 2: you know, from the FBI director, from CI director, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, from people around the Trump national security operat
Speaker 2: is saying this is Trump, he did this again. So
Speaker 2: we take an event which I support, of course, which
Speaker 2: is the apprehension and extradition of a terrorist, uh, and
Speaker 2: we fuck it up. And this is how because number one,
Speaker 2: this operation, a high value target operation takes months, if
Speaker 2: not years to Germany. It's intelligence driven. The agency was
Speaker 2: following this individual. It's been out in the press already.
Speaker 2: And when you know, when we finally get them on
Speaker 2: the X, we can do a couple of things. We can,
Speaker 2: you know, conduct a drone strike, calling the Jaysock brothers
Speaker 2: and sisters, or go to Pakistani leson for help. And
Speaker 2: they that's what we That's what they did. They went
Speaker 2: to the Pakistani's and they captured them. This has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with whoever's in power. And literally the you know,
Speaker 2: the Secretary of Defense and others were saying, this is
Speaker 2: a victory for Trump. We made this a priority to
Speaker 2: get the perpetrators of Abbey Gate. Once we got into power.
Speaker 2: And that is utter and complete bullshit because this operation
Speaker 2: has been going on for months and months, this was
Speaker 2: a high value target. Everything is intel driven, and to
Speaker 2: compound all that, then Trump's goes out and says, in
Speaker 2: the state of the Union, thanks to the government of Pakistan,
Speaker 2: who right now is having a fucking aneurysm, because if
Speaker 2: you understand Pakistani domestic politics, it goes like this will
Speaker 2: help you, but please don't tell anybody about this. So
Speaker 2: now we've screwed up a relationship that if we were
Speaker 2: trying to rebuild with Pakistan on CT which has always
Speaker 2: been strained, now it's kind of gone down the shitter.
Speaker 2: And it reminds me the Solomoni strike of several years ago.
Speaker 2: Righteous strike killed a really bad guy. But then Trump
Speaker 2: has to has to brag about it. So there's this
Speaker 2: inability of this and every administration is going to try
Speaker 2: to take credit, but in particular here saying that chest stumping,
Speaker 2: saying that this was a priority of Trump. That's just
Speaker 2: total bullshit. This is based on dogged work by the
Speaker 2: intelligence community, following a high value target for years and
Speaker 2: it finally comes to fruition. And I know this because
Speaker 2: this is what I did for a lit for years
Speaker 2: and years, and it doesn't matter who's in power. You
Speaker 2: got the guy in the X, figure out a way
Speaker 2: to bring him to justice, either kinetic strike, maybe put
Speaker 2: you know, you know, Jaysack on the ground, or you
Speaker 2: go to liaison for assistance. But they take they like
Speaker 2: taking curtain calls even when they don't. It's just it
Speaker 2: drives me crazy. No. Now, every president does.
Speaker 3: This, sure, but at the same time, like you could
Speaker 3: probably do it in a better way where you don't
Speaker 3: expose or kind of like expose your allies in terms
Speaker 3: of the people that helps you. Because Pakistan and the
Speaker 3: American's intelligence sharing has kind of been a tailor to
Speaker 3: fucking faces right for the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: Right, so so this this literally has been called the
Speaker 2: Trump Operation. I'm just like, oh my god. And it's
Speaker 2: you know anyway, so.
Speaker 1: That's that's there's like this interesting like desire for instant
Speaker 1: gratification right now.
Speaker 2: And people talk about, oh, he's.
Speaker 1: A businessman, and you know it's transactional, but transactional is
Speaker 1: not bad. You know, there's a give and take, Like Okay,
Speaker 1: I get that, but when you're really just looking for
Speaker 1: like short term successes, and victories that you can tout
Speaker 1: in the media. You're sacrificing the deferred gratification, the long
Speaker 1: term strategic successes.
