Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to a new episode of Eyes on Geopolitics.
Speaker 1: Is a little bit different. Today we have Mick Molroy,
Speaker 1: Mark poly Moreopolis, Jason Lyons, and myself. We are completely
Speaker 1: in one hundred percent CIA funded. Go to CIA dot
Speaker 1: gov if you want to join, uh I will send
Speaker 1: me a check. So today's show is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: We usually talk about like turn events, what's going on
Speaker 1: in the world, and stuff like that. Obviously a lot
Speaker 1: is still going on this today. I wanted to do
Speaker 1: something different where it's more I guess if a thought exercise,
Speaker 1: I mean more or less. I'm sure there are people
Speaker 1: thinking of it right now due to like the fact
Speaker 1: that authoritarianism is rising across the world. The basic question
Speaker 1: of this show is to be what happens if America
Speaker 1: American democracies are basically a shell of itself, there's an
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime in power. What would allied and enemy intelligence
Speaker 1: agencies be doing in America in terms of operations that
Speaker 1: you see them working on. You know, we see China
Speaker 1: and Russia doing stuff now obviously, but I want you
Speaker 1: to picture five, ten, fifteen years from now, there's an
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime and like places like Canada or the other
Speaker 1: five Eyes NATO intelligence agencies, what would they be doing
Speaker 1: in America in terms of operations. So I figured have
Speaker 1: the CIA guys on they would have a good understanding
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: So here we are.
Speaker 1: I'm here with the experts, and you know, Mick mansioned
Speaker 1: before we started recording about like, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: the rise of authoritarianism in the world. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: obviously rising as clear as day. There's statistics behind it.
Speaker 1: So thank you guys for being here year and Mick,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the rise of authoritarianism in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: That's going on, sure, And this is something we talk
Speaker 3: a lot about on the stoicism side. It's kind of
Speaker 3: a long history of Stoic's plicih and get back against
Speaker 3: tyranny and autocracies. So I'm familiar with the statistics, but
Speaker 3: I want to make sure I get it right. So
Speaker 3: according to Freedom House World twenty twenty five reports, sixty
Speaker 3: countries experienced clines and political rights and civil liberties. That
Speaker 3: means forty percent of the world's population saw a decline
Speaker 3: in their freedoms. There's now ninety one autocracies in the world,
Speaker 3: only eighty eight democracies and the arrest are somewhere in
Speaker 3: the middle. That's the worst it's been in twenty years.
Speaker 3: And up to sixty five to seventy percent of the
Speaker 3: world's population lives in an autocracy. What else that's key here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was an interesting graph I saw, So.
Speaker 3: This last one I just throw out there. This is
Speaker 3: the nineteen consecutive year of worldwide civil liberties becoming less
Speaker 3: for the people of the world, nineteen consecutive views. So
Speaker 3: the reason why I'm pointing this out is obviously to
Speaker 3: alarm people that we're going in the raw direction worldwide,
Speaker 3: but also to point out that it's not some crazy idea.
Speaker 3: I personally don't think we'll ever get to an authoritious
Speaker 3: Straitan state in the United States. Happy to have people
Speaker 3: disagree with me on that, So I'm not saying this
Speaker 3: guy's falling. But I'm also I'm not blind, and I
Speaker 3: don't think anybody should be blind to the fact that
Speaker 3: the idea of ahuotocracies around the world are becoming more
Speaker 3: prevalent and essentially view themselves in some kind of alliance
Speaker 3: against us, the democracies of the world, And I think
Speaker 3: the United States should always and his the beacon of
Speaker 3: freedom and actually the leader of the free world. So
Speaker 3: I would start with that, throw it over to you guys.
Speaker 3: But I thought it was important to point out that
Speaker 3: this is in some you know, ridiculous notion that there's
Speaker 3: an issue with freedom around the world and it could
Speaker 3: affect the United States.
Speaker 1: Mark.
Speaker 4: So, you know, I think mixed right in the sense of,
Speaker 4: you know, in this in twenty twenty five, we should
Speaker 4: not do things that I used to do. When people
Speaker 4: like do you call and say, hey, you want to
Speaker 4: talk about this, I'd be like, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, so so everything that you say
Speaker 4: that cannot happen, like masked federal agents snatching people off
Speaker 4: the streets without any due process, violating everything that policing
Speaker 4: is all about. I mean, I've talked to I've worked with,
Speaker 4: you know, police departments all the time, and they are
Speaker 4: instructing their recruits, They're instructing their officers that if you
Speaker 4: do what ICE and CBP are doing, you will go
Speaker 4: to jail, you'll be fired. So there is you know,
Speaker 4: we see this every day in terms of elements of
Speaker 4: autocracy and fascism. It's horrifying to me because I lived
Speaker 4: in these places around the world. So I think that
Speaker 4: it's okay to talk about this even if you know,
Speaker 4: I agree with Mick it's unlikely, but it doesn't mean
Speaker 4: it's not impossible. And you know, and you know, the
Speaker 4: other part of it is that, you know, for those
Speaker 4: of us who served overseas, you know, America meant something.
Speaker 4: You know, I'll never forget. And I think I sent
Speaker 4: you all a piece I recently did about living in
Speaker 4: Damascus and walking to the embassy at night and seeing
Speaker 4: the silhouette of the American flag, and that it really
Speaker 4: meant something to this to the members of a small
Speaker 4: embassy staff, but also to the Syrian people, because America
Speaker 4: stood for economic you know, liberalism and political freedoms.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a question.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, there is a slow, you know, march
Speaker 4: towards authoritarianism here. It's a president who believes in this
Speaker 4: kind of unitary executive power. Again, what what you see
Speaker 4: kind of the you know, the military on the streets.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I don't want to be hyperbolic
Speaker 4: and say we're there, because we're not, but it's worth
Speaker 4: having this discussion. And then you know, there's certainly things
Speaker 4: though in our past. I mean, one thing I'd say
Speaker 4: day is that you know, we all did this for
Speaker 4: the CIA, maybe not so successfully so, but we certainly
Speaker 4: gave it a shot sometimes. But you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot we can offer in terms of you know, what
Speaker 4: are both our allies and our adversaries would be doing.
Speaker 4: And I think just to maybe start the conversation is
Speaker 4: to note that you know what you would do as
Speaker 4: former case officers here is that you would look for
Speaker 4: recruitment targets and what you have right now in the
Speaker 4: United States, and you would have if it went to
Speaker 4: a kind of full autocracy, is an enormous number of
Speaker 4: very disaffected individuals in the hundreds, if not thousands, with
Speaker 4: top secret clearances. So we would have a right pool
Speaker 4: of recruitments who are both our friends and our adversaries
Speaker 4: would probably look to recruit. And finally, one other thing,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to tell you, I'm wearing this T
Speaker 4: shirt today, the Team House T shirt. As you know,
Speaker 4: I am a total podcast or if you send me bling,
Speaker 4: I will come on your show.
Speaker 2: You've done that. You also promised me me a mug.
Speaker 4: I'm waiting for that great to be with everyone again
Speaker 4: and Jason too, buddy.
Speaker 1: Mugs mugs en route. Don't worry, Okay, settle down, that's
Speaker 1: coming the payments in the Mountain.
Speaker 2: I get recruited by anybody to give me blame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're easy.