Speaker 2: Especially when in South Asia right now with the rise
Speaker 2: of isis K and I'm sure you've had guests on
Speaker 2: talking about this. You know, ices K is probably the
Speaker 2: biggest threat to US interests at this point as a
Speaker 2: kind of classic old terrorist group not so old, but
Speaker 2: but we need that, We need all of our allies
Speaker 2: assistance because we have no you know, boots on the ground,
Speaker 2: We have no eyes or ears in Afghanistan anymore. And
Speaker 2: so the Pakistanis as much as I find them completely
Speaker 2: you know, irritating, as I was subject to multiple one
Speaker 2: hundred and seven millimeters rockets fired by the Government of
Speaker 2: Pakistan at my base in Afghanistan. I've talked to you
Speaker 2: about that story before. The Pakistanis and AQ were kind
Speaker 2: of shooting at us. But ultimately the pakistan Is a
Speaker 2: would be a an intelligence partner that's worth investing in
Speaker 2: again if we can in some fashion, but kind of
Speaker 2: thanking them globally, it's not something back in any government
Speaker 2: because domestically it's now now they're going to be on
Speaker 2: kind of under the gun anyway, that was just kind
Speaker 2: of something this morning with with all this kind of
Speaker 2: chest thumping that they're doing. And it's a great ct
Speaker 2: success the other But again, what I find this administration
Speaker 2: and think others are guilty to other administrations. But and
Speaker 2: I've criticized by the administration when they did stupid stuff
Speaker 2: like this, But the idea that somehow this is the
Speaker 2: the you know, the political masters kind of paking credit
Speaker 2: for this is ridiculous. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: work in the intelligence community and military that probably went
Speaker 2: into I'm sure went into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they've been looking into this
Speaker 3: since that day in August twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's not like you know so so the
Speaker 2: press reports were like, you know, CEI directors said on
Speaker 2: his first day, this is going to be a priority,
Speaker 2: except it was a priority on his you know, the
Speaker 2: day before he got there, because you know, conceivably my
Speaker 2: old colleagues have been working on this. Again, it's high
Speaker 2: value target operations don't just kind of come from the
Speaker 2: snap of a finger.
Speaker 3: He didn't walk into seven to eleven and somebody called
Speaker 3: the cops and they got him, right, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: Like that's that's what it sounds like, because and so
Speaker 2: just you know again, it's just you kind of just.
Speaker 3: Something that's breaking right now, I guess in a response
Speaker 3: to the tariff stuff Chinese embassy. If war is what
Speaker 3: the US wants, be it a tara for a trade
Speaker 3: war or any other type of war, ready to fight
Speaker 3: to the end.
Speaker 2: Great if you're China, right, and you see.
Speaker 3: What's going on with Ukraine, and obviously there's a different
Speaker 3: relationship between a bit of a different relationship between Trump
Speaker 3: and she and Trump and putin. If you and you
Speaker 3: see that America is gonna probably invest in like our
Speaker 3: own US made manufact like chips, the chips that are
Speaker 3: like the high end chips.
Speaker 2: Well that's what he says.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, if you're Taiwana, you're China, are you? I'd
Speaker 3: be freaking out if I'm Taiwan and I'm licking my
Speaker 3: chops if I'm China if they were really serious about
Speaker 3: taking Taiwan.
Speaker 2: So Bill Burns, who is the CI director obviously before
Speaker 2: Ratcliffe said in a speech a couple of maybe a
Speaker 2: year or so ago that twenty twenty seven would be beent,
Speaker 2: would be when the US assessed China would be ready
Speaker 2: to invade, and I will tell you that we'll basically
Speaker 2: giving them a green light. You know, we are not
Speaker 2: going to stand by Taiwan as an ally, We're not
Speaker 2: going to put US lives at risk. And I think
Speaker 2: Trump again, we'll see this as some kind of weird
Speaker 2: transactional thing. Yeah, but if I were the Taiwanese, I'd
Speaker 2: be crapping my pants because and let me say alongside that,
Speaker 2: if we were to come to the aid of Taiwan
Speaker 2: in defense of Chinese invasion, we would have to have
Speaker 2: a significant US military build up. And right now they're
Speaker 2: cutting the Department of Defense. Now there's a whole other
Speaker 2: issue on that, you know, whether you believe in kind
Speaker 2: of a defense build up or not. But d D
Speaker 2: right now, I don't think is configured at a war
Speaker 2: against China and the defense budgets, uh, with this kind
Speaker 2: of cost cutting, this DOGE cost cutting, are not going
Speaker 2: to reflect that as well. But I think our allies
Speaker 2: would be very well served to look elsewhere. It pains
Speaker 2: me to say that. By the way, I'm getting text
Speaker 2: right now from a good friend of ours who should
Speaker 2: be on the show. Are you really Nick Mulroy's ship
Speaker 2: that's going on, so you know, what the hell he
Speaker 2: should be on with us right now. That's so funny.
Speaker 2: I think in the second when I get off here,
Speaker 2: I said, hey, we're just talking about you. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: texted me to the group chat tell them we are
Speaker 2: on air, mocking his absence being anyhow. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess you know. One of the things that you know, Jack,
Speaker 2: you know, for you to think about too, based on
Speaker 2: your you know, your experience in the military, is you know,
Speaker 2: what do you think? I'm curious, what do you think
Speaker 2: people in the seventy fifth Range Regiment, or in the
Speaker 2: Special or the Green Berets are thinking now about this
Speaker 2: kind of this abandonment of an ally because and I
Speaker 2: will say that more than likely, just like the officers
Speaker 2: of CI in the para military world, probably those in
Speaker 2: SF as well are generally pretty conservative. But I would
Speaker 2: think that they're bothered by us walking away from an ally,
Speaker 2: that they spent a lot of time with your What
Speaker 2: are your thoughts? Yeah, I can't say that I have
Speaker 2: my finger on the.
Speaker 1: Pulse necessarily, like across the board, but I think there's
Speaker 1: going to be a range of opinions. But probably the
Speaker 1: predominant one is going to be leaning towards your point,
Speaker 1: being upset about some of these partnerships dissolving that they
Speaker 1: put a lot of hard work into. Even if they are,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever their politics are, I mean, it's still
Speaker 1: you know, impacting their mission. So I think from purely
Speaker 1: a professional standpoint, some of them are going to have
Speaker 1: problems with what's going on.
Speaker 2: So think about this, Jack, All right, so you're still
Speaker 2: back in You're you're in the military. We've decided your
Speaker 2: career in journalism is done, and you're going back in
Speaker 2: the new chairman. You're the leading champfe You're leaving your
Speaker 2: Cafe Lattes in Brooklyn and your you know, your poetry
Speaker 2: readings and uh, and you're back in there. But on
Speaker 2: a serious note, if you were in an o DA
Speaker 2: right now, and let's say you are where I'm going
Speaker 2: to make this up, and you know, working with the
Speaker 2: Philippine government on their counterinsurgency, you know, at some point
Speaker 2: someone on the on the on the you know, one
Speaker 2: of our allies is going to say, hey, thanks for
Speaker 2: your assistance right now, but you know, can we count
Speaker 2: on you all because we're looking at what you did
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, we're looking at you did in Ukraine? How
Speaker 2: can we And so the question for you would be
Speaker 2: what is your what is your response to that? And
Speaker 2: I just say that because you know, there's the there's
Speaker 2: the s F slash case officer model of you know,
Speaker 2: case officering or schmoozing your partner. But they're not stupid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know, so how do you address that? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen.