Speaker 5: Notes are being taken.
Speaker 1: Yeah you hear that. China just sat over some stuff
Speaker 1: and awesome, Jay, what do you think? What do you
Speaker 1: take from this?
Speaker 5: So when you first put it out about doing this,
Speaker 5: I my first thought was I don't have the the
Speaker 5: years and years of experience that Mark and Mick do,
Speaker 5: but I do have some experience. So I tried to
Speaker 5: look at it, put myself in the shoes, back in
Speaker 5: the shoes of myself as a junior officer, Like, what
Speaker 5: would my boss be telling me to do if I
Speaker 5: was in the United States from a you know, a
Speaker 5: foreign intelligence services and all of this has happened, what
Speaker 5: would they you know, what would they task me to do?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 5: And then also I was able to pull on I
Speaker 5: have a little bit of liaison experience, so I think
Speaker 5: that would be very important as well. So I would
Speaker 5: be along with reaching out to my my contacts and
Speaker 5: my assets, I would also be trying to work my
Speaker 5: my liaison contacts as well to see what they're their
Speaker 5: feelings are on what's happening in their country, and you know,
Speaker 5: they're uh, they have the pulse. So those are the
Speaker 5: kind of things that I was thinking about leading up this.
Speaker 5: But I agree with both of them that I don't
Speaker 5: think we're there yet, but I think all of the
Speaker 5: pieces are in place, and all the signs are showing
Speaker 5: that we're, you know, running towards that we're taking the
Speaker 5: baby steps towards at UH. And it's very It's concerning
Speaker 5: because I also looked at as a father, you know,
Speaker 5: and a grandfather, what is going What is my my
Speaker 5: children and my grandchildren's future gonna look like if things
Speaker 5: keep going like this.
Speaker 3: If you look at this like a like as a competition,
Speaker 3: if you will, between an autocratic system and in ours
Speaker 3: democratic system, they have a lot of advantages right when
Speaker 3: it comes to this kind of covert type warfare. We
Speaker 3: have a lot of freedoms and they can exploit that.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of civil liberties. I wouldn't want
Speaker 3: to give any of these up. I'm just looking at
Speaker 3: it purely intel perspective that they can they have freedom
Speaker 3: of movement, they have the ability to jump on social media,
Speaker 3: which is pretty much unrestricted in the United States. Are
Speaker 3: completely unrestricted, I should say. Now, whereas if we're trying
Speaker 3: to affect an autocratic system, as intelligence officers like Russia
Speaker 3: or you name your autocracy, they're very controlled, right, They
Speaker 3: block social media, they block access. They I mean, especially
Speaker 3: people in the agency who worked hard target countries. They
Speaker 3: track every movement. It's it's not an equal playing field.
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't want it to be, because that means
Speaker 3: that we be reducing our own, uh, you know, civil
Speaker 3: liberties here in the United States, which I think every
Speaker 3: American should fight for, regardless of whether you're on the
Speaker 3: right or the left or center right. But from the
Speaker 3: intel perspective, it is a challenge to affect an autocratic
Speaker 3: society because of the restrictions they put on their own people,
Speaker 3: let alone foreign uh folks that are there either a
Speaker 3: diplomatic mission or or other they have they have a
Speaker 3: lot of control over us here. You know, I mean,
Speaker 3: how many if you look back at the statistics during elections,
Speaker 3: how many of the Facebook accounts or Twitter now x
Speaker 3: accounts are completely fabricated, right, They're they're they're not even
Speaker 3: they don't even exist. All I do is promote conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories against one American group against another American group, much
Speaker 3: of which is untrue. Probably the entire Q and I
Speaker 3: conspiracy theories fabricated by an intelligence organization. I don't know
Speaker 3: that for a fact, but it's it's a lot of
Speaker 3: that stuff is either manufactured by a floor intelligence service
Speaker 3: or amplified by intelligence service. So you know, they say,
Speaker 3: say it was a real conspiracy theory that was out
Speaker 3: there by some you know, disenfranchised person. The fact that
Speaker 3: you see fifty thousand people agreeing with it, you might
Speaker 3: think that it's legitimate, because I mean, why would when
Speaker 3: in fact all the fifty thousand of those people were
Speaker 3: generated faith accounts.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of things they can do to
Speaker 3: exploit the United States system of freedom against ourselves and
Speaker 3: get us to start fighting against each other that we
Speaker 3: simply can't do in place like child because they have,
Speaker 3: you know, complete control over the spread of information or
Speaker 3: disinformation on our social media sites interweens.
Speaker 2: And we saw this happen.
Speaker 4: Of course, if you look at the indictments after the
Speaker 4: Russian interference in twenty sixteen, the Russians actually, you know,
Speaker 4: the Russian intelligence service sent individuals to the US to
Speaker 4: set up, you know, fake accounts on social media, and
Speaker 4: they were trying to exacerbate, you know, kind of the
Speaker 4: hot button political issues in the United States, whether it
Speaker 4: was Second Amendment issues, or abortion or black lives matters.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is in the indictments. We have indicted
Speaker 4: Russian intelligence officers who did this because it's easy pickings here. Again,
Speaker 4: it's a free and open society. It's not difficult. But
Speaker 4: going back to what I what I said before, you know,
Speaker 4: I thought about I thought about this actually when there
Speaker 4: was kind of these rumored purges at the FBI several
Speaker 4: months ago. That that and the FBI fired a lot
Speaker 4: of people and a lot of people retired, but it
Speaker 4: wasn't as whole scale because at one point they said
Speaker 4: they're going to get rid of several thousand FBI agents,
Speaker 4: anyone who touched the Russian investigation. And you know, the
Speaker 4: stupidity of that is is multifaceted. First of all, it's
Speaker 4: ridiculous FBI agents got assigned cases. It's not their you know,
Speaker 4: prerogative what they were and don't work on. But do
Speaker 4: you really want to fire three thousand people, all of
Speaker 4: them who are armed with a side arm and a
Speaker 4: shotgun and have a vehicle. I mean just talking about
Speaker 4: like you know, fundamental things. And by the way, they
Speaker 4: also all have mortgages. They're sending their kids to schools,
Speaker 4: and they got to pay for health care. And so
Speaker 4: you know, when if our country kind of moves down
Speaker 4: that line again towards autocracy and assuming of course, and
Speaker 4: this is going to maybe more scary thing is that
Speaker 4: not everybody goes along with it. And I think the
Speaker 4: results last Tuesdays show that that's that's not the case.
Speaker 4: You know, there was some kind of hope for democracy,
Speaker 4: I think, but but ultimately what you have is a
Speaker 4: huge pool of potential recruits. Again who you know and
Speaker 4: and you know there are friends of mine who were
Speaker 4: working in national security who were when they're kind of
Speaker 4: these the big reductions in force were taking place, and
Speaker 4: I think more are coming. But they said they were
Speaker 4: getting hit up on LinkedIn by a consulting firm from
Speaker 4: the Emirates or Singapore. Now clearly it's the Chinese or
Speaker 4: the Iranians of the Russians, and they're not going to
Speaker 4: say that it will be a commercial recruit. But you know,
Speaker 4: why would someone and by the way, these people knew
Speaker 4: what it was. But if you're desperate and have no
Speaker 4: you know, you have got to pay a mortgage and
Speaker 4: you have no health care, you're going to take those offers.