Speaker 1: It and I've been in the room for it a
Speaker 1: number of times, including in the Philippines. Actually, and I
Speaker 1: mean the answer to the question is, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: going to give them the party line, which is the
Speaker 1: United States Government stands shoulder to shoulder with the Republic
Speaker 1: of the Philippines. We're in this together. We have the
Speaker 1: greatest commitment to this country. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But as you point out, yeah, they're not stupid at all,
Speaker 1: and they're looking across the table at you like hmm okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so as a military professional, you're putting a very
Speaker 1: challenging position there where it's like you kind of like
Speaker 1: have to walk into the room and lie yeah at
Speaker 1: that point, and that's not a great feeling. I think
Speaker 1: for most soldiers to talk to an ally like that,
Speaker 1: but it exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's you could say, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 2: be here until we're not. Everybody I saw that. I
Speaker 2: have a funny story. I was up in northern Iraq
Speaker 2: with the Kurds in two thousand and two, December of
Speaker 2: O two before the invasion, and I was obviously that
Speaker 2: you know, what is it now, twenty twenty five, So
Speaker 2: that was twenty three years ago. I was much younger
Speaker 2: and younger in my career, and I remember giving a
Speaker 2: senior Curtis official that rah rob bullshit us speech about
Speaker 2: promoting democracy, and literally he said stop. He said, we
Speaker 2: have been betrayed by everybody. He said, We've been betrayed
Speaker 2: by the Iranians, the Iraqis, you know, the Israelis, the
Speaker 2: United States, the French, everyone under the sun. So you
Speaker 2: go stop with the bullshit. And I said, okay, that
Speaker 2: was it. Because again, because our our Leison partners are
Speaker 2: smart and so perhaps one of the things that you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know that that that notion of the bright, shining
Speaker 2: city on the hill, that kind of speech ain't gonna
Speaker 2: cut it anymore. And it's it's much more transactional. Hey,
Speaker 2: we're here to help you, help with you right now.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to do this. The problem is, of course,
Speaker 2: and what I what I'm sure you're seeing amongst the
Speaker 2: paramilitary crowd at CIA. Remember they have been with the
Speaker 2: Ukrainians since twenty fourteen. And then you know this, you've
Speaker 2: reported on this one. The one of my before I
Speaker 2: left as as ops chief over Europe and eur Asia
Speaker 2: is you know it was and that was before the
Speaker 2: Russian invasion, was you know, investing in this relationship. Uh
Speaker 2: and so, uh, there's going to be some pissed off
Speaker 2: you know, uh uh, you know paramilitary officers. I would
Speaker 2: imagine s F as well, just because it's impossible not to.
Speaker 2: If you make repeated trips over years to Ukraine, that
Speaker 2: means you break bread with these people. You know about
Speaker 2: their families, you know about people who've been killed, maybe
Speaker 2: their families have been raped and murdered, maybe they've had
Speaker 2: obviously they've had members their unit killed in action the Ukrainians.
Speaker 2: It's it's just a human reaction for US national security
Speaker 2: professional to get close to their liaison partner. And so
Speaker 2: I think there's gonna be some you know, just as
Speaker 2: as the Afghan wh's ro all traumatic. I think there's
Speaker 2: gonna be some pissed off people here now saying, well,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, I just spent ten years investing
Speaker 2: in this partnership. I know, Sergey or whoever, it is like,
Speaker 2: these are my brothers and sisters and and and the
Speaker 2: other thing is is the Ukraine wasn't Ukraine Russia wasn't
Speaker 2: David versus Goliath fight like this was. We talked about
Speaker 2: it last time. This was the moral clarity that we
Speaker 2: didn't have in the twenty year GUI, which went all
Speaker 2: sideways after a while. It was an actual just cause
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, there's a there is a smaller parallel. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's going on now is unprecedent that I think, but
Speaker 1: a smaller parallel would be during the Nixon administration. Nixon
Speaker 1: saw the CIA as part of the of the deep state,
Speaker 1: right like they're against me, and he made a bunch
Speaker 1: of cuts to CIA that actually came into effect during
Speaker 1: the Carter administration.
Speaker 2: And my point there is that there's like this sort
Speaker 2: of like story.
Speaker 1: There's some mystique around it, even about all these laid
Speaker 1: off CIA officers who went into the private sector and
Speaker 1: from there it was like the Wild West for the
Speaker 1: for these guys. And it's going to be interesting to
Speaker 1: see where this generation of you know, disenfranchised intelligence officers
Speaker 1: end up. I mean, some of them will end up
Speaker 1: working for the Europeans, the Australians, you know, things like that.
Speaker 1: Some of them might just go over to the other side.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially if that's our new national policy.
Speaker 3: Is that there was a report a few days ago
Speaker 3: saying that Russia and China are turning their eyes towards
Speaker 3: the people that have been let go to see if
Speaker 3: they could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course they are. Yeah, okay, so yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean think about it. So, first of all, one of
Speaker 2: the one of the you know, as someone else someone
Speaker 2: retort would be, well, well fuck those people if they're
Speaker 2: going to go spy for Russia or China, you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't deserve to be. Uh you know, they're they're
Speaker 2: not great Americans. But that's not how the intelligence business works.
Speaker 2: What I'm concerned about is the i'll call it the
Speaker 2: LinkedIn model, is that they will be commercially recruited now
Speaker 2: that the Chinese and the Russians are all over LinkedIn,
Speaker 2: and so someone who has just been let go from
Speaker 2: the US intelligence community with a TS clearance who has
Speaker 2: a mortgage and doesn't have healthcare is going to get it.
Speaker 2: It's getting an email and saying I'm going to do
Speaker 2: Bai based consultant and I would love your assistance on X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z. And it's totally done commercially, and people
Speaker 2: are going to bite at that. And and that's going
Speaker 2: to be the modus operandi of the Russians and the
Speaker 2: Chinese and going after our folks. It's not it's not
Speaker 2: you know, Vladimir from the Russian consulate city coming up
Speaker 2: to someone. It's a commercial recruitment and people are going
Speaker 2: to be desperate because you just are tossing out people
Speaker 2: with TS clearance, top secret clearances, who have bills to pay.
Speaker 2: I mean that One of the amazing things is when
Speaker 2: we advise other countries on stuff like this, on a
Speaker 2: purge of the security services, this is the exact thing
Speaker 2: we say, don't ever do. And this is of course
Speaker 2: is what we did in Rock with debatification. If you
Speaker 2: put you know, several thousand angry you know, former security
Speaker 2: service members out in the street, they're going to turn
Speaker 2: on you. And so I just think that there is
Speaker 2: a big counterintelligence concern. And it's not again, someone walking
Speaker 2: into a Russian embassy. It's someone responding to a commercial
Speaker 2: recruitment and they you know, and it's going to be
Speaker 2: over time, but they're going to get wooed by some
Speaker 2: Dubai based or Singapore based entity to end up providing
Speaker 2: intelligence that is. I mean that, you know, my former
Speaker 2: my friends in the FBI literally are writing these signal
Speaker 2: messages saying this is a problem right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit. A couple of things to look
Speaker 3: out for for tomorrow, I think March. I think it's tomorrow,
Speaker 3: March sixth. The European Parliament's going to vote on a
Speaker 3: big aid package eight hundred bill yep. So we will
Speaker 3: see if the Europeans do step up.
Speaker 2: Hopefully they do. The colass who is the EU foreign
Speaker 2: policy chief, she said, we need to have a new
Speaker 2: leader of the free world now America is no longer
Speaker 2: the leader. I mean that to me, these are devastating statements.
Speaker 2: Might not be wrong, I mean it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: See how you know that role right now for the
Speaker 1: time being is being filled by Zolensky. I mean yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy in Ukraine who he's standing up to both
Speaker 1: rushing in the United States at the same time.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's got some balls. The idea that he
Speaker 2: was supposed to apologize for that oval aful meeting, I
Speaker 2: think is so patently ludicrous. Again, I'm going to piss
Speaker 2: off a lot of people listen to this. But what
Speaker 2: I said on the air the other day is, you know,
Speaker 2: those who demanded an apology from Zelenski, those who are
Speaker 2: screaming at him for quote, disrespecting the president, which I
Speaker 2: think is ludicrous. I've seen the clip a million times.
Speaker 2: I think it was totally set up, and JD. Vance
Speaker 2: was acting like this little yappy terror terrier attack dog.
Speaker 2: Nothing against terriers for the dog loving of viewers. But
Speaker 2: but this, anyone who says that Zelensky must apologize, that
Speaker 2: is actually a tacit admission that our president is a
Speaker 2: petulant toddler who has to be handled with kid gloves.
Speaker 2: If you're the president of the United States and you
Speaker 2: have a far ahead of state, come they can have
Speaker 2: a frank discussion. Yeah, but but Trump is acting like
Speaker 2: a mafia. Don you know? His skin is paper thin too.