Speaker 4: And so I think foreign intelligence services. And I'll get
Speaker 4: this wrong. I was not in the military. You guys were.
Speaker 4: But I don't know if it's called operational prep of
Speaker 4: the environment. I always throw in these acronyms that I
Speaker 4: learned from like Mick and Jason to sound really good
Speaker 4: on TV. I'm freaking wrong all the time. Someone who
Speaker 4: let me know that's really not what operational prep of
Speaker 4: the environment is.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't care.
Speaker 4: It sounded good, But ultimately the operational prep of the
Speaker 4: environment in theory would be intelligence service would try to
Speaker 4: recruit disaffected individuals in the United States. And I think
Speaker 4: that as and I think that's probably the case now.
Speaker 4: The other thing, too, is because by the way, the
Speaker 4: FBI has decided counterintelligence isn't as important. I mean, I
Speaker 4: just I gave a talk at Georgetown Law School a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago, and someone there had a relative
Speaker 4: in the FBI who said, yeah, they've been running around
Speaker 4: doing immigration rates and cash Mattel, the FBI directors said
Speaker 4: they're going to pull people off a CI because you
Speaker 4: know it's you know, let alone out dropping a college
Speaker 4: requirement to join the FBI. But ultimately, I think our
Speaker 4: CI defenses are down, and then you're gonna have disaffected
Speaker 4: people and as we if we kind of continue on
Speaker 4: this march, our adversaries will have a pretty easy time.
Speaker 2: Scooping people up. Which would be the first step.
Speaker 4: I mean, what you do in any kind of like
Speaker 4: you know, Jason or Mick or myself couldn't have ever
Speaker 4: operated in places fomenting insurrection or trying to do regime
Speaker 4: change if you don't have sources to do so. So
Speaker 4: I think the first thing would be kind of you know,
Speaker 4: agent operations to get people in line, in place, And
Speaker 4: just one quick thing. Remember why the Russians failed so
Speaker 4: spectacularly in Ukraine because the FSB, which was the Russian
Speaker 4: entity that was tasked to go into Ukraine, actually told
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin yet, we have everything prepped.
Speaker 2: But it was all bullshit.
Speaker 4: It was all you know, they basically on paper recruiting people,
Speaker 4: we are stealing all the money. So they didn't do
Speaker 4: that fundamental piece, which is recruiting people on the ground.
Speaker 5: I think something else to think about too, that mark
Speaker 5: you mentioned environment to consider it too is think about
Speaker 5: where we live physically, where we live, the diverse environment
Speaker 5: that we live in. It's not hard for a Russian
Speaker 5: or a Chinese intelligence officer to either come over here
Speaker 5: or already be here and just blend into the environment,
Speaker 5: join these groups. Black lives matter, whatever it is to
Speaker 5: start fomenting dissent as well as pick out recruitment targets
Speaker 5: like I myself, like if I went over to Russia,
Speaker 5: you know, just as a as a black man, as
Speaker 5: you know, I automatically be pegged as something. And then
Speaker 5: when i'm you know, it's determined that I'm an American,
Speaker 5: I'm automatic then double you know the problems. So depending
Speaker 5: on the cover that that intelligence officer come is here
Speaker 5: in the United States under, if it's official, then maybe
Speaker 5: you know, they might you know, catch a tail, although
Speaker 5: today we don't know that that's absolutely true or not.
Speaker 2: But if they're here.
Speaker 5: Under unofficial, non official cover, that you know, they could
Speaker 5: disappear into the you know, the pond of fish and
Speaker 5: do whatever it is they got to do.
Speaker 4: So the next step and let me throw this the
Speaker 4: question to Mike. Sorry, d I'm taken over it always.
Speaker 2: I was like the producer.
Speaker 4: But for Mick, as you live out in a place
Speaker 4: where like everyone has like Arsenal's buried underground in their backyard,
Speaker 4: you know that there is a you know what? Okay,
Speaker 4: so let's go back into our old world, right, your
Speaker 4: agents on the ground, Well, what do you then need
Speaker 4: to do? You need to bring in things such as explosives, weapons,
Speaker 4: things to provide a a surrogate force. Well, just what
Speaker 4: you have in America an incredible preponderance of weapons everybody's arms.
Speaker 4: So a foreign country would not foreign intelligence service would
Speaker 4: not even have to worry about smuggling anything in if
Speaker 4: they wanted to, you know, mess up the United States
Speaker 4: on this, Nick, what are your thoughts as you live
Speaker 4: out in the land of Yah.
Speaker 3: You're then four me and just to highlight that, and
Speaker 3: I'm a weapons owner, but me and their my business partner,
Speaker 3: were doing a documentary where you're traveling around and a
Speaker 3: family friend of his on the farm and were you
Speaker 3: win And we're talking to him and the guy told
Speaker 3: us he had fifty thousand rounds may in Ish like
Speaker 3: what I mean, Just to emphasize the point. Yes, everybody's
Speaker 3: armed in Montana. It is true, so you know, not
Speaker 3: to get into a secondment question, but it would make
Speaker 3: invading the United States like an impossibility. But to your point, Mark,
Speaker 3: it also means that if you were trying to plant,
Speaker 3: you know, cachets that you could be used to send
Speaker 3: in teams like their version of Special Operations or paramilitary
Speaker 3: teams to start things in the United States. It would
Speaker 3: be easy, right, you can because it's not just going
Speaker 3: to a gun show and all that stuff you can
Speaker 3: buy from individuals. You could have basically facilitators assets that
Speaker 3: you pay to purchase that are legally able to purchase
Speaker 3: weapons to collect all this stuff. So whether it was
Speaker 3: a nation state that's looking to cause issues or a
Speaker 3: terrorist organization, that would make more sense, right because they're
Speaker 3: okay with getting caught and they're okay with that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not an issue of creating the Third World War.
Speaker 3: It would be We obviously have a lot of access
Speaker 3: to weapons, it's part of the freedoms in the United States,
Speaker 3: but it is a vulnerability. So we should always consider that.
Speaker 3: And since we have, you know, three of us that
Speaker 3: we're in the agency questions I get sometimes, although I
Speaker 3: don't know why it's still persist, but it'd be good.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good idea to bring this up.
Speaker 3: There is no deep state. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know where people think this comes from. I'll have you
Speaker 3: guys weigh in. But my experience, generally speaking, in the agency,
Speaker 3: which is probably the which is the most convertive the
Speaker 3: departments and agencies of US government, they're just average folks.
Speaker 3: They have the gamut of right, left and center. I've
Speaker 3: never seen anybody promoting their own political agenda through their
Speaker 3: actions in the agency. It's basically a bunch of Americans
Speaker 3: are just trying to do the best for their country.
Speaker 3: And so this constant idea that there's this group of people,
Speaker 3: whether they're on the right or left or what have you,
Speaker 3: that are obsessed with their own politics is one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty degrees out. It's just not the case. And
Speaker 3: folks that think that there should be purges because because
Speaker 3: they disagree with you politically are just I think, patently wrong.
Speaker 3: And I hope we can at least in that concept.
Speaker 3: That would be the first step in handing these type
Speaker 3: of disenfranchisment, this othering of federal workers and all that.
Speaker 3: It's just simply not the case. There's just as many,
Speaker 3: especially in the agencies, Republicans that are all Democrats, I
Speaker 3: would guess, maybe even more independence than any other group.
Speaker 3: But they certainly don't wear their politics on their sleeve,
Speaker 3: and they don't uh conform their actions to any kind
Speaker 3: of politicals.
Speaker 4: Don't you remember we go to the cafeteria to be
Speaker 4: people like with nose rings and blue hair, and they'd
Speaker 4: be kind of cramping out the grateful dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, yeah, it's going on, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's a.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys have the same experience,
Speaker 3: but I think it's important, uh that people that might
Speaker 3: not have that any knowledge of the agency or FBI
Speaker 3: for that matter, here about what people are like inside
Speaker 3: the agency, because you already mentioned them. Mark, They take
Speaker 3: their kids to soccer games, they drive me. Yeah, they do.
Speaker 3: They do really cool work. I mean, it's it's one
Speaker 3: of the coolest jobs you could have. But it is
Speaker 3: not some you know, cabal of the smoking man sitting
Speaker 3: in a dark room trying to fit you're out how
Speaker 3: to manipulate maybe other countries, but certainly not our own. M.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I didn't know anyone's political ideology. I
Speaker 4: mean those of us who have come out afterwards in
Speaker 4: the prime, you know, in our private lives. I certainly
Speaker 4: you can sometimes hear people's political ideologies. I never heard
Speaker 4: it talked about at work. Of course, you're in a
Speaker 4: skip the whole time, a secure facility, and you know,
Speaker 4: we didn't pay attention to tweets or politics. And frankly
Speaker 4: you were just a sharpy you know, sharp tool of
Speaker 4: the US government. And so you know, I agree with
Speaker 4: you totally. It's also a very I mean, ultimately, they're
Speaker 4: a pretty conservative institution. You know, the idea that that
Speaker 4: that cio FBI is the deep state. I joke my
Speaker 4: FBI friends like they wear suits like a.
Speaker 2: Coat and tie on the weekend.
Speaker 4: Again, they're not They're not out there, you know, uh uh,
Speaker 4: you know, popping gummy bears or or listen to Grateful
Speaker 4: Dead all the time. I mean, it's just I find
Speaker 4: it preposterous. But that's certainly that narrative is is is
Speaker 4: very much out there, and you know, uh uh, it's
Speaker 4: something that I think that the you know, obviously it
Speaker 4: still has a lot of weight in certain political you
Speaker 4: know groups in the United States. I mean, the MAGA
Speaker 4: world really does believe in this, and it's almost impossible.
Speaker 2: To get rid of.
Speaker 1: But they are now the Deep State quote unquote, right,
Speaker 1: they're running the show.
Speaker 4: So it's like Cash Betel's flying around on his G
Speaker 4: five after he used to criticize others for flying around
Speaker 4: on the G five. I mean, you know, once you
Speaker 4: become the man, you're the man. Uh so, but no,
Speaker 4: but Nick, I think it's a good good that you
Speaker 4: bring that up, and it's important and you know, and
Speaker 4: having this kind of intellectual discussion is certainly let's just
Speaker 4: caveat this massively, like we're not advocating this.
Speaker 2: Right right, obviously work against the.
Speaker 4: United States, but I think it is interesting to see
Speaker 4: how especially our allies do and and you know, one
Speaker 4: maybe just to take this in another direction a little bit,
Speaker 4: is that I've had this kind of unofficial project as
Speaker 4: I've gone around. I was just in Sweden talking to
Speaker 4: three former chiefs or deputy chiefs of Allied services, and
Speaker 4: just the notion is, as the US kind of moves towards,
Speaker 4: uh you know, away from kind of the democratic norms,
Speaker 4: are our allies going to start restricting intelligence from US
Speaker 4: on certain issues, and when it comes to Russia, that's
Speaker 4: behind the scenes that they are. It's not going to
Speaker 4: be uncounters and we're kount of proliferation or other things,
Speaker 4: but on Russia where there's just such a distrust in
Speaker 4: the United States, so our allies are withholding and I
Speaker 4: think that's something that is pretty dangerous. It's pretty scary
Speaker 4: because you know, as Jason, as you noted, you ran
Speaker 4: liaison operations for a while. Like liaison is you know,
Speaker 4: the sexy stuff of unilateral agent running is really fun,
Speaker 4: but liaison is just as important, and they can still
Speaker 4: help us catch spies and learn about you know, China
Speaker 4: and Iran and uncovered proliferation networks, and there's a skill
Speaker 4: in doing that too.
Speaker 1: So is it's safe to assume authoritarian regime that happens
Speaker 1: in America fictionally, you know, hypothetically years down the road,
Speaker 1: that our enemies will be doing more or less, probably
Speaker 1: a little bit more like brazenly and outworthly doing what
Speaker 1: they're doing now.
Speaker 5: I don't see what wouldn't I mean if, if, especially
Speaker 5: if that authoritarian regime is openly or even dog whistling
Speaker 5: support for what they're doing. I don't see why they
Speaker 5: wouldn't do it more brazenly.
Speaker 4: The friends there's you know what we read buys friends
Speaker 4: on friends policy, and that that goes away. I would
Speaker 4: imagine friends on friends meeting you don't spy, are working
Speaker 4: against your allies. But once an allied country, let's say
Speaker 4: in Europe, sees the United States go down a certain path,
Speaker 4: you know, all that kind of goes away. And and
Speaker 4: by the way, and Nick, this is gonna goes You're
Speaker 4: gonna you're gonna love this piece too, because I know
Speaker 4: you know this is true. Like think about and this,
Speaker 4: you know, think about what the British did running around
Speaker 4: in New England and Boston, British intelligence recruiting, you know,
Speaker 4: penetrations with the IRA. They did this for years and
Speaker 4: years under the nose of the FBI. And so it's
Speaker 4: not like our our you know, our our foreign even
Speaker 4: some of our our and friends haven't done this.
Speaker 2: I have to throw a little Irish in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, make sure thing and come back in. Yeah, refresh
Speaker 1: your thing and come back in. Because I think it
Speaker 1: said stop recording. But we'll have respond to that one,
Speaker 1: because that was fucking good. Mick is an Irish like
Speaker 1: a Irish supremacist.
Speaker 2: That's why it was so easy. You know, I want
Speaker 2: my talking points.
Speaker 3: So what was that about the Irish?
Speaker 4: This question is for Mick. No, it's the notion of
Speaker 4: not questions. It's just the idea of you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: friends or allies spying on us, spying in our country.
Speaker 4: And my notion was, you know, if the US go
Speaker 4: is kind of down the road towards photocracy, you're going
Speaker 4: to see our allies not respect that friends on friends anymore.
Speaker 2: But I might.
Speaker 4: My just comment was, well sometimes they don't anyway, because
Speaker 4: you saw a British intelligence who drive the FBI crazy
Speaker 4: because they'd run around Boston all the time. They're trying
Speaker 4: to recruit penetrations of the Iran. So they had already
Speaker 4: operated in the US. And you know anything you know
Speaker 4: mentioning the Irish. Oh we mentioned on this, so there
Speaker 4: you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the old Black Rose have been there many times.