Speaker 2: It's paper thin. And so people who say, well, Zelensky
Speaker 2: mishandled this. Are actually admitting that Trump is a toddler
Speaker 2: who can't handle any type of criticism. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's to me, a great leader is someone who
Speaker 2: will sit there and have a discussion with someone and
Speaker 2: you're gonna have opposing views, and you say, and that
Speaker 2: whole exchange, even though it should never have been in public.
Speaker 2: The right retort would have been, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: President Zelenski, your passion is so admirable. You know, we'll
Speaker 2: continue this discussions later. Yeah, that's not happening from trump Man, right,
Speaker 2: But I'm saying, but but the fact that it can't
Speaker 2: be is an admission of his you know, narcissistic, sociopathic
Speaker 2: personality and again that he's a he's a toddler who
Speaker 2: just you know, you know, he cannot handle any type
Speaker 2: of criticism. So Lindsey Graham, the Senator, when he throws
Speaker 2: a fit afterwards in a press conference, saying, you know,
Speaker 2: Zelensky mishandled this. You're admitting he mishandled it because Trump
Speaker 2: is you know, it's is such a kind of this
Speaker 2: flawed individual.
Speaker 3: Well, Lency Graham's a mutant, like he he just goes
Speaker 3: to having the wing flows. You know, like a week
Speaker 3: before that, he was on stage with Zelenski praising him, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: so you also Secretary of Rubio right after tweet like
Speaker 3: Trump did the right thing for America. Meanwhile, he looks
Speaker 3: like he's about to get a colonoscopy when he's sitting
Speaker 3: down on the in the Oval office.
Speaker 1: But that's what I was saying before about how I
Speaker 1: think this country is changing in some ways that people
Speaker 1: haven't really wrapped their heads around, and this like cult
Speaker 1: leader following is not a healthy direction.
Speaker 2: I mean again, it's it's it is amazing to me.
Speaker 2: You know, Marco Rubio has been someone who's been a
Speaker 2: champion of human rights. He's very well respected in the Senate. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you know Cuba is a huge priority for him. But
Speaker 2: if you if you are anti Cuban, you are just
Speaker 2: by definition ingrained in your freaking DNA anti Russian. Cuban
Speaker 2: Russia are the same thing. And the fact that he
Speaker 2: uh is kind of signed onto this. I mean there's
Speaker 2: an article in Vanity Fairy, yes yeah I saw it,
Speaker 2: which which talked aout Rubio is kind of upset about
Speaker 2: his lack of influence I mean, if he had honor,
Speaker 2: he'd resigned, everyone thought he wouldn't last a year. But
Speaker 2: he wants to be president. He wants to run for president,
Speaker 2: is what he wants. Well, I mean, it's just I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, these people have to be able to wake
Speaker 2: up and look at themselves and their children, you know,
Speaker 2: in the eye. But you know, but again, I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I've I have kind of this Jack, I know,
Speaker 2: you kind of like this stuff. I have friends in
Speaker 2: like in the Cuban exile community down down in Miami,
Speaker 2: who who you know. I was talking to them yesterday
Speaker 2: and uh, and they were big fans of Rubio and
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, hold on a second, what's happened to him?
Speaker 2: Like this is something that's not right here. He's supposed
Speaker 2: to be anti Cuban, that means anti Russian, and he's
Speaker 2: not signing on to that. So we'll see if if
Speaker 2: these these people who've kind of signed on to the
Speaker 2: cult ever kind of get a spine. But even you know,
Speaker 2: Mike Wall, same thing, former Green Beret. Just just you know,
Speaker 2: they've they're kind of bending the need to Trump and
Speaker 2: I find I've heard that Rubio and Waltz are both
Speaker 2: on the way out. They should be they should resign,
Speaker 2: I mean being fired. Yeah, yeah, I've heard those things too,
Speaker 2: but who knows. And you know, it's but but ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to be able to kind of
Speaker 2: look at yourself in the mirror. But this is, this
Speaker 2: is a cult, and this is this is a country
Speaker 2: that is now tilted completely to Moscow and that just
Speaker 2: is inconceivable. And that's why I said before that, you know,
Speaker 2: you said, what's the reaction inside the old the ic?