Speaker 3: Not to get them focused on. But I mean, if
Speaker 3: I don't think we are going to be an autocracy,
Speaker 3: but if we were, our alliances would also shift right.
Speaker 3: Photographies tend to support autocracies, democracies democracies, so our adversaries,
Speaker 3: at least what we have traditionally put as our most
Speaker 3: significant competitors are China and Russia. Right, so autocracies and
Speaker 3: are on in North Korea the kind of the rogue states.
Speaker 3: So that would shift, I would imagine if you. But
Speaker 3: we're not because let's let's talk about that. For we
Speaker 3: have a system that would make it extraordinarily difficult for
Speaker 3: that to happen. Right, we don't have Contrary to some
Speaker 3: people who love to talk about this unitary executive theory,
Speaker 3: that's not the way the systems set up. It's actually
Speaker 3: set up the contrary to that. Separations of powers Article
Speaker 3: one's Congress Article two is the sector branch on our
Speaker 3: three is a judiciary brand. They're all set up to
Speaker 3: never get to a point where we have the power,
Speaker 3: all the power in one branching government. But I know
Speaker 3: a thought experiment. So in the case that we were,
Speaker 3: we served that way. And remember a lot of autocracies
Speaker 3: started as democracies and then the people who were elected
Speaker 3: simply got rid of all the rights in freedoms that
Speaker 3: fall under democracy and shifted. But if we did, for
Speaker 3: this thought experience, our alliances would be different. We would
Speaker 3: be essentially more concerned about freedoms around the world spreading
Speaker 3: to the United States, right, so we would be more
Speaker 3: prone to be attached to the authoritarian states. And I
Speaker 3: just don't think that'll ever happen. Our country has essentially
Speaker 3: established this place in the world as being opposed to tyranny,
Speaker 3: right from the very inception, to fighting for the freedom
Speaker 3: of all individuals to be citizens in the Civil War,
Speaker 3: to defeating Nazism in Europe, defeating imperial Japanese in Asia,
Speaker 3: to winning the Cold War. Right, this is what makes
Speaker 3: America America. And it's all indirect opposition to autocracy.
Speaker 4: So mick On, I mean, obviously we have an administration
Speaker 4: that every once in a while shows a little bit
Speaker 4: of an affinity towards Russia. That right now, the Hungarian president,
Speaker 4: who is kind of the the epitome of the autocratic
Speaker 4: experiment in Europe, he was just in Washington, and so
Speaker 4: I think people are worrying about that is that, you know,
Speaker 4: that's why you know, my friends in Europe are having
Speaker 4: kind of a collective freak out because you know, we
Speaker 4: shouldn't be siding with Russia on Ukraine. Now, you know,
Speaker 4: I think Trump actually wakes up and changes his mind
Speaker 4: every day, So maybe that's maybe it's not ideological, but
Speaker 4: I think there's enough out there where you where you
Speaker 4: could question some of the kind of the historic American
Speaker 4: American commitment to you know, political and economic freedom and liberalism,
Speaker 4: liberalism meaning just freedom. And so that's what that worry.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, he talks openly praises his president,
Speaker 4: she of China. He's you know, Vladimir Putin was his
Speaker 4: buddy until recently when he's not. So I think there's
Speaker 4: there's enough worry that kind of those the foundational principles
Speaker 4: that we all work for are are creaking a little
Speaker 4: bit now. I would I would hope that that we
Speaker 4: do have this separation of powers. But Congress has been
Speaker 4: totally impotent. I mean, the Republican Party has turned into sorry,
Speaker 4: d I'm going to get us some trouble here. You
Speaker 4: guys don't have to gree with me. If anyway, don't worry.
Speaker 4: I mean, so it's a cult that follows kind of
Speaker 4: Trump on everything when they shouldn't. They should be pushing
Speaker 4: back and and you know, and that's what I would
Speaker 4: want to see, that there's a separation of powers. I
Speaker 4: don't see that right now. Now, it's not institutional because
Speaker 4: it still exists. But I do worry.
Speaker 3: So I totally going to push it back against Russia
Speaker 3: and Hungary. I mean, Hungary is essentially become uh an
Speaker 3: embarrassment to the EU and NATO, you know. I mean
Speaker 3: to the point where I had to talk about it
Speaker 3: this week because he was here at Washington. They can
Speaker 3: basically block them from having any say in the EU.
Speaker 3: I looked it up like they can completely marginalize Hungary,
Speaker 3: and there is a path toward even though it's not
Speaker 3: in the Charter of NATO. There is another article in
Speaker 3: the overall Vienna Convention that we could essentially boot Hungary
Speaker 3: out of NATO. So I mean, I am probably already
Speaker 3: I am one hundred percent for defending our historic and
Speaker 3: important allies around the world in democracies. That's the other
Speaker 3: thing when a CIA officer is trying to do something
Speaker 3: in another country. Generally speaking, yes, they're promoting the interests
Speaker 3: of the United States, of course, that's what every country does.
Speaker 3: But they're also promoting, at least historically, the interests of
Speaker 3: freedom and democracy and individual civil liberties, right, so things
Speaker 3: that I mean, we don't talk about what we do,
Speaker 3: but we I think it we'd be proud. I'll be
Speaker 3: proud to talk about why we're doing, which is to
Speaker 3: promote the idea of other countries having the right of
Speaker 3: self governance, right choosing your representatives and unchoosing your representatives,
Speaker 3: and having the right to say what you want even
Speaker 3: if it's not what the government agrees with, and everything
Speaker 3: else that goes with being in the United States or
Speaker 3: a country like US. So certainly Western Europe is the
Speaker 3: same way, but I think we have to protect that.
Speaker 3: So the idea that it's eroding and that people are
Speaker 3: talking about it is a good thing. It's a good thing, right,
Speaker 3: It's a good thing that we're talking about it, and
Speaker 3: it's a good thing that we're identifying where we think
Speaker 3: that would be the case, because ultimately, the idea that
Speaker 3: you would protect the freedom of speech, not just of
Speaker 3: your own ability to say what you want, which is
Speaker 3: really not protecting free speech. It's just protecting your speech.
Speaker 3: You have to be willing to protect speech you don't
Speaker 3: agree with. That's free speech, right, and if it's if
Speaker 3: it was popular speech, it wouldn't need protection. So every American,
Speaker 3: not that they listen to me, but every American, if
Speaker 3: you believe in free speech. You need to protect the
Speaker 3: right of somebody who thinks the opposite of you, whose
Speaker 3: speech is not popular. That's protecting free speech.
Speaker 4: So I mean that was that's I mean, that's where
Speaker 4: our country is founded on the idea of dissent.
Speaker 3: It's good, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 4: If you don't like it, that's fine. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I live in d C. So there's a protest on
Speaker 4: every issue all the time. I don't know, it's good.
Speaker 4: You welcome that because the other thing too, that's actually
Speaker 4: an outlet for people. It's better to allow them to
Speaker 4: protest on the street rather than get pissed off. And
Speaker 4: you know, and that's that's kind of that's when you
Speaker 4: see kind of regimes having huge issues. But but I
Speaker 4: but the the you know, the one the one thing
Speaker 4: that I think that is uh is really interesting though,
Speaker 4: is to see how our foreign partners are looking at
Speaker 4: us right now and the amount of concern and worry
Speaker 4: and so and so for have because you know, because
Speaker 4: because Trump ends up being so kind of schizophrenic on policies,
Speaker 4: you know, you can't say right now that that you know,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is is is pushing forward a pro rush
Speaker 4: of policy on Ukraine because it just changes all the time.
Speaker 4: So in some ways maybe that's a good thing, and
Speaker 4: they just think it's just incredibly you know, unpredictable. Uh.
Speaker 4: But but you know the I actually I worried for
Speaker 4: a while, like how do we run an agent a
Speaker 4: penetration of the Russian Intelligence Service?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 4: It's a job of a case officer is harder if
Speaker 4: there's questions of you know, where is the US going
Speaker 4: to go on policy? And you know, is there a
Speaker 4: works to autocracy?
Speaker 1: All right? So like you guys mentioned like historical allies, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, NATO and five Eyes. What happens if in
Speaker 1: this hypothetical the United States is not a democracy anymore
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime? What do countries like the Five Eyes, well,
Speaker 1: four Eyes and NATO, you know, m I six, name
Speaker 1: your pick. What do you what are they doing in
Speaker 1: the US in terms of operations? Because I mean I'm
Speaker 1: sure they still they still spy on us a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: like they have embassies with diplomats, you know, what are
Speaker 1: they doing if there.
Speaker 3: Is I mean, under this hypothetical, our alliances would change.
Speaker 3: You would be more closely associated with other authoritarian regimes
Speaker 3: around the world, right, And so what you're calling the
Speaker 3: five eyes would even exist, right, I mean they wouldn't
Speaker 3: be five eyes. It would be or would be a
Speaker 3: different collection of eyes. Right. Ah, that it's never gonna happen.
Speaker 3: But again, I need to keep saying that. But it's
Speaker 3: it's but I would say this. Uh So, you know
Speaker 3: I'm in the big city now, so I took the
Speaker 3: time to go to a movie last night, since we know,
Speaker 3: I went there a theater in town I live in,
Speaker 3: went to saw Nuremberg. I'm phenomenal, phenomenal. I think Russell
Speaker 3: Crowe and uh Rammy Malick should both get the oscar.
Speaker 3: Obviously you know what happened. I would just tell you, Mark,
Speaker 3: don't read anything about the story before you go, because
Speaker 3: there's going to be stuff that is true. I looked
Speaker 3: it up afterwards. You're going to go, oh like, like
Speaker 3: I didn't know what. I consider myself a history geek.
Speaker 3: It's really But the point, the reason why I'm bringing
Speaker 3: it up is the psychiatrist that played that. Ronny Malick
Speaker 3: plays doctor Kelly, who's interviewing all these Nazis, including from
Speaker 3: Goring main character Russell Crowe. His book that he wrote
Speaker 3: after and put the movies based on and one of
Speaker 3: the one of the main findings is although those people
Speaker 3: were horrible, they're not unique to a time and place
Speaker 3: that this could happen in any country, and we need
Speaker 3: to view it that way. Not that there was happened
Speaker 3: to be a bunch of monsters in Germany in the
Speaker 3: nineteen thirties and forties, not that there wasn't. That certainly
Speaker 3: wasn't his point, But his point was that this could
Speaker 3: happen anywhere, and I think we ought to take that
Speaker 3: as a kind of a siren to call for what
Speaker 3: we're talking about today. Again, I think it's happy United States,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean it can't happen in other countries.
Speaker 3: Like there's countries that are traditionally inclined to the western
Speaker 3: Western way of governance that are not anymore, So we
Speaker 3: need to keep that in mind. I think this movie
Speaker 3: is incredibly well done, kind of brings back your faith
Speaker 3: and our ability of ecodies, but also really important politically
Speaker 3: and philosophically.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 4: Looks as an older man, now here's my worry about today.
Speaker 4: It's two and a half hours. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 4: pee like three times. Yeah, I'm a little concerned about this.
Speaker 4: There's no way and night. But I'm excited to see
Speaker 4: it for all the reasons you you talked about. I
Speaker 4: think you know there it is. It is relevant historically,
Speaker 4: and it's you know, it's relevant now. And I've always wondered,
Speaker 4: you know, just about the notion of you know, how
Speaker 4: to how do societies kind of accept evil things that
Speaker 4: start happening. And again I'm just gonna bring up in
Speaker 4: the United States now, and this this is my kind
Speaker 4: of pet peed these days because I watch all the
Speaker 4: ICE and CVP raids that are going on in Chicago
Speaker 4: and other places, and it's horrifying. And again, I work
Speaker 4: with police departments all the time, and this is against
Speaker 4: all policing. It's this is this is out of the
Speaker 4: fascist playbook. And what's happening. I mean literally police departments
Speaker 4: are telling their their officers that you cannot do this,
Speaker 4: you will be prosecuted, you will be fired.
Speaker 2: They're having there.
Speaker 4: I mean in big city East Coast police department I
Speaker 4: work with, they're literally saying you cannot cooperate with ICE
Speaker 4: or BBS, a border patrol on this. And so there's
Speaker 4: parts of so there's some things that and I do
Speaker 4: wonder I mean I get upset about this, but I think,
Speaker 4: you know, half of America looks at this and they're
Speaker 4: not disturbed. And I don't understand that, because this is
Speaker 4: just kind of basic decency, you know, matching a car
Speaker 4: window and dragging a freeman woman out with a kid
Speaker 4: in the back of the car. I don't understand. I
Speaker 4: don't understand this, and so I think there is some relevance.
Speaker 4: And of course it's not the same and it would
Speaker 4: be too hyperbolic if we said, you know, we're at
Speaker 4: that state now of you know, nineteen forties Germany. That's crazy,
Speaker 4: But there's stuff that goes on today. You're just like,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how this is happening in America.
Speaker 2: It's a little disturbing.
Speaker 1: So I got a question, what would a what would
Speaker 1: a country like Canada be doing? I know, like they're
Speaker 1: a friendly neighbor or whatever, but like they have a
Speaker 1: secret intelligence service. What are they doing in a country
Speaker 1: that is completely falling apart at the scenes in terms
Speaker 1: of liberal democracy. Are they working with resistance groups, are
Speaker 1: they taking a more active role or like what are
Speaker 1: you guys speculative obviously, what do you guys think.
Speaker 3: They believe here? You're thinking like a handmade's tale kind
Speaker 3: of scenario. Here is that with because under that scenario,
Speaker 3: if you read the book of the books, the United
Speaker 3: States becomes somewhat of an authoritarian country in Canada's like
Speaker 3: freedom freedom land.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, no, my, my, my questions based on the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, if the US democracy were to
Speaker 1: like be a shell of itself, it would totally affect
Speaker 1: Canada because Mexico. That's why that's my thought process in
Speaker 1: terms even though handmates tell is great.
Speaker 5: I think more than anything, their their immediate mission would
Speaker 5: be to find out what, I what is going to
Speaker 5: spill over into Canada. You know, what are our plans
Speaker 5: or what are whoever's in charge of plans? What are
Speaker 5: they for Canada as far as military intelligs whatever it is.