Speaker 2: I say, it's just it's disorienting. That's I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: what are we doing? And uh and the other the
Speaker 2: other part of this too, and I know we will
Speaker 2: probably kind of coming to the end right now. There
Speaker 2: isn't and I'm gonna I'm gonna be I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: kind of hammered for this. But there's no bureaucracy going
Speaker 2: on right now. Bureaucracy and national security at times is important.
Speaker 2: There's no National Security Council process and Jack and Dee,
Speaker 2: you know, you know the way this works is things
Speaker 2: come to to fruition at lower levels. You have meetings
Speaker 2: at the NSC. Then it goes up to the Deputies Committee,
Speaker 2: which is maybe you know, with deputies of different cabinet levels,
Speaker 2: or they are chaired by the National Security Advisor. Then
Speaker 2: there's a Principals Committee where the president might sit with
Speaker 2: the varied cabinets. None of this is happening now. These
Speaker 2: guys sit in the Oval and kind of they are
Speaker 2: totally winging it. And so you know, my friends and
Speaker 2: government were like literally the freezing US aid to Ukraine. People.
Speaker 2: All the national security reporters down the Pentagon who sit
Speaker 2: in the Pentagon said their Pentagon contacts didn't know. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're winging it. Yeah, So that that actually makes it
Speaker 2: challenging in the media because you don't even know what's
Speaker 2: happening half the time. There's no people to even tell
Speaker 2: you that things are going on because they're finding out
Speaker 2: literally real time. And that's not the way to do
Speaker 2: really smart, effective policy. You don't want a four hundred
Speaker 2: man with women NSC like President Obama. President Obama had,
Speaker 2: which is then stultifying, but you don't want nothing. And
Speaker 2: my you know, friends of mine who have been down
Speaker 2: to the White House recently and it is empty. The
Speaker 2: NFC is not staffed yet, the State Department's not staffed yet.
Speaker 2: We are winging foreign policy right now. Probably not a
Speaker 2: smart idea.
Speaker 3: Oh brother, I don't understand why I never feel good
Speaker 3: about the end of these shows. Every show we do
Speaker 3: no no, not with you, just to you, Mark, I'm
Speaker 3: saying like, even though once we do on the weekends
Speaker 3: with Mick and Andy and Jason, it's like, fuck, why
Speaker 3: about a feel good story?
Speaker 2: I guess there isn't one, Mark, where can they find you?
Speaker 2: Until I get kicked off. I'm still on Twitter at
Speaker 2: m Polymer. I've actually decided to go back onto Twitter
Speaker 2: full force because it's fun fighting with all the magaloons.
Speaker 2: But there are a couple of people that I kind
Speaker 2: of have normal dialogue with. I'm on Blue Sky as well,
Speaker 2: whatever the hell Blue Sky thing is, and then I'll
Speaker 2: be on you know, I'm on TV all the time
Speaker 2: I've been on I think I was on MSNBC fifteen
Speaker 2: times last month, but mostly on IT five. I'm way
Speaker 2: too early, which hey, I'm old, I get up now
Speaker 2: any early anyway, So Jack Murphy we to five. The
Speaker 2: link is in the description. Marks links are also in
Speaker 2: the description. Check them out.
Speaker 3: Mark's cooking something up to in the podcast world, So
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and get some merch.
Speaker 3: You know, Mark just said that I love Credible T shirt,
Speaker 3: So the link is in the description there. And the
Speaker 3: best way to support the show is Patreon dot com
Speaker 3: slash the Teamhouse. You get ad free episodes, both audio
Speaker 3: and video for both eyes On and the Teamhouse, so
Speaker 3: two for the price of one. If you join it
Speaker 3: at a ten dollars level, I myself.
Speaker 2: Will send you one of these patches at the ten
Speaker 2: dollars level. So support the show please. One good thing
Speaker 2: for you guys is that with uh this is not
Speaker 2: a good thing for America, but maybe for the show,
Speaker 2: is with flu of retirements and people getting fired, you're
Speaker 2: gonna have some new guests coming on. There's that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess that's good. That's good. Thanks. I always I
Speaker 2: will always keep referring people over to you, so appreciate that. Mark,