Speaker 5: And this takes us back to when President Trump had
Speaker 5: his you know, site set on Canada for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: whether it was tariffs or turning it into another state
Speaker 5: or whatever it was. Those sorts of things. They're laughable,
Speaker 5: but those are the kind of concerns. You know, it's like,
Speaker 5: is he joking? You know, we want to know what
Speaker 5: your leaders are thinking. So I think the Canadian Intelligence
Speaker 5: Service those are the kind of things short term or
Speaker 5: long short term would be, is this violence or is
Speaker 5: this unrest or whatever it is that's going on in
Speaker 5: the US going to spill over in Canada? And then
Speaker 5: long term, what are the US is whatever, whoever's in
Speaker 5: charge in the US, what are their plans for us?
Speaker 5: Because there are we're neighbors, you know, and Mexico would
Speaker 5: be thinking the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a lot of our allies have started taking
Speaker 3: steps because either the intelligence that they usually get is
Speaker 3: then we already boot some people out of I mean
Speaker 3: Mark might remember this, R. Jason. Then we already start
Speaker 3: restricting certain intelligence to some of the Five Eyes. And
Speaker 3: I know we were talking about it, but if obviously,
Speaker 3: if we shifted entirely, then I think Canada is gonna
Speaker 3: would look at us as one of their highest priorities
Speaker 3: for collection, right. I mean, we're way bigger than them,
Speaker 3: and we're right below them, and we've already talked about
Speaker 3: them being a fifty first state. So if I was them,
Speaker 3: I would be quadrupling my military, making it and properly
Speaker 3: trying to gain a nuclear weapon, right, the ultimate security
Speaker 3: and increasing by intelligence capacity beyond one that just you know,
Speaker 3: basically butters up to the agency to get there and
Speaker 3: tell it has the capacity to do it themselves and
Speaker 3: including a covert element. So I mean, that's what I
Speaker 3: think I will be doing if I was Canada.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, and there's things that are happening in Canada
Speaker 4: now in the sense of you know, there is there's
Speaker 4: obviously a massive crisis and confidence among Canadians and the
Speaker 4: feelings towards the United States. But but you know, the
Speaker 4: Canada is the kind of US. These are the largest
Speaker 4: trading partners. But because of this kind of crazy twerff
Speaker 4: where you know, Trump sees a mercial during the World Series,
Speaker 4: gets pissed and throws massive tariffs on Canada, which is bananas.
Speaker 4: But the Canadians are looking right now to China. I
Speaker 4: mean they've announced it publicly. They said the US is
Speaker 4: not may not be reliable. I mean, they don't want
Speaker 4: that because the economies are so you know, intertwined. But
Speaker 4: they're gonna, you know, they're going to look to China
Speaker 4: as a as a more reliable partner, and I think
Speaker 4: the Chinese will probably take advantage of that. One of
Speaker 4: the things you see amongst our allies now and again
Speaker 4: this is why it's it's so kind of uh self
Speaker 4: defeating in some of the kind of the rhetoric and
Speaker 4: the strangeness coming out of the White House when Trump
Speaker 4: gets pissed and lashes out. Is countries that originally we're
Speaker 4: going to buy, for example, the F thirty five are
Speaker 4: not you know, they're going down different roads in terms
Speaker 4: of acquisitions. Portugal is not looking at the F thirty five.
Speaker 4: Ukraine just bought the Griffin, and so you know, the
Speaker 4: things that are happening in which there's questioning on US
Speaker 4: reliability and that's what you would you would see kind
Speaker 4: of in the future as well. Again and this and
Speaker 4: it's not gonna happen in this hypothetical scenario. It's kind
Speaker 4: of a creeping march towards authoritarianism. Now to kind of
Speaker 4: put some a favorable spin on this, I mean, I
Speaker 4: I do think the American people don't like this notion.
Speaker 4: Uh and there will be kind of pushback on that. Uh,
Speaker 4: but you know, we'll we'll, I guess we'll see in
Speaker 4: the midterms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that'sday.
Speaker 4: It was an example that I mean, look, whatever party
Speaker 4: is in power, it's always good when there's a course
Speaker 4: correction everything happens and the left comes into power, we
Speaker 4: swing too far to the left, and there's crazy ship
Speaker 4: the left does. The right comes into power, now they
Speaker 4: do stupid stuff, and so Americans usually course correct. And
Speaker 4: that's why I think Tuesday, because you did have you know,
Speaker 4: New York City race is stupid and everyone you know,
Speaker 4: Fox News loves this, but it's irrelevant. But that's why
Speaker 4: when you see centrist candidates, when the governor races in
Speaker 4: Virginia and New Jersey, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: But I think the midterms will tell it's a lot more.
Speaker 2: And you know it's and.
Speaker 4: That you know, divided government is a good thing. Americans
Speaker 4: like that, and there's a reason for that.
Speaker 3: Make you were going to say, actually, I was going
Speaker 3: to say something some of the what Marcus said that unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I mean, as I'm probably on the right, maybe Mark's
Speaker 3: on the left. Then Jason characterize your self. But what
Speaker 3: I see is the pential intense to never like slow
Speaker 3: down in the middle. It just goes right. So you're
Speaker 3: talking about the issues that we have with ice right
Speaker 3: now that probably wouldn't happened if they didn't essentially open
Speaker 3: the border for several years, right so I mean, it's
Speaker 3: if if we could get you know this, the pendulum
Speaker 3: slow down in the middle and maybe even stop. I
Speaker 3: think that would be very helpful. But you know that's politics.
Speaker 3: Are you would stand on that. But it does tend
Speaker 3: to cause a reaction that it keeps pulling the pendulum
Speaker 3: higher up on the on the vortex, if that's the
Speaker 3: right term, you know what I mean, It goes higher
Speaker 3: up on each side each time. And I don't think
Speaker 3: that's helpful to the United States, and certainly not helpful
Speaker 3: to a modern democracy where it's very difficult to have
Speaker 3: a long term strategy if we keep shifting entirely our
Speaker 3: not just internal politics. I focus on external But our
Speaker 3: allies want to be able to rely on us period.
Speaker 3: They don't want us to every four years decide whether
Speaker 3: we want to support we praying all out or now
Speaker 3: we don't care. I'm not saying that's the case right now.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's plenty on the right that you support, you brain,
Speaker 3: but we have to promote promote democracy around the world
Speaker 3: to be the leader of the free world, or it's
Speaker 3: just rhetoric. If we're not promoting it, if we're not
Speaker 3: defending it, we're not putting our money where our mouth is.
Speaker 3: Then this idea that we have a Reagan view of
Speaker 3: shiny city on the hill, there's a beacon of freedom,
Speaker 3: that's a leader of the free world. We've all said
Speaker 3: for decades it's not true. And I don't think any
Speaker 3: Americans should want to get to a place where we're
Speaker 3: not viewed as that rather world.
Speaker 4: I think we're there, honestly. That's my worry. Is that
Speaker 4: that that you know again, I just I like, I
Speaker 4: know you travel all the time too, but I think
Speaker 4: we we are, we are closer to that point where
Speaker 4: people are questioning, you know about American exceptionalism, about America
Speaker 4: is the bright, shining city on the hill, just because
Speaker 4: there's no because exactly what you said, there's no there's
Speaker 4: no Trump doctrine.
Speaker 2: It's transactional. You know.
Speaker 4: The Reagan doctrine is very clear about fighting for you know,
Speaker 4: it's for freedom against kind of the communist menace.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing. Uh.
Speaker 4: But but I don't think we have a doctrine now.
Speaker 4: So I think that's that is a that is a problem,
Speaker 4: that that notion, that that inspired a lot of us.
Speaker 4: But maybe I'm thinking maybe I'm too extreme on that.
Speaker 5: And d take what Mark and Mick just said and
Speaker 5: bring it down to a micro level to that case
Speaker 5: officer that's sitting across from that potential high value asset
Speaker 5: who is asking for you know, possible repeat your are
Speaker 5: uh being able to come to the United States once
Speaker 5: they're you know, they've done what's been asked them? Are
Speaker 5: they going to trust? Are they going to say yes
Speaker 5: when if they're on their country is on a list
Speaker 5: of do not enters to the United States, or you know,
Speaker 5: there's question their their loyalty to us would be questioned.
Speaker 5: Why would I say yes if I was a potential
Speaker 5: high level asset to why would I trust what that
Speaker 5: case officer saying on behalf of the United States who
Speaker 5: is showing it currently that depending on what you look
Speaker 5: like or what your views are, you may not even
Speaker 5: be able to come into this country. So that's something
Speaker 5: they need that you know, an intelligence officer would want
Speaker 5: to think about.
Speaker 1: That's why how all this stuff ripples has like different ripples.
Speaker 4: I mean, I wouldn't want to go to diplomatic reception
Speaker 4: right now a lot of the time explaining that the
Speaker 4: Russians and the you know, and there's like you know
Speaker 4: they're gonna give you a wink and say it kind
Speaker 4: of the same same.
Speaker 2: You know, who are they?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: I mean just.
Speaker 4: But but but again, this does not mean that this
Speaker 4: is something that is kind of baked in stealing.
Speaker 1: Right, No, this is a hyphe Yeah, it's a hypothetical obviously.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys work in the CIA. For the
Speaker 1: most part, we've been pretty good to our assets. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming right, in terms of getting them out and at
Speaker 1: least I mean Afghanistan, notwithstanding that's another fucking disaster. But
Speaker 1: I'm saying CIA specifically, like you guys are doing what
Speaker 1: you can to get assets out of harm's way, and.
Speaker 4: Even yeah, what does that mean just a c I
Speaker 4: A h. I mean I think people are I don't
Speaker 4: know if assets are quitting right now.
Speaker 2: There's tough conversations. And then I said, kind of trace
Speaker 2: my Brescia.
Speaker 4: You know he's having with the case ins. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: just natural, that's but that's but then the job is
Speaker 4: the case officer to manipulate the asset a little bit,
Speaker 4: say everything's fine, even if you might not believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and Nick and I promised the courage like the moon, right,
Speaker 4: I'm going some courage.
Speaker 3: I got a Curtigonish T shirt. By the way, it
Speaker 3: looks like patagony. They sent it to him.
Speaker 1: All right, I mean if we have anything like I
Speaker 1: mean this was I enjoyed this a lot. I mean.
Speaker 3: At the at the what they there's several groups that
Speaker 3: study freedom around the world, Freedom House, et cetera. I
Speaker 3: looked at their uh, the things that they rate. So
Speaker 3: if you're okay with it, I'll read the ten that
Speaker 3: they measure, and then you can decide how we're doing.
Speaker 3: Erosion of free and fair elections, the concentration of power
Speaker 3: in the executive branch, the undermining of civil liberties and
Speaker 3: the rule of law, the delted littim adjation of the opposition,
Speaker 3: the use of emergencies creating crisis to justify power graphs,
Speaker 3: the erosion of independent media, the fragmentation and loss of
Speaker 3: democratic norms, legal changes that chift power but retain the
Speaker 3: appearance of democracy, waking up, institutional resilience and oversight, and
Speaker 3: the decline and the public trust, legitimacy, and the commitment
Speaker 3: to a democratic society.
Speaker 2: I think the case about.
Speaker 3: Our audience can decide how we're.
Speaker 4: Hey as of the United States. Rating on freedom House
Speaker 4: gone down. I mean this seriously, I think you know
Speaker 4: where are we on on on that list?
Speaker 3: So I don't have the list.
Speaker 4: I mean we could quickly, okay, Freedom House being critical
Speaker 4: or seeing that our our stock is not rising.
Speaker 3: That's a point. Maybe all Americans should look at that,
Speaker 3: and regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum,
Speaker 3: if we're going down, we should all be like alarmed. Right,
Speaker 3: whether it's the far left or the far right doing stuff,
Speaker 3: it shouldn't matter. It should be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: if anything, we should be going up the list. I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure we're not on top.
Speaker 1: Noo, We're eighty four out of one hundred democracy yeah, well, no,
Speaker 1: eighty four out of one hundred in terms of freedom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, another ninety three countries, so there should be.
Speaker 1: Right, we're number hold on, I'm scrolling down where it
Speaker 1: looks like they don't even put numbers on the guys.
Speaker 5: Hold on a second, Well he's doing that. There's a
Speaker 5: great book called How Civil Wars Start and How to
Speaker 5: Stop Them by Barbara F. Walter, great book that talks
Speaker 5: about this stuff as well. Okay, I actually want to
Speaker 5: get her on this on the show.
Speaker 3: Also, Anne Applebaum wrote a book a couple of months ago, right,
Speaker 3: hypocrisy incorporated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, so she might go to on this on
Speaker 4: on and she is very alarmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're about twenty fifth in the world.
Speaker 4: We shouldn't be twenty fifth on the democracy on that rating,
Speaker 4: that's not good.
Speaker 3: Good, we're the oldest continued democracy. That's you think this
Speaker 3: would be one thing that Americans would all get behind,
Speaker 3: like we are. We need to be the freest country
Speaker 3: in the world. It benefits everybody here. It shouldn't be
Speaker 3: a partisan thing at all, and it makes no sense
Speaker 3: at all. So maybe that would be the the kind
Speaker 3: of unifying issue of the United States is going up
Speaker 3: that list, not doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last year we were three out of one hundred
Speaker 1: and hour eighty four out of one hundred. That's our rating,
Speaker 1: like eighty four percent out of one hundred.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, that's good, like a bee solid by solid B.
Speaker 3: We want to be at A. We want to be
Speaker 3: an A plus, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Gods, this is awesome. We have anything left? Tell me
Speaker 1: Hit me up, Mark, how's your podcast going? Tell me
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 4: Good, it's been it's been fun. It's been you know,
Speaker 4: I have to learn British humor. No, it's been it's
Speaker 4: been quite interesting and we actually made some news. A
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago we had the former National Security
Speaker 4: Advisor on and he criticized China. And then later that
Speaker 4: or the next day a question was raised with the
Speaker 4: Prime Minister about the podcast and about beyond.
Speaker 2: It was kind of fun, but I got to learn all.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm trying to learn about British politics and
Speaker 4: it's a it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: It's called The Crisis Room. Check it out. I'll have
Speaker 1: links in the description and the show notes. Mick Malroy's
Speaker 1: got a new podcast too, called The Up in the
Speaker 1: Porch Applied Stoicism, just got video, so I'll put all
Speaker 1: the links down in the description there as well. Jason
Speaker 1: Lynes all his links are in the description too. And
